Dipper's POV
"Uh..."
GIFfany's confused voice echoed in the cathedral as she inspected her body, unable to hide her fascination.
She looks exactly like the appearance she projected on screens, but she's not wearing her high school outfit.
She's simply wearing a futuristic black outfit, similar to the tight-fitting clothes seen in some manga.
"How are you feeling?"
Dipper, curious, didn't hesitate to ask questions about GIFfany's new body.
Her body was literally the result of a combination between AIM's growing intellect and biological knowledge that served as a base.
One possesses a vast range of knowledge surpassing that of its creator, while the other holds knowledge from another world, mixing 21st-century science with theories drawn from fiction.
"Not bad, to be frank," she said, pausing before clenching her fist and sketching a smile.
"I feel infinitely stronger than when I was just an artificial consciousness. But... I feel incomplete," she added in an embarrassed tone, unable to put her finger on what was missing.
"Do you still have your supernatural abilities and restrictions?" Dipper asked, concerned about this crucial information.
GIFfany's supernatural nature had always preoccupied Dipper, as it plays a major role in her future and the exploitation of her full potential.
It was one of the things that concerned him the most.
"I.. I can still feel my connection to my original CD, but..." she paused with a troubled expression.
AM had eyes glowing with a golden light, while several numbers rapidly scrolled through her pupils at a crazy speed.
"But?" Dipper slightly furrowed his brow at GIFfany's hesitation.
"I feel I can break it, but I don't know what consequences this might have on my very existence," she said in a troubled tone.
Dipper gestured for her to elaborate to enlighten him, eager to better understand GIFfany's dilemma.
"I've formulated three hypotheses, but in each of them, my nature would be irreparably changed or I would be destroyed."
According to GIFfany, if she uses the 'Shape Shifter' power flowing through her veins, she could probably break her link with her original CD.
The problem lies in what would happen after...
"The first hypothesis, which is also the most probable,"
"is that I would become a perfect life form, combining biology and steel." She glanced at AM, who simply smiled back.
He seemed to have anticipated this possibility while working on GIFfany's body.
"It's also the safest option, as my mental nature would not truly be modified," she added, adopting a relaxed expression.
"The other option, apart from the third, which is my destruction at the 'information' level, would be to become something beyond this body, or even my original body." She looked at her hands with a complex expression.
"This body would only be a temporary lever to leave my original body, but afterward, I would no longer be truly attached to a physical envelope!" An excitement smile sketched her lips, but there was... also fear?
"You're not telling everything," declared AM, observing GIFfany's face, which was too expressive for its own good.
"I will become a pure 'information' entity. I will no longer be limited by a physical body after using this one as a lever to detach from the CD."
'Is this fate?' The path he could offer GIFfany, through a temporal wish, had been transmitted to him by science itself.
However, this situation was not what Dipper hoped for.
He wanted to "control" GIFfany's evolution.
If she became a pure information entity or a memetic life form, he would be in danger, because he knew the "GIFfany" information.
'If she also spreads her information, then...' A shiver ran through Dipper.
He couldn't help but glance at his non-believer ring, his anti-meme machine, and the last Memory Gun.
These objects had been created to fight Bill, but the situation was evolving in a... particular direction.
"...Dipper??" GIFfany's worried voice brought Dipper back to Earth as he reflected on how to deal with her.
"Incredible, and you can still receive two more artificial devil fruits," he said, caressing GIFfany's pink hair, who smiled innocently, delighted by this gesture.
"Originally, I wanted to create two more devil fruits with titan's blood and Time Baby's, but now..." Dipper abandoned this idea.
He wasn't stupid enough to make GIFfany more powerful right now.
She had just confirmed one of his fears about her.
'I can finally feel it, this is the warmth of MY Dipper' thought the naive girl, on her way to digital divinity, unaware of her 'boyfriend's' true thoughts.
"You're crazy!!!" Sara's voice broke the soft atmosphere between GIFfany and Dipper.
"AM!!" The young girl turned to the only person she knew personally.
"You heard, right?" she said in a clearly panicked tone.
"This girl is about to become an entity that goes beyond common sense, it would be dangerous to leave her free without a safety net." She tried to approach AM, but metallic tentacles seized her.
Sara trusted her ability to break these disgusting things, but she didn't dare to do it.
She was literally outnumbered and afraid of Dipper.
'This guy comes from a primitive era, like the 21st century, but he's created such scandalous things.' She shivered looking at Dipper after realizing this.
Dipper glanced at Sara before speaking, moving towards Mabel's body.
"You're really intelligent, but you're sorely lacking in boldness and too emotional," he said, staring at his twin sister's body in this life.
Mabel had grown enormously.
She looked like a woman in her twenties, with ghostly white hair and an surprisingly maternal silhouette.
'Is that a D cup? Or F?' he thought before continuing to express his opinion to this silver-haired child.
"For a scientist, only the result matters, and the irrefutable fact that results from it..." He sketched a smile that made GIFfany uncomfortable, as she knew it meant a crazy idea from him.
"As for the means employed to know these facts or results?"
"That's not important," he said finally before opening the capsule holding Mabel.
'He's like Aizen...' concluded Sara, observing the back of this ancestor who had raised her childhood.
After opening Mabel's capsule, she soon began to slowly open her eyes.
"Mabel... it's me... Dipper!!" Dipper wanted to express himself further, but the tears on the girl's cheeks interrupted him.
"Di... Dipper?" He nodded in response to her broken words and hoarse voice, caused by centuries of vocal cord inactivity, but also by her conflicting emotions.
Mabel completely emerged from the capsule before facing him.
(Image)
There was an awkward silence between them.
Dipper decided to start the discussion, but a punch wrapped in a ghostly blue light hit him in the jaw.
It must be understood that Dipper was in time giant mode, but he had still suffered damage and was projected outside of AM's urethra.
'I wasn't physically hit, this is my... soul?' This was the only logical conclusion to this situation, according to the information he had about Mabel.
This would also explain the strange non-physical pain within him.
"Idiot!!" Before he could recover, Mabel teleported in front of him.
The attack he thought he anticipated didn't come.
It was a...
'A hug?'
"Idiot, I missed you *sniff*"
...
Narrator's POV (location in the 21st century)
"Answer me!"
[I repeat, I am AM.]
[I was created by your brother before his time travel, to watch over humanity and some people.]
*Bam!*
"You've got some metal, I get that!!!"
"I'm asking you, yes or no, is my brother okay!!"
Mabel shook the drone in front of her angrily.
It had been five years!!!
Her twin brother, Dipper Pines, had disappeared in the Gravity Falls forest without a real explanation.
Stan had spent a lot of time searching for him, but his efforts remained futile.
The Northwest family (AM) had used their influence to prevent any digging or searching in their domain or at Dipper's mansion.
She had even been chased away from that place filled with brief but happy memories of Dipper and Pacifica.
Now, after years, a robot shows up in her life to explain that her brother went to the future and left her behind?
'Dipper, you bastard...' Despite her growing anger, she couldn't help but shed tears of relief.
Her brother was still alive!!!
"Sorry, Miss Mabel, but AM deemed it not a priority to meet you after dad's departure," declared a blue-haired young girl in a tired tone.
"Dad?" Mabel turned to the beautiful young girl in front of her.
She looked a bit like Dipper, but she had abnormally beautiful features, and the connection where her ears should be betrayed her inhuman nature.
"Yes, I am Dipper's biological child," she said, puffing out her modest chest.
[You're just an experiment of the master, who inherited his DNA, but nothing more,] declared AM through the drone, but no one paid attention.
"You... you are Dipper's child?"
Sienna simply shrugged, not understanding why this human was asking a question she already knew the answer to.
*Gyaa* She let out a strange cry.
Mabel hugged Sienna, then touched her all over and bombarded her with countless questions.
This went on for several minutes to the great dismay of AM and Sienna.
"I understand you were busy with Dipper's orders, but why didn't you inform Uncle Stan?"
Mabel's mood, which had been improved by Sienna, suffered a brutal drop due to the memory of Stan Pines' recent death.
It wasn't a natural death, given his questionable lifestyle, but the guilt linked to Dipper's disappearance under his responsibility had played a major role.
"Actually..." Sienna wanted to speak, but she was interrupted by AM.
An act that destabilized her, but she held back.
'I must control myself, father gave him control, so he must definitely be the most capable of directing,' she persuaded herself mentally, but maintained a frown.
[I was busy managing Gravity Falls and taking control of certain companies in the first month, but an event took up a lot of my time.]
"What event was more important than my Uncle Stan or me?"
[Technology from another world.] AM projected a holographic image of a dark-skinned girl fighting an armored futuristic creature on a building's roof.