A/N: I'd said I'd do it, and I did. If you don't know much about the latter half of this...
Shadows of the Falls (Gravity Falls/World of Darkness)
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Prologue
A/N: I'd said I'd do it, and I did. If you don't know much about the latter half of this crossover...you're in the same boat as the protagonists right now. Let's dive into the rabbit hole together, why don't we?
Tick.
The minute hand moved.
Tock.
The thorns pulled.
Tick.
The boy started to walk. It was rainy, wet, and, in theory, cold, but the fire still kept things fairly warm.
Tock.
The building didn't look inviting. More like a wooden castle, meant to remind everyone who beheld it that it was the owner of the castle who ruled the land, not them. But it looked defensible, anyway; that was part of its threatening presence. That was what was important now.
Tick.
The sky wasn't going to stop burning any time soon, after all.
Tock.
"Did He see you, kid?" asked the man at the doors. The boy was confused a bit, thinking he meant one of the faces in the doors, but then he realized He was internally capitalized. There was only one He in the world now. As far as the boy knew, He didn't. But there was a lot the boy didn't know. Things he couldn't know; that knowledge was not meant for him.
Tick.
He knew the girl, the twin, and the eternal child. He was fond of them, but he couldn't tell you why. Sentiment was something He didn't understand, so He got rid of it. It wasn't a complete thing, but it did make it a small enough thing for Him to safely ignore. The eternal child peeked through the window shutters, and winced at the blackened sky. "Nothing out there right now, dudes. Well, there's somethin' out there, but none of it's menacing guys in hoodies. Kind of wish it were, you should be really glad you did not look back, let me tell you."
Tock.
"Hey guys, I wonder if this computer still works," said the girl, plugging in an internet cable. Archaic, but did the boy really expect anything else in this place? An almost obscenely normal boot-up screen, featuring a clock counting down. A sterile wallpaper, probably meant to seem comforting but instead came off as cold. Unsympathetic.
Tick.
The minute hand moved again, and the thorns pulled more.
Tock.
The Internet worked, it seemed. Not that it helped. There was nothing He hadn't touched in some way, no matter how frivolous. Here, on TYZ, there was talk of a bright young starlet and her upcoming marriage to the Muse of Lethargy and Despair like it was just actors being an item, with the only diversion from usual gossip being sappy praises for a woman not listening to the naysayers and accepting the love of a creature that generally identified as female on the occasions it needed a human pronoun. There, a medical website described the growth of viney plantlife through varicose veins and developing scars that formed lettering of the hundred proclamations of the King of Lost Hope as mere skin conditions, with the same weight of zits or rashes. The CIA and White House urged cooperation with the Master of All Sorrows and its sibling/mate, the Heart in Man's Dementia, as He urged.
Tick.
Nothing personal escaped His influence, either. Every social media profile contained some prayer to the new Lord of the Fates, some plea to turn away His dooms or praise for dooms that were not as ill as they could have been. Not a single name among the profiles, for names of individual people were the ultimate sentiment. Nothing but a bunch of clocks in the name spaces
Tock.
Almost to the point where the hour hand would move now, and moving would be a thing of the past.
Tick.
Eventually, even the twin's boundless optimism gave out, and all turned away from the computer. For a moment or two, before the man turned back. And screamed.
Tock.
There was something looking out into the room, a pair of eyes on a face so dark and featureless that it might as well have been the darkness grew the pearl-like organs itself. Almost like organic spotlights, scanning the room with a malevolent curiosity, twin beams of dim, baleful light shining through the screen and gliding over all present.
Tick.
The boy unplugged the computer, but while the sound of the hard drive whirred down and ceased, the eyes remained the clocks it had for pupils fixing themselves on him, almost seeming amused. He swept the monitor to the floor, causing it to land screen down.
Tock.
That didn't stop the searching beams from exploring the room, though. Just not from the computer.
Tick.
And the boy understood; the reason the building was a fortress, and not one for humans. It was His castle, His throne, His clocktower. He could have destroyed the interlopers at any given time, but He had let them live long enough to show the totality of victory, backed by the process of destiny itself. To mock them with the immanent death of humanity as they knew it, to roar in glory one last time before setting out to establish its new world order, one by, for, and about Him. And there was nothing anyone could do, for His victory was preordained.
Tock.
The hour hand moved, and with that, the thorns grew so tight he had to kneel on the clock's face. There was no way to consider running now. The waiting men licked their lips.
Dipper Pines did not have nearly as many nightmares as his parents often thought. What he did have was a tendency to make sure the world knew when he did.
"WAAAAH!"
A couple blinks, and the wide-eyed expression on the male half of the Mystery Twins quickly melted into annoyance. And an adult bursting through the door in three...two…
A very loud crash that would guarantee the world knew that Dipper Pines had a nightmare (if somewhat indirectly) resounded through the shack, a half-second later than predicted.
"DIPPER! WHAT IN THE NAME OF...do I need the deer tranquilizer again?"
"No, Grunkle Stan, it's just a stupid nightmare," Dipper began, already retreating back under the covers. "No portals or great uncles incapable of just telling family about other family members were involved, in case you were wondering."
Outside of Dipper's field of vision, Stan mulled over a possible response to the not-entirely-veiled snipe. Before he could formulate a response (one that wouldn't sheepishly dodge the question), his niece was awake enough to catch on to the general gist of the situation.
"Oh come on, bro-bro. are you going to be mad about this forever? It makes your face all...wrinkly."
More out of habit when Mabel noticed these things, Dipper concentrated on somehow un-furrowing his brow. "I know Mabel, it's just that two months of lying is kinda hard to get over, even if Stan was just trying to-you know what, I really don't think the middle of the night is a good time to have this discussion."
"Good plan!" And with that, Stan ran off back to his bedroom. Mabel sighed, but quickly was snoring herself.
Dipper took a little longer to go asleep. Maybe that was a bit harsh, he decided, and to be frank, that dream seemed a little weird. The kind of weird that the town of Gravity Falls was known for...kind of. Most weird things in this town, while often spooky, were usually benign or at least open to peaceful resolution (a certain one-eyed floating triangle being a rather large exception, but the humorless nature of the dream really didn't seem like Bill Cipher's style). This though...this seemed like a ripoff from a Lovecraft ripoff.
Whatever. Again, middle of the night, there wasn't nearly enough energy left in him to actually scan the journals to figure out what kind of weird thing would provoke dreams of name-eating god-monsters who took over the world, or convince Stan to let him look over numbers 1 and 2. Besides, it could have been just a nightmare...but there was a difference between skepticism and being so closed-minded your brain suffocated.
After quickly writing down the details of the nightmare, the male half of the Mystery Twins went back to sleep, hoping the new dream would be perfectly and nicely irrelevant.
One of the weird things of Gravity Falls, Jeff the Gnome King In All But Name, yawned. He really didn't like staying up this late, but there were three things that fell to his unofficially kingly duties to solve.
First, he was the smartest gnome, on a general basis, and had the most skills with tracking and organizing the gnomes' collective supplies of firewood, stone, and the jerky.
Second, someone was stealing supplies of both the firewood and the jerky.
Third, the other gnomes had collectively decided that whoever thought stealing the jerky was a good idea was completely and utterly insane, and thus had hidden behind their exalted unofficial leader before the crazy thief decided he or she wanted gnome flesh to wash out the taste of the jerky. Hence, Jeff using his tracking abilities in the middle of the night, finding the thief with nothing but a pitchfork to guard him. And several other gnomes with pitchforks, because he wasn't an idiot.
"Alright, Carson, you take the left side of the path, Steve gets the right, Shmebulock, you guard the back and draw out your scream if you see our thief coming our way-and, er, everyone else too, I just don't have a way to tell thief from any other doom with his...descriptive abilities."
The gnome in question shrugged. "Shmebulock," he agreed, taking up the rearguard.
The tiny men of the forest, tiny lanterns in hand, proceeded to set off in the direction of the latest not-normal-forest sound.
"So, here I was, taking my squirrel bath…"
Apart from Jeff himself, other gnomes had grown used to their boss' boredom-induced prattling. They simply nodded and pretended to listen.
"...So I say to the gremloblin, 'your dad was scared of squirrels? Well, first, that is kind of stupid, but second…"
That didn't stop them from praying that danger would present itself soon, so that Jeff would actually clam up.
"...a hedgehog! I was amazed-Hey, do you smell something?"
"The gnomes sighed in relief when it became quite clear that Jeff was too busy sniffing the air to speak. After a second, they remembered they should probably be following his lead.
"...Beef?", Carson guessed.
"Burger meat, more like," Steve replied.
Shmebulock didn't bother, but if he had his full grasp of the language he would have argued an extremely tough and hardy form of steak, spit-roasted, with an undercurrent of parsley and onions (being unable to speak didn't mean unable to cook or take orders).
"It's definitely cow-based," continued Jeff, looking in the scent's apparent direction. "But it's not in the direction of the town. In fact...aha!"
There, right off the path a couple miles , was a tiny little fire. Straining their hearing, the gnomes could hear a contented voice humming a simple song.
"Yep, unless Bob just forgot to tell us he was camping, I think we found our thief!" Jeff, feeling relieved and not just a tad bit more confident now that he knew that the thief was gnome-sized, strode forward.
A little closer, a few more things could be made out. For one, the fire wasn't that small, it was just was hidden by a large log-looking thing. For another, off to the side, there seemed to be a rather large amount of thorns growing out of a pond. On the very edge of the pond, almost like a wall. Or a doorway.
For Jeff's purposes though, it was the humanoid form in front of the fire, a little taller than a gnome, lost in whatever activity required fire and jerky.
"Hey you! Yes you, by the fire!"
The humming voice briefly stopped, but any hopes of the thief turning around were quickly dashed when he started singing for real.
"Alloutette, gentille alouette, alloutette, je te plumerai…"
Jeff brought a hand to his face. "Ah heck, he's Canadian. Does anyone know any French? Or charades?"
"Er…"
"Uh…"
"Shmeb…"
Jeff shrugged. "Okay then. Improve it is." He cleared his throat.
"Je te plumerai la tête, je te plumerai la tête…"
Okay Jeff. Remember what the phrasebook said...what wasn't torn out of it.
"Désolé! Je appartiens à vous!"
The singing stopped.
"Do you now?"
Jeff's beard-hair stood on end. That voice was a lot more menacing when he wasn't singing. Even and deep, like a cave had suddenly grown vocal cords. "Erm, yeah. We kind of own that wood, and-"
"So you're pledged to belong to whoever takes your stuff? Odd, but there's stranger ownership laws."
Jeff suddenly realized he probably needed to steal a better phrasebook. "Er, no, what I meant was...was...uhh…."
The figure had turned around. And stood up.
He wasn't particularly big, as far as forest creatures went. In fact, by most scales, he was rather small-about the size of a large tween human. Still that was three times as big as most gnomes, all of it sleek defined muscle. He may have been larger, but rather than walk, he loped-crouched and constantly poised to strike like a cat.
His eyes shone like a cat's too, flashing green as he loped a little closer.
It took Jeff a few seconds to realize that the shape over the fire had shifted too. Almost like it was being carried a bit closer.
"Uh...I mean absolutely no offense here, but, uh, I don't know...what do you mean pledges?"
"Oh? So you aren't hedge-born then?" The figure loped a little closer, drawing something out of an unseen pocket. "Hm. Brothers? Maybe we should save our latest for the lean times?"
"Better plan, Boscage," began another voice, raspy and oddly, feminine. "We get the little men to tell us where the rest of them is, then we save for the lean times."
"Or, we go back to eating this, then back to our old task," said a third voice, who by the tone, was very irritated by the the proceedings. "That ogre ain't gonna trap himself."
"...Actually you know what," Jeff began, starting to step backwards. "You can keep the firewood, we never liked that jerky anyway. We'll be over here and-"
"Sssssme…"
"It can wait Shmebulock, you know, back where it's-"
"Buuuu…"
"What's gotten...into…"
As Jeff turned around to fully run or stack on the other gnomes to run faster, he suddenly realized the oddball gnome wasn't looking at the rest of the group, but above it.
And remembered his standing order.
"LOOOOOCK!"
"DUCK!"
Bad choice, as it turned out. As soon as Jeff curled up, a woody, thorny vine had wrapped itself around his head. This wasn't as nearly as uncomfortable as it could be, given how this also had to get his torso by necessity, but still, the gnome was quickly yanged up into the trees, pitchfork flying away.
His lantern came with him though, so he got to see exactly who using the vine-trap.
He screamed.
Another figure, slightly taller than his compatriot on the ground, was crouched in the tree branches, a knife with a blade as long as his thigh in hand. On every patch of skin there was signs of deliberate scarring and piercings, jagged lines of healed burns and puncture wounds. The actual piercings seemed to be whatever vaguely sharp detritus he could find, from bones to small rocks to broken glass. Feathers from some strange bird were tied through his long, stringy hair, and a bit of the vine that was now gripping (yes, gripping, this thing was animate, Jeff was sure) was threaded around and through his left fingers. Tied around his neck, the only garment except for a rather modest loincloth was a black snake-skin tied around his neck like a scarf-except it wasn't quite a snake-skin. It wasn't quite physical, as far as Jeff could tell.
More alarming, however, was his face. Besides the catlike eyes, now revealed to be all too human when they weren't refracting light, were his teeth. Pearly white, shining...and filed. To shark-like fangs.
The monster sniffed the gnome, who was too terrified to consider struggling, even when the tree-dwelling creature decided that wasn't good enough and taste-tested instead, an abnormally long tongue dragging itself up Jeff's face. Looking perturbed, the monster then prodded the gnome with the blunt end of his spear.
"Hard," the monster almost growled. "Bony."
"W-Well that would be my massive skull!" Jeff began, fully realizing he was grasping at straws. "If you're thinking what I think you are, gnome really isn't a good meal at all!"
"...Why."
"Well, see, we gnomes have t-this thing where, y'know, one dies by age or, uh, monster. Part of our, uh, funeral thing is that we take his wisdom back to the group, and uh-"
"Get to the point."
"Well, you see, even beyond grieving, I can tell you, cooking a gnome is not fun!"
The monster cocked his head, curiously.
"See, the head? Hardest part of a gnome's body," Jeff began, trying very hard not to stammer. "Which given how it's the largest part of a gnome's body, means that you aren't going to be able to get around it. I'm not saying this just to avoid getting eaten; preparing gnome is seriously a time-waster, particularly when you have an ogre problem. I mean we even have this joke where eating a gnome wastes less time-"
"How so."
"Well, first you have to get this giant pot, enough to fit the entire gnome in because the neck bones are just as hard as the skull...which, now that I think about it means we have really tough spines too-"
"That will be all." The monster leaned over his branch. "This one's species is too bony for purposes of time."
Jeff heard the other monsters groan in dismay and annoyance. "Really, Gloomdrake? Too bony? You took your current name from a shadow dragon, and it's too bony?"
"Enough," Gloomdrake growled. "This thing has other uses than meat."
Jeff released the breath he had been holding. "THANK YOU! Thank you, you won't regret this, I swear I wouldn't want to be you after eating gnome-"
"Quiet."
The unofficial leader's mouth could not close any faster without breaking the sound barrier.
"Now, little man. You're going to go back home, and tell nobody about us Teihiihan. If our latest prey's herd comes calling, you say you have no idea, and you make the other little men clam up. When we ask you for something in the next year and a day, you get it done. Otherwise…"
The monster tensed his fingers like a puppeteer. Almost like a dog following commands, the vine let Jeff look below him, at the shape that was being carried one-handed by two of the other monsters.
The shape that used to be a Manotaur, at least before what looked to be a series of wooden spikes and rocks were done with him. Still in his hand was the missing jerky. Not still with him was a significant portion of his skin.
"That will happen to you. While you're still alive. Do we have a deal?"
Jeff could not nod fast enough. He almost didn't feel the warm wind almost coil itself around his hand, or hear the winding of a clock.
"And the pact is set." The Teihiihan grinned, a jovial bear trap. "See you around."
The vine came to life again, and threw the gnome in the direction the other gnomes had scattered. He somehow managed to hit the ground running.
A/N: Gravity Falls is the property of Disney, the New World of Darkness belongs to Onyx Path/White Wolf.
-----------------------
Prologue: Can't Argue With A Classic
-----------------------
Prologue: Can't Argue With A Classic
-----------------------
Tick.
The minute hand moved.
Tock.
The thorns pulled.
Tick.
The boy started to walk. It was rainy, wet, and, in theory, cold, but the fire still kept things fairly warm.
Tock.
The building didn't look inviting. More like a wooden castle, meant to remind everyone who beheld it that it was the owner of the castle who ruled the land, not them. But it looked defensible, anyway; that was part of its threatening presence. That was what was important now.
Tick.
The sky wasn't going to stop burning any time soon, after all.
Tock.
"Did He see you, kid?" asked the man at the doors. The boy was confused a bit, thinking he meant one of the faces in the doors, but then he realized He was internally capitalized. There was only one He in the world now. As far as the boy knew, He didn't. But there was a lot the boy didn't know. Things he couldn't know; that knowledge was not meant for him.
Tick.
He knew the girl, the twin, and the eternal child. He was fond of them, but he couldn't tell you why. Sentiment was something He didn't understand, so He got rid of it. It wasn't a complete thing, but it did make it a small enough thing for Him to safely ignore. The eternal child peeked through the window shutters, and winced at the blackened sky. "Nothing out there right now, dudes. Well, there's somethin' out there, but none of it's menacing guys in hoodies. Kind of wish it were, you should be really glad you did not look back, let me tell you."
Tock.
"Hey guys, I wonder if this computer still works," said the girl, plugging in an internet cable. Archaic, but did the boy really expect anything else in this place? An almost obscenely normal boot-up screen, featuring a clock counting down. A sterile wallpaper, probably meant to seem comforting but instead came off as cold. Unsympathetic.
Tick.
The minute hand moved again, and the thorns pulled more.
Tock.
The Internet worked, it seemed. Not that it helped. There was nothing He hadn't touched in some way, no matter how frivolous. Here, on TYZ, there was talk of a bright young starlet and her upcoming marriage to the Muse of Lethargy and Despair like it was just actors being an item, with the only diversion from usual gossip being sappy praises for a woman not listening to the naysayers and accepting the love of a creature that generally identified as female on the occasions it needed a human pronoun. There, a medical website described the growth of viney plantlife through varicose veins and developing scars that formed lettering of the hundred proclamations of the King of Lost Hope as mere skin conditions, with the same weight of zits or rashes. The CIA and White House urged cooperation with the Master of All Sorrows and its sibling/mate, the Heart in Man's Dementia, as He urged.
Tick.
Nothing personal escaped His influence, either. Every social media profile contained some prayer to the new Lord of the Fates, some plea to turn away His dooms or praise for dooms that were not as ill as they could have been. Not a single name among the profiles, for names of individual people were the ultimate sentiment. Nothing but a bunch of clocks in the name spaces
Tock.
Almost to the point where the hour hand would move now, and moving would be a thing of the past.
Tick.
Eventually, even the twin's boundless optimism gave out, and all turned away from the computer. For a moment or two, before the man turned back. And screamed.
Tock.
There was something looking out into the room, a pair of eyes on a face so dark and featureless that it might as well have been the darkness grew the pearl-like organs itself. Almost like organic spotlights, scanning the room with a malevolent curiosity, twin beams of dim, baleful light shining through the screen and gliding over all present.
Tick.
The boy unplugged the computer, but while the sound of the hard drive whirred down and ceased, the eyes remained the clocks it had for pupils fixing themselves on him, almost seeming amused. He swept the monitor to the floor, causing it to land screen down.
Tock.
That didn't stop the searching beams from exploring the room, though. Just not from the computer.
Tick.
And the boy understood; the reason the building was a fortress, and not one for humans. It was His castle, His throne, His clocktower. He could have destroyed the interlopers at any given time, but He had let them live long enough to show the totality of victory, backed by the process of destiny itself. To mock them with the immanent death of humanity as they knew it, to roar in glory one last time before setting out to establish its new world order, one by, for, and about Him. And there was nothing anyone could do, for His victory was preordained.
Tock.
The hour hand moved, and with that, the thorns grew so tight he had to kneel on the clock's face. There was no way to consider running now. The waiting men licked their lips.
-----------------------
Dipper Pines did not have nearly as many nightmares as his parents often thought. What he did have was a tendency to make sure the world knew when he did.
"WAAAAH!"
A couple blinks, and the wide-eyed expression on the male half of the Mystery Twins quickly melted into annoyance. And an adult bursting through the door in three...two…
A very loud crash that would guarantee the world knew that Dipper Pines had a nightmare (if somewhat indirectly) resounded through the shack, a half-second later than predicted.
"DIPPER! WHAT IN THE NAME OF...do I need the deer tranquilizer again?"
"No, Grunkle Stan, it's just a stupid nightmare," Dipper began, already retreating back under the covers. "No portals or great uncles incapable of just telling family about other family members were involved, in case you were wondering."
Outside of Dipper's field of vision, Stan mulled over a possible response to the not-entirely-veiled snipe. Before he could formulate a response (one that wouldn't sheepishly dodge the question), his niece was awake enough to catch on to the general gist of the situation.
"Oh come on, bro-bro. are you going to be mad about this forever? It makes your face all...wrinkly."
More out of habit when Mabel noticed these things, Dipper concentrated on somehow un-furrowing his brow. "I know Mabel, it's just that two months of lying is kinda hard to get over, even if Stan was just trying to-you know what, I really don't think the middle of the night is a good time to have this discussion."
"Good plan!" And with that, Stan ran off back to his bedroom. Mabel sighed, but quickly was snoring herself.
Dipper took a little longer to go asleep. Maybe that was a bit harsh, he decided, and to be frank, that dream seemed a little weird. The kind of weird that the town of Gravity Falls was known for...kind of. Most weird things in this town, while often spooky, were usually benign or at least open to peaceful resolution (a certain one-eyed floating triangle being a rather large exception, but the humorless nature of the dream really didn't seem like Bill Cipher's style). This though...this seemed like a ripoff from a Lovecraft ripoff.
Whatever. Again, middle of the night, there wasn't nearly enough energy left in him to actually scan the journals to figure out what kind of weird thing would provoke dreams of name-eating god-monsters who took over the world, or convince Stan to let him look over numbers 1 and 2. Besides, it could have been just a nightmare...but there was a difference between skepticism and being so closed-minded your brain suffocated.
After quickly writing down the details of the nightmare, the male half of the Mystery Twins went back to sleep, hoping the new dream would be perfectly and nicely irrelevant.
-----------------------
One of the weird things of Gravity Falls, Jeff the Gnome King In All But Name, yawned. He really didn't like staying up this late, but there were three things that fell to his unofficially kingly duties to solve.
First, he was the smartest gnome, on a general basis, and had the most skills with tracking and organizing the gnomes' collective supplies of firewood, stone, and the jerky.
Second, someone was stealing supplies of both the firewood and the jerky.
Third, the other gnomes had collectively decided that whoever thought stealing the jerky was a good idea was completely and utterly insane, and thus had hidden behind their exalted unofficial leader before the crazy thief decided he or she wanted gnome flesh to wash out the taste of the jerky. Hence, Jeff using his tracking abilities in the middle of the night, finding the thief with nothing but a pitchfork to guard him. And several other gnomes with pitchforks, because he wasn't an idiot.
"Alright, Carson, you take the left side of the path, Steve gets the right, Shmebulock, you guard the back and draw out your scream if you see our thief coming our way-and, er, everyone else too, I just don't have a way to tell thief from any other doom with his...descriptive abilities."
The gnome in question shrugged. "Shmebulock," he agreed, taking up the rearguard.
The tiny men of the forest, tiny lanterns in hand, proceeded to set off in the direction of the latest not-normal-forest sound.
"So, here I was, taking my squirrel bath…"
Apart from Jeff himself, other gnomes had grown used to their boss' boredom-induced prattling. They simply nodded and pretended to listen.
"...So I say to the gremloblin, 'your dad was scared of squirrels? Well, first, that is kind of stupid, but second…"
That didn't stop them from praying that danger would present itself soon, so that Jeff would actually clam up.
"...a hedgehog! I was amazed-Hey, do you smell something?"
"The gnomes sighed in relief when it became quite clear that Jeff was too busy sniffing the air to speak. After a second, they remembered they should probably be following his lead.
"...Beef?", Carson guessed.
"Burger meat, more like," Steve replied.
Shmebulock didn't bother, but if he had his full grasp of the language he would have argued an extremely tough and hardy form of steak, spit-roasted, with an undercurrent of parsley and onions (being unable to speak didn't mean unable to cook or take orders).
"It's definitely cow-based," continued Jeff, looking in the scent's apparent direction. "But it's not in the direction of the town. In fact...aha!"
There, right off the path a couple miles , was a tiny little fire. Straining their hearing, the gnomes could hear a contented voice humming a simple song.
"Yep, unless Bob just forgot to tell us he was camping, I think we found our thief!" Jeff, feeling relieved and not just a tad bit more confident now that he knew that the thief was gnome-sized, strode forward.
A little closer, a few more things could be made out. For one, the fire wasn't that small, it was just was hidden by a large log-looking thing. For another, off to the side, there seemed to be a rather large amount of thorns growing out of a pond. On the very edge of the pond, almost like a wall. Or a doorway.
For Jeff's purposes though, it was the humanoid form in front of the fire, a little taller than a gnome, lost in whatever activity required fire and jerky.
"Hey you! Yes you, by the fire!"
The humming voice briefly stopped, but any hopes of the thief turning around were quickly dashed when he started singing for real.
"Alloutette, gentille alouette, alloutette, je te plumerai…"
Jeff brought a hand to his face. "Ah heck, he's Canadian. Does anyone know any French? Or charades?"
"Er…"
"Uh…"
"Shmeb…"
Jeff shrugged. "Okay then. Improve it is." He cleared his throat.
"Je te plumerai la tête, je te plumerai la tête…"
Okay Jeff. Remember what the phrasebook said...what wasn't torn out of it.
"Désolé! Je appartiens à vous!"
The singing stopped.
"Do you now?"
Jeff's beard-hair stood on end. That voice was a lot more menacing when he wasn't singing. Even and deep, like a cave had suddenly grown vocal cords. "Erm, yeah. We kind of own that wood, and-"
"So you're pledged to belong to whoever takes your stuff? Odd, but there's stranger ownership laws."
Jeff suddenly realized he probably needed to steal a better phrasebook. "Er, no, what I meant was...was...uhh…."
The figure had turned around. And stood up.
He wasn't particularly big, as far as forest creatures went. In fact, by most scales, he was rather small-about the size of a large tween human. Still that was three times as big as most gnomes, all of it sleek defined muscle. He may have been larger, but rather than walk, he loped-crouched and constantly poised to strike like a cat.
His eyes shone like a cat's too, flashing green as he loped a little closer.
It took Jeff a few seconds to realize that the shape over the fire had shifted too. Almost like it was being carried a bit closer.
"Uh...I mean absolutely no offense here, but, uh, I don't know...what do you mean pledges?"
"Oh? So you aren't hedge-born then?" The figure loped a little closer, drawing something out of an unseen pocket. "Hm. Brothers? Maybe we should save our latest for the lean times?"
"Better plan, Boscage," began another voice, raspy and oddly, feminine. "We get the little men to tell us where the rest of them is, then we save for the lean times."
"Or, we go back to eating this, then back to our old task," said a third voice, who by the tone, was very irritated by the the proceedings. "That ogre ain't gonna trap himself."
"...Actually you know what," Jeff began, starting to step backwards. "You can keep the firewood, we never liked that jerky anyway. We'll be over here and-"
"Sssssme…"
"It can wait Shmebulock, you know, back where it's-"
"Buuuu…"
"What's gotten...into…"
As Jeff turned around to fully run or stack on the other gnomes to run faster, he suddenly realized the oddball gnome wasn't looking at the rest of the group, but above it.
And remembered his standing order.
"LOOOOOCK!"
"DUCK!"
Bad choice, as it turned out. As soon as Jeff curled up, a woody, thorny vine had wrapped itself around his head. This wasn't as nearly as uncomfortable as it could be, given how this also had to get his torso by necessity, but still, the gnome was quickly yanged up into the trees, pitchfork flying away.
His lantern came with him though, so he got to see exactly who using the vine-trap.
He screamed.
Another figure, slightly taller than his compatriot on the ground, was crouched in the tree branches, a knife with a blade as long as his thigh in hand. On every patch of skin there was signs of deliberate scarring and piercings, jagged lines of healed burns and puncture wounds. The actual piercings seemed to be whatever vaguely sharp detritus he could find, from bones to small rocks to broken glass. Feathers from some strange bird were tied through his long, stringy hair, and a bit of the vine that was now gripping (yes, gripping, this thing was animate, Jeff was sure) was threaded around and through his left fingers. Tied around his neck, the only garment except for a rather modest loincloth was a black snake-skin tied around his neck like a scarf-except it wasn't quite a snake-skin. It wasn't quite physical, as far as Jeff could tell.
More alarming, however, was his face. Besides the catlike eyes, now revealed to be all too human when they weren't refracting light, were his teeth. Pearly white, shining...and filed. To shark-like fangs.
The monster sniffed the gnome, who was too terrified to consider struggling, even when the tree-dwelling creature decided that wasn't good enough and taste-tested instead, an abnormally long tongue dragging itself up Jeff's face. Looking perturbed, the monster then prodded the gnome with the blunt end of his spear.
"Hard," the monster almost growled. "Bony."
"W-Well that would be my massive skull!" Jeff began, fully realizing he was grasping at straws. "If you're thinking what I think you are, gnome really isn't a good meal at all!"
"...Why."
"Well, see, we gnomes have t-this thing where, y'know, one dies by age or, uh, monster. Part of our, uh, funeral thing is that we take his wisdom back to the group, and uh-"
"Get to the point."
"Well, you see, even beyond grieving, I can tell you, cooking a gnome is not fun!"
The monster cocked his head, curiously.
"See, the head? Hardest part of a gnome's body," Jeff began, trying very hard not to stammer. "Which given how it's the largest part of a gnome's body, means that you aren't going to be able to get around it. I'm not saying this just to avoid getting eaten; preparing gnome is seriously a time-waster, particularly when you have an ogre problem. I mean we even have this joke where eating a gnome wastes less time-"
"How so."
"Well, first you have to get this giant pot, enough to fit the entire gnome in because the neck bones are just as hard as the skull...which, now that I think about it means we have really tough spines too-"
"That will be all." The monster leaned over his branch. "This one's species is too bony for purposes of time."
Jeff heard the other monsters groan in dismay and annoyance. "Really, Gloomdrake? Too bony? You took your current name from a shadow dragon, and it's too bony?"
"Enough," Gloomdrake growled. "This thing has other uses than meat."
Jeff released the breath he had been holding. "THANK YOU! Thank you, you won't regret this, I swear I wouldn't want to be you after eating gnome-"
"Quiet."
The unofficial leader's mouth could not close any faster without breaking the sound barrier.
"Now, little man. You're going to go back home, and tell nobody about us Teihiihan. If our latest prey's herd comes calling, you say you have no idea, and you make the other little men clam up. When we ask you for something in the next year and a day, you get it done. Otherwise…"
The monster tensed his fingers like a puppeteer. Almost like a dog following commands, the vine let Jeff look below him, at the shape that was being carried one-handed by two of the other monsters.
The shape that used to be a Manotaur, at least before what looked to be a series of wooden spikes and rocks were done with him. Still in his hand was the missing jerky. Not still with him was a significant portion of his skin.
"That will happen to you. While you're still alive. Do we have a deal?"
Jeff could not nod fast enough. He almost didn't feel the warm wind almost coil itself around his hand, or hear the winding of a clock.
"And the pact is set." The Teihiihan grinned, a jovial bear trap. "See you around."
The vine came to life again, and threw the gnome in the direction the other gnomes had scattered. He somehow managed to hit the ground running.
-----------------------
Leliel Presents
A Gravity Falls/New World of Darkness Crossover
Shadows of the Falls
-----------------------
Leliel Presents
A Gravity Falls/New World of Darkness Crossover
Shadows of the Falls
-----------------------
A/N: Gravity Falls is the property of Disney, the New World of Darkness belongs to Onyx Path/White Wolf.
Last edited:
Xomniac
Clockwork Purveyor of Prose and Originality
Teihiihan. Noun. A species of dwarves found in Native American mythology.
Cannibal Dwarves, to be specific.
You had my interest with the Gravity Falls/World of Darkness crossover.
You had my curiosity with the nightmare sequence.
With them... you have my full, undivided attention.
I expect great things from you, Mr. Leliel. Don't disappoint me.
(Seriously though, great start to a great fic, 10/10, keep up the great work!)
Cannibal Dwarves, to be specific.
You had my interest with the Gravity Falls/World of Darkness crossover.
You had my curiosity with the nightmare sequence.
With them... you have my full, undivided attention.
I expect great things from you, Mr. Leliel. Don't disappoint me.
(Seriously though, great start to a great fic, 10/10, keep up the great work!)
Giygas
Cutest Sawk i could find. Lucario is a nice extra.
Powered by the comments of a single reader, I will now abuse my Beta reader powers to reveal the future of this Fic! Nobody will be able to stop me, nobody!!!
The spoiler is:
FUN will happen.
....Well, i was powered by the comments of a single poster(Even if they were very detailed and relevant): i cannot do miracles!
I also need the experience of betaing, so i cannot enrage Leliel. (Of course, i would get more experience if Lelie wasn't so good to leave only a pair of errors per chapter, but it is better than nothing.)
The spoiler is:
FUN will happen.
....Well, i was powered by the comments of a single poster(Even if they were very detailed and relevant): i cannot do miracles!
I also need the experience of betaing, so i cannot enrage Leliel. (Of course, i would get more experience if Lelie wasn't so good to leave only a pair of errors per chapter, but it is better than nothing.)
Xomniac
Clockwork Purveyor of Prose and Originality
Psh, you call that a spoiler? Buddy, I knew that straight from the start of the nightmare! Of course this is going to be FUN! Bloody, messy, mind-horrifying FUN... And I look forwards to every second of it.
AnimalKrazed
Caw Caw!
- Location
- Above You
New things in Gravity Falls... I can't wait to see the mayhem that is wreaked in the future. What mess do you think will happen first?
That's the spoiler answer, so [REDACTED].
Good catch on primary inspiration, though.
Apologies, but I'm quite fascinated with the World of Darkness Mythos and I'm also hopeful that Dipper will gain something from all the grimdark fantasy-horror coming his way!
The supernatural forces in WoD, they don't have much of a sense of humor or funny quirks, unlike those of Gravity Falls!
Agreed!
I only hope that the grimdark supernaturals that have and are about to arrive in Gravity Falls are just as weirded out by the natives as the townsfolk will be of them!
TRUE FAE: Are you simple, Mortal?!
SOOS: Nope! Just slow! Haha! Wait, that came out wrong. Can I get a do-over?
TRUE FAE: AAARRRGGGH!
It said a lot about Gravity Falls that recently it had experienced the side effects of an opening interdimensional portal. Namely, a series of gravitational anomalies and attendant earthquakes, which had a significant risk of destroying the entire planet. It says even more that the general attitude of the town could best be described as "...I have to clean this, don't I?"
Such as it was with the Mystery Shack; coincidentally, it was also the location of said interdimensional portal, and remarkably intact given the circumstances. Which is to say, still standing.
One could make a similar statement about the relationship between the owner of both the Shack and the portal, and his grandniece and grandnephew.
"So, Grandpa L's going to be on a...familiarization vacation?" Mabel said carefully. She never did get the hang of tongue twisters ("She shells...she smells...she...sneezes?").
"Stanley can't stand not knowing, never did, never will. So yeah, if he's been gone for fifteen years, he wants to know the basic of what the heck happened." Grunkle Stan shrugged. "That's why he wrote those journals to begin with, didn't trust his own memory to retain everything; thought it was worth the risk of, say, Bill finding 'em than forgetting how to survive a, I don't know, ghost attack or sometin' in the middle of it."
"Does he have the ability to see in ultraviolet, too?" Dipper wondered aloud.
"No, but he keeps a handheld blacklight everywhere. Never in danger of hidden bloodstains, my brother-even if there are some hidden things he'd feel better off not seein'. I know some I'd rather remain blind to." Stan shivered a little as some of his less seemly adventures with his six-fingered twin brother came rushing back.
"Yeah...about that…" Dipper pursed his lips, looking as awkward as he felt.
"You're wonderin' why I didn't tell you," Stan guessed.
"Well, that, and..well, I'm not angry," Dipper said, not sure if he was lying or not. "I'm mostly confused-I mean, rebuilding a portal to get your brother back kind of seems like a three-person job. It just seems, well, counterproductive to keep it from your brother's grandchildren. We kinda would be open to the idea of saving Grandpa L from a distant dimension where time is...weird."
Mabel, who had long ago realized that there was no arguing with a purely logical statement of Dipper's, leaned back, looking uncomfortable.
Almost as uncomfortable as her great uncle. "Yeah...in retrospect, I kinda, sorta, maybe see how that was, in retrospect, a very poorly thought-out plan."
"So...why?"
Stan inhaled. This was going to be a long one "...Well kid, you don't live as long as I do on, shall we say, the less strict side of the law without developing some healthy paranoia. Undercover agents and all, you understand."
"And you thought I might be one because…? Grunkle Stan, I'm not the tallest person in the world, but I think you could tell if I was old enough to be admitted into the FBI."
"Oh you'd be surprised. This one guy, Agent Bonaparte...okay, let's rewind a bit." Stan cleared his throat. "I can, and to be honest, I was pretty sure you wouldn't tell. But...when you've gotten so used to not trusting people with things, it can be hard to get out of the habit, y'know?"
Dipper raised an eyebrow. "...This is the closest thing to an actual apology I'm going to get out of you, isn't it?"
"Much like...urgh, 'please', the s-word is something I feel naked saying. But unlike the p-word, I'm actually used to being naked, so…" Stan inhaled, while Mabel covered her eyes. "Dipper, I'm...sorry for not trusting you with what I was planning. And Soos, now that I think of it."
"Thanks for your sudden addendum, Mr. Pines," said a previously unseen handyman, before he set off to fixing a shelf.
Dipper, for his part, seemed mostly okay with the apology. "...All right. But there's one more thing."
"Hit me," Stan said solemnly.
"Why, in the name of all that is just and fair in the world, is there a monkey on the couch?"
The bonobo in question was remarkably sporting about the whole situation, considering she was in a bird cage. Apparently marathon TV was equally hypnotic to all higher primates.
"Ah. Well, see, at one point, I had to join the circus as a 'mind reader', due to my finely-honed senses of anticipating the desires of dumb tourists…"
"...and that's how your Grunkle Stan caught the Phantom Peanut of Napa County! Any other questions?"
Wendy, having arrived somewhere in the middle of the story, raised her hand. "Um, could you go over that-"
"No!" Dipper exclaimed, the threat of another 30-minute long tale enough to snap him out of his trance. "Please no! Trust me, it isn't much more straightforward in context."
Such as it was with the Mystery Shack; coincidentally, it was also the location of said interdimensional portal, and remarkably intact given the circumstances. Which is to say, still standing.
One could make a similar statement about the relationship between the owner of both the Shack and the portal, and his grandniece and grandnephew.
"So, Grandpa L's going to be on a...familiarization vacation?" Mabel said carefully. She never did get the hang of tongue twisters ("She shells...she smells...she...sneezes?").
"Stanley can't stand not knowing, never did, never will. So yeah, if he's been gone for fifteen years, he wants to know the basic of what the heck happened." Grunkle Stan shrugged. "That's why he wrote those journals to begin with, didn't trust his own memory to retain everything; thought it was worth the risk of, say, Bill finding 'em than forgetting how to survive a, I don't know, ghost attack or sometin' in the middle of it."
"Does he have the ability to see in ultraviolet, too?" Dipper wondered aloud.
"No, but he keeps a handheld blacklight everywhere. Never in danger of hidden bloodstains, my brother-even if there are some hidden things he'd feel better off not seein'. I know some I'd rather remain blind to." Stan shivered a little as some of his less seemly adventures with his six-fingered twin brother came rushing back.
"Yeah...about that…" Dipper pursed his lips, looking as awkward as he felt.
"You're wonderin' why I didn't tell you," Stan guessed.
"Well, that, and..well, I'm not angry," Dipper said, not sure if he was lying or not. "I'm mostly confused-I mean, rebuilding a portal to get your brother back kind of seems like a three-person job. It just seems, well, counterproductive to keep it from your brother's grandchildren. We kinda would be open to the idea of saving Grandpa L from a distant dimension where time is...weird."
Mabel, who had long ago realized that there was no arguing with a purely logical statement of Dipper's, leaned back, looking uncomfortable.
Almost as uncomfortable as her great uncle. "Yeah...in retrospect, I kinda, sorta, maybe see how that was, in retrospect, a very poorly thought-out plan."
"So...why?"
Stan inhaled. This was going to be a long one "...Well kid, you don't live as long as I do on, shall we say, the less strict side of the law without developing some healthy paranoia. Undercover agents and all, you understand."
"And you thought I might be one because…? Grunkle Stan, I'm not the tallest person in the world, but I think you could tell if I was old enough to be admitted into the FBI."
"Oh you'd be surprised. This one guy, Agent Bonaparte...okay, let's rewind a bit." Stan cleared his throat. "I can, and to be honest, I was pretty sure you wouldn't tell. But...when you've gotten so used to not trusting people with things, it can be hard to get out of the habit, y'know?"
Dipper raised an eyebrow. "...This is the closest thing to an actual apology I'm going to get out of you, isn't it?"
"Much like...urgh, 'please', the s-word is something I feel naked saying. But unlike the p-word, I'm actually used to being naked, so…" Stan inhaled, while Mabel covered her eyes. "Dipper, I'm...sorry for not trusting you with what I was planning. And Soos, now that I think of it."
"Thanks for your sudden addendum, Mr. Pines," said a previously unseen handyman, before he set off to fixing a shelf.
Dipper, for his part, seemed mostly okay with the apology. "...All right. But there's one more thing."
"Hit me," Stan said solemnly.
"Why, in the name of all that is just and fair in the world, is there a monkey on the couch?"
The bonobo in question was remarkably sporting about the whole situation, considering she was in a bird cage. Apparently marathon TV was equally hypnotic to all higher primates.
"Ah. Well, see, at one point, I had to join the circus as a 'mind reader', due to my finely-honed senses of anticipating the desires of dumb tourists…"
-------------------------
"...and that's how your Grunkle Stan caught the Phantom Peanut of Napa County! Any other questions?"
Wendy, having arrived somewhere in the middle of the story, raised her hand. "Um, could you go over that-"
"No!" Dipper exclaimed, the threat of another 30-minute long tale enough to snap him out of his trance. "Please no! Trust me, it isn't much more straightforward in context."
An update! A short one, but an update nonetheless!
I see Brother Stanley isn't there, but that's understandable. The next part of the season won't be out until summer!
Since this story is technically a Disney crossover, I hope we'll get to see conflict if not outright WAR between the empathy-capable Disney type Fae and the utterly inhuman Arcadian Fae!
MERRYWEATHER, FOR THE WIN!
(I know Merryweather won't show up in this story, I'm just using her as an example, and I REALLY like her attitude and gumption! One of my favorite faeries!)
I see Brother Stanley isn't there, but that's understandable. The next part of the season won't be out until summer!
Since this story is technically a Disney crossover, I hope we'll get to see conflict if not outright WAR between the empathy-capable Disney type Fae and the utterly inhuman Arcadian Fae!
MERRYWEATHER, FOR THE WIN!
(I know Merryweather won't show up in this story, I'm just using her as an example, and I REALLY like her attitude and gumption! One of my favorite faeries!)
The rest of that scene!
"Ha! Anyway, I got the old ringmaster on my side...somehow. I don't think she's ever goin' to be free of my reputation, tell you the truth. So that's why I have Tuba here," he said, walking over to the TV hound monkey. "I was thinking we're probably goin' to need a lot of income to cover all the repairs, fines, being out of business for a while, and that huge, er, donation to the FBI."
Wendy, for her part, decided to pretend she didn't hear that. Less incrimination that way.
"So I'm going double time: our grand reopening is going to have, among other things, the Screaming Brownie of Portland!" Stan drew out in his best "spooky" voice.
Dipper and Mabel looked over to Tuba, who was busy being the quietest monkey they had ever seen.
"Cover your ears, kids." Wincing, Stan hit the power button on his remote.
For a second, Tuba stared at the now-blank screen, disbelieving.
After that second, she made an an adequate imitation of the vocals of Imminent Deafness and Bass by VCEP (Vacuum Cleaner in Excruciating Pain) from their album Wub Out The Brain (banned in Australia, partially for lack of artistic merit, mostly because the government felt that a stereo with it on full volume qualified as a weapon of mass destruction). Thankfully Stan was able to switch on the television before the glass cracked.
"I figure she'll be a huge hit, just as soon as I get these liability warnings filled out." Stan grinned, pulling out a rather familiar set of papers. "...Need to remember how to spell 'cochlea', though. Soos! Thesaurus, now!"
"Wordy components of law speak, coming up!"
As Soos ran off, Dipper couldn't help but feel a pit in his stomach. One that went by the name of Oh no, I know what he's going to say next.
"...Say, Dipper, while I'm at it-"
"What's the costume this time?" Dipper cut in, rolling his eyes. "Can it not be a repeat of the Wolf-Boy? That fur needed washing, like, five years ago."
"What?" Stan blinked for a second, then tried very hard to suppress laughter. It didn't work.
"...It's worse, isn't it?"
"No! No, I mean...heh, I wasn't even trying, and the look on your...ha! Seriously though, kid," Stan said, composing himself. "There's no other live attractions this time."
On the one hand, this was cause for celebration. Heavy lifting was nothing compared to the embarrassment of being Stan's latest specimen.
On the other: "Er, is there anything else other than Tuba? I mean, the live exhibits are the biggest draw-"
"How about undead exhibits?"
Dipper blinked.
-----------------------
"Ha! Anyway, I got the old ringmaster on my side...somehow. I don't think she's ever goin' to be free of my reputation, tell you the truth. So that's why I have Tuba here," he said, walking over to the TV hound monkey. "I was thinking we're probably goin' to need a lot of income to cover all the repairs, fines, being out of business for a while, and that huge, er, donation to the FBI."
Wendy, for her part, decided to pretend she didn't hear that. Less incrimination that way.
"So I'm going double time: our grand reopening is going to have, among other things, the Screaming Brownie of Portland!" Stan drew out in his best "spooky" voice.
Dipper and Mabel looked over to Tuba, who was busy being the quietest monkey they had ever seen.
"Cover your ears, kids." Wincing, Stan hit the power button on his remote.
For a second, Tuba stared at the now-blank screen, disbelieving.
After that second, she made an an adequate imitation of the vocals of Imminent Deafness and Bass by VCEP (Vacuum Cleaner in Excruciating Pain) from their album Wub Out The Brain (banned in Australia, partially for lack of artistic merit, mostly because the government felt that a stereo with it on full volume qualified as a weapon of mass destruction). Thankfully Stan was able to switch on the television before the glass cracked.
"I figure she'll be a huge hit, just as soon as I get these liability warnings filled out." Stan grinned, pulling out a rather familiar set of papers. "...Need to remember how to spell 'cochlea', though. Soos! Thesaurus, now!"
"Wordy components of law speak, coming up!"
As Soos ran off, Dipper couldn't help but feel a pit in his stomach. One that went by the name of Oh no, I know what he's going to say next.
"...Say, Dipper, while I'm at it-"
"What's the costume this time?" Dipper cut in, rolling his eyes. "Can it not be a repeat of the Wolf-Boy? That fur needed washing, like, five years ago."
"What?" Stan blinked for a second, then tried very hard to suppress laughter. It didn't work.
"...It's worse, isn't it?"
"No! No, I mean...heh, I wasn't even trying, and the look on your...ha! Seriously though, kid," Stan said, composing himself. "There's no other live attractions this time."
On the one hand, this was cause for celebration. Heavy lifting was nothing compared to the embarrassment of being Stan's latest specimen.
On the other: "Er, is there anything else other than Tuba? I mean, the live exhibits are the biggest draw-"
"How about undead exhibits?"
Dipper blinked.
Stan doesn't do real supernatural things as his attractions, remember? Otherwise you end up with a gremloblin trashing the place.
At least, not real supernatural things he's aware of...
Chapter 1
A/N: And now we get into the actual story!
Such as it was with the Mystery Shack; coincidentally, it was also the location of said interdimensional portal, and remarkably intact given the circumstances. Which is to say, still standing.
One could make a similar statement about the relationship between the owner of both the Shack and the portal, and his grandniece and grandnephew.
"So, Grandpa L's going to be on a...familiarization vacation?" Mabel said carefully. She never did get the hang of tongue twisters ("She shells...she smells...she...sneezes?").
"Stanley can't stand not knowing, never did, never will. So yeah, if he's been gone for thirty years, he wants to know the basic of what the heck happened." Grunkle Stan shrugged. "That's why he wrote those journals to begin with, didn't trust his own memory to retain everything; thought it was worth the risk of someone finding 'em than forgetting how to survive a, I don't know, ghost attack or sometin' in the middle of it."
"Does he have the ability to see in ultraviolet, too?" Dipper wondered aloud.
"No, but he kept a handheld blacklight everywhere even before he wrote in invisible ink. Never in danger of hidden bloodstains in the apartments of secret murderers, my brother-even if there aresome hidden things he'd feel better off not seein'. I know some I'd rather remain blind to." Stan shivered a little as some of his less seemly adventures with his six-fingered twin brother came rushing back.
"Yeah...about that…" Dipper pursed his lips, looking as awkward as he felt.
"You're wonderin' why I didn't tell you," Stan guessed.
"Well, that, and..well, I'm not angry," Dipper said, not sure if he was lying or not. "I'm mostly confused-I mean, rebuilding a portal to get your brother back kind of seems like a three-person job. It just seems, well, counterproductive to keep it from your brother's grandchildren. We kinda would be open to the idea of saving Grandpa L from a distant dimension where time is...weird."
Mabel, who had long ago realized that there was no arguing with a purely logical statement of Dipper's, leaned back, looking uncomfortable.
Almost as uncomfortable as her great uncle. "Yeah...in retrospect, I kinda, sorta, maybe see how that was, in retrospect, a very poorly thought-out plan."
"So...why?"
Stan inhaled. This was going to be a long one "...Well kid, you don't live as long as I do on, shall we say, the less strict side of the law without developing some healthy paranoia. Undercover agents and all, you understand."
"And you thought I might be one because…? Grunkle Stan, I'm not the tallest person in the world, but I think you could tell if I was old enough to be admitted into the FBI."
"Oh you'd be surprised. This one guy, Agent Bonaparte...okay, let's rewind a bit." Stan cleared his throat. "I can, and to be honest, I was pretty sure you wouldn't tell. But...when you've gotten so used to not trusting people with things, it can be hard to get out of the habit, y'know?"
Dipper raised an eyebrow. "...This is the closest thing to an actual apology I'm going to get out of you, isn't it?"
"Much like...urgh, 'please', the s-word is something I feel naked saying. But unlike the p-word, I'm actually used to being naked, so…" Stan inhaled, while Mabel covered her eyes. "Dipper, I'm...sorry for not trusting you with what I was planning. And Soos, now that I think of it."
"Thanks for your sudden addendum, Mr. Pines," said a previously unseen handyman, before he set off to fix a shelf.
Dipper, for his part, seemed mostly okay with the apology. "...All right. But there's one more thing."
"Hit me," Stan said solemnly.
"Why, in the name of all that is just and fair in the world, is there a monkey on the couch?"
The bonobo in question was remarkably sporting about the whole situation, considering she was in a bird cage. Apparently marathon TV was equally hypnotic to all higher primates.
"Ah. Well, see, at one point, I had to join the circus as a 'mind reader', due to my finely-honed senses of anticipating the desires of dumb tourists…"
"...and that's how your Grunkle Stan caught the Phantom Peanut of Napa County! Any other questions?"
Wendy, having arrived somewhere in the middle of the story, raised her hand. "Um, could you go over that-"
"No!" Dipper exclaimed, the threat of another 30-minute long tale enough to snap him out of his trance. "Please no! Trust me, it isn't much more straightforward in context."
"Ha! Anyway, I got the old ringmaster on my side...somehow. I don't think she's ever goin' to be free of my reputation, tell you the truth. So that's why I have Tuba here," he said, walking over to the TV hound monkey. "I was thinking we're probably goin' to need a lot of income to cover all the repairs, fines, being out of business for a while, and that huge, er, donation to the FBI."
Wendy, for her part, decided to pretend she didn't hear that. Less incrimination that way.
"So I'm going double time: our grand reopening is going to have, among other things, the Screaming Brownie of Portland!" Stan drew out in his best "spooky" voice.
Dipper and Mabel looked over to Tuba, who was busy being the quietest monkey they had ever seen.
"Cover your ears, kids." Wincing, Stan hit the power button on his remote.
For a second, Tuba stared at the now-blank screen, disbelieving.
After that second, she made an an adequate imitation of the vocals of Imminent Deafness and Bass by VCEP (Vacuum Cleaner in Excruciating Pain) from their album Wub Out The Brain (banned in Australia, partially for lack of artistic merit, mostly because the government felt that a stereo with it on full volume qualified as a weapon of mass destruction). Thankfully Stan was able to switch on the television before the glass cracked.
"I figure she'll be a huge hit, just as soon as I get these liability warnings filled out." Stan grinned, pulling out a rather familiar set of papers. "...Need to remember how to spell 'cochlea', though. Soos! Thesaurus, now!"
"Wordy components of law speak, coming up!"
As Soos ran off, Dipper couldn't help but feel a pit in his stomach. One that went by the name of Oh no, I know what he's going to say next.
"...Say, Dipper, while I'm at it-"
"What's the costume this time?" Dipper cut in, rolling his eyes. "Can it not be a repeat of the Wolf-Boy? That fur needed washing, like, five years ago."
"What?" Stan blinked for a second, then tried very hard to suppress laughter. It didn't work.
"...It's worse, isn't it?"
"No! No, I mean...heh, I wasn't even trying, and the look on your...ha! Seriously though, kid," Stan said, composing himself. "There's no other live attractions this time."
On the one hand, this was cause for celebration. Heavy lifting was nothing compared to the embarrassment of being Stan's latest specimen.
On the other: "Er, is there anything else other than Tuba? I mean, the live exhibits are the biggest draw-"
"How about undead exhibits?"
Dipper blinked.
"Honestly, I'm not sure where this thing came from."
The exhibit in question appeared to be the twitching talon of some bird of prey or another, though unlike most talons it had five claws, making it look oddly like a hand instead. Threaded through the wrist was a leather cord, which Stan was currently yanking.
Said yank also caused the talon to spasm, almost like a living thing. To the point where it it was nearly dancing inside the glass.
"...We sure that's a good idea, Grunkle Stan?" Mabel wondered. "I mean, last time Dipper had a true weird thing on full display here, we had to replace a wall. And the poor Singing Salmon nearly lost his voice from having to perform for an hour, I don't want him to go through that again."
"Yeah, I know it looks weird, but-take a closer look."
Sure enough, on closer inspection, the talon seemed to be artificial. The cord seemed to be attached to a well-camouflaged pull-switch, and the skin was a bit too rubbery to be real. Certainly almost a movie-level prop, but a prop nonetheless.
"I think it'll be a hit; certainly somethin' that is almost creepy is sure to draw in good reputation, and unlike Tuba, I can use this thing again. Of course," Stan said, starting to look rather sneaky, "there's also the souvenirs, those other things that have been remade by the Claw of Crowowlar's dark power…"
"...I'll get the clay," Dipper replied, irritated.
"Yay! Evil artifact arts and crafts!" Mabel scooted off in a different direction than her brother.
"Is this the kind of evil artifact that requires chanting to malevolent gods of darkness and destruction? Cause I got some death metal CDs on a bet, could do in a pinch," Soos chimed in.
"...Actually, we could use that as a backdrop to the Brownie," Stan replied. "Seems...fitting."
"You got it Mr. Pines!"
And so the Mystery Shack set off to work.
Several hours, molding, a clasp on the molds deciding it didn't particularly like Soos (or was a fan of being the human equivalent of a bear trap), and an impromptu clay furnace later, Stan set out to the task he was the most skilled at: drafting sales pitches.
Creating fake occult paraphernalia, Stan had long discovered, was a matter of presentation. Ugly little statue? Meh. Ugly little statue that appears to have been naturally formed, and decorated with various Hollywood black magic symbols (upside-down pentagrams, letters in dead languages, and the like)? Better. All of the above, plus some backstory pulled out of an internet ghost story? ...Not actually best. The trick was to make sure that it was creepy enough to be interesting, but not so creepy it tripped the survival instincts of the more naive customers and they left briskly, without buying anything.
So it was with the so-called Clawtouched. The various molded bits of vaguely menacing junk looked fearsome enough. Even better, they actually looked the part of being transformed by a mysterious, nocturnal avian-based being's (or at least its severed talon's) power, being covered in minute feather designs (the result of a repurposed stencil and attendant spray paint). Now came the story; each one was fairly unique as far as paperweights went, so each needed its own story and attendant asking price.
This amulet, for instance; it looked like a pair of claws clutching a teardrop, so something fitting would be using it to avoid sadness. Naturally, the protagonist of the story would be over reliant on it, eventually crushing their ability to feel regret, turning them into a huge jerk (naturally, the fact that said protagonist was over reliant would reassure the naive customer they could avoid that-or possibly they were a huge jerk already, being a happy jerk couldn't hurt). That wasn't hard at all, Soos had a favorite online author who seemed obsessed with the idea of sadness and how people dealt with it (Stan thought the whole thing was a bit overblown, but to each his own).
Another thing, this figurine; it looked almost like it was leering, daring whoever looked at it to come at it with all they got. Maybe it was possessed by the ghost of a boxer? Stan decided to look over his own notes for the "ghost" in question, he knew a lot of monster hunters in his time, and those tended towards the weird side of things even before they got involved in the oogie-boogie stuff (just look at Stan's brother).
Finally, there was this...arm. So that's what happened to Soos' mold, Stan guessed, given its dimension. Anyway, no harm (to the clay), no foul, the clay hand had suitably sharp nails already. Hm, maybe it could be the petrified remains of the world's most evil wrestling heel? Would explain the thorn tattoos. So, over to Wrestle-
Wait a minute.
Where did those come from?
Sure enough, Soos' cast had a tiny, but detailed, design of the thorny vines of a rose bush winding across it. Each bloom was a deep, rich blue. The kind of blue that would be natural if blue roses were a natural breed. How Stan arrived at this observation was beyond him. Maybe because the stems looked so...alive.
"...Hey kids?"
Mabel appeared by his side. "Hey Grunkle?"
"Did either of you paint roses on this?"
Mabel crinkled her brow. "Well... I did do flowers on the teardrop thingy...maybe a kitty on the statue thingy. Did a lot of those stars made from five lines too, all upside-down, just like you-"
"Yeah, I see them," Stan cut in. Damn. I was hoping I could make better props with that talent. "Thing is-I'm not saying you missed anything, I just, well…" The elderly man steeled himself and set the accidental statue down.
"Oh yeah, we had a spare mold anyway, so we decided we could use that other one and...ohhh," Mabel said as she noticed the painted tattoos. "Those are really pretty...and I don't think even my natural fashion talents could make those. I'm more of a clothes wizard myself...or would I be a witch, since I'm a girl, but a witch makes people uglier so she's the prettiest, so it doesn't really fit…."
Stan blinked. "...Any idea who or what put them there? You kids tangle with the Graffiti Gremlin or somethin' weird like that?"
"Oh, that's silly, Grunkle! The Gremlin works with reds and yellows, she hates green!" Mabel said. "Apart from her though...I really don't know anyone capable of painting something that good. I mean, Soos was playing with the Claw of Crowaw...Cow...the Claw Thingie earlier, but I don't see why that would-"
"Hey dude?" Speaking of Soos, the rather perturbed-looking handyman was now leaning through the door. "Do you have the Claw?"
"No?"
"Well, that's very interesting, because it's not in the case."
Stan blinked. "Er-"
"I went back to, er, check on it, but the thing's either turned invisible, or it ain't there, and I think I could feel it if it were invisible. Also, I think I need to clean the glass of fingerprints now, the infinite slice of pizza gets really greasy."
There was a moment of silence as Stan slowly began to contemplate what this meant. Beyond fingerprint cleaning.
A moment broken by Tuba screaming.
"AH HECK, THE TV'S GONE OUT, I'LL THINK OF WHAT I'LL YELL AT YOU ABOUT WHEN-"
The screaming stopped, followed by a cage clattering.
Various rumbling, and the clatter of items falling to the floor.
And then Dipper screaming.
"MABEL! HELP!"
If one didn't know there had been an earthquake a week or so ago, they could be forgiven for believing one was happening right then for all the chaos that was happening at the Mystery Shack.
Tuba's cage was now more of an abstract, flower-like shape, with the monkey herself having taken advantage of the fact it wasn't capable of containing her any more. The television brought in to calm her was face-down, its plug torn out of the wall socket. Various other items were scattered about the floor, some in one piece, some others...not.
Firstly, Wendy had drawn out a long fishing spear and was desperately waving it about in a threatening way, knuckles white from clenching it so hard. Dipper had found a much shorter fireplace poker and was now using the journal #3 as a makeshift shield. Behind them, Tuba was clenching an arm in pain, her shoulder fur reddened with drying blood.
That wasn't the alarming part, however. The alarming part were the living beings in the area. Or rather, one of the four already there before Soos, Mabel, and Stan arrived. The thing in front of them, balancing on the shelves and baring its (or his) teeth, was the truly alarming one.
It looked something like a very short, tanned man wearing breechcloth, not particularly muscular but certainly wiry and well-defined with what muscles he did have. That wasn't a particularly good summary of his appearance. For one, every inch of bare skin had at least one scar or piercing, probably more. That would be alarming enough, except none of the piercings were normal ones. Rather, they seemed to consist of anything sharp enough to piece skin, with glass, rusted steel, and even what appeared to be industrial plastic here and there.
For another, his teeth themselves...didn't look quite right. The yellowish tinge brought to mind a wolf or other mammalian predator, and the canines seemed a bit thin and long-unnaturally so. His stance only reinforced the image, looking more like a wolf clinging to the shelves with all four of his limbs, and raising his back in a similarly canine posture.
And his eyes...his eyes weren't colored like it seemed they should be
Their color didn't seem particularly unnatural, but that shade of blue seemed animalistic. More like a cougar than a dwarfish individual. He appeared to have a stone knife attached of the belt of his breeches, and was wearing the "undead" toy claw as a medallion around his neck.
That was one mystery solved, at least.
Stan, understanding the concept of priorities, did not go with his instinct to tell the weird animal-man to give back his property. Instead, he quickly and deftly pulled out one of his showman's canes from its hiding place. Mabel and Soos were not far behind, with a large stick (formerly of a not-so-lucky exhibit) and a screwdriver, respectively.
Next priority: "What in the name of a molasses-tarred engine is going on here!?"
"Beats me!", Wendy called back, careful to keep her fishing spear's tip on the dwarf. "I just heard Tuba screaming, and when Dipper and me checked, Napoleon here-"
"Cadwallop."
It took the Shack's employees a second to realize the hard, growling voice belonged to the dwarf.
Dipper lowered his makeshift shield (ie, the journal #3) slightly. "Um, sorry, didn't-"
"My current name. Right now it's Cadwallop."
...Okay. One of the odder names any human or primate present had ever heard (or possibly a verb involving a cheerfully callous male and the result of being especially callous to a person of the violent persuasion), but then again, whatever supernatural species the guy belonged to was hardly alone in having bizarre names.
Mabel cleared her throat. "Er, Mr. Cadwallop? Um, I can tell we got off on a bad start, but maybe we can back up a bit and-"
"He was trying to eat Tuba," Dipper interjected. "That's what she was screaming about! This jerk had her shoulder in his teeth!"
Mabel blinked. That was new. "Well... If you'd like, we have some really great treats in the fridge!" she said, more out of desperation to prevent a fight than anything.
Cadwallop's eyes narrowed, looking actively offended.
Mabel giggled nervously. "Okay, maybe I can buy you something you'd like? How does that sound?" Harsher glare. "No? Oh, well..." It was worth a shot, she thought.
Then she thought Why is he stroking the Cursed Claw of...the heck!?
For the toy claw...wasn't a toy anymore.
Whereas once the claw had been a clever-looking but obvious fake, now it looked like a real bird claw, recently severed from its owner. It twitched rapidly in all directions, and tiny rivulets of blood were running down the talons from the bony stump. The cord attached to the stump wasn't leather either, but a finely woven set of still-living thorny vines. As Cadwallop crouched, tiny blue rose buds began to sprout.
And then he lunged.
There was only one person in the room who didn't take a few seconds to realize that the dwarf was no longer on the shelf, but rolling back onto his feet on the floor. The one person was Soos, and the reason he didn't take the time to realize it was because the thing the strange creature was rolling off of was his head. It was a forgivable oversight, given his not-unrelated unconsciousness.
Those few seconds the others took figuring out what was going on was more than enough for Cadwallop to grab the unconscious handyman by the shirt and carry him over his shoulder, barely slowed down by the weight of someone who had to be at least three times his total mass. By the time the rest of the shack was chasing after him, the dwarf was already running off with Soos in tow, knocking the fallen wire skeleton of the cornicorn behind himself in the process.
"Dipper, Wendy! You jump that, me and Mabel will-whoa!" Stan's plan was cut off by a hanger flying off the skeleton just so that it hit the still-standing totem pole and collapsed it, cutting off the route he was intending. "Nevermind, just get him!"
As the chase started though, it became clear that the extremely fortuitous shrapnel wasn't a fluke. Soos' legs kept on bumping into things that provoked a domino effect; a rope here brought the six-pack-a-lope down on the twins' heads, a floorboard here sent a shrunken head flying at Wendy's face. Said domino effect never hurt Cadwallop, though, and in fact he seemed to take on common sense and win on a regular basis during his escape. At one point, Stan managed to trick him into a corridor where the only possible way out was filled with broken glass...and the dwarf just ran straight through said glass, he feet falling only in the clear areas.
It was at that point the Shack started to suspect what Cadwallop's motive was when stealing the actual magical artifact disguised as a fake magical artifact.
Coincidence bending over backwards to help the thieving monster couldn't stop Soos from coming to, however, and so the chase was abruptly ended near the Shack's storage shed with a screwdriver in Cadwallop's funny bone. As the former kidnapper buckled over in pain, his erstwhile mark wiggled free of the dwarf's weakened grip. Exhausted, Soos ran back to his bedraggled friends, breathing heavily. "Dude's strong, dudes," he gasped. "Haven't felt that easily lifted by somebody since my abuleita still gave me piggy-backs. Probably not even then."
"Yeah...we could tell," gasped Dipper, who was currently supporting his exhausted Grunkle along with the other two younger Shack employees. "That room locked?"
"There's only the one door, dudes. Stan's paranoid about people stealin' his barbecue supplies." Soos shrugged as Cadwallop slunk into said door.
"Good!" Wendy nodded, begining to recover. "Can you help us with Stan then? He was ready to collapse, like, three hazards ago."
Thankfully, exhaustion was all it was. Sooner rather than later, Stan was breathing more easily, and soon after that, rolling back onto his feet and planning the next plan of attack.
"Okay, I'm guessing so long as the Claw has juice in it, the small big jerk in there's gonna be too lucky for us to chase down and catch. Thing is, I doubt if the mystical equivalent of batteries lasts forever, and there's no exits. We just gotta keep him in there until it peters out, then we grab him."
"So, we're going to lock the door?" Mabel guessed as she got a better weapon (a small plank).
"Smart plan, but unfortunately, that door doesn't have the best lock, and the walls are drywall," Dipper said, wiping off the dirt from journal #3. "If he finds something heavy enough, with that strength of his? He can kick right through the wall if he keeps trying. We've got to keep him from working on that long enough."
"I'll stay back by the door," Wendy said. "I've got the longest and sharpest weapon, he'll be more scared to rush at me. Soos, if you wanna sit this out-"
"Nah, I'm cool dude." Soos said, putting on a football helmet from...somewhere.
"Okay," Stan said, adjusting his own makeshift armor (a group of tied-together totem pole pieces). "One, two-"
On "three" the shack burst in, spears raised and ready for anything.
Except maybe their quarry casually sitting on top of a pile of gas tanks, smiling wickedly.
The Shack's crew quickly regained their composure, banding together in a rough phalanx. "All-right, you vertically-challenged thieving freak," Stan began, raising his cane. "This is your one and only warning. You not only have a piece of my property, but have badly damaged my property in an attempt to kidnap one of my employees after trying to eat a rental exhibit alive. Hand over that thing around your neck, and leave quietly, and maybe I'll avoid displaying you as the latest attraction. On a pin."
Cadwallop's grin expanded by a couple teeth. "If and when that occurs, can I request a name for that?"
Stan blinked. He knew that tone of voice. He used it whenever one of his cons reached its best possible conclusion.
"The, ahem, Fireproof Hunter."
It was at that point the Shack, contemplating this, realized they had missed something.
The smell of gas.
...Crud.
As the Shack dived, the dwarf held up a hand over a nearby can's valve.
Said hand ignited.
A couple miles away, the gnomes held their ears in pain due to a terrible, ghastly noise.
Ringing.
The world was a bell, and it was ringing.
This caliber of observation was all Dipper was capable of at the moment.
His vision, at least, was a little quicker than his ears in rebooting. Probably a little faster than it at first seemed, because the white he had mistaken for an afterimage was, on second glance, actually there.
It was a beam of sunlight, to be precise. Which probably spoke something as to the power of the blast, as the storage room had no windows. Probably
Despite hurting in the everywhere, Dipper was able to slowly brace himself against the wall and look around. Thankfully, the other members of the Shack family, while singed, just seemed dazed and largely immobile.
Unfortunately, Cadwallop was neither of those things.
If the dwarf looked completely unharmed, things would actually be less surreal. As it was, his breeches were scorched and partially burned off altogether; his clothes weren't made of whatever his species was, apparently. He also appeared to be choking on ash, but, after a couple hard coughs, he regained his composure and normal breathing. The fully-bloomed roses on the Claw had started to wilt, but nothing about it seemed even blackened by the soot.
He opened his mouth, but his voice was distant and quiet. Ear overload, Dipper guessed.
"Job well done. Lovely catches "
As muttered to himself, he pulled out a vial of something with a stopper that, on being removed, turned out to also have a needle attached. A needle with which he quickly pierced each of Dipper's friends and family, then Dipper.
It didn't hurt. It didn't have any sensation at all.
Soon, neither did much of his body. A paralytic poison, Dipper guessed. But why didn't Cadwallop use that in projectiles?
Also, what the heck was he planning?
"...Should get good coup for this," Cadwallop muttered, leaning over Dipper himself, then Mabel. "Maybe even get let in Wild Hunts, finally."
The pyrokinetic dwarf began to pace from human to human, leaning over each as he came to them.
"You two, there's always some worth in a set of twins. You, I don't think you'll pass muster, he doesn't like those near the end of their fates. You, you're a redhead, he likes those, says they're good soothsayers. And you, my chubby arm-stabbing friend...hm…"
Cadwallop jumped on Soos, then proceeded to use his belly as a trampoline for a couple jumps, apparently testing it (and ignoring the wince from the handyman).
"Mostly fat. No small amount of muscle. Hmm."
He drew Soos' wallet from the handyman's pocket after a small search. "Jesus Alzamirano Ramirez," Cadwallop read from the driver's license. "That's a nice name, too."
A small grin came to the dwarf's face as jumped off Soos.
And then drew his knife.
"I don't think they'll mind so much if it's mine."
If anyone could have screamed as the dwarf loped over to Soos neck, they would have.
The dwarf leaned over, revealing a small red dot in the middle of his disfigured head-
Wait, dot?
A peal of what sounded like thunder echoed through the air.
From Soos' perspective, Cadwallop's eyes went wide with shock.
And then blank, shortly before falling backwards, a newfound hole in the back of his head leaking sap, a hole which could be seen by everyone.
All humans present went unconscious again at that, the darkness taking them as a large figure, shadowed and hulking, walked through the hole in the wall.
Dipper awoke to the scent of honey and burning wood.
Given what had just happened before he fell unconscious, he woke up extremely quickly.
Thankfully, the wood was just a bunch of logs in a campfire, not the Shack. In fact, as Dipper's vision cleared, he realized he could see the distinct red of fire trucks out in the distance, along with the familiar brown of the intact Mystery Shack.
Of course, there was also the campfire itself. More specifically, the apparent builder of it.
He was almost certainly the figure he had seen just before he had fallen into unconsciousness, an apparently male humanoid so covered by a large lumberjack's coat, a hood, gloves, and ragged-looking jeans. How he found those was beyond Dipper, as he had to be slightly bigger than Manly Dan himself, though less overtly brawny (although it was hard to tell-again, the coat). The honey smell seemed to be coming from an out-of-place thermos he was apparently slipping.
More startling was the sniper rifle resting at his side, next to an ugly little wooden figurine.
Wincing, Dipper began to slowly rise to his hands and legs without actually alerting the strange figure, a strangely crab-like effort-
The figure froze, his head rising a bit.
"So you are vaking, zen?"
A very thick Russian accent underscored a fittingly deep voice. Busted.
Dipper weighed the benefits of saying absolutely nothing versus confronting this stranger versus getting more information.
Information won out. "Where are my friends?", Dipper managed to wheeze out.
The figure pointed directly behind the boy. Sure enough, the other humans were laid out on various smooth rocks in a small forest clearing.
"I did not bring any of ze creature comforts, and I did not wish robbing you for zem," the figure continued, not facing Dipper. "Sorry."
Dipper eased up slightly, to the extent he could be tense at the moment. "Who are-"
"I am thinking you want having your druz'ya awake for that, no?" The figure shrugged. "You are having resistance to ze alkonost venom, but I am doubting zey are far behind."
He held out his thermos. "Sbiten? Russian cocoa, but has honey, not chocolate."
Dipper shook his head. This guy was at least polite, but he was still a strange gunman who just killed a sapient being.
That was trying to kill Soos, but one didn't lug a sniper rifle around for self-defense.
...Speaking of strange, why was he warming himself in this heat?
Apparently the stranger could read minds. "Hope you are not minding my fire," the giant said. "I never warm, even in summer month. In particular in summer month."
Okay. Weird, but logical.
In a few minutes, every other member of the Shack was coughing and propping themselves up on their rocks. And attempting to scurry off before the figure held up his gloved hand.
"So, thinking introduction is being in order." The giant finally turned around, revealing his face…
To be under a ski mask. Either he was really cold at all times, or someone really wanted to hide his identity. Or both.
"Please, be calling me Ved. I am the one to be helping you with your Teihiihan problem."
Ved paused, apparently expecting a thank you.
"...You killed him," Mabel replied, flatly.
Ved shrugged. "In sense."
"In, in a sense?" Mabel actually looked like she might attack him, even given her less-than-mobile state. "Buster, there's not a lot of variation between making someone dead. He's dead, because-"
"He vas only half-alive beginning with."
Mabel blinked. "Sorry?"
The giant moved the figurine in front of him.
The figurine that looked to be a perfect representation of Cadwallop's corpse. With bullet wound.
Stan caught on first. "...That's his actual body, isn't it."
"No soul, no meat corpse. So is for all hobgoblins in human world. Make own job easier."
Mabel blinked. On the one hand, soul or no soul, he had a mind…
But on the other, he was killed in the middle of trying to murder Soos after he tried to eat a monkey alive. So maybe the morality of the action was a bit vague here.
"Wait, human world? Are you saying that's an alien?" Dipper's voice had returned to normal, which really helped in getting over the sheer confusion in his tone.
"In sense. Hobgoblin. Least fairy, native to borderlands of fae world."
Wendy got up, unsteadily. "...Fairy? That's a fairy!?"
"Disney and Victorian writers have much answering to do." Ved shoved the wooden corpse away from him. "Is old-time fairy. Mischievous and alien best, child thieves and storybook monsters worst. For Teihiihan's case, hunting men for food and sport. Take names of prey zey are most proud of."
It didn't take long before the implications of this particular tradition sunk in. Soos weighed the benefits of fainting dead away once more, while his friends began regretting eating, ever.
"...Leaving that aside," Stan interjecting after he finished retching, "What's it matter to you? Don't get me wrong, you saved all our lives, and you have the rare prize of my genuine gratitude, but you don't haul a sniper rifle around because you think it really completes the 'mysterious wanderer' look."
"Nice work on that, by the way," Mabel added. "Do you have any notes on where you got that coat? I think I can make it work for a girl-thank you!" she ended as Ved wordlessly showed her a brand tag under his hood.
"Pozhaluysta," the giant replied. "To you, Barnumist old man; vas hunting his tribe. Attacked my Court."
"Your...court?" Dipper said, trying to remember something that might put this in context. Court was generally referring to a collection of aristocrats and their retainers, so maybe this guy was either a knight or-wait, who would have knights in the modern day? Or whatever the Russian equivalent-
"This wouldn't happen to be, say, the Seelie Court, dude?" Soos interrupted. "I read it in a fanfic once that fae divide themselves into courts of good and evil, and I figure some guy who goes around hunting fairies might be kind of like that one series, Found Boy. A policeman fae, only more viol-actually, now that I think about it, maybe a policeman fae, period."
Ved stood silently for a few minutes, before shrugging. "Nyet. I am not member of Seelie Court."
Then, suddenly, he pulled off his mask. "Seelies are Irish institution."
The face under the mask looked...furry. Broad, flat, and slightly misshapen (as if it was beaten into shape by a hammer taken to a more normal face), but very furry. Brown fur that, strangely, actually seemed to grow out from and into his mouth as well. While his eyes weren't nearly as inhuman as the living Cadwallop's had been (in fact, they were a quite nice shade of brown), his right was a lot larger than the other, to the point where one would be forgiven for thinking that he only had the one.
It also gave the shack a chance to tell his expression was one of mild discomfort. "Forgive manners for second," the giant said shortly before opening his mouth and extending his tongue. His veryfurry tongue.
The Shack got the sense they should be more weirded out by this than they were. After living in Gravity Falls, though, discovering a good Samaritan was a giant-in-the-actually-a-Russian-yeti sense wasn't even that surprising.
Said tongue also seemed to have caught a bit of ski mask wool on it, and after the offending thread was removed, Ved returned to his former, relaxed position. "Should probably learn to shave that, but...is tongue."
Everyone winced at that.
After the spectre of shaver blades near a rather sensitive organ passed, however, the tide came in.
"Back up: Fae world?"
"Why did I have anything fae wanted in my possession?"
"Know any hot, tween-ish elf-boys not adverse to humans?"
"You know any cobbler elves dude? I could really use some help with my sneakers."
Ved rose his arms. "Please! Pozhaluista, one at time!"
Everyone rose their arms, but Stan was a bit quicker. "Like I said, how the heck did I end up with anything the fae wanted, and why did it look so normal?"
"Is zis?" asked Ved as he pulled the Cursed Claw of Crowowlar, now looking like a normal toy again, out of his pants pocket. "I have nyet clue as vhy you have it, but I can tell is powerful Token. Fae magic item, protected by Mask zat make it seem...not magic."
"Oh. Well, how much are you willing to pay?"
"Kakoi?"
"Well, you've seen the damages that thief caused." Stan shrugged. "I'm already going to need a loan as is, I really think that having it is kind of a stupid idea if any others-"
"Hold for second. Need phrasing being correct"
Ved silently mouthed some words in English before clearing his throat.
"Magic for magic, service for service. As you have bestowed your bounty on me, I shall give my bounty on you. May fate erase all trials caused to you and yours by my former lords and their minions, as this item eases all trials that I suffer. Should one violate the property and trust of the other, may winter give him trials sevenfold."
The giant held out a hand.
It didn't take very long at all for Stan to realize this had something to do with fae hocus pocus.
Given the contracts he made and read in the past, the spoken terms seemed...fair, if vague. "...The 'violation' bit includes any trials cause by you in the future, yes? And it will prevent future robbery by your, eh, former lords?"
"Da. Is little bonus, because former lords are…" Ved shivered. "...bad."
"Deal," Stan said as he took the gloved hand.
And felt a very cold wind suddenly curl around his hand as they shook. With a yelp, Stan withdrew his hand.
Inside his hand was a lottery ticket, lightly dusted with snowflakes. A lottery ticket that was already scratched, revealing a perfect win.
"Should pay for damages and lost time, I am thinking."
Stan promptly decided that old-time fae were pretty awesome.
Wendy held up a hand. "Whoa whoa. Can I go next?"
"Da."
"What was that about saying you were pursuing this jerk's...tribe?"
The mood immediately soured when the others were reminded of that. There were more of these things?
"Is true. Zey mass here, wood useful for garrison outside fae borderlands."
It took absolutely no time at all for a thousand horrible scenarios for what a bunch of other psychotic warriors with a cannibalistic streak a mile wide would do to the denizens of the town and forest to occur to the humans.
"...We're going to help you," Dipper began. "We'll take a short break, buy up supplies, find a posse or something-"
"You can't," Ved interjected.
...Huh? "Why not?" Mabel said, raising an eyebrow. "I said I liked the look, not that you had to be, because being a mysterious wanderer is not only lonely, but kind of stupid-"
"I know is dumb," Ved began. "But I…"
The giant inhaled. "Interesting tidbit for fae pacts. Is not metaphorical when I say what punishment for breaking will be, if old man or I try to cheat terms directly, winter-themed bad things will occur to rule-breaker."
"Er, yeah, but I don't see...how…" Dipper trailed off as the implication of Ved's words presented themselves.
"...Somebody made you swear to do this alone," the boy finished.
"Is neither confirmed nor denied," Ved replied, his attention apparently elsewhere.
Mabel narrowed her eyes. "Well, can you at least tell the forest monsters how to defend themselves? And the rest of the town? Come to think of it, why can't you just walk up to that somebody and ask-"
"Excuse rudeness, but must recite loyalty pledge." Ved cleared his throat, inhaling. "'Is duty to human and Lost alike zat the Strangers do not gain further interest in world, is the duty of Sheriff to silence knowledge unneeded by those we protect from Arcadia's hungers, and is not the place of the Sheriff to decide what knowledge is needed'..." he finished, looking intently to the Shack.
"...And they've sworn you to secrecy as well dude!?" Soos looked outright disbelieving. "Boy, I think you should probably come work for us someday, at least Mr. Pines just keeps his cloak-and-dagger stuff to himself."
Stan shrugged, looking slightly sheepish.
"Is neither confirmed nor denied." The giant made his way over to a placid pool, using a bucket to quench the fire. "Will say one thing zat is defined as 'needed' though."
Ved looked directly at the Shack's employees, intent and serious.
"Don't go to Bishopgate."
With that, he waved his hand over the pond, causing it to freeze into a reflective mirror. He then proceeded to hoist up Cadwallop's remains, then to tap on the surface three times using his foot.
Wendy's eyebrows shot up. "Wait, isn't that the old mental asylum with those weird-"
She was cut off when the pool unfolded.
Where before there was a small, mirror like puddle of a pool, there was now a bunch of thick, green vines covered with giant thorns reaching out into the world, surrounding what appeared to be a starcase down into someplace green and sunlit.
Before anyone could get in a word in edgewise, the giant descended into the pool-portal, the wooden corpse and sniper rifle in tow, looking for all the world like he was descending into the Underworld.
As the top of his head cleared the portal, the vines folded in, and then it was just a pool again, already starting to melt in the summer heat.
A/N: For the five of you WoD fans that didn't figure it out yet; yep, it's a Changeling: the Lost crossover.
Well that, and Hunter: the Vigil, but everyone who actually looks for mysteries is already crossing over. I could make a Gravity Falls alone fic and call it a crossover in that case.
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Chapter 1: The Huntsmen Cometh
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It said a lot about Gravity Falls that the most recent event the town had experienced was the side effects of an opening interdimensional portal. Namely, a series of gravitational anomalies and attendant earthquakes, which had a significant risk of destroying the entire planet. It says even more that the general attitude of the town could best be described as "...I have to clean this, don't I?"Chapter 1: The Huntsmen Cometh
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Such as it was with the Mystery Shack; coincidentally, it was also the location of said interdimensional portal, and remarkably intact given the circumstances. Which is to say, still standing.
One could make a similar statement about the relationship between the owner of both the Shack and the portal, and his grandniece and grandnephew.
"So, Grandpa L's going to be on a...familiarization vacation?" Mabel said carefully. She never did get the hang of tongue twisters ("She shells...she smells...she...sneezes?").
"Stanley can't stand not knowing, never did, never will. So yeah, if he's been gone for thirty years, he wants to know the basic of what the heck happened." Grunkle Stan shrugged. "That's why he wrote those journals to begin with, didn't trust his own memory to retain everything; thought it was worth the risk of someone finding 'em than forgetting how to survive a, I don't know, ghost attack or sometin' in the middle of it."
"Does he have the ability to see in ultraviolet, too?" Dipper wondered aloud.
"No, but he kept a handheld blacklight everywhere even before he wrote in invisible ink. Never in danger of hidden bloodstains in the apartments of secret murderers, my brother-even if there aresome hidden things he'd feel better off not seein'. I know some I'd rather remain blind to." Stan shivered a little as some of his less seemly adventures with his six-fingered twin brother came rushing back.
"Yeah...about that…" Dipper pursed his lips, looking as awkward as he felt.
"You're wonderin' why I didn't tell you," Stan guessed.
"Well, that, and..well, I'm not angry," Dipper said, not sure if he was lying or not. "I'm mostly confused-I mean, rebuilding a portal to get your brother back kind of seems like a three-person job. It just seems, well, counterproductive to keep it from your brother's grandchildren. We kinda would be open to the idea of saving Grandpa L from a distant dimension where time is...weird."
Mabel, who had long ago realized that there was no arguing with a purely logical statement of Dipper's, leaned back, looking uncomfortable.
Almost as uncomfortable as her great uncle. "Yeah...in retrospect, I kinda, sorta, maybe see how that was, in retrospect, a very poorly thought-out plan."
"So...why?"
Stan inhaled. This was going to be a long one "...Well kid, you don't live as long as I do on, shall we say, the less strict side of the law without developing some healthy paranoia. Undercover agents and all, you understand."
"And you thought I might be one because…? Grunkle Stan, I'm not the tallest person in the world, but I think you could tell if I was old enough to be admitted into the FBI."
"Oh you'd be surprised. This one guy, Agent Bonaparte...okay, let's rewind a bit." Stan cleared his throat. "I can, and to be honest, I was pretty sure you wouldn't tell. But...when you've gotten so used to not trusting people with things, it can be hard to get out of the habit, y'know?"
Dipper raised an eyebrow. "...This is the closest thing to an actual apology I'm going to get out of you, isn't it?"
"Much like...urgh, 'please', the s-word is something I feel naked saying. But unlike the p-word, I'm actually used to being naked, so…" Stan inhaled, while Mabel covered her eyes. "Dipper, I'm...sorry for not trusting you with what I was planning. And Soos, now that I think of it."
"Thanks for your sudden addendum, Mr. Pines," said a previously unseen handyman, before he set off to fix a shelf.
Dipper, for his part, seemed mostly okay with the apology. "...All right. But there's one more thing."
"Hit me," Stan said solemnly.
"Why, in the name of all that is just and fair in the world, is there a monkey on the couch?"
The bonobo in question was remarkably sporting about the whole situation, considering she was in a bird cage. Apparently marathon TV was equally hypnotic to all higher primates.
"Ah. Well, see, at one point, I had to join the circus as a 'mind reader', due to my finely-honed senses of anticipating the desires of dumb tourists…"
----------------------
"...and that's how your Grunkle Stan caught the Phantom Peanut of Napa County! Any other questions?"
Wendy, having arrived somewhere in the middle of the story, raised her hand. "Um, could you go over that-"
"No!" Dipper exclaimed, the threat of another 30-minute long tale enough to snap him out of his trance. "Please no! Trust me, it isn't much more straightforward in context."
"Ha! Anyway, I got the old ringmaster on my side...somehow. I don't think she's ever goin' to be free of my reputation, tell you the truth. So that's why I have Tuba here," he said, walking over to the TV hound monkey. "I was thinking we're probably goin' to need a lot of income to cover all the repairs, fines, being out of business for a while, and that huge, er, donation to the FBI."
Wendy, for her part, decided to pretend she didn't hear that. Less incrimination that way.
"So I'm going double time: our grand reopening is going to have, among other things, the Screaming Brownie of Portland!" Stan drew out in his best "spooky" voice.
Dipper and Mabel looked over to Tuba, who was busy being the quietest monkey they had ever seen.
"Cover your ears, kids." Wincing, Stan hit the power button on his remote.
For a second, Tuba stared at the now-blank screen, disbelieving.
After that second, she made an an adequate imitation of the vocals of Imminent Deafness and Bass by VCEP (Vacuum Cleaner in Excruciating Pain) from their album Wub Out The Brain (banned in Australia, partially for lack of artistic merit, mostly because the government felt that a stereo with it on full volume qualified as a weapon of mass destruction). Thankfully Stan was able to switch on the television before the glass cracked.
"I figure she'll be a huge hit, just as soon as I get these liability warnings filled out." Stan grinned, pulling out a rather familiar set of papers. "...Need to remember how to spell 'cochlea', though. Soos! Thesaurus, now!"
"Wordy components of law speak, coming up!"
As Soos ran off, Dipper couldn't help but feel a pit in his stomach. One that went by the name of Oh no, I know what he's going to say next.
"...Say, Dipper, while I'm at it-"
"What's the costume this time?" Dipper cut in, rolling his eyes. "Can it not be a repeat of the Wolf-Boy? That fur needed washing, like, five years ago."
"What?" Stan blinked for a second, then tried very hard to suppress laughter. It didn't work.
"...It's worse, isn't it?"
"No! No, I mean...heh, I wasn't even trying, and the look on your...ha! Seriously though, kid," Stan said, composing himself. "There's no other live attractions this time."
On the one hand, this was cause for celebration. Heavy lifting was nothing compared to the embarrassment of being Stan's latest specimen.
On the other: "Er, is there anything else other than Tuba? I mean, the live exhibits are the biggest draw-"
"How about undead exhibits?"
Dipper blinked.
----------------------
"Honestly, I'm not sure where this thing came from."
The exhibit in question appeared to be the twitching talon of some bird of prey or another, though unlike most talons it had five claws, making it look oddly like a hand instead. Threaded through the wrist was a leather cord, which Stan was currently yanking.
Said yank also caused the talon to spasm, almost like a living thing. To the point where it it was nearly dancing inside the glass.
"...We sure that's a good idea, Grunkle Stan?" Mabel wondered. "I mean, last time Dipper had a true weird thing on full display here, we had to replace a wall. And the poor Singing Salmon nearly lost his voice from having to perform for an hour, I don't want him to go through that again."
"Yeah, I know it looks weird, but-take a closer look."
Sure enough, on closer inspection, the talon seemed to be artificial. The cord seemed to be attached to a well-camouflaged pull-switch, and the skin was a bit too rubbery to be real. Certainly almost a movie-level prop, but a prop nonetheless.
"I think it'll be a hit; certainly somethin' that is almost creepy is sure to draw in good reputation, and unlike Tuba, I can use this thing again. Of course," Stan said, starting to look rather sneaky, "there's also the souvenirs, those other things that have been remade by the Claw of Crowowlar's dark power…"
"...I'll get the clay," Dipper replied, irritated.
"Yay! Evil artifact arts and crafts!" Mabel scooted off in a different direction than her brother.
"Is this the kind of evil artifact that requires chanting to malevolent gods of darkness and destruction? Cause I got some death metal CDs on a bet, could do in a pinch," Soos chimed in.
"...Actually, we could use that as a backdrop to the Brownie," Stan replied. "Seems...fitting."
"You got it Mr. Pines!"
And so the Mystery Shack set off to work.
----------------------
Several hours, molding, a clasp on the molds deciding it didn't particularly like Soos (or was a fan of being the human equivalent of a bear trap), and an impromptu clay furnace later, Stan set out to the task he was the most skilled at: drafting sales pitches.
Creating fake occult paraphernalia, Stan had long discovered, was a matter of presentation. Ugly little statue? Meh. Ugly little statue that appears to have been naturally formed, and decorated with various Hollywood black magic symbols (upside-down pentagrams, letters in dead languages, and the like)? Better. All of the above, plus some backstory pulled out of an internet ghost story? ...Not actually best. The trick was to make sure that it was creepy enough to be interesting, but not so creepy it tripped the survival instincts of the more naive customers and they left briskly, without buying anything.
So it was with the so-called Clawtouched. The various molded bits of vaguely menacing junk looked fearsome enough. Even better, they actually looked the part of being transformed by a mysterious, nocturnal avian-based being's (or at least its severed talon's) power, being covered in minute feather designs (the result of a repurposed stencil and attendant spray paint). Now came the story; each one was fairly unique as far as paperweights went, so each needed its own story and attendant asking price.
This amulet, for instance; it looked like a pair of claws clutching a teardrop, so something fitting would be using it to avoid sadness. Naturally, the protagonist of the story would be over reliant on it, eventually crushing their ability to feel regret, turning them into a huge jerk (naturally, the fact that said protagonist was over reliant would reassure the naive customer they could avoid that-or possibly they were a huge jerk already, being a happy jerk couldn't hurt). That wasn't hard at all, Soos had a favorite online author who seemed obsessed with the idea of sadness and how people dealt with it (Stan thought the whole thing was a bit overblown, but to each his own).
Another thing, this figurine; it looked almost like it was leering, daring whoever looked at it to come at it with all they got. Maybe it was possessed by the ghost of a boxer? Stan decided to look over his own notes for the "ghost" in question, he knew a lot of monster hunters in his time, and those tended towards the weird side of things even before they got involved in the oogie-boogie stuff (just look at Stan's brother).
Finally, there was this...arm. So that's what happened to Soos' mold, Stan guessed, given its dimension. Anyway, no harm (to the clay), no foul, the clay hand had suitably sharp nails already. Hm, maybe it could be the petrified remains of the world's most evil wrestling heel? Would explain the thorn tattoos. So, over to Wrestle-
Wait a minute.
Where did those come from?
Sure enough, Soos' cast had a tiny, but detailed, design of the thorny vines of a rose bush winding across it. Each bloom was a deep, rich blue. The kind of blue that would be natural if blue roses were a natural breed. How Stan arrived at this observation was beyond him. Maybe because the stems looked so...alive.
"...Hey kids?"
Mabel appeared by his side. "Hey Grunkle?"
"Did either of you paint roses on this?"
Mabel crinkled her brow. "Well... I did do flowers on the teardrop thingy...maybe a kitty on the statue thingy. Did a lot of those stars made from five lines too, all upside-down, just like you-"
"Yeah, I see them," Stan cut in. Damn. I was hoping I could make better props with that talent. "Thing is-I'm not saying you missed anything, I just, well…" The elderly man steeled himself and set the accidental statue down.
"Oh yeah, we had a spare mold anyway, so we decided we could use that other one and...ohhh," Mabel said as she noticed the painted tattoos. "Those are really pretty...and I don't think even my natural fashion talents could make those. I'm more of a clothes wizard myself...or would I be a witch, since I'm a girl, but a witch makes people uglier so she's the prettiest, so it doesn't really fit…."
Stan blinked. "...Any idea who or what put them there? You kids tangle with the Graffiti Gremlin or somethin' weird like that?"
"Oh, that's silly, Grunkle! The Gremlin works with reds and yellows, she hates green!" Mabel said. "Apart from her though...I really don't know anyone capable of painting something that good. I mean, Soos was playing with the Claw of Crowaw...Cow...the Claw Thingie earlier, but I don't see why that would-"
"Hey dude?" Speaking of Soos, the rather perturbed-looking handyman was now leaning through the door. "Do you have the Claw?"
"No?"
"Well, that's very interesting, because it's not in the case."
Stan blinked. "Er-"
"I went back to, er, check on it, but the thing's either turned invisible, or it ain't there, and I think I could feel it if it were invisible. Also, I think I need to clean the glass of fingerprints now, the infinite slice of pizza gets really greasy."
There was a moment of silence as Stan slowly began to contemplate what this meant. Beyond fingerprint cleaning.
A moment broken by Tuba screaming.
"AH HECK, THE TV'S GONE OUT, I'LL THINK OF WHAT I'LL YELL AT YOU ABOUT WHEN-"
The screaming stopped, followed by a cage clattering.
Various rumbling, and the clatter of items falling to the floor.
And then Dipper screaming.
"MABEL! HELP!"
----------------------
If one didn't know there had been an earthquake a week or so ago, they could be forgiven for believing one was happening right then for all the chaos that was happening at the Mystery Shack.
Tuba's cage was now more of an abstract, flower-like shape, with the monkey herself having taken advantage of the fact it wasn't capable of containing her any more. The television brought in to calm her was face-down, its plug torn out of the wall socket. Various other items were scattered about the floor, some in one piece, some others...not.
Firstly, Wendy had drawn out a long fishing spear and was desperately waving it about in a threatening way, knuckles white from clenching it so hard. Dipper had found a much shorter fireplace poker and was now using the journal #3 as a makeshift shield. Behind them, Tuba was clenching an arm in pain, her shoulder fur reddened with drying blood.
That wasn't the alarming part, however. The alarming part were the living beings in the area. Or rather, one of the four already there before Soos, Mabel, and Stan arrived. The thing in front of them, balancing on the shelves and baring its (or his) teeth, was the truly alarming one.
It looked something like a very short, tanned man wearing breechcloth, not particularly muscular but certainly wiry and well-defined with what muscles he did have. That wasn't a particularly good summary of his appearance. For one, every inch of bare skin had at least one scar or piercing, probably more. That would be alarming enough, except none of the piercings were normal ones. Rather, they seemed to consist of anything sharp enough to piece skin, with glass, rusted steel, and even what appeared to be industrial plastic here and there.
For another, his teeth themselves...didn't look quite right. The yellowish tinge brought to mind a wolf or other mammalian predator, and the canines seemed a bit thin and long-unnaturally so. His stance only reinforced the image, looking more like a wolf clinging to the shelves with all four of his limbs, and raising his back in a similarly canine posture.
And his eyes...his eyes weren't colored like it seemed they should be
Their color didn't seem particularly unnatural, but that shade of blue seemed animalistic. More like a cougar than a dwarfish individual. He appeared to have a stone knife attached of the belt of his breeches, and was wearing the "undead" toy claw as a medallion around his neck.
That was one mystery solved, at least.
Stan, understanding the concept of priorities, did not go with his instinct to tell the weird animal-man to give back his property. Instead, he quickly and deftly pulled out one of his showman's canes from its hiding place. Mabel and Soos were not far behind, with a large stick (formerly of a not-so-lucky exhibit) and a screwdriver, respectively.
Next priority: "What in the name of a molasses-tarred engine is going on here!?"
"Beats me!", Wendy called back, careful to keep her fishing spear's tip on the dwarf. "I just heard Tuba screaming, and when Dipper and me checked, Napoleon here-"
"Cadwallop."
It took the Shack's employees a second to realize the hard, growling voice belonged to the dwarf.
Dipper lowered his makeshift shield (ie, the journal #3) slightly. "Um, sorry, didn't-"
"My current name. Right now it's Cadwallop."
...Okay. One of the odder names any human or primate present had ever heard (or possibly a verb involving a cheerfully callous male and the result of being especially callous to a person of the violent persuasion), but then again, whatever supernatural species the guy belonged to was hardly alone in having bizarre names.
Mabel cleared her throat. "Er, Mr. Cadwallop? Um, I can tell we got off on a bad start, but maybe we can back up a bit and-"
"He was trying to eat Tuba," Dipper interjected. "That's what she was screaming about! This jerk had her shoulder in his teeth!"
Mabel blinked. That was new. "Well... If you'd like, we have some really great treats in the fridge!" she said, more out of desperation to prevent a fight than anything.
Cadwallop's eyes narrowed, looking actively offended.
Mabel giggled nervously. "Okay, maybe I can buy you something you'd like? How does that sound?" Harsher glare. "No? Oh, well..." It was worth a shot, she thought.
Then she thought Why is he stroking the Cursed Claw of...the heck!?
For the toy claw...wasn't a toy anymore.
Whereas once the claw had been a clever-looking but obvious fake, now it looked like a real bird claw, recently severed from its owner. It twitched rapidly in all directions, and tiny rivulets of blood were running down the talons from the bony stump. The cord attached to the stump wasn't leather either, but a finely woven set of still-living thorny vines. As Cadwallop crouched, tiny blue rose buds began to sprout.
And then he lunged.
There was only one person in the room who didn't take a few seconds to realize that the dwarf was no longer on the shelf, but rolling back onto his feet on the floor. The one person was Soos, and the reason he didn't take the time to realize it was because the thing the strange creature was rolling off of was his head. It was a forgivable oversight, given his not-unrelated unconsciousness.
Those few seconds the others took figuring out what was going on was more than enough for Cadwallop to grab the unconscious handyman by the shirt and carry him over his shoulder, barely slowed down by the weight of someone who had to be at least three times his total mass. By the time the rest of the shack was chasing after him, the dwarf was already running off with Soos in tow, knocking the fallen wire skeleton of the cornicorn behind himself in the process.
"Dipper, Wendy! You jump that, me and Mabel will-whoa!" Stan's plan was cut off by a hanger flying off the skeleton just so that it hit the still-standing totem pole and collapsed it, cutting off the route he was intending. "Nevermind, just get him!"
As the chase started though, it became clear that the extremely fortuitous shrapnel wasn't a fluke. Soos' legs kept on bumping into things that provoked a domino effect; a rope here brought the six-pack-a-lope down on the twins' heads, a floorboard here sent a shrunken head flying at Wendy's face. Said domino effect never hurt Cadwallop, though, and in fact he seemed to take on common sense and win on a regular basis during his escape. At one point, Stan managed to trick him into a corridor where the only possible way out was filled with broken glass...and the dwarf just ran straight through said glass, he feet falling only in the clear areas.
It was at that point the Shack started to suspect what Cadwallop's motive was when stealing the actual magical artifact disguised as a fake magical artifact.
Coincidence bending over backwards to help the thieving monster couldn't stop Soos from coming to, however, and so the chase was abruptly ended near the Shack's storage shed with a screwdriver in Cadwallop's funny bone. As the former kidnapper buckled over in pain, his erstwhile mark wiggled free of the dwarf's weakened grip. Exhausted, Soos ran back to his bedraggled friends, breathing heavily. "Dude's strong, dudes," he gasped. "Haven't felt that easily lifted by somebody since my abuleita still gave me piggy-backs. Probably not even then."
"Yeah...we could tell," gasped Dipper, who was currently supporting his exhausted Grunkle along with the other two younger Shack employees. "That room locked?"
"There's only the one door, dudes. Stan's paranoid about people stealin' his barbecue supplies." Soos shrugged as Cadwallop slunk into said door.
"Good!" Wendy nodded, begining to recover. "Can you help us with Stan then? He was ready to collapse, like, three hazards ago."
Thankfully, exhaustion was all it was. Sooner rather than later, Stan was breathing more easily, and soon after that, rolling back onto his feet and planning the next plan of attack.
"Okay, I'm guessing so long as the Claw has juice in it, the small big jerk in there's gonna be too lucky for us to chase down and catch. Thing is, I doubt if the mystical equivalent of batteries lasts forever, and there's no exits. We just gotta keep him in there until it peters out, then we grab him."
"So, we're going to lock the door?" Mabel guessed as she got a better weapon (a small plank).
"Smart plan, but unfortunately, that door doesn't have the best lock, and the walls are drywall," Dipper said, wiping off the dirt from journal #3. "If he finds something heavy enough, with that strength of his? He can kick right through the wall if he keeps trying. We've got to keep him from working on that long enough."
"I'll stay back by the door," Wendy said. "I've got the longest and sharpest weapon, he'll be more scared to rush at me. Soos, if you wanna sit this out-"
"Nah, I'm cool dude." Soos said, putting on a football helmet from...somewhere.
"Okay," Stan said, adjusting his own makeshift armor (a group of tied-together totem pole pieces). "One, two-"
On "three" the shack burst in, spears raised and ready for anything.
Except maybe their quarry casually sitting on top of a pile of gas tanks, smiling wickedly.
The Shack's crew quickly regained their composure, banding together in a rough phalanx. "All-right, you vertically-challenged thieving freak," Stan began, raising his cane. "This is your one and only warning. You not only have a piece of my property, but have badly damaged my property in an attempt to kidnap one of my employees after trying to eat a rental exhibit alive. Hand over that thing around your neck, and leave quietly, and maybe I'll avoid displaying you as the latest attraction. On a pin."
Cadwallop's grin expanded by a couple teeth. "If and when that occurs, can I request a name for that?"
Stan blinked. He knew that tone of voice. He used it whenever one of his cons reached its best possible conclusion.
"The, ahem, Fireproof Hunter."
It was at that point the Shack, contemplating this, realized they had missed something.
The smell of gas.
...Crud.
As the Shack dived, the dwarf held up a hand over a nearby can's valve.
Said hand ignited.
A couple miles away, the gnomes held their ears in pain due to a terrible, ghastly noise.
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Ringing.
The world was a bell, and it was ringing.
This caliber of observation was all Dipper was capable of at the moment.
His vision, at least, was a little quicker than his ears in rebooting. Probably a little faster than it at first seemed, because the white he had mistaken for an afterimage was, on second glance, actually there.
It was a beam of sunlight, to be precise. Which probably spoke something as to the power of the blast, as the storage room had no windows. Probably
Despite hurting in the everywhere, Dipper was able to slowly brace himself against the wall and look around. Thankfully, the other members of the Shack family, while singed, just seemed dazed and largely immobile.
Unfortunately, Cadwallop was neither of those things.
If the dwarf looked completely unharmed, things would actually be less surreal. As it was, his breeches were scorched and partially burned off altogether; his clothes weren't made of whatever his species was, apparently. He also appeared to be choking on ash, but, after a couple hard coughs, he regained his composure and normal breathing. The fully-bloomed roses on the Claw had started to wilt, but nothing about it seemed even blackened by the soot.
He opened his mouth, but his voice was distant and quiet. Ear overload, Dipper guessed.
"Job well done. Lovely catches "
As muttered to himself, he pulled out a vial of something with a stopper that, on being removed, turned out to also have a needle attached. A needle with which he quickly pierced each of Dipper's friends and family, then Dipper.
It didn't hurt. It didn't have any sensation at all.
Soon, neither did much of his body. A paralytic poison, Dipper guessed. But why didn't Cadwallop use that in projectiles?
Also, what the heck was he planning?
"...Should get good coup for this," Cadwallop muttered, leaning over Dipper himself, then Mabel. "Maybe even get let in Wild Hunts, finally."
The pyrokinetic dwarf began to pace from human to human, leaning over each as he came to them.
"You two, there's always some worth in a set of twins. You, I don't think you'll pass muster, he doesn't like those near the end of their fates. You, you're a redhead, he likes those, says they're good soothsayers. And you, my chubby arm-stabbing friend...hm…"
Cadwallop jumped on Soos, then proceeded to use his belly as a trampoline for a couple jumps, apparently testing it (and ignoring the wince from the handyman).
"Mostly fat. No small amount of muscle. Hmm."
He drew Soos' wallet from the handyman's pocket after a small search. "Jesus Alzamirano Ramirez," Cadwallop read from the driver's license. "That's a nice name, too."
A small grin came to the dwarf's face as jumped off Soos.
And then drew his knife.
"I don't think they'll mind so much if it's mine."
If anyone could have screamed as the dwarf loped over to Soos neck, they would have.
The dwarf leaned over, revealing a small red dot in the middle of his disfigured head-
Wait, dot?
A peal of what sounded like thunder echoed through the air.
From Soos' perspective, Cadwallop's eyes went wide with shock.
And then blank, shortly before falling backwards, a newfound hole in the back of his head leaking sap, a hole which could be seen by everyone.
All humans present went unconscious again at that, the darkness taking them as a large figure, shadowed and hulking, walked through the hole in the wall.
----------------------
Dipper awoke to the scent of honey and burning wood.
Given what had just happened before he fell unconscious, he woke up extremely quickly.
Thankfully, the wood was just a bunch of logs in a campfire, not the Shack. In fact, as Dipper's vision cleared, he realized he could see the distinct red of fire trucks out in the distance, along with the familiar brown of the intact Mystery Shack.
Of course, there was also the campfire itself. More specifically, the apparent builder of it.
He was almost certainly the figure he had seen just before he had fallen into unconsciousness, an apparently male humanoid so covered by a large lumberjack's coat, a hood, gloves, and ragged-looking jeans. How he found those was beyond Dipper, as he had to be slightly bigger than Manly Dan himself, though less overtly brawny (although it was hard to tell-again, the coat). The honey smell seemed to be coming from an out-of-place thermos he was apparently slipping.
More startling was the sniper rifle resting at his side, next to an ugly little wooden figurine.
Wincing, Dipper began to slowly rise to his hands and legs without actually alerting the strange figure, a strangely crab-like effort-
The figure froze, his head rising a bit.
"So you are vaking, zen?"
A very thick Russian accent underscored a fittingly deep voice. Busted.
Dipper weighed the benefits of saying absolutely nothing versus confronting this stranger versus getting more information.
Information won out. "Where are my friends?", Dipper managed to wheeze out.
The figure pointed directly behind the boy. Sure enough, the other humans were laid out on various smooth rocks in a small forest clearing.
"I did not bring any of ze creature comforts, and I did not wish robbing you for zem," the figure continued, not facing Dipper. "Sorry."
Dipper eased up slightly, to the extent he could be tense at the moment. "Who are-"
"I am thinking you want having your druz'ya awake for that, no?" The figure shrugged. "You are having resistance to ze alkonost venom, but I am doubting zey are far behind."
He held out his thermos. "Sbiten? Russian cocoa, but has honey, not chocolate."
Dipper shook his head. This guy was at least polite, but he was still a strange gunman who just killed a sapient being.
That was trying to kill Soos, but one didn't lug a sniper rifle around for self-defense.
...Speaking of strange, why was he warming himself in this heat?
Apparently the stranger could read minds. "Hope you are not minding my fire," the giant said. "I never warm, even in summer month. In particular in summer month."
Okay. Weird, but logical.
In a few minutes, every other member of the Shack was coughing and propping themselves up on their rocks. And attempting to scurry off before the figure held up his gloved hand.
"So, thinking introduction is being in order." The giant finally turned around, revealing his face…
To be under a ski mask. Either he was really cold at all times, or someone really wanted to hide his identity. Or both.
"Please, be calling me Ved. I am the one to be helping you with your Teihiihan problem."
Ved paused, apparently expecting a thank you.
"...You killed him," Mabel replied, flatly.
Ved shrugged. "In sense."
"In, in a sense?" Mabel actually looked like she might attack him, even given her less-than-mobile state. "Buster, there's not a lot of variation between making someone dead. He's dead, because-"
"He vas only half-alive beginning with."
Mabel blinked. "Sorry?"
The giant moved the figurine in front of him.
The figurine that looked to be a perfect representation of Cadwallop's corpse. With bullet wound.
Stan caught on first. "...That's his actual body, isn't it."
"No soul, no meat corpse. So is for all hobgoblins in human world. Make own job easier."
Mabel blinked. On the one hand, soul or no soul, he had a mind…
But on the other, he was killed in the middle of trying to murder Soos after he tried to eat a monkey alive. So maybe the morality of the action was a bit vague here.
"Wait, human world? Are you saying that's an alien?" Dipper's voice had returned to normal, which really helped in getting over the sheer confusion in his tone.
"In sense. Hobgoblin. Least fairy, native to borderlands of fae world."
Wendy got up, unsteadily. "...Fairy? That's a fairy!?"
"Disney and Victorian writers have much answering to do." Ved shoved the wooden corpse away from him. "Is old-time fairy. Mischievous and alien best, child thieves and storybook monsters worst. For Teihiihan's case, hunting men for food and sport. Take names of prey zey are most proud of."
It didn't take long before the implications of this particular tradition sunk in. Soos weighed the benefits of fainting dead away once more, while his friends began regretting eating, ever.
"...Leaving that aside," Stan interjecting after he finished retching, "What's it matter to you? Don't get me wrong, you saved all our lives, and you have the rare prize of my genuine gratitude, but you don't haul a sniper rifle around because you think it really completes the 'mysterious wanderer' look."
"Nice work on that, by the way," Mabel added. "Do you have any notes on where you got that coat? I think I can make it work for a girl-thank you!" she ended as Ved wordlessly showed her a brand tag under his hood.
"Pozhaluysta," the giant replied. "To you, Barnumist old man; vas hunting his tribe. Attacked my Court."
"Your...court?" Dipper said, trying to remember something that might put this in context. Court was generally referring to a collection of aristocrats and their retainers, so maybe this guy was either a knight or-wait, who would have knights in the modern day? Or whatever the Russian equivalent-
"This wouldn't happen to be, say, the Seelie Court, dude?" Soos interrupted. "I read it in a fanfic once that fae divide themselves into courts of good and evil, and I figure some guy who goes around hunting fairies might be kind of like that one series, Found Boy. A policeman fae, only more viol-actually, now that I think about it, maybe a policeman fae, period."
Ved stood silently for a few minutes, before shrugging. "Nyet. I am not member of Seelie Court."
Then, suddenly, he pulled off his mask. "Seelies are Irish institution."
The face under the mask looked...furry. Broad, flat, and slightly misshapen (as if it was beaten into shape by a hammer taken to a more normal face), but very furry. Brown fur that, strangely, actually seemed to grow out from and into his mouth as well. While his eyes weren't nearly as inhuman as the living Cadwallop's had been (in fact, they were a quite nice shade of brown), his right was a lot larger than the other, to the point where one would be forgiven for thinking that he only had the one.
It also gave the shack a chance to tell his expression was one of mild discomfort. "Forgive manners for second," the giant said shortly before opening his mouth and extending his tongue. His veryfurry tongue.
The Shack got the sense they should be more weirded out by this than they were. After living in Gravity Falls, though, discovering a good Samaritan was a giant-in-the-actually-a-Russian-yeti sense wasn't even that surprising.
Said tongue also seemed to have caught a bit of ski mask wool on it, and after the offending thread was removed, Ved returned to his former, relaxed position. "Should probably learn to shave that, but...is tongue."
Everyone winced at that.
After the spectre of shaver blades near a rather sensitive organ passed, however, the tide came in.
"Back up: Fae world?"
"Why did I have anything fae wanted in my possession?"
"Know any hot, tween-ish elf-boys not adverse to humans?"
"You know any cobbler elves dude? I could really use some help with my sneakers."
Ved rose his arms. "Please! Pozhaluista, one at time!"
Everyone rose their arms, but Stan was a bit quicker. "Like I said, how the heck did I end up with anything the fae wanted, and why did it look so normal?"
"Is zis?" asked Ved as he pulled the Cursed Claw of Crowowlar, now looking like a normal toy again, out of his pants pocket. "I have nyet clue as vhy you have it, but I can tell is powerful Token. Fae magic item, protected by Mask zat make it seem...not magic."
"Oh. Well, how much are you willing to pay?"
"Kakoi?"
"Well, you've seen the damages that thief caused." Stan shrugged. "I'm already going to need a loan as is, I really think that having it is kind of a stupid idea if any others-"
"Hold for second. Need phrasing being correct"
Ved silently mouthed some words in English before clearing his throat.
"Magic for magic, service for service. As you have bestowed your bounty on me, I shall give my bounty on you. May fate erase all trials caused to you and yours by my former lords and their minions, as this item eases all trials that I suffer. Should one violate the property and trust of the other, may winter give him trials sevenfold."
The giant held out a hand.
It didn't take very long at all for Stan to realize this had something to do with fae hocus pocus.
Given the contracts he made and read in the past, the spoken terms seemed...fair, if vague. "...The 'violation' bit includes any trials cause by you in the future, yes? And it will prevent future robbery by your, eh, former lords?"
"Da. Is little bonus, because former lords are…" Ved shivered. "...bad."
"Deal," Stan said as he took the gloved hand.
And felt a very cold wind suddenly curl around his hand as they shook. With a yelp, Stan withdrew his hand.
Inside his hand was a lottery ticket, lightly dusted with snowflakes. A lottery ticket that was already scratched, revealing a perfect win.
"Should pay for damages and lost time, I am thinking."
Stan promptly decided that old-time fae were pretty awesome.
Wendy held up a hand. "Whoa whoa. Can I go next?"
"Da."
"What was that about saying you were pursuing this jerk's...tribe?"
The mood immediately soured when the others were reminded of that. There were more of these things?
"Is true. Zey mass here, wood useful for garrison outside fae borderlands."
It took absolutely no time at all for a thousand horrible scenarios for what a bunch of other psychotic warriors with a cannibalistic streak a mile wide would do to the denizens of the town and forest to occur to the humans.
"...We're going to help you," Dipper began. "We'll take a short break, buy up supplies, find a posse or something-"
"You can't," Ved interjected.
...Huh? "Why not?" Mabel said, raising an eyebrow. "I said I liked the look, not that you had to be, because being a mysterious wanderer is not only lonely, but kind of stupid-"
"I know is dumb," Ved began. "But I…"
The giant inhaled. "Interesting tidbit for fae pacts. Is not metaphorical when I say what punishment for breaking will be, if old man or I try to cheat terms directly, winter-themed bad things will occur to rule-breaker."
"Er, yeah, but I don't see...how…" Dipper trailed off as the implication of Ved's words presented themselves.
"...Somebody made you swear to do this alone," the boy finished.
"Is neither confirmed nor denied," Ved replied, his attention apparently elsewhere.
Mabel narrowed her eyes. "Well, can you at least tell the forest monsters how to defend themselves? And the rest of the town? Come to think of it, why can't you just walk up to that somebody and ask-"
"Excuse rudeness, but must recite loyalty pledge." Ved cleared his throat, inhaling. "'Is duty to human and Lost alike zat the Strangers do not gain further interest in world, is the duty of Sheriff to silence knowledge unneeded by those we protect from Arcadia's hungers, and is not the place of the Sheriff to decide what knowledge is needed'..." he finished, looking intently to the Shack.
"...And they've sworn you to secrecy as well dude!?" Soos looked outright disbelieving. "Boy, I think you should probably come work for us someday, at least Mr. Pines just keeps his cloak-and-dagger stuff to himself."
Stan shrugged, looking slightly sheepish.
"Is neither confirmed nor denied." The giant made his way over to a placid pool, using a bucket to quench the fire. "Will say one thing zat is defined as 'needed' though."
Ved looked directly at the Shack's employees, intent and serious.
"Don't go to Bishopgate."
With that, he waved his hand over the pond, causing it to freeze into a reflective mirror. He then proceeded to hoist up Cadwallop's remains, then to tap on the surface three times using his foot.
Wendy's eyebrows shot up. "Wait, isn't that the old mental asylum with those weird-"
She was cut off when the pool unfolded.
Where before there was a small, mirror like puddle of a pool, there was now a bunch of thick, green vines covered with giant thorns reaching out into the world, surrounding what appeared to be a starcase down into someplace green and sunlit.
Before anyone could get in a word in edgewise, the giant descended into the pool-portal, the wooden corpse and sniper rifle in tow, looking for all the world like he was descending into the Underworld.
As the top of his head cleared the portal, the vines folded in, and then it was just a pool again, already starting to melt in the summer heat.
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Next Time: Going To Bishopgate
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A/N: For the five of you WoD fans that didn't figure it out yet; yep, it's a Changeling: the Lost crossover.
Well that, and Hunter: the Vigil, but everyone who actually looks for mysteries is already crossing over. I could make a Gravity Falls alone fic and call it a crossover in that case.
Giygas
Cutest Sawk i could find. Lucario is a nice extra.
Good, then i will check it for curiosity. Even if it will be useless when betaing the fanfic.
And now, because i am evil, i am going to reveal a startling revelation!!!
..... I am not the only beta of this fanfic, so any lateness is now the other beta fault.
And now, because i am evil, i am going to reveal a startling revelation!!!
..... I am not the only beta of this fanfic, so any lateness is now the other beta fault.