One Way Ride
Pining for Friendship
One Way Ride
Written & Edited by Seven81493
It was just another average day in Gravity Falls, Oregon. Well… average by the town’s own standards, of course. Our story began with a young boy, clad in a red shirt and blue vest, staring into a camera. His sister stood behind him, smiling widely as he began to speak.
“Hello, and welcome to Dipper’s Guide to the Unexplained Number Ninety Three! Today, the subject will be this strange looking machine,” he aimed the camera a bit to the right to show the object in question, “which my sister and I stumbled upon in the woods earlier today.”
“I tripped and hit my head on a rock!” she yelled from behind him, the sleeves to her bright blue sweater shaking wildly as she did, causing him to groan.
“Yes, yes you did.”
“That rock is going to pay for what it did!” she continued, causing him to facepalm rather hard. Turning back to face the camera, he picked up where he had left off.
“The two of us, mostly me,” he added that second part in a hushed tone, “have come to the conclusion that this machine is some sort of teleportation device.”
“Or a time machine!” Mabel chimed in, to which Dipper nodded.
“We’ve decided to put the machine to the test by putting the rock that Mabel hit her head on in,” he explained, holding the rock in question up to the camera. He began inching his way towards the machine, the rock clutched in his right hand the entire time. As soon as he was within range, he threw the rock inside. The two watched in awe as a blue flash enveloped it. When the light finally dissipated, the two could see that the rock was indeed gone.
“Hah, take that you dumb rock!” the sister of the Pines twins exclaimed, pumping her fist in the air.
“Haha, it worked!” Dipper exclaimed right in to the camera’s microphone.
“You wanna get in and see where it takes us?” Mabel smiled as she asked Dipper, who was quite clearly taken aback by the question.
“What, no! We have no idea if there’s even another machine on the other side that will let us come back!” his arms flailed about as he replied to her.
“Aw, come on, it could be fun!” she sing-songed, walking towards the machine. As she neared it, Dipper seemed to become more and more worried.
“Mabel, I really don’t think it’s a good idea!” Dipper yelled frantically, Mabel’s left foot hovering right in front of the machine as he did.
Letting out a few giggles, Mabel turned around to look at the camera. “Jeez, I was just kidding around, Di-- whoa!” She slipped on a branch and fell backwards into the machine without warning, disappearing in the same flash of blue that the rock had.
“Mabel, no!” her brother reached his hand out towards the machine futilely. After a few seconds, he turned and looked at the camera once more. “It looks like I’m gonna have to go in and help her. Hopefully I can take this camera with me!”
Picking it up, he made his way over to the machine. Letting out a very audible gulp, he tip toed into the machine and everything went quiet.
---
“Oh man… my head is killing me…” Dipper groaned, sitting up ever so slightly. The last thing he could recall was stepping into the machine, and then there was a thud and everything went black. Had he been knocked out?
“Dipper, you’re awake!” He could recognize that voice anywhere.
“Mabel! You’re okay!” He jolted up, causing his head to hurt even more. Trying his best to ignore it, however, he slowly rose to his feet and dusted himself off. “Um… where are we?”
“I dunno, but look how pretty it is!” She pointed at the wall behind Dipper. It seemed to be made of…
“Crystal? That’s weird, I’ve never seen anything in the journal about a crystal structure...”
“Maybe it’s an undiscovered place,” Mabel gasped, the sound of it echoing through the building, “Does that make us real life Indiana Jones’!?”
“Indiana Jones explored ancient ruins, not undiscovered locations. I think we’d be considered pioneers if this place really hasn’t been found before,” her brother corrected her. “But I think we should take a look around just to be safe.”
“Wait, do you hear that?” Mabel cupped her hand to her ear and aimed it towards the closest doorway. “It sounds like someone is coming!”
“Well yelling isn’t going to help! Quick, let's find a place to hide!”
Finding a place to hide was hard in such an open room, but eventually the two managed to find cover in the narrow space behind one of the empty bookshelves in the room. He could hear what sounded like footsteps entering the room, but they seemed to stop before reaching the bookshelf. It seemed like an eternity before he heard the same footsteps leaving the room.
“Okay, I think it’s safe now,” he whispered to his sister before taking a peek at the room. Indeed, it was empty, and he and his sister shuffled out from behind the bookshelf.
“Did you see what the person looked like?”
“No, and frankly I think it’s best that we don’t run into whoever it was. We should just focus on getting back home.”
“Aw, come on! Where’s your sense of adventure, Dipper?” Mabel began to skip away towards the door rather sloppily, and Dipper let out a sigh. He’d have to follow her, of course.
“Hey, wait up!” he yelled out, jogging to catch up to her. She slowed down a bit so that he could keep pace, and the two began walking through a rather large hallway. “Mabel, you have no idea where you’re going, what if we run into whoever owns this place?”
“Well then we’ll just tell them we’re lost, silly!”
“Right. I’m sure they’ll be totally fine with us trespassing in their building,” Dipper replied sarcastically.
“Ahem.” The Pines twins froze at the sound of someone clearing their throat. Taking their time in turning around, they saw that they were face to face with…
“A horse?”
“Actually… I’m a pony, but who, and what, are you two?” the purple equine spoke, stunning Dipper. His sister, however, reacted quickly to the situation at hand.
“A talking pony! Can I hug you?!” she exclaimed, running towards the pony in question. However, before she could reach it she found herself lifted into the air, unable to move. “Aww…”
Before anything else could happen, Dipper stepped forward and spoke, “I’m sorry, my sister is just very excitable. My name’s Dipper--”
“And mine’s Mabel!” she beamed, making Dipper chuckle.
“Hehe, yeah, you see, the thing is… we’re kind of lost.”
“Well you’re in my castle, so I’d assume as much," the pony replied, "My name is Twilight Sparkle, by the way.”
“Oh, you’re the owner?” Dipper seemed happy for the first time since waking up in the place he now knew was a castle, “Then maybe you can help us out. You see, we don't mean to be trespassing, we just stepped into this gray machine and it brought us here. Do you know of anything like that?”
“Not to my recollection,” Twilight replied, bringing a hoof to her chin in thought. Dipper’s smile shifted back into a frown, something she took notice of. “Can you describe what it looked like in detail?” She asked, putting Mabel down gently.
“Well like I said, it was gray, and it had a bright blue interior that seemed like it was glowing. It was pod shaped, too,” he explained, hoping that this, ‘Twilight Sparkle’, knew something about it.
“I can’t say I’ve ever seen something like that, but if you’d like, I could take a look in my library for anything mentioning it?”
“That would be great, thanks.”
“Then just follow me, and don’t try anything stupid.” She glared at the two for a couple of seconds before turning her head and walking in the direction they had been heading before being spotted.
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Dipper assured her, her giving a smile in response as the twins began to follow her.
“You know, you still haven’t told me what you two are.”
“We’re humans!” Mabel answered, jumping in the air as she did, Twilight raising an eyebrow at the term and at her.
“‘Human’? I’ve never heard of a species like that. Interesting…”
“Well if it makes you feel any better, we’ve never met a talking horse--”
“Pony,” Twilight corrected him.
“Right, pony. We’ve never met a talking pony before, let alone a unicorn.” Now that he thought about it, it was actually odd that he and his sister hadn’t stumbled upon a unicorn, or even a pegasus, in Gravity Falls. They had run across gnomes, dinosaurs, zombies, and even demons, but not once in their adventures had they ever stumbled upon what was now directly in front of them. It was obvious that this adventure was going to be very different from anything else the two had experiences during their time in Gravity Falls, Oregon.