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

Xolotl's Red Dawn

The lot of them ate breakfast in silence, each quietly thinking up their own plans for how to go about this now. Time was sifting by very quickly and while they slept, Bill's new form could have easily stabilized. This wild beast, which was murdering the locals in small magnitudes, was clearly an accumulation of power. Then, once stable, who's to say he wouldn't go back to his old tricks? The room was quiet enough to hear a pen drop.

Mabel setting her dishes in the sink had made them all flinch wordlessly, "I'm going to the library, get some final information. Hopefully, Bill didn't kill enough citizens to warrant closing the place."

Dipper looked at her as if she grew another head from her neck, he never heard his seemingly-unflappable sister talk like this. However, given the circumstances, he sympathized with her bitterness.

"Sure, Mabel. I'm going to call Gruncle Stan and Ford today, want me to pass a message?"

"Tell them to leave town, if they want some peace and quiet for once." Mabel was unusually foul, going upstairs to grab her bag and the notes they'd made with a spare notebook and pens.

The room was quiet, awkward, as they poked at the remains of their breakfast. None of them really wanted to go out, so they silently opposed leaving the inn and stayed firmly planted in their seats. Mabel was the only one who was frustrated enough to squash her fear and thicken her skin.

"I've got my phone, keep me updated." She muttered, leaving without another word, slamming the door behind her.

She used to love sunny days; the warmth of the sun on her skin, the sound of animals flitting about their daily lives, and everyone going about their business. However, as these days dragged on, it seemed to get more and more quiet with the life draining wordlessly from the town. She hated it. She resented the sun now, which reminded her less of pleasant warmth, but of sunburns.

The maple trees seems faded and dreary, and the streets themselves nearly empty. Clearly, it seemed the town was minimizing outings to save themselves from a death by the hand of an unnamed Beast, a god thirsting for blood. No one could see the connections their little group did, and how could they, it's not as though their similarity was a visible thread to connect them.

...

The familiar library, small and cozy, with the scent of the nearby shops emanating the assorted scents of baked goods, gave her a sense of normalcy. That is, until she stepped inside.

The library, ran by a skeleton crew, and a tired-looking woman with loose clothes and unkempt hair sitting at the desk in a daze.

Her websearch was much more successful than she had initially planned, but still seemed to not have nearly enough information for their purposes. Her search was now a battle for survival, not historical interest. Not enough information to be found, and so much seemed to overlap that she took notes that she read aloud as she went to keep it all straight.

"Quetzalcoatl and Xolotl, twin sons of the virgin Coatlicue, are mythic foils of each other in every way. Quetzalcoatl, the godhead of the wind element, the dawn, as well as, arts-slash- crafts, and learning-slash-knowledge. Also, as the patron god of the Aztec priesthood, he is generally considered a true benevolent god who by the religions standards did not typically require forms of sacrifice in exchange for aid.

"In contrast, Xolotl is the godhead of the element of fire, the evening star, death, twins, monsters, misfortune, sickness, deformities and the underworld. Dogs, were to this god, a form of psychopomp who were believed to lead the soul on its journey to the underworld.

"Tezcatlipoca, brother of Quetzalcoatl-- wait a second-- what?" She stopped in her tracks.

None of what she found thus far had created any real connection with the three before, and Xolotl is not listed as a brother of Tezcatlipoca. After more research, she found the discrepancy: Tezzy was a Mayan god, Xolotl an Aztec god, and Quetzalcoatl was both due to the overlap in culture. So, by human standards, its brother versus brother (and half-brother, somehow). It made their tension make a little bit more sense, but for the sake of staying on track she went back to writing her notes.

"Anyway... Tezcatlipoca, brother of Quetzalcoatl," she wrote, "the patron god of warriors, also stood as the godhead of the night sky, ancestral memory, time, and the embodiment of change through conflict. He was depicted as eternally youthful, in line with what he represented to his people, sometimes holding an obsidian orb or mirror."

A link caught her eye, referring to number symbology. Upon glancing through it, her heart sunk a little: 3, the number of gods involved in all this, represented sacred war; and 5: her, Dipper, Coraline, Wybie, and Norman, representative of rupture and overcoming.

She didn't bother to write those down, her mood depleted. The sound of the thundering library door as she collected her things drew her attention, and what she saw nearly made her bowl over in surprise: Gideon.

He looked... different. It's all she could think to describe him with, other than the fact he didn't look like such a brat anymore. He toned down his flamboyant and bitter attitude, clearly, she thought as she watched him interact with the librarian. He seemed more reserved now... polite, humble, even.

Gideon turned, finally noticing her, and a tentative smile lit up his face, "My my, Mabel, just as pretty as ever."

Mabel blinked furiously, what the hell?

Gideon, making his way to her, seemed almost cute in the way his hair was swept back as a callback to his younger days but less over-the-top and nearly normal. The thought of him being attractive, even remotely with their age difference, made her squirm.

"Oh, hi, Gideon. My brother said he saw you, that you're... living in the woods now."

"I wouldn't say that," he chuckled, his upper lip curling in a grin. "I am on the Northwest property, technically, so it's not as though I live in the thick of it."

Gideon's charm unnerved her, partially due to the sheer personality gap between the boy she knew and the one standing in front of her, and partially due to the fact that this dumb kid managed to stay alive in the same exact neck of the woods the murders happened. A few miles, sure, nothing he would come across but definitely in the crosshairs. Unless--

"Do you have a girlfriend-- Or, well, a boyfriend or something? I don't judge." Mabel asked, point-blank.

Gideon's lightly-tanned skin turned firetruck red in an instant, "N-no, that's not something I really, ha," he chuckled nervously, shifting gears to a joking tone. "Asking for a friend?"

"All the victims were virgins, and we think Bill has something to do with it, I'm just wondering how you're still kicking." She muttered suspiciously.

Gideon got a dark look on his face, mirrored in hers, as though they shared the same thought: Bill-- or Xolotl (as Mabel and the others have come to know him)-- possessed him once, who's to say he wouldn't do it again?

"See you around, Gideon." She pushed past him, leaving him behind as the large door slammed loudly behind her. She exhaled sharply, and maybe her suspicions were right-- the thought was terrifying.

----
A.N.

Sorry for slower updates, everyone!
Just, with everything going on, and personal matters, I barely find time to write. But! We're near the end! Get stoked, my dudes!