Dipper woke up with a jolt. Ice clung onto his Soul, sharp and painful, like breathing in frozen air on a winter's morning. It took him a moment to fight past the sting and pull himself upwards. He was back in the Mystery Shack, pulled onto the couch in their living room, and surrounding him was everyone. Mabel, Wirt, Coraline, Greg, Norman, that other kid with squinty eyes…all looking at him with worried expressions.
"Dipper!" said Mabel, excitement fading into fear. "You might not want to be awake for this part."
His eyes followed hers to the TV.
"This is Shandra Jimenez reporting live from the inside of Bill's castle," said the reporter on TV. "Here, for the first time, are images of what's happened to the captured townsfolk. Viewers are advised to look away if they don't want to see their friends and loved ones turned into a twisted throne of human agony."
"Nope," said Dipper. "Nope nope no no no no no!"
He shot up from his couch bed and paced through the Shack until he found his hat. He managed to gather quite the following of confused people as he did, and when he returned back to the living room, he stood on the shoulders of the Multibear to address an audience.
"Bill wants us to run and hide. He wants us to think he's invincible," said Dipper. "But we've all faced scarier things than him. We can beat him, too!"
"Dipper's right," said Mabel, as she joined him on the Multibear's left shoulder. "Our friends need us."
The only apparent benefit to being thrown head-first into an icy lake and passing out was that it gave him time to think. The jumbled memories of a broken timestream, before incomprehensible and vague, now clear as day. And now that he knew what was going on, that meant he could form a plan.
"I think I have a plan," said Dipper "But it's going to require all of us working together. And that means all of us. Humans, monsters…whatever Toby is…"
"A mistake of nature!" said Toby Determined.
"So what do you say?" said Dipper.
He was speaking to everyone there, certainly, but his words were mostly meant for the five in front of him.
"I didn't come this far just to be stopped by a triangle," said Wirt.
"Yeah!" said Greg.
"He can't keep us hiding here forever," said Norman.
"And I'm not going down without a *Fight," said Coraline.
The kid, tears brimming in their eyes, gave a nod as big as their body.
"Alright," said Dipper. "Let's get to work."
"Now I'm a man of science, not magic," Ford started.
"why not be both?" sans asked. "they're not that different."
"They're both forces," said the Cat. "You don't understand them, you just deal with them."
"…But I am talking to a skeleton and a cat right now so anything goes," said Ford.
"eyyy," said sans, clicking his non-existent tongue and firing bony finger guns.
The shack was completely flipped as McGucket worked on his latest invention, but they had managed to save what was once the coffee table to strategize. The ten of them, plus sans on the video call, crowded around Ford as he pulled out his journal, the Journal, and flipped to a blank page. He sketched out a circular pattern.
"I found this when I was first investigating the weirdness of Gravity Falls," said Ford as he drew. "It took me years to fully understand, but it's some kind of prophecy. Whatever these symbols represent can be used to create a spell to seal Bill and end his weirdness once and for all."
"this is why you should brush up on your magic," said sans. "that's a barrier spell. pretty similar to the one we have keeping us in here."
"There are ten symbols, though," said Greg. "I thought the Barrier only needed seven."
"only seven humans made the barrier," said sans, with a shrug.
"There has to be a hundred people here at least," said the Cat. "Take your pick."
Dipper stared at the paper in front of him. There were ten symbols inscribed into a ring. A pine tree, a shooting star, a six-fingered hand, a crescent…
"Why is one of these just a bag of ice?" Coraline asked.
"That's why it took me years to understand," said Ford.
"Bill always called me 'Pine Tree' and Mabel 'Shooting Star'," said Dipper. "And Grunkle Stan has that symbol on his hat. Plus there's you and your six fingers…"
That left the broken heart, the pentagram, the llama, the ice, the glasses, and the question mark. There weren't any right answers, Dipper realized. They were too abstract to be right. It was not calling for one specific person to be right, but instead what was in their Soul. It could be anyone. It could even be Pacifica. But right now, in this time, Dipper knew who he could trust.
"Kid, are you sure?" said Stan. "This is dangerous sh-tuff. You could get hurt."
"If I don't do it, who will?" said Dipper.
Stan opened his mouth to say something else, but his voice died as the floor shook under them. That sounded like McGucket was ready for them.
Dipper rushed out of the conversation and rushed to the attic. What was once his bedroom was now the cockpit of McGucket's machinations. The others crammed into the corner, awaiting orders.
"Wendy, Candy, Grenda, and McGucket, you stay here to pilot the Shack-tron," said Dipper. "Soos, you're leading the away team to find a way to save everyone on Bill's throne or in the Fearamid. The rest of us, we're going down to fight Bill directly."
"Let's hope this works better than any of my other machines," said McGucket.
Dipper took his place at the helm. He pulled the lever in front of him, and the Mystery Shack rose.
The body of the Shack remained intact, but it was now balanced upon a metal skeleton. It lurched forward on two robotic legs. Two arms sprouted from each side, one with a robotic hand, the other with a half-fossilized T-Rex. The head of the Gobblewonker towered above them.
"They made the house into a robot," said the decapitated wax head of Larry King. "Fascinating."
"Get us in close, McGucket," said Dipper.
"Does this thing have an escape hatch?" said Stan.
The Mystery Shack-tron marched forward. Bill's henchmaniacs blocked the way from the Fearamid, but if they weren't pushed aside by Grenda and Candy on the arms, or McGucket on the Gobblewonker, then Wendy and Soos made quick work on them from the outside.
Bill's Fearamid was in sight.
"Now's our chance!" said Dipper.
"Cool Kids, move out!" said Mable.
The ten funneled into the escape pods. One by one, the Gobblewonk spit them out, sending them spiraling down into the Fearamid. Dipper scrambled to pull the string on his backpack, unfurling the patchwork parachute inside and allowing him to fall to safety.
The first thing he noticed was Bill's throne. It was even worse up close, now that he could make out the details of everyone frozen inside. He tore his eyes away, and that's when he noticed something else.
"Guys," said Dipper. "Where's Bill?"
"I'm gonna guess it has something to do with that triangle-shaped hole," said Coraline.
It was definitely a Bill-shaped hole, but Dipper had no idea where it led. He leaned in closer, trying to see anything in the darkness. He was so distracted that he did not notice the kid until they pulled on his vest.
Underground, they wrote down on their notepad.
Her Other World was falling apart. There was no need to maintain the web without flies to trap inside. Soon, it will all fall back into the Void.
"Why?" said the Beldam. "Why would you stand in my way?"
W.D. Gaster did not respond.
"I know who you are," said the Beldam. "I know how you got here. You've lost everything to humans. So why? Why would you go out of your way to protect one?"
He had thought that he had lost everything to humans for a long time. They were trapped in the Underground because of humans. He was hired as the Royal Scientist to find a way to break the barrier and defeat Humans. Humans were the enemy.
But Humans did not create the CORE. Humans did not cause him to throw away his Soul. Humans did not cause him to hurt sans, or Alphys, or the other assistants that fell with him. Humans did not make him go dark, darker, yet darker still. He did that all on his own.
He was wrong then. He could be better now.
*FIGHT
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She would come back. This timeline was not permanent. He just hoped it would take her a little longer this time.
The end would be soon. Very soon.
Here it comes.
Once upon a time, a man fell into the CORE. Once upon a time, a man wrote himself out of existence. Now, Bill Cipher stood at the edge of the CORE.
"And to think I could have just settled for one dimension," said Bill. "Hope you're ready, multiverse, because things are about to get weird..."
Bill's Soul was neither human nor monster. It was simultaneously thin and heavy, stitched together in some places and charred in others. He struggled to turn it Blue at first, but it was nothing compared to the effort he needed for the barrage of bones and blasters he threw it through.
"huh," said sans. "always wondered why people never use their strongest attack first."
Bill turned his eye towards the smiley skeleton.
"Why, you little—!"
Fifty arms sprouted from Bill's pyramidal body. sans deftly moved through the field of fists, not even noticing as the humans fell from the sky.
"good timing, kid," said sans, as Bill's turn ended and he could focus. "i'll keep him busy. you focus on that barrier trick of yours."
Bill's eyeball unhinged, sharp fangs forming in the gaps it formed. It flew out of his body and launched itself at him. sans dodged out of the way, two Gaster Blasters forming at his side to fire when Bill's turn was up.
*It's the end
Dipper got to work. Reaching into his parachute backpack, he pulled out several cans of spray pain and tossed them to Mabel, Ford, and Stan.
"We don't have to worry about making it perfect for now," said Ford.
"No, we just have to worry about dodging whatever Triangle Man's got up his nonexistent sleeves," said Stan.
Speaking of Triangle Man, Bill turned his attention towards them. The Pines family scattered as Bill sent a wave of bullet bow-ties towards them. Stan and Ford entered the *Fight. That left Dipper and Mabel to complete the Zodiac.
*Time is dead and meaning has no meaning
"You're really bad at arts and crafts, bro," said Mabel, glancing down at the pine tree made of three triangles and a line.
"Trying my best," said Dipper. "And didn't Great Uncle Ford say it didn't have to be perfect?"
"Not when you're dealing with an arts and crafts master!" said Mabel. In the time it took him to make his paltry tree, she had already sketched out the shooting star, 6-fingered hand, and the crescent.
In the time it took Mabel to draw her symbols, it was Bill's turn once again. He stumbled, still reeling backwards from sans' wave of bones, before his eye settled on the twins. Lasers fired out of it, causing the twins to jump out of the way.
"Coraline!" said Mabel as she tossed the spray can across the room.
*Smells like deer teeth
Coraline barely managed to catch the can. Bill turned his attention to her.
"I'm going to crush you so hard that not even your molecules will survive!" said Bill.
He inched closer and closer, his eye aflame. Coraline held the paint can out in front of her and sprayed. Black paint filled Bill's vision, blocking the lasers and causing him to howl in pain. It distracted him just enough for Coraline to paint an icon of a bag of ice and toss the spray can to Wirt.
*A dimension is burning somewhere
Bill turned his aim towards Wirt and Greg. He summoned his fifty fists, but they flopped around uselessly as spray paint blinded his vision. Greg had a grand time jumping over them like jump rope as Wirt painted in the broken heart and the llama.
*Blame the arsonist for the fire
It was hard to see what was really going on. Between sans's bone waves rushing through the floor, Ford's portal gun shooting along the walls, and Bill's magic bullets filling the spaces between, he could not make out the design.
"Wait, what else is there?" said Norman.
That was a mistake. Bill turned his attention to him, eye still red and watery but intensely focused.
"Hey, Pyramid Head!" said Stan.
Before Norman could even blink, Stan had jumped onto Bill's backside. He grabbed onto Bill's many arms and yanked them backwards.
"Glasses!" said Stan. "Get going, kid!"
Norman gave a shaky nod and got to painting.
*Trust no one
"Frisk," said the Cat. "Now is not the time to freeze up."
They couldn't help it. The second they had seen sans' attacks, their Soul had frozen up as if it were hit by the strongest Blue Attack. Each bone and each blaster felt like it was aimed at their Soul instead. Sins crawled along their back.
"Come on, Frisk," said the Cat. "Stay determined!"
"That's it!"
It had to have been Bill that spoke, but the voice was so distorted and demonic that it was unrecognizable. Bill erupted into blue flames, causing Stan to lose his grip and fall. The layers of his pyramidal form splitting apart to reveal rows and rows of teeth.
"I've had enough of this dimension," said Bill. "Time to write it out of existence!"
Frisk was not sure what would happen if a Reset happened now, especially if they were not the one to control it. They could lose their friends. They could lose themself. They thought about what had brought them here. They thought about the Other World Monsters, and the Unknown, and Blithe's Hollow, and Gravity Falls, and the Underground, and all the mistakes along the way. No, they had a chance to set things right, and they were *Determined to see it all the way to the end.
*Load failed.
"What?"
*Load failed
*Load failed
*File 1 Restored
"What, no!" said Bill.
He started to move, only to find his Soul encased in a cage of bones.
"We're still missing one!" said Mabel.
"i can't hold him here forever," said sans.
"Fine, I'll do it," said the Cat. "But I'm not happy about it."
He leapt off of Frisk's shoulders and on to the question mark sigil. Staying determined, they stepped forward onto the pentagram.
The Zodiac was not perfect. The symbols had been crudely drawn, some too close to one another and others too far apart, and the circle was haphazard. But it was something they had put their Souls into, and their effort was rewarded. It sparked to life, magic pouring from the paint and enveloping them in bright light.
Bill screamed. He hardly needed sans to keep him in place now, for his body was deforming before their eyes. He was screaming, but it was too garbled and backwards for Frisk to understand. The light of the Zodiac grew brighter and brighter, until Frisk could no longer see.
*File SAVED
And the game ended.
Author's Note:
I have been working on this chapter for 5 months.
Significance of the Zodiac:
Frisk and the Pentagram: Initially I was going to have them with the broken heart just because they do have a broken heart if they die in Undertale, but I decided this worked better thematically. A pentagram is one line that connects other points. Frisk is one person that connects others. Worth pointing out is that, in the intro, the pentagram also has the eye mark for Gideon, but Ford draws only the pentagram in show.
The Cat and the Question Mark: The Cat is an unknown force. He is not human nor monster. He is not bound by any realm.
Coraline and Ice: The ice is supposed to represent a level-head in the face of danger. That doesn't mean "not afraid". Remember, Wendy represented ice in the original and she was "stressed 24/7". Coraline is afraid, but she does not let her fear control her.
Wirt and the Broken Heart: Wirt fell into the Unknown after he thought he blew his chances with Sara. His other two romantic interests in the series (Beatrice and Lorna) betray him in some way. The main reason, however, is because right now his Soul is broken.
Greg and Llama: idk I think they're cute
Norman and the glasses: This was honestly process of elimination. If I had the extra slot, I would have sans use them because of his busted eye and his scientific background. If I had to justify it, Norman is associated with reading (he has to defeat the Witch by reading to her, and I think he reads some comics?), and they could be reading glasses?
I did make Stan part of the Zodiac for realsies because a) Ford hasn't had time to really be a jerk to him since returning, which caused Stan to be angry and resentful of his brother and not want to be part of the Zodiac in the first place and b) the Zodiac is a legit cool concept and to see it introduced and then fail in less than 2 minutes is really unsatisfying. I'm not saying Stan's ultimate sacrifice at the end of Weirdmageddon isn't great, but considering the Zodiac has been one of the major mysteries of the series since episode 1 and it amounting to nothing is just kind of lame.
Here's a fun fact that I learned while doing research for this! According to Journal 3 (the actual physical book you can buy now at your local bookstore), what Fiddleford saw when he fell into the portal was Bill "removing his exoskeleton to feed". If I have to be cursed with that knowledge, so do you.
Alright, I'm now totally caught up with the AO3 copy. From now on, chapters will be posted once a week on Friday evenings (relative to US).