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codylabs · 6 years ago

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Chapter 21: Stay Strong

Links: P 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

The shapeshifter stopped off at Tambry’s house just long enough to drop her off, then hid Robbie’s van in the woods and continued through town on foot, wearing a disguise that would draw no attention: that of some random out-of-towner.

He was somewhat at a loss of where to start his search for answers, so he stopped by the GF Gossiper to pick up a copy of the local paper. NEW SPECIES OF FUNGUS DISCOVERED IN LOCAL REPORTER’S ARMPIT! The headline read. He turned to the next page. RAIN EXPECTED DURING BAKE SALE! LIKELY WATER! He flipped a few pages ahead to the sports section. DEATHBALL TRIBUTES CHOSEN! Remember kids, next year it could be you!

Geez. The shapeshifter wondered. What kind of sad, pathetic sack of human waste would actually consider this news?

But then, one headline caught his eye. INVESTIGATION CONTINUES INTO MYSTERIOUS KILLER ROBOT! If you are the evil mad scientist responsible, please turn yourself in!

Ah yes…

That whole thing… The Shifter read through the article. Apparently, nobody really seemed to know where this ‘killer robot’ came from, what happened, or why. The inept police force was getting less than nowhere with their “investigation”, and local coot/genius/former mad scientist Fiddleford McGucket was indisposed to answer questions, even though he was the one handling the machine’s autopsy, over at the former NorthWest manor.

With nothing more pressing to do, the Shifter decided he may as well pay McGucket a visit. After all, the old human was one of those who’d trapped him in that bunker all those years ago. A little payback had been a long time coming, and really, who would miss one eccentric old man? Besides, he might know something about the Shifter’s origins.

He asked a passerby on the street if she could point him toward the manor, and followed her directions down the road and up a hill.

Twenty minutes later, he found himself disguised as an ordinary deer, standing just outside the property. The front entrance was currently being blocked by a gigantic human in a gigantic pickup truck, whose combined bulk didn’t look to be moving it anytime soon. The deer glanced about, annoyed and impatient. Climbing over the wall would draw too much attention… Is there a way around the back? Just as he turned to search, movement by the gate caught his attention: a human girl had just exited the mansion.

But not just any girl.

THE girl.

Wendy. Wendy Corduroy. One of the few humans who actually did know something about the robotic life, and one of the most likely to know anything at all about alien life. Coincidentally, also one of the humans which had made an enemy of him.

He stared, and smelled, and listened.

The girl was looking tired and weak; overly pale, with rings under her eyes, tangled, unkept hair, and bringing a faint smell of unwashed sickness in her wake. Her walk was comparatively stooped and sluggish as she loped down the steps and opened the passenger-side door of the large man’s truck. The Shapeshifter wondered at his luck at finding her so helpless. In this state, she would be all but helpless before him, and all he had to do was wait until she was alone…

She closed the truck’s door behind her, and began to talk with the man inside. He couldn’t hear what they were saying…

“Wait feller!” A cackling southern accent entered the scene, and the Shifter saw Fiddleford scamper out of the building, a few tools in his hands.

Wendy rolled down the window to address him. “S’up?” The shifter enlarged and focused his ears to make out the distant conversation.

“Eh… Wull, uh…” McGucket scratched his scalp. “This little mission a yers… Who’s all goin’ with ya?”

“I don’t know…” Wendy shrugged. “You, me, Stan 1, Stan 2… And how ‘bout you, dad? You in?”

The gigantic man spoke up, his voice booming as if it had no lower volume. “YEAH.”

“Okay, yeah, I think that’s all…” Wendy nodded. “I�� don’t really wanna drag Soos or Mabel into this after what happened…”

“Uh-huh…” McGucket glanced down the road. “Uh… Yeh ain’t goin’ now, is ya?”

Wendy shrugged again. “Well… Yeah, close to now. Like, an hour? What do you have to do to prepare?”

“Oh, okay, uh… Just need ta charge up me robo-legs… And get the plasma beam ready for a field test… And reviewify some of my notes…”

“ROBO LEGS?” The large man frowned.

“Plasma beam…?” Wendy asked.

“Eh, ye’ll see…” McGucket waved a hand dismissively. “Gimme two hours?”

“Okay… I think the Stans are at the Mystery Shack now, so meet us there then.”

“Right gab-smack tootin!” McGucket turned to head back indoors.

“WAIT.” Dan stopped him. “SO… SO WILL THIS SUPERWEAPON THING OF YERS DESTROY ALL THE ROBOTS? THAT HOW IT WORKS?”

Wendy opened her mouth to answer ‘yes’, but then closed it again. She looked at McGucket. The old man shuffled uncomfortably. “Wull, I… Most of ‘em, I’ll warrant… Tidal forces’ll rip the larger things apart, and a lot of the smaller things’ll be crushed in the mix… But there’s a swell chance a few critters might find a safe place, underground or in a shell…”

“Ugh.” Wendy glanced back at her dad. “Job for another day then.”

Dan considered this for a moment. “WANT ME TA GET A POSSE TOGETHER? MY CREW, SOME BIKERS, THE GLEEFUL GANG? THEY’VE GOT A SOFT SPOT FOR THINGS LIKE THIS.”

“A posse…? To do what?”

“TA HEAD INTA THE FOREST. Y’KNOW, WHILE THE REST OF YOU ARE DOWN IN THE SHIP, WE COULD BE CLEANIN’ UP STRAGGLERS”

She thought about it, then nodded. “Sure, uh… Just remember to stay… Stay… Hey, how far from the blast should they stay?”

“Eh�� Lesse here…” McGucket twiddled his fingers like the beads of an abacus. “If we tune the ol’ banjo right, it’ll only completely overpower the Earth’s natural gravity within a mile radius. I’ll reckon much further than 2 miles, ya won’t feel nothin’ but a hiccup… So… Keep yerself 3 miles out ‘till it’s done firing, and you’ll be safe as corn puddin’.”

“Okay…” Wendy dug around in her pockets and produced a map. The shifter saw her draw a circle on it, and then hand it to her dad. “Just at least outside of here until we shut down the field. We’ll give you a call when it’s safe…”

“RIGHT… WHAT KINDA WEAPONS SHOULD WE BRING…?”

“Umm… Magnet guns would be great, but we only have, like, 3 of them…”

“I got the parts ta hootinany up 4 more’a them jiggers.” McGucket suggested. “Want me ta bring ‘em?”

“…Yeah.”

“AND IF THEY DON’T WORK?” Dan asked.

“Uh, if they don’t…” Wendy scratched her head. “If they don’t, go in with axes, shotguns, or… I don’t know, get creative. If it’s one of the lions… We killed a small pack of them earlier, so that may have been all of ‘em. I don’t know. But if you run into one, they’ve got a weak point in their armor. In the back of their neck beneath their antennae. Once you stun them, drive a steak or something far enough in there, and it’ll sever their spine… Also, if anybody has logging chaps, those work pretty well against saws… That’s… Oh geez, that’s how Dipper killed the last one… Uh…” She turned to her dad. “Am I forgetting anything?”

“THINK WE’RE GOOD. I’LL DROP YOU OFF AT THE SHACK THING, AND GO GATHER PEOPLE.”

“Okay… Oh yeah, it’s also kind of a secret that aliens exist.” Wendy reminded her father. “You kinda just found out, but this should stay between as few as possible.”

“I’LL TELL EM IT’S ALL MAD SCIENCE.”

“Great…”

The truck drove off down the road, and McGucket returned indoors.

The deer that had been watching the exchange tilted its head. ‘Mission.’ ‘Superweapon.’ ‘Ship.’ ‘Aliens.’ What mission? What superweapon? What ship? WHAT ALIENS? These tidbits all sounded very interesting; much more interesting than revenge. Perhaps for now, his part was but to wait and watch… After all, revenge was easy; he would always have a chance for something small like that. But to steal their knowledge and their secrets would be so much more important…

He morphed into a much faster animal, and was able to keep up with their truck with relative ease.

Fifteen minutes later, Dan left her at the Mystery Shack, and turned his truck back toward town.

Wendy glanced over her shoulder at the machine in her backpack: The computer system they could use to reactivate the UFO’s engines and destroy the Forest of Daggers. Today’s the day… Ugh, today’s the day… We’re closer than ever to finishing the mission.

But then she thought back to the robot lying dissected in McGucket’s lab, and to the answers its autopsy hadn’t answered… All the possibilities and trains of thought she’d chased to dead ends over the past few days, all the secrets and dark knowledge hidden in her mind. It seems she’d tried everything… We’re still further than ever from saving him.

She looked around at the trees, standing tall and indifferent around her. Somewhere deep in these woods, hidden in the dark, weird shadows beneath the trees, was there an answer? Was there a way to save him? This was Gravity Falls, after all; a solution to undo death wouldn’t be the weirdest thing they’d found out here. No… Definitely not the weirdest.

She would find something.

Or something would find her.

She felt like she was being watched.

But feeling like you’re being watched was nothing new around these parts, so she continued up the drive toward the Shack without giving it another thought.

She was almost there when the door flew open, and Stan stumbled out, across the porch, and off through the grass in the direction of the forest. He had a large electric jackhammer tucked under one arm, and a can of diesel under the other.

Wendy waved an arm and called for his attention. “Hey Stan! Need to talk about stuff; you got a minute? Where’s Stan 2?”

“Wendy…?” He turned around and saw her. “What…? Shouldn’t you still be in bed? Radiation poisoning and all that…?”

She frowned, utterly tired of people pointing this out. “Oh yeah, I probably should.” She went on the defensive. “Just like my dad should probably be at work, Stan 2 should be in a hospital from what I hear, and you should probably be in jail if this world were fair. But here we are, and there’s more important stuff than us, so do you have a minute or don’t you?”

Stan sighed, considered it for a second, then shrugged.

“So you mean business.” He remarked.

She nodded. “We’re gonna kill the robots today. Could use your and Stan 2’s help. You in?”

“Uh… Ford’s pretty sick…”

“Okay, well—”

“Hey, uh… Hold on.” He interrupted her and pressed the gas can into her arms. “Tell me on the way. I found something you’ll want to see.” And he led the way off into the trees.

Wendy’s curiosity won out over her impatience, (if barely) and she followed.

On the way, she told him the whole plan, and he listened with weary ears. From the woods not 10 meters behind them, the shapeshifter walked on silent feet, listening with ears that were very interested indeed.

Wendy finished telling the plan for what must have been the third time today, and Stan nodded slowly. “Probably for the best… Moving out now?”

“Soon as McGucket gets here with tools.”

“Hmm.”

Five minutes of silent walking later, Stan’s pace slowed to a stop near the center of a grove of birch trees. His eyes peered around the environment, searching for wherever he’d last seen their item of interest. Finally he found it. “Well, it’s still here… Uh… Good.” He sighed.

Wendy turned and saw it too. She recognized the shape instantly of course, but spent the first couple seconds wondering who would build such a thing, and why. But then the truth slowly dawned on her: that no man had made it. That somehow, it was the real deal. Before she even gave the command, her right hand had already drawn and readied her axe, and her eyes were sweeping the surrounding trees, looking for fires, smoke, monsters, eye-bats, or whatever madness this creature’s continued existence might spawn.

Seeing nothing but sunshine and grey/green trees, her eyes returned to the statue. “Is that really Bill…?” She asked.

“Yeah…” Stan cut her off, as if saying his name was somehow taboo. “It’s him.”

“How—”

“Remember when he left his body to enter my mind?”

“…Yeah…?” (She was a tapestry at the time, but she always left that part out when recounting the tale.)

“Yeah… Well… I think… I think this is that… This is what he left behind. Same size. Same pose… I don’t know what the whole story is, but… It’s him.” Stan hesitantly lifted a leg, and kicked the statue’s upraised arm.

No reaction.

“’Kay then…” Stan took out the jackhammer, and locked a large chipping bit into the end. “Help me with this.”

“Wait…” Wendy held up a hand. “Wait, umm…”

“’Wait’?!?” Stan spun on her. “Whaddaya mean ‘wait’?!? What, you wanna spare whatever’s left of him? give him a chance? Wanna shake a hand? Try and buy your little ‘boyfriend’ back?!? That it? HUH?”

“WHAT?!?” Wendy snapped. “NO! DIPPER WOULD RATHER HAVE DIED! I… I mean… I mean he would rather stay dead than… Than have us do that… I mean… What I meant was… Never mind. Never mind. Let’s do this.”

Wendy turned her axe around, gripped it with both hands, and used the flat part on the back like a hammer to strike the statues’ hat.

Stan hefted the jackhammer level with the statue’s eye, pressed it in, and pulled the trigger.

The sound of its metallic tapping seemed to fill the forest, echoing between and through the trees as if the entire forest could hear. The eye chipped, then chipped more, then cracked in two, then the bit was through the eye and deeper into the statue. Wendy’s axe finally smashed through the hat, and the item fell to the ground.

Thus did the dreaded thing slowly, slowly come apart.

Stan didn’t expect it to be hollow.

Wendy didn’t expect its insides to reek like a rotting animal.

No matter. Once they were through breaking apart the ‘shell’, Stan reached for the gas can, and poured diesel over the whole thing. While he did, Wendy used her axe to chop down a small tree, and cut off a few smaller limbs. She stacked the wood in a flammable way over the rubble, and Stan tossed a lighter.

The pile ignited instantly, and the wood kept it burning. In the heat, the last large chunks of stone cracked and chipped, until there didn’t remain much to see at all. The stink faded, and the smoke turned from black to grey, as if some small burden had been lifted from the natural world.

Wendy leaned back against a tree and crossed her arms. Stan sunk the tip of the jackhammer into the ground, and leaned against it like a walking stick. Both their eyes stayed fixed on the statue’s remains, while their hearts nursed hatred. The flames quietly flickered and hissed as the minutes stretched on, the only sound in the forest.

“How’d you find it?” Wendy finally asked.

“Just…” Stan shrugged. “Just… Goin’ for a walk… Found it.” His mind was far away, and didn’t bother to make his mouth lie well.

“We’re in the middle of nowhere…” Wendy frowned.

He opened his mouth, and closed it again.

Stan’s previous objection came back to Wendy’s mind: why would he think she wanted to shake its hand…? Where would that terrible idea have come from? “…Was it Mabel?” Wendy theorized, hoping she was wrong. “…Did she find it? …Did she shake his hand?”

Stan rubbed his hands through his eyes, and sighed. “If… Ugh, oh geez… Well, if she’d been about to… I woulda promised not to tell.”

So it really IS that bad. Wendy thought. This really IS our darkest hour. “Oh… Okay…” She said. “Right. I didn’t hear nothin’ from you…”

“No ya didn’t.”

They watched the fire for a minute more.

Suddenly Wendy let out a little yell, stepped up, and threw her axe at a nearby tree. The blade sank into the bark almost halfway. “Everything’s just falling apart!” She yelled at nobody in particular. “Everything! We… We all want him back so bad, but we don’t know how, and now that he’s gone… It’s like we’re not good people anymore! We’re not heroes! Does that make any sense? Like… Like remember Weirdmageddon? We all survived, but none of us did anything… It was only when Dipper came along… He found me, sitting on my butt, and he brought me along… And then we found Mabel, sleeping in a dream, and brought her along… And then we found you, hiding in the shack, and brought you along… And then we found Stan 2, helpless and trapped, and we brought him along… Dipper was the one that saved us all, because he was the only one who knew how to stand up and be a hero… Without him… It… It all started and ended with him…”

Stan scratched his neck.

“And now… Now it’s looking bleaker and bleaker... No way to beat death… Now all we’re doing is trying to avenge him… Now we’re getting desperate… It’s all. Falling. Apart…”

Wendy returned her axe to her belt and fell silent. She had more words to say, but didn’t want to let them out.

Stan thought about it all for a while.

“Who was he to you?” Stan finally asked.

Wendy glanced at him, then back to the flames. She shrugged. “A friend.” Then answered, then amended it. “My best friend.”

“More than a friend?” Stan asked.

She nodded. “More than a friend.” She admitted.

He thought about this too. A tiny, bittersweet smile tickled the corner of his mouth, as he realized he was hearing the things that Dipper would once have longed to hear. “…A lover?” He asked.

“No… Yeah…” Wendy shrugged. “I mean yeah… No.” She glanced at Stan, who’d had many shallow, fleeting lovers over the years. “No…” She said. No, not the way it means to you. “What’s more than a lover?”

“…A brother?”

“What’s more than a brother?”

“Nothing’s more than a brother.”

“…Then he was my brother.”

Stan pursed his lips, and decided to change the subject. “…You know…” He said. “When I lost my brother… When I let him fall through the portal, when it seemed like he was gone forever… That was somethin’ else. That was when I remembered how much I loved him. How much I needed him. How much I missed him… And also when I realized how much I could do on my own, even without him; the sacrifices I was able to make, the things I was able to learn, and do, and say… I learned the lengths I could go to save him. There were 30 years in there… 30 years of hopelessness. 30 years staring at a broken machine, all alone, lying and stealing and putting on smiles and pouring over confusing old books. 30 years when all evidence and logical sense in the world told me he was gone forever, except I kept on trying… To believe like I did? To keep on hoping? To try and be his hero? That was a work of faith on its own…”

Wendy nodded, feeling these same things herself. “Why… Why did you keep that faith?”

“Well… I figured he couldn’t be gone forever. And I knew… I knew I still had a debt to pay to him. I knew I’d wounded him, that I’d let him down… I knew that that was my… Redemption…”

Wendy considered this for a minute in silence. Her eyes drifted to the ground, and it held their attention while she thought.

“Why… Why do I keep my faith…?” She asked out loud, even though nobody but her knew the answer.

Stan looked at her with a frown. He knew as well as anyone that her faith was probably empty; there was no point in hoping. Death was final. But she couldn’t hear that; it would be too harsh. So instead he repeated her question back at her. “Why?”

“Why…” She echoed again. “Well…It’s… It’s funny… Well… No… No, it’s not funny… But… But… Ooookay.” She finally decided that she had to tell somebody. “There was one secret I kept from Dipper.” She blurted. “We promised not to keep secrets from each other… But I told him there was one I had to keep, and he was okay with that, so I kept it.”

“Oh really.” Stan folded his arms.

“I… I guess there’s no point keeping it a secret anymore, because now it isn’t even true… Is it? I don’t know… But… But can I tell you? Just don’t tell anyone; especially not him, if we ever do bring him back… I just need to tell somebody to make sure I’m not going CRAZY… Could you please keep this a secret?”

Stan nodded. “Sure.”

Wendy hesitated one more time to gather her wits, then said:

“Time travel is a thing.”

Stan wasn’t necessarily surprised. “Ford mentioned that at one point.” He admitted. “He ran into it here and there in his… Dimension-hoppin' days. Way I hear it, there's a few 'advanced civilizations' out there who've dabbled…”

“Yeah, well, news flash: mankind is one of them.” Wendy told him. “And more than dabbled; a couple hundred thousand years in the future, it'll be borderline commonplace. Policed and regulated fiercely though, which I guess is why we don't see more of them around these times…”

“Great.” Stan shrugged. “So time travel is a thing, but not anywhere close to yet. What does that have to do with—”

“I MET MYSELF.” Wendy told him.

Stan frowned.

“It was last Fall.” She explained. “After Dipper, Mabel, you and Stan 2 left… I was sitting in my room not doing my homework… And she showed up. She was maybe 25… 30? I don’t know… But she was a warrior of some kind apparently, had a suit of armor, some weapons, a funny cyborg eye doohickey, a time machine… But… But she was ME, there was no mistaking it… She was chill, we were both like ‘hey, how’s it going?’ or whatever; shared a soda… And then she gave me some advice on how to live my life; to apply myself in school, to love my family, defend the town, stop being lazy, never lose my integrity, never roll over for all the boyfriends I’d one day have… Basically she remembered the thoughts and the mistakes that I would one day make… And told me the things she remembered I’d need… And she’s the reason I’m so deep into these adventures and mysteries and crap nowadays, she’s the reason I’ve been doing better in school. Because that’s the path to the life I know will one day make me happy and fulfilled… The… The day she showed up was one of the biggest days of my life…”

“Umm…” Stan scratched his head. “Not gonna lie, that’s pretty weird…”

“But you believe me? It’s not impossible?”

“Well… No, I mean… There’s been weirder things around. But… But this super-secret-time-warrior-future chick; did she tell you that Dipper was gonna die? Or tell ya how to save him…? Or—”

“NO.” Wendy ran her hands through her hair. “No, that’s the weird part. SHE DIDN’T. In fact, you know what she did say? You know why I hold on to faith right now? You know why I never told anybody about this ever? You know why this was the only secret I had to keep from Dipper? You know why I’ve been confused and divided and conflicted and determined for 7 months now?”

“…Why?”

“Because.” She said. “Dipper’s not really ‘like a brother’ to me. And he’s not just my best friend either… Someday… Someday Dipper was gonna be my husband…”

About 50 feet back in the trees, something that looked just like an ordinary mountain lion had been crouching for the past half-hour, listening. Now its paws grew fingers, reached through a fold in its skin, and removed Robbie’s phone. He shook the slime off it as quietly as he could, and opened a web browser. He searched ‘time travel’, then ‘husband’, and read briefly through the articles that popped up.

Putting the two sets of knowledge together painted a very strange picture, and he considered the implications with confusion and interest.

Then he realized the humans were talking again.

“Shut up.” Wendy was saying.

“I didn’t say anything.” Stan put his hands up.

“Yeah, but you’re thinking it. You’re smiling.”

“I--! Hmm… Okay…” The old man scratched the grizzle on his chin to hide the smile he knew shouldn’t be there. “What do I say here?”

“What do you say? What do I say? This isn’t funny, it’s weird! I’m not crazy, am I? Am I crazy? Why would I make this up? And why wouldn’t it be true anymore? What happened?”

“I… Okay…” The old man gave it all as much thought as he could muster. “Okay… No, you’re not crazy. I believe you… And no, I don’t know anything else. I really don’t know how time travel works.” He admitted. “I don’t know if we changed the future somehow, or if this is all a dream, or if that was all a dream, or if that even was you from the future, but…” He shrugged. “Is there a way to bring him back? For real and good? That’s the real question, isn’t it? A way that doesn’t involve flirting with ancient evil…? Something that doesn’t just… Just make the pain longer and worse…? Heck if I know. But if he really means as much to you as you said… If you really believe you can do this thing, and really will do anything for him… Then… Then if there’s a way, I’ve a hunch you’re gonna find it. And… God help whatever stands in your way.”

She made a noise with her nose, about halfway between a laugh and a scoff.

“Seems to me.” Stan put a hand on her shoulder. “This is the part of the story where the world finds out who Wendy really is… And I think we’re all looking forward to it.”

She took a deep breath, and tried to smile. “Thanks…”

He gave her a pat, and turned away. “’Kay, hey, let’s head on back then. McGucket will be here before too long, right? We’ve still got some bots to flatten today, and we can’t keep your dad and his posse waiting.”

“Yeah, yeah… Uh… I’ll be with you in a minute…” She nodded.

Stan turned and started back toward the Shack, leaving Wendy staring at the last dying embers of Bill’s pyre. Once he was out of sight, she walked over to a nearby tree, pulled out a knife, and began carving shapes into the trunk. What were those, numbers? She seemed to have given the task all her attention.

Here we are, little girl. The shapeshifter thought. Alone in the middle of the forest. You have your back turned, and your brain preoccupied… I could kill you right now, it would be so easy.

Forget killing, I could HURT you. Disturb you. Torture you. Take anything I wanted from your body and brain, however I wanted.

I could.

I should.

But he didn’t.

Instead he watched silently for a few seconds as she finished carving whatever those shapes were. Then she flipped her knife closed, and stood back, allowing the shifter to get a good look at them. Was that a time and date? Suddenly Wendy turned her face upwards. “IF I EVER BECOME A TIME-TRAVELER!” She announced to the skies, and pointed at the numbers. “I PROMISE I’LL COME BACK FROM THE FUTURE TO RIGHT NOW, 11:03 AM, JUNE 12, 2013.”

He looked at her for a few seconds, startled.

Then Wendy looked left. The shifter looked left too. There was nobody there.

Then they both looked right. There was nobody there.

Behind, in front, up, down…

They didn’t see anyone or anything. They waited a minute or so…

But nobody came.

A single silent tear glinted in the light as it rolled down Wendy’s cheek.

Well. The shifter thought. I suppose that answers that question. Yes, something changed, indeed. Your plans, your dreams, your precious little friend… Everything concrete in your life really IS dead for good, isn’t it? And now… It seems without your partner, without your hero… You have nobody left to lean on. You’re so weak, I could kill you now…

But he didn’t.

Wendy turned and started back into the trees toward the Shack. The shifter decided he had other business too, and started back toward Robbie’s van.

Once they were both out of sight, the dark figure crouching high in the branches disappeared in a flash of blue light.

Ow, that hurt.

Dipper didn’t wake up, because he was already awake.

He didn’t open his eyes, because they were already open.

He didn’t stand up, because he was already standing.

It’s strange; he hadn’t feel any sort of lapse or discontinuity at all, yet he’d been lying down, hadn’t he? Something had been wrong with his body, and the pain had been incredible, and he’d been lying down. But now, an unmeasurably long instant later, he was just standing…

Hey I don’t hurt anymore. He realized.

But… Wait… Wait, what happened? Why aren’t I itchy? And why can’t I remember?

He tried to move, but he didn’t move… He tried to close his eyes, but couldn’t… He tried to speak but… Why can’t I feel my tongue?

It’s true, his own body seemed to be missing entirely. And whatever was left was still here, staring ahead, all alone… Wait… He couldn’t seem to remember much, but shouldn’t someone be here with him…? Somebody… WENDY! Where’s Wendy? Wendy was here with me, just a second ago! I need Wendy. I like Wendy. Wendy is nice. Wendy is pretty. Wendy. I need Wendy. Where’s Wendy?

He looked around.

He appeared to be in some kind of forest, deep beneath the overhanging shadows of the Pines. In fact, it wasn’t dissimilar to the woods of Gravity Falls; that familiar, wild environment wherein he felt most at home in this world. He didn’t see any buildings around, though now that he looked, there did seem to be some kind of hatches and doors built and hidden into the landscape; in hollows in the trees, in the gaps between roots, beneath bushes on the forest floor. Quite a lot of hatches… That was his first hint.

But the world was also grey, perfectly grey. The shadows were deep, the light was uncertain, even flickering, and everything bore the unmistakable marks of decay and neglect. But it was all grey; not even a hint of color… That was his second hint.

Oh… He put it together. This is the mindscape. When we were in Stan’s mind, it took the form of his home, with memories locked behind creaky wooden doors. This takes the form of my home… Or at least, the place I love the most… With memories sealed beneath shadowy hatches, deep in the forest… Somehow, I must be inside my own mind…

What happened? Why am I here? Is Bill around? Does he have something to do with this? I thought he was dead. Who put me here? And why can’t I remember what happened? Is there anyone else here?? Wendy!

In answer to his questions, loud, omnipresent words suddenly echoed through the trees. The words had no voice, no form or language. As if the words had not been spoken at all, but rather their meaning had been carved directly into his brain.

-INPUT: This is a test. Can you receive and respond to stimulus?

Dipper found he couldn’t speak. Huh? He thought. What does that mean? Who is that? What ‘stimulus’?

-INPUT: Think about the color purple.

Huh? Why would I think of the color purple? He wondered. Many pretty flowers are purple. Purple lightsabers are cool. Pacifica wears a purple dress. Purple lightsabers are REALLY cool. But Wendy wears green. Her hair is not green. Also trees are green. There are no green flowers. Why aren’t there any green flowers? I guess it makes sense that there are no green flowers; the bright colors are for bees to locate them. How would they locate a flower that blends in, huh? All the green flowers would die out…

-INPUT: You appear to be thinking almost normally. Are you capable of memory and learning?

What’s this loon talking about?

-INPUT: Try to remember this phrase: the ball is yellow.

Which ball are we talking about? Everything here is grey, and I don’t see a ball.

-INPUT: To demonstrate that you can learn, repeat the phrase back to me.

I can’t really talk, so how am I supposed to repeat? Wait, was the ball red or yellow? It seems like red is the most likely primary color for a ball to be. Unless they’re tennis balls, or the Pixar thing with the lamps.

-INPUT: Good enough, I suppose.

Wait a minute, somebody’s reading my mind! The words are responding to my thoughts!

-INPUT: That is astute. Now, can you remember your name and other basic information?

My name…? Uh… My name is Pine Tree something… Dipper! Yeah, Dipper… Dipper Pine Tree. Right? Man, that’s a stupid name. Did my parents just hate me or something? A dipper is an old-timey ladle for serving soup. They call me dipstick when they want to be mean. Sometimes Wendy calls me dipstick too, but that’s kind of more like friendly mocking. Not mean really.

-INPUT: Can you recall your real name, your current city and state of residence, and your sister’s hair color?

Her hair was reddish-pink… But it changed from week to week. She was always knitting new hair. And I’m in California of course. Gravity Falls, California.

-INPUT: What is your REAL name?

Dipper…

-INPUT: The decay is extremely severe…

Decay? Dipper glanced around his mindscape, suddenly worried at the implication. And he saw craters in the ground, gaping beneath splintered, fallen trees. Hatches and doors shattered off their hinges, or buried in rockslide. Words and labels and maps blurred or burned or defaced. And he realized he was looking at a place of utter ruin. This is my brain… Good grief, has it always been like this? What memories are lying there smashed? What pathways are now unwalkable…?

I used to be the smart one…

If I’m not the smart one, who am I…?

-INPUT: Do you feel ready to understand complex ideas?

Complex ideas? Well… I don’t know, look at this place… Does this mean I need to go back to kindergarten? Am I retarded now? Wait, if this thing is reading my thoughts, did it hear that? And that? It did! It’s hearing everything I think! This is creepy! I can’t think about embarrassing things like Wendy! Wendy is nice. Wendy is pretty. Where’s Wendy? Is Wendy the one reading my mind? Oh no! Is Mabel the one reading my mind? If that’s Mabel, then no matter what I do, I cannot think about dead kittens.

-INPUT: This is your Great Uncle Ford, and you deserve an explanation.

-INPUT: You died, Dipper. You died in battle defending Wendy Corduroy. I recovered your body before it underwent cell death, and used the brain scanner in my study to make a backup copy of your consciousness. I didn’t tell anybody besides Stan for fear of raising false hope, and neither of us were optimistic. And… Honestly, my plans didn’t go further than that; than maintaining a copy. I’m not sure where to go from here. And seeing as how the copy is only partial, and how rapidly it decays, I doubt I can go very far.

-INPUT: You did not perceive any passage of time between your death and now because I did not have a computer powerful enough to accommodate a living mind.

-INPUT: However, I found a temporary solution in the form of your sister. She is currently in a coma in the lab, and her brain is being used to host both of your minds. She is thinking for both of you. However, she is only thinking a fraction as fast under the load; already half an hour has elapsed since I began this interface.

-INPUT: Your sister has been extremely troubled since your death, and Stanley brought her to me hoping I could heal her or cheer her up. That is the only reason you’ve been activated at this point. After I uninstall you from her mind and deactivate her coma, you will not remember any of this, although she will. She needs you. And this will double as a viable field test for further tentative experiments with your copy.

-INPUT: Do you comprehend all this information?

It took a little while, and it put some stress on the borrowed corners of Mabel’s mind, but Dipper did slowly ‘comprehend’ the situation. Evidently, Ford saw when he’d finished his understanding.

-INPUT: Good. Now, there’s somebody who wants to see you. I’ll leave you two alone.

In the corner of his eye, he saw something that wasn’t grey. Something colorful, picking its way towards him through the rubble. Something with a reddish-pink sweater, and brown hair. “D… Dipper?”

…Mabel?

“And you brought this WHY?”

“Wull…” McGucket fished his own mind for an adequate explanation. “We gave all them magnet guns ta Dan’s posse, so I gist thought we might need somethin’ if we ran into some ‘drones’ or somesuch down there… An I just built this, so I figured we could give it a go!”

“Well, yeah!” Stan shrugged. “But how far are we planning on carrying this? It’s like the size of my…!”

“Is that the ‘plasma beam’ you mentioned?” Wendy came walking up.

“Ye reckon straight!” McGucket’s robo-pants whirred and clattered as he did a little jig, the massive sci-fi weapon cradled in his arms. “It uses these here magnetic containment thingums ta fire a six-million-degree trickle of deuterium-helium hogwash with an effective range of 50 meters, half-meter penetration capability into all types of material and armor, as well as tank capacity for 200 some-odd shots, and it even hambones yeh a tune while it charges!” He pressed a button and the weapon began to emit a country song from an onboard record player.

“…Why.” Wendy blinked. “You have a death ray. Why did you build a death ray.”

“Wull… I started fiddlin’ with it back when we first met them robit’s, as a weapon ta punch through ‘em instantly if push ever came ta shove… I…” The joy left his voice. “I guess I invented it too late.”

“Hmm.” Wendy grunted, trying not to sound too mean, but maybe sounding mean anyway by accident. “It’s okay. It’ll still be useful for the… Alien drone things though, right?”

“Aww, it’ll punch right through ‘em, surefire. The thermal expansion strain from even a near miss oughta be enough to crack their outer shells…”

“It’s still way too big.” Stan repeated. “You sure you can haul that stupid thing all the way down the ladder?”

“Ehhhhhhhh…”

“You do you then.” Stan grunted. “But I’ll be hauling some good ol’ fashioned ray guns.” He patted his bulging pockets. “You want one, Wendy?”

She took two. “And Ford isn’t coming?” She clarified.

“Can’t. He’s… He’s got work ta do. Plus he’s lookin’ after my other great neice…”

She shot him a glare that promised to carve out his kidney stones with a belt sander.

Somewhere in the middle of all this, an edgy, gothic van came rolling up the driveway behind them. As Wendy tucked Ford’s blasters into her belt, she glanced over her shoulder. “Ugh.” She sighed when she recognized the vehicle. “I’ll deal with this, guys…”

She met Robbie face-to-face before he’d even made it around from the driver-side. His slouching lope came to an abrupt stop when she demanded. “What are you doing here, dude?”

“Well, I just, like…” He looked almost as confused as he did sour. “I wanted to help…?”

“We’re fine, dude. Plus it’s kind of top-secret what we’re doing, so…”

“Well, I’m, like, prepared!” His slouch straightened just slightly, as he gestured to a weapon across his back. “I’ve got a sawed-off shotgun, some gnarly knives, a van, a skateboard…?”

“We’re fine.” She repeated. “We don’t really need… We’re fine… And hey, how did you even know we’re doing anything at all? This is kind of secret…”

“Well, I wanted to go with your dad’s gang out to the forest, but your dad doesn’t really like me, so I didn’t ask… And I didn’t see you with them so I thought I’d come here to… You know. What are you doing? I can totally keep a secret, I promise…! Like, I kept Tambry’s secret!”

“What’s Tambry’s secret?”

“Ha ha. Nice try.”

Wendy glared at him for a moment. “Why?” She asked.

That took him off-guard. “Well… Whaddaya mean?”

“Why are you so dead-set on coming with someone? To do something? What does it matter to you?”

“Well… Well, everyone wants to help… And… Especially after what happened, I just felt like I should—”

“Ooh-HOO, after what happened, huh? Yeah?” She challenged him. “You wanna tell me you’re sorry he died?” She stuck a finger in his face. “You wanna tell me he was a good man, that he died a hero, and that it’s really such a shame, and all that? It would be a nice gesture from anybody else, but from you, it’s dishonest! I’m dealing with so much crap right now… All of us, all of this, everything we’re doing, it’s all for him! So a little sympathy from his personal nemesis, a little kind word from you, that’s the last thing I need… Just… Just leave…”

Robbie hesitated for a moment, and his eyes fell, for he knew all this was true. “…But…” He set his jaw, seemed to draw some kind of determination, and tried again. “What if I said I was sorry?” He growled, as if angry at nobody in particular. “Not just ‘sorry’ as in ‘man, that sucks, sorry’, but ‘sorry’ as in ‘I… I seriously boned it… And I know it. Through the year I’ve known him, and the years I’ve known you, all I’ve done is just mess up and I haven’t given you or him the respect you deserve, and… And… I could have been there for you guys. At any point I could have. But I didn’t… So… So I’d do, like, do anything to make it up… I’m just… This is my chance to prove I’m not a loser. Like… Redemption, right? …I’m just sorry.”

Wendy understood that much.

She sighed and glanced at the other 2 men.

McGucket shrugged.

“My vote says scram…” Stan glowered. “But you know him best.”

Wendy turned back to Robbie. Ugh… Robbie… She sighed to herself. Why the heck did you have to get wrapped up in this? You’re the one person I DON’T want getting underfoot… But…

But he’s just trying to help. He said he’s sorry for what he’s done, and… He wants to clear his name. In my sight, and in Dipper’s posthumously. He’s seeking honor. Seeking redemption. Who am I to keep him from that? We all want redemption. We’ve all done countless wrong things that we long to repay for.

Perhaps he and I are in this for the same reasons. We want to prove ourselves. We want to cry out to the world that we’re not screw-ups… We want to become like Dipper: Somebody worthy of love.

But I’ve got a weird feeling in my gut that tells me he doesn’t really mean it. When I look deep into his eyes, something seems off, just slightly… There’s something here I should be paranoid about, but I have no clue what it is…

Something’s not being said here.

For a while after, Wendy wondered if she would regret saying “Sure. Fine.”

#The Forest Of Daggers #wendip #wendy x dipper #gravity falls #scifi #wendy corduroy #dipper pines #shapeshifter #see you next summer #fanfiction #fanart #alien #robot #ghost #wendipweek

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minijenn · 7 years ago

Text

Universe Falls Chapter 49

AN-So its abuot time I fucking post this chapter on here, huh? What can I say, I’ve had a busy day :P But anyway, I gotta say I’m still quite proud of this one. It was a struggle for sure (and ridiculously LONG) But the parts of it that shine just shine so much! So if you haven’t already read it yet, enjoy!

Previous: http://minijenn.tumblr.com/post/170522545399/universe-falls-chapter-48-part-2

Chapter 49: Northwest Mansion Nightmare

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Northwest Manor was bustling with activity as its various staff and servants bustled about, preparing for the immaculate celebration held within its lavish gates. The aptly named Northwest Fest was by and large a legendary party, one that carried a very high reputation that extended far beyond the boarders of Gravity Falls alone. And like all the parties prior to it, this year’s formal event was rumored to be every bit as posh and elegant, if not then some, and those were exactly the kind of rumors that both Preston and Priscilla Northwest wanted circulating as they oversaw the preparations for the event.

“Preston, I must say, the guest list for this year’s party has so much diversity!” Priscilla remarked to her husband as she overlooked said list.

“Yes, a nice mix of millionaires and billionaires,” Preston nodded proudly as one of his many servants handed him the day’s newspaper. His calm manner abruptly shifted, however, upon noticing another servant incorrectly setting the nearby table nearby with fine china and pure silverware, which the billionaire was quick to correct with an admonishing swat with his newspaper. “Put the oyster fork at an angle! We’re not animals, man!”

“E-excuse me, Mr. Northwest?” another servant anxiously interjected, two other staff members hauling in a large covered glass case behind him. “T-those rare, uncut gemstones you ordered have arrived.”

“Ah, yes, good,” Preston said rather dismissively. “Let me see them.”

“Oh, uh, w-well, sir…” the servant continued, wringing his hands nervously as the other staff removed the cover from the case. “They… they’re not exactly what you ordered…”

“I’ll say they’re not!” the billionaire exclaimed hotly upon taking a look at the collection of precious stones before him. Instead of the smooth, radiant gems he had been expecting, these stones were clustered and clumped together with no real order or organization at all, giving each set a haphazard, almost even ugly appearance. “What on earth all these… hideous things!? I specifically ordered the finest raw gemstones available, not these grotesque chunks of rock!”

“Ugh, just look at them!” Priscilla interjected, quite mortified herself. “What will our guests think if they see those gaudy excuses for gemstones?!”

“They won’t be thinking anything because they’re not going to see them,” Preston staunchly concluded as he addressed the servant. “Take those back to the jeweler immediately and have them send us some real stones to put on display.”

“W-well, normally I would, sir, b-but… these were the last gems the jeweler had…” the servant gulped fretfully. “T-they said they found them buried not too far away from a canyon a few hours out from town and that they’re actually quite rare, but-”

“But nothing!” the billionaire huffed, quite displeased. “I suppose that since its far too short notice to get replacements, we’ll just have to put last year’s gemstones out on display like we’re a bunch of simple peasants! And as for those… unsightly hunks of rock… just put the entire case in some hallway that no one’s likely to wander down during the party. We’ll figure out what to do with those disappointments later.”

“Speaking of which, where the devil is-” Priscilla cut herself off upon spotting her daughter finally making a rather tardy appearance. All the same, Pacifica smiled brightly as she strode into the room, already clad in the sophisticated light green ball gown she planned on wearing to the party the following evening. Her mother, however, was far from pleased. “Pacifica! What did I tell you about that dress?! The theme for the party is sea foam green, not lake foam green! Go change!”

“B-but… I kind of like it…” the heiress frowned, having already anticipated this scolding. Still, she had hoped her mother wouldn’t have noticed when she had put the dress on, but clearly, Priscilla’s sharp eye for fashion beat her own tastes in this case.

“Mind your mother, Pacifica,” Preston gave his daughter a critical glance. Still, given the fact that this was a rather minor detail, Pacifica hoped that she could somehow win out in this debate, even if she knew her chances were rather slim.

“B-but I-” Her soft protests were succinctly cut off by the sharp, high ring of a small bell, courtesy of her father. A bell that she was all too familiar with and knew well to obey. “Y-yes, father…” she muttered meekly, glancing down in embarrassment for even trying.

However, before Pacifica could even head out to follow her parent’s rigid orders, the entire dining room began to shake as if it was being rattled by a major earthquake. And yet, this was no natural occurrence as the dining ware on the table began to clatter violently, a bizarre, undeterminable gale striking up solely inside of the room as everyone present gasped in terror over the alarming sight surrounding them.

“Oh no!” Preston exclaimed fearfully, well aware of exactly what was going on. “It’s… happening.” The billionaire didn’t have much more of a chance to react to this newfound catastrophe before the opulent objects filling the room, plates, forks, knives, spoons, trays, chairs, and more, all suddenly lifted up into the air, flying around at random as they seemed to launch themselves on their own accord. Many of the servants fled altogether as this dangerous cascade of inanimate items swirled around the room, but even so, Preston did his best to fend the attacking objects off, though to little avail. “You are my possessions! Obey me!” he ordered, only for several plates to go zooming towards him in particular. The billionaire let out a frightened cry as he joined his wife and daughter in hiding under the table in the hopes that it would shield them from this chaotic onslaught.

“This is a disaster!” Priscilla cried, aptly panicked as the silverware continued flying just overhead. “The party’s in just 24 hours! What are we going to do?!”

“Surely there’s someone who can handle this sort of nonsense!” Preston lamented, only for his cry to receive a timely answer as a copy of the newspaper flopped down onto the ground right in front of him. Its headlining article featured a giant bat attacking Sherriff Blubbs and Deputy Durland atop the town’s bell tower. Though what stood out most was the young boy, roughly about Pacifica’s age, whom he had seen around town a handful of times this summer, fearlessly fending the bat off while the officers behind him cowered in fear. Clearly, from his brazen, undaunted expression, he seemed to be right at home warding away such supernatural danger, which was something that gave Preston a much-needed idea for how to handle the current plight the upcoming party was facing. “And I think I know just the person…”

Things had been rather uneventful around the Mystery Shack as of late, a welcome change of pace, particularly for Dipper as he used this relatively peaceful rainy morning as a rare chance to relax. He had already set up shop in the den, surrounded by a plentiful abundance of snacks and sodas to keep him company as he sat comfily in front of the TV.

“You asked for it, you got it!” the TV blared excitedly. “An entire 48-hour marathon of Ghost Harassers, on the Used To Be About History Channel!”

“Be strong, bladder. We’re not gonna move until sunset,” Dipper remarked, more than content to do just that. Until, of course, his plans quickly fell through.

“We interrupt this program to bring you breaking news!” the local town news commandeered the broadcast, deviating away from the ghost hunting marathon, much to Dipper’s immediate disappointment.

“Aw, what?” he frowned crossly, only for Mabel to suddenly run in, Candy and Grenda trailing blithely behind her.

“It’s starting!” she quipped, hopping onto the chair beside her brother and forcing him to move aside.

“Turn it up!” Candy exclaimed, squeezing onto the other side of the chair as her and Mabel essentially sandwiched the already rather perturbed Dipper between them.

“Make room for Grenda!” Grenda shouted boisterously, leaping on top of them all and recklessly knocking over a lamp in the process. The girls were just in time to see the beginning of the news story, featuring Toby Determined reporting on the scene outside of Northwest Manor, standing amongst an already very large, very eager crowd of townsfolk. “Well, tonight’s the night, but I’ve been out here for days!” the reporter exclaimed, his clothes tattered and muddy from doing so. “The Northwest family’s annual high-society-shindig-ball-soiree is here! And even though common folk aren’t let in, that doesn’t stop us from camping out right outside the gates for a peek at the fanciness!”

“Ooooooh!” all three of the girls mused, stars of amazement in their eyes as they stared at the screen, enthralled. Dipper, on the other hand, couldn’t have been any less interested in this rather soft, largely unimportant news.

“Ok, can someone please explain to me why people actually care about this?” he asked dryly, rolling his eyes at the brief snippets of poor-quality clips of past Northwest parties on screen.

“Northwest Fest is pretty much the best party of all time!” Grenda informed in her usual loud way. “Rich food, richer boys!”

“They say each gift basket has a live quail inside!” Mabel added just as enthusiastically.

“Give me your life, Pacifica…” Candy sighed wistfully as a clip of the heiress played during the newscast.

“You guys have got to be kidding,” Dipper deadpanned. “In case you’ve already forgotten, Pacifica Northwest has been a complete jerk to us all summer. She’s almost as bad as Gideon, minus the whole trying to kill us thing.”

“Oh, come on, bro-bro, you’re overexaggerating,” Mabel huffed. “Pacifica’s nowhere near as crazy or evil as Gideon is.”

“Maybe not, but she’s still the worst.” Dipper was suddenly interupted by a random knock on the door, but even so, his sour attitude towards the heiress didn’t change as he got up to answer it. “And that’s not just jealousy talking; I’d say that to her face.”

Ironically enough, however, the face he was met with upon opening the door was none other than Pacifica’s herself. “I need your help,” she said, saving the pleasantries and getting right to the point.

A very brief beat of rather awkward silence passed between the two of them before Dipper quickly acted upon what he had previously said. “You’re the worst,” he quickly told the heiress before abruptly slamming the door on her without bothering to hear her out whatsoever.

The trio of girls inside gasped in horror at response to Dipper’s careless rudeness towards Pacifica, especially given the fact that her family was hosting the most incredible party in town. Still, he hardly seemed to care as he turned towards them, arms crossed and caustic expression set. “See?”

Unfortunately for him, Pacifica wasn’t willing to give up that easily as she knocked on the door once again, this time much more insistently. And despite really not wanting to, Dipper knew that she likely wouldn’t go away until he at the very least heard her out. “Alright, what do you want?” he asked coldly as he opened the door again, sending her a quite transparent glare.

“Look, you think its easy for me to come here?” Pacifica asked, dressed in clothing that would largely obscure her identity, including a scarf over her hair and sunglasses over her eyes. “I don’t want to be seen in this hovel. But my dad made me come all the way out here because there’s something haunting Northwest Manor.” At this, the heiress removed her sunglasses, a hint of desperation in her otherwise haughty manner as she continued. “If you don’t help me, the party could be ruined!”

“And you really think that matters to me, like, at all?” Dipper raised an eyebrow as he leaned against the doorframe. “Honestly, I don’t know why I should even trust you. All you’ve ever done is try to humiliate me, Mabel, Steven, and Connie.”

“Hey, its not my fault you four are easy targets,” Pacifica scowled, every bit as bitter over this exchange as Dipper was. “Just name your price, ok? My dad will freak out if go back without any help, so I’ll give you anything!”

“Hi, Pacifica!” Mabel quickly interjected, rushing to the door before her brother could get a single word out. “Excuse us!” At this, she was quick to pull Dipper back into the shack despite his confused protest. “Dipper! Don’t you see what this means?!” she asked him in a fervent whisper. “If you help Pacifica, you could get us into the greatest party of all time!”

“What?” Dipper asked incredulously. “Mabel, this is Pacifica we’re talking about here. Helping her out will just end up turning into a huge disaster, I know it.”

“But it’s Candy and Grenda’s dream!” Mabel pleaded, nodding back to the starry eyed duo behind her. “And you know… it’s kinda mine too and you’d totally be the world’s number one best brother ever if you got me and my friends into this party and I’d totally owe you and shower you with the biggest, happiest hugs I can give and-”

“Ugh, alright already!” Dipper interjected, quite tired of his sister’s enthusiastic rambling on the matter as be begrudgingly turned to address Pacifica again. “I’ll bust your ghost. But in exchange, I’ll need three tickets to the party.”

The heiress let out a disgruntled growl at this, but nonetheless she conceded, reaching into her purse and retrieving the aforementioned tickets. “You’re just lucky I’m desperate.”

“Woo!” all three of the girls chanted in absolute elation in the living room, completely overwhelmed with excitement about the immaculate party that lay ahead of them. “Desperate! Desperate! Desperate!”

“Grenda, get the glue gun!” Mabel commanded with a huge, zealous grin. “We’re making dresses!”

“Ugh, I can’t believe I agreed to this…” Pacifica muttered, face palming as she prepared to leave.

“I can’t believe I agreed to this either…” Dipper remarked just as crossly, almost completely certain that he’d come to regret this choice some way or another.

Warm, plentiful laughter rung out between Steven and Connie as they emerged from the house, Lion trailing not too far behind them. The pair had spent most of the morning hanging out around the temple, with Connie practicing her sword skills on her own while Steven readily cheered her on. Still, soon enough the rousing rounds of swings and swipes soon came to an end as they decided to head down to the shack for a bit to see what Dipper and Mabel were up to.

“Well, time to assume my secret identity,” Connie joked, putting her glassless glasses back on. “Thanks again for letting me practice at your place, Steven. It’s a shame I can’t practice at home…”

“Well, why can’t you?” Steven asked, curious as he continued to hold the umbrella up for both of them, shielding them from the rain as they walked down the hill.

“Because my mom would totally flip if she caught me with a sword,” Connie remarked with a small chuckle, even though she was being serious. “And besides, Pearl hasn’t given me a ‘take home’ sword yet like she has for Dipper. Probably because I haven’t really gone on a lot of missions with you guys since we’ve started training, which I understand.”

Steven took pause upon hearing this, seeing that while Connie was apparently complacent with this fact, there was still a hint of longing in her expression all the same. Longing that he couldn’t help but feel compelled to fulfill. “Hey, wait a sec,” the young Gem stopped, prompting both Connie and Lion to do the same. “May I?” he asked, turning to the pink beast, who obediently lowered his head to allow his owner to reach inside his magical mane. Connie watched in apt curiosity as Steven felt around inside the pocket dimension for a moment, before finding what he was looking for and pulling it cleanly out of Lion’s forehead: Rose Quartz’s legendary sword.

“Here-eth,” Steven began, playfully yet dutifully bowing before the rather surprised Connie. “You can borrow-ethhhh my mother’s sword-ethhhhh.”

“S-Steven! That… that’s so nice!” Connie exclaimed with a small, albeit taken aback smile. “If grammatically incorrect. But…” At this point she was quick to switch into the same medieval tone Steven had been using. “Thou canst just giveth me thine mother’s sword!”

“Why not… -ethhhh?” the young Gem asked with a confused frown.

“Because its really important-ethhh!” Connie argued as they finally made it to the shack.

“That’s exactly why you should have-ethhhh it! You can have it to practice-ethhh with-ethhhh.”

Connie hesitated as Steven presented the sword to her once more, its large, pink form suddenly seeming quite intimidating as she looked upon it. This was by far a special blade, one that held more history that she could likely ever even hope to understand. Even with her skills progressing at the rate they were, she still felt largely unworthy by merit alone to wield such an impressively powerful sword. And yet, as she looked back to the young Gem who was so kindly offering it to her with such a hopeful smile, she found it was becoming increasingly difficult to turn that offer down. “Are you sure-ethhh?”

“Positive-ethhh,” Steven nodded with a confident, steady grin. One that was finally enough to convince Connie to take the illustrious, surprisingly light sword into her own hands.

“Thhhhhhank you!” she exclaimed with a laugh, finally capping off the pair’s playful barrage of medieval speech.

“You’re welcome,” Steven said, his smile finally falling a bit as his tone became serious. “It’s just… I was thinking… We gotta be ready if we need to fight Malachite or Peridot o-or Bill or… or those creepy Gem fusion experiments. And seeing as how you’ve already got the skills, all you really needed was a sword. Which means we’re bound to be ready for whatever comes our way next.”

“Well, there’s no real way of knowing that for sure,” Connie mused thoughtfully as they prepared to head inside the shack. “But still, I’ll take good care of it.”

The pair exchanged another warm smile as they opened the door, only to find a scene of colorful chaos unfurling before them. Mabel, Candy, and Grenda were congregated in the den, mutually awash in frantic excitement as they scrambled to put their home-made evening gowns together in time for the party. As Candy and Grenda collaborated on pouring copious amounts of glitter onto a swath of already very shiny fabric, Mabel rushed towards the stairs, energized as ever.

“Hi, Steven! Hi, Connie!” she greeted the confused pair quickly as she ran past them. “No time to talk! Our pom-pom supply is running dangerously low and I gotta replenish it ASAP!”

“Uh… what’s going on?” Connie asked as Mabel rushed off.

“They’re getting ready for tonight,” Dipper said as he came over to join the pair.

“Tonight? What’s tonight?” Steven asked curiously.

“There’s some stupid party happening at Northwest Manor,” Dipper explained, still rather vexed over the matter. “And I somehow got roped by Pacifica into getting rid of a ghost that’s apparently haunting the place in exchange for getting those three tickets for it.”

“Oh my gosh, the party!” Connie exclaimed with a recollective gasp. “I can’t believe I forgot about it! Ugh, my mom got invited for being one of the ‘top tier medical professionals’ in Gravity Falls, which means I have to go too, as much as I’d rather do literally anything else.”

“Same here,” Dipper staunchly agreed. “The last thing I want to do is spend an evening with Pacifica, of all people.”

“Tell me about it,” Connie crossed her arms with equal distain. “It’s kind of hard to believe Pacifica would ask you for help, Dipper, seeing as how she’s made it really clear she hates all four of us. Not that the feeling isn’t completely mutual, seeing as how she’s just about the worst.”

“That’s what I said!” Dipper exclaimed, exasperated. “But unfortunately, I couldn’t really turn her down; Mabel would have never let me live it down if I didn’t get those tickets for her.”

“Aw, I don’t know what you two are so upset about,” Steven interjected with a small smile. “This party sounds like a lot of fun! You know, aside from that whole ghost thing you mentioned, Dipper.”

“Yeah, it’ll be ‘fun’ alright,” Dipper deadpanned, rolling his eyes. “About as fun as getting a root canal.”

“Or getting hit by a bus,” Connie added before they both broke out into a bout of rather cynical laughter. Steven didn’t really join in on it as someone knocked on the door, but even so, as he went to answer it he offered the pair some more encouragement over the evening they were both so clearly dreading.

“Well, even if you guys don’t think so, I still think you’ll both have a great time at the party,” the young Gem said warmly. “I sure wish I could go. But I wasn’t invited, so I guess I’ll just have to-” Steven cut himself off as he opened the door to see a rather impatient doctor standing outside. “D-Dr. Maheswaran!”

“Yes, yes, hello, Steven,” Priyanka greeted dully as she stepped inside. “Hello, Dipper.”

“Uh, hi, Dr. Maheswaran,” Dipper replied, glancing over at Connie in confusion as she hurriedly hid Rose’s sword behind her back before her mother could see it.

“M-Mom!” she exclaimed, eyes wide with alarm at this unexpected intrusion. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m here to pick you up so we can go get ready for the party this evening, remember?” Priyanka remarked in a huff. “It’s only a few hours away and we have much to do before then, to the point that I even had to leave work early. But it’ll all be worth it if I can land the Northwests as the sponsors for the purposed new wing at the hospital. Which means I expect you to be on your best behavior tonight, young lady.”

“Yes, mother…” Connie grumbled, far from keen on the idea of sucking up to Pacifica’s family like her mother seemed to be.

“Now say goodbye to your friends,” the doctor ordered, reaching out to grab her daughter’s hand without any warning. “We’ll have to hurry if we want to-” Priyanka stopped short upon hearing the noisy clatter that came as a result of Connie loosing her grip on the sword she had been concealing as it fell to the floor.

“Oh no…” Connie groaned, face palming as she realized she had no time to reclaim it before her mother turned to see it lying in plain sight on the ground beside her.

“Is that… a sword?!” Priyanka gasped, picking the sheathed blade up in complete appalment. “Connie, where did you get this?!”

“I-it’s-” Steven nervously began to explain before Connie quickly interupted him.

“I-I found it! It was just… lying outside and I wanted to show it to Steven and Dipper.”

“Wait, but isn’t that Rose’s-” Dipper was immediately cut off by Connie as she slapped a silencing hand over his mouth while her mother seethed with fury all the while.

“How could you possibly think this is ok?!” the doctor exclaimed, completely livid as she paced back and forth the foyer with the sword still in her grip. “Do you know how many children I see coming into the hospital every day who’ve cut their faces off playing with swords?”

“Uh…”

“None!” Priyanka snapped hotly. “Because they have parents who love them and don’t let them play around with deadly weapons like some kind of gang member!”

“B-but-” Connie tried to protest, but her mother immediately shot her down.

“No buts! I don’t even know why I have to tell you this! You should know better! No playing with swords! Under any circumstances! Now, come along, we still have to get ready for the party. I’ll have a talk with your father after he gets off work tonight to calculate just how grounded you are. And we’re using the abacus!”

And with that, Priyanka abruptly turned on her heel and walked out, taking Rose’s sword along with her, much to Connie’s dismay. “I hate that abacus…” she remarked sourly before her tone turned fretful. “Steven, I’m so sorry! She took your mother’s sword!”

“Maybe we could get her to change her mind?” Steven suggested with a reassuring smile.

“She never, ever changes her mind,” Connie huffed, rubbing her temples. “We’ve got to get that sword back ourselves.”

“How are you going to do that?” Dipper asked with a frown. “There probably isn’t a great chance that Dr. Maheswaran will let the sword out of her sight considering how upset she was about it.”

“Oh, you’re right…” Connie mused worriedly for a moment before excitedly snapping her fingers. “Wait! I know! The party! We can wait until she’s distracted tonight and then, Steven, you and me can sneak off with it without her even knowing!”

“That’s a great idea, Connie!” Steven chimed brightly. “There’s just one problem though… I’m not invited to the party.”

“Connie!” Priyanka shouted quite impatiently from outside. “We need to leave, now!”

“W-well, you’ll just have to figure out a way to get in!” Connie urged as she began to hurry out. “I’ll see you tonight!”

“Hopefully…” Steven said, halfheartedly waving her off as she rushed to join her mother. “Wait a second! Dipper, didn’t you say that you convinced Pacifica to give you some tickets to the party? Do you think maybe you could get just one more from her so I could get in too?”

“Steven, it was basically a miracle that she even agreed to give me tickets for Mabel, Candy, and Grenda,” Dipper said with an apologetic frown. “I highly doubt she’s gonna be willing to fork over another one, even with me taking care of her ghost problem for her.”

“You’re probably right…” Steven sighed in disappointment. “But what am I gonna do? I gotta find a way to get into that party somehow!”

“Did somebody say party!?” Both boys were quite started as, out of nowhere, Amethyst suddenly dropped down from the ceiling, grinning wryly as she landed in between them.

“Amethyst? What are you doing here?” Dipper asked in apt confusion.

“Oh, ya know, just napping up in the rafters, just like I do all the time,” the purple Gem remarked, stretching herself out as she fully woke up. “The ones here at the shack are way more comfy than the ones up at the temple, believe it or not. But it’s been kinda hard to get any rest around here with everyone being so loud for some reason. Seriously what’s up with all that?”

“Oh well uh…” Steven began rather anxiously, not wanting to admit to any of the Gems that he had lost track of his mother’s sword. “E-everyone’s just… really excited about the Northwests’ party tonight and-”

“Ugh, that yearly snooze-fest?” Amethyst stuck her tongue out in disdain. “I don’t know why anyone would get excited over that. It’s barely even a party! Just a bunch of rich stiffs standing around yapping about how much money they have. The only good thing about it is that the grub is all you can eat, which is an offer I always took them up on whenever we went to it back in the day.”

“Wait, so you guys have been to this party before?” Dipper asked curiously.

“Yeah, a few times,” the purple Gem shrugged. “But only because we kinda sometimes filled in as bodyguards for those Northwest losers way back when before we learned that they’re a bunch of crooked jerks. Crazy thing about it is that we still actually get invites for their party every year, even though he haven’t gone since Rose was still around. Guess they never bothered to take us off the guest list, not that we’d go anyway seeing as how those prudes didn’t keep their-”

“A-Amethyst!” Steven suddenly interjected, eyes wide with newfound hope upon hearing that his guardians had invitations to the exclusive party. Which meant that there was a chance he could help Connie out after all. “Did we get invited this year too?!”

“Uh… yeah? Pretty sure Pearl has the invites up at the temple. Why?”

“B-because I wanna go this year!” Steven urged, his manner still rather tight as Amethyst looked to him in confusion.

“What? Why?” she asked caustically. “Did you hear what I just said? That party’s lame, Steven. You’d get bored in the first 5 seconds, just like I always used to.”

“W-well… maybe its not as boring as it used to be anymore!” the young Gem argued earnestly. “And besides, Connie’s going! And so are Dipper and Mabel!”

“That’s right,” Dipper nodded, supporting the young Gem in his effort to try and win the purple Gem over on the matter. “Amethyst, would it really be fair if the three of us got to go to some huge fancy party while Steven just spends the night home, bored and alone?”

“Like a poor little sadsack?” Steven added, pouting pleadingly.

Amethyst didn’t answer right away as she looked between the pair, arms crossed and expression dry. Still, her manner didn’t stay that way for long upon watching the young Gem’s lower lip start to quiver as a sign of his genuine desperation. Which was something that none of the Gems, not even Amethyst, was able to resist. “Ugh, ok fine!” she groaned in exasperation. “I’ll help you convince Garnet and Pearl into going with us to that dumb party. But only because their food is really good. And also ‘cause I’m in the mood for busting up some of the Northwests’ expensive fancy property.”

“Yes!” Steven cheered, quite relieved as he gave Dipper a thankful high five. “Thanks so much Amethyst!”

“Yeah, yeah,” the purple Gem remarked with a casual wave of her hand as she took her leave to inform her teammates of their plan. “Just don’t come cryin’ to me when you end up clonking out on that ballroom floor from how boring it all is. Which will happen. Trust me, I know, I’ve done before.”

Sure enough, with Northwest Fest set to start in roughly an hour, a massive crowd of spectators had congregated around at least a mile radius from the mansion’s securely locked gates, ones that were meant to keep the common folk out while the exclusively wealthy guests enjoyed the finery inside. Of course, this year’s party did carry some exceptions to these upscale standards, namely the group Pacifica unceremoniously escorted in through the mansion’s stately front doors.

“Welcome to Northwest Manor, dorks,” she announced dryly as Dipper, Mabel, Candy, and Grenda all got their first glimpses of the immaculate ballroom. “Try not to touch anything.”

The girls hardly heeded the heiresses as they rushed past her, clad in their flashy home-made dresses as they rushed to take in every lavish sight surrounding them. The mansion’s grand hall was quite a splendor, with high vaulted ceilings, expertly crafted woodwork and spotless marble floors. With most guests having yet to arrive, the only ones milling about at the moment were maids and servants as they put together the finishing touches for the festivities, including the massive apple cider fountain and lengthy buffet of hors d’oeurves. Overall, the setting of the party alone lived up to the stories of its splendor, splendor that the girls were more than happy to explore as they cheerfully ran about.

“Everything’s so fancy!” Mabel quipped, stars in her eyes as she spun around in her fluffy pink gown. “Fancy floor, fancy plants, fancy man!” she finished as she zealously patted the face of a nearby butler.

“Mm, yes, very good, miss,” the butler conceded dutifully before walking away.

“The rumors were true!” Candy proclaimed, running by with a quail-filled gift bag in hand before Grenda and Mabel hurried after her, chuckling cheerfully all the while.

At the same time, Preston and Priscilla entered the room, calm and composed over their nearly-complete party preparations, even despite the previous night’s setback. “Ah, if it isn’t the man of the hour!” Preston addressed Dipper cordially as the couple approached him. “I trust you can help us with out little… situation before the guests arrive in an hour.”

“I’ll do my best,” Dipper assured rather confidently. And really, he had every reason to show confidence for the task ahead as equipped as he was with the journal, ghost tracking equipment, and even his sword as an extra precaution. On top of all that was the general level of experience in fending off supernatural danger he had gained over the course of the summer alone, which made him feel more than equipped to deal with a simple, run of the mill ghostly haunting.

“Splendid! Pacifica, take our guest to the ‘problem room’,” the billionaire said to his daughter before dropping his voice down to a mutter while Dipper was distracted. “And uh… he’s not wearing that is he?” he asked, rather unimpressed with the boy’s common, almost sloppy attire and overall manner.

“I’m on it,” Pacifica nodded, wasting no time in dragging Dipper off to the mansion’s quite extensive guest dressing room. And, despite his extensive protests, she eventually managed to get him fitted in an appropriately formal suit, something that Dipper found to be incredibly uncomfortable and restricting even from the moment he first put it on.

“Ugh, it’s like this collar is strangling me,” he grumbled, pulling at the offending, quite aggravating collar. “Who do you guys think you’re impressing with this stuff anyway?”

“Uh, everyone?” Pacifica retorted just as sharply as she quickly adjusted Dipper’s tie. “You wouldn’t understand. High standards are what make the Northwest family great. And part of those high standards is that we always look our best.” To prove her point, the heiress motioned down to her own fashionable lavender ball gown, one that she knew and was quite proud of the fact that it was the best that money could buy.

“Oh really?” Dipper remarked with a wry, knowing smirk. “That’s funny seeing as how you guys didn’t look all that great when we exposed you for lying about founding the town.”

“Ugh, whatever,” Pacifica scoffed, rolling her eyes. “We’re still way better than pretty much anyone else in this town, even if we didn’t found it some stupidly long time ago. And in case you haven’t noticed, everybody still loves us, so its not like you guys ‘revealing the truth’ even changed anything.”

“Has it ever occurred to you that maybe the only reason why people supposedly ‘love’ your family is because you guys are ridiculously rich?” Dipper asked rather crossly.

“No, its because we’re respected,” the heiress corrected pointedly. “There’s a difference.”

“Oh yeah, sure, ‘respected’,” Dipper deadpanned. “For pretty much nothing but being rich.”

“Oh, just shut up already and come on!” Pacifica snapped, quite frustrated especially as Dipper kept up his smug, triumphant grin. Still, both of them were rather eager to get this ghost hunting mission over with, if for nothing more than to cut the begrudging, yet momentarily necessary tie between them. Which was why they continued on to investigate in a state of cross, bitter silence, one that neither of them felt compelled to break, lest even more biting, hostile words spark between them. Words that, ironically, were the exact opposite of the kind of sentiments that would spark up between them soon enough.

Though it had taken some doing, Steven and Amethyst had managed to convince Garnet and Pearl into going to the Northwests’ party. Still, despite their agreement to show up, none of the Gems were very excited to be there as they arrived early, just as they always used to do when they used to attend the party in the past. They had almost ended up arriving in their usual attire, but upon Steven’s insistence, they had begrudgingly shifted into more elegant wear for the evening. Garnet had taken on a smooth, sleeveless, sleek magenta gown, one that filled out wide past her knees and had a large slit revealing her shapely left leg. Pearl’s dress was more modest; a graceful, pale blue, silky ensemble, with straps and an additional skirt from behind. Though Amethyst usually abhorred getting dolled up, she had made an exception for Steven, putting on a shorter purple dress with loose skirts and low straps on top of tying her hair up into a messy, yet still presentable (thanks to Pearl) bun. As for Steven, he was clad in a rental tux that Greg had managed to score for him at the last second, but even still, he was quite ready for the party himself, even despite his apprehension for even having to be there in the first place.

“I still can’t believe we agreed to come to this shallow parade of overindulgence and excess,” Pearl huffed disdainfully as the group approached the mansion’s entrance. “I thought our days of attending these despicable Northwest parties were long over.”

“We all agreed to make an exception this year for Steven, Pearl,” Garnet reminded, even though it was clear she was none too pleased to be there either. “So we’ll just have to suck it up for a few hours.”

“Yes, I know, but still…” the white Gem dropped her voice down to a whisper as she clutched the Gem leader’s arm. “All of this shameless touting of refinement, power, and position over others? You can’t deny that it’s a little like-”

“Homeworld, I know,” Garnet’s expression darkened somewhat. “That’s one of the many reasons we stopped going to these.”

Despite their quiet conversing, Steven still picked up on what his guardians were talking about and he couldn’t help but feel somewhat guilty for stirring up bad memories of their former planet by essentially using them as his ticket into this party. Part of him wanted to tell them his true reasoning for wanting to come, namely to help Connie reclaim Rose’s sword, but he couldn’t very well admit that to them out of shame that he had lost something so precious and important, especially since it was his responsibility to keep it safe in the first place. So instead of telling the truth, the young Gem decided to do one of the things he did best: cheer them up.

“I-I know you guys aren’t looking forward to this, but I still think we could end up having fun!” he quipped with a warm smile. “I mean, we’re all here together, and Connie, Dipper, and Mabel are coming too so maybe the party won’t be as bad as it used to be when you guys used to go to it.”

“Oh yeah, speakin’ of which,” Amethyst interjected curiously as they all presented their invitations at the door before being let inside. “How did those three get invites to this ritzy blowout anyway? I always remember this thing being super exclusive, to the point that they only let rich, snobby jerks in. And last time I checked, Connie, Dipper, and Mabel aren’t rich, snobby jerks.”

“Oh, uh, well-”

“Steven!” the young Gem was interupted almost as soon as him and the Gems stepped into the ballroom by Mabel, who had managed to spot them from the other side of the hall. She didn’t hesitate to excitedly run over towards him, though she did slow her pace somewhat, her cheeks flushing red upon noticing the rather dashing suit he was in. “W-wow…” she said as she came to a stop, trying her best not to come across as flustered and doing anything but. “Steven, you… y-you look, uh… you… um… G-great to see you!”

“Uh, its great to see you too, Mabel, even though I did just see you a few hours ago.” Steven chuckled, fortunately not paying her stumbling much mind.

“Heh, yeah… Oh my gosh!” Mabel quickly changed topics, averting her gaze from the young Gem lest she turn incoherent again as she addressed the Gems instead. “You guys all look so pretty! I love, love, love your dresses!”

“Well, thank you, Mabel,” Pearl smiled kindly. “Your dress for the evening is very… creative as well!”

“Aw, thanks so much! I made it myself!” Mabel cheerily gushed, pulling off a playful curtsy. “Still, this is so crazy awesome! I wasn’t expecting to see any of you guys here! Isn’t this party the fanciest thing you’ve ever seen?!”

“Mm… we’ve seen fancier,” Garnet noted rather dryly, eliciting confused frowns from both Mabel and Steven.

“Mabel! You gotta get over here!” Grenda suddenly called, her deep voice echoing from across the ballroom.

“Oh! Hold that thought!” Mabel exclaimed as she started to run off, though not before bidding Steven and the Gems a quick farewell as they waved her off. “I’ll catch up with you guys later! I hope you have fun!”

“Ha, like that’ll ever happen at this lamo snob party,” Amethyst grumbled, crossing her arms petulantly.

“What’s up?” Mabel asked Candy and Grenda as she joined them before a large, stately book resting on a stand.

“Look what we found! It’s the guest list!” Grenda grinned, eagerly flipping through it before stopping a few pages in. “Whoa! Check out this hottie!”

“Marius von Fundshauser!” Candy read, already completely enthralled with the wealthy young man from his picture alone. “He’s a baron from Austria!”

“Forget the quail, I’m putting him in my gift basket!” Mabel quipped, more than ready to indulge herself with another summer crush. Especially if it helped her get her mind off her ever-growing feelings for a certain young Gem.

“Hold up, ladies,” Grenda interjected, her tone surprisingly serious. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I think this boy might be out of our league.”

“Grenda is right,” Candy nodded just as rationally. “He is a white whale. Hunting him will destroy us.”

“Well, there are plenty of other cute boys coming to this party,” Mabel vouched with a conceding smile. “So let’s make a sister’s truce not to waste our time on Marius. Deal?”

“Deal!” Candy and Grenda both agreed as they all put their hands together in mutual agreement on this plan. Still, all three of them laughed somewhat nervously as they broke their hands apart, none of them entirely sure if this was a deal they intended on keeping.

As her father had instructed, Pacifica led Dipper to the so-called “problem room”, which, even upon an initial glance, was exactly what he had been expecting. It appeared to be some kind of lounge, just as stately as the rest of Northwest Manor was with hand-crafted hardwood furniture, walls lined with paintings hailing the family’s allegedly proud history, and mounted animal heads, and a large roaring fireplace that cast the entire room in a shadowy, almost blood red glow.

“This is the main room where it’s been happening,” Pacifica informed as they stepped inside, her usual confident manner somewhat diminished in place of fledgling fear.

“Yeah, this looks like the kind of room that would be haunted alright,” Dipper concluded as he pulled the journal out and turned to the fortunately extensive section on ghosts. “I wouldn’t worry about it though. Ghosts fall on a ten-category scale. Floating plates sounds like a category 1, which is pretty far from being anywhere close to dangerous.”

“So what?” Pacifica asked with a teasing smirk. “Are you gonna bore him back into the afterlife by reading from that book? Or are you going to pretend to stab him with that cute little toy sword of yours?” she asked, nodding to the Ancient Sea Blade he had securely strapped to his back.

“First of all, it’s not a toy, its real,” Dipper corrected, half tempted to draw it and show her. “And secondly, I only brought it with me as a precaution. If it really is a category 1, then the most I gotta do is splash that sucker with some anointed water,” he said, holding said small bottle of holy water up. “And he should be out of your probably-fake blonde hair.”

“What was that about my hair?” Pacifica scoffed, glaring at him disapprovingly.

“Shh!” Dipper quickly interupted her as he pulled a small, ghost-tracking device out of his backpack, one that was already beeping in response to the apparent supernatural activity in the room. “I’m picking something up.”

The heiress simply sighed in aggravation but all the same she hung back, allowing him to investigate further as he followed the readings the device was giving off. Dipper stopped short in front of the fireplace as he briefly glanced up to the large painting of who appeared to be an 1880s lumberjack until the device’s signal suddenly went dead. “Ugh, come on, stupid thing,” he muttered in annoyance, beating the side of it until it began beeping once more. “There we go. Huh?” He was met with immediate confusion as he glanced up again, only to find that somehow, the lumberjack in the painting had suddenly disappeared from the frame in what couldn’t have been more than a few seconds at best. Something that Dipper already knew well from experience, was far from normal. “Uh… Pacifica?”

The heiress didn’t even heed him as she instead let out a frightened scream on the other side of the room, one that was quite warranted given the pool of blood she had just spotted near her feet, one that was being fueled from above. Both her and Dipper let out shared gasps of shock as they glanced up to see blood, thick, dark, and real, swelling from the seemingly dead mouths and eyes of every single one of the taxidermized animal heads on the walls. A steady, unnatural gale-force wind started to swirl around the room as bright, sinister flames began bursting out from the confines of the fireplace, almost as if they were trying to latch onto Dipper and Pacifica as they rushed to meet each other near the center of the room. The danger seemed to escalate more and more with each passing second as the animal heads, still dripping with unexplainable blood and blank, unseeing eyes glowing a sharp, warning red, began to raise their voices in a deep, unearthly, ominous chant.

“ANCIENT SINS! ANCIENT SINS! ANCIENT SINS!”

On and on this mysterious mantra continued as the objects in the room began to take flight, books, furniture, and antiques all rising into the air before they haphazardly glided around the appropriately terrified pair. “Dipper, what is this?!” Pacifica cried about the incredible din surrounding them, her trembling hands held close to her as her long hair whipped about in the hurricane winds.

“I-it’s a category 10…” Dipper replied, absolutely shaken. After all, the last time he had witnessed a supernatural disaster this dire or intense was when he had watched his own body be taken over by a vicious dream demon while he floated outside of it, distraught and helpless. And while this haunting was nowhere near as immediately catastrophic as that had been, it was still every bit as deadly, a fact he was starkly reminded of as his only real option for taking care of it, the vial of anointed water, abruptly shattered right in his hand.

“ANCIENT BLOOD AND BLACKENED SKIES,” the animal heads changed their chant into something new, but every bit as dark and sinister. “THE FOREST DARK SHALL ONCE MORE RISE!”

“What do we do?! What do we do?!” Pacifica practically screamed as she grabbed Dipper by the suit jacket and shook him desperately.

“I-I… I don’t know!” Dipper answered truthfully, realizing that he was actually quite unprepared for something of this caliber.

“What do you mean you don’t know?!” Pacifica shot back in disbelief. “Aren’t you supposed to be some kind of supernatural expert or something?!”

“Who on earth told you that?!”

“Uh, the town newspaper did!”

“Whoa, really?” Dipper paused, rather pleasantly surprised to hear this. “That’s… actually pretty awesome.”

“Focus!” Pacifica snapped harshly. “We’re about to be killed by creepy dead animal heads and flying furniture, remember?!”

“Don’t worry,” Dipper assured as evenly as he could, given the circumstances. “It can’t possibly get any worse than this!”

Of course, he was immediately proven wrong as the fire violently sparked up again, forcing the pair to dive under the nearby table to avoid getting burned. And they did so just in time as, out of nowhere, a powerful black skeletal arm emerged from the flames, still completely consumed in them as it smashed down onto the ground. The rest of the charred skeleton subsequently pulled itself out of the fire, something akin to skin and clothes forming around the bones as they formed the visage of a large, burly man, the lumberjack from the painting himself, who was clearly deceased based on his rotting, grisly form. A sharp, deadly axe had cleaved his head, the obvious cause of his death that still remained in his undead form. And his manner was every bit as outraged and heated as the burning inferno he had emerged from as he belted out his first proclamation in a deep, rumbling voice.

“I smell… a NORTHWEST!” the ghost growled, blue flames igniting in place of where hair and a beard would normally be as his one remaining eye shot open. Dipper and Pacifica made sure to remain hidden out of the ghost’s view under the table as he began to storm around the room, another axe materializing in his hand as he dragged it threateningly across the floor with each torturously slow step. “Come out, come out, wherever you are!”

“Hurry!” Pacifica whispered to Dipper sharply as he frantically flipped through the journal for answers. “Read through your dumb book already and figure out a way to get rid of that… thing!”

“I’m looking!” Dipper retorted just as harshly as he pulled out his blacklight. “And its not dumb, ok? This book is gonna save our lives! Alright, here we go; Advice:” Hoping that the category 10 ghost page would hold the key to ousting this great, newfound threat, he held the blacklight over the page, only to get the lone, disconcerting message of “Pray for mercy!” instead of anything tangibly useful. “Aw, seriously?!”

Matters were only made worse as the table, their only real cover from the ghost and his deadly axe, suddenly hovered away, leaving them directly in the menacing specter’s line of sight, much to their shared horror. “You should not have come here!” he shouted, not even hesitating to swipe at the pair with his weapon, which they only barely dodged.

“This way! Hurry!” Pacifica exclaimed, grabbing Dipper by the arm and quickly pulling him up before they rushed out of the room. The ghost was in hot pursuit, his fiery manner sparkly with murderous intent as he relentlessly chased them down the mansion’s maze-like halls, ready to strike.

Northwest Manor’s massive doors finally opened to the illustrious group of invited party guests as Preston proudly stood by to greet them all, his wide, cordial grin completely hiding any implications that ghostly danger was currently lurking through the mansion’s halls. “Welcome, dukes, duchesses, sultans and sportsmen! And—ugh… Mayor Dewey…”

“Preston!” Dewey exclaimed brightly, rushing forward as he threw an arm over the billionaire’s shoulder. “We’re so honored to be here, isn’t that right, Buck?”

“Not really,” Buck dryly stated, his arms crossed and his shades still on despite his formal attire.

“Ha! Isn’t my son just hilarious?!” Dewey chuckled with an incredibly forced laugh as he snapped a finger at one of his aids, not noticing Preston’s quickly growing aggravation with him. “Now, smile for the campaign promotion!” The mayor did so brightly, even if the billionaire made his annoyance quite clear before finally acting upon it as soon as the aid snapped a photo.

“Alright, Dewey, that’s enough of your ‘campaigning’ for one evening,” Preston scowled scornfully, pushing the mayor back into the crowd. “Now then,” the billionaire continued, quickly regaining his composure as he addressed the rest of his guests. “Tonight we will enjoy only the finest of tastes and only the snootiest of laugher.” Someone in the crowd let out an incredibly haughty chortle in response to this remark as Preston nodded in approval. “That’s the ticket!” he exclaimed, motioning for the guests to finally step inside.

Despite the party’s exclusivity, there were still quite a few attendees who filed in, most of them quite prominent in some regard, be it wealth or reputation. Within this group were some of the town’s most esteemed medical professionals, and among them was Dr. Maheswaran, with Connie almost sullenly following in after her. After since her mother had confiscated Rose’s sword, she had been trying her best not to fall even further out of Priyanka’s good graces than she already had. Hence why she had been obedient, almost rigidly so, all the way leading up to their arrival at the party itself, in the hopes that her mother would loosen up her newly tightened reigns for the evening. And fortunately enough, her vigilance paid off, as that’s exactly what Priyanka did.

“I have to go meet with the other doctors before we propose the hospital sponsorship to the Northwests,” the doctor said to her daughter, her tone as serious as ever. “I trust that you can mind yourself like a proper young lady without getting into any more trouble for an hour or two, right?”

“Y-yes, ma’am,” Connie nodded apprehensively, keeping her poise and manner as polite and compliant as possible as to not give away her intention of going against her rules.

“Good,” Priyanka nodded in staunch satisfaction as she began to walk off. “And remember what we talked about on the way here!”

“Don’t worry, Mom,” Connie assured with a rather fake smile. “I-I don’t think you’ll need to worry about me stumbling across any swords around here!” Her smile immediately fell into partial guilt as soon as her mother fully turned away, since she knew she would soon be seeking out the very sword that had gotten her into all this trouble on her own accord. Still, she didn’t let herself linger on that guilt for too long as Steven managed to spot her amidst the crowd and didn’t hesitate to come running over.

“Connie!” he called with an elated smile as he caught her off guard with a sudden hug.

“S-Steven!” Connie chuckled as the broke apart. “You actually made it!”

“Yeah, it turns out the Gems actually get invited to this party every year,” Steven’s smile quickly turned to wonder as he got a better view of Connie’s attire for the evening: a floor length turquoise dress with short sleeves and a dark sash, one that complimented her neatly-done updo quite nicely. “W-wow… Connie, you look great!”

“Thanks…” Connie blushed, her reddened cheeks matching the young Gem’s own. “You look really nice too. B-but there’s no time to talk about that now! We gotta get your mother’s sword back while my mom is distracted!”

“Right,” Steven nodded, resolved. “So where is it?”

“She left it outside in the car,” Connie reported with a worried frown. “Which means that we can’t just go out through the front door to get it, everybody will notice. There has to be another way out of the mansion…”

“Then I guess we’ll just have to find it!” the young Gem grinned encouragingly. “Come on!” And with that, Steven grabbed Connie’s hand, reigniting the warmth in her cheeks as they slipped through the party’s growing crowds towards the back of the ballroom, where the beginning of the hallways leading to the inner sanctums of the mansion awaited. Neither of them had the faintest clue about the manor’s layout, which was why they had to settle on picking a random hallway and seeing where it led. They managed to do so without Priyanka, or really anyone else for that matter noticing them, mostly since everyone was already so distracted with the fancy offerings of the party itself. And as soon as they were out of the party proper, they both noticed that the mansion’s lofty halls were much more spacious, quiet, and even eerie than either of them would have thought they would be.

“Whoa, this place is even bigger on the inside than it looks on the outside,” Steven remarked as they made their steady way down the corridor they had chosen. “And that’s saying something seeing as how it looks huge on the outside.”

“What do the Northwests even need such a huge mansion for anyway?” Connie asked, making her disdain for the wealthy family as apparent as ever. “They probably don’t even use half the rooms in here and if they do, then they’re probably just filled with stuff they never look at or use.”

“You’re sounding like the Gems did earlier,” Steven remarked with a small, bemused smile. “They… really aren’t that happy to be here.”

“Well, who can blame them?” Connie huffed. “I’d rather be anywhere else but here either, but at least this party his good for one thing: helping us get that sword back.”

“True,” Steven nodded. “Though I don’t really know what we’re gonna do with the sword once we get it back… Lion didn’t come with us to the party, so I guess we’ll just have to sneak it back inside and hope your mom doesn’t see-” The young Gem stopped short as a display case resting against the nearby wall caught his attention as they were passing it. A case that was filled with what seemed to be rather clusters of conjoined gemstones.

“Steven?” Connie frowned as she also paused, noticing his apparent surprise. “Is something wrong?”

“Oh, uh, nothing,” Steven glanced away from the case briefly. “Its just… these rocks look an awful lot like the ones those Gem experiments in the Kindergarten had…”

“Really?” Connie asked, concerned. “You don’t think…?”

“…No, they couldn’t be,” the young Gem shook his head. “We bubbled all of them up. A-and even if there were any left that we didn’t find, how would they have ended up here?”

“You got me,” Connie said with a small, reassuring smile. “Now come on, we gotta hurry and get that sword!”

Steven nodded in firm agreement, only taking a very short final glance back at the gemstone display case before he hurried after her. Still, as they continued their way down the narrow mansion hall, neither one of them noticed as one of the odd, strangely familiar-looking gem clusters slowly began to glow, its kin all steadily starting to do the same.

Given their tarnished history with the Northwest family in general, the Gems had decided early on to make their contempt towards their party very apparent. They refused to engage themselves in interacting with any of the transparently pompous guests as they instead hung back together near the other end of the ballroom, their disdainful, disapproving scowls clear as they refused to show any signs of willingly indulging in this wasteful finery.

Well, that is, save for Amethyst.

The purple Gem had essentially overtaken an entire buffet table, scarfing down all of the expensive entrees she could get her hands on, much to Pearl’s ever increasing aggravation.

“Amethyst, could you please try to control yourself for a change!?” the white Gem asked, her arms crossed as she continued standing alongside Garnet nearby.

“No can do, P,” Amethyst said as she essentially poured an entire punch bowl on herself. “These Northwests may throw some lame parties, but at least the snacks never disappoint. I gotta admit, I almost kinda missed this.”

“Well, I certainly haven’t,” Pearl concluded, turning her nose upward coldly. “Now get down from there, you’re making a mess!”

“Good,” Garnet spoke up, undermining the white Gem with a nod of approval, much to her teammates’ confusion.

“Huh?”

“Go ahead and make a mess,” the Gem leader clarified staunchly. “It’s not like the Northwests don’t deserve it after everything they’ve done over the years.”

While Pearl was still rather lost by this bizarre order, Amethyst was more than happy to follow it through. “What, you mean like… this?” she grinned as she dropped a very expensive china tray onto the ground, shattering it upon contact.

“That works,” Garnet nodded in approval as she discreetly summoned her gauntlet. “So does this.” With a simple flick of her fingers at the window behind her, a large crack rippled across its otherwise pristine surface as the Gem leader simply smiled in smug satisfaction.

“G-Garnet!” Pearl gasped, appalled by such destructive behavior.

“Aw, c’mon, Pearl, don’t be such a stick in the mud!” Amethyst goaded, tossing another plate to the ground. “After all, you were the one who painted that awesome tag on their wall a few weeks ago. How is this any worse than that?”

The white Gem hesitated briefly, but in the end, her usual desire for order was quickly overruled by her longstanding contempt for the Northwests and all those like them. “Well…” she began by summoning her spear. “I suppose a tiny little scratch wouldn’t hurt too much…” With this, she placed the tip of her weapon against the smooth marble floor before she began to slowly drag it, leaving a long, marring scratch across the pristine surface. “Oops. Did I do that?” she grinned, already exhilarated by this act of rebellion.

“Yeah, that’s the spirit!” Amethyst cheered, continuing her own form of vandalism as Garnet and Pearl both took to theirs, all three of them reveling in taking their age-old scorn towards the Northwests out, even if it was in a rather simple way.

It stood to reason that a party as fancy and upscale as Northwest Fest would have food and appetizers that were every bit as fancy and upscale to match. And though Amethyst had partaken of the many buffet tables around the ballroom, fortunately she hadn’t gotten to the fondue fountains yet, which was where Candy had been firmly planted for at least the past ten minutes.

“Cheese, chocolate,” she said to herself, essentially entranced as she moved her stick between the two melted substances. “Cheese, chocolate-”

“Candy, listen to me carefully,” Mabel finally interjected as she stepped over to her, halting her constant switching. “You’re caught in a sweet-savory loop. You need to stop now, before you’re lost to the chocolatey cheesiness forever! So put the fondue fork down.”

“I want to… but I can’t…” Candy mused, still completely transfixed on her fondue stick. That is, until most of the ballroom’s attention was garnished by a butler near the front doors.

“Announcing Baron Marius von Fundhauser!” he proclaimed, stepping out of the way to reveal the young baron. Upon a very first glance at him, Mabel, Candy, and Grenda were all instantly enamored, all three of them awestruck by his stately, royal attire and long, silky auburn hair. Clearly, he carried the air of a majestic baron in both title and manner as he strode into the ballroom confidently, the girls’ watching him in utter captivation all the while.

“Guten tag!” Marius greeted the trio with a friendly smile as he passed by them, apparently not noticing their jaws unanimously hanging agape in amazement.

“Guten take me now!” Mabel exclaimed, lovestruck as she started hurrying after him, only for Grenda and Candy to quickly stop her.

“Mabel, we had a truce!” Grenda frowned, still clearly serious about keeping said truce.

“Yes, yes, a truce,” Candy nodded, somewhat less so as she forced a complacent smile. “Uh, Grenda? Can you go fetch us some fancy napkins?”

“Wow, ok!” Grenda blithely agreed, innocently heading off to do so.

“Listen, Mabel,” Candy began, dropping her voice down to a whisper as soon as Grenda was out of earshot. “I don’t know if I can follow this truce. He is too adorable!”

“Ugh, I know, right?!” Mabel gushed tightly, almost relieved for Marius’ welcome arrival and Steven’s subsequent, unexplained disappearance from the party. “But what do we do? He’s unattainable! I mean did you see his hair!? It’s like he was straight out of a shampoo commercial!”

“What if we flirt with him as a team?” Candy suggested. “With our cuteness combined, one of us might have a chance!”

“It’s the perfect plan! But… what about Grenda?”

“I love Grenda, Mabel, but these boys are fancy! Her aggressive flirting style might scare them away!”

The pair glanced over at the larger girl, who was in the midst of “fliting” with another boy, though in her own unique, incredibly forward way. “What’s on your shirt?” she asked, pointing to his chest until he glanced down, at which point she proceeded to bring her finger up and flick him hard in the nose. “Ha! Gullible! Loser!”

Upon seeing this display, both Mabel and Candy nodded, both of them immediately on board for their plan to win Marius over between just the two of them. Really, the figured that it would be better for everyone if they left Grenda out of this loop, as much as they didn’t want to hurt her feelings. After all, the baron was exactly that, a baron. They couldn’t risk the chance of Grenda scaring someone as prestigious and esteemed as Marius off, or worse yet, offending him or hurting him at her own expense. And if, in the process of keeping their attempts at courting Marius between just the two of them, either Mabel or Candy ended up catching his eye and his affections, then, they supposed, that would just be an added benefit.

With the party in full swing as it was, few guests bothered to wander anywhere in the mansion past the main ballroom where all the festivities were being held. And yet, if any guest happened to start wandering the manor’s halls, then they would have likely caught sight of a fiery lumberjack ghost relentlessly chasing a pair of fearfully fleeing kids with nothing less than the absolute intent to kill.

Fortunately though, Pacifica knew the winding corridors and lengthy halls of her mansion home well as she navigated herself and Dipper through them while the ghost sped after them, chuckling threateningly all the while. Despite their efforts to shake the spirit off their trail, he kept on them tightly, his exact motivation for wanting their ends rather unclear, though that was hardly what either of them were concerned with as much as staying alive.

“What are we gonna do?!” Pacifica shouted amidst her growing breathlessness as they continued fleeing. “We can’t keep running from that thing forever!”

“I’m looking!” Dipper shouted back, the journal in one hand and his sword in the other. Of course, it was of little use against the incorporeal ghost, but at the very least it was good for fending off the stray pieces of furniture and dinnerware the specter sent flying their way.

“Well look faster!” the heiress snapped impatiently, worriedly glancing over her shoulder as they rushed through one of the mansion’s several inner gardens. The ground was still muddy from the earlier rain showers, which made their trek through it somewhat haphazard, but all the same, they managed to make it to the other end with the ghost still only a few dangerously short feet behind them.

“Come on, come on…” Dipper muttered, frantically flipping through the journal as much as he could until he finally found what he was looking for. “Aha! I got it! Haunted paintings can only be trapped in a silver mirror. And look!” he pointed ahead to the pristinely white parlor they were running straight towards, or more particularly, the large mirror conveniently hanging from its wall. “There’s a silver mirror right there!”

“Wait!” Pacifica exclaimed, grabbing Dipper’s arm before he could so much as even step foot into the room. “Don’t go in there! This room has my parent’s favorite carpet pattern! They’ll lose it if we track mud in there!”

“What? Are you serious?” Dipper scoffed, unable to believe that the heiress was even remotely concerned with something so unimportant. “Pacifica, we don’t have time for this!”

“W-well we need to make time!” Pacifica retorted, her eyes wide with fear that seemed to go beyond the threat the ghost posed. “We’ll find another way!”

“Why do we need to find another way if there’s a perfectly fine way right in front of us!?” Dipper argued crossly, trying to press his way past her into the room.

“Because my parents will kill me if I don’t listen to them and mess up their rug!”

“Why are you so afraid of your parents?!”

“You wouldn’t understand!”

By now, the argument between the pair had escalated quite a bit in intensity as they roughly grappled with each other, Dipper desperately trying to get into the room while Pacifica desperately tried keeping him out. They could both hear the ghost steadily approaching by his deep, ominous laughter alone, but he had largely been forgotten as Pacifica unexpectedly grabbed the journal, hoping that prying it away from Dipper would be enough to convince him to move on. And fortunately for her, this plan worked as she pulled it away from him, surprising him quite a bit as their eyes met in a very short beat of awkward tension before the heiress took off running down the adjacent hallway with the journal in hand.

“Hey!” Dipper shouted, adamantly running after her. “Pacifica, give that back!”

“Oh what?” Pacifica smirked back over her shoulder, triumphant and relieved that her impromptu plan had succeeded. “You want your dumb nerd book? Then come and get it, Pines!”

Dipper couldn’t help but let out a small growl of frustration at her teasing, still rather taken aback by the heiress’ stubbornness and boldness as he ran after her nonetheless. And of course, all the while, the lumberjack ghost continued its haunting chase after them both, more than ready to rain his fiery fury down the moment he inevitably caught up with them.

After traversing and admittedly getting lost amidst the mansion’s many hallways, Steven and Connie had eventually stumbled upon a back door that led to the large parking area roped off for guests behind the manor. And, though it took some doing to find Dr. Maheswaran’s vehicle amidst the myriad of limos and sports cars, they eventually reached it, only to find a setback they admittedly hadn’t anticipated.

“It’s locked…” Connie frowned in disappointment as she tried pulling the trunk open. “Ugh, we should have seen this coming. There’s no way my mom would leave something like a sword in her car without keeping it locked up tight. What are we supposed to do now?”

“Hm… I think I have an idea…” Steven said, looking to the lock thoughtfully. “Do you have a hair pin or something like that?”

“Um, yeah?” Connie complied in confusion, pulling a non-essential pin out of her updo.

“Thanks!” the young Gem grinned as he started wedging the pin into the lock.

“Where did you learn how to pick locks from?” Connie asked, her brow furrowed as she watched Steven work.

“Amethyst and Mr. Pines taught me after I walked in on them trying to open a safe they found somewhere,” Steven explained with an innocent smile. “So they taught me how to pick locks in exchange for not ‘spilling it’ to anyone else about the safe. Tough I’m still not sure why they wouldn’t want anyone else knowing about something like that…”

“Uh, probably because they stole that safe instead of finding it, Steven…” Connie pointed out.

“…Oh. Well, at least I learned something useful,” Steven shrugged as he successfully unlocked the trunk. Sure enough, Rose’s sword lay within, and despite a moment of initial trepidation for breaking her mother’s strict orders, Connie took the blade nonetheless, strapping it over her shoulder before shutting the trunk behind her.

“Ok, we got it,” she said, letting out the deep breath she felt as though she had been holding in since this entire situation began. “Now we just have to sneak it out of the party without my mom seeing…”

“And without the Gems seeing either,” Steven noted as they began making their way back up the hill to the mansion. “I sorta didn’t tell them about this whole sword thing, and I feel like they probably wouldn’t be too happy if they found out its pretty much the reason why I begged them to come to this party in the first place…”

“I guess we’re gonna be on double duty when it comes to being stealthy for the rest of the night then,” Connie said with resolve as they reentered the manor the same way they had left it. However, the pair stopped short as soon as they stepped inside upon seeing what lay before them. The highly decorated hallway was in shambles, wall tapestries torn and decorative displays laying in shattered remains on the ground without any rhyme or reason at all. “Whoa…” Connie mused, her voice dropping down to an apprehensive whisper. “What could have done all this?”

“D-didn’t Dipper say something about Pacifica asking him to help out with a ghost haunting the mansion?” Steven asked nervously, drawing a bit closer to Connie out of fear.

“Yeah but… a ghost wouldn’t have been able to do this much damage… would it?”

“I… I don’t know, maybe,” Steven shook his head fretfully, remembering well just how much destruction the convenience store ghosts had cause at the start of the summer. “We should go find Dipper and ask him if he’s seen-”

The young Gem was cut off as a low, rather inhuman moan echoed from the end of the hall in front of them. The pair froze, their hands unceremoniously intertwining tightly as a large, looming shadow draped itself over the wall, its source unknown as it grew in size and intimidation. Neither Steven or Connie dared to even breathe as the unearthly groans raised in volume, the shadow coming to a stop as a massive arm slammed down into the open before the rest of its twisted body emerged from around the corner. Simply put, it was a mass of multiple mismatched limbs, all strewn together into a hulking, massive, discolored body, if it could even be called that at all. And, resting at the center of where its face would have been if it had one, was a very familiar cluster of conjoined gemstones.

“C-Connie?” Steven whispered, gripping her hand tighter as this monster began lumbering its way towards them through the mess it had made earlier. “I-I think that’s one of the Gem mutants I was telling you about…”

“What? Are you sure?” Connie asked, her voice just as quiet, even though they had clearly already attracted the mutant’s attention.

“Preeeeetty sure at this point,” the young Gem nodded stiffly, knowing this creature looked quite close to the ones they had encountered at the Kindergarten the other week.

“Well then, we got this sword back at just the right time,” Connie scowled towards the mutant as she swiftly drew Rose’s sword, wielding the massive blade with both hands as she took up an offensive stance. Steven watched in amazement as she rushed forwards, seemingly undeterred as she pulled the mighty sword back before delivering a clean swipe straight through the mutant’s weighty midsection before it could even try to attack. With a pained whine, the forced fusion imploded, its shard-composed gemstone tumbling to the floor before Steven ran forward to bubble it and send it away.

“Looks like you were right,” Connie said, still gripping Rose’s sword tightly as she looked around for any more. “Those rocks really were Gem mutants after all.”

“Yeah, but why would they be-” Steven was cut off as a loud crash sounded out from the other end of the hall. This was immediately and unsurprisingly followed by the emergence of even more gem mutants, both big and small, rounding the corner en masse as they walked, crawled, sidled, anything they could to inch their way towards the aptly frightened pair. “Uh, C-Connie? I think now would be a good time to run!” Steven warned, grabbing her by the arm as he tried to pull her down the other way.

“No, Steven, I can take them!” Connie protested, already positioning her sword to strike.

“I-I know, but still!” Steven pleaded, fearful for her safety more than his own really. After all, the last thing he wanted was to see her get hurt as a result of overconfidence in her newly acquired blade, even as powerful as it was. “We gotta get the Gems! They can help us take care of these things before they can make it into the ballroom and end up hurting someone!”

“…You’re right,” Connie begrudgingly relented, sheathing her blade. “So come on, then! We have to hurry!”

“Right!” Steven readily agreed, leading the way out of the hallway that had already been claimed and decimated by the marauding gem mutants.

As Steven and Connie began their hasty flight through the mansion’s lofty halls, Dipper and Pacifica continued theirs, with the former still chasing after the latter in the hopes of reclaiming the journal before the ghost could catch up to them.

“Pacifica!” Dipper shouted after the heiress, quite surprised at how fast she was. “I’m serious! Give me back the journal, now!”

“Why should I?” Pacifica countered just as harshly. “So you can go running back to that room, get mud all over the floors, and get me in trouble with my parents? Because last time I checked, that’s not what you’re here for!”

“You’re right, I’m here to get rid of that ghost!” Dipper reiterated, severely annoyed. “But I can’t do that if you won’t let me just because your scared of setting off your parents for some weird reason!”

“I already told you!” the heiress shot back, gripping the journal in her arms tightly as she continued running. “You don’t understand!”

“Then help me understand!” Dipper urged, both out of frustration and genuine curiosity as to why she seemed so adamant about all this. Interestingly enough though, this was what finally got Pacifica to stop in her tracks, her expression startled and strangely soft as she turned to face him.

“W-what?” she asked rather quietly, taken aback that anyone would even inquire about the matter at all, especially him. However, before Dipper could even reply, a brand new threat made itself apparent as it slammed down into the space directly behind Pacifica from the high ceiling above. It was a tall, lanky creature, with six disproportionate arms and no face to speak of as it balanced on a pair of long, mismatched legs amidst towering over the frightened heiress, letting out a low, threatening groan all the while. Pacifica let out a horrified scream at this grotesque creature as it started to advance on her, her long dress tripping her up as she clumsily fell to the ground, shielding herself with her arm as the creature raised one of its many arms with the intent to strike. And yet… it was a strike she never felt.

Hesitantly, Pacifica opened her tightly shut eyes and took a glance back towards the monster, only to see something that shocked her just as much as its sudden appearance had. For standing squarely in between her and the multi-limbed creature was none other than Dipper, his sword raised as he firmly, fearlessly pressed back against the many hands pressed against it. Yet all the same he held his ground, his footing steady and his expression fierce as he warded off the mutant, eventually managing to push it back enough to give himself enough space to properly fight it. All the while, Pacifica remained practically frozen to her spot on the ground, her eyes wide and her jaw dropped as she watched in absolute awe as Dipper rushed towards the monster with a courageous shout, lashing out with his blade as he maneuvered with skill and ease. The creature was unable to keep up with him as he dodged its slow, sloppy movements, and in what seemed like no time at all, the tip of his sword had punctured the monster squarely in its back, resulting in its hideous form poofing into nothing more than a mismatched cluster of gem shards.

“A Gem mutant?” Dipper frowned in confusion as he carefully picked the compiled stone. “How’d this get in here? Pacifica, do you know anything about this thing?”

Strangely, he received no answer from the heiress as he glanced back to look at her, only to find that she was staring up at him, seemingly captivated, though for what reason, he had no idea. Still, try as she might, Pacifica couldn’t convince her body or her mind to respond properly as her thoughts raced randomly and her cheeks began flushing warm and pink as she kept her eyes on the boy who had effectively just saved her life. She couldn’t deny that, with both his suit and hair as mildly yet endearingly disheveled as they were, resolve and adrenaline still sparking in his eyes, and the sword still held confidently in his hand, he did look the slightest bit dashing, almost heroic even, though she’d never dare to admit that out loud.

“Uh… Pacifica? Are you ok?” Dipper asked, making the heiress realize that she had gone far too long without taking her eyes off him.

“W-wha—oh, uh, y-yeah!” she exclaimed, clearly flustered as she rejected the hand he had offered to help her stand in favor of doing so on her own. “I-I don’t know why you think I wouldn’t be. That weird arm thing wasn’t even that scary.”

“Oh sure it wasn’t,” Dipper remarked with a wry, rather playful smirk. “That’s why you screamed in terror as soon as you saw it, right?”

Pacifica shot him a disapproving glare at this, though it wasn’t as harsh as it admittedly could have been as she shoved the journal back into his arms. “Here, take you lame nerd book back,” she huffed, still trying to suppress her ongoing blush. “So… uh… where’d you learn how to do that?”

“Do what?”

“You know…” she held her hands behind her back as she nodded to his sword casually enough. “That.”

“Oh, sword fighting?” Dipper clarified, glancing to his blade before sheathing it. “Me and Connie have been taking lessons from Pearl for the past few weeks. It tends to come in handy when you deal with stuff like this a lot, which… yeah, I kinda do.”

“And… your family’s just… ok with you running around with a dangerous sword all the time?” Pacifica asked, slightly baffled by such apparent freedom.

“Uh… yeah?” Dipper shrugged, unsure of what she meant by this question. “Why wouldn’t they be?”

The heiress didn’t answer as she glanced down somewhat, her brow furrowing in both confusion and what almost felt like envy, though that couldn’t possibly be right. After all, how in the world could someone as well off and highly esteemed as her be jealous of someone as common and unrefined as him?

While it was quite likely that the ghost had lost track of them in the chaos that had just ensued, Dipper didn’t want to take any chances, which was why he took the lead in moving on. However, they barely even rounded the corner before they were held up again, though this time by it fortunately wasn’t by the ghost or any Gem mutants, but rather by Steven and Connie as they all accidentally happened to run smack into each other.

“Wha—Steven? Connie?” Dipper frowned in confusion upon seeing the pair at such a random juncture. “What are you guys doing here? Why aren’t you back at the party?”

“W-well, we got my mom’s sword back,” Steven began anxiously. “But then we ran into a ton of Gem mutants, just like the ones we fought at the Kindergarten!”

“Wait, you mean there are even more of those things running around here?” Dipper asked incredulously as he handed the remains of the mutant he had defeated over to Steven so it could be bubbled. “We were just attacked by one. How’d they even get into the mansion in the first place?”

“I don’t know…” Connie mused, her tone and expression growing quite suspicious as she glanced over at the nearby heiress. “That’s a really good question, isn’t it, Pacifica?”

“Oh what? You think I have something to do with this?” Pacifica asked harshly.

“Well, seeing as how all these Gem clusters were in a display case in your mansion, so it only makes sense that you’d know something about how they ended up here.”

“Well, I don’t,” the heiress huffed, her hands on her hips. “My parents probably bought them for the party and didn’t know they were actually gross, grabby, nightmarish freakshows.”

“Actually, they’re shattered Gems who were forced to fuse with each other,” Steven said with a sympathetic frown for the mutants’ plight.

“…I literally have no idea what any of that means,” Pacifica said, clearly out of the context loop. “Still, I don’t know anything about how those things wound up here.”

“Oh yeah? And how do we know you’re actually telling the truth?” Connie asked, still rather distrustful. And really, she believed she had every reason to be, given just how dangerous these Gem mutants were and just how not coincidental their presence in the mansion seemed to be. “After all, your family has a known history of lying when it comes to their dirty little secrets, so it wouldn’t be surprising at all if you inherited that bad habit right alongside all the money you don’t deserve.”

Pacifica let out an appalled gasp at this, outraged and offended by such an accusation as she took a bold, almost threatening step forward. “Ok, you know what, Maheswaran, I’m gonna-”

“Whoa, ok, hold it!” Dipper quickly interjected before any sort of scuffle could break out, both him and Steven rushing in to stand between the two incensed girls. “Connie, I know you’re uh, not really a fan of Pacifica, but as much as I hate to admit it, I don’t think she’s lying about this.”

“Seriously, Dipper?” Connie scoffed. “You know how she is, we all do! Heck, for all you know, she could be lying to you about this whole ’ghost’ thing too!”

Dipper was actually quite prepared to correct Connie on this, not noticing Pacifica flinch slightly behind him as she realized this accusation was at least partially true. However, he really didn’t have to as the lumberjack ghost’s laughter began booming through the nearby corridor once again as he started to catch up with his victims.

“Its time to stop running, Northwest, and face you DOOM!” he shouted, finally appearing at the end of the hall with blue flames sparking all over his frightening form. All four of the kids let out a shared scream of terror as the spirit soared towards them at a breakneck speed, and all of the discourse concerning mutants and lies was quickly left behind as they unintentionally split up. Steven and Connie took off in the hallway they had just ran down, wanting to get back to the ballroom and find the Gems now more than ever with the appearance of this new ghostly threat. Still, the spirit paid them no mind as he continued pursuing his original targets, who were both desperately searching for any way they could find to subdue the ghost as they fled from him. In their frantic rush, they haphazardly turned a corner, only for Pacifica to end up tripping over her dress once more. She happened to grab Dipper by the sleeve in a last ditch attempt at steadying herself, only for them both to end up falling towards the nearby wall. Or rather, right through it. The ghost didn’t see this fortunately, as he glided straight on by while the pair tumbled into an apparently hidden storage room inconspicuously hidden behind a large tapestry.

“Huh? What’s this place?” Dipper asked as both him and Pacifica picked themselves up, glancing around the apparent collection of the Northwest’s various treasures and portraits.

“I… don’t know…” Pacifica admitted in apt confusion. “That’s weird. I don’t even know where this room is…”

“Hopefully the ghost and those Gem mutants don’t either…” Dipper remarked, taking a cursory peek back into the hallway.

“Yeah, maybe we’re safe,” the heiress let out a somewhat relieved breath, not noticing as the large sheet covering a painting behind her began to swell forward on its own accord. Dipper fortunately caught sight of this just in time as the sheet began to take on the clear, massive shape, one that reached out over Pacifica slowly and threateningly.

“Pacifica! Watch out!” he warned, drawing his sword as he rushed forward to defend her. Pacifica let out a frightened gasp as the ghost tossed the sheet away, laughing menacingly as he towered over her.

“Your fate is sealed!” the specter proclaimed, his blue flames rising as he prepared to strike the terrified heiress down once and for all. Dipper had just about reached her, unsure of what he was really going to do against the ghost with his sword alone, but he stopped short immediately upon noticing a discarded antique lying on the floor nearby, none other than a small, pure silver mirror.

“Prepare to die, Northwest!” the ghost shouted, his axe raised to deliver the final blow. Pacifica quickly braced herself for what would likely be a very painful end, only for Dipper to end up saving her from it at the last second. However, instead of doing so with his sword, this time he did so with the mirror, and the moment the ghost’s weapon made contact with it, everything seemed to happen at once. The entire room was engulfed in a blinding flash as Dipper was knocked back into Pacifica, who herself was pushed back towards the room’s small, low to the ground window. The pair was still completely in the dark about what was happening as they were practically launched out of the window, entangling themselves in its curtains as they rolled down a short hill, finally landing together at the bottom of it, breathless and rattled, but largely unharmed.

“W-what happened?” Pacifica asked her and Dipper both pulled themselves up. “Did you get him?”

At this, they both looked to the mirror, only to find an incredibly relieving sight: the ghost was trapped securely inside of it, demanding his freedom in an absolute fit of rage as he pounded against the other side of the glass to no avail. “Ha! Yes!” Dipper cheered, satisfied that at the very least one threat had been neutralized.

“We did it!” Pacifica exclaimed just as triumphantly, throwing her arms around Dipper without really thinking about it. Needless to say he was complete caught off guard by this unexpected hug, especially given the fact that it was coming from the heiress of all people. Still, what baffled him even more was the sudden rush of warmth he felt in his cheeks, coupled with the odd, yet strangely wistful feeling of not wanting it to end. It did, however, as Pacifica realized exactly what she was doing, her blush even brighter than Dipper’s as she quickly pulled away, averting his gaze as she awkwardly cleared her throat, wishing she could calm her racing heart and confused, flustered thoughts down already as she pulled out a dollar. “Uh… c-can I pay you to pretend that never happened?”

Despite being held up by the occasional minor Gem mutant, Steven and Connie eventually managed to navigate their way back to the main ballroom, only to stop short in surprise upon realizing that no one at the party was even remotely aware of the dangers lurking the halls just behind them. The pair ran into the midst of the celebrating crowd, more than ready to warn them all to flee the premises before it was too late. However, before they could even get a single person’s attention, they happened to accidently bump into the last person Connie had wanted to encounter at the moment.

“M-Mom!” she exclaimed in surprise upon running right into her mother’s torso. The doctor paused, looking away from the conversation she had been engaged in to her daughter instead, only to freeze with shock and motherly fury upon noticing the large pink sword strapped to her back.

“Connie!” Priyanka gasped, appalled. “How did you even—what are you doing with that?! I made a rule, no swords under any circumstances!”

“But mom-” Connie tried to argue, knowing that she needed to be armed in the dire circumstances they were facing.

“No,” the doctor interupted rigidly. “I told you once, and I can’t believe I have to tell you again! But its clear to me now that I can’t even trust you to so much as listen to me even after I put my foot down! So you leave me with no choice; you’re grounded until further notice. Hand that sword over, now.”

“But Mom, you don’t understand, I-”

“I said now!”

Connie flinched, clearly startled by her mother’s incredibly harsh tone as she let out a defeated sigh. With no other choice, she took the sword off her back and relinquished it, largely feeling as though she was handing over a piece of herself in the process. And as Steven caught sight of her utterly dejected expression, he found he could no longer stand by in silence.

“Er, Dr. Maheswaran, wait! You can’t take that sword away from Connie! She needs it—we need it to-”

“That’s quite enough,” Priyanka cut him off, sending him a fierce warning glare. “I’m not going to argue over this sword nonsense any longer. It’s done.”

“Mom, please-” Connie pleaded desperately only to be shot down one final time as her mother began to walk off, sword in hand.

“Done!” she reiterated, glaring back at her daughter with what was nothing less than absolute disappointment. Disappointment that left Connie feeling crushed even more than losing her sword had.

“So… what now?” Steven asked gently, placing a hand on her shoulder.

“I guess we just go find the Gems and let them save the day, as usual…” Connie sighed, wrapping her arms around herself as she morosely headed off to do just that. Of course, what neither of the pair was aware of was that the Gems had actually taken their ongoing vandalizing spree up onto the roof, where they were currently in the process of spelling out the word “snobs” in huge letters using paint Amethyst had “happened to find”, much to the enjoyment of the still large crowd gathered outside the gates below. But even still, Steven and Connie began duly, almost solemnly even pressing their way through the party, knowing that with the horde of Gem mutants drawing ever closer and Rose’s sword no longer a viable option, they were the only hope they had left.

With the ghost finally subdued and captured, Dipper and Pacifica blithely went to go report their shared success to the heiress’ parents. And while the Northwests weren’t as openly elated or excited as the young pair, they were still quite relieved to know that their haunting had been taken care of and their immaculate party saved.

“Well, Pacifica, you really found the right man for the job,” Preston remarked, snapping his fingers to signal to the nearby butler to shake Dipper’s hand in his place.

“We can’t thank you enough,” Priscilla said before a brief pause that ended with her nodding to the butler. “That’s enough.”

“Hey, just holding up my end of the deal,” Dipper grinned as he took the mirror the ghost was in and prepared to head out.

“Wait, leaving already?” Pacifica asked in slight disappointment. “You’re at the world’s best party, dummy. Are you sure you wanna go so soon?”

“Well I’d love to stay,” Dipper said with a smile just as playful as the heiress’. “But I’ve got a category 10 ghost to dispose of and then I should really go help Steven and Connie out with the rest of those Gem mutants.”

“Oh that’s right, I almost forgot just how adventurous your life is,” Pacifica rolled her eyes with a lightly teasing smirk.

“Heh, yeah,” Dipper chuckled, not paying too much attention to where he was going as he kept his sights on the heiress behind him. Which was how he ended up walking straight into one of the garden’s pillars. Pacifica was unable to contain her laughter at this, something that flustered Dipper quite a bit as he backed up and tried to play his clumsiness off as intentional. “O-oh, uh, l-like you said: a-adventurous.”

“Oh yeah, running into a pillar,” Pacifica quipped, still chuckling. “That’s totally an epic quest right there.”

Despite still being somewhat embarrassed, Dipper couldn’t help but finally join in on the heiress’ ongoing amused laughter, something that only died down between them as he sent her a small wave of farewell, one that she returned with a warm, genuine smile. He held up a similar smile as he departed, unable to deny that this misadventure, despite all of its harrowing moments, had ended on a much better note than he had could have ever expected anything pertaining to Pacifica Northwest to. For instead of being just as closed off and callously coldhearted as she had always come across to him before, it seemed as though there was another side to her: a playful, daring, capable side that came across as so much more authentic than the haughty front she usually seemed to put up. And even more unexpected than that was the fact that he had found himself taking a genuine liking of that side of the heiress, one that he hoped to see again in any of their future encounters. “Call me crazy, but… maybe she’s not so bad after all…” Dipper remarked to himself once he was out of the heiress’ earshot, surprised that he was even admitting something like that, but pleasantly surprised nonetheless.

His satisfaction was soon cut short, however, as a mocking, knowing laugh sounded from within the mirror in his hand. “What are you laughing about, man?” Dipper asked, glancing down at the trapped ghost in apt confusion. “I defeated you.”

“You’ve been had, boy,” the ghost said with another bitter laugh. “The Northwests lied to you, just as they did to me and my kin one hundred and fifty years ago.”

“…What do you mean?” Dipper ventured, genuinely curious as the ghost began to recount his tale of woe.

“One hundred and fifty years ago this day, the Northwests asked us lumber-folk to build them a mansion atop the hill. We were told it would be a service to the town, that once a year they would throw a grand party that would be open to the people of Gravity Falls, and all would share in the bounty of their wealth! It took years of backbreaking labor and sacrifice, but the promise of such a luxorious feast kept all of us going as we worked towards the manor’s completion, aided by a group of strong, magical, yet kindly women the Northwests had contracted to help the project along.”

“Wait, magical women?” Dipper interrupted, intrigued by this point in particular. “You mean the Crystal Gems?”

“Yes,” the ghost nodded disdainfully. “The Crystal Gems were invaluable in helping us raise these stately halls, but on the night we needed them most, they were nowhere to be found to stop the injustice committed against us lumberjacks. For when it was time for the grand party the Northwests promised the common folk of the town, they coldly refused to let us in. And with the trees we had cut to build the mansion gone, the mudslides began. While they partied and laughed, I was swept away by the storm and met my end to the very axe I had used to build their undeserved empire. And so I said with final breath: ‘One-fifty years I’ll return from death, and if the gate’s still closed to the town, wealthy blood will stain the ground!’ A curse passed down across every generation of Northwests, even to this day.”

“So… wait a minute,” Dipper said once the ghost was finished, quickly putting the pieces together of how everything he had just heard related back to the present. Which, in turn created a picture he was far from happy with. “The Northwests knew this haunting was coming, and they tricked me into helping them to avoid ghostly justice? …I’ll be right back…”

With the state of the party as seemingly secured as it was, Pacifica had returned to her expected spot by her parents’ side as they mingled with their wealthy guests. Yet her thoughts were hardly in the fancy festivities going on around her as they usually were during Northwest Fest and instead they were focused on the boy she had spent the earlier half of her evening with. She found it so incredibly strange that just a few hours ago, she had barely even spared a second thought towards Dipper, viewing him as just as common and ordinary as anyone else. Yet now, after the past few hours of narrowly surviving a deadly haunting with him, she couldn’t deny that he somehow fascinated her in ways that confused yet excited her all at once. And as she thought about his brazen swordsmanship, his clever readiness for almost any situation, his awkward yet almost frustratingly endearing laughter, Pacifica couldn’t help but sail through the evening with a distant, almost dreamy smile on her face, one that was filled with an unknown yet brimming longing to see him again.

A longing that was incidentally fulfilled sooner than she thought it would; though in the last way she could have wanted it to.

The Northwests were in the midst of entertaining dignitaries in the foyer when the mansion’s front doors suddenly burst open, revealed an incredibly indignant Dipper behind them. “Northwests!” he exclaimed angrily as he marched in, mirror still in hand. “You have some explaining to do!”

“Dipper! You came back!” Pacifica instantly perked up, a bright smile on her face as she began to rush over to him. Though it was quick to disappear as he shot her a particularly harsh, glare, one that was a very far cry from the warm smile he had left her with.

“You lied to me!” he accused furiously before addressing the entire family. “All of you did! All you had to do was let the townsfolk into the party and you could have broken the curse! But you just made me do your dirty work instead!”

Pacifica took in a sharp breath at this, knowing that he had discovered the one wrench in all of this that she had hoped he wouldn’t find out, especially as the newfound camaraderie began forming between them. But before she could even try to explain anything, her father was quick to only make things worse.

“Look at who you’re talking to, boy,” Preston began coldly, essentially ignoring the incredibly hostile scowl Dipper was sending up at him. “I’m hosting a party for the most powerful people in the world. Do you really think they’d come here if they had to rub elbows with your kind?”

“My kind?” Dipper repeated with an appalled scoff, not even bothering to contest the billionaire any further. After all, he had expected as much from the head of the Northwest household, but he had foolishly come to believe that their daughter was different, that she wasn’t just another pompous, heartless sob, that she had at least some redeeming shred of actual humanity in her. But as he had just discovered, none of that was true at all. “Looks like I was right about you all along,” he said to Pacifica bitterly, not even caring about her genuinely distraught expression. “You’re just as bad as your parents. Another link in the world’s worst chain!”

“N-no! Dipper, you don’t understand!” Pacifica protested earnestly, determined to set the record straight. “I’m sorry, they made me lie to you! I should have told you everything from the start, but-” The heiress was abruptly cut off by the sharp, sudden peal of the bell in her father’s hand, one that instantly silenced her back into submission as she glanced down submissively, ashamed by her own inability to resist it, ashamed by the fact that she had even agreed to this deceptive charade in the first placed, ashamed by everything really, but mostly, she was ashamed of herself.

“Enjoy the party,” Preston remarked mockingly as Dipper turned to head out, not even bothering to send Pacifica a second glance in his palpable fury, something that made her heart ache even more than just about anything else. “It’s the last time you and your kind will ever come.”

As vehemently outraged with the Northwests as he was, Dipper knew there wasn’t much he could do get back at them for their despicable actions. So instead of frustrating himself further, he sullenly took the mirror outside, following the journal’s instructions to create the proper setup needed to oust the ghost from the mortal plane. “Stupid Northwests, making me do their exorcism for them,” he grumbled to himself after placing the mirror at the center of the circle of candles. With everything in place, he began to read the journal’s spell to get rid of ghosts, though given the circumstances, he was hardly invested in the matter whatsoever “‘Exodus demonous, spookus scarus, aintafraidus noghostus’-”

“Dipper… Dipper!” the ghost called from within the mirror. “Please let me have my revenge on the Northwests. You hate them just as much as I!”

“Hey, I feel for you, I really do,” Dipper conceded and it was true, for more reasons than one. Even aside from the fact that they had both been made fools of by the Northwests, this ghost wasn’t exactly the first being trapped inside a mirror he had taken pity on. “It’s just… my sister and my friends are in there and you seem just a little unstable…”

“Very well, boy,” the ghost hung his head in apparent acceptance of his fate. “But… before you banish my soul, may these tired lumber eyes gaze upon the trees one final time?”

“Uh, I guess,” Dipper said, somewhat confused by this odd request though he obliged nonetheless, picking the mirror up and holding it towards the nearby forest. “Go nuts, man.”

Upon getting even just a glimpse at the trees, the ghost laughed wildly as the sight of the forest empowered him enough to ignite his flames brighter and hotter, to the point that their heat rapidly spread to his mirror prison itself. Dipper didn’t even have time to be confused about what was happening before the mirror’s handle suddenly turned red hot, burning his hand to the point that he was forced to let go of it. The glass shattered the instant it made contact with the ground and with it the ghost exploded from its ruined shards, paying no mind to the startled boy who had accidentally released him as he set his sights on the mansion once more.

“Yes! Vengeance!” he proclaimed with a triumphant laugh, speeding towards the manor with the intent of finally fulfilling his bloodthirsty vendetta.

“Oh no!” Dipper exclaimed, aptly alarmed as he remembered who else was still in the mansion. “Mabel! Steven! Connie!” Despite his lasting anger at the Northwests, he knew well that he couldn’t let the ghost accomplish his violent ends so long as innocent people were in danger. Which was why, after making sure his blade was strapped securely to his back, he rushed back up towards the mansion, unsure of what he was going to do to stop this disaster but determined to try rather than do nothing, as he assumed the Northwests were very likely to do.

With their freeform destruction on the roof complete, the Gems returned to the party proper, mischievous grins on their faces as they continued their own form of “revenge” by turning over tables, piercing through expensive paintings, and breaking priceless antiques. Of course, they were always discreet enough in doing so that no one really noticed, but still, they couldn’t deny that they were all three having genuine fun in their righteous form of destruction against the wealthy family. When it came right down to it, it almost felt nostalgic, at least to Garnet and Pearl as they recalled helping break apart the similar upper-crust regime of Homeworld centuries ago. And though this was indeed on a much smaller scale than that, they still couldn’t deny that it felt incredibly cathartic all the same.

Not too far away from the tapestry the Gems were currently tearing apart, Mabel and Candy were carrying out their strategic plan to flirt with Marius, with the former boldly taking the lead as she approached the baron with a wide, cheerful smile. “Hi, I’m Mabel!” she greeted loudly, catching Marius somewhat off guard. “So, Australia, huh? Do you guys eat kangaroo meat over there, or, uh… a-are they strictly pets?”

“I am from Austria,” Marius corrected with a confused frown.

“Haha! Yeah!” Mabel let out a forced, awkward laugh, panicking as she tapped Candy’s shoulder. “Tag! Tag!”

“I am Candy!” the other girl said to the baron as she took over just as brightly. “I love the tiny hats you wear on your shoulders!”

“Hi again!” Mabel cut back in, roughly pushing Candy aside in light of this. “If you were a boat, do you know what kind you’d be? A dream boat, that’s what kind.”

“You are tagged out!” Candy protested in a harsh whisper as she elbowed Mabel.

“I tagged back in,” Mabel pushed her back crossly.

“You can’t do that!”

“I can tag myself! Its allowed!”

“No, its not!”

“Yeah, it is!”

As the girls continued to bicker amongst themselves, the very confused Marius nervously retreated, unsure of how to react to them so clearly arguing over him. They also failed to notice that someone else had watched this entire embarrassing display, and she was far from pleased with what she had just seen. “Ahem!” Grenda interjected, hands on her hips as she cut through Mabel and Candy’s argument. “What exactly was all that?! You were flirting with Marius without me!”

At this, the pair exchanged a tense glance, knowing that there was really no playing any of this off as they had been caught red-handed. “W-we are sorry, Grenda,” Candy began, genuinely apologetic. “It’s just…”

“Your flirting style can come across as a bit… intense…” Mabel continued rather hesitantly.

“Oh, I see!” Grenda scoffed, thoroughly offended by this opinion. “You think I shouldn’t be myself just because I’m at this stupid mansion! I thought you liked my style!”

“We do!” Candy affirmed. “But these boys might not!”

“Oh, then I guess they wouldn’t like this either! Hey, Marius!”

“Yah?” the baron asked curiously as he wandered back over to the group.

Grenda paused briefly, looking to her friends with a critical glare as they both shook their heads with silent pleas for her to stop before it was too late. But of course, as angry as she was, she refused to comply with them and ‘flirted’ with Marius anyway. “You’ve got something… on your shit!” Of course, the baron glanced down, only for Grenda to launch her finger upward to hit his nose rather unforgivingly. Mabel and Candy gasped in shock at Grenda’s apparent audacity, and, with all three of them equally frustrated with each other, they all stormed away from each other in a huff without sparing another word. Still, none of them paid much mind to the rather stunned baron they had left behind, who looked off in the direction of the girl who had so aggressively “flirted” with him with amazed stars of newfound infatuation in his eyes.

After what felt like ages of searching in vain for the Gems, Steven and Connie eventually gave up, opting to rethink their options when it came to dealing with the infestation of Gem mutants. An infestation that was more than likely to make it into the ballroom itself sooner rather than later.

“We’re running out of time,” Connie noted, peaking down the nearby hallway for any signs of approaching mutants. “If we don’t hurry, then those mutants could end up hurting someone!”

“Yeah, but what can we do?” Steven asked fretfully. “We can’t find the Gems and your mom took my mom’s sword… Huh, that’s… actually kinda ironic now that I think about it…”

“I’ll tell you what we’re going to do,” Connie said with firm resolve, ignoring her issues with her mother for the moment for the sake of the greater good. “We’re going to handle this problem ourselves, sword or no sword, whether my mother likes it or not!”

“Excuse me?”

Both kids let out a startled gasp as they spun around to find none other that Priyanka herself standing right behind them, having sifted her way through the crowd in search of her daughter only to find her at the exact wrong moment. The doctor still had Rose’s sword tucked under her arm, her expression completely shocked and outraged over what she had just heard, but even so, Connie had no intention of retracting what she had said.

“M-Mom, I… You have to listen to me listen to me,” she began somewhat unsteadily, though her confidence started to grow as she reached for the sword. “I really, really, really need that sword! If you don’t give it to me, then a lot of innocent people could be in huge danger!”

“What? Connie, no!” Priyanka staunchly refused, holding the blade up as her daughter continued trying to grab it. “What has gotten into you? You know I never go back on a rule, young lady.”

“But there has to be some exceptions!” Connie argued fiercely. “I’m not some… rule-driven robot!”

As soon as she had said this, a brutal crash sounded from the end of the nearby hallway, one that was immediately followed by the appearance of a very large Gem mutant, one that didn’t hesitate to lunge forward towards the group near the ballroom. “W-what on earth is that thing?!” Priyanka asked, protectively gripping her daughter’s shoulder tightly.

“It’s a Gem mutant!” Steven exclaimed, determined to help Connie fend it off as his shield formed over his arm. “It’s why you have to let Connie have that sword back, Dr. Maheswaran! So she can beat it and protect everyone here!”

“Wha—b-but-” the doctor’s protests were cut off as the mutant pounced, one of its many hands reaching out and grabbing the closest thing to it, which just so happened to be Connie. “Connie!”

“M-Mom!” Connie called back as the mutant began dragging her towards it, its grip on her strong, despite her attempts to break free from it.

“I’ll save you!” Steven exclaimed, rushing forward before slamming his shield into the mutant’s side, forcing it to relinquish its hold. “Keep away from my Connie!”

The mutant let out a threatening groan as it shoved the young Gem back roughly, still towering over the group as more creatures began filling in behind it, pressing the trio back towards the ballroom. “T-these things are beyond reason!” Priyanka shook her head, unable to believe what she was witnessing.

“Mom, if you would go back on your rule this one time!” Connie pleaded, feeling largely useless against this threat without a sword in her hand. “I just need to help Steven get us out of here!”

“No! Mother knows best!” Priyanka reiterated harshly, still keeping the sword away from her daughter, even despite the growing danger.

“W-we can’t let these things into the ballroom!” Steven cried, struggling to maintain his stance as the largest mutant continued pressing against his shield. The smaller mutants were starting to maneuver their way around the group, crawling up the walls and ceiling as they essentially surrounded them, though they still didn’t work their way into the ballroom just yet. Upon seeing this, the young Gem gasped but reacted accordingly, abandoning his shield for a bubble instead, though the mutants continued pounding against it just as viciously.

“W-we’re trapped!” the doctor exclaimed, quite alarmed by this turn of events.

“We don’t have to be!” Connie proclaimed, her expression adamant as she turned to face her mother, refusing to give up in these dire straits. “Really, Mom. I know how to do this!”

“No, you don’t!” Priyanka argued, just as resilient on her side of the matter as her daughter was.

“Ugh, yes, she does!” Steven cut in quite impatiently, knowing they were wasting very precious time fighting like this. “She’s been training! She hasn’t just been playing around with that sword! She’s been taking classes learning how to use it right! Even though she’s always studying, or practicing tennis, or playing violin, she still works really hard to be a good sword fighter and she is!”

“No,” the doctor quickly denied, refusing to believe anything of the sort. “No, no, no, no, no. I know my daughter! I know what she’s doing every second of the day. All her activities, all her internets, everything. I know she’s definitely not some sword fighting hooligan!”

By this point, Connie had gotten to the point where enough was enough. For as long as she could remember, she had always rigidly stuck to whatever her parents had told her, complying perfectly for the sake of winning their approval and pride more than anything else. It was tedious, laborious, even difficult at some points giving their very high standards for her. But now, such standards could no longer apply. Because not only were they in a life or death situation, but things had changed. She had changed. It was a shift that everyone who knew her, everyone who came in contact with her had been able to see, especially herself. Everyone but her own mother, it seemed. “You don’t know me at all!” Connie finally exploded, beyond frustrated with her mother’s stubbornness by now. “You still haven’t even noticed my glasses!”

“W-what about your glasses?”

“They don’t have lenses anymore!” Connie huffed, taking her frames off and sticking her finger straight through them. “I haven’t needed actual glasses for almost the entire summer!”

“What?!” Priyanka asked, completely baffled. “Your eyesight just… magically got better?”

“Yes!” Connie shouted adamantly as Steven shrugged in slight embarrassment, given his involvement in all this. “I’ve been dealing with magic and monsters and things like these,” she pointed to one of the mutants beating against the side of the bubble. “Ever since I met Steven! That’s why I need you to just trust me and believe that I know what to do here!”

The doctor paused, her expression softening somewhat as she looked to her daughter with genuine conflict before looking back to the pressing danger that was so clearly surrounding them all. “B-but… you-”

Before Priyanka could get another word out, the entire mansion itself seemed to shake, accompanied by what sounded like a massive explosion coming from the ballroom itself. All of the party guests let out a collective gasp as the room’s large fireplace swelled dramatically, and from its sparking embers, the lumberjack ghost emerged, laughing manically as he prepared to rain righteous devastation down upon the entire party.

“Generations locked away, my revenge shall have its day!” he shouted boisterously, blasts of blue light bursting from his palms. As this apparent magic struck several of the party guests, the effects were immediate, their bodies starting to freeze before slowly turning into hollow, immovable, non-sentient wood.

And from that moment, the entire ballroom erupted into complete and utter chaos.

Aside from the petrifying blasts the ghost continued firing off at random, his power also brought the mansion’s many taxidermized displays to life, with the dead animals terrorizing every guest who had been lucky enough to escape being transformed into wooden statues. Nature itself soon started to overtake the hall, with vines and tree limbs bursting through the floor and entrapping more unfortunate attendees for the ghost to cast his horrific spell upon them. Almost as soon as this disaster had begun, the Northwests had been quick to tuck themselves out of sight, unable to do anything else but watch as their elegant party and their mansion itself began to crumble right before their eyes.

“Preston, what are we going to do!?” Priscilla cried mournfully, though her husband remained stoic in his cowardly plan.

“Prepare the panic room,” he remarked coldly, punching a taxidermized squirrel off of his shoulder.

While the Northwests had no intention of doing anything to stop this violent onslaught, the Gems were quick to notice it, forcing them to quickly put their ongoing vandalism aside as they leapt into action. “Whoa, isn’t that guy one of those lumberjacks from way back when?” Amethyst asked, summoning her whip as she beat back a mounted deer head. “Pretty sure that dude should be dead by now, shouldn’t he?”

“He is” Garnet confirmed, gauntlets at the ready. “That’s a ghost.”

“Well, he’ll be even less than a ghost once we’re through with him!” Pearl exclaimed boldly, finally calling the specter’s attention. “You! We demand that you put a stop to this senseless destruction and release these innocent humans at once!”

The ghost did take pause at this, though only to turn to the Gems with an expectant, almost smug grin as he glided towards them. “Ah, the Crystal Gems, what ages have past since we last met?” he asked almost calmly before a certain bitterness started to enter his tone. “I suppose its only fitting that you would stand to defend those treacherous Northwest scum even all these years later. After all, you did the very same thing one hundred and fifty years ago by not rising to the occasion to ensure my brethren and I the justice we deserved!”

“We’re not defending the Northwests,” Garnet countered, her gauntlets in tight fists. “We never would. Especially after we found out what happened that night.”

“So you DO know!” the ghost exclaimed, his flames rising in fury upon hearing this. “And yet you still did NOTHING to stop it!”

“If we had been there, we certainly would have!” Pearl protested firmly. “But we were away on a mission that night; we only found out about the Northwests breaking their promise from the other lumberjacks the next day! And believe us, we’ve condemned them for their horrible actions against you all ever since!”

“Oh you have?” the ghost scoffed, clearly not believing this claim. “Then answer me this: why are the mansion gates still closed, one-fifty years on!? Why have you not forced the Northwests to right the wrongs of their sinister past? Why have you failed to do what you promised: to protect this town and its people from the evil lying right within its own borders?!”

The Gems exchanged a rather surprised glance at this, none of them quite sure of what to say at such a strong accusation of their apparent failure. But really, when it came down to it, there had been nothing they could have really done to correct this unfair situation. They couldn’t force the Northwests to open their gates to the common folk, they hadn’t been able to keep that initial rejection from happening in the first place and they couldn’t keep it from happening now. It was a delicate situation, a very human situation that the Crystal Gems had found themselves ill-equipped to deal with and still did. And, based on their lack of an answer, that was a conclusion the lumberjack ghost had already angrily reached.

“You three are no better than the very Northwests you claim to condemn,” he remarked hatefully and dismissively. “And for that, you deserve nothing more than to share their DOOMED fate!”

The Gems only had time to let out a shared gasp before the ghost struck them with his power, which, alarmingly enough, effected them in the exact same way it would any human. In mere seconds, all three of the Crystal Gems were nothing more than wooden statues, stuck frozen in offensive poses against a foe they were powerless to defeat.

“Oh no!” Steven gasped, completely distraught as he happened to watch this entire display from the edge of the hallway him, Connie, and Priyanka were still in. “The Gems!”

“Steven, no!” Connie stopped him before he could rush out, still mindful of the Gem mutants as well as the ghost. Unfortunately, it seemed as though these threats were starting to combine as mutants began pouring out of the other hallways, sulking into the ballroom and openly attacking the dwindling number of non-wooden guests right alongside the ghost himself.

It was this absolute state of pandemonium that Dipper returned to as he burst back into the mansion, breathless and soaking wet from the ongoing thunderstorm outside. He stopped immediately within the doorframe however upon taking in the disaster before him, with undead animals and marauding mutants running amok amidst the myriad of already petrified party guests. Dipper didn’t get much of a chance to analyze the situation however before a nearby Gem mutant lunged at him, prompting him to act on instinct in drawing his sword and stabbing it cleanly through right before it could reach him. However, there was little his blade could do to help the poor soul who was inching across the floor, his body already half wooden as he desperately tried to escape his fate. “P-please, help me!” the guest cried before the inevitable happened, entrapping him in an immovable, unaware wooden form.

“Whoa! That is messed up!” Dipper exclaimed in apt shock upon witnessing something so horrific, though the ghost was quick to divert his attention as he let out a rather fitting proclamation.

“Just one way to change your fate!” the specter shouted amidst turning even more terrified guests into wood. “A Northwest must open the party gates!”

“A Northwest?” Dipper gasped, realizing that this situation wasn’t as hopeless as it seemed. “Pacifica!” Knowing that there really wasn’t any other viable option for quelling the ghost’s intense, deadly fury, Dipper took off, cutting through any Gem mutant in his path as he went in search of the heiress, hoping that despite her earlier deceptiveness and dishonesty, she could still turn the tide in this mess once and for all.

At the same time, Steven, Connie, and Priyanka hung back a bit from the ballroom, mostly to avoid being detected by the ghost more than anything else as most of the Gem mutants had already pressed their way past them. Still, all three of them were quite shaken by the chaos playing out before them, especially the doctor as she shook her head in frightened disbelief.

“And now there’s a ghost too?” she asked, dumbfounded. “You mean to tell me that you kids deal with deadly threats like these on a daily basis?!”

“Um… yeah, kinda,” Steven shrugged with an awkward smile, hoping the truth wouldn’t set the doctor off even more.

“But like I said, we know how to handle it!” Connie argued brazenly. “We have experience, we can stop all this and save everyone, I know we can! I just need you to let us do that!”

Priyanka didn’t answer, instead peaking out into the tumultuous ballroom and then back to her daughter, clearly unable to make a choice about what to do or what to say. “C-Connie, I… I don’t…” she trailed off, true concern and fear in her eyes as she met her daughter’s still quite adamant expression. And while Connie was somewhat surprised by her mother’s near-allowance, she knew that she couldn’t afford to wait for it any longer.

“Ugh, there’s no time for this!” she groaned, finally doing what she had wanted to do from the very beginning. In a move to quick for Priyanka to stop her, Connie pulled Rose’s sword out of its sheath in her arms, gripping it tightly as Steven pushed the bubble forward into the ballroom proper, anticipating the fight that was about to commence.

“Ready?” he asked, glancing over his shoulder at Connie, who had already taken up an offensive pose as Gem mutants started crowding around them.

“Drop the bubble,” Connie nodded readily as Steven did just that.

With their only line of defense gone, Steven and Connie both leapt into action, the latter lashing out first to the mutant that tried to jump at Priyanka, only for her blade to end up slicing cleanly through it. At the same time, the young Gem beat a handful of smaller mutants back, but as he nodded to Connie once more, they both prepared for a maneuver that they had only ever practiced before, but finally felt ready to put to use in a real fight. With deft precision, Connie leapt to Steven, using his shield as a boost to gain the proper height to land a brutal finishing blow on a taller mutant, poofing it instant. Priyanka could only stand by and watch in dumbfounded awe as her daughter, usually so intellectually minded and well-mannered, sliced her way through these savage creatures with a kind of skill that was far beyond anything she had been expecting. Still, with the majority of mutants having taken to the ballroom, Steven and Connie knew they had no time to rest on their laurels as the danger running rampant throughout the party was still quite high.

“Steven, let’s split up to take care of the rest,” Connie ordered, stilling gripping Rose’s sword tightly. “Then maybe we can try to figure out some way to get rid of that ghost and free all those people.”

“Right!” Steven nodded affirmatively, his shield still positioned on his arm as he prepared to follow Connie out into the fray.

“Mom, stay here and don’t let that ghost see you,” Connie continued, her tone just as authoritative as she turned to her mother. “Steven and I have this covered.”

“C-Connie, wait!” Priyanka exclaimed, stopping her daughter by grabbing her shoulder. Connie shot her a rather upset glance at this, fully expecting her mother to try and restrain her and hold her back, just like she always did. But instead, she did something entirely different. “Be careful,” she urged, pulling her daughter into a loose, caring, but rather solemn embrace.

“…I will be,” Connie promised, letting out a small, somewhat remorseful sigh before the hug broke apart. “Now come on, Steven. We have a party to save.”

Seeing as how Pacifica had been nowhere to be found amidst the unfurling chaos of the ballroom itself, Dipper had no choice but to rush through the mansion’s halls in search of her, knowing that he had not a moment to waste. Fortunately, his search didn’t have to go on for too long as he happened to take a quick peek in the hidden room they had first captured the ghost in, only to find the heiress sitting there alone in the dark, knees pulled to her chest and her head bowed low in apparent shame.

“Pacifica!” Dipper exclaimed, rushing over to her, even despite that fact that she seemed to pay his entrance no mind whatsoever, even as he leaned down right next to her. “I’m so glad I found you! The ghost is back and he’s turning everyone to wood and he just started rhyming for some reason? B-but anyway, I need your help!” he urged, grabbing her wrist in an attempt to pull her up but she was quick to bitterly pull it away. “Pacifica?”

“You wanna know why this room was locked up?” Pacifica began, still averting his gaze as she coldly nodded up to the set of paintings sitting a few feet away from them. Paintings which depicted Northwests of the past taking part in deceptive, duplicitous, downright dastardly acts across history. “This is what I found in here. A painted record of every horrible thing my family’s ever done. Lying, cheating… and then there’s me. I lied to you just because I’m too scared to talk back to my stupid parents!” In a fit of apt rage, the heiress took off her expensive earrings, tossing them disdainfully towards another painting of her own parents before letting out a sigh of defeat. “You were right about me… I really am just another link in the world’s worst chain…”

Dipper took pause at this, unsure of really how to respond to the heiress’s palpable, genuine guilt. Immediately, he couldn’t help but regret his former harshness towards her, especially now that he knew she had only been following her parents’ rigid orders in tricking him. And yet, instead of offering an apology right away, he ended up going with a different tangent instead. “Well… you don’t have to be...”

“Huh?” Pacifica finally glanced over at him, confused.

“Just because you’re your parent’s daughter, doesn’t mean you have to be like them,” Dipper clarified, offering her a small, encouraging smile. “You don’t have to keep this terrible chain going; you can choose to break it, you can choose to be better than them!”

“Heh, you make it sound so easy…” Pacifica said with a bitter laugh. “And for someone like you, I guess it probably would be. You don’t have your parents standing over you almost every second of the day with some stupid bell, drilling it into your head that you have to be perfect, that you have to uphold the family reputation, that you have to be just like them otherwise you won’t ever be worth anything to anyone!”

By now, the heiress’ usual composure had completely crumbled as she let out a tight sob, with tears that she quickly tried to wipe away only for more to end up following it. If she was perfectly honest with herself, she felt doomed, doomed to repeat the treachery of her ancestors, doomed to keep this cycle of corruption going, doomed to be just another lying, cheating, heartless Northwest. It was a line of thinking that she had once been proud of, a legacy that she had willingly wanted to uphold. But now, it felt suffocating, agonizing even, as though it was pulling her down into a darkness she wanted no parts in, but would inevitably end up drowning in, no matter how hard she tried to resist it.

And yet… maybe she wouldn’t.

For as she felt herself slipping deeper into the darkness of this despair and awful repetition, an unexpected hand suddenly took hers, somehow steadying her and pulling her up out of that darkness by its mere contact alone. Pacifica drew in a small, tearful breath as she glanced up at Dipper, his expression sincere and sympathetic as he kept his firm, yet gentle grip on her hand all the while.

“Pacifica…” he began, his tone solemn yet steady. “You don’t actually believe any of that, do you?”

“I-I… I don’t know…” she shook her head truthfully, knowing that it was all she had ever been taught by her parents. Then again, it could have all just as easily been yet another lie, another fabrication to add on to the countless others her family was so infamous for. “I… I don’t… want to, I just… I guess… I just want to feel… free for a change…” Like you, she wanted to add, knowing that Dipper was perhaps one of the most unfettered people she had ever met. He could do what he wanted, say what he wanted, all without the fear or worry of anyone telling him that he couldn’t, that he had to conform to some strictly set standard that stood against everything he believed in. It was a bold, foreign concept to Pacifica, one that fascinated her to no end and made her wonder what it would be like if she was granted that much open, endless, liberating freedom herself. Freedom that she had only ever gotten close to as a result of being close to him.

“Well… then that’s up to you,” Dipper said, still smiling kindly to her. “Like I said, you don’t have to be what your parents say, especially if they’re trying to train you to be just as horrible as they are, no offense.”

“Believe me, none taken,” Pacifica remarked, unable to hold back a brief, sardonic laugh at this.

“But still,” Dipper continued, letting go of her hand, though he still kept his other one positioned on her shoulder, something that she couldn’t help but smile about. After all, it was probably among the most genuine physical affection she had gotten from anyone really, including her own parents. “You can way more than they want you to be. Heck, as far as I’m concerned, you’ve already proved that by just realizing that what your family’s doing is wrong. I’m sorry about what I said earlier, but… I do mean it when I say I think you can be someone better. It’s not too late.”

“It’s too late!” the ghost’s triumphant shout could be heard all the way from the ballroom, startling the pair out of their tender moment as they hurried out to see what was going on. The alarming sight before them elicited a horrified gasp from them both as the entire ballroom had been overtaken, either by unruly, encroaching plants or still meandering Gem mutants, all spread out around the multitude of now wooden, immovable party guests with no single survivor seeming to remain. “You’re all wood!” the ghost proclaimed with a victorious laugh from his spot at the top of the stairs overlooking the ballroom, which is vengeance had completely claimed.

For a moment, all Dipper and Pacifica could do was look over this horrific scene in apt terror as they tried to spot anyone still living and free amidst the apparent forest of wooden statues. But there seemed to be no one left, for Steven and Connie were nowhere to be found, and the Gems, Candy, Grenda, even Mabel had all fallen victim to the lumberjack’s petrifying curse. Which, of course, was something that Dipper refused to let stand as he swiftly drew his sword, determined to finally put this violent specter in his place once and for all.

“Dipper, wait!” Pacifica shouted, failing to hold him back as he rushed out brazenly, taking up a stance of opposition not too far away from the ghost itself, much to the heiress’ apt alarm.

“Alright, ghost,” Dipper began boldly, grabbing a discarded silver platter with the hopes of trapping the ghost inside of it. “Prepare to get-” He was abruptly cut off as the ghost blasted both the platter and his sword out of his hands, showing that the spirit had no patience to even trade barbs with the boy who had trapped him in the first place. “No, wait!” Dipper exclaimed in sudden fear as the ghost remorselessly hit him with his inescapable curse. The effect was immediate, working from the ground up as it all too quickly turned his flesh into hallow, unfeeling wood, much to his apt panic. “N-no! No, stop! Someone, help!” he cried desperately, crippled by a hauntingly familiar sensation of rapidly losing all his senses entirely as his chest became nothing more than frozen bark before it spread up his arms and finally to his face. “Help, please!” His final, agonized plea hung onto the air as an echo as he finally froze, completely turned to wood and stuff in an eternal pose of stricken terror as he reached for help that would likely never come.

All Pacifica could do as she witnessed all this was let out a sharp gasp of both shock and anguish, unexplainable tears welling up in her eyes as she watched Dipper succumb to the threat that her family was solely responsible for. One of the few people who had managed to inspire her, to encourage her to move beyond her family’s harsh standards, who showed her genuine warmth and kindness that hadn’t been bought but rather earned, was now nothing more than a wooden husk and she knew it was all thanks to her. Which was why she had to do something. She couldn’t just walk away and leave Dipper, and really every other innocent person in the mansion, to such a grisly fate. She had to stand up, to right the wrongs of her family’s past, to truly be someone better than any of her predecessors had been, including her own parents.

She had to open the gates.

And yet… she couldn’t. As much as she wanted to, she knew well what would happen if she even tried. Her parents would never forgive her, in all honesty, they’d probably punish her more than she could possibly imagine. They didn’t take disobedience kindly, especially when it came to massive matters like this. Seeing as how she couldn’t find them amidst the crowd of statufied guests, she knew that they’d find out about her blatant defiance somehow, they just would. And then, any shred of empirical freedom she thought she had would disappear completely; any hope she might have had to become a better person, to improve herself and rise above her family name, would vanish entirely. She’d be trapped, just like she always was, in that cycle of lies and greed and selfishness that had poisoned the Northwest name for decades.

And the possibility of that happening was something she desperately didn’t want to risk.

So instead, Pacifica let fear take over as she took a step back into the shadows, out of the ghost’s range, away from the disaster she could so easily solve with just the pull of a lever. However, she failed to see one of the few other survivors rushing along the edges of the hall, trying to take out the remaining Gem mutants while remaining out of the ghost’s sight, until they happened to haphazardly crash right into each other.

“Ugh, Pacifica!” Connie snapped, pulling away from the heiress with a cold scowl. “Get out of my way! I have to—wait a second,” she stopped short, lowering her sword somewhat as concern filled her expression. “W-where’s Dipper? Wasn’t he with you earlier?”

“H-he was…” Pacifica glanced down guiltily, trying her best to hold back her returning tears. “But… but he… t-the ghost… I wasn’t able to-”

Connie cut her off with a sharp, startled gasp as she glanced out into the ballroom, instantly spotting Dipper’s now wooden form near the center of the hall. “Dipper!” she exclaimed, aptly distraught as she turned back to Pacifica, clearly livid. “What happened?!”

“H-he just… ran out there! I wanted to stop him, but I-”

“Oh yeah, sure you did,” Connie deadpanned harshly. “Like I’m gonna stand here and believe that you actually even thought about sticking your neck out for someone else. Heck, I bet the only reason you’re so torn up about what happened to Dipper is because you lost your only ghost hunter, right?”

“Augh, you don’t know anything do you?!” Pacifica retorted just as fiercely, her gloved hands clenched in tight fists at her sides. “You think the only person I care about is myself, but you’re wrong! Believe me, I’d love to just run out there and open the gates so that ghost would set everyone free, but I can’t! Because if I did, then my parents would… t-they’d…”

“They’d… what?” Connie asked, her glare softening somewhat as she noticed just how visibly anxious Pacifica seemed to be.

“Forget it,” the heiress said dismissively, wrapping her arms around herself as she glanced out towards the ballroom sadly. “You wouldn’t understand…”

“…Somehow, I think I would…” Connie admitted with a hesitant sigh, looking to the hallway she knew her mother was still hiding in. “My mom is… pretty strict. She didn’t even know about my sword fighting training until tonight and when she found out about it, she refused to let me fight, even against all these Gem mutants running around. But… I knew a still had to fight, that I was one of the only ones with any hope of stopping all this, and so I am.”

“E-even though your mom said no?” Pacifica asked, rather amazed by such a concept as blatantly going against parental orders with no apparent regret.

“Even though my mom said no,” Connie confirmed with a nod, pausing for a moment as she looked to the rather conflicted heiress with newfound pity. Perhaps, despite what she had been led to believe, Pacifica wasn’t really spoiled or cruel from her own choosing; maybe that was just how her parents had raised her, had forced her to be. And as someone who knew all too well just how heavy a burden trying to live up to parental standards was, maybe, Connie realized, the two of them weren’t so different after all. “I think I realized that… sometimes my parents aren’t always right. And when they’re not, that’s when I have to just… figure things out for my own, you know? And maybe… maybe that’s something you need to try for yourself, Pacifica.”

The heiress said nothing in response to this, her brow furrowed as she kept her sights on Dipper afar in the distance more than anything else. Connie raised an eyebrow upon seeing this, surprising something of an incredulous smile as she realized what was going on here, though she said nothing about it at the moment. “I gotta go find Steven,” she said, repositioning her grip on Rose’s sword as she hurried off. “Try to make the right choice, ok?”

Pacifica took in a deep breath, steadying herself as she slowly nodded, even after Connie had left. “Ok,” she whispered, resolve to do this, determined to save them all, to save him.

Whether her parents liked it or not.

“A forest of death,” the ghost concluded grimly, still presiding in his spot above the ballroom. “A lesson learned, and now the Northwest Manor will BURN!” The specter erupted into vengeful laughter as flames rose up from him, igniting the large portrait of the Northwest family hanging from the nearby wall first, though it quickly began to spread, more than ready to burn everything, and everyone, in the mansion to ashes in minutes.

Or at least it would have.

“Hey, ugly! Over here!” Pacifica shouted as she emerged from hiding, figuring now was as good a time as any to put an end to all this. She stood before the ghost boldly, unfettered by the powerful, hateful spirit as she stepped towards the lever that would open the mansion’s outer gates. “You want me to let in the townsfolk? Cause I’ll do it! Just change everyone back!”

“You wish to prove yourself?” the ghost asked challengingly. “Then pull that lever and open the grand gate to the town! Fulfill your ancestors’ promise and right this wrong once and for all!”

Pacifica was prepared to do just that, her expression hardened as she began reaching for the nearby lever. However, her hand froze right before she could grab it as an underground hatch leading down to the panic room opened up a few feet away, her father, mother, and one of their countless butlers anxiously peeking out of it. “Pacifica Elise Northwest! Stop this instant!” Preston exclaimed in a harsh, incredibly disapproving whisper. “We can’t let the town see us like this! We have a reputation to uphold!”

“A reputation?” Pacifica looked to him, appalled. “Our entire mansion’s about to go up in flames and a bunch of innocent people right along with it and you’re worried about our reputation?!”

“Well, of course I am!” Preston scowled adamantly. “And you should be too, young lady! Our family is built off of power and position, we can’t have common nobodies off the street running rampant in our mansion! Now come into the panic room. There’s enough mini-sandwiches and oxygen to last you, me, and a butler a full week.” At this, he quickly dropped his voice down to a whisper so the nearby servant couldn’t hear him. “We’ll eat the butler.”

“You’re wrong!” the heiress snapped, her former fear of standing against her parents quickly fading as she realized just how many self-serving lies she had been fed her entire life. Lies that she refused to eagerly buy into any longer. “The only things our family was built off of are cheating and dishonesty! I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to learn that, but I have! And its about time everyone else did too!”

“You dare disobey us?” Preston scoffed in disbelief. “Where did this shamefully disrespectful attitude of yours come fro—oh wait, I know…” The billionaire’s tone turned disdainful as he shot a glance towards the center of the ballroom, where Dipper’s wooden remains stood. “It was that foolish Pines boy, wasn’t it? He was the one who inspired you to start thinking like a no-account vagrant instead of the elite young lady of status that you truly are! Well, worry not,” he said, pulling the bell that Pacifica had come to dread and loathe so much out of his suit pocket. “I know of the perfect to fix that…”

Pacifica flinched, pulling her hand away from the lever on instinct upon hearing the bell’s clarion ring, a ring that seemed to echo throughout her entire childhood and always carried one, singular order: behave. A ring that had groomed her into what her parents wanted her to be: submissive, unquestioning, accepting of all the atrocities the Northwests were responsible for in the past and were still committing even now. A ring that she hated, with every fiber of her being, but she knew better than to resist it.

Until now.

Because now, that ring wasn’t her master any longer. It couldn’t be. She remembered the advice both Dipper and Connie had given her, advice that mixed together inside her mind that she could be more, that she could do the right thing even when her own family never had, that she could change.

That she could be free.

And no matter what the cost might be, that freedom was something she was finally ready to take.

“Dingly, dingly!” Preston growled, ringing the bell harder as he noticed Pacifica was paying it no mind and reaching for the lever once more. “Is this bell broken?”

“Our family name is broken!” Pacifica proclaimed, slamming her foot down as she finally grabbed the lever. “And I’m gonna fix it!”

Putting every last ounce of reservation and fear behind her, the heiress pulled the lever down hard, at long last finally opening the gates up to the common townsfolk outside. The people of Gravity Falls gasped in amazement at this unexpected turn of events, but of course, none of them hesitated to rush forward, delighted to be allotted inside the legendary Northwest Fest for the very first time ever.

“Yes! Yes, its happening!” the ghost happily cried as the townsfolk excitedly ran up the hill to get to the mansion itself. “My heart, once as hard as oak, now grows soft, like more of a… birch or something.”

As a result of the ghost’s satisfaction, his curse upon the mansion quickly faded away, the taxidermized animals becoming still and unmoving as the wild plants disappeared back into the ground they had emerged from. At the same time, all of the petrified party guests seamlessly and painlessly were returned to normal, from the wealthy dignitaries, to the Gems, and to Dipper, who let out a sharp gasp as he returned to normal, rather startled by this shift as he happened to glance across the hall over at Pacifica. The heiress remained where she was by the lever, but even so, the huge smile of warm relief she sent him was undeniable, knowing that to see him alive and well again made all of her struggling against her parents more than worth it.

“Pacifica,” the ghost addressed her, briefly diverting her gaze away from Dipper right as he returned her smile. “You are not like other Northwests and for that, you should be proud. I feel… lumber justice…” And with these final words of contentment relayed, the specter finally disappeared from the mortal plane, leaving only his axe behind as it slammed into the ground, the only remaining physical sign of the devastation he had wrought.

Of course, almost as soon as the ghost had vanished, the multitude of townsfolk reached the manor, flooding in through the front doors in a flurry of chaos and excitement. They had no mind for manners whatsoever as they ran about, indulging on buffet tables, leaping into cider fountains, and laying their hands on whatever expensive knick-knacks they could find. Still, their arrival had added an undeniable and much-needed element of reckless fun and freedom to the party, one that absolutely appalled Preston and Priscilla as they stood by, helpless to stop what their daughter had so brazenly done.

“Good lord, the riffraff! Its everywhere!” the billionaire cried, aghast at the state of his once pristine party as he ran about, trying and completely failing to reclaim some sense of class and order.

At the same time, the Gems, upon recovering from their formerly petrified states, were quick to see the wild debauchery going on all around them, something that aptly confused them, given how they knew Northwest parties to usually be.

“What’s going on here?” Pearl asked, her spear dissipating as she watched Manly Dan toss a keg of cider across the hall.

“I dunno, but this is my kinda party!” Amethyst cheered, laughing as a few of the town’s teens rode an empty platter down the nearby stairs.

“Looks like everyone else has followed our lead,” Garnet remarked with a wry smirk, placing hands on both of her teammates’ shoulders. “You know what that means.”

“Woo! Time to bust it up!” the purple Gem rowdily whooped, rushing forward unrestrained.

“N-now Amethyst, let’s try not to bust things up too much!” Pearl warned as she began to run after her, though she quickly stopped with an incredulous scoff. “Wait, what am I saying? This is the Northwests’ mansion we’re talking about here! Let’s bust it up to our hearts’ content!”

“Now you got it,” Garnet nodded in amused approval, joining her teammates as they gladly leapt into the ongoing chaos and fun all around them.

Meanwhile, Mabel, Candy, and Grenda were all in the midst of recovering from their own bouts as wooden statues, though none of them knew much about what had really occurred. Still, as soon as they had properly gathered their bearings, Grenda was quick to turn on the pair, sending them a disapproving scowl as she addressed them.

“Ahem,” she began somewhat coldly. “Don’t you two have something you’d like to say?”

“…Grenda, we are so sorry,” Candy relented remorsefully.

“Yeah, we shouldn’t have left you behind,” Mabel added just as empathetically.

“It’s ok,” Grenda conceded, her bitter manner quickly dropping upon noticing their sincerity. “Maybe I do need to work on my flirting. But for now, come on. Let’s go dip our heads in some cheese and chocolate. Friends?”

“Friends,” the other two girls happily agreed as they all joined together in a group hug. This moment of reconciliation soon came to an end however, for before they could make their way over to the fondue fountains, they were abruptly halted by a certain baron.

“Wait! Don’t go!” Marius called after them, approaching Grenda in particular with a fond, longing smile. “Grenda, was it? I must speak with you. There is something about you, I-I can’t get you out of my head! You’re so bold and confident! I know you are probably out of my league, but… might I give you mien phone number?”

“I don’t have a phone!” Grenda brightly exclaimed, elated by this offer. “Write it on my face!”

The baron proceeded to do so as Mabel and Candy watched on, neither of them having to pretend to be happy for their friend’s successful romantic catch. “Whoa-oh! Go Grenda!” Mabel exclaimed with a surprised grin.

“I guess we shouldn’t have sold her short,” Candy concluded. “I call bridesmaid!”

“What? I call co-bridesmaid!” Mabel countered before both of them shared a warm laugh. Despite their earlier scuffle, their friendship had been easily repaired, with all three of them knowing that no boy, no matter how cute or fancy, was worth damaging something so valuable to them all.

“Is that the last of them?” Connie asked Steven as he finished bubbling away what seemed to be the last of the Gem mutants. They had finished proofing and capturing them all around the same time the ghost had disappeared, which meant that now the party and its guests could truly be safe to enjoy the remainder of their evening.

“Yeah, I think so,” Steven nodded, offering her a small, congratulatory smile. Connie didn’t get much of a chance to return it, however, before her mother approached, her manner strangely anxious as she met her daughter’s somewhat unreadable gaze.

“C-Connie,” Priyanka began gently, looking between her daughter and the sword in her hand. “I… is this… really what you’ve been doing all summer? Training to fight these… things?”

“Yeah…” Connie nodded, glancing down guiltily. “Mom… I’m really sorry about lying to you. It started off as a tiny secret, and then it felt like I didn’t hide it, you wouldn’t let me see Steven or Dipper or Mabel ever again…”

“Is… is that how you feel?” Priyanka asked, her tone genuinely upset at the thought of unintentionally causing her daughter such worry and fear. “Are we too controlling?”

“…Maybe…” Connie admitted with a small shrug, deciding to be completely honest with her mother on this.

“I just… wanted to be a good mother,” the doctor said remorsefully, almost sadly even. “I-I just wanted to protect you.”

“But I can protect myself now!” Connie urged firmly. “You saw that I can! You just… need to start trusting that I can handle some things on my own.”

Priyanka sighed, a bittersweet smile crossing her face as she knelt down and placed a hand on her daughter’s shoulder. “You are growing up awfully fast, aren’t you?” she said, a hint of pride filling her tone. “Okay. We’ll pull back on the rules. And I’ll try to keep an open mind about this,” she nodded to the sword in Connie’s hand. “And that,” she looked towards the bubbled Gem Steven was sending off to the temple. “And… him…” She finished rather tightly, nodding to the somewhat confused young Gem himself.

“That’s… all I really want,” Connie said, finally smiling herself.

“I know, its just… it scares me that you can’t talk to me about all this!” Priyanka pressed with apt concern. “I need to know what’s happening in your life. I need to be able to step in when you’re in over your head. Would you just promise me that you’ll stop all the lying?”

“That’s a rule,” Connie nodded, resolved to meet her mother halfway in doing just that.

“I love you, honey,” Priyanka smiled as she pulled her daughter into a warm, protective embrace.

“I love you too, Mom,” Connie retorted just as contentedly, more than happy to let her mother intervene if the need ever arose.

Steven wore a soft smile himself as he stood by, watching this heartwarming display. However, his grin did fade somewhat as he happened to glance down at Rose’s sword in his arms, particularly at his mother’s iconic symbol on its scabbard. He couldn’t help but wonder, as he watched Connie and her mother share such a tender, genuine moment, if he would have ever known a similar relationship with his own mother if she was still around. But as it stood, this was a gap he’d never truly have filled, a kind of protective, motherly love he’d never fully get to know. Or at least he thought.

For the young Gem was soon drawn out of his solemn thoughts as a familiar hand landed on his shoulder. Steven glanced up to meet Garnet’s gentle grin, followed by Pearl’s and Amethyst as they filled in beside her.

“Y-you guys!” he exclaimed in apt relief to see them unharmed. “You’re ok!”

“Of course we are!” Amethyst quipped, playfully elbowing him. “What, you really think we’re gonna let some undead lumber loser beat us down? Please, you know us better than that!”

“Are you enjoying the party, Steven?” Pearl asked, flustered changing the subject though she was still smiling down at her young ward nonetheless.

Steven paused, looking down at his mother’s sword one last time before smiling back up at his guardians. “You know what? Yeah. Yeah, I am.”

With the ghost gone and the heiress’ parents preoccupied, Dipper and Pacifica had found it rather easy to reunite and debrief from their harrowing experiences, both of them more than happy to watch the unfurling freedom of the newly-opened party all around them. “Man, if your family hates this, then they’re idiots,” Dipper remarked with a small laugh as several townsfolk ran by noisily but happily. “This is great!”

“Enjoy it while it lasts,” Pacifica huffed, crossing her arms. “Next year, I’m sure they’re just gonna lock everyone out again.”

Dipper paused, briefly noticing that the heiress still seemed rather remiss after everything had happened. Fortunately though, he quickly thought of a sure-fire way to change her sour tune. “Hey, guess what we’re standing on.”

Pacifica glanced down, her face lighting up with a vindictive grin as she noticed their muddy shoes were planted firmly on a repeat of her parents’ favorite white rug. From that point, neither of them were really able to hold their laughter in as they freely tarnished the carpet, spilling food and punch onto it without any care in the world, all in a sign of defiance to the billionaire’s rigid, self-righteous rules.

“Hey, so, uh…” Pacifica began somewhat awkwardly as their laughter began to die down. “I just wanted to say… um… thanks, I guess, for what you said back there. In a way, I guess it kinda inspired me to finally stop listening to my parents’ self-entitled garbage and start listening to myself for a change. And I gotta admit, it… feels kind of… nice.”

“If anyone’s thanking anyone around here, I should be thanking you,” Dipper said just as warmly. “If it wasn’t for you, then I’d still be a boring old hunk of wood right now.”

“Yeah, that totally would have sucked,” Pacifica remarked with something of a flirtatious grin. “I couldn’t imagine you, of all people, being so stiff and boarding.”

Dipper couldn’t really hold in a burst of heavy laughter at this, something that only served to fluster the heiress even more than she already was. “What, did you come up with that one yourself?”

“Hey, at least I tried. It’s not like puns are really my strong suit.”

“Yeah, I can tell.”

“Oh shut up,” Pacifica smirked, pushing him playfully as he continued laughing. “But seriously though, I should probably go and find someone to clean this mess up. I’ll be right back!”

Dipper waved her off with a fond smile that he was unable to chase away, even if he had wanted to. As catastrophic as this night had turned out to be, at the end of it all, it had all been worth it to form a true, genuine bond with Pacifica, who, as far as he was concerned, was so, so much kinder, braver, and better than he had ever thought her to be.

His contented musings on the heiress didn’t last too long, however, before a certain old hillbilly ran up, seemingly just as zany and excitable as ever. “Woo! Scoobity-doo!” McGucket exclaimed, hopping up and down in his usual wild way. “Hornswaggle m’goat knees!”

“Whoa, hey, McGucket!” Dipper greeted with a bright smile, happy to see the hillbilly out and about in the aftermath of recovering his memories. “How have you been? Are you—whoa!” he was succinctly cut off as McGucket suddenly pulled him aside, his kooky act falling to the wayside for a much more serious one as soon as they were out of everyone else’s earshot.

“Dipper! I’ve been lookin’ for ya!” the hillbilly began intently, his expression and tone both dire as he put his glasses on and pulled out the old laptop, which looked nowhere as bad off as it had been before. “I fixed the laptop and-”

“You fixed it?! Dipper interupted, his eyes wide with surprise at this news. He paused, however, forcing himself not to be too overwhelmed by it as he remembered exactly why he had strived so hard to unlock said laptop in the first place. “Y-you… you didn’t happen to find anything on there about how split Gem fusions up… did you?”

“Er, uh… no?” McGucket frowned, confused by such an odd question before he returned to the matter at hand. “B-but anyway, I’ve been doin’ calculations, and I think somethin’ terrible is comin’! The apocalypse! The end times!”

Dipper simply let out a disappointed sigh at this as he glanced to the laptop somewhat bitterly, knowing he had wasted and lost so much for something that wouldn’t have even been able to help Lapis in the first place. But given that his spirits were relatively high from the party, he didn’t particularly feel like lowering them at the moment to look into the hillbilly’s frantic warnings, which in and of themselves, might not really hold any weight at all. “You know what, McGucket? How about we talk about this stuff tomorrow?”

“But-” McGucket fretfully tried to protest, only for Dipper’s already waning attention to quickly be diverted.

“Dipper!” Pacifica called from the party proper, smiling brightly as she beckoned for him to join her.

“Be there in a second!” he called back to her before turning to the distraught hillbilly once more with a small smile and a shrug. “It’s a party. Let’s have some fun for once, huh?”

“N-no! Wait!” McGucket exclaimed, though his pleas were in vain as Dipper left, dangerously unaware of what he had just uncovered. The hillbilly quickly opened the laptop up, its screen blaring the words “Imminent threat” in bright, glaring red as a countdown steadily blinked upon it, showing that only less than 24 hours remained. “Oh, this is bad!” he shook his head nervously. “Something’s coming! Somethin’ big!”

The hillbilly continued to look over his worrisome findings, completely unaware of the tapestry behind him, one that seemed to almost foretell of the very danger he feared was soon to come: a burning landscape with suffering humans upon it, and a long triangular shape presiding over the chaos, its singular eye watching all.

“Hey,” Dipper greeted Pacifica blithely as he rejoined her near the makeshift ‘dance floor’ the townsfolk had set up at the center of the ballroom. “What’s up?”

“Uh… well…” the heiress blushed, anxiously averting his gaze. “I was just, um… Well… Oh, how do I put this…? I was thinking maybe… y-you and I could… you know…” Unable to spit it out, she instead nodded to the several pairs freely moving about the dance floor, biting her lip as she noted his initial confusion, followed by his dawning realization.

“What, you mean, dance?” he asked, looking back to her rather surprised.

“Y-Yeah, I mean, i-if you wanna…” she crossed her arms, feigning stoicism over the matter. “W-we don’t have to. I just thought it would be like, fun or something.”

“Oh, well, uh… I-I’m not really that much of a dancer,” he admitted, starting to become rather flustered himself in light of this offer.

“So? Neither are any of them,” she nodded back to the dance floor again, where the couples upon it were basically just spinning around in tandem without any rhyme or reason at all. All the same, he hesitated, his eyes wide and his cheeks just as red as hers as he met her awkward, apprehensive expression. “W-what? Are you embarrassed or something?”

“N-no!” he shook his head quickly. “Are you?”

“No!”

“W-well then, I guess we should…”

“Yeah…” she took in a deep breath, slowly taking the hand he shakily offered out to her, In truth, neither of them were exactly sure why there were so nervous, even as they emerged onto the open floor together. After all, they really had no reason to be; this was just going to be a loose, friendly, freeform dance. Nothing less, and nothing more.

And though it took a moment or two of mental preparation, they soon started to fall into this mindset themselves as they began to spin, hands intertwined as they rotated in wide, dizzying, almost chaotic circles. It didn’t take long for them to start laughing, their faces still somewhat red but this time it was a welcome warmth as they “danced” about, the ballroom around them and the multiple pairs of eyes curiously watching them soon forgotten just as much as their initial inhibitions were. As wild and unkempt as it was, there was no denying they were both having fun, enjoying each other’s company, something neither of them thought could never happen before this fateful night. Yet here they were, a highly-esteemed heiress with a tarnished family history and a middle-class boy only really known for his knowledge of the supernatural. An unusual pair, for sure, but that hardly mattered to either of them at that moment for as far as they were concerned, they were the same. Just two kids, spinning around an elegant ballroom, hands intertwined as they laughed together with freedom in their minds and happiness in their hearts.

Happiness that would someday become something that nothing, not the past, the present, or the future, would ever be able to destroy.

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