Dipper had stopped what he was working on and looked at the front door to see Camila hugging her daughter and hearing the two sobbing. Camila was sobbing since Luz was back while Luz was sobbing for whatever reason.
Dipper got off his chair and walked to the front door to see the seven kids and adult toad standing on the porch looking traumatised. He tried looking for signs of Pacifica but he couldn't see her at all. He'd ask what happened to her but he didn't want to assume the worst.
"What happened?" Dipper asked. "Where's Pacifica?"
"Questions will have to wait." Camila said. "Vee, get some towels and the first aid kit! Dipper, you can help prepare the dishes."
Later, after the majority finished their meals and getting patched up, everyone was sitting in the living room to listen about what happened on the Day of Unity.
Whereas everyone was looking traumatised, Marcy was just going in on the meal Camila had prepped for them. "Oh…This is so good Mrs Noceda. I've never had Dominican food before!" She slurped up the soup.
Camila gave Marcy a smile. "I'm glad it's to your liking Marcy."
"So wait, let me get this straight….You fought Belos who turned into a monster and in order to stop him and The Day of Unity, King freed a childlike God who killed Belos, stopped the eclipse yet is now in control of the Isles causing chaos?" Dipper reiterated.
"Summed it up just nicely." Sasha remarked.
"They're called The Collector." Willow said. "We don't even know where they came from."
"Who knows if we'll ever find out." Luz said.
Grime froze in fear since he inadvertently helped Belos find him. He stood on the couch proudly. "And if I will ever find the person who helped Belos find him then I will smash their heads in with my warhammer until they're…." Gus patted Grime on his arm and he sat down.
"It's okay Grime, they get it." He assured him.
"We have to get back." Amity said.
"And you will." Camila assured them. "But right now, you need to rest."
"But before you do, guys, where's Pacifica?" Dipper asked with concern. Everyone soon gave each other saddened looks that Dipper could read. He realised from their expressions, he realised it was something bad.
Luz looked to Dipper in sadness. "Dipper, Belos…"
Dipper was already tearing up in disbelief. "No! No! Not her! Not her! Anyone but her!"
"Dipper…I tried to save her but…The wound it was….I'm so sorry Dipper! I did all I could!" Luz began hyperventilating which lead Amity and Camila to instantly hold her to calm her.
"Luz!" Camila exclaimed.
"Luz, you did all you could!" Amity tightened her grip around Luz. "I know you did!"
Hunter, being saddened with the harsh reality and not wanting to be seen crying, got off the couch and walked into the kitchen with Willow following.
Dipper on the other hand was already doing his best to not cry yet he was struggling due to the tears that were already falling. "Did she say anything before she died?"
Luz hated to remember Pacifica's death but one part did kind of stick out to her. "Tell….Tell Dipper….To look after….him. To…Take….Care of Hunter."
Luz looked at Dipper still with tears falling from her eyes. "Hunter. She said to me to tell you to take care of Hunter."
He walked into the kitchen to see Hunter sitting by the kitchen table being comforted by Willow, whom had given him a cup of warm water. He could tell that Hunter was distressed and traumatised by the events of the Day of Unity.
The author pulled out his phone and opened his homepage which was an image of Pacifica smiling at him while sitting on the roof of the Shack with the sun setting behind her. Tears fell from his eyes and they landed on the screen. He held his phone close to his heart. "Okay, I promise."
A few moments later, Camila, Dipper, Sasha, Grime and Marcy were in the living room discussing living arrangements. "So what do we do?" Sasha asked. "I mean Camila can't just take care of all of them."
"I know I can take care of Luz, Amity and Vee." Camila said. "And not because she's my daughter's girlfriend but because I've known her for longer. I'd be willing to take all of them in but you're right, Sasha."
"I'll take Hunter." Dipper said. "I can't let her down. I'll also take that girl in."
"Why Willow?" Marcy asked.
"Because something tells me that Hunter trusts her a lot." He replied.
"And Gus will stay with the Boonchuys while I stay with Sasha." Grime declared.
Sasha was befuddled. "Huh? Why Gus and the Boonchuys? Can't Gus stay with us as…"
"NO!" Grime exclaimed before coughing. "Sorry. Uh…No. I…Don't wish for him to be a handful in your home. Plus, I want you to keep a close eye on him when you see Anne."
"I understand." Sasha said, though she was suspicious on why Grime screamed 'no' so loud.
"But wait…" Marcy said realising something important. "…How are some of us going to get to L.A and Oregon? Some of them don't have passports."
Dipper reached into his pocket and tossed a passport to Sasha. "I've got Sasha's passport for when she needed to return. And I also got Pa…" He wanted to say her name, but know she wasn't here was painful to him but he immediately composed himself. "And about Hunter, Gus, Grime and Willow…" He sighed. "I have to stoop to my uncle's level. I hope he still knows how to make fake passports."
"I'd stay here for the night but I think you have enough guests Ms Noceda." Sasha said. "I think me and Grime will crash at Marcy's."
"Yeah, I think my parents will be alright with it." Marcy said as she realised something important. She was going to see her parents again after a long time from being away from them. "I'll be seeing my parents again after so long. Oh my frog." Tears began to fall from Marcy's eyes.
"They'll know how much of a monster you are."
"Huh? Who said that?" Marcy asked.
"Uh….Who said what?" Asked a befuddled Camila.
Marcy sighed. "Never mind. Just a voice."
"Come on girls and….toad." Grime nodded his head to Dipper. "I'll take you there. But tomorrow, Sasha and Grime will be ready to leave. Got it?"
"Yeah." Everyone responded.
Later, Dipper led Sasha, Marcy and Grime out into the pouring rain and towards his car. Once they got inside, Sasha helped Grime put on his seatbelt since this was his first time in such a vehicle while Dipper looked to a terrified Marcy.
He gave a sigh before starting the car. "Your parents have missed you."
"They're gonna be angry at me for technically causing the Frogvasion I know they are." Marcy said.
"Well, better to accept their wrath than avoid it." Dipper said.
"Listen Dipper, I'm really sorry about Pacifica." Sasha said. "She…"
"Didn't deserve it." Dipper interjected. "I know. But, I'm glad Belos is dead. Because if he was alive, I would have killed him." After he drove off, a bit of Belos sludge moved past, indicating that he was in fact alive.
In the basement of the Noceda residence, Gus and Hunter are settling in.
Gus opened up an umbrella, being mesmerised. "Whoa!" He laughs laughed. "Hunter, look at all this awesome human stuff!" He takes out some bubble wrap and begins to pop it, but when it rolls out, a snow globe falls to the floor and breaks. "Whoops."
"I think it's just stuff here." Hunter said, analysing the room.
Camila soon comes in with some bedsheets for them to sleep on. "It's not much, but I hope you two will be comfortable."
"We will, Luz's Mom!" Gus assured her.
Hunter cleared throat and walks up to her on his knees toward Camila and bowed. "Thank you for providing us with shelter, ma'am."
Camila backed away, uncomfortable with how Hunter treated this. "Please never do that again. And you can call me Camila." She gave them a wink before walking upstairs. "Buenas noches." (Good night.)
Once she went upstairs, Gus discovered he had popped every bubble. "Aw."
Upstairs, Camila creaks open the door to Luz's room to see how Willow and Amity were settling in with Vee showing them an alarm clock.
"In the morning, instead of screaming, it'll do this!" She activates the alarm which caused it to make the loud obnoxious beep that caused Willow and Amity to panic.
"Don't worry, Vee!" Amity disarms Vee of the device.
"We'll keep you safe!" Willow destroys the alarm with her plant magic. "Good work! It's dead!" She and Amity bump elbows.
Vee seemed slightly disappointed with how they reacted. "Uh... thanks." She looks down at the floor where the hole created by Willow's vine is.
Camila closes the door with a shocked face. "I'll figure that out later."
Camila then looked down the hallway and sees Luz looking sadly at the photo of her and her family. She approached her daughter whom looked so guilty.
"I shouldn't have left the Demon Realm." Luz said. "If I stayed there instead of helping Amphibia then the Day of Unity wouldn't have happened and Pacifica wouldn't have died! Because of…" She gets cut off by Camila hugging her
"Hey. Hey. We'll have time to talk later. I'm just so happy you're home."
"Yeah. I'm home." She looks at Willow and Amity inside her room, the latter comforting the former as she undoes her braids. "But they're not."
Meanwhile, Dipper had arrived outside the Wu residence which looked similar to Camila's but only the roof tiles were a lot more green.
"We're here." Dipper said. "You guys go on in. I gotta get to my place to get those passports ready."
"Okay, you do that." Marcy said before getting out with Grime following, while Sasha stayed for a bit.
"Hey Dipper, are you okay?" Sasha asked.
"No. I'm not okay." Dipper replied as tears fell from his eyes. "I don't know if I'll be okay. My girlfriend is dead. I….I don't know if I will ever recover from this. I loved her. I loved her so much. I know it seems stupid, but I loved her. We've been together since we were in our teens. You know, she was my first girlfriend. You'd be surprised and questioning how we managed to last long. But…We did." He exhaled. "Sasha, you should go in. I wanna be left alone."
A saddened Sasha wanted to say something to give some hope into Dipper's system but instead, she got out of his car and straight to Marcy's porch. Once Sasha was gone, Dipper was staring at the rain that was banging against his front windshield before he began to cry.
The pain of knowing that his girlfriend, a person he had loved for many years is now dead and will never come back was too much for him. Tears continued to fall down his face as he placed his face against the steering wheel.
But unbeknownst to Dipper, the mysterious FBI agent known as K was watching him from a van nearby while on the phone to someone. "He's in his car….No, he was nowhere near Preston. He's just crying. Perhaps related to the trauma he suffered here…..Uh huh….Rest assured, Preston and him will never cross paths. I'll make sure of it." He took a handful of jellybeans and stuffed them in his mouth.
Meanwhile, Marcy, Sasha and Grime were standing on the front porch of the Wu residence. Marcy knocked on the door despite some reluctance but eventually relented.
Mrs Wu answered the door and gasped at the sight of her daughter. Marcy gave her mom a tired smile. "Hey Mom, I'm home."
Mrs Wu was in disbelief over this and called out to her husband. "Jùnjié!"
Mr Wu ran downstairs and gasped, seeing Marcy again after a long time. "Hi Dad." Marcy said.
He and his wife pulled their daughter in for a massive hug as tears fell from their eyes. "We need to crash here just for the night, Mr and Mrs Wu." Sasha said. "Would that be cool?"
Later, Marcy and Sasha had just finished talking to Mr and Mrs Wu about what had happened in Amphibia and the Demon Realm. They briefly questioned about Grime but they soon just forgot about that and went back to the story.
"Wait, how are you still alive even after being stabbed?" Mrs Wu asked her daughter.
"I did say Newtopia had great healthcare." Marcy replied.
"But what about the Demon Realm?" Mr Wu asked. "How will you get back there?"
"We'll try and find a way." Sasha replied. "But right now, we need to rest."
"What about the shards?" Marcy asked.
"It'd be reckless if one of us kept them all together in one state." Sasha replied. "I'm suggesting each one of us takes one of the three shards to one of the states they're going. Marcy, you take care of the green one, Dipper will take the blue one and I'll take the red one."
"Smart thinking." Marcy remarked. "Hey, could you check on Grime while I get changed? He seems kind of bummed out."
Marcy was right, Grime was busy looking outside the window at the rain. His face was filled with sadness and guilt over what he did. But then, through the rain and across the street he saw something peculiar.
Across the street stood a tall, skinny man in their mid to late 80's and looked to be of Asian descent. He had brown hair and a little beard on his chin. He wore a black bowler, a black trench coat with an hourglass pin on the left collar, a gray vest over a white dress shirt and a black striped tie, and long gray-striped pants. He held a cane with a golden bird head on the top and appeared to have a golden pocket watch in his other hand.
He looked at the golden watch and stared at the befuddled yet somewhat scared Grime. He smiled at Grime sinisterly before putting the watch away in his breast pocket. He gave Grime a wave.
The toad commander was both scared and confused and intrigued by the man until Sasha tapped him out of it. "Hey."
"Ah!" Grime screamed.
"Woah! Grime, are you okay?!" Sasha asked in concern.
Grime looked back out the window and saw that the person whom was standing across the road wasn't there anymore. It was just a bus stop.
Grime sighed. "Thought I saw someone. You?"
"I'm a little traumatised." Sasha replied. "I mean, after seeing Pacifica's corpse, I can tell Dipper's broken. Why do you not want Gus around you?"
"I'm dangerous." Grime replied.
Sasha scoffed before nudging him in the elbow. "Come on Grime! You're the biggest softy I know! I mean, yeah you're scary but you seem so great with that kid. In fact, I say you're probably a second father figure to him."
"It's for other reasons." Grime replied.
"What?" Sasha asked. "It's not like you inadvertently helped Belos cause the Day of Unity." Grime gave his daughter figure a sad and guilty look that Sasha read in an instant. "You…You…You didn't right?" Grime looked at the floor and Sasha gasped. "Oh my god!"
"I had no idea it was him!" Grime exclaimed. "Me, Lilith and Raine went back in time to find Phillip Wittebane and instead we inadvertently helped Belos find The Collector which me and Lilith eventually found out is the one who gave Belos the knowledge of executing the Day of Unity! I'm just scared that Gus and the others will hate me if they find out."
Sasha was in disbelief over what Grime said. But she gave her father figure a sympathetic look and shook her head. "Grime, you had no idea. If it wasn't you then it would have been someone else."
"Look Sash, if it makes you better, I'll tell everyone when I'm comfortable." Grime said. "I just don't want them to hate me."
Sasha patted his shoulder. "I don't think they'll hate you."
"And Luz and Dipper. If I didn't help him then Pacifica would have lived." Grime said.
"Grime! Luz might have inadvertently caused the Day of Unity and things would have been the same!" Sasha argued. "You're just trying to hate yourself for what you did!" She sighed. "Look, it's late but we'll talk about this in the morning." She went upstairs to get changed while Grime just stayed on the couch, looking at the window and hearing the sound of a ticking clock.
He groaned with guilt and self hatred for himself. This wasn't like last time where he felt down about himself where he lost leadership due to Toad Tower's fall. He was broken because he had caused death and destruction in another world.
The clock continued to tick, something that was annoying him. "Uh…That clock's annoying. Why won't it stop ticking?"
Mr Wu stared at Grime with a befuddled look. "Uh….Mr Grime, our clock is electric." Grime looked at him in confusion. "They don't tick." Grime looked around the room with confusion as he tried to figure out where that ticking came from.
Upstairs, Marcy had just finished getting changed into her pyjamas. The pyjamas she wore did make a bit of Marcy's scar around her chest show. She touched it and sighed in sadness before letting tears fall from her eyes.
"I'm sorry."
She heard the door open to see her parents. "Hey sweetie." Mrs Wu said.
"You okay?" Mr Wu asked gently.
Marcy stared at her parents with a guilty expression. "I'm sorry I ran away and took Anne and Sasha with me. I was scared about moving away! I had no idea this was…." But her parents only pulled her in for a ginormous hug, interrupting her.
"Hey! Hey! It's okay." Mr Wu assured his daughter.
"We'll talk about this in the morning." Mrs Wu said. "Right now, get some sleep. You're going to be okay."
When Marcy looked into her bedroom mirror, she saw herself in Darcy's uniform, staring back at her while hugging her parents. She stared at the reflection in fear as they stared back at her.
"You can't escape me Marcy. You never will." Darcy's reflection said to the terrified Marcy.
Meanwhile in the basement of the Noceda residence, Gus was somehow fast asleep on the couch despite the traumatising day he went through while Hunter was on the floor in a sleeping bag thinking. He thought of the day he had. In one day, he was reunited with Pacifica, he found her corpse, he almost died due to the draining spell, he saw his uncle get killed by a child god and his home being destroyed by the same god.
He couldn't sleep due to all the trauma he went through in one day. It weighed down on him. Putting him in a deep state of sleep paralysis.
Tears fell from his eyes as he thought of Pacifica. He wanted to cry as loud as he could but he couldn't no matter how hard he tried. "I'll miss you Pacifica. I'll miss you."
Upstairs, Amity and Willow were sleeping on pull-out beds, Vee was sleeping on the top bunk while Luz was wide awake on the bottom bunk bed.
The human witch was struggling to get sleep. She had been awake for the last two hours, struggling to get sleep after what had happened today. She was blaming herself for not being there in the first place. She was blaming herself for not saving Pacifica.
She was already missing Lilith, Raine, Hooty, Eda and King. Her found family in the Demon Realm are suffering all because she wasn't there sooner. She came at the wrong time and all they did was plan out until the Day of Unity.
Luz began sobbing as the fear of what was happening in the Demon Realm took over. Then, she felt a weight around her body and looked over her shoulder to see her girlfriend, out of her pull-out bed, giving her a comforting snuggle as a way to assure her that she's there for her.
"It's okay, Luz." Amity assured her. "It's okay. I'm here."
Luz began crying which made the tearful Amity stroke her hair. "King…..Eda….I….I failed them."
Amity pressed her head gently against Luz's before kissing it. "We're going to get back. We're going to get back. I promise."
"I just can't imagine what's going on over there." Luz said tearfully. "What powers the Collector has and will use to everyone there."
If only she could see the chaos going on over there.