Summary: With the Red Eye threatening to destroy Gravity Falls, Steven, Dipper, and Mabel set out to search for the pair of Laser Light Cannons that once belonged to Rose Quartz
"Ohhhhhh! He's a frozen treat with an all-new taste!"
"'Cause he came to this planet from outer space!"
"A refugee from an interstellar war!"
"But now he's at your local grocery store!"
"Cookie Cat! He's a pet for your tummy!"
"Cookie Cat! He's super-duper yummy!"
"Cookie Cat! He left his family behind!"
"Cookie Caaaaat!"
"Now available at Gurgens off Route 109!" Steven brightly finished, holding his own Cookie Cat high into the air. As soon as Mabel finished her half of the rap duet, she eagerly stuffed her own ice cream sandwich into her mouth. Dipper, on the other hand, could only roll his eyes as he tore open his own frozen treat.
"And here I thought Mabel was the only person who memorized commercial jingles word-for-word," he said, grinning nonetheless.
"Mm! So good!" Mabel exclaimed, ignoring the mess of ice cream smeared across her face. "Steven, where on earth did you get these Cookie Cats? I thought they stopped making them!"
"They did," Steven hopped off the couch, heading over to the freezer where his Cookie Cat stash awaited. "But the Gems got a whole bunch of them for me from the factory a few weeks ago. I've eaten a few already, but I've been saving most of them for a special occasion. And what could be a more special occasion than you guys finally getting the chance to hang out here at the temple?"
"By the way, thanks for having us over, Steven," Dipper said, reclining back onto the couch a bit. He didn't get a chance to settle in long before Mabel tried stealing his Cookie Cat away, only to be met with a playful push. She quickly gave up when Steven returned with even more ice cream sandwiches in tow. "It's nice to get a chance to relax and watch…" he paused, frowning as he turned his attention back to the TV. "What is this again?"
"It's Crying Breakfast Friends!" Steven smiled as he plopped back onto the couch between the twins. He leaned in to catch up on the escapades of the incoherently sobbing cartoon foods on screen. "Isn't it great ?"
"I don't know if 'great' would be the word I would use to describe it…" Dipper noted, skeptical.
"Oh come on, bro-bro!" Mabel stuck her tongue out at her brother. "I love this show! It may not look like much at first, but it's actually super deep and it has a lot of complex layers and themes. Plus, Mourning Muffin is absolutely adorable !"
"I know, right?" Steven agreed. "Personally, I'm a Bawling Bacon kinda guy myself."
Despite their enthusiasm, Dipper didn't really come close to sharing it. He was nearly on the verge of asking if they could change the channel when their mundane morning suddenly got much more interesting. A bright flash of light burst over the warp pad at the far end of the house, instantly catching the twins' shared surprised fascination.
"Whoa…" they both whispered, completely dazzled. For his part, Steven simply offered them both a knowing smile; after all, this was an every-day sight for him.
As the light faded, the Crystal Gems appeared, hot off the heels of another successful mission. Pearl and Amethyst shared a proud smirk, while Garnet stood between them, a bubbled gemstone hovering over her hand. Much like she'd done with the centipeedle a few days ago, she sent the bubble to somewhere unknown with a mere flick of her wrist. Just one of the many peculiar, impressive feats the Gems could apparently pull off.
"Hi, guys!" Steven hopped up from the couch, running over to meet them.
"Oh! Hello there, kids!" Pearl greeted. She offered the twins a polite wave as they followed after Steven, still amazed by what they'd just seen. "What are you both doing here?
"Oh, don't tell me," Amethyst smirked. "You got tired of hanging around the shack with Stan, so you came up here to chill with us instead, right? Can't say I blame you. The old guy can be a bit of a drag sometimes."
"Um… well, we're technically supposed to be working down at the shack right now…" Dipper admitted, rubbing the back of his neck.
"But what Grunkle Stan doesn't know won't kill him!" Mabel chimed in much more cheerily. "Maybe. Probably. Hopefully. I mean, he is pretty old… Hm…"
"Ha! Skipping work to have fun instead? Turns out you two are cooler than I thought," Amethyst elbowed both of the twins as she pushed her way past them toward the kitchen. "Which is crazy; I never thought anyone related to Stan could be "cool"."
"I hate to say it, but I can't help but agree with Amethyst…" Pearl interjected, a diffident frown on her face. "While I usually wouldn't approve of anyone shirking away from their responsibilities, you kids are probably much better off spending your time up here instead of at that so-called 'Mystery' Shack."
"Oh! Oh!" Mabel's hand shot up into the air. "Do you guys have any real mysteries here?"
"A few," Garnet said vaguely.
"Oh yeah?" Dipper asked, instantly curious. Between lake monsters and manotaurs, he hadn't gotten a chance to investigate the Gems as much as would have liked. And what better place to start than here, in the very temple they called home, getting answers straight from the source? "Mysteries like… whatever's behind that door over there?"
He pointed to the large, elegant door that stood behind the warp pad, marked with a star and a gemstone resting on each of its points. "Oh, you mean the temple?" Amethyst asked, sticking her head back out of the fridge as she rooted through it.
"The temple?" Dipper repeated, confused. "I thought we were in the temple."
"Nah, dude, this isn't the temple," Amethyst corrected. "This is just the house. It's kinda like a lobby to the temple."
"Wait, so does that mean my room is part of the lobby?" Steven asked. "Maybe I should set up a welcome desk for when visitors come by, just like a real lobby!"
"Anyway…" Pearl continued. "The temple serves as our base. Garnet, Amethyst, and I live inside of it, while Steven has his own room out here. At least until he becomes more accustomed to using his gem."
"Yep!" Steven perched his hands on his hips, taking up a bold pose. "And when I do, I'll be able to go in there any time I want, right?"
"Yes," Garnet answered before Pearl could protest.
"Wow! I bet there's so many cool things in there!" Mabel exclaimed, excited. "Mind if we take a peek?"
She attempted stepping past the Gems to get a better look, only for Garnet to block the way to halt her advance. "That's not a very good idea."
"What? Why not?" Dipper asked.
"Um… well, the temple… It's a bit… dangerous," Pearl explained, frowning awkwardly. "Especially for… non-Gems-"
"'Non-Gems', pfft, just say it like it is, P," Amethyst cut in. "It's waaaay too much for plain ol' humans, like you guys!" She jumped in between the twins, ruffling their hair as she let out a laugh. In light of the circumstances, her "joke" wasn't one that either Dipper or Mabel found very funny.
"Amethyst!" Pearl scolded, appalled by her rudeness. "But yes… The temple really is no place for humans. We're sorry, but we just don't want to see either of you get hurt."
"But don't be so down about it!" Amethyst encouraged as soon as she noticed the frowns on both of the twins' faces. "At least you guys can still hang out here with Steven."
"Yeah!" Steven exclaimed, wrapping an arm around each of their shoulders. "And you guys are welcome here any time!"
"...Thanks, Steven," Dipper returned with a half-hearted smile. Still, he couldn't quite keep his sights off the temple door, longing to get even just a peek at whatever lay beyond it. At the secrets the Gems seemed so keen on keeping completely to themselves.
"We have to go," Garnet said to her teammates, already heading for the front door.
"What? But you guys just got back," Steven frowned. "Don't you wanna hang out with us for a while?"
"We'd love to, Steven," Pearl said with a smile that didn't meet her eyes. "But we have to perform our weekly check over the town. Gravity Falls isn't going to protect itself, you know."
"Right…" Steven sighed. "See you later, then?"
"See you later," Garnet returned with a soft, sincere smile.
"Don't have too much fun without us!" Amethyst sent them a wave as they headed out, leaving three mutually disappointed kids behind.
"They didn't even answer my question…" Dipper said as soon as he was sure the Gems were out of earshot. "They didn't tell us anything about the temple at all!"
"Yeah…" Steven rubbed his arm absently, looking away. "But that's ok! I've asked them about it a bunch of times before too, and they've never really told me that much about it either."
"Wait, seriously?" Dipper asked, appalled by this news. "You've been living here for how long now and they still haven't told you anything about the giant door at the back of your own house? And you're just… ok with that?"
"Um… well…"
"Aw, don't be so blue, you guys," Mabel made a hearty attempt at cheering them both up. "If the Gems won't let us see the temple for ourselves, we can always guess what's inside of it instead! That's… almost as much fun, right? I bet it's full of magical lasers and sparkly lava! Or maybe it's a room that's entirely underwater, stuffed with swords and other sharp pointy-things! Or maybe the real reason why the Gems don't want us in there is because it's super messy and they just need to tidy up!"
As Mabel continued her fantastical rambling, Dipper let out a long sigh, his brow furrowing as he turned his attention back toward the temple. Steven did the same, albeit much more apprehensively. If it were up to him, they'd have left the topic behind already, but unfortunately, Dipper wasn't willing to let it go just yet. "Steven," he began, the slightest edge of frustration in his voice. "Don't take this the wrong way, but… how much do you really know about the Gems anyway?"
"Uh… I know that they're really cool and strong and protect humanity from monsters and-"
"I don't mean any of that basic stuff," Dipper quickly cut him off. "I mean the actually important stuff, like where they came from, how they got their powers, how those powers even work, what they even are to begin with. Doesn't it bother you that you know so little about them? I mean, it bothers me and I've only known them for a few days, but you've known them for your whole life, right? So why haven't you tried learning more about them?"
"I-I…" Steven hesitated, swallowing hard. "The Gems… they don't like it when I ask them too many questions and I don't like upsetting them."
"Well, maybe you should ," Dipper countered, his voice and expression both hard, bitter. "Because it seems to me like maybe they're not giving you as much truth as you deserve."
By now, even Mabel had stopped to listen in on the tense conversation between the boys. She had little to say to it, biting her lip as she looked between the pair as they practically stared straight through each other. As much as she wanted to distract them both away from their worrisome thoughts, she didn't get a chance as a heavy crash suddenly sounded from somewhere outside.
The kids exchanged a wordless glance, each of them quickly acting on the same decision. They rushed for the door, only to find that the world outside was bathed in a strange shade of faint pink. At the foot of the porch, the Gems stood, staring up at the oddly crimson-tinged skies. Steven, Dipper, and Mabel followed their gaze, only to find a sight that shocked them all stiff.
Upon a first glance, one could have mistaken it for the sun, but with the actual sun hanging not too far away from it, that clearly wasn't the case. The crimson orb hung high, unnaturally, in the atmosphere above Gravity Falls, and as if that wasn't unnerving enough, something else soon became clear about the unknown object.
It was moving , slowly but surely, toward to the earth below.
Curious to know more, the kids crept down the stairs, eavesdropping in on the Gems as they used a telescope to peer up at the orb. "This is bad…" Garnet noted, calm as ever.
"What's it doing here in the first place?" Amethyst asked, glaring up at it.
"That's not what we should be worried about right now," Pearl shook her head, keeping her watch through the telescope. "Look at the size of it! I had no idea these things were so big !"
"Um… you guys?"
The Gems spun around, startled, as they faced the kids. "Oh! Steven! Dipper! Mabel!" Pearl threw on a wide, fake smile. "W-what are you three doing down here?"
Dipper ignored the question, in much of the same way the Gems ignored answering his earlier. If not for the ominous object hanging over all of their heads, he would have found some kind of satisfaction in that. "What is that?" he asked, pointing at the encroaching orb in the sky.
"And more importantly, can I see?" Steven cut in. Pearl handed the telescope over to him, allowing him a much better view of the mysterious orb. The longer he looked at it, the more its true nature became apparent as he spotted the large, single pupil at the center of it. "Wow…" he gaped, passing the telescope off to Mabel so she could see next. "It's a giant eyeball! Awesome!"
" Not awesome," Pearl scolded, hands on her hips. "It's a Red Eye."
"Red Eye?" Mabel asked. "You mean like that disease that makes your eyes all crusty and gross?"
"Oh no!" Steven cried, alarmed. "It's going to infect us all!"
"That's pink eye," Garnet corrected above Amethyst's laughter.
"So what's so bad about this Red Eye thing anyway?" Dipper asked, getting the conversation back on track.
"A Red Eye is sort of like a meteor," Pearl explained with an anxious frown. "If we don't do anything about it, then it will crash into Gravity Falls and crush us, along with a bunch of oblivious, innocent people. That's why we have to stop it!"
"Whoa! This is sorta like that one video game where you have to stop the moon from falling on a town in three days!" Steven exclaimed, grinning. "Only… we probably don't have three days to stop this thing, do we?"
"No," Garnet answered bluntly.
"Is there anything we can do to get rid of it?" Dipper asked. The skeptical looks both Pearl and Amethyst sent his way weren't lost on him. After what just happened, they likely wouldn't want him or Mabel getting involved, deeming it "too dangerous", just like the temple. Surprisingly though, Garnet still supplied an answer all the same.
"The only things powerful enough to destroy it are the pair of laser Laser Light Cannons that belonged to Rose Quartz."
"Rose Quartz?" Mabel asked, curious. "Who's that?"
"My mom," Steven spoke up, glancing down. "She's, um… not really around anymore…"
Neither of the twins pressed him for any further details. Unsure of what else to really do, they gave him largely the same soft, sympathetic look. A look that Steven had gotten plenty of times in the past, one that never really helped fill the hole in his heart for the mother he never got a chance to meet.
"Ugh, if Rose were here, this would be so easy !" Amethyst kicked at the ground, pouting.
"I know, but she's… not…" Pearl said, her voice tight with barely-masked grief. "And both cannons have been missing for years. We'll just have to find another solution."
The kids paused for a moment, each of them trying to think up such a solution. While Mabel's ideas were all rather improbable and over the top and Dipper's were more complex and complicated, Steven was ultimately the one to actually speak to his first. "Oh! Oh! I know! If the cannons belonged to my mom, I bet my dad knows where they are. He can help us save the day!"
An off-putting silence filled the air between the Gems the moment Steven so much as mentioned his father. Pearl cleared her throat, clearly trying her best to mask her true opinion behind what she had to say next. "Greg is… nice, Steven, but I doubt Rose would entrust someone like him with such powerful weapons."
"Your dad's kind of a mess, Steven," Amethyst pointed out matter-of-factly.
" Amethyst !" Pearl snapped, flustered.
"I'm just sayin'," Amethyst shrugged. "Even if she did leave them with him, he probably broke them, or lost them, or dropped them in the lake by now."
"True," Garnet nodded her agreement.
"No way," Steven countered, resolved. "I'm sure he's just keeping them somewhere safe. I'll go ask him."
"We can handle this, Steven," Garnet assured before turning to Amethyst. "Ready?"
"You know I am!" Amethyst got into position. From there, Garnet hoisted her up and hurled her straight toward the Red Eye with as much force as she could muster. Amethyst let out a wild shout that came to a quick end the second she smacked hard into the Red Eye's metallic surface. She didn't even leave so much as a dent as she began to fall back into the woods below.
"I'm ok!" she shouted somewhere far in the distance.
"Um… we're gonna go…" Steven announced, frowning.
"Ok, good luck," Pearl absently returned, still watching the Red Eye carefully.
"So," Steven turned to the twins as he put on a resolved grin. "You guys wanna come with me to see if my dad has the cannons?"
"Of course!" Mabel eagerly agreed. "Anything to help out in another epic Gem mission!"
"But Steven, what if your dad doesn't really have them?" Dipper asked, eyeing the Red Eye warily.
"Oh come on, Dipper!" Mabel smirked. "Don't be such a Negative Nancy! He's gotta have at least one of them, right Steven?"
"I dunno," Steven shrugged, honest. " But it's worth a shot." He began to lead the way toward town and the twins tentatively followed, their backs turned to the looming Red Eye all the while. "Now, come on! We have a town to save!"
Soos whistled to himself as he scaled up the ladder to the shack's roof, toolbox in hand to fix the broken weathervane. On the porch below, Wendy reclined on the couch, taking advantage of the slow morning to slip out of the shack for an "extended break". Unfortunately, that break didn't get to go on as long as she would have liked as Stan stepped out of the shack, as surly as ever.
"Hey!" he snapped, glaring around the yard before turning his attention to his employees. "Either of you see the kids around here? They're supposed to be cleanin' up the museum, but it's still just as much of a mess as it was when I sent 'em in there."
Soos poked his head down from his spot on the roof. "Oh yeah. I think they said somethin' about hanging out with Steven up at his house."
"They what ?" Stan shot a sharp look up toward the temple.
"Geez, Mr. Pines, chill," Wendy said, not looking up from her phone. "So what if Dipper and Mabel are hanging out with Steven instead of working? It's not like we've even had any customers today anyway."
"I don't care about that!" Stan practically growled. The genuine anger in his voice was enough to catch both Soos and Wendy off guard. "I don't know how many times I've told those two knuckleheads now. I don't want them anywhere near that freaky 'temple' with those even freakier Crystal Crones."
"Why not?" Soos asked, though his question was staunchly ignored.
"And as for you," Stan turned back to Wendy, scowling. "Get back inside and get to work already, will ya?"
"Yeah, yeah, don't give yourself a hernia," Wendy rolled her eyes. "Lemme just snag a few selfies first. The lighting out here is totally sick right now."
"Must be 'cause of that new second sun," Soos noted, looking up at the sky.
"Second sun?" Stan raised an eyebrow as he stepped off the porch to see for himself. "Soos, I don't know what you're babbling on about, but I don't see any–" He stopped short, his eyes widening at the sight of the so-called "second sun" as it continued creeping ever closer to the town below. "What the hell is that ?"
"You guys are gonna love my dad!" Steven smiled back at the twins as they followed along after him. They headed through town at a quick pace, passing by more than a few folks who had already taken notice of the Red Eye as they watched it with worried curiosity. "He's a lot of fun, gives great hugs, and he used to be a rock star!"
"Whoa, really?" Mabel gasped, stars in her eyes. "A real rock star? Did he have a band? Did he go on tour? Can I buy his CD?"
"He didn't have a band," Steven chuckled. "But he'd probably just give you one of his old CDs if you ask. He used to tour too; that's actually how he ended up here in Gravity Falls in the first place!"
"So… why'd he give all that up to work at a… car wash?" Dipper asked as Steven led them to their destination: "It's a Wash!".
"'Cause of my mom," Steven said, though he didn't elaborate further. "Now, if I know my dad, he's probably doing something super important in his van right now…"
Steven ran over to said van, decked out in a colorful starscape, with the words "Mr. Universe" branded boldly upon the side. Dipper and Mabel followed along, neither of them sure what to expect from this "Mr. Universe". Especially given that Steven and the Gems seemed to have such completely contrasting opinions on him.
"Dad!" Steven tried banging on the van's back door. When he was met with nothing, he clumsily climbed onto the roof instead, jumping up and down. "Dad, are you in there?"
"Mr. Steven's Dad!" Mabel took over knocking on the door. "Come on out! Me and my brother would looooove to meet you!"
"Yeah! And we have to save the world !" Steven added dramatically. As he jumped down onto the roof again, the van's alarm set off, blaring loudly through the calm of the early afternoon. It finally proved to be enough to wake Greg up as he burst out the back of the van, brandishing, of all things, a waffle iron.
"Who's there!?" he exclaimed, alarmed. "I have a waffle iron and I-" He stopped short when he finally noticed the equally surprised twins standing in front of him. "...Huh?"
"Dad!" Steven called. "It's me!"
Greg turned, squinting up at his son as his eyes adjusted to the waning daylight. "Steven?"
Without warning his father, Steven hopped off the van's roof, landing squarely in Greg's arms. "Dad," he grinned as his father gently set him down onto the ground. "I want you to meet my new friends: Dipper and Mabel."
"Oh yeah," Greg offered the twins a friendly smile. "Steven's told me about you guys. It's good to finally meet you."
"Nice to meet you too, Mr. Universe-"
Mabel quickly cut Dipper off, unable to contain her rising excitement. "So, Steven told us that you used to be a rock star. Just how famous were you? Did you ever sign a record deal? Did you go platinum ? Did you ever get a lunchbox with your face on it? Did you-"
"Heh, I wasn't that much of a big deal back in the day…" Greg interrupted as he let out a bashful chuckle. "I used to dream about making it that big, but… well… sometimes things don't always turn out the way you'd think they would…" He paused for a moment, smiling wistfully before he turned back to the twins. "But anyway, Steven says you kids are visiting Mr. Pines for the summer. He's your great uncle, right?"
The twins nodded as Greg picked up a fond, respectful smile. "You know, I used to work for Mr. Pines when I first came here to Gravity Falls. It was a part-time gig, of course, but it put food in my belly and gas in my van back when me and Steven's mom were going out."
"Whoa!" Steven gasped, impressed. "Dad, you never told me you used to work at the Mystery Shack! That's so cool!"
"Yeah, I don't like to brag about it too much, but I was the first real employee there," Greg smirked. "Mr. Pines was actually a pretty neat boss. In fact, he even helped me out with a small loan so I could buy the car wash here."
"Wait, he actually gave you a loan?" Dipper asked, skeptical. He had every reason to be after just how clearly Stan's usual miserly greed shined through. "Are you sure we're talking about the same Stan here?"
"Pretty sure…" Greg mused. "Anyway, I gotta admit, you kids gave me a bit of a scare. I almost waffled your faces!" He laughed, embarrassed as he tossed the waffle iron back into his messy van. "What are you all doing up so early anyway?"
"It's like… 1 p.m.," Dipper noted, glancing down at his watch.
"... Oh," Greg scratched the back of his neck. "It was a… slow day at the car wash. So… what's up, Steven? Did you just want to introduce me to your friends, or did you wanna see your old man, pal around, learn some lessons about life?" He grabbed his son in a loose hug, giving him a playful noogie.
Steven laughed, breaking free from his father's hold as he forced himself to be a bit more serious. "We need the Light Cannons that used to belong to Mom, so we can blow up that eyeball!"
"Eyeball?" Greg questioned. He turned his gaze up to where Steven was pointing, watching as Amethyst soared through the air, only to useless crash into the Red Eye once more. "Wait, is this a magical thing?" he asked uncomfortably as he turned back to the kids. "The Gems told me not to get involved with magic stuff. It could be dangerous, or interfere with what's left of my hair…"
"But the Gems need Mom's cannons!" Steven urged. "You gotta know where they are! Or at least one of them!"
"And if you don't remember, then maybe we could try to jog your memory!" Mabel suggested. "Are they in a sparkly cave dungeon somewhere? Or what about at the top of a giant volcano, filled with lava?! Or they might be buried in a huge treasure chest at the bottom of the lake!"
"Well, I don't know about all that…" Greg said, looking up at the Red Eye once more. "But I have an idea about where one of them might be… Maybe…
"Throw me again!" Amethyst encouraged as she emerged from the forest once again. Despite the brazen grin on her face, her form was quite a bit battered after multiple attempts "I think I'm starting to crack it!"
Garnet was about to do just that before Pearl cut in. "I… don't think this is working. All we're doing is wasting what little time we have left. We'll have to come up with a different plan."
"There's not much we can do without those cannons," Garnet stated plainly.
"I hope Steven isn't too disappointed when he finds out Greg doesn't have them," Pearl sighed. "But it makes no sense that Rose would leave them with him without telling us, or at least me. After all, she used to tell me everything… "
"Yeah, yeah…" Amethyst said, rolling her eyes. "We know . You've bragged about how much Rose trusted you a billion times. We get it."
Pearl started, flustered as her cheeks burned in a blue blush. "W-well, that's because I was-"
"Hey!" The emerging argument was cut off, courtesy of Stan as he stormed up the hill to the Gems. Without much else to do, Soos and Wendy followed, eager to watch whatever drama was about to unfold. "What's the big idea here? What's with that huge red thing in the sky? Trouble follows you three around like a shadow, which means you probably know what it is, so spill it."
"Ugh, Stan, we don't have time for this!" Pearl said impatiently. "If you couldn't already tell, we're in the middle of trying to deal with it ourselves. But if you must know, it's called a Red Eye and-"
"And if we don't get rid of it, it's gonna smash into the town and take us all out!" Amethyst added with a dramatic flair.
"Ha! Yeah right!" Stan let out a snort of a laugh. "What, do you think I was born yesterday?"
"Compared to the three of us, you are!" Amethyst joked with a rouge grin.
"Amethyst wasn't joking," Garnet said. "Either times."
Silence fell over the entire group as the severity of the situation began to set in. Though Stan remained largely apathetic, Soos balked as he stared up at the Red Eye while Wendy was the first to speak to it. "Wait… are you saying that thing's gonna destroy the whole town?"
"Not if we have anything to do about it," Garnet asserted firmly.
"We just need to find a way to get rid of it first…" Pearl added in an anxious mutter.
"Wait, what?" Stan asked, baffled. "You mean you don't even know how to deal with that thing? Aren't you three supposed to 'protect' the town from weird magical mumbo-jumbo like that? Or did you just forget how to do your job now that Rose isn't here to boss you around?"
"Don't you dare talk about Rose like that!" Pearl snapped, infuriated. "If she were here, she'd-"
"Pearl," Garnet cut in, placing a hand on her teammate's shoulder to settle her down. "There's no time for this right now."
The air briefly became awkward again, especially as Pearl shot Stan an unforgiving glare, one that he was more than happy to return. Not liking the rising tension, Soos cleared his throat to ask another pressing question. "So, uh… do you dudes have any ideas about how to ger rid of the eyeball?"
"Well, Garnet tried throwing me at it a whole bunch of times, but it's not doing much…" Amethyst admitted. "So… yeah. We're basically screwed. Unless Steven, Dipper, and Mabel can somehow find those Light Cannons. But the chances of that happening are… pretty low."
"Oh, great ," Stan deadpanned, thoroughly annoyed. "As if it wasn't bad enough those two snuck up here after I told them not to, now you've got them running around town looking for magical cannons?"
"First of all, they volunteered to look for the cannons themselves," Pearl clarified pointedly. "Second of all, they're not in any danger. They're across town asking Greg if he has them. So you have no reason to be concerned, Stan."
"Hmph, well at least if they're off bothering Greg, they ain't bothering me," Stan crossed his arms. He made a point of glaring away from the Gems, making sure his years-old resentment was more than known. "And they ain't getting dragged into another one of your disasters."
While the kids had anticipated that one of the Light Cannons would be hidden away somewhere spectacular or mythical, the place Greg drove them to was… a far cry from that. Instead, he pulled his van up to the local storage facility just a few blocks away from the car wash. As mundane as it was, Steven still found room to be impressed by it.
"Wow!" he exclaimed, hopping out of the van. "A magical storage unit!"
"Ha, not exactly," Greg laughed as he searched his pocket for the key. "But some would say there's magic inside…" He flashed a mysterious grin at the kids, only to be met with three blank, confused stares. "It's just a shed I use to keep things that don't fit in the van. If those cannons are anywhere, they'll be in here."
Without further ado, Greg unlocked the bin and pulled the door open, revealing the unorganized mess beyond it. The unit was packed to the brim with boxes, bags, and other loose articles, but as far as the kids could see from the surface, there was no Light Cannon in sight.
"It'd be a miracle if the cannons even fit in there at all…" Dipper said, frowning.
"Well, what are we waiting for?" Mabel asked with a daring grin. "Let's get looking!"
"Yeah!" Steven plunged into the unit first. He made use of a headlamp he found near the entrance to light the way as he and the twins crawled into the mountain of clutter, with Greg wishing them luck from outside.
"Wow!" Mabel exclaimed as they slowly worked through Greg's vast, unorganized collection "Your dad has so much cool stuff in here, Steven!"
"I know, right?" Steven agreed. "It's like a Dad museum in here!"
"If it was a museum, it'd be the messiest one ever," Dipper muttered, narrowly avoiding a box of long-spoiled crackers. "Mr. Universe, have you ever thought about having a yard sale? You know, so you can get rid of some of this junk and have more space?"
"Yeah, I've been meaning to for a while now…" Greg admitted. "I guess I'm just a little hesitant about parting ways with some of this old stuff…"
"I can see why!" Steven said, grinning. He stopped short upon finding a smaller box, filled with plastic cases he'd seen before. "Hey, Dad! There's a whole box of your old CD in here!"
"So you did have a record deal!" Mabel proclaimed "I knew it!"
"Oh, nah," Greg said with a wave of his hand. "I burnt those CDs myself way back when. I couldn't give those things away. You know, before I ran the car wash, when I was a one-man band, I traveled the whole country."
"We know, Dad," Steven said. "I already told Dipper and Mabel all about that."
"When I came to play a concert here in Gravity Falls," Greg continued his story nonetheless. "No one showed up except-"
"An ALLIGATOR!" Steven finished dramatically.
"Whoa, really?!" Mabel asked, not noticing Dipper rolling his eyes behind her.
"No, it was Steven's mom, Rose," Greg corrected with a small, fond smile."After I settled down here, we were always together. Until she gave up her physical form to bring Steven into the world."
"Wait, that's what happened to your mom, Steven?" Dipper asked, bewildered.
"Yeah," Steven nodded through a weak, wavering smile. "The Gems told me that Mom passed her gem down to me, which is why she isn't around anymore. I don't really understand it all that much, but she must have been really nice to be willing to do that for me."
"She was more than just nice," Greg said warmly, wistfully. "She was sweet, and selfless, and funny, and brave, and beautiful, and amazing . I don't know what a magical lady like her ever saw in a plain old dope like me."
"Aw…" Mabel crooned. "How romantic !"
As caught up as he was in listening to his father, Steven didn't notice the framed photo sitting near the back of the storage unit until he heard the sound of cracking glass under his knee. "Uh… Dad?" A wave of guilt shot through him when he got a better look at the image inside of the now-ruined frame. "I broke a photo. The one of you and Mom…"
" That's your mom, Steven?" Dipper asked as he and Mabel leaned in to get a better look.
"She was beautiful…"
"Yeah…She was, wasn't she?" Steven couldn't help but smile at the photo. In it, his mother and father stood blissfully together, pure love practically shining between the two of them. Rose's eyes were closed but her smile was abundant, her soft pink curls cascading over her shoulders. All the while, Greg grinned up at her–despite the hot dog sticking halfway out his mouth–with nothing less than the most sincere adoration."Sorry for breaking it, Dad…"
"Don't worry about it, buddy," Greg reassured kindly. "If every pork chop were perfect, we wouldn't have hot dogs!"
Suddenly, a soft pink glow began to brim from the very back of the storage unit. It drew the kids' attention away from the photo, towards its source: the large, shimmering weapon they'd come here to find.
"A Light Cannon!" Mabel gasped, grinning from ear to ear. "We found one!"
"But where's the other one?" Dipper glanced around, only finding a single cannon as opposed to the set they were sent to find.
"I dunno," Steven shrugged. "For now, we should find a way to get it out of here. Now let's see…" It didn't take long for him to find what he was looking for, a box filled with sturdy extension cords. With Dipper and Mabel's help, he tied several of them to the cannon before they ventured outside, securing the other end of their makeshift tether to the bumper of Greg's van. It took a bit of doing, but eventually the van managed to pull the cannon forward and out of the unit… along with everything else that had been so tightly packed inside of it.
"This thing could help save the town!" Steven practically hugged the smooth side of the cannon like it was the saving grace it very much was. "Dad, can you get it back to the temple?"
"I can try," Greg shrugged. "What are you kids gonna do in the meantime?"
"We're gonna find the other one!" Mabel boldly proclaimed. "...Somehow."
"Well, if you kids found this one, then I'm sure you can find the second one," Greg said, proudly ruffling Steven's hair. "But uh… you might wanna hurry…" He frowned up at the Red Eye, still orbiting far too close to the town for comfort as it continued painting the skies a sickly shade of scarlet. "No pressure or anything, but… I'm not so sure how much time we've got left…"
"Don't worry, Dad! There's nobody out there who can find that second cannon better than we can!" Steven assured, waving his father off as he drove away with the first cannon in tow. With Greg still pulling it along via extension cords, the bottom of the weapon scraped harshly against the street. The kids could only hope that it wouldn't be badly damaged on the way to the temple.
"So," Steven turned back to the twins with a confident smile. "One cannon down, one to go. You guys got any ideas about where it could be?"
"Oh! Maybe it's in another one of these storage units," Mabel ran over to the next unit over. "Let's break in and see! I can finally put that lock-picking lesson Grunkle Stan gave me the other day to good use!"
"Or, how about instead of breaking and entering," Dipper quickly cut in before his sister could do anything illegal. "We could use this to look for it instead?" He pulled the journal out of his vest, suddenly very glad he'd happened to bring it along with him for the day.
"You think the journal might have something about the Light Cannon written in it?" Steven asked, eyeing the journal with measurable uncertainty.
"Maybe," Dipper shrugged. "After all, it did have info on those centipeetles. Who's to say the author didn't know about other Gem-related things too?"
"Well, yeah, but…" Steven trailed off, biting his lip. He wasn't sure why, but he hoped that wasn't the case. A mysterious journal detailing the various oddities of Gravity Falls or even a handful of Gem monsters was one thing, but anything beyond that, anything concerning the Gems themselves? For whatever reason, nothing about that sat right with him.
That unsettled feeling only grew as he quietly watched Dipper leaf through the journal. As would be expected, its pages covered a plethora of Gravity Falls' stranger facets, from gnomes to ghosts to giant moth creatures, and everything in between. Having lived here his entire life, Steven was already familiar with a handful of its entries. Fortunately, it didn't seem as though anything Gem-related beyond the occasional monster was among them. At least until Mabel pointed out a page that seemed strangely thicker than the rest.
"What's that?" she asked, thumbing the small metallic bumps on the edges of the otherwise blank page.
"Wait a second…" Dipper took a closer look, quickly realizing there was more there than there seemed to be. "Are these pages… stapled?"
"Whoa! They totally are!" Mabel unbent one of the staples, freeing it from the journal. "Weird…"
"But who would have stapled these pages together?" Steven asked, watching worriedly as Dipper pulled out the rest of the staples. "What could be on them that would-" He sharply cut himself off, his question all but answered as soon as he caught a glimpse of what the previously hidden pages had to offer.
There, in bold, dark ink, was the title "The Crystal Gems" , above a detailed drawing of Garnet, Amethyst, Pearl, and even Rose Quartz herself. That was hardly the end of it though, as each page of this new section seemed to detail more and more about the Gems. Their temple, their abilities, their weapons, and so much more were all laid out in carefully-documented detail. And while Steven was shocked into anxious silence, Dipper was beside himself over such a groundbreaking discovery.
"This is incredible!" he exclaimed, rapidly flipping through the next several pages. He'd make sure to read through each of them properly later on, but for now, simply knowing they existed was more than enough. "I knew the journal had to have some info on the Gems, but I could have never imagined there'd be so much here! We could learn so much about them with this!"
"Yeah, but… why is all this stuff in the journal anyway?" Steven was unable to chase the frown from his face. As caught up in his own excitement as Dipper was, Mabel was the only one to really notice it.
"What if the guy who wrote the journal was friends with the Gems?" she suggested. "And so they let him write about them in his book because they're so cool !"
"Oh my gosh!" Dipper gasped, captivated by the very thought. "If that's true, then that means that the Gems would know who the author of the journal is! Finding out who wrote this thing could be as easy as just asking them!" He quickly caught himself before he could get too carried away however, as his smile shifted into a sudden bitter scoff. "Not that they'd tell us even if they did."
"Uh… why wouldn't they?" Steven asked. All the while, his gaze never left the journal or all of the information about his own guardians gathered within it.
"You saw how they acted when we asked about the temple earlier," Dipper let out a frustrated sigh. "If they won't talk about something as simple as where they live, then there's no way they'd want to talk about something as big as this."
"Oh! Maybe they will if we prove to them how amazing we are by finding both Light Cannons!" Mabel said, grinning. "Speaking of which, we should probably get back to that. It's not like that Red Eye is getting any further away at this rate."
"Right, ok," Dipper nodded, focusing his attention back to the matter at hand. Steven did the same, though he still wore a worried look as they peered through the Gem-centric pages together. After several entries on Gem monsters, artifacts, and even abilities such as shapeshifting and fusion, an unmistakable sketch of a Light Cannon finally appeared. "Aha! Here it is!"
"What's it say? What's it say?" Mabel asked, pressing against her brother to get a closer look.
Dipper lightly pushed her back, allowing him a bit more space to work with as he began reading the entry aloud. "The dual Laser Light Cannons are among the Crystal Gems' most powerful auxiliary weapons. They appear to be powered by an internal source of magic and, upon activation, they emit a conjoined beam of pure energy strong enough to tear through many physical materials, terrestrial or otherwise. It should be noted that the cannons can only function to their maximum capacity when they are paired together, as their power is halved when they are apart."
"Blah, blah, blah," Mabel groaned boredly. "We already know all this stuff. What about where it's at?"
"Hold on a minute," Dipper skimmed over the rest of the page before he found another pertinent passage . "Because of how potentially powerful the Light Cannons are together, Rose believes that it is safer to store them separately when not in use. It is for this reason that she recently entrusted me with the care of one of her cannons until the Gems have need of it."
"Wow…" Steven stared at the journal, wide-eyed. Alongside drawings of the Light Canon, there was also another sketch of his mother, ever the mystery, one he longed to someday solve. "Whoever this author guy is, my mom must have trusted him a lot to let him take care of one of her cannons…"
"See? That means the Gems definitely knew him, right?" Mabel asked.
"That doesn't matter right now," Dipper quickly concluded. "What matters is this map the author drew in here. It should lead us straight to the second cannon, if we can figure it out."
"Hm…" Steven squinted at the three recognizable symbols on the sparse map. "Oh! I think that star there is supposed to be the temple!"
"So maybe that triangle thingy is the Mystery Shack?" Mabel pointed out. "It's close enough to the temple. Oh! If that's what it is, then maybe Grunkle Stan knew the author too!"
"I highly doubt that," Dipper rolled his eyes. "Still, the shack could have still been there back when this was written…. Which means this X here-"
"Marks the spot!" Steven and Mabel both cheerfully finished.
"It looks like it's somewhere out in the woods," Dipper noted. "We'd better head that way and start looking."
"Woo!" Mabel cheered, leading the way. "Light Cannon #2, we're comin' for you!"
Steven let out a laugh, albeit a half-hearted one as he trailed after the twins. His smile quickly fell away, however as he stole a glance at the temple, standing tall over the trees in the distance. There was plenty that the Gems didn't tell him about, and for the most part, he was used to that, to learning more about his guardians as they deemed fit to tell him. But something like this, an entire book filled with untold knowledge about them, about his mother? He couldn't shake the feeling that something was off about it, that something was wrong .
And as that feeling continued to grow, the more Steven began to realize: the sooner the Gems knew about that journal and all of the secrets it contained, the better off they'd all be.
One would think that a threat as large and looming as the Red Eye would be more than enough to bring anyone together. But when it came to Stan and the Gems, it only served as yet another point of contention among so many others. Soos and Wendy stood on the sidelines, watching in a mix of worry and amusement as both sides bickered about possible solutions to the destructive problem the Red Eye posed. None of which really seemed to be helping the town's plight much at all, really.
"Why don't one of you just go up there with a baseball bat or something and knock the stupid thing back up into space?" Stan sarcastically proposed another idea. And just like all of the other ones he'd come up with, the Gems were quick to shoot it down.
"Oh, please," Pearl rolled her eyes."That would never work. None of our weapons would even put a dent in the Red Eye; a bat would shatter into pieces upon simply striking it."
"Not if you hit it hard enough," Stan said, grinning knowingly.
"Hey, I'm all for hitting it with stuff," Amethyst agreed. "Maybe we could throw a car or a house or something huge at it. That might work, right?"
"No," Garnet said flatly.
"Can't you dudes like, I dunno, throw some fireworks or a big super bomb at it?" Soos offered another idea. Even if he didn't offer any ideas about where they could go about getting such explosives along with it.
"Or you could shoot it with a bunch of guns all at once," Wendy suggested only half-seriously.
"Uh, well, Rose's cannons are kinda like really big guns," Amethyst scratched her chin. "But we dunno where they are."
"Wrong," Garnet nodded toward the base of the hill. "We know where one is."
The others followed her gaze to Greg's iconic van as it slowly drove up the dirt path to the temple. And sure enough, grinding across the ground behind it was none other than-
"A cannon!" Amethyst gasped.
"I can't believe it," Pearl balked, dumbfounded. "He actually had one of them!"
"We're saved !" Amethyst cheered. Garnet, on the other hand, was nowhere as excited as her teammates.
"Not quite," she said. Because sure enough, there was still a second Light Cannon out there somewhere. And the mystery of its location had still yet to be solved.
" That's it?" Stan raised an eyebrow as he watched Soos and Wendy head to help Greg untether the canon from the van. "That's the 'big, bad cannon' that's gonna take out that eyesore?" He let out a sharp, sardonic laugh. "What's it gonna do? Pelt the thing with flowers?"
" No ," Pearl countered crossly. "It's going to save the town along with–" She stopped short, peering around Greg's van before she turned back to him, alarmed. "The other one! You didn't have the other one too?!"
"Hey, my storage unit can only fit so much," Greg frowned sheepishly as he averted the Gems' questioning gazes. "B-but don't worry! Steven and his friends are out looking for it right now. I'm sure they'll be back with it any minute now."
"Those goofballs?" Stan sneered. "Yeah right. You really think they'll be able to track another one of these pink peashooters down?"
"Come on, Mr. Pines," Wendy sent her boss a disapproving look. "Don't sell Steven, Dipper, and Mabel so short."
"Yeah!" Soos eagerly agreed. "They did find that giant lake monster the other day–even it was a robot. Still, it was pretty cool, when it wasn't trying to kill us."
"And they found the first cannon," Amethyst pointed a thumb back at the weapon in question.
"Besides, it's not like we have too many other options at the moment…" Pearl muttered diffidently.
"You know how determined Steven can be, Mr. Pines," Greg said, grinning as he came to stand alongside his former boss. "And from the looks of it, your niece and nephew seem to be the same way."
"Yeah, they are and it's annoying ," Stan deadpanned just shy of turning back to the Gems."So what happens when they don't find it then?"
"Then we'll figure something else out," Garnet said simply.
"Garnet's right," Pearl agreed. "We're not about to let this town be destroyed under our watch. We'll do what we have to in order to protect it."
"Like what?" Soos asked curiously.
All three of the Gems stopped short when all eyes fell on them. Normally, they'd have any number of answers to such a question. But now, with such mounting odds stacked against them, without their beloved leader to guide them…
They had no idea what to do. Not that they'd let anyone else know that.
"Like… well…" Pearl tried, though fortunately, Garnet stepped in.
"Like combining our efforts together in order to bring it down," she explained. The fact that her answer wasn't much of an answer at all wasn't really lost on any of the humans present.
"Yeah, well as great as that sounds," Stan rolled his eyes. "It'd be better if those kids hurry up and find that cannon. I'm not too excited about the idea of being flattened into a pancake."
"I think you mean Stan-cake!" Amethyst joked, but even her laughter was forced and fake.
"They'll find it," Garnet said with clear, firm confidence. Confidence all three of the Gems had no choice but to carry now, alongside the earnest, genuine hope that the kids would succeed. Despite how utterly impossible that success may have seemed. "We underestimated them before. We are not going to underestimate them again."
The Red Eye was getting closer by the minute, painting the town and the woods surrounding it in an eerie, almost bloody glow. As unnerving as it was, Steven, Dipper, and Mabel were undaunted by it as they trudged through the woods, following the author's map as closely as they could. While keeping a thumb tabbed on the Light Cannon entry, Dipper took the opportunity to curiously skim through the other Gem-related pages. As awash in excitement as he was over it all, he wasted no time sharing what he uncovered with Steven and Mabel.
"You guys, listen to this," he began, paraphrasing portions of what he just read. "Apparently, the Gems don't need to sleep or eat or drink–they don't even age! It says here that they're "essentially immortal, unless the gemstone itself is damaged. "
"Whoa, just when I thought they couldn't get any cooler, they do !" Mabel exclaimed, just as amazed as her brother. "If they don't age, then who knows how old they are? My guess is 100. They look super good for 100."
"Try way older," Dipper corrected. "The journal says they're several thousand years old, at least . Just think of all the history they've had a chance to see first-hand, all the people they might have met!"
"Yeah! Like the guy on the $10 bill!" Mabel blithely chimed in.
"Steven, please tell me they've told you at least a little about what they did during all that time," Dipper pressed, eager to know more. He had a feeling the Gems wouldn't say anything if he asked; what happened at the temple was proof enough of that. So for now, he'd have to go to the next best source.
"Uh… no?" Steven shrugged, frowning. He let out the breath he'd been holding as he finally decided to voice his mounting concerns aloud. "Um, hey, Dipper? Maybe… we shouldn't be reading all that stuff about the Gems. At least not until we get a chance to actually show the journal to them."
"What?" Dipper glanced back at him, caught off guard. "We finally have all this info about the Gems, info we know they won't tell us themselves, and you just expect me not to look at it? You can't be serious."
"Look," Steven looked away, rubbing his arm. "I know you're really excited about this, and I'm happy that you are, but… this sort of feels like we're going behind the Gems' backs…"
"I mean, yeah, maybe," Dipper said quickly, dismissively. "But aren't you a Gem too, Steven? If that's true, then why are you ok with them going behind your back? Why are they so secretive all the time? Why do they keep you out of the loop?" His grip on the edges of the journal tightened as he met Steven's gaze, full of obvious anxiety and apprehension. Both things Dipper couldn't figure out the source of in the slightest. "If you really are a Crystal Gem, then why don't Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl treat you like one?"
"T-they do!" Steven quickly, adamantly protested. Even then, there was little real conviction behind his voice when he said it. "It's just… they… I don't-"
"Uh, you guys? Can we maybe talk about this later? " Mabel suddenly spoke up. She'd gone a bit ahead of the boys, happening upon a tall wall of vines blocking much of the path ahead. "I think I found something!"
"Oh no!" Steven frowned up at the leafy obstacle before them. "It's a dead end!"
"No, wait," Dipper said, turning his attention back to the journal. "This is where we're supposed to be. But…" He stepped up to the vines, pressing a hand against them only to find they were surprisingly thick and sturdy. Clearly, getting past them would take more than simply shoving them aside.
"Oh, Light Cannoooon!" Mabel called through the surrounding woods. "Where aaaaare you?!"
"Hm…" Steven stepped up to join Dipper at the vine wall. However, when he skimmed his hand against it, both boys were surprised when the greenery slowly began curling back. Within seconds, the wall was gone, revealing the entryway it had been hiding, straight into what looked like a narrow, vine-enclosed tunnel.
"How'd you do that?" Dipper asked, confused.
Steven simply shrugged. At the same time, he glanced down at the journal in Dipper's arms. The question he'd asked earlier still hung heavy in Steven's mind, a question he knew he had no clear answer to. But maybe… he could . Maybe, if he showed the Gems that he could handle their secrets, they'd be more willing to share them with him willingly. All it would take was to show them the journal, to let them in on a secret of his own. A secret that, by all accounts, they had a right to know.
And then, maybe once he did, they'd finally start to see him as the true member of the team he spent his life longing to be a part of.
"Dipper?" he put on the most convincing smile he could muster. "Mind if I take a quick peek at the journal? Maybe I could find a clue about the cannon that you might have missed."
"I really don't think I missed anything," Dipper looked over the Light Cannon entry again, frowning. "But… I guess there's no harm in getting a fresh set of eyes on it."
The way Dipper held the journal out to him so easily, with a soft, trusting smile on his face was nearly enough to change Steven's mind altogether. But for as loudly as his heart was screaming at him to stop, his desire to be seen as a genuine Crystal Gem proved to be just a little louder.
"Thanks…" he took the journal with trembling hands, snapping it shut before hugging it close to his chest. "And… I'm sorry."
And then, without another word, Steven ran off into the tunnel of vines with the journal in tow.
It took Dipper a moment to fully realize what had happened. And even once he had, neither he nor Mabel could truly believe it. "Steven?!" he wasted no time plunging into the tunnel himself. Mabel followed, and very quickly, the twins realized the vines didn't just form a single narrow passageway; it was a maze , made up of more twists and turns than they ever could have anticipated. And there was no telling which one of those turns Steven had taken.
"Steven!" Dipper shouted for him again. "What are you doing?!"
"We have to show this journal to the Gems!" Steven's voice rang out from somewhere in the maze. "It has so much stuff about them in it; they need to know!"
"W-well, ok! We were gonna show it to them anyway!" Mabel tried reasoning. "Right, Dipper?"
Dipper didn't answer, at least not really. Instead, his pace slowed as he kept his focus straight ahead, taking in a deep breath as he struggled to force himself to lie. Not that he even needed to; his silence alone spoke volumes to Steven.
"You weren't even gonna tell them?!" he asked hotly. He hugged the journal even tighter as he glared down at it, as if it were the source of all their troubles. And in many ways, it was .
" How am I supposed to, Steven?!?" Dipper shouted back, frustrated. "They've already made it more than clear they don't want to tell us anything . So why should we tell them anything about the journal? For all we know, they could take it away and hide it in that temple of theirs and then I'll never see it again!"
"But we have to tell them! It's the right thing to do!" Steven shot back as he plowed through the maze, distraught and directionless.
"Just because it may be right doesn't mean it's fair!" Dipper argued. He finally caught a glimpse of Steven somewhere between walls of vines; as sure a sign as any that they were gaining on him. "How can you just take the Gems' word for everything when you know they're hiding so much from you?"
"Because I trust them!"
"Oh, like how I trusted you?! "
Steven stopped dead in his tracks when he heard that. It didn't take Dipper and Mabel long to catch up with him as their paths conjoined in an uncovered clearing. From here, the Red Eye could be clearly seen as it began drifting dangerously low. But for the two boys under its watchful gaze, it couldn't have mattered less.
"That's what you asked me, right? The day we all met?" Dipper asked as he stared Steven down. That day had only been a week ago, a week that somehow managed to feel like a lifetime. "I trusted you then. But now? Now I'm not so sure I should anymore."
Thick silence settled over the maze, filled in only by the sound of the slowly, strangely rising winds. Steven swallowed hard, tears just behind his eyes as he held onto the journal like a vice. Even after all of this, he was still unwilling to give it up. Dipper would have hated him for it… if not for just how guilty, how remorseful, how genuinely sad he seemed to be.
"You guys…" Mabel was the one to finally break the silence. Whatever she planned on saying was quickly forgotten, however, as soon as she happened to steal a glance to her right. "Oh my gosh!" she gasped, grabbing her brother's arm. "Look!"
"The cannon!" both boys exclaimed in equal surprise.
Sure enough, at the very end of the maze, surrounded by pink blooming shrubs, was the second Laser Light Cannon. It shimmered a faint, yet warm shade of pink against the haunting crimson light cast by the Red Eye. If they ever hoped to destroy that eye before it destroyed them, then they had no time to waste. They had to unite the Light Cannon with its twin before it was too late.
"How are we supposed to get it back to the temple?" Dipper asked. The answer to that question came almost immediately, and just about in the last way any of them could have expected.
A large, dark shape suddenly leapt high over their heads, briefly blocking the Red Eye from view. Four pink paws landed squarely just beyond the trio, and, given the circumstances, Steven had never been happier to see his finicky feline friend than he was right now.
"Lion!" he cheered, relieved. "What are you doing here, bud?"
"He's here to help us save the day, duh!" Mabel grinned as she playfully scratched Lion under the chin. "Who's a good, pretty pink boy? You are! You are!"
"I guess he's better than nothing…" Dipper said, returning the sullen glare Lion was sending his way in full.
"Come on, grab some vines!" Steven called as he began ripping vines free from the walls around them. "We can tie them to the cannon and then Lion can tow it back to the temple!"
"Wait," Dipper stopped short, noticing the book still tucked securely under Steven's arm. "I think we need to talk about the journal before we go anywhere."
"Oh, not this again," Mabel groaned, face palming.
"Can't we do this later, Dipper?" Steven asked as he spared a wary glance up at the Red Eye. "We really don't have time for this right now!"
"Well, you forced us to make time for it when you stole in the first place!" Dipper snapped. He made no effort to hide just how upset, how angry he really was. Steven forced himself to avoid his gaze just so he wouldn't have to feel the full force of it.
"I didn't want to steal it from you," Steven said softly. "I just wanted to be honest with the Gems-"
"But they aren't honest with you!" Dipper argued, standing by the same point he'd had all this time. A point that, for whatever reason, Steven refused to even acknowledge. "When I first showed the journal to you, I asked you to keep it a secret, and I trusted that you would. But I guess… I guess that doesn't matter to you as much as giving it all away to the Gems, huh?"
"That's not… I-I…" Steven trailed off, unsure of what to say. The guilt already churning in his stomach finally turned into a full-on tidal wave when he finally met the practically pleading look Dipper was sending his way. His hands nearly moved to return the journal to him, to finally put an end to this downright petty disagreement once and for all.
But in the end, Mabel was the one who did that for them both.
"Ugh! That's it! I've had it with you two!" she stormed to stand in between the boys. "In case you haven't noticed, we're about to be smooshed by a giant eyeball, and you guys are standing here arguing over nothing !"
"It's not 'nothing', it's the-"
"I don't care!" Mabel shoved a finger against her brother's mouth to silence him. "What I do care about is getting that cannon back to the Gems. So I'm giving you guys till the count of five to sort this mess out and hug it out, or else I'm gonna make you ."
If the genuinely furious tone of Mabel's usually cheery voice wasn't enough to convince the boys to comply, the slow, yet severe start of her countdown was. "Five," she crossed her arms, shooting a warning glare at them both. Under the weight of that glare, the weight of the eye hanging only a few hundred feet above their heads now, the weight of everything else along with it, Steven was the first to finally cave.
"Here," he sighed, finally handing the journal back to Dipper. "Take it. You were the one who found it in the first place; it's not up to me who you share it with and when."
"Four."
Dipper was silent for a moment as he took the book, looking between it and Steven remorsefully. Even if he hadn't agreed with his methods, he understood why he'd taken the journal and ran. If their roles had been reversed, he wasn't so sure he wouldn't have done the same thing to gain the Gems' respect. "I will tell the Gems about it," he said, anxiously yet earnestly. "W-when I'm ready to. I just… need more time to think through how to go about it."
"Three."
"I understand," Steven said, finally managing a small smile. "And when you are ready, I'll be there to help you do it."
"Thanks, Steven," Dipper returned his smile as he tucked the journal away.
"Two–I still don't see any hugging here," Mabel said, tapping her foot impatiently.
To Steven's surprise, Dipper was the one who stepped forward to start the hug. He returned it with a warm laugh, more than relieved to feel the tension between them finally starting to lift. But even with one problem solved, another, much more deadly one still awaited in the skies above.
"One! Finally !" Mabel ran forward, happily joining in on the hug. It swiftly disbanded, however, when the ground beneath them suddenly began to rumble, the already steady winds picking up into a forceful, violent gale. "Oh, and not a moment too soon either. We gotta get going!"
Steven and Dipper didn't argue; the trio hurried to rip more vines from the walls, tying them together into a sturdy tether that they wrapped around the base of the cannon. From there, Steven secured the other end of the vines around Lion's stomach just shy of all three of the kids climbing onto his back. Only for them to quickly realize they'd have to waste what little time they had left making their way back through the maze.
Or they would have, if Lion didn't clear out a shortcut for them.
Without warning, he let out an ear-splitting roar. The sound of it alone sent out shockwaves that tore through the back of the maze, ripping the viney wall apart to reveal the forest beyond it. As soon as the path was clear, Lion darted forward, towing the cannon after him as he ran through the woods. The kids couldn't even bother questioning his peculiar powers as they hung on for dear life against the raging winds and the scarlet light bleeding over almost every inch of the town.
A light that was set to consume it completely if they didn't make it back in time.
Lion was usually a very fast runner, able to cover vast distances in mere minutes with his swift gait. But with the weight of not only three kids but a heavy Light Cannon weighing him down, his stamina quickly started to wear down the closer the group got to the temple. Something that was quickly starting to become a problem as the Red Eye began to press in for its final, frightening approach.
"Come on, Lion!" Steven urged, patting his pet's side. "You can do it! We're almost there!"
"Yeah! Look!" Mabel pointed as they broke through another layer of trees. "There's the temple!"
"And the other cannon!" Dipper added, relieved. "Looks like Mr. Universe beat us here."
"Well, we would have made it back sooner if someone hadn't been fighting over a certain journal," Mabel pointed out with a critical frown.
"Alright, Mabel, we get it," Dipper deadpanned as Steven let out a flustered chuckle.
By now, Lion had made it to the base of the temple hill, where he finally collapsed out of sheer exhaustion, unable to take another step. Fortunately, with the Gems so close by, he wouldn't have to. "Hey!" Mabel shouted up to the group gathered near the house. "A little help down here?!"
Gems and humans alike pulled their anxious sights away from the sky to find the kids struggling to push the cannon up the hill. As shocking of a sight as it was, the Gems led the group in rushing down to meet them.
"Incredible!" Pearl looked over the cannon, confirming it was the genuine article. "You actually found them both!"
"We knew you guys could do it!" Amethyst cheered.
"Yeah! Nice goin', dudes!" Soos added as Wendy sent the group a proud thumbs up.
"Huh," Stan noted largely to himself as he stood a few steps back from the others. "What do ya know? Those knuckleheads actually came through after all…"
"Where in the world did you kids find it?" Greg asked, amazed.
"It's a… long story," Dipper said tiredly.
"There's no time to waste," Garnet stepped up to the cannon. "We have to use the cannons now." Upon summoning her gauntlets, she used them to get a good grip on the cannon before hoisting it up into the air. Despite her formidable strength, she still struggled under the weapon's weight, which was why the others all stepped in to help her as best they could. Together, the group of Gems and humans carried the cannon up the hill, gently setting it down next to its twin. They both faced the Red Eye, the only two weapons capable of destroying it, and yet…
"So, uh…" Wendy cleared her throat as the cannons remained still and stationary. "Are they gonna blow that thing up, or…?"
"What should we do?" Dipper asked the Gems. "Is there like a button or a switch or something on them?"
The Gems exclaimed an anxious glance before Pearl admitted the frightening truth. "We don't know how they work! They were Rose's!"
"Dad, do you know how to use them?" Steven asked his father. After all, if Rose had entrusted one of them to him, certainly he'd know at least a little about it, right? Greg, however, could only offer his son a hopeless shrug in return.
"Steven, this is serious!" Pearl snapped. She started, however, when she noticed Steven's shirt blowing a bit from the intense winds the Red Eye was stirring up. And under that shirt was none other than– "The Gem…" she gasped, eyes wide. "You have Rose's gem!"
"That's it!" Amethyst grabbed Steven, roughly shoving him against one of the cannons. Despite her best efforts, the cannon didn't react to Steven or his gem, much to Amethyst's mounting frustration. "Aw, come on!"
"Stop that," Garnet ordered, taking Steven and setting him back onto the ground.
"So if Steven can't activate them, what are we supposed to do?" Mabel asked, worried.
"Let's just forget about the cannons!" Amethyst shouted. "Throw me again!"
"That's not going to work," Pearl scoffed.
"Maybe we should just beat the stupid things until they start working," Stan huffed. His impatience only narrowly masked the dread rising in his gut each time he so much as glanced up at the Red Eye. Dread that nearly drove him to grab Dipper and Mabel and run for cover, leaving the Gems to fend for themselves. And yet, against his better judgment, he didn't .
"Yo, dudes, maybe they're broken," Soos suggested as gently as he could. "I could see if I could fix them really quick. Though I'm not sure where to put the nails or screws…"
"They're not broken!" Pearl cried as she desperately gripped one of the cannons. "We just need to… Oh, I don't know!" she admitted again, almost on the verge of tears. "If only Rose were here! She would know exactly what to do!"
As noisy fear rippled over the entire group, the kids spared a glance up at the sky, all three of them realizing just how dire their circumstances really were. The Red Eye nearly encompassed the entire sky above the forest, staring down at everyone and everything below it with some unknown, unstoppable intent. The closer it got to the ground, the more it began to develop a gravitational pull, dragging leaves and loose debris toward it. Even the cannons themselves weren't immune, to the point that the Gems had to throw themselves onto the weapons just to keep them anchored to the ground.
"What do we do?! What do we do?!" Mabel grabbed the sides of her hair, utterly terrified.
Dipper wasn't able to supply her with much of an answer outside of an equally anxious glance. He did peer down at his vest, pulling it back a bit to reveal the journal still hidden inside. In their search for the second cannon, he'd poured over anything even remotely mentioning the weapons. Yet nothing so much as hinted on how to actually activate them. What may have just been a minor oversight on the author's part in the past could prove to be deadly to them all in the present, and yet…
"Please!" Steven resorted to pleading to the cannons directly as he stepped into the space between them. "You guys have to work, unlock, activate, go, something ! Everyone's counting on you! My friends and I worked so hard to find you both in time! You can't just be useless! I know you can help!"
Despite his emerging tears, the cannons still did nothing. Steven nearly choked on a sob as he felt his father's hand come to rest securely on his shoulder. "Hey, it's ok, kiddo," Greg assured with a soft, sincere smile. "We'll figure something else out. Something better."
Steven sniffled, wiping a few of his tears dry. "Y-yeah," he forced himself to share his father's smile, his father's hope . "If every pork chop were perfect, we wouldn't have hot dogs."
He was just about ready to move on, to begin looking for a different way to save the town. But then, without warning, both Light Cannons began to glow .
"Oh my gosh!" Mabel noticed it as soon as Steven did, and she wasted no time telling the others. "Look, you guys! The cannons are working now!"
Sure enough, both cannons were brimming a bright, vibrant pink light. As their muzzles began to open, their tips bloomed with a powerful kind of energy, a sure sign they were quickly charging for a decisive shot. And yet, without any support, the cannons fell forward, set to aim at the forest ahead instead of the Red Eye above. If they only had one shot at this, they certainly couldn't let it go to waste like that.
Steven tried to lift one of them back up, only to quickly realize his strength wouldn't be anywhere near enough. To his surprise, however, he soon found he wasn't alone. Dipper joined him first, sharing the load of the same cannon as he offered him a small, supportive smile. A far cry from the panicked fury he'd had for him back in the woods.
More hands soon joined the effort, with Mabel, the Gems, Soos, Wendy, Greg, and even Stan piling in to help. They split up between the two cannons, pushing them straight up at the Red Eye as the ground beneath them rattled violently. There were only mere minutes left to spare, perhaps even seconds now. But even still, they all clung onto the Light Cannons, each of them silently hoping and praying they'd somehow be enough to save them.
"Ok, these things can fire any second now!" Stan shouted above the chaotic din.
"Wait! I think this is it!" Pearl called. Sure enough, the cannons began to shake as the light surrounding them both became practically blinding.
"Brace yourselves!" Garnet ordered. Her voice was almost entirely drowned out, however, as the cannons finally unleashed their incredible power in full.
They fired in perfect harmony, two beams of pale pink light dancing up toward the sky together. As they approached the Red Eye, they conjoined, briefly taking the shape of the very Gem the cannons once belonged to. Her visage spiraled toward the Red Eye until, in a flash of pure, radiant glow, it struck its target straight in its pupil. For a moment, the Red Eye's crimson light was drowned out by the heavy white cracks overtaking its surface. And then, all at once, it exploded in a shower of light.
As that light faded, the world slowly began to regain its natural coloration as the night sky above came into view. The rushing winds stilled as gravity returned to normal, allowing peaceful silence to settle in, only interrupted first by the sounds of the Red Eye's debris crashing down into the distant forest. And then, by the group who had stood in awe and watched the orb's dazzling destruction.
"I can't believe it…" Dipper muttered, still staring up at the sky. "It actually… worked… "
"Now that was sick," Wendy added, just as amazed.
"WOO WHOO!!!" Mabel cheered triumphantly. "We did it! We saved the town!"
"But… I don't understand…" Pearl said. "How did you get them to work?"
"I just said that thing Dad always says," Steven shrugged, smiling.
"That thing about the pork rinds?"
"Pork chops ," Garnet corrected.
Despite the celebration surrounding him, Greg kept his sights on the spot where the cannons had fired, his eyes wet with tears. "Rose…" he whispered longingly, lovingly. Because even though she was gone, in some small way, through her son or through something else entirely, so many shades of her were still here all the same.
"Well, I gotta hand it to you runts," Stan placed a hand on Dipper and Mabel's shoulders, smirking down at them both. "You really came through by finding those girly cannons. I didn't think you could do it, but… I guess you proved your ol' grunkle wrong. Good job."
"Aw, Grunkle Stan, are you going soft on us?" Mabel asked, playfully hugging his leg.
"No," Stan turned his nose up as he tried shaking her away. "Get off of me, will ya, ya little gremlin?" He nearly succeeded in driving her off, until someone else happened to land squarely on his back, nearly knocking him over altogether. "Augh! Amethyst!" he yelled over her mischievous laughter. "Cut it out!"
Dipper couldn't help but laugh himself as he watched Stan struggle to free himself from both of their forceful hugs. His attention was soon pulled away, however, when Steven stepped up and tapped his shoulder. "Um, Dipper?" he began quietly, apologetically. "I just… I wanted to say I'm sorry about what happened in the woods. I really shouldn't have taken the journal like that. I was so worried about upsetting the Gems; I didn't even think about how I might upset you ."
"It's ok, Steven, really," Dipper assured, smiling. "I get why you did it. You really look up to the Gems. And though they aren't perfect, I can see why you do. They're so different from anyone I've ever met before; they can use magic, they fight monsters, they're apparently immortal . Can you really blame me for wanting to know just a little more about them?"
"No, 'cause I do too!" Steven said with a small, genuine chuckle. "That's all I've wanted most of my life! But until they're ready to open up to us themselves, well… I guess the journal's as good a way as any to start learning."
"It sure is," Dipper soundly agreed. He extended a hand out to Steven to show there were no lasting hard feelings. "Friends?"
Steven couldn't help himself. This time, he leapt forward, throwing his arms around Dipper as he wrapped him in a tight, happy hug. " Best friends!"
"Yay!" Mabel, now free from Stan's leg, rushed over. Both boys were more than happy to welcome her into their fond embrace. "More hugs!"
The Gems were the first to share a warm laugh over such a sweet display, and everyone else soon followed. Even Stan managed a smile, one that didn't go away as he and the Gems silently acknowledged each other. Despite the differences they had with each other, right now they shared the same sort of relief that they were still standing here, still alive.
And, they shared the same pride and gratitude toward the kids who had, against all the odds, somehow saved them all.
"RED EYE OFFLINE. SCAN FAILED."
"What? Impossible. I had my top technicians calibrate that Red Eye. How are we supposed to check the status of the Cluster now?"
"You know, maybe I could help with that!"
"Oh joy … It's you again… What could you possibly want this time, Cipher?"
"Aw, what? I can't just pop in to say 'hello' to my good pal Yellow?"
"If that's all you're here for then please, be on your way. I have no time to indulge your ridiculous games."
"What's the matter, Yellow? Miffed that that eye of yours was blown to bits? You know, as big of a fan as I am of giant, standalone eyeballs, that thing wasn't very idiot-proof, even for you."
"Don't you dare mock me, Cipher! I'll have you know that Red Eye was the newest model, one of the finest pieces of our surveillance technology!"
"Geez, no need to get a crack in your gem there! Still, if that eye was so 'advanced', you gotta wonder how a bunch of plain ol' fleshbags managed to take it out."
"What are you… Wait… You mean humans destroyed it? That's… No. Those primitive creatures could never have-"
"Hey, I'm pretty surprised myself, Yellow. I guess those dumb Earthlings are a bit more plucky than ya thought, huh?"
"It hardly matters. The Cluster will wipe the entirety of that pathetic species from existence soon enough. Still, I need to see how it's developing… I suppose I'll have to send a Peridot there to reestablish the warp stream and evaluate the Kindergarten directly. Always something…"
"Aw, don't be so blue, Yellow! Tell ya what, I'll keep an eye on the place for ya too. If I find anything interesting , then you'll be the first to know!"
"I'd better be… And as for the Earth-"
"Don't worry about it! I've got big plans, you've got big plans, and once we put both our plans together, well, let's just say that pesky mudball's days in the sun are about to come to an end ."
"At last… After what happened to her , it's the only fate that wretched planet deserves…"