Escape From Fanservice Island

by Great Pikmin Fan

After an expedition goes wrong, Stan, Ford, Soos, and Melody find themselves on a strange island where they get into risque naked adventures with past threats - .GIFfany, Darlene, and Pyronica. With a mysterious new beast lurking in the woods, can they survive? Rated M because of a lot of focused nudity in general, especially a lot of butts. Now complete.

10. Red Moon, Black Sun?

Escape From Fanservice Island

Chapter 9: Red Moon, Black Sun?

Beginning AN:

Despite being long, this chapter is pretty rushed. So rushed that I can't really think of anything to say in this note becides that it's rushed. Well, enjoy!

I know I said I would fix some things in at least this and RG, but thanks to rushing this chapter, I kind of didn't have the time. I'll try to get it done tomorrow, though.

---

The first sense that came to .GIFfany 'apparently Wendy's long-lost distant cousin' Miyazumi upon regaining conciousness was smell, and the first thing she smelled was a liquid that was practically haunting her through the four months on the island and then some.

Alcohol.

Smelled good, too. Better than what she single-handedly produced back on Fanservice Island.

.GIFfany opened her eyes and was met with a huge array of purple. Looking just like a recolor of the Fanservice Island Temple stone.

She was in a cell, 'anti-gif rubber' poles lining in stark contrast to the solid stone otherwise around. Bottles and bottles of fancy, well-smelling wine were right by the bars, free for taking. Next to her was Soos, who had barely been regaining conciousness. Nobody else was there - no sign of any of the other Artificial Army members.

Kank Kill was the one to greet them, running from the hall that the jail cell linked to. Not that either of the two captives knew who he even was. He needed to take a deep breath in as he spoke.

"Miyazumi, your gawd dang cousin is really chasing me, so I'll be brief." He said. "I didn't want to have you get captured, but..."

"I do not have any cousins." Said .GIFfany, already examining the lock keeping her in - oh god, that's pathetic! She could burst out at any time! "The Artificial Army is not biologically related to me."

"I wasn't talking about one of them! I meant your other cousin! Gah, nevermind. Look, .GIFfany, the Lightning Cultist is making an offer. If you wish, you and she can live on the next world. Wth me, too, I'll be there. And Rumble."

.GIFfany sighed. "Of course. She convinced Rumble to think she is the good guy, like she did with me. But that was easier, I was evil back then. I am not surprised."

"Yep, you catch on fast." Kank nodded.

Soos had something else on his mind completely:

"Hey, can I borrow your pants?" He asked. "They look really cool. Also, I'm still naked. I had been for four months now. It felt good at first, but now I'm really getting sick of it."

"No! Ask someone else! I am not some kinda walking clothing store, and I will certainly not be removing my lower garments in the vicinity of other people!"

He suddenly moved to the side, barely dodging a blue blast that headed after him. Glancing down the hall, Kank saw Wendy holding Gank's trident proudly, ready to march forward. Kank finally did as he promised: say it briefly:

"Okay, the Cultist just wants to make sure that you don't use your weapons to stop her plan. .GIFfany, she's offering you a chance to join Rumble, Zephieye, and I to the new world - you can survive her pixel... thingy that's she's doing that will wipe out organic life, with Zephieye herself shielding herself from the blast with a one-man barrier of sorts."

"The answer is no!" .GIFfany belted back, as Kank dodged Wendy leaping right to his side and sending a flurry of axe strikes. "I already told you that I changed!"

Kank sighed, still dodging what was thrown at him. "Whatever. I'm gonna go get the other Keepers, anyway. It was what I was going to do before I thought about taking a side-trip to you two."

He ran off, leaving Wendy to strike air one last time before freezing.

She looked over at the two captives. Soos waved back at her.

"So you're naked too." Wendy just bluntly blurted that out. "Just like your friends we haven't seen in months. Hey, uh, it's good to see you again? Hey, pink hair, did you know we're like, related?"

"Kank just told me before you came here." .GIFfany replied. "...Kind of. I was not expecting you when he said my cousin was after him."

"Oh, also, I went to the future or something four months ago - I mean, four months ago was when that thing happened that sent me to the future. I went all over time, but in the future future, the sky was even worse than it is now, and you were there, and you were actually wearing something."

"The sky was worse than what-" .GIFfany was about to ask, then she winced. "Ugh... stupid Cultist and her Blood Moons, I think I know what you are talking about."

"What?" Asked Soos, now the only one out of the loop.

.GIFany chose to both ask Wendy and try to answer Soos. "Let me guess. Blood-red moon? Black sky?"

"Yeah." Wendy nodded. "But in my future-time, it was like, the opposite - red sky and black sun - and you were wearing these cool-looking, like, monk robes or something. If monks wore really tiny skirts and no underwear. No offense, 'cousin,' but your face also didn't look like some depressed edgy artist's self-painting that could make bulldogs cry. You're with Soos. You should probably lighten up a little - here, I can break you out-"

"I can get out on my own." Said .GIFfany, staring down at all the various containers of wine put in front of her. "In fact, I think it would be better for me if I did it this way: by refusing Zephieye's offer, and showing that the drink is off."

She threw one of the bottles straight at the lock holding her in.

"Did you REALLY think I would drink myself in to joining you, Zephieye?!"

Just one spark was sent to the splash of alcohol towards the prison bars. And with that spark, a small flame broke out.

The lock, predictably, deteriorated in a near-instant. It fell to the ground as .GIFfany just stared, only looking away to glance at the other containers of alcohol.

"...GIFfany, are you okay?" Soos had to ask the question burning on everyone's mind. Even .GIFfany's own.

"No." At least she was honest. "Not until I kill Zephieye. If I can even scratch her in the first place, that is."

"...Oh! I think I was sent to the island you were on, too. Like, the same time-crap just threw me somewhere by this cave pileup. I saw this blonde girl that looked a lot like the one with Mr. Pines and everyone else."

---

A question Stan really should have considered finally entered his head as the Lightning Cultist continued searching the leaves above him: Where am I going again, exactly?

He was cut off from his thoughts when he heard Katjus - Oh, that's where she went - calling out to the Cultist in a stoic tone: "Yo. Zephieye."

She looked over at a clearing, spotting the teal humanoid. And said troll was mildly glancing over in Stan's direction, which had caused Zephieye's masked head to slowly turn over there, before Katjus's next words glued her attention straight to her.

"I'd like to talk to you about how you screwed my friend out of a good deal, and what a stupid jerk you were to him."

"Stupid? Did you just call me stupid?" Zephieye replied.

"Yeah. Because you are."

Melody's ex-girlfriend lept from the branch she stood on, stomping to the ground below. Showing no concern or change in tone, Katjus simply turned to Stan and mouthed "You owe me" as she immediately went back to looking at the Cult leader.

Stan could barely comprehend what just happened before two pairs of hands whisked him away, sending him flying through the forest, and ending up by the entrance to the craft. He whipped around as soon as his feet touched the ground, ready to hit-

Oh. It was the Sage-Guides.

He decided not to hit.

"We sensed that the best way to get deep in to the earth to find the Green Temple was through here." Explained Red in a semi-whisper. "You will have to climb down some metal, first. Did you keep your magnet gun?"

"Of course I did!" He replied with a grin, taking it out of his inventory.

Yellow clasped her hands together, causing her eyes to sparkle again. "Oooh, I'm speaking to the Green Sage-Guide telepathically right now! He's trying to hide it, but I can just tell he's so happy that we're about to set him free!"

As Stan already began making his way down the ladder, his expression became considerably more neutral. "Wait, 'he?'"

Ignoring that, he simply used the magnet gun for the rest of the way down that first built-in ladder thing, and started to glide through the passages of the Kank-broken spacecraft. the Guides had to enter and exit their gaseous forms just to get around that.

Getting to the square opening to the Green Temple was easy enough, but it was after jumping in that Stan's body, mind, and soul all just kind of froze.

He heard chanting. And saw violet glowing. And smelled... some kind of candles burning? Scented candles? Pinneaple, to be specific? With four of five senses (dread, that's what he felt) being filled with bad signs, Stan just shivered as the two ghostly beings descended towards him.

"Yeah..." whispered the Red Sage-Guide. "It makes sense. Someone like her would have guards stationed around the remaining Sage-Guides. In hindsight, it is a little strange that she gave up trying to have guards around the Yellow Sage-Guide."

Stan nodded. "Hey, can any part of me that touches the sphere break it?"

"It should. Why did you ask?"

"Well... I've been thinking about how to fight those cult nuts. They've obviously got magic and stuff. Oh, and does it even need to be a 'whole' part of my body?"

"I believe anything that has your 'life print,' which can even include something as simple as a strand of DNA with the destiny charge, would break that sphere."

Stan smirked.

"Perfect."

---

"So... uh, all this chanting sure is boring, isn't it?" Asked one of the twelve cultists circled around the green sphere. A high-pitched, nasally masculine voice. Covered in a near-identical outfit to the head Lightning Cultist, only with four slanted eye-holes with red 'pupils' and a vertical line through the entire middle.

"Kind of. But it's not really 'chanting.'" Answered a much lower masculine voice. The mask there was shaped like the Gobblewonker's head, and was even green to boot. "We're just sitting around here trying to keep an eye in this thing. So that the Wind Keeper doesn't get here and awaken this guy."

A feminine groan came from a cultist wearing a purple mask that bore an uncanny resemblance to Zeskit's face. "I really wish it wasn't this Guide, though. He's ugly as hell. That Red Guide, though. Mmmm... mmm... MMMMMM! I loved looking at her when we had missions to Fanservice Island." The figure looked down, placed a hand between her legs to cover a spot that became slightly darker, and shrunk back, sitting down.

"Ha!" Laughed the first speaker. "Kimberly, are you still not wearing anything under those robes? Not even underwear? We already know how obvious it is when someone going commando under there is excited!"

"Shut up, Kenny!" Said the (male) troll-masked cultist (male as in the type of troll, not the identity of the wearer), squirming around. "It's not like you never went bare and got excited yourself! It gives your robe a more obvious point than our bird-masks! Especially when we go to Fanservice Island! I saw you staring at .GIFfany's carving on the wall!"

The second one to speak began to sit and shrink back himself.

"Uh, could we please stop talking about Kimberly's being wet and naked under her thin, fragile robes and getting hot and bothered at her lesbian fantasies with the curvy, big-breasted naked red giantess? You know we should be expecting Stan, Ford, Melody, and Darlene to come bursting in here at any minute. Possibly even with the Guides. They'll laugh at us when they see nine robes with tents by the front and three with glaring wet spots. And coming from a guy who was all-business, I know how horrible being laughed at by your competition is." He, too, shied down to a seated position.

"Souma," said Kimberly, "that's assuming everyone around here is wearing nothing but their robes right now. I know for a fact that Zephieye, while she isn't here right now, she at least dresses fully under her outfit. That stupid red and black edgy Satanism stuff."

The ten who were still standing just sat down.

"Wait..." asked Kimberly, "ANYONE?"

They shook their heads. Kimberly laughed as her arms shifted, apparently forgetting to cover herself and completely revealing her fluid-stain. Then again, this story 'showed' .GIFfany covered in semen, so it's not like a tiny wet spot would automatically bump up the rating any more.

"Well, at least I'm not the only one."

"...Honestly, I think it would be hotter if you were." Said a clear-masculine-voiced cultist who's mask was seemingly a paper place with a car drawn on it. "I've always loved it when groups had just one token naked person."

"Takumi, stop thinking about me that way. And cover your crotch better."

"Says the woman who admited she enjoys staring at the ass of an artistically-naked goddess."

"Touché."

Kenny clapped his hands over his masked face.

"We're all nerds, aren't we?"

A short distance away, the Yellow Sage-Guide was practically prodding Stan's shoulder.

"Um, Stan?" She asked. "What is your plan? I saw you doing something to a piece of this temple, but I didn't get a good look..."

He answered by throwing what looked like a seemingly 'ordinary' chunk of green temple-stone at the sphere. Surprisingly, the rock was able to crack the sphere despite everything else in the story implying otherwise. The twelve cultists immediately got to their feet, and as the conversation had implied, all of them were blatantly aroused at the moment.

"I, uh..." Stan was clearly trying his damndest to find a reason to be proud as he explained his plan. "I put my spit all over that rock! So uh... the DNA in it, that's what activated... you guys really are nerds. And not so much the 'cute nerds' like my nephew. Like the kind people might think about getting restraining orders again. I should know because I've had restraining orders placed on me. And there was one that I put on this guy that-"

He finally noticed the carving of himself on the wall.

"WOAH!" He shouted. "My penis is not that small!"

I will say right now that the speaker of the following word was the Green Sage-Guide (this would be obvious on a website that allowed colored text, as the word in quote marks - and the quotes themselves - would be in green), speaking just before his trapping bubble released him completely: "What?!"

Even behind the masks, Stan could tell that the cultists were in a panic as they scrambled over to their previous barricade of violet-tinted rocks. The one that was supposedly Kenny stuck an arm out with the palm facing it just as the room filled with light once again as the sphere shattered, yet he could be heard shouting "BARKAIAS NUX!"

With the lights dimmed, the stone blocking the way to the transporting area was no longer glowing, and the cultists were already using some sort of green amulets Stan's nephew and niece might know a little more about to quickly move all the debris out of their way. They dashed to the red transporter circle as the Green Sage-Guide began to stretch out as if he had simply woken up from a good nap. Holding the appearance of a giant, green, middle-aged man with a small and shriveled ass and a modest-sized fig leaf over his junk, he could barely look towards the person that freed him before his eyes were taken by the Yellow Sage-Guide.

Specifically, the pair of enourmous yellow breasts that bounced happily as the Guide came barrelling at him at full speed. He could only let out one cry in horror:

"BWAAAAAAAAAH!"

Yellow tackled him, sending both of them flying to the ground. As they did not have that much room considering their size and the temple's dimensions, the two gods were sent to the far wall - shattering it, getting covered by the dirt and vines on the other side.

"Green, I'm so happy you're finally free too!" The Yellow Sage-Guide cheered, not just nuzzling his neck, but her overall motions also rubbing her breasts against his head a lot. "We are going to be reunited in no time!"

"Th- that's good, that's good!" The newly-freed one replied. "But I uh, thought we had an established hugging rule!"

Yellow finally released her grip on him, but balled her hands together by her shoulder. "Oh, sorry!"

Green groaned as he attempted to get back up.

"So uh," Stan asked, "do I get a fancy sword like Soos and .GIFfany?"

"Who?" Replied Green. "Uh, are they- oh wait, now I remember. Yeah, Red told me who they were telepathically. The Fire and Light Keepers, and you're the Wind Keeper. Hm... uh huh, you got my... uh, 'Diminished Glutes Syndrome,' I see."

"Yeah, the tiny ass?" Which, by the way, was definitely green at that moment. "Good to know that's one thing we have in common." Stan could barely say that with a straight face. "And that carving of me... I still can't get over how, you know, inaccurate it is..."

Green groaned again. "Why do we all have to be naked, again?"

"Hey, I don't mind!" Replied the Red Sage-Guide with a giggle. "I love feeling the breeze all around me! And having a giant body means that I can feel more! But... some people don't like being around naked all the time as much, and I think the Dark Keeper, Melody, is one of them."

"Yeah, yeah." The Green Sage-Guide lifted his head and arm up so that Stan was completely out of his vision, and from his POV his own arm shielded his eyes from the sight of the gigantic breasts of the other two Sage-Guides. "Hexagram Emergency and destiny and what-not. Look, Red, what you said about this 'Zephieye' fella sounded really urgent. Stan, I'm gonna give you the sword you are expecting. After you're done with Zephieye, then we can talk about activating the temples. But until then, there's no way we're doing that as long as someone that powerful and capable of knocking us out is still around. We're kind of afraid of her hijacking the entire temples and getting unlimited power if we raise them at their full strength from the ground."

"The Lightning Cultist knocked you guys out?" Asked Stan. "How and when?"

"Oh, not Green," Red elaborated, "but Yellow and I were knocked out by Zephieye's anti-supernatural attack on the ship just before it apparently crashed. When we woke up, one of the side-cultists was kind of nervously prodding us. He said that Zephieye wasn't sure what to do with us, since we're not a threat without you Keepers around to actually be our arms and legs while we recover full power. And based on what the Anti-Sage did, we can't really recover full power until after all six of us get together."

"Anyway," Green finished, "Stan, it would be important for you to take this as soon as possible:"

He focused as well. Leaves began to appear in a tiny group in front of Stan, one by one, carried by winds. Within a split-second, they all clusted together and began growing in to something else. A huge group of green-ish flower petals and a massive amount of wind burst from the cluster, many fluttering out to the wind but several staying to continue to morph and eventually become a single giant green blade, floating in front of the Keeper. As with .GIFfany and Soos before him, Stan grabbed the sword, and its blade was soon covered in a minuature tornado.

YOU GOT THE WIND KEEPER'S BLADE!

A legendary weapon that was hidden within the cracks of Earth. Blow everyone away, build your own garden, or both with a single swing! Powered by propane and magic.

"YES!" Stanley cheered. He thrusted his sword skyward, instantly awakening a cylinder of wind to rise up. "Now I can save my son- uh... Soos, and stop that Cultist from turning everything black and red like some bad horror story. Now, who's with me?"

The Sage-Guides exchanged glances.

"Actually..." Said Yellow. "We were thinking about it telepathically, and... well, we think it would be time for us to get in to position to quickly activate the temples, since we Sage-Guides can just do that by ourselves."

"Huh?"

"Well," Red explained, "I forgot about activation until we already rescued Yellow. And back then, we were sticking around to see you at least try to get back home. Now that we're under pressure, and after we safely escorted you to the temple, well... now Green can go to the very bottom of this temple, Yellow can warp to hers, and I can fly all the way back to Fanservice Island for mine."

"So I'm by myself..." Stan said. "Good. Let's do this!"

"Well, you don't have to be! Here, Yellow, Green, let's make a short-hand communicator together!"

All three spirit-beings closed their eyes and clapped their hands together. Each of them glowed their respective colors, and the ground even started to shake...

Then suddenly everything stopped, and the handle of Stan's Blade just flashed twice.

---

Neither .GIFfany nor Soos even noticed that their Blades did the exact same thing, just two quick flashes.

---

"Okay," Red explained, "we added a feature to your Blades that will allow them to communicate with the Guide that made them. So, if you want to talk to the Green Sage-Guide at any moment, just talk in to your Wind Keeper Blade."

Green turned in to mist, except instead of going in to his respective Keeper, he navigated the cracks of the room's floor and went down. Yellow and Stan both bolted to the recently-opened transport room, with Yellow diving to the pad to her temple and Stan going for the one to the original ship. Sighing, Red just spent those moments floating in place.

"Navigating to Fanservice Island from here is going to take a while... and be so boring..." She said to herself, before flying off.

---

Melody and Ford both shivered.

It was still technically 'day,' yet the early-spring air combined with whatever Zephieye's still-present 'Blood Moon' magic was to make the place unbearably chilling. Darlene managed to brace against the naked cold a bit better, but she was still ultimately unprotected, and flinched when a Cultist nearly shone a violet light on her from past a tree.

"Where do we go?" Melody whispered to Ford. "Everything's blocked! This is like my nightmare come true."

"By the way..." Everyone within the town's boundaries heard the Cultist's voice at an even volume. An unsurprising, low-level spell Melody was far too used to by that point. "I want to make an addition to my fellow Cultists. If you see my ex-girlfriend, Melody Seeren, I want you to do something extra. Take your photo-runes, snapshot her, and insta-post them alllllllll over the Internet!"

Melody completely froze up at that.

---

Elsewhere, within a set of purple tunnels, a certain red sword nearly exploded in to enraged flame, and a certain yellow sword nearly became blinding with furious light.

---

And towards another direction, within the red room that its holder had warped in to not too long ago, a certain green sword's durability was tested as its owner gripped the handle hard, causing thorny branches to stick out from it.

"That's..." said Stan, "my DAUGHTER IN LAW YOU CREEP!"

He dashed forth down the hall, managing to kick up an impressive amount of dust on his way and coming off looking like Road Runner if anything.

---

"So uh..." Soos asked after managing to calm down from Zephieye's comments. .GIFfany, on the other hand, was still fuming. "Wendy, where did you get all that sweet gear from? I'm sorry, is 'sweet gear' even a thing people say anymore? I've been away from society for so long, I think I know how Ford felt when he came out of the portal. Oh, imagine what Ford feels now that he has to catch up twice..."

"Some guys." Wendy began her reply with that. "Yeah, this 'Great Zephieye' has an army of people with similar names. I took 'em all out. Well, except 'Kank Kill,' he's like the worst. And there were six more of them that were hiding out - they all have the name 'Wank Will,' just with a different middle initial and a different 'direction.' Yeah, 'Wank Will of the West, of the East, of the North, the South, the "Up," the "Down," and of the "Center."' Don't ask, I don't understand either."

"Okay... also, did either of you heard what I heard? From the Lightning Cultist."

"Yeah, she's trying to blackmail Melody or something. It's sick. I can help you guys find her. And that's the Lightning Cultist? Wait, she's the same person as the Great Zephieye?"

.GIFfany nodded. "I found out yesterday that she was also Melody's ex-girlfriend. I did not know the Cultist's true identity until then."

"So she's the cause of those -Ank guys, used to date Melody, and she's the reason why you're able to walk next to me right now?"

.GIFfany nodded.

"Wow. She must have a lot on her hands."

"Yes. A lot of blood."

---

"AHA! I found you!" Stan cried, pointing his plant-y blade towards a group of Cultists - bigger than the one he found at his temple, that's for certain.

They turned to look at him and...

Immediately threw their hands in the air.

"Wait, wait, wait!" Stan recognized from the voice that that one was named 'Kenny.' "We're on your side now! We had no idea Zephieye wanted us to do that!"

Stan lowered the arm holding the sword.

"Really?"

"Yes, yes, yes! We think violating someone's privacy like that is disgusting! I mean, sure, we tease and joke about each-other, but... but... how can we prove this?"

"Take off everything you're wearing."

Dozens upon dozens of pale blue robes hit the floor. With the exception of a frail woman with boxer shorts (which went next), every single one of them was bare.

"HA!" Cheered Kimberly. Since revealed as a heavy-set woman with pale skin and yellow-blonde hair. I should elaborate that said hair was both on her head flowing until just above her large butt, and forming a giant triangle on her crotch that Stan initially mistook for a yellow thong. "I really wasn't the only one!"

Stan took a camera out of his inventory and snapped a picture of them.

"If I ever see Melody's naked self on the Internet and she didn't make it crystal clear that she sent that on purpose, I'm posting that on the web."

"Okay." Kenny replied.

"And I'm kicking the ass of every single one of you."

"Oh! Well... can we put our clothes back on, now?"

"...You know what? No. Don't. We've been like this for four months now thanks to those stupid bugs. I want you to know how Melody felt over that time. You're not getting re-dressed. In fact, give those robes to me. Judging by how your boss could be on Fanservice Island after the Cloth Moths went active, I'm guessing it's tailor-made to be immune to those things. So even if we do, for any reason, go back to Fanservice Island, those things will still keep us some cover."

"That would be a bad idea!" Kimberly continued. "Th-these thigs are set to explode if they touch someone other than their wearer! You can ask Zephieye herself, she's honest about that sort of thing!"

Stan scanned the piles of clothing up and down.

"I might risk it... if I actually felt uncomfortable going around naked." Stan shrugged. "But hey, I've been naked on TV four times now - and two of them were last summer. But Melody hates being exposed. Do you know how long it took on Fanservice Island before she gave up covering herself around us? Even after that happened, she's still really reluctant to be around my brother or me. Or even Darlene. And you know how comfortable women are being naked around each-other, with their naked sleep-over pillow fights. According to the .GIFfanys."

---

"Melody."

That was Zephieye's voice. No matter which way she turned - no matter which way Ford or Darlene turned - it felt like the head Cultist was right next to them now. But the words of the lightning lunatic were clearly only aimed at one of them.

"Melody, wherever you are, I will find you."

Melody sank further in the bushes. Why why why can't she just be left alone by that psycho?!

"I was just informed that my entire cult had turned against me for my challenge to broadcast you over the internet. Well then. Maybe my doppelgangers will do the trick. Not as neatly or quickly, but it will provide the added intellect that comes from multiplying me."

As she finished that statement, a number of slightly transparent images of the Lightning Cultist herself filled the forest. All of them glaring down at some random tree of some sort.

"Stanford, I hope you are happy. Your brother just got his Keeper Blade, and now I have one less thing to worry about."

Ford's eyes moved around. Which ones were the fakes were obvious - but he had no real sign of where the genuine Cultist was, and so he groaned.

"But of the things I do have to worry about, namely you screwing up the last part of my ritual, I am putting full attention to it."

One of the doppelgangers showed up right by the group, almost close enough to breathe right in to Melody's ear.

"Okay. I think I found you."

"Back off!" Melody yelled, just as the mask of the copy flashed white. However, Melody herself had left the field that was hit with the flash - on board the hijacked ship, Zephieye looked in to a collection of floating rectangular images appeared in front of her. Many of which were of runes, and many of which had the same palette of the usual six different-colored stone backgrounds. The one at the bottom-right, however, showed empty forest. No signs of Melody anywhere.

Groaning, Zephieye deleted that image.

Below, Ford and Darlene looked to see that Melody had lept clean across a relatively clear trail in the forest, and it was through that trail that the Zephieye image looked around.

"Oh, screw it!" She shouted. "I'm just going to break this place up! I know you're fast, Seeren! You could have been clear across the town by now!"

Melody wasn't. She was still across the trail, mouthing 'RUN!' to Ford and Darlene. Neither of them followed her order; they both stayed, thumbing through their inventories for something to use on the hologram.

None of that changed the fireball that rose from the Cultist's image blasting that particular part of the Gravity Falls forest.

The earth was not carved in too far or especially wide, but her attack did go deep. A massive scar on the land was formed, parting Melody with the last two swordless Keepers, all while the Cultist image looked back and forth between the two sides.

"H-hey!" Ford nervously cried out. Once multiple Zephieye images started appearing around him from that comment, a part of his brain told him that he did not have that much more time to live. "I-if you want to do these things to someone, pick me!"

The illusion turned to face him.

"You stay out of this." She said. "Melody and I have far more of a history than I do with you, and it's not even her that I really want to deal with right now. Although I will admit that you could serve as one heck of an inspiration, what with your interdimensional travels. I do wish to go through whatever portal device you can set up, and maybe reach the virtual world from there."

"Not a chance!" Ford snapped back. "I will not risk another interdimensional cross like that! Thanks to you and Pyronica, I am still fighting against the results of the last one!"

"If I do make it to the virtual realm, then maybe I will not have to manually bring it over. A portal could greatly boost my chances of finding it; portals created through the weirdness stone of the temples only links worlds that are familiar."

"...Even if it means getting rid of you, it will still be a risk that-"

"Wait a minute." Said Melody, who stood up and immediately clapped a hand over her mouth upon realizing that she had just given herself away. "I mean... you should have ignored me?"

She took back off in to the forest, tripping over a loose root in the process. Before she even fell to the ground, Zephieye beamed right in front of her.

The real Zephieye.

"And where the hell do you think you're going? You just saw that I am everywhere."

Melody tried to move away while still on the ground, feeling the effects of a cold stone having scraped against her naked leg. She fought back against the sheer sting of it, looking at the evil ex in the eye. Harder as it was twitching in pain.

"I could leave you! I could leave the island! I could leave you again!"

Melody attempted to leap up, to deal another strike at her as she did in the Red Temple. Yet all the Lightning Cultist had to do was move back, using a telekinetic push to shove her in to a tree. Shortly following that, Darlene and Ford were both also lifted in to the crack that was formed from the prior blast.

The Keepers of Soul and Water held on to the canyon, but it was not enough for the latter. Ford slipped and fell, nearly as he did in the Red Temple on his first day in the island. With a web, however, Darlene was able to just barely get a hold on him.

"Before I properly humiliate you, as I had already won..." the head Cultist began, "I will first have a little fun with my victory."

"Movie villains always do that!" Melody tried to retort. "It never ends well for them!"

"Shut up and let me brag for ten minutes! You know how I love talking about my great achievements, and how it is a sign of a normal ego!"

Zephieye stuck a hand out, causing an invisible force to push Melody straight in to the nearest tree. From their angle, Ford and Darlene were unable to see that exact action, but both of them cringed.

"Hang in there..." said the latter of them. "I think I can get us out and stop her from attacking Melody."

"You will not hang in there," Zephieye snapped as she floated towards the mega-ditch, "and nobody is going to be 'saving' Melody!"

"Technically, I didn't say 'saving,'" Ford attempted to correct, "but-"

"ARGH! ENOUGH! MY APOCALYPSE WAILS BY NEXT MORNING! And forty-nine days past that."

At least she gave a proper time limit. ...At the cost of also accidentally making an awful reference to that awful Zelda CDI game.

Zephieye instead threw her attention to Ford, lifting him up telekinetically.

"You listen right here." She said. "This is just between me and Melody right now. Not you." She glanced towards Darlene. "And CERTAINLY not you!"

She punctuated that by throwing Ford on Darlene and further down the self-made canyon. Both of them scraped against rocks, Darlene trying to keep a hold on Ford and using her tough giant-spider carapace to minimize the damage caused by the earth... and later, the metal.

Darlene stopped keeping her eyes shut when she felt the change in material. Yes... instead of rough, grainy rock chipping away at the Author and nearly knocking off his glasses, the fall became more smooth, cold, and... stuffier. In fact, it even shifted angels; they were now sliding against a metal slant that was threatening to push them towards the large, broken expanse of Crash Site Omega.

Upon hitting the 'slide' portion of the metal, Darlene's ass was the part that took the hit. She cringed a bit as she still kept Ford in her hands, yet managed to find the strength to shoot a web at a half-intact pole and use that to keep her and the Keeper of Water stable. Ford coughed.

"M-Melody..." he said. "We need to get back to get... Melody. She should not be alone with..."

"I know. I'm thinking of a way to get us back up there."

"And Stan... I want to know... if he's okay."

"That too."

"Soos and .GIFfany, are they..." He blinked, taking off his scratched glasses to get a better look at them. Coughing a few more times, his speech gained coherance after that. "I'm not sure which one to look for first. Melody is definitely in danger right now. Soos and .GIFfany are locked up, and are likely in danger. Stan is..."

"Stan's probably fine." Darlene used her free hand to give a dismissive wave. "He can take down me. He fought that Arcpigsker. And that's just what I saw with all seven of my eyes."

Token 'I thumbed through a wiki' brag time: Seven = two human-form eyes + four spider-form eyes + ?

Ford took a deep breath out, looking around at the remains of the space craft. And, mentally, staring at everything it had to do with the past journey of his life, and present journey of the world.

"I know, but... could we try to get his help? Zephieye announced that he just got his Keeper Blade."

"Yes, and who knows where he is?" Asked the Arachnimorph. "I'll try to work my way back to the surface. If we're lucky, Zephieye thinks we're dead, and isn't looking for us."

---

"Say it." Stan said.

"I-I-I-I..." Replied the lanky, trembling man with short brown hair.

A green, windy sword was moved towards his back.

"Say it, Kenny."

He moved his fingers around, bringing up some sort of azure glow. He spoke in to it.

"Attention all Cultists except for Zephieye." He said. "Stanley is holding us hostage, with his Keeper Blade in hand. If you think Zephieye's promise to expose Melody all over the Internet was heinous, gather to the hexa-ship fusion immediately and remove all clothing on the way. This is an act of surrendering, or else Stan will kick your ass even if Melody does not make it to the Internet. We already left this battle, and we already lost it."

It seemed that they all feared the Blade too. Cool. Within less than a minute, the larger red room of the ship-hybrid's Fire Keeper Temple Sector was filled with several more individuals in pale blue robes, and soon those robes gave away to bodies of all shapes, sizes, and colors. Kenny clasped his hands between his legs as all the undressed Cult members began covering themselves - notably, the extended group's women appeared to outnumber the men, provoking the following response from that announcement-maker.

"Oh, why did there have to be so many women? All these shy, embarassed, naked lesbians barely using their arms to hide themselves... I don't think I can last that long."

Everyone's attention was grabbed when they heard sparking noises from the wall to Stan's left, by the space between him and the bigger, newer crowd of Cultists. Green sparks, contrasting nicely with the red walls of the ship that was not the exact opposite color and if you insist otherwise the Paint Squad Captain will gladly correct you.

Speaking of Squad Captains, it was the Plant Squad Captain that then emerged from the wall. Which was achieved through breaking past the brick outright, revealing a system of wires behind it. She left ass first, her pink butt landing on the ground and being witnessed by all of them.

"Oh, fucking shit!" She shouted. "That code was a goddamn pain in the ass to decipher! That stupid bitch deserves to be decked in the cunt for putting us through it! And... wait, wasn't 'Kank' the one that kept us in those programs? Tried to lock us down? I'll kick his cock so bad when I see him..."

She looked around, noticing the naked Cultists. Her eyes did not widen until she saw Stan, which caused her to blush.

"Oh, sorry you had to hear that I actually swear a lot when non-AIs aren't around." She said, rubbing the back of her head. "But yes, Zephieye tried to lock us in some stupid program to keep us asleep. We broke out."

"'We?'" Stan asked.

Thankfully, it was only the 'main' other thirteen Squad Captains (read: first-gen professors from run:gifocalypse) that left at that time, preventing a huge .GIFfany flood from crushing everyone. One by one, the technicolored copies chaotically dove out, most of which fixed their eyes on Stan's sword.

The Earth Squad Captain lifted her pale body, pumping her arms up above her orange hair.

"Oh, hey man! This is sweet!" She cheered. "Everybody here is NAKED! Yeah, embrace nature you all! You're naked! I'm naked! He's naked! She's naked! All of us, bare, under the Great Holy Sun! Where we may nurture like flowers!"

"Wait," Stan asked, "you girls-"

"Women." Corrected the Weapons Squad Captain.

"-Were .GIFfany in a way, right? And you knew about the Lightning Cultist? Do you, by any chance, know how big the Cult is?"

"Why can't we tell you?" Kenny asked.

"Because you could either be lying and/or just have bad memory. Back on Fanservice Island, these lil' machines could remember anything." He began counting off his fingers: "My favorite drinks, their songs that I like... that's becides the point! Right now, I need to find the others! That stupid Zephieye is keeping them hostage or something! Now, Cult members, are there any more of you?"

"Most of them are by the Purple Temple." Kimberly replied. "W-we'll contact them. Don't worry! I'm sure they'll hate the thought of what Zephieye tried to do, anyway! We're kind of friends to each-other, so they'll understand."

"We could go there right now!" He proudly lifted his sword up. "Melody said that there were some of you right by the warp-thing, but that's not an issue anymore!"

---

...Aaaaaand the Purple Temple's warp zone was sealed as well.

"Can't you just break these down like you did with the one in my temple?"

"We'll try."

Oh, right. It was pretty crowded, so some members had to teleport back to let others know if there was enough clear room. But eventually, with the same chant as before, the Cultists managed to break down the wall with ease. Stan was directed to stay back, he chose too as it was less-cluttered for him, and he found the squad captains still standing by the entrance. As the occasional cultist popped in to give the "It's clear!" and zip back, the group soon diminished, until all that remained were Stan and the virtual women.

"Alright!" Said Stan. "Walking in to that purple temple should be no problem now! Not one at all-"

---

It was re-sealed for some reason.

"Sorry!" He could hear Kenny's voice through the wall. "We're... busy! Zephieye has something crazy on these people here! She must have expected this! W-we're fine, though. Just go on without us."

And then... a humming noise came from behind the wall. A particularly loud one. Stan took three steps back.

"We're still fine!" Kenny re-assured.

"...I should go." Said Stan, who had resuming back-walking - over to the red pad, which he used to warp back to the ship-hybrid.

---

Once Stan returned, he was quick to give the news:

"Welp. It's just us." He said with a shrug.

That's when he noticed the non-main copies showing up as well, slowly gathering in number.

"Did you really think you would just have us first fourteen squad captains on your side?" Asked the Fire Squad Captain. "No, the others just stayed back there to help prevent overcrowding. Anyway, let's look around."

---

Finally. Soos, .GIFfany, and Wendy saw the light.

The light leading outside. Out, on... a special balcony of sorts on the mega-ship hybrid. A platform of stone in the same light blue that made up the majority of Zephieye's wardrobe. In the center lied a number of symbols written in black, roughly forming a giant X made of each of the icons. Towards the center was a small, but slowly growing, black sphere that gave out the occasional spark. And sound of a roar.

"Should we destroy that thing?" Asked Soos. .GIFfany nodded.

"HOLD IT RIGHT THERE!"

And of course those were the words by the Lightning Cultist. Who beamed herself on the mini-'bridge' with them. Soos and .GIFfany immediately got their swords ready, while Wendy kept a tight grip on the equipment she got from the _anks. Specifically, she seemed to have a fondness for Mank's doctor-laser.

"Okay, first of all, redhead." She directed, pointing right at Wendy.

Wendy shrugged. "At least you're not calling me 'Miyazumi.' So, are you the 'Great Zephieye?'"

"Of course I am! What I was trying to say was that you don't belong here. This is not your fight at all. I can barely even tollerate having Soos here. Get out."

"Nah."

"Very well. You will hate making that choice soon enough."

With another flick of Zephieye's wrist, Soos and .GIFfany found themselves getting pulled to the ground, while Wendy was telekinetically flung off completely.

"Don't worry dudes!" She cried. "I know away off! I have this parasol that-"

"ENOUGH OF HER!" Zephieye interrupted. .GIFfany was kind of able to hear Wendy saying that her fancy red parasol can slow down her fall, but to Soos her voice just trailed off completely. "This is just between me and the Hexagram Emergency, got it? NO. BODY. ELSE!"

"What's going on out there?" Stan's voice. Followed up by Stan himself popping out of... one of the parts of the red section had a window?

Oh, yes. The red ship had just been kind of 'merged' seemlessly with the purple, forming a sort of... well, calling it a 'head' would imply that there was even a shape to it. The stones of both the entire red portion and the upper part of the purple portion were also adjusted so that they fit... kind of in a symetrical, Tetris-y way. Basically, the point where they met could be loosely described as two capital 'L' shapes inverted from one-another locking in, with the 'bases' of those 'L's extending downwards (for purple) or up (for red).

"Yeah Mr. Pines, it's us!" Soos tried to shout towards the 'tower' portion, using all his strength to fight against the exaggerated gravity. And with that strength, he half-raised and waved his hand. "Zephieye found us, and now she's pinning us to the ground."

"So you're not just lying down there because that looks like a cool place to tan? I'm not joking. It really does. Especially with that black hole right becide you."

"No, Zephieye's just kinda holding us at gunpoint right now. 'Kinda' because I'm sure she has something way more powerful than guns."

"She does." .GIFfany added.

Stan stared at the two for a few moments after that. "...Hang on."

And then the Cultist's eyes were firmly locked on the mini-tornado that made its way out that window, surrounded by fourteen spirals of different-colored electricity. Once the tornado made its way to the platform, Stan emerged from it, Keeper Blade already in hands; the fourteen sparks each turned in to a different Squad Captain.

"Oh, cool!" Said Soos. "You got the thing!"

Stan immediately charged to Zephieye's position, and would have successfully stabbed her through the head had she not instantly zipped to a point in the skies far away from him.

"What are you doing?!" Stan asked. "Why don't you at least try to pin me down?!"

"...Because I can't."

"Why not?"

"That gravity spell can only work on two Keepers at a time! Actually, two people, but I know that Keepers as a whole are more important."

Stan just grunted in response, holding his Blade ready.

Then he dropped to the ground, and Soos suddenly found the weight on him to have become a lot lighter.

"No." Said Zephieye. "Soos, no offense, but in my opinion, you are the least skilled and powered out of my three choices. So I would rather take you on in a fight."

"Okay," he said as he brought himself to a full stand, keeping his hand on his sword. "But I want to warn you. What you said about kinda blackmailing Melody's nudity to the world... I didn't like that. So, I'm gonna come at you in a deep fury? This might hurt a bit, okay?"

"No, what the-"

Using the Blade's power, he dashed away in a shining ball of light, hurling himself right towards Zephieye...

...But he just got swatted back telekinetically, if landing back on the platform without a scratch.

"See what I mean? Sorry, Soos, I really am. Out of all the Keepers, I will say right now that after .GIFfany's disgusting demonstration of betrayal and wasted potential, you have become my favorite of them."

"I can do this all day! In fact, watch!"

The same exact thing happened: He tried to jump towards her, only to get pushed back. That time, however, he turned to the Squad Captains.

"Why aren't you guys doing anything?" He asked.

"...We kind of are," replied the Weapons one, "as in... just, thinking about what to do next. We already know that she is immune to our electricity. So... we could try our other sort of possessions, but even that aspect is questionable. Also, we are kind of 'charging up' a nice attack. So... you could try to stall her while we do that and look at alternatives. After all, you have a Blade, and we'll just suffer from great holy-damage if we grab that."

Soos shrugged. "Okay, planning something. I got it. Hey, I know! I can stall her by doing the exact same thing I was doing before!"

"Well, that is a little repetitive, but..."

He bolted again, got pushed back again, and Zephieye sighed.

---

"We're nearly a fifteenth of the way there..." Ford said, followed by coughing a bit as the dust that fell as his only other company ascended the rock wall, lower half in spider form.

"I can't see daylight." Darlene replied. "Or, creepy red moonlight. Either way, do you think that Lightning Cultist sealed it up?"

"Well, I-"

Neither of them knew how long Katjus had rested herself comfortably against the wall, but there she was. She seemed to have her eyes glued more towards a mirror, checking herself out.

"Yo." Said the 'friendly' troll. "I looked out there, and your friend with the redhair that's .GIFfany's cousin or something filled me in. This is a waste of your time. You'll be able to reach Stan faster. And trust me, he kinda needs your help. So do Soos and all the .GIFfanys."

"But Melody is-"

"Trust me, Melody will be fine if you do as I say. It's Stan and company you should be worried about."

"I mean-"

"You notice that I'm bringing up Stan's name first? That's because I thought that was the best way to get you emotionally. Family that you literally knew your whole life. Well, portal aside. And since you left by the end of high school... no, just who you knew since the beginning of your life and just recently re-bonded with. I thought of bringing that up to get you to just, you know, go. Now please, take that transporter!"

"Listen Katjus, while your intentions might be pure, and I appreciate that, Darlene and I already made up our minds!"

The Arachnimorph even nodded in agreement, to make it clear that Ford wasn't just trying to speak for her.

"We're going to help Melody first," she said, "and that's final!"

Sighing, Katjus finally put her mirror down and rolled her eyes. She then looked around the close rocky walls of that deep canyon that served as the current location of the three.

"Okay, you'll thank me later for doing this."

"Oh, shoot." Said Darlene, with an eye-roll of her own. "I've said those exact words to the pair of girls that this guy was flirting with behind the other's back. Long story."

It felt like the cave cooled down considerably. Katjus's hand began to glow an all-too familiar shade of purple, the same shade associated with the early days on the island and, to a lesser extent, all that psychic-Cultist crap.

She punched the rock immediately behind her, causing the boulder that Darlene clung on to to dislodge itself and fly off, Darlene still on it, and Ford still on her. Both screamed as Katjus appeared to telekinetically pull both of them across the ruins of Crash Site Omega at speeds of Mach Holy Crap. And, following that, through the stone of the Green Temple, and from there they were knocked in to the transporter room. In fact, the boulder responsible for that crushed itself down on the red pad, shortly after the two Keepers were zipped through it.

---

Predictably, that last part meant that they were both unable to warp back - the giant rock blocking the path seemed to do more than enough of the trick. After Ford kicked furiously at the parts of the circle, he finally cried out: "Dammit!"

"Well..." Darlene said, also making sure to look around what was technically the same ship she was in earlier that day. "It is your brother, so..."

"It's not that! Katjus outright manipulated us! I knew trusting her had its downside! It just seemed so tempting, back in broad daylight surrounded by the Artificial Army when we knew nothing about what she could really do! But now, when it's just two of us trapped in an underground setting, she of course could show just some of her true side."

He began pacing back and forth. "She's the same species as that beast that tore my great ship and sent it spinning to the beach of Fanservice Island, so it stands to reason that she has the same powers as him unless the troll race has sexual dimorphism. This sort of power includes, even without consuming our 'Hexagram Emergency' energies, some form of being able to possess a corrosive, cold energy... wait a minute! Zeskit knocked us out! Who is to say that Katjus can't do the same thing? They might look different, but there is more than enough evidence that they are mostly matched in terms of skill."

"I really think we should just try to help Stan, at least. You know, start from there. So that he doesn't end up like all the other men I... 'charmed.'"

Ford let out a load groan as he began leaning against the walls of the hijacked vehicle.

"I made the same mistake I made thirty years ago. I trusted the shady supernatural."

Leaning forward, Darlene guestured a hand to herself. "I'm part of the supernatural too!"

"...I know. I'm sorry."

Those were the last words he said before he just started to walk forward, ignoring Darlene's struggle to come up with a response. Except for six words:

"I'm sorry too." The half-giant spider said with a slouch. "About your brother."

---

Despite everything getting darker still from the Cultist's influence on the sky, Melody still began to feel less and less hidden.

Breathing heavily and with herself crouched among shrubbery, she gritted her teeth as she made her way further still along the forest. After that time spend hiding, nature had been less kind to her than it had in Fanservice Island's far more open, less-watched atmosphere. Every part of her skin that was pricked and scratched with a thorn or sharper plant still gave out a burning sting with every step. Her slips and falls were met with both another harsh reminder of the land's offense when she was met with searing mud.

"I hate her." She said to herself.

Spotting another illusion-Cultist, Melody quickly thumbed through her inventory and smirked as she brought out a shot gun. Custom-made from the Weapon Squad, she already knew it was useless against the Boundary Guardians before their battle. With the illusions, however, she found out the easy way that it was a nice anti-paparazzi shooter.

Pull the trigger. She had long gotten used to the rather extreme (even by gun standards, Melody had a good amount of practice with 'normal' firearms) recoil brought on by the Weapon Squad's creations, so it was just a matter of bracing her feet and herself in general against the cold, watching as the bullet soon passed through the hologram and made it vanish.

And, as per usual, the gunshot brought attention to a number of other duplicates, three more clones zooming over to the point where the noise was inititally heard. Melody already prepared for that, however - she threw herself on the ground, with the only flaw in that plan meaning that it meant more scrape marks- in that case, a particularly nasty one as her left arm slammed in to a hardened part of rock. She gave a brief gasp as that attack from the setting also caused the gun to slip out of her hands, but with just a breath from her, she grabbed it and fired up three times.

Each shot hit a clone, causing them to vanish.

And as part of the usual pattern, Melody threw the gun back towards her inventory, bolted from her hiding position, and charged forth to a different part of the woods, getting ever-so shorter on breath.

Things changed a bit when she noticed a distinct lack of seeing pale blue among the evergreens and browns of the Gravity Falls woods. That caused Melody to grind to a halt, and look around.

"WHERE ARE YOU?!" Melody shouted. "Don't make my life hell, run away, then come back just to run again! Get out here, you coward!"

"Hey."

Despite that voice not being Zephieye's, Melody still whipped her scratched, battered body, took her gun back out, and fired straight at the voice.

She ended up shooting Katjus so that the bullet grazed past the right shoulder, causing a spurt of bright cyan blood to fly out before the troll gripped it. Melody clasped a hand on her mouth.

"Oh! I'm sorry! I thought you were my ex! ...You might not know this, but since she turned in to a jerk 'for an act to bring our destinies together,' I've really hated her."

Katjus continued to wince in pain, to the point where her right eye was completely shut. "Yeah, yeah. Whatever. If I were in your position, and you were in mine, I probably would have shot you too. According to Zeskit, Zephieye was an ass to him."

She used the hand of her injured side to dismiss Melody's attempt to reach over and help with the injury. Sighing, Katjus leaned against the nearest tree. "Then again, he says that about anyone who doesn't worship him, so he's not very reliable."

"No, he's right... well, about that one point. Zephieye is awful. Even if you don't count the fact that she's trying to end the world. I hate her, I really do. And this is coming from someone raised not to ever hate!"

"...Oh, wait, hang on. I think I know a way to get you to the base. Like, fast. I think you might have at least heard of this guy: Hey! Yo! Fire guy with an eyepatch! Wanna listen to Melody's backstory and then help her reach Zephieye where everyone else is at?"

"Wait, 'everyone else?' Ford, Stan, and Darlene are up there too now? And how did you know that?"

Instead of being answered, Rumble just landed right between the two women, fist-first.

Melody flushed, and not just because a fully-clothed man (half-clothed, but unlike Stan back in that Thanksgiving, it was the important half) pretty much saw her naked. She explained the other reason in the following sentence (and question):

"...I'm sorry, I feel like I should know who you are, but I don't. Have we met before?"

He gasped at seeing her, and then embarassed her further.

"My ex-girlfriend's ex-boyfriend's girlfriend... it is really you. This... this is the first time we met, isn't it?"

"...Oh, Rumble McSkirmish!"

"Humble McSkirmish. But you may still call me by my old name! If it! Is more con-VEEN-ient!"

"Wait, I thought the one from Weirdmageddon and the one that dated .GIFfany were in two different game cabinets."

He turned around, staring at the forest, watching the leaves blowing in the wind. "We are. I was awakened by the wave of weirdness on the second day. I found my other self, and after switching to my only other color scheme, we fought the forces of evil together. And then. I... perished. I heard great things about this 'Dipper' that I only saw a glimpse of. He must have been one of the tiny enemies .GIFfany told me about. And now... I am with you, someone who met face to face with my new biggest enemy .GIFfany. Tell me, Melody Seeren, how did you end up like this?"

"You know how you described me as your girlfriend's boyfriend's ex-girlfriend?"

"Ex-girlfriend's ex-boyfriend's girlfriend."

"First, it's wife now. And second, I have my own issues with my own ex-girlfriend. Who is also your ex-girlfriend's ex-teacher. And... how do I put this..." Melody blushed even harder, and outright brought her left arm away from covering her breasts to rub the other arm. That one was not budging: this story will still not describe genitals, and acts like they would be hidden no matter what. "Is my and my husband's... current-ish dating partnerrrr?"

"Wait, I am confused."

"I know, it's a complicated love-hexagon."

"Pentagon." Said Katjus. "That's five. 'Hex' is six. You should know that, being part of the Hexagram Emergency."

"No, not at the number of relations." Said Rumble. "How can a woman have a girlfriend?"

Melody blinked. "Holy crap, when was your game made?"

"And a girlfriend and a husband at the same time?"

"Okay, that's a legitimate question. We're... kind of... uh, polygamous and that includes me dating .GIFfany and we totally did it but it's a little iffy and I swear she was sober at the time and I'm so sorry!"

"...We are not dating anymore. It does not crush my soul. But I do wonder why you are flirting with evil."

"Alright. Alright. Let me explain. Not the '.GIFfany isn't evil anymore' part, that can come later. You see, I met Zephieye shortly after I turned 18 and we used to date. She was legit sweet. She said that she was struck by lightning when she was really young and thought she heard something, but she pushed that to the side. Then... after a few months... everything went sour. She knew something that suddenly made her rethink the 'voice,' and... she just changed. She tried to use her magic to twist around our relationship... she stole from me, pulled really awful pranks that involved exposing me to the world... I found out that she had control over these things that Ford had called 'Cloth Moths.'" She took a breath in. "Zephieye, I'm sure, was the reason why we couldn't get dressed on Fanservice Island. That place was full of them.

"...Well, long story short, she's awful and we need to stop her. Rumble, can you take us all up there?"

"Oh, there's no way I'm going up there." Said Katjus. "I'm not really as powerful as Zeskit. Close, though, but Zephieye would roast me. Plus, I just don't want to. I'm not that much of an ally."

"I could take you near her," said Rumble, "but I probably do not have the strength to make it all the way up to the ship. I could jump with you in my hands and throw you."

Melody blushed even harder. "Oh... okay, if that's the only way there."

---

Soos's next attempt at getting attacked resulted in him getting pushed yet again, only that time, he landed in the arms of the fourteen .GIFfany derivatives.

"Okay, we came up with something." Said the Fire Squad Captain.

"Yeah?" He asked, turning his gaze over to Stan and .GIFfany - both of which were trying to stand up against the pull, and managing to at least get on their hands and push against the ground.

"We have this position we can fly to. We think we can cast some sort of counter-spell to Zephieye, but we'll need someone else to get the electric field just right-"

And that was when Melody was tossed on the platform as well, on a fireball.

Shortly following that, a spider-morphed Darlene lept out, planting herself firmly front and center of everyone. Following that was Ford, doing something that would have been extremely helpful if he had done it earlier in this story: using an adjusted magnet-gun on a shard of metal barely taller than himself to practically 'air surf' his way on the battlefield.

"Okay, this is just getting ridiculous." Said Zephieye. "At first I thought that you could not do anything to delay the final part of my ritual, but you clearly seem to be able to. I should stop going light on you, get off my lazy ass, and hit a LOT harder."

And yeah, the word 'lot' was said with that same multi-voic overlay effect. All of the Keepers, and the multiple .GIFfany derivatives, took deep breaths in at that.

The Lightning Cultist threw something in to the air as the moon shone an even brighter scarlet - a tablet. An electronic tablet.

"ITULUUMINA DYUUNOAH!" She cried, before charging straight up, causing her shoulder to break the tablet in a ram. Bright yellow sparks came out of that shattered device, and they all were absorbed in to her body. Afterwhich, Cloth Moths seemed to burst out of the ground like geysers of solid gray, all of which twisted around her and began swarming around her, growing to a bigger and bigger crowd.

"Now... UNDEAD AGENTS OF DISROBING! THE CARRION OF BARE! I PERMIT YOU TO FEAST ON THESE SCRAPS THAT I HOLD FROM MY INNER DIMENSIONAL POCKETS!"

She began to float even higher, reaching a point above the tip of the ship-combination. From her sleeves, it seemed as though endless ropes of a similar fabric that made up her outfit spawned. After each broke at the same point and the 'extra hanging out' went back inside to the aformentioned pocket dimension, the moths began to swarm around the floating cloth that was held out in front of them. After feasting every last exact scrap of cloth Zephieye held out for them, they began to turn red, and re-arranged themselves so that they formed pseudo-butterfly wings by the Cultist's back. Wings that were large enough to fall over the entire town, resembling a shifting, crawling, hungry mass of red static. Melody's evil ex glared at the Hexagram Emergency with bright, shining yellow lights beaming behind the eyeholes of her mask, and indeed the two large circles that acted as pseudo-eyes. Which soon had changed from their 'rounded' shape to their angled, 'angry' shape.

On the bright side, Stan and .GIFfany felt the gravitational pull around them weaken completely.

Stan and Ford were the first to make a move. With the former using his Blade to cause a massive updraft beneath the group. The first swing of his sword in the battle brought both a crescent of wind allied with a growing number of sharp leaves flying towards the destination. When Zephieye dodged that attack, yet the Cloth Moths that were moved in to the field were briefly scattered, Stan took that as enough motivation to jump up, with Ford once again manipulating his magnet gun to follow.

Zephieye was barely able to block Stan's onslaught of forest fury with her X-papers. In fact, his sword was able to even tear through some of them, rip by rip, bringing himself closer to her past her barrier of magic-neutralizers. In addition to that, Stan also created some twisting vines and branching wood which floated in the air, allowing for a much larger platform for Ford when he landed.

And Ford's landing was followed by him whipping out a ray gun, firing to the Cultist. Surprising both him and her, that seemed to work to some degree, each of his high-powered lasers causing Zephieye to actually flinch. Once a tiny chip of her mask broke off, she ripped the piece off and stared at it. Then she fumed.

"Do you have ANY IDEA how hard it was to make that?! How much it cost?! That's it! Agents of Disrobing, Carrion of Bare, I told you... FEAST!"

And Stan's slowly-growing sky forest was broken up mildly when the 'wings' of bugs broke in to pillars, which stabbed down through the wood. Ford barely avoided having his right leg getting swallowed by the mass - although some of the bugs lightly grazed against the limb, resulting in a series of large gashes of blood and a sharp cry of pain from him. Noticing Ford's injury, Stan went straight for a stab on Zephieye directly, only to be thrown off course by the sight of the wings of bugs 'folding in' on themselves, causing a huge amount of air over Gravity Falls to be surrounded by a sphere of flesh-lusted insects.

Thankfully, by that time, the others had finally become more active. .GIFfany and Soos respectively carried Darlene and Melody on their backs, reaching up to the platform Stan had been setting up. Roaring flames started killing off large chunks of the Moths for every move .GIFfany made, while others were obliterated by blinding light.

Meanwhile, Darlene set up a web between two rather-far branches, turned around to spit acid at some moths, and turned back to already find that the web managed to capture at least hundreds of the fuckers. Probably, and likely, thousands if not tens of thousands. She laughed at that.

"Some times," she said, "the boring things just work."

Melody had a less positive opinion of her experience with the bugs, using every single kind of fire-starting thing she had in her inventory to fan them off, yelling "IT FEELS LIKE YOU'VE BEEN USING THESE THINGS TO TORMENT ME FOR MY ENTIRE LIFE!"

Rounding off the group, sparks of various colors began flying around as the Artificial Army flew through the bug mass, sending entire lightning bolts aimed towards the milliscopic threats, clearing them as well. That resulted in what looked like an inverted storm, with bolts aiming their way towards crimson, corrupted 'clouds' of legs and wings.

Ford and Stan remained in the eye of the storm. While the Keeper of Wind's swings were able to clear out some bugs on their own - impaling them with branches and splinters - he was also aimed at causing more damage to the leader of the tiny army. When Ford finally used a temple-stone claw to outright tear through several layers of X-papers, Zephieye finally made the first major movement she did since summoning the bugs.

"Okay. That's it. I'm running out of these undead things and I'm getting sick of you. And you there! Stans! This isn't even your freaking battle! It's just between me and .GIFfany!"

A ball of fire began to form in front of her hands. Just as Stan tried to move in from above, Zephieye threw it towards him, colliding with his Blade. The result was a circle of fire spreading through the air perpendicular to the sword, breaking to a pre-explosion of sorts that practically pushed the entire atmosphere from where the attack started. Seconds later, a burst happened as all the flame broke up, nearly tearing the entire Ozone layer apart at that point. The .GIFfany copies were barely able to set up electrical shields on the rest of the Keepers to keep them saved. That burst sent Stan at speeds that threatened to take him out of gravitational pull, if not for the return of Zephieye's grip. Stan had lost the sword from his hands, but both he and his chosen weapon were kept in stasis by the Cultist's grip. That is, until the sword found itself being moved above him, and then down through him.

On the bright side, at least it killed the last remaining Cloth Moths.

"Oh, come on!" Ford shouted. "Telekinesis doesn't count towards that rule that anyone grabbing the sword will-"

Stan himself was pushed right in to his brother, knocking both of them off the wood-platform that the former created. With Stan barely able to re-take control of his own sword, he managed to make a current upwards and a pile of leaves to soften his fall on the platform by the ship-combo.

Everyone looked down at the harmed brother pair.

"I'm okay!" Stan shouted from below. "I'm pretty sure this didn't stab something important! Say, don't you .GIFfanys have healing magic? No pressure, but I think you should put that to use soon..."

Soos was already charging at the Lightning Cultist with that attack. But she only needed to dodge around his slashes, only stopping on occasion to push him back. And that allowed .GIFfany to also sword-fly over to her, giving her the opportunity to slash at the ritualist. An attack that managed to cause a tear in the right arm of Zephieye's robe.

Both Soos and .GIFfany felt themselves froze. In .GIFfany's case, from the realization of what she did, and in both cases, because they were just put in to stasis.

"CHIPPING MY FREAKING MASK IS ONE THING," yelled the electronic commander, "BUT DAMAGING MY ROBE IS ANOTHER INVITATION TO SUFFER!"

.GIFfany managed to fight against the pull just enough to throw a pink lightning ball at her former master. Hey, at least that time, the attack got her to flinch.

"Do you call that a lightning attack?" She asked. A web was thrown as her, but she soon burned it off. "You're pathetic. This is a lightning attack."

Her fist began to give off a full lightning storm in of itself, with several bolts striking near Stan and Ford as they recovered from the prior attack.

More of them hit the ground, causing Wendy to dodge out of the way. As she did, she caught sight of the entire town hypnotized by the sight of the battle raging above them.

"What the FLYING HELL are you doing here?" Wendy yelled to the townsfolk. "Evacuate! She's gonna blow this whole place to Kingdom-"

Then a wave of black energy errupted between her and the crowd. Kank Kill, who turned his attention over to the Corduroy.

"We still have unfinished business, Miyazumi." He said.

Sighing with an eye roll, she raised up that same red-and-white shield from before.

"Okay, fine. Bring it on."

---

Zephieye took a deep breath in as she looked at her sparking fist.

"Why the hell do you want this world to stay the way it is?" She asked .GIFfany. "The virtual world is where you are from, and where you belong. Because it is just the shining example of perfection! YOU were the shining example of perfection! Much better than that failure of a girlfriend that was Melody! And yet you give it all up... for what, imperfections such as myself? That world freakin' understood you! Do you think these people here will understand you? Accept you in society? Some self-replicating monster that can hide in any wire, any space in the cyber world, any gap of existence?" She pulled her fist back.

"Fuck you." .GIFfany replied.

"...I thought I found the specimen with you. Turns out I was wrong."

The AI got the fist to the gut, creating an explosion that came out of her back which quickly coned out to the same volume of a skyscraper, with her being in the middle. Each and every .GIFfany that would have been caught dashed out of the way just milliseconds before the attack beamed outward. Enormous strikes of plasma errupted from that point, cracking the sky in all directions. The only sound louder than the crackling thunder was that of .GIFfany's screams, her body distorting and turning to wireframe as additional purple miasma made its way from Zephieye to her. The Fire Keeper's Blade split in half, the top half completely disintegrating in the attack while the bottom half went dull, dark, and lost its heat. At the end of the wrath, .GIFfany's body outright exploded, sending a skeleton and a half-sword flying to the distance. After enough time passed, the two returned from the side of the Earth opposite of where Zephieye punched them, happening to land right by Stan and Ford.

From the smoking crater that the tiny remnants of .GIFfany remained, her body arm stuck itself in the air, raising the bones of her middle finger.

"Finish me off." She said. "I know you can do that. I know you can hear me. Go after me. Not them. They don't deserve any more bad things to happen to them. But I do."

Soos couldn't hear the leader of the Artificial Army, but he still absolutely fumed. He noticed that the stasis effect on him was no longer present, assuming (correctly) that Zephieye forgot about him, and flew over to punch her in the face.

"I was actually thinking about giving you a chance, like we did with .GIFfany!" He shouted. "But then you had to go and murder her! And that was not in self-defense like it was with me!"

"She's not dead. I can hear her taunting me..."

Soos smiled again. "She's... she's alive? She has a chance?"

Zephieye did not answer. Instead, Soos felt that same fist that he struck her with suddenly freezing in the air. Then an unpleasant sensation followed in the thumb. It was being pressed... harder, harder...

He screamed in pain as the force telekinetically broke his thumb bone, bending it far past normal human limits. That was followed by four additional cries, with each finger being snapped to breaking point. He let out a "Please don't..." as he felt his wrist being broken too, and was in tears by the time the pain started traveling up his arm, the force alternating between which exact side it was pushing on his bones.

"Don't interrupt my revenge." Said Zephieye, finally shooting him down to join the other three Keepers. "Ever."

She ended up getting mobbed by the Artificial Army shortly after, each of them deciding to go for a far more physical approach. Zephieye felt the righteous fury of billions of clawing, kicking, avenging women that she had only some trouble deflecting, however, as she found that they were mostly gathering above her, the Cultist was quick to figure out that a simple mook rush was not the only goal they had in mind. It was bringing her closer to the two Keepers who, at that moment, lacked true flight.

"HIYA!" Cried Darlene, leaping on Zephieye head in full spider form and latching on tight. "Guess what? Love potions are chemicals. And guess what? The Poison Squad Captain was a chemist. Guess who figured out how to make more of the control drug, and guess who had mastered how to control other people? All I needed to do was get close enough so my psychic range could actually effect someone as resistant and dark magic-y as you, and..."

Darlene quickly took out some of the mixed, gray-ish potion combination and ingested it, then she lept off of Zephieye and back on the still-floating branch mess. After Zephieye ceased motion below the neck, Melody started grinning like an idiot.

"Okay," said the Arachnimorph, "based on my tests with Weapons Squad Captain, you probably have about five minutes tops. And that's not factoring in that she might be way more trained than Weapons is."

Zephieye found her body floating towards the branch, right by Melody.

"For your information," said the Cultist, "human bodies have a harder time breaking from this. But with my training, as you semi-correctly assumed, I estimate that it will take me about seven minutes."

Melody punched her in the face.

"Ha! Ford's record was six. Stan's was five! And I'm pretty sure that has nothing to do with their fingers!"

And thus, for the next seven minutes, Melody, Darlene, and the .GIFfanys that remained above were free to absolutely wail on the Cultist all they wanted.

---

'.GIFfanys that remained above' implied that some did not. Yes, a few of them - none of whom were squad captains, due to their established 'captains risk themselves first' rule against Zephieye - floated to the collapsed four.

"She is terrible..." said .GIFfany, still reduced to a skeletal form. "She did this to you, Soos. And Stan... Ford... I did this to you! I should not have listened to her."

"Okay," said Soos, trying to smile despite the pain of his multiple arm breaks, "I think I'm gonna have to do something about your self-problems. I mean, I shoulda seen the warning signs first, but yeah."

He found her skull's eye-holes looking at him. "No, think about it. If I did not try to follow her and stalk you back to the island, we would not have been gathered. And Zephieye would not have been able to use our proxy-energy to help open the portal to summon the Skeltaur Knights. This entire thing was all because I was still my old self. And now... it is too late for me to really change. That is why I turned to alcohol the entire time."

Soos put a hand on her clavicle. "Hey. It's too late for Zephieye, but I don't think it's too late for you."

"No, it is too late for all of us. And there was no time for me at all." She inched to a puddle, seeing her reflection in the unnaturrally darkened day sky. "I mean, look at me. I am still, and always was, a monster at heart. I can only make myself not kill, that was my only change. Everything else... was... I feel so terrible. Look at me! I even look like a monster right now!"

Soos moved near her, looking in to the same reflection.

"Well, that's how you see you. But I see you as someone who already turned her life around but just can't tell yet."

.GIFfany somehow took a deep breath. "Yes... yes... I know. Soos, I thought you and Melody might have been a little too... joyful, optimistic, to really understand the scope of my apology and get it. But I think I finally understand. You are pretty wise."

Soos laughed. "I'm just trying to fix as much as I can."

They both turned away from the puddle, looking at each-other instead.

"Thank you, Soos." .GIFfany said.

"I love you, .GIFfany."

"...I will make sure that my love is real love, and not the obsession I used to have. Soos, I really do, actually love you!"

"Have we ever actually kissed? I kissed the other-yous. So did Melody. And she did a little more with you yourself, kinda. But you kept dodging the issue. With me."

"Because you were my original obsession, I was not as bloodthirsty for Melody. But... well, we can stop dodging now!"

"I agree."

He brought his lips to the boney 'teeth' of the physical form's skeletal body. Bone-arms wrapped around him as he found a good grip on her rib cage with his well-arm, breathing as he tried to bring his tongue in her mouth. They continued holding each-other as they stood up completely, with .GIFfany outright lifting him off his feet to make up for the height difference.

Stan was in complete and utter tears, clapping at the two.

"That was beautiful!" He said. "I always had a soft-spot for seeing young love like that."

That was around the time they noticed Soos's sword was glowing.

"Oh!" The sword's owner exclaimed. "...Hang on, didn't the Light Squad Captain work with some kind of 'healing light?'"

"Yes." Answered .GIFfany.

"And I'm getting some kinda vibes with, like, sword knowledge or something. So... let me try something..."

"Yes!" Said the Yellow Sage-Guide. "Your sword can heal people! Isn't it beautiful?"

"Ah! Good to get confirmation. Also, how come you're talking to me now? Where are you anyway, Yellow?"

"...I will explain later, when we have the time."

Using his working arm, he gripped the weapon, lightly brought it near .GIFfany (who flinched at the sword drawing near), and closed his eyes. The Blade glowed more, and soon .GIFfany's bones began to be coated in a similar brilliant yellow light. Then the light dimmed down.

But after that, her bones started to generate additional tissue, of other types. Muscle, organs, and the like appeared back on her at lightning pace, with skin and hair finishing the process. Her skull soon filled with bright pink eyes again, and had a lush head of fuchsia flowing to her back. Arms went from behind linked bones to fully healed skin, with no signs of injury. Her rib bones pushed out meat that eventually coated over to her full, big titties-

You're probably not in the mood for breasts considering everything that just happened. And if you are, then you're a sick fuck.

Smiling, Soos dashed over to the brothers and did the same with them. At a somewhat slower pace than .GIFfany's full regeneration, Stan's gaping hole was patched up once one of the sword's flat sides was brought near him. As for Ford... he was not as injured, but the Blade still helped get rid of some of his scratches. He also took off his glasses, blinking a lot.

When Soos tried the same with his broken arm, it twitched a bit, and he frowned.

"Hang on, like I said, I'm kinda understanding how my sword works over time..."

"I was too, even without being told by the Guides." Said .GIFfany. "Mine apparently has powers related to time."

"I also have some weird powers that's not just being Mr. Windy Arbor Day," commented Stan, "but I don't really understand it. It's... 'direction' or something?"

"...Yeah," Soos continued, "and I have healing powers, you heard my Guide. It's called something to do with 'life.' But the thing is, it kind of sucks when I use it on myself, so it's gonna take longer for me to heal. I'll try to be back in action as soon as I can, though!"

"That's fine."

"Hey dudes, being able to heal people with this is still pretty sweet. I mean, I would not want it to be the other way around, where I can heal myself faster than other people. You guys deserve to be patched up as fast as you can."

"Soos, I believe your sword also healed my vision." Ford said, suddenly finding it irritating to even look through the glass by proxy. "In fact, I feel about two years younger now. I still have six fingers, though."

Soos leaned over to look at Ford's hands. "Well, that's because your hands are already perfect the way they are." Then he kissed the back of his left one, Ford looking unsure how to properly comment on that.

.GIFfany looked down at herself and gasped. "Younger? Oh, I hope there is a stopping point, because the Weapons Squad Captain would hate it if you had a de-aging power!" She opened a menu, which appeared to list some aspects of her. Name, .GIFfany Miyazumi. Character Age... 21 (born September 13th), Physical Age 20... whelp, that's good. Same as it was since her actual birthday. So thank goodness it's not complete de-aging, it's probably just for the really old people.

Ford stretched out, looking above at the very distant sight of the gang beating down on a still-stunned Cultist.

"I am not completely sure what they are doing up there," he said, "but we should join them as soon as possible."

.GIFfany nodded, gripped her half-sword, and it ignited back to its original brightness.

"Oh, I do know." She said. "Darlene managed to get close enough to use a potion-mix on Zephieye. Listen, this is my battle, I want to go up there. But at the same time..." she looked around at the three men, "I think I might have finally gotten the fusion element down."

"I'm sorry," said Soos, who would have made an appropriate move with his hands if not for how one was occupied with his legendary weapon and the other was a mess of broken bones, "but I'm kind of out of comish right now."

"Well, not you. We have one other person with a Keeper Blade."

Her eyes met Stan's.

"Wait! You mean...?"

"Yes. Stanley Pines! Let's combine!"

"YEAH!" He pumped a fist up. "BRING IT ON!"

"First, throw your sword in the air."

He did, and she followed with her own Blade, both of them spinning around as the process began: She turned to that same, familiar ring of energy that Soos got to know from the Zeskit battle. Which spun around Stan, getting faster in speed until it shrunk itself in. Then, sparks started to fly on his person.

Stan's arms began to thin just-slightly, his chest started to buldge just a little to form rather androgynous 'breasts,' and his gut sank in to an average, flat stomach that neither had that added belly nor .GIFfany's hourglass figure. Stan's body had grown slightly taller, and his ass plumped out to an average shape. Most notably, the hairs on him kind of enlongated and changed to a dulled shade of pink. One of the most drastic changes to Stan's default was his face, with the eyes becoming partially pink, the head overall thinning a bit, and the nose shrinking a bit. Those and a few more details led to what could be described as the 'average' of Stan and .GIFfany's appearance.

Each sword fell in to a different hand, and, perhaps surprisingly, neither of them reacted violently to the fusion with their Blade 'counterattack.' .GIFfany-Stan's right hand caught the Wind Keeper's Blade, still just as green and fresh and growing with wind as ever, while their left hand caught the stump that was the lower half of the re-brighted Fire Keeper's Blade. And the latter's broken 'spikes' at the end started shooting out flames. Said fire began to calm down shortly, then taking on a more specific form: looking as though it was filling in for the rest of the sword. A few moments later, another explosion errupted from the flaming weapon, and it appeared as good as new.

Then the fusion clasped their hands together, joining forest and flame.

The resulting Blade had a handle that was green for one half, and red for the other. The sword proper slowly shifted between those colors. It initially gave out both a gentle cool breeze yet a comforting warmth at the same time, until both combined to a flaming, spinning mini-tornado that was only as wide as the double-Blade yet tall enough to extend from anyone's eyesight.

In fact, the roaring flames did not reach their peek until they were right around Zephieye's back. Which, of course, got the Lightning Cultist to turn around.

"Awesome!" They said, in a voice that was somewhere right between an old man's and a slightly monotonous young woman's. No, not a blend of them, the average tone and pitch of the two voices.

"...I'm not sure if this is something to be excited over, or... well, horrifying, to be honest." Ford said. "Staney- uh... Stan .GIFfany hybrid?"

The flame tornado died down to a more reasonable height, just barely going over that of the sword.

"Uh... well, you can call me- us, I mean- us, we mean- '.GIFstan.' No! .GIFley. I/We like it because it uses the part of the Stan name that's different."

"Okay... .GIFley... are you sure you want to do this?"

They dismissed his comment with a wave. "We're fine. If either one of us wants to de-fuse, we can! Neither of us are forcing this, and we both agreed to stay together until we kick ass!"

And the hybrid of them lept straight in the air. Both the Keepers associated with blue and yellow were only able to watch from below, gaping at the suddenness of... well, fucking everything.

"Did that just happen?" Ford asked.

"Yes, dude. Yes it did. And it is the best thing I have ever seen in my life. Mr. Pines and .GIFfany are glorious together."

---

"Okay... I think I might have overestimated the time..." said Zephieye, dealing with the swarm of shocks from the closing army of .GIFfanys. Who, of course, also gave Melody some extra space to whack on her. Darlene did not need them to brush aside - she was able to dash her way in and deal a few more hits as well.

...And then Darlene took a swift uppercut to the jaw, which knocked her to a branch and seemingly KO'd her.

"That's it." Said Zephieye, beginning to flash a bright blue glow. "Game over. FHALLGELIN TRIESHX!"

Gasping, Melody grabbed a branch and pricked her hand with it.

"Uh... zelklar... menden?" She said just as a shockwave broke from the Lightning Cultist.

Said shockwave pushed all the copies away in a blast, causing humanoid flesh to be knocked away in all directions. However, the one with the most ties with human flesh in that particular area was the only one not pressed outward. Melody instead held some sort of transparent, purple shield from the tip of her now-bleeding finger. Zephieye laughed.

"Ah, you're finally using those pain-spells I taught you." She bolted ahead, trying to punch through the shield. Melody replied by blocking every hit, and even managing to strike Zephieye with the weapon hard enough to draw blood from the side of her head, barely before where the mask covered it. Seething at that point, the video game sorceress tried to shoot a burst of energy at her ex. That managed to break the shield, but Melody countered with another spell.

"Peelkikman swiyax?" She 'chanted' with another prick to her opposite finger, making the rough outlines of two giant energy-gloves appear over both hands. She used those to block any move Zephieye threw at her. "I think I already know the answer, but why don't you have to draw blood from yourself? I thought you said that blood needed to be drawn to use these."

"Oh, it doesn't have to be the user's blood. Yeah, I only taught you the self-draw ones to inflict more pain on you. I slowly, unknowingly, take blood from a random cultist in my group. Which... could include you, even if you are no longer a part of the Lightning Cult. Like a mosquito that doesn't cause those really annoying itchy bites. You see, I by the time I taught you, I was already aware of the Keeper of Fire, and I knew I would be leaving you. What I didn't know at the time was that I would not be leaving you for her, but apparently for NOBODY! Because she's a FAILURE!"

"That's half of me you are talking about there."

Zephieye turned around to the source of the voice, allowing Melody to sock her hard in the back, sending her to the pseudo forest's floor. Floating up was .GIFley, who caused their sword to glow a bright green, which seemed to have been the cause of the wood and plants acting as a floating platform to suddenly grow out.

"And also," they continued, "Melody is both my daughter in law and my wife. Wait... that sounded wrong. What I mean to say is, Melody is half-my wife, and half-my daughter in law? Uh... That also means I'm about to sleep with the man I've grown to think of as my son? .GIFfany, we need to defuse and talk about your sex life. No Stan, we should stay until we beat Zephieye. Good point, she's nuts and powerful, two things I hate in a woman, kinda like your old self to be honest. I thought you liked power, because I do. Not when it's used against me. Stan, why would you insult the woman that is in your body and technically 'is' your body? It's just a joke, and I thought I should be honest since we're almost, ya know, sharing a brain and everything. Well... I see. .GIFfany, you are a lot nicer than the last person I shared my brain with."

Zephieye had gotten up alright. And Melody was definitely active. Both were just trying to decipher what the fuck .GIFley, or maybe more accurately, .GIFfany and Stanley at that point, was/were saying. Which is why neither of them made a move during that time.

"Enough talk!" .GIFley both came to the same conclusion. "It is time to finish this!"

They dashed to Zephieye Blade-first, and the combined might of the two swords was seemingly enough to destroy the flimsy paper defense the Lightning Cultist had tried to set up at the last second. With a grin, .GIFley delivered a swift kick to her chest, sending her back. They turned towards Melody, offering a middle-aged hand to her.

"Hey, you suffered from her more than anyone but the sparkly girl half of me. And even then, we can debate that. I think you should join in a bit on this last part."

Zephieye was practically growling at that point, as Melody silently took some blood to chant "Aerdallus..." and took floating to the air lightly.

Both of the Keepers (or, the Keeper and the fusion of two Keepers) made it to her position in no time, and while Melody made a starting wrestle, .GIFley was the one dashing around at ridiculous speeds, slashing at her with near-invisibility. Letting out an annoyed cry, the Lightning Cultist broke out of Melody's grip, and things around everyone began to get cold.

Cold because she had a giant ice ball in her hand. Which she tossed below, an action that caused the rest of the .GIFfany Army - which had been watching from trying to float, a bit of a distance below - saw that and immediately began to float down.

Below, Soos and Ford suddenly found a barely-concious Darlene dropped by them thanks to the Antifire Squad Captain, and then Soos barely had time to cram his Blade in his inventory before the four were piled on by copies.

"What are you doing?" Ford asked, in a position so that he once again felt Antifire's bare flesh against his back. The last time that happened was actually early last morning, not way back in the minecart ride.

"Giving you body heat the 'human' way, mostly." He recognized that voice as the Wind Squad Captain, AKA Professor Wendy, AKA that purple-skinned jadehead that gave Melody, Soos, and Prime a short ride to the Red Temple's chamber. "Meanwhile, our heat experts - well, most of them - are going to do so in a more magic way, with a barrier. And a built-in thermostat."

Above, Zephieye clasped her hands on the ice sphere, causing a wave to shoot below. Melody had thankfully floated above the attacking Cultist, but nobody else was really that lucky.

---

Below, Katjus stared at Rumble with wide eyes.

"YO!" She shouted, before wincing at her shoulder pain. "I don't know what you're gonna do, but I'm getting out of here!"

She took out a power cell from a similar fur-patch thing as her male friend from back in the island (only, due to having much less fur, she took it from the patch in her crotch, not by her ass), tapped it a few times, and outright vanished. Rumble look at the spot she used to be in and practically weeped.

"But what am I-"

Ice washed over the entire seeing, immediately tearing down every leaf, coating Gravity Falls in another winter. And Rumble, caught from the freezing hit itself, was frozen in solid ice.

A distance away, the crew was more fortunate, with the piling .GIFfanys having an energy barrier set up to minimize the chill. In the center, the three Keepers still felt a bit of a frosty breeze despite the Fire Squad Captain (from the top of the pileup) trying to send a toasting heat wave through the pile, and even with the layers upon layers of skin keeping the group warm.

---

Above, .GIFley took the direct hit from the frost, yet kept a tight grip on their double Blade of Wind and Fire. They grinned as the ice barely had any effect on them.

"I've had enough!" The Cultist yelled. "First of all, defuse! I said this already, but this fight is just between me and .GIFfany! And maybe Melody, too!"

She punched them with a fist coated in electricity, a force that just about ripped the two bodies to split - .GIFfany emerged in bright light, and .GIFley's body quickly shifted back to that of just Stan's. However, both were grinning, especially after Stan got a few more final punches in to Zephieye.

"I said GET OUT!" She shouted, kicking him with enough force to send him flying downwards.

Stan did not try to float back up. Instead, he just waved at her.

"You're about to get your wish. Haven't you heard about distractions? In fact, I brought this thing with me since the beginning just in case something like this happens:"

As he made his fall to the .GIFfany pileup, he opened his inventory, took out the World's Most Distracting Object, and spun it.

And Zephieye kept staring at it as Melody came up behind her, holding a vine from the wood platform in her hand.

"I know how to distract you even more!"

And then she wrapped the vine around the Cultist's neck, pulling hard to attempt to strangle her. Considering Zephieye's demonstrated feats by that point, it was hardly a shock that she was not too responsive to the attack, instead her eyes were just darting around.

"Urgh, let go of me so I can finish dealing with .GIFfany! And once I am, I'll send your naked body globally, and you will be muy embarazada!"

"The strangling wasn't a distraction, but this is: embarazada means 'pregnant,' idiot! Not 'embarassed!' ZEPHIEYE SMITH...

"YOUR.

"SPANISH.

"SUCKS.

"RAW.

"ASS!"

She effortlessly broke from the grip of the vine, and instantly made said plant-part rot away to a shriveled brown rope. As she turned to face Melody, clouds formed behind her, also obscuring .GIFfany completely. Zephieye's eyes shone brightly as she faced down Melody - except the Mystery Shack staff member felt no fear at all from the way the glowing outline of a chainsaw was formed in the Lightning Cultist's hand.

"WHAT DID YOU SAY ABOUT MY SPANISH?! THAT'S IT! NOW I REMEMBER THE REAL REASON WE BROKE UP! YOU ARE SUCH A KNOW IT ALL-"

She suddenly shifted her attention to .GIFfany, except that was because the virtual student/captain had tossed her Blade through the clouds, impaling the Cultist right through her back. She ceased all horrible magic whatevers as she noticed the flaming red weapon sticking from near her chest.

"Oh..." she said, "oh dear."

Roaring flames ate her up as her mask fell off, but she had no real reaction to that becides frowning. Despite what her lightning burn-marks may have implied, the attack also did not do any visible damage to her skin. It did, however, seemingly made her weak enough to finally start falling to the ground. Oddly, the plant-pile finally fell too.

---

.GIFfany flew Melody over to where the Cultist fell, which happened to be right by the start of the copy pileup. Of course, helping was the fact that the copies had begun to move out, since the initial chill-blast was already over. Uniting the group together, the pileup also lightly showed Soos, Ford, and Darlene the general direction of the fallen Cultist, and Stan already lightly floated in that direction.

Zephieye was too weak to stand up, even after the fire burst died down. She lightly raised her head and glared at the team of Keepers. Seething, she gave these words:

"If you really think you're smarter than me, LET'S SEE HOW YOU HANDLE THE BLACK SUN! HUH? HUH?!"

.GIFfany took the sword out of her, looked at Melody, got a nod in response,

And used the Blade to cut off Zephieye's head.

Her body disappeared in black smoke.

The sky finally turned back to its brilliant, pale azure. The moon finally faded to near-invisibility as the Sun - still not black - shone brightly, already starting its long journey to melt the giant icicles that now surrounded the small Oregon town. The six Keepers stayed in a pseudo-circle formation, despite the disappearance of the witch that was in the center.

"What a cunt." Said the Antifire Squad Captain.

"Hey!" Said Darlene. "You shouldn't use that-"

"Trust me. I dated her. She's awful even when she wasn't trying to end the world." Said Melody.

"And I know what she is like when she is. She beat me in battle before..." said .GIFfany, "but that was because I did not really have you guys."

"Hey, wait." Said Soos. "You sure she's dead?"

"Yes." Said .GIFfany. "When I was her 'apprentice,' she kept talking about how I must support her up until her body disappears in black smoke as she dies. And when I tried fighting back, she kept saying how the smoke is an indicator of her death. She has a big ego. I would not assume otherwise."

Melody nodded.

"So... that's it, it's over?" Asked Stan. "We won?"

"FOOLS! DO YOU REALLY THINK YOU STOPPED THE RITUAL, JUST BECAUSE ITS HEAD WAS SLAIN? ...Oh, she literally lost her head. I walked right in to that joke."

The six looked up for the possible source of that last voice - oh mother of goodness, the 'black hole' by that platform had become a giant black sphere-vortex thing looming above, and something all white-ish stuck a bony head out.

Emerging from it were three centaurs, not counting the skull-thing. The first was a deep gray, looking shriveled and malnourished. Even worse than him was the second green one, rotting and with the occasional fly buzzing around him. The third was red, covered with burly muscle, and looked angry enough to blow something up just by glaring at it. Then the skull emerged, revealing itself to be a skeletal centaur with a scythe in hand. 'Thankfully,' 'at least,' the vortex-sphere closed after all four of them came out and started to gallop down the air towards the group.

"Oh no..." said Ford, "OHHHH NO... it's them."

"Who?" Asked Stan.

"Faminehorse. Pestilencehorse. Warhorse. Deathhorse. When Zephieye talked about the Skeltaurs, I didn't know she was referring to them."

"But we don't believe in that part! Right? Wait, what do I even believe in anymore?"

"Not the normal Horsemen! Death is 'just' a Category 10 ghost, after all. I mean the Skeltaur Knights. The official border patrol of the virtual and the organic."

Once the four landed by the group of Keepers, not only were they each roughly twice .GIFfany's already impressive height, but the ground began to shook.

"WHAT THE HELL?!" Asked the skeletal one. "WHY IS THE EARTH RUMBLING?! ...THAT'S ACTUALLY NOT US. WHAT KIND OF PLANS ARE YOU COOKING TO ATTEMPT TO FOIL THE MAGNIFICENT SKELTAUR KNIGHTS?!"

Something huge and green rose from the ground in the distance- oh. The temple! Despite at least part of it being positioned directly below Gravity Falls, its ascention seemed to be pretty far away from it.

"ANYWAY, FOR OUR INTRODUCTIONS. THIS IS FAMINEHORSE, DESTROYYYYYYER OF FOOD!"

The skeletal one guestured his hands to the skinny, gray one. Who just shrugged.

"Oh, hey there. Uh, I'm sorry to say this, but we're kinda gonna have to... um... end your world? We were commanded by someone who followed us, to pick roughly this time for the end of the organic world and the start of the virtual one. I mean, like, the time she finished her ritual to even summon us."

The skeletal one continued. "THAT IS PESTILENCEHORSE, DESTROYYYYYYER OF WELL-BEING!"

That was directed to the green one, who seemed to be half-asleep.

"I'm sorry, what?" He asked, whipping his head around.

"WARHORSE, DESTROYYYYYYER OF PEACE!"

Towards the red one, who stomped a hoof in front of the group. He said the following:

"I THINK IT IS JUST GROSS AND DISGUSTING THAT YOU CIS HET WHITE MEN KILL A PERFECTLY FINE LESBIAN QUEER WITH A PHYSICAL DISABILITY! YOU MISOGYNISTS AND YOUR OBSESSION WITH VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN MAKE ME SICK! IF A MAN WAS DOING WHAT ZEPHIEYE DID, IE NOTHING, YOU AWFUL HOMOPHOBIC MEN WOULDN'T HAVE TAKEN YOUR WIFE-BEATING ON HIM!"

"Um..." said .GIFfany, "I dealt the finishing blow. I am a woman who likes both sexes."

"I sure as hell helped, and loved that." Said Melody. "And yeah, I totally swing both ways."

"BULLCRAP! TRANSLATION: 'I AM AN INTERNALIZED MISOGYNIST WHO IS REALLY STRAIGHT, TRYING TO ERASE QUEER PEOPLE.' AND YOU, HUMAN, YOU ARE DESCENDED FROM MEN, MEANING THAT YOU HAVE INHERITED THEIR MALE PRIVILEGE!"

"'Descended from men?'" Asked Melody, awestruck. "Okay, I can't argue anymore. I'm... I'm just done."

Darlene just broke down laughing.

"Is that really how I sounded like to Zeskit?" She asked. "That's pathetic! No wonder why he hates anyone who talks about gender!"

"SAVING THE BEST FOR LAST," said the skeleton, guesturing at himself, "I AM DEATHHORSE, DESTROYYYYYYER OF LIFE! IN FIFTY DAYS, WE WILL BRING UPON THE END OF THIS WORLD-"

And then they found themselves having four hot pink collars wrapped around their necks, with pink chains leading up to a common source:

Oh balls of course it's Pyronica.

"Hee hee, nope!" She said. "You all work for me now! And surprise everybody, I'm the real final villain! Nice to see that I outlived Zeffawhatever!"

The horse-men looked at each-other for a few moments.

"Oh my Yogurt Soh-Tooth oh my Yogurt Soh-Tooth of my Yogurt Soh-Tooth!" Said Faminehorse, hopping in place. Which looked weird, considering the four feet. "It's the Anti-Hex! The Keeper of Void! In the flesh! ...Ooh, a lot in the flesh! Hee hee!"

"Hey, don't be a sick objectifier!" Said Warhorse. "Stop viewing her as just a pretty sex object, and focus on her personality! NOT her looks! Like how she wants to destroy humanity for fun! That is a TOTALLY beautiful adorable dorky personality that deserves praise! PRAISE YOU, KEEPER OF VOID!"

"But she's evil!" Melody cried. Finally, she took action to try to strike him - yet found herself blocked by a barrier that took the form of the air rippling around in a cube.

"SHUT UP AND KILL YOURSELF, YOU UGLY FATASS!"

"Piiiink duuuude..." said Pestilencehorse, "you want us to, like, take over the world or some garbage? Haha."

"Yeah, sure." Said Pyronica. "Uh, how fast can you set up an apocalypse bomb linking this world to the Nightmare Realm?"

"The Nightmare Realm? Woah man, that's totally within... yeah, we got that crazy crap, bro! Us four homies are all packed and hyped up for some mega destruction! Also, can you imagine the views we'd get on Intertube? Heck, maybe the post-apocalyptic setting could be good for our show on Intertube Red! It's gonna be so radtropolis! I bet we can get, like, 420,000,000,000,000 views. Haha, get it? 420 trillion? It's a joke on 420, man."

"Isn't Intertube Red a porn website?" Melody asked the worst possible question anyone could have asked in that situation, clasping a hand over her mouth and blushing.

"THREE HOURS." Deathhorse provided a straight answer to Pyronica's question.

Pyronica brought herself up, and her 'leeshed dogs' (horse-men in this case) floated up with her.

"Well, cool! See you in three hours, losers!"

Then she did that same warp-move again, bringing all four of the Skeltaurs with her.

"ANOTHER WEIRDMAGEDDON IN JUST THREE HOURS, WITHOUT A RIFT?" Asked Ford. "WAIT... IS THAT EVEN, POSSIBLE?"

Soos fell to his knees, gripping his hair with his one well arm. "What are we even gonna do?"

The Green Temple had finally finished emerging, and it shot a beam at the floating complex of ships. That somehow got all the black, glowing 'vines' of sorts to disappear. Following that, a yellow and a red beam were both fired at it, and the green temple was joined by its yellow and red counterparts. Those actions also gave the Keepers the first view of the temples in their entirety, from the outside. They were all... kinda-shaped like the letter 'L,' just enourmous, and with a tiny 'room' section at the very bottom.

The Sage-Guides all floated out, smiling.

"Okay, we sensed that the Lightning Cultist was gone, so we finally activated the temples and brought them here with their super-speed!" Cheered Red as she clapped her hands. "Green even moved his around the ground so that it would not damage this town when it came up! But... it looks like this town was already damaged. Well, you can fix that. We can all fix it! In fact, now you can face against just about anything!"

"What about the Skeltaur Knights?" Asked Ford, grinning sheepishly.

The Guides all looked at one-another, instantly frowning.

"Oh... that's a hard one..." Red answered. "Well, generally, they might need the force of all six Keeper Blades to destroy. And one cannot really face them in any way without all six Blades unless you fight them inside a temple. So, either way, get to the last three temples, and you will be safer."

"Got it." Ford said, pounding his palm with his fist. "And I suggest that the best way of doing this is splitting up and taking all three of the temples at the same time. Darlene, Melody, and I must take the orange, purple, and blue temples respectively. But I think each of us should have a partner that has a Keeper Blade, in case Pyronica throws anything at us..."

"Ooh! Ford, I call dibs on being your partner!" Stan waved his Blade-holding hand around.

"If Red's map is right," said Melody, "my temple's in my home town and it's apparently still infested with Cultists. Sorry Soos, but... I think I have the tougher mission here, I'm gonna need someone with powers on top of her Keeper Blade skills. So... .GIFfany, will you be with me?"

The AI ran up to her and hugged her.

"So that leaves me with Darlene." Said Soos. "Cool! You know, I really got to know .GIFfany over this adventure, and I knew Melody and the Stans a lot... we haven't really interacted that much. Even over the four months. In fact, you're the last Keeper I spoke to, even counting Pyronica! We gotta talk more, Darlene!"

He patted her on the back, although her hard-ness caused his hand to twitch a bit in pain.

"Oh, hahah..." Darlene kind of shrunk back. "Thanks."

"...Does everyone agree on our setup?" Ford asked.

The other five Keepers nodded.

"Really? Because I'm open to suggestions. I'm trying not to overtake everything."

Everyone nodded again.

"...Okay then. Now, we are on a very strict time limit. And this means that, as much as some of you - okay, just Melody - would not want to hear this, we have no time to put clothes on."

Melody gave a very pained nod, but that stopped when .GIFfany pretty much dragged her and Soos towards the side. On the other side of a particularly large icicle sticking from the ground.

"This might seem bad now," said the AI, "but when this is over, I promise I am going to fuck your brains out."

---

Chapter 9's 'bonus.'

Two days after landing on Fanservice Island. (Shortly after the end of Chapter 6.)

"Well, that was easy!" Ford proudly announced as he held up a finished pair of nice, comfortable, fuel-efficient blue jeans. "Designing clothes on this island! I have no idea why even the .GIFfany Army struggled with this..."

He casually flipped them around in front of his only audience - a mildly amused Darlene, and a completely awestruck Melody. Both of which sat on stumps that used to have been full trees until the .GIFfanys went by, and the latter still brought an arm over her chest.

"Now, to just try them on..."

And then he noticed that tiny gray bug that was a Cloth Moth land on a pant leg.

Seeing that, Ford jumped roughly a kilometer back, took a ray gun from his inventory, and fried the entirety of the pants, also just barely killing the Cloth Moth. Darlene chuckled at the moment, but Melody fumed.

"Why did you do that?!" She asked. "I've been waiting for new clothes ever since .GIFfany shred mine!"

"I'll explain later! For now, this much reach the entire island:"

---

"NOBODY MAKE OR TRY TO WEAR ANYTHING FOR REAL CLOTHES!" Ford shouted, running through the streets of the city with nothing but his glasses. "THE CLOTH MOTHS WILL EAT THEM! AND THEY'LL TURN RED AND EAT US!"

He ran past Stan trying to paint something on Soos. A series of random patterns in black, over a golden coating over him. That sight got Ford to stop running.

"What are you doing?" He asked.

"Oh, Soos and I were thinking about redesigning his look a little for his grand return to the Mystery Shack. He'll make up some story that's sorta like a family-friendly version of this. It involves us getting a buncha symbols on us. He's thinking of turning it in to a comic book and a film script, you should probably read it. It's really good!"

Soos nodded. "Gotta keep the kids in mind! You know, because children do visit the Mystery Shack, and if I ever told them what really goes on over here... I'd get arrested. Say, does this paint count as clothes?"

"Paint does not."

The Earth Squad Captain popped her head out of the ground.

"What about mud coverings?"

"No, unless it's... thick plating. Just having mud smeared over you does not count. Even if used with the intent to 'kind of cover.' Trust me, I ran experiments on these things."

"AHA!" Shouted the Weapons Squad Captain, who flipped out of one of the higher floors of a building. "I knew that shit doesn't count for 'real clothes!' Same with body paint! If you want to run around effectively naked, that's fine, but do not act like recoloring your nipples blue is the same thing as something that actually conceals them. That double standard pisses me off."

"...Guys," said Ford, ignoring 9 as everyone else did, ".GIFfanys, I think most of you will be safe, since you already do not 'wear' clothing with the intention to be clothes, just to tease. You are okay with going around naked, and just 'decorate.' The Cloth Moths do not count 'decorations' over naked bodies. They do count anything remotely similar to full cloth, and anything that 100% hides the body's 'intimate' locations."

Melody ran over to the crowd, nearly slipping as she reached the mini-town square.

"Can I at least cover my boobs with my hair?"

"Mmmmmm..." he looked up to the sky, as though he was trying to remember him actually trying that. He was. "No, they hate that. ...A lot, for some reason. When I tried it with my nipples, it instantly sent a small cloud in to their red rage mode, even though they shouldn't have the strength to eat full people yet."

"And no offense Melody," 9 continued even though nobody asked, "I hate that too. I think it just looks..." she shrugged, "I dunno."

"So wait," said Darlene, also joining most of the other Keepers, "are you saying that there's these bugs here that don't want any of us to get dressed?"

"I'm afraid so. We may be forced to remain naked for the entire time we are on here. Now, .GIFfanys, can you send the message to every single other one of you? Actually, can I? I feel like what counts as 'clothing' to them and what does not should be very specifically detailed. I remember writing a list back in the first Journal. It took up over half of the book."

Prime already entered the setting, giggling as she spun around with a half-full beer bottle in her hand. She also hummed a song as she kept her eyes closed.

"See, I kinda- we kinda had some thoughts about this island being... that we're naked." She said. "Hee hee, the Lightning Cultist g-*hic*-gave me some d-d-detttttttttails about it... that's why we did not care too much about clothing."

"Judging on my previous encounter with them in Gravity Falls," explained the author, "they probably went active when the last scraps of my clothes went in to the Depths and somehow escaped Pyronica's Hellflame burns, awakening them. Any time before that, and coming on with clothes would have been safe."

"That explains how I was able to wear my usual stuff without getting bugged to death." Said Darlene. "I always avoided the Depths. Something about that place just... felt off."

"Whelp." Stan shrugged. "I guess now it's total naked time or something! Four months with no clothes! WHOO! Who's with me?"

That got a number of cheers from the Artificial Army.

"Hell yeah!" Said the drunk Prime. "Fuck clothes, anyway!"

...

As I am currently deceased, your "cryptogram" for this chapter will be completely uncoded. Think of it as a "reward." This will also be my last such cryptogram. Anyway:
They wept after the loss of the of the consumer of organs that dwells in the mountain caves, and they wept after the loss of the sorceress who controls electronics at her finger tips.
Next are the four Knights of Mystery.
God help us all.
- Zephieye Smith, AKA the Lightning Cultist, AKA the Great Zephieye.

---

Closing AN:

Despite what the end of the chapter (not counting the bonus) might imply, the following chapters are not to be read in any order as Chapters 2-4 were. Yes, each of them roughly focuses on one of the three remaining temples, but they're still very much told in a linear manner, and the point of view will rotate around them. Trust me, just by skipping from 10 to 11 will throw a ton of spoilers on you.

You might have guessed that me "rushing" this story to get it out by the anniversary of "Soos and the Real Girl" influenced how short the bonus was, for anyone who cares about bonuses. Well, that and I probably wouldn't be sure how to enlongate something as basic as the first time the Hexagram Emergency-six 'encountered' the Cloth Moths.

I know I promised last chapter that I would fix up some mistakes with run:gifocalypse, but I also really wanted this chapter to be out on this day, the anniversary of "Soos and the Real Girl" (I would have also considered celebrating the anniversary of "Fight Fighters" but they're, like, barely a week apart from each-other.) Edits may come tomorrow if I don't feel like a lazy ass.

Anyway, there was so much I wanted to throw in to this chapter, one of which being that I really wanted to play out the part about Melody hiding (this chapter was, in fact, originally named "Hiding" after that until the last second when I finally thought of a better title; it was originally going to be named "Not Very Funny Horsies" in reference to the debut of the Skeltaurs and this "Funny Horsie" series of videos by the surreal video maker Chriddof, but I thought that would be kind of giving away the twist at the end) a lot more and in a more horrific way. I kind of like scenarios with nude women in them, what I'm not a huge fan of/have mixed feelings about is when they're being subjected to, quite honestly, pretty horrible things and yet that's blatantly being played for sex appeal. A tiny, side-purpose of this story was to at some point kinda shit all over the whole "Embarassed Naked Female" sub-genre and actually kind of twist it in to something closer to a horror story, with the character "humiliating" the naked person being clearly depicted as a piece of shit. Part of this is just me having a preference for "waifus" that go around naked because they like doing it and don't give a damn, and aren't just fragile and crying and angsting all the time about their contrived nudity stuff. This is not anything out of "anger" or being "offended," I'm just kind of against cliches and I believe that the narrative should not take it likely when a character frankly does something creepy and invasive (I mean, I won't throw a fit if someone gets away with something but it's presented as a bad action, unlike... some people on the web).

Sorry to kinda fillibuster. Anyway:

Character Notes: Actually, all of the "new" characters in this chapter, if memory serves (and I just looked over all of it over the course of three days, so I think I have a relatively good grasp on memory), are characters I made, just changed. The Cultists are based on a certain group of people in run:gifocalypse. (Okay, fine, the last people who played the respective .GIFfany copy. I'd assume at this point you'd have checked out RG out of sheer confusion anyway, and this isn't that much of a spoiler.) Which reminds me that I didn't ever really describe what they actually looked like. There's twelve instead of thirteen because 9/Dove's last player hates technology so I'd imagine he wouldn't join the Cult. The Skeltaurs are based on this reoccuring SBIG character named Darkhorse, at least design wise. Deathhorse [sic], the main one of them, is closest in line with Darkhorse's original. I doubt I could say anything about the Horsemen of the Apocalypse that Google can't.

Well, I also have a little short something else planned for this day. There's a high chance you'll see it. But if not, I'll explain what it was.