Goodbye, Gravity Falls. You have inspired us much more than this one story, in ways that words can't express. And though we abandoned canon before we started, we know we couldn't have done it any better. We were right about every single wheel character, but it took us by surprise how Bill was really defeated. Well done, Hirsch and crew.

Sadness aside, now is when the action begins. Just keep in mind that I am really bad at writing fight scenes, and consider this practice.

The plant didn't look scary. It looked like a typical flytrap specimen, though Dipper would admit that he'd never seen one that tall, or with a trap as big as his head. The trap was closed, for the moment, and Dipper wondered how many bugs it could hold at once.

"Where did you find this?" he asked, looking away from the plant to silently accuse Stan of bringing in actual supernatural threats.

"Found it," Stan replied, almost defensively. 'Found' probably translated to 'stole,' then. He seemed to know what Dipper was thinking, and quickly explained that it wasn't. "I thought I'd help old Sixer out with something. Just help me get this thing to the basement, will ya?"

"Grunkle Ford," Mabel called into the TV room. "Stan's using journal stuff as an attraction."

"I wouldn't dream of it, kid. The sooner this thing gets out of the house, the better."

Ford wasn't happy to be interrupted for yet another one of his brother's antics. "Was it really necessary to interrupt the science channel? I was making corrections for their discussion on -" He then took a look at the creature, and the younger twins could see the fear in his eyes. "Have you lost your mind? That thing is a living garbage disposal, we can't let the kids play in it!"

"We're almost sixteen," Dipper tried protesting, but Ford gestured at the plant.

"I wasn't talking about you and Mabel, I was talking about the tourists! The one condition I had when I let Stan keep this whole 'business' thing going was that my research stays in the basement where it belongs."

"Actually," Stan pointed out, "your one condition was that you only get involved when somebody gets close to finding something the public isn't ready to see." Seeing Ford's anger intensify, Stan playfully punched his brother's shoulder. "Come on, Ford. You know me better than that, it was supposed to be a present for you. Since I didn't get you anything for our birthday."

Dipper and Mabel saw the war in their other grunkle's head. The idea of more research was clearly warring with his instinct to point out that their birthday was several months ago, and that they'd agreed that they were too old for such nonsense. Finally, after a few moments of fishing for words, Ford found the ones he was looking for.

"It's too big to fit in the elevator," he started, "but if we keep watch over it, we should be fine as long as we put up a safety line. I'll be guarding it constantly, and if I have something else to do, Dipper can do it." He grew even more serious. "We're only keeping it for a week. After that, we get rid of it."

There was no hesitation at all in the rest of the family's agreement.

Dave leaned over the plant, excitement so strong it was almost like a heartbeat, and reached over with the stick. Phil, from his safe position behind Ford, seemed much more reluctant to get close.

"The safety line's there for a reason," he tried pointing out, his hands shaking. The almost-minty scent of vampire burned his nose a little - it was his first encounter with one, and it took some time to get used to. It wasn't nearly as bad as it would have been in wolf form, though, so he focused on that to keep himself from shifting in self-defense. "You're an adult, shouldn't it be me who's trying to poke it with a stick?"

Dave looked away from the plant, his previous enthusiasm gone. "I'm a scientist, kid," he told him. "And I'm conducting an experiment."

Ford wasn't fooled. Apparently, neither was Phil. "You're a nighttime security guard at the Gravity Falls museum," the teenager pointed out, and Dave gave him that world-famous Dad Look.

"Fine," he said after a moment. "Call me an amateur historian with a bad allergy to sunlight. But I've never even heard of these things before, so I'm conducting an experiment like a scientist."

And, before anyone could stop him, he jabbed the sharp end of the stick right into the plant's sticky trap. Instantly, the plant snapped closed over the object, and the vampire watched in pure fascination as it choked down the entire stick.

"And he touched it," Ford stated unnecessarily. It was harder than it should have been for him to keep an eye on three supernatural creatures at once. Maybe he was starting to fail in his old age...but he'd been old in the portal, so maybe it was the unpredictability of the plant and Dave's apparent desperation to play with it. "You've seen it, Dave, you can go home now."

"Where did your brother find it?" Dave asked, pretending not to hear the underlying order. He could feel that the invitation into the house had been revoked, but he'd already entered. "I thought you and your nephew were the ones behind the supernatural investigations."

"And the plant is supposed to be for observation only. But here we are." Ford turned the advertising sign around - Professor Poindexter's Processing Plant! Give the environment what the environment gives you! Only $20! *Money is to be paid to the cash register, not the plant - and once again told himself that some part of him knew what he'd be getting into when he'd allowed Stan to stay.

"What else does it eat?" Phil asked, leaning over the line out of his own curiosity.

Ford pulled him back effortlessly. "Anything that doesn't move," he repeated. "Living things aren't on the menu, but it's unnaturally drawn to fire. And, apparently, to Stan's hat."

It had been funny the first time. Stan was casually leading a troop of tourists along, when they'd spotted the plant sitting in a fenced-in area right outside the gift shop window. Stan had tried to keep the group away from it, but a small child had fed it a candy wrapper before he could stop him, and Stan demanding that the mother pay for any possible damages had turned into people assuming they could pay to recycle their non-recyclable garbage. Stan had, eventually, caved, and it had snapped its maw down on top of the fez, only letting go when Stan moving it around hit the reflex that released living prisoners. Ford had winded himself laughing.

Don't get him wrong, though. It got old fast.

"Not too bright, are they?" Dipper asked, taking his place as plant guard so that Ford could go and eat.

"I didn't think my second official mission as your tracking dog would be babysitting this thing," Phil said in complete agreement.

The plant snapped at Dave, but he backed away and left the house, giving the boys a passing warning to light a candle or something.

Mabel appeared moments after he left, her necktie purse slung over one shoulder. "All right, here's the deal. I fit three of Stan's guns, six cloves of garlic, nineteen silver bullets - not for your family, Phil, don't worry - and five compact mirrors, all in this bag. I don't know about you guys, but I think I can make a pretty good pack mule. Who's ready to find that centaur I hit with the car?"

Every single one of the Pines family in the Shack was together for breakfast the next morning, a rare occurrence for Ford at least. Mabel had woken up early, and, unable to go back to sleep, started making pancakes and bacon. Then she'd woken her brother and each had claimed a grunkle, and the usual insanity had begun.

It started with a scientific examination of her pancakes.

"Are they supposed to be this colorful?" Ford asked uncertainly, prodding the pancake with his fork.

"I put candy-coated chocolates in them, so I'd say yes." Mabel slurped from her cup of orange juice - Stan had banned 'Mabel juice' and all variants, and for good reason. "It's just candy, Grunkle Ford. It's edible."

"Candy that looks like mold," Stan grunted, before scratching his armpit as if no one was watching. He decided to skip the bacon and was just poking the rest of his breakfast with a fork, mirroring his twin's every movement.

"What's wrong Grunkle Stan? Want more bacon?" Mabel asked as she poured more of the meat onto her grunkle's plate.

Stan shoved the plate back at her. "I've been on the in-ter-net and discovered that bacon grease is more likely to kill you than being shot in the head. Why isn't bacon illegal and yet I'm not legally allowed to own loaded guns?"

Ford immediately started listing those very reasons. "You have no gun license for Stanley Pines, you're a wanted criminal under your name and mine, and something being illegal has never stopped you before." He leaned across the small table to check his brother's pupils. "Have you lost your mind, or did somebody take it?"

"He seems pretty in-character to me," Dipper commented through half-closed eyes. "Maybe refusing bacon is just a phase."

And then he downed half of his cup of coffee in one chug, caring little for the heat or the bitterness and just dying for the caffeine. He must have stayed up late again.

"I'm too old for a phase, kid," Stan insisted. "I just don't want to die of a heart attack, is that wrong?"

That seemed to do it. Ford and Mabel made brief, uncomfortable eye contact, and then Ford stood up to retreat to the lab, passing her whispered instructions on his way out under pretense of an awkward hug. Dipper snapped to attention at that, but Mabel was already following.

"Do you think the plant could brainwash Stan?" Mabel asked, the minute the vending machine closed behind them.

"It could be. I never thought that it was anything more than a mutated cousin of the flytraps you're used to, but the fact is I never finished studying the last specimen before it went and killed itself."

"It killed itself?" Mabel asked, staring in disbelief. "What could drive a plant to suicide?"

"I don't know. Poor intelligence, most likely. It ate a lit candle and didn't seem to process that fire is bad for its health."

"So we kill it with fire," she suggested.

"I'm usually more of a shoot-it-between-the-eyes type," Ford said with a smile, "but the week is nearly over. We'll pay closer attention to the plant, and to Stan, and see where it takes us."

"Do you think eating meat will cure his potential brainwashing?"

Ford wasn't much of a professional botanist himself. There was the interest, certainly, but unless it had a connection to the man-eating plants of legend, or the mythical sheep stalk, he wasn't very concerned. Plants, for the most part, didn't move around much, and as long as he knew where the roots were he could always investigate after he'd captured whatever was capable of leaving. "Feeding a Venus flytrap hamburger meat will kill it. I don't want to try that on Stanley."

"But what can we try on Stan?"

For that, there was no answer. "When your brother wakes up a bit more, bring him down to the lab. We'll need all three of us together on this one."

"So it's a carnivorous plant?" Pacifica asked, standing on the very edge of the safety line that Ford had put up...and that Dipper had put a gate around after Robbie had dared Thompson to cross it mere moments earlier, an act that got both of them put in a time-out. "Like an overgrown Venus flytrap?"

"Not quite," Dipper corrected. "You can kill a household flytrap by feeding it hamburger bits, or garbage for that matter. We were going to classify this as an extreme omnivore, but it can't hold down a spider and doesn't really like fruits or vegetables."

"It's like in that old musical," Candy said, leaning on the fence to get a good look. "Can I call it Audrey III?"

"It doesn't eat people, Candy. Living organisms struggle too much."

"It looks like Audrey II."

Pacifica lifted her hand, reaching over the line, and barely pulled it away as the plant snapped at her. "So does it do anything besides eat? Like, backflips, maybe?"

"It sits there," Grenda pointed out. "That's something."

Pacifica's teeth clicked together. "Words can't describe how stupid that sounded."

Dipper stepped in before Grenda could use her fists to show exactly how stupid she thought Pacifica was. "We're actually keeping it because we need to study it."

"So why did six-fingers just disappear like that?" Pacifica asked, and Dipper struggled to find the right words for it.

"Mabel was babysitting Stan and called him in for backup." There, the answer was short and blunt. Enough for Pacifica to still care when he'd finished. "They're trying to fix something that we all hope isn't broken."

Pacifica gently brushed all of her hair over one shoulder, pulling it free of her earring's grip. "And he's running these tests on his brother instead of the plant?"

"His brother might be the plant." When all three girls wore identical expressions of pure 'what,' he clarified, "Stan's hat almost got eaten, and there might be some kind of acid or spores affecting his brain. We're keeping a closer eye on Stan for now, but we don't want to get rid of the plant before -"

Dipper stopped mid-sentence, and even Robbie and Thompson turned to the 'house' section of the Shack, where they could hear the sounds of a scuffle and a pair of old men shouting at each other. Strangely, they also heard a shrill whistle.

"Mabel's the referee," Grenda guessed. She wasn't completely off the mark.

"She's also there to cover Stan's mouth so he has to swallow the experimental potions," Dipper finished. "I'm here to look after this thing."

"Audrey III," Candy piped in.

"Right. I'm making sure that Audrey III doesn't eat anything else. Not even empty plastic bags."

Audrey III leaned forward, snapping at Pacifica again, just because she was in closest proximity. She reacted this time by making a short scissor motion.

And that was when Audrey III made a loud howling noise.

"Great," Grenda said, lightly bumping Pacifica with her shoulder and sending the smaller girl staggering. "You made it angry."

Mabel didn't know her friends were here, of course. They'd made plans to head over to the mall and people-watch, maybe look for boys that, well, weren't Dipper and Phil. Pacifica hadn't been invited, and would have turned down the invitation if she had, which made Candy and Grenda wonder why she'd bothered to come.

But that was not Mabel's current worry.

"Come on, Grunkle Stan," she begged, putting on her biggest puppy eyes. This was the reason Ford had chosen her over her brother: she may be outgrowing the 'cute' card, but it still had a little bit of time left, and she'd get to play the 'poor me' card forever. "You already took a bite. Can't you finish it?"

"I told you, I'm cutting meat from my diet. Too greasy for a man in his sixties."

"Feed him again," Ford commanded, tightening the ropes securing Stan to the chair.

"Alright, alright!" Stan shouted. "I guess I have to chew my way out of this."

They thought he wasn't dumb enough to do it when there were two people very skilled in restraining things watching over him. They thought he knew that they were doing this for his own good.

They were wrong.

Stan managed to gnaw his way through the rope, a lifetime of criminal activity paying off once again. Ford, never out of plans for long, tackled his brother and held his head over a taco.

"For the last time," Stan said before throwing his brother down. "I'm fine."

Ford got to his feet and picked up the partially-eaten burger, which was not actually made of real meat but of a substitute Dipper, Ford and McGucket had worked on nonstop over the last two days. "Are you, Stan?" he challenged, holding the sandwich as if it were a weapon. "You don't look fine to me."

That was an understatement. Stan seemed to have gotten a few inches taller, a few pounds thinner, and even a few of his wrinkles had faded. But the most noticeable change wasn't one that people would find attractive.

"Grunkle Stan, you're turning green!" Mabel shouted in astonishment.

Stan looked down at his hands immediately. "Huh," he said, not sounding too panicked by this new development. "That's weird."

"Get the flamethrower, Mabel." Ford took a fighting stance in front of the door. "This might get serious."

That seemed to be the trigger. Stan's transformation into a plant slave jumped to completion, and his rough voice took on a much smoother echo.

"If you want to play, Sixer," he said slowly, "then may the best man win."

"Hey, old farts! What's with the fence around the -" Robbie stopped mid-sentence, having chosen the wrong moment to complain to the Shack owners. And then he let out a short, high-pitched scream.

Mabel, being Mabel, forced a smile. "They're not that ugly, are they?"

"Mabel," Ford warned, and she at least pretended she was sorry for saying it.

Robbie was quickly backing out toward the door, but he wasn't completely gone. He seemed to be treating this like a really scary horror movie - you know you'll end up wetting yourself if you look too long, but you can't look away. "You look like a monster, Mr. Pines. Are you putting yourself on display next?"

Mabel gave him the final shove he needed to turn around. "You have all the tact of a dead butterfly, Robbie. I do battle with my uncles my own way." She snatched a bike helmet from what seemed like nowhere and plopped it down on her head. "Tactical defense, Ford! Man the battleships!"

As the brainwashed Stan attacked Mabel and Ford, Dipper found himself facing down the main plant, with only Pacifica and Robbie for assistance - Candy and Grenda had gone down to Ford's room, under orders to find any weapon they could get their hands on and bring it back for the others.

If anyone was watching, it would appear that Stan and the plant made the same moves, ducking and pouncing at the same time. Stan used his fists and the plant used its trap, but for all purposes, it was perfectly synchronized. It had even torn down the fence as Stan had nearly gotten Ford in the face.

It was too bad everybody was not watching, instead taking the proper route of fearing for their lives.

"And what are we supposed to do until they get back?" Pacifica demanded, holding the chair from behind the register like she was a lion tamer. The plant leaned forward, almost as if it were sniffing her hair, and she swung the stool like a caveman would swing a club, making the creature bleed a milky-white substance.

Pacifica Northwest was physically fighting, not just facing a fear and pulling a lever. It was the single most incredible thing Dipper had ever seen, and he meant that in a completely non-romantic way.

He shoved that thought aside for now. "Don't worry. Candy and Grenda know how to work most of the stuff down in Ford's lab. We'll probably have to change the code, but -"

"Holy sap, Grunkle Ford!" Mabel's voice screeched. "It had babies in his hair! They probably put roots down in his brain!"

"Of course it did," Ford said, somewhere between frustrated and disappointed. "That must be how it continues its line, then - makes seeds, plants them in a host and lets the shoots kill and feed on the victim. Forget the meat, get the garden hose and a bottle of shampoo! We're going to have to bathe my brother to save his life."

"Hey, I bathe myself!" Stan shouted, and the monster plant momentarily returned to its dormant state.

There was a second of silence in both battles. "He's still in there!" Mabel squeaked. "Fight it, Stan! I'll be right back!"

She ran out the door and up to the bathroom, but Stan's shouts of anger and disgust continued. Thompson dared to take a peek.

"One of your uncles is pouring taco meat on the other's head," he said slowly, as if he still didn't understand that the Pines family weren't entirely normal.

Audrey III returned to its tantrum, then, and if Dipper had been paying attention to anything other than the monster plant and the blonde warrior trying and failing to beat it into submission, he might have noticed that she wasn't the only one who had changed since that first summer.

Robbie, though still holding the coat hanger he'd taken to using as a sword in case the beast got too close, reached into the pocket of his years-old heart hoodie. He ducked behind Dipper and Pacifica for coverage, waited until the monster opened its mouth to strike the boy this time, and tossed it over Dipper's shoulder.

The plant really wasn't too bright. It went for the moving item, gulping it down and never processing that its digestive fluids, while advanced enough to dissolve plastic, were very, very flammable.

The last sound the beast ever made was a loud fwoosh. Three seconds later, the whole thing was up in flames.

Dipper, who had been using the fire extinguisher as a blunt weapon, pulled the trigger on the bottle. With mild surprise when the proper foam came out (Stan must have put in real ones to clean up Ford's experimental messes) he started spraying the quickly-charring monster with as much force as it was capable of generating, until the husk was completely covered.

There was a small squeak from somewhere behind him. Pacifica was focused on the remains, for a given definition of 'focus,' and she was torn between crying and laughing in relief.

"It...it wasn't funny," she said, managing to keep her composure like a true Northwest, "but we're all still alive...and it actually ate a lit match..."

"I'm impressed Robbie didn't wet himself," Dipper commented, to Robbie's natural objection. "How did you know fire would kill it?"

"I didn't." Robbie walked past the 'Do Not Cross' line and stomped on the plant for a final insult. "I had the matches for a campfire and decided to give it a shot."

"And it's pretty cool to see things ignite," Pacifica added.

Robbie pretended to ignore her, turning back to Thompson. "Well, we're free to go," he said, looking around. "Let's go see if we can set something else on fire."

"Hooray for arson!" Thompson cheered, racing out the door.

And, with a nod of recognition, Robbie left the building, just as Mabel and Ford carried a dizzy, confused Stan around the corner.

Mabel's eyes flicked from Dipper to Pacifica, but she wisely chose not to comment on that. "Did you get it?"

They agreed to keep an even closer eye on Stan, and Ford admitted that he should have forced the stupid thing into the basement even with the size. Stan was forced to stay in bed for almost a week, and Ford never once came to talk.

On the other hand, Stan did wake up to find a plate of cold bacon with six greasy fingerprints on one side, as if Ford was trying to get the remains of it off without taking time out of his busy day to wash his hands.

"Don't hold it against Ford," Mabel said, when she herself came to apologize for tying Stan to a chair. "He's a...how did you say it? An emotionally-constipated nerd. It's the portal incident all over again. He's giving himself time to beat himself up over bad decisions and wants you to do the same."

"It was his fault the thing stayed upstairs."

"Yes, but he did put safety lines on it, and we did think it wasn't harmful to humans because it couldn't choke down a spider." And you were the one who brought it home in the first place, but that was because it pollinated your brain. Maybe it got the rest of us, too, just later on and we've all taken taco showers.

The two sat there in silence, Stan chewing on his cold bacon and Mabel pleased that he would be fine in the end.

"So what did the plant want?" she asked suddenly, and Stan stopped mid-chew.

"What was that?"

"You don't have to tell me," Mabel promised. "I just thought you might know something, it sounded like a hive-mind thing there."

Stan swallowed, only partly to carry the bacon mash to its final fate. "I don't think it wanted anything. Just a place to grow its freak babies." He handed her the plate. "Nuke that for me, would ya? Tastes like fart."

As Mabel went back to her attic bedroom that night (Dipper had taken the break room this time, for 'teenage privacy restrictions,' and Ford had a whole second basement to himself after a strange bonfire that got the cops called) she heard Stan call back, "And tell my idiot brother that his cooking sucks!"

The thump that was definitely a thick book slamming into the ceiling/floor told them both that Ford had heard it anyway.