A/N: And we're back! We're getting close to the end now, folks: I hope you've enjoyed the ride so far, ladies and gentlemen - I know I have.

Alas, my next chapter might be a bit delayed: I've got medical matters to attend to next week, but I'll do my best to be prompt.

Anyway, without further ado, the latest chapter: read, review and above all, enjoy!

Disclaimer: Gravity Falls is not mine.

Fabel was the first to return to the Mystery Shack.

As chief among Mabel's carers, it was her duty to assume stewardship of the Queen's host as soon as the instinct to kill had faded and the threat to their swarm had ended; so, the moment the copier clones had reached the enchanted glade, Fabel had begun instinctively lagging behind the rest of the swarm, eventually detaching all together and making a beeline for the Mystery Shack.

Unfortunately, the journey through the forest was a long and complicated one, and even with superhuman speed and endurance on her side, there were limits to how quickly she could travel. Worse still, the constant sound of golf carts in the distance delayed her considerably, for even she was obliged to double-check just in case Tracey and Quattro were still causing trouble. Fortunately, she was able to make it back to the Mystery Shack's parking lot without detecting any serious lapses in security or the host's health, so she and her Queen had that much to be thankful for.

Then the latest of Mabel's memories were circulated among the hive mind, and suddenly things became very curious indeed: the Grey Professional had infiltrated the Shack and revealed himself to Mabel in person. As always, it was hard to tell what was going on at present with remote access to laboratory surveillance deactivated and a five-minute delay on the arrival of up-to-date memories, but it would be safe to assume that the mercenary had been looking for an opportunity to gloat as he'd always hoped to. The Queen naturally suspected that Grey had been behind the activities of the copier clones, perhaps having spurred them to buzz the Mystery Shack in order to gain a few precious minutes to indulge in unmasking himself, in triumphing over his victim.

No doubt Grey fear that he would be in danger of being infested and claimed by the swarm if he dared to simply ask for a moment alone with Mabel, hence why he'd gone to such a circuitous route to gaining access to lab – and no doubt he was right to be afraid. How unfortunate for him that one of the swarm had returned to the Shack early…

A savage grin split Fabel's face in two as new directives from the Queen began flowing into her mind.

As long as Grey was busy gloating, he wouldn't be paying attention to anyone sneaking into the basement. In the highly unlikely event that the security doors couldn't be unlocked, hotwired or forced open, the ventilation ducts were wide open to her – perhaps she could even eliminate that troublesome wax head along the way. Then, once she'd infiltrated the lab, Grey would be ripe and ready for infestation – and with him, his interdimensional teleporter. In a single stroke, Fabel would win the Queen her most valuable addition yet and open the door to the multiverse!

Giggling, she made her way inside the shack, hastily unlocking the way as she proceeded towards the elevator. As soon Grey was secured, she would have to reactivate the surveillance systems and security networks, for just about anything in the building could be controlled from the basement – even the newly-reinstalled sprinklers and the outdoor fire-suppression systems.

Not that it was an immense nuisance to rejig everything; the security systems were mainly there to keep Mabel safe and keep human intruders at bay, and insufficient for holding back Forger Wasps for any length of time. Granted, both Fabel and the Queen knew for a fact that this would have to change once they'd acquired Grey's interdimensional teleporter: if they were to stray into another infested dimension, an all-out war with a rival swarm would be inevitable, and the Queen's host would need defences strong enough to withstand an assault by fellow Forger Wasps. The same would apply if they were to find themselves in a more technologically-advanced world, though at least it would allow them an opportunity to plunder scientifically-minded hosts, along with-

The collective train of thought abruptly juddered off-course as the nascent presence of a larval brain began to form within the hive mind, just distinct enough to form a shadow amidst the Queen's psychic web of connections. A newborn Forger Wasp drone had just taken root in a new body, and though it was still too young to provide the hive mind with sensory data, the timing was immediately suspicious: at present, every single inhabitant of Gravity Falls had been infested and fully converted, and the only escapees from the forest were those who'd managed to avoid being touched. No outsiders had been seen crossing the border within the last hour, so it couldn't have been implanted by the patrols.

In other words, the only logical victim of this infestation was none other than the Grey Professional, infected at the hands of Mabel herself.

The Queen let out a hysterical shriek of psychic laughter at the thought of the proud mercenary being humbled by his prey, and was obediently echoed by Fabel and the others… but as the seconds ticked by, both Fabel and the Queen found themselves gripped by troubling questions: how could Mabel have managed to get close enough to touch the Grey Professional with her bare hands? They'd handcuffed Mabel to the bed; surely Grey wouldn't have been stupid enough to actually unlock the cuffs, would he? Either he'd gotten too close, or Mabel had somehow escaped. And what would Grey do upon finding himself infested? Would he react violently? Would he harm the Queen's host?

With Mabel's memories still lagging behind, there was no way of knowing what was going on down in the lab, and they couldn't afford to wait and see what happened next. So, as soon as the elevator arrived at the basement, Fabel ignored the ventilation duct and went straight for the doors, intending to hotwire the access panel or rip them open by force if need be. But to her surprise, the doors were already unlocked.

Fabel tiptoed into the control room, frantically scanning the lab below for any signs of a disturbance: to her immediate relief, she saw that Mabel was sitting placidly in her cell, staring at nothing. From what she could see from here, the door was shut and the cuff was still in place. So what had happened? Where was Grey?

And then she looked closer… and realized that the Mabel sitting in the cell below her looked significantly paler than usual. And, as she began tentatively reactivating the surveillance systems, she found that the girl currently seated on the bed wasn't registering on the heat scanner. And as the overhead lights clicked on, a familiar-looking figure could be seen lying prone just behind the portable cell, trussed from head to toe with electrical cables; even at a distance, even when only his boots were clearly visible, there was no mistaking the Grey Professional.

Fabel had just enough time to let out a bubbling snarl of rage before the grapnel hammered into her left shoulder, sending her crashing to the ground.

"GRAPPLING HOOK!" Mabel roared triumphantly, as she leapt from her hiding place.

Roaring, Fabel struggled upright – only for a gaggle of photocopier clones to dogpile her. None of them were anywhere near as strong as her, and individually they weighed significantly less than their creator, but Fabel knew that the real Mabel was somewhere among the crowd – and a direct threat to the Queen's host was the only thing that could override her hatred of the vile synthetics.

Unable to fight with all her strength, she could only pick away at the clones, kicking one away here, swatting one aside… and so she was totally unprepared when Mabel drew a syringe gun from Grey's medicine pouch and plunged it into her shoulder.

For the first time in her short life, Fabel felt fear; after all, if it was one of Grey's emergency countermeasures, there was only one thing this syringe could contain. Letting out a piercing shriek of alarm, she tried to grab Mabel's arm, to force her away before she could pull the trigger – only for her hand to pass clean through her. A quick glance at her waist revealed that Mabel was now wearing Grey's mistifier, and was phasing in and out of tangibility – too insubstantial to be grabbed but just corporeal enough to grab the syringe and slam the trigger home.

A split-second later, Fabel detected something terrible in her host body's bloodstream, quickly circulating itself throughout her veins and arteries, inching ever-closer to the real her. Fabel knew at once that the chemical that she'd just been injected had been designed to poison her, to destroy the fungal bodies of Forger Wasps in every conceivable fashion; the knowledge of what few substances could harm her true self had been present in her mind from the moment of her birth, and the chemical signature of this concotion was instantly recognizable. Panicking wildly, she tried to force her host body's bloodstream to expunge the toxin, or at the very least to slow her heartrate so that the cure wouldn't circulate so quickly, but without success: excited with rage and fear, her system was beyond control and expunging this much poison would have been impossible.

Helpless to stop the cure from reaching her, the Forger Wasp could only writhe in torment as the poison coursed through her true body, dissolving the very filaments of her being one layer at a time. In a frenzy of rage and pain, she tried to lash out one final time at the vile synthetics pinning her down, but the roots that had maintained her grip on her host's muscles had already begin to disintegrate, and so she could only flail wildly at nothing. She tried to speak, to spit bile at the copier clones, but her host body's mouth would not respond properly, and all that emerged was a strangled growl of "You… you… yurrrgh…"

Then her stranglehold on the host's nervous system gave way, leaving her blind and paralysed as the cure reached its terminal phase. In her final agonies, as her control over Stanford Pines' metamorphic field and higher brain functions rapidly slipped away, she sent out one final terrified message across the hive mind in the hope that – if nothing else – someone might be alerted to Mabel's escape

Then all she knew was a vast bubbling tide of nothingness as the pulped remains of her body ejected themselves into the host's oesophagus and left as little more than vomit.

For almost thirty seconds, Mabel and the copier clones could only watch in stunned silence as Fabel finished puking her guts out. Thankfully, all ten of them had backed off quickly enough to avoid getting splashed – and just as well, for as they looked closer, they realized that the green-brown barf puddle that had been left behind was twitching ever-so-slightly. Before their very eyes, tattered arms like vines shuddered and melted away, the outline of an almost insectoid shape visible on the concrete floor in final seconds before the whole thing dissolved into nothingness.

Eventually, the marathon of spewing came to an end, and Fabel rose on wobbling, unsteady feet. For a moment, she looked from the copier clones to Mabel with blank, uncomprehending eyes, as if not understanding what she was looking at. Then she blinked.

"Mabel?" she said at last.

At the sound of her own voice, Fabel let out a shocked gasp, hands flying to her throat in astonishment. "What is this?" she asked. "Why do I sound like you? Why am I so short? Where's Stanley? How did I get like this and-"

She paused, visibly collecting her thoughts, and at last, a familiar scholarly expression crept across her face. "Oh! I remember now: the Forger Wasps. Sorry, my memory was taking a little while to catch up there. I take it you found the cure?"

Mabel laughed, partly out of triumph but mostly out of sheer relief. "Took it right off Grey," she giggled. "It's good to have you back, Grunkle Ford. I'd hug you right now, but I've still got the Queen hanging around, so we'll have to take a mulligan on that."

There was a muffled hubbub of conversation from behind her as the copier clones considered this, Mabels 1 through 10 muttering among themselves just loud enough to be discerned.

"And we're sure he's cured?"

"Well, he isn't trying to kill us, so I guess he is."

"I kinda thought he'd end up looking more like himself after being cured."

"At least he's thinking like himself again."

"Kinda creepy to see him speaking with our voice, though."

"Is he ever going to be normal again?"

There was a thoughtful pause, and then Mabel asked, "Why do you still look like me?"

Ford looked himself up and down for a moment, studying his hands, tracing the contours of his face and studying a length of his hair under the light. "As far as I can tell without equipment, the cure expunged the Forger Wasp from my body and erased the modifications it made to my metabolic functions. However, though the parasitoid isn't around to warp my metamorphic field anymore, the field can't return to its old state at the same speed a Forger Wasp could twist it out of shape: my body needs time to revert to its original format."

"How long is it going to take?"

"Three to four hours, I'd say. It's going to be a very strange and unusual return to my former age and gender. Uh, I hope you have my clothes nearby, because as charming as this miniature trench coat may be, it's probably not going to fit me for much longer."

"I think I heard the Wasps talking about your stuff being kept in one of the lockers," said Mabel Number 5. "They said they needed time to reverse-engineer all the alien tech in the pockets."

"For everyone else," added Number 3, "there's something called a fabricator in the lab – Fabel was using it to create new costumes for the other Wasps. Hopefully it'll be able to churn out enough clothes for everyone in Gravity Falls."

Number 6 giggled. "And the gnomes."

"Don't remind me: I really don't wanna think about what gnomes look like in the nude."

Mabel cleared her throat loudly. "There's something more important than that, guys, in case you'd forgot: now that we've got the cure, we need make more of it. Grunkle Ford, we've got about four tubes of cure on us, and we're gonna need enough to cure everyone in Gravity Falls. Do you think you can mix up another batch of this stuff?"

"Well, now that I have access to a fully-equipped laboratory and I'm working with a fully-established cure formula, I don't see why not. Plus, it looks as if the Forger Wasps have upgraded my lab quite significantly, so the odds are in our favour for a change. There's just one problem, Mabel."

"What's that?"

"The Queen isn't just going to sit still and let us cure everyone: by now, she'll know that she's lost one of her swarm and she won't be happy at all about it. Even with all this equipment and a working cure at my disposal, I still need at least two hours build up a batch large enough for the swarm, and the Queen isn't going to give me that time."

Mabel thought for a moment; she knew how to get more time – after all, she'd planned for this part, although it had been pure luck that Fabel had been the first to arrive at the Shack (in point of fact, Mabel had originally been planning on curing her once they'd finished dealing with the Queen and dealing with the aftermath with Ford's help). However, that still left what they were actually going to do with that time. After all, they probably didn't have enough syringes to deal with the Forger Wasp army, and even Mabel's blowpipe strategy wouldn't quite cut the mustard in this situation.

"Does the cure have to be taken by needle?" she asked.

"Not necessarily. It can be taken orally, but it takes a little longer to work."

"2, just how much can we control from down here?"

"Just about everything! We've even got access to the environmental controls and the water tank to the sp-"

But in the end, the copier clone didn't need to say another word: Mabel had already heard everything she needed. Right now, it was taking every last atom of willpower not to laugh giddily: once again, that long-lost feeling of unshakable confidence was pulsing through her veins, a sensation so electric she thought her hair might stand on end.

"What's wrong?" asked Ford.

"You'll see," she said. "You'll have all the time you need – but first we've got to make sure the Forger Wasps are all clumped together in one place."

Ford's brow wrinkled, and Mabel once again found herself struggling not to laugh at the sight of the aging scientist's expression on her face. However long it would take for him to return to normal, it was clearly underway: Ford was already starting to look just a tiny bit taller than her, and his hair was beginning to subtly darken as more of his true appearance began creeping back into the picture – though he looked more like Mabel's long-lost big sister than his old self.

"How?" he asked. "Come to think of it, why?"

"Like you said, the Queen isn't just going to sit around picking her noses now that we've cured one of her goons. And as for the why…" She gave Ford her very best Cheshire cat grin. "It's all part of the plan."

Forger Wasps Queens rarely experienced true fear.

Given that their hosts were usually kept as far from the action as possible, guarded by a vast army of their children, armoured with the best protection their universes could conjure and often kept hidden from all but the earliest of victims, there was little to truly prod their most desperate instincts into action. For good measure, it was a popular custom for Queens to infest younger, more vulnerable-looking hosts so as to engage the sympathies of those around them – the better to ward off violence and encourage hugs. With such security in place and cures for Forger Wasp infestation so difficult to produce in lesser dimensions, there was nothing to fear as far as most of the Queens were concerned.

So when the Queen of the newly-established Gravity Falls swarm felt one of her most valued drones simply vanish from the hive mind, a quick analysis of the fallen Wasp's last recollections was enough to send the first inklings of dread rippling through her body.

She'd suspected that the Grey Professional might be carrying some kind of emergency countermeasure in case he ended up infested, but never in her wildest dreams had she suspected that he might be reckless or stupid enough to actually bring it within arm's reach of Mabel. She still didn't know how the blundering idiot had managed to get himself infested, but whatever the case, Grey was now trussed up like the proverbial Thanksgiving turkey in the basement, the copier clones had taken over the laboratory, Ford Pines had regained control of his body… and now Mabel was armed with a working dose of cure.

It took a grand total of three milliseconds for her fear to spread outwards across the hive mind, inching out across her network of psychic connections like raindrops on a spider's web.

As one, the swarm changed direction: Mabels who'd been on guard duty, Mabels who'd been chasing the newest copier clones, Mabels who'd been at work on their fleet of vehicles, Mabels who'd been hunting for Tracy and Quattro, Mabels who'd been waiting by the roadside to continue their expansion, Mabels who'd been conducting surveillance of neighbouring towns with aerial drones – all of them dropped what they were doing (in some cases quite literally) and made a beeline for the shack.

The Queen and her subjects were not in a grips of a blind panic yet – though the terror was clearly visible on the horizon – so it was a very controlled, orderly sprint across Gravity Falls; the Queen was still able to make preparations, to arrange a means of distracting Mabel, of preparing her own contingencies…

And most importantly of all, opening an avenue for emergency negotiations.

Ten minutes later, the sound of several dozen cacophonic ringtones echoed across the lab. Ford, who'd been in the middle of a very hasty mission briefing from the copier clones (as it still wasn't safe for Mabel herself to tell him anything), looked up in surprise. By contrast, Mabel immediately being zeroing in on the source of the noise, ready to answer; after all, she already knew who'd be calling.

As it turned out, the racket had come from yet another locker, this one filled to the brim with the many confiscated phones that the Forger Wasps had collected: all of them were ringing in perfect unison, a sure sign that they'd gotten the Queen's attention. For the sake of brevity, Mabel answered the topmost phone in the pile.

"Your Highness!" she replied cheerily. "Great to hear from you again."

"JUST WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING, MABEL?" several hundred voices bellowed in unison.

"Gee, I'm not sure. I just wanted to see what'd happen if the shoe was on the other foot for a change. You scared out there, Your Highness?"

"PERHAPS YOU TURN ON THE SECURITY MONITORS IF YOU REALLY WANT TO KNOW."

Number 5 obligingly flicked on the security monitors above the laboratory control panels, revealing a vast crowd of Forger Wasp clones haloing the Mystery Shack on all sides: none of them were smiling now; every external camera revealed that their faces were frozen in identical glares of hatred and distrust… and underneath that, just a hint of real fear.

"YOU ARE SURROUNDED," the swarm thundered, the Queen once again making her voice heard through them. "THERE IS NO ESCAPING US. SURRENDER NOW, MABEL, AND I CAN ENSURE THAT WHATEVER FRUSTRATIONS YOU'VE EXPERIENCED WILL BE… NULLIFIED. I CAN EVEN ENSURE THAT YOUR DEAR GRUNKLE WILL REMAIN UNTOUCHED, IF THAT IS WHAT YOU WANT. YOU HAVE AN OPPORTUNITY TO NEGOTIATE: WHY WASTE IT?"

Mabel hit the mute button on the phone, eying her fellow defenders querulously. "Does anyone think she's actually being serious about this?"

"Nope," said the copier clones in perfect unison.

"Not even in the slightest," Ford concurred. "The Queen would never tolerate anyone on Earth remaining unconverted. Most likely, she's stalling, keeping you busy while they try to find a way in."

Sure enough, a few of the cameras revealed that a handful of Mabels were shimmying up some of the nearby trees, each of them armed with ropes and grapnels; even from here, it was obvious that they were looking to scale the roof and sneak in through the attic window – just as Mabel herself had a few short days ago. However, the window had been reinforced with shatterproof glass since then, so that would at least buy them some time if the worst came to the worst.

Smirking, Mabel unmuted the phone. "Feel like getting your goons away from the attic?" she asked. "You don't want this to get nasty, do you?"

The infiltration team cringed as one, and slunk back down the tree in shame.

"WHAT DO YOU WANT, MABEL?" the Queen demanded.

"Jeez, Your Majesty, if you don't know that by now, you never will."

"ANSWER THE QUESTION."

"I want my friends back. I want Gravity Falls back to normal. And I want you to end this invasion right here and now."

There was an awkward pause. A quick look at the monitors revealed that the swarm's eyes were rapidly scanning the Mystery Shack, pupils flicking back and forth across the house. Either they were lost in thought or they were desperately trying to find an alternate entrance that their own cameras wouldn't be trained on. Either way, the Queen knew the odds were stacked against her: they'd fortified the Mystery Shack too well, set up too many cameras that could guard against their approach and added too many defences that could be turned against them. Now, with the copier clones in charge of the security networks, the Forger Wasps were now backed into a corner.

"I CAN GIVE YOU ANYTHING," said the Queen, "IF GIVEN TIME. WE HAVE ALREADY MADE SIGNIFICANT ADVANCEMENTS IN THE FIELD OF VIRTUAL REALITY: IF THE REAL WORLD NO LONGER SATISFIES YOU, WE CAN PROVIDE YOU WITH A PERFECT REPLICA OF THE LIFE YOU WOULD HAVE LIVED HAD I NOT INFESTED YOU. YOU CAN LIVE YOUR LIFE EXACTLY AS YOU PLEASE, WITH YOUR FRIENDS AND FAMILY BY YOUR SIDE. ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS OPEN THE DOORS AND LET US IN."

In spite of herself, Mabel actually felt a tiny stab of rage at this: of all the attempts at emotional manipulation that the Forger Wasps had pulled so far, this was by far the lowest and cheapest shot they'd taken so far. Nonetheless, she did her best to bite her tongue as she hit the mute button a second time and double-checked the monitors – just to make sure the entire swarm: a few stragglers had just arrived to join the swarm and perhaps a dozen others could be seen in the distance, but there was no way to be sure how many Mabels were out there.

"Do we know how many Forger Wasps are out there?" she asked the others. "I mean, do you think they've all arrived yet? I don't want to miss any of them."

"If they're not here yet, they'll be arriving very soon," Ford replied. "Whatever you're going to try, I think you'd better do it right now, before they start getting suspicious about all the dead air we've been giving them."

"How much more time do you need to finish the cure and get it loaded into the sprinklers?"

"An hour and forty-five minutes."

A tiny, involuntary smile crept onto her face. "And how long will the swarm be asleep if I take the cure right now?"

Now it was Grunkle Ford's turn to smile. "Two hours," he said, finally understanding the plan.

Without another word, Mabel flicked off the mute button.

"WHAT'S GOING ON IN THERE?" the Queen demanded.

"Just checking to see how desperate you are. I'd say you're at 'Gideon Settling For Less And Being Bill's Sherriff.' Could be worse, though: you could be at the good old 'Mabel Settling For Less And Living In A Dreamworld' level."

"MABEL…"

"Do you remember what Dabel told me, back when you were trying to stay under the radar? Your big ideas for me were all about making the world a better place, not sending me to another Mabeland. You told her what to say, Your Highness, you gave her those words… and now you're going back on them! And you think I'll actually buy what you're selling? You think I'm actually cheap enough to take the same offer that Bill gave me – after all the days I spent hating myself because of it? You think I'm that low? You think I'll just crawl back into a cell and be your pet while my family slowly dies, just because you waved a ticket to another fake world under my nose?!"

She was yelling, now, finally giving vent to all the anger and frustration she'd accumulated over the last few days of running, hiding, hoping, failing, doubting herself, losing friends and family, and despairing a little further every hour.

"That's what I mean by desperate!" she thundered. "You're desperate enough to try to con me with the same deal Bill gave me, and you know what that says about you, Ma'am? It says you have nothing to give me and nothing to threaten me with. It says you have no power over me."

"MABEL, LISTEN TO ME: DON'T DO ANYTHING RASH. I CAN MAKE YOU HAPPY."

"I was happy," Mabel snarled. "Before you came along, I was happy with everything in my life – because it was real. I made mistakes, sure, and I did things that I'm not proud of, but there was nothing I couldn't fixed by saying sorry. And for the last few days, you and your flunkies have been telling me how happy you can make me, telling me how wonderful things are gonna be and I'm not seeing how you can make me any happier than I was back before you made my life a living hell."

There was pause, and the Queen spoke again, there a note of dawning terror in the voices of the swarm. "ALL CREATION COMES WITH PAIN, MABEL. IT WOULD BE PERFECT IF YOU'D JUST LISTEN TO ME. PLEASE, HEAR ME OUT: THE WORLD I WILL BUILD FOR YOU-"

"You know, Your Highness, it's been a long time since I've hated anyone as much as those snobby unicorns, but you're special. So even if you actually had a point, I wouldn't listen to it. So you can talk all you like: you can talk 'til the world ends all over again, and I'm not gonna hear it… because this is the only answer you're going to get."

And with that, she reached into Grey's medicine pouch, grabbed another vial of cure serum, loaded it into the chamber of the needle gun, and held the now-readied syringe before her eyes.

It took a grand total of two and a half nanoseconds for the panic to spread through the hive mind.

There were some reactions that even the Queen couldn't control: the survival instinct was simply too strong to be denied, and no amount of preparation or rationalization could have prevented her from being swept away in the wild tide of instinctive terror that erupted across her collective psyche in that moment.

STOP HER! She screamed, her voice echoing across the minds of several thousand Forger Wasps. STOP HER STOP HER STOP HER STOP HER STOP HER STOP HER STOP HER STOP HER STOP HER STOP HER STOP HER!

But in truth, she didn't need to say anything at all. The Forger Wasps were already caught up in the same panic: connected to her through billions upon billions of subtle neural bonds, her terror was their terror, and long before the Queen's frantic commands had sounded the entire swarm was charging towards the Mystery Shack.

Unfortunately, the modifications they'd made to the building and the grounds were working against them: in the last few days, the Shack had been cocooned in a defensive blockade of chain-link fences, razor wire, rope traps and pitfalls, and the Grey Professional had been infuriatingly careful to make sure that everything was locked and armed behind him. Unlike Fabel, none of the swarm were in a fit state of mind to weave around them, much less disarm them. They simply flung themselves at the defences, either bulldozing the fortifications or tearing them apart with their bare hands, too panicked to realize that they were slowing themselves down. And once they reached the Shack, the doors and windows had been reinforced as well, requiring more time and numbers to break them down.

And in a few seconds, more had arrived: the last dozen Forger Wasps from the borders of Gravity Falls had arrived, and joined their sisters in kicking down the doors and smashing in the windows. It took less than a minute to force their way inside, in some cases ripping the doors off their hinges… but after that, all the heavy internal doors they had set up were locked – courtesy of the newest defenders. With the strength of the Forger Wasps, it didn't take long to batter them down, but there were still more than enough doors to delay them long before they reached the elevator to the lab – or the ventilation ducts.

None of them realized that they were giving Mabel more time.

None of them realized that almost all of them were in range of the fire suppression systems.

All they knew was that blind, all-consuming panic.

"They've reached the front desk!"

"We've got another group heading downstairs from the attic!"

"And another coming in through the gift shop!"

"How long before they're away from the sprinklers?"

"Uh, maybe three more security doors; there's no sprinklers in the elevator."

"Give 'em a few more seconds: we need to give Grunkle Ford as much time as we can."

"Mabel, I'm pretty sure that's all of them out there! I mean, I can't count all of them but I think if there were any left, they'd be here by now!"

"Just a few more seconds!"

Mabel took a deep breath. Right now, sitting at the back of the lab with the tiny instruction pamphlet for the cure ready, Grunkle Ford beside her, ten armed copier clones between her and the door, she'd never felt more defenceless in her life. The sense of anticipation and apprehension was beyond control now; she was almost quivering with nerves, even though she knew she needed to keep her hands steady for the final step of the plan.

This was the riskiest moment of the entire plan, because it meant buying time for the cure to be replicated: she would get at least two hours out of what she was about to do, but if anything went wrong with Ford's work, she needed to make sure he had enough spare time – and that meant delaying the final step for as long as she could. But if she delayed too long, some Forger Wasps might end up out of the sprinklers' range; they might even be able to break into the lab. But if she jumped the gun, Ford would be left with even less time.

Gosh, she thought. I've only been without him for a few days and I'm already turning into Dipper. I never overthought any of my crazy ideas like this up until today. Well, I haven't started making any lists on what to do, but… Okay, Mabel, focus: just wait for a few more seconds and then follow the instructions. Just a few more seconds, and Dipper will be free.

From upstairs, there was a deafening crash as a gaggle of screaming Mabels tore the vending machine off the wall and flung it across the room. By now, the voices of the invading swarm were clearly audible, and even Mabel – who was still riding what remained of her latest high of confidence – couldn't quite stop herself from shuddering at the sound of her own voice multiplied by over a thousand, all of them howling in rage.

Not for the first time that day, she found herself suddenly wonder what would happen if the cure didn't work: after all, the Wasps had figured out a way to force the anti-infection serum out of their bodies before, hadn't they? What if they learned how to do the same for the cure? What if she'd made a terrible mistake by curing Fabel first? What if-

Mabel shook herself. No, she thought firmly. No more overthinking things, no more doubt, no more fear. The old Mabel's back and she isn't going away. Glasses off, brass knuckles on. Let's do this.

Pausing one last time to double-check the instructions, Mabel readied the syringe gun, pointed it at the vein just south of her left elbow as directed, and pulled the trigger. There was a sharp pain in her arm, but that faded almost instantly, replaced by a strange, disquieting chill radiating outwards across her body.

Then the screams from above began to change tune...

The pain struck the Queen almost immediately.

It was as if every drop of blood in Mabel's veins had ignited on the spot, slowly cooking the Queen alive by proximity… but even that couldn't do justice to the agony that now tore through every fibre of her being, flensing her body layer by layer as the cure gnawed at her being. The host that had sheltered and sustained her these past few days and offered her the perfect vantage point to commence her invasion of this world now turned against her, crushing and crumpling and unravelling her from root to stem. Her grip on Mabel's organs failed her, followed closely by her connection to the nerves and brainstem, until at last she was blind even to her host's memories as she slowly collapsed in on herself.

But the Queen didn't need to see through Mabel's eyes to know what had just happened: she knew there could only be one cause of the pain now rippling across her body, and only one possible outcome. She was wounded – mortally so. It was impossible for her reign to have ended so quickly, to have been cut short just before it was beginning, but somehow it was: she'd been laid low by her own host. She was sickening; she was dying.

And as she howled in her final agonies, her death cries echoed out across the hive mind in a flurry of tortured reverberations. Just as they'd felt their Queen's panic and expressed it in turn, the swarm now felt their Queen's death-throes and echoed them aloud: though physically unharmed, the psychic bond left them debilitated and confused, screaming at the top of their lungs as they flailed helplessly where they'd fell. All over the Mystery Shack, the air resounded with the thuds of walls and doors being accidentally kicked down as the ailing Forger Wasps helplessly threshed the air with their limbs, dampened by the deafening chorus of screams.

For a moment, it seemed as if the Queen would die as swiftly and suddenly as Fabel… but unfortunately for everyone, the Queen was hardier than her drones.

Her body was vaster, more resilient, and capable of withstanding traumas that would have killed lesser Forger Wasps. In spite of the agonies inflicted upon her, she was still present enough to make one last desperate gamble, and though she knew she could not save her own life, she could still avenge her own death.

Control of her drones was impossible now and she had no way of harming her host from within, but there was still one last-ditch tactic within her power. This was the ultimate last resort, akin to chewing a limb off and bleeding to death in order to escape a trap, but it was all she needed to enact her final vengeance.

With one final wrench of effort, the Queen unmoored herself from her place in Mabel's body; casting off as much of her mass as she could, she tunnelled past the internal organs and began forcing her way into the sweat ducts, out through Mabel's skin…

Mabel had just enough time to notice the strange itching sensation at the back of her neck before the pain hit head-on.

She let out a startled gasp as the horrible pinching sensation rippled across her spine: it was like someone had just grabbed a handful of skin and started twisting it – the worst Chinese Burn she'd experienced since kindergarten. Instantly, the empty syringe gun fell from her hand as she frantically patted the back of her neck, trying to find the source of the discomfort.

When that didn't work, she checked the instructions again, looking for anything that could explain what was happening, to no avail. In the end, she turned to Grunkle Ford and asked, "Do you think this is nomaaaaaaaAAAAAAAARGH?!"

The pain crescendoed, sending Mabel crashing to the ground as something began forcing its way out of her flesh. She wasn't being physically wounded – there was no blood to be found on her neck – but something was passing through her skin. The pain rippled out across her neck, and Mabel caught a stomach-churning glimpse of something green and almost liquid oozing through her flesh, pooling on the floor beneath her.

It seemed to go on for minutes, but it couldn't have lasted longer than ten seconds, and all through that time, Mabel was screaming at the top of her lungs in mingled pain and horror as the sludge poured itself out of her.

When it finally passed, she found herself lying half-slumped against the basement wall… and an explicably familiar figure was glaring down at her – though perhaps "staring" wasn't the right word.

The figure seemed composed largely of writhing oily green and black strands, a twitching sickly mass of vines woven into a semi-human shape almost as tall as Mabel. It stood on wobbling legs, its body shivering and writhing as it lurched towards her, and unless she was horribly mistaken, its oozing skin was beginning to steam and bubble in the cold basement air. This creature had no eyes, no face at all in fact, but there was no mistaking the fact that it could quite clearly see her. After all, it had been living inside her body for the last few days: by now, it knew her by presence alone.

This was the Queen herself, having poured herself out of Mabel's body for this one final confrontation. She wasn't long for this world: her body was visibly hissing and sizzling slightly as the cure poisoned her, and Mabel could tell by her pained movements that being outside a living body was killing her even quicker… but even in her dying agonies, she still had strength enough to make a grab for Mabel's neck and begin to squeeze.

The copier clones immediately dived in from the side to protect her, but the Queen only swatted them aside, her fungoid muscles easily overpowering the paper doppelgangers. Mabel tried to force her hands away, to grab for another vial of cure – to empty it over the monster's head – but the Queen slammed her against the wall, talon-like vines constricting tighter and tighter around her neck.

"I… won't… go… alone…" the Queen hissed, fungal filaments crudely forcing out human speech. "My fate… is the host's fate…"

Mabel kicked feebly at her, trying desperately to force her hands away, but without much success. With every passing millisecond, her grip grew ever tighter and Mabel found it harder and harder to breathe as the creepers encircled her neck; before long, darkness was creeping in from the corners of her vision, and the Queen was leaning closer to her, her faceless skull opening wide into a pair of crude jaws-

And then Grunkle Ford leapt in from the side with one almighty sucker-punch, catching the Queen a stunning blow to the dome: either Ford still had a little of Fabel's preternatural strength or the Queen was decomposing even further than she looked, because the impact tore the disembodied Forger Wasp right down the middle; one half stayed exactly where it was, still holding Mabel in a rapidly-loosening grip; the other flew across the lab and hit the wall with a stomach-lurching splat.

A moment later, the arm around Mabel's neck began to melt, dissolving away into shapeless mush.

Then, writhing helplessly where she'd landed, the Queen bubbled, twitched, shuddered… and finally liquefied, all semblance of human form oozing down the wall and into a rapidly-expanding puddle of gunk.

A long silence followed, broken only by the sound of everyone in the basement letting out a sigh of relief in near-perfect unison.

Then, feeling a little bit dizzy and devil-may-care, Mabel let out a bemused, mirthless laugh.

"The Queen is dead," she panted, issuing a mocking salute over the molten corpse. "Long live the Queen."

And with that, Mabel fell forward, Ford just managing to catch her before she hit the ground – no easy task, given that he was still struggling with owning a Mabel-sized body for the immediate future.

Long before she was helped to bed, Mabel had already lapsed into an exhausted slumber – where she remained for the next few hours. Fatigued by stress, restless sleep, drugs and the sudden reclamation of her own identity, she didn't stir from her torpor even when the sprinklers roared to life hours later.

However, much to her delight, she was awake when the copier clones gathered around the unconscious body of the Grey Professional and asked, "What are we going to do with this scumbag?"

A/N: The sountrack to this chapter is What Lies At The Dream's End by Daniel Pemberton.

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