If there was a mystery that Dipper ever wanted to solve, it was the taste in architecture of the sons of Filbrick Pines. Grunkle Ford happily (and cheaply) took an A-Frame shack and turned it into the portal to the end of the world. Grunkle Stan would later turn that hellgate into the Mystery Shack.
Shermie, being of richer taste and more comfortable financial situation… did little better than them in Dipper’s eyes. The house was a two story Neoplasticism block that eschewed concepts such as symmetry and rationality in lieu of an expressive and progressive look that was like literally nothing on their block. Except for maybe the Mexican-styled A-Frame Ranch House down the block with the two medieval towers jarringly stuck out from one side of it.
I don’t hate it though. I’ll take squares over triangles any day. He thought as they pulled up to the house.
Stepping out, Dipper’s legs almost gave out under him. The third busiest day of his life was finally catching up with him. As he walked around the SUV to join Shermie on the sidewalk in front of the house, the rear passenger door opened and out hopped Waddles, Misao, and finally Mabel.
Misao looked up at Shermie’s house and she gasped in surprise. “Oh how lovely!” She turned to Shermie. “The Rietveld Schröder House?”
Dipper remembered now. That’s what it was. Euclidean Architecture isn’t my area of expertise.
“You’re sharp as a bayonet the night before D-Day!” Shermie said with a laugh, before he elbowed Dipper in the side lightly and whispered. “As far as gentile girls, you could do a lot worse than this one.”
“Grandpa, please.” Dipper growled back as his face grew hot.
Shermie gave his grandson a wink, then unlocked the door to his home. Crossing the threshold, Shermie led them up the stairs immediately to their right, and to a wide open and well-furnished living area with a skylight and broad picture windows that occupied over half of the walls.
Misao stepped into the spacious living area with a polished hardwood floor with a look of wonder. Opening her arms wide, she spun around. “It is so lovely! The decor is different, but it is a perfect recreation otherwise!”
Shermie raised his head. “I saw the Schröder house way back in the 80s and I was obsessed with it. When I came back to the states for good, I decided to build my own here–with a few more modern amenities.”
He clapped his hands, and all the lights came on, filling the room with a clean fluorescent glow to the delight of his guests.
“At any rate, this space is all yours to do with, just don’t burn down the house or blow out the windows. There are three beds as you can see, and if you need privacy, there’s controls for shutters that separate them into their own rooms, but two of the beds are gonna be in the same room. How you wanna divide that up is up to you.”
Shermie pointed back down the stairs they’d just come up from.
“The bathroom, kitchen, study, and my bedroom are downstairs–it’s gonna be the one with my name on it, don’t go in there ever. You might end up finding me entertaining a lady friend and some things aren’t meant to be seen by young eyes.”
Dipper’s disgusted expression said everything that needed to be said.
Mabel screamed internally.
Misao saluted with a smile. “Jawohl!”
Shaking off her brush with unfortunate implications, something caught Mabel’s eye and her mouth fell open. Mounted on a wall, underneath a proudly displayed Israeli flag was a massive gun, the biggest gun she had ever seen.
It was longer than Misao was tall, fed from above by a large box magazine. It looked like the sort of gun people would hunt elephants, dinosaurs, or tanks with.
She hurried over to it. “What is this?!”
“That is a temperamental old friend! We go all the way back to the 50s, I’ve taken to calling it my ‘schwanzstucker! Ain’t it a beaut?’” Shermie answered with a laugh.
Mabel chuckled back. “Gross! Where’d you get it from?”
“An old friend back in Tel Aviv found and shipped it to me last year.”
Mabel ran her hand along the barrel. “So this is what the internet meant about girls and cannons.”
She was in love.
“Still works too. I take her down to the range once a month and drive everyone crazy with it. You’re more than welcome to come with me and try her yourself.”
Mabel whirled around to face her grandfather, her eyes filled with sparkling diamonds and shooting stars. A continuous high-pitched sound of joy came from her mouth, making the dogs in the neighborhood bark.
Dipper considered that. Having a gun would probably help with our situation–this is Los Angeles after all–but on the other hand? The thought of Mabel with a gun makes me nervous.
Even now, she was eyeing that cannon like she was a Police Girl or something.
“Thank you, Sherpa!” Mabel cheered. “Can we do it sometime this week? Can we go tomorrow?!”
“I don’t see any harm in taking you for a few rounds down at the range.”
“You mean a few rounds downrange,” Mabel corrected with a cheeky smile and Shermie barked out a laugh.
Dipper smiled and lifted his arms to stretch. “Well… if you’re going to do that, maybe going to bed now is a good idea.”
Mabel put an arm around Misao. “Let me show you where we keep the linens.”
“Lead the way!” Misao cheered, and the two girls headed downstairs with Waddles behind them.
Soon as they were out of sight, Dipper turned back to his Grandfather. He breathed in and sighed. “Hey, Grandpa? You mind if we go out to the back patio and talk?”
Shermie gave him an eager nod. “Sure boychik, what’s on your mind?” He grinned. “Need some pointers with the German shortcake?”
Dipper quickly shook his head. “No! It’s about what happened when we went to deal with those punks.”
His Grandfather sensed something was wrong and sharpened. “What happened?”
Almost a half hour later, Dipper and Shermie were seated on comfortable wooden chairs under the back patio’s corrugated sheet metal awning. The patio, and the grass-covered backyard beyond, were lit by a single fluorescent lamp mounted on the corner of the house and pointed into it.
Dipper had told his Grandfather everything of what happened at Hillhurst. From the attack of its occupants, to dealing with Flabber, to the attack from the other monsters that the wish had brought into the world. When he was done, all the excitement of the afternoon had caught up with him.
“So yeah… pretty good for a first day in town, huh?”
Shermie didn’t say a word, he pulled his grandson over into a hug, giving him a consoling pat on the back when he returned it.
“Sounds like the mishegas you dealt with up in the Falls,” he said as Dipper pulled back.
“It might be even worse. Weirdmageddon was this giant chaotic thing, and everything got out of control so fast that it was impossible to not see something was wrong. We don’t know where the Magnavores have gone or what they’re up to now.”
Shermie weighed on the implications of that and raised his hand to stop Dipper from going further. “I need a drink.”
He got up and went to the locked icebox to pull out two cans of beer. Coming back over, he sat a can down beside Dipper and popped his own open and took his seat again.
Dipper looked at the can offered to him in surprise, then back up at Shermie.
“You stared down into the end of the world and it blinked. You’ve earned your right. Don’t make a habit of it.”
That was a fair point. Besides, this was the least criminal thing he’d done alongside the three elders of the Pines family. Picking up his can, he popped the top and took a sip. The strong bitterness stung at him, but he found that it wasn’t as terrible as he often feared beer to be.
He looked at the label and chuckled.
“The Bigfoot.”
Of course.
“I trust you can get those three schlemiels through this alive. But the second you’re in over your head, don’t hesitate to call for your Grandpa, all right?”
Dipper hummed, as he weighed on and pitched an awkward offer. “Yeah, what if I have to call Grunkle Ford for his help? Are you gonna be fine with him maybe coming down here?”
Shermie frowned, pursing his lips, and let out a harsh hum through his nose. “I can’t say I won’t smack him right in the puss when I see him, but if you need his help? I won’t say no to that yutz staying here.”
“And Grunkle Stan too?” Dipper asked hopefully.
Shermie let out another, even harsher hum. “… Yes.”
Dipper smiled after another sip of his beer. “Mabel’s forever in your debt, trust me, and so am I.”
Shermie chuckled. “You can start working it off by cleaning out the garage. I haven’t seen the floor since the riots–but only when you’re not busy saving the world.”
Suddenly all Dipper’s fears about the Magnavores had a close second.
“Thanks, Grandpa.” He took another sip of his beer and gazed out at the darkness beyond the reach of the patio light.
There was so much to worry about; if he wasn’t on the verge of exhaustion, he’d be pacing himself out in the yard to it.
His Grandpa was right–after Gravity Falls? He was ready to tackle any weirdness, anywhere. With Mabel, Star and Marco, and his Grandpa and Grunkles, he was confident they had a chance at getting through this.
After wishing his Grandfather a good night and finishing his beer, Dipper went upstairs to the second floor of the house. Mabel and Misao were already asleep, huddled close together on one of the three beds on their side of the room with their arms around Waddles, who snored comfortably between them.
“Just as I thought.” He smiled at the pig. “Ladies man as usual.”
Peeling off his pine-tree adorned shirt and tossing his lumberjack hat on top of his bags, Dipper went into one of them to pull out a blue-bound journal with a silver pine tree plated on the front.
Lying down on his bed, under the second floor’s gentle white lights, he opened and flipped through the pages. Four years of adventures, strange phenomena, and bizarre circumstances since Gravity Falls… now almost trivial compared to what lay ahead. Reaching the first open page, Dipper took a pen and got to writing.
September 20, Los Angeles, California: Today started with a bang, and didn’t stop blowing up…
@@@@@
With a stack of comic books in hand, and enough energy to burn despite the long day she had, Star danced her way up towards the front door of the Diaz residence, Marco right behind her.
“Remember Star, we can’t tell Mom and Dad about what happened,” he reminded her as she stepped aside to let him unlock the door.
Star wagged her hand at him. “Oh come on, Marco, you act like I don’t have problems telling parents things.”
“Yeah, well, it’s just that you don’t have problems telling my parents anything.”
“Have you seen your parents? They’re great.” Star pointed out. “I tell my parents anything and they either take me out to kill something or build another emotional barrier between us.”
Marco did a double take as he opened the door. “What?”
“Kids, welcome home!”
Marco’s mother Angie and his father Rafael were sitting in the living room, a spread of pizza, chicken wings, soda, and plastic cups set on the coffee table between them and the television. The moment they came through the door, Rafael called out to them in his usual cheerful and boisterous manner.
Marco shelved Star’s troubling statement regarding her dysfunctional family for later. “Oh hey, you ordered pizza!”
Star nudged Marco’s side. “See? Your parents are awesome~”
Rafael got up to greet the two with a hug, when he noticed the stacks of comics both carried. “And you have brought comics!”
“We went to Zoom today, and hit it off with the guys over there,” Marco explained.
“Yeah we hit it off all right,” Star added.
Marco glanced at her. “One thing led to another-”
“We basically saved their lives.” Star stopped when Marco gave her a sharp look. “Ohh… right.”
Marco turned back to his Father. “And we ended up buying a bunch of books, mostly back issues of-”
Rafael had already seen the topmost book of Marco’s pile. He lit up in excitement. “Big Bad Beetleborgs!” He embraced his son. “It is my favorite comic series! It is so wonderful that you are interested!”
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Star gasped. “That’s right, you guys like comics, too!” She leaned towards Marco, smug. “Why are your parents so cool, Marco?”
Rafael laughed. “You know, Star, the author of these books is one of my biggest inspirations as an artist.”
“Oh?” Star asked.
“Yes, the legendary Art Fortunes himself! The hardest working, most dedicated, and brilliant comic book artist since Mr. Jack Kirby,” Rafael said as he sat back down on the couch with the Beetleborgs comic still in hand.
Marco set his books down and sat next to him. Star did the same, dropping onto Marco’s lap and grabbing a piece of pizza–much to Marco’s surprise.
“We met him once, just a year after the Beetleborgs became popular,” Rafael said.
Star gasped. “Shut the front door!”
Marco had heard this story enough that he could recite it word for word.
Angie was happy to elaborate. “Oh yes, that was the summer after I returned from France, and we got back together.”
Rafael continued. “We went to the San Diego Comic Convention–as I always did since I first came to America–and your mother and I took turns waiting six hours in line to get an autograph with him.”
“You waited that long?” Marco asked.
“They may as well have called it Beetle Con that year,” Angie said with a gentle laugh.
“But it was worth it!” Rafael said, before he got up. “In fact, sit right here! I will get something I was going to give to Marco when he finally moved out, but I want you to see it too, Star!”
He left, and Marco watched his Dad go upstairs. “What is it?”
Angie clasped her hands together, excited. “Oh! Your father has a picture that Mr. Fortunes drew for him right there on the spot when we finally got to him–a token of appreciation for waiting so long in line.”
Marco did a double take. “You’ve been holding onto something like that?”
Rafael came back downstairs, with a portfolio briefcase in hand. “Here it is!”
He reached in and pulled out a picture of a humanoid creature swathed in a tattered, swirling black cloak with a white hood. Its head, mostly obscured by the hood, was insectoid with brown and orange chitinous horns that curled around the sides of his head and ended at its chin. It also had four antennae, two springing from its crown and two from its neck–all four ending in curls. The creature was standing atop a windswept cliff, holding a gnarled wooden staff above its head that gave off a brilliant white light that illuminated the picture and its dramatic scene.
Star leaned closer to the picture, her eyes growing large as she examined the photo. “Wow… that is so cool, and so evil…”
“He drew that. On the spot?” Marco asked.
The sheer quality of the art was astounding, straight out of the greatest Movie Poster art of the 80s! At a convention, for a couple of fans!
“He is the greatest artist I’ve ever seen. He drew this in pen, in just five minutes!” Rafael said.
Marco held the picture back, like it had some supernatural power. “In five minutes?”
Who did this guy sell his soul to in order to get this good?
“Oh my gosh Marco, look! Look! Look! Look! Look!” Star said as she pointed in the very corner of the picture. There, in white ink, was Art Fortunes’ signature.
“Art Fortunes ‘91” it read, and at the corner of the stylish signature, was a tiny eye of providence. Star’s finger hovered over it urgently.
“It’s the tiny triangle guy Dipper told us about!”
Bill Cipher, Marco thought uneasily. Well, that answers that.
Rafael looked closely at the picture and missed the concern of both teens entirely. “Ah yes! Mr. Fortunes’ muse, he puts it in all of his books. Besides on the cover of the back of every comic, there are two more hidden, usually between pages six and eighteen of each book.”
“That’s right, until not too long ago, he ran a contest where people who found them would get a commissioned art piece from him for free,” Angie added.
“But eventually people on the internet were getting together to find them all and troll him with disturbing subjects to commission, like inflation and vore-”
“What and what?” Star asked.
Angie diverted that question away from the subject at hand. “Oh, that’s not important, and let’s never speak of it again.”
Star was going to look it up on the web later. “Gotcha.”
Angie hummed and looked at Rafael for confirmation. “That was around the time he stopped interacting with fans at all, right?”
Rafael looked a bit sad. “Yes, he’s locked himself away since.”
He brightened. “But on the bright side, since then his comics have only gotten better! You picked a good time to get started, my son! The Split-Up Saga is some of his best work! So much emotion, tension, and passion!”
As he swooned, Angie eagerly chimed in. “And so many pretty girls!”
“Yes, the prettiest!”
All of that sounded great, but Marco had more important things to worry about than comic book escapism–like literal comic book escapism. On that note, he held up the picture. “Hey, is it okay if I show this to my friends?”
Rafael patted his son on the shoulder. “Of course, you can! It’s yours, now!”
This was perfect. “Thanks Dad!”
“Just don’t put it up on Ebay too soon, okay?” Angie asked with a tiny laugh.
Star looked at the picture, then at Marco. “Oh, don’t worry Mrs. D! We’re going to hold on tight to this one.”
“Oh yeah,” Marco said, before looking at the picture again. Such a powerful energy in the art.
Who is Art Fortunes?
After dinner was finished and his parents talked his ear off about the Beetleborgs and enough trivia to make Drew, Jo, and Roland’s heads spin, Marco retired upstairs to his room, where he was seated on his bed, sending a text message. Since it was a Saturday night, there was no reason for him to be asleep anytime soon, so both he and Star were looking through the comics they bought–with Star sprawled out at the foot of his bed reading the new books while he tackled the reissues of earlier books.
Marco Said:
Is anyone still up?
Mabel Said:
Hey Marco, this is Dipper on Mabel’s phone.
Roland Said:
Yo. What up?
Marco Said:
Mom and Dad got me something huge. A signed picture Art Fortunes drew for them in 1991.
Roland Said:
WHAT?!?!?! HOW?!?!
Marco Said:
They saw him at Comic Con.
Roland Said:
THATS AWESOME!1
Marco Said:
Yes but look at this.
Marco Uploaded a Picture
20140920_02207.jpg File Size 20.1MB
Marco Said:
Look at the bottom right corner.
Mabel Said:
Bill’s symbol. He even signed his pictures with it?
Roland Said:
He stopped in the mid 90s, but yeah.
Roland Said:
Because of the Satan Panic.
Roland Said:
Because parents were complaining that the eye was a Satan symbol.
Mabel Said:
They’d wish it were Satanic.
Roland Said:
Art stopped and hid the symbol in his books to mock them.
Roland Said:
Then made a contest for people to find them.
Marco Said:
Dad told me about it. Art ended the contest because trolls are gonna troll.
Roland Said:
Last contest was in 2010. You can still find the symbols in books after that though.
“I found one!” Star called out, holding up an issue from three months back. “Page seven, bottom panel, there’s a Bill in the bottom left corner of the ‘Shattered Gate of Drakkon.’” She giggled. “He’s got a little top hat and cane.”
Marco had seen more than enough references to Bill himself in his comics so far too. He found another message from Roland.
Roland Said:
Art sounds as bad as your Uncle.
Mabel Said:
That’s what I’m afraid of. Bill tricked my Grunkle Ford into building an Interdimensional Portal Machine so he could enter our dimension, and it might be the same thing here. What I don’t get is that if it was as easy as putting his mark on stuff and passing through the comic into the real world, he’d have just done that, or just any of his other symbols anywhere else around the world to come through.
Roland Said:
Yeah.
Roland Said:
That doesn’t make sense.
Mabel Said:
Nothing about Bill makes sense, he does things for no reason, like giving deer teeth to a kid as a gift.
Marco Said:
wtf?
Roland Said:
That’s messed up.
Mabel Said:
But he doesn’t interact with people for no reason. He wanted something from Art Fortunes and made some kind of deal with him, and this is the result. The best way to find out what that is to talk to the man himself.
Marco Said:
Yeah cool, lets casually go up to the biggest name in comics and ask him about demon triangles he made deals with. /s
Mabel Said:
I never said it’d be easy! Just that it’s what we have to do.
Marco Said:
I was being sarcastic.
Mabel Said:
I can’t tell that through text.
Marco Said:
That’s what the /s is for.
Roland Said:
That’s what the /s means.
Mabel Said:
Look, I don’t text or do online stuff, okay?
Jo Said:
Hey Mabel! Is Dipper still awake? =O
Mabel Said:
This is Dipper, Mabel’s asleep.
Jo Said:
How u doin’? ;)
Mabel Said:
Marco had some news, but I’m really tired and going to bed, night.
Jo Said:
K night! :)
Roland Said:
Yeah. I’m going to bed.
Roland Said:
Night.
Marco cringed away from the phone and set it down. Star noticed his reaction and turned onto her side to face him.
“What is it?” She asked.
“Nothing, I’m just… embarrassed for somebody else,” Marco replied.
Star looked down at her comic again. “You get that a lot.”
The current issue she was reading featured Jara, who was locked in a mortal struggle with Warrior Princess Reddle, the Red Strikerborg. It was a glorious splash page right at the start of the book, a fight in media res between the two women warriors in a burning castle, oranges and yellows engulfing the interior of a medieval throne room as the Red Strikerborg used the prongs of the Striker Plasmar to hold back Jara’s blade.
Only reading three or so books so far, and it was pretty obvious that Jara hated all of the Beetleborgs for meddling in their plans, but that just reminded Star that the Jara they fought today was absolutely confused by them.
Heck, she seemed angrier at me than anyone else. That was weird.
Then she remembered.
Another cheek-marked girl…
Star’s thoughts drained right out of her mouth in the form of drool when she turned the page to the actual start of the comic. Right there on the first page was the holder of the Green Strikerborg, G-Stag, in all of his dreadlocked, shirtless, and six-packed glory. On this page, he was also waist deep in a moonlit pond and glistening.
“I love comic books,” Star purred as she leaned closer towards the page.
Marco looked down at her and raised an eyebrow.
@@@@@
Drew and Jo’s bike ride took them five blocks in the opposite direction from Zoom Comics that the Pines left in, reaching a more recent neighborhood just a five-minute walk from their High School. Unlike the vibrant and unique buildings down Shermie Pines’ street, the cul de sac they rode into was full of new, clean, but mostly identical prefabricated clay-shingle roofed suburban homes with only their numbers and personal decorations really setting them apart.
Rolling up the driveway to the two-car garage attached to their house, Drew swung himself off the bike and walked it to the garage to open it. Jo came up the driveway behind him, hopping off her still-rolling bike and jogging with it to a stop next to him.
“Man, how long has today been? Three? Four weeks?” She asked as Drew entered the code for the garage door.
Drew made a short laugh and stepped back as the garage door opened. “Don’t even get me started on that.”
Today felt like the longest day of Drew’s life, and among his many thoughts was the realization that there would be even longer days to come. As long as there were Magnavores in their world and the Beetleborgs had to fight them, at least.
On the other hand? Heather likes hanging out with me and wants to do it more! He thought with a lifted mood. Sure, it’s no Spirit Dance, but the sky’s the limit!
“Mom and Dad aren’t back,” Jo said as she looked at the garage occupied by only one car–a red SUV.
Tonight got even better. “Cool, then I can go straight to bed.”
The garage door opened into the dark living room of the McCormick household, and as they stepped inside and out of their shoes, they looked across the handsomely furnished living room into the dining room and found their father waiting at the table.
Mr. McCormick looked over at his kids, then out the window. He is a plain, bespectacled man with a full head of obviously graying hair, who considered his beige short-sleeve shirt and brown jean shorts dressing casually.
Drew’s good mood in the face of all the terrible things he’d wrought faded into disappointment, seeing him there. “Dad…? I thought you were out with Mom.”
“Hey Dad,” Jo greeted in a neutral tone, turning for the fridge to grab something to drink.
“I never left; one of your Mom’s friends needed some help with boxing up old things of hers to donate to charity, so we’re catching the concert tomorrow,” their father explained.
Taking a can of soda, Jo popped the top. “Wow, that sucks. Who needed help?”
“Mrs. Carlton down the street. It’s mostly a bunch of stuff she had from when she was younger. She said you could have some of it, but it’s pretty girly stuff.”
Jo shook her head. “I’ll pass on that one.”
She took a sip, as Mr. McCormick glanced back and forth between his kids.
“So, what did you do all day?”
“We were hanging out with Roland,” Jo replied.
The corners of Mr. McCormick’s lips turned downward. “At Nano’s store again?”
“We didn’t spend all day there,” Drew defended.
His father gave him a piercing look. “Really? You did something other than read comic books all day?”
“Yeah. Mr. Pines’ grandkids came to town, so we showed them around the neighborhood,” Drew explained.
When his gaze darted to Jo and she nodded in confirmation, Mr. McCormick nodded slowly. “Well, I’m glad to see that you made something of your weekend, for once.”
Drew rolled his eyes, and headed across the dining room, towards the stairs that lead up to the second floor. “I’m going to bed, I’m tired from all the running around.”
“A little more exercise won’t hurt, Drew. You can’t rely on that metabolism of yours forever.”
Drew was already halfway up the stairs. “I know, Dad.”
Mr. McCormick turned to his daughter as she drained the can. “Did he really?”
“Ugh Dad, he really did. We had a lot of fun, and we’re all going to be hanging out even more because they’re graduating here.”
“See what pulling his nose out of those books will do for him? He’s wasting the best years of his life otherwise,” Mr. McCormick said in a vindicated tone.
“Hey, I like comics too,” Jo pointed out.
“Yes, but you make time for more important things.”
At the top of the stairs, Drew sighed before continuing on to his room. Closing the door behind him and not even bothering with the light, he stepped across a slightly cluttered bedroom floor and dropped face-first onto his bed with a soft thud.
He laid there for as long as he could, before he rolled onto his back and looked up at the ceiling.
“You don’t give kids superpowers! That’s the opposite of good!”
“That’s bad! Anytime you make a wish like that, it goes wrong.”
“This is why you don’t wish to be superheroes, because then you have to be superheroes!”
A long, agitated sigh left his lips. “What would Dad say if he knew about today?”
He heard his door open with a soft creak and looked towards it in time to see Jo slip in and lean against the wall right next to the door. Shutting it, she looked at her brother. Despite the dark he can make out her sympathetic expression.
“Hey, don’t let it get to you. Dad’s being a butt because he couldn’t go see The Eagles,” she assured him.
Drew let out a sharp, dismissive snort. “Man, he must want to see them all the time.”
Jo folded her arms. “Today was going so well.”
Drew sat up. “Was it, though? Jo, has it sunk in how messed up this is?”
“I was talking about Dad trashing you, but go off.”
Drew flinched. “We all know what we’re up against, and what we have to do. Doesn’t it bother you?”
Jo shrugged her shoulders. “Why would I be bothered? I get to be a Beetleborg and save the world. I’m good.”
“Yeah but what if it’s too much for us? What if the Magnavores roll over us like last time, every time?”
“They won’t. We drove them off, and even if we can’t beat them in a straight fight now? We’ll catch up to them eventually.” She gave him a probing look. “What’s your problem, dude? You’re suddenly acting like this is something we can’t do.”
Drew sighed; his concerns weren’t reaching her. “And you’re acting like this is going to be fun.”
Jo’s expression hardened. “What, am I not allowed to?”
Drew looked at Jo as if she’d just asked if it was okay for her to stab Heather in the throat. “… No! Jo, people are going to get hurt as long as the Magnavores are out there, they might even die!”
“Uh… don’t think about that, then?” Jo shook her head. “The whole point of being superheroes is saving people, numbskull, and I’m going to be giving 200 percent towards making sure something bad doesn’t happen.”
Drew seethed. “Just don’t think about it, that’s it? It’s not going to cross your mind at all even for a second that every person that will get hurt is going to be our fault?”
Jo’s eyes flew wide, and even in the dark Drew could see the red coloring her face as they narrowed and the temperature in her gaze dropped to well below freezing. “Oh okay, idiot, and where was this profound clarity when you suggested that we become superheroes? Because I remember you were the one telling Dipper ‘We can handle it’ with us right up until the Magnavores showed up.”
Drew opened his mouth to speak, but she cut him off marching up to him. “And you were the one who said, ‘Then we’ll be superheroes’ like you were on some Blue Beet shit just before Jara made you eat dirt.”
Reaching him, she pointed at herself. “I wanted to rule the world, Roland wanted to be rich-”
She jabbed him hard in the chest with an accusing finger. “But you’re the one who convinced us to be superheroes–so if this is anyone’s fault? It’s yours.”
Drew’s eyes widened, and his body went slack where he sat.
Jo pulled back. “You have some nerve trying to drag me down with you into your pity party because you screwed up, again. So, you know what? I’m going to save you the trouble and learn to fight, kick the Magnavores’ butts, and clean up your mess. Like I always do.”
She turned around and marched to his door, growling a parting shot over her shoulder. “I can’t believe how not surprised I am.”
Jo left the room, slamming the door behind her. Drew was left in the dark, stunned with a hollow anger, he let it build to a crescendo and opened his mouth to shout through the door at her. He stopped himself, choking his yell into just a loud, short gasp… then lowered his head.
She’s right. This is my fault, and I dragged everyone into it, because all I do is screw up.
He flopped back onto his bed and curled up on his side.
Even if we can save ninety-nine people out of a hundred, that one person we can’t is going to get hurt because of me.
He looked over at a Beetleborgs poster on his wall. Blue Beet, Reddle, G-Stag were all there out of their armor, holding their Beetle Bonders and smiling. Drew focused on Blue Beet’s brave, charismatic smile and let out a quiet, bitter laugh.
Because I wanted to be someone else. Someone better.
Remembering Dipper punching Van, then Marco fighting Jara when he couldn’t, twisted the proverbial knife.
When there are already people who don’t need wishes.
He let out a deep, long sigh and rolled onto his back.
I wish it never happened.
The ceiling he looked up at offered no way to grant his wish. His eyes rolled to his right, and his bedside table. The dim red face of his digital clock stared back at him for a long, silent time, before his eyes widened.
… Wait, that’s it.