The Sabre of Cortez

        “Mabel!” Dipper cried, “Where are you?”

His earpiece crackled with her voice. “I'm swinging around bro! Don't worry about it!”

Dipper growled and tightened his grip on the rope. He was dangling four hundred feet above the ground and the air was whipping up, threatening to slam him into the side of the canyon. He couldn't climb any higher. His good arm was thoroughly wrapped and with a gaping bullet wound in his other shoulder, he wasn't going to be using it anytime soon. At least he wasn't alone on this one.  

        “Hey!” Dipper yelled, a wry smile playing on his lips. “How you doing down there bud?”

He glanced down. Below, Gideon was desperately latched to the folds of the parachute. It had caught itself somewhere on the edge of the cliff after they'd both tumbled out of the helicopter. The wreckage was still smoking below them, dust billowing up and stinging Dipper's eyes.

        Gideon glared up at him, fear and hatred in his eyes. “Dipper Pines, this is the last time you cross me.” He coughed and clenched the parachute tighter. “The last time, you hear me?”

        Dipper laughed, albeit somewhat nervously. He didn't expect it to be Gideon on the tail end of this little excursion for the Sabre of Cortez. A simple search for a sword had gone awry, ending in helicopter fights and gunshot wounds. Dipper's shoulder throbbed, and he sighed. Why couldn't it ever be easy?

        Something rattled above him. Dipper looked up and there he could see the hilt of the Sabre itself, balanced precariously on the edge of the ledge above him. As Gideon ranted below him, it seemed almost to...glow?

        Dipper's blood froze as cold fear gripped him. “Gideon!” Dipper yelled, “calm down! You're making it mad!”

“You want to see mad boy?” Gideon snarled, “I'll kill you Dipper Pines! I wasn't a hundred percent on it before, I'll be honest there. But I swear, I will end your pitiful little life, or my name isn't Gid-”

        Above Dipper, the sword rattled, and exploded.

 

Chunks of burning rock and debris rained down like hellfire. Dipper gasped as he felt the rope loosen. He was weightless for a split moment. The world seemed to slow down around him. Then gravity gripped him as he plummeted through the burning air. He didn't have time to scream before the rope snapped taut on his arm and he slammed into the rock. Pain exploded across his face. When he could open his eyes again blood was streaming from his nose and dripping onto his dust-laden shirt. He spat blood out of his mouth.

        “Dipper? What was that?”

        Dipper could hear the fear in Gideon's wavering voice. All around him the air picked up, an angry whistling that compounded on the already overpowering din. Dipper was loathe to set his eyes above him. He just wanted to grab on to the rope and do nothing but hang there until someone, Mabel, the police or the goddamn Rescue Rangers arrived to help him. He looked up anyway.

        It's smile was the first thing Dipper noticed, monstrously wide and malicious. It crouched on the fire scorched boulder, a hulking monstrosity with burning coal black eyes. It was all shoulders and arms, its legs seemed almost puny compared to the rest of it. It's tree limb arms ended in gnarled, twisted claws. It's entire form was swathed in an undulating, wispy shadow that coiled and grabbed at the rock face as it crawled its way down to him.

It looked like Cortez' sword was cursed after all.

        “Dipper!” Gideon cried, “Get me out of here! Get that thing away from me!”

Dipper looked down, eyes frantically scanning for a way out. He froze when it spoke.

“Your hatred was a beautiful symphony in the recess of the void,” it rumbled. Its voice was a multitude of voices, forlorn singers and vengeful conquerors all speaking as one. It's smile widened as its gaze swept upon Dipper. “You will die now.”

A hanging moment of silence. Dipper felt sick. He couldn't see Gideon, but below the little man in the worn blue suit began to laugh.

 

“Fine,” Dipper said. He unwound his arm from the rope in one deft move and dropped. The beast roared and leaped after him. Dipper caught a glimpse of Gideon, wide eyed and shocked, before he hit the ledge the parachute hung from. He rolled with the impact as best he could, and compensated desperately to avoid rolling off of the edge. For a frantic few moments, his world was a tangle of wires and billowing parachute fibers. He felt his good hand connect with something halfway sturdy and he clenched his fist around it with as much force as he could muster. He snapped to a jarring stop, dazed and disoriented. He breathed a sigh of relief and-

        Gideon's loafer took him in the face. His head snapped back and his face was a blaze of pain again.

        “This couldn't have worked out better!” Gideon laughed. He kicked at Dipper again and missed. “You may be able to wriggle your way out of my grasp, but there's no way you're getting away from him!”

“Get a grip Gideon!” Dipper yelled. He couldn't see the beast above him but he could feel it getting closer. “It will kill you after it's done with me! Did you even look at the legends?”

        Gideon, in his madness, seemed to forget where he was. He threw his head back and laughed. When he looked at Dipper his eyes were wild. “I don't care anymore Dipper Pines. I'm Lil' Gideon! There ain't nothin that can stop me!”

A shadow fell over the both of them. The beast loomed above, its smile growing again. “Vengeance begets vengeance,” it murmured as it crawled closer. Onto the parachute. A light bulb clicked on in Dipper's head. He swung his legs back as hard as he could, and then wrenched them forward again to work up momentum.

        “What convoluted simpleton move are you trying to pull?” Gideon said. He made to kick at Dipper again but slipped, losing the grip he had on the parachute. Ignoring Dipper and the oncoming demon, he worked to scramble up the parachute again. Above, the beasts teeth sounded like they were whirring in its maw. Dipper was swinging further now, the parachute cords jerking every time he reached the height of each swing. The thing was almost on him now, it's claws raking the parachute and reaching for him...

Dipper swung up and flung himself right back down with a final thrust of his legs, wrenching the parachute with his arm as he fell.  The parachute jerked violently at the drop, slipping on whatever had been holding it on the ledge. The beast lost its balance. It tottered for a moment. Then it dropped, falling right past him. He could feel its stale breath on his cheek as it flew by, roaring.

        Gideon moaned in disappointment. Dipper almost cheered.

 

But the beast threw out a meaty claw and latched onto the parachute edge below him. It leaped up with a triumphant snarl. He tried to move out of the way, but it was much to fast and he could hardly move. It grabbed him in one fist, crushing his bad arm into his ribs. Dipper screamed, squeezing his eyes shut.

“You're mine Dipper Pines,” it breathed. Dipper had heard right previously. He opened his eyes to see its teeth were whirring inside its mouth like the teeth of a chainsaw. “Revenge is fulfilled this day.”

        “Oh god I hope not,” Dipper breathed, and with his good arm, pulled back a fist and let it fly into the beasts eye. The beast howled as it wrenched back. Dipper fell again spinning through the air desperately trying to grab onto to something, anything, this time with his bad arm. His fingers wrapped around a dangling cord and he held as pain spiked all along his shoulder. The beast still gripped the parachute, it's arm jutting out next to Dipper's head. Dipper did the first thing he could think of. He thrust his head forward, biting into its wrist as hard as he could. The creature howled again and let go of its fistful of parachute. It flew out into the open canyon air.

 

"Almost, Dipper Pines," he heard Gideon say above him. Dipper groaned and looked up. Gideon knelt at the ledge, a gleeful smile on his face. "So close. But luck doesn't favor you today my friend. I bid you adios!"

 

Gideon reached into his loafer and from it drew a small little utility knife. He pointed at the parachute cord, the last one supporting Dipper's weight, wrapped around a sharp boulder. "I'm cutting it now. Dearie me, I timed that goodbye all wrong. Oh well."

 

Dipper watched as Gideon stood to move toward the parachute cord. "I'm done," Dipper said in disbelief. He looked all around him, but there was nothing to it. Where he was was sheer, flat cliff. There were no handholds for another fifty feet. "I'm going to die."

He could hear the helicopter before he saw it. Dipper smiled. He almost forgot about his sister.

Gideon was grabbing the cord and pressing the blade against it when he heard the helicopter. He looked up to where the cliff curved to obscure his vision of the open air. "What in heaven's?"

The helicopter flew into view, and that's when he heard an entirely different whirring.

"Oh jeez," Gideon said. Panicked, he ran. That's when the miniguns opened up.

The minigun's terrifying volley of fire spat death all across the rock face, blasting the ledge and the rock above into a dusty-laden maelstrom. They stopped as soon as they started.

"Mabel!" Dipper screamed into his earpiece, "Mabel enough with the gun, Jesus Christ!" He coughed when the cloud of dust drifted down and enveloped him.

"Warning shot! Supposed to be a warning shot!" she said, "Sorry!"

The helicopter swung down and suddenly there was a line of rope dangling in front of Dipper's face. He grabbed at it, wrapping it around his good arm. "Okay," he breathed, "haul me up."

He was jerked into the air, rising above the pock-marked ledge. He looked around for Gideon. All he could see was shattered rock, dust and-

There! Gideon emerged from behind a boulder, clothes torn and pompadour flattened. His face was contorted in rage. "You come back here!" he yelled, "You come back here so I can destroy you!"

Dipper reached the helicopter and felt himself lifted up like he was nothing.

"Hey dude," Soos' said. "You're not looking so good."

"Soos," Dipper breathed, "I don't feel so good either. Better now."

Soos grinned and pulled Dipper into a bone crushing hug. Dipper passed out from the pain. The last thing he heard was, "Oops. Guess I don't know my own strength huh? Super Soos!"