A/N: Hey, guys! Sorry this one took so long-TBH I actually decided to take a break from working on my fanfic for a little while to work on writing out the story for one of my future webcomics. Plus, like two people seem to be reading this, so I figured there wouldn't be a huge outcry if I hesitated on this one. But I figure that since it's so close to Christmas, I'll give you guys an early Christmas gift with the next chapter.
Pierce-Again, I'm glad I got you interested XD Sans is definitely up there, though my favorite character overall is Papyrus. Such an adorable babu 3
XXPay4XtraShippingsXX-Funny you should mention Burgerpants...heh heh. And yeah-I actually feel kind of bad for what I did to Dipper and Mabel. I LOVE kids, and this is the second story I've done where child characters die horribly (or almost die), and come back differently. Speaking of which, I've got something ELSE for you guys at the end of the chapter-you'll see what I mean...
Disclaimer: I own nothing. If I owned Gravity Falls or Undertale, well it wouldn't make much sense for me to write a fanfiction, would it?
"Hey you. Human. Wanna like, buy some spider pastries or whatever?"
"Spider pastries?!" Pacifica made a face at the spider girl.
She'd been having a weird time. First she had to get through a bunch of puzzles, then had a run-in with the two Royal Guard members, Blubbs and Durland, whom Wendy had been talking to earlier. Somehow or other, she'd ended up hooking them up, which caused them to leave her alone to go get nice cream.
And now, here she was haggling over baked goods with a spider girl.
Maybe if and when I get out of here, I should write a book about this whole thing.
"Yeah. Made by real spiders, for real spiders, of real spiders, or whatever." The spider girl rolled all five of her eyes, a disinterested look on her face. She seemed to be a teenager, like Wendy and Robbie, and was wearing a purple shirt and black poofy pants. She had fangs, six arms, and purple hair with highlights, and Pacifica had no idea if her hair was natural or dyed.
"These things are MADE of spiders?!" Pacifica almost vomited. "Ugh, pass!"
That was a mistake.
"Oh, you think you're too good for my stuff?" The spider girl lowered her cell phone to give Pacifica a terrifying, five-eyed glare.
"I never said that! I just…!"
"Well, maybe your taste is what my baked stuff needs." The spider girl stood up, and Pacifica stepped back. She was even more terrifying close up.
"Stay back!" Pacifica held her stick out. "I'm warning you!"
The spider shot a web at Pacifica, and the blonde started struggling to get out.
"Don't bother trying to escape." The spider girl, Tambry, said. "You'll just get yourself even more stuck." She texted something on her phone, and smaller spiders materialized next to Pacifica on the web, crawling towards her.
"AUGGGHHH!" Pacifica's scream was so high only dogs could hear it, but she didn't care. She HATED spiders. She thrashed around like a wild animal, trying desperately to escape from the web.
Chomp.
"Ow!" Pacifica looked at the back of her hand, horrified to see an angry red welt developing on it. One of the nasty little things had bitten her. For a moment, she felt her heart stop. What if the spiders were poisonous?! Was she going to die?! She definitely felt weaker after than bite.
Tambry texted something else on her phone, and the spiders faded. However, some croissants appeared in thin air.
"Croissants?!" They spun in the air towards her, and in a split second Pacifica saw how sharp their tips were. Her fear allowed her to rip her right arm, the one holding the stick, out of the web. She knocked the croissant away, and Tambry had to duck to avoid losing her head to one of her own pastries. She gave Pacifica an angry glare.
"With the money I get from your SOUL, me and my spider pals will be able to leave the ruins! And I might be able to get a new phone with what's left over!"
"Wait!" Pacifica screamed. "I'll pay you, if that's what you want! Just let me g-!" She didn't get a chance to finish. Tambry threw a donut at her. The donut exploded into spiders, and once again a scream burst from Pacifica's throat. Tambry had just been texting on her phone again, when she suddenly looked up at Pacifica's words.
"It's 444 gold."
"444?!" Pacifica screamed out in pain again as another spider bit her. Everything was beginning to go dark…
"I…I only have 222. Can I just…pay you the other half later?" Tambry gave her an unimpressed look.
"I'll buy you a new cell phone when I have more gold?" Pacifica offered. She REALLY hoped that the spider girl went for it. She felt so weak…
"Okay." Tambry pressed a button, and the web disappeared. Pacifica dropped to the ground. Her breathing was getting shallow.
A spider came down next to Tambry, and she looked at it in surprise.
"What?" The spider whispered something, and Tambry turned to Pacifica.
"So um, my spider friend here told me something. See, someone told me that you like squashing spiders." Pacifica looked up at her weakly.
"…what?"
"Yeah-so he just said that that was a DIFFERENT kid. My bad, or whatever." She texted something else on her phone, and a small vial appeared next to Pacifica. "The antidote." Pacifica grabbed the vial in her right hand and used the last of her strength to uncap it. Hastily, desperately, she started guzzling the antidote.
Little by little, her strength returned. She glared up at Tambry.
"You really tried to kill me! Over a few gold pieces!"
"Hey, a girl's gotta make a living." She said nonchalantly, once again not looking up from her phone. "Besides, I thought you were some spider-squashing psycho."
Slowly, steadily, Pacifica stood up. Her head was spinning as she took a few hesitant steps, heading out of the parlor.
Ugh. I hope I never see another spider again…
"Waddles?"
Mabel looked over as the armored pig came running up to her. Lesser Pig, or Waddles, as she liked to call him, was like a pet to Mabel, and she could almost always tell what he was thinking. And now…he seemed really excited about something.
"Waddles, is something wrong?" The skeleton girl asked. The pig snorted and took off running. Mabel followed him into the forest-and gasped at what she saw.
There, lying in the snow, was a VERY familiar red scarf…
"DIPPER!" Mabel picked her twin's scarf up gingerly, feeling her heart break into teeny-tiny pieces. "No, no-I was supposed to protect him! This can't be real! Dipper can't be…!"
"Oh, don't worry. He's not-not yet."
Mabel turned, and the translucent figure of Gideon Gleeful appeared in front of her.
"Hey beautiful."
"YOU!" In a matter of seconds, Mabel underwent a jarring transformation. The pupils faded from her eye sockets, her normally happy expression contorting into a furious glare. Her left eye socket gained a dangerous pink glow, and Waddles took this as a cue to take off running.
Mabel raised her hand, and Gideon just let out a laugh.
"Come on sugar, you know you can't harm little old me. After all, I'm already dead!"
"I DON'T CARE!" Mabel shouted as ghastly figures, her blasters, appeared around Gideon. "YOU TOOK DIPPER AWAY FROM ME!"
Mabel's summoned blasters prepared to blast Gideon all at once, but the ghost boy shook his finger.
"Uh uh uh! Your brother's not really dead, sweetie!"
The blasters faded, but Mabel's eye socket was still glowing.
"He isn't? How can I trust you?"
"Well, that's an easy enough problem to remedy!" Gideon said. "How about I just show him to you?" He held both hands out, and an image slowly started to form in Gideon's hands.
It was…
"Dipper!"
The skeleton boy looked around, confused.
"Wendy! Grunkle Stan!"
"Dipper!" Mabel called, and he looked back at her.
"Mabel!"
"Now, I'm gonna make this nice and simple." Gideon closed his hands, and the image of Dipper disappeared. "You're going to do me a little favor, Mabel Pines. It involves your little friend, Pacifica…"
"Hey! Hey, kid! Yeah, you!" Pacifica turned around to see who had been talking. A middle-aged cat man with glasses, a thick mustache, and a fast food outfit was beckoning to her. The blonde cringed as she saw him.
"What?"
"I um…" The cat man looked nervous. "I need a favor."
"We literally just met." Pacifica pointed out. "Why would I help…?!" She then stopped as she thought back to her recent encounter with Tambry. This monster didn't look like much, but the last thing she wanted was to get into another fight, especially when she was still feeling so weak.
Best to just go along with it…
She swallowed and walked over to the guy. His name tag showed the name 'Toby Determined'.
"So, here's the thing…" Toby looked around to make sure that no one else was looking before turning back to Pacifica. "There's these two fine ladies outside who I promised I'd give burgers to, but I'm swamped with work!" He gave her a pleading look. "Could you be a pal and take them the burgers? Please?"
'Please?'
In her twelve years of life, it was rare that Pacifica had heard that word…
"Uh, sure? Okay." She took the burgers from the guy and walked out into the alley. "Uh, hello?" She looked around. "Anyone here?"
"Hey, are those the burgers?" A chubby cat woman with light brown hair pulled back in a ponytail stepped towards Pacifica. Next to her was a crocodile girl with pink hair with multicolored ribbons, like computer wires, tied in a bow.
"Yeah. So like…take them, or whatever." Pacifica handed the burgers over, shuddering as she felt the crocodile girl's scaly skin.
"I'm Giffany!" The crocodile girl said.
"And I'm Melody." The cat woman introduced herself. "So, what's a kid like you doing here by yourself? Do your parents know where you are?" A cold feeling washed through Pacifica.
"Um…" Thankfully, at that moment she was saved by her cell phone ringing.
"What are you doing?!" Robbie's voice demanded. "Don't you want to get to the Core?!"
"Hang on!" Pacifica glared into the phone. "I just…!"
"Get moving!" And with that, he hung up.
"Was that that Robbie guy?" Giffany raised an eyebrow.
"Yeah." Pacifica answered. "He's kinda…helping me."
"Now there's a surprise." Melody chuckled. "Usually Robbie doesn't look out for anyone but himself. Though I guess you can't really blame him-with what he's been through."
"I already heard the story." Pacifica folded her arms. "He's all bitter because he was built to do science, when all he wants to do is…"
"Oh, there's more to it than that." Melody told her. "See, Robbie's actually not ALL robot. He actually started out as a ghost."
"Huh? A ghost?" Pacifica asked. "Like Soos?" Giffany squealed at the sound of the name, hearts starting to appear over her head.
"Does that happen a lot?" Pacifica questioned.
"Only when you mention Soos." Melody answered her. "She kinda has a thing for him. Well, actually…we both kinda do." She admitted with a blush.
Okay, seriously-monsters have bizarre tastes in romance. She briefly noticed Giffany's eyes narrow at Melody as the cat lady continued
"That kid wanted to be a famous rock star, so he headed out into Hotland, looking for the Royal Scientist. He wanted a sleek robot body he could use to perform and stuff, you know? So the Royal Scientist got to work building him a new body…up until things went south."
"I heard that the scientist stopped performing experiments for the king!" Giffany added in a high-pitched voice. "He decided he couldn't do them anymore for some reason, so before he ran away from the kingdom, he put in a new command into Robbie's robot body-to continue doing his work."
"Hold on!" Pacifica held out a hand. "This guy tricked Robbie into doing science junk because he was too scared to keep doing it? That's pretty low!"
Suddenly, Robbie's behavior made a lot more sense…
"Look, I've gotta keep going, okay?" Pacifica said. "So um uh…yeah. Nice meeting you, or…"
Somehow, she couldn't bring herself to say 'whatever'. So she walked off without another word to the two women. Pacifica's head was swimming with thoughts as she continued on her way to the Core.
First an old man who wanted to protect everyone who fell into the Underground from his possibly evil brother.
Then a pair of skeletal twins who couldn't go back to their old home.
Then a fish girl who lost a parent, and was now shouldering the burden of protecting the whole Underground despite only being a teenager.
Now a ghost-turned-robot who was lied to and tricked into working for the kingdom. Who even knew what Ford was having Robbie do? Whatever it was, it couldn't be good if the original Royal Scientist just up and left the kingdom for it.
"Is this what it's like to care about other people?" Pacifica asked no one in particular as she boarded the elevator. So caught up in her own thoughts was she that she didn't notice a shadow in the distance.
Mabel sniffed, her bony hands balled into fists. Dipper's scarf was wrapped around her neck.
"I'm sorry, Pacifica…"
A/N: And the drama just keeps building! Gideon has Dipper, and he's blackmailing Mabel into going after Pacifica! Pacifica learned Robbie's true origins! And everyone's problems are STILL far from over...
TBH I probably should've had Shondra Himeniz as Bratty or Catty, considering Toby's feelings for her in Gravity Falls, but whatever. Long before I actually started writing the story, I just had the funny idea of Giffany and Melody being Bratty and Catty, because irony XD And yes, Soos is the object of both their affections, like in GF, even though he's Napstablook instead of Mettaton. More love for Blooky! XD
Okay, now for the next part of my Christmas gift for you guys. It's probably still too early for me to be announcing this, since I don't even know myself how far in the story I am, but I had two ideas for future fanfics once this is done. So I'm going to tell you guys both of my ideas, and whichever one has the more votes is the one I'm going to write next, okay?
1. A follow-up to Under Gravity, centering on Papyrus! Dipper and Sans! Mabel at various points after they fell into the Underground, their lives with Toriel! Stan, and then trying to get readjusted to the surface world once they get back with the others.
2. A return to my Five Nights at Freddy's fanfic-Poor Little Souls-i.e. a collection of stories set before the main fanfic, focusing on the dead kids' families, former night guards, etc.
They're both pretty similar, but yeah. TBH I'm more inclined to do the Poor Little Souls one for personal reasons, but I'll leave that up to you guys.
Merry Christmas!