Mabel could barely keep up with the speed of her brother's attacks, as he ducked and weaved through the nightmare's limbs, deftly cutting off a writhing tentacle with his ludicrously oversized sword before firing a rocket into a giant pincer reaching for him. The ground shook as the ponderous nightmare stomped around, trying to catch up with the tiny human buzzing around its heads.
"Go Dipper! Wipe that monster's butt! I mean kick! Kick its butt!" She wasn't the only one cheering. Bill Junior was wearing a cheerleader's outfit and waving pom-poms, cavorting in somersaults, and making a high-pitched noise like a pocket whistle.
The fight dragged on and on. Despite the endless barrages of missiles and superficial cuts, Dipper didn't seem to be making much of a dent in the nightmare kaiju's vast bulk. Mabel called out warnings when a grasping claw reached for Dipper from behind, but there wasn't much she could do from the sidelines. Bill still had his nefarious plot to take over the world, and they needed to get back before he fully absorbed the portal's power.
"Hurry up, Dipper! We still need to get back to the human world and stop Bill's evil plan!"
"I'm doing the best that I can," yelled Dipper, as he shot one of his armored gauntlets at the wolf head's eye, crushing into a bloody pulp. "Wait, why did I even do that?" said the boy, clenching his naked hand. The dragon head retaliated by aiming a gout of fire at the armored boy, who safely rolled out of the way. His cape, however, was not so lucky.
"Hot, hot, hot!" Dipper patted out the fire on his back. "All right, this battle has gone on long enough. Finishing Move: Ten Thousand Missile Barrage!" Dipper's armored shoulderpads, knee guards, and stomach plates clicked open, bristling rows of rockets. He flexed his body outwards, as if he was saluting the sun, and an implausible stream of projectiles shot from his suit. Louder than a Fourth of July fireworks display, the missiles impacted the nightmare's body, churning the air cloudy with dust and smoke.
"Yes! Direct hit!" Dipper fist-bumped in the air. "I should have used that attack to begin with." He flew celebratory loop-de-loops over the bulk of the nightmare. In the clearing smoke, Mabel saw the dark mass twitch.
"Dipper, watch out!"
"Huh?" A red beam shot out of the dust, catching the boy in its path. Mabel could only watch helplessly as Dipper's armor was seared off his body. From the dust cloud rose the librarian head of the nightmare. Pink-skinned and naked as the day he was born, Dipper was suspended in mid-air by the force of the librarian's glare.
"No rough-housing in the stacks!" commanded the librarian. It adjusted its glasses with one clawed hand, then swiped downwards, as if tearing off an unauthorized flyer from the community bulletin board.
Dipper's body remained suspended in the air. For a second, Mabel could believe that nothing had happened. Then his feet detached, then his legs, until the boy was a jumble of chopped parts falling down.
"I should have used the One Million Barrage…" Dipper's voice crackled on the radio, fading before hitting the ground.
"Dipper!" Mabel screamed. She dropped to her knees. How could this have happened? Her brother, her champion, had fallen. Who would save them now?
Bill Junior hopped up and down, waving his arms to get Mabel's attention. The sentient post-it note grabbed Mabel's hand and pointed to his eye. Something glimmered inside.
"You want me to reach inside your eye?" Bill Junior nodded yes. Mabel pressed her hand through the soap-bubble membrane of the little brick's eye. Groping blindly, her fingertips closed around something hard and metal-cold. As she grasped the metal bar, a sharp point pricked her palm.
"Ouch!" She flinched and withdrew her hand from Bill Junior's eyes. The object clattered to the tiled floor, turning out to be a sword made of ink-black metal with a yellow cat's eye gem set in the pommel. On closer inspection, a sharp spike stuck out of the sword's grip. To wield the sword properly would require driving the spike deep into her palm, joining cold metal and her own body.
Bill Junior waddled over to the sword and tried to pick it up, arms taut, knees wobbling. He strained upwards, until the hilt barely lifted up the ground. The yellow rectangle dragged the heavy metal in the direction of the nightmare beast, squawking a piteous challenge.
"Wait, you're going to fight that thing? There's no way you can win!" The yellow rectangle knelt down on one knee and bowed, a knight genuflecting to his lady. What the heck was wrong with Mabel, that she was letting a slice of cheese fight her battles for her?
"Stand down, Bill Junior. I've got a duty to avenge my brother." The girl thrust a hand into the air, striking a pose.
"Heavenly Crystal Dress Up!" the girl cried in heavily-accented English. From her chest, Mabel drew a pink, star-topped wand, which trailed glitter as she spun around. The circles of glitter turned into a pastel, marbled bubble, cacooning her in its opalescent glow. Shimmering beams wrapped around her ordinary Mary-Janes, turning them into high-heeled boots. The light swept around her body, pleating her plain skirt, and adding an elaborate bow to the back of her sweater. On her head appeared a radiant tiara with a massive purple gem. Finally, the light returned to her chest, leaving a supernova insignia on her sweater.
"I am Cosmic Space Princess Mabel! You hurt my brother! Now prepare to die!"
The wolf head of the nightmare kaiju turned away from the slices of Dipper that it had been about to lap up and growled in Mabel's direction. One of its eyes was nothing more than a bleeding cavity, but the other glinted through bloody fur. The head lunged forward, neck stretching long like a snake. A maw bigger than her body lunged forward to crunch the life from the floating girl. Mabel flew sideways, out of the wolf's jaws.
"Cosmic Ray!" Mabel needled the shaggy fur with her wand's laser beams. The stench of singed hair filled the air, but her attacks didn't seem to be doing much damage, as the head shook like a wet dog drying itself. Plus, she had the dragon head to worry about as well, as it lunged opportunistically at the brightly colored gnat flitting around. Not to mention the intense disapproving glare of the librarian head.
"Nebula Dust!" A cloud of blindingly-white glitter drifted over the nightmare kaiju's heads. The dragon head stopped snapping at the magical girl in favor of the distractingly shiny dust, and the librarian sneezed, closing its eyes. The wolf's tongue lolled as it panted, like an overgrown dog. One eye tracked Mabel's hand, as she vigorously waved the wand in the air to spread the glitter.
"Here boy, you wanna play fetch?" The wolf head barked. "Catch!" Mabel grew her wand until it was twice as tall as she was and then flung it over with titanic strength. Up and up it climbed, until the wolf snatched the glowing stick from the air. Steak knife teeth sank deep into the pink column. The wolf attempted to gnaw at the giant wand, and balked, puzzled. Neck muscles rippled as the wolf head tried to pry open its jaws, but its teeth were sunk too deep into the pink wand to be released. It whined, rubbing the side of its head against the ground.
"Bad dog! I'm revoking your mouth privileges!" Mabel couldn't rest easy with her victory, for the dragon head and the librarian head had recovered from their en-glittering. The dragon head roared, and spat a wave of fire at the girl, while the librarian head tutted and waved a finger.
"Space Diamond Barrage!" All around the Nightmare Library, massive hunks of clear crystal rained down on the nightmare kaiju. One look at the shiny jewels, and the dragon gave up chasing the flying girl, scooping up diamonds by the scaly armful to deposit near its feet.
"We must destroy the interloper!" commanded the librarian, but the dragon ignored its other head, arranging the crystals into a bowl-shaped nest. Then, the dragon's head cracked to one side as the librarian slapped the scaly beast hard with a pruny, manicured hand. "Keep focused!" The librarian lowered her horn-rimmed glasses to transfix Mabel with a stern look. Literally, as Mabel found herself unable to fly away. "Little girls should play house, not rough house."
"Hey, I'm not a little girl. I'm a woman!" Mabel tossed her hair back for dramatic effect.
"Even worse. How will you ever enter the bonds of holy matrimony with such a churlish demeanor? Men shall spurn your nettles for the blushing rose, and you will grow old, unloved and alone." The librarian's liver-spotted wattles shook. "Heed me, and avoid my fate!"
"Well, maybe you're alone because you keep bossing people around!"
"Well, I never!" The librarian picked Mabel up with her claw-like fingernails and held her above canyon-like wrinkles. "Back in my day, children had respect for their elders! And always said prayers before they ate! And wore dresses that covered their ankles," the librarian ranted on, gobs of spittle flying up and impacting the girl's bare legs. Mabel didn't have time for a lecture! There was a brother/world to save! Now, what did librarians fear …
Of course! Mabel summoned a gob of artificially-sweetened gum and started working her jaws overtime.
"And don't get me started on mobile devices!" continued the librarian. "What do you have in your mouth? No eating in the stacks!"
"Chew on this!" And Mabel started blowing a bubble.
"No, not that!" The librarian held Mabel at a massive arm's length, as if she was infected with measles. The pink bubble expanded until it was bigger than her head, then bigger than her own body, blocking the librarian's glare with its sticky translucency. When the bubble was as big as the librarian's head, Mabel pinched it shut.
"Sorry not sorry to burst your bubble!" And with a poke of her finger, the pink balloon exploded all over the librarian's face. The librarian dropped Mabel to claw at its face, scraping deep gouges as it tried to remove the clinging gunk. Now with the three heads nullified, Mabel could finish off the beast.
"Holy Sunshine Beauty Love Big Bang!" The girl mustered all her emotions: triumph, fear, anger, sadness, and love. From out of her chest, a ball of light escaped, hanging in the air like a disco ball. The newborn sun hung in the air, held together only by her will.
Then Mabel let go.
The resulting explosion was blinding . A shock wave rocked the entire room, throwing up chunks of floor to be dissolved into nothing. All three heads of the nightmare kaiju howled as they were burned out of existence by the tremendous light. As the force of her disembodied emotions seared away the Dreamscape, Mabel felt calm. No, not calm. Empty.
Mabel opened her arms to the raw force of her spirit. With the infinite potential of the Dreamscape, she could birth a new universe. Let the old one be taken by Bill. She could create a world with no darkness. Just light.
Something flickered below her. A hand-shaped shadow groped uncertainly. Was that … Dipper?
The cosmic radiation dissipated, leaving behind only a fist-sized flickering orb. Mabel grabbed the orb with both hands, pressing it back into her chest. Her magical girl outfit dissolved, returning her sweater and shoes to their normal state, and she floated down to the ground.
Bill Junior ran to Mabel's side, eyes shining with admiration. The yellow rectangle knelt and raised its arms, praising her worth.
"Get up, Bill Junior. We've got to find my brother." The rectangle got up and saluted, bounding around to gather Dipper's scattered pieces. "Dipper, are you here? Speak to me, bro-bro!"
"Down here," croaked her brother's voice. Mabel brushed aside the rubble until she found the source.
"You're okay!" Mabel hugged Dipper's severed head to her chest.
"Yeah, so it turns out you can't actually die when you're already dead. Ow, ow, careful with the cut edge."
"Sorry!" Mabel gently set down Dipper's head. "I'll get you fixed up in a jiffy!" She concentrated, and conjured up a pink toolbox full of sewing thread, hot glue, googly eyes, and everything else she needed for a Craft-mergency ™. Bill Junior returned with an armful of severed parts. Mabel lay out the pieces like a jigsaw puzzle.
"The skull bone's connected to the leg bone," she sang.
"Mabel, I swear, if you mix up my body parts ..."
"You'll do what, slap me with your feet?"
After judicious applications of sewing thread and hot glue, Dipper's soul was patched together more-or-less correctly.
"Doctor Mabel declares her patient to be healed!" She held out her hand to help Dipper up. As soon as her brother grasped her hand, the weak seam broke, and his arm fell off.
"Mabel, I don't think this is going to work. I can still feel the cut edges scraping against each other." Bill Junior picked up the severed arm and pressed it against the stump. Dipper pursed his lips.
"Bill Junior, you're useless." The yellow brick squeaked in indignation and dropped Dipper's arm. "I wish Bill really had eaten you. Your squeaky voice is annoying. And that bow looks stupid on you." The tiny brick fumed, and ripped off the black bow tie, throwing it on the ground. It huffed and crossed its arms.
"Dipper, how could you be so rude? What a woman wears is between her and God." Mabel took the little brick under her woolen wing. "I happen to think that bow looks nice on you. Although ..." Mabel picked up the bow and popped at a jaunty angle on a corner of the brick's head. "There! You look so cute!" Mabel held up a compact mirror. The brick started tearing up.
"Oh no, did I do something wrong?" Mabel reached out to take the bow off, but the yellow brick held it protectively.
"Wait a minute," Mabel said. "You're not a Bill Junior. You're a Bill-ette!" The little brick hugged Mabel, staining her sweater black with inky tears.
"Great job, Mabel! Now you can use the tears to glue me back together!"
"Right after you apologize for misgendering this rectangle!"