School sucks up my time like a sponge. But hey, what can you do? Apologies once again, I have no idea how hospitals works.
There's some swearing in this chapter, so be warned. If I owned Gravity Falls, it'd be Adult Swim. Please enjoy and review!
"We have to go back," Ford insisted to the nurse at reception. "We're being hunted down by murderous ultra-beasts with no sense of morality whatsoever! ...I think."
"S-sorry, but I'm afraid that you'll have to stay here for another day or two for safety's sake," the flustered nurse attempted to explain to the scientist. "Y-your kids are fine, but we don't want them running around without adult supervisi-"
"Hold it, hold it!" Mabel shouted all of a sudden, startling the poor nurse even more. "Whaddya mean, adult supervision! We're 14!"
Dipper put a hand on her shoulder. "Mabel, you're scaring her…"
"O-oh, you are? In that case, I g-guess I can let you go, but you'll have to sign some paperwork showing you checked out and-"
"SCREW PAPERWORK! I HAVE A GRAPPLING HOOK!" Mabel shrieked, aiming for the glass door, shattering said glass door, grabbing Dipper, and busting out, all in the span of three seconds. Dipper screamed out a trailing "Sorryyyyyyy!" to the nurse, who nearly fell over in shock.
"W-w-what?" the shocked nurse whispered. "O-oh…oh, this is going to be so much paperwork...are they allowed to do that…?"
Ford sighed. "You're new here, aren't you?"
"Y-yes."
After a lengthy explanation about how things worked in Gravity Falls(the woman wouldn't have believed him if some redcaps hadn't been dragged out of the blood bank right then and there), Ford convinced the nurse to let him and his brother go. They found the kids had beaten them to the burnt-but-still-standing Shack, no doubt due to Mabel's grappling hook.
"Alright, we're going to at least try to acquire some samples of It's body," Ford explained. "Me and Dipper will search the death-site for samples, Stan, you look through the security tapes. See if you find anything suspicious. Mabel, try to find those darts."
"Okay!"
"Sure."
"Aye-aye!"
Ford and Dipper stayed in the exhibit room while Mabel and Stan went to investigate the wall-hole and tapes respectively. Ford pulled his pocket microscope out of his jacket, and they got to work.
"Dipper, where did Its body dissipate? We'll check there."
"Oh! It was somewhere around...here." Dipper pointed to the center of the room. The wood planks were faintly lighter in that area. It had a strange gray tinge in a heart pattern, a set of jagged lines breaking it. He hadn't noticed it during his escape from the burning Shack.
"Interesting…" Ford murmured. "So this marks Its death-site." The Author tentatively poked a gloved finger in. Shimmering dust stuck to it. He rubbed a bit on a microscope slide, and leaned in to look at the enlarged image.
The strange matter was composed of glittering silver-blue crystals, ever-changing. The small particles kept crashing into each other, creating smaller crystals between them, which then warped into larger crystals, which then were destroyed by more collisions. Ford gasped in realization, and looked up into Dipper's nervous eyes.
"We have to get this to the lab, now! To the basement!" Ford stood up, dashing to the elevator, with Dipper on his heels. Ford handed his nephew the microscope and opened a drawer in his desk, full of manila folders. After a bit of searching, he pulled out a small glass-like orb, about the size of his palm. It glowed faintly, with sparks of blue and violet erupting from the inside every few seconds. What was strangest of all was that the young teen could feel some sort of...pressure emanating from it. It felt as if the atmosphere of Gravity Falls had been condensed into this one tiny ball.
He was, quite literally, snapped out of his thoughts by Ford. "Dipper? Dipper!" his great uncle called, his face twisted in worry. "Are you alright?! You froze as soon as I pulled out the M-Nullifier."
"Oh, sorry Great Uncle Ford. I guess I'm just a little out of it."
The scientist sighed. "Don't scare me like that. Sometimes highly-concentrated magic negatively affects certain people, like an allergy." he explained, holding out the orb for his nephew to observe.
Dipper shook his head. "I'm sure it's fine. I used a couple of the spells from your Journal last summer. Remember the zombie-karaoke party Mabel told you about?"
"Ah, yes. I commend you for that, by the way. Successfully performing such a high-level spell on the first try is nothing if not impressive." Ford flashed the boy a smile, chuckling at the blush that spread like wildfire through his face.
"T-thanks."
"Anyways, we'd better get back to work!" Ford exclaimed suddenly, causing Dipper to jump a little. "Like I said earlier, this orb is a Magic Nullifier. Got it in Dimension 0ll3H. It's...exactly what it sounds like."
"But why do we need it?" Dipper asked.
"I'm glad you asked! You see, the dust around Its death-site has magic infused into it. The ever-changing properties of its crystals are evidence of that." Ford gestured to the empty space between them, holding out a hand and concentrating. Much to Dipper's amazement, a spark appeared. "Magic is like clay. You can shape it into whatever you want, but it's still the same in essence. If we leave that dust just lying around, it could very well reform into the monster that attacked us. Which is why we're going to contain it."
"That's awful…" Dipper murmured. "We'd better contain it then. But how'd you do that, Great Uncle Ford?"
He laughed, the spark brightening for a split second before dissipating completely. "Oh Dipper, this is nothing. I've never been able to generate much power in the form of magic. I'm a man of science, after all. You, on the other hand, seem to have a talent for it. It's the kind of thing only some people have got." Ford sighed, scratching his temple. "I only wish we could put it to more use. Unfortunately, I'm not very capable."
Dipper waved dismissively. "It's fine, really? Let's just finish this."
Ford nodded, and together they went back to the main room. The symbol hadn't changed, though Dipper couldn't help from imagining the monster from rising up out of it, determined to finish what it had started.
Ford knelt down and placed the M-Nullifier in the middle of the heart. To Dipper's surprise, it started to roll in a circle, then suddenly froze and started to glow brightly, rising into the air. The dust rose in tendrils, ominously circling the the now-floating sphere before sinking into it. The orb shook violently, pulsing with power- before ultimately clattering to the floor in an ironically dull manner.
It glowed red and black.
Dipper broke the stunned silence with a "Woah".
"Huh," Ford mused to himself. "That doesn't usually happen."
"OH MY GOSH!" A voiced screeched behind the duo, scaring them. Ford nearly pulled out his gun on Mabel, who had walked up behind them and watched the whole thing conspire.
"Oh, Mabel…" Dipper groaned. "Please don't do that."
"Sorry, bro-bro," Mabel apologized sheepishly. "I didn't mean to scare you guys. I found some darts, by the way!"
"Ah! Excellent, Mabel!" Great Uncle Ford grinned, patting Mabel on the head in gratitude. "I'm going to take these to the lab right away and examine them. I won't be long." And with that, the scientist rushed back down to the basement, his prize in his hands.
"Wow," Mabel remarked. "Grunkle Ford's really excited about this, huh?"
"Yeah."
"Hey Dip...I think I might have figured out why Clay-Face had darts."
Dipper turned to his sister in surprise. "What? How?"
Mabel twirled her hair with her fingers. "Remember the Love-God Incident? I kinda visited him. He had a dartboard in his room."
"A dartboard? You went in his room." Dipper repeated. "Coincidence?"
"I think not!" she grinned. "He seemed like a pretty good shot. Your face was butchered."
"Wait, what-"
"Kids!" Grunkle Stan called to the twins, startling them. There was an unsettling look of seriousness plastered onto his face. It was clear that he had found something. "Where's Ford?"
"Downstairs investigating the darts," Dipper answered. "Why?"
"He'll want to see this."
"What do you mean, there's no tape?!" Ford demanded of his brother, hands clenched.
"You heard me, Sixer. I played them, but they had no sound. Then they just blacked out. I couldn't get them to work again." Stan sighed, shaking his head in defeat. "Sorry."
Ford softened and put a hand on his shoulder. "It's fine. Did you see anything?"
"Well, now that you mention it, I did. There were these weird...tendrils," Stan explained, trying to re-enact what he saw with his hands. "They kind of just snaked around the room."
"How did they interact with the environment?"
"That's the thing. They sorta...surrounded us. Poking and prodding, y'know? I can't explain it, but…" the man tentatively touched a bruise on his forehead, staring at nothing in particular. "They went through us. Then they changed color. Almost like they…"
"Extracted something from us?" Ford whispered lowly, eyes wide.
"Yeah."
Silence.
"What do we do?" Stan asked his twin. "What can we do?"
"We wait." Ford answered, frowning. "I don't like it, but I doubt this is the end. We prepare, and we wait for whoever's leading these things around to act. Then we strike."
"We're putting the kids in danger," he pointed out. "I hope you know what you're doing, Poindexter."
The Author rubbed the back of his head in defeat, unhappy about the way the situation had turned out. He then turned away from his twin and toward the door, quickly opening it. Two kids and a cup fell to the ground.
Dipper groaned in frustration and pinched his nose. "So we're sitting dogs. Great. Great! We're stuck until we get attacked again."
"Cheer up Dip-dop! At least we've got an idea now! You like ideas!" Mabel grinned, booping her brother on the nose. "Help Ford figure something out! Imma get the cavalry ready!" With that, the hyped teenager ran upstairs.
Probably to make a marshmallow cannon or something.
Dipper blinked. He thought he'd heard someone.
"Thanks for snooping, kids..." Stan sarcastically muttered to Dipper. Looks like he hadn't wanted him and Mabel to worry about it. Fat chance.
Even so, he hated seeing his family so worked up, so he patted Stan on the shoulder. "Don't worry, Grunkle Stan. We'll get through this."
The gesture seemed to work, as the older man visibly loosened up. "I know we will, kid. Well, I'll leave you two nerds to it. I'm going to make sure Mabel doesn't blow something up." he turned, walking towards the direction of the stairs.
Only to leap back as blue fire exploded from the corridor.
"MABEL!" Dipper screamed. She was still up there!
He heard quiet laughter from somewhere.
Then somehow, his sister ran down, completely unharmed.
"I'm okay! The fire's not warm!" she called, running up to her twin in an embrace.
"You kids okay?! Oh, thank goodness." Grunkle Stan ran up to them, pulling them away from the remainder of the flames, which, strangely enough, hadn't damaged anything.
Instead, they gathered, swirling into a small point before dispersing outward in the shape of a rectangle. It flickered black before an image appeared.
"Greetings."
It was a person.
They were dressed in black robes, and sounded masculine. The face was obscured, but Dipper could just barely make out similar forms behind the figure. The most unsettling detail, however, was the golden eye emblem on the hood. It reminded him. And from the looks on his family's faces, it reminded them too.
"Who are you?!" Grunkle Stan demanded, lips twisted into a snarl.
The man chuckled, a ghastly sound that sent chills down Dipper's spine. "Is it not obvious to you? No matter, you will know in due time. Why not hear us out for now?"
"We have nothing to offer you. Why are you attacking us?" Ford asked quietly, fists shaking. It was obvious that he was just barely holding himself together.
"Your wishes do not matter to us. You will give us what we want. Or else we may have to use more...inhospitable methods. You, boy." the man addressed Dipper, setting the teen on edge. "Stitched Heart gave himself up. I will warn you now, the others will be much harder to kill. Why not convince your family surrender?"
Dipper couldn't see his face, but he could sense the smile behind that hood, and what the man said next made his blood run cold.. "After all, what are the chances that your dear family will survive another of the Ten?"
"Leave him alone!" Mabel shrieked, moving to stand in front of her brother. She glared at the figures in the screen defiantly. "Bring it! We can take you any day!"
The man said nothing. He's waiting to see if any of you still want to surrender, Dipper thought.
After a tense moment of silence, the man sighed. "You are all making a huge mistake. It could have been easy. You would not have suffered, or died-"
-Just Surrender-
"-but if this is your choice, then so be it. We will collect you- and the other six- shortly." The man nodded in farewell. "One way or another. Good day."
The image of the group(who were most definitely a cult of some kind)vanished, and the fire dispersed.
Stan summed up all their collective thoughts in one sentence.
"Oh, shit."
I'll have you know that a huge hint as to what's going on has been dropped in this chapter. You'll have to pay close attention to the dialogue to find it. Have fun.
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Thanks for reading!
Love the Games
BONUS
"Woah!" a cult member exclaimed, holding a beer in one hand. "We totally just did that!"
"I know, right?! I can't believe it!" another shrieked in delight, holding a bottle of wine. "Those guys must be shitting their pants right now!"
"Wicked!"
"HYPE! THIS IS HAPPENING, PEOPLE!"
Silence.
The command was felt throughout the air, completely silencing the group of new-editions in the corner. At the doorway stood one of Them, arms in her sleeves, a disapproving look on her face.
"Stop it at once. We cannot celebrate until the new Ten submits to us. And no alcohol."
"Sorry…"
"Apologies."
"It won't happen again."
"Good," the woman nodded. "It had best not. You know your leader doesn't take kindly to any breaking of the rules." and with that, she walked out of the room, allowing the young recruits to finally breathe.