deercountry | Are we not brave enough? [Closed]

[Well, Dipper is sort of sure he can do this.]

[No, no, he has to be more confident than that. Falco is depending on him. He's done banishments. This isn't that different from getting rid of a ghost, or expelling Bill out of his uncle. He just needs to figure out the right components, the right angle, and this thing can be dealt with just like the monster in the basement of Mr. Break's house.]

[He was antsy, and he'd felt restless since the beginning of the month. He felt like he wasn't making progress on reworking the spell. After all, having to omit blood entirely, when the whole city ran on it, was a heck of a task. In fact, he was worried without some blood, the magic might not work at all! And what would that make him? Useless, is what. If he's nothing without the blood, then he's nothing at all, and he could not abide that.]

[Falco is the one that forces his hand in the end. A desperate plea for help he could not ignore. He rushes down to Cassandra to get as much blessed water they will give him. He tries to borrow a few more of their items, gets caught stealing and gets kicked out. Panics around his room as he decides what he needs to do this, makes a decision, gathers up his things, and tells Falco to meet him somewhere specific. He doesn't have time to leave a note before he leaves.]

[On the edge of Gaze, not very far from the Pines' house, is where Dipper keeps his personal lamp. It's a quiet clearing surrounded by woods, just a hop and a skip away from Sanguine Graveyard. It's the best place to do this away from interference. He quickly begins setting up the ritual.]

Edited 2021-12-01 09:21 (UTC)

[ edge of gaze, close to the graveyard, edge of gaze, close to the graveyard, close to dipper’s place— falco repeats and repeats with no avail due towhat had been escalating and growing in him as the nights prevailed. less sleep, more unease; unease quickly trickled to thoughts that have gotten more intrusive, negative, hopeless, causes him to irritably snap at the smallest things until what was a bad day became a bad week and counting. it was all unlike falco, his patience was always as big as his heart and it was getting worse. he was becoming paranoid, becoming spiteful, having excruciating night terrors when he slipped into sleep out of exhaustion.

he’d see purple claws wrapping around him in his sleep and forcing him to wake when he was at his last breath, purple blurs ran from the corners of his eyes, whispers spoke of terrible things and urged him to feel contempt over it all, from the past to people who have done wrong to him (and who falco has long forgiven; he was never one to cultivate a grudge). but these voices would at times seem so loud and correct that it startled the boy beyond his own skin. when red veins go purple and move erratically when in front of a mirror (not only that, but indigo limbs press and break against the glass he looks at), falco’s had enough. it’s taking over and it was a matter of time until it actually would take over and he had to do something or else everyone he knew and didn’t know—

well, dipper had been made very well aware of falco’s frantic messaging. once at the arrived destination, the eerie mist of graze’s edge was already cluttered with his hitching sobs and desperate staggering. falco looks nothing like the boy dipper had met some weeks or days behind— he was stripped of anything tolerant and kind, replaced with disturbance and a stark image of someone sickly. he was febril, the whites of his eyes were wide and baring a lavender tint, he’d twitch too much and jump at just about anything that came within his line of vision or hearing, imaginary or otherwise.

hell, he even jumps at the site of dipper, only a bleak shadow until his eyes fixated and saw just another boy and no beast. ]

D-dipper, Dipper, I’m sorry, I, I can’t—

[ can’t wait, can’t give him time; he’s being pushed, either falsely or not, but either possibility was only a pinch away from a terror, and that may be what the darkest, parasitic cloud of negative energy hung over falco’s shoulder’s is having a feast over. it’s an ugly cycle of win-win for the silence. if falco breaks, it gets a turn on the wheel. if dipper fails and gives it an opening, it takes the wheel anyway. ]

[Dipper feels the hair on the back of his neck raise before Falco is even in the clearing. When they met, the presence of the demon had been stark, following the boy like a miasma. It's about a thousand times worse now, with the actual physical markers to go with it.]

[He sucks in a breath that doesn't steel him nearly as well as he wanted when he finally sees him. No, he understands now why he'd been in such a panic. This thing was close to the surface and by the looks of it, they didn't have any time. This was dire. Anxiety laces through his blood as he takes it all in. Doubt creeps up in the back of his mind, but he pushes it down.]

[This was too important. He simply could not fail. He would figure it out, one way or the other, and they would take care of this problem, once and for all. There was no other choice.]

Sit down- in the center there.

[His voice only cracks a little, to his benefit. Dipper points Falco to a circle he's made with salt. There's a chair on the center, and Dipper is currently setting up candles around the perimeter. About two feet away from the circle is a second circle, smaller, with an arcane mark scorched into the ground.]

I haven't had time to test this out yet, but I think the theory behind it is solid. Do you need-

[He falters a moment. Forces the confidence in his voice, this time.]

How do you feel about being tied up? So it doesn't try to rip my face off if I make it mad.

[ falco does what he’s told and sucks up his whimpering right into his chest to do it. his tears have streaked but he wipes them clean off, almost roughly and agitated with the inner elbow of his sleeve. he didn’t bring any weapons, it was a plus.

inside this circle, right in the middle of the moon’s symbol, falco heart goes restless. he shouldn’t be terrified and he is, growing down his neck like a traveling plague. and it was; he removes his outer cloak shell to keep his layering simple. he already felt like his body wouldn’t stop shivering from the fever, and that maybe the cold could help bring it down.

the brand at his nape, where the silence had entered in the first place, occasionally feels like it’s crawling, and it’s an awful nauseating sensation that he pried at and felt nothing but skin and hair.

falco puts his hands behind his back and keeps them together, looking over his shoulder with wet sniffs between his words. ]

Please, [ his arms, his legs, his mouth— he has no problems with being bound when it was a must. ] I don’t— I can’t hurt myself.

[ he absolutely can’t, and it was a shame that he hadn’t the time to mention why earlier. only a vague “where my abilities come from”. ]

I-I’ll need a bit, too, [ not only to keep himself from biting his tongue or cheek, ] I’ll bite, and, might start talking and— and it won’t be me.

[ the silence had a habit of saying nasty things, mostly starting at guilt tripping until it strikes right into vengeful. it could be distracting, especially when using the face of a twelve year old to do it. ]

[Despite Dipper's harried, determined ritual set-up, that gets something of a sympathetic look from Dipper. It's not like he doesn't know what it's like to be in Falco's place. Few people knew possession quite like his family did.]

[It's hard for him to get too close. Both the negativity and pure nastiness that emanates off The Silence is bad enough, but Falco is in real distress and Dipper soaks that up just as badly. He's quiet while he gets rope, entirely because he has to steel himself and keep his hands steady. Falco is putting his trust in him, and so faltering in this crucial moment will hurt both their resolve.]

I know. Don't worry, I guarantee that thing can't say or do worse to me than what Cipher did.

[Famous last words probably. Dipper ties up Falco's hands to the best of his ability, and rigs up something for him to bite into, also. He isn't super confident it'll totally muffle the demon if he manages to get a few words in, but it's better than nothing.]

[That done, he steps away, takes a deep breath, and finishes the set up as quickly as possible. They're really running out of time. With it done, Dipper stands in the center of his own circle, holding his journal.]

...Ready?

[ sitting with his legs crossed and in a bind, falco’s wide eyes stare pleadingly at the other boy. he doesn’t exude an abundant amount of confidence, but he does show his ready resolve.

that’s enough for falco. that’s all he needs to believe that he’s got this, even if he’s fearful. it makes a little crack of hope glimmer through his faith— even though, energetically speaking, nothing of the dark, indigo cloud eating him up has changed. it’s only gotten darker as the boy nodded and braced himself, wishing for the best for the both of them.

a set of tears slide down falco’s cheeks as he inhales and nods without taking his eyes off him. he’s breathing fast, his chest rises and falls rapidly while the air rushes past whatever it is he’s biting into. dipper’s got this. he’s got this. ]

[He's got this. He has no choice but to have this.]

[The air grows quiet, and like a cue, the sun gently slides below the tree line, drenching them in twilight. The sigil beneath Dipper starts to glow, and when Dipper opens his eyes again, there's a paleblood glow from his right eye.]

Videntis Omnium.

[The world around them shifts, the air, reality itself, turning dreamlike. The stark saturated colors of dusk bleed away in a flash, leaving everything surreal and monotone. Everything stops, or rather, begins to slow down. Instead the feeling is suspended, like waiting at the top of a jump for the eventual plummet down that never comes.]

Magister Mentium. Magnesium Ad Hominem-

[As Dipper chants in what sounds like latin, the sigil under Falco begins to light up. The pressure of a anti-demon protection spell coming down hard on him.]

[ a tickle at the back of his neck becomes an excruciating crawl beneath his skin that felt like it would burst at any moment— like vermin, plump from a heavy feed; like ooze, in the way it seemed so viscous and thick, invited right out of the cracks of a protective seal nearly broken (and now, it was; dipper had thrown a hammer right on top of glass). falco himself had little time to react to the ritual’s start, not when the taste of iron filled his mouth but no blood was in sight. oh no was the last whimpering thought he had before his consciousness is not shut down, but thrusted back. he hears nothing, the sound drowns out— the telltale start of when the silence had breached through was the panic-inducing silence it caused to its hosts. falco’s earlier soft sobbing escalates to screaming in a pinch— thank god for his bit to muffle it for a limited time, but not for long. not with the way the boy throws himself and contorts his body erratically and in unnatural bends. he screams until his stifled voice cracks and keeps at it like an animal cornered with nowhere to go, he thrashes his confined limbs far past becoming sore from rope burn. falco sees all of this, is aware of all of this through his little faraway window of consciousness— he simply no longer has a wheel over it.

now, it was a slimy, oozing, burning horror that swallowed the boy’s aura up tight and used his vocal chords, his expression of pity and terror and his pain. the bloodshot veins in his eyes have darkened into purple, the brand behind his neck spreads to his shoulders, up his neck— the mass of negativity in the boy is snaking from inside its anchoring vessel to outside in the realm dipper had coaxed it to, and it feels nothing but strong and capable. it felt suffocating. the air burned to breathe and more than once did it sound like falco was choking on something ugly and tar-like lodged in his throat with no way out other than the occasional spit and splat of metallic, purple goop that reeks of infection.

a little hope is what always made the fall and breaking of an inkling of a chance all the more tastier. the negativity doubles. and, that’s what it proposes. as falco writhes and bends, he cries through his muffler, that every time, comes more loose:

dipper, stop, you’re hurting me, stop, why would you do this to me?! i never did anything to you! drop dead! you’ll pay for what you’re doing to me, i’ll do it myself, i hate you, you’re not going back home alive you should’ve left h̸̡̻̘͑͋̒i̸͓͖̟̿͒m̴͇͇͛͋̓͜mmm m̶e̶ to die liͥᴋⷦeͤ ᴛⷮhͪeͤ rͬeͤs͛ᴛⷮ yoͦuͧ’rͬeͤ noͦᴛⷮhͪiͥng oͦn yoͦuͧ’rͬeͤ oͦwn w̺̻̫e̙͕̘ ᴋⷦneͤw iͥᴛⷮ s̶t̶o̶p̶—

it seems to be contained, but it keeps talking— right at him. ]

[It's working. It's horrible, and the air is such that Dipper feels like he will choke the moment he stops chanting, but it's working. He's dragging this thing to the surface, he's letting it bleed apart from Falco. All he has to do is keep it up until it's free just enough for Dipper to make a move.]

[It's oppressiveness makes his skin tingle, like getting too close to a fire. It's a miasma that could swallow him alive if he's not careful. He realizes then, what a precarious tightrope he's walking.]

[The thing begins screaming at him, speaking in the way Falco warned. He can tell, at least, that it's the demon for sure. He's known Falco just long enough to be able to gauge his manner, his way of speaking, and he's dealt with enough possession to tell when the shift is obvious. This is what he expected, but it hurts to listen to. It hurts to know this thing is making him say such terrible things, when Falco had seemed so gentle thus far.]

[It's awful, too, because this realm is a dream, a pocket of malleable reality, and things like words have their own special weight, with the right intent. They feel like barbs, striking at him. He keeps his resolve, but its a very near thing.]

Daemoniacus Entitatem Eicere!

[The end of the spell, Dipper claps his journal closed with an echoing snap, and flings the book behind him. It slows to a halt as if time itself has froze it in place. With The Silence out, but contained, Dipper thinks he has just moments to act.]

[Dipper seizes forward, breaching the line of Blessed water on the ground, and reaches through the ward to grab the demon with his bare hands. He knows this will work, he tells himself, because he's seen it done. He remembers the soul rending feeling of having his soul ripped out of his body by Bill. If he has to command powers like this, then he's going to use them for good, even if he has to emulate the monster he hates most.]

You're coming with me!

Edited 2021-12-05 12:41 (UTC)

[ the silence buckles down and puts up resistance by anchoring its roots to its host as soon as it feels its presence being tugged out of a system that it has made its home in. if the air had been brutally hot before, it was now thin, like being in the middle of a fire as well as it was putrid— not of sulfur, but of blight. what was breathed felt concentrated like mucus and made inhaling and exhaling irritable, causing the lungs to feel the need to expel a substance unwelcomed (bubbly, sticky, and horrible tasting). the line of holy water made it shriek at the direction it was being pulled toward&mdashç

but there was also a breach, and dipper leg(s) were what bridged that detested gap. it was too fed, too energized to be an easy pull— and it very well knew that when it took dipper formidable resolve head-on and combats it with a gnawing shroud of, what was it? hostility, antagonism, fear. fear may do. much like meat hanging in a river for a pack of piranhas to snap at, the silence attempts what it does best: it brings out the worst in every memory, every emotion ever felt, and wrenches it into a grudging wound that festers fast.

whatever it is that frightens or angers dipper the most, the silence probes for it on contact— and as dipper pulls, so does the silence, spitting right through falco's bounded lips and clenching teeth: you'll be dead before then! with all of the boy's rabid battering about, he's rolled himself to his front, pauses in a beat to bring his eyes to the ground— and spontaneously, he rears his head back to slam his forehead into hard earth, then his temple, then his face, his nose, his exposed teeth or bottom lip, and he wouldn't stop after each thunk, not until it has harmed him.

falco, though, the real falco, is the one shedding these genuine tears, he can see dipper reaching and the silence being stretched— he can feel it, the ugly disease lodged in him being manipulated and reacting. maybe, he’s doing it. maybe there really was a way. the boy’s head still rams on it’s own accord, as if something had gnarled claws into his hair and threw his face to the ground, repeatedly, but there was a mechanical slip, intentionally done or not, where falco’s fingers twitch under his want. he can’t reach, but he wants to, and for a split of a second does falco look like he too, is fighting for slipping reins.

he’s too desperate to tell that it was a dangling fruit poisoned at the core. his wrists hurt, so just his chest from rattling so tightly, but the ropes are loosening their knots. he wants to reach as it seems like silence’s goop is coming just as undone as the binds. ]

Dipper—!

[ just a little more— ]

Edited (it’s jamie’s fault it hurts more) 2021-12-05 14:53 (UTC)

[For a split second, Dipper thinks he's managed to come out on top. He thinks he's gotten the upper hand. Falco responds to him, through the haze of violence and hatred The Silence is spitting at him. If he just doubles down, pulls harder, he can actually do this.]

[He reaches, his hope shining bright like a beacon.]

[And misses.]

[There's a dread in the pit of his stomach that ignites like a bomb, and that's all it takes for the Silence's miasma to consume him. For The Silence to find what it was looking for in Dipper's vulnerabilities. His fear, his anger, he has all of it in spades. He has nightmares that plague him the likes no one has seen. He's a fucking all-you-can-eat buffet of everything the Silence wants to feed off, and it's just been handed the golden key.]

[The worst part of it? This realm is a dream. It takes these things and gives them form and the line between what is a dream and what is a nightmare is ever a precarious balance.]

[The world plummets into red, and screams fill the air. Some of them are Dipper, but most of them are from his memory. Blood rains down in torrents, the skies open up, the world is falling apart and there is a shrill, unhinged laugh that echoes louder than than anything else, a sound so all consuming it smothers the ears, the mind. These are Dipper's worst fears made real.]

[The fear of losing, of uncertainty, the fear of lost agency, of lost sanity. The fear of becoming that which he hates most.]

[Once the claws are in him, it takes nothing for them to drag him under.]

[ he couldn’t reach, they couldn’t reach each other— to be fair, neither had a chance, and falco was never close to independence. the fracture was only an illusion to haunt their thoughts going grimy and bountiful for the silence’s natural inclination to spread and sustain itself. suffering was so good, and it had not one beacon to drink from, but a second snack bar for the measly price of deception (nothing that different from breathing or giving a wink).

falco’s gut goes ice cold when he felt his consciousness take a pitfall backward; any control he thought he had was ripped from his sensibility and replaced with sparks, visible sparks, crawling up his face and bouncing off his self-inflicted wounds— a busted, bleeding lip and broken blood vessel snug in his nose. if only he could say something, if only he could push the other boy back to safer distances. at least he hadn’t been within an embrace’s range, but the heat about to emit right off of him was enough to blow a good portion of a home away.

but cry was all he could do, and what made it worse was the clear memory of his older brother refusing to let go of him in a similar situation. he’s so hopeless. so useless. why does this exist? he hated this— but the silence loved every second of one negative thought busting a domino effect into the other.

the glare and heat off of falco is followed by a strike, a damned sound, like metal and thunder, one that ignites and cracks, sparking light and opening paths to bring veins, muscle fiber and bone fragments to a skeletal frame and then life, skin, feathers— something magnificent made absolutely ugly by dripping tar caking its spreading wings and infecting its talons. his, maybe.

because this massive thing was falco. not beasthood, but a gifted ability, or curse, that was now hijacked. what to do with dipper . . . or, what’s left of him. it shouldn’t take long to find the sickly wide eyes behind the sockets of a bony beak mask. falco didn’t want to find him— the silence did. ]

[Dipper might not have been within arms reach at that moment, but he was still terribly close to ground-zero either way. The force throws Dipper back, with only his Sleeper resilience keeping him in one piece as he crashes into the tree line.]

[The world around them goes dead silent. That feeling of weightless anticipation finally drops, and the colors of the real world spread out once more. That dreamlike feeling fades altogether when the master of that realm falls either unconscious or worse.]

["Worse" might be more true, if the smell of burnt flesh is anything to go by.]

[The scene is a gruesome one. The scent of fire, blood, and scorched flesh is thick in the air. At the center of the clearing, barely a few yards away from the Lamp, is a the remains of the ritual circle Dipper had crafted minutes before. One side is completely scorched over, like something had dropped a contained bomb and localized it to the space of a few feet. On the other side there is debris, the remains of a second circle, it's sigil partially intact.]

[A few feet away, miraculously intact, and hauntingly abandoned, is Dipper's journal.]

[One has to search to find any remains of Dipper. The smell of burning is an easy tell, or perhaps if you possess Twin ESP, Dipper can be found crumpled against a tree. The tree itself has sustained an impact enough to damage the bark, with a nasty smear of glimmering paleblood sliding downwards to where Dipper lay.]

[The origin of the smell of burning flesh becomes very clear. He's horribly burned up to his elbows, and across the right side of his face, the skin charred and blackened. Despite his state, he's still breathing, albeit shallowly. He's in awful shape.]

Edited 2021-12-09 12:30 (UTC)

[Mabel, as it happens, was already on her way. In part it's her vileblood making her paranoid and skittish, but there's a firm, solid truth underneath that -- she knows her brother better than anyone else, and he's been decidedly weird the past week, short tempered and impatient even with her. It's not the first time they've been snappy at one another and it certainly won't be the last. That's just how it is for siblings. But something just seems off, and after Dipper leaves for the day, Mabel doesn't last long before she gives in to the compulsive need to follow him.

With no idea where exactly he's gone, at first, she just follows her gut. Then his distress hits her at the same time as a sizable explosion happens a ways off. Unlike the last time her brother's fear entered her head, this time it abruptly stops, or at least slows to a trickle Mabel can barely detect.

The implication of that has her on her knees and breathless.

Somehow Mabel rallies, summoning her winged omen for a mount and aiming herself straight towards the explosion. All of the Pines are like this, when one of their own is in danger. And, like all the other Pines, Mabel pays no attention whatsoever to the danger of the awful beast nearby when she lands, tumbling from her omen to the ground with a force she doesn't notice and heading for her fallen brother in a mad scramble.]

Dipper!

[Dipper doesn't stir from his place against the tree. Not at first.]

[It's easy to see that whatever blast went off, Dipper was close to the epicenter of. His burns are devastating and gruesome, he probably shouldn't be alive. Silence hangs in the air that makes his breathing just audible enough until there's a wet snap, and Dipper's eyes fly open.]

[All seven of them.]

[With a choking gasp, Dipper's lungs rattle like he's been pulled out of a blaze, and he pushes away from the tree, away from Mabel, to vomit pure black with a strangled scream. That wet snapping sound continues, as the charred skin on his arms begin to give way to feathers.]

[Mabel hasn't seen worse than this, really, but she has seen enough, and it sends her scurrying right up to Dipper despite the way his body is warping itself. Her own teeth are yet fangs in her mouth and it was Dipper himself who kept her from going as far as this, she's pretty sure, so of course it's Mabel who has to do the same for him in return. Isn't she the one who has always patted his back when he barfs?]

B-brobro, hey! Hey!

[It comes out as a whine, but she bends down to put her hands on Dipper's shoulders, never mind the eyes. Never mind the feathers.]

Edited (you ever think one word in your head while writing a different one) 2021-12-10 13:55 (UTC)

[It is up there with realizing he’s stabbed out his own eye. The pain is indescribable. When he lost his eye, the pain was localized at least. This time it’s every thread that makes up the fabric of his being that feels like it’s been lit on fire. It’s pain he feels in the core of essence, it’s a pain that radiates from his sene of self. It’s maddening and terrible and yet, it’s not the worst of what’s happening right now.]

[The reigns have slipped. He’s fighting with every thing he has, but he’s sinking. His awareness is fading, his control is brittle and on the cusp of shattering. His vision is foggy, slow, and he can barely hear himself speak as he struggles to move them from thoughts to words.]

[But Mabel is right there, and he has to try. The fear and anguish that dragged him under to begin with is threatening to swallow him up for good, but he has to at least try-]

Mabel.

[It doesn’t sound like him. Something damaged his vocal cords in the blast and it sounds like he’s speaking through wet sand.]

I fucked up- I can’t stop it!

[He doubles over again, and the sounds get worse. Bones twist and break, warping his body further and further from human. He feels even farther away from her than before.]

Run.

What? Of course not, stupid!

[Her brother says and does dumb things all the time; this is a simple fact of living with Dipper. He's anxious, he overthinks, he invents catastrophes. It's undeniable that he's changing into some sort of monster right before her very eyes, but if he's helpless to it, that just makes her all the more certain that if he can't stop it, Mabel has to help him realize that he can. That's how it goes for bonds like the two of them have, right? If one of them falters, the other one picks up the slack.

Mabel's hands remain firmly on Dipper's shoulders and she barely resists shaking him, even as they shift in her grip and the threat of feathers writhes horribly under what's left of his shirt. She stares him down as only a twin sister can, in whichever of his ridiculous number of eyes seems like it most belongs there.]

You fixed me enough before! Come on, do the twin ESP thing! We'll go to Dipperland or something, we'll figure it out! We'll get you mushrooms!

Edited 2021-12-10 23:58 (UTC)

[She's being stubborn, of course she's being stubborn. He would be touched if he wasn't extremely frustrated and also scared out of his mind. It's too late. He knows it's too late, he's barely holding on. Everything has gone dark, and only the faintest sounds of her voice are left.]

[The darkness comes for him in a way that sleep does when he's been awake for two straight days. He has maybe moments left to do something, so he puts everything he has into this last attempt to protect her and hopes it's enough.]

[Dipper lashes out with a strength that he should not be capable of. He doesn't strike Mabel so much as he tries to fling her as far from him as possible. In the next moment, he screams like a wounded animal, convulsing on the ground as the change finally consumes him. What's left there in the aftermath isn't Dipper Pines anymore.]

[Mabel lets out a scream of her own as she's tossed, and when she hits the ground, she hits hard enough to bounce. That Dipper could throw her like that stuns her enough that she stays where she lands for a few long moments, but she isn't feeling any pain. Later, when she uncovers all the scrapes and bruises, she might be put together enough to wonder why that is. But for the moment, both her vileblood and her own corruption are keeping her from any real suffering, and that just leaves her plenty of room for anger and concern and fear to twist around inside her in a horrible emotional molotov cocktail.

Once she lifts her head and shoves her wild hair out of her face, she settles on anger, if only because the other ones make her feel too helpless. If this can be nothing more than a really twisted sibling fight, if it all comes back around to her brother being stupid --]

DIPPER! Stop being such a shit!

[She will scold him later for ruining her good behavior streak in regards to words she is not supposed to be using yet, which is arguably just as important as turning into a horrific feather duster with too many eyes when it's your twin. For the moment, she plants her hands on the ground and pushes herself to her feet, and heads right back to her brother.

It hasn't hit her in the slightest that Dipper might no longer be in there. Anyway, the last time Dipper was no longer in there it was Bill's fault and she proceeded to smash her brother's body in the face with the journal to get to the demon, so here we are.]

Edited 2021-12-11 04:55 (UTC)

[It's a shame he did not get the chance to hear her slip up and swear.]

[The creature that used to be Dipper raises to it's feet, hunching over with it's long wing-like arms braced into the ground in front of it. It screeches at Mabel, as she runs towards it, but stays right where it is.]

[And then, the world shifts. A split second of vertigo, and then the color of the world fades out into monotone. Mabel would rush to meet the creature head on, only to find it to be an illusion.]

[Instead it lashes it's massive whip-like tails at her from behind.]

-- huh?

[The way their surroundings suddenly desaturate has Mabel pausing, hesitating -- have they entered a dreamscape, can she help him here? -- just enough that she doesn't actually make it close enough to the illusion to find out that it isn't real. The slap from the tail would have been a surprise anyway, but as it is, Mabel has her feet on the ground one second and is flying off to the side the next, where she crashes unceremoniously into a wall.]

Augh! Hey, hey, what the heck --

[It does hurt this time, but in a weird way. Her shoulder caught the brunt of the hit, and as she tries to push herself to her feet, Mabel finds it doesn't quite want to move as it should. Dazed and breathing heavily, she glances around, looking for the thing that hit her. It's difficult to tell one thing from another in all the gray.]

[She wouldn't find anything immediately, even if she could sort out the grey of the dreamscape. The monster appears to be gone entirely.]

[It falls deathly quiet for a few moments, until:]

Mabel!

[Dipper's voice rings out. Where did that come from? Oh, no, look, there he is. He's running towards her, and he looks fine! No scratches, even! Definitely not the horrid burn victim he looked like moments ago. Where did he come from? Who can say. The world is a weird disjointed dreamscape right now, so she probably just missed him coming out of the woods or something, right?]

[Right?]

[Mabel isn't stupid -- she's dealt with a brother who wasn't her brother at all before, and even in such a stressful moment, she's on top of things enough to be keeping an eye out for tells like yellow eyes or a difference in the way her brother carries himself. But Mabel also isn't a paleblood, and can't tell the difference between her current surroundings, a proper dreamscape, reality, any of it without signs from Dipper. She's never been in Dipper's dreamscape before, so who's to say it isn't gray and awful compared to the neon of her own? Dipper has none of the injuries she saw with her own eyes now, but why would he, in his head? And didn't she tell him outright to make this happen, so she could try to help him the way he helped her just last month?

She falls for it. Scrambling up, she staggers to him without a second thought.]

Dipper! What happened? I heard the explosion, but I didn't see anything. How do I fix this?

[It will be one of the things Dipper will get flashes of, this moment. This moment where the monster was just clever enough to be terribly cruel to the person most important to him.]

[Mabel falls for it, and the beast holds the image until he is inches from her. In a flash, her brother is gone, and the creature with too many eyes lunges into her, dragging her down to the ground and sinking his claws deep into her shoulders.]

[The thing practically screams in her face, coming close enough to make it clear it could hurt her much worse if it wanted to, but isn't because it's a conniving, shithead of a monster that likes to play with it's food.]

[She screams too, but it's lost under the sound the monster is making. That she's been tricked hits Mabel much harder and faster than the realization that his claws are in her flesh now. It hurts, but in a negligible way, like the inevitable pinpricks you get when you're sewing -- annoying, but easily forgotten in the face of the task at hand. Grabbing the monster's wrists, she squirms underneath him, attempting to pull those clawed hands away even as she recoils from all the eyes.

It isn't until she registers the sensation of heat at her shoulders that she realizes she's bleeding, a lot. A hand drifting down to the claws confirms that.

Mabel isn't completely fearless. There are plenty of things in the world that terrify her and the current situation is certainly one of them. But she's also the sort of person who fights hard and fights dirty, and being terrified of a monster that is trying to kill you is just so obvious that it doesn't even slow her down. She's already done everything from slamming the fingers of a disembodied hand in a door to squirting a nightmare demon in the eye with a can of spray paint she just happened to have in her hand at the time, and just now, what she happens to have in her hand is a palm full of her own gross, acidic, poisonous vileblood.]

This! Is! My favorite! SHIRT!

[Wiggling more until she gets some leverage, Mabel takes her bloodied hand and slaps the monster smack across the face, on the side with all the eyes.]

[It fucking screams the moment Mabel's hand makes contact with it's face, and there's a nasty sound of something burning as it recoils away from her, hands going to it's assaulted eyes.]

[It scrubs and scratches, desperate to try and rid itself of the poisonous blood, screeching and whining like a terribly wounded animal. After a moment, it's anger wins out over the pain, and it turns back to face Mabel with dangerous intent, in spite of half of it's eyes being rendered injured and useless.]

[It goes for her again, with a snarl. It seems to be done playing around.]

[The beast that once was Dipper could try, but--

A tiny owl in mottled browns and whites swooped in from the shadows, claws reaching out and going for the creature's multiple uncanny eyes for a split second in hopes of making a distraction for the reinforcements that were closely following.

Oscar had gotten the memo, in the form of a splitting headache and surge of something that didn't feel quite right from the space in the ether where he had heard Dipper's call some months before. Whether it was through their bond, his new Paleblood powers, or something more, he didn't know.

He only had seconds to instruct Ruby as to where to go.

Dipper's secret lamp was well known to him, and Oscar knew that this was the place he needed to go. Heart racing, he merely acted on instinct. With no idea as to what had happened or the situation at hand, he had no choice.

Mere seconds was all he needed for his distraction-- and, in the blink of an eye, he was a person once more. He landed before Mabel in a combat stance, his cane weapon brandished before him in a position that could easily swing offensive or defensive]

Mabel, [He said quickly, breathlessly. Something felt off with his footing, but he had to hold out.]

That's not Dipper right now.

Run.

[It's the same word Dipper had said to her last -- the real Dipper, before he turned into whatever the heck he is now -- and hearing it a second time from Oscar only makes Mabel's temper flare further.]

No way! He's still in there! I'm not just leaving him!

[But by god she will slap him again if she has to. Multiple times! She staggers as she pushes herself to her feet, instinctively crossing her arms so that she can grab her own shoulders and try to staunch the bleeding. Mabel has just enough sense to let Oscar stay properly in front, aware that he comes from a world that has probably taught him how to fight way better than she can. But if there's going to be a fight, Mabel will fill in whatever cracks in Oscar's defenses she can, even if it just means flicking her gross poison blood on her brother some more.

She has it. Might as well use it.]

Edited 2021-12-22 23:54 (UTC)

[Oscar is lucky he did not get swatted out of the sky. Probably because the beast's already taken several gruesome attacks to its eyes. With a snarl is shakes off the attack and regards them both now with contempt.]

[Carefully, it begins to pace, never keeping it's eyes off of them.]

[Then, the world shifts again. Disjointed, and uneven, the skies become red, and the forest around them flashes in and out, trees giving way to tall, pointed, teeth-like structures.]

[If at any point the two take their eyes off the beast, they will find it gone, hidden within the flickering illusion.]

Mabel-- it's not a matter of abandoning him. it's a matter of--

[He didn't have a chance to finish before he realized that the world had shifted. The wintry pastoral scene around them had become darker and twisted, with the gnarled branches of the skeletal trees grasping towards a darkened sky with claw-like fingers and shadows that stretched deeper than their very souls. Oscar bit his lip hard-- and cast his hazel eyes about in worry.]

Oh no.

[He muttered, steeling his spine in his uncertainty. Then, softer:]

Oh fuck.

[The way the world warps itself so quickly into a proper nightmare -- it reminds her of Bill at his angriest, the coloring, the teeth -- finally knocks Mabel out of her anger and back into proper fear. Her instinct is to reach out and grab Oscar's sleeve, but she doesn't. For one thing, he will probably need to move. For another it's her brother's sleeve she should be grabbing, and that only adds to the feeling of wrongness.]

What...? Oscar, what is it? Do you know? [Her own voice is hushed, as though that matters. Whatever Dipper -- the monster? -- Dipper is up to, he obviously knows exactly where they are. He put them here.] Is he -- is he doing some sort of paleblood thing, or --

[An outheld arm further instructed Mabel to not interfere, although at this point Oscar was having doubts that running at all would be effective. He bit his lip nervously, wanting to look at Mabel but unwilling to take eyes off of the eerie scene before them.]

I've been reading things in the libraries in Gaze, [He admitted. A known bookworm, this wasn't unusual. However--] I've also been attending classes at the school to get a better idea of this place. [A sigh.]

Mabel-- This...

[He took a step backwards on his prosthesis and stumbled when the toes of his boot didn't meet the ground when he expected. This... wasn't good.]

It's advanced corruption. I think.

[A horrible chill runs through her. This feels worse than the wounds on her shoulders. Corruption was her own problem last month, and they didn't realize it until she sprouted fangs through her old braces. A mushroom was found to fix it -- a mushroom they lost Ford, for a while, in the process of finding. But the effects didn't last long, and the fangs are already back in her mouth.]

...when...when it gets bad, it turns you into...a real monster...?

[Unconsciously, she brings one of her hands to cover her own mouth, heedless of the blood, as though she can keep her teeth contained.]

[Oscar took his eyes off of his surroundings for a split second to regard Mabel's growing horror. His hands shook around his weapon, and his heart was pounding so loudly he was certain that the beast that once was Dipper could probably hear it, but he knew what he had to do.

He had to be strong.]

Not always, but that's only what someone wrote about. You Pines are crazy lucky and crazy capable. If there was anyone who could find a way to beat this? I'm sure it's someone in your family.

[What Oscar is getting wrong here is that the Pines do not work independently. They are crazy lucky and crazy capable -- when they act together. Mabel, too, is absolutely confident that if this were a grunkle problem, or perhaps even an Oscar problem or one of their other friends, she and her brother could figure something out together. But as it stands, Mabel's other half is the immediate problem, and she has no idea how to help Dipper without Dipper when the tried and true method of bashing him in the face did not work and he isn't actually around in the flesh for her to exploit any of his other known weaknesses.

With this realization, the last of her earlier bravery leaks out of her.]

Grunkle Stan and Grunkle Ford aren't here! How do we help Dipper now?!

[With the landscape so twisted, he's certainly still around, probably waiting to do something beasthood-class petty out of spite for the strike to his eyes. They don't have time.]

[He is still around, hiding beneath the illusion like a shithead.]

[That's fine, they don't need to find him. Instead, for their wait, the illusion will move, finally, and out of seemingly no where, a huge imposing figure rushes up to them, screaming and swinging his huge fists right at Oscar.]

[It's and illusion of course, but under it is the Beast, who has taken the opportunity to slam it's whip-like tail into the boy while focused on the illusion. Hazel "Strikes" from above, while the beast strikes below, aiming to take out Oscar's prosthetic.]

Edited 2021-12-27 06:33 (UTC)

[Any words Oscar had to give Mabel about trust and faith in the people he chose to surround himself with and call 'family' died on his lips the fraction of a second he registered the unrelenting behemoth that was Hazel Rainhart. With Mabel behind him, he didn't dare try to dodge-- not that he could.

He was frozen, ensnared in his own abject terror memories of painful beatdowns that not even Ozpin seizing control of his body could fully match. The lessons Ford had learned the hard way were lessons Oscar had learned by the same method, for both good and ill.

There was no Ozpin in the back of his mind to jolt him into action this time.

Instead, it was Mabel's terror.]

Run!

[He bit out through gritted teeth, already preparing for the worst as he reached out to strike the image of the rampaging berserker above them. He moved into an active stance--

And fell into the dirt. His prosthetic leg, ripped asunder at the joint, arced in the air above them as the very breath was knocked from his chest by the collision.

He couldn't fall. Not yet. He needed to buy more time...]

[At this third order to run, Mabel almost, almost obeys. Oscar falls in the corner of her eye before she makes any real distance, though, and she's certainly not going to leave him. Dipper has to be responsible for this, and her brother will never forgive himself for hurting his boyfriend, no more than he'll forgive himself for the wounds still bleeding sluggishly at Mabel's shoulders.

Anyway, Oscar's her friend these days, too.

The illusion of Hazel bears down on them, ready to smash Oscar again, and properly this time. Mabel's trusty grappling hook flies out to meet him, beaning him -- and thus the beast hiding within -- smack in the face. She smashes the button to draw the hook back to its gun immediately after, looking around for convenient trees or branches or anything else she can fire at.

If she can get an arm around Oscar and get the grappling hook wrapped around something sturdy, she can use it to pull the both of them away. It's supported both herself and her brother in the past and it might buy them a little time. What they really need, though, is help.]

[And for the second time tonight help would arrive. Except this time it wasn't the beating wings of a owl but the crack of gunfire as an icy bullet rips through the air to strike at "Hazel's" foot. If it makes contact with the creature it'll coat the area in ice and pin it to the ground temporarily. Ruby may not know what's actually attacking her friends but she knows Hazel can take a pounding and that disabling him was probably the best way to get them to safety. Even if it wouldn't last long.]

Leave them alone.

[And she keeps Crescent Rose raised as she quickly tries to place herself between Mabel, Oscar and the illusion. Continuing to fire to hopefully give Mabel time to grapple them out of danger.]

[What Ruby gets is a horrible screech that does not sound like Hazel. The shot hits its mark, and the illusion shutters and flickers, giving way to the woods again.]

[Hazel vanishes, too, leaving the beast in it's place. It's leg is trapped in ice while it beats is wings to try and get free. It's angry and frantic, but doesn't seem strong enough to immediately break the ice.]

[He didn't have time to think, just react.

Oscar gladly accepted Mabel's assistance with the grappling hook, already familiar with it's weight capacity from previous adventures with Dipper, and heaved a sigh of relief when Ruby swept onto the scene.]

Ruby, that's Dipper!

[Oscar called, raising his voice above the chaos to be heard.]

Something happened to him-- Mabel doesn't even know what!

He told me to run! Before this happened!

[It's all she has to contribute here -- her brother was scared enough to tell her to run away, before he turned into whatever he's become. Mabel obviously didn't listen, and she isn't sorry about that, and won't be sorry about it later, either. But there isn't time to think about all the implications. Spotting a good target at last, she gets her arm around Oscar and fires off the grappling hook again, letting it wrap around a tree that is probably actually a lamppost and hauling them both away.

It is not a pleasant ride. Regardless of Dipper's illusions, they are still in Gaze, and they wind up bouncing all over the pavement. The pull of Oscar's weight on the one arm and the grappling hook on the other agitates Mabel's wounds enough that she cries out, and hopefully Oscar manages to avoid coming into direct contact with any of her blood, because it'll sting like hell if he does. They also end up leaving the fallen prosthetic behind, unfortunately. But they do get away, far enough to be out of range of any direct attacks, safe enough to catch their breath.

Ruby is now Dipper's primary problem.]

[Ruby has a bit of time to take in what Oscar and Mabel's words as she skids to a stop between them and the corrupted Dipper. She feels a pit in her stomach form as she realizes just who she's up against and that she doesn't know if it's even possible to take bring him back from this state.

She a glance back for just a second to Oscar and Mabel.]

It's okay. Just stay clear. I've got this.

[She keeps her voice calm and collected despite the fact she doesn't exactly know what she's going to do. She only got a passing glance at their injuries but they had looked serious enough to know that this thing wasn't playing around. She briefly thinks back to her time as The Hound and the pain she had caused. Glitch's death, Oscar's leg. She knew Dipper would never forgive himself if he caused pain like she had. And she wasn't about to let him do that.

She takes aim with Crescent Rose once again and tries to fire off another blast of ice to trap it further.]

[You know, it's annoying as heck when the prey you were playing with actually gets away. It's even more so when the thing that enabled this also has your trapped in ice. Yes, Ruby has successfully gotten the Beasts attention. It seems while it is sly, it is also enough a grudge holder to shift its attention to the new immediate problem.]

[That said, it will not come as easily as Ruby probably hopes, and just before the second shot, the beast uses it's tail to break the ice trapping it's leg and manages to shoot into the air just shy of being hit again. It lands with an aggressive thud on it's feet, and regards Ruby threateningly, tail lashing.]

[It begins to circle Ruby. Waiting.]

[He was grateful for Mabel's assist. Her wounds would be tended to as soon as they had a little space-- but, more importantly was Ruby in that instant. Oscar trusted her with everything, and keenly understood how hard this was going to be for everyone involved.]

Do what you've gotta, Ruby.

[He called, holding onto Mabel so that they could support each other.]

Don't let him do anything that you would hate to do in that position.

Are we not brave enough? [Closed]

The Exorcism

we told ‘em kids 😭

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cw: body horror, small eye mention, possession

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cw: self harm too

cw; PTSD,

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cw: graphic burn injuries, blood, body horror, eye horror

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cw: emeto

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