Gravity Falls: Once More

by Absolute Rift

Four years after their faithful summer of weird, Dipper and Mabel finally return to the legendary town of Gravity Falls. Despite having new adventures and mysteries to take on, they are still tailed by the challenges that come with navigating teenage life. With friends and enemies, both new and old, the Pines must prepare themselves for whatever awaits them. (Cover by pau sketches)

46. Back With A Vengeance: Part 2

Back With A Vengeance: Part 2

---

Jumping down into the Corduroys' old wine cellar, Mabel, Ford, Soos, Melody, and the three Corduroy brothers found themselves sliding down a long, dark, and slimy hole with skin walls punctured by long, individual piercing teeth, some could only wonder where they were possibly going to end up at the bottom. Others just screamed as they slid against the salivating flesh walls.

The entire time they slid, it had been nothing but pitch black darkness enveloping them. However, that darkness soon began to fade as a dim luminance progressively brightened as they slid closer to what seemed like the end of the ride.

Soon, everybody came pouring out one-by-one off the skin slide and out a bright hole, sending them plummeting several feet from above onto the ground.

While the fall wasn't anywhere near-deadly, it still wasn't gracious. Scattered amongst the ground, everyone groaned in pain as traces of whatever saliva or liquid the slide had covered them in dripped off of them.

"Ugh…" Mabel groaned as she sat up, holding her head in pain. "Think that might've been the first slide I actually don't want to go on again."

Soos sat up and examined the apparent saliva dripping from his arms. "Ew… I feel like I was part of the plot of an anime that went incredibly wrong. Or incredibly right depending on the type of anime."

"For once, I'm glad I don't understand that reference," Melody said as she sat up as well.

"There you all are!"

Everybody looked up and saw Dipper standing before them, completely unharmed and safe. He walked up to Mabel, grabbing her hand and pulling her up from the floor.

"Dipper! You're alive!" she shouted gleefully as she stood up to her feet before making a quick analysis of their immediate surroundings. "And we're not dissolving in stomach acid!"

"Of course we're not," Dipper chuckled. "You think I'd jump down here if it was?"

"Hey, wait a minute…" Marcus suddenly cut off as he and his brothers looked around frantically. "Where's dad?!"

Just as Soos finished picking himself back up to his feet, he was suddenly slammed back down as Wendy's statue fell right on top of him from above, prompting a shocked gasp from Melody. Not too long after, Manly Dan himself came plunging down from above as well. Except unlike everybody else, Dan managed to actually land effortlessly on his feet rather than splatting against the ground as they did.

"Oh, hey! There they are!" Soos casually announced despite the weight of Wendy's statue crushing him at that moment.

"Well, it looks like everybody made it down in one piece," Ford noted aloud just as Dan caught up. "Now we just gotta figure out where we- AH!"

Ford ducked down just as a flock of small eye-bats very suddenly passed by him and the others. They flew by swiftly, making their way under a large stone bridge that suddenly came into view as everybody glanced in their direction.

It was at that moment when everybody except for Dipper began to take in exactly where they were. From the ceiling they had fallen from, they had entered a sort of giant, once open, cavernous space that had since been transformed into a sort of large, underground market. But not just any normal market.

No, this was a market run by the supernatural themselves.

Paranormal creatures, both big and small; short and tall; furry or feathery or prickly or slimy or just total abominations; they all roamed the streets of this vast marketplace. Some of them stood around at corner stands selling their own items. Others took more active and traveling salespeople roles, either going door-to-door on foot or through using their vehicles as stands. And those who didn't sell anything were consumers who bought from these creatures.

While looking at these creatures in particular though, one couldn't help but notice just how sketchy in appearance many of them looked. There were thieving crows holding shiny amulets, fairies holding crowbars and jewel bags, dirty gnomes dealing fairy dust to armed goblins. Even a unicorn started running away after stealing a golf club from a market stand, which, ironically, belonged to a Lilliputtian.

Almost nobody there looked particularly innocent, for that matter. Everybody looked like they had similar thieving or greedy intentions with their long faces, mostly roughened and scarred appearances and overall hostile vibes.

It was like everybody had at least a few years of prison under their belt. Whatever prison even was for all these various creatures of different species and origins. Maybe Stan would get along well with these people. If he was conscious, that was.

Various different paranormal salespeople called out from their stands and shops.

"Eyeball juice! Get your eyeball juice here! Doesn't help your eyesight, but it's a good drink and it calms the nerves!"

"Mighty Mel's Magic Shop here sellin' everything magic! I got magic wands, magic amulets, magic hats... just come on by with yer wallet and let's make some magic!"

"Cursed items! We got loads and loads of cursed items! Cursed record players, cursed mirrors, cursed board games, cursed stuffed animals, cursed whatever! If you're looking to curse somebody, then this is the place to shop!"

Mabel stepped forward, looking around the market curiously. "Where are we?"

"What is this place of wonder and smell of crime?" Soos also asked as his eyes gleamed while starring around the market in pure awe.

"Okay, you can smell crime?" Melody asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Years of working for Stan will give some strange new abilities," Soos claimed as he gestured to Stan as he once again continued to hold his body over his shoulder. "I know how to commit tax fraud now and he never even taught me!"

"Well, it's a good thing I manage our finances," Melody said with a somewhat disturbed look.

Ford took a few steps over toward a nearby sign, which read 'The Local Crawlspace - Market of the Damned'.

"Of course…" Ford realized. "I can't believe I forgot about this place!"

"You know this place, Grunkle Ford?" Mabel asked as she walked up to him alongside Dipper.

"We seem to be in the once-fabled Crawlspace," Ford revealed. "It serves as the spot where the thieving paranormal creatures of the night hide during the day. An entirely self-ran, underground black market."

"I actually uncovered this place with Pacifica four summers back when we were chasing down Mr. What's His Face," Dipper reminded.

"Oh, you mean the meatball-headed guy who stole my face?" Mabel suddenly remembered. "Now I know why this place smells so familiar…"

"But, are we safe from Bill down here?" Soos asked as he looked back up at the hole they had fallen down from somewhat nervously.

"Actually, I think we are," Ford nodded. "As far as I'm aware, the only way to properly access the Crawlspace is with the use of a key at any of the many specifically designated entrances."

Gus raised an eyebrow. "But… our cellar?"

"Well, Dan did claim that you all haven't used it in a fairly long time. I suppose at some point, some paranormal creatures managed to turn it into another hidden entrance. Most likely in your sleep or while out of sight," Ford explained.

"You mean for the last few years, I've been having a buncha monsters secretly coming into my cellar when I ain't know it?" Dan realized, growing somewhat angry. "Buncha FREELOADERS!"

"Shhh! Guys, look, we gotta keep it down," Dipper warned in a quieter voice. "If there's anything I remember about this place from last time I was down here, it's that this isn't a place for humans like us. If any of these guys find out we're human, they'll auction us away to the highest bidding monster."

"Dipper's correct," Ford nodded. "From what I've gathered during my earlier research, our kind isn't welcome here in the Crawlspace. This place was built by the paranormal for the paranormal. So if we plan on getting through this place, we're going to need to lay low and not draw attention to ourselves. Though considering just how vast this place may be, that may not be easy…"

Soos rubbed his chin as he thought. "Maybe we could use some clever disguises to blend in with the other monsters!"

"Now that you say that, I just remembered that I had actually just finished implementing an impromptu disguise protocol into Meridian." Ford sighed. "Unfortunately, however, Bill destroyed Meridian, so that's clearly not an option anymore."

Mabel's eyes suddenly lit up. "OOH! I can work us up some disguises!"

"You sure about that?" Dipper asked skeptically.

"Duh!" Mabel assured. "You already know that I've been designing my entire wardrobe for years now. Plus, I used to work in costume design at our school's theatre department, so I know I can come up with something both convincing AND creative for each of us!"

Ford took a brief moment to ponder the idea himself. "Well, I don't think we currently have any other options, so I say unleash your creativity, Mabel!" he said with an approving smile. "Looking around though, I can't say I'm particularly sure what you consider using to make these disguises…"

"Don't worry, Grunkle Ford," Mabel told him before diving a hand through the neck hole of her sweater and whipping out a pair of shades, throwing them on for style. "Just let Mabel do what Mabel does best."

With the cross of her arms, she posed, pausing for stylistic effect. She stood silently for a moment, which brought about confused looks from just about everybody around her.

Dipper narrowed his eyes. "Okay, I hope you know we're still on the run here."

"Gimme five minutes," she finally spoke out.

---

[5 Minutes Later]

---

Mabel put some finishing touches as she drew on Ford's face with one of her makeup brushes. She then picked up a ripped up top hat that she had found from a nearby trash bin and placed it amongst his head. Standing back, she smiled at her work.

"There we go!" she said as she passed him her pocket mirror so he could examine himself. "Huh? What do you think, Grunkle Ford? Pretty not-human if you ask me."

Ford looked at himself in Mabel's pocket mirror, raising an eyebrow as he examined what she has done to him. Using some sort of black-colored makeup, she drew a long handlebar mustache right under his nose. Additionally, she had drawn various open circles around the sides of his face, which seemed to represent additional eyes. Lastly, she had painted the gap between his eyebrows, making it look like he had a single monobrow.

"Erm, well, I seem to bear a striking resemblance to the Necronomiconopoly Guy…" Ford noted causally. "...when he was alive, that is."

Besides Ford, almost everybody else had already been disguised to different extents. Soos had been similarly face-painted like Ford, except he was given makeup that made him look something like a cat, with whiskers and drawn chubby cheeks and a nose on his nose. Beside him, Melody stood without makeup but instead, wearing a large cardboard box that hung over her normal outfit with armholes cut out. On the box were very hastily drawn buttons, which seemed to give off the implication that she was supposed to be dressed as a robot of some sort.

"Okay, just wondering, just because you drew whiskers on me doesn't mean I have to actually act like a cat, does it?" Soos asked as he rubbed his neck awkwardly. "I mean, I will if I have to...but I'd kind of prefer not to…"

Melody looked down at her box disguise with uncertainty. "Honest question, but does this cardboard box make me look fat?"

Behind them, Marcus, Kevin, and Gus had what may have been the simplest disguises. With no face paint, they all seemed to sport different hoods and coats that concealed the sides of their heads. And since all the boys had decent lengthed hair, Mabel had parted them in ways that covered their faces slightly. It was hard to tell what creatures they were really supposed to represent, but they were disguises at least.

Further to the side, Dipper's disguise had him sporting white face paint as he wore his hoodie over his bomber hat, making it look like he was slightly taller rather than wearing a hat. He was the least amused out of everybody.

"Mabel, I don't think we're fooling anybody into thinking we're not humans with just face paint, hoods, and cardboard boxes," he told her bluntly with clear annoyance in his tone.

"Well, did you want these disguises fast or did you want them well done? Because you can't have both," she snapped back at him.

"I would've preferred them to be effective," he argued.

"Then they're fine. Trust me!" Mabel assured him.

"Mabel, Stan's disguise is just a paper bag over his head!" Dipper reminded her, gesturing over toward Stan as he laid unconsciously against a nearby wall with a paper bag covering his face. The paper bag itself had a very rushed smiley face drawn on it.

Mabel glanced to the side and spotted a very large and buff creature with one eye. He wore a suit and a light blue tie and stomped by toweringly as he held a giant bag over his shoulder. With a sudden idea, Mabel then looked back at Dipper and grinned.

"Well, let's test it out then," she suggested as she threw on her own box disguise, similar to Melody's, before running up to the bulky creature passing by.

Realizing what she was about to do, Dipper reached a hand out to her. "Mabel, no!"

"Hey there, Ken!" Mabel called out as she caught the monster's attention, prompting him to stop in place and pay her a stern glance with his eye. "Loving the tie! It really brings out the indigo of your horribly grotesque eyeball!"

The monster stared at her bright smile for a good moment, paying her a very questionable look. He then glanced back at Dipper and the others as they stood far behind her, analyzing their appearances skeptically. As he turned back to Mabel, he narrowed his eye.

"Firstly, my name isn't Ken. It's Randalf. And normally, I step on anyone who gets that wrong," the monster said in a deep, bellowing voice that reinforced his already menacing nature. However, he unexpectedly proceeded to give her a slight smile. "However, your positive demeanor and compliment toward my tie makes you worthy of my respect. I hope you have a great day, fellow monster."

The monster proceeded to wave in Mabel's direction with his free hand. She waved back as she watched him turn ahead of himself and continue on his way through the market. As he left their sight, she paid Dipper yet another grin.

"You were saying?"

"Hold on. What about me?" Manly Dan suddenly intervened as she walked up to Mabel, appearing completely unchanged compared to everybody. "Where's my disguise?"

"Oh, you don't need a disguise, Manly Dan!" Mabel assured him. "With your towering presence and all that chest hair puffing out of literally every hole in your shirt, I don't think there'll be any suspicions about you being a human around here."

Dan then glanced down at the thick amounts of untrimmed chest hair puffing out of his shirt. Thinking over Mabel's explanation for his lack of need for a disguise made him question his grooming choices.

"Point taken," he replied blankly.

Amidst their exchange, Stan had started to cough softly inside the paper bag he wore over his head.

"Stanley!" Ford quickly kneeled to his brother's side. He took the paper bag off of his face and examined him just as Dipper, Mabel, and Soos rushed up to them.

"Is he awake?" Mabel asked with a look of concern.

Ford's eyes widened as he continued to analyze Stan's condition. "Oh, lord… this doesn't look good…"

"What's wrong?" Dipper asked, growing nervous.

"I don't know, but he doesn't look to be doing any better. His face is paler than it was before." Ford then put a hand over Stan's chest. "His heartbeat is also uneven. Oh, I'm not liking this at all."

"We gotta do something then!" Soos said anxiously.

Dipper thought for a moment. "Are there any doctors down here?"

"I imagine so, but I'm unsure how I feel about taking Stan to paranormal healthcare. That could easily blow our cover," Ford considered hesitantly.

"Well, we can't just leave Grunkle Stan like this! What if he's dying?" Mabel asked.

"No… no, don't say that!" Soos shook his head, refusing to believe that be the case. "Anything but that!"

Ford sighed as he placed the paper bag back over Stan's head and proceeded to pick him up from the ground. "I suppose blowing our cover is a risk I'm going to have to take then. I'll have a look around for any sort of medical professional down here, or whatever counts as a medical professional in a paranormal black market that is." He looked over at Soos as he held Stan up to him. "Soos, if you don't mind..."

"Of course, Ford," Soos nodded as he took Stan from Ford's hands, holding him back over his shoulder.

"I'll come along," Melody said as she stepped beside Soos.

"So will we," Mabel offered as she stepped forward with Dipper, who nodded in agreement.

"No," Ford shook his head as he looked back at the twins. "I encourage you two to stay put here with Dan and the boys. I know we'll draw too much attention to ourselves if we all travel through this market in such a large group."

"Grunkle Ford, c'mon!" Mabel opposed. "Stan's our family too."

"Trust me, I understand, but I need you both to understand just as well that this is for your own safety," he urged. "Between Stan and poor Wendy, we're already on the verge of enough loss as it is. We shouldn't be taking any bigger risks than we need to in our current situation. So please listen to me when I say that by staying put, you're keeping the risk low. Please."

Ford gave the two one last stern look, but one that showed genuine care and sincerity. As such, rather than arguing further, the twins just stood and watched as he walked off with Soos, who carried Stan.

Melody, on the other hand, stood by the twins' side for a moment, giving them both a look of sincerity herself.

"Don't worry, guys. Stan's in good hands," she assured them. "Look, I know this whole situation has been tough on you guys, but things will be okay. I know that might be hard to believe right now, but somehow, I think we'll pull through outta all this. Just keep your heads up."

With those last words, she placed her hands on both their shoulders sympathetically before moving to catch up with Ford and Soos, leaving the twins back with the Corduroys, who continued to stand back beside Wendy while paying second attention to the others.

"Great," Dipper said as he slumped himself back against a wall disappointedly. "What are we supposed to do now? Just sit here doing nothing?"

Before Mabel responded, her eye caught a nearby flier that was posted to the side. She grabbed it and read it, eyes bulging as an idea came to mind. "Maybe we don't have to!"

"Huh?" Dipper raised an eyebrow.

Mabel held the flier up to him. "Check this out! 'Dr. Stone - Leading Specialist In Stone Therapy.'"

He took the flier from her hand and continued to read through it. "'Helps with Stone Supply, Stone Repair, Pet Stones, Gravestones, and Statues.'"

"You hear that? Maybe this Dr. Stone person can help bring Wendy back!" Mabel suggested.

"I don't know about this," Dipper admitted as he eyeballed the ad with a great deal of skepticism. "I mean, stone therapy? C'mon, there's no way this is legit. This is a black market, Mabel. There are scammers everywhere around here. I mean, last time, there was literally a crow selling beauty pills that caused spontaneous face explosion."

"Well, it's not like we have any other solutions," Mabel reminded him. "We need to do whatever it takes to get Wendy back. Even if it might be a scam, we should at least try it. Who knows if it isn't?"

"Mabel, this flier says one of the therapeutic procedures is 'stone-hugging'," Dipper said as he pointed it out in the ad for her to see. "Stone-hugging. What does that even mean? Do they just fix stones with the power of hugs?"

Mabel thought it over for a second. "Maybe it's a type of ritual."

Dipper crossed his arms, unconvinced. "Really?"

"Well, I don't see you coming up with any other ideas!" she snapped back at him. "Please, Dipper. I know it seems sketchy, but we should at least try! This is for Wendy!"

Looking over his shoulder, he glanced over at Dan and his sons continuing to stand around Wendy. While it seemed like the initial shock and emotion of her new state had faded, they still appeared distraught. Not that it wasn't in reason. Dipper himself couldn't imagine how devastating it might be to have to deal with a family member or loved one suddenly turned to stone with no sign of coming back to normal.

Thinking over it, he knew he still had plenty of reservations about Dr. Stone based on everything the ad entailed. Most of those reservations were pure disbelief, but still. He couldn't disregard Mabel's point in that their table of options for bringing Wendy back was not very wide. While he had no faith in whoever this Dr. Stone was, there was still all the possibility that they could be of some help that they wouldn't find elsewhere.

And if there was a chance that they could help bring Wendy back, then that was one that they needed to take.

He sighed. "Alright, so where do we find this Dr. Stone at?"

---

Back on the surface, Ryland stood within the remains of the decimated Corduroy cabin, searching through the piles of destruction for any sign of his friends. The longer he searched without finding anything or anybody though, the more anxious he grew.

"Wendy? Mabel? Dipper? Soos? ANYBODY?!" he shouted as he dug through more piles of rubble. He then stopped for a moment and bit his nails nervously as he simply looked around. "Oh, man… What the hell happened here? Where is everybody?!"

Coming from around the street corner onto the path toward the Corduroy residence, Derrick came skating in on his skateboard as he came up to the property. Noticing the shambles the cabin was in, he suddenly stopped himself right in front of it, eyes widening in shock. Confused, he looked around the residence for any sign of somebody else.

"Damn! I thought this was a farewell, not a demolition!" he said to himself.

Hearing his voice, Ryland poked his head outside the cabin, spotting Derrick right out front. "Derrick! Wait, did you catch any of what happened here?"

"Nah, I just got here," Derrick shook his head as he got off his board and picked it up. "What happened? Where is everybody else?"

Ryland stepped out of the cabin's remains to approach Derrick. "I don't know. I was just riding here to meet the others in saying goodbye to Wendy, but then I saw some kind of giant triangle guy tearing into the house and then warping away."

"A giant triangle guy?" Derrick questioned as he took a moment to think over it. "Huh, why does that sound familiar?"

"Looking around, I don't see any bodies, so I don't think anyone's dead. But I don't know where everybody went," Ryland explained as he continued to search the perimeter for any sign of anybody else. "I just hope they're okay."

"Eh, they'll probably be fine," Derrick shrugged off. "Whatever they might be dealing with I'm sure isn't anything they can't handle."

Ryland hesitated to brush it off as easily as he did, but it wasn't like there wasn't any truth to his words. The Pines were capable, and so was Soos, Melody, Wendy, and the rest of her family.

"Yeah, you're probably right," Ryland agreed. "But what should we do then? Just wait here for something to happen?"

Derrick shrugged again. "I don't see what else we can do." He then unzipped his hoodie slightly to pull out a bag of Cheese Boodles he kept inside. Pulling it open, he began to dig into the bag as he sat down on the front porch and relaxed.

"I guess I can text Mabel," Ryland said as he took his phone out and began forming a text message. "Maybe she'll get back to me about what's going on with all of this."

Derrick scoffed as he ate a Cheese Boodle. "That's expecting a bit too much of her in my opinion."

"That's my girlfriend you're talking about, dude…" Ryland reminded him with narrowed eyes.

"It's not like I mean you any disrespect," Derrick clarified, raising his hands up. "I mean, she's Dipper's sister, and I still hang out with him."

Ryland sent his text message and sighed as he sat beside him on the porch. "Look, I know whatever this drama is between you two is drama between you two. But seriously, what's the deal with you guys? I mean, I've never really had any issue with Mabel, but I've never had any issue with you really either. I just don't see how someone can hate someone like her so much and how she can hate someone so much back.

"I'm glad you're interested, Ryland…" Derrick said as he laid down on the porch, carelessly kicking his knees up. "...but that's a nearly four-year story that I have no interest in telling."

"How cryptic," Ryland said with an eye-roll.

"Not really, to be honest. I just really don't care enough to talk about it," Derrick admitted. "I'll tell you this though- it all started with a spilled can of Pitt Cola…"

---

Back in the Crawlspace, Ford and Soos stood in a doctor's office. There, Stan laid resting on the examination table as the doctor analyzed him.

The doctor himself was just a bit taller than a typical gnome. He was pink-skinned and seemed to have a rough texture amongst his skin. He had two eyes, a stern face, and a pointy head, where he wore a typical doctor's head mirror. As for the rest of his appearance, he wore the standard doctor's outfit, which wasn't too different from that of a normal human doctor or physician.

As he examined Stan, he jotted down notes on his clipboard. He didn't speak or seem to show much emotion at that moment, simply just doing his work without interruption. To the side, Ford and Soos sat and watched quietly. While Ford kept himself reserved and level-headed, Soos couldn't help but keep moving around in his seat as his concern for Stan got the better of him.

"What do you think, Ford?" Soos whispered over to him. "Is Stan gonna be okay?"

"Soos, that is the third time you've asked me that in the past two minutes," Ford reminded him with slight irritation. "I already told you that I'm not sure. He's being examined right now. We have to wait."

"Right, right. Sorry…" Soos acknowledged as he tried to tone himself down. "I just really hope he's going to be alright, ya know?"

Despite Ford's slipping patience with Soos, he gave him an understanding look as he empathized very well with just how anxious he was at that moment. "I understand. Though, I should ask- is your fiancé okay with waiting out in the hallway on her own?"

"Melody? Yeah, totally," Soos nodded. "She said she's cool with it."

---

Right outside the doctor's office, Melody sat uncomfortably in a seat in the waiting room next to a number of other creatures who seemed to be waiting to see their own doctors. Her discomfort came not just from the idea that she was surrounded by nothing but paranormal creatures she had no familiarity with, but also the fact that she was still wearing a box as she sat. But considering she had two different monsters directly next to her on both sides, she didn't want to move too much around in her seat just to fix her own comfort.

Looking over to the creature on her right side, she noticed it was some sort of female humanoid elephant with long blonde hair flowing over her giant ears. She also wore a yellow top and light blue pants, but no shoes. In front of her was a baby stroller with a smaller, baby humanoid elephant like her.

"Oh, that's a cute baby!" Melody acknowledged in an attempt to spark some sort of conversation. "You know, I'm hoping to be a mother myself someday."

The elephant creature glanced up at her before turning back toward the baby. "Actually, that's my mother," she revealed. "She was cursed by a closet wizard, turning her into a baby for her crimes against humanity."

Melody gave a shocked look as she processed this very out-there revelation. "Oh. Sorry to hear that."

"Don't be. I never liked her anyway," the elephant went on. "Always nagged me because of the type of man I married."

"Who did you marry?" Melody asked curiously.

"A closet wizard."

Melody stared at her speechlessly for a moment.

"Anyway, I like your shoes," the elephant complimented, changing topics.

Melody's eyes lit up. "Oh, thank you! And that top looks great on you!"

"Oh, stop!" she said as she smiled back at her. "You're too kind."

---

Back inside the office, the doctor finished writing down his last set of notes before walking toward a back door.

"I'm going to look over the results of my examinations real quickly," the doctor told Ford and Soos with a calm voice as he opened the door. "Give me one minute."

He stepped out of the office, shutting the door behind him and leaving Ford and Soos alone with Stan. After a brief moment of silence, Soos stood up from his seat and walked over to Stan on the examination table.

"Hey, Mr. Pines," he softly greeted. "I know you're still, ya know, unconscious and stuff. But still, I just wanted to say that I'm so sorry that we couldn't stop this from happening to you. To think about just how close we were to stopping Bill…"

He sighed, expressing his lament for the entire situation thus far as the reminder came rushing back to him.

Then, he smiled. "Heh. Well, at least it wasn't me who ended up messing everything up. I mean, this could've been all my fault had I not come to my senses last night. But luckily, it wasn't! It was Wendy instead." While proud for a moment, his smile faded as he quickly realized just what he was saying. "Though, I'm not trying to celebrate what happened to her! It's still pretty messed up. But ya know… It could've been me instead…"

"Soos, what on earth are you doing?"

Soos quickly glanced back at Ford, who sat in his seat glaring at him in confusion. "I, uh… I don't know anymore."

Before their exchange could get any more in-depth, the doctor stepped out from the back room and back into the office with his clipboard in hand.

"Alright, it appears I've gotten all my results," he said as he read through his clipboard.

"And so?" Ford asked as he stood up from his seat. "What's wrong with him?"

The doctor sighed as he looked Ford in the eye despite his short height. "Well, there's no easy way to put it- he's old."

"What? That's not what we're looking for!" Ford snapped.

"Right, well, he's kinda fat too," the doctor added as he reviewed his notes. "Fat and old. Not the best combo."

Ford facepalmed as his patience began to dwindle further. "His condition, doctor! Look at him! He's unconscious! We want to know if he's going to be okay!"

"Oh. That's what you wanted to know?" the doctor asked. "Well, why didn't you say so?"

"WHA-? ARE YOU-?!"

Ford cut himself off, tucking his face in his hands as he groaned to himself. Soos then patted him on the back comfortingly as he let him vent out his growing anger.

"So let's see…" the doctor began as he inspected Stan yet again. "Unconscious, pale skin, abnormally sweaty… what kinda animal did you say he was again?"

Ford froze. "Uh…"

"A not-human," Soos interjected, prompting a puzzling glare from Ford.

The doctor stared at the two for a moment. "Right… okay then." He placed two fingers against Stan's neck. "An uneven pulse… that's a problem."

"How so?" Ford asked.

"Only one way to find out," the doctor claimed. "Tickley, tickley!"

The doctor suddenly went into a tickle frenzy as he used his fingers to try to tickle Stan's sides. As he did so, Stan continued to remain unresponsive while Ford continued to grow more and more regretful about everything.

Realizing Stan was still not responding, the doctor's eyes suddenly went big with serious concern. "Oh no… this is not good. Not good at all!"

Ford himself suddenly began to grow concerned by the doctor's sudden change in mood. "What? What is it?!"

"FOR CRYING OUT LOUD, JUST SPIT IT OUT!" Soos shouted as he ran up to the doctor and shook him around violently.

"Your friend here is in what's called a cognitive scare coma," he explained. "His mind has experienced some sort of intense trauma that resulted in a lot of his other body functions to shut down! If not treated soon enough, he could die!"

Upon hearing this, Soos suddenly dropped the doctor on the floor before dropping to his knees.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

"Okay, okay! Let's try to stay calm!" Ford encouraged as he put a hand on Soos' shoulder. "What are our options for treatment?"

"I can't say just yet. In order for me to consider treatment, I need more info on the patient." The doctor grabbed his clipboard again and prepared to start writing. "Since it's his mind that's affected, I need information that entails personality traits."

"He's a great man! A great boss! A great father figure!" Soos shouted frantically as he shot straight back up from the ground.

The doctor shook his head. "C'mon, that doesn't help! I need specifics!"

"Uh...well, okay!" Ford said as he quickly tried to think about it. "He has a tendency to steal a lot from others. He used to be obsessed with hunting for gold. He also puts a lot of value in material possessions. Perhaps too much value."

"So he's greedy?" the doctor assumed as he wrote.

Ford chuckled. "Well, I don't know if I'd say… ah, who am I kidding? Yes, he is."

"Got it."

The doctor threw his clipboard to the side before digging into his pocket and pulling out his wallet. Taking what looked like a sort of dollar bill out, he then held it out right in front of Stan's nose for him to smell.

Right away, Stan jolted awake, sitting right up as he took a deep breath. "OH, GOD!"

"STANLEY!" Ford shouted with a wide smile.

"MR. PINES!" Soos shouted as he began tearing up.

"Voilà!" the doctor said proudly.

"Jesus! What a terrible nightmare!" Stan said as he held onto the side of his now aching head. "I dreamed that Bill had taken over my body and tricked Wendy into freeing him from that statue in the woods. And then I was unconscious, and everybody had to run away and-"

He suddenly paused as he glanced around in front of him, realizing he was in a doctor's office.

"Ah, crap, that all really happened, didn't it?"

To his surprise, Soos quickly ran up to him and hugged him tightly as tears streamed down his face. "Mr. Pines, you're alive! You're really alive!"

Looking at Soos' face makeup, however, Stan began to panic in his arms; kicking and pushing him away. "AAH! SOME SORT OF HIDEOUS CAT PERSON! KILL IT! KILL I- oh, it's Soos."

"Oh, sorry, Mr. Pines!" Soos said as he backed away from him. "Didn't mean to scare you like that."

Stepping ahead of Soos, Ford walked up to Stan and put a hand on his back. "How are you feeling, Stanley?"

"I mean, my head hurts, but nevermind me, what the hell's up with you two?" Stan asked as he glanced back and forth between their differing face makeup designs. "What's on your faces? And Soos… why?"

"Look, I promise I'll explain everything to you later," Ford sternly whispered over to him, knowing they were at a very close risk of losing their cover. "For now, are you alright? Do you feel off?"

Stan rubbed his head. "Well, usual aging body aches aside, I got a headache like you wouldn't believe. But it feels more like those old headaches we used to get from mom's date night perfume that she always overused. Not like a 'demon triangle living in my head' type of headache."

"Should go away with time," the doctor commented. "The rest of your body has returned to a state of normal functioning, but your head still needs to recover from all of that trauma."

"Right, I have no idea who or what you are, but thanks," Stan said as he acknowledged the paranormal doctor.

"No problem, but you can properly thank me by paying your bill," the doctor said as he held out a piece of paper up to Stan.

"Hold on... bill?" Stan questioned. "You paranormal freaks actually charge for healthcare too? Man, you really are American…"

"Actually, we don't charge our usual paranormal Crawlspace residents, but we do charge a hefty price for human treatment," the doctor explained.

Ford's eyes widened. "Wait, you knew we were humans?"

"Of course," the doctor nodded. "Did you seriously think you could bring a human subject to a paranormal doctor and expect them to not be able to recognize human anatomy in order to deduce proper treatment?"

Stan glared at Ford. "What the hell is it with you and being so terrible at fooling doctors? You have twelve PhDs! How is this so hard for you?!"

"Of course, if you don't pay up, I'll be forced to alert Auctioneer Ligpin so he can handle you the same way he handles other humans that are found here in the Crawlspace…" the doctor threatened.

"Oh, nevermind that!" Ford dismissed as he swiped the bill from the doctor's hands. "This doesn't need to go down like that. Let's just pay up and be on our way."

Reading the bill, however, Ford's face slowly devolved into a look of absolute shock as his mouth hung agape. Stan leaned his head over to read the bill as well but found himself not holding the same reaction.

"Hey, that doesn't look like that much," he claimed with a smile. "I mean, I'm not sure what type of currency a glibuard is, but ya know… I'm not seeing too many digits."

Ford took a pen from his trenchcoat's pocket and wrote down on a number on the bill itself, pointing it out to Stan. "That's the conversion to dollars."

Stan's eyes enlarged. "Oh."

The two slowly turned toward the doctor, who just looked up at them patiently as he awaited their payment. The twins exchanged uncertain glances with one another before turning back to the doctor once again.

Stan smiled. "Heh! Well, no worries. I know a perfectly logical solution to this."

---

"Yeah, and I already know what I wanna call my kids when that time comes around," Melody said as she conversed with the elephant lady next to her. "I'm thinking if we ever have a girl that I'd love to name her-"

SLAM!

The door to the doctor's office burst open as Stan and Ford came running out hurriedly, attracting the attention of just about every person sitting in the waiting room.

"GO, GO, GO!" Stan shouted as they ran.

"Here we go again!" Ford dreaded as he ran alongside Stan away from the doctor's office.

As Melody realized it was the Stan twins who had run out, she stood up from her seat and looked back toward the office door, where Soos soon emerged as well.

"Soos?!" she questioned, having no idea what was happening.

Without further delay, Soos quickly ran by her, grabbing her by the wrist and pulling her along with him as he proceeded to run as well behind Stan and Ford. "We gotta go, dude!"

As she was pulled away, Melody turned back to the elephant lady and waved her hand in her direction. "I'll be in touch!"

"Okay, talk to you later!" the elephant lady waved back with a friendly smile.

Back inside the doctor's office, the doctor himself was hanging from the wall by the arms of his white coat, which were hung up by hooks. Due to his small size, his feet were unable to touch the ground, leaving him stuck until he was helped by somebody.

Regardless, he was still able to reach and grab a walkie talkie from his pocket, holding it up to his mouth.

"Come in, Ligpin," he spoke into the walkie.

There was a bit of static for a moment before a deep and roughened voice suddenly emerged from the speaker. "Hello? Who's this?"

"You know me, Ligpin. It's the doc," the doctor said. "Listen, it looks like we got another human situation down here. At least three of them."

"At least, huh?" the voice questioned, sounding intrigued. "Hah! We're gonna have quite an auction today then! Thanks for the tip, doc. My boys and I are on the lookout."

---

Dipper, Mabel, and the Corduroys walked through another section of the Crawlspace. Along the way, Manly Dan had managed to find and steal a flatbed cart to hold and push Wendy around rather than constantly carrying her statue's weight around himself. Mabel led the way as she held Dr. Stone's flier in her hand, looking around at every stand and street corner for the printed address.

While they walked, Dipper looked at their surroundings with admiration. While it wasn't his first venture into the Crawlspace, it was definitely the most he had actually gotten to see of the entire place so far. Despite the criminal vibe and nature of the black market itself, he still held a level of fascination for the entire place and what it meant. That all these different supernatural creatures of different origins had managed to come together and forge a general vicinity for them to hide from people like them.

Such an idea made him question everything he knew about the secrets of Gravity Falls, as well as ponder the new implications the location brought.

"Man, this place is crazy. An actual place for the night creatures to reside during the day," he thought aloud. "This place is like a whole 'nother part of Gravity Falls. It makes me wonder just how many other hidden places known exclusively to the supernatural might exist around here."

"No kidding," Mabel nodded as they walked along. "Do you think they have some sort of exclusive monsters-only night club somewhere? I wonder what the paranormal version of turning up is like…"

Dipper looked at her blankly. "Alright, it's clear that our heads are in different places in regard to this sort of discovery."

"Are we at this doctor yet?" Manly Dan asked with an aggressive tone. "My patience is running out the longer I have to push my own daughter around on a flatbed."

"Actually, yes! Here it is- the office of Dr. Stone," Mabel declared as she stopped in front of a shop on the street corner. The canopy overhead read Dr. Stone's name in bright red lettering as a neon light sign by the door flashed the word 'Open'. "And it looks like he's open for business!"

"Great. Hopefully, it won't be long before we find out just how much we're getting scammed," Dipper said as he approached the door with Mabel, still holding onto his earlier doubts.

"Oh, have a little hope, would you, Dipper?" Mabel pleaded him. "Who knows? Maybe Dr. Stone is the real deal!"

She gave the door a few enthusiastic knocks as she stood patiently while Dipper stood beside her and the Corduroys stood behind them both. A brief minute passed before they heard the door unlock before opening up. Dipper and Mabel's eyes quickly darted downward as they soon realized it was a gnome that stood before them.

"Why, hello there!" the gnome happily greeted.

Like most gnomes, he was short and his beard was white and bushy. Unlike most gnomes though, he had no hat and wore his own little white coat over his typical gnome attire, as well as a pair of granny glasses that rested on top of his large nose.

"Oh, uh, hi!" Mabel greeted, somewhat caught off-guard. "Is Dr. Stone in right now? We'd really like to see him."

"Well, hope you like what you see, 'cause you're looking right at him! Haha!" he joked as he gestured toward himself. "Dr. Stone's the name and playing with stones isn't a game because stones have hearts too."

Mabel stared down at the gnome for a moment before looking at Dipper, who was already glaring at her.

"Oh, boy…" she said under her breath, beginning to feel regretful herself as she turned back toward the gnome.

"Have a little hope, huh?" Dipper repeated her earlier words under his breath with great irritation.

"Please, come in! Have a seat!" Dr. Stone offered as he stepped aside, allowing the others into his office.

While she had grown uncertain, Mabel glanced back at Wendy and the other Corduroys and remembered their whole reasoning for coming in the first place. "Well… we came this far."

One by one, they stepped into Dr. Stone's office with Manly Dan being the last one as he pushed the cart holding Wendy inside. Dr. Stone closed the door behind him and made his way over to the middle of the room as everybody else took a seat on his couches.

"Could I whip up any of you some hot pinecone tea?" Dr. Stone offered.

"Pass," Dipper said.

"I'm good," Mabel shook her head.

"No," Manly Dan forwardly replied.

"I'll take some," Marcus raised his hand.

"Same!" Kevin nodded.

"Three please!" Gus raised his hand up as well.

Dr. Stone promptly served the brothers a platter with multiple mugs of tea. The three took their mugs before noisily and messily downing their tea. Manly Dan paid them an irritated glare that went unnoticed before choosing to stare forward at a wall, tuning everything out.

"So, obviously, if you were looking for me, you must've known about my business," Dr. Stone began as he sat in a seat right across from the others.

"Right… stone therapy," Dipper recalled.

"Indubitably!" Dr. Stone nodded excitedly. "My life's work has been dedicated to helping mend stone through therapeutic methods. I have a long story of personal connections to stone. My great-great-grandfather won us the Great Gnome War by throwing a stone at the enemy leader's head, knocking him out. My grandmother made stone soup to heal our entire colony, bringing us out of the era of the deadly Gnome Plague. Additionally, my adopted brother is a stone. My wife is a stone. Oh, I could go on!"

Mabel leaned over and whispered to Dipper, "I am so sorry. You absolutely should've stopped me."

"Bit late for that now," Dipper whispered back to her with narrowed eyes.

"Anyhow, enough talk about me. What seems to be your stone problem?" Dr. Stone finally asked.

Mabel sighed hesitantly. "Well, a good friend of ours was turned to stone."

"We brought her here to you with the hope that you might be able to revert her back to normal," Dipper continued as he gestured over to Wendy.

Getting out of his seat, Dr. Stone approached the flatbed cart where Wendy's petrification sat. Analyzing her from every angle, he grew intrigued.

"Hmm… interesting. Very interesting," he claimed as he stroked his beard. "In all the cases I've had handed to me, I can't say I've ever seen anything quite like this before."

"Aw, man!" Dipper said, pretending to be upset. "I'm guessing that means you probably don't know how to fix this then. In that case, we won't waste any more of your time. We'll just get out of your way now."

"Nonsense!" Dr. Stone denied, stopping Dipper as he got out of his seat. "Even for the most unique cases, I could never refuse a stone job. My job is to fix stone, and I shall do that."

Dipper narrowed his eyes. "Yeah, well, we're not so much asking you to fix any stone. We're asking if you could fix our friend. As in freeing her from being a statue. You can do that, right? Please tell me you can do that or else you're just wasting our time."

"Dipper…" Mabel nudged him in the arm. While she was almost as skeptical as he was now, she still felt it being rude was unnecessary.

"Hey, Doc Rock?" Gus intervened as he and his brothers raised up their empty mugs. "Do you have any more of that pinecone tea?"

"Sure, there's more on the stove in the back. Help yourself," Dr. Stone offered as he gestured toward a kitchen area in the back corner of his office space.

The brothers quickly glanced at one another before speedily racing to the kitchen. As they ran, they fought on the way there, tackling one another to the ground as they all tried to be the first to reach the kitchen. Everybody stared at them as they did this. That was- everybody except for Dan, who was already too emotionally drained and simply continued to stare at the wall ahead of him rather than react to anything that took place in the room.

"Anyway, of course, I can free your friend!" Dr. Stone finally replied to the twins. "Don't you worry about a thing, bud! In fact, I know just the thing that'll help bring her back to normal!"

"Phew! Thank God!" Mabel said, tension easing down with this revelation. "You see, Dipper? Maybe this wasn't a bad idea after all!"

"Yesiree, I know just what to do here," Dr. Stone, cracking his knuckles as he approached Wendy on the cart. "Some good ol' stone-hugging therapy should do the trick."

"Wait, what? Stone-hugging?" Dipper raised an eyebrow as he remembered this therapy from the ad.

"Surely that's like the name of a type of therapeutic ritual you do or something, right?" Mabel asked, trying to maintain hopefulness.

"I mean, I guess you could call it that. But to me…" He proceeded to spread his arms open wide and hugged Wendy's petrification firmly. "...it's just the simple act of giving your old stone a hug."

Dipper stared on at Dr. Stone, feeling as though he had just been hit by the prank of the century. "You've gotta be kidding me."

"Not at all!" Dr. Stone shook his head as he kept hugging Wendy. "If I've learned anything in all my years of stone therapy, it's that if you're nice to stone, then stone will be nice to you."

"Yeah, alright, I think I'm done here," Dipper said as he stood up from his seat and walked toward the door, having finally lost his patience. "I'll be outside; just dreading life and mourning the loss of our friend."

"Dipper, wait!" Mabel pleaded, stretching an arm out for him.

"Well, that ain't fair, friend," Dr. Stone frowned. "The hug takes time to do its work. I'd say if you give it about an hour-"

"I'm good," Dipper rejected as he opened the door and stepped outside. "Again, you know where to find me."

He shut the door, leaving on his own. Mabel frowned as she stood up from the couch as well and ran up to the door to go after him.

"I should probably talk to him," she said to Dr. Stone before exiting and closing the door behind her.

As Marcus, Kevin, and Gus continued fighting in the background over the pinecone tea, Dr. Stone had essentially been left alone with Manly Dan, who still wasn't paying attention to anything that was going on.

"So, uh, I guess you'll be paying me, right?" Dr. Stone asked as he continued to hug Wendy.

---

"Dipper, wait up!" Mabel called out as she ran up to him from behind. Her box disguise that she wore made it hard to move fast, and so she made the quick decision to throw it off while she chased down her brother.

"I don't wanna hear it, Mabel," he told her as he used his sleeve to wipe away his face paint, which began to irritate him amidst his growing frustrations.

"I'm not going to defend Dr. Stone, okay?" Mabel told him upfront. "Look, I get it. It was a mistake going to him."

Dipper stopped in the middle of the street, sighing as he stared at the ground sadly.

"I just don't know what we're gonna do anymore," he began, turning back to his sister. "I mean, we failed, Mabel! We failed. Now, look where we are! Bill's back and trying to kill us all again. We're on the run in some sort of hidden, underground black market where we're not even allowed. Stan's life is probably on the line and Wendy… she might just be a statue forever."

"Dipper, c'mon, don't say that."

"Well, it's true! We don't know how to bring her back! If Bill shaking her hand is the only way, then it's hopeless!" he told her bluntly.

He walked over to a nearby railing over a small canal, grabbing onto it as he hung his head low.

"I just...I can't believe that everything we've worked for; everything we did to try to prevent this from happening… it didn't even matter. Bill is really back. Our greatest nightmare from four summers ago is back. And now we gotta really deal with him. The same way we gotta deal with losing Wendy. Maybe even Stan depending how he's doing."

"Dipper, please!" Mabel tried to reassure as she walked up next to him by the railing. "It's not totally hopeless! I mean, we beat Bill last time!"

"No, we didn't. Stan and Ford beat Bill last time," Dipper reminded her. "We just distracted him long enough for them to come up with a plan."

"Okay, but still, you're missing the point," Mabel said. "If he can be stopped during the apocalypse that he started himself, he can be stopped again. Bill is not invulnerable, Dipper, and you know that! If he was defeated before, he can be defeated again. And as far as I know, it's up to us to beat him. Whether that's you or me or Stan or even Manly Dan who lays the final blow doesn't matter. What does matter is stopping him, and I know we can do it. And I know you know we can too."

Even while thinking over her words, Dipper still remained somewhat unsure. Then he looked up and saw her hold out her hand to him.

"Come on," she told him with a smile. "We can either give up now or stand up and give that triangle a reason to be afraid of a bunch of dumb humans like us. What do you say?"

The pressures of everything that had been happening around the two since this morning had become an incredibly heavy weight on Dipper's shoulders very quickly. While Mabel felt a lot of that same weight, she had managed to keep herself together much better than Dipper had. And it was a good thing too because, without her spirit, he felt as though he would be stuck on the road to losing whatever sanity he still had left in him.

She was right on just about all accounts. Bill wasn't invincible, and they hadn't lost all hope yet. They were still capable of defeating him again as they all had done multiple times before. And no matter how bad things seemed with the people around them, that didn't change the fact that there were others Bill could hurt as well. Therefore, it was an absolute must that they make sure they stop him before he had the chance to do so.

And so Dipper looked at her and smiled. Looking at her extended hand, he reached out to shake it in agreement.

WHOOOSH!

"AHH!" the twins cried out as they both suddenly found themselves caught within a giant net.

"What the-?!" Dipper cried out in confusion. However, as he hung in the net, a sense of déjà vu came over him as he then came to a very quick realization. "Oh no!"

"Hey, what gives?!" Mabel questioned as she looked through the net to see who caught them.

"Well, well! Looks like we got two of em humans the doc mentioned!" said a devilish-looking, little pigman creature with stitched-up eyes as he approached the two in the net. "The only question now is where's the third? What happened, fellas? Your buddy, or buddies, manage to get away?"

"Buddies?!" Dipper repeated as he sat unsure about who exactly he could've been referring to. He figured Ford, Soos, and Melody most obviously, but wasn't sure if they were the suspects the pigman referred to.

"Doesn't matter!" the pigman shrugged carelessly. "Two humans will still draw in a sizable crowd anyway. Just throw these two in the cage, and let's bring 'em along to the central market."

"Wait, what?!" Mabel's eyes widened.

At that moment, the two were thrown from the net into a small cage sat on top of another flatbed cart. The pigman's henchmonsters threw on the top of the cage, locking the twins inside.

"Wait, you have it all wrong! We're not humans!" Mabel said to the pigman as she gripped the cage bars. "Come on! Humans aren't typically this incredibly adorable! And I'm talking about myself, just so we're clear."

Dipper narrowed his eyes at her. "Really? That's what you're going with?"

"Hey, I've been offering to do your makeup for years, and you always said no," Mabel said, pointing a finger at him. "Don't blame me because you're not adorable."

"Haha! They bicker just like siblings!" the pigman chuckled in amusement. "Aw, man, the people ain't gonna wanna miss this auction."

Mabel raised an eyebrow. "Wait, auction?"

"Take 'em away, boys," the pigman ordered his henchmonsters, who proceeded to throw a tarp over the twins' cage as they were pushed away on the flatbed cart.

---

Stan, Ford, Soos, and Melody ran around a corner, stopping as they held themselves against a wall. They took a moment to catch their breath, having spent the last few minutes running from the doctor's office, trying their hardest to lose any trail that the doctors could've had on them. Ford took a step back, peeking around the corner they had just run around. Looking around, he didn't see any sign of action or anybody seeming to be looking for them.

"Alright, I think we've managed to get a good distance away," Ford told the others as he looked back at them.

"So much for things not having to be like last time," Stan brought up sourly.

"Hey, it wasn't my plan to hang the doctor up on the wall to escape!" Ford defended.

"You're right, but then again, it's not like you had another plan," Stan argued. "What else were we gonna do? Actually pay him that insane amount of money? Even you have a thicker spine than that, Sixer."

"Maybe I could've sat on the doctor," Soos suggested at that moment. "Wouldn't be the first time I've knocked out someone that way."

"It doesn't matter what the plan was or could've been," Ford dismissed as he started walking down the street casually. "Right now, it's just a matter of laying low as we get back to the others."

"Right," Stan agreed as he walked beside him, with Soos and Melody following behind. He began to try to think about the entire situation as it had become since he last remembered. "Anyway, my memory's kinda fuzzy right now, so just to be clear- did Bill really free himself from my head? Is he really back?"

Ford sighed as he looked down disappointedly. "Unfortunately so."

"Man…" Stan shook his head in disbelief. He tried to recall more of the events that had happened. "...and what about Wendy? Did she really…? Is she…? Is she okay?"

"She was turned to stone as she shook the hand of Bill's petrification."

"No… God dammit, no..." Stan's mouth hung agape in utter shock as he stared at Ford with great dismay. He clenched his fists tightly. "Why didn't you keep me away from her?!"

"Wha-?" Ford questioned as he stopped walking, turning back to him in shock. "You think I haven't been wondering the same myself?! I should've kept you locked up at the Shack! But you had insisted on saying goodbye to Wendy on her last day in town, so of course, I foolishly obliged to your request!" He paused for a moment, knowing he wasn't totally innocent himself. "But that also doesn't excuse me stupidly letting you out of my sight for the few seconds Bill needed to slip away with ease. That said, there wouldn't have been any risk in the first place had I just not listened to you and simply nailed you down to a chair in the basement!"

"Well, maybe you SHOULD'VE!" Stan yelled angrily as he got in Ford's face.

"Guys, stop! Please! Don't fight!" Soos pleaded as he stepped between the two. "Come on, while someone like Bill is out there, the last thing we should be doing now is turning on each other! As much as I love anime, let's not turn this into an anime drama at the last minute."

Ford looked at Stan and let out a sigh. "Soos is right. About the stuff before. I have no idea what any of that anime stuff meant."

"Oh, dawg, I'm gonna hook you up with some shows once this whole Bill thing is done," Soos promised him.

"Uh… okay?" Ford accepted, still having little idea what he was talking about. "Look, Stanley, perhaps mistakes were made that brought us all to this point, but in the end, what's happened has happened and all we can do now is try to move forward and fix things. And luckily, in our case, it seems as though matters could be worse."

"How could it be any worse than it is now?" Stan asked as he folded his arms doubtfully.

"Well, to my understanding, based on the one encounter we've had with Bill so far, he doesn't seem to be currently up to par with his usual self," Ford explained as he thought about it.

"What do you mean?"

"He had me right in his grasp for a good moment, yet he didn't do anything to me," he continued. "And he certainly tried to, but it looked as though he just… couldn't. I don't know, but considering he didn't immediately jump to starting the apocalypse again upon his return, maybe he's not currently at the threat level we had expected him to be at upon shaking the statue's hand."

"So what does this mean for us?" Stan asked. "Do you have a plan to stop him?"

"I think I do, actually," Ford nodded. "But it'll be easiest to explain once we've met with the kids and everybody else." He then pulled out a device from his pocket that looked no bigger than a small marble. "To be prepared, however, I'm going to send Fiddleford an emergency ping. It'll signal our location over to him so that he can make his way over to us. We're going to need his help."

"But how's he going to get to us here?" Stan asked. "Aren't we underground or something?"

"Yes, but I don't intend on having him meet us down here," Ford said as he used the ping device, pressing down on it, causing a barely audible electronic ring to occur. "Which is why we need to meet with the others so we can get out of-"

As Ford looked down the street, he realized they were right where they had left Dipper, Mabel, Manly Dan, and his sons before going to the doctor. However, it seemed as though they were nowhere in sight. Looking all around the area, he couldn't find any trace of any of them anywhere.

"Where did they go?!" Ford asked as he looked around, growing anxious.

"This is where you left them?" Stan asked.

"Yes, yes!" Ford nodded frantically. "I told Dipper and Mabel to stay here with Dan and his kids until we got back! But they're not here!"

"Teenagers 101, Ford. If you tell a teen not to do something, they're obviously gonna do it," Stan explained to him.

"Welp, better write that down for future reference," Melody said as she pulled her phone out, typing out Stan's exact words as a note.

"Not even Dan is here!" Ford said, realizing it wasn't just a matter of losing the kids. "Where could they have gone?"

"Demons and gentlemonsters!" announced a nearby voice. "Get your bidding cards ready because we got a helluva auction for you folks tonight!"

Turning to the side, Ford, Stan, Soos, and Melody saw a pigman with stitched eyes standing on a stage-like platform above a bunch of gathering monsters in the central market area. Right beside him was something box-shaped that was covered in a large tarp.

"My name's Ligpin, but you already knew that!" he introduced as he gripped the tarp with his hands. "And straight from the fleshwalker's land above, we have ourselves…"

WHOOOSH!

Pulling the tarp, he unveiled a cage that held Dipper and Mabel both locked up inside.

"...TWO HUMANS!"

All the surrounding monsters collectively gasped and looked up at the twins in awe. On the other hand, from the very back of the crowd, Stan, Ford, Soos, and Melody gasped and looked up at the twins in shock.

"Oh no!" Melody said as she covered her mouth with her hands.

"Dudes!" Soos exclaimed, but not loud enough to draw attention from the other creatures.

"Kids!" Stan and Ford exclaimed in a similar manner.

"That's right, folks! Our first human auction in years, and it's a double whammy!" Ligpin claimed with a wide smile as he walked around the stage. "And just for you, we're calling this one a two-for-one! Which means double the brains, double the body parts, double the meals… whatever you choose to do with a human, you get 'em both for a single bid!"

"Trust us, people!" Mabel shouted at the crowd. "Us humans have eaten a lot of garbage! You don't want to digest all that inside of you! Our body parts are also extremely fragile, and our brains aren't even that big! We're actually really dumb!"

"Speak for yourself. I actually managed to get a perfect score on my SATs, and that was without the curve," Dipper bragged.

"Okay, is NOW really the time for you to be flexing your oh-so-perfect test scores?!" Mabel snapped at him.

"Haha, don'tcha love to see it, people?" Ligpin chuckled. "Anyway, shall we start the bids?"

Stan tapped Ford on the shoulder as he began walking toward the crowd. "C'mon, we gotta save them."

"Stanley, wait!" Ford said, pulling his brother back. "You can't just put yourself out there like that! You're a human- the exact being they auction off around here! Not to mention that you're not even disguised compared to the rest of us."

"So what are we supposed to do then?" Stan asked.

"How about we start the bids at five glibuards?" Ligpin suggested he looked on at the crowd.

Dozens of creatures raised their bid cards in the air. The differing sizes of the various types of monsters allowed some to raise their cards higher than others.

"Yikes! Even I don't value myself that highly," Stan remarked now that he knew the true value of a single glibuard.

Ford glanced around at the floor, eventually stumbling upon a random business card of some Crawlspace salesperson. Thinking fast, he picked it up and turned to its blank backside. He grabbed one of his pocket pens and drew on it.

"Well, there's only one way to go about this in a subtle fashion," he said as he drew a large number and various other scribbles on the back of the card. "And that's playing along."

He took a few steps closer to the back of the crowd, to which he then held up his fake bid card as high as he could extend his arm upward. While his view of the stage wasn't the clearest with the number of bidders ahead of him, Ford knew as the number raised higher and higher, more bidders would keep dropping out, giving him a greater opportunity to be seen.

However, it didn't take long at all for him to be seen by Mabel's keen eye from the cage. And as she saw him, she also noticed the others behind him. Seeing Stan standing alive and well was a particularly relieving and exciting sight to her. As she spotted all of them, she quietly nudged Dipper beside her.

"Dipper, look!" she whispered as she gestured in their direction, trying not to be too direct or obvious in fear of looking too suspicious to Ligpin and the bidding crowd.

Dipper caught what she was trying to tell him though. Looking around, he eventually caught Ford and the others as well with his own eyes.

"Looks like they're trying to buy us back," he noted with a smile. "And hey, it also looks like Stan's okay!"

"Yeah!" Mabel nodded joyfully. "I guess we should just hope that they're willing to put on quite the bid here…"

"Going fifteen glibuards!" Ligpin raised the bid as the various monsters called raising numbers out to him. "Now going thirty! Thirty-five! Seventy! Hot hawktopus eyes, this is a riot! One-hundred glibuards! One-twenty! One-forty!"

As expected, several bidders began to drop out as the bid got too high for them. But no matter how high the bid got, Ford continued to raise his own fake card from the back, just as the monsters closer to the front kept increasing their price.

"Jesus, Ford!" Stan remarked with a look of shock. "This is bigger than the doctor's bill now! I know for a fact you don't have that money!"

"It's not about having the money!" Ford subtly responded. "It's about securing the kids from the other bidders!"

"That's two-hundred!" Ligpin continued to call out as the active bidders kept raising the bid. "Oh, did I hear a three-hundred?"

Ford was getting tired of the persistent bid war, which was only getting marginally slower the longer it went on. He stepped forward just a bit more with his card raised, to which he decided to put the final nail in the auction himself.

"Make it ten-thousand glibuards!" he called out to the front of the stage.

His bid absolutely did not go unheard. Every creature turned their heads to the very back where he stood with his raised card.

"Oh, I ain't touching that," Slender Man said as he shook his head, pocketing his bid card as he walked off. "I'm outta here."

Ford continued to hold his confidence the best he could with all this newfound attention on him. Instead of paying any of his watchers any attention, he simply glared straight up at Ligpin on the stage from afar.

"Woah. If my eyes weren't stitched up, they'd be bulging right now," Ligpin said, expressing his own shock toward Ford's insane bid. "Well, how about that, folks? Any bids over ten-thousand?"

Looking around the entire crowd, he saw no other bid cards raised besides Ford's. Even as he waited a moment for any minds to change, nobody stepped up to challenge the bid.

"No? Well, good! Otherwise, I'd actually feel sorry for some of your wives!" Ligpin said as he pointed directly at Ford all the way in the back. "Sold to that old guy in the top hat! Come up and claim your humans!"

"Yes!" Dipper quietly cheered.

"Way to go, Grunkle Ford!" Mabel said under her breath.

Ford began to walk through the crowd toward the stage. There were some congratulatory claps for his victory. But just as well, there were a good amount of dirty looks sent in his direction. Regardless, he wasn't there to make friends or enemies with anyone, and so he just proceeded through the crowd without paying any other creature a glance of eye contact. As he reached the stage, he pulled himself on top and walked up to Ligpin.

"Way to go, champ!" Ligpin congratulated. "No idea why you'd throw away so much for what's really so little. With that type of money, you could buy an army of gnome slaves to do your dirty work. But I guess ya like 'em human."

"Umm… yes, I suppose so," Ford pretended to agree, trying to brush past the many implications of Ligpin's words to focus on getting Dipper and Mabel out and away as soon as possible. "Anyway, my team will be in contact with your supervisors regarding the transfer. So, I'll just take my earnings and be on my way."

"I ain't got no supervisors, bud. I'm the highest up there is in this business," Ligpin told him. "But fair enough. I look forward to getting that big fat check in the mail."

"Indeed," Ford nodded as he walked up to the flatbed cart with Dipper and Mabel's cage. "Pleasure doing business with you."

"Hold up a second, buddy," Ligpin called back as he walked up to him. "You got a little something on your face."

Ford stopped pushing the cart and turned back to him. "Hmm?"

"Here, let me get it for you!" Ligpin offered as he grabbed a towel from the side.

He then proceeded to chuck the towel directly at Ford's face, covering his entire head. Immediately after doing this, he kicked Ford in the shin, knocking him to his knees before kicking him from behind, sending him off-stage. Dipper and Mabel gasped as they watched him fall directly in the middle of the paranormal crowd.

As he laid on the ground for a brief moment, Ford pulled the towel off of his face. But as the several surrounding gasps would have him know, the towel had actually wiped off most of his disguise makeup. As such, he had essentially been outed as a human in front of everybody.

"He's a human too!" a monster called out amongst a number of other ongoing murmurs.

"No!" Mabel cried out as she and Dipper gripped their cage bars tightly as tensions began to grow again.

"Thought so!" Ligpin shouted with a wide grin. "Ten-thousand glibuards… Pfft! As if! Not even the richest Crawlspace bidders have ever put that much on a pair of measly humans before! But maybe things will change when we bump up our auction from two humans to six!"

Ford raised an eyebrow. "Six?"

Glancing over his shoulder, Ford looked all the way back through the crowd. There, he saw that Stan, Soos, and Melody had been promptly surrounded by Ligpin's henchmonsters, who forcefully backed them up into one another.

"Uh… meow?" Soos awkwardly attempted to play out his disguise.

"What a day, I tell ya!" Ligpin shouted as he looked back and forth between all of them. "Six god damn humans in the Crawlspace! Ain't that just wild, folks? Now, how about we look back at that ten-thousand glibuard bid again and reconsider it for three times the value?"

The idea of being able to buy six humans thoroughly excited the monsters, reigniting discussion amongst everybody once again. Suddenly, several creatures were raising their bid cards once again to compete.

"Six humans?!" Slender Man realized as he began patting himself down. "Oh, shit! Oh, man! I just put my bid card away! Where did I put it?!"

"Looks like we got a lot of competition here," Ligpin noted as he examined the excited crowd. "How fun! Let's see… how are we feeling about fifteen-thousand?"

As the situation had suddenly grown more complicated, Dipper and Mabel looked around wondering just how they were going to get out of this one. As Mabel looked to the side, however, she noticed three figures stood up on the rooftop of a building right behind the stage they stood on. Upon recognizing just who they were, she tugged on Dipper's sleeve, grabbing his attention.

"Dipper, look!" she pointed out.

Following right after spotting them, the three figures jumped down from above onto the stage itself. Looking up at them, Dipper quickly realized it was Marcus, Kevin, and Gus. As they landed on the stage, everybody looked up them in surprise, with every creature gasping collectively once again.

Ligpin turned around in confusion. "What the-?"

WHAM!

Kevin quickly kicked Ligpin in the face, sending him right off the stage and into the crowd. Some of the creatures screamed out at the sight of a physical assault taking place. As such, many of the more passive creatures began running off as tensions heightened.

Ligpin rubbed his face as he looked back up from the ground. "AGH! More humans?!" He smiled devilishly. "Oh, this just keeps getting better and better! Round 'em up!"

Back on the stage itself, the brothers were soon surrounded by several of Ligpin's henchmonsters, who all prepared to engage them physically. The three brothers exchanged quick glances with one another before smiling confidently as they turned to face the creatures.

Despite charging them from every angle, the creatures quickly had it handed to them as the Corduroy brothers fought back. Marcus grabbed hold of one monster before throwing it at another pair of other charging monsters. He then punched another monster straight in the gut before bashing its head against another monster's head. Then another monster threw itself at him, but he quickly ducked down and avoided it, allowing it to throw itself into another group of Ligpin's people.

On the other side of the stage, Kevin jumped up against a wall, kicking himself off of it as he spun midair and struck a monster to the ground with his foot. A larger monster then charged him from the side, to which he dropped below and did a sweep kick that knocked it down on its back.

Kevin smiled enthusiastically but remained unaware of another monster running up at him from behind. Just as it jumped out at him, Gus intervened by charging his shoulder into it, sending it crashing into the group of henchmonsters below that had then surrounded Ford. As Gus and his brothers finished clearing the stage, they took their fight into the crowd below, jumping down to continue clearing the henchmonsters.

Stan, Soos, and Melody watched from the back in surprise as they continued to remain surrounded themselves. Not too long after, though, Manly Dan came running in from the side like a charging rhinoceros and rammed into all the henchmonsters with his shoulder. His great size and strength had the monsters thrown around like ragdolls as he came into contact with them.

At that point, all the other passive Crawlspace creatures that had formed the bidding crowd previously had gone into a full frenzy. As some ran away to avoid the whole commotion, others panicked and ran in circles. The entire central market was in a state of chaos as the Corduroys fought Ligpin's people and others just ran about frantically.

Regardless, as Manly Dan secured Stan, Soos, and Melody, he ran through the distraught crowd and past his combating sons, jumping up onto the stage right up to Dipper and Mabel's cage. With seemingly little effort, he grabbed hold of the cage bars and proceeded to bend them apart wide enough for the twins to get out of.

"Holy…" Dipper said with bulging eyes, completely stunned by Dan and his sons.

"Alright, I'm fully convinced that badassery just runs in the Corduroy blood," Mabel said with a wide and excited smile. "If we save Wendy, then I'm gonna have her give birth to my kids!"

"Mabel! Dipper!" Stan called out as he ran up to them smiling with Soos and Melody following behind.

"Grunkle Stan!" Dipper exclaimed joyfully.

"You're alive!" Mabel cheered as she threw herself offstage, wrapping her arms around his neck as she hugged him happily.

Though the hug caught him off guard momentarily as Mabel's weight pulled him down, he balanced himself and managed to find it within his cold heart to hug her back. "Heh. Just barely."

"Not to spoil this moment and all, but I'm unsure if now's the appropriate time for celebration," Ford said as he joined the others while looking back in front of them.

As the others turned to the side, they could see several of Ligpin's henchmonsters getting up from the ground and preparing to reengage. At the same time, reinforcements began showing up to the scene, seemingly doubling the number of henchmonsters that they had faced before.

"There are too many!" Marcus shouted out as even he and his brothers began to back away themselves, regrouping with their dad and the others.

"Come on!" Manly Dan led as he made his way toward an alleyway behind them. "Flatbed cart is around the corner. Let's get out of here!"

"Great idea," Ford nodded. "Everybody, follow Dan!"

Following his word, everybody began to run along behind Dan as they began to make their escape from Ligpin and the others. With their cover fully blown now, Soos quickly wiped off his makeup, and Melody took off her box disguises, pitching it back over her head as they ran.

"Ah, here we go," Ligpin said with an unstressed smile as he got up from the floor. Pointing down toward the alleyway, he directed his henchmonsters. "Come on, boys! Chase 'em down! Don't let 'em get away!"

---

Running around the corner of the alleyway, the gang spotted Dan's cart holding Wendy on top of it. With enough room on the flatbed, Marcus, Kevin, and Gus all climbed aboard the cart beside their sister as Dan began pushing it again down the street. As he led the way, the Pines, Soos, and Melody followed closely behind.

Dipper's eyes glanced around frantically as they ran. "How do we get out of here?!"

"As I mentioned earlier, there are multiple ways in and out of the Crawlspace!" Ford reminded him. "We just need to find one of them!"

"Find one?" Stan questioned from beside him. "So you don't even know where one is?!"

Mabel thought for a moment, recalling their previous escape from the Crawlspace from around four years back. "Wait, didn't we escape through an outhouse last time?" she asked as she looked over at Dipper.

"An outhouse…" Ford repeated under his breath as he vaguely remembered the same event.

And conveniently, as he glanced over to the side, he spotted a lone outhouse sat at the end of a lone path next to a bunch of empty stands and boxes.

"There it is!" he announced to the others, pointing down the path toward the outhouse. "That's our ticket out! C'mon!"

Stan raised an eyebrow as he followed the others. "All of us? In an outhouse?"

"Just trust us, Grunkle Stan!" Mabel urged.

"Trust ain't the thing I'm worried about!" Stan told her as he held a somewhat nervous expression while running.

From behind all of them, Ligpin and an army of his henchmonsters continued to storm after them.

"Get back here, humans!" he shouted out as they slowly caught up, but still remained somewhat distant.

"MOVE!" Dipper screamed to the others as they were about to reach the outhouse.

"Everybody inside! Now!" Mabel directed.

With Manly Dan and his kids on the cart in front, he burst through the door into the outhouse. Despite its deceptively normal exterior appearance, the outhouse's interior was actually a long hollow hallway which led to another door with a similar hollow crescent on the other end. Despite the initial confusion of the sight, Dan kept the momentum and continued running toward the other door while the others stayed close behind.

And the same way they burst into the outhouse was the same way they burst out the other end. One by one, everybody piled outside the other door, to which they were quickly covered by the warming sunlight above for the first time in hours. Stepping on soft dirt and open grass again, they quickly realized they had managed to successfully escape the Crawlspace, making their way back to the surface once again as the open woods of Gravity Falls, Oregon surrounded them once more.

"Hah! We made it, dudes!" Soos broke the silence with his jubilant cheer as he shot his fists in the air in celebration. "This is a high five moment! Someone high five me! I ain't gonna stop asking until I get it!"

"I gotcha, Soos!" Mabel said as she raised her hand up, slapping her hand against his. "Wham!"

"OW!" Soos yelped as he flinched his hand back away from Mabel, holding onto his hand tightly as his palm throbbed. "That's right. I forgot how hard your high fives are. Man, you… you've been getting really good at those."

"I don't undersell what I offer," she claimed with the slight shrug of her arms.

"Hold on, weren't we underground?" Stan realized. "If so, how did we come back up here by just going through a door without climbing any stairs or…?" He stopped himself as he just gave up, sighing as he grumpily crossing his arms. "Ah, forget it. I hate the paranormal."

Dipper stared at the closed outhouse door for a second before raising an eyebrow. "But wait, can't they still get to us though?"

SLAM!

As if on cue, Ligpin and his army of henchmonsters came bursting from the outhouse door themselves. They formed a single line that extended outward from Ligpin, who stood in the very middle as they stood in front of everybody confrontationally.

"Guess that answers my question…" Dipper said as he stood back with the rest of his family and friends defensively.

"Hahaha!" Ligpin chuckled sinisterly. "You really thought you could escape from me?"

While Ligpin appeared ready to engage with the humans once again, the monsters that stood alongside him started to look around in slight confusion and fear.

"Boss, what're we doing?" one of them spoke up. "We're on the surface, and it's still daylight out. We ain't supposed to be out here."

"That's right! Go back to your little under-town!" Mabel taunted. "You're in our territory now, and up here, we have you outnumbered! So don't try us, suckas!"

Ligpin glared in her direction for a good moment before cackling loudly. Everybody, including his henchmonsters, glanced at one another with confusion, having no idea why any of this seemed so funny to him. The henchmonsters themselves even began to think he may have gone insane.

"Ah, your overconfidence is as biting as ever…" Ligpin said as he calmed his laughter down. "...Shooting Star."

Mabel's eyes widened. "Wait, did he just call me…?"

"HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

The always familiar laugh bestowed great fear into everybody that recognized it. Everyone then gasped as Ligpin's body suddenly began to hover upward slightly as Bill himself started to warp out of it. As Bill freed himself, he floated above once again in his natural form, which he grew to appear mightier than everybody. He then held Ligpin's unconscious body upward by his head.

"IT WAS A PLEASURE DOING BUSINESS WITH YA, LIGPIN! BUT THE AUCTION BUSINESS JUST AIN'T FOR ME! BESIDES, I GOT WHAT I CAME FOR!" Bill spoke to the body before turning back toward the outhouse. "HEY BOYS! FETCH!"

He then proceeded to chuck Ligpin's body back into the outhouse, sending him skidding down the hallway. In response, all of the henchmonsters came flooding back inside after him. As all of them returned back inside, Bill quickly slammed the door shut.

Immediately after, he stepped on top of the outhouse itself, destroying it as a way of getting into and out of the Crawlspace. Once he made sure it was completely unsalvageable, he turned suspensefully back toward his main interests with great delight.

"Uh oh," Ford said as he began to grow nervous himself.

"AND SO, HERE WE ARE YET AGAIN!" he began as he slowly approached the group with his towering presence. "I GOTTA SAY, AS ANNOYING AS THESE CHASES HAVE BEEN, NOTHING BRINGS ME MORE JOY THAN SEEING THOSE LOOKS OF PURE TERROR ACROSS ALL YOUR FACES AGAIN! REALLY REMINDS ME OF THE GOOD OL' DAYS!" He extended his arm out in an overly angular fashion before poking Dipper in the shoulder with his finger. "ESPECIALLY YOU, PINE TREE!"

Instantly angered by this action, Stan slapped Bill's hand away as he stood in front of Dipper defensively.

"Don't you DARE lay a finger on my family, you son of a bitch!"

Soos let out a loud and somewhat exaggerated gasp in response to Stan's language, to which everybody else raised their eyebrows at him.

"Sorry, bad timing," Soos quickly apologized as he looked back at everybody else, face reddening slightly.

"OH, I SEE YOU MANAGED TO GET YOUR BACKUP STAN WORKING AGAIN!" Bill jeered as he caught on to Stan's recovered state. "THAT'S GREAT! MIND IF I TEST HIM OUT?"

Without waiting for an answer, Bill suddenly and effortlessly flicked Stan away with his fingers, sending him slamming violently against a tree behind him. He groaned as he slid down the trunk before falling forward on his face. While impact didn't knock him unconscious, it still gave him an immense amount of pain in addition to his already present headache.

"GRUNKLE STAN!" Mabel screamed in concern as she ran over to him.

"MR. PINES!" Soos screamed as he did the same.

"EH, HE COULD USE SOME WORK," Bill remarked. "ANYWAYS, IF YOU DON'T MIND, I'M JUST GONNA BORROW THE MORE USEFUL ONE FOR A BIT!"

He reached his hand out and grabbed ahold of Ford, who tried his hardest to resist by grabbing onto a nearby tree, but it was no use, as Bill easily pried him away.

"No!" Ford yelled out as he was held up clenched within Bill's fist.

"GREAT UNCLE FORD!" Dipper screamed out for him as he reached his hand up to him hopelessly.

Bill held Ford up in front of his eye, which looked as amused as ever. "WELL, WELL, WELL, SIX-FINGERS! AS IT TURNS OUT, IT LOOKS LIKE THERE'S A BIT OF UNFINISHED BUSINESS THAT I'M ACTUALLY GOING TO NEED YOUR HELP WORKING OUT! SO, WHAT DO YOU SAY? YOU WANNA GET THE OL' BAND BACK TOGETHER AGAIN?"

Ford clenched his fists angrily as he stared back up at him. "SCREW YOU, CIPHER! There's no way I'd EVER help you again after all you've put me and my family through!"

"AH, I KNEW YOU'D SAY YES!" Bill said dismissively. "HOW ABOUT WE GO SOMEWHERE LESS CROWDED?"

Suddenly, Bill launched upward into the sky before blasting off in one direction while holding Ford tightly in hand, leaving the rest of the Pines and the others on their own. Ford reached his hands out to his family as he drifted off at a speed so fast, it caused a sonic boom.

"NOOOOOOOO!" he screamed as he quickly grew more and more distant from the others.

Dipper made an attempt to run after them in the direction they flew in. Unfortunately, it was clear that Bill's speed was way too fast for him. It took running only a few steps forward before the two had completely disappeared from his sight.

"GRUNKLE FORRRRRD!" he screamed out desperately in a futile attempt to reach out to him one last time. When it became clear that they were gone, his trembling legs gave and he dropped to his knees, eyes forming tears as he began slamming his fists against the dirt ground angrily. "DAMMIT!"

Soos and Melody caught up right behind Dipper. Mabel and Stan caught up with them as well, with Mabel aiding him as he walked. To the side, the Corduroys just stood by themselves, looking up above in the direction Bill had flown off in with their own reservations in mind.

"Where's he taking him?!" Soos wondered as he looked up above.

Melody examined where they were within the forest. Nearby, she spotted the exact path they took to the Corduroy cabin, which meant they hadn't exited the Crawlspace far from where they had entered. With this in mind, she managed to figure out where everything was from a directional perspective.

"I think they went in the direction of the Mystery Shack…" she assumed as she looked forward.

Dipper still stood on his knees, facing the ground with his eyes shut tight. As he opened his eyes again, he looked to the side and saw Melody offer her hand out to him. With a sigh, he grabbed it, and she helped him back to his feet. He wiped the tears from his eyes before turning back in the direction where Bill had taken Ford.

"So... what now?" Mabel asked as she continued to hold Stan up.

"We have to go after him," Dipper simply said with determined eyes.

"But… dude, how are we supposed to fight back?" Soos asked him.

"I…" Dipper began, only to stop himself almost immediately.

It didn't take him long at all to realize how he was being driven by his emotions. The more he thought about it, the more he realized that he had absolutely no idea how to go about taking on Bill.

In a situation like this, Ford was the one who usually had a plan. But now, they didn't even have Ford. It was like Weirdmageddon all over again, except without the apocalypse part, or all the people and friendly creatures to help, or even the warm, comforting shelter of the Mystery Shack.

This time, they were on their own.

And there was no sign of a plan.

"...I don't know…"

---

So for those who may not already be aware, the Crawlspace isn't a unique story idea that I founded or anything. It's actually a setting in a story in the official Gravity Falls: Lost Legends graphic novel. I think I may have mentioned a long while back in a note around the time it came out that I considered the comics to be canonical to Once More. At the same time, I mentioned that the inclusions of references to the comic would start off minimal before growing progressively more inclusive. And well, consider this chapter a sign of that growing inclusion.

Not that there's a lot that I plan on doing to expand upon the ideas of four small comic stories, but still. I feel it's at least worth pointing out that if you haven't read Lost Legends, a handful of future things that may pop up (or have already popped up) in this story may go over your heads. I still plan on explaining in-story whatever that I do reference, but trust me, I think it would be more convenient and exciting if you all just read the graphic novel in advance. PopeLickVA and his buds even did a full dub of the whole graphic novel that you can watch on YouTube for free. It's pretty swell!

My point is, there are plenty of ways to read it if you haven't already (and as much as I want to believe all of you have, considering it's official content, believe me, I've encountered a shocking number of fans that had no idea the book even existed).

Assuming a fair amount of you have read the graphic novel already and understood just about this entire chapter without the need for my in-depth explanations, I hope I did the Crawlspace further justice! I was always interested in this location and wondered how it would've been handled had it been featured in the actual show. In the future, I don't want it to become a too prominent location, but maybe as an occasionally recurring spot. We'll see though.

As far as other major Lost Legends references go, while I've already done minor ones before, I think the Crawlspace will be the biggest one for the meantime. There's only one other MAJOR inclusion from the graphic novel that I know I have planned right now, but that's not for a while. Though once again, that's why I'm pushing for y'all to read it if you haven't. If you have though, well, I hope you're excited!

But yeah, that's enough rambling for this note. Season's nearly over. So I'll have more to say at the end of it. But until then…

-Absolute Rift