Nobody dared speak as the sight unfurled before them. Pacifica looked up woozily from her corner and promptly came back into full consciousness as the horrors unfolded. Or rather… spilt out.
A gigantic boot - at least a size 80 - ripped through the rift and clumped onto the creaking floorboards. It was connected to a thick, keratin-shielded centipede leg, bladed and covered in tufts of overly coarse hair. It was blacker than black, glistening, and…secreting. It was almost like a lump of tar, formed into an approximation of leather. It landed on the floor with a strange squelching noise, bulging out in all directions as the weight of its spindly exoskeletal legs pressed atop its limited ankle support.
It was followed by a viscous, bubbling bitumen nightmare. A foul-smelling, grotesque, veiny, sinewy horror that seemed to be constantly pulsating and morphing between the organic and the paranormal.
Further black, tar-like shapes bulged and protruded, seeping from the interdimensional kitchen-hatch, like slime through a strainer - bubbling and belching as it slowly entered the room, clarifying its shape steadily as it formed into what looked like pre-chewed black liquorice. Greasy, soaking, dripping, pitch-black unpleasantness filled the room with its clagging, medicinal aroma.
Cragged, pointed, mismatched teeth - of all shapes and sizes - rolled up its bulging shape, arranging into a gigantic pair of crooked jaws. They slowly opened up with a sinister hiss, only for a yellow - all too familiar - eyeball to roll out from within the creature's bowels, filling the space between like a gumball rolling out of a dispenser, and loading between the creature's tusks, which gripped it with a sickening splutch, and a further smattering of deep, blue phlegm.
Thick eyelashes contorted from within, folding out in three joints like grotesque fingers, each one almost as thick as Dipper's arm. Not that Dipper's arm was particularly thick.
A crooked, towering top hat emblazoned what one could barely - just barely - call a head on the creature's body. An enormous cigar, twisted and gnarled, slipped out from behind the creature's eyeball with a sickening sound, spitting red-hot clouds of clagging ash and acrid smoke like so many decades of Northwest industrialist nightmare. Followed by a slithering, uneven, lump-laden tongue.
It was not quite Bill Cipher.
Not quite Curzon Cankerblight.
It was a malformed meeting of the two. Water had flowed into their little dimension of purgatory, and had twisted them - forced and construed them into a twisted combination of mind and body, without offering the strengths of either. The water had destroyed them in much the same way as Nathaniel Northwest's twisted mutation. A statement from the town itself, Ford would later muse - the final, simple, straightforward statement that Gravity Falls rejected them. Rejected their return and used its very namesake's essence to hammer the point home.
The creature continued to steadily protrude from the tiny rift, each footstep making the room rattle. Flasks fell from the floor, books clattered out of the shelves… and the kids faced just about the most horrific collection of shadowy sinews, veins, folds and rolls they'd ever seen. At least since they last saw Grunkle Stan without his shirt.
The creature stared blankly at nothing in particular, its upper extremities hitting the ceiling and scraping against it. It didn't even seem to recognise the nemeses of its constituent parts. It lulled and ebbed with hollow, hissing breaths, dripping a thick mucus onto the floor from every joint. Small tears seemed to bubble open from its thick, shining skin, which flapped like latex in front of a fan. It glistened and caught any and all light and surface on its outer coating.
What had that lake done to them…?
They almost felt sorry for them…almost. There was no doubt it was what Bill deserved - maybe even Curzon too - but it did seem like a remarkably cruel fate for them. They didn't even like each other, and now seemed entirely fused, forcefully thrust into a new, shambling, bulbous existence in which they were hopelessly entangled.
"That. Is the most terrifying thing. I have ever seen." Pacifica whispered.
"I'm gonna puke." Stan winced.
"No freaking way…" Dipper muttered.
"Oh god, it's pulsating…" Mabel whimpered.
"Cool! It's pulsating!" Gus threw in.
"By the power of the flapping coattails of Lady Jeremiah," Trembley said, with his usual panache.
The Pines, Corduroys and sole Trembley - who were beginning to feel very much dwarfed by the bulging, outsized tootsie roll, were tempted to talk. To try and communicate. Just to garner a sense of the creature's life. Was there even anything left in there? Was this just a bulging, damp husk?
The fear choked them. They simply couldn't. The Corduroys were all silent. The Pines were all silent. Trembley was silent. Every single human being in the room was frozen, staring up with mouth agape at the monstrous, dimension-hopping abomination.
Then…its single eyeball rolled downwards and pierced them in an expressionless gaze.
It didn't have a mouth - at least not one they could see - but its fiercely burning cigar twisted in its colossal, eye-filled jaws, grinding like sandpaper and spitting red-hot embers towards them, acrid fumes pouring off in thick clouds of clag and filth.
On its frontmost legs, it lowered down and continued its bold, unblinking stare. Slowly at first, then with an audible rattle, the beast breathed in through its extraterrestrial cigar. It was, at least, cognizant enough to do that. A smattering of cinders dropped from it as the smoke whistled inwards.
"Th-h-h-h-ht.."
Pacifica knew that noise. She'd heard it what felt like an entire summer ago, deep in The Crawlspace. It had been an innocent noise then - but all of that burning smoke, the red-hot flakes of tobacco and the sheer size of the thing? No. No, it couldn't be innocent.
Still gripping her aching head, she barked at her loved ones. "Get out of the way! Get back!"
Ford and Dipper came to much the same conclusion. "Get out of the line of fire!"
They didn't realise how literal that yell was.
With a thwoomp, fire and acrid smoke burst from the tip of the twisted rod of interdimensional tobacco, the smoke clagging across the floor and blistering into the 150-year-old varnish. It was like acid. It melted and ate into the grain furiously, unabated until it dissipated into the air. The heat from the resultant cloud burnt at their skin, melted the soles of their shoes, ate into the hems of fabrics…
It even hit the brick wall and seemed to cause the solid materials to gain a glossy sheen…
"Jeez." Stan winced. "I've smoked some crappy cigars in my time but that crud's comin' in hot-"
"And again!" Ford yelled.
Another blast spat across the room, this time curving as the creature rolled its body towards Pacifica with a hissing, screeching whistle of burning flame. She stood up in a panic and tried to dodge out of the way, but her legs felt weak, the room span and-
With a roar, what remained of Nathaniel Northwest lept in the way, hissing furiously. Apparently, the Northwest obsession with bloodline still ran just deep enough for the horrific human anemone to leap ahead of her.
Before a series of shocked, horrified eyes, it was hit by the flame and smoke. The resultant yell, the scream, the bellow, the shriek - it all seemed to echo in every single pitch and key from the same, glowing blue mouth, its eyes bulging out of its malformed skull as the acidic, acrid smoke began burning away at the creature's body. Pacifica screamed and recoiled as it melted away in front of her, inch by inch, putrid ounce after putrid ounce of its horrendous, malformed frame frothed and spat like baking soda and vinegar.
Nathaniel's head turned to her and gave her the most horrific, furious snarl she had ever seen. It outstretched a shadowy black hand, and grabbed Pacifica's face, forcing her to look at it as it bubbled away. She froze and gripped the floor, whimpering, as the hand slipped down her cheek, attempting to grasp at her throat. It left a thick, blue trail of mucus, secreting from those boney, knobbled, gnarled digits, those sharp, chipped talons almost taking away a layer of skin from her cheek…
"YOOoooOOU DIDDDDddd..thhhhhiiissssss….."
Pacifica stared, with tears filling her eyes, paralysed by the horror of seeing her great-great-grandfather melt before her eyes, and blame her. Solely her.
She was only saved from the experience when Dipper ran onto the scene and hoofed the hand with his sneaker, kicking so hard that it detached, flew skywards and splashed against the wall.
"Don't you EVER touch my girlfri-"
The young detective trailed off as he realised he was no longer talking to anything at all. Nathaniel Northwest was gone. Gone to where, or what, he wasn't entirely certain - but what remained was nothing more than a bubbling, semi-translucent smear upon the floorboards.
Pacifica gripped hold of Dipper tightly and looked at him. Her mascara was already running.
"H-h-he's wrong." He replied, as if to a silent question. "You only did what was right."
She sniffled and wiped her nose on her sleeve, listening quietly to Dipper's stammering, clearly anxiety-laden, colour-drained encouragement. She appreciated the effort - but there was no doubt that it sailed through one ear and out of the other. Right now, she didn't know what to believe.
All of this - from disrupting the Northwest status quo to sending her parents over the edge, to awakening the wrath of Cankerblight in the first place… she couldn't help but feel that she'd made a habit of sticking her nose where it shouldn't have been, of rousing trouble where things may not have been right… but were, ultimately, peaceful.
She scrambled to safety with him and clutched him tightly. It was a combination of love and a pure, simple desire for a natural security blanket. Even if it was a sweaty, stuttering security blanket.
The laboratory was sagging. The locomotive had crashed. The town was flooded. The Curdoruys were soaked and bruised. Her family were all exhausted and practically on the brink of burnout. Even the usually fearless and distinctly charismatic Quentin Trembley had frozen in fear at the sight of the meeting. She was soggy, and her head pounded. She had left the townsfolk to deal with her parents, who had seemed to finally crack. If this was all her fault, that seemed like an awful lot of screw-ups. And she didn't know how to approach any of them.
She almost forgot the presence of the enormous, hulking great monster ahead of them, looming over with curiosity and a thinly veiled need for attention, which reminded them of its presence by taking a single, squelching step forward - a step that felt so soft and malleable, yet so sinister and cold.
It glared down at them with disdain. Expressionless, perhaps - but that leering, looming intent seemed as if it was mocking them. As if a foggy part of the creature's mind remembered that the young teenage investigator was his nemesis. The spanner in his works. The perfect target…
It was about to inhale again when an axe hit it in the eyeball. Blue sputum splashed forward from the impact, hitting a roof beam and causing it to bubble and froth like a science-fair volcano.
"Take that you freakin'...liquorice…freak!" Wendy yelled.
Kevin did much the same. It was similarly well-targeted, and with the addition of the kid's hefty shoulders, managed to embed itself so deep in the membrane that only the handle remained. "Yeah, you stink!"
"Yeah, you-! Uh- …what they said!" Gus barked, as he threw a brick at it. It didn't reach the eye, but did chip the creature's tooth.
"I WILL BRING A WORLD OF PAIN!" Dan yelled far louder, throwing an errant laboratory counter at the creature, the legs of which stabbed the creature firmly in the eye. That was enough to repel the thing backwards.
The tremendous beast recoiled and screeched in fury, rearing like an angry multi-limbed horse. It puffed another jet of smoke, roaring through an unseen orifice, thick liquids pouring from its injured eye. It was, at least, still afflicted by the same weaknesses.
Now blinded, the creature continued wildly twirling and twisting, even with those pieces of weaponry embodied in its soft mucus membrane. Its attackers scattered from the smoke, it harmlessly hitting the bare brick masonry that lay ahead of it.
The roof above them seemed to groan as the walls softened from the acidic particulates. The masonry was glistening and glossy, like melting chocolate…
"What… what do we do?!" Mabel asked Ford, clinging to his arm.
"I'm thinking, Pumpkin. I'm thinking."
"Well think faster! I don't know how long this place is gonna stay up!" She chirped back, shaking his arm as if it would help generate ideas.
"Do we just let the place collapse onto him?" Kevin asked.
"It might be all we have," Stanford replied, eyeing the sagging structure. "It's either that or-"
Pacifica's mind raced. They needed a genuine tool, something that could inflict harm upon …this. How was one meant to confront such a towering creature of such…dubious origin? It'd needed to be something swift, efficient, fierce, all-encompassing…
"The cutter, Ford. The cutter!" She butted in.
"Pacifica, that's brutal! No parent would allow it." Ford snapped - before tossing it over to her and winking. "Good thing I'm a Grunkle. Aim for its knees."
Pacifica held the interdimensional cutter in her hands reverently, like it was the most precious diamond she'd ever seen. And to be fair, she had seen her fair share. Without a second's hesitation, she flicked the switch and shot it towards the creature's legs, planning to tear the thing apart like a lobster at a particularly bougie restaurant.
The bright orange beam shot from the adapted pen-nib and collided with one of the creature's legs in a blast of spark. The stench was unbearable and with an ear-shattering scream, an echoing scream that seemed to contain thousands of barely-sentient voices, the creature recoiled. Howling, bellowing, screaming, yelling in anguish, in fury, in pain. It was as if Curzon's tenuous link to the dimensions beyond meant that thousands of similar wicked, manipulative creatives were able to feel much the same.
It howled in fury and reared wildly as the leg severed, clattering to the floor like a length of plywood. She almost felt guilty. It was perhaps a testament to how much Pacifica had changed - she didn't really relish in taking this sort of revenge. Quite the opposite.
She paused and lowered the laser cutter with eyes like pin dots.
"Kid," Stan said quietly. "Both parts of that thing wanted to kill Dipper. And everybody in the town you care about. Even me. You really wanna show mercy to it? Ya don't wanna commit some cryptid-slaughter for your Grunkle Stan?"
The guilt was gone.
Pacifica got back to work with tremendous efficiency, wafting the laser like a sword-blade in Bloodcraft. She got herself into the mindset of thinking it was some kind of boss level, and quickly lost track of any reservations. All the same, the tremor in her breath and the expression on her face made it obvious that this was quite literally the most terrifying thing she'd ever done.
The sounds, the sights….the room filled with a smell not unlike burning hair, sugar and cough syrup as, with wafts of bright white spark and orange flame, the deep blue keratin of the beast's tremendous legs practically melted apart before them, cauterising closed as each unwieldy limb severed.
Within only a few moments, the shapeless creature had fallen, its bulky, soggy body hitting the boards with a thick squelch. It stared, expressionless, thin layers of slime spreading underneath. A bubbling, blistering liquid that continued to seep from every inch of the dark, veined, shapeless body that it rested upon.
The Pines stared. Unsure what was going to happen next - unsure if this was yet a victory. The gigantic colossus seemed to be immobile, stranded atop its unwieldy bulk. It hissed aggressively, trying to wriggle itself free of gravity's constraints.
"My word. It's like some sort of strange fleshy substance. Like…flesh."
"Don't freakin' touch it, ya moron!" Stan barked.
"I've touched many worse things than this, Stanley Pines. I once stroked Queen Victoria's left shoulder blade! It was like sweaty leather."
The creature responded wildly, lashing out a thick, slimy tendril that threw the president to the floor, leaving a distinctive cut across Quentin's face as he sat there, legs akimbo, on the floor. He held his head and raised an eyebrow.
"...Funnily enough, Queen Victoria did much the same thing."
The human intruders rapidly backed away as the creature made a strange, furious rumbling sound from deep under its black, slithering skin. Quentin bound to his feet and joined them - every one of them retreating to one of the cinderblock hallways.
Wild, lashing tentacles of the creature's dripping, inky frame threw out in all directions, latching onto the walls and sticking there like gooey hands that stuck to the walls. (Rumour has it some lunatic in Cali had decorated a wall of his home with them.) Slowly, aided by each of the black, dripping anchors, the great terror dragged itself forward.
It was about here that the Pines, Corduroys and slapped Trembley decided to make their escape - they ran for the concealed elevator, eager to regroup with the townsfolk and prepare for the inevitable. There was part of them that was sure the immobilised animal was just too clumsy and hefty to escape from the underground.
Its body dragged against the floor, leaving a snail-like trail behind it. It didn't look like a particularly comfortable way to travel, but to the obsessed, foggy mind of the gigantic abomination, that didn't seem to have any bearing. It just kept advancing, closer and closer. Its thick, trailing tongue lapped at the air as it searched for them, the eye remaining fixed ahead. Unblinking. Unfeeling. Unemotive.
It lashed outwards and cracked against the valve for the underground's lighting, spinning the ancient handle and cutting off the supply of gas to the subterranean complex. As the Pines sprinted for an escape - any escape - the entire catacombic compound plunged into darkness. There was no chance of an exit without power.
No chance of reaching an elevator.
No chance of getting to safety.
They ran to the Cipher chapel, where - at least - scant light was being provided by the ethereal foliage, which cast a vague glow through the enormous stained glass windows. The room wrapped over them in its natural, sinister air - a towering monument to exactly what they were escaping.
Or…half of what they were escaping.
"Be careful. Be very careful." Ford said to the others, as they tried to navigate the maze of pews and plinths, aided by only the soft blue light.
"Yeah, yeah, Sixer, we get i-" Stan didn't get to finish his sentence before he tripped over a pew.
It hit another. And another. Steadily, every single solid pine bench collapsed forwards, clattering across the room and echoing like a stampede of hollow bison, raising a sinister hiss from hallways outside.
Stan rubbed his head and gave a guilty grin as Ford seared him with a fiery gaze.
"Everybody," Ford whispered with as much urgency as he could. "Scatter. Get out of sight. If we're lucky he'll have the same depth perception as your Grunkle Stan."
Stan glared at him as the allies scattered about the chapel's impressive floor space, bounding into all kinds of nooks and crannies in order to get out of sight. There was no shortage of them in that grotesque structure, where it seemed everything was little more than an extravagant, triangular dust trap - free of morality, while aplomb in overengineered excess.
Dipper and Pacifica clung to one another under a trapdoor in the floor - a ritualistic supply cubby, surrounded by foul-smelling incense and the occasional banner.
Mabel and Kevin clung to were in a similar environment - though their hiding spot was loaded with bright yellow robes and a really silly-looking pyramid hat.
Gus was hanging from a triangular wall sconce.
Manly Dan had ascended the rafters and hung from the roof beams with his daughter.
And Ford and Stan were resisting the temptation to punch eachother, hiding in the substantial chapel liquor cabinet.
It was a simple - and foreboding - situation. Either they were hidden…or they were cornered. They all froze as they heard the dull splutching of mucus-filled boots upon the cold, stone floor. The darkness only seemed darker. The cold only seemed more intrusive.
The fear was crippling. Though, admittedly, probably not as crippling as having your legs lasered off.