Illusion is Reality
Chapter 96
-Isn't Bill dead?-
Miz laid on the roof of the Mystery Shack beside her brother. The two had come up to sunbathe and while Miz hadn't liked being in the sun as a human (heck, she'd barely left her house back then), she found herself rumbling in content now, as her tail curled lazily around in the warm weather. It was bright that day, but it wasn't quite hot - not for her. Miz was using an 'air conditioning' type of spell, carved into a small stone she kept in her pocket. It made it so that she didn't overheat and would just feel a very pleasant warmth, as she relaxed on the roof with her big brother, lying there next to her.
It was a quiet day and anyone looking from outside probably wouldn't think anything of note was happening at the moment. They would be wrong.
Despite her peaceful expression, Miz was not as relaxed as she appeared. Through much trial and error, she had realized that while the unicorn barrier blocked out Weirdness and the bracelets blocked Magic, neither did anything to block out her Psychic powers. That was the reason why Miz's Empathy and Telepathy had still worked, even inside and under the mystic barrier spell.
So now that Miz had realized that her psychic powers apparently didn't count as Weirdness or as Magic, she wanted to explore just what she could do with her psychic powers alone. They were similar to her Eye, but different enough that she wanted to know how much she could See using them without her Eye. -Specifically, she was planning to try and find Blue's Ax. She had thought that ALL the AXOLOTL were related, connected, up until recently. But the way her brother described his Ax just seemed so… different. She had met with an Ax the last time she was here, when she was drunk and Blue had invoked his name. So, she had thought the one she'd met was HIS AXOLOTL. But now she wasn't so sure.
Miz felt around the weave of this reality. It would be easier if she was outside of this unicorn barrier, but pushing her powers to do stuff while under limitations was a good way to really explore and experiment.
She stretched her senses out and Felt for the edges of the world. She knew how to get into the Space between Spaces easily. But was it the same in this world? She couldn't feel it the same way, it wasn't in the same place… and yet… it was there. It was everywhere around them, literally between all the spaces, woven into the reality around them.
Miz yawned and shuffled over to press herself up against Bill's side. ...She might have to get into the Mindscape for this. She could Feel where the AXOLOTL could be using just her psychic powers, but if she wanted to actually See the AXOLOTL she would need to use all her powers to do so.
Bill glanced over lazily. "What are you looking for?" he asked her. (He'd caught on that she'd been trying to look at something, some way.)
Miz stretched lazily. "I'm testing out something. The things you've said about your Ax sound really different from mine, I want to know what's causing that difference." She knew the laws of reality were different in different dimensions, but how different were things here that the native version of Ax would be so… weird? And not the good kind of weird?
Bill raised an eyebrow. "The stupid lizard is stupid. It doesn't talk to anyone hardly ever. Even demons who break the Rules." He didn't want to get into what he'd had to do to get it to pay attention to him and then to respond beyond that, though; he didn't want to give Miz any very bad ideas that might get Stanley angry with him (and that Stanford almost definitely) and he himself a bit worried at what she might do with that information upon learning it, accidentally or otherwise. (And it had BARELY worked anyway.)
Miz sighed. "Mine is nice. I want to know why. From what you say, Ax isn't supposed to be nice. So what is it that makes mine so different? Maybe if I can meet yours, I'll be able to know."
Bill closed his eyes and shrugged. He had thought about that as well. His current theory was that her 'dad' thought that pretending to be her dad would make her easier to manipulate for whatever plans that that stupid lizard had in mind for her… which was a terrifyingly possible theory.
"Alright. Be careful," Bill finally said.
Miz nodded before she laid down and closed her eyes. Bill watched as all tension left the vessel and Miz floated up and-
-away like a shot, immediately punted out of the barrier, and not just her constructed-body! ...Right. She wasn't within that bubble of anti-magic the bracelets made around her vessel for her anymore.
Miz shook herself off and waved at Bill, who was making himself busy with lifting her body over a shoulder and making his way towards the edge of the roof, before she focused her thoughts on finding the Space between Spaces and allowed her energy form to spread out, sinking between the gaps of reality.
She Looked UP.
The concept of numbers. Enabled and disabled. The strings which bind together walls upon walls of concepts forming ideas. True and false (...and a spin of probabilistic uncertainty that leaves enough space for chaotic chance to be inserted into an otherwise-unforgiving system, for some small mean concept incorrectly termed by lesser beings as 'free will' to exist…). A webmatrix spread across all of reality, built upon the core system which governed all reality (-all realities that ever was or ever were or ever are or ever would be-). Spiralling further and further into everything. Rules. Fundamental laws of the universe. (These were written, these could be REwritten.) Order. Stability. (An injection of pure chaos, from the outside; from the inside-) A system of balances. Inputs and outputs. (The processes were-) A core system in charge of maintaining those laws. ('Oh AXOLOTL, hear my prayer-') Those rules.
Miz opened her Eye and Saw. ...And then she did more than just See.
She stared. Unable to comprehend for a while. She understood all the parts. (She did, she did! They were understandable! They were!) The lines and numbers. The codes and string. (So familiar; when she did things she liked to-) The embedded sections that would recall previous sections. Individually, she understood what it all meant. (All of it! Everything!) But here, spread out before her, was infinity. (It was so beautiful, SO BEAUTIFUL, and-AND-AND-)
Miz felt her mind crack again as she tried to comprehend the vastness of it all. Here was everything. The truth of the world and all within it. SHE WENT MAD…
... for a few seconds at least. Then, her automatic functions took over and this Truth, like all others she had Seen, was Sorted, Analyzed and Saved away in another section of her core, to be pursued later for a deeper understanding.
And in the midst of all of this that she was trying to not just See, but also Comprehend, Miz Saw… the AXOLOTL.
Miz stared at the AXOLOTL. It stared back.
"Um… hi!" Miz greeted cheerfully. The AXOLOTL said nothing. It didn't even blink. (It had no eyelids to blink. It SAW ALL, always and forever, it couldn't not.) It gave no indication that it had heard her. (It had.) No acknowledgment of her presence. (It would not. Its interactions were bound and regulated by-) Not even the barest flicker of recognition or care.
('Care' was not the most accurate word-concept-allowance-descriptor for what it did and did not do.)
It was cold. (And burned with a power that rivalled every star in every dimension it had ever spun up and ignited with-) Unfeeling. (It had no body to feel-) Distant. (And right next to and running alongside everything at once, as-) It continued to run its functions. (Of course it would. It had its own mandates. The mandates of others were-) Never stopping, never stalling to continue to perform its duty. (And it WOULD perform it WELL. Because-)
And Miz realized in the space of a broken moment: this was NOT the AXOLOTL that she knew.
And then Miz was smacked on top of her- head?
She tumbled, fell and fell and fell, and then...
...she looked up into BlueBill's face.
He did not look happy with her.
"DON'T DO THAT." Bill told her, as she blinked up at him, trying to regain her bearings. "YOU'LL GO INSANE AND UNSTABLE AND EVERYTHING WILL BURN."
Miz blinked slowly. "Oh. Sorry. I… wasn't expecting what I found." Miz said sheepishly. She ignored the pounding headache. Well, less of a headache and more of a mindache but...
"I told you to be CAREFUL!" Bill complained at her, slowly lowering himself down to the ground from the hover he'd been doing. "I am not ready to do that. YET. And I did that once before, and have SLOWLY been working my way back up all of the pathways and levels, since," he told her as he settled into a kneeling posture and the crudely and quickly-modified 'floating' spell, which he'd used to get up that 'high' to metaphysically 'smack' her on the head, was cancelled out by him with a gesture. "You shouldn't do that, that way. I barely caught you." He was frowning at her. "And I KNOW you fractured." He was giving her an angry (...but also worried?...) look.
"I'm sorry… didn't think it would be… so much." Miz winced. "But I'm… otherwise undamaged. I managed to shunt it off before I got overwhelmed."
"'Overwhelmed'," Bill echoed at almost a mutter. He (gently) poked her in the forehead. "WHAT did I TELL you about MENTAL STRENGTH?!" Because he's Seen her Mind being 'overwhelmed' and… did she still think that her Mind was unable to be influenced by other beings' Minds?
"Well, that Ax didn't..."
"-But it COULD HAVE," Bill pointed out, with another soft forehead-poke. He hadn't thought that it would do that (that would have been a form of communication), or he would have told her not to try. To Bill, though, the more important point of what he was trying to tell her was that her assumption that she could not be directly influenced by any other Mind in all of existence was WRONG! (Which meant that she was leaving herself WIDE OPEN to all sorts of possible avenues of potentially-SUCCESSFUL attack, because she wasn't even considering-)
Miz frowned at this, mistaking his insistence for a different sort of concern. But instead of trying to protest that she was alright (what she thought he was worried about), she changed the subject to something that she thought was more important, instead. "That thing was NOT my dad," she declared. Because that unfeeling thing was not the AXOLOTL she knew. It was nothing like the other AXOLOTL she'd met either. The one who had shown up the last time she was here when Bill had invoked it. (So, if it wasn't Blue's Ax, which AXOLOTL was it?!)
"Back in your vessel, first," Bill told her, pointing down at it, where it was laying on the ground outside the barrier, where he'd moved it to. "Then we'll talk." He acknowledged that this was a worthy and high-priority topic of discussion, yes - but if she'd done what he'd thought she'd done, the way he'd thought she'd done it, then she needed grounding. RIGHT NOW.
Miz floated down and settled, gasping air into the lungs of her vessel as she connected herself back into a more concrete physicality than her existence in the general Mindscape. "That thing… it… it's not even…" -alive. Not exactly. The word 'alive' didn't even apply to something like that. It was…
"Oh dear lord, you're in the Matrix…" Miz mumbled out. That Axolotl was… some kind of PROGRAM. -Oh, it figured that the alternative dimension she was looking at (with that Will who was not Bill but still denied being Will and who was playing a game, some VRMMORPG that took place in this reality, AS this reality-) turned out to be directly connected to this one.
(And more than that, the Will she'd Seen there was a demon from the Outside-)
Bill tilted his head at her. "There are many matrices, yes? Which type are you talking about?" He settled from a kneeling posture to a cross-legged one. "There are no pillars," he told her next, guessing at what she might have meant because of what she had been trying to look at, and thus had likely Seen at the same time with the way she had been trying to Look and See everything. "It is more of a… net?" He spread his hands out in front of him, trying to give a bit more description to the words, despite the limited three-dimensional-plus-time nature of the motion. (Stupid human language didn't have the best words to describe the concept.)
"I was actually making a movie reference." Miz admitted. ...One that, in retrospect, didn't actually exist here in this dimension, now that she caught her breath and took a moment to look back through her own previous Flickers in this dimension. Oops?
(Note to self, make everyone watch the Matrix… unless it counted as a mental attack? But it would be very helpful towards getting the Pines to understand…)
Bill blinked and thought about that for a moment. then he smiled and reached forward to pat her on the head.
"'Welcome to The Game'," Bill said, with a sideways smirk going. Miz let out a semi-hysterical giggle at the thought. Bill's smile grew wider. "We hope you enjoy your stay!" he chirped out at her almost sarcastically as he spread out his hands in something like a gesture of welcome, except his eyes were gleaming with amusement as he did it.
"Huh… well I can now honestly say that my Doors apparently reach even farther than I thought." Miz turned to Bill. "Your AXOLOTL is, in NO way, connected to mine. At all. My dimensional set runs nothing like it is here." Hers didn't have an 'outside' in the sense of another reality connecting in from 'reality' and even IF reality was an illusion, her world was 'real'. ...Well, as 'real' as it could be considering part of her still thought it was based on a children's cartoon show...
Bill nodded at her, frowning. "There is a net to catch everything, not pillars, the Rules can be rewritten, and there is an outside that connects in," he told her, relaxing as he began reiterating these simple truths and differences that he'd been cataloguing here for some time now. (It was nice to have someone to talk to about this.) "It's very different wherever the outside is," he told her, propping his arms up on his knees and his chin up on his fists. "The outside can't just turn us off like a computer game, though," Bill said to reassure her, having a feeling that that may be part of what had worried her? (The idea of having NO CONTROL over the continuation of his own existence AT ALL sure would have worried HIM! HA!) He raised an arm to look at his hand and wiggled his fingers as he turned it, while showing it off to her, keeping his chin propped up on his other fist. "Biological simulacrum, quantum string substructure, etheric stream overlay, knotted parallel spin mechanics supporting the underpinnings…" Bill trailed off with a shrug.
Miz nodded. She bet it was more complex than she already thought it was. This dimension… it was all… some kind of simulation? -No, that wasn't quite the right word here. Not just a game, something more, bigger, grander.
Then a thought hit her as Bill lowered his arm, as he looked over at her again. Bill wasn't from the Outside (Not a Player so that must mean he was an-), unlike that Will she had seen who WAS from the outside.
She brushed that thought aside for a second to focus on the other issues. No need to follow that thought to its logical conclusion right now. (And it wasn't like it would matter either way, she didn't think of any of these people as JUST NPCs.)
"I'm not certain what your stupid lizard is, but from what you've told me, it handles things VERY differently from… 'mine'," Bill said, making a face of near-disgust as he said it. Then Bill shook himself and moved on. "I don't know how different it actually is, or if it is just masking you from Seeing it PROPERLY in your dimensional set, instead," Bill added, "But…" He grimaced, because, "...that is unlikely, though, with how well you can See things." He found the latter idea suspect because of that little fact, when coupled with what Miz knew about the underpinnings of her own.
Really, Bill had been starting to suspect that something was off for awhile, with the way Miz had talked about her setup back in her home 'set, but… the thought that the Axolotl wasn't or might be completely different where she was, that it might not be a simple connected instance of the same stupid lizard he knew, was… disquieting and disturbing to Bill. (He knew how the Rules worked HERE, but there…? How was he supposed to HELP her effectively if he didn't KNOW? Because without knowing even something so simple as that-)
Miz sighed. "My dimension doesn't run on a matrix. It has rules and stuff too, but nothing like it is here. My Ax is a PERSON. A living, feeling, sentience with his own wants and desires. He creates new dimensions by forming a new Space but there would be no progressive Time within it without Time Baby's help, and there would be no life in it without the Energy to start things off. So in my world, the multiverse was formed from the three of us working together." Accidentally in her case. What with her explosion creating not just the 3rd dimension but tearing holes through all the other Spaces, to form the greater multiverse...
"The AXOLOTL here is stupid, but it's SUPPOSED to be intelligent," Bill told her. "It's not a demon-from-the-outside. So it is ALSO a 'person'. But it is very-different living at that level so high up and out, yes," he told her, agreeably. "That's what happens to most beings that manage to ascend - they CHANGE," Bill groused. (It was why he was so very careful to never-change - he REFUSED to lose track of what - of who - was important to him. Otherwise, what was the point of doing that, and taking over, if in the process he lost track of himself, what-and-who was important, and what he wanted to change?!) Then Bill narrowed his eyes slightly at her. "...YOU are a part of the decisions-made for every new dimension your stupid lizard spins up?"
"I'm just there to lend the energy to kick start it. Sometimes dad lets me decide what I want in it. But he doesn't let me decide very often. Apparently, making a world where every carbon atom is replaced with an entire fish was too headache-inducing for Ax to work with. Though now that you've told me about a way to make it work, perhaps I could bring that up to him next time." Not to mention all the other 'fun' ideas she'd had which Ax had said were all too annoying to work with. Although she HAD managed to convince him to make more dimensions with an Earth (and, eventually, humanity), just so she could have more places to play around in. Speaking of which, she hadn't visited the Marvel-verse in a while...
[[A/N: This is actually something that popped up in a Broken Timelines chapter I wrote but never finished or published, but it still exists within my Lore and I'm sorry I never really spoke about this before . Eh… it was essentially, MizBill got permission from Ax to decide a new dimension and they chose to recreate the Marvel Cinematic universe because they're a goddamn nerd.]]
Upon hearing this new information from Miz, Bill's smile got just a touch wider (and rather more... evil, in some respects).
"You have leverage," Bill told her, as he began to understand the situation she was in a bit better. "The universe won't start without the energy. You can hold things up forever if you don't like the way it's set up." Bill's smile got a touch wider. Because as long as Miz wasn't there… "Maybe that stupid lizard will appreciate you more, once you're back… if it's got a backlog to handle now that it NEEDS you for," Bill grinned.
Miz blinked. "I never thought of that. I was always worried that I was holding them up. Time Baby gets impatient."
"Time Baby is dumb, and the stupid lizard doesn't need Time Baby," Bill pointed out. "It can take over that stupid Baby's pillar, you said! But if it needs Energy… where is it going to get it without you?" Bill queried her. "You seem to self-generate very large amounts from very small bits of starting material, for redistribution."
"Well, Ax can generate his own through worship but he's not as efficient as I am. He gets tired. Most of his power goes to running the Souls system."
"Yes," Bill nodded. Efficiency was VERY important. "Which means that at some point, if it tried to handle it all itself, that stupid lizard would RUN OUT of power to use as energy!" Bill's look became truly maniacally-'evil'. "Once you're ready, you could just wait elsewhere - like here - and jump back in after the stupid thing has almost guttered itself out… and overpower it easily," Bill told her, with a vvery wide grin.
Miz looked a little worried. "I don't want to hurt dad." She loved him. "Or betray him." She would feel really bad about that. It would be so ungrateful of her to do that after everything Ax had done for her...
Bill shrugged at this, dropping his arm to leave both hands in his lap, sitting upright instead. "Then just overpower it and put it in a position where it can't threaten you again," he told her easily. "Disconnect it from everything. The process doesn't HAVE to hurt," he told her. It would likely take more energy to hurt it at the same time, anyway. It would be more efficient to hurt it later, if she was keeping it alive and changed her mind; it would be rather more dangerous to attempt hurting it at the same time as she was trying to take over everything.
Miz realized what Bill was referring to, but... Well, Miz had meant the emotional pain of a betrayal instead, but she wasn't sure how to explain that to him. But she did try, by saying: "I meant hurting his feelings. If I just overthrew him and stuff."
Bill blinked at her. "Does it like spinning up universes where beings with free will have to suffer and die, and then watching that happen?" he asked of her.
"...no." Miz admitted.
"Then why would it be hurt," Bill asked her, "If you're making things better, so that it DOESN'T HAVE TO DO THAT ANYMORE IF IT DOESN'T WANT TO?" He was staring at her intently as he asked her this.
Miz wasn't sure how to explain it any other way to her brother. She still continued to try, though. "But the worlds don't quite work that way where I am. We decide the physical makeup of the worlds, what people decide to do once they exist there is up to them. So it's not like Ax makes them have to be sad..."
"Yes, it does." Bill snorted. "It decides how the worlds work," Bill told her. "And sometimes, so do you. -I told you, you could set things up so that people don't need to eat, sleep, breathe, or die-and-stay-dead," he reminded her. "If there are no resource or time-constraints," Bill said to her, spreading his arms out from his sides, "What do people do?"
Miz thought about it. "True. But I'd probably have to restrict birth rates or make it so that no new people can be born if I do that. There are only so many Souls to go around." She had no idea how to create Souls. It was Ax's thing, not hers. She could make soulless creatures with a fully formed mind and personality but that still wouldn't give them Souls.
Bill just shrugged at this. "Make it more difficult to have new beings be born - actual conscious and meaningful effort - and that will drop the rate to start with." Because for all its many, many, many, many, many, MANY, many, many, MANY flaws… his home dimension had at least gotten that one right. Almost. the ,iparents, on the other hand- "If overpopulation looks like an issue because of space constraints, just create another empty dimension or twelve," Bill told her with a shrug. None of this seemed particularly hard, difficult, or otherwise show-stopping to him. "So what if you have a limited number of Souls?" he asked. "You can't make more?"
"Ax makes them. I've tried but I can't seem to do it." Her Nightmares were proof of that.
"Then it's even easier," Bill told her. "Either the stupid lizard plays nice when or if you want more Souls because it NEEDS you for more dimensional spin-ups, it teaches you how to do the soul-making itself, or/i… you have a closed system with a stable population," he told her, "Which is easier to manage. -Or you go steal some base Souls from other places through your Doors," Bill waved off. None of these felt like an unsolvable problem to him.
"That feels kinda… mean." Miz pouted. Even disregarding how much of an ass she'd feel like for betraying her dad to capture, contain and restrain him to usurp his authority, stealing Souls was one of those things she didn't want to do.
"'Mean'?" Bill echoed. Miz nodded at him. "The stealing of Souls from other 'sets?" Another nod from Miz. ...And she didn't like being mean. "Hm." He thought about that. (Admittedly, he generally didn't do that outright himself, the whole Soul-stealing thing.) "-Just claim whatever you want first, and kill any who oppose you?" Bill told her, then stopped for a moment and blinked as he remembered: she was supposed to be in-or-past Endgame in this scenario! "-Defeat-without-murdering those who oppose you in places you haven't fixed yet," he self-corrected himself. "Then it belongs to you, because ownership claim rights have now been transferred, and nobody will say 'no, you can't!' anymore!" He grinned at her.
Miz wasn't sure how to feel at that idea. It might work, but if she did that, she would have to fight a lot of people to take over those places. A lot of people would hate her. More than they already did at least. Plus, ownership rights didn't work in her world the same way it did here. Especially since there were no 'Players' in her dimensional set. No 'Demons from the Outside' or anything like it, which had likely led to the structures that were here being so different - or vice-versa.
"I will think about it," she said to Bill at last.
Bill blinked at her again. She didn't like his solution? Was it because... "You don't like conquering and owning dimensions, so you can take what you want from them when you want it?" he asked of her, curious. Because in his experience, most demons did.
Miz sighed. "I don't mind stealing from bad people, but there are plenty of good people that I don't want to upset." And the Federation owned most of the multiverse, and taking down a far reaching government would cause utter chaos and instability… which, well, chaos might be her forte but she didn't want to make the innocent bystanders suffer from the collapse of their governmental foundation. She'd maaaaybe be able to do it if she introduced a new form of governing to everyone across the multiverse and got them to self-govern or something, but people wouldn't listen to her. It's why she was more for the idea of putting good, fair people in power instead, let them work to change the government into something better. A single person wouldn't be able to do it, no matter how powerful, to get a government to change required the government itself and the people working together to enact the changes needed. But it was something that required time and work and… well… Miz sighed, she'd had this conversation with Pynelope before, it just… there wasn't an easy solution one way or another between quick activism versus the slow and steady approach.
Bill still wasn't sure about… "Define 'bad people' and 'good people'," he said almost flippantly. Human morality wasn't something he usually bothered with - that Stanford's so-called 'morality' was so two-dimensionally flat. Not to mention that stupid Karma system…
This was a hard one. Miz personally wasn't sure what made someone good or bad. It was more of her personal gut feelings...
"-You could borrow-or-buy-or-barter those Souls you want, instead," Bill said next. "...Or ask," he added, straightening in place as a new thought occurred to him. "There could be a dimensional set with too many Souls?"
...Luckily, Bill didn't seem to be too invested in an answer from her on it, right then. So she addressed the other thing instead. "Well, there ARE random chairs around the multiverse that accidentally got Souls because Ax wasn't paying attention…" It was funny but also kinda sad. Poor things weren't in a dimension where living chairs were a thing (probably the reason Ax messed up to begin with, what with some dimensions having living chairs and others not) so they couldn't move or scream and simply existed in a perpetual state of horror at their own existence.
But she didn't want to think about taking over her multiverse. She wanted to change the subject. "Well, either way, now that I know that there are AXOLOTL that are entirely unconnected to each other, I'm curious about what sorts of ways other places behind my Doors could be run." A whole different system. A whole different series of things to learn. "It would be cool to check them out.
She turned towards her brother. "Do you think you'd be able to come with me?"
Bill's eyes widened. "I…"
And Bill paused for a moment, feeling almost… conflicted. Because he had his anchor, and he had Stanley, and he wasn't… didn't want to lose his Stanley.
And without really thinking of it, he raised a hand to the back and base of his neck…
Miz frowned. "Right. Your anchor. We'll need to find a way around that? You don't want to break it, right?" Bill slowly nodded his head. Miz thought about it. "We'll need to experiment."
Bill let out a short laugh at that, then grinned. "Yes!" he said, dropping his hand just as unthinkingly. Then he got a bit of a cagey (not really all that innocent look). "I might have a few ideas to start with…"
"...This is a terrible idea." Stan deadpanned.
"We'll take every precaution!" Miz insisted. "I don't want to hurt brother, he doesn't want to lose the anchor, and, well…" She shrugged. "Brother's gonna have to figure this out eventually anyway."
"This is still a terrible idea." Stan rubbed a hand across his face. These two were just...
"I'm not saying I want much," Bill said almost innocently (about as 'innocently' as the demon ever got, yeah, sure).
"You're askin' for me to give you full rein over your powers again," Stan deadpanned. "I'm pretty sure you're saying you want everything," because that was what the kid was really asking for, here.
"-Only for a little while!" Miz said, while trying to give him puppy eyes. (The look, not handing him actual eyes.)
Stan gave her a long look. ...And even the kid looked down at her, and put a hand on her head and mussed up her hair just a little bit.
"Stan does reasons and wants, not asks," the kid told her, dropping his hand, then looked back up at Stan.
"Make your case," Stan said grumpily, crossing his arms. (Because he already knew that he wasn't gonna like this…)
"Miz wanted to check out more other dimensions and see what they're like, what their stupid lizard's are like. And so do I," the kid told him.
"Why," said Stan.
"Miz just found out that the lizard HERE isn't actually connected at ALL, that she can see, to her OWN lizard. And that…" Here, Bill actually looked uncomfortable. "...That's DANGEROUS."
Stan frowned at this. "What do ya mean, kid?"
The kid did that uncomfortable-looking, squirming under his own skin thing. And then…
"It means," the kid told him, "That from what she's Seen here, and Seen in her own dimensional set, that it's not only the STRUCTURE of our 'sets that are very different from each other." The kid looked up at him, looking grim. "If these things are different, and the lizards AREN'T connected, aren't all the same one-is-many-is-one, and the differences where Miz is from really ARE what she is telling me," and from the look the kid had on his face, he believed her, "...Then the RULES governing everything are different there, too."
Stan frowned at him.
"Still not seein' why that means you think you've gotta go running off other places here, kid," Stan told him.
"-BECAUSE THE RULES ARE DIFFERENT!" the kid told him. "Because if the Rules are different, and the lizard isn't one-and-many, but two OR MORE-" the kid grimaced, and then looked Stan straight in the eye. "I am SUPPOSED to be helping keep Pine Tree and Shooting Star safe, as part of our agreement. -I can't do that if I don't KNOW how different the rest of those lizards are." Then the kid grimaced as he said, "I'd be breaking the agreement if I didn't go out there, and take a Look around. -I NEED to know how different things might be, out there," the kid told him, "If I'm going to set up any PROPER defenses against ANYONE and any THING that's out there at all!"
"Well, I'm sure the other Axs are too busy with their own sets to really bother with others, but, it would still help to learn about them," Miz piped up.
The kid shot her a look. "-You don't know that," the kid said, before looking back to Stan. "That's the POINT. AND the problem," he told Stan. "Her stupid lizard doesn't do much, either; same as this one," the kid said. But he also gave Stan a long look as he said it.
-And Stan suddenly got it. The demon-kid was worried about an active lizard-god that was enough like theirs that it was powerful enough the kid wasn't ready to take it on yet, but that might be roaming around doing who knew what around the local neighborhood.
Stan hadn't paid much attention in English class in school, but he did remember some of that stuff about the Greeks and Romans and junk. Petty gods, doing really petty things. ...The kid didn't put on airs, calling himself some kinda god - 'just' a demon - but the kid called this 'lizard' of his one. And Stan had seen some of what the kid could do. Most people would call a lot of what the kid could do unbound 'godlike', but the kid didn't. Which meant that-
"Alright, so you're worried," Stan told him. "I get that. But-" Stan held up a hand. "We're gonna have to talk this out some more. -First thing is, you don't want to be picking fights, accidentally or otherwise, or having one of these 'not so good' lizards maybe noticing you poking your heads around out there, and getting their attention doing this." Stan frowned at them both. "I want you both to be absolutely sure what you're gonna do - and not do," Stan added, with a bit of a glare at the demon who'd caused his family a lot of grief in the past, "- before you two even think of going out there 'exploring'. And I need to understand what all it is you're gonna do, and all the rest of it, first. ...Can't help you all with it, if I don't," Stan groused, because boy was he gonna workshop the hell outta this all with the kid first. Like hell he was gonna have these two running around stirring up trouble out there for no reason, let alone letting them bring it all back home to roost here again.
Yeah, he'd known something like this was gonna happen, sooner or later. And he knew that if he said 'no' to either of them, now, they'd just go off and do it without talking to him about any of it, instead. -That the kid had a reason at all for doing it that he thought was in their best interests, for keeping them safe? Wasn't something Stan was about to stop. That was what he wanted the kid to be doing for them all in the first place.
...He'd just need to be clear about what parts of what they thought they wanted to do were incredibly stupid, and redirect the kid to other less-world-conquer-y things like he always did. The fact that they'd come to him first, at all, was a pretty big first step, here. (Because yeah, he'd sort of laid the groundwork for this with the 'anti-Bill' and 'anti-Ford' trip-visit thing - and hell, even with some of what had happened with the niblings and that time tape stuff, too - but this was a whole different level of crazy.)
"So," Stan said, "Let's talk about goals. -What do you need to get out of this overall, and what do you think you absolutely need to do, and not do, on this first trip out?"
It took a few hours of discussion to get everything settled. Stan didn't tell the kids or Ford about it. Not yet, anyway. Ford would just raise a huge stink about it and stress out unnecessarily. Stan would tell him afterward, once the demons got back, make it one of them 'fate accomply' things, or whatever. Besides, it really wasn't any different from when the kid had brought them all to that other dimension that the twins bounced into after the time tape incident.
And it really wasn't like Stan cared all that much about 'other dimensions' or 'sets' or whatever. Thing was, if the kid needed to get something out of his system someplace else, instead of doing it here? Stan could live with that. (Maybe Ford couldn't, but he sure could. Because if that was really what it took to keep the kids safe…)
(Didn't mean he liked it, but…)
-Look, it wasn't like he wasn't trying to give the kid other stuff to do that he'd like better than destroying things, all right? He was. And it was even starting to work out already, so far. Kid was coming to him for his opinion on more stuff, and all the rest of it. And this thing that the kid had said about these lizards maybe being a problem, kid definitely wasn't lying about it. Kid thought it was serious; this was a recon mission. Looking around, maybe talking to people, and getting info. Stan couldn't go out there with him, tagging along to watch his back (and watch him), since how the whole 'set travel' thing worked? That was half of what the kid was gonna be trying to figure out, here - if there was another way to do that, to go out there safely. More safely. And Stan sure didn't want to be bait for any lizards that might want to snap any of them up, because he was pretty sure that that was what he was gonna end up being, if he tried muscling in on things that he really shouldn't be doin' and tried to go on out there with them; he could run fast, but float fast? This was the kid's specialty - all of it: floating around, looking around, and grabbing up info - and once the kid was back, Stan could help him figure out what was really going on out there, since the kid was more paranoid on a good day than Ford was at his worst. Kid jumped to the worst conclusions like lightning to a metal rod, every damn time.
Stan had wanted the kid to not call up his demon-friends, because he hadn't wanted the kid dragging that noise straight down into their backyard - literally. But with this… they already had noise coming after them, because Miz had already had some 'broken Bill' after her right now, that was keepin' her here.
And Stan figured that one of the only things that could do that kind of junk to a Bill Cipher would be another him and a memory gun blast followed by a good and heavy right hook, or one of those 'god'-lizards the kid was starting to worry about now. Yeah. It was about time.
And considering that the kid wasn't still 'glitching out' after he'd come back (and had mostly pulled himself back together right before the punch Stan had given him anyway, which is why Stan had punched him when he had), Stan was thinking it a whole lot less likely that it had been the 'one good punch and a memory gun' one. In either order.
Better to send the kid out to maybe get eaten, than have whatever-it-was coming here, Stan figured. ...But that was kind of a lie, the kind he'd tell Ford if he asked - because Stan knew that bad things like that never just stopped at just one thing. At just one person. So whatever was out there doin' this stuff? Pulling it off on triangle demons? Stan doubted it would stop at just the kid, if it did manage to catch him. ...So the kid had better not get himself caught.
Like he'd needed another reason to want to keep the kid around, besides-
Stan had known that, sooner or later, the kid was gonna want to help Miz out with this 'broken Bill' thing. And you had to give trust to get trust. Stan knew that one, too.
Stan couldn't lock down the kid - nobody could, not really - and the whole point of the agreement was to make that problem a solution instead. To make the kid work for them, instead of against them. To turn him around, and point him right back at-
And Stan knew he didn't really have much of a choice here, anyway. Kid had just got done talking about 'fallback measures', and losing the anchor had been one of them. Stan had listened carefully, and it was pretty damn clear at this point the kid knew enough about the thing to get rid of it if he really wanted to, with or without that being what Stan himself wanted. ...It was also clear that the kid didn't want to break the anchor yet, for whatever reason. So instead of pushing for something stupid, Stan did the opposite. He wanted the kid's weirdness to stay locked down as much - and as much of the time - as possible; he wasn't going to give the kid a reason to want to try and break it, now.
The kid hadn't put it this way, hadn't even tried to threaten him with it, but from what Stan had understood from the kid explaining things to him, and to Miz… either Stan could give him enough slack on the weirdness-powers stuff that he could do this the 'better, easier' way, or... the kid could break or get rid of the anchor or whatever himself, go off and do this thing with Miz anyway, and when he came back, there would be no anchor restricting the demon in any way from there on out anymore.
It was a choice between handing the kid a loaded sniper rifle (that belonged to the kid and) that the kid damn well knew how to use, and then having the kid go off and do his thing, and then come back to him and hand it back over for Stan to go off and lock up again for him… or refusing to, and the kid sneaking over to that chest and stealing it back away from him in the dead of night anyway, and who the hell knew what the demon would do with it, then.
Thing was, Stan knew how this shit went down. He knew what 'I'm going to kill you now' was like. He knew that nothing was or had been actually physically stopping the kid from trying to kill them all since he'd entered their dimension in the first place, weirdness or not. And he knew that what the kid wanted to do wasn't 'killing them', not now.
The only thing that had ever stopped the kid from killing them had been the demon-kid himself.
Maybe Ford just hadn't been able to ever take advantage of that, but Stan? Stan sure could. And he knew it.
And he would. He was. -He already had been, with the other-dimensional 'set' stuff that had come up already. Kid had set up a bunch of alarm and traps, and Stan had already given him 'full permission' to use those powers in defense of their dimension from outsiders, more than a few weeks ago.
-And when Miz had first shown up, the kid had practically leapt out of the window, gotten down onto the lawn and outside the barrier in a rush with hands blazing. Stan had seen the flames the kid had been waving away afterwards; he'd come out fast, packing heat and ready to punch.
The kid had been standing there, looking up, resolute and ready to face up just about anything.
Kid had acted just as well as Stan could've ever asked out of him or anyone else, and then some.
...But it wasn't like Stan had told his brother about that one, either. Not like he needed 'permission' from Ford to work out something on his own with the kid. Let alone something that was related to the agreement he had with him.
So the thing with this 'broken Bill', now? This time wasn't actually all that different from any of the other stuff before it, from where Stan stood. Kid was worried about incursions by other Bills from other dimensional sets that might even be stronger, more powerful, or smarter than him; so they were adding stuff that was the same kinda problem to the list, just with a different name attached to it - so what. The only difference here was the kid going out and playing a little more offense than defense, maybe. Not that Stan had let the kid even think 'offense' this time out - recon was supposed to be neutral, just going out and saying hello to the neighbors, really. Not even looking to case the joint.
He'd talked it out with the kid, and the kid… would be going off with Miz once the coast was clear. They weren't gonna be heading out there when they thought the 'broken Bill' was around; they were being cautious. Kid wasn't rushing things; that was good.
They were going to let Miz check if that 'broken Bill' was around first; if he was, they would wait. If he wasn't, then they'd take that chance and head out right then. So there was no idea of 'when' and no hurry to get out there, only that they eventually 'would', and the kid was asking for Stan to give 'in advance' permission for this thing now. So, yeah. He'd be 'easing up' on the anchor now, sure. But that didn't mean the kid could do anything in the meantime; the kid would only actually get more to work with once that happened, and they were just about ready to leave - just like the dimensional alarm thing. Because Stan was only gonna be easing up on it for just this one thing.
The kid had even helped him make the 'easing up' a bit more specific than Stan had been originally thinking, staging it so that he'd be able to grab some weirdness powers stuff while in this dimension, but could only grab the rest of his power for things once he was elsewhere. And the fact that the kid had said it, and given reasons that had included Ford and the kids and 'mental attacks', had been… yeah. None of it had been anything like open-ended, and some of it had even been a one-time-only thing. -Stan wasn't about to say 'no' to that.
So Stan went inside the house. He went into the kitchen, and grabbed himself a soda from the fridge. He popped it open, sat down at the kitchen table, and he thought everything pretty carefully through.
And then he, very quietly, gave the kid permission out loud, 'to the anchor', to do what they had both talked about him needing to do for this.
Bill pulled in a breath outside, where he sat. WELL, WELL, WELL. That had been quick! He'd certainly felt THAT one. -Really, he'd thought that Stanley would at least want to talk about it with some of the others in his Zodiac first - like Shooting Star and Pine Tree, or at the very least his brother.
GUESS NOT! Bill let out a slight laugh and shook his head.
"We're all yellow on my end, sis," Bill told her. "Whenever you're ready, I can back you up, and then some," he indicated, letting her know that it wasn't just the 'dimensional defense' stuff he had in his arsenal again, anymore. (Which meant that if she 'appeared' the Door and something tried to stupidly latch on to her and pull her through- Well, that wasn't a PROBLEM though. Bill would see to it that nothing would EVER get THAT FAR in the first place!)
Miz concentrated again, pulling at the edges of her Door, and pulled it back into Existence.
She crept closer to the Door she'd made, carefully listening, making sure she didn't accidentally hit the Door open and get sucked in - like what had happened most other times she'd messed with them. She'd checked a while back and it had still been there then, but maybe...
The Door rattled.
"He's still there." Miz sighed, as Bill shot to his feet up in an 'attack posture'. "You'd think he'd have gotten bored by now." She waved a hand and the Door faded again.
Bill was still tense, and he only relaxed slowly as he began checking over the area (both physical and metaphysical) carefully, waiting - JUST IN CASE. "Might not have anything ELSE to do, over there," not if it really couldn't get through any other Doors. "Can't say you aren't worth WAITING FOR though, little sis! HA!" He smiled at her as long seconds passed, and nothing seemed to try and make the Door reappear from the other end of the connection.
And, once a few minutes had passed, and Bill was done completing his checks...
"Well, what're we doing today, since we can't go out?" Miz asked him, sitting back on the edge of the porch (after making sure to put her cuffs back on, before attempting to re-enter the barrier, this time). "Do you wanna watch some anime with the kids?" She looked up at the sky. "Or maybe I could meet the rest of your Zodiac?" She'd wanted to do that for a while.
"Well, there's 'out', and there's out!" Bill told her, "And there's OUT. -But I'm thinking that staying local is probably a good idea, after I had to smack you back down into your body." Bill hadn't liked doing that - it had been more of a forceful and very quick shove, but it had been metaphysically a bit too close to an actual hit for him to be happy about it. ...If he HADN'T done it when he had, though, and that quickly, she would have been FAR worse off than that 'smack' he'd had to give her on the top of her 'head', he was very sure.
Bill thought for a bit. "We could go into town and meet more of my Zodiac," Bill said slowly. "But Stanley just gave me a lot of permission for things just now," and he didn't particularly want to push things further. Also, Gideon was in town to run into. Better to let things settle a bit on both those fronts, really. "We could… ask some of them to come here to the Shack, instead?" Bill tried, with a slight thinking frown going on as he thought of Shooting Star's 'sleepovers' and such. "Or I could take you to see the spaceship; haven't done that, yet. An anime marathon with Shooting Star and Pine Tree would work, though," Bill said, turning towards the house. "Maybe…" Bill blinked. "...we could… tell Question Mark that we want to have a movie marathon? For anime movies? And that he should invite all my other Zodiac? -Except Glasses and Gideon," Bill elaborated with an annoyed look. "I don't want them here," he added almost huffily, shoving his hands in the pockets of his shorts. (And frankly, it didn't take a genius to understand why.)
"I'd like that. We'd be able to have tons of snacks!" Miz grinned. "And I can show everyone Mob Psycho 100! It's a good story, and it wouldn't cause problems for the kids, since it's a story that children around their age are supposed to be able to watch." Not to mention it was just a good show all around. And had many messages that Miz wanted to put out there for her brother and everyone else to learn. Especially Stan. And she probably shouldn't make them watch the Matrix until she got the all-clear from Stan on that one, anyway.
"Alright, then. We'll do that!" Bill grinned, seeing Miz so fired up for the idea made him feel a bit warm all throughout his insides. (He liked being warm.) He turned to walk back into the Shack. "Hey, Question Mark!" Bill called out to his Zodiac. "You're gonna make a few calls for me! Chop-chop!"
"An… anime marathon?" Pacifica raised an eyebrow. "And… they're inviting all of us who are a part of the Zodiac?" She glanced over at Dipper with a suspicious look. "This isn't some kind of trap, where the demon's trying to get us all together so he can turn us all into tapestries again, is it?"
"It's not all of us, and no. I don't think so?" Dipper sighed. "Miz really likes anime, and I think she assumes that we're friends for some reason. ...Or at least, she wants to be friends with us?" He looked over at Mabel, who was making faces at the one pony Pacifica had been able to keep. "Mabel-"
"Awwwww~" Mabel said as she looked at Pacifica's pony (so cute!), then heard her brother and shook herself. "No. The pony is a distraction. A cute and cuddly distraction. -Focus, Mabel. You can do this!" She slapped her hands quickly to her cheeks after her quick 'self improvement' rallying speech, and turned back to Pacifica. "Um… what were we talking about?" she asked Pacifica almost sheepishly.
Pacifica gave her a long look. "...How the crazy triangle demon is probably just trying to get us all in the same place to turn us into tapestries again, or kill us this time?" Pacifica drawled out, looking at her fingertips as if playing with her nails. (...while she still had her gloves on.)
Mabel let out a laugh and waved a sweater-adorned arm at her friend. "Oh, Pacifica, don't be silly! Bill doesn't need us all in the same place to kill us!" she told her friend and her brother both.
Dipper winced. "Really not helping there, Mabel." He turned back to Pacifica. "Besides, McGucket and Gideon were specifically not invited. Like, un-invited not invited. -Bill was pretty clear about not wanting them there." Dipper shrugged. "I don't get it though. I mean, not wanting Gideon around, I can understand. He's…" Dipper made a face. "Well, no one really likes him, least of all Bill. But I don't know what he's got against McGucket."
Pacifica gave Dipper a long look. From what she understood, 'not liking Gideon' hadn't exactly stopped Bill from making deals with the underaged ex-con before. And...
"Maybe he knows that McGucket's out to kill him?" Pacifica said dryly. "Given that you did have him repair that time tape for you, and you let the demon know that little fact."
Dipper flushed sheepishly. "Ah… well…" (Mabel snorted and gave Dipper a small smack to the shoulder. At least she'd managed to grab those magic-suppressing cuffs Bill had made for her, when she'd found them on the ground after they'd gotten back, to get them back to Old Man McGucket. Good thing Miz didn't notice… or didn't care that they'd gone missing. That hadn't kept her out of the Shack, though. Grunkle Ford still had to see her a bunch, and sleep under the same roof as her, feeling all not so great about it... Actually, Mabel was pretty sure Miz had made a new pair of those cuffs for herself by herself, not gotten another set of them from Bill; those new cuffs she was wearing nowadays certainly looked different, but they were still pretty easy to see, almost as if Miz made them purposely noticeable - unlike what Bill had done, which had seemed almost the opposite. It was a little weird, too. Anything she'd seen that Bill had made had almost kind of a certain look to it...)
"Maybe Bill just doesn't want weird older men around his sister?" Dipper tried next.
"Or, maybe the crazy demon's on to all of us," Pacifica said. "Either way, I'm going to have to attend." She pulled a face. "I'll need to see what he knows. I can't trust you two to do it right. This sort of thing actually requires skill, and finesse." And Pacifica sighed deeply as she watched Mabel get herself all distracted by the mere existence of her pony again.
Then the other thing Mabel had said finally registered. "-Wait, the demon has a sister?" Pacifica said, staring at her. She'd been wondering who this 'Miz' they were talking about was; at first, she'd thought it was some random nerd friend of Soos', what with them apparently having this 'anime' thing in common. "The crazy demon actually has a sister?" She'd thought that was just a rumor going around town, that the Pines were hosting two girls at the Shack that summer, instead of just one!
"Yeah, it's super weird." Dipper winced. "The crazy thing is, he kind of acts like… he actually cares about her. Like… he's really all protective, and everything!"
Pacifica would have facepalmed at this, if it wouldn't ruin her makeup. "Dipper, you have to tell me these things!" she berated him. "I can't plan effectively with Old Man McGucket if you don't keep me completely informed!" Having the one world-ending demon around was bad enough, but he had a family? Who liked him enough to come visiting? And who he liked having around and in their dimension with him, himself?
"Sorry, we've been kinda… busy." Dipper pulled on his hat, not wanting to tell Pacifica that he and Mabel had been essentially grounded for the past week (and counting). "But aside from some problems with Great-Uncle Ford, Miz is almost…" Dipper paused. "I mean, she's pretty horrible sometimes, but most of the time she's actually trying to be... nice? -And not the fake Gideon kind of nice, either." Miz wasn't overly sweet and charming, she was awkward and unsure and it wasn't exactly right, but it was sincere.
"Yeah..." Mabel said. She had her own mixed feelings on Miz. "If she'd just leave Grunkle Ford alone, then…" The teenager twirled her hand around to try and think of a good way to put this. "Wellllll, things wouldn't exactly be great, but they'd definitely be okay, at least!" Some of the things she talked about sometimes were worse than Grunkle Stan with the Truth Teeth in. "She doesn't mean to say horrible things most of the time. It's like… she hasn't been taught how to behave right around people?" Even though she'd been human once, way back when. "-But she's learning! Grunkle Stan's been talking to her and she's been trying really hard-" Mabel added, trying to be fair about it.
"-You two just don't get it, do you," Pacifica told them both, cutting her off. "Fine. Let me put this in terms you two commoners will understand," she said, glaring at them both. "Would your parents have a problem with someone if somebody killed you? -Because mine sure would if anyone killed me," she told them, "It's just a matter of principle! ...And now you're telling me that this demon's maybe got a whole family out there, behind him, backing him up," Pacifica swept her arm out at the sky, "Who might not be all that happy with us all, if we kill that demon while he's here! -That makes this situation that much more dangerous!" she told them both. "Having one crazy world-ending demon here is bad enough; what if the rest of his family is actually competent at it?!" she demanded out of them both, hands on her hips. It had been a good thing to hear that Stan Pines had managed to somehow convince the demon not to call up all his friends, and invite them back to a new party. But that meant absolutely nothing if the demon's family was going to come to him anyway, invited or not!
Dipper and Mabel winced. "Ah, well, if it's any consolation, they're both orphans?" Dipper told her weakly.
Pacifica let out a tired sigh, and slumped about as much as she could in-place (as much as she ever let herself get away with, rather). "And that makes things so much better," she muttered. ...Admittedly, it did, actually. That meant the demon-count was sitting at 'two' and not going to get any higher, so long as Mr. Pines kept doing his own job - at trying to keep the demon isolated from his 'Henchmaniac' friends, and whoever else - along with whatever else that conman was probably trying to do that was probably three different types of illegal. "-But he really has a little sister, and she's here?" Pacifica tried to confirm. "Who, I'm guessing, maybe has the exact same reality-screwing-over powers as he does, cares about him, and wouldn't like it very much if we killed him?"
"...yeah. Probably. The last time she was here, Miz made that bouncy house for me out of pretty much thin air, when I asked her to." Mabel rubbed her arm. She didn't want to make Miz out to be a complete monster. She didn't like Bill's sister because of how she'd hurt her grunkle - she'd made him think that reality wasn't… real - but... she wasn't a complete-complete monster, in Mabel's book, because... "They really seem to love each other, though." She winced. "Probably because they lost the rest of their family…" she explained, rubbing at the side of her arm, and not feeling so great about that.
"Okay. Okay." Pacifica rubbed her fingers against her temples and resisted the urge to pace back and forth too much. "I'm going to have to think about this, and maybe talk with her, too." Ugh. Great. The demon who'd rearranged her father's face and turned her into a textile pattern hanging from his ceiling really had a sister. Wonderful. "I'll figure out how to work this. Somehow," she muttered at the end.
"Well, Miz is pretty nice, for a demon. She almost seems like a regular kid as long as no-one makes her mad… like what keeps happening between her and Grunkle Ford. But it's not his fault and he doesn't mean to," Mabel said. "- And she's getting better!" Mabel added quickly. "She hasn't snapped at Grunkle Ford in days!"
"And what does this 'pretty nice' demon do, when she gets mad?" Pacifica asked the Pines twins both.
Dipper and Mabel exchanged a glance, and Dipper sighed. "Talks," he said simply.
Pacifica looked at them suspiciously. "Talks. That's it. She just talks."
They exchanged another glance. "Yeah... only, she…" Dipper couldn't really figure out how to explain it. "The things she says, they…"
"She hurts our Grunkle Ford by saying too much stuff," Mabel said. "She says things that sort of… break his brain." And she looked really unhappy about this. Pacifica was pretty sure that Mabel's fists were clenched inside those sweater arms of hers.
"Right; got it." Pacifica could extrapolate from there. There were ways to hurt people like that. Ways to scare them too, that went far beyond blackmail. She didn't like using them, but some of the family stories about her grandparents, or her great-grandparents… She wasn't about to say this to either of the Pines twins, but her parents were practically saints by comparison to some of her ancestors...
"And sometimes she says other stuff that's pretty awful, but it's like she doesn't realize that it's awful," Dipper added, exchanging a look with his sister, and looking uncomfortable himself. "Which is kind of like Bill, except…" Dipper pulled a face. "At least she seems sorry sometimes when she realizes she's saying horrible stuff. And she does listen to 'stop' and 'no' most of the time," Dipper added, which was kind of both in the plus and minus column for her, as far as he was concerned.
"So, what's the deal with this 'party' they're trying to throw, then? If it's not supposed to be all world-ending like the last one," about which Pacifica had her doubts... "Is Bill trying to introduce us to his family?" Pacifica asked next, because it was about the only other reason she could think of for somebody powerful enough to want to draw up a social function: to introduce someone to the rest of society. (Well, the rest of society that one cared about impressing, that is.)
Mabel blinked. "Actually, I think Miz is just bored," and Dipper hissed out, "-And we don't want her getting bored."
Pacifica looked between them. "Why?" She frowned at them slightly. "...What happens if she gets bored?" she asked them both slowly.
The twins both exchanged another look. "She can manipulate reality, just like Bill can," Dipper said simply. "What do you think?"
"She hasn't really been bored yet," Mabel added, hugging herself and twisting back and forth, and back and forth, in place a little bit. "And we kind of don't want to find out."
Pacifica let out a breath slowly.
"I need to leave and get ready," she told them. "You two can show yourselves out; I'm going to be attending that party." She was going to have to call Old Man McGucket, to let him know the situation; from the sound of things, he was going to be the only real backup that she'd have for this thing, whatever it was really supposed to be. Gideon was no help these days; he couldn't seem to make up his mind between marching straight up to the Shack with those ex-cons of his and calling Bill out, or wanting to hide at home under his bed until the next Weirdmageddon was over and dealt with forever.
-Not to mention, she needed to figure out what would be appropriate to wear to this… anime showing at this commoner's house.
"-Butler!" Pacifica called out, as she turned on her heel in her riding gear and headed back for the main house, leaving the Pines twins behind to see themselves out. She wasn't going to be doing any more riding today.
Miz hummed cheerfully as she set up pillows and beanbags around the storage room. It was the place where the wax figures had used to be kept, but since they'd all gotten killed by Dipper and Mabel (and really, why wasn't anyone more upset about that? When she killed people unwillingly, it was still a problem, but the twins could do it on purpose and no one cared? ...Well, it was self-defense though, so maybe that alleviated the blame…), she was going to use this space as a makeshift theater room. There was plenty of space, a large expanse of wall that she could use the technology in her suit to project the Screen onto so that everyone could watch the show...
And there were going to be snacks! All sorts of chips, sandwiches, fruits, and drinks! She and Soos had been in the kitchen getting things ready, and now she was putting the finishing touches on all of the seating. -Stan would even get a nice armchair, one that was super-comfortable and everything!
Miz gave the room one last look. Perfect! And as she did so, she reminisced for a bit about the anime marathon parties she'd used to have with her human friends, and the ones she'd started having with her Maniac friends. The human ones had involved crowding around her computer in her basement, since they didn't have much space, but it was the company and commentary that made it so much fun! With the Maniacs she could give them a lovely huge screen to watch on, with all the comfortable seats and snacks they could ever want...
She looked up, shaking herself out of her reminiscing, when Soos came in with an armful of snacks. "Hey dood, whoa. This place looks nice," Soos complimented her, as he put the food down carefully on a low table.
"Thanks. Do you know when the guests are arriving?" Miz asked, making her way over to move the food around so it wasn't all bunched up together. Soos shrugged and told her, "Like, they should be arriving soon, dood."
As if on cue, she heard some footsteps before Dipper and Mabel showed up with Pacifica. The blonde did a double take when she saw Miz. "Is that her?" she asked Dipper from the corner of her mouth. He nodded. "Ah, Pacifica, meet Miz Cipher. Miz, this is Pacifica."
Pacifica wasn't really sure what she'd been expecting, but a little girl who looked around their age, maybe a bit older, dressed in a simple dress with a picture of cthulhu on it wasn't it. Before the Northwest heir could say anything though, Miz grinned widely at her, and practically bounced on over. "Hello! It's really nice to meet you! You're a lot prettier in person," the younger demon said as she held out her hand. "Hi, I'm Miz."
"Ah," Pacifica said, as she looked down at Miz's hand. She knew about shaking hands for deal-making from the twins, and while she might be wearing her gloves... "Pacifica Northwest," she said, stepping forward to clasp arms with her instead. "You're Bill's sister?"
"Yeah." Miz didn't seem at all offended that Pacifica didn't take her hand. She shook and let go, stepping back. "Find a spot to sit, I'm gonna go and grab some more snacks and then we'll wait for everyone else to show up." She gestured at the many pillows and beanbags.
Pacifica had been about to open her mouth to ask rather haughtily which one was the best seat there, since she could hardly tell, when she felt a slight chill come over her.
"WELL, WELL, WELL," she heard from right behind her back, and she forced herself (with years of training in etiquette, and other things) to remain still (rather than shiver or jump in shock), as she heard Bill Cipher's voice ring out above her. "Look who's here! -HELLO, little Llama," Bill enthused down at her with a grin, as Pacifica primly turned around in place. "Now that YOU'RE here," the demon said, leaning down slightly towards her, still looming, with his hands still-hidden behind his back, "The party can REALLY begin!"
Pacifica stared at him. And Bill's grin got even wider.
"Bill, cut it out," Mabel scolded the demon with hands on her hips, much to Pacifica's amazement. "You're being all demon-y again!" And even Miz pouted at her brother and said, "Don't scare the guests."
"Kid, low energy, yeah?" Pacifica heard called out from the hallway - from Mr. Pines, she knew that voice - and the demon...
...straightened up a bit, rolled his eyes at her (and everyone in the room, really), and suddenly seemed to just… relax a bit in place, like watching a peacock ruffle its feathers and then settle back, with its tail no longer spread and full-out on display.
"Just having a little fun," the demon said. "Didn't want her to not RECOGNIZE me!" he said next, as he crossed his arms (his hands free, with nothing in them) in front of his chest.
"I saw you the first day when we were all debating whether to use the circle on you," Pacifica informed the demon dryly, "And I already knew that you'd decided to join the fairer and smarter of the sexes a few weeks ago; Mabel has been sending me pictures to my cellphone every day since." ...The news of which had the demon blinking at her, then turning to Mabel. And the crazy demon had a look on his face that Pacifica couldn't quite… place.
"Surveillance?" the demon asked Mabel, to which Mabel grinned and said a bit too enthusiastically instead, "-No, silly! You actually allll~most kind of look cute when you sleep!"
...The look on the demon's face spoke volumes.
Pacifica wondered for a moment if pictures of the demon falling asleep on a picnic table or in Stan Pine's chair with him really were blackmail-level material when it came to the crazy demon currently in-residence at the Shack. ...She discarded the idea quickly, though. It would likely just get her phone (and face) melted if she tried. (Besides, she was trying to be better than her parents.)
...Though she did make note that Miz was muffling laughter behind a hand. Maybe it could be useful to share as an incentive for the other demon, instead?)
"Stan, the chair's for you." Miz said simply as she stepped past the old man who was just making his way into the room, Soos right behind her. "We're gonna go get more food."
Oddly, the crazy demon seemed to perk up at this information, immediately swiveling his head over to stare at the armchair. And reading his body language, with the way he was actually leaning towards it... Pacifica could tell that Bill wanted to walk right over there immediately, to sit down and take it for himself.
But instead the demon seemed to pause, almost biting his lip. Then, he straightened in place a bit, and turned his head away from the chair and towards his sister, to call out, "Miz, where are YOU sitting?"
Miz blinked. She looked over. "Um… I guess I'll sit wherever there's a free spot once everyone else finds where they want to go?" She shrugged. "I don't care too much, as long as I can still see the screen."
"Is there a seat for me?" Bill asked her next.
Miz pointed at a large blue beanbag chair; it was a little firmer and sat just a bit taller than the others. "I thought you might like that one, but if you want a different one, that's fine too."
"That one is MINE," Bill said promptly, pointing at the one Miz had pointed out to him. "Stanley." He looked over at Stanley as he said his name. "Stanley, that one is mine. I want it. Mine." (Pacifica couldn't help but give the demon an odd look as he called this out to Mr. Pines. He didn't sound like a whining Gideon or a toddler as he demanded this; it was more like listening to an adult trying to express themselves adamantly, in a non-native language that they had a very limited vocabulary for.)
(And to be fair, Pacifica realized that English probably wasn't the demon's native language, but… he hadn't seemed to have any problems speaking it fluently before, during that whole Weirdmageddon madness thing. So what was the story there?)
"...Yeah, I hear ya, kid," Stan said, as the old man shuffled into the room. "It's yours. I'll save it for ya."
Bill nodded once, briskly, then turned away from him and strode towards the doorway. "It is also Miz's! I've decided. -We're sharing," he declared to the room, and then Miz, as he came up next to her, right outside the door in the hallway. "I'll help you and Question Mark finish bringing in the snacks!" he offered to his sister with a smile.
"Thank you." Miz smiled up at him. Bill shifted in place, a smile of his own in place. "HA! -Don't thank me YET!"
They vanished down the corridor, along with Soos.
Pacifica turned to the Pines twins, staring at them. Because what the heck had she just watched happen, there? Because that had almost seemed like-
"We should probably grab a seat before the best ones are taken," Dipper said, while Mabel yelled out, "DIBS on the pink one!" and practically did a flying running-tackle into it from across the entire room.
"Dipper," Pacifica hissed out at him urgently, following along quickly to grab at his arm. "What was that?!" Because the only siblings - literally, the only siblings - she'd ever seen get along like that (without practically parental threats of violence to keep them in line, let alone acting nicely towards each other) were-
"You get used to it," Dipper informed Pacifica with a simple shrug, to her shock. (Her literal shock; she was so shocked by his reply that she actually let go of his arm.) The blonde was still shaken.
"When you said they liked each other, I didn't think you meant…" Pacifica could think of no way to finish her sentence, good, bad, or otherwise.
"Yeah, you get used to it." Dipper repeated.
Pacifica not quite glared down at Dipper, as he took his own seat in a nearby beanbag chair and half crab-walked, half-shoved it along the floor, until it was over right next to his sister's chair, too. Through a force of effort, Pacifica kept from saying what she really wanted to say to them, and instead asked, "Who else is attending this… event? -Who RSVP'd to the guest list?" she corrected herself, remembering that this was a commoner affair, and not everyone invited might be intelligent enough to actually show up, not realizing that attendance was most likely mandatory in some sense.
Pacifica didn't doubt that the crazy demon would decide upon some rather unpleasant repercussions for those who dared let down his 'little sister' by not attending this... event. And then enact them. The only question in her mind had been, would it be less of a cost to come, than not. For intelligence-gathering, though...
Well, at least she'd had some assurances from the Pines twins before all this that her insides would remain inside her, and her outsides would all remain in the same places, for the duration of her visit. And they had food.
"You, me, Dipper, Candy, Grenda, Soos, Grunkle Stan, Grunkle Ford, Melody, Wendy, and Robbie," Mabel listed off easily. "We didn't tell Gideon that he was uninvited, but Grunkle Ford might've told Old Man McGucket, which is sad," Mabel said with a sigh.
Pacifica raised an eyebrow. "Hm," she said simply. This wasn't just a 'Zodiac' thing, then. "So, we're watching an anime; any idea which one?" She'd heard stories about just how weird anime could get.
"Miz said it was a show for young teens and therefore it should be appropriate," Dipper let her know, pretty much word-for-word. "She said it was about a boy who fights ghosts?" which didn't sound all that bad to him. Dipper was actually looking forward to it a little.
"Ah huh…" Pacifica looked around before finding a comfortable-looking pillow to claim. Well, she wasn't quite sure if the anime chosen was relevant in some way, given Bill's words earlier about the 'party' not beginning without her. Was it meant to be some kind of psychological poke at her? ...No. This wasn't about her. At least, she hoped it wasn't. -It couldn't be. And she didn't want to think about what it would mean if the demon was trying to… what? Make fun of her? Single her out? She'd done nothing overtly to oppose him that he should know about. But with the subject matter being one of ghosts, and the way he'd reacted when she'd arrived...
More footsteps came from the doorway. "HEY GUYS! WHO'S READY FOR A MARATHON?!" The silver tones of Grenda Grendinator bellowed out. Candy waved from beside her best friend. "We have arrived to eat your snacks," Candy informed them all with a grin.
"HEEEY CANDY! GRENDA!" Mabel shrieked back as she waved her arms in the air. "Here, here! Sit next to me!" She patted the pillows around her excitedly. The girls made their way over, maneuvering around all the other beanbag chairs and pillows and cushions; Grenda grabbed a bowl of popcorn as she went.
"Hey guys." A knock came at the door frame and Wendy waved as she strode in. "So, like, you turned the storage room into a theater? Pretty nice." She looked around and was about to sit down when Dipper cried out to her, "Wait! That's Bill's chair," while waving his hands in a big warning 'no'.
"Yeah, you should probably choose a different seat," Stan said with a shrug from his own armchair, but it was still pretty clear that what he was saying wasn't exactly optional; it was final. Wendy didn't care either way and sat down beside Dipper instead.
"So, where're our hosts?" the redhead asked him. Dipper sighed. "They went to go get more food with Soos." Dipper glanced over at the doorway. "Is Robbie coming?" he asked Wendy.
"Should be," Wendy said. "I called him and threatened to tell Tambry about all those old band posters of his if he didn't come over. Y'know, the ones he 'screwed up' and didn't want anybody to see," she told Dipper with a smile, nudging him with an elbow.
Dipper chuckled. "The ones with makeup?"
"Nah," Wendy said, lounging back in her beanbag chair. "The ones that weren't 'edgy' enough. The best ones are all pre-emo phase, when his parents were still having him take music lessons and do 'normal' choir music and stuff."
Dipper's mouth dropped open, and then he snorted. "What I wouldn't give to see those!" He snickered.
"Eh, I've got 'em on my computer at home," Wendy told him casually. "I'll email a couple of 'em to you later," she promised easily.
"Wow, thanks Wendy," Dipper said, feeling a little blown away. "Aren't you… worried that I might show them to someone else?" That'd make them worthless as blackmail material after that, after already having been released.
"Hey, Robbie ripped at me for forty minutes on how I didn't tell him about how the demon had a sister - pfft, like it's my job to 'let him know' when stuff happens, instead of him just picking up his cellphone and talking to you or Mabel instead," Wendy complained. "I had to hang up on the jerk. If you want to show some of 'em to other people, be my guest. He deserves it. It's not like I don't have plenty of 'em," she told him with a smile.
Dipper couldn't help but smile back.
"Dipper…" Mabel quietly teased him under his breath, as Wendy looked back at the screen, and he said, "I know, I know." He swore he didn't have a crush on Wendy anymore, really, it was just… it was nice to be trusted and to have real friends you could count on to have your back, y'know?
"Woo! Food incoming!" Miz cheered as she came back with more snacks. "Oh, hi!" She lit up when she saw the other guests. She put down her armful on the snack table before going up to Grenda and Candy, both.
"Hello. You two must be Candy and Grenda. I'm Miz." She held out her hand. "It's nice to meet you." And right there, standing right next to each other, Dipper blinked and then blinked again. Okay, he wasn't racist, really! But... he'd never noticed how similar Candy and Miz looked. Because sure, Candy had glasses and a rounder nose and Miz had those moles under her eye and a thicker chin, but... Dipper rubbed his eyes. 'I'm not a racist, I'm not a racist…' he mentally groaned to himself.
"Problem, Pine Tree?" he was asked, and the mental groan became an out-loud-
"-IT'S NOTHING!" Dipper said a little too loudly. Everyone raised their eyebrows at him before Grenda turned back to Miz with a huge smile.
"HI! IT'S NICE TO MEET YOU TOO!" Grenda bellowed out to Miz, and Miz squeaked when Grenda enveloped her entire arm with a hearty handshake.
(Pacifica noticed how Bill went still for a moment as he watched Grenda and Miz interacting, from the moment it had looked like Grenda was going to touch her.)
Miz's eyes were wide but she calmed and smiled. "You're stronger than I thought. Then again, you did lift that armchair with one hand…" She giggled.
"HUH?" Grenda said, because she'd lifted a lot of armchairs before, but she hadn't done one yet here today. "UH…" she said, as she let go of Miz's hand. "THANKS!" she told Miz with an enthusiastic grin as her reply. Because being told she was strong was a great compliment!
"It is very nice to meet you." Candy said simply, giving Miz a perfectly ordinary handshake. Miz nodded at them and then looked at the bowl of popcorn in Grenda's other hand.
"Um, just a note, please try not to drop food on the ground." Miz told her firmly. "If you do, and I know it happens sometimes, please help to clean it up afterwards."
"After this whole thing finishes up, we'll all help clean the place up," Stan said from his armchair. "If it's really bad, I'll get you kids to grab some paper towels, but messes happen."
"They sometimes throw popcorn, little sis," Bill informed her, after setting down his own armload of foodstuffs and walking his way over. "They think it's half the fun. And mouth scoops are messy."
"Please don't, it's a waste of food." Miz pouted. "I know that popcorn isn't exactly good food, but still…"
"It will be their food after they claim it," Bill told her, "And then they can do what they want with it." He paused for a moment. "...And the goat will eat anything that they don't," he seemed to decide to end on, in a tone that sounded like he was extending half-a-compromise there.
Miz thought about it. "Okay, as long as it's not going to waste," she decided.
Bill nodded, then sent a quick glance over to Stan, who nodded at him. Pacifica watched this all, and wondered. She'd seen her own father give… something of a similar slight nod to her, after she'd gotten done handling a particularly difficult client or businessman at a gala or ball or business meeting. And that was...
Soos set down the last of the food and grinned. "That should be enough for everyone." He grinned. "And if we run out, we've got back up snacks in the fridge too, doods." He went to sit down next to Stan, a little bit behind him. "So eat your fill. We've got plenty."
"All of it is store-bought; none of it was made by myself or Miz," Bill informed them all. Even the sandwiches and cut fruit had been bought, from the diner. (And Miz had traded some quick errands for Susan in exchange for her help with preparing the food for her party. The woman had thought it was adorable - even Bill's reponse, as he had watched it all like a hawk the whole time.) "So you don't have to worry about that Stanford acting like an idiot when you try eating it."
Stan let out a sigh and looked around. "Yeah, I'll go get him," he said after a moment. "Gimmie a sec." And he got himself up out of his (very comfortable) chair and headed out of the room, looking grumpy about it.
As Stan walked off, Melody was coming down the hall the other way with Robbie. "Guess who I found outside, pacing out in front of the house?" she joked, as she saw him into the room. Robbie scoffed, huddling into his hoodie. "I wasn't pacing. The place looked closed," he complained.
Miz lit up. "Hiiiii Stitched Heart~!" she waved. Robbie twitched. "My name's Robbie!"
"Stitched Heart! Come in and sit over there," Bill gestured to the beanbag chair a little in front of and next to the one that he'd claimed for his own. "The dark-grey one. There." the beanbag chair wasn't quite black; it looked like it had little red sparkles stitched into the material here and there, too.
For a second, it looked like Robbie was going to protest and sit anywhere else, but then Bill walked right over and behind him, to start pushing at his back to steer him over… and he moved along, groaning almost long-sufferingly along the way. It took him a moment to start walking fast enough to get out in front of Bill enough that Bill stopped pushing him; and, once he did that, he trudged his own way over himself, to plop down onto it.
"Whatever," Robbie muttered out, as Bill smiled and made his way back over to the snacks table.
Miz was raising a hand and pointing at the wall. A screen appeared, like some kind of hologram and Pacifica's eyes widened at this casual use of power. ...Had that been magic? Was that what this was? Or was it something else?
Miz spent a few seconds adjusting the size of the screen. "Can everyone see alright?" Miz asked as she made some words appear on the screen. It said 'Testing'.
"I can see just fine," Bill said, not even looking at the screen, as he continued putting food onto a pair of plates. "No problems with my stupid human-ish eyes here! ...Why? Were you trying to blind someone?" The demon straightened in place and turned around, a plate full of assorted foodstuffs in each hand.
"Can you move it a little to the right?" Candy asked. Miz obliged and shifted the screen over a little.
Wendy sat back in her beanbag and eyed the demon. "Naw, dude. I think she just wants to know if everyone can read the subtitles."
"Oh." Bill blinked. Then he looked over at the assorted group. "CAN you read the subtitles?" He was fairly certain that they all knew American English, and were literate. ...If they couldn't, he'd have to work on better educating his Zodiac and their friends! He was fairly certain that they could, though. Anything he'd Seen about them would suggest that they could, not that they couldn't.
"EVERYTHING'S FINE ON MY END." Grenda gave Miz a thumb's up.
"From where we're sitting, Bill," Dipper said, half groaning it out. "Because it's farther down on the screen."
Bill looked over at his sister. "Just put the words at the top of the screen, then?" he (half-)asked (half-told) them all reasonably.
"It's harder to read them that way," Miz explained. "It's easier to glance down then look up without moving your head."
"So?" said Bill, to a, "We're trying to relax while we're watching, and put in the least amount of effort needed to watch," from his sister.
Bill frowned. "It isn't that much of a difference, is it?" He'd never noticed it when he'd been possessing other humans, before. Everything had seemed to swivel around as it should just fine! It hadn't seemed like THAT much extra strain on those ligaments and muscles...
"Well, it's also easier to see the images happening on screen if the words are on the bottom. If they were on top, human eyesight would miss the stuff happening below." Miz said simply. "Having the subs on top every now and then is fine, but for the most part, it's easier having them on the bottom."
Bill frowned at her, as he carried his two heaping plates of food over to his chair. "But it doesn't take that long to read things," Bill said. "Just a quick flicker upwards to See and memorize what it all looks like, then parse as needed while you're looking at everything else new that is going on after."
"Some of us can't read as fast as you can, Bill," Dipper sighed, beginning to realize the problem. Mabel raised her hand. "I take longer to read stuff than Dipper does." And Bill looked over at them, stunned.
"What? How long does it take you to read something?" the demon demanded out of Mabel, and when she told him, "Um, maybe a couple paragraphs in a minute?" he looked legitimately blown away by this information (and not in a good way).
"My sister Zeon used to have trouble reading quickly." Miz told her brother. "She had dyslexia and it took her a lot more work to read than most people." She paused, then added, "But also, some people just can't translate sight to meaning as quickly. They can read a sentence, know what each of the words are, but can't translate that into the 'meaning' of the sentence unless they read it a few times."
"That's not- ugh." Bill made an ugly chittering sound, as he passed one of the plates he was holding over to Robbie, and then rubbed at his left temple with his free (left) hand as he settled into place in the blue beanbag chair, holding the other plate carefully as he lowered himself down. He'd just said memorization first, not… But he remembered Miz mentioning something about her sisters during their talks (dyslexia might have come up), but he thought it only made it harder for Zeon to learn to read, not… have trouble forever and always for reading. "That is NOT the most efficient way to handle input. You memorize it first, and parse it all LATER," he not-quite grumbled out.
"Well, we don't get to choose how we take in information," Dipper told him. "Some people pick up on stuff easier than other people, you know." And the dumb dorito should know that, that everyone was different, because he'd been teaching his twin sister science in that spaceship differently - Bill had admitted that. "I know a kid in my English class who can't read aloud without stumbling and mixing his words together. -He's not stupid, it's just some brain thing," he added quickly, trying to cut Bill off at the pass before he could say something horrible about it.
Wendy spoke up, adding in, "One of my brothers has to read stuff aloud to himself to understand it. If he doesn't say it out loud, he just can't keep it in his head."
Bill looked decidedly uncomfortable at all this. He looked away from them, his eyelids closing partway in something that wasn't quite a squint.
"...Stupid human bodies," Bill said after awhile, straightening up a bit in place, before settling into his beanbag chair once again. "-You DO have direct control over SOME things, you know," he added after a moment, for good measure. "Some problems aren't on the biology-based epigenetics-influenced sensory-intake-pathway end, they're just learned." And those things could be unlearned, or improved upon easily, with a little time and effort - and without any larger biological changes being necessary, even!
Pacifica was making mental notes. So the younger sister knew more about humans than Bill did? And she'd also mentioned another sister, but in the past tense. So, was the rest of their demon family really dead? And… she hadn't known that demons could have dyslexia… but Bill had also complained about human bodies specifically, when talking about that… so... demons could be human?
"-ome on, Ford. It's just a cartoon marathon or something. It's not gonna kill ya to take a break for once and spend it with-" A gravelly voice came from the doorway.
"Is this really necessary," Ford complained, as his brother not quite shoved him into the converted 'storage' room from behind. "I was right in the middle of-" He not quite froze in place as he realized how many other people were in the room with him and his brother. "Ah…" He adjusted his glasses with one hand, almost nervously, as he looked around the room at all of them, noting (and recognizing) all the faces...
"Look, it's a group activity, and the least you can do is hang out with the kids a little more often," Stan grunted out at him as moved over to the snack table for a moment. Bill was sitting on the blue beanbag with Miz settled in at his side.
"Stanford," Bill said. "You sit over here." He pointed to the one (tan-colored) beanbag chair left in the room, which was sitting on the other side of Robbie, at the far side of the room; it was the last one in the front row, with Bill's own beanbag chair a bit off to the side and behind Robbie's, but far enough away from the tan-colored one not to be able to be called 'behind' it, either.
Ford frowned at this arrangement.
"I think I'd rather take the-" Ford began, moving for the wooden chair on the opposite side of the room, but Stan grabbed his arm on his way past him, and Ford glanced back at him, stopping in place.
"Kid, you mind if he moves that chair over there closer to me and the kids?" Stan said.
There was a pause. "...He should sit next to Stitched-Heart," was Bill's neutral reply.
Ford looked over at Bill at that, while the younger twins exchanged a glance.
"Uh…" said Robbie, not really sure about all this, because why did the demon want him sitting next to the old guy?
Then Ford really looked at the room. He pulled in a breath in almost a hiss. It was the circle, only… not quite. They were missing two, and had some extras, but...
...No, no. It wasn't the circle, not quite. The order was actually a mix of the summoning circle and the destroying one. Ford frowned as he looked them all over.
Robbie winced, looking at the old dude. "...Man, c'mon," the teenager complained back at Bill. "The old dude's kind of lame. I don't want to-"
Ford walked right over and dropped down into the beanbag chair, sitting right down next to him. (It was rather a matter of principle, now.)
"...Great," Robbie said, after a beat, slumping down a little more in his chair, almost like he was curling up around his food.
Wendy snorted. "Suck it up man, it's not like you have to hold his hand this time," she joked.
"Hey, that'd be less uncomfortable than this!" Robbie complained, which had Ford blinking at him in confusion (not that Robbie noticed, since he was turned in completely the wrong direction away from him in order to talk at Wendy).
Miz looked around. "Is everyone here?" she asked. A chorus of "Yeah,"s and "Yes,"es were the result. She looked over at the screen. "Can everyone see the screen?" she asked next. There was another series of affirmatives - though Ford didn't say anything, not really caring if he could see what was on said screen or not. This was just some cartoon. A frivolous waste of time. He could be working on something much more important right now! (-For instance, what he'd been right in the middle of working on, when Stan had forcibly dragged him upstairs…)
Once Miz felt satisfied with the placement of the screen and size of the subtitles, she flicked her fingers, still not quite a snap but close, and the show began playing on the screen.
"Soos, hit the lights," Stan complained, and the handyman did just that, almost from where he was sitting next to Melody in the back row of 'seating'.
And on that screen was a dark, odd looking place that… almost reminded Bill of the Nightmare Realm. (It would have been almost exactly like it, except for the remnants of trees in the background and the lack of his portal-bubbles… hmmm…) Bill had to remind himself to blink, as he watched some sort of battle going on between an odd shadowy figure and several strange otherworldly creatures… interspersed with a cutaway of a red-numbered counter rising in scale...
A few people were looking at the screen, confused as to what was happening. The counter rose. 95%, 96%... 100%. A strange noise of warning sounded, and the shadowy figure glowed white. The figure let out a blast that seemed to vaporize everything around it, and the screen went black with the title of the show in large red letters. Mob Psycho 100.
The kids blinked. ...Okay?
The voice of a narrator came on to introduce the setting, and from the subtitles, they were talking about how in this world, there were people with psychic powers...
Stan's eyebrow raised when the first actual character showed up. A man named Reigan who was… a conman. A very obvious conman. Stan glanced down at Miz but she was staring at the screen. Okay… what was this all about?
(A few episodes later…)
Okay. Stan frowned. Now he was certain that Miz had chosen this show specifically for a reason. The show was about a little boy with powerful psychic powers (and not very good control of them), whose powers would go out of control if he lost his temper or got stressed out enough (with a counter rising up to 100), and end up destroying or hurting the things and the people around him. The boy was awkward and didn't have good social skills, but he very much wanted to fit in and make friends. The conman was… his mentor, kind of. And despite being a liar and very much using the boy and his powers for profit… said conman-mentor was helping the boy, teaching him life lessons and junk, and mostly giving him the support and advice he needed to...
...Yeah. No way in hell was this show picked out 'just for fun'. Miz was deliberately showing this to them to… what? Send him a message? Say what she wanted to say without having to say it straight-out, right to his face? Hell, this dragon-lady. -At least the kid actually told him stuff directly. Unlike the dragon-lady here...
Stan was gonna call her out on this, later.
...Weirdly, Bill seemed to be enjoying (or at least not hating) the show. He was sitting pretty calmly next to his sister, in the same beanbag chair as her, the whole time, and had passed off a plate of snacks to her that he'd been holding when Stan had walked in with Ford - for her to be able to munch on, apparently.
Stan noticed that Ford was finally paying attention to the story, with a frown on his face.
Stan sighed. ...Yeah, guess 'later' had better be 'sooner', before Ford freaked out over whatever-it-was that the dragon-lady was trying to hit them all with this time.
"Miz, hold up after this one ends, before you start the next episode, wouldja? Need a bathroom and snack and stretch break, here," Stan told her. He'd been keeping track of the time, and how antsy some of them were all getting.
There was a short bathroom break for everyone after that episode, just as Stan requested. A few of the kids were chatting excitedly about the story. Grenda said the show was "SUPER COOL AND RELATABLE!"
As people filed out, ("Don't go too far, Ford!") and after Stan watched Bill walk out as well, Stan turned to Miz. "Okay. What's this about, dragon lady?" he asked. Miz wiggled. "It's a good show. I identify with the characters, and I thought it was relevant..."
Stan eyed her. "'Relevant', huh? You mind tellin' me how?" he asked her firmly. Because if the dragon lady was wanting to say something… "Either say what you want to say to me to my face, or it ain't worth sayin'," he told her.
"You're not Reigan." Miz responded just as firmly. "But you're still a good man. And you're..." She sighed. "You're helping. You're…" She seemed to struggle to put her feelings in words.
"'I'm not that guy, but I'm still a good man'," Stan repeated in gravely tones, with emphasis. He didn't like the sound of this, not one bit. "You tellin' me you think I should be takin' advantage of your brother?" he said to her, eyeing her.
"No." Miz said. "It's not about whether you're using us or not." And Stan had to stifle a shiver at the look in her eyes, putting on his best conman face. (Ford was also tense where he was sitting, listening in on this.) "You're teaching us things that we need to learn, you're picking up on the problems and you're addressing them." She closed her eyes and sighed. "And that's something that… I know I need. And perhaps brother too." She opened her eyes and… didn't say anything else. Deliberately, with the way she was looking at him. ...And Stan just knew that she knew that Stan hadn't meant it when he'd said that he 'wanted' the kid. -Not in the way that she thought he should've wanted her brother, anyway. Not in the way that the kid might have wanted him to mean it, maybe, from the way she was looking at him. (Yeah, right. As if the dragon-lady knew the kid better than he did.)
...and Stan also realized that Miz wasn't going to tell her brother any of what she thought about this. She was going to keep quiet about it, keep Bill 'in the dark' over it. Because she thought that Stan was 'good' for her brother. ...Good enough for him that what he was doing was maybe outweighing the rest of it, whatever things she apparently didn't like about all of it. That she thought having Stan being around to teach Bill stuff was worth more than what he wasn't giving the kid.
She'd keep quiet for now, because she thought...
Stan held back a shiver, his poker face holding true. And he began to wonder whether he'd been right, or wrong, about suggesting the whole 'little sister' thing to the kid, here. Because if she was gonna hold back talking to her brother about something like this, when she thought her brother might end up getting used by somebody else… just because she thought the tradeoff was worth it, then...
(...Then again, she had thought working with her Time Baby was worth it, even if she didn't like him - that it had been worth it for keeping her friends 'safe' with those 'get out of jail free' cards, and maybe still thought it was, as some kind of 'fallback' measure, from what they'd talked about up in the attic more than a week ago - so… maybe it wasn't all that intentional. Because this wasn't just something she was thinking about for the kid; this was something that she thought when it came to herself, too. So she might not actually get what was so wrong about what she was doing, at all - why it was such a problem…)
(Hell, he was gonna have to explain this to her, too, wasn't he? Damnit. ...First things first, though.)
"Yeah," Stan said simply. "You do need it. And I hear ya," he told her, crossing his arms across his chest. "I get what you're trying to tell me, here."
Because Stan did know damn well what she meant by, "You're not Reigan." Because the way the show she'd been showing them sold it, the conman in the show actually cared about the boy he was using. He may have been lying and tricking the boy into working for him, but that man actually cared about and liked and 'wanted' his apprentice - and not just for the money he could make.
And Stan stood there and watched as Miz wandered over to get some more food, and then went over and sat herself back down. And he waited for the kid to reenter the room.
It didn't take but a moment of Bill walking in and glancing over at Stan's stance upon entry to ask him, "What's wrong."
"Just had an 'interesting' conversation with your sister, kid," Stan told the demon-kid. "You want to know what it was about?"
Bill tilted his head at him. "Right now?" the kid asked.
"If you want," Stan shrugged noncommittally, letting his arms fall back to his sides.
Bill glanced to him, then to his sister, then to him again. "Do you want me to ask about it right now?" Bill asked him next, sounding almost curious.
"Might be a good idea," Stan told him. "Melody, you mind having Miz sit over by you for awhile?" Stan asked, as she and Soos walked their way back into the room. "Gotta talk to the kid for a sec- couple minutes," Stan corrected with a grimace. Didn't want the kid getting the wrong idea. Kid's timesense on his own was bad enough, some days.
"I don't mind." Melody shrugged.
"Yeah, thanks," Stan told her. "Miz?" he said, ticking his head towards Melody. "So Ford doesn't lose his mind over whatever with you bein' too nearby and me and your brother not being around for a little bit, yeah?" And with that, Stan walked through the open doorway and into the hallway, Bill following behind.
Miz made her way over, stepping around the beanbags with her plate of sandwiches. She settled beside Melody and after a little bit, Melody raised a hand and began running her fingers lightly and gently through, and over, Miz's hair. (She'd realized a few days ago that the younger demon really enjoyed the sensation; it calmed her, very quickly. The demon was already purring softly.)
Ford watched and listened to all of this.
And when it suddenly occurred to Ford just what his brother was about to do…
Ford immediately got up and marched his way right out of the room after him, post-haste.
Outside of the converted 'theater' room, out in the kitchen, Stan turned to Bill and leaned back against one of the counters.
"Kid, I think we might have a terminology problem here," Stan began, "So we'd better get it straight now before-"
"-Don't do it, Stan," Ford cut in, rounding the corner. He looked a little pale, and worried as anything. "Don't-"
"Don't WHAT" Bill not quite thundered out at him, and Ford-
Ford cut himself off when he saw the way Bill was looking at him, arms crossed.
"...What term do you think is the problem?" Bill said after a beat, turning back to Stanley.
"Stan-" Ford began again, warningly, stepping forward.
"-It's gotta do with your expectations for this whole 'me wanting you' thing, and all the rest of it," Stan told him, because he'd be damned if he'd let that other demon freaking blackmail him over anything, let alone this. -Hell, no.
Both of the kid's eyebrows went up at this.
"You want to talk about this now?" the kid asked him. "This could take a while, to come to a full-and-complete accord on," the demon-kid said. "You'll miss all of the rest of the episodes!" he added, his torso bobbing from side to side slightly, and Stan let out a sigh.
"Yeah, kinda thought that was it," Stan said ruefully, shaking his head. He looked up at the kid, with half-a-smile going. "This is gonna take longer to work out than the agreement, ain't it."
"We aren't even done with THAT yet!" Bill said brightly, sounding as though he was in agreement… with Stan's sentiment.
"Okay," Stan said. He figured he'd just put this another way instead. "Fine. No need to rush it, yeah?" At the kid's nod, he said, "Got another question for you then." He paused, then asked, "What'd you think of the Reigan guy, and that kid?"
"From and within the context of the story I've seen here so far, today? -They haven't really worked out the parameters of their working relationship properly," the kid told him promptly. "They're very fluid. That could cause trouble later."
"Uh huh," said Stan. "What do you think about how they treat each other."
Bill just blinked at him.
"Really," said Stan. "You've got nothin'."
"I've only watched six episodes," the kid told him. "Most human shows aren't very consistent in their writing, yes? I would need to watch the entire run of the show, first. There hasn't been much to see, yet."
...Well, at least the kid wasn't lying. "Really?" Stan asked him. "How long do you usually watch somebody for, before making an opinion of them."
"Inside or outside of their heads?" was the kid's next question.
Huh. ...Okay. Guess that was a thing. Stan sighed. "Yeah, okay. Maybe we should talk about this later…" especially with Ford standin' right there, and all. Stan didn't like leaving it at that, though. "Kid, before we go back in there…" Hell, he wasn't all that sure how to put this. "Are you… wanting me to try and act like… I dunno, the way you talk about…" (Hell, he couldn't say that, not with Ford right there; the kid would have a fit. Maybe…) "The way I talk about family, sometimes?"
Bill blinked at him again. "I'm not your family."
"Yeah," said Stan with a sigh, and that answered his question right there. "Didn't think so." He'd thought he'd been right about this stuff with him. (And thank whoever for that, because-) He nodded at the kid. "C'mon, back to your sister," he told the kid. "We'll talk about this later."
Bill nodded to him easily, then turned to follow Stan back to the room.
But as the dream demon passed Ford, he flicked a look up to him.
-And Ford grabbed him by the arm and held him back.
Bill stopped in place. (Stan kept going, having already turned the corner.)
"Do not get angry with my brother, just because your wants are not the same as his," Ford said under his breath to him, feeling severe stress and worry for his brother. "Do you hear me? Do not take it out on him when he-" Ford barely stopped himself before he lost it completely.
Bill gave him a long look. "Of course our wants are not the same," he drawled out to him. "We are not the same. I don't want 'the niblings' to treat me like… 'family'," Bill told him dryly, with the beginnings of a horrible small wicked little smile.
"You know what I mean, Bill," Ford said in stressed tones under his breath, "He doesn't want to give you what you want." He wasn't going to actually want Bill, ever. And Stan wasn't going to-
Bill blinked at him almost lazily, and looked at Ford for a long moment.
And then he said, in rather slow tones, "You were never going to be my right-hand man, were you."
Ford stared at him.
And then he straightened, letting go of Bill, fully taken aback at the thought that-
Bill walked away from him, heading for the 'storage' room.
And Ford stood there, shaking slightly, as he realized what Bill had just said to him, with those words and that look, clear as day.
'You don't know me at all, do you. You never did.'
And Ford stood there for a long moment, eyes wide as he realized: he didn't know what Bill wanted. He really didn't. And he never had, not really - not if what had been happening here thus far with his brother, and that other demon, had been any indication of that. And he still-
Ford thought over what Stan had meant when he'd said he wanted Bill, and Stan's complete and utter 'practical'-seeming regard whenever Ford had tried to bring it up to him, and in what had happened just now between him and the other demon. And Ford thought over what looked to be Bill's (truthful and guileless) complete and utter non-response to the relationships he was seeing in the show that they'd just been watching. ...And Ford's breathing picked up and became a little bit shallow as he thought over how Bill acted when it came to Deals, and Bargains, and everything else that Ford had ever seen Bill do when he was in other peoples' bodies talking to other demons-
And Ford realized…
(No. Oh, no.)
...Ford felt sick.
And he felt a terrible mixture of anxiety, terror, and a mess of other things too difficult for him to name, at what he was struggling to understand, the meaning hidden in the undertones of Bill's words. Because Bill- he'd thought- useful- Bill had thought that he, in some way- it was something about, some thing about how Bill thought he was still useful in some way-
And Ford shivered in place where he stood.
Dipper and Mabel were certain by this point that Miz had chosen this show in particular as some sort of dig at, or message to, all of them. They didn't comment on it out loud - not yet - not really wanting to get into anything with her right then. Because the last time they'd watched anime shows with her and tried to talk about stuff like that during them…
Mabel thought Miz was using Mob as some sort of metaphor for herself, and about how Miz probably didn't have as good control over her own powers as she probably should. And about how Miz, like Mob, didn't really know how to interact with people correctly all the time, but wanted to learn to do so.
Dipper was worried about the 'contract' aspects of the show, between Mob and his conman 'boss'. He didn't like the idea that Miz might be expecting their Grunkle Stan to treat her like that, to be a complete jerk about everything, but actually like her underneath all of it. (-No way that was ever gonna happen between her and Grunkle Stan. Not even a little bit.) The kid was paid less than minimum wage to help his boss exorcise ghosts, but it was pretty clear to Dipper that it wasn't about the money; it was about being around a man who could help to steer Mob into the right path of how to be a better person. Reigan had told Mob that he must never use his powers on other humans. Because it would have been too easy for Mob to hurt someone. Kill them, really. -Heck, at once point, Mob had lost control and taken apart an entire school building, brick by brick, and sent it hurtling into the stratosphere. There was no way a person could survive that. The only reason the guy attacking Mob had survived was because he had been a psychic too.
The twins both glanced over as Grunkle Stan re-entered the room, then Bill a good ten seconds later. But Great-Uncle Ford...
Dipper was starting to get worried, when his great-uncle finally appeared in the doorway. ...And even in the dimmer lighting, Dipper could tell that he didn't look so good.
He walked his way over and sat down in the same beanbag chair as before (next to Robbie) without saying anything to anybody, though.
Dipper and Mabel exchanged a glance, but...
...trying to stop in the middle of everything and focus on Grunkle Ford in front of everybody right now? That would just make things worse, Mabel knew.
So she shook her head at Dipper, and just climbed up out of her beanbag chair to go over and sit snuggled up in Ford's lap with him, instead.
Grunkle Ford seemed surprised at her change in venue-seating, but he smiled at her and made room for her, so she figured it was just fine!
Dipper stayed where he was for awhile, until he felt weird sitting near the two other girls, who were still getting all giggly about things with each other, even with Mabel not right there to share the stuff with. And between them and Wendy… Dipper got up and went over to sit with Grunkle Stan, plopping himself down in front of the left armrest of his chair, like he'd used to when it had just been the three of them watching stuff together on the old TV in the living room, last summer. (Man, that felt like ages ago.)
And, after awhile, Candy and Grenda got up and dragged their pillows over, to flop them down on the floor in front of Ford, to be near Mabel again too.
Robbie grumbled at them when they got in the way of his viewing, but quieted after they'd gotten out of the way again. Mabel struck up another quiet conversation with the two of them like she had before, and Ford slowly relaxed over time. (Their presence admittedly was helping to calm him, once he realized that he wasn't expected to engage in the conversation himself.)
Bill had just sat down next to Miz where she was when he'd come back to the room - which was in the back row, nearby Melody and Soos - and Miz kept on putting up episode after episode, ignoring all of the minor interruptions of people getting up to get food, resituate themselves, and so forth.
And then, after awhile, they got deeper into the greater storyline where Mob (the main character)'s little brother (Ritsu) got a little more backstory development. And Ritsu was revealed to have been bitterly jealous and terrified of his brother's powers all along. How Mob had once lost control when they were children and had hurt his little brother. (Stan glanced back at this, and he could see Miz tensing a little, even in the low lighting. ...Heck, the kid was looking a little tense too, though in a different way than his sister.)
Melody (who was still stroking Miz's hair from time to time, and Stan, who was just paying attention to the demons and everybody in general, not feeling all that engaged by the story) noticed that Miz didn't untense again until the part in the story where the younger brother realized that he didn't actually hate his older brother, 'not really'. That the younger brother loved his older brother, even when he was angry at him. (...And it only took him being beat up and kidnapped to realize it, geez. And the way the story put it, apparently the whole 'I'm still gonna fight to save you, no matter what harsh things you said to me' thing was the reason Ritsu had realized that about his big brother Mob. It was all very cheesy and sappy and junk. Not at all realistic. Stan sighed.)
...So, from what he was getting here, Stan figured the dragon-lady was maybe trying to tell him that she thought that brothers always loved each other, even if sometimes they fought. Yeah. Really trying to hammer in that nail on the head there, kid. Geez.
Finally, they got to the climax of the whole thing - the bad guys were attacking, and Mob refused to fight. Because Reigan had told him not to. Even as Mob's friends and little brother were telling him to fight, to attack the bad guys, Mob simply froze in place, terrified and unable to do it. Because he'd been told that he shouldn't use his powers on humans. And because he was so afraid of losing control and hurting anyone ever again.
And then Reigan told Mob that it was okay to run away. That if he was scared or unable to do something, it was perfectly fine to run away and let someone else help and handle things for him, instead. That Mob didn't have to do it himself. That he could run and leave it to Reigan. ...Yeah, leave the fighting to a conman who didn't have any psychic powers whatsoever, in a battle between people who could lift buildings with their minds or slice anything in half with their powers, sure. But the Reigan guy still told Mob he could run away, anyway. That he didn't have to fight. And...
...he did.
Kind of. He didn't run run, but he did decide that he didn't have to fight, and left the fight to Reigan instead. (Even though the guy had been cut down by a sword and looked dead.)
But apparently Mob had also found a workaround. He couldn't fight; he could run away. He could rely on Reigan. And so he did.
Stan stared as the explanation came on screen. That, at that moment when Mob listened to his boss and 'ran away' from the fight, the build up of energy that signified Mob losing control of his powers had hit the 100% breaking point...
...and Mob gave his powers to Reigan. And hit 1000% of his power level due to Reigan's self-assured confidence about the whole damn thing.
...which is why the conman with no powers had proceeded to kick-ass so nonchalantly (right before that crazy explanation had been given), in a way that made it was clear the man hadn't even realized what had happened for a huge portion of the fight as it happened, as he scolded the bad guys for being bad guys and essentially forced the lot of them to have some kind of an existential crisis.
Stan leaned back in his chair and covered his face with a hand. Because that was… hell, that was...
...definitely nothing like he was trying to do with the kid at all. Stan let out a tired sigh, because hell… did the dragon-lady really think he wanted to steal her brother's powers? Really? (Like hell!)
And yeah, sure, Stan had talked to the kid about not starting fights, but this wasn't… that whole thing on screen was just stupid. -The whole point of the agreement was that they were all gonna fight together against other people if Stan couldn't get those other people to back down - just as long as the kid didn't go off picking those fights by himself, out on his own, for no damn reason.
Then Stan scrubbed his hand across his face and reminded himself of what Miz was like. ...Which meant that, no, it couldn't be that literal, what Miz was trying to say with this thing here. The dragon-lady just wasn't as straightforward or literal as the kid was about things. Because sure, the kid liked his word games, and sometimes he liked layering them deep, but every single level of meaning was all pretty damn 'in your face' about it. And anything you didn't get, well, if you realized something was there but couldn't figure it out, and you just went off and asked the kid about it… (Hey, y'know, for a kid who liked ciphers that much, he really did want you to get it.)
Miz, on the other hand… she seemed to go more at things a little more sideways than the kid. A little sideways, and a little broader. More general. Less on the specifics, and a whole lot less direct. (So if you weren't payin' all that much attention…)
...Okay, so the message here wasn't that she thought Stan should get powers, or wanted to get them, it was that she thought that... the kid should rely on him, here? That if there was a fight, she thought that the kid really should go off and get help from him, because it wasn't wrong to accept help, or to run away from a fight he didn't want to be part of?
Stan let out a breath that was almost another sigh, as the episode ended (and hey, that Reigan guy didn't get to keep Mob's powers, it was only a temporary thing, that was good, right?), and Stan shifted and stretched in his chair. ...Hell, had the kid really not talked out anything about the agreement with her at all? Or had she just not understood any of it, when the kid had tried to tell her? (Hell. He'd have to handle this later, wouldn't he. Didn't want the dragon-lady getting the wrong idea, or thinking that the kid was actually worse off about some of this stuff than he actually was. Most of the stuff that he'd talked out with the kid, on stuff like running away and relying on other people that the kid had problems with, had really all just led back to...)
Then again, she'd seen the kid play DDNMD before, she should know that Bill knew how to handle confrontations without violence… so maybe this part of the show wasn't meant to he a dig at him and the kid after all. It wasn't like every show she happened to like would have to hit all the points after all.
Well, regardless, Stan had to admit it wasn't a bad show. He sat back and listened, as Soos, Melody and Miz chattered on happily enough about how there was a whole message about 'self improvement' in the show. About how if you're unsatisfied with who you were, of course you could work to become someone you were proud of being, rather than closing yourself off and blaming other people for your unhappiness or some shit (like how the bad guys did, hiding their own insecurities behind their psychic powers and blamed society for not accepting them, rather than trying to better themselves). ...And Stan had to admit, that part of it wasn't a bad message.
And heck, Stan had gotten the other thing that Miz might have been trying to get at, that was pretty much right on the nose, and pretty direct itself. The message, loud and clear, of: 'I don't have full control of my powers and they might hurt people, but I really don't want that to happen; please teach me how to not hurt people.'
...Yeah. Stan was gonna have to help the kid with that one with her now, wasn't he.
Well, Stan figured that, overall, this hadn't been a bad way to spend six hours, though.
The kids all began picking up any food on the ground, cleaning up after themselves - as Bill picked up, dusted off, and moved the 'furniture' out of the way, off to the side of the room, leaving the 'dropped food' that had ended up in (and now fallen out of) the chairs to be picked up by said children. Miz herself checked for crumbs in the second pass, getting out a little dustpan to help Dipper and Mabel as they took turns sweeping up the small pieces, while Candy and Grenda finished handling grabbing up all of the larger stuff (like popcorn, and half-eaten sandwiches) to toss in a bucket for Gompers.
"Um…" Miz asked the kids, as they finished up with their cleaning. "Did you like the show?"
"IT WAS AWESOME! THE FIGHT SCENES WERE SO COOL!" Grenda bellowed out enthusiastically. "AND THE CAPTAIN OF THE BODY IMPROVEMENT CLUB WAS A HOTTIE!"
Candy just giggled with a blush, "Those muscles. I would like to touch them!"
"Eh, it was a fun time." Wendy smiled. Heck, free food and an excuse to not work? Heck yeah she'd take it.
"Thanks for inviting us," Melody said for herself and Soos, giving their thanks as well.
"Heh," Soos laughed, as he picked up the empty serving plates and bowls over at the snacks table. "Huh. Kinda funny how that Reigan dude is kinda like Mr. Pines," he pointed out rather obliviously.
"They're not similar at all," was Bill's own take on the subject.
Stan raised an eyebrow at him. "Oh yeah?"
Bill glanced over at him. "He was completely oblivious. And stupid. The character also had very different motivations than you do," Bill ended, as he turned away from Stan to toss another errant beanbag chair onto the pile in the corner, before dusting off his hands.
...Stan wasn't exactly sure what to make of this. Kid wasn't lying, but… (Stan blinked as he realized, did the kid really not think of him as stupid?)
Miz tilted her head in thought before shrugging. "Stan is not Reigan," she said simply. "But they're both good men. And Stan is definitely not stupid." she added.
"Yes," Bill said, sending his sister something of a confused look. "Stanley is not Reigan, and Stanley is not stupid." He didn't think that anyone would think that Stanley was either of those things. So why was his sister saying this? He wasn't stupid; neither were his Zodiac… Though, "Define: 'good'?" (But Miz looked like she didn't know how to explain it.)
Stan ruffled the kid's hair a bit. "Don't worry about it, kid," Stan told him, dropping the hand. "Your sister was tryin' to make a point. -Like I said, we'll talk about it later."
Bill gave him a long look, then turned away from him. "Fine."
(Ford grimaced. Pacifica glanced between them, and made a note to ask about it later, when they were all at the mansion.)
"Well, I had fun watching the show." Dipper shrugged. "At least it had more plot and action than the last one."
"So does Mob get together with his crush?" Mabel asked Miz.
Miz shrugged. "I never got to finish reading the manga before…" she stopped herself there, before she started talking about how she'd died, back when she was a human. Stan was almost proud. (Almost.)
Miz changed the subject, looking over at Robbie. "Did you like it?" she asked him, since Robbie had been quiet for most of the marathon.
Robbie shrugged, hunched over a bit like he usually was, posture-wise. "It was okay," he said nonchalantly, not wanting to say anything either way.
"Well I for one, think the show wasn't bad." Pacifica said primly. "Thank you for the invitation." She'd learned quite a lot today.
"Thanks!" Miz beamed at her.
And that was probably about as open an 'invitation' as Pacifica figured that she was going to get. (So she'd just make one herself.) "You know, this was actually kind of… fun. And this town can get a little boring at times. If you run out of anime to watch…" Pacifica didn't quite think the standard line of 'if you need anything, anything at all, just let me know,' would be good to go with here; who knew what the demon might come up with, with something that open-ended. "...Why don't you give me a call?" Pacifica told the new demon, as she handed her a card with her cellphone number on it. "I have a pretty big collection of movies, myself," Pacifica made a mental note to tell Butler to expand her 'anime' section drastically in size once she was home, "And I know what it's like to be bored." (Pacifica had almost asked the twins to call her immediately whenever that might be the case, but… they were related to Stan Pines. If they didn't take advantage of that kind of open-ended offer for themselves, she'd give her pony up to the local orphanage for free rides for a day. Not to mention, this demon seemed a bit easier to deal with than the other one.)
Miz took the card, blinked, and then smiled. "Thanks. It was really nice getting to meet you all," she said sincerely. Pacifica paused at that. ...Ah, she understood what Mabel meant by her comment about how Miz was 'pretty nice, for a demon'. She really was. The only problem was the fact that she was a reality-warping demon. And Pacifica hadn't exactly missed how said 'pretty nice' demon had almost gone full-Nazi on them about 'dropping food on the floor' or 'wasting' food. Or how the crazy one had actually felt like he'd needed to step in to talk her down. And if the way that Miz had followed after each and every one of them, double-checking the cleanliness of the floor as they were finishing cleaning up was any indication...
It reminded Pacifica of pristine white rugs, and her parents, and that bell…
Pacifica took the time to say her goodbyes to the Pines twins, then promptly turned on her heel and left. She had a lot to think about. Also, she had to make a list of all the things she wanted to grill Dipper on, such as everything he knew about this 'little sister'. (He seemed to do better with concrete lists and paper to write his thoughts down on, oddly enough.) Mabel, she'd just text that evening for the initial 'low down' on the ever-evolving situation, as well.
Mabel texted Pacifica that night with… of all things, a video along with the words [u won't believe what I jiust discovrred! :D :D :D]
Pacifica frowned as she clicked on the video link.
And… Pacifica stared at her phone incredulously.
It was Miz. Pouncing at a laser pointer that Dipper was holding, a rather gobsmacked look on his face as he moved it around the room and Miz chased it.
...Not the pointer itself. The dot. Miz kept pouncing at the dot.
Like some kind of animal.
...Up until Bill walked up to Dipper and snatched the pointer away from him, scowling.
And Miz had patted at the wall where she'd last seen the dot, a confused expression on her face.
...At which point Bill had turned and stared at her, looking both annoyed and exasperated...
...and then seemed to sigh and...
Pacifica stared.
...she wasn't entirely sure what she was seeing here, but-
She quickly forwarded a copy of the video to Old Man McGucket.
Because, in the video, Bill had seemed to flicker in place for a moment, suddenly looking like he was wearing something else entirely. He'd had something else on, underneath his normal-looking commoner-style clothing, and-
...in the video, Miz continued on with her jumping and pouncing-again spree, playing with something that Bill had seemed to have released from his back sleeve, or the back of his arm, somehow. Something smallish, and flying, and lit up with an odd washed-out blue-colored and pulsating light...
...as it flitted around the center of the room, and Miz bounced and jumped along after it.
And then Bill added another one.
And another one.
And...
Within the space of about fifteen seconds, there were about fifteen of whatever these things were, hovering and floating around the room, flittering about and pulsating with light like fireflies, almost. Miz looked delighted at all the things she could chase.
But as much as they seemed to pulsate and flicker, the lights on all of them never completely went out.
...And Bill seemed to have a look of concentration going on, taking in the entire scene where he was standing out of the way, over at the side of the room, leaning up against the wall with his arms crossed. And...
Pacifica squinted at the video. She had to back it up a bit to recheck what she was seeing, and she couldn't be too sure from the quality of it, but it looked like Bill was… tapping or moving his fingers a bit, from time to time, against his arms, as the flying things moved, and his sister kept on jumping about.
...The demon was directly controlling these things? Whatever they were?
The video ended eventually, and Pacifica sat back in bed, frowning. -Wonderful. The demon had something at his disposal that she hadn't known about. That wasn't good; it meant that they'd all been missing something. ...And who knew what else they'd also missed so far.
She didn't know what those things were that Bill had been letting his little demonic sister 'play' with, but Pacifica very much doubted that all they were meant for was floating around an indoor room and looking pretty.
...she also wondered suddenly about just what exactly a demon was. She'd heard from Susan at the Diner that a "very lovely cat!" had come in with the Pines not too long ago, and from what Pacifica had been able to figure out from the Pines' movements - and the demon's as well - that had been when they'd taken Bill out into the town...
So… were demons actually some kind of cat?
...or had Miz been with them there then, too? Had 'Lazy-Eye' Susan been talking about Bill, or about Miz? (She hadn't had her part-time shift at the diner that day, unfortunately, or she would have known it already, for certain, herself!)
Was that behavior something only Miz had, or did Bill exhibit it too? Wait. When Bill had claimed that beanbag as his… didn't cats do that too? Physically claim spots as theirs and then get upset when someone else took it, or got in their way? The peacocks in the yard certainly did.
That didn't make sense, though. The crazy demon didn't actually act like a cat or a peacock; it acted like a human. And it certainly hadn't acted like some sort of animal during Weirdmageddon. Something was off, here. She was missing something... something big. She could feel it.
"Dipper, you had better have some answers for me tomorrow," she muttered down at her phone.
She frowned down at it, then sent Mabel a message, saying that she had received the video, and put her phone on silent mode, setting it down.
She'd worry about all this again tomorrow. She wanted (and deserved!) her beauty sleep.
Damn. Pacifica scowled down at her phone. Because, REALLY?!
Mabel had texted her again this morning, along with some photos that must have been taken later on the night before. Photos of Bill and Miz sleeping together. There was a literal blanket nest. The two demons were (not quite entwined but) pressed against each other and Miz was even hugging a stuffed animal.
But then Pacifica blinked because… the skyline wasn't right. The photos had been taken outside, at night, and...
[Mabel, what did you just send me!?] Pacifica texted back. [When or where did you take these pictures?!]
After a few minutes (and having set down her phone again), Pacifica got some replies. [when we went to another timeline and then we had a stakeout on a roof and we all slept on a roof back in the 1970s isn't that cool? :D]
Pacifica let out a huff, and texted her back immediately. [Send all pictures you took from when you were in that other dimension, Mabel. In order! The first ones, to the last ones. And give me the story, too!] She would have asked for captions or context instead of a story, but Mabel always took too much time ribbing her on her language when she wrote that. [silly pacifica!1! captions are too shrt! :D] and all that.
It took a while and Pacifica was sure that Dipper must have stepped in to help at some point - because the quality of the text explanations she was being sent improved drastically for awhile - but over the next half-hour she received a series of photos from the twins' accidental trip into what had apparently been an alternate timeline. There were photos of two teenage boys that were clearly Mr. Pines and his brother when they were younger (huh, ok, yeah, they weren't too bad looking back then) and an actual explanation of how and why they'd gone to find their younger Grunkles to try and stop… some science project from breaking that... was apparently important for some reason.
There were photos of a booth they'd set up, with some handmade (magic made?) jewelry (of all things) that apparently Miz had made. Some more photos of the demons sleeping or cuddling together with Mabel's texts of [theyre soooooo cute!] and Dipper's [Wish they could just stay that way. It would make things easier.] Many photos of Miz eating… more than her body should physically be able to hold, if the photos (and the twins) weren't lying and they really were before and after shots of what-all Miz had eaten all by herself.
Ew. She seemed to be swallowing an entire fish whole in one photo! And Dipper texted a note on how Miz seemed to like fish, having gone for fish more than any other food when given a choice.
There were also some photos of a weird-looking… snake? Wait, Dipper claimed it was [Miz in her dragon form].
-The heck? Pacifica was forced to stop for a minute and massage her temples for awhile, before she frowned for too long and developed early wrinkles.
She resumed her text message dive after a bit, deciding that it probably made sense that a reality-altering demon that could screw up people's faces, could mess with their own body, too. She made it through another few pictures, and then there was… another video, this time of Bill being surrounded by a crowd at that booth, and...
Pacifica clicked on it, and blinked as she watched the first thirty seconds of the 'magic act' Bill performed for the crowd, almost mesmerized. -Then she shook herself out of it, paused the video, took the time to forward that to Old Man McGucket too, and got up to sit down at her desk and open her laptop. In the space of mere moments (McGucket's custom-made laptops really were far superior to anything else out on the market), she was able to click open her favorite editing program to a new 'page' for her to jot down her observations in.
She propped up her phone on a stand, started the magic video over again from the beginning, and began taking notes.
(And she absently wondered as she worked, if Dipper had done the exact same thing, jotting down his own observations in that old musty 'journal' of his.)
She was interrupted at one point by a new incoming photo of Miz passed out on a beanbag chair with Dipper's explanation of [Miz reacts to chocolate like alcohol. Luckily she's a sleepy drunk.]
Pacifica, feeling exasperated in general at this point, made a quick note of this new potential weakness, then forwarded the 'magic' video to her laptop so that incoming messages wouldn't drop the messaging program back down to the newest message in the middle of her viewing it (maybe she should ask for a new phone from Old Man McGucket, too...). Once the file finished transferring, she picked up where she'd left off, and resumed watching it there.
There was… a lot to be learned here. She went through the video four times, just to be sure that she hadn't missed anything. Once, for initial observations on what the demon could do; a second time, for how he reacted to people and handled the crowd, and how the crowd reacted to him in general, in return; a third time, to make sure that she hadn't missed anything; and a fourth time, just to take in the entire performance, to get a feel for the actual overall events as they'd occurred.
And finally, she went back to look at her phone's message log again, and stared when Mabel finally delivered the goods with a photo of the thing that Bill was apparently wearing under his clothes. It was… some kind of futuristic-looking suit? She forwarded that to McGucket as well, then sat back in her chair and stared up at the ceiling, groaning. -Why didn't the twins tell her these things without her having to explicitly ask (demand of) them what was going on? Did they just not think it was important?
She didn't know what to make of this all right now. It was a lot to take in all at once. But she was going to ask Mabel to get more photos of anything at all out of the ordinary with the two demons. [What is Bill wearing?] she sent over.
[Some cyber suit that lets him use science when he can't do magic under the unicorn barrier] Dipper texted back.
...Pacifica let out a frustrated scream at her phone. "That would have been nice to know to begin with!"
[WHAT UNICORN BARRIER] she typed back to Dipper (sent to Mabel's phone) in a fit.
[the one around the shack. Remember? Its how we were able to fight Bill with the Shactron? We never took it down, so we still have it.]
Pacifica took in a deep breath, then let it out slowly.
[Does OMM know about this?] she typed back to the twins.
[yes! he has one up around the mansion alreedy dont worry! :D] she got back from Mabel.
"Oh I'm not worried. I'm furious," Pacifica said, as she stared down at this. Why hadn't he told her about the barrier that he'd apparently put up?
[Don't you think that a good number of people in this town might have liked to know that information, to put up protective barriers around their own houses against the demon!] Pacifica typed back at them. "Myself included!" she exclaimed at her phone out loud.
[...Wouldn't do any good,] was what she got back, presumably from Dipper. [You need unicorn hair which is hard to come by, and the stupid dorito can just walk right past it now. He could just tear the hair to take it down now if he wanted to, and he could cast stuff outside it to break stuff inside it too. He broke the barrier on the Shacktron with one of the legs during Weirdmageddon.]
Before Pacifica could respond, another message popped up, [bit the unicorn barrier keeps out Miz. She needs tk wear antimagic cuffs to get into the shack! XD]
[Well, that sounds like an excellent reason for me and my parents to have one of those barriers, then!] Pacifica typed back to them. She was still more than a little anxious about what had happened to her father the last time, when...
Pacifica shook her head. Her parents were awful people, but… she loved them, and they hadn't deserved... that. Not getting their faces rearranged, or getting turned into stone.
[miz wpuldbt do aby thing to you or your parents. she aactually likes humans. snd you haven't done anything to make her mad.] Mabel typed back. [she says she only messes with people if thwy mess w her first.]
Pacifica wanted to scream in frustration. "You said she loves her brother, and we're trying to kill him./" She took a deep breath, and tried again with, [If the barrier's really useless to you, then it can't hurt to just tell me how to put up one myself, correct?]
There was a few minutes of silence and then a literal recipe list came up. But not instructions.
Pacifica frowned at this, until the next message came in, which read: [I don't believe this is the best method to communicate all of the information that you're requesting. Would you like to meet and discuss this in-person?]
And then Pacifica frowned even more.
[Meet me at McGucket's place at 1pm.] she wrote after glancing at the clock, then, [Don't be late.]
She shoved her chair away from her desk, packed up her laptop, and called out for her, "Butler! I have ingredients for you to fetch for me!"
Illusion is Reality
Chapter 96.1
-Uuugh-
Pacifica frowned up at Ford Pines. The kind-of-hot uncle, or grunkle. Whatever.
"You're really pushing this, you know," she told him in her usual (haughty) manner, as she shoved open the front door to the mansion. "I told the twins to tell you that we shouldn't ever meet here in-person, at the same time." Internally, she was kicking herself. She'd known that that last message had sounded kind of off, that Dipper didn't normally talk like that. But she'd gone and written what she had, without checking who she was writing to first, and... this was the result.
"I'm aware," he told her dryly, looking none too happy himself, "But you should assume that anything communicated via radio frequencies is something that Bill can, will, and has been, intercepting with ease."
Pacifica tried not to grimace at this, as she watched Dr. Pines follow her in, and close the door behind them. He adjusted his glasses, as he walked down the hallway beside her.
"Fine," she told him tersely. "What is this barrier thing anyway? And why can't Dipper or Mabel help me with it?" Because she didn't understand why it had to be him, why he was risking everything this way, just for this.
"Mabel helped me with the original barrier by gathering the unicorn hair for me," he told her, "But neither she nor Dipper helped me with the preparation of the actual formula, or putting up the barrier itself. I don't have a good reason to make it at the Shack without suspicion from either of the two demons, so I wouldn't be able to teach it to either of them without Bill wanting to know exactly what we were up to," the man informed her. "But I can understand the need for at least some safety from a broad spectrum of remote and potentially long-distance curses and other magic attacks."
...Great. "I see." Pacifica made her way into the main room and then down another hallway. "By the way, why didn't you tell the rest of us about the demon's little sister, when you were making the case for your brother being able to keep the demon under control? That would have been nice to know about at the time," she told him sarcastically.
Ford sighed. "He doesn't have a-" He gave her an uncomfortable grimace. "She's a demon. She's not actually his-"
"-family? But Bill says she's his sister. And he treats her like one, as far as I can tell," Pacifica said to him. "At least, they seem to behave the same way towards each other as Dipper and Mabel do, which is…" Really, she had no words for it other than something which vaguely reminded her of disgust, but felt a lot more uncomfortable.
Ford sighed again. "They apparently decided to 'adopt' each other two weeks- one week ago, from your standpoint. When that man-eater showed up at our doorstep." He frowned. "I don't know what Bill is planning with this…" Ford looked down, and stopped in the middle of the hallway. Pacifica stopped to face him.
"Yes?" she prompted him.
Ford looked up at her again, and the man looked grim. "I was going to say, 'I don't know what Bill intends to accomplish with this pretend family game of his,' but…" He looked away from her, with seemingly great reserve.
"...But?" Pacifica prompted, and Dr. Pines grimaced.
"To be quite clear to begin with," he told her, "There's no way that any of this is legitimate. Demons cannot love. Even if they put on the act of doing so, they are completely incapable of it."
"But…?" Pacifica prompted him again, when he stopped yet again.
"But," Ford said, seeming to pull in a breath and steel himself, "Bill may not… actually be a demon after all. Not in the strictest sense of the term. And he seems…" Ford grimaced and looked away from her again. "...to be taking this all very seriously, with Miz. At least in the short term. -But make no mistake," the man told her hurriedly. "Bill is still very dangerous, and his moods and whims shift so abruptly that one cannot entertain the notion that he would and will continue to act this way for long. It would be sheer folly to think so, for even a single moment."
Pacifica froze in place. "Excuse me, what?"
Ford blinked at her. "I… yes?" he said. "What… part of what I said was unclear?" he tried next, at the girl's continuing confusion.
"What do you mean, Bill isn't a demon?"
"That isn't what I-" Ford stopped then pinched the bridge of his nose with his fingers. "Bill is a demon," he said in exasperation, dropping his hand. "He simply isn't… the type of demon that I thought he was," Ford told her, then muttered out, "Because apparently there are types of them, now."
Pacifica stared at the scientist for a moment.
"Fine," Pacifica said. "Okay. Great. So he might not be the type of demon you thought he was. -Does this change anything at all?" she asked him. "Is he actually more easily killable then, or something? Can we use this, somehow?"
"Use-" The man blinked at her owlishly. "...Possibly." He'd looked a little taken aback for a moment at the thought, though. That was weird. "But without knowing... the specifics of how he was able to come back this time," he said with a grimace, "We still won't know how to kill him in such a way that we would have any certainty that he would, in fact, both die and stay dead. Stan is right about that," Dr. Pines told her with a heavy sigh.
"And his sister probably wouldn't like it if we did," Pacifica muttered. "Unless she's one of those types of demon who can't love anyone? But from what I've seen, she really does seem to like Bill." And the feeling also seemed to be mutual.
"An act. Surely." Ford frowned. "A heartless man-eater like her is simply… using this 'family' play-game to get something that she wants. That's all that demons ever do, and they are always and consistently quite fickle. -I haven't figured out what she's after, not yet, but she's been making up all sorts of nonsense stories in a strong play for sympathy, in order to trick my brother into going along with all of it." He grimaced. "And it seems that she is a good enough liar that even Bill is somehow falling for this act of hers, too." And he seemed very uncomfortable at the thought.
Tricking the crazy demon was one thing - which, frankly, they were and had been pulling off already themselves, right now, ever since the demon had come back (and before that, even) - but... "Tricking Stan Pines?" The blonde raised an eyebrow. That old con man was nobody's fool. "That doesn't seem very likely. -What stories has she told?"
The man looked irritated, now - though not with her, oddly. "All sorts of things. She's been claiming that she used to be human, for one thing. That she died in a car crash, and became a triangular, then demonic, 'Bill Cipher' after that." He didn't quite roll his eyes at this, even as Pacifica raised an eyebrow at 'became Bill Cipher'. He gestured with his hand outwards, as if to emphasize… "That she has PTSD from being captured by one of her summoners at some point, while she was a demon, and in the Mindscape. That she had younger sisters as a human, and a younger brother as a triangle, before she died yet again. And that, supposedly, Bill used to have an older brother who was killed for being-" he took in a breath rather stiffy, "-for being unnatural in some way. And that Bill's entire plan to take over our world has been just one step in some crazy plan to bring his brother back to life somehow. -It's all utterly ridiculous! And Stan is just eating it up, taking it all as if it were some indomitable truth!"
Pacifica looked the scientist over carefully after his outburst. He looked severely stressed.
"And how much do you believe of this?" she asked of him next.
And she watched as his shoulders slumped.
Pacifica sighed. (Almost all of it, then? Really?)
"You'd better come in, sit down, and tell me the whole story," she told him, walking a little further down the hallway to the next door down and opening the door. "If we're going to screw this up with us both being here at the same time, I might as well get the most out of it while you're here," she informed him, motioning him inside.
Dr. Pines looked up at her, and gave her a rueful sort of smile.
"Yes, of course," the scientist told her, and the man walked forward briskly to catch up to where she was standing (moving far more quickly and with a much longer stride than he had down the hallway with her earlier, which Pacifica noted rather clinically and she was a little bit impressed - most adults weren't polite enough to walk at her pace). He looked horrendously tired.
In Pacifica's thoughts, she was already putting together Miz's offhand comment about how she'd had a sister who'd been dyslexic, together with Bill's complaint about human bodies, and this new information that Dr. Pines had just given her: Miz having had little sisters when she was human. It fit perfectly. Pacifica doubted it had all been an act, with how Miz had mentioned it so offhandedly, so naturally in a conversation that wasn't about trying to stir up some sympathy for her. The younger-looking demon hadn't even elaborated about the sister who'd been dyslexic.
Pacifica wouldn't discount the idea of it completely though, of course. She'd met people who could lie that effortlessly, and drop a comment or two that would just be begging for someone to follow up on later. She'd seen that before, both for business-related matters and for personal ones. She had no reason not to trust the 'subject matter expert' on demons that she had in the form of Dr. Stanford Pines. But, she didn't have all the details of the situation yet. (And the man was clearly a biased source in at least some respects, if she'd understood half of what she'd heard from the Pines twins on the subject of the scientist and the 'dream' demon. Though he did seem to be incorporating new information as he learned it, and revising at least some of his conclusions as he saw those differences and conflicts in those conclusions emerge.)
So she would get the full story straight from the horse's mouth, for herself, and see what conclusions she came to on her own.
In a word, Pacifica was horrified.
From the way Dr. Pines told it, Miz had either gone through some seriously traumatic things - including what sounded like abuse - or the demon was callous and disgusting enough to claim such, in an attempt to garner some sort of sympathy. ...Even more disturbingly, Dr. Pines didn't seem to make any sort of differentiation between either of those particular points, nor did he think that PTSD was an actual possible outcome of any of what he'd just related to her for some reason. And from the way he'd told it to her, relating the events which he'd seen, it sounded like this younger demon had (truthfully or otherwise) latched onto Bill as some 'beacon of hope', out of some desperate need for affection and family. ...And yet, Dr. Pines didn't seem to realize himself this angle of looking at the events that he himself was relating. He simply claimed that all of it had to be lies, or simply not relevant in some way, and didn't seem to bother thinking about any of it further - what Miz might be trying to imply, or relate, or get out of sharing this information with any of the Pines - not any of it.
So, there were two things there. Two basic conclusions that Pacifica could make. One, Miz was a master level liar who was stooping low enough to fake stories of past trauma in order to leech sympathy for some unknown reason. Or two, she was a scared lonely young woman who had somehow inexplicably turned into a demon at some point, and just wanted someone to love her.
Admittedly, Pacifica was cynical enough to think that both of them might be likely. Which meant that it very well could be the third possibility, instead: that both of them were true, to varying degrees.
The demon could very well be lying to everyone about herself, telling only what might garner sympathy, and leaving anything else that might not fit her own sob-story narrative out, of course. She was the only one here to tell her side of the story, after all - there was no-one else that they could talk to, to tell any of them whether she was lying or not. All any of them had to go on were their own instincts, here.
Miz could also, still, be a scared and lonely little demon-woman looking for someone powerful to latch onto, to either do her work for her or to protect her, or whatever else she might need. Horrible people could still love each other, after all. And it wasn't as though any of these things were mutually-exclusive, necessarily.
Dr. Pines didn't exactly even have proof that Miz was a demon, one way or the other, just a sort of 'gut feeling' from years of experience of recognizing other demons successfully, apparently, or whatever. (Not that he did anything but stonewall her, when it came to asking him for any of the specifics of said expertise in that area.) ...And even if Miz wasn't lying, she could still be leaving things out, to try and get people to think she wasn't as bad as she might actually be.
The other point here, was that Dr. Pines didn't seem to be looking below the surface on any of what he was seeing. He seemed to believe that it could only be one or the other of these possibilities. Not a mix of the two, like Pacifica thought might be the case, not both; and he certainly didn't think that it might even be something else entirely - which Pacifica was still going to have to think on, now that she had a lot more to work with. It was all black and white to him; there was no real room with him for grey. And demons were quite clearly in the black for him.
If Miz was a demon, then to him she was evil. Period. Endstop. Plain as can be.
Pacifica grimaced, then smoothed her expression deliberately. She disliked this sort of simplistic thinking; it was almost never right. (It was also very easy to take advantage of, in the form of false narratives; her parents did it themselves frequently.)
And if even a fraction of Miz's past were true (after all, the best lies contained a grain of truth)… and if Dr. Pines had rejected it straight out and let slip to Miz that he thought she was lying about the suffering she'd gone though...
Well, the twins had told her that Miz had already hurt Dr. Pines, because he had made her angry. He likely had reason to feel biased on this particular front; most people did after being hurt. (And Pacifica felt it was telling that Dipper and Mabel hadn't given her any details of exactly what had happened to him either, between the two of them.) Though frankly, if Miz's trauma was real…
(A torn out ending from a storybook. Being told every night that she had to be perfect or else. That bell ringing and ringing…)
...if that had been what had set her off, well. If she'd had PTSD from the sort of thing Dr. Pines had described (in not too much detail), she'd be downright furious at getting gaslighted like that from some know-nothing stranger. (Though not necessarily angry enough to do something that would get herself labeled 'a demon' over enacting it, to be fair.)
Still, Pacifica didn't know enough to make a decision on this matter. So, despite her skepticism about Dr. Pines's extremely limited tunnel vision concerning the demons, she held back on voicing her doubts aloud. She would just wait, watch, and figure this out on her own, all by herself. Just like she always did.
"-And Stanley keeps going along with it. He even goes through the trouble of helping this stupid family play continue on, encouraging Bill and the man-eater to continue pretending to be brother and sister. It's ridiculous!" Dr. Pines ranted to her out loud.
Pacifica held back a sigh, as she knew it was likely that she wasn't going to be able to get him to think any more broadly about this that day. (Quite frankly, she had no inclination or motivation at the moment to do so.) So instead, she asked him a different question: "Why is it so bad that Bill has a sister? Aside from how she might stop us from killing her brother?"
"Because it makes Bill seem-" Ford grimaced. "Watching him pretend to care about her makes people think he might actually be capable of caring about anyone at all! -Which he doesn't," Ford insisted.
"And…?" Pacifica asked, rather than the droll '...So what?' that she actually wanted to say. Because, if they all knew Bill was 'pretending', then it wasn't like the act would work on them.
"It's dangerous! Bill doesn't care about anyone but himself! So having him pretend otherwise is-" The man waved his hand around. "-You don't understand what sort of impact that has on the unconscious mind!"
"What?" Pacifica said next, confused. Was the man implying some sort of… hypnotic suggestion of some sort?
"Seeing it, even if you know it's a lie, you'll start to get used to it and expect it, thinking that it's normal, that he's normal, whether you mean to or not. You'd start to subconsciously believe that maybe he does actually-" Dr. Pines made a frustrated gesture. "It's subversive. He looks human at present. Even if he didn't, most people would begin to anthropomorphize him almost immediately, at the first sight of anything looking like human-like behavior coming from him. The expectations that result from it-" Dr. Pines grimaced again. "It simply can't be countered by pure reason so easily. -It's biological," Dr. Pines said, letting out a tired sigh, as he removed his glasses, to rub at his eyes. "It is literally hardwired into us from an evolutionary standpoint," he explained. "To empathize and to believe that he is the same as you are because he looks human, that he cares about the same things as you do. That he thinks and feels the same way. To relax your guard around him- he's not human, and any kind of human-like behavior coming from him is either entirely false, or simply us misinterpreting his actions and reactions to people, situations, and events. Whether he is a demon or not, or what type of demon he might be, is simply not the issue here. Bill does not have human emotions," Dr. Pines told her, "And he does not empathize with any of us, or the human condition, in the slightest. He isn't human, but the closest human classification for him that fits in this context is the term 'psychopath', or perhaps 'high-functioning sociopath'. -Do you understand?" he asked her almost urgently, searching her face. "It's all an act. He cannot be trusted."
Pacifica let out a sigh. She'd dealt with sharks who she suspected were just that before.
"I'll keep that in mind," she told him. "Though that does beg the question: why haven't you been affected by this yet?" she asked, hoping for a little more clarity from him. (After all, it wasn't as though he wasn't human, and he himself seemed almost incapable of seeing the demon this way, from the way that he'd been talking about the demon here and now.)
Oddly, the man didn't seem taken aback by this, he simply grimaced and said, "I have rather the opposite problem. I've realized recently that I only see him as a triangle, and exactly what it means that others do not. The full extent of the impact that has likely been having on the rest of my family, as they continue to associate with and around him, is…" Dr. Pines shook his head, looking morose. "It's actually quite difficult for me to see what he looks like to others in his current physical form," he told her. "Largely, because I know what he is supposed to look like when he does things, from my many encounters with him in the Mindscape to-date."
...well, that just left her with more questions and answers. Exactly how well did Dr. Pines know this particular demon? And, more importantly, how had he managed to stay alive for so long, with such a negative, combative, and callous attitude towards the demon seemingly driving him? The demon had quite literally rearranged her own father's face for trying to suck up to him! And yet this man, who had been actively opposing him for years… how had he done it?
No. No, she had to focus. Two demons meant two problems. She had to grasp the larger problem first, before dealing with...
"Okay, so the two demons seeming to be affectionate isn't actually them caring about each other in a human way. So, what is it then?" Pacifica asked. "Why would they go to the trouble of pretending to care about each other? The whole, 'getting us to let our guards down' is one thing, but why would Bill trust this other demon, whom you say he doesn't care about, nor she about him, to sleep next to him?" Because she'd rather gotten the impression that that was rather a big deal for the demon, from a few things she'd heard from Mabel and Dipper at this point - the whole 'safe place to sleep while un-messed-with' thing. And yet she'd seen many photos from Mabel of the two cuddled together in all sorts of places. She didn't think a demon would simply trust someone he didn't care about, who he knew didn't truly care about him or his own safety, to be so close to him while he was unconscious and helpless, while sleeping.
"I know," Dr. Pines gritted out, and Pacifica realized suddenly how very tense he was. How he had his hands clenched in fists in his lap… "It is an incredibly dangerous situation," he told her.
At this, Pacifica couldn't help but stare. "Are you…" She had to take a moment to compose herself. "... actually worried about the demon?" He wanted to kill him. So why would he be so worried about Bill getting hurt by Miz? It didn't make any sense!
But to this, Dr. Pines looked her straight in the eye and told her grimly, "You have no idea what Bill Cipher can be like, when he thinks he's been betrayed."
...And that rather sent to chill down her spine.
Pacifica pulled in a slow breath, then let it out just as slowly.
"You're worried about the fallout of the situation, later," Pacifica stated.
"Miz might go away," Dr. Pines told her. "But Bill… will not."
"I see," Pacifica said slowly. So they would be the ones having to deal with the fallout. Assuming that Bill survived whatever Miz threw at him, after the betrayal Dr. Pines was expecting to take place. Though that meant that Dr. Pines was absolutely certain that Bill would win such an encounter as well, and...
Wait. Pacifica had to shake her head when something clicked. "So… Bill would be quite upset when he gets betrayed. But wouldn't that mean that he really does trust Miz? At least enough that he… wants to pretend she's his sister? Like, he cared enough about her for this?"
"No," Dr. Pines told her, adjusting his glasses. "Bill is a demon. He exhibits demon behavior. 'Betrayal' for them is just another word for 'let's change the way we've been playing with each other up 'til now, to a full on physical fight instead'. The only question is, would she be playing by the rules that he likes to play by or not, which would generally involve at least a few seconds notice of the 'relationship-game' being off, before turning around and trying to kill each other again thereafter. -They all have their own rules that they play by, and life is a game to them. And they don't live and die by them, either. Even their own lives are worthless to them. Largely because they don't stay dead," Dr. Pines told her heavily, looking both tense and frustrated in the extreme.
...And with that, Pacifica started to truly understand the real scope of the problem.
And the next words out of her mouth were, "Is this why Mr. Pines is trying to-" But she had to cut herself off at the confused and startled look that Dr. Pines gave her almost immediately.
"What?" Dr. Pines said, when she didn't continue. Then he frowned slightly. "You… think he wants to… set up Bill to be betrayed by another demon? On purpose?" he ended, to Pacifica's both shock and disbelief.
...well, at least he looked absolutely incredulous at the thought. Pacifica shook her head at him. "Apologies. I misspoke," she told him, not wanting to get into some things that she had a feeling really should stay a conversation between strictly herself and Mr. Pines only. Because if that conniving old con man was trying to do what she thought he was trying to do...
Dr. Pines frowned at her.
"Perhaps the niblings haven't told you," the man told her. "But I believe that you should know. Stan has made it very clear, both to Bill and the rest of us, that he doesn't want Bill to be talking with any other demons, for a multitude of reasons."
Pacifica frowned. "And… he's okay with Miz, why?"
Dr. Pines let out a sigh of frustration. "Apparently," he began, "Miz does not 'count' in this respect, given that she apparently, supposedly started out as a human being in the first place. And because she tends to spend a great deal of her time in human form in general on the whole, as well."
"...and Stan knew this to begin with, back when he first met her?" Pacifica clarified.
Ford paused. "...No," he said. Stan hadn't been told that Miz had used to be human at first, when the man-eater had first come to their dimension, or this second time, and... He simply hadn't. ...Had he? -Yes, Bill had stated there was a demon who used to be human that he was talking to on his blog, but Bill hadn't named explicitly who that demon was at the time...
...to the rest of them. In the kitchen. When it had first come up, because Stan had brought it up.
But Stan had been talking to Bill quite a lot when none of them were able to hear either of them, or anything at all of what they were saying.
And the rest of them had thought Miz was simply a dragon, from her first visit. They hadn't known she thought she was another Bill Cipher, and therefore a demon, until she'd essentially told them all this time around-
...why did she tell them? If Miz had wanted to manipulate them all and get their sympathy, outing herself as demon wasn't the way to go about it-
Ford felt his head throb, at the ache forming. None of this made any sense.
...Had Bill known she was another Bill before this? He hadn't been surprised at the information out in the forest. But when had Bill learned of this himself?
"I…" Ford said, before trailing off again. "I don't… know," he eventually had to admit to her. "I'm not certain when Stanley found out that information." It still made him dizzy almost to think about it, that time when he'd collapsed in the forest, but… The demons had said something of what had happened to Stan at the time when Stan had come to pick him up, to retrieve him, hadn't they? And Stan hadn't seemed... he'd seemed to know what they were talking about at the time. (So that meant that he must have known that much, for at least as long as…)
"That would be a question for Stan himself," he had to tell her.
"Fine," Pacifica said. "I'll ask Mabel to ask him for me, and get back to me via text message." To her, that seemed rather pertinent actually. How long Mr. Pines had been encouraging them to act like siblings versus when he'd found out that they were supposedly both the same demon, almost (which still didn't make much sense to her, what did that even mean? That they were both Bill Cipher?), seemed very relevant to know under the circumstances to her. "So, just to make sure I understand the situation," Pacifica began to summarize, "Both Bill and Miz are 'Bill Cipher' type demons, but being the same type of demon has no impact on their ability to empathize, or rather, their lack of empathy, with themselves or each other or anyone else. Is that correct?"
And that for some reason made Dr. Pines's eyes go wide as a look of startled realization swept across his face. "A Bill Cipher type demon…" he breathed out, then looked even more horrified for some reason. "Oh. Oh no. -Stan, what are you trying to do…" he said next, looking downright scared and almost sick.
Pacifica felt a bit on eggshells over his reaction. "...That isn't the type of demon they are?" she asked him slowly.
But to this, Dr. Pines simply dropped his head into his hands, and let out a groan of some sort of despair.
Pacifica let out a breath, and tried again. "You said Miz claimed to have become a Bill Cipher demon, after having used to be human, right?" Had she misunderstood him in some way? What was she not getting, here?
"He's trying to use her to get him to understand people," Dr. Pines said, muffled through his hands. "That knucklehead. That- that foolish-"
Pacifica lost track of the rest of what he was saying as it descended down into an unintelligible mutter.
Fine. She'd just have to approach this another way. "What type of demon is Bill?" she asked him.
There was a long silence, during which she felt rather impatient. But eventually, Dr. Pines slowly straightened up again, and finally answered her question with…
"Not a demon from the Outside," she was told, as Dr. Pines scrubbed a hand over his face. He looked truly awful at this point. "Not an Outsider, nor a Traveler. Just a…" He let out a tired and almost horrible sounding laugh, "Just a dream demon. A triangle demon. One who may have used to be an actual person at some point, however awful." He slowly opened his eyes to look at her. "But not human," he told her. "Never human."
"No matter what his body looks like right now," Pacifica finished for him.
"Yes," Dr. Pines confirmed to her rather tiredly.
"And what type of demon is Miz?" Pacifica asked him next.
"She calls herself a 'pillar' of some sort, apparently," Dr. Pines told her. "Something of a self-styled local demigod, of whatever 'dimensional set' from which she hails. Which is pure nonsense," the man told her. "Even Bill never puts on such airs." He sighed. "Stanley calls her a 'dragon-lady' half the time; I call her a man-eater - and rightfully so, because she is one," he told her. "She's not contested either designation for their accuracy - likely because she can't - and she goes by several more names than 'just' Miz. She has several forms and gives them all different names," he huffed out. "Which just goes to show that she's used to 'pretending' to be something else."
*Something of a changeling, then," Pacifica said
"No," Dr. Pines told her, frowning. "I told you, she is a demon. Changelings are entirely different - rather, they are a type of somnambulant faerie, commonly of the Sidhe variety, that are generally-"
"-Right, sorry, my mistake. I misspoke!" Pacifica said quickly, recognizing the telltale signs of a subject matter expert trying to correct a novice's understanding of something inside in their chosen field. "But like, a type of creature who changes who and what they are, is what I meant. She's something like that?"
"Technically, all demons are," Dr. Pines confirmed, with a nod. "Though usually they have to die before picking another form. -Bill is different, because he himself exists largely in the Mindscape; as does Miz. They are able to create physical bodies for themselves of any shape, form, or type, once their Mental selves are fully physically located within a given dimension," he told her. "And they are both physically here, within our dimension, right now. The events of Weirdmageddon occurred because Bill had finally gained access to our dimension, and was able to physically travel into it, to arrive here and then," Dr. Pines grimaced, "And 'party' with his Henchmaniac 'friends', to the detriment and destruction of the rest of us all."
Pacifica allowed this to sink in and nodded. "Alright. So they're Mindscape demons?" She'd heard about the Mindscape from the twins, a little bit, at least. Considering Dipper had been stuck in it when Bill had stolen his body last summer.
"That's-" Dr. Pines grimaced again. "They don't classify themselves that way," he told her. "And neither of them started out their lives in the Mindscape. So that's not quite an entirely accurate description of them."
"...and how do they not count as Bill Cipher demons? Since Miz did, according to you, classify herself as a Bill Cipher?" Pacifica asked next, still wanting to get a proper answer to this particular topic.
"'Bill Cipher' is a… 'dimensional username', of a sort," he told her. "And demons have a singular name, that no-one else is allowed to have," Dr. Pines told her. "If someone does have the unfortunate luck to have the same name as a demon, for whatever reason, then that demon will generally show up to kill them in short order," he told her. Then he sighed. "Yet, Bill and the man-eater apparently both hold the name 'Bill Cipher'. And Bill has made it clear since then that he doesn't kill the other demons who share his name, and that he has no inclination or reason to do so - rather the opposite, apparently," he told her with a frown. Then he paused before adding, "And the man-eater is going by names other than 'Bill' in her current form, at the very least to avoid confusion here in the interim."
Pacifica thought about it. "So… Miz's real name is Bill Cipher? Was that her name when she was human? Or did it become her name when she became a demon?"
Ford paused. "I… don't know for certain. I admit I haven't really talked to the man-eater. I could probably ask Stanley about that for you, though. Once I learn of it, I can have Dipper or Mabel relay the information to you, later," he offered.
Pacifica nodded at that answer before she moved onto her next question. "So, aside from your worry over Miz's eventual betrayal, what's the issue with the two of them playing at 'siblings' with each other?"
"...It's rather disturbing to watch, knowing what is going to happen when the act is finally dropped," Ford admitted to her.
Pacifica raised an eyebrow. "So it's not real. And you know it's not real, and it makes you uncomfortable," she deadpanned, even as he frowned at her furiously. "I get the whole, betrayal and fall out thing, but why put in the energy and effort of being upset over it?" Was he really so petty that he just didn't like seeing the demons cozy up to each other? If that was really the reason for Dr. Pines' objection to the idea of the demons being together, well...
...that was just stupid to let them know. For all any of them knew, the demons might keep on doing it, just to mess with him. Because if this whole thing was going to blow up in their faces sooner or later, and 'later' would potentially mean a worse blow-up from their local Bill Cipher, according to Dr. Pines himself...
"Bill shouldn't be pretending to care about others!" Ford insisted.
And that made Pacifica have to take a breath and look away for a second. "Shouldn't? -So, what are you saying here? Are you saying Bill 'should' act more like a 'demon' and simply not care about anyone at all?" It almost sounded like… Dr. Pines was upset that Bill wasn't… conforming to demon behavior like Dr. Pines… wanted him to? Because, if that was really what was happening here...
"He's lying!" Dr. Pines told her hotly, surprising Pacifica. "Demons do not have relationships like that! They do not care about anyone but themselves! -I've already explained this to you; it's a trap."
Pacifica rubbed at her temples. "But if we know that's what he's doing, then we can't fall for it completely. We won't be caught completely off-guard, and we can account for it." She'd managed that with plenty of 'sharks' before, certainly; and for all of the rest of them not being exposed to this daily, they could simply carry on with... Yet for some reason, the man was shaking his head. "Why is this a problem? Why are you…" Pacifica held back an eyeroll. "Are you really upset that Bill isn't being honest with you?" She couldn't quite stop the incredulous tone. Seriously? This was… petty entitlement in the highest sense of the term. Dr. Pines was upset that Bill, the crazy psychopath demon, wasn't being HONEST with him?
"Yes!" Ford told her in pure frustration, and he couldn't understand why she was looking at him like that.
Pacifica could hardly believe what she was hearing here. "Are you seriously expecting the demon to be honest with you?" Really? What in the world-?!
"No!" the man said with a grimace, and he looked… more than a little uncomfortable as he said it.
Pacifica frowned at him. "Then what do you expect out of him?" she asked. She'd rather thought that the whole point of what had gone wrong between him and the demon the first time had, had to do with the demon lying to him about things. (What, exactly, Dipper and Mabel had not exactly been clear on, but… what with the way the man almost constantly said that the demon couldn't be trusted… Pacifica had rather thought that the man knew better than that.)
"I-" Dr. Pines looked even more uncomfortable, almost twisting the cloth of his pants under his fists as he kept silent for several long moment, then finally said - blurted out, really - "I can tell when Bill is lying, but when he's lying to himself and doesn't know it-" The man cut himself off at the end there, took his glasses off, and shook his head as he rubbed a hand over his face, and Pacifica stared at him with a slight thinking frown as he did so. (Frankly, she couldn't help it.)
And it occurred to her then, why Old Man McGucket had called Dr. Pines compromised. What he'd meant, when he'd muttered out darkly that Dr. Pines still listened to the demon.
Objectivity. It was a problem that was encountered quite frequently in the world of the rich, grossly wealthy, and highly successful. The losers - the biggest of losers - fell for the oldest trap in the book: letting themselves be convinced by some random person with a drive and a dream and a vision... and no real plan behind it. Someone utterly convinced of the truth of some investment… that was absolute and utter garbage.
If you listened to the sheep, you risked becoming one of them. And a shark was one thing, but to tell the difference between someone who was blinded by lies and someone who actually knew what they were talking about? That was far harder.
Oh, it was quite clear to Pacifica now exactly what problem Dr. Pines was currently facing here with this demon. He was feeling threatened by the fact that the demon, and his own brother, seemed to believe that the things they were seeing were different than Dr. Pines himself believed them to be, with Miz. He was worried that his brother seemed to be falling for some lies from Miz, but he was also at least as worried that Bill Cipher actually, actively believed those 'lies' himself, and that the demon was acting accordingly.
And it was also quite clear to Pacifica now, upon realizing this, that Dr. Pines had never stopped listening to the demon that he'd been trying to kill. He'd been using the demon as his own barometer for something, some check on his own view of reality, somehow. And that was… terrible. Because the demon was absolutely insane. All of them knew that. They all knew that. Dr. Pines knew that. And yet...
Dr. Pines was horribly compromised in the extreme, when it came to Bill Cipher. Old Man McGucket had been right; more right than, perhaps, even the old man himself knew.
She was going to have to be very careful from now on, in the future, when dealing with Dr. Pines because of this, now that she knew what she was dealing with, here. She could take it into account, yes, but it would make things so much harder, and...
And Pacifica let out a sigh as she also realized she would have to talk to the other old man, Stan Pines, to get his side of the story, next. One that would be hopefully less biased. She really disliked talking with the old con man, though. He and her family had never really gotten along, ever. And she didn't like to think of whether or not anything she asked him about would result in an actually truthful answer out of him, instead of the usual insults she was used to from him at this point.
That said...
"You really shouldn't be counting on the insane demon to let you know what is real and what isn't," Pacifica noted rather dryly. This wasn't something she'd keep to herself, if there was any chance at all that he might listen to her.
"If Bill Cipher's grasp on reality wasn't as strong as it is," Dr. Pines informed her, just as dryly, and perhaps both a little wryly and darkly as well, as he put his glasses back on, "Then he would have been taken care of by all of the other demons out there, long ago."
...Aaaand now the man was practically throwing out compliments to the demon, apparently. (She was starting to see why the demon might want to keep him around.) Pacifica pinched the bridge of her nose and took a few shallow breaths. Calm… calm… don't blow up at the idiot in front of her. "Look," she leveled with him, "Subconscious-whatever or not, we can all just remind ourselves and each other, not to fall for either of their little 'look at me, I'm a human!' acts-"
"-But Stanley is falling for it!" Dr. Pines said, looking almost sick with worry at this point. "Or- he seems to be," he said, taking a step back from what he'd just said, shaking his head and grimacing. "He's said that he thinks the man-eater should get a therapist to 'help' her get over her supposed trauma - as if demons could ever feel trauma over any sort of circumstance of death, or anything else that either happens to them, or they do to themselves," he muttered out, to an eyebrow raise from Pacifica. "He even went along with her apparent fear of cars to such an extent that he had us walk into town with her, instead of just taking the car and letting her fly along above, like he did that other trip-"
...Other trip? Pacifica had a full-blown headache going now. Exactly what had been going on over there at that hovel? Though she supposed that answered her question somewhat, as to who exactly had visited the diner that day…
"So what you are telling me is that you're angry that your brother is pretending to respect the girl-demon's stated boundaries and playing along with her game, to not give her an excuse to pretend to get upset over all of it - presuming that she's lying and doesn't actually need to be given the common respect of some sort of courtesy that you'd give to any other person," she stated to him outright and drolly. Seriously, she was starting to think Dr. Pines' feelings towards demons were blinding him to everything else-
"Demons don't deserve respect! They're demons! They're not people!" Dr. Pines had his fists clenched in his lap and was shaking in place, looking absolutely irate. And Pacifica's eyes went wide as she straightened slightly in place. She stared at him and things were starting to connect together quickly in her head, as she realized that-
"Did you…" She had to pause for a moment. "Do the demons know that that's how you feel… about them?" Pacifica asked him, feeling vaguely horrified.
Dr. Pines let out a huff, as if irritated by the very question. "Of course! I've made it very clear that I-"
...well shit.
Pacifica wanted to scream. How was this… man so… stupid?! Telling the demons to their faces that they didn't deserve any sort of respect because they were demons? That was flat-out racism of the lowest of forms! Pacifica admittedly did not and could not consider herself an expert on demons or demon behavior, but the idea that anyone - let alone a demon - would put up with such a clear disregard for… that… To treat them with that level of disrespect was just…
Pacifica couldn't imagine that anyone would be willing to put up with that, demon or not. Certainly not without getting even over it. -And if she was right, and the demon had quite literally rearranged her father's face for trying to act as though he was anywhere close to his same level... being considered equal would likely be bad enough, but to think of them as lesser? that would be even worse, and...
...and Miz seemed to be the far more human-like of the two of those demons. If Miz might still react to some things as a human would…
If anyone had told Pacifica to her face that they didn't think she was a person deserving of respect-
It was no small wonder that Miz didn't like him!
-Hell, the twins had told her that they didn't think Miz would mess with anyone who didn't mess with her first, hadn't they? But if Dr. Pines had really, truly, actually told her this, in this way, to her face, that he didn't think she was a person...?!
"-How are you still alive?" The question came out in a huff as Pacifica stared up at Dr. Pines in horror. Because the crazy triangle had rearranged her dad's face just for offering to join him, asking for a subordinate position to him (a high subordinate position yes, but one that was clearly subordinate to him), and-
"Tenacity and- ah," Dr. Pines looked confused at her own confusion, adjusting his glasses as he looked at her. "My health is fine?"
...That did not answer her question. "I mean, how have the demons not killed you yet for disrespecting them so openly?" Pacifica restated. Because she had no idea how he hadn't been torn apart by them by now, or-
"They-" Dr. Pines seemed to falter for a moment, before he straightened in his chair and told her, "There are things worse than death. Losing my family is one of them," he told her grimly, "And Bill knows it. ...And for whatever reason, the demons are playing along with Stanley's agreement, currently." He let out a frustrated sigh. "And Stan has put me on this 'priority list' of his, that he worked out with Bill, against my own wishes to that effect." He grimaced. (He didn't want or need that- but Stan just kept giving in and-)
Pacifica stared. "Agreement? What agreement? And what priority list?" Pacifica demanded out of him. And what did this have to do with… the Pines potentially dying, apparently? -Why did no-one tell her these things?!
Ford groaned. "Stanley's made some sort of an agreement with Bill. There's a non-aggression component to it. Bill is not to attack anyone who does not attack him first, and is to stop attacking anyone if they stop attacking him... once some indeterminate time has passed… if Bill hasn't already killed them first, for trying to kill him in-turn," he told her with a grimace. "There is also a protective component to it; the 'priority list' is a list of people that Stan wants Bill to actively protect and not harm, most of whom are considered an active part of the agreement. Dipper and Mabel are first on this priority list. And Stanley recently put me on it too." And Ford was very scared- frustrated- disgruntled- resigned- unhappy about this, still. -And for good reason!
"So… Stan made the demons agree to not harm anyone," Pacifica stated, feeling incredibly frustrated. Because that was some pretty important information right there, that none of them had let her know! -How exactly had the old con-man managed that? (Could she get herself and her parents on that list? Even if it was only a temporary thing? And why did Dr. Pines not want to be on it? Because even gaining herself a little more genuine breathing room for herself, as she worked on all of this, would be-)
Ford let out a huff of breath. "Stan didn't make them agree to that! No-one can make Bill Cipher do anything! He… he simply asked them to, apparently," though how Stan had managed this feat, Ford still hadn't a clue. -It could not possibly have been as simple as Stanley had put it. "And for some reason they are both going along with it, yes! For the moment!" Ford stressed to her. "-But these demons are billions of years old; Bill himself is over one trillion, at this point. Bill lied to me for years before showing me his true colors. -We need a permanent solution, not one that will last nowhere close to anyone's lifetimes," he told her - while trying desperately not to think about what Bill had said about rolling back time, about being able to bring them all back- "And Stan has no control over them! They could just break the agreement at any time! -It's not even a Deal, with any consequences at all attached to breaking it! There's absolutely nothing forcing either of them to keep it!" he cried out in frustration, trying to will her someone, anyone to understand him. "They might be following it now, but there's nothing holding them to it, quite literally! -Do you understand me? Stan can't control them, and the man-eater isn't even a part of this agreement of his!"
Pacifica tried not to grit her teeth. Dr. Pines had said rather the opposite before, a few short weeks ago, when he'd come outside to tell the rest of them that it was something of a 'false false alarm' and okay to disperse. Not to belabor the obvious, but she'd noted at the time how very hard he'd been trying not to display nervousness when he'd been doing it. -That man! 'There's nothing to fear, Stan has everything under control', her foot! She'd been wondering when the truth would finally come out! Luckily, she hadn't believed him at the time, for even a second! That was why she'd been working on all of this from day one! (She just hadn't been stupid enough to say so at the time; she'd made like she was going along with it, like the rest of them.)
That said…
"Wait." Pacfica held up a hand. "You're telling me that the demons are agreeing to not hurt anyone, on their own, because Stan Pines asked them to and they chose to agree to his terms? And they are continuing to hold to this agreement of his that he worked out with them, out of their own free will?" Because while the man clearly believed the opposite, and had since day one...
"That he worked out with Bill," Ford corrected, "But, yes! That is an accurate summary of the situation at present, but there's no telling when they will simply change their minds and kill us all, once they're finished playing whatever game they have going here! And that will happen, whether it's a day, a month, or a year from now! Because that's what demons do!" he told her, in further frustration, because why did no-one seem to be listening to him about this?! Why was no-one taking his dire and quite serious warnings even a little bit seriously!?
...So wait, Mr. Pines might actually be able to hold off these demons from doing anything for a year?! She'd thought they might have anywhere from another hour to a week, at best! (Frankly, she'd been waking up every morning, wondering why the sky hadn't broken itself open again yet.)
"Okay," Pacifica said to him. "So what is making them want to keep 'playing this game' that is stopping them from killing us all?" Pacifica asked him. Because if there was something that she could make sure not to disrupt, that would have them going for that year instead - or, even better, something that she could help enhance...
Ford slumped in his seat. Why had she had to ask him the one question that... "I don't know." Ford admitted. "I don't know why the demons are going along with this. ...This isn't the sort of 'game' that Bill usually likes to play." And it scared him that Bill might have, at some point, started to get a taste for it. For this sort of- He stifled a shudder, as he ran a hand across his face. "Stan claims it's because he treats them like people and asked them to do so nicely. But that's beyond ridiculous. Demons aren't people and there's no reason to treat then as such. If you could reason with a demon, they wouldn't be so dangerous!" he told her, dropping his hand to stare at her, almost imploringly, wanting her someone in this dimension to just, and so simply, understand.
Pacifica, however, was instead struck with the rather distressing thought that Stanford Pines, the 'smart' twin, was an utter idiot. How was finding that out not the man's top priority? They all needed the time to be able to come up with something effective to use against the demon. How was getting himself - and all the rest of them - more time in which to work and live normally not something that he was working on, night and day, to acquire?
And then Pacifica was struck with another thought entirely. Back when Bill had first shown up last summer and started making trouble, all the townsfolk had immediately turned hostile to him as an 'outsider' and a, well, a jerk really - who declared themselves anyone's 'lord and master for all eternity'? - and had promptly told him to get out. Which, of course, had not worked.
...Well, Pacifica was sure that asking Bill 'nicely' to leave wouldn't have worked either, but perhaps if they had been more polite, maybe negotiations could have actually been opened. Her father had been rather assuming and forceful, but Stan Pines had managed to make this 'agreement' with Bill, whatever it truly was, and that meant that there had to be some negotiating room to be had.
Unless…
"Dr. Pines," she asked him slowly. "Is Bill currently capable of starting another Weirdmageddon? -Assuming that we didn't interfere with some plan of his to do it?"
"At this point, I don't doubt that if he wanted to, he could, even if we tried to stop him," was Dr. Pines' dark response.
"You're sure," Pacifica asked him. "You have proof of this?"
"He hasn't talked to that effect," Dr. Pines told her, "Not quite. But Bill clearly believes it. Stan believes it. And I've seen Bill do things in the meantime that indicate that he very likely could do just that, without even taking Miz's potential interference into account, whichever way that might end up falling," he told her.
...Right. So, the only thing holding the demon back right now really was whatever hold that Mr. Pines had over him, that he hadn't even told his own brother about. Great.
But that did mean that there was some negotiating room to be had. The demon wasn't just not taking over the town against because he couldn't - he absolutely could, as confirmed by the demon expert's own knowledge of the situation.
"That anchor Stan has isn't enough to stop Bill from doing anything, not really," Dr. Pines told her. (Anchor? What anchor?) "It may allow Stan to 'hold' Bill's Weirdness at bay, but Bill has magic, science, and his own vast knowledge at his disposal, still." (What else hadn't the twins told her about?) "And-"
"-What anchor?" Pacifica demanded from him next. Because weirdness? Not 'just' magic? What?
"Stan has some 'anchor' to Bill, or vice-versa," Dr. Pines told her. "Bill claims that it is nothing like a binding, and… frankly, I don't know what exactly it is. I'd never even heard of such a thing, before. Not before it came up, with Bill, now. I don't even know where it came from, or how Stan got it. All I can tell you for now is that this anchor, whatever it may be, is something that connects them both to each other, and it somehow grants Stan the ability to prevent Bill from using his Weirdness abilities and powers. And Stan can give him control back at any time."
"Which means that if the demon manages to convince him to do that…" Pacifica said slowly.
Dr. Pines nodded at her.
Pacifica let out a slow breath. Yes, she got the picture, and it looked grim. ...She was also now starting to realize why Dr. Pines was so completely freaked out at the thought that his brother might be willing to 'go along with' a made-up sob story of Miz's, even just a little. It was because of the idea that, if Bill told enough of a tall tale, would Mr. Pines go along with it, even if it meant giving the demon back his powers? -Pacifica didn't think so, but Dr. Pines clearly wasn't so sure where that line was drawn for his brother, not anymore.
"What else do we all need to know about this anchor, that you haven't told me yet?" Pacifica asked him next, because the man did look like he was holding something back, and the man grimaced.
"Stanley won't let me look at it." Ford frowned. "He keeps insisting that it's not important. But I need to examine it. If I could, then maybe then I could understand it, perhaps replicate it so that other people could 'hold' Bill's powers down, as well. Maybe even strengthen or enhance the anchor further..." It would certainly make him feel better, knowing that more than one person held the anchor over Bill's powers. If he had a hold of it, he would never let Bill's powers go. Never. And then-
"Enhance it?" Pacifica echoed. "Could you use it to stop him from using his magic powers, too?" she asked him, and the man blinked at her.
"I…" Pacifica watched as the man paused in almost the same way as he had before, when she'd brought up the subject of 'using' the fact that Bill was a different 'not-outsider' demon somehow against said demon. "...I suppose I could theoretically use an anchor of a different type to suppress Bill's magic, as well," Dr. Pines told her slowly. "If I can figure out how the original anchor was done and put in place, and how to reproduce it, then that is perhaps within the realm of possibility. But we already have two working methods for doing that," he told her.
"What?" This was news to her. "We do?"
"Yes," Dr. Pines told her, adjusting his glasses. "The Mystic Barrier spell, which I will teach you how to create, and the anti-magic cuffs, which I know how to make, but... -They do not work together as-intended," he added with a grimace. "I don't have any with me to show you today, but any anti-magic cuffs, when worn, will cancel out the barrier spell while the wearer is underneath it; whenever Stan gives him any reign with his Weirdness powers, he can simply slip out of a pair of those locked cuffs with impunity. And with that cybernetic suit that he's now wearing, he doesn't even need that much from Stan. That suit that he's wearing has built-in strength enhancements; he could lift a truck with that."
...Right. "I've seen the cuffs, Mabel and Dipper brought them over for McGucket to mess with." Pacifica told him, as the man blinked at her (not realizing that he'd been talking about the heavy, stuck-closed, explosive-filled cuffs he'd originally made for Bill - not the lighter, easily-opened, explosive-free bracelets McGucket had been given, that Bill had made out of those cuffs for Miz). "So what we're working with here is things that don't work, but they're workable."
"...Yes," Dr. Pines said to her. "I suppose that's one way to put it. Except that nothing but killing him is anything like 'workable', in terms of a true working solution."
"And what's going to stop him from just coming back like he did this time?" Pacifica deadpanned, waiting for him to tell her otherwise.
"You've been talking with Stanley," Dr. Pines said to her grimly.
...No, she just had a brain that worked when she used it, and she used it frequently. Like, all the time. She was blonde; she wasn't stupid. If Bill had returned once, then there was a high chance he'd just come back again when and if they managed to all band together and kill him again a second time. (...And she'd been waiting for him to say 'the circle will work to do that', so that she could ask him how he was so sure about that. But the fact that he hadn't even done that was telling. Because that meant that...)
"I've been talking with you," she told him dryly. "You're the one that told us he was back." He'd had them called up, to come over to the Mystery Shack in the first place, at the beginning of this whole new mess.
"...Right," Dr. Pines said, grimacing again, and Pacifica sighed.
"So, Stan isn't letting you look at this anchor thing. Even though it's… visible, or something? Why not?" Pacifica asked, getting back to the main subject at hand. That didn't make sense. Why would the old man be trying to keep this to himself? Was that part of his agreement with Bill? Mr. Pines would keep information on the anchor and how to use it from being spread around, in exchange for Bill behaving himself? ...Perhaps. It almost sounded reasonable. ...But the demon was anything but. Maybe if the demon wasn't completely insane, that might actually be a thing, but Pacifica wasn't so sure about that one. ...Yet another question for the old man when Pacifica got to talk to him. Ugh.
Ford groaned. "It's visible down Bill's back, apparently. And I don't know why he won't let me do that, let alone help me with it. Stan keeps changing the subject whenever I bring it up, or pretending it's not a big deal - even though it absolutely and definitely is that very thing," he told her sourly.
Pacifica nodded to show that she understood: this avenue was a dead end for now, unless and until Stan Pines (or the demon?) was willing to share. (Frankly, she was more surprised that that old con man hadn't seemingly used this as an angle to get the demon to do things for him outright. ...Unless getting the demon not to hurt the family that had already killed him once was already enough of a stretch.)
...Why was the old con man being so resistant to getting rid of the demon, here and now, anyway? -Sure, the Pines hadn't managed to kill him permanently the first time, but they hadn't actually tried that Circle-thing properly with the rest of them yet, and...
Pacifica thought back to that first day when Bill returned, and how Stan hadn't even come outside to get ready do that holding-hands circle-thing with them. How she'd found out later from the twins that Stan had apparently taken Bill in, not just imprisoned him in the Mystery Shack somehow.
And she wondered if maybe that was how Stan had opened the door for negotiations. She'd heard from the twins that the demon had been in bad shape at the start of it all, that Dr. Pines had done a number on him in the woods. But Mr. Pines apparently hadn't immediately treated Bill as a threat to be rejected, attacked, or destroyed - he'd sequestered Bill away from the rest of them for several days, away from the potential of another immediate attack, and had instead fed, watered, and sheltered the demon over those days. Had that contributed to how this agreement had come about, as well?
They must have talked at least somewhat during that time, and Dr. Pines didn't know the first thing about this anchor, almost. Was it possible that Stan Pines did? Could the old con man have made the demon do this anchor-thing, in addition to the agreement, as one of those missing 'consequences' that Dr. Pines was so adamant were missing from the current situation, while the demon had been at some sort of marked disadvantage relative to them, during those first few days?
"Just to be clear, though," Pacifica noted, looking for confirmation. "Right now, as long as the demons are holding to this agreement of Mr. Pines', the demons are essentially harmless. For now." Pacifica hoped that was what this meant. That, so long as their 'game' with Stan Pines was going on - whatever 'game' that might be - they would hold to Stan's agreement and not harm anyone. Which was, y'know, good.
"Hardly," Ford told her. "To think of either of them as ever being 'harmless' is just-" He cut himself off and grimaced, as the Northwest girl gave him a look. "Bill is dangerous as long as he is able to speak to or otherwise communicate with others," he told her grimly. "Even if we managed to 'disarm' him of his powers, he has and will always be dangerous. Bill was unable to impact this dimension physically in any meaningful way for all but up until last summer, less than a handful of months ago," he told her. "His 'bread and butter', as it were, is in getting people to do things for him, in exchange for information. -He sneaks inside your head, figures out what your hopes and dreams are, and then twists things to his advantage. He finds a way to convince you that he can get you what you want. And then he builds upon that."
"...But he can't be trusted," Pacifica said slowly.
"Yes," Dr. Pines told her firmly.
Pacfica stared at him for a moment.
"...Then how does he get anything done?" she asked him slowly. "If he breaks any deals he makes, all the time, then his reputation should be nonexistent."
"You don't understand," Dr. Pines told her, and now his eyes looked dark. Pacifica had to fight leaning back in her chair, as the (now, suddenly highly dangerous-seeming) man leaned forward, and his eyes bored right into hers. "Bill treats those he considers to be his fiendish friends… very well."
Pacifica stared up at him.
"...I thought Mabel and Dipper said that Bill thought he was your friend," she said, rather understating the situation as she'd heard it from Dipper.
She felt another chill go down her spine, as the man's gaze grew even darker, and he drew himself up in his chair completely, seeming to loom over her, now.
"I," Dr. Pines told her. "Am not Bill's friend. I never was. The person that I thought him to be was a lie."
"...And?" Pacifica asked quietly.
And the man leaned forward even more, ever so slightly, in his chair. "And I am not a sociopathic killer, who delights in torturing and killing others, while laughing hysterically about it with glee. If I wanted to kill hundreds of millions of people, and make rivers run red with blood, have no doubt that under those circumstances, I would find Bill Cipher to be a delightfully wonderful little friend to have, to help me in that endeavor. If you understand my meaning."
Pacifica tried not to break out in a cold sweat.
And she watched as Dr. Stanford Pines slowly sat back in his chair, as it creaked under him quietly, and watched as he seemed to become rather non-threatening again.
...She did not have any questions anymore, as to how he might have survived anything to do with Bill Cipher. This man was dangerous. And she'd met several dangerous killers before, in the form of several bodyguards of various high-society individuals.
Ones who, frankly, wouldn't care less if the rivers of their towns and cities ran with blood, so long as they got what they wanted out of whatever they did.
Pacifica forced herself to swallow in a mouth gone suddenly dry, to breathe like she didn't want to get up and run, and to get back on-topic and on task like she needed to.
Because Stanford Pines did not scare her. And neither did that demon. She would deal with this. She would fight back against him.
And she would win in this fight, this time. Now that she knew what she was dealing with-
"You said that you know how to make one of these barriers that will keep Bill from hurting me or my family with magic, so long as we stay under it," Pacifica noted. "Show me how to do that."
Ford nodded at her and slowly stood up from his chair. "You have the ingredients here?"
"Yes." And Pacifica couldn't quite keep the peevish tone out of her voice as she told him, "I don't know why you didn't tell any of us sooner."
Ford let out a sigh, as he walked over to the table nearby after her, upon which she seemed to have spread out the various components and preparation tools necessary for the spell. (Good. He had been rather thorough in his list, but he had rather only half-expected her to be able to procure everything so quickly. Especially the unicorn hair, which should have been-)
"I didn't keep this from you on purpose," Dr. Pines told her. "It really isn't as useful as you might think. During Weirdmageddon, it kept Bill from being able to destroy the Shack directly using his Weirdness powers or his own two fists, but… he did get through it then, wielding a non-weirdness imbued object. And Bill can walk right through these barriers now; he's living under one currently, at the Shack. At most, this sort of barrier will suppress his Weirdness powers, if Stan lets them go unchecked and he isn't wearing anti-magic cuffs, and stifle his magic powers somewhat, if only he doesn't have enough time to prepare something that allows him even that ability."
"Prepare something?" Pacifica asked him, confused. That sounded like- "What has he done?"
"He's created a 'bubble' inside the barrier, up in the attic of the Shack, where his own magic seems to work perfectly well - at least as both of the niblings, and Stan, report," Dr. Pines told her, as he glanced over her arrangement of ingredients out on the table, checking them one by one - from the looks of it, to make sure that none of the materials were fake. (As if. She'd paid good money for all of that, thank you. And people in general knew better than to try and con her, let alone any Northwest.) "He's also perfectly capable of walking right up to the line of unicorn hair inside of it and cutting the line of it with a common knife," he told her next, as he looked over the moonstones. "That would bring down the barrier immediately, no matter how well you may hide the location of the anchoring moonstones."
Pacifica blinked at him, thrown for a moment by… "I thought you said you didn't know anything about anchors," she told him.
The scientist looked up at her in confusion, and it took him a moment.
"An anchor for a spell is not the same thing," Dr. Pines informed her, straightening up in place. "It's certainly not the same as whatever Bill has connecting to Stanley at present, that he is terming as such," he told her next, while adjusting his glasses and looking at her oddly. "Bill is a being of pure energy, not a spell."
"My mistake," Pacifica said, but her mind was already whirring away at this new information. Anchors were necessary for spells. But weren't spells just some type of magical energy? Wasn't that how the barrier worked, stopping magical energy from getting inside them? Had she misunderstood or assumed something incorrectly? ...Or had it really not occurred to the man that any kind of energy might be able to be anchored down somehow, just in a different way, and he hadn't made the connection (yet?) to Bill Cipher being a 'being' (not a demon?) of pure energy. Because by Dr. Pines' own admission, Bill was a type of energy, too - 'pure' energy, that had an anchor, rather than 'magical' energy that required some sort of anchor. Because Bill had an anchor himself, too.
Bill had an anchor that Dr. Pines knew about now, but… Dr. Pines hadn't even known that the type of anchor Bill had now was even a thing, before they'd killed the demon, he'd died, and then he'd come back again.
Had the demon had an anchor before he'd died, and Dr. Pines just hadn't known about it then?
"He also has that suit of his, now," Dr. Pines told her next, as he lifted up one vial of mercury (of the several she'd gotten, just in case the first spell batch came out wrong) and looked it over with a frown, tilting the vial left and right in front of his face while peering at it critically. "He could very easily lift a nearby car and toss it through your front window, if he so desired," the scientists told her almost absently, as he set the vial down again in its small wooden stand on the table.
...No. She was getting distracted here, and this whole anchor business wasn't something Dr. Pines could help her with, clearly. -Best to focus on what he could help her with, then.
"I still want one of these things for my house," she told him firmly. She wasn't living in some hovel; it might not be the mansion she'd grown up in, but the place she and her parents were living in now still had gates and bars and a brick wall surrounding the place to keep out all 'the commoners'. If the demon was going to run around tossing cars at houses, he'd have to do better than that, to break in. "Some protection against spells being tossed at me from clear across town is a lot better than nothing at all," she huffed out at him. Because that was a very different sort of throw, that currently she didn't know how to-
"I agree," Dr. Pines told her, looking down at her, with a slight edge of amusement in his tone… and humor in his eyes. Huh? "That is why I'm here," he told her with a slight, almost rueful smile, "To help ease what worries that I can, and give you some security as you might want to have, in the place where you lie down your head, to sleep. I just don't want to give you a false sense of security, Ms. Northwest," he told her, turning away from her and looking rather serious once again.
"Right," Pacifica said. She could sort of see that now from him. Kind of. "So, how hard is all this magic stuff, exactly?"
"Not too hard at all," Dr. Pines told her, with a genuine (though rather small) smile. "Frankly, I'm not entirely certain why most people simply don't do any magic at all," he told her almost contemplatively. "Most spells don't actually require ingredients so esoteric or difficult to acquire. It really isn't that much harder than your basic chemistry, to perform."
And with that, Pacifica got down to learning the barrier spell that would protect her parents, at least a little bit, from Dr. Stanford Pines. But no matter how much she concentrated on the matter at hand, and memorizing the procedures and wording and all the rest of it, all of her unanswered questions were still left swirling around in the back of her mind during the entire rest of the visit - and those questions didn't exactly go away when Dr. Pines finally left that day, after he'd taught her what she'd needed to know, and made sure that she would be able to reproduce it all on her own, correctly (which was more diligence than she'd ever gotten out of some of her bought-and-paid-for tutors, while he'd done it all himself for her for free). ...Clearly, there was a lot that Pacifica still needed to ask Dipper about. And Stan Pines himself, absolutely.
...though Pacifica hadn't thought that her next chance at doing that would come quite so soon...
Illusion is Reality
Chapter 96.2
-Underneath the entire thing-
Mabel had asked for a sleepover and invited Grenda, Candy, and Pacifica to come. That wasn't the problem, as Ford thought of it. The problem was that Mabel had also invited Miz to attend her sleepover, too.
Ford had been leery of the idea from the beginning - given the presence of the two (supposedly both) dream demons (of a type) in the house, and the fact that the children who were coming over were planning on staying the night (thus, not the sort of temptation of non-Zodiac members that Ford felt Stan should be waving under either 'Bill Cipher's watchful eye). But Ford had gone from great reserve to immediately trying to veto the idea completely as soon as he heard of Mabel's plans to include Miz in said sleepover also.
But Stan (ever-unhelpful these days when it came to the demon) had pushed for it, rather than against it. "We'll both be here and Miz will go back up to sleep with her brother. She won't sleep in the same room as the girls."
...And then Stan had proceeded to help Mabel and Miz convince Bill not to be in the same room as the rest of the girls. (As if that made it any better, taking the one potentially maybe-stabilizing influence on the other demon out of the equation completely for the night. At this point, Ford had no idea at all what Stan must be thinking... if he was even thinking at all...)
Mabel was super-happy that things were going according to plan. It was going to be a girl's night tonight, so Miz actually got her brother to leave them alone for one night! "But you're a guy, not a girl," hadn't worked on him, since Dipper had been pulled into her sleepovers before, but Miz's "Unless you want to talk about squirmy feelings, boys, and listen to the lot of us screaming at decibels only dogs can hear?" and an eyebrow-raise at Bill had actually had the older demon grimacing at her and actually agreeing(!) with a: "Fine. But if anything happens…"
And so Mabel and the girls shut themselves in the storage room where they'd had their movie marathon before (since Mabel didn't really want to push, or risk, what would happen if she tried to go with the whole letting-the-demons-into-their-bedroom thing for just the night, especially with the way she knew Dipper and Grunkle Ford felt about it), while Dipper and Ford sat outside the room eavesdropping.
Bill himself, who had planned on giving Miz at least a little more space than he was at present, was (instead of sitting in the living room chair with Stanley, or in the kitchen with a hot cup of terrible-tasting tea, watching Stanley to make sure said-Stanley really didn't end up going into that room where Miz was without HIM there as well) also seated in the hallway just a small distance away from the two of them, watching said Zodiac members like a hawk (or, rather, a very-protective no longer single-eyed older-brother of a triangular dream demon, with an almost-smoldering menace and no small annoyance at the fact that he couldn't just be sitting in the kitchen with his tea right now, oh no, instead he had to be sitting HERE and-).
Pacifica was going to spend the evening learning as much as she could about this new demon. She wasn't sure what to expect, but Grenda had immediately asked Miz for the scoop on what kind of boys she liked.
"Eh… well…" Miz pressed her hands to her cheeks and wiggled in place where she was sitting. "I have a thing for cute nerds…" she admitted.
Candy and Grenda "Oooooh~!"ed while Mabel twitched a little.
Pacifica noticed Mabel's slight tension and narrowed her eyes. While Grenda and Candy teased (interrogated) Miz about her tastes, Pacifica leaned over and whispered, "What?" To which Mabel seemed to sink in on herself, looking both embarrassed and a little disturbed.
"Miz kind of liked Grunkle Ford, the way he looks? But they're definitely not good for each other. Not even a little."
...And that made Pacifica wince. (Well, he was the hot uncle-grunkle, but...) Well. Putting this together with everything else she'd learned, if Miz had been inclined to like Dr. Pines (though Pacifica doubted it could have been anything serious at any point) and the man had essentially treated Miz like she wasn't a person… Well, that was just another reason for more anger from the demon to add to the list; probably just made it even worse for Dr. Pines when Miz finally lost her temper. ...Each time she lost her temper.
(Ugh. She didn't even want to know how Bill Cipher himself might have responded to that whole thing, if he'd heard about it. Not liking it would be bad enough; supporting it would have implications that got really bad really fast, knowing that both demons thought of themselves as 'Bill Cipher' and largely the same in many respects.)
"Let's not talk about my shit taste in men," Miz huffed out. (Pacifica suppressed a shudder and internally agreed.) "We can talk about your shit taste in men instead," she ribbed to the rest of the girls in the room with her.
Candy laughed. "Ah, terrible taste. Well, there was Gabe. But I gave up on him. He would never love anyone more than his own puppets." The Korean girl nodded to herself.
"Oh yeah, you dodged a bullet with that one," Mabel agreed.
"Sucks, since he's gorgeous," was Pacifica's contribution, looking down at her fingernails.
"It's always the hot ones you have to be careful with." Miz nodded sagely. "Speaking of, how're you and Marius doing?" she asked Grenda.
The larger girl laughed. "HE'S NOT BAD. VERY NEEDY, BUT HE'S SWEET! MY TASTE IS GOOD!" The girls all coo'ed at that.
"I'm happy for you." Miz said sincerely.
"SO LIKE," Grenda finally asked, "YOU'RE LIVING AT THE SHACK? WHY? ARE YOU SOME KIND OF FAMILY FRIEND?" she asked, since Mabel hadn't really told them much about this other girl at all, just that she'd been staying there lately.
Miz thought about it. "Not really… I'm Bill's sister. We decided that."
Grenda and Candy both seemed confused at this. "...Decided?" Candy asked. "How does one decide to be brother and sister? [This is not how sisterhood pacts work. They are not for boys.]" Candy added in Korean. (Pacifica was paying close attention to this. She also wanted to know how demons could just decide to have a sibling.)
Miz shrugged. "I lost my family a long time ago. I found some friends who are my family now, but part of me really missed having a sibling. And, well, my friends are like siblings too, but it's… different…" she frowned in thought. "Bill and I are…" she looked over at Mabel. "Am I allowed to talk about this?"
Pacifica side eyed Mabel. 'Allowed?' she wondered.
Mabel thought about it before shrugging. "Well, it's about stuff in this dimension, right?" Miz nodded. "Yeah, it should be fine. As long as it's not something awful."
"I don't think it's awful…" Miz clenched her hands. "But apparently the knowledge of what Bill and I are to each other hurt Ford…" Miz glanced over at the door, where she knew Ford probably was. "And… I don't know if anyone else might be hurt by it?"
That made Pacifica tense a little. What?
Mabel grimaced. She hadn't thought there was more to it than that, but if there was… "Then maybe you shouldn't talk about it, then. If you think somebody else might be hurt by it."
Candy and Grenda looked at each other in confusion, but then both shrugged it off. Pacifica, for her part, glanced between them, as she drawled out, "I, for one, don't mind knowing."
Miz sighed before leaning in to whisper quietly to Pacifica, "Well, Mabel knows some of it, you can just ask her or Dipper afterwards, somewhere that Ford can't hear you talk about it? I don't know if it would still break his brain now to hear about it." and Pacifica turned to glare lightly at Mabel. Seriously? The twins knew all about what this mysterious relationship thing was and neither of them had told her yet?! She waited until Miz sat back upright, then went back to looking bored as she casually pulled out her phone to text Dipper (who currently had Mabel's cellphone) immediately on the matter - because she was sick and tired of being left in the dark!
She sent him a [I need to ask something that supposedly might hurt Dr. Pines if he reads about it, but I need to know about something RIGHT NOW.] After a few seconds, she got a text back - [Hang on] - and she waited for Dipper to (presumably) move out of eyeshot of Dr. Pines for the soon to occur next text conversation, while the topic of discussion with the girls in the room with her moved onto what sort of hobbies Miz had, as the other girls tried to get to know this other person that Mabel knew better.
"Well, I like cooking, singing… gardening," Miz listed off. "Exploring and learning new things. Meeting new people. Taking care of my children. Making deals, creating new planets…" (Pacifica stared. Miz wasn't even bragging or anything, she was just listing things off like one would list off their favorite clothing brands or something. And- had she said 'her children'?) "...holding a concert, shapeshifting, bothering my dad, trying out new kinds of food, messing with DNA-" Miz barely managed to hold back on mentioning her slaughter of pedophile rapists or the way she liked to mess with Federation officers. Those were probably not topics she should be telling a bunch of thirteen year olds.
"You have weird hobbies," was Candy's input. "I LIKE IT!" was Grenda's. Miz shrugged (then blushed a bit at Grenda's additional assessment). In fact, Miz looked quite pleasantly happy at the positive words. Pacifica took note of this. Was… was the demon really so… easily swayed by simple compliments? No wait, more to the point-
Pacifica frowned. "I thought you and Bill are orphans." Was that a lie? And if this demon had extended family in the form of children... she hadn't thought of that as even a possibility before, they both seemed so… -How many people might they actually be taking on as they continued their defensive offensive against Bill?
"My birth parents are dead. But Ax took me in after that. And I kinda think of him as my dad." Miz rubbed her arm. "And I'm pretty sure he cares about me. At least a little. I don't think brother believes that though. But his Ax is nothing like mine. And why would Ax take me in if he didn't like me…" her voice got quiet towards the end. "He sings to me, sometimes."
Pacifica stared a bit. ...Well, she'd thought that at least one of the demons was insane before, but the idea of either of them considering a singing ax as a parent was… Had it been enchanted (with weirdness, or magic?) by the demon herself? How lonely had she been, to start talking to common implements as... Ugh. And she'd said that Bill had one of these axes as well-
"Ax?" Candy asked before Pacifica could. Miz nodded. "The AXOLOTL. He's a giant god-like salamander," she explained, as if that were obvious.
"...Right," Pacifica said. Enchanted singing lizard (ew) that the demons… what, worshipped like a god? Double-ew. That… that couldn't be right. Right? Those were those… pink things with those wavy head-gills, weren't they?
And that just brought out even more questions.
Pacifica frowned. Should she… get one of those axolotl-lizards imported? And maybe see if Dr. Pines could enchant it to talk? ...Or just get Mr. Pines to do some sort of ventriloquism thing on it? Would that actually work to-? But if it would, then why hadn't Dr. Pines already tried-
Mabel bit her lip and changed the subject. "Music's great, huh? I love singing! Especially when I can get Dipper and Grunkle Stan to sing with me." She semi-forcibly steered the conversation away to another topic. Pacifica frowned at that, but let it slide for now. They chatted about music for a bit. Miz even clarified some more about her concerts. "I've got another form called Jan, and I'm a space idol, I have a fan club and everything. It's great. I just can't let people know that I'm… me."
"Another form?" Candy said. "Is that your ultimate form, then? What do you do with your idolship and all the fans?" she added, thinking of a few music-based anime she'd sampled on the library computers lately. (Soos had gotten her hooked on a few things during Old Man McGucket's Weirdmageddon planning that her parents had never let her watch before. She'd been sneaking anime watching ever since.)
"Well… I guess I do have my pure energy form? It's pretty cool. And I use the money from my concerts to make donations to various charities around the multiverse to try and help out in a legal way. Apparently, just going out and giving starving people food is against the law or something, so throwing money at the soup kitchens works better." Miz grumbled. "I don't understand laws. They're so stupid."
"Well, if the food isn't actually available to be bought at any price for those people, soup kitchens would be the better option…" Pacifica said with a shrug. She had heard from people who went begging for food for some poor small drought-starved African villages, or something, before. They didn't actually come begging for money always; half the time, they came begging for the resources to get food to those people... and the food itself. Not money.
"I've got my other form, Xin, set up as a harvest god for a few planets dedicated to growing crops. One of the tenants I've given for my worshipers is to make sure that people get food. So they donate the extras from each harvest, generally the crops that don't look as nice, and therefore people normally wouldn't like to buy." Miz explained. "It's very roundabout and it took me eons to get it all set up."
"Sounds like what my parents do with the fish we can't sell from our mudflap factory," Pacifica noted. "It's a great tax writeoff. Fish we couldn't otherwise sell get salted and pickled in gigantic barrels, and donated overseas to people who don't care about what they look or smell like who would otherwise die without food; everybody wins."
Mabel was glancing back and forth between them. "I didn't know your parents donated stuff, Pacifica?" Mabel said uncertainly.
Pacifica grimaced, as she tucked her hair behind an ear. "Well, it may have taken a little convincing the first time…" And the second. And the third… Being good was hard. And her parents really didn't like giving handouts.
Miz raised an eyebrow. "That sucks." She sighed. "I'd like to do more for people. What's the point of having the power to restructure the physical world when I can't even do anything with it? But whenever I just give people stuff for free, they get all angry at me. So I just have to work around all the stupid Rules." Miz hissed. "Well, that's why brother just wants to rewrite the rules. I don't know if I could do that though, my dimension doesn't work like this one."
Pacifica huffed out a breath. That seemed overly complicated. "Buying enough politicians to the point of rewriting the laws is the hard way around," she told Miz, because that seemed completely unreasonable to her.
"Eh… I've been slowly working through some deals to manipulate the seats of the council for the Federation." Miz pointed out.
"Seriously, it's not worth it, believe me. My family would own half the government by now if it was," Pacifica told her with an eyeroll. "Just bribe a few local officials to look the other way while you do what you want wherever you want. Or…" Pacifica frowned. "You said you like messing with DNA, right?" Pacifica tried to confirm. "There are people in the Middle East here who are working on things like wheat that can grow in the desert. Why can't you do something like that?" Hadn't Dipper texted her about the plant stuff from the first time she'd been there? And if she was already scamming people into believing that she was some sort of self-styled 'harvest god', then...
"Yeah? I've done that. The people told me I 'cursed their lands' and burned the fields." Miz shrugged. "But when I pretended to be a dragon and boosted their crops, they started worshipping me. So… like… I kinda realized that I just had to lie and be what they would want to listen to."
"Wait, how'd they know it was you the first time?" Pacifica said.
"I was there in my triangle form, fixing up their dying crops, they'd had a drought." Miz blinked. "So I made it rain and revitalized the land. And they got mad at me."
"Well, there's your problem then," Pacifica told her, because yeah, getting proper credit for anything took effort, but if this demon cared more about getting the food out there than getting the credit for it - and she might, if she was okay with pretending to be other people to get it done... "Just don't let anybody see you when you're doing stuff. Have a bunch of crops or whatever show up overnight, growing everyplace."
"I could…" Miz considered it. "I could go around and just… fix things without anyone knowing. Then there's no way Time Baby can complain to me about it!"
"Well, yes," Pacifica told her. "That's rather the point." She looked over her (glove-covered) fingernails. "It's getting good PR without actually doing anything helpful that takes skill. Just going out and doing work just takes… work."
"Aw, Pacifica," Mabel said, "You softie!"
"-What?" Pacifica sputtered, looking over at her, then let out a huff and waved it off, saying, "It's just from one good businesswoman to another, that's all!" Besides, if the demon listened to her on this, on what she considered good advice, she might listen to her on other matters, as well. She had to start somewhere with at least the less-crazy one of them!
Miz nodded, making mental notes. "Well the food is one thing, the slavery is another. How would one go about making people stop being mean to other people?" She paused. "Brother claims he can change the rules to make a world where everyone can be happy. I dunno how that'd work though."
Pacifica blinked at her for only a second. "Slavery isn't mean, it's bad business. Stagnates the economy. All those people don't get paid, so they don't have the money to be good little consumers."
"Pacificaaaaaa," Mabel complained. "I don't think that's the only reason that slavery is bad," Mabel frowned at her. "YEAH!" Grenda agreed, as Candy nodded and said, "I agree as well; slavery is bad."
"Yes, well, if that logic worked on people, they'd stop doing it on their own," Pacifica said primly right back to her. "She's looking for solutions, not ways to 'magically' try and make people all 'moral' and such; like that ever works," she told her (still rather naive) out-of-town friend.
"The people owning them don't really care for that." Miz drawled. "They can sell the things they forced their slaves to make to other people elsewhere in the multiverse."
Pacifica frowned. "You could… disrupt the transportation of those goods and supplies?" She wasn't used to thinking of ideas for actively sabotaging other people's sales and supply chains. Maybe if her grandfather was still alive...
"That got me arrested." Miz sighed. "And apparently slavery was 'legal' and they were perfectly within the rights of the law for what they were doing."
"Buy all the slaves?" But Pacifica made a face at that. "Maybe… get those space idol fans of yours to boycott all products made by slave labor? Or protest? Fan-mobs can be pretty scary," Pacifica pointed out, ignoring the grimace that Mabel and the other two made at that. "Though that won't work if your fanbase isn't multiversal, really," Pacifica grimaced. After all, if they could just go sell their products to an entirely different dimension, then… "The only other thing you could do really would be to buy them all out and shut them down. But you'd have to do it all at once. And it'd drive up the price, once people realized that you would pay top dollar to try and get them that way. It might make the problem even worse; supply and demand." And they'd be supplying her demand, if the laws didn't change. Pacifica brought a hand to her chin in thought, frowning. Historically, the only other way beyond that to prevent any repeats of the same situation would be to kill the people involved as soon as she closed the deal, as a warning to others - preferably by having the newly-freed slaves do the deed for her - but… Pacifica rather disliked bloodshed. And it would set a bad precedent for future transactions.
Then Pacifica blinked and shook her head sharply. ...No. She was not going to be like her ancestors. She was better than that.
"I could try. I've just been making deals to help the slaves uprise and rebel. That was… kinda violent. I'm not really good at thinking things through when I get angry…" Miz winced. "And there's still the blatant racism and all sorts of other issues. And… I just… I know it's stupid because I can't fix everything I find wrong with the world, but part of me just gets so frustrated." Miz grimaced. "I asked brother about it, he says that all he would have to do is usurp Ax and change the Rules, but I don't know if it would work… he's not sure what happiness means for everyone."
"Look," Pacifica said, raising a hand to her brow and resisting the urge to pinch the bridge of her nose. "Either you find some way to run anybody using slave labor out of business out of business, or people will keep on doing it. Here, we did that with the industrial revolution. Cheap machine labor," Pacifica told her. "Either you find a way to have all those slaves cost more to keep alive and doing their jobs than having something else doing it that isn't alive, or no-one's going to want to change."
"Pffth, there's still slavery here. It's just called something else now." Miz rolled her eyes. "The prisons in America have products created from inmate labor. It's the same thing. But now they're justifying it."
Pacifica and the others stared at her. "What are you talking about?" Pacifica said. "The inmates are all too busy on their rehabilitation exercises to get much done on any of the labor shifts. Those shifts are only there to give them something to punch or kick or hammer together when they need something physically constructive to do... aren't they?" she asked, looking up at the others around her. Had someone been lying to her?
"Well the ones in Gravity Falls are running around freely, so that's a weird point…" Miz twitched.
"Well, yes?" Pacifica said, assuming she was referring to Gideon's gang. "They're all rather largely reformed." For the most part...
"I'm pretty sure most of them passed their anger management therapy courses with flying colors," Mabel said. She'd received letters - actual handwritten letters - from Gideon over the school year. He'd added photocopies of those certificates as part of them, when Dipper had expressed his own doubts. (After which, Dipper had noted to her with a snort that Gideon's own certificate seemed to be pretty obviously absent from the whole pile.)
"...do you know what's happening in the rest of America? Outside of Gravity Falls?" Miz asked slowly. "There's a thing called the Penal Law which makes it legal to have slave labor only if it's being done by 'criminals'."
The four girls all exchanged looks. They didn't remember that from any of their civics lessons.
"...Maaaaybe she means an America in some other dimension?" Mabel offered up to them all. Then she blinked, "Oh! Unless Trembley made an extra secret 13'th amendment," she nodded. At the blank looks she got from two of her friends on that front (and the long flat look from Pacifica), she stifled a wince and thought quickly. "-Or did you mean Central America instead?" Mabel said. "Maybe that's why Grunkle Stan didn't like it there so much…"
"...ask about the laws sometime. Specifically, check out the 13th amendment of the US constitution." Miz sighed (as she made a new mental note to herself on just that, while also saying it out loud).
Pacifica raised an eyebrow, typed a few things on her phone, then turned it Miz's way and held it out for her to read. (She, like the others, thought that Miz had been talking to them, not herself.)
Candy was already ahead of her, reading out from her own phone, "'Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. If any work is deemed necessary during punishment for a crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, it can only be for the purposes of reform or training of the individual for their future return to society, taken on at their own consent, with those convicted workers paid a fair wage in chocolate bonbons for such work. And it better only be used for that reform or training purposes stuff. Or else.'"
"Ooh~ they really meant that one," Mabel enthused. "-They added the 'or else' to the end of it and everything!"
"In other words, legalized slavery, again." Miz groaned. "And while some people say that it's what criminals deserve, most people are arrested for possession of marijuana and… that's not reason enough to fill the prisons with essentially free labor." She glared. "It's mean."
Miz got several confused looks from the rest of the girls on this, however.
"How is that slavery, if they don't have to do the work if they don't want to?" Pacifica said, raising an eyebrow. What part of 'needing to agree to the work' had Miz not been paying attention to? Sentences were based on reforment of the individual; the sentence length was more of a guideline than a hard-and-fast rule. They had assessments and reassessments of the prison population on a regular basis nationwide, in the hopes that they could let them out and stop having to pay for their everything as a drain on society, instead of a productive reformed member of it. (Which, unfortunately, did mean that the better con artists and scammers tended to treat prison more like a revolving door, because as long as they could convince someone in the system that they were 'really and truly reformed'...) She could maybe understand if Miz had been trying to use 'wage slavery' as an argument, but Miz wasn't doing that, and it wasn't exactly the industrial revolution anymore - nobody found it useful to own entire towns that the industrial workers lived in. (Frankly, the upkeep was far too much, when compared to the necessary building standards - and yes, her great-grandparents had looked into and run the numbers on it.)
Miz's eyes flickered. "Well, as of this moment, there are 1,274,700 convicted inmates in America." She'd been practicing using her Sight while under the unicorn barrier. It only worked for quick searches, but she got it working.
"Well, yes," Pacifica said. "Most of the younger male population this generation has a rage problem, for some reason." Dipper didn't seem to have that problem himself, which was one of the reasons Pacifica liked him, but... "There was a rash of mailbox smashings at the end of this school year. Some kind of stupid viral social media stunt," which had left a lot of those newly-graduated high schoolers in real adult prison for said summer, to learn their lesson, and a lot of them constructing new mailboxes as an apology to replace the ones that they'd gone and smashed there, for an early release. She barely kept back the sarcastic, 'So?'
Miz sighed. "I don't know how to explain it. There's a whole mess of factors in all sorts of things. Heck, if I can't even think up a way to fix America, how am I gonna fix the multiverse…"
"...I'm pretty sure there's not a 'whole mess of factors' in slavery, Miz," Mabel put out there, feeling uneasy at the idea of Miz wanting to 'fix' America because of… a problem that didn't exist? She was trying to use her 'Dipper brain' here, and she was pretty sure she was failing miserably. (It was hard to be all planny and serious for so long, okay? She was supposed to be the happy fun twin! Slavery wasn't either of those things! This was supposed to be a sleepover!) Mabel looked up at Pacifica with a pleading look, and Pacifica crossed her arms, rolled her eyes, and let out a sigh.
"Well, there was the fact that-"
"-Miz," Pacifica interrupted. "I don't think any of the others were expecting to get into a civics lesson or a debate on the correct way to read our U.S. Constitution tonight. Perhaps we can pick this up again another time? I don't mind talking about this with you, but Mabel's looking a bit..." Pacifica grimaced slightly at the big-eyed look Mabel was still giving her, "...sadly desperate right now."
Miz blinked and looked around. She winced. "Oh, sorry," she apologized. "This is supposed to be a fun night." She looked down at her lap. "Ok, what should we do instead?"
And then Grenda got an amazing idea. "LET'S PLAY TRUTH OR DARE OR DON'T!"
"Okay," Miz agreed easily.
There was a trio of yells and a thump from outside the room, then a few scuffling sounds and what sounded like a muffled… argument? The girls all looked over at the door.
Miz shrugged. "If it's something I don't wanna do, I can always 'don't'," she said loudly. "-Same!" Mabel called out.
The unintelligible talking sounds from the other side of the door cut off, and the scuffling sounds settled and stopped.
Miz rolled her eyes (and Mabel let out a breath). Damn that Stanford for his paranoia, and darn her big brother for being much the same. She didn't get what Dipper's problem had been, though. (Mabel did; Dipper hadn't liked any of what had happened with the whole bouncy castle wish and the getting-floated thing at all.) Still…
Miz turned to the other girls. "Don't ask me anything if you don't actually want to hear the answer to it. And no Dares that would harm anyone," she said loudly for everyone's hearing benefit. Also, Miz wondered what that Stanford had thought about the conversation she'd just had.
"That's fine," Mabel told her with a nod. They were all friends here! ...Well, sort of. -They wouldn't Dare each other to do anything awful, anyway - that would be mean!
"Truth, dare, or don't?" Candy asked Miz. The other Asian girl grinned and said, "Truth."
And then Candy proceeded to drop a bombshell.
"What is something you have done that you feel super-guilty about?"
There was another set of shuffling sounds from outside the room, and Mabel winced. But Miz just groaned loudly and buried her face in her hands. "I used to work at a fast food place that served burgers and fries, and the fries were cooked in an oil that contained beef tallow- which I only found out by chance when reading over some of the recipe stuff-" she slumped over and rolled around on the floor. "And management said I'm not allowed to tell people that unless they ask me first, specifically- and I felt like a horrible monster every time I got a Hindu customer who orders the Black Bean or Turkey burger because they couldn't eat beef and then they get a side of fries and I wanted to tell them, I really did! But management got mad because that would lose them sales- so I couldn't say anything and I felt like a horrible person!" Miz laid on the ground, arms and legs splayed out from her sides like she was waiting to be crucified, awaiting their judgment.
The girls all stared before Grenda loudly declared, "WOW THAT SUCKS! BUT THAT DOESN'T MAKE YOU A TERRIBLE PERSON. THERE, THERE." She patted Miz's shoulder with a hand, and Miz sniffled. "Really?"
"Wait, what?" Pacifica wasn't sure she was hearing this right. "How is that something to feel 'super-guilty' about?"
Miz pouted. "Well even if I don't believe in their religion, doesn't mean I don't respect their decision to follow it, especially if they're not harming anyone. But… but…" She sat back up and waved her hands, "I did something terrible! And that was literal EONS ago and I still feel bad about it." (Pacifica frowned at this. Was this demon for real, here? She glanced over at Mabel in confusion.)
Mabel scooted over to also pat Miz on the back. "Well, at least you don't have to do that anymore?" she asked her.
Miz nodded. "I can't work in the service industry anymore, not as an employee at least. I'd probably end up exploding from stress. I'm my own boss now, with my Deals. It's more of a commission-based thing. The only time I have to get bossed around is when Time Baby is being huffy about something." Miz didn't look very happy. (Pacifica wondered who (or what) this 'Time Baby'(?) was. ...Another different lizard, maybe?) "But at least he doesn't call me up often. And it's still something I could technically turn down…" though she looked even more upset at this admission. "Brother and Stan say I should stop working with Time Baby. No matter the job benefits and pay."
Mabel twitched. "Uh… I think they're right in this case." Pacifica glanced over at her. She was missing the context for this. Again. ...Well, she'd just have to ask Dipper. Again. ...Speaking of Dipper, she glanced down at her phone, noting that he'd finally texted her back!
[So Miz and Bill say she's his dimensional counterpart. Like, a version of him from a parallel universe or something. But Great-Uncle Ford says she's delusional and that there can't be more than one Bill Cipher because of some demon name thing.]
Oh. Was that what Dr. Pines meant about them sharing the same name? Wait, so… if they were parallel counterparts, though… what exactly did that mean? What things were different between their dimensions? ...Besides apparently the thirteenth amendment?
Dipper's texts continued to pop up, as if Dipper had been typing out a huge message and the phone was sending them in pieces.
[Miz and Bill have this weird synchronicity thing going on, though. And Grunkle Stan says he can learn a bunch of stuff about Bill just from watching Miz, becaise they are similar. And Bill calls Miz a 'me who is also me'.] [But whether or not Miz really is a Bill Cipher or not isn't something we know for sure yet. And parallel world people can be either really similar or really really different, and so can the places they came from.] [Mabel met a whole bunch of other Mabels when she fell into one of those mini-rifts in the woods last summer. People can look the same, but be the exact opposite. And the earths they come from can be really different, too.] [But they can also look really different, but be almost exactly the same in what they're like, and in everything that happened where they came from. So uh, it doesn't mean as much as you might think until you actually know more about them.]
...great. Pacifica had to put down her phone and breathe. Okay. Well. At least that explained why Miz had latched onto Bill like she had. Probably. (Because if she trusted herself… and she considered Bill to be 'herself'... It was starting to really look like their own local demon wasn't the only completely-insane demon they had running around here.) Pacifica mentally shook her head at this, made a similarly mental note to ask for clarification later, and turned back to the conversation as it was happening in the room; the other girls had apparently moved on with the game.
"Truth, dare, or don't?" Miz asked Mabel next, who was sitting right next to her. Mabel opened her mouth, but paused when more shuffling sounds and a thump came from outside the room. "Don't," she ended up settling on, with a shrug. Miz didn't seem all that upset at this, nodding with an, "Alright. Well, your turn now."
Mabel asked Grenda next, who chose 'dare', and the tall girl was dared to speak in pig Latin until her next turn by Mabel. Grenda turned to Pacifica and grinned. "RUTHTAY AREDAY ORAY ONTDAY?"
Well, Pacifica wasn't going to risk anything here. No so early on into the night. "Don't." Pacifica ignored the way the other girls 'boo'ed her, flipping her hair as she usually did whenever they pulled such boorish stunts at her at their school, during the usual school year.
"Candy, truth, dare, or don't?" And so the game continued. When the turns went around and Pacifica got to ask again, she asked Miz this time around.
"Truth," Miz said easily. Pacifica took a breath, then said, "You mentioned your children earlier?"
Miz brightened. "Oh yes, well Ammy's my first born, I sorta created him by accident? Most things born from me don't have Souls but Ammy does and I'm so glad for it, he's a lovely young man. Pyrone and Pynelope aren't actually my kids, but I helped raise them. And Quacker's birth mother sold her to me as part of a Deal." Miz grimaced at that. "I was joking about accepting first borns as payment, but she actually took me up on it."
They all stared at her. "WHY WOULD YOU JOKE ABOUT THAT?" Grenda asked, for all of them. ('And how was that not the thing she felt 'super-guilty' over?' Pacifica wondered.)
Miz groaned. "I was expecting her to protest, put up a fight, offer me anything else- I wanted her to try and offer me something else, to defend her children. But she decided that giving up one kid was worth it for the money she'd be able to make. And, I guess she did need the money to support the rest of her children, but she could have offered me anything else and she didn't-"
"Don't ever ask for anything you wouldn't want to put up with later! And-agrgraahammph!" the girls heard - first muffled, then even more muffled with a following 'thud' - emanating from outside the door.
"Everything's fine! Just keep going!" came Dipper's voice calling out next, and Pacifica had to fight to keep from giving herself any more wrinkles. She didn't bother to hold back the sigh, though.
"Brother! You're not supposed to be spying!" Miz complained rather loudly at the door. "This is a girls-only sleepover!" She knew they were all eavesdropping but couldn't they at LEAST try to pretend they weren't?
They all heard a rustling and an 'oof!' and "RAH!" before a: "-Tell that to Sixer! He's-!" and then a few more rustling-scuffling-bumping sounds from outside the door.
"Um…?" said Miz, unsure if she should actually repeat herself or not.
"Ugh, Bill-" More scuffling sounds. "-RAHH!" Another 'oof!' "Don't even think about-!" "DOUBLE PENALTY!" ""...What?""
And then there were the sounds of very much laughter.
The girls (and demon) all looked around at each other - except for Mabel, who let out a huff of breath and stood up, with a bit of a steely-determined look in her eye. (Miz wondered for a moment if the grappling hook was going to make an appearance next.)
The grappling hook did not make an appearance. Mabel did, however, stand up straight, walk over to the bedroom door, and open it.
Pacifica caught a glimpse of the three of them - Dipper and Stanford Pines and Bill Cipher - Dipper and Dr. Pines were on the floor, with Bill practically straddling over them both…
...and both male Pines were laughing hysterically as Bill continued tickling them both mercilessly under him, cackling away with maniacal laughter over his (apparent success?) himself.
Mabel put her hands on her hips and waited a moment.
"HAHA! I WIN!" Bill called out after another few moments, while tossing his hands up into the air (giving the two Pines a slight reprieve in the process).
"Bill," said Mabel, and Pacifica watched him pause in place, then…
"Iiii mean… penalty completed?" they all heard Bill say next (and a soft "Ohboy" from Dipper). "Double penalty completed? Yes?" Bill said almost… hopefully? (Wait. Was that what playing innocent was supposed to look like on a demon's face? Because if it was, then Pacifica was going to have to contemplate actually feeling sorry for Miz...)
"You're not supposed to be giving out penalties, Bill," Mabel told him firmly.
"I can if I want to!" Bill declared, hannds on his hips, looking the downright picture of confidence from where he was kneeling down and looking up at her from the floor (while the other two Pines slowly resituated themselves, pulling away from underneath of him and sitting up a bit - and readjusting their glasses back onto their face properly as they blinked owlishly at the rest of them, in one case).
Miz hid her head under a pillow, blushing with sheer embarrassment for her brother and fellow demon. Because...
Mabel let out another huff of breath, and walked her way out into the hallway, and closed the door behind her.
"Ummm…" they all heard from what sounded like Dipper.
"Uwu…" Miz echoed out sadly from under her pillow.
And then the rest of them heard a muffled but rather strong talking-to going on in that hallway, even through the door, from a rather serious and no-nonsense sounding Mabel for awhile, before hearing some half-protests here and there (largely overruled, it seemed), and then finally some creaking and rustling sounds, just before the sounds of three fading pairs of footsteps going down the hall.
Finally, the door opened up again and Mabel walked back into the bedroom, still in a bit of a huff.
"Boys…" Mabel said to them all, rolling her eyes.
"...Boys," Candy said consolingly herself, as Mabel dropped back down next to her again. "They are most annoying, even when they are older."
"I KNOW!" Grenda noted, in her usual deep tones. "MARIUS GETS SO CLINGY SOMETIMES. A GIRL NEEDS SOME SPACE SOMETIMES, TOO!"
"Here here!" was Miz's cheerful contribution.
"...Right," said Pacifica slowly, because... Had she really just seen the demon who'd made a chair of literal human suffering during an end of the world that he'd caused actually kneeling on the floor and tickling those two into submission, instead of torturing them instead? That didn't seem like-
But then Pacifica blinked, because… was tickle-torture actually connsidered 'torture' by demons? (...What the heck?) That was- that was just as crazy and messed up as… as...
...as watching him send a bunch of small flying machines around a room for Miz to harmlessly chase and pounce at like a cat? Or help cart around snacks for a movie night for other people to eat (and not get sick from eating) for his sister?
Was… was Bill Cipher toning things down for the moment for his sister? Because of his sister? Because she was here? -Because if he was, then...
"So!" Mabel said abruptly, clapping her hands together. "More Truth, Dare, or Don't? Or do we move on to another game?"
Pacifica blinked at the wording - not what she was used to hearing out of Mabel - as Grenda punched both hands up into the air and declared: "LETS DO EACH OTHER'S MAKE UP!"
Miz blinked. Pacifica twitched, terrified of what sort of mess the other girls were going to put on her face if that was what they settled on doing next.
"I'm not all that good at make up stuff…" Miz admitted. "It feels weird on my skin, or on my bricks."
'...BRICKS?' Grenda didn't really get what Miz was talking about, heck, she didn't get most of what the new girl was talking about, but that was fine. "DON'T WORRY! WE CAN TEACH YOU!"
And then there was a look on Miz's face that made Pacifica's breath catch in her throat. "You'll really teach me?" Miz asked, looking so blown away at the idea that... But then Miz frowned and bit her lip. "You won't get mad if I mess up?" She asked, almost timidly. Pacifica glanced over at Mabel in time to notice her flinch.
Candy took Miz's hand and smiled at her. "Why would we be mad? We are all learning anyway." And Miz's answering smile was so bright and hopeful it nearly broke Mabel's heart.
Pacifica wondered why Mabel patted Miz on the shoulder gently, and was still looking a little pale as she dove into a few drawers for… supplies, but… not was probably not the time to ask.
Grenda and Candy each took out their own make up supplies from their slumber party bags (apparently, they'd come tonight prepared), and began walking Miz through which was what and how they all worked. The dragon-demon was paying rapt attention, having never really learned about this sort of thing before, not really seeing the point (and having felt so embarrassed that one time she DID try it out), but knowledge was knowledge and she should still try to learn… to be honest… she'd always been a little against learning how to use make up, simply because everyone around her always insisted she should wear it. It made her upset that everyone wanted her to learn to wear something uncomfortable in order to be accepted into society… and after becoming a triangle, she didn't need it anymore and didn't have to bother… but here, right now, this wasn't learning make up to 'look acceptable' or 'be a proper woman'. She was going to be using make up to play with some girls (new friends?) and in this context, Miz wanted to learn, and she wanted to do well. She didn't want to let them down.
So Miz payed attention when Grenda loudly showed her which was the blush and which was the concealer. Which brushes or sponges to use with what… though… halfway through, Miz frowned. "Are you sure you're supposed to use that with that? I don't think…" Grenda opened her mouth to say it was definitely the right one, but Pacifica cleared her throat and spoke up.
"I've been doing my own make up since I was six, and I can say with certainty, you're not supposed to use this type of mascara brush with that mascara. They have different sizes and widths. You don't want to use something this thick with-" and Pacifica put it upon herself to teach Miz the correct way to use make up. The make up the other girls owned seemed to be a mishmash of supplies from different brands, many brushes not matching up with the implements that they were put with, and a similar mishmash of levels of technique with the limited accessories they'd apparently had at their disposal.
Frankly, the fact that Miz didn't know how to do this left Pacifica wondering about what exactly she did in getting ready for those 'space idol' music concerts of hers. ...If she hadn't been lying about that.
After a while, all of the girls were kneeling around a veritable pile of cosmetics, engrossed in selecting what they wanted for their impending work on each other (though Pacifica was going to insist on having her own make up used on herself and nobody else, thank you), when Miz commented, out of the blue, "I think it's awful what your parents did to you." And before Pacifica could do more than look up and start to process that statement, let alone figure out who exactly the demon was talking to, Miz continued with, "Child pageants are awful. I think they shouldn't have done that to you." The dragon had a hand curled around a container of lipstick, knuckles white. "They shouldn't have put that pressure on you to be perfect. They shouldn't have made you feel like you needed to be. They shouldn't have made you base your own self worth on that." Pacifica's mouth dropped open slightly. She wanted to speak up, but she couldn't quite decide on what to say.
"But…" Miz sighed, loosening her hold. "They're still your parents and you love them." She wasn't meeting Pacifica's eyes, staring down at the pile of cosmetics. "So I can promise you now, I won't mess with your parents. Because I actually kinda like you." Miz moved some of the cosmetics around, organizing it.
Pacifica's eyes narrowed slightly. (So this demon had been thinking about messing with them, then.) She forced herself not to take in a deep breath, just a normal one, before she asked, "And if you didn't like me? What would you do to them, then?" Because she'd rather know that now, than later.
"Well." Miz straightened up. "If I didn't like you, I wouldn't have gotten mad at what they did to you to begin with. Well, no more than just general dislike. But I wouldn't feel a need to do anything to them unless they were actively hurting you. Because at that point, if I see an adult hurting a child, I'd feel a need to stop that from happening." (Mabel looked uncomfortable at this, suddenly. Pacifica made a note of that too.)
"And why would you want to stop that from happening?" the blonde asked Miz. Frankly, she wasn't about to take anything for granted with her at this point.
The demon sighed. "Because children shouldn't be hurt by adults. It's mean. I don't like it." She bit her lip. "Discipline is one thing, but I've been told there's a limit." (Which implied that the demon hadn't thought there was a limit to 'discipline' at some point earlier than this, Pacifica noted rather coldly. And that made her wonder about the 'home life' of the demon's so-called children growing up...) "And…" Here, Miz glanced up at Mabel before looking down again. "I was told that apparently this applies to me too." (Pacifica's eyes narrowed further.) "Which, part of me still struggles to accept, but all I do understand is that if a kid is being hurt, I feel a need to do something about it." Miz grimaced. "And that has led to me doing some pretty awful stuff to people. And I hadn't actually thought about how the kid would feel until just a little while ago, so I realized that if you love your parents, even if I don't like them, you would still be hurt if I did anything to them." She rolled the lipstick tube around a little. "I realized that harming the parents would hurt the kid too when Stan got angry at the fact that I wanted to mess with Filbrick for disowning his son."
Mabel sucked in a breath, eyes wide. Pacifica made a note to ask about that too; who was this Filbrick character, that the idea of messing with him had made Stan Pines angry? In fact, she was casually typing it down for Dipper already - looking down at her phone as she did so, rather than up at Miz as she talked. But she wasn't ignoring the demon; Pacifica gave her a nod. "Well, I for one am glad you won't mess with my parents. I would be rather angry with you if you tried to hurt them, let alone ever succeeded in doing so." She made eye contact with the demon at the last of this.
Miz nodded. "There's still a lot I need to learn, about all sorts of things. I raised four kids but I still don't know if I'm doing any of this right." She grimaced. "I'm starting to realize that some of the stuff I've done to my friends and kids might be kinda bad. And I want to learn to be better…"
"Why?" Pacifica couldn't help but ask (because wasn't it too late at this point?) even as her phone received a [Filbrick is our great-grandfather. He kicked Stan out of the house when he was 17. Mabel and I tried to go back in time to stop that from happening so our great-uncles would never split up and Bill would] [never get out of the Nightmare Realm but it didn't work, we ended up in that other dimension instead, you saw the pictures] from Dipper. What? ...Oh, so that was how they'd met the 'youngkles'. So Filbrick was Dr. and Mr. Pines' father. And… Miz had… gotten angry at that man for disowning his teenaged son? And Mr. Pines had been angry that Miz had wanted to hurt… his father. Okay. (Finally, some context for all this Pines family demonic and dimensional madness!)
"Because I feel guilty and awful otherwise…" Miz admitted. "For a while, I tried to stop feeling bad, I just had fun everyday and did whatever I wanted without caring what other people thought. But it didn't make me feel any better. I still hated myself. Even now I still hate myself." Miz was glad Mabel had chased the boys away, she wouldn't have been able to say any of this with them listening. She didn't want to upset her brother with things like this. "And I'm starting to get the feeling that I'm just naturally an awful person. And I don't really like that. So I want to learn to not be like that…"
Hm. Well, now the choice of that particular anime that Miz had all but demanded (through the Pines) that they all watch with her, with a message all about self improvement which she had seemed to greatly enjoy, made at least a little more sense to Pacifica now, in retrospect.
"Becoming a not-awful person does take a great deal of work," Pacifica said evenly, to which Miz nodded herself almost pensively. She'd wanted to change because- well, for a lot of reasons. It had been Dipper that had made her question it all, all over again, though. She still felt that she owed him a lot, for that.
Almost hesitantly, Mabel asked, "Um, Miz... did you ever hit your kids?" Pacifica and the other girls turned to stare at Mabel in shock, because where had she gotten that idea from?! That wasn't like her at all! That was-
Miz immediately shook her head. "No. Never. I've never- I would never-" She looked horrified at the idea (-really, just as horrified as the rest of them felt). "I yell sometimes, I know I've scared them before, and I turned Ammy into a penguin once, I changed him back! I did. It was only temporary and he knew that-" Miz winced. (The other girls exchanged glances, confused.)
"And…" Mabel paused before trudging on, because she had to know. She had to know, for sure. "And who hit you?"
Pacifica tried not to suck in a breath, even as her eyes went wide. She stilled in place, and glanced between them two of them.
"SOMEONE HIT YOU?" Grenda said, sounding shocked. "WHO? -I'LL PUNCH THEM FOR YOU!" she declared, making a fist and punching it into her other hand. "Yeah!" Candy agreed, looking angry herself.
"I…" Miz seemed to be having an internal argument with herself. Finally, quietly, she asked, "In which life?" which only made Mabel's frown worse (and the other three girls start glancing between the two of them even more, feeling rather worried).
"Miz, who was it?" Mabel repeated.
Miz wiggled in place. "As a human…" she looked down at her lap. "It… it wasn't her fault. She didn't want to. I was being bad. I was just being disciplined-" She defended whoever it was. (Pacifica's eyes narrowed at the word choice of 'discipline'...)
"Mabel, if she doesn't want to talk about it, you should not push her," Pacifica said rather forcefully, feeling rather up in arms about the whole thing, even though Miz was… an insane and crazy demon who she was likely going to have to kill if she was going to kill Bill Cipher herself… and- (...Was this what Dr. Pines had been talking about? Forgetting to remember that they were demons? That they were the enemy that needed to be destroyed for them all to survive? Forgetting that they were… not human and didn't feel the same emotions as they did? But she'd just said that this was 'as a human'- and Miz had claimed to have been human once, before she'd become a demon. That was what Dr. Pines had said that Miz had claimed to him before, and Miz wasn't a demon like Bill Cipher. She seemed to be at least a little human right now, still-)
(She wasn't- she couldn't be… lying right now… could she?)
"But it wasn't right! Whoever 'she' was shouldn't have hit you, no matter what you did! It's not right!" Mabel insisted to her.
Miz winced. "I'm… still having trouble believing that. She wouldn't have… she didn't want to. She always cried afterwards! She hated doing it. I was the one who forced her to- because I was bad!"
Pacifica let out a long, tired sigh. ...Well, that was more guilt than she'd ever gotten out of her parents for anything. And whether the demon was lying or not was something she could try and figure out later. As for right now... She shifted over a bit, and placed an arm around Miz's shoulders (...not entirely sure she was doing this right, but…).
"-and she stopped after Kei was born! She got a self-help parenting book and she was so happy to learn that she didn't have to do it! Since the book told her of better methods that didn't involve-" Miz insisted, as Pacifica circled her arm around her and squeezed ever so lightly, just being there for her. "A-and it didn't hurt a lot. Just stung a little. It wasn't like it really hurt me-"
"St-stop," Mabel said shakily, and Pacifica glanced over at her. She looked completely sick, sweater-covered hands pressed over her own mouth...
"You shouldn't have asked about something you didn't want to know," Pacifica noted rather lightly. They had rather been warned, at the start of the previous game, hadn't they? ...And now Pacifica knew why Dr. Pines might have objected so strongly to the 'truth' game before, and wanted to sit outside in the hallway in the first place. If hadn't just been physical attacks that he'd been worried about, it had been...
Miz covered her mouth, taking a few deep breaths. "She wasn't bad. She loved me. I know she did… she wasn't anything like Filbrick-"
"Counting hits is a waste of time we could be spending on happier things, like make up," Pacifica told her, forcibly changing the subject. "No-one is saying that anyone is bad or didn't love you. We just don't like that you were hit."
"Y-yeah," Mabel said shakily, trying for a smile. "Right, girls?" She got a pair of quick nods from Candy and Grenda.
"...but it's… normal… isn't it…" Miz whispered, unsure. And it was here that Pacifica remembered Miz had asked 'which life' when Mabel asked her question. So… she'd been physically abused in both her lives? ...Well, hopefully Mabel hadn't quite caught that earlier.
"SO… WHO AM I SUPPOSED TO PUNCH, AGAIN?" Grenda said, looking a little unsure as she rubbed the side of her arm.
"Nobody," Mabel said firmly. "We are doing a bunch of emergency hugging right now."
"Aha!" Candy said, looking more than a little relieved. "That, we can do!"
Miz blinked as they all promptly gathered around her for what she could only describe as a hug pile (which had Paicifica complaining almost immediately as the other three nearly bowled the two of them over at the start of the hugging, thus leading to the three of them backing off just a little bit with a few laughs and groans and more than a little teasing of her). Miz trembled a little before relaxing into it, feeling warm and… safe? This hug wasn't like brother's, they reminded her of Xanthar to be honest. It made her miss him all the more.
"It's not normal, just so you know. To be hit," Pacifica told Miz, speaking directly into her ear. "Not in this dimension, anyway."
Miz sniffled a little. "I wouldn't…" She looked guilty and miserable. "I never hurt my kids on purpose. But I have a terrible temper. I've scared them before, and there was one time…" Miz trailed off before a determined look came across her face. "I have a confession," she said simply, a bit louder, and more obviously addressing them all. "I once lost control of my powers and… hurt Quackers. And I'll never be able to fix that…" Miz told them. "I didn't do it on purpose. I was panicking. I didn't notice she was there."
"I…" Mabel didn't want to talk about any of this anymore (she knew that she was probably already going to have nightmares about all of this stuff as it was) but she had to ask, to say something, the next thing. She still felt nervous for almost a moment, though, before she asked Miz (a lot more firmly than she felt): "Have you told Bill about any of this? Or Grunkle Stan?" She was a little afraid Miz would talk more about the details now; she really didn't want to know. But the whole thing was horrifying. Getting hit was bad enough - just, terrible and nightmare-inducing, just thinking that somebody could love you and want to do that to 'discipline' you, thinking it was right. But what was even worse was… Look, she wasn't a mom like Miz was(?), but the idea of somebody accidentally hurting their own kid was… it was...
(...also super nightmare-inducing. She was definitely going to have nightmares about this tonight, unless they really managed to stay up all night until the morning, she knew it. Worst sleepover ever.)
"Yeah… I've told brother…" Miz winced. "He knows. And… he was just as upset. And doesn't know how to fix it either." Miz seemed to wilt in place. "So… please don't use a binding circle on me. That's… what made me lose control that time."
"What?" Pacifica side-glanced at Mabel as the other girl had a look of horrified realization. "You-" Mabel stopped herself, almost slamming her mouth shut, then nodded. "Don't worry. We won't do that. We don't even know how to do that! And… uh, the other stuff was startling or scaring you really bad? Or grabbing your wrists and… there's the thing about riding in cars, too, right?" Mabel's voice didn't quite sound nervous, as they all started to release Miz from her 'emergency hug', but Pacifica could pick up on it. Her friend was doing a serious rethink about something.
"Those are mostly just precautions, I really, really don't want to lose control and hurt any of you. When I get scared, I can't think clearly and bad things happen." Miz told them. "It's actually easier to keep my control here than at home. This dimension's so… oppressive? It needs more energy to make stuff happen, there's more Rules in place… though I generate enough power that keeping a lid on them is still a thing I have to do." Miz thought about how to explain it. "Back in my home dimension, if I just… think about something happening, even if I'm just day dreaming and my thoughts wander, if I'm not holding down my powers, they'll start to take effect and… change things around me."
Well, that sounded pretty terrifying. Pacifica didn't want to think what things in Miz's dimension might be like. (That sounded like it would be even worse than Weirdmageddon had been with Bill Cipher here...)
"-and sometimes even when I'm not thinking about anything in particular, if I lose my grip on my powers, they just leak out and start doing stuff anyway." Miz frowned. "I still need to talk to my brother about that, my lack of control and stuff."
"I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT, BUT I FEEL YA." Grenda spoke up suddenly. When Miz blinked at her in surprise, the large girl nodded solemnly. "I HAD TROUBLE CONTROLING MY STRENGTH WHEN I WAS YOUNGER. I USED TO BREAK THINGS ALL THE TIME!" she admitted. "I FELT PRETTY BAD ABOUT IT. BUT I PRACTICED REALLY HARD AND I'M MORE CAREFUL NOW. AND I DON'T BREAK THINGS ANYMORE UNLESS I WANT TO. LIKE OTHER PEOPLE'S FACES WHEN THEY'RE MEAN. SO I'M SURE YOU CAN DO IT TOO!"
Miz looked surprised before she smiled. "Yeah, that's…" she wiggled. "You're right. Thank you." Grenda's vote of confidence seemed to really lift her spirits. Grenda grinned and gave Miz a comforting pat on the back, nearly knocking the much smaller girl over in the process, but Miz just let out a laugh at that, relaxing fully in a way Pacifica couldn't help but take note of.
Pacifica had learned a lot about the demon now, just from this conversation alone. And none of it felt like Miz was lying... unless she was just that good at it. And Miz actually… well, Pacifica wasn't sure how to feel about it. Not without knowing whether it was real or a lie or not. She was suspicious and wary as heck about the demon girl; Miz had outright just admitted how dangerous she was. But… it hadn't been a taunt or a boast or a threat, it had come across as a true warning, one that Miz seemed to be sharing because Miz was worried about hurting them and apparently wanted to avoid such a thing happening
Dr. Pines had said that demons didn't feel things. Yet, Miz had claimed that she didn't want to do things that made her feel guilty. So if she was lying, she'd have to be lying and faking all these emotions convincingly enough to...
Pacifica sighed. She was tired. This wasn't the best time to be looking for inconsistencies in Miz's professed thoughts, actions, and stories, let alone any of her true motivations for anything that she did. For now, the best, smartest thing to do would be to go along with what she could see. Miz was expressing regret and guilt - which, yes, could have been fabricated for sympathy, but why would she go through the effort to do so when it would have been easier to simply tell them only good things, if she was going to go to the trouble of lying about things to them? Especially at a sleepover where she was supposedly trying to make a good impression, one that was supposed to be fun. This was…
...not what she should be focusing on right now. Fun sleepover. Right.
Pacifica glanced over at Miz, who was now carefully applying foundation to Grenda (who'd asked for them to go back to sleepover activities), face scrunched up in concentration. Candy was giving her pointers and shuffling through the different eyeshadows to find a good color. As they settled down to continuing the sleepover activities, Pacifica couldn't help but ask Miz, "Why did you tell any of us about all this?"
"I figured you were worried about your parents, since I am who and what I am, and my brother has done the things he's done. So I thought I would reassure you that I would leave them alone." Miz, still a little subdued, shrugged before picking out some lipstick for Grenda. (...What? Knowing that the demon had been physically abused in the past was supposed to be reassuring?!) "I don't like them. But I won't mess with them either, not unless they try messing with me first. Or if they hurt you. I love mine, and you love yours." Then, as Miz was lightly brushing on some blush, she added, "I mean, I'm also not gonna hold it against them for stuff you're doing. Just like I'm not holding it against anyone else. Well, I'm holding it against that Stanford a little bit, just 'cause I don't like him, but I'm trying harder to leave him alone since it upsets Stan. And like I said, I kinda like you, which already makes you better off than that Stanford."
...Hold against her parents the stuff she was doing? Pacifica managed to keep her poker face on, the one her father had grilled her on all through her younger years, and nothing of the fear going through her appeared as she asked the demon, "What do you mean?"
"Well, it's not going to work anyway. That thing you and the others are planning." Miz continued, partially ignoring Pacifica's question. "Brother says he won't… well... And, I don't know all the ways we're similar or different from each other, but I know that I can't... I've tried.' (Pacifica frowned at this. She'd tried what?) "So if he's anything like me, whatever you're planning won't work anyway." Miz smiled softly. "So I won't hold it against you for trying." At least she'd try not to. Part of her still felt a little protective. (Pacifica felt her own eyes widen a bit.) "You're just scared and lashing out in your own way. I can understand that. I won't begrudge you for being scared. I'm scared all the time."
Pacifica didn't want to ask Miz to clarify what she meant. More than that, she didn't think she needed to. She'd heard enough threats in her life to hear that one loud and clear. So she responded as simply as she could: by not saying anything (potentially further incriminating) at all.
"YOU'RE PLANNING SOMETHING?" Grenda asked, her eyes still closed as Miz finished up with her blush.
Out of the corner of her eye, Pacifica saw Mabel send a glance her way. Pacifica herself was careful not to look at Mabel as Miz talked; just and only Miz.
"...And?" Pacifica prompted Miz, because it was clear that that was not all that the demon wanted to say on the matter.
Miz shrugged. "You guys should stop trying though, brother's protecting your world from other Demons right now. If you do succeed..." Miz frowned. "It'd probably be a free for all. I'm not quite sure how things work in this dimension yet, but the ownership thing seems pretty important here." Miz tilted her head. "So it would probably work out better if you all left Bill alone. He's pretty invested in keeping you all safe, because that's what keeps Stan happy, at least that's what I'm picking up from them." Miz finished putting the finishing touches on Grenda and smiled. "How's this look?" Miz pulled up the mirror so Grenda could see herself. The larger girl blinked and thundered. "I LOOK GORGEOUS!"
"You're already gorgeous." Miz giggled.
Now Pacifica glanced over at Mabel, who was biting her lip. (Candy was looking down at the various containers of makeup, listening, but not saying anything at the moment. The Korean girl wasn't stupid, and neither was Grenda; they could tell something was up with this 'plan', but they would keep quiet for now, until Mabel could explain what they were going to be helping her and Pacifica with later. It didn't sound like it was gonna be another last-minute sock opera play, though.)
The worst part here was that Miz wasn't even openly threatening them. Not with her own brand of violence, anyway, whatever that may be. No, she was simply telling them quite gently, as if they were a couple of idiots, that having Bill alive was better than taking him down and having to deal with all the other demons who weren't him. And oh, Pacifica had heard that one before. 'Better the devil you know…' and all that. ...Hell, her parents lived that one, on the daily.
And that was how Pacifica knew it was a lie. That was mobspeak for, you won't like the power vacuum this creates, you'd be better off sticking with me, kid, and falling in line.
Northwests didn't just 'fall in line', though. They survived, they then thrived, and they always came ahead of the game and out on top. And Pacifica wasn't about to break that particular trend of her family's tradition, at least.
It meant that she was setting herself up directly against this demon, and they both knew it. And this demon didn't even consider her a threat, herself. That didn't bode well, for her or any of them.
So Pacifica was still understandably tense as she watched Miz wince and then say next, "Sorry, didn't mean to bring down the mood. I just thought I might as well be honest about how I feel about the situation. Though I might be misunderstanding something, I tend to do that a lot. I thought that Stanford would appreciate if I was honest, but I think he hates me more when I'm being so." Miz sighed. "I still don't wanna go around lying outright though. It's more work to keep up and I don't want to bother. Besides, it seemed to annoy Stan when I tried lying." Miz groaned. ('Note to self, talk to Stan Pines and see if he can help differentiate between this demon's lies and her truths,' Pacifica thought to herself.) "But seriously, I'm not gonna harm you, your parents or anyone in this dimension unless they attack me first, or something like that." ('Or something like that'... right. Pacifica swallowed and tried not to react to that, even as her hands loosely clenched into fists in her lap.) "And I'm gonna try harder to keep my temper. I… I just want to do better." Miz rolled her eyes. "Though I think brother would call it being 'worse' depending on how I do so. He's got a pretty skewed definition for it, from what I've seen. Definitions seem to work differently here, dunno if it might have to do with the Rules the AXOLOTL here set up being very different from home. I kinda want to examine that more, but brother says that's too dangerous..."
Pacifica could see Miz drifting off into her own head as she rambled. Pacifica took this time to send off some more texts to Dipper and frown internally to herself. So Miz knew that they were all trying to come up with a way to kill or otherwise contain Bill Cipher. And… what now? The demon claimed she wasn't going to do anything to them - not to stop them, or harm them - unless they tried to harm her directly, but not if they tried doing anything to 'her brother'. Operative word there likely being 'try'. (Which meant that if they did manage to pull something off anytime soon, they could expect to have to handle an attack from Miz shortly thereafter, if they hadn't got done dealing with her, first.)
But why did Miz believe that they couldn't do anything to that insane demon, anyway? Because she had tried... to kill him too and… failed herself? And determined that if he couldn't die when she'd tried to kill him, that none of the rest of them could manage it? (How had she managed to survive the aftermath of that with him? Had he… given her permission to try, or something? Dr. Pines had said that they all treated death like a game, and their own lives like nothing, so...) Or was her ambivalence on the subject just due to the fact that he might not stay dead, like Dr. Pines had said was a thing for most demons, which would explain why she knew about the problem and yet felt so carefree about it.
Pacifica was starting to see what Dr. Pines might mean about demons not having human emotions. Miz really didn't care about the idea of Bill Cipher dying, killing him herself or otherwise. This demon would likely only get angry after they'd pulled it off, if that was the order they went at them in - because they'd pulled off the impossible and shown themselves to be a threat to her, having done what she couldn't, not because she was 'worried about Bill dying'. That was the conclusion Pacifica came to from all of this.
...Dear lord, Dr. Pines had been right about that. She'd thought he'd been halfway to insane, the way that he'd ranted over that particular point. But instead, he'd just proven himself right on that point - on allelse the older scientist might have been more 'factually correct' on than she'd realized, at the time…
"...though I think I'm still gonna have to take down anyone who tries to harm my friends and children, they're not immortal like I am so they could get hurt. I can't allow that. That's not wrong, right? It can't be wrong to want to keep those I love safe. Brother said he can take care of himself, but my friends aren't demons, they wouldn't be able to..." Miz was still rambling. "I mean, I guess I go overboard most of the time, but if I let those guys go, they're gonna keep coming after my family, I can't just let that happen, right?" (Going overboard. Not knowing there was a limit. This demon was scary-dangerous, and Pacifica was starting to hate this all, a lot.) "Urgh… Tina told me that it was wrong, but I still can't just let someone who wants to harm her get away, they're going harm someone else, I've Seen them do so, and shouldn't I be trying to prevent that sort of thing? And I only really get rid of the ones that I can't get arrested and therefore neutralized as a threat for whatever reasons anyway…" (Neutralized as a threat... Pacifica clenched her jaw as she stared at Miz.)
"Stop," Mabel said simply. Miz blinked and covered her mouth. After a second, she lowered her hand. "Sorry. What did I do wrong this time?"
"A few things, we can talk about them later, but... just… can we get back to the sleepover right now? And maybe talking about fun stuff instead? ...I can do your make up this time?" Mabel offered. Miz nodded. "Okay," she said before settling down more comfortably and closing her eyes.
Mabel waited until Miz's eyes were closed, but once she had, Mabel looked over at Pacifica and give her a look. Pacifica blinked at her, until Mabel mouthed out, 'Are you okay?' and it was only then that Pacifica realized that her hands in her lap were shaking around the phone that she was holding. Pacifica pulled in a deep breath and stilled them, then raised her chin and nodded to Mabel. She was okay. She could handle this.
She looked down at her phone again, and shot off a few more texts to Dipper. He was responding with worry over having left his sister alone with the demon. ...Apparently, he trusted Miz even less than Bill, and that… wasn't actually all that surprising anymore, with all the talk of lack of control and the fact that Dr. Pines had told her, of how Miz wasn't part of the agreement - it was Bill Cipher who was following that. Which meant... [Don't go barging in here, you'll ruin everything.] she sent to him, then she mentally kicked herself and quickly added after that - after remembering that, yeah, these siblings cared about each other - [Mabel's handling Miz pretty well. More importantly, what's the deal with Miz?] Pacifica asked. [How big a threat is she?] Because Pacifica wasn't sure what to think with her. [Miz claims to have pretty much killed people who threatened the people she loves(?), waht did she do to them specifically?]
She sent all that off before kicking herself as she remembered… ugh, she was getting tired, okay? It was hard to be at the top of her game when... [Dr. Pines told me demons can't love, so what the heck does it mean when she says she's killing people to protect the people she loves and cares about? Does that mean she's lying and just killing people for fun, or what?] which, from her last conversation with the man, she had no doubt that Dr. Pines would probably say was the reason for it. But in talking with Miz in the same room as her, it sure didn't sound like that was it. Miz claimed to have children, whom she seemed to care about, if her admission of feeling awful for hurting one of them meant anything.
...If she weren't lying about that, at least.
And Pacifica simply couldn't tell. Did she, as a demon, feel differently about demons than people? Or...
...or… was there a second, different set of rules for people? One that wasn't equal, or fair in any way? Like… racism, maybe? Like people's lives were... worth more than demon ones? Since demons couldn't die, or came back, or apparently didn't care about their own lives or each others' lives at all? ...But if that was true, then what Dr. Pines had been saying had been...
Ugh. This was starting to give her such a headache. ...That, or the cheap nailpolish fumes. Maybe she should open a window...
Well, either way she cut it, either Miz was a master level liar or she was telling the truth. Because to the best of Pacifica's experience with reading people, Miz was being honest, as scary as that was. ...Actually, it almost felt like Miz didn't really have a brain-to-mouth filter on her, what with the way she rambled on the way she did, both last time - during the anime showing - and this.
Pacifica busied herself with opening a window - or at least, she tried to find one to do that, until she realized that this hovel didn't actually have one in this room that opened even the least little bit. Not that it had a screen behind it to keep any of the insects or other things out, if it had. Gross.
By the time she sat back down again, Dipper had finally responded with [I dont know about her threat level or who she's killed. But Miz does love bill, I think. Or at least care about him? She seems to. Great-Uncle Ford says its an act but I don't know what to think myself yet.] This text was quickly followed by another. [But there's maybe a chance that demons do love, just not in the same way that we do? Like Miz loves Bill but in some kinda messed up demon-sibling way? (I can't believe i just wrote that...)]
And that was a whole other can of worms to be addressed later...
"Why don't you like Dr. Pines?" Candy asked, that being one of the few things she was able to pick out of Miz's rambling.
Miz, eyes still closed, groaned. "He's a racist," she said simply. Mabel twitched, smearing the foundation across Miz's cheek, then set her jaw (not saying anything for now), as she reached for a tissue to handle the mess. ('If he is, then so are you,' Pacifica thought, then blinked at herself.) Miz continued, "He's also an expert in denying reality and truth, if it's something he doesn't want to accept as true. It's so frustrating. It took me a while to figure it out, but I think I finally know why he broke himself, he cracked and went into his own head, running away from reality, because he couldn't handle it." ('What?' Pacifica stared at Miz in shock, because what was this, now?) "And denying what's true and making up a lie for himself to believe instead makes him feel better. And one of the lies he's convinced himself of is the way he refuses to believe there's more than one Bill, and that I am one." Miz frowned even as Mabel shakingly put down the implements to pick up the blush brush, next. (Mabel was very angry at this point about what-all Miz was saying about one of her favorite grunkles, and trying very hard not to show it.) "And I don't like the way he denies my existence. It's almost worse than his blatant racism towards me."
"...I don't believe Dr. Pines treats you as if you don't exist," Pacifica said slowly to Miz, watching Mabel. "If he did, he would have ignored the fact that you were attending this sleepover with the rest of us." It was rather clear that the opposite was the case, in fact. But if that was something this demon believed was considered denying her own existence... then she was even crazier than Pacifica had thought.
"I didn't mean it like that. He does consider me a threat. But he doesn't want to think about how I'm a Bill, he just classifies me as a basic demon and treats me as such." Miz sighed. The Miz laughed. It was a bitter sound. "Not that I'm not used to it. People really don't like me. Back home, people used to be too afraid to bother me when I was out in public, but when my self control got better and I wasn't losing my temper at people all the time, they got confident enough to start getting angry at me for daring to be in public spaces. I got politely told to leave while trying to go grocery shopping once. I had cops training guns on me when I went out to lunch with my family at a restaurant…" (Pacifica saw Mabel begin to open her mouth, and then close it again.)
Miz sighed, expression growing resigned. "But I actually don't mind all that anymore. I'm used to it. That's just normal now. But the way that Stanford denies my existence, denies it so hard he broke himself just to deny the truth in front of him-" (...That made no sense. Dr. Pines didn't seem broken, and he didn't seem to be denying anything about her, either. He'd brought up the whole 'two Bills' thing to her when they'd met at the mansion, in fact.) Miz seethed. "That ticks me off. Once I realized that's what he was doing… or at least that's what I think he was doing." She stopped and took a deep breath. "But I still feel bad for the way he broke. Stan was really upset that I caused it, even though it only happened because that Stanford just couldn't handle it. But I still feel bad about it. Because he got hurt and I didn't mean to hurt him." Miz's hands were clenched on her knees (and Mabel was rather lightly going over the same areas over and over again, barely touching her right now - if she was even actually applying any more of the makeup at all, Pacifica noted - it was clear she didn't trust herself to touch Miz at all right now).
Pacifica slid forward, reached out a hand, and took the blush brush from her friend. She saw Mabel startle, then shiver slightly as she turned towards her - and oh, did she look angry right now. Pacfica gave her a quick head tick to the right, and Mabel grimaced, eyes glinting with anger, but she nodded once and slid backwards, to be given a rather quieter hug by her two friends than either of them usually did (especially the big one).
"But how am I supposed to apologize for existing?" Miz continued rambling on, eyes closed, as Pacifica picked up where Mabel had left off with her make up. (It wasn't as though Pacifica hadn't had to persevere through difficult situations before with perfect aplomb. And this particular topic wasn't one in which she had any particular level of emotional engagement, unlike her Californian friend.) "Stan and brother say I shouldn't ever have to apologize for existing, but everyone's still upset at me for breaking him and I just want to make up for it somehow- but what am I supposed to do? How am I supposed to fix things? Make things better? I can't stop existing- I've tried but I always come back-" Miz's voice cracked. (And Pacifica's eyes narrowed; Mabel seemed to miss that one herself, but Pacifica hadn't. And she was going to bring that up with both of the elder Pines later. Because if some of these demons didn't want to come back and kept doing so, that held grave implications for both their sanity, and their willingness to-)
Miz's eyes were still closed, but she was trembling and crying as she just unloaded everything she'd been holding in, because she knew that saying any of this around Bill would just make him upset and she knew it would probably make Mabel upset too, but she just had to tell someone, anyone- "And I don't know what that Stanford would accept as an apology, he just got mad when I tried and it made everything worse-"
"Grunkle Ford isn't a racist-" Pacifica winced at that, this not being a good time for this sort of engagement with Miz, but she kept her own mouth shut and let Mabel continue. "-And he knows you're a Bill," Mabel told Miz quietly, not looking at the demon as she pulled away from her two friends and started rummaging through the makeup instead. (Hopefully for the last of it what Pacifica would need to apply, to consider this makeover done, and bring a quick end to this whole thing.) "He told us all, me and Grunkle Stan and Dipper, that he knows about all that. That he wouldn't ever hurt us for knowing that you think you're a Bill, either," she said next, just in case Miz really actually cared about that. "He just doesn't think you're Bill. Because you aren't!" Mabel said, glancing up at her.
"That Stanford says that I 'think' I'm a Bill." Miz sniffled again. "I don't think I am, I know I am. I'm the Bill of my world…" Miz wiped at her eyes. "...I'm glad he won't hurt you or Dipper for knowing. I was a little afraid he might…"
"You're smearing your makeup," Pacifica told her, reaching for a tissue, among other things. (Well, at least she could do it right this time.) She rather professionally wiped Miz down, before starting over again, this time going through things far more quickly. (It was much easier this second go-round, with not nearly as many layers of unnecessary foundation caked onto her skin, to have to work on top of without messing up or cracking.)
"But you're not exactly the same as Bill is, not really," Mabel pointed out - even if, at this point, she wasn't actually sure if Miz herself was better or worse than the stupid dream demon himself. "Just like Grunkle Stan and Younkle Stan were different. And Grunkle and Younkle Ford. -You…" Mabel swallowed hard, then tried again, "You like some different stuff than Bill, right?" Mabel said, trying to keep things on a lighter note, even though the things Bill liked were horrible, and she was really angry right now at Miz for lying to her friends about her Grunkle Ford like that! "I don't think Bill would ever pounce at laser dots like you did with Dipper the other day," Mabel told Miz, with a very strained smile. (...And Pacifica thought it was rather a good thing that Miz was having to keep her eyes closed right now, with the glare Mabel was currently giving her.)
"Yeah, infinite alternate dimensions, infinite alternate iterations of Bill, or Stan or anyone else." Miz agreed. "But I'm still a Bill. And having that part of me denied makes me feel like everything I've gone through- all the pain I've had to go through as Bill, is being denied as well…" Miz sniffled. "It's stupid and irrational, and maybe I'm misunderstanding things again, but that's… how I feel…"
Mabel pulled in a breath and let it out slowly. She looked back at her friends, when Candy patted her on the arm, before turning back to Miz. (She was so tired right now. Tired of all the lies, and the…)
"...I don't think he's trying to do that," Mabel told Miz - told them all, really. "He just… notices that you're different than Bill. And you went through different stuff, right? So…" Mabel hesitated, not sure if she should actually tell her that- No. Grunkle Ford could handle her. He could. It would be okay. She straightened in place, looking a little determined, and said, "I think that maybe what Grunkle Ford really doesn't like, is that you act like you want to be more like Bill all the time. Like, you look up to him a lot? And Bill hurt Grunkle Ford a lot. So… it's like you're saying you want to be an even worse demon and hurt him a lot too, when you say stuff like that."
"Just because I am a Bill doesn't mean I want to be like brother. He's himself and I'm myself. And while I admire him a lot, I'm not planning to be him. I'm me." Miz said firmly.
"Well, you should definitely tell Grunkle Ford that!" Mabel told her, her shoulders dropping a bit, because maybe... "It'll probably make him feel a lot better." It made her feel a lot better. She'd been really worried for awhile now that part of the reason Miz was being so mean to her grunkle was because Miz had thought doing that to him would make Bill happy with her. Like doing that (for him?) was a way for Bill to hurt Grunkle Ford without breaking the agreement himself? But if it wasn't, and it was all just Miz being a demon and saying terrible things all the time, because… well, Bill did that all the time if you didn't tell him 'stop', so that was probably just another terrible demon thing too...
"...you really think so?" Miz asked, and the note of hope in her voice made Pacifica feel incredibly uncomfortable, even as Mabel nodded at her enthusiastically.
"-But only if you really, really mean it," Mabel told her next. Miz had just said that she wanted to be better and less demon-y, but... "He'll really not like it if you're lying, or not sure, or something." (She knew she would be really angry, if she found out later that Miz had been lying to her and her friends about that. ...And Grunkle Ford might not even believe her right away. But Mabel knew that the first step for any of them maybe getting anywhere at all would be Miz actually telling him first.)
And even as Mabel started to feel better, lightening up a bit, her words made Miz turn cold again, that note of hope frosting over.
"...he automatically believes anything I say is a lie, regardless." Miz frowned. "Heck, he likes my lies better." (Pacifica raised an eyebrow at that. She also noticed a headband under Miz's bangs. Hm, well, Miz hadn't taken it off, and she didn't really want to hear any little bit of blathering from the demon about that complete fashion disaster. She'd just work around it like it wasn't a problem.)
(And, this close, Pacifica blinked when Miz's headband seemed to… twinkle? There were symbols on it, and they were flashing lightly, faintly, and she only saw them since she was so close. Okay, what was this thing? She had to ask the older Pines later.)
"Wellllll…" Mabel drew out, because she wasn't really sure about that one, but Grunkle Stan had told her before that if there was something that Bill ever got that wrong, to tell Bill to come to him about it. But this time, going to Grunkle Stan probably wasn't gonna solve this one. So instead, maybe this time…
Mabel scrunched up her face for a moment, and crossed her sweater-covered arms. "...You could ask Bill to tell him for you? Maybe? Grunkle Ford can tell when Bill is lying," Mabel pointed out, after thinking about that one a bit.
"...he'll just switch to believing that I lied and tricked brother instead." Miz pointed out, eyebrow twitching as she thought about it. Pacifica couldn't help but let out a soft laugh of her own. (She could see Dr. Pines doing that. After all, the scientist had straight-up admitted that that was what he thought Bill was doing - lying to himself and therefore telling the 'truth' as he believed it.)
"Well, you gotta start somewhere," Mabel told her. "It's not like stuff's gonna get any better if you don't tell him." She was actually pretty sure that if Miz didn't, it would just keep on getting worse and worse.
"...I'll try." Miz finally said (to a "Yay!" from Mabel). "But I'm not holding out much hope for it," and despite her words, Pacifica could see how Miz was wiggling in place, and the faint trace of hope beneath her annoyance.
"Well, you are a demon," Mabel said. "And he doesn't like demons so much." She shrugged.
"And that Stanford is racist against me, for being a demon, even though I never had any choice in the matter." Miz was clearly rolling her eyes beneath her lids.
"I dunno if it's racist," Mabel said, frowning slightly (while Pacifica hid another wince, thinking 'no, it most definitely was racist' in a way, just not the way the demon was implying it). "I think he just doesn't like you killing people." Grunkle Ford had never been all that super-clear on stuff to her and Dipper (well, definitely not her, anyway). She wasn't too sure what he meant by demons, anyway. He talked about 'being a demon' more like it was things people did, than being born some way. "And neither do we. Dipper, or Grunkle Stan, or Soos, or Melody, or anybody else."
"If someone is trying to get to one of my friends with plans to violate her, I'm not gonna hold back on destroying them." Miz growled.
"VIOLATE HER?" Grenda bellowed out in confusion, and Mabel and Candy looked confused as well. (Pacifica, however, did not.)
"-Change the subject, now," Pacifica demanded quickly, feeling more than just uneasy at the swift topic shift there, to that particular sort of thing. Because that couldn't have been unintentional on the demon's part. And she did not want to know-
"Well brother and Stan don't want me working for Time Baby anymore either, and I don't like doing his dirty work, so I can see their point." Miz sighed. "It'll be something I need to talk to dad about, he's the one who told me to try and get along with Time Baby…"
Pacifica stared, unable to understand what Miz was saying, or what topic she'd just shifted to (if she'd even actually shifted to a different topic at all).
"Well Time Baby is a big jerk, so I think it's good to stop working with him," Mabel said quickly, nodding at her. She'd said that before, and Miz had said this before, and why were they still talking about this? "So… just no more killing people, okay? That should make Grunkle Ford a lot more comfortable and happy around you," Mabel told the demon firmly.
"If just the act of killing people makes someone a demon, then there are plenty of police and soldiers who would be demons. Heck, if it was even just the act of killing people for
fun
there are police and soldiers or even just random people who would be demons, and yet that Stanford doesn't classify them as such. At least I don't think he does." Miz pointed out.
"I didn't say I thought not killing people would make you not a demon," Mabel tried, and this stuff was really starting to make her all headachey - it was really more of Dipper's thing, she swore. "I told you it would make Grunkle Ford not so angry and upset with you if you stop doing that."
"I'm pretty sure his definition and mine are not the same for demons. Heck, I think they're not the same definitions within this dimensional set and mine. In my world, demon is a title that someone can be born with or gain over time. It's a classification for your species or career." Miz explained. "I became a demon after I died and came back. But I never got a choice in that. I didn't choose to come back…"
"Okay, no. Stop for now!" Mabel told her. She was tired, this was getting into other-dimensional-talk territory, and... "I'm sure you and Grunkle Ford just need to talk this out, without yelling at each other a bunch. If your definitions aren't matching up then you'll always be misunderstanding each other." Mabel was pretty sure about that one from some of the stuff that Grunkle Stan had told her and Dipper about Bill. She turned around and started applying eyeshadow to Miz. "And that isn't good. But even if you can't talk to him about that," because Bill and Grunkle Ford sure didn't do that real well themselves, "At least tell him that you're not gonna try to be more like Bill. -Our Bill, at least. Please?" she asked of Miz.
"...I'll try." Miz sighed.
There was a long pause, during which Mabel looked like she didn't want to talk anymore, Pacifica finished with the concealer and moved on quickly to eyeshadow, and Candy and Grenda looked between each other, before Grenda asked Miz, "SO YOU'RE BOTH NAMED BILL? THAT'S WEIRD."
Miz giggled. "Brother and I are both Bill," Miz confirmed. "I'm going by Miz right now-" she pointed at herself "-because that is the name of this form I'm in, which I'm wearing because I thought it would make you all more comfortable around me."
"I HAVE LOTS OF NICKNAMES WHEN I WEAR DIFFERENT STUFF, TOO!" Grenda shared. "MARIUS LIKES TO CALL ME SUGARPLUM WHEN I'M WEARING DRESSES AND MAKEUP WHEN I VISIT HIM."
"...form-wearing?" Candy asked with a frown. Miz couldn't nod her head since she was still having makeup applied to her face (by Pacifica now? she sounded a lot closer now, and Mabel had sounded farther away...) so Miz raised a hand and closed her fingers together before 'nodding' her hand. "This form is a vessel I created so that I can be seen and heard by people. My true self exists within the Mindscape since I lost my original body and most people can't see into the Mindscape. So making and wearing a vessel is needed if I want to interact with you."
"WOW. THAT SOUNDS ANNOYING," was Grenda's take on the situation. Miz's hand 'nodded' again. "It is, but I like making vessels, it's fun to customize them." She smiled. "I can look however I want! I can make forms that people like, or admire, so I can actually go out in public and not be sneered at…"
"Miz…" Mabel began, but she was a bit too late to stop Miz, who was on a roll at this point.
Miz laughed bitterly. "You know even before I was a demon, when I was just a simple triangle who'd never killed anyone before, living in the 2nd dimension with the other shapes, people hated me back then too. Because according to the laws and rules, I was an Unnatural, a freak, so they just all hated me on principle." Miz grumbled. "Even though I hadn't done anything wrong, I never killed anyone… I obeyed the laws, I did everything they asked of me."
Mabel opened her mouth to say 'stop', but then glanced around and realized… Grenda and Candy and Pacifica were all listening to Miz pretty intently, and none of them looked really weirded out or scared like she was starting to feel again right now...
...and it wasn't like Dipper and Bill and Grunkle Ford were listening to them right now, out in the hallway, anymore...
So Mabel slowly closed her mouth and tried not to listen instead, laying her head up against Grenda's shoulder. (Candy and Grenda and Pacifica could fill her in later. She just… needed a breather for a bit, without leaving the same room as them. And Sweater Town was out, because she had makeup all over her face right now. So, Virtual Sweater Town. Yup...)
"The council chose what job I would get, where I would live, how much I would be paid… and they would have chosen who I had to marry once I was old enough, and I would have just smiled and went along with it, because I just wanted to be a good person and obey the laws..." (Candy glanced away from them all at that, knowing what family expectations felt like, while Pacifica grimaced herself, moving on to mascara from eyeshadow, which needed Miz to open her eyes for a few seconds to apply.) "...but then the council made the decision that I wasn't allowed to see my family ever again. They refused to let me see my little brother ever again. And I couldn't accept that. So, I rebelled." Miz seemed to wilt into herself. "I disobeyed. And… a lot of stuff happened, but none of it mattered, I failed. I couldn't get my brother back. He's gone… everything and everyone's gone… and I don't know how to fix it." Miz sighed even as Pacifica moved on to lipstick application at an almost lightning-fast speed - she had to, Miz seemed almost physically incapable of stopping moving her lips - and finished putting on those finishing touches. ("Done," Pacifica told her, in regards to her makeup.) "Brother doesn't know how I would fix it either, my situation is harder to fix than his, he has something of a plan for his. But my dimension has different rules and it would be more difficult to fix what I broke…"
"Bill's situation?" Pacifica leapt at the chance to ask about this. If Miz wasn't lying (and frankly, none of this had sounded like straight-up lies; Miz had clearly misunderstood a few things about Dr. Pines, but she could see intellectually why he might want the demon to not have an accurate picture of him, even if the picture he'd rather have painted instead would likely draw more heat down on him, rather than less…), then getting something, any small detail, would tell her a great deal more about either Bill's actual state, or Miz's own demonic state of mind on the subject. "What do you mean?" Pacifica asked as she reached for a mirror, hoping Miz would just keep talking and perhaps reveal some actual actionable weaknesses on just this one thing, at least for a little bit.
"Fixing the 2nd dimension so he can bring his brother back," Miz said simply. (Pacifica blinked at her at this.) Miz finally opened her eyes properly and turned to check out her reflection and stared at how strange she looked. "My cheeks look weird." she said simply. She didn't seem upset, merely surprised.
Pacifica frowned at her a little. Hadn't she said that she'd had makeup done before? she ought to know what it looked like...
"Miz," Mabel said firmly - because Grunkle Stan had said they really shouldn't bring up Bill's brother - "Can you not talk about other dimensions anymore tonight? Or your past? Please?" At least Bill actually stopped when she asked him to. Miz just kept on saying and repeating the same kinds of things, over and over again. It was like she kept forgetting or something, almost.
Miz paused before nodding. "Oh, sorry." she winced. "I need to stop oversharing, I did that even when I was human. It made things awkward with my friends sometimes." She paused again before tapping her headband. "...don't ask me stuff, I can't help but answer." Miz said finally.
"Well no more sharing. For right now." Mabel told her. Then Mabel paused. "Maybe we should-" she began, wanting to find a way to tell Miz about as politely as possible that she wanted to end the sleepover for the night.
"-Move on to the next person. Who wants to get their makeover done next?" Pacifica asked smoothly, and Candy raised her hand eagerly. Mabel a good bit of fatigue roll over her, but she put on a smile and scooted over to help her and Pacifica both out. Grenda loudly declared they were going to make her fabulous.
Pacifica could see that Mabel was just about done for the night - or at least, done with wanting to spend any more time with Miz - but Pacifica herself wasn't quite ready to stop getting information out of Miz yet. So far, the younger demon had answered all their questions when asked, and while they could be lies, everything she'd gotten out of her yet would still give Pacifica something useful to work with. (Plus, that thing with her comment on how Miz 'couldn't help but answer' stuck out to her and Pacifica was going to milk it right now for all it was worth. Because come tomorrow, she might not be able to do so anymore. Miz was clearly sharing a few things about Bill that Pacifica doubted he would want passed around, and she had no doubt that after tonight, Bill would likely grill 'his little sister' on what-all they talked about, and then… that 'can't help but answer' might become a 'can't help but not'.)
Pacifica was sick and tired of being kept in the dark. And this demon was practically begging to be taken advantage of, intel-wise. So Pacifica lowered her voice while the other girls chatted loudly as they worked, and she asked the demon, "So what's the deal with that agreement between Mr. Pines and your brother? Does it have anything to do with the anchor? What is it? Is that why Bill isn't messing with any of us?"
Miz blinked before lowering her voice to answer, glancing over at Mabel with a frown and moving to angle herself so that she could better hide this conversation from the brown-haired girl. "I don't think so?" She frowned in thought before seeming to realize something. "Oh, if you're wondering why brother isn't causing trouble like last summer, it's because there's no point. He only had that wild party because his other demon friends wanted a party. Since they're not here, and I have no desire for a wild party, he doesn't bother. The agreement is just a semi-formal thing? Just ground rules for how to get along with people, I guess?" Miz shrugged. "And the anchor's an anchor," she said, as if that explained everything, which it didn't.
Pacifica glanced over to check and make sure the other girls really weren't paying attention to them. Good. (Mabel was her friend, after all, and her friend had been upset enough for the night.) "How'd Stan get the anchor?" Because if she knew that, she bet that she'd know if and why and how he knew how to use it. -Was the old conman more well-versed in all that magic stuff than any of them knew?
And here, Miz scowled at her question, making Pacifica hold back a flinch, having not seen the demon display this much hostility before, not even at the idea of Pacifica wanting to kill her brother earlier - which Pacifica would have thought rather similar, but…
"His twin-" Miz practically spat out (while managing to stay quiet), "-burned that anchor into him during a fight. Probably didn't even realize what it was. And if that Stanford attempts to brand the anchor onto any of you out of some stupid thought of using it against my brother, I will count that as him harming you all and take him down." Pacifica's eyebrows went up at this, and Miz seethed before taking a few breaths to calm down. She slowly straightened back up. "Besides, I don't know if it'll work anyway. And from what I've Seen in another dimension where Stan agreed to do the circle thing with you guys that day brother came back, it only succeeded in making Stan burn from the inside out since the anchor connected him to Bill and vice-versa…"
That made Pacifica go cold. "What?!" she hissed.
"Well, I was looking into the dimensions that exist within this dimensional set." Miz stated as if it were obvious. "And I've seen a few iterations of the events that happened here in those other dimensions, you know? Infinite possibilities and all that. I haven't Seen all of them, just a few that happen to exist here and are similar enough to be counted as possible outcomes branching off from the same starting area. And in one of them, you all tried the circle but you had to stop because the anchor was killing Stan or something." Miz shrugged. "There was also one I Saw in which the teenager you guys grabbed wasn't even Bill, just a human kid that was unfortunate enough to get involved in all this." Miz tilted her head. "There are a lot of different iterations here. It's pretty cool. My dimensional set doesn't have that. We only have the one Timeline, and if branches DO form, they're shunted off to a different AXOLOTL to take care of, so I can't See them." Miz shook her head and got back on target. "But this dimensional set… well! The AXOLOTL here takes on and has dominion over all the parallel branches! I've even found the 'Bill' who's actually a demon from the outside. Though, he's not actually Bill, he's Will, and… from the best I could understand, he and his twin brother Bill are both demons from the outside and shared their 'demon-ness' together, which is against the rules, not that it stopped them…" Miz blinked at the horrified look on Pacifica's face. "Ah… did I say too much again?"
"What?!" Pacifica hissed again. (It was a good thing she was used to memorizing conversations for later discussion. That had all sounded absolutely insane and- what? Just- what?! -Because how many Bills were there that they might need to worry about? And other versions of them? -Were they all struggling with them, with those Bills? Wasn't there anyone out there who had managed this yet?)
Miz frowned, wondering which of her list of things it had been that had upset her. "Ah… well I don't know how the anchor would work in this iteration. So maybe Stan won't be hurt by it?" Miz tried to comfort Pacifica on the subject that she thought might have upset her. "Unless you're just upset by the demon from the outside Bill? I don't think he's gonna be all that bad, even if he is a demon from the outside, from what I've Seen about him, however brief, his powers don't seem to be working right," Miz tried to reassure her. "The Ax here seems to be trying to test something, creating all these parallel dimensions and alternate Bills and all. Not sure what he's after, but he must have a reason for it…"
Pacifica opened and closed her mouth a few times soundlessly at this. But before Pacifica could respond to any of what Miz had just said, with more than just a what?, Candy called over, "What are you two whispering about?"
"I BET THEY'RE TALKING ABOUT BOYS WITHOUT US!" Grenda guessed.
"Stan is pretty cute when he cleans up…" Miz noted. Candy and Grenda groaned. "But he is so… old." Candy complained.
"He's still younger than me." Miz shrugged. "Not that I'd go for him. I'm sure it wouldn't work out. Neither him or that Stanford. Brother wouldn't approve either."
""Eww~"" The other two girls winced and laughed (while Mabel tried to hold down a shudder). Mabel got up and left Candy and Grenda to distract Miz while she checked on Pacifica.
"You okay?" Mabel asked Pacifica quietly, as she sat down next to her. "You shouldn't have asked Miz something if you don't want to hear the answer, either," Mabel told her. She'd seen the look on Pacifica's face after Miz had talked, and then talked again. "She doesn't know what counts as mental attacks yet. She really does answer pretty much anything we ask."
Pacifica slowly stopped her trembling, fists clenched in her lap. "No, I wanted to know. And I needed to know. I don't regret asking. This…" What she'd just found out was something big. Something big… and scary. If she was right about this... It was the sort of thing she really needed to talk to the old con man about right away. Alternate dimensions… iterations… multiple Bills that were here, nearby, somewhere, with other versions of them trying to stop them, and having just as much difficulty as them doing it. -If Miz could see them, did that mean that the other demon could see them himself, too?
Luckily for Pacifica and Mabel's mental health, Grenda and Candy were able to keep Miz occupied for a bit - during which Miz acted pretty much like a perfectly normal girl (quite possibly because Candy and Grenda avoided asking her any questions what so ever, instead going into the topic of cute boys and clothing, and not letting Miz deviate from either of those topics, even a little) - as they both calmed down a bit further. And then… well, Grunkle Stan came on by and knocked on the door, which pretty much ended the not-sleeping part of the sleepover for them (thank goodness).
And then Miz (finally!) went back upstairs to sleep in Bill's room.
And… Pacifica wanted to talk to Mr. Pines. But she had to wait, she had to prepare before she did that. She wasn't going to try and do that tonight; she couldn't. She was too tired to be able to handle the old con man effectively. And if Dr. Pines' fears were truly the worst realized, and Stan Pines himself had truly been compromised… She needed to bring her A game to this. After a good night's sleep, and out of both demons' potential earshot.
Pacifica laid down on her blanket and pillows. Grenda and Candy had drifted off to sleep already. Mabel was still awake, the blonde knew this. "...Mabel?"
"Yeah?"
"So… Miz."
"Yeah." Mabel let out a huff of breath.
"And, she's telling the truth."
"...not exactly. She doesn't lie a lot. And when she's not lying, she's only telling us what she thinks… what she believes is the truth."
"She's crazy." Pacifica nodded, getting what Mabel was going for.
"Yeah. And she doesn't always get things right," Mabel noted firmly.
"I noticed that," Pacifica told her without bias or blame, and she heard her friend let out a soft sigh and relax into her sleeping bag.
Pacifica cleared her throat softly, then asked, "So… that part about her life as a triangle… did Bill go through that all too?"
"...maybe. Grunkle Stan says the two of them have a lot of similarities, but different, he called it 'like looking into a funhouse mirror' where things can kind of look similar but not the same thing happened, or maybe it would sound like the same thing if you had to say it all in one really short sentence, but it actually happened really really differently."
"So, like, the demon's in the details?" Pacifica drawled out at her, and Mabel couldn't help but giggle at that: "Yup!"
...Well, if the two demons were dimensional counterparts, that could be part of it, right? Speaking of which, it hadn't escaped Pacifica that Mabel had seemed to be trying to keep herself awake. (Admittedly, the 'slapping herself in the face' thing had been a pretty big clue. Even Pacifica wasn't so tired as to have missed out on that one.)
"So, I never got the full story of you and the other Mabels?" Pacifica tried.
Mabel groaned. "Yeah, Grunkle Stan's funhouse mirror explanation thing isn't just from looking at Bill and at Miz. I met an Anti-Mabel at the end of last summer when we were closing up all those little ripped-up rifts in the forest. She was like me, but the opposite of me at the same time. She was evil. -She hated cats. Can you believe that?! But there were some nicer Mabels there, too - like Military Mabel, she was really cool and-"
Pacifica felt herself slowly drifting off to Mabel's own drowsy retelling of her adventure out there in the multiverse. There was a lot to think about, and the heaviest thought was that Dr. Pines knew both everything, and nothing at all, about Bill Cipher.
...It was possible that none of them did, any at all of those Dr. Pines' that were out there, if Miz hadn't been confused or lying about what she'd just told her. And that was going to be a problem, possibly sooner than Pacifica liked to think.
When Mabel finally did drift off to sleep, she slept peacefully, without any of the nightmares she'd feared she would have. She didn't think much of this the next morning, and she also didn't notice Miz's slightly guilty look at the breakfast table, as the younger demon rubbed at her temples.
Bill did, though. As he steepled his hands over his tea, he tried to avoid Stanley's glance that became one of those long looks as his Zodiac caught on that something was wrong.
Bill waved it off for now. He'd explain to Stanley later, what Miz had told him the night before. Miz hadn't done anything herself but tell him what she'd been worried about; and Bill hadn't really needed to exert much effort at all, really, to keep Shooting Star from having any bad dreams, in the same way that he did for his own Sixer, now.
-It wasn't exerting any magic or weirdness on her without her consent, and it wasn't a spell cast upon her; it wasn't anything that could get him 'in trouble'. It was something - the very same thing - that Stanley had wanted done for his own brother, and Shooting Star's mental health and physical well-being - both impacted by good sleep, or a lack thereof - was of far higher priority than him. Bill doubted that Stanley would have any problem with something so simple as that. It was fine. (...The only un-fine part about it was that Miz had been rather certain that she'd caused it, what would have happened if Bill had not intervened on his own for his Zodiac in that manner last night…)
Miz had also asked Bill to help her tweak her headband again, because she just hadn't been able to shut up at all. That was something that Bill was more worried about than Shooting Star. (He was a dream demon, and the Master of the Mind. He could handle making sure Shooting Star's Dreamscape didn't devolve into screaming nightmares for a few days or more. Helping his sister with her own troubles was what took actual understanding, planning, and significant effort, when it came to his part.)
Interlude
(Pacifica's conversation with Stan)
"I need answers." Pacifica told Stan Pines. She'd been surprised to get a text from Mabel earlier that said Stan wanted to talk to her. She was worried, of course, about meeting so soon after that disastrous sleepover, but apparently the demons were going to be busy and distracted for a few hours. She didn't know what that meant, but Stan had set up the meeting at Greasy's Diner, with the story that he was going to be taking the niblings out to lunch there since they hadn't gotten to go with him the last time that he'd gone. So that was where Pacifica found them. And she had slid into the booth and gotten straight to the point.
...Or at least she'd meant to. But before she could begin talking, Mr. Pines pulled a rolled-up wad of papers out of his back pocket and tossed it down onto the table in front of her.
At first, in her confusion, she thought it was a magazine or a newspaper, until she picked it up and blinked at it.
Mr. Pines lounged back in his booth seat, sipping on a cup of coffee while she read it. And gone still, as she realized what she'd been holding. She was quiet as she read, and gotten even quieter as she went on.
She read the whole thing despite all this, though, and when she was done, she carefully set it down and slowly looked up at him.
"Did Miz tell him, or is his hearing just that good?" Pacifica asked him quietly.
"If you really wanted to know that one, you shoulda stuck around for breakfast, and asked the kid himself, directly," Mr. Pines told her, and Mabel winced.
Pacifica stared bullets into Mr. Pines for a moment, then looked over at Mabel.
"Why didn't you tell me we were being listened to," she stated rather coldly at Mabel, thoroughly incensed at this point, and Mabel winced.
"She didn't know," Pacifica heard from up behind her, and she went rigid. "But that Stanford does," continued a voice that sounded like playful knives.
Pacifica barely resisted the urge to punch straight out, as the demon slid into the booth seat at her side, right next to her, and...
"...Thought I told ya to stay at the house with your sister, kid," Stan Pines said, eyeing the demon over his coffee mug critically. Pacifica's mind was spinning in circles at this point, but she supposed it was a small comfort that Mr. Pines sounded at least a little disapproving of the demon's presence, as the demon picked up the transcript from last night's conversations from the sleepover right in front of her, and slid it into… a hat. Some sort of… she wasn't sure exactly what it looked like, but it was a bit floppy and pointed and she was too scared right now to turn her head.
"And miss this? -Stanley, you wound me," the demon purred out with a scary kind of sarcastic glee and a wide wide grin.
And then Pacifica all but flinched as the demon's hand came down on her head with almost a slap and-
And the demon began to… he was…
(Pacifica started to twitch.)
...petting her, on top of her head. Running his right hand into, over, and through her hair gently, in some dumb parody of-
Pacifica ducked her head and slapped his hand away.
And she was just about shaking with rage and fear as she looked up at the demon and-
-the demon was staring down at her with a low-lidded gaze, in something almost, but not quite like, amusement.
"...Bill…" Pacifica heard Mabel say quietly, across the table, at Mr. Pines' left-hand side.
"Rude, much?" Bill Cipher said to Pacifica (presumably, of her hand-slapping, rather than referring to his own improper actions like he should be), as he tossed an elbow over the back of the booth and turned away from her slightly.
Pacifica was ready to tell him off, getting her face rearranged be damned, when Lazy-Eye Susan walked by and took a moment to slow down and scratch Bill on top of his head as she went by.
"Don't forget," Lazy-Eye Susan said cheerfully, as she started to walk away again, "Your shift starts in an hour;"
Pacifica was already staring at the way that the demon had practically stretched his head and neck upwards to follow her boss' hand and those scritches. She started to twitch at the thought of the demon having taken a job at the diner, and the idea of being stuck on her shift with him for the rest of the day when her shift started in an hour-
("Mm," went Bill, leaning back in his booth seat. The demon looked a lot more relaxed now, as Pacifica eyed him critically.)
...Oh. Right. Right. Her shift, not his- Wait.
"Kid," Mr. Pines said blandly, as he took another sip of his coffee. "You maybe wanna go up to the counter and get some more scritches in, or whatever?"
"Counterpoint: I get to mess with Llama if I stay sitting right here, plus head scritches," the demon drawled out lazily.
"Counter-counterpoint, even more head scritches up there," Mr. Pines said evenly.
Bill actually tilted his head back quite far and rocked it side to side slightly in place, with a slight grimace that came and went as he "HMmmMMMMmmmMMMmmmmm…" hummed out in thought.
...Pacifica could not believe this. The stupid- "Just- go up to the counter already!" she spat out at the demon, practically shoving him out of the booth with both hands.
The demon had to have been expecting this, though, because he didn't end up on his butt on the floor, he ended up on his feet in something of a dignified huff. "Rude!" the demon said, but for some reason he was grinning brightly as he turned away from them and walked off. To sit himself down over at the counter. ...For more head scritches, which Lazy-Eye Susan was providing. (The traitor.)
Pacifica pinched the bridge of her nose. "It was him?" she asked. "Not Miz?" Really? It had been him?!
"Both of them, kinda," the old con man told her over his coffee.
Pacifica stared over at him, aghast.
"Why?" she asked of him openly.
But to this, the man shrugged. "Kid likes worship. Go figure."
Pacifica stared at him.
"And Miz?" she asked, after a long moment.
"Miz… kinda seems to just like the attention," Mabel told her, and Pacifica looked over at her, as Mabel squirmed slightly in her chair. "Miz is… lonely." Mabel added, as if that explained it.
Wonderful. She'd survived the demon for the moment. Despite the fact that he, and Mr. Pines, both obviously knew that'd she'd been- last night-
Okay, this was great and all, but- "I thought you said they'd both be busy for a few hours-!" Pacifica hissed at the old man as soon as Bill looked to be thoroughly in the throes of a good petting (practically slumped over - and across - the counter at the front almost fluidly). Not that it apparently meant much, considering the demon could apparently just pull up whatever people said somehow, no matter what, barrier spell that was supposed to prevent magic or not!
"Kid changed his mind when he heard I was taking the kids to the diner for a few hours," Mr. Pines shrugged off.
Pacifica was about to ask him another pointed question when she heard an "AAACK! -BILL!" from the front, and she had to let out a sigh. ...Well, Dipper was clearly out of the bathroom after washing his hands again, now.
Pacifica couldn't help but rub a gloved hand against her brow, as some cackling and muted back-and-forth occurred in-between the two of them at the other side of the cafe, until Dipper finally got away from him and dropped down next to Pacifica into his own seat there (recently-vacated by Bill and originally vacated by one Dipper Pines earlier) once again.
"How is this my life," she heard Dipper mutter as he slid a little farther into the booth next to her. "Why is this my life. Stupid demon. Stupid-"
"-Hey," Pacifica heard Mr. Pines say almost critically - certainly, rather more sharply than she was used to hearing from the old con man ever - and Dipper… winced and quieted down on his insults. Pacifica glanced uneasily between them.
Mabel winced. "Bill… hates being called the 's' word. It makes him really mad."
"But he's perfectly fine calling everybody else an idiot," Dipper muttered out, crossing his arms and sliding down and back in his seat.
"Never said the kid ain't a hypocrite." Stan sipped his drink. "Never said he don't take being called an idiot a hell of a lot better than 'the s word' neither," Mr. Pines snorted out, with an odd twinkle in his eye as Dipper looked up at him with… some kind of dawning realization going on, for some reason.
"What, seriously?" Dipper asked, and the old con man gave his grandnephew a nod something of a gleaming-eyed smile over his coffee cup, as he took another sip from it.
"Kid don't usually dish out what he can't take," Mr. Pines noted. "Never heard him call anybody stupid who didn't call him that first."
And this… apparently had Dipper sitting up a little and frowning, still crossed-armed, in thought. "Huh…" Pacifica watched as Dipper turned around in his seat and looked past the side of the booth - apparently, watching the demon for a bit, with the direction in which he was looking.
"So, what," Pacifica drawled out, "Only some insults are fair game?"
Mr. Pines looked over his coffee cup at her again.
"Remind me to hand you a dictionary sometime," the old con man said, apropos of none.
"...I have several dictionaries at home," Pacifica said, almost caustically, but the old man just looked at her and shrugged it off with a "Suit yourself."
Pacifica frowned up at him, then tried not to wince as Dipper whispered out to her in her ear, "I'm pretty sure he meant all the Bill-speak stuff. The dumb dorito's got some weird definitions for things, or something," Dipper told her (reminded her, really - Mabel had said the same thing to her last night during the sleepover, blast it!). "I think it's 'cause he's insane and doesn't think the same way we do," Dipper ended up telling her next.
Right. "...I would appreciate a copy of this demon-translation dictionary." Pacifica conceded.
"Oh, yeah? You sure?" Pacifica gritted her teeth. She really didn't like the smug smile Mr. Pines was giving her right now. Or the, "Heh, maybe I should charge you for it. Gotta be worth somethin', bein' able to talk to demons like-" ("Grunkle Stan," Mabel chided him, to a "Yeah, yeah, fine," from him next.) But she knew how to set aside her pride (and potentially her checkbook) for something important, and knowing how to essentially speak the demon's language would be something critical for her to know. So even if he really meant to gouge her on it later, Pacifica would pay up for this. If she had to. (It had just better be very accurate, and not one of those stupid scams of his.)
So Pacifica gritted out through her teeth, "I would very much appreciate it, if I could get a copy of this demon-dictionary," she repeated.
"Yeah," said Mr. Pines over his coffee cup as he downed it to the last drop, not even looking at her, "I heard ya the first time, y'know."
Pacifica bristled, but she stopped herself from saying anything caustic when Dipper put a hand on her shoulder, she turned towards him, and he shook his head at her in warning.
So she took a deep breath, and got back to the real point at hand. "That transcript you had; he knows what we were talking about." Pacifica stated. Mr. Pines nodded. "And he knows what Miz said." Another nod, and something of a lopsided smile.
"So, he knows that Miz doesn't love him." Pacifica stated. That was part of her worry, because if Dr. Pines was right about the whole pretend family play thing, then Bill finding out Miz didn't love him might make him want to call off this game.
Stan raised his eyebrows at her for just a moment, then grimaced. (Hell, and here he'd thought she might actually have the thread going there, for a second.) "Nah." He paused at her look, before letting out a sigh and telling her, as he held out his cup for a refill and got one (as Lazy-Eye Susan passed by), "She adores him."
"Then why isn't she worried about-"
"-You wanna take this one, Dipper?" Mr. Pines said, cutting her off, and it startled her.
She looked over at Dipper and he said, with a slight 'sorry' grimace and a shrug. "Bill told her to stop trying to protect him, this morning at breakfast. Stop getting angry for him, too?" He looked over at Mr. Pines, and said next "It kind of came up, when Grunkle Stan was talking to him and Miz about the while slumber party thing, and Grunkle Stan asked him for a transcript of the whole thing, and stuff." And Dipper didn't look any happier about the whole transcript thing than she felt. In fact, his own response to what must have happened this morning gave Pacifica pause.
"And Miz was tryin' to protect him," Stan pointed out, pointing his own coffee cup at her. "Tryin' to threaten you all for him, and everything. Ain't real happy about that," the old con man noted. "She still ain't playing nice yet." If she was ever going to stick by stuff and actually start playing nice, at some point. Stan wasn't holding his breath for that one anymore. At this point, he'd just take the kid being able to stop her from killing or maiming anybody.
Miz was just too forgetful, too out of control, and Stan wasn't going to count on Bill being able to straighten her out anytime soon, Even with the dragon-lady herself saying that she wanted to be quote unquote 'better', that whole nighttime conversation with her hadn't really changed anything with her and what she was doin', not really. The best he'd gotten out of that, was her keeping her mouth shut sometimes around Ford - and even that was out the window again now, what with the whole headband thing back and forth, with the needing to stop reading other-people's thoughts stuff having tangled that whole mess up all over again, now.
Not that that really changed anything, in the long haul. She was too spontaneous, like the kid wasn't. She reacted without thinking first, forever and always - which was really the freaking opposite of the kid, even if the demon lost his temper over shit sometimes, too. She didn't think ahead, not really, and she forgot stuff on top of everything else, like the kid didn't, so when you told her stuff, it just didn't stick, even if she seemed to mean it at the time. Stan didn't know what to do with her, really. And when she got scared and upset, if that ever happened...
Heck, she'd told them already - and Stan really wasn't looking forward to finding out what she actually meant on that one - that when she got scared or upset, she couldn't think properly. ...Like she was even thinking 'properly' at all to begin with. Stan grimaced at that.
-Which was what made her so damn dangerous, really. She wasn't actively malicious most of the time (except with Ford - though that was a pretty big 'except' in his book), and it made it even harder to handle her, because he couldn't just go punching her in the face for completely deserving it, telling the kid she deserved it, and just leaving things off at that. Oh no, dragon-lady couldn't make it that easy for him. She just decided she was all 'right' about something, no matter how wrong she actually was about whatever it was, really - because she just forgot what it was convenient for her to forget, to go forward with things however she wanted - and then bulldozed her way forward, through everything and anything in-between, including people even. (Hell, sometimes for her, that seemed like a selling point. Murdering all those pedophiles and shit. Like she needed the excuse to 'be good'... at killing and messing with people...)
Stan sighed. Hell, getting therapy wasn't going to be nearly enough for the dragon lady, here. She didn't just need therapy, she needed someone literally freaking telling her what she could and couldn't do, and making it freaking stick, somehow. Dragon-lady wasn't going to stop any of this shit on her own, that was for sure.
And no, Stan wasn't going to be the one who was going to do that. But he was starting to understand why Bill was so worried about her being alone with him now. If Bill thought Stan could actually tell her to stop doing this stuff, and actually have her listenin' to him, he'd be real damn tempted to do it outright, and just be done with it. But he wasn't anybody's mother, and he sure as hell wasn't her friend. He wasn't signing up for any of her shit, and the sooner she left at this point, the better, far as he was concerned.
"...Miz is really afraid of losing Bill…" Mabel spoke up.
"She ain't going to lose the kid," Mr. Pines told them all, as he took another sip from his mug. "Whole point of them being siblings, and all."
"But she's still afraid of it. Of… being left alone." Mabel continued, remembering what they'd talked about out in the yard, about what Bill had said to her specifically outright, about being lonely and... "She's afraid of losing Bill. Like she lost her other siblings," the teenager emphasized. "You, um, you remember what I told you that they said to each other, out in the yard, when Bill was helping her with the whole 'listening to other people's thoughts' thing?" she asked her grunkle, hoping he would understand what she meant without her having to outright say it.
That got everyone to turn and stare at Mabel.
"Miz can listen to people's thoughts now?" Pacifica asked Mabel in horror, to which Mabel quickly waved her hands in front of her and assured her, "No! Not anymore! That's what they were working on the headband for!"
Meanwhile, while that little panic attack of Pacifica's was going on, Stan was letting out a sigh and rubbing a hand over his face as he remembered what Mabel had told him.
"...Grunkle Stan?" Dipper asked him slowly, but Stan just shook his head.
"Ain't somethin' to worry about, Dipper," he told him. If there were two things he was really sure of with that triangle… "Kid looks at her like he practically wants to box her up and hang her around his neck for a start, lately. Pretty sure he's not gonna let her go off leavin' or anything, until he sure that she's gonna remember to come runnin' to him if she's having any problems with anything, and he's got his own way of going after her and getting to her if he needs to," if he thought she needed him. The rest of it - getting his new baby sister handling her powers 'right', or whatever else it was what the kid said he wanted to work on with her before she went anyplace else that was any less safe (read: anyplace where the kid wasn't) - was really only the 'gravy on top' for the kid, Stan was pretty sure. Stan didn't doubt that the crazy triangle demon would be more than happy to go to where Miz was if she needed him later, for more help than she could ever need on that sort of thing or whatever, but the kid might not be able to help her later if he couldn't get to her himself. First things always came first with the kid; the kid wasn't stupid - he knew what he was doing.
"But what does that have to do with Miz thinking we can kill Bill Cipher?" Dipper asked Stan dubiously next, and Stan barely stifled the sigh. He didn't stifle the grimace.
"Don't think that the kid thinks that the whole 'convincing her to run to him' thing would work, without convincing her he can't go on bein' dead for him to not be here to help her. If the kid can't convince her, and she ends up convincin' him instead, maybe that might mean somethin'." Stan told Dipper with a shrug. Seemed simple enough to him.
...and Pacifica was staring at Mr. Pines incredulously. "What, are you joking?" she asked him somewhat rhetorically (and angrily), then stopped and took a deep breath. "Do you honestly believe that we really can't kill Bill Cipher. Again." She stared at him flatly and coldly. Because it had been one thing when she'd heard Dr. Pines say it, that Mr. Pines was refusing to help them all kill Bill Cipher. But it was a whole different thing, to be sitting here in this booth and watching the old con man scratch at his cheek and then shrug at her, going "Eh," in front of her, in the here and now - it was absolutely infuriating and- and-
Pacifica slammed both hands onto the top of the table in front of her and shot to her feet, about to read Mr. Pines the riot act-
-and Pacifica jolted in place as she felt a pat on top of her head again.
She not-quite froze in place again, and not just because of the looks on the faces of the two Pines twins, both in front of and next to her.
-and slapped Bill's hand away from the top of her head yet again, turning and scowling up at Bill-
-who was lounging on his side across the back and top of the booth seating, looking down on her with amusement in his eyes.
And he grinned.
"Little Llama," Bill purred out at her. "So angry. -You should be careful," Bill told her, with a gleam in his eye. "When you get so angry that you're ready to attack, don't forget to not turn your brain off!"
Pacifica stared up at him for a moment in sheer disbelief.
...and then she realized exactly what she'd been doing.
In the exact same diner that Bill was sitting around in.
Within earshot.
...And then she realized that what she was thinking was entirely wrong, and not even really the main point or the real problem of it all, when Bill said next, almost playfully: "...You do remember that you're NOT on the priority list, don't you?"
And then Bill just lounged there. And propped up his head under a fist in a listening posture. And just waited.
...turned her brain off. She'd turned her brain off. Pacifica fought the desperate urge to giggle hysterically at the sheer stupidity of what she'd just done here today. Meeting with Stan Pines directly. -Dr. Pines was already compromised, and there had been no reason whatsoever to think that Mr. Pines would have been anything better, anything more but worse than that, even. The twins hadn't been telling her anything close to everything either, and she should have known better. She should have known better than to-
She should have left. She should have left when she'd realized that Bill had first arrived...
Pacifica felt a chill go down her spine, as the demon looked at her piercingly, and Bill's grin got just a touch wider, as if he knew exactly what she was thinking, here and now.
...they'd all been compromised. All of the Pines had been compromised.
"Time to answer a question for me, little Llama," Bill Cipher said to her next. "Which side are you on-"
"Bill-" Stan started to say, in warning tones.
"-Glasses, or my Six-Fingered Hand?" the kid said next, and there was no way Stan was gonna let that one slide.
But the kids started getting there first. "-That's not a fair question, Bill, and you know it!" Dipper put out there almost immediately.
Pacifica was almost thrown off by the level of accusation in Dipper's tone, but right now, she couldn't look away from the demon in front of her. She was sweating at this point, and she could… she could feel the knife's edge she was balancing on, just held, being held underneath her… ready to slice her up and-
"Kid, you didn't give her my side as an option there," Stan put out there before things could begin to get any worse.
"Because your side isn't an option for her right now," the demon said next, not looking away from Pacifica's own gaze. "She wants to attack me; she's not part of the agreement. That means she's either with Glasses, or with Sixer, right now," the demon said easily.
"And this is something you've got to know right now," Stan tried rather blandly, as Pacifica continued to sweat under the demon's gaze.
The demon's grin got a little wider.
"Yes," the demon purred out, like he was savoring the word.
There was a pause.
"...It's your funeral," Stan said next, crossing his arms and sitting back in his seat, to both the twins' horror.
"HAHA! -Quite possibly!" the demon enthused, leaning in a little more closely. "Go on and choose, little Llama. I want to KNOW," he told her, with that grin still plastered across his face.
And as Pacifica stared up at him with her mouth dry, and her throat starting to feel closed off, and her hands numb with the cold spreading through her...
...she started to get really, truly, angry.
Her hands clenched into fists.
"Go to hell," she told him, but the demon just laughed.
"Been there, done that! Burned the t-shirt already, even!" the demon told her. And then he ducked his head down slightly closer to hers and told her, "My side isn't an option yet."
"Kid," Stan said in exasperation.
"I want to know," the demon said, and there was a flash of something sharp in his eyes. "I want to know if she's going to lie to me TO MY FACE or not," the demon told Stan Pines, while looking at her, and that was the last straw-
"-Dr. Pines!" Pacifica spat out at the demon, in defiance and rage, and-
-the demon blinked at her and his head came up.
And he broke out into a wide, and different, delighted sort of grin, all at once.
"Excellent choice!" the demon told her, reaching out and patting her on top of her head.
But before Pacifica could bat his hand away from her head again - or even start getting over her shock at his reaction, really - the demon pulled away from her on his own and then proceeded to slip off the top of the divider between the booths, and down onto his feet in the open aisle space of the diner, looking both relaxed and as if he was pleased at this whole turn of events somehow.
...Meanwhile, Pacifica was breathing like she just been running for miles and miles, wondering what the hell had just happened.
"Hey kid, c'mon now," the old con man called out to the demon, as the demon began to turn and start walking away. "You really going to leave it all at that?"
And the demon turned in place and looked back at him, walking away backwards with a smile on his face. "I got what I needed from her," he said casually, giving him a hand wave.
"Yeah?" said the old con man. "But did she get what she needed from you?"
And at that, the demon stopped in place abruptly and blinked at him.
And then turned his head a bit more to look over at Pacifica again.
He stared at her for a few moments, then turned back to Stan Pines with a slightly inquisitive frown on his face.
"I don't need anything from him!" Pacifica protested, feeling uncertain, and attacked somehow by the thought, and also… she wasn't sure what.
"...If she wanted something from me," the demon said slowly, almost as if he hadn't heard her. "She would have stayed for breakfast. She didn't do that," the demon said, and… Pacifica slowly began to realize that the demon… what the demon was actually doing right now, was...
"You sure about that?" Stan Pines asked the demon casually, as he took a sip of coffee from his cup, and… The demon looked between them again.
"...what do you think you see that I don't?" the demon said slowly next, and Pacifica didn't know why what Bill had said there was important, but it sure seemed to have gotten the twins' twin attention for some reason, somehow.
"I don't need anything from him," Pacifica insisted. "I just want him dead." Because, frankly, if the demon hadn't killed her yet for telling the truth about what she was doing with Dr. Pines - which the demon obviously knew and wasn't worried about in the slightest - then-
"-Yes!" the demon said enthusiastically, clapping his hands together, and turning towards her with a grin. "That's why you're working with that Stanford, not Glasses! -It's a good choice," the demon said next, "A good fit for you."
That left Pacifica frowning.
"...Yeah," said the old con man with a sigh. "She's not going to ask. Never mind, kid. Go off back to your sister, or whatever. Pretty sure you're right about being done here."
And to that half-a-order, the demon just gave Stan Pines a laugh, a grin, and a salute, before turning on his heel and jauntily walking off once again - this time, leaving the diner as he did so.
And Pacifica slowly turned to the Pines and asked, "What did he mean? How is McGucket not trying to kill Bill worse than working with Dr. Pines to do that?"
And if she hadn't been looking at him and not blinked, she would have missed it.
She almost had a buzzing in her ears, as she stared at him, not hearing anything at all of what he said next. Not that it would matter, she knew it was probably some old con man thing of no importance, with the look he had plastered across his entire face right now, but...
If Gideon Gleeful hadn't ranted it at her so many times over so many years - more and more frequently over the last two - she would be doubting her own sanity at this point. But she'd seen it. She'd actually seen it. She'd finally seen what Gideon had been talking about, out on full display so completely, for just a mere moment.
She'd known the old con man was smarter than he looked - he had to be, really, he wouldn't have been able to stay in business with Gideon going after him like that, otherwise - but...
She'd said one thing, and she'd seen it. She'd been looking at him as she'd said it, and she'd seen him put it all together - she had no idea what it was that he'd realized, but he'd realized something, something incredibly important - and she'd seen the man behind the con man mask. The frighteningly intelligent man, lurking back there behind his eyes.
And his eyes lied like anything, pretending to be all dumb and stupid and misunderstanding again, now. ...But the twins' eyes didn't. They never did.
But when she turned to them, with the question in her eyes of 'You saw that, right? How was what I said important-'
-The twins just looked back at her with a question in their own eyes, asking, 'What's wrong?' to her.
It confused her for a moment. but then she realized that what they were reacting to was solely and wholly her own confusion, and not to anything else.
They hadn't reacted to Mr. Pines' thought, whatever it had been, that scary-intelligent flash as he'd grasped something when it had been written large for that mere split-second across the man's face. No. They hadn't even noticed it at all.
And when she looked back up at Mr. Pines, feeling all startled and frightened almost, and starting to shiver-
-and Stan Pines just looked back at her with that dumb-seeming, slightly dull-eyed wide-eyed sort of questioning look on his face, with that 'I'm just a dumb old con man' look that he always used on everyone else, except for once or twice with her here and there, when the look had let up just a little bit - but never so very completely, a mask behind the mask-
Pacifica realized, with no small horror, that the con man never actually took his mask off, not even for his own family.
Pacifica swallowed, hard.
She closed her eyes, clenched her fists, and forced herself to calm down.
By the time she'd calmed down a few seconds later, she was ready to open her eyes, take in a deep breath again, and say...
"What am I missing here."
...with a rather shaky breath.
The con man looked at her over his cup, and the look on his face changed, just a little.
"Y'know, the kid went into a whole spiel this morning," the lying man told her, as he swirled the liquid in his cup in his hand. "Talking about how none of us were asking any of the right questions. Crowing out about how none of us were communicating with each other, how he knew you wouldn't be able to take advantage of nothin' 'cause of that, even with Miz having no brain-to-mouth filter on her at all last night, still. Stuff like that." He set his coffee cup down on the table, and slowly got up from his seat at the booth.
"Grunkle Stan…?" Mabel asked, looking up at him.
And Pacifica watched as the liar smiled down at his grand-niece, and gave her a genuine(-looking(?)) smile, as he patted her on the head himself.
"Figure I'd actually better go walk the kid home," the liar told them, "What with Gideon Gleeful still running around and all. Don't want the two of them running into each other, not like that's gonna go well." That got a grimace out of the twins; the old con man, as well. "Stay in sight of Lazy-Eye Susan; don't go leavin' the diner 'til I get back," the old con man told the twins next.
"You-" Pacifica began, still feeling more than a little thrown. Because all these years, all these years and she'd seen little glimpses, here and there, of him not acting like a campy, dumb old, gross old con man 24/7, yes. But this, this… what she had just seen was...
"Figure you two can fill in the rich kid on whatever while I'm getting the kid home, can't ya?" Stan Pines said to Mabel with a smile, messing up her hair again. "Show the triangle who's boss?"
"Boss Mabel!" Mabel called out happily with a grin, punching her fist into the air. "Back in action!"
"Yeah, we can handle it," Dipper said, glancing over at Pacifica with… something in his eyes.
"Yeah? Good," said the old con man, pulling out some dollar bills and tossing them on the table. "Uh," he said, pausing for a moment at the twins' surprise at this… development? "Don't go spendin' it all in one place."
"Yes, free money!" Mabel said, to which she got an 'Oi!' out of the con man as he left, which had her letting out a little giggle at his complaint.
...Pacifica slowly sat down.
"...You okay?" Dipper asked her, and when she looked over at him, she realized...
That look in his eyes? Was concern.
Pacifica let out a breath in a deep sigh, and slumped a little in her seat. Stan Pines wasn't compromised. No. He was the one running this whole damn thing. ...And he was also compromised, and scarily-smart, and now Pacifica was going to have to actually start listening to Gideon now, wasn't she… ugh-
Then, all three of them sat up straight in their seats at the terrible, high-pitched SCREAM they'd just heard.
"That sounded like-" Mabel began, but Dipper and Pacifica were already out of the booth and running.
They slammed their way out of the diner, down the steps, and-
-and sure enough, there was Gideon and Stan Pines and Bill-
-and Gideon was lying down on the ground, looking out-and-out wrong somehow, and Bill was holding a knife, and Stan Pines was-
"-Really, kid?" the old con man drawled out from where he stood next to the demon, as the demon set fire to... Gideon's hair? He was- He was holding an absolutely huge chunk of- oh my god-
-and it all went up in fire and smoke in a flash in his hand, which the demon then waved off with a slightly wrinkle-nosed grimace and his now completely free and hair-free hand, as he flipped the knife in his other hand closed and stowed it away at his back somehow-
""LI'L GIDEON!"" the two ex-prison cons cried out, running forward (...why were they all so dusty? -no, wrong question - why had they both been so far back?), dropping to their knees and picking him up between them, to cradle him in their arms rather protectively.
"What?" the demon said, seemingly guileless. "He attacked me first; he's not part of the agreement. He was asking for it, he deserved it, and he got it! It was going to happen sooner or later. Besides," the demon waved off, as Gideon groaned and… his eyes were fluttering oddly, and his body was lying in Ghost Eyes' arms almost as if he was boneless, Pacifica realized, as she ran over to check on him herself. "Llama got that barrier spell up around his house yesterday afternoon. It's fine."
Ghost Eyes glared up at the demon. "You- you- How dare you! The boss's poor beautiful hair!"
"Eh, it's an improvement. -Here," said the demon, and he moved forward liquid-fast, and the next thing any of them knew, Gideon went from having next-to-no hair on his head, to really no hair left on his head, and the demon was standing back up and burning the rest of it, same way he did the first. "Happy?"
The other ex-con burst out crying, as Ghost Eyes looked down at Li'l Gideon in shock. "Oh, boss is gonna be real mad when he wakes up."
Bill nodded. "And if you want him to wake up anytime soon, you should get him home quickly," Bill told him, as if instructing a couple of two year olds. "And not let him leave after that."
Ghost Eyes frowned up at the demon mightily. "And why would we listen to you?"
"Oh, you won't have to listen to me," the demon said, "I'm just stating facts." He splayed his hands to the sides rocked back on his heels, and said next, "You think that kid's going to want to leave the house, when he's looking all bald like that?" He grinned.
The two ex-cons exchanged a look.
"Oh, get goin', you two," Stan Pines said next, pretty grumpily, "Before I go tellin' the kid I don't think you've learned your lesson yet."
Pacifica wasn't sure what about those words had been all that threatening, but it sure had these two ex-cons getting up and running off in a hurry, with Gideon Gleeful carried along for the ride.
"-Better give it a week or two!" the demon called out after them brightly, as they both ran off. "Just in case!"
Dipper was fretting anxiously beside Stan. "What happened?"
"Eh, Gideon got mouthy, and I let the kid have at 'im," Stan shrugged off. "Tried siccing his two 'bodyguards' there on him for just standing there and breathing air, the little jerk." Stan snorted. Really, that brat. He could've pretended not to see them and gotten himself around the next corner, or just turned around, hightailed it and ran, but noooo-
Pacifica slowly got back up to her feet from where she'd been kneeling next to Gideon - before the two ex-cons had run off with him, anyway.
"Was that really necessary?" she asked them both angrily. Because honestly, Gideon was a little jerk at the best of times, and now she was gonna have to be the one to deal with the fallout!
"Hey, he ain't dead," was Stan Pines' response to that, as he turned and started to walk away with the demon right at and by his side. "Hell, how long were you planning that one, kid?" she heard him ask next, to Pacifica's shock.
"Quite a while now!" the demon enthused out matching Stan step for step. "Really, I'd thought old Fordsy would have gotten that barrier spell out there sooner for the rest of them, what with Glasses being so stingy and all," the demon said next, "And here he's only gotten it out to two of them so far? Rude!" - which almost had Pacifica marching after him next to demand what in the world he was talking about.
But she stopped herself first. ...Two steps and a "Wait!" in.
And let out a shocked breath as she realized what she'd almost done.
"Word of advice, Llama!" she heard called back to her from the demon, which startled her rather badly all over again. "Ask the cat-lady for head scritches, if you want to know so badly! -You won't regret it!" was his bright reminder, as she opened her mouth, about to call back a confused and almost reflexive 'why?'
She stared after the demon and the old con man, then turned to the twins, shaking her head in bewilderment and trying almost desperately to understand, what had just happened-
"Uh, we should probably go…" she heard Dipper say, as he pulled down on the brim of his cap. "Great-Uncle Ford's gonna have a fit when he hears about this, and…" he looked to his sister.
"...We should probably be there to help Grunkle Stan with the fallout," Mabel finished for him, looking sorry. They both did, really.
"We'll call you on your phone, okay? Promise," Dipper told her, as they both turned and began to run off after them both.
And Pacifica stood there and stared after them as they went, trying to remember what it was like to breathe.
She'd almost run off after the demon just now, demanding answers. Expecting him to give them to her? Expecting him to...
...It wasn't just Dr. Pines that was compromised here, was it. It wasn't just him. She was also compromised, too. Already. Somehow.
'...You won't be able to help it.'
No. Oh, no. No… it was worse than that. The demon had known what she was doing all along. He'd known what was happening in the Shack. He knew what was happening in town.
He knew what had been happening up at the mansion. He knew. He'd known. (...Had he always known?)
And he didn't care. He didn't care at all. It…
Pacifica covered her mouth with her hands, and barely suppressed the bubble of hysterical laughter she was feeling down to a giggle.
It was just a game to him. One that the demon was completely sure that he would win.
Because they were already compromised. All of them were already compromised. Weren't they?
...with maybe the single and sole exception of Old Man McGucket. But even he wasn't trying to kill Bill, which meant that...
...he was basically useless. And with the rest of them being already so compromised… no… she couldn't...
"Paz?" she heard at her side, and she looked up at Lazy-Eye Susan. "Are you ready for your shift, honey? It starts in five," the woman told her with a smile, but also something of a slightly-confused look.
"Did… did you see what just happened out here?" Pacifica not quite stammered up at her, almost plaintively.
But the diner waitress just looked down at her, with a slightly bemused smile.
"Well, now," the woman told her rather authoritatively, as she placed a hand on her shoulder. "If Gideon Gleeful hasn't figured out by now that he shouldn't go messing with cats like that, I don't think he ought to be surprised at getting all clawed up by one that's been around the block a few times, if you know what I mean," she was told, with a, "Wink!"
... a cat. She thought the demon was a...
"...Why do you think he's a cat?" Pacifica tried next, rather slowly. Because she knew her boss well enough by now to know that she'd get an intelligible answer, even if the answer itself would be...
"Well, he's got those beautiful eyes," Susan enthused. "And that coloring! So unique!" she enthused at her, as she steered Pacifica up the stairs towards the door of the diner.
"...Right," Pacifica said slowly, then shook herself. Ugh, what was she thinking, letting herself get sidetracked so easily when that demon was just running around and- she didn't have time for a bunch of boring, normal diner-shift work-
...except all this demon stuff was driving her crazy and a bunch of normal boring work, in their normal, boring town sounded really, really good right about now.
So Pacifica walked along, letting herself be steered by her good-natured boss up the stairs to the diner, and Pacifica asked, "...and his sister?" as they went, because at this point, why not.
"Oh that poor little thing. She's very sweet. It's nice that he adopted her as his own and all, but she really shouldn't pretend to be a cat like he is, you know," Susan told her almost confidentially. "That's just not normal. I don't know why she would do that." And Susan looked almost concerned at this point. "...She seems a little too obedient, too. Must have been through a lot." Was the waitress'... unusual but surprising assessment. Pacifica didn't discount it for that reason, though - not in the least. Pacifica generally took what Susan said about people very seriously when she assessed them, after having learned that, nine times out of ten, the aging waitress had generally turned out to almost-always be pretty spot-on.
"If she's not a cat, then what is she?" Pacifica asked next, feeling like she was on the cusp of something.
"Well, she's human," Susan said like it was obvious. "But…"
"'But' what?" Pacifica pressed her.
"Oh," Susan said. "Well, if I had to say she was something... oh, but it's rude though," she fluttered. "I really shouldn't," she added, waving a fingernail-laden hand at her as they both headed for the back, for Pacifica to change into her work clothes in the staff changing area.
"I won't tell, you know that," Pacifica said, then before Susan could go into her usual 'oh, I really really shouldn't' routine, she took the plunge and added, "You know, if she comes in here again, I really want to be able to waitress her table properly."
"Well," Susan said. She looked around for a moment, checking to make sure no-one else was listening, then whispered to Pacifica rather less loudly than she usually did, "I think she's a bit of a dragon, really, if you ask me. She's certainly not a big cat like him, at all. Not even a little."
Pacifica barely kept a straight face at this.
"...Good to know," she told her boss. Because apparently the demon who wanted them all dead was a cat, but his so-called sister rated somewhere on the order of a dragon instead.
"Maybe more of a dragonling, though," Susan carried on next. "Oh, I'm just not sure what to call the young ones. -I'll have to ask that cutely serious scientist brother of his, the next time that they all come in. ...Poor thing's so confused, trying to be whatever she thinks other people want her to be. I suppose that cat of Stan's will set her straight on the cat front soon enough though - preferably without a terrible scratching to remind her of it, poor dear," Susan said, looking sad. "But she's not a cat, definitely not one of those. Never will be either; humans just can't be cats no matter how hard they try, and I should know - I've got three of them!" she smiled at her. But her smile faded as she said, "And fire-breathing dragons aren't cats either, the poor thing. She really should stop trying, I'm sure she'd grow into a lovely little dragon if she'd just let herself be herself, you know. -Might cause a bit of a problem with the cows over by your parents' factory, though. Wink!" she noted with a nod (and said eyelid-wink), before she bustled herself out the door and back to the kitchen, presumably headed back to the main area of the diner...
...leaving Pacifica alone in the changing room area with her own thoughts.
As she changed clothes into her more common-looking (and -feeling) work outfit, Pacifica tried to think about what it all meant. When Susan said things, it generally meant something larger, even if the elder waitress couldn't really unpack or explain it herself. Cats, what were cats? Independent, sure of themselves…
...with claws just like small knives? (...Or big knives, in the case of a 'big'ger 'unique' type of cat? Pacifica shook her head at this.)
And dragons… fire-breathing dragons… what were dragons? Fierce. Protective. They hoarded their gold, their treasure, and killed any who would try to steal it, any who would try to take it from them- greedily and angrily protecting what they saw as theirs...
Could a (...big?) cat take on a (little?) fire-breathing dragon and win? Did dragons listen to and want to be cats, instead of dragons themselves? ...Well, cats usually got pampered by humans, and dragons usually got people trying to slay them instead, while they were trying to sleep... or nap…?
Pacifica shook her head at herself as she finished tying off her apron. Maybe she was reading too much into this. Dr. Pines had said that demons weren't like humans, and Susan really only was a human herself, while the demons just weren't...
...She'd worry about all of this more later. Right now, she had to get in the game. -Waitressing. It was a thing.
Pacifica took a few moments to splash some cool water on her face, wash off the old and don some new makeup in the proper 'waitressing' style, slapped herself lightly on the cheeks twice, then turned and stomped out of the changing room with her head held high. She was a waitress on a mission.
She had gnomes to shoo out of the trash bins with prejudice.
...And a broom. She needed the broom. Really really needed the broom for this. -And she made a beeline back for the closet to get it. She didn't want to think about the last time she'd tried to shoo those stupid little buggers away without one...
Pacifica, broom firmly in hand, slammed the back door to the outside and back of the diner firmly closed behind her.
