Disremembered Tales

Chapter 12

They crouched just inside the tree line and stared at the building in the middle of the clearing. The open area was a major defensive advantage; anyone inside could see an intruder coming from any direction. He had made it that way, and now it was being used against him.

"Come on Ford," Stanley griped, "We've been here for five minutes. How much longer do you expect me to squat like this – I'm an old man now."

"Just a little while longer. There's movement inside, but I haven't been able to make any faces out," He stood up and stretched his legs and Stanley followed suit. Maybe he was getting old as well, "I just don't want us walking into a trap.

"Again."

"Sorry about that," Stanley glanced at his brother's bandaged arm. When the second plane they 'borrowed' was low on fuel, they were forced to land on an airstrip in Idaho. It looked like a private field and there was another plane in a hangar at the other end of the strip. How was he supposed to know that people were waiting for them?

Stanford was shot and Stanley blew up their plane. He'd never seen his brother happier than when things were exploding. It'd distracted their attackers and allowed them to escape. Ford had tried to reprimand his brother for being reckless, but it was half-hearted. Not that he'd ever admit it, but exploding a plane was kind of cool.

From there it was a slow walk until they'd found some bicycles locked in a bike rack at an abandoned high school. The phrase "it's just like riding a bike" was not the case. Stanford hadn't ridden a bicycle since he was a little kid and it did not go smoothly.

He fell more than once. He blamed arthritis; his joints just weren't as flexible as they used to be.

But none of that mattered anymore, because they were at the Mystery Shack. They'd managed to travel across an apocalyptic America and survive. They were so close, and he was not going to rush in just to get shot. They'd come too far.

So, they waited.

After an hour of shadow's moving around inside, the front door suddenly opened. A blonde girl jumped out... followed by a walking slime. Stanley grumbled something about ruined carpets, but Stanford was too busy looking at the blonde girl. He knew her from somewh- The mewman! She was the mewman girl that helped them defeat Bill last summer.

What was her name? It was something celestial. Mercury? Venus? Ganymede, Jupiter's largest moon?

No, it wasn't any of those. It was –

"Star!" Stanley called out. her head whipped around until she spotted two old men coming out of the woods. She gasped before running over to hug them.

"It's so good to see you guys! Dipper and Mabel were sure you'd make it here event-"

"They're here?" Stanley interrupted.

"Yeah," Star nodded, "They've been in the basement for like two days now looking over notes and diaries. They really need some sunlight."

Stanley was in the house before she could finish. Plates shattered and the familiar sound of Soos crying could be heard, followed by the ding of the elevator behind the vending machine.

Stanford looked at Star and shrugged. Those kids meant the world to his brother. He wouldn't shut up about them the entire way here. That wasn't to say that he wasn't excited to see them. They were his family, too, but this thing in front of him piqued his curiosity.

"H-hi, I'm Sime," The gelatinous green humanoid held out something that looked like a hand, "Slime-I mean- my name is Slime."

"Stanford," He looked at the hand, realized that there probably wasn't any hand sanitizer in the Mystery Shack, sighed, and shook it. The creature looked terrified of him and he didn't want to appear threatening, "are you from Mewni as well?"