What will Pacifica do in the Weirdmageddon? Spoilers for X pt 1. All characters belong to Alex Hirsch, not me.
Saving Face
Chapter One: Survival
Pacifica was walking with her parents in downtown Gravity Falls.
"Behave yourself, Pacifica," Priscilla Northwest said. "Show us you can be trusted to act properly, and we'll forgive that little ghost incident and let you leave the house on your own again."
"Yes, Mother," said Pacifica. She had stopped trying to convince them she had done the right thing, and was just trying to get along.
"This is the first time we've been out since that disastrous party," said Preston. "We missed a huge political opportunity because of all the confusion and embarrassment. Normally, we would have been active participants in the mayoral election, pulling strings to get a candidate favorable to our interests elected. Instead we stayed out of it, letting a local shyster, a used-car salesman, and a fork-mishandling biker run for the office."
"This evening the new mayor is out with his banner on, having a meet and greet with the public," said Priscilla. "Even though he doesn't know how to place a fork, we must ingratiate ourselves with the new town leadership."
"Let the adults do the talking," said Preston. "We know how to save face after a social fiasco."
A wind whipped up, mussing Pacifica's hair. Then a loud voice shouted something she couldn't understand, and the sky opened in a glowing, x-shaped split. Everyone froze in their tracks, looking up at the sky.
A yellow triangular creature appeared above them. Pacifica recognized it as the main figure on an awful tapestry that hung in an alcove of the mansion. It had always given her nightmares, and it was even worse in real life.
"Alright, listen up you one lifespan, three dimensional, five sense skin puppets!" it said in a deep voice before switching to a higher-pitched one. "For one trillion years I've been trapped in my own decaying dimension, waiting for a new universe to call my own. Name's Bill! But you can call me your new lord and master for all of eternity!"
The being hovered over the statue of Nathaniel Northwest, melting it down in an instant.
"Now meet the gang of inter-dimensional criminals and nightmares I call my friends," said Bill, calling them out by name as they came through a hole in the sky. "8 Ball! Kryptos! The being whose name must never be said! Ha ha, what the heck. It's Xanthar. Then of course there's also Teeth, Keyhole, Hectorgon, Amorphous Shape, Pyronica, Pacifier, and these guys. This is our town now, boys!"
The monsters clustered together and laughed.
The new mayor tried his best. "Now see here, you unholy triangle fella. As mayor, I strongly urge you to git...git on out of here!"
"Yeah! Things with one eye are weird!" called a woman with one eye closed.
"We don't like out-of-towners," said Grenda, a girl Pacifica used to pick on.
"We punch what we don't understand!" yelled a large lumberjack, ripping open a mailbox with his bare hands.
Preston spoke up, "I would just like to say that as a rich capitalist I welcome your tyrannical rule. Perhaps I could be one of your, uh... horsemen of the apocalypse?"
"Dad!" said Pacifica in disgust.
"Not now, sweetie, the grownups are talking," said Preston.
Bill appeared to consider this. "Oh wow, that's a great offer. How 'bout instead I shuffle the functions of every hole in your face?"
With a gesture of Bill's hand, Preston Northwest's face was disfigured. His ears moved to where his eyes used to be, one huge eye was his mouth, and his nose moved to his left ear.
Preston gave a muffled cry and fell to the ground. Pacifica clung to her mother in terror.
The crowd broke and ran. Priscilla pulled away from Pacifica and ran as fast as she could in high heels, abandoning her mutilated husband and her daughter. The whole crowd fled down Main Street.
Not Pacifica: she grabbed her father by the hand. While the monsters were distracted by the mass of fleeing people, she pulled him behind the police station to hide. People were being turned to stone, carried off by eye bats, and driven crazy by bubbles.
"Dad, come on," said Pacifica. "If you want to survive, we've got to get inside somewhere."
Her father moaned.
"I'm not going to leave you," said Pacifica. "I decided after you and Mom jumped into the panic room and left people to die in the mansion that I'd never be like that."
She looked him square in the face, which was hard.
"Can you hear me? Do you understand?"
Her father nodded.
"Can you see?"
He shook his head.
"That demon really messed you up. You don't want to know how bad your face looks. There are things out there that could turn you to stone, if you want a quick way out. Do you want to live?"
He nodded.
"Then come with me. There are fires starting and I think a stone building would be safest. I'm taking you to the Museum of History."
She cautiously lead the way, ducking behind and between buildings, and hiding whenever eye bats flew overhead.
"There may be things we could learn there that could help," said Pacifica. "This thing has a history and somehow it's connected to our family, if that tapestry we have means anything."
Preston moaned again.
"Quiet, we're almost there. Survival first. We're in survival mode now."
They ducked inside the museum.