A/N: Behold! The latest chapter!
Fantasy Fan 223: This is definitely going to be a chapter that tests Pacifica's sanity; I'm glad you liked the previous installation, and I hope this latest one lives up to the standard. Thanks so much!
Kraven the Hunter: Well, without saying too much, there's still time for that evil idea - after all, I'm going to check in on the characters soon! As for whether the parasite-infested Corduroys were Wendy's real family... well, nightmare fuel for you: maybe he's already killed the originals to make way for an army of clones made from genetic material harvested from their corpses. Or maybe they're still alive, connected to their parasite-infested clones by psychic link, unable to stop their other selves from attacking.
Northgalus2002: Glad you like the story so far! Spoiler - there's going to be a tiny ray of sunshine in this chapter; it's subtle, but it's there at long last, as promised.
ImpossibleJedi4: Well, it's going to be fun, alright - very grim and disturbing fun, but fun nonetheless. I'm glad you're enjoying it, and I hope I can keep up the quality!
Sola Haze: Yep - he's a cheater 'til the end. Wendy might still take them up on the offer (or force the Acolytes to accept her if they're still sore over the end of their last meeting); after all, I'm going to be returning to the past players in later chapters. As for how I came up with the landscape of Weirdmageddon, I basically take the idea that Bill has built the world solely to mess with his captives and parlay it into a series of post-apocalyptic scenarios designed to push apocalypse expert Wendy to her limit: zombies, giant bugs, mutants/Waterworld. Plus, the environments don't have to abide by natural laws, so they can be smooshed together with very little in the way of cohesion, further enforcing the notion that geography is whatever Bill says it is. I'm glad you like the story, and I'm flattered that you think I should be writing real books - currently working on that, believe it or not: as always, the problem is finding a publisher.
Anyway, without further ado, the latest chapter: read, review, and above all, enjoy!
Disclaimer: Gravity Falls is notteth myne.
13/6/17 - made corrections to a few typoes and incorrect word choices. Sorry.
To Pacifica's immense surprise, she did not awake to the sound of Bill Cipher's obnoxious laughter, as she'd been expecting. Nor had she been awoken by the sounds of other survivors whimpering in fear and pain, or the otherworldly shrieks of the things that prowled the forest just outside the safety of the Mystery Shack. She wasn't a tapestry decorating a throne room anymore, and yet, she wasn't cowering behind the Shack's walls with only a rat-eaten sleeping bag between her and the cold hardwood floor, either… and she definitely wasn't dressed in the potato sack she'd been wearing for the last three days.
She was lying in her own plush four-poster bed, cocooned in pre-cooled bedsheets and almost lost amidst carefully-plumped pillows, watching as dawn slowly trickled in through the mullioned windows. All around her lay her belongings, things she'd thought lost to her since Weirdmageddon had dawned: her golf clubs, her trophies, her collection of oil paintings, her wall-length mirror, her library of fashion magazines, her jewellery, her cosmetics, the two massive wardrobes of clothes, the porcelain dolls she'd stopped collecting on the day she'd turned nine but never had the heart to throw away... Somehow, against all odds, Pacifica had ended up back in her bedroom at Northwest Manor.
Somehow, she was home.
Had Dipper and Mabel actually managed to defeat Bill, even without the circle? Was Weirdmageddon over? Or had it all been a dream? Had everything she'd experienced in Weirdmageddon been nothing more than a nightmare?
Trembling, she sat up in bed – and immediately realized that something was wrong: normally, Pacifica's feet would have been just a few inches from the end of the bed, but now they barely got halfway across the mattress. Somehow, the bed had grown to double its usual size, and taken everything from the bedsheets to the pillows with it. Right now, she was sitting on a pillow roughly the size of a tractor tyre, pinned down under silk sheets that felt more like lead-lined tarpaulin than anything else. And now that she was upright and aware, the rest of the room seemed larger, too: at present, her bed was a colossal plateau above a stretch of carpet so dense and wild that Pacifica half expected to see lions chasing herds of wildebeest across it; all around her, shelves jutted skywards like sheer cliff faces, wardrobes and dressing tables forming an unearthly mountain range of polished redwood, the chandelier a mass of glittering crystal stalagmites. Somehow, the world around her hand grown – or perhaps she'd shrunk.
On instinct, Pacifica looked down at herself: at the moment, it was impossible to tell if she was smaller or the room was bigger, but whatever had happened, she definitely hadn't shrunk out of her clothes (thank goodness). However, she could tell at once that there was something different about her hands: they seemed smoother, somehow, as if all the lines and whorls from heels to fingertips had been erased. Looking closer, she found that her skin had actually hardened into a gleaming shell almost like…
…Porcelain.
Mind almost blank with fear, she found herself crawling to the edge of the bed and clambering down the side of the mattress, scaling the bedsheets all the way to the floor. She knew there was a mirror on the opposite side of the room, one big enough to see herself in without having to clamber over the furniture to reach it, but getting all the way to the other side of her bedroom was a trial in and of itself – partly because the carpet was so thick but mostly because it required her to navigate the tangle of furniture she could no longer push out of the way.
Eventually, she made it to the mirror, and peered anxiously at her reflection in the hopes of seeing precisely what was wrong with her.
A doll stared back.
All Pacifica's features were there: pale blue eyes, aristocratic cheekbones, flawless skin, golden-blonde hair down to her hips… but now they belonged to a doll. Her eyes were glass, her hair clearly synthetic fibres, and while her skin appeared to move with the malleability of living flesh, it remained as smooth and impermeable as bisque porcelain.
She was a doll.
And then, just as she was starting to think the situation couldn't get any more distressing, the bedroom door shot open without so much as a knock, and a squadron of maids burst in. Before Pacifica could ask any of them all the obvious questions, she found herself hoisted off the ground and forcibly sat down in front of the vanity, where the maids proceeded to wash her face, comb her hair, strip away the nightgown, rush her into a brand-new formal dress, apply makeup, and sprinkle her with perfume for good measure. Even though Pacifica told them she could easily dress herself, none of the maids listened to a single word she'd said, and try as she might, she couldn't force their hands away: her new body just didn't have the strength or the reach to do so.
As soon as the ablutions were finished, Pacifica was shepherded across the room and out the door – and here, the real horror began: as soon as she crossed the threshold, all control over her body abruptly ceased, leaving her mind thumping helplessly on the walls of her skull as her body stopped resisting and acquiesced to the maids' orders. Once again, she was helpless – except this time she didn't even have the luxury of protesting as loudly and obscenely as possible: she was now a prisoner of her own body and no matter how loudly she screamed, nobody could hear her.
After several agonizing minutes of silent terror, the maids led Pacifica into the mansion's entrance hall, which was currently being prepared for a celebration by the looks of things: trestle tables of party food were being hauled into place, the cider fountain was already being filled, and ice-sculptures of Pacifica herself had been positioned in special refrigerated enclosures. Somewhere at the back of her conscious mind, an alarm bell sounded and was immediately dismissed: as familiar as this particular scene looked, it couldn't be happening again; it had to be déjà vu or coincidence or something that made some kind of rational sense.
Yes, she'd been turned into a doll and had lost all free will, but she couldn't have time travelled as well, right?
As expected, Mother and Father were waiting for her at the bottom of the stairs, perfectly human and even taller than usual thanks to Pacifica's current condition.
Much less expected was the sight of Father – proud and dignified patriarch of the Northwest clan – sitting in a wheelchair, of all things. Preston Northwest wasn't one for showing weakness of any kind, even in the privacy of his own home; even on the rare occasion he came down with a head cold, he refused to let anyone but his personal physician see him until the bug had run its course. For anyone to see him like this, with his once-regal bearing left crooked by the thrust-forward seating, with his arms and legs swaddled in blankets like the late Mayor Befuftlefumpter, was almost inconceivable. He'd have rather put his legs in braces and walked with a cane rather than let the servants of the house look down on him.
What had caused this? Had Weirdmageddon happened after all? Maybe that would explain why Pacifica was a doll… but that still didn't explain what Bill Cipher was trying to do by having her back at home on top of everything else. Granted, she'd seen enough of Weirdmageddon to abandon all hope of anything making any kind of sense.
Whatever the case, she could tell that Father hadn't completely lost the use of his legs, for his knees were ever-so-slightly writhing beneath the blanket, his feet swivelling uncomfortably against the footplates as he struggled to make himself comfortable in the wheelchair – though Pacifica hesitated to use such a word.
If anything, the colossal wheeled conveyance squatting at the bottom of the stairs looked more like a throne: a gleaming, diamond-encrusted monstrosity of gold filigree, satin cushions and bleeding-edge electronics supported by a frame of steel and onyx, this was the kind of wheelchair fit only for autocrats. And yet, there was so much of it she couldn't see with all those blankets covering the armrests…
"Pacifica," Father purred. "Just in time. I see the servants took their time getting you into the dress your mother ordered… but I can see it was well worth the trouble."
Mother tittered vapidly. "It's just like I told you, Pacifica," she said. "Seafoam Green's the only colour fit for the Northwests this year. The guests will just love it."
Oh no.
And to Pacifica's horror, she felt her own mouth open of its own accord, and heard her own voice – or someone's best mimicry of it – say "As you say, mother. The guests will love it. I'm glad I could make a good impression for the family."
"Excellent," said Father, briskly. "Make sure you keep it up once the guests start arriving: these people have come to expect the very best, and I expect everyone in this house – family or staff – to be ready to impress our visitors… and ensure that the rabble gathering outside our walls do not breach this compound. The festivities tomorrow night are crucial to maintaining our social standing in the international community, and I will not see this family disgraced before the eyes of the wealthiest men and women on the planet. Is that understood?"
But to Pacifica's surprise, the death glare didn't fall on her: instead, Mother was the one who bore the brunt of Preston Northwest's disapproving scowl, another thing Pacifica couldn't recall seeing in her lifetime. After all, when was the last time her mother had done anything contrary to the good of the family, let alone Father's desires? But here she was, nodding silently, as shamefaced as Pacifica herself was whenever the bell had been brought out.
"Excellent!" said her father, his usual self-assured smile back on his face. Once again, he shifted in his wheelchair, and this time a spasm of pain flitted across his face; a moment later, the smile had returned, but somehow more desperate. He waved the butler over, immediately snatching a large glass of wine from the plate he was carrying. "So!" he said loudly. "Here's to our annual party – and to the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of this house's completion!"
Oh no, Pacifica thought, as Father drained the glass in a single gulp. It's happening again. It's the night of the party, only this time I'm doing everything they wanted to me to – starting with the dress… and that means that any minute now-
Suddenly, the mansion was filled with the sound of crockery shattering and cutlery hurling itself at anyone unlucky enough to be within range, audible even this far from the banqueting hall. From the drawing room just down the corridor, there echoed the faint but unmistakable roar of the Lumberjack's ghost bellowing in rage – still too weak to take form but just strong enough to play poltergeist.
The curse had begun again.
The next day, Father sent her to the Mystery Shack to request help for Dipper – just as he had the last time. Somehow not noticing the fact that Pacifica had shrunk, Dipper kept to the script by initially turning her down, only to reluctantly change his mind after some cajoling from Mabel and her friends. And once again, three tickets to the Northwest party changed hands.
Outwardly, Pacifica was just as standoffish and irritable as she had been the first time, following every single word of the script to the letter; inwardly, she was screaming. For every second of that brief meeting, she was trying in vain to regain control of her voice just so she could tell Dipper to stay away from Northwest Manor, because she knew that Father wouldn't need a bell to manipulate her anymore and this time she wouldn't be able to open the gates; this time, the Lumberjack's ghost would burn the mansion to the ground and every single guest outside the panic room would be incinerated. If Dipper accepted her offer this time, he would die – along with Mabel, Grenda, and Candy and everyone outside the manor walls unlucky enough to be caught in the inevitable stampede to escape the blaze.
When she wasn't pleading for Dipper to turn her down, she was pleading for him to help her: after all, if there was anyone who could undo whatever had been done to her, it was Dipper – after all, he still had one of the Journals around this time, and he knew what it was like to lose all control of his body to someone else. Maybe, just maybe, if she could regain enough control to tell him what had happened, they might just be able to fix her and maybe derail the whole night.
And when that didn't work, she tried the same thing with Mabel when the limousine arrived to pick them up. After all, she'd saved her life before; maybe she'd be able to do it again. For almost twenty minutes, she could only sit in the back seat of the car, hoping against hope that something about Mabel – like that godawful homemade dress with the glue-gun stuck to the hem, for instance – would be annoying enough to get Pacifica to regain control. Instead, she could only sit in the back of her skull and watch helplessly as the limousine silently ferried them back to Northwest Manor.
For the first few hours of the evening, almost everything proceeded as it had the first time: the arrival, the "Welcome to Northwest Manor, dorks," Mabel's exuberant fit, Dipper being shepherded off for an emergency tuxedo fitting that Pacifica couldn't help admiring, the search for the offending the ghost, the manifestation of the Lumberjack ghost, and the chase through the corridors that had followed.
Over the course of the chase, though, things started going off script: once again, Pacifica refused to allow Dipper to cross Mother and Father's favourite carpet, but this time she heard the childish panic in her voice replaced by something cold and remorseless. This time, she heard herself say "You're here to save the dignity of the Northwest family, Pines, not to ruin it! Either you find another way or I leave you here to die!"
And to Pacifica's horror, she found herself actually reaching out to snatch the Journal from Dipper's hands; in the ensuing tussle, the two of them tripped backwards into the Northwest Family's secret archive of dirty little secrets – where, just as before, the silver mirror was waiting for them. Soon after, the Lumberjack was captured almost according to script.
This time, though, Pacifica didn't hug Dipper; she didn't even condescend to shake his hand before he left the grounds – and somehow, that seemed worse than all the horrors and indignities she'd endured as a prisoner in her own body. A hug might have dulled that terrible feeling of isolation that had descended on her as the day had dragged on; contact with someone, anyone would have given her some hope that she could be saved… and in spite of how embarrassed she'd felt in the aftermath of that impulsive embrace, re-living how she'd felt the first time she'd hugged Dipper would have been more than welcome.
As strange as it was to acknowledge the fact, she liked him. True, she'd never admit it to his face, but the colossal dork was actually kind of cute in a somewhat geeky kind of way… but more than that, he'd been right about the Northwests, in everything he'd said about her (good and bad), and as harsh as he'd been with her initially, he'd been kind to her – far kinder than she deserved.
It seemed so odd to acknowledge him as a friend, even in the solitude of her own mind: she'd never really had friends before she'd met Dipper and Mabel. She'd had an entourage of capable associates assigned by her parents after an extensive screening process, and she'd been specifically ordered not to remember their names in the event that they had to be replaced. Calling the two attendants by their names was a punishable offence, one that always left the sound of the bell ringing in Pacifica's ears until she'd finally learned her lesson.
"They're not worth the effort, Pacifica," Father had told her in the aftermath of one particularly embarrassing incident. "Friends, much like the rest of the rabble, are interchangeable in every way: stupid, lazy and always begging for handouts. The sooner you realize how easily they can be bought and sold, the happier you'll be for it. Now, a business partner is definitely worth remembering: friends will only accumulate debts they can't possibly repay; a good partner will enrich you and the family for decades – centuries, even."
With disconnection from her attendants being mandatory, high-fives, handshakes and hugs were officially forbidden except on special occasions. Now, after god only knew how many years of restricted interactions, human contact left her feeling unsettled and unusual: the concept of accepting food from Mabel in the form of "sharing" had left her completely bamboozled for most of the evening. But as embarrassed as Dipper's hug had left her, that brief moment of human contact had been the first happy moment she'd enjoyed all evening, and its absence only made the sense of imprisonment all the more horrific. Now she didn't just feel like a spectator; she didn't even feel like a prisoner: she felt buried alive.
Then, when Dipper finally returned in a fury, Pacifica could only listen in horror as her own voice sneered, "I honestly don't know why you're angry about this, Pines. It's not as if you knew any of those dead lumberjacks, is it? Why should you care about a few rats drowned in the rain? If anything, I think you should be thanking us for leaving them to the mudslides: tonight, you got to enjoy luxury that most of your class will never know, and you overlooked everything you knew about us just so you could give Mabel and her idiot friends a chance at enjoying it as well... and you're not going to give it up, because you don't want to see that that doe-eyed social cripple you call a sister crying. See, you're just like every other member of the rabble I've ever met: gullible, stupid, easily bought, and best of all, replaceable. So, if you want my advice, I'd enjoy tonight while you still can: enjoy the privilege of holding my attention for as long as you have… because tomorrow, you'll be forgotten – by me, by my parents, by the real party guests, and by everyone on the planet who really matters."
No, no, no, Pacifica whispered. I'm not saying this, Dipper, you have to believe me – I'm not the one saying this. Please, you have to know I wouldn't say this to you. You have to hear me when I say this. Please, please, help me. I can't bear another minute of this – drag me away, plug my ears, puncture my eardrums, anything, just please stop this.
"I was right about you all along," said Dipper, quietly. "You're just another link in the world's worst chain… and if that's the only thing you can be remembered for, then I'm happy being forgotten."
And without another word, he stormed off, leaving Pacifica alone with her grief.
Minutes later, the Lumberjack escaped containment and descended upon Northwest Manor in a fury: in the ensuing reality breakdown, guests were transmuted into wooden statues, hunting trophies came to life and assaulted the survivors, and the trees of the long-dead forest erupted through the floorboards to reclaim the mansion from within. Just as before, Dipper arrived back at the Manor in a desperate attempt to stop the chaos. This time, of course, he didn't bother trying to appeal to Pacifica's better nature, not now that he had conclusive proof that it didn't exist. Instead, he made a beeline for the ghost, intending to imprison him in yet another mirror – but just as before, the Lumberjack was ready for him: with the first blast of spectral energy, he blasted the mirror out of Dipper's hands, and with the second, he reduced him to another wooden statue.
Had there been any justice in the world, this would have been Pacifica's cue to finally regain control of her own body and open the gates. But no: she remained imprisoned in her own skull, her body standing calmly in the corner as the nightmarish transformation of the manor reached its grisly conclusion. When the ghost issued his final ultimatum, she remained there, outwardly unmoved by the column of fire billowing up from the fireplace and licking greedily at the manor's roof – even as it quickly spread to the rest of the mansion.
She wanted to look away; if she couldn't open the gates, then she should at least be able to avert her gaze or shut her eyes or anything that would spare her the sight of the flames consuming the transmuted guests. But she couldn't: her eyes remained open and fixed on the conflagration slowly rippling across the entrance hall towards the waiting crowd; even when the butler took her by the hand and began leading her across the blazing ruins towards the panic room where her parents awaited her, Pacifica could still see every moment of the carnage that followed, though the smoke did its best to obscure her view.
When she finally reached the open trapdoor, she was afforded a few moments of mercy when her body looked away from the chaos, if only to descend the ladder into the waiting panic room. But in the few seconds before the trapdoor slammed shut behind her, she turned – and saw the flames enveloping Dipper's body. A moment later, a beam dropped from the ceiling like the blade of a guillotine, shattering his charred remains into a thousand pieces; then, the door slammed shut, and darkness was all she knew.
For the first half-hour, all Pacifica could do was scream.
For thirty long minutes, she screamed and cried and wept and pounded on the inside of her skull with her non-existent fists, trying in vain to take back her body – without success. For every minute of that first terrible hour, her body sat in a corner, smiling idiotically at the sterile white enclosure that was to be their home until the danger had passed, and the fact that nobody could hear the real Pacifica's voice only made her outpouring of grief and frustration all the more painful.
In the end, though, she simply ran out of energy: her internalized screaming couldn't wear her out in the usual sense, given that it didn't consume oxygen, but it definitely wore her out on an emotional level. After the half-hour was up and her last drop of emotion spend, there honestly much left to do but stare out at the world in a daze.
Dipper was dead.
Mabel was dead.
The only two friends she'd ever had in her entire life were dead, and all hope of reclaiming her body had died with them. And now, by all appearances, she was going to spend the rest of her day as a prisoner of both her family and her own body, forced to watch as she sleepwalked through life exactly as Father intended. What was the point in getting upset when she knew nobody would ever see or hear it?
What was the point in anything?
So, she remained silent in spirit as well as body for a change, ticking off the hours as they dragged by, wearily observing the survivors she now shared the panic room with: the butler, stoic and almost as silent as Pacifica; Mother, shivering and clearly terrified out of her life; and Father, smiling triumphantly… and yet unable to hide the spasms of pain flitting across his face.
The four of them stayed in the panic room for over a week, living off tasteless sandwiches and spring water… and when the food finally ran out, Father remained true to his word – though he had Mother carry out the deed when the time finally came. For every step of the dreadful process, Mother was a trembling, sobbing wreck, barely able to see what she was doing through her tears; by contrast, the butler never stirred, even when the straight-razor tore through his throat.
By that stage, Pacifica was so benumbed by her experiences that she barely noticed the sudden change in the menu. In fact, had the butler's cannibalized remains not been clearly sitting in the corner, she might never have realized that she wasn't eating pork after all.
On the ninth day, the rescue teams finally dug their way through the ruins of the manor and released the three of them from the panic room. And then…
Time became increasingly fluid: months seemed to pass in minutes, the procession of front-page articles, press conferences, funerals, insurance payments, construction crews and public forgetfulness whizzing past in a kaleidoscopic blur of snapshots. The Northwests were absolved of blame for the deaths of so many wealthy socialites; the fire was dismissed as arson committed by a jealous member of the public; the victims of that night were given suitably lavish funerals – though few recognizable bodies were left to bury. Eventually, the Tragedy of the Northwest Manor Party drifted off the front pages and into the hazy realm of public memory, where it was promptly forgotten. Eventually, the construction crews descended upon the hill, sweeping away the wreckage and erecting palatial towers in their place, laying the foundations for a brand new Northwest Manor.
And what felt like only an hour later, Pacifica found herself being ushered back into a perfect replica of her old room and left there while her parents "settled in."
Then, and only then did she finally regain control of her body.
Okay, she thought absently. In here, I'm in control. Out there, I'm controlled by Bill Cipher or whoever's running this little nightmare. Good to know.
She took a deep breath, opened her mouth and screamed: for forty straight seconds, she vented every moment of fear, sorrow, anger and pain that had built up in the back of her mind over the course of the last week, and didn't stop screaming until she had exhausted every last vestige of breath in her lungs. And after that…
…well, for lack of a better term, she went a little bit crazy.
Most of it she didn't even remember. However, one moment that stuck in her mind featured her standing in front of the mirror and cracking the skin on her arms with the base of her heaviest trophy, laboriously peeling great chunks of porcelain off her shattered limbs in the hope that there'd be real flesh underneath, that if she just smashed enough of her doll self away she'd be able to break free of it like a butterfly emerging from its chrysalis and be human again.
But no matter how much of her porcelain flesh she smashed and tore away, there always another layer of it waiting underneath, and after tearing through no less than three replacement layers of skin and leaving it all piled at her feet like so many broken eggshells, she had to admit that continuing would be futile.
And then, just as she was starting to wonder what was to become of her next, there was a knock at the door, and the voice of the replacement butler murmured, "Your father would like to speak with you…"
The first thing she noticed upon being ushered into the study was that she could move her arms and legs again once she crossed the threshold; either this was another room in the house where she had free will, or Father wanted to speak candidly with her – for once.
The second thing she noticed was that Father's desk had been replaced by a massive slab of polished marble, large enough to take up the entire rear wall of the study; even with the room as massive as it was, this colossal chunk of rock still dominated the chamber in a way that the imposing redwood desk never had. In fact, looking closer at it, Pacifica realized that wasn't merely a slab or even a pedestal, but a step-pyramid – and it was right at the uppermost pinnacle of this marble ziggurat that Father was being positioned. Now, with the wheels removed and the chair having been crane-lifted on top of the pyramid, there was no doubt: his wheelchair really was a throne.
"I hope you appreciate this, Pacifica," he grumbled, as Mother locked the last of the chair's supports in place. "I went to a great deal of trouble to make sure your indiscretion never happened, and I expect you to take full advantage of the opportunity this represents. Now that you're in control of your own body again, you're to be on your best behaviour from now on, and you will be attentive to my lessons – all of them. Is that understood?"
Pacifica blinked in horror. "You mean… this is because of you?" she exploded. "You turned me into – no, you had someone turn me into a doll? You made me watch Dipper die, all because you wanted the party to end the way you wanted it to?!"
"On your best behaviour, Pacifica. I tolerated your big moment of rebellion – barely – and I will not tolerate any more of it. And no: if the party had ended exactly the way I wanted it to, that ghost would have been exorcized and our guests would have left the building alive, but…" Father sighed wearily. "Beggars – can't – be – choosers," he concluded, slowly forcing every word through gritted teeth like barbed wire dental floss. "And no, I didn't arrange for anyone to turn you into a doll: that was Bill's idea of a joke."
"You made a deal with Bill?" Pacifica demanded. "You're working with Bill Cipher?!"
By way of an explanation, Father pressed a button on the right armrest of his throne. Immediately, footlights set in the base of the wall behind him illuminated a huge tapestry depicting dozens of tiny figures grovelling before a rather familiar-looking triangular deity.
"This family has been in business with Bill Cipher for the better part of a hundred and fifty years, Pacifica," Father snapped. "Why do you think the government selected Nathaniel Northwest for the role of replacement town founder? True, our means of summoning him was lost back in the 1930s, but our loyalty to him has never truly faltered. Why do you think I pledged my allegiance to Bill the moment Weirdmageddon began? Why do you think I invested my money in Weirdness bonds even after that business with my face? Ever since our great ancestor's bargain with Bill catapulted him into a position of esteem, we have owed everything to this mighty entity, and in order to ensure the continued good fortune of our family, we are obliged to pay the price he occasionally asks of us!"
"Like what? Going crazy and choking to death on tree bark?"
"Exactly! Nathaniel Northwest's unfortunate demise was a tragic but perfectly acceptable variation of the cost sometimes demanded of our bloodline-"
"And what was the cost demanded of you, exactly? Getting bound to a wheelchair even though you clearly don't need it? Making your family commit cannibalism?"
From a corner of the study/throne room came the sound of Priscilla Northwest trying valiantly not to throw up.
Meanwhile, Father's already thunderous expression took a turn for the downright apocalyptic. "You make it sound as though it wasn't worth it," he snarled. "Do you comprehend just how far we fell thanks to your little spectacle at the party, the depths we sank to because of you?! One of our best-kept secrets ended up on display before the public eye, more than half of our most eligible business partners for the next year severed ties with us, and some of the guests actually threatened to sue! Two days before Weirdmageddon began, I was being taken to court on charges of criminal negligence – because of you!"
"Right," said Pacifica. "Because letting some of the richest and most powerful people in the world burn alive would have been a totally litigation-free solution."
This time, Father didn't even bother warning her: the bell was in his hand and ringing before she could even react to its presence; it must have been hidden in one of the armrests of his throne, for his hands hadn't left their position there at all in the last few minutes. Pacifica could only grit her teeth and try to resist all the painful impulses now flooding her brain as she waited for the ringing to subside; this time, though, the sound of the bell didn't end with her staring shamefaced at the floor – a small victory but well worth it.
"And what about your activities in Weirdmageddon?" Father plunged on. "Thanks to those Weirdness bonds, I could have been able to make a new deal with Bill and arrange a return to our former position, but you and those idiot friends of your spoiled everything! The moment you invaded the Fearamid, the deal was off the table!"
"What deal? You were petrified at the time!"
The bell rang again. "He'd already restored my face! He said I'd be freed from petrification if my investments went as planned! But you-"
"You specifically told me to take part in the Circle! You told me to take Old Man McGucket's hand!"
"SHUT UP WHEN I'M TALKING TO YOU!" Father roared, ringing the bell so violently that it looked as if it might fall from his grasp. "I told you to join the Circle because you'd already ruined my deal and left me with no other way out. Then, of course, you and your friends failed! We would have been paupers on the street if you'd had your way! So it fell to me to save this family: our benefactor agreed to undo your collaboration with the gatecrashers and return the Northwests to their former glory in a pocket reality where Weirdmageddon never happened. In return, I agreed to serve him without question, and took my place on the only true emblem of this family's leadership."
And with that, he reached over to the blankets shrouding his limbs and tossed them aside, revealing the throne in all its hideous glory: above the gleaming shell of gold filigree and polished onyx, beyond the gem-studded flanks and cushioned headrest, Preston Northwest's throne was covered in dozens upon dozens of needle-sharp hooks, each one about two inches long and tipped with a vicious-looking barb. Even as far as she was from the throne, Pacifica could clearly see five on each armrest, nine just above the footplates, and as many as twenty on the backrest… and most of them were now embedded in Father's body, tearing through his clothes and digging deep into his flesh, befouling his $800,000 suit with blood. Some had been driven so violently into his arms that they'd actually punched clean through to the other side, leaving the gore-soaked barb exposed to the air. In any case, it was clear why he hadn't left the wheelchair even though he still had the use of his legs: with that many hooks in him, it would have been impossible to move without doing himself serious injury.
"This," Father hissed, through gritted teeth, "is the Northwest Throne. A symbol of our greatness and the price we must pay for it: we all enjoy the power, wealth, influence and respect our status affords us, and we all must live with burden of serving the family's interests above those of any individual – or any outsider; the head of the family must always serve, must always ensure the continued survival of the Northwest clan and its continued rise to power, for if he abandons the throne, he is lost. Oh, the idea of this throne's existed for decades, but it didn't exist physically until Bill Cipher made it so… and I think it might just be the best thing that's ever happened to this family. Because you see, it's not only allowed us to become kings of our own little world, but it's also ensured that the next generations of this family will never make the mistakes you made – not after seeing the price that dereliction of duty exacts."
He's crazy, Pacifica thought. He's lost his mind. He couldn't possibly say all this if he actually had a sane thought in his head… I hope.
"Now," he concluded, "It's time you accepted the inevitable: Bill Cipher is in command of all reality and all humanity, and as our family's patron, he is owed your immediate grovelling obedience. So, when he arrives, you will fall on your knees and worship him as is his due. I don't want to hear another word out of your mouth about Dipper or Mabel or any of those plebeian ingrates you call friends: from now on, you will serve our family and you will obey our benefactor without question. Is that understood?"
Pacifica didn't answer: something white-hot and angry was silently burning at the back of her mind.
"I said, is that understood?"
"Go to hell, dad."
Father's eyes widened in rage. "Is that any way to speak to your father?" he hissed. "Is that any way to speak to the patriarch of the richest and most powerful family on the planet-"
"Oh grow up! You don't have power, dad; you don't even have wealth. You only have what Bill wants you to have: you said yourself you didn't want me turned into a doll; you said you didn't want the party guests massacred, but it happened all the same – because Bill thought it'd be funny. Bill's the one with all the power here, dad: you're just another one of his toys!"
"How dare you-"
"No, how dare you!" Pacifica screamed back. "You talk about how much I cost this family, about how badly I damaged our reputation, about how we would have all been poor and disgraced if I'd "had my way." I risked my life trying to save you! I saw you petrified with the rest of Gravity Falls and I said – out loud – that you didn't deserve that! It's because of Dipper and Mabel that we were there to save you in the first place, and you repaid them by rewinding time and leaving them to die! The people who were in that circle trying to stop Bill were a thousand times better than you, and if you had any decency to speak of, you'd have statues built in their honour. But you won't, and you know why? Because you're too happy being a slave to ever imagine doing anything worthwhile – like fixing this godforsaken joke of a family!"
"I won't stand for this, Pacifica-"
"Weren't you listening? I don't care what you stand for! As far as I'm concerned, the only thing you ever stood for is yourself, and you screwed that up in the end by letting Bill Cipher turn you into a windup toy!"
"ENOUGH!" Father roared, and reached for the bell again.
But this time, his grip failed him: maybe his fingers were slick with blood, maybe the hooks digging into his arms had done too much damage to his muscles. One way or another, the bell slipped from his hands and fell to the floor, landing on the uppermost step of the ziggurat with a nerve-shredding diiiiing and bouncing down the steps with a long, drawn-out procession of discordant ringing – before finally rolling to a halt at Pacifica's doll-sized feet.
There was a stunned pause.
Then, Father whispered "Give that to me, Pacifica."
"No."
"I said-"
"I heard what you said, Father. I'm just not interested in listening anymore: you can't get me to do anything, now."
"Pacifica, I am your father, and as head of this family, you will obey me! Now give me that bell!"
"If you want it so badly, then get off the throne and come get it."
Father's eyes flitted wildly between the bell and Pacifica, before finally settling on the terrified figure of her mother.
"Priscilla, bring me the bell, now!" he ordered.
But as expected, Mother froze. Judging by the emotional breakdown in the panic room and the way Father had so obviously raged at her behind closed doors, she'd already had reservations with the family's new arrangements. So, instead of responding in any meaningful fashion, she went stiff as a board and tried to merge with the wall behind her.
"Goddammit, will someone pick up the bell?!" Father howled – a distinct note of desperation in his voice.
From somewhere behind him, there was a shriek of maniacal laughter; a moment later, Bill Cipher materialized in mid-air just above Father's head, sending tiny shockwaves of energy rippling out across the study.
"Oooh, it looks as though you're losing your touch, Famine!" Bill cackled. "Maybe the throne wasn't meant for you after all!"
Famine? Pacifica thought bemusedly. Oh right, the Horseman of the Apocalypse request. Guess Bill decided to take it as a joke.
If Father's expression had seemed desperate before, now it looked downright panicked. "No!" he said hurriedly. "I've more than earned my place on this throne! I'm just having some difficulties settling in! Give me some time, and I'll get these two under control again, I promise!"
"So you admit you've lost control? That's not like you, Famine. What happened to the good ol' Northwest charm and confidence? Your old man had it right up to the day he died, and so did every Northwest worth a mention in the family tree. You kept it up, even when the sky split open and puked a horde of demons on Gravity Falls… but now that you've got everything you could possibly want, it's all falling apart! What's wrong, Famine? Come on, buddy, share the pain with your old pal Bill."
"Nothing's wrong! I swear to you, this family will be back under my command within the hour, and we'll be able to deliver you whatever you could possibly want!"
"Oooh, within the hour? Optimistic! I like it. Pity you obviously don't have what it takes to run the family anymore, not under the new conditions. Inevitable really: you don't really learn what people are really capable of until you squeeze 'em; some deliver the most incredible things, others just dry up and blow away like dead leaves. You're no Fordsie, pal. Looks like you're on the way out – and before you learned to use any of the powers that throne would have granted you."
"No!" Father wailed. "I'm still the patriarch of this family! I've proved myself a thousand times over ever since I took the reins of power – in the eyes of my father, in the eyes of the political elite, in the eyes of the world! I've enriched this family by trillions of dollars! My influence won the election for the last four presidents, and my influence shut them down when they stopped supporting the Northwests! I've bankrolled political change everywhere from Bolivia to the Black Sea! Can't you see I can still be useful to you? Let me prove myself! Give me one more chance!"
"I've given you more than enough chances already, Famine," said Bill, coldly. "You've blown every single one of them – beginning with the most important one: entertaining me. Besides, if you think you signed up for just another lifetime of political puppetry and economic gamesmanship, then you're obviously in the wrong job. I don't want a patriarch; I don't even want a CEO: I want a conqueror." His eyelids curved upwards in a warped approximation of a smirk. "Get ready to scream, Preston."
And with a deft wave of Bill's hand, Father was telekinetically yanked upwards off the throne, the barbed hooks immediately wrenched free of his body with a sickening pop of tearing flesh. As if to add insult to injury, the next flex of telekinetic power sent him flying across the room and crashing headlong into the wall, leaving an ampersand-shaped bloodstain on the wallpaper as he bounced off and slumped to the ground. For twelve heartstopping seconds, he lay there in a bloodied heap of tortured muscles and ruined eveningwear, unmoving and quite clearly not breathing; then, drawing in a single tortured gasp for air, he very slowly curled into a foetal ball of whimpering ex-patriarch, alive but clearly in serious pain.
"Now!" Bill cackled briskly. "Let's get down to business, boys and girls: now that round two of this little game's fallen flat thanks to my failed Horseman of the Apocalypse, so it's up to one of the two Northwests left standing to take ol' Famine's place on the throne."
Pacifica very slowly looked from Bill to the now-vacant throne, which was still glistening with Father's blood and garlanded by tattered lengths of silk from his suit… and even from here, it was impossible to ignore the gibbets of shredded flesh dangling from the throne's hooks. Mother must have noticed them too, because she immediately panicked and shrieked "Pacifica should be the one! She defied Preston's orders! It's her fault that the throne's empty!"
"Ah-ah-ah!" the demented triangle chided. "I'm not accepting nominations, Madam Trophy; this isn't a democracy, in case you hadn't noticed. See, we're going to have tryouts: you and Llama-Girl will be tested on which of you have the right stuff to become the new head of the family, to see who's the most talented, the most intelligent, the most imaginative, the most ruthless, the most ambitious – and above all, the most entertaining! I hope you're ready for the biggest contest of you lives, ladies, because losing means spending the rest of your life as a slave to the Northwest family – just like Famine here!"
The mere threat of enslavement was enough to get Father back on his feet again. "NO!" he roared, forcing himself upright in spite of his injuries. "I will not be enslaved: I'm the patriarch of this family – I do the enslaving!"
Bill rolled his eye. "Not anymore; I'm pretty sure we'd already established the fact that your spot as head of the family and Horseman of the Apocalypse is now open. You remember that, right, Famine?"
"I AM PRESTON NATHANIEL NORTHWEST, AND YOU WILL GIVE ME BACK MY THRONE, NOW!"
"So much for 'owing me everything,' huh? I swear, Nathaniel didn't kick up such a ruckus when the time came for him to step down – he just choked to death, nice and quietly! Would it hurt you to act your age, or do you think it's time I started making changes on that front?"
"SHUT UP AND GIVE ME MY THRONE!" Father screamed, apoplectic with anger and pain.
Without saying a word, Bill waved a hand and sent a pulsing beam of compressed Weirdness rippling into Father's defenceless body. For a moment, he could only stand there, paralysed as the energy permeated every single facet of his being; then, he began to change: his wounds vanished instantly; his hair softened and shifted, his moustache evaporating into nothingness; his skin, once healthily-tanned by years of summer vacations in the Bahamas, suddenly turned a pale, sickly shade more commonly associated with expired milk; his perfect white teeth turned crooked and mismanaged as years of orthodontic surgery undid itself. But it wasn't until the cuffs of his shirt began to slip over his hands that the truth became apparent: Father was getting younger. Before the stunned eyes of Pacifica and her mother, Preston Northwest shrank and withered away, the once-regal stature and dignified physique melting into the underdeveloped frame of a child; his clothes grew huge on his dwindling shape, his jacket left hanging off his shoulders like a cape, his sagging pants barely staying on, his shoes big enough for him to simply step out of without even undoing the laces. By the time this startling metamorphosis was completed, the once-formidable Northwest patriarch had been replaced by a boy of no more than eight years of age, blinking down at his freshly-regressed body with a mixture of disbelief and horror.
"What did you do to me?" he shrilled, his eyes immediately full of tears.
"Good news, Llama Girl!" Bill chortled. "You now have a little brother!"
"Shut up!" Young Preston bawled. "It's not funny!"
"Watch your mouth, kiddo, or I'll take another five years off. Push your luck too far, and I'll rewrite your entire history, make it so you were never a member of the Northwest family at all: I'll leave you a beggar child in the ruins of New York, cripple you with polio and leave you just enough memory of who you used to be to mourn your loss – before you're swallowed up by the rabble."
"I don't care! I am a Northwest, and I demand you treat me with the dignity I deserve!"
"Right," Bill sighed. "I almost forgot: I already know what makes you whimper…"
Young Preston's eyes bulged neurotically, his gaze suddenly shifting towards a small box sitting on a shelf just across from where Pacifica stood.
Then, without warning, he drew a handgun from his jacket. "Change me back," he ordered, "Or-"
"Or what, kid? You already know there's nothing you can do to harm me!"
"-Or I'll kill them both!" Preston screamed, waving the gun in the direction of Pacifica and her mother.
For a moment, Bill was silent as the apparently defeated patriarch levelled the custom-made Desert Eagle in the direction of Pricilla Northwest's disbelieving face.
And in that moment, Pacifica acted instinctively: as soon as Preston's back was turned, she darted over to the box on the shelf, reached inside, and plucked out a palm-sized lump of electronics almost identical to a TV remote, but blank except for a single red button in the centre of it. Pacifica had no idea what this mysterious contraption could do or why it was even here, but the fact that Father appeared to be scared of it was reason enough to use it.
So, almost without thinking, she pointed the machine squarely at Preston, took careful aim, and pressed the button. Instantly, the device let out an ear-piercing shriek of discordant synthetic sound, loud enough to be heard on the other side of the study and sharp enough to make any listener's hair stand on end: it was horrific, a monstrous hybrid of fingernails on a chalkboard, a game show-style buzzer, and an angle grinder in action.
And if the sound of the buzzer was painful to everyone else, its effect on Preston was nothing short of devastating: upon hearing that nerve-jangling sound, Preston immediately dropped the gun and froze in place, hands locked by his sides, his gaze fixed on his oversized shoes, his expression terror-stricken and shamefaced.
It took Pacifica a grand total of three seconds to notice the similarities.
"Your parents did it to you too?" she asked quietly.
Preston nodded silently.
"You knew what it was like, and you did this to me? You still used the bell on me?!"
"I… the Northwests cannot abide a disobedient scion, Pacifica, you have to understand. The bell was necessary, just as the buzzer was necessary in my case: it made me into the man I am today, and the bell would have made you into the perfect-"
Anger flared at the back of Pacifica's mind, and she pressed the button again.
"Alright, alright, I won't say another word, I promise, just please don't use the buzzer again-"
"Why shouldn't I?!" Pacifica screamed. "After everything you did to me, after everything you did to protect the precious family name, after making a deal with Bill, after letting Dipper and Mabel die, I should have you pick up that gun and blow your brains out!"
"ImsorryImsorryImsorryIdidntmeanitImsorrypleasedonthurtmepleasedonthurtme…"
"Oh shut up! You're not even worth the effort, because you're going to spend the rest of your life under Bill's thumb! As far as I'm concerned, that's punishment enough."
There was a pause, as the ex-patriarch finally rose from the hunched, cowering pose he'd adopted over the last few seconds, and slowly recovered his breath.
"Just hear me out for a few seconds," he wheedled. "He's chosen you and Pricilla as his newest favourites: you can make him see reason, you can make him turn me back into an adult, put me back on the throne. Please…" A ghost of his older self's anger flickered across his face, looking nothing short of pathetic on a gawky-featured eight-year-old. "I'm your father, Pacifica. Doesn't that mean something to you?"
Hatred bubbled at the back of Pacifica's mind, purer and harsher than any anger she'd felt before today. "You know what you are, Preston?" she snarled. "You're just another selfish, spoiled brat with delusions of grandeur, just like the rest of this family. I'm done listening to you. Now… go stand in the corner."
"What?"
Pacifica furiously slammed her hand down on the button, sending another nerve-jangling tone from the buzzer tearing through Preston's eardrums.
"STAND IN THE CORNER!" she screamed. "NOW! FACE THE WALL AND DO NOT TURN AROUND, SIT DOWN OR EVEN TALK TO ME UNTIL YOU'VE LEARNED YOUR LESSON! YOU CAN STAY THERE UNTIL YOU PASS OUT FOR ALL I CARE!"
She took a deep breath. "I'm pretty sure that's how it went when you used the same lesson on me," she muttered breathlessly. "Now get moving."
Trembling with fear, the once-mighty Northwest patriarch shuffled awkwardly into the nearest corner of the study, and stood there with his eyes cast to the ground, bottom lip quivering as he struggled not to cry. And in the ringing silence that followed, the only sounds to be heard was the stream of muffled sobbing echoing up from Preston's corner and the spine-tingling click of Bill Cipher's applause.
"Would you look at that!" he cackled. "It looks like Little Miss Llama's already taken the lead! Better get used to calling her "ma'am," Preston: one day she really will be the boss of your family!"
Pacifica sighed deeply. "But only if I continue the trial," she remarked. "And why the hell would I want to do that?"
"Because that's the only way you're ever going to see Dipper and Mabel again, obviously."
"…what?"
"Do you really think death has any real domain in my world, Pacifica Northwest? Reality is what I say it is! If I will it, life begins, continues and restarts in spite of all the things that should have kept it dead. Besides, I didn't kill them – I just copied them and killed the copies, easier than drowning kittens and beating puppies to death with their corpses. Dipper and Mabel are both still alive, playing the games I've given them… and the only way you'll see those dear old friends of yours is if you play by my rules and claim your seat on the Northwest Throne. Besides, I think you'll enjoy the things the throne can grant you – and you've got the imagination to use it, unlike your dad. You're currently in a unique pocket dimension of my own design; besides me, the only thing around here that can truly control all the powers hidden away in this private kingdom is the throne. Give a little of yourself to it, and you'll have powers beyond your wildest dreams; sit the throne itself, and live with the agony for a little while, and you'll be a demigod in your own right. You might even be able to make yourself human again. And when you see Dipper again… well, maybe you'll be able to tell him how you really feel about him.
"So what'll it be, Llama Girl? A future of unlimited power as the head of the Northwest Family and my newest Horseman of the Apocalypse… or a life spent as a slave to your mom? Your choice."
Hours later, Pacifica returned to her room, almost brain-dead with exhaustion: she'd agreed to consider Bill's offer if she was at least given a full night's sleep to recover before making up her mind, and had been released to the privacy of her bedroom for the next fifteen hours to that end. Now that she was here, though, sleep was the furthest possible thing from her mind.
Now that her anger had finally had a chance to cool, she felt no victory at seeing her father humbled and laid low with his own childhood fears, only a cloying, nauseating sense of guilt: she was well aware that she'd crossed some terrible line by using the buzzer to take revenge, and the fact that she'd honestly considered forcing him to kill himself only made her feel even worse.
She hadn't been taking justified revenge on her father, not really: all she'd done was take out her long-buried frustrations on someone younger and weaker than she was, someone who'd been pleading for mercy and couldn't fight back. And according to Bill, this made her worthy of being the head of the Northwest Family – a family that had been rotten to the core from the very beginning.
Not for the first time, she was glad that the real Dipper wasn't here: he'd hate her for this, and rightly so. Already the fateful words "another link in the world's worst chain," were slowly branding themselves across the inside of her skull, and all the sleep in the world couldn't possibly erase them. And after about five seconds of soul-searching, she knew for a fact that she couldn't accept Bill's offer… but she couldn't turn it down, either: refusal and slavery meant going back to square one, becoming the Old Pacifica all over again; accepting the offer and seizing the power of the throne might give her enough power to do some good, see Dipper and Mabel again… but would she be able to look them in the eye when they finally met?
And it was at that moment, just as Pacifica was just about ready to scream, that she happened to notice an envelope – a doll-sized envelope, no less – sitting right on the edge of her bed; clambering up the side of the mattress, she opened it up and drew out a small folded letter marked with professional-looking insignia. Most of them were blurred and instinct, as if poorly copied and printed, but the text itself was perfectly legible.
Dear Pacifica, it read.
Don't despair: you're a far better person than you think you are, and the fact that you still feel guilt means that you're leaps and bounds ahead of any other member of the Northwest family. And Bill may seem to hold the winning hand, but there's another side to his game that even he isn't aware of. He thinks nobody can enter or escape his little playgrounds, but his tinkering with reality creates loopholes that I can sneak through – and you can too. You're the first player that I've found, but you definitely won't be the last, and together, we can defeat him once and for all.
Unfortunately, I can only communicate with you while Bill's attention's diverted elsewhere, so I'll make this brief: this might sound crazy, but accepting his offer might be the only way that we can beat him at his own game; the throne will grant you power, just as Bill said – and it might confer enough to help you escape and fight back. Just don't give all of yourself to it: once you take a seat in that throne and seize all its powers, you belong to Bill. Take only as much power as you need to break out.
And my name?
…well, just call me Mr A.
Until we meet again: Ave Atque Vale.
A/N: This chapter's soundtrack choice is Las Danse Macabre by Camille Saint-Saens.
Up next - Gideon's game!