Back To Gravity Falls: Beware the Beast (Multiverse Crossover)

Out For Blood

They all slunk into the room eventually, each one more exhausted than the last.

Wybie fell asleep with his clothes on the moment he sat down, too tired to even exit the room to change.

Dipper and Norman did not talk about what happened in the room earlier, partially due to embarrassment and partially due to a foreboding feeling on both their sides of it, they fell asleep quickly their backs barely touching in a sense of comfort.

Coraline fell asleep easily enough after putting a short ponytail on her head to ease her morning hair routine for the next day.

And with that, no one saying their goodnights, the room fell quiet.

Frogs and crickets talked noisily outside, the wisping of trees an occasional break in pattern as the night wound down. Normally, the lull of nature (that they experienced so little in their suburb in California) would relax her and lull her to sleep, but now it just felt oppressive to Mabel.

Mabel, last one awake but still exhausted, wondered and fretted about her dream. She had seen those things in her dream, hadn't she? She didn't misremember them, right?

She couldn't remember them clearly when she had woken up then but she remembered them in detail now. The thing she saw had been a black sphere (almost like a crystal ball), shining a refection in the light above, it looked like a shiny, mirror-smooth type of stone--

Obsidian, maybe? she thought. 

Those animals seemed familiar too, but she couldn't remember exactly what they were. She remembered the look of it morphing from one shape to another in quick succession.

But what animals were they, again? She counted them off on her fingers: A snake, a turkey, a jaguar, a moth... Woah-- Holy shit, she thought, jumping out of bed.

Ignoring Coraline's sleepy grunt in protest at the movement, she swiftly (but quickly) bolted down the stairs. She saw Tezcatlipoca in her dream, before she was aware what forms he took. Reinvigorated by her sudden fear-triggered adrenaline, she tore through Wybie's notes muttering to herself.

She was startled by the light flicking on with Wirt looking worse for wear, but an amused expression on his face. "Have an epiphany?"

Once her heart calmed from the shock, hand over her heart, she managed a half-hearted smirk, "Absolutely. You'll think I'm crazy, but yeah, it's a big break."

"Aren't we all crazy? We're the primordial example of nutcases, don't you think? A bunch of kids, and in my and Wendy's cases young adults, trying to stop some creature-thing that's murdering a bunch of people-- researching with the help of folktales, outdated college textbooks,  and rambling journals." He sat on the couch beside her, trying to adjust his knobby legs under the coffee table, narrowly avoiding knocking his knee. "So what's the deal?"

"I think this god, Tezzy, or whatever-- was in my dream. Better yet, I think he was trying to contact me somehow."

"You think a god-- who's a couple thousand years old at least-- contacted you, personally, in a dream?" Wirt poorly veiled his skepticism, expression exasperated.

"Why do I hear doubt in your voice?" Mabel pursed her lips in irritation, squinting at him. She knew she sounded really out-there right now, but so is everything else going on at that moment.

"I believe you-- I do-- it's just..." Wirt sighed, thinking.

Wirt took a breath and laid his head on the back on the couch, a small raised scar showing under his jaw that Mabel never noticed before. It looked like it must have been gnarly before, but was nearly healed now.

After a moment, he continued. "Just... Wow. Uh, how do you plan on getting in contact again? I mean, is he... a Good Guy in all of this mess?"

"Honestly?" Mabel laughed, "Beats me. Need to get a decent internet connection and look up some Aztec mythos. Only place in Gravity Falls internet seems to be reliable is the library and they lock most websites. It'll be a treat getting through that. Wikipedia hopefully still works, though."

"It will," Wirt assured. "How else would any kid in town avoid reading books for essays? Cliffnotes are irrelevant nowadays."

After a few moments of silence, Wirt closed the book gently on Mabel's hand and whispered in his perfected only-want-the-best-for-you big brother voice and smiled knowingly.

"The computer lab at the library doesn't open for hours. Get some rest. You'll need it."

Mabel wanted to object but nodded, knowing full well that Wirt was right. All the notes that could have been compiled so far have been compiled, no point in running in circles.

She made her way slowly upstairs, giving a timid wave to Wirt who nodded in acknowledgement and went back to bed.

As she fell asleep, she wondered, what is the connection of Tezzy to the rest of it? It doesn't fit. Something is missing.

...

Gregg was the first to start walking around the inn after Mabel and Wirt's talk. At just after sunrise he was already wide awake and looking over the stuff Mabel had wrote on her own notes as well as Wybie's and felt a surge of interest. Sure, he didn't understand all of it, but a few things stood out in his mind.

His mind, young but perceptive, felt he may be on to something. He waited until Wirt trodded out of his room to wake the teenagers when his voice carried across the room in a way that echoed slightly in the modestly furnished room.

"Wirt, So-low-tull is coming. I can feel it."

"So-low-- wait, Xolotl? Are you sure?" Wirt asked, looking over his younger brother's shoulder in hopes to see whatever his little brother was seeing.

"Mhmm." Gregg nodded, "He knows we're after him. He's scared."

"They're just kids, how is he--"

"Because they've done it before. Mabel and Dipper did."

"How do you know that?" Wirt asked, holding his brother by the shoulders and looking with concern into his brother's eyes.

Per usual, Gregg seemed unphased and shrugged his shoulders, "I eavesdrop when I'm bored."

Wirt, unamused, but not going to scold his brother, set his priorities to alerting the others. Despite his brother's naïve nature, his instincts were good and if he insisted this Xolotl was coming, he was sure that was the case. Everyone was woken up, groggy but understanding and took the news somberly but without meaning. They had just woken up, after all.

It took getting dressed and halfway through walking down the stairs when Dipper lost his balance and leaned heavily on the railing as the realization hit him.

"Xolotl... I know who it is."

"What do you mean who?" Mabel asked, before it began to dawn on her too. Her face went sickly pale.

"He called himself that, didn't he? When we defeated him... He said he would be back, that Xolotl would be back." She had to fight a wave of nausea as she leaned on Norman for support.

"Bill Cipher is back..." Dipper clarified, "and clearly he's out for blood this time."