Gravity Rises (S1)

MM: Part Six

"Maaaaaaaaaaaabeeeeeeeeeeeelll!" Dipper yelled as loud as his lungs would let him for as long as they would let him. Then he took a deep breath and prepared to do it again. "Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa—"

"Wait, what's that?" Candy said, nudging Dipper violently in the side to get him to shut up. The air left his lungs in an oomph!

Dipper couldn't hear anything, since he was concerned with catching his breath, but apparently Candy could. "Over there!" She pointed off the path, towards a cluster of bushes. Dipper followed her finger, expecting a bunny to hop out of it like in the cartoons when people thought there was a monster.

Instead, Mabel emerged from the undergrowth.

"Dipper! I found you!" she exclaimed, running towards him and giving him a hug.

"Uh, hi, Mabes," Dipper said, a little shocked. "Are you okay?" If she was hugging him so tightly, maybe something scary happened.

Mabel pulled away, beaming at her brother. "Everything is fine, now that I've found you! What were you doing out here in the forest?"

"Looking for you," Dipper replied. He could see Greyson and Candy watching him and his sister, the former looking surprised and the latter snickering behind her hand. Dipper took a step back from Mabel. "Mabel, these are my new friends, Greyson and Candy." Now that he was a little further away, he realized that Mabel's white shirt had a dark blue star on it, rather than a pine tree. Did Mabel have any other white-and-blue shirts? Dipper thought she only had the pine tree one.

"Hi." Mabel gave Candy and Greyson a cheery wave, then turned back to Dipper. "Listen, we gotta get out of here." Her voice took on a sudden tone of urgency.

"Uh, why?"

"We have to get away from someone. I'll explain later." She started tugging on his sleeve.

"Wait, get away from someone? Is Pacifica out here?"

"No, she's not out here. Come on." Mabel gripped Dipper's wrist and started pulling him along behind her.

"Mabel! Mabel, wait! Who are we running from?"

"Dipper, look out!"

In the same moment that Candy yelled his name, another figure burst from the tree line and tackled Dipper from the side. He felt his wrist tear away from Mabel's grasp right before he hit the ground, tumbling over and over. Wow, he was getting beat up today. First by Candy, now by this mystery attacker. He rolled over and propped himself up with his elbows as his assailant moved off of him. "Get away from her!" they demanded.

Wait.

That was Mabel's voice.

Dipper looked up to see Mabel scowling down at him. What the heck? She had been pulling on his wrist, not jumping on him from the trees! Vaguely, he realized that the symbol on her shirt had changed: Now, the star was upside-down.

"Why would you do that! He didn't deserve that!"

"He totally did — and even if he didn't, I had to get him away from you."

Dipper looked past Mabel to see. . . another Mabel?

Two Mabels, one with a star on her shirt and the other with an upside-down star, were arguing with each other in the middle of the path.

Dipper glanced over to Greyson and Candy, who looked as shocked and confused as he felt. So he wasn't the only one seeing this? What had happened to his sister?

Star Mabel ran over to help Dipper to his feet, shoving Upside-Down Star Mabel away as she tried to stop her. "Get off me! You know I'm going to win!" she shouted over her shoulder as she held out her hand for Dipper.