Chapter 18: Hi, Dipper Pines.

Leylin's POV.

"Help!" a voice shouted from the depths of a tunnel.

"Did you hear that, Leylin?" Willow whispered softly.

"Yeah, looks like we're not alone," I said, pulling out my deck of cards.

Normally, the glyph only works on the boiling isles, so next to the titan, but I had the key to open the door and a vial containing the titan's blood with me.

So yeah, that was enough to make the glyph work.

The reason I prefer using the glyph to my magic is also very simple: I don't like wasting my strength when I can use others' to get rid of my problems.

"I think it's coming from over there," Willow declared, taking the lead with her sword drawn.

After following my lessons, Willow ended up adopting a fighting style that uses her magic as support, with the real attack coming from her personal strength, so physical.

Of course, she can use glyphs and other magic, but she's bad at most magic outside of plant magic and glyphs.

She never really bothered trying to learn other types of magic after noticing her lack of talent for them, the main reason being lack of time.

She has to follow her path as a magus, but she also likes taking care of plants and physical training, which pushed her to slowly give up other paths.

"Thank heavens, people finally found me," declared a man trapped under some rocks.

"Wait a minute..." Before Willow could use her magic to get him out, I stopped her by putting my hand on her shoulder.

"Leylin?" she said, confused.

"I've been coddling you too long, I really hope this place will be a good training ground," I said, sighing slightly in disappointment.

It seems she noticed I was disappointed. I signaled her to step back slightly.

"Hey, kids!" the person shouted at us desperately.

"Shut up, monster," I said, making thorny plants appear that pulled him out of the rocks but caught him at the same time.

"What are you doing? You're hurting me!" the man pleaded, squirming, but that only hurt him more.

"Still pretending?" I said, invoking an ice blade using a glyph.

I approached before stabbing him in the stomach. I could hear a gasping sound coming from behind me.

I'm sure Willow must have been surprised by my action, but the following events shocked her even more.

"Aaaaaargh!" the man screamed in a voice far from humanly possible.

"How?" he said, drooling a mixture of blood and saliva.

"You're not convincing," I said to him with a predatory smile. This is a side of me I don't want young Willow to see just yet.

That's why I had her step behind me before dealing with this thing.

"Grrrrrr," it growled back.

"I'd really like to keep you, but you're too disobedient and unmanageable," I said in a frustrated tone.

"Wait, we can..." He probably wanted to negotiate, but I couldn't really trust this thing.

He almost caused huge problems for Ford Pines, so I don't think it's a good idea to keep him in my camp.

"I'm going to explore the surroundings, can you start cleaning up?" I asked Willow, who was silently observing the scene from a distance.

"Yes... I can," she said, her eyes filled with various complex emotions.

"It was just an intelligent monster, it wouldn't have hesitated to kill us," I said, throwing a fire glyph at the creature to consume it.

"I'll leave you to it," I declared, patting her head before leaving to clean up the rest of the vermin in the area.

"I was weak again," Willow whispered, clutching the sword at her waist as she watched Leylin's back disappear into the darkness.

.

.

.

"Phew, that was work," I said, killing the last rat I could locate.

Now I need to tidy up and modernize this place, it has to become my third laboratory and my first in the human world.

"I wonder how Willow digested the situation after her encounter with Shape Shifter," I muttered, heading towards her position based on the sounds.

It's a trick Rain taught me, it's simple bard magic that allows using whistles for various purposes.

Personally, I use it for echolocation like bats, but I can also do something like Black Canary from DC.

"I see everything's clean, as I expected from you, Willow," I said, satisfied as I looked around.

"Thank you, professor," she replied calmly.

I see she hasn't gotten over her unaesthetic demonstration in front of me yet. I knew she'd be fooled by the Shape Shifter.

Willow is just too kind for her own good, she even talks to the plants she takes care of in my laboratories.

Sometimes, I really wonder if I could truly bring her completely under my control or if I should abandon her after she becomes an official magus.

No, Leylin, you've invested too much in her and it would be a waste to throw her away because of the light in her.

I just need to... make her see the truth of this world, yes that's it, like Markus did with me.

I summoned two abominations to watch over the place and gave Willow instructions regarding the laboratory setup.

"Here, you'll need this if you want help," I said, giving her a Potara in the form of a necklace and the key to open the portal to the boiling isles.

I had a vial containing the titan's blood in case of emergency anyway.

"Are you going somewhere?" Willow asked, slightly worried. It's normal since she just realized that the human world isn't as simple as she thought.

"Yes, I have some knowledge to borrow and interesting people I might possibly recruit," I declared as I left the place.

Once outside the bunker, I cast a simple illusion spell on myself to hide my abnormal ears as ordinary human ears.

After that, I cast an ice glyph to project myself into the air and see the landscape.

"So it's in that direction," I said in the air, observing the Mystery Shack.

I used the glyph that slows down falls and calmly headed towards the Mystery Shack.

The journey wasn't long since it wasn't as far as expected. I should have guessed since the bunker is supposed to be at the location where Dipper found Ford's journal 3.

*Cling* Sound of the door bell.

"Hello, I'm looking for Dipper Pines," I said directly to the overweight man who should be Soos.

"No problem, but who are you?" he asked nonchalantly. As I know him from the show, it's surely without ulterior motive.

"Just tell him a potential friend came to see him," I said simply with a slight smile.

Soos looked at me for a second before shrugging and heading towards some stairs. He should probably be heading to the attic.

Shortly after, I saw Dipper come with Mabel.

"I see you have a minimum of caution," I said, looking at a flashlight with a crystal on it.

I now knew exactly where I was in the Gravity Falls chronology thanks to this detail that Dipper so kindly showed me.

At my glance towards the flashlight, Dipper brought it closer to him and frowned.

"Who are you?" He said in a cautious tone.

"Hi, Dipper," I said simply, ignoring his question.