Chapter 1: Prologue: The Subconscious is a Bitch, But Not as Much as Prophecy
Chapter Text
The Collector dreamed.
This was not an uncommon occurrence. Creatures of his sort dreamed loudly, and often. Dreaming was where creation occurred. So much of it had happened at the beginning of everything, when chaos was the norm and life was barely a thought. The universe was shaped through dreams, and dreams had maintained it for the billions of years since.
But now, the Collector dreamed a different kind of dream. A very mortal kind of dream, or nightmare. The kind that had you waking in a cold sweat with the feeling of falling.
He stood on an asphalt street. It was cracked and bits of it were on fire. The sky was red and there were creatures of unimaginable horror walking around. He heard screams in the distance. He saw a giant black pyramid floating in the sky, underneath a rift in the universe. He could see the swirling anti-matter of the Between-Realm glowing out of it.
Then he heard it. The voice. The one that had frightened him, billions of years ago. The one that always had a mocking laughter behind it. The one he’d thought was locked away forever.
He forced himself to look up, though he wanted more than anything to shut his eyes and pretend he was somewhere else.
He was floating far above, surveying the burning city around him. A master in his new realm. That awful laugh burst forth, and the Collector gasped, cringing away from it like he could stop hearing it if he tried hard enough.
He had chosen, or been given, the form of a yellow triangle, a single, malicious eye set in the center. He had no mouth, but the Collector knew he didn’t need one. Creatures like them could devour anything in any manner they chose.
Some part of the Collector’s mind wondered why that form, of all things. Was it a product of the realm he’d been banished to, or was it a manifestation of his own sadistic creativity?
But he didn’t have time to wonder for long, because suddenly, that single eye fixed on him, and the Collector felt stuck. He couldn’t move an inch. He could only watch as that triangle, that one-eyed monster, approached.
“Well hey!” he called. “Look who decided to join us!”
The Collector wanted to run. He wanted to scream. But when he tried, he found his body frozen, his mouth held shut. A massive, pitch-black hand reached out and picked him up, and he hung like a rag doll, hovering above a broken, unfamiliar city.
Desperate, searching for anything that could help him get out of this, the Collector looked around. He saw the same scene, the pyramid and the destruction and the horror he’d only seen once before, long ago, almost before time itself, but there, beyond the red clouds—
Something shimmered. A quiet, soft, blindingly bright light, so far away and so close at once, and he could almost reach it, almost remember—
Then he pulled the Collector close, blocking his vision in a wall of yellow, and the heat rolling off of that triangle was like a raging inferno.
“Ready or not, here I come,” he hissed.
The Collector awoke screaming.
Far away, past the flora-covered co rpse of a Titan, through a doorway in the air and a few cities over, in an apartment near Yale University, a young graduate student called his sister.
She didn’t answer. This was the fifth time she hadn’t answered, and he was trying his best not to panic.
Because she always answered. Even when it was inconvenient for her, she always, always picked up the phone for him. Even if they hadn’t made a pact over it, she would’ve done it anyway. That’s who she was.
But she didn’t answer for their weekly call yesterday, and she didn’t answer the second time, and she didn’t answer when he tried again last night, or this morning, or just now.
He knew where she should be, she’d told him a week ago. He didn’t know if she’d made it.
He sat on the edge of his desk, running fingers through his hair, clutching his phone and hoping it would ring. It had to ring. She had to be okay. Maybe she was just sick. She’d call back later.
But he knew in his heart that that wasn’t true.
He glanced at the worn notebook on his desk. It wasn’t that old, but it was softened and weighed down by the frantic scrawl of his memories. After everything, he refused to let all that knowledge disappear. He wasn’t sure if he got it all, but he added to it every day.
The leather beckoned him. He forced the press of tears against his eyes to calm. He needed to know what happened to her.
He didn’t want to admit that he was terrified of the answer.
Chapter 2: Wait, Eda was Married?????
Summary:
The Collector pays a visit to the Boiling Isles
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
It was a gorgeous sunny day in the Boiling Isles-equivalent of July. Luz was walking to class at the university, hand-in-hand with Amity. They had different classes, as Amity was in the Abomination track and Luz was in a little custom track she liked to call “All of Them”, but they were in the same building for this period so they liked to walk together.
The campus was pretty similar to what Luz imagined a human-world one would look like, except this one was full of all the wonderful weirdness the Boiling Isles sported. Some students flew to class on their palismen, others practiced their magic on the way (the latter was more common in the wake of the Healing, which is what people were calling the slow and steady removal of everyone’s coven sigils, as witches wanted to rediscover the magic they’d lost in their youth). Sometimes the ground would swallow someone whole, then spit them out a few hundred yards away. Weird creatures lurked in corners or bounced along walkways. But it was all normal, by demon realm standards. Free. No evil emperor breathing down their necks. No quests, no adventures. And as much as Luz loved adventures, even she had to admit it was nice to have some peace for a change.
She leaned over and gave Amity a quick peck on the cheek. Amity blushed and smiled, squeezing Luz’s hand for a moment. “Hi, batata.”
Luz smiled. “Hey. You excited for today?”
Amity nodded, her eyes lighting up. She loved talking about classes in a way Luz never would have understood before ending up in this realm. “We’re doing a presentation today, on different compounds and materials that can be used for Abominations! It’s going to be so cool…”
She kept talking, and Luz’s smile grew wider. She couldn’t remember when Amity started getting animated like this when talking about her passions, but she knew it had to have been after they started dating. And maybe it was selfish, but Luz liked being the person Amity felt comfortable around, enough to get excited about things.
It was then that it happened: a loud boom, and then a shooting star streaked across the sky, leaving shapes of stars and moons and swirling blue clouds in its wake. It was similar to the display the Collector had put on during Luz’s eighteenth birthday, but this one was clearly not supposed to be a spectacle—it was muted and quick to disappear, not nearly as many flashy bits and whimsical shapes present in the streak.
Amity stopped talking, and she and Luz watched, mouth agape, as the star disappeared over the horizon—in the direction of the Owl House.
They were silent for a moment. Then Luz cleared her throat. “I’m sure that’s fine,” she said, putting on her best fake grin. She tugged on Amity’s hand. “C’mon, let’s get to class.”
Of course, Luz got a call from Eda later, telling her to stop by when she had a minute. She’d sounded uncharacteristically grave, which immediately worried Luz. Last time she’d heard that voice, the world had been ending.
So when her last class of the day ended, she hopped on Stringbean and flew over to the Owl House. Hooty called out a greeting as she passed, and she paused to give him a pat on the head and a collection of weird things she’d found on the ground that day, which he gobbled up happily. Then she headed inside.
The Collector, unsurprisingly, was sitting on the couch in the main room, holding a mug of something that was possibly tea, possibly some other weird concoction Eda had come up with. He looked up as Luz walked in and stood with a grin, spreading his arms wide. “Luz!”
He still appeared just as young as he had when they’d first met, clad in his lavender-and-white pajamas, his eyes bright with the light of a thousand constellations. Although she’d seen him perform impossible feats, it was hard to remember that he was billions of years old when he looked like this. He seemed just like any other kid, sitting on her second mom’s couch.
Luz smiled back and walked over, ruffling his hat and, beneath it, pure white hair. “Hi, Collector,” she said. “How goes it?”
The Collector’s smile faded and he opened his mouth to speak, but before he could get a word out, Eda walked in. “It goes bad, Luz. Really bad.” She came over and gave Luz a hug. “Can I get you anything?”
Luz shook her head, sitting down next to the Collector. “What happened? I saw you shoot over the Isles, but I’m guessing you’re not just here to visit.”
The Collector shook his head. “No. I need your help.”
He told her of his dream, of the burning city and the rift in the sky and the evil yellow triangle (Luz had a bit of trouble wrapping her head around that one) threatening him. “He was called the Cipher, back when I knew him. He liked to play games. Make things difficult or complicated. He was a really good liar.”
Luz swallowed. That sounded a little too familiar for comfort. “What kinds of games?”
The Collector glanced at her, then away. When he spoke again, he was pointedly staring at his own feet. “Remember what I did to the Isles?” When she nodded, he continued. “Well, think about that, then imagine if I had actually meant to hurt people.”
Luz allowed herself one second of thinking about that horrible reality, then forced her thoughts away. Thank the Titan she’d managed to get through to the Collector when she did, or she’d be one friend and one magical world short. “Jeez.”
The Collector nodded. “I think whatever he’s going to do will happen in the human realm.”
“What makes you say that?” Luz asked. It wasn’t that she didn’t believe him, but—well, burning cities could happen anywhere.
The Collector looked up at her, and she could suddenly see his age in those luminous golden eyes. “I could feel it. I went to that realm once, a very long time ago. It has changed since then, but it feels the same. The air is heavier.”
Luz knew what he was talking about. After spending such a long time in the demon realm, going back home had been jarring, like she had to get used to a new gravity. She’d thought it was because the human realm wasn’t seated on a giant dead body, but maybe the entire makeup, the very atoms, of her universe were different than the Isles’.
So she nodded. “Okay. You need my help to get around?”
The Collector’s eyebrows shot up. “I-really? You’d come with me?”
“Well, yeah. Isn’t that what you wanted to ask me?”
The Collector looked down, sheepish. “I-I was gonna ask for directions…I don’t want to take you from your school.”
Luz laughed. “Collector, come on. I’m not going to school while you wander around the human realm having adventures. I’d never forgive myself!”
“Forgive yourself for what?” Came a new voice. Everyone jumped and looked around as Gus walked through the door. He waved. “Hey, guys. Just dropping off some stuff for Eda. Now, what’s this super-secret meeting about?”
Luz smiled at him. “We’re actually talking about the human realm! Apparently some interesting stuff is going on.”
Gus’s eyes widened and he practically vaulted over the couch to sit on the other side of the Collector. “Can I come?”
The Collector’s face was beet red, which was impressive, considering half of it was the sun and the other half was the moon. “Guys, you really don’t have to—”
“Shut up, we’re coming,” Luz interrupted. “Now, where in the human realm is this town, exactly?”
“Oh, uh—I don’t know,” the Collector said. “I couldn’t really see, except I think there were mountains? Everything was kind of…red. But I think that was a product of…you know.”
The Dorito Man. Luz nodded sagely. “Hmmm… well, there’s a lot of mountains in the human realm. Were there any buildings or anything like that?”
“Um… there was a big scary-looking guy in the distance? Like, bigger than normal. He had a red plaid shirt on and a big axe. Also a walking water tower. Is that normal for the human realm?” The Collector hunched into himself, and Luz thought he looked…ashamed? For what? Not knowing human stuff?
She slung an arm around his shoulders. “It’s okay. Uh, no, that’s not normal, but a water tower and a big dude are kind of hard to miss.” She looked up at Eda, knowing that, weirdly, the Owl Lady had seen more of the human realm than Luz herself. “Any of that sound familiar to you?”
Eda was grimacing like she’d swallowed a vole wrong. “Yes,” she grouched. “Sounds to me like you’re going to have to visit my ex-husband. Stan Pines.”
Gus, the Collector, and Luz stared, mouths open in shock. “You…were married?” Luz asked.
Eda waved her off, her face turning red. “Only for like six hours. We were both drunk, we were in Vegas…it was a whole thing. He’s a buttface, so. It’s whatever.”
“Dang,” Gus said. “Vegas sounds cool! Can we go there?”
Both Eda and Luz exclaimed, “No!”
Luz smiled at him. “It’s kind of a sinkhole. Not literally. It’s a sinkhole for like, morality. And money. Plus I don’t think we’ll have time for many stops. But maybe some other time?”
“Anyway,” Eda continued, “when I was talking with him, he mentioned a brother living in the woods a couple states over. He said he was thinking about visiting soon. Told me I should go up sometime, gave me a few landmarks to remember. A water tower and a wooden lumberjack were two of them.”
“Well, that’s convenient,” Luz noted. “Thanks, Eda. Collector, when do you want to leave?”
The Collector looked up at her. “You’re serious about coming?”
Luz pushed his shoulder lightly. “Yes, dummy! I wouldn’t miss this for the world. Hey, I can invite everyone else, too. We can have a whole field trip!”
The Collector stared for a moment, then broke into a small smile. “You guys are the best. Thanks for everything.”
Luz just hugged him.
Eda watched them for a moment, smiling. Then she clapped her hands. “Alright, kids! Chop chop. You gotta pack! Next stop: Gravity Falls, Oregon.”
Notes:
the beauty of mostly-canon crossovers is convenience
why are the witches in school in July, you ask? Summer classes. They're all over-achievers
or Boiling Isles college works differently idk
Chapter 3: Planes Travel Faster Than Palismen
Summary:
the Hexsquad has a hectic cross-country flight
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
It turned out, despite college and work and things, everyone was extremely down to adventure into the human realm. Gus was especially excited, but Luz could tell that all of them were. It wasn’t every day you got to go to a completely different dimension for a week. Plus, skipping school to resume the shenanigans of one’s youth was always a bonus.
They stepped out of the portal in the old cabin in the woods outside Gravesfield to birds singing and sunlight shining through trees. Luz smiled, feeling the warmth of a Connecticut summer on her face.
“Remember when we were last here?” She asked.
“Yeah,” Hunter piped up. “It was cool. It also sucked a lot, but it was fun for the most part.”
They all laughed, though it was a bit subdued. For a moment, Luz remembered watching her friends cry, grieving for the people they might have lost without even knowing. She remembered their fear. She remembered Hunter’s paranoia, and the horrible moment when it had been justified.
But, she thought, shaking her head slightly, it’s okay now. Everyone’s okay. The Boiling Isles is okay. This won’t be like last time. It’s only a short trip.
They made their way into town. When they passed by the statue of the Brothers Wittebane, they stopped so Willow could spit on Phillip (she still got angry at any mention of Belos, and that anger had only strengthened since she and Hunter started dating) and grow a vine under his nose like the world’s worst mustache. While she did so, Hunter looked up at Caleb’s statue, a thoughtful expression on his face. Luz wondered what he was thinking.
They stopped at Luz’s mom’s house to say hi to Camila and Vee. Camila gave them some snacks, and, when Luz sheepishly explained that they needed to get to Oregon pronto, sighed and went online to use the points she’d saved up in the (unlikely) event that Luz would decide to go to college in the human realm. She managed to get six relatively cheap tickets on a shitty airline—thank Titan no one was traveling right now—and sent them off with a reminder to Luz to “please let me know in advance when you want to do this kind of thing, mija.”
Luz kissed her on the cheek. “Gracias, Mami. I’ll see you when we get back, okay?”
“Mm.” Camila pretended to be annoyed for a moment longer. “Visit more often, Luz. I love you.”
“Love you too,” Luz said. She gave Vee a quick hug, then went bounding out the door after her friends.
“Why couldn’t we have taken our Palismen?” Amity asked as they walked to the bus station to hitch a ride to Bradley International Airport. “It doesn’t cost anything to fly with them.”
“Because then the trip would take four days, instead of eight hours,” Luz said. Amity stared at her. “What? The human realm is big. And planes are really fast.”
Amity looked skeptical. Luz just smiled, imagining the look on her face when the plane took off.
The bus ride was only about an hour, and the witches, specifically Gus, spent most of the time staring out the window at the scenery passing by. When they entered the city of Hartford and the skyline came into view, his eyes got impossibly wider. “This is incredible!” he exclaimed quietly. “Your buildings are all metal!”
Luz just laughed. “Yeah, that’s modernity without magic for ya.”
The airport was a hassle, mostly because five out of six people in their party had never been in one before, and Luz had only been a couple of times. Gus had to be very thoroughly convinced to put all of his metal human things in a tub for security—“you’ll get them back, I promise,” Luz reassured—and Hunter somehow set off the metal detector by virtue of being a Grimwalker, and needed to get a patdown. Then they got lost on their way to the gate, and while passing a Starbucks, Luz bumped into a guy who looked a few years older than her, with shaggy brown hair under an obviously old and threadbare trapper hat, a brown-red flannel, and a grey T-shirt. He had a brown leather duffel bag at his feet. He gave her one of those close-lipped smiles, which she returned with a quiet “sorry”, and went back to staring at his phone like it had all the answers in the universe. Which would be great, actually. Luz wished there was a device that did that. Why didn’t the Boiling Isles have that? It seemed like something a magical dimension would have. Maybe she could make one! That would be a cool senior project. She’d have to run it by Amity when she got the chance.
Finally, they made it to their gate just as it began boarding procedures. While they waited in line, Luz noticed that same guy arrive at the gate. He glanced around, clutching his duffel bag close to his chest. His eyes met hers, and he quickly looked away. Luz narrowed her eyes, immediately suspicious. Who was that guy?
But she didn’t have time to be worried, because they came up to the front of the line and Luz had to scan their boarding passes. She wrangled her friends down the walkway and onto the plane, where they all became silent, staring at the giant hunk of metal that would supposedly carry them into the air.
“You’re sure we couldn’t use our Palismen?” Amity whispered. Luz squeezed her hand.
“Trust me,” she whispered back. “It’s mostly safe up here.”
Amity shuddered. “That’s reassuring.”
Their seats were at the back of the plane, since they’d gotten their tickets so last-minute. They filed in, Gus claiming one of the window seats and Amity claiming the other. Hunter wanted an aisle seat, as did the Collector. So Luz was sandwiched between him and Amity, with Willow between the boys. Luz didn’t mind the middle seat—it wasn’t her favorite, but Amity wanted to look out the window and the Collector didn’t want to feel trapped. Or, wanted to feel as little trapped as you could on a plane.
After what felt like hours, they finally started moving. Luz closed her eyes, but opened them when she felt the Collector grab her hand. She looked over at him, seeing that childlike face looking up at her. “I’m scared,” he whispered.
She wasn’t sure if he meant about the plane or the adventure. Nevertheless, she smiled down at him. “It’ll be okay. Promise. We’re all here with you.”
He nodded, but didn’t let go of her hand.
As the plane began to speed up, Amity grabbed her other arm, clenching it so tight that Luz could feel nails digging into her skin. She chuckled a little. “Told you.”
Amity’s eyes were wide. “Humans are insane,” she breathed.
Luz wasn’t going to dispute that. “We’re not even in the air yet.”
“We’re not?” Amity looked out the window. “Oh my Titan…”
Just then, the plane lurched slightly as it lifted off the ground. Amity yelped, her grip growing impossibly tighter on Luz’s arm. The Collector’s hand clenched as well, and he sucked in a shaky breath.
The plane tilted upward, shooting into the sky. Amity grabbed the armrest with the hand that wasn’t holding Luz. Luz looked over and saw Willow, Hunter, and Gus all having a similar experience. She kind of felt bad. In hindsight, throwing a bunch of kids who’d never even seen a plane onto one with no warning was kind of a bad idea. But in her defense, they’d battled an evil witch hunter several times, and they’d all tried their hand at both grudgby and flyer derby, so Luz had assumed this would be a piece of cake.
But just as she was really starting to regret her decisions, the plane leveled out and calmed, the roar of the engine a soft noise around them.
Amity let out a breath she’d been holding. “Humans are insane,” she repeated, this time with much more conviction.
Luz laughed, a little shakily. “Well, it’s all good now. Only a couple more hours until we land.” She paused. “Oh no.”
Amity looked at her. “What?”
Luz grimaced. “It’s a connecting flight.”
There was a pause. Then, voice so low it was almost a growl, “Luz. What does that mean?”
Luz buried her head in her hands.
A few rows ahead, in an aisle seat, sat Yale student Dipper Pines. His duffel bag was tucked under the seat in front of him. He watched through the window on his aisle as they took off and began their flight, then turned away when the person sitting in that seat closed the shutter. He ended up napping for the rest of their time in the air. He wasn’t usually one to do that, but he’d barely slept for the past few days, too worried about Mabel. The sounds of the plane around him, while normally too loud to concentrate on anything, now quickly lulled him into slumber. He slept with both of his feet touching his duffel and one hand wrapped around the beaded necklace Mabel had given him when he left for the east coast.
“To remember me,” she’d said, as if he’d ever forget his best friend, his twin sister. But he understood, so he’d shrugged off the flannel he’d been wearing and gave it to her. The brightness in her smile when he’d done that was enough to rival ten suns.
Their flight landed in Denver, Colorado, with an hour layover until the next three-hour flight. Dipper wandered around, finding a sandwich shop somewhere and getting his first meal in probably eighteen hours.
The Denver airport was weird, he decided as he waited. Weird like Gravity Falls was weird. Someday in the future, he’d like to come back and investigate it. Or at least figure out why they had murals of conspiracy theories on their brand new mall-like walls.
Mabel would get a kick out of it. She’d find all the hidden details and laugh at the misshapen faces that looked totally normal until you were a few feet away. Her art student color theory and whatever could probably pick up on everything Dipper wasn’t seeing. But that’s how it always was between them. They saw the things the other didn’t. What was obvious to him wasn’t to her. It had caused a lot of fights. But it had also caused a lot of laughs.
He hoped she was alright. She’d gone to Gravity Falls for a project, and that was the last place she’d been seen, which was never a good sign. But Mabel was strong. She was smart. Maybe she wasn’t really in danger. Maybe the gnomes had tried to kidnap her again, and she’d fought her way out. Maybe she met a strange beast in the woods and befriended it. That would explain why she hadn’t called—her phone had run out of battery, and she was in the woods changing the world, so she didn’t have time to charge it.
Dipper looked down at the duffel bag between his feet, thinking of the journal inside.
“I’ll find you,” he whispered. “I promise. I will.”
Then he boarded his next flight.
He was sitting nearer to those weirdos this time, the group of teenagers who were all wearing clothing that was either literally medieval or from Hot Topic. They were weird like Gravity Falls too. Especially the kid. The one who looked nine. He was holding the hand of the girl Dipper had made uncomfortable eye contact with earlier. He was in his pajamas, even though the first flight had left Bradley at a pretty reasonable time. Something about him rubbed Dipper the wrong way. Like he was familiar, but not in a way that was pleasant.
Part of Dipper wanted to approach them. Most of him screamed to stay away. He wasn’t sure if that was rationality or social anxiety. Probably both.
Mabel would’ve already made friends with them. She was never able to resist an exciting social setting. Maybe that was why it was so hard for Dipper to make friends in college. She’d always done the heavy lifting.
Dipper sighed and rubbed his head, leaning back in his seat. He should stop thinking about this. Just…relax. Until they landed, at least. Meditate. His professors always stressed the importance of meditation in academia.
Maybe he should nap some more.
Notes:
montage chapter!!! with Dipper POV!
anyone who lives in Colorado and/or frequents the airport there you know what the paragraph about it means
also yes I KNOW "flannel i put on this morning" doesn't have the same impact as "necklace I spent hours making" but I SWEAR I HAVE A GOOD REASON
it takes a bit to explain so I won't put it here but I am thinking of making a tumblr post explaining the little bits of lore I didn't have anywhere to put in the actual fic so lmk if you want that!!! (oh also here's my tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/forgeactuallydoeswrite )
anyway hope you enjoyed!!
Chapter 4: Gravity Falls: Very Mindful, Very Demure, Very Western Small Town
Summary:
The Hexsquad arrives in Gravity Falls
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
One more terrifying take-off and two harrowing landings later, Luz and the gang stepped out of the Portland airport and directly into the cloud of exhaust blooming from a departing bus. They all gagged and coughed, though Luz took the least amount of time to get used to it.
“Titan, what is that?” Willow asked, sticking her tongue out of her mouth like she could get the gasoline taste to jump away.
“Yeah, I probably should have mentioned…most of the human realm isn’t as clean as the demon realm,” Luz replied. She opened her phone and pulled up her map. “Okay… looks like the bus takes about two hours to get to Gravity Falls. Who’s ready for more sitting?” She smiled weakly and did some jazz hands, which earned her some groans. She winced. She was definitely going to have to endear her dimension to her friends after this. Maybe they could go to Six Flags. Or, even better, somewhere with no exhaust pipes in a ten mile radius.
They bought bus tickets and waited around for the hour before it arrived. Gus wandered as far out of the airport pick-up area as he could without actually stepping into the street. Luz tried to keep an eye on him, but it was hard when she also had to make sure none of the others were getting lost either. She knew they could take care of themselves, but they were in a strange place that was so completely unlike the rest of their lives that they were bound to get turned around. And Luz didn’t want that to happen. Especially not when she was supposed to be their guide through the human realm, and she’d never been to Portland, Oregon. Or anywhere on the west coast, for that matter.
Nearby, Willow stuck her hand into a potted plant. “Oh, hello!” She said quietly. “You’re beautiful.”
The plant creaked and groaned as her power took hold, and it began to grow, branches stretching and leaves unfurling. Luz watched with a smile—she loved watching her friends’ magic at work—until the plant got a little too big for its pot, and the clay started to crack.
Hunter, who’d been watching quietly as well, placed a gentle hand on Willow’s back. Willow looked down and realized what she was doing. “Oh! Sorry.” She grinned sheepishly, nodding at a few passersby who looked at her strangely. “Forgot where I was for a second.”
“It’s okay,” Luz said, going to join her as well. She patted her friend’s arm. “We’ll be in the woods soon, and you can do as much magic as you want.”
Willow looked surprised. “There’s nature here?”
Luz frowned. “Yeah?” What would make Willow think there wasn’t?
“Hey, look! I found this thing under that bench over there,” Gus said, walking up from wherever he’d been. He was holding a grey piece of gum that was at least five years old. “Dunno what it is, but it feels weird. Also, where’s all the houses? Where do people in this city sleep?”
Oh. Right. They were in the very industrial area of a major port city. There was a whole lot of manmade things and not a lot of anything else.
“Well, that’s gum. And it’s very old so don’t eat it,” Luz said. Gus stared at the gum in fascination. “And, we have these things called apartments, where people live in very tiny areas all stacked together in a big building and they pay a lot of money for it!”
Hunter frowned. “You pay to live there?”
Luz shrugged. “Yeah, most people don’t actually own their apartment. It belongs to someone else.” She paused when she saw her friends’ deeply confused faces. “Y’know what, I’ll explain the housing market later.”
Just then, it started to drizzle. The witches jumped, before relaxing, remembering that the rain here wasn’t acid. The group hurried to get out of the rain as it got steadily stronger—not too bad, since it was the middle of summer, but still heavy compared to what they were used to.
Gus, against Luz’s advice, stuck the gum in his mouth, and immediately spat it out, gagging. “Portland sucks,” he decided as they huddled beneath a concrete awning. Willow nodded in agreement, staring sadly at the plant she’d been talking to. If Luz had to guess, she’d assume her friend was imagining it elsewhere, planted in the ground and allowed to thrive.
She made a mental note to avoid big cities on future trips to the human realm.
She glanced down at the Collector, who hadn’t left her side since Bradley. “You alright?” She asked quietly.
He looked up at her. He had a look in his eyes that painted him as depressingly mortal. He shook his head. “I can feel him.”
The creature—demon? Dorito?— from his dream. Luz looked around. “Where?”
The Collector just pointed east. “He’s far, but… he’s strong. Or—or something is.” He paused, then turned back to her. “What are we going to do?”
Luz sighed and squeezed his hand. “Let’s just get to Gravity Falls. We’ll figure it out from there.”
She didn’t want to tell him she had no idea how to face this. Because as old as he was, the Collector was still just a kid. And he was scared. She needed to be brave for him.
She just didn’t know if she could.
The bus ride was actually pretty relaxing, as Willow and Gus got to watch the industrialized, smoke-filled city of Portland give way to rolling, dense forests and sprawling farm fields. Luz was fascinated, too, especially with how the foliage around them thickened, until it was almost pitch-black past the first line of trees and she could almost imagine the secrets they held.
They stopped in a few other towns on the way, and they all marveled at the sights: old brick buildings, stone statues in grassy squares, even a couple college campuses (“The ground doesn’t eat people here!” Amity exclaimed, to which Luz laughed). The Pacific Northwest was a truly beautiful place, Luz thought. She could almost imagine living here, if she hadn’t discovered the Boiling Isles.
Finally, they passed a sign that said “Welcome to Gravity Falls!” and beneath it, weirdly, scrawling text that read “Nothing to see here, folks”. Gus pointed out the water tower and the giant lumberjack Eda had mentioned, and the Collector looked visibly relieved to see that neither were walking around.
The bus stopped in front of the Town Hall. The street was lined with shops, including a diner that advertised pineapple upside down cake and “a totally working pie stand!” Luz saw a statue of a haughty-looking guy with a cowboy hat and a flag. When she walked over to it after getting off the bus, she saw that underneath it was a plaque that read “Nathaniel Northwest—Founder of Gravity Falls”. And beneath that , in tiny, glittery pink handwriting, was a message that read “Orqj olyh Txhqwlq Wuhpeohb!” Which made no sense to Luz. She wondered how long the writing had been there.
“Okay, we’re here now,” Amity said, looking around. “This town looks cool. Pretty normal.”
“Yeah…” The Collector looked up at the blue sky. “Well, I don’t see a rip in the universe, so that’s good. Or anything too out of the ordinary.”
Luz glanced around. She didn’t see that much, except a couple of people walking around. One man had a dog on a leash that appeared to have five legs, and when it opened its mouth to pant, she thought she could see a second row of razor-sharp teeth behind the normal ones.
Which was probably fine. Come on, she’d seen way weirder things in the Boiling Isles! A mutated dog was nothing!
“What about this?” Hunter called. He was standing by a nearby bulletin board, holding a poster he’d taken down.
They all gathered around to look at it. Most of the picture was dominated by a wooden cabin surrounded by trees, with large print above it reading “Visit the Mystery Shack!” Underneath the cabin was smaller print reading, “Mysterious wonders! Ancient Relics! Reasonably Priced Merchandise!” And beneath that, in print so small that Luz had to almost touch her nose to the paper in order to read it, “This is all completely valid and real, which should be obvious because false advertising is illegal. Ha ha ha.” At the bottom of the paper was an address.
“Looks promising,” Amity said. “Where is it?”
Luz pulled out her phone to look up the address, but she had no service. She frowned, holding the phone up in the air to try and get a signal. Nothing. She looked around and called out to the nearest pedestrian, a young woman with a blonde pixie cut, a purple shirt, and skinny jeans. “Excuse me!”
The woman looked up. “What?”
Luz gave her the best winning smile she could muster. “Um, we’re looking for the Mystery Shack! Could you maybe give us directions?”
The woman looked her up and down, making Luz feel profoundly self-conscious. Finally, she clicked her tongue and drawled, “It’s at the edge of town, by the highway. You can’t miss it. I mean, you literally can’t. They put up, like, a billion signs pointing the way.”
“Thanks!” Luz waved. She looked down at her phone. Still nothing. She’d have to figure out a way to call her mom later.
She turned back to her friends. “Ready?”
They nodded, and together began to trek through town.
Notes:
Pacifica cameo!!!
I do hc that Gus hates Portland. Idk why he just does. Maybe i'm projecting (i hate portland with a passion)
Cipher under the statue: ceasar, 3 letters back
Chapter 5: I am Become Mystery Incorp--Wait That's The Wrong Franchise
Summary:
The Hexsquad takes a very real and reasonably priced tour of the Mystery Shack
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
The Mystery Shack was run by a guy who introduced himself as Soos, but told them to call him Mr. Mystery. He wore an old-timey suit and a red fez, and he was always smiling. Luz immediately liked him. He seemed like a fun guy to be around.
The tour was actually really cool, mostly because Luz couldn’t tell what was fake and what wasn’t. Usually at these kinds of places, she’d assume all of it was made up, but some of the stuff seemed weirdly plausible, or at least somewhat grounded in human realm reality. For a moment, she was pretty sure that the Sascrotch wasn’t real, but then she remembered all the wonderful, strange things she’d seen these past five years in the Boiling Isles, including a giant bat lady that adopted Palismen and a woman who was 80% nose, and decided maybe an underwear-wearing Sasquatch wasn’t all that impossible.
However, some of it she could definitely tell was a tourist grab. At one point, they passed a taxidermy platypus-cat-lizard hybrid thing, which Hunter got extremely excited about.
“These are real?” He gasped.
“Only in our lovely town, dude!” Soos replied, smiling wide. Luz, an arts-and-crafts aficionado herself, could see the seams between the animal parts, but didn’t say anything.
They ended the tour in the gift shop, where the group quickly discovered that “reasonable prices” was a total lie. The keychains alone were twenty dollars! But they looked around anyway, because Gus was fascinated by the cool human things like fake license plates and baseball hats.
While her friends looked at the merchandise and very obviously concocted a plan on how to get Luz’s “online human snails” to pay for stuff, Luz herself went over to talk to Soos.
“Excuse me,” she said.
Soos looked down. “‘Sup, dude! What can I do for you?”
Luz smiled. “Oh, I was just wondering where you found all this stuff! I love mysteries and things, y’know.”
“Oh!” Soo’s already wide grin spread further, and his eyes got an excited twinkle. “Well, it’s all from here in town. Or, well, the woods around it. Just go into the woods and you’ll find some crazy stuff. I knew some dudes who spent a whole summer discovering things. It’s pretty easy here.”
“Wow,” Luz gasped, genuinely impressed. If she’d known a place like this existed when she was a kid, she would have begged her mom to take her across the country to see it.
Just then, she felt a tug on her shirt. She looked down to see the Collector standing there, looking terrified. “I can feel him,” he whispered.
Luz turned her full attention on him. “Where?” She asked. She tried to speak quietly, but Soos had already turned away from her to talk to another customer, so she wasn’t too worried.
The Collector pointed at the vending machine in the corner. Luz frowned. “In there?”
“No,” the Collector whispered. “Behind it.”
Huh. Luz gave him a squeeze on the shoulder and got Soos’s attention again. “Um, excuse me. Sorry,” she said with a sheepish grin, “but I have one more question.”
Soos smiled. “Shoot.”
Luz pointed to the vending machine. “Does that work? I’m kinda hungry.”
“Yup! We’ve got all kinds of snacks! Some of them might be out, though…” Soos scratched his chin, staring into space. “I dunno. Feel free to check it out.”
Luz beamed. “Thank you!” Then she pulled the Collector to the side. “I’ll go see if there’s something behind the machine. You go back with the others, I’ll let you know if I find anything.”
The Collector nodded and walked back over to where Amity was admiring some of the shirts on a rack. He tapped her on the shoulder and whispered something to her, to which she nodded, glancing up at Luz and giving her a small smile. Luz returned the gesture, then walked over to the vending machine as casually as she could.
It looked pretty normal, about as dysfunctional as any vending machine would be. It was out of those mini chocolate chip cookies that tasted sort of like sandpaper, which was a little disappointing, but at least it still had the Reeses packets. Luz paid for a pack so she didn’t seem too suspicious.
She searched every corner of the box, looking for any kind of seam or weird discrepancies in the wall that would indicate a doorway of some sort. Even scratch marks on the floor would’ve been great. But she found nothing.
Beside the vending machine was a door marked Employees Only. Maybe there was a secret hallway back there that went behind the vending machine? That wasn’t completely out of left-field. Worth a shot.
Luz glanced back at Amity, who was subtly watching her while perusing the merchandise. Luz waved her hands around in a pattern that was supposed to say “cause a distraction!” She wasn’t sure if she got the message across, but Amity nodded and drew a small circle in the air with her finger. Nearby, a bit of mud seeped from in between the floorboards and pulled down a rack of postcards with a loud CRASH.
Everyone in the shop looked over, and a woman standing nearby yelped as the rack barely missed landing on her foot. Soos’s face dropped in dismay and he rushed over. “Oh, no, I’m so sorry dude. Let me clean that up…”
Sufficiently inconspicuous, Luz carefully opened the door and slipped inside.
Inside was not a dark and creepy hallway, or a secret elevator, or even a closet full of mysterious things. Instead, it was a fairly normal-looking living room. The lights were off, but there were several windows through which the daylight filtered in. An old box TV sat against one wall, a threadbare armchair across from it. There was a staircase around the corner leading up to what Luz assumed was the attic. There were pictures hanging on the walls, some depicting Soos, although many more were taken up by two identical old men and two identical kids, looking slightly older in each photo. Luz squinted—the younger boy looked familiar, but she couldn’t place where she’d seen him.
Against one wall was a circular table and some chairs, covered with papers. Luz walked over—maybe there would be a clue here as to how to get to the Cipher behind the vending machine.
Unfortunately, that’s not what she found. Instead, there were a variety of confusing things—scraps of paper with fragments of sentences written in chicken-scratch handwriting, strange symbols drawn on others, and newspaper clippings. One had a headline reading “USC GRAD STUDENT DECLARED MISSING” with a short article below it and a number to call if anyone knew anything. Another had a similar headline, with a large photo below it of a woman with layered brown hair and the most colorful sweater Luz had ever seen. It was a good sweater. Luz applauded the woman’s fashion choices.
There was also a stack of posters with the same picture on the front and a different number to call. They looked freshly-printed.
Luz turned her attention back to the scraps. She picked a few up and tried to read the handwriting, but it was truly awful, so she had a hard time of it. She was able to pick up a few words here and there— gnomes, unicorns (probably not), and skinwalkers? to name a few—but the most interesting bit was a scribble, as if someone had crossed out a word. When Luz looked closer, she could see that what had been crossed out was the same word as the one written underneath it— Bill?
That was strange. Whoever this Bill was, the person writing this had decided they weren’t a possibility for their search—then changed their mind. Luz momentarily forgot about her own mission as she considered chasing this one down. Maybe she and her friends could be local heroes, finding a missing grad student. It’d be like old times, running around the Boiling Isles and finding new and exciting things.
Of course, she was already on an adventure, helping her friend. And so far, this seemed to be unrelated to what they were doing. They wouldn’t have time to do this, too, but Luz had to admit it was intriguing. A missing woman, and symbols on a table, and a mysterious person named Bill, all in a weird town in the middle of nowhere, Oregon. Part of Luz was already making theories about it, and—
She felt a hand grab her shoulder. Immediately she spun around, grabbing the arm attached to the hand and throwing it off her body. Inside her sweater, she felt Stringbean stir, ready to protect her.
“What the—” she began, then stopped short as she saw who it was.
It was the man from the plane, the one she’d bumped into. Now that she was closer, she saw that his hair was mussed, he had bags under his eyes, and he looked extremely upset.
“What,” he snarled, “are you doing in here?”
Notes:
Yup definitely unrelated, Luz
the crossover is finally crossovering!
Chapter 6: WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN MY HOUSE?
Summary:
Dipper meets the coolest people on the Boiling Isles.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Now that Luz wasn’t so focused on the mystery on the table, she saw the front door hanging open by the stairs. The man must have come in that way, and somehow missed all the creaky floorboards. His duffel bag was sitting on the armchair. He was standing before her, fists clenched as if he intended to beat her into the floor if she didn’t say the right thing.
The problem was, Luz wasn’t sure what the right thing to say was. So she made her best guess: she stuck out her hand for a shake and smiled. “Hi! I’m Luz. What’s your name?”
The man faltered, his gaze turning confused. Then he shook his head and went right back to furious. “This is a private area, Luz. Care to explain why you’re back here alone?”
Luz put her hand down and tried to think of an excuse. “Uh…I got lost?”
He pursed his lips in a way that said seriously? “Yeah, right. I’m not an idiot. I saw you on the flight here, Luz. You and your friends took the exact same trip I did at the exact same time. Call me paranoid, but I don’t think that’s a coincidence. So what are you doing here?” He took a step closer, and she backed into the table. “What do you want from us?”
Us?
Luz frowned. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, dude. I’m here because my friend needs help with something, and this was the only place we could think of that would give us anything worthwhile. Is that good enough for you?”
The man searched her face, so she made sure to keep it open and sincere. He didn’t seem to find anything suspicious, because he sighed and said, “Fine. Dipper.”
“What?”
“That’s my name. Dipper.” He backed up and loosened his fists. He suddenly seemed very awkward. “Um. Sorry for that. It’s just, this is my great-uncle’s place. So seeing a stranger in the living room is…”
Luz nodded. “I get it. Sorry for sneaking around. Actually, since you know this place, maybe you could help me.”
Dipper looked at her a moment longer, then nodded. “Let’s just go to a place that isn’t here? Please?”
So they went back to the gift shop, which Soos had successfully cleaned up, and stood in the back by the vending machine. “So how can I help you?” Dipper asked.
“Well,” Luz looked up at the ceiling, searching for the right words. “We’re looking for someone. My friend had a…run in with him, and we think he might be here somewhere. I don’t know if you’d know who he is, but he’s kind of weird, and this town is kind of weird, and clearly you’ve been here before, so.”
Dipper’s mouth slipped into a small, wry smile. “Weird is an understatement, but yeah. Hit me. What’s this guy’s name?”
Luz grimaced. This was going to sound so stupid. “Well, we don’t know. My friend just called him the Cipher.”
Dipper’s smile dropped. That ferocity returned to his face, this time coupled with…fear?
“Which friend.” It wasn’t a question, but rather a demand.
Luz quirked an eyebrow. “Huh?”
Dipper turned his eyes on her, teeth gritted, and she felt pinned in place. “Which. Friend. Said that?”
Luz leaned away. “Dude, are you okay?”
“Luz, I swear to God,” Dipper snarled in a low voice, “tell me which friend said that name.”
Luz swallowed. “Um—over there, in the pajamas—”
Dipper was already stalking away, pushing away from her. “Wh—hey!” she exclaimed, following after him. “Dipper—”
But he’d already reached the Collector and was grabbing his shoulder. Nearby, Luz’s friends turned and immediately went into defensive positions. Amity and Willow raised their hands to cast, Gus’s earring began to glow, and Hunter’s hands curled into fists. The Collector yelped and backed up as much as he could with the tight grip on him. “Hey!”
Dipper leaned down. “Where did you hear the name Cipher?”
The Collector raised his hands. His eyes began to glow. “Let go of me!” And a punch of light and stars shot out of his palms and hit Dipper square in the chest, knocking him to the ground. The witches gathered around the Collector, staring Dipper down. At that moment, Luz reached them. She held out her hand.
“Collector,” she said, as calmly as she could, “it’s okay.”
He was breathing hard, but he took her hand and the golden light in his eyes slowly died down. “Who is that guy?” He asked.
“His name’s Dipper, he’s not here to hurt you. I think.” She glared at Dipper. “Dude, what the heck? He’s just a kid!”
Dipper stared at her, clutching at his chest. “He attacked me!”
“You grabbed him! What was that for?”
Dipper stood from where the Collector had knocked him down. “Because he knows that name.” He turned glaring eyes back on the Collector. “Do you know Bill? Are you his friend? His ally? What are you?”
The Collector shied away, almost hiding behind Luz. “I-I don’t know a Bill. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Wait. “Bill?” Luz repeated. Was that stuff on the table actually related to this? “Who’s Bill? Also, who’s that girl in the missing posters?”
Dipper glanced at her. “Why should I tell you anything? I’ve been stupid to trust you so far, apparently!”
“Dipper?” Soos’s voice cut through the tension, and they all looked up to see him standing there, a big smile on his face. “What’s up, dude! I haven’t seen you in a while.”
At this point, Luz realized that everyone in the shop was staring at them. She swallowed. “Maybe we should go somewhere private.”
Dipper looked around at the gathering crowd. “Sure,” He said, voice tight. He looked back at the Collector. “I’ve still got a lot of questions.” He paused. Then, “Hey, Soos. How’s it hanging?”
“Pretty good, man.” Soos looked like he was about to say something else, then paused. “But, uh—looks like you’re in the middle of something. I’ll talk to you later.”
He ushered the other tourists away. Dipper glanced at Luz one last time, then turned and walked to the exit. Luz and her friends followed.
Once they were outside, Dipper turned on the Collector again. “How do you know Bill?”
The Collector shook his head. “I don’t! I don’t know who you’re talking about. We’re here looking for the Cipher.”
“Yes. Bill Cipher. Yellow triangle? Likes tormenting people for fun?” Dipper waved his hands in the air. “Sound familiar?”
The Collector paused. “Yes, but—I didn’t know he called himself Bill.”
Dipper’s face somehow hardened further. “And how do you know him? What is he to you?”
The Collector’s throat worked. He glanced at Luz, then Dipper, then down at the floor. “He’s my brother,” he whispered.
The group fell into shocked silence. Even Dipper seemed to have nothing to say.
Finally, Luz found her voice again. “Why didn’t you tell us?” She asked softly.
The Collector closed his eyes. “Because I didn’t want you to think I would turn on you or something.”
“We wouldn’t have thought that,” Hunter said. “Just because someone’s family doesn’t make them your friend.”
“I know. It was dumb. I know I can trust you guys.” The Collector’s shoulders hunched, and he opened his eyes and looked up at Dipper. “Please believe me—I’m not in league with him. I actually haven’t spoken to him in billions of years.”
“Why should I believe you?” Dipper asked, but his voice was softer now. Calmer.
The Collector swallowed, but as he talked, he seemed to get more confident. He spoke strongly, firmly. Determined to make Dipper believe him. “Look, I know this looks really bad. You don’t know me, and I just called an evil triangle that probably ruined your life my brother. But I swear to you, on every star in the sky, the Ci—Bill is not my friend. I am not his. These guys are my friends.” He gestured to the witches. Willow and Amity waved. “You can trust us. We’re here to stop Bill from ending the world.”
Dipper was silent for a moment. Then he let out a breath, and Luz watched his shoulders relax. “Okay. Why haven’t you spoken with him?”
“He was banished. Long before the Titan locked me away. The others thought he was too violent. I mean,” the Collector chuckled wryly, “they were all violent, but he liked doing it. He hurt people for no reason. So they sent him to the Second Dimension to live out infinity alone.”
“But he got out,” Dipper said. “He came here. He tried to end the world, and he almost succeeded.”
The Collector frowned. “Recently?”
Dipper shrugged. “I don’t know what that means for you. It was about twelve years ago. My family stopped him.”
“Oh.” The Collector let out a breath. “Well, I had a dream about him. It looked like he’d destroyed this town. He told me he was coming back. That’s why we’re here.”
Dipper’s face fell. “No.” He sat down hard on a nearby stump. “I thought…”
“Thought what?” Willow asked.
“I thought we’d killed him,” Dipper said. He sounded horrified. “When we erased—no, he has to be dead. He has to.”
“My dreams usually aren’t wrong,” the Collector said apologetically.
Dipper let out a shaky breath. “That’s not helping.”
“Sorry.”
Luz piped up. “What does it mean if he’s not dead?”
Dipper laughed darkly. “Well, first of all, it means that we went through all of Weirdmageddon for nothing, and second of all, it means he really could be back here, and he could’ve taken my sister, which would be really bad.”
Luz decided to ignore the Weirdma–whatever he’d mentioned. That sounded too confusing to explain in less than a minute. “Your sister?”
Dipper nodded. “The missing woman you were asking about. That’s my sister Mabel. She disappeared last week when she came to visit here. I’d hoped it was something fine, like gnomes, but if it’s Bill…” he visibly shuddered.
“I’m sorry,” the Collector repeated.
Dipper only shrugged and hooked his pointer finger into the bead necklace around his neck. His gaze was blank and far away. He looked terrified.
Luz didn’t hesitate. “We’ll help you find her, “ she said.
Dipper’s head snapped up. “What?”
“Yeah, I mean, your mission is basically the same as ours, if this Bill guy really does have your sister. It’d be kind of impossible to avoid each other anyway,” she laughed. “Considering we’re on the same path for some reason.”
Dipper’s mouth quirked. “Yeah.” He sighed. “I really hope it’s not him. But if it is…”
“Then we’ll fight him,” Luz said. “You’ve done it before, and we’ve had our fair share of weirdness. It’ll be fine.” She smiled.
“I’ll tell you everything I know,” the Collector said. “If you do the same.”
Dipper looked at him for a moment, searching the childlike face. Then he nodded. “Alright.” He paused. “Uh, do you guys have anywhere to stay?”
Luz and her friends glanced at each other. “Uh…”
Notes:
kind of dialogue heavy chapter, idk if i got everything I wanted to get across but whatever
also it should be noted that I haven't read the Book of Bill (I've ordered it, it's coming soon i swear), the extent of my knowledge of Bill's backstory is the memes and fanart people are making on Tumblr, so i'm kind of making that up, sorry if it doesn't fit with canon
Chapter 7: The Weird Interdimensional Eldritch Horror is Back and Wants Revenge on the Entire World but More Specifically My Family
Summary:
The sleepover goes great and nothing bad happens to anyone
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Dipper invited them to crash at the Mystery Shack during their stay, “for maximum efficiency”, he claimed, but it kind of sounded like when Hunter first started teaming up with Luz “because I have to”. He made sure to ask his great-uncles for permission first.
His great-uncles, who turned out to be the two old men in the photos Luz had seen, had been shopping in town in preparation for Dipper’s stay. They’d been looking for Mabel as well, Dipper said, although they hadn’t gotten very far in the few days since she was declared missing.
“This is my Great-Uncle Ford,” he said, pointing at the one with slightly rounder glasses, “and this is my Grunkle Stan, founder of the Mystery Shack.” He gestured to the one with a gut and square glasses.
Luz gasped as loudly as she could, bordering on a squeal. “Stan? Like Stan Pines?”
Grunkle Stan scratched his belly. “Yeah. What about it?”
His voice was very gravelly. Luz smirked. “Were you married to a woman named Marilyn, by chance?”
Grunkle Stan’s eyes narrowed. “Who’s asking?”
“Well, it’s just that we know her, sir,” Willow said, a mischievous glint in her eye. “She loved talking about you.”
Luz giggled. Amity let out a soft gasp of laughter.
Grunkle Stan turned bright red. “Let’s stop talking about this,” he grumbled. “You guys can sleep with Dipper in the attic. We’re using the living room for the search.”
So six young adults and an interdimensional deity piled into the attic of the Shack, which was pretty comfortable, actually. There were two twin beds—Dipper took one and the Collector took the other—and Stan brought up some blankets and pillows for the rest of them to make a nest in the middle of the floor. There were fairy lights strung up and hanging from the rafters, and the walls were lined with posters and faded photos from summers past. The only iffy part about the whole thing was the window, which was triangular and had an eye shape in the middle, and it was only iffy because both Dipper and the Collector looked at it and shuddered before looking away.
While they were setting up, they exchanged stories. The witches showed Dipper their Palismen, and he gasped and stared in wonder as they crawled onto his lap and shoulders, sniffing out the new kid. He almost fell over when Stringbean shifted into a bat and then back into her signature cat-snake combo. They also told him about the Boiling Isles, Emperor Belos and Phillip Wittebane, and meeting the Collector.
“He’s really sweet,” Amity said, ruffling the Collector’s hair. He blushed and half-ducked away. “Just a little all-powerful, y’know?”
In demonstration, the Collector snapped his fingers and an entire wall turned into cotton candy. He took a bite out of it before snapping it back.
Dipper stared. “Woah. That’s sick.”
Gus poked at the chunk that was now missing from the wall. His eyebrows lifted. “Sorry for property damage, I guess.”
Dipper waved a hand. “Eh, it’s fine. This house was destroyed like five separate times when my sister and I first stayed here. It can take a beating.”
This piqued all of their interests, so Dipper took his turn and told them all about the adventures he and Mabel had starting when they were twelve and continuing through their teenage summers, discovering the secrets of Gravity Falls. When he talked about Weirdmageddon, the witches stared at him with gaping mouths.
“Wow, Collector,” Luz finally said. “You were right. That sounds scary.”
Dipper frowned. “Right about what?”
“Oh…” the Collector grinned sheepishly. “I might have thrown the Boiling Isles into a bit of an apocalypse.”
“You caused an apocalypse?”
“Yeah, but it wasn’t like yours,” Willow chimed in. “More…glittery. With lots of bright colors. And no one was really hurt. Not permanently, at least.”
It was true. The Collector hadn’t been lying when he said he hadn’t meant to cause harm. He’d just wanted to play. So did Bill Cipher, it sounded like. Except for Bill, “play” meant “physically and psychologically torture everyone in sight”.
Luz wanted to ask how they were going to stop him, but just then, the Collector yawned, releasing a soft, involuntary gust of wind as he did so. She checked her watch, which read 11:45 PM.
“Maybe we should get some rest,” she said. “We’re gonna have a long day of mystery-solving tomorrow.”
Dipper nodded. “We can compare notes in the morning,” he said to the Collector, who looked like he was about to keel over. Still, he gave a tired thumbs up.
Luz made sure the Collector was comfortable in bed before she joined the rest of her friends on the floor. “If you have another dream or you get scared, you can come sleep with us,” she told him.
The Collector smiled. “Thanks, Luz.” Then he rolled over under the covers, eyes slipping closed and breathing slowing.
Dipper turned off the lights once everyone was situated, leaving the attic pitch-black except for the moon- and starlight filtering through the window. Luz stayed awake for a while, listening to the breathing of her friends, before she followed them into sleep.
Dipper stood in a wasteland, gray and endless. There was no sun, no source of light as far as he could tell, but he could still see perfectly. A light breeze blew through, ruffling his hair and sending swirls of dust up from the rocky ground.
The landscape was cracked and craggy, pointed stones and large boulders jutting up here and there. There was no plant life of any kind, no animals. It was just Dipper, alone in the wastes. He checked his pockets, but didn’t find his journal. No clue as to where he was or what he was supposed to do.
So he began to walk.
The wasteland was endless. When he passed one rock, another appeared on the horizon. It felt like he wasn’t moving at all for a time, but no matter how far he walked, he never got tired or fatigued. He felt like he could walk forever and never reach anything. Then it began to change.
The rocks got bigger and bigger as he moved. At some point, he noticed he was walking past a huge, gaping chasm, pitch-black and seemingly endless. And he started to hear noise—familiar noise.
The arguments his parents would have almost nightly, before they finally divorced. Screaming, hateful things, sometimes about something innocuous, sometimes about himself and Mabel. They’d stayed together far too long, for the sake of their children.
The yelling wasn’t loud, but it was constant, a continuous track in the back of his mind as he walked. He wanted to make it go away, but he couldn’t. Somehow, he knew this was a place he couldn’t control. This was not his own mind at work.
Then he heard something else: talking. A conversation. Two very familiar voices, both stopping Dipper in his tracks. He peeked around a boulder and saw them.
Mabel, sitting on the ground, her back against a nearby rock. Her face was ferocious and angry. She was clean, not a scratch on her. She was alive. Dipper nearly sobbed.
But she was speaking, finishing a sentence. “...you want?”
And he heard the other voice. It laughed. It was an awful laugh, one he’d never thought he’d hear again. The last time he’d heard it, Grunkle Stan was sacrificing himself for the world.
Bill Cipher loomed over his sister, a new, glowing scar marring his body, cackling like he’d just heard the funniest joke in the world.
“Hey, that’s not fair, Shooting Star!” He cried. He made himself smaller, elbowing her like they were friends. “I just need you to help me with a little something.”
No. Dipper stumbled forward, only to duck back behind the rock when Bill’s eye glanced in his direction. Mabel—
But she scoffed. “Like I’d help you with anything.”
Bill laughed again. “Like you have a choice,” he said. “You’re not getting out of here, Shooting Star. Not unless I let you. ” His voice lowered and distorted on that last bit.
“That’s not true,” Mabel said confidently. “My family will find me.”
“Aww, that’s cute,” Bill replied. He put an arm around her shoulders. “It’s been a long time, Bell-Bell. They don’t care about you. Just like they didn’t care about me.” His scar flared and his eye narrowed. “They left us behind. It’s only natural we team up, right? Show them what we’re made of.”
Dipper stepped forward. This stupid flat triangle demon actually had the audacity to say that Dipper didn’t care about his sister? No. He wasn’t going to let Bill manipulate her like that.
Mabel, he tried to shout, Mabel, I’m here! I’m—
But no sound came out of his mouth. She didn’t react. She couldn’t hear him. No one could.
Except Bill, apparently, because he glanced over again, his eye narrowing further. He moved away from Mabel. “Sorry, Shooting Star. Gotta take care of something real quick.”
Suddenly, he was looming over Dipper, gigantic and angry.
Dipper tried to run. He couldn’t move a muscle. He was trapped, and he felt twelve years old all over again.
“Well, hey, look who it is!” Bill said. “Pine Tree, how nice of you to join!”
Dipper opened his mouth to speak, but once again, no sound came out. He settled for glaring as harshly as he could. Let her go.
Bill chuckled. “Y’know, as much as I’d love for you to stick around and watch your sister burn the world down with me, you can’t be here for this part.”
No. Dipper tried to move something, anything, even a finger or a toe, but then Bill was raising his fingers.
No!
“ See you soon, Pine Tree. ” And Bill snapped, sending Dipper shattering through the wasteland, thrown into the stratosphere and slamming back into his waking body with a cry.
Notes:
hmmmm weird dreams...interesting...
btw i'm going back to college tomorrow and things might be a little hectic while I'm moving in to my apartment so there may or may not be an update, we'll have to see :)
also also i've been watching Agatha All Along and I cannot recommend it enough especially if you like gothic witch lesbians, I haven't had this much fun watching a Marvel property in probably three years
Chapter 8: The Dorito God Wants Num Nums (the Souls of the Innocent)
Summary:
Mabel waits. Dipper shows the Hexsquad the portal.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Mabel couldn’t move. She’d been sitting against this rock for who knew how long, and her back was starting to hurt, but she had a feeling Bill wouldn’t care if she told him that. He’d probably find her stupid mortal body hilarious, to be honest.
She didn’t know how long she’d been here. Bill had said she’d been here for years, but it didn’t feel like that long. Then again, she also didn’t know where she was, and the landscape was unchanging, so who knew. She could be going crazy. That was certainly a possibility.
She still had Dipper’s flannel wrapped around her waist, a small bit of comfort in this hellhole. She looped one of the sleeves around her palm, squeezing it and pretending it was his hand.
He’ll find you, she thought, not for the first time. He always finds you. It’ll be fine.
But with every eternity that passed, that got harder and harder to believe.
“Hey-oooo!” Bill’s voice snapped her out of her thoughts, and Mabel squinted against the blinding yellow that was suddenly taking up her entire vision.
So he was done with whatever he had to take care of, then. Great.
“Right, where were we? Oh, yeah!” Bill made himself smaller again, settling next to Mabel like they were buddy-buddy. They were not buddy-buddy. “So, you thought about my proposal yet?”
“What, you take over my body and kill my whole family and then end the world?” Mabel scoffed for what felt like the millionth time. “Yeah, right.”
Bill groaned, turning upside down in the air before floating back up. “Come on, Mabel, you know that makes it sound worse than it is! All I wanna do is make those who hurt us pay for what they did. Is that so bad?”
Mabel glared at him, wishing she could sock him in the face. “They didn’t hurt me. They’re my family.”
He looked at her face for a moment, then sighed. Then, without warning, he was huge again, pinning her down with that awful, singular eye. “They don’t care about you, Mabel. They left you here, with me. Your brother’s always leaving you behind! Your great-uncle Fordsy doesn’t think you’re important, and dear old Stanley not-Tucci couldn’t care less about the rest of your little clan. Face it, Mabel. You’re alone. The only one in your corner right now is me. So take advantage, why don’t you?”
Mabel, against her will, shrunk back into the rock. “I’m not twelve anymore, Bill. None of that is true.”
He was silent for a moment. Thinking. Mabel tried to breathe. To think of Stan. Of Ford. Of Dipper. Her family, who loved her. Who’d proven that to her time and time again. What Bill was saying, it wasn’t true. Nothing he ever said was true, she knew that. She could get through this. Just keep thinking of them. Hoping for them.
“Is that why Dipper moved across the country to get away from you?”
The words were soft, and sharp, and sliced right through her skin and into her heart.
No. That wasn’t true. That’s not why he’d left. He’d gotten an opportunity, one he couldn’t pass up. That was fair. He loved her. He loved her. He…
It had always been a worry, in the back of her mind. That he’d wanted to leave her. He didn’t care enough about her to stay. And if he didn’t, then no one did. No one she loved would ever stick around. Not even her parents.
Mabel hunched into herself, curling her hands over her ears, trying not to imagine Dipper smiling, straightening his back once he was free of her. It wasn’t true, it wasn’t real, Bill never told the truth.
But what if. The worst question, because it had no answer.
She felt Bill, smaller again, pat her on the head like she was a child. “You get it now, don’t you?” He said softly, almost kindly, like he understood her. And for some reason, that didn’t feel like a lie.
She didn’t want to be understood by him, and yet she was.
Dipper will find me, won’t he?
Mabel closed her eyes and tried not to cry.
When Dipper woke up, screaming in terror, Luz and her friends were hovering over him, looking concerned. They jumped as he shot up, gasping for the breath that had been ripped from him as he’d hurtled through the cosmos. His chest felt so tight, and he pressed his hand against it, feeling his rapid heartbeat, reassuring himself it was real.
He closed his eyes, but immediately he was back in that wasteland, seeing his sister there alone, and then Bill—
His eyes flew open again and he gasped. “M—”
Luz stretched out a hand. “Hey, it’s okay. You’re okay. You’re awake.” Her voice was soft and calm, and her eyes were worried. “Dipper. Can you hear me?”
He nodded, forcing his breath to slow, and curled his knees up to his chest. “I saw her,” he whispered. “Mabel. And he was—” he stopped when he felt tears press against his eyes. “Sorry.”
“Hey, man, it’s fine,” said the one with the dreads and the earring—Gus, if Dipper remembered correctly. “Just breathe.”
So Dipper did, squeezing his hands into tight fists and counting his breaths. He had to go through several cycles before he felt calm and awake enough to speak. He inhaled once more, then told him about his dream.
“He’s in her mind. He’s trapped her there. I don’t know what he’s going to do to her,” he said. “I don’t know how much time we have.”
“He won’t kill her, if that makes you feel better,” the Collector muttered, looking away. His arms were folded over his chest. “Cipher never liked killing. He thought it was too boring.”
Dipper felt like he was going to be sick. “That doesn’t make me feel better at all, thanks.”
The Collector shot him a small, wry smile. He was weird, the weirdest out of the whole bunch. Maybe weirder than anything Dipper’d ever encountered. Functionally, he knew the Collector had the same amount of power as Bill—he’d seen and felt him in action, after all—but every time he looked at the child in starry night pajamas, with space makeup on and golden eyes set into a face still full of baby fat, his brain started to hurt.
Luz cleared her throat, and Dipper realized he’d been staring for far too long. He shook his head to clear the cobwebs and said, “Um—we should figure out how we’re going to find them.”
“Yes.” The Collector turned to face him fully. “What’s behind the vending machine?”
Dipper hesitated, trying to figure out how to explain it. Then he sighed. “It’s better if I just show you.”
The underground bunker was cold and desolate. The machines were all off, leaving an eerie, apocalyptic feeling to the whole interior. It was full of dust and debris, including the remains of the giant portal Stan had spent thirty years fixing up in the hopes that he could find his brother.
“Great-Uncle Ford destroyed it,” Dipper said as the witches looked on in awe. “He didn’t want to risk anything worse than Bill getting out.”
“Is there anything worse than Bill?” Asked the one with short black hair—Willow?
Dipper shrugged. “Don’t know. I didn’t know there was anything equal to him.” He glanced at the Collector, who was wandering through the broken bits of metal and rock littering the floor.
“So, Bill was able to get through this?” Luz asked.
“No. The portal created a rift, and Bill possessed someone to get my sister to give it to him. He broke it to get through.” He glanced up, searching for judgement in their eyes. He suddenly felt very defensive. “You have to understand—it wasn’t her fault. Actually a lot of it was mine and Ford’s. She was having a really bad day, and Bill got to her. He’s good at that.”
“We know,” said Hunter. Dipper noticed he had a lot of scars. He wondered where they’d all come from. He couldn’t have been older than twenty-one. His brown eyes were sad. “We’ve met…people like Bill. We know how they work. It wasn’t any of your faults.”
Just then, the Collector gasped. Dipper looked over to see him leap back from where he’d touched the portal. “I can feel him,” he said. “He was here. It’s very faint—it was a long time ago. But he’s definitely been here.”
The rest of them made their way over. Luz laid a hand on the Collector’s shoulder.
“That must’ve been when Great-Uncle Ford built the portal,” Dipper said. “Bill helped him, before anyone knew what he was.”
“Do you know where he went after this?” Luz asked the Collector. “Or where he is now?”
The Collector closed his eyes, standing very still. Even his breaths slowed to an almost worrying pace. Then he began to turn in a slow circle, before stopping, facing one of the walls. He pointed.
Dipper took out a small compass from his pocket. He faced the same direction as the Collector and looked at it. It was north.
“That’s the direction of the forest,” he said. “The most magical part of it, actually.”
“Sounds fitting,” Amity said. She was cool. She reminded Dipper a bit of Pacifica, confident and sure of her place in the room. Dipper knew that Mabel would immediately try to be best friends with her. “Let’s go, then.”
Luz put a hand on her hip and shot her other fist into the air. “Onwards!” She called, and for a moment Dipper saw Mabel. He let himself smile for a moment.
“Let’s go save the world,” he said. “Again.”
Notes:
MABEL POV! Girl is going through it
did I write a Dipper dialogue moment pointed specifically at the Mabel haters? idk you can't prove anything
Chapter 9: Born To Say "Fuck This Shit I'm Out", Forced to Say "I Have the Power of God and Anime on My Side"
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
The forest was almost normal in the daytime, if you ignored the odd pointed red hat sticking out of a bush or what sounded like a very burly man yelling about protein and testosterone levels in the distance.
As they walked, the group tried to figure out how to get Bill out of Mabel’s head and out of all their dimensions, once and for all.
“Last time, we had to wipe my Grunkle’s memory,” Dipper said. “I’d really like to avoid that this time around.”
“Did you do the Zodiac?” The Collector asked. He was kicking a small rock along the path, snapping his fingers and bringing it back in front of his feet any time he kicked it off course. Luz applauded this. It was always a small heartbreak when one lost the special soccer-stone.
Dipper snorted. “Yeah, we tried. Great-Uncle Ford and Grunkle Stan started fighting, and then Bill found us, so that kind of backfired.”
“What about the First Prophecy?” The Collector replied. He glanced up at Dipper, who frowned.
“The what?”
The Collector pursed his lips, appearing almost annoyed. “What, we gave mortals the Zodiac but not the important one?” He muttered. Then he sighed. “Many billions of years ago, before any conscientious mortal life forms evolved—except the stars, but they live so long they basically don’t count as mortal—one of the Archivists, the Elder, issued a prophecy. It wasn’t the actual first prophecy ever, but we called it that because it felt the most important. This was millenia before the Zodiac, by the way.
“Anyway, the Elder told it to us, and no one understood it. There was no evil then, and thus no need to stop it, and no knowledge of how to do so. We were content to play in our realms, and most of us forgot the First Prophecy.”
The Collector paused, and pulled out a tattered piece of paper from his pocket. It was old and weathered, and the letters written on it were ancient and foreign. “When I had my dream, I went to my library before I visited the Boiling Isles. I’d forgotten about it, but I needed something that I could use to stop the Cipher, and I found this. A written record of the prophecy.”
“What does it say?” Luz asked. She felt almost reverent. This was a story almost older than time.
The Collector smoothed out the paper, and after a moment, began to read. “Sword and shield go hand in hand, the one-eyed monster’s final stand. Beware, for his tyranny may yet reach far, but watch for the child with the heart of a star.”
His voice seemed to echo, and his eyes flashed with a golden light. Luz felt a brief, strong gust of wind blow around them, and all the sounds of the forest stopped, as if the entire world was listening. She shivered, and felt her friends around her tense.
After a moment, Amity spoke softly. “What does that mean?”
“Well, obviously one-eyed monster is Bill,” Dipper said. “But who’s the child it talks about?”
The Collector shrugged. “I don’t know. Like I said, there were no monsters when this was spoken. No heroes. It might not even be a literal child. The Archivists are as old as the multiverse; nearly everyone is a child to them.”
Luz elbowed him playfully. “Maybe it’s you. I mean, you’ve got the whole celestial bodies motif going on.”
The Collector smiled, but it didn’t look like he believed it. “Maybe.” Then he looked up, his face suddenly very serious. “We’re close. I can feel him.”
They began to walk faster, pushing through the greenery. At one point, Luz thought she saw a shadow in the corner of her eye, but they were going so fast that she couldn’t stop to get a better look.
Finally, they burst into a clearing, and froze at what they saw.
There was a body in the center of the clearing, nearly overgrown with grass and vines. It took Luz a moment to realize the body had the face of the missing woman in the newspaper—Dipper’s sister. It took another moment to realize she was breathing.
“Mabel!” Dipper pushed past all of them and dove towards his sister, skidding across the dirt before gently pulling her head up and laying it on his lap. She didn’t protest or even make a sound—she was perfectly still and perfectly quiet, except for the rise and fall of her chest.
The witches gathered around the twins as Dipper rocked back and forth, quietly crying into Mabel’s hair. Luz took a moment to look at her.
Her face was the spitting image of Dipper’s—same eyebrows, same mouth, same button nose. Her hair was dirty and tangled from spending who-knew-how-long sleeping on the forest floor, but Luz could tell it reached past her shoulders, and was layered in a stylishly choppy fashion. She had a brightly colored shirt on and denim shorts, as well as a green flannel that looked like it would fit Dipper wrapped around her waist. She looked surprisingly normal. Not like someone who fought a nightmare demon in her youth, or someone that same nightmare demon would want to take revenge on. Then again, Luz didn’t look like someone who’d traveled to a realm of witches and magic and fell in love there, so she couldn’t judge.
The Collector knelt on the opposite side of Mabel from Dipper, and laid a hand on her head. “He’s definitely in there,” he said.
“How do we get in?” Willow asked. “Or do we pull him out?”
“No,” Dipper growled immediately. His face was red and tear-streaked. “Don’t let him into the waking world. There’s a spell to get into someone’s mind, I just—” he pursed his lips, visibly shaking with the effort to keep the tears back. “I don’t know it.”
“I do,” the Collector said. “Everyone put a hand on Mabel.”
They obeyed. Hunter put a hand over her heart, then snatched it back, gasping. “She’s warm,” he said.
“That’s good,” Willow reassured him. “That means she’s alive.”
Hunter shook his head. “No, warmer than people usually are. Almost hot.”
The Collector experimentally put his hand where Hunter’s had been, and frowned. “You’re right. That’s weird…” he paused, eyes narrowed, then shook his head. “We’ll figure that out later. Everyone ready?”
They all nodded, and Dipper squeezed Mabel’s hand. “See you soon,” he whispered.
The Collector began to speak, eyes and hands glowing. Luz couldn’t understand the words, but Mabel’s body began to glow the same gold as the Collector’s eyes, and that light seemed to spread to each of them, enveloping them in warmth.
Then they were wrapped in it, and it pulled on them, and Luz felt lifted, carried on a wind of magic and consciousness, her body left behind as she traveled.
And then they were no longer in the clearing.
Mabel, still stuck against the rock, tired from crying and wondering and waiting, hoping to hear anything except Bill Cipher’s stupid voice and the sounds of her parents fighting, felt the whole world shake. She looked up, mouth parted in shock, and could do nothing as Bill whirled on her, suddenly bright red with anger.
He rushed toward her, and she screamed.
They were the only spot of color in a gray, craggy wasteland. The barren expanse and the pale, empty sky were so far removed from who Mabel Pines seemed to be that Luz felt a bit of whiplash for a moment.
“This is her mindscape?” She wondered aloud, her voice echoing slightly. “It seems kind of…”
“Depressing,” Gus offered.
“It really isn’t like her,” Dipper murmured, looking around. “I mean, this is where I was in my dream, but I thought it was just a product of my own mind, not hers.” He frowned at the ground.
The Collector frowned too. “You were here? In your dream?”
Dipper nodded.
“Do you usually travel to other people’s dreams?”
“No…” Dipper arched an eyebrow. “Why?”
The Collector paused. “I…I think…” he pursed his lips, visibly frustrated. “Never mind. Let’s just keep moving.”
So they did. They walked for what felt like hours, maneuvering around boulders and searching for any sign of life. They passed a chasm at one point, out of which came shouts and incomprehensible arguments.
“Our parents,” Dipper explained. “They were really unhappy with each other, and they’d fight a lot. It affected me quite a bit, but I didn’t know Mabel…” he trailed off, looking distressed. Willow, ever the empath, put a hand on his shoulder and gave him a smile.
“Hey, it’s okay,” she said. “Now you know.”
He smiled back. “Yeah.”
At some point, things other than rocks began to enter the landscape. Namely, bodies. Familiar bodies. Luz saw Soos, Stan, and Ford several times, each version of them killed in a different, terrible way. Dipper yelped when he saw his own face staring up at him, eyes glassy and skin gray with death. They saw him a lot too. There were others that Luz didn’t recognize—a woman with red hair and a blue baseball cap, a few young people that looked about Mabel and Dipper’s age, even, weirdly, a pig. All of them were dead, and very violently so.
The alive Dipper looked pale. “This can’t be what she thinks about,” he whispered. “This can’t be real.”
Luz went to walk next to him. “It’ll be okay,” she said. “We’ll find her.”
They kept walking, and slowly, the boulders got bigger, becoming closer to rock formations rising out of the ground. Dipper seemed to recognize the landscape, because he started walking faster, nearly tripping over the ever-increasing bodies in their path.
Finally, they reached a huge, towering rock spire. Dipper ran around the side and gasped. The others followed quickly behind him.
They saw Mabel there, lying against the rock. She was unconscious, head pillowed on her hands and body curled almost into a fetal position, like she was trying to keep warm. She was breathing steadily.
“Mabel,” Dipper whispered. He began to walk forward.
“Well, well, well, well, wellwellwell,” called a voice. They all whipped around and saw—well, Luz wasn’t entirely sure what it was.
It was bright yellow, and looked like that pyramid on the American dollar bill, with the eye in the middle. It was floating a few feet away, and it had no mouth, but Luz was pretty sure it was grinning.
“Hey, Pine Tree!” The triangle said, floating closer. “I was wondering when you’d get here. For real, I mean.”
Dipper clenched his fists. “Bill.”
Bill laughed. “Aw, no need to look so mad! We’re all buddies here.” His eye snapped to focus on the Collector, who shrank back. “Hey, look! It’s my little sib! Still in your PJ’s, I see. Hey, no judgement! You’re only, what, three billion years old or whatever?”
Dipper stepped forward, drawing Bill’s attention again. “Let my sister go.”
Bill hmm ’d, tapping his—chin? Bricks? The bottom bit of his body? Whatever. His eye narrowed, then widened again as he shrugged. “Yeah, sure, whatever. Go on and take her.”
Dipper paused. “I—really?”
“Yeah! It’s not like I need her for anything.”
This struck Luz as deeply suspicious, but Dipper didn’t seem to have a problem with it, because he immediately turned around and made his way over to Mabel, kneeling next to her.
“Mabel,” he murmured. “Mabel, wake up.”
He reached out to shake her.
“Wait!”
Gus grabbed his arm. Everyone turned to look at him. He looked deeply distressed, more so than Luz had seen him in years.
Dipper yanked his arm away, glaring at Gus. “What are you doing?”
“Dude, don’t touch her,” Gus said. He glanced at Bill, then back at Dipper. “Something about this isn’t right. I-I don’t think she’s real.”
Dipper stared at him, incredulous. “She’s my sister. I think I’d know if she was real.”
“And I’m telling you, she’s not.” Gus put a hand on Dipper’s shoulder. His voice was insistent. “This is my thing, man. I know an illusion when I see one.”
Luz looked around. Nothing here seemed obviously fake, especially not the very-real-looking body of a sleeping Mabel next to them, but Gus was her friend, and the smartest guy in the Boiling Isles. She stepped forward.
“He’s right. Gus is the expert. I trust him.”
Dipper looked between them, his eyes full of some unnameable emotion. He glanced at Mabel. Then his face hardened and he looked at Bill. “Where’s my sister? My real sister.”
There was a pause. Then Bill began to laugh, long and unending and cruel. He flipped upside down in the air. “Alright, the little witch got me! But, come on, you didn’t think I was just going to let you leave with her, did you?” And he snapped his fingers.
In a puff of blue smoke, the real Mabel Pines appeared. She was awake, and kneeling, hands pinned behind her back with glowing blue shackles. There was a similar one around her neck. She looked terrified. When she spoke, her voice was hoarse. “Dipper…”
“Mabel!” Dipper rushed forward, but Bill flicked his hand and he stopped in place with a grunt. “Let me go!”
“Nah, not yet,” Bill crowed. Luz blinked, and he was suddenly much bigger. “I wanna have some fun first.”
And he sent a fist crashing down on them.
Notes:
beep boop here comes the climax
Chapter 10: It's the End of the World As We Know It and I am NOT Feeling Fine
Summary:
WE FIGHT
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
The group yelped and split, diving out of the way. Luz rolled to her feet, searching for Amity in the sudden chaos. She was on the other side of Bill’s fist, already raising her hands to summon an Abomination. But when she did, nothing happened. No light, no purple flash, no movement in the ground beneath them. Amity gulped. “Uh oh.”
Next to Luz, Willow tried to conjure a plant. Nothing. “Well, that’s not good.”
Bill began to laugh. “You’re in the mind, little witches! There’s no magic here except mine!”
And he pointed at Gus, who cried out, falling to his knees. Horrified, Luz watched as his eyes began to melt out of his skull.
“Whoops! No more Mr. Illusion for you!” Bill shouted, before spinning around to pinpoint his next target.
“Oh my Titan,” Willow breathed, staring at her best friend. “What do we do?” Next to her, Hunter grabbed her hand.
Luz looked at Dipper, who hadn’t stopped staring at Mabel. His eyes were wide and his breath was fast and shallow. Luz gripped his shoulder for a moment. He blinked and glanced at her.
“Get to her,” she whispered to him, then turned back to her friends. “We do what we do best.”
And she ran forward. “Hey, Bill!”
Bill whirled to face her, bringing his eye level with her face. “Hey, a new human! Ooo, you’ve got a funky smell! Someone’s been spending too much time out of their dimension!”
Luz took her opportunity and punched him in the eyeball.
He launched backwards, covering his eye with multiple hands. “OW!”
Once he’d recovered, he glared at Luz, starting forward to place some terrible curse on her, but Willow grabbed his foot and pulled him back. “Not so fast!”
Bill snarled wordlessly, kicking her in the face and floating out of reach. “You guys are getting really annoying!”
“Good!” Amity shouted, hitting him in his back as he screamed in frustration.
Out of the corner of her eye, Luz saw Dipper making his way to Mabel. She nodded, focusing back on Bill just as Hunter sent him hurtling in her direction.
Just keep him distracted. We’ll figure out how to beat him later.
Meanwhile, Dipper ran to Mabel’s side. “Hey,” he whispered, running hands over her shoulders and cheeks, making sure she was really here this time.
Mabel smiled at him, but her lips were trembling. She looked so afraid. “Hi. Are you real?”
Dipper stopped short, meeting her terrified, hopeful gaze. “Of course I’m real, Mabel. I’m here. You would not believe what’s happened since you disappeared. Everything’s been so crazy, and Stan and Ford are worried about you, and I met some new friends, as you can probably tell—they’re really weird, you’ll love them—”
Mabel sniffed, cutting him off.. “How long has it been?”
“A week. Just a week.” Dipper began tugging at her chains, but they wouldn’t budge. He huffed in frustration. Then he remembered—this was the mind. Anything was possible in the mind. He willed the chains to disappear.
They didn’t.
Uh oh.
He thought as hard as he could about freeing his sister, of hugging her and feeling her hug him back.
Nothing.
“Mabel,” he murmured. “I can’t…”
Her eyes began to water as she stared at him, watching him falter. That tenuous hope started to fade. “Please don’t let this be a trick,” she whispered. “Please, I—Dipper, if you’re not here…”
He felt his heart begin to crack. The fact that she didn’t trust his image…how much had Bill messed with her?
He looked around, at the gray sky and the gray rocks and the chasms full of awful memories and the dead bodies. It was all so unlike Mabel, his loud, colorful, excitable sister. Surely her mind wasn’t this dark, this lonely.
He remembered what Gus had said, how something wasn’t right. Something was an illusion. Bill had done something to change reality, but this was Mabel’s mind, not his. She had control over what was real. But somehow Bill had altered it.
“Mabel,” he said, “is this your mind?”
She looked confused. “Wh—of course it is. You came here, didn’t you? Unless…”
“No, I know,” he said quickly, trying to reassure her. “I know we’re in your mind, but…surely this isn’t what you think of? You don’t think of everyone you love… y’know. H-how much of this is you, and how much is Bill? How much is he putting in here?”
Mabel looked around, her eyes lingering on the bodies nearby. “I don’t know,” she said. “It all feels real…”
Dipper placed his hands on her cheeks, gently turning her to look back at him. He knew what was going on here, and he needed to stop it. “Mabel, I need you to focus. I’m here, I’m real. I have friends who helped me get to you. Bill is trying to subdue you. He’s making you think you’re not in control, that he can master reality here. He thinks he can be more powerful than you in your own mind. I can’t break the chains. But you can. You have all the power here. You decide what happens. You are so much stronger than him. I’m here for you. Help me get you out of here.”
Mabel searched his face, eyes wide. She nodded slowly. Her fists clenched, and her shoulders tensed, and Dipper watched her pull.
It didn’t work for a moment, but Mabel kept straining, gritting her teeth, letting out a whine as she pulled, always so determined and unwilling to let go and give up, and Dipper, watching her, thought he saw something in her begin to glow—
The chains shattered.
Behind Dipper, Bill let out a roar.
Mabel gasped in a breath, looking down at her newly freed hands, bringing them up to feel her throat, now bare except for the mess of necklaces she always wore. She didn’t have much time to admire her strength, though, because suddenly, Dipper was tackling her in a hug. “I love you,” he whispered into her shoulder.
Mabel laughed, a little incredulous, a little relieved. “Now I know you’re real, ya big softie.” She put her arms around him. “I love you too.”
Dipper looked up, smiling wider than he thought he could, and saw the sky begin to turn blue. The craggy rocks around them appeared mossy and green, as if they’d always been that way. There you are.
Then Bill roared again. They whirled to look at him, and saw his red, demonic form emerge. “Alright, I’m done!” he shouted. He clenched his fist, and the witches, who up until this point had been successfully annoying him, all screamed in agony. “No more mister nice guy.”
He snapped his fingers, and the witches slammed into the ground, groaning. Luz reached for Amity with a shaky hand.
“It’s cute how a bunch of mortals always think they can defeat me,” Bill said almost casually, as if he were having a normal conversation while Dipper’s new friends writhed in pain on the ground. “I think you forgot what it’s like having an ACTUAL GOD around.”
He squeezed his fist again and Willow screamed, arching her back. Nearby, Hunter shouted in rage, but he couldn’t seem to move to her.
Dipper started to rise, a half-formed plan to get Bill’s attention and stop him echoing in his head, but then he felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned to see the Collector kneeling next to him. “I can get us out of here,” he whispered.
“Okay,” Dipper said immediately. “Do it.”
The Collector paused. “I’ll have to take everyone.”
“Okay…”
He gave Dipper a meaningful glance. “Everyone.”
Dipper went still as he realized. “No. He can’t come to the real world. You saw what he did.”
“I know,” the Collector said. “But it’ll be different this time. I’ll be there.”
“How will that help?” Dipper barely stopped himself from shouting, forcing his voice down to a whisper.
“Because I have more power in the waking world than he does. I’m not bound by your town the way he is. Plus, my friends can use their magic in the waking world. You’ll have backup. He won’t have time to ruin the world again.” The Collector took his hand. His eyes were older than Dipper had ever seen them. He was suddenly reminded that, although younger than Bill, this childlike being was older than most of the stars in the sky. “It will be okay.”
Dipper looked at him. He looked at Mabel, who was staring at this child god like he was a (friendly and not annoying) unicorn. He looked back at the Collector. “Okay. If you’re sure.”
The Collector nodded. He stood. Breathed in.
Bill noticed and turned to them. “Oh, has my little sib got a plan to save everyone? Optimistic little brat.”
The Collector raised his hands in the air. “Yes, brother. I’m giving you what you want.”
And he clapped, once, the sound reverberating like thunder.
The world exploded into white.
Notes:
uh oh bill in the real world again that will go great I'm sure
y'all i was editing the tags and have discovered there is a tag limit???? sucks I can't add more tag commentary but oh well, we're almost done anyway
Chapter 11: Starlight, Starbright, Punching a Man in the Face Tonight
Summary:
Bill gets absolutely destroyed by some kids (again)
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
They all appeared in the clearing where Mabel’s body lay. The woman in question sat up, rubbing her head before noticing she was covered in flora. She shoved it all off and stood, looking around. “Well, that was weird,” she said, her mouth quirking into a half-smile.
They all got up with her. Gus, his eyes mercifully intact, went to hug Willow, who clutched at him, crying silent tears. The other witches dusted themselves off, exchanging hugs and whispering to each other. Nearby, the Collector stood, watching them all.
Luz began to laugh incredulously.
“That was crazy,” she said, her voice carrying a hint of panic. “Wow. I was not expecting…any of that.”
At that moment, Mabel caught sight of Dipper, who was standing nearby, brushing leaves off his pants. She ran over and wrapped her arms around him in a crushing bear hug, burying her face in his shoulder. Dipper was still for a moment, eyes wide in shock, but quickly reciprocated, bringing a hand up to cradle the back of her head while the other clutched at her shirt.
The Collector smiled at the sight, but he couldn’t help the anxiety creeping through his gut. He knew this wasn’t over. He looked around, waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Sure enough, as the mortals began to heave a sigh of relief, the ground rumbled. The Collector stumbled as he felt a massive presence appear behind him.
“Well!” the Cipher said. “That was interesting.”
The Collector turned and saw him, massive and looming over them. He was so real and solid that the Collector almost forgot why he’d brought his brother with them in the first place.
Almost.
He rose into the air until he was level with Bill’s eye, glaring daggers at it.
Bill seemed to grin. “Aw, little sib. I can’t tell if you have terrible judgement or if you’re on my side.”
“Neither,” the Collector replied curtly.
Bill laughed. “So you do have a plan! Must be a pretty bad one. What makes you think you can beat me out here?”
“Because, brother,” the Collector floated closer. “Your power lies in the nightmare realm. Mine is in the real world.”
And he raised a hand, summoning the flame and heat and light of all the stars above, before sending it punching through Bill’s chest with the force of a comet.
Bill rocketed into a tree, crying out in surprise. Around the Collector, the others sprang into action. The witches summoned their Palismen, rising into the air and preparing their spells. Luz, who had no magic in the human realm, had grabbed a large, sharp stick, probably with the intent to stab Bill’s eye out. She called out to Dipper and Mabel. “Get out of here! We’ll deal with him!”
Mabel started forward, protesting. “Wait—”
Dipper grabbed her arm, trying to tug her towards the trees. “Mabel, you need to run.”
Mabel looked at him incredulously. “Dipper, you can’t fight him alone! It’s Bill. ”
“My friends will help me. We’ll be fine. You need to leave. Get to the shack. You need medical attention.” Dipper looked at her desperately. “Mabel, please.”
Mabel stared at him for a second longer. Then her expression hardened. “I’m fine.” She pulled her arm out of his grasp and continued forward.
But the witches were already battling, surrounding Bill with their magic as he yelled in frustration. But even with all his power, the thing about being real and physical was that it was much harder to focus on multiple things at once. Bill couldn’t lock onto anything other than a few of them at a time for long enough to summon his forces of weirdness. All he could control here was himself and his creations—and there weren’t many of those lying around.
Which was what the Collector had been hoping for. He flew into the fray, summoning his power and feeling it pool in his gut. He knew his eyes were glowing, he knew he was letting his eternal form slip into the real, but he was pretty sure he’d need it, before this was over.
The fight was long and exhausting. The witches fought with everything they had, boosted with the Collector’s power. At some point, the twins joined in from the ground. Dipper had copied Luz’s stick strategy and was thwacking it against Bill’s legs. Mabel was doing her best to help, but she was so very mortal, and the Collector could tell her body was failing her, too lethargic from a week spent unconscious. When Dipper tried to pull her back a second time, she relented, although reluctantly.
Their bravery was commendable. The Collector wondered if it was common in this world where magic was almost dead.
Luz screamed. The Collector whirled around. He’d been distracted for too long.
Luz fell from the sky, Stringbean unconscious beside her. They crashed to the ground with a loud thud. Luz didn’t move. Amity yelled, “no!” and shot after her. The Collector tried to make up for their absence by forming another comet to throw at Bill, but it was too late. The demon had seized the opportunity to swat the witches out of the way. He laughed and squeezed his hand into a fist. The Collector felt it clench around his chest painfully and he cried out, the starlight in his hands fizzling out. Bill made a sharp, ancient gesture, and the Collector felt his flight snatched from him like a rug from his feet. He crumpled to the ground near Luz, groaning.
Bill laughed. “Stupid Collector, always thinking you were better than the rest of us.” But he was already turning away, muttering to himself. “Now, where are the Pines twins junior?”
They were hiding behind a tree, and Bill quickly found him. One of his hands shot out and grabbed Dipper, pulling him up into the air. Mabel was dragged along with him for a few feet, until her hand slipped from his grasp. She ended up next to the Collector, struggling to her feet with her fists clenched. “No! Dipper!”
“Oh, boo hoo, poor Dipper,” Bill mocked. He brought Dipper close to his eye, glaring at him. Dipper glared right back, ever defiant.
“If you start Weirdmageddon again, we’ll just stop you again,” he promised. “You’ll never win. Not as long as the Pines family is around.”
Bill chuckled. “What makes you think I want to start Weirdmageddon again just yet? No, dear Pine Tree, I want something else now.”
Dipper’s mouth slowly closed, his brows furrowing in confusion.
“Oh yes.” Bill seemed to be enjoying this. All villains love a chance to monologue, the Collector thought bitterly, remembering Belos. “See, Pine Tree, you’re really starting to annoy me. Just like dear Fordsy. Just like stupid little Stan, who for some reason, was able to punch me OUT OF THIS WORLD!” This last part was screamed in Dipper’s face. Dipper closed his eyes and turned his face away, his whole body tensing.
Bill took a moment to calm down before continuing. “The only person in your family who has the potential to not annoy me anymore is Shooting Star down there. She is an art student, and I have been called a muse…”
Beside the Collector, Mabel growled, her eyes burning with anger. Her breath was starting to come quicker.
Bill didn’t notice. He was still focused on his prey. “Whaddya think, Pine Tree? Should I relieve your sister of the burden that is you and your whole clan? She’d be able to reach her full potential with me, y’know. Without you holding her back.”
Dipper yelled wordlessly. “Don’t touch her!”
“Aw, I’m not gonna hurt a hair on her head,” Bill promised. “But you… I think your time’s up, Dipper Pines.”
His hand began to squeeze tighter and tighter, and Dipper struggled, crying out in pain as his body was crushed.
“No.” Mabel’s voice was quiet, anger and fear warring as she took a stumbling step forward. “No!”
Bill just kept crushing.
“Stop!” Mabel took another step, her chest moving faster and faster, her heart beating harder and harder. The Collector could hear it, almost feel it thrumming in the earth. “Let him go!”
Bill finally looked at her. He began to laugh, but he stopped abruptly as he saw her.
And the Collector, who was made of the same stuff as the Cipher, who saw with the same eyes that he did, could see what Bill was seeing.
Mabel’s chest was glowing. It was radiating heat and light, incandescent and young and angry. She was burning with the flame of a thing that was so new and so ancient, destroying and remaking itself every second. And as Bill squeezed Dipper, Mabel got angrier and that light got brighter, but there was nothing to release it, nothing to channel it, she was going to burn up if she couldn’t let it go, and the Collector suddenly understood.
He reached out and grabbed her hand.
Her head flew back then, eyes wide open and back arched as he offered his power to her, gave her room in the universe to burn as bright as she could, a way to focus the thing in her chest.
He could feel it now, through this pathway between them. It burned with life and death, heat and the cold absence of matter, particles falling into each other in an infinite dance the mortals called the universe.
The child with the heart of a star. Mabel burned, and the Collector burned with her.
Bill’s grip on Dipper loosened, and Dipper fell to the ground with a yelp. They both watched as Mabel lowered her head, revealing eyes glowing a pure white, and a terrifyingly blank expression. She let go of the Collector’s hand as she stepped forward, but he could still feel the connection between them.
She pinned Bill beneath her gaze. “Get out of our world,” she said, her voice soft and inflectionless. “Don’t come back.”
Bill seemed to shrink, almost as if he were afraid. He landed on the ground. “What are you?” He demanded.
In response, Mabel clenched her hand into a fist and swung, punching directly into the center of Bill’s body. He stumbled back, letting out a pained shout. It was the first time the Collector had ever heard him make a sound like that.
“Get out,” Mabel said again. When Bill didn’t answer, she punched him again, teeth gritted in rage. He skidded back a few feet, grunting. The Collector watched as that glowing scar, that crack in his essence, began to spread.
“What are you?” Bill asked again, louder and more desperate this time.
The Collector struggled to his feet. He went to stand next to Mabel. “Don’t you remember, Cipher? The Zodiac was never the one that mattered.”
Bill was silent for a moment, eye darting between Mabel and the Collector, before he finally seemed to realize. “The First Prophecy,” he breathed. “No, but—she’s just a mortal. She’s just a puny little—no!”
“Yep,” The Collector said. He took another step forward. “Isn’t it just the worst? To be bested by a mortal?”
Mabel cocked her fist again, and this time the Collector joined her, throwing everything he had behind the hit, and together they slammed all their strength and power into Bill’s body.
That crack spread further and further, reaching beyond Bill’s form and into the very air, and the Collector could see the rip in timespace forming, and behind it the Between-Realm, that nebulous space of nothing that very few had ever experienced.
One could not destroy an Archivist, or a Creator. Creatures such as the Collector and Bill Cipher were not killable. All one could do was lock them away in a place unreachable by most means. The Collector had been put into a box for millenia. Bill had been trapped in the Second Dimension, until he made his way into the Nightmare Realm. Now, he would be trapped once more, in a place where he could have even less influence on any world.
The Collector and Mabel used the last of their strength to push Bill, screaming, through the rip, and the Collector, in one last surge, closed it, locking his brother away once more. Then he let go of Mabel’s soul.
Notes:
as promised, Mabel punching things a la Grunkle Stan
Chapter 12: (Vin Diesel Voice) It's All About Family
Summary:
The Collector explains some cosmic shit and Mabel rests
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Luz watched in disbelief as the light in Mabel’s eyes faded and she slumped to the ground, unconscious. She couldn’t believe what she’d just seen—or, well, she could believe it, because she’d seen weirder stuff in the last few years, but she couldn’t understand it. It made no sense—how could Mabel, a seemingly very normal human woman from California, pull off something like that? How was she able to take the Collector’s power, something so strong the Collector himself couldn’t always control it? What had happened, and why?
Dipper recovered from his shock and raced over to his sister, pulling her into his arms once more. Luz watched them and wondered, more questions rushing through her head. Were they truly just human? Did Dipper have the same abilities as Mabel? Who were they?
But she forgot that as she watched the Collector fall to his knees, clearly weakened from the effort of whatever he’d just done. She made her way over to him and put an arm around his shoulders. He leaned into her and closed his eyes. “Hey.”
“Hi,” she whispered. “What was that?”
He sucked in a breath and let it out slowly. “First Prophecy. She had a star inside her and it needed to get out.”
“But why?” Dipper asked. “Why was it there? I don’t understand.”
The Collector’s mouth curled into a small smile. “People in this world are special. You don’t have magic, and this town is really the only place on your plane where anything supernatural leaks through. You’re the most normal, unassuming lifeforms in the multiverse. But you’re all made of stardust. Literally. Every atom in your body came from a star. Some of you have more than others, like your sister. And stars are….they are the first life. They carry everything, every hope or dream or idea. The oldest ones know the thoughts of me and my siblings. So if someone with a lot of stardust begins to feel too bigly, or need too strongly, the star inside them will wake. Just for a moment. Just long enough to change the world.”
Hunter let out a breath. “Whoa. That’s…a lot.”
“How did you know?” Luz asked.
“I’ve been sensing it from her since we found her,” the Collector said. “The heat Hunter felt in her chest—that was the star. His Grimwalker make-up must’ve been able to sense it. She’s been calling out in her dreams too—that’s why Dipper saw into her mindscape when he was sleeping. Why I saw Weirdmageddon—those were her memories. She knew what the Cipher—Bill could do, and she used that to warn me. She’d been reaching for help, even if she didn’t know it.”
“That’s incredible,” Amity whispered. She glanced at Luz and smiled at her. “Who knew humans had all that inside them?”
Luz smiled too, but it was short-lived. “I don’t know if it’s all of us. Mabel seems pretty special. Very strong.”
Dipper snorted. “Don’t I know it.” He looked down at Mabel, softening a bit and brushing a few locks of hair out of her face. “But you said the star thing starts when the person feels too much. What was she feeling?”
The Collector’s smile widened. “She’s very protective of you. She needed to save you, even if it killed her. It might’ve, if I wasn’t here. She is strong, but she is still mortal.”
Dipper fell silent, staring at his sister, and Luz thought she could see a few tears collect in his eyes.
“Should we go back to the Shack?” She asked. “I think we all need some rest.”
Dipper nodded. He stood, trying to lift Mabel with him, but he wasn’t strong enough. Amity stepped in, summoning an Abomination from the dirt and foliage around them to pick up the sleeping human and carry her with them. Then she made her way to Luz, grabbing her hand gently.
“For the record,” the witch said with a soft smile, “I think you’re pretty strong too.”
Luz smiled back, squeezing Amity’s hand.
The walk back to the Shack was silent. Luz couldn’t stop thinking, replaying the last ten minutes in her mind over and over again, paired now with the knowledge the Collector had given them.
It was a strange thing, to think humans had this power in them. Luz wondered if it was in her. She’d traveled all the way to a different realm to discover magic, but it was weird and wonderful all at once, knowing that the things humanity called “science” might’ve been magic the whole time.
The Collector had said humans didn’t have power the way the Demon Realm did, but Luz thought that Dipper and Mabel’s bravery pretty much disproved that.
When they got to the Shack, they made their way up to the attic, where the Abomination carefully deposited Mabel onto the bed, before Amity waved a hand to send it back into the ground. Meanwhile, Dipper made Mabel comfortable, covering her with the comforter and making sure her pillow was fluffy. Then he pulled a chair over to the bed and sat, holding her hand. He didn’t look inclined to move, so Luz quietly shooed everyone out of the room and closed the door gently.
“Let’s give them some time,” she said.
Mabel slept for three days straight, and Dipper never left her side. The Collector rested as well, although he appeared to bounce back much easier from the insane cosmic power exchange he had with Mabel. Luz and the others spent the time exploring the Shack and talking to Stan and Ford, who were eager to hear tales of the Boiling Isles (Ford was especially pleased to hear that giraffes were actually very powerful and very terrifying demons who’d been banished— “I knew there was something weird about them, but no one ever believed me!”, he’d exclaimed). The witches showed them some magic, and in return, the Pines showed them some normal, and not-so-normal, human things—Gus was especially excited about this. Luz became positive she’d have to drag him kicking and screaming through the portal back home once he discovered the wonders of those rubber dinosaur thingies that get bigger in water.
Luz would bring Dipper meals, since he refused to leave the attic until Mabel woke up. Sometimes, before she knocked on the door, she’d hear him whispering, his voice desperate and pleading. She’d hear him begging, telling Mabel that it was okay and she could come back now, that she’d saved the world and she didn’t have to hide. That he was here, waiting.
Luz didn’t understand many of the things he said, but it wasn’t meant for her ears. So, although she was absolutely curious, she never asked, instead making her presence known quickly, and leaving just as fast after she gave him a plate of food.
So the days went, more interesting and fun than Luz had expected. It turned out that Gravity Falls was a wonderful place to spend a summer. Even the weirdness added to the overall vibe, the feeling so similar to the Boiling Isles that Gus even started brainstorming an exchange program between the University of Wild Magic’s Humanities Department and the town.
Luz knew that time was passing, but it had that strange summer quality to it that felt like everything was still, suspended in the moment, until suddenly it was over.
And so it was the day that Mabel woke up.
She awoke to sunlight, and birds chirping outside, and soft snoring in her ear. Familiar snoring. She looked around.
She was in the attic of the Shack, tucked under an old, worn soft comforter, in a bed she hadn’t used in a very long time. The fairy lights were still strung across the ceiling, her old posters and photos hung on the walls. She was still wearing the clothes she’d been in the day she’d fallen asleep in the woods, but her shoes had been taken off and placed on the floor. She felt a pressure on her hand and looked down.
Dipper was there, sitting in a chair next to the bed, his head pillowed on one arm as he slept, his other hand holding hers. He looked peaceful, except for the fact that he was much taller than the bed, so his entire upper body was bent at what looked like a very uncomfortable angle in order for his head to reach the mattress.
It looked like he hadn’t left her side since they’d gotten there.
Mabel smiled, just staring at him. It was real. This was real. He was real.
She moved her arm a little, jostling his. “Hey,” she whispered. “Dippin Dots.”
He stirred, grumbling a bit, as he always did when woken up. His hand tightened on hers slightly, then he lifted his head and blinked his eyes open. It took him a moment to focus on her, but when he did, he went still. “Mabel.”
She gave him a grin. “Hi.”
And then he was hugging her, tight and fierce, body half bent over the bed to reach around her, and she could feel him trembling like he was afraid to let go.
“I was so worried,” he breathed. “W-when you didn’t call, and then when they declared you missing, and then when we were in your mind and—I’m so sorry I wasn’t here sooner, Mabel, I’m so sorry—”
“Shh,” she said, pushing him on the shoulder until he loosened his grip on her, pulling back to look her in the eyes. “It’s okay, Dipper. I’m okay. I promise.”
He sniffed, eyes welling with tears. “I love you, okay? All that stuff Bill said to you—none of it was true. You’re my sister. I will always look for you.”
Mabel felt tears pricking at her own eyes, and she gave him a wide, trembling smile, squeezing his hand. “I know. I love you too.” She paused, then let go of his hand so she could punch him lightly in the shoulder. “You got any grub around here? I haven’t eaten in a week and I am feeling it. ”
He laughed, helping her sit up. “Let’s see what we can find.”
Notes:
we're almost done! Just an epilogue left, which might take a bit because I haven't actually written it yet lol
as you can see, a lot of this AU is based on the fact that we are made of stardust, which is so cool??? why does no one talk about that more??? that's like the most magical scientific fact we've got
hope you've enjoyed the journey so far!
Chapter 13: All's Well That Ends Weird
Summary:
The Hexsquad says goodbye.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
It took Mabel and the Collector another day or so to get back on their feet, but at least the former was awake now. She properly met the witches and, as Dipper had suspected, instantly became friends with all of them, demanding to get magic lessons and asking all the questions she could. The witches, for their part, asked her about Gravity Falls, and human college, and strange things in the woods, and had she known about the star inside her soul?
She hadn’t, she said. But she glanced at Dipper. “All I cared about was you.”
He smiled, hooking a finger around the necklace she’d given him, and taking her hand with his other.
The witches hung around for a few more days, until the Collector was stable enough to make the trip back to the east coast. They busied themselves with exploring, asking the twins to take them to all the best haunts. They obliged, showing the witches the abandoned convenience store, the hidden rooms in the Shack that used to contain all manner of experiments and horrors, including murderous wax statues and an electron-switching rug (all the remaining experiments that hadn’t been destroyed that first summer were safely removed by Great-Uncle Ford, but Dipper explained, with a sly smile, that he and Mabel spent the next three summers or so trying to find them), and even the areas the gnomes in the woods liked to inhabit. The gnomes did try to kidnap Willow, because a plant witch would apparently make a better queen than “that rude art student that keeps bothering us”, but Hunter got in front of her, sneering as if he really wanted them to try. Then Willow herself blasted them back with a wave of vines and dirt, and they stopped trying.
Mabel was disappointed to discover that she could not learn that kind of magic, but Luz reassured her by showing her the glyphs she used in the Boiling Isles, saying that if the twins ever visited, Mabel would be able to use them.
“King—the new Titan and source of magic there—isn’t powerful enough yet for them to do much, but he’s getting there, and we’re learning together!” She said with a grin. “So I can teach you everything I know, and we can figure out what combinations we can make!”
Mabel beamed. “I’d love that.”
They exchanged phone numbers, and Gus promised to pitch the exchange program to Eda when they got back.
Too soon, it was time for the Hexsquad to leave. They packed their bags and cleared out of the attic. Dipper and Mabel gave them some snacks that had possibly been stolen from Stan’s stash, and Soos gave them some free merchandise after making them promise to spread the word about the Mystery Shack everywhere they went. They agreed, enthusiastically—those slap bands were priceless.
As they were getting ready to leave and catch the bus, Stan came up to Luz, coughing like he had a hairball in his throat. “Uh—child. Witch kid. Uh. Normal human? What’s your name?”
Luz sighed a little. This was, like, the third time she’d told him. “It’s Luz.”
“Right, right. Ahem. Anyway. Can you…do me a favor?”
Luz frowned. Stan didn’t seem like the type to ask for favors. She had a feeling she’d be paying for this later. Still, she was Luz Noceda, and she was never one to pass up a chance to help someone. “What is it?”
Stan shuffled in place. He seemed really nervous. There was sweat coming from his brow. “Um—can you…” He lowered his voice, leaning closer to her. “Can you tell Eda hi for me?”
Luz froze—that had not been what she was expecting.
Then she smiled, slow and wide. “I sure can, Mr. Pines.”
“Yup, cool.” Stan backed up, glancing around furtively. “Uh. Thanks, kid.” He shuffled away, his ears bright red.
Dipper made his way over, frowning. “What was that about?”
“Oh, nothing,” Luz said, still smiling. “I’ve just got a lot of stories to tell Eda.”
Dipper seemed to catch her drift. He snickered. “He’ll never hear the end of it, I’ll make sure.” Then he walked over to his sister, tapping her on the shoulder and whispering in her ear. She started to grin, giggling and biting her lip like she was trying to keep quiet.
Luz watched them with a soft smile. She knew they’d only been here for about a week, but it felt like an eternity. She was really going to miss the Pines family.
She felt a tug, and looked over to see Amity standing there, lacing their hands together. “Are you ready?” She asked.
Luz took a moment, looking around the cabin, freshly cleaned out of the search for Mabel, full of the Hexsquad and their new friends and their luggage. Mabel was giving Gus a bunch of knickknacks to show his class back home. Dipper was talking to Hunter about their shared love of Cosmic Frontier while Willow looked on with a smile. The Collector was making Soos a sparkly, starry statuette to display in the gift shop. They all seemed happy. Safe. The world wasn’t ending. It was sunny. Summer wasn’t even halfway done.
Luz squeezed Amity’s hand. “Yeah. I’m ready.”
And then the bus was there, and hugs were exchanged, along with promises from both sides to visit both the Boiling Isles and Gravity Falls. Luz left a stack of sticky notes with glyphs drawn on them for Mabel to study until she could make the trip over. Then she clambered on the bus with the rest of their friends. As it pulled out, the Hexsquad waved to the Pines family outside, until they weren’t in sight anymore.
Luz turned her attention to the trees then, watching them speed by. The woods were pitch black behind that first line of foliage, even in broad daylight. There were so many secrets here. Luz wanted to count them all.
At some point, the Collector came over and gave her a hug. “I liked it too,” he said quietly.
Luz squeezed his shoulders. “It felt a lot like home.”
“It’s raw,” he said. “It’s like…no one curated what came through here. Usually the Archivists try to control what gets created, but not here. No one was here to stifle anything. It’s all natural, random. I like it.”
“Huh.” Luz watched the trees, looking for eyes glowing in the dark. The Collector watched too, tucked into her side so he could look out the window with her.
“We’ll come back someday,” the Collector murmured. “I know it.”
Luz smiled. “Yeah.”
They passed the water tower, and she thought she saw something crouching at the top, watching them leave.
And Gravity Falls wished them goodbye, hoping to see them again soon.
Notes:
and that's it! I hope you guys enjoyed, and sorry for taking so long on the epilogue lol, I just had my first week of school and it's been HECTIC
anyway I had fun writing this, and I hope you guys had just as much fun reading it! Stay weird <3
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