Chapter 2: A Bejeweled Past

Immediately, the twins felt their vision explode with color and light-speed traveling, as if they had gone on a sudden acid trip. Just as quickly as it started, it ended, and the two popped into a new environment.

Dipper felt weak in the knees, as if he had just gotten spun around in a chair for 10 minutes and suddenly got up. He staggered around, forced to putting one knee on the ground as he got a hold of himself. He noticed Mabel in the same fashion.

"Wha...what happened?"

She looked over at him, worry in her eyes.

"I don't-"

That's when she looked up and around.

"Wha-where are we?"

Dipper began to take notice as well. Their environment had changed. There were field of corns behind them, to their front a ton of flatland, a single barn and-

"Who are those people?" Mabel asked, peering over at two silhouettes in the distance.

As she had seen, the two were standing in front of a prototype airplane of sorts, with flat wings extending out to each side.

Dipper looked down at the device again. He noticed the numbers '1903' were still imprinted on the bar.

"Woah! Dipper, what are you wearing?"

This last sentence Mabel began to snicker, and Dipper looked down to see his outfit. He was wearing a black and white striped vest, with a white undercoat tucked into his brown trousers, leading down to a pair of black dress shoes.

"I...dunno. What are you wearing?"

Mabel tilted her head, then looked down. She was wearing a striped gown. She made a face as she looked at it.

"This feels...confining."

"How do you think I feel? This collar is too tight."

Dipper looked back up from the watch at the two silhouettes. This time, the airplane began to move, its propeller building up motion as the whole plane moved forward rapidly, running across the field.

1903…

A prototype airplane...

"Mabel!"

He turned to her, to which she jumped slightly at his sudden outburst.

"W-what?"

"This-" He pointed at the device in his hands. "-is a time traveling device!"

Mabel's jaw dropped.

"And those must be the Wright Brothers!"

He watched on as the plane, after a few moments, began to lift into the air. The lone silhouette began to clap and shout in excitement as the other flew upwards.

Dipper, having realized what they were seeing, was in awe of getting to see the first flight in the world.
"So this means...this device can take us to any point in time?"

"Well, no, look at the imprint on the side."

Dipper looked to where she was pointing. There was indeed imprint on the side of the device:

WARNING

DO NOT TRAVEL BEFORE 1900

PRESS RED BUTTON TO RETURN

FIND AND ELIMINATE THE OTHER TIME TRAVELER

D/N'T C/A/GE H/ST/RY

The last words were scratched up, so Dipper couldn't read them. Hopefully it wasn't anything important.

"Well, we've seen one event. We could return home any time we wanted. Do you want to...you know...go home?"

"Well…"

Mabel hesitated for a moment.

"There must be a reason why we're here. After all, why was the town empty?"

"You're right. Look at that one line." He pointed to the line, and Mabel peered at it:

FIND AND ELIMINATE THE OTHER TIME TRAVELER

Mabel nodded upon seeing the line.

"Okay, so we need to find that other time traveler and beat him up. Probably because he's messing with time, right?"

Dipper nodded. He was disturbed, though, by the use of the word 'eliminate'. Hopefully, they could find a way around that.

The last thing he wanted to do was kill somebody.

"Well, then let's keep going. I'm assuming this thing is randomized, since we didn't input any numbers."

"That would make sense." Mabel remarked.

At this thought, Dipper realized that trying to find the time traveler would depend entirely on the chance of what year they happened to randomly teleport to. Hopefully, they would get lucky.

"But wait, that guy could be anywhere in any year in the 20th century. How are we sure we're gonna find him at all?" Mabel asked.

"Well, I think the device would teleport us in the local area where he was. And it's not like he's gonna be hard to find, right?"

Mabel gave a skeptical look to that sentence.
"I wouldn't assume that much. If our device put us in the clothes matching the year, then the same must apply to him."
Dipper's confidence in finishing this mission further dropped.

"Well, let's just be on the lookout for what this guy will be carrying in his hands. Since our device is pretty big, his must be too…..right?"

"Sure."

Before Dipper pulled the handle, he noticed something on the left side of the device. He flipped it over and saw a vertical bar with colors on it, green-yellow-red, going upwards. A little stick was in the bottom of the green area. There was imprint below it:

TIME TRAVELER DETECTOR

"Wow, this just made everything a whole lot easier."

"What?"

Dipper showed the side of the device to Mabel.

"So now all we have to do is just be in the same year as he is, and this thing should start going off."

Mabel nodded, smiling as she felt more confident in their mission.

"Well, that's definitely a relief."

Dipper felt the same way. He was about to pull the handle once more.

"Wait, Dipper."

He stopped, looking at Mabel.'

"Do you think the time traveler...is Blendin Blandin?"

It took Dipper a moment. He finally realized who Mabel was talking about.

"Oh yeah. It could be that guy, but you never know. I don't see why he'd mess with the past. After all, I pegged him as a stickler for rules. I'll keep him on the list of suspects, though."

Mabel nodded silently, having nothing else to say.

With that, Dipper pulled the handle. Once again, the bar of numbers began to spin, finally landing on a match after a few seconds.

1925.

Ding.

After a second time through the time warp, Dipper felt more nauseous than before.

I can't see myself getting used to this, he thought. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Mabel stumbling around as well. She probably experiencing the same.

As his vision stabilized, Dipper took a look around.

"Holy cow! Look at this place!"

Highrises, pavement, and passerby filled his vision. The people passing by had on less restrictive clothing than the time Dipper and Mabel had just come from. Women wore dresses, and the men wore fine suits with low-cut fedoras or boater hats.

"This is the roaring 20s!" Dipper commented. He noticed that Mabel was especially captivated with the place, as she pranced around with extra energy than usual.

"I LOVE this time period! Everything was swinging, the music was popping, and the outfits were fashionable!"

She did a 180, looking at Dipper with big, sparkling eyes.

"Can we stay here for a while? Please?"

As fun as this place was supposed to be, especially by the way Mabel described it, he wanted to look around pretty badly. However, what with their objective…

"I'm sorry, Mabel, but we gotta move on."

He felt crappy upon seeing Mabel's expression droop.

"Look, I want to stay as well, but we just simply don't have time right now. With as much as we're jumping around from one year to the next, we gotta find this time traveler before he REALLY messes up time."

Mabel nodded sadly, but Dipper felt further incentivized to assure her.

"Trust me, when we find and take care of this troublemaker, we can be having fun in all of these other timelines as much as we like."

At that thought, Mabel grinned.

"Then let's find him."

Dipper nodded.

"Well, it doesn't look like he'd be here anywhere, or this the meter would start reacting. Let's head to the next year."

He pulled the handle. The numbers began to spin once again, before landing on a new set of numbers.

1937

Ding.

Once again, they went through the time warp. Luckily for Dipper, he WAS getting used to it. Only a little bit, though, as he almost heaved his breakfast as they arrived at their next destination. He was forced to one knee as he tried to balance his stomach out.

"Dipper, look!"

He could only respond with a groan. For some reason unbeknownst to him, Mabel was unaffected by the time warp. However, he managed to lift his head enough to see the legs of a crowd.

"My gosh, Dipper, come on!"

She raised him up, and he was able to get a better look of his environment. They were standing in front of a giant crowd, and Dipper could see the wings of a small, old-fashioned plane.
"What's goin' on here?" He asked inquisitively. Mabel shrugged.

"Dunno."

Dipper looked around a bit. They were on an airstrip, and there were other onlookers to whatever was happening in front of the giant crowd. Dipper looked at Mabel.

"We should go see what's going on."

Mabel nodded, and they began to squeeze through the crowd. Eventually, they reached the forefront, and Dipper now had a view of the event.

"Oh my gravy!" He exclaimed. "That's Amelia Earhart!"

Indeed it was. Wearing a pilot cat and smiling as she waved to the large crowd. Dozens of reporters and camera men were desperately trying to get more information on her as she continued her routine.

Being this close to such a historical figure, Dipper was beginning to get absorbed into just how amazing these experiences were. Among all the things Dipper had seen, this was undoubtedly the most fascinating thing he had encountered in his entire life.

Unbeknownst to him, he was starting to get addicted to this device…

Mabel, on the other hand, wasn't as entranced with it as he was, but she was still amazed with its capabilities. However, she knew there was a task that needed accomplishing. She took a look at the detector. The tick wasn't moving upwards at all.

"Dipper, the time traveler isn't here. Let's get-"

"Alright!"

She was put off by how irritated Dipper reacted.

"Dipper, why are you so angry? You know we have a job to do."

Dipper's tone softened as he realized this.

"Oh, y-yeah, sorry. Just got...caught up in the moment."

Mabel nodded, smiling at him.

"It's fine, Dipper. Anyways, let's get going."

"Yep."

After taking one last look at Amelia, he walked back out of the crowd with Mabel. As they got out to a clearing, Dipper pulled the handle.

From there, the twins traveled around a couple more years, seeing the events that shaped history unfolding in front of their very eyes. Little did they know, however, of the danger that would soon await them...