"So yeah, this is definitely a portal," Masha said as they closed their spell-induced third eye. "If it weren't for being absolutely blinded by the Titan's blood I probably would have noticed last time."
Everyone, that being Masha, Vee, Luz, her friends, and her mom, was at the bank of the flooded cemetery, near the stone arch. All of the witches who weren't Luz were wearing life jackets just in case, as even with a crash course in swimming lessons nobody was super confident in their swimming abilities, and drowning in icy cold corpse water was a hell of a way to die.
With Masha's confirmation, Luz moved in, her eyes blazing with magic as the witch used her own spells to examine the structure. "Yeah. This is it... This is the way home but... We know we need to use the Titan Blood to power it but I'm not seeing a receptacle or, or like a hidden switch or anything to turn it on..."
"It can't be as easy as just pouring the blood on it, can it?" Masha asked.
"It might be?" Luz noted. "A lot of stuff in the demon realm is a lot more straightforward than you'd think and this issupposed to be a 'crude' portal... Belos must have used this to go to the demon realm in the first place so maybe I'll figure out how it works as I finish absorbing the knowledge the palisman souls gave me but, like, who knows if and when that'll get integrated?" Luz asked. "Yesterday I just knew the glyph combo for lightning conjuring which, you know, nice. It's a lot more efficient than just smashing light glyphs together, that's useful... And then this morning I woke up with the knowledge of a construction spell whose only purpose is to help make really tall layer cakes."
"...I can see the value in a spell like that," Masha admitted.
"Fair, but like... Last week I just spontaneously knew five spells to enslave a ghost and like when am I ever gonna use that?" Luz continued. "Anyway, portal..." Luz turned back to her friends. "Any thoughts?"
"We could try the hamsterwheels and the generator again?" Gus suggested. "That almost worked."
"Yeah, but it also caused a fire," Vee pointed out. "And um... Stone doesn't burn. It crumbles or explodes so if that happens again we're down a portal and on the hook for vandalizing a historical landmark."
"Yes, please. The last thing any of you need is a criminal record," Luz's mom added.
"I mean..." Luz began.
"That isn'twith a tyrannical government that's probably disbanded," her mom replied. "If it's an evil government then as long as you can do it safely you can rob a bank for all I care."
"We might hold you to that," Luz replied back and Masha silently noted that Luz and Vee had the coolest mom.
Hunter approached the arch, Flapjack on his shoulder, and he began poking around the arch. "Flap? Do you know how this works?" The bird tweeted something and Hunter hummed. "He says he only came through here a couple of times, and Evelyn was always the one to open it. He knows that our vial is just enough to get through once but that's it."
"So we finally get the time to bring everyone out here in a way that's safe and supervised and all we've learned is that we have a way home that we don't know how to use and if we guess wrong with experiencing we're screwed," Luz said, her mood clearly souring. "That's just great."
"Hey, progress is progress," Willow said cheerfully.
"Yeah, yeah, sorry," Luz replied. "just, really frustrated right now... Hey, myblood is Titan Blood now. I don't think it's as strong as Papa Titan's blood, but if we spill some on the arch and get a reaction, we'll know where's on the right track."
Luz then immediately pulled a pocket knife and flipped it open, startling everyone. Mrs. Noceda moved like Quicksilver to grab her daughter by the wrist. "Mija, maybe we should save any plans that need you to hurt yourself as a last resort."
"...Okay," Luz said with a blink.
"And if it does come to that there are better ways to get your blood than cutting yourself," her mom continued.
"...I was only gonna prick my finger and... Oh," Luz said as she began to blanch. "No, that, not a... It wasn't a, wasn't a... That was a 'me getting ahead of myself' thing, like the book report, not a... I wasn't gonna hurt myselfhurt myself... I'm sorry."
Luz's mother let go of Luz's wrist and calmly said "It's okay."
"No, it's not," Luz replied while folding the knife. "Of course, the girl with depression acting crazy and then pulling a knife while talking about her blood is gonna set people off and, think and think... I'm sorry. I didn't mean to scare you like that."
"Mija, no. I didn't... Okay, part of me was worried about that," Camila began, "but mostly I was just worried that... you're clearly frustrated, and brandishing a knife and making plans that involve using it is not a good thing to be doing when you're upset regardless."
The older woman sounded sincere but Luz didn't look convinced. "Would you like to hold on to the knife?"
"No," Camila replied. "I trust you, but if you think I should hold onto it I will."
Luz seemed confused about how to respond to that and ultimately just pocketed the knife.
The atmosphere was tense and awkward but Masha had to ask: "Luz, are you okay?"
Luz started to answer, stopped, and then continued: "No, but I will be. Um... Look, I've been having a bit of a rough morning, and this... The frustration of being so close but so far kind of pushed me over the edge for a minute but I'm over it and I'll be fine by tonight."
Tonight. The big night. "Luz, are you anxious about tonight?" Masha continued. "Are you... Not ready to talk about Philip? Because I never wanted to put you on the spot or pressure you and—"
"It's fine," Luz interrupted.
"Because it's not too late to back out."
"I said it's fine!" Luz shouted. She paused for a moment, took a deep breath, and then continued. "Sorry for shouting it's... Okay, yes. I'm a little anxious about tonight. This is... Laying down everything about Philip to everyone in town is scary, in a way I've never felt before, but... I want to do this. And I brought it up in therapy, Professor X thinks that if I'm willing to try then it'd be a good idea. I mentioned how I thought doing it might give me some closure and he agreed that it might... Tonight's probably gonna be a rough night but I've got a support group meeting tomorrow and people are coming to town for the festival and to hear the story..." Luz paused for a moment and then hissed "Fudge!"
"What now?"
"The people I called, about... If they might be interested in checking out the festival... I called the Pines. Dipper and Mabel both said that they'd try to come but Stan and Ford can't make it... They need tears from an autumnal fae princess who can only be summoned in a specific grove in Oregan and only on All Hallow's Eve becuase they have, and I quote, 'gotten word that the Krampus wants revenge for what happened forty years ago, and thanks to the Holiday Creep the month of November can't be counted on as buffer time to prepare for his attack.' It's apparently a 'whole story' that involves President McGucket so... Anyway," Luz continued, "I called them and... Forgot to ask them if they knew anything about the journal!"
Oh yes. The mysterious journal that the 'shady cosmic entity' who'd twice appeared in Luz's dreams and interrupted her walk down the Witches's Road had left under Luz's pillow. Luz had done every diagnostic she could think of on it, looped in Masha to run their own diagnostics, and once they confirmed that the book was in and of itself entirely mundane and therefore safe to handle brought in the rest of Luz's friends to try and decipher's it's contents because the entity was up to something either way and while reading the book might lead them into a trap it's also their only bet for figuring out what they were up to.
Everyone had their own theories about the journal. Masha, for their part, was pretty sure it had something to do with Ford, citing the six-fingered hand and his connection to the town of Gravity Falls but Luz didn't want to just assume that any given thing with a six-fingered hand she stumbled across was a related to the one guy with polydactyly she knew even if they were both from the same town and his family was their only lead.
Of course, if the journal was tied to Ford, then that would almost certainly mean that the cosmic entity was the one they summoned to try and open the portal door. The one that was supposed to be dead and in prison... the one who empowered the one real witch in off all the women killed in Old Gravesfield. The one who had Doctor Strange so spooked that he wanted a containment circle cast by two sorcerer supremes and a literal god before summoning them in either a weaker state...
Masha had wanted to just ask Luz flat out if the entity was this Bill Cipher but they didn't know how to respond if the answer turned out to be yes.
Anyway, Luz was now beating herself up, verbally speaking, and Amity, ever the supportive girlfriend, immediately pulled her into a hug and began reassuring her. "Look, if they're here tonight you can ask them and if they're not you can always call again tomorrow and... You know, this doesn't have to be our responsibility," she continued. "Worst case scenario we could just give the journal and what we've figured out so far to like, almost any of the adults we know and they'll probably handle it."
"Yeah, that's true" Luz admitted. "Things would be so much easier if I could just remember that I don't have to do everything myself more often."
"Okay, so um... Executive decision," Masha said. "We're probably not gonna get much more done today vis a vis the portal. Now that we've confirmed it works we can come back and experiment with it at our leisure so let's just bail for now and come back later when we don't have as much on our plates and more time to think clearly and until then just... Relax until it's time to get ready for tonight."
Everyone quickly agreed to that and walked back across the ice bridge Luz had conjured (the remains of the last one had long since melted.) Luz and Amity made a point to lock arms as they did so, and soon enough they were on the path through the woods back to Old Gravesfield, and from there Masha had to split off from the group as their preparations for the night's festivities were a little more intensive.
TLOA
Halloween night brought a cold chill on the autumn breeze, marking when the living world and various afterlives aligned, blurring the divide between reality and the supernatural. This season, rich with morbid associations and eerie happenings, made Masha's little gothy heart sing.
All the preparations were done, and the festival was underway. Most events were in Old Gravesfield, but Storytime was in the Town Square this year. There was a set schedule, and people began congregating in the square as the time approached. Right now, Masha was just hanging out with Luz and her friends. They were mostly milling about, waiting for it to be time to take their places, so Masha took the opportunity to approach Luz.
"You okay?" they asked.
"I'm fine," Luz replied and she sounded honest. "I put all my feelings in an entry in my video journal, took a nap, got GF cuddles, and drank some dairy-free dark chocolate-based hot cocoa that I rehydrated with coffee instead of water. Part of me feels like I accidentally drank some milk, and... Part of me just wants to get this over with, but I'm fine and I'm here to do this."
"It's still not too late to bail if you're not feeling up to it," Masha reminded. "You've got the option."
"No. I'm here. I'm gonna do this, and then I'm gonna go home and probably collapse," Luz replied. "But I appreciate you leaving the door open."
"So are you sure that my witch costume isn't offensive?" Masha asked.
"None of them seem to mind," Luz replied, "and frankly I wore something much more stereotypical on my first day on the isles... Until I realized it was a bathrobe and a filthy traffic cone."
That got a snorting laugh from Masha, who then checked their phone for the time. Seeing there was still time, they then checked back just in time for a circle of light to appear in the center of the square.
Luz's friends and family immediately congregated near them as five figures manifested from the circle: Magik, clearly playing chaperone, one of the Parker girls, and Luz's evil ex-crushes.
The three locals got their bearings and immediately tried to walk off, but the chaperone stopped them and made the whole group approach the people already there.
"I texted before we came," Masha heard Clara say, "My parents are already in Old Gravesfield."
"And until I had you off to them you're my responsibility," the eldest mutant present said, "so you can cool your jets."
"Hey, April," Luz greeted warmly. "Glad you could make it."
"Hey Luz, Hey Luz's friends," the other girl greeted. She then looked directly at Amity and Vee. "So the rest of my family is still kind of ticked off for some reason but preparations for the Halloween Superhuman Poker charity event took precedence so you're probably off the hook."
"Cool," Vee said at the same time as Amity quipped "I will never understand the human realm."
"So who's in the game?" Luz asked.
"Well, there's my Dad, Mr. Stark, Loki, Mr. Grimm is a staple at these games, and then there's the leader of that clan of gargoyles that turned up when that one retired supervillain had an actual Scottish castle cut apart and rebuilt into the top floors of his skyscraper back in the 90s," April finished.
"You know," an echoey, slightly distorted voice from the sky said. A moment later three glowing, armored figures touched down. Then the glow and armor vanished and all that was left were Luz's three friends from her support group. "I swear I saw a picture of him in an old book I read in Amphibia. Anyway hi, I'm Marcy," the Asian girl said while extending a hand toward April, "these are my girlfriends, Anne and Sasha. We met a while back when a whole bunch of people showed up to help Luz but we were never properly introduced."
April hesitated for a moment and then took Marcy's hand. "April Parker, or you can call me Mayhem."
"Oh, if we're exchanging made-up names you can call me Wit," Marcy replied.
"Strength," Sasha added.
"Heart!" Anne replied. "By the way how adventurous are you when it comes to food? Because I brought chocolate-covered crickets." The Thai girl then shifted her eyes to Luz. "Dark chocolate. Dairy-free."
"I grew up exclusively eating protein bars and vitamin pills so, like, I'll try anything once," April said with a shrug. Clara and the other locals who had come with Magik flinched a bit though if it was at what April had gone through or at the thought of eating bugs.
Magik nodded to the teen. "Okay, I should probably go hand off these three so... Mayhem, you okay alone?"
"Yes ma'am," April replied.
This seemed to set Clara off. "Why are you leaving her without an adult!?"
"She never kidnaped anyone," Magik replied.
"Didn't she try to murder two people?" the black girl... Suzy, if Masha recalled correctly, asked.
"Get your facts straight," April interrupted, "I tried to murder one person on two separate occasions."
Clara proceeded to make a 'case in point' gesture with both arms, to which Magik scoffed. "She has extenuating circumstances. Also I just kind of like her better." April noticeably bristled.
The adult sorceress then proceeded to walk off, with the three locals quickly scrambling after her.
"So are they notfriends of yours?" Marcy asked. "Er um, anyone here? I recognize two of them from that dance competition where um, you know..."
"They're locals who go to school at the Institute and they'll be expelled if they flunk my dad's ethics course," April replied. "Apparently they picked a fight with some other kids and then kidnapped a girl when she got hurt? I'm guessing that was Luz since I walked in on the tail end of an argument between her and them once."
"Yeah, that was me," Luz added. "They're um... So I used to have crushes on each of them for what I now understand to be shallow and superficial reasons and they did notlet me down gently. Um, not at the same time," she quickly clarified. "A few months ago they got offended that I was happy and had a girlfriend who loves me while they're all single and one thing led to another... Anyway, that's the night we learned that witches are technically human."
"...Do we even want to ask how that's all related?" Sasha asked. She then looked toward April. "You okay? You looked kind of sour a little bit ago."
"I don't like being reminded that the only reason I'm alive and free is a mixture of pity and nepotism," April replied. "But it's fine, I'm here to support a friend and hear a spooky story. Speaking of which" she turned to Luz, "sorry the rest of the girls from the club couldn't make it. Molly and Klara got invited to the Strange Academy Halloween party since Molly's guardian works there, Pei had something to do with her dad, and Gabby's doing something with her family too. Some guy called in a favor from Logan for help with... something about the Krampus."
Luz looked like she wanted to say something, she even raised a hand to start, but then thought better of it. "It's fine," she said instead, "There are a couple of other people who might be coming and—speak of the devil."
Masha looked around but didn't see anybody for a bit, though they did see April give Luz an approving nod and smirk. Shortly, however, a group of three twenty-somethings approached. Masha recognized the two brunets as the younger pair of Pines twins but the... unreasonably beautiful blonde woman who was just a little too dressed up for the festival, in terms of the quality of her clothes.
Luz stepped up and waved them over and they approached. Masha checked the time again. They were cutting it close but still had a little time.
"Hey Dipper, Hey Mable," Luz greeted warmly. "Glad you could make it."
"We both have pretty open schedules," Dipper admitted, "and well the history of old, supposedly haunted small towns is right up my alley."
"That and you're a friend," Mabel added.
"I'm actually writing a paper on this exact topic," Dipper continued. "Like, not this town specifically but history has a tendency to parallel itself. Lots of small-town heroes turn out to be villains of some stripe," the blonde woman nodded, "and a lot of them turn out to be supernatural and... I'm getting ahead of myself, you don't want to hear me go on a nerd lecture."
"Ten years ago he would have been lecturing you for an hour," Mabel continued," and then laughed awkwardly for twenty minutes when he realized you'd gone glass-eyed in the first ten minutes."
This was met with sarcastic laughter from Dipper and... a gentle giggle from the blonde. "You can't exactly blame him for getting a little ahead of himself. He got his masters a year early and he was published in Scientific American last July, he's got all the reason to be proud of his research."
"Ooh, you're published?" Marcy interrupted. "July's issue and... No way, are you MasonPines?" She asked.
The grown man blushed like a child. "Should not have used my real name. But yes."
"The Mason Pines who helped quantify in the categorization of the sliding scale effect where-in cosmic quantum particles are found in unnatural concentrations among those who'd histories possess atypical narratives and inconsistencies with objective time p to and including delayed senescence and rarely bilocation among individuals with strong associations with occult, psionic, or otherwise supernatural phenomena?"
"I'm sorry, were there any words in that?" Mabel asked.
"It's the reason we got older but Stan and Ford didn't," Dipper replied. "The sliding scale effect was first postulated by Dr. Richards in the mid-90s when he realized he was too young to have fought in a war he had clear memories of serving during, Most people don't notice but there's been a lot of exploration of possible causes from both a scientific and occult perspective and while I was helping Grunkle Ford go over some of his notes on the theory I had something of an epiphany and did a bit of research, one thing lead to another but, you know, shoulders of giants and all that. Anyway," he said while very clearly trying to change the subject. "Mabel and I met you all at the thing but you don't know.," he made a show of presenting the blonde woman: "My wife, Pacifica!"
The so-declared woman gave a wave. "Hello."
"Please tell me you took his name," Luz said suddenly. "Please. The alliteration alone would be..."
"Yes, I took his name, I'm Pacifica Pines, but... Not for that reason. Or for tradition," the woman said. "I took it for... Oh, you don't want to hear this."
"I do," Luz insisted. "I love backstories."
"Okay well, partly it was becuase it would tick off my parents," Pacifica started. "They were, um... Well, let's just say that they at one point literally had me trained to respond to a bell, like a show dog, and leave it at that." That made things uncomfortable quickly. "And partly becuase, well, my ancestors are all kind of... awful. There's a literal mass grave of my 'famous' ancestor's victims and it only got worse over time."
"You know," Mabel interrupted, "now that I think about it isn't it weird that we didn't really have much of a reaction to realizing we spent a month living on top of a bunch of dead lumberjacks?"
"I think accidentally causing a small-scale zombie outbreak was more pressing and then we had other stuff to worry about," Dipper answered.
"Anyway, my ancestors built a massive fortune on the blood and tears of others... I benefitted from that, so some of that blood's on my hands if only by association. I've been trying to be better, better than them and the person my parents wanted me to be, and taking a different name is kind of like a promise to keep doing better, you know. Especially since Dipper's the one who helped open my eyes to how awful my family was and helped me take the first steps to change."
Several members of the demon realm contingent looked at Amity. "What?"
"Nothing just... Seeing some parallels," Willow noted.
"Anyway," Luz segued. "I actually had something I needed to ask about when I called to invite you to this and... Masha do we have time?"
Masha checked again and shook their head. "Nah, we should really be taking our places. People are gonna start showing up any minute now."
"Okay, I guess it'll have to wait until after the story then," Luz said, "So um... Get good spots while you can, everyone."
And with that, everyone took their places.