The explanation didn't take all that long. Quentin was a surprisingly intent listener when his eccentricities took a back seat. Though not without the occasional scandalised gasp.

His brow continued to lower as he ruminated on their words, until it was increasingly difficult to make out his deep-set eyes underneath. Finally, he spoke up and did so in a particularly dark tone that tripped with tension, like treacle. Or mayo on Soos's favourite pizza.

"This is a dire situation, Pines. A dire one indeed. I had no idea the yellow-haired one even was a Northwest."

Pacifica rolled her eyes and interjected. "It's platinum blonde."

"I'm sure that your hair colouring is very expensive. But it does little to reduce my concerns!" He replied, poking her arm in suspicion. "How do we know you aren't a spy? "

"No spy would go so far as dating Dipper," Mabel said, barely missing a beat. "She has to be in love!"

"Exactl- hey. Hey, wait-" Dipper stammered. The two girls broke into giggles.

Quentin didn't break out of his severe, straight-faced glance. He stood from his bucket and took a couple of steps closer to the window, like a President staring from the oval office. Except it was a crappy miniature tenement that kept breathing and making weird grunting noises. "I'm going to tell you a story, Pines. It's not a pretty one-"

Stan groaned. "Is it a long one? If this were a TV show I'd be so tired of flashbacks that-"

"I illustrated it!" Quentin beamed and pulled out a series of poorly drawn placards. That presidential aura died off immediately. "Thought about writing a kid's book until the whole- whole murder and corruption theme. Apparently, modern standards are ruled by some kind of monster called S&P?"

"Super poopheads." Mabel snorted. "Murder and corruption is great!"

Ford glanced at his great-niece in quiet judgement.

"...In movies and stories." She added.

"Now, you tiny human beings-"

"They're children." Ford snapped.

Quentin either ignored Ford out of general distaste for his sensible nature or simply not believing in the prospect of children. Frankly, Dipper could believe it was either. If there was one thing that could be said about Trembley, it was that he fiercely guarded his own philosophy.

If a man so erratic could claim to have a philosophy. Which was still somewhat up in the air.

"You may not have been alive when Nathaniel Northwest took the charge of Gravity Falls, but I most certainly was. As a matter of fact, I was the man who instated him!"

Mabel gasped and clapped her hands onto her cheeks in an exaggerated manner, punching Dipper in the arm for no obvious reason. "You?!"

"That's right, my dear congresswoman!" He replied. "I was certain he was nothing more than a simple manure shoveller. Alas, I was wrong. My allies helped me in assembling the new authorities of Gravity Falls."

Ford raised an eyebrow. "Why?"

"Sabotage, mostly."

"You…you suggested Nathaniel Northwest out of spite?"

"I may be a man known for his silliness, but I am also a man known for his tactical motions in warfare!" The balding president said, boldly. "True burned Earth philosophy!"

None of the Pines family seemed particularly convinced.

"I was the man who declared it time to pour ketchup into the lake, so we could declare independence from baked bean manufacturers! I was the man who shot maple syrup into the sky in order to destroy Canadian morale! I fought a bear because he insulted my first wife! Nobody crosses Sir Lord Quentin Trembley the 3rd!"

"So you not only got taken out of the history books but gave rise to one of Oregon's greatest tyrants."

"Admittedly, a misjudgement. You see, there were many things wrong with his appointment. When I had encountered him, as the town developed, he was a dung-scooper with delusions about some kind of cave paintings in the hills." Quentin said. "Then, he built his mansion. Got wrapped up in a cult. He started trying to distil the lake's water. That was where problems began."

Dipper blinked and took a mental note.

"You see, Pines, the earth of this town is-"

"Fulla intergalactic crap." Stan grunted. "We know."

"I know not of that word, Sir!" Quentin retorted, leaping to his feet and preparing his dukes. "Are you a devious foreign? Irish, perhaps?! Show me your leprechaun gold!"

The old grifter scratched his ear as he spoke, trying not to show his amusement at the president's sudden turn. "No, it's uh - it's a modern word. Means it's from space."

"Space leprechauns?! Will the eternal debauchery never end?!"

"Man." Pacifica said, with a wrinkled nose. "He isn't a fan of the Irish, huh?"

"Yeah, he has very uh… intense ideas about Irishmen," Mabel whispered back. "He's a nice guy when he's not triggered over it."

"History is messed up." The socialite huffed.

"Quentin, what we mean is that an alien spacecraft is leaking fuel into the town's earthworks." Ford finally barked, firmly. "Nobody knows about it but us - and it needs to stay that way - but the earth around here is chock full of power beyond what we may ever, ever understand."

Quentin settled back down with a suitably hairpin turn. "That explains plenty. Nathaniel Northwest worked out that there was more to the water of Gravity Falls than first met the eye. And he began experimenting. Tasting. Distributing. Rumour has it he even attempted bottled water. Can you believe such a thing? Water, but in bottles?!"

"Okay. And?" Pacifica asked at last.

Mabel snorted and shoved Pacifica in the arm, entertained by her lack of patience. "Sister, please."

"The water of Gravity Falls is an elixir of oddity, young blonde not-quite-congresswoman!"

"...Come again?"

Ford blinked. "Wait."

Dipper blinked with his Grunkle in unison. "The falls are-"

"A weirdness spring! A veritable reservoir of irregularity! In my days as a weirdness investigator, I found incredible qualities. I even used it for my peanut brittle tomb's base. Didn't taste bad."

Ford rolled his eyes bitterly at the fact yet another local weirdo seemed to have taken his job before him.

"Unfortunately, it also has a tendency to affect the weirdest of the world's beasts. And Nathaniel Northwest? He knew this - he knew it all along! You know that he built The Crawlspace with the Fundhausers, my friends, but did you know that he did so with one intent - raising a link to foreign words? Finding members for his cult? Establishing the final components for his bizarre army of all realms?!"

The Pines glanced at eachother as Quentin seemed to get increasingly frenzied over the matter. And Nathaniel was meant to be the crazy one?

"That Cankerblight creature was nary a 14-stacking-turtle-length beast when he first arrived! A mere miniature version of himself. He carved his way through the town's bowels and wore them, like the Oregon farmhouse cannibal wearing the flesh of his twelth wife!"

Pacifica cringed at the somewhat graphic simile.

"The secret was the water," Quentin added. "It makes him writhe and swell, makes him grow larger, makes him meaner, gives him more faces, makes him irrational and angry - by the wrath of all that's evil, it gives him an endless cigar. He has no lungs! Why would he need such a thing?! That's ridiculous."

"This sure explains the snowglobes."

"Yes, yes!" He shot back. "Globes of snow! Snowy globes! Global Freezing! Of course, how could I not notice the issue at hand?!"

"Uh - no- no, long story, Quentin." Dipper interrupted. "Global freezing isn't a problem. It's kinda the opposite."

"Fiendish! Cankerblight's evil knows no bounds. But he's a low-bit villain compared to the Northwests and their terrible cult. Mark my words, Pines - if anybody put Cankerblight and that triangular fellow in a room together, there'd be nothing worse."

Everyone's faces dropped. Sure, it wasn't a room, but-

"Uh…go on."

"Cankerblight is a dangerously unstable creature. A walking tear in the concepts of time and space! But he's also notoriously dim, petty, and short-tempered. More of a - of a used stagecoach salesman than a notorious interstellar threat. Now, if you let him into the same room as a true evil, that's where gunpowder would fly, my friends. Of course, you'd also need the use of groundwater. And as far as I know, only the Northwests managed to discover that little detail."

"Then how did you?"

"I went rummaging through their garbage and ate their pet quail. Though in retrospect, I'm not sure which of those actions awarded me the information."

The Grunkles looked at eachother with increasingly fierce glances. Things were quickly being put together, and it wasn't good. Not least because their biggest ally was currently a president of the United States who had been piling through garbage.

Pacifica was biting her nails. Dipper had never seen her do that before.

"In the end," Quentin said, hands on his hips. "You just have to make sure a Northwest doesn't do something dumb. Nothing hath fury like a Northwest scorned. I'm pretty sure Nathaniel Northwest was fiendish enough to make sure his plan would come to pass, no matter what."