Chapter Text

The following is a summary of the first part of this series, Three Transmissions for those who have not or do not want to read it. It contains full spoilers for Amphibia.

Feel free to skip to the next chapter if you already know.

Ten years ago, the Frogvasion (Also called the Incursion or sometimes Newtinction) happened. It was one of the darkest and bloodiest single days in human history. Over the course of two hours nearly 14,000 people were genocided and over 143,000 injured in some way in the city of Los Angeles. Mt Lee was destroyed, and the entire ordeal was impossible to forget, write off, or cover up. Other dimensions, and travel between them, were real, and a cat had been freed that would never return to its bag.

While there are many people that were critical in the survival of LA that day, much of the credit is given to the Calamity Trio. Three middle-school girls who were at the center of the events.

Anne Boonchuy, whose stunning battle with King Andrias, live on TV and broadcast to billions around the globe, became the first true example of paranormal abilities with irrefutable proof in humanity's history. While she has no choice but to live a highly public life, if you see an "Emma Plantar" at an aquarium you are asked to gratefully respect her boundaries.

Sasha Waybright, who fought for and saved hundreds all over LA before infiltrating Andrias' floating castle and taking control of its command center. She now works as a child therapist.

Marcy Wu, who could not be at the battle on account of being captured, but was vouched for by the other two as someone who had bravely fought against Andrias and who deserved just as much recognition. Her webcomic Amphibiland is an autobiographical account of her time in Amphibia and one of our primary sources of knowledge about this alternate dimension.

And so the story went, for ten years.

Recently, the award-winning director Gregor Park has released his newest documentary, Three Transmissions. Driven by a need to investigate the mysteries and inconsistencies surrounding the Frogvasion, he invited the Calamity Trio in for interviews, and in the process Marcy Wu did something unexpected. She snuck away behind her friends' backs for a private interview, and - consumed by guilt - revealed the truth that they had been trying to hide. That she was the catalyst that let the Frogvasion happen at all, and that she felt she was responsible for the deaths of 14,000 people.

Whether she is right or not is currently a matter up for serious debate, in halls of law, learning, and (less seriously) all over the internet. Currently humanity seems to be overwhelmingly leaning toward "no."

A lot happened. Sasha got very angry. Anne got very worried. And, over time, they were slowly convinced. The lie they and their families had been telling was intended to protect Marcy, but in the process they'd robbed her of her independence and self-determination, bullied her into accepting their protection, and if she could no longer bear the lie then maybe it should stop.

As a finale, the trio, Park, and his camera crew were invited to a top-secret bunker deep under the Colorado desert. Terri Wolpaw, the engineer and scientist who had pioneered portal technology to get Anne back to Amphibia, finally had a working portal.

However, due to the incredible electrical cost of opening a portal that was large enough to be useful, they had been forced to accept aid from their contacts in the US government - in particular the FBI, DARPA and the Department of Energy. All of whom they trusted marginally more than any US corporation, but not that much more.

This facility, named Project Leif to carry on the spirit of a benign dimensional traveler, would be an utterly transparent and open scientific endeavor, and Terri assured everyone that it would never be used to oppress other dimensions or pass on the horrors of the Frogvasion. Even if they struggled to believe it a little themself.

A lot happened. Anne tried to fly when the gravity failed while the portal was opened, and then got into a fistfight with an FBI agent called Rosa Parra because she could not be allowed to go through the portal yet. But the experiment was a success - for two minutes, a connection to Amphibia was established, and a message of peace delivered.

And so Three Transmissions ended, with a request from Gregor Park that we must all become the best versions of ourselves if we are to deserve and be trusted with the power we have unlocked.

... and that's all he was allowed to show. Because a certain FBI agent knew that the second attempt at a connection to Amphibia - the one where the device had connected to another random world instead, and a pink-skinned, pointy-eared, three-eyed young woman had ran through begging for asylum - could not be shown to the public. Not yet.

But there are other factions, who do know.

Chapter Text

IN A STUDY DEEP, DEEP UNDER THE BIRDS, I WISH TO REPOSE

Stanford Pines sat back in his chair, and waited patiently. He was calm. He was not going to shout, or lose his temper, at least not at first. He allowed the comforting sight and smell of his books to envelop him. He had long ago started to associate a slight dry staleness in the air with anticipation and knowledge, and it did not calm him - at over eighty years old it still invigorated him, even though he had read everything on these shelves several times over.

He was an old man, and tired, and people kept giving him new things to worry about. And however much he deserved his rest, he knew he would never be able to take it, not if he had anything to say about it.

He smiled to himself. Rest would come when his mind finally failed him, and he could once again read these books and be surprised and delighted. Wouldn't that be nice?

The door to his study opened, and Stanford hurriedly assumed the stern glare he had prepared for this moment. As expected, it was his brother. Stanley was ageing extremely well. Sure, he had let himself go during the thirty years when Stanford had been getting vigorous, terrifying exercise exploring the multiverse, but over the last decade Stanford's body had started to fail him in ways Stanley seemed to be completely defying. Stanley had always been broad, muscular, and sturdy, and was showing no signs of stopping. Stanford would consider it unfair if he hadn't clearly got the lion's share of the twins' intelligence.

"Hey Sixer, Dipper said you wanted to see..." his twin said, before trailing off and freezing, halfway through the door. "... me."

Stanford glared at him.

"Hey, I forgot to tell you, I ate that baloney in the fridge," Stanley said, unprompted. "It's not a problem, we can order that online now." He smiled theatrically. "Ah, the future. Wouldn't you say, Sixer, that we're lucky to live in an age of wonders, where drones can deliver lunch meat whenever and wherever..."

Stanford glared at him. Stanley dropped the act.

"Okay, so you're upset. And you're doing the thing where I have to guess why."

Stanford glared at him.

"Thought so. Is it that I broke your clacky thing?"

Stanford did not glare at his Newton's Cradle. He had no idea how the balls had got magnetised to each other, but it was not clacky anymore.

But that wasn't it, so instead, he glared at this brother.

"Okay. Is it that I let the kid borrow a book?"

Stanford did not glare at the empty space on one of his lower bookshelves. At least now he knew where A Study of Urban Cryptids was - no doubt an eleven year old was running his hands all over it or using it as a footstool. Well, as long as the boy was able to point out and describe his favourite entries when he returned it, Stanford wouldn't mind. The book was harmless enough for a young boy, and he'd never object to the right kind of curiosity.

He continued to glare at his brother.

Stanley's face fell, he was clearly getting exhausted.

"I don't know Ford, have I done anything else since the last time you were mad at me? I only scuffed the runes a little and I mostly fixed them. And the Pitt on that rug will wash right out. Can you give me a clue, how far back are we going here? Is this about the identity theft again?"

"Can you come in and close the door, Stanley?" Ford asked.

"Greaaaat, it's about the identify theft again," Stan said, rolling his eyes. "Not heard that one in the last twenty years."

"Just sit down, Stanley."

Stanford waited for his brother to sit, before picking up a remote and waving at the TV hanging on the wall. A film was paused, and the streaming service was displaying its title and some pop-up facts about Marcy Wu.

"Oh hey, Three Transmissions ," Stan said, mildly interested in the new movie release. "I heard that was pretty good?"

"Utter pablum," Ford said dismissively. "Emotionally manipulative and incredibly naive pap. The man should be arrested for crimes of self-importance. But it's occasionally illuminating."

He hit play.

MARCY WU: The truth... the truth... there's so much of it. It's hard to know where to start, so I guess I'll just take it chronologically. 

(shot of an old book - Dr. P's Extraordinary Guide To Magic & Mystery )

Stanford paused it, and glared at his brother. His brother stared at the screen.

"Oh."

"Stan, do you mind telling me what the hell this is?" Stanford asked.

"A... heh heh... a book? For kids?" He laughed. "You know, about fun... weird... stuff? Like you love?"

"Stanley, did you publish excerpts from my journal?"

"Well... yeah." Stanley tried to laugh. "I needed the money to get you back, Sixer! So I figured, why not copy some stuff from your journal, punch it up a bit, get it printed nice and cheap, and... sell it to various school districts on the west coast?" Stan's mouth smiled broadly. His eyes didn't quite keep up with it.

Ford raised his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. Wordlessly, he pressed play again.

(The pages turn and settle on a page depicting the Calamity Box, with a claim that it enables passage to other worlds)

MARCY WU (voiceover): It wasn't Sasha who heard about the music box, or who saw it in the thrift store first. It was me. She's been taking the blame for that for ten years.

"Stan..." Ford said, his forehead pounding. "That journal was full of my early research on mystical artefacts and creatures that I was reasonably sure - but hadn't yet confirmed - really existed. You published information about an actual dimensional teleporter, and when the wrong middle schooler saw it she got herself and her friends stuck in another dimension for months. And when they came back the Frogvasion came with them!"

"The Frogvasion?" Stan's eyes went wide. "Wait, all that happened because of this book?" Stanford saw his brother tense up. He wasn't merely trying to evade responsibility, there was a growing spot of fear in there. "But, wait, I'm not responsible for -"

"No, you're not. If there's one thing this drivel gets right, it's that people can't be responsible for the consequences of their actions when they're truly unforeseeable, and you're even further removed from the consequences than this poor girl is." Ford waited for the look of relief to pass over his brother's face. "But maybe you should take a look at this too."

He started tapping at the button to step backwards through frames. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap... there.

"Stanley, what the hell is this?"

Stan's jaw had dropped. Onscreen, for a single frame, on a page that was rapidly turning, was a blurry diagram of the bastard yellow triangle.

"Aw crap," was all Stan could say. "Awwwww crap!” He grabbed the sides of his skull. “I forgot about that!"

"Stanley! Did you distribute pictures and partial summoning instructions for Bill Cipher in half the schools on the west coast?"

"AT THE TIME I THOUGHT HE LOOKED CUTE!" Stan wailed. "HE REMINDED ME OF MY FAVOURITE THING, MONEY!" He turned back to the screen. "Aww C'MON!" he yelled to himself, genuinely distraught. 

Stanford let out a heavy sigh. He was mad, but not so furious that he enjoyed seeing his brother like this.

"Stanley, you're not the first person in this room to have helped Bill. It's fine. Nothing came of it, and Bill is better than dead, he is in a very meaningful way forgotten and ignored , thanks to you."

"I thought it'd be like a Bloody Mary thing! Dumb kids love that!"

"Or he will be..." Ford continued, "once we get those books back and destroy them. We can't risk leaving them out there. Even the non-Bill risks are clearly too great. I've already got Dipper working on it, but we're going to need to investigate the inventory of every children's library in multiple states and win every eBay auction that shows up. Stan, how much do you remember? Where'd you sell them to, how many?"

"Uh, let's see... Oregon of course, Washington, California... and as for how many... um..." Stan's eyes darted left and right. "Three. Three..."

"Three?" Stanford asked, not daring to hope the finished answer would be in the single digits.

"Kinda. Three. Thousand."

Stanford could only groan. A deep, smothering exhaustion settled over him.

"But I printed them incredibly cheaply!" Stan added. "There's no way most of them have survived forty years in the hands of kids!"

Ford had to nod. Yes. That probably would cut down their workload significantly.

Once Stanley left, Stanford rolled his chair away from the desk, settled back into it and closed his eyes.

Was this how he'd wanted to spend his twilight years? Still fretting about existential threats to humanity, making plans and contingencies to protect the world from catastrophe? He found his mind drifting back to the happy eight years of peace and adventure he'd had with Stan. The Pines boys, facing down every strange oddity, every misplaced beast, every seemingly impossible geographical trick in the ice and the ocean. Eight years together had almost made up for forty years apart.

And they had ended ten years ago when the radio brought the news from LA.

The Amphibian incursion had made things very clear about Stanford's purpose. He'd known there were other threats out there in the multiverse, and that they were too powerful and more sane than Bill, which was simultaneously a comforting and terrifying thought.

In this case, humanity should leave well enough alone. The only way they were going to find us was if we invited them in.

He'd made his mistake before. No more portals, not for anyone.

WE ARE BURIED ALIVE UNDER THE COLORADO DESERT

"With respect, Mr X, I'm a Special Agent, not a waitress." Rosa Parra glared at her superior, who was lounging with his feet up, his eyes darting between several screens and a blank piece of paper in his hand.

"Do you see any waitresses around here?" Mr X replied. "I'm afraid not a lot of them get clearance for top secret labs deep underground. And that means that some of us who do have to take up their slack."

She frowned. She wished she could be angrier at him, certainly would be if she got the sense that he thought she had to deliver food because she was a woman, but that wasn't X's style. She was just 23 years old and straight out of college with a botany degree and a black belt, which made her an extremely junior Agent. He was implying she was lucky to be here, which she was.  

"I just feel like I could be being put to better use, sir," she replied. She adjusted her glasses and hoped her thick black hair was still neat.

"Do you have something better to do than make sure our guest does not starve, Agent Parra? You know the rules, no active duty for anyone injured, no matter how minor." He looked up into her dissatisfied face. "Oh, give me a break, honey. You're a good agent - smart, intuitive and strong - and you're going to go far in the bureau, but haste is what kills good agents." He pushed up his glasses. She thought she saw a glint from the tiny camera lens in their frame. "Metaphorically, and literally."

He turned back to his screens, eyes darting between reports, photographs and what appeared to be the sole recording they had of BONE-1.

"Take these reduced duties as a reward, kid. You did take on Anne Boonchuy and almost win after all. Even at her weakest, with what she can apparently still do that's something to be proud of, and if you hadn't tried... well, we'd all have a lot more to worry about right now."

Rosa sighed and nodded. She supposed that was true. She just really didn’t want to be around their guest.

She headed for the entrance to the base. There were no kitchens in the Project Leif lab complex, so any food had to endure the long, five-mile trip from Camp Mallory, down the tunnel until it was over half a mile underground. It would be scrutinised by no less than five scanning stations along the way and pass through two checkpoints, and probably tasted by at least one of them, knowing the soldiers.

While she waited, Rosa's thoughts drifted to the events a few days ago. She'd been stationed at Project Leif for a month now. It was easy but oppressive work, being this far underground for weeks at a time, and at times she'd needed to force herself to breathe properly with this stale air. But it was exciting, both on a personal and scientific level.

The idea that humanity was trying to build a portal to other worlds, not just for their benefit but for the benefit of everyone they would encounter, was inspiring and deeply worrying. Agent Parra was put in mind of a champion sprinter running with untied shoelaces - constant action, focus and determination, with the threat of sudden complete disaster constantly looming over the entire activity.

But four days ago? Four days ago had been an enormous success and an abject failure. That had been the day the Calamities came to visit.

Of course Rosa had been a little star-struck by them, but she'd tried not to show it. She hadn't been here for the Incursion, but just like everyone else she'd seen the videos countless times, of Anne Boonchuy soaring through the air, fighting off a robot twenty times her size with her bare hands. But meeting her - well, they really hadn't hit (ha!) it off, but something about Anne and Marcy reminded her of old friends.

There had also been a camera crew for some reason, which was not what Rosa had come to expect from the FBI, but maybe things were going to be different in the new Bureau of OtherWorldly Investigation.

After that, a lot had happened. Who would have thought that when put in front of a portal that negated gravity, Anne would impulsively unbuckle her tethers and attempt to fly? Rosa had been forced to try to safely climb over a desk in a zero-G environment so she could be in position to help catch her when the gravity inevitably returned. And then, when Anne saw the open portal, and recognised what it was facing?

Well, Rosa couldn't blame her. If she’d seen a portal back to where she'd come from, she might have ran straight for it too... but as it was, Director Wolpaw had demanded that she restrain Anne Boonchuy for her own safety, and she'd followed her training - blocked the target's path, evaded her flailing punch, caught the fist and locked her arm behind her back. It was professionally done and would have been perfect if Anne hadn't unwittingly hit her with a flash of calamity energy from her restrained hand. Agent Parra grimaced at the memory - one second she had the woman restrained, the next she was sliding along the cold floor ten feet from where she'd been standing. Her chest still hurt, a little, but she hadn't reported that to the doctor. Couldn't risk it being x-rayed. Instead she'd showed him her wrist, got treated quickly, and hurried back to the portal room for connection attempt number two.

And that was when the portal accidentally connected to BONE-1, when she saw a portal back home, and realised she should really not run for it.

She recognised where it was. On the rightwards side of the inlet at Cuticle Valley, facing the Titan's left shoulder. She'd been camping here with her dads a few times. Spent evenings toasting eyemallows, days looking for interesting and friendly plants. Her friend had come with her the first and second times... after that she hadn't been allowed, and these trips had become a bittersweet escape...

But something about the landscape before her was not inviting. The sun was high, and it glinted off a crown that hovered in the air above the titan's skull. There was an unnatural calmness, and it took some time for Rosa to notice that the trees were utterly still. Either there was no wind, or the wind could not bend them.

But of course, everyone else had noticed the figure, and the thing behind it. Rosa had no idea what to make of the thing, but she knew she didn't like to look at it. Some kind of star-shaped thing with eyes, nothing familiar, but... intimidating. But in front of it, a witch wearing something like a grudgby uniform, and too familiar. She was sprinting for the portal, over the apparently solid water, not kicking up sand as she crossed the beach, and dived through the portal seconds before it closed -

- and then she was here, Boscha, a girl who had made her life hell at various times all through her childhood, writhing on the floor after falling shoulder-first into the metal gantry, babbling about not letting it collect her, the calamities all out of their seats and Director Wolpaw calling for medical support, and...

... and in the instance before the portal closed, Rosa Parra heard a voice in her head.

"Parra? Yoooo, you there?"

There was a clicking sound. Parra's eyes focused, seeing Private Walker snapping his fingers in front of her. Oh right. She was in the car park, waiting for that food to arrive.

"Oh good, you are there? Everything okay?" He was dressed in his fatigues, and had his rifle holstered.

"Yeah, sorry, I just zoned out," she replied.

"Good, was worried after I heard you took a bad hit..."

"I'm fine, don't worry about it."

Walker was next to the electric cart, and there was a tray strapped to one of the seats. Agent Parra took it, electing to carry it the entire way. If she had to deliver someone's dinner, she wasn't going to use a service trolley like she was the actual maid.

"Yeah, we know, you're a tough one Parra," the soldier replied genuinely. She smiled in spite of herself. "Hey, some of us were wondering, would you like to join us at the mess for -"

"Sorry, gotta get this to its destination!" she quickly said. "Thanks for the help!"

And as she left, Private Walker quietly kicked himself. "Who am I kidding, a girl like that probably already has someone anyway..."

Containment was on the opposite side of the facility. Agent Parra's hand was in some serious pain by the time she arrived there. Ow. Looked like her wrist was worse than she thought.

She entered the observation room and nodded to Agent Trigger and Dr Fine.

"Dinner for the guest," she said. "Ravioli, I think."

"Room service, must be nice," Trigger responded, slurping on some instant noodles. Rosa couldn't help but agree. Her dinner was likely to be half a bagel and whatever random selection of lunch meat and grapes was left in her fridge. Hitting the deadlines for ordering groceries was harder than you'd think with all the recent excitement.

She placed the plate in a microwave - it would definitely be cold by now, given the journey it had been on - and was about to turn it on when Dr Fine stopped her.

"That's already cooked, yeah?"

"Yeah, looks like it."

"Just give it thirty seconds to warm it up a little, or she's going to burn herself again."

Rosa obliged her, covered the plate again, and waited for Trigger to get permission to enter. This guest was a guest, after all, even if they were watching her through a sophisticated surveillance system.

"Ms, your dinner is here. May we enter?"

The screens showed that she was huddled up in a chair, hugging one of her legs and watching TV. She looked up.

"Oh? Yeah, sure... this episode's almost over I guess."

The door hissed open and Agent Parra stepped though, trying to leave any other identities she had behind her.

The woman in the room was almost a skeleton. Her once strongly pink skin faded, stretched over gaunt features and bony hands. It was better than it had been - Rosa had overheard a doctor saying that her BMI had gone up by two in the last few days, but she still looked rail-thin and sickly.

Her hair was a mess, ragged and tied up into a loose ponytail, and she wore a t-shirt and sweatpants issued by the BOWI. The worn armour she'd arrived in had been taken away for inspection and cleaning. Two of her eyes were locked on the TV, while her right eye warily watched the agent.

"Good episode?" Rosa asked.

(on the screen, a traditional English bobby sputters in disbelief)

CONSTABLE: But Duck-tective, that would mean the toxicology report was -

DUCK-TECTIVE: Quack! Quack quack quack quack! Quack quack!

CONSTABLE (gasps): I see! A donut hole in a donut hole!

"I think so," Boscha replied. "I don't know why you need to take so long to test blood though. Separating any fluid into components and finding impurities is pretty basic."

Oh right, Rosa thought, I remember. Potions track.

"Actually, can I get some quarrelweed and nail salt? Your water tastes funny. I'd like to purify it."

Of course, Agent Parra remembered what those were, but she asked anyway. After Boscha's explanation, she looked thoughtful for a moment.

"Well, I think the closest equivalent to quarrelweed we have is called cilantro. As for the nail salt, regular sea salt might do. It won't have absorbed any magical properties, but maybe it'll work. Or we could just bring you purified water."

"No! Um, I'd rather do it myself," Boscha replied. Her eyes darted to the tray Parra was carrying, and she took it as a sign that the conversation was ready to move on.

"I'll see what I can do. Anyway, I have your dinner," Rosa said. "Something we call ravioli, and garlic bread."

Boscha turned all three of her eyes toward the tray. Despite the last few days there was still a wounded caution behind them. She watched carefully as Rosa placed it on the table and removed the lid, her eyes widening as she saw the perfect pasta parcels in a rich tomato and basil sauce.

Carefully and hesitantly, Boscha reached out and picked up a parcel with her fingertips. She raised it to her lips and cautiously bit down on it. And Agent Parra saw all three of her eyes close and tremble.

And after a moment... she broke.

She opened her mouth again, and started shovelling ravioli into it with her bare hand, faster than she could chew, almost faster than she could swallow. Rosa shrank back in alarm and tried to remember how to Heimlich someone. As Boscha suddenly slowed her pace Rosa was worried she was going to have to do that, but Boscha showed no sign of choking. With only half the ravioli eaten and sauce dripping from her chin, she leaned over the bowl and started to cry.

Nine whole years, the so-called Special Agent Rosa Parra thought. What's been happening over there?

Her eyes were drawn to Boscha's left hand, where her pinkie and ring fingers were missing. It looked like a clean cut.

She let out a heavy breath when the door closed behind her. Agent Trigger was finishing his noodles.

"I did warn you, it can get messy," he said.

"We are getting her a therapist, right?" Rosa asked, the distress in her voice quite obvious.

"Of course," Dr Fine responded. "I shouldn't name names, but a certain someone has already volunteered... though I'm concerned that they're not experienced enough for this yet."

"Well, I hope my therapist is," Agent Parra said. She had a lot to tell her, if she was allowed to.

Behind her, on the screen, Boscha started to lick the plate clean.

That... had been painful to watch.

There had been moments in Willow Park's life where she had wished Boscha infinite suffering. Where the three-eyed girl had made her life miserable, and she'd had no recourse but to endure it, and deep in the sac by her heart all she'd wanted was for something to go horribly wrong in Boscha's life for once.

This wasn't what she had meant.

She'd also wished that maybe, someday, Boscha would stop noticing or caring she existed at all, and just leave her alone.

There, at least, she'd got her wish.

Boscha hadn't recognised her at all. She'd been sure that the second she walked into her cell, Boscha would have blown her cover. But that starved woman hadn't shown her even the faintest glimmer of recollection.

Agent Parra marched down a corridor, in no particular direction.

Why not? Why the hell not? Sure, it had been nine years, and she was an adult now. Sure, she was wearing this stuffy suit, she'd cut her hair shorter... she had the ear illusions protecting her identity, maybe that was it. Boscha wouldn't imagine that a round-ears could be anyone she knew! Or was she just snubbing her? Was this just what Boscha did, effortlessly find the way to disrespect and hurt Willow the most she could in the moment? Was she laughing at her now, was she...

She stopped herself. Willow Park breathed in for five seconds. And Rosa Parra breathed out for five seconds. She repeated it, for good measure.

No, no… The woman in that room wasn't laughing about anything. And she'd probably had bigger things to worry about these last nine years than remembering the half-witch she used to bully.

Her wanderings took her to the observation room above the portal chamber. From behind tempered glass and alongside the turrets built into the wall, she looked down at the inactive portal.

Why was she still here? BONE-1 had been judged a high-risk and - in Parra's mind - possibly already dead world. Wasn't she here to find out how this could get everyone home? If it was already lost, did she still need to be here?

Well, maybe. She still had people to keep an eye on.

She took one more look at the portal, and headed for her quarters. That grocery request needed to be submitted, and she needed to add some cilantro and sea salt to it. And in the silence, she tried to put that voice she'd heard in the portal room out of her mind.

"Oh boy! New toys! "

THERE IS NO QUESTION AT ALL, PROJECT LEIF MUST SUCCEED

Base Director Terri Wolpaw took a moment to drink in the silence. Here, in their office, there was a modicum of peace, as long as they ignored the chirps from their phone, didn't look at their computer's monitor, and their secretary Marcus didn't let anyone interrupt them. If all that could be avoided, the world could be at peace, and they could think.

They were really going to have to talk to the calamities, and soon.

It'd be a huge bother for them, all three of them had real lives they wanted to live, but they would help, wouldn't they?

They owed Anne an explanation of why she absolutely could not go through the portal too.

They had to at least be aware of the danger that other people wouldn't ask nicely.

Fucking Frakes.

Days after Three Transmissions had been released (Terri was pleased with it, though they had to laugh at themselves screaming at Anne) Rela Technologies had announced that they had been working on a portal of their own. And who had been there at the press conference? None other than a wild-haired, screeching crank, shouting from her podium about ungrateful assistants stealing her patented Frakes Gate technology. Terri was fairly certain the portal had had a different name back then, but Frakes was not known for her consistency.

And then they'd demonstrated their technology, and the memory of how pathetic it was would warm Terri for weeks.

Frakes was stuck where they had been almost ten years ago! Their portal had fizzled into life, reached a diameter of about a foot, displayed a closeup of a rocky, mossy wall for five seconds, and then fizzled out. Terri had done better work in a rented garage with Jan's car and some heavy duty battery packs providing the power!

Without opening their eyes, Terri reached into a drawer on her desk and then into a small bag. They picked out a yoghurt covered pretzel and popped it into their mouth, savouring the sour taste of it along with the sweet taste of victory.

So, where was Frakes at, anyway?

She almost certainly hadn't solved the power issue. That was obvious from how quickly the portal could be opened, how small it was, and how it almost immediately blinked out. Terri had spent almost a whole decade searching for efficiencies that reduced the incredible, exponentially-increasing cost of opening larger portals to something more manageable - in a world where "manageable" meant "seven nuclear reactors." Frakes was fond of shortcuts and probably thought she could just keep throwing power at it. Terri smirked and wondered where she'd find the space to build over 90 dedicated reactors and sets of turbines.

Judging by the unimpressive sight seen through her portal, Frakes hadn't figured out addressing either, and was still stuck seeing random worlds. If she'd had this figured out it would have occurred to her that she should pick some impressive vista to wow everyone with, and not some insect eating a patch of moss. Even if she figured out the tones, she still had the instability of marginal space to deal with.

The space between worlds was vast, and constantly in motion. It churned, flowed, and rushed erratically - pure, if low energy chaos, and any path that tried to lay itself within it would be dragged off course immediately. Even if you could open a portal and navigate to another dimension, doing so consistently was impossible without some way to still the space between.

And for reasons that Terri would figure out eventually, the only way to do that right now was with Calamity energy. Its mere presence slowed the chaos, solidified the churning space, and made it possible to accurately lay down a path. There were only three sources of that in the world. And none of them were going to work with Frakes.

So all in all, Terri wasn't worried, at least not for now. Among all their competitors Frakes was assuredly in second place. They couldn't put it past her to conquer some of these issues, but Terri had plenty of time to fix their remaining problems.

The question wasn't whether Project Leif could perfect their portal before others could. The question was if they could firmly enough solidify their ethics as the norm for portal use before everyone else screwed it up.

Earth had to be convinced that other worlds were not an excellent source of unobtainium, that religious artefacts other civilisations held sacrosanct did not belong in our museums, that offworld inhabitants were not an opportunity to find cheap labour. It had to be convinced to the extent that the people would rise up in protest at the very thought!

... why did that have to feel like the impossible part, compared to opening a portal to another dimension? But it had to be done. Something had had to be done! The clock had started when Anne Boonchuy stole the Calamity Box and opened it, from that point on the discovery of interdimensional travel was an inevitability. The question was if its founder would establish an ethical or unethical pattern for its use, and Terri was bound and determined to be the one who got to choose.

Their phone dinged. Terri ignored it, but opened their eyes anyway. They avoided looking at their monitor and their eyes fell onto the framed photograph. Terri and their real mentor. Dr Jan hadn't known a damn thing about theoretical physics, but she'd known a lot about not killing yourself for your passions. About pacing, scheduling, finding your limits and riding right up to them and loving being there. The photo was of the two of them on the day of the incursion - they'd both done their part, riding around the city, rescuing anyone they could find and getting them out of downtown, and now they were posed in front of Jan's van at the celebration, drunk off their faces, about to kick bits of robot out of the wheel arches.

The thought came to mind, the same one that did whenever Terri looked at this photograph lately.

Oh Jan... you'd have kept me from taking X's deal, wouldn't you?

But that was all moot now. They were here, Jan wasn't, portals were here, Project Leif was here, and it had to succeed.

They really had to talk to the calamities.

IT'S NOT REALLY THEIR FAULT, BUT THEY STILL HAVE TO DIE HERE

Carlos Kite stepped out into the fresh forest air, his park ranger uniform crisp and fresh against his skin. This was it, the place to be - natural, but not abandoned, bustling even. It was a large open area, surrounded by colourful wooden fences on three sides and an enormous chain-link fence that reached up past the canopy. People were milling about from placard to display to gift shop to food stand to placard to playground to little train station, and Carlos liked it. It was cozy, friendly... and a little bit tense, considering what was on the other side of that fence.

He wondered who he was supposed to talk to. The answer came from behind him.

"Hey, new guy," a woman's voice said. He turned and spotted a tall redhead in her 30s in a ranger uniform. "Welcome to the Heron Hutch." She smirked. "Well, it's supposed to be the Amphibian Heron Protection Enclosure, but everyone calls it by the name of the gift shop. Name's Ranger Corduroy, I'm in charge of the ranger station here, but you can call me Wendy."

She held out her hand for him to shake, and he took it. "Carlos Kite."

"Welcome aboard, Ranger Kite," she said, and he felt a slight flutter of pride that he hadn't felt in a while. "Let me show you around."

She led him to a gate in the wooden fence, near where it met the chain link one. The noise of the main attractions faded away quickly as Carlos found himself on a well-trod path, the chain link fence on his left, the woods stretching away to his right.

"When I said 'around,' I meant it literally. We've got a fence inspection to do today. So I guess you know the story, right?" Wendy asked as they walked.

"Of course, who doesn't?" Carlos replied.

They discussed it between themselves for a while - the Amphibian Herons had shown up during the Frogvasion, as one of the various weapons of terror deployed on the streets of Los Angeles. They had rampaged through the city, killing hundreds and herding the fleeing civilians into the line of fire of the robots in a way that seemed suspiciously coordinated.

Then, suddenly, they'd stopped preying on humans and started fighting the robots, even harried King Andrias when it looked like Anne Boonchuy was going to be defeated. Nobody really knew what to make of it except that they were wearing collars when they were aggressive to humanity, and lost them before they started helping. Humanity had drawn a variety of conclusions after that, but right now the prevailing one was "they were mind-controlled victims." But it was definitely not a consensus.

"And then," Carlos said, "the unnaturally peaceful herons flew directly here, as if following some kind of homing instinct." He looked around. "Who knows why, though. I mean, it's nice here, but why here? Herons are more of a lake or marshland bird, not mountainous forests."

"There's a lot of unanswered questions around here," Wendy said casually. "When in doubt follow the town motto."

"Motto?"

"Never mind all that!" She turned to him and smirked again. "Seriously, I only want to say this once. You see something weird but it doesn't seem to matter? 'Never mind all that!' It's going to make life a lot easier around here."

"You got any examples?" Carlos asked with a grin.

"Well, I've been ignoring something for the last half hour, but since you asked... what's with the bird, dude?"

He froze. Flapjack tweeted a few times.

"Did you notice that even though you've had that bird on your shoulder since we met, I never brought it up? 'Never mind all that!' ” She laughed. “THAT'S how you do it." She gave him a slightly crooked look. "You two married?"

"What? No! Why would we..." Carlos was confused for a moment until he realised Wendy must be joking. "He's just an old friend, we go everywhere together."

"You two must be popular at parties," she said. "What's his name?"

"Flapjack. And yes we are great at parties, and he gets way more girls than me," Carlos replied with a smile.

Wendy held out a finger, and the red cardinal hopped over to it. She carefully touched Flapjack's chin and the top of his head and the bird responded in kind, leaning into the strokes.

"Then you," she said to Flapjack, "need to be a better wingman for him."

The bird trilled at her and flew back to Carlos' shoulder.

"Walks around with a bird on his shoulder like it's nothing. I can see how you ended up in Gravity Falls! Come on!" Wendy called. "This entire fence needs to be checked twice weekly! We're looking for broken wire, overhanging or entangled trees, signs that the herons have been beating their heads against it, anything!"

The inspection took almost three hours at a decent walking pace, and the two had a nice chat. She asked him how Connecticut compared to Oregon, he asked her if there were wolves in the area, she asked him why he wanted to look after the herons, he asked her where the wolves were, she made fun of him for being that kind of guy.

"So what, you're originally from Connecticut?" she asked. "Not that it's a problem, but you don't really have the accent."

"Not originally, no," Carlos replied. "I'm adopted, a really great lady there took us in. A vet, I think you'd like her."

"Yeah, the way you talk about her, she sounds cool."

"Really? I've not said that much."

"It's the smile on your face, kid," Wendy replied. "Anyone who makes their kids smile like that when they think about her is a good person."

He kept on smiling.

"Yeah, I guess you're right." He paused for a moment. "My life was... kinda rough before she took us in. She's turned it around. I owe her a lot. Not literally 'owe' but... she got into a lot of debts raising us and I want to help her out of them as much as I can."

"Oh, so that's why you're here," Wendy replied. "That hazard pay too good to pass up? I completely understand. We've all got our ways of supporting people."

"How about you? Why are you here?"

"Same reason, supporting someone, or something. You wouldn't know it but ten years ago this town was really dying out. There'd been some... real bad times, and once they were over not a lot of people wanted to stay around." Wendy stopped, one foot planted on a rock. "The lumber industry was dying out, and tourism was never our strongest industry, so this place was probably going to end up a ghost town." She laughed to herself. "Maybe literally, with how things usually go around here."

She motioned to the fence.

"Then out of nowhere, these guys swoop in, and suddenly if it weren't for downtown LA being rubble we'd have been the centre of the universe for a few weeks. Money and investors and tourists flooded in, and protesters on every side! Jesus, the protesters! Half wanted the herons put down, and I get that, but how? These things shrugged off tanks and they have cast-iron stomachs! We don't know how to kill them without risking making them really mad! The other half of them thought the herons were victims of the king's mind control, and anything they did before losing their collars should be overlooked, which I also get, they did fight on our side in the end, Anne Boonchuy could have died without them and the rest of LA with her, but they still killed a lot of people! Even if that can be forgotten, they're wild animals, and they could decide to do it again at any time."

She sighed, and looked out into the forest, before trying to smile.

"So we decided to build the world's worst prison. We can't let them out, and we can't keep them from escaping if they REALLY want to, but fortunately they don't want to leave. And as long as we keep them fed, hopefully they won't decide we're next on the menu, and we get to charge idiots to look at them two times a day until they die of old age." She sounded anxious and tired. "Pretty sweet, right?"

When they got back, it was nearing 12:30 and the first show.

"All right," Wendy said, and motioned to a guy next to her as they led Carlos through a gate in the wire fence and into the enclosure. "This is Nate, Nate, this is Carlos." There was a fully loaded electric truck and a powerful, rank smell in the air. For his part, Flapjack took this moment to flee Carlos' shoulder and perch in the fence.

"Hey man, cool scar," Nate said with a grin. "Ready to get eaten?"

"He says that every time, get used to it," Wendy said. "Seriously, the herons have never attacked a human since they arrived. It's weird, it's safe, but I still wouldn't recommend provoking them. We just drive the meat out, unload it, hit the buzzer and leave."

A paying crowd had already formed, waiting for one of the biggest spectacles in the state. Over tannoys, Carlos started to hear some overwrought narration.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, since the beginning of time, one force has reigned supreme over the swamplands of Amphibia - the huge and scary Amphibian Heron!"

The narrator didn't sound like the normal trailer guy you'd imagine. He sounded kinda dumb really, but in a lovable way.

The three rangers got in the truck. A long bridge led to an elevated platform with two short plinths on it. Everybody back there was going to have a perfect view of what was going to happen. Wendy drove, and Carlos tried to ignore the bridge rattling as the truck crossed it. Behind him, the presentation continued.

"- once mind-controlled by King Andrias, these peaceful birds have settled down in Gravity Fal -"

The tannoys were now far away enough that they were an indistinct, if still loud, noise. Wendy turned the truck and backed it up between the two plinths, and everyone got out. She climbed up onto the bed of the truck, and behind the two huge zippered bags in it.

"All right, I'll push them toward you. You two take them to the feeding plinths. Carlos, we just put the bag there, unzip it and leave, got it?"

"Got it."

"All right. Now, catch!"

She pushed one bag and Carlos and Nate dragged it off of the truck. It had tough heavy-duty straps to carry it with, which was good because it was nearly three feet across, one foot deep, four feet long, and it weighed a ton! And, it could not be emphasised enough, it smelled terrible, reminding Carlos of patrolling the slaughterhouse district back during training, or the... fresher parts of the Titan's remains. He and Nate shuffled over to the first plinth and sat the bag down on it. The zipper was at Carlos' side, so he seemed obligated to open it.

Inside... probably at least every edible cut from a single cow, plus a little more, all raw. He screwed up his face as he unzipped his side of the bag and passed the toggle to Nate, who finished the job on his own side, and together they lifted the lid off and left the fresh meat open to the cold air.

Not wanting to linger by it, he turned and was shocked to see Wendy slowly walking toward the other plinth with the second bag, which was every bit as large and heavy as the one he and Nate had struggled with. She'd actually slung it up on her shoulder, and while she was obviously struggling with it - her steps were slow and careful, taking a second or two between each of them - she didn't look like she was in any danger of faltering.

"Woah, can she do that?" he asked Nate.

"Obviously, dude."

"I guess so..."

"You'll understand when you see her dad. The Corduroy family has some incredible genes. And before you ask, no," Nate said with a smile, "we're so far out of her league we're in the wrong hemisphere for it."

Carlos watched as Wendy hefted the bag and slammed it onto the plinth.

"I wasn't thinking that," he said with a smile. "I've got a girl back home who I think can give her a run for her money."

That was a couple of half truths. "Got" was not exactly true, he'd never quite been able to really talk to her about his feelings, and "back home..." well, who knew exactly where she was right now. But if there was anyone tougher or more self-reliant, Carlos hasn't met them.

He was pulled out of his daydream when Flapjack swooped in front of his face and started anxiously tweeting.

"Flap, what are you..."

He felt the ground shake, and the platform sway. When he looked up again, Wendy was marching toward the truck, and Nate was opening the driver's side door.

"DUDE, come on, time to move!" she yelled at him.

The ground trembled under him again, twice in quick succession. He ran, jumping into the bed of the truck alongside a stinking leftover bag from the last feeding, and rapped on the back window of the cab. Nate must have been waiting on that because he hit the gas. As they accelerated away, looking back, Carlos had the best seat in the house as two enormous birds stepped out from between the thick firs. Each had snow-white feathers with long, green primaries on their wings and green crests on their heads, sporting blood-red eyes and long dark beaks with what seemed like teeth. Each of them had to be twenty-five... maybe thirty-five feet tall?

They started picking at the food before them, screeching and rasping as they lifted it out of the bags.

Carlos' time in the human realm told him that it shouldn't be possible for a living being to be this large. Another part of him was feeling nostalgic for impossible creatures. A third, more primal part was deeply concerned that these birds had teeth.

AND SO AD INFINITUM

"Okay, so I did lie to the world for ten years, can anyone seriously blame me for it? It was what we had to do! Can you imagine if the truth about Marcy came out? She'd never have recovered! Sure, we lied to the world, but I still don't feel bad about it! But now, EVERYONE with a pissant nothing little account is pissed off at me!"

Sasha growled and sank her head back onto the plush couch cushion, balling up her fists and putting them over her eyes.

"Do you feel like the documentary treated you unfairly?" Dr Brann asked.

"Of course, Carla! What did Marcy say at the end? 'Don't stab us in the back!' And then he goes and leaves in my dumb little rant about if people deserve the truth. That self-righteous fucker hated me, because I got angry and stood up to him on his set, and left it in there to get the last word! And now if I go out there and say the sky is blue, I've got a couple of dozen idiots in my replies linking to fake fact-checking sites! I don't deserve this!"

Dr Brann leaned back in her chair, surrounded by all the paraphernalia of a long and successful career in psychiatry. A well-appointed office, friendly and warm, with enough signs of education and professionalism to instil confidence without giving the impression of superiority. Sasha's own office was half the size, rather threadbare, didn't have any bookshelves yet, and had just one qualification on the wall, which seemed rather measly compared to the nest of accreditations and awards Dr  Brann had.

She aspired to someday match the doctor's accomplishments, but Sasha did have something Dr Brann would never have on her wall - a framed award, designed for her by one of her first clients, recognising her role as a 'Savior of LA.' She fondly imagined it would always take pride of place there.

"Yes, I would agree, you don't deserve this," Dr Brann replied. "It's not something people want to acknowledge when it comes to public figures, but we both know how important having secrets is to mental health. Nobody can live their life entirely openly, and we're all entitled to keep our secrets, up to a point of course."

"Yeah, of course..."

"You did what you had to to protect your friend. I'm seeing a lot of people applauding that."

"There is one other thing I think we should discuss as much as possible, Sasha."

Sasha sighed and closed her eyes. Here it comes.

"From what I saw in the film, I'm very happy about how you managed your control issues, when they came to your attention. I trust it was an accurate depiction?"

"More than I would like it to be," Sasha hesitantly conceded. "Honestly I'm just embarrassed. I've made this my job, read the studies and literature thoroughly, I should be able to see the signs... and they all slipped past me."

"Unfortunately it doesn't work like that Sasha, we're every bit as fallible as everyone else. It's very hard to look at yourself and really, honestly evaluate how you're doing. Especially when we hear... so much in this job. That's why I have my therapist, after all."

"That's true..." Sasha sat up. "I suppose I should be grateful for the outside perspective I got."

Time slipped away, and with it her session. After an agreement that next week they'd spend the entire session focusing on her dissociation, Sasha left Dr Brann's office feeling a little better than she went in, which was about as much as she ever hoped for. She crossed the plaza outside, feeling a dozen eyes watching her, and headed for the uber she'd hailed in advance.

That documentary had been a mistake. A big mistake.

She had her fans, her die-hards, but until recently the public's perception of her had been been of the skinny early teen in a school uniform that left for Amphibia, or of the armoured warrior who returned. She'd naturally grown out of both these appearances, and with her hair cut shorter and the right makeup she'd almost become anonymous on the streets of LA, for a while.

Then the press conference where Marcy revealed everything had happened, and the release of the documentary, and suddenly her face was everywhere, and anonymity was a long-forgotten dream.

She pulled open the door of the uber, gave the address of her job, and took out her phone before the driver could make conversation.

Same old, same old social media.

Anne had posted a lot of pictures, of multiple signs from the aquarium. They all read similar things:

"NOTICE TO CUSTOMERS: ANNE BOONCHUY DOES NOT WORK HERE. PLEASE RESPECT THE SPACE AND PRIVACY OF OUR STAFF MEMBERS" on a sandwich board at the front entrance.

"PLEASE DO NOT HARASS STAFF MEMBERS IN OUR AQUARIUM" on a TV screen at the ticket counter.

"THE AMPHIBIAN EXHIBIT IS CURRENTLY CLOSED" on a podium before a shut double door. Someone had written "until you all chill out!" below it.

And a photo of Emma Plantar's ID card, with the name circled. Anne had attached all these photos to a single message - "Trying to have a normal life, but I don't know why I bother showing up. Thanks for the broken glass."

Sasha's blood boiled while her heart sank. Whatever attention she was getting, of course she knew Anne was getting it far worse. She sent her friend a text hoping she was okay and quickly checked the #StandWithMarcyWu tag. Here, at least, nothing was new. Interest had tapered off in the last couple of days and the tag was no longer trending, and Marcy had smartly decided to take a break from social media. In her absence the attention seemed... mostly positive. Genuine well wishers, people making a show of forgiving her, arguments about how culpable a thirteen year old can be for the apocalypse, something called "Marky Wu..."

She'd scrolled too far.

She put away her phone and looked out the window - the uber was already pulling up to her work. She mumbled a "thanks" to the driver and was about to get out when he turned back to her.

"Hey, Ms Waybright, I was wondering. My kid's a huge fan, and it would make their day if..." he said, and waved his phone at her, "maybe we could get a selfie?"

Sasha groaned and smiled in equal measure.

"Sure, why not," she said. It was annoying, but this kind of thing had never hurt. She pulled herself up to the gap between the front seats and smiled while the driver took the picture.

"Thanks," he said, inspecting it. "Thanks a lot."

"You're welcome," Sasha replied curtly, trying to climb out of the car.

"They really admire you, you know," the driver said. "You, and Anne and Marcy. They've had their struggles, but... you really give them the feeling that they can do anything," he added. "And they were really surprised at what Marcy said, but they understood. I just wanted you to know you'll always have at least three fans in our family."

Sasha paused.

She'd been told this a hundred times before.

It hit a little different, every single time.

She opened up her bag and got out a business card and a pen.

"What's their name?" she asked. The driver blushed.

"Their name? Oh... well this is embarrassing... but, Anne."

Sasha grinned. Figured.

"Let me guess, nine, maybe ten years old?"

"You caught us."

"Here." She passed the card to him, her signature and a little personal message on the back. "For them."

The man thanked her profusely and Sasha got out of the car, leaving a good rating on the app. She jogged up the steps into the Northwest Center and only just caught the elevator up to the third floor - Bigger Thoughts.

Sasha wasn't experienced enough to run her own practice yet, so she'd got a job with a corporation that was pretty big on the west coast. Bigger Thoughts specialised in counselling for kids and teens, and they had been extremely eager to recruit Sasha, for reasons that were pretty obvious. She was one of four therapists working out of this office, along with Robert - an older man who worked alongside Sasha with the teens, Aarya who counselled the younger children, and...

Sasha pushed open the door to see a family leaving the office.

"Say thank you, Louis!" a mom said.

"Thanks Dr Mabel!" a boy - who couldn't have been older than seven - said loudly while hugging a sock puppet to his chest.

"You're welcome, Louis!" Mabel Pines replied. "Now you can keep Bippy with you, and remember what we talked about, all right?"

The boy nodded, there were some vague pleasantries between Mabel and the mother, and then the family left. Sasha glanced through Mabel's open office door. Various toys, sock puppets and little pots of paint were strewn around, and the floor glittered all kinds of colours. Everyone else had carpet in their rooms, but the way Sasha heard it, the cleaning staff had almost gone on strike after Mabel started working here until hers was replaced with linoleum.

"They sure do love those puppets," she said, admiration in her voice.

"It's the unicorn hair thread," Mabel replied. Sasha looked at her. "Keeps them safe!" she said conspiratorially.

Sasha had to laugh.

She liked Mabel! The woman could be weird, but she was one of the most genuine and emotionally honest people Sasha thought she had ever met - a person who embraced herself and loved being who she was, even if she obviously knew she wasn't perfect.

Their first interaction had been an awkward chat around the water cooler after Sasha's introduction to the office. Their second had been the very next day, when Mabel surprised her with an entire home-made sweater! It was rust-coloured with a surprisingly accurate emblem of Sasha's heron swords on it, and it fit perfectly. Sasha had, of course, been shocked and had no idea what to make of it until Mabel cheerfully explained that she did this for all of her friends. Which didn't explain a whole lot but still felt genuine.

The third encounter Sasha could clearly remember... had been a couple of weeks later. Sasha had made a foolish and thoughtless joke about Mabel's job being easier because how bad could kids' problems be?

And Mabel had got very quiet.

And several hours later, she'd taken Sasha aside - all pretenses and signs of silliness and cheerfulness gone - and politely, forcefully and without any elaboration told her to never say anything like that ever again.

And then, after Sasha had apologised at length and acknowledged her fault, she'd invited her out for ice-cream.

A few hours later in the present day, they were having the opposite of ice-cream.

Sasha idly picked at the small bowl of chapulines she'd chosen for her side dish. She and Mabel had been last to leave, and as it was getting late they had decided to go get dinner together rather than eat alone. She popped a chapuline in her mouth, happily crunched it up and washed it down with some Modelo. It wasn't the same, but she was glad that the fad for eating insects that had sprung up after they'd returned to Earth meant this was a much more common option in the US now.

"So the worst part is," Sasha said, "now they won't talk about themselves at allIl."

"No! The most difficult part!" Mabel said, a fork full of rice halfway to her lips. "The one thing a teen in therapy won't do!"

"They've all seen the damn documentary, and now all they want to talk about is me!" She picked a sizzling bundle of steak fajita off the hot plate and loaded it onto her tortilla. "Half just want to ask me questions about Amphibia or the Frogvasion, and the other half are questioning why I'm trying to help them because clearly I'm not already perfect myself!"

Mabel chewed and swallowed.

"Well then you gotta use it."

"How am I supposed to do that?"

"Relate your experiences to their experiences. Tell them something they can relate to, and sometimes they'll start talking about their lives to show they understand how you feel. We've all made mistakes Sasha, everyone gets having regrets."

"I find it hard to believe you have ever regretted anything, Mabel," Sasha said, teasingly.

"Oh, I've had my moments!" Mabel laughed. Something about it seemed a little hollow. She paused for a second and looked up, before turning back to Sasha. "Like once, back when I was a kid, I thought I was a real little matchmaker. I had two friends who I thought would be perfect for each other, and even though I'd like to stress that it turned out - I WAS RIGHT! - I did some seriously underhanded and gross stuff to get them to see it."

Sasha looked at her, disbelieving.

"How gross could it have been?"

"Gross enough that they said they've forgiven me, but they do not talk to me." Mabel tilted her head to the side, and averted her eyes from Sasha. "So yeah, I thought I knew better, and I really regret acting on it, because trying to control their lives that way was totally the wrong thing to do."

Sasha looked at her beer. "I hear that." She slumped forward. "That's me and Anne in a nutshell. Marcy too."

"They're still talking to you though."

"Yeah, and sometimes it feels like a miracle. And something I'm going to need to keep working on... and watching myself for. Just a whole life of being vigilant about going too far ahead of me."

"And how does that make you feeeeeel?" Mabel asked with a suspicious grin.

"I dunno? Anxious? Self-conscious" She squinted as a thought came to her, and it became a glare. "Hold on. Did you just relate-judo me into opening up, Pines?"

"I hope you were taking notes!" Mabel said with a grin and a point. "That's how you do it!"

"Oh, I'm going to take notes!"

She got out a pad and pen from her bag, quickly wrote something, and showed it to the older woman.

MABEL IS
TERRIFYING

"A worthy lesson!" Mabel cheerfully crowed.

An hour later, they were in a bar drinking shots.

"To Stanford! Who won't tell ya anythin'!" Mabel cried.

They both drank.

"To Andrias! You deserve to get overtrown so hard!" Sasha cried.

They both drank.

"To Gideon! Creepy fucking hair sniffer no redemption he's still only five feet tall!" Mabel practically screamed.

They both drank.

"To Gregor! Petty bossy self-righteus ASSHOLE!" Sasha yelled.

They both drank.

"Wait, Gregor Park, the director?" Mabel asked through a haze of vodka. "Wha'd he do?"

"He screwed me ova!" Sasha morosely slurred. "He hated me, so he left in the truth rant... now I look aful."

"Wait... y'think the rant makes you look baaad?" Mabel asked. "Tha's the best pat for you!"

"Wha?"

"Listen t' it sometime, Sasha! Not what you're sayin! Listen t' the music behind you!"

"What about the muic?"

"It's great! Whoever picked tha' muic thnks you're amazin! Listen t' it! That music thnks you're doin somethin' beautiful!"

Sasha tried to focus.

"Something... beautiful?"

Mabel's eyes widened in delight.

"You're tellin the entire planet to touch grass, yo're gonna protect your friend no matter what the world thinks! Wha's not great and beautiful an loyal about that? He left it in because he thinks you're great now!"

Sasha smirked like that Marky Wu thing she'd seen, and rested her head on her arms.

"I thnk tha's a pretty special perspex... perspi, opinion. Buu I like it."

She shifted in her seat. A problem that had been building for a while now was becoming too hard to ignore, no matter how drunk she was.

"Shit, I need a piss. Imma leave my stuff here."

"Sure, I'll watch it," Mabel said.

It took probably fifteen minutes before Sasha managed to return. When she flopped back down into her chair, Mabel was intently staring at her phone.

"Wha' is it, cat video?" Sasha asked. She smiled. "Lemmie see!"

Mabel looked up. All the blood had drained from her face.

"I don' think you're gonna like it, Sasha... but you better see it."

She handed her phone over, and Sasha looked at the screen. A social media post was on it. Sasha's eyes struggled to focus on it, but was able to read the text.

Projected onto St James Middle School. This is fucked up.

And below it... a video of the side of her old middle school, the big gable wall. On it, a projection of Marcy, grinning evilly with too many eyes and tied to a stake above flickering flames... and above them...

#burnthewitch

Sasha felt half the alcohol in her bloodstream evaporate in that moment. She dropped Mabel's phone onto the table and grabbed at her own bag. She'd left her phone in there, and OF COURSE it was on silent because she was with CLIENTS, and she'd forgotten to turn it back on and... on the screen...

7:32: Missed call from Mar-mar
7:34: You have one new voicemail from Mar-mar
7:47: Text from Mar-mar: Sasha, are you there?
7:48  Text from Mar-mar: I could really use a friend right now!
8:07: Missed call from Mar-mar
8:15: Missed call from Mar-mar
8:29: Text from Mar-mar: SASH ARE YOU OKAY?
8:51: Missed call from Anne
8:53: You have one new voicemail from Anne
9:01: Text from Anne: Sash I just saw Marcy's messages. I don't know where you are but I'm going to Marcy's hotel. Please get back to us.
9:33: Text from Anne: I'm with Marcy. She's fine, just freaked out. So am I! Wish you'd get back to us!
10:22: Text from Anne: Marcy's asleep now.
11:03: Missed call from Anne
11:04: You have one new voicemail from Anne
11:30: Text from Anne: SASH YOU HAVE FIVE MINUTES TO RESPOND AND THEN I'M CALLING X!

What time was it... 11:42? Sasha quickly called Anne's phone but got a busy signal, so she sent a text.

11:44: sorry sorry im here just drunk!
11:44: sorry!
11:44: im okay just wasted

She sat down and put her head between her hands. She wanted to puke.

"This doesn't seem good..." Mabel cautiously said. "Is your friend okay?"

"She's fine," Sasha groaned. "It's me that they think is dead now because I didn't notice my phone."

Her phone vibrated, and she checked it, dreading what Anne was going to say.

11:45: Text from Anne: Oh thank god.
11:46: Text from Anne: X has a lock on your location, stay where you are, he's coming to get you personally.
11:47: Text to Anne: ok sory anne see you

"Wel they don wan to kill me..." she mumbled.

Mabel peered around Sasha's bowed head. "So... I guess you need to go home. Should we call a ride?"

"It's okay," Sasha moaned. "The FBI is coming to get me."

Sasha didn't notice it, but Mabel jumped a little.

"What? Ah ha, hahaha, that's crazy," Mabel waved her off. "But seriously..."

"Seriously. This is what happens when you've saved the world."

"I don't know about that," Mabel said, oddly averting her eyes, before muttering "maybe when you've done it so publicly" to herself. She looked around awkwardly. "I don't think I want to be here when the FBI arrives... are you going to be all right by yourself?"

Sasha's head slipped off her hand and almost hit the table.

"... I guess I'll stay with you," Mabel said with a sigh.

They were trying to hydrate when Mr X arrived fifteen minutes later, flanked by two dull but broad men in well-fitting suits. He rolled up to their table, inspected their glasses, and smirked.

"Did you seriously get this drunk on water, Sasha?"

Sasha gave him the finger.

"Nice way to talk to your designated driver." He turned to Mabel, and smiled. "Don't mind us honey, official business with your friend, nothing to worry about."

"Who me, worried? About government spooks taking my friend away! That's crazy talk."

"Well," he said courteously, "we can take you home as well. I'd feel bad about not seeing you home safely when we're getting your friend somewhere safe too."

Mabel narrowed her eyes at him and grinned. "Sorry, but the last time I was in a government vehicle, there was a car crash, sir. I don't think I'll feel safe."

"Well, please yourself..." He turned back to Sasha. "Anne was frantic when she called me and she yelled for thirty seconds when your text finally came in. There's a spare bed in Marcy's hotel room you can be sick in, it's better than needing to change your sheets at home yourself."

"A'right, sounds good," Sasha replied. Her head was already starting to pound as she tried to stand.

And that was when Sasha puked all over X's suit.

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Chapter Text

(this chapter takes place before Stanford's section in the previous chapter)

WE CAN FINALLY BE GROWNUPS ABOUT THIS, BECAUSE WE'RE GROWNUPS

Dipper Pines leaned back on the bench, looking up at the wooded peak of Mount Tabor, scenarios running through his mind. What exactly would happen if an alien fortress blasted the top off of it? While there were no doubt many scenarios where nothing all that spectacular happened besides the destruction of an important Portland landmark and major natural habitat, the most dire possibility he could think of was the invigoration of the extinct lava vent that had created it in the first place. Dipper wasn't aware how far underground the lava flow was cut off, but if it was close enough to the surface, the heat combined with the underground pressure having a far shorter route now could possibly lead to an eruption.

Now, with that in mind, what could be done about it? Assuming the blast hit the mountain in what Dipper would call its central mass, the lava was likely to primarily flow west and east. West was no problem. While water reservoir number five might have been engulfed in the blast, reservoir six was still there and one or both of them could form a natural barrier between the lava and the city proper, at least long enough to begin evacuations starting at 60th avenue. At least there wasn't a chance of lava haze, Dipper was pretty sure that didn't happen in freshwater.

On the east though? That lava had a clear shot downhill all the way across 71st and 72nd Avenue with nothing but thin forest and some houses in its way, and then down Main Street, with very slim opportunities to stop it. Even if the lava stopped soon after it hit an urban area, it would not take long at all for the fires to spread to Montaville, or under the 205 and into Russellville. Which didn't leave many options for stopping the destruction or evacuating everyone. Something would have to be done on East Tabor Drive and quickly, but what? Dipper could think of several mythical beasts and artefacts that could theoretically handle it, but there was literally no reason to believe an Arctic Cyclops or an army of Frost Sprites would be in Portland Oregon at the time unless someone was keeping it extremely weird - though maybe a quick summoning ritual could be completed on the tennis courts...

Dipper had taken pains to stop applying this level of overthinking to real people. But when it came to theoretical scenarios where having a plan ready to go in seconds was important? He considered it to be a form of preparation and relaxation. He'd needed plans like these plenty of times in the last ten years, and it wasn't even as if the initial incident in this scenario was in any way implausible any more.

Of course, all of this was ignoring the fact that the force of the eruption would be spewing lava into the air and starting fires all over the city anyway, never mind the toxic volcanic fumes...

"Hey," a man said from behind him. "Zoning out again, Dipper?"

Dipper looked up, and raised his cap. Robbie was standing in his sun. He looked pretty decent, his thirties were treating him well. He finally had a beard worth mentioning and the business suit he wore was 72% sharp.

"Hey Robbie. It's been a while, take a seat."

The chat was actually pretty friendly. Now that their adolescent insecurities had been replaced with adult insecurities, the two got on quite a bit better.

"How goes the business of weird?" Robbie asked, rumpling his suit as he sat down and put his briefcase on his lap.

"It's always booming," Dipper responded cheerfully.

"Remind me what exactly you do?" Robbie asked, narrowing his eyes.

"Troubleshooting," Dipper responded. "People come to me with problems and I fix them. And there are way more troubles out there than people know."

"Tell me about it. I forget how many times I got my memories erased."

"I cannot guess. How's your job going?" Dipper asked.

Robbie idly drummed on his briefcase and smiled.

"Oh yeah, I'm the lead singer of the hottest band in town. We just added a rapper, he also plays acoustic, and we're putting out some of the best work in the local scene." He laughed. "Seriously though, working in insurance sucks but it pays the bills... and I have the band's demo here if you want it."

Before Dipper could stop him, Robbie opened up his briefcase and pulled out an actual CD case. He pushed it into Dipper's hands.

"Go on, take it. I've got a hundred of these things. And don't worry, the CD is just for show. Everything's on the memory card inside."

"Cool." Dipper tried to sound enthusiastic. "So... how's Tambry?"

"She's good. Works from home these days. She can do her editing online, so Gregor's been pretty good with us moving back to Portland. And it helps her be home when Anne is."

"How is Anne? She'd be what, nine, ten now?

"Ten next month! And she is the cutest!"

Within seconds Robbie had got out his phone and was bombarding Dipper with pictures of his daughter.

"She looks like she'll be a rebel, like her dad," Dipper said.

"God I hope not. I'm hoping she'll be quiet and sullen like her mom."

"Well," Dipper said, sounding slightly too casual, "I suddenly have a feeling I owe you two, so any time something weird happens, you know who you can call on, gratis."

Robbie seemed to sag a little. He looked around. The air was still and the sky was blue. It felt like the weather should have been worse right now.

"No..." Robbie said. He started to get up. "I don't think we will."

Dipper watched him rise.

"What do you mean?"

"Look Dipper... neither of us think we're best friends but we're on good terms right now, and I liked that. I would never have said this eighteen years ago, but I think you're a good guy, and you're for sure the best of the Pines. I've had a really stupid insecure grudge against you in the past, so I can say for sure this isn't like that." He lowered his voice. "But Tambry just went through some scary stuff for you, man. She could have been arrested or worse. And dude... being around the Pines family, and Decipher, is just too damn dangerous."

He looked like he felt bad about it, but kept on going anyway.

"That's not even getting into what Mabel did back then. I know we said we were over it... but the doubt about whether we really were in love or just magically compelled nearly tore our relationship apart. We figured that out but - this is just getting too much. I'm sorry Dipper, but we'd prefer it if none of you contacted us again."

Dipper stared up at him, wide-eyed. He let out a "heh," one far more emotional than he'd have expected, and looked down.

"Right, I get that. You've got a daughter and all."

"Yeah man, I'm sorry but I do." He held out a hand. "I know it's a lot to say when I'm the one doing this, but from me to you, no hard feelings Dipper. We hope everything you're doing works out."

Dipper stood up, and raised the brim of his cap. He took Robbie's hand with a smile.

"Thanks and yeah, no hard feelings. I get it. And good luck with the band."

Back in his motorhome, Dipper leaned back in the driver's seat and groaned.

It was true, he and Robbie were never going to be great friends, but he still felt the loss of Robbie and Tambry. The group of people he knew who truly understood what he and his family had gone through during Weirdmageddon was constantly shrinking, and with it the circle of people who he considered his friends. And one thing Dipper was discovering was that when you're a wandering troubleshooter in your thirties who lives in a motorhome 300 days a year, it's hard to make meaningful new friends.

He'd gone to high school back in Piedmont and made friends there, before attending Backupsmore at Ford's suggestion. The old man now had a lot to say about keeping yourself humble, and in his opinion no university in the country could teach Dipper about or provide a meaningful qualification about what he wanted to learn anyway. The experience and connections he would make were what was important, and Dipper could get them better in a school full of weirdos with something to prove, than in a stuffy and arrogant institution.

And Ford was right. Dipper had met some impressive people there, and made some firm friends, but nobody from high school or college had been able to join him on this mission... not when Dipper had wondered if he was just dragging in his own McGucket.

He needed to get back to Gravity Falls. Dipper took out the CD case Robbie had given him, and opened it up. Inside, one CD and one memory card, which was taped to the lid. He'd better leave the card alone for now. He plucked the CD out of the case and put something in the motorhome's CD player for the first time since he'd bought it.

And he laughed as he drove back. The lyrics were ridiculous, the rapper was just completely incongruous and clearly badly shoehorned into already existing songs, the drummer could not keep the beat and the whole thing was obviously recorded in an echoing garage. But it was kinda sweet when halfway through, the album was loudly dedicated to the lead singer's wife and daughter.

Dipper had his own keys, so it was no problem getting into the grounds of the Heron Hutch at closing time. He could hear the birds stomping around and screeching, but by the sound of it they were quite far away. As he crossed the guest area and headed for the gift shop a blond park ranger Dipper didn't recognize looked at him suspiciously, but Wendy distracted the guy before he could bother him.

He strode into the gift shop, still brightly lit at closing time. It was a nostalgic sight, despite not being the same shack he'd spent a summer working in. Unlike the Mystery Shack almost the entire thing was open from the front, one large door taking up the entire western wall  and offering a clear view of most  of the grounds. Soos had clearly had a reference for how he wanted to decorate, just with a white and green colour scheme and stencils of the herons and feathers all over the place. Dipper pushed his way through t-shirt racks ("I had a big WINg at the Gravity Falls Heron Hutch!") and bumper stickers ("You'll never egret a trip to the Gravity Falls Heron Hutch!") that made him want to die, and waved to the woman checking the cash drawer.

"Hey Melody."

"Dipper!" The round-faced woman behind the counter was still dressed in her train conductor's uniform. It had been her idea to build a miniature railway between here and the Mystery Shack, and once suggested nothing in the world could have talked Soos or her down. By itself it made very little money, but it was a fantastic way to ensure tourists visited both attractions and spent money at both of them. "How are you doing? Are you well, have you been eating? Eating something other than takeout?"

"I'm doing what I can with the kitchen I have!" Dipper said confidently. By that he meant he was boiling water and pouring it into noodle bowls. He lifted his heavy backpack and put it on the counter with a loud thump. "How's it going here?" He asked, and looked around. "Still... still really into those puns..."

"Oh yeah, I love how creative I get to be with them! And it feels great whenever someone walks out with a bundle of my merch under their arm!"

Dipper resolved to withhold judgement. If they were selling well, then Melody was doing exactly what she needed to.

"I'm happy for you," he genuinely said. "You've really turned this place into something good. Hey, Melody, are the Grunkles about?"

"Stan just got back, and Ford... well, he's always down there lately," Melody said, sounding a little bit resigned to it. She lowered her voice. "You can go down, but wait for the new ranger to stop watching you first. I think he's onto something."

Dipper glanced outside. That ranger was hanging around.

"You think he's a problem?"

"He seems like a nice boy," Melody said. "But Ford just hasn't vetted him yet, and I feel like he's been taking an interest in who goes 'through the back.'"

"I see..." That was concerning... but Dipper was the last person who should be condemning people for dangerous levels of curiosity. Maybe it was nothing but nosiness.

Dipper waited a few minutes until Wendy called the ranger away again, and then quickly slipped towards the door to the staffroom. On the way he glanced over his shoulder and caught sight of a red blur as something fluttered out of the gift shop, but he didn't think anything of it.

He went straight through the door to the staffroom, approached a blank section of undecorated wall, held his wallet up to it and pushed his thumb against the centre of the fake leather for three seconds. There was a quiet hydraulic hiss and a panel recessed itself into the wall and slid to the side. Dipper hurried through it and into the darkness of a tight corridor lit by a solitary lamp, at the end of which a pair of elevator doors waited. The unmarked doors to Decipher.

Life in Gravity Falls and the states surrounding Oregon  was, in many ways, more "normal" now than it had ever been before in history, and all thanks to Decipher. The organisation had been set up ten years ago after Stanford Pines - along with the rest of humanity - had sat up for hours listening to news reports about the devastation in LA. He had realised that his work was not yet done - Bill Cipher had been defeated and if not destroyed then completely defanged, but Stanford was well aware there were a multitude of dangerous entities out there who would be happy to snack on humanity. And we were making more and more noise and drawing more and more attention...

On Incursion day, Dipper had been in the common room of his college dorm, watching cable news with everyone else and chatting to Mabel on discord when the call from Stanford came.

"Dipper? Something needs to be done."

And Dipper had agreed.

Thus, "Decipher," named both as a recognition of the fact that that asshole still lived rent free in everyone's heads and as a decision about what they had to do with his kind. Stanford had contacted everyone he could who had been in Gravity Falls during that week eight years ago, and gathered them into a society dedicated to preventing the next Weirdmageddon. While most only contributed by donating money to the "heron enclosure," a few had agreed to become the agents and operatives who would manage dangerous weirdness around the world and keep portal use out of humanity's hands.

Thirty seconds of travel later, Dipper was emerging into a vast cavern. He's been down here before. On the other side of a heavily bricked up wall dinosaurs were frozen in amber, and Dipper wondered if the herons had stopped here in particular because they sensed some kind of kinship with the pterodactyl... though that seemed to be long gone for some reason. He shivered in the cold and hurried toward the main building.

Inside, he was greeted by a couple of cluttered storage rooms and then the slightly dingey headquarters of Decipher, just as he'd left them. A large open room, computer terminals all around the edges and a meeting area in the middle dominated by a big table. One door led to the kitchen. The next to Ford's study and everyone's private rooms and offices. The next heavily-soundproofed door led to the training room - Dipper could hear the attract mode for Fight Fighters through the open door - and the gun range, and then the workshop. And everywhere on the wall there were billboards plastered with arcane symbols, maps of Peru, an org map of the FBI, an annotated list of Trembly sightings, photographs of cryptids mid-pounce and an autographed picture of the mothman. ("to my pal Wendy, Indrid Cold")

Candy was sitting at the meeting table, tinkering with a small metal object about the size of a skipping stone with a set of jewellers tools. She looked up at him as he entered.

"Dipper! Ford said you'd be back." She waved at the seat next to her. "Have a seat. He said he'd come here when you'd arrived."

"Hey Candy," Dipper said. He dumped his backpack on the table, and started pulling out packets of brand new dog collars, still in their packaging.

"Oh, nice haul," Candy said.

"That's twenty more. Just another drop in the bucket, but it's something."

"I don't mind doing this work," Candy said, "... but I'm finding breaking into veterinarians to be a bit... I don't know..."

"... morally problematic?" Dipper suggested.

" ... unchallenging. " Candy said with a smile, and Dipper laughed.

"Yeah, definitely. It's important, we're really doing those little guys a favour by getting rid of these cursed collars, but man is it boring."

"Just whistle while you work, Dipper," Candy advised. "But not too loudly or the dogs will hear you."

Dipper grinned. Candy kept surprising him. Back when... everything had happened with Mabel, he'd figured that Candy and Grenda would leave Decipher too. They were her friends after all, and they'd all worked together so much - wouldn't their loyalty primarily lie with Mabel? And when they hadn't... it had taken him a couple of weeks to find an opportunity to ask why. And Candy had said...

"Dipper, we weren't in the pyramid with the rest of you, but part of the reason why everyone's here now is because we fought an evil god in a house-mech with everyone!"

She'd put her arm around Grenda as best she could.

"So much could have gone wrong with the plan that day, and did go wrong! But we survived because everyone did their part, and we still need to! Mabel has her own reasons for leaving and we respect her choice, probably more than you, but we're still not going to turn our backs on this."

...

At the time, that had stung a little, because it was true.

But he'd been inspired by the vote of confidence.

And to everyone's relief, the girl who used to run into walls when overstimulated had turned out to be a whip-smart and extremely competent operative.

Dipper watched her finish tinkering with the device. She clipped a few pieces of the case back on and removed her spectacles. They were usually hidden by the thick frames of her glasses, but there were three small metallic spots around her right eye - one where her eyebrow met her nose, one at the top of her cheek, and a third  between her eye and her ear. She held the device up to her eye and squirmed for just a second when it magnetically attached itself to her face, before relaxing and closing her remaining eye.

After a couple of seconds there was a very faint musical tone and Candy opened her digital eye, revealing a yellow, faintly glowing iris.

"There, that's better. The lens keeps drifting a little, it makes me feel sick. I should take it back to McGucket, but it's hard to find the time, you know."

Cybernetics had really progressed in the years since the Frogvasion, at a frighteningly fast pace. Central to this rapid innovation had been Fiddleford McGucket and his non-profit R&D organisation, "Open Eye."

(the same Fiddleford McGucket who happened to secretly be one of the chief financial supporters of Decipher, but don't tell anyone)

Their business overwhelmingly dealt with helping those who took life-changing injuries during the attack on LA - custom made eyes, ears, limbs, voiceboxes and even lungs were available at a price where the old man really was practically giving them away. There was the small matter of regular injections of "interface drugs" that were required for the cybernetics to function, but they too were responsibly priced on a person by person basis. The only side effect was the drugs tended to turn your blood a little green, but it was worth it.

Of all the people Dipper had met who had received an Open Eye prosthetic, Candy was the only one who hadn't needed it in some way. Sure, she wore glasses, but her eyesight wasn't so bad that it had that big an impact on her life. Instead, this woman had heard the sweet, sweet siren song of transhumanism, and decided to reply - yes, yes please, right now, thank you!

... the eye creeped Dipper out a bit and he wished she wore it less often. Something about it gave him bad vibes. But she clearly found it useful.

Ten minutes later, Dipper heard the sound of the door to Ford's office opening, and a heated conversation echoing down the corridor.

"Stan, we can't keep having this discussion! This isn't a place for children, even if you want to show the boy something 'really cool!'"

"C'mon, Ford! The kid just loves video games, I thought I'd show him one in real life!"

"That's not a good reason to trust an eleven year old with the location of our secret base, Stan!"

"Why not, he's a good kid and can keep a secret. And you got to trust a twelve year old with 'really cool' stuff!"

Ford rolled his chair into the room, followed by Stan. He was turning his head back to look at his brother.

"Yes, and we know how good a choice placing that burden on Dipper was, don't we?" He turned back to look at the meeting table. "No offence Dipper," he continued without missing a beat. "You didn't do anything wrong, but we both know exclusively confiding in a child wasn't the best idea for me."

"Yeah, I know," Dipper replied. He genuinely did agree, he had not been mature enough for that level of trust.

"Come on," Stan continued to protest. "It's harmless!"

"Stan! We. Can. Talk. About. This. Later!" Ford said, spitting out short clipped syllables. "Dipper and Candy have been very patiently waiting for us, and I am very curious about what Dipper has with him." He smiled at Dipper. "Welcome back, kid, nice trip? Did you get the package?"

Dipper almost didn't show him, not just yet. Part of him wanted to call the two old men out. Sure, there had always been brotherly squabbles between them, but the tenor of them had changed in the past year, since Ford's... fall.

Well, fall was what they were calling it among those who hadn't been there. What Stan and Dipper had witnessed was Ford's stroke . Which had led to his fall. He seemed to have recovered pretty well from the former, which had been a minor one, but the latter had broken his hip and permanently impaired his mobility.

Stan had been terrified in the moment, and had responded by spending more time around his brother, which led to a rise in the frequency of their brotherly arguing. Meanwhile, Ford had become more... zealous about his cause, more intense, and more isolated in this underground base that he was now reluctant to leave. And that had made their arguments louder and more cruel, and much worse for everyone else to watch.

It was sad to look at. Dipper hadn't imagined that the active, energetic man he'd known could change like this. Octogenarian Ford was a difficult man to watch, but an easy one for Dipper to worry for and care about.

He decided to raise the issue later when Candy was gone, and got out the CD case.

"Yeah, not a bad trip," Dipper replied. "Appeased a couple of ghosts, southward Gnome migrations tracked - I chaperoned a few of their attempts to attract new queens, and I'm happy to say they've got way more with the times." Dipper had been relieved to discover that the position of Gnome Queen was in the end a purely executive and legislative one, and had started helping them meet law and politics students with a taste for the weird who might be interested in the role, rather than letting them kidnap tweens who wouldn't even be able to tell a caucus from a quorum. Unfortunately the position irrevocably being for life was scaring off most of the possible candidates, and Dipper had not yet been able to convince the gnomes that term limits might be a good idea for everyone.

"And then there's this." Dipper slid the CD case over the table to Ford, who sternly picked it up and cracked it open. He picked at the tape that fixed the memory card within to the lid and once freed, held it up.

"Good work, son," Ford said with a smile. He rolled over to a terminal at the side of the room and inserted the card into it. The lights dimmed, and the projector activated. "Let's hear what Tambry has to say to us."

A directory appeared on the screen, with two files in it. One audio called "listen to me" and a video from several weeks ago. Stanford opened the audio first.

Hello Dr Pines. Hopefully it's you listening to this and not everyone at my trial. When you're done here, I want you to make your notes and then delete this message. I don't want to be associated with this any more. Sorry about the delay, but I'd like to be sure we're not being watched before I send this.

You were right, Gregor was invited to witness Project Leif in action, as part of its 'commitment to transparency.' I'm just his editor and I didn't need to be there for filming, but I pulled some strings with him. But that means it's a little suspicious that I was there at all.

You'll see the portal in the video. I don't think I need to describe it, except to say that the weightlessness effect definitely reminded me of that day when Gravity Falls was hit by the same thing several times.

The place was also crawling with the FBI and the army. They have it locked up tight. There's a five mile tunnel with multiple checkpoints before you even get to the front door, and everyone down there is heavily armed and they were extremely alert.

And for what it's worth, I think you should listen to what Director Wolpaw said before the activation. I know it looks bad that the FBI and the army are involved, but I think I believe Wolpaw about this being a mission of peace. Or at least, that's what I think they intend.

As for what you won't see on the video, they got that person on a stretcher pretty quick and got her out of there. She's definitely not human, not sure if you'll be able to make out her pointed ears or her third eye. The microphone didn't quite make it out over the shouting, but I overheard Sasha Waybright saying that she was babbling about being "collected." I also overheard Director Wolpaw telling someone to "designate that dimension as high risk" and to put it on the auto-disconnect list.

... that's all I have to say. I'm sure Robbie mentioned this, but we don't want to have anything else to do with Decipher. I'm just a video editor but I went into the lion's den today for you, and none of us had any idea it would be this dangerous. At best it wouldn't have taken much for one of those agents to catch on to me, and at worst who knows what that portal could have done to us. Either way Anne is without her mom and maybe her dad. We're really far from being your most important supporters, so... I'm sure you'll be more than fine without us. And we'll talk to Wendy about this ourselves.

There was an awkward silence.

"Oh, poor Wendy..." Candy eventually said to herself.

"It's only to be expected," Ford said, facing away from the others. "Not everyone wants to do this. There's... nothing wrong with a normal life."

Dipper believed that, but always felt it sounded hollow coming from Grunkle Ford.

"What did she mean about 'Anne' though?" Ford asked. "Anne Boonchuy? What connection does she have to them?"

He sounded genuinely confused. Dipper and Candy looked at each other, and Candy rolled her eyes.

"Anne Valentino, Grunkle Ford," Dipper said. "Their daughter?"

The old man stiffened. A moment later, he pretended to cough, clearly embarrassed.

"Oh, of course. I remember now."

Do you? Dipper thought unkindly. Did you ever? It was reasonable that Ford might not know that, but he still felt like this sort of lapse was why a lot of their associates didn't exactly feel valued.

"Maybe we should move on to the video," Candy suggested. "I'm interested in seeing more about this non-human."

Everyone agreed, and Ford opened the other file.

They all sat in almost complete silence for fifteen minutes. Ford fast-forwarded past the Director's speech, promising Dipper that he would come back to it later. After that all they uttered was various grunts of disapproval, gasps, and uneasy groans.

The video eventually froze on the strange woman lying on the gantry in front of the portal. Tambry had been right, her face was not clear, but that felt beside the point.

"Well." Ford said seriously. "This is... concerning. Shall we discuss the portal first?"

"Jesus, tethers," Stan said. "How much easier would they have made everything?"

"They would have saved Fiddleford, that's for sure," Ford admitted. "A major failing on our part."

"I can't compare it to your one, but that's exactly the same kind of portal as the one the castle came through," Candy said.

"Yeah, and it's nothing like the one Ford built," Dipper added. "Ford's started out bright, but became a dark, swirling vortex. And it's clearly a step up in complexity."

"What I don't get is why it's so expensive to run," Stan said. "I started up ours with a few barrels of toxic waste. Nearly fifty years after that was built and this one needs seven dedicated nuclear reactors to power it. What gives?"

"Good question, Stanley," Ford conceded. "I believe the difference lies in their intended purposes. This portal can go anywhere, theoretically. Therefore it needs to push enough energy through the nightmare realm to reach its destination and form a secure and stable tunnel. I'll grant them, it's an incredible piece of engineering and part of me is extremely jealous of what they've accomplished."

He turned his chair, and wheeled it toward the meeting table.

"On the other hand, my portal... that is, the portal Bill built through me... is actually incredibly limited by comparison. It was designed to only go to one place, that place was inside the nightmare realm, and a portal generator on the other side was doing all the work. My portal was little more than a receiving station required to stabilise the connection." He sounded extremely bitter about it. "Bill led me to believe that my works were heretofore unheard of innovations, but in reality he had me manning a toll booth."

He leaned back, and glanced up at the projection.

"I would very much like to meet this Director Wolpaw, and ask them about their inspirations . Unfortunately half of the FBI or BOWI or whatever they're calling themselves now is between us and them, and that's attention we don't need. Regardless, I think we're all agreed that the US Government having access to a portal and blindly cold-calling other dimensions is potentially an existential threat to humanity, yes?"

There were general nods of agreement from around the table. Stanley could be heard muttering "damn feds."

"Good. We'll have a formal discussion with the rest of the members soon, but I want you all to start thinking of ways we can disrupt Project Leif without risking either their portal or their reactors going out of control. As for the other, major topic..."

"The girl," Stanley said.

"Maybe this is just a trope," Candy said, "but I do not feel good about the FBI having an interdimensional refugee in their custody. Especially if they have no intention of returning her to her home dimension."

"Yeah, I agree," Dipper added. "We don't know what's going on in there, but I have a feeling it's not going to end well for her."

"Then are we agreed that if an opportunity arises, we should try to extricate her?" Stanford asked. Dipper and Candy nodded, but Stan was mid-sip of a beer and almost spat it all over a display of Bigfoot selfies.

"Woah! Isn't that extreme, Sixer? We don't need to kill her!"

"'Extricate' not 'execute,' Stanley!" Ford replied. "It means to take her out!"

His brother's eyes widened.

"Woah. You're serious about this."

Several minutes later, with Stan having been clarified and the two younger members having said their goodbyes, the brothers watched them go.

"He's going back to his apartment, right? Not going to sleep in the van?" Stan asked.

"Why wouldn't he sleep in a real bed for once?" Ford asked.

"I don't know. It's just...it's something I remember doing a lot, when I was his age. It's not what I wanted for the kid." He looked at Ford, before shambling over to him and sitting down in a chair. "I've been thinkin'... the more time I spend with the kid - I mean the little one not Dipper - I'm finally thinkin' about what I'm passing on to 'em... and what we passed on to Dipper and Mabel."

He looked again at the closed door Dipper had left through.

"That kid - Dipper, I mean - he's living out of his car, driving around doing random crap, no friends, no family, for most of the year. And then you look at what he's really doin', and it's investigating cryptids and ghosts and impossible things, with a side of theft or sabotage when we ask him to. He's turning into a lonely solitary crank and a criminal." He paused for a sip of his beer. "And he's good at it."

"You're worried he might turn out like me?" Stanford asked, without a trace of anger at Stan.

"Or like me," Stanley replied. "Or, worse... what if he learned all of the worst parts of both of us?"

There was a lengthy silence. Stanford filled it with the creaking of his chair as he leaned back, and the slapping of his thigh.

"That won't happen," he said proudly. "He found something neither of us did - an equal who'll pull him back from the edge when he needs it."

The TV was on in their apartment, and a blonde was asleep on the couch. Dipper wished that he was able to time this better, so that she was awake when he got back from his trips. It looked like she had had a busy day - she was wearing her "working" clothes and her axe wasn't in its case, so it must have been a pact day.

Pacifica and Dipper had a strained relationship at times. Both travelled frequently - him around the neighbouring states, her to LA and New York and back again. Neither of them were in Gravity Falls for more than a week at any given time. He rubbed at his engagement ring - someday, that would have to come to an end if they were going to actually marry. And Dipper had to admit, it felt like he was going to be the one who conceded. Her job as an attorney brought in much more money than his travelling ghosthunter schtick. He would be sad to give it up, but he was sure he could find something else he enjoyed. With the way McGucket talked about it, he was pretty sure a job had been saved for him at Open Eye.

At least they didn't have to keep secrets from each other, or at least not important ones. Both of them were Decipher members, and Pacifica was an important one. As much as she hated her dad, Dipper knew Pacifica still had nightmares about what Bill had done to his face, and she was dedicated to ensuring that nothing that powerful and cruel ended up here again.

Not wanting to wake her, he turned off the TV and got her favourite Sferra blanket to drape over her, before heading through to a real bed. There would be time to catch up with his fiancée in the morning.

(drow detaeper)

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"XW, UOH OGI ER DZ, OM DWH TSTLP AUE'WW AFTY BLNI?"
"... BMYL, T DSLORSE YMY KNLWTLL GBUC AMYMATTLJ VCREY 'EMTBF'"

(tsal eht erofeb owt)

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Chapter Text

I HATE YOU, YOU HATE ME, WE'RE A FEDERAL FAMILY

The office had an unfinished look to it, which was unsurprising. This entire building was new, after all, and with that came a cavalcade of minor issues and a lot of work still needing to be done before anyone was finished moving in. Mr X could see the empty shelves and the cardboard boxes behind the secretary's desk, the baseboard that didn't have a perfect paint job, the light fixture with the wrong wattage of bulb. Someday the Bureau of OtherWorldly Investigation would be a respected and venerable institution but it wasn't yet... and X kind of liked it that way.

Well, he liked almost all of it.

As he waited, he passed the time by flipping through some reports. There was a lot to talk about, and nobody worth telling it to.

"Mr X," the secretary announced. "Director Sampson will see you now."

He smiled as he rose. "Thank you, Rachael," he said, without needing to even glance at her nametag. X strode to the double-doors marked "BUREAU OF OTHERWORLDLY INVESTIGATION - DIRECTOR - CHRISTOPER SAMPSON" and pushed them open. It was a time he hated - time to be a professional.

The door led to a small antechamber, and then to a large office. Now this... this room was finished. Every imperfection of construction smoothed out, every book unpacked and shelved, every piece of furniture carefully and deliberately chosen. One wall was taken up with the window, which gave a stunning view of the still-under-construction LA. It was flanked by bookshelves and, next to one of them, a small plinth holding a bible and a cross.

In the centre of the room there was a very deliberately impressive desk, well organised and crowned with small Stars and Stripes. Behind the desk, the back of a plush leather chair - clearly bought at too high a price, in X's opinion - and the short gelled grey hair of a man, who was looking out the window.

BOWI Director Christopher Sampson turned his chair to face his guest, and gave him a disingenuous smile.

"Ah, Mr X, good to see you," he lied.

"Always a pleasure, Director," Mr X lied.

"How are things at Project Leif? I can imagine you've all been busy."

X smirked.

"Between our guest, the calamities being threatened, vague threats against the portal from a mysterious group called Decipher, and the usual stresses caused by running the world's only interdimensional travel facility? Yeah, we're all keeping active."

There was a flicker of annoyance on the man's face. X knew what he thought of him already. He'd seen Sampson's type many, many times in his life. X was black, queer and outspoken, and he was pretty sure Sampson had a problem with at least one of those things, and potentially all three. But what Mr X thought really infuriated Sampson was how impossible X was to fire or reassign now. Terri Wolpaw - the linchpin of one of the most important scientific endeavours in American history - would never allow it, and Sampson knew that.

"Well," Sampson said. "Why don't you start with the 'Calamity Trio' then?"

"All right..."

SHE HAD THE HORRIBLE FEELING SHE WAS WRITING SCRIPTURE RIGHT NOW

Ten years since he'd met them, and X had grown somewhat protective of the "Calamity Trio." They'd been through a lot, things that no other humans could really conceive of, and they deserved to have easy lives. And while he couldn't easily protect them from anything interdimensional or magical that might come their way in the future, or help them with the myriad psychological problems they'd been burdened with, he could keep an eye out for more mundane threats to them.

He'd tracked down a couple of stalkers, one before Sasha had even been aware of him - though he couldn't help but feel like that one was moot, anybody stalking Sasha Waybright was going to get what they deserved one way or another. He did his best to keep Anne informed on what her weird cult was up to when he felt like it might impact her life. And as for Marcy - he'd naturally been aware of the cover-up they had been using to protect her, and had stamped down on anything that might expose it.

(he was a little bitter about that though. His "movie shoot" cover-up could have worked! All of this could have been avoided if Disney would just cooperate! It just needed a little tweaking to be perfect!)

They'd all been on their phones when he arrived at Marcy's hotel room.

Anne: lying and slouching on the hotel room couch, slowly scrolling with a frown on her face. They got along well now, though she never let him forget how wrong he'd been about the Plantars. The days of him underestimating her were well and truly over.

Sasha: slumped back in an armchair, clearly hungover, blearily watching something with earbuds in. He liked Sasha, she could fight back. He also disliked her because she fought back. Of the three, Sasha was the most likely to hold X to account or tell him to mind his own business, which was frustrating, but she knew how to take important things seriously.

Marcy: hunched and perched on the edge of her seat, eyes wide open, using both thumbs to quickly scroll. X had a soft spot for her because she was clearly the only one of the three who thought he was cool and stylish, and there was no denying - he was an easy mark for flattery. He couldn't understand why she'd revealed the truth, but Mr X was a man who was very comfortable with secrets.

He had knocked, and entered when invited, and groaned when he saw the scene. Doomscrolling... it was one of his least favourite habits.

"Girls, I hate to sound like your teacher, but phones away please," he said, clapping his hands. "We have a lot to talk about."

Anne and Sasha put their phones away and Sasha removed her earbuds, but Marcy remained transfixed on her phone. Wasting no time, X walked over to her and gently pulled it out of her hands. Her eyes followed the screen as it was lifted away from her, before they met Mr X's frowning face. X took a look at the screen, which currently showed a picture of a younger Marcy with the caption "UNREASONABLY JOYFUL ABOUT - BETRAYING HUMANITY!"

"That's not doing you any good, Marcy," he said.

"I know..." she meekly said. "There's just a lot to see."

"It's social media, Marcy," X said. "There's nothing to see." He turned to the other two. "And why are you letting her do this? Friends don't let friends guzzle the internet hate machine!"

"Do not look at us," Sasha said, with some exasperation. "We tried taking it away!"

"She keeps finding it..." Anne added, sounding a little confused.

X looked at Marcy again. She was wide-eyed and jittery, her mouth stuck in a nervous smile and her pupils tiny dots.

"How long have you been up Marcy?" he asked. "And how much coffee have you had?"

"Oh, uh, since five I think," she promptly answered, "and... four, five cups?"

X groaned again.

"Go get yourself some water - water! - and some fruit please." He turned to the other two as she scurried away to the water jug and fruit bowl. "How about the rest of you? How are you doing?"

"I think... the headache is fading..." Sasha said drowsily. "And the taste of bile is a distant memory. Now if I could just find the energy to focus on something for a whole minute I'd be back to normal."

"Well, I have something that might help," X replied. He slipped Marcy's phone into his pocket, to return to her after this meeting, and handed Sasha a receipt. "Here, for you."

She blearily looked at it.

"Dry cleaning receipt? One suit, one shirt, shoes..." Her eyes shot wide open. "SEVENTY FIVE DOLLARS? But that's absurd for dry cleaning! I didn't puke that much!"

X preened in his suit.

"I only go to the best, Sasha. And you did promise to make it good!"

Sasha glared at him, before grunting, narrowing her eyes and leaning back in the chair, teeth clenched. At least she was now wide awake. X turned to Anne.

"And you, kid?"

"Not too bad. I can't say I have things as bad as either of my friends... yeah, I guess I'm doing okay."

"Don't sell your problems short Anne, just because nobody says they hate you," Sasha said. "You've got your own stresses."

The woman approached Our Lady, and appealed to Her for her Divine healing. But She had taken the form of a human so that She could be among us. ( Emma , ch12 v6)

 

Minutes after Emma Plantar had opened the exhibition, the first of many had arrived. There had always been a few, showing up in scattered specks once every couple of weeks, but more and more had been coming here since the documentary was released. This one was a woman in a tan coat, maybe in her early thirties. Blonde hair pulled back into a tight bun, mascara already running as she looked at Emma, a little bent over and clutching something in front of her. Emma could tell why she was here, but for a moment she chose to live in hope.

"Hi, welcome!" Emma said, motioning toward the various habitats that surrounded her. "Feel free to take a look around, and ask if you have any questions!"

The woman did not look at the exhibits. Instead she shied away in fear when Emma started to speak, before apparently gathering her courage - although she still could not look directly at Emma.

"M-my lady. I'm sorry to be so rude, I know this," she motioned at Emma, "is just your earthly avatar, but I have to ask for your help, and your blessing..."

Not again, Emma thought. They hear everything Anne says - they catalogue, transcribe and carefully overinterpret everything she says! So why can't they just listen to what she says? Can't they just let her have one place where she has a normal life?

She frowned. It was simple. It could not be more simple. Anne Boonchuy is globally famous. Virtually nobody worldwide who has access to mass media or the internet does not know her face and name and deeds. And if she is ever going to have a life outside of that, there needs to be some kind of agreement and respect about where Anne Boonchuy ends and Emma Plantar begins.

Emma Plantar looks a lot like Anne Boonchuy, but Emma is not globally famous. She did not travel to another dimension, she did not save the world, she has never flown. In many ways she is someone Anne Boonchuy envies. Emma is a humble herpetologist trying to raise people's awareness of amphibians. Yes, Emma knows you know she is not real, that she is Anne Boonchuy. But Anne is begging you, begging you, to just let her have this nice, normal identity for a few hours on weekdays.

"Ma'am, I'm sorry," Emma said. "I think you have me confused with someone else. My name is Emma Plantar," she said, emphasising it as best she could and tapping her badge. "I'm just a herpetologist here and nothing else, and if you're interested in amphibians I can tell you anything you'd like to hear. And if not, I need to ask you to leave."

"No! Please, my Lady! Please, don't send me away!"

Emma tried not to sigh too obviously, reached into her pocket and pressed the wireless button she had in there that would call security. She could see where this was going, because this was the fourth time this week.

"Okaaaay then, If you can just stay here for a while then..."

The pilgrim started to babble.

"... please, please, my husband and I married last year, and I'm now pregnant, but he's sick now and we don't know what to do, we can't afford his chemo on our insurance any more and we don't have any other hopes..."

Oh no, Emma thought, dreadful empathy building in her heart. I hate that I'm these people's last hope.

"... please, I know it's too much to ask, but here, my ประตู..."

Emma didn't even know what that Thai word meant, though she could guess it had something to do with 'portal.' She had to be annoyed with herself that she'd tried to fly in Project Leif. Gregor Park's recording of it had given these people the symbol they'd been looking for for years. The woman was holding a small round talisman toward her, home-made out of wire and blue thread. The wire formed the figure of a flying woman and a circle around her representing the portal. The blue thread was wrapped around the outer ring of wire, and threaded behind and across and around the flying figure, forever ensnaring her in its grasp...

"... he doesn't believe in you, not yet, but if I take some of your power back to him in this symbol, maybe he'll get better." She was crying, trying to avert her eyes from Emma's face. "Please, my Lady, please..."

Emma hated watching this. Hated seeing what this cruel world had reduced all these people to. She wished she could give this poor woman a hug, but god only knew how she would interpret that.

Would it really hurt to play along for once, though?

 

And Our Lady spoke, and commanded that we always follow and honor the instructions of doctors and healers, and she took the Gate and filled every thread of it with her power. ( Emma Ch12, v9)

 

"All right," Anne whispered. "I'll do this for you, but I have two conditions."

The suddenly awed and terrified woman stared at her. There wasn't much Anne could do to help with the money problem, but she tried to think of what she could say that would motivate her.

"I know there are a lot of organisations out there that can help you with the cost of treatment. If there are any you haven't applied for you need to try them. And any power I give you will not be enough by itself. You need to always trust and follow the exact instructions of his doctors, understand?" The last thing Anne wanted was to become an alternative medicine.

"Y-yes! Yes my Lady! I promise we will! We will do anything you say!" The woman was sweating heavily, her voice the sharp whisper of someone who needed to be heard but was terrified of disintegrating in a magnificent presence the second things went too far.

"Okay then." Anne took the talisman. She held it in both hands, both thumbs pinching it against her index fingers, and closed her eyes.

Anne breathed in and out a few times.

I'm just humoring her, but if there are any real gods out there, she thought, please help this lady. I hate to see her suffering.

She breathed in through her nose, and out through her mouth. Felt a sharp piece of the wire prick her thumb as she gripped the talisman  Without willing anything she heard the noise of the air conditioning fall away, followed by the subtle buzz of the lights, the footsteps and chatter outside, the whirr of the security camera rotating, until all that was left was... the rhythmic pulse within her, the dozens of tiny ones around her, the two right in front of her...

With a jolt, the talisman was tugged out of her hands, and with the moment broken seconds later she heard a thump. She opened her eyes with a start and was momentarily surprised when she felt blinded, despite the room being dimly lit. It took a second for her to shake off the disorientation and see the woman. She'd fallen to the floor, and her shoes were scraping against the plastic floor as she tried to scoot herself away from Anne. The look of awe and cautious fear on her face was now replaced with one of wild-eyed... was terror the right word? The woman did not seem frightened, more like acting on some kind of ancient instinct, and after a few seconds and a few feet of travel she stopped and stared up at Anne, slack jawed.

"Woah, are you all right?" Anne asked in a mild panic.  'Pregnant woman slips and falls' is not a good event anywhere. "Are you hurt?" She extended a hand to help her up, but the woman just vigorously shook her head and backed away a little more.

"I'm... I'm fine!" She grasped at the chain around her neck and held the talisman up in front of her, and started to stare at it in beatific awe. She then wrapped both of her hands around it. "My Lady... my Lady Anne! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!"

 

---

 

She was still thanking Anne when the security guard arrived, and at Anne's request he took her to the first-aider to get checked out before showing her out of the aquarium.

Anne wished she knew what to do about these people. She had to work out a method for talking to them and dealing with them. She thought she had... but things had only got worse since the documentary came out and put her back in the news. Nothing she said or did seemed to change their minds about her 'divinity,' but on the whole... she imagined that she slightly preferred the ones who were overly worshipful to the ones that were clearly terrified of some magical presence that hadn't existed for a decade, which they had reconstructed in their minds. A powerful presence that, she had to admit, getting frustrated with them in the past probably contributed to.

Maybe this way, engaging with them, could help? Could it really hurt? If she was going to HAVE to have a religion, it might as well reflect her own beliefs about herself and the world. Maybe if she engaged with them, she could talk (or preach?) them down from seeing her as a goddess and more like... maybe a prophet? And from there, to just a nice herpetologist? Maybe? Maybe the way to show them she's just human was to let them actually see her, warts and all... and let them be disappointed when they saw she wasn't perfect and didn't have divine powers.

Yeah. Maybe that was worth a try.

 

And the woman went on Facebook, and lo she posted - "Our lady Anne is gracious and kind! She has put her power into my Gate, so I can use it to cure my husband! I saw her eyes shine bright blue even from behind her eyelids, and her divine power flow into my Gate! Praise be Lady Anne!" ( Emma ch12 v15-16)

 

That idea lasted all of five hours before a mob crowded into the Aquarium. In the crush, a man was pushed into the newt enclosure and broke the glass, showering the poor things with glass shards and ripping up his own forearm. And that, as they said, was that for the rest of the day... and potentially for a long time.

"Yeah, well it may not be a problem for much longer," Anne replied. "I get the feeling the aquarium is getting tired of all this hassle."

Sasha sat up. "Oh no, don't tell me they want to fire you?"

"No," Anne replied, leaning back into the couch cushions. "But they also kinda don't want me around right now, at least until anything blows over. But I have no idea if that's ever going to happen."

She took a glass of water that Marcy offered her.

"X, I've told these two before, but I already know the aquarium hiring me in the first place was a publicity stunt for them."

"Yes, that would seem pretty obvious," he replied.

"I never minded because they've always been good to me. They've really done everything they can to give me a nice normal job. And they won't just fire me because it would be very bad publicity." She sipped the water. There was a certain... resigned, and accepting, tone to her voice. "But I think we're all starting to think it's pretty pointless. I can't pretend I have a normal job at all, not when this keeps happening..."

"Anne, no!" Marcy said from behind her. "You've been studying for this for ten whole years!"

"I know, and it sucks, Marcy! But what else am I supposed to do?"

"There's got to be somewhere else you can go that's more private, right Anne?" Sasha asked. "How about conservation efforts?"

Anne sighed, and looked uncertain.

"I don't know, I'd like to, and I'm confident they'd have me... but lets say i go to Panama and try to help conserve the horned marsupial frog? There's no way that's going to stay a secret, and they're going to follow me there!" She waved her glass around. "Suddenly we've got people who know and care way more about me than they do about conservation, flooding into Darién National Park, and endangering who knows how many species, amphibian or not!"

She bitterly hunched her shoulders. "I just draw way too much attention. I'm sure there's something I can do with my life from here on that's not 'cult leader,' but I just haven't figured it out yet. I thought I did, but... the damn documentary has really intensified those problems."

"I get you there," Sasha admitted. "My job has got a lot more difficult since my clients saw the film."

"Oh?" Anne asked. "How so?"

"Let's just say they're all really distracted and not thinking about themselves when they're in my office."

"Great, so that's two of us... and then there's Marcy."

They looked at Marcy. She gave a nervous laugh.

"Well, when it comes to work, I can write and draw from anywhere... but I do need a certain amount of peace, and peace of mind, to work... and that might be in short supply for a while!"

"Yes, I did actually come here to talk about that..." Mr X said, finally getting to the topic he wanted to cover. "We've done some preliminary investigations into that new hashtag, if you're interested."

Marcy's eyes widened, and she leaned forward.

"Yes?"

X sat on the arm of an armchair, and pulled a small tablet out of his suit jacket.

"Well now, let's see. Of course, it's mostly bots, running out of the usual places.. Honestly, this much attention in one day is so obviously a red flag that it has to be deliberate. Nobody running this wants people to believe the support is real, they're trying to look big and intimidating."

Marcy closed her eyes and rubbed her nose. And of course she'd fallen for it...

"Our boys suggest that about 50, maybe 70 people worldwide are actually involved in promoting the #burnthewitch hashtag. That's bigger than we expected, but still a tiny minority.  The FBI already has agents out looking for some of them - they're organised, but these aren't professionals, or at least most of them aren't. As with any group, we expect the vast majority to be foot soldiers and there to be a small inner circle exploiting them. As for what they want..."

Everyone leaned toward him. He sighed, closing his eyes and cocking his head.

"Sorry, but at this point? Who can say? Attention for sure. Maybe some recruitment. And of course, they definitely want to cause you maximum stress. But the threat to you is super-vague - important, but vague. This isn't going to be comforting but this could be anything between a warning of an assassination attempt to a group of trolls looking for notoriety to just being a distraction for some other big scheme."

There was a tense silence.

"That's it?" Sasha asked, her eyes narrowed. "That's all we know?"

"Sasha, it's been fifteen hours," X replied with a scowl. "Do you have any idea what it takes to properly investigate this sort of thing?"

"No..." she admitted. "Look X, we're just... concerned, all right? I don't like seeing my friend tied to a stake."

"I get that. We've got a dozen people working the case right now. We've got leads on at least one of the ringleaders. We've given your parents a security detail, Marcy." Marcy made a thankful noise. "And I've got a plan to keep you safe, for a few days at least." He smirked. "Though I warn you, it's going to sound self-serving."

"Self serving...? In what way?" Marcy asked.

"Terri's ready to begin experiments again," X replied. "And they need you there."

That got all of their attention.

"Begin again?" Anne asked. "They stopped? Why did they stop?"

"A few reasons," X replied. "I'm not the best person to explain them."

"Give it a try," Sasha said.

X conspiratorially looked around, before leaning forward and beckoning for the others to come join him. They huddled together to listen to him speak as softly as he could.

"First, Terri wanted to improve the portal's auto-disconnect function after the near miss with BONE-1. We've got a name for that star thing now - a 'spy' - and nobody wants it here.."

Everyone nervously agreed with that. Something about it had just felt wrong.

"Secondly, for reasons I can't go into here there's not much point in trying without you three present. You're more important to Project Leif than you realise."

The trio looked at each other. That was interesting and worrying, but it tweaked their curiosity.

"Thirdly, as you know we have a guest. We decided that until she had recovered enough, subjecting her to zero-gravity fields would be too distressing."

Their eyes widened.

"That pink woman?" Anne asked, as quietly as she could.

"That's... unexpectedly considerate of you," Sasha said.

"Please," X replied, feeling a little put out. "We're not monsters."

"You strapped a baby to a table, dude," Anne said.

"That was an isolated incident!" X hotly said, his face reddening a little. "And beside the point!" He cleared his throat and looked at their faces, which were now smirking. "The POINT is, how would you like to spend some time half a mile underground while this situation blows over, advancing the cause of interdimensional travel?"

All three were surprised by this invitation. They looked at each other. Anne was smiling, no doubt thinking of contacting a certain dimension, while the other two looked tempted, but conflicted.

"... for how long?" Sasha asked.

"Three days initially," X replied. "I'm sure you can get some time off work, especially if your sessions are going as badly as you say anyway. Depending on results... maybe longer visits later."

They still looked uncertain. Marcy took her phone out of her pocket and checked her calendar.

"Well... I don't have anything planned that I can't cancel," she cautiously said.

Mr X smiled, and looked at Anne. She smiled back, a determined look on her face, and nodded. Anne was definitely in. They all looked at Sasha, who was giving it some thought.

"I'm in..." she said, "but on one condition. I know you said you were choosing someone else to be her therapist, but I still want to meet the guest and talk to her."

"We can do that," X replied.

"Oh, right," Anne said. "How is she doing anyway?"

"I can't talk about it right now... but better," X replied. Maybe he should give them a brief rundown on her progress...

TRAPPED INSIDE THIS PRISON
LOST AND FAR FROM HOME

3/15/2030

Dr Sarah Fine
Chief Medical Officer, Project Leif

MEDICAL REPORT

CLASSIFIED

Report prepared for:
Project Leif
The Bureau of OtherWorldly Investigation
DARPA

RE:
Name: "Jane Doe"

No information volunteered by patient except for:
Sex: Female
Gender: Female, she/her
Species: Witch
Assigned Patient ID: Leif-G00001

Reason for Medical Assessment
Patient has unexpectedly arrived from another dimension. Shows signs of extreme stress, exhaustion and physical weakness.

Site and Time
Medical Bay A, Project Leif
Commenced: 3/15/2030 at 13:45
Concluded: 3/15/2030 at 15:05

Consent
Patient consented to examination without argument.
No consent for details to be released to third parties was asked for or given.

Observers
Dr Elaine Brawn (physical examination assistance)
Dr Sasha Waybright (observing)
Director Terri Wolpaw (observing)

Background
The patient, who so far refuses to give her name, has recently escaped from a situation of high stress, despair and apparent starvation. She claims it has been nearly six months since she had a healthy and reliable diet and three days since she was last able to eat a proper meal. Notably, she is non-human, and we must very carefully take that into account.

Initial Analysis of the "Witch" species
Witches appear to be extremely similar to humans with the following exceptions:

A prominent third eye on their forehead. This eye appears to be fully functional.
Large, pointed ears
The possibility of natural hair colours that are not common among humans (violet)
Patient has been observed moving her index finger in circles when stressed. This has created a broken line of light, however it has fizzled and winked out, to her frustration.
We expect more differences to be revealed on further examination, including a source for her apparent paranormal ability.

Examination
Direct comparisons to humans are fraught, with the risk of faulty assumptions and dangerous expectations. However, by human standards the patient seems severely malnourished - she is lacking in fat reserves and muscle mass, and has a gaunt appearance and brittle hair. When shown her own reflection she was visibly upset, and when asked if her appearance would resemble ours if she were healthy she said yes, so we believe this is not a natural state.
She has numerous injuries and scars. In particular, her little finger and ring finger are missing on her left hand. She states this is an amputation. Not currently a primary concern.
Patient is calm and mostly cooperative, but exceedingly wary. She appears to be somewhat confused and disbelieving of her situation, as if expecting this to be a dream, and she seems to randomly fluctuate between mental states.

Specimens
Blood drawn for testing. Electrolyte and potassium levels of particular concern, due to the risk of refeeding syndrome.

Opinion
Patient must be given food as soon as possible, as much as possible without triggering refeeding syndrome. Patient is also clearly in need of both mental therapy and physiotherapy to restore muscle mass, however the first priority must be getting her back to a healthy weight.

3/21/2030

(security camera footage. The patient, BOSCHA, sits at the table in her room, watched by DR FINE and AGENT PARRA. She has a plastic beaker, a large bag of cilantro and a bag of sea salt)

BOSCHA: Well, the quarrelweed is good, but this nail salt is the deadest I've ever seen.

AGENT PARRA: We're still not sure what you mean by "nails" in the ocean, so this is...

BOSCHA: You know, your Titan's toenails?

DR FINE: Our... titan? I'm afraid we don't know what you mean.

BOSCHA: ... how do you not know about your Titan?

(fast forward...)

BOSCHA: THERE'S NO TITAN? But... that's... what the hell do you stand on?

DR FINE: The... ground, usually.

BOSCHA (anxious): How is there ground without a Titan?

(Parra and Fine look at each other)

AGENT PARRA: It's... just the way it is here. The ground rises out of the ocean. Just normal rock and earth.

BOSCHA (anxious): But normal rock and earth sit ON THE TITAN!

AGENT PARRA: The rock doesn't sit on anything here. It's rock all the way down.

BOSCHA (hyperventilating): ... that's crazy! You can't just... stick a bunch of earth there and call it a real island! How is it stable? No Titan! How do you live without a Titan? What about the Titan's will? How does anything grow here? What keeps the boiling seas out if there's no Titan to keep you above them? (panicking) How far are we from the sea? How far?

(Dr Fine moves over to Boscha and sits down next to her)

DR FINE: Jane, It's okay. We're nowhere near the sea here. Listen to me, there is no danger here at all...

(fast forward...)

(Boscha has poured the salt into the beaker, and is carefully cutting up the cilantro with scissors. Things are quiet for a while)

BOSCHA (hesitantly): ... really no Titan?

AGENT PARRA: No, no titan.

BOSCHA: What do the trees get food from then?

AGENT PARRA: Water, nutrients in the soil, and photosynthesis.

BOSCHA: Photowhat?

AGENT PARRA: Plants on Earth get energy from the sun.

BOSCHA (unsure): Weird. I was never on the plant track, but I don't think our trees do that.

AGENT PARRA (knowingly): Yeah, I guess not.

BOSCHA: No wonder humans are such weirdos....

(fast forward...)

(Boscha has tipped the cilantro into the beaker, and fills it with water. She moves her index finger in a circle above it, drawing a glowing yellow line. The water in the beaker flashes, and Dr Fine takes a surprised step back)

BOSCHA: There, child's play. That took more power from me than it should have, but I think it will have worked.

(she places a filter over the beaker, and pours the water into a jug, and from there into a glass. She takes a drink and relaxes)

BOSCHA: There... pure water! (she sighs) That's so nice.

DR FINE: Impressive... do you mind if I take some to analyse it? I'd like to know exactly how pure it is.

BOSCHA (aggressively): Sure, doubt me all you like round-ears. You'll see this is pure.

(Dr Fine pours herself a glass, but does not drink)

DR FINE: So where are the impurities now?

BOSCHA: Bonded to the quarrelweed in the beaker of course. I'll be able to use this about a dozen times before I need more quarrelweed, too.

DR FINE: Is clean water culturally important to your people?

BOSCHA: It didn't used to be... we used to be able to take it for granted. But when you're drinking stagnant water that has passed though the Titan's flesh... knowing how to purify it becomes very important.

DR FINE: Really? What changed?

(Boscha does not respond. She turns away, huddling over her glass, and anxiously sips her water)

(fast forward...)

(Dr Fine and Agent Parra are leaving)

BOSCHA: Agent Parra?

AGENT PARRA (stops): Yes?

BOSCHA (struggling to speak) : ... thank you. For the quarrelweed and the salt.

AGENT PARRA: That's all right, don't worry about it, Jane.

BOSCHA (hesitantly): ... ... it's Boscha.

(there is an awkward pause)

BOSCHA: My name is Boscha Trio. I'm from Bonesbourgh, on the Boiling Isles. And I wanted to say... thanks. I may have been stuck in this room for the past week, but these are the happiest memories I have that aren't... tainted.

(there is another pause)

AGENT PARRA (voice cracks): Then I hope you will make many more. Excuse me.

(she briskly leaves. Boscha sips at her water, and picks up the TV remote)

3/25/2030

Doctor's Log - Dr Sarah Fine
Patient - Boscha Trio
Date: 3/25/2030

Boscha continues to make excellent progress. When weighed this morning she was 102 lbs, (BMI 17.5) still far off her target of 110 lbs (BMI 19) but a far cry from her initial BMI of eleven just ten days ago. Once reactivated, her metabolism has been fast and efficient.

She also appears to be experiencing mental benefits - she is more capable of focusing and concentrating, can hold a conversation for longer without becoming overwhelmed, and has begun being more confrontational with her carers and her guards. While this is inconvenient for us, I take it as a sign that elements of her true personality are surfacing, now that she feels comfortable among us and no longer suppressed by the stress and peril she faced in her home world. Unless she becomes uncooperative or violent I consider it to be progress.

It is however upsetting that sometimes she seems to hold humans in contempt, especially when it comes to things she considers common knowledge.

Now that she is nearing a healthy weight, we have begun thinking about exercise to restore her fitness and potentially letting her get some fresh air. Boscha has been supplied with dumbbells for now and while she tires quickly, she has been happy to use them. Lab 3, which is currently unused, is being converted into a gym for her. It shall help her exercise, let us evaluate her capabilities, and provide a safe place for her to demonstrate "magic."

Speaking of which, her ability to use her "magic" has fully resurfaced. It is quite remarkable - a circular motion with either index finger or even her toe is enough to create a glowing ring that can have a number of effects. This will require extensive further study, but for now Boscha has been asked to limit her use of magic to avoid alarming us, and she is complying.

I shall be giving the go-ahead for formal questioning starting tomorrow.

3/27/2030

X sat down opposite the alien, attempting to appear to be the picture of composure and calm. The truth was, he was excited! He'd waited twelve long days for this, and ten long years, but finally - his second chance to interrogate an alien was here! And there was no way this could go as badly as the first, right?

She was staring at him, crossed arms and a defiant frown masking her anxiety. He could feel the vibrations from her right leg nervously jogging under the table. He had to admit - there was something intimidating about being stared down by three eyes. That third one in her forehead was expressive, but the thing X disliked the most about it was how capable it was of working independently of the other two.

His eyes moved from her extra eye to her ears. That was a familiar looking shape. Interesting.

He reached over and pressed "record" on the camera.

"This is BOWI Special Agent Mr X, id 500-0119, interviewing Boscha Trio, guest ID Leif-G00001 -"

He was interrupted by a snigger from the woman.

" X?" she asked. "Did your parents actually give you that name?"

"No," he replied. "It's an alias I chose."

"I can see you really put in X-tra effort thinking that one up," she said with a mocking grin.

X groaned. He'd been warned that Boscha was getting increasingly confrontational as her condition improved, but he'd hoped she'd be more mature than this.

She's been through a lot, he told himself, and you've learned not to jump to rash conclusions. Cut her some slack.

"We're getting off topic. Let me give you a belated welcome to Earth, and to Project Leif, Ms Trio." X smiled and spread his arms. "You're not how we were expecting to receive our first guest, but that doesn't matter. About us - Project Leif is a peaceful scientific and exploratory organisation. You will see a lot of people around here with weapons, but these are purely for the defense of Earth and we're never going to send troops though the portal. Now, you seem to know about the existence of the "human realm" already, but obviously there's a lot we'd like to ask you. Can you start by telling us about where you're from?"

Mr X noticed Boscha glancing at Agent Parra before answering. Interesting. I wonder if that's deliberate.

"The Boiling Isles," she eventually said. "It's a cluster of islands made of the body of a Titan. Which I'm now told , isn't normal."

"No, it is not. What is a titan?"

"It's.. a Titan. I'm not sure how else to put it... kind of a god, but not really? It's huge, and definitely dead, but still really powerful."

"Those bones we saw, and the mountain-sized skull. Those are its remains?" X asked.

"That's right."

"How tall is it?"

Boscha had to think about it for a moment.

"It's been a while since psysiography class... but I think nearly 180 miles tall?"

Nearly everyone in the room raised their eyebrows.

"That's a big titan," X said. "Are you certain this is an actual carcass?"

"There's still rotting flesh on those bones, Mr X." Boscha said. "And much more, deep underground."

"What can you tell us about your magic?" X asked, while still jotting down notes about the geography of the Isles.

"It's nothing special," Boscha said smugly. She drew a circle and a ball of light appeared. "Any witch can do it."

"What powers it?"

"The bile sac attached to my heart," she replied, patting her collarbone. "It releases magic bile into my blood that powers the circles."

X tried not to look disgusted. Bile in her blood? That can't be good. He glanced at Dr Brawn, who was scribbling frantically in her notepad.

"With that, we learn to draw circles that cause magical effects. Like this."

There was a vase with wilting flowers in it on the desk. Boscha drew a green circle with her finger and it started to perk up, the red petals un-shrivelling and the stem strengthening... and then the changes faded, and the flower wilted again. Boscha glared at it.

"I must just be tired, it's normally better than that! And plant magic was never much good anyway!" she said defensively.

"So..." X cautiously said. "Your magic bile lets you do some minor tricks then..." he continued, glancing at the flower.

"Minor tricks?" She scowled. "Hmph, what does a round-ears know? I could blow up this whole place if I wanted to!"

"Please don't make idle threats, or we'll have to take them seriously," X warned. He gave her a hard look.

"Don't take it seriously," Boscha said, semi-mockingly. "Of course nobody could just blow up this -"

"Boscha, I have met one human girl who theoretically could have," X said. "And I expect she carried infinitely more 'magical' power than you ever will. We've learned to take claims about people's power seriously, even when they sound unlikely. So please don't exaggerate."

Boscha crossed her arms and turned away, apparently unimpressed.

"Yeah right..." she muttered to herself. "As if a round-ears could use magic without cheating..."

There was a tap from the table. She looked back at X. He'd set his pen down next to his tablet, and was glaring at her.

"Ms Trio," he levelly said. "You've said that several times now - 'Round Ears.' Can you explain what you mean by it?"

X saw a flicker of panic cross her face.

"Oh, it just means human," she disingenuously said. "You know, because your ears are round, and all..."

"But it doesn't just mean that, does it?" X asked. "The way you say it, it sounds like it carries... connotations."

"Oh no, not really, I..." Boscha started to babble, only to be cut off by X.

"Doctor Brawn, is there any problem with my ears?" X asked.

"Of course not, Agent," Brawn replied.

"Agent Parra, is there any problem with the Doctor's ears?" X asked.

"No sir," Parra replied.

X looked at Boscha.

"Ms Trio, is there any problem with Agent Parra's ears?"

Boscha hesitated. To her credit, she already looked thoroughly ashamed. In the silence, X couldn't help but glance at Parra - she was sweating.

"No, Mr X," Boscha eventually said, looking down to the desk. "Her ears are fine."

X leaned forward, resting his arms on the desk. He heard Parra quietly breathe a sigh of relief.

"And I see no problem with your ears, Boscha. I'll spare us all the ordeal of guessing what the actual problem with being round-eared is. But I'll admit, I was where you were once, making wild assumptions about people who were different than me. I'm hoping you'll learn faster than I did, because I could have done some real damage." He leaned forward and fiddled with his cuffs. "But word to the wise - it's very easy to tell when words are just words and when they're a slur. And I think the round-ears around you who have been keeping you safe, warm and fed for the last twelve days deserve better."

There was a lengthy pause. X kept his eyes on Boscha. She looked like she'd been called into the principal's office. It was a reminder of how... immature she could be, despite being a grown woman. Some kind of arrested development maybe? All three of her eyes were downcast, and her mouth low on her face and quivering.

"You're right," she eventually said. "I should know better, especially after all you've done for me. I apologise. I won't do it again."

"Thank you." X made a show of looking at his watch. "I think we can all do with a break, it's lunchtime."

It was actually 25 to noon, but X could tell when everyone needed time to calm down.

That afternoon, they continued.  This time, X cut right to the chase - what threat had Boscha been escaping from?

This prompted quite a long story, that began back when Boscha was just fourteen. There had been rumours that the ruler of the Isles, one 'Emperor Belos' (X made a note of that name for later) was going to do something dangerous on a day called the 'Day of Unity.' Their school had invited as many students as possible to camp at school where they could be protected by the faculty.

The "dangerous" thing had ended up being some kind of spell that drained the life force of anyone who had a "coven sigil" - which meant all of the adults, and almost none of the children. The adults had been incapacitated and in terrible pain for nearly fifteen minutes when the spell suddenly ended. Boscha claimed that nobody had a clear reason why the Emperor did this - the Blight twins were able to fill everyone else in that it was Belos' plan all along, and something about him maybe being a human, but everyone had struggled to understand why he would do this.

"So wait," X said, "you're telling me that the ruler of your isles was a human?"

"Yeah," Boscha replied. "Well that's what they say."

"How did he even get there?" X asked. "There's been no dimensional travel between Earth and your world..." he sighed deeply, and rubbed his palm over his forehead. "... that we know of... of course."

"I don't know how he made it," Boscha replied. "But he wasn't even the only one." She thought to herself for a moment. "There was some other girl, who showed up five or six months before everything happened. Personally I think she's suspicious, she vanished right when the Emperor did and took a bunch of kids with her too."

"Another girl got stuck in an alternate dimension?" X mumbled to himself. "What was her name?"

Boscha put her fingers on the side of her head and thought about it for a moment.

"... I'm not sure. It was nine years and a lot of stress ago, and we were never friends... Lusella Nosa maybe? Maybe I'm thinking of someone else..."

X blinked. That name rang a bell, but he had no idea where it came from. He wrote it down, just in case.

"So what do you think Lusella had to do with it?"

"I don't know... his accomplice or something?" Boscha narrowed her eyes. "The Blight twins were always insistent that she was a goodie, but I saw through that. Something was up with that human."

Mr X found himself wondering just how much of Boscha's prejudice against humans was inspired by these events, and how much of her memory of these events was coloured by her prejudice.

"Well, that's interesting," he said. "But if the spell ended before anyone could die... that doesn't sound so bad that it leads to what seems to have been a societal breakdown."

"You're right," Boscha replied. "Everything that followed was much worse."

Stuck inside the school, they'd watched as strange star-shaped creatures they called "spies" had patrolled outside. Nobody knew what they were or what they wanted, but the faculty knew it couldn't be good. People on the top floor said they could see dozens of them buzzing around the town, and it looked like people were fighting back... and as far as anyone could tell, they were losing.

For security reasons Hexside School of Magic and Demonics was heavily warded and the spies couldn't just force their way in, but neither could anyone get out. Everyone was worried about their families and friends in the town, but the faculty forbade anyone from leaving.

"That's when I got a stupid idea," Boscha said mournfully. "I was captain of the school's grudgby team, and we got it into our heads that the three of us could fight the spies off. After all," she sniffed, "we were powerful, strong witches, right? So we snuck out the door when nobody was watching it, and tried to fight but... we couldn't even touch just one of them. It just dodged everything we sent at it, and then suddenly it was behind me, and..."

She wiped a tear from her forehead.

"My friend Cat tackled me to the ground, and Amelia took the hit... right before Cat got shot by the thing too. When I looked up, it wasn't my friends I saw, the ones who'd died for my stupid impulsive ass. It was a couple of wooden dolls, Mr X."

X gasped and recoiled. He barely noticed Agent Parra staring, slack-jawed.

"Dolls?"

"Yes, or rather... toys. They were both turned into life-size toys - doll joints and seams and all. Brightly painted, and varnished... parodies of my friends, Mr X! Colourful and detailed and..." she sobbed, "completely lifeless!"

She rubbed at her eyes. Mr X couldn't quite believe it, but she seemed completely genuine, and he knew that he had better not completely discount that anything could be possible in another dimension.

"They vanished in a puff of blue smoke, and that's when the faculty arrived and rescued me. Some students pulled me back into the school... but the entire faculty was lost defending us. All of them turned into toys, and taken. All of the adults."

"So an entire school full of children was left to fend for themselves?" X asked.

"That's right. We were trapped in the school and completely without supervision and leadership. I was mad with grief and everyone was terrified. I tried to take control, I wanted to do something, anything! But understandably, nobody wanted to follow me right now. But one of us had to step up and lead - nobody else was coming! No adults came to shelter at Hexside, or any students from other schools, we had to depend on ourselves! And that's when Matt got all of us organised."

She leaned back, clearly trying to recall some dim and confused memories.

"Yeah, I think it was his idea. We formed a student council, with one member for each track so everyone would feel represented."

She started counting on her fingers. X was rapt with attention.

"Matt for Construction, Viney for Beast Keeping, Edric for Potions, Emira for Illusions, Bo for Healing, Skara for Bard, Barcus for Oracle, Mary for Abomination and Jerbo for the Plant track." She tried to force a smile. "Yeah, I didn't get invited, and who can blame them. But maybe they took pity on me, because they also brought in representatives for the sports teams and the kindergarteners - Me, and Celine." The fake smile remained, but the tears returned. "Good sports rep, huh, the captain who lost her team?"

There was silence for a while. X was somewhat lost for words, and knowing where this was headed for Boscha he was reluctant to ask what happened next. Fortunately for him, she decided not to wait.

"Things were all right for a while. We got food supplies sorted out, and figured out how we could scout for roving spies and leave the school without being noticed. Matt, Skara and I led a lot of missions out into the town and the forests to find food and tools and other things we needed. What we found was an abandoned world. Everyone had been taken, collected, stolen away to the crown floating on top of the Titan's head. And we found out that sometimes they were brought back, still in doll form."

She started walking her fingers around the table.

"They would all be set up around town, and then this little boy would fly down on a star. He can't be older than six - it's been nine years and he still looks six. And he had this furry little demon with him every time, that I'm sure used to belong to Lusella." She looked suspicious again, but pushed past it without making any comments about that. "And the boy would play with the toys, puppet them around." She shuddered. "Break them and put them back together. Then he'd get frustrated and bored, and fly away, and all of the toys would vanish again."

"This is the being that's done all this?" X asked, knowing the answer. He was scribbling furiously on his tablet.

"That's right. We don't know his name for sure, but someone said it's Collector. If it's not, it's stuck now. We did our best to avoid him, and we managed to for a long time. But roughly five or six months after all this began, we saw something happening above the crown."

She described the scene - three figures swooping around above the crown, a magical battle in midair. All three were tiny specks, so nobody in the school could really make out what was happening, but they could see the light show very clearly. The walls of the school rattled to the sound of loud WEHs, but even louder than them was the outraged boyish voice that echoed over the island.

"You PROMISED! You PINKY SWORE!"

The figures danced above the crown.

"NO! You just wanna PUT ME AWAY AGAIN!"

Bursts of fire and lightning were exchanged, and Boscha got the feeling the sky was about to rip apart.

"GO AWAY!"

And then the sky really was rent. Boscha was unable to describe what she saw. A colossal burst of furious, uncontrolled magic. It felt like an absence of reality and it hurt to think about. All she could say for sure was that when it vanished, two of the figures were held in midair, and the voice had cried.

"WHY IS EVERYONE SO MEAN TO ME?"

From that point on, the little horned demon wasn't there to play with the Collector. The students had watched as his games grew more violent, as he worked out his frustrations alone. The dolls took the brunt of his anger, ending up twisted and broken, before being put back good as new. Boscha saw him put on a fake war, a hundred dolls to a side, and him as the hero fighting his way to the enemy commander. That was when Boscha finally decided the dolls had to be dead. Nobody would treat a living being that way.

The number of spies had increased too. It got harder and harder for their scouts and foraging parties to return safely. The council carefully rationed food and resources so that everyone had enough, but day by day and month by month those rations got smaller and smaller. Then, a scouting party wouldn't come back at all, and everyone was sad... but everyone left had a small bump in rations.

After nearly three years of trying to find a way to get rid of the Collector, it was Bo who first noticed the spies acting strange. They'd started rubbing themselves against the walls of the school, recoiling as if shocked, and then trying again.

"We figured out they were testing for weak points in the wards," Boscha said. "They were old and none of us had a clue how to fix them. We decided we had to make plans to abandon the school before they broke through, so we started digging. Edric had been doing some research and found out that there was a network of tunnels all through the Titan called the arteries. We could use them to escape, and in our experience they would be safe from the spies."

"Why is that?" Mr X asked, hoving his pen over the almost-empty list of Collector weaknesses he had.

"He's a kid," she replied. "He's afraid of the dark, so that was where we had to go."

They'd dug down into an artery that ran under Hexside, and released something called 'Grometheus The Fearbringer' to cover their escape when the wards fell. If Grom was actually capable of taking on the Collector, nobody stuck around to watch it. Instead the remaining fifty students had climbed down into the dark and began a long trek towards the titan's chest cavity.

"We needed to get to the Gut," Boscha explained. "Viney and Jerbo's research said there was an entire biome full of edible underground plants down there. But this artery would only take us as far as the titan's chest, we'd need to make an overland crossing down the Titan's torso."

It had been a twenty-two mile trek from the exit of the artery to the Gut. They couldn't just fly, because not only did the majority of the group not have staffs, but also anything flying caught the attention of the spies much more quickly and staffs were slightly too slow to outrun them. So while Viney and Puddles soared through the sky, drawing away spies with the griffin's unmatched speed and maneuverability, Boscha had been one of the scouts on the ground, along with Matt and Skara. As she crept through the fields and forests she'd constantly had her third eye on the sky. She had twice spotted a spy and needed to signal for the main group to hit the decks and grow some plants over themselves.

They'd been maybe a quarter of a mile away from the Gut when a spy had approached the procession from behind. The first Boscha had known about it was when she heard the screams, and saw blue smoke rising from the back of the procession of students. Everyone had screamed to run for the tunnel, but Boscha had ran for the spy. The fireballs she'd loosed had missed - the Titan-damned things were too fast for that - but it was a little too slow to dodge sound and an arpeggio from Skara's harp blindsided it and hit it like a rain of clubs, shattering it.

Mr X quickly wrote down 'sonic weapons?'

"We ran after that, but more spies were swarming," Boscha continued. "In the end about eighteen of us were lost, including Barcus, Mary, Celine and a lot of the younger kids..."

... she'd fallen silent after this, and X called for another break.

An hour later he'd returned, this time with Agent Trigger instead of Agent Parra in tow. Apparently she'd asked him to substitute for her for the rest of the session. X found that disappointing, but everyone had limits to what they could hear.

"How are you doing, Ms Trio?" he'd asked.

"Ready to finish this, I think," she'd replied. Some of her initial aggressiveness and confidence had returned, or maybe that was just how she was dealing with this.

"All right. So you made it to the Gut?" he said, prompting her to continue.

"Yeah. And it was about as good as we could have hoped. There were some edible plants down there, it wasn't too cold, some caverns were large enough to light fires too, and there were a lot of exits. If spies were crowding one exit, there were another five we could use. Foraging was good too - we were away from the town so no tools could be found, but there were plenty of fruit trees, animals to hunt, wild vegetables, and a big growth of quarrelweed outside the rightmost entrance which was extremely important, because we needed to purify any water we found inside the caves. The spies never managed to get in, the dark was too scary for them, and we'd got really good at avoiding them while scouting. So we were pretty safe and self-sufficient, but also stuck. And that's where we ended up for six years - in a series of dark and wet tunnels lit by firelight."

X took a moment to look around at the 'guest room' they were in. Brightly lit, but spartan, sterile and bland and with no possibility of windows to the outside world.

"You know Boscha," he said, "I wondered why you've never complained about this place being so far underground and away from the sun. But you're used to that, aren't you?"

"Oh, this place is a Titan-damn palace," Boscha claimed. "Can you believe the floor is smooth, level, and not wet, and that I can see the walls?" She leaned forward, and somewhat sarcastically said "Yeah, trust me, I can handle this."

She leaned back. "So that's where we were. Days spent searching for food and purifying water, or trying to make the Gut habitable. Nights huddled together in the dark. Honestly, once we got used to it, it wasn't that bad for a while. Some of us got good at telling stories. I invented a kind of indoor grudgby for us to play. We'd probably have given up after a year if we didn't have Skara's music to sing along to, or Bo healing us, or the twins finding ways to put on illusion shows... or Matt, coming up with plans and ideas for how to fight back someday. We tried a few different ways, when we thought we had the resources and opportunity, but all of them failed and we lost more people. Matt eventually got it into his head that if we could get the Galderstones - and he said he knew where they were! - we could really fight back. We spent three months carefully preparing for the trip to find them! And then..." she shook her head, "the Collector made that impossible."

"How did he do that?"

"He decided owning all the people wasn't enough. He'd been playing games with them less and less. He'd started posing them around the towns instead, like the little men in a model village. He found the places where everyone went, and set them up in little scenes, and he'd pretend to be part of them. It was... sad, but he must have liked it, because he decided to make the entire island his. He decided to freeze it in exactly the way he liked it."

X looked up at her.

"What do you mean, freeze it?"

"He used magic to preserve it, exactly as it was, forever. Everything the sun could touch, stuck in place. Trees stopped blowing in the wind, water stopped flowing, birds even froze in midair, permanently."

X's mind raced. "Wait a minute, I remember." He started searching his tablet, looking for the recording of Boscha diving through the portal. "When you ran for our portal, you ran straight across the water, and when you hit the sand you didn't kick up any of it."

"That's right. They're all fixed in place," Boscha replied. "We couldn't even pick up a single grain of sand. We couldn't scoop up water on the surface. We couldn't amputate apples off of trees. We couldn't pick quarrelweed for purifying the water we can get. We couldn't hunt, we couldn't gather, and we couldn't explore because there's grass everywhere."

"Grass? What about it?"

"Do you have grass in the human realm?" Boscha asked.

"We do," X replied. "It's extremely common."

"We have it too. More than half of the exits from the Gut had grass outside them."

Mr X still looked confused. "What's wrong with that?"

"Imagine if every blade of grass was a razor-sharp actual blade. Unbendable, unbreakable, and a million of them between you and where you need to go."

X's jaw dropped.

"Oh no. The most common plant in the world was turned against you," he said, his voice hollow.

"Yes," Boscha said, nodding. "We tried walking over it, but you could never manage it without shoes, and most of us hadn't had proper shoes for years. Even if you had shoes, the grass tore them apart after twenty steps. We took the risk and flew to the graveyard where the Galderstones were, but we lost three people on the way to swarming spies and when we got there... they were just as locked in place as everything else. We were out of time."

Boscha took a moment. She closed her eyes, and breathed.

"That's when we ran out of rope. That's when things got as bad as they could get. We were on the most extreme rations we could possibly have for the last six months. Barely a bite a day, of moss and lichen and a tiny crumb of dried meat we'd thought to preserve. It wasn't enough to keep us healthy at all. Fights broke out... hell, I started one. People got collected, and people started to go... missing. Someone stole food and we spent so long arguing about what to do with them, but in the end... everyone knew it didn't matter." Boscha started to wave her hand as she talked. "So what, Sim ate two weeks of food and wasted it when he puked it up again? What was two or three weeks more? It was nothing... we knew what was coming."

She looked at X. Everything about her dead-eyed stare told Mr X this woman was describing what she'd thought was the end of her life.

"Honestly, giving up was freeing. We tried to make a party of it. We all held on for as long as we could, telling jokes, singing songs, sharing our last remaining secrets. I had a long talk with Maya, my palisman. Told her my dream of playing professional grudgby was long dead, that she should go back to her queen. I couldn't watch as she scuttered away."

She looked distant. X had no idea what a palisman was, but it seemed important.

"It was several days before someone decided it was time for all of us. I don't know who, and I don't care. I think they were trying to be kind." Boscha continued. "They planted light spells in all the entrance tunnels. They all activated at the same time when a spy was passing, and it got in. Three of us were collected by the time I was out of my seat. I ran for the surface and found myself on the beach... with a spy right in front of me."

"I froze, and watched it the entire time as it flew over to me. And when it hovered down to greet me, I looked into its creepy eyes and saw myself in its reflective skin. I knew I looked like hell, like the absolute end. I wondered what kind of toy he'd make out of a broken thing like me."

She gently rubbed the stumps where her fingers ought to have been and smiled, just a little.

"Maybe he'd fix my fingers, give me some nice clothes, and paint blush and a smile on my face like the others. Or maybe he'd look at me and think I look cool. He'd fix me up a bit, but keep the tattered clothes and the missing fingers, maybe give me a flaming grudgby ball accessory, I could be a 'battle damaged' edition. And I wondered where he'd put me in his collection. With my parents? With my team? Or did he have a special wing for everyone who resisted him? And thinking this, I had a moment of clarity. I realised... FUCK no, FUCK this, FUCK you!”

Boscha slammed her fist on the table to punctuate each ‘fuck!’

“I wasn't ready for this, I WASN'T DONE YET!" She'd screamed that last part. "I wasn't going to bow down to that bastard brat!"

Her face had turned red, her eyes narrowed and furious. She sat and breathed for a moment, but the snarl never left her expression.

"I hit it with a bardic whistle Skara had taught me and it recoiled. Then I turned tail and ran before it could collect me. That's when I saw your portal, and… you know the rest."

WANT WHAT I WANT
THINK WHAT I THINK
DO WHAT I SAY

"Yes, I think I get the idea, X," Director Sampson said. He sounded bored. "I'm sure our little 'witch' has some kind of trauma, X, what I asked you to report is if she is dangerous."

Mr X glared at his alleged boss. There was still plenty to cover in the report. How she'd been constantly exercising since being given a gym a month ago, probably to keep her mind occupied. How she'd asked for half of her gym - formerly Lab 3 - to be converted into a court for 'solo grudgby drills' and had started teaching agents Parra and Trigger to play. (Parra appeared to be a natural. Trigger less so.) How she was constantly frustrated when her left hand fumbled a ball due to her missing fingers, and what they planned to do about that. And then there was the time she lit a ball on fire, setting off the fire alarm and forcing the entire complex to evacuate and all the reactors to shut down...

He'd never needed to ground someone before. It didn't feel the same as arresting them.

X reluctantly flipped through his notes and looked for his reference on her abilities.

"Well, Boscha has been a good guest, and we don't believe she means us any harm. Nothing about her behaviour or psychological profile indicates that she'll cause us any trouble as long as she feels safe around us." He looked at Sampson. "But I think what you're asking about is her magical abilities. Yes, she has demonstrated the ability to transmute chemicals, produce fire, and if you read between the lines it seems that she can change a whistle into physical force. Unfortunately we currently lack a proper testing facility to investigate these abilities. She's already doing enough damage to lab 3 with a handball, never mind asking her to shoot fireballs." The walls of the lab were not designed for high-speed grudgby training and X was starting to get worried about whatever expensive components were behind these dents.

"Well, fortunately for you, I have the solution to that problem, X," Sampson said. There was a smug tone to his voice that Mr X didn't care for. "We'll be taking Miss Trio off your hands. You are to transfer her to Facility B as soon as possible."

Facility B. X calmly turned what he knew about the place over in his mind. Located in a facility built north of LA, it was empty now but intended for the storage and inspection of otherworldly samples and relics. Soil samples, water samples, local food, strange metals and compounds, Facility B was to handle it all... including the dissection of otherworldly flora and fauna...

X did not, under any circumstances, want Boscha to go there.

"Sir, I have to object," he said firmly. X snapped the folder containing his report closed and put it on Sampson's desk. "That place is not supposed to hold live specimens, never mind sentient live guests."

"That is not your concern, Mr X." Sampson replied. "Several rooms in Facility B are being renovated as we speak, including proper testing facilities for... investigations of Miss Trio's powers."

"Boscha Trio is still recovering from her ordeal. She's comfortable where she is. Moving her now will set back her recovery," X insisted.

"Give her and your team some credit, Mr X!" Sampson said jovially. "Miss Trio has made a full physical recovery and is now hale and hearty thanks to all your dedication. And as for her remaining mental scars, I am sure she'll recover better in a place in the woods, where she can get out and feel the grass under her feet, than on a military base in the desert!"

Grass? You really didn't read the reports, did you? X thought.

"I'll have to confer with Director Wolpaw," he replied.

"Oh, I don't think Wolpaw needs to be involved in the decision."

"Terri Wolpaw is the director of Project Leif." X said. "You'll be undermining their authority if you just take Boscha without consulting them." And X was pretty certain that Terri would not agree to let Boscha be taken to such a... sketchy location. "So I recommend you be patient, sir."

The room fell quiet, aside from a loud sigh from Director Sampson. After a moment he sat up straight and rested his hands on his desk.

"X, I've had about enough of this. There seems to be a misunderstanding about our roles in this new Bureau," Sampson said. "You seem to believe that because Director Wolpaw - the visionary scientist who is about to perfect interdimensional travel -  is your personal friend, you have not only the right but the duty to be as insubordinate as you like."

Mr X sat silently, trying not to smile, and thought finally, he gets it.

Sampson got out of his chair and started to slowly walk around the right hand side of his desk.

"This all seems to stem from the belief that Terri Wolpaw is the irreplaceable spark that makes all of this possible, who it would be impossible without. That they alone are capable of understanding the systems they have created - and that you, as their trusted right-hand man, are as immune to consequences as they are."

Sampson brushed some decoration and office debris off the corner of his desk, and half-sat on it. He was maybe a couple of feet away, and sat a foot higher than the special agent.

"I've got something to tell you, X."

He reached down and gripped X's shoulder. Despite himself, X squirmed. It was a tighter squeeze than he'd expected.

"Terri Wolpaw got lucky. With the unique knowledge that they alone were gifted, they solved a problem that anyone with their experience and resources could have. Terri Wolpaw piggybacked off of Frakes' discoveries and made themself the centre of portal research. And the Director is completely replaceable, by any of the tens of thousands of college graduates in this country with comparable qualifications and less of a lack of loyalty. And by extension, you are utterly replaceable, Mr X."

X wanted to reply, but the pressure on his shoulder was... wrong. It made his skin crawl, felt like the circulation into his arm was going to be cut off... not because it was a tight grip, but because his blood didn't want to flow under the hand. He found himself dumbly watching Sampson's face as the BOWI Director leaned forward.

"Quietly and obediently bring me the witch, X." he growled. "Or you will both find out that I do not believe that insubordinate people should be in charge of humanity's first interdimensional portal, and one way or another you will be removed from it. Do you understand?"

The hand was hot and cold. X wasn't sure if his shoulder was going numb. The face of Christopher Sampson filled his vision, and Sampson's words filled his mind. Despite himself, X found himself nodding.

"Good man!" Sampson leaned back, releasing his grip, and X came back to reality, momentarily confused about if anything had happened at all. He breathed in and touched his shoulder. Nothing. It was fine, but... heavy. His body ached, but he seemed unharmed... had Sampson even touched him?

"Now!" Sampson cheerfully said. "I expect to see Miss Trio in transit within two days..."

X had to say something. He had to regain some control of the situation...

"That won't be possible," he quickly replied. He felt like he'd had to fight out the words, and they'd all tumbled out at once with a little bit of spit. Sampson froze and turned back to him.

"What do you mean?" the director asked in a low voice.

"Ms Trio is due to have surgery to install Open Eye prosthetics the day after tomorrow, to replace her fingers!" X gasped out. He was nowhere near as composed as he would like. It was still a struggle to speak. "She's impressed with the technology and excited to try it! It would be expensive to cancel it!" X tried to breathe. "And she might not trust us again if we don't!. And she will require at least two weeks for recovery. But after that, she could travel!"

Sampson looked away from X and made a 'tsk' noise. "Prosthetics for the witch? You really are spoiling her. Fine. You have two weeks to get her in a car, and then I send Agent Fairway. You're dismissed."

Voluntarily or not, Mr X wasted no time. He left the reports on Sampson's deck and wordlessly scrambled to his feet. He was halfway out the door when Sampson called him back.

"Oh, and X?"

Mr X slowly turned back to Sampson. He was cheerfully sitting back down in his chair, a smile on his face.

"I forgot to mention. Don't waste any more time investigating that burn the witch hashtag. That's out of our jurisdiction now - the FBI and CIA handle matters on Earth, not the bureau of OtherWorldly Investigation."

X wanted to argue. He could have had a solid point about how important the Calamities were to the BOWI, and how important it was to protect them, and that this was also a personal cause for him that we was happy to do in his spare time... but what he said was -

"Yes sir. Understood."

And Sampson had smirked at him and turned back to his computer monitor.

Mr X had shambled to the elevator, all his usual style and panache apparently having fled him, and endured leaning against the wall of a suddenly claustrophobic box for several minutes while it slowly moved to the ground floor. Gasping, he'd shuffled his way across the still under-construction lobby and out into the blessedly fresh air, finding his way to a bench and almost falling onto it.

It was nearly half an hour before the last of the jitters left him, and he couldn't tell why they'd been there in the first place. He looked at his shoulder. It was perfectly fine, but felt like it should be burnt or torn off for some reason.

"What the hell happened in there?" he asked himself, feeling his heart still racing a little. It hadn't exactly been terror, not at something he could understand. It had been something that bypassed his body and brain and attacked his soul, some deep wrongness he couldn't identify. Had Sampson even been responsible for it? His memories were so focused on the specifics and muddled in the generalities, he couldn't be sure...

But whatever it was, it had to have something to do with Sampson. He'd found himself overwhelmed with obedience. He'd agreed to hand over Boscha, and even though the feeling was fading he had an awful feeling he was going to.

He'd known Sampson was a bastard. But now he knew the man was capable of something more than being a bastard, and he didn't have a clue what it was. He had to talk to Terri, in-person and as soon as possible.

TO LOST AND FOUND FRIENDS

ON THE DAY SHE TOLD HER STORY

Late that night, Boscha had lay awake in her bed, thinking far too much. Thinking about all the ways she'd failed, the people she'd hurt, the damage she'd done.

Tomorrow, like she'd used to a long time ago when she'd had a mirror, she'd look at herself in one and tell herself the opposite of what she thought when she tried to sleep.

She'd tell herself that she was talented.

She'd tell herself that she was strong.

She'd tell herself that she deserved to be here, living in the most comfort she could really remember, eating the most delicious food, when all her friends were...

When Cat, Amelia and Skara were...

When Amity...

Boscha rolled over, idly brushing the stumps where her missing fingers weren't, and tried to stop thinking. And as she did, she became aware of a strange noise. A light chaotic tapping.

She opened her eyes. Something was in her room.  Something was moving on the hard floor. It sounded large. How had it got past the guards? She wished she had a weapon, but of course the humans hadn't left her something like that.

A shadow moved. It crept behind the divider that separated her sleeping area from the common area of her room. It was about a foot tall, with two large rounded lumps sitting above some kind of body... like claws...

"Maya!" she gasped, jumping back in shock. With one smooth, easy jump the red crab palisman hopped up onto her bed.

"Maya!" she happily whispered, trying not to attract human attention right now. "What are you doing here? How did you find me?"

What she received back was a hard claw, gently brushed against her cheek, and a feeling in her mind.

I never left.

It was your drive and determination I identified with.

I knew you were not yet finished.

In a moment, the crab transformed itself into a wooden staff with a crab on the top. Smiling, Boscha put her arm across it, and fell into dreamless sleep.

And meanwhile...

The bee was hugged by a devastated woman who had been inconsolable all evening, and who had nobody she could tell except the bee.

The cat slipped out of the RV, looking at the diner where her mistress and her friend were eating, and decided to get her own food.

The chameleon rested on top of a monitor, watching her best friend master more kinds of illusions.

The bird proudly watched the lost boy follow the path he'd found for himself.

And the snake waited.

(WHAT I "T?D?W?S?")

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Xinld qs2 g3-5

Chapter Text

LET THE QUEEN BE THE FIRST TO THE PLOUGHSHARE AND THE SHEARS

(about two months ago)

The knocking was persistent. Whoever was knocking on Olivia's bedroom door at... some-ungodly-time in the morning was going to be in trouble if they didn't have a good reason. However, before she could answer, there was a small predicament to escape.

Yunan's face was right next to her own, always a welcome sight for Olivia. She could feel her breath on her cheek, hear the soft flutter of her breathing. As much as Olivia now enjoyed how enthusiastic the other newt could be, moments like these where they both simply existed together were among her favourites. They had celebrated their tenth anniversary recently with a royal banquet, but it had not felt like a celebration until they had fallen into chairs by the fire in their bedroom and shared the last of the wine.

Unfortunately at this moment, Yunan's arm was laid over Olivia's chest. Usually quite welcome, but it did make escaping the larger newt without waking her quite difficult! Olivia found herself lifting Yunan's arm ever so gently, and sliding her way down under the covers. Yunan snorted when Olivia finally dropped the arm when her head was clear, but thankfully didn't wake.

Olivia slipped out of bed, her bare feet hitting the plush carpet, and quickly picked up and put on her robe. She hurried to the door, which was being knocked on again, and opened it a crack.

"Oh! I'm sorry your Majesty!"

It was Riyah, one of her attendants and the one working the night shift this week. The startled newt was barely older than sixteen and looked like she believed she was about to be hung.

"Riyah, what time is it?" Olivia asked.

"Nearly three o-clock, your majesty. I'm terribly sorry, but it seems it can't wait and..."

Olivia tried to focus on what Riyah was saying and not let her mind wander, but the phrase 'your majesty' still rankled her. She absolutely had not intended to become Queen of Newtopia when she accepted the position of regent after Moonsend Day. In fact her intent had been to dissolve the monarchy after the incalculable damage Andrias had done to it and his kingdom. In hindsight, no one person should have had that kind of absolute power. Olivia had seen up close how a king with the wrong priorities could be capable of incredible shortsightedness and unspeakable cruelties.

She'd remembered speaking to Marcy about the government in her home country. The girl had made it sound very enlightened, and in her spare time Olivia had speculated about how such a system could work in Amphibia and maybe even be improved. Now, as regent, she'd had the opportunities to implement those ideas.

She'd also worked hard to hasten Amphibia's recovery in that year. Nearly a half of a million people had been killed or displaced during the King's rampage, and disastrous damage had been done to food production, water supplies and civilization itself. She'd worked herself ragged travelling around the country; to depressing harvest festivals, recovery efforts, devastated villages and scorched woods; seeking to inspire the people who were returning home to find their houses were now matchwood and looking to find out how the kingdom could support them. She'd worked with her people, planting and harvesting and helping however she could. She had taken the vow she had given to her mother to protect this kingdom's environment seriously, and the oath she had given as regent seriously, and focused every effort she had into returning this land and its people to its former beauty.

And she might have succeeded too well.

When her year as regent was up and she tried to begin her plans to introduce this 'democracy' to the kingdom, the people had almost rioted. And Olivia had realised that if you were going to serve the will of the people, the people had to agree with you about how.

Unfortunately, after a thousand years of relative peace under a benevolent and well-loved king (followed by, yes, a very uneven few months) the people were pretty used to monarchy. All of their systems and societal expectations were built around it. The level of political thought required to reject monarchy had not yet formed. Sure, they voted for mayors and so on, but that was local stuff that didn't matter so much! When it came to the big choices, the ones that guided the nation, they wanted a Monarch, and they couldn't really conceive of the idea of governing themselves yet. Even when they attempted their coup the toads hadn't sought to change the status quo, beyond who was on the throne.

Had the mad king completely screwed everyone over in the end? Yeah... yeah. Did the people think it was the fault of the system? No. And especially not when the regent who had been guiding them for the last year had been doing such an impressive and essential job! A beloved and noble newt whose dedication to the country was clear and whose care and contribution everyone had felt.

And so the people of Amphibia had rejected a bold new government for now. The great and the good had come to Olivia with their hands on their hearts and begged her to accept the throne, and with a heavy heart she'd accepted - with the intent that her reforms would mean  she would be the last monarch Newtopia ever had.

This was a roundabout way of explaining why she was talking to a babbling girl in her late teens who feared she was about to be thrown into the dungeons for waking her.

"Riyah, please calm down and speak clearly," Olivia said.

"A-an envoy has arrived from Wartwood, your majesty! Came by bird overnight! He said it's 'code p' and you were to be informed immediately!"

Olivia's eyes widened.

"Code P? You're sure?"

"He was very clear, your majesty! P for Plantar, he said!"

"I see. Well done Riyah. Please go rouse your sister and Willa, I shall need to be dressed soon. And tell the active guard captain to round up the council - the ENTIRE council. And send someone to wake the chefs, we're all going to need breakfast very early."

The girl was staring back at her, terror on her unblinking face.

"Do you need me to write it down for you, dear?" Olivia kindly asked.

"N-no! I'm fine! Wake your attendants, get the council, find the chefs!"

"Okay, good. Off you go!"

The shaking was persistent. Whoever was shaking Yunan at... some-ungodly-time in the morning was going to be in trouble if they didn't have a good reason.

"... of the sand wars, defeater of rag..." she mumbled to herself.

"Yunan, wake up!" someone insisted from another world that was not the inside of a warm bed. There was more vigorous shaking.

"... snaa, Olivia, what are you doing... it's still dark..."

"Yunan! Get up! Code P!"

Her eyes opened. She spun over and immediately sat up.

"You're kidding."

"I am not." Olivia went over to a jug of water, poured it into a bowl, and splashed her face. "An envoy from Wartwood has arrived. I'm hoping a council meeting can start within an hour."

Yunan blearily blinked. As a general and the Queen's Consort, she didn't need to be told she was expected to be there.

"Code P..." she quietly said to herself. "Well it's about time! You know, I'd been thinking about seeing Los Angeles again! It seemed like an interesting place, when it wasn't being bombed by Andrias!"

"Yes," Olivia mused. "It did seem intriguing. I would have liked to have learned more about human culture, or at least the part of it that was not about running for our lives. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. We should hear the message before making any plans for travel."

What Riyah lacked in confidence she compensated for in competence. Olivia's attendants arrived scarcely twenty minutes later, ready to make their lady presentable. Olivia's hair was quickly styled, her skin washed and perfumed, and she had been dressed in a suitable gown. This one was in a popular style that had emerged as the tenth anniversary of Moonsend Day had passed - grey, with a prominent shield on the bodice declaring the wearer's affiliation - this one, of course, carried the three-pronged royal crest of Newtopia. Purple accented the dress's collar and sleeves, and ran in pointed vertical slashes down the skirt. It was appropriate for the occasion not only because purple was the colour of the Newtopian monarchy but also because of who had inspired this style, and what Code P might mean for them.

Yunan on the other hand had just thrown on a tunic with some colorful pants and slicked back her hair. This was far less labour intensive than Olivia had to go though, but Olivia didn't mind. Yunan wasn't the Queen after all and she would have looked awkward in these kind of clothes, while after a long life as a noble daughter Olivia was so accustomed to them she felt naked dressing 'normally.'

(although Olivia still held a little bit of resentment that Andrias had just sat around the castle in his bathrobe. A Queen would never get away with that, and she knew it...)

Once they were dressed, only one thing remained. Willa brought out the box that contained Olivia's slender crown, opened it, and offered it to Yunan. While dressing Olivia was her attendant's responsibility, when possible they offered the crown to the Queen's Consort. Yunan took it and carefully placed it on Olivia's head, before gently kissing her.

"Thank you General," Olivia said, continuing a tradition they'd upheld for nearly nine years now.

"You're welcome, my Lady," Yunan responded. With that, the two of them linked arms and headed for the council chambers.

"All Rise for Her Majesty Queen Olivia the Second and her consort, General Yunan Longclaw, scourge of the sand wars, defeater of Ragnar the Wretched, defender of Los Angeles, guardian of Bittybu - "

The frog tenaciously continued. Olivia had been trying to think of a way to tell Yunan that this was practically abuse of the heralds, but she seemed to enjoy hearing other people do it so much!

"- ngest newt to ever achieve the rank of general in the great Newtopian army!" The man took a deep breath. The people standing around the council table all looked fed-up already. "Long may the Queen reign!" the herald finished, and Olivia and Yunan swept into the room, Olivia sitting in the grand chair at the head of the table and Yunan sitting beside her.

"Thank you for coming at this early hour, you may be seated," she said. The twelve people facing her sat, and she motioned toward the selection of fruits, roasted insects, and juices on the table. "Please help yourselves to breakfast if you have not already."

There were some general appreciative noises, with Councillor Filliton of Ribbitvale letting out a particularly loud "thank you, your grace!" and the councillors who hadn't already helped themselves took a few pieces of food.

"I hope this is important," Councillor Wrekk growled. She picked at some cricket. "I'm sure none of us appreciated being woken up at 4AM!"

Olivia smiled at the toad. She imagined Wrekk didn't realise it, but she truly did appreciate it when people were willing to hold their Queen to account like they ought to. It was a good sign for the future.

At the start of Olivia's reign this council had once numbered just three, one of each of the Newts, Toads and Frogs. Now there were sixteen, almost evenly balanced between those three and also Axolotls. All of them elected by the people. She had been gradually building up their numbers, and when there were enough that they felt representative, she hoped to give them the power to make laws without her, a major step on the road to the kingdom becoming a republic.

"I'm afraid this is most likely to be an extremely important meeting. Yunan?"

"We have received a message from Wartwood, marked with an extremely important code," Yunan said. "This code is only supposed to be used in one, very specific situation." Before any of them could waste time asking for clarification, Yunan called to the herald. "Call in the envoy, please."

Seconds later, a finely dressed older toad entered the room. The herald called out - "Mr Frodrick Toadstool, former Mayor of Wartwood!"

Toadstool took several steps into the room. He set down a bag he was carrying and knelt in front of Olivia. "Your Majesty. It's good to see you again."

"Please rise, Frodrick," Olivia said. "And the same to you. I regret that I've not been able to move to Wartwood like we discussed all those years ago. I've been quite busy."

"Ah understand, Your Majesty," Toadstool replied. He got to his feet again. "If y' ever change your mind, A'm sure Wartwood will eventually welcome y' with open arms," he said with a smile.

"So what brings this toad here?" Councillor Rebilly, an axolotl representing the Caecilian Coast, asked.

"Ah'm pleased to report that ah come with good news," Toadstool said with a smile. "Well, mixed news," he admitted. "Code P, for 'portal.'"

There were gasps from around the table. Nobody needed the significance of a portal explained to them.

"Please elaborate," Olivia said. Toadstool cleared his throat, put on some glasses and pulled out a piece of paper to read from.

"At about 7 PM last night there was a disturbance in the centre of Wartwood. A white ball of light appeared in midair, which grew into a disc of light. The portal was facing away from the town centre, so most folks could only see the back of it, but one frog by the name 'a Marsh crept in front of it. He found this."

Toadstool dug into the sack, and pulled out a metal object that everyone present immediately identified as a robot of some kind, though not one like the robots from the Ruins of Despair. This one best resembled a woodlouse - squat, long, and covered in metal plating. Instead of legs it had a pair of belts that ran underneath it, and there were various small arms and devices on its back with no clear purpose, including four circular hoops with blades inside them. It had a long thin tail, though that appeared to have been cleanly cut, and there was a small pocket on its back that contained some paper.

Everyone warily stared at the thing as Toadstool placed it on the table.

"Also, while Marsh did not live in Wartwood until seven years ago, he has seen many drawings. He says that what he saw through the portal looked similar to Anne, Sasha and Marcy. There appeared to have been some kind of struggle, but not a serious one. They were in a dark room, with many humans sitting or standing behind them, and while all three of them were looking through the portal and into our world, they didn't try to step through. In fact he says they seemed quite upset about it." He adjusted his glasses. "Shortly after this the portal vanished, abandoning this 'drone' here, along with the letter tucked into it."

"A letter?" Olivia asked. "What did it say?"

Toadstool reached into the pocket on the drone's back, and pulled out a sheet of paper.

"It's a communication from a human government. Would your Majesty prefer if I read this aloud, or if she would read it herself?"

"You may read it."

"Yes, your grace. Firstly I would note that it has been written in our own script. Quite considerate I think. Now then..." Toadstool cleared his throat, and read:

For the attention of the Government and People of Amphibia.

From Ambassador Michael Walk, representing the United States of America, of Earth.

Our most cordial greetings to the people of Amphibia. This letter is a diplomatic communication, and we request that it be passed to the appropriate people in your current government as soon as possible.

We, the people of the United States of America, are pleased to announce that we have successfully created an interdimensional portal, and we now seek to open diplomatic channels with our neighbours so that our cultures may learn of and about each other, and come together in a newfound and mutually beneficial harmony.

To that end, we seek to contact your government and eventually carry out an exchange of dignitaries, knowledge, and culture, and to make treaties of non-aggression.

We regret that this portal could not stay open for long. As of writing this letter we could not have known what happened when it opened, but we hope that its appearance has not caused undue damage or unrest. We shall be happy to discuss reparations for any damage in the future.

We expect to be able to open another portal two hours after this one closes. The portal should appear in exactly the same position, so please cordon off the area where it appeared and do not allow people to stand in it. We are pleased to announce that Anne Boonchuy, Sasha Waybright and Marcy Wu will be present, so anyone with personal connections to them may want to be there.

However this technology is still experimental. We ask that you bear the following in mind:

 

• For now, no individuals shall be crossing between our dimensions.

• The time the portal can stay open is limited to no more than four minutes.

• We may fail to open the portal at the assigned time. In that event we shall try again on another day as soon as we can, at 6 PM Earth-Dimensional time. There is a green box on the drone. You can remove it. If you press the button on it it will tell you what the current Earth-Dimensional Time is.

 

You can do whatever you want with it, but please do not disassemble any part of the drone until a human technician can join you. The drone is safe, but its components may be hazardous if broken. We will be happy to explain how it works as part of any technological exchange.

We hope our representatives can meet with you soon. We look forward to a peaceful and beneficial future together for Humans and Amphibians.

 

Yours sincerely,

Michael Walk, nominated Ambassador to Amphibia.

"There's some stuff on the back too," Toadstool volunteered. "Explanations of things like 'America' and so on, and real quick profiles of their leaders."

There was silence around the table for a long time, broken when Olivia leaned forward and placed her clasped hands on the table.

"Given your current silence, I expect that the portal did not open again two hours later."

Toadstool shook his head.

"No, it did not. Pretty much everyone was disappointed. Unless it's happened overnight, no more portals have appeared. We can't guess why. But according to this thing..."

Toadstood reached out and pressed the button on the green box the drone held. An unnatural voice said - "it is currently 3:21 AM, Earth-Dimensional Time. If Humanity is attempting to make first contact with your civilization, their next attempt will be in fourteen hours and thirty-nine minutes." Lights lit up on the back that attempted to visually convey the length of an hour and how long there was until the next contact.

There were gasps from around the table. Councillor Wrekk growled and shattered her cup, Councillor Filliton choked on his tea, and Councillor Rebilly dropped an entire plate of mosquito paté.

"Well," Yunan said with an excited grin. "Sounds like we have a time limit!"

"Yes," Olivia agreed. "Even by bird it's a two hour trip to Wartwood. That leaves us twelve hours to make plans, although it would be best to make it ten. We have a lot to consider and I believe we must start immediately.”

Toadstool was dismissed to get some sleep, and the next few hours were spent in heated debate, passing the letter to each member of the council so that they could raise issues with it.

The two Axolotl - Rebilly and Quily, from the Caecilian Coast and the Fiefdom of Kaeru, were the most sceptical about the human's intentions. None of the human girls had passed through their lands, so any excitement about their return was rather muted from them. Of course they recognised that Amphibia would have been destroyed by the moon without them, but they didn't have a personal connection.

On a similar note, Councillor Lingham of Snarlsburg was not excited about the return of the trio, but was enthused about the prospect of gaining new human allies and their technology. The old toad captain knew from Yunan's stories that human armaments had only been moderately effective against threats from Amphibia during the Battle of Los Angeles, but he also knew that the humans had been caught flat-footed and likely not been able to put on their best performance. He was curious what he would see.

The frog Filliton (Ribbitvale) and the newt Darty (representing Banksburgh and the towns around the Dry Swamp) were interested in human technological expertise, as both held a claim on the Ruins of Despair. They hoped for help in understanding the technology within them.

There was a lengthy and strident speech from Councillor Flora (Frog Valley) when she saw that the organisation contacting them was called Project Leif. The now-notable frog who had stolen the music box had risen to the status of folk hero in the last ten years, and become a symbol for those who argued that frogs had been unfairly suppressed for the last millennium. Olivia could certainly agree with that. But she had a problem with the minority who argued that thanks to their hardship, frogs were morally superior and should reign over other species, and Flora was... worryingly close to them. The implications of Flora's speech were not subtle - she expected anyone from an organisation called Project Leif   to side with her faction.

Councillor Persephone (Newtopia South) had cautioned that the humans they would be treating with did not in any way represent a united Earth, just one country out of what was apparently many. They would need to be on guard against making alliances with any country that might draw them into wars on Earth.

It was Wrekk (Barony of Frosch) who had glared at the letter the longest.

"I don't like this mention of reparations," she said.

"What's wrong with it?" Councillor Reed (frog, Newtopia Outskirts) had asked. "They said they were willing to pay us for anything they damaged..."

"Yes, and by doing so they've put the concept of reparations on the table as a reasonable thing to expect," Wrekk said. "Can any of you think of a time when Amphibia has damaged their things?

Everyone stared at her.

"Yes. Very clearly," Olivia cautiously said.

"EXTREMELY clearly," Yunan added.

"Your Majesty, I was regrettably not at the battle of Los Angeles. But from what I've been told, large sections of the city were practically levelled and thousands of humans died. Now we're being approached by a technologically superior species who may have an axe to grind at a time when we are still extremely weak after the King's rampage..."

"Yes," Olivia said, letting out a sigh. "As welcome a reunion as this is going to be, it might be too much to expect any negotiations to be anything but one-sided."

"But the king treated us far worse than he did LA!" Yunan said. "Amphibians endured months of death and destruction! The battle of Los Angeles was over in two hours!"

"And if humans had done that to us, maybe that would matter. But what the king did to Amphibia was... an internal matter. And the attack on Los Angeles was an unprovoked act of aggression by our dimension. However you look at it, the humans are the injured party."

"By a madman!"

"If they bring it up, we shall have to hope they can be made to see that. Or we might not have much to gain. With so much of the land still in ruins, our economy is fragile enough that financial reparations might bring down this kingdom."

Olivia gave orders to the council to think on, and orders for gifts to be gathered for their guests. In particular, she sent troops out to the shrine on the Greyleaf Cliffs, and to the eateries around the town that Marcy had preferred. She hoped the girl would smile at the sight of a grasshopper wrap, after she'd watched Marcy eat so many of them over priceless books.

As the councillors filed out, she called out to one of the toads.

"Braddock? A moment if you please?"

Councillor Braddock, representing Los Anfibio, turned and saluted the Queen in the toad fashion.

"Your Majesty?" she asked.

"I must ask you to take our fastest bird, return home and summon Duke Grime to Wartwood. Of course, you should feel free to tell him everything we know. I'm sure it will motivate him," Olivia said with a smile, which Braddock returned.

"It absolutely will, your Majesty!" Braddock enthusiastically said.

"Shall you and Percy be joining us?" Olivia asked. "If I remember correctly you did travel with Sasha for some time."

Braddock seemed to freeze.

"Uh, maybe not, your majesty. Someone will need to fill Duke Grime's void back home!"

Something about her response made Olivia sad. But she decided not to push her.

As the last of the councillors left, Olivia sat down again and felt her eyes flutter closed for a moment.

She wondered what it would be like to see Marcy again. The girl was tied into some pleasant memories, but also...

Once, during the first year of her reign, a new mother had introduced her daughter to Olivia and proudly announced that she was called Marcy. And to even her own shock, Olivia had been horrified. The name Marcy was beautiful, and the girl she'd known who'd carried it was a fond if sometimes bothersome memory. But it was a name that was also victim to the two most vile and monstrous acts Olivia had ever witnessed, and she couldn't help but think she wouldn't wish it on anyone else now.

She sincerely hoped Marcy was doing well. The girl deserved happiness. And she was looking forward to... to...

Her eyes closed, and her body tilted slightly to the left, before her shoulder was caught in Yunan's strong hand.

"You look exhausted," Yunan fondly said. "Go back to bed. I'll handle things for a few hours."

Olivia nodded. She knew not to argue. They had a long day ahead.

TWO EASY INFILTRATIONS

Tonight, Dipper and Pacifica were combining work and pleasure. Pacifica's convertible pulled into the parking lot outside the Royal Ragtime Theatre.

"You know," she said, "if there's anything I miss from before the herons showed up, it's the quiet streets."

"Yeah, that traffic was insane, I didn't envy you driving," Dipper said as he climbed out. "But since when did you drive yourself back then?"

"Since 'daddy'" - she gave the word some sass - "left the spare keys to the Jaguar on the sideboard in the first floor hall," Pacifica replied with a smile. Dipper's face almost froze.

"You stole your dad's Jaguar??"

"Of course not! I left him a note!" she replied. "And it was still a year and a half before he noticed!"

"How the hell did he miss that?"

"The note was in my handwriting so he assumed it was for mom, and she didn't care. And he had nine other cars! If he could count to ten I'd be in trouble!" she laughed. "That man actually signed off for it to be shipped to New York for me to use at college, without noticing it was his!"

Dipper's eyes widened.

"Wait! I remember that car! And you did drive! You drove us up to lookout poi-"

"That's right," Pacifica said, "Though maybe stop yelling about it." She playfully raised her eyebrows.

"Oh hey, sorry..." Dipper replied, trying to force a nervous grin that didn't make him look any better to the one old lady who had overheard.

"Come on, it'll be starting soon," Pacifica said, grabbing Dipper's rucksack and tossing it to him. He slipped it into his pocket and - hand in hand with her - headed for the ticket office.

Inside, the lobby was a little too much like Dipper remembered it.

"Yikes, have they replaced this carpet in the last eighteen years?" he asked under his breath. "Have they even washed it?"

"I think they gave up after the soda stains formed a varnish," Pacifica replied. She was smiling. There would have been a time when she had been disgusted, but Pacifica had come to terms with the fact that to her nearly everywhere was filthy squalor, and she didn't judge.

They hurried past the snack counter. The teenager behind it watched them suspiciously but didn't flex his assistant-managerial power. It occurred to Dipper that this kid would be in the first generation for whom Weirdmageddon was just something crazy that their parents won't talk about. Dipper pushed open the door to the theatre for Pacifica and they found their seats.

"Think we can bring it out yet?" she quietly asked him.

"Better now than when there's more witnesses about," he replied.

Dipper got the backpack out of his pocket. It was a couple of inches tall, but heavier than it looked like it ought to be. He set it down on the ground between them, got out his penlight, changed the lens to "grow" and in a moment there was a full-sized backpack between them. They left it alone for now, but as the trailers ended and the movie finally, FINALLY, FINALLY began Pacificia pulled a bottle of champagne and two champagne flutes out of it, while Dipper got the gourmet black and white truffle popcorn.

The two settled back in their seats and watched the screen.

(various distant sounds of construction and city life)

 GREGOR PARK (voiceover): Los Angeles. It needs no introduction. Talk to a certain kind of person, blah blah blah...

It wasn't exactly a mandate, but there had been agreement that everyone in Decipher should take the time to watch Three Transmissions and see what Project Leif was doing for themselves. Ford had hosted a screening at the base, but Dipper and Pacifica had elected to skip it and see it on the big screen. They didn't get many chances to be together these days, so they had to make the ones they had special.

It felt disrespectful, but Dipper waited until the loud shooting scenes started to pop the cork.

"So, opinions?" Dipper asked as they left the theatre.

"You go first, I'm thinking," Pacifica replied.

"I think that might have been a bad date movie!" Dipper said, and Pacifica laughed.

"I know. A little too serious and worthy!" she added. "We barely finished the popcorn. But it’s important, I'm glad we know what happened now. We're still dealing with fallout from it at work, and we're ten years later and on the other side of the country."

"Really?"

"Oh yeah. Contracts and mortgages and huge debts that still haven't been repaid. You wouldn't believe how many insurance companies refused to pay out and how many contractors have been stiffed. We all know the only people who got rich off the Frogvasion were the lawyers and the generals, right?"

She said it with a certain amount of exhaustion, as if the term "lawyer" didn't apply to her.

"Yesh, I've heard that," Dipper conceded. "That, and Soos," he said, glancing in the direction of the Heron Hutch with a smile.

"Well, Soos can keep it. What do you make of Marcy's confession?" she asked.

"It's interesting. To be honest, back when she did it a few days ago, I thought it felt weirdly performative? But I think I get why now. I feel bad for her, she has a lot she's not been able to talk about..."

Everyone already knew that Marcy Wu had made a confession about how her actions had been covered up. It had been the #1 trending story in the world for almost a week now, after all. But something that her press conference hadn't gone into any detail about was her possession by the Core, and it had been hard to watch her recount it...

"Dipper?" he heard Pacifica say as they approached the car. He realised he hadn't heard anything for the last few seconds.

"Oh, sorry," he said. "I was just thinking."

"Yeah, obviously." Pacifica hugged his arm. "You're comparing your possessions, aren't you?"

"Yeah..." he admitted. "I was. It's hard not to."

"So, what do you think?" she asked. "If you want to share."

Dipper shrugged.

"I think she definitely had it worse than me. She had it for much, much longer, and mine wasn't painful like her's..." Dipper said. "I guess one of the few good things you can say about Bill is he made pulling your soul out of your body pretty painless. For Marcy, it sounded agonising."

"I know. I can't believe she was brave enough to talk about it," Pacifica replied, full of admiration. "Did you see how it cut away and then things were different? I'm sure she had a breakdown on set. And then she came back and finished talking about it. Can you imagine doing that?" she asked, her mood turning glum.

"She was extremely determined," Dipper said. They reached the car and he opened up his door before getting in. "She must have really wanted to tell her story."

He dug into his backpack and brought out the jar of Tingana beans. "Come on, we'd better have some before you drive."

Pacifica pulled a face, but since she was about to drive she put the small red bean Dipper passed her in her mouth and chewed. He mimicked her with his own bean. They both winced as the foul flavour filled their mouth, but felt the faint fug of champagne fade away and be replaced with bleak sobriety.

One of the first extraterritorial successes Decipher had had was in Peru. A researcher there had been breeding beans to have certain special properties, but some creature had kept attacking his workers. Mabel, Candy and Grenda had been dispatched and ended up driving off a chupacabra. As a reward Decipher now received a couple of jars of hard red beans a year, which were a powerful antidote to many poisons - including alcohol.

"UGH," Pacifica said, screwing up her face and shuddering. "I hope you have water in there."

Dipper passed her a bottle. She took a long drink and passed it back, and he took a long drink to wash that awful taste away.

Moments later, Pacifica had raised the car's roof and was driving it through the darkness, to a spot where they knew there were no cameras. They'd had some fun, but now it was late enough for their work to begin. They switched their coats for heavy black ones, and Dipper switched his hat for a black cap. Pacifica tied up her hair and hid it with a hair scarf, and they both donned black face masks. Finally they put Pacifica's axe in Dipper's bag - just in case - along with his laptop, his journal, and his various tools.

"You sure you want to do this Pacifica?" Dipper asked jokingly. "A young lawyer could get in a lot of trouble like this."

"Dipper, I am thirty-one."

"Yeah, and everyone you work with is in their fifties," he replied with a grin. "So young."

"To answer your question, yes I'm sure. It's an elementary school, Dipper, not the Googleplex. We were fine there and we'll be fine here!"

A standing order for all Decipher Agents right now was to try to secure every copy of "Dr P's Extraordinary Guide to Magic & Mystery" that they could. The book was obviously too dangerous to be in the hands of kids. Unfortunately, as far as a layman knew the only dangerous item in its pages was the Calamity Box which was now destroyed, so they were still on library shelves in multiple states. Therefore, Decipher had the tedious but necessary task of breaking into nearly every childrens' library in those states and relieving them of them.

Gravity Falls Middle School had already been taken care of, and the High School didn't have any, but unfortunately both copies that the elementary school had were on loan until today and nobody had wanted to break into some kid's house to get them - leaving today as the first opportunity to try.

Obviously breaking into an elementary school was beneath two of Decipher's top agents, but neither of them were going to complain. The Frogvasion had already demonstrated what the stakes could be for these books. Besides, they enjoyed spending the time together, even if it was easy. They'd had an on-again, off-again relationship since they were twelve, nothing either of them took seriously for the longest time. The only time when they would see each other and be reminded of how much they liked each other was for a few weeks in summer every couple of years when their schedules brought both of them to Gravity Falls at the same time.

Things had changed when they were seventeen - they'd finally been more open with each other, and had an epic summer romance that had made Mabel green with jealousy. But they had still drifted apart from each other when they headed for separate and very different colleges, despite their intentions to stick together.

It wasn't until nine years ago, after the formation of Decpiher, that they'd been truly brought back together. Tracking a gigantic mutated alligator though the Everglades ought not to be romantic, but they'd both seen how much the other had grown as a person, and they'd liked it.

Now if only they could stop being dragged apart by their 'real' lives...

"So, who did you connect with in the movie?" Dipper asked as they walked toward their target.

Pacifica took a while to answer. Long enough that he turned to look at her, though her expression was unreadable thanks to the darkness and her mask.

"... it's not a great answer," she eventually said.

"You don't have to give an answer if you don't have one," Dipper replied. "But I am a bit more curious now."

"Yeah well, I'll tell you later. We're here."

They climbed the chain-link fence surrounding the school together, and hurried over to its eastern wall. A small ventilation duct, no more than five inches tall, sat seven feet off the ground. Dipper unscrewed a couple of screws and tilted it open, before leaving a tiny crate in it. He turned to Pacifica.

"Ready?"

"Do it."

Dipper casually got out his flashlight and shrank his fiancée to a couple of inches tall. He placed his finger on the ground and gave her a moment to climb onto it, before carefully lifting her up to the duct.

"You got it?" he asked as quietly as he could.

"YEAH, I'M ALL RIGHT!" Pacifica shouted as she jumped off his finger and into the duct.

Once inside, Pacifica took her axe and levered off the top of the crate. Inside - a tiny electric winch, about ten feet of strong thread, and a tiny rod with a sliding pulley on it. Dipper reached into the duct and got the small rod. One end was magnetised and he was able to firmly snap it to the roof of the duct, with the pulley hanging out over the drop. Pacifica ran the thread through the pulley and then stood well aside as Dipper pulled almost all ten feet of it through.

Pacifica tied her end of the thread to the winch, and Dipper turned the flashlight on himself until he was a couple of inches tall as well. He harnessed himself to the thread, waited for a pair of tugs, and returned them.

As Pacifica started the winch to hoist up her two-inch-tall fiancé into an elementary school's ventilation duct, she didn't wonder how her life had come to this. She knew exactly how. She might have had some complaints about it if she wasn't having a great time. Better than anyone else, she knew there are experiences money can't buy you, and as of right now being two inches tall and sneaking through spooky ducts with your fiancé is one of them.

It was a long walk from one end of the school to another for Dipper and Pacifica. The school's security room was on the other side of the building, and as of right now they were very tiny and dragging the thread behind them.

"So... sorry Paz," Dipper said, "but the curiosity is killing me. Who in the movie were you thinking of?"

Pacifica let out a deep sigh. "I warned you, it's not an answer that'll make me look good."

"I don't think anything could make you look bad."

Pacifica hesitated for a moment, before responding - "Andrias."

"The king?" Dipper asked. "I don't think that makes you look bad, but I don't really get it either."

"It's just something Anne and Marcy said a few times," Pacifica replied. "About him being controlled by his dad, and feeling like he had this burden where he was responsible for thousands of years of prosperity ending."

"Oh."

"Yeah. It gave me some of the old 'world's worst chain' feelings."

Dipper put his arm around her, and gave her a hug as they walked.

"Don't worry about it. You figured that out when you were twelve. Andrias really can't say the same."

"I guess I do have that going for me," she said with a smile. "But seriously, it's not like I'm saying he was justified..."

"Yeah, I got that," Dipped said.

"... I could just see how he got there. And I didn't like that."

They trekked on in silence for a little bit.

"What would you tell him, if you could?" Dipper asked.

"Now? Nothing, probably," Pacifica replied with a shrug. "Even if he's still alive, he's too far gone to use any advice I have. But back when he was young?"

She paused for a moment, deep in thought.

"I suppose I'd ask him who wanted him to think for himself about what he needed to do, and who just wanted him to obey. But maybe I'm just projecting onto him."

"I don't think you're projecting. I think you're sympathising," Dipper responded.

"Yeah, with a monster..."

"Sympathising with a monster doesn't make you a monster, Paz. You're not justifying his actions, you just have... a little insight on his perspective."

"I know... it just hit a little close to home."

Something could hear a faint rattling in the vents. It crept out of its den behind some stacked up chairs.

Dipper and Pacifica eventually came to the security room. Thankfully there was a loose screw on the vent, and they were able to lever it open with the blade of Pacifica's axe. Another magnetic anchor and a reuse of the thread later and they were rappelling down to a countertop with the main security terminal on it. Dipper got a small USB drive out of his pocket, grew it until it was the precise size it needed to be, and together the two of them hoisted the metal and plastic lump up to the back of the PC and pushed it into the only USB slot they could reach.

The screen blinked on, lighting up the room. On it, Decipher's takeover program did its work with the settings Dipper had already preprogrammed it with. All they needed to do was jump onto the Enter key to finalise the changes. That was the fun part, so Dipper let Pacifica do it while he watched the screen. Within moments the screen read:

Security Lighting: DISABLED

Cameras: DISABLED

Intruder Alarms: DISABLED

Interior Doors: UNLOCKED

Administrator Access: LOGGED IN ON ALL PCS

Eastern Fire Door: ALARM DISABLED

 

TIME REMAINING: 1:59:53

"There!" Pacifica crowed. "I told you, much easier than Google!"

"Yeah, I know," Dipper replied with a smile. "Come on. We've got the run of the place for two hours and we'll be leaving zero evidence we were here."

What happened to the lights? The creature was used to the faint lighting, but at least it had the darkness to hide in now. It had been told it was important that it not be seen. But it did not like that big humans who shouldn't be here were here.

The two humans rappelled down to the floor and Dipper was finally able to get out his flashlight and switch it to "grow." Within moments they were both back to their proper sizes, gathering up the thread and fixing the vent, and leaving the security room. They found themselves at the corner of an L-shaped corridor.

"All right, which way do we go from here?" Dipper asked Pacifica.

"How should I know?"

"Didn't you ever attend this school?"

"Do you think I went to public school?" Pacifica asked. "I attended an elementary school in Vermont where the uniform alone cost $1800!"

He stared at her.

"Are you serious? Was it any good?"

"No! It was so exclusive I was the only girl in my class of four! There were almost more teachers than there were students! It sucked!"

Dipper listened while Pacifica ranted about her elementary school ordeals with the snobbiest, dumbest and just plain worst kids in the country. They walked the corridors as they talked, looking for the library.

"So I had rats in the cafeteria, and you had classmates who insisted on bringing their horses to class every single day. That doesn't sound so bad."

"You ever had a horse crap in your classroom? I had to get used to it."

"Okay, keeping the rats!"

Why were they going to the library? Books were good and important!

They found the library on the second floor. A heavy door opened into a reasonably large room that was mostly stations with PCs and battered tablets on pedestals. About a third of it was taken up with a couple of rows of bookshelves, packed tightly enough that there was only room for one person in the passageways between them.

"Right, there should be three copies," Dipper said. "And knowing an elementary school, they won't be where they should be. I'll take these shelves."

Pacifica held her flashlight up to the books in the next set of shelves. The spines of ratty books, beaten into submission by generations of kids, looked back at her. Breeds of cats, The Alamo, history of Canada, Photoshop, Mars... the books were completely unsorted, carelessly thrown back by whichever kid had grabbed them last. Frustrating, and... there was something bothering her.

She'd felt it for a few minutes now. A familiar warning, that was growing more and more insistent.

She closed her eyes, and listened to her friends.

"Dipper," she eventually said. "They say something's stalking us."

"Something?" Dipper asked. "Do they say what?"

"No, they don't seem to have seen it before."

"Right. Find the other two books quickly," Dipper said hurriedly, "and we'll see what it is after that. I've already got one."

"Got another one," Pacifica added, pulling a copy of Dr P's off the shelf.

They kept searching, the dim hubbub in Pacifica's head intensifying with every moment but never becoming any clearer. Her friends were really agitated. It was giving her a headache, and she was relieved when Dipper found the third book between a biography of Beyoncé and an X-Men anthology.

"Got it!"

"Great, let's go," Pacifica replied, rubbing her forehead and handing Dipper her copy. He slipped all three books into his backpack, before handing her her axe and extending his stun baton. He should have brought a gun, but bringing one to a school had felt like... bad taste. They took up a position by the closed door.

"Do they say where it is?"

"To our left, I think," Pacifica said. "You know they're not always great with directions."

"Okay. On three we head out, I'll look left, you look right. Stay alert and don't split up."

"You don't need to tell me, not my first trip Pines."

"Sorry. All right, one, two... three!"

Dipper burst out of the corridor, Pacifica right behind him. They shone their flashlights up and down the corridor.

"Clear this side," Pacifica said.

"Same."

"Head for the fire exit?"

"Yeah, slowly," Dipper responded. "You lead the way, I'll watch our backs."

They cautiously retraced their steps to the stairwell, with lights, axe and baton held ready. They both jumped when they heard a sniffling and scurrying up ahead, and Pacifica saw the faintest movement in the shadows.

"It's up ahead," she said.

"I wish I could turn the lighting back on..." Dipper replied. "I'm going to try talking to it."

"Sure, be my guest."

"Hi there!" he yelled. "We know you're there! We just came here to do something good and get rid of some dangerous things!"

Silence.

"We just want to leave now!" Pacifica added. "We're going to leave peacefully, all right?" More silence. She looked at Dipper. "You don't have to be afraid of us."

Dipper nodded. They both knew many violent cryptids were either scared, or angry about human incursions into their territory. But whatever this one was, it wasn't saying anything.

They crept on, reaching the stairwell, and started to slowly descend.

"You think it's letting us go - ", Pacifica said as they reached the small landing halfway between floors -

- and then an ear-piercing, bloodcurdling shriek filled the stairwell, forcing both of them to cover their ears! They both dropped their flashlights, and Pacifica's broke. The sound brought back unwanted memories of undulating flesh with the Pines twins' faces, of eyes where mouths should be, of an immense desiccated head emerging from the lake and a grand hall full of wooden people...

Something heavy slammed into Dipper's back as he was stunned, knocking him flat onto the ground. Pacifica recovered her senses only to see a small winged creature in silhouette, clawing at Dipper's back, ripping his backpack to shreds.

"Get off him!" she screamed, and she precisely swung her axe into its side, launching it into the wall. If the thing was in any way injured by a heavy axe blade digging into its torso it didn't show it. Instead it braced itself against the wall and pounced at her, landing on her torso. She held the handle of her axe between it and her, and squirmed as it waved its skinny and short arms at her face while constantly beating its wings. Its claws barely missed her skin, slicing at her scarf and cutting off a few small locks of hair, while it shrieked and spat at her. In the darkness and the confusion she couldn't really make out what it was, though something reminded her of that hated classmate's horse.

Meanwhile, Dipper got to his feet as quickly as he could. He grabbed his stun baton.

"Let her go man!" He swung down on it as hard as he could, dealing some blunt force trauma to its shoulder along with a surging zap that was thankfully blocked by Pacifica's coat. The thing shrieked and turned back to look at him, before whipping at him with a long barbed tail. He flinched and backed away, but Pacificia had an opening to butt the flat side of her axe head into what she thought was its face.

The thing fell, whining, before scrambling away on two legs. They didn't pursue immediately, instead Dipper picked up his torch and shone it on Pacifica.

"Are you okay, Paz?"

"I think I'm fine," she said. "Come on, we need to catch that thing!" She started to follow it. "We can't leave it running around a school!"

Dipper followed her, but they hadn't gone far when they heard the sound of glass breaking. They chased it into a lab, only to feel a cool breeze - and see a broken window.

"It ran away?" Dipper asked.

"I guess so."

Dipper waved his torch around near the window. There was a strong lack of glistening glass shards.

"I think the shards are on the outside," he said. "It decided to break out."

"Crazy," Pacifica said. She looked out into the darkness, at the treeline on the other side of the playground."It decided to just run through a window?"

"I guess we really spooked it," Dipper replied, now feeling oddly... guilty.

They headed back to the stairwell. Dipper's backpack had taken the worst of the thing's assault, and he had been gradually shedding tools between the stairwell and the lab, so they took care to pick everything back up.The landing in the stairwell had a half dozen things scattered around, including the books.

The... two books.

"Shit," Dipper said.

"Where'd the third one go?" Pacifica asked.

"It must have taken it." Was that why the thing had attacked them?

"Well this is bad," Pacifica said. "Those books are dangerous and a cryptid just stole one."

"Yeah, it's not good. But there's no sense in worrying about it right now," Dipper put as many items as he could back in his ragged bag and started taping it shut with a roll of duct tape he kept just in case. It was always useful. "To be honest, what's got me worried now is that it needed to break out."

"What does that matter?"

"If it got in tonight, then it would get out the same way. But it had to make a new exit. I think it's been here a while."

Pacifica folded her arms. "You think it has a nest."

"I think we'd better check."

They had an hour before the hack disengaged itself and restored security. They could afford some time exploring the school to find any nests.

It was after twenty five minutes that they checked behind the stacked chairs in the auditorium, finding a concealed cupboard. Inside... a small, battery-powered portable light. Several packets of potato chips and empty packets of sliced ham. And three books, picture books for kindergarteners with brightly coloured pictures and information on what A is for.

Pacifica picked up a book and turned it over.

"Dipper? Is someone teaching that creature to... read?"

Fifteen minutes later, they were headed back to the car having emptied out the nest, taped shut the sliding door, and tidied up the remaining evidence of their infiltration. Dipper placed an anonymous call to the sheriff's department on the way, letting them know about the broken window and the glass shards in the playground.

Back in Pacifica's car, they pulled off their stuffy masks and breathed for a moment.

"I was not expecting tonight to get serious," Pacifica said.

"Yeah, this is going to come as a shock to Ford," Dipper replied. "We're going to need to set up some way of monitoring the school in case it comes back."

"We'll need to track it down either way if it's intelligent," Pacifica added.

"I'll talk to Wendy about that tomorrow. She'll know what to look for in the forest, and I'll be..." he sighed. "I'll be on the road again."

Pacifica saw him give her a longing look.

"Almost time to split up again, huh..." she said to herself.

"I've got appointments for the next three weeks. And you'll have cases to get back to in New York, I'm sure..."

"Maybe," she said, a little evasively.

Dipper wondered to himself if now was the time to bring up what he was thinking...

"It's not for much longer. When we get married in the summer, I think I'll be changing careers..."

Pacifica stared at him.

"Dipper! No! You love this job!"

"I mean yeah, but we can't be a couple if we spend 80% of our time in different states. At least not in the way I want to be."

"I get it, I hate being apart too."

"So I figure, you make more than me, I'll move up to a more stable and higher paying job in the same city," he hugged her, "and we can both stay together in some penthouse."

"You, in an office job?" Pacifica asked. It wasn't mocking. "Is that what you want?"

"I want to be with you..."

"Take me out of the equation, Dipper. Do you want that, or do you want to keep exploring and helping people with weird stuff?"

"I can't just take you out of the equation, Pacifica!"

"Humor me, Dipper. And tell me the truth."

Dipper grimaced for a moment. He uncomfortably looked out the window, wondering what to say.

"If I could? Yeah. I'd keep doing what I'm doing."

"Good."

"But there's no future for us like that!"

"Says who?" She looked into his eyes. "Dipper, you're not alone about that. It was missions like this that brought us together again, and I really think I've had more fun and done more good in the last two hours than in the last few weeks of arguing about torts!"

Dipper stared at her in shock.

"You're saying you want to come join me?"

"Yes!"

"That, I've... Pacifica, I would love that! But if we do, you understand we might end up in poverty, right? My work doesn't pay THAT great!"

"Who do you think you're talking to?" she said with a grin. "Dipper, we'll be fine! I stand to inherit more money than I could earn after a lifetime as a lawyer! You need to understand, that gives me some freedom to do what I want, not what I have to! And what I want is to join you on your crazy quests!" She smiled over at him. "I've already booked a month's vacation. We should at least try it before we make any decisions, right?"

Dipper grinned, and laughed.

"Yeah, we should. Welcome to Pines Investigations, partner," he fondly said. The next few weeks were going to be great.

MEETING THE GODFATHER

"I think you're overreacting," Gus said from down the phone line.

"I mean, I guess? Maybe?" Hunter admitted. He was sat on his bed in his apartment, hunched over and hugging his cell phone to his mouth. Flapjack was still dozing on his perch, shooting annoyed looks at his noisy friend. "But you have to admit it's kind of strange, right? A gift shop shouldn't be attracting so many secretive people. They all head through the back and don't come out for hours."

"Maybe they're all friends of the owner," Gus suggested, rather weakly.

"Or maybe they're up to something," Hunter said. "They've all got their own keys for the grounds, you know."

"All right... I'll admit the way you say it, it sounds suspicious," Gus admitted. "But no offence Hunter, are you sure it's not the Coven Scout training talking here?"

Hunter pinched his nose. "I don't know..."

Hunter did have a tendency to be overly vigilant. He couldn't help it, it had been drilled into him from as young an age as he could remember. The Coven Scouts said they were there to protect the people, but so much of his training had been about how to spot and crush dissidents and suspicious actors, and sometimes old habits demanded he notice and investigate.

"Look, Gus... maybe it is, and maybe it isn't. But I feel like it would set my mind at ease if you came here and helped me. I need your help to get inside."

"Well you asked the right man. Look hermano, I'm happy to help you out. But is this actually going to help the familia get home? Or find -"

"I don't know," Hunter said, interrupting him. "But there's something up with this town. Did you know this place has an actually bottomless pit? Or that the cows have crop circles on them? Or that a third of the original buildings have ghosts spraypainted on them? Same little stencil, only on the abandoned ones. And Gus? I swear I saw a bear with multiple heads out in the woods, and actual fairies."

"Dude. There aren't real fairies on Earth."

"Except here."

"Did you talk to them?"

"No... all they wanted to do was barf. Nothing seems to come near the town, but out in the woods where we are? It's crazy. Look... my point is, this place sure feels like the Boiling Isles to me. Everything's different here. I think we need to investigate it."

There was a long pause.

"Okay man. I'm in," Gus said. "Either you're right and this is a big break, or you're wrong and you really need some company. Either way, win-win."

"That's mildly insulting, but thanks."

"I've got a video to finish here. I'll get over to you in a day or two."

They said bye and hung up, and Hunter stretched and went for a shower. The little cubicle was too small for a man of his height, but he managed like he did every day.

Once dressed, including putting on the silver neck chain whose enchantment hid his ears with an illusion, Hunter metaphorically put on his Carlos face and stepped out his front door. Flapjack fluttered to his shoulder right before he closed and locked it.

He was on the upper floor of a small apartment building on Chuck Street. The old slaughterhouse was long, long gone, but the name remained. This was in the quieter half of town - not long after arriving Carlos had seen how the town was split in two, one side a fabricated small town pastiche where tourists got a taste of that rural American life without ever getting too far from a coffee chain or a gift shop selling heron-shaped magnets. On the other side, the comparably more run down place where the people who maintained that facadé actually lived.

He looked up and down the street. Greasy's Diner was the main place he was looking for. It sat on the opposite side of the road, about a hundred feet away. The dry wooden boards creaked as he walked to the stairs and jogged down, waving hi to the woman he met halfway and getting a friendly wave back. She was about his age, and he found himself looking back over his shoulder to her as he stepped onto the sidewalk. He knew she lived on his floor, but he hadn't heard her name yet. But she seemed nice.

Flapjack tweeted in his ear.

"Yeah, I'll ask her next time."

A more sceptical tweet.

"What does that mean? It's not an excuse."

Nagging tweets.

"Well, she's not here. You know how busy we've both been!"

Exhausted, resigned tweets.

"I've told you, it was just... never the right time to talk about it."

Tweet tweet?

"Look, I promise you next time we see each other I'll ask her. Now quiet down for a second, I don't want to look crazy."

He regretted confiding in Flapjack about Willow. Not that he had needed to. The bird palisman was very perceptive and also seemed to consider himself Carlos' personal matchmaker despite having failed miserably at that so far. And so, these days the red cardinal brought her up at every opportunity, even though Willow was away titan-knows-where with important work.

He hurried across the street and into the front door of Greasy's. Not that Carlos would be able to tell, but the place hadn't changed even slightly in eighteen years beyond the jukebox finally being replaced with what was essentially a freestanding empty box with an MP3 player in it.

Carlos picked a stool at the counter, two down from Kevin Corduroy. It wasn't a decision. As a Corduroy, sitting on the stool adjacent to him was an actual impossibility - all three of Wendy's brothers were far too broad. He was in his costume which was almost a pastiche of a lumberjack, and he was one of the most popular tour guides in the new part of the town. In addition to his normal fee the man charged $15 for a photograph and raked in an absolute fortune from middle-aged ladies.

The two men exchanged non-committal grunts as Carlos sat down.

"Carlos! Good morning!" The woman behind the counter focused her good eye on him. "The usual?"

"Yes please, Ms Wentworth," he responded.

"Coming right up! Special pancakes for such a polite young man!"

Kevin stared at her as she walked through the back.

"Wait, Susan's not her last name?"

Carlos laughed. "What did you think?"

"I dunno. Nobody ever said that around me."

He grumpily turned his attention back to his breakfast plate.

Carlos took out his phone and checked the familia chat. Nothing from Willow... but there was nothing unusual about that. He really hoped she'd be able to send some news soon. Camila had sent a Cosmic Frontier meme that made Hunter laugh and mostly seemed to have confused Amity...

He was interrupted by a plate of pancakes, topped with strips of bacon and drenched in plenty of maple syrup, being placed in front of him.

"Here you, go, sweetie!" Lazy Susan said. She put down a cup of coffee next to it.

Carlos considered it an unexpected privilege to be a regular somewhere. It was extremely nice to know there was a place where you were so welcome, they knew what you wanted as soon as you walked through the door.

"Hey, thanks Susan!"

"We've got some chocolate chips? On the house...?" she said temptingly, and made the odd head motion that Carlos was led to believe was an attempt at a wink.

"Oh, no thanks, I'm fine..."

"What? What're you doing, Carlos?" Kevin loudly asked. "Chocolate chips are extra! Take them! I've been coming here for years and never been offered free chocolate chips!"

"You can have chocolate chips when you're as polite and well-behaved as Carlos!" Lazy Susan said, wagging a finger at Kevin. Carlos couldn't help giving the annoyed Kevin a smug smirk, which the larger man chose to ignore while muttering under his breath about chocolate.

Carlos dug in while Flapjack hopped around on the table. The diner was a little bit of a dive, and Susan could be strange, but she'd got breakfast down to an art, and in the absence of chimera milk he'd developed a taste for human-style pancakes. They had less of a venomous zing, but if Carlos ever returned to the Boiling Isles he was not going without a supply of maple syrup. His mouth was full when Susan returned with a small dish.

"Heeey, I almost forgot!" She put the dish down in front of Flapjack, and it turned out to be full of bird seed. "A treat for your little friend!"

Flapjack trilled appreciatively, hopped over to the dish and started pecking. Carlos thanked her, just in time to see the scandalised look on Kevin's face.

"And Kevin Corduroy? Before you say anything - here, I don't want you to feel left out," Susan said, before putting another dish of birdseed before him.

Kevin grumbled and glared at it for a moment, while Carlos and Susan tried to stifle their laughter. Eventually he reached out with the half-eaten sausage on his fork, dipped the end of it in the seed, and ate it.

"Hm. Not bad."

Carlos laughed, bought some chocolate chips for Kevin, and took a photo of Flapjack feasting at his dish. Almost everyone in the familia chat Liked it immediately.

He caught a ride with Wendy when she pulled up in her Tahoe, and they talked about the plans for today. A dying tree near the fence looked like it was going to come down next time there was a strong wind, so Wendy and a friend were going to go take care of it. That'd keep her away from the ranger station all morning, so Nate was in charge.

"I'll be back in plenty of time for the 12:30 feed," she'd told him. "Just keep an eye on things like usual, and take some time to make sure the feeding truck is loaded in case I'm late."

He'd agreed, and spent the morning patrolling the observation area. At 10:30 AM it tended not to be that busy, though anyone who had shown up two hours early for the feed would have been treated to a spectacular sight. Gompers (for some reason the herons had been nicknamed Waddles and Gompers, Carlos was mystified about why) had wandered close to the fence and was peacefully pacing around, bringing his huge head down to look at the tiny figures staring back at him. The half-dozen tourists who were present were oohing and ahhing and taking pictures while a chubby young boy who Carlos had seen around before held on to the fence, shaking it and waving to try to get the heron's attention.

There was also a middle-aged man in a long coat, here by himself. He had a broad-brimmed hat on, and a shabby demeanour. Something told Carlos he should keep an eye on this one. The man was sitting on one of the half-log benches, swaying slightly and scowling at the enormous birds. For his part, Flapjack had flown to a perch on top of the fence behind the man, and was carefully watching him.

Carlos approached him. The closer he got, the more obvious the alcohol smell was.

"Good morning sir. Mind if I ask how much you've been drinking?"

"Yeah I do. Ain't no law against it."

"Sir, public drinking is prohibited in the observation area."

"Do you see a bottle in my hand, ranger?" the man growled. "I'm allowed to be in the forest."

That much was true. During the day the enclosure was a public area, and unless a drunk was a danger to himself or others you couldn't eject them under Oregon law. This man was lucid and keeping to himself.

"I'm not committing any crimes. You want to know what's a fucking crime?" the man continued. He pointed a shaky hand at 'Gompers.' "You all keeping those murderous bastards alive so idiots can rubberneck at them."

Carlos sighed. You got this every so often, and he could understand why. He still couldn't decide how he felt about the herons. There was no doubt they were magnificent creatures, beautiful and very imposing. But there was no forgetting how incredibly, provably dangerous they were - there were hours of footage in the Incursion Historical Archive that would remind anyone that regardless of how peaceful they were now, once they had been apex predators and they had killed humans. It was insane that humanity now had to care for them, and only the shadow of a doubt that the herons had had any choice, along with their extreme toughness, was keeping them alive.

"It's tough to do, sometimes," he admitted. "But as far as anyone can tell they were mind-controlled, and..."

"Bull shit," the man said. "Those bastards are killers! They... they killed, they killed them just for the hell of it! They ripped tanks apart with their beaks! You want to stare at a fucking heron? Look at the video archive, they're everywhere! Fucking monsters!"

He bent over, clutching his forehead.

"My god-damn dad! They didn't need to kill him, they didn't want to eat! They killed him for fun!" he hissed, trapped between grief and fury.

Carlos stayed quiet for a while.

"I'm... sorry to hear that," he eventually managed to say.

"Bullshit! If you were you'd have pumped their meat full of arsenic already!" The man glared at the heron in front of him. "You'd all have done something! But you haven't, so get out of my face."

Carlos mutely looked at him. Whatever this man was going through, he no longer wanted to interrupt it.

"I'm sorry to have bothered you," he said. "If the rangers can get you anything - food, or water, or a ride back to town when you're done - let one of us know."

The man grunted back at him.

Carlos morosely backed away, and left Flapjack to watch over the man just in case. Hunter wished he had more of a connection with this world. As far as anyone knew he was old enough to remember the Frogvasion - hell, the fake backstory that had been cooked up for Camila's adoption of him was that he and his siblings were orphans of the Battle of LA. He should have deep feelings about it. Maybe if he had, he'd have known what to say...

A family of three had approached him to ask what the herons ate. A dad had asked if he and his son could ride in the truck for the next feeding. A worried little girl had asked him if the herons ate wild squirrels. In-between distractions, Hunter had split his attention between the enormous, beady eyes of the nearby heron, the stewing man, and whatever else he could find to distract himself.

He found himself wondering about the aftermath of the Day of Unity. Assuming things were okay over there, how had people treated the emperor's collaborators? Like the loyalist coven heads, or Amity's mom? Historically the only form of capital punishment on the Boiling Isles was petrification - were statues of Adrian, Terra, Vitimir and Odalia now being kept in some back room somewhere? Or were they locked away in the Conformitorium forever as accessories to attempted genocide? Despite what they'd done and as much as they had all ignored or belittled him, he had to hope it was the latter, and maybe without Belos calling the shots it was...

He was answering questions about how tall the birds were when Flapjack swooped down, landed on his head, and started screeching in his ear.

"Ow! What the hell, Flap!"  Carlos swatted at the bird in front of some shocked tourists. Flapjack responded by grabbing his forelock and dragging his head around. When he focused his eyes, Carlos saw the drunk standing and lightly swaying in the centre of the observation area. His back was to Carlos, and he seemed to be putting something together inside his coat.

When he turned to face the heron, Carlos saw a glass bottle in his hand, and a flaming rag.

He started to run toward the man, but it was already too late.

"BURN THE WITCH, AND ALL OF HER SERVANTS!"

The man roared, wound back, and threw the molotov cocktail.

There was a world where this was a decent plan. The interior fence was twelve feet tall. A man with a really good throwing arm could theoretically throw a light enough bottle over it and get it to hit the exterior fence, showering the heron with flaming gasoline. As for what happened after that... well, it'd be ugly for everyone, but if all you cared about was hurting and maybe killing a giant heron, it could work.

Even drunk, this man had a good throwing arm. But that wasn't going to matter. Because what Carlos knew and the drunk hadn't noticed was that there was a nest of steel cables between the two fences, intended to trap a heron's head if it broke through the exterior fence. The bottle was almost certainly going to hit one of them, break shortly after passing the interior fence, and start a fire that was between the fences and on our side of the interior fence...

... and that kid, who had been rattling at the fence earlier, was still there - watching the bottle sail overhead.

The Coven Scouts were there to be enforcers for the Emperor, to crush dissidents and suspicious actors. But sometimes paying lip service to the idea of protecting the people is enough, and Hunter had received some ideas about what his duty should be.

He moved. Flapjack wasn't in his staff form, but just having the bird in his hand was enough - it'd be rough on Flap, but Hunter knew he understood. In a golden moment he'd moved from there to here, lifted the kid to his chest and ran from the bottle.

There was a crack as the bottle hit a cable. A small shockwave hit his back, the sound and force knocking him off balance and to the ground. Hunter tried to fall so that he covered the kid's body. There was a sharp pain where his right scapula was, and another just above his waist on his left side.

A bell was ringing. People were screaming and shouting. The herons were screeching. The boy seemed to be hyperventilating. There was a growing pain in Hunter's back and his left leg, and then suddenly someone was grabbing him and rolling him over!

"Buddy! Stop, drop and roll!" Carlos was rolled off the kid and onto his back. It was incredibly painful but right now, he was filing that pain away for later.

He rolled over a couple of times and then someone pressed a heavy coat against him to smother the fire.

People couldn't agree on whether Carlos was more brave or more lucky, but there was consensus that he had an excess of both.

Volunteers had carried him into the ranger station's first aid room, while the rangers on duty had done their best to control the fire until emergency services arrived. Thankfully the area between the fences was mostly dirt and thin grass, and it had rained overnight. The grass in the observation area had been healthier, but the gasoline had burnt out quickly in the wet grass without spreading too much. If not for last night's weather, the entire forest could have gone up in flames.

In the first aid room someone had cut the back of Carlos' shirt open and cut off his right pants leg below the knee. It turned out the suspicious guy with the baseball cap was named Dipper and he had some advanced field medicine training.

"All right man, just hold still, I don't think this is too deep..."

Carlos had winced and squirmed as Dipper picked a trio of large glass shards out of his back with tongs, before cleaning the wounds and stitching them up. He'd then slathered some ointment on the few small burn marks on Carlos' back and leg. Carlos had been far enough away, and the bottle had been light enough with fuel, that only three small burning drops had hit his back. Two or three more feet back though, and both he and the kid would have been right in the flames.

A concerned Flapjack hopped around on the bench as Carlos grimaced and winced, rubbing his head against Carlos' cheek. That was comforting. Good old Flapjack. He always had Hunter's back.

"All right, Carlos," Dipper had said. "All done. Just lie there for a moment, get your breath back, and don't worry about a thing, all right?"

"How's... the kid?" Carlos groaned. He heard the door opening.

"Just fine, thanks to you," Wendy said. She walked in and almost threw herself into a chair by the bench. "Carlos, my man! I am really damn impressed! Though if I ever see you running toward a firebomb again..." she sighed, "well, I was going to say some bullshit about 'I'll push you in myself' or something, but if this ever happens twice then something's severely fucked up."

"What about... the fire?"

"We've got it under control until the fire department arrives. And you better believe we caught the guy. He didn't even try to run though. He says he didn't see the boy, though there's no way that should make any difference. Even without the kid there that moron could have burnt down half of Oregon with this stupid stunt," she added, extremely angrily.

"He said... the herons killed his dad..." Carlos said.

"You think that makes a difference?"

"Nah. Just trying to understand." It was horrible, what had happened to the drunk, but any sympathy Carlos had for him had evaporated when he threw a firebomb near a child.

Wendy got up and inspected Carlos' back.

"I can't believe how lucky you got, my man."

"Few days... and I'll be fine..."

"No freaking way, you are taking at least two months off, paid. THEN we'll get a doctor to check you and decide if you can come back."

A tiny mote of panic lit up in Hunter's mind. Doctors and hospitals could find out too much...

"No... no doctors. I'll be fine..."

Dipper and Wendy looked at each other. Wendy frowned and nodded at Dipper, who nodded back.

"All right... we'll talk about that later, Carlos," Wendy replied. "Just relax there for now."

The fire department and the ambulance arrived a few minutes later. The paramedics had barrelled into the first air room and inspected Hunter's back, and to Hunter's mild relief Dipper had convinced them that he didn't need to go to hospital. They'd actually left giving Dipper compliments about the quality of his stitches.

After half an hour, Dipper had taped some gauze over the stitches and burns and given him several strong painkillers. Carlos felt good enough to move, though Wendy insisted on supporting him. He felt fine to walk apart from the pain from the burn on the back of his leg, but still accepted her help. She led him to the door to take him home.

Outside, the smell of smoke hung in the air. Both of the herons were gone. Firefighters were walking back and forth in the observation area, working on dousing the last remaining embers of the flames. Every tourist had left.

Wendy helped Carlos down the three steps to ground level, and they headed for the staff car park. But on the way, Carlos spotted a man in dark suit pants and a white shirt. The man's eyes widened as he saw Carlos, and he started stomping over to him.

As he got closer, Carlos could make out more details. He was old, but broad and solid looking. His hair was short and grey, his nose red and bulbous, and he wore glasses and a five o'clock shadow.

He looked angry and determined... and then, as he got close to Carlos, his face beamed and he assumed a broad smile.

"There he is, the hero of the hour!" The man threw his arms open and approached Carlos, but Wendy pushed him back.

"Stan, do not hug him! His back is injured!"

"What? Oh, right. Hey kid! Name's Stanley Pines!" He put out his hand for a handshake.

Carlos reached out his hand too. He was in the middle of replying "Carlos Ki-" when Stan grabbed it and started vigorously shaking it.

"That was a hell of a thing you did there! Amazing! Listen t' me, I'm not gonna forget it!"

"Hrrk! Uh, thanks?" Carlos replied, feeling the pain in his shoulder as Stan enthusiastically wrenched his arm.

"From now on, you need anything, anything at all? You come to ol' Stan, all right? Money, jobs, favours, anything! I won't turn ya down!"

"All - right - thank - you - sir!" an overwhelmed Carlos managed out between handshakes.

"Great! Remember! Anything you need, come talk to Stan!" The man clicked his tongue and gave Carlos a fingergun, before backing away with a grin on his face.

Carlos watched him go, feeling a little confused.

"Who was that?" he asked.

"Stanley Pines," Wendy replied. "Extremely doting Godfather to Stanley Ramirez, the kid you rescued." She smiled at him, and patted his chest. "Congratulations Carlos, you just made friends for life with both of the Mr Mysteries."

Carlos stared at her for a moment, before letting out an exhausted smile.

"Heh. Cool," was just about all he could manage.

IT'S BEEN TWO MONTHS, DAMN YOU,
DAMN YOU...

The cream of Newtopian nobility had descended upon Wartwood, ready to begin a new age for their continent. The Queen and her Consort, the entire Council, and a substantial section of the Royal court had swooped down on birdback and made themselves known, accompanied by guards, attendants, and bureaucrats of all kinds. The Queen had given out very specific orders. The lives of the people of Wartwood - so many of them great heroes of the rebellion - were not to be disrupted by her entourage, and anyone abusing a local would be immediately detained and returned to Newtopia.

But there was no getting around it, the arrival of the nobility placed a tremendous pressure on the town, turning an already tense atmosphere into one of absolute anxiety. The town was lucky to have a mayor like Mayor Chuck Gardner at that moment. He couldn't give a speech to save his life, but he was steadfast, reliable and unflappable, and his confidence was contagious.

The area where the portal had appeared had been cordoned off, which was a problem because it was right in the middle of the road out of town. Any vehicle coming from the farms had needed to go offroad around it or go the long way around. A stage had been built there, and many chairs laid out on it and in front of it. Queen Olivia had, after some thought, decided that while she obviously should be centre stage, she wanted the people of Wartwood to have a prominent position. So they were being given chairs on the ground in front of her, while she, Yunan, and several members of the council and bureaucracy were on the stage behind them.

And so they had gathered. In the centre on the stage - Olivia, Yunan, Lord Grime and Mayor Gardner. Flanking them - Councillors Reed, Flora, Filliton, Darty, Persephone, Marcus and Sara. Those people would mean nothing to Anne, Sasha and Marcy, but they were representative of places they'd passed through. Councillor Flora in particular had demanded as prominent a position as she could manage next to Mayor Gardner, who looked uncomfortable about it.

More importantly, the people of Wartwood sat in chairs before the stage. Right in the middle, Hopediah and Polly Plantar, with Sylvia and Felicia Sundew next to Hop Pop. Sadie Croaker - the town's oldest resident - nearby, still refusing to wear the medals she'd received from the crown for her part in the Resistance. And spreading out from there, on either side of them - Leopold Loggle, Maddie Flour, former mayors Frodrick Toadstool and Toadie, Wally Ribbiton, and many more crowding the edges and trying to get a good position to see inside the portal.

As they sat there, Yunan kept anxiously pressing the button on the drone's clock.

"It is currently 5:52 PM, Earth-Dimensional Time. If Humanity is attempting to make first contact with your civilization, their next attempt will be in eight minutes."

"It is currently 5:53 PM, Earth-Dimensional Time. If Humanity is attempting to make first contact with your civilization, their next attempt will be in seven minutes."

"Yunan, please stop that," Olivia had said.

"I just don't want to be taken by surprise."

"I think that might be inevitable, dear. Now please, I'm trying to focus."

Anyone watching the queen for the next five minutes would have seen her anxiously moving her mouth, muttering "... pleased to welcome contact from our human friends, opportunity for discovery and understanding, pleased to welcome your representatives..." over and over to herself while she watched the area where the portal would be.

And as time passed, chatter died down.

And everyone waited.

And waited.

And waited.

"Isn't it supposed to be opening now?" Yunan had asked.

"Maybe," Olivia had responded.

And Yunan had pressed the button.

"It is currently 6:08 PM, Earth-Dimensional Time. If Humanity is attempting to make first contact with your civilization, their next attempt will be in twenty-three hours and fifty-two minutes."

They'd waited there for another half an hour. They'd reassembled two hours later, just in case. And the portal had never appeared.

Nearly two months later, Polly Plantar sat alone on a stone they had used to close the road. She cradled the drone under her arm, and glowered at the empty space within the cordon.

She was sixteen now, and as far as she was concerned all grown-up. Her wild orange hair was tied back into a short ponytail with her favourite old yellow ribbon, and she wore a short-sleeved white shirt under her work overalls. Her clothes were stained with oil and slightly burned in one spot at her hip. Heavy duty gloves hung from her toolbelt, alongside the typical wrenches, screwdrivers and other tools she needed on a daily basis. Polly had been forced to "invent" several of them based on what she remembered from Earth - Wartwood hadn't had much concept of what a soldering iron was, for example.

She morosely glared at the empty space, and let out a long sigh. Her finger hit the button on the green box.

"It is currently 5:44 PM, Earth-Dimensional Time. If Humanity is attempting to make first contact with your civilization, their next attempt will be in sixteen minutes."

This wasn't fair.

Two months of this.

Hop Pop should be with her.

Her grandfather was fine, but getting sore and stiff in his old age, and while he usually came with her to wait for the portal he'd been saying he couldn't more and more often now. Polly understood... but felt like a fool sitting here by herself in a closed road.

People were looking at her piteously.

She ignored them, and held up the drone. Of course, she'd been given it as Amphibia's foremost expert in Earth technology. And of course, she had ignored all the warnings and immediately disassembled it. How couldn't she? From what she could tell it was nothing all that special, but it had been an incredible joy to tinker with new Human hardware again, considering Earth was where she'd got her start in engineering all those years ago. The battery was some new variety of lithium polymer with, she estimated, triple the fully charged capacity of anything she'd seen in LA. Of course, she'd known not to take that apart. The blades of the propellers were a different shape than the ones on Mr Boonchuy's drone. (RIP, Polly still felt bad about it) The motors were a unique and very compact design that was about the size of her thumb! Of course, nothing here was as advanced as Frobo, but it was still fascinating. Humans did a lot with a comparably tiny amount of power. When she compared it to the crazy-high power demands required to power up the simplest machine in the Ruins of Despair, she couldn't help but be impressed!

She'd love to talk to them again. One of them in particular.

She sighed and sadly glared at the empty spot in the middle of the road.

She wished Sprig were here.

He'd joined an expedition to explore the new continent - now named Reptilia - with Ivy, and while they'd returned several times over the last few years it was at least a month's travel on a boat before you even made land. Depending on where they even were on the continent, it was possible that Sprig and Ivy hadn't even got her letter yet! It would be a while before she saw him again, and she had so much to tell him...

An older woman was glancing at her, and whispering to her friend. She glared at them, and hugged the drone, the evidence that there had been a portal.

"Hey Polly," someone said from behind her.

Polly spun her head back, and glared at whoever had interrupted her.

"Oh, it's you."

Glen was a frog about her own age, with bluish-grey skin and dark hair. A bit of a nerd, really, he even had glasses. His family had moved to Wartwood seven years ago and they'd met when Glen had found her in an alley trying to get a stick that had blown into Frobo's chassis out. She'd used his skinny arm to grab it, while she pulled the tiny lever that would shift the gear it was trapped in. When he pulled his arm out without his hand getting caught in a steel door that slammed shut, she'd declared him a Useful Individual and asked him his name.

They'd spent a lot of time around each other since then, Polly showing him the wonders of engineering and mechanics. They'd built a working electric motor from scratch together, and then an oil-powered one, and then they'd both emerged sputtering from her workshop with their faces coated in oil smoke. They'd taken Frobo for a ride out to the ruins of Despair and tried to find bunkers they could sneak into, and succeeded a few times, and only been chased out by researchers from Ribbiton once! And they'd often gone out to the marshes to hunt and catch insects. Polly hadn't been very interested in that one, but Glen had talked her into it by suggesting they study dragonfly wings and try to adapt them to machinery.

They had, in short, spent much of the last seven years inseparable. Though lately it had been getting a little weird...

Glen shrank back a little at her initial glare.

"Okay, I can see you're not in a good mood... I'll go..."

"No, no," she said, shaking her head. "Sorry. I'm just a little cranky." She shuffled over on the rock. "Here, sit down."

"No, it's all right..."

"I said sit down!" she growled, and she grabbed his elbow, dragging him down to the rock. He sat down on it next to her, and she immediately regretted it. This was not a particularly wide rock, and she was suddenly acutely aware that their shoulders were touching.

"So..." he awkwardly said. "Is it portal time again?"

She just morosely pressed the button. It announced that the next attempt at opening the portal would be in five minutes.

"What are you going to do after it?" he asked.

"Wait two hours for the next attempt," she responded.

There was a faint groan from Glen.

"There's, uh, a research party going into the northern ruins tomorrow, you know. They're going to be there for two whole days."

"Yeah, I know. Glen, if you know, then of course I know."

"We could... I don't know... join then? Maybe?"

"You can," she responded. "I need to be here."

"Do you?"

There was a pause in the conversation.

Polly slowly turned to face him, eyes wide and jaw slack.

"What kind of a question is that? Of course I do! Glen! I can't miss the portal opening again!"

She still remembered how excited she'd been when she saw the back of the portal. It had sparked into being, glowing and crackling, and she'd frozen in her tracks until she realised what it had to be. Then she'd grabbed Glen and hopped as fast as she could to get in front of it... only for the thing to sputter and dissipate right as she got there.

Part of her had blamed him for slowing her down, but that wasn't fair. She had grabbed him for some reason... so it was her fault.

"But it's been two months, Polly!" Glen protested. "How long are you going to wait here, another ten years?"

"What if I do?" she asked. "So what if I do?"

"What do you mean so what? Do you think I... I mean, anyone likes seeing you sitting here in the rain for two hours? Polly, it's getting sad -"

"Shut up, Glen Groda!" Polly responded. "You never met Anne so you wouldn't understand!" she added, spinning her head round to glare at him. He did flinch back a little.

"I'm just saying, I don't think you need to make this your life," he said, raising his hands.

Furious, she tried to stare him down, but only succeeded in realising she was staring at his warts. Blushing, she quickly turned away, clenching her lips shut.

When had she got this... dumb? Glen was a weird kid who tagged along on her adventures in technological innovation and nothing else. Who cared about his opinion, or his... warts? And sure! She would love to join that research party with him! Or by herself! He didn't need to be involved! She just wouldn't mind if he was! He might even be useful to her! That was why she's always kept him around, and it had absolutely nothing to do with BOYFRIE-

As she hit that thought-terminating word, in the distance she saw the women who had been talking to each other earlier. They kept glancing her way and giggling. She could imagine what they were thinking...

"Get off my rock, Glen," she ordered.

"Why?"

"I said get off!" She reached to her side and shoved him. She didn't watch what happened to him, though she heard a thump and a swear.

"Ow! What the hell?"

Ten seconds later, she felt a brush against her side as he sat down next to her again.

"I can push you again, you know."

"Yeah, but... you know what? I take it back. You've been right all along."

His voice sounded distant. Polly glanced at the two gossiping women. They'd gone silent, and were staring at something to her right. She followed their gaze.

A ball of light was hanging in midair, crackling and radiating a rainbow corona. Polly watched it expand, becoming a hoop with a dark centre.

Her eyes sparkled, her mouth hit the silliest, widest grin she'd ever had, and she threw her arms around Glen.

"Oh my frog! You're right! I WAS RIGHT ALL ALONG!"

The hoop of light grew larger, and the scene inside it was revealed. A dark room with bare walls. Glass panels high up at the back, and railings on the walls. Closer to her there were large counters arranged in three rows of three, with what Polly alone recognised as computer monitors on them and humans behind them.

And then... sitting at the closest counter, unbuckling themselves from their chairs and hurrying up onto the metal gantry that led to the portal...

Her hair was longer, and she seemed taller, but that one was definitely Marcy. And her hair was shorter, but there was no way that wasn't Sasha! And behind them...

Polly had often worried that if she saw Anne again, the memories of her would be too faint. That she wouldn't recognize, or not know the person Anne had become. But she knew immediately, that was Anne - her big sister. Polly couldn't move. A dream she'd had for ten years was coming true! She was crying with joy, and really squeezing the life out of Glen!

Anne was taller too, wearing pants and a blue shirt. Her bushy hair was tied up into a bushy ponytail. She had covered her mouth with her hands, and Polly could see tears in her eyes, which were just staring back at Polly.

"ANNE!" Polly yelled.

"Ohmyfrog! POLLY!" Anne gushed back, before continuing, "YOU'VE GOT A BOYFRIEND!"

Polly froze for a second, before unwrapping herself from around Glen, looking at him, getting to her feet, and putting her hands on her head.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

(shared name)

"Kh hbh qsua os elyl wiq jss kxe, qfhc?" Oxnqj eqcxd qzal lae csslw eiap.

"Tpwmtl xyaz tly zj gl," Wicaip ktiq. "Elyl Vaewsq... A'f izavckleq, lrb jxaywc edtd up'w fwke..."

"Lpef, laeep'w qgfegsmly lprnmyd tbbfx rztt tfc," Uwgdl ciqhhnqph. Qzx pnfwcv, poaoipagg uza ajtzl dlc ots nmssl mo fzylv. "... roh deu zhw up qmnxd, etkfl?"

"Hhusl wwth," Qttnwk rrapgww. "Ou jiyz, wo azx ugkrl, tx usln'g uyql roh. Avclmy zfgf woeejslw paf wsmcbnt lx rzx defri gk tup fmlmlr, myr A laj ssu zx trwingktro."

Lc xbnvdlcv vocjmly mhr diamkigj gyexrn qsmltgr es y hhrglfjw wrvgi, yfw fnwwgxbeq l WQV yavwypw. Bt'q dyac mhne mr'v ue zzvc vbfstgsdm tb nslnbcg elc vkuav, elv wefamrw gog migfz a itrbavtvgi ksg Dvatcj kenwpw otngph rg ler smk hnnvdlcv. Xnqlrewkiar Pglmlr Dxyf eixp xfsm hno fcwg a fein xtr, slv rgh fnc. Hghiee - lrb woeejslw xlfp ml Vxcvalcj - paf dynhkefdmly t svxqcjbnt lrewk, aao md lae xth fsw brpr fmkt... jppj, am wbfpbf'm hngi zwxn ccirlr.

Bhe xfwke jlw ndxngj sd wrejtxlwls szsrsze nyh qlttrxilll aozyr oaag elc etn qth rg voagmal aiz. Lrb Vbpcpv fsw a spijagg ccsrwvtvyk Asklbd - afgxvrc sp oaagpzcj ae jlw - usl mbci geioeeell kitsx lgp.

"Sb, rsgfz tb eeiw mhvd xm Xhrq?" Hilvr afvib.

"Qxau. T jcwe lvvi fw fitsx usgt gz xydd."

(from Frog Valley)

"Rlmfr Llfunjc," gye'i dozd, "dzii szadfry lg Dadzf ff Blfkwtzr tozwr dapp ocl yss uikqsiesns nhjy wk ctxsj tt zii cffgv."

Smp'r jmnwsu ay xs wrtx hye tadfsnes jiip cw md osjk. N hcedjc ww smp hyisvg jhj'd dieyem? Khjcs'j as tbeohpbk anc hf hjc, qllytjrtjo oed ipjvltasu tt dsvm wpojoslpce, klwi aso xlsy. Dvv's iconisr ce pjzdce'x trvax zt nhfe hyed evznp Wszf blg cipp. W tas luiej hwkh f wck ok hvrt xss jadd. Wk's fwkryx msvn tmjzozd hyay qffgx some gpse lthsi tmlb khj ecrdx' ecvs, fyr khj ysntx sou btev wrtr oed yzou usosi tmpwi tftzj. Wj'gs sejy diortgvd ysok cmlbxe nd qfmnyu, suy th'j ctxweg rzfv sqzkcy ysoe iy dvfuqo. Oed yswj 'fqzkvr' mpfv wfyhj tt qwo tmlh.

Suy T uiob eiciud. W bnth kyay vwed tq gnefe oed xswk gtpg znyz uiobtbx a upfwehe tcobpf. Rni hvrt N dsv hjcs zs f eiciu hwkh upfwehezp ftcavd, atjzdqj qfltffvd uphrlx, lbu a uzwjoszij bzwp sespokh yss juwqote.

Yswj osp krnyd hf rjazrcj evv njhhj wnev ls, fyr dapp ij tmp bvw spkks. Fyr nhnws khtfuytx zt ieapbxe fcs rlblmj gttbx tt ms kerahznl, evvy'wp bft tysj I tc hye upcglj zt Nawekfoi hoet yz tflqzk.

Jo N'o bft xlwu asjhyisr, oed xscfk rj vvai. Lbu smp'r ceke tfr Qtzp Pforznlece dndogpttbkei, affmndweg xss'u bj motk.

(the chat)

RAYQ: SCNYED!
ULUI: Frq gzc aql dqrpt?
RAYQ: <wqnp ta vpes frfqnte fbace bhj fuzpjorbuvr it yhq Ppzos ezkwwszrq>
UJ_KOUY_UA_EGPNNS: 😲
LLEN: Th yg eqtfn!
YG_NWPD_IE_BJXISG: Fpta ltowa dmrnoga! 😨
OIWS: Mmut, Q tmizs epix muosb bj axt cqgmt.
PIHV: Iy smgd vo-tnq ela sjruwfald hgze.
LABN: Mvo bhft m ppzonc bics rfnsmc aaaep i vqd.
RY_OWAG_IX_TKXTVG: N ttqys wj cmv rcexs ipz...
UARI: Tcybew, I'p zpilqy xwgm tt kzwh goz'rq wviy.
RY_OWAG_IX_TKXTVG ns fgaqnl

(21 luvpa lftqz)

XIMN: I oiy'b bjlumgm stmq tfvayio ezcli da bsqs.
LRUUX: Ouds U'u zsad. Sazp juy owij. 👍
ORNMY: Xwmaxe ebzx bqoiqyo uu mk xswnj. 😩
MMUT, UY_HOBG_TA_TDPUVR, ini DMEY irj tkxtvg

Chapter Text

BECAUSE YOU'RE NOT HERE

Terri placed their hand on the glass of the observation window, a blank expression on their face. There had been a time when they came here for peace and quiet, or to think, or - at times - to cry. But now when they came here Terri found themself focusing on how badly they were betraying someone important to them.

Reactor Ianouários gently hummed on the other side of the glass, as technicians drifted around it, monitoring energy levels, excess heat, and checking Geiger counters. All was well with the world's first practical nuclear fusion reactor. Ianouários was one of a kind and its existence would be announced soon, once the portal was in regular use and the attention had died down a little.

This was one revolutionary development that Terri could not in any way take credit for, beyond winning over the experts from ITER, LLNL and CCFE. A few individuals with serious expertise had been tempted to work together, and it was the thrilling prospect of opening a gate to an entirely different world that had done it.

The name though? Like the other reactors, that had been Terri's choice, and they'd done their best to follow the whimsical naming scheme they'd adopted for the other six more conventional reactors.

Alpha, Mu and Sigma? Well, that was the calamity trio, without whom all of this would be impossible. Omega and Beta? The Boonchuys who'd financed so much of her early work. Terri had, of course, wanted to reference the amphibians they'd rescued from Frakes, but with S already taken and no easy Greek equivalent for the letter H, they'd gone with Pi for 'Plantar.'

That was the first six reactors. And when the time had come to name the seventh, they'd finally been ready to give it a name they'd been saving for a special occasion. Or would be, if only the Greek alphabet would oblige!

There's no direct equivalent to the letter J in Greek! Often 'Iota' is used instead, but Terri wasn't happy with how indirect or inappropriate this felt for such a powerful reactor. So since they were going to have to get creative anyway, they got creative - the new rector would be Ianouários - 'January.'

And now, Terri came to January to think, and always ended up thinking about the wrong things.

Five Years Ago

Their head hurt, in a good way. A mild, smothering pain that drowned out the hurt and the loneliness and the emptiness and the fear. Terri sat back in their chair, hearing the hinges creak, feeling every part of the now-thin, worn and hard cushions though their legs.

Their computer was off, the room dark, the prototype portal squatting in the far corner like an overturned crab. It made no sound, though a few isolated lights and screens glowered out of the darkness.

This room feels like I feel, Terri had thought. I think it's mourning? But it can't understand why.

They picked up the bottle and poured another shot, straight scotch whisky. They'd started the evening with whatever mixers and spirits they'd been able to find in their cabinet at home, strange leftovers from birthdays and even college parties. But it had all been unsatisfying alone, until they'd poured the whisky. That hurt on the way down.

There was a quiet click in the far distance, and footsteps. Terri paid no attention to them until someone addressed them.

"There you are," Mr X said. For the first time Terri could remember he'd dressed down, wearing a black suit and tie and leaving the heelies at home. It made him feel alien to Terri, more so than the little green men he'd always have loved to have seen. "I was wondering where you'd got to."

"Yooou know me, X!" they responded, raising their arms to the lab. "You know where I live!"

"Well, your apartment is on the other side of town," he said, before looking around the room. "But you're right, I should have guessed," he added, a little bit of sadness in his voice.

He wandered over, and picked up the whiskey bottle.

"Twenty-five years? Where'd you get this?"

"I don't know! Take some, haaaave some!"

X had looked down at them, noticing their red face and tear-tracks, and poured himself a drink to toast Jan with.

It wasn't a joke that began with Terri, it was one that everyone who knew Jan had heard; but there had always been a ribbing, friendly joke that when Jan died it was going to be in her car. She'd loved that thing, and was an... enthusiastic driver, and everyone who'd rode with her really understood that joke. Terri considered themself lucky that Jan was capable of that, considering how her daring driving had helped get people out of LA during the Frogvasion.

Something the joke had always assumed was that her death would be her fault. It hadn't. It had been nothing more than meaningless, random bad luck. Some guy had cut someone else off, they'd braked suddenly, someone had swerved, and soon someone was travelling across into oncoming traffic... and into Jan. That had been it. X had passionately investigated everyone involved and found no motive, no collusion, no secrets worth mentioning. Just an accident.

In their less grounded moments, Terri had almost found it insulting. Their work was among the most important happening on the planet today, and their most important collaborator and supporter had suddenly died. How could it not be connected? Jan's life had meant something, her death had to mean something! And if it did, maybe they'd have had someone to blame... more than anything, they needed someone to be accountable for this tragedy. Some reason behind this madness.

But there wasn't anyone.

Now they were giggling to themself, face flushed and head swimming.

"So we started wheeling it outta there, and I don know why but I stated singin' 'Generata! Generata!'" Terri giggled to themself again. "And Jan joined in - Generata! Generata!"

X smiled and sang along with the cackling Terri. This was his first time hearing this part of the story. And while sure, that had been his generator they stole, he didn't mind hearing about this.

"I liked what Anne had to say during the funeral," Mr X said after refilling his glass.

"Ohh she was soooo right." Terri had to think for a moment. "What did she say... 'if Jan was here, she'd be tellin us about historial funeral pracices from Mesapomania, an Greek, and Aztecs..." - she drunkenly laughed to herself a little - "an there's NO WAY any of us would be able ta stop her!'"

Anne had said it with the deepest love. Terri cackled again, and nodded... and a tear trickled down their cheek.

"She wuz right. It wuz what made her great, her curiosity and enthusams. She wanted ta know evertin, and she wanted everon else to know evertin. An then she made ya WANT to know evertin."

Terri rested their elbow on their desk, and did their best to prop their swaying head up. They looked around the dark room, at the piles of technology and iron. The tall, imposing claw of the prototype portal, the server racks cladded with insulation and cooling modules, the single monitor with three keyboards in front of it, the heavy cables leading to an industrial generator. The piles of books - some physics, some history. The spare coats on hooks, the small collection of vintage UFO toys, Terri's manga that they'd got Jan to try to various degrees of success, the photo of them posing in front of the first portal they generated that exceeded two feet in diameter.

"X..." they asked, looking around the room. "What do I do now?"

"You keep working at it, right?"

"I can't imagin it. Not without her." They shook their head. "And even if I do... X, we've hit a wall. There's jus not enough powa. We need to ask someon fo money. LOTS o money. You, and Jan, and the Boonchuys can't pay for a portal by yoursels. All this happens while I gotta choose to take dangerous money, or give up." They sniffed. "And after all this time, it makes me want to give up!"

"Don't."

"But...!"

"Terri, don't give up, not now," X said, cradling his whiskey glass. "You both came too far."

"X! I can't compromise to take money from the governent or wall street! Jan wouldn't want that!"

X straightened up, staring hard at Terri. He finished his drink, placed his glass on the desk, and smiled down at them.

"Terri... I don't know if you know what you've got here. You have a functioning portal to other dimensions, and the only brain in the country that understands it! Do you know what that means?"

He lightly tapped Terri on the head. They flinched away.

"No. What?"

"It means that you get to tell them to compromise, and in exchange they get the privilege of giving you money. Terri. This is how the truly powerful get what they want. And all you have to do is act like you know your value, because every one of them will see it."

Terri warily stared at him. They found it hard to believe.

"You really think that?" they managed.

"Yeah, I think you can rule over all of them if you try."

Terri sat back, and looked straight at him.

"Okay. Ookay. If you really trust me to do that... tell me your real name."

Mr X smiled at them, and did something extremely unconventional. He told them truthfully.

X hadn't given any more of his opinions that night. He'd recognised that Terri was extremely drunk, and that he was heavily biased about how Terri should secure the funds they needed. But the conversation hadn't ended there, and within three months they'd been sat in front of secret government panels, spending committees and security analysts, and construction had begun...

And now here Terri was, staring at Ianouários, wondering if it had all gone wrong or if this was where they had to be.

There was a click as a door opened behind them. X entered and stood beside them.

"Welcome back," Terri said. "Everything go okay?"

"You'd be amazed," X replied. Terri noticed a certain odd skittishness about him. "We need to have a long talk about Sampson," he said as quietly as he could manage. "He's worse than we thought. I think our guest might be in danger. And we are too."

Terri's breath caught in their throat. Their eyes shot and skidded from technician to technician.

"We'll talk about that later," they said.

X just nodded.

"Great choice. Besides, we have the calamities to welcome soon."

And amid the uncertainty and fear, that at least was enough to make Terri smile.

THE HOLE IN ONE QUEEN

Mabel had her work cut out for her today! Four appointments this morning alone, plus reports to write, parents to talk to, and new qualifications to work toward! She quickly tidied up the craft supplies, smoothing over the soft felt and making sure the small tubs of glitter and paint were not sorted. Kids loved digging though the case for what they wanted!

Mabel had had a lot of success as a therapist simply by understanding what engaged kids and made them want to come back. Even when it was serious, therapy had to be fun and she had to be someone they trusted and wanted to talk to, so a lot of time was spent just building trust and figuring out what made this kid tick.

All of this kept her extremely busy, but it was worth it. It was not very likely that any of the problems her clients dealt with were going to have consequences that were anything like the ones the dysfunction between her and Dipper had led to that summer. But any time she helped a kid deal with unexpected change, process trauma, or keep them from retreating from reality she felt satisfied.

Which was not to say she had no time for her own fun! Case in point...

"Hey, Sasha!" she happily crowed as her friend stepped through the main office door. Sasha smiled back at her. "I guess the FBI didn't keep you for questioning!"

"No, it's fine..." Sasha uncomfortably replied. Robert and Aarya, who had been talking at the coffee machine, perked up their heads at that.

"FBI?" Robert asked, his curiosity piqued. "What's this about?"

"It's nothing," Sasha began...

"We might have got so drunk the FBI was called," Mabel said, grinning widely and sliding down in her chair. "It's just what happens when you party like us!" she cheered.

Robert and Aarya stared at her, before turning to look at Sasha.

"Is she serious?" Aarya asked.

"Kinda," Sasha replied, "the FBI did come get me, but it had nothing to do with how hard we were partying! I'm just kind of a person of interest and my phone was on silent so they thought I was in trouble."

"Well, we need to try again then," Mabel said. "Ready for this afternoon? Lakewood, 2PM!"

Aarya and Robert's heads swivelled to face Mabel, horror on their faces. They turned back to Sasha in unison.

"You're going golfing? With Mabel?" Robert asked.

"Oh honey no..." That was Aarya.

"Uh...?" Sasha replied. "What's wrong with that?"

"How much do you enjoy being beaten?" Robert asked

"Not just beaten," Aarya added. "Completely trounced. Ground into powder and turned into paste."

Sasha turned to look at Mabel, who folded her arms and pouted.

"I was going to go easy on her!" she protested.

"You went easy on me and came in at three under par," Aarya pointed out. She turned back to Sasha. "Look, have a nice afternoon, but I'm warning you - don't expect to compete!"

Sasha thought about this for a moment. Then a big grin broke out on her face.

"All right." She spun to face Mabel and pointed at her. "Even if I can't win, I want to see this for myself! I forbid you from going easy on me!"

Mabel's eyes gleamed. She loved it when she was told to cut loose.

"Sister, you have got a deal!"

But at that point, Sasha sighed.

"... at least, that's what I'd be saying if I didn't have to cancel. Sorry."

"Whaaaaat?"

"Sorry. Something's come up. Something I can't really talk about. I'm going to be gone for a few days, at least." She turned to Robert and looked apologetic. "Sorry Rob, can you handle a couple of new clients for me?"

There was some emergency organising, the additional work being split between anyone who had the time. Once everything was figured out, Sasha invited Mabel to follow her into her office. She watched as Sasha found some books and training materials she could take with her to wherever she was going, the only work she could do there without risking breaking confidentiality rules.

Mabel had noticed that Sasha had been certain to close the door properly when they entered.

"Mabel, I'm sure you can keep a secret, right?" Sasha asked.

Mabel nodded. "Of course." She was a therapist after all.

"You probably already guessed," Sasha said, "but the FBI's taking me on a trip. Back to Project Leif." She started shoving books into a bag. "I shouldn't be telling you this, so keep it quiet. But I didn't want to go away and not tell anyone where I am."

"Okay... so you'll be messing around with portals?" she asked, trying not to let her deep-rooted dislike of that idea show.

"Hard to say. I don't know what they have planned for us. But if it's a chance to see Amphibia again, well, I have to take it right?" Sasha asked with a smile. "Besides, it's another chance to hang out with my besties."

"You've been seeing a lot of them recently, huh?" Mabel asked, something on her mind.

"Yeah, I guess," Sasha zipped up the bag, and smiled wistfully. "It's crazy. We were apart for most of ten years and now we're back together often, and it's like nothing's changed. It's honestly great."

"Must be nice," Mabel said. "I hardly ever get to see my old besties."

Sasha took in the sad smile on Mabel's face.

"You all had a falling out?" she asked.

"More like a falling out with a third party. We're still friends but there's a little bit of a wedge between us now. It made things awkward."

"Oh." Sasha frowned. "Sorry to hear that."

"Don't be, we talk often enough. They're just kept super-busy."

Sasha patted her on her shoulder.

"Don't let that get in your way. I have a feeling you're still friends. Groups like yours don't stay divided for long."

THREE CAN ONLY BE DIVIDED BY ITSELF AND ONE

Candy lay in the heat of the Nevada desert, a grey camouflage net over her, watching over the I80 from the roof of a dilapidated and sad abandoned diner. She'd have loved to have a better vantage point, but there really weren't any better options around here.

Everyone at Decipher had been thinking hard about how to disrupt Project Leif without directly attacking the reactors or the portal. Not only was Decipher very likely to lose a stand-up fight even with the best of plans, nobody wanted to see what a septuple nuclear meltdown or an uncontrolled dimensional tear looked like. For now, they'd settled on keeping them from performing maintenance - just one reactor being forced offline by safety concerns would be enough to shut down the portal.. And that was where this convoy came in.

One huge truck with a flatbed trailer. It's cargo? A new steam turbine for one of the reactors. Four escort cars.

Candy smiled to herself. Everything was going to plan.

"HEY! ARE WE ALMOST READY?" Grenda yelled from behind the diner.

There was no need to yell. Grenda had a communication earpiece, and Candy could 'hear' her perfectly well through her eye's cybernetic link no matter how loudly she talked. But Grenda liked to yell, and Candy didn't mind.

"Any moment now," Candy replied. She had her real eye closed, and the yellow electronic iris of her new one glared brightly. It showed her makes, models and plates superimposed over the vehicles in the convoy, estimated counts of how many people were in each vehicle, showed distances and windspeeds and how to lead her shots. Not that that was the plan for today.

"RIGHT! I'M ON THE BIKE! READY WHEN YOU ARE!"

Candy looked down the highway. Quiet road. No oncoming traffic. Perfect conditions.

"I'm coming down," she said.

It was at that moment that her phone started to ring. Candy answered it with a blink.

"Hi Mabel," she warmly said as she clambered down from the roof. "What's up?"

"Oh, not much," Mabel replied. Candy thought she sounded a little down. "Just thought I'd catch up on my gals!"

"It's great to hear from you!" Candy said, as she sat pillion behind Grenda. "Hold on, Grenda's here too, I'll add her to the call." She whispered to Grenda as she started the dirt bike. "It's Mabel!"

"Mabel? BABE!" Grenda said.

"Grenda!"

"It's been too long!" Grenda cheered as she twisted the throttle. The bike leapt forward, tearing up the dusty ground. "What have you been up to?"

"Oh, not so much."

While they talked, Candy held on to the bike and watched her map of the convoy's progress. This all seemed good.

Self-driving cars had been a mistake.

Sure, it had seemed like a futuristic dream, but when they'd eventually arrived after years of delays, misfires and still-unfulfilled claims nobody had had the energy left to actually trust them. The idea of trusting an AI to understand road conditions and drive safely for hours was one that people were still extremely sceptical about, and government departments in particular were loath to trust AI when humans were still able to drive perfectly well and would be more reliable.

But for those moments when humans were not reliable, most cars these days had some form of AI fitted to take over if the driver was suddenly sick, injured, or distracted. Something to keep the car on the road and bring it to a safe stop when possible. And of course, these systems were wireless enabled, and of course they had undocumented vulnerabilities. For example, a small wireless bead successfully wedged anywhere on the chassis was in range to get access to the system and do whatever it wanted.

"So what are you up to? Is that a motorbike?" Mabel asked, sounding concerned.

"We're busy at the moment," Candy replied. "But don't worry about it."

"Really? Because it sounds like I'm interrupting something,"

"It's all fine!" Grenda shouted back over the bike's engine. "Just got something to do!"

"Are you sure?"

"Stay on the line," Candy insisted. "It has been too long! Grenda, I'm stopping them now."

Theoretically, one could deliver a hacking pellet to a car by way of an extremely accurate shot with a sniper rifle. Its hard outer shell was designed to disintegrate easily, while a gooey black solvent would instantly bind the tiny device inside to whatever it had hit. The whole thing would look like the splatter of a large mosquito. But it was very unlikely that even the best shot could quickly hit five moving targets at extreme range. Candy was good, but she wasn't THAT good.

So she'd done it two hours ago while they'd stopped for fuel.

At a thought, the program activated and the truck started to swerve out onto the left side of the road to overtake the leading escorts. She could hear the people inside shouting and swearing as armoured security plates covered the windows, and the wheel and pedals stopped responding. Meanwhile, all four of the escort vehicles started to gently brake and slow to a stop, and their ability to make a distress call was cut.

Candy smiled.

"It all looks good," she told her friend.

"All right!" Grenda gunned the bike, speeding to catch up with the truck.

"Okay, now I'm really curious what you two are up to!" Mabel said from her office in LA.

"Sorry Mabel, but you know you shouldn't ask!" Candy cheerfully replied.

"I know..." her friend replied. There it was again. That uncharacteristic sadness.

The truck was a few miles away from the cars when Grenda pulled up behind it. It felt much larger in person than it had from a few miles away, a massive, rattling, juddering juggernaut.

"... so yeah, things are going pretty great, and the work's really rewarding! Not exactly adventurous, but it's really helping the kids and the people I'm working with are sweet. Did you know Sasha Waybright is in our office?"

"YEAH!" Grenda said. She was focusing hard, trying to draw near to the side of the truck and match its speed. "YOU TOLD US LIKE A BILLION TIMES!"

Grenda took one hand off the handlebars and held it out for Candy, who clambered up into it.

"Really? Well, maybe I did, but she's a really nice person and -"

"Mabel, sorry!" Grenda said. "Just one moment please? OK Candy. On three." They both braced themselves. "ONE. TWO. THREE!"

She tossed the Korean woman up into the air. Candy aimed the magnet gun she was holding at the turbine and grappled herself to it, before dismounting onto the flatbed.

"ALL RIGHT! Nice! You good up there?"

"All okay!"

"It sounds like you're doing something really crazy there."

"Yeah. Kinda." Grenda replied with a smug smile, holding position alongside the truck.

"Mabel, can I ask you something?" Candy said, while she pulled out a shrinking torch from her bag.

"Yeah?"

"You don't sound great." She pointed the torch at the turbine and it started to shrink. "Is everything okay?"

"Me? I'm fine! Don't worry about me, you're the ones in some kind of motorcycle chase..."

"You just don't sound fine. Is something wrong?"

There was a heavy sigh from the phone line, while Candy picked up the shrunken turbine in one hand.

"I don't know... look, I'm just a little bummed out because a friend cancelled on me at the last minute."

"Sasha?" Grenda asked.

"Yeah... she's going to spend time with her old friends instead. So I thought it would be nice to talk to my old friends. But I think I'm just disturbing you right now..."

"No way!" Grenda replied.

"Yes, no way," Candy confirmed. "You can call us whenever you need to. We miss you too, you know?" She approached the edge of the trailer, and climbed down onto a small ladder cut into its side. The asphalt flew by below her.

The sigh on the other end of the phone line was a little happier now.

"You guys..."

"We should meet up for a night out!" Grenda said, pulling the bike alongside Candy.

"Yes, I would definitely love that!" Candy added, climbing onto Grenda's outstretched arm. The muffled shouts of the driver and the guards, still locked inside the cab, could be heard.

"You guyyyys! Yes! We should do that!"

Smiling, Candy clambered back into the pillion seat as Grenda sped away onto the desert sands, leaving the truck to drive itself for several miles before returning control to its inhabitants.

Another clean job, no violence, apparently clean getaway. It was an hour before Candy could be certain that no satellites were tracking them. They came to a stop inside an abandoned grocery store and laid low for a while, listening out for any signs that they'd been followed.

"Hey," Grenda said. "So d' ya think Sasha and her friends are going to Project Leif?"

Candy nodded and smiled. She was already messaging Ford about that possibility.

A couple of days later, Candy dropped in at Open Eye. The gates to the old Northwest Mansion were open, much of the front gardens and fountains having been dug up to create a large car park and the peacocks having fled long ago - a certain someone had chased them with a knife and fork. She cheerfully waved to the receptionist in the main hall as security waved her through, headed up the broad stairs, and turned right into the manufacturing wing.

Open Eye was one of the foremost centres for cybernetic prosthetic research in the world. The horrifying injuries people took during the Frogvasion had created a real need for affordable and plentiful replacement eyes, ears, arms, legs and more - and also created an opportunity to make them. Open Eye had the technological knowhow to build them strong and flexible, and the generous goal of pricing them fairly and not for profit.

The western side of the mansion was where research and patient care was carried out. Every prosthetic had to be individually and manually tuned to its user's nervous system, and the researchers not doing that were constantly looking for new ways to improve response times and make it possible to transmit more data back to the brain. This was why Candy didn't just have normal sight when wearing her eye, she had augmented sight - and how she could compose e-mail in her head and trigger viruses remotely with a thought. All without a direct surgical connection to her brain, and instead one formed by the interface drugs in her bloodstream.

The eastern wing was manufacturing. Here prototypes were 3D-printed and assembled, to make sure prosthetics were lightweight but tough and wouldn't injure their recipients or other people. There was no need for an Open Eye fist to be any stronger than the typical human hand, they weren't making super-soldiers here.

Candy strolled between the workbenches and printers, nodding to engineers she recognised, heading for the elevator door at the back of the room and pressing a button by it.

After a second the door slid open and she stepped inside.

Thirty seconds later, she stepped out into a brightly lit underground lab.

The lab was clean, spotlessly so. Candy knew this was because people were hired to keep it this way and for no other reason. Every evening, once its inhabitant was either away or asleep in a corner, people came out to clean up the grease stains, tidy away the banjos, and rinse the multiple spittoons.

"Hello?" she called. There was a crash and a clatter from around the corner of this L-shaped room.

"Whoa-ho! How do!" a voice called. "Round about here!"

Candy hurried to the corner and saw Fiddleford McGucket hunched over his workbench, sparks flying as he worked on something that was held in a clamp.

"Just a dang minute!" he screeched. "Just gussying up this baby!"

The old man was as ragged as ever, despite his clothes allegedly being both new and washed. His beard was still long, though the bizarre band aid stuck to it was gone, and he only made a token effort to properly wear the expensive, designer dungarees he had on. Currently a heavy welding mask covered his head.

Candy sat down some distance away and watched him work, closing her human eye and watching the arc welding with her electronic one, something that would certainly blind her if she tried it with a normal eye. The entire rest of the room was plunged into pitch darkness as her cybernetic one adjusted to the welder's extreme brightness.

"There!" McGucket turned off the welder and removed his mask.

"What is it?" Candy asked. It looked like a bulbous arrowhead with several small tubes on it.

"Ah reckon that's mah twentieth artificial heart prototype so far." he thoughtfully said. "Can't be too careful with hearts, y'know? Probably at least another twenty still ta go!"

"Impressive," Candy replied with a curious smile. She craned her head toward it to get a better look. "Seems like kind of an extreme surgery to get though. Isn't a pacemaker just safer?"

"Eh, ah reckon y'never know when you'll need a spare heart!" He turned to her. "But what kin ah do for ya today, youngun? Eye all fine?"

"Actually, I just wanted it checked out." She winced as she pulled her prosthetic eye off her face. She always did it too fast, before she could properly sever the connection, it was a bad habit that left her disoriented. She slipped her glasses back on, passed the eye to McGucket, and he immediately started unscrewing the back.

"What's fixin to be the problem?"

"It keeps gradually getting misaligned."

Within seconds he had the back plate off and was peering into the electronics within.

"Yep." He clucked his tongue. "I see that. This thingummy" - he pointed into it - "is plain worn through. Ah'll just get a new one and fit it in there all snug."

The old man started waddling away to a set of drawers, and started digging through them, scattering small parts all over the floor.

"Might take a moment here. Y'all got plenty blood? Go pick some up from the cooler if not."

Candy winced at the colloquial name for the interface drugs, but gratefully headed over to grab a vial for later.

None of this would be possible without the Electrochemical-Mechanical Interface Drugs. While actually composed of a small nanobot swarm and not conventional drugs, they were vital for forming temporary links between the user's own neurology and the prosthetic interfaces surgically attached to their body without dangerously directly tampering with the nervous system. And while they had now been thoroughly reverse-engineered, they'd arrived as something of a gift to humanity ten years ago.

Their original name on the black market had been "Wu Blood" after all.

Someone had got very, very wealthy selling blood they'd stolen from a girl who was recovering from an awful ordeal.

Candy didn't hesitate to pick up a vial, checking the cap was still on the auto-injector. Questionable origins aside, this 'blood' had never even been in the same state as Marcy Wu. It didn't carry a single hint of her DNA, and was just the nanobot swarm suspended in artificial blood plasma. But among those who knew, the name had stuck.

Candy wondered if Marcy knew. She suspected she didn't. If what she'd seen in Three Transmissions was accurate then the truth might do Ms Wu a lot of harm.

Candy watched and idly chatted as McGucket worked on her eye, and she was soon attaching it to her face again.

"It all seems to be working," she uneasily said.

"Come back if it happens again," McGucket replied. "Can't be letting 'em wear out so easy-like!"

"Of course. Thanks, Mr McGucket!"

"Aw shoot! Smart girl who can align her own eye gets t' call me Fiddleford, and that's no lie!"

"Heh, all right, Fiddleford."

Candy looked around the lab a little more, her eye falling on the Wu Blood cooler again. She gripped the vial.

"Can I ask you something?"

"Shoot!"

"Have you seen Three Transmissions yet?"

The old man's face fell a little, and he sighed.

"Ah reckon ah know what yer askin' about." He looked at the cooler as well. "Yesin, ah saw what happened t' that girl. Nasty dang work."

"Do you feel all right about using her blood like this?" Candy asked.

McGucket hesitated for a while.

"Yeah. Ah reckon ah do."

Candy watched him.

"We didn't steal her blood, an' if we ever find out what varmit did, well Stanford and me talked about it and we ain't gonna be thankin them. We've done all we kin to reverse-engineer it an' make it safe. We cut out every bit of it that could hurt a fella or mess wi' people's heads. An' now we're puttin' that tech to good use. Ah reckon ah feel all right about it."

"I don't know if I feel all right about her not knowing," Candy admitted. She shuddered. "And are you sure it's safe? I don't want anyone to go through what she did."

"It's safe, youngun. We went through the nanobots wit' an atomic comb looking for anythin' ornery. We removed their ability to self-replicate, and we flushed every bit of intelligence or memory away. Whatever possessed her, it's not there. You, an' everyone else, kin trust your eye. The worst that's going to happen is blood that's a lil' greenish, ah promise."

That made Candy feel a little better about it. Whatever monster had possessed Marcy Wu was long gone, and the tech was being put to uses that she thought Marcy would approve of... if someone ever told her.

WHAT IF WE WEREN'T AT THE CENTRE OF EVERYTHING, JUST ONCE?

(fifteen minutes later)

Inside a FBI helicopter, Marcy sat and looked at the chat log again. It was from several weeks ago, from shortly after her press conference, and between her and one of her friends from Massachusetts. 

Marcy could really have kicked herself. Had she known people like Becka, Sam and Mike were waiting for her in Boston, she would never have been so terrified of moving that she'd have gone to Amphibia at all. It had been so stupid! So... well, immature. Because she'd been immature.

Since filming the documentary, Marcy had been putting in work to forgive her teenage self for being stupid and rash. It wasn't about excusing her extremely bad choices from back then, or bright-siding about the good things that had happened because of her trip to Amphibia. It was about recognising that in many ways she'd just got unlucky.

Kids argued with their parents. They got emotional, made bad and short-sighted decisions, and tried to hide from or ignore the consequences. This was normal. Marcy was normal. She wasn't a uniquely broken or foolish person. It's just that... normally, when a teenage girl storms out of her family's home and makes a terrible choice, there isn't a literally magical item ready to actually fulfil her stupid wish.

They don't usually drag their friends away from their families and into constant danger.

Well, at least Sasha and Anne didn't seem to hold it against her.

She smiled at them. Anne was peacefully dozing in her seat, having previously complained about hardly sleeping last night. Sasha was wide awake, alternating between looking out the window and glancing at her phone. A man who'd introduced himself as Agent Trigger sat opposite her. He seemed to be in his early to mid 40s and seemed quiet, observant, and approachable. Outside, the helicopter sped over the dark line of a chain-link fence. Looking out the window, Marcy could see looming cooling towers and patrolling soldiers.

"Are you looking forward to this?" Sasha said. Marcy looked over to see her watching her inquisitively.

"Yeah, I guess," Marcy said with a smile. "It's kinda intimidating, living underground for most of a week.  I think we might all go a little nuts, you know?"

Sasha nodded and looked out the window.

"I think they'll understand if we have to come up for air."

"You're all to have permission to leave the bunker, unless an experiment is planned," Agent Trigger said. He smiled. "Trust me, none of us spend more than 48 hours down there at a time without needing a break. You won't be able to roam the camp without an escort though, and most of it will be off-limits."

"Yeah, that makes sense," Sasha replied, fondly looking at the soldiers drilling outside the barracks. "The last thing these toadlets need is loose civvies getting in the way."

As Sasha and Trigger chatted about the Joes below, Marcy sat back and wondered about why they were here. It had to be about making contact with Amphibia again, right?

She was still undecided on how she felt about that. It filled her with... hesitation. Anne and Sasha had people they wanted to see, people they'd had long and tearful farewells with. Marcy, on the other hand, had had an awkward, almost formal goodbye with people she'd wished she'd known better... and a scant couple of conflicted words with someone she wished she'd never met.

She couldn't escape the worry that nobody who'd known her would show up... or that nobody would want to remember her.

...

...

"Hey, Marcy," she heard Sasha saying. "You okay? You're looking pretty down."

Well, she'd been learning not to bottle things up.

"Sash, what would you do if you went back to Amphibia and Grime never showed up? If he could... but he didn't."

Sasha looked away for a moment, thinking. She smiled.

"... I'd watch my back, I think. He'd be out there."

That wasn't very comforting for Marcy. Sasha must have been able to tell, because she leaned over and patted her on the shoulder.

"Hey, look, Marcy, we can't know what's going to be there when we reopen that portal. But people are going to be thrilled to see you. Even if they're not there when you arrive, they'll immediately be on their way."

Marcy sadly smiled back at her. "Yeah. Probably." And maybe, even if they weren't, there was a chance to get things right this time.

X had met them when the helicopter landed, taunting them for bringing too many bags. Apparently bringing her PS5 and a copy of Vagabondia Blades ACE-S was too much to pack. They'd all been herded onto one of those electric carts, and began the long, five mile journey to Project Leif. Something about this long tunnel spoke to Marcy - it reminded her of the final escape from Vagabondia : Deepest Quarter. It wasn't the most popular game in the series - not even Marcy liked it that much - but she'd always fondly remember the sheer drama of the final battle, on that inclined elevator carrying Solar, Skye and Brasht out of the underground city they'd lived in all their lives.

But despite how her mind wandered, what waited for her below was not a grimy dystopia, but a sterile, militarised lab complex. Marcy was shown to her room, which seemed functional but cold and spartan. She had a single bed that had seemingly never been used before, a TV, a microwave, a kettle, a closet and a bathroom... and that was about it. The walls were plain and undecorated and of course there was no window, giving the whole place a somewhat claustrophobic feeling. Anne was next door - with an identical room - and Sasha two doors down.

Each of them were given a smart watch to wear on their wrist, which would alert them to when they needed to be present for experiments and allow them to call for help or guidance. A BOWI agent was never more than a couple of taps away on those things, and they were encouraged to call any time they needed assistance. Beyond that, they'd have a free run of the complex, within reason... just as soon as they'd met with Terri.

The trio found them in their office. They'd all spoken here before of course, two months ago when they'd visited here with Gregor Park and his crew, and Terri had tried to reassure them that DARPA and the FBI could be trusted.

Terri kept their desk against the wall, leaving a large open area in the centre of the room for everyone to face each other across. The room seemed deceptively small, primarily because of all the junk lying around. Terri had developed comprehensive filing systems for test results, dimensional records and other confidential materials, but for everything else there was the nearest flat surface, and Terri liked to keep a lot of things in their office. Amongst the more scientific clutter Marcy saw manga, old keyboards, little UFO toys, DVD boxes, blankets, a big bag of pretzels and more.

"Anne! Sasha, Marcy!" they said as Mr X showed them in.  "Come in! Take a seat!" They motioned to some chairs that had been brought into the room.

"Hey Terri," Anne said, and she was echoed by Sasha and Marcy. "Nice to see you. Looks like we made it back like you said we should," she added, referencing Terri's semi-drunken invitations from that night when they'd all gone out for drinks. Terri laughed a little.

"Oh man, I remember that. That was a good night. Might be a while before we can do it again though," they replied. "Girls, it's great to see all of you. We can catch up later, but with you here we can also get right to work. The next scheduled opportunity to open a portal to Amphibia is tomorrow at 10AM, and before that happens not only do we need to get you all settled, but there are some things I need to talk to you about regarding your role here."

The trio sat down, while X stood by the closed door. Marcy couldn't help but notice how heavy that door was, or the rushing air from seals as it closed. This room was as private as it could be.

"Yeah, I'd kinda been wondering about that?" Marcy said.

"Same," Sasha said with a nod. "I mean, I'd really like to see Amphibia again. But I don't know why you need us here for experiments."

Terri had breathed out and rested their palms on their legs. "Well... it's a little complicated. And it's going to be troublesome I'm afraid. But there are things we need to confirm."

At that, they launched into a lengthy metaphor.

"Right. Imagine you're on a platform in the ocean, and the water around you is full of mines. There's another platform you need to swim to, and a safe, but very specific path you can take to get there - north two metres, northwest a metre, southwest a metre, north three... you get the idea."

They'd paused and looked at them. They all dutifully nodded.

"Obviously it's hard to swim those exact distances right? The ocean currents move you around, and they'll move any markers you place down too. You could lay down the perfect path to follow..."

"... but within moments it'd be useless..." Marcy added. "It'd just drift too much."

Terri nodded.

"The area between dimensions, which we're calling Marginal Space, is similar. It's pure, churning low-energy chaos." They nodded to Anne. "In the past, we used a series of tones to map the way from our portal back to Amphibia."

"So what, like Amphibia's address?" Sasha asked.

"Yeah, just like that," Anne said supportively, but Terri leaned forward in their chair.

"Not exactly, I'm afraid," they gently said. "The tones are the path, not the destination. They're 'jump to the left, step to the right,' you know? And that's a path that needs to be laid down in the constantly moving marginal space."

"But if that's true," Marcy said, scratching her chin, "then you should never be able to open a portal to where you want to go. Wouldn't you always get random destinations?"

She was a little surprised when Terri just nodded.

"Yeah, you've got it. We've not been able to open a portal to where we wanted to go until very recently. VERY recently. And all of you were there."

They sighed deeply.

"We were kinda taking a risk when we invited you all here back then. The portal would open of course, but we couldn't be sure if it would open to Amphibia or somewhere else. Honestly, part of the reason why we did it with the camera crew was to create pretences for you all to be here. I didn't want to come out and tell you how important you might be to Project Leif, in case we were wrong. But you showed up, and you sat in front of the portal, and..." they clicked their fingers, "it worked first time. And then one of you moved away from it, and it didn't work. That's not firm evidence yet, but it's a pretty strong correlation. And I think it's because we had been missing something we had ten years ago, which you returned to us  - a source of calamity energy."

Marcy gasped, and she glanced at Sasha, who was looking at Anne. Her friend was wide eyed, and a little pale.

"That can't be it," Anne said. "It's impossible."

"It's a possibility," Terri responded.

"It's not," Anne insisted. "The gems are gone, Terri. They... I... they burnt up, Terri."

"Maybe the gems did. But we believe that you three still carry trace amounts of energy."

"Terri," Anne said seriously. "Trust me... every part of the gems was used up," she continued, a little bit shakily. Marcy kept a close eye on her. Nobody would understand that better than Anne. Nobody.

"Maybe... maybe not," Terri replied. "X? Would you mind hitting the lights?"

"Anything to increase the drama honey," the agent replied as he turned them off.

The trio cautiously watched Terri as they turned a large monitor toward them. "Cath? Would you please play record Boonchuy-12?"

"Playing Record Boonchuy Twelve."

The trio stared mutely as security camera footage appeared on the monitor. All three of them recognized the floor, and Marcy knew Anne in particular was extremely familiar with it. It was the polished lilypad-patterned floor of her amphibian exhibit, right between the frog and toad tanks, and she was talking to a woman in a heavy coat.

"Oh no... please don't tell me..." Anne said.

The woman passed Anne something, and after some hesitation Anne took it, closed her eyes, and...

Marcy glanced at Anne. She was biting her lip.

What happened next was unmissable and obvious. The flash in Anne's eyes was bright enough to be seen from behind her eyelids, and the blue light travelling down her arms and into the object she was holding was very familiar. The woman jumped and scrambled away from Anne, tripping over her feet and falling backwards onto her rear.

The tape froze. Terri turned back to them.

"We think you might still have some powers," they said cheerfully.

This didn't get the response they'd been expecting, as they were met with complete silence. Marcy couldn't tear her eyes away from Anne, and neither could Sasha, it seemed. Anne on the other hand had covered her mouth with her palm, and was staring at the onscreen glow.

"X, Terri?" Anne eventually said. "Would you mind giving us some privacy for a moment?"

Terri and X glanced at each other.

"Sure," Terri cautiously said. "We'll wait within sight of the door."

They left, and Sasha and Marcy got up and moved their chairs closer to Anne.

"So ah, hey Anne," Sasha awkwardly said. "What are you thinking?"

There was a lengthy pause.

"Like I'm a complete god-damned fool," Anne replied. She laughed to herself, humorlessly. "Hey girls. Remember when I spent ten years trying to make people think I'm normal?" Another laugh. "We sure showed them, huh?"

Marcy leaned forward and gave Anne a hug.

"It's okay, Anne. I know... it's a really big thought, isn't it?"

"Believe me, the biggest..."

"I get the feeling it's not just the powers that make you uneasy with this, Anne," Sasha added. "What're you thinking?"

"I don't know..." Anne admitted. "It's just that... I thought I'd let go of Amphibia!" she said, her voice cracking. "I thought that I'd accepted we were never going back. And I thought that the best thing I could do now was live a normal life as a normal Anne, even if I had to call myself Emma to do it! And after everything that happened and losing my found family, I figured that was my compensation. Just, a peaceful life! Almost nobody gets one of those! And with the documentary and now this, all that peace and normality might be out the window, and I don't know if that's a good thing or not right now!"

"I can relate," Sasha replied. "I'd kinda put Amphibia away too, like that was something that happened to a different Sasha." She laughed at herself. "Who's going to take a look at me when I'm at work and see someone who was a thirteen year old resistance commander?

"I know, right! I just wanted to be a herpetologist! And now it turns out, every weirdo who's worshipped me was kinda right too, I DO still have powers! And... oh god! If they ever find out they're going to get real crazy!"

"Crazier!" Marcy added.

"Worse!" Anne leaned forward and sat her head in her hands. "I don't know... maybe this is all just... overwhelming right now? Am I overreacting girls?"

"I don't think so," Sasha replied. "Though, to be honest, I've got to say I'm a little excited." She smiled. "I don't know about Marcy, but I've always regretted never really getting in touch with my powers like you did, Anne. There was Moonsend Night of course, but so much of that just feels like a dream..."

That became a nightmare, Marcy did not say. Nobody wanted to be reminded of that.

"If Terri can get us back to Amphibia, and let Marcy and me have another taste of the cool animé powers we missed out on, well..." Sasha grinned excitedly. "I have to admit I'm pretty stoked."

Anne couldn't help but smile back.

"I guess that would make it all worth it.. Yeah." Anne smiled wistfully. "Especially if it gets us back to Amphibia." She turned to Marcy. "You've been quiet, Mar-mar. What do you think?"

"Oh, I'm in!" Marcy immediately said. "For similar reasons to Sasha... though really, to be honest..."

She trailed off for a moment, before looking up and seeing her friends waiting on her.

"... no, it's nothing."

"What? No!" Sasha replied. "Spit it out Marcy, it's obviously not nothing."

Marcy sighed.

"I have... regrets about Amphibia. Obviously. I did things I shouldn't have done... and I didn't spend time with people I should have. I'd like to have a second chance at it."

Anne smiled, reached out an arm, and pulled Marcy into a hug.

"Then we're going to get you one," she confidently said.

When they opened the door and saw Terri and Mr X, they were in the middle of a heated, if hushed discussion.

"... I thought they weren't supposed to be a threat, X!"

"They weren't! We've never heard of them before! Look,  I honestly thought their ultimatum was a practical joke! All it was missing was a tiny disclaimer at the bottom labelling it as satire!"

"Well now they've got MY turbine! Tell me you've got some evidence or SOME idea of who they are..."

"Something up?" Marcy asked from the half-open doorway. All three of the trio had crowded into it to watch. X and Terri backed off each other, X straightening his jacket and Terri tossing their braid.

"A minor setback," Terri announced. "X, please go get it sorted out, I shall explain the rest to these three myself," they curtly continued.

"Of course, Mx Director," X replied, before stalking off with an angry look on his face. Nobody stole from Project Leif.

Back in their office, Terri got into their chair and faced the trio.

"How do you feel about it now?" they asked.

"Better," Anne admitted. "I really don't understand how we can still have powers though."

"Me neither," Terri admitted, "but that's what the scientific process is for!"

"And this can get us back to Amphibia as well?" Sasha asked.

Terri looked awkward for a moment, and half-nodded.

"Eventually."

The others stared at them

"Eventually?" Marcy asked.

"I want to caveat this with my hope that this is temporary," Terri said. "But currently... we can open the portal, as you know, and we believe we can safely send humans through and bring amphibians back. But right now, we do not think we can allow you three through."

"What?" Anne said, raising her voice.

"Why not?" That was Marcy.

"Because we appear to need you on this side of the portal to successfully open it," Terri admitted. "Whatever your presence does to the marginal space, I believe that we need you here, next to the portal generator, for it to work. Anne, I'm sorry about what happened two months ago. I regret not preparing you better, and I regret asking Agent Parra to restrain you." They gave Anne a level, and absolutely firm look. "But if you had gone through that portal, then yes, I believe that you would have been permanently trapped in Amphibia unless we were able to come up with some way for Sasha and Marcy to compensate for your absence."

The three of them stared at Terri. Marcy couldn't believe it. Was she just a doorkeeper who wasn't allowed to enter?

"I can see what you're thinking," Terri said. "I promise you - I do not want this to be permanent. The point of inviting you here isn't to make you keys. It's to discover why you are keys and find a substitute for you. To that end, we won't just be opening portals, we'll be monitoring your lifesigns and the flow of any strange energy through your bodies."

Terri smiled warmly.

"We're going to figure this out, girls. And when we do, I promise you'll all be free to come and go as you please."

Marcy looked at Anne and Sasha. They both looked disappointed... but they had smiles on their faces too.

From that point on, Science got to work in an exhausting and exhaustive way. Terri needed baseline records for every part of the trio's physiology - speed, strength, endurance, reactions, sensory acuity and more. In particular they were hooked up to a number of experimental machines that would hopefully measure how much calamity energy each of them carried. Three of the machines detected no difference between any of the trio and an average human, while two of them detected roughly equal, slightly elevated levels in Sasha and Marcy, but none in Anne.

At the end of it all they were all exhausted, and with an early rise tomorrow they said goodnight to each other and went to their own rooms.

Marcy, of course, set up her PS5, yanking the HDMI cable out of the small TV in her room and plugging it in. It wasn't an ideal screen, but it was, of course, vital that she make progress in the game before everyone decided it was okay to post spoilers!

The night was peaceful, and she fell asleep in the long abandoned ruins of Castle Calnaria despite the shock of finding such a wonderful recreation of it in this game! If she hadn't had headphones in she might have heard Anne shouting, but it wouldn't have made any sense anyway.

AND THE NEXT MORNING...

"Ohmyfrog! POLLY! YOU'VE GOT A BOYFRIEND!"

"NOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

Anne tried to resist the urge to laugh, and failed. The look on Polly's face was one of absolute panic and - Anne's shipper's heart assumed - complete and total denial!

"Anne!" Polly squawked. "He's not my boyfriend!"

"Come on, Polly, there's nothing wrong with it..."

"Uh, hi, um..." the boy frog sitting on the rock raised his hand and awkwardly interjected. "Hi. She's really not my girlfriend..."

Anne thought she saw Polly give him the faintest stink-eye at this, before turning back to her.

"There, you see! He's just a friend!" She shook her head, and her smile practically split her face.. "Agh! Why are we even arguing about this? Anne! I can't believe you're here!"

At that she started bounding toward the portal, and while Anne would have liked nothing more than to scoop her up, she had to join Marcy and Sasha in trying to stop her.

"Woah woah woah woah, Polly! Stop! Hold on!" they all quickly shouted to her. The purple frog skidded to a halt a foot from the portal.

"What? Why?"

"Polly, I'm really sorry, but this portal is kind of a big deal," Anne tugged at her collar, "and it's got a lot of rules... and for now the rule is nobody crosses over."

"What?" Polly stamped her webbed foot. "You're kidding me! So what, we just talk for now?"

"Yeah, but that's going to change! It's just, you know, for safety reasons and all... they don't know when this thing will close, and they really don't want us to be halfway through when it does..."

In the background, Anne could see frogs and toads she didn't recognize peering around the edge of the portal. Polly was taking no notice of them. She kicked a stone in mild frustration and it tumbled through the portal and off the side of the gantry. A researcher immediately hurried over to it with a specimen bag.

"I guess that makes sense," Polly conceded. 

"But we can still see each other and talk!" Anne cheered. "And look at you! Last time I saw you you were still a tadpole, but you've got an actual body now!"

"Yeah! Shoulders and everything!" Polly replied, before catching herself. She nonchalantly brushed some dust off said shoulders. "Though, you know, it's no big deal," she added, affecting a disaffected tone.

"Suuuure," Anne replied. "Well, you look pretty great." Polly DID look good. Anne could see that she'd grown up to be a pretty but still clearly rough-and-tumble young frog. Her hair was long but tied back, and her clothes were hard-wearing and practical dungarees and a short-sleeved shirt. "I can't believe how much you've grown! And look at all those tools on your belt! Still making robots?"

"You bet! I'm one of Amphibia's foremost experts on robotics, despite my... tender years," she replied smugly.

"What about Sprig and Hop Pop?" Anne anxiously asked. "I saw you and Hop Pop through this photo the drone took, but no Sprig..."

She was a little worried when Polly's face fell.

"Sorry Anne... neither of them could make it today. Hop Pop... well, you know, old folks get older. He still gets about and Sylvia moved in with us and she helps him a lot, but he finds it harder to get out now. He's still totally sharp though!"

"Well, I guess that's as best as I can hope for," Anne conceded. "What about Sprig?"

Polly cast her eyes down, and explained about Sprig and Ivy being on the new continent, that the letter she'd sent them about the portal might not even have arrived yet...

"Oh," Anne said.

"Yeah, sorry..." Polly murmured. "I guess you were looking forward to seeing him, huh?"

"Yeah... but seeing my lil-sis all grown up makes up for it," Anne said, forcing a grin.

There was an awkward silence between the two of them. Polly broke it when she looked right.

"Ohmyfrog! Sasha! Marcy! I've been totally ignoring you!"

"It's fine!" Sasha replied. She and Marcy had sat off to the side and just watched the reunion take place.

"Really, just watching you two reunite was enough," Marcy added.

Polly was about to respond, when a siren started to blare on the human side.

"What's that?" she asked.

"Portal's failing soon," Anne replied. "We'll be back in contact soo..." From Polly's perspective, Anne quickly turned to the back of the room. Polly could make out some shouting, but not what. Anne turned back to her.

"Polly, Terri says we can open the portal again in fifteen minutes as a treat. Don't go anywhere!"

Polly replied affirmatively, and the trio watched as the portal quickly dwindled and blinked out of existence.

They sat around and chatted, Sasha and Marcy comforting Anne about Sprig's absence. In no time at all they were back in their chairs, tethers around their wrists, practically sat directly on top of the portal generator.

The reactor turbines spun, gravity fled before science, and a shining portal appeared -

- and immediately shut down, before Anne's eyes could adjust to the light and see through it. She turned to Terri.

"What happened?"

"No big deal, wrong destination so the new auto-disconnect engaged," Terri replied, before muttering to themself, "At least we know that works... anyway even with you three there, there's still roughly a 4% chance of that. Don't worry about it, we can go again right away." There was a slight shakiness in their voice, but they pressed on. "All stations ready?"

All the technicians confirmed that the portal was ready to go again.

"All right. Begin portal construction!"

Within half a minute, the portal had formed. Polly was standing there patiently, that boy standing close to her, and having got a better look at him now - yes. Anne definitely shipped it. They'd make such a cute couple!

The trio, followed by Terri, approached the portal. Polly waved at them.

"That sure was fast! What else is there?" she asked. "Hi Terri!"

"Hi Polly," Terri replied. "It's good to see you. We don't have much time, so I'll be brief... I'm the one who makes the rules about this portal, and that means I'm making an exception." They looked at Anne and Polly. "Polly, you can come through for two minutes, and no more."

Anne and Polly looked at each other. Joy slowly spread across their faces. And Polly ran right on through the portal and jumped into Anne's arms. Anne yelped happily, caught her and wrapped her arms around her, squeezing as tightly as she dared, while Polly wrapped her legs around Anne's waist and her arms around her neck.

Marcy almost shed a tear, watching them hug at the end of the gantry.

Anne was laughing to herself. That sticky and slimy frog skin, a small but dense and surprisingly strong body, the faint, herbaceous smell of frog that she'd got so used to, that smelled like a home she'd almost forgotten.

"Hehe, last time we did this, you'd not have been able to hug me back!" she happily said.

"I know, right!" Polly on the other hand was feeling strangely nostalgic. It had been years since the last time people had been able to just completely pick her up and hold her - and now, her big sister the human was doing it.

The moment was, of course, ruined by Terri.

"Girls, I'm sorry, but I did mean it when I said two minutes."

They both shot them a dirty look, but Anne did reluctantly put Polly down.

"We'd better do what they say," Anne said.

"I guess... oh!" Polly dug into a pocket. "I have to remember to give you this!" She held out a letter. "For your government!" She proudly said, a job well done, before narrowing her eyes and quietly saying "... but you can probably read it!"

A sighing Polly was shown back out the portal before it could unexpectedly close and bisect her. They all waved goodbye to each other from separate dimensions, the humans promising that it wouldn't be another two months before they contacted them again.

And then it was gone, all three of them staring at the empty portal arms with silly, anticipatory smiles on their faces.

And Sasha was opening the letter.

"Dear President MacAdam blah blah... overjoyed to have contact from humanity blah blah... requests for official opening of diplomatic channels and so on... yours sincerely... QUEEN OLIVIA THE SECOND OF NEWTOPIA?"

Marcy practically snatched the letter out of Sasha's hands, as she craned her neck in to look at it.

"What? I knew she would!"

As they geeked out about Olivia's ascension, and Anne shooed away a researcher who had approached her with a plastic rod and a specimen jar looking for samples of Polly's slime, Terri cautiously checked the single photo they'd taken through the failed portal before the system had auto-disconnected it.

It gave them a bad feeling.

Random was random. The chances for two heads in a row, two tails in a row, and a heads and a tails in succession were identical. Random absolutely left room for coincidence, no matter how big the possibility space was.

But they got a bad feeling from seeing that beach.

Chapter Text

HERE WE HAVE
'CRAB THAT LOOKS LIKE A ROCK CRAB,'
THE CRAB THAT LOOKS LIKE A ROCK

"Did the full forensics results from the I80 arrive yet?" Mr X asked, sitting down in front of his laptop in meeting room 4. The space had been repurposed as a local command center for the BOWI's investigation into the steam turbine theft. While the majority of the work was being done in their new headquarters, Mr X was reluctant to leave Project Leif undersupervised and he was... hesitant to be anywhere near Sampson, so he had commandeered this meeting room and pulled Jenny, Rosa and Jeff in to support him.

"They did sir, I've moved them into their own subfolder," Parra responded, typing away at her laptop's keyboard.

There was a ding from X's laptop, and he noticed a shortcut to the documents appearing on his desktop.

"Ah, thank you Jenners," he said, getting the faintest nod in return. X opened the documents and started carefully skimming them, a rare and contradictory talent vital to his kind of work.

"So, off-road dirt bike, traces of exhaust fumes on the truck suggest high-octane race fuel, likely a 2-stroke engine and Michelin tyres."

"Agent Trigger's checked the photos," Parra said, "and he thinks the bike might be a Sherco... um..." she paused, "... SE300 I think?"

Mr X squinted at the photo taken from the lead escort car. Well, it wasn't that blurry, but the silhouette of the bike and its riders was very far away.

"That's a bold thing to say. My hubby has taken clearer pictures than this and that's not a compliment to anyone."

"Agent Trigger insists he knows bikes, sir." Parra replied, and Jenny nodded a couple of times.

"What about you?" X asked.

"I'm afraid it's not my area of expertise, sir."

X nodded. "Good answer. All right... just who the hell are you?"

He squinted at the photograph on his screen, of two dark shapes on a dirt bike leaving the desert scrub and crossing onto the road, plumes of dust behind them. They HAD to be going fast even though one was riding pillion. Either they were reckless or they were extremely experienced.

"Is it just me, or is the driver enormous?" X asked.

"... that thought had crossed my mind," Agent Parra admitted.

"The passenger appears to have long hair..." X thoughtfully said. "But at this distance... no, we can't make out anything identifying them... not skin colour, or gender, or height and weight."

He leaned back in his chair and let out a growl.

"This is ridiculous!" He threw up his hands. "I can't believe we're so complacent that we didn't have ANY redundant security systems on the truck. A single camcorder duct-taped to the bodywork would have told us more than everything else we have combined! Is there anything else?"

"There wasn't any satellite coverage at the time..." Parra hesitantly replied, "and the tyre tracks joined a popular off-roading course and blended in with all the other tracks. Who knows where they went after that."

"Great." X scowled at the screen. "I hate tracking humans. They're too smart and too dull." He looked over at Agent Parra. "Found anything new about Decipher?"

"I'd been checking current and deleted online posts, sir," Parra responded. "To be honest, it's kind of surprising." She paused, and leaned forward, resting her chin in her hand. "It's all so... positive. 'Decipher helped me out,' 'Decipher can be trusted,' that sort of thing. And even though all of this is positive towards them, it's almost all been deleted. If it weren't for them threatening us and stealing from us, I'd say they were the type to do good recklessly and insist on zero recognition."

"A secret society then," X replied. "Well, it fits the arrogance of them giving us an ultimatum. So... we've got an altruistic and extremely competent secret organisation who've decided we're the bad guys, is that it?" He got up, and idly wheeled his way across the room. "Well, they better stay competent, because the second we get a loose thread off of them, we're gonna pull until their entire fit is just thread on the floor!"

There was a faint flicker of a smile on Jenny's face for a moment, and they hit enter. A ding rose from X's laptop.

"Oh, what's this," X greedily asked. "A present? You shouldn't have, Jenners!"

There was a new document on his desktop. Inside, a detailed and annotated list of all eighteen cell phone conversations the local tower had been handling at the time. And at the bottom, a highlighted pair of names - "Greggy C." and "Leggy P."

X raised an eyebrow as Parra peered over his shoulder.

"Well, there's a blast from the past!" he happily said. "Looks like whoever created these burner accounts has taste."

"I don't get it," Agent Parra responded.

"You don't know Sev'ral Timez?" an astonished X asked. "The greatest pop act of the first quarter of 2012?"

"I... uh, would have been six years old sir," Parra responded, not exactly sharing the entire truth about why she wouldn't recognise them.

"Still... you know their songs, right? Like 'C'mon baby, won't you fly away with me? Take my hand, it's destiny, We don't need nobody if we stay together, Girl, just take my hand, it can be forever...'"

X trailed off when he saw Parra staring at him.

"I just happened to be a fan," he said without shame. "Their lyrics were inspired and their choreography divine!"

At that he started dancing around the room, singing "Oh, girl you got me ackin' so cray cray..." right before tripping over a rock with claws that had wandered into his path.

He flipped over onto his back, sat up and pointed a finger at it.

"You again!" he fumed. "How do you keep getting out?”

The rock stared at him impassively.

This 'Maya' had shown up weeks ago after Boscha's initial interview. Boscha said she was a crab. X had his doubts. He’d never seen a crab that looked like... whatever this was before. And no matter how much he disliked the weird little thing, the feeling seemed to be completely mutual. The creature either enjoyed being tripped over or realized how much he hated it.

Agent Parra approached the crab palisman and scooped it up.

“Maya! How often have we told you about this?” she scolded. “Isn’t there some way you could be helping Boscha right now?”

If the crab was capable of shrugging, nodding, or in fact emoting in any way X could understand, she didn’t show it. That didn’t seem to stop Parra though.

“Noooooo, I don’t think it’s very important for you to be here,” she said, scowling at the crab as she gently held it.

“I hate it when you talk to it like it’s a person,” X complained as he got to his feet. He sighed. “Parra, please return Boscha’s pet to her, I think we’re about done here for now.”

“Actually sir,” Agent Parra responded, “I was hoping to have a private conversation with you before that…”

“How important is it?”

“… pretty important?” Parra replied. Her gaze darted between Jenny and Maya. Looked like she didn’t want to speak in their presence.

“All right…” X conceded. “Jenny, would you mind returning this… crab to her owner?”

Jenny obviously blanched, but after a moment of hesitation they approached Parra, took the creature and held it at as long a reach as they could, before stiffly marching out of the room with it. The door swung shut behind them, and X sat down.

“All right, Rosie, take a seat, what can I do for you?”

Rosa Parra checked the door was closed, before pulling out a chair and sitting in it.

“Sir, I was wondering what your long term plan was for Boscha. It’s been two months, and she’s not left the facility once in that entire time. She seems happy enough about it… but I don’t think this is sustainable or healthy for her.”

Mr X nodded. He should have figured. Rosa and Boscha had really formed a surprising bond since the witch’s arrival, with Rosa taking an obvious personal interest in Boscha’s wellbeing. Parra was surprisingly inclined to listen carefully to Boscha’s worries, and was the only member of base personnel who could keep up with her ’grudgby’ game - everyone else just ended up covered in bruises.

“You’re pretty close to Boscha, huh?” he asked.

“I’m just concerned, sir,”

“Well, you’re not wrong to be concerned.” X folded his arms. “Ms Trio is posing quite a problem, and we don’t have a clear solution yet.”

Obviously he couldn’t tell Rosa about Sampson’s demands. X had talked to Terri about that, but no clear path forward had presented itself yet. X did not, under any circumstances, want to send Boscha to Facility B… but the loopholes that would get him out of it were vanishingly small, especially since Sampson had strongly implied he was prepared to use force to remove him and Terri from Project Leif. X did not want to comply, but these wasn’t much chance of any alternatives working.

“Ms Trio is in a unique position and completely stuck, I’m afraid.” X began. “I mean, what are our options here? Send her home? That’s a death sentence alone, and she herself has totally given up on returning to her broken world. Even if she wanted to go back, we can’t send soldiers with her to fight the Collector. That goes against every principle Project Leif was founded on - even with the best of intentions, it’s not far from there to toppling an oppressive regime because someone asked nicely, and not far from there to doing it because it suits us.“ He shook his head. “No, we’re spooks, but we’re not THAT kind of spook. And on top of that, we have no reason to believe we can even beat the Collector. Sad to say, but I don’t think we have a choice except for considering the Boiling Isles done for.”

He looked at Parra. She was looking down. What’re you thinking, Parra?

“I suppose that’s true,” she eventually said. “So then Boscha needs to make a life on Earth.”

“Easier said than done,” Mr X replied. He noticed Parra nodding at that. “Fact of the matter is she’s an alien. She has pointed ears, a third eye, and she can use magic. She’s not going to be able to just move to the city, fit in and find a job. No matter where she goes she’s going to be a ward of the state, and if she has a social life at all she could face an Anne Boonchuy level of fame… only without the family, friends, and cultural understanding to make it bearable.”

Rosa nodded. "She'll see the sun, but not exactly be free..."

"As far as I'm concerned, the only other options we have are finding a dimension where she'll fit in better, or giving her a job ourselves."

That got Parra's attention.

"You think she'd fit in in the BOWI?"

"It's more of a case that she's going to fit in just as well in other dimensions as we are. If you're a giant talking frog, what's a human who has an extra eye to you?" X asked. "Boscha's driven, she's now fit and likes to stay fit, she's resourceful and she's smart, and she could be a real asset to the bureau, if she decides she wants to."

He sighed. "It's just a shame that she doesn't have the experience, training, or - let's be frank here - temperament - for diplomacy, investigation or espionage."

Boscha could be nice, and Mr X had a lot of sympathy for the hell she went through... but she was also short-tempered, impulsive, demanding and arrogant, and X believed that if it weren't for her situation he would be cutting her a LOT less slack.

"We don't need a hot-headed and easily-offended agent who's going to blurt out exactly what she thinks the second she feels slighted," X added.

"Yes... I can see that becoming a problem..." Parra regretfully responded, and X joined her in looking rueful, imagining the too-possible situation where Boscha cut loose and started throwing fireballs because an interdimensional dignitary thought to demand some respect. "Maybe we can train her not to..." Parra suggested.

"That would take time..." X thought. "But maybe Quantico would be a good fit for her, actually..." he mused, rolling the idea over in his mind. "She'd be supervised, surrounded by peers and mentors... maybe an intense twenty weeks of training would help catch her mental discipline up to her physical discipline."

"I can see that helping!" Rosa said, sitting up. "I know I enjoyed my time in training."

X laughed to himself.

"Yeah, I can imagine you did," he said mockingly. "Me? Aced every exam and still hated it. All my instructors said I was the most infuriatingly successful candidate they ever had." He laughed, and Parra joined him. "But if I can survive it, maybe Boscha can. And of course, all of this depends on if she wants to join us."

He paused, and sighed. But of course it wasn't going to be that easy, if Sampson got his way.

"Sorry, Rosa," he continued. "I wish I could give you a real answer right now. I'm going to have to say that everyone here has Boscha's best interest at heart and we're still looking for new opportunities for her... but things are in motion. Trust me, we're going to have a much better idea what's happening in the next couple of weeks."

Agent Parra accepted that response, and got up to leave. She had to go check in on Boscha, who would be recovering from her surgery. On her way out, X spoke up one last time.

"Parra, one quick question." He idly tapped at his laptop's keyboard. "How attached are you to your post here at Project Leif? If, say, a certain someone was moving elsewhere, would you want to accompany them to protect them? Or would you prefer to stay here?"

He watched her expression as she thought. She was a little torn over it...

"I think..." she began... "I think I would go. Project Leif has been an incredible opportunity for me, but if given a choice, if a certain someone needs protection, I'd like to be sure they're all right."

Mr X studied her face. He was sure there was more to it than that, but Parra wasn't giving anything away.

"Thank you Agent," he replied. "I'll bear that in mind." X smiled. If there was no way out of it, and Boscha had to go to Facility B, at least he wouldn't have to send her there without an ally.

Once she was gone, X turned his attention back to the traced call between Greggy C. and Leggy P. Greggy C. was the one in Nevada, not a lot to learn there except they had some really excessive data use that was entirely encrypted. As for Leggy P... tracing the phone's position brought him to the Northwest Centre, in LA.

X knew it, though only by reputation. A new office complex built amid the ashes of the Incursion. Two thousand people had jobs there, spread among nearly 90 companies of varying sizes. That wouldn't do much to narrow the possibilities down, but...

He started going through employee records, starting with a likely filter of people in their early 30s - the ideal age for Sev'ral Timez fandom - who had been at the office at 15:21 that day.

Over 150 people turned up in the search. X smiled, and got to work.

NO FENCE TO SIT ON

The portal opened, offering a glimpse into another world once again, and Anne leapt to her feet as quickly as she could.

"Hop-pop! Sylvia!"

"Well hey there, Anne," the elderly frog croaked. He was sat in a chair, Sylvia Sundew to his right and Polly lounging on the ground to his left. The youngest frog's eyes were excitedly jumping between looking at Anne and watching the reaction of her grandfather, and Hop-pop seemed overwhelmed.

"It's wonderful to see ya, Anne," he said, almost tearing up. "You've really grown."

"Same to you!" Anne cried. She took in the sight of him -  doubled over and leaning on his cane even though he was already sitting, eyes foggy and voice rasping. "You're looking good..." she managed to say.

"Ah don't butter me up," he replied. "Ahm a wreck! But that's all right. It happens when ya get old, you know!"

They quickly fell into familiar, easy conversation. With no plans for anyone to travel through it, Terri was running the portal at a diameter of only three feet, which meant it could last for almost half an hour uninterrupted and they took advantage of that. Hop Pop spoke proudly of his avocado farm's success, of the discoveries Sprig had told them about from the new continent, and of how things had been changing for them in the valley.

"So things have been getting better between the frogs, toads and newts?" Anne asked.

"Oh yes," Hop Pop happily said. "The Three Armies changed everything, and Queen Olivia - frog bless her good soul - has been working hard on making some old injustices right." He sighed. "Anne, if there's any newt that has the soul of a farmer, it's that one!"

That got a bemused giggle from Marcy, who wouldn't quite have agreed. Anne on the other hand seemed relieved.

"I'm glad. It's great to know that you're all still making progress."

"Well, it's not done yet..." Hop Pop warily added. "It gets more complicated than you'd think... like going out and fixing the fenceposts, but that only draws attention to the way the gate's sticking. So you fix that, and it becomes more obvious how badly the road is rutted." He sighed and uneasily looked around. "Every fix draws attention to another problem, but you keep working at it, and soon everything seems perfect but it isn't... because there's still problems with the repairman's outlook."

He seemed genuinely saddened. Anne glanced at Sasha and Marcy, who both shrugged.

"What do you mean by that, Hop Pop? Are some frogs being a problem?" she asked him, but the old frog just shook his head.

"Never mind, just the rambling of an old frog what's out of touch," he replied. But what he had said, and his reluctance to expound on it, gave Anne a sinking feeling.

FIRST, DO NO HARM

Rosa Parra was only three junctions away from the meeting room when she caught up to Jenny. The other BOWI agent was in a supply room, wielding a broom and swatting/stabbing at a high shelf. Up on the shelf, a crab palisman effortlessly ducked, dodged and pirouetted every attempt to sweep her down to the floor.

Rosa had never heard Jenny speak, they never did, but she got the feeling that Jenny was internally swearing up a storm right now.

"Did she get away from you?" Rosa asked. "How did she even get up there?" she continued, before finally realizing what Jenny was doing. "Hold on, stop! If she falls from that height she'll crack!" Rosa put herself between the broom and the shelf to get Jenny to stop, and then grabbed a footstool to step on.

"Come on, little one..."

Jenny watched impassively while Rosa reached up to the shelf. Maya, with very little hesitation, peacefully climbed into her palm and allowed herself to be recovered.

"There we go..." She climbed down from the footstool and turned to Jenny, holding the crab out to them. "See? You just need to be gentle, she's not going to bite or claw you, all right?"

The silent agent and the impassive crab glared each other down. Rosa broke long before either of them would have.

"Look, just give her a pet, all right? She won’t mind, and trust me, you'll both enjoy it," she insisted. Rosa squirmed as her senior agent glared at her, but after a moment they carefully held out a hand and reluctantly stroked one of the crab’s large claws.

And continued to silently do it for several seconds, while Maya let out a light chirping.

To her satisfaction, Rosa thought she saw a faint smile, for a split second.

"Ms Trio, please," Dr Fine tried to insist. "If you overexert yourself you're going to tear the stitches."

Boscha wasn't listening. Her hand was heavily bandaged and in constant pain, and this drip tube they'd plugged into her arm wasn't helping.

"I don't care!" she growled. "Do you know what this feels like?" She raised her aching hand and tried to wave it despite the orderlies trying to force her back into bed. "This is agony!"

She'd gone under the knife yesterday, to have her finger-stumps properly removed and the mount plate for her prosthetics installed. The actual surgery had been just fine. She had to find out more about how human potions worked, because the ones they'd injected into her arm had numbed the entire thing real good without actually knocking her out.

And for some infuriating reason they were refusing to let her have more.

She was in the middle of cussing Dr Fine out when Rosa entered the room, carrying Maya.

"Boscha, you let Maya wander around again..." Rosa said in a tired voice, "you know X hates that..." she started, before looking at the scene of Boscha struggling against two hefty orderlies and an exhausted looking Dr Fine. Rosa set Maya down on a table. "What's going on here?".

"Rosa!" Boscha indignantly said. "They won't let me heal myself!"

"Ms Trio and I are having a disagreement about her care," Dr Fine grumbled. "She believes that a professional's twenty years of experience is outranked by a volleyball player's faith healing." She grimaced and shook her head. "Can you please talk some sense into your friend, Rosa?"

Boscha wasn't sure what she should be more offended by, 'faith healing' or 'volleyball player.' She tried to smile through the pain and appeal to Rosa's kindness.

"Rosa, It's not faith healing, it's magic healing, and these people need to either let me use it or double the drugs they're giving me because this hasn't hurt this bad since I lost the fingers in the first place," she said, holding up her bandaged hand.

To Boscha's satisfaction, Rosa did look concerned at that. She turned to Dr Fine. "Is she on enough painkillers?" To Boscha's greater satisfaction, Dr Fine squirmed.

"Boscha had a much stronger response to anesthetic than we expected during surgery. We don't know what a safe dose is long term, so we're playing it safe... two thirds of the usual dose of Tramadol."

"Okay, I can understand that..." Rosa said. "But that doesn't explain why you're restraining her," she curiously added.

"Ms Trio keeps trying to use her magic," Dr Fine stiffly said.

"To heal myself!" Boscha insisted. "If you can't kill this pain, let me shorten the time I feel it for!"

"We're not keeping you in pain for fun, Boscha, but we can't know how magical healing will interact with the implant! It might reject or dislodge it and then all this would be pointless!" Dr Fine sharply replied. "There are only so many times we can operate on your hand before we start doing permanent damage."

Rosa took Dr Fine aside, and Boscha watched as they had a hushed conversation. This was so ridiculous. She may not have had Bo's talent for healing, but she was quite sure that she could heal around the implant - and even if she was wrong, she was ready to try anything.

"You trust me to heal myself, don't you Maya?" she piteously asked the palisman, stooping down by the table she was sat upon. Maya responded by scuttling closer to her and giving what seemed to be a nod. Satisfied, Boscha gave her a good pet on her claw, and was for a moment able to tune out the pain.

She glanced back at the doctor and the agent every so often. They were having an intense but hushed argument, and Boscha couldn't make much out. She tried to watch them without them noticing she was watching. Eventually they seemed to come to some kind of agreement, and Rosa approached her.

"Hey, Boscha... are you sure you know how to heal yourself?" Boscha couldn't see why Rosa would have cause to doubt her, but she responded.

"Of course," she replied, confidence substituting for certainty. "I was on the potions track so I know more about healing than most, and Bo and Viney taught all of us healing magic in case of emergencies." She would have smugly folded her arms, if not for the risk of getting the IV tangled.

Rosa seemed skeptical about that, annoyingly enough, but went back to conferring with Dr Fine, who eventually seemed to give up.

Twenty minutes later, they'd finished removing the bandages from her hand. It looked awful - red, swollen, and a little bloody. A pair of stitched up incisions were on the back of her hand, and a couple of slender tendrils of metal led into them. The tendrils stretched toward a larger metal plate that would serve as the mount for her new fingers. Her skin was due to bond with a gauzy substance that lined the edge of the plate as it grew back, but for now it was raw and... loose.

Despite the pain, and the mild body horror of seeing metal bonded to her hand, Boscha couldn't help but grin. Back when Rosa and the doctors had been explaining what this operation would entail, they'd told her the implant was made of an aluminium/titanium alloy, and if Boscha hadn't already been keen to have new fingers that would have sold her on the spot.

Imagine. Titan fingers. She'd have titan fingers!

Rosa had explained that titanium didn't literally mean 'made of a titan' but Boscha hadn't cared. She just wanted to tell people she had titan fingers!

But there were no fingers yet though - just the mount plate. And a swollen mass of pain where it was trying to integrate itself into her flesh.

"All right," Dr Fine began, "I want to say that I'm only permitting this because we cannot adequately anesthetize Boscha. But Ms Trio... if you feel like your hand is in any way rejecting the implant, or if you notice the implant shifting, you need to stop immediately or this will only get worse. Understood?"

"Sure," Boscha agreed.

"... are you sure you know how to heal?" Rosa cautiously asked again, and Boscha couldn't help but be annoyed at that. What possible reason would Rosa have to not believe her about that?

"Of course I do."

Rosa looked skeptical, but didn't argue about it.

Boscha placed her hand palm-down on a sanitised metal plate and dangled her other hand's index finger over it.

"All right. I'm going to do it."

Rosa and Dr Fine both nodded and watched carefully, Dr Fine with her notepad out. She'd given Rosa a tablet to record the process with. Reluctant as she was to allow this, she still had a professional curiosity about a Witch's healing magic.

Boscha stared at her swollen hand and gulped. She'd made a pretty big boast, but she was a little nervous. Bo and Viney had tutored everyone as well as they could on healing magic, but even Boscha had to admit to herself that she'd been far from their best student... and maybe the last choice for who should do it in an emergency.

But she took a deep breath, grit her teeth, and drew a blue circle above her hand.

The pain immediately flared, and Boscha squirmed, but she kept pouring magic into her hand. All she was trying to do was accelerate healing in a small area, less than the width of a fingernail, which she would carefully move across her hand. She believed if she could precisely do that, then her hand would evenly heal around the implant and not dislodge it.

But this burned. She sucked in air through gritted teeth and tried to focus, trying to control her breathing and avoid screaming. Rosa and Dr Fine must have noticed something was wrong, because they both were immediately pestering her, but she growled out an "I'm fine!" and tried to focus.

Focus! Like you do when shooting for a goal! You don't miss then, so don't miss now!

The pain was very real. Boscha was trying to use a spell intended for healing scratches to knit a hand back together. But she could see... she was making progress! The incisions were closing, slowly, the inflammation fading a little. And the implant wasn't shifting!

She grinned despite everything and kept pushing magic back into herself.

"Are you all right?" she heard Rosa ask, and she heard Dr Fine fussing from next to her.

"Boscha, you're pushing yourself too hard!"

"I said I'm fine!" Boscha snapped.

"Okay..." Rosa replied. "Can we help?"

"Just stop distracting me... and be ready to catch me."

Nobody liked that response. But Boscha was aware of Rosa moving behind her.

Sweat dribbled down her brow, and she had to close her fore-eye to keep it from stinging. She was now pretty damn sure she was doing this wrong. Hadn't the cast she'd got on her arm once had glyphs on it? Well, Boscha had no idea how to make them, so it didn't matter. She forced herself to push on, holding her finger as steady as she could and carefully, carefully, healing the back of her hand.

Her skin had finished closing up around the two metal prongs on her hand when she finally dropped. Someone - Rosa - caught her before she hit the floor, and she felt Dr Fine grab her arm to keep her from smacking her hand against anything. Boscha was lifted into a chair, where she failed to resist the urge to slump forward onto the table.

"Boscha?" Dr Fine was asking. "How do you feel?"

"I'm fine," she insisted, but not very strongly. "Just drained. My magic'll be back by morning." She was now certain she'd done that wrong. No single spell should drain a witch's entire magical reserves, and especially not the most basic healing spell. "If you can get me some snapfoil, titangall and fresh rainwater I can boil up something that'll perk me up..."

"I don't think we have any of those here," Rosa gently replied.

"Sleeping it off it is then..." Boscha replied as she set her head down on the table.

Apparently after that she had an hour or so's nap. When she woke up, Dr Fine was carefully inspecting her hand, wearing glasses with a number of magnifying lenses on them to take a closer look. She had been carefully picking out the stitches.

"Ah, you're awake." Fine said. Boscha mumbled something indistinct in response. "I guess I'm impressed. That doesn't look like it was easy, but I think you've shortened your healing time by several weeks there."

Boscha tried to focus, and looked at her hand. It did look much better. There was some light scarring where the incisions had been, and she was privately sure she'd made a mess of the job, but it did look passable.

She tried to flex her fingers. Her hand still felt stiff, but it was no longer a slab of pain. Still sore, but much less so.

"It feels better," she managed.

"Good, I'd hate for you to do all that and it still hurt," Dr Fine responded. She got Boscha to hold still, and started wrapping the hand up again in bandages. "Obviously it's not done yet, but if you are up to it I'm willing to permit repeating this tomorrow."

"I'll see how I feel," Boscha replied.

Ten minutes later Rosa returned, holding Maya again.

"She was stalking Director Wolpaw," Rosa sighed, before perking up. "Oh, you're awake."

They exchanged a few small pleasantries, before Rosa got to the point.

"Dr Fine, we should get Boscha into bed if she's this exhausted," she said. "Director Wolpaw says there will be a portal test in -"

At that moment the alarm sounded across the base, and everyone had to listen to Terri's announcement that the portal would be opening in 40 minutes.

"What they said," Rosa said.

BEYOND IMAGINING,
BUT SOMETIMES STILL BORING

They'd seen Amphibia, three times now. They've looked out onto two random worlds. Now Terri was connecting the portal to NERD-1, a world they'd connected to once before when the portal could only access random dimensions. When Sasha asked why they wanted to go back, all they'd been able to say was they found it visually striking.

Sasha waited patiently next to Anne for the portal to open, feeling the gravity depart and then return. While she knew she could trust Anne... she still kept half an eye on her friend. Nobody wanted another flying incident.

So far, this had been an interesting experience. The reconnection with Wartwood had been wonderful of course, though Sasha was disappointed that she still hadn't seen any sign of Grime, who was no doubt far, far away. She hoped to see him very soon.

The two glimpses they'd had into other realities had been an experience too. In one, they'd interrupted a training session between a girl and some loud guy in a pink gi, on a world that looked a lot like Earth - enough like Earth that Terri panicked that they'd accidentally established a portal to their own Japan somehow. They'd actually relaxed a little when the green skinned animal man had shown up and started hooting at them.

Without a Japanese speaker in the room, the language barrier had proved insurmountable for now and they'd apologized as best they could and left an information drone with the bewildered inhabitants, temporarily denoting this world as DOJO-1.

The next world had been a bit more tense. The portal had opened in a busy plaza in a seaside town that seemed to be made of white stone. A towering blue crystal encircled by gold bands gently rotated in the center, and the place was full of people of what looked like several different species, a great many of them armed with a wide variety of weapons. Needless to say, Marcy had been fascinated by the sight.

Things had got hairy for a moment and someone had shot a fireball at them, but fortunately the people seemed to speak something like English and could be convinced this was an accident and they meant no harm. Well, most of the people. A squat creature in heavy overalls and a gas mask had been infuriated that "otherlander's fardoor" had "smashcrushed" their "smallshop" and they didn't really know what to tell them. They'd left a drone and as much apologies as they could, and the portal had winked out right as a group of people in yellow had been approaching.

For now, they'd designated the world CRYS-1 and were hoping that when they attempted their next connection to it, they wouldn't be facing a line of cannons.

So now, as Terri opened a portal to a world they'd already seen, Sasha suspected they were trying to give everyone a break from the stress. And she was right. As she, Anne and Marcy got to their feet, they looked through the portal at a strange scene - an endless field of small, irregular red stones under a still blue sky.

"This is the Nerd dimension?" Sasha asked, before making a face. "Wait..."

Marcy snorted a laugh. "You named it after the candy?"

"Heh heh, yeah," Terri admitted. "It's just what it reminded me of."

Anne and Sasha facepalmed, though Anne did it with a smile.

"We didn't get a chance to investigate what these are," Terri continued, "so I have a couple of tests I want to do planned. First though, I want to check that's safe footing out there. Agent Trigger?"

Sasha turned to see Agent Trigger walking toward the gantry, carrying what looked like a life-sized and heavy mannequin. A rope was tied around its feet. It all looked heavy, so she walked up to him.

"Hey, let me get the end of that," she offered.

"Hm? Yeah, thanks," he gratefully replied. "Yeah, Johnny here is a heavy guy."

Anne looked the mannequin over. "Hm. Handsome fella too," she playfully said.

"Please don't get weird about the mannequins," Terri said over the PA.

"It's not weird. If you don't want me to personify him, don't name him."

Sasha hefted the feet of the mannequin while Marcy held on to the coil of rope. They approached the open portal.

"All right, if you could throw Subject J through please," Terri asked over the PA. "Make sure he clears the portal."

Agent Trigger looked at Sasha. "On three?"

"Sure. One. Two. Three!"

They swung the mannequin back and forth a couple of times before releasing him on three. Johnny sailed through the portal, smashed into the stones, and immediately sank out of view under them. There was no splash, but a perfectly circular ripple spread out over the surface.

Everyone gaped at it. They hadn't quite been expecting that.

"Well, glad that wasn't me," Marcy said.

"No kidding," Anne said, watching the spot where Johnny had sank. "I don't think we're getting him out without the rope."

At that, Anne looked at the rope. The rope that was quickly moving through the portal. The coil of rope that Marcy was holding in her palms but making no effort to grab.

"Marcy!" What are you...?" Anne started, before she and Sasha grabbed the rope to stop Johnny's descent.

"Oops! Sorry!" Marcy said. "Guess I should hold on to that!"

They quickly approximated how much rope Marcy still had - about sixteen feet, out of fifty. Johnny had sunk thirty-four feet into the stones in a matter of seconds, with no sign of stopping.

While Anne and Sasha tried to pull Johnny out, Agent Trigger got a scoop on a long pole and reached through the portal. He carefully scooped up a stone, just in time for the 'portal failing' alarm to sound.

"The portal is closing!" Terri reported. "Everyone clear of the aperture!"

"But Johnny!" Anne protested.

"Pull faster, Boonchuy!" Sasha ordered.

They doubled their efforts, but it wasn't enough. The portal winked out, severing the rope, and the Calamity Trio held a short and silent vigil for Johnny the mannequin, who was apparently now sinking toward the center of a planet of small red rocks.

"You know we have a room full of them, right?" Terri asked over the PA.

"But never another Johnny," Anne said, as seriously as she could manage.

"He died a hero for science," Marcy added.

"Vaya con Rana," Sasha concluded, saluting.

"Oookay, you all need a break."

The trio coiled up what was left of the rope while Agent Trigger took the stone to Terri. They picked it up with a pair of heavy gloves and immediately almost fumbled it as it slipped about in their grasp.

"Interesting... it's extremely smooth." Terri observed. "Polished. And it's lightweight." They turned it over, gripping it very carefully. "Wow. I don't think I could have asked for more!" they added, a grin spreading across their face.

"Really?" Sasha asked, crossing the room towards them. "It just looks like a rock to me."

"To me, it's science," Terri said. "And it's the soul of adventure. I don't know if humanity has truly seen a substance like this before."

They approached an empty area of the room, set the rock on the floor, and gave it a gentle push.

The stone slid. A normal stone would have stopped after a foot or so, but this stone kept going, like it was a curling stone on ice. It gently coasted for twenty feet until it hit a wall and Terri followed it, inspecting the concrete floor it passed over. Once it stopped, they picked it back up again and inspected it.

"No sign of wear or scoring..." they muttered to themselves. "And the stone showed no sign of slowing or grinding against the floor - no trail or wear in the concrete either." They smiled. "Remarkable. It's too early to say for sure, but I think these stones may be highly or completely frictionless." They looked back at the others. "It'd explain why Joh... Subject J sank into them like he was passing through air."

Sasha blankly looked at the rock.

"I guess that sounds like a big deal?" she cautiously said.

"It is." Marcy nodded repeatedly. "We have some very low friction substances, but nothing truly frictionless. An engine made of something like that would never need oiling and never wear out."

"Exactly," Terri replied. "Obviously we can't mine or harvest them. It's not only against Project Leif's values, but there's no way to build an outpost on those stones." They carefully held the stone and smiled. "But if we can study this and figure out how to create it synthetically, it'll change so much. As nice as it is to meet new civilisations... discoveries like this are a big part of why I wanted to do this."

Sasha couldn't see the red stone as anything other than a rock really, but she supposed that made sense. At the very least it seemed to be making Terri happy, and given how obviously stressed they'd been since the trio had arrived, that was nice in itself.

DON'T ASK IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW

Dr Fine and Agent Parra had led the groggy Boscha to her bed for a lot of rest, and strapped her in so that she wouldn't float away when the portal activated. Facility protocols said that nobody was supposed to be alone during a portal activation in case of accidents, so Rosa had volunteered to stay with Boscha.

As she lay in her bed, Boscha had given Rosa a weak grin.

"Hey, got any more movies?"

"A few," Rosa replied. She'd been getting Boscha into human movies - it felt like a good way to introduce her to some elements of human history and culture.

After all, it helped me and the others a lot!

She'd been avoiding movies with explicitly 'supernatural' elements, not wanting to give Boscha any wrong ideas about humans, and instead focused on rom-coms, action films and sports movies. 'Human movie night' with Rosa had become one of the highlights of Boscha's week, though The Hunger Games had hit a little too close to home for her.

"Unfortunately," Rosa continued, "the TV is out there, remember?" She pointed out of Boscha's sleeping area and into her living area, where the TV was attached to the wall.

"Oh, right," Boscha replied with a slight laugh. "Embarrassing. I'm pretty out of it I guess."

"I can't blame you," Rosa admitted. "That looked like a lot of effort."

FAR too much effort. What in the titan's name were you thinking?

"Yeah, well I was up to it," Boscha boasted, and then felt conflicted about it. She'd really got herself in over her head there, and she was having trouble not thinking about the damage she could have done to herself.

"How did you even learn to do that?" Rosa asked.

"I told you," Boscha replied. "Bo and Viney taught all of us."

There was a long pause.

"... what were they like?" Rosa asked.

What? No! Don't ask about them! You don't want to know!

"What were they like?" Boscha thought for a moment. "They were good witches. We never would have survived for nine years without our healers. Why?"

"... it's just you hardly ever talk about them," Rosa replied. "I wonder if there's anything you need to talk about, about everyone back there, and if there is... I'll listen."

STOP! Abort! Don't do this, you already know how any stories she can tell you will end!

Was there anything she wanted to talk about?

So much of the last nine years felt pointless now - a long, horrible slog to a miserable conclusion. Nine years of dwindling food supplies, ragged clothes, darkness, losses and complete failure. Especially the complete failure. After the mistake she made that got Cat and Amelia collected, Boscha never again felt like she was contributing as much as any of the others were. She'd pushed herself of course, every day, determined to do her part, to matter, but everyone around her outshone her.

And now, looking back, she'd realized it was because she'd been surrounded by actual heroes.

Matt, who'd constantly been planning ahead, looking for ways to fight back and build bigger. Skara, who'd been their unexpected heaviest hitter in a fight with her bardic magic, and the one who'd soothed their anxieties with her bardic skills. Ed and Em, who'd effortlessly bamboozled spies and been the shoulders everyone cried on. Jerbo, who'd ensured they didn't starve years earlier with his plant magic and abomination harvesters.

Even the ones who hadn't made it to The Gut shone brightly. Nobody could really account for what exactly happened to Mary, but everyone knew Barcus and Celine went out defending the kindergarteners, and they assumed Mary did too.

Around those witches, Boscha had realized, it was no surprise that she'd felt like she needed to prove herself.

And as for Bo and Viney...

"Are you sure you want to hear it?" she asked Rosa.

"If you want to say it," Rosa solemnly said.

Boscha took a deep breath. Maybe she did need to do this.

"You wouldn't be able to tell, but Bo was a healing prodigy. Top Student badge and everything. Back when things were normal she hadn't really stood out apart from that, but she was cool enough to pose for a Grom pic or two with." Celine had been in that picture too, now that Boscha thought about it. That made it more bittersweet...

"She could be nervous and get overwhelmed easily, but she got along with people really well. And a lot of that changed after the trip to the Gut." She fondly smiled. "Bo found her authority. The second someone needed healing, she was in charge, and what she said went." Boscha laughed a little. "If she was healing, then you did what she said or got out of the way. It was impressive. She'd have got along great with Dr Fine."

She looked at her bandaged hand.

"I'm lucky she was there when my fingers got crushed. Bo obviously hadn't been properly taught how to amputate, but she handled it anyway and did a good job, all while spies were patrolling around us. She kept her nerve and worked quickly, and she did everything right. Anything else, and I'd have probably had to scream and brought every spy right to us. Matt was never our official leader, but if anyone was our second in command, it was Bo."

There was pride in Boscha's voice as she spoke. Rosa nodded ruefully, and there was a crack in her voice as she replied.

"What about Viney?"

Boscha bowed her head a little.

"She's a little more difficult to talk about..."

"You don't have to..." Rosa said.

YOU don't have to! Why would you ever ask?

"No... I will, if you want to hear it. I think none of them deserve to be forgotten."

Rosa didn't disagree, so Boscha continued.

"Viney was studying beast keeping as well as healing. She wasn't as specialised as Bo, so of course she ended up in more of a nurse role. She was great at it - she was tough, but so friendly, she could make anyone feel better with just a smile and a joke." Boscha laughed to herself. "But what really made her great was her friendship with Puddles."

Okay, if we're doing this, at least pretend to not know who Puddles is.

Boscha looked at the confused expression on Rosa's face.

"Puddles was a griffin - a pigeon breed. The two were inseparable, they had been since Viney was in kindergarten. It was pretty cute. Puddles could misbehave sometimes, but everyone really got along with her and Viney. They worked together on everything - Puddles was smart enough to help a little with healing, and together they were unbeatable in the air." There was a great deal of almost awe, and clear respect in her voice. "Puddles was faster and more agile than any of our staffs, and the only one of us who could outrun spies. Viney rode on her back, and she learned every spell she could that would be useful in midair. They'd draw spies away from where the rest of us were, or into sonic traps set up by Skara. They were a hell of a team."

The two of them barely noticed when the portal alarm buzzed, or when the now-familiar sensation of gravity being nullified came over them. Living in Project Leif made you get used to some strange things. If Boscha had been thinking she might have stopped her story here, but a dam had broken inside her, and suppressed memories were rushing into the valley ahead.

######

"But things got really bad when the Collector froze the world, and Puddles had it worst of all. She needed meat to survive, and now every small animal she would have hunted was permanently frozen in place. She couldn't survive on Jerbo's plants, not like we could. It wasn't long before she started to get really sick."

Boscha's hair drifted toward the ceiling as the portal generator worked.

"We did everything we could. Viney and Bo hardly left her side for a week. But eventually... we knew we had to give Viney and Puddles some time alone. We all gave Puddles a big hug, and went to the other side of the Gut, to wait for Viney to come to us."

The IV in Boscha's arm stopped working for a while, without gravity to feed its Tramadol into her.

"But Viney never came to us. And when Matt went to check up on her, all he found was the words 'I'm sorry' written on the wall with a stone."

Beside her ear, Maya was holding on tight to Boscha's pillow.

"We rushed up to the surface, just in time to hear a whistle. When we got there, Viney was sitting on the sand, with her arm around Puddles' neck." Boscha's voice started to crack, but she pressed on. "We tried to scream for her to come back, but she just sat there, and looked back at us, and smiled, while a spy drifted down toward her. While we shouted ourselves hoarse, she just stood up and waved to it... and then, they were gone. Just a toy griffin, and a toy woman, vanishing in a puff of blue smoke."

Gravity returned. Boscha's hair fell onto her pillow, her bedding drifted down to rest on the mattress, and Maya rubbed a claw against her cheek.

"I've thought a lot about why she did that. I don't think that it was just that she didn't want to be separated from her oldest friend. I think she saw what was coming for all of us... that our resistance was now doomed. And maybe she just decided to be collected on her own terms." She sighed. It all felt so far away now. "And well, that's what happened to Viney."

######

When Rosa was silent, Boscha turned her head to look at her.

She was leaning forward, staring into the middle distance with her hand over her mouth. Tears were streaming down her cheeks.

I TOLD YOU SO I TOLD YOU SO I TOLD YOU SO I TOLD YOU SO I TOLD YOU SO I TOLD YOU SO I TOLD YOU SO I TOLD YOU SO I TOLD YOU SO I TOLD YOU SO I TOLD YOU SO I TOLD YOU SO I TOLD YOU SO I TOLD YOU

"Oh Titan... are you all right?" Boscha asked.

"I'm fine," Rosa croaked back. She took off her glasses and rubbed at her eyes.

"Sorry, I said too much..." Boscha admitted.

"No, I asked you to, and I'm glad you could tell me," Rosa replied. She didn't sound very glad. "It's just... I guess your story reminded me of someone I used to know."

"Ah..." Boscha said. She paused for a few seconds. "If you want to talk about them, I'll listen. I mean, fair's fair."

"No," Rosa replied, getting up. "I'm not ready to do that yet." She got up, and started to remove the straps holding Boscha against her bed. "But if you want to hear it, I promise that someday I'll tell you. You deserve that much."

I guess... maybe we did need to hear that...

AS MUCH OF THE TRUTH
AS I CAN STAND

After leaving Boscha's room, all Rosa could do was hold herself together for as long as possible. She washed her face, breathed as best she could in the base's stale air, and then went straight to Director Wolpaw to request a day or two's absence.

It wasn't an unusual request - virtually everyone here had to take breaks above ground every so often. And fortunately, Dir. Wolpaw was in an extremely good mood thanks to some weird rock they'd found, so her request had immediately been approved.

There were things Rosa needed to do, that she'd been putting off. She'd blamed it on being too busy, on not having enough opportunities to do it, but she knew it was because of how hard it was going to be on everyone. But now, she felt like she couldn't put it off any more. There were things she needed to talk about, for her friends and for her own peace of mind.

After returning to her room and packing a travelling bag, she signed out of the base, found her neglected car in the parking lot, and started the almost three-hour drive to Palm Springs, booking a short-notice Airbnb apartment on the way. Half an hour away from the base, she'd opened up her bag and allowed Clover out. The bee palisman had been eager to stretch her wings, and was ecstatic to see the sky again after being cooped up in Rosa's room - or in the vent connected to it - for months now.

As she drove, and as Clover playfully buzzed around inside the car, Willow thought.

Why the hell had she asked Boscha for information on what happened? For months now, she'd known that everyone she'd cared about back on the Isles was dead, or as good as dead. She thought daily about her dads, and the friends and family she'd left behind, but she knew - that was a land she'd never return to, not unless they could figure out how to kill a god. And Willow truly had no idea how to begin that... never mind how she would convince Wolpaw and the others that connecting the portal back to BONE-1 was a good idea and not an unconscionable risk to Earth.

She'd tried so hard to put the isles behind her, she didn't have a choice... but she hadn't been able to stop imagining. Hadn't been able to stop running scenarios through her head about what happened to her friends and loved ones.

So she'd asked Boscha about Viney, her teammate and friend, and now she was conflicted about whether she regretted it. Poor Viney. Poor Puddles. She hoped that if those dolls could feel anything, it was happiness forever. And at least now, her mind could stop spinning in circles about at least one of her friends' fates...

She put that thought aside, turned up her spotify, and tried to focus on driving.

The Airbnb was nice. Obviously decorated for tourists. The owner had left a little welcome basket, with some bread and fruit, and there were several kinds of milk in the fridge. No spider milk of course, but what could you do?

Willow fell back onto the couch, summoned her scroll, and stared at it.

She didn't dare use it in the base in case she was discovered, but Willow knew they were lucky that scrolls still worked in the human realm. Penstagram messaging was - according to Gus - built on something called a "peer to peer" network that didn't require a central server to run it, and the range on a scroll was nearly a thousand miles. Once she was sure she was alone, Willow could contact her family whenever she wanted. Being sure she was alone was the hard part. Working in the FBI and the BOWI encouraged you to assume you were being watched, and she had a lot to hide.

She hesitated for a moment, and then typed.

Hello_willow: Hi everyone.
RULERZREACHF4N: Willow!
gus_porter_official: Woah! It's been forever! Willow!
RULERZREACHF4N: Why haven't you contacted us? We've all been worried about you since we saw the film.
Hello_willow: Film? What film?
gus_porter_official: That documentary you totally dominated?

Willow squirmed. Oh right, that.

Hello_willow: Oh no, that? Tell me I didn't look like a jobber...
gus_porter_official: Are you kidding? You had presence! You had power!
RULERZREACHF4N: ... short hair suits you, you know...
gus_porter_official: I'm not sure how you lost to Anne Boonchuy though, but you looked really cool until then!
Hello_willow: ...
Hello_willow: I'm pretty sure it was accidental, but she blasted me with some calamity energy
Hello_willow: All the way across the room. I'm okay now.
Hello_willow: How about you two? Both of you okay?
gus_porter_official: youtube is a harsh and cruel mistress as usual.
gus_porter_official: But Hunter got hit by a firebomb!

Willow's eyes widened. Her thumbs flew over the scroll.

Hello_willow: WHAT? Are you serious? Are you all right?
Hello_willow: Wait, was this the incident at the Heron sanctuary?
Hello_willow: That was YOU?
RULERZREACHF4N: Heh. It was no big deal.

Willow smiled. That was definitely the Golden Guard talking there.

A few minutes later, someone else joined the conversation.

WITCHCHICK128: Willow!
Hello_willow: Amity!
WITCHCHICK128: Sorry, I was driving and had to pull over. We're both here!
WITCHCHICK128: A certain gremlin says buenas tardes.

Willow smiled. That would be everyone, except...

Hello_willow: Is Camila with anyone? She should hear this too.
gus_porter_official: Sorry, I'm in a hotel room, halfway to Oregon.
WITCHCHICK128: We'll take notes and fill her in after this.
Hello_willow: I guess that's ok.
Hello_willow: Well then. I guess I'd better get down to it.
Hello_willow: I'm sorry it's taken this long to get in contact. I guess now that you know what my current posting is, you can imagine how it's pretty intense... and high security.
RULERZREACHF4N: Yeah, I can imagine that.
WITCHCHICK128: We've been worried about you, but we know you can handle it.
WITCHCHICK128: Working with that portal must be amazing for you. Do you think it can get us back home?

Willow paled, and stared at her scroll. She really didn't want to have to tell them this.

Hello_willow: That's going to be difficult, for a lot of reasons. Project Leif has their reasons why they won't open a portal there, and even if they did, they're not going to be willing to send soldiers through...
gus_porter_official: Well that doesn't sound good. Things must be bad if we'll need soldiers.
Hello_willow: Guys? I need to ask. Are you all somewhere safe and private?
Hello_willow: You're really not going to like what I have to say.
Hello_willow: please just be... sitting down somewhere.

There was a long pause.

RULERZREACHF4N: I'm ready.
gus_porter_official: I already don't like the sound of this, but I'm ready.
WITCHCHICK128: We're bracing ourselves.
Hello_willow: All right.
Hello_willow: You've all seen the portal connect to Amphibia by now then, I assume.
Hello_willow: What none of you saw in the documentary was it accidentally connected to home a couple of hours later.
gus_porter_official: ???
Hello_willow: The portal does that sometimes.
Hello_willow: And someone came through it.
gus_porter_official: Are you SERIOUS?
RULERZREACHF4N: Who?
WITCHCHICK128: OMT
WITCHCHICK128: WILLOW
WITCHCHICK128: HOW IS BOSCHA ONLINE

Sitting on the couch, Willow's body stiffened and her eyes bulged.

gus_porter_official: Boscha? Really?
Hello_willow: How did you know?
WITCHCHICK128: I never actually unfriended her!
Hello_willow: She's on your friends list?
Hello_willow: AMITY
Hello_willow: Please set yourself to invisible NOW!
Hello_willow: If Boscha ever checks her scroll and sees you're online, she's going to freak out!
WITCHCHICK128: ok, done.
WITCHCHICK128: But... Boscha's really here?
Hello_willow: Yes
RULERZREACHF4N: I'm sorry, but who's Boscha?
WITCHCHICK128: An old friend, I guess. She went to Hexside.
gus_porter_official: A real witch-with-a-b.

Willow understood why Gus was so hostile to Boscha... but felt compelled to defend her.

Hello_willow: She's... different now.
Hello_willow: I mean she's still Boscha.
Hello_willow: But things have happened. She's better now.
Hello_willow: Thankfully, she hasn't recognized me, or blown my cover. All she sees is Agent Parra.
gus_porter_official: she can't even bother to recognize you?
Hello_willow: It's not like that Gus. Boscha's had more to worry about than Willow Park.
WITCHCHICK128: Never thought I'd see the day Willow was defending her old bully.
Hello_willow: Why not? I defend YOU, don't I?

Willow set her scroll down, and pinched her nose between both hands. She'd just said that, hadn't she? She'd just seen red for a moment... when she picked the scroll back up, nobody had responded.

Hello_willow: I'm sorry. That was uncalled for.
WITCHCHICK128: No
WITCHCHICK128: You're right, and I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that.
WITCHCHICK128: And Gus... if Willow is willing to say Boscha's changed now, I think we should believe her.
gus_porter_official: ... yeah. I guess.
RULERZREACHF4N: I think we need to focus... what did Boscha have to say?

Willow took a deep breath.

Hello_willow: This is the part you're all going to hate.
Hello_willow: Please don't interrupt for a while, I have a lot to post.
Hello_willow: And... I'm sorry you have to hear it like this.

And she started gradually copying and pasting a report she'd written in advance into the chat.

Once she was done, it was almost five tense minutes before anyone responded.

RULERZREACHF4N: Willow
RULERZREACHF4N: Before anything else is said
RULERZREACHF4N: Thanks for telling us. We needed to know.
RULERZREACHF4N: And... I'm sorry you had to live with this story for months, by yourself. That must have been hard.
Hello_willow: I'm fine. I had Clover with me.
RULERZREACHF4N: You always say you're fine...
gus_porter_official: well im NOT FINE
gus_porter_official: youre telling me my dad got turned into a doll for some sick kid's collection nine years ago?
gus_porter_official: that CANT BE TRUE
Hello_willow: Gus, I'm sorry, but I believe Boscha. She's too specific and too consistent to be lying.
gus_porter_official: FUCK BOSCHA
Hello_willow: Gus... Boscha was awful to us, but she was never that kind of liar!
gus_porter_official: How can you just accept this, Willow? What about your dads?
Hello_willow: I think about them EVERY DAY, Gus! But... I've just had two months to get used to this. And I don't know what we can do about this.
WITCHCHICK128: We put it on the pile, for another thing we need to solve.
Hello_willow: Amity? Are you doing okay?
WITCHCHICK128: We're both... fine. And this doesn't change much. We're going to find a way home, somehow. And if we get there and we have to kill a god to avenge everyone we ever knew? We'll do that.

It was a crazy thing to say. But when she read it, all Willow could imagine was the intense and grimly determined expression that Amity has worn a lot since coming here.

They spent some time commiserating and chatting amongst themselves. Gus had ranted and raved, constantly skirting denial and acceptance in a way that Willow thought was going to take several days for him to begin to work out. She wished she could be there for him, and she was very glad that he and Hunter were going to be spending some time together over the next few days.

Hunter seemed to be taking it better. Of course, he was sad... but Hunter had always had less to go back to on the Boiling Isles. He'd had the Emerald Entrails of course, and he said he thought he was becoming friends with a couple of the coven heads. But two of the Entrails were already in the human realm with him, and the closest relationship he'd had outside of that was with the monster that caused all this, who Hunter wanted nothing to do with. Willow had no doubt he'd help take back the isles though, if the opportunity came.

RULERZREACHF4N: Willow, what do you think about Project Leif? To tell the truth, it's making me nervous.
Hello_willow: Nervous? Why?
RULERZREACHF4N: Back then, maybe we didn't really know his name at the time, but we knew there was no way we could let the Collector come to the human realm.
RULERZREACHF4N: but hearing that someone could randomly open a portal and accidentally let him or someone worse  in... it's worrying. I don't want anything to happen to this realm.
Hello_willow: Well... to be honest, I think Project Leif needs to take things more slowly and carefully. I like the people there, but I understand why you're worried.
Hello_willow: The human realm has been good to us... and especially Camila. Part of me thinks that if I could stop the tests, I would. Especially since we're not going to be able to use the portal to go home...
WITCHCHICK128: You really think they should stop?
Hello_willow:  I think it's exciting... but it's risky. We all know now how dangerous some beings out there are.
RULERZREACHF4N: Yeah... I think I agree.

As for Amity... she was as focused and as driven as ever, and worryingly so.

As Gus and Hunter drifted away from the chat, Willow sent a private message to Amity.

Hello_willow: Amity? Can I confess something to you?
WITCHCHICK128: Of course. What is it?
Hello_willow: I think I might be helping Boscha for the wrong reasons.
WITCHCHICK128: The wrong reasons? What do you mean by that?
Hello_willow: ... it's just... Boscha made my life miserable as a kid. I hated her so much, and maybe I do still hate that Boscha. But really, the dynamic between us was that she had all the power, and I was helpless.
Hello_willow: And now it's the other way around.
Hello_willow: I feel like I like it way too much. She's dependent on me. And even though I don't want to hurt her, it feels like payback to see the girl who hurt me so much need me so much, especially when she has no idea who I am. It feels good, and it feels horrible. I feel manipulative.
WITCHCHICK128: Oh, Willow...
Hello_willow: I don't know, is this the right way to do it? Almost getting revenge through kindness...
WITCHCHICK128: Willow, the Boscha from back then didn't deserve your kindness. Neither did I. But you will never be a bad or manipulative person for giving it when she really needs it, and it sounds like she really needs it.
WITCHCHICK128: And if you feel good for doing good, that's only right.
Hello_willow: I don't know...
WITCHCHICK128: Willow... why did you start helping her?
Hello_willow: ... because she seemed so broken.
WITCHCHICK128: and you decided to give her some comfort, even though she'd never done anything good for you in her life, and you had no reason to think she would ever do anything for you.
WITCHCHICK128: That's not being manipulative. That's being good. And you should know that you're a good person for doing it. If you're worried about the power imbalance between you, bring her up to your level... or confess who you are.
Hello_willow: You know I can't do that. Boscha is monitored. But... thanks, Amity.
WITCHCHICK128: You're welcome.

WITCHCHICK128: ... Willow, before I go, I need to ask.
WITCHCHICK128: Boscha didn't say anything about my family, did she?
Hello_willow: Amity... I've discovered that that's a dangerous question to ask. You might not want to know.
WITCHCHICK128: I know... but I need to know.
Hello_willow: I get it... I'm sorry. Boscha said that Ed and Em were with her in the Gut. But she's never told me anything about what happened to them. And she's never said a word about your parents.
WITCHCHICK128: then it's probably not good...
Hello_willow: I'm sorry.

In the driver's seat of an RV, Amity Blight leaned back, bowed her head forward, and shed a couple of tears.

WITCHCHICK128: Thanks for telling me.
WITCHCHICK128: If you ever find out more, you'll tell me right?
Hello_willow: Of course. I'd never keep it from you.
WITCHCHICK128: Thank you, Willow. We all owe you. Let's try to get together some time, yeah?
Hello_willow: Yeah. We have to some time! Tell me if your search brings you to southern California!
WITCHCHICK128: Oh I'm sure we can manage that. Sleep well Willow. You deserve it.
Hello_willow: You too, you two.

Chapter Text

A WORD FROM THE WISE TO THE FOOL,
TO THE WISE FROM THE FOOL

The next day the portal spun up again, looking for a random dimension to make contact with. Terri's grin broadened as they watched the corona form and grow. This moment always got them excited. The thrill, the knowledge, that they were about to see something no human had seen before. Terri could admit they were living for that right now.

The engineers and scientists who followed their lead were working diligently, and the calamities were sat down at the front before the portal generator as usual. Terri hoped that this wasn't eating into their time too much... but none of them had complained. In fact, they seemed as enthused about the exploration of other dimensions as Terri was, which was gratifying.

The analysis of their biometrics was continuing, and the results had gone in a direction Terri had suspected might be possible, but which they hadn't quite expected. Rather than the girls' stores of calamity energy being diminished, they were growing with each portal activation.

It was, of course, still too early to draw any firm conclusions, but Terri felt like they were close to a breakthrough.

The portal opened to what appeared to be an expansive study, richly decorated and crowded with books, scrolls and knicknacks. A bright blue sky was visible through the window.

An ornate desk faced the window, and a creature was sat in a rocking chair between the portal and the desk. A blanket covered their legs, and they appeared to be sleeping. From what Terri could see, they had an equine face and long, slender and knobbly limbs, giving them an emaciated but still healthy appearance.

A hush fell over the control room. Nobody there would have preferred to wake this creature. There were subdued murmurs among the technicians and the calamities... and then the creature started.

"Hm?" they asked. "What is this? Humans?" They seemed calm, despite the presence of a glowing portal in their study. "Experimenting with interdimensional travel, I see."

Terri chose to speak up.

"We apologize for disturbing you, sir."

"Not at all, it was about time I suppose. I have not woken for..." - they looked at a clock on the wall - "three hundred years? Really? Ah well. And the last time I had good cause to awaken was a millennium and a half ago. I could do with some stimulation."

A long-lived being indeed...

"My name is Terri Wolpaw, and we represent a human organisation called Project Leif," Terri said. "And you are correct, we are experimenting with interdimensional travel."

"Good, very good," the creature dismissively said. "I see in you all a thirst for knowledge and adventure that is... nostalgic. Rest assured, I won't give you any answers. You're going to find out the journey is far more important than the destination."

"May we ask who and what you are?" Terri asked.

The creature shrugged. "Sure, why not. I shall not tell you my true name of course, but you can call me Tomlin, and I am a fae." They made a warning gesture. "And a note of caution, I do not suggest crossing over into my world. Just as my kind are put to work in your world, so would you be put to work in mine."

A fae? Terri found themself doubting that, but put their guard up a little regardless.

"If you are a fae, I imagine any questions we have to ask you will come at a price?"

"Of course. However, this stimulation you have given me has extended you some credit."

"So by fae, you refer to the - forgive this word, please - mythical trickster spirits of human folklore?"

"Trickster spirits?" Tomlin chuckled. "I suppose you would see us as such. Many of my brothers and sisters have grown bored and decided to mess with the lesser species. Personally, I prefer to sleep."

"Why? Don't you have any ambitions for now?"

Tomlin chuckled and leaned back in their chair.

"Allow me to give you some advice, little explorers. Abandon your ambitions and stay where you are, like many of my siblings in your world have chosen to."

"Why?"

"What a dangerous question. Thousands upon thousands of years ago we were consumed by that question. Why this, why that, why everything? We built, we explored, and we thought and fought so hard for meaning, and we secured immortality so that we could achieve our dreams."

Their voice sounded heavy as they spoke.

"And our ultimate discovery was thus - the plateau for understanding of the universe is depressingly low. The pool for spiritual awakening and development is regretfully shallow. And the vast, vast, vast majority of knowledge to be found is of no practical use. Do not follow us into our dead end," they requested, "remain vibrant and fleeting and ignorant."

There was a long silence.

"Thank you," Terri responded with a glare, "but I reject your advice."

"As well you may," the fae responded. "Now, if you don't mind, I have blissful sleep to return to. Best of luck, little explorers, and be careful who you disturb."

They reached toward the portal, pinched their fingers together, and it shut down.

Terri sounded angry when they spoke.

"Designate that dimension as high-risk," they ordered. "We might not want to test their patience.”

They were furiously working at their terminal when Marcy approached them.

"Hey, Terri, are you okay?" she cautiously asked. When Terri barely grunted back, Marcy continued. "That was a pretty tense encounter... and I think they pissed you off."

"A creature that says it's millions of years old just told me my life's work is meaningless," Terri responded. "I think I'm a little put out, yeah."

"I think Tomlin meant well," Marcy cautiously said. "Not that I agree with them, but if their people really went to all that trouble and found nothing..."

"Their people found a plateau, Marcy," Terri fiercely said. "A point they could not move beyond." They looked at her. "They gave up and now they're telling us to too. Well, I don't believe in that." They continued working at the keyboard. "And I hope someday we will surpass them and show them how wrong they are."

Marcy faintly smiled. "That'd be good, though I doubt either of us will live to see it."

"As long as we're a small part of the foundation of those discoveries, I'm fine with that," Terri replied.

DINNER FOR SIX, AT SIX-THIRTY

Hunter had slept in, and was pulling on his shirt over the bandages when he got the text.

MY_COPY_IS_TYPING : Hey, I think I'm about half an hour away.
GRIMM: Great! Remember you can just park on the street near Greasy's Diner.
MY_COPY_IS_TYPING: Yeah I got it man.

Twenty-five minutes later, he went out onto the balcony to watch the road and wait. The street was quiet, with most people working in the tourist side of town right now, so it was very easy to see when Gus' car pulled up on the opposite side of the road and he got out.

He looked like Hunter expected - still kind of tall and lanky, and his hair still in those dreadlocks he'd got about a year ago. He wore a blue t-shirt and slacks and even from here, Hunter could see the glint of Adrian's amplifier mirror hanging from his ear. Well, he supposed after what they'd heard last night, there was absolutely no question - that was Gus' amplifier, and it was very unlikely its former owner would be asking for it back.

He watched as Gus crossed the street and headed for the stairs up to his floor, and broke out in a grin as Gus disembarked onto his landing.

"Hermano!" Gus cried.

"Dude! Get over here!"

Gus ran over and the two shook hands before going in for a quick hug. Hunter immediately noticed the bags under Gus' eyes, but he motioned toward his apartment first.

"Come in! Let me show you around!" They stepped inside. "This is the kitchen, and the living room, and the bedroom," he said, pointing at different parts of the same room. "And over there, the bathroom."

"Titan, Hunter, couldn't you get the bathroom in here as well?" Gus asked, clearly not impressed and seeming a little concerned.

"Well I considered taking the wall down, but..."

"Yeah, I know," Gus said with a laugh. "Human houses aren't made for fireballs."

"Exactly. Seriously though... I'm here to make, save and send some money, and this apartment is plenty." Hunter looked at Gus. "You're here hours before I was expecting you. Did you drive through the night?"

"Yeah... I tried to sleep last night," Gus admitted, "but after everything that happened with Willow..."

"Couldn't, huh?" Hunter asked. He'd struggled to get to sleep too.

"It's... a lot to think about..." Gus said, cracking a little.

"It really is," Hunter replied.

"I can't stop thinking about it..." Gus struggled to say, his shoulders shaking, and immediately Hunter was next to him to give him a hug.

"It's all right, man. Let it out."

Gus leaned his face into his brother's shoulder, and started to cry.

"He's been dead for nine years, Hunter."

Hunter stayed silent.

"All this time, while we've been living comfortably here, they've all been dead! Everyone!"

"I know..." Hunter managed to reply.

It was no surprise that Gus was devastated. In all the years they'd shared a basement together, Gus had often told Hunter about how worried he was for his dad.

Hunter could only relate to that so much. He certainly had no good memories of 'Uncle' Belos, the man he'd once considered his father figure and role model. And Darius... there had been a strange shift in their relationship that still confused Hunter. The man had suddenly started treating him with kindness and respect, for reasons even Hunter wasn't sure he remembered now, but the majority of Hunter's memories of Darius were still of him being cold and dismissive toward him. He wished he'd had an opportunity to make more, sometimes, but...

No... all of Hunter's best memories were of the human realm. But Gus... he'd been close to his dad, and their separation had been hard on him..

Hunter hugged him tighter.

"I won't say it's all right, Gus," he managed. "But remember, we know they're toys. We don't KNOW they're dead."

"Willow seems to believe it."

"Willow might be wrong. This 'Boscha' might be wrong."

"But it doesn't make any difference," Gus said. "If we can't get back... can't defeat a GOD..."

"Hey, buddy," Hunter said, breaking the hug and trying to smile at his brother. "You remember what that god looked like? How tough can a little kid be?"

"You've never babysat before, have you?" Gus asked through his tears.

"No, but..."

"And you remember why we ran away from him in the first place?" Gus stepped away from Hunter. "How he smooshed Belos, "Mr 'eepff?'" he added, sitting down on Hunter's bed and mimicking the terrified squeak Hunter had made the last and only time they saw the Collector. "That kid was ripping the Titan's skull apart like it was made of toilet paper."

"Yeah, we were all terrified Gus," Hunter defensively replied, mildly annoyed. "I don't know what we'll do... but we'll figure something out."

"You sound like Amity, but less confident."

There was an awkward pause between the two of them.

"Lo siento, hombre..." Gus said. "Here you are comforting me and I'm just giving you shit."

"It's fine," Hunter replied. "We're all under a lot of stress."

"But still... there's not much of an excuse."

"Hey look," Hunter replied, sitting down in his only dining chair. "I know you came down here to help me, and I appreciate that. But how about we make this about taking your mind off this for a while? Gravity Falls is a pretty cool town for tourists." He pointed to himself. "And as a local hero, I'm sure we can get the VIP treatment."

Gus laughed.

"You're sure you didn't want to be tracking cryptids and investigating your co-workers?" he asked.

"That can wait," Hunter conceded. "Or... well, knowing this place, they might both happen at the same time. But for now, let's put you first."

They got Gus cleaned up, and went out on the town in the middle of the day, Carlos AKA Hunter with Flapjack on his shoulder and Anton AKA Gus hiding Emmiline Bailey Marcostimo - his chameleon palisman, hereafter referred to as Emmiline - in his pocket.

The tourist section of town almost had a carnival atmosphere. Busloads of travellers were milling about, strolling from gift shop to attraction to coffee shop to photo opportunity and back again. The grift was real and both of the brothers could tell it, but it was still a sight to behold.

They got their pictures taken with the famous Gravity Falls Gobblewonker, a massive obviously metal contraption with impressive articulation. Carlos tricked Anton into taking part in the Trembley Challenge, a daily quiz about US history where the correct answer was always "Quentin Trembley" unless you said "Quentin Trembley." Displays talked about the infamous Gravity Falls Merman, or explained the town's tradition of holding an additional Halloween in June, and one faded and neglected display advertised something called the "Tent of Telepathy."

They even checked out the terrifying Corduroy Ghost Manor, a haunted house with hundreds of intricately carved and quite scary wooden mannequins, but had to back out when Anton started to feel uneasy. This was not an attraction for today.

But more than anything else, there was merch and advertisements for the Heron enclosure. Hats with beaks and feathers, heron puppets, heron sweaters, heron crocs, heron magnets, heron pencil cases, heron stationary... plus heron candy, soda, backscrachers, mugs, coasters... AND DID WE MENTION ALL THE T-SHIRTS? THERE WERE ALL THE T-SHIRTS.

With all this prompting, it was inescapable that they would get on the quarter-hourly bus that travelled between main street, the Sanctuary and the Mystery Shack, and that Carlos would get to show his brother where he worked.

The parking lot was busier than usual, and the spectator area was crowded. They got off the bus and headed over there, Carlos pointing out trivia to Anton on the way, and were almost stopped at the gate. The local cops were handling security until more permanent guards could be hired, frisking and checking all the adults trying to enter, but they just waved Anton through as he was with Carlos - no doubt sparing Emmiline some blushes.

Once inside, Anton had his first face-to-face encounter with an enormous heron.

"Woah," he sighed, staring up into its enormous beady eye.

"I know. Crazy, right?" Carlos said, his arms crossed. He was having a look around the spectator area. There was some obvious fire damage in the grass, and it looked like the fence had been replaced, but Gompers seemed unharmed and unfazed.

"Crazy's one way of putting it," Anton replied. "That baby would fit in no problem back in the Demon Realm."

"Yeah, from what I hear, Amphibia seems a lot like the Demon Realm..." Carlos said, "only worse. Back home, there's a good chance anything this size is intelligent and can be reasoned with. Not there."

Anton snapped a photo.

"Man, if things were better, I would definitely be doing an IRL stream here."

They wandered around the site, and headed into the gift shop last of all. Anton touristed around the shelves, groaning at various bad puns and taking pictures of the best of the worst for his socials, while Carlos ended up hovering near the entrance.

He never heard someone sneaking up behind him until it was too late.

"Carlos Kite! There you are!"

Carlos just about jumped out of his skin, and Flapjack took off like a rocket. He spun around.

"Oh, Melody, it's you..." he said, with an embarrassed laugh. She was in her train conductor uniform at the moment - the miniature train to the shack must have just returned - and she looked overjoyed to see him.

Before he could react, she had him wrapped up in a suffocating hug.

"Thank you. Thank you Carlos. You saved my boy and I'll never forget it."

"Melody..." Carlos gasped, "my back..."

"Oh! Right." She backed off. "Sorry."

"Thanks..." he said. "And it's all right... I couldn't not have done it, after all..."

"So you say, but you were the only one who did something," Melody replied. "And I think that deserves some recognition!"

Anton chose that moment to walk up to them.

"Hey Carlos, who's this?"

"Oh, Anton. This is Melody Ramirez. She owns the gift shop. Melody, this is my little brother Anton."

Melody looked at the two brothers, compared the obvious, and didn't blink.

"Great to meet you!" She shook Anton's hand. "Oh you must be so proud of your brother!"

"Oh yeah," Anton replied, not entirely sure what this was about. "He's really come along since we were kids."

"Excuse me?" Carlos asked, but Melody laughed.

"I can see you're close." She looked at Carlos. "Carlos, you've been a hard man to reach the last few days. Me and Soos think the least we can do for you is invite you to dinner. Say, tomorrow night maybe?" She looked at Anton. "Your brother is welcome to come too of course."

Carlos was flattered, but he looked at Anton. Maybe he wouldn't be in the mood for this, considering what had happened with his dad...

But Anton just smiled, looked at Carlos, and when he saw he was hesitating he said - "Hey, we'd love to."

The next day passed quickly. The two brothers went out for a meal and then went out for drinks. The next morning, mildly hungover, they headed out on an off-the-trail walk into the forests to search for Gravity Falls' weirder side. Despite their stealth, genuine weirdness was not easily found, though they did spy a fairy floating through the forest, leaving a trail of puke behind her. Something in the trees above them kept making a low "m-hoo" sound, though they could never identify it.

Hike complete, they returned to Hunter's apartment to shower and change.

"... are you sure you want to do this?" Hunter asked, buttoning up his shirt. "I don't want you to get stressed..."

"I told you hermano," Gus replied. "Right now, I'm looking for the distraction. That, and Hunter, a nice home-cooked meal sounds great right now. Besides..." he said, leaning toward Hunter, "what's the main thing we all learned these last nine years? Never..."

"Never turn down free food," Hunter finished, remembering how tight things had been for a couple of years. "Yeah, I know. Trust me I know." He considered whether or not to wear a tie, and decided no. "I didn't need to learn that here, the Coven Scout training drilled that in."

They took Gus' car up to the Mystery Shack, and found an enormous, ramshackle building in a forest clearing. Two storeys tall, and seeming far larger than it needed to be, it almost radiated an aura of sketchy, rustic, cobbled-together intrigue that was appealing. But at the same time, it was clearly being lovingly cared for. The roof had recently been replaced, the sign on it was well lit and not missing any letters, and there were little signs of care and repair everywhere.

They approached the museum entrance, Anton taking a picture of the massive totem pole, and Carlos felt a surprising shiver on his skin as he stepped onto the deck.

"Hey, did you feel that, man?" Anton asked.

"Yeah. Protective magic. Wild magic, too. Someone's got their eye on this place," he replied.

"Didn't expect that..." Anton said. "But it's... comforting that it's there. Like stepping into Hexside."

Carlos nodded.

The sign on the door said closed, so he knocked and they waited. Within a minute they heard running footsteps on a wooden floor, and a moment later - apparently after the person on the other side had caught their breath - the door was pulled open revealing a large and rounded man in a black suit and a fez. He was buck-tooted and wore an eyepatch, and playfully posed with an eight-ball cane.

"Hey! Doods! Come in, welcome to the Mystery Shack! Home of all your wildest imaginings that can fit under a ten foot ceiling!" He looked between the two of them.

Carlos had heard the voice before of course - several dozen times. This was the man who narrated the film that played when the herons were being fed after all - not literally his boss, but very much the man in charge.

"H-hey, Mr Ramirez," Carlos said, extending a hand to him. He got another crushing hug in return.

Why do they keep hugging me they know about my back..!

"Hey, none of that tonight! It's Soos, all right? Mr Mystery if you just gotta keep it formal!" He broke the hug. "Oh, hey dood, sorry about the back. You okay?"

"Fine," Carlos croaked, shaking a little. "Thanks for inviting us over."

"Hey, least we can do for the man who saved our boy, you know! You just relax tonight and have a good time, you earned it!" He turned to Anton. "Hey dood! Melody said Carlos' brother would be coming along! Welcome to the shack!"

"Thanks!" Anton replied, shaking the larger man's hand. "Anton Espejo."

"Soos Ramirez." He seemed to blank for a moment. "Hey, did I already say that?"

"Not to me..." Anton replied.

"Yes." Soos said to himself, slightly pumping his fist. "No repetition!" He looked to the two of them. "Gonna be some time before Melody puts the finishing touches on the food. You guys like a free guided tour?"

Soos led them around the floor, guiding them from exhibit to exhibit like a true showman. There was the Astoria Squirrel, which was clearly a small taxidermied mongrel dog with a racoon's tail, and the footstep of the Pittdown Man, a fossilised shoeprint found outside the Pitt Soda bottling plant which was evidence of time travel. When Carlos looked closely, he was faintly sure he could see the letters -ob- -eterm---ed imprinted in the stone. A complex and largely nonsensical collection of animal bones formed the skeleton of a miniature pterodactyl, and an unsettling melange of wood-carved bird parts was apparently the original turducken.

It was fun, but for Carlos it said a lot that the shoeprint was the most convincing part.

While Soos was explaining the discovery of the Jacksonville Devil (the Jersey Devil had to move across the country to avoid the cops, and tried to make it big in the city) Carlos became aware of a presence behind him. He turned, to spot a small figure watching him from a doorway, and Anton turned with him.

The small figure gasped and ran.

Well, Carlos could figure out who that probably was. He smiled. Maybe a little shy? He had saved the kid's life after all.

A few minutes later Soos's long, rambling story of one devil's life, loves, defeats and ultimate success was interrupted when two kids ran screaming into the room, towards Carlos, past Carlos, and stopped at an awed distance from Anton.

"YOU'RE ANTON ESPEJISMO!"

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?"

"WE LOVE YOUR VIDEOS!"

"YOU'RE ACTUALLY FAMOUS!"

"WILL YOU SIGN SOMETHING? I DON'T KNOW WHAT!"

"SERIOUSLY WHAT THE HECK ARE YOU DOING HERE?"

"CAN I SEE YOUR MIRROR?"

"HOW'D YOU DO THAT TRICK LAST WEEK?"

Carlos' shoulders sank. Figures.

"Woah, hey, doods!" Soos said, pulling the two of them back.. "Don't crowd him!"

"Hey, it's all right," Anton replied. He squatted down in front of them. "Nice to meet some fans." He smiled at them, and held out a hand. "High-fives?"

The two kids fought to high-five him first. With them not jumping up and down so much, Carlos could more easily see what they were. The taller one appeared to be a boy, resembling his dad but slimmer, maybe about eleven years old. He had mussed-up hair and a band-aid on his forehead, and another one on his arm. The other one was a girl, a couple of years younger than her brother. Her hair was marginally shorter than her brother's was and a lighter shade of brown. She was holding a determined face, since Anton kept moving his hand right as the kids were about to slap it.

Eventually they both managed to score a hit on Anton's palm and were falling about cheering, in wonder at having touched Anton Espesjimo!

Carlos had to admit, his brother had earned his fame. It had all begun the first time he'd watched a human action movie and wondered how they could possibly create these illusions or survive those stunts without magic. Anton had got... kind of obsessed, researching everything from Harryhausen to SGI to Blender and Premiere, and had added all of it to his portfolio of illusionary techniques.

Then, on a whim, he'd started a youtube channel and started uploading his work. And it had taken off. Soon, he had a regular series where he broke down scenes from movies and TV, explaining how special effects and CGI were used to create the illusion onscreen, and from there... things started getting kinda nuts when he began his original web animation, Mage Tales.

Carlos was proud of his brother, though it always itched him a little that Anton was so... well, willing to cheat. The way he had got started in the first place was by describing the method and limitations of various techniques, what it could and could not easily do... and then by breaking those rules with a subtle magical illusion. A little bit of flash and mystery kept people coming back after all.

But still, now Anton was pulling in way more money from youtube than Carlos was from feeding gigantic herons. Money that, like Carlos', was going toward paying off Camila's debts and subsidising their sisters' much more important work.

Right now however, he was maybe getting a little overwhelmed by a couple of tweens.

"Are all the other Antons robots?"

What's going to happen to the Great Augusto next season?"

"Will you ever play Minecraft?"

"What does Emmiline eat? Is she here? CAN WE FEED HER?"

"Doods, doods!" Soos tried to get between them. "It's not cool to just shout at guests, doods!"

"Aw, but dad!" the kids chorused.

"No buts, you kids."

"It's fine, Soos," Anton said, just a mite uneasily. "I get this a lot." He turned to the kids. "And so you know - it's a secret! That's also a secret! I streamed it a lot a few years ago! And..."

He reached into his pocket and struggled to pull out Emmiline the chameleon, who very reasonably wanted no part of this. Anton had told her she'd be able to nap during this meal and she'd been looking forward to it. To the sound of the kids' delighted squeals, she wriggled free of his grasp, climbed onto his head, and leapt to the neck of a nearby Girafficorn - which she quickly padded to the top of.

While Anton tried to beckon her down, Soos grabbed the top of his son's head and rotated him on the spot. The sister followed him.

"All right dood, I know that's fun, but I think you're missing someone?" He tilted the boy's head back so he looked up at Carlos.

"Oh, right," the boy said.

He crept forward a few steps, and nervously looked up at Carlos.

"Hey, Mr Kite. Uh... thanks for saving me! If it weren't for you, I'd be like dad's barbecue! Totally burned! And with way too much hot sauce!"

"This isn't the gratitude I was imagining," Soos said.

"Hey, don't worry about it," Carlos happily said, kneeling down. "Trust me, I'm glad I did. Stanley, right?" he asked, pointing at the kid.

"That's right, Stanley Ramirez!" The boy motioned at the girl. "And this is my little sister!"

"Nita Ramirez! I'm nine years and eight months old!" she proudly said, before faking a curtsey even though she was wearing shorts. "It's nice to meet you sir! Thanks for saving my dumb brother."

Carlos chuckled. "Great to meet you."

"Is your back okay, Mr Kite?" Stanley asked.

"It stings," Carlos said, flexing his shoulder. "But it's fine. Just a couple of small burns. And call me Carlos, all right?"

"All right," Stanley replied, a look of awe on his face.

"Lil doods, I'm going to check on your mom, all right?" Soos said. "Can you continue the tour for me?"

"Sure thing dad!" Stanley replied.

As Anton and Carlos stood watching them, the two kids struck a pose.

"Welcome to our family museum!" Nita cried.

"Everything here's totally fake!" Stanley added.

While Carlos grinned, Soos popped his head back around the door.

"Doods. Come on. Remember what Uncle Dipper told you about everyone being in a magic circle? And everything in the circle is real?"

"But it's not, dad! And trust us, we know plenty about magic circ-" - Stanley was cut off by his sister elbowing him in the gut. She muttered something to him out of the corner of her mouth.

"Okay dad," she then called. "We'll do it right!"

At that, Nita took Anton over to a display she claimed was a 'Stomach-Faced Duck' while Stanley showed Carlos his 'best work' - Nosicus Maximus. As far as Hunter could tell the kid had spray-painted a basketball white and stuck a gigantic plaster nose and a rainbow fright wig on it. Even though it wasn't convincing as, well, anything, Carlos did feel a little nostalgic about it somehow. And at least it was pretty creative!

The table was set in a large ballroom with a stage. Dinner was tamales, and apparently an old family recipe. To hear Melody talk about it, the second Soos had proposed to her, his abuelita had descended on her with a curriculum for her education, and had not rested until she knew every detail of the old ways and old recipes inside out. She'd even left her a handwritten journal with the words ya que no podrás preguntarme on the second page.

They were delicious tamales. Some pork, some chicken, plenty of cheese, and apparently Soos had made the salsa and pico de gallo. There were even seeds for Flapjack, and Anton had brought some spare crickets in case Emmiline got hungry.

Carlos and Anton chowed down, while Nita bothered them with questions about their love lives ("no comment") and Stanley asked what Carlos' favorite monsters and cryptids were. The boy seemed to have a fascination with that. He said his Grunkle Stan had given him a book with all kinds of crazy monsters in it, and spent fifteen minutes listing and describing the best ones.

To answer Stanley's question, Carlos ended up describing the Slitherbeast and Kikimora's hand dragon. The boy had found that one particularly fascinating, with all its extra fingers.

(meanwhile, while Stanley was talking, Nita was smuggling spare tamales into her pockets. Carlos guessed she thought he hadn't noticed, but why rat her out?)

Dessert was chocoflan, and once they'd all eaten more than their fill, Soos invited Carlos and Anton to come have a drink in the living room. Anton was currently practically pinned down by the kids, who were interrogating him about his web series, pitching him on new characters who just happened to be a young boy and girl, and asking about getting to pet Emmiline who had wisely fled along with Flapjack.

Anton actually seemed to be enjoying the attention, so Carlos accepted Soos's invitation, heading toward the kitchen and then turning into a living room that looked recently redecorated. The wallpaper and carpet was new, but it already felt thoroughly lived in - every flat surface covered in toys and knicknacks and papers, including much of the floor. Soos brushed a schoolbag and notebooks off the couch and offered it to Carlos, before heading for a small fridge.

"Dood, what kind of beer do you like?"

"Pilsner?"

Soos pulled something German from the fridge, popped the cap off, and returned to Carlos with it. "Here. First of many things I'm gonna get the man who saved my boy, you know?"

They clinked the bottles together while Carlos blushed a little, and Soos sat down in a recliner. Hoping to change the topic away from his heroism, Carlos looked around the room.

"You know, you have a nice place here," he eventually said. "Looks a bit... rugged, outside, but inside, you're taking care of it." He smiled. "This and the Heron Hutch seem to be doing all right for you."

"Heh, what can I say?" Soos replied. "Life's being good to me right now." He laughed. "It helps that Melody got all those smarts, she came up with a lot of our best ideas for the Shack and the Hutch. But yeah... I'm a lucky Soos, y'know?"

Carlos leaned back on the plush couch, and thought about where he lived.

"Man, I'm usually sat alone in a single room apartment at this time. I can't imagine having a place like this."

"Dood, that was me twenty years ago." Soos laughed again. "I'd resigned myself to living with my abuelita forever and spending all my free time on video games. Life changes fast dood. You're what, twenty-five, six? It's nowhere near too late, don't give up. If I can do it, you can. I tell you... back then, an amazing wife, a business of my own, two crazy kids? All seemed impossible for a guy like me. Man, especially the kids..." he said wistfully.

"Why do you say that?" Carlos asked.

Soos hesitated for a while, and drank another sip of beer.

"My old man wasn't great. Thought I was doomed as a father because I didn't have a good one. But it turns out, the first step in being a good dad is try to be a good man, and he hadn't wanted to try." Soos grinned and swirled his beer. "Now, every time I see my kids do something amazing, I feel like I can rub what he missed out on in his face, because man it's so worth it."

"I get that..." Carlos said, and Soos looked over to him.

"Something up, dood?"

Carlos breathed out, heavily.

"Well, he wasn't even my dad, but my Uncle... not a good man. Not a good uncle. It took me way too long to see how evil he was. The day I figured it out was probably one of the worst days of my life... but I'm glad it happened."

There was silence for a while, until Soos leaned over and clinked the neck of his bottle against Carlos'.

"I get that dood. Forget him. Leave him behind you, and beneath you. He don't need to matter to you nomore."

Carlos tried to nod and smile, but it wasn't that easy with Belos. Beneath him... sure. No question. Behind him... not yet.

It was a few minutes later and they had changed the subject when Anton appeared in the door.

"Hey, Soos, your kids decided to go play in the forest for a bit."

"Oh? Yeah, that's okay dood. They do it all the time, and they already used up their screen time. They know not to go far. Have a seat, can I get you a drink?"

Soos was already out of his chair and heading for the fridge when Anton responded.

"No, gracias hermano, I'm driving..."

"We got some Pitt," Soos replied. "Old Stan can't live without it."

"Pitt?" Anton asked, and Carlos's face bulged.

"Anton, you have to try Pitt. It's this peach soda, they only have it here, it's crazy."

"Peach?" Anton looked skeptical, but accepted the can. He took a drink, swirled it around his gums, paused, and swallowed. "Man, that's good!"

"I know right? I can't tell why it's not nationwide!"

"Probably the stones in some cans," Soos suggested.

Anton hesitated, gave the can a careful shake, and took another sip when he didn't hear a rattle.

"So Carlos, dood," Soos said a bit later. "I gotta thank you again."

"Soos, I..."

"No dood. You saved our son, man, and got hurt doing it. Me and Melody," - he waved to his wife, who was hanging around in the doorframe - "we owe you everything, because that kid's everything to us. So if there's anything you want, anything, we want to give it to you."

"Don't be shy, Carlos," Melody added. "We kinda already consider you family."

... Carlos hesitated, and glanced at Anton. There was something he could ask for, of course. Anton gave him a meaningful look - do it.

"I can think of something I want," he said, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees. "Though I'm not sure you can give it."

Soos shrugged. "Tell us, and if we can... we will."

Carlos hesitated. Why was he doing this? He had a hunch that whatever was going on in Gravity Falls could help him and his family... that something important was happening in secret here. It was a difficult hunch to nail down, one springing fully formed from his observations and his Coven Scout training without much in the way of real evidence.

But was that all just paranoia, or even wishful thinking?

"I'd like some information." Soos and Melody stayed silent, so Carlos continued. "I've been noticing things. Certain people going into the gift shop at the hutch and not coming out for a long time. That Dipper guy, with the cap. Sometimes there's a blonde with him. An asian woman with a prosthetic eye. She seems to have an extremely tall friend. The old Stan, Mr Pines, seems to hang around a lot there too. There's at least a dozen more I've seen coming and going, even Wendy." For a moment he wondered what exactly he was accusing his boss of, but it was too late now. "Sometimes they stop to talk to Melody," he added, looking at her, "sometimes they just walk on in like they own the place. It's got me wondering what that's all about. And then there's this town, and these woods... something's up with them, something weird. It goes way beyond herons."

There was a heavy silence. Soos leaned forward in his chair, dangling his almost empty bottle in front of him.

"Carlos, dood... I promised I'd give you what you want, and I will man. But that's some dangerous questions, dood. So I gotta ask if there's anything else you want before I answer."

Carlos shook his head.

"All right then." Soos nodded to Melody, who left the room. Carlos and Anton could hear her heading upstairs. "There's not a lot I can tell you. You gotta understand... when all this started, Stanley was a year old. They asked me to join, but I had to say no. The work they do down there gets dangerous, and I just can't leave my kids without a dad. And apart from that... look, I know I'm not the smartest guy. Any time the FBI gets a hold of me, sticks a brain sucker on this head? This thing is fulla holes, any real secrets I know are gonna get sucked right out right away. I don't want to know and it's better if I don't." He smiled, in a self-depreciating way.

"But I still had to help. It's too important for me not to help somehow. So when we were building the enclosure, I paid a little extra, under the table, and I gave them a place to stay."

"Who are they?" Carlos asked.

"You can see, if you want."

There was the noise of two sets of footsteps coming down the stairs, and after a moment Melody reappeared at the door... followed by Wendy.

"Hey Carlos," she said. "Ford wants to meet you."

THE JACK HUNT

The booth was spotless, save for a couple of gravy stains that just gave it some character. With a satisfied groan Dipper practically fell into the worn cushions of the bench, while Pacifica sat on the opposite side and slumped forward onto the table.

"Dipper, I am exhausted," she moaned.

"I know..." Dipper replied, his voice croaking. "I am just sore all over." He cracked his shoulder.

"That job went MUCH harder than I was expecting," Pacifica mumbled into the table.

"It happens, Paz." Dipper sighed. "It happens. At least we handled it for now."

"Hey, honeys," a woman said. Dipper looked up at the waitress, a middle aged lady who was looking at Pacifica's position - face down on the table - with some amusement. "I know you're hungry, but we do have actual food, y' don't have to eat the table."

Dipper grinned, while Pacifica turned her head to the side and gave the waitress a glare.

"What can I get you folks?" the waitress hurriedly asked.

She took their orders - spicy cheeseburger for Dipper, chicken salad and fries for Pacifica, and a couple of glasses of soda - and they chatted while they waited, the cool soda refreshing them and bringing them back to life a little.

"Dipper, you said that was going to be a haunting," Pacifica said, a little put out. "I had my friends ready to negotiate and everything."

"It had all the signs!" Dipper tried to defend himself. "Kid having nightmares, sudden temperature fluctuations, flickering lights..."

"Yeah, and some kind of dimensional hole in the basement..."

"A natural dimensional slip," Dipper clarified. "Having an effect on the surroundings."

Dipper was embarrassed he'd fallen into it while trying to patch it up. At least it had meant he'd got to see his fiancée at possibly her coolest ever moment, leaping in after him with her axe held high.

"Two hours..." Pacifica moaned -

"... Earth time... Dipper interjected -

"Two hours earth time spent running in circles fighting tentacle monsters, and we just barely got out and couldn't seal the slip."

"It's fine," Dipper replied. "The slip is secure and the family's staying at the grandparents house for a week. We'll come back with the right spells and repair the foundation of reality in a few days."

Pacifica laughed.

"Foundation repair. You make it sound so normal."

"For us, it is," Dipper replied. He clucked his tongue comically and affected an accent. "Well, ah see the problem here, you got cracks in reality all through here, that's water damage, you got a naiad infestation causin' that, gonna cost a pretty penny to sort that out."

They had a good laugh together until their food came.

As he was eating his burger, Dipper noticed a couple of women enter the diner and sit in the booth behind Pacifica. He didn't pay any attention to them, none of his business, but the conversation they had after ordering their food was a little hard to ignore.

Pacifica tried to focus on her salad, but she could hear paper rustling, and hushed voices.

"I don't think it'll have headed for the mountains," one said.
"Yeah it's already wounded," the other replied.
"Wish I could figure out how it gets away..." the first said. "It's got a magical scent, but I've never seen something hide one so easily." She sighed. "Some tracker I am..."
"Hey, it's not on you. We should be treating it like it can do anything."
"You're right... thanks." More paper rustling. "So it's still in the forest, right? And it won't be headed too far uphill."

Dipper glanced out the window. The treeline was on the opposite side of the car park.

"We'll eat quickly and get back to it," one voice said. "But keep an eye out."

Over their food, Dipper and Pacifica looked at each other. She looked a little uneasy, but he was smiling. She motioned behind her with a 'talking' gesture, and Dipper nodded.

Pacifica turned in her chair, and leaned over the divider between the booths.

"Hi, excuse me." She paused while the two women looked up at her. "Sorry, but we've overheard some of what you're saying. It sounds a lot like you're hunting an... unusual creature?"

"Maybe," a voice came back. "What's it to you?"

"I think we sort of work in the same industry," Pacifica replied. "Maybe we have some local knowledge that can help you?"

Dipper was pretty sure they were conferring. After a moment, there was a hesitant "sure," and Dipper and Pacifica picked up their plates and moved to the other booth.

Two young women sat next to each other, both of them probably in their early twenties. One had quite pale skin and dyed lavender hair, swept behind her ears in a short bob. The other was a Latina, with long, neat hair that was center parted and pulled back into a ponytail. They both wore hard-wearing and practical clothes, and to Dipper they had the familiar look of people who'd been on the road a lot.

His kind of people, in other words.

"Hi," Pacifica was saying as she reached her hand across the table. "Pacifica Northwest."

"Alba Barros," the purple-haired one said, shaking it.

"Luz Noceda," the latina nervously added, also shaking Pacifica's hand.

"Good to meet you," Pacifica replied. "And this is my fiancé, Dipper Pines."

"Hi," he said, dutifully extending his hand. To his surprise, Alba did not shake it. Instead she gaped up at him and gave an anxious laugh.

"Dipper Pines? Seriously?"

Luz had also gone quiet. Dipper and Pacifica looked at each other.

"Uh, yeah," he responded. "Is... that okay?" he hesitantly asked.

"Oh, it's fine!" Alba responded, a nervous smile on her face. "It's just, you're kind of a living legend around here!"

"Yeah," Luz added. "The further west we've come, the more and more people in our job have talked about Dipper Pines!"

Dipper grinned, and flushed, sitting frozen in his spot.

"Is that so?" he asked, trying not to look too pleased.

"Don't let it go to your head," Pacifica said with a smirk. She looked across the table at Alba and Luz. "Are they complimentary?"

"... mostly," Alba admitted.

Dipper's expression broke as he laughed a little, and he almost fell face first into his food. Pacifica rubbed his back.

"There there Pines, that's pretty good!"

They made small talk for a bit. Alba and Luz were sisters from all the way over in Connecticut, who had been travelling across the country looking for work in matters obscure and bizarre.

"Adopted sisters of course," Alba clarified, unprovoked. "I was a Frogvasion orphan. Luz's mom took me in."

"That's sad," Pacifica replied. "I'm glad you found a place."

Alba nodded. "Yeah... I still miss my siblings of course, and my dad..." she sighed heavily. "But I'm lucky to have found the kind of mom I never thought I'd have, and a great sister." She looked a little evasive about this, but neither Dipper or Pacifica were prepared to press her about it.

"So what made you decide to get into this job?" Dipper asked.

Alba had just put some chilli in her mouth, so Luz answered.

"Well, we always had an interest in magic, the occult, and old legends," she admitted, sounding a little embarrassed about it. Dipper nodded sympathetically. "So when we realized there was a world of weird stuff out there, we figured... well, maybe we should check it out!" She paused. "And besides... we've kinda got something we're looking for..."

Dipper finished chewing, and swallowed.

"What's that?"

"Have you ever heard of Titan's Blood?" Alba asked. Dipper shook his head.

"Nope. What is it?"

"It's a very dark blue liquid, and incredibly magical," Alba responded. "Definitely one of the most magical things on the planet. But extremely rare..." She shook her head. "We've only ever seen it once, and we couldn't hold on to it."

"What do you need it for?" Pacifica asked.

"That's... not something I can answer..." Alba admitted. Dipper and Pacifica looked at each other. "It's nothing bad," she defensively claimed, "but it's not something I can just talk about."

"Fair enough..." Dipper conceded. Everyone had at least one secret in this job. As she dismissively waved her hand, Dipper noticed a strange circular scar on the very tip of her middle finger, and wondered what forged it.

Everyone ate quickly, sensing some haste from the two sisters. Alba and Luz then unfolded their map again and all four of them looked carefully at the doodles and notes they'd covered it in.

"So what exactly are you hunting?" Dipper had asked.

"A jackalope," Alba replied, completely seriously. "We've been tracking it since Spokane."

"That's a long way to chase a cryptid!"

"This one's dangerous," Alba replied.

"Even more dangerous than usual," Luz added.

"I'm surprised," Dipper said. "I didn't have you two pegged as exterminators."

"Usually, we wouldn't be," Alba claimed, "but this one's a killer. It's done real damage. If we don't kill it or drive it away from this town, someone's going to get hurt."

Dipper seriously nodded along with her. Pacifica on the other hand looked a little mystified.

"Wait, are we talking about the rabbits with antlers?" She looked around at the others. "Aren't they just supposed to look cute and weird?"

"Sure," Dipper said, "and they do. They're also among the most vicious cryptids in the world if you believe the old stories, and we all know not to ignore old stories. A jackalope is aggressive, lightning fast and can bite into a leg down to the bone... all the way through if you give it time." He folded his arms and looked down. "And you're saying this one is worse?"

Alba and Luz nodded in unison.

"Well, if you've really driven it away a few times, I'm impressed," Dipper admitted.

The second they'd said 'jackalope,' Dipper had been concerned. He had no reason to believe they weren't competent... except for the fact that they were obviously both young and new to the game. But everything he knew about cryptids said hunting a jackalope was an extremely risky business. If their claims were real - and it was still very possible they weren't - then these two were definitely something special.

At the very least, they seemed flattered at his comment. He could get used to being a role model for fellow troubleshooters. He looked at Pacifica, who nodded. Seemed like she was having the same thoughts as him.

"But still, the more allies you have, the better right?" Dipper proposed. "Mind if we join you?"

That didn't get the immediate acceptance he'd been anticipating. Alba and Luz had taken a moment to look at each other, and Luz in particular seemed hesitant for a bit.

"Why?" Alba asked. "Sorry, but we can't afford to split the fee..."

"Call it professional courtesy," Dipper replied. "We've all needed a helping hand on short notice before, so we like to pay it forward. And to be honest, I've never hunted a Jackalope before, so personally I'd like to witness one in action... maybe even take some samples if I can."

The sisters on the opposite side of the table both seemed to freeze at that, and they gave each other meaningful looks.

"We'd be grateful for some help," Luz began...

"But no samples. Sorry, Mr Pines," Alba added. Dipper must have looked put out, because she firmly continued. "Absolutely no samples. You'll understand when you see it. But if you're okay with that," she glanced at Luz, "we'd definitely welcome the help."

And that had more or less settled it.

The two groups went to their respective RVs and got tooled up. Pacifica grabbed her axe, while Dipper opened up his weapon cabinet and selected a stun baton, a dagger, a pistol, smoke grenades, a flare, a first aid kit and a couple of spare magazines. He preferred to travel lighter, but felt like he couldn't take any chances here. He passed Pacifica a pistol too - she was less likely to need it when she had other options, but why not.

They both changed their pants - putting on thick protective workwear and heavy knee-length boots - and donned some body armor, taking care to cover their necks and wrists in particular.

Once adequately prepared, they headed back outside. Alba and Luz were already waiting for them, wearing heavier clothes than they had been before, but nowhere near as prepared as Dipper and Pacifica. Luz just had a baseball bat, while Alba was standing with a long slender staff with a cat perched on the end. Both were wearing heavy hooded coats that were buttoned up as far as their lips.

"You're both ready?" Dipper asked, somewhat incredulously.

"We're fine like this," Alba replied.

"We have some spare armor," Pacifica started to offer, but Alba shook her head.

"We're fine," she repeated with a smile. "Don't worry about us, we've driven this thing away several times."

"All right then..." Dipper conceded. "What's the plan? How have you been tracking it?"

"That's Luz's job," Alba confidently said. "She's got a talent for it."

"Er, yeah," Luz nervously replied. "I've, um, been studying it."

"All right," Pacifica nodded to her. "Lead the way."

Luz led them to the edge of the forest and seemed to take a deep breath through her nose, maybe to steady her nerves. She looked around at the ground for a moment, before pointing her baseball bat in a seemingly random direction.

"This way."

She cautiously began walking into the forest and the rest of them followed, weapons at the ready. Every two or three minutes she'd stop, take another breath, and then continue weaving her way between the trees. If there was some kind of tracks, disruption or trail that she was following, Dipper couldn't see it.

He was surprised at how uneasy she seemed. Alba seemed completely dauntless but Luz was practically shivering, waving her bat at shadows and carefully watching every step she took. After about twenty-five minutes, Dipper leaned in to whisper to his fiancée.

"Can you tell if we're going in the right direction?"

Pacifica immediately nodded.

"They say we've been heading in exactly the right direction since we left," she whispered back.

"Interesting."

After nearly 45 minutes of cautious walking, they came to a stream that trickled down alongside an uprooted tree. Luz held out her bat in front of everyone and signalled for them to get down on the ground.

"There," she said. "In the roots of the tree."

Dipper got out some binoculars and had a look through them. She was right. An unusually large rabbit was lying amid the roots, breathing and gasping heavily. Its fur was matted in some parts, missing in others, and a growth on its back was seeping a greenish fluid.

"It looks very sick," he said.

"It always does, don't be fooled," Alba replied. "Once the adrenaline takes it, it won't notice any more."

Dipper took another look, this time at the rabbit's head. Sure enough... while they were hard to make out amid the roots, there was definitely a pair of antler-like protrusions by its ears.

"Well, that's a jackalope," he agreed. "All right. This is our first time dealing with one. Do you want to take the lead? What's your plan?"

For the first time, Alba seemed uneasy. She glanced at the cat on her staff, and at Luz, and seemed to realize something.

"Right now? Oh, no plan..." she said, before surprisingly babbling "I mean usually we HAVE a PLAN, but it's not going to work here. It's, uh, not dark enough."

"Really," Dipper flatly asked. He tried and failed not to sigh. "Well, we've got some time to make a proper plan," he started to say, before looking at the uprooted tree again.

The cryptid was gone. He didn't waste a second.

"Everyone up and stand together, back to back!" he shouted.

Normally a territorial animal, cryptid or not, will fiercely defend its territory if pushed... but it will not seek unnecessary fights. Typically it will bark, or hiss, or roar to intimidate intruders, but it will not immediately jump straight to violence - its own life is on the line if it misjudges after all, so it will weigh its chances of victory and the threat to itself before attacking.

This animal was completely psychotic. The first anyone knew of it was a rapid rustling in the undergrowth that slammed into Pacifica's stomach as she was getting to her feet, bowling her over and winding her. All she could do was yelp as it knocked her down, but she was almost drowned out by the spitting and snarling ball of diseased meat that had hit her. It perched on top of her, worrying and gnawing at her clothes, but didn't get through her armored vest

"Pacifica!" Dipper spun and raised his stun baton, not wanting to shoot his pistol anywhere near her, but Alba was already swinging her staff into the side of the thing, knocking it off Pacifica and several feet over in Luz's direction.

She already had the bat raised. When it came to rest at her feet, she barely hesitated, bringing it down HARD on the Jackalope and cracking one of its antlers. It did not break off, but splintered like a wooden stick, hanging loose from the break.

Luz had raised the bat and was about to bring it down again when in a split second the thing was on its feet and moving right toward her, wrapping its jaw around her ankle. She loudly screamed - there was something unnatural about it, but that wasn't Dipper's main concern right now - and stumbled backwards.

"Aaaah!" Dipper raised his gun and let loose a couple of shots, praying he wouldn't accidentally hit Luz's leg or foot. One shot missed and the other hit the wriggling rabbit right in its side. The creature shrieked, tumbled over, and released its grip on Luz, who started shuffling backwards away from it and looking for the bat she'd dropped.

Dipper fired another two times and the bullets dug into the Jackalope's body, but even that didn't stop it - the sheer speed with which it could get back to its feet, and its ability to ignore pain, were both insane. Before he knew what was happening it was leaping in his direction. He fired again at it in midair but missed, and a split second before it hit him, Alba hit it from above with her staff.

The Jackalope slammed into the ground and even bounced a little, a wet thud accompanying its impact. But it might as well have landed on its feet - within seconds, it was moving again, away from them and downhill towards the town.

"It's escaping!" Alba yelled. "Dipper! We have to get it!"

Dipper glanced back at Pacifica and Luz, saw that Pacifica was trying to get up and Luz was trying to stand, and made a snap decision.

"You two take care of each other!" he yelled, tossing them the first aid kit. He knew from experience he could trust Pacifica to be fine, and this dangerous beast definitely had to be stopped NOW.

He took off in a sprint behind Alba, who was already twenty feet away. He'd just have to trust she had eyes on the thing, because he couldn't see it. They both ran at full tilt, weaving between trees and jumping off and over small hillocks and mossy bumps. Dipper thought he saw Alba raise her staff and point it ahead of her, though he wasn't sure why.

They caught up to the jackalope twenty seconds later. It had come across the stream again as the water wound its way downhill, seemed to have somehow got its leg stuck in some river mud, and was fighting to free itself. Alba hadn't slowed down at all, and led with a broad sweep of her staff that knocked it head over heels. It tumbled into the stream and then once again was on its feet and cannoning toward Alba's neck, hissing and teeth bared, only for Dipper to snipe it out of the air from twelve feet away.

It was knocked to Alba's side, into some bushes. Dipper shot a couple of speculative rounds into the bush and Alba stood still, staff at the ready, but nothing happened for several seconds.

They glanced at each other, trying not to take their eyes off the bush.

"Do you think we got it?" Alba asked.

"I wouldn't mind, but I don't think so," Dipper replied. "Let me try this..."

He grabbed a smoke grenade, pulled the pin, and threw it into the bush. Within seconds white smoke started pouring out of it... and there was no sign of a coughing Jackalope.

Dipper groaned, relaxing slightly.

"I think it got away," Alba muttered. Fear and anger were obvious on her breath.

"Yeah, I think so..."

Then they heard a scream from up the hill. It sounded like Luz.

When they got back to Luz and Pacifica, Pacifica was sitting on a rock holding her head, Luz was awkwardly standing and cradling her right hand... and there was a gasping, shuddering Jackalope body lying on the ground. After a quick glance at it Dipper hurried over to Pacifica.

"Are you all right?" he asked, kneeling by her. "What happened?"

"Not sure..." Pacifica woozily said. "I think I hit my head when I fell... everything else has been a blur."

"All right, let's do the checks, what's your name?"

"Pacifica Elise Northwest."

"And my name?"

"Mason Pines. We both prefer Dipper, you're my fiancé."

He squirmed, but nodded.

"And how many fingers am I holding up?"

"Seven."

"Great." He checked the back of her head. "No blood... I think you're okay, just relax for a bit all right?"

"No problem..."

Satisfied that Pacifica was going to be fine with a little rest, Dipper got up and looked at Luz and Alba. Alba had her back to Dipper, and was fussing over Luz's right hand - speaking softly and doing something Dipper couldn't quite see. Luz on the other hand had a strangely haunted look on her face - as if she'd been caught doing something she shouldn't. Judging by the way she was standing her ankle was fine.

"Are you injured?" he asked. Alba looked over her shoulder and answered for Luz.

"She's fine," she said, turning to Dipper. "Nothing to worry about, just a scratch." Luz nodded to confirm this.

"All... right," Dipper acknowledged. Something felt off, but there were more important things to check. His gaze fell toward the Jackalope.

It was lying on its side, gasping for air, finally immobilised even though it tried to twitch its legs. He was able to finally get a good look at it - despite its size, speed and ferociousness, it had obviously been deathly sick for some time.

"It looks like it's been in constant agony for ages," he murmured. "It must have been driven mad by the pain."

"That's what we figured," Alba said, joining him. "It's always obviously not been well."

The reason why it was having trouble breathing was pretty obvious. Four deep slashes had been cut into its underside, slicing into its lungs. A thick, vile green goop was oozing from them. Dipper pointed them out to Luz.

"How did these happen?"

"I don't know," Luz replied, sounding very nervous. "I didn't see it happen. But I think some larger animal or a forest spirit must have done it."

"Convenient," Dipper replied, looking at Luz. "I suppose we should be grateful to them. They saved you and Pacifica. Shame they immediately left."

"Eh he he..." Luz quietly laughed. Dipper wasn't falling for this, but it wasn't the time. He turned back to the Jackalope, looking at its 'antlers.'

"These look weird. Obviously, they're not proper antlers," he said. "Historically, the conventional explanation for the jackalope is that it was inspired by rabbits who had been infected with the shope papilloma virus. That causes tumors to grow on the host rabbit's head that look like horns or antlers." He leaned in for a closer look. "But I've looked at pictures of that, and this isn't that virus."

The antlers were long, straight and thin, with short barbs. Dipper's first hunch was that they were made of or coated with a similar substance to whatever was oozing out of the creature's body. Looking at them, they seemed to resemble rotting branches soaked with mossy, slimy scum.

He reached out to touch one of them, and his hand was stopped by the cat-end of Alba's staff. He looked up at her.

"Call this a hunch, but I really don't think you should touch them."

Dipper nodded. He knew enough to take stern warnings from other troubleshooters seriously, even if he didn't understand them. He backed away.

"We, ah..." Luz said, gulping, "should we put it out of its misery?"

Alba glared down at it.

"Yes."

They covered the head of the Jackalope with a heavily-stained handkerchief Alba had brought, to catch blood spatter, and Dipper dutifully and joylessly shot a bullet into the poor, pathetic thing.

He checked on Pacifica again. She was feeling well enough to stand, especially after hearing a nearby gunshot had startled her awake. While Dipper checked the back of her head again, Alba and Luz were clearing the area about the Jackalope's body, and setting up a ring of stones.

"You're actually going to burn it?" Dipper asked.

"It's the only way to be sure," Alba replied.

"Why? Look, if you don't need it as proof, I'd really like to take this back home for study."

Alba gave him the firmest "no" look Dipper could remember seeing.

"Sorry Mr Pines, but I really need you to trust us. We've got our reasons."

"Do they have anything to do with the magic staff you've been avoiding using?" He looked at the two of them. "Something trapped that thing at the riverbank, and something sliced its chest open," he added, looking at Luz. "And to be honest, I have no idea how you tracked it in the first place."

Alba froze, just for a moment, while Luz went wide-eyed and trembled. Alba then smiled up at him.

"A bit. We can both use magic. Sorry. We've got used to needing to hide our powers."

"I've heard that before," Dipper wryly replied. "But seriously, next time you're going into something dangerous like this, maybe fill your companions in on what you can do?" He was quite serious about it. "Obviously don’t be careless, but if they're our kind of people, they won't be too worried about it."

"You really think so?" Luz asked. She was watching Dipper extremely thoughtfully.

"Luz, I used magic for the first time when I was twelve." He smirked. "It's not that big a deal."

That actually seemed to shock her.

"You've used magic?" was about all she could manage to say. "You?"

"Well I don't have a natural talent for it," Dipper admitted. "But with the right incantation in the right place, it's easy. And if anywhere in the world is the right place, it's Gravity Falls." He smiled. "We're all free to come and go, but I think you should come visit some time. I'm thinking you know someone there."

The pyre built, Dipper, Pacifica and Luz sat back on a log.

"You really can't tell us what's so dangerous that you have to burn it?" Dipper asked.

"Just a sickness," Alba replied, readying herself to light the pyre.

"One that should never have been allowed to grow," Luz added.

Dipper narrowed his eyes.

"Are there more of them?"

"We believe it's not very contagious," Alba said, "in case that's what you're worried about. There are limits to how much it can spread."

"I don't like the sound of that," Pacifica added.

"What kind of range?" Dipper asked.

"... not range limited. Number limited."

"I really don't like the sound of that," Pacifica again.

Dipper's eyes darted around the group as Alba lit the fire. The pyre smouldered and burst into surprisingly large flames, and the entire group dutifully watched as it enveloped the Jackalope's body and reduced it to ashes, releasing thick, acrid smoke as it did.

He had to get Alba and Luz to Gravity Falls as soon as he could. He didn't know why they were being cagey, but he had to find out.

THE SCIENCE MAN WITH 2.4 HANDS

The sun was below the horizon as they got into Wendy's truck. Carlos (Hunter) let Anton (Gus) take the front seat - the back seat was covered in dirt, tarpaulins and toolboxes, and he was just better equipped to handle that than his brother was.

"So where are we headed?" he asked.

"You know where," Wendy replied, starting the ignition. She laughed as she quickly pulled away. "You haven't been able to keep your eyes off it for weeks."

Hunter nodded, while Anton had to ask - "the herons?"

"That's right," she replied, and hit the road heading deeper into the woods.

Things were awkward for a while. Wendy tried to make small talk.

"So, you been enjoying your visit, Anton?"

He hesitated to respond.

"It's been pretty mixed," Anton tensely replied. "Some good, some really bad. Great to see my brother again and the Ramirezes were sweet..." he looked over at Wendy, "but some things I'm not sure about."

She casually laughed again.

"Trust me, I get that. You're probably feeling pretty kidnapped right now," she replied. "Believe me, I know this could sound pretty crazy to you. But I think both of you should listen closely... it's more important than you know."

The serious tone in her voice sent a chill down Carlos' spine.

They pulled up in the now-closed and deserted Heron Enclosure staff car park, and Wendy let them in with her own keys. Carlos had never been here in the dark before. At night, the familiar screeching from the enclosure made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end, and he could hear Anton shivering.

Wendy had keys to the side door of the gift shop too. She opened it up and disabled the alarm when it started to blare, before leading Carlos and Anton into the staff room.

"Okay guys," she grimly said. "Last chance to back out."

"I'm in," Carlos announced, maybe a little too quickly. He glanced back to Anton. His brother had been looking and sounding more and more anxious since Wendy had appeared in the Ramirez's living room. It was no surprise, given what he was dealing with, the poor guy's life had to be upside down right now.

"Um, Anton..." Carlos began, "if you're not feel-"

"Don't look at me like that, hermano," Anton defiantly said. "I'll admit I'm spooked, but if you're in, then obviously I'm in. You think I'm going to let you go in by yourself?"

Carlos smiled. "No... sorry, Anton." He turned back to Wendy. "Yeah. Lead the way."

Without turning, Wendy held her van keys in front of the wall behind her. After a few seconds, there was a quiet hydraulic hiss, and the wall started to slide open.

Awed, Hunter and Anton tried to peer past her, but were slightly blinded when a lamp clicked on in the darkness. Beyond that door, a pair of elevator doors waited.

A short elevator trip brought them out into an enormous, chilly cavern. The two men stepped out into the cold, dank air and looked around.

"Crazy. This is what the heron hutch is built on?" Carlos asked.

"Why's that wall bricked up?" Anton asked.

"Threat of dinosaurs," Wendy immediately responded.

"No, really..." Anton pressed, but was silenced when Wendy gave him a smirk and a raised eyebrow, forcing him to glance at the wall again. Meanwhile, Wendy pointed into the gloom.

"If you head that way, you'd end up at the old Lutheran mission - though getting in or out that way's impossible without demolishing a wall and triggering every alarm we have."

"That old ruined church?" Carlos asked. "I've walked right past it."

"Lots of people have. Not many tried to break through the floor into these caves though. And only the Pines family ever found the dinosaurs and returned."

Wendy hurried them across the cave toward a building made of prefabricated modules. Once inside, they found themselves toasty and warm again, in a dark and straight corridor with dim lighting toward the end. Peering into side rooms, Carlos saw storage space and not much more.

"Hi Wendy!" a high-pitched electronic voice said. Carlos winced again as a screen on the wall winked on in the darkness. "Welcome back. Are these the visitors?"

The figure onscreen looked like a teenage girl with pink hair that was tied up with some kind of wires. She was wearing a formal suit and a pair of shades, which seemed a little incongruous.

"Sure are, GIFfany," Wendy replied. "Can you log their arrival and notify Ford?"

"I already have. Dr Pines has asked not to be disturbed unless the visitors are arriving, so I have a report to make to you."

"Shoot," Wendy replied.

"Operative Strange was briefly unmasked during his assignment in Illinois. I have adjusted security footage in response."

"Good job, thank you."

They walked down the corridor, GIFfany darting from screen to screen to keep up. When they reached a large open room she jumped up onto a large TV screen hanging in one corner.

"You're welcome. Wendy, can you do me a favor?"

Wendy seemed to sag.

"Sure... what is it?" she asked, with some obvious dread.

"Will you see Soos soon? I'd like you to tell him that I don't need him any more, I'm my own AI and I've moved past him, and I wish him well, and I don't need to see him."

"Sure thing," Wendy replied through gritted teeth. "Hey, can you put yourself to sleep while Ford talks to the visitors? We'll wake you again tomorrow morning."

"Of course. Good night Wendy!" 

The second GIFfany's screen winked off, Wendy growled and practically exploded.

"UGH! Can we PLEASE get a less depressing AI?"

"Depressing?" Anton asked. "That didn't seem so bad..."

"She's been saying the exact same passive-aggressive thing about Soos daily for eight freaking years now!" Wendy almost yelled, doubling over in anger. "It's so pathetic and sad! We can't get her to stop!" She stalked around the room. "If she wasn't practically perfect at everything else, I'd have taken a magnet to her years ago!"

"Uh, magnets don't do anything to SSDs," Anton interrupted.

"I mean a HEAVY magnet!"

Wendy eventually calmed down and let Carlos and Anton take a look around the room. It was large and square, with a large table in the middle and benches with computers on them all around the edges. But it was the corkboards on the walls that drew their eyes, as they boasted of all kinds of escapades whose purpose Carlos and Anton could only guess about. Carlos recognized a lot of the people in the pictures, though a few escaped him - a chubby young man punching a tiger-man with some kind of power gauntlets, a brunette swinging on a rope toward a floating island, a strange moustachioed man in a leotard dancing with a lizardman for some reason.

It looked like this group got up to some weird stuff.

Anton was about to ask Wendy what the mothman was like when her phone buzzed.

"The Stans are ready," she announced. "Come on. I'll show you through."

Now pretty much along for the ride and with no way back, Carlos and Anton followed her out of the meeting room and into a new corridor that wound to the right past various offices and then came to an end at a door labelled "Founder." Wendy stopped for a moment to talk to them.

"All right guys, this is it. Carlos, you asked for answers... well, our founders are in here. Anything you want to know, they can tell you." She leaned in closer to them. "Let me give you a little advice. They enjoy questions, they like inquisitive minds. They're also big fans of the truth, and more accepting than you may be thinking, and they can keep a secret. So maybe don't hold out too much, and don't hesitate to ask questions. This is a discussion, not an interrogation."

"Got it. Thanks Wendy," Carlos hesitantly said. Anton nodded.

"You're welcome. I'll be here to give you a ride home when you're done. Have fun."

She pushed the door open, and signalled for them to enter.

The room felt cramped. Most of it was taken up by a small library lining all three walls at the back, and in front of that a large oak desk sticking out from the left wall. The desk was tidy, with an organized in and outbox, a small PC monitor and a couple of books sitting on it.

An old man sat behind the desk, wearing a turtleneck sweater and a friendly expression. Behind him, an almost identical man stood still as Carlos entered the room. Of course he recognised this one... technically both of them, but Carlos could tell at a glance which one of the twins was the Stan Pines who'd practically shaken his arm off - that one was smiling from ear to ear.

"Gentlemen, welcome!" the sitting one said in a loud, genial voice. "Come in!" His chair turned and glided to the side as they entered, and when he emerged from behind the desk Carlos could see it was a wheelchair. The old man grabbed a cane and struggled to get out of his chair for a moment... maybe a moment too long. Stanley hovered behind him as he struggled, even offering his hand which was batted away. The old man fought his way to his feet and moved over to Carlos on his cane.

"Mr Kite! It's a pleasure to finally meet you," he said, holding out his hand. Carlos shook it. "I've heard so much about your heroism from my brother!" He turned to Anton as Carlos blushed. "And Mr Espejo. I'm afraid I'm not part of your core audience," he laughed, "but I've seen enough to know you're an expert, and I always respect an expert."

"Uh, thanks," Anton replied. "Mr..."

"My apologies, of course... I am Dr Stanford Pines." He turned back to the chair and started hobbling towards it. "And this matching individual is Stanley Pines, my brother. I believe he and Carlos have already met."

"Hey," Stan said with a smile.

"Mr Pines," Carlos nodded. He looked at the two of them. "So what's all this about?"

"I'll cut to the chase, Mr Kite," Ford replied, sitting back down in his chair and motioning for Carlos and Anton to take seats, which they did. "We'd like to recruit you. Maybe your brother too, once we know him better, but you - you've shown your true colors, and I have to say I admire them."

Carlos felt a little embarrassed about all the praise he'd got today.

"I didn't do anything anyone else wouldn't have done..." he quietly said.

"I disagree," Ford replied, and mirthfully narrowed his eyes. "But it's not just what you did, is it? It's how you did it." Carlos' heart started to sink , as Ford continued. "Grabbing that bird of yours," he said, pointing to Flapjack, "and teleporting to the boy, at incredible personal risk to yourself." He leaned back and gave Carlos an extremely approving look. "Remarkable."

Carlos tried not to react, but Anton's jaw dropped.

"You were caught?" he asked.

"I thought I might not have been when nobody said anything after a couple of days..." Carlos replied. "I suppose I wasn't that lucky."

"Forgive the professional curiosity, but I'm eager to hear all about it," Ford replied.

"I think you're getting ahead of yourself," Anton said, folding his arms and looking around the study. "You've not even explained what all this base is yet."

"You're right... I apologize," Stanford replied. "You sit in the secret underground base of Decipher, a society dedicated to protecting normal people and this planet from the extraterrestrial, the supernatural, the interdimensional and the just plain weird."

Carlos and Anton shared an uneasy glance at the third one there.

"I know how that sounds," Ford continued, "but please do not consider us a xenophobic organization. Wherever possible we work with weird individuals - helping to repair a spacecraft, soothe a ghost," - his eyes darted between Carlos and Anton - "house an interdimensional visitor, and more. We do not want to kill, imprison or oppress benign spirits or visitors... our goal is to protect human and alien alike wherever possible, and minimise the disruption to everyone's life." He leaned back. "And right now, our primary concern is the US government undertaking incredibly dangerous experiments in dimensional travel. Experiments that threaten the lives of everyone on this planet and put the lives of extradimensional people at risk of encountering us."

"That sounds like a fancy way of saying only you get to decide who's and what's safe," Anton pointed out. Stanford chuckled.

"I suppose that's true..." he conceded. "All I can do is promise you that we try to be generous. Here, look at these." He held up his hands. "Do these look like the hands of a human supremacist to you?"

Carlos' eyes widened. Anton on the other hand was out of his seat, overwhelmed and regressing with the shock.

"Six fingers! I didn't know humans could have six fingers!"

Interesting response, Stanford thought.

"Dude, sit down, that's rude," Carlos said, trying to stay calm. Anton mumbled a sorry and sat down, looking abashed.

"It's fine, I'm used to it," Stanford said. "Before you ask, yes, I am human, and yes I was born this way. It's a genetic mutation called polydactyly, and among other things it has left me with a lifelong fascination with the unusual. Decipher and I would much rather study and help, where we can. I'm a man of science, not violence, whenever possible."

"So what are you looking for from us?" Carlos asked, already knowing the answer.

"Your help, in whatever form you can give," Ford replied. "We operate multiple squads of operatives all around the country and abroad. Some you've seen. A few you've met. Any of them would welcome you as an ally." Ford looked at their hesitant, sceptical faces. "But maybe I'm getting ahead of myself again."

There was an awkward silence.

"Tell me gentlemen," Ford began to ask, "how many catastrophic interdimensional incidents have struck Earth in the last twenty years?"

The two younger men hesitated for a moment. "One, the Frogvasion," Anton responded. "Except, if you're asking, that's probably wrong."

"Correct." Ford lifted up a remote, and turned on the wall-mounted TV. "This footage was taken eighteen years ago."

He pressed play, and a woman appeared on the screen. Carlos immediately recognized her - Shandra Jimenez, the local news anchor, far younger than he was used to seeing her... and far more damaged. Her cheek and arms were covered in bruises, her clothes tattered, and she was missing a substantial chunk of her hair. She clutched her microphone in front of her like a shield.

SHANDRA JIMENEZ: We are day three in this strange cataclysmic event which some are calling Weirdmageddon, or the Odd-pocalypse.

(scenes of Gravity Falls, in ruins. Buildings crumble under an apocalyptic golden sky. Bat-winged eyeballs swarm the skies, beaming red spotlights onto the ground.) 

Carlos and Anton's jaws dropped. That was Gravity Falls, but not as they'd experienced it yesterday. They watched in horror as a woman ran across the street, only to be caught in an eye's glare and... freeze in place.

SHANDRA JIMENEZ: Weather today calls for black clouds, blood rain, and frequent showers of eyeball bats turning people into stone. I'm Shandra Jimenez, and I ate a rat for dinner.

Anton gulped.

"Turned... to stone?" This was not something he wanted to hear... not today.

Equally stone-faced himself, Ford played the next video. The reporter stood behind a pillar in an expansive dark room. A huge, oddly textured stone chair was in the distance behind her.

SHANDRA JIMENEZ: This is Shandra Jimenez reporting live from the inside of Bill's castle. Here for the first time are images of what's happened to the captured townsfolk.

Anton looked horrified as the TV showed images of the townspeople, turned into stone and built into a massive chair. Every one of them had been frozen with a look of terror or agony on their face.

"No... turn it off," he said.

SHANDRA JIMENEZ: Viewers are advised to look away if they don't want to see their friends turned into a twisted throne of human agony.

"Turn it off!" He was sweating, his breath catching in his throat, inescapable thoughts of his dad and everyone he’d ever cared about crowding his mind...

But Ford was focused on the screen.

"Hey, Sixer, the kid's..."

SHANDRA JIMENEZ: Is there no one who will save the people of this town? I'm Shandra Jimenez, and I'm being turned into stone by a flying eyeball.

Just as Carlos was about to put a hand on his brother's shoulder, Anton yelled "TURN IT OFF!" and reality ---shifted---.

What Stan and Ford saw was not the familiar walls of the study, but a gruesome throng of brightly painted wooden dolls reaching into the room on every side, clambering over each other, their mouths slack and arms gently swaying. Every one of them unique and almost mindless... almost.

"The hell is this?" Stan asked. He reached out to touch an extended hand, only for his finger to pass through it. "It's not real, we're safe."

"Illusion magic?" Ford asked. "And powerful..."

He looked at the two younger men. Carlos had put his arm around Anton's shoulder, and was gently talking to him. Anton on the other hand had pinched his eyes shut, and was shaking in his seat and almost crying.

The twins watched carefully as Carlos led Anton through some breathing exercises. Gradually, the illusion started to fade, revealing the familiar walls of the room.

(and from outside, they heard Wendy shouting "GUYS? WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT?")

It was a couple of minutes before Anton felt like speaking again.

"I think I would have appreciated a warning."

Ford cleared his throat.

"I apologize. My assumption was that the events portrayed would be so outlandish that you would find them unbelievable. Especially you, Mr Espejo, given your career."

"No..." Anton replied. "I didn't see any sign of the usual tells. I accept... that those videos were real."

Ford hesitated. "... I hate to pick at a wound, but it's important that I ask if you've seen something similar before."

"Seen, no." Anton replied. "Constantly imagined? Every time I'm not distracted, lately."

"It's been a rough couple of days," Carlos interjected. "We all got extremely bad news recently."

"About your home dimension?"

That startled them.

"How did I know? Ford asked, after a moment's silence. "You get a nose for these things after a while." He looked at his computer monitor. "Four Frogvasion orphans, all adopted by one widowed vet." He smiled. "Maybe I can't tell when someone's living in a high-concept sitcom premise - that all passed me by - but Stan and Wendy certainly can." He glanced at them. "And then there's the fact you don't exist before 2021."

Carlos and Anton slumped. This was getting worse...

"Sure, you have birth certificates and school records, but the minor inconsistencies are there if you know where to look... and there's even less evidence your birth parents existed."

He shook his head, and looked at them.

"Are we on the right track, or have I horribly offended you?"

The younger pair of brothers uncomfortably looked at each other.

"If you were, what would you do?" Carlos asked.

"Nothing. If you want, we're happy to destroy our files on you whether you join us or not. I told you, we support benign interdimensional visitors and refugees." Ford sat up properly. "Believe me, I was an interdimensional traveller for thirty years, and I did far worse than defraud the US government. Whatever you and your siblings have done to survive, we have no right to judge you."

The room was tense and silent for a while.

"I think..." Anton said, "it's time you told us everything about why you're here."

Ford and Stan conceded that, and began a careful explanation of Weirdmageddon - the week of chaos that consumed Gravity Falls and almost engulfed all of reality.

All about Bill Cipher, the dream demon who'd gained near-omnipotence and tried to 'liberate' existence from logic. About Stanford's personal role in enabling that, and his determination to never allow it again.

And then, his horror when it did, and King Andrias led an army of robots through a portal.

"Decipher was formed that day," Ford continued. "And while we do what we can to help those involved in weird situations, our primary goal is preventing the next Weirdmageddon or Frogvasion. That takes precedence over everything else. This planet and this dimension need protectors, boys, especially now that the FBI, DARPA and the new BOWI are irresponsibly connecting to random dimensions, in the name of misguided 'exploration' at best."

He glared at the wall.

"Project Leif needs to be stopped, before they make contact with something too powerful, too evil, or too insane. The multiverse is full of creatures and dimensions we CANNOT allow into ours. Malignant creatures of chaos, predatory dimensions that consume others, and truly ancient beings whose motivations and perspective we cannot begin to understand." He looked carefully at their now downcast faces. "And I suspect that you already know this too well."

"We have... recently discovered this," Carlos confessed.

And he and Anton spent some time explaining about the last nine years... both here, and on the Boiling Isles.

Chapter Text

NINE SUMMERS AGO /
EDA ATE A WIZARD WHOLE /
THAT WAS PRETTY WEIRD

Luz held on tight to Eda. She was always surprised at how easy it was to stay on Owlbert despite him being a perfectly smooth wooden staff - she'd only been here two days, yet she couldn't imagine falling. But she still held on tight to Eda.

"Okay, you can look," the witch said. Luz let go, pulled off the blindfold she was wearing... and was greeted by an awesome sight.

"Whoa," she slowly, awe-fully said. The landscape in front of her was like nothing she could have imagined. A titanic corpse, laying on its back in the ocean. They were hovering near one of its knees, and its other, snow-capped elevated knee towered over them. Beyond that knee, a clear view of its rotted body, ribs protruding out of the ground all the way to its slumped skull.

It ought to have been horrifying, but Luz only felt serenity looking over it. It lay peacefully, the setting sun painting it in golden hues, and more importantly - the entire thing had been claimed by life. Life sprouted on every surface it could hold on to - thick forests; buzzing, sweaty marshes; fields and farms; villages, towns and cities. An entire civilisation had been formed by life reclaiming death.

"The Bones of the Isles," Eda explained. "Up close, the Isles can be slimy-"

"And very stinky," King added.

"And gross," Eda pressed on, ignoring his interruption. "But if you look at it from a different perspective..."

A shooting star passed over the titan's brow.

"It's beautiful," Luz answered.

"Yeah," King fondly agreed.

Luz looked down, the shame she'd felt over the last half hour returning to her.

"Eda, I really made a fool of myself, didn't I?"

"Hm?"

"I believed everything that demon said, let him lead me into the most obvious trap possible... all because I believed I had a special destiny."

"Don't sweat it, kid. Everyone wants to believe they're somehow chosen."

"But I really did think... maybe I was. Like Azura, or Anne Boonchuy..."

"Yeah, well... wait! You've not been able to shut up about that Azura since you got here! Don't tell me this Anbunchoy is another one?"

"No... nothing like Azura..." Luz said, "Anne is real."

She explained... the previous year, Anne and her friends had gone missing, after they were sent to another world. And then back in February, only four months ago, there had been an invasion and a huge battle in the human realm - and Anne had fought it off.

"Eda!" King practically squawked on hearing this. "You told me the human realm was boring!"

"No, I said it was easy!" Eda replied. "And don't interrupt, King!"

"I wasn't there, but I saw all of it on TV," Luz continued. "Anne was about the same age as me, but she had some kind of magical superpowers! She could fly, and shoot energy waves, and hit things really hard, and get knocked through a building without even getting dizzied! And she saved the world." She smiled and looked over the Isles again. "Azura taught me to want adventure, love and magic. But Anne showed me miracles and magic are real... and that maybe they were in reach if I could just figure out how."

She sighed deeply.

"So when I found myself here in another realm, I thought... we have so much in common - maybe I'm the next Anne Boonchuy." She laughed. "Kinda silly, right? Being that great is obviously beyond me."

Eda echoed her sigh.

"Listen kid, everyone wants to make a difference. But I doubt that things were as easy for this Anne girl as you make it sound. Whatever she did, I'm sure it came with a lot of difficulty, a lot of hardships, and a lot of mistakes. And I'm sure that more than anything else, she chose her own path no matter what her 'destiny' was. Take that from the strongest witch on the Boiling Isles - trust me, it didn't happen overnight."

Luz smiled, a little.

"Does that mean I'll earn a magic staff of my own someday?"

"I don't see why not. When you're ready for it, kid."

At that, they sat and enjoyed the view.

ALL I EVER WANTED

Draw a circle, the best one you can. At the top of it, a triangle on top of a small circle. A large triangle underneath that circle, pointing up, touching the large circle at the two lower points, and the tip of it touching the small circle. A vertical line down from the top of that triangle, and two slashes in the middle of it.

Luz tapped the paper, and marvelled for the tenth time as it crumpled up into a glowing ball of light and started to drift toward the ceiling.

She could hear Eda from behind her. "Wow! How is she doing that?"

King answered her. "I don't know, but she did it all on her own."

She had, hadn't she? She really had found this by herself... some magic she could do...

It wasn't lost on a part of Luz that something felt serendipitous about this. As the ball of light rose into the air, she cupped her hand under it as if weighing it.

Luz... light... it's like I'm holding my own name in my hands, a vain part of her thought. Maybe I do have a destiny after all.  

She wondered if this was how Anne felt, the first time she discovered her powers. Luz didn't know anything about that, nobody did, but she could imagine - Anne practicing turning her blue powers on and off in secret, or how she might have discovered them in an epic fight against a powerful enemy. How happy and empowered discovering them must have made her feel.

I'm so happy I came to the Boiling Isles, she thought. There's no way I'll ever regret it.

TRUE DESTINY

"So all this time people have been mindlessly helping a witch hunter?" she'd said like a fool. "How could they be tricked so easily?"

"I wouldn't be so judgmental if I were you," he'd said, like a bastard.

The memories had almost overwhelmed her as he gleefully reminded her. She hadn't needed to watch the screen he provided. The second she realized what it meant, they'd all crowded into her head all at once.

Naïve. Irresponsible. Trusting. Manipulatable. Gullible. Stupid, stupid, stupid, no, no, no, no, this just can't be right!

"Please, do me a kindness, and call me by my real name," he'd mockingly requested.

"I... I can't..."

And then the moron on the screen behind her had innocently asked, "You're Philip Wittebane, aren't you?" And she knew what she had done, what she had enabled, during her trip to the past. "I can't believe I taught Philip something new!"

Every one of his words forced the knife in deeper.

"It does feel good to hear another human say that name -"
"I told you once before, 'Luzura' -"
"Perhaps we were destined to meet."

And she knew, if she had a destiny, it was to hand the keys to incredible destructive power over to a murderous madman.

Anne Boonchuy would never have fallen for this, she thought.

POST-CRIKEY BLUES

"Amity, there's something I have to say."

The group had been sneaking through the gardens of Blight Manor - Hunter and King in the lead, Gus and Willow following behind, and Luz and Amity at the rear.

"I'd love to hear it, but is this a good time, Luz?" Amity asked, pressing herself against a pillar.

"We might not get another chance..." Luz responded.

"Don't talk like that. We're having that date, Luz."

"It's just, a lot's happened since the last time we saw each other, and... I'm not the hero I pretended to be. And... as long as we're going to be together, I feel like I have to be honest with you." She hung her head. "I've done terrible things..."

"Luz!" Amity hissed, almost alerting a patrolling Coven Scout. "Terrible things like what? Like being the greatest friend any of us could ask for? Like forcing me to see the light about how I was treating Willow? Like supporting and helping Gus do everything he loves? Like freeing Hunter from... whatever his situation was nobody's actually told me but he seems way happier now?"

"Like giving me the strength to be me?" Amity continued. "And Willow the strength to be her, and Gus to be Gus? And Hunter... I assume... to be Hunter?" she babbled a little. "Luz... you have changed so many things for the better here, and maybe it's not done yet, but if anything improves on these Isles it will be because you were here!"

Luz looked away, abashed. Amity took Luz's chin in her hand, and gently turned her head toward her.

"Luz, I don't know what you've done, but I refuse to believe it's really your fault. And I never wanted to date a destined hero. I don't want to date Azura, or that Anne you admire so much. I want to date the kindest, smartest, and fiercest girl I know, and I'm going to. Now come on, or do I have to kiss you again to motivate you?"

DAY OF UNITY

"The memories last a lifetime!"

It was the first thing that came to Amity's head. One moment all of them had been in a desperate struggle against a monstrous, gloopy Belos, the next moment a small boy no older than six had appeared out of nowhere and immobilised the evil Emperor with two fingers... before splatting him above the door before them.

The kid had been threatening to do the same to all of them when King arrived and tried to convince him to play a game called Owl House, and in a desperate attempt to go along with whatever this plan was, she'd said the first thing that came into her head. Not that it mattered too much. King convinced the kid to save everyone suffering from the draining spell so they could play this new game, and they'd all scurried out of his way and watched.

The boy reached out with his finger, placed it over the moon, and swiped it 7,500 miles to the right in a second. It was... inconceivable. The boy treated the moon like an unwanted eyeball on his dinner plate. And with that done and the draining spell stopped, he'd innocently laughed.

"Okay! If we're gonna play Owl House, we're gonna need an Owl House!"

Amity watched as he leapt into the air and stayed there... and then he'd ripped the titan's skull apart. Light had flooded in from thousands of cracks as the bone splintered, crumbled and flew away, and the kid had excitedly cheered -

"We're gonna have a blast, everyone!"

The platform beneath them started to crumble beneath their feet, and they all had to back away as the child focused his effort into reshaping the old bone into something else. It was Willow who looked behind them into Belos' chambers and saw the open portal door.

"I think there's a way out!"

Everyone ran for the door, but Luz was hesitating. King was clinging to her back. Amity grabbed her arm, and begged her to come with them. It hurt Luz to leave Eda and everyone else to face whatever that boy was, but inside this crumbling skull they had no choice.

They all ran toward the portal door. Even from here, they could see it was already open. They sprinted through the portal chamber, past the evidence of Luz's duel with Belos - ruined desks, crumbling pillars, an enormous abomatron slumped against the wall - and to the door.

Something was very wrong.

The door was sparking, the metal frame barely holding together. A dark, rainy scene was on the other side as Hunter reached it, but every four seconds or so it would spark and fizzle and for a split second, show a downpour somewhere else. Upon seeing the rain Amity thought they were doomed, until Gus reminded them that it was harmless human rain.

They warily watched the sparking door. Nobody really trusted it.

"I'll go first," Hunter volunteered. Nobody disagreed, so he stood in front of the door, waited, and carefully timed a jump through it. Once on the other side, he turned to face them and waved for them to follow.

"It's safe! Come on!"

The door flickered randomly, but there was always time. Gus jumped through, followed by Willow - and Amity was pushed ahead by Luz to go next.

"Go on, get through!" Luz shouted. "I'm right behind you!"

Amity nodded to her, waited for a flicker, and jumped through immediately afterwards. When she turned to watch Luz follow her... she was horrified.

"Luz!"

Luz was throwing plant glyphs at the floor, binding herself to the ground. Vines stretched from her arms and around the room, wrapping themselves around the disintegrating doorframe.

"I, I have to get Eda! We'll find a way back to you!" she said, tears in her eyes, King looking over her shoulder like he was terrified of what he'd unleashed.

"LUZ!" Amity yelled. "COME ON! You... you can't stay there! You have to come with us, before the portal breaks!"

"The portal HAS to break!" Luz cried. She pulled the vines, and they started pulling at the doorframe, tearing it apart! The glitches become more frequent.

"LUZ!" Amity screamed, reaching for her, but Hunter wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her back just as the portal glitched again. There was a brief, sharp pain as a chunk of Amity's fingernail and the skin on the very tip of her finger was sliced clean off, but she hardly noticed. "HUNTER! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?"

"Keeping you from losing a hand!" he yelled back.

"LET ME GO! HUNTER!" She kicked the air, and lost the end of her shoe as the portal glitched again. No pain this time, except the sudden chill of air and rainwater against her toes.

On the other side, Luz was crying.

"I was stupid... so stupid," she admitted. The vines continued to drag the door apart. "I thought I had a destiny, that I was going to save everyone, somehow, even when I didn't know from what yet." She continued to pull. "But it turns out it's from my own dumb choices. I'll never be a real witch like Azura, or a hero like Anne! But there's still something I can do!"

Amity had stopped kicking, and was just watching. "No..."

"I can do what Anne Boonchuy never managed to! I can keep another Incursion from reaching Earth at all! I CAN DESTROY THIS PORTAL FOREVER!"

Everyone watched in horror as King lost his grip on Luz, and was dragged away from her, back to the maelstrom of bone shards around the boy. The glitching was frequent enough that watching Luz felt like a slideshow.

She'd grabbed him.
She was trapped between holding onto him or dragging the portal apart.
With the vines not pulling so much, the portal was stabilising slightly.
They were talking.
King was taking a deep breath.

Even on the other side of the portal, Amity and the others were knocked back by the force of King's WAH, but Amity saw what happened. She saw Luz flying toward the portal, fast enough to pass through it in a split second. She saw it glitch at exactly the wrong moment. And she saw the door slam shut.

The second she had her bearings, she was on her feet, already drenched in the pouring rain. She stumbled and ran up to the porch of the old house in front of her, wrenched open the door, and looked inside.

A moldy couch, newspaper, crumbling plaster, leaves and animal mess. Discarded wood and a broken box with a screen that reflected only sadness.

She closed the door and opened it again, but the nightmare didn't end.

Amity could hear crying. Maybe it was Gus. Maybe it was her. She fell to her knees and slumped against the doorframe, in time to see Hunter pick up the object that had hit him in the chest. Luz had been carrying a messenger bag, and it had sailed through the portal ahead of her, just before it cut off. The straps were cleanly sliced, but at least there were no other, more gruesome signs of anything getting severed.

Hunter dug into the bag, pulled out a carved wooden egg, and he and Flapjack stared at it.

They were stranded here, and wherever Luz was, she was truly alone.

A WITCH LOSES A TRUE WITCH

For a lack of any better ideas, they entered the abandoned house, shivering and soaked. The boys and the girls split off into separate rooms to try to dry their clothes, which magic made relatively easy.

Willow and Hunter went out into the rain again to find some food. Obviously a shield spell worked just as well against cold human rain as it did with boiling rain, so they didn't get too wet. They returned with round red and green fruits that could fit in your palm, and Willow assured them that as far as she could tell they weren't poisonous.

Amity had been so disinterested, they'd almost had to force her to eat one. The fruit was juicy, sharp and sweet. It felt inappropriate for the moment.

Gus had paced around the room, ranting and panicking, trying to figure out what to do NOW, but nobody had any answers. Hunter had shut down any attempt at what-ifing and planmaking. Everything that had happened had happened, they were here now, and right now they most important thing they could do was rest and plan with a clear head tomorrow. Willow had kept her head the best of all, though the cracks were plain to see if you knew where to look.

In time, they all fell asleep on couches and chairs. Hunter had been the first to go - he had experience with finding sleep in dire circumstances when he had to. Gus had followed him. By the time Amity realized Willow had sat down next to her and wrapped her arms around her, Willow was long asleep.

Sleep was a long time coming for Amity - she spent too long staring at the wall, Ghost curled up in her lap, thoughts cycling endlessly through her head... a procession of Luzs that were here now, with her, because she'd done something different. Rain soothed her towards sleep and thunder kept her awake, and when she finally drifted off, she was thankfully too tired to dream.

She was the first to wake. The rain had stopped, and she could hear birds singing. Feeling stiff and sore, Amity gently disentangled herself from Willow and walked to the door. Ghost was already awake and exploring the room, and she silently padded after her.

The air outside was fresh and clean, a gentle post-rainstorm breeze blowing around her. To Amity's shock, in the light of day she could see that the trees and grass here were green! and not the red she'd come to expect.

She stepped down from the porch of the house to wander, feeling the grass tickle her toes in her opened shoe.

So this was Luz's world. No wonder she'd always had such a sunny disposition. The human realm felt... peaceful, in a way Amity needed right now, although she could hear the sounds of a city in the distance.

She wished her awesome girlfriend was here to show her around.

Amity walked, leaving the abandoned house behind, drinking in the peace of the woods, trying to get her head straight...

And completely failing when she saw Luz.

Luz was strolling across a clearing up ahead, completely carefree, wearing clothes Amity had never seen her in before - a blue-gray hoodie, dark pants, and a cream top. Something looked... a little off about her, but Amity did not care.

"LUZ!"

The girl looked around, wondering who was calling her name.

"LUZ! Over here!" Amity jogged forward, giggling in relief. "I can't believe I found you!" she squealed.

She'd expected Luz to laugh, open her arms, and hug her.

What she hadn't expected was for Luz to let out a strangled whimper, and bolt.

She gave chase, with Ghost sprinting alongside her.

"Luz! What... where are you going? It's me!"

"I - I don't..." the girl gasped back. "I'm not that person! Leave me alone!"

"What? Luz! Luz! It's me!"

There wasn't much breath spare to shout much more with. Luz was running as fast as she could, and Amity barely keeping up. She saw the girl clear the treeline and run into a backyard behind a small, timber-framed white house. She ran up the steps, wrenched open the back door and ran in while Amity vaulted the fence.

"¡Mamá! ¡Una bruja me ha encontrado y me va a llevar lejos de aquí!"

"¿Qué? ¡Detras de mi, mija!"

Amity burst through the door, only to see Luz cowering behind an adult human. They were in a kitchen, and a woman with short dark hair and square glasses was stood between a counter and a kitchen island, brandishing a slotted spoon at Amity!

"Hey! Niña! This is private property, and you are scaring my daugh..."

She trailed off as she looked at her.

Camila Noceda couldn't believe what she was seeing. She didn't even notice the ears at first. What she saw was the scratches and bruises on the girl's face and arms, the rips in her clothing, and that a chunk of her shoe was missing. Her clothes were muddy and her hair a tangled mess. Camila saw the relief and confusion on her face... and the fear.

And of course, there were also the pointed ears.

Something horrible had happened to her.

She lowered the spoon, a little.

"Vee, are you sure she's here to catch you?" she asked in Spanish.

"I don't know, she was just chasing me, and she's a witch from the Isles!"

"Ma'am, I'm sorry, but I just wanted to talk to Luz!" the girl protested. "Luz! It's me, Amity! We... we all made it, right?" She looked at Vee, who was currently disguised as Luz, and the light started to leave her eyes. "We... did all make it, right?"

The girl looked between Camila and 'Luz.' Something about what she'd said gave Camila a dreadful feeling.

"Wait," Amity cautiously began, her eyes widening. "Are you Luz's mom? And are you... Vee?"

Vee looked up at Camila. Camila looked down at her, closed her eyes, and nodded.

"How do you know that name?" Vee asked.

"Luz told me... all about your adventure with her."

It was a story that would have been hard for Amity to forget. While testing her home-made portal door, Luz had got stuck between realms and been able to look out on the human realm through reflections. She'd seen that in her absence, her mom hadn't missed her - because a shapeshifting basilisk had fled the Boiling Isles the day Luz arrived, disguised herself as Luz, and passed herself off as Camila's daughter.

The basilisk, called Vee, or "number five," had been fleeing horrible experimentation and pursuit by Belos. She just wanted a place to feel safe... and in her kindness, Luz had understood her, and got her mother to save Vee from a zealous would-be demon hunter. And when she heard the truth, her mom had just seen a terrified young girl and not a shapeshifting demon, and decided to let her stay...

Amity had thought it was a beautiful story, when Luz told it to her. Now it was breaking her heart in a different way.

"I see..." she murmured, looking at the floor. "I'm... I'm sorry I scared you." She took a step backwards through the door. If Luz wasn't here... she couldn't bear to look at her mother, knowing what she knew. "I... I should go," she said, and her shoulders shook. "I'm so sorry!"

Amity turned, and bolted out the door, heading back for the treeline. She didn't make it - her left foot caught a root, and she tumbled forward into the thin grass and dead leaves. She was trying to get up when she heard running footsteps behind her.

"Wait, wait!" The footsteps slowed to a stop near her, and knelt beside her.

"Niña... what did you mean by 'made it?'"

Amity grit her teeth for a moment, feeling her eyes burn, and finally burst into wailing sobs.

Don't panic. One thing at a time. First things first.

Seeing that this girl wasn't going to be able to say anything right now, Camila asked if there were any others here. That led her to the old abandoned house once again, and to three other teenagers who were about to launch a search for Amity.

Take a breath, these kids need an adult, one thing at a time.

She led them home, and cleaned their wounds, and gave them breakfast.

One thing at a time. First things first. Do you actually want to know what happened to Luz, or are you terrified enough to keep putting it off?

She had, eventually, asked them.

Luz had chosen not to come home, again. She'd chosen to stay in another realm. She'd had noble reasons this time... reasons that made Camila proud, even while they filled her with terror at her daughter's fate and despair that Luz had been put in that situation.

She'd retreated to her bedroom after that, wondering about what she had done wrong. There was no getting around it... she must have made a terrible mistake somewhere. The easiest one to see was her decision to send Luz to camp, but that had to be the end of a line of so many other mistakes. Had she indulged Luz's interests too much? Not enough? Had she spent enough time with her after Manny died? Or too much? Or the wrong kind of time? Should they never have moved here, should they have remained in their old home despite Manny's illness? Had she been strict enough? Had she been forgiving enough? Had she told Luz that she loved her enough...?

She hadn't, had she? Whichever of those options were the wrong one, that was the one she must have done.

Nearly two hours passed. Vee poked her head in to check on her every so often. She was in her snakelike basilisk form - using Luz's appearance right now had just been making everyone sad. But she hadn't known what to say.

It was two hours before someone knocked on the door and she heard the purple-haired girl's voice.

"Mrs Noceda? Can I come in?"

"Yes."

The door opened, and Amity let herself in. She cautiously approached her, before sitting next to Camila on her bed.

"Mrs Noceda? Are you blaming yourself?"

She looked at Amity. The question was genuine and well-intended. Camila gave a silent nod.

"I thought so. Luz did that a lot too, especially in the last few weeks. When something went wrong, she was always looking for how she could have done things differently, or what she had to do now to fix it. It's because she cares about people, Mrs Noceda." Amity sighed, and Camila was surprised to see a blush on her pale skin. "Luz wants everyone to be happy, and she gets mad when there are people who aren't allowed to be. She believes in the right things, and she fights to protect people... for her friends, her loved ones, and herself. And she sees other people's happiness as her responsibility... even when she shouldn't."

Amity had looked up at her, but Camila hadn't been able to match her gaze.

"I know it doesn't seem like a good thing right now, but if Luz is gone now it's because you raised a girl who is loving, giving, smart, brave, and definitely determined. And that's a wonderful thing." Now it was Amity's turn to break eye contact. "I've seen what happens when a mother raises her kid to be selfish and mean. I think I prefer your style." She took a deep breath. "And I think that when Luz finds her way back to you, seeing you again will make it the happiest day of her life."

She hopped down off the bed.

"... sorry. I just wanted to make sure you knew."

Amity turned, and started to leave.

"Amity, right?" Camila asked. "Thank you."

Amity quietly nodded back, and Camila continued:

"Do you really think we can find her?"

"I hope so," Amity replied, "and I'm not going to rest until we do."

SEEK THE KEY, FEAR THE LOP

The day passed slowly, with all of the new arrivals too exhausted to do much. Amity and Willow found some clothes of Luz's that fit them well enough, while Camila did a quick dash to the supermarket for more groceries and some multipacks of cheap t-shirts and shorts for the boys. They were going to be dressing quite similarly for a while.

The next day, Amity asked Vee where the tools were kept. But Camila already had them, and was on her way to the abandoned house. Amity caught up to her, and together they started pulling that place apart, starting with the doorframe, looking for any clue about how it worked.

The others joined them. None of them knew how to create a portal door - Luz hadn't given them a full breakdown of the process, so their only option was to figure out this one. It ended up being futile. There were no signs of glyphs, runes, or anything else magical in the frame, the door, or the plaster.

With the door investigated, they started checking everything else - looking in the crumbling holes in the walls, smashing the vision box and checking inside, slashing open the couch cushions for a sign of anything hidden. Gus and Willow checked upstairs, while Hunter braved the basement, but nothing stood out.

It wasn't until Amity saw Flapjack pecking at the floorboards that she got an idea.

"Willow, sweetie, would you mind ripping up the floor?"

"Oh, no problem."

They'd had to get Camila clear, but once she was a writhing mass of vines overtook the floor, pulverizing the wooden planks. And when they settled down, the searchers found it amid the tendrils - a hexagonal box, with a scroll in it.

"What is this?" Amity asked, unfurling the scroll. It was a detailed and ornate illustration, covered in what seemed like random symbols and something... maybe similar to a map? But there were no landmarks she could understand anywhere on it.

"Hm, looks like a map?" Gus hesitantly asked.

"Or a secret code?" Willow suggested.

"It's got to be a clue of some kind, right?" Hunter asked. "What does it lead to?"

"That eye, it kinda looks like the old portal door," Amity replied, pointing out a symbol toward the top of the scroll. That got everyone excited for a moment. "But I don't know what any of the rest of this means." She showed the scroll to Camila. "You're human, you're from around here... does this make sense to you?"

Camila squinted at it, and adjusted her glasses.

"Not really," she confessed. "But I think I know where we can find out. It's a dangerous place full of lies and bad people, and I don’t like letting Vee see it... but maybe we have no choice."

"There!" Gus pointed at a small image. "That looks like it!"

"A 'rebus?'" Camila asked, hopping over to wikipedia. She started skimming the article. "Yeah, I think this is a rebus."

"You seriously have all of the human realm's knowledge in that giant phone?" Amity asked, disbelievingly pointing at the laptop.

"Yeah," Vee replied. "But it's about 10% true and 90%... everything else."

Meanwhile, Camila was quickly reading.

"It says it's a kind of word puzzle where pictures are used instead of words?" she said. "It's basically a big test of bad puns. Like the word 'been' would be a picture of a bee, plus an n."

"So this H, next to an ear..." Amity asked. "Here?"

"Portal door here," Willow carefully said.

"That does make sense," Amity agreed.

"So there's a portal at this spot on the map?" Hunter asked. "What about the symbols below it?"

"A ribbon, and tanning a hide," Amity replied. "And a hand with a cut." She squinted. "Ribbon tan blood?"

"That ribbon's tied!" Willow excitedly said. "Tie - tan..."

"Titan's blood!" they all chorused.

"... titan's blood?" Camila asked, turning back in her chair. "What's that?"

"Our way home, and hopefully to Luz too," Amity replied.

"We need to figure out where the map is," Hunter quickly said. "It looks pretty old. How old a map of this place do you have, Camila?"

"I'm on it," she replied, starting a new search.

Outside, it started to rain.

Less than a mere twenty-four hours after they arrived, the teens and Camila headed for the old Gravesfield graveyard. Poorly situated in a now-flooded swamp near the forest, it had long been abandoned for a new one due to overcrowding and the water not being... kind to the interred, or vice versa.

It was now pouring with rain, and each of the visitors wore a long heavy coat that Camila had provided to them. The grass squelched beneath their feet, and Amity had to carefully shield the rebus with a spell to avoid ruining it.

"If I'm reading this right, it should be... right over there..."

She pointed across a large stagnant pond that had flooded multiple graves, whose surface was bouncing with the force of the rain hitting it. Amid a small spattering of irregular tombstones, a thin stone arch sat on top of a hill.

They took the long way around the pond, coming close to the treeline, and doubled back toward the arch. Unfortunately the rain was, if anything, intensifying, and all of them were soaked and miserable despite their excitement.

"I think this is the spot!" Amity yelled. "How do we figure out where the blood is?"

"I think I can find it," Vee, currently disguised as Luz, said. "Give me a second, and stand behind me."

She walked ahead of Amity, facing the arch, closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

Tendrils of light started snaking out of the grass, from a point a few feet in front of it. They wound through the air towards Vee, brilliant strings of magical power that shone and wavered in the downpour.

The second they touched her, she yelped and crumpled to the floor.

"VEE!" Camila cried. She ran for her daughter, and lifted her shoulders off the ground. "Vee! What happened, are you okay?"

The girl was not conscious, but she was breathing. Everyone crowded around her.

"She doesn't look hurt..." Willow said.

"Maybe that much magic overwhelmed her," Gus suggested. "It is Titan's blood after all."

"Camila, I think she just needs a rest," Amity gently said.

"Okay..." Camila responded. "I'll watch over her. You do what you need to."

The four teens stood and approached the arch.

"Did anyone see where it came from?" Hunter asked.

"Right there." Gus pointed to a patch of ground. He and Hunter ran forward and started to dig with their bare hands, until Willow pulled them back.

"Gentlemen, allow me..."

She cast a spell, and a flower grew in the grass. Its roots dug deep into the earth and soon pulled a vial up to the surface. It was stoppered with a cork, and contained a thick dark blue substance.

"This is it," Willow whispered. Amity stooped down and picked it up. She held it up and turned to Camila.

"WE GOT IT!"

... there was a gasping, rasping sound from behind her.

They all turned. A small, furry creature was standing in the rain. It hopped toward them and shuddered.

"Hurrkk, shaa, deeesh..."

Camila got to her feet, resting Vee against a tombstone. She'd brought a baseball bat and uneasily readied it.

The thing looked like a rabbit, with long ears that hung down the side of its head. Maybe it was the perspective or her own paranoia, but the thing felt too big. The way it moved gave her the impression that it was retaining the water that hammered against its hide, bloating up with it and swelling to far larger than it should be.

"Shaak... dee... demaans..." it hissed.

There was a crunch as it sharply turned its head, and a long straight antler burst out of the top of it. Another crunch, and its twin appeared. Camila heard the four witches gasp. They readied their staffs.

"Look out! That's not a normal rabbit!" Hunter yelled.

"Belos!" Amity shouted.

"That kid killed him!" Gus said. "How the hell did he get here?"

The thing shuddered again.

"Giive... meeeee.. Blood!" it rasped, and it screamed in a way rabbits shouldn't be able to. Within a moment it was moving, far too quickly, directly for Amity. She clutched the blood and tried to raise her staff, but Hunter was already there, blasting the thing with a burst of energy.

The creature passed through the magic, singed but not stopping, mouth open and teeth bare. It bit down hard on Hunter's arm and he screamed.

"HUNTER!" That was Willow, wrapping vines around its body and squeezing it tightly, before grabbing its jaws and trying to pull them open with her bare hands. She forced its mouth open and tossed it away, but it was already free of the vines and landed on its feet.

Hunter was doubled over in pain and clutching his arm through his coat. Willow and Gus formed up in front of Amity, Willow trying to catch the rabbit in a vine trap and Gus trying to blind it with a burst of light, but it sidestepped everything and almost didn't seem to need eyes to see. It dived between them, its claws slashing at Gus on the way past, and it single-mindedly flew head-first into Amity's stomach.

It was like being hit by a large, wet cannonball. Amity had all the wind knocked out of her, and as she fell her hand opened...

The Titan's Blood sailed across the graveyard, leaving a trail of water droplets behind it.

It smashed into a tombstone. It shattered. And the rain started to wash the Titan's blood into the earth.

"NO!" Willow and Gus chorused. That was their last chance to get home!

The rabbit was also dismayed. It had been halfway to the tombstone when the vial broke. It shrieked and laid its paws against the stone, but could do nothing in this animal form.

Revenge. Retribution! Vengeance!

Belos turned, currently unable to process anything but the most simple of thoughts. One of the demons was charging him. She tried to catch him with a vine again. He was too fast. He pounced, found her jugular, and ripped.

The youngest one was hanging back, clouding his mind. He was focused, his mind simple and animal. He dodged into a bush and then struck from an unexpected angle, breaking the boy's ankle. The fool stumbled forward, his skull falling directly onto a tombstone and shattering.

Next was the one he'd made. Every one weaker than the last! Every one stupider! This one had barely survived more than a few years before earning his displeasure. He was already wounded and staggering and Belos made it quick.

The next one... the awful woman had been proud of this one. He could take some joy in killing her. She tried to summon one of those useless mud men, but her demonic powers were weak here and could not stop him. He reached out with a twisted green tentacle that suddenly emerged from his back, breaking her neck and slamming her twitching body against the now-useless arch. It crumbled, stones raining toward the grass, never again to form the accursed portal that had started all of this so many years ago.

There was a witness. Not a demon, but shouldn't have been here. She stood ready with a bat and took a desperate swing as he pounced, but she missed, and he chewed.

And then... the last. Unconscious, and slumped against a tombstone. Easy prey. He stopped to look at her. His bane. His assistant. He'd taken pleasure in her failing, and she had ruined everything.

"Youuu deeid thisss..."

No more chances. He ripped her neck open, and she died in her sleep.

Victorious, but defeated, he looked at the collapsed arch and the tombstone that had already had the blood washed off of it. He cleaned his paws, screamed, and ran off into the forest.

... Gus held on for as long as he could, but less than a minute passed before he couldn't hold the illusion any more. It wasn't the difficulty of the magic, but the fact that he couldn't contain the urge to vomit after all that.

The rest of them looked at each other. The creature had been distracted by the vial shattering, and after that had viciously attacked various branches, roots and stones before screaming at Vee and running off into the forest. And Gus was noisily puking.

Willow checked on him while Amity and Camila helped Hunter.

"I'm not sure, but I think you just saved the day," Willow told him.

"I wish I'd had another way," Gus replied, shakily wiping his mouth. "I never, ever want to create an illusion like that ever again."

"What did you do?"

"Let's just say that if Belos still has a mind in there, he thinks we're dead."

"How the hell did Belos get here?" Hunter yelled.

"What the hell is a Belos?" Camila asked.

"... what the hell do we do now...?" That was Amity..

She walked over to the tombstone the vial had smashed against and pressed her hand to it, but didn't pick up anything except rainwater.

"It's... gone." She looked up at them. "We're... stuck."

ROSA BY ANY OTHER NAME

Nobody could explain how Belos followed them out of the Demon Realm. Nobody could really explain how he'd somehow managed to possess a rabbit, or turn it into such a monster. At this point, nobody could say for sure what Belos even was now, and they didn't feel inclined to speculate.

They all had huge, non-Belos problems to deal with now.

There was, of course, no question of Camila throwing them out. She knew none of these kids were to blame for what happened to them or Luz, and she wasn't about to turn out a group of stranded refugees to survive on their own. Even if she could have been that heartless, there was the fact that these four were her only possible way of finding Luz someday, and... she knew they'd all been important to her daughter.

But there's not a lot a widowed mother can do to support FIVE kids with one paycheque. So Camila picked up her phone, and called in a favor.

Melissa was an old friend from college. The two had been close, nearly two decades ago, and Camila was owed a huge, forever-to-be-unspecified debt by Melissa that she had been saving for the best time.

By best she had intended funniest. But now was undoubtedly the best time, because Melissa worked for the Incursion Victim Adoption and Fostering department of the LA City Council. She'd thought Camila was genuinely insane when she called up asking for her to create identities for four new teens and to let Camila adopt them.

It was only nearly impossible, not impossible. Andrias' forces had struck computer systems all over the city hard, trying to sow confusion and chaos among the defenders, and vital databases and their backups had been caught in the splash damage. One year after the Frogvasion and the city was nowhere near rebuilding some of them - including social security and academic records. In her official role, Melissa had needed to rebuild several identities from scratch.

It wasn't impossible to falsify one. Just immensely risky, illegal, possibly immoral and - it turned out - expensive. No matter how great a friend Melissa had been to Camila twenty years ago, she wasn't prepared to risk her job and her freedom for this. Not until Camila had taken a risk and let her see the kids she was going to be helping. And promised her a few thousand dollars.

Melissa had eventually sighed, reluctantly muttered something about an 'Astral Oath,' and got to work.

With official identities would come government support, including - crucially - money. It wouldn't be enough but it would cover a lot of costs, and they'd make do somehow. It was money that was intended for Incursion orphans, and they all felt a little bad about taking it at first, until they rationalized that technically they were all orphaned by an incursion.

But there was something they had to do before those identities could be created.

Camila waited, checking the news online and looking for any sign of strange animal attacks. Nobody was reporting anything locally, but she couldn't stop feeling anxious. The kids had explained Belos as best as they could - an emperor who began as a monster and became worse. If there was someone she would like to crack over the head HARD soon, it was that monster... but she had to suspect that as he currently was, he might just murder her.

She was going to need to get better then.

While she read, the children had been busy with books and tablets, quietly thinking, checking and choosing, Vee gliding between them and looking over their shoulders. Willow and Gus were sat at the kitchen table, while Hunter was sat on the floor by the door to the backyard. Amity had picked up a couple of books and headed upstairs, and nobody had seen her for a while.

They needed names. While Belos might have thought they were dead, it was always possible that some day he might come to his senses. While nothing could be done about the name Vee was using for now, not without moving to the other side of the country, changing the others' names would give them a small amount of protection if Belos decided to hunt them down. This was especially true for Hunter of course, and for Amity - not many humans were named Blight, and it was a name Belos was likely to remember. So they had all sat down with books about names and translation apps, and thought about what they wanted to be called.

It was Willow who set her pencil down first.

"I think I'm done."

Camila got to her feet and walked over to her.

"Really? Let me see."

From what Camila could tell, Willow was handling everything the best, though she worried that this was only a surface level read. The girl gave surprisingly little away about how she was feeling, and consistently put helping the others first... it made Camila uneasy.

Willow smiled as she held up her paper.

Rosa Parra Salcedo

"Ah, eso es encantador!" Camila replied. "It is very nice! Very... natural."

A little bit single-minded... she did not say. Willow looked proud.

Gus finished writing as well. He clicked his pen a few times, a look of satisfaction on his face, and set down the tablet he was using.

"Are you ready too? Gus?" Camila asked. Gus had been ignoring his anxiety and pouring all his nervous energy into investigating her house. Within a day he'd popped the back off the TV remote and lost the batteries, pressed the button on the fire alarm, bounced a baseball into a picture-frame thinking it would scream when hit, and started writing a reference guide for "human saucepans."

"Actually, I am," he replied, practically starting a lecture. "I wanted a name that would make me sound confident, and would reference something I loved. So this is what I have."

From the corner, Vee started to make a drumroll sound, and Gus triumphantly unveiled -

Antonio Banderas

Camila's face froze.

Praiseworthy... and flag-bearer? It didn't make total sense to her, not yet. Not that that was any of the problem. In a moment, Camila was swept away to the late 90s and the height of her crush on a dashing and rugged actor...

"I think... that one might already be taken? It's definitely going to stand out," she said, awkwardly sweating. She absolutely did not say and you might struggle to live up to it? But she did think it.

While Willow sat with Gus and helped him workshop his name, Camila approached Hunter. "How about you?"

"I think I've been done for a while," Hunter uncomfortably responded. He had been keeping everyone at arms' length. Maybe it was just because he was the eldest, but he seemed emotionally detached from the rest, and something was weighing on him, and Camila couldn't tell what. Hunter shuffled the book and piece of paper he had, and showed it to Camila.

Carlos Kite

"Interesting..." Camila enthusiastically said.. "We didn't have a hard rule about having Spanish names, but why Kite?"

Hunter scratched behind his head.

"Well, I wanted a red bird so I googled them... and I don't know if the bird is really all that red, but I ended up liking the sound of the word," Hunter said.

From his shoulder, Flapjack aggressively tweeted a few times.

"No, 'Cardinal' was too long, Flapjack," Hunter protested. "And 'Carlos Cardinal' just sounds stupid."

"Kite sounds good," Camila added as Flapjack protested. "And as for Carlos... free man." She smiled. "It suits you."

"It's... aspirational." He grinned and nodded, but still flinched away a little when she went to pat him on the back.

Camila found Amity in Luz's room - now just 'the girls' room' - of course, sitting on the bottom bunk. The poor girl looked lost.

"Do you mind if I come in?" she asked, and Amity looked up.

"Sure..."

"Can I see what you have so far?" Camila asked as she crossed the room.

Amity let out a long sigh. "It's not very good..." she said, but showed Camila her paper.

Batata Noceda Blight Barros ???

abominación no ???

Camila looked at it.

Sweet potato?!? That's not really a name... sure, it was cute, but where did she get that from?

"Um, I think this is just going to draw a lot of attention..." she said, trying to let the girl down gently. Amity just sighed again.

"That's what I thought," she replied. "But I really can't think of anything better." Her mouth turned downward, and she said in a low, cracking voice, "Luz would have liked it though..."

"I'm sure she would have," Camila replied, her own voice cracking. Yes... that was just Luz's style.

The two of them sat in silence, just long enough for it to become uncomfortable. It was Camila who eventually broke it.

"Amity... I'm flattered you considered Noceda for your name."

"It... it just felt sensible," Amity defensively said. She was sitting with her hands between her knees, her shoulders and back tense. "If you're adopting us, I mean."

"I guess it does..." Camila responded. She looked around the now overcrowded bedroom. Three girls’ worth of clothes and shoes were lying around on the floor and surfaces, and the round bed that Vee said she felt comfortable curling up in to sleep was in the corner.

"But Amity... I've been thinking. All your friends are heartbroken about what happened to Luz... and so am I. We're all in such pain, I can hardly bear it, the only way I'm surviving is by focusing on all of you and what you need." The girl started to mutter out strangled apologies, but Camila stroked her back. "No... don't apologise. I know you didn't do anything wrong, I can see it in everyone's eyes."

Camila looked away from Amity, and gulped. She turned back to her.

"Your friends are devastated, but you... what you're feeling is closer to what I'm feeling, isn't it?" Camila asked, and Amity shook. "You're feeling this very deeply, aren't you?" Amity rested her face in her hands, and Camila continued to stroke her back. She took a deep breath.

"Amity. I know that maybe I shouldn't ask this. You don't have to answer if you don't want to, or if you'd be telling me anything Luz wouldn't want me to know. But if you think you can tell me about you and Luz..." - her voice cracked, and a tear rolled down from behind her glasses - "I would very much like to know how dear you should be to me."

Amity shook, loud sobs escaping from through her palms. Then she turned and wrapped herself around Camila, weeping into her shoulder.

"We're... we're each other's everything!"

Camila put her arms around the girl.

"Then you're family now, and I promise I'll love and protect you... just as both of you are."

Once they'd both worn each other out crying and talked about Luz a lot, there was still the question of Amity's name to answer. After a little bit of wavering, Camila spoke.

"I have a suggestion, if it's okay."

"Of course! What is it?"

"Alba."

"Alba?" Amity picked up the naming book and flicked all the way to the front. "Dawn?"

"As a reminder to both of us," Camila replied. "That when this night passes we will see our light again."

Amity was out of tears, but she smiled, and wrote down Alba Barros Lucia.

"Yes... we will."

Downstairs Gus had settled on Anton Espejo Banderas, with the promise that when he was famous he'd use Espejismo as his stage name. He'd needed reminding that the point of this was to avoid being famous.

A couple of hours later, Camila was asked to come to the dinner table.

When she arrived, the five kids were sitting and standing behind the table, and a seat had been left for her. All of their little pets were sitting or prowling on the top of the table.

"This looks formal..." she'd said, sitting down. "What do you all need?"

They'd looked at each other awkwardly, before Willow piped up.

"We have something that we felt like you should have..."

"It belonged to Luz," Hunter added. Camila's eyes widened.

Amity reached into a bag on her lap, and pulled out a wooden egg. She placed it on the table in front of her.

"Before you touch it, I need to say... this egg is a living being, just like Ghost, Emmiline, Clover and Flapjack. So please be gentle with it."

Camila nodded, sensing the gravity of the situation.

"We witches carve palismans from palistrom wood, to be our assistants, confidants, companions and guides through life. When she was given the opportunity to make her own, Luz chose to carve an egg. I think she wanted the palisman to choose what they wanted to be."

Camila cautiously picked up the egg. It felt warm. Its surface was smooth, though slight imperfections revealed it had been carved by the hand of a beginner with a lot of help, and shallow curling valleys had been carved into it. The grain of the wood swirled beautifully, a clear and striking blue.

"Luz did a wonderful job..." she proudly said.

"We'd like you to have it," Amity continued. Camila looked at her, wide-eyed.

"You can't be serious."

"It's the last thing your daughter made..." Hunter said. "And we all already have palismans, and..." he quickly glanced at Vee, "... Vee doesn't feel ready for it."

Camila looked at her daughter, who gave an anxious shrug.

"And..." Amity continued, closing her eyes. "We really think that Luz would be happier knowing that you were caring for her palisman."

Camila sadly smiled, looked at the palismans who were all watching her, and cradled the egg.

LONG DAYS OF STASIS AND GROWTH

Time passed. Nearly seven years passed. They all had the advantage of a long summer holiday before any of them were forced to attend human school and they made the best of it, getting a crash course in almost everything they could hope to know. Camila paid for online courses for all of them, even Vee, and with her guidance they learned more and more about the human realm.

Gus - always ahead of the curve for his age - knew how to create simple concealment stones, and was able to figure out how to substitute human realm ingredients for a few critical ones he couldn't get here. He put a whole week's effort into making ones that would hide everyone's ears and replace them with round human ones, and everyone integrated them into rings and necklaces they could keep on them.

They studied, wandered, explored and watched over the summer, trying their best to adjust to the human realm - or 'Earth' as they now had to call it. Vee was an absolute blessing, introducing the teens to 'Luz's' friends and helping them socialize. For all that Vee could be anxious and withdrawn, the others all noticed she had an incredible and enviable ability to adapt and adjust when she had to, and she made for a wonderful guide to Earth socializing. Even though it hurt them to watch her wear Luz's appearance as they did... but there was no choice about that.

She had to continue playing the part of Luz Noceda. If Camila Noceda's biological daughter went missing shortly after she suddenly adopted FOUR orphans, it would obviously draw a lot of the wrong kind of attention and potentially result in them being 'returned' to the state, the last thing any of them wanted. For the foreseeable future, Vee was Luz Noceda. Amity and Willow did catch her experimenting with other human forms... but were never able to convince her to wear them outside.

The last thing everyone had to get right was their exact relationship to the Frogvasion. What school they had gone to, who their parents were... and where they'd died. You never knew when someone was going to be insensitive and press them about it.

It was a shockingly hard thing to invent, given the ambiguity of what happened to their real parents back home. Willow was going to have her fake parents be a pair of dads here too, but couldn't face associating her dads with an invented couple on Earth who were now dead. She made them a straight couple just to separate the two in her mind. The only one who found this easy was Hunter. He had long dead parents he didn't remember, he was raised by his uncle... and he didn't miss the man.

Finally, after doing their best for nearly three months, they had no choice but to start to attend school.

ON CARLOS

Hunter - Carlos - dropped out almost immediately. He had obvious, devastating gaps in his education for a sixteen year old and was not the best at socializing, despite initially being a hit with the girls thanks to his bad boy looks and cute bird.

His teachers were mystified. He seemed like an intelligent boy but somehow, this 'uncle' of his had allowed the boy to go through life entirely uneducated. Carlos' shortcomings were so severe, nobody protested when he stopped coming to school. Everyone could see that while he would be able to learn... high school was not going to be the place for him to do that.

Instead, Carlos went out and got a job. The Gravesfield Parks department was looking for a part time groundskeeper and general laborer, and they were more than happy to employ a frogvasion orphan who was looking for a chance. Carlos spent his days mowing lawns, trimming hedges and weeding paths... and he impressed his supervisors.

Carlos was strong, disciplined, diligent, polite and friendly. He didn't cause trouble, he didn't slack off, and he got along well with his colleagues and the public. And everyone loved Flapjack too, of course. Within three months he had a full time contract, and within a year the attitude in the office was he would be a supervisor by now if only he was a few years older.

(there was the incident when one of the brothers on the Wittebane statue was toppled over and shattered on the path, but they never identified who did it or how)

Carlos became the first person called upon when there was a problem to solve, a vital part of the department, and when he decided he'd like to become a park ranger, his lack of a high school diploma or a degree was moot - he came so highly recommended by his references, they hired him on the condition that he at least study for and obtain a GED, which he now found much easier.

And of course, all his money went to supporting the rest of the family, even though Camila tried to get him to keep as much as possible for himself.

For maybe the first time in his life, Hunter felt fulfilled in his work and relationships. Earth was good to him.

ON ROSA

Things were easier for Willow - Rosa - and Amity - Alba. They could more easily hang out with each other at school, and shared many classes with 'Luz' who could help cover for them. They still gained a reputation for being weirdly ignorant about a lot of things, but were able to weather it better until they could get caught up.

Any doubts about Rosa's intelligence were quickly squashed when she demonstrated an incredible passion and talent for botany. Students all over school were confused when lush potted plants started showing up on all the windowsills, and the faculty had to have a talk with her and lay down some boundaries about where she could put plants - for example, not on or in front of fire escapes.

Of course, it would have been easy for any student to vandalize her work, but there was good reason why they learned not to.

Rosa quickly became one of the MVPs of the roller derby team, an impassable pivot who was the bane of jammers everywhere. When she tired of that, she took up ice hockey, dauntlessly standing in the goal, batting away pucks.

She was just getting tired of that when she saw her first martial arts movie.

Within days, she'd signed up for taekwondo classes.

Within three years, black belt around her waist, she'd taken her first championship. She'd found a form of expression that was graceful, impressive, and really allowed her to work out some of her... stronger emotions. And she was thriving in it.

ON ANTON

Anton - Gus - went from skipping ahead a whole two years at school to being in remedial classes over the course of one summer. It was kind of a shock. He entered middle school with all the same disadvantages as Carlos had, but no escape route.

Well, most of the disadvantages. Anton was lucky he was this charismatic. He made friends quickly and easily, standing out due to being taller than everyone else (curse you Witch Puberty!) and having a confidence he wasn't aware he'd gained until now.

The turning point for him was when he was picked first for sports.

This had literally never happened before.

Consequently he developed an interest and a talent in basketball. His height advantage didn't last forever, but his time on the team created memories that would.

But it was joining the school AV club that turned things around for him. Getting to be surrounded by so much cool human technology all the time, learning to edit, going out with friends to shoot short movies... it all really helped him develop friendships outside of his family, and paved the way for his future career, turning what was supposed to be his time at college upside down.

ON ALBA

Alba Barros was cold, if you weren't already her friend. And not many people were.

Sure, she was popular. You had to work to be unpopular when you looked like her. She had style, and she was cool, and she wasn't going to be mean to you. But for her, friendship didn't seem like a priority. She certainly didn't want to date.

If you wanted a glimpse of Alba's inner life, you had to look at her paintings. Alba was adequate in most of her classes, but in art, where she could work with thick sticky pastes and paint, she had an unexplored talent.

Vast, surreal landscapes of an unsettling visceral nature. Meat growing on apple trees. A shrieking medusa with green snakes, whose gaze turned other people into herself. A horrifying but somehow still cute child whose entire head was a massive, toothy mouth. The cutest little doggo, who was wearing a robe. Massive, bulbous purple figures in the shape of men. A stick figure with three eyes and a lock across their heart... and at the bottom, hands withholding keys. Fairies baked into a pie. Thirty eyes and a mouth. Skull-shaped, empty masks. Three green-haired children laughing...

And on all of them, somewhere, often tiny and in the background, an indistinct figure Alba never named, but her classmates nicknamed her the Saint.

If you showed concern, Alba would assure you - none of this means anything. I'm just painting things I think are interesting.

And she was right. Alba's paintings were gross, and they drew comparisons to her adoptive sister, with some people saying Alba was as bad as 'the Noceda Girl' had been 'at her worst.' However they were engaging, and they made you want to know more. But her best friends and sisters, Rosa and Luz, weren't going to tell you much.

Her teachers - recognising her talent and a rare vision - tried to get her a college scholarship, but she turned it down. She had other things to do... right as soon as she finished this painting of a smashed vial.

ON LUZ

Sometimes... sometimes Vee went to the girls' bathroom, hid herself away in a cubicle, and transformed herself, and breathed. Luz's form was becoming... restrictive.

As the years wore on, Vee had become more and more concerned that she was no longer pretending to be Luz. She had, for a long time, been redefining Luz. There were people who remembered the old Luz, and sometimes they would tell her -

"You really changed for the better at that camp!"

And Vee would feel offended on Luz's behalf.

Pretending to be her was becoming truly transgressive. As far as anyone knew, Luz was a timid but friendly nerd with a deeply sensible streak who read shoujo manga and wrote mushy romantic short stories in her spare time. She'd never had a relationship, though some had asked, and she wouldn't have minded... but committing Luz to having a past or a present romantic partner had obviously been a step too far. She was non-confrontational, and a bit of a people pleaser. She kept her hair and her clothes neat and smart, and never ever acted without carefully considering the consequences. That was who Luz Noceda had become... or who became Luz Noceda.

She'd been guessing what Luz might look like for years now, based on looking at pictures of Camila from when she'd been fifteen, sixteen, and now seventeen...

Right now in this cubicle she didn't look like Luz. She'd changed into a form she'd been trying out for a while now. Her hair was a dirty sandy blonde with a navy blue dip dye. It was messy, but in a way that appealed to her. The colors and shapes on her hair were like her hair and ears in her basilisk form, so this was an appearance that felt... a little bit more like her.

She'd admit she had a bit of a cute-but-strange look, but that was what she wanted. To unquestionably be herself.

... but, this was a stopgap too, wasn't it? Her true self had a tail and scales. And she knew, there was nowhere where she could go out in public like that. Not here, and not in the demon realm.

It was in her need and nature to hide, and everyone needed her to be Luz Noceda in order to avoid drawing suspicion. She shifted back into her Luz disguise. At least she could be herself around mama and her siblings. Things really had got more difficult since everyone showed up, but also so much more fun, and while she wished for Luz to be found and for everyone to make their way home... she would miss them if they were separated.

She left the bathroom and headed for American History, and everyone smiled and waved at what they thought they saw.

NO DISGUISES

It was two years ago, and everyone had come home for Thanksgiving.

"I'm hoping to get a position at the Heron Enclosure over in Gravity Falls, actually."

Willow had snorted wine out of her nose upon hearing that.

"OW!" she said, wincing and pinching her nose. "That hurts!" She grabbed a napkin and started mopping at her face.

"Willow," Camila said with a smile from the head of the table. "I know you couldn't legally drink until this year, but I thought you'd had more practice..." she joked, and helped her clean up.

"Oh I've had plenty of practice!" Willow protested.

"I'm not going to forget carrying her home after Denise's sixteenth," Amity added with a giggle. "You were singing and swaying about all over the place!"

"That was both of you!" Vee said, correcting Amity. "I had to carry BOTH of you home because I'm the only one who's not affected by alcohol here!" She sipped her wine. "Neither of you know how hard it was to get you into bed without waking mama!"

"I did wonder why there was an abomination that smelled like rum in the living room the next morning..." Camila thoughtfully said. "And a whole lot of mint I never bought," she added, eyeing Willow.

"Please don't ask, terrible idea" Vee replied, leaning back and narrowing her eyes, while Amity and Willow looked sheepish.

"... I don't remember this at all," Gus uneasily said. "Do you?" he asked Hunter.

"We were still both in the basement, and the insulation is thick," Hunter said. "I think we might have been spared."

Willow cleared her throat.

"The important thing right now is, what do you mean the Heron Enclosure?" She narrowed her eyes. "Isn't that dangerous?"

"It's actually extremely safe," Hunter replied. "I checked - not one incident involving the herons in eight years. There were a few injuries building the fence, but that's been it."

"Hm." Willow played with her turkey. "I'd still be worried for you though."

"That's the human realm talking there, Willow," Hunter reminded her. "We all dealt with dangerous creatures on a daily basis, back then. Don't worry, I'd be fine, and the additional pay would be worth it." He shrugged. "And it doesn't matter right now anyway. They say they won't have any open positions for at least a year."

"Maybe next year then..." Willow replied, weighing some mashed potato on her fork. "And... I do hope you get it, Hunter, if that's what you want."

He grinned, and she blushed. "Thanks."

They all chatted for a while. Willow was stressing out over her dissertation, Gus' youtube channel was blowing up in a way that was fun but... also kinda scary, and Amity and Vee had finally saved up enough for an RV. Amity was ready to finally quit her job at the Robin's Roast and hit the road.

"I was thinking we might take one of the rats with us," Amity suggested, to Vee's dismay. "Their hive mind could do with broadening their horizons, and they might make for a fun masco-"

"Absolutely not," Vee croaked, her eyes wide.

"Of course, of course..." Amity conceded. "Unless, maybe..."

A heavy fish tail hit her in the shin.

"OW!"

"No tail slapping under the table, kids," Camila automatically said.

"You always say that as if more than one of us can do it..." Gus said, sounding confused.

They had a pleasant evening and rested well the next day. In the mid afternoon, Gus called them all together in the living room.

"I suppose you've found something important," Camila asked him.

"Is it to do with Luz? Or Titan's blood?" Amity asked.

"Unfortunately, no..." Gus responded. Both of those trails had dried up a long time ago, which was why Amity and Vee were going to start travelling across the country. "I wish we had news about that. But I think this is also important."

He turned on the TV, and paired his phone with it.

"I've been keeping an eye on who's coming into power in our country. Recently, this man was confirmed by the senate to be director of the FBI." He motioned toward the paused screen, where a smiling old man in his 50s sat behind a desk in the senate. A chevron read SENATE CONFIRMATION OF CHRISTOPHER SAMPSON

SEN. LOVEJOY (R, NT): Mr Sampson, can you comment on reports that the FBI knew of the Incursion in LA eight years ago in advance and did not warn the other branches of government and security?

SAMPSON: Yes... these are distressing rumors. I cannot deny that my predecessor knew about intelligence that such an event was coming. I am given to understand that either they had valid reasons to withhold them, or the other branches did not take them seriously. However, I shall be carrying out a full investigation upon my confirmation. The good, god-fearing people of our country deserve to know why they were failed during humanity's darkest hour.

SEN. LOVEJOY: How do you plan to deal with possible future threats from other dimensions?

SAMPSON: We cannot defend ourselves strongly enough, in my opinion. I intend not only to work with other agencies to better prepare ourselves for any future incursions, but to also proactively investigate other dimensions... should that ever become an option for us, that is. Whatever demons lurk beyond the walls of the world, we must be ready to stop them at the door and no later.

SEN. LOVEJOY: ... sir, did you just imply that we may soon have a means of dimensional travel ourselves?

SAMPSON: I did not.

Gus paused, and glared at the screen.

"Christopher Sampson has served in the FBI for nearly 25 years. He is completely qualified for this role, and the senate confirmed him less than an hour later. There's not a lot to damn him with - his work has been excellent and he's well respected." He shrugged. "The worst you can say is that he's currently going through a divorce. I found the court documents and his wife's complaint is that while they both have been Christians all their lives, his faith had become 'extremely hard-line and puritanical' and 'she didn't feel like she knew him any more.'"

There was a collective sucking in of breath from around the room, except from Hunter.

"Gus, please don't tell me..." Amity began.

"I didn't want to jump to conclusions," Gus continued. "So I took this video to Hunter."

He passed his phone to Hunter, and he started seeking around the video.

"There's a lot that doesn't match up," Hunter admitted. "His word choice is different, a bit more modern, and of course his voice and many of his inflections are different. But this?"

The screen paused on a picture of Sampson smiling - his eyes half shut, and the side of his mouth curled up.

"That's Belos' idea of a smile if I ever saw it," Hunter finished.

There was a kind of quiet, stressed panic as everyone adjusted to a reality they had hoped they'd escaped. Willow got up and paced around the room, rubbing her scalp, while Amity put her head in her hands and Camila gave Vee a hug. Hunter, on the other hand, had a dark look on his face.

"I think," Amity eventually said, her eyes narrowed, "I would like to have a minute's silence for the real Christopher Sampson, before we start planning the absolute destruction of his murderer."

They were the only ones who knew for now, after all.

"Why couldn't he have stuck to rodents?" Willow fumed.

They were all sat around the dining table which was piled high with printouts and notebooks.

"Because he wants to pretend he's better than he is," Gus replied.

"Why? Rodents were already aspirational for him." That was Amity.

"Guys, we're getting off topic." Hunter said. "And also, he's really more on the level of a louse."

"That's offensive to lice," Vee chimed in.

"The point I was making was," Hunter tried to say, "that we can't make plans until we can be certain Sampson is Belos. So we need to find a way to be certain."

It was an issue they'd come back to several times. Sure, they could probably come up with a plan to get rid of him. Even though Belos was probably aware of magic, his security team almost certainly wasn't, and the familia had the tools and the talent they needed to get their revenge on the monster who had caused all of this before he could do terrible damage to Earth with... whatever he had planned.

But what if, say, Willow sliced him in half with a katana just like on the KILL BELOS poster Gus had quickly photoshopped? What if she did that, and he bled red, not green? They didn't have EVIDENCE Sampson was Belos... just an extremely strong hunch, and that wasn't enough to justify potentially killing an innocent and getting all of them in a lot of trouble.

"We need to get close, without him getting suspicious of us," Hunter thoughtfully said. "And we need to observe him for a long time, ideally without directly interacting with him... or he might sense there's something strange about it. Two or three steps away... one is too close."

It was Willow who rubbed her chin for a moment, and spoke.

"We infiltrate the FBI." They all looked at her. "One of us joins, finds a way to work near him, and observes him carefully. Once we have evidence either way, we make our plans."

They all looked at her.

"That could work..." Amity replied, staring at a profile of Sampson. "It's a huge risk for one of us though... and a huge commitment to infiltrate the FBI."

"It's a commitment Belos was willing to make," Willow retorted. "And yes, it's a risk."

She stared at the papers on the table.

"That's why I'll have to do it."

The room was overcome by an uproar, with everyone shouting and talking at once.

"By yourself?" Hunter asked.
"That's crazy!" Gus yelled.
"No! I forbid you from doing something so dangerous!" Camila said, getting to her feet.
"Mama!" Willow said back. "Someone's got to!"
"Then I'll do it!" Hunter snapped, getting to his feet.
"Nobody's doing it!" Camila snapped, staying on hers.
"You are the LAST person who can do it, Hunter!" Willow snapped back. "You don't think Belos won't recognize you in a second?" She awkwardly shifted. "Especially considering... who you look like?"

The room got quiet. Hunter had shared the truth of his origins as a Grimwalker with them some years ago, but it was still a bit of a touchy subject.

He sat down, and ran his hand through his hair.

"I'm sorry to be blunt," Willow began...

"No, you're right," Hunter replied, rubbing his nose. Flapjack gently cooed from his shoulder. "He'd see through me right away."

"Well, he'd not see through me," Gus said. "I could do it, or at least come with you, and some illusion magic could really help you..."

"I know it would, Gus," Willow said, "but you're nineteen. We all know better about how capable you are, but the FBI's not going to even look at you for a few years."

Gus sighed. "... sucks. But true."

"Well, we're not too young," Amity said, glancing at Vee. "Don't count us out."

"Amity, sister, I love you and respect you so much," Willow began. "But you're not attending college to get a degree, which the FBI needs. And no offense, but... can you really defend yourself without magic?"

Amity glared at her, but bowed her head after a moment.

"No... I can't," she conceded. "Not like you can."

"Sorry..."

"No, don't be," Amity said. "It's the truth."

"And as for Vee..." Willow began, and then hesitated, wondering what she should say. The basilisk had curled up in her seat when the shouting began, and was still hugging her tail.

"It's all right, you don't need to say it," Vee said. "I know... maybe my shapeshifting would be helpful there, but I'm still... really averse to confrontation." she almost whispered. "I would never survive in the FBI."

Willow sighed. "You're stronger than you'll admit, Vee." But she avoided arguing, or patronising her. "Amity will need you watching her back."

"And who will watch yours?" Camila demanded to know. She glared at Willow. "You want to walk alone into this monster's lair? Even if we're wrong and he's just a normal man, that's a huge risk for a witch! Even if he bleeds red like all of us, you could get caught and dissected! And if he bleeds green, that's even worse!"

"We don't have a choice, mama!" Willow protested.

"WE HAVE A CHOICE, MIJA!" Camila cried. "There has to be another way!"

"We can't leave Belos in charge of a government bureau!" Willow yelled. "And even if we act now, it might be years before I can get close to him! We have to start now!"

"I understand that! But there must be another way that doesn't expose you so much!"

"We can't wait for that!" Willow replied. "It has to be now! Why are you trying to stop us?"

"BECAUSE I CAN'T LOSE ANOTHER DAUGHTER!"

Silence.

"I lost... too much, seven years ago," Camila choked out. "I don't know any longer how I can assign blame, or what's left that we can do to look for her. We've tried so much..." she swallowed. "But all of you are important to me now..."

She was interrupted when Willow finally reached her and wrapped her up in a hug.

"I need to know you're all safe, even if you're not all at home anymore," Camila continued. "I need to know you'll come back." She was now talking through the tears, as Willow rubbed her back.  "I can't have my heart broken again, not after Luz, and how I've failed to find her..."

Willow hugged her for a while, while the others looked on, stunned.

"Mama... I understand," she said. "We all still miss her, and wish we could do anything for her." She paused. "But that monster is the reason why she's gone. And I don't ever want to face Luz, ever, and tell her that we didn't try to stop him from regaining power."

Camila felt a clawed hand against her back. Vee had slithered up to them and put her arms around them too. She was followed by Hunter, and then Gus and Amity.

"I think we have to trust Willow," Vee said. "She'll always come back to us."

WRONG GENRE

Nine years ago

The girl hurried through the rain, a torrent of heavy droplets bouncing off her thick coat. One sleeve was flapping loose - she'd tucked her hand inside her coat to hold the steamed bun she'd stolen from the vendor. The man had roared with rage when he saw what she was doing and screamed black bloody curses at her, but she was pretty sure he hadn't seen her face under her hood, and nobody in the crowd had been interested in stopping her. If anything, they might have let her go to spite the shouting man. His food was decent but overpriced for what it was, and he was definitely resented for it.

The street was full of people - umbrella-carrying girls shivering in their skimpy costumes, trying to entice men into the nearby bars. Their guardians, flexing fingers with brass knuckles on them, or thoughtfully weighing studded baseball bats or guns. Patrolling gangers - she'd made it into Magia territory so she should be safe here. She wasn't a member, but the green eye on her shoulder said that she'd sworn some fealty. Finally, thick crowds of men and women packed the paved street tightly under the erratically-nested neon signs and tall, boxy buildings.

Luz Noceda, would-have-been witch of the Boiling Isles, truly and absolutely hated it here.

She'd been this way earlier today, to deliver a brown paper bag to an unmarked door. It was awful work that she knew was probably sketchy, but there wasn't much else for a powerless drowned rat to do around here. The credits she could get for it were a pittance, but better than sacrificing her own reality. 

Her feet splashed through puddles. Her shoes were wearing out and she'd need to replace them soon. At least this coat kept her dry.

Confident she had lost anyone who cared, Luz stumbled her way to the top of a rubble hill outside the streets and overlooking the ocean. She'd found this place herself. Someone had set up a little tarpaulin tent against a huge fallen chunk of masonry. They'd found a big flat rock to sit on, and made enough space to stretch out their legs, and for whatever reason Luz had never seen them or anyone else use this little spot. It was an oasis of relative peace that she badly needed, and here she could remove her coat and try to dry the inside a little. 

She'd arrived here five months ago, in the middle of one of the worst days of her life. One moment she'd been flying toward the portal door and Amity, the next... it had changed, and she'd been spat out of an abandoned wardrobe in a back alley. Into a torrent of rain, and a dark city called Downpour. She'd frantically checked the wardrobe, but found no way to reactivate the portal, and she'd realized - she was stuck, truly stuck here... wherever this was. None of her friends had made it here with her, and even the palisman she'd put so much effort into crafting was gone, if the severed straps of her bag were any clue.

She just had to pray that they were all safe with her mother and Vee, even as Amity's absence gnawed at her. She missed her so, so much, thought every single day about how her choice to stay had ensured she was going to be separated from everyone she loved, forever. Amity and her mom in particular... she'd promised mama that she would come home to stay, and she had broken that promise. She could only pray mama was able to forgive her.

Back then she'd begged every passerby she could catch for help, but had been ignored for nearly an hour in the pouring rain before an old man had shown her to some cover, handed her some credits, bought her a coat, and taken her to a nearby Girls House for some sleep. When she'd woken up, determined to face the new day with some optimism and figure out a way home, he'd been long gone and she never saw him again. That was people in Downpour's idea of kindness.

Since then she'd been living hand-to-mouth, scraping together just enough money for food and boarding by doing odd jobs and yes... stealing. She wasn't proud of it, but everyone here did what they had to to survive.

She bit into the bun she'd stolen. Probably pork. In her hunger, it tasted delicious no matter what it was.

She hadn't been able to believe her eyes the first time she’d looked at the sky. There was something very wrong with this world, and it started at the horizon - it didn't have one.

Instead of standing on the outside of a giant sphere, Luz was standing on the inside. When she looked into the distance, she could see the land curving up, could see land masses and cities as if from above. In the darkness, their lights twinkled like spiderwebs.

But you couldn't look too far up. Because hovering in the center of this sphere was another sphere, thousands of feet up. The next layer up, the one that was more real than this one, the one that everyone here wanted to get to. And within that another layer, and another, and another, until you reached what they said was called Absolute Reality - the world at the very core of this onion, where everyone lived like gods and life was infinite and beautiful.

... they said there was a time when the people and continents here had been on the outside of the sphere, not the inside. Luz didn't know what to make of that. If it was ever true, it was a long time ago.

She stuffed her face with pork, onion and potato. The filling was still warm, even if the bun was cooling, and she was relieved to have it - she'd starved for a few days too many here. Fortunately it was obviously easy to find water to drink.

"Hey Luz," someone said from behind her, and Luz turned to look in her direction.

"Rebli!"

Luz had met Rebli at a Girls House. Each House was a single large room crammed with bunk beds of varying quality - some tolerable, some impossible to sleep in, and learning which was which was a vital life skill. A little bit of credits got you a bed for a night, if you could keep a bigger girl from tossing you out of it and forcing you into a worse one. You learned you didn't want to try for the best beds if you couldn't defend them.

After almost a week of being ignored, Luz had woken up from nightmares again in the middle of the night. In a room of 24 sleeping girls, one waking up shrieking wasn't good, and a cat-eared girl called G'Serai had got extremely mad at her - shouting at her that if she was still having nightmares, she had to deal with it or get out. After all everyone else was having nightmares and they weren't fucking screaming about it!

Luz had never felt so alone before, or so ashamed, or so angry... but here she was, powerless and abandoned. Until Rebli leapt to her defence, telling G'Serai to go eat a puddle eel and taking Luz out into the rain to say sorry on her behalf, and finally, finally... be the first person to actually ask how Luz got here and where she was from.

Now she was ducking under the tarpaulin, pulling off her coat and hanging it up near Luz's.

"You doing all right?" Rebli asked. "That bun looks nice."

"It's not bad, yeah," Luz replied. The truth was, it was quite large. Luz was still hungry, but... she held it out to Rebli. "You want some?"

"No, I'm fine," Rebli replied. She removed her scabbard from her waist and set her sword down on the ground. Rebli was about Luz's age, dark-skinned with curly black hair, and wore a much-repaired jerkin and pants. She said that in her world, she'd been a knight's squire, but had fallen through a portal during a magical accident. Now she'd been stuck here for nearly nine months.

She'd told Luz that she'd stood up for her because she'd been so lost in this foreign neon city, she could really sympathize with Luz's own feeling of alienation. Luz believed this... but she also thought Rebli had just been looking for a friend, and while Luz had been reluctant to get to know her... just having one person on her side had turned so much around.

"What have you been up to?" Luz asked.

"Same as you... deliveries for Graft," Rebli sighed. "He's always got something to go out, but I wish he was better organized. I headed over to the east side three times today - that could have been one journey, right?"

"He thinks we're going to mix them up," Luz complained. "And he doesn't want to keep track of what needs to go where and when, he just picks up the first one he sees. It's dumb." She scowled as she took another bite. "I tried to tell him I have experience delivering magical components, but does he believe me? Nope."

"And he pays beans," Rebli added. She smirked up at Luz. "Hey. Maybe we should work together on something new. We could pick up one of those wanted posters," she grinned.

Luz hesitated.

"What makes you think I could do that?" she quietly asked.

"I dunno," Rebli replied. "You just seem... reliable? I think we'd make a good tea-"

"No..." Luz interrupted, lowering her bun and averting her gaze. "That's not me... you'd probably be safer doing it by yourself. I'm really not cut out for that kind of stuff."

"Oh that's never true," Rebli replied... right as her stomach rumbled, growled and gurgled.

Luz frowned. Keen to change the subject, she pounced.

"You are hungry!" Luz held out the remaining third of the bun. "Eat this! Now!"

"No, it's fine..." Rebli replied, blushing at the sound she'd just made. "It's... just a stomach upset!"

"You can't get an upset stomach if you're not eating!" Luz replied, thrusting the bun into her hands. "Take it!"

The rain continued to hammer down around them, before Rebli reluctantly took the bun.

"I don't want to just take your food..." she protested as Luz sat back down.

"I stole it anyway. So it's only fair if someone else takes it."

"Hm." She bit into it, and swallowed. "Luz, I'm serious about wanting to team up with you." Another bite and a swallow. "You're a good person, and I was always trained to work with the good people, over everything else. And after knowing you for a while, I don't think there's anyone else in this city I trust as much."

"... you shouldn't, Rebli," Luz sighed. "I've done... so much damage when people trusted me not to."

"Is that why you're here?" Rebli asked, before popping the last of the bun in her mouth. "Theyf frew you ouf?"

"What? No, it was kind of an accident..."

"Then they must not have thought it was your fault -"

It hit Luz blindingly suddenly -

twd3Bo#"u8v')JGkS\U.=Na&Dif>Ms9m{<_F20yICY$KR7ElHELP!;ZrL*-V15nz£XWEREDEAD!^pxge+[¬h4WEREDEAD!!!@c~]Pb/}W?,%q|jOT6:(`AQ

A splitting pain in her mind, firing every synapse all at once and making her see sour and hear red. When she opened her eyes again and tried to blink at the ground below her, she found that she'd doubled over clutching her head... and thrown up a lot of what she'd just eaten.

"Luz! LUZ!" Rebli was hunched over her, yelling her name and patting her back. "Can you hear me?"

"Yeah, I... what happened?" she asked.

"The hell if I know! You just screamed, doubled over and puked!" Rebli replied. "How do you feel?"

"Woozy..." Luz said. "That was... an incredible headache."

She still felt dizzy, and the awful taste of bile was filling her mouth, making her want to puke more. She choked it down... and noticed the sound.

"Can you hear that?" she asked.

"No..." Rebli replied. "Hear what?"

"The voices..."

She could hear voices coming from somewhere, but they were so faint... there was definitely more than one, but she couldn't really distinguish any of them...

She looked over at Rebli's terrified face.

"Come on. We should get you back to a Girls House."

They walked slowly in their heavy coats along the cliff edge, the sea to their right and the city to their left. There was a seaside Girls House that the beachcombers used - it was a little more expensive than the others and smelled far too strongly of salt, but a bed was a bed. Rebli held Luz by the shoulders and helped her walk, as she was still feeling really out of it.

It felt like the whispers were getting louder, but no clearer. Rapid panicked babbling, slow self-contained musing, guilt and self-pity, all of it disconnected and unintelligible. But... they were coming together. Luz got the feeling the voices were finding each other. They were... waiting for each other to talk. She just couldn't understand them...

"Uh, Luz," she heard Rebli say. "We might have company."

Luz could hear engines. That was never a good sign. She looked up - three motorcycles and a dune buggy were approaching them over the wasteland and rubble. They froze in place as the vehicles came to a stop twenty feet away, pointing their headlights at them.

They were coatless, cloakless and hatless. Brutal DX, one of the three gangs that ran the city, had a certain bravado about them, and that included braving the elements without protection so they could look tough. The worst part was it worked, and they somehow avoided getting ill.

"WELL? WHO DO WE HAVE HERE?" a man bellowed from the lead bike. He wore a studded leather jacket over a shirt and a pair of heavy pants, and was tall and broadly built. He got off his ride. "Some lost Magia travellers, right?" he laughed.

"Uh, yes..." Rebli said, her voice trembling. "We're just passing through!"

"Is that so?" the man said. "Well. You can go, NOW," he said to Rebli, "but Brutal DX has some business with your friend. So put her down and fuck off, kid."

Luz's eyes widened.

"Business? Me?" she asked, her mouth gaping. "But I..."

"We're protected by Magia, mister!" Rebli insisted, turning her shoulder to show them the emblem.

"And if we were in Magia territory, or if you'd stolen from shopkeepers in Magia territory, maybe that'd matter." He grinned, and picked up a tyre iron from the side of his bike, while the other gangers laughed. "But she went to Doxin Market, which is our territory, and there's a price to be paid for that."

Luz whimpered. Even if she still had the confidence to fight back, her legs were like jelly right now. The man stalked over to Luz, and barked "Get away from her!" to Rebli, before hefting his weapon and growling to Luz - "Pick an arm, drowned rat. Left or right?"

"What? No! I'm sorry if I made a mistake, I'll pay for the bun, I promise, I have credits, please..."

"Left it is," the man said -

- only to stop when a sword was drawn and held in front of him.

"Sir, I am Rebli Graay, squire to my Lady Misalon, and I challenge you to a duel!"

The man laughed. Luz looked between them in horror.

"You fantasy types are crazy," he laughed. "Always thinking people care about your titles." He laughed, and grinned again. "Fine. I can use some entertainment. What do you get if you win?"

"We both get to leave and you don't bother us again."

"Fine. I win, you both lose an arm. Agreed?"

"Rebli, no!" Luz shouted, wishing her limbs were less heavy. "You don't have to-"

"Don't worry about me, Luz," Rebli replied with a smile. "I'm gonna win." She looked back at the man. "Agreed."

The duel began seconds later, when the man tried to blindside Rebli with a cheap attack before anyone said 'begin.' She'd barely backed out of the way, raising her sword to cut toward his upper chest, but it clashed against the tyre iron and he kicked her in the stomach. It was a light hit that knocked her back but didn't wind her, and she quickly fell back into her stance and poked at his defences.

Luz tried to watch, but it was hard. The voices were getting louder and louder, always there but just outside of comprehension. She was sure they were trying to talk to her now, but something was in the way...

Geh'l waj krgh hj? Raz!
Swi hls beap he fiw?
Leh fowselthnw fucl ysw hr slcyhefo waj...

She tried to focus on the fight. Rebli was being aggressive, but the man seemed to be toying with her, swatting away strikes she was putting her whole body into. It wasn't a fair fight at all - he was almost a foot and a half taller than her, and twice as wide, and he acted like it.

Then, she pushed in close to him, dodged his hand when he tried to reach for her head, and reached up to his face with her free hand.

There was a burst of electrical magic in the rain, a ball of cracking electricity on her palm, and he backed away, clawing at his face. When he raised his weapon to strike down at her she parried it, before running her sword down it and cutting into his exposed hand. He screamed and dropped the tyre-iron and she wasted no time, raising her sword and aiming for his shoulder...

Luz gasped as his right hand grabbed it in mid-swing. His fist closed around it, gripping it so tightly it was frozen in place, with Rebli struggling to move it even with both hands.

"Nice try kid," he said. Holding the blade like that should have sliced off all his fingers, but no more than a trickle of blood was travelling down the blade. He wrenched the sword out of her grasp, and as she stumbled he lowered his head and hit her right between the eyes with it. She crumpled to the floor, completely dazed, while he transferred the hilt of the sword to his other hand. "Sorry, but I'm just more Real than you are," he said, and all the other bikers laughed.

As Luz watched, petrified and still too drained to move, he grabbed Rebli's right wrist and lifted her up by her arm.

"You know, rat? I was just going to break a pinkie. But you both agreed to arms, so..."

He raised the sword...

The voices crowded.

Lghe dy ve ws?
Woc yemgj O vesm? Kfct Hus wvu ed lhrshuvg!
Sq tvhs do hec fctkpgm wd rsm! Jwm!
Dun!
Riz!
Lhc!
Ruz!
Lut!

LUZ!

That was... King's voice...

Something changed in Luz. She could move. She felt powerful. She had claws.

She dashed, pouncing on the man and tearing at him. Anyone who had seen her hood blow down in the dark rain would have seen a white mask and two long horns. She'd bowled the man over before he was really aware she was there, rolling over and over with him in the dirt, and left him face down and stunned.

Yeah! Get him! Get those meanies! DESTROY THEM ALL!

That was definitely King. Luz didn't realize it, but her tail gleefully wagged.

The other bikers were not laughing any more. They were running at her with bats and chains, but she was on her feet, and then she was moving and pouncing, knocking them to the ground or clawing their stupidly exposed chests. She practically romped, until he heard the sound of a chaingun mounted on the back of the dune buggy spinning up...

Luz! Quick! Breathe in and -

She shouted.

WAH!

She's never seen that multicolored shockwave from this perspective before! It knocked over all the bikes, tipped over the dune buggy before the gun could start firing, and toppled the last few gang members who had been trying to advance on her.

People were starting to get back up, though, especially the leader. It was happening slowly, but steadily...

Luz ran over to Rebli, who was struggling to her feet and grabbing her sword.

Luz?

"Luz!" Rebli gasped. "Is that you? What's that thing that was running around?" She took a closer look. "... why are your ears pointy?"

"What?" Luz looked at her hands - no claws - and rubbed her ears. That was... not their normal shape...

"What's going on?"

Luz, we can figure everything out later, but for now...

"Cool Aunt Lilith?" Luz asked the air.

"Cool who?" Rebli asked Luz.

Yes, cool aunt, but I have an experiment - could you think of a wall, draw a circle with your finger, and then sweep your hand in front of these brutes?

Luz did so, drawing a glowing brown circle, and the Brutal DX members were outraged when a semicircular earthen wall sprang up between them and the girls.

"FUCKING MAGIC!" they heard one of them shout, along with a host of other expletives.

Interesting!

"Luz, how are you doing this?" Rebli asked. "You said you couldn't use magic!"

"I couldn't!" Luz responded over the din of the gangers hammering on the wall. "Not magic that would work here!"

"So what is-"

"I don't know!"

There was the sound of the chaingun starting up again. On the other side of the wall, the leader had picked it up and was holding it under one arm. He started to fire, the bullets digging deep into the wall and rapidly crumbling it into dust. Luz and Rebli hit the deck.

"Where do we go now?" Rebli asked.

"I don't know! The only way is..."

Luz looked at the cliff behind them.

"Hey," Luz asked the air, "is there a third voice in my head right now?" She heard a laugh in response, and it finally filled her with a confidence she hadn't felt in months..

Ha! I was wondering when you'd ask, kid!

Luz smiled. "If I were to jump..."

Want to grab your friend and find out? That is, if you trust me to catch you.

"Always."

Luz looked to Rebli. "Hey, we're about to try something crazy... but since we're definitely going to die if we stay here now, wanna try it?"

"I heard the word jump..." Rebli replied, her eyes wide. She glanced at the cliff face. "But, since we're going to die... sure."

They scrambled to their feet when the bullets were hitting a far away piece of the wall, ran for the edge in the pouring rain, and leapt - Luz wrapping her arms around Rebli's waist as they started to fall.

They dropped and screamed for a few seconds, the rocks and surf rushing to meet them, and then Luz spread her wings. The wind carried her into an easier descent that skimmed the surface of the water before she beat them for the first time, lifting away and higher into the rainstorm. Rebli was screaming in both terror and joy as they rushed through the raindrops, Luz's oiled feathers shedding any water that would stick to them.

Okay, now just hold your wings steady and lean to the right...

Luz figured out how to bank and turn, and started heading for the beach, gliding down to land on it... if she could... um...

"Eda? How do I slow down?"

... sorry Luz, but nobody can quickly teach that. Drop your friend in the shallows, try flapping... and brace for impact.

Luz had tumbled for about twelve feet by the time she stopped. She was sitting cross legged on the beach, admiring her feathers, when Rebli finally stumbled out of the surf and hurried over to her, absolutely sodden. Once she reached Luz, she flopped down on her back on the sands, and breathed out.

"You look scary, but cool."

I like this kid, she gets it.

"Thanks..." Luz said bashfully. "I'm still having a little trouble making sense of this, honestly. Guys!" she addressed the air. "How did you end up in my head? Why am I turning into you?"

How the heck should we know?
We're disembodied spirits possessing you, one of us is a titan, and the other two share a transformative curse, and this is all... interacting? I don't know. There are a lot of variables and we don't know anything!
It's magic!

"I'd ask you what's going on, but it sounds like you don't know either," Rebli asked.

"I've got some idea. I don't know why... but either I've finally gone completely crazy, or I've got some old friends riding along in my head."

That's us! Say hi for me!
King, Luz is trying to talk...
Yeah, we should learn when not to distract her, or she's actually going to look crazy.

"King says hi," Luz said. "He's one of them... I guess he'd be that first form I took."

"The one with the tail?"

"Tail?" Luz tilted her head.

Ooh! Let me show you!

Luz shifted, her wings vanishing and her five-clawed hands becoming thicker two-clawed paws.

Now look and see if you have one!

Luz got to her feet, a little embarrassed at the idea of a tail, and twisted around to see it... only to turn in circles a couple of times trying to find it. Rebli was dying laughing by the time she realized what she was doing, and so were Eda and Lilith. Rebli assured Luz that she did have one, and that they'd eventually get her to a mirror.

Luz grumpily checked the rest of herself out. She didn't seem to have a muzzle like King - she was wearing a skull on her head, but the nose and mouth felt normal. And she was as tall as ever. She hadn't turned into King... but into something more like if she actually was King's big sister. The same with Eda's harpy form. She had been Luz as a harpy, not Luz as Eda.

"Rebli?" she asked. "What did I look like when I had pointy ears?"

"Just like you. The only difference was the ears."

"All right..." Luz thought. "King, can you turn me back to normal?" Within a second, she had returned to a human form. She quickly pulled her hood back up to stop even more rain from getting in, though that was a lost cause.

Did it work?

"Yeah, I'm back."

"It's a relief," Rebli replied. "I think we might have been in trouble if you couldn't."

"You are taking this really well," Luz observed.

"Luz, the last half hour has been the craziest I can remember, ever. Either this is real or I have some huge problems to deal with. Besides... do you know this is the happiest I've ever seen you?" She smiled. "You've been so scared, isolated and insular for as long as I've known you... maybe now you're hearing voices, but it's like you came back alive." Rebli stood up. "I'm just happy to see it."

Luz asked Rebli for some space to catch up with the voices in her head.

"Everyone... I don't have a clue what's going on... and I suppose it's probably not good," Luz began. "But I'm so happy to hear your voices."

We don't really get it either.
But I'm so happy to see you... see through your eyes... this is going to be hard to get used to.
I think I have an idea what happened. But we should definitely talk about other things first.
Yeah! Like where is everyone else?

Luz froze a little. "They're... not here, King. They're in the human realm."

This isn't the human realm?
This is somewhere else, King. The human realm never had a sky like this.
But... why are you here?

Luz could hear the dread in his voice. There wasn't much choice but to answer.

"King... I know you meant well. And I don't blame you. But when I got 'WAH'd toward the door, it changed right as I reached it."

W-what? Bu- bu- b... that's not true, is it? I- I sent you here? Alone?

She could now hear the horror in his voice. "No King! You didn't! You were sending me home, the portal door broke!"

B-b-but if I hadn't you would have stayed with us! But you were stranded here alone? For months? Luz, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to...
King, breathe. It's all right. Luz understands that.
But I separated her from everyone! She's stuck here, because of me! I did this to her!

"King! You were trying to save me, trying to help me! I understand that!" It might not have gone great, she told herself, but who was she to judge others about that?

I KNOW! I was, I promise I was trying to, I was, Luz! But this still happened and... I... I can't!

He cut off.

"King?"

He's gone deeper into your mind, Luz. I think there's a spot back there where you can't detect us. Don't worry, I'll go talk to him. Lily, catch Luz up on what's been happening.
So... I suppose we should assume your friends are safe then?

"They're in the human realm," Luz replied, distracted and worrying about King. "If they've found mama, they're probably fine. I sure hope Amity isn't missing me as much as I'm missing her..."

At least there's that then. They're better off there than at home, believe me.

They had a talk for a while, Lilith explaining everything that had happened to the isles for the last five months. It was worse than Luz could have imagined.

"It sounds like things are terrible everywhere..." Luz mournfully said.

We would have welcomed your presence back on the Isles, Luz, but to tell the truth we're all glad you haven't had to endure it. As miserable as it seems here... home may be a lost cause now.

"So why are you here now?"

We had a plan to defeat the Collector. We could either talk him into letting everyone go, capture him again, or... as a last resort, kill him. Plan A failed, King couldn't get through to him, so we had no choice - we tried to capture him again. But he overpowered us. He felt so betrayed by King, he tore open a hole in the sky with vast amounts of unordered, chaotic magic.

Luz could hear the weariness in Lilith's voice.

I'm not sure what happened, but I think it stripped us from our bodies. I doubt that was his intent, even if he knew what his intent was in that moment. I have a vague recollection of a glowing yellow space, and... someone hurrying us out of there. But it's unclear... then we were here, in your mind.

"A yellow space?" Luz wondered. "Could it be the space between worlds?

Possibly. I've not seen it for myself. Even if it is, from what we know of it, it doesn't explain how we found our way to you.

Luz put her hand on her chin and thought. "The cubes there did show me people I wanted to see. If one of you was thinking of me... maybe it works differently for spirits?"

I don't think we have any way of knowing.

"Yeah... I guess so."

Luz was in the middle of trying to introduce Lilith to Rebli when King returned.

"I'm not mad at you King," Luz insisted. "You were doing what was best for me. I should have gone to the human realm with everyone else, instead of trying to be a hero. I won't lie, I hate it here, but that's not your fault."

Really, Luz?

"Really. You can't take all the blame for everything when you were only trying to do what's right."

I'm praying you'll remember that too, Luz.

"I suppose, maybe I should..."

Thanks, Luz...

"So, can we go somewhere and get dried?" Rebli asked. "I am unpleasantly sticky, and we're both going to catch a chill if we don't dry ourselves soon."

"You're right," Luz said, as she hopped off the bench in the shelter they were in. They trudged into the endless night and rain and into the city, Eda shocked at how in spots it reminded her of Lost Vagueness, but different and worse in every way.

So what's the plan now? We find a way back to the Isles?

"I'd like to," Luz replied. "But that's going to take a while. I've not heard anything about portals here, and I've got no way of finding someone who would know. A drowned rat like me can't just walk into the university... I tried..."

She looked up, at the world floating in the air above her..

"But I think if there's anywhere where they will know, it's up there. In the higher layers."

The higher what?
Are we in a hierarchical dimension of some kind?

"I'll explain about Reality later," Luz replied. "But they say everything above us is more advanced. If we're going to get back to the demon realm, or the human realm, we're probably going to need to get up there. And that's going to take some work."

"So," Rebli said as they walked, "now that you're feeling better about yourself, tell me a bit more about yourself Luz."

"Hm? Why?"

"I don't want to pry, but -

Oh she so wants to pry!

- you kinda kept everyone at arm's length until now."

"Okay, I guess I have," Luz admitted. "What do you want to know?"

"I don't know..." Rebli tried to think of something innocuous. "Tell me about your heroes."

Oh no.
Oh no.
It's me, right?

"My heroes? Well, there's Azura. She was a witch in a book series I loved."

Please, someone stop her!
There's no escape, except to go deeper!

"- her stories were so romantic and full of magic and mystery... they meant everything to me. And then there was Anne... who showed me magic was real."

Luz gave a deep sigh.

"She was an ordinary kid, trapped in another dimension. She didn't have the luxury of going home, not like I did at first. I don't know exactly what happened to her and I can only ever guess... but I guess she made friends, and explored, and had fun... and somewhere, started changing the world for the better... and maybe it's because she did that, that she became a hero."

She looked up at the tenement towers, the buzzing neon signage, the broken windows, the choked gutters overflowing with grime that nobody had cleaned for decades. She looked at the shuffling people - violent, closed-off, and exhausted. She looked up at the world hovering above, which would have another one above it, and another, and wondered how a perfect reality could exist at the very center of it that would permit this one to be as mean as it is.

"It makes me wonder if changing the world for the better is just something everyone should be doing, even if they're not cut out to be a hero."

Rebli looked at her from within her hood.

"Do you want to try?"

Luz nodded. "Yeah, I do."

That's my girl.

"Then let's start here," Rebli replied, pushing open the door to the Girls House. And they went in.

ACROSS SPACE, TIME, AND DIMENSION

And they'd have that perfect, slice of life date.

That it would be wonderful,

and worth the wait.

Chapter Text

BOOK / RAVIOLI / SCHADENFREUDE / NEW JOB / SHOTS

Solutions in this chapter were got by using the numbers below to pull certain words or letters out of the section titles. As a first try, this was terrible, too cryptic and poorly planned!

(3.4 6.5 4.2 2.1 v^10.1) = "DREAM"

THERE, YOU SEE? NONE OF THESE GUYS ARE ANY FUN WITHOUT ME! WHAT DO YOU MEAN BACK TO YOUR VOID, YOU - I'LL BE BACK! (no, he won't)

(2, 1, 6, 4) = "ARE WE THE ALIVE"

SHE THINKS WE’RE DEAD. BUT ONLY THOSE WHO SURVIVED DIED LIKE SHE DID, AND IT'S THEM SHE MOURNS

(7 (2,3,7) 22) = "ROT 22", this was a miserably awful clue and the only one so far not to use vigenere

HONESTLY I FIND IT FLATTERING BUT EMBARRASSING. I DIDN'T MEAN TO SAVE EARTH, TO MY SHAME I WASN'T EVEN THINKING ABOUT THAT. BUT I AM GRATEFUL TO BE REMEMBERED WITH THESE IDEALS

(2, 3, 12) = "NOT REALLY HERE"

WE ARE GLAD THAT ONE OF US IS A FREE MAN

(g"1 2 3 4") = google "AND SO AD INFINITUM" and get the poem "SIPHONAPTERA"

Because you're supposed to just intuit that 'g' means 'google it.'

Yeah I am not proud.

RIP MABEL'S INNOCENCE, OPTIMISM AND WONDER: BORN AUGUST 1999, DIED... WAIT, THIS IS OVER THIRTY THOUSAND YEARS IN THE FUTURE!

DECIPHER

(drow detaeper) = "repeated word" backwards, = "GROWNUPS" in the title

THEY WERE ALONE IN THE LIBRARY AGAIN, SURROUNDED BY STRANGERS THEY COULD NOT IDENTIFY. SOME PRESENCES FELT FAMILIAR BUT THERE WERE NEW ONES EVERY FEW WEEKS. IT NO LONGER FELT UPSETTING

(tsrif eht erofeb owt) = "two before the first" backwards = "FINALLY" in the title

"SO, HOW DID WE DO, DO YOU THINK SHE'LL CALL BACK?"

"... WELL, I SUGGEST NOT CALLING YOUR POTENTIAL QUEEN 'TOOTS'"

(tsal eht erofeb owt) = "two before the last" backwards = "BECAUSE" in the title

HE LAY AWAKE, WONDERING IF THIS WAS JUST HIS COVEN SCOUT TRAINING MAKING HIM TOO VIGILANT AGAIN. MAYBE HE SHOULD CALL CAMILA TOMORROW? OR GUS? THEY COULD TELL HIM HE WAS OVERTHINKING THINGS.

THE GUT

(WHAT I "T?D?W?S?") = "THINKDOWANTSAY" four words from a title

Everyone must submit to governing authorities. For all authority comes from God, and those in positions of authority have been placed there by God.

Romans ch13 v1

(?hcum woh stsoc ti) = "it costs how much?" = "SEVENTYFIVEDOLLARS"

I don't frogging know! I'm not Anne's 'prophet!' Just leave people alone, how's that for a commandment? Why are you even asking me? Actually no, here's one, "thou shalt love and respect all queer people." Happy? Actually, go get a pencil, I have more.

Sasha ch2 v3-5

QUEEN / LIBRARY / BURNS / PATIENCE

("shared name") = "STANLEY"

"So how much of that did you see, dude?" Wendy asked down the phone line.

"Pretty much all of it," Dipper said. "That Carlos... I'm impressed, and really glad he's here..."

"Yeah, there's something special about that guy," Wendy responded. She paused, wondering how crazy she was about to sound. "... you saw how he moved, right?"

"Ohhhh yeah," Dipper replied. "Oh yeah, do not worry, it wasn't just you. Pretty much everyone was looking at the drunk or the bottle, but I saw how he teleported."

He finished copying the security camera footage to a portable drive, and falsified a SSD failure. It'd suck that it'd be more difficult to convict the drunk, and despite not being a vindictive man Dipper really wanted to see him punished. Endangering Little Stan like that had been a step far, far too far. Dipper - and everyone else in Decipher - was suppressing a simmering anger, and if the kid had been hurt... well, it wouldn't have been pretty.

But there was plenty of eyewitness footage and statements about what the man did to convict him. And Dipper had a feeling protecting Carlos - whoever or whatever he was - was more important right now.

"So, going to take this to Ford?" Wendy asked.

"Yeah. I feel like he might want to talk."

("from frog valley") = "FLORA"

"Mayor Gardner," she'd said, "your support as Mayor of Wartwood could make all the difference when it comes to our cause."

She'd smiled at me from the opposite side of my desk. I wonder if she thinks she's pretty? There's an innocent air to her, cultivated and developed to seem reasonable, fair and just. She's drawing on people's ideas of what they think Leif was like. I can agree with a lot of what she says. It's always been obvious that frogs have been lower than the toads' toes, and the newts had both frog and toad under their tails. We've been promised that change is coming, but it's coming more slowly than it should. And this 'flower' here wants to fix that.

But I grow tulips. I know what kind of sweat and shit goes into growing a perfect flower. And what I see here is a tulip with perfectly formed, vividly coloured petals, and a poisonous bulb beneath the surface.

This one wants to replace the newts with us, and make us the new newts. And while thoughts of revenge are always going to be tempting, they're not ones I or the people of Wartwood want to follow.

So I'd not said anything, and shook my head. And she'd left for Lily Paddington disappointed, promising she'd be back.

("the chat") = "FAMILIA

MAMI: HUNTER!
MAMI: Are you all right?
MAMI: <link to news article about the firebombing at the Heron enclosure>
MY_COPY_IS_TYPING: 😲
DAWN: Oh my titan!
MY_COPY_IS_TYPING: This looks serious! 😨
DAWN: Mami, I think this might be all right.
DAWN: It says no-one was seriously hurt.
DAWN: And that a heroic park ranger saved a kid.
MY_COPY_IS_TYPING: I think we can guess who...
MAMI: Hunter, I'd really love to know you're okay.
MY_COPY_IS_TYPING is typing

 

(21 lines later)

 

MAMI: I can't believe some lunatic would do this.
GRIMM: Guys I'm okay. Sore but okay. 👍
GRIMM: Please stop blowing up my phone. 😩
MAMI, MY_COPY_IS_TYPING, and DAWN are typing

FINDING A WAY

The solutions here were a bit of an ordeal, involving looking at the tags for Three Transmissions on AO3 and using the numbers to look them up. You also had to replace certain characters' names with the reactor that was named after them, for example Anne > Alpha

(forty-seven + three + four) = "THEWARNINGSAPPLY"

Terri fumed. Neither they nor X had any idea what this Decipher group's problem was, the message they'd got from them had been so evasive and almost paternalistic about their motives that they couldn't imagine it was simply "we don't like portals." Somebody there had something to hide, in their opinion. Sure, interdimensional travel was a risk, but it was one everyone at project Leif had judged was worth taking! And now they were being undermined by some shockingly-competent anonymous weirdos who thought they had the right to limit humanity's scientific and cultural development out of fear! Never mind that they were attacking the only group researching portals who were even trying to do it ethically! What the hell gave them the right?

"X, I want that turbine back," they said. "That's a million dollars of our budget vanished!"

"Believe me I am working on it," Mr X replied with some sass, his eyes fixed on his laptop's monitor. "Unfortunately, whoever they are, they're extremely good at covering their tracks, and the BOWI had some unforgivable security shortcomings they exploited. I told them to get rid of the self-driving technology months ago but it was just disabled on the driver's screen! Well... now look where we are. We're caught with our pants down and they took off with our," - he started to sing - "generator, generator, generator..."

Terri lightly slapped his bald head.

"It's not funny!"

"It is finally funny!" he retorted.

(five + forty-one) = "ALPHAHARASSMENT"

"Wait a minute! YOU! You must have known about this! Why the hell didn't you tell me?"

Spoilers!

"Oh, don't give me that!"

Look, it's not like you're imagining.

"Then what is it? I should have known you'd keep secrets from your protegé."

(concept of ears perking up) You're agreeing to be my successor?

"No."

You may as well. If it's about being normal, you should know that on a multidimensional scale your life has been barely one five-hundredth of a percent more unusual than the average human's. Honestly I think more strangeness will do you good.

"Why didn't you tell me I still have powers?"

(concept of feline sighing) Look, I'd rather not tell you. Watching Terri figure all this out has been fascinating, and I'm really rooting for them. I just know they're going to get it eventually!

"Are you serious? This actually is about spoilers?"

Okay look. I'll tell you this much - I didn't tell you you had powers, because you didn't have powers.

"Until I did get my powers back, and then you didn't tell me?"

That was because I thought it would be funny.

"UUUUUGH!"

This is a noise humans make when they find things funny, right?

"NO!"

(twenty-three + sixty-one) = "ORIGINALAMPHIBIANS"

Waitwaitwaitwaitwait, did they think he had a crush on Polly?

That was, haha, that's just nuts? Right guys?

Right?

OHFROG

(seven + seventy-three) = "SIGMASYMPATHETIC"

She'd been disappointed when Grime hadn't been there, but that wasn't surprising. The old toad was almost certainly far away, and possibly doing something important.

There was no surprise in the fact that she missed him and couldn't wait to see him.

But as she lay awake at night, she did find herself surprised that she was already thinking of Mabel in similar terms.

(forty-two + forty-three + forty-eight) = "MASSDEATHFUTURE"

When Ford needed to think, he would go into the workshop in Decipher's headquarters, and look at the store of more esoteric equipment. Some they'd found, like the ghost labyrinths and the sadly malfunctioning tape measure. Some they'd earned, like the Tingana beans and scavenged alien artifacts from all over the world.

And some they'd built, like the Bill Box.

It brought him comfort to know that when some idiot tore open reality and allowed something that shouldn't be here into our world, they were ready.

(fifty + fifty-four) = "MINORCAMEO"

She hurried down the neon-flooded streets, hood pulled up, rain bouncing off her oversized coat. Puddles splashed beneath her feet as she weaved between the girls advertising bars who were freezing in their skimpy costumes, their cudgel-carrying guardians, the street vendors with their suspicious hotdogs and delicious baked potatoes...

Under the coat, she held the bao bun to her chest and she did not stop. An outraged stallholder was shouting in the distance. If she could find a quiet corner, she could finally eat.

SHE HATED IT HERE.

ALL AROUND PROJECT LEIF THEY HIDE

(C G P >Z< DC) = "CHUBBY" as in Chubby Z

From her bed, Boscha gave Maya the stink eye.

"So they're tracking some people we've never heard of, and Wolpaw found a rock they love? Come on, I'm sure you can get better dirt than that?"

Maya just looked cute.

"Okay fine, you can have the wood seeds."

(catalyst for change) = "THREEARMIES"

"Beg pardon? What did you say? They actually wrote more about finding a weird rock than me, one of the main characters?"

"Oh Hoppy. I know, it's not great, but I'm sure they have something planned for later. Besides, didn't Polly already cover most of what you'd be saying?"

"That's a dang good point! What do you have to say for yourself, kid?"

"It's first come, first exposit old man!"

(give her...) = "TRAMADOL"

Doctor's Log - Dr Sarah Fine
Patient - Boscha Trio
Date: 6/04/2030

I suppose it's right that I should feel humbled. Not for what I cannot do, but for a lack of faith and an assumption that I know best. Being skeptical about 'magical' healing might be justified when you're a family physician trying to treat patients who insist the man they saw on the internet knows better, but in an interdimensional research facility where we are one portal away from all kinds of improbable things, I need to learn to have more of an open mind.

The fact is, today I witnessed my patient accelerate the healing of her surgery by a matter of weeks, despite clearly having minimal medical training. There's no question, if we can understand a fraction of how Boscha's magic works, the repercussions for healthcare could be transformative and an incredible boon for humanity.

Obviously any research must put Boscha's welfare first. Firstly, from an ethical and humanitarian standpoint, her informed and consenting cooperation is crucial. Secondly, from a practical standpoint, she is the only witch we have and the only one we will ever have.

I shall prepare a proposal for Director Sampson. This is too important an opportunity to not be carefully considered.

(name of the sacrifice) = "JOHNNY"

Do not mourn me, I have no sense of time, or expectations about where I am headed. I simply exist, and in that existence my journey around the hard, magnetic core of this planet shall be an endless subterranean adventure.

(leader's surname) = "THOLOMULE"

Just a few nights later, deep in the library, they were exploring the new shelves. The presences of real people were distinct from the recreated memories and beliefs that appeared sometimes. Tonight, they came across ten people and a griffin sitting around a campfire.

"Wait," the brown one said, "you're telling me she thought she was the weakest link?"

The light blue one spoke up. "I'll admit, I never used to like her. We knew her for a long time, since she used to visit the manor, and we never had a good impression of her back then." They nodded to the yellow one, who continued.

"And it's true that it was her fault that all the faculty got captured. But she's not the person she was back then. We all saw it."

"I could tell, she felt like she couldn't fight them as well as me," the red one said. "But we'd have been doomed without her. The truth is, she was the pacemaker. She was so determined to make up for her mistake, we were all scrambling to keep up with her. She pushed every one of us to be our best."

"X̶̰̰͆ ̶̙͑e̸͈͊ȁ̵̢̖͌r̸̟̤͘q̸̜̜̂̕s̸̛̮͚ ̴̹͙́ě̴͚͆ė̶̗̜p̶̫̭̽ ̶̲̊̕i̷͕̍x̷̦̄͠q̷̭̹̐h̸̘̾͐ ̶̩̺͛y̸̯̒̋ ̴̧̛ḃ̴̟̋p̸̡̖̍p̵̜͑s̴͓̋́g̸̥̮̔̀ạ̴̊́c̴͎̯͊͘,̴͓̣͌" the orange one fondly said. "X̶̘̂f̴͗ͅf̵̣̕ ̵̼̓m̶̻̑k̵̺̒ö̶̧́s̸̠̋ć̴͓ ̵͍́x̶̢̍m̸̪̓r̴͎͊ ̸͎̆t̵̉͜m̵̳͝c̷͚̈́ ̸̢͘f̵̭́z̷̼̓s̷͓͠í̸͖w̵̠̏c̶̼̚ ̶̹͘s̶͔̄q̷̥͠ẕ̸͠s̸̩̑t̵̤͝l̵̨̈ ̵̲̇x̵͔̃t̸̨́x̷̤̋ ̴͇͑Ì̴̬ ̴̳̔i̸̯̓g̶͈̒ę̴̀ ̵͇̓i̸̧̊g̸̟̒a̵̰͝y̷̰̽ ̸̗̊G̵̬͒ ̴͍̍ẽ̴̹u̴̡̅ć̷͖,̸͕̂ ̴̟̎ạ̵̾s̵̪̚b̸̘̉ ̸̹̑e̶̜͛q̶̗͘ḍ̴͒p̷̣̀ ̶̼̊í̶̲m̸̲̀x̷̡̽z̵̦̍ ̷̖̇H̶̩̓'̸̺͝l̴͈͒q̶̜̈́ ̴̝̿l̸͉̕f̴̼̾h̷̲́ḏ̶̇r̶̳͝ ̷͉̕q̶̫̓c̵̭͑u̷͖̐ ̴͎̑ṭ̶͌d̸̞͂r̷̝̅ ̸̦̈́ḱ̶͈m̶̞̉s̷̪̽s̷̥͂d̵̢̽t̸̲̒ ̴̳͝n̶̪̽ȓ̷͜.̷̀͜" They happily scratched the head of the griffin. "V̸̖̑u̶̯̾'̶̳̎y̷͌͜ ̵͇̄ś̵̭q̷̬̔w̶̙̉ ̴͙̇u̵̢̐f̸̣́x̴̼̃ ̶̭͝x̷̫̂f̴̧̈́f̷͕̊ẙ̴͖u̸̞͝ ̵̻́c̸̼̋ẅ̵̲́ ̶̟͆b̷͚̿p̷͓̆ë̵͎f̵͕͆ ̶͓̐o̷͚̎f̵̗̈ ̷̧͌y̶̧̚s̶͔̈́v̸̧̀t̶̺́ ̴̯̓s̴̥̒ẁ̷̜x̴̘̌d̸̙̉ ̴̰͘ň̵͇g̵̢̀ź̵̮w̷̹̌ẇ̷̤ ̵̢͒l̸͓͌ẙ̴̘m̷̱̽.̷̠͑"

"I can't believe she thinks it's because of me that she didn't scream," the dark blue one said, sounding a little shocked. "I was panicking and making a mess of it! And I've never seen someone bite down harder on pain. She knew a single whimper would doom all of us."

"I just want to remember her flight through the boiling rain," the green one said. "All of us told her not to, that it would be suicide, but she flew for two hours through boiling rain at night, while maintaining a shield spell over her, because it was our best chance to get past the spies and to the titan's toes for more nail salt."

"Yeah," the brown one proudly said. "Without her, we'd have run out of water long before we ran out of food."

There were various murmurs of agreement. But of course, the person had no idea who they were talking about.

(her flying comforter) = "CLOVER"

As Willow was preparing for bed, she got one last private message.

RULERZREACHF4N: Hey Willow.
RULERZREACHF4N: I just wanted to say thanks again for telling us, and for taking the risks you're taking.
RULERZREACHF4N: You're the best and bravest of us.
Hello_willow: Hunter... that's a lot, but thanks.
RULERZREACHF4N: Have you made any progress in your mission?
Hello_willow: Not yet. I've not really had an opportunity to get close to him. Maybe if I was working at HQ it would be easier, but being assigned to Project Leif... well, he doesn't come down here.
RULERZREACHF4N: I see.
Hello_willow: But like I said, being assigned to Project Leif had its advantages... and I might be getting a new assignment soon.
RULERZREACHF4N: Good.

There was a pause.

RULERZREACHF4N: Willow... I need to ask. I don't think Boscha would know anything about the coven heads... but has she told you anything about the other Emerald Entrails?

She froze, toothbrush mid-brush. The other entrails... Skara... and Viney.

She wished he hadn't asked.

She just couldn't. Despite what she'd told Amity, she replied with -

Hello_willow: No, nothing specific.

And she wondered when she got so dependent on secrets.

DINNER AND A FIGHT

(the shoe's owner) = -ob- -eterm---ed = "TOBYDETERMINED"

The girl put pencil to paper again - she'd messed up the last one, she didn't have much practice drawing, but she was ready to try again.

A circle, as perfectly round as you can make it. Four circles in a stack inside it. An up and down wiggly line and a straight line on the left side of the circles, and the same but the other way around on the right. Then, finally, an up-right diagonal line through the second circle, and a down-right diagonal line through the third circle...

She was amazed when she put her hand against it and the paper ripped itself to tiny shreds, winds twisting around her and throwing it around like confetti.

(her true nature) = "BASILISK"

Scrub scrub scrub...

Standing over the RV's sink, she ran her hand under the running water, scrubbing at her fingers and claws with a hard brush.

"You've been doing that for half an hour," Amity said, setting down her phone and standing up from her bed. She walked over and gasped when she looked at her hand. "You're losing scales!"

"I can regrow them!" she replied. "It's fine."

Scrub scrub scrub..

"I just really, really hate the idea of having his blood on me."

"I think you're fine," Amity replied. "Look, I wiped the worst off, we washed your hand, we practically bathed it in disinfectant, and we used cleansing magic as well. You didn't have any cuts on it, and the thing didn't break the skin when it bit your boots. I think you're fine."

She nodded. She was glad she'd chosen to wear real boots and not just form them from her own body.

"Hey, Vee?" Amity said. "Look... congratulations on finally stopping it. You did good today. Mom’s going to be proud.”

Scrub scrub… scrub.

“I didn't mean to do it... I panicked and did it out of instinct,” she admitted. “But thanks… and I’m glad I did.”

Chapter Text

STRENGTH AND CONVICTION

"Ford, I've been meaning to ask you about somethin'."

Stanford Pines looked up from the book he was studying - a handwritten diary of his own notes on dangerous and parasitic dimensions. Stanley had pulled up a chair as they waited for Wendy and the two young men who would be visiting them.

"What can I do for you, Stanley?"

"You sure we can't think twice about those Leffs?" Stan asked. "If they don't find a place they're in real trouble..."

Ford sighed.

"Stan, it's nice that you're so... generous, but I thought we'd discussed this." He didn't say naivé.

A small family of five Leffs had arrived near the northern state line with Washington. They were short and bony aliens whose arms knuckled around the ground as they ran, a long mane of wiry hair sprouting from the back of their hyena-like head and extending down their back. They were strong, hard, and in Ford's experience an extremely violent people that were predisposed to clear-headed murderous action as soon as it suited them. None of the half-dozen or so that Ford had met in person during his travels had parted with him without attempting to murder someone, and three of them had been aiming at Ford.

So the second he heard some had arrived seeking sanctuary on Earth, of course he'd emphatically said no. In Decipher's opinion most aliens were welcome on Earth, but certainly not Leffs.

"We can't condone dangerous aliens on the planet," Ford insisted, picking his book back up. "You know this!"

"Sure, but are they really that bad?" Stan protested. "They swore up and down that they're different!"

Ford glowered at his brother. Sure, the Leffs had said that. They'd been wearing colorful shawls that they said meant their new religion forbade killing. Ford was skeptical about that - sure, religions that forbid murder were common enough, but he'd never heard of a Leff religion that wasn't knife-centric.

"I'll reconsider it if I ever see some evidence of it, Stanley," he snorted. "And frankly I'm more worried for whoever is supposedly after them, they'd be safer dropping twelve beehives."

Ford narrowed his eyes at his brother, who was grumping. "What's this about, Stanley? You've never cared about this before."

"I dunno." Stan waved a hand. "Guess I'm just a bit less crazy, and call me crazy here, but I'm a bit less crazy these days about us being the cops who get to decide who comes to Earth." He quickly turned to Ford. "What gives us the right, huh?"

"Can you think of anyone who is more qualified?" Ford asked, leadingly, and Stan sighed.

"... not really, no. I get it. You're the best expert we have on everything multiverse."

"Then you don't trust my judgement," Ford asked, challengingly.

"Woah, hey, no," Stan quickly replied, no doubt looking to avoid another argument. "I just don't know if two guys in their eighties should have total say on who gets to live on Earth."

"It's a daunting responsibility," Ford gently replied, turning back to his book. "But what's the alternative? Let the government do it? At least when we turn away an alien they get to leave. The damn FBI... sorry, 'BOWI,' would have their babies on a dissection table within the hour."

He shook his head. Decipher had seen the unredacted, classified records of the time the FBI had caught the Amphibians who came to earth with Anne Boonchuy. The man who'd led that interrogation now worked closely with Project Leif. It made him sick. And then there was the strange behaviour of Director Sampson, and the chilling reports he'd heard about an 'Agent Fairway...'

"We're the ones who're most qualified to do this, we're the ones who know it even has to be done, and we're the ones who can handle the responsibility. We can let someone else do it when somebody competent appears," Ford said, finally. "Until then... we'll train Dipper to handle it."

"Geez, put a lot on the kid, why don't you... oh wait that's nothing new."

Ford was just about to snap at Stanley when GIFfany interrupted them to report that Wendy was on her way with some visitors. They'd dropped the conversation at that point.

But Stanley could never help but feel like sometimes when his brother said 'we' he meant 'I.' And he took a little bit of pleasure in Anton noting that it sounded like only Ford got to decide who and what were safe.

THE PROTECTION OF EARTH

'Carlos' and 'Anton' hadn't told the twins everything, of course. They’d left out information on Belos' return, that 'Rosa' was working for the BOWI, and that 'Alba' and 'Luz' were travelling the country. They certainly didn't mention Vee's true nature, glossing over it and claiming they used an illusion to make her resemble Luz when pressed.

Stanford had leaned back in his chair, scrunching up his eyes and interlocking his many fingers.

"A portal all the way over in Connecticut... for decades..." He sounded a little pained. "Possibly centuries." He looked up at Stanley. "It's incredible that it's taken this long for problems to arise."

"Sounds like we all got really lucky," Stanley agreed.

"It's not luck," Anton insisted, leaning forward. "I know humans have problems with the word 'demon' but the Demon Realm has always been peaceful and left the Human Realm alone." He narrowed his eyes. "In fact, I know it's not your fault, but it was a human making it to our realm that started all these problems."

Carlos cautiously nodded, worried about antagonizing the two older men.

Stanford deeply sighed. "... I can believe it, unfortunately. So. Your situation is that five of you are stranded here, a friend of yours is lost in an unknown dimension, another of your people is being held captive by the BOWI, and your home has faced a possible extinction event at the hands of a still-extant mad god-child." He leaned forward onto his desk, clasping his hands in front of him. "Gentlemen. You have my deepest condolences, and my sympathies. None of this should ever have happened, or could have happened without dimensional travel. Unfortunately there's not a lot Decipher can do to help you with most of that."

"Nothing?" Carlos asked.

"You have to understand, the purpose of Decipher it to protect Earth," Stanford insisted. "With no firm knowledge of this Collector's abilities or weaknesses, opening the way to your realm and potentially letting him come here is far too great a risk."

"You said you'd killed a godlike being before," Carlos replied. "Wouldn't that work again?"

"We may be one for one when it comes to defeating gods, but Bill was defeated by his own hubris and..." Stanford began, before faltering.

He paused in his words and looked down at his desk, rubbing the top of his head a little. Stanley echoed him by awkwardly adjusting his remaining hair. Carlos thought he saw Stanford glance at his brother, before finally continuing with -

"... and a great man's selfless courage. It was a moment of inspiration and improvisation that played into Bill's main weakness. It very nearly involved a great sacrifice, and we can't be sure it would work on this Collector."

"How did you do it?" Carlos asked again.

"I'm not going to discuss it. Let's just say it's a last resort, and a much worse choice than avoiding the situation in the first place."

"All right," Anton reluctantly conceded. "What about finding Luz?"

Ford had to sigh again.

"Gentlemen. I'm sorry. But take it from someone who was lost in the multiverse for thirty years - it was a trillion-to-one miracle that I was found and returned that quickly."

"How did you do it?"

"I returned to the exact point I needed to be at at the exact time my brother activated the portal here. It was a confluence of chance that still beggars belief." Ford did look genuinely baffled at his incredible luck. "I can only ascribe it to some kind of twin telepathy we're otherwise blissfully unaware of, because the concept of being mentally linked with this guy is horrifying!" he continued, attempting to lighten the mood with a joke.

Stanley chuckled, but it otherwise didn't land. Ford sighed and pressed on.

"Carlos, Anton... I am truly sorry, but you have to understand the sheer scale of the multiverse. Without an incredible stroke of luck, even with a hundred portals checking a hundred dimensions a day, you are not going to find your friend quickly! Even if you find the right dimension, are you finding the right place and time to see her, or the right people who can point you toward her? I'm afraid I don't think you are."

Carlos and Anton's hearts sank heavier and heavier as Stanford talked. They glanced at each other. They could tell what the other was thinking.

"No..." Carlos conceded, "We're not. I mean, if all we had was a portal and Luz was lost in the human realm, it would be very difficult to find her if all we could do was open portals in random cities."

"Multiply that difficulty by a million for all the realms out there, and you have your problem," Ford concluded.

There was a long, grim, silence as the younger men considered this. Anton put his head in his hands while Carlos closed his eyes, and they both thought.

"I'm sorry to be blunt," Stanford added once the silence became too much. "But..."

"We get it," Anton insisted. "We understand what you're saying." He looked up, his eyes screwed into a glare. "So you can't help us go home, and you can't help us find our friend. So what can you do? What are you good for?"

"Well..." the old man replied, a little taken aback. "There's the matter of your kinswoman who's being held by Project Leif. We'd be happy to help free her."

"Boscha?" Anton scoffed. "Let them have her..."

Stanford and Stanley gaped at him

"Let them have her? You can't mean that, kid!" Stanley interjected, while Stanford glanced at a name on the Amphibians' capture report again.

"You'd leave her to be dissected on the orders of a man called Mr X?" he disbelievingly asked.

Anton cringed. "Well... not dissected..." he uncomfortably replied.

"They've got history," Carlos clarified. "I don't think Anton really means that," he added, giving him a look.

"Well, we can help free her," Stanford offered. "And then there's... I know it's a lot to ask, when we can't help you with your world. But if there's anyone on Earth you care about, Decipher was created to protect them. To keep the disaster that struck your home from happening here, or us becoming the disaster for anywhere else. If you think that's a worthy cause... we could use your help."

This brought about another long, drawn out pause, as each man thought to himself.

Anton was frustrated. He didn't know if he trusted these old men, or their motives. They spoke a lot about protecting their world but seemed happy to let everyone and everything else go to hell as long as theirs was safe. He was sure they'd get in the way of finding Luz if they could. And he, Gus Porter, could tell when someone was hiding something - with an illusion or otherwise - and he was sure they hadn't got the whole truth out of them. While he cared about what happened to the human realm... the demon realm was important to him too. He wasn't prepared to give up on it.

Besides, there was the problem with Wi...

Carlos, after some thought, looked up at Stanford and said "I'm in," and Anton's jaw dropped.

"What?"

"Excellent," Stanford said with a smile and a nod. Stanley was grinning. "Welcome aboar-"

"One second please," Anton said, grabbing Carlos' shoulder and hustling him out of the room and into the corridor. They moved several feet away into a dimly-lit dead end and Gus turned on Hunter.

"Titan, Hunter! What are you doing?" he hissed.

"OK, look, I get it..."

"Get what? Hunter!" Gus almost spat at him. "These guys are suspicious as hell and definitely dangerous, they aren't going to do anything for us, they're just going to get in our way!"

"I know, I heard everything you did!" Hunter spat back. "But they've not told us they won't let us do anything! They've said we can't! And we both knew that before we came here!"

That froze Gus in his spot... it was true. The incredible enormity of the challenges ahead of them was something everyone in the familia had considered... and nobody had found an answer for. They'd searched and researched for nine years, and found nothing... not a single suggestion that any magic existed in the human realm that could track Luz or return them home.

"Gus, I'm sorry. I really am. I'm sorry about your dad, I'm sorry about Luz, I'm sorry about everyone we left behind", Hunter continued, raising his voice a little. "But have we, at any point in the last nine years, had any sign we can do anything about it? We've not."

Hunter had grabbed Gus by his shoulders. When Gus looked into his eyes, he could see his brother's dejection all over his face. He wasn't dismissing this or taking it lightly... he was genuinely sad.

"Stanford is right. All of this happened because of portals. And we don't have any idea about how to undo the damage that's been done. If an idea ever shows up I'll completely eat my words, but right now, is there any hope for that?"

Gus looked down, and shook his head. "No..."

"Then we have to do what we can here. We free Boscha, and keep this realm safe for all the people here we care about." Hunter looked into Gus' eyes. "For Camila, and Vee. For the guys who gave me my first job, for all your friends from school, for all those kids who watch your videos... for everyone here who's treated four lost kids so well."

He backed off - letting go of Gus - and turned away from him, his head hung low.

"Earth, and Gravesfield, and this town... Gus, these are the only real homes I've ever had. I can't let them go the same way as the Boiling Isles. It's almost happened at least twice, and the Pines' are right - there can't be a third."

Gus breathed deeply.

"You're right. I wish you weren't, but you are."

"Gus, if we find a way to get your dad, I will help -" Hunter started to say, but Gus held up a hand.

"I know, hermano. I didn't think you wouldn't. Neither of us are giving up on going home or finding Luz... but I understand why you might think this is important. But Hunter? I think you're forgetting about someone."

Hunter shook his head.

"I'm not." He sidled up to Gus, and lowered his voice. "These guys really hate the BOWI, and Willow..."

Gus nodded. "Yeah. Willow."

A few minutes later, the two younger men returned to Stanford's study.

"I assume you've come to a conclusion?" the older man asked, clearly on the edge of his seat. Anton and Carlos looked at each other, and Anton was the first to speak.

"I'm out. I'm fine with protecting Earth, and I guess with Decipher in general, but maybe you noticed I'm kinda famous." It was a good excuse that covered up his misgivings.

Stanford nodded. "We understand. We have lots of supporters who can't be public about it." He looked at Carlos. "And you?"

"I'm in," Carlos said, straightforwardly. "With some conditions."

"What are they?"

"We have a friend who works at the BOWI. I want you to guarantee her safety."

That got them. Carlos saw both of the twins' eyes widen as they tried not to recoil.

"You have a mole at the BOWI?" Stanley asked, incredulously.

"Your investigation didn't turn that up?" Anton asked. "I thought you knew everything."

"Rosa Parra," Carlos said. "You might have seen her before in a movie."

The two old men were shocked again.

"The agent who fought Anne Boonchuy?" Stanford asked, flabbergasted. He quickly leafed through some papers. "Your adopted sister... Rosa Parra. The most recent information on her we have is that she's a botany student! You're telling us she's now a special agent?"

Stanford was red-faced and embarrassed. She had the same surname and everything. He couldn't believe nobody had made the connection and investigated more - it just hadn't occurred to him that an interdimensional refugee could possibly be working at the BOWI!

"Well this is surprising!" he eventually managed.

"What the heck is she doing there?" Stanley asked. "Oooh. She undercover?" he asked, curious about whatever scam or scheme had placed her deep in the heart of Project Leif.

"I can tell you," Carlos said, "but I want two things in return. Firstly, I want a promise that Decipher will try to not hurt her if it comes to a fight."

This led to a lengthy pause. Ford slumped back in his chair.

"That's a tough promise to make," he said. "We can try, but our agents have to be able to defend themselves. What if she, or her allies, are about to hurt them?"

"Tell her Hunter wants to play with the Entrails."

"That some kind of messed-up passphrase?" Stanley asked, screwing up his face at the mental image..

"She'll understand what it means," Carlos replied.

"Is she an informant?" Stanford asked. "Could she be a saboteur? Can we officially bring her into Decipher?"

Carlos shook his head. "We can only talk to her when she's able to talk. We can't contact her without risking blowing her cover - and we cannot risk blowing her cover by asking her to do anything dangerous. There are secrets in the BOWI we have to know, for the sake of Earth, and she's how we're getting them."

Stanford growled to himself a little and rubbed his eyes. It was getting far too late for this much stress.

"Fine. I'll commit to this - all Decipher agents are not to harm Rosa Parra. Can you tell us anything about why she's there?"

"I will if you agree to my second request."

"Shoot."

"I want to know how you would kill a god."

Stanford gave Carlos a wry smile.

"In case your own one shows up? I've explained this organization is for avoiding that. What are you planning, kid?"

"Nothing. But I want to know you have plans for the worst case scenario." Carlos smiled at him. "And from what I've seen so far, I expect that you do."

Stanford chuckled.

"You're bold, I'll give you that." He wheeled his chair away from the desk and started to bring it around to them. "Carlos, we've both kept secrets from each other, and if you hadn't thrown yourself into the path of a firebomb to rescue a kid, I might be throwing you out now. But as it stands, I think I can trust you. So sure, why not." He chuckled again and wheeled past them, toward the door. "If you're going to be one of us, fine, I'll show you how humans kill gods."

They left the room, Stanford rolling his wheelchair and Carlos and Anton following behind him. They both noticed that Stanley hadn't followed them. Stanford talked as they travelled through the corridors.

"Bill couldn't be killed by conventional means. Not a single weapon humanity has was effective, and my own shot with an unconventional weapon failed. Our only option was tricking him."

He led them into a murky storage room, filled with shelf upon shelf of relics and knicknacks. Little paper labels were tied to everything, and Anton noticed the "Sotharan Dagger," the "nanomolecular phantom chain" and a bottle labelled "Grim Libations." A row of cardboard boxes sat on one shelf, each containing "assorted relics" of high, medium or low potential.

"Bill could enter people's minds," Stanford continued, stopping near the middle of the room and turning his chair in the cramped space between the shelves. "He never once imagined it, but that was where he was the most vulnerable."

"I can believe that," Carlos said. "I've been inside a mind before. They're places of power for their owner."

"You've been inside a mind?"

"Once," Carlos admitted, not exactly wanting to relive the experience. "And I researched the magic behind it a lot."

"Hm. Maybe you can help us refine our approach then," Stanford wondered.

"Oh, I'm not an expert..."

"Ah. Well, regardless. The way we defeated Bill was by tricking him into entering the mind of a volunteer..." Stanford began, and then a terrible weight seemed to fall onto the old man - one of shame at his powerlessness and desperation - "... and completely erasing that volunteer's memory."

Carlos and especially Anton recoiled.

"You... sacrificed someone?" Carlos asked.

"You wiped their memory?" Anton asked. He did not think they could tell Willow about this, ever. Or Amity for that matter.

"It was his idea, but I still made the call to allow it, and... I assisted," Stanford said regretfully. "I allowed a man who I loved and should have respected so much more to destroy everything that made him who he was to save the world. And it worked."

He carefully looked over the two aghast men in front of him. Of course, he wasn't going to tell them Stanley's memory recovered. That wasn't something they could count upon working for anyone else.

"You can see why that would be a desperate last resort. Not something we can easily repeat."

"Well, yeah..." Carlos admitted.

"It's... a lot to ask," Anton added.

"Well, that's why we have this."

Stanford reached out and placed his hand on a long, rectangular box, about the size of a PC case. It was bare, apart from a trio of lights - lit ones marked power and ready, and a dimmed one marked inhabited - and a trio of large buttons - catch, dispose and release. The lit power light glowed an unsettling orange in the dark.