Skulduggery Pleasant + Gravity Falls: Magic & Mysteries Unite!

Sanguine

"Phew! That was exhausting!", Valkyrie said as she and the twins exited the woods.
Their clothes were splattered with mud and leaves. "Who knew that Gnomes could be so feisty?"
"Just be thankful that they didn't get a chance to assemble into a Giant-Gnome; then we would've been in real trouble," Dipper said as he brushed mud from his hat.
"Blargh!", Mabel spluttered. "I think I've got beard hair in my mouth!" She pulled a long strand of Grey hair from her teeth.
"Well, that's what you get for biting them," Dipper said smugly.
As the trio walked back to the shack, Valkyrie marvelled at her surroundings.
Gravity Falls may have been a strange place; but it also felt... comforting.
"Ugh... I can't wait to have a soak in a nice, hot bath," she sighed as she pulled a twig from her hair."
"Heh, no way! I'm first!" Mabel said, suddenly sprinting forward. "Last one there's a rotten egg!"
"Oh, it is on, Pines!" Valkyrie laughed as she chased after.
"You girls go on ahead," Dipper said and stretched his arms. "I'm gonna take a breather." He sat down on a nearby tree stump.
Valkyrie used the air to fly pass Mabel.
"Hey! No fair, that's cheating!" Mabel said as she jumped and flapped her arms in the hopes that she could suddenly fly.
Dipper laughed.
The sudden arrival of Valkyrie and her friends had been a welcome distraction; the atmosphere between Grunkle Stan and Great Uncle Ford had been tense lately, and the threat of what ever Bill Cipher was planning next loomed ever closer.
It was nice to have a break.
Dipper had learned to relax, thanks to a meditation technique of Skulduggery's.
He closed his eyes, drew in a deep breath and let out a long and contented sigh. He let his mind wander and concentrated on the sounds around him.
He could hear the distant laughs of Mabel and Valkyrie.
He could hear the pleasant chirping of the birds and other wildlife.
He could hear... rumbling.
Wait, rumbling?
Yes, rumbling. Distant at first, but getting closer now.
He could feel it a little through the tree stump.
Dipper opened his eyes and looked at the ground; he could see pebbles and loose bits of earth shaking.
The ground began to crack.
"Ahh!! Earthquake! Run for it!" He yelled as he lept off the stump and ran towards the girls.
The rumbling was louder now, and the cracks were following him.
The cracks were following him!
"Ah!" Dipper yelled as he fell. Something had tripped him up.
He looked back and saw that a hand had emerged from the cracks and grabbed his ankle.
"Mabel! Valkyrie! Help me!!"
Another hand emerged and grabbed his other ankle, preventing him from standing up.
Dipper gripped a nearby tree root and tried to pull himself free.
Valkyrie and Mabel were almost at the shack when they heard Dipper's cries for help.
They turned and saw him being dragged to a hole in the ground that was opening up; he kicked and he screamed.
"Dipper!!" Mabel screamed as she ran back towards him.
"Oh, no... Mabel, wait!", Valkyrie ran after.
Mabel launched herself at Dipper, grabbed his wrists and pulled with all her might.
"Let go of my bother, whoever you are!!"
Valkyrie wrapped her arms around Mabel's waist and heaved.
The hands gripped Dipper's ankles even tighter now as he began to panic.
"Let him go, Billy-Ray!!," Valkyrie yelled.
There was a pause, the hands let go and disappeared as the hole closed over.
The rumbling had stopped and it became eerily quiet.
Valkyrie and Mabel pulled Dipper to his feet; he was shaking.
"Is-" Dipper wheezed. "I-is it over?"
As if to answer his question; the ground cracked again directly under his feet as a Blonde haired man in a brown suit and sunglasses burst from it, grinning wickedly.
He surged forward, an arm encircling both Dipper and Mabel.
Before anyone had a chance to scream or shout; the twins were quickly pulled into the ground; the earth falling in to fill it and the hole in the ground quickly closed over.
"NO!!" Valkyrie screamed, frantically clawing at the ground. "No, no, no!!"
But it was no use, she was too late.
Dipper and Mabel were gone. Kidnapped.
All that remained was Dipper's hat, which had fallen off in the chaos.
"What's with all the screaming, kid?"
Stan asked as he, Ford and Skulduggery exited the shack.
"The- the twins," she said quietly as tears ran down her muddy face. "Dipper and Mabel..."
"What about 'em?"
"They're gone. He took them."
"What?! Who took them?!" Stan panicked and ran to the spot were Valkyrie was kneeling.
"Billy-Ray."
Skulduggery immediately pulled his phone out and dialled Fletcher's number.
He was at the Gravity Falls' Museum of Natural History with Tanith and Ghastly, they had been researching the towns history.
"Get here now! Billy-Ray has kidnapped the twins!"
They arrived three seconds after Skulduggery hung up.
"Who's Billy-Ray? Who the Hell is Billy-Ray?!" Stan asked as ran back to Skulduggery.
"Billy-Ray," Tanith said, unsheathing her sword to check the sharpness. "Is a sociopath."
"Calls himself a 'Hitman Deluxe'," Ghastly said with disgust in his voice and using air-quotes.
"But, to put it bluntly, Billy-Ray Sanguine is a cold hearted serial killer." Skulduggery said as Fletcher teleported to Valkyrie.
Ford's blood drained from his face. A serial killer?!
"Wait, did you say 'Sanguine'?" Stan asked, a realisation hitting him. "I think I've met him before! Blonde hair, Brown suit, sunglasses, with a Texan accent?"
"That's our psycho," Fletcher said flatly as he helped Valkyrie stand up.
"When did you cross paths with a Hitman, Stanley?" Ford asked. "Did one of your goons that you used to associate with get bored and put a hit out on you?"
"Nah, Rico doesn't use Hitmen; he has his own special brand of thugs." Stan rubbed his chin, his thumb lightly tracing over a small scar. "I met that mad Texan at a Poker game. I won a hand at Poker, he accused me of cheating and threatened to slit my throat as I tried to leave with my winnings."
"And did you cheat?" Ghastly asked.
Ford had gone quiet. The thought of his twin brother nearly getting his throat slit made his insides go cold.
"That's besides the point..."
"Did you see what direction he went?" Skulduggery asked Valkyrie.
"No," she said as she shook her head and wiped away the tears, she was holding Dipper's hat. "The ground closed over too quickly. They could be anywhere by now!"
"If he hasn't killed them already..." Fletcher muttered under his breath.
Tanith smacked the back of his head, "Oi, not helping."
"Ow! Hey, I'm just saying!"
"Wait, is that why Sanguine took the kids?!" Ford asked, his anger directed solely at Stan. "Because you cheated?!"
"No!" Stan said defensively. "I met him in Mexico as Samuel J Woods; he used to call me 'Woody', I used to call him 'Tex'. He wouldn't know where I was living now."
"It's highly possible that he kidnapped the twins for some other reason," Skulduggery said.
"Don't you have a magic spell that can track that maniac down?" Stan asked as Ford tried to calm himself.
Skulduggery thought for a moment.
"I don't; but I know someone who might..."
He took his phone out once more and dialled a number.
"China, I need you to do me a favour."
"My dear Skulduggery," her sultry voice said with a hint of a smile. "Anything for you."
"Great. Would it be okay if Fletcher brings you to Gravity Falls?"
"Of course, my love. What do you need me to do?"
"I'll have Fletcher explain everything; I'm sending him over now," Skulduggery gestured and Fletcher vanished.
China murmured a greeting on the other end of the line, Fletcher explained what had happened and what they needed to be done in the background.
She asked what the climate was like.
Skulduggery could hear Fletcher's murmured response.
After a silence, China returned to the call.
"Let me get changed, grab some equipment and we'll be straight over."
China ended the call and Skulduggery put his phone away.
"A word of warning," he said, addressing the elder Pines twins. "When China arrives, it's not real love."
"Okay..." Stan said, slightly confused.
Ford checked his plasma gun was fully charged as Skulduggery reloaded his gun.
Fletcher and China arrived; she was wearing tight black leather trousers, matching black ankle boots, a deep purple velvet jacket and a crisp sky-blue shirt. She was also carrying a duffel bag.
Stan fell to his knees, eyes wide and mouth agape, as the most beautiful woman in the world, with crimson red lips, raven black hair and eyes of the palest blue, smiled at him.
"Marry me..." he said, completely and utterly head-over-heels in love.
Ford stood there at Stan's side, confused but unaffected.
China arched a delicate eyebrow.
"I have a metal plate in my head that protects my mind from most psychic attacks," he said, answering her unspoken question.
"Seriously?" Tanith asked.
Ford knocked his head twice; the sound of a metallic clang-clang made her eyes widen in surprise. "Neat."
"If we could all focus," Skulduggery said, getting everyone's-except Stan's-attention. "Sanguine could have tunnelled miles away by now. China, what do you know of tracking spells?"
"I managed to acquire a manuscript of spells from a Sorcerer some years ago that went by the name of Saint Orion; he used to worship the Faceless Ones, just like myself, when he realised that maybe bringing back a race of ancient angry Gods that want to burn all of humanity to a cinder wasn't such a good idea. But he did document a spell, and a whole host of others that aren't relevant to our needs, in the hopes of tracking their whereabouts. He was planning to use it once he found all of the God Killer weapons and destroy them all."
"And then what happened?" Ford asked, genuinely invested.
This new world of magic and weirdness was fascinating and horrifying at the same time.
He thought that everything he researched was only contained in Gravity Falls.
Apparently not.
"Unfortunately for him," China continued as she hefted the duffel bag off her shoulder. "A fanatical group called The Unworthy Few were hellbent on bringing back the Faceless Ones; they thought that bringing them back would 'cleanse humanity of all Sin', and tracked down Orion and tore him-literally-limb from limb in the hopes of obtaining the manuscript. But, fortunately for him, his Apprentice, a lovely but dim young man by the name of Ichabod Anguish had a Vision of his demise and took the manuscript and fled underground."
"Hang on, if this Anguish guy had a Vision of Orion's death, why didn't he warn him?" asked Fletcher. Valkyrie was holding Dipper's hat close to her. The guilt of losing the twins was weighing heavy on her shoulders.
"Because Anguish forget to tell him."
"Oh..."
"Yes. Well, like I said, he was a lovely but dim young man."
Stan was still on his knees, a dumb smile across his face and his eyes were wide. If this was a cartoon, his eyes would be love hearts.
"Stanley, snap out of it," Ford said, shaking his brother by the shoulder. "You heard what Skulduggery said: it's not real love!"
"My, My, Skulduggery," China said coyly. "What have you been telling these nice young men?"
"Young?" Ford asked confused; if anything, they looked older than China.
"I'm 443 years old, my dear," she said to Ford, but her beautiful smile directed at Stan. "To me, you're both nice young men."
"I'll be anything you want me to be, toots..." Stan said, captivated.
"Oh, please..." Ford said under his breath.
"Stanley, would you be a dear and hold this for me?" China asked, indicating to the bag.
"With pleasure!" Stan jumped to his feet and took the bag from China.
She gingerly touched the side of his face.
"Good boy..."
Stan made a small whimpering sound and his knees shook.
"Okay, stop that." Ford said, starting to get irritated. "The fate of my niece and nephew is at stake. There's no time for your flirtatious mind games!"
"Spoilsport," China grinned.
All at once, a fog lifted from Stan's mind. He stood up straighter and shook his head.
"Woah! That was weird. I felt like a goofy teenager again..."
China opened the duffel bag and pulled out an old and dog-eared manuscript, it had gone a dirty yellow over time, but the writing was still eligible.
Skulduggery came over and took the manuscript. "You never told us how you came into possession of it," Skulduggery said as he thumbed through it.
"You don't expect me to reveal all my secrets, do you?"
"Which could mean that you either blackmailed, manipulated or killed to get your hands on it," Tanith said with a scowl.
China returned the scowl as she took out a pestle and mortar, a few vials and jars, a silver bowl and an old scroll and red quill.
"It's a shame there's nothing about tracking spells in your nerd-books, Sixer," Stan muttered as he kept a watchful eye on China.
"And Dipper has Journal 3," Ford said sadly, taking some of the equipment and putting it on a nearby picnic table. "I dread to think what would happen if this Sanguine fellow got his hands on it."
China sat down at the table and rolled out the scroll, using four stones to hold the corners.
She poured black liquid from a vial and what looked like crimson ash from jar into the pestle and mortar and began to mix.
It smelled like sulphur and fresh sea salt.
She dropped three green pellets and a leaf into the sludgy mixture.
China then poured that into the silver bowl and tapped the palm of her hands.
A golden symbol carved its way through her flesh and she closed her eyes.
"There is one more ingredient we need," she said as the light shone through her skin, the bones of her hands becoming visible. "We need something that belonged to Sanguine. Valkyrie, my dear, he didn't happen to drop anything, did he?"
"No..." Valkyrie said sadly. "All I have is Dipper's hat."
"Wait, that could work!" Stan said. "Are there any strands of hair in the hat, kid?"
Valkyrie looked.
In the lining was one single brown strand.
"Yes!" She ran over and delicately plucked the strand out.
"Put it in the bowl, if you please," China said, concentrating.
Valkyrie did as she was told and stood back.
China held her glowing hands over the bowl. The mixture began to churn and change colour.
It became a clear and light blue colour.
Her palms stopped glowing as the mixture calmed.
She took the red quill, dipped it and held it over the scroll.
A few drops spilled on it, creating a small blue splodge.
"Well? Why isn't it working?" Ford said, impatiently.
"My, my, so impatient," China smiled at Ford. He didn't return her smile.
"I just have to recite the incantation."
She took the manuscript from Skulduggery and turned to the page she needed; it was covered in symbols, sigils and a language that Stan couldn't understand.
With a clear and even voice, she recited something in a language that was old and unrecognisable. To Stan, anyway.
Ford recognised it as Old Gaelic.
Everyone looked at the scroll as the blue splodge started to move.
It dotted its way across the scroll, twisted and turned north, dotted some more, twisted twice and then turned east.
It finished by adding a big blue 'X' in the corner and quickly dried.
"Is this where they are?" Ford asked as he and Stan inspected the map.
"If that's where it ended, then yes," China said as she bottled the rest of the liquid. "That's where you're niece and nephew are being held."
"Do you even know where that is, Ford?" Stan asked, taking hold of the map.
"I've lived in Gravity Falls for 30 years but I don't even recognise this place."
"I do," Ford said evenly. "I discovered it in my early investigations, it's an ancient cave system that supposedly leads to a cavern deep underground. I nearly lost my damn mind down there so I was unable to reach the cavern. Nothing but pitch darkness, even with a torch or a flashlight it's still hard to navigate through."
"Everyone get ready," Skulduggery announced. "We're going on a rescue mission. Valkyrie, Fletcher and China, you come with me. Tanith and Ghastly, you go with Stan and Ford."
Tanith, Ghastly, Stan and Ford got into the
El Diablo Convertible-affectionately named 'The Stanmobile'-with Ford at the wheel as the rest got into the Bentley.
"Don't worry, we'll get them back," Tanith said reassuringly.
"I hope so..." Ford said as he started the ignition.
He drove away from the Shack as the Bentley followed.
"Do you really think they'll be okay?" Valkyrie asked from the backseat.
"I hope so, Valkyrie," Skulduggery said, not bothering to activate his Facade. "But the second we get the twins, I want you and Fletcher to teleport with them back to the Shack."
"What? Why?"
"Because this is Sanguine we're dealing with," he said darkly. "Something tells me that, whatever he's up to, he's not doing it alone."
"But what about Stan and Ford?" Fletcher asked leaning forward.
"The elder twins can help us deal with Sanguine and what ever psycho, or psychos, he's teamed up with."
"But they're old!" Fletcher exclaimed.
"I'm old, I'm hundreds of years older than them and I'm more than capable of hurting a few bad guys," Skulduggery pointed out.
"Aw, if anything happens to those kids," Stan said as Ford drove. "I'll never forgive myself!"
"Don't worry, Stanley," Ford said. "I've been up against fearsome beings before, and with the help of Skulduggery and his friends, we'll have the upper hand."
"I owe Sanguine a few broken ribs anyway," Ghastly said.
"But what if something goes wrong?" Stan said.
"We'll get your twins back, Stan," Tanith said as she put a reassuring hand on his shoulder. "We won't rest until we have them safe and sound."
"And what if Sanguine puts up a fight?"
"Then we kill him..." Ford said darkly.
As the rescue team sped to their destination, they didn't realise they were being watched by an all seeing eye...