Return to Gravity Falls: The Equestria Chronicles

by Arkansandragon

Prologues: Sleepless in the Multiverse

The tremor of magic through space and time was strong enough to wake Discord from sleep.

He jolted out of bed, every sense on alert. “That‘s odd... Did the Princesses transfer their magic again? But why would they- ?” Quickly conjuring an old blocky television set, he flipped through the channels until he had spotted all four Alicorns. Luna was on night patrol, Cadance and Celestia were sleeping, and Twilight was pulling another all night study session, something about her becoming an aunt soon... But all of them looked normal. He stroked his beard in thought with his lion’s paw, then focused his attention on Equestria’s magic field. Everything there felt normal too. He reached further with his power, to the edges of their dimension and his pocket realm. Still, there was nothing out of place.

Sticking a satellite dish atop his television, Discord flipped through even more channels, this time showing views of different worlds. There was not much of interest going on that night. Hero versus villain, villain versus hero, the Multiverse Geographic channel was doing a special on killer marshmallows in dimension 618... The draconequus ground his teeth in annoyance. SOMETHING had to have happened! Surely he had not just dreamed it.

Something yellow caught his eye, and he flipped back a few channels. The scene was of a small town, about the size of Ponyville and surrounded by dense forest. The valley the town and forest were nestled in was bordered by mountains and a pair of high cliffs with an unusual shape to them. It looked to Discord as if one of those classic saucer shaped UFOs had crashed right through the middle of the cliffs, leaving a nearly perfect hole in the craft’s exact shape. But there were stranger things at the moment which caught his attention. There was a giant X-shaped rip in the sky with nauseating colors oozing beyond it, and on the town side of it the sky was a mix of sickly yellows, reds and greens. Hovering just before that wound in the sky was a yellow triangle-shaped creature with skinny black arms and legs, a thin top-hat and bow-tie, and a single white eye with a slitted black pupil in the center of its face. It was cackling madly, arms spread in welcome and eye shining in triumph.

“Well well.... “ said Discord, breaking into a smirk, “Bill Cipher! So the old coot finally got that little hick lumber town he was after. Third time’s the charm, I suppose! Hmm. I've got nothing better to do right now. This should be an interesting 22 minutes.”

But the “Weirdmageddon” Bill wrought upon the helpless town lasted much longer than 22 minutes... Two whole hours were spent filming the five day siege, and by the end of it Discord was munching on popcorn. One thing that irked him was how the camera-being kept jump-cutting forward in time and skipping over all the wonderful chaos. If anything, the camera seemed more interested in following the underdog “heroes” trying to defeat Bill and save their dimension. The other annoyance was that Bill had invited Cthulhu of all things to this apocalyptic party, but not him, Discord! As such he was rather pleased with how the elder demon was defeated near the end of the show. Served that jerk right. And destroying his entire home-realm? That was a bit much even for a fellow chaos god. There was no fun to it if you had nothing left to rule over afterwards!

When the town was returned to normal after Bill’s defeat, Discord felt another ripple of magic through the cosmos. Although the hole in space-time was closing, this had the same feel as the first ripple of magic, so it wasn’t hard to guess that what had woken him up was Bill opening that rip in the sky over Gravity Falls. It took great power to rend or seal a hole that large in the fabric of space-time between dimensions.

The spectacle now over, Discord banished the television and his empty popcorn bucket, stretched himself with a yawn, and went back to bed. All too soon, he completely forgot about Bill Cipher and the little town of Gravity Falls.

But all too soon, that would come back to bite him...

=====

Gravity Falls, Oregon, USA: One Year After Weirdmageddon...

“Stanley. Stanley, wake up!”

Someone was shaking him, but Stanley Pines tried hard to ignore it, swatting at the hand in annoyance. Whatever it was could wait until morning...

The voice called him again, urgent, and the shaking grew rougher. He knew that voice... Knew the six-fingered grip of his twin’s hands on his arm... Why couldn't Stanford just let him sleep? What could possibly be so important?

He felt one hand shift to his neck, fingers pressed lightly against the arteries. What was Ford doing? Stan swatted at his brother again, but Ford ignored it, keeping his hand where it was and counting under his breath.

A few moments later Ford removed the hand from his brother’s neck, only to try and pry open one of the sleeping man’s eyes and shine a flashlight in it.

That was quite enough for Stan. “Darn it Sixer!” he snapped, jerking away and covering his eyes from the painful light. “Can't an old man sleep in peace?!”

“Not in the middle of the woods,” said Ford sternly. “And certainly not in your boxers.”

“Says the guy who sleeps in a trench coat!” Stan shot back, grabbing blindly at Ford’s arm as the latter came at him with the flashlight again. Then the words registered. “Wait. What?”

Ford took the distraction to shine the light in both of Stan’s eyes, expertly dodging the instinctive left hook aimed at his face.

“What gives?!” yelped Stan, rubbing at his now-sore eyes.

“Sorry.” said Ford, helping him to stand and throwing a blanket over his shoulders. “I had to be sure you were fully awake this time.”

“I’m awake now. And why were you checking my pulse?”

Ford rolled his eyes, as if the answer was obvious. “You know what they say about waking sleepwalkers. The last thing you need is a heart attack. Luckily, you seem to be fine.”

“I... I was sleepwalking again?” The old man blinked, looking around them in a daze. Even missing his glasses, he still knew what the inside of their house looked like, and this wasn't it. The pine needles stuck to his undershirt from where he’d been lying, the ground beneath his slippers, and the chill night breeze only confirmed it.

“Yes,” confirmed Ford, his voice laced with worry. “That's the third time this week.” He kept an arm across Stan’s shoulders, guiding him through the redwood trees and lighting their path with the flashlight. “Is there something you’re not telling me?”

“Uh...” Stan ran a hand through his grey mullet uncomfortably, his gruff voice making the next mumbled words unintelligible.

Ford raised an eyebrow and adjusted his own glasses. Aside from Ford’s polydactylism, and subtle facial differences, the twins were physically identical. Both were Caucasian, with brown eyes, large orange noses, big ears, and fluffy grey hair, though Ford’s had a band of silver that ran through the sideburns and around the back. Both seemed to have constant five o’clock shadow, but Stan’s was more noticeable, having grey stubble. Although Stan had been fatter around the gut than Ford last year, several recent months of sailing through the harsh arctic sea on a research trip had left them both lean with muscle and still strong for men in their late sixties.

Stan remained silent, avoiding his brother’s searching gaze. The stalemate was broken when Ford suddenly pulled them both back from the edge of the Bottomless Pit.

Skirting around the strange wormhole turned tourist attraction, Ford changed the subject. “We’re almost home now.”

“Good!” said Stan. “I can't see a thing out here. Where are my glasses?”

“You left them on your desk. By the way, you should probably have those cataracts removed. I’ve seen how you drive.”

Stan laughed at that. “And shell out my life savings to some quack doctor? No thank you!”

Ford smirked, shaking his head. “I could do it for you, in that case,” he said, his softer voice causal. “Seems a simple enough procedure. How hard could it be?”

Stan actually stopped walking at that. He poked the other man in the chest, noticing the signature red sweater and tan trench coat. “Ford, you routinely set your face on fire because it’s ‘faster than shaving’. You may be a crack shot with that laser gun of yours, but there is no way I’m letting you perform eye surgery on me.”

Ford just chuckled, giving Stan an affectionate noogie. “I was joking, you knucklehead. But seriously, you should get those looked at. Now come on. We've got an early day tomorrow.”

“What happens tomorrow?” asked Stan, stifling a yawn as they approached the welcoming glow of the Mystery Shack’s lights. The old, run-down house served not only has a home to the older Pines twins, but was also the town’s local tourist trap. Although the place was called a “shack”, it was actually closer in size to a large, two-story cabin, and had a number of rooms throughout. Those rooms that were not used as living space by the family were filled with hand-crafted taxidermy mash-ups, among other fake oddities, set on display in museum-style exhibits for the tourists. There was also a gift shop.

“The first day of summer, remember?” Ford prompted. At the confused look, he clarified, “Dipper and Mabel are coming back!”

“Oh yeah!...” Stan tried to sound excited, but only managed another yawn, already half asleep again. “Really missed those kids...”

Ford just smiled, now half carrying the other into the house. It would be good to see their great-niece and great-nephew again.

Finally settling his sleeping twin into bed, a shadow passed over Ford’s face. Stan’s behavior had shifted just after their return from the voyage to the arctic sea studying anomalies. At first, it had been only a tired look in his eyes. Then the nightmares had started, though when confronted, Stan had grown defensive, insisting nothing was wrong. Knowing how headstrong they both were, Ford had dropped the subject to avoid a fight, but kept a closer watch on his brother. Now he was sleepwalking, and the episodes were getting more frequent...

Although he had hidden it from Stan, tonight had badly shaken Ford. This had been the farthest that Stan had wandered yet, although thankfully he had not hurt himself or been caught by a nocturnal creature. But why had he been sleeping at the foot of Bill Cipher’s petrified remains?

Comments

[Mr cold ghost]

A gravity falls crossover? Well I'll definitely track this!

[Jman14102]

Well, this should be interesting...

[dereturd]

Holy sheea moly.. I gotta fav and like this!

[Marcthelightspark2004]

Bill Cipher is gonna return, and this time he wants to rule 2 dimensions.

[lilTurtle]

Ford rolled his eyes, as if the answer was obvious. “You know what they say about waking sleepwalkers. The last thing you need is a heart attack. Luckily, you seem to be fine.”

Actually, that old saying is just a myth. At worst, the sleepwalker will be disoriented for a bit and might hurt themselves or those around them, but there is no risk of heart attack, shock, brain damage, or anything along those lines.

[Arkansandragon]

8851430
True, but I wasn't sure what else to put there at the time. Ford couldn't exactly just tell his brother what was going on, after all.

[Ravencell]

Umm, this is a first, I found the same story by the same author on 2 different websites, huh, neat