The ocean had a strange way of quieting a man’s thoughts, even a man like Stanford Pines.

Nights at sea in particular pressed upon him in a way he hadn’t anticipated. He had, of course, spent years in places far more hostile than the open Pacific—dimensions where the laws of physics chewed men to pieces, jungles where even shadows bore teeth, deserts where time itself went in circles. But here, after the chaos of Gravity Falls had ebbed into memory, the roll of the ship beneath his boots offered him a rare pause.

He stood on deck, lantern light flickering over his face, six-fingered hand resting absently on the railing. The other hand held one of his journals—newer, less weathered than the old set, but crammed with just as many sketches, notations, and cryptic warnings. The salt spray had already begun to curl the edges of the paper, but he didn’t mind. What mattered was the hunt. Always the hunt. There were anomalies out here—he was certain of it. Creatures that had slipped free of their usual haunts after Bill Cipher’s downfall, disturbances that rippled outward like fractures in glass. It would have been irresponsible, he told himself, to ignore them.

Stan was below deck, no doubt nursing a mug of coffee laced with something stronger, grumbling about treasure maps and how Ford’s "science-hounding" always distracted from the promise of gold. Ford almost smiled at the thought. His brother could complain all he wanted, but he hadn’t left.

Not after everything. They were in this together, whether fortune or anomaly lay ahead.

The lantern flame sputtered in the sea breeze, and Ford turned his gaze outward. The horizon was a dark cut between stars and water. Somewhere beyond it, the world was still turning—people scrolling on their “smartphones,” as Mabel had once called them, oblivious to the thin veil between the ordinary and the extraordinary. Ford still had no proper grasp of the devices; the one Mabel had tried to gift him remained shut away in a drawer, as incomprehensible to him as an alien puzzle box. Yet even without it, his mind churned restlessly. He had maps spread across the captain’s desk, coordinates marked in his tight, slanted script, each one a possible site of disturbance.

He knew this compulsion of his—this need to be the first to discover, the first to understand—was both strength and flaw. Stan had said as much, bluntly, more than once. And Ford remembered, with a prickle of unease, how that same hunger had once left him vulnerable. Bill had flattered him, celebrated his brilliance, and Ford had walked willingly into the cage. He wasn’t about to repeat the mistake, but the ache for recognition, for triumph, still lived in his bones.

A sudden sound snapped him out of the spiral: a creak of the ship’s timbers, sharper than the rest. Ford’s lantern swung, spilling light across the deck. Nothing. Just shadows shifting, water slapping against hull. But the air felt different now—charged. He closed the journal, sliding it into his coat, and reached instinctively for the modified scanning device slung at his belt. Bulky, outdated, and built from spare parts raided from Gravity Falls, it was hardly elegant. Still, the dial twitched, the needle quivered. An anomaly. Close.

Ford’s pulse quickened. He adjusted his glasses, muttering half to himself, half to whatever unseen entity might be listening. “Fascinating. Something is here.”

He stepped away from the railing, lantern held high, scanning both sea and sky. Perhaps it would be nothing more than static interference—some quirk of atmosphere fooling the machine. Or perhaps, he thought with the kind of thrill that had carried him through every reckless experiment of his life, it would be the beginning of a new discovery.

And in that moment, the deck became a stage, open for intrusion. The ocean was vast, the world stranger than most dared to imagine, and Ford knew that anyone—or anything—could cross his path next.