#and then we'll get a little angst between steven and the gems

[minijenn]

Universe Falls Preview 3

K, last one you’re gonna get so I figured I’d share some vignettes from this chapter that may or may not appear in this order (they probably won’t I’m writing these grossly out of order tbh). But anyway, here are three of the six of these that are gonna be in this chapter. Enjoy!

“Eva-cuate! Eva-cuate!”

“An evacuation, huh?” Vidalia paused, her paintbrush lifting off the canvas she had been working on as she heard the distant, but still distinct alarm blare out from town. “We’ve had pretty much everything else in this town, but I don’t think we’ve ever had one of those... Aw, well.” The artist shrugged, rising from her stool as she brushed her apron off before heading over to the stairs. “Boys, get down here! We gotta go!”

Vidalia found herself waiting at least five minutes for either of her sons to come down, but all the same, she knew she wouldn’t have to ask twice. And sure enough, Sour Cream happened to wander down first, his hands shoved into his pockets and his headphones on as he nodded his head to the beat he was listening to.

“Sour Cream,” Vidalia began, though her son didn’t hear her as he instead headed for the kitchen, still lost in his music. “Sour Cream,” the artist tried again, coming to stand beside the fridge as he opened it. “Sour Cream!” Vidalia finally managed to get his attention by lifting one side of his earphones up, startling him quite a bit, though he was quick to revert to his usual cool manner.

“Oh, hey, Mom,” Sour Cream said as he pulled a soda out of the fridge. “What’s up?”

“You hear that?” Vidalia asked, pausing to allow the ongoing evacuation alarm to be heard. “It means its time for us to go.”

“Wait, you mean the whole ‘evacuation’ thing?” Sour Cream asked, using air quotes to punctuate his point. “Yeah, Tambry already texted me about it. But I didn’t think we had to, you know, actually leave.”

“Uh, that’s sorta the whole point of an evacuation, son,” Vidalia remarked, crossing her arms. “To get people to leave.”

“But I was gonna rave to the weird hand in the sky later!” Sour Cream protested with a frown. “That thing’s totally sick. It’s already inspired me to mix out a ton of new beats and-”

“Well, you can mix them all out in the car on the way to the hotel.”

“It won’t be the same…” Sour Cream pouted softly, though he quickly got over it. “Hey, what about Yellowtail? Isn’t he supposed to get back from that fishing trip of his tomorrow? What’s he gonna think of us just running off like this?”

“I’ll be sure to call him once we’re settled in for the night,” Vidalia assured as she watched her son start to head back upstairs to gather his things. “And Sour Cream, would it kill you to call him ‘dad’ for once?”

“Meh,” Sour Cream simply shrugged dryly as he disappeared into his room as his mother called out to him one last time.

“Hey, while you’re up there, tell Onion to-” Vidalia found herself cut off as she suddenly felt her smock rustle a bit behind her. The artist grinned as she turned to find her younger son tucked underneath it, playing an unspoken game of hide-and-seek until his mother unveiled him. “Boo! Found ya!” Vidalia chuckled, pulling her smock aside. As was usual, Onion said nothing and his expression was unchanged, even as his mother rustled his hair. “You ready to deal with a weird alien hand in the sky?”

In response to this, Onion simply pulled a baseball bat out of nowhere, a small scowl forming on his face as he tapped its end into his free hand. “No, not like that,” Vidalia shook her head, laughing once more as she took the weapon away from her young son as she hoisted him up into her arms. “We’re gonna take a… bit of less hands-on approach, ironically enough. Still, if we ever need to take on a burglar or a little league team, we’ll keep that plan in mind.”

“Eva-cuate! Eva-cuate!”

Pacifica’s eyes were wide as she placed a hand against the large library window, her usual aristocratic confidence replaced with genuine, unnerved fear. Northwest Manor was far enough away from town itself that the mayor’s evacuation call could only barely be heard, but it was discernable nonetheless. The massive hand, however, was easily visible from the mansion as its alien, metallic surface began to paint the once-sunset skies a sickly shade of dull green. The heiress hadn’t the faintest clue about what any of this meant or just how dangerous it might be, but she figured it was likely a pretty big deal if Mayor Dewey had gone to all the trouble for calling for a complete evacuation of Gravity Falls.

It wasn’t very long, however, before Pacifica found her thoughts being interrupted by her parents, both of whom burst into the otherwise empty library and neither of whom were very pleased to find her there.

“Oh, Pacifica, there you are!” Priscilla exclaimed with little in her tone that sounded like genuine relief. “What do you think you’re doing in here?”

“I-I was just looking at… at that…” Pacifica replied almost hesitantly, pointing to the hand ship out the window, which almost seemed to be pointing right back at her. “You know, the giant green hand in the sky? The one that really looks like it’s getting closer by the minute?”

“Yes, Pacifica, we’re all well aware of the ‘hand’,” Preston remarked rather dryly, rolling his eyes. “But, of course, it’s none of our concern. Now, come along. It’s time to bunker down inside the panic room until all this nonsense blows over.”

“Wait, what?” Pacifica frowned as she rose to stand from her window seat. “We’re not going to evacuate like everyone else?”

“‘Everyone else’ doesn’t have the luxury of a steel-doored, double-enforced panic room like we do,” Preston assured coldly. “And besides, it’s not like we can very well just leave and risk losing our mansion, our factory, our titan’s ore mine, every piece of the proud Northwest empire that stands here in Gravity Falls! That would be absurd!”

“But Mayor Dewey said-”

“Mayor Dewey can barely even be considered competent in the midst of this catastrophe, what with him entrusting the safety of the town with those unkempt Crystal Gems instead of actually taking charge of things himself for a change.”

“Ugh,” Priscilla spoke up, mirroring her husband’s disgust for the Gems. “They’re so tacky.”

“But…” Pacifica began, still conflicted with her parents’ rather ill-advised plan to stay as she looked back to the hand ship again. “Shouldn’t we-”

“Pacifica,” Preston cut her off once more, making it clear that he was starting to lose his patience. “We are going to the panic room, whether you want to go or not. And I’m only going to tell you to come along one more time…” he trailed off rather grimly, reaching his hand into his suit pocket, almost as if he was fishing around for something inside. Pacifica took in a soft, almost inaudible gasp at this, panic washing over her expression for just a split second before she quickly complied.

“R-right,” she nodded tersely, hurrying over to the other side of the room to meet them. “I… I’m coming…”

Both of the parental Northwests merely nodded their stoic approval at this, not sparing another glance to their daughter as she fell in step behind them. However, before they left the library entirely, she did happen to take one last glance over her shoulder at the approaching hand, her dread and fear towards whatever it was just as present in her mind as it was before.

But at the same time, for as weird and alarming as it all was, Pacifica couldn’t help but let her mind wander to the ones she knew usually followed right behind such alarming weirdness: the Pines twins and the youngest Crystal Gem. She couldn’t profess to really knowing Dipper, Mabel, or Steven that well, but from what she saw during the fiasco they all went through at the mini-golf course, she had gained the realization that they were well equipped to handle whatever oddities this town had to throw at them, no matter how daunting or deadly they might be.

Still, Pacifica couldn’t help but wonder, maybe even worry, if even they were up to the task of dealing with something as frightening or as bewildering as this.

“Eva-cuate! Eva-cuate!”

Wendy was standing outside her house when she first heard the alarm, but she largely ignored it as she instead tensely spun the handle of her axe in her hand, glaring up at the approaching hand ship all the while. While she didn’t know exactly what it was (to be fair, no one really seemed to), she was able to guess from its alien appearance that it was likely Gem-related, but given the sudden apparent call for a full-town evacuation, it probably wasn’t anything friendly. Still, the cashier could really care less for the evacuation order in the first place, knowing that simply running and hiding from such a potentially monumental threat was nothing short of pathetic and cowardly. Even if she had no idea what was really coming, Wendy wanted to stay and defend her home from it, no matter how daunting it might be.

A feat that would have been much more feasible if she didn’t have her father and brothers to contend with.

“Wendy!” Manly Dan shouted, bursting out of the house just as boisterously as ever. “Get in here and help me round up your brothers! We gotta hightail it outta here before that hand pokes us all into a bunch of flannel-wearing pulps!”

“I’m not going,” Wendy said, her tone stern as she refused to even turn to face her father.

“What did you just say?” Dan asked, narrowing his eyes as his temper started to rise.

“I said, I’m not going, Dad,” the cashier gripped her axe tighter, her glare deepening as she kept her focus on the hand ship. “I’m gonna stay here and help fight that… that thing off before it can destroy Gravity Falls, or worse!”

“No, you’re not!” the lumberjack practically roared, infuriated upon hearing his daughter even entertain such a dangerous thought. “You’re gonna get in the car with me and your brothers, and we’re all gonna hit the road with everyone else, and you’re not gonna stay here all by yourself!”

“Yes, I am!” Wendy protested, finally glaring over her shoulder at him. “And if you were really as ‘manly’ as everybody says you are, then you’d stay and fight too instead of running away like you did when Mom died!”

Dan sucked in a sharp, angry breath upon hearing this, but instead of hotly reaming his daughter out for this as he normally would have, the lumberjack somehow managed to control his infamously uncontrollable temper for a change. “Wendy,” he began, his tone even enough, even if his expression was set in a scowl, albeit a somewhat softer one. “Wendy, listen to me,” the lumberjack insisted firmer as he grabbed his daughter by the shoulder, ignoring her upset, frustrated glare as he turned her around to face him. “I may have taught you to be a fighter, but even I know there are some fights you just can’t win. And this is one of them fights. Now I’m not about to lose you like I lost-” Dan trailed off, clenching his large fists tightly as he glanced away, almost as if he was trying to fight back tears, an odd sight for such a burly, intimidating man.

“Look,” he started over, nodding back towards the house. Wendy’s intense scowl lightened a bit as she noticed all three of her brothers peeking out of the doorframe, quietly watching the unfolding exchange with both interest and concern. “You know you’re the only thing still keepin’ this ragtag group of lumberjacks and lumberjuniors together. We depend on you, just like we did your… your mom. So you gotta come along with us and book it outta here until this whole ‘evacuation’ thing is done. After all, without you, we’d be like a tree without roots: ready to topple over without even takin’ a swing.”

“You know I never get your weird lumberjack analogies, Dad,” Wendy remarked, finally cracking a small, bittersweet smile as she shook her head. “But… I think I get this one…” She looked to her brothers once more, all of them meeting her gaze just as pleadingly as her own father was. And as much as she didn’t want to abandon her home for the sake of fear and panic, she knew that she couldn’t very well abandon her family either, especially not now. Or for that matter, ever. “Ok…” Wendy sighed relentingly, strapping her axe back into its hoister on her belt before pulling her father into a tight embrace, her brothers not hesitating to run out of the house to join in on the family hug. “I’ll go.”