Around fifteen minutes earlier…
The townspeople cowered, innocent of the litany of emotional peril the Pines were going through several dimensions away. Their focus had - inevitably - left the Pines entirely. Slowly, the town hall tread towards them, the museum flanking it from the side while the Dusk-2-Dawn store flickered to the other.
"Is - is this it?!" Tyler asked, cowering behind Manly Dan. "Is this the final curtain? The last hurrah?!"
Grenda and Candy flung themselves back into the bath-tub boat.
"R-row harder, Grenda!"
"I'M TRYING, CANDY, BUT THE OARS DO NOTHING!"
"We're doomed!" The diminutive nerd cried out, holding her chubby cheeks.
"STOP WHINING, CANDY, GOSH!" Grenda retorted, jumping out of the bathtub and dragging it across the street like a beast of burden.
However, for the rest of the townsfolk, there was no bath-tub boat. Indeed, there was little respite - the only route out of town meant traversing all manner of seemingly carnivorous structures and highways - with the only real source of spite being…
Portland.
It was perhaps only natural that many of them preferred their chances here, even if things were looking increasingly dire.
"Ah cain't git squasherooned by a fast food restaurant!" Fiddleford piped in. "Ah'm a future presidential candidate!"
Quentin twirled on his heel. "Y-you what?!"
What could have doubtless resulted in the horrors of a post-apocalyptic by-election was interrupted by a tremendous crunch as Dan punched the town hall, knocking out a piece of lumber and allowing the roof to sag. He grinned in pride as the building stumbled backwards, roaring like a tyrannosaur made out of redwood. "THEY CAN FEEL PAIN!"
"W-watch the varnish, Daniel, I had the town hall painted only last week-"
Dan roared and beat in another one of the town hall's retaining beams, causing the building to stagger and stumble backwards, landing on its defoundationed tuchus and losing a significant portion of its left-hand stability. The Lumberjack patriarch bellowed in victory - but it was short lived.
After all, Daniel was only one man. And there were so many retaining beams beyond each of the structures. And he would know - his family built the majority of them. Kevin and Gus stood either side of him in an entirely redundant defence, while Wendy started digging through Dan's survival pack - flicking through axes like they were trading cards.
Building after building tore free from its foundations, trawling architectural detritus behind them as they lumbered clumsily towards the courthouse's roof - each one screeching and groaning as its fabric flexed and curled around every motion, every moment, and every grunting, wheezing breath. If the Pines had been present, they'd have no doubt realised yet another thread that seemed intent on being picked away.
When they stood still, wheezing and panting for oxygen, it wasn't dissimilar to The Crawlspace's breathing, pulsating tenements - where, no doubt, groundwater was plentiful. It was all proving so monstrously obvious in hindsight.
No doubt that was what Quentin Trembley was frantically noting down when the crowd of twenty bumbling brick belligerents finally became too intimidating for the Corduroy patriarch to beat back. He looked up and gulped at the encroaching militia of mortar, quickly putting this notepad away.
"Ladies and gentlemen. I feel this may be the end." He said quietly, with his usual overly-dramatic flourish.
"WE- WE CAN'T TAKE THEM ALL ON, BOYS." Dan finally resigned, backing away slowly.
It was a fair argument - most of the town didn't have fists with the same Vickers rating as granite. Toby Determined had supposedly been rated close on his left kneecap, but that was hardly useful from this vantage point.
"Dudes, uh…if… if Dan can't beat 'em, um - does that mean we join 'em, or?" Soos ventured. "Cos I gotta be honest, I think the Greasy's worm has the most presidenty-behaviour outta 'em-"
"I think we probably have to run, hun." Melody said, gently. "Make sure you take the Pines' uh…strings with you, okay?"
"Oh, dude, trust me." Soos said, holding up his painfully purple hand, the Infinity Belt's twins squeezing circulation around his wrist. "They'd have to rip my arm off, bro."
"I fear," Quentin proclaimed, pointing skywards. "That we must make a tactical retreat, and try to find a waterfowl and/or water-based beast to enlist in our defence. Unless we do such a thing, we will surely be pulverised! And I've been pulverised. It hurts."
While the man lacked sanity, he certainly didn't lack authority. The ex-president's proclamation was enough to send the townspeople scattering - all, of course, but Priscilla and Preston Northwest.
"Hey! U-untie us, right this minute!" Preston bellowed at the top of his lungs.
"We'll sue you! We'll sue you if you don't untie us!" Priscilla added.
"You said we'd sue them anyway, dear."
"And I will, but if I'm untied I'll be even more litigious."
"Very droll, darling. No wonder I love you." The Northwest Patriarch sighed. "If this is the end, I can think of nobody I'd rather spend it with."
The two terrible parents - and worse human beings - interlocked fingers, before promptly screaming as Yumberjacks - groaning and creaking as it leaned in towards them, opened a large, venomous-looking set of jaws between gable and wall. A dark, yellow tongue slipped out from between equally dark, yellow teeth, and slathered hungrily as it viewed the trapped capitalists.
"NO! NO! GET AWAY!" Preston bellowed, struggling against his binds. "Get away from me! I'm your landlord! You should respect m-"
!
The townspeople began to scatter, clambering down ancient iron fire escapes on the rear end of the creaking courthouse, fleeing to all corners while the brick-and-mortar beasts honed in towards them - joined by the occasional barking fire hydrant or the odd demonic picket fence. All the while, the air stirred above in thick, dark swirls of nothing but pure fury - lit up with the luminescent alien foliage that now wrapped around the cliffs.
Then, they heard a shrieking horn. A terrible bellow that seemed to intervene through every surface and orifice in the besieged valley. Manotaurs - a whole herd of them - flew down from one of the many caves, each one bellowing in a call of pure, musky glory. The hairy stampede of pure testosterone and muscle shook the ground and rattled each of the sentient buildings' windows, enormous fists and horns raised like a jagged forest of pure, unbridled brutality.
Atop the war-general manotaur - Collateraldamageataur - sat Marcus Corduroy.
"Holy shoot!" Wendy beamed. "I thought he'd just freakin'...drowned or got eaten by a dumpster or something!"
"THAT'S MY BOY!" Dan beamed, beating his chest like a gorilla as the army of very hairy warriors began slamming into buildings with brutal efficiency. One swung into the arcade with such an impact that every single arcade cabinet flew from one of the windows, shattering open on the ground and freeing every single nickel, quarter, and long-dead rodent that had dwelled within.
"Take no survivors!" Marcus yelled.
"I- I think some survivors might be good-" Tyler tried to protest, as the town's creperie collapsed like crepe paper following a headbutt from Stubbletaur.
As much as he tried, however, Tyler was in no place to try and prevent the sheer violence that the Manotaurs so favoured. It was a mixed success. True, almost immediately, the battle turned in the townspeople's favour - sort of. It must be said there was very little joy in watching your downtown area shattered by meaty, muscular bovine fists, no matter how demented it had been acting only a few minutes earlier. After all, if a location deserved to be bulldozed after committing one or two crimes, Wall Street would have been knocked down months ago.
Tyler howled as, crippled by the great jerky-consuming beasts, the town hall collapsed into a pile of redwood timber, spilling out his favourite mayoral collection of hot pants. Quentin Trembley yelled something about them destroying the town's finest centre of law and commerce, but he'd also never heard of a shopping mall until like, last month.
Meanwhile, Fiddleford was hoot-a-nannying in delight at the ensuing carnage, yelling at every punch like a particularly obnoxious boxing spectator. He had already attempted to place bets with Toby Determined and Bud Gleeful - who, being fair, was a little more upset at the fact cars were now being flung from his dealership.
"H-hey now, t-that there's an authentic vintage! That's - that's a gen-yoo-ine imitation 1995 Beta Juliet, t-that ain't a toy!"
He sobbed as it crashed into the 'spine' of the Circle Park clocktower - that promptly vomited up a series of cogs and clockwork into the hole where the statue of Nathaniel Northwest had once stood - into the funnel cloud. As if by the hands of fate, the cogs - fuelled by the increasing tempest that flooded through the town's tunnelled, winding bowels - soon came careening out through drains, buzzling wildly at hurricane speed and promptly slicing through several stalks of the gigantic extraterrestrial beanstalks that seemed so intent on immersing Oregon's weirdest township. They quickly collapsed sideways, taking more of the eerie, rippling plantlife with it, crashing back into the chasm from which they had sprung.
"Oh snap! What were the chances of that?" Tad said.
"Ah-calculma-latered it at sixty-billion-to-one!" Fiddleford chimed in - before ducking out of the way of an errant drainpipe. "Hoo-boy. Sure glad Tate is safe an' sound in Washington. Scariest thing there is that Cheney feller!"
The Manotaur who had lobbed the car beamed with pride, only to be punched by the walking remains of the Northwest Mudflap Factory, which leaked foul-smelling waste behind it like a stream of sewage. Which was fitting. It was pretty much just sewage.
Bellowing, the Manotaur flew backwards and smashed into the rest of the clocktower, causing it to fall like a giant, wooden-beamed domino and smash into Smokey Joe's All You Can Eat. Wendy momentarily recoiled as a thick, red ooze poured from within - only to realise it was a vat of barbecue sauce.
Simultaneously, the Gravity Falls Mall lost a structural column after Pubitaur threw himself into Hoo-Ha's Jamboree - and in the process, lost its entire left wing. It roared in fury, spitting out discount womenswear before losing its right. Then, with a gurgle, it slowly fell into itself - chorused by tinkling glass and shattering drop-tiles.
A thick, grey, cloud erupted from the wreckage as one of the biggest buildings in town collapsed - thirty years of janitorial dust mushrooming into the air alongside countless complimentary salt packets from the food court, which rained down like snow upon the trampled car park.
There were scenes like that all over the valley - a perturbing array of chaos that seemed to make things worse as easily as it tended to make things better. Soos scooped up Melody and ran as quickly as he could - not very - with the infinity belt's many cables still firmly wrapped around his wrist.
"This is crazy dude! I mean, I've seen crazy, but I didn't expect to see a clock throw chunks."
"Remind me why I moved here from Portland?"
"Easy, you saw me and thought I was the world's most perfect man, Melody."
"Granted. But you could have just moved to Portland."
"Dude, think about it. You really think this is worse than Portland?"
Melody paused, twisted her lip and shrugged. "Eh, 50-50."
"Bro, you gotta be less centrist on this stuff-"
Soos yelped and skidded to a halt as the crawling, sentient mass of Greasy's Dinner approached them, heaving in distinctly rustic breaths as its outsized, corpulent redwood body groaned and creaked along the street - shattering plates and glassware still audible from within.
"Oh man. Uh. Nice uh…nice diner? Look, look, we know eachother, right? I worked in you. Polished your tables an' everything." He ventured gingerly with the groaning structure.
The Diner loomed towards them - the AC unit clattering atop almost as noisily as the building's fragile tableware within. It groaned and creaked, its bark splitting momentarily as it locomoted across the floor.
It wasn't long before it studied the mysterious human interlopers - and simply turned away, crawling in the opposite direction - towards the forests where things still seemed so peaceful in comparison to the rapidly escalating madness in town.
"Soos, I don't think the diner wants to be friends."
"Oh, thank God. I don't even know if I'm talking to its butt or its head, dawg." Soos laughed, grabbing his girlfriend's hand and running towards his pickup truck, while the diner continued its slow crawl away - innocent of any confusion regarding its featureless face.
It was perhaps only natural that the building-that-wasn't-really-a-building should be more benign, even half baked compared to its brick-and-mortar brethren. Perhaps it was a sign of innate simplicity, or simply the reflection of its instinctively maternal owner.
Whatever the case, Greasy's Diner had little interest in the ongoing conflict. It simply roamed aimlessly across the landscape, while the battle continued to rage - in search of the one thing it truly knew. That being a Wentworth.
Creaking, groaning and crawling, the queer log-centric diner seemed quite intent to explore. Quite intent to find something it knew, something it felt it could recognise. And for whatever reason, that appeared to be in the forest.