A/N: Aaaaaand latest chapter, everyone! It's taken a very long time and a very long chapter to get this far, but it's been worth it. Thank you to everyone who viewed, reviewed, favourited and followed: I hope this chapter lives up to standards, and I'll do my best not to let the thanks take up too much space - I'm trying to get out of that particular habit, please forgive me.
Brenne, Blind-Eyephone, Hourglass Cipher, a very angry ravage, Northgalus2002, Allotrios, Carcer13, LoyalTheorist, Kraven the Hunter, skywalkerchick1138, Fantasy Fan 223, Fanboy Guest, Guest - YOU ARE ALL WONDERFUL, WONDERFUL PEOPLE. I loved your theories, I loved your analysis, and I cannot express how grateful I am for your reviews.
Anyway, without further ado, the latest chapter: read, review, above all, enjoy!
Disclaimer: Gravity Falls is too busy floating out of my hands to be mine.
Vevm Lizxovh szev gl hgzig hlnvdsviv...
How did I even get this far?
It had started small, of course.
For a while after he'd received that fateful letter, Gideon had done little more than wait as he'd recovered from his illness. This was easily the most frustrating stage of the "plan," in part because most of it involved lots and lots of bed rest. It took almost a month, but eventually Gideon was almost fit enough to walk unassisted.
Once that was over with, he'd set to work on learning how to control his powers: as the letter had instructed, he'd submerged himself in the thoughts of his fellow refugees for as long as he could comfortably manage, sitting among large groups and letting their constant mindbabble pour down on him like hailstones of jagged glass.
At first, it had been almost impossible to deal with. Every time he tried, the telepathic feedback had left him slumped on the ground, sobbing pathetically as the agony rippled up and down his brain; for good measure, failed attempts like these usually ended with Amanda or some other overly-saccharine bitch picking him up and carried him back to his hut. It had taken all his willpower not to punch the simpering cow in the face and scream "I'm ten years old! Stop treating me like I'm a baby AND DO SOMETHING USEFUL FOR A CHANGE!"
But eventually, he'd worked out a strategy: in much the same way that ancient kings had willingly ingested small doses of venom to strengthen their bodies against poison, Gideon had spent short periods of time among the crowds until he was able to build up a resistance to the influx of thoughts. No more collapsing, no more fits, no more nosebleeds, and no more hysterical tears. The pain was still present, but at least it wasn't crippling anymore.
It had taken almost three months to get everything under control, and by the end of it, Gideon was just about ready to start chewing his own ears off. Somehow, though, he kept his sanity just long enough to rallying the refugees. Of course, he'd had to prove to these downtrodden mouthbreathers that he was a real psychic, and he had to get people genuinely interested in following him. The first was easy enough: all he had to do was pluck a few facts out of their heads and speak to them one-on-one about who they'd been before Weirdmageddon.
And then, once he'd planted enough seeds among the refugees to get them talking about him, once he was certain that the rumourmill was turning, Gideon put on his fainting seer shtick and laid on the prophecy nonsense so thickly that it could have doubled as cement: swooning wildly, he told them all of the "great power" that awaited them in the ruins of the city, that there was something out there that would allow them to take the fight to Bill Cipher himself, that they would all be free at last.
Then of course, he'd pretended to pass out.
By the time he "regained consciousness," the refugees were already packing their bags.
And they were looking to him for guidance. And now…
The crowd is watching. Don't let them see you hesitate.
Gideon looked down at the procession of refugees slowly following him up the hill, and tried not to cringe in pain as he felt their thoughts rippling up towards him. As upsetting as the telepathic feedback was, far more disturbing were the emotions he could read from the crowd: hope – with just a hint of religious awe.
This had always been a rare thing for Gideon, even in his days as the darling of Gravity Falls; back then, people had loved him, praised him, and made all kinds of excuses for his behaviour, but they'd never looked upon him with this level of adoration. They'd certainly never pinned all their remaining hopes on him, not like the multitude trailing after him.
Gideon wasn't playing pied-piper to a flock of harmless small-town nitwits, nor was he leading a gang of brutal convicts who at least shared his ambitions: he was now serving as the rudder to a mob of over two hundred and fifty desperate, half-crazed men and women, and unless his telepathy was on the fritz, they appeared to be worshipping him as some kind of prophet.
Don't let them see you hesitate, don't show uncertainty, he told himself. Don't show fear.
He'd learned this little mantra back when he was just getting started in public speaking: of all the techniques he'd found to focus his mind on the goals at hand, he'd liked this one the best. Trouble was, Gideon didn't have a goal right now, only the rough outline of one that the letter had provided. And sooner or later, that was going to become a problem.
Show them you're a star: project confidence.
Looking down at the crowd, he tried to offer the exuberant grin that had captured the hearts of Gravity Falls, but having seen himself in the mirror, he knew it wasn't going to week: after so many weeks spent half-starved from famine, that grin looked more like a pathetic, teeth-gritting rictus.
He tried to continue the mantra, let it focus his mind on the task at hand, but every time he tried, he always found one of those terrible niggling doubts in the way.
Project confidence.
But confidence in what?
Confidence in what exactly? Gideon silently demanded. What am I supposed to be confident about? I don't have power over these people, not really: they're worshipping me out of desperation. I've only got telepathy and a few tricks up my sleeve, and once they realize that I don't have all the answers, they'll kill me. But what can I do except press onwards?
What am I supposed to have confidence in? he asked himself once more.
In the end, all he could do was return to the start: Don't let them see you hesitate.
Sighing deeply, Gideon tried not to look back at the now-abandoned refugee camp that lay behind them, now little more than a miniscule blotch on the stark white icefields in the distance. Looking back wouldn't help: after all, it wasn't as if anyone would ever have a chance to return to it if this pilgrimage failed, not with all the hazards they'd braved just to get this far. Without regular repairs, the place would already be starting to fall apart; if anyone tried to return, the only thing they'd find would be a pile of rubble.
Instead, he looked up at the snow-blanketed city, at the distant shapes of what had once been the financial district. Somewhere out there, amidst the ruined buildings and tumbledown skyscrapers was supposedly a cache of weapons that would transform his little flock of followers into an army.
Never mind the fact that he wouldn't know where to take the army once he had it. Never mind that arming these people would only make them an even bigger threat to Gideon in the long run. Never mind that his only hint as to where this cache might be was "where nobody would think to look for it." Never mind that the weapons might not be there anymore. Never mind that the letter might very well be another one of Bill's elaborate games. Never mind every logical drawback to the mission at hand.
With turning back out of the question, his only option was to carry on until they found some kind of shelter in the ruins up ahead, and hope that bandit gangs hadn't had the same idea at any point.
Hope, he thought bitterly. I'm doing a lot of hoping right now. I've got to hope that we don't get hit by another blizzard, that we don't run into any monsters, that I can find those weapons, and that I don't end up getting lynched when people realize I don't know what the hell I'm doing. And what the hell am I gonna do if Bill finds me? The note said that he has to focus his attention elsewhere from time to time, but he can't look away forever.
Safest thing to do would be to plan an escape route, just in case it all goes wrong; there's supposed to be a way out of the snowfields somewhere in the city, so maybe I can fall back on that if the weapon plan doesn't work out.
Don't let them see you hesitate.
It took the better part of a day to get the refugees across the snowfields and into the city itself.
By sheer luck, the first of the derelict building Gideon led them to was not only intact enough to shelter them from the elements, but it was also completely vacant: no fellow refugees, no bandit gangs, no marauding monsters, no Henchmaniacs waiting to attack – just dense walls, a solid ceiling, and enough insulation left around to keep out the cold. Plus, in a practically unfathomable stroke of good fortune, the kitchens hadn't been completely raided – another sign of Gideon's oracular talents, according to the crowd.
As soon as Gideon had found a corner of the building warm and spacious enough to contain all two hundred and fifty of them, he had them build a fire and get settled "while I seek out the power we require," as he'd put it. Secure in the knowledge that their prophet was looking after them, they'd gathered around the fire, and began either preparing meals or catching up on much-needed sleep.
At that point, Gideon was ready to slip away. By now, he desperately needed to start searching the ruins – and he frankly didn't care if he found the hidden cache or the way out of the snowfields first. Whatever the case, he couldn't afford to have this gang of morons tagging along while he was at work: the longer they stayed with him, the more they'd learn about him, and sooner or later they'd discover how little he actually knew.
So, once he was satisfied that nobody was looking in his direction, he made a beeline for the shadows-
-only to bump right into Amanda.
"Where are you going, Gideon?" she asked, her face once again slipping into the familiar kindly-caretaker mask she'd so often worn back when he'd still been confined to a bed.
Don't let them see you hesitate.
"I'm going to find the power I told you about," he lied smoothly. "It's somewhere in these ruins, remember?"
"Alone?"
"Obviously! I mean, do you think anyone here has the energy to keep up with me after that walk through the snowfields?"
Amanda sighed deeply. "I'm sorry, but I have to ask: were you older before Weirdmageddon? I'm just saying, I've met people who've been regressed before-"
"Which I haven't been. I'm just an ordinary ten-year-old with the gift of the Third Eye."
"I've never met any ten-year-old as independent as you."
Your loss, he almost shot back. Maybe if your own kids had been a bit more like me, you wouldn't have lost them, you stupid bitch.
Out loud, he replied, "That's just how the world works these days. If you can't plan ahead and act on your own ideas, you're as good as dead, and that's why I have to do this: we're not out of the woods just yet, and we need to be ready for the next stage of our quest."
"Is there any reason why you can't find this… power with some help?"
"Look, I appreciate you looking after me, but I can handle this on my own: all I've got to do is get what was promised and bring it back here. With my telepathy, I can spot any monsters before they can see me, and with my other gifts, I'll be able to find my way around without even trying."
"Your other gifts," Amanda echoed, not even bothering to keep the sceptical note from her voice.
Gideon hastily scanned her brain for any signs of dissent. To his immense relief, there was no hostility to be found there, no real suspicion, only concern – for him, oddly enough.
"You don't believe me?" he asked. "Even after everything I've revealed?"
Amanda took a deep breath. "I believe you're a telepath," she admitted. "There's no denying that. Trouble is, back when you were still sick and feverish, you kept saying things – things I'd never told anyone about. You were talking about my nightmares, Gideon, and you spoke about them as if they were real. What if this thing you told us about isn't real either? What if what you saw was just someone's dream of defeating Bill?"
It took all of Gideon's dwindling composure not to break her kneecaps with a length of firewood.
"Amanda, if you didn't believe me, why didn't you say something earlier?"
"Because we needed to get out of that shantytown, but nobody could make up their minds until you came along with the prophecy. Also, when we were heading across the snowfields, you were protected – you had everyone looking out for you. Now you're going out there on your own, and frankly, I'm not prepared to see you hurt or killed over something that might not even be real."
Because you're a hormonal hippo with empty nest syndrome, and you're afraid I'll go the same way as your missing-presumed-dead brats. Blow it out your big fat ass.
"I know it sounds crazy," he said, trying to sound diplomatic, "but just give me a chance to prove myself: what we're looking for is just up ahead. If you'll give me a few minutes, I'll find the power and bring it back here-"
"Not alone you won't," said Amanda, loudly enough to be heard by the others. "You're not well enough to go off your own, Gideon. I'm coming with you."
There were a few murmurs to the effect of "me too!" from the fringes of the crowd, and a handful of refugees stood up to join her. In the end, they ended up with a retinue of about four people not counting Amanda, most of them too boring for Gideon to bother committing to memory: their names were easily read directly from their thoughts, but he almost immediately retitled them Idiot 1, Idiot 2, Idiot 3 and Idiot 4 – if only because they honestly looked the part.
Don't let them see you hesitate.
Okay, Gideon thought. No problem. I can sense the monsters long in advance: all I have to do is lead this gang of idiots into an ambush, and then run like hell. If I do find the weapons, I'll come back and say there was a terrible accident; if I find the route out of here, I'll just cut my losses and call it a day.
"Alright," he said wearily. "Y'all can come with me if you really want to. Best keep rugged up, though. It's not going to be an easy journey."
Just a pack of hungry snow leopards, that's all I need…
Somewhere just outside the city limits, a small but formidable-looking assembly of figures shambled to a halt on a rooftop half-buried in one of the deeper snowdrifts. Almost all of them were dressed in massive parkas to keep out the Antarctic chill, and many of them still shivered despite the layers of insulation protecting them.
Composed of cockroach men, amphibians, lava-drinkers and other twisted mutations from across the manifold playgrounds of Bill's empire, these interlopers weren't built for this kind of biome, and few of them had ever been anywhere as bitterly as cold as this place; needless to say, they suffered terribly for it – even though their altered physiologies would not permit them to die so easily – and a few even shed tears of molten metal for their lost volcanic homes.
Only one of them remained unmoved by the cold, and she stood at the head of the group: in contrast to the heavy coats most of her followers wore, she was dressed in little more than a pair of jeans, a singlet, and the shredded remains of a jacket; her feet were bare, revealing toes too long and too crooked to be human; only a ragged hood protected the ruin of her scalp from the brutal winter gale.
She did not stir, even as the blizzard descended on them; she did not cry, for she had no tears left to shed – as she often put it; she didn't even speak, for by now her followers had learned to obey her commands without hearing a single word pass her lips. She merely stood, and waited.
Then, she caught the scent: the smoke from cooking fires, the vinegary tang of sweat and exhaustion, the spice of human terror mingled with a thousand different degrees of despair… but most hateful of all, that tiny, almost imperceptible stink of hope.
Her senses had changed in the months since she'd last felt that awful emotion, but there was no disguising hope. Sniffing the air, she followed the trail, mentally tracing its path across the snowdrift-smothered buildings, until at last she found its source.
She didn't need to order her retinue to follow her: they knew the look on her face well enough by now.
It was time for another lesson to begin.
Half an hour later, Gideon found himself trudging down a long and extremely cluttered hallway strewn with rubbish, banging his shins and biting back his two hundred and fifty-seventh expletive of the day.
So far, his little crew of adventurers hadn't found a single snow leopard. No monsters lying in wait, no fatal pitfalls, no loose handrails over jagged windowsills, no precariously-balanced piles of rubble – nothing that could have gotten rid of the losers tagging along with him.
No hidden cache of weapons, either.
No secret escape route leading out of the snowfields.
And more to the point, no way of recognizing either of them.
About the only blessing he could count at that point was the fact that the last few buildings had been connected by subway, which at least spared them the trouble of freezing to death.
But just as he was starting to wonder if he should start running and hope that they couldn't catch up with him, he happened to glance up at a sign hanging on the wall just above a fork in the path, and let out a strangled gasp as the message swam into view.
"THIS WAY, YOU IDIOT," it read. Below, a small arrow pointed to the left.
Gideon blinked, hastily rereading the sign. But as far as he could tell, it was a no-smoking sign – nothing out of the ordinary about it.
And then, just as he was starting to wonder if he was seeing things, the sign changed again: "THIS WAY TO THE STOCKPILE OF WEAPONS," it read. "FABULOUS PRIZES TO BE WON." Then, as quickly as it had changed, it was a no-smoking sign again.
"Are you okay?" Amanda whispered.
It took Gideon exactly a fraction of a second to realize that whatever he'd just seen, Amanda and the others were completely oblivious to it.
Don't let them see you hesitate.
"Fine," he said shakily. "I think we're getting close."
"YOU'D BETTER BELIEVE IT," said the sign. "BRACE YOURSELF FOR A SHOCK, KID, BECAUSE YOU'RE IN FOR ONE HELL OF A SURPRISE."
Trembling, Gideon followed the arrow down the left pathway. He knew this was a spectacularly bad idea: even if this wasn't another one of Bill's sick games, someone (most likely the mysterious Mr A) was quite clearly playing the puppeteer behind this whole horrorshow, and judging by the quality of the directions so far, playing into their hands couldn't mean anything good for Gideon or any of the other refugees. But all the same, he continued onwards; after all, what else could he do under the circumstances? If Bill really was onto them, they were screwed – simple as that.
So, they could do little more than trudge helplessly onwards, every wall for the next two hundred yards emblazoned with another irreverent subliminal message from their unknown benefactor.
"FOLLOW THE CINDERBLOCK ROAD, MUNCHKIN."
"ALL GOOD THINGS COME TO THOSE WHO WAIT."
"DON'T EVEN DREAM OF GIVING UP: YOU'LL BE DEAD BEFORE YOU EVER FIND THE ESCAPE ROUTE."
"I'M NOT KIDDING BY THE WAY. YOUR EYEBALLS WOULD GO WELL WITH GRAVY."
"TURN LEFT AND PREPARE TO CELEBRATE. ABOUT FINDING THE WEAPONS, NOT THE WHOLE EYEBALLS IN GRAVY BUSINESS. YOU CAN RELAX ABOUT THAT, BY THE WAY, I'VE HAD MY FILL OF EYEBALLS FROM THE BANDIT GANG WHO USED TO LIVE IN THIS BUILDING. THEY HAD VERY TASTY PEEPERS, INCIDENTALLY: LIKE RAVIOLI, ONLY MORE GELATINOUS. JUST AROUND THIS CORNER, GIDEON."
And as they rounded the final bend, the corridor ahead opened into a large, open room, filled from floor to ceiling with-
Gideon's eyes lit up.
When the note had promised him weapons, Gideon had been expecting an armoury of some kind: gun racks of AK-47s, boxes of grenades, an overflowing cornucopia of C4, something he'd recognize as conventional weapons at any rate. What he saw in the room beyond was indeed an armoury, but unlike anything he'd seen before: even from a distance, it was plainly obvious that the armaments that had stored here had not been designed by human beings.
Almost a hundred diamond-tipped lances hung from the opposite wall; Gideon couldn't even guess at what they were supposed to do, but he could tell from the all-too-distinctive shapes of triggers and ammo clips built into their gilded flanks that these weren't meant for jousting. Ahead of them, dozens of brutal-looking rifles sat in readiness, most of them more like glossy black cone shells than anything meant for human hands; even the stocks and grips looked more akin to moulded exoskeleton. Clusters of crystalline globes filled with swirling green mist hung from the ceiling like strings of sausages; plastic containers overflowed with spiked shields, each with its own handheld power-pack; several pairs of giant mechanical pincers sat atop trestle tables, along with a large stack of instruction manuals; at least a dozen pistol-like shapes sat in wicker baskets, many of them tipped with vicious-looking harpoons. And on the more mundane side of things, grappling hooks, medicine kits, pocket knives, mountaineering equipment, ration packs, and a whole host of other survival gear sat in readiness – neatly separated into cardboard boxes. There was even a fleet of shopping trolleys waiting by the door, waiting to be loaded up and carted away.
But as far as Gideon was concerned, all of that was secondary to the familiar shape sitting on a pedestal at the very heart of the room.
His amulet.
At first, he thought his eyes were playing tricks on him, or at the very least that wishful thinking was making him imagine things. But then he took a step closer, and saw the antique brass housing with the tiny green gem at the centre, and all doubts were gone from his mind.
The pendant that Mabel had smashed so many months ago was sitting less than ten feet away from him.
With telekinesis, he wouldn't need to play at being a seer to the refugees; he could rule them by force if need be. As long as he applied enough shock and awe, he didn't have to worry about anyone losing faith in him, much less trying to lynch him. Come to think of it, he wouldn't even need the protection of the refugees anymore: he could just march straight for the exit and kill anything that dared stand in his way.
And then-
"So this is what you meant for us to find?" Amanda whispered. "This is how we're going to fight the Henchmaniacs?"
"What did I tell you, Many?" one of the Idiots muttered. "He's a seer! It's just like in the legends! The time of myths is back again, and now we have prophets and sorcerers of our own! We have an oracle!"
Oh, you have no idea, little man. Give me half a minute, and I'll show you sorcery.
Gideon was smiling now, a teeth-baring rictus he hadn't worn in what felt like years. After months of enforced weakness, he could finally reclaim everything that had been taken from him and more; it was just like that first moment after escaping the prison right at the start of Weirdmageddon, except this time he didn't have anyone to answer to – only himself. And to be honest, other than Mabel, was there anyone else in his life that had ever been worth a damn? With telekinesis, anything was possible, including the acquisition of greater power, and perhaps a chance to challenge Bill in person.
Unable to wipe the smirk off, he took a step towards the pedestal – only for Amanda to reach out and grab him by the shoulder. "Gideon, wait," she said urgently.
"I'm done waiting!" he shot back.
"Would you just listen to me for a minute? We don't know who put this stuff here, or if they were planning on coming back here. For all we know, this place has been booby-trapped."
"It hasn't."
"How can you tell?"
"Because I have a functioning pair of eyes."
Amanda almost managed an expression of disapproval, before the familiar look of maternal concern crept back across her face. "You're sure you weren't a teenager before all this?"
"Not the time for jokes, Mandy. The power I told you about is right here; someone's got to go about claiming it."
Once again, though, Amanda held him back. "Look, just let me go first," she said urgently. "That way, I'll-"
"-have another opportunity to treat me like your own kids, I know! You're very good at taking your grief and making it my problem!"
A flicker of something like anger rippled across Amanda's face, and vanished just as quickly. "Nice, Gideon," she said calmly. "Real nice. Did you speak to your own mother like that?"
Suddenly, Gideon wanted to hurt her. He wanted to wipe that sweet, sensitive caring look right off her dumb, cow-eyed face, and bring out every last drop of depression she'd been doing her best to hide. He wanted to make her just as miserable as she'd made him feel for every day she'd cared for him. He wanted to make her feel exactly like the waste of human life that she really was. He wanted to make her suffer, and he wanted to do so in a way that would make all the physical torture in the universe pale into insignificance.
So he darted in and out of her mind, staying just long enough to pluck a tiny snippet of information out of her brain and read it in detail. It wasn't much, really – just a quick synopsis of Amanda's worst nightmare, but it was all the ammunition he needed.
"I would if she treated me the way you've been treating me!" he snarled. "You've smothered me so much in the last few days, I wouldn't be surprised if your own kids ran away at the first opportunity they got! God, I think Weirdmageddon must have been the best thing that ever happened to your little brats; you know why? Because even if it killed them, they'd still be happy, because they'd be rid of you at last!"
Amanda flinched – actually physically recoiled, as if she'd been slapped – and Gideon knew he'd drawn blood: the look of parental concern was gone, replaced by a raw, reproachful look of purest hurt. There were even tears in her eyes. And yet it didn't feel like a victory. That sense of release he'd felt back when he'd laid down the law to mother or father was gone, and in its place, Gideon felt only a dull ache that felt uncannily like shame.
But he had no time to reflect on it, whatever it was. Tearing himself out of Amanda's grip, he launched himself through the room, making a beeline for the pedestal. He wasn't exactly the fastest of the group, but with Amanda reeling from shell-shock and the others being forced to squeeze past her, he had an easy head-start to the amulet. As the pedestal loomed ahead of him, he was dimly aware of Amanda tearfully shouting after him, "Gideon, wait! What if there's traps?" But by then, he didn't care. All that mattered was getting his hands on the one thing that could guarantee his survival.
Reaching out to grab the amulet, he felt his outstretched fingers brush its surface…
…and realized too late that he'd just made the exact mistake that Amanda had feared he'd make: he'd blundered headfirst into a trap. This wasn't a mystical amulet; this wasn't his source of telekinetic power; this was something else.
A moment later, the entire pedestal erupted into a column of searing white light, tearing though Gideon's body and unmooring his psyche, ripping his conscious mind away from his senses and casting it out across the length and breadth of Bill's kingdom.
"What are we going to do with you, Gideon?"
There was a long pause as Gideon belatedly realized he was still alive. Opening his eyes, he was immediately dazzled by a cascade of harsh light pouring in on him from all angles: everywhere he looked, there was nothing but unrelenting light; no walls, no floor, no ceiling, no landmarks, no way of telling if he was outside or indoors – nothing but glaring, merciless light.
Squinting desperately, he tried to find the source of the voice, but even with his eyes shaded, all he could see was a vaguely human-shaped silhouette hovering in the distance… and getting steadily closer. He could just about recognize the fact that the figure was wearing a hooded cloak, and it appeared to have the basic dimensions of a human woman, but the glare was still too bright to recognize any of the specifics.
"Who are you?" he whispered.
"A fellow oracle," the voice replied.
As far as he could tell, it was indeed woman's voice, soft and serene and without malice, but there was no way of telling if the speaker was human or not: every now and again, he thought he noticed subtle hints of alien power rippling in and out of those dulcet tones, but it was impossible to envision the being that might be uttering them.
"You don't know me, but you know our mutual friend: Stanford Pines. When he last strayed beyond reality and sanity, I was there to catch him. I did my best to guide him along his path, to usher him towards the best of all possible futures. At the time, I'd hoped that he might one day help to bring an end to Bill Cipher's reign of terror – though I doubt that Ford would have imagined the role he'd play in those events. Now, established history has been thrown off-course by events beyond our control, and the possible futures I once foresaw have been devoured by Weirdness. Now, there are new prophecies to be made, new visions to be experienced, and it seems I must play my part once again if it means saving what little remains of your world."
"Does that mean you're here to help me?" Gideon asked, hoping against hope that the answer would be yes.
"I'm not here, Gideon. Your world is closed to me. The amulet you touched was a transmitter, a means of sending your thoughts beyond the boundaries of Bill Cipher's playground. I would have preferred not to use this device, considering its origins, but unfortunately, the Axolotl has run out of options – hence why you and I must talk."
The silhouette was standing over him now, and for the first time, Gideon felt a distinct ripple of fear as he belatedly realized just how tall the stranger was. Distances and length was hard to establish here, but he had the very distinct impression that she would have been taller than Manly Dan Corduroy. And looking up at the stranger's hooded features, he knew at once that this being definitely wasn't human.
"And so, we're back to the question we started off with: what are we going to do with you, Gideon?"
For a moment, Gideon could only stare in astonishment at the face under the hood, at the vivid purple skin, at the faintly luminescent eyes staring back at him – all seven of them.
"What are you?" he whispered.
"I am Jheselbraum the Unswerving," said the apparition. "As I said, I am a fellow Oracle. And I am very concerned about the state of this world and its people – and about you in particular."
"Uh?"
"I seem to recall one of the more salient points in the Axolotl's message to you was 'stop thinking of people as marks.' You appear to be having problems with that."
"Wha?"
"You recall your escape plan – the one that would have left those refugees and your parents stranded in the middle of nowhere? Or perhaps your intentions to force them using the power of the amulet? Should we settle for the things you said to Amanda?"
"Er, about that-"
"Don't bother lying to me, Gideon. Our minds are currently linked; dishonesty is all too obvious from here." The Oracle's voice remained soft and perfectly even, but her disapproval was clearly audible in every word she spoke. "You've tried to reform, you've turned against Bill, you even came close to an epiphany, but you still haven't dealt with the most basic element of the problem at hand: empathy – or your lack thereof."
Gideon laughed nervously. "I-I know I haven't been the best role model on the planet, but I was concerned for my safety! What would have happened if I hadn't been able to find those weapons? The refugees would have turned on me! I mean, you can't blame me for having an exit strategy, can you? And as for what I said to Amanda, I was under stress at the time-"
"No lying, please."
"Look, maybe I was a little harsh on her, but you can't honestly expect me not to snap at her after the way she treated me the last few weeks-"
Jheselbraum rolled all seven of her eyes. "Please don't make me repeat myself, Gideon. She treated you with nothing but kindness, asking nothing of you in return, and you repaid her compassion by doing your very best to hurt her. And if you truly believe that the refugees would have killed a child, then you understand nothing about the human mind for all the power you've been granted over it."
"Power?" Gideon echoed. "What power? All I can do is read minds, and after the last few months of migraines, it's been no help to me whatsoever."
"Only because you've yet to master it. As the Axolotl told you, the curse can develop into a gift, but you've yet to explore those complexities, and believe I know why: you don't want to, not really."
In spite of himself, Gideon managed to actually muster a few weak sparks of anger at this. "Alright," he snapped. "You've made it clear you don't like me: break the link and send me back to Earth, so you can go talk to someone you want to talk to – Stanford Pines, for choice-"
"I can't. This link was meant for you and you alone. You are the only living being in this reality that my tuition was intended for."
"You've got a very funny way of showing it-"
"And more to the point, Ford might have the power to hear my voice, at least now that Bill's machinations have imbued him with Sight of his own, but..."
Jheselbraum paused, and for the first time since she'd introduced herself, Gideon saw a look of something not unlike pain cross her alien features. "But he would not be able to recognize it. It would be lost amidst the deluge of information that threatens to drown him: Ford's Sight does not merely encompass the mind or even the future, but every facet of the universe and beyond. In all too many of his futures, I see horror, madness and a dark apotheosis descending upon him… and I don't know if his anchor to reality will be enough to save him from himself."
She sighed. "And so you are the only being in this reality who can interact with this link; you are the only one who can See the way I can, which is why I am obliged to help you understand the things which prevent you from doing so."
Gideon blinked. "Hang on," he muttered. "Hang on just a minute. You're saying I can See the way you can – does that mean I can predict the future?"
"Possible futures, yes. With skill and grace, it is possible to nudge events along a path of your choosing, and avoid timelines where disaster becomes inevitable."
There was a pause, as Gideon did his best to hide the sudden surge of excitement crackling up and down his brain. "Well," he said at last. "How would I be able to do that? I mean, is it as simple as focussing my telepathy on something different or-"
Jheselbraum smiled, lips quirking ever-so-enigmatically. "So you do want to stay. Good for you. Unfortunately, the reason why precognition interests you is the very reason why it won't work for you."
"What? Why?"
"As I said, you lack empathy."
"What does that have to do with anything?!"
"You don't really want to know what people think or how, Gideon," said Jheselbraum sadly. "You want to know how to make them obey your will. You don't want to understand the world around you: you want the world to conform to your desires. Just look at how you dealt with telepathy: it didn't occur to you to immerse yourself in the thoughts of others until Axolotl's letter told you to do so. And the one time you read a mind with the intent of actually seeing through their eyes, it frightened you so much you never dared try again: the moment you came close to an epiphany, you fled in terror."
"No I didn't! I was just-"
"The moment you actually felt guilt for what you'd done to your parents, the moment you came close to acknowledging that you were at fault, you backed away and never dared delve that deep a second time – because the sense of shame terrified you. Again, you didn't want to understand. And even before you gained this power, you had no desire to comprehend others: do you remember how you attempted to win Mabel's heart? You didn't really romance her, you forced her, entrapped her with peer pressure until she surrendered. Time and again, you've approached the situation at hand without ever caring about the opinions of others, merely by manipulating it or forcing it, until you finally found yourself up against opponents that couldn't be manipulated or forced."
"But I've changed!" Gideon insisted, a little more defensively than he'd hoped. "I'm trying to be a different person!"
"Trying, but not always succeeding. You still haven't lost sight of your selfishness. And it's because of that vestigial sense of empathy that you can't learn precognition: you would focus only on your future and what could benefit you; you'd ignore the future of everyone around you, and that wilful blindness would keep you from ever mastering the art."
"Okay, so maybe I don't need precognition-"
"It's not just foresight that would fail you, Gideon: now that you've learned how to build your mental muscles, the higher realms of telepathic power should be open to you – mind-to-mind communication, remote viewing, psychic guidance, mental radar, even telekinesis. But you won't learn any of them, because you insist on denying the very things that make them possible."
"Oh come on, you can't know that! You haven't even seen me try yet!"
"I don't need to, because you're not going to do so. Telepathy is more than just a simple matter of intuiting thoughts, Gideon: it's forming a connection with another mind; you don't want to form connections, you don't want to really interact with – what was it you called them? "Mouth-breathing fools?" You only want to take what you want and give nothing back. You're still thinking like a con artist, and as long as you choose to do so, you'll never achieve your true potential – and your chances against Bill never rise higher than abysmal. Exactly what he intended when he first imbued you with this particular form of telepathy."
There was a pause, as Gideon considered this.
"Is there… a way of making me understand?" he asked tentatively. "I mean, if you understand telepathy as well as you say, shouldn't you be able to teach me how to psychically empathize-"
Once again, Jheselbraum sighed – this time not in exasperation, but in sorrow. "It's not a matter of psychically empathizing, it's empathizing at all. You keep getting within reach of it, and yet you keep shying away the moment you try to seize it."
"But can you teach me?"
"Empathy cannot be taught, Gideon: it has to be learned – and mastered – independently. Through this mental link, it is possible for me to show you the path and perhaps even light the way, but you will have to walk it alone. And it will be a very difficult, very painful process, to say nothing of how you'll react to having your sense of empathy jumpstarted. Do you really want this, or do you want to try and find a means on your own?"
Gideon could only stare for a moment. "After everything you've just told me, you still want to give me the option?"
"I don't want anything out of this arrangement, except perhaps the chance to save your world – and to ensure that what friends I have in your world survive this debacle. I'm not here to force anything on you, Gideon. I'm here to teach you the art – if you will accept my teachings. Once you have embraced your empathy, we can begin, but not before."
There was a long pause, as Gideon silently considered his options.
"Alright," he said at last. "I accept. Just…" He took a deep breath, and braced himself for the worst. "Just try not to hurt me too badly."
Jheselbraum gave Gideon a pitying look. "I'm not going to be the one hurting you, Gideon," she said gently. "You only need to fear the crimes you've committed, and how your conscience will punish you for them once it is finally awakened."
"It's going to be like the time I read my mom's mind, right?"
"Worse. The only compensation I can offer is that the way out of the snowfields will be plainly obvious once this lesson is at an end: it's a psychically-activated teleporter, and you'll find it under the pedestal."
And with that, the Oracle reached down and placed her hands on either side of his head.
"Good luck," she whispered. "When the times comes, we will talk again – as oracle to oracle."
A moment later, an electric shock tore through Gideon's brain and all he knew from then on was a blind flurry of memories and emotions, spiralling downwards through his experiences and into unconsciousness.
"What happened to him?"
"I don't know! He passed out the moment he touched the amulet and I haven't been able to wake him up! You're the doctor here, I thought you'd have some idea."
"Well, he's still breathing and I'm not detecting any unusual heart sounds, but unless you've got an EEG machine, there's no way of guessing what's happening inside his head."
Shock and terror, as every word Gideon ever said to his parents is repeated, louder and harsher and crueller than ever before, every open-handed slap and handful of broken glass perfectly replicated. He doesn't know how he feels beyond those first two emotions, because nothing he feels makes any logical sense. For some reason, the memories are changing, for somehow he's not the one saying the words this time around: he's the victim, cowering and begging for mercy before an unrelenting monster.
"Where's everyone else?"
"They're getting the weapons together; I decided to take Gideon back here before he got any worse."
"Speaking of which, what's this in his hands?"
"That's the amulet from the pedestal. He won't let go of it. Every time I've tried, he starts crying again. Should he be twitching like that?"
"For god sakes, he's the bloody psychic, Amanda. Best guess, he's dreaming: you can see he's gone into REM sleep."
Now Gideon is romancing Mabel; they're being rowed across the lake by McGucket, and the overtures are already in play. Mabel is slowly wilting, unable to say no… but as the demands become more insistent and more unpleasant, the memory begins to change, until at last he's sitting in Mabel's seat. In a way, he is Mabel. He wants to say no; he just wants to be friends, but the monster now sitting across from him won't accept anything other than blind assent, and he can only nod weakly, trying desperately not to break down in tears.
"Alright, here's a question you can answer, smartass: what the hell are you doing up here? Why aren't you back at the campsite with everyone else?"
"Because we've just had some very worrying new arrivals. I thought Gideon should know before it gets any worse."
"What kind of new arrivals? Is it the Henchmaniacs? Is it Bill?"
"No. Truth be told, I honestly don't know what to make of them. All I know is that they want a captive audience."
Again and again, the Pines twins flee in terror as Gideon assaults them again and again, sometimes armed with telekinesis, sometimes with the improvised shrink ray, sometimes at the controls of a giant robot, but always on the attack, stealing their home away from them and leaving them helpless before his might. And with every assault, he feels less like himself and more like the twins, forever menaced by an opponent without mercy or reason or anything approaching logical goals.
"Then why are we still standing here? Where can we run to?"
"Nowhere. They're blocking the exits; the only way we can run is back the way you came, and I don't much fancy playing tag in the ruins with this lot."
"In other words, you want us to surrender."
"Just to buy time until your friends come back with the big guns."
"Not possible: we still don't how to use the damn things."
"Well, we're screwed. On the upside, it might not be as bad as we think: whoever these characters are, I don't think they're out to kill us. From the looks of things, they're conducting some kind of sermon…"
And now he's lashing out at Amanda, after everything she's done for him, after all the times she did her best to help him. Once again, Gideon stands in Amanda's place, and feels the same shock and hurt and pain tear through him – even though he knows he isn't Amanda, even though he understands that the voice howling in his direction belongs to him.
"Alright, then. Let's head back. But be ready to hide Gideon if the worst comes to the worst. If these things have a taste for human flesh, I don't want to see him hurt."
It's taken a long journey, but at last he realizes what these visions make him feel, beneath all the confusion and terror.
Guilt.
Gideon's first waking sensation was of warmth, a deep reassuring warmth enclosing him on all sides.
He was wrapped in a blanket, and someone was holding him close, keeping him nestled in their arms like a baby. No surprises there: he'd always been very small for his age, and his illness had left him so frail that he could probably be carried around like an infant anyway. Also unsurprisingly, he still had the transmitter clutched in one hand. But who was holding him?
Opening his eyes, he realized to his astonishment that it was Amanda who was holding him; all the more surprising, there was no resentment on her face, no disgust for everything he'd said to her when he was last consciousness.
You've forgiven me? After everything I said, you've forgiven me?
A ripple of anger sparked in the back of his head, as Gideon belatedly remembered just how much he hated being treated like a kid. For a split second, he wanted to struggle free of Amanda's grasp, to shout obscenities in her face, to do something that would make her let go. But he couldn't: some new sensation strangled his voice before he could raise it in anger. In fact, the more he tried to speak, the more he wanted to apologise – and more he thought about it, the more it frightened him. He couldn't remember feeling anything remotely like this before, and the awareness of that crushing pressure in his chest only made him feel a thousand times more vulnerable and weak.
But he couldn't bring himself to ignore it: he had the power to do so, but he didn't want to. In point of fact, he wasn't sure what he wanted in that moment. So instead of acting, he simply closed his eyes and let Amanda's warmth lull him into complacency once again.
And that was when he became aware of the voice echoing across the room.
"Heed my words, friends," it proclaimed. "I stand before you not as a bandit, not as a monster, but as a preacher. I speak for the Society of the Enduring."
Gideon opened his eyes once again and craned his neck in the direction of the voice: it turned out that Amanda was sitting at the very back of the campsite, surrounded on all sides by terrified-looking refugees. But blocking almost every single exit was a gaggle of vicious-looking figures: there couldn't be much more than thirty of them, but most were so imposing that nobody wanted to take their chances – even if the refugees had numbers on their side. These new arrivals were quite clearly not human, and only the fact that most of them were too humanoid to belong to the Henchmaniacs kept Gideon from panicking.
There were men with flesh made of molten rock and metal, human-shaped agglomerations of live rats, six-foot-tall cockroaches with antennae like bullwhips, agonized lepers whose skin had turned to bleached bone, dozens of ropy tendrils strung into the forms of arms and legs and heads, half-dead monster caught in a continuous loop of decomposition and rejuvenation, and a whole squad of belligerent-looking fishmen with sharklike jaws and webbed feet – among which stood the preacher.
This could only be the Society of the Enduring.
All of them were thinking the same thing:
Give us oblivion, their minds howled. Let it end. Let it end. Let it end. Let it end. Let it end. Let it end.
"You intend to start a revolution," said the preacher out loud. We can tell as much. We've seen it far too many times. You've set off on a quest to dethrone Bill Cipher… and we are here to tell you that your efforts are in vain. You cannot hope to overthrow God. It has been tried before, a thousand times before, and all attempts have failed. You see the marks upon our bodies, the mutation and disease? This is the punishment Bill has inflicted on us for daring to imagine we might challenge the eternal, and we are the only survivors of armies a hundred thousand strong. Do not throw your lives away on futile hope: join us, and embrace the only creed worth accepting. Embrace survival."
"You want us to join Bill!" shouted an angry voice from somewhere nearby. "You want us to be his playthings!" A chorus of equally-infuriated voices roared in agreement.
"We are all Bill's playthings, friend," said the preacher. "You are his toys, just as we are. But we have a choice as to the role we play in his games: we can blindly follow his designs, we can pointlessly struggle against them… or we can survive. We can cling to life in spite of everything thrown in our direction, and endure and struggle and survive until Bill finally loses interest and wipes us from existence. That is the way of the Society of the Enduring. That is how we win: we become worthless toys and are thrown from the nursery into the void of nonexistence. No more fear. No more horror. Nothing but the peace of oblivion."
"But we were promised a chance!" cried out a lone voice in the crowd. "Our oracle is out there searching for weapons-"
"You entrust your fate to a false prophet," the preacher thundered back. "And he has already abandoned you in this place, to try and divine some meaning from the lies he purveyed as truth. There is only one truth, and that is the truth our mistress teaches us – the truth she will teach all of you."
For a moment, Gideon considered his options. Once again, the safest thing to do would be to slip out of Amanda's arms and sneak away: as soon as the Society realized that their "false prophet" was sitting among them, they'd almost certainly kill him – or convince the refugees to kill him themselves.
But at the last minute, he stopped. He wasn't entirely sure why: maybe it was the logical possibility that he might get caught anyway, maybe it was that inexplicable crushing sensation that the thought of running stirred. Whatever the case, he found himself slipping gently out of Amanda's grasp, tucked the transmitter into his coat, and began tiptoeing gently through the crowd – Amanda herself hurrying after him.
"Your false prophet has told you many things," the preacher continued. "But now that he has gone, we can begin the revelation. It will not be gentle, but-"
"Excuse me," said Gideon loud. "I'm standing right here, in case you hadn't noticed."
There was a pause, as all eyes turned in his direction.
Brilliant, he thought. I've gotten their attention. What the hell do I do now? In the back of his mind, some new and unfamiliar impulse added, At least they aren't going to hurt anyone. And once again, Gideon was at a loss to explain it.
For a second, it looked as though the preacher was going to say something, but a sharp hiss from the shadows silenced him.
"I understand, mistress," he murmured, and shrank back into the darkness.
Then, as one, the Society bowed as their mistress stepped into the light.
Unlike the others, she was dressed in rags, her emaciated body barely protected from the elements. Her face was hidden by a tattered hood, but Gideon could clearly see that she wasn't human: the veins on her right arm gleamed like polished chrome, her nails solid iron; the flesh on left arm was smooth and shiny like porcelain, its surface cracked and fissured like the skin of a broken doll; her spindly legs were layered in shiny black carapace, and more like bones carved from obsidian than anything human; below them, she stood on tridactyl claws like those of a bird of prey.
But when she drew back her hood…
Her neck was lined with gills, her features were starved and hatchet-sharp, her once-glorious red hair had been reduced to a sparse mass of crimson tufts, but for all the devastation that had been inflicted on her there was no mistaking the face of Wendy Corduroy.
"You," she hissed. "How are you still alive after everything you've done?"
There was a rumble of confusion from the refugees.
"What's she talking about, Gideon?" Amanda whispered.
Oh god, she's going to tell everyone.
"After all the people who've died in the last year," Wendy plunged onwards, "all the people who've had to suffer because of what Bill did to this planet, after all the horrors I've seen, you're the one who's still here. Dipper's dead, and you're alive."
Gideon blinked. "What?"
"If I was looking for a sign that there's no justice in the universe, I've found it. All that pain and misery, and you're the one who hasn't changed a bit. You've lost weight, you've lost your stupid hairdo, and you've levelled up from huckster to prophet, but you're still the same hateful little liar, and you're still alive."
Her eyes flashed red and black, two crimson halos lost in infinite darkness.
"What did you do, Gideon? What did you do for Bill that made him give you a congregation? How many people did you kill or torture? I want to know, Gideon, so I can think of a way to make you suffer exactly like Bill's playthings have suffered."
Gideon floundered. "Uh, Wendy, you're really not making sense right now. I mean, you saw me back at the Fearamid – I was working with you to stop Bill!"
"And that's why you're up to your old tricks, is it? You're a different person, is that it? I'm expected to believe that you're better off than any other survivor I've met because you've changed?!" She spat out a thick plume of tarry-black sputum; it hissed and smoked when it hit the ground. "Lie to me again and I'll eat your fucking heart if you have one."
"Well what happened to you?" Gideon demanded. "What's with the gills and the metal and the weird legs, and-"
"I accepted the gifts I was offered. There's monsters out here in the wastelands, little man: the Acolytes of the Deep, the Feasters, Those-Who-Dwell-In-Ruin, the Imbibers of the Void – they all made offers, and I accepted all of them once I realized that there was no point in fighting Bill."
Gideon took a deep breath. "Okay, now I know something's wrong. Every time we met previously, you were the most gung-ho out of everyone at the Mystery Shack – you never gave up! Last time we fought, you said you were going to wear my butt like a rhinestone slipper, and if you'd had more time, you probably would have done exactly that! Why the hell would you surrender now? What are you doing here, leading these… lunatics?"
"You obviously weren't listening to my preacher," said Wendy, a monstrous grin splitting her pallid face in two. "I'm here to save people from their delusions. I'm here to help them see reality, to understand that there's no fighting Bill. There's only survival, and the chance to make Bill as miserable as possible, until there's no fun to be had in torturing us any longer. And you know how I found that out? Because Dipper isn't coming back: Bill got bored with him and had the Shapeshifter eat him. And that's how it has to be from: that's only victory left to us, thanks to your boss."
"Look, I'm sorry about that, I really am, but it's not true anymore, Wendy. I've found something that might help us stop Bill-"
"Oh yes, I'm sure. And I'm really supposed to believe you, am I? You really think you're back in your tent, don't you, you little shit? You think you're singing Li'l Old Me and having everyone dance to your tune, don't you?"
"Absolutely not, I-"
"Why don't you tell them?!" Wendy roared. "If this is all part of your big reformation, why don't you tell all the people here who you really are? Don't be shy, Gideon: we're all equals here – unless you still feeling like the big kid in the small town."
Once again, Gideon found himself transfixed by the spotlight, frozen in the staring eyes of every single refugee in the building. The seconds ticked by: not for the first time, he considered dodging the matter. After all, there was no way of telling what would happen if he confessed the truth. Maybe they really would lynch him, or maybe it'd just make them join the Society without another word; whatever the case, nothing good could come of it. Better to lie: after all, Wendy was weird and monstrous enough to be written off as another lying and/or demented monster, so bullshitting his way out would probably work – if Gideon was in luck, of course. And if all else failed, he could run for it and leave them to whatever Wendy planned on doing to them.
But that's what she expects, isn't it? That's just what I would have done in the old days.
"Just what I thought," Wendy sneered. "You're still just another cowardly self-important little-"
"Con artist."
There was a gasp from the crowd.
"I was a con artist," Gideon continued. "Back before all this began, I pretended to be a psychic and bilked a lot of people for every last dime in their pocket. And that's not all: I hurt a lot of people, and not just in the emotional or financial sense, either. I really, really hurt them. I hurt my parents, I hurt my friends, I hurt the people who admired and respected me, and I hurt them in ways you probably wouldn't believe. Trying to cut someone's tongue out was just the tip of the iceberg. And when that wasn't enough for me to get my way, I made a deal with Bill. I was working for him right when Weirdmageddon started, but – well, for lack of a better word, I had a change of heart. I joined a rebellion against him, and we almost managed to stop Bill once and for all: the only reason why it didn't work was because we couldn't cooperate in time – and that's how I know it can be done!"
He took a deep breath; he didn't know where most of this had come from, but it somehow felt good to get it off his chest. Maybe it was the new sense of conscience lurching to life inside his head, or maybe it was the simple fact that he'd been keeping secrets for so long, it was a welcome change just to talk about them with someone who wasn't his enemy or his employee or his target. But he still wasn't finished yet.
"Once Weirdmageddon went global, Bill decided it'd be really funny if I actually had psychic powers, which is why I spent the last few months lying in bed, crying over nothing. And when I said there was something here that could help us stop Bill, I meant it. Amanda and I found a whole roomful of weapons like nothing we've ever seen before: I don't know what they can do, but I'm willing to bet that they can give us a chance against the Henchmaniacs. Now, if anyone thinks I've been hiding the truth for too long, you're welcome to leave right this second… and if you think I'm to blame for helping Bill come to power, you'd be more than justified if you wanted to take revenge. But if you're still willing to stick with me-"
There was a rumble of activity, and suddenly everyone was on their feet, lining up alongside Gideon.
For a moment, there was only a disbelieving silence as Wendy's face contorted in disbelief.
Then, she let out another low snarl of rage. "No," she thundered. "You don't get off that easily, not after all the lies you told-"
"He's telling the truth," said Amanda helpfully. "Archie and Watford are bringing back a whole trolley of the stuff back here. I mean, just look at this…" She reached into her pocket and drew out a harpoon-tipped diamond-shaped device no bigger than the average Remington derringer. "See?"
Wendy's eyes narrowed. "Right. Very plausible. I'm supposed to believe that someone with close ties to Bill wouldn't have a few magical artefacts on hand? What game are you playing, Gideon? You've got everyone lying for you already, so what's the endgame?"
"I'm trying to stop Bill," Gideon shot back. "I'm pretty sure that's what Dipper would have wanted-"
"DON'T YOU DARE EVEN SAY HIS NAME!" Wendy roared, her eyes once again a nightmarish red-and-black. And as her mouth gaped open, her teeth sank down into her gums, and a new set of needle-sharp fangs slid into view, leaving her with the jagged maw of a shark.
But Gideon suddenly wasn't in the mood to keep quiet anymore. "Why?" he demanded. "Do you think he'd have agreed to lying down and giving up?"
Oh god, why did I have to say that out loud?
Suddenly, Wendy's axe was in her hand and raised to strike.
"Alright," she growled. "Lesson's over."
And with that, she leapt at Gideon; at the last moment, Amanda grabbed him under his arms and dived away, but Wendy was already winding up for another swing of the axe.
But before she could bring it down, four refugees dived in from the sidelines and dogpiled her, dragging her to the ground with all the force they could muster. Less than a second later, the first one tumbled away, blood pouring from a massive gash in his stomach; another howled in agony as Wendy's beartrap-like jaws clamped down hard on his left cheekbone; the other two were simply flung aside, crashing headlong into walls – but by then, Gideon was already running.
"EVERYONE HEAD FOR THE BACK STAIRS, NOW!" he yelled.
For good measure, Amanda drew the diamond-derringer again and fired – not at Wendy, not at the Society members marching into view, but at the roof. Its harpoon-like tip spat a bolt of eye-searing energy directly into the ceiling, spraying the oncoming Society with a shower of shrapnel and rocking the room so violently that Gideon worried that the building itself might collapse around them. On the upside, along with enough chunks of rubble to send the less-armoured Society members ducking for cover, the blast enveloped the room in a huge cloud of dust, neatly covering their escape.
Not all the refugees made it, of course: in spite of Gideon's shouted orders, almost twenty of them stayed back to cover their escape, attacking the Society with the few battered firearms they'd brought with them from the shantytown. But long before Gideon turned to run, he clearly saw Wendy hacking her way through them, casually soaking up bullets without even flinching.
Eventually, Amanda scooped him up under her arm and sprinted for the exit, herding the remaining refugees up the stairs as quickly as possible.
"Where are we going?" Amanda panted, as the roars of rage slowly faded into the distance.
"Back to the cache," Gideon replied. "The exit's right under the pedestal, apparently."
Then, as they continued upwards, he belatedly remembered that he had something important to add – if only for the sake of his newfound empathy.
"About what I said earlier… I know it was probably the worst thing that's ever been said to you, and I want you to know that-"
"I think apologies can wait, Gideon. As much as it's nice to hear a good old-fashioned 'I'm sorry' every now and again, I don't think now's the best time: if you really are planning on reforming, a good starting point would be learning that there's a time and place for everything."
"Fair enough…"
"Well," said Nyarlathotep. "That went spectacularly, didn't it?"
Jheselbraum eyed the Outer God disapprovingly, a look of distaste arcing off her normally-serene features. "You know I don't like treating this as a spectator sport," she said icily.
"Oh, we both know you like to watch, Deep Purple."
For a moment, the mountainside echoed with the distinctive sound of Jheselbraum trying not to groan in exasperation. "Could you kindly not call me that? I'd rather not be connected with that band any more than I absolutely have to."
"As you wish. Still, I think Gideon's going to do quite well for himself, don't you? As soon as he's safe enough to continue his lessons with you, I imagine he may actually make a fair-to-decent oracle."
"Maybe so," Jheselbraum admitted. "I'd still feel more comfortable if one of the best hopes for the salvation of Earth didn't have to teleconference with me via one of Yog-Sothoth's toys."
"You act as though he isn't strong enough to take the pressure. Believe me, exposure to Weirdness has toughened his psyche: if it hadn't, he would have been driven mad on the spot. Besides, I think he's more to worry about in the meantime. Tell me, do you think he stands a chance of escaping Wendy?"
"For now, yes. She'll catch up eventually: Bill selected her for the role of the Horseman of War for a very good reason. Now that she's had a chance to get her feelings off her chest, she won't bother talking next time. Next time, it'll be an ambush."
Nyrlathotep rubbed his hands eagerly. "Oooh, I can't wait. More importantly, I can't wait to see what Axolotl is going to do about it."
"And does the Axolotl know that you've been casually handing out mind-linking tools borrowed directly from the Gate the Key and the Guardian?"
"Implicitly, yes. He wants these recruits united with their goals: I directed Gideon to the cache, I made sure the cache had a means of communicating with you, and I made sure he survived. Other than that, no specifics are required."
"You really are a rotten bastard, do you know that?"
"Aw, you say the nicest things, darling," Nyrlathotep purred. "Let me see the disdain in all your eyes, let me know you still care."
"Stop it. I know you're playing your own little game throughout all of this, Pharaoh. I've already been able to catch a few glimpses of it: I don't know what you're planning just yet, but I know you want something very specific from Axolotl, something you believe only he can provide. And I think I know exactly what that is: you want to save your masterpiece."
"And that's what I like about you Jheselbraum. You always know – not enough to tell exactly what I'm thinking, but always know more than any entity in your neck of the woods… and you have no idea how much that excites me.."
"Too much information, thank you."
There was a muffled grunt of pain from somewhere off in the distance, as something partly human and partly spider writhed in pain against the chains affixed to her feet.
"Speaking of too much information," Jheselbraum added, "Why exactly are you dragging that Ananasi around with you?"
"Can't you read my mind, dear?"
"As I said, there are some things even I don't want to know."
"Very well then. Darlene here is just along for the ride: I'm keeping her in tow until I'm ready to signal her mighty ancestor."
"And I assume you know how dangerous the Weaver is."
"You would assume correctly."
"Just how many times can you play the roulette wheel until you lose?"
"You tell me: you're the Oracle."
"Very funny. I confess I barely have time to focus on your intricate games: I'm still too busy trying to figure out what to do about Dipper."
Nyarlathotep smirked. "You don't. Remember, you can't access this realm; some goes for anyone who's been touched by the Axolotl. If you want something done, I'm the facilitator, and Dipper will soon be a matter of my concern alone." His smirk widened. "It's going to be good. Trust me."
"One of these days, you're going to say that and actually mean it," Jheselbraum deadpanned.
And in that moment, there was a loud trill from the mobile phone in Nyarlathotep's pocket.
"Ah, and it seems our mutual friend has come to call. A moment, if you please…"
Clicking open the phone, Nyarlathotep trilled, "Mr A, lovely to hear from you! How's the merry chase going? Find any decent-"
"Nyarlathotep, I really don't have time for witty repartee at present. It's all gone horribly wrong over here: Bill proved a lot quicker than I expected; he's on the verge of catching up with me."
"Ah. So I take it your graffiti spooked him a little more than anticipated. Where are you?"
"The Southern Void. I'm currently hiding under a dimensional inconsistency and hoping he can't recognize my energy signature while I'm still in a human vessel. If he finds me now, he'll kill me and my host. I hate to ask another favour, but-"
"You want me to draw Bill away from the area long enough for you to escape, is that right?"
"It'd be a big help, sure," Axolotl muttered, scarcely bothering to hide his exasperation.
"Then I'll be there in two shakes of a flayed lambskin. You hang in there."
And before Axolotl could reply, Nyarlathotep hung up.
"Right," he said briskly. "It's been wonderful seeing you again, Oracle, but duty calls. You keep on forecasting the future and watching the present: believe me, it's going to be one hell of a show…"
And with that, he was off, dragging the struggling figure of the spider-woman behind him.
"Come along, Darlene!" the Outer God roared triumphantly. "It's time we summoned your grandmother: we have an Axolotl to save!"
A/N: This chapter's soundtrack choice is Forgotten Face by Nobuo Uematsu.
Yes, yes, I know, I abided by ambiguous syntax in order to confuse you about which Horseman of the Apocalypse I meant when I said "first." I'm sorry. Also, I'm sorry if Jheselbraum appears to be channelling a bit of Pa'u Zhaan from Farscape. I couldn't resist. So, any thoughts on Gideon's stumbling towards true redemption, on what Mr Carter/Nyarlathotep intends to do about Dipper, about the Oracle, on what she's said about Ford?
Up next...
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