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Gideon set the newspaper down and sighed. He knew he should leave what was well enough be, and yet…
It all came back to demons, didn’t it? Demons were how he got into this mess. He had let Bill feed his ego, convince him that he deserved, needed, so much more than he had. Convince him to throw it all away for a ridiculous mockery of a prize. Demons were also how he was finding his redemption, making sure that no one would make the same mistakes that had lead to the transcendence. He was quite good at ritual disruption, starting to study magic two years before the transcendence gave him a bit of an edge. The charisma of a con man certainly helped as well.
And now there was an uptick in activity in the town he had once called home. It wasn’t any of his business. He didn’t live there and the people who did didn’t want him there. It was one of the few places on the planet that had multiple people far more qualified than him to handle the problem. He didn’t need to make an effort to follow Corduroy’s career to know that she was one of the top ranked demon hunters on the planet. One of the only true hunters, really, as most people stuck to the same humanly plausible route that he preferred: preventing the demon from entering the physical plane in the first place. But Wendy went above and beyond and seemed to take active glee in tackling the biggest challenges she could. And yet, she didn’t seem to be making any attempt to defend her home town.
It really wasn't his business.
His eyes drifted back to the headline. He couldn’t really blame Wendy for not doing anything to stop it, an SS class demon was pretty firmly past anyone’s ability to stop, even her. It was definitely and unquestionably far, far outside of his own capabilities. Gideon was already lucky to be alive considering that he had a personal encounter with this demon; a few years after the transcendence when he was is a particularly strong bout of depression it had suddenly seemed like a great idea to summon a demon to “get revenge” on anyone he could think to blame for where he was in life. He may have been high at the time, he may have just been a fucked up teen, he genuinely couldn’t remember anymore. In the wisdom of the impulsive and the resentful he picked the biggest, baddest demon anyone knew about. In the end, it laughed at him for the enter duration of the summon. It then returned, using its own energy, and laughed at him some more before commenting “God, you think you might have learned after the last time”, and causally leaving the highly warded circle to pinch Gideon’s check. That had been the last time Gideon even considered summoning anything. That had been when he drew a line in the sand about ever messing with an S class or above.
And yet.
He liked the people in Gravity Falls. Sure, they could sometimes be a little too trusting for their own good, but you would never find a friendlier community. Leaving it behind made him all too aware how rare that would be some places. The people of the falls had gone through so much, he had personally put them through so much, and yet, by all accounts that Gideon could find, they managed to retain that kindness. He missed it. He missed other things he associated with the falls too, Things he knew he really shouldn’t as he really only knew her a week. When he was ten. A decade ago.
Sometimes he really hated his brain.
It really wasn’t his business at all, but he was still worried about Mabel Pines. He knew that she had moved to Gravity Falls permanently a few years after the Transcendence. He also knew that he shouldn’t know that, but sometimes he had a bad day and social media made it so very easy. He knew a lot of things about her that he probably shouldn’t. Nothing private, but a lot of things that were definitely not intended for him personally.
It was nice to see she was doing well. She had recovered fairly well from her brothers death, although she did make the occasional comment that made Gideon suspect that she might be haunted by his ghost, but it was probably good for both of them considering how traumatic of a death it had been. Dipper had always been pretty stubborn, but he would move on when the twins were ready. Anyway, if there was an actual problem Mabel did occasionally live with Ford, and if there is anything Gideon took from their relatively brief time together in the Fearamid it was that Stanford Pines would do what needed to be done. If Dipper’s ghost was lingering then Gideon was confident that Ford would have made sure that he hadn’t developed a murderous resentment of the living or anything of the sort.
Mabel definitely seemed to be doing pretty well, but Gideon could only imagine how much it would hurt to now have another close run in with a being like that which had murdered her brother, after all the healing she must have fought to accomplish after his death.
He took a deep breath.
This wasn’t his business.
This was out of his league.
He was definitely starting to get some obsessive thoughts.
He should probably call his therapist.
She would tell him to do something that would occupy his mind. Play a video game. Listen to a podcast and go on a walk. Do something distracting until he felt more in control of his thoughts.
That was almost certainly what she would say. It wouldn’t be hard to convince him not to do anything rash, there were many, many, reasons that going to Gravity Falls would be an awful idea.
There was a new “magic” shop that had opened up nearby. He had been meaning to check it out for a while, see if there was anything actually worthwhile or if it was just a scam. It looked pretty suspect. He would definitely enjoy going and finding every lie they actually managed to sell people, and on the off chance that the owners actually knew what they were talking about then it’s always good to network.
He had many good options for what to do with his day.
He had many mediocre options for what to do with his day.
But then again, his travel pack was already prepared in case a high priority case came up, and his therapist did say that she thought it would be a good idea to go back to the Falls at some point to get some closure. And sleeping on it might (would) be a good idea, but he just got a notification from the search program he had to find specific keywords on the web that suggested that a cult of morons that didn’t understand proper internet security was planning something near Gravity Falls tomorrow and if he left now he could get there with time to prepare…
He really shouldn’t, he reflected as he double checked his bag to make sure he wasn’t forgetting something. But he would have lots of time to convince himself of this on the 12 hour drive.
As it turned out, he had forgotten something. Despite bringing enough miscellaneous occult paraphernalia to make a coalition of dragons give serious pause, he had not grabbed any liquids (excluding holy water), perishable food, toothpaste, or any reasonable outerwear for a chilly autumn evening in Oregon. Fortunately all these things could be easily acquired at gas stations and so did not prove to be any reason at all for possibly stopping the ill-advised escapade before it began.
He made record time, advantageously as the forest around Gravity Falls was immense, and even if the cult had been careless enough to discuss their plans on a searchable forum they hadn’t been so kind as to specify the GPS coordinates that they were going to actually cast the ritual at. He had a lot of prep work ahead of him.
It was getting dark fast. Gideon had forgotten how completely darkness took the pine forests at night, here without even the occasional streetlight to spill its light past the street, past its purpose and into the surrounding earth and sky. He had spent a lot of time recently in hidden depths of cities, the warehouses and sewers. They were dark, but it was a different kind of dark. A confined darkness, where no matter how black it was you could feel the walls that surround you and hear the buzz of cars and people to remind you that this was merely a small pocket of seclusion, that the darkness had an end and it was never truly far. It wasn’t like that here. The darkness was vast and endless, a quiet but persistent reminder that everything that humanity touched was just a small pocket of hard-earned habitability in a vast and treacherous world that would one day take it all back.
He didn’t remember feeling this way the last time he was here, when the forest was part of him and the darkness felt like the reassuring presence of a friend. Then again, he had also been ten and hadn’t yet been responsible for the almost apocalypse. Things change.
He had located the cultists. It wasn’t terribly hard, they either had never heard of stealth or assumed that the sheer size of the forest would protect them. They were talking quietly among themselves, and were setting up torches for illumination. There were a lot of them. More than Gideon had expected. More, if he was going to be honest, then he was quite ready to handle. In the center of the group he could see a huddled figure. Possibly several huddled figures, the tree he was in wasn’t exactly a fantastic vantage point. Probably several, judging from the positions of the robed figures around them. He couldn’t quite tell if they had guns or knives, but they were definitely loosely holding some weapons, casually waving them around with no regards to basic safety.
In some little way it was comforting to know that no matter how fucked up he was there were people who were so very much worse.
Mostly it was not comforting.
Mostly it was just depressing.
It would have been really nice if Ghost-eyes and the gang were actually in the country right now. Somehow the Toronto Topiary Festival managed to get more inconvenient in it’s timing each year.
It began to occur to him that he probably should have spent less time worrying about whether it was a bad idea or not to go to Gravity Falls and more time on whether he was actually capable of taking on this job.
There were about fifteen of them. There were three(?) hostages. There was a summoning circle for Alcor, because of course it was fucking Alcor, being spraypainted onto the cleared ground. And he hadn’t bothered coming up with a plan beforehand.
His thoughts were interrupted by a voice. It didn’t sound like the low murmurs of any of the cultists.
A short stocky person had made their way into the cluster of cultists. The hair they had tied back was bulky and poofy like the tail of an alarmed squirrel. In the dark lighting their outfit was completely indiscernible, it was uneven and lumpy and sat heavily upon them. They were wearing mask.
It was completely impossible to ignore the mask.
It appeared to be a shitty plastic rabbit mask, and its very existence made Gideon uneasy in ways that were almost impossible to articulate. Many things about it defied articulation. It looked like something that you might find a box of behind a store a month after Easter had passed, the store owner having finally admitted to themself that no matter how much they put it on sale no one would ever spend any money on it, and in fact if any customer found it among their things they might pay the store to take it back. Overall it gave the impression that the wearer was straight from a CGI movie made in two weeks by an overworked animation studio whose whole business plan was to put out things that had close enough titles to real movies that someone's legally blind uncle might be fooled into buying them.
Despite the mask, their voice was calm and clear.
“It seems you’re new here, so let us explain how this works. You guys are going to leave. You have the option to just leave now, pretend this whole thing never happened, no one gets hurt and you can, I don’t know, get a hobby or something. You also have the option of leaving with the police. It is pretty late though, and they like their beauty sleep almost as much as they hate having to deal with cults.”
“Are they actually trying to threaten us?” One of the cultists asked the general area. “Who the dick are you?”
A different cultist, who Gideon was assuming was the leader as they were wearing slightly more layers in their robe and hadn’t actually been doing any of the set-up work, disdainfully walked over to the mask wearer.
“No, I don’t think that’s how this is going to work, actually.” The leader said, pointing a large athame at the mask wearer. “You see, we are completing the sacred task of summon our Lord, and one foolish interloper is not going to stop us. Your coming here was a mistake, but I think one easily rectifiable. We can always use another sacrifice.”
“Sooooooo…” Mask said, “the hard way then?” They turned away from the leader, towards seemingly nothing. “That’s definitely the hard way right?”
“Face the power of Alcor and know true despair, foolish interloper.”
The mask wearer laughed. “Did you really just…” They tuned to the apparent nothingness again. “Are they always this much of a walking cliche? No wonder you’re always- oh right.” She turned back to the leader. “We fear not the might of your false lord, as nothing you could possibly throw at us holds anything to the light of-” They turned away from the leader again. “What is it - oh, fiiiiine.”
With one smooth action they seemed to pull a bat from their previously empty hand.
“Alright, you kidnapped a bunch of campers so you could murder them. We aren’t okay with that. Let’s just do this already.” With their words a burst of blue fire erupted, swirling around them in a blinding vortex that passed harmlessly through everyone present before settling as a ring around the ritual, quickly building up in size and intense heat.
Gideon carefully climbed a bit higher to put some distance between himself and the heat. The fire didn’t seem to be actually burning anything, the dry pine needles that carpet the area remained unaffected, without even slightly twitching in the strong currents of hot air that Gideon could swear he felt.
It still smelled like pine though. Burning pine trees and flesh.
A piece of equipment vibrated helpfully in Gideon’s pocket to let him know that there was, in fact, some demonic magic in the area. He was so glad that he made sure to bring it instead of backup.
Somehow, against all odds, the bunny mask managed to look even shittier in the improved lighting. Flaking patches of glitter sparkled brightly in a tackier manor than should have been possible.
“This is your last warning. Throw down your weapons, no one needs to get hurt.” Mask said. Blue fire covered their bat and licked at their hands.
The leader laughed. “That’s a nice party trick you’ve got there, but you-”
He stopped talking as the bat smashed the hand that was holding his athame into his ribs. A loud crack echoed across the small clearing. The leader crumpled to the ground, releasing a high pitched wail.
For a moment it was still. The mask wearer tapped the air next to them, producing a small blue spark.
One of the cultists shouted, and as a group they aggressed, knives flashing in the flickering light.
The mask grinned, cheap plastic stretching like putty to reveal far too many sharp teeth. The wearer lunged forward at the nearest cultist.
A small object detached itself from the fighter and slowly floated towards the hostages.
Towards the back of the collective of cultists one stood back, picking a rifle from the scattered supplies. The rest fanned out around the interloper, who was crouched low to the ground over their latest victim.
The floating object reached the hostages. Close to the edge of the fire ring it looked to be made of cloth, like some sort of doll or puppet. The hostages huddled close to it.
Knives started to swing. The bat was fast to deflect and to disarm, but the numbers of the cultists counted for a lot and the bats range advantage was cut short by the close confines of the combat. Outside the direct conflict, a man was shouting orders over the turbulent rhapsody of colliding weapons, screams, and worried murmurs of the combatants.
A knife landed true, sinking into the masked fighters thigh.
The shouting man smirked, and became more animated in his dictations.
The masked figure started laughing, grating and high pitched, almost of fit of giggles but slightly too intense. The cultists fighting them hesitated, just for a moment. They turned to face the man giving orders, and lunged through the concerned wall of fighters, blood dripping from their leg, laughter echoing through the trees. They slammed into the shouting man, who stumbled back, fumbling for his knife. Before he could secure it, the mask’s mouth opened, seeming to tear the plastic in half, the two halves splitting widely from each other, only held together with a few strings of plastic along their edges and nothing but a vast darkness between them. It closed sharply and suddenly on the man’s shoulder, as the masked fighter pushed him further back.
The man fell backwards, screaming. A large hunk of his shoulder fell into the dark abyss of the mask, which then closed back into smooth plastic, a mouth painted on and glitter falling off.
“Nope,” The person with the rifle said, tossing it aside. They sat down and put their hands on their head. “Nope, nope, that’s… I’m out.”
The rest of the cultists seemed to share a similar sentiment, nervously looking around at one another, completely unsure how to process what just happened.
Mask tapped the air next to themself again, and the circle of flame drew closer, passing over where the hostages were and blocking them from the cultists.
“So,” Mask said gleefully, swinging their bat onto their shoulder, “Is there anyone else who would like to show us the, what was it, ‘true power of Alcor’?” They laughed. “Or are we done playing around?”
“His arm… what the fuck was that?” One of the cultists stammered.
“Uh, we ate part of his shoulder, doy? It was kiiiiiinda this big climatic thing. Were you like, not paying attention or something?” They crossed their arms, bat sticking out behind them. “So does anyone else have questions or are we ready to move onto the bit where you’re all arrested?”
The original leader propped himself up, tightly gripping his chest. “Do you actually think that the police are just going to come and tidy this all away? Vigilante justice isn’t exactly legal either you know, and looking at what you did to Chadwell, you’re just as fucked up as any of us. More so even.”
“Okay, let me tell you a thing.” Mask crouched down to the sitting leaders level. “You’re in Gravity Falls. Gravity Falls has two police officers, both of them from before the Transcendence. They are sweet guys, very good at dealing with the various domestic problems you mostly get around here. They are not good at dealing with violent conflict. I don’t think Durland is actually allowed to touch something as dangerous as a knife after that whole stint with the cactus. They are also really tired of random weirdos who think they know things about magic waltzing into the area bringing violence with them, which is starting to happen all the time. They really aren’t equipped to dealing with that, nor do they want to.
“So what’s going to happen here is not a thorough investigation while a full story is slowly produced. No, what’s going to happen is this: that fire is going to go away, the officers will come over having already talked to those people that you kidnapped, they will see you with all your knives and guns and me,” they slid their transformed bat onto their hand, “ with my simple ring, and I will tell them that I heard some shouts and investigated and in the heat of the moment was forced to use some self defence. They will nod and write down simply that a concerned citizen did what they had to and then they are going to ask absolutely no questions. Then they will get the fucking soup squad over here for the one thing that they’re good at and they won't ask any questions either because they don’t want to do any work and will just write down whatever makes their night shortest. You tried to murder some people, and potentially endanger the world, for personal gain. There is absolutely no one on your side.”
“Heh,” the leader said. “You’re really selling us on this whole surrender deal. Why should we just go along with all of that? We sure as hell aren’t going to just let ourselves be taken in by the fucking soup squad!”
“Oh I think you are. You’re going to go along with it because even though the American justice system is a cesspool of corruption and the soup squads have their heads so far up their antimagic agenda it’s amazing they can get within a mile of the Falls without trying to commit brutality on the trees,” Mask leaned into the leader's face, bloody mask almost touching him. Blue flames rose from their pony tale, voiding their mask out as a haunting silhouette. “We are much, much worse.”
Mask bounced up, their hair extinguishing with the upward movement. “So!” They clapped their hands together. “Does anyone else have anything to say or should we get this over with?”
The remaining cultists were quiet. The fire circling them all died down and things proceeded almost exactly how Mask said they would. The officers were already there, waiting by the blanket-wrapped group of former sacrifices. Mask didn’t take off their mask while talking to the officers. The officers didn’t seem to care. The cultists were loaded into a secure bus, their victims a car.
Once everyone had left, Mask sagged, pulling out their bat to lean on. “Okay non-vital or not this cut is killing me. You wanna?” They laughed. “God you’re so weird.”
They tapped the air again, producing another small spark. They quickly regained their posture and walked back towards the town.
Gideon stayed in the tree for at least another hour.
-------------
Mabel walked her fingers across the row of books with a sigh. Turning the shack into a library had been a fantastic idea; everyone but Stan agreed that Stan was getting too old to keep using the same “unsavory” methods of alternative income, and the area already had a massive amount of supernatural scholars coming anyway because of the reputation the town had quickly gained. The problem was that no one in the family actually knew a thing about running a library and the haphazard system they came up with was functional, but an awful lot more work than seemed necessary.
At least her leg was mostly healed from the cult-bashing she had to do earlier in the week. She really needed to talk to Dipper about being more careful in her body. She couldn’t blame him for getting the wound but his actions had aggravated it more than was probably necessary. Then again she hadn’t been great on it either…
She found the spot that the book she had belonged. For people who thought so highly of their intelligence scholars seemed to have no ability to comprehend how to put things where they belonged. They had color-coded scratch and sniff stickers, it really shouldn’t be this hard.
Wasn’t that really cute cousin of Wendy’s a librarian? Could she ask him about that or would that be too forward? Or too “reminding you of your job”-y? Maybe she could ask Wendy to bring it up casually? Would that be weird?
Her thoughts were interrupted by the light chiming of the door. It would be the first patron they’d had in a few hours. The start of the school year was a pretty quiet time for them.
She turned to check out the visitor and stopped.
“Hey, Gideon,” She said slowly. “Been awhile, huh?”
He was looking at her oddly. Not the sort of oddly she remembered when they were younger and he was weirdly obsessed with her, but like he was concerned.
Dipper rose out of the basement through the floor.
“This place is really different, huh?” Gideon said. “I knew it was turned into a library but somehow I figured it would still be the same gift shop just with books.”
There was a few moments of silence.
“So…” Mabel entwined her fingers with each other. “Can I help you find something or…”
“Mabel I... “ Gideon looked pointedly at the ceiling. “I found out… I know your secret. I know that you’re Mizar.”
“Well doy.” Mabel laughed, “that’s not really a secret. I mean, not from anyone here.”
“But why?” Gideon said loudly. “Why would you do things like that?”
“Oh my god.” Dipper’s eyes were wide. “He - He doesn’t know? It’s been like six years and he still hasn’t figured it out? He found out you are Mizar and STILL can’t put the pieces together?”
“I mean, he hasn’t been around, it isn’t that obvious” Mabel said.
“No you don’t understand, he literally summoned me. A few years ago. I had honestly assumed he figured it out from that? I laughed at him for the whole summon. I wasn’t even that demonic for it?”
“Who are you talkin’ to?” Gideon said, taking a step back.
“Don’t tell him, I want to see him try to figure this one out for himself. I got a few years to kill.”
“Would you stop being a jerk for five minutes.” She reached into the bag on her book cart. “Anyway I’m not going to bother explaining this mess. We’re doing this the easy way.”
She pulled out candybar from the bag.
“Oy Dipper get your dumb butt corporeal already.”
The candy vanished in a puff of flame.
Dipper was lounging in the air above Mabel’s cart, grinning unnervingly widely, staring straight at Gideon with his golden eyes. His wings gently flapped.
“Yo.”
“What?” Gideon shouted. “How could? What?”
“Hey,” Dipper floated toward the blond, holding a finger in front of his mouth. “Shush. You’re in a library.
“But how can.” Gideon said, more quietly. “You died! I was there!”
“Well you know how it is.” Dipper flipped his wrist. “Sometimes, when a boy hits a certain age, he gets possessed by a demon while helping perform a mysterious banishing ritual, horrifically burned to death, and becomes a demon cause he’s just too stubborn to die.” He shook his head slowly. “Your dad really should have explained all of this years ago.”
“Well this does explain our last encounter I suppose.” Gideon’s brows were furrowed, his downward gaze detached from anything.
“Honestly I’m amazed that you didn’t notice then. I really assumed you would have.”
“You thought I knew and you just let me be?” Gideon stared at the demon.
“Well yeah?” Dipper said. “Is there some reason I shouldn’t have?”
“It is a rather dangerous amount of knowledge isn’t it? I would assume that you would be trying to keep it a secret.”
“The thing about that is,” Dipper put his palms together. “I like people. I like interacting with sentient entities. I don’t, however, have the capacity to pass for humanish 100% of the time. Even ignoring my, uh, occasionally inconsistent temperament, the whole being incorporeal thing as well as being randomly yanked from whatever I’m doing really gets in the way of that. But this is Gravity Falls. We were there when it happened. Everyone here gets it. And to be real, even if I tried to hide it from anyone who wasn’t a Pines, someone would probably figure it out anyway. Let’s see, Mabel’s brother dies via demon then weird things keep happening around her and huh there’s a demon about… what could be???” He laughed.” And anyway, Alcor and Mizar? The twin stars of the Big Dipper? That isn’t exactly subtle, is it? I didn’t think it was that subtle.”
“It is a little obvious,” Mable confirmed. “But all the names you suggested were stupid.”
“So my tastes were obnoxiously edgy. I was a dead fourteen year old, it’s part of the package.”
“He actually suggested Sephiroth because he liked the theme in Kingdom Souls.” Mabel snickered.
“If we’re going to talk about my absurd fanboying over that game I think my genuinely sincere suggestion of Xripped was probably worse.” Dipper put a hand over his face. “Xyrenot might have been almost tolerable though.”
“You’re just saying that cause you like the name Tyrone.” Mabel chided.
“If I genuinely liked Tyrone more then my name then it would be my name. It’s not like mom and dad can really control how I present anymore.” He sighed. “Anyway Gideon, you were at the Fearamid, you’ve earned the shitty consolation prize of my identity.”
“But I don’t belong here anymore, not after everything I did.” Gideon said.
“Is this why you’re all burgundy?” Dipper narrowed his eyes. “You genuinely believe that, huh? You know that people have been kinda worried about you right? Just disappearing after the transcendence like that, they were worried that something had happened.”
“But, I’m the reason that Bill even came back to Gravity Falls! You two know that I summoned him, and then went around spying on everyone to get their favor... “
“You also saved everyone from a chairrible fate and were part of the Zodiac Circle. Gravity Falls has a short attention span, you’re thought of more as a hero then villain.” Dipper sighed. “Everyone’s kinda stopped chairng about what happened before the transcendence, and if we excommunicated everyone who could be blamed for Bill’s rise of power we’d be out quite a few popular citizens.”
“Also,” Mabel interjected, “you were kinda ten. Even without the whole apocalypse debacle it’s been long enough that whatever wounds random folks received for finding that a child psychic wasn’t actually psychic have probably healed by now.”
“You guys really mean it? People here like me? You like me?” Gideons watering eyes were like saucers.
Dipper flew back. “Whoa now, that is not what I said. People, yes. Me personally? I don’t actively want to kill you, but you did mess with my sister and I don’t take that lightly. Even if a lot has changed since then.”
“Well…” Mabel fiddled with her ring. “I don’t really know you anymore, and you were kinda a creep to me specifically, but I guess I would consider myself open to starting from scratch.”
“Thank you.” Gideon said. “That really means a lot to me. I think I need some time to think. And I really should call my therapist. But I’m definitely going to make a few stops around before I go home.”
“No problem,” Mabel said. “Just... don’t be a huge creep again.”
Gideon stopped for a moment. The mask tore through the cultists shoulder. The bat, the ring that she was wearing right now, knocked the leader down with a single blow.
“You know,” He said slowly, “I dare say I don’t think that is going to be a problem again. “