The Seekers of Truth and The Traveler
Here's an eclectic mix of series to tell a story with. After no small of poking and prodding from the team, Legends: A Story of Lies is coming here too. Enjoy a story full of mystery, magic, monsters, and people getting punched in the face.
Disclaimer: The following is a fanfiction. Gravity Falls, Star vs. The Forces of Evil, Kim Possible, and Big Bad Beetleborgs are property of their respective owners, creators, and publishers. Please support the official releases. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
TW: This story will contain original characters, references to physical and psychological abuse, murder, and torture.
Over 1500 planes land per day at Los Angeles International Airport. Coming from all over the world, they range from single-engine civil prop planes to massive two and four engine jet airliners carrying hundreds of people. On this bright and sunny Saturday morning, one plane caught more than a few eyes as it lined up with the runway and began its final approach. Like the other intercontinental-range jets it was a twin-engine, wide-body aircraft, but painted a splash of wild blues, whites, and reds, with numerous WW2 and onward era aircraft flying in-formation towards the nose of the plane. In white letters above the windows and over the wing, the words The Faithful Pony’s Flying Circus ended with the image of a little blue Pegasus dashing with a rainbow streak behind it.
Inside the terminal, two travelers were waiting for their ride out of the airport. A set of twins–a brown-haired boy and a girl–the rather tall boy wore a lumberjack’s cap, a pair of cargo pants, and an orange t-shirt with a blue pine tree on the front, while his statuesque sister was wearing a large loose violet sweater over a black top and a bright pink skirt over dark leggings. They were huddled close together, watching the screen of a tablet computer showing a YouTube channel with a loading stream.
The screen came to life, revealing the view of a fogged-up camera.
“Guess who?” a girl’s voice asked before a finger wiped the fog, revealing the grinning face of a young woman about the same age as the teen twins. Blonde-haired, blue-eyed, with a pair of heart-shaped marks on her fair-skinned cheeks, she wore a dark green dress with a red devil-horn headband and a spider-shaped necklace as accessories. “It’s me Star!”
Star moved the laptop around and repositioned herself to reveal she was sitting on a bathroom sink. “I have some exciting news for you. Well first, Marco got kidnapped, and I blew up a bunch of stuff, including my wand.”
Star moved the laptop to her left hand so she could reach into the sink’s drawer. “And I was super bummed because I thought I was never gonna get to do magic again, but then I got… my new wa-!”
She stopped, realizing she’d whipped out a brush with a piece of gum stuck on it. “Oh.”
Rapidly she swapped it out for a pink and gold scepter with wings sprouted from its head. The face of the wand sported a single bright gold star that half of was completely black. “My new wand!”
Almost as an afterthought, Star added. “Oh and Marco’s okay. Say hi Marco!”
The camera’s view became a blur, moving until it stopped on a light brown-skinned, brown-eyed young man with a beauty mark under his right eye, wrapped in a floral-print bath towel, pulling another around his head. Seeing the camera pointed at him, he lunged towards it. “Hey-!”
The camera went dark, and the stream came to a sudden end.
Dipper Pines held the tablet out when it didn’t come back on. “Wait, that’s it? A week and a half of nothing and then less than a minute of stream.”
His sister Mabel was of a different opinion. “Seeing Marco fresh out the shower was well worth the wait.”
Dipper gave his sister a flat look. “Could you focus?”
Mabel smirked, giving him a wry look. “Whatever you liked it.”
Dipper rolled his eyes. “It sounds like a lot has happened, but at least she’s still here in our world.”
The smirk on his sister’s face turned into a beatific grin. “Yeah, and we’re actually gonna meet her!” She placed her hands over her heart. “We’re going to be the best friends ever!”
“Yeah, and maybe the world won’t come to a horrifying end,” Dipper added.
Years ago, the two spent a summer with their Great Uncle in a remote, heavily forested, and off-beat town called Gravity Falls, Oregon. What would’ve been a boring summer for two kids straight out of the rich part of the Bay Area turned into supernatural, disturbing, and outright apocalyptic adventures to determine the fate of everything from pet pigs to the entire universe. It left an impression on the two that brought them to Los Angeles to spend a school year in the sprawling metropolis locked in an eternal summer.
Princess Star Butterfly, a magical girl from another world, had come to live among humans in their world–and was actively blogging her exploits in the town of Echo Creek in northern Los Angeles. Whereas most people dismissed the bright colors and magical explosions as Hollywood high technology special effects for a way overproduced web series, Dipper–well-experienced with the weird and paranormal–knew a supernatural anomaly when he saw it.
After a lot of wrangling with their parents, and a lot of Mabel’s sheer charisma bolstering his argument, the twins were here in Los Angeles to meet Star. Dipper wanted to record data on Star to learn more about her, her magic, and her world (to make certain that she, it, and anything associated with either wasn’t a threat to reality). Mabel, being the effervescent and outgoing person she was, wanted to be best friends with the girliest girl that could beat up monsters she’d ever seen.
“On that note,” Dipper said, “Did you see her wand? There was something definitely wrong with it, why was half of it black?”
“Well, it is her new wand.” Mabel took an instant to think. “Oh, maybe it’s an edgy new upgrade, to reflect the dark turn of Marco getting kidnapped.”
“That’s another thing that bothered me,” Dipper said as he leaned back into his seat and watched a taxiing jumbo jet pass by. “Someone kidnapped Marco and forced Star to blow up her wand? That doesn’t sound like something the monsters they’ve been fighting could push her to do.”
“She didn’t seem too concerned about it, she did kinda just mention that Marco was fine like it wasn’t a big thing.”
Dipper’s resolve to find out why only hardened. “These are just more questions to answer.”
A flash of color caught his eye, and both twins looked up in time to see the bright livery of The Faithful Pony’s Flying Circus pass as it made its landing roll. Dipper nearly rose from his chair, to follow the plane. “Hey, look at that.”
“Wow, that was a cute paint job!” Mabel got up entirely and went to the window. “Did it say what airline it was?”
“I didn’t see.”
Mabel heard a buzzing from the bright pink purse she carried on her. She pulled out her sleek smartphone–with a cat shaped protective case and a shooting star sticker on the back–and looked at the message. “Sherpa said he’s three lights away from the airport.
Dipper nodded and got up. “Let’s go meet him.”
While the two began their long walk towards the terminal main entrance, a black-haired woman wearing a green shirt and tight black pants standing further the other direction watched the colorful plane turn off the runway. Getting up and slipping on a thin black jacket over her shirt, she tapped an earpiece and spoke quietly. “The plane just landed. You’d better be in position.”
“You bet, I’m waiting at the front right now, Green Machine,” a young man with a Spanish accent answered.
The woman rolled her eyes. “I know that this is your scheme, and it’s a good one, but next time we do this? I’m choosing the codenames, Latin Fire.”
“Of course,” the young man assured her. “Now please, hurry up?”
Her smirk bearing a sinister confidence, the woman headed in the same direction as the twins.
Pulling up to the terminal, The Faithful Pony’s Flying Circus came to a stop and the terminal’s air tunnel connected the plane to the building. Despite the size of the aircraft and the distance it traveled, only one passenger disembarked from the massive jet. A short and curvy teenaged girl with long violet hair filled with streaks of white, stepped out of the gate and into the terminal. She wore a red dress under a blue jean jacket, and a cream-colored sun hat with a red ribbon. Stepping out of the tunnel, she looked back to the flight crew following her off and bowed.
“Danke, dass ihr auf mich aufgepasst habt!” Coming up from her bow, she wore a brilliant smile radiating her gratitude for both their fine flying, and for finally being on the ground after twelve hours of non-stop flight.
The pilot and co-pilot both tipped their hats to the young woman. “Gern geschehen, Miss Darlian.”
She waved and turned to head into the terminal. “Bye bye!”
Misao Darlian, a Swiss-born girl of Japanese and German mixed descent walked with a spring in her step and a gleam in her gray-colored eyes, onto a moving sidewalk that would take her to the front of the terminal.
It was her last year of high school, and after grade school in Germany and both middle and high school in the south of France, she wanted to go out with a bang on her senior year: High School in the United States of America–specifically in beautiful Beverly Hills, where she would spend her days making friends, flirting shamelessly, and enjoying every summer-like day until graduation absorbing the American zeitgeist. It was going to be wonderful.
The moving walkway passed a set of tall ultra-high-definition television screens against the wall opposite the window. As Misao looked up at the first monitor, she saw a comic book page featuring three high tech warriors in blue, red, and green beetle-themed armor firing blasters at a horde of monsters surrounding them.
“Big Bad Beetleborg Movie in doubt,” the caption read, “Second director for the film withdraws from the project, citing mental health-related reasons.”
Misao looked at the news report puzzled. She wasn’t too keen on superhero movies, but she always imagined that they’d be fun or exciting to make–not this one it seemed. It didn’t matter much to her; comic book superheroes weren’t really her interest.
On the very next screen was a news report featuring a red-haired young woman in a midriff-baring shirt and cargo pants battling a short Scotsman armed with golf clubs. The redhead, fighting with gymnastic agility and kung fu, was making short work of the golf club swinging maniac as bystanders ran for cover on a crowded Golf Course.
The headline read: “Kim Possible defeats Duff Killigan, saves newly opened golf course from destruction.”
Misao smiled and nodded her approval of a real hero. She looked to the last screen, and an advertisement displaying a sitcom starring an African American family.
“A family that takes the stage together, stays together!” the tagline read above the smiling father, mother, adult daughter, teen son, and preteen daughter. Off to the side, an elderly pair, clearly a grandfather and grandmother, stood back-to-back with their arms folded and looking sassy with their raised eyebrows and wise smirks. “From Our Family to Yours: The Family Sitcom starring a real family! Tonight at 8!”
The Haleys, America’s most popular family on this side of an animation studio. To the surprise of Misao and her family, when she applied for the exchange program in the US, they were the first people to offer their home to her. Without a second thought in turn, Misao jumped at the chance to live with them and rub elbows with Hollywood elite.
Du musst diese Serie gucken. She thought to herself as she looked at the suave styled teen son in the picture. He was a handsome young man with a mohawk haircut, and a diamond pattern cut into the much shorter hair surrounding the strip.
Wenigstens die letzte Folge… She added to the end of her thought with a giggle. Ob ick wohl jemand bekanntes treffe? Wir sind schließlich in Hollywood…
Stepping off the moving walkway and making a right, she merged with Dipper and Mabel making a left from the other direction.
“I hope Waddles will be okay taking the long way here,” Mabel said to her brother, unaware of the girl beside them.
Dipper sighed. “I still can’t believe you insisted he come with us.”
“He’d be crawling up the walls back home without me.”
Dipper sucked in some air through the corner of his mouth. “Yeah, but I’m not sure about Grandpa…”
Mabel was insistent on the brighter side. “If Grunkle Stan was able to fight dinosaurs for him, then Sherpa won’t be bothered; no one can say no to a face like Waddles!”
On the second mention of Waddles, Misao looked up at the tall girl and her brother, and her eyes widened in recognition. With eager bounce in her step, she sidled a little closer to them. “Excuse me?”
Hearing German-tipped English, Mabel looked down at the small and round girl walking beside them. She lit up. “Hello! What can I do for you?”
“Are you… Mabel?” Misao asked. “The girl from YouTube with the guide to life?”
“Huh…?” Dipper looked at Misao, noticing right away her exotic looks. He escaped staring, looking between her and Mabel. “Uh…”
Mabel gasped. “Oh my gosh yes! I’m Mabel and I do have a guide to life on YouTube!”
Misao clapped her hands together, she hadn’t even left the airport and already ran into a star! “I love your series it’s so cute and funny!”
Dipper raised an eyebrow. Cute and funny wasn’t something he’d call his sister’s YouTube channel. Mabel shot for cute when she worked the camera, but it came off as weird, surreal, disturbing enough get her channel threatened with deletion twice, and once got them a visit from a concerned Piedmont Police Department.
“You really like it?” Mabel asked.
“Ja, my friends and I love it so much!”
Now it made sense. German sense of humor.
“Well, it is always nice to meet a fan,” Mabel humblebragged, before she extended her hand. “And who would you be?”
Misao took hers and shook it. “I’m Misao Darlian, just a humble exchange student spending her last year of high school in America.”
Mabel gasped. “Shut up! Is this your first time here?”
“My first time on my own, and definitely here in LA.”
“SHUT UP!” Mabel bounced up and down. “Oh my gosh you’re going to love it! Los Angeles is the most exciting town in the entire world! I mean I’ve only been here to see my Sherpa every couple of Hanukkahs, but it is so amazing.”
Dipper smiled; there went Mabel, making friends with a total stranger. It was always a sight to see and enjoy, more so when the stranger returned the enthusiasm and didn’t attempt to awkwardly withdraw.
Misao held up her phone. “I have a whole bucket list of places I want to go to.”
“Oh! Oh! Me too!” Mabel pulled out her own phone.
Misao laughed. “Your case is so cute! Share notes?”
“Hehe, thank you, and yes!”
Not even out of the terminal and she already sealed the deal. Dipper had a good feeling about this trip already. Or he did until he looked ahead of them and had his own moment of recognition–though the shock wasn’t a good one.
“Rodeo Drive?” Misao asked.
“I saved up so much money for it,” Mabel replied. “Venice Beach?”
“Ja, ja!” Misao confirmed. “Chinese theater?”
“Duh! How about Randyland?”
Misao paused and did a double-take. “… What is Randyland?”
That sounded a little dirty.
Mabel stared at Misao, like the girl had never heard of air or water. “Oh. My gosh. Add it to your list or you will be sad forever.”
“Very well!” Misao gave her a knowing look. “I bet I know what’s next on your list.”
“Come on, you don’t come to Los Angeles without even thinking of going there. We’ll say it together, okay?”
Misao nodded. “Okay! Ein, zwei, drei-!”
“Disneyland!” They shouted together and burst into laughter.
“Uh, hey, Misao?” Dipper asked with the doors of the terminal coming up.
Misao, still giggling, looked over at him. “Hm? What is it?”
“Your ride’s waiting for you, right?” He slowed his pace, and both Mabel and Misao followed suit.
“Hm, my host family was sending a driver, yes,” Misao confirmed.
Looking ahead, she saw a swarthy, handsome, broad-shouldered man holding a sign with her name on it. “Oh… I hope that’s him~”
“I don’t think it is,” Dipper warned. “Don’t make eye contact, because I’m pretty sure that’s Señor Senior Junior.”
Misao performed a discrete double-take with disbelief. “Wait–the supervillain?”
Mabel looked ahead at the chauffeur's face, and a blush broke out across hers. “Oh man, I’d let him kidnap me any day.”
For the life of him, Dipper couldn’t even imagine why the son of a world-renowned thief and general menace was here trying to pick up a random German girl. He was, however, thankful that his preoccupation with the strange and unknown made it easy to spot him. “Just keep walking, pretend you don’t see him.”
“Mmhm, I know what to do in these situations,” Misao assured Dipper, though she was a little impressed with his decisive manner.
The “chauffeur” smiled when he saw his mark, talking with two other pretty tall kids, and held his sign a little higher. He held it higher still as they walked closer to him without her noticing.
“Excuse me, Miss Darlian?” He called after her with an obvious Spanish accent and whiny inflection that implied a distinct passiveness. “I am your chauffeur? To be bringing you to your host family…?”
The three pointedly ignored him and kept walking.
“Miss Darlian?” He stopped. “Did she even notice me?”
The pale black-haired woman brushed past him, and he stepped back. “Take a powder, I’ll get her.”
Dipper glanced at his sister. “Mabel? Look behind us, are we being followed?”
Mabel gave a quick discreet look back, and sure enough saw the black-haired woman in green and black walking towards them–her eyes hidden behind a pair of visor sunglasses. She looked forward, a little pale. “… Dipper, I think that’s Shego.”
A cold sweat seeped from Dipper as they reached the doors. “Okay, okay… this is bad.”
Misao couldn’t agree more; Shego–the legendary henchwoman of some of the biggest names in supervillainy–being after her was more than cause for alarm.
She went to her phone. “I’m calling for help-”
“Don’t,” Dipper cut her off. “They don’t want to make a scene, so neither will we. Just be calm, pretend like nothing is happening, and we’ll get into our grandfather’s car and leave.”
Once more she looked at Dipper in surprise; it seemed like both he and his sister had their heads on their shoulders, like they were ready for this sort of thing. Passing through the doors, they right away saw a stretch limousine conveniently parked out in front of them, waiting for Misao.
Looking right and then left–and taking a quick moment to confirm the woman now all but sprinting for the door–Dipper was overcome with relief when he saw an elderly man start to get out of a white, 90s-era SUV parked just behind the limo. “There!”
He quickly took Misao’s hand and tore off into a dash with her and Mabel.
Despite being in his advanced age, Sherman “Shermie” Pines could boast he was sharper and quicker than most men half it. Tough and strong from being raised in 1940s New Jersey and spending the better part of his life in Israel, even in his retirement he kept himself well-honed and alert in both body and mind. He’d fought wars, rescued hostages, and once punched an Illinois Nazi–the stuff of adventurers one could say, and he did it with a strong, straight-forward attitude. However hard he was though, that always went out the window when it came to his Grandkids.
Dipper and Mabel, from the day they were born he adored them, and he’d happily do anything for them–all they had to do was ask. So when, out of the blue, they called to ask if they could spend a school year with him in Los Angeles? He didn’t even bother with why, he demanded when they were going to show up so he could see how they’ve grown since he last saw them.
Seeing them hurry out of the terminal doors and then dash straight for his SUV, he was quite pleased to see that they were growing up tall and healthy like he and his little brothers did in their youth. They also didn’t hate each other, like he and his little brothers did either.
He grew concerned when he saw them sprinting towards the car like they were being chased, with Dipper nearly dragging a young woman behind him. That wasn’t normal.
He opened the door and set one foot out. Like his younger brothers Stanford and Stanley, he was a tall and broad man, but more than the once long-lost former he kept himself in a physical condition that the once shamed and forsaken latter needed a girdle to give the appearance of. Whereas his younger brothers were various shades of gray, his hair was a complete white and had gone that way when theirs was still a rich brown. As customary when meeting his grandkids, he was wearing a nice shirt and pants, with a funny bowtie that he knew his granddaughter would love.
“Grandpa Shermie!” Dipper hurried to the passenger side of the SUV and opened the back door. “We need to go!”
“Kids what’s the hurry?”
“No time! We gotta go, a hot scary lady’s after us!” Mabel ushered Misao around the SUV and into the backseat, then climbed in herself. “I love your tie!”
Dipper scrambled into the SUV and ducked down, and Shermie looked down at him. “Oy gevalt, you're just getting into LA and you already got a lady tailing you?”
He looked back at the terminal doors, as Shego stormed out of the Terminal and sharply scanned the area. Shermie’s expression hardened, and he pulled himself back inside of the car. “On second thought… probably not your type.”
“Definitely not.” Dipper said from curled down in the footwell. Mabel and Misao too were lying down, staying out of sight.
Throwing the car into drive, Shermie calmly pulled from the pickup zone and drove away from the terminal–making sure to look nowhere near the woman’s direction as he departed. He made sure to quickly pull in front of another car in the lane adjacent, putting it between her and the view of his license plate before she could look after them.
The woman did a double take after the fleeing SUV and frowned. “Shoot, was that them?”
The chauffeur spilled out of the terminal and looked in the direction she went. Removing his fancy billet, Señor Senior Junior heaved a defeated sigh. “What just happened? Did they see through our disguises?”
The legendary henchwoman herself, Shego, pulled off her visor and scowled. “There’s no way they didn’t notice us. One of them must’ve recognized you… which I’m not even sure how.”
Junior pulled at his collar and looked away, but Shego noticed it. “All right have you been posting selfies again?”
Junior was appalled by the insinuation. “No! I’ll have you know father had me banned from most social media.”
Shego stopped, impressed by the prudence. “Oh… then why the nervous look?”
“… I… still have a Linkedin I use to post headshots…?”
Shego palmed her face and heaved an annoyed groan. “Of course.”
Dragging her hand down her face, she sighed and put on her visor again. “Okay then Junior, the ball’s back in your court. How’re we gonna get the girl?”
Junior rubbed his sharp chin. “There’s still a chance. After all, a good villain has a good contingency, right?”
Shego smiled and lightly punched his shoulder. “Just like I taught you. So, what’s the plan?”
“We wait; maybe do a few small-time burglaries of jewelry stores on Rodeo to keep us from getting bored. And we keep an eye on the internet, a girl like her can’t stay away from it for long.”
Shego smiled, and let out a dark, silky laugh. “It is always a breath of fresh air working with you, SSJ.”
Not half an hour in Los Angeles and the Pines Twins have gone from 0-100.
= - = 1+2 = - =
Disclaimer: The following is a fanfiction. Gravity Falls, Star vs. The Forces of Evil, Kim Possible, and Big Bad Beetleborgs are property of their respective owners, creators, and publishers. Please support the official releases. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
TW: This story will contain original characters, references to physical and psychological abuse, murder, and torture.
|The Seekers of Truth|
Over 1500 planes land per day at Los Angeles International Airport. Coming from all over the world, they range from single-engine civil prop planes to massive two and four engine jet airliners carrying hundreds of people. On this bright and sunny Saturday morning, one plane caught more than a few eyes as it lined up with the runway and began its final approach. Like the other intercontinental-range jets it was a twin-engine, wide-body aircraft, but painted a splash of wild blues, whites, and reds, with numerous WW2 and onward era aircraft flying in-formation towards the nose of the plane. In white letters above the windows and over the wing, the words The Faithful Pony’s Flying Circus ended with the image of a little blue Pegasus dashing with a rainbow streak behind it.
Inside the terminal, two travelers were waiting for their ride out of the airport. A set of twins–a brown-haired boy and a girl–the rather tall boy wore a lumberjack’s cap, a pair of cargo pants, and an orange t-shirt with a blue pine tree on the front, while his statuesque sister was wearing a large loose violet sweater over a black top and a bright pink skirt over dark leggings. They were huddled close together, watching the screen of a tablet computer showing a YouTube channel with a loading stream.
The screen came to life, revealing the view of a fogged-up camera.
“Guess who?” a girl’s voice asked before a finger wiped the fog, revealing the grinning face of a young woman about the same age as the teen twins. Blonde-haired, blue-eyed, with a pair of heart-shaped marks on her fair-skinned cheeks, she wore a dark green dress with a red devil-horn headband and a spider-shaped necklace as accessories. “It’s me Star!”
Star moved the laptop around and repositioned herself to reveal she was sitting on a bathroom sink. “I have some exciting news for you. Well first, Marco got kidnapped, and I blew up a bunch of stuff, including my wand.”
Star moved the laptop to her left hand so she could reach into the sink’s drawer. “And I was super bummed because I thought I was never gonna get to do magic again, but then I got… my new wa-!”
She stopped, realizing she’d whipped out a brush with a piece of gum stuck on it. “Oh.”
Rapidly she swapped it out for a pink and gold scepter with wings sprouted from its head. The face of the wand sported a single bright gold star that half of was completely black. “My new wand!”
Almost as an afterthought, Star added. “Oh and Marco’s okay. Say hi Marco!”
The camera’s view became a blur, moving until it stopped on a light brown-skinned, brown-eyed young man with a beauty mark under his right eye, wrapped in a floral-print bath towel, pulling another around his head. Seeing the camera pointed at him, he lunged towards it. “Hey-!”
The camera went dark, and the stream came to a sudden end.
Dipper Pines held the tablet out when it didn’t come back on. “Wait, that’s it? A week and a half of nothing and then less than a minute of stream.”
His sister Mabel was of a different opinion. “Seeing Marco fresh out the shower was well worth the wait.”
Dipper gave his sister a flat look. “Could you focus?”
Mabel smirked, giving him a wry look. “Whatever you liked it.”
Dipper rolled his eyes. “It sounds like a lot has happened, but at least she’s still here in our world.”
The smirk on his sister’s face turned into a beatific grin. “Yeah, and we’re actually gonna meet her!” She placed her hands over her heart. “We’re going to be the best friends ever!”
“Yeah, and maybe the world won’t come to a horrifying end,” Dipper added.
Years ago, the two spent a summer with their Great Uncle in a remote, heavily forested, and off-beat town called Gravity Falls, Oregon. What would’ve been a boring summer for two kids straight out of the rich part of the Bay Area turned into supernatural, disturbing, and outright apocalyptic adventures to determine the fate of everything from pet pigs to the entire universe. It left an impression on the two that brought them to Los Angeles to spend a school year in the sprawling metropolis locked in an eternal summer.
Princess Star Butterfly, a magical girl from another world, had come to live among humans in their world–and was actively blogging her exploits in the town of Echo Creek in northern Los Angeles. Whereas most people dismissed the bright colors and magical explosions as Hollywood high technology special effects for a way overproduced web series, Dipper–well-experienced with the weird and paranormal–knew a supernatural anomaly when he saw it.
After a lot of wrangling with their parents, and a lot of Mabel’s sheer charisma bolstering his argument, the twins were here in Los Angeles to meet Star. Dipper wanted to record data on Star to learn more about her, her magic, and her world (to make certain that she, it, and anything associated with either wasn’t a threat to reality). Mabel, being the effervescent and outgoing person she was, wanted to be best friends with the girliest girl that could beat up monsters she’d ever seen.
“On that note,” Dipper said, “Did you see her wand? There was something definitely wrong with it, why was half of it black?”
“Well, it is her new wand.” Mabel took an instant to think. “Oh, maybe it’s an edgy new upgrade, to reflect the dark turn of Marco getting kidnapped.”
“That’s another thing that bothered me,” Dipper said as he leaned back into his seat and watched a taxiing jumbo jet pass by. “Someone kidnapped Marco and forced Star to blow up her wand? That doesn’t sound like something the monsters they’ve been fighting could push her to do.”
“She didn’t seem too concerned about it, she did kinda just mention that Marco was fine like it wasn’t a big thing.”
Dipper’s resolve to find out why only hardened. “These are just more questions to answer.”
A flash of color caught his eye, and both twins looked up in time to see the bright livery of The Faithful Pony’s Flying Circus pass as it made its landing roll. Dipper nearly rose from his chair, to follow the plane. “Hey, look at that.”
“Wow, that was a cute paint job!” Mabel got up entirely and went to the window. “Did it say what airline it was?”
“I didn’t see.”
Mabel heard a buzzing from the bright pink purse she carried on her. She pulled out her sleek smartphone–with a cat shaped protective case and a shooting star sticker on the back–and looked at the message. “Sherpa said he’s three lights away from the airport.
Dipper nodded and got up. “Let’s go meet him.”
While the two began their long walk towards the terminal main entrance, a black-haired woman wearing a green shirt and tight black pants standing further the other direction watched the colorful plane turn off the runway. Getting up and slipping on a thin black jacket over her shirt, she tapped an earpiece and spoke quietly. “The plane just landed. You’d better be in position.”
“You bet, I’m waiting at the front right now, Green Machine,” a young man with a Spanish accent answered.
The woman rolled her eyes. “I know that this is your scheme, and it’s a good one, but next time we do this? I’m choosing the codenames, Latin Fire.”
“Of course,” the young man assured her. “Now please, hurry up?”
Her smirk bearing a sinister confidence, the woman headed in the same direction as the twins.
|The Traveler|
Pulling up to the terminal, The Faithful Pony’s Flying Circus came to a stop and the terminal’s air tunnel connected the plane to the building. Despite the size of the aircraft and the distance it traveled, only one passenger disembarked from the massive jet. A short and curvy teenaged girl with long violet hair filled with streaks of white, stepped out of the gate and into the terminal. She wore a red dress under a blue jean jacket, and a cream-colored sun hat with a red ribbon. Stepping out of the tunnel, she looked back to the flight crew following her off and bowed.
“Danke, dass ihr auf mich aufgepasst habt!” Coming up from her bow, she wore a brilliant smile radiating her gratitude for both their fine flying, and for finally being on the ground after twelve hours of non-stop flight.
The pilot and co-pilot both tipped their hats to the young woman. “Gern geschehen, Miss Darlian.”
She waved and turned to head into the terminal. “Bye bye!”
Misao Darlian, a Swiss-born girl of Japanese and German mixed descent walked with a spring in her step and a gleam in her gray-colored eyes, onto a moving sidewalk that would take her to the front of the terminal.
It was her last year of high school, and after grade school in Germany and both middle and high school in the south of France, she wanted to go out with a bang on her senior year: High School in the United States of America–specifically in beautiful Beverly Hills, where she would spend her days making friends, flirting shamelessly, and enjoying every summer-like day until graduation absorbing the American zeitgeist. It was going to be wonderful.
The moving walkway passed a set of tall ultra-high-definition television screens against the wall opposite the window. As Misao looked up at the first monitor, she saw a comic book page featuring three high tech warriors in blue, red, and green beetle-themed armor firing blasters at a horde of monsters surrounding them.
“Big Bad Beetleborg Movie in doubt,” the caption read, “Second director for the film withdraws from the project, citing mental health-related reasons.”
Misao looked at the news report puzzled. She wasn’t too keen on superhero movies, but she always imagined that they’d be fun or exciting to make–not this one it seemed. It didn’t matter much to her; comic book superheroes weren’t really her interest.
On the very next screen was a news report featuring a red-haired young woman in a midriff-baring shirt and cargo pants battling a short Scotsman armed with golf clubs. The redhead, fighting with gymnastic agility and kung fu, was making short work of the golf club swinging maniac as bystanders ran for cover on a crowded Golf Course.
The headline read: “Kim Possible defeats Duff Killigan, saves newly opened golf course from destruction.”
Misao smiled and nodded her approval of a real hero. She looked to the last screen, and an advertisement displaying a sitcom starring an African American family.
“A family that takes the stage together, stays together!” the tagline read above the smiling father, mother, adult daughter, teen son, and preteen daughter. Off to the side, an elderly pair, clearly a grandfather and grandmother, stood back-to-back with their arms folded and looking sassy with their raised eyebrows and wise smirks. “From Our Family to Yours: The Family Sitcom starring a real family! Tonight at 8!”
The Haleys, America’s most popular family on this side of an animation studio. To the surprise of Misao and her family, when she applied for the exchange program in the US, they were the first people to offer their home to her. Without a second thought in turn, Misao jumped at the chance to live with them and rub elbows with Hollywood elite.
Du musst diese Serie gucken. She thought to herself as she looked at the suave styled teen son in the picture. He was a handsome young man with a mohawk haircut, and a diamond pattern cut into the much shorter hair surrounding the strip.
Wenigstens die letzte Folge… She added to the end of her thought with a giggle. Ob ick wohl jemand bekanntes treffe? Wir sind schließlich in Hollywood…
Stepping off the moving walkway and making a right, she merged with Dipper and Mabel making a left from the other direction.
“I hope Waddles will be okay taking the long way here,” Mabel said to her brother, unaware of the girl beside them.
Dipper sighed. “I still can’t believe you insisted he come with us.”
“He’d be crawling up the walls back home without me.”
Dipper sucked in some air through the corner of his mouth. “Yeah, but I’m not sure about Grandpa…”
Mabel was insistent on the brighter side. “If Grunkle Stan was able to fight dinosaurs for him, then Sherpa won’t be bothered; no one can say no to a face like Waddles!”
On the second mention of Waddles, Misao looked up at the tall girl and her brother, and her eyes widened in recognition. With eager bounce in her step, she sidled a little closer to them. “Excuse me?”
Hearing German-tipped English, Mabel looked down at the small and round girl walking beside them. She lit up. “Hello! What can I do for you?”
“Are you… Mabel?” Misao asked. “The girl from YouTube with the guide to life?”
“Huh…?” Dipper looked at Misao, noticing right away her exotic looks. He escaped staring, looking between her and Mabel. “Uh…”
Mabel gasped. “Oh my gosh yes! I’m Mabel and I do have a guide to life on YouTube!”
Misao clapped her hands together, she hadn’t even left the airport and already ran into a star! “I love your series it’s so cute and funny!”
Dipper raised an eyebrow. Cute and funny wasn’t something he’d call his sister’s YouTube channel. Mabel shot for cute when she worked the camera, but it came off as weird, surreal, disturbing enough get her channel threatened with deletion twice, and once got them a visit from a concerned Piedmont Police Department.
“You really like it?” Mabel asked.
“Ja, my friends and I love it so much!”
Now it made sense. German sense of humor.
“Well, it is always nice to meet a fan,” Mabel humblebragged, before she extended her hand. “And who would you be?”
Misao took hers and shook it. “I’m Misao Darlian, just a humble exchange student spending her last year of high school in America.”
Mabel gasped. “Shut up! Is this your first time here?”
“My first time on my own, and definitely here in LA.”
“SHUT UP!” Mabel bounced up and down. “Oh my gosh you’re going to love it! Los Angeles is the most exciting town in the entire world! I mean I’ve only been here to see my Sherpa every couple of Hanukkahs, but it is so amazing.”
Dipper smiled; there went Mabel, making friends with a total stranger. It was always a sight to see and enjoy, more so when the stranger returned the enthusiasm and didn’t attempt to awkwardly withdraw.
Misao held up her phone. “I have a whole bucket list of places I want to go to.”
“Oh! Oh! Me too!” Mabel pulled out her own phone.
Misao laughed. “Your case is so cute! Share notes?”
“Hehe, thank you, and yes!”
Not even out of the terminal and she already sealed the deal. Dipper had a good feeling about this trip already. Or he did until he looked ahead of them and had his own moment of recognition–though the shock wasn’t a good one.
“Rodeo Drive?” Misao asked.
“I saved up so much money for it,” Mabel replied. “Venice Beach?”
“Ja, ja!” Misao confirmed. “Chinese theater?”
“Duh! How about Randyland?”
Misao paused and did a double-take. “… What is Randyland?”
That sounded a little dirty.
Mabel stared at Misao, like the girl had never heard of air or water. “Oh. My gosh. Add it to your list or you will be sad forever.”
“Very well!” Misao gave her a knowing look. “I bet I know what’s next on your list.”
“Come on, you don’t come to Los Angeles without even thinking of going there. We’ll say it together, okay?”
Misao nodded. “Okay! Ein, zwei, drei-!”
“Disneyland!” They shouted together and burst into laughter.
“Uh, hey, Misao?” Dipper asked with the doors of the terminal coming up.
Misao, still giggling, looked over at him. “Hm? What is it?”
“Your ride’s waiting for you, right?” He slowed his pace, and both Mabel and Misao followed suit.
“Hm, my host family was sending a driver, yes,” Misao confirmed.
Looking ahead, she saw a swarthy, handsome, broad-shouldered man holding a sign with her name on it. “Oh… I hope that’s him~”
“I don’t think it is,” Dipper warned. “Don’t make eye contact, because I’m pretty sure that’s Señor Senior Junior.”
Misao performed a discrete double-take with disbelief. “Wait–the supervillain?”
Mabel looked ahead at the chauffeur's face, and a blush broke out across hers. “Oh man, I’d let him kidnap me any day.”
For the life of him, Dipper couldn’t even imagine why the son of a world-renowned thief and general menace was here trying to pick up a random German girl. He was, however, thankful that his preoccupation with the strange and unknown made it easy to spot him. “Just keep walking, pretend you don’t see him.”
“Mmhm, I know what to do in these situations,” Misao assured Dipper, though she was a little impressed with his decisive manner.
The “chauffeur” smiled when he saw his mark, talking with two other pretty tall kids, and held his sign a little higher. He held it higher still as they walked closer to him without her noticing.
“Excuse me, Miss Darlian?” He called after her with an obvious Spanish accent and whiny inflection that implied a distinct passiveness. “I am your chauffeur? To be bringing you to your host family…?”
The three pointedly ignored him and kept walking.
“Miss Darlian?” He stopped. “Did she even notice me?”
The pale black-haired woman brushed past him, and he stepped back. “Take a powder, I’ll get her.”
Dipper glanced at his sister. “Mabel? Look behind us, are we being followed?”
Mabel gave a quick discreet look back, and sure enough saw the black-haired woman in green and black walking towards them–her eyes hidden behind a pair of visor sunglasses. She looked forward, a little pale. “… Dipper, I think that’s Shego.”
A cold sweat seeped from Dipper as they reached the doors. “Okay, okay… this is bad.”
Misao couldn’t agree more; Shego–the legendary henchwoman of some of the biggest names in supervillainy–being after her was more than cause for alarm.
She went to her phone. “I’m calling for help-”
“Don’t,” Dipper cut her off. “They don’t want to make a scene, so neither will we. Just be calm, pretend like nothing is happening, and we’ll get into our grandfather’s car and leave.”
Once more she looked at Dipper in surprise; it seemed like both he and his sister had their heads on their shoulders, like they were ready for this sort of thing. Passing through the doors, they right away saw a stretch limousine conveniently parked out in front of them, waiting for Misao.
Looking right and then left–and taking a quick moment to confirm the woman now all but sprinting for the door–Dipper was overcome with relief when he saw an elderly man start to get out of a white, 90s-era SUV parked just behind the limo. “There!”
He quickly took Misao’s hand and tore off into a dash with her and Mabel.
@@@@@
Despite being in his advanced age, Sherman “Shermie” Pines could boast he was sharper and quicker than most men half it. Tough and strong from being raised in 1940s New Jersey and spending the better part of his life in Israel, even in his retirement he kept himself well-honed and alert in both body and mind. He’d fought wars, rescued hostages, and once punched an Illinois Nazi–the stuff of adventurers one could say, and he did it with a strong, straight-forward attitude. However hard he was though, that always went out the window when it came to his Grandkids.
Dipper and Mabel, from the day they were born he adored them, and he’d happily do anything for them–all they had to do was ask. So when, out of the blue, they called to ask if they could spend a school year with him in Los Angeles? He didn’t even bother with why, he demanded when they were going to show up so he could see how they’ve grown since he last saw them.
Seeing them hurry out of the terminal doors and then dash straight for his SUV, he was quite pleased to see that they were growing up tall and healthy like he and his little brothers did in their youth. They also didn’t hate each other, like he and his little brothers did either.
He grew concerned when he saw them sprinting towards the car like they were being chased, with Dipper nearly dragging a young woman behind him. That wasn’t normal.
He opened the door and set one foot out. Like his younger brothers Stanford and Stanley, he was a tall and broad man, but more than the once long-lost former he kept himself in a physical condition that the once shamed and forsaken latter needed a girdle to give the appearance of. Whereas his younger brothers were various shades of gray, his hair was a complete white and had gone that way when theirs was still a rich brown. As customary when meeting his grandkids, he was wearing a nice shirt and pants, with a funny bowtie that he knew his granddaughter would love.
“Grandpa Shermie!” Dipper hurried to the passenger side of the SUV and opened the back door. “We need to go!”
“Kids what’s the hurry?”
“No time! We gotta go, a hot scary lady’s after us!” Mabel ushered Misao around the SUV and into the backseat, then climbed in herself. “I love your tie!”
Dipper scrambled into the SUV and ducked down, and Shermie looked down at him. “Oy gevalt, you're just getting into LA and you already got a lady tailing you?”
He looked back at the terminal doors, as Shego stormed out of the Terminal and sharply scanned the area. Shermie’s expression hardened, and he pulled himself back inside of the car. “On second thought… probably not your type.”
“Definitely not.” Dipper said from curled down in the footwell. Mabel and Misao too were lying down, staying out of sight.
Throwing the car into drive, Shermie calmly pulled from the pickup zone and drove away from the terminal–making sure to look nowhere near the woman’s direction as he departed. He made sure to quickly pull in front of another car in the lane adjacent, putting it between her and the view of his license plate before she could look after them.
The woman did a double take after the fleeing SUV and frowned. “Shoot, was that them?”
The chauffeur spilled out of the terminal and looked in the direction she went. Removing his fancy billet, Señor Senior Junior heaved a defeated sigh. “What just happened? Did they see through our disguises?”
The legendary henchwoman herself, Shego, pulled off her visor and scowled. “There’s no way they didn’t notice us. One of them must’ve recognized you… which I’m not even sure how.”
Junior pulled at his collar and looked away, but Shego noticed it. “All right have you been posting selfies again?”
Junior was appalled by the insinuation. “No! I’ll have you know father had me banned from most social media.”
Shego stopped, impressed by the prudence. “Oh… then why the nervous look?”
“… I… still have a Linkedin I use to post headshots…?”
Shego palmed her face and heaved an annoyed groan. “Of course.”
Dragging her hand down her face, she sighed and put on her visor again. “Okay then Junior, the ball’s back in your court. How’re we gonna get the girl?”
Junior rubbed his sharp chin. “There’s still a chance. After all, a good villain has a good contingency, right?”
Shego smiled and lightly punched his shoulder. “Just like I taught you. So, what’s the plan?”
“We wait; maybe do a few small-time burglaries of jewelry stores on Rodeo to keep us from getting bored. And we keep an eye on the internet, a girl like her can’t stay away from it for long.”
Shego smiled, and let out a dark, silky laugh. “It is always a breath of fresh air working with you, SSJ.”
= - = 1+2 = - =
Not half an hour in Los Angeles and the Pines Twins have gone from 0-100.
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