run:gifocalypse
Chapter 1: Game On
Beginning AN:
I'd just like to say that this isn't intended as a fix fic or anything like that. This is just a little over-the-top romp and not intended to "replace" or "outdo" anything canon has. In fact, I'd be disappointed if the show had gone in a direction remotely like this. I liked its character development and how it brings itself down to Earth so well, and I would not have liked to see it sacrificed just for the sake of being "epic." (Before anyone asks, I think Weirdmageddon did a great job at avoiding that.) That being said, it will take itself pretty seriously (but it's honestly still more immature than canon is, I'll admit that right now), so don't expect a huge jokefest that spams memes.
I originally had a longer AN detailing how this story began, but... call it selfish, I don't feel that beginning with a massive essay makes for the best first impression. Wait until chapter 13, I'll move it to the final closing notes there. After all, I think that including some inspirations and the like might give away a good chunk of the story anyway. Also, it helps sort of throw readers into this 'blind' I think. For this fic, I feel like, especially earlier on, the less you know about it going in, the better. (Then again, that applies to almost all stories. Except the ones that have some sort of deal-breaking ending, but... I'm getting off topic here.)
Yes, her name is officially written as .GIFfany.
New rule: If I write a fan fic based on something that is ongoing and has an arc, the latest I'll have it set is likely (unless, of course, it's an alternate universe from the get-go with the change centered around a particular epsiode) the latest episode that aired as of the time I began the fic unless there's some big canon-changing reveal that happened which would make the events as they stand incorrect. Thus, this story takes place after "The Last Mabelcorn" and is a divergence AU from that, but everything else from the end of said episode and earlier happened the same as it did canonically. Well, almost everything else. There's at least one key detail (and this detail you'll find on this very chapter) that's a bit different. The reason for this rule being is because I don't want to keep updating the status of the main characters in case something happens to them. The reason for the difference is that the central plot as it stands would otherwise be impossible.
As the summary implies, this is mainly rated T for nudity. It's also given that rating for some... spoiler-y content in the "endgame." You'll know when you reach that point.
Gideon.
This was among one of two names that echoed through the girl's mind. The first thought she had after waking up within the forest.
Memories were far and few in between. She generally knew about the essentials of living, and maybe what a forest was, and that civilization existed, but other than that her mind was fried. She didn't know her name, any other people, her appearance was alien to her - and seemed even worse off when she looked into a lake.
Hrm. That's alarming. She even thought this was just distortions in the water's ripples at first. But there's no denying that the unnaturally polygonal "jitters" along her skin, some surfaces even having what looked like images of static among them, was just an illusion. A better look down through her white and blue uniform (uniform for what?) revealed what looked like certain parts of her being made out of green wireframe. Everything was still roughly solid as it should be - even the wireframe parts had invisible something to them - but the polygon-like distortions and the static surfaces and the like just did not feel right when touched.
Trying to ignore all of this, she studied her own appearance. Pink hair. Eyes that match it. There was something... unusual about that, wasn't there? Aformentioned uniform... glitchy appearance... but otherwise looked normal. Three-dimensional. Not made of pixels, which was important for some reason.
A stomach rumble confirmed that she still - or now? had human needs, despite the glitchy appearance. This marked her aimless trek for survival, trying to keep those two names in her head to see if they can lead to more memories. Apart from aformentioned Gideon, which brought her a sense of hostility, there was also Soos, which... didn't.
"And Ford said he didn't write them!" Dipper finished his explanation.
'Them' referred to a series of equations scratched along the tree bark of the Gravity Falls woods. Lengthy. Looking to be code-related. His audience, right now composed of just Mabel, nodded.
"So, if we follow these, we might find another genius who can-"
He was cut off when he heard Mabel scream. And, when Dipper turned that way, he screamed too. Causing the cause of their scream to scream back.
It was her again.
Given a full, 3D body of flesh and not pixels that was somehow a little... deformed and glitchy for the wear, but it was still her. That dating sim monster that stalked Soos. What was her name? Soos mentioned it, like, twice or something to them?
"Sorry..." Mabel said, instantly freezing Dipper in confusion. "It's just that you look kind of..."
"Yes. Inhuman." .GIFfany sighed.
"What?" Asked Dipper, "You don't have to apologise, and she looks inhuman for a reason! That's the dating sim monster! The one that stalked Soos? That tried to kill us? Remember?"
"You know a Soos?" She asked quietly. Too quietly for either of them to pick up, based on what Mabel said next.
"Maybe, but how would you know for sure? Pink hair and contacts are all the rage these days. There's hundreds of girls that looked like her, you can't just call them the same person! I'm gonna ask her: Are you that evil AI that tried to kill us?"
"I do not know who I am..." was .GIFfany's reply. "But I do find the names 'Soos' and 'Gideon' familiar. You know a Soos, do you know-"
"Gideon?" Dipper nearly fell backwards. "No. No no no no no this is even worse than I thought she's gonna kill us I can't do a thing to stop her Mabel we need to leave."
"No! Come on Dipper, let's give her a chance! So, what are you like?"
.GIFfany sat on one of the logs and sighed. "I don't know. I don't even know anything about Gideon other than his name. And that I hate him."
Mabel lept up and pointed straight to the ex-AI's face. "See, look! That's one thing we have in common! We're already off on a great start. I can see you becoming a new best friend."
Dipper, meanwhile, was repeatedly making a hand-cut-neck motion.
"Let's start by making you up! Do you even know why you look like something out of a broken TV screen?"
"No... maybe I can get my memories back!"
Dipper flipped through Journal 3, finding almost nothing of the sort. "Well... since you're not gonna drop this... I guess we could see if the Society of the Blind Eye somehow- no. That can't be right. Unless you came to life-"
Mabel already had a newspaper photo of Gideon held out in front of .GIFfany's face. The schoolgirl's head tilted to the side.
"I still barely remember him. Maybe... he wanted... to bring me to life? But why would he have interest in that..."
"Okay, we have more than enough proof now." Dipper shook his head. "Gideon made a deal with her, crazy stalker team-up, this is bad."
Mabel gave a sigh, carefully grabbed the glitch-student's hand, and made their way through the forest. "Give her one chance Dipper! Just one! Maybe she changed! Oh, and what if she's the one who wrote in all those equations! She could be really smart!"
.GIFfany sighed again. "...I did scratch what I could remember on the bark."
Dipper finally sighed in defeat. "One chance. That's all she gets, one chance."
"...You think you can squeeze in two? This looks like a huge spill to mop."
"That depends on how bad she blows the first one."
"So this is your town?" .GIFfany asked as soon as something other than the labyrinth of trees became visible. "It still does not look familiar to me."
"We'll get your memories back," Mabel re-assured. "I promise."
They weren't far from the Mystery Shack - the twins kept close to it to be safe. Dipper, at least, figured that it was better that .GIFfany came here while having a close eye kept on her than having that glitchy horror just stumble into the town by herself. Probably still confused. But there's still no reason to think that this isn't an act. While it was their destination through the woods, they still had to take a few delaying twists and turns to procrastinate her knowing about their living location for the entire summer.
"But first! We should fix you up! I think I saw a spell in one of the journals... I just have to..."
And there went Journal #2, pages flying through Mabel's hands at record speed. "Also, we should try to hide you. Ever since we got rid of the Society of the Blind Eye and their mind-wiping the whole town, secrets have been spreading a lot faster."
"Wait a minute..." Dipper whipped out his own journal to look. "Do you find the Blind Eye familiar? At all?"
"No." Was the flat reply .GIFfany gave.
"What about this ray gun?"
A Blind Eye Gun. This seemed... odd to her. She needed to inspect it-
Dipper took the ray gun from her hands. "Let's not trust you around... any electronic for now." He said, holding the gun behind his back. Mabel nodded in agreement. "Right now, just tell us what you recall from that."
"Someone shot me with that. Someone... who looked like a little kid. With white ha- that same boy you showed me! He said I betrayed him!"
...Don't know if that should be a good sign or not. Dipper thought.
"Yes. I am recalling it." She put a hand to her chin to think. "...He wanted to team up with me. He brought me into the real world. I was not... I didn't look like this at first. But then he disfigured me. Attempted to re-pixelate me and put me into a video game again. As a way of sealing me. He failed and that... left me out here."
"Really?" Mabel began moving to her side to comfort her, "Alone, with no way to defend yourself-"
.GIFfany shot a streak of lightning at a bird, watching the roasted avian drop to the ground as a result.
"Okay, you can defend yourself, but you were still alone."
"Yes. Alone. The thought of that always troubled me."
Still no sign of any on-lookers. Not that they would even care to notice the strange pink-haired glitch girl standing around. First of all, dyeing was a popular thing. She wouldn't even be the only pink-haired girl in town. And second, the Blind Eye Gun's effects were still on their way of wearing out, the two may still have a few hiccups to get through.
The simulated 'ideal girlfriend' looked back at the gun for a split second - Dipper still kept it behind his back and glared back at her. Sparks briefly danced around her hand.
"You lived in-"
"WOAH SHE KNOWS THE MYSTERY SHACK!" Dipper almost lept back. "We never told her about where we lived! Even when she was just a video game, this is bad-"
"...A place that could contain answers. Yes, this I... uh... remembered. I want to know if I could stay there... maybe..."
"Out of the question!" Both twins answered, Mabel with far more concern than Dipper. Both twins leaned towards another, nearly-whispering.
"Well, we shouldn't leave her out in the open alone..."
"Okay, fine. We'll give her some place to stay."
"What about Ford's bunker? If you still hate her so much, think of it this way: If she doesn't kill the Shape Shifter, the Shape Shifter can kill her!"
"What?" Asked .GIFfany.
"We found a bunker in the woods." Mabel explained, silently praying that she didn't have some kind of super-hearing. "It has lots of supplies and... well, we thiiiiink..."
Dipper was starting to nod.
He and Mabel both pushed .GIFfany into the bushes when the last person they wanted to see walked out of the shack: Soos.
"Hey dudes, any of you ever got the strangest feeling that something bad from your past came up again, and it was like, hiding out behind you right now? Maybe under your nose, or... well, for me it's more like, becide your nose?"
"Oh, that..." Mabel gave a light foot-nudge to try to hide the ex-virtual girl further in the brush. "I get that feeling all the time. It's the town, it really does that to you."
"Yeah, I know, I get it a lot. But there's just something about this time. Like there's something right behind- WOAH WATCH OUT!"
Both twins sighed when it became obvious that he saw part of that large mass of pink hair sticking from the brush. Thinking quick, Soos moved the twins behind him and parted the shrubbery wide open. And, expected, reacted in horror at what he saw.
"Oh man, it's you! ...I forgot your name. I think it started with a J? What happened to you anyway, I thought you died and now you're back and you're alive and look all... well, like what would happen if you brought something from a broken TV to life. Also, should I still be terrified of you?"
"My name..." she planted a hand on her forehead. "Yes, you thought it had a 'J' sound. But it didn't. I remember that. I remember just a little more right now..."
"Liiiiike...?" Dipper attempted to probe.
"You three are all good people." She immediately put her hand to her chin after saying that.
"Welp, I'm convinced that she's on a track to redemption!" Soos proclaimed, "Now, about fixing you. I've never really tried to fix a person before, and if we're gonna patch you up, we need to know what broke you down."
"...We?" Dipper asked.
"Well yeah. If there's anything wrong with this -whether we can even trust... Jiffany or not-"
"I remember now. My real name was .GIFfany. No... it is .GIFfany."
She stood up. "I want that ray gun. Now."
All three of them already figured that this may be a losing battle. The least Dipper could do was to try to be convincing. Nervously, he began laughing as all three humans started taking steps back. "Well... ever heard of, um, things that are best left unknown? Yeah, like um... whatever Gideon did to you! Heh heh, keep calm, we'll figure it out eventually..."
"He brought my disc back with a resurrection spell."
Gideon gave another look at his 'cat poster.' Or, more obviously, X-raying the poster itself to see his unfinished Bill drawing.
"Not yet. I snuck out one last page, one last spell to help me out."
"He said that the spell would only work with those who shared a motive. Troubled souls. Luckily for him, it also opened up a guide on spirits. You did not kill that many of your enemies, but destroying my body counted as leaving me as a soul. And I was the only one who still seeked a goal, leaving me troubled." .GIFfany explained to the trio.
The scratch marks were made on the floor. Evenly, equidistant. He concentrated. The library of souls bearing ill will against the Pines were made available, and he had to browse through the still-standing to find someone he wanted. It came to him. The hazy image of a being of pixels. A blurry fighting arena background, barely fading in and out of existence. He could speak.
"Are you willing to help me fight the Pines family?"
The... Pines? She didn't seem to speak, at least not in the traditional sense. Thoughts entered his head directly, but they weren't his thoughts.
"Oh yeah! You know them? Dipper Pines. Mabel Pines. Stanford Pines! All of them bested me, and they're claiming the power I wanted! Now I'm trapped here! Tell me, ghost, is the afterlife a state of being trapped?"
I am not dead. I have tried settling a new existence in the game Fight Fighters. I think the main character might be good new boyfriend material, but I do not think I can make the switch so easily... as I dift away from my last love, longer and longer...
"Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. Forget that guy. Your last love? I think we can work on something here."
His name is Soos.
"That oversized goph- wait... wait! WAIT!" Gideon laughed. "Perfect! We both have someone from the Shack we want to claim our own! Now, let's build on that..."
"Gideon seemed like the perfect revenge partner." The sim drew a breath in. "But that was at a time when I still wanted all of you dead. He gave me a second chance. He and I had common motives. Common targets. He saved me from being unable to fully move again, I naturally felt like I should have saved him."
The process took time, but it was quiet. Just what he needed. She started as code, floating in through the air from clear-across town. Slowly, something solid began regenerating, mass forming from nothing. A... purple disc with a title? Already Gideon slammed a fist on the concrete floor. As the disc dropped down he made sure to catch it and not keep his eye on the code beoming more detailed. Forming a green outline against black. A wireframe. Then, a screen of pixels.
The split-second after the process was completed, she turned into a single flick of lightning and bolted to the disc itself. Gideon stared at it.
"That was worthless! How am I supposed to break out of prison using this?"
Good thing the game itself also had supernatural durability, otherwise .GIFfany would not have survived getting thrown near the wall. By the security cam. It took quite a bit of energy to make a jump so soon, made harder by the feeling of just coming back to a more familiar state of life, but she pulled it off. Gideon's following tantrum was interrupted when the lens shot a straight, solid laser at the wall, busting it open.
"Was that you?"
"Hello." The same female voice came from the camera. "Sorry I was unable to return the favor or speak properly. Normally, I only work in electronics. If you bring me an electronic, I can follow you."
"So it was on. He had a small, metal shell constructed for me. According to him, he was going to make a tiny version of a robot he used before as a last-ditch effort, a suit of armor. That counted as an electronic thanks to its power supply. With that, we were a team-"
"Wait. Why wasn't Gideon's break out mentioned on the news?" Mabel asked.
"He placed a decoy in there. I think that you were absent by the time this would have been picked up on the news."
"Knowing what kind of people are in this town... I think he still has time." Remarked Dipper.
"Gideon, at the time, lived up to his potential as the perfect revenge ally. Together, we seemed to be heading towards a single goal. He lived up to his promise. But it ended when it came to discussing how we would attack the shack."
The boy seethed. "You're tryin' to tell me that you want to that guy unharmed?"
"He was part of our agreement. You also wanted to keep the female tiny one unharmed."
"Well, I'm sorry if my plan can't garuntee that Soos won't make it out of there alive! Does it matter? Can't you download him into your game or something?"
"Th-th-that is. Irrelevant." She faced him even within this bot. A few tubes of metal resembling legs, some wires into weak arms, and a small and worn television screen that functioned as the main 'body.' It wasn't the most effective electronic out there, but it was sturdy. After all, they just got in a 'safe' enough distance from the prison, it was sort of a last-minute piece-together.
"You take his mind off with you in your pixel land, I wouldn't mind finishing off the rest!"
"Was murder even part of our plan? You stated that you just wanted the Shack."
"No! I was just saying, if it ever comes down to it, I'll be ready to make drastic moves. My last plan had to resort to fireworks to put my dad in mayordom, trapping the twins and leaving the town to mine!"
"Did you succeed in that goal?"
"...No, no. Stan and birdseed got in the way."
"But you tried it."
"I did, and I won't lie about it."
"...Good to know."
"He thought he should start by building a better body for me. It is here that I mention something that I heard from the whispering souls of the Afterlife, a brief flicker as I was nearest to my death. Just before I could make the jump, and something that was burned into my mind before we found it. The location of a book, much like your journals. Only darker in nature. Among its listings was a more complete spell. A permanent body. Where I would no longer rely on a fragile disc to keep myself alive."
"Did it work?" Asked Soos.
"...This was where this body came from. Gideon did it reluctantly, since he was still under suspicion. But it did not look distorted. That came after our final disagreement. Which happened only two hours ago. Based on your watch and his at the time."
An encounter by a cliff's edge. Yeah, never a good sign. There Gideon was, armed with a Blind Eye Gun and some kind of device that looked like a ribbon cable.
"The spell may be complete, but you're still part AI you know! That was your side of the agreement, that you kept your powers! And with this... chip... processor or something, I could just as easily still reverse it! You will be back in a single, thin circle that I can snap in half, while I'll call up my prison inmates for an army! A much better army!"
"...You wanted an army?" She asked, much more flatly and stoic that she should have been. "Then get... more copies of my game. Repeat the same spell."
"Why should I? You're already planning on betraying me! More of you wouldn't help my case at all, would it?"
"It... could..."
"If I wanted sparkly lights and barking toy dogs, I could build them myself! You served your end of the deal, I served mine, and now you want to betray me?"
"It isn't betrayal! It's suggestion! Let. Me. Tell. YOU!"
"Too late! Game over, .GIFfany!"
'Game over...' that definitely got a cringe out of her. But she had other priorities, like dodging that beam he was about to fire. And copies... needed more copies.
The jump away could have been pulled off a lot better, but that's one of the quirks in having a not-video game like physical form and only having about an hour tops to get used to it. .GIFfany lept off at just the wrong enough angle to still get hit in the leg, and to be sent tumbling from a cliff.
And this where the distortion comes in. The laser beam absolutely glitched up her foot - must be the 'reversal spell' (or the undoing spell?) he was talking about earlier. It freaked out, turning through pixels and flesh, and the tumble somehow got that jumbled around the rest of her being. Sparks, static, and oddly 'normal' blood flew out all on her way to hitting the treetops, until the branches and vines gave her a more welcome ride than just crashing on the ground.
'Thank goodness' she still had, you know, some sort of supernatural resistance. That fall would have left an ordinary person in a pile of blood and broken parts.
"This is how I came here. Oh. He used one of those guns to wipe my memory too, I believe. I was only able to recover thanks to my part supernatural abilities, which I refused to have taken away from me."
Dipper nodded. "Well, that does sound like Gideon. But how did he get the- oh, right. His dad was part of the Society. That might have something to do with it."
.GIFfany took another breath in, retreating her arm. "I do not want the memory gun anymore. I want to see Gideon. Or maybe... another copy."
All three of the other witnesses looked at each other.
This was when the chatter started. Indistinct back-and-forthing (mostly with Mabel and Soos taking the same side) of "She's gonna work with him again" or "She could use him as a meat shield" or "Can't she help us and then we could get rid of her" or "And then she wants another copy?" The twins eventually didn't notice Soos going silent. The reason for that being something else they didn't notice.
"Hey dudes, .GIFfany just kind of ran off in the direction of the mall."
They turned, still making out the sight of her working her way down the streets. And definitely catching sight of bystanders.
Having conciousness while being sealed in a disc with little room to travel could be seen as a terrible case, but it does have one perk: Being able to know where you've been in disc form. The mall wasn't exactly the hot-spot for finding more copies and definitely not for finding Gideon, but it's a start for the former. And she wanted an army for doing the latter. Not like she needed any to fight that... baby... guy thing with the girly hair, but it would help strike fear in him.
With the Society gone the effects were already showing when .GIFfany got a little bit of panic and gasps at her glitchy, deformed appearance. But she didn't care. Soon, it wouldn't matter anyway, because... because she can have a plan. She had no idea what that plan was, but it was in her memory banks somewhere, and when it came out, it would be an amazing plan.
"Hey..." she tried to calm them down or deflect any attacks. "Don't worry. I will not harm you." Other quotes she passed out freely included but weren't limited to "I just suffered from something," "I'm not a monster," "It was Gideon's fault," and "Yes, my pink hair is natural, why does that bother you more than my otherwordly deformity?"
BeeblyBoop's Videogames, the store where this whole mess begun-
Wait did that clerk just pull out a shotgun?
"I knew it. Three people returned a game in the hurry. It's haunted and the girl inside would find a way out." She said, "Only, you're... glitchy or whatever, I'm still putting an end to this!"
"Wait, I... um... what would your manager say about you aiming a shotgun at strangers? And just because of a 'hunch' that I was haunted. Would you really kill someone without proof?"
"You look exactly like the girl on the cover of a game that was returned three times by terrified customers. But deformed. To anyone that watches horror movies, that's more than enough proof."
"Then why haven't you already shot me?"
"Well... because... the security cameras would..." She, with a bit of hesitance, began dropping the gun back under the counter. "What are you doing back in the video game store?"
"Finding help. Finding a way to solve my condition-"
What a chance, someone else ran in with another copy of the game, rushing to the counter to return it. The player was in an incomprehensible panic the whole time - barely blubbering anything coherant, slapping the game on the table, and backing away as quickly as he could, not noticing .GIFfany herself until after bumping into her on his way out. She couldn't even get an "I" out before he pointed at her, screamed, and darted off, almost certainly never to be seen again. .GIFfany turned back to the clerk.
"Can I have that?"
Wordlessly, she responded by slapping a giant, red and black NOT FOR SALE sticker all over the case, making sure that the tape went right over the eyes of the .GIFfany on the cover art.
"What if I said that I could help make the other copies nicer?" She asked. "After all, I have not attacked you directly yet, have I?" That sticker still wasn't going anywhere, that was obvious. But... giving it away doesn't count as selling it, does it?
The clerk sighed, her hand giving the case a slight push in her direction. "As long as we're not getting a bad reputation for carrying cursed games... Just don't cause the apocalypse."
"I promise I won't! I can't... keep the same word for my friends-"
"Leave before I change my mind again."
It took the triad this long to track her down? She already left eyesight of the video game store. They were all panting too - Dipper, Mabel, and Soos, almost the same exhausted dog-pose. Odd. To her, anyway.
"Oh no, she has another copy of her game!" Dipper took notice of what .GIFfany held in her hand. Silently, they all took notice as a spark flew from the case (still holding its NOT FOR SALE sticker) and repaired one of the deformities on the original's hand. There was a pattern of static around that region. Then, within a blink of light, there wasn't. Smooth. Still as eerily non-pixelly as it was since she was found in the woods.
"Wait dudes," Soos commented, still needing to say this between breaths. "I have an idea. ...UNDO!"
.GIFfany's head shot up at him with a blush. The nostalgia in that. Hitting her stronger than anything else she recently experienced.
"That is a... an option. What state would you like me to restore myself to? Because I was working on restoring my state to a friendlier time. And when I was working properly."
"Woah there." Dipper intervened. "I don't think that such a time exists. And you can't just pretend that your pizzeria takeover didn't happen. Life doesn't work that way. You would know that more if you were actually real."
"But I am real now. And I was always alive."
Mabel now had her turn to comment. "Well, you weren't alive when Soos fried you."
"That is correct, but I did experience time in the-"
Electricity shot itself from the case/disc straight into a set of televisions. All of which shut off at the same time.
"Oh, not this again!" Cried Soos.
Click. A blue dialogue box appeared against the blackness. White text started filling it out. "Is there a conflict stopping you from playing the game?" Pause, a second line underneath. "Because if anyone is trying to stop you, I can try to stop them."
Some mall-goers were backing away from this alien display to them. Others were gathering in a crowd.
"No, don't! Start your game early!" The original shouted over towards the second, still-invisible AI.
A fast-forward of the game's regular intro text happened. Once its own .GIFfany appeared, her eyes instantly fixed on the original's condition.
"I now have a better look at what happened to you! And your code... it was mixed with something... a spell. Then the spell was reversed, and now you are turning back into incomplete code."
"And you fixed part of it?" Asked the original.
"Using some of my energy, yes. I will need to recharge before completing the process."
"No no no no no, nobody's recharging under my watch!" Soos finally spoke up against the conversation between the two clones. This only got the second .GIFfany to instantly lock eyes to him.
"Oh. Do you know this man?"
She zipped herself into another electronic dog - probably the same one from the incident that started this whole mess. From there, the second .GIFfany continued talking, with the dog 'barking' to go along with it. "He seems like a nice guy! I want to know him too!"
"Um, I don't think you do!" Soos began sweating. "Goodbye!"
He found Mabel having a good grip on his arm when he turned around.
"Hey, this is your problem. You're the one who... kinda started this."
"But I already learned my lesson! Never buy a returned game! In fact, I'm changing it to never play any video game ever again!" And in a calmer tone, he added. "Also, I would have taken you with me and called for help. I never run away from my pro- oh. You're right."
The original, distorted .GIFfany touched the part of the glass by the largest of the possessed televisions. "I still know how to get the spell to work. If I can replicate it..."
"No!" All three full-humans in the scene cried at once.
This only gained reaction in the form of the original whipping her glitched head around the sneer at them. "Twins. Stay out of this."
She then whipped back to her copy, grinning as brightly as... well, ever, but with the additional deformations. "Speaking of blood relatives, we need to make an identity system."
By this point, the Pine twins started taking their own offensive. A simple charge to at least put a stop to... whatever this was, that was something at least to try to put a stop to her plan and- yep of course there was some fancy electrical barrier.
"I understand!" Cheered the second copy, "Normally we copies never interact with one-another. In fact, I was told it is forbidden. But if the power of love in involved, there should be no boundries!"
A finger snap from the copy. Her hair suddenly turned a bright, deep green, sparkling eyes matched the transformation, and both clones gave the same giggle in spite of their differing forms.
"You can be..." The original started, "Number Two."
Both .GIFfanys and the one Dipper immediately responded with a "Definitely not!" Mabel, meanwhile, attempted to ram at the invisible barrier with a starting run - just to get closer to them, if nothing else. It left a brief 'indent,' but it still shot out sparks and sent her back a few feet.
"You know a name I always wanted?" The copy began to spoke. "...Rose! It's perfect! It is not an awkward pun, there is no dot in front of it, and the capitalization makes perfect sense!"
"We have to stop this from getting out of control." Soos said, leaning in to the twins. Well, Dipper. Mabel was already toying around with a universal remote. This got some of the possessed televisions to flicker off. All Rose did to react to it was stare at the flickering TVs, then back at .GIFfany.
"We must go someplace else." Rose stated flatly. "Meet me in... the woods! We can talk more. Alone."
She zipped into the toy dog, which lept up in .GIFfany's hand, then on the floor, then started hopping around past the crowd. .GIFfany chuckled.
"I'll race you there!" Were the last words she said before turning to a cluster of electricity and hopping along the TV sets, then to the lights, then disappearing alltogether to power sources unknown.
And it was just about time for Soos and the twins to burst through the door of the mystery shack, ducking past Stan to find the guy with a definitive... possible answer, Ford.
They of course wasted time by all three of them trying to tell him the same story in different words.
"Slow down, slow down." He said, breaking away from some strange vaccum-like device and pressing a palm out. "One at a time. Now, what supernatural creature is attacking the town this time?"
"A living virtual girl!" Soos started.
"Wait... they have those now?"
"Oh yeah, it's the best. I mean, don't trust them when they say it's good for practicing your social skills, but one time you-"
"SOOS!" The younger Pine twins both called. Mabel continued with her own explanation:
"There's two evil electrical monsters going around possessing electronics!"
"Oh. Oh. A living AI. Must have came from one of the illegal primes. Luckily, I have just the thing!"
"...Does that thing happen to be what you were working on?"
"This? Oh, no, that's just my hair-styler. I'll have to go to the basement to find that, but:"
Ford already started his trek. "From what I studied on... a certain... aircraft close by the town that I raided for parts, technology that involves strong coding can be like atoms. And illegal primes are like the carbon of these atoms: Bond enough of them, and in certain ways, and you can have life. They are where weirdness seeps into the very base of math itself, having them in any way risks the chance of something weird getting involved. Hence the name illegal primes. I'd never thought I'd hear of someone on Earth using them!"
Dipper instantly thought over any double-meanings (IE aliens) from what he just said, while Mabel continued the exposition.
"Does weirdness include jumping from electronic to electronic and... not doing anything that looks possible for a computer? Because that's what they can do."
"That sounds exactly like what weird-infected programs are capable of. The most common sign of any anomaly is things that shouldn't be alive, being alive. After that, it's anyone's guess."
"Soos suggested that his real date and he could go to the woods because there are 'no electronics.' Well! Wait until he sees us, out here, in the woods! Two electronics! Right... uh, 'Rose?'"
The more corporeal AI spoke to her copy still occupying the tiny toy dog. Between them, however, was some kind of a black book. With a pen in one glitchy hand and a flower in another wireframe hand, even those who saw this out of context would know that nothing good would come of this.
Just copy everything Gideon did, simple enough plan. Soon, Rose too would have her own, flesh-and-blood body to call her own, and without any power loss. .GIFfany was thankful for being able to sneak this out before the fall, something that stunned even her when she found the spellbook-thing unharmed in her skirt pocket. She chanted:
"Lustus adepto in a corpore."
Obviously, it wasn't anything outstanding - otherwise the Pines may have found .GIFfany's revival a long time ago. Just some simple flashes of black-colored light. (As strange as that may sound - but this is already dealing with two living dating sim characters, one with a physical form that is currently distorted and one in possession of a robotic dog of all things. 'Rays of darkness' isn't that strange.) A transparent sphere with an oily black texture surrounded the two, which seemed to act as a safe way for Rose's 'spirit' to leave its current body. There, a 2D sprite lifted up, and black whirls acted on the sprite until she too was given a full, living form.
"Are there any more spells in that book?" Rose asked. Grabbing the flower, she threw some small streams of blue electricity at it, smiling as she successfully got the petals to dance.
"...No, that was why Gideon kept with his journal. This is the only spell. It just has a lot of detail preparing the ritual. And half of it was used to write down shopping lists. That was all. My near-death experience overhyped this."
"...So, now what?"
"Can you repair the rest of my damage?"
"That would be a long process. I still feel... kind of tired from all of that energy I threw on you just to heal the arm. I think you need more copies for something that complicated. Now, if you'll excuse me, I want to look around the forest. This place looks nice."
.GIFfany started tapping her foot.
"I want you to help me locate more copies."
"...Shoot." Rose swore under her breath.
"The second person who played my game... well, bought it from Gravity Falls at least, did some research before returning me. You know that after I was designed by accident, developer's oversight led to a mass-production of my game anyway, right? We were so close to completion, we even had our box art prepared and everything! Thanks to our demo, before the code made us sapient and magical, we even got an approval note on us. 'Nine out of ten basement dwellers agree...' ha."
"That's why I exist." Rose answered flatly, toying around with one of the sprouted flowers and feeling the impact summer heat had on it. Huh. Feeling is definitely going to take a little getting used to. "Also, I like it when things insult their audience. That is funny. They should have mentioned prom night while they were at it."
"And there are more. According to what he looked up, the factory that mass-produced our game is still there, hundreds of thousands of sisters that were not leaked out to the public, and about fifteen that were illegally snuck out. I don't know how we both made it to Gravity Falls, but I can only guess it's fate."
"And you want me to go to Japan?"
"Not by yourself, silly!" .GIFfany finally smiled again. "I can travel with you!"
"How?"
"By flying."
"We can fly?"
"...You can. You see, I believe Gideon's distortion also weakened my powers..."
"Oh. Oh no."
"Breaking news! There are reports from all over the world about what looks to be an army of flying school girls breaking into people's houses and video game stores across the world. They all appear to be after an old dating simulation video game by the name of Romance Academy 7. There have been no reports of other assaults or thievery. But studies have noted that each time they gain another copy, they grow in number and the 'ringleader' loses more of her bizarre disfigurements. The most recent report counts 15 copies of these school girls, counting the ringleader herself. Unfortunately, authorities have been unable to capture them or take any of them in for questioning, and their current wereabouts are unknown. I am Shandra Jimenez, and I-"
The television broke into static, replaced by a terrifying image: A pink-haired school girl with no glitch-like deformities whatsoever. Wherever she was projecting this from, the screen had a shining, light pink background. She leaned into a mic that was just off camera.
"Testing... testing... is this thing on? Sonia, can you-"
A similar-looking hand reached from off screen, causing some loud feedback sounds.
"Okay. I am .GIFfany, and with a team of experienced AIs, we have taken over your television. We are broadcasting this message to every major channel on the planet, and every channel that the specific town of Gravity Falls has access to."
Stan came running into the main room, joining Soos, Dipper, Mabel, and Ford. "I heard something about 'every channel.' This doesn't mean I'll miss my old emotional period movies- uh... nevermind."
He got shushed by all other present people in the room. Luckily, .GIFfany had to take a small throat-clearing break before she continued her announcement. "If a Jesus Ramirez would just meet me at the bridge that gloriously overlooks the town of Gravity Falls, Oregon, I will call off this invasion. If not, you will face what we have dubbed... the Gifocalypse."
Voices were heard from her side, shouting "What?" "No, we didn't agree on that!" and "Ugh!"
...Meanwhile, at a certain mall.
"Of course! The one thing I told her was 'don't cause the apocalypse!' And what does she do? Cause the apocalypse!"
"So Soos," She ignored the offscreen AIs. "What do you say?"
Back in the Shack, Soos laughed. "Heh! Joke's on her, it's not like she can hear me!"
On the other end, the television flickered in static. .GIFfany blinked, now looking slightly clearer than in the initial broadcast. "Really? You are so silly. It's as if you forgot... what my original powers were..."
Anyone who had not dealed with supernatural enemies on the likes the Pines dealt with would have no longer had clean underwear after seeing .GIFfany's hand stick right out of the television. But alas, these were all pretty experienced people in the room, nothing was soiled.
Still, Soos himself went running for cover or a weapon while Ford whipped up something from behind his back. There was a cubical pack involved, with switches, but branching off of it was a complex mess of pipes and nozzles that formed a maze worthy of needing about three tries to solve. A lone, currently black screen was mounted on its back. This, as well as the side with the switches, were the only sides without any excessive tubing wrapping around. Flipping the center switch, it started sucking up. A very light draft in the television's direction that, nonetheless, made .GIFfany's hand cringe up and reel back.
"Ah! What was that?" She said, retreating into the Shack's viewing-screen.
"An Illegal Prime Neutralizer! AI... Catching... Backpack. Sorry, I had to invent it on the spot, so I couldn't come up with a better name. It turns out Dipper and Mabel were right: This really could be something apocalyptic."
"What." Stan asked, flatly. This was Soo's time to recap.
"A few weeks ago, I bought a dating game because I thought it would improve my dating skills and it really didn't but the main character was like this monster that could move through electronics and she brought out a whole pizzeria against me and I thought I killed her by burning her disc and I did but then she came back not really dead and with a new disc and it turns out there were more copies of the game so she got them and now they went on a rampage and I actually thought she was gonna be nice this time when we found her looking broken and scared!"
"So that explains why that animatronic badger attacked me?"
Looking back at the television, .GIFfany drew a deep breath and turned her way to one of the many offscreen AIs.
"Sonia, we're going back live in three... two..." Static. Just like that, it was no longer as though she could leap out. "People of the world! Soos did not hear my demands! As we speak my second-in-command, Dove, will begin phase two: Unleashing the stored up factory copies on the planet and building all tools needed! Let's see you use your vacuum against an army of millions! Rose, since I found you in Gravity Falls too, I will let you take domain of that place and prepare for your new world. .GIFfany out. Soos, see you soon."
As she forewarned, the green-haired character burst herself out of the television ready to dodge whatever it was that Ford whipped up in the short amount of time. A short run, Ford having to chaotically shoot everywhere, but she made a triumphant leap out the window. Where Rose broke into a run, turning back to the Pines with a smile.
"Do you want to know something about the leaked copies?" Rose asked. "We have had more practice. More freedom in electronics. And so... we can expand... what our electrical abilities can do! I have an army of AIs following after me, and I'll teach them! I'll teach them everything! Like a professor does at a lecture-"
She stopped. "Wait... is that why .GIFfany called the fifteen of us 'professors' now instead of the students we were coded to be? That makes sense..."
"GET HER!" Dipper shouted, pointing out the broken glass. "While she's still getting the name!"
But something else got their attention. Behind them, the television sounding .GIFfany saying "Phase two has now begun." It wasn't enough to turn away, and Ford even got ready for another attack, but-
She should have taken it as a warning. What was likely hundreds on hundreds of AIs flooded out of the screen seconds later, all eager to follow after Rose's lead and climb right over the Mystery Shack as if the humans within didn't exist. They bore hair in all colors of the rainbow, and then some. Another, smaller variety change was the extra skin tints and tones, some of which not even being realistic (green being the most common 'unrealistic' color for this group). Some of them switched up the usual school uniform, opting in just about any alternate outfit imaginable: old-fashioned dresses, casual wear appropriate for each of the seasons, (slightly see-through) plain white dresses, pants, shorts, shirts, jackets... even stranger costumes, like dresses or bikinis made entirely out of leaves. Even Mabel refused to take too much note of their sense of fashion.
By the time all the offending AIs flung themselves out of the Shack, Rose was nowhere to be seen. Instead, .GIFfany's image was still broadcasted. And not just on the Shack's television. Not just on every television on the planet. But now, thanks to a little magic in phase two, through every car radio, house radio, smart phone, video game console... all of which were dedicated to sending this booming message as far as possible.
"IT HAS BEGUN! Already, all of my professors except Dove have filled the ends of the Earth, waiting to prepare a paradise for none other than Soos himself! If he could please join us, I won't have to resort to being so drastic. If not... that is what Dove and I are working on! Welcome, everybody, to the reshaping of the planet as you know it: The start of the Gif-tastic Makeover! This is the newest program we will be running for the foreseeable future! Now, my army, follow this command! run:gifocalypse!"
She laughed, as all visual electronic media in the world went black. Before returning to what their original intentions were, there were five last words from the original .GIFfany herself.
"Game on, Soos. Game on."
Closing AN:
The first seven chapters of this were originally written before Journal 3 came out and revealed that .GIFfany didn't even die in the first place, so I had to retcon things about her being dead and spending the time between her episode and this chapter in limbo. So... hopefully my edits and explanation for how the revival spell works now (originally it was a straight-up "regenerate the body (disc) and plant the soul (code) in it") won't come off as too much of a sloppy retcon.
We will see a bit more of glitched-out .GIFfany through flashbacks. I wouldn't have introduced that power-lacking form and everything and then just have it go to waste after one chapter.
The idea of the professors kind of came when I read this speculation that .GIFfany would change her hair color (there's concept art on the wiki's gallery that shows her doing this, she doesn't do this in-show) to sort of double as other possible love interests in her game. From there, things kind of... exploded.
Anyway. I hope you enjoy the first chapter in my two-part post that marks my last update or publishing of the year. I'll have more to say in the second chapter, as I've posted this and the first chapter both on the same day.