Stan, Soos, Tyler and Wendy hastily navigated Soos's preferred entrance of the redwood staircase, stalked cautiously through tunnels, then ran into the plaza, ready and raring for a fight - before immediately recoiling in horror at the sight of what greeted them.

Soos had opted to carry Tyler on his shoulders. The little man was having a uh… a bit of a difficult time.

The blue hued smoke and vapour, the enormous black creature of thrashing shadows and teeth, the screaming disarray of gnomes, fairies and manotaurs, the collapsing buildings and fallen masonry… They had run head first into sheer, adulterated chaos.

"Holy paloopa!" Stan shouted, instinctively throwing his arms back to protect those that had joined him. "What the H is that thing?!"

"No way." Tyler gasped. "Is… is that… I shook hands with that guy!"

Tyler broke into a scream - only for Soos to clap his hand over the little biker's mouth.

They all fell quiet at the sight of the blonde in purple - standing in front of them, her back turned.

Pacifica stood, motionless, staring at the pile of wreckage that now sat in the place of No.42. She barely even acknowledged the fact Stan had arrived - tears, slowly, beginning to trickle down her cheeks.

"Pacifica? What's going on?"

"...Gr..grunkle Stan…"

She turned to face Stan, Wendy et al and immediately ran into the old man, squeezing him tightly.

"I-I-I didn't mean to! The building came down and I jumped out of the way but they- they were still in there and I should've grabbed them and-"

Stan looked up at the wreckage of No.42 - then up at Curzon.

"Don't know how much credit you can take for that, Blondie."

"What if Dipper and Mabel are- are- are-" She sniffled and held him tighter - momentarily forgetting any sign of revulsion for the man's questionable hygiene or clearly mothball-coated clothes.

"Hey, listen, kiddo." Stan held Pacifica's chin and gave his best reassuring smile. "Trust me. Those two are resilient. A Pines kid bounces, y'know? Sit back sweetie, I promise - everything'll be fine."

Pacifica looked up at him, her makeup now smearing down her face. That's how you could tell it was serious. Pacifica Northwest just didn't allow for these imperfections.

And...well, Stan was a great liar by nature.

The group tried to stay out of view and began digging frantically through the wreckage, only for a trail of blue, burning phlegm to fly past them.

"No you don't! Those brats are mine!"

"Over my dead body!" Stan shouted back furiously, throwing a nearby brick straight into one of Curzon's glowing, red eyes.

Curzon howled like a banshee, his eye sealing shut in his writhing, living shadows of flesh - seemingly melting away from existence.

Pacifica looked away, trying to hold back her urge to throw up again. Everything about Curzon made her feel nausea - something about him was just naturally sickening.

"Your dead body? That can be arranged." The monster hissed in return, landing on its hundreds of feet and crawling towards them - hundreds of scampering, talon like feet rattling across the floor as it drew closer to them, that familiar smell of fennel and herbs wafting with every curling, frisking tendril of smoke and vapour. The battered gnomes and manotaurs parted, no longer sure how to fight back against the creature - feeling fearful. Cautious. Scared and bewildered.

Even for Gravity Falls, Curzon Cankerblighter seemed particularly insidious and weird.

Wendy booted what little of Curzon that came close to her as she kept digging, maintaining her cool - as best as she could, under the circumstances - throwing off countless pieces of rubble and stone in her search for the twins. Even when Gertrude's screaming, red eyed maw snapped at the Corduroy girl, it was met by a simple kick to the face.

Wendy was not interested in giving in to any of this crap. If the little dude and his sister were in there, it would be Mrs. Corduroy's little girl who dug them out. To hell with the liquorice smelling creep that looked like it came from a bad anime.

Cutebiker just ducked behind the rough and ready girl in flannel. He was… clearly not cut from the same cloth as the rest of the extended Pines clan.

Pacifica felt paralysed. She stood there hopelessly, watching them burrow into the piles of plaster and stone, writhing her hands together. She was freaking out, she was so freaking out and she hated it and didn't know what to do.

Curzon curled closer to Pacifica and hissed into her ear; the cool smoke that flowed from him sent a chill down her neck as his voice scraped into her head. "You can feel it, can't you Pacifica? The pain and the agony of guilt, coursing through your veins. I can see them under there, you know… they're suffering. Their bones are crushed. They're bleeding…"

Pacifica's eyes filled with tears as she tried to shut him out, watching speechlessly as rubble, bricks and lumber were lifted and thrown away by the group. She felt helpless. She didn't know how to help, and she was scared to help. She was genuinely unsure, at this point, how much she could listen to Curzon's words. It hurt. The lack of certainty here was the worst damned thing she had ever felt.

The feeling she might be responsible for this - it was beyond what she had prepared for yesterday morning, and at this point, beyond what her advancing fatigue had prepared her for.

She snapped back into reality, twitched... and shouted inarticulately with sheer anger, promptly planting her tiny, feminine fist straight into Curzon's remaining good eye - almost as a reflex. Her fist squelched into the oddly sticky red membrane of the creature's remaining eyeball, deep into the slick, smokey mucus that made his face.

Her manicure was ruined already. To hell with it.

She unclenched her fist and dug in her nails as hard as he could, prompting a loud, ear-splitting scream from the creature as pangs of pain travelled down its multiple brains and heads. The enormous, towering beast threw itself backwards, recoiling like a hosepipe under pressure - howling in pain and now blinded from its 'prime head' - leaving the other faces along its slick, curling body confused and disorientated - slamming themselves against the structures that surrounded them.

Pacifica looked in disgust at her mucus spattered hand, still gripping a soft, gelatinous mass that was once Curzon's left eye. She wanted to scream. She felt fit to puke even considering the fact her fingers had just dug into that… stuff.

Was that, like, shadow creature blood or something?!

She shuddered as she wiped the miscoloured slime on her jacket - trying to forget the fact absolutely any element of that whatsoever had ever happened.

"Nice punch, sweetie." Stan grinned. "Now, while he's out of whack, think about what you want to do with him. When I was boxing, you always took the spare moment to punch under the belt. Me, I'd start with that gas pipe up there. Yeah?"

Pacifica blinked and narrowed her eyes up at the large, metal pipe that ran through the dirt above them - now fully exposed by the collapsing masonry, shaken loose by the monstrosity ahead of them.

"How am I meant to get up-"

"Shh!"

Pacifica glared at Wendy. She was not the most acclimated to being shushed - then, she heard it, from inside the piles of rubble - echoing slightly, like a voice from inside a pipe or hollow structure.

A quiet groaning. A quiet, familiar, battered and beaten groaning. One that sounded oddly like a whiney dork in a vest.

Curious how, after living with The Pines for a few weeks, Pacifica had managed to pinpoint that.