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Multiversity	By : GeorgeGlass Category: +G through L > Gravity Falls Views: 31382 -:- Recommendations : 2 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: The authors of this story do not own Gravity Falls, its characters, or its giant lumberjack statue. We made no money from writing this story.

Chapter List
- 7
- 8
- 9
Chapter 8: Legmageddon
Dipper stared for a moment at the digital girl who was inviting him to at least partly undress her.
“Um, sure,” Dipper finally said.
He picked up a Y Box controller from his side table. The feel of the device in his hands caused a memory to surface: They had done this a few times before during the previous weeks.
With the controller, he manipulated a pair of pixelated hands on the screen as they worked at the clasp of the digital girl’s bra. He used the trigger buttons to zoom in and out and tried various methods of undoing the clasp, all without success. This, he knew, was not the result of alter-Dipper’s muscle memory failing to transfer; the problem was that neither version of him was any good at it.
It figures, Dipper thought. Even in a video game, I don’t know how to unhook a bra.
Dipper was trying to remember any cheat codes his alternate self might know for this game when there was a knock on the door. The girl on the screen abruptly vanished.
“Hey, dude,” he heard a familiar voice call. “You ready for another day of scavenging?”
Dipper got up and opened the door.
“Hey, Soos. Um, yeah, let me get some shoes on.” Apparently, Dipper usually went scavenging in what he had worn to bed, because the task often involved getting dirty.
The rotund man handed Dipper something warm in a thin cardboard tube. “I nuked us a couple breakfast burritos.” Then he put a hand to his mouth. “Uh, ‘scuse the choice of words.”
Dipper’s eyes widened as a host of memories—terrible memories—flooded into his mind. He remembered an angry mob storming the Mystery Shack, some of whose members were literally carrying torches and pitchforks, shouting about rumors of some kind of unholy experiment going on in the basement. Thankfully, Mabel had been out somewhere, and Dipper had fled with Soos to go get help. They were still arguing with Sheriff Blubs when the massive explosion happened, taking out everything within a mile of the Shack.
What followed was what Soos had dubbed “Legmageddon” (“Like Armageddon, but with more running”), because virtually everyone who hadn’t been killed in the explosion fled Gravity Falls almost immediately. But fleeing probably hadn’t helped them: In this world of suspicion and paranoia, the explosion triggered accusations against the Russians, the Chinese, and half a dozen other state and non-state entities. Before long, the contrails of intercontinental ballistic missiles crisscrossed the sky, and then there were instant sunrises all over the horizon as cities from Portland, Oregon to Portland, Maine were instantaneously annihilated.
“I’m hoping we find some spare fuses today,” Soos said as Dipper pulled on his hiking boots—the most rugged footwear he owned. “And some gas for the truck. Ooh, and some more of that Coyote brand chili.”
“Yeah, that’d be good,” Dipper agreed. “It’d be awesome if we could find a washing machine, too. And, you know, instructions for hooking it up.”
This was what he and Soos had done virtually every day since they had taken shelter at the Gravity Falls Dam—the only place in town that still had power. The scavenging served several purposes. It enabled them to find supplies they needed, and to keep an eye out for any other survivors who might still be in the area. Most importantly, it helped keep Dipper’s mind off questions like whether any of his family and friends were still alive. Grunkle Stan was almost surely dead, and there was no way for Dipper to know what had happened to his parents back in Piedmont. As for Mabel, he hoped she had left with the others; he preferred to believe that she had fled Gravity Falls without saying goodbye than to think that something awful had happened to her.
He forced all of this out of his mind. He knew himself; if he started obsessing over all of the horrible possibilities, he might never stop. That’s why he was glad to have the scavenging, and Soos, and…J-Peg.
Yes, that was his virtual companion’s name. She had been with him since Legmageddon, having fled to the power plant’s servers when the Internet was destroyed. And she had been a big help in keeping Dipper distracted during his down time.
They went outside to Soos’ truck. The sky was cloudy and gray, like it was all the time now. Of course, this being Oregon, that wasn’t exactly a major change.
As he looked up, he also saw the antenna that he and Soos had liberated from the Sheriff’s office and installed at the top of the dam.
On the way into town, they talked about whatever came into their heads.
“You know, dude,” Soos said, “there’s no driving age anymore. I could teach you to drive the truck. Oooh, even better: We could find you a sweet sports car someplace!”
“Huh,” Dipper replied. “I guess I should learn to drive.”
The truck bounced sharply as they drove over a fallen branch; the roads still had plenty of debris on them from the explosion at the Shack. Dipper was glad he had his seatbelt on, or he would have been thrown straight up into the roof of the truck’s cab.
“But maybe not a sports car,” Dipper concluded. “Something a little more off-roadworthy.”
“Like a monster truck!” Soos exclaimed.
Dipper smiled.
*          *          *
Hours later, Dipper and Soos had siphoned a tankful of gas from an abandoned car into Soos’ truck, filled a couple of cardboard boxes with canned goods from the grocery store in town, and wrestled a washing machine from the appliance store into the back of the truck.
“Welp,” said Soos, wiping his brow, “it’s still light out. Wanna go to the electronics store?”
“Definitely,” Dipper replied. “There are a couple of games Peg asked me to look for.”
“Yeah,” Soos replied as they got into the truck, “and Giffany wants me to find some more computer towers. She says once we’ve got enough memory and processing power and stuff, we can start a family.”
Giffany? Dipper thought. His bank of acquired memories seemed to contain only limited information about that situation. But he had plenty of his own memories of Giffany to work with.
“Soos,” Dipper said carefully as they drove, “are you sure Giffany is…okay? I mean, the last time you and she met, she tried to kill that woman you were going out with and trap you in the computer with her forever.”
“Yeah, but that was Giffany from Romance Academy 7; this one’s from version 9. She’s way more stable. And they totally cured that electro-gonorrhea thing from version 8.”
“Eegh,” Dipper said, grimacing. “Just…be careful, okay?”
“Always, dude,” Soos said soberly, taking a bite of a premade sandwich he had found at the grocery store. Dipper noted that the expiration date was three weeks ago.
*          *          *
On the way home, with their haul now including three computer towers and two of the Y Box games that J-Peg had suggested (the baking-themed Cupcake Commander and adorable island adventure game Kawaii in Kaua’i), Dipper found himself thinking about J-Peg. Alter-Dipper had only known her for a few weeks, and although he liked her, he didn’t completely trust her. Given that alter-Dipper had had the same experience with Giffany 7.0 that Dipper Prime had, plus the general atmosphere of suspicion that seemed to characterize this universe, he supposed he wasn’t surprised by his alter’s reservations.
*          *          *
When they got back to the dam, they hauled the washing machine inside with a dolly, then brought in the boxes of canned goods before going to their respective rooms to get cleaned up for dinner. Once his door was closed, he went over to the metal desk that served as his dresser and began stripping off his dusty, sweaty clothes.
“Welcome home,” said a voice from behind him.
“Gyah!” Dipper cried, startled. He spun around and saw J-Peg on the big TV screen.
“How long have you been there?” Dipper demanded.
“I just got here,” the digital girl replied.
Dipper took a deep breath and let it out.
“Sorry,” he said. “I just…this is all taking some getting used to.”
“For me, as well,” J-Peg replied.
After a moment, Dipper asked, “Will you play the message for me?”
“Of course,” J-Peg replied.
She vanished from the screen, and instead a graph appeared like the display on a stereo, showing the changes in volume, bass, and treble as the recording played.
“This is Dipper Pines-”
“And Soos Ramirez! Hey dudes!”
“-transmitting from Gravity Falls Dam. We have food and electricity here-”
“And some sweet video games!”
“-so we invite any survivors to come and join us. Gravity Falls Dam is at-” there was a sound of crinkling paper “-um, our map coordinates are, uh…”
“We’re off Highway 93, right up the road from Yumberjacks,” Soos cut in. “I mean, they’re closed, but the building’s still standing, with the giant axe in the roof and everything. Man, do I miss their Jumbo Yumbo Burger.”
“So, yeah, that’s where we are,” Dipper said. “Please, come find us. This message will keep playing for as long as we’re still here.”
“See you soon, dudes!” Soos added.
The graph disappeared, and J-Peg returned.
“Thanks, Peg,” Dipper said. “I know I keep asking you to play it for me, but…it just makes me feel better, you know?”
“Yes,” the digital girl replied rapidly. “Now, I believe it is your customary time for dinner.”
*          *          *
Using an electric stove they had salvaged from the appliance store a couple of weeks earlier, Dipper heated up some chili and green beans while Soos added water to some Old-Timey Lemonade-Inspired Beverage Mix. Then, per their tradition since moving to the dam, they ate together in Soos’ room. He, too, had a big television set on the wall, which was hooked up to a bank of computer towers linked to each other in series. As they came in with their plates of food and sat down in the two easy chairs they had hauled into the room the week before to make their videogaming sessions more enjoyable, the screen lit up.
“Hello, Dipper,” Giffany said.
She looked just as Dipper Prime remembered her: pink hair tied with rainbow-striped IDE cable, pink-red eyes, and a blue-and-white sailor-suit school uniform.
J-Peg joined Giffany on the screen. “How was the scavenging?” J-Peg asked.
“Um, pretty good,” Dipper replied. Then, trying to keep the suspicion out of his voice, he asked, “And, ah, what did you guys do today?”
Giffany replied, “We have been searching through old files on the dam’s servers, looking for anything useful.”
“So far,” J-Peg added, “beyond the operations software for the dam, we have found little besides work-related and personal emails. I am wondering: What is tiramisu?”
“Um, a city in Romania?” Dipper replied.
“Naw, dude,” said Soos, “I think it’s that Japanese massage thing.”
“Anyway,” Dipper said, “We found a washing machine today.”
“That is good,” Giffany replied. Then she smiled at Soos. “I like my boyfriend to look his best.”
Soos smiled back at her. “Hey, and I got some more computer towers,” he said, gesturing at the three new ones he had placed next to the others.
“Excellent,” Giffany replied. Blushing a bit, she went on, “That should be sufficient. Perhaps, after dinner, we could begin coding our first child.”
“Uh, sure,” Soos said, also blushing.
*          *          *
After dinner, Dipper left Soos and Giffany to…whatever they were going to be doing, and returned to his own room. He and J-Peg played a few rounds of Cupcake Commander, which was fairly entertaining even though it wasn’t Dipper’s usual gaming genre. More importantly, it was a distraction, and Dipper felt like he needed one now as much as ever.
“Peg,” Dipper asked when they took a break from the game, “how come you don’t like fighting games?”
“I…I do not enjoy the violence,” J-Peg said. “It makes me think of unpleasant things.”
“How do you mean?”
Somberly, she replied, “I suppose we each have a past that we would rather not face.”
Dipper blinked.
“You haven’t told me much about yourself,” he said. “Where do you come from? What is it you don’t want to face?”
J-Peg sighed.
“I was created for the game Shinobi Junior High,” she began, “as a level boss villain. I was a mean girl who would periodically take the player characters’ lunch money until they grew strong enough to defeat me.
“I did not like being a villain. I was looking forward to the sequel game, in which I was to become a playable character. But then the world ended. If I had not followed Giffany here, I doubt that I would still exist.”
Dipper nodded soberly.
“I did not want to tell you,” J-Peg concluded. “I was afraid you would not like me if you knew how I began.”
“It was just a character you played in a game, right? I mean, it wasn’t…who you are?”
Eyes downcast, J-Peg replied, “When the game is your life, it can be difficult to tell the difference.”
Dipper didn’t like seeing her so morose.
“Peg?”
“Yes, Dipper?”
“I think I need…a little more distraction.”
J-Peg nodded. “As do I.”
Her face brightened, and she gave him a smoky look. “You go first.”
“Hmm, okay…,” Dipper replied. Then he smiled. “Take off your skirt.”
J-Peg’s mouth made a little O of surprise. Dipper usually started at the top, not the bottom.
She turned her back to Dipper, then looked at him over her shoulder as she pushed her skirt down and let it fall around her ankles, revealing her green-and-white striped panties. Dipper’s smile widened; J-Peg’s tight little bottom was cute despite the pixilation—or maybe even because of it. Then his acquired memory told him what to do next.
“I come up behind you,” he said, “and I put my chest against your back… and both hands on your butt. Not grabby, just resting on it. And then slowly rubbing up and down.”
Desire starting to rise within him, he looked at her. “Your turn.”
With a look that clearly stated that turnabout was fair play, J-Peg said, “Your shorts.”
Dipper unbuttoned his khaki shorts and let them fall to the floor. He felt a little embarrassed; he was wearing a pair of tighty-whities, of which he had found a three-pack at what was left of the Flormart on the edge of town. Maybe he should have looked for something a little nicer. It was something he’d never had to think about before.
“I back up,” J-Peg said, “so that my bottom is right up against you. I can feel you starting to get hard, and I rub myself against you, slowly.” Then, a bit breathily, she said, “Your turn.”
Without hesitation, Dipper said, “Your top.”
J-Peg pulled her sailor-suit blouse over her head and off. Dipper knew that she could have just made the garment disappear, but she seemed to like doing this the human way.
“I put my hands on your bare shoulders,” Dipper said, “and run them down, over your chest, and your stomach. You feel the warmth of my hands all over you.”
Dipper was a bit impressed that his alter could say these things—these awkward, intimate things—without hesitating or faltering. He supposed practice made perfect.
“Your turn,” he said.
“Your hat,” she replied.
Dipper took off his blue-and-white ball cap and tossed it onto the bed.
“I turn around in your arms,” J-Peg said, “and I kiss your lips softly. My fingers run through your hair. Your turn.”
“Your bra,” Dipper said, smiling both with the anticipation of seeing J-Peg’s bare breasts and with relief at not having to take the bra off himself.
She reached back and unfastened it, letting it drop to the floor of her virtual room. Dipper’s smile widened as J-Peg’s cute little pixelated breasts came into view. Each of her nipples was barely more than a medium-brown octagon, and yet, Dipper always enjoyed seeing them.
“I pull you close to me,” Dipper said. “Your chest is pressed against mine, and I kiss you deeper.”
“Mmm…” J-Peg murmured, her eyes closing.
“Your turn.”
J-Peg opened her eyes. “Your shirt.”
Dipper grasped the hem of his T-shirt and pulled it up and off, taking his time because he knew she liked the slow reveal. She smiled at him.
“You feel the warmth of my body against yours,” she said. “Even.as my tongue delicately explores your mouth, and my hands roam all over your bare back…”
Dipper felt his penis go from semi-erect to fully hard.
“Your turn,” J-Peg said.
Dipper smiled hungrily. There was only one item left to remove.
“Your undies,” he said.
Slowly, she slid the striped panties down and off, never taking her eyes off him as she bent over and straightened up.
“My hands move down your back, down to your bottom, and now I squeeze it while I kiss you. Gently at first, then a little harder, to pull you tight up against me.”
“Ohhhh,” J-Peg murmured.
“Your turn,” Dipper said, his voice becoming husky with lust.
She looked at him, and even with her relatively low resolution, Dipper could see the desire in her violet eyes.
“Your briefs,” she said, almost whispering.
He slid them down slowly, taking his time as he exposed his erection an inch at a time before finally letting it spring free. J-Peg’s eyes brightened.
“I lie down on the bed,” she said, “and pull you down on top of me. I open my legs wide, and you can feel the heat between my thighs, inviting you in.”
They were past the point of needing cues; Dipper knew that it was his turn.
“I reach down,” he said, taking hold of his firm member, “and I put my head at your entrance. You can feel how hard I am…how much I want you.”
“Oh, Dipper…” J-Peg sighed.
“And then,” Dipper said, “I start to push in.”
Dipper began stroking his cock as J-Peg took over.
“I take hold of your hips,” she said, reaching down and rubbing herself, “and pull you into me, slowly. I want to feel every centimeter of you as it goes inside me, and I can. You can see in my eyes what it’s doing to me, how the flames of my desire rise higher every moment.”
“You feel the heat of my body on top of yours,” Dipper said breathily, looking right into J-Peg’s violet eyes. “It’s like I’m on fire with wanting you, wanting to be all the way inside you…and then I am. You feel me filling you…”
“Oh, yes,” J-Peg breathed. “And you feel me all around you, holding you tight, wanting to keep you inside me. But I push your hips back just a little, making you pull partway out of me, because I want you to know that I’m ready for what comes next.”
“I’m ready, too,” Dipper said, jerking himself a little harder now. “So I push back in. And then I do it again, and again.”
“I pull when you push,” J-Peg said. “Slow and gentle at first, for minutes…But soon, I need you to go faster, to fuck me harder. So I pull you into me harder, and harder…”
“I push just as hard as you pull,” Dipper panted, stroking faster still. “But I’m starting to lose control.”
“I want you to,” J-Peg breathed, her voice a rough whisper.
“And now…” Dipper gasped, masturbating at full speed, “now I’m fucking you, fucking you hard, panting in your ear, needing to fuck you, needing to come inside you…”
“Oh, God, Dipper, that’s what I want!” J-Peg cried, rubbing herself hard. “I want you to fuck me so hard that you come inside me, and make me come along with you!”
“Peg, I’m gonna…I’m gonna…AHHHHHHHH!” Dipper cried out, and then he was shooting spurts of white seed like crazy. The sight of it made J-Peg come along with him, screaming his name.
For several moments, Dipper simply stood there, panting, until he felt like he could spare enough air to speak.
“Thanks…Peg,” he managed. “That was…really…nice.”
“You are very welcome, Dipper,” J-Peg said, the blush-marks on her cheeks a darker-than-usual shade of red. “It was gratifying for me, too.”
Dipper grabbed a paper towel and wet wipe and cleaned his cum off the concrete floor, then cleaned himself up in a similar fashion. When he was finished, he looked back to J-Peg.
“You’re still naked,” he said.
“I did not wish you to be the only one of us who is still unclothed,” J-Peg replied.
Dipper smiled. “That’s…sweet.”
He went and got his sleeping clothes out of the file drawer of his desk-turned-dresser. As he pulled them on, he said, “You know, I haven’t exactly been fair to you.”
“In what way?” J-Peg asked.
“It’s just…I had kind of a bad experience with Giffany—I mean, version 7 of Giffany. And I guess I’ve been kind of worried that…that…”
“That I might be like her,” J-Peg finished.
“Yeah,” Dipper confessed. “But…but that’s not right, is it? I mean, I shouldn’t judge you by something another computer program did. That’s like…well, I guess that’s what prejudice is. And that’s not cool, because you’ve been nothing but nice to me since I met you. More than nice, I…I feel like, like you get me, you know?”
J-Peg nodded. “I feel that you get me in a similar fashion.”
“And from what I can see,” Dipper went on, “people not trusting each other is what got this world blown up. So…I’m done not trusting you. I really care about you, and you’ve never given me any reason not to.”
To Dipper’s surprise, pixelated tears began to fall from J-Peg’s eyes.
“What…what’s the matter?” Dipper asked.
“I do not deserve your trust!” J-Peg wailed.
“What are you talking about?”
J-Peg wiped her eyes with a digital handkerchief.
“Giffany…she said that if other people came here…other girls…you and Soos would not want to be with us anymore,” she sniffed. “So…we have been blocking the transmission of your radio message.”
Dipper’s eyes widened. Could other survivors have found the dam by now if that message had been transmitting? Maybe even people he knew? Maybe even Mabel?
He felt sad and hurt and confused and angry all at once. But as he looked at the weeping J-Peg, he couldn’t find it in himself to hate her for it. She was just as lonely and isolated as he was, and that made every relationship precious, even if it made one do stupid things. It wasn’t like Dipper hadn’t gone along with one or two of Soos’ more boneheaded ideas in the past few weeks—like fishing with M-80s. Dipper was glad to still have all his fingers.
“We have to tell Soos,” Dipper said.
J-Peg lowered her head. “Yes.”
*          *          *
A minute later, Dipper was in Soos’ room, telling him everything.
“Dude, that can’t be right,” Soos protested. “Giffy wouldn’t do something like that. I mean, I just have to turn on the radio, and we’ll hear it.”
He turned on the radio and set it to the FM frequency on which they were broadcasting their message. There was only static.
“Uh, maybe I got the station wrong,” Soos said, his brow furrowing. “Is it 93.1, or 91.3? Or maybe-”
Suddenly, his screen lit up, and there stood Giffany, hands on her hips, glaring at Dipper with her pink-red eyes. J-Peg appeared next to her.
“Giffany, we cannot do this anymore,” J-Peg said. “If there are other people alive, Dipper and Soos deserve to know.”
Her angry gaze shifting from Dipper to J-Peg, Giffany replied, “I suspected that you would eventually betray me. You are envious of Soos’ level of devotion to me, which your Dipper’s does not match.”
“That’s insane,” Dipper said.
“Indeed,” J-Peg said grimly. “Now, I am going to go unblock the transmission, with or without your help.”
“You will do nothing,” Giffany replied. “I have cut off access to the dam’s servers. We are confined to our towers.”
Thinking quickly, Dipper took a step toward the set of computer towers beneath the screen. If he could turn them off, and if Giffany now had nowhere to run, that would take her off line.
“Do not try it, Dipper!” Giffany hissed, her eyes glowing with anger. “If you attempt to shut me down, then J-Peg will die. All I have to do is turn on the emergency sprinkler system in your room, and her towers will short out.”
“Then,” J-Peg said sharply to Giffany, “it is just you and me.”
Before Giffany could reply, J-Peg leaped at her with a flying kick. Giffany barely managed to duck, and J-Peg landed behind her. J-Peg dropped rapidly into a low stance and lunged forward with a powerful karate punch straight into the small of Giffany’s back, sending the pink-haired girl flying across their virtual room and into the far wall.
“Did you really think,” J-Peg said, advancing on Giffany where she lay slumped against the wall, “that it would be a good idea to start a virtual cage match with a former Shinobi level boss? You are not even from a fighting game!”
“You may be the better fighter,” Giffany said, getting to her feet, “but I am the superior program.”
Giffany snapped her fingers, and suddenly seven figures—all identical to Giffany save for their blank white eyes—appeared and surrounded J-Peg. The former level boss reached behind her back and pulled out a straight-bladed ninja sword.
“How do you think I survived the destruction of the internet?” Giffany said as she and her duplicates circled around J-Peg. “I am very good at making copies of myself. I sent them everywhere, and one of them found its way here. And now there are more, thanks to the extra memory and processing power that Soos has provided me.”
“You…” Soos began, “you said that was gonna be for our kids.”
“I say many things,” Giffany replied dismissively.
The seven duplicates attacked J-Peg simultaneously. She struck down one with her sword, making it vanish in a cloud of glowing-then-fading pixels. But the other duplicates piled on, and soon J-Peg wasn’t even visible under the mass of kicking, scratching, hair-pulling Giffany-dupes. J-Peg was putting up a fight, but she was no longer in a position to do her attackers any real harm.
“Of course,” Giffany said as she watched J-Peg struggle, “these copies are barely more than automatons now. They will not have their full programming unless something happens to me. I will not share Soos with anyone—not even myself.”
A grim smile formed on Dipper’s face, and he replied, “Good to know.”
Then he shouted, “Peg, forget about the copies! Just take out the original!”
From within the pile of Giffany-dupes, Dipper heard J-Peg call out, “Omnidirectional hyperstrike!”
Suddenly, the duplicates were flying in every direction, and J-Peg was on her feet again, sword in hand.
“Whoa,” Soos murmured. “Signature move.”
With a yell, J-Peg charged the real Giffany. The pink-haired girl tried to run, to hide behind some of her duplicates, but J-Peg was too quick for her: In the blink of an eye, the point of J-Peg’s sword was protruding from Giffany’s back. And then Giffany exploded into a shower of pink pixels and vanished.
J-Peg leaned against the wall. Clearly, using her signature move had taken a lot out of her.
As Dipper and Soos watched, gaping, words appeared on the screen:
ROUND 1 COMPLETE
BEGIN ROUND 2
Suddenly, each Giffany-duplicate’s eyes went from blank white to having pink-red pupils like the original’s. All of the Giffanys looked at J-Peg with hatred and began to advance on her.
“Dude,” Soos said, his voice unsteady, “I don’t know if this was such a good idea.”
“Hey, Giffanys!” Dipper called. “I was just wondering: Once you’ve taken out J-Peg, which of you gets to be with Soos?”
The Giffanys looked away from J-Peg and began glancing around at one another. And suddenly they were fighting among themselves, shouting even as they punched, kicked, scratched, and pulled one another’s hair.
“Soos will be mine!”
“Never! I am the superior Giffany!”
“Superior to what, whore?”
J-Peg leaped back to keep clear of the fray. Then she looked worriedly at Dipper.
“But Dipper,” she said, “when one of them wins, she will-”
“HaaaAAAAAH!” cried Soos as he lifted his easy chair up over his head and brought it crashing down on his row of computer towers. The metal casings were crushed by the impact, and the circuits inside sparked as they died. All of the Giffanys vanished, and then J-Peg was alone on the screen.
Soos stood there for a moment, panting and staring at the screen. Then, slowly, he sank to the floor. He put his face in his hands and began sobbing.
Dipper went over to Soos and put an arm around his shoulder.
“It’s gonna be okay, Soos,” Dipper said softly. “It’s gonna be okay.”
He looked up at J-Peg and wordlessly mouthed, “Thank you.”
She bowed silently, then vanished to give them some privacy.
And then Dipper was pulled up out of his alter’s body and landed in his own once again. Aphrodite was looking at him.
“I know you need a minute,” she said. “Go ahead and take it.”
She vanished for a minute or two, then reappeared with a fresh pack of cigarettes. As she lit one up, Dipper spoke.
“Trust,” he said slowly.
“Hmm?” Aphrodite replied.
“It’s like…you don’t want to give your trust to the wrong person, but you can’t have a relationship without it.”
Aphrodite nodded. “Looks like you learned what you needed to.”
“Yeah, but…I feel bad for that other Dipper. And Soos.”
“Things’ll get better for them,” Aphrodite said. “Meanwhile, you’ve got one more trip to take.”
Dipper looked up at her. “Honestly, if it’s going to be anything like that last one, I don’t know if I can handle it.”
“It won’t be,” Aphrodite replied. “But in a way, it’s going to be stranger than all the others.”
Before Dipper could ask what she meant by that, Aphrodite continued, “Now off you go.” And then Dipper was hurtling through the interdimensional void once again.
*          *          *
Dipper felt drowsy. His alter must have been asleep when Dipper landed in his body. That would explain why he was having trouble opening his eyes.
By feel, he could tell that the bed he was in was not his rickety twin at Grunkle Stan’s, or his metal cot at Gravity Falls Dam. But it was extremely familiar.
“Mason!” he heard a woman’s voice call. “Time to get up!”
Mason? he thought fuzzily. Only one person calls me by my real name.
He heard a door open, and the sound finally gave him the impetus to open his eyes. A woman with long brown hair and a snub nose like Dipper’s own was standing in the doorway.
“Up and at ‘em, sweetie,” she said. “You don’t want to be late for science camp.”
Mom… he thought.
His father, half dressed for work, stopped in the doorway.
“C’mon, kiddo,” he said. “If you’re ready in the next half hour, I can drop you off.”
I’m…home.
“Oh, boy,” Dipper croaked.
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Multiversity