~~~~~~~~~Dipper's POV~~~~~~~~~

"Morning, Dipper! Guess who~!"

Letting out a scream at the weird voice, my eyes opening to see Mabel's chin in front of me with two googly eyes glued to it.

I let out a sigh. "Oh, what joy, if it isn't Mr. Upside-Downington. How long's it been? Third grade, maybe?"

"That's right. And I'm here to deliver you an upside-downington-tastic message!"

"Is it the message that we're getting too old for this sort of thing?"

"Um, kinda, actually." She went back to her normal voice, running over to the calendar on the wall. "It's that we are exactly one week away from our 13th birthday!"

"Whoa! Our birthday's coming up already? Soon we're gonna be actual teenagers!"

"Finally! I can stop reading preteen magazines and start reading post-preteen magazines!"

"PG-13 movies, here I come!"

"And just one more year until high school! High school, Dipper!! Where girls become women and they teach us stuff about..." She turned us around and whispered.  "You know what~.."

"Trigonometry?"

"Oh yeah, baby!"

"That's not the only good news coming up!" Stan said as he entered the room with Soos. "In one week my senior citizen's ponytail kit is coming in the mail! ... I'm- I'm kinda going through some things."

"In one week, my grandma is finally letting me eat crackers on my bed!" Soos added. "The future is coming for us all, dudes!"

"The future!"

"The future!!"

"The future!!"

Looking over at Mabel, I let out a laugh. "I'm sorry, I can't take you seriously with that face on your chin."

"What face, Dipper?!"

"You're- You're doing the voice so you obviously know what I'm talking about!"

"Bi bon't bnow bhat bou're balking about!!"

Both of us laughing again, I pushed her away. "There's something wrong with you."

"There's something wrong with both of us."

That's when Leo peeked into the room. "Everyone downstairs, people, Ms. (l/n) made pancakes."

"PANCAKES!!" Mabel yelled before taking off the googly eyes and running downstairs, all of us following.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Alright, party planners!!" Mabel began as she paced around the living room with a checklist. "In one week we become teenagers and our summer vacation winds to an end, so we need to throw the greatest party of all time!!! I'm talking piñatas with tinier piñatas inside!!!"

Soos was already pouring many tiny piñatas into a normal piñata. "Boom, dreams coming true!!"

"I'm talking inviting everyone in town!!!" She tapped her chin with the pen. "Let's see, where do we stand with the gnomes...."

Stan quickly walked over with a glare. "Not so fast, doofus and girl doofuses. After that zombie incident no one's throwing another party at my house! I keep fighting little bits of the undead in the couch cushion."

"Not to mention (y/n) can't enter the shack right now either.." I whispered to her, to which she puffed her cheeks with a pout.

"But we need some roof to raise!!"

"What about renting the Gravity Falls high school gym?" Leo recommended as he walked over. "That place is empty all summer long, and it's got a lot of room for a party."

"The gym's a great idea, Soos!!" She gave him a quick hug, making him chuckle. "Thank you!!"

"DIPPER, MY FACE IS ON FIRE!!!"  We all heard Ford yell from the other room, making me smile awkwardly at everyone.

"I'll just be a sec." Quickly running out of the room, I found Ford with smoke on his chin. "Great uncle Ford, are you okay?!"

"Oh yes, I'm fine. I just said that to make sure you'd come in here quickly."

"But.. your face is on fire!"

"Yes, it's much faster than shaving." He patted his face, the smoke fading away. "Now listen, Dipper, we have a very important mission and you are the only one that can help me."

My eyes widened when he took out the rift's container. "Remember the rift in dimensional space time I showed you? It's cracking. This is what Bill has been waiting for, if it breaks it would cause reality as we know it to completely unravel! A hypothetical and catastrophic event that I call.. Weirdmageddon."

He took the blanket off the chalkboard against the wall, showing me the sketches he had made of such event, and it didn't look safe for anyone..

"Bill is out there, and he'd use any trick, from deception to outright possession to make this happen. But for the sake of humanity we mustn't let it!"

"What do we do?!"

"We patch the rift." He replied while placing the rift in a case. "I'll explain on the way."

An idea then came to mind. "Oh wait, what about Mabel?"

"It's okay, Dipper." I turned to the door, seeing her holding two bags. "You should totally go with Grunkle Ford to save the world or whatever!"

"Are you sure?"

"We're gonna be doing birthday junk all week! Plus I packed us bags! Here's one for my party mission and one for your smarty mission!"

Ford then cleared his throat. "I did mention that the fate of the universe is at stake, didn't I? Hurry, we haven't much time!"

Before I could leave, Mabel tapped my arm. "If this is about Bill, shouldn't you call (y/n) for help? Or even Leo?"

"We can handle this. Besides, (y/n's) still pretty sensitive about the whole Bill situation. Not to mention I don't want Ford getting suspicious of her being a Cipher, he might try to get rid of her.."

"Oh, true.. Well, you got this, broski!!"

I nodded with a smile, then took a deep breath as I spoke to myself. "Okay, Dipper, it's your first big mission with Ford, a chance to prove yourself!"

Then I crashed into the wall. Great start.

~~~~~~~~~Your POV~~~~~~~~~

"And now for a truly lovely concert with Aiden!!"

"(y/n)!!" He quickly hid the piano in his arms with his own body as younger me walked over with the camera. "D-don't film this!!"

"It's for memories, Aidston! C'mon, show your skill!"

"No, I'm terrible at this.."

"We're worse than you." His friend Ryan walked over, ruffling his hair. "C'mon, play something."

"Yeah, okay for the camera!!"

With cheeks pink and puffed out in embarrassment, he began to play a soft melody.

At the moment, I had sat on my couch and watched the old videos from years ago on a camera Mom had gotten for me back then. I was so excited about it that I'd always film everything around me, whether it was to film his musical talents, or for spying on him and Ryan, or for just capturing moments of us hanging out. I even filmed a few moments during the time Leo was here healing after escaping.

Actually, I hadn't seen Ryan in a long time either, he basically locked himself in his house after Aiden went missing..

It was painful to watch, yet at the same time, it brought me comfort.

I looked down at my little beaver, who was snuggled against my stomach. "That's who you were named after, you know.."

He let out the little squeaks he would normally do, which I found adorable, and I gently scratched his head.

That's when there was a knock on my door, and I turned off my camera as I placed Aiden aside, walking over and opening the door.

"Hey (y/n)!!" Mabel waved, standing beside Leo before pulling out what looked like an invitation. "We need your help with our birthday mission!"

"Birthday mission, huh?" I walked outside, closing the door behind me. "Alright, I'm down."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We ended up going to the high school's gym to see if it was okay to rent it out for the party. Surprisingly though, when we entered, it was filled with people.

Mabel looked around. "Whoa, I thought you said this place was empty!"

"It's supposed to be." Leo replied, an eyebrow raised.

We then saw Wendy wave over at us from the line. "My dogs, what up!"

"Wendy!!" We all walked over, Mabel smiling at her. "What are you doing here?!"

She let out a groan. "High school registration."

At the realization, I shrunk in place. "Oh yeah, I forgot that was today. I'll come back tomorrow, it usually takes three days. I'm starting ninth grade this year."

"Ooh!!" Mabel pulled out her notepad. "You know, I'm only a year away from high school myself!Would you say your experience is more rom-com or wacky rom?!"

"More like teen horror movie!!" Wendy yelled in anger. "High school is the worst!! Classes get super hard, your body just flat out turns against you, and worst of all, everybody hates you!!" She pointed over at all the other teens who were just ... being teens.

Mabel's face went from joy to worry. "Why aren't they singing about following their dreams..? Tv taught me that high school is like some sort of musical!"

"Tv lied, man!! If you could avoid growing up, do it! I'd give anything to be twelve again.." We day then gave a smile. "Anyways, what are you guys doing here?"

"Oho, just looking for a place to have my 13th birthday party.."

Leo placed a hand on her shoulder. "Oh c'mon, it can't be that bad."

"Wendy-... Boarduroy?" The man at the front desk called. "I-I mean Corduroy?"

Everyone began to laugh at that, even though it wasn't even funny, but Wendy seemed to be really bothered by it. "See what I mean?" She then went over to the desk.

She didn't reply, only walking outside with a defeated look. Leo and I exchanged a worried glance before following, seeing her sitting down at the steps with the walkie talkie.

"Master Mabel to Dippity Dog, we can have our party at the gym but we gotta talk about high school.. I'm starting to think it might not be he awesome future we were expecting, over.."

"I'm going- through- a bad patch- Mabel- We'll talk when- I- get back-"

"Dipper? Come in, come in?!" Realizing She couldn't get through, she let out a sigh.

Leo then walked over, placing a hand on her shoulder. "Hey, I know what'll make you feel better. How about we tell your friends the news?"

She smiled at that, standing up. "Yeah!"

Once at Grenda's house, Mabel rushed over to the door, knocking on it. Grenda only took a few seconds to answer it, smiling at her. "Oh, hi Mabel!!!"

"You're just in time for our one o'clock boy talk!!" Candy added as she walked over.

"If you think that's good.." She showed them the birthday invitation she had made. "Boom!!! Me and Dipper's 13th birthday jam!!"

However, their faces quickly fell at the sight, Grenda taking the invitation. "Aw man, your birthday's in the last day of summer?!? I'm not gonna be here..!!!"

"What..?!"

"Marius is flying me out to Austria to hang out at his castle or whatever that week. He's so clingy!!!"

"You're gonna be out of town for my birthday..? But at least you can come, right Candy?!?"

Candy shook her head. "Sorry, Mabel, my parents send me to music camp this time of year. There is no escape from music.."

"So neither of you are gonna be at my birthday party..?! And you want be able to wish me goodbye at the end of summer..?!"

They both wrapped their arms around her in a hug. "I'm sorry, Mabel.."

"Summer happened so fast..." Grenda then pulled away as her phone rang. "Ugh, Marius!!! Now's not the time!!!"

"I think I need to radio for emotional back up..." Mabel walked back to us, trying to speak to the walkie talkie. "Dipper, please come in, our party mission is going down in flames, over..."

Only static was heard in return, and let out a sigh with a gloomy face. I myself was feeling really bad for her, and I didn't know how to make things better..

The three of us then sat on the grass right at the protection shield border, still trying to get in contact with Dipper. We had tried to reach him for half an hour, but still, the only thing heard was static. Eventually she gave up in trying and headed inside the shack.

Both of us were worried, but I couldn't follow to check if she was okay..

Leo turned to me, giving me a smile. "Don't worry, I'll keep an eye on her.."

"Alright.."

Since there wasn't much I could do, I decided to head back home.

Although.. maybe a walk around the forest wouldn't be bad.

~~~~~~~~~Dipper's POV~~~~~~~~~

Today had been an amazing day!!

Well, partially amazing, when I wasn't terrified for my life, but holy cow was it cool!!

Ford took me to a super old underground alien bunker to find some goop that would glue the rift back up, but we ended up accidentally triggering the security system which almost sent Ford into space forever!

Luckily, hero Dipper Pines was there too save the day!!

Running into the room, I couldn't help the smile on my face as I started to explain. "Mabel, I just had the best day of my life!!! UFOs are real and there's one under the town and I saved Great Uncle Ford's life and- and-!!"

However, I quickly grew worried when I saw that she was lying on her bed, her back facing me as Leo signaled me to stop. "Hey, are you okay..?"

"Tell me it's not true, Dipper... Tell me you were joking!" She sat up to face me, my eyes widened when she showed me the walkie talkie. "Ford's apprentice?! Seriously?!"

"Look, I was thinking and this is a huge opportunity for me!"

"Well it's a horrible opportunity for me!!!" She yelled, tears streaming down her face. "I had the worst day of my life!!! When we turn thirteen, the summer ends, and I have to leave everything behind!!! You're the only person I can count on and now you're leaving me too?!?"

"Look, I've been thinking about it; I won't be gone forever, okay? I'll still visit you at home, and we'll chat online, we'll make it work!"

"I don't want it to work!! I just wish summer could last forever..!"

"But it can't, Mabel.. Look, things aren't gonna stay frozen this way.." I placed a hand on her shoulder. "It's part of growing up.. Things change, summer ends.."

But instead on her understanding, she let out a cry and ran out of the room, making me stumble forward with a yell. "Mabel, wait!! I didn't mean it like that!! Mabel, come back!!!"

What did I do..?!

~~~~~~~~~Your POV~~~~~~~~~

The wall didn't take too long, it was just something I did sometimes to relax, and get new ingredients for potions.

But.. there was an odd sensation in the forest this time..

Something horrible...

"Huh, that's odd.. This it?" I heard Mabel's voice not too far from here, running over and hiding behind a tree when I saw her talking to the time traveler guy we had met months ago.

He gave a smile. "Yes, that's it! Just hand it over and I'll do my thing! Unless you're ready to leave Gravity Falls~"

"... Just a little more summer.."

When she offered whatever he asked for, my eyes widened at what she had in her hands..

The rift!!

"MABEL, NO!!!"

She turned to me as I ran over. "Huh?! (y/n)?!"

Before I could reach though, the man snatched the orb out of her hands before throwing it on the ground and stepping on it, breaking it into pieces. "Oops!"

"What?!?"

The man's eyes grew yellow, pupils thin, but I had already realized what had happened before this. Leaving his body, Bill Cipher cackled loudly as the rift shifted to above, a crack opening in the sky.

"Oh no!! Wait wait!!" Mabel waved her hands in dismiss, regretting her decision. Before anything else though, she fainted when Bill waved his hands.

Growing afraid, I shot him a glare. "What did you do to her?!?"

"It's nothing serious, Little Sun! I'm just sending her to the place she asked to be! And don't worry.." A golden chain then wrapped around me, lifting me up in the air. "I'll take you to the place you've wanted to go since that day.."

That.. day..?

Cackling once more, he floated up to the sky with me forced to follow. "Who's ready to party?!?"

Thanks for reading!!! 'Till next time!!!

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