A/N: We're back; we're going to be feature lots of theories and explanations this time around, so brace yourself for Dipper speculating like crazy.
Anyway, without further ado, the latest chapter: read, review, and above all, enjoy!
Disclaimer: Gravity Falls is still not mine and neither is anything else.
This chapter's soundtrack is Icicle Elegy by Jason Graves.
Several crowded minutes later, Dipper found himself being unceremoniously bundled into the back of an armoured vehicle parked on the corner of Solomon Road and Illumination Way, with Grunkle Stan and Mabel being ushered in after him. The three of them were barely given a chance to take a seat and buckle up before the driver put pedal to metal, leaving them bucking wildly back and forth as the truck hurtled down the road at high speed.
It wasn't until they'd been sitting under the harsh fluorescent lights for nearly thirty seconds that any of them finally managed to speak.
"What the heck just happened?" Mabel whispered. "Who are these people?"
"They work for the Council of Venice," Grunkle explained wearily. "Basically, fantasyland UN. They caught me a couple of hours ago and agreed to help me rescue you if I helped them capture Lorraine." He glanced irritably at the cab. "And they didn't mention that they were okay with nearly killing Dipper!" he roared.
"Calculated risk, Mr Pines," said a voice from the passenger seat. "We couldn't afford to wait until he was out of the firing line. Besides, it's not as if the mission failed, is it? Lorraine has been suppressed and, according to Captain Maffei, she's already being prepped for transportation to a secure facility; your niece and nephew are safe, you're still alive, and my department is free to continue our investigation. Your irritability aside, I'd call this a victory in every sense of the word."
Dipper's eyes narrowed. Why did that voice sound so familiar to him? He couldn't place it, but he could have sworn he'd heard those cold, dulcet tones before.
"And now that you've had your victory, what are you going to do with us now?" demanded Grunkle Stan. "Where are you taking us?"
"Back to Venice, of course! I can't very well leave you here: as soon as we've checked you for any contaminants, you'll be transported to Venice and interviewed for all relevant data, then sent home. Speaking of which, you're going to have to provide a home address sooner or later; you were a little vague about where you were when this portal manifested."
Stan quietly groaned and hid his head in his hands.
"What's he talking about?" Mabel whispered.
"I lied – told him we were from this world. If he ever finds out that we're actually from another dimension, we'll probably spend the rest of our lives in this guy's secret lab, so keep the lips zipped and stick to our cover story: we're from Portland."
"But what about Grunkle Ford? Where's he? I mean, if these Council guys take us off to Venice or Portland or wherever, he'll be left behind."
"We can worry about later! We've got to slip the leash first, preferably while these goons are doing their big contaminant check: as long as they think we're just ordinary joes and janes, they aren't going to pay too much attention to us, so it shouldn't be too hard to sneak out and head for Innsmouth Academy."
"Innsmouth?"
"It's where Ford's been hiding out – well, it was the last time I heard from him. Hopefully, he'll have figured out a way of getting us all home by the time we get there. But even if he hasn't gotten it working yet, then at least we won't have an immortal bug-woman kidnapping Dipper anymore. Right, Dipper?"
There was an uncomfortable pause.
"Dipper? Are you okay?"
Dipper, who'd been only half-paying attention to the conversation, took a deep breath, tried again to ignore the smell of copper in his nostrils – and realized that everyone in the back of the truck was staring at him.
"Sorry," he said shakily. "I… I'm still a little… my ears are still ringing and… and it's all over me, isn't it? I haven't had time to look in a mirror, but I can smell it and it's not going away and oh god they shot her and-"
He was dimly aware of Mabel's hand on his shoulder, gently drawing him back from the edge of his panic. "It's okay, bro-bro. You're okay; you haven't been hurt, and we're all here for you. And Lorraine's probably okay as well," she added, in a slightly lower tone of voice. "She's still alive, wherever she is: we can still help her as long as we're on the island."
Grunkle Stan gave the two of them a quizzical look. "Did someone turn over two pages at once? Since when did you two decide that this was all about helping Lorraine, of all people? And do I need better glasses, or has Dipper gotten shorter than you all of a sudden?"
Mabel took a deep breath. "It's a very, very long story…"
By now, Lorraine – still screaming behind her muzzle – had been loaded into the back of another armoured truck: with her already-cuffed arms chained to her seat, her legs shackled to the floor, and the mancatcher kept fastened around her neck by the operative sitting directly opposite her, she was officially secure. Just in case, though, she'd been tagged with a subdermal tracking chip; it probably wouldn't be needed, but you never got far in this line of work if you weren't prepared to be extra-careful.
For now, she would remain effectively harmless until such time as the mancatcher was removed from her throat, which wasn't due to happen for another forty-eight hours or so; in the meantime, she was headed for a prison ship in the Mediterranean, one with facilities adequate to keep Gaia's Chosen under wraps.
Of course, Captain Maffei would have preferred it if they'd just called in a warden from the Hive and left Lorraine to their tender mercies, but Colonel Utterson had been adamant: Lorraine couldn't be allowed to slip free of their grasp, not with so much confidential information known to her; after all, Utterson had raved in private, what if she revealed her knowledge to the Hive in a desperate attempt to gain a reprieve? After all, it had recently been confirmed that the wardens of the dreaded prison were corrupt enough to sell their prisoners to the Orochi Group for a bribe; they wouldn't hesitate to exploit any secrets their newest inmate might confess. Utterson had a point, admittedly… but that didn't make their current course any safer or saner.
Maffei's team was to transport Lorraine to the nearest of the Secret Roads accessible on Solomon Island, perhaps two miles from their current position… and unfortunately, their one helicopter was being held in reserve. He'd seen the drone survey of the island: almost every stretch of road on this hateful little island seemed to have a wrecked car or a broken-down bus littering it, and between then, hordes of zombies patrolled the asphalt in search of easy prey, some accompanied by even deadlier variants. It was bad enough that they'd have to slow down and risk attack while negotiating their way past obstacles, but they'd also have to contend with the few zombies who might just be able to keep up with the truck – or worse, claw their way inside.
Maffei could only console himself with the thought that, as dangerous as this was, at least the really dangerous creatures of the island didn't often stray onto the road: the Draug stuck close to the beaches, the Ak'ab and the Wendigo remained in the forests, the few golems almost never left the scrapyard, the ghosts were bound to their haunts at the mansion or the academy, the demons clung to their beachhead up at the motel, and the creatures of the Filth rarely ever left their pits of madness (thank Christ)..
He double-checked the truck one last time, carefully surveying Lorraine's restraints. He'd done this twice already, but then again, nobody ever died from being too careful, least of all in this line of work.
"Are we ready to go?" he called out.
There was an agreeing chorus of grunts from the three guards keeping an eye on Lorraine, followed closely by a bloodcurdling snarl of rage from Lorraine herself.
"Fuelled and ready to proceed on your command, sir," the driver yapped.
"Good. Now, let's get moving! Command expects the payload to be at Porto di Venezia within the hour, and we've already got our work cut out for us with this mess on the road, so let's not waste any more time…"
Grunkle Stan took a deep breath. "You know," he said wearily, "I'd like to say that this has been the craziest thing I've heard in the last five hours, but I'd be lying."
Scant minutes ago, their truck had finally stopped perhaps a mile from the pickup point, disgorging them out onto a narrow stretch of road somewhere on the western shore of Solomon Island. By then, the sun had finally managed to creep half-heartedly over the horizon, and while the light was ghostly pale and muted by the near-impenetrable clouds of Fog shrouding the island on all sides, it was just bright enough for the three of them to see their destination – a lonely wooden dock protruding out a few yards into the Atlantic Ocean. A nearby sign offered whale watching expeditions at competitive rates.
Before long, three large speedboats had rumbled into view in front of them; once the three of them had been ushered aboard the biggest of them, they found themselves forced to take a seat while the Council medics gave them a thorough once-over, taking blood samples and swabbing their inside of their mouths. None of them had any idea what this strange crew was looking for or what'd happen if any of them failed whatever test they were undergoing… but at least they'd been nice enough to clean the worst of the blood off Dipper's face and hat. Plus, while the doctors were busy reviewing their results, they had time to discuss everything that had happened so far – at least once they were certain that nobody was listening.
By now, they'd discussed all the relevant details, and while Dipper had almost recovered his composure, Stan was looking predicably bemused.
"So," he continued, "You think that if we can just get through to Lorraine, she'll somehow stop being crazy or brainwashed or whatever happened to her? Don't get me wrong, I've heard weirder things in my time, but I think it's a little late: there's not much point in trying to save her brain now that Utterson's packing her off to prison."
"Don't you think we should at least try to do the right thing?" said Mabel. "I mean, she's clearly not happy as she thinks she is, not from what Dipper's told us about her brain. I'm not saying we should break her out of prison, but we could at least make her feel a little better about herself; besides, we helped fix Old Man McGucket's mind – why not hers?"
"Plus," Dipper chimed in, "Whatever happened to her back in the 80s, it had to be something really magical. And then there's all the stuff she's been up to in the last few days: the ritual up at the motel, whatever she did that got the Sasquatches worried, even what the Council were trying to stop her from doing… I'm betting it all had something to do with Atlantic Island Park. Somehow, everything keeps creeping back to that old amusement park and whatever's under it."
"I noticed that too, but what's your point?"
"Well, if there really is something magical under the island, like whatever it was that Old Man Henderson was trying to get his hands on, then what if it's powerful enough to send us home? Just supposing, if we can get to the bottom of this mystery and undo what was done to Lorraine, we can get our hands on everything Grunkle Ford needs to build a portal home?"
There was a pause, as Grunkle Stan slowly mulled this over.
"There's a lot of ifs in this plan, kiddo," he said at last. "We don't know if this power will be safe to use or even if we can use it. Plus, we don't know what's waiting for us in that old park, and even if there isn't someone or something pulling the strings in there, it could still be more dangerous than anywhere else on the island."
"You've got to admit it's worth a try," Dipper wheedled. "I mean, it's better than just waiting around doing nothing. Besides, it's got to be safer than trying to use the same portals that the monsters at the Overlook are using to invade."
Stan sighed. "Alright, alright… But if we're gonna do this right, we've gotta have all the facts on the table. We need to know what we're up against… and I'd like to know how we're supposed to actually drag Lorraine outta crazytown: I mean, is there some kinda magic widget in the park that we can just switch off and have her back to normal? Or do we have to show her all the facts so that she can see that you're not actually Callum, or is there another weird magical ritual we have to perform? Because I'm all thumbs when it comes to candles and pentagrams."
"Maybe we should head to Atlantic Island Park first and check things out," suggested Mabel.
Dipper was already opening his mouth to agree when Grunkle Stan cut him off. "No."
"But-"
"You said that Lorraine didn't want to go anywhere near there, even to hide from the Council, remember? I don't know about you, but if the resident immortal bee-woman who can kill her way through armies of demons and shoot lightning out of her hands at will is scared of something, then I'd rather not play around with it. Let's leave exploring the park until we're ready for whatever's in there."
"Then how are we supposed to learn more about it if we can't explore?"
"There's still that hidden stash of documents near the lighthouse," Mabel pointed out.
"We've actually got to get over there first," Dipper pointed out. "Plus, if Winter's notes were right, it's still only supposed to tell us what Old Man Henderson was doing back at the turn of the century. Basically, it's a piece of the jigsaw puzzle, but not the one we need right now."
"Then it's time we brought in the big guns," said Grunkle Stan briskly. And without so much as bothering to explain himself, he drew a tiny silver cylinder from his pocket, tapped it experimentally, and announced, "Ford? Are you there?"
There was an answering buzz of static, and then Grunkle Ford's voice barked, "Is that you, Stanley?"
"Who else would it be, Poindexter?"
"Nevermind the sarcasm: what the hell happened back there? Why did you have to sign off so suddenly?"
"I got caught by the local Council of Venice goon squad. Long story short, I'm okay, they aren't out to kill us, and I've got Dipper and Mabel with me. He's been spelunking inside Lorraine's mindscape, she's been reading the files of the local monster-hunting club, and we're trying to find a solution to all this craziness by snapping Lorraine out of whatever happened to her – and we think Atlantic Island Park might be the key, plus a handy means of creating a portal home if all goes well. How are you doing?"
There was an awkward pause.
"You know," said Ford at last, "I think I may have well and truly corrupted you, Stanley: you're summarizing reams of complex data a lot more effectively than ever before."
"Ford…"
"Sorry. Er, to answer your question, I'm still at Innsmouth Academy; I'm safe for now, but I get the distinct impression that the faculty might just be trying to keep me from leaving the building."
"Why'd they want to do that?"
There another, slightly more awkward pause, as Stan checked to make sure none of the Council operatives were listening.
"Ford, did you tell them that you were from another dimension?"
"Er… yes. But it was the only way I could talk them into letting me access their library."
"Oh, for crying out loud, Ford… I'm already butting heads with the magical United Nations out here, and now you're sticking your head in the lion's mouth with whatever gang of weirdos are running that place?"
"It was the only thing I could do, remember? They wouldn't have let me anywhere near these books otherwise, and I need to know as much as possible about the magic of this reality if I'm going to devise a means of getting us home."
Dipper coughed loudly. "We were going to ask if you'd learned anything about Atlantic Island Park."
"Is that you, Dipper? Why does your voice sound so high all of a sudden?"
"We'll get to that."
"Are you getting younger?"
"We-will-get-to-that-in-the-fullness-of-time, Grunkle Ford," said Dipper forcefully, reflecting that his voice might have seemed slightly more authoritative if it hadn't sounded like it belonged to a fourth grader.
"Okay, okay… I've been doing some light reading of newspapers and historical accounts while I've been here-"
"In other words, only ten thousand pages," Grunkle Stan snickered.
"Har har. Anyway… Innsmouth Academy's remaining faculty have also allowed me to access a few of their less-classified volumes from their archives, I suspect as a bribe to keep me from leaving too soon. Now, these tomes are just collected histories of the occult and my copies have heavily censored, but they do mention that Solomon Island has had a very long history of violence and bloodshed, and most of it seems to involve something ancient and powerful hidden under the Blue Mountain."
"Do you have any idea what it is?"
"Very little. None of the texts mention it by name, and the faculty all feign ignorance. In any case, there's been a long procession of people who've tried to claim that hidden power as a prize. The first conflict occurred perhaps a thousand years ago: it was called the Darkness War, a clash between Mayan invaders and the Wabanaki tribes defending the island; the Mayans supposedly knew all about what was under the mountain and were trying to seize it for themselves, but they were thwarted by the arrival of a Norse ship carrying an ancient artifact – powerful enough to seal away whatever the Mayans were trying to unearth. Again, we don't know what the artifact is; as soon as the war was over, the Norsemen left with it, and it was believed lost at sea."
Grunkle Ford's brow furrowed deeply in thought, a sure sign that he was nurturing more suspicions than he was prepared to admit to. "Go on."
"Well, the power under the island wasn't disturbed again until well after the American colonial period. In 1876, a mining boom hit Kingsmouth and eventually led to the Blue Ridge Mining Company delving deep under the mountain for iron; the Wabanaki protested, but the company directors ignored them… up until miners started turning up dead. The mine was shut down in 1880 and nobody touched it again for nearly a century."
"And then there was Old Man Henderson in 1907, right?" said Dipper. "Lorraine told me a bit about him.
"That's right. There are all kinds of apocryphal accounts of him trying to harness whatever was hidden under the island, but most of his notes have been either hidden away in private archives, bought up by the secret societies, or plain destroyed. We don't know what rituals he used to access this power without digging, but terrorizing the locals seemed to be a popular theme."
"Then I guess we really will have to check out that archive near the lighthouse. What happened next?"
"Well, there were a lot of incidents surrounding a rumoured collection of rare occult literature owned by Frank Devore, the overseer of Blue Ridge Mine. He supposedly left it hidden away in the walls of his mansion."
"Are we talking about that old house on the hill over the Moon Bog?
"The Franklin Mansion, yes – previously known as the Devore Mansion. The story goes that anyone who made the mistake of discovering and reading this library ended up going mad. Again, I don't have the full details, but I have a sneaking suspicion that one of the books was borrowed by Henderson during his reign of terror – and returned with his notes scribbled in the margins. If my suspicions are correct, then it's Henderson's notes on how to harness this hidden power that drove the readers insane."
"Just how many times has this happened?"
"We have at least three confirmed cases: the first was Jonathan Delapore in 1918; he murdered his entire family with an axe, claimed that he'd "saved them from evil" before committing suicide-"
Grunkle Stan winced. "Is there any chance of getting the PG-rated version of this, Poindexter?"
"I'm already working with the expurgated edition, Stanley."
"…fair enough."
"Anyway, the second was in the 1960s: by then the mansion had become a hippie commune. Everything went well up until one of them, Billy Lee, found the library; he murdered almost the entire commune. The police claim that when they found him, he was naked in the Moon Bog, screaming prayers to 'The Ones Who Dream.'"
"The Ones Who Dream? Who the heck are they?"
"Again, I'm dealing with an expurgated edition. Our third case happened in the 1970s: by then, the mining companies had returned to the island and reopened Blue Ridge Mine, this time digging deeper than ever."
"I'm guessing that ended about as well as it did the last time."
"Worse, in fact. Once again, the Wabanaki protested, the executives ignored them, and several miners died – quite horrifically, too: some of the bodies were so badly mangled that they couldn't even be identified as human remains. At some point during all this mess, the foreman and latest owner of the mansion, Edmund Franklin, stumbled upon the secret library; current records don't state precisely when, but it is known that he murdered a Wabanaki medicine man protesting the mine. The courts were stacked in favour of the mining company, so the foreman went free on the grounds of self-defence. Not long after that, he hanged himself in his home. After another series of fatalities, the mine was shut down again, and it's been inactive ever since then… so we can assume that whatever this power is, it still hasn't been uncovered by any of the excavation attempts so far."
"And then Winter showed up?"
"…in a rather roundabout way. Nathaniel Winter's sudden interest in the occult seems to have come largely out of nowhere: his business interests were largely mundane for most of his life. However, in the late 1960s, he seems to have briefly surrendered control of his empire to a second-in-command while he spent several months in New York; there's no record as to what he was up to over there, but newspaper articles suggest that he was undergoing heart surgery at some highly-exclusive private clinic. What is known is that he left in 1970, reportedly in a very bitter mood; sources close to him claim that he was heard muttering about how "I offered them my hand in friendship, and they spat on it!"'
Dipper hummed. "Let me guess: they don't mention exactly who they were, right?"
"Unfortunately, yes. What we do know is that Winter then took an extended vacation and went on an extended trip around the world: Bermuda, Mexico City, Stonehenge, Santorini, Crete… he even rented a submersible and went exploring along the Calypso Deep. Now, Dipper, what do all of these locations have in common?"
"Oh god," Stan groaned. "You were just waiting to give a lecture on the subject, weren't you, Poindexter?"
"They're all associated with supernatural activity," said Dipper excitedly. "The Bermuda Triangle, the ruins of Tenochtitlan, the ley lines of Stonehenge, Santorini's a popular contender for the site of Atlantis, Crete had the Minoan Labyrinth…"
"Very good."
"But does that mean he was looking for magical sites to harness from the very beginning?"
"I can't tell: all I've got are the most publicized accounts. However, there were two locations he visited that really caught my eye: the first, before he ventured far overseas, was Glass Shard Beach, New Jersey."
Stan let out a strangled burst of laughter. "Hang on, Ford… you're saying that this guy actually stopped by our hometown while looking for magical sites? The only thing magical about Glass Shard Beach was the saltwater taffy!"
"Don't knock it, Stanley: he found something. Whatever it was, Winter stayed in Verdegris Lane for two weeks trying to access it properly, until a spat with the locals forced him out of town. A month later, a massive fire ripped through the area, practically wiped the Lead Paint district off the map."
"…You're kidding."
"Never in cases like this."
"Does that mean that in this dimension, we're-"
"I'm afraid so: our names were mentioned both on the front page and the obituaries."
"My god, Ford, have you ever heard of a white lie?"
"Aaaaaanyway… Winter eventually ended up on Solomon Island for a preliminary sweep of the land, but he still took his time in actually buying the Henderson property. It wasn't until he took a quick sojourn into Oregon that he apparently made up his mind."
"Wait a minute… Oregon? But I thought you said that Gravity Falls was burned to the ground in this dimension!"
Dipper executed a perfect double-take. "Wait, WHAT?"
"Who did what with the who now?!" Mabel demanded.
Ford took a deep breath and delivered a somewhat rushed summary everything he'd read about the destruction of Gravity Falls, beginning with the start of the catastrophic fire and ending with the death of the remaining Northwest children.
"Now," he continued, "Nobody's sure what prompted him to take such an interest in a town that had been completely depopulated for the last sixty years, but Nathaniel Winter didn't leave empty-handed: books, portraits, statuary… he even recovered a tapestry and kept it on display in his office, mounted on the wall behind his desk."
"A tapestry?" Dipper echoed.
"One that, according to Winter's business partners, seems to depict a giant triangular figure being worshipped by tiny humans."
There was an ominous pause.
Dipper took a deep breath, feeling that all-too familiar chill creeping down the length of his spine and seeping deep into his bones. "Okay," he said, unable to keep the nervous quaver out of his voice. "I think we can all agree that was a very, very bad sign. If Gravity Fall burned down in this dimension… what happened to Bill? Is he still around?"
For a few seconds, there was radio silence. "I don't know, Dipper," said Ford at last. "All I've been able to confirm is that Winter took the tapestry with him when he retreated inside Atlantic Island Park post-closure… and when his body was finally recovered, he'd been wrapped in the tapestry like a shroud."
"So… whatever happened to Lorraine, Winter wasn't to blame for it?" Dipper asked tentatively. "I mean, if they've got a body and they confirmed it was him, then he really is dead, right?"
"One would think so… provided something weirder isn't in play."
"Then what if…" Dipper thought carefully for a moment. "What if Old Man Henderson wasn't killed back in the early 20th century? What all those rumours about him being murdered by his daughter or one of his creations were just tall tales, and he survived long enough to get his hands on the power under the island? I mean, that note from the League of Monster Slayers said that there's a monster in the park calling itself "Old Man"; what if it's Henderson? What if he was behind whatever happened to Lorraine and Callum?"
Mabel made a face. "I dunno, Dipper, that sounds like a tall order for someone who everyone was calling "old" back in 1906. We've seen some pretty weird stuff this summer, and even weirder stuff on this island, but the philosopher's stone island isn't one of them. I mean, maybe he could have preserved himself in peanut brittle like Quentin Tremblay, but something tells me that Henderson might be a bit too serious for that kinda thing."
"What about the power under Solomon Island? Could that make Henderson immortal, freeze him in time or something?"
There was a muffled humming from the other end of the radio. "Still not enough information on the island itself," said Grunkle Ford at last. "But I know from experience that people across the multiverse have tried to use wellsprings of magical energy for that very reason, most commonly by channelling it directly into their bodies. It's a very difficult and dangerous process, and not without extreme side-effects even in the event of success… but obtaining eternal life via mystical sites of power is possible. And that's not all."
"What do you mean?"
"Depending on the nature of the power source, immortality could just be the tip of the iceberg: infused with all that energy could grant you all manner of magical powers. Superhuman strength, astral projection, telekinesis, shapeshifting, telepathy, perception manipulation, instinctive necromancy, spacetime distension, reality control… depending on the puissance of the source you tap into, you could very well become a god – figuratively or literally. Unfortunately for the people who've tried, the more potent sources are often the most dangerous and volatile, hence why so few have succeeded… or survived failing."
Dipper considered this: inside his head, ideas were plunging downhill, gradually building into a snowball that only grew bigger and bigger with every possibility it gathered as it picked up speed. "Let's just say he succeeded," he said excitedly. "If so, it's possible that Henderson has been alive for all this time, hiding away in the shadows. Maybe that's why Atlantic Island Park had so many accidents: Henderson was using the powers he gained from the power source to sabotage the park from behind the scenes."
"But why?" said Mabel.
"Well, maybe he wanted revenge for Nathaniel Winter tearing down his old farm. Or maybe he was trying to keep him from trying to tap into the same power source as him. Or maybe, just maybe, he was playing Winter the whole time: one of his diary entries said that Henderson showed him the way to freedom, and that he wouldn't have led him astray, or something like that. What if that wasn't just a figure of speech? Let's say that Henderson meets Winter on his first visit to the island, makes him a few offers just like Bill used to: basically, Winter does all the work that Henderson can't do himself, either because he doesn't have all the power he needs or because he just wants to stay out of the spotlight; in return, Winter gets to share in Henderson's power. Atlantic Island Park is built as a kind of magical laboratory that the Old Man can take over, and it's even built right on top of the old farm just so he can feel at home. But then Henderson sabotages the place so that he doesn't have to share it with anyone, and once the two of them are alone in the park, Henderson murders Winter."
"I guess that makes sense," said Grunkle Stan. "But if that's true, what's he been doing all this time? I mean, immortality could be a pretty sweet gig, but if I ever managed it, I'd wanna spend it on an island in the Caribbean, surrounded by supermodels and mojitos – not in some broken-down amusement park off the coast of Maine. If this Henderson character really does have magic up the wazoo, then why hasn't he taken over the world, made himself a bigger millionaire than Winter, or done something interesting with all the powers he's got on tap."
"Maybe he wouldn't need to," suggested Ford. "If he really does have that much power, he could quite literally make his own entertainment. Even if he doesn't have the power to warp reality, he could still do any one of a number of magical things to amuse himself."
"…are you seriously saying that, after all the weird and crazy things we've fought, we're now up against an all-powerful couch potato?"
"I'm just suggesting ideas, Stanley: I don't even know if this hypothesis we're building is even close to the truth. I need more info."
"But if it is Old Man Henderson, why would he do whatever he did to Lorraine and Callum?" asked Mabel. "I mean, from the way you made it sound, Dipper, he just wanted revenge on Winter. Why would he just decide to torture two complete strangers?"
"Maybe that was just who he was," said Dipper. "Lorraine told me stories about how he was killing travellers for their hearts and bringing plagues down on the Wabanaki for years before he went AWOL. Or maybe there's something even creepier at work on his land that he didn't want anyone disturbing? We already know what he did to people who got too interest in his daughter; maybe, if he found something he wanted to protect on that land, he'd want to hurt anyone who got too close."
"But… I mean, we're already guessing that he murdered Callum-"
"And used the power he unlocked to erase him from the memories of everyone on the island," added Ford.
"-Exactly! Who'd want to kill a kid, just to stop someone from accidentally getting close? It doesn't make any sense!"
"Mabel, the last guy who tried dating Henderson's daughter ended up getting transformed into a pumpkin monster. I don't think he cares about what makes sense and what doesn't anymore."
"What about Dipper getting younger?" said Grunkle Stan. "Where does that fit into Henderson's master plan, or whatever this is?"
"It doesn't," said Ford. "Maybe it's due to Lorraine: perhaps she got so close to the power under the island that a tiny bit of it might have rubbed off on her somehow, and now it's being expressed through the one person she'd care enough to use it for – if only subconsciously." He coughed. "Uh, Mabel, could you check Dipper's forehead for a second?"
"Sorry?"
"Just indulge me: this'll make sense in just a second."
Mabel obligingly reached out, plucked the newly-cleaned hat off Dipper's head and swept aside a few stray locks of his hair. For a moment, she could only peer down at his undefended forehead in confusion. Then, her eyes widened: "Your birthmark's faded," she said at last. "Pretty sure your hair's gotten darker, too."
"Faded?" Dipper echoed.
"That's what it looks like: it's almost like someone's halfway washed off a temporary tattoo."
"Then that confirms at least part of my theory," said Ford. "You're not just getting younger, Dipper: you're being transformed into Callum, exactly as he was when he died. Somehow, Lorraine's obsession with you has become so powerful that her delusions have become superimposed on you in the real world."
Dipper's heart, already plumbing new depths, sank lower than ever before. "Well, that's just brilliant," he mumbled. "Here I was, thinking things couldn't get any worse."
"No, no, it's actually a good thing: if she wants to make you more like her son, then that's almost certainly a sign that Lorraine is losing faith in her delusions – or that whatever's interfered with her mind is losing strength as time goes on. If that's true, then it might just be possible to get through to her."
"If we get a chance to speak to her again," said Stan, gloomily.
"There's just one other question I wanted to ask: just before Mabel woke me up, I was having the weirdest dream – I think it might have been one of Lorraine's memories. Now, I've already used the mindscape spell on Lorraine; could that have caused this?"
"Not really. Does Lorraine have any latent psychic abilities – anything that wouldn't be connected to the abilities she gained from the Bee?"
Dipper thought for a moment. "One of the memories I viewed in the mindscape mentioned that she had a few dormant psychic powers, but never anything really powerful."
"Then we can assume that her abilities have been activated by her connection with the Bee. I'd say that this memory exchange is some kind of psychic link, most likely the result of Lorraine's obsession with you: she's so desperate to form a connection with the boy she believes is her son, she's unwittingly connected her brain with yours. Hence, your mind with occasionally perceive her most vivid memories as dreams."
"Great."
"It's not as bad as it sounds. If the connection ever gets strong enough, you might be able to activate it at will!"
"Why the heck would I want to do that?"
"Oh, the reasons are almost too many to count. If the link between you ever becomes stable enough, you can make Lorraine experience your emotions, thoughts, memories, dreams, even consciously access your respective mindscapes. In fact, in high-magic environments, you might even find that it's possible to add other people to the same link: all they'd need to do would be to touch your forehead – or Lorraine's forehead – and concentrate."
Mabel grinned. "Are you saying we could visit Dipper's Mindscape?"
"Absolutely. I remember, back when Fiddleford and I were forging a path through the woods of Gravity Falls, we accidentally tapped into the psychic network of a cave-dwelling psychic toad, and you would not believe the hours of fun we had in each other's mindscapes. I actually got lost in Fiddleford's archive of dreams and he had to rescue me from one about getting stuck in a huge swamp of whipped cream and-"
"What is taking so long?" snapped an imperious voice from the dock; Dipper couldn't see who the voice belonged to, as that end of the dock was almost invisible behind a knot of cowering medics, but he recognized that it belonged to the man who'd been sitting in the cab of the armoured truck – the man who Grunkle Stan seemed to think was in charge.
There was an anxious sounding cough, and another voice replied – this one from the chief medic. "We're still analysing the samples, Colonel Utterson. We can confirm no airborne Filth exposure in any of the family-"
"Then why the hell haven't we left?!"
"We're finding all kinds of other anomalous signs: a few can be attributed to Lorraine and possibly the energy surrounding the Henderson property, but most of them are completely unrecognizable. I mean, the boy has clearly been the victim of some form of possession, but even the most extreme forms of possession don't leave an energy signature of this magnitude. The psychic scarring on the old man is nothing short of horrific – by rights, any assault of that nature should have destroyed his mind entirely. And as for the girl… I've only ever seen cases of thaumaturgical irradiation in Bees who've been touched by the Dreamers."
"Look, is there any reason why we can't conduct this little tete-a-tete at a more secure location – preferably one where we're not at risk of being killed by roaming zombies?"
"Colonel, you said we needed to take all necessary precautions before moving them off the island-"
"Precautions concerning the Filth, not literally everything under the sun! Now that you've confirmed that they're not infected, we can postpone all further examine and continue this parade of research in Venice. Yes?"
"…yes."
"Good. Now pack up your equipment and get moving; I want all three of these oddities off the island before 9 AM. I don't care whether we can send them home or if we have to make them a home in the research department: they're getting off this island. As always, the boy is to be given priority of care. Is that understood?"
"Yes, Colonel Utterson."
The unseen colonel sighed and began pushing his way through the crowd of medics and onto the boat. Immediately, Stan whispered a quick warning into the commlink and stuffed it into his jacket pocket before the colonel could see it; a moment later, Utterson himself strode into view, resplendent in his white uniform and glittering medals.
"Thank you for your patience," he said briskly. "We'll be on our way out of here very soon; with a little luck, you'll be back in Oregon by lunchtime."
Dipper looked up at the colonel as he marched to a stop in front of him, ready to ask after Lorraine and how she was being treated… and in that moment, he got his first clear look at Utterson's face. With a jolt of shock, Dipper recognized him: even after all these years and all the promotions he'd undergone, he still had the same bland, clerkish face, the same piercing blue eyes, the same well-trimmed moustache, the same carefully-combed blonde hair – now heavily streaked with grey. And even though Dipper had never met him in person and had no reason to feel anything about him other than suspicion , the sight of this man, alive, healthy, respected, and successful, was enough to make Dipper's blood begin to boil.
"You," he whispered.
Utterson looked strangely at him; for a moment, it almost seemed as if the colonel recognized Dipper as well, though of course, they had never met before this moment.
"I know you," said Dipper, slowly getting to his feet. "I saw you in Lorraine's memories. You were outside the p-"
A sharp, throbbing pain rippled through his skull, instantly cutting him short.
"What did he just say?" asked one of the doctors.
"Nothing," said Utterson quickly. "Absolutely nothing. Now, I think it's time we got these people away from the dock before we start drawing too much attention-"
But even with the pain rippling through his head, Dipper was too upset to let the man off the hook now, least of all after nearly getting him shot. "You were there!" he all but shouted. "You were the talent scout! You set Lorraine up at Atlantic Island Park just so you could figure out what was going inside, and when that didn't work, you recruited her!"
"Wait, what?" blurted Mabel.
"You had a chance to stop all this before it even started! You could have saved Callum, you could have saved Lorraine, you could have had the park torn down, but no – you just sat back and let it happen, then you-"
Another ripple of pain shot through his skull, this one worse than ever.
"I think you should sit down and think very carefully about what you're saying, young man," said Utterson; his voice was almost deathly calm, but his eyes were already narrowing in frustration, his gloved hands balling into fists as he slowly advanced on Dipper. "You're clearly not in possession of the facts here. Even if you really did see Lorraine's memories, so what? She's mentally ill: her memories could tell you that the sky was red and the ocean black, but it wouldn't necessarily be true, would it?"
Dipper laughed. It was a little hard to think now, but the anger bubbling in the pit of his skull wouldn't let him let the matter rest. "I know what I saw," he snarled. "I spoke to the Bee inside her – the one you forced on her! What I saw was real; everything you did to her was real-"
"Young man, I don't think you want to continue this line of inquiry-"
"Oh, is this how you talked Lorraine into doing your dirty work? You told her what she wanted, told her what to think and what to feel, told her that it was the only way you'd be able to keep her safe from the Illuminati. Don't give me that innocent look, I know what you did! You hurt my mommy!"
There was a horror-stricken pause, as Dipper belatedly realized what he'd just said, clapping a hand to his mouth in shock. Then that familiar stabbing pain rippled across his head, and suddenly, he felt himself begin to change, his limbs tingling as if with static electricity, his flesh rippling and flowing like water, his clothes growing huge on him as he underwent some new and horrific transformation.
And then the pain hit.
Grunkle Ford had once told him that, in hindsight, they'd been incredibly lucky when it came to transformations in Gravity Falls: magical transfiguration – like the kind you'd get from the size-changing crystals or Bill's reality-warping powers – sidestepped most of the nastier steps you'd find in biologically transitioning from one form to another, so it was almost completely painless… unless the caster wanted it to hurt. By contrast, purely biological shapeshifting was a much harsher method: if you weren't born with the necessary abilities, having your body forced into a new shape was a messy, complicated, and horribly painful business … and now, Dipper was learning just true that was – the hard way.
Crashing to the deck, he lay there in a shivering, convulsing heap, screaming in agony as his body caved in on itself: his bones melted and contracted inside his flesh, leaving his oozing skin and muscles struggling to keep up with his withering skeleton. He was dimly aware that Mabel was kneeling next to him, holding his hand and shouting for help, occasionally murmuring that everything was going to be alright – but all Dipper could focus on was how huge her hand seemed compared to his. Suddenly, Mabel seemed so much taller than him; he was in a world of giants, and he was only getting smaller. He was dimly aware of his skull collapsing and reforming, the pain in his head briefly hitting a crescendo as his scream grew higher and higher; then he blacked out.
When he came to, he was surrounded by concerned looking faces; he couldn't tell how much he'd changed, but he could guess that he was even younger now: his shirt and vest now hung off him like a smock, his shorts were pooled around his knees, his shoes were so big he could easily step out of them, and his hat – which was now lying on the floor next to him – looked as if it would probably end up collapsing over his nose if he tried to put it on.
"Dipper? Are you alright?"
He looked up, suddenly wondering who Dipper was… and then, looking up at the worried face of the older girl staring down at him, he realized with horror that he didn't know who she was. Even more terrifyingly, a part of him was panicking at being surrounded by so many unfamiliar faces, and demanding that he should run, find Mommy or a policeman and stay with them until it was safe. And even though an older, more rational part of his mind was insisting that everything was okay, this new, childish self was hammering so violently on the override switches that it was he could do not to scream.
He shook himself, struggling to recall basic facts, but it took nearly thirty seconds for him to remember his own name, and even longer to remember that the figure kneeling over him was his sister.
In the end, Dipper could only shake his head. "I'm scared," he admitted at last, his voice a childish squeak.
How old was he now? Five? Six? How much time did he have left before he became Callum and forgot literally everything about his old self?
And then, just as he thought things couldn't possibly get any worse, there was a worried muttering from the helm of the boat.
"Uh, Colonel Utterson? Captain Maffei's transponder just went offline some distance from the nearest exit. He's not responding to our hails."
Utterson's face, already grim and unsmiling, turned very grave. "And Lorraine?"
"No sightings, yet, sir."
"What about the tracking chip? Surely that'd still be transmitting?"
"Just one moment, sir…"
There was a pause, as the technicians on deck busied themselves with pressing buttons and worrying at control panels. Eventually, a large hologram screen popped into existence in the air just above the wheel; it looked to be a map of Solomon Island illuminated with tiny coloured dots, with their current location on the eastern coast highlighted by a large white circle. However, most of the technicians seemed to be focussing on a bright gold dot sitting just outside a location marked "Kingsmouth."
"That's Lorraine, sir," said the nearest technician. "Whatever happened to Maffei, she hasn't moved yet."
"Good; optimistic projections would suggest that the truck has either broken down or run off the road. Regardless of whether Captain Maffei is alive or dead, the payload is still contained. Send word to any of our teams in the area to secure the area until another truck can retrieve her. In the meantime-"
"Um, sir?"
"What is it now?"
Without saying a word, the technician pointed to the map: the gold dot representing Lorraine was now in motion, rocketing away from Kingsmouth and heading eastwards – towards the dock.
A/N: Up next... guess. Just kidding - check the code for more hints, and feel free to share your theories on what might happen next :)
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