After a while, Coraline finally left, saying that she also had to get ready for the birthday party, leaving the trio in an open guest house. It was similar to a small wooden cabin with nothing more than a living room, a kitchen, a bathroom, and a single bedroom.
"She's very kind. And here I thought this place was going to be dangerous."
"Yeah, coming here was definitely worth it if we get the chance to attend the party. Right, Kaito?"
Hearing them say such nonsense, and with Coraline no longer there, Kaito ignored Marco's question, moved behind the two of them, and gave each a strong but controlled chop to the back of the neck.
"Ouch, hey, what's wrong with you?" Heekapoo complained.
"Damn it, you're... not very gentlemanly" Marco said, correcting himself halfway through.
"Alright, what do you think about Mabel?" Kaito asked, ignoring their resentful looks.
"Miss Mabel?" Marco thought for a second. "Even though we haven't met her yet, I think she could be a distinguished lady, perhaps even on Star's level."
"And you?" Kaito looked at Heekapoo.
"I don't know her, how could I know?" Heekapoo said, but before Kaito could feel relieved, she continued. "But I think she's at least better than the Ice King, the Beast, or the Jester. They haven't tried to kill us, at least. She might even be the best person in this whole place. I think we should go to her birthday party before continuing with our plans."
Kaito shifted his gaze between the backs of their necks and his own fist.
'How strange, it works in the movies' he thought to himself. 'I guess we've already lost them. I just hope they'll snap out of it once this is all over.'
With both of them in that state, and seeing that there was nothing he could do to help them, Kaito decided to simply wait.
According to Heekapoo's explanation back when she was normal, this island has two rulers. If one of them is Mabel, and considering everything strange surrounding this place, she almost certainly is, then the second one is almost certainly Dipper, her twin brother.
'Now then, what's actually happening here?' he wondered.
Going in without knowing his opponent's abilities seemed idiotic, especially considering they likely included reality manipulation, so Kaito decided to analyze their powers based on what he already knew.
From what he knew, his opponent, or opponents, possessed reality manipulation, though limited, otherwise they would already rule this entire place, along with high level mental manipulation capable of affecting even souls and covering the island's thousands of kilometers.
"Mental powers and reality manipulation, aren't those Bill's abilities?" Kaito suddenly realized.
In short, Bill is the villain of Gravity Falls, the series Mabel and Dipper belong to. A being from another dimension capable of manipulating reality and minds.
"Do I even have any way to defeat someone like that?" Kaito wondered for a moment before an idea came to him.
Then he reconsidered it. Even though it had been his own idea, he couldn't help doubting it before smiling at how insane it would be.
"If I know Bill well enough, then this will work" he said confidently. "But first, let's make some preparations."
...
"Happy birthday!!!"
"Happy Birthday!!!"
"Congratulations!!!"
"Be happy!!!"
"Have a great time!!!"
"Enjoy your special day!!!"
Some time later, a length of time Kaito didn't even dare try to estimate, the entire town gathered behind the Mystery Shack.
It served both as a mysterious curiosity shop run by Dipper and Mabel's great uncle and as the place where they were temporarily living. Since it was located deep within the forest, it was quite isolated from the town and could be considered its outermost edge.
There, behind the shack facing the forest, the entire town had gathered. Due to its small size, that only amounted to a few hundred people.
Even so, with Mabel, a thirteen year old girl with long brown hair and an endlessly cheerful expression, at the center, everyone celebrated and played games, making sure she was happy.
The birthday party unfolded with terrifying normalcy, children's games, cake, snacks, a piñata, and everything else an ordinary birthday party would have.
If someone saw this scene from the outside, they would think Kaito was the strange one here.
Very soon, or perhaps a very long time later, the party ended, and everyone began leaving reluctantly, making sure to say goodbye to Mabel personally.
"Bye!!!" Mabel cheerfully waved to everyone as they left. "Remember to come tomorrow, I'll be celebrating my birthday! There'll be chocolate cake!"
As though they hadn't just been there, the little girl invited all of today's guests to tomorrow's birthday party.
Considering this place had perhaps existed for thousands of years, and Mabel seemed to have a birthday every single day, then this girl, whose appearance was no older than thirteen, was probably the oldest being in the entire cemetery.
Finally, it was Kaito's turn to say goodbye.
"Bye, bye, thank you so much for coming. I hope you had fun!" Mabel held his hands and bid him farewell with a cheerful smile.
'She looks normal. Either she's very good at hiding it, or it's not her' Kaito thought.
He had believed Bill had possessed one of the siblings. Based on the little power that had been demonstrated, he assumed Bill must have been weakened for some reason. Since only mistakes had been sent here, Kaito reasoned that possessing one of the siblings explained both mysteries.
"Thank you, I had a lot of fun" Kaito smiled. "Although there was someone else I wanted to see. Will your brother be at tomorrow's party?"
"Dipper? Of course! He's been here the whole time!" Mabel nodded.
"The whole..."
"Boo."
Kaito never finished expressing his confusion because, right beside his right ear, he heard a playful voice.
"Hey, hey, were you looking for me?" the newcomer asked.
He was basically a male version of Mabel, the same age, the same height, the same brown hair except cut short, and a similarly cheerful expression. The difference was that while Mabel's cheerfulness was innocent, his was mischievous. But what stood out the most were his eyes, completely yellow with two black diamond shaped pupils.
'At least now I know it's only him. He does a terrible job hiding' Kaito thought upon seeing his appearance, relieved that there weren't two Bills, one for each sibling.
"So you'd already noticed me?" Kaito asked with interest.
"Ever since you stepped onto the island" Dipper, no, Bipper, replied while leaning against his sister's shoulder with amusement. "It's strange. Normally, even if I'm rejected, I can always try again. But not with you. After my mental intrusion failed the first time, I couldn't even touch your body anymore. It's as if the first attempt only worked by luck, and once you considered me a threat, I was no longer allowed in."
"Sorry, any movement inside my body is under my control."
"But I didn't try to move anything." Bipper raised an eyebrow.
"How can you manipulate my mind without movement? Don't your abilities have to move inside me? Doesn't my mind itself have to move in the direction you want?" Kaito smiled.
"You know, that's a pretty broad interpretation of movement. Isn't that kind of cheating?"
"Says the triangle from another dimension who controls reality" Kaito replied sarcastically.
"Touché." Bipper straightened up, letting go of his sister's shoulder and signaling for her to leave, which she immediately obeyed. Then he walked until he was only a meter away from Kaito. "But for someone who knows who I am and what I'm capable of... you don't seem scared."
"Why would I be? You can't kill me." Kaito smiled. "Instead, I came to offer you a deal."
"A deal?... With me?... Pfft hahaha, you're a pretty brave guy, aren't you?
Just because it's amusing, I'll let you tell me what you want."
Bipper laughed for a long ten seconds before looking at Kaito with amusement and asking.
Without reacting to his attitude, Kaito answered.
"It's simple. Restore this crown to its original state and free my friends from your control. In return, you won't die." Kaito pointed at the crown hanging from his waist.
"That would definitely be a deal I'd accept if you were actually capable of killing me" Bipper replied fearlessly.
Suddenly, the sky changed. A massive shadow fell over both of them as a meteorite roughly five meters in diameter, engulfed in flames, descended toward Kaito.
BOOM!
The meteorite crashed into the ground with all its force exactly where Kaito had been standing.
"With a ten meter diameter accelerating from the atmosphere, you'd need at least 800,000 tons of lifting strength to stop it. Do you have that kind of strength?" Bipper mocked, as calm as ever while enjoying the situation.
"No, but I have the speed to avoid it" Kaito replied from behind him.
"Ugh, annoying. Then dodge a few more."
Bipper wasn't bothered by Kaito's escape. He simply reacted as though he had found an ant slightly more annoying than the previous ones.
The sky darkened once again as dozens of similar meteorites appeared, all moving toward Kaito.
But to Bill's annoyance, Kaito dodged every single one of them with ease.
Boom!
Boom!
Boom!
The air shook, the wind uprooted nearby trees, the ground was torn apart as enormous craters appeared everywhere, visibility dropped to less than a meter because of the conditions in the air, and countless other catastrophic effects were caused by meteorites slamming into the ground at tremendous speed.
Yet Kaito remained completely unharmed. Seeing this, Bipper merely snorted in annoyance.
This time there weren't hundreds. There were thousands of meteorites, much smaller but also much faster. They didn't even appear in the atmosphere anymore. They simply materialized right beside Kaito with all the speed they would have gained if they had appeared far away and accelerated naturally.
"Hey, what's up with that? Where are they getting their acceleration from?"
"I don't care about your laws of physics, human. You have no idea how broad the meaning of total reality manipulation really is."
"Total? If it really were, I'd already be dead" Kaito mocked while continuing to dodge every meteorite, now little more than high speed rocks, with ease.
"Shut up and die."
"You know you're destroying the whole town, right?"
"It's fine. Mabel will survive, and even if she doesn't, I can always bring her back to life" Bipper said with a shrug.
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+15 chapters in advance on Patreon.
p-atreon.com/IAMME26
(just delete the hyphen)
80 power stones = 1 extra chapter (cumulative)