The falls

chapter eight

The next morning, Neomi and Jessica were back in the woods, this time armed with a leaf blower. Neomi had insisted they bring it, confidently explaining, "You can suck gnomes up with it and then set it to blow, and it'll shoot them out like some kind of gnome cannon. Trust me, this thing works."

Jessica raised an eyebrow but held onto the machine, still getting used to the idea of using garden tools for defense against mystical creatures. "So, why didn't we bring this the first time?"

Neomi shrugged. "Didn't think about it. Plus, it's way funnier to watch them get sucked up and launched than just running away."

As they strolled through the woods, Jessica's mind began to wander, and she couldn't help but ask the question that had been bothering her since she arrived in Gravity Falls. "Neomi... what exactly was Weirdmageddon? Everyone keeps mentioning it, but no one really explains what happened."

Neomi glanced at her, a mix of amusement and nostalgia crossing her face. "Oh man, Weirdmageddon was... insane. It was like an apocalyptic event, but with the weirdest stuff you could ever imagine. Gravity could flip itself at any moment, so one second you'd be standing, and the next, you're floating in the air. Totem poles came to life and started attacking people, and there was this one time a tiny goat just... turned into an 80-foot giant goat. I'm not kidding. It was chaos, like living in a nightmare but somehow even weirder."

Jessica's eyes widened. "That sounds insane."

Neomi nodded, a small grin on her face. "And the guy behind it all? Bill Cipher. He's... well, was... a talking triangle with a top hat and one eye."

"A triangle?" Jessica blinked, trying to visualize it.

"Yeah, I know it sounds ridiculous, but he was terrifying. He could warp reality, enter your mind, and turn your worst fears into real-life nightmares. It wasn't just random chaos—he had control over it all. And he nearly destroyed everything. My dad and my aunt Mabel were the ones who stopped him. They had to outsmart him, and it wasn't easy."

Jessica absorbed the story in awe. "I can't believe your family went through that."

Neomi shrugged again, trying to play it off, though a hint of pride was clear in her voice. "Yeah, it was pretty crazy. But they saved the town, and Bill was taken down for good. Or... at least, we hope so."

Before Jessica could ask more, a sudden whoosh sounded above them, and a shadow passed over the trees. Jessica looked up just in time to see a pterodactyl swooping down, its massive wings slicing through the air. Neomi barely had time to scream before the creature grabbed her in its talons and lifted her off the ground.

"Neomi!" Jessica shouted, her heart pounding in her chest. She watched in disbelief as Neomi was carried off, helpless in the grip of the prehistoric beast.

Without thinking, Jessica acted on pure instinct. She looked around wildly and spotted a deer grazing nearby. Racing over to it, she grabbed its antlers and used them to pull herself up onto the animal's back.

"Come on, you have to go!" she muttered, patting its neck urgently.

The deer looked startled but, to Jessica's relief, it bolted forward, sprinting through the underbrush in the direction the pterodactyl had gone. Jessica clung tightly to its antlers, the wind whipping her hair back as they sped through the forest. She could just make out the silhouette of the pterodactyl in the distance, heading toward a mountain peak that loomed over Gravity Falls.

As the deer leaped over rocks and crashed through the brush, Jessica's mind raced. How was she going to get Neomi back? She'd never fought off a dinosaur before, let alone one that could fly. But her determination hardened with each second. She couldn't let her new friend be carried off to who-knew-where by a prehistoric monster.

The mountain drew closer, and with it, the pterodactyl began to circle, descending toward what looked like a nest perched on a rocky ledge. Jessica grit her teeth, gripping the deer's antlers even tighter.

"I hope you're ready for this," she whispered to herself, already formulating a plan in her head.