A/N: *gasp* Aaaaargh I'm alive. Don't ask me how, but I somehow got through the month without dying of exhaustion. And I somehow got the chapter done... but not without great cost. This chapter has regrettably been chainsawed in half for the sake of pacing and brevity.
No, really. Please stop laughing.
In the meantime, I'm immensely grateful for all my viewers, reviewers, favouriters and followers.
Guest, don't worry: Gideon and Robbie will be back soon - maybe in a chapter or two.
LoyalTheorist - I can assure you, things are going to get better for Mabel this chapter (though I had to cut out the hugs this round) and they're going to be even better next chapter.
Lizzie2145 - Yep; kid gloves are off, brass knuckles are on, as they say... and Axolotl's going to need 'em.
Hourglass Cipher - Well, without saying too much, two of the horsemen make an appearance this chapter and both play a very big role. Gideon, Stan, Ford and the others make their next appearances in a couple of chapters.
Fantasy Fan 223 - Oh, I loved your review! Your interpretation of events was sterling - although I have to acknowledge the fact that Bill's code was referencing the poem Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley. Also, good news: Pyronica's kill is purely metaphorical - but no less devastating, unfortunately. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy this chapter. Thanks again.
Kraven the Hunter - I know, I know, I'm horrible. In my defence, pacing is always against me; I wanted to include a bigger win last chapter, but I had to pace myself. This round, I've had to cut the Hell Yes moment and move it to next chapter, so what we have instead are little victories interspersed with depression and doubt. But don't worry: the victories get bigger over time - from now on, the tide has very firmly turned. Zmw ru rg svokh, gsrh xszkgvi'h zggvnkg zg gligfiv rh jfrgv mvzgob wvizrovw.
HufflepuffPosidens Divergent - All of them!
Blind Eyephone - Don't worry; they'll get happier, bit by bit, I assure you.
Northgalus - Don't forget the real (meaning historical) Dipper locked away as the shapeshifter!
OMAC001 - Not as bad as Bill, but definitely just as weird.
Brenne - Bill isn't going to find out just yet, not while he's out hunting Axolotl; rest assured, Ford will awake soon... and as for Mabel, we learn her fate in this chapter!
Guest - Oh believe me, Nyarlathotep is playing his own angle... but it remains to be seen what that angle is.
Skywalkerchick1138 - Thanks so much for your kind review, and I'm glad you like the story so far. Good job on recognizing the crossovers so far - and Joey Harker is uiln gsv mlevo Rmgvidliow yb Mvro Tzrnzm. In the meantime, Dipper and Mabel's parents will be making an appearance in the not-too-distant future... in the meantime, I hope you enjoy this chapter - and I promise that Mabel's lot will slowly be improving.
Fanboy-Guest - More accurately, Bill had a chance to walk away and abandon his plan for Weirdmageddon; after that, he had a chance to abide by the Axolotl's rules and earn a new life in a new world; now... all bets are off.
Xavier Rall - I'm glad I was able to surprise you.
Anyway, without further ado, the newest chapter! Read, review and above all, enjoy!
Disclaimer: Gravity Falls is not mine, Zmw mvrgsvi rh Eznkriv Gsv Nzhjfvizwv.
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Once upon a time, Pacifica had barely been able to imagine the full extent of the power that would be at her fingertips once she was granted full access to the Northwest throne.
Less than a few weeks ago, the handful of barbs in her back and the few morsels of magical talent she'd been afforded as a result hadn't prepared her for the reality of the situation – and with good reason: Bill had wanted to entice her with the idea of seizing "ultimate power," and as any respectable Northwest could tell you, true enticement required vagueness, mystery, and only the barest hint of what was really on offer; anything else was just commonplace bribery.
More to the point, the last candidate to sit the throne hadn't exactly blown her away: back when he'd still been an adult, Preston Northwest hadn't even thought about using the abilities the throne had begun to instil in him, and why would he? He'd only been able to envision power in terms of business – political clout, economic muscle, corporate influence, money and exchange – another reason why Bill had tired of him. Power as magic had escaped his imagination completely… and for the longest time, it had evaded Pacifica's dreams as well.
Now, however, Pacifica understood.
Now, she knew the power the throne could grant. She felt it in every fibre of her being, pulsing through every blood vessel, crackling across every nerve-ending, winding through her internal organs, rippling out across both hemispheres of her brain. It was part of her now, embedded so deeply that she couldn't have pried it loose even if she drew upon all the strength her new powers had afforded her.
She had taken half of the throne's barbs: one by one, she'd driven them into her back, her shoulders, her arms, her legs, burying each one so deeply in her porcelain flesh that only the barest hint of the tips protruded from her. It had taken over an hour for her to adjust to each exponential surge of strength, drawing the implantation out for almost half a day, but in the end, she'd accomplished exactly what she'd set out to achieve. She'd followed Mr A's instructions to the letter, only taking as many barbs of the throne as she needed, and now… now she had everything she needed.
Conjuration, levitation, extrasensory perception, telekinesis, pyrokinesis – they had only been the tip of the iceberg. Now, she could fly, soaring high over the rooftops of the Northwest mansion, winding her way about the chimney and gliding out across the verdant grounds. Now, she could lift the family limousine into the air and launch it clean across the garden with a wave of her hands. Now, the fire she could summon could very well wipe the mansion off the map if she willed it. Now, she could reshape matter at will, crafting weapons, clothing, equipment, even the world around her; with a little concentrations, walls dissolved into nothingness, floors remoulded themselves into fountains, and furniture took on a disturbingly plantlike aspect.
And most of importantly of all, she had the power to escape. She knew it the moment the last barb had thudded into place.
She could now create portals, carving doorways in the fabric of Bill's dominion and allowing her safe passage across his many playgrounds. True, she didn't know the layout of the place, so she had no idea where she was going and no way of obtaining a map, and the most effective portals could only be planted at the very edges of each little worldlet…
But for the time being, she was free.
…as were her parents.
"Do you think we could stop for a little while, Pacifica? Wherever we are, I'm pretty sure that Bill isn't following us."
Pacifica paused in mid-air, halting just long enough to spare a glance in Mother's direction. In all fairness, she was looking pretty worn-out by now, hardly surprising given that she'd gone without any of her usual pharmaceutical pick-me-ups for the last month or so: her dress was torn, her legs were caked up to the knees in dirt, her hair was a bird's nest of tangled blonde tresses, and on top of everything else, she'd been carrying Father in her arms for the last two or three miles.
Preston, she silently reminded herself. We're calling him Preston now.
"Alright," Pacifica said out loud. "We can rest here, I guess. We're almost at the edge, so it shouldn't be too hard to open the doorway ahead once we've had a breather."
Sighing with relief, Mother slumped against the nearest available backrest – in this case, the trunk of a massive dead tree – and slid gently to the ground, Preston still in her arms. Both were asleep within seconds of sitting down.
They'd been journeying for well over a month by now.
The moment Pacifica had first gained the power to open portals, the three of them had gathered up all the provisions they could possibly carry and readied themselves to escape. Granted, they didn't leave immediately: it had taken a little effort to talk Mother out of packing the entire medicine cabinet, Preston needed to discouraged from bringing along his best tailored suits (which didn't fit him anymore, anyway), and even Pacifica herself wasn't entirely immune to this sort of frivolousness; more than once, she'd caught herself adding silk gowns and diamond necklaces to the luggage.
It was nothing more than habit and instinct, but it still annoyed her that she kept falling back on the old patterns: after all, Pacifica herself didn't need fine clothing or jewels anymore – not when her ability to control matter allowed her to create gemstones that would rival the Koh-I-Noor on a whim.
In the end, most of their supplies consisted of food, for though she seemed perfectly capable of conjuring up almost other any kind of object, edibles were apparently beyond Pacifica's abilities. No matter how hard she tried, the meal she eventually created ended up being puked right back out again. As such, it wasn't until they were weighed down with everything they could pillage from the kitchens that the three of them finally set off through the portal that Pacifica had opened.
Unfortunately, as Pacifica quickly discovered, because her powers were tied to the Throne, they tended to work the easiest when she was within reach of it: every time she entered a new playground, her magic struggled to adjust to the distance, leaving her temporarily powerless for several minutes. All in all, it wasn't such a trial, but it might very well be fatal if they ever arrived to find themselves in the middle of a war zone – which fortunately hadn't happened.
Yet.
Bit by bit, playground by playground, they'd slowly progressed across Bill's kingdom. So far, they hadn't met anyone yet, for none of the playgrounds had actually featured anything close to a settlement, much less a real prison. Most of the little pocket realities they'd blundered across were little more than nightmare landscapes – grisly sideshows to frighten travellers, really: roads made of petrified human skeletons, each one a ghastly white expanse dotted with millions upon millions of empty eye sockets staring up them as they crossed; forests where the trees hung heavy with corpses dangling from makeshift gallows, thick with greenery yet all but barren of animal life – except for the multitudinous flies that infested them; cathedral-like spires of wrought iron and shatterproof glass stretching eternally into the endless night, where lightning continuously split the sky with eye-searing bolts and multi-limbed wraithlike horrors oozed across the blasted earth in search of easy prey; foul-smelling oceans of shallow, brackish water and writhing plagues of rank-furred rats, each one instantly biting, clawing and swarming over anyone who strayed too close – an experience that left Preston almost catatonic with terror until Mother had agreed to carry him.
No combat – for a little bit of pyrokinesis was enough to send the roaming monsters running for cover; no sign of human life beyond the occasional abandoned camp; and worst of all, no way of finding out where the other members of the zodiac were being held – because at that point, finding Dipper, Mabel and the others was the only plan she had on hand.
After all, it wasn't as if there was anything else to do, was there?
The journey had been slow: Pacifica needed time to recover the use her powers after every trip through a portal; Mother was continuously delayed by her shoes (which she refused to discard), her ongoing search for a well-supplied pharmacist, and the weird behaviour that resulted as her supplies of "medication" gradually ran down; Preston had accepted his new role as the youngest member of the Northwest household a little too well, for he needed a constant procession of soothing words, held hands and the occasional push just to get moving again. In the end, it was just as well Mother was willing to carry him, otherwise he wouldn't have budged after the last few dozen scares.
But if nothing else, they were making progress. After all, they wouldn't be alone forever: sooner or later, they'd find someone – a group of refugees in search of shelter, a shantytown of desperate survivors eking out a living, or maybe just some lost wanderer like them.
Or maybe they'd find wherever Bill was keeping the other members of the zodiac, and they'd be able to rescue them.
Maybe, just maybe Pacifica would get to see Dipper again soon.
I just wish I could be human again when the time comes, she thought absently, unable to stop herself from glaring down at her glossy porcelain hands in disgust.
Unfortunately, Pacifica's abilities didn't extend to altering flesh, so he wasn't up to making herself into a human being just yet; that particular transformation would have to wait until it was safe to claim another barb of the throne… assuming it ever would be safe. For more or less the same reason, she hadn't been able to return Preston to his real age, so it seemed as though he was stuck as her little brother for the time being.
And somehow, I've ended up getting used to the idea of my Father becoming my little brother. This might just be the weirdest thing that's happened since Weirdmageddon started, apart from the whole "Bill-turned-me-into-a-doll" thing. That's the one thing I don't think anyone would be able to adjust to…
…but I guess I'll just have to live with being a doll for now… and hope I really will get the chance to see Dipper and the others again…
Pacifica sighed. "Come on, you two," she said. "It's time we moved on. The portal will be ready in just a minute."
"Aw, do we have to? I mean, I was just getting comfortable-"
"Now, Preston. We need to keep going: I want to see if we can find someone before the end of the day."
"What day? We haven't seen the sun rise or set since we left the mansion!"
"Could we please not waste time getting pedantic, Mother? We're running low on food already, and we're only going to waste more of them if we just sit around moping; if we can find someone – a camp, a settlement, one of the zodiac – maybe we'll be able to take a proper rest once we've stock up. Until then, we need to keep moving on."
By now, the three of them had been so many portals that they'd lost count – more than enough to establish a routine. As always, Pacifica began by marching up to the exact point where the little playground came to an end – usually taking the form of an invisible wall dividing this part of Bill's kingdom from the next, almost like the glass dome of a snow-globe. Then, Pacifica spread her arms wide, reaching out with all the power the Northwest Throne had granted her, grasping the edges of that self-contained world and pulling its ethereal substance taught; then she tore it, wrenching open a massive hole in the flesh of the world.
Bit by bit, she widened the gap, sending a glowing fissure sliding along the length of the wall; by the time she'd finished, the road ahead ended in a ten-foot-tall rent in the fabric of local reality, exposing a mass of multi-coloured energies swirling and eddying in geometrically impossible shapes. This was to be their gateway to the next section of Bill's kingdom.
As always, Pacifica glanced over her shoulder to make sure that Mother and Preston were paying attention before she began.
"Remember what we rehearsed," she said softly. "Until I give the all-clear, you stay put: don't follow me unless there's literally no other choice. Got it?"
Mother and Preston obediently nodded.
"Alright then... wish me luck."
And with that, Pacifica took a deep breath and stepped through the portal.
For twelve heart-stopping seconds, she saw nothing but a broiling maelstrom of eternally-overlapping lights and colours: it was like being shot headfirst down a child's kaleidoscope, a four thousand-mile-an-hour journey through a continent-sized tunnel of glittering geodes and boiling lava, bombarded on all sides by a cacophonous chorus of earsplittingly dissonant music, indecipherable words spoken in nightmarish voices, and random sound effects – everything from the rumble and sudden crash of thunder to the nerve-shredding shriek of fingernails on a chalkboard. But as the first twelve seconds passed, the light faded, and at last the swirling haze of colours and sounds began to resolve themselves into recognizable forms.
Neon-pink wallpaper, every inch of it glowing vividly in the warm daylight pouring in through the mural windows.
Forget-me-not-blue carpet, softer than clouds and thick enough to lose golf balls in.
Gigantic plush beanbag chairs, bouncing-castle beds, levitating hammocks and other furniture too ostentatious even for Northwest standards.
And a voice from the next room: a woman's voice – or so it seemed.
A giggling voice, sickly-sweet and poisonously saccharine, all syrup and cyanide and sandpaper. A voice that seemed to purr, as self-satisfied as a cat licking fresh blood off its paws, but seemed to grate at the same time. A voice without empathy.
"Aw, cheer up," it said. "Come over here and have a seat on Auntie Pyronica's lap…"
Mabel wasn't entirely sure when time had started misbehaving.
Truth be told, she wasn't sure of anything anymore.
Bit by bit, the last few weeks had whittled away at her grip on events. The encounter with the mutilated Dipper had left her reeling; the discovery of the sock puppets – the only family and friends she'd ever know from now on – had left her a sobbing wreck; the sudden influx of new memories had almost destroyed her… and the sheer confusion over what had really happened had nearly sealed the deal.
Once, she'd known what had happened on the day of the puppet show – or at least she'd thought she'd known what had happened: she'd stopped Bipper and saved her brother's life. And as shameful as the day had been in hindsight, in spite of all the stupid things she'd done and nearly done on that day, there was no denying the fact that Dipper had survived it.
But now… now her recollections of that day had all been thrown into question, for now she'd somehow ended up with a completely different set of memories.
Now she remembered the puppet show going off without a hitch.
Now she remembered finding Dipper's lifeless body at the foot of the water tower.
For days, Mabel had tried to ignore these new memories, to pretend that they'd been invented by Bill to torture her. After all, how could she be here in Mabeland if Dipper had died that day? The only reason she'd ended up here in the first place was because Bill had decided to reward her for giving him the Rift, and that had only happened because she'd accidentally taken it from Dipper.
And more to the point, what about that encounter in her room just a few weeks ago? How could she have seen Dipper, tortured and mangled just as badly as Grunkle Stan and Ford, if he'd been dead long before Bill had gotten his hands on him? How would it have been possible for him to appear if the puppet show really had gone as badly as the new memories suggested?
But every time she tried to convince herself that Dipper had survived the day, doubt crept up on her, swift and merciless.
These new memories weren't visions that Bill had cooked up for her; they weren't like the flash-forwards she'd been subjected to for breaking the rules, those illusory mini-movies projected into her brain. She hadn't just experienced the new version of events: she'd remembered it – as if it had already happened, but had been forgotten.
So, what if Dipper really had died that day, and everything Mabel had experienced since the puppet show had just been something she'd dreamed up to cope with the awful reality of what had happened that day?
Or what if she'd simply gone insane during her time in the Endless Summer, and started inventing new ways to make herself suffer?
Or maybe – just maybe – she really was in hell.
Why not? It made sense: regardless of whether she'd killed Dipper or the entire world, she was a horrible person. This was exactly the kind of place that people like her naturally ended up, wasn't it? A place where she had everything she'd ever wanted – but all of it made so poisonous and vile that it was impossible to stomach.
She'd had more ideas about what might have happened, but in all honesty, they mattered very little. In the end, the confusion only made her head throb and her nose bleed like a busted faucet.
For hours on end, she'd paced her bedroom, trying to force all the awful, awful thoughts out of her head, but they stubbornly refused to budge, no matter how many times she upped the volume on Mabeland's BGM. She would have liked nothing more to have gone outside, if only because the noise of the crowds would have been able to distract her, but it looked as though Bill had sentenced her to a long stay of house arrest as punishment for her newest failure to follow the rules, so it looked as though she was forced to stay put for the time being.
In the end, what had almost driven her insane wasn't the silence, the sense of confinement or even the torturous memories she'd been saddled with: it had been the puppets. She'd been pacing the room in a desperate attempt to keep herself occupied, when she'd happened to stumble against one of the crates that had been left behind during her last vision of Dipper and her Grunkles, and the whole thing had tipped over, spilling sock puppets all over the floor, all of them left to lie face-up, googly eyes staring directly at her.
And looking down at those goofy, cartoonish lumps of cloth, Mabel had been gripped by the unshakeable notion that the puppets were moving, that all of them were slowly shivering to life even as she watched: some were re-enacting the fatal puppet show, complete with a Dipper puppet launching itself to its death from atop a shelf; some were replaying the awful moment where Dipper, Grunkle Stan and Grunkle Ford had come to see her, all three puppets tattered and torn just so there was no ignoring who they represented; and some… some were creeping towards her, ready to make her suffer in ways she couldn't possibly imagine – even though they weren't really moving.
"No!" she'd yelled. "I'm not going to let you hurt me again! I'm not here!"
And with that, she'd dropped to the floor, pulled the neckline of her sweater over her head, tucked her arms and legs under the sweater, and curled into a ball.
"MABEL'S IN SWEATER TOWN!" she'd screamed, loud enough to be heard on the other side of the city. "You can't hurt her, because she isn't here to be hurt, and don't bother looking for her because nobody can hurt Mabel in Sweater Town! Mabel's going to be just fine! She's going to be okay because she's still a good person! She's going to make everything right and Dipper's going to be okay and Grunkle Ford's going to be okay and Grunkle Stan's going to be… going to be… g…"
After that, it had gotten a little bit difficult to breathe.
Once she'd regained consciousness, eyes wet with tears and the taste of bile in her mouth, she realized that she couldn't stay in Mabeland a moment longer.
Between that last letter from Dipper and these confusing new memories, the world she'd created had actually gone beyond unbearable: she couldn't stand the light, the colour, the music, the constant demands for her to attend executions, the sight of her face glaring back at her from the propaganda posters, the nightmares she endured every time she broke the rules, or the way Bill had to twist this place only slightly to make it into a hell. Most of all, she couldn't stand the undeserved luxury of the place.
So, as soon as she'd been allowed near the portal again, she left Mabeland and made a beeline for the portal, fulling intending never to return to the utopia she'd built. Yes, the Endless Summer was its own special kind of hell, but if nothing else, it was a more honest one. After all, it wasn't as if anyone was going to attend executions, torture people or set herself up as a goddess; it wasn't as if the Endless Summer was going to make her into an even worse person.
Was it?
Once she was there, she remained at the Mystery Shack for almost a day, drinking in the tomblike silence that had infested Gravity Falls; she needed the quiet, for it was the only respite from the mind-numbing patchwork of synth music, triumphal marches and nightmares that she'd been made to endure back in Mabeland. But eventually, restlessness and over twenty-four straight hours of sleep forced her out of the attic and out into the midst of Gravity Falls' motionless population.
And then she spoke to them.
For what felt like days, she bombarded the people of the Endless Summer with every single thought that crossed her mind, pausing only to eat or sleep – and sometimes not even then: questions, suggestions, jokes, one-sided conversations, anything so long as it vented all the thoughts she hadn't been able to voice back in Mabeland. As long as she didn't look them in the eyes, so long as she couldn't imagine their accusing glares, she could go on speaking until she'd exhausted all her pent-up emotions, all her frustrations, loneliness and guilt.
Because more than anything else, she was apologising. Sooner or later, no matter who she spoke to, she always ended up confessing – to how selfish she'd been, to how deeply she'd hurt Dipper time and again, the part she'd played in starting Weirdmageddon, the special privileges she'd been afforded back in Mabeland – all of it. She needed to say this, if only for the sake of her own sanity. Yes, she spent most of these confessions in tears, and yes, she found it difficult to stop talking once she'd started, but at least she felt better once it was all over and done with… for a time, anyway.
She could never confess to her own family, though: Grunkle Ford, Grunkle Stan and Dipper were always off-limits. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't say anything to them; every time she tried to speak, her throat clenched shut with guilt, strangling her into silence.
In hindsight, if she hadn't been so preoccupied with bawling her eyes out, she might have noticed that time in the Endless Summer was behaving oddly a little sooner.
Most of the things she did see were only fleeting, split-second glimpses out of the corner of her eye, things all-too-easily dismissed as her depression deepened.
Little things.
Every now and again, she'd find fallen leaves in previously empty gutters.
Tiny footprint-shaped patches of dead grass seemed to appear in Mabel's wake.
A pillow she'd thrown off her bed somehow failed to hit the ground, remaining paused in mid-air until Mabel finally rolled over and looked at it – whereupon it dropped like a stone.
Cars halted in the middle of the street seemed to change position when Mabel wasn't watching, tyre-tracks suddenly materializing on the road behind them, as if they'd been moving at speed while her back was turned.
Leaning against a tree one trying day, she thought she heard the sound of wind stirring the branches and rustling the leaves – but how could that be when the breeze remained as motionless as the rest of Gravity Falls?
Strangest of all, clocks seemed to misbehave in her presence – in the sense that they started working, but in ways that made no sense: her Meow O'Clock began ticking backwards, the clock in Grenda's house blurred into a furious fast-forward, common wristwatches always rewound themselves to 7:30 no matter how far they were tampered with, and Soos's heavily-modified alarm clock somehow began to function normally.
In the end, Mabel managed to dismiss all of this as her own mind playing tricks on her, partly because she was too preoccupied with her ongoing chats with the frozen citizens to pay too much attention, but mostly because she was beginning to think she really was insane.
And then one day, while aimlessly roaming the vast forest in search of something else to occupy her time, she found herself straying past the ranks of redwood, through regions populated only by the strangest and most magical denizens of Gravity Falls, and finally staggering to a halt at the threshold of the Enchanted Glade. She'd no idea what she intended to do in there, and frankly she wasn't thinking further than the next footstep, but one way or the other, she drifted placidly through the colossal gates like a sleepwalker, and into the den of the Unicorns.
Sure enough, just past the brook paused mid-babble and right at the foot of the frozen waterfall, the familiar figure of Celestabellebethabell sat placidly in the shade of a miniature rainbow.
For almost a full minute, Mabel stood in silence, staring up at the unicorn as she tried to figure out what the hell she was going to do next. Quite apart from the fact that she'd no idea what she'd intended to do here in the first place, something about Celestabellebethabell's unearthly stare seemed to burrow into her: no matter how hard Mabel tried to avoid the unicorn's eyes, her gaze always seemed to be perfectly focussed on her regardless of where she stood in the clearing. And though she told herself that the self-important show-pony wasn't actually looking at her, she couldn't shake the feeling that Celestabellebethabell knew she was there.
But unlike the citizens of Gravity Falls, there was no sense of suspicion or judgement in the unicorn's eyes.
Of course not, Mabel thought bitterly, judgement was what you had on offer the last time I was here.
No: if anything, Celestabellebethabell's gaze seemed almost mocking.
Taunting.
Come on in, those vacuous eyes seemed to say. After all, you think you deserve to be here among us, don't you. Well, with an attitude like yours, you probably do. I mean, just look at you, Mabel: stupid, selfish, vain, insensitive and cruel… you'd fit right in here. You'd make a perfect unicorn!
"Shut up," Mabel hissed.
Celestabellebethabell, who hadn't said anything before or after Mabel had entered the glade, remained perfectly silent.
"Stop looking at me."
Mabel was crying now, trying furiously to blink away the tears even as they trickled down her cheeks in white-hot streams, trying to look away from the unicorn's piercing glare but failing, failing every time.
"I'm not you," she said, but without conviction. "I'm nothing like you, okay? I don't care what you think: I'm trying to be a better person, and I know I'm not making much progress, but at least I'm trying. I'm not just sitting here doing nothing while the world goes down the tubes."
Was it her imagination, or was that a smirk she saw on Celestabellebethabell's face?
"I can be a better person. I will be a better person. I proved it once, I'll prove it again! You'll see – I'll show you!"
The unicorn's gaze flickered for a moment; had Celestabellebethabell just rolled her eyes?
"Oh, like you know any better? Have you helped anyone – ever? All you've had to do is look pretty and do as little as possible! I've made mistakes, sure, but I am trying to make things right! I learn from my mistakes!"
Mabel's guilt-fuelled imagination helpfully dredged up a few choice sentences: yes, like you learned after the day Dipper came to save you from the gnomes, the Unicorn's silent gaze seemed to say. Like you learned after your puppet show almost cost Dipper's life – and maybe it did! You've learned a lot of lessons, Mabel, and the only one that seems to have stuck is the one you learned after you killed the entire planet. Oh well, better late than never!
"OH SHUT UP!" Mabel shrieked, composure audibly shattering. "SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP!"
Wildly scanning the glade for anything that could put an end to the non-existent tirade, she reached down, snatched up a decent-sized stone from the edge of the brook and threw it as hard as she could at the unicorn's defenceless face.
Immediately, Mabel regretted it. As hateful as Celestabellebethabell was, she didn't deserve to have rocks thrown at her for things she hadn't said – and more to the point, wasn't even capable of saying. Already, she was cursing herself for letting her imagination run wild, for losing her temper, for throwing stones, for once again proving just how terrible she was at being "a better person…"
But no sooner had the stone left her hand…
It paused in mid-air.
For ten seconds, the rock hovered motionless in mid-air, frozen in time just like the rest of Gravity Falls.
Then, without warning, it zipped backwards through the air and landed in her outstretched hand so smoothly that Mabel barely felt the impact.
This wasn't telekinesis; remembering Gideon's magical amulet all too well, she knew what telekinesis looked and felt like: this was time running in reverse. Looking around the glade, she could see that the rest of the area was still effectively frozen, so however it had happened, time had only shifted backwards for the rock in her hand.
Mabel took a very deep breath, and wondered – not for the first time since Weirdmageddon had gone global – if she'd gone completely insane in the last few hours and hadn't even noticed it.
But looking down at the rock sitting in her palm, thoughts of madness bouncing around the inside of her skull, an idea struck her: it was a ridiculous idea, an idea almost as crazy as she might very well have been, but the more she thought about it, the more intriguing it became. Supposing, just for the sake of argument...
Taking careful aim at a tree trunk on the other side of the glade, Mabel drew back her arm and flung the rock into the air. This time, however, time didn't stop: the rock simply soared across the clearing, bounced off the tree trunk, and vanished into the undergrowth.
Gritting her teeth, Mabel plucked another stone from the brook and tried again, this time trying to summon up the same sense of anger, guilt, embarrassment, regret and self-reproach she'd felt immediately after she'd lobbed the last stone at Celestabellebethabell's head… and this time, the stone once again stopped in mid-air and vacuumed itself backwards into her outstretched hand.
Bit by bit, she began to experiment on this strange new ability: a few cursory attempts to restart or rewind the brook failed, trying to put snapped twigs back together proved easier said than done, and none of the birds, fauns, gnomes, unicorns, or lost hikers in the surrounding woods responded to the power at all. This last one was more than a little bit perturbing, because either Mabel's powers didn't extend to living things, or the people here really were just mannequins made of flesh: she might very well be able to unpause them, but she'd never know it because the people here were essentially lifeless. Nonetheless, one simple fact remained unchanged:
Somehow, Mabel had found a way to tweak time, it if not control it outright.
And this hadn't been the first time it had happened, had it? The dead grass in her wake, the pillow hovering in mid-air – the power had been rippling around her for some time in fits and starts, but she'd only just learned how to actually use it.
Was this a side-effect of spending so much time in Endless Summer? Was this some new trick Bill was playing on her?
Or was she just going crazy after all?
Oh well, if I'm losing my mind, I guess it could be worse: controlling time isn't so bad as far as hallucinations go.
By that stage, Mabel was feeling tired and, having no overwhelming desire to sleep in the forest – not after all the nightmares of Bill and Blendin that had ensued – she left the glade and set off back down the long, rambling trail that led away from the most magical regions of the forest back into Gravity Falls proper. But as the redwoods slowly thinned and the first of the houses crept into view, Mabel suddenly became aware that something in the Endless Summer had changed; something new was in the air.
Having long since gotten used to the unearthly quiet that shrouded the town, it wasn't until she reached the outskirts of Main Street that she realized that something had finally broken the silence of Gravity Falls. Up until now, the only sound had been her own footsteps and the fading echo of her own voice as she screamed her confessions at the frozen townsfolk. Now, though…
It was a hissing sound, an oozing, syrupy, sibilant susurration rippling across the rooftops and echoing down the streets. And whatever was making the sound, it had to be enormous – not just because of the sheer force of volume, but because every now and again, the hissing was joined by the sound of crustacean limbs clicking noisily against the asphalt.
By now, Mabel knew that she should leave: she should turn around and head directly for the portal to Mabeland, no matter how torturous the place had become to her by now; she'd no idea what could possibly be making that sound, but it couldn't mean anything good for her. In the end, though, curiosity won out over good sense. Mabel had been alone too long in one world or another, and she needed to see the new arrival with her own eyes – once again, for the sake of her own sanity, doubtful though it was.
So she continued onwards, following the sound of hissing to its source. It wasn't easy, though, for whatever the thing was, it didn't seem inclined to stay put; as such, it took almost fifteen minutes of frantic sprinting across the block before she finally turned a corner – and saw the monster with her own eyes.
For twelve stomach-churning seconds, Mabel could only stare uncomprehendingly at the creature sitting in the middle of the road before her, trying vainly to make sense of its hideous shape. Whatever it was, it stood taller than most of the nearby houses, its body stretching longer than a semitrailer; it's rippling flesh was a mottled, sickly shade of dark red and cobwebbed with pulsating black veins, and as Mabel crept closer, she swore she could see the faint but all-too-distinctive shapes of human faces oozing in and out of its bulk. After that that, descriptions became increasingly hazy, for the thing didn't seem in the mood to be recognized, much less classified.
At first, she thought it was a giant slug of some kind, for as near as she could tell it was little more than a colossal lump of gastropod blubber dripping with viscous slime and undulating hideously in the sunset. But then the monster shifted slightly, and she caught a glimpse of a gargantuan set of mouthparts protruding from its lumpen form, a ponderous tooth-studded siphon like the head of a lamprey; it was eating something, its mouthparts furiously sucking at something just out of view – producing the hissing sound that had drawn her this far, but she couldn't see what it was from this angle. Then, as the creature shuffled back and forth on the spot, she realized that its massive body was actually supported by an enormous set of lobster-like legs, clattering across the sidewalk with a series of earsplitting clicks louder than gunshots… except, as the creature's movements subsided, the legs sank back into its bulbous flanks like shark fins sliding back underwater. Then, a barrage of whiplike-tentacles erupted from its uppermost hump and lashed towards the nearest houses in a storm of fleshy tendrils, crashing through windows and dragging dozens of frozen townsfolk outside; as Mabel watched, the flesh of its back yawned open into a series of mouths from all over the animal kingdom – human lips and teeth, canine jaws, shark fangs, bird beaks, leech's suckers, insectoid proboscises, and dozens more that she couldn't even identify – all gaping wide to swallow up the bounty of motionless humans as the tentacles shovelled them down its countless throats.
Was it Mabel's imagination, or was the thing actually growing as it ate?
Once again, the monster shifted in place, and at last she saw what its main set of mouthparts had been feeding on: lying in the middle of the road was a bus, its chassis peeled open like a can of sardines; by now, the nightmarish beast had nearly finished its meal, for the hissing had almost subsided, but Mabel could clearly see that the inside of the bus was covered in blood.
Mabel clapped a hand over her mouth to stifle the harsh intake of breath, but too late; the echoes were already travelling.
The hissing stopped.
Against expectations, the monster did not turn around. Instead, its bulk rippled, and a legion of blood-red eyes suddenly opened all across its slimy form, each eyeball instantly focussed on her.
Then, the several dozen mouths across its back opened once more, and to Mabel's astonishment, the creature began to speak.
"Aaaaaah," it said, its voice a hundred-strong chorus. "Something new. Something fresher. Something tastier. Come closer, little morsel. Come closer and join your fellow kine."
"I'm fine right here, thanks," Mabel squeaked.
"Fitting. You are not like the others, it would seem. The kine here are bland and tasteless. They have blood, yes, and despite whatever magic suspended them this way, they have life… but they have no soul, no experience, no flavour. They have life, but have not lived. They are… artificial. Like the sun; I've stood here for hours and the light has not burned, let alone weakened me. Everything of this world is a sham…
"But you… yes, I can sense you are different. You are young, but you have seen more than most kine of my world had seen in a lifetime… and perhaps there is something more to you; there is something of this place's magic to you, little morsel, something more than human…"
Mabel thought again of how she had somehow been able to control time a few minutes ago, and wondered if she'd be able to use it again at short notice. It didn't seem likely, but if she could summon the power with effort, she'd need to buy some time and distance: she needed to keep this thing talking, and she needed to back away – nice and slowly, so it didn't notice its prey was making a break for freedom.
"Your world?" she echoed, trying to sound braver than she felt. "What are you? Are you another one of the Henchmaniacs?"
"I have been many things, child. "Henchmaniac" is not one of them. In life, I was one of the Awakened, a Mage and Seer in the time before the Flood. In death, I was the Childe of Ynosh the Lawgiver, Grandson of Caine the Dark Father. After the Deluge had passed, my children hailed me the Eldest, the greatest of those they called Antediluvians. Now… now I am more. Now I am all things. Now I am God, the final evolution of the vampire race."
Mabel blinked, pausing in mid-step. "You're… a vampire?" she blurted out.
"Yesssssssssssss. We called ourselves Kindred, but since none are left other than myself, I see no need for obfuscating labels. If you must call me by a name, you may refer to me as Tzimisce."
"Shimmy-see-what?" Mabel echoed, suddenly too confused to be frighted. "No, no, no, back up the crazy train a minute: you're a vampire?!"
Tzimisce laughed.
"I see your thoughts, little morsel. You've wanted to encounter something like me for some time, yes? I see visions in your mind of… Norman, yes? He was nothing more than gnomes, but you hoped he was a vampire! This is your golden opportunity, then! Come closer: meet your fantasy in the flesh…"
"Uh… thanks but… well, I kinda had other things to do today. I mean, I'm flattered you'd like to drink my blood and everything but-"
Once again, Tzimisce laughed, its dozens of mouths gaping in perfectly-synchronized mirth.
"You think that's all I want, little morsel? Oh no, sweet kine. I've expended a great deal of effort sending this extension of myself across dimensions, and now this proxy body is hungry for more than mere vitae: it requires flesh, biomass to absorb and assimilate to prepare it for the task of further exploring this new world. Come closer, little morsel. Join my totality. Be of me."
And without warning, Tzimisce's body began reshaping itself, sprouting tentacles, crustacean claws, oozing pseudopods tipped with screaming human faces; snarling, four-legged shapes tore themselves loose from the monster's hide, jaws sprouting needle-sharp fangs as they lunged towards Mabel; enormous birds erupted from the upper slopes of Tzimisce's mass and swept down at her, talons outstretched; and as the vampire god finally turned its colossal body to face her, Mabel saw that Tzimisce's "face" was now a writhing mass of barely-human figures slowly lurching free from the protoplasmic mass of flesh, each one of them reaching out with vestigial, half-formed arms to seize her.
For a split second, Mabel thought of using her newfound powers to stop her attacker in its tracks, a ghost of her old confidence briefly rallying just long enough to keep its head a few inches out of the grave. But then fear took over: what if she couldn't get her control over time to work? What if she got it wrong? Or what if Tzimisce was immune to her powers?
She wouldn't have asked questions like these before Weirdmageddon. She would have let Dipper ask them and taken the plunge by herself, totally assured that she could have done the impossible. But then, things had changed: between all the isolation, the torture, the new memories and the relentless picking at her insecurities, something vital had been lost. She wasn't the same girl anymore… and perhaps, if those powers were any evidence, she wasn't even human anymore.
So instead, she simply put her head down and ran as fast as possible in the opposite direction, sprinting along the street with all the speed the imminent fear of death could grant.
You're okay, she told herself, trying vainly to resuscitate her confidence as the houses blurred around her. You've gotten out of tighter scrapes than this. Remember the Gobblewonker? That was just as dangerous and a whole lot faster than this thing… okay, the Gobblewonker wasn't out to drink your blood and absorb you, but you survived that. You can survive this. All you've got to is get to the portal, and you'll be safe.
A vulture the size of a small airplane rocketed past Mabel's head, talons snapping shut on the exact spot her left arm had been a split-second ago. Behind her, she heard the sound of snarls and growls drawing closer as the four-legged shapes continued their pursuit, until she could almost feel their breath on the back of her neck.
Might be just a tiny bit easier said than done, she reflected.
Up ahead, something vaguely human-shaped lurched out of an alleyway, followed by at least twenty more freshly-spawned from the vampire's bulk, swiftly cutting off Mabel's escape route. Skidding to a halt, she turned around, aiming for a fresh route down the path to her left – only to be brought up short by a pack of snarling fleshy wolves, backed by a wing of vultures. After that, her only other option was to backtrack, but by now Tzimisce was blocking the road, its ponderous mass barring all escape attempts.
Suddenly caught in the metaphorical headlights, Mabel froze, paralysed by the sight of the monster creeping towards her – inescapable and seemingly unstoppable.
"Why are you running, little morsel?" Tzimisce called, its multitude of voices only slightly muffled by the click of its feet against the road. "You don't want to run, not really. You want peace. You want freedom. You want an end to your suffering. I can hear your thoughts, sweet kine: I can sense the guilt in your wretched soul, the twisted memories in your head. Betrayal weighs heavy on you, and madness cling to you like the scent of the grave. You know you're a horrible person, and you know that you didn't help anyone and that you didn't make a difference in any way… and more to the point, you can't make a difference even after all the different ways this place has changed you. You don't want to live, and you don't believe you deserve to live, not after what you did to your family. Surrender to me, Mabel Pines, and you'll never have to think about them again; be of me and I will grant you sleep eternal."
Maybe it was the stress, maybe it was the hopelessness, maybe it was the simple fact that the vampire had been correct in every word it had said, but the notion of surrendering sounded almost too inviting to dismiss. And for a moment that seemed to last forever, Mabel wanted nothing more than to lie down and let Tzimisce absorb her.
And then, just as she was taking the first fatal steps towards the vampire god, closing her eyes as she went, a thought – a single, maddened, desperate thought – echoed across her brain. It was nonsensical at best and utterly pointless at worst, but it was enough to stop her in mid-step.
What if this power really could make a difference? What if I could see Dipper again, and apologise? It went. What if it's not impossible? What if really I could make things right?
In all honestly, it was an idea that only Mabel could have thought of, a ludicrously fantastical thought completely outside the boundaries of reality, a concept that arrived on a tide of rainbows and pure sugar flanked by levitating dolphins with musclebound human arms… but it was enough to ignite that familiar white-hot spark inside her mind.
Mabel opened her eyes just in time to see one of Tzimisce's tentacles looming overhead, ready to snatch her away. And in that moment, the spark inside her brain erupted: the thought of seeing Dipper again, of making things right, of finally being able to apologise – it was now the fuel her powers needed.
And just as it had when she'd thrown the stone at Celestabellebethabell, the newfound magic flared outwards.
Suddenly, the tentacle wasn't in motion anymore.
Suddenly, the vampire-god was frozen in place, trapped in suspended animation – and whatever force controlling the fleshy monstrosities he'd conjured up was frozen as well: instantly, the humanoid shapes blocking the way toppled, tumbling over one another like shopfront mannequins at a bowling alley; a moment later, the wolf-like creatures collapsed as well, and even the vultures spiralled helplessly from the sky.
Mabel didn't know how long her powers would keep Tzimisce under wraps, or even if the vampire god wasn't capable of undoing what she'd done. One way or the other, she wasn't sticking around to find out.
By now, Mabel knew that returning to Mabeland would be an open invitation to be subjected to every form of emotional torture that Bill Cipher could possibly devise… but in the end, it was a whole lot better than getting eaten by Tzimisce. So, as she leapt through the portal, she contented herself with the thought that hopefully her new powers still worked in Mabeland, and with a little effort and a lot of luck, she might just be able to master them.
Question is, what the heck am I gonna to after that? She wondered, as the portal walls eddied past her. I don't have the power to just conjure up a way out of here, and this place isn't a prison bubble so I can't just burst my way out like last time. So what am I supposed to do once I've gotten the hang of this whole "stopping time" business?
All those questions and more ended up on Mabel's growing list of problems. But if nothing else, at least some of the problems looked mildly solvable this time.
Unfortunately, the moment she found herself back in her bedchamber, she realized it wasn't going to be as simple as she thought – which wasn't saying much, admittedly. Something was wrong: the room was dark; the lights had been dimmed, the curtains had been drawn – even what little sunlight she could see through the curtains seemed distinctly subdued. For once, gloom pervaded in the normally garish Mabeland, along with a distinct note of menace. But it wasn't until Mabel saw the figure lurking behind the monumental desk that she realized what was wrong.
Pyronica was seated in her chair, perpetually-stilettoed feet on the desk and a wicked grin on her face.
"Well, look who it is!" she cackled. "The Queen of Mabeland, back in her kingdom at last! How's it been going, Shooting Star? You been having fun? Been lonely out there in Endless Summer?"
"What do you want?" Mabel shot back. She should have been minding her manners, especially after all the extra punishments that had been heaped on her every time she'd showed defiance, but she was too tired and too annoyed to tread carefully. Besides, after her little run-in with Tzimisce, the Henchmaniacs just weren't up to frightening Mabel anymore.
"Is that any way to talk to a friend, Your Highness? Bill's sent me to keep an eye on you." She theatrically tapped her single eye with a long, flame-wreathed finger. "And here I am, just for you. Just to make you feel better… and you look like you need it, am I right?"
"Look, would you just say what you came here to say or leave me alone? I'm really not in the mood to be toyed with at this point, not after what happened to me back in Gravity Falls."
"Oh really? And what happened there, Shooting Star? Was it painful? Was it torturous? Was it nightmarish?" Pyronica's grin erupted into a horrorshow of mismatched buckteeth and fangs. "Do tell, do tell. Bill's had me running around deep space conquering refugee installations every other day of the week, and I need something to keep me warm on those cold… lonely… massacres. So tell me, what happened?"
That's weird. Either she's screwing around with my head, or… she really doesn't know. Have they not been watching me? Do the Henchmaniacs really not know what's been going on?
"Don't feel like telling me?" Pyronica asked. "Oh well. I suppose I'll have to make do with the forlorn screams of orphans crying over their dead parents. But enough about me – what would cheer you up?"
"What'd be the point in telling you? You'll only pack me off to solitary confinement for telling you."
"Oh, turn that frown upside-down. You've got a lot to be thankful for, if you'll think about it: you just need a few pointers on how to have fun, Shooting Star. I mean, I could give you a makeover that could make entire ecosystems die in your presence, and I could show you how to eat sunlight until the stars die… but I'm not making this about me. What'd make you happy?"
Seeing my family again. Knowing Dipper's still alive. Knowing I still have a chance to say sorry. The chance to make things right.
The depression must have shown on her face, because Pyronica made a cooing noise that might have sounded almost maternal if it had emerged from a human voicebox, but from her it sounded like the howl of the wind in a desolate canyon.
"Aw, cheer up,"she purred. "Come over here and have a seat on Auntie Pyronica's lap…"
And before Mabel could even think of saying no, Pyronica's tongue shot out at whiplash speed and wrapped itself around Mabel's waist; suddenly, she was airborne, reeled helplessly across the bedchamber like a fish on the end of a hook. At the last moment, just before Pyronica's jaws slammed shut, the tongue released her, depositing Mabel right in the Henchmaniac's lap.
"There," simpered Pyronica. "Isn't that better? No need to fuss. Just sit here and let your troubles bleed to death."
She ran a soothing hand through Mabel's hair in a gesture that might have seemed affectionate if Pyronica's hands hadn't been permanently shrouded in glowing pink flames. However, to Mabel's surprise, the monster's touch was ice-cold, the flames on her arms seemingly emitting glacial frost instead of heat – enough to make her shiver in more than mere disgust.
"What do you want?" she asked quietly.
"To make you feel better, of course!"
"Let me guess, your idea of making me feel better is to give me another round of death warrants to sign."
"Jeez, Shooting Star, try to hang on to a little bit of that optimism. I'm here with a belated birthday present – a little something to take away the tears…"
And with a snap of her fingers, an elegant crystal decanter materialized on the desk, accompanied by a small cluster of tiny glasses. As Mabel sat up to take a closer look, she saw that the decanter was filled to the brim with an electric-blue liquid; whatever it was, it smelled distinctly of blueberries and thunderstorms, and as Pyronica held up the decanter to allow her a closer look, the fluid inside rippled with miniscule sparks and tiny discus-like bolts of lightning.
"Bottled Serenity," she explained. "The best thing in the world for someone in your condition."
"And what condition's that?"
"Bill thinks he's been unfair with you. I mean, he set you some pretty challenging rules already, but… well, Bill's sweet enough to admit that it wasn't sportsmanlike to give you a game you couldn't even play: you've got a problem, Shooting Star, something that makes this game unwinnable from Mabeland. That guilty conscience of yours won't let you take the next step… so Bill sent me to give you a helping hand, just to ease the transition."
"How's that?"
"You've been burdened by your conscience for too long, Shooting Star: the guilt over what happened to Dipper, over not liking Ford, over helping to start Weirdmageddon – it's holding you back, and no matter how many times Bill's tried to push you in the right direction, you keep tripping over your conscience. It's been driving you mad, hasn't it? You've been so tormented by all those thoughts in your head that you don't know what's real and what's not; you've been hallucinating, remembering things that didn't really happen, am I right?"
Question is, did I hallucinate the puppet show gone wrong, or did I hallucinate the puppet show going right? Or was Tzimisce a hallucination, too? I'll never know, because I know you'll never tell me.
"And this is where the Bottled Serenity comes into play: this takes the weight off your shoulders. One sip, and all those awful feelings – depression, loneliness, fear, self-loathing, guilt, empathy – it all goes away for the next five hours. For those five hours, you'll never have to feel a minute of guilt over the things you did to your family… and you'll never have to feel bad about attending executions."
For a moment, Mabel could only stare.
"You're giving me a drink that's gonna turn me into a psychopath?" she whispered.
"No. Bill's giving you a chance to be happy. Empathy's been holding you back, Shooting Star: once you realize how much fun you can have without a conscience, you won't even mourn it. Those thoughts about your family? Gone. The regrets over Weirdmageddon? Gone. All those thoughts about what a horrible person you think you are? Gone. Just like that. And in their place? Nothing but happiness. You can be just like you were – your usual happy-go-lucky hamster-on-coffee self – but better, freer, purer than you could have ever imagined. Don't you think you've earned the right to be selfish after everything your family threatened to take away from you? Don't you think you deserve to be happier than they could ever be?"
Mabel opened her mouth to tell Pyronica to go to hell – and then thought better of it.
"Do you really want to spend the rest of your life hating yourself? This place doesn't have to be a prison. All you have to do is have a drink of Bottled Serenity. See how it feels for a bit, and then make a decision."
"What do you mean?"
"The first drink's free, Shooting Star. If you want another drink after that… you'll have to prove you want it. Play by the rules we've set you, attend the executions, rule heartlessly, and you'll have everything you need to make those doubts go flushing down the toilet. In the meantime, the first drink's free."
And with that, Pyronica was gone, and Mabel found herself sprawled in the suddenly vacant chair, alone in her room at long last.
But the decanter of Bottled Serenity was still sitting on the desk. For twelve awful seconds, Mabel could only stare blankly at it, unable to think of what she could possibly do next.
Then, acting on reflex more than anything else, she reached out to touch the bottle; she could have been trying to pour herself a glass, she could have been about to smash the bottle and spill the contents before she could be tempted to drink – she didn't know. The moment her fingers brushed the glass, fear took over and she snatched her hand back as though the bottle was full of acid.
And with a terrible surge of despair, she realized that she didn't know what to do.
Every instinct in her body told her to take the bottle and throw it out the window, to tip it down the drain, to smash it to bits – to get rid of it before temptation got the better of her. Even if she was stupid enough to knowingly accept a deal from a Henchmaniac, the advertising spiel wasn't all that inviting: taking that fatal sip would be all the conformation she needed that she was beyond redemption, that the only thing she "deserved" would be an appointment with Tzimisce.
And yet…
…the offer of being able to endure all the guilt this place could throw at her and not feel anything… well, as much as Mabel hated to admit it, it was almost impossible to ignore. After so many punishments in Mabeland, months of brain-numbing rule over Mabeland and weeks of isolation in Endless Summer, the prospect of being able to switch off her conscience and be happy with herself was tempting – very tempting.
Think about it, what if you just played along until you satisfied the rules of the game? A few drinks, a few executions, a little wrongdoing, and that'd be it. They'd let you out, and you'd never touch another drop of Bottled Serenity again. How much simpler could it be? Besides, it's not as if you've got the power to open portals, is it? Unless this time control stuff can allow you to break out, you're stuck here forever.
Mabel sighed, and did her best to shake off these intrusive little thoughts – to no avail.
Once again the same terrible game: either let herself become exactly the kind of monster Bill wanted her to become, or remain his prisoner, tormented for all eternity.
And this time, she couldn't make up her mind.
Almost throwing herself out of the chair, she began to pace the room, trying again and again to make a decision, but every time she was building momentum towards either taking a drink or discarding it, some terrible new doubt would rise up and leave her floundering aimlessly.
For the longest time, she wanted nothing more than to return to the reassuring confines of Sweater Town. But by now she knew that it would grant her little comfort, and wouldn't help her make up her mind anyway. So with no options left, she sat down on the floor right in the centre of the room, closed her eyes… and began to speak.
To pray, really.
"Dipper, if you're listening… I don't know if you died after the puppet show or if you're still alive and being tortured by Bill; I don't know if that… that vision of you and Grunkle Ford and Grunkle Stan was real or not; I don't know if you'd ever forgive me for everything I've done; I don't even know if I'm even sitting here right now – for all I know, I'm sitting in a padded room with a stick between my teeth, I don't know. I don't know much these days… but I want you to know I'm sorry. I'm sorry for every stupid, selfish thing I did back before Weirdmageddon, and I'm sorry for… for..."
She paused, realizing with a fresh wave of guilt that she couldn't even bring herself to say it out loud. "For Weirdmageddon," she finished at last. "I'm sorry I ignored what I'd done, I'm sorry I tried to replace you, I'm sorry I never confessed to what I did, I'm sorry that I never apologised until it was too late, and I… I'm just so sorry I never told you how much I cared for you when I had the chance."
Oh lord, could I at least get through this without crying? Please?
"I miss you, bro-bro. You'd know what to do in a situation like this: you were there to show me the way out when I was trapped in Mabeland the first time, and I need your help to deal with it now. I don't know what to do anymore: I don't know if these powers will help me or if Bill's just playing another trick on me; I don't know if drinking the Bottled Serenity is my only way out of here; I'm out of ideas. Believe me, I've tried, I've tried so hard, but I don't know what to do! Please, help me: show me the right way. Give me a sign. Please, I-"
From somewhere behind her, there was a muffled crash of breaking glass.
Opening her eyes, she saw that the decanter of Bottled Serenity had been smashed against the desktop, the precious contents now spilling over the edges and quietly soaking into the carpet.
"Dipper?" Mabel whispered.
"Uh… no," said a familiar voice. "But if it makes you feel any better, I really miss him too."
There was a long pause, as Mabel's eyes frantically scanned the darkened room for the source of the voice; then, at long last, she noticed the diminutive figure clambering onto the chair.
"Pacifica?"
"So you still recognize me," the figure remarked drily. "Either I haven't changed that much or you've still got a working brain in there; after all that time you spent talking to yourself, I was starting to think you'd lost it."
"But… why are you a doll?"
Pacifica sighed deeply, pinching the bridge of her porcelain nose in exasperation. "That's a very, very long story, Mabel, and right now, we don't have the time. We've got to get out of here before Pyronica starts sniffing around again; I don't know if I'm up to fighting Henchmaniacs yet, and I don't want to ruin our big chance for freedom."
Mabel blinked uncomprehendingly, trying to make sense of the last sentence – without much success. Needless to say, she had not been expecting this. The sudden development of time-controlling powers had surprised her; the appearance of the twenty-foot-tall vampire god had shocked her; but Pacifica suddenly appearing behind her desk – in the form of a porcelain doll – was so far off-script that Mabel could only boggle in confusion. And the things that she was saying simply didn't compute on any level. Freedom? Fighting Henchmaniacs? Getting out? Good things – escapes, victories, genuine happiness, whatever – just weren't on the agenda anymore.
And yet… if all that was true, why was Mabel feeling hopeful all of a sudden?
In the end, she could only mumble, "Getting out?"
"Yes!" Pacifica erupted, grinning in a spectacularly un-Northwesterly way. "Breaking out! We're staging a jailbreak! Now, come on! We've got the rest of the zodiac to find – starting with Dipper!"
A/N: This chapter's soundtrack choice is Not Human by Javier Navarrete.
Coming up next, the zodiac finally flex their muscles, the Henchmaniacs take a dim view of things, and a recent Chekov's Gun is fired.
Or, to put it another way...
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