"Come, come, now ladies, is this truly the best you can do?" said Chrysalis, Queen of the insect-like Changelings as she faced down the six ponies she hated most: Rarity Belle, Applejack, Fluttershy Connors, Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, and worst of all, newly-minted Princess Twilight Sparkle. She hated perfect little Twilight with an all-consuming hatred.
First, the little pony, who had been no more than a mere unicorn at the time, had foiled her plans to defeat Celestia and claim Canterlot as the Changeling's new home/all-you-can-eat buffet. Then, hardly two months later, when Chrysalis had kidnapped three fillies with close ties to Twilight's friends, Twilight, with a little help from the magical surge from the Secretariat Comet passing through the Horse Head Nebula, had beaten the living daylights out of her.
Chrysalis still felt like kicking herself for failing to realize that there wasn't a single word in any known language that rhymed with orange.
But this time, things would be different.
Twilight, meanwhile, was preparing to attack once again.
"How many times must we do this, Chrysalis? You still don't know jack squat about love or friendship!" said Twilight as she fired a blast at the floor of the crumbling tower they were in.
"Or fashion!" added Rarity.
"Or... uh-oh," said Applejack as she felt the floor start to shift, before it fell away.
As Twilight, Fluttershy, and Rainbow Dash grabbed the three ponies who lacked wings, Chrysalis, her wings damaged by Twilight's last attack, was unable to escape and fell.
After the floor finished crumbling, Princess Twilight checked for Chrysalis's pulse. "She's gonna be fine," she told her friends.
As one, the six friends carried Chrysalis to the waiting carriage Celestia had lent them.
~
It was about two weeks later. A large circular gateway was behind the Changeling Queen as four royal guards held her inside their magical containment.
Princess Celestia approached Chrysalis. "Chrysalis of the Changelings, you have been found guilty of crimes against Equestria and are sentenced to banishment from this dimension. Do you have anything to say before the sentence is carried out?" said Celestia, a look of the utmost dislike on her face.
"As a matter of fact, I do," said Chrysalis, a sneer on her face. "The Changeling Hive is far greater than any of you pathetic fools can imagine! My children will rise long after I'm gone, and Faust willing, their children! So, go ahead, ship me off to who-knows-where, you haven't stopped me... the tide has merely gone out."
"Open the portal," said Celestia.
A blue light filled the gateway, which also fizzled and sparked with energy.
The last thing anypony saw of Queen Chrysalis was a sinister sneer on her face.
~
Meanwhile, in a dense pine forest, we find a human boy and a human girl, both around twelve. Both of them had brown hair and blue eyes, but that was where the similarities ended.
The boy, who was actually named Hector Pines, but everyone called him Dipper due to the birthmark on his forehead, which was the exact replica of the big dipper. His brown hair was a bit of a mop, and he wore a blue and white trucker's hat with a blue pine tree on it, an orange shirt, a black vest, gray shorts, and black sneakers. In his hands he held a battered old book with a six-fingered hand marked with a 3.
The girl was Dipper's twin sister, Mabel. Her brown hair was long and she wore braces in her teeth, a pink sweater with a shooting star on it, a purple skirt, and black shoes.
"Come on, Dipper! My feet are tired!" complained Mabel.
"Mabel, we can't turn back now! We're so close to finding the lairs of the chubacabra! It'll be an amazing discovery for science!" said Dipper as a vision of himself being awarded a medal among other things filled his mind.
Mabel was about to start protesting again when she heard something.
It sounds like moaning and groaning, thought Mabel. "Hey, Dipper, do you hear that?" she asked her brother.
"Hear what-" said Dipper, before he heard the moaning as well. Grabbing a large branch to defend himself and Mabel, Dipper ventured towards the noise.
What the twins found there made their jaws drop.
It was a girl no older than they were. She had dark opaque hair and pale skin. She wore a black leather jacket, black jeans, black boots, and a black shirt. To be honest, she looked like some sort of magical creature... or a goth chick.
Dipper checked for a pulse. "She's okay. We need to get her back to the Shack," said Dipper.
Mabel looked a little worried. "I don't know, Dipper... she looks all creepy and evil... like a big bug," she said.
"Mabel, if we don't help her, she could be eaten by something!" said Dipper.
"Okay, fine," said Mabel.
With that, the Pines Twins carried the unconcious girl back to the Mystery Shack, their home/workplace for the summer.
~
About three hours later, Chrysalis woke up in an unfamiliar room in an unfamiliar house.
Boy, somepony's gonna be in for a suprise when they come in here, thought Chrysalis, running her hand through her hair.
Wait... her HAND?!
Chrysalis got off of the sofa she had been placed on, and stumbling due to not being used to walking on two legs, made her way over to a nearby full length mirror.
What she saw there made her cry out in terror.
She was no longer a sleek insect-like Changeling, but something else. Some kind of highly evolved monkey, by the look of it. Although she had lost her wings and horn, her mane and eye color seemed to be unchanged.
As Chrysalis mused over her new form, Dipper knocked and came in. "Everything okay in here?" he asked.
"Uh... yes," said Chrysalis.
Dipper looked at Chrysalis. "You know, now that I get a good look at you, I don't think I've seen you around before. My name is Hector Pines, but everybody calls me Dipper," said Dipper, holding out his hand.
Chrysalis shook Dipper's hand. "Name's Chrysalis," she said, with a bit of a hiss on the last s.
Slightly unerved by the hiss, Dipper said," So where did you move here from?"
"Oh, I've always been here," Chrysalis lied easily. "It's just that my parents never let me out of the house... before they died," Chrysalis told Dipper, hoping that Dipper was buying her story.
"My condolences," said Dipper. "Come on, we got food ready and waiting for you... plus, my Grunkle Stan wants to talk to you."
Well, I might not be able to feed off of love anymore, but this... food is almost as good as true love! thought Chrysalis as she munched on scrambled eggs and sausage.
"So, anyways, Chrysalis, if you're gonna live here, you'll have to pay rent, which, since I'm guessing you lack funds, will have to come in the form of working at the Mystery Shack for little or no pay," said Grunkle Stan, who was a chubby old man wearing a maroon fez with what looked a yellow fish on it, a black suit and ribbon bow tie, a white shirt, brown dress shoes, and a pair of thick rimmed glasses.
Under normal circumstances, Chrysalis would have sucked Stan dry of his love and blast what was left into a puddle of nothing. But, Chrysalis had lost her horn, and thus her magical abilities, including shape-shifting and love feeding.
So, that really only left one option.
"Fine by me," muttered Chrysalis.
"Great! You start after lunch," said Stan.
At that moment, two new people walked in. One was a bulky man wearing a dark green shirt with a question mark on the front and the word "Staff" on the back, khaki shorts, brown shoes, and a brown baseball cap.
The second newcomer was a teenage girl of around fifteen with long red hair. She was wearing a green flanel shirt with a nametag that said "Wendy," blue jeans, a tan fur-lined hat, and brown work boots.
"'Sup, guys... and little girl who I've never seen before in my life until just now," said the man.
"Hey, Soos. This is Chrysalis, I found her passed out in the woods a little while ago. Chrysalis, this is Soos, the Mystery Shack handyman-" said Dipper.
"Hello," said Chrysalis
"'Sup," said Soos.
"-and the girl is Wendy Corduroy, the Mystery Shack cashier," said Dipper.
"Hi," said Chrysalis.
"Hey," said Wendy.
"Well, lunch break is over, time to get back to work!" said Grunkle Stan.
As the Pines family got up and cleared their plates, Dipper said, "Hey, Chrysalis, how about after work today I show you around town?"
Chrysalis thought about it for a moment. "Eh, sure, why not," she said.
~
"In my Mystery Shack, you'll find the most astonishing of supernatural phenominon. Behold: the Lady in The Willow!" said Grunkle Stan as he led a group of tourists through the Shack to where Chrysalis was standing in a dead tree costume.
Time to work, thought Chrysalis, before saying, in the exact voice one would expect from a creepy tree-woman, "I shall use your souls for my fertilizer! Ha ha ha ha!"
The tourists and Stan gasped... but for two different reasons. The tourists were spooked, but Grunkle Stan was throughly surprised.
I might have to use Chrysalis as some kind of imprersonator, thought Grunkle Stan, before addressing the tourists. "Quick! Give me money! It's the only thing that keeps her at bay!" he said.
As one, the tourists whipped out their wallets and opened up their purses, and gave Grunkle Stan every last bit of currency they had.
Green parchment is money in this dimension? That's good to know, thought Chrysalis.
~
After work, Grunkle Stan, the twins, and Chrysalis were all watching TV.
"Okay, kid, spill the beans; where in the world did you learn to do that with your voice?" asked Grunkle Stan.
Chrysalis smirked. "It's a... natural talent," she said.
Grunkle Stan smirked. "Well, guess what? You are now 'The World's Greatest Impressionist!'" he said.
Chrysalis couldn't help but smirk. "Thank you, Mr. Pines," she said, before she remembered something. "Hey, Skipper-"
"Dipper," said Dipper.
"Oh, right. Dipper, weren't you going to show me around town?" said Chrysalis.
"Oh, right! Come on, let's go!" said Dipper.
With that, the boy and the Changeling-turned-human left the Shack.
~
Gravity Falls was a sleepy little town filled with what could only be described as weirdos and nutcases. In fact, according to Dipper, the town founder, Quentin Trembly, America's "8th 1/2" President, was only able to discover Gravity Falls after he fell into the valley that would later become the town from a cliff.
To be honest, Chrysalis wasn't sure which was more weird: The town and its origins, or the measures Pinkie Pie had taken to help tell her and friends apart from their dopplegangers.
"... and that's the story of how Gravity Falls was founded," said Dipper.
As she and Dipper kept walking, Chrysalis saw an old guy wearing nothing but brown overalls and a brown prospecter's hat start sniffing around. "I smell me a Changeling!" he cried.
Uh-oh, thought Chrysalis.
But, as it turned out, the crazy old coot went after a young child, yelling something about revealing himself.
Whew, that was a close one, thought Chrysalis. "Dipper, who's the crazy guy running after that kid?" she asked.
"Huh?" said Dipper, turning to see where Chrysalis was pointing at. "Oh, that's just Old Man McGucket. He's the local kook."
"Huh," said Chrysalis. Well, this place got more interesting, she thought.
