The Pines slept fitfully in the police precinct, and woke up to a similarly miserable day. It was hard to discern it as being morning. The sky was still a deep, rumbling swirl of angry grey and purple clouds. The rain was still falling, to such a point that Blubs was having to jab the tarpaulin with a broom in order to force off the sagging pools of collected rainwater.

Pacifica still preferred it to the breathing, gnarling, creeping structures of The Crawlspace, mind. The other night the tenement had hiccupped and a ceiling fan nearly dropped onto her.

They washed at the public pool, were supplied suits at the behest of Soos's Abuelita - quite why she had so many mourning suits nobody asked - and, within what felt like only an hour or two, were soon pacing in the defendant's room at the Gravity Falls courthouse. They had been joined by Soos, who had managed to climb through one of the windows. They were pretty sure that nobody would have tried to stop him anyway.

It was a cavernous old room, larger than what you'd usually expect in Gravity Falls. Crooked old bookcases and a vaguely elegant powder blue paintwork made it feel like a poor imitation of regency France. It also hadn't been dusted in an age.

Pacifica was sure not to touch anything, much to Mabel's amusement.

They were all crowded inside, awkwardly stood around the big leather-surfaced table in the centre of the room. Nobody particularly wanted to sit down. It felt rather too formal.

"You uh, you dudes got a plan, right?" Soos asked.

Dipper huffed and held the bridge of his nose. "Soos, you've asked that five times."

"Yeah but, bro, like - there ain't no lawyer. Like, what, you gonna represent yourselves? I can lawyer for you. You know that video game where you're a lawyer? Done it like, four times dude."

Pacifica raised an eyebrow. "Four full playthroughs?"

"Naw. Just - just four times, dawg." He replied, somewhat deflated.

"Trust me, Soos, we've got the best lawyer in the world!" Mabel chirped. "He's a politician!"

"Oh dude, cool! Is it like, one those creepy sixties guys, or a creepy seventies guy, or a- a creepy eighties guy or- …damn. Guess - guess they're all creepy." The young adult replied, staring off into the distance. "...Dang."

"No,no!" Mabel replied enthusiastically, brimming with confidence. "This guy is super different. He's the total crazy person!"

"That doesn't narrow it down, bro."

Mabel raised an eyebrow. "He's Quentin Trembley the 3rd. You literally met him."

"OH. Bro, I thought he was just a crazy homeless person. Cool. So uh - where is he?"

"I'm rrrrright here, Sir!" Came a familiar bellow, as Quentin rolled himself off of the bookcases and plummeted to the floor with a hefty - and rather shocking - CRACK!

"A-are you okay?!" Mabel gasped, running over to him - though stopping short of particularly helping.

"I have been staking out many, many layers of paperwork!"

Stanley grimaced. "Oy. He's been eatin' books."

"Actually, I was reading."

"...Huh."

"And I believe we have the perfect case, my fellows! We shall flatten Nathaniel Northwest and his lies with the inconsiderate truth! The inconvenient truth! The slightly inconspicuous truth! The-" Quentin cleared his throat and lowered his fists. "…y'know, the truth."

"And avoid jail." Dipper said, his brow furrowed. That was really more of his priority than communicating Northwest crimes to the townsfolk.

"A fiendish tactic. I will deliver on both!" The errant president replied, still laying on top of a rug that didn't appear to have been cleaned in around forty years.

The family stared at him. As if they were expecting him to do something. Or just do…anything, really.

Ford blinked and rubbed the back of his neck. "Do you want to get off of the floor?"

"I may have broken my back, going from the terrible cracking sound upon my impact!" Quentin replied. He quickly stood up, dropping a substantial number of breadsticks from the back of his tailcoat. "Damn. Damn and blast. That was my courthouse snack."

"Still looks good to eat, dude." Soos piped in.

"Then you go ahead, my hairless gopher friend. How long do we have until the trial?"

"Probably about half an hour." Pacifica said, adjusting her suit. It was the first time she'd felt well dressed in some time. And Dipper was glancing at her on a regular basis. This was basically a win-win. "Do you want to brief us on anything?"

"Brief?" Quentin looked at his paperwork. On top was a goofy illustration of a dead rabbit with Nathaniel Northwest's beard. "Oh yes- yes! The brief. Our strategy is going to be simple, my friends. We are going to tell the truth. Unless it makes us look bad! Then we will tell less of the truth."

Stan winced. "Man. I'm gonna end up back in prison."

—

Slowly, the townspeople filed into the Courtroom. You could tell it was a big deal; the courtroom had the fancy curtains up instead of garbage bags taped to the window frames. Blubs and Durland stood on either side of the courtroom entrance, standing there sheepishly as every single town member passed and scowled at them.

The atmosphere was one of dread, but it was still perforated by inane, idle chatter as the room steadily filled. The courtroom hadn't seen so many people within its walls for quite some time; not since the great Cowl attack of 1894, when everybody attempted to sue the mother Cowl. (Legend says the town's population halved that day.)

The weather was still dark and miserable. The courtroom, suffering from less than stellar maintenance as with much of Gravity Falls, was dotted with buckets to catch leaking raindrops. The creaking wooden dockets were soon manned by Blubs as bailiff and Toby Determined as clerk. Durland brought in the coffee urn.

Finally, Manly Dan climbed into the judge's seat.

"Is… is Manly Dan really fit to be a judge?" Bud Gleeful asked.

"PEOPLE CAN BE MORE THAN ONE THING!" Dan yelled furiously.

"Point taken, Daniel, ah didn't mean no offence."

The towering lumberjack continued in his roaring while repeatedly banging the little gavel in his hands - which seemed comically small compared to his gigantic lumberjack fist. "ORDER! ORDER!"

Durland swept down his tea-lady's uniform. "Shure thing y'r honour, what coffee d'ya want? We got coffee, we gotttttt coffee, we got-"

"GIVE ME THE GROUNDS!" Dan yelled in return, grabbing a handful of used coffee grounds and squeezing the liquid out of them with his bare fist.

Then, without warning, the door slammed open as the final addition to the audience-and-jury arrived.

The room was soon silent as Tyler Cutebiker, wearing his mayoral sash and finest blazer - along with his shortest short-shorts - strutted towards the front row and sat down, his hands crossed on his tiny lap. The populous watched silently, eyes fixed and yet somewhat fearful of their spiralling mayor.

Tyler had bags under his eyes, something his usually flawless skin routine would never allow, and his dainty chin, usually perfectly hairless, was unshaven and rough. He didn't even smell of quite as much cologne as usual. It almost looked as if he'd forgotten to shave his legs, too. It was unthinkable.

It was like a walking shadow of the man who had once been. A man haunted. A man angry. A man seeking justice. The little mayor looked up at the enormous, looming judge - who, besides being one of the only big, muscular men he knew with a law degree, he had chosen out of his pure affection for him. He simply didn't believe that Dan would ever doublecross anyone. He trusted Dan Corduroy to, if nothing else, give everybody a fair shake.

He was a lumberjack. And a lumberjack? He's okay.

He looked up at the hulking man, who didn't even glance at him - and sighed. He desperately hoped that if - by some bizarre circumstance - he was found to be in the wrong, he would at least be able to make amends and restore the friendships he had so cherished.

He wasn't quite banking on how much the Northwests were planning to make use of their opportunity on the witness stand…