A/N: Arg! We're back!

Had to chainsaw this latest chapter in half, gentle readers, if only because it was becoming unwieldy to cram in everything. Rest assured, the second half will be here very soon and the full madness will be unveiled then. A huge thank-you to all my viewers, reviewers, favouriters, and followers: you give me the strength to continue!

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

Disclaimer: Gravity Falls, TSW, and The Park are not mine.

This chapter's soundtrack is Take My Place by Marco Beltrami.

The grounds of Atlantic Park's shadow counterpart seethed with bodies, a mass of decomposing flesh wriggling and oozing across the darkened pathways like maggots.

They had been dredged up from only the oldest of mass graves on Solomon Island, the sealed tomb-pits in which the most debased of all the Mayan invaders had been buried – and only because these elite few had been too corrupt to burn. From beneath the earth, they had been funnelled through forbidden rites into Auldman Northwest's private reality, alongside specimens of almost every other monstrous form of life that had died on Solomon Island over the eons. The decomposing Wendigo scuttled into hideous formations, their jaws still agape with hunger as they formed ranks; the gelatinous remains of Familiars oozed and slopped in clumsy attempts to draw themselves into fighting form, and readied themselves for an event that their primitive, semi-liquefied brains could barely comprehend; long-discarded Ak'ab husks clattered in lockstep, their gigantic exoskeletons like war machines caught in the spotlight of the full moon, their ghastly silhouettes shuddering and twitching with every step they took; there were even a few of Archibald Henderson's animated scarecrows inherited from the land on which the park had been built – all of them armed with a wicked assortment of blades, guns, chainsaws, and magical foci, their burlap muscles bunching with anticipation as they began the march towards the House of Horrors.

These were the guardians of Auldman Northwest's secret kingdom, covertly gathered over the course of three long decades of subtle theft. Here, in close proximity to Auldman's magic, they could not be enslaved by the powers that had brought the Fog to Kingsmouth and resurrected its dead, and even if they could be, they wouldn't be much good to any hypothetical new masters: they were too deteriorated to survive outside the rarefied atmosphere of the pocket dimension, kept animate entirely by this purpose-built reality. They had been brought here for the sole purpose of protecting the Bogeyman from any intruders who managed to breach the invisible gates of this realm… and right now, they had their work cut out for them.

"Did you really have to make a hamster ball?" Grey moaned, trying not to throw up.

"I'm trying to stay positive," said Mabel. "Human-sized hamster balls make me happy."

"Yeah, but do we really have to be inside the damn thing?"

"Grey, have you got something against hamster balls?"

"Yes! Motion sickness and long-lasting bitterness."

"You're gonna have to explain that later; just try not to puke, okay?"

Once Mabel had gotten the hang of using the Anima battery, it was easy enough to shape the energy she'd been given into whatever she needed. So, from the moment they'd set foot in the pocket dimension and seen the monsters amassing on the sidelines, she'd conjured the most useful object she could think of at short notice – in this case, a sphere of golden light large enough to encompass her and Grey.

By now, the two of them had already cleared the last few yards between them and the House of Horrors and were now hurtling through the entrance hall, sending the surrounding hordes toppling like ninepins and even setting a few of them on fire. Of course, none of the monsters had any hope of catching up with them – they were zombies after all… but all the same, Mabel couldn't quite hold back those anxious little jitters: she had only a small battery of Anima after all, and she'd depleted almost of a quarter of it. She was burning through it just keeping the siphoning at bay, transporting the two of them this far was making even shorter work of it, and she needed to save some of the power for the final battle. And right now, she didn't know how far away this final battle was, how much she'd need for it, or if she'd need to save any of it for the journey back.

Mabel suppressed a groan as she brought the glowing hamster ball rocketing around a corner and up a flight of stairs. She really wasn't meant for long-term planning at the best of times, and all the missing pieces of this jigsaw puzzle were driving her up the wall. She'd feel so much better if she put on that weird mask with the weird nose – something about it made her worries seem to sink out of sight for a while, and right now, she had far too many worries to hide…

But as the next hallway loomed ahead of them, something echoed from the corridor behind them, and Mabel very nearly crashed the hamster ball as she struggled to work out what the sound was and pilot at the same time. As she hastily wrenched the ball back into a straight line – Grey loudly dry-retching for every second of this manoeuvre – Mabel could have sworn that the noise sounded almost like a car engine…

Unknown to Mabel, Nicholas Winter had finally managed to overcome the time distortions around the park the only way he could, namely by staggering back to his car and ramming it through the perimeter fence closest to the Ferris Wheel.

Thankful for the full tank of gas he'd been able to siphon from the local Sycoil station during the initial catastrophe, he'd rumbled offroad for the remaining few yards of the journey before finally spotting the portal that had opened in front of the Ferris Wheel and charging headlong through it. Finding himself in a gigantic, shadowy replica of Atlantic Island Park hadn't been too much of a shock – after all he'd seen, heard, and suffered over the last few months, pocket dimensions were almost vanilla by now – but the rising horde of the undead marching across the grounds had given him pause.

In the end, he dealt with it the way he'd dealt with everything else so far, namely by putting pedal to the metal and hoping to a god he didn't actually believe in that none of the zombies got stuck in his undercarriage. And for the next few minutes, he was practically deaf to anything other than the bone-splintering sound effects of zombies bouncing off his hood, crunching under his wheels, and rolling over his roof, all of it loud enough to drown out all competing sounds including the roar of the engine and the thunderous blare of Metallica from the radio.

Of course, once the House of Horrors was in view, he had no way of actually getting in through the front entrance without getting chewed on by the zombies. So, pausing only to reverse over a scuttling buglike thing that had been trying to take a bite out of his rear bumper, he settled for the next best thing and accelerated violently off the path, aiming for a spot somewhere around the rear of the building.

He'd visited Atlantic Island Park before, back when he was a kid – back when Dad had still considered young Nicholas worthy of his time. Admittedly, his memories of those days were a little confused, for he wasn't sure if the House of Horrors had existed then or if something had simply conjured it into existence in this strange midnight world. However, one thing he remembered very clearly: while dear old dad had spared no expense in constructing the rides and machinery, the buildings themselves had been made dirt-cheap, to the point that one clumsy worker had managed to knock down a bathroom wall just by backing a pickup truck into it.

All he had to do was gun the engine, swerve to the left, brace himself for the impact as the western wall of the House of Horrors loomed ahead of him – and then, with an almighty crash of shattering timber and crumbling plaster, Nicholas Winter's Cadillac was suddenly parked right in the middle of an internal hallway.

Squeezing out through the passenger-side door, Nicholas began a slow, stumbling journey down the corridor. He had no idea where he was going or what he'd do when he got there, but he wasn't going to stop now. He could hear raised voices in the distance already; all he'd have to do was follow the noise and all his questions would be answered…

"You know," said Auldman Northwest, "It really is hilarious when twits like you think they can sneak up on me in my domain. Honestly, you people, I've gained powers that even the greatest mages can only dream of, transcended humanity, and attained eternal life; did anyone actually think that I'd be able to build my own private reality without knowing what's going on inside it? You really think anyone can plot against me when I have access to every emotion churning inside their skulls? I mean, I've heard of burglars who don't believe in security cameras, but this is just ridiculous…"

Stan, who was currently doing his best to keep the metal noose around his neck from tightening any further, could only gurgle.

"What was that? You feel like mumbling that again?"

The chain around his neck loosened ever-so-slightly, and Stan just about managed to gasp out, "What people? I showed up alone in case you didn't notice." It was pure bravado, of course; he was hoping against hope that the Bogeyman couldn't sense Ford's presence, that the Northwest bastard had at least a few limits on what he could see from here.

But then the Bogeyman tapped his staff-like walking cane on the concrete floor, and suddenly, the entire structure of the House of Horrors flexed. A moment later, a perfectly circular aperture opened in the ceiling overhead; there was a distant scream, and then through a diagonal chute leading back into the pulsating guts of the House, a white-uniformed figure tumbled out into the basement.

"Utterson?" Stan demanded. "What the hell are you doing here?"

There was a pause, and then Ford also hurtled out of the chute, landing with a thud right on top of Utterson.

An undignified scuffle followed as the aging colonel struggled free of the heap, jumped to his feet, and belatedly realized where he was. To his credit, Utterson didn't cower in fear or try to run; instead, he went for the Desert Eagle lying at his feet and took aim at Northwest; of course, it did him very little good – the Bogeyman just swatted it out of his hands with a single swing of his cane. Then, as Ford reached for his own weapons, chains once again descended from the ceiling and wrapped themselves around the two men, hoisting them into the air and fastening them against the wall right next to Stan.

"Ah, so close and yet so far," Auldman chortled, tightening the chains around Ford's middle. "If only you hadn't been interrupted, I can almost imagine you getting within a gnat's wing of stopping me. Almost. Ah, but I can tell from the taste of your mind that you've had an awful lot of almosts over the course of your life, haven't you, Stanford Pines? Almost got the dream college, almost unlocked all of Gravity Falls' mysteries, almost sacrificed yourself, almost set things right… and in eons to come, everyone will know of how you and your idiot brother almost saved the day – only to be foiled at the last minute by the ambitions of weak-minded proletarian upstarts. In time, future generations will acknowledge that this was the moment where humanity finally proved, once and for all, that it could no longer be trusted to rule itself…"

He cocked his head in confusion, and then snatched at something in one of Ford's many coat pockets. Stan instantly recognized it as the necklace that Ford had discovered among Lorraine's belongings – the one with the hatchet-shaped pendant.

"I was convinced I'd have to replicate this entirely through illusions," said Auldman, "but it seems that I've been done an unexpected favour by our two resident thieves." He bowed his head in mocking gratitude. "My heartiest thanks to you both. The ritual will go much smoother with this at hand. Lorraine! Come to daddy and put on your mother's necklace like a good little girl."

Stan fumed silently and reviewed the situation: there had to be another option at hand, something that could still save the day, but no ideas came to mind. If he could only reach one of the guns in his jacket…

Meanwhile, Lorraine could only bow her head in silence as Auldman gleefully chained the hatchet pendant around her throat. "At last," he chuckled. "The final step on the journey. The last sentence in the narrative that will shape the ages: a madwoman murdering her child in one final display of betrayal and despair; a trio of tragic heroes brought down by their own inadequacies; and a new god, empowered through the sacrifice of lesser souls, rising to claim his destiny. Yes, this will be a story that will live as long as I will – for all eternity!"

"You're not a god," snarled Ford. "I don't care if you're calling yourself Auldman Northwest or Nathaniel Winter these days, but the fact of the matter remains that you'll never be able to call yourself a god without feeling like a liar."

From somewhere just on the periphery of hearing, Stan swore he heard someone gasp in shock.

"And you're in no position to judge, Stanford Pines," Auldman retorted, "weak and mortal as you are. You've never really understood what true greatness is; ill-bred little prole that you are, you believed that your intellect would give you the power to sway the fate of reality, even after history has proved that blood and wealth are the only true source of greatness in the world."

Ford rolled his eyes. "You really are just skimming the pages, aren't you? You're not actually reading my mind, Northwest: you're just looking for the most emotional events in my memories and handing out a few trite cold-readings based on what you've read – and you're speed-reading what you do find. If you were paying any attention to what you've been reading, you'd know I've met things that have more right to call themselves gods than you ever could. My brother and I have things that could make your idea of an apocalypse look like something dreamed up in a kid's sandpit. And that's one of the many reasons why you don't have the right to think yourself a god and never will. See, you had everything before you came here: you had money, you had fame, you had influence, you even had a family of your own… and you threw it all away because you were scared of the dark and scared of dying. Bill Cipher didn't start off that way, and he rose higher than you ever could without having to piggyback off another god – and we killed him."

Auldman blinked. For a moment, he looked genuinely startled, maybe even a little offended. But then his eyes briefly narrowed in concentration, and he smirked. "Empty bravado, Pines. The only reason why you won is because you screwed up and your brother had to take the fall. Now your brother's in exactly the same position you are, and neither of you have the power to stop me… so I'll ask again: why do you think that I don't deserve to be called a god even now?"

There was a pause; was it Stan's imagination, or did Ford's eyes ever-so-subtly flick towards the staircase? Stan couldn't see anything there, but for a moment or so, he could have sworn that he could have seen a faint glow cast upon the furthest steps.

"For one thing," said Ford at last, "Gods need to have at least a measure of omniscience. You can barely keep up with things that are happening in your own pocket dimension. I mean, if you knew what I was going to do, you would have stopped me before you tried to stop my brother. That would have been the smart move…"

The Bogeyman's goitre-swollen face curled into a grimace of irritation. If Stan had one arm free of his manacles, he would have punched the air.

"But then," said Ford, "You're not all that smart, are you? You've been standing other people's shoulders and calling yourself a giant for a very long time, Auldman: Bill Cipher, the architect of the Calypso Deep, Archibald Henderson… you didn't perform your own experiments or design your own work, you just inherited them, bought them, or flat out stole them. And then there's the fact that you had your own son come up with designs for the rides because you couldn't be bothered to dream up something that children might like. And what about the cost you made your workforce to pay in your stead? What about everything you took from you victims – Donald Williams, Steve Gardner, Callum Maillard, even Lorraine? For someone who prides himself on being a self-made man with the exactly the right bloodline for success, you haven't achieved anything on your own. Everything you've ever done in your miserable greedy little life has been based on someone else's genius, someone else's imagination, someone else's hard work, someone else's suffering… and now you're about to ascend to godhood on someone else's personal tragedy. Does it bother you that you've accomplished so little on your own for all the years you've spent cooped up in this derelict hellhole that you could easily fail today, and nobody would even notice?"

Auldman's upper lip peeled back into a scowl. "You've got some nerve, little pleb," he snarled. "Obviously, I haven't siphoned you thoroughly enough, or else you'd know to respect your betters. Now, I'll give you one last chance to give me one good reason why I can't be called a god… and it had better be a good one, delivered in a suitably grovelling fashion, or your worthless brother will be the one to suffer for it."

"As I said, you obviously aren't aware of everything that's happening in this private world of yours-"

"I KNOW!" roared Auldman, thumping his staff on the concrete with a sound like an earthquake in miniature. "YOU'VE TOLD ME THAT BEFORE, YOU PROLETARIAN UPSTART BASTARD! TELL ME SOMETHING I HAVEN'T ALREADY HEARD, OR I'LL MAKE YOUR BROTHER EAT HIS OWN INTESTINES AND LIKE THE TASTE!"

Ford took a deep breath. "You're an idiot," he said at last.

"And what makes you say that? I'd answer very carefully if I were you."

"Because if you were even approaching omniscience, you'd have paid more attention to that staircase."

Eyes widening in sudden alarm, the Bogeyman turned towards the basement stairs – just in time for a glowing hamster ball to hit him square in the face.

As Auldman Northwest recoiled, the hamster ball landed in the middle of the basement with a roar of energies and dissipated, revealing two figures standing within it: a strange, grey girl with hair like dying grass and eyes like old concrete; next to her stood Mabel.

Or at least, he assumed it was Mabel: Stan could recognize her by the sweater and the hair easily enough, but now she wore what looked like an old-fashioned plague doctor's mask (something that Stan wouldn't have recognized if it hadn't been for Ford's attempts at Halloween costumes). Behind the mask, her eyes were aglow with an unearthly golden light, her head was haloed with luminous energies, her hair billowing as if in a gale-force wind.

"Hi there!" she said cheerily. "Are you Auldman Northwest? I'd like my brother and Grunkles back right now, please!"

For a moment, Auldman Northwest had no idea how to respond to this; though the light that shrouded Mabel was only bright enough to keep the shadows of the basement at bay, he was squinting against it, teeth gritted as if in pain.

"What… are you?" he demanded at last. "And why do you people keep interrupting me when I'm trying to start a ritual?!"

He brought his staff crashing down again, sending a blast of oily, near-liquid shadows oozing across the concrete towards her, only for the dazzling glow surrounding Mabel to instantly shred the darkness to disintegrating fragments.

"You're used to being the biggest bully in the playground, aren't you?" Mabel remarked. "Ever wonder what it's like to pick on someone your own size?"

The Bogeyman let out a low, guttural snarl at the back of his bloated throat. "Don't even think of calling yourself my equal, you little bitch…"

"Too scared to find out, then?"

Roaring, Auldman lashed out with another blast of shadowy magic; Mabel retorted with a blast of her own glowing energies, while the grey girl by her side scuttled around the side, taking aim at Auldman's undefended flank. Auldman retaliated by conjuring arms from the ground to wrestle her into submission before she could get close enough to attack, only for Mabel to blast him with a beam of energy that sent him crashing back against the wall.

When he finally rose again, Stan could see a long, dribbling trail of black blood pouring from a cut in Auldman's lower lip – the first sign that the Bogeyman could actually be hurt.

"You want a fight, you overdressed scullery maid?" Auldman snarled. "You've got one!"

In the dazzling lightshow of magical blasts that followed, Stan felt the chains around his limbs and throat shatter like glass, and he immediately moved to defend Mabel; a moment later, Ford's chains broke as well, prompting him to draw a weapon from his coat and go on the attack as well. Utterson, left chained to the wall, could only snarl biliously.

And then, things got a little bit confused…

Nicholas Winter staggered away from the staircase in shock, too stunned to pay even the slightest bit of attention to the battle royale now playing out across the cramped basement. He'd heard everything that had been said, but it couldn't be possible – it couldn't even be real.

Atlantic Island Park had nearly driven him insane already, made him obsess over the very thing he'd tried to sell off, made him snap and say all those horrible things to anyone who tried to sympathize, made him slaver and pine like a rabid dog. Now it was making him hallucinate, making him hear things that couldn't possibly be real, because he knew that whatever the Bogeyman was, it couldn't possibly be…

No, no, no, he couldn't think like that: just trying to focus on the words made his head hurt, made his heart hammer so violently behind his ribs that he swore it would punch its way right out of his chest. He couldn't think about anything he'd just witnessed; he had to kill the thoughts before they could get any deeper into his brain, had to rip them right out of his skull and crush them underfoot, but he couldn't. They were burrowed in too far and too deep to be plucked loose.

He needed to get back to the car – not to drive out of here, though, not with the zombies gathering so closely around the building. No, what he needed was to smother the pain and silence the clamour inside his skull, and normally, the answer to that problem could easily be found in an inside pocket of his coat… but by now, his hipflask had already been emptied a dozen times over and the takings from that last liquor store had long since been pissed away. Right now, his only recourse was the little package he'd kept in the glove compartment for the last few months – the stuff he'd only bought because he'd been afraid of returning to Solomon Island and needed something that could ease his jitters around the estate agents and the buyers.

Of course, he'd never used the stuff before, but right now, Nicholas was desperate. He'd take anything if it would clear his head.

Just a sniff, that was all. A tiny pinch in each nostril, just enough to get him in the right frame of mind. And then, maybe, this nightmare would finally start making sense and his father wouldn't be…

Wouldn't be…

Nicholas choked back a sob, and tried not to think of all the missed birthdays, all the times he'd caught Mom crying alone in the bathroom, all the things he'd never be able to say, all the tabloid articles, all the sordid interviews, all the times he'd denied that the disappearance hadn't hurt him, all the months he'd spent trapped on the island with nothing but a deepening obsession with Atlantic Island Park and a handful of abandoned liquor stores to keep him company, and all the private moments when he'd wondered "was it my fault? Did he leave because of me?"

The car. The glove compartment. The little plastic bag. Uncut. Pure. Trustworthy source. If he could just get to the car, he'd be okay, and the pain would be gone, and he could focus on something other than the horror in the basement.

He'd be okay.

But of course, as he stumbled blindly down the corridor, tears streaming down his dirt-smudged face, NIcholas knew deep down that he wasn't going to be okay. He hadn't been okay since fate had dragged him back Atlantic Island Park; he wasn't going to be okay at all.

If anything, he was going to be even worse.

Across the basement, the battle raged onwards.

Shielded from the worst of the siphoning by the dazzling glow of Mabel's Anima field, Grunkle Stan and Grunkle Ford assaulted at the Bogeyman with every single weapon they could get their hands on – guns, knives, brass knuckles, hand-blasters, and technology that Mabel couldn't even identify. Auldman retaliated with wild swings of his cane that sent jagged fissures racing across the walls and conjured shadows that threatened to consume anything they touched, but with the Northwest patriarch still half-blinded by Mabel's Anima light, the Grunkles were easily able to dodge the attacks. Stan himself darted aside one swing of the cane and retorted by snatching up a wooden plank from the floor and bringing it crashing down on Auldman Northwest's head, smacking him back and forth across the basement while Ford riddled his hunched back with sizzling energy blasts.

Grey, despite being unarmed and looking too frail to support the weight of her own teeth, flung herself at Auldman the fury of a rabid animal, leaping up onto the Bogeyman's back and biting, clawing, punching, and kicking for all she was worth. Howling in pain and outrage, Auldman seized her in his good hand and flung her hard at the wall – only for Grey to recover almost instantly from the impact and spring right back at him, latching onto his arm and gnawing furiously at any undefended flesh she could reach. Once again, the Bogeyman tried to shake her loose or tear her free, but the bewildering girl refused to let go, and in his struggles, he only ended up blundering into Stan and getting whacked over the head with the 2x4 again.

Mabel, meanwhile, held sway over the entire battle: shrouded in Anima as she was, the siphoning couldn't affect her, and the Bogeyman's magic couldn't hurt her, and so she didn't have to worry about having to go on the defensive. She simply waded in, blasting the Bogeyman with all her might, doing her level best to force him away from the concrete slab, away from Lorraine, away from Dipper. She didn't bother trying anything clever, because she couldn't afford to waste time on varying her attacks into fireballs, localized blizzards, handheld lightning bolts or anything like: she just focussed the energy she'd been given into a solid beam powerful enough to scorch Auldman's clothes, sear his skin, and send him scurrying away with a yowl of pain. Around him, the basement warped and distended as the Bogeyman struggled to find an escape the onslaught, by every time he loped off in pursuit of some newly formed cover, Mabel just blasted it to dust and went on the attack again.

By then, she was channelling so much Anima that her feet weren't even touching the ground; it was like that brief instant she'd had control of Gideon's telekinetic tie pin, or like being back in the Mindscape with all those powers at her command – invigorating, energising, and maybe even a little intoxicating… but this time, she wasn't just using an artefact or the powers of dreams: this time, she was wielding pure Anima – the blood of Gaia, the life-energy of the world. This, time, the sense of empowerment was even stronger, and it was even harder to keep herself from getting carried away with it. She had to keep reminding herself that there was still that rapidly emptying tank of Anima on hand, and once that was empty, they were sunk.

But no matter how hard the four of them attacked, no matter how far they forced Auldman to retreat, he just wouldn't stay down. His coat was a blazing ruin, his skin was charred, his hat was on fire, but somehow, he was still alive and kicking and counterattacking, blasting them with oozing shadows and tentacles of black smoke. And though everyone was keeping up with him so far, Mabel had a feeling that it wouldn't be too long before someone ran out of puff… and something told her that someone might just be her.

About halfway through the latest barrage, Mabel paused and ducked behind the slab, trying to take stock of everything – even as the ceiling began sprouting crab claws and trying to shear Grey in half. The Beeple had told her that she needed to help Dipper to help Lorraine see the truth, but how the heck was she supposed to do that? Right now, Dipper and Lorraine weren't listening to anything: the two of them were just sitting on the slab like marionettes with their strings cut and totally unaware of anything going on around them.

How was she supposed to get through to them if they couldn't hear her?

There was a muffled scream; a moment later, Grey went flying over the slab like a misfired rocket, landing hard on the concrete floor and rolling to stop at the foot of the staircase. A quick check confirmed that she was still alive, but badly bruised and barely conscious. Thankfully, she hadn't broken anything in her fall.

Mabel rose from behind the slab to blast Auldman again…

…only to find that he wasn't there.

Grunkle Stan and Grunkle Ford looked around in confusion. "Wait," said Stan, "where'd he go?"

As if in answering, something struck him hard across the face, sending him sprawling. Ford immediately took aim with his blaster, trying in spite of himself to get a bead on something that was quite invisible, only for a blast of magic to catch him square in the ribs, toppling him to the floor. Then, as Mabel looked on in horror, lengths of barbed wire began to pour from the air vents, winding themselves slowly around Stan and Ford's arms and hoisting them against the wall with a painfully visible spray of blood.

Mabel raised a hand to sear the basement to a crisp and hopefully burn Auldman out of hiding, only for something to catch her square in the jaw like a kick from a mule. For a moment, she was airborne, hurtling back across the basement like a helicopter in trouble; then she hit the ceiling with a loud crunch of pulverizing concrete, tumbled horizontally for a yard or two, then peeled off and fell seven feet to the floor. She landed heavily, all the breath knocked out of her, though given how hard she'd been hit, she would have been spitting teeth or dead if it hadn't been for the Anima protecting her. But it wasn't until she got to her feet that she realized – with a jolt of shock – that she'd burned through nearly three quarters of her stored energy… and the rest was rapidly dwindling.

Then, Auldman Northwest reappeared in the middle of the basement – unharmed except for the burst lip.

"Funny thing about Bogeymen," he chortled. "We are the undisputed masters of shadows and illusion in this world. I'd have thought you people would know that – after all, I faked my death decades ago, and nobody even realized that the body they buried didn't even look like me."

Mabel could only gawp. "So… none of that fight was real?"

"My dear, deluded little peasant, did you really think I'd give you the luxury of a straightforward battle to the death?"

"But Grey-"

"Consider yourself thankful that you didn't see how badly she was losing. Besides, even if you could have found me, you wouldn't have been able to kill me. I've tapped into the energies of the eldritch. I'm two steps removed from godhood, you morons… and right now, I'm tired of playing along with this little farce a moment longer."

He brought his cane down on the floor with a sound like a tuning fork gone mad, and suddenly, Mabel felt the siphoning kick into overdrive. Up until now, it had been in the background, subtly eating away at the protective Anima, but now it was worming its way through the gaps in her armour, taking little bites out of her and gnawing hungrily at every wound. And now that she was running low on power…

Mabel almost doubled over as the full force of her own self-loathing hit her all at once, waves of repressed guilt hammering at her like a tsunami hammering a coastline. What had she been thinking? What had made her think that she could save this world when she'd nearly ruined her own? She'd been a terrible sister, a terrible niece, a terrible friend, and absolutely monstrous excuse for a human being: she'd handed Bill Cipher his victory on a silver platter just because she'd been upset over Dipper wanting to do something else with his life, and then she'd happily played along with the fantasy world Bill had imprisoned her in. And when help arrived, she'd tried to keep the others there with her – practically doing Bill's dirty work! She'd even gone out of her way to upset him by pretending to replace him with Dippy Fresh! What kind of a sister would do such a petty, hurtful thing? And she'd lied about it as well! She'd lied about not remembering the deal with Bill, and all because she was too cowardly to face the consequences! What had made the Beeple think that she could have made a difference in this fight? If Auldman had offered to give her a little more summer, she'd have probably let him kill Dipper!

She was dimly aware that she was crying, and that a few feet away from her, Grunkle Stan and Grunkle Ford were writhing in rage and grief as their own repressed emotions took over, but other than that, she was deaf to anything other than the screeching voice of her own self-reproach.

Then she felt a sharp pain around her neck and realized that another length of barbed wire was winding its way around her throat – just loosely enough to avoid cutting her too deeply… but if Auldman wanted her dead, all he'd have to do would be to tighten the noose. Snip-snip, bye-bye head.

However, one of the barbs had nicked her jaw as the wires had slid into place, and the pain was just enough to bring her to her senses. In desperation, Mabel summoned up more energy to keep the siphoning at bay, and in a few seconds, the self-loathing abated… but she could still feel it ready to pounce on her as soon as she let her guard down, and now, she probably had only a minute or two of power left in the battery.

She could probably use it to slice through the noose, but what then? She didn't have enough energy to put up much of a fight but trying to get Dipper or Lorraine or both to safety might be too much for what little power she had left. Worse still, she'd have to make up her mind quickly: Auldman was once again in motion, weaving more wires into place around them, forming a razor-sharp barrier between her and the rest of the room and leaving her squeezed into a tiny corner of the basement.

"Now," said Auldman briskly. "With that little nuisance under control, I think it's time we finally began the ritual. Lorraine, would be so kind as to take your place by the stairs? Callum, lie down on the slab, there's a good boy. Everyone else in the room, settle back and bear witness to my apotheosis…"

Bringing his cane down with another sharp, metallic hum, he waved a hand about the room, instantly revealing a glowing network of lines traced on the walls, ceiling, and floor. Mabel was distinctly reminded of the time that she and the other Zodiac had formed the Wheel, but where the Wheel had been pure, unrelenting and almost electrifying in its power, the ritual symbols that the Bogeyman was drawing felt horribly wrong: just looking at them made Mabel's skin crawl as if bugs were burrowing under her flesh, and the longer they remained on the walls, the more her stomach churned and bubbled.

And with that horrible sense of wrongness came a sense of power in the air, like the Anima she'd been wielding, but somehow tainted – corrupted, even. If the Anima she'd been given had been like honey straight from the jar, this was like honey spiked with oil, a poisonous, toxic power that was all the more disgusting for the faint smell of honey that still clung to it. Whatever it was, it was pouring into the room from every single angle; combined with the ritual markings, the room was practically throbbing with magical power. It took a while for Mabel to work out what was going on even with the knowledge that the Beeple had given her, but she eventually realized that Auldman had amplified his machines to their highest possible settings: the emotional siphons were now ready to harvest every last drop of despair they could squeeze out of their victims, and right now, Auldman was already guiding Lorraine and Callum/Dipper into the perfect position for the final harvest.

Sure enough, Dipper was already lying down on the slab and rapidly sinking into an entranced coma. A few feet away, Lorraine appeared at the foot of the stairs, terror-stricken and on the verge of hysteria, shrieking Callum's name as she stumbled towards him.

In the background, Auldman Northwest was giggling to himself, glistening ropes of saliva oozing from his gaping jaws as he watched the scene play out, his chuckles growing so loud that Mabel hoped against hope that Lorraine might be able to hear it. But of course, Lorraine couldn't hear a thing thanks to Auldman's brainwashing; she was deaf and blind to every other than the sight of the scrawny five-year-old on the slab.

And then, just as Mabel was certain that all hope was lost, Grunkle Ford managed to recover from the siphoning just long enough to gasp out, "Magic!"

"What?"

"It's a high-magic environment, Mabel! The connection – remember?" Then the siphoning took hold again, and Ford lapsed back into a babbled litany of incomprehensible grievances.

For a moment, Mabel had no idea what he was talking about. Then she remembered: back on the boat, when they'd been discussing Dipper's psychic link with Lorraine, Ford had mentioned that it might be possible for the two of them to consciously visit each other's Mindscapes… and that, in high-magic environments, other people could join the link as well.

The Beeple had said that she was supposed to show Lorraine that there was another way, and that she'd "always known" how. Could this have been what they meant? Could she actually enter the Mindscape via the link? Was the magic down here strong enough to get this trick to work… and more worryingly, even if it did work, how was she supposed to change Lorraine's mind? What exactly was she supposed to know about talking down a depressed superbeing?

Unfortunately, it didn't seem as if she didn't have much time to consider her options, for by now, Lorraine had reached the slab and was now staring down in confusion at the figure on the slab. Behind her, Auldman Northwest appeared, pressing an icepick into her unresisting hands.

The sight alone seemed to send a bolt of lightning down Mabel's spine. She didn't know if she could make this work or if she could somehow bring Lorraine to her senses, or if the self-doubt eating away at her was justified or not. All she knew was that she couldn't get distracted by her own doubts: now was the time for being pure, unadulterated Mabel.

Summoning up every last atom of Anima still on her side, Mabel tore through the barbed-wire noose, shredded the fence between her and the slab, and launched herself through the air.

As if in slow motion, she saw Auldman – oblivious to Mabel's approach with his back to her – slowly forcing Lorraine's arms into position, slowly moving the ice-pick over Dipper's undefended chest.

Mabel put on an extra burst of speed, soaring across the room as if rocket-propelled, but it still felt like she was flying through molasses. Maybe it was just her own terror-stricken perceptions of time, maybe it was Auldman's dark magic, but it seemed to be taking hours to get anywhere near the slab.

Lorraine was now holding the icepick right above Dipper's heart, her eyes wide and her mouth hanging open in an expression of terrified, helpless, "what the heck am I doing?" disbelief that all but froze the blood in Mabel's veins. She'd seen that terrible face before, but only on her reflection as it stared back at her from the snow-globe she'd found in Dipper's backpack; there was no mistaking the wide eyes, the slack jaw, the uncomprehending look of dread and desperation. Right here and now, Lorraine might as well have been Mabel's doppelganger.

Please, Mabel thought, as the last few feet between her and Dipper shrank away. Please, just a little more time. I know that asking for more time how I made that stupid mistake in the first place, but I promise, it's for a good cause. I'll do anything, just give me a few more seconds…

Auldman released Lorraine from his grasp, withdrawing his hands with the tiniest of flourishes – as if to say "ta-dah!" and vanished away. For a moment, Lorraine paused, as if uncertain of what to do next…

…then her face contorted with rage, her muscles bunching up as she prepared to bring …

And in that final moment, Mabel landed on the slab right next to them, reaching out for the two sacrificial victims – her right hand pressing down on Dipper's face, her left clamping down on Lorraine's forehead.

Let me in, she thought. Show me your dreamworlds. Let me stay, just for a little while, just so I can talk to you…

For a heartbeat, Mabel was sure it hadn't worked, that all of this had been for nothing, and Lorraine was about to stab Dipper to death. After all, she could tell that getting this far had drained her of Anima: the battery was empty, and she was now open to the full force of the siphoning, along with anything else Auldman felt like doing to her. Any minute now, she would collapse into a weeping puddle, helpless to stop the Bogeyman from puppeteering Lorraine into ultimate victory.

Then she felt the tiniest of sparks, almost like static electricity – but instead of just giving her a jolt across the fingers and making her hair stand on end, she felt the charge running up her shoulder, along her spine, lighting up her brain…

Time stopped.

The icepick was paused in its plunge towards Dipper's heart; Lorraine's face was locked in a mask of hatred; Grunkle Stan and Grunkle Ford were looking on at the scene with expressions frozen somewhere between hope and dread… and right next to Mabel, Auldman Northwest was on freeze-frame, his goitred face contorted with anger, his spindly arms reaching out to grab her – but always too far away, always too far away.

In dreams, time was always passing just a little slower than it did in reality, just enough to make it seem like it had stopped if you happened to look back on the world outside your head.

All the same, Mabel could only hope that she had enough time to do whatever needed to be done.

Then, she was gone.

A/N: Up next...

Guess.

Let me know what you think will save the day in your reviews.

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