CHAPTER 20 - THE ALL-SEEING RHOMBUS

Twentieth chapter, lezgooo! I don't even know how I got here. It went from me watching the series finale while eating cereal during lockdown to the murder of the fourth wall.

Side note, this and nineteen were meant to be one chapter, but it had been SO, SO long I decided to feed you the first part and then release this one. I know I've been ending on a buttload of cliffhangers these past few chapters, but watching you suffer is fun, so I ensure that I maximise your pain.

And, a question; since these chapters are so far and few between, would you rather that I: a., stop whining instead of solving, overcome my procrastination and pump out chapters more reliably, b., continue to release short chapters that take a month to make because of a mix of burnout and issues with procrastination, or c., write the rest of the chapters and publish them at a reliable rate?

Anyways, back to this:

TUESDAY, 20TH JUNE, 2021

Tracey and Quattro were asleep. The rain thumped heavily and loudly against the two clones' tent, though it didn't wake them up. Quattro in particular had been plagued by nightmares that night, though at around 6:45am he had one that was just… slightly different.

He found himself just outside the Shack, with Tracey by his side.

"Come on, Quatt!" he urged. "This bike won't steal itself! This is the only way Dipper can have a chance with Wendy! Whaddaya want us to be, the two 'screw-up clones'?"

"No, but… wait, this is a dream!" Quattro realised.

Tracey's eyes went yellow, and merged into one, as his body compressed into a rhombus that was a slightly lighter shade of yellow. On his top edge was a top hat.

"Well, hello! Do ya remember me? Or is your brain too small to comprehend a simple makeover?"

"You're… I remember your voice! You're that triangle guy! You turned Tracey into stone, what, nine years ago?"

She immediately kissed him. Mabel awkwardly looked

The one and only. Name's Bill Cipher. It might have been nine years for you, but for me it was more like ninety BILLION." The yellow of Bill was replaced with a projection of this history of the universe, sped up to about two billion years per second, eventually catching up to the current age of about 13.8 billion years. "To say I've waited eons for this moment is an understatement. Now, you and I, we have a little something in common."

"What could I have in common with a floating rhombus?" he asked.

"Ah. My new style. Took some cues from my pal Kryptos. Glad you noticed it. Anyways, Mason Joshua Pines. I used to call him Woody, but I went back to Pine Tree a while ago. That name ring a bell?"

"Yeah, but…" Quattro scoffed. "What's Dipper got to do with anything?"

"Here's what we share in common: we both hate him. And ya know what they say; the enemy of-"

"My enemy is my friend," Quattro finished. "I know the saying."

"Ah, you're more than a pretty face, then."

He looked down at himself. "You realise I'm a twelve year old right now… righ-"

Bill suddenly teleported to his side. "Shh, shh, ya know what I mean. Now, I have a goal-an ambition, even, to get rid of Dipper…" He turned red as his eye went black. "FOREVER."

"Forever?" Quattro asked. "I hate Dipper too, but… does he really deserve to die?"

"Ahem…" He fixed his bowtie. "Think of it like this - someone murders the only family you've ever known, and he's hailed as a hero. You would want him to suffer as well, right?"

"I… I still don't think he deserves to die."

"Kid, I can't help ya unless you co-operate here. Think, Quattro, think!" he said, pointing to his top hat. "I can give you infinite resources and the power of a million gods, just agree you'll kill him. He's your mortal enemy! This is a win-win for the both of us."

"W…" He sighed. "When you put it like that, it's convincing."

"We're in agreement then. All I need now is just need a teeny tiny favor from you. Almost as small as the lifespan of this screaming head!"

Out of nowhere, a screaming head appeared on the ground. It was promptly ripped of its skin, down to its muscles and flesh, all floating into the air, which was soon followed by the skull.

"Oh that just gets me EVERY time, I couldn't help myself! AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

"Ah!" he yelped. "Y-you're insane!"

"Tell me something I don't know, kid," Bill said, wiping a tear from his single eye. "Anyway, all I need from you is a… vessel."

"A vessel? Like… a cup?"

He sighed. "Sure. Like a cup."

"Okay. Deal."

"DEAL!" Bill's hand lit up in a dark blue flame, and he outstretched it. "From now 'til the end of time."

"The end of time?"

Quattro felt his very soul being torn violently from his body. It rendered him breathless for a moment, and an overwhelming wave of nausea rushed over his stomach. As his consciousness was ripped out, he felt the burning sensation of friction as it rubbed against each imaginary atom in the air of his dreamscape, along with every one of their constituent imaginary neutrons, protons and electrons. He found himself floating outside his body as a ghost.

It was Bill. He'd possessed him.

"Aw yeah! I've been on a possession STREAK this month! I think I'm getting the hang of this human body thing! I can't wait to possess your actual real-life one!"

This isn't happening…" Quattro breathed. "This isn't happening."

"Oh, it definitely is, kiddo. I'll let you keep your body for the moment, but I'll be back."

He woke up from the nightmare in a cold sweat, looking around. Tracey was already out of his sleeping bag, and had likely gone outside. He breathed a deep sigh of relief; he still had his body, after all. But, Bill had said something about letting him keep his body for now… What if it was real? No, it was just a dream, he told himself. Just a dream.

It was just a dream…?

Pacifica and Mabel shouted in a mixture of fear and surprise as 'Quattro' suddenly called Dipper 'Pine Tree'.

"Pine Tree, huh? Very funny. I'm rolling on the floor."

"Yeah!… Hilarious!" Gideon added awkwardly, standing behind Dipper.

"I'm not joking." Bill stopped trying to mask the fact that he was possessing Quattro, allowing his distinct eyes and voice to shine through. "How do you think Pine Tree Two here could POSSIBLY know what I call you, huh? Exactly."

"Bill, let Quattro go now," he commanded, "or we'll fight you!"

"Yeah, we will!" Gideon said, with a tone of anxiety in his voice.

"Fine. Fight me. It'll be no problem. I'll just kill you four, and the Zodiac'll never be completed. When I get Oddnarök going, no one will stop me!" He cackled maniacally. "But now's not the time to outline my whole evil plan." He slipped on his plastic knuckledusters. "It's time to fight."

Dipper (unsuccessfully) tried to roll up the sleeves of his blazer in preparation, but they simply went back down.

The three stood completely still, unblinking. While both Dipper and Gideon looked uncomfortable, the latter was clearly more nervous. On the other hand, Bill was revelling in it, and was completely prepared to fight. In the background, Mabel quietly hummed the theme of The Good, The Bad and the Ugly.

"Can it!" Bill snapped. "I'm trying to concentrate here."

She immediately stopped.

The tension was growing thicker and thicker by the second, filling the room like a tsunami. Despite clearly being the most nervous, Gideon was ironically the first to attack. He threw a punch at Bill's face, which he tried to dodge to no avail. The hit connected, hitting his right cheek.

"Do you have any idea what happens when you ATTACK ME?!" he responded angrily, holding the area where he had been hit in pain.

"O-Oops," he squeaked meekly.

Bill unleashed a flurry of punches against Gideon, made much more deadly by his knuckledusters. He knew that he would have to maintain a good defence as the punches would more than just hurt, but he couldn't just dodge all of the time; it was a small room to fight in, and he was meant to be on the offensive, not defensive. Most missed, but one landed and it hurt. Gideon reeled back in pain, and Bill took this advantage over him to hit him in the face and deliver a critical hit to the nads. This hurt even more than it would normally due to Bill's knuckledusters, and it caused him to stumble back. His fist then slammed against Gideon's face, and if that wasn't enough to knock him unconscious, a kick that knocked him to the ground with a thud certainly was. This caused Dipper to break out of his trance-like state and join the fight.

"Look who WOKE UP!" Bill said, turning around with a grin as Dipper sprinted up to him. "Great to have ya back!" He threw a massive hit at Dipper that he barely missed. Bill attempted it again, albeit much lighter this time, however Dipper caught his arm midair. Before Bill could react, he punched him and then kneed him squarely in the chest. Dipper didn't give him a chance to recover at all, and held him by his neck and waist, flipping him over. Bill landed on the floor with the grace of a Sev'ral Timez member learning how to ride a bike.

"You are defeated! It is useless to resist."

"I wouldn't be so sure about that…'' Bill replied. He swept his right leg around in an arc that made Dipper fall to the ground. Utilising this window of opportunity, he climbed on top of him and punched him in the face multiple times. It certainly hurt, but before it could do serious damage he gripped his arms like a vice and began to rise upwards. Bill obviously made an attempt to fight this off, and was nearly successful, but Dipper managed to overpower him and turned the tables, pinned him down. They grappled with each other, both fighting for dominance, but Dipper had another motivation. He unthreaded their fingers and laid his palm flat, and Bill instinctively followed. Before he could realise his mistake, his enemy had pushed the knuckledusters off of his hands. They landed on the floor with a clang and Dipper quickly took them and put them on. Bill pushed him off and got back on his feet, and his enemy quickly recovered as well.

This time the fight was barely a competition. Dipper was first to attack, performing three light punches to his stomach. Bill blocked the first two, but the last hit him. He then did an uppercut which was immensely painful, and then while Bill was stunned, he spun around and performed a perfect roundhouse kick that knocked him down onto the floor for the last time.

"What the… you're a dumb nerd with weak little noodle arms… since when could you fight?" he asked, completely defeated.

"It's been nine years, Bill," Dipper told him. "Things change."

Gideon ran up to him, having woken up a few seconds earlier. "Okay nice job, but how do we get the other Dipper back into his body?"

"Speaking from experience, if he's knocked unconscious, Bill'll come out of the body and give Quattro the window he needs to return," he explained.

"So… you suggest we beat Bill up, then give the Dipper clone his beaten-up body, and everyone'll live happily ever after? No one will be mad at all? Especially the guy with the beat-up body?"

"Yep, that's the plan!" he said, kicking one of Bill's fists that was headed for his groin down to the ground. "And then he'll just forgive me like this is a poorly written fanfiction!" He took a pouch, untied the simple knot (he wasn't particularly good with them) of the rope sealing it and poured the purple powder inside onto Bill, and he found that he was completely immobilised.

"Why do you have that… stuff?" Gideon asked.

"Self-defense, ya know? And, just to be safe about all this, we can ask him." He cleared his throat. "Hey Quattro, do you forgive us for everything?"

There was an awkward silence for a few seconds, that was broken by Bill. "You have to be inhabiting a vessel to be-"

"-To be heard by others, yeah, I see that now…" he said. "Anyways, Gideon, get started on beating up Bill, I'll untie those two."

Gideon sighed. "Well, this is what I'm doing now."

"Go on, Pentagram. Do it. Embrrrace your anger and hatred!"

"Psh, shut up. You ain't a Sith Lord." He cracked his knuckles and began the process of beating Bill to the point of unconsciousness.

Dipper was behind Mabel's chair, trying to untie the rope restraining her. Unfortunately, Quattro was much better with knots than him, and try as he might he couldn't untie it.

"Screw this," he muttered under his breath, and he pulled out his trusty Swiss Army knife that Stan had sent to him for his 15th birthday. Included in the parcel it was packed in was one of his fake IDs, "STANLEY HUDSON", which he must have accidentally packed. Dipper took out the knife component and began to cut through the rope. It took some time but eventually he had cut through the rope. Mabel stretched and ripped the duct tape off of her mouth.

"Ouch…. that hurt more than I thought it would. Thanks, bro-bro!"

He was already at work cutting through the ropes of Pacifica's seat. "You're welcome," he said absent-mindedly.

The knot on her seat was not as complex as the one on Mabel's, but it was still too hard for him and he resorted to using the knife again. It still took some time but eventually he had cut through the rope. Pacifica took a deep breath through her nose and stood up, cracking her back and stretching. She tried to pull off the duct tape, but failed. She tried to do it again and still couldn't, and let out a muffled "ow."

"Lemme get that for you," Dipper said, walking from behind the chair to her. He easily pulled off the tape, and She immediately kissed him. Mabel awkwardly looked around for something to do, and settled on just looking at her phone.

"You can do taekwondo?" she asked, breaking away from the kiss. "You're even hotter than before, Pines."

"Finally! I've been waiting for someone to say it! Everyone keeps on calling it karate…" he turned around, narrowing his eyes. "Mabel."

"Not my fault I don't need some rich man's, a-karaté to defend myself!"

"You wanna fight? 'Cause we can fight." He tried to roll up the sleeves of his blazer, and yet again he was unsuccessful.

"Save your energy," Gideon told him, panting from a mentally revitalising session of beating the everliving heck out of Bill - it turned out venting out all your frustrations by kicking and punching your worst enemy was a good strategy. "You'll need it for this punching bag. It's… what's the word… very cathartic."

"Cathartic, you say? That sounds like a plan to me!" He cracked his knuckles and neck and went over to Bill. "Can't wait to vent it all out now."

"Wait, none of it's about me, right?" Pacifica asked. "R-right?"

"No, it's all about Mabel," he answered jokingly.

"HEY!" she responded.

Gideon and Dipper were already well underway with beating Bill to unconsciousness. Mabel and Pacifica were generally just in the background, either browsing on their phones or talking to each other, though they occasionally did heckle Bill or encourage the two beating them up, with Pacifica's comments being more specifically oriented towards Dipper.

Gideon was right; it was quite the cathartic experience. They had spent about three and a half minutes trying to knock Bill out, and were very close to it, however before they could land the final few blows needed, Tracey violently swung open the door, panting from running room-to-room looking for Quattro. He swung it open so incredibly violently, in fact, that it simply just slammed back and directly onto his face.

"OW!" he exclaimed, clutching his nose. "Why did I do that?!" He opened the door again, this time without injuring every one of his facial features, and strolled in nonchalantly. "Quattro, stop beating up Dipper-wait, are you beating him up? And who's this guy? You must be Mabel," he said, pointing at Pacifica, "and you must be Pacifica," he continued, pointing at Mabel.

"Other way round," Pacifica corrected. "Now… I HAVE A YELLOW BELT IN KARATE, SO YOU BETTER GET YOUR [SOLID 8 SECONDS OF EXPLETIVES I HAD TO CUT OUT] OUTTA HERE BEFORE I DO THAT MYSELF!"

"I wouldn't do that," Mabel recommended to her.

"And also, you realize a yellow belt isn't that good, righ-"

She threw herself at him, with none of the grace nor elegance of a karate student. Her relative inexperience with hand-to-hand combat was evident, and a simple, quick sidestep by Tracey was all that was needed to evade her.

"Told ya so."

He quickly diverted his attention away from Pacifica and back to Dipper, Gideon and Bill, trying to figure out who was who. This time, Bill decided to put his power to mask signs of his possession and try to manipulate Tracey.

"T-Tracey," he croaked, his voice changed to Quattro's filled with equal parts genuine fatigue and pain and exaggerated fatigue and pain. "Th-they're t-trying to knock me one-out. Help me."

"Bill? What the heck happened to your voice?!" Dipper asked.

"HIS NAME. ISN'T. BILL," Tracey snapped. "And it's clear to me now that you're nothing but a bunch of thugs that are bullying Quattro for no reason." He heard Pacifica approaching and turned around, smashing his fist into her stomach, and she stumbled back in defeat. "And your girlfriend isn't a good fighter, either."

"YOU TAKE THAT BACK! Pacifica's a strong woman who might need a man!"

"Whatever. You two step away from him, or you'll get the same treatment as him. You specifically. Mason Callum Pines."

"Your name's Mason?" Pacifica asked.

"Your middle name is Joshua?" Gideon added.

"Yeah… I was gonna tell you… later."

"No time for your drama. Leave Quattro alone," he commanded. "Now."

He slowly began pacing towards Dipper, his speed quickening.

"Pack in as much as you can, Gideon! Come on, now, now!"

Just as Tracey quickened into a full sprint and leapt towards Dipper, pinning him to the ground, he managed to land the final, crucial blow. Bill tumbled out of Quattro's body with a "WAH!", spinning around. Quattro, who had been watching the fight, saw him wildly spinning through the air. He acted quickly, dashing through the air to his body. He looked down at it; it was unbreathing and empty, its skin pale and eyes closed. He dived downwards and into his body. He was finally back.

He opened his eyes and took a long, deep gasp of air. It felt great to finally be back, even if he was aching all over and had a purple eye. It also felt great to be breathing again; to be taking in breaths of some nitrogen and oxygen and-oh, was that a hint of argon there? Whatever it was, if it was carbon dioxide, if it was neon or if it was even some subtle xenon, he didn't care because he wasn't particularly well-versed in chemistry and there were more important things to do than pick out trace gases in the air.

(Confession: I had to look up the chemical composition of the atmosphere for this. I knew about the more abundant gases like argon, nitrogen and oxygen but I straight up forgot xenon existed, tbh.)

"Whoa-whoa-whoa," he repeated, sitting up. "Stop, Tracey."

"What?! No!" he replied, sandwiched between Gideon and Dipper.

"What, yes please," Dipper interjected.

"Seriously, Tracey. Stop."

Gideon hastily scrambled off of his back, and Tracey reluctantly sat upright.

"Come on," Quattro said, offering his fellow clone his hand and helping him to his feet.

"So, you're just gonna forgive me for everything now?" Dipper asked. "You're more forgiving than me!"

"Oh, absolutely not," Quattro answered. "What do you think this is, a poorly written book? I just wanted him to stop so we could beat you up together. You ready, Tracey?"

"Read-"

A bolt of light blue light that made a pwuh as it hit both clones interrupted him, and Tracey and Quattro both smashed into different chairs. This instantly rendered both of them stunned and immobile. Everyone in the room, except Tracey and Quattro, who were still reeling from the pain, stared in shock and surprise at the doorway. Standing in it was Ford, holding a futuristic black gun, Wendy, who was still helping the very drunken Stan walk, and McGucket, holding a memory gun with his beard.

"THE CAVALRY'S HERE!" McGucket shouted.

"Grunkle Ford!" Mabel said. "How'd you find us?"

Ford stood still awkwardly. "C…Call it a hunch…"

"Suspicious, but… okay."

"What's up with Stan?" Pacifica added.

"Drunk," Wendy answered. "Bud Light does things to a person."

"I'm 65! I'm in my prime!"

"I'd say you were in your prime as an embryo, Stanley. Now, we need to get you to a hospital. In case you haven't noticed, we're both old men. And newsflash, Stanley, the older you get, the worse a hangover will be. I understand you don't have a PhD in biochemistry, but honestly, you should've known that before you went around getting yourself drunk."

"You do that," McGucket said. "I gotta wipe the mind of these guys."

"Minds?!" Tracey exclaimed.

"Wipe?!" Quattro added.

"OUR?"

"THESE?!"

"Yeah, you bet your stock'a goose meat for the winter I'm wipin' your minds. You two're too dangerous to be left here roamin' around with revenge on your minds. Now, this won't hurt a bit…"

He inputted "QUATTRO PINES" into the memory gun using the dial and aimed it at Quattro first. He pressed the trigger and shot it at him, erasing all of his memories of Dipper. He aimed it at Tracey and pulled the trigger, but nothing came out except for a few sorry sparks of blue light that promptly evaporated.

"Darn it," McGucket muttered, looking at the display and seeing that it had gone blank. "Why'd I program you this way?"

As McGucket began to turn the dial back to what it was before, Tracey realised that he had an opportunity here. Clutching his stomach — it still hurt from the blast of the gun — he began to aggressively walk towards McGucket. Out of the corner of his eye, Ford saw this and his eyes snapped towards Tracey.

"Hey, stop!" he exclaimed. He took out his gun and turned the barrel around. A smaller, longer and narrower barrel extended outwards, allowing his shots to be more precise, just in case it hit McGucket. He looked up from the gun and saw Tracey approaching, and quickly switched from holding the gun in his hand to in his beard.

"Now, if ya have any horse sense, you better skedaddle before I use these fists ta knock ya purdy little nose cattywampus 'fore you can say "Arkansas got it right before Kansas!""

"I have no idea what any of that even mea-"

Ford pulled the trigger and Tracey blasted into a wall with a thud, unconscious.

"Now, back ta this." He took the gun out of his beard and finished off typing "PINES" into it. Once he did, he held it up to the unconscious Tracey and wiped all his memories of Dipper.

"Hey," Quattro said from behind McGucket, "what are you doing to Tracey?!"

"O-oh," he stammered, "I'm, just, uh-"

"Fiddleford is just helping Tracey here with a… little headache," Wendy explained.

"I SECOND THIS!" Stan said.

"Mm… okay. I'll just wait for that, then."

"And Wendy, sorry, but only people over 60 can call me Fiddleford," he whispered.

"YEAH-HE-EAH!" Stan yelled triumphantly. "We can be best buds! And we'll be on a first name basis!"

"We already were, Stan. Heck, I let you call me "Fiddy"."

"...Oh yeah…" he realised.

Tracey and Quattro had left after mingling with those in the Science room, having formed friendships with all of their (previous) enemies. They had decided to wander outside and try to fend for themselves in this strange world they had no recollection of.

"Okay, Stanley, enough distractions now. We need to get you to a hospital."

"Ford, you're overthinking this. The easiest thing to do with a hangover is just ride it out," Wendy told him. "Doctors can't do anything other than make you drink water."

"Well, I don't know what a hangover is like. I've never even touched alcohol," he proclaimed smugly. "But what I don't know from first-hand experiences I know from my three PhDs in different biological sciences and my BS in medicine. And I'm saying that he needs the care of a trained nurse, instead of a trained scientist and inventor like me and a lumberja-"

"Proud holder of a BA in history," she said, tired-sounding, as if it was the only thing she had been saying for the past year and she would implode if forced to say it one more time. "At least that's how they always made us say it…"

"I'm sorry, y-you have a degree?"

"I'd been gone for three years and you hadn't noticed at all?" Wendy asked.

"No! Well, of course I noticed, but I thought you were living out your… flannel-filled dreams of becoming a hipster in Portland! Whatever, I'll play catch up later. We need to go."

"Seriously, it'll be a waste of your money, Ford," she told him, grabbing him by the sleeve of his coat. Just stay home and drink a lot of water."

"No, wait. Take Mackerel to the hospital," a model of a skeleton with Bill's voice advised. "He needs it. And besides, it's not like you can control it. It's up to the Author, right?"

Everyone was confused by this, but Mabel in particular seemed to be put on edge by that comment. It had further proved that her dream she had had wasn't just a dream; that was real. Her hands began to shake and she began to breathe heavily; even if just out of instinct, she knew it wasn't that. Even that was controlled by some ethereal god. She was a puppet in a sock opera used for someone else's entertainment - and what Bill had just said proved this even more.

"What's the matter, Shooting Star?" he asked condescendingly, having noticed and singled out her worry over everyone else's despite his clear lack of eyes. "You look like you've seen a demon."

"Oh-Oh, I, uh, it's just-"

"Oh-Oh, I, uh, it's just-" he repeated mockingly, flapping his fingers like he was controlling a sock puppet. "SPIT IT OUT. I don't have time for this."

"I just… imagined a living skeleton to sound like Skeletor," she lied.

"No idea who that is. But back to you, Sixer. Ya don't have to listen to me. Whatever you do, it won't change what's to come. Nothing can stop it. Nothing you will ever do can stop Oddna-"

Ford blasted the skeleton with his gun, and the plastic bones flew around in different directions. A hand hit Ford's head, however it hit the metal plate installed in his skull and thus the only pain that he experienced, except for the loud clang that resulted from it being hit, was quite minimal.

"Bill," he said grimly. "He's back. Dipper, out of curiosity, did you know about this?"

"Uh, we…" He sighed. "Yeah, we knew about him. He possessed Paz earlier in the summer."

"He did what?! Why didn't you tell me? We could've stopped everything before it even happened! Sure, we can still prevent it but we won't have as much time now."

Mabel desperately wanted to just tell him that as long as this God was in control, whatever they decided was going to happen was always going to happen and that couldn't be stopped. She decided against it, however, as it would just make her seem crazy and she felt terrible having to live knowing about the truth of her existence - why should she force a group of her closest friends and family to have to go through that pain?

"Well it was… we thought we'd defeated him for good when we pulled him out of her body."

"Uh, actually," Pacifica interjected, "didn't we see that-"

"SHH!"

"Pacifica, tell me the deal's over," Ford urged. "Tell me."

"He did his part, I gave him his puppet. That should be enough, right?"

Ford heaved a sigh of relief. "Yes, it is. Otherwise he'd still be able to possess you."

"Phew. Being possessed is something I'd… wanna forget."

"That can be easily arranged!" McGucket shouted.

"It's getting late, kids. Summerween's been eventful enough. Have fun with your friends today, we'll talk about this tomorrow. And Stan… you're gonna go to a hospital."

"No, YOU'RE gonna go to a hospital!" he retorted.

"That's how I plan to get you to a hospital."

"STOP SAYING THAT WORD!" Mabel shouted.

"What, hospital?" Stan asked.

"WHAT DID I JUST SAY?!"

"Oh yeah…"

"Okay Stan, enough messing around. Time to go."

"Aww…"

The Gravity Falls Hospital wasn't an out-of-the-ordinary one - in fact, it was exactly what you'd expect out of one. Perfectly white hallways, filled with janitors, nurses and surgeons in blue clothing and masks loitering and milling about due to the lack of any patients, and that clinical smell that each and every hospital in the world seems to have. Ford had checked Stan into a room, and was confident that his brother was in good hands with the nurses there. He was talking with the one that would be taking care of Stan for the night.

"They all thought that he shouldn't be going to the hospital." He scratched his chin in thought. "I was right in coming here, wasn't I?"

"Yes, you were," she affirmed. "Kids will just be like that." They both stood together for a moment in silence for a few seconds. "Well, I should probably go to take care of Stanley. It was nice talking with you.

"Yes, it is pretty late now. I'll see you tomorrow, Mrs. Noceda," he said, pronouncing her name as "Nou-ceh-du".

"It's actually pronounced-"

But it was too late to correct him. Ford had already walked back out towards the entrance and through the automatic gates. While he had been in his home dimension for nearly a decade, wonders like search engines and, of course, automatic doors never ceased to amaze him.

She heaved a deep sigh, and decided to fill up a cup of water to give to Stan - it would help with his hangover.

Pacifica, along with Dipper and Mabel, had driven into the woods, along the straight dirt path leading to the Mystery Shack. Getting out of her car, they saw Deep Chris sneak by and towards the back porch, not seeming to notice them. He had more important things to focus on; namely, Abuelita's home cooking.

"Hey, was that… Deep Chris?" Mabel asked. "They're still here?"

"Yeah," Pacifica answered. "They hang around here for food. Soos teaches them Spanish."

Pacifica opened the door and looked around. Except for the small amount of sunlight shining through the windows, it was all dark, and due to the lack of light she took out her phone and turned on the torch.

"Soooos," Dipper called out. "You here?"

No response. He must have gone to sleep already - it was pretty late, after all.

The three, after eating some of Abuelita's (perfect) fajitas, had gotten ready to go to bed. They were all tired after the rollercoaster of events that was the Summerween party, and the only wish that Dipper and Pacifica had was just to have some rest. Mabel, however, had a different thought when her head hit the pillow. She was determined; determined to stop this author. No matter what it took.

They all had the wrong thing on their minds. They had overlooked one small detail with huge consequences… maybe it would have stopped what was to come. It was too late for them, anyways.

The vending machine door had not been locked properly, and a small, barely noticeable amount of blue light shone through. And inside, the point of no return had been crossed.

Any day now, it would come. Oddnarök.