What if there had been no silver mirror in the hidden room at Northwest Manor? Rated T for a character death. One-shot. All characters belong to Alex Hirsch, not me.
Axed
Dipper and Pacifica were running for their lives from the Ghost.
"Hurry! Through the garden! Watch out for peacocks!" said Pacifica.
Dipper was trying to read as he ran, and he bumped into a peacock. They ran through a muddy garden path and back into the house on the other side.
"Come on, come on..." said Dipper. "I got it! Haunted paintings can only be trapped in a silver mirror. Look! There's a silver mirror right there!"
They ran towards a pure white room with a large rectangular silver mirror on the wall. Dipper was about to go in and get the mirror when Pacifica got in front of him.
"Wait! Don't go in there! This room has my parents' favorite carpet pattern! They'll lose it if we track mud in there!"
"What? Are you serious?" said Dipper.
He tried to push into the room, but Pacifica held him back.
Pacifica said, "We'll find another way!"
They heard the ghost laughing, coming for them. "Come out!"
"Pacifica, we don't have time for this! Let me through!"
"No, my parents will kill me!"
"Why are you so afraid of your parents?"
"You wouldn't understand!"
In the struggle they both tripped and fell through the painting of a skeleton crowned as a king, into a dusty, spider-webbed room.
"Ah... What is this place?" asked Dipper.
"That's weird," said Pacifica. "I don't even know where this room is."
"Hopefully the ghost doesn't either," said Dipper.
"Yeah, maybe we're safe," said Pacifica.
The Ghost lifted the sheet on the painting behind Pacifica, and nearly engulfed her.
"Pacifica, watch out!" said Dipper.
"Aaaaah!" screamed Pacifica.
"Your fate is sealed!" called the Ghost.
Dipper was about to try a self-sacrificing move to save Pacifica, getting in the way of the Ghost's axe, when the Ghost knocked over a box of stored objects.
Dipper looked at the objects on the floor. Silver knives, spoons, and plates. The plates were shiny, maybe close enough. He had to try it.
Pacifica tripped over a loose floorboard. "Ow!"
"Prepare to die, Northwest!" shouted the Ghost, raising his axe and charging Pacifica.
Dipper held up the plate in front of Pacifica. It wasn't good enough. The Ghost passed right through and struck Pacifica with the axe.
"Vengeance is mine!" said the Ghost with a laugh. "Now to find the other Northwests."
The Ghost flew from the room. Dipper knelt over Pacifica, who was bleeding from a terrible wound to the chest.
"Pacifica, hold on! I'll call 911. We'll get you to the hospital."
"Too late... I'm dying..." Pacifica gasped out. "This is it for me..."
"Don't say that! You'll make it."
"Dipper, I wish we... never mind."
"Don't try to talk. Save your strength," said Dipper. "I'm so sorry I couldn't stop him."
"My fault... I was stupid... about the mud..." said Pacifica. "Get that silver mirror... save my parents."
Pacifica put her head back. Her eyes closed and her rasping breath stopped. Dipper could see there was no chance for her. The only thing to do was respect her last wishes.
Dipper ran back into the white room, heedless of the tracks he was making as he got the silver mirror down from the wall. He ran through the house, trying to find his way back to the party room. Voices raised in fear and anger told him the way.
"Help!" shouted Mrs. Northwest.
"The Northwests must pay the price!" shouted the ghost.
"Watch out! It's already killed Pacifica!" Dipper shouted as he barged into the room.
Mr. and Mrs. Northwest were in the middle of the room. Other guests had not been let in yet, except for Mabel, Candy, and Grenda, who were hiding behind the fondue table.
"I'll never open the gate to the riff-raff!" said Preston Northwest. "I would rather die."
"Then die!" said the Ghost, coming at him with axe raised.
Dipper charged forward, then slid on his knees across the smooth marble floor. He raised the silver mirror into the path of the Ghost. It went into the mirror and the force of it knocked him back into Preston Northwest.
"How dare you?" said Preston. "Don't touch me!"
Dipper looked in the mirror, where the Ghost was pounding to get out.
"Look, I caught it and saved your life," said Dipper. "But... Pacifica..."
"What happened to Pacifica?" asked Mrs. Northwest.
Dipper said, "I'm afraid... she may be dead. I'm so sorry. I didn't have the mirror when he attacked her. Call an ambulance. It may not be too late."
"Where is she?" asked Preston.
"In a storage room behind a picture of a skeleton, next to the room where I got this mirror," said Dipper.
Preston called to his butlers. "You two go find Pacifica, quickly. If she's damaged beyond repair then prepare the next cloning tube. Use a memory back-up from before the ghost ever did anything. The rest of you, carry on with party preparations."
"What?" said Dipper, shocked. "You're still holding the party?"
"Important people have been invited," said Preston. "It wouldn't do to turn them away now."
"Isn't your own daughter more important?" asked Dipper.
"That's none of your concern," said Preston. "You've done your part, rather badly it appears. Now you may leave to dispose of your trapped ghost. Not a word to anyone about what happened to Pacifica."
"You're going to pretend nothing happened?" Dipper asked. "How long can you keep that up, with Pacifica dead?"
"That's our business," said Mrs. Northwest.
"It sounded like you said you were going to clone her," said Dipper. "Is that true?"
"That's confidential," said Preston. "I'll give you, your sister, and her two friends one hundred dollars each to pretend this evening never happened. There was no ghost and you were never here."
"You're bribing us to cover this up?" asked Dipper.
"Don't try to blackmail us for more, or you'll regret it," said Preston.
"Don't tell anyone, or we'll sue your family for the damage you did with your incompetent ghost-busting," said Mrs. Northwest. "You could only have gotten that mirror by tracking mud on our favorite carpet pattern."
"Pacifica begged me to get it, with her dying breath, in order to save you," said Dipper. "But you aren't worth it."
"I won't be spoken to that way by one of your kind. Leave now or we'll have you thrown out," said Preston Northwest.
"I'm going," said Dipper.
"Me too," said Mabel.
"Me three," said Grenda.
"I wish I could stay for more fondue," said Candy, but she went with them.
The butlers handed each a hundred-dollar bill on their way out. Dipper and Mabel refused the money, but Grenda and Candy took it.
"I'm going home," said Grenda. "We never got to meet any rich boys. Oh well, they would have been our of our league anyway."
"I too am going home," said Candy. "Good night, Mabel, Grenda, and Dipper."
"Mabel, come with me. We have a level-ten ghost to banish," said Dipper.
The Ghost spoke from the mirror as Dipper and Mabel walked away through the grounds.
"You have been used by the Northwests," the Ghost said.
"I don't want to hear anything from you, murderer," said Dipper.
The Ghost told his story anyway, of Nathaniel Northwest's promise to throw a grand party for the town, the betrayal of his promise, and how it had led to the Lumberjack's death.
"So basically, because someone broke a promise to invite you to a party, you think you had the right to murder an innocent girl?" asked Mabel.
"She wasn't innocent. They all knew all they had to do to lift the curse was to open the party gates to the town. Instead, they tricked Dipper into exorcising me. Pacifica lied to you."
"So they tried to find an easy way out instead of ruining their party plans for a promise made 150 years ago, and Pacifica didn't tell me the whole story. She just did what her parents told her to do. That's a crime worthy of death?" asked Dipper.
The Ghost said, "You can't expect me to change my mind. It's my whole reason for being a vengeful ghost."
"I've had enough out of you," said Dipper. He put his Journal on top of the mirror to shut out the sight of the Ghost.
Dipper placed the mirror on a stump on the grounds, and set up an exorcism circle around it according to the Journal's instructions.
"Exodus demonus, spookus scarus, aintafraidus noghostus," Dipper chanted bitterly.
"Dipper, let me finish my vengeance on the Northwests. You hate them as much as I," said the Ghost.
"We should do it, Dipper," said Mabel. "Let the ghost get them. They must have been horrible to Pacifica."
"He took a life for the life he lost," said Dipper. "I won't help him murder anyone else."
"Very well, then, boy. Then, before you banish my soul, may these tired lumber eyes gaze upon the trees one more time?" asked the Ghost.
"I'm not doing you any favors," said Dipper. "Exodus demonus, etcetera ad nausem, finite incantatum!"
With a final howl, the ghost was banished.
"I hope it's hot where he went," said Dipper.
Mabel nodded. "But I hope Pacifica is in a better place."
"I have a feeling we'll see Pacifica again," said Dipper. "But when we do, it won't be her."
They walked home. Dipper's eyes were stinging, but not from the rain.