So fun fact about this chapter, I managed to write it all in one day! Its probably one of the shortest chapters in the entire fic too, so that explains why, though I still do like how it turned out. Also I should probably explain that we're about to head into another three part mini-arc (much like Fusion Fiascos back in arc 4). This time around, the focus is on Ford's interdimensional adventures, so we're bound to get a lot of fun stuff here (and a lot of answered questions (and foreshadowing! and maybe a NIGHTMARE or two). So aside from that, all I really have to say is let's get started!


Chapter 77: Adventures in the Multiverse

Part 1: The Nightmare Realm

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Within the quiet solitude of his private study in the second sublevel below the shack, Ford had always found that he'd been able to find comfort and solace solely in the simplicity of his own research. Even thirty years ago, the author would frequently retreat to this tranquil space, take a seat in his favorite chair at his favorite desk, and lose himself in his work on the journals, eagerly documenting his latest discoveries within the pages of his trio of journals. Away from the world and awash in his own thoughts, reflections, and recollections, a better place to be some nights than others, especially when it came to the nights when it had still been him sitting at that desk, only with someone else taking the reigns of his mind instead.

Yet that was far from the case on this particular night as Ford described the latest happenings in the later pages of his lattermost journal. A rather uneventful entry given that the day had been sparse of any supernatural or alien encounters, yet the author still found documenting his thoughts and observations a worthy use of his time all the same.

Once again I was faced with an all-too familiar question today, one that I've been hearing more and more frequently from the children as of late. First it came from Dipper, not surprising given his admirable drive to learn and discover everything and anything he can (not unlike myself when I was younger). Then it came from Steven, likely as a result of the Gems leaving him out of the loop (I've come to understand they tend to do that to him from time to time, poor lad). But oddly enough, today it came from Mabel, which admittedly caught me off guard. Perhaps curiosity has been getting the better of all three of them in their recent idle time. Even so, as usual, I had no suitable answer to that inquiry. Sometimes it seems as though I never really will either.

The author paused his pen, letting out a long sigh as he glanced up from the journal to the flickering candlelight coming from the wick set before him. He'd never been particularly fond of dwelling on the past and yet he constantly found himself doing so all the same whether he wanted to or not. And yet this, like many things he'd been through back in the day, was one lengthy span of time he was far from keen on dwelling on.

Which was exactly why he tried everything he could to avoid it. And yet that familiar question, whether it was from one of the kids, one of the Gems, or someone else entirely, still always seemed to follow him all the same:

"Where were you for the past 30 years?"

It's not that I'm afraid or even that hesitant to discuss any of it. The problem is, I never know how to begin or what to reveal. A lot can happen in the span of 30 years, and in my case, a great deal did happen. Moments of triumph, moments of despair, moments of fear, spread so far and so broad across so many scattered dimensions. Some days it feels as though it's not over yet, even now that I'm back in the comfort of my own home. It's hard to say if I'll ever truly be able to make sense of it all, but… maybe it might be worth the effort to, at the very least, try.

Try. Try to confront something that he'd been avoiding ever since he stepped through the portal back into his basement lab. Try to stitch together the pieces of a story that spanned worlds, galaxies, even dimensions themselves. Try to face a past he'd just as rather leave behind entirely.

I suppose trying is the best I can do in this case. And perhaps writing about some of it here will help me get my thoughts in order. Perhaps it's time I finally reveal…

My Journey


I remember those first moments after I was cast into the portal like it was yesterday.

"Stanley! Please! Tell Rose Quartz I'm sorry!" His last message to his brother, or more precisely, to the pink Gem, echoed all around him through the bright white void he'd found himself sucked into. A void that led to what could very well become his demise, a thought that he barely even had time to grapple with as he tumbled through the empty light.

The sudden feeling of weightlessness, the helpless terror, knowing that I would soon face whatever mysterious horror had driven Fiddleford to madness.

As I felt myself being sucked away from my home (a dimension I would come to learn is referred to in the multiverse as 514÷Y), I held my breath and accepted that this could be the end.

As luck would have it, it was only the beginning.

In a startling flash, the white void faded away, finally allowing Ford his first (albeit somewhat blurry) glimpse as to what lay beyond it. Initially, it almost looked like a vast expanse of endless stars, much like an earthly spacescape would appear. Yet in a striking instant, that all changed, the stars burning out as the dark skies turned blood crimson. From there, that red violently exploded into a sickening shade of green, mingled with clashing pinks and oranges. Over and over again, the expanse shifted colors, constantly changing on its own wild whims as it swirled with a chaotic, unstable sort of energy, one that Ford could feel from the moment he found himself caught within it.

Swimming through the gravity-free area of lightning and swirling colors, I reached into my pocket for a spare pair of glasses (always handy, considering how often I break them) and found myself staring at, quite literally, a living nightmare.

As a speeding torrent of blazing asteroids rushed past him, the author jolted with fear, still largely overwhelmed with shock to do much else. Disoriented as he was, some small part of his mind still tried clinging onto logic amidst the dangerous disorder he was now lost within. And as he took another look around his hectic new surroundings, he starkly realized where it all was.

"And what is on the other side of that portal, Ford?" Rose had asked him, her voice tight and intense with growing dread.

"What did you really have us build down here, Stanford?" Pearl had demanded harshly, glaring at him with immense suspicion all the while. "A portal to another dimension, or something far more sinister?"

"I know what I saw in there!" Fiddleford had cried in a wild-eyed panic as he pointed an accusing finger at the portal he'd just barely been recovered from. "It was a nightmare, plain n' simple!"

"Let's just say that when that portal finishes charging up, your dimension is really gonna learn how to PARTY! Right guys?" Bill had cheerfully encouraged his "friends", a group of ghouls and monsters all eagerly awaiting the portal's completion just as much as the dream demon himself was. Something that their sinister whispers had been reminding him of on a near-constant, maddening loop for the past several weeks now:

"The door is open…"

Ford gasped, much louder than he had meant to as the sound echoed through the immense empty space around him. His heart was hammering his chest, his panic rising as he knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt exactly where he now was.

I found myself sucked through the door to the place Bill had designated the portal to access, a place called many different things: the dimension between dimensions, the in-between space, the gateway to other worlds…

The Nightmare Realm. The very place Bill Cipher himself calls home.

Bill's universe is not exactly a dimension, but rather a boiling, shifting, intergalactic foam between dimensions-a lawless, unstable crawl space between worlds that only the strangest and most unknowable beings call home. And as the portal closed behind me, I found myself trapped there, possibly for eternity.

The entirety of the Nightmare Realm rippled with yet another wave of electric, chaotic energy, one that rattled Ford to the core with terror just as much as all of the others had before it. And yet, this one was the most terrifying by far as he spun around in the weightless space-scape, only to find a sight that made his heart sink all the way to his stomach. For the very same white void he'd emerged here from, the portal itself, his sole gateway back home to everything he'd ever known, simply exploded. In a burst of blinding, bitter light, it was wiped away like a star in a supernova, leaving nothing, no gateway out, no way to escape, left in its wake.

He was trapped here, armed with only the clothes on his back and nothing else to ensure his survival. The chances of which, he knew, were likely ridiculously low, if they were even existent at all. He was lost, with no hope and no help. For certainly, no one would be able to come to his rescue in a place like this; not Stan, not Fiddleford, not any of the Gems, not even Rose herself. And that was perhaps the very worst part of it all: he was alone.

Though the truth of it was, he wasn't as alone as he thought. Though considering the company that was about to find him, he'd very soon wish he was.

The constant dull, inconsistent clamor that filled the Nightmare Realm was suddenly broken, shattered like glass with a piercing, shrill laugh that Ford was far too familiar with by this point. Once again, the realm shifted, landing the author in another setting entirely, one streaked in sharp shadows and the bright, bizarre sets of eyes that belonged to those shadows. Yet Ford hardly paid them any mind as he instead seized up with fear while that laugh, that wild, insane, undeniable laugh rang loud and clear in his ears, just as it had in the fitful nightmares he'd been having as of late.

He knew exactly what he'd find if he turned around, exactly who he'd have to face. And worse yet, this time, he wouldn't merely be facing him in dreams; he'd be facing him on his own home turf. Quite frankly, he was surprised that the dream demon hadn't already killed him the moment he found him in his realm. But Bill was never one to get to the point, which was why Ford figured he'd do so instead.

Before I had a moment to properly panic over my fate, I realized that I was hovering before Bill himself, who was perched on a bizarre throne made of optical illusions, flanked by an army of strange and shadowy beasts.

On his throne, Bill sat surprisingly calmly, as if he was hardly even surprised to see Ford, of all people in the dimension he called home. If anything, the dream demon seemed delighted, leaning forward slightly as he finally greeted the terrified author as brightly as he always did. "Look who finally decided to pay me a visit!" he quipped, his voice echoing through the infinity all around them. "Not that I wasn't expecting you to show up, Sixer. After your poor buddy Glasses got a glimpse of the place a few weeks ago, I knew you wouldn't be too far behind!"

This callous mention of his former friend was finally enough to shake Ford out of his initial fear, setting him off with a fuel of righteous fury toward the demon who had been tormenting him for so long now. "B-Bill…" he began, forcing himself to be steady in the face of his hated foe. "I-if you think you've won, then you're sorely mistaken. I don't know if you just saw what I did, but the portal closed. It's over, Cipher. You lose!"

Despite this bold claim, Bill simply let out another haughty laugh, hovering off his throne a bit to gain even more height as he towered high above the author. "Aw, c'mon, Fordsy, don't tell me you're THAT deluded! You really think that portal of yours shutting itself down is gonna stop me? Some dumb sap is bound to come along and get it running again eventually. And till then, I've got all the time in the world to wait. Unlike you, Sixer. Get it? 'Cause your time is about to run out? It's FUNNY!"

"You're wrong!" Ford shot back fiercely. "That portal will never reopen again, Rose will make sure of it! I know she will!"

"Oh yeah, cause ol' Quartzy is soooo reliable," Bill rolled his eye. "That's why she left you hanging out to dry when your first test run went south, huh? Or why she's NOT here to save you, her human of the week or the decade or whatever, from me! Right? RIGHT?"

"I-I don't want her to come here to save me!" the author argued, his hands clenched in tight fists at his sides. "I don't want anyone ever opening that portal; it should have been destroyed, just like Rose said." Ford paused at this, letting out a sad, remorseful sigh as he rubbed the back of his neck. "And if I'd just listened to her in the first place, then I wouldn't have ended up here…"

"Should've, could've, would've, but you DIDN'T!" the dream demon mocked almost mirthfully, clearly taking pleasure in this entire situation as a whole. "But tell me, Sixer; wouldn't you want somebody to get that portal up and running again? It'd give you a chance to get out of here, prolong your ultimately destined-to-end-anyway life a bit instead of having it cut short just by being here! After all, humans don't tend to last long in the Nightmare Realm. We play a bit… rough around here, don't we, boys?"

Bill's horde of accompanying, unknown demons all let out a round of hearty, sadistic chuckles at this, laughter that sent a chill down Ford's spine yet he refused to back down regardless. "I don't care about going back to my own dimension," he said firmly, and he meant it. After all, it wasn't like there was very much left there for him anyway now. "Just as long as you're kept out of it too, that's all that matters to me."

"Aw, so Brainiac wants to play the big, tough hero now, huh?" Bill scoffed flippantly. "Hate to break it to ya, Sixer, but I'm bound to get what I want either way. But it's a shame you won't be around to watch me tear the fabric of your dimension to shreds and grind those Crystal Chumps you care so much about to spacedust. 'Cause ya see, Stanford, I'm not the one who's about to lose here. YOU ARE!"

The dream demon's golden form turned a harsh, deadly red at this, his eye pitch black as its white pupil glared down at the frightened author relentlessly. And as his usual bright blue flames erupted all around him, his eagerly watching cronies and cohorts all began to gather in closer, ready to attack.

"CARE FOR A GAME OF INTERGALACTIC CHESS?!" Bill shrieked, his booming voice rattling the entire Nightmare Realm as it took on the same sort of aggressive crimson as its king. "THIS TIME, YOU'RE THE PAWN!"

He snapped his fingers and one of his beasts, a 60-foot-fall ball of fingers and teeth, let out a howl like a humpback whale and charged a me, fingers and teeth wiggling and gnashing! Though I hadn't had much time to think or plan since my arrival in the Nightmare Realm, I knew right off the bat that escaping was my only chance at survival.

Acting on adrenaline and instinct, Ford forced himself to spin around amidst the gravity-free expanse, frantically swimming forward in midair as the monster lunged toward him hungrily. It nearly caught him too, though the author barely managed to outmaneuver it, dodging its path in just the nick of time. Still, he was close enough to it as it passed him by to give him a window of opportunity, exactly the one he needed to get away.

For right as the creature began turning itself back around, Ford pushed himself to "jump" onto one of its many massive hands, using it as something of a springboard to propel himself away from the monster entirely. With this newfound momentum, the author sailed through the ever-changing realm quite a distance, putting some much-needed distance between himself and the monster as it attempted to right itself and go after him.

And in time, it did so, tailing him as he continued pushing himself through space with as much force and speed as he possibly could. However, the monster was every bit as persistent as he was, intent on acting on Bill's orders and catching its prey as it continued the chase without any signs of ceasing. Fortunately for Ford, however, as he turned his sights forward once again, he found just the cover he needed to end it. Or at the very least, give him a much-needed chance to breathe amidst all of the endless insanity he was up against.

I managed to hide behind an asteroid field in the nick of time as the monstrosity passed me by, and I swam through the air in a panic as multiple beasts tore through the space rocks, searching for me.

As the author took refuge in a dense collection of asteroids, he could hear a series of approaching roars and rumbles, no doubt from all of Bill's other beasts as they all assembled to go after him as well. Unsure of what else to do, Ford pressed tight against one of the larger rocks, hoping that he wouldn't be seen. Without any sort of weapon to speak of, there would be no fighting back against creatures as dangerous and unpredictable as these, which meant that escaping from them as all he could really do. Or, at the very least, hiding in the hopes that he could come up with some sort of plan to put an end to this madness before it was too late. And fortunately, it seemed as though some small shamble of luck was still somehow on his side in his otherwise luckless plight. For as he dashed toward another asteroid to hide behind, he happened to spot an even better escape instead.

Fleeing for my life, I miraculously managed to take shelter in the crater of a large passing asteroid as the monsters swarmed by. Hidden deep within the recesses of the stony caverns, I could hear Bill's shrill voice:

"SIXER WANTS TO PLAY HIDE AND SEEK! FIRST ONE TO FIND HIM AND BRING HiM TO ME GETS THEIR OWN GALAXY!"

It was followed by the manic laughter of creatures large and small racing off to locate me. I was so crazed from fatigue and rage that my first impulse was to give myself up to Bill so I could curse him right to his face. And at the time, I figured I might as well do exactly that since the chances of me realistically making it out of the hellish dimension I was now trapped in here were essentially none.

With Bill's horde of monsters and demons successfully evaded for the time being, Ford had finally found a moment to rest, not that he actually found any such solace in it though. Instead, the author slumped down against the cavern wall, staring off into the immense darkness ahead so he wouldn't have to look back into the endlessly shifting scape of the Nightmare Realm in its place.

Had it really just been mere moments ago that he had been standing back in his own basement lab, face to face with his twin brother? Had it really been a mere moment, just one unfortunate second that had turned his life upside down, or rather, had ruined it completely? The author knew he had a long list of people he could pin the blame on for his disastrous plight: Stan, Bill, himself. And yet that blame would hardly do him much good here. Because as long as he remained entrenched in the horrors of the Nightmare Realm, then he was essentially just waiting to die.

The moment he realized this fact was the same moment he realized he was shaking, his hands trembling with cold fear that had filled him from the second he arrived in this awful place. When he had been a young, innocent boy, he'd always dreamed of going on some grand, high-stakes adventure, a dream that both him and Stan had shared. But now that he was actually living that dream, or nightmare rather, it was far from anything he'd once hoped it would be.

Amidst that chilling terror, he could also feel warmth, building up behind his eyes as they started to turn wet. A small sob choked its way out of his throat as he hugged his knees close to his chest. Briefly, he was finally able to take stock of his tattered lab coat, his fresh pair of glasses already slightly cracked from the fray he'd narrowly managed to escape. Yet none of that even remotely mattered to him now. What did matter were all of the things he was all-too-quickly realizing he'd never get to do.

He'd never see his home again, be within the familiarity of the house that sat in the shadow of a temple he'd come to see as a beacon of hope and security. He'd never see the constant stars resting over the peaceful waters of the lake or hear the morning birds greet another crisp Oregonian morning. He'd never write within the pages of his treasured journals, or explore all that the strange, yet beautiful town of Gravity Falls, a place he'd come to lose so much in such a short amount of time.

He'd never get to make amends with Fiddleford for the harrowing experience he'd put him through. He'd never get to apologize to Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl for dragging them into his disaster. He'd never be able to tell Rose just how much he valued her friendship, how much he wished he could win her trust back and how much he had trusted her, how he still trusted her, even despite everything, in turn. And even though some part of him was furious, outraged that Stan's foolishness had gotten him into this mess in the first place, another part of him still mourned that he'd never get to see his brother again either.

He would never be able to go home again. And given the mounting list of disastrous mistakes he'd made, it was probably the only fate he knew he really deserved.

Ford had all but lost himself to grief over that fact when suddenly, a small, yet still prominent noise coming from deeper within the cave he'd taken shelter in. Slowly and carefully, the author rose to stand, peering deeper into the darkness where the faint whispers were coming from. He was hesitant to follow them, initially believing them to be coming from more of Bill's henchmen, lurking in the shadows, just waiting to attack. And yet, these soft, almost scared whispers were a far cry from the raving, manic screams and shrieks of the monsters outside. Which was exactly why Ford allowed curiosity to get the better of him as he stepped into the darkness, not knowing what he'd find.

What he did manage to find, however, was perhaps the last thing he could have ever expected.

Pressing further ahead into the cavern, I discovered that I was sharing my hiding spot with a shivering family of intergalactic refugees.

Sure enough, a group of four alien creatures of varying species and sizes sat, each of them bandaged and war-torn in different ways as they desperately tried to keep themselves warm around their small, strangely glittering purple fire. Ford stopped short just shy of approaching them, stunned by their presence as they were by his when they caught sight of him. And yet, instead of pulling out any sort of weapons to attack, the group offered the author a series of sympathetic, consoling looks as their leader, squat, snaggletoothed, guinea pig-like creature with an eyepatch and a mechanical arm, calmly beckoned him forward.

"You lost your way out there too?" he asked with something of a folksy draw to his tone. "Can't blame ya, you wouldn't be the first. C'mere and join the rest of us lost souls. Warmin' up 'round the fire is leagues better than tryin' your chances out there, that's for sure."

Ford said nothing at first, eyeing the group warily until he realized their leader was right. At the very least, these creatures didn't see intent on eating him alive like Bill's were.

"T-thank you," the author said, holding his hands out toward the violet flames in the hopes that the warmth would finally cease their endless shaking. "If you don't mind me asking… what exactly are all of you and… what are you doing in… well, to put it lightly, here?"

"Heh," one of the other members of the group, a small, somewhat pig-like creature chuckled bitterly. "Ain't that the story of the multiverse?"

"A tale of great sadness and woe indeed," the most reptilian creature of the group, complete with a long neck and a bandaged stub of an arm shook his head morosely.

"One that's probably not bound to get a happy ending at this point," the final member of the group, a horned, fanged creature sighed tiredly.

"But before we get into that depress fest," the leader grumbled, shaking his head at his despairing friends. "Allow us to introduce ourselves first. The name's Yottos. Put 'er there." Ford shook the robotic hand Yottos offered to him before he began to go through the rest of the refugees. "That's Hocoh," he nodded to the pig-like creature on the other side of the fire. "He's Qharquains." The reptilian creature waved his stub of a bandaged arm in greeting. "And he's-"

"I'm George," the horned creature finished bluntly, catching the author quite off guard.

"Huh… that's a… surprisingly normal name," Ford pointed out with a frown.

"You kiddin'? It's the strangest name in the whole dang multiverse!" Hocoh laughed, slapping his knee. Likewise, Yottos and Qharquains also joined in on the bout of laughter, flustering George in the process.

"So you guys keep saying!" he grumbled petulantly. "Y-you're just mad 'cause your names aren't as cool as mine! You!" he looked to Ford somewhat suspiciously. "What's your name, newbie?"

"Oh, I-I'm Stanford," the author introduced himself. "Stanford Pines."

The refugees fell silent at this as they all looked to the author incredulously. "Hm. And I thought George was an odd name..." Qharquains remarked, eliciting another frustrated growl from George as the other two refugees laughed once more.

"Guys! Stop it!"

"Now then, Stanford Pines," Yottos began, his tone turning serious as he looked to the author once more. "Ya asked for our story and here it is. We were just a bunch of humble asteroid miners, hard at work for an honest day's livin on the stardust fields just off of Oloxion 9."

"We were just 'bout to head home for the day when BAM! FLASH!" Hocoh exclaimed dramatically. "A GIANT wormhole shows up, clean outta nowhere, and sucks our ship inside with all us on it!"

"When we all came to, we found ourselves drifting here, within the forbidden gateway between worlds," Qharquains explained evenly. "With our ship irreparably damaged, we were lost, in the very place where all things in the multiverse that go missing tend to end up in."

"We barely managed to escape from all of those… horrible monsters…" George shuddered fearfully. "And we've been hiding out here ever since, both from them… and… f-from him…"

"...You mean… Bill?" Ford ventured, only to receive a sharp and sudden reaction from the refugees. A round of horrified shrieks rose up from the group, panic filling their expressions as they covered their ears to try to avoid hearing the dream demon's name in any way possible. Somewhat confused, the author looked between the frightened members of the group, both understanding their alarm and trying to make sense of it all at the same time. "Is… something wrong?"

"Do not speak the demon's name!" Qharquains warned fearfully. "He has ears everywhere here…"

"He'll hear you, t-then show up here, a-and DESTROY US ALL!" George cried, shaking as he pulled his hood over his eyes.

"If you're here, then you gotta know," Hocoh said sternly, seriously. "That demon, nah, that monster is nothin' but trouble!"

"Tch, don't I know it," Ford scoffed bitterly, crossing his arms. "Believe it or not, I used to consider Bill-er, t-that… demon," the author corrected himself as the refugees shrunk back in terror once more. "To be my muse. I let him influence me, trick me, into building an interdimensional portal and it's because of that portal that I ended up here in the first place… And all because I stubbornly refused to listen to my closest friend when she told me he was not to be trusted…"

"Your friend sounds like she's got a good head on her shoulders," Yottos nodded in agreement. "Cause she's right. Ya can't trust a monster like him. In fact, you'd be pretty stupid to even listen to a single word he has to say!"

"I can't believe you didn't know," George shook his head incredulously. "That demon's one of the most feared beings in the whole multiverse! Everybody, and I mean everybody knows he's always been bad news and will always be bad news!"

"Legend has it that he took over this realm eons ago," Qharquains said gravely. "He used it as a hideout for himself and his equally chaotic allies, a place just as lawless and insane as they are. However, the Nightmare Realm is doomed for destruction. It has no consistent physics that it can adhere to, nothing to keep it stable. Which is why, in time, it will eventually implode, taking everything and everyone that calls it home with it."

"So… that must be why Bill was so intent on that portal being built…" Ford muttered to himself, finally understanding the scope of the dream demon's plan.

The Nightmare Realm… a dimension between dimensions that was never meant to exist in the first place. A plane of chaos and disaster so immense that even the multiverse itself wants it gone. That's why Bill seeks a new, more stable dimension to take over, much like he had his current ruinous home, and a foolish mind willing to let him in. A mind like mine.

"I'm going to stop him!" Ford exclaimed, largely without thinking. The refugees all turned to him, dumbfounded and stunned, especially as he explained himself further. "If Bill-if that demon really does pose such a large threat to both my home and the the multiverse as a whole as you say, then someone needs to put an end to his destructive plans. And that someone is going to be me."

"B-but that's crazy!" George balked in utter disbelief.

"What makes you think you'll stand a chance against someone as powerful as that demon?" Hocoh asked, not buying the author's verve. "Nobody who's ever tried standin' up to him has ever lived to tell the tale."

"That doesn't matter," Ford shook his head, resolved. "He has to be stopped, some way or another. Before he really can escape the Nightmare Realm. Too many lives have been ruined because of his antics, including my own. That's why it's time to put an end to him, to prevent him from ruining any more."

"Tch, you're not all there, are ya, Stanford Pines?" Yottos asked, finally cracking a wry smile. "Still, ya got guts, and we can't help but respect that, can we, boys?" The other refugees all nodded in agreement at this, though it was clear they were still rather baffled by Ford's unflinching determination all the same. "If you're really dead set on facin' that demon, then let us help ya out." Yottos dug into his bag of supplies, pulling out a few sets of rations, mostly made up of odd, compressed mush that the author was completely unfamiliar with. Though at this point, he knew he couldn't really afford to be picky when it came to what he ate out here. "Take these, and also this." The leader presented him with some sort of electronic, bracelet-like device, one that the author couldn't help but look over curiously as soon as he received it.

"What is it?" he asked, fascinated.

"Dimensional translator," Yottos said, poking at the fire a bit. "No offense, but ya seem a bit new to the whole 'dimensional travel' game, so that'll give ya a bit of an easier time when it comes to folks out there that aren't as 'well-spoken' as we are. Now, it's a bit of an older model, but it should still work just fine."

"Right," Ford nodded with a grateful smile as he slipped the translator on his wrist and the rations into the empty supply bag Qharquains also gave him. "Thank you all for your help. I really do hope all of you find your way back to your own home someday."

"Eh, at this point we're honestly just satisfied with surviving from day to day," George shrugged. "And not getting eaten by the occasional gloop monster or eyeball beast."

"...Um… well then," the author cleared his throat as he segwayed into a different topic instead. "You… wouldn't happen to know what the odds are of a portal or a wormhole opening up that would lead back to Earth, would you?"

"What's a 'Earth'?" Hocoh asked, completely confused.

"I've never heard of that dimension before," Qharquains said, shaking his head. "But if that is the place you call home, then I'm afraid to say that the possibility of you returning there from here, by all accounts, is quite slim."

"That's… exactly what I was afraid of…" Ford sighed, still just as aware as he was before of his fate. A fate that seemed quite uncertain, even now. And yet despite that uncertainty, he still clung onto a sliver of hope all the same. Not the hope that he'd ever return home; he knew that ship had sailed and sunk. But rather, the hope that he'd finally be able to stop Bill and save the world, even if it was a word he'd never be able to see again.

So a plan began to form in my mind. I would travel from dimension to dimension, learning what I could about Bill-his weaknesses, his secrets. I'd gain my strength, bide my time, and once I was ready, I would return to the Nightmare Realm and destroy him once and for all. I might never see home again, but at least I could save the multiverse from his wrath, and wreak vengeance for the life he stole from me.

And that was exactly what he was going to set out to do. He'd risk anything and everything just to see Bill Cipher finally meet his end. Even if his own end came right along with it.

The refugees excitedly hailed me as a hero as I prepared to leave, bidding me the best of luck in my quest as I waved them goodbye, setting off from their asteroid to swim toward the nearest wormhole. I was ready, ready to do whatever it took to not just survive, but thrive, as I cast my fate to the wind to discover what new worlds awaited me.

Yet as I left the Nightmare Realm and all its terrors behind, I still caught wind of one final cheer the refugees offered me. One that I still don't know the meaning behind, even to this very day:

"Praise the Axolotl!"


So there ya have it! The beginning of Ford's Adventures in the Multiverse! Next time around we'll get into more of those adventures, with plenty of fun stuff, action, adventure, and again more foreshadowing so that'll be a good time. But for now, let me have a REVIEW to know what you thought (and also how you feel about SUF coming to an end in a little over a month, I'm honestly pretty emotional about it, since it means both GF and SU will be officially over, though don't worry, UF isn't going anywhere!) Until next time! :)