#puppets plants or robots it falls the same in my brain

[blaster-aichi]

Cardfight!! Vanguard Extra Story IF 17—19 things

feat some overdue screaming

IF 17

said overdue screaming

Without the context of epi 19, Kourin’s reference to original memories stands out as incredibly peculiar. Miwa’s response, while fitting for anyone else, could have an entirely new meaning after the revelation at 19′s conclusion, we’ll get there in theoryland.

Never knew needed Kai-kun working part-time jobs but it has become a huge need, thanks writers.

That’s gay. But it does suggest that the possible ruptures in IF’s reality aren’t isolated to Shin and Kamui in the previous episode. It would be nice to see any other instances from the possible ripple effect.

pre-19: “oh this face is a mood”. post-19: “different character but hmmmmm”

With all the Legion Mate comparisons floating around from the get-go, Naoki’s method in tackling his regret is an intriguing choice against his past efforts. In Link Joker, Legion Mate and the second half of the manga/Reboot, Naoki’s objective was to make for his inaction going forward and earn Aichi’s forgiveness. If given the opportunity to go back and redo things, he may have taken it, though having heard from Aichi personally that he’s thankful for everything and everyone that he’s connected with as a result of how events played out, Naoki may not have had the heart to do so. Without that talk, it’s natural that, instead of looking ahead and atoning, Naoki’s turning backwards, it’s a neat contrast.

The series has always built up the relationship between Aichi and Blaster Blade but the relationship between Kai-kun and Dragonic Overlord is so precious, it’s a shame that it wasn’t delved into prior to the past couple of years. The notion of evolving circling the both of them is incredibly fitting, with the history they’ve had in both continuities and the duality of their approaches. (It might have been occupying thoughts a lot since, the scene was so poignant).

Between his soldiers attacking during their first (onscreen) attempt to reach the root of the problem and Emi’s subsequent admission, props to Aichi for isolating it and cutting it off to anyone that tries to interfere, hoping it’s a part of any explanation to his reality warping (assuming it was him, until today, it seemed the only viable reason).

The comparison between Naoki and Kai-kun had me believe the former might join up with the main party as a nod to being there by the latter from beginning to end of Legion Mate, being both characters harbouring regrets (if Kai-kun were to regret that his IF life takes away from the happiness of the Outside World characters).

I just really, really, really love this scene. That is all.

Bless for highlighting the irony in the KaiAi units being adversaries.

Did I mention this is joint-favourite IF epi with epi 7? It’s not, it is and here’s one of many reasons why.

Reason #57 why: the battle choreography.

“Aichi Sendou isn’t the one you want to save”. Makes you wonder who was out to save the object of their regret and who was out to save themselves.

For a moment, had believed Naoki was not-dying (Retiring?) and being returned to the Outside World, somewhat surprised it hasn’t been utilized more beyond the Ultra Rare teams diving into the Akashic Book from.

Very Soft Cardfight. That is all.

Somewhere, original continity Naoki is screaming.

Tell this to your Link Joker self, please.

IF 18

On the one hand, Kai-kun walking around in Miyaji (with or without the context of IF), on the other hand, Bushi Eats.

Probably due to cracks coming from him getting a glimpse of the original reality, but Shingo cares an enormous amount for someone who, just a couple of episodes ago, said all the products in Card Capital were going to make him lose his mind.

“Awful big brother”. Laughs with shovel. (Comparatively, he’s brother of the year.)

PEDAL FASTER.

Love how Masaki and Shinji are named to overlap with their brothers’.

He’s going to fucking murder you.

[Kourin voice] Aichi is tired. [Me voice] As am I of your bullshit.

Wingal took so much time to train that it was only on his third appearance that he didn’t attack anyone. Also soft? So very soft.

NO THAT’S SO CUTE DAMN IT.

I have so much to say about Aichi missing Emi but also she’s barged in twice and you blasted out our of the castle on both occasions. Bullshit.

Do not pull the Legion Mate with me, boy.

Is he super dissociated because how do you even in the face of this?

It’s not just that he shouted her name, but the tone of his voice shouting at her. Thinking about just how extreme it is in comparison to the Aichi she knows and has kept company is pretty chilling.

Just how aggressive Aichi has become within the IF World is alarming; on only two occasions has he let anger get the better of him and one of those two wasn’t so bad. If this is to play on how warped he was going into the fight with Ibuki, good play on the writers’ part.

Semi-related to the above; with exception of three characters (Emi, Rati and Voidkuto), Aichi’s always used honorifics, and attached one to Kourin’s name, so to hear him address her without one is jarring, for lack of a better word.

THE BIG RED FLAG: Aichi’s expression in seeing Kourin having acted of her own accord (and potentially disobey him) smacks of two things:    — his perceived crumbling control over the Sanctuary Knights, coupled with Naoki and Shingo’s desertion (his lack of reaction to the latter is bizarre, as it lends itself to and could bolster his hatred of Vanguard)    — insinuates he never had control, but was allowed to think that he did. There’ll be a section beneath 19, which itself does a lot to fuel the flames of this suspicion, that will consolidate thoughts and the theory that’s been brewing since this episode last week.

On the subject of 19, Miwa being so nonchalant and passive about everything makes a lot more sense.

Let the girls fight physically more.

UBW Archer Class Meme-y Dialogue tingles.

Naoki and Shingo holding down the fort is very sweet, particularly when Shingo was alone in that task last time.

IF 19

Alarm bells rings first thing in the morning.

The irony in past Ibuki preventing Kai-kun going to Aichi after the past dozen episodes, there are no words.

Odd that the caveat of meeting yourself from another point in time presents itself when it didn’t occur in the first two episodes, unless, at least in this case, it applies only to past events.

There’s trying not to yell FGO at things and then there’s brain yelling “Lostbelt!” at Ibuki.

Rekka and Ren’s appearances gives me hope they’ll resurface; the main characters and audience know where their target is, so would like to think word will somehow get to them. (Speaking of. Nome? Where the fuck are you during all this?)

Episode loves playing with unsettling sights, very fitting for messing Ibuki’s head around, but simultaneously, making it apparent just how much of a threat Kourin specifically is.   — On a related note: Kourin beats out Ren, Leon, Sera, Voidkuto and IF Aichi to have the most nightmarish face and I Am Afraid. Give Aichi a face like that al you’ll irreparably wound my psyche.

Intense Vibrating. They’re setting up Ibuki’s Deleting Aichi is relevant, it was the only one Kourin didn’t touch on in the episode and I am burning.

How dare you montage their time together with that music and then cut to this!

Did everyone else forget Jammers were a thing or was it just me being dumb?

Everyday I relate to Kai Toshiki.

Just going to appreciate Kai-kun gushing over giant robots in the middle of battle.

Kai-kun!Blaster Blade vs Greion giving me intense flashbacks to Aichi watching Kai-kun’s image in Blaster Blade sacrificing himself to try and fend off Greion just before he got Deleted and SCREAMS.  — Once that fight is brought up directly, if you listen, you’ll hear Rena screaming in the distance.

If there’s anyone who has no room to talk it’s Miss This Thirsty For Aichi. Also when did you two switch places of tease and teased?

“Oh shit, he’s going to Delete Kai-kun”. “Oh okay, false alarm, thank G—” “OH NO SHIT HE’S ACTUALLY GOING TO DO IT!”  — On an actual note, seeing the three regrets prominent in this season all take separate routes is interesting; Shuka working to correct her wrongs in the present and moving ahead, Naoki trying to travel back and alter things from the point of origin and Ibuki being twisted to no longer feel regret, seek repentence and rather to repeat his actions.  — Ibuki vs Aichi flashbacks intensify.  — Also, mid-fall dab.

Double Agent Miwa is a blessing, who knew his acting skills were so good? Although the begs the question (if he was flat-out planted as a mole) how he earned Kourin and/or Aichi’s trust to become a Sanctuary Knight in the first place

IF 20 preview: HYPE! HYPE! HYPE!

Theoryland (Screaming):

Miwa being Takuto or Nome’s Outside World partner:

In both Rekka and Suiko’s cases, there was a companion venturing in alongside them, both of whom are friends of Kai-kun and the same age. Perhaps, Miwa may have been in league with one of the Tatsunagi brothers (having determined Aichi’s motivation and Kai-kun’s position in all this, calling on his closest friend to match the girls’ partners) through whom he gained insight into the situation and moved in order to protect Kai-kun; working from the inside to weasel information out of the others, understand how they operate, monitor their activities to keep Kai-kun out of their sights, (find Takuto, if with Nome) and maybe (find a means to or actively make an effort himself to) drag Aichi out of his current state. It may be that, instead of Sanctuary, his abduction of Kai-kun had the destination of a rendezvous with Nome until the girls’ interference and the entire incident went off the rails.

Aichi as a puppet king and Kourin the true human antagonist:

Since his expression in seeing Kourin on the offensive without his say-so, it’s been on my mind that Aichi hasn’t actually been in a position of power whatsoever throughout IF, but he’s been led to believe he is, and the act might be withering. As "original" memories factor into it and Ultra Rare’s were lost at the end of the main Reboot continuity plot, it’s possible they may be on the line as they were in Link Joker/Legion Mate.  — As she’s aware there are such memories, it’s possible that they were triggered into resurfacing when Takuto appeared within IF World and encountered her and Aichi, leading to his capture and confinement, so as not to cause any further damage to the world fabricated.  — Alternatively, she might be acting in order to keep the force (a Brandt remnant remains my personal suspicion) that has Aichi in his current state at bay. Her unease in seeing him hanging above the scene outside Sanctuary as she attacked the others might suggest that she was worried it could break loose, as she’s never been one to be rattled. This is why “human” was specified above, because whatever the case, any corruption in Aichi is evidently the overarching antagonist force.

Additionally, throughout the season, Kourin has been fiercely territorial around Aichi, speaking and acting on his behalf, while keeping the other Sanctuary Knights at an arm’s distance. She alone enters his private quarters, sees him in pain, and (no, haven’t given up entirely on the right eye thing, there have been other people around when he’s outside his Alfred form and it was visible) privy to any secret circulating him (as well as IF’s true nature), while keeping the others in teh dark. Her reasoning may be wanting to keep him under he thumb or prevent whatever’s inside/in control of him from running rampant.

And in regards to Ibuki, Aichi made the declaration about casting him elsewhere, but Kourin was the one who enacted it, and the sole player in manipulating him to switch sides. There’s no certainty that Aichi is even aware, much like he might not be conscious of Naoki’s betrayal.  — Her being responsible for recruiting might also explain why Misaki was never a Sanctuary Knight: Kourin desired she have an ordinary, happy life, not unlike Aichi’s wish for Kai-kun.

In a truly ironic turnabout, it looks to be that Kourin is IF’s Sera.

#Cardfight!! Vanguard #Cardfight!! Vanguard IF #cfv spoilers #long post

[marypsue]

dubsdeedubs said:  lich + ford ´･ᴗ･ `

Once upon a time, I asked for prompts of a character and a monster, for which I would write a hundred-word drabble. This is...more than a hundred words, as you may be able to tell. Featuring major character undeath, Bill Cipher being Bill Cipher, a TAZ: Balance crossover, Greek mythology references, the Power of Mabel, and many many more words than I expected to write.

I’m also on AO3 as MaryPSue!

...

It takes barely any voltage at all to set Fordsy’s hair on fire.

It’s honestly a little disappointing. Keratin has no heat tolerance! And sheesh, does it ever whiff when it burns! It’s really inconsiderate of Fordsy, to stink up the place. Bill’s gonna have to punish him for that. As soon as he regains consciousness, of course. No fun in electrocuting somebody who isn’t awake to hate it!

Speaking of ‘being awake’, Sixer’s been hanging there with his head down for an ominously long time now. Bill gives his belly a poke, but the momentum just swings him limply back and forth, the chains giving a faint, pathetic clink-clink.

“You, uh, sure you didn’t break him there, boss?” Kryptos whines from somewhere behind Bill, and Bill can feel his faces heating up with rage. How dare that – that polygon question him? Bill Cipher?

“OF COURSE NOT!” he snaps. “I KNOW THIS HUMAN’S LIMITS BETTER THAN HE DOES! TESTED MOST OF ‘EM MYSELF!”

“Okay, but, he’s not doing a whole lot of screaming anymore.” Kryptos points one cautious finger around Bill, in Ford’s direction. “Or, um, moving.”

“KRYPTOS?” Bill says, cheerfully.

“Uh, yes, boss?”

“IF YOU DON’T SHUT UP I’LL FEED YOU TO PYRONICA,” Bill says, still cheerful, turning back to his favourite pet human.

Unfortunately, Kryptos is right about one thing – Sixer isn’t doing a whole lot of moving anymore. More just kind of…hanging there and smoking slightly.

Boooo-ring.

Bill snaps his fingers, and a crackling blue arc of electricity leaps out of his pointed index finger to earth itself in Ford’s chest. Ford gives a pretty lame reprisal of the old kicking-and-screaming routine, his legs wobbling feebly against thin air, his ‘scream’ more of a tortured groan. It’s like he isn’t even trying.

“C’MON, SIXER, PUT SOME OOMPH INTO IT!” Bill complains, cutting the lightshow short. “THIS IS GETTING OLD! HAHA! JUST LIKE YOU!”

The only response he gets is the faint hiss of the little fires still going in Fordsy’s hair. He’s gonna have a constellation of bald spots when this is over.

“AW, COME ON,” Bill coos, tucking one finger under Ford’s tiny chin and gently lifting it from his chest. “DON’T TELL ME YOU’RE STILL SULKING ABOUT THE WHOLE ME-LYING-TO-GET-YOU-TO-DESTROY-YOUR-ENTIRE-DIMENSION THING!”

Ford’s eyes, which had been half-closed and downturned like he was ignoring Bill, suddenly flick up to stare directly into Bill’s pupil. Bill nearly drops Ford’s bristly little face in surprise at the ring of flickering red wrapped around each iris.

“OOH, SIXER, YOU’VE BEEN HOLDING OUT ON ME!” Bill crows, delighted. “SHOULDA KNOWN YOU HAD ONE LAST TRICK UP YOUR SLEEVE! THAT’S WHAT I LIKE ABOUT YOU, HOW THAT FUNNY LITTLE MEAT BRAIN OF YOURS NEVER STOPS TICKING!”

“Get your hands off me, Cipher,” Ford growls, under his breath, and it seems to Bill to have harmonics that it could only have picked up by echoing through some of the more Escherian corners of the Fearamid. “Or I can’t be responsible for what happens next.”

“OH, I’M SO SCARED!” Bill laughs, rolling his eye. “WHAT’RE YOU GONNA DO TO ME, FORDSY, BITE MY KNEES OFF?”

When Ford’s eyes narrow, spitting red sparks, Bill can’t help but laugh again. “NO, SERIOUSLY, WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU’RE GONNA DO HERE? I’M ALREADY HERE! THIS DIMENSION’S AS GOOD AS MINE!” He throws his arms wide, gesturing to the whole of the Fearamid and his crew, the carnage outside, the enormous rift that dominates the yellow sky. “AND IF IT WAS THE MAIN COURSE, THEN YOUR LAWS OF PHYSICS MADE A NICE AFTER-DINNER MINT! A LITTLE BLACK MAGIC’LL BE THE PERFECT TOOTHPICK! BUT GO AHEAD! LAY IT ON ME!”

Ford starts to open his big mouth, probably to make some stupid speech about the power of friendship or something, and Bill zaps him again. Whatever he was about to say vanishes in a strangled half-scream as his whole body jerks, jittering like a marionette with its strings caught in a high-voltage power line.

Oh, wait. That’s exactly what he is!

“WELL?” Bill demands, in between zaps and the hoarse, exhausted noises of distress Ford keeps making. “DO YOUR WORST! REALLY LET ME HAVE IT, SIXER! SHOW ME WHAT YOU GOT! DON’T – HOLD – BACK!”

Ford’s body gives one final, enormous spasm, and then falls limp, his voice cutting out as his head falls backwards. One boot twitches, one shoulder jumps, but there’s no intelligence, no intention behind the movements. Just leftover electricity sparking frazzled nerves and jerking Ford’s limbs around like the puppet he is.

Bill twirls to face the audience of Henchmaniacs who’ve assembled to watch the fun, blowing across the tip of his pointed finger like he’s blowing smoke away from the barrel of a pistol. He quickly considers a variety of clever one-liners, discards them all just as quickly as not clever enough. “WELL, THAT WAS DISAPPOINTING! SOMEBODY GET ME ANOTHER MARTINI.”

Nobody laughs. Nobody cheers. Nobody raises a glass. They all just stare, with these stupefied expressions.

“WHAT? YOU’VE NEVER SEEN ME CRISPY-FRY A GUY ALIVE BEFORE?” Bill asks, looking over the assembled crew of nightmares and monsters.

“Uh, boss?” Kryptos quavers, slowly raising one hand, and that’s when Bill realises that those expressions of awe mingled with horrified respect aren’t aimed at him, but at something slightly behind him.

“OH, SH-” he starts.

...

It was about a decade into his thirty years of wandering the multiverse that Ford had first stumbled across the crew of the Starblaster.

It wouldn’t be the last time their paths would cross. Over those thirty years, Ford thinks he’d encountered the IPRE no fewer than seventeen times. Whether or not they were the same IPRE every time is a matter he prefers not to think about. It raises entirely too many questions that he isn’t certain he even wants the answers to.

He doesn’t remember exactly when the seed of an idea was planted. Doesn’t remember exactly when he realised the parallels between their situation and his. Both running from a world-devouring horror, both the only ones able to end its reign of terror. But, unlike the crew of the Starblaster, if Ford loses his life in his travels, he doesn’t get another at the end of a year. And there’s no one else who can stop Bill Cipher if he falls.

Ford’s always known that Bill Cipher would kill him, one day. He’d dared to hope that they would go down together, Holmes and Moriarty locked in deadly struggle over the edge of the Reichenbach Falls. But he’s always known, in the back of his mind, that it might come to this. That he might die before he has a chance to defeat Bill Cipher.

Thankfully, he thinks, before the electrical charge stops his heart and short-circuits his brain for good, he’s made sure that’s not a problem anymore.

...

The Shacktron’s almost within punching distance of the ominous floating black pyramid when the pyramid suddenly shudders in the sky.

“What -” Dipper starts, peering up through the Shacktron’s window. He doesn’t get a chance to finish his sentence, though, because the pyramid gives another heaving shudder and then – explodes.

Well, okay, only one side of it explodes, with a sound like extremely distant and extremely loud fireworks, a burst of rainbow-edged black rubble, and ropes of crackling red lightning. Dipper has to blink a couple times to be sure he’s seeing right, but – yep, that’s the gigantic, hateful yellow face of Bill Cipher flying at top speed out of the middle of the pyramid wall in a shower of rubble, looking extremely surprised.

He’s followed by –

Dipper’s first, slightly crazy thought is that it’s a ball of red neon yarn, halfway through unravelling, like the ones Mabel’s always got three or four of hidden somewhere under her sweater. Then he thinks it’s ball lightning, like they’re always trying to use to explain away UFO sightings. But it’s more like…a ball of yarn, only the yarn is lightning. And wearing…a ratty old tan trenchcoat?

“Oh no,” Dipper mutters.

Bill whirls in midair, rounding on the crackling ball of electricity that Dipper’s somehow sure is his Great-Uncle Ford. Somehow. The last time he’d seen Ford, Ford had admittedly not been an amorphous mass – okay, more of a very rough, gigantic, skeletal humanoid figure, now – made of red lightning. But then again, the last time Ford had seen Dipper, Dipper wasn’t helping pilot a giant robot. It’s the end of the world. His great-uncle turning into a lightning-monster…skeleton?...isn’t the weirdest thing Dipper’s seen in the last twenty-four hours.

Although, he has to admit, it’s up there.

Bill’s voice reverberates through the air, rattling the Shacktron’s windows. “WELL THEN! THANKS FOR THE NEW PICTURE WINDOW, BUT I CAN’T SAY YOU’VE GOT MUCH OF A FUTURE IN INTERIOR DESIGN, SIXER!”

He raises one monstrous, noodly black fist, and Dipper feels something cold slither down his spine.

“CAN’T SAY YOU’VE GOT MUCH OF A FUTURE AT ALL!” Bill crows, before swinging that fist, like the hand of Fate, at the sparking figure that is Ford –

- and right through him.

“WHAT?!” Bill screeches, a feedback whine that forces Dipper to clap both hands over his ears if he wants to keep his eardrums.

Despite the fact that the thing that was Ford doesn’t really have any clear facial features, Dipper can still tell, somehow, that he’s smiling.

Bill’s eye narrows, going flame-blue, and Dipper throws out an arm, like he can reach across the mile or more between them and stop Bill in his tracks. But before Bill can do whatever he’s planning to do, two bolts of crimson lightning arc out from Ford’s trenchcoat, blowing it back in some eldritch wind, and earth themselves in the centre of Bill’s eye.

Bill doesn’t move, for a moment, and Dipper realises he’s holding his breath.

And then red lightning erupts, from between each and every one of Bill’s bricks, forcing them apart. Bill shakes, for a second, like the black pyramid had, his body straining to hold together even as lightning lashes through and between his bricks, pushing them apart. Dipper can see daylight through the cracks in Bill’s form.

And then –

Dipper has to throw up an arm to protect his eyes from the burst of red light as Bill – explodes, like he’s been stuffed full of dynamite and it’s all going off in a string, bricks flying in all directions and shattering into pieces as they fly apart. The roar is deafening.

The Shacktron erupts into cheers, almost drowning out the patter of smoking chunks of yellow triangle raining down around them. Dipper throws an arm up, instinctively, to protect his head, as one lump hisses past inches from the Shacktron’s main window, momentarily blotting out the sun. It’s hard to make out more than a hazy red glow through the clouds of drifting, slightly sparking smoke. And that glow could be the sun, the rift, or whatever power Ford’s summoned up.

“Well, guess we didn’t need to do all that planning after all,” Mabel says brightly, from somewhere to Dipper’s left. “Go, Grunkle Ford!”

To Dipper’s right, Stan crosses his arms over his chest. “See, kid? Told you my nerd brother didn’t need me to rescue him.”

“Um,” Dipper says. He’s pretty sure he’s not just imagining that that hazy red glow is getting brighter. And bigger.

And closer.

...

Cipher falls in pieces.

It's harder to think when you're dead. 

No. Not think. Focus. 

Focus.

Focus on what? 

Clouds of smoke too thick. Impossible to see if Cipher is re-forming. Too easy. This can't be it. After all this time? Can't be this simple.

Movement. On the left. Cipher's Henchmaniacs? Cipher himself? Immolated with a thought. So easy. Too easy.

Lup said something about this. About the power. About something else too. A warning. Not that he needs to be warned about anything anymore. Movement to the right this time becomes a pillar of flame. It’s so easy. 

He should have died years ago. If he’d known it would be like this, he would have. All that time wasted on quantum destabilizers when this power was waiting just under his skin? Foolishness. Selfish foolishness. 

So easy. After all this time. So easy to make Cipher burn.

So easy to make everything burn.

...

“Um, guys?” Dipper quavers, pointing towards the window where the red lightning skeleton guy is hovering. Sure, he’s wearing Grunkle Ford’s trenchcoat, and sure, he just blew up Bill Cipher, so it’s definitely Grunkle Ford, but it’s very important to take a moment and just appreciate this new look he’s rockin’. It’s a big change! He’s probably a little self-conscious about it. He’s gonna need lots of compliments. 

Good thing nobody gives compliments like Mabel!

“Grunkle Ford!” she cheers, running for the window. She ignores Dipper’s yell of “Mabel, wait!”. He can go be a big worrywart somewhere else. Mabel knows her great-uncles when she sees them. “That was so cool!” 

Mabel slaps both hands against the glass, leans her forehead against the window. On the other side of the glass, Grunkle Ford’s head tilts slightly to the left, lightning arcing from his shoulder down to his wrist in a wild, agitated wiggle. He raises his hand, palm towards the glass, and Mabel smacks her own hand against the glass between them in the best high-five she can give a skeleton guy made of lightning. Or should that be a high-six? Or - wait, now there’s another lightning bolt coming from Grunkle Ford’s hand, does that make it a high-seven - 

Stan tackles her around the waist and knocks her away from the window a second before it explodes.

...

Tiny figures scatter.

Mechanical monster lurches, roars. Another blast into its eye. Stumbles. Slow, certain, driving it back. 

Screaming. High and small and distant.

Monsters. All of Cipher’s monsters. All his waking nightmares. All his followers and friends.

Burn them all.

“Mabel, give it up! That’s not Grunkle Ford anymore!”

“For once I agree with your brother. My idiot twin’s lost whatever was left of his mind, we gotta get outta here before he explodes us too!”

“No!” A note to shatter glass. “Grunkle Ford, please! We’re your family! You have to remember!”

“Mabel!” 

“Sweetie, no!”

Tiny figure charges forwards. Arms raised. Skids to a stop at the burst of flame.

“Please! It’s me, it’s Mabel! And Dipper, and Stan - you have to remember your own twin brother -”

Twin...?

some brother you turned out to

“No!”

Tiny figure, darting forward. Two of them, now. Mirrored. Why? What new trick of Cipher’s - 

“Great-Uncle Ford, I know you don’t want to do this! You’re a hero, remember? Not the bad guy!”

because that’s what heroes

“Kids!”

That voice. Scared raw, tiny under metal shrieks and crackling flames, but - 

That voice - 

you stay away from those kids I don’t want

some brother

accident

poindexter

high six?

Ford gives himself a shake, all over. Like he’s waking from a long, long nightmare.

Stanley, crouched in front of the kids, glowers up from the wreckage of the Shack’s main window. Wait. The Shack isn’t - Legs. It has legs?

“You wanna hurt these kids,” Stan growls. Threatening a force of nature with his bare fis- oh. No. With Pa’s old knuckledusters. Well, that makes this so much less idiotic. “You gotta go through me first.”

“I’d...prefer not to,” Ford manages. Has that hiss in his voice always - No. That way madness lies. “I - is anyone hurt?”

“Hurt, no. Traumatized for life, probably,” Dipper says. “Great-Uncle Ford, what the fuck.”

“Dipper!” Mabel gasps.

“Mabel, we’re almost thirteen, you can stop pretending like we don’t know what swear words are! I know you only do it because you think Stan’s swear-substitutes are funny!”

“Wait, what? Have you kids been fucking with me all summer just to hear me say ‘hot Belgian waffles’ every time something went wrong?”

“No, just Mabel,” Dipper says. “For the record, none of this was my idea.”

“We’re gonna talk about this when we’re not standing in a giant robot that’s on fire,” Stan says. Glances up at Ford as he says it. “No thanks to you, Sixer.”

“I can’t actually,” Ford starts. “Um. Put it out.”

“Why am I not surprised,” Stan huffs. But he’s smiling. Kids clinging to him are smiling too. He doesn’t have a face, exactly, anymore, but - Ford knows he himself must be smiling as well. “Can you at least get us down from here?”

“Sorry, he’s not gonna be able to help you with that,” a voice - familiar? - says, just behind him, and then - 

a swish - 

a bright, blooming pain - 

and darkness.

...

“What did you do?!” the besweatered kid yowls, shaking tiny fists in the air. She’s like four feet nothing of pure childish adorableness wrapped in a pink confetti sweater, but Barry catches himself taking an involuntary step backwards anyway.

“Yeah, I kinda had to send your uncle -”

“Great-uncle,” the kid who looks like a fifty-year-old university professor in a twelve-year-old’s tiny, sweaty body says. He sounds as unimpressed as he looks. Same with the girl. It’s not the usual reaction to a literal grim reaper. Barry would be lying if he said he wasn’t thrown a little bit off his game.

“Grunkle!” the girl protests. “He’s our Grunkle Ford and you shouldn’t have done...whatever you did!”

“Sent him to the Eternal Stockade,” Barry says, annoyed. “You don’t just get a free pass for being a lich because your great-niblings are cute - wait, did you say Ford?”

Both the girl and the boy nod.

“Oh,” Barry says.

“Oh,” he says, again, looking around at the yellow sky and the big (but shrinking) glowing oil-slick X slashed across it and the menagerie of nightmares and monsters prowling the pines and the smoking chunks of yellow brick dotting the ground at the feet of the flaming robot.

“Uh oh,” he says, with feeling, looking down at the scythe in his hands. His currently very skeletal hands.

“Yeah, uh, Death, or whatever your name is? Can we take this conversation somewhere where we’re not about to burn alive?” the old guy with the kids asks, looking around him at the burning robot house. “Sure, I wanna be with my brother again, but I’d rather not get it by also dying.”

“Oh yeah. Uh, hang on a second,” Barry says.

“Running out of seconds here,” the old guy points out. “Real fast.”

“Okay, just -” Barry sighs. “Look. You want your great-uncle -”

“Grunkle!”

“Your grunkle back, okay, kid. Look, there are rules, and even if it was for a good cause, he broke them. The Raven Queen’s not gonna be too happy about that.”

“The who what with the what now,” the old guy says, deadpan, crossing his arms over his chest. Barry’s realising he kind of likes him. 

“The goddess of Death, can you try to keep up?”

“Wait, wait, so you’re not Death? There’s a hierarchy of Deaths? How does that work? If she’s a Raven Queen, is Death a monarchy? Is it constitutional, or does she rule by divine right? What -”

“Whoa, kid, slow down!” Barry says, partly because he’s a little scared the kid’s going to pass out if he doesn’t take a breath, partly because he doesn’t actually know the answers to at least half of those questions and he’s got a sinking suspicion they only get harder to answer from here. “Like I said. Raven Queen. Real pissed about liches. But -” he says, as they all start grumbling again, “and this is an important but, turns out she’s got a soft spot for heroes.”

“That’s Great-Uncle Ford!” the boy says, excited, sounding like a kid and not a fortysomething pencil-pusher for the first time. “He beat Bill Cipher and saved our dimension, he’s totally a hero -”

“Yeah. Only problem is, I already dropped him off in the Stockade. And, uh, they call it the Eternal Stockade for a reason.”

There’s a moment of silence, during which Barry notices a handful of people wearing colourful parachutes drifting towards the ground from the lower levels of the robot house. Are those...sweaters?

“Well, then, we’ll just have to go and get him!” the girl says, planting her hands on her hips and her feet shoulder-width apart like a tiny, determined Lynda Carter. Barry’s pretty sure the old man grumbles something like ‘oh, not again,’ but he chooses to ignore it.

“That’s the spirit! Now, since I’m kind of the grim reaper, I’m not...technically allowed to help you.” He holds up a hand when the grumbling starts again, gives his scythe a one-handed twirl before cutting a portal through into the Astral Plane. The waters lap quietly against the shore, a beautiful, soothing contrast to the sharp snap and hiss of the flames starting to devour the walls. “I can get you started, but you’re gonna have to get in there and get out with him in tow without me.”

The girl’s already charging through the portal. Barry watches her feet disappear into the Astral Plane, then turns to the other two. 

For the first time, the boy looks uncertain. “I...I don’t know about this. Will we be able to get back? How will we know where to find him?”

“Hey, kid,” Barry says, in what he hopes is a comforting voice. Skin. It would probably be more comforting with skin. He tries it again, with a human face this time. “Look, I knew your great-uncle, so I know what kind of guy he is. I don’t wanna see him stuck in ghost jail for the rest of eternity any more than you do.”

“Really?” the boy asks, looking up at Barry with wide eyes, even as the old man’s eyes narrow.

“You knew Ford.”

“Well, I wasn’t the grim reaper at the time, but yeah. We ran into each other a couple times,” Barry says. He leaves out the part where he is probably personally responsible for Stanford Pines, Lich. That’s a need-to-know. As in, nobody, ever, needs to know. “Your great-uncle’s a big nerd, and that’s coming from me, but he’s got a good heart. He really doesn’t deserve to be treated like a death criminal forever.”

The old man sighs, glaring into the portal. “You’re gonna make me do this stupid thing, too, aren’t you.”

“Grunkle Stan, don’t be such a meanie-pants!” the girl pipes up, sticking her head back out of the portal. “Come on!”

She vanishes again before anyone can say a word.

“I have so many questions,” the boy says, looking up at Barry with an expression that Barry can only describe as ‘hungry’.

“Ask your great-uncle, kid,” Barry says. “When you rescue him.”

The boy bites down on his lower lip, and then looks up with a determined nod. Readjusting the cap on his head, he stalks forward, and into the portal.

The old man gives Barry a sidelong look. “This isn’t some kind of literal death trap, is it?”

Barry shrugs one shoulder. “You’re just gonna have to trust me. Or not.”

The old man - Stan - stares distrustfully at the portal for a long moment, and then sighs, uncrossing his arms and slouching forward in a clear expression of defeat.

“Somebody’s gotta look out for those kids,” he sighs. “And my idiot brother, I guess.” He takes a deep breath, throwing his shoulders back and his chest out. “And it beats burning alive.” 

He stomps forward, through the portal, and Barry can hear a distant, gravelly yell of, “Kids!”

He chuckles, to himself, before digging in the pockets of his flowing black robe for his Stone of Farspeech.

“Hey, babe? Remember that Ford guy we kept running into? ...Yeah, that’s the one. Listen. I need a favour...”

...

Mabel makes it halfway down the beach before a figure entirely draped in ominous black robes rises up before her, blocking her path. The figure hovers in place, its arms outstretched to its sides, skeletal hands peeking from under the edges of its robes. One of them holds an ornate scythe with a pattern of flames along the edge.

“Whoa!” Mabel shouts, skidding to a stop in the pebbly sand. Dipper pours on what little speed he has, running to catch up with her. He’s not sure what he’ll do against the death police, but he’s not letting them take his sister without a fight.

The figure slowly, slowly raises its hands, slowly, slowly peels back its hood to reveal a bare and glinting skull. As Dipper watches, a crimson flame erupts from the dome of the skull, forming a sweeping mane of hair. Red glints in the depths of the empty sockets as the skeletal figure slowly, slowly raises its head, fixing Dipper in place with a hollow, dreadful stare. He can’t move. His legs have frozen under him. His heart rabbits in his chest.

The skull’s lower jaw drops open, and from the depths of its dark robe, a hissing, sinister voice echoes:

“Hey there! Heard you nerds were going on an Orphean underworld quest!”

Dipper and Mabel exchange a startled look. Stan, puffing to a halt behind them, groans. “Oh, what now?”

The skeleton in front of them grins...more somehow. “Name’s Lup, and if I’m gonna be your guide, I literally cannot stress enough how important it is that you not look back.”

#gravity falls #the adventure zone #balance arc #this is mary's fic tag #this got WILDLY out of hand #and I had way too much fun with narrators