A/N: Aaaaargh! Sorry for the delay, everyone - health issues and work got in the way of writing this story. Once again, I can only do my best to make up for lost time. A hearty thank you to everyone who reviewed, favourited and followed. I hope this chapter lives up to the hype, and feel free to critique the typos that creep in late at night. Read, review, and above all, enjoy!

Disclaimer: Gravity Falls is not mine. Believe me, folks, believe me.

Mabel awoke to the sound of the bunker roof collapsing three rooms away. It took a long time for the noise of the cave-in to subside, and when the thunderous cacophony finally ceased, the silence descended so suddenly and so thickly that Mabel thought she'd gone deaf. It wasn't until she heard the distant echo of rocks pattering down on floor tiles that she belatedly realized that she was still in possession of working eardrums. However, as she slowly hauled herself upright – head throbbing from the impact with the wall, broken ribs screeching in protest – the events of the last few minutes flooded back through her bruised skull, and the realized that she was missing something far more important than her hearing.

"Dipper?" she called.

Silence was her only reply.

Mopping dust from her face, she scanned the bomb shelter for any sign of her brother, but found little more than wreckage: the room lay in ruins, an anarchic clutter of fallen shelves, toppled ceiling tiles, drying bloodstains and mechanisms torn loose from the roof – now beyond repair. A few feet away, Grunkle Ford lay crumpled in the corner, only just regaining consciousness; his cybernetic organs were programmed to provide automated medical attention in emergencies, but it was a slow process, and Ford was clearly still too groggy to move unassisted.

Anxiously, Mabel peered through the doorway opposite, hoping that it'd be her brother emerging from the shadows and not Director Powers.

"Dipper?"

Still nothing. Groaning, Mabel hauled herself towards the open doorway, readying herself for the worst, hastily snatching up a gun and a medical kit from the pile of refuse along the way.

"DIPPER?!" she hollered, unable to disguise the fear in her voice.

"Relax!" a familiar voice called out. "I'm okay. I think I'm gonna have a heart attack if I have any more stress tonight, but I'm okay."

A moment later, Dipper appeared in the doorway, covered in dust from head to toe, pockmarked with dozens of tiny cuts and bruises, but otherwise unharmed. And for the first time since he'd left quarantine and become aware of what had really been going on outside his secluded little world, he was smiling. Mabel hadn't seen this particular look on her brother's face for decades, not even on the occasions when he was at peace and happy despite his confinement; no, this was the kind of smile he'd been wearing in the aftermath of their greatest and most dangerous victories (their first clash with Bill, the battle with Gideon's robot, their narrow escape from the Shapeshifter), a mad, terrified-yet-triumphant grin that spread from ear to ear and threatened to take the top off his head if it grew any wider. From experience, Mabel knew that this kind of smile was a necessity: on occasions like this, you had to wear the smile – or else give way to all the fear you'd been hiding up until then and start screaming at the top of your voice.

Immediately, Mabel threw her arms around Dipper and drew him into a furious hug. "What happened?" she demanded.

"Well, I just woke up the Shapeshifter-"

"You did what?"

"And then I lured Powers into a fight with him-"

"Huh?!"

"And let off the explosive you gave me to seal them inside the lab. Simple as that." Dipper's left eyelid twitched slightly, the edge of his smile shuddering in repressed anxiety. "Nothing to worry about. Piece of cake."

"Are you joking?" Mabel exploded. "Never, ever do anything like that again!"

"Excuse me? What other options did I have?"

"Oh, I don't know – you could have followed my goddamn instructions for one thing! All you had to do was run for the exit and stay in the labs until we either gave the all-clear or the hunters gave up looking for you! You were not supposed to play chicken with mutated government agents, you weren't supposed to release the Shapeshifter from cryostorage, and you definitely weren't supposed to monkey around with military-grade explosives! You could have been killed – either by Powers, the Shapeshifter, the bomb or the cave-in!"

"If I hadn't lured him away, Powers would have killed you!"

"So? In case you hadn't noticed, Dipper, I'm a worn-out old lady with a barely-medicated case of arthritis and a criminal record longer than Grunkle Ford's dissertation. I am expendable; you are not. I'm here to save you, not the other way around. Okay?"

"I thought we were supposed to save each other!" Dipper shouted. "Remember? You saved me from Bill when he possessed me, I saved you from Mabeland! That's how this is supposed to work; we're supposed to help each other!"

"Things have changed, in case you hadn't noticed! You're one of only two family members I have left: you've been commoditized by just about everyone on that planet, and that means that until we can find a means of stopping Bill and resealing the barrier, you are not safe! I have to protect you at any and all cost. In other words, if Ford and I have to give up our lives to keep you out of Bill's hands, that is a more-than-acceptable cost as far as I'm concerned."

"And what am I supposed to do after that? How am I supposed to fend for myself when I'm alone in Gravity Falls? Even if you somehow jerryrig everything in the Mystery Shack to keep me safe and fed, I'm still going to be all alone, and unable to leave town without becoming a target. And let's not forget that I'm also supposed to be immortal: that's the sort of thing you want to leave me to, eternal life alone in Gravity Falls? That's your idea of living?!"

"Listen-"

But Mabel's words were lost in a deafening roar that immediately sent both her and Dipper lurching away, hands clasped over their ears.

"Excuse me," said Grunkle Ford, lowering the air horn. "I don't want to interrupt this extremely pertinent conversation, but I really think we should put the discussion of immortality on hold until we've sealed our defences and we aren't in danger of being ambushed by government forces or rampaging Gnomes. I'm just saying…"

Mabel sighed. "Okay, okay… but no more risk-taking, clear?"

Now it was Dipper's turn to sigh. "Perfectly," he grumbled.

"You know I can tell you're lying, right? You always chew on the inside of your cheek when you're getting rebellious."

"And you do know you're still my sister, right? You haven't graduated to motherhood."

"Dipper…"

"Alright, alright, shutting up."

Fortunately, sealing the defences was easier than it sounded: thanks to the items that Ford had been stashing around the bunker, he had more than enough electronic components to cobble together a simple hologram projector and hide the wreckage of the bunker from prying eyes; then, once they'd managed to patch up Mabel's broken ribs with another one of Ford's miraculous hypodermics, repairs proceeded very quickly – Mabel helping to block the holes in the wall and ceiling with fallen crates and chunks of scrap metal, Ford using a handheld gel-sprayer to effectively mortar the rubble together, and Dipper helping in whatever way he could. It took almost an hour, but eventually they were able to effectively seal the crater in the roof.

Hopefully, it would be enough to ensure that the hologram disguise couldn't be undone by nosy scouts, rampaging Gnomes or anyone else who might end up walking through it: they might notice that the grass and shrubbery seemed a bit insubstantial, but at least they wouldn't drop right into the bunker and give the whole game away.

By the time they were done, the first inklings of sunlight were creeping over the horizon, and Mabel soon found herself preparing an improvised breakfast of canned beans, canned ham, crackers and apples – "fresh out of the stasis fields," Ford remarked dryly.

"Now," said Dipper, "You said you had a plan to build this anti-Bill machine… and you and Mabel were arguing about it for the last couple of hours – well, I have to assume you were. I mean, it's not like you'd argue about anything else at this stage unless it was extremely chancy or going to put me in a lot of danger. Am I right?"

Mabel sighed. Yep, he's ever bit as bright as he was in the glory days of Gravity Falls. "Correct," she said at last.

"So, what is it?"

Ford sat down heavily on an overturned crate, his spider-legs busying themselves with repairs as he helped himself to breakfast.

"Well, it's a bit improvised," he began hesitantly. "But… I think I have managed to come up with a fairly simple three-step plan. Step 1: we retrieve the first half of our components for the machine from the caches hidden in the forest; that'll probably cause significant uproar among the Gnomes once they realize that someone's been intruding on their territory, which segues quite neatly into Step 2: we launch a second attack on the FIA's command centre with "help" from the Gnomes and allied forces, and take the parts we need. Step 3: we take back the Mystery Shack, remove all traces of Bill from Dipper's mind, ensure all the zombies are put down for good, assemble the machine, and kill Bill."

There was a pause, as the echoes died away.

"How are we supposed to do that?" Dipper asked. "There's only three of us."

"Two of us," said Mabel sharply. "We're trying to keep you safe, remember? You'll be spending this mission safely hidden in the most secure cache we can find until the coast is clear."

For a moment, it looked as though Dipper was about to argue again, but at the last minute, thought better of it.

"Alright," he sighed. "Point taken. How are you supposed to pull this off? You're outnumbered by Gnomes, FIA and zombies on all three steps. Plus, I don't think the command centre's going to fall for another surprise attack so soon. How are you supposed to outfight them a second time?"

Ford sucked in a deep breath as one of his spider-legs went about tightening a loosened joint close to his back. "Well," he said, "now that the sun's up, we're going to have to wait until nightfall before we launch this second attack. Good news is, Bill's ritual depends on your presence, so the zombies will have to stay where they are for the time being."

"Same goes for the troops," said Mabel. "And as long as the FIA are in Gravity Falls, they'll be on the receiving end of Gnome skirmishes, especially the scouts and any troops left on duty at the Mystery Shack. General Schmebulock probably won't be able to kill them all through lightning raids alone, but he'll definitely be able to whittle them down to more manageable numbers. Hopefully, the FIA won't have the budget to call in more troops. One way or the other, it'll be enough to keep the Gnomes and other creatures of the forest occupied while we get to the caches."

"Once that's done, we lure the bulk of the Gnome army to the command centre and leave them to fight it out while we loot the base for the rare parts. Good news is, I've done some long-distance analytics, and I've worked out that our necessary components are in storage within the base's vault, kept around for use by Polonius and his cronies. We get in, get out, blow the place to hell and back, and then move onto the next step."

Dipper's brow wrinkled. "And that's it? I'm pretty sure that won't be enough, Grunkle Ford: I mean, apart from the hole you left in it, that place has some pretty thick walls, so the FIA don't even have to fight. Unless they bring in Manotaurs, the Gnomes won't be able to get in-"

"And Manotaurs make pretty obvious targets," finished Mabel. "We've thought of that. The trick will have to be getting everyone out of the base and too busy fighting the Gnomes to focus on us."

"And how are we going to do that? Come to think of it, how are we supposed to retake the Mystery Shack?"

A weary grin edged its way across Grunkle Ford's corpselike face. "We have a secret weapon."

"Two secret weapons," said Mabel with a grin.

"And that's not even counting the Lazarus subject."

Dipper sighed. "Look, will you just tell me? I really don't need any more suspense in my life."

"The two we need are normally stored down in the old basement lab at the Mystery Shack, but they can easily be accessed from outside: we have an underground deployment track built specifically for them in the event of a Gnome attack, and it can be triggered remotely. If necessary, we can send them at least half a mile into the forest."

"But what are these secret weapons?"

Mabel's smile grew. "We call them the Sheriff and the Deputy."

"What is taking so long?"

"A-apologies, Mr Northwest. We've had some difficulty having the prisoner transfer ratified by the Correctional Authority; the helicopter's been delayed by bad weather just north of California, but it should be here within at least half an hour-"

"For Christ's sake, what is wrong with you people? You were supposed to hand over the Pines brat once you'd finished harvesting him, and you screwed it up; you were supposed to kill Sixer and Shooting Star, and you screwed that up to; you were supposed to keep me in the loop about your progress, and not only do you leave me in the dark, but your boss decides to go on a one-man mission to recapture Pine Tree without my permission! And now, after I've given you a simple task to make up for this avalanche of failure – getting one comatose prisoner from A to B – you fucked that one up, too! Where did they hire you people from, a temp agency?!"

"Mr Northwest-"

"Oh shut up and leave me alone. I have dead relatives and bastards to attend to, and the last thing I need is for you to start vomiting again. Get moving, and don't contact me again until Wendy Corduroy is on the ground and ready for implantation. Go on, get out and take your extra troops with you."

"Very well, sir. If there's anything you need-"

"I'll do it myself. Now fuck off and get back to scrubbing latrines with your tongue or whatever you do when you're not making an idiot of yourself in public. Go. Disappear. Vanish."

There was an awkward pause, as Lieutenant Waltramm hastily scurried away, hastily followed by the troops he'd requested.

Polonius watched them go, unable to keep the sneer of disgust off his face. For this, he was having to part with almost half of his mortal defenders; by now, the command centre was so tied up in repair efforts, they needed all the reinforcements they could get. All told, there were now only ten soldiers left on patrol around the summoning site. True, they were ten of the best troops available to the FIA, armed to the teeth with top-of-the-line firepower and equipped with the most powerful artefacts the FIA could spare, but still only ten.

By now, it was almost twelve o'clock, and activity at the summoning site had ground to a halt: with Dipper running loose, the ritual had no vessel for Bill to inhabit, leaving the dead Northwests with little else to do but stand around doing sweet FA. The blue glow was still being cast upon the surrounding woods and the arcane energies were still layered thick enough to frighten off any over-curious Gnomes, but it wasn't being used for anything really worthwhile; plus, in the light of the sun, it didn't look anywhere as exciting as it had during the night. Worst of all, Bill himself was clearly getting impatient: Polonius could feel his master's irritation rippling from every fragment of the immortal spirit still contained within his dead flesh, oozing from the statue in pulsating waves of psychic force.

Muttering prayers of supplication to Bill, Polonius trudged over to the edge of the summoning site, where his mother stood in silence, treasonous interfering bitch that she was. Against all expectations, she'd been extracted from the command centre without killing or maiming any of the FIA staff, but Polonius was taking no further chances with her: after all, she'd already spoiled what had otherwise been a perfect victory and set Dipper free; if she ever mustered the willpower to rebel again, she might very well try to sabotage the ritual, a prospect which honestly didn't bear thinking about.

So, he'd had Pacifica restrained by any means necessary: both her arms had been severed at the shoulder, and both her legs had been sliced off at the knees; a heavy iron collar had been fastened around her neck and chained to the rusted carcass of car sitting nearby; and just for good measure, a lance of steel fashioned from a stop sign had been driven through her stomach and deep into the ground below her, keeping her pinned down. Plus, the stop-sign kept her from wriggling off the end of the lance. And yet, Polonius still didn't think it was enough. In point of fact, he'd have gladly had her buried up to her neck in concrete, but alas, he needed to keep his mother portable until the ritual was complete, so dismemberment, collaring and impalement would have to do for now.

Looking at her now, Polonius found himself almost overwhelmed by hatred. Everything he'd ever despised about the world beyond his noble family was now slumped before him, defying him – defying Bill – by her merest presence. She should have been nothing more than a husk of reanimated meat, helpless to resist his commands, subservient to his will and that of his master… and yet, she'd retained some semblance of self. This hateful, self-abasing little whore should have been nothing more than a puppet, incapable of independent thought; all her emotions and all the weaknesses that had drove her to rebel should have been squeezed into a dark corner of her psyche and left to watch as the peasants she'd betrayed the family for suffered and died. All of this should have been so, but somehow she'd rebelled – again!

And despite everything he'd done to make himself more like Bill, all the ceremonies and rituals and self-dismantling he'd undergone to cleanse himself of the weaknesses inherent to a human perspective on reality, Polonius couldn't help himself from inching closer to Pacifica as his mood darkened. He was seething with rage, a not entirely unexpected thing; after all, Bill himself was renowned for the divine wrath he inflicted upon those who dared oppose him… but Polonius also had questions that nobody would have bothered asking of Pacifica. After adopting the ways and mindset of Bill, once he'd transcended death, he'd been above truly hating her as he had as a mortal: he'd hit her, yes, and he'd sent her off to watch Dipper suffering, but that was just part and parcel of being like his master. What he felt now… well, that was more like the whining, impotent anger he'd had back when he was still alive: just looking at Pacifica brought back embarrassing memories of all the arguments they'd shared, back when he was still weak enough to call her mother and foolish enough to find himself outwitted by her. And so, despite his better judgements, he found himself rounding on her once again.

"How are you still rebelling?" he hissed furiously.

Pacifica, predictably enough, said nothing.

"Everyone else in this family is under my control, everyone from the lowliest bastard to Nathaniel Northwest himself, even those inbred cousins nobody likes to talk about! Why can you resist? What makes you different?!"

Silence. Pacifica's gaze remained fixed on the horizon.

"Look at me!" Polonius roared, backhanding her viciously across the face. "Answer my questions! Why are you still rebelling?!"

If the slap had any effect on her, Pacifica showed no sign of it. If anything, there was more than a hint of a knowing smirk on her face. Having seen that infuriating smile more times than he cared to remember, it took all of Polonius' self-control not to rip her lower jaw off.

"Why did you rebel at all?" he demanded. "Why couldn't you have just followed Grandfather's orders? You could have had anything – everything! Unlimited wealth, infinite power, eternal life, a place at Bill Cipher's side, and anything else you could have possibly asked for! I mean, if you'd really wanted a lifetime companion, you could have had anyone you liked if only you'd sided with Bill! Rich or poor, male or female, friend or consort, whatever you wanted; all you'd have had to do was point them out and Bill would have given them to you! Dipper could have been yours from the very beginning... but no, you betrayed Bill and you betrayed our family! You threw away everything and doomed me to a lifetime of mediocrity among the comfortably well-off, and for the death of me, I still can't understand why! Why did you do this? Why did you ruin us? Why did you have to be different?! FUCKING TELL ME WHY!"

And without warning, Pacifica turned to look at him, dead eyes suddenly sparking with awareness. Then, decomposing lungs rattling with the effort of producing sound, she began to speak:

"Because… I… am… more…"

"What?"

"More than… just… another link… in… the world's… worst… chain…"

Polonius let out a strangled snarl of rage. "This nonsense again! The Northwests were the single richest and most influential family in the history of the United States, the world, even! We had the power to shape the economic and political destiny of the entire planet, and we would have been due so much more when Bill seized control of the world! What about that says 'world's worst chain?' What right do the small have to judge us? Why could you have let one of the plebeian masses ever convince you that you were anything other than one of Earth's true nobility?"

"You… wouldn't… understand… and never have."

"And why is that, Pacifica? What the fuck makes you so special? What defect in your brain made you sell your birthright for the life of a self-made woman?"

Her smirk grew substantially. "I'm… free," she said smugly.

"What."

"The Northwest Family's power… is a lie. We're… slaves. Trained to be… as heartless as Bill… indoctrinated… addicted to wealth… and privilege. None of us realized… that we didn't have… any real power… of our own; it was all… due to Bill. All your life… you've… dreamed… of being a slave… and that was… what you bought from him: slavery." She sighed. "You made yourself… like him… killed yourself for him… you even call him… master. You made yourself… a slave… and now you… can't dream of a life… outside your shackles."

Polonius stared, brow furrowing with rage and incredulity. "Are you trying to convert me?" he whispered. "You think you can just spout off a few platitudes and I'll just collapse into your arms, begging for forgiveness?"

Pacifica shook her head sadly. "No, son. For one thing… I don't have arms… remember?" She waggled her stumps by way of explanation. "For… another… it's too late. I'm dead… you're dead… and the family… died with us. And if you… get your way… nobody will even remember… the Northwest name. Bill… doesn't give rewards, Polonius: we're not… Henchmaniacs. We're just… puppets."

And at that moment, the commlink at Polonius trilled loudly – which was just as well, because he was too angry to think of a rebuttal.

"WHAT?!" he roared into the commlink.

"Sir, the helicopter just landed! Wendy Corduroy's being unloaded for transportation even as we speak."

"Finally! I want her en route to the Mystery Shack yesterday, lieutenant, and have her escorted by your best troops as well – armoured vehicles, if you have any left!"

"Uh, Mr Northwest, we're still facing a lot of resistance from the Gnomes and we can't call in reinforcements for another forty-eight hours without arousing suspicions-"

"Lieutenant, perhaps it's hard to tell that I give a damn at this point; maybe it's the distance between us, maybe it's the limitation of the comms, or maybe it's the simple fact that I don't actually give a damn. Point is, I couldn't care less about your troop requirements: we need the troops more than you do. However scary you think the Gnomes are, I am a good deal scarier… and believe me, the Gnomes can only kill you. Disappoint me again, and I'll kill your entire family. Is that clear?"

"…perfectly, sir," Lieutenant Waltramm whimpered.

"Good. Now get going."

In the silence that followed, Polonius could only quiver in anticipation. Okay, he thought to himself, we're back on track. All we have to do is burnish Red up a bit, take the edge off all the atrophy and wasting, and then implant her. Then, we'll have our bait and a temporary vessel, and once we're able to effectively spread the word, our prize will come running. Shooting Star and Sixer won't fall for the trap, but Pine Tree hasn't grown up in the last forty years; he'll wriggle out of whatever shelter they've found for him and he'll take the bait – hook, line, sinker and gutting tools. And if he tries to fight, well, it's not as if he could ever bring himself to hurt his precious crush, is it?

But even as he rejoiced, he once again felt long-dormant parts of his psyche flickering back into existence, flooding him with a sense of paranoia and anxiety that Bill would never have admitted to, and though Polonius was dead and had no nervous system left to make all the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end, even he could feel the tiny spark of fear rippling through his being. Somewhere in the back of his head, a voice that should have fallen silent long ago muttered, but what if that doesn't work?

Suddenly enraged, he wracked his brain for an answer that could silence his own fears. If all else fails, we've got one last ace in the hole, he told himself. Sixer's dirty little secret. It's definitely a final resort option, but it'll be enough by that stage.

Yes, yes, everything is back on track at last. The family will be one with Bill Cipher, and we shall share in his glory. Soon, the world will be ours…

Sometime later, the crowd of zombies surrounding the dilapidated statue briefly parted, allowing two terrified-looking corrections officers to enter the circle, carrying with them a single figure on a stretcher. For good measure, they were also carrying as much of her life support array as they could, strapped to their backs as it was.

The two only stayed long enough to deposit their prisoner and the necessary machines at the heart of the circle, just in front of Bill's statue, before hurrying away. And in the silence that followed, the haunting blue light cast upon the summoning site grew as Bill Cipher's burgeoning consciousness took shape just long enough to stare down at the figure slumped beneath him.

Time had not been kind to Wendy Corduroy, nor had the atrophying effects of the coma she'd been languishing in for the last few years. On the orders of Polonius and Powers, she'd been given successive treatments to ensure her longevity, but even with the very best doctors on call, there was only so much that they could do without Dipper's immortality. Already slim at the time the experimental drugs had rendered her comatose, the twenty years that followed had left her an emaciated husk of a human being, a withered mass of translucent skin drawn tight over badly-healed bones. Her once-luxuriant red hair had been reduced to a sparse mass of stringy grey strands that barely covered the dome of her skull; her limbs were warped and crooked from old breakages, bones that prison doctors had refused to set or re-set just in case she ever awoke; only her face remained relatively untouched, give or take a few old scars… but now it looked more like the waxen mask of a corpse than anything else.

To say that she wasn't fit for their purposes would have been putting it very mildly, but with a little of Bill's nascent power and a few artefacts from the FIA's collection, that could change. One by one, the zombies began to place the necessary items for the ritual of reshaping around Wendy's supine body: a human skull with golden teeth, a thurible of arcane incense, a twitching silver hand, and most importantly of all, a crystal pyramid surmounted by a single platinum-glass eye. As one, the dead Northwests began to chant in unison, reciting the words of an eldritch incantation – a spell of reshaping.

With a succession of loud crunches, Wendy's bones began to shift beneath her skin, incorrectly-set arms and legs wrenching themselves back into position, old fractures and hairline cracks simply erased themselves. Scars vanished, burns faded, wrinkles and other signs of ages simply evaporated; however, Bill stopped just short of rejuvenating her all the way back to her Weirdmageddon age: for one thing, he couldn't afford to waste too much energy on this process, and for another, Dipper would probably be suspicious if his crush didn't appear to have aged in the last forty years. So, they rewound her biological clock to the late thirties – old enough to show how much she'd changed, but still young enough so that Pine Tree would recognize her… and take the bait.

Sadly, one of the few things that the spell couldn't alter or restore was hair. Fortunately, this problem had been anticipated, and as the spell finally came to a close, a passable-looking wig was quickly fastened over the ruins of Wendy's scalp.

Normally, the next step in their plan would have required Bill to make a deal with Wendy's slumbering consciousness. However, cursory examination of her brain revealed that there was almost nothing left to make a deal with: two decades had destroyed all but a few paltry remains of her psyche, and none of them were concerned with thinking or dreaming. So, with no conscious mind to deal with, Bill and his retinue could take this body by force.

At the head of the crowd, Polonius directed the ritual of sacrifice, channelling Bill's willpower and casting it out across the assembled Northwest family – specifically those standing at the very edge of the congregation.

Here stood the outcasts of the bloodline: the bastards, the embarrassments, the deformed, the insane, the inbred, and countless other unfortunate by-products of the Northwest patriarchs' best efforts to spread their seed as far and wide as possible. Other families might have balked over such a campaign of unfaithfulness and indiscreet breeding, but Bill Cipher had made Nathaniel Northwest's mission very clear when they'd made their great pact: from that moment onward the bodies of Nathaniel's families were to serve as containers for Bill's essence by virtue of their blood alone, and the more children were born to carry that essence, the better – even if it did result in a few freaks. These unfortunates were never afforded a portrait in the Northwest Mansion's gallery, and most were never recorded in the family tree – not the official one, at any rate; quite a few of them had been confined to a single hidden room for the entirety of their short, unhappy lives. But all were united in death, and even the lowliest bastard was granted a place in the Northwest family crypt, in preparation for the day they would rise and do their master's will (though admittedly the bastards and invalids would be obliged to wait in crates rather than coffins).

Now they were here… and ready to give up the burden they had carried since birth.

Casting out his combined will across the fringes of the crowd, Polonius began to slowly excise the tiny seedlings of Bill's essence they held, magically disconnecting them from the energies that animated them. One by one, the Northwest outcasts collapsed to the ground, their vacant corpses disgorging a single flickering mote of blue light as they died once more. By the end of it, almost a third of the crowd had been culled for their fragments of essence, and a familiar glowing shape was beginning to coalesce in the darkening sky above the statue. None of the outcasts possessed enough energy to conjure a new body for Bill – there wasn't enough essence in the entire family for that – but through their sacrifice, he would have enough strength to walk on earthly feet… and once the perfect vessel was acquired, much, much more.

As the remaining Northwests looked on, Bill poured the accumulated essence into Wendy Corduroy's mindless body with an almighty flex of his reawakening power, saturating her vacant brain with his energy and making a new home for his consciousness inside her skull. Right on cue, Wendy's body jerked upright, her body wrenching itself into a sitting position… and when she opened her eyes, incandescent blue light gleamed deep within her pupils.

Bill Cipher looked out upon the world with human eyes for the first time in decades, and in spite of himself, a horrible smile spread across his borrowed face. Yes, it was a vessel unfit for permanent use, and even with the sacrifice of so many Northwests, there was only so much power he could utilize while in this body… but it would be enough.

At least until Dipper could be found.

By the time the sun finally dipped below the horizon, Mabel and Ford were already in motion.

Commandeering a modified golf-cart from the bunker's meagre "garage," they loaded Dipper into the back and trundled into the depths of the forest as quickly as the souped-up engine could manage. Fortunately, the Gnomes weren't patrolling the area too vigorously: General Schmebulock was marshalling his forces for an assault on the FIA detachment near the Mystery Shack, and apart from a handful of scouts, the shallower end of the forest was almost empty.

Plus, the artefacts that Ford had stolen from the capture team worked just as well on vehicles, as it turned out, allowing them to almost-invisibly bypass the few scouts encountered along the trail: with a talisman attached to each corner of the cart's roof, the entire forest was open to them.

As such, it didn't take much effort to reach the first cache. It was a fairly simple affair – just a compartment hidden beneath a pile of boulders, really. However, once they'd found the secret door and entered the code, they quickly found that the cache itself not only contained the necessary parts, but it was also deep enough to comfortably hold Dipper for the time being. So, once they'd supplied him with enough food, water and oxygen to last the next four days, they shut him inside and told him not to leave unless absolutely necessary.

Unfortunately, the next stage of the plan was nowhere near as successful: it should have been a relatively easy matter to get the Gnome army's attention once they'd removed the stealth talismans, especially considering that General Schmebulock and his ancestors had despised the inhabitants of the Mystery Shack ever since the first attacks on Gravity Falls had soured the relationship between humans and Gnomes. But for now, it seemed as though the FIA was considered the bigger threat, so few of the scouts payed any attention no matter how many times Mabel had honked the cart's horn at them.

After almost an hour of fruitless honking, the two of them brought the golf-cart to a halt on the edge of the Enchanted Glade, and hastily reviewed their approach.

"What the hell is wrong with these damn things?" Mabel demanded. "We're not good enough for them all of a sudden?"

"You're taking this very personally."

"Look, I'm not getting jealous, I'm just arguing priority: the new invaders are no longer the biggest threat! We crippled the FIA back at the command centre, we've killed their director, and now we're wandering through Gnome territory. I think that deserves at least a few alarm bells from these pointed-headed bastards."

Ford sighed. "Would it be worth pointing out the fact that there's only two of us?"

"Big deal. They were happy enough to launch over five hundred consecutives attacks on the Mystery Shack over the last few decades, and there were only two of us then more often than not."

"The key word being "the Mystery Shack" and not "us," I think. I'm no expert on Gnome psychology, but I think they decided that the combined threat of the Mystery Shack, the FIA and the zombies was worthier of their attention. Unfortunately, we can't attack the army head-on just to get their attention, not with Bill's followers so close by – they'd sound the alarm on the spot."

"Alright then, what about the Gnome burrows? The Enchanted Glade itself, even? Those are still pretty densely populated, last I looked: if we trespass on either of those, it just might be enough."

"It might. Question is, how do we get their attention? If we go in while still obscured, make a lot of noise and get out invisibly, they might not be able to follow our trail-"

"-unless we make a lot of noise."

"But if we try to leave the area visibly, they might just be able to flank us and kill us. We're going to have to think very carefully about this one, Mabel."

"Look, as long as we still have the amulets…"

Mabel paused.

"Ford," she said quietly, "When we started this mission, we had four cloaking talismans on us, right?"

"…why do you ask?"

"We appear to be missing one."

"And there's no chance it could have just fallen off?"

"None. In fact, it looks as though someone's cut the edge of the awning off along with it."

"This wouldn't have anything to do with the fact that someone appears to have stolen my air-horn, would it?"

"That depends. Where was the air-horn last you looked?"

"My pocket."

"Oh… crap. Do you think Dipper remembers the way to the Gnome burrows?"

By way of an answer, there was a distant roar of an air-horn, followed by the distinctive chipmunk-like shriek of several hundred unsuspecting Gnomes screaming in fear.

Mabel sighed and hid her face in her hands.

"Goddamn it, Dipper," she groaned. "Why couldn't you have just sat still just for once?"

In spite of himself, Ford actually managed a wry grin. "I seem to recall Stanley asking the same question about you and Dipper before Weirdmageddon," he said smugly.

"Really not the time for smartass remarks, Ford."

In the distance, the air-horn sounded again, much closer this time, and now mingled with the sound of several Gnome scouts ringing alarm bells… and even further away, there came the sound of something massive slowly thundering towards them, accompanied by a deafening bellow of "SCHMEBULOOOOOOCK!"

"Well," said Mabel, "on the upside, I think he might just have done our job for us. On the downside, I'm am going to very gently strangle him when we catch up."

There was a pause of perhaps five minutes, and then the suddenly-visible Dipper skidded to a halt next to the cart. "They're on their way," he panted. "If you want to lead them to the command centre, now's the time. Um, I know I probably shouldn't be tagging along, but-"

Without waiting for him to finish his sentence, Mabel grabbed Dipper by the arm and hauled him aboard the golf-cart; then, the moment she was certain that Dipper was secure in his perch behind them, she brought her foot slamming down hard on the gas pedal.

A moment later, they were rocketing away through the darkened forest, modified engines catapulting them towards the road at a meteoric pace – even as the distant roars of "SCHMEBULOCK!" grew steadily closer.

"And that," said Ford absently, "Is our cue to let the Sheriff and the Deputy out of the bag…"

Somewhere deep beneath the Mystery Shack, hidden behind a solid steel bulkhead and a hermetically-sealed door, a long-dormant stasis capsule was slowly rumbling to life. A glistening chrysalis of stainless steel and crystalline glass, this one-of-a-kind suspended animation chamber had been built specifically to contain specimens too fragile for cryogenic storage – or too precious to be stored in the bunker… and as it happened, the current residents of the capsule was both. Keeping the chamber's contents paused in time for the immediate future, this revolutionary design was the only thing that could keep the capsule's inhabitants stable until needed.

Apart from the capsule, the room was empty except for a long set of monorail tracks leading into a tunnel burrowing deep into the depths of Gravity Fall's underground; a single train was waiting by the pedestal, silent but well-maintained. At Ford's signal, automated mechanisms whirred to life all around the capsule: from the roof, a heavy set of metal pincers plucked the container from its housing and stasis emitters, then ferried it into positon aboard the waiting train; electronic systems aboard the train flickered on, priming engines and releasing the brakes; finally, the capsule itself began to almost-imperceptibly shift in its new housing, as the stasis field wore off and the two residents began to wake from their slumber.

"Good evening, Sheriff," said the computerized voice of Nurse. "Good evening, Deputy. Stanford and Mabel have need of your services. Please prepare yourselves for immediate transportation: now transmitting details on potential targets…"

And with that, the monorail roared to life, propelling them down the tunnel at high speed. They had only about a thousand yards to travel, but they were picking up space for every step of the journey, until at last, the monorail hit a steep slope and rocketed out into the cold night air. With a muffled phut of internal mechanisms in action, the train car catapulted the capsule free of its housing and flung it into the air.

For almost half a mile, the capsule soared through the sky like a comet, until at the very apex of its ascent before its downward plunge began, parachutes deployed from its chassis, slowing the capsule's descent as it gradually descended towards the distant shape of the FIA command centre. Moments later, it landed with a thud on three articulated legs, gently depositing its cargo in the middle of the road just across from the centre; with most of the sensors in the building trained on the forest, nobody noticed the radar-shielded pod behind them until it was too late.

There was a five-second pause, as the capsule's internal systems double-checked the weaponry of its passengers, making sure they were loaded and ready for action. Then, the capsule wall slid open, and a single misshapen figure stepped out into the gloom of the night.

The death of Gravity Falls hadn't occurred all at once: it had been years in the making, the product of a war of attrition waged by governments and corporations alike, one violent incursion after another gradually destroying the town and its populace. Bit by bit, the human residents had either been whittled away, either being forced to flee or ending up killed in the crossfire; the Gnome uprisings had accelerated things dramatically, and by the time the Shroud had been erected to protect them, there was almost nobody human left alive in the entire town except for the inhabitants of the Mystery Shack, and a few desperate scavengers huddled amongst the ruins of what had once been Gravity Falls.

Sheriff Blubs and Deputy Durland, married long ago and unwilling to leave the town they loved so much, had been the last to depart… and ultimately, they never left at all.

As the demands for Dipper's surrender grew ever-more vociferous, Blubs had started to take the job of policework much more seriously than usual, securing the war-torn streets of the town with a devotion that Mabel hadn't seen since the Quentin Trembley incident. While law and order still remained a priority, he successfully arrested several prospective assassins before they got anywhere near the Mystery Shack; later, he helped organize the defences with impressive resolve, deputizing capable civilians into an effective private army to protect the remaining citizens and loaning as much police-issue equipment as he could to the defenders up at the Shack. For his part, Deputy Durland did quite well in keeping up, ensuring Blubs' safety as best as he could – even bringing down an attack helicopter by crashing his police cruiser into it. But in the end, there was so much that the two of them could do.

On the day when the outside world had declared all-out-war on Gravity Falls, Blubs had ended up on the receiving end of a fragmentation grenade. His body pierced in a dozen pieces by a lethal hail of shrapnel, he was barely alive when Mabel had found him; conventional medicine couldn't save him, at for the longest time, it looked as though the defenders would be reduced to three. Ford had hit upon a unique solution, however: by being symbiotically fused with the body of another human, the Sheriff could survive his injuries, his host's body allowing him to gradually regenerate and heal until their merged internal organs functioned as one.

Durland, ever-devoted to his husband's welfare, had volunteered to serve as the host and allow Blubs to live on – as a part of him.

The treatment worked, and Blubs and Durland became one, their minds and bodies integrated into one autonomous gestalt. Once they'd recovered, the two men had insisted on returning to work: as it turned out, their newly-merged physique granted them a significant boost in strength and resilience, and they were quick to take advantage of this in their efforts to defend the Mystery Shack. Weighing themselves down with the most powerful of all Ford's prototype weaponry, they'd defeated entire armies of Gnomes time and again, augmenting their strength with experimental cyborg implants that no sane human would have dared touch. Together, the two lovers were unstoppable.

In the end, the Gnomes were forced to counter the advantage with magic, cursing the Sheriff and the Deputy with a powerful hex that gnawed at their internal organs and withered their circulatory system. Ultimately, they had less than four month left to live. No invention could cure them, and no magic could be found to undo the curse. Ford suggested separating the two, hoping that the spell might be broken if it no longer affected a singular being – or at the very least, that one of the two might survive. However, both Blubs and Durland refused: they would remain together until their death.

Unwilling to say goodbye and unwilling to use their greatest advantage against their enemies in the forest, Mabel and Ford were forced to take drastic action: with the permission of Blubs and Durland, they prepared a specially-designed stasis chamber in which the gestalt could be allowed to remain in until their services were needed.

And now, after barely five activations in the past few years, the Sheriff and the Deputy lumbered into the night.

Up close, they appeared more like a spider than anything else: four legs clattered across the ground with impossible coordination, mechanized gyroscopes and sensors built into their cyborg implants allowing their fused bodies to navigate the ruins without even thinking about it. Both sets of arms held a rifle large enough to qualify as a bazooka to lesser physiques, and their shoulders bristled with built-in cannons and artillery pods; their torsos were heavily armoured both over and under the skin, their fused skin augmented with subdermal plating to keep them safe from heavy arms fire and shrapnel. Their eyes were hidden by gleaming crystal visors, indicating every single predicted target in advance and keeping their faces well-protected from headshots.

But at a distance, they might have looked more like two very heavily-armed men standing back to back – right up until a hypothetical observer noticed the fact that they appeared to be conjoined at the head…

And the neck…

And the back.

There was a pause, as the Sheriff and the Deputy took a deep breath for the first time in almost eight years.

"Ready, darlin'?"

"Always, honey."

They shared a smile (and though neither of them could see it, of course, they knew it had happened – one of the many benefits of a merged nervous system).

Then, shouldering their rifles and reading their implanted weaponry, they began the slow, ponderous march towards the command centre.

A/N: Up next... you'll have to guess!