The revelation had hit everybody hard - but hit Pacifica hardest of all. She had been as guilty of bullying Toby Determined as much as anyone else. Hell, she had bullied him when he had handed over the damned story.

She had always just thought of him as a disgusting little man who scratched himself constantly, dressed as a fox and ate literal trash. She had never thought there was some kind of dark reasoning for him being the way he was. Hell, she had never thought of him having a family before. Now she was finding out his family was normal until Curzon had got his sticky shadow-tentacles on him. At her ancestor's frantic, insane, overbearing demand.

How much had Toby known? He must have known… something. It couldn't be a coincidence that he had handed it off to Pacifica. He wasn't… a completely clueless goblin of a man. Right? Maybe he had read it and worked it all out for himself. Maybe part of him had always known.

All of the blood had drained from her face. Her purple eyeshadow was the only source of colour on her. She knew, no matter what, she'd have to make amends with the strange little man in the fake journalist hat. It was practically her duty to do so. Maybe she'd, like, buy him a coffee or something. Whatever.

She felt ashamed. Completely and utterly shamed. Completely and utterly bitter. She had always wanted answers, but had never really thought about how upsetting they could be. Now that she knew, she felt… well, sick. She had thought she had experienced hate before. That she had hated Mabel, that she had hated losing, that she hated advanced calculus and home schooling.

She was beginning to realise that she hadn't hated any of those things.

She hated Curzon Cankerblight, she hated Bill Cipher, and, right now, she hated Nathaniel Northwest more than anything.

She stuffed the notepad back into her pocket and spoke up again bitterly, practically spitting every syllable, her eyes fixed to the floor. "So, you've proven your point, then. My family are monsters."

"What, do you think that's it?" the spinning, twirling portal crackled. "Please. I've only just gotten started…"

"You don't have to show me."

"Oh, let's go down the Northwest criminal record…"

"I said you don't have to show me any more!" She shouted at the top of her lungs and stomped her foot, the firm rubber heel of her fur-lined boot thumping against the stone floor and echoing across the walls. The lack of colour in her face had quickly reverted into a furious, fuscia twinge that was completely dominated by her anger.

There was a moment of silence. Even Dipper had been a little shocked. He had seen Pacifica mad, or sulky, and had definitely seen her act sassy plenty of times but like… that angry? She wasn't the best at maintaining her temper but she normally had a bit more decorum.

Tears streaked down her cheeks, pulling her mascara over her face. "You aren't going to break me, you freak! I've seen enough of this crap and it's not me!"

The house flexed and writhed like rubber as Curzon cackled in amusement. "The apple never falls far from the-"

" Don't! " came the loud response. It echoed and bounced off of the walls. It scratched Pacifica's own throat. It shocked the Grunkles. Even she was pretty sure she'd never been that loud before.

Hell. If she had, she wasn't sure how her family would have reacted. The fact she was doing it - in her own home, sort of - was actually somewhat liberating. To Curzon, it was mostly amusing, but Pacifica felt tough. She felt proud. She hadn't felt quite that good since she'd…

Well, since the last time she'd confronted the Crawlspace's owning miscreant.

Dipper gripped her hand and tried to give his best reassuring smile, hopeful that he'd be able to help disarm the fizzling fuse that Pacifica was clearly attached to. He'd seen her in some tight spots but this was getting a little bit beyond. He was beginning to feel more scared of what Pacifica could do as opposed to what Curzon could pull off.

Curzon was relatively straightforward. A horrible thing that had helped to twist and manipulate the town's richest family for a massive business deal. A shadowy figure that had pretended to be a friend, but had always had the same level of arrogant disdain for those he made deals with.

Heh, that actually reminded him of Preston during the whole McBurger / OregCo thing.

In fact he was beginning to feel Curzon was pretty close to the man he was so mocking towards. Maybe they were pretty similar. Save, y'know, the hundreds of legs, several eyes, being a weird anomaly that could see through time… and the ability to seep his being into every little inch of the towering, Gothic structure on the Northwestern hilltop of Gravity Falls.

Preston had kind of done that. But this was literal.

He at least took solace in the fact that there wasn't much Curzon could do that was worse than unveiling this hideous, tangled web of Nathaniel Northwest's preplanning, Bill Cipher's sick love of seeing people grow depraved, the fate of Tobias Determined…

"But Pacifica. What about your dear friend, your surrogate mother, your guardian, your mentor…"

Oh no.

Dipper felt like pulling her back instinctively, but it was too late. Susan Wentworth appeared on the screen, as she currently was - at home, dressing her cats in a collection of novelty jumpers that reminded the entire family irresistibly of Mabel - who they were all increasingly glad was currently with her new boyfriend in the relative safety of the Corduroy household.

"Don't you DARE lay a hand on Susan!" Pacifica shouted, her hands clenching into fists. There were few people in the world that Pacifica was heavily defensive of. Mabel, Dipper, the Grunkles, Wendy…

But Susan? Susan was the woman who had given Pacifica her first taste of living happily. Given Pacifica a job regardless of her smeared name. Given Pacifica a chance.

"You think I haven't already?" Curzon snarled, thin trickles of thick, blue acidic mucus dripping from the walls in fizzling, bubbling anger as - to his surprise - Pacifica stayed resolute and sharp. "Do you really think your family stopped with the likes of the Determineds? Didn't she tell you, the other day… what was it?"

The giant window curled and flickered, vapour and splattering shadow coating the area surrounding it in thin, fennel scented streaks of liquid. Before them, the image curled into the familiar sight of the kitchen entrance to Greasy's Diner. There was Pacifica. There was Susan. There was the generator - the exact same events taking place as had done for Pacifica herself only a few days before.

DId this mean Curzon had been watching her? Or was he just able to conjure up windows to anywhere? Like, going from the train wreck, this obviously wasn't just a freaking recording. Susan's words seemed to echo and reverb from the twirling, smokey window into the past as Pacifica saw herself. And quietly admired how she looked in her uniform. Damn, no wonder Dipper thought it was cute. It was cute! Hell, sh- Focus, Pacifica.

This was my grandpa's, Pacifica!

This was my grandpa's!

This was my grandpa's…

"You think it's a coincidence that Susan likes fixing things?"

Curzon's voice scraped from the walls around them, like fingernails dragging down a chalkboard. He was notably stilted; notably shaken, noticeably exerted. The portal was beginning to let out some sort of strange, continuous humming. It didn't sound… right.

"You think it's a coincidence that her grandpa built a generator?" He continued, his mocking growing more angry and frantic. "You think it's a coincidence that the Wentworths seem to have had a constant love of mechanics and machinery?"

Ford and Stan instinctively pulled the kids back from the increasingly fuzzy picture before them. They swore that Curzon was almost getting out of breath. Like there was a strange, hollow panting in his tone, an echoing, pulsing breath that matched the whirring and almost digital buzzing of the vortexian window he was using to illustrate his points.

Pacifica resisted, eager to continue confronting the horrible creature - regardless of the perceived instability of the wormhole that screamed and swirled in front of them.

"What the hell are you saying?!"

The answer started with a grating, cruel laugh that croaked, rattled and rolled across the room in a harrowing, shallow roar that caused the portal to shift and roll in its place. "I'm saying that Great-Granpappy Wentworth built the machine that Cornelius Northwest died in!"

Now the entire group was agape. Curzon continued laughing relentlessly. Pacifica's heart was now in her throat. She was freaking out more than ever. No way. It couldn't be true. She was being toyed with. He… he was making stuff up. Right?

She stared, almost vacant, as a man - with very substantial sideburns - appeared, his eyes blank, his jaw slack, his hands hard at work, building much the same monstrosity of brass, mahogany and iron they had seen in the laboratory.

He was a portly, albeit muscular figure, in a pink checked shirt with cotton overalls, big boots and leather gloves covering his extremities as he riveted the enormous machine with stout, heavy thumps of a sledgehammer. His eyes glowed a bright white, and, behind him, Nathaniel Northwest would shove him forward, hit him with his cane or jeer and should into the larger man's ears with unadulterated enjoyment.

He had more than a passing resemblance to his eccentric, diner-owning descendent. Enough to make Pacifica feel even more stressed and nauseous at the sight of the scene playing out before them. It was clear that the engineer was under some sort of control or suggestible state.

It was, of course, not only Pacifica with close connections to the woman. Grunkle Stan squirmed uncomfortably.

"M..man, I- I gotta keep that quiet on our next night together."

Ford blinked and stared at Stan, eyes wide. "You're dating Susan Wentworth?!"

"Hey, hey, it's not datin', it's just uh- we're going steady, y'know? She's kinda a weirdo but-"

"She's a complete nutca-"

Ahm. Stan interrupted him and motioned at the distraught Northwest heir who stood nearby.

It forced Ford into silence. He wordlessly walked over to the pair and held a hand on her shoulder, Stan following much the same movements and standing with the younger pair, trying their damndest to act as some sort of moral support buffer, or… something.

The truth was, if Stan was clueless, Ford was beyond clueless in this situation. They were both as equally dumbfounded as the kids they were trying to reassure.

"This is crazy." Dipper whispered quietly. He tried to hold Pacifica's hand tighter but their hands were both so sweaty and clammy it was no longer so easy to keep a grip. She sniffled and wiped her eyes on her sleeve, before gazing straight at her boyfriend.

Dipper felt like seeing his girlfriend cry was just about the most heartbreaking thing he could imagine. He tried to wrap his arms around her, but she was as stiff as a board.

"Paz?"

"Not now." she replied, hoarsely. "Please."

He went quiet and let go. "I'm sorry-"

"This isn't your fault, Dipper." She replied quietly.

"We can stop it any time you want." He said, motioning to the pocket in his vest, seemingly incredulous at the fact Pacifica was still taking the continuous abuse and unpleasant revelations from the wormhole ahead of them. "You don't have to-"

At this, she became more firm - more determined. Strict, and authoritative, regardless of her tears, regardless of how she felt - regardless of how much her throat hurt or her hands quaked. "Yes. I do."

She narrowed her eyes at the sight of Nathaniel Northwest, prodding, bullying and laughing at the expense of the possessed engineer as he worked silently. She was angered by it most of all. A Northwest bullying eccentric, amiable misfits that were smarter, braver or more talented than they were?

She had made that mistake with Mabel and Dipper and had regretted it every day. In another world, she could have been in Nathaniel's place. She could have had Dipper and Mabel locked into machines or cursed or…

She gritted her teeth, and looked down at the floor at the pieces of shrapnel that had blown through Curzon's wormhole from the incendiary train wreck they had just witnessed. It was a tangle of iron, bolts and screws, pieces of piston and wood shards - all still smouldering but significantly cooler to the touch.

Truth be told, she wasn't really sure what justification she had. She just felt angry. In her mind, it was, if nothing else, a decent way to get that rage out of her system.

Wordlessly, she picked up one of the bolts and tossed it between her hands, fixing her eyes on the back of Nathaniel's head with a very slight smirk.

"What are you doing?" Dipper mumbled.

"Heh. Blondie has the right idea." Stan grinned, grabbing a chunk of metal. "On three, Pacifica!"

"You've got it, Stan." she replied with a cheeky smile - creating, truth be told, a very strange contrast with her tear-streaked makeup and sniffly nose.

"3, 2, 1-"

"Wait!" Stanford barked. "That's a terrible idea! You don't-"

It was too late. The pieces of iron flew from the best throwing hands of the two rambunctious souls and through the echoing, swirling, flickering window into the past.