The rag-tag court was not particularly well organised. As one would expect, being in Gravity Falls and not particularly following any justice system. The Judge was barely a judge, none of the lawyers were lawyers, and the very specifics of the trial were lower than the town's grip on the American constitution. The constitution that, funnily enough, Quentin had dubbed 'illegal because of a lack of weasels' in 1854.
Yes, there was no doubt about it - this was a distinctly Gravity Falls legal offering, and it was making less sense the more that it went on. Truth be told, things had quietly fallen into chaos before they'd begun. The Pines family were squeezed into a single-person docket, their lawyer - who was, naturally - pantsless - strolling around the courtroom with a very sincere gaze upon his face, only briefly taking a few moments trying to feed breadcrumbs to the courts' antiquated projector, seemingly mistaking it for a mechanical goose.
There was one conspicuous absence, however: No Northwests. Not a sign of them. The entire courtroom was bereft of their wealthy glares and morally bankrupt wares. Pacifica twisted her lip. What had happened? It wasn't like her parents to avoid an opportunity to try and prove themselves right…
"All rise." Durland said.
Manly Dan - seemingly not all that familiar with the etiquette of the courtroom - rose with everybody else and bumped his head on one of the redwood rafters, dislodging a sprinkling of dust from the building's upper echelons, over the townsfolk. He howled in anger, before settling back down and beginning his opening statements. "COURT IS NOW IN SESSION! THIS IS MY COURTROOM! THERE ARE MANY COURTROOMS LIKE IT, BUT THIS ONE IS MINE! WITHOUT ME THIS COURTROOM IS USELESS! WITHOUT THIS COURTROOM I AM USELESS!"
The townsfolk exchanged meaningful glances and nodded, sagely.
"WE'RE GONNA PUT THE PINES ON TRIAL FOR - FOR-" Dan looked down and popped on a comically small pair of spectacles. "BREAKIN' THE NEVER MIND ALL THAT ACT, DECEIVING THE LAW, FRAUD, NEGLECT, KIDNAPPING DAUGHTERS, BLOWING UP GERRON STREET AND-"
The townspeople all leaned forward.
"BRINGING THE TRIANGLE MENACE INTO OUR WORLD!"
Everyone leaned back with a gasp and concerned murmuring.
"NOT TO MENTION-" Dan continued, rapidly losing his gusto. "uh...wiping the mayor's mind and stuff."
The townspeople shrugged, seemingly finding it the least interesting of the accusations - much to Cutebiker's chagrin. The courtroom was plunged into silence as the right honourable Manly Dan Corduroy continued reading the stack of paperwork and cue cards that he had towed along with him to the stand, while everybody waited in a cold, stony silence that seemed almost unbearable.
Mabel pulled faces at Kevin Corduroy, who pulled faces back. Dipper silently wondered where Wendy was. Pacifica was pretty sure Tad Strange had a loaf of wonderbread on his lap and was stroking it like an outsized, yeasty chinchilla.
Finally, with a SLAM, the doors flew open to reveal the Northwests, flanked by a gangly man wearing flip flops and a velvet suit, complete with a long beard streaking halfway down his chest like an outsized necktie. He seemed malnourished at best, and utterly rotten at worst. His yellowed eyes seemed to pierce straight towards his great-great-grandaughter, and fixed upon her as he stepped up towards the docket.
Pacifica swallowed hard. The Pines stared. Quentin furrowed his brow in a thinly veiled fury towards the man.
Nathaniel Northwest, newly appointed lawyer, fraudulent town founder and inventor of the almost-kind-of-slightly-bullet-proof-banana strode over to the prosecution's desk, clutching piles of dishevelled paperwork and awkwardly pulling at his wrinkled collar. Preston and Priscilla joined him - trying to fight off the stares towards their company. The judgement. The shame of it - they were standing with a man wearing flip-flops. No civilised person wore flip-flops.
"YOU'RE LATE!" Dan growled. "WHO THE HELL IS THIS ANYWAY?"
Nathaniel immediately took umbrage. Perhaps an age-old hatred of the Corduroys that stemmed through generations, or a simple disrespect for authority. In any sense, the frail - yet surprisingly tough - corpse stepped up to the judge's podium, grabbed Dan by the collar and seethed. "Ah'll tell ya exactly who ah am when ah decide. Ah'm not afraid of you, ya thundering flame-haired fu-"
Dan whacked him back a good 6 feet with a flick of his wrist. "I COULD CRUSH YOU LIKE A BUG!"
"Our lawyer was somewhat delayed preparing his notes." Preston said. "Apologies, he's somewhat tense facing up against such a monstrous family."
"WELL, I DON'T WANNA HEAR NO MORE SASS, PRESTON!" Dan bellowed. "I'LL HOLD YOU FOR CONTEMPT OF COURT!"
"We- we aren't even the accused!"
"I'M ACCUSING YOU OF EXCESSIVE SASS!" The judge roared back.
Preston reluctantly cowered back in the face of the towering, looming judge, as if each shock of bright orange shoulder hair on Dan's enormous frame was a flame to his face. Pacifica, Dipper and Mabel smirked at the prospect of the entire thing getting thrown out. At least, when Mabel wasn't making winky-kissy-faces at Kevin in the audience. Which was filling up the majority of her first day in court. And most of her future prospects. And-
Dan thumped the bench which his fist, momentarily forgetting that he had a gavel in his grip. Though being fair, it was far less impactful than those giant hands of his. "NOW THE COURT RESUMES!"
Quentin brushed off his shoulders of the imaginary goats that he'd been hallucinating for the past two hours, and kicked off proceedings accordingly. Nobody even knew if it was his turn. Or if turns were a thing in the court, for that matter. Blubs looked at the schedule and found that Durland had used it for his finger painting.
The town - of which only a select few particularly recognised the gangly old-timey eccentric - watched with confusion as he strolled along the front of the courtroom, a hand on his long chin. Susan, Dan, Bud Gleeful, Melody and Soos were all far better informed, admittedly - albeit no less concerned about the one-time president's ability. He had at least shaved. Partially.
The rain hammered hard, another thin stream of freezing cold water pouring from the roof's leaking pinnacle and pooling awkwardly in a box of Grunkle Stan's parking tickets. The wind whistled through the aching window frames. The building's many skylights - installed when the architects realised that electric lighting hadn't been invented yet - were streaming as if permanently submerged.
The tempest outside was a horrendous contrast to Quentin Trembley's opening statements, delivered so calmly you'd be forgiven for thinking he was a lawyer.
"Ladies and gentlemen I know this town like the back of my hand. And my hands are very well known to me," Trembley started. "We have a long, crooked history. More than most. This town has a long history of crimes, of coverups, of bewildering giant caterpillars with big spikey teeth."
Blubs and Durland were tempted to step in. Coverups? They had a strange feeling that they knew exactly what this…strangely familiar stranger meant. Actually…
"Holy hell." Blubs muttered, as recognition set in.
"D-dang." Durland added.
"Get the taser, Edwin-"
They were just about to march forward when Dan shot them a stony glare. "No disrupting the courtroom." He murmured in a gravelly, hushed tone - which felt far scarier than his usual uproarious shouting.
Trembley continued unabated, either not seeing or simply ignoring the distraction of the town's well-meaning lawmen. "But what I wish to put across to you is that in a history of crimes, of coverups, of bewildering giant caterpillars with big spikey teeth, what the Pines have done is insubstantial. A mild trifle. A trifle without any rum. A trifle lacking any form of alcohol whatsoever! A bland, substanceless-"
"GET TO THE POINT!" Dan roared, landing a heavy fist on the bench.
"The Pines made a mistake!" Quentin responded. "But their mistake is but another in our town's proud history of really, really screwing things up. A history of terrible disasters, of calamity! Let's turn, for instance, to the story of Greasy's Diner…"
"That's myyyy place!" Susan chirped, forgetting that she was in a courtroom.
"Ladies and gentlemen, we all know of the diner. A proud landmark. A local business for local people." Quentin spun on his heels. "Borne from wreckage. Born from the great railroad disaster. Lives lost, tetanus gained, and a railroad ended. Until only recently, thanks to the aid of the Pines. Now what if I were to tell you-"
Preston's eyes widened. "Now hang on-"
Nathaniel blinked. "O-objection!"
Dan flicked his head around, dangerously fast for a man with seemingly incalculable levels of neck. "HUH?"
"I wanna object, judge! This ain't got no-"
"I WANNA SEE WHERE THIS IS GOING!" Dan roared back. "CONTINUE, YOU FUNNY LITTLE MAN!"
Quentin Trembley unrolled an ancient newspaper and pressed it onto the humming, manilla-yellow projector. The crowd gasped as - clear as day - the image of the Train Wreck was put on display. Unmistakable. And the headline, as shrouded as it may be, was clearly placing blame.
"-What if I were to tell you. Pause for effect. That the railroad disaster was caused by the Northwest family?!"
Nathaniel spat and slammed his hands down on the table. "Where didja get that, ya thunderin' great bastich?! I burnt all those papers!"
Dan blinked and growled at the frail reanimated corpse - not just in anger at the disruption, but suspicion. "Whadya mean you burnt those papers?"
"I- I'll-" The haggard creature stammered. "It says no truth! No truth to the rumours! Plain as day! Plain as newsprint! We ain- they ain't got nuthin' to do with it!"
"AHA!" Quention scoffed. "Yet if we look closer at the article, we see how many cuts had been made, how tight-fisted the Northwest name had been! And using some photographs of an office in your- I mean, the Northwest ancestral home…"
"We aren't the ones on trial here!" Preston snapped. "This is beyond ridiculous!"
Dan cracked the gavel and pointed at Preston furiously. "I WILL THROW YOU BOTH OUT OF THE COURTHOUSE!"
"How did you even get into our property?!" the Northwest patriarch continued, ignoring the lumberjack as if he wasn't even there. Dan twisted his lip and furrowed his thick unibrow.
Mabel piped up. "It isn't your property! Not anymore!"
"It's ours by birthri- It's my client's by birthright!" Nathaniel spat back.
"You don't have any birthrights, pal, this is America!" Stan yelled.
The courtroom erupted into a hodge-podge of arguments and sarcastic remarks, the volume growing increasingly cacophonic as the jury lept to the defence of the Pines. Dan stared, momentarily dumbfounded by the sudden rowdiness of what was meant to be a legal institution.
Finally, he lost his patience and hammered the gavel against the podium so hard it threatened to split the entire structure in two, raising his fists in an effort to make the action more imposing. "ORDER! ORDER!"
What looked to be shaping into fisticuffs swiftly died down as the outsized lumberjack forced them to silence. Even the wheezing window frames and rattling skylights seemed to quieten themselves in the face of the unstable situation.
The silence was agonising.
"May I continue?" Quentin asked.
Dan motioned with his hand and took a deep breath, wiping his brow. The chaos was already leaving him increasingly frittered and exhausted.
Quentin nodded, and flipped a polaroid photograph onto the projector. If it was a Polaroid, it was definitely Mabel's - what struck Dipper And Pacifica was what the image was. "This, my friends, is an image of Cornelius Northwest's office. The man who contacted none other than Tobias Determined. You may see that this is abandoned, yet undisturbed, like my love life. An office photographed only this year, yet caught in a mysterious timewarp."
"When did you get that?" Pacifica whispered. "I took photos but I - I lost my cellphone-"
"Pft, I take this stuff seriously too y'know." Mabel replied with a cheeky wink. "McGucket gave me the keys while he's outta town, so I could feed his racoon-wife."
"You were investigating without us?"
"Na, I totally took Kevin along. I was rubbing my feet against the carpet to try and zap his hair, y'know, get it all staticky. See how cute it looked. Then bam! Secret doorway. I kissed him for it because it was, like, totally him being my muse."
"...Gross."
"You two are way cutesier."
"Are not."
"Are."
"Are not."
"Are."
Dipper elbowed his sister in the ribs to shut the two of them up - though not without a thankful smile. There was no doubt how valuable the contribution would be. It was there, exactly as Dipper and Pacifica had found it - perfectly recorded.
It was a little weird that Mabel seemed to be mirroring their every move. What for? Surely that wouldn't come up later.
"Note, my friends, how every object in this room appears undisturbed?" Quentin said, perching his hands in his pockets like a distinctly manic Atticus Finch. "This office belonged to one Cornelius Northwest, and you notice, in the middle of that linen map, a distinct red pin. Could this be a smoking gun? Proof of pre-planning? Was Cornelius the villain of it all?"
The crowd chattered quietly.
"No. I say no, my friends! For Cornelius was exactly who contacted the Gossiper over these events. He was the man who had blown the whistle! Which is very amusing to me! Because trains!"
He paced backwards and forwards theatrically, before slamming another Polaroid onto the projector. "Cornelius is no longer with us. A murder? No, you say, that would be insane. Do you wish to see insanity, ladies and gentlemen?! Do you wish to see the insanity of the Northwests?"
It was a photograph of the chapel. With every single Bill Cipher banner - save the central one that had burst into flames - in place. The terrible stained glass windows. The looming, triangular shape of the Northwests' insane faith in the most grotesque of deities.
It was all he needed to do.
The crowd burst into scandalised gasps at the appearance of the dreaded triangle. That bright yellow, single-eyed beast dressed in dapper bow tie, dancing shoes and topper. The creature that haunted their dreams, their nightmares, and the fashion choices of the scene kids in town ever since.
All in his name, so the banner proclaimed. The townspeople may not have been the brightest in the world - hell, last time they checked they were even behind Los Angeles - but they knew well enough what Trembley was getting across.
The Pines weren't the first to collude with Bill in town. Not by a long shot.
The noise was deafening, the erupting chatter so immense that Dan would usually be remiss to demand order. But he had dropped his tiny little gavel and was staring up at the projected images in much the same manner.
Preston tugged on his collar. "Th-this wasn't my doing!" Preston barked. "We are not the ones on trial!"
"You're quite right, Sir!" Quentin said, twisting on his heel. "But this is the point - the Pines are not the only ones to be fooled by the likes of Bill Cipher. Weirdmageddon was an unintentional event - yet I purport that it was a caveat, a willing caveat under the name of the Northwests! They praised him as a God. What does all in his name mean? Could it be all of this death and destruction was part of the deal, as it were…?"
Nathaniel bit his purple, wrinkled bottom lip and almost managed to tear the unstable flesh from his face.
"To worship him in a chapel? To act as agents of chaos, all in his name? I ask you, my friends. Is this in any way reasonable? I happen to know more of the Northwest's history than many others, and-"
"HOW?" Dan finally spoke up.
The erratic president sniffed his finger and put his hands on his hips with the slightest bit of indignation. "I welcomed the Northwests into this community with open arms."
"This guy's crazy." Tyler finally spoke up. "You'd have to be like a bajillion years old!"
"Wrong!" Quentin replied. "I am but… uh… carry the three, minus the year I abolished the calendar, that time I thought I was turned into a tardigrade- uhm-"
"222. You're 222, Quentin." Dipper whispered.
"I AM TWO HUNDRED AND TWENTY-TWO- uh- years, I guess."
Suddenly, Blubs and Durland clocked onto the sheer insanity of the situation. Could it be? The Pines had been fool enough to appoint the crazy president as their lawyer? They kinda figured he'd just turn to dust after a day or something, not take on a fairly searing legal argument against the town's elite family.
"Now see here!" Tyler snapped. "Do you think I was born yesterday?!"
"You do look like some kind of small, hairy-lipped baby man, Sir." Quentin said, before calling out in concern to the rest of the court. "Is this man in fact a newborn? Where is his mother?!"
"Mister Mayor." Blubs finally heaved himself out of his chair. "He's tellin' the truth."
"We gotsa keep it a secret on 'ccounta th'govunment!" Durland added.
Blubs rubbed the bridge of his nose and pulled a copy of the Northwest Coverup from his sleeve, placing it on the projector. It was apparently as much of his uniform as the coverup reel in his hat, and the Philly cheese steak strapped to his inner thigh. "This man is the…the reanimated founder of Gravity Falls."
"Y-you knew about all this?" Tyler stammered. "There was a conspiracy about the town's founder?! How did he even-"
"Man encased himself in peanut brittle and came back ta life last year. Kids almost got sent to Fort Knox. The usual." Blubs said, now eating his emergency Philly cheese steak.
"And you didn't even tell me when I became mayor?!"
"Need ta know basis, Mister Mayor. Highest level. Ain't jus' small town bullhockey, this coverup was government-backed. Nationwide."
"I- I- I can't believe you'd lie to everybody about something as important as the town founder! Just because of some stuffed-up suits at the Pentagon?! You might be cops, but you're - we're your friends! Your family! Your-"
"You're far from an innocent party yourself, Mister Mayor. Do you recognise THIS?" Trembley said, pulling out an all-too-familiar broken snowglobe. "A Bill Cipher cult this isn't, but definite proof of collusion and the occult on the part of your own family. Something you buried!"
Dipper blinked. Man, Quentin had actually done his homework. And man, he still really, really wanted that snowglobe.
Tyler shrank back and was beginning to sound far, far quieter. "This - this ain't- this ain't right! Yes, we all made mistakes-"
"Exactly!" Quentin replied. "How can the Pines be so bad, when this town is so full of coverups, of lies, of corruption? Your family wanted to sell more snowglobes.I preserved myself in peanut brittle for a valiant cause. Ford Pines wanted to unlock the history of the universe. Stan Pines wanted to save his brother!"
"I- I admit that it was a foolhardy plot but-"
"Let's not forget the biggest crime of all, my friends." Trembley added. "The Northwests - particularly, Nathaniel Northwest - was responsible for the mindless suffering of hundreds. Why? To please a geometric shape in dancing shoes!"
Nathaniel twitched at what he believed was a bit of an oversimplification.
"If the CIA get wind of this…" Blubs winced.
"The CIA will answer to me! I am the PRESIDENT!" Quentin said, loudly. "And not the only reanimated man in the courts today. A much less valiant man of my time lurks before us!"
"Now, now hold on one minute! W-w-what do you mean not the only reanimated man?" Tyler stammered.
"This man is no simple, mediocre lawyer in terrible footwear! This man was forcefully brought back to life by the very people who are central to my argument. This man is none other than Nathaniel Northwest! And a core piece of evidence. Which I would love to wrap in a plastic bag."
Preston buried his face in his hands. Priscilla slapped her forehead. Pacifica pretended to look shocked. The town stared. Open-mouthed. The Trembley revelation was severe enough, but this was another matter entirely. Nathaniel Northwest was such a fixture in the town - rendered with statues, on banners, and even printed on the town's personal currency before the IRS threatened to nuke the place.
"H-he sure does have a likeness to the photograph." Blubs said.
"Now hang on a bike-riding minute!" Tyler said, standing on his bench. "Sure, he may look like he ain't seen beauty treatments over a century, but what proof do you have?!"
He leapt forward, and ripped a sleeve from the withered creature's arm before Nathaniel could react. The old velvet's cotton seams tore easily, slipping down the elderly degenerate's arm…revealing a Northwest monogram - and, underneath, a tattoo with a single-eyed, top-hat addled triangle, wrapped in a scroll.
All in his name.
The audience erupted. Nathaniel made a weird howling noise like a hoarse dog being stepped upon. Dan hammered the gavel furiously, trying to divert people's attention back to the matter at hand.
"I did it myself." Quentin beamed. "For a while, before venturing into my sugary, sticky tomb… I laid low as a tattoo artist. Pretty good."
"Jumping jellybabies!" Toby gasped. "He's biased! He's a biased lawyer! A ZOMBIE biased lawyer!"
"We all get the idea, Toby. Ya freak of nature." Blubs snapped.
"I just like to prove that I'm paying attention."
Everybody turned to the Northwests furiously, still yelling and jeering. Priscilla was now seething at her husband so furiously that she had gone a funny colour of purple. Nathaniel Northwest backed up a few steps as thunder cracked outside, illuminating the room momentarily in a light that seemed entirely bound to condemn the wrinkled, sagging man and his grotesque past.
The rain continued to hammer. Hard. Increasingly loud. The roof leaks seemed to burst open slightly, opening thin droplets into singular, flowing streams of liquid, pattering away into the bucket with a consistent dribble.
Ford looked up and narrowed his eyes, quickly trying to discern what the structural condition of the ancient roof was like, something Dipper tried his best to emulate. Which Pacifica found outright adorable.
If Quentin had noticed - and being fair, he wasn't the best for situational awareness - he didn't show it. The man continued speaking as he paced the courtroom, his coat's tails flapping behind him as if supported by an invisible breeze. Or an opening draught in the window frames. Which was far more likely.
"The train wreck. The Great Flood. The Northwest coverup. Cornelius Northwest. You may wish to criminalise the Pines family, but there is no creature in this town, no man in this state more guilty than the reanimated corpse you see here ."
"I ain't no criminal!" Nathaniel spat, throwing a glass of water at Quentin and missing his prominent nose by inches. "I'm rich! I get ta do this stuff! An' I didn't jus' go reanimate mahself, it wus their idea! If y'all are gonna attack me, ya sure as hell better attack them!"
Preston spluttered. "Y–you crook!"
"I ain't got no pride in you as mah kin, boy! I ain't got no pride in your wife, and I sure as hell ain't got no pride in the blonde y'all are tryna groom into joinin' our side!" Nathaniel spat back, jabbing a spongy finger against Preston's chest.
Dipper held Pacifica protectively and winced. "T-they're going crazy-"
"You're surprised?" She sighed, holding his arms around her. "They're all…nuts."
The Northwest Patriarch, looking frantically to his scowling wife and increasingly erratic forefather, wiped his brow and swallowed hard. "T-this is all wrong! This is all damned wrong!"
"What's wrong is your plan, Preston!" Priscilla finally burst out. "All of this junk about kinship and he's a gigantic traitor! You raised this man back from the dead, and for what?!"
Another scandalised gasp echoed across the courtroom, the cacophony of jeering breaking back into slack-jawed stares and furious glares. If there was any assurance that the Pines were coming out looking the least criminal in the court case…
"You idiot!" Priscilla barked, pounding a fist against Preston's chest. "All I wanted was my damned daughter back, and you can't even get that right!"
"I did everything I could! Who could have thought even HE'D be a liar?!"
"He's a Northwest! " Priscilla snapped. "You're all liars! I'm a liar! Pacifica and that - that railroad man are the only decent family members we've ever had, and you just push them out of the picture!"
Preston's stiff upper lip faltered. "I- I didn't- I-"
Everybody, all of a sudden, fell quiet - for reasons not entirely clear to the Pines' vantage point. One moment everybody was heckling the wealth-laden crooks, the next everybody was staring out of the windows in what could only be called consternation.
Pacifica didn't care. Her mom was upset, and it just… stirred something in her. She made a move to clamber over the defendant's bench, eager to at least try to make…some kind of amends, at least give her mother a hug - after all, blood was thicker than water. She was surprised when a big, meaty arm came down and held her back.
"YOU KIDS STAY UP THERE. EVERYBODY, GET BACK!"
"Holy freakin' hell-" Stan muttered.
"I knew something had to give." Ford huffed, lifting Mabel onto his shoulders. "I should have thought more about the water table."
"Only you would think about the damned water table, Ford." Stan huffed, grabbing Pacifica and Dipper and draping them over his shoulders in a fireman's lift. "Come on, kids."
The young socialite blinked and peered out of the window from her new vantage point - only for her jaw to pop open and hang there in awe. Blood was thicker than water, sure, but it looked like a hell of a lot of water was flowing towards them. The days of seemingly unending rain had taken their toll - and Lake Gravity Falls had burst its banks.