Symbols ~A Gravity Falls Fanfic~

Good. Great.

Eliza POV

So, that was awkward...it was nice, but it was awkward. When isn't it awkward? How could it have not have been awkward? I'm a freak. We all are, really, but how many griffin children do you know?

We heard a car door shut and the basement doors opened. There were my parents, their ears and tails exposed like we were in our home dimension. It was odd not to see Mom without her bandana or sunhat; and with Dad without that Australian hat he bought at that yard-sale in Ohio.

"Hey, sweetie! How's the 'cure' coming along?" Mom asked, that Wendy girl trailing behind her. Wendy had her head turned towards the entrance, mystified by the Shack's wreckage, I suppose.

"It's not happening," I said dryly.

"She still looks great, though!" Mabel chirped, throwing her arm around my shoulders. My hair, or more so my mane, got in her mouth. She didn't pull away to get it out of her mouth - she just made spitting noises.

Mom smiled, and Wendy turned to face us: "Whoa, you look...sick!"

"Thanks?"

Wendy was wearing black tank top with her usual flannel tied around her waist. "So, what's this about a demon?" she asked the twins.

Dipper stepped forward and explained everything he could about the wheel and Bill. Wendy seemed fairly accepting of it all. However, I couldn't quite understand how she hadn't been dropped yet. Nor could Dipper, apparently: "...so, you're the only symbol Bill hasn't hurt or even gotten a hold of. I just...how is that exactly? Where have you been during all this?"

"My cousin got married and we raised a barn to celebrate. It's Corduroy tradition. We had no clue this was happening until your girlfriend's parents found me." Wendy pointed a thumb at Mom and Dad, who were talking in hushed tones near the elevator. "So, what can I do to help out?"

No one had a viable answer to that. No one seemed to know what to do. 

Stephen and Stan had a quick exchange of words and left after we came out of the portal. Their reunion was touching but nothing much came from it. They hugged, Stan remarked how young Stephen looked, and they hugged again. After a short handshake with Soos and a hug from Mabel, they left, instructing Mom and Dad to find Wendy. Stephen said nothing about anything else before they left, so we were all left at a loss as to what to do.

I took a step forward. "Bill's body is fully restored, but, the last I saw of it, but there's no life to it...not yet. With Dipper, Stephen, and I alive and free back in this dimension, he's lost several symbols he dropped. With us 'lifted,' I guess, his abilities are lessened or something - they have to be! Heck, he probably can't bring his body into this dimension. We're probably fine." I can't say I knew what I was saying but it sounded somewhat...decent. "Right?"

We all exchanged looks, expecting the ground to shake and erupt in flames with a humanoid Bill bursting out of them in song and dance. Yet, nothing happened. A couple of car doors slammed from the surface, but that wasn't the "excitement" any of us were looking for, surly.

Stephen and Stanford came down the steps, an odd contrast in age painstakingly visible between them. A thirty-something year old man and a sixty-something year old man - a set of twins. Stephen now wore a pair of glasses similar to Stan's, a little thicker rimmed and a jagged crack vertically stretched across the right lens, somehow defying their age difference and highlighting how similar they were to each other.

"Alright, everyone who's anyone is out of Gravity Falls. Couldn't get Bud ta leave without a fight, though," Stan said, Stephen trailing behind him.

"So, you threatened that I would use 'voodoo magic from Wazaloo, the 19th dimension of Zorg.' What even, Stanford? That sounded like something straight out of the Twilight Zone," Stephen noted. He approached the elevator. "And it really freaked him out. Do I want to know why?"

"Mm, I'd say no." Stan glanced at me. Scratch that, he flinched at the sight of me. "Yikes, you still look horrible."

There was a twitch in my wings after a spiteful chill ran up my spine. He hadn't directly spoken to me once since my parents pulled us through our portal device. A grudge still boiled within me, recalling how he let Bill take me. "I could say the same to you."

"Watch it or I'll make you an exhibit when this is done with."

I prepare a rebut, but Mabel placed a hand on my shoulder and shook her head. "This isn't the time for this, but you guys need to get along. We're all friends and family here! Nothing to worry about! Nothing to fight about!"

"What is wrong with this thing?" Stephen hit the elevator panel a couple of time and stared down the elevator shaft. "Work! C'mon." He sighed and looked up the shaft, placing a hand on the door closest to him. He turned his head halfway in our direction. "Please tell me no one is downstairs."

Dipper teetered on the heels of his sneakers. "Soos, might be down there." A metal-on-metal bang echoed from below, and Dipper's face straightened into a why-do-you-do-this-to-me expression.

The elevator groaned and the doors tried to shut again. Its gears ground together and screeched until the entire lift plummeted to the ground. It crashed loudly and dirt puffed up the shaft as a result. The doors opened and the sensor dinged like the elevator had just stopped on our floor.

Stephen immediately leaned over the edge and shouted, "Uh, Zeus! You okay?"

"It's Soos, and I'm good Mr. Stephen! I think I can climb up the shaft walls like a man with spider sticky-ness infused in his skin." I was up for seeing that, so I walked over next to Stephen and peered down at the handyman as he climbed over the wrecked lift. "Nngh. Nngh. But what would you call such a man? Nngh." He was actually doing pretty well. Dipper and Mabel squeezed in to watch the spectacle, too. "Whoa, the dirt's a little slippery here, heh."

Stephen lowered himself onto his stomach and extended his arm towards Soos. "You're almost close enough to pull up! Be careful and just move until you can reach my hand!" Mom cupped her hands on Dipper and I's backs and told us all to back out of the way. Dad knelt down at the edge next to Stephen and waited to help as Soos got closer to the surface.

The ground rumbled and Mabel and Dipper instinctively clung to each other. "D-dudes!" Soon yelped.

"We've got you, just hold on!" Dad shouted.

Stan practically scooped up the twins and just ran up the basement stairs. "EVERYONE OUT, NOW!" Mom grabbed my wrist and drug me outside, my eyes stuck on the guys trying to help Soos. Dad and Stephen had him on his feet at the vacant shaft's edge and they all sprinted like madmen to the stairs. Behind them, a plume of purple shadowy matter gushed from the lab and into the basement, giving them a final shove into the dirt. What purple goo had touched them stained their clothes a cough medicine maroon.

The matter covered the ground and became lighter and near translucent as it shifted from its water-solid (dare I say jello-like) to a whipping smoke. We backed away from the Shack.

"Thought you could get away from me, huh? Just because you escaped my beautiful mind and the wonders of death, huh? You know what, you meatbags are all the same!" Bill's slim human figure climbed the stairs, a cane held behind his back. "First, you ruin my life." Dark clouds swirled in the sky, and lightning crackled. "Then you think you can fight back against me? I've come too far to be defeated!" He rose his hands up, creating a massive earthquake, breaking the grass into jagged pieces that fell and rose at random. "WHAT ARE ANY OF YOU GOING TO DO? YOU'RE ALL WEAK! I AM BILL CIPHER AND I AM GOING TO BURN GRAVITY FALLS TO THE GROUND. FIRST, THIS CRUMMY TOWN THAT KILLED ME, THEN THE WORLD!" He broke out into a maniac's laugh, sending lightning bolts at trees and buildings. Whatever the bolts hit instantly combusted, taking but a few seconds to explode afterwards.

We all scrambled into our respective vehicles as the ground continued to break. I was almost to the truck when a lightning bolt struck down in my path. It caused a powerful explosion that sent me flying backwards and singed practically every hair on my body. The heat prickled my skin like a sunburn.

"I DON'T THINK SO, LLAMA!"

Bill snatched me out of the air. Tight in his grip, I felt the bones in my wings crackle.