A/N: *sigh* I meant for this to be a short chapter, ladies and gents, I really did.
No, really. Stop laughing. In any event, I couldn't chainsaw this one, so I just had to let it keep going until the point was made.
One way or the other, I extend my unending thanks to all of you who viewed, reviewed, favourited and followed! Special thanks to guest, MrNonsense, Frosty Wolf, your biggest fan, OMAC001, Carcer14, Northgalus2002, Hourglass Cipher, Blind-Eyephone, Fantasy Fan 223, and Crowned Steven!
Anyway, without further ado, the latest chapter: feel free to correct those dreadful typos that creep in at three in the morning! Read, review, and above all, enjoy!
Disclaimer: Gravity Falls still ain't mine. Also, this chapter may diverge from the backstory as portrayed by Journal 3, due to Bill Cipher's interference with the timeline (and definitely not due to me losing access to the only copy of Journal 3 I could borrow, no sir).
Update: Tweaking the chapter ever-so-slightly to keep it a bit more in line with Journal 3 now that I finally have a copy. Still a few divergences, but once again, time-travel applies.
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Gravity Falls had seen better days.
By now, Weirdness had quite clearly had its way with the place: the streets were empty, blasted things, frequented only by spider-legged armchairs, screaming shards of mirror and human-shaped rat plagues. The lawns flowed and ebbed like water, perfectly solid yet washing back and forth. The roads were rivers of ethereal mist, flowing with the souls of dead playthings en route to resurrection in another playground. The sky above the ruins was an ocean of steaming, coppery blood, alive with giggling, lamprey-mouthed sea monsters. The barren forest gleamed stark white under the glare of the infernal sun, the trees transformed into towering human skeletons. Buildings oozed skywards in viscous rivulets, wood, brick and concrete fused together into one syrupy mass – in which the whimpering figures of human beings could still be seen, trapped forever in the walls of their homes. No refugees dared walk these maddening streets, unless they had no other choice.
After all, nothing could shelter them here. Nothing was left of the old Gravity Falls… with one exception.
Deep beneath the skeletal forest, a dilapidated bunker lurked. Deep within, past the shelves of unused provisions, past the booby traps, past the control room and through the corroding remains of the decontamination chamber, the hidden laboratory stood in echoing silence. In spite of all the upheaval that had been inflicted on the surrounding area, one cryotube was still intact and running, still casting an unearthly blue glow upon the surrounding caverns.
And behind the lone tube's glass, the Shapeshifter remained trapped in cryogenic sleep, frozen in his familiar pose of mimicked terror. Ironically, he was the only one of Gravity Falls' current residents who hadn't been changed in some way by the riding tides of Weirdness that had consumed the town. It wasn't easy for anyone to sleep through the apocalypse, but through Ford Pines' machines and Bill Cipher's edict, the Shapeshifter had managed it.
However, the chamber hadn't quite had the intended effect on the prisoner: though the ice was more than enough to keep his body incarcerated, it wasn't enough to completely shut down his brain; despite being completely frozen, the Shapeshifter's mind was still active, still howling silently in rage at the monotony of it all.
Ultimately, it didn't mean much in the long run, given that he couldn't move or take a form that might undo the freezing. But he could still think, however dimly. He was aware of the world around him, of the glass walls caging him in on all sides, of the merciless cold that paralysed him. He could plan, he could scheme, he could fantasize his revenge… and most importantly of all, he could escape his prison the only way still possible for him.
He could dream of the past.
There is warmth here. It has been warm and safe here for as long as he can remember, though he cannot say how much time has passed since he first began to think.
Nor does he know who he is or even what he is: he simply is.
And for the first time since he first awoke here in the dark, there is a new sensation: movement. Someone is carrying him – upwards. Up, out of the dark place where he was planted and into new territories, away from the nest. Moments later, there is a jolt as he is set down once more, and a strange series of noises can be heard echoing from somewhere far above him.
"It's still intact… and alive? Even after being buried so deep underground and left undisturbed for so long! What kind of species could possibly survive all that pressure and time, I wonder…"
In this moment, he is struck by the realization that he should be leaving soon, an impulse telling him he should not be in this warm but confining space a moment longer. Acting on instinct, he lunges forward as far as he can go, thrusting out his jaws at the nearest wall as hard as he can possibly can; with a muffled crunch, he feels the wall ahead of him crumple, and then give way, revealing…
Light, blinding in its intensity. With it comes a harsh gust of ice-cold air, cutting through the reassuring warmth that had shrouded him up until this very moment. Shivering and exhausted, he crawls from the remains of the egg and out into the world for the first time.
Eyes struggling to adjust to the onslaught of light and unfamiliar atmospheric conditions, he looks curiously at the surrounding environment, trying to recognize the various items strewn around him. His instincts tell him that it's important to study these objects and commit them to memory, but he isn't sure why.
Then, he sees the gigantic figure standing over him; for a split-second, he takes in the bizarre shape of the body, the inexplicably layered appearance of the skin, the alien layout of the face, the weird-dimensioned eyes hidden behind flat, glassy carapace. Then, deeper impulses kick in:
Stranger = potential threat.
Flight/fight response: threat + overwhelming size own exhaustion = run.
Exhaustion x unknown environment = no possibility of running.
Then he sees the strange cylindrical shape next to him. He takes in its shiny white surface, its ceramic composition, its distinctive pattern of hairline cracks, and the strange curving shape emerging from it. What happens next happens entirely on reflex: an ethereal aperture within his being opens, muscles warp and shift, glands drip diligently, and a moment later, he changes.
He gathers himself into a new shape, rolling his body into a perfect cylinder; then he sprouts a curving shape of his own from his back, even as he converts his flesh into a glossy shell of white ceramic and hides his eyes and mouth behind it. A moment later, there are two strange ceramic cylindrical shapes sitting on the ground.
At last, his instincts have rewarded him, for now knows who and what he is: he is a Shapeshifter. He is perfectly disguised. But if he is hidden, why does the threat appear so interested?
And why does this glass-eyed creature seem so… familiar?
The Shapeshifter's disguise does little to help him in the end: the threat simply picks him up and carries him away, leaving him quivering helplessly in his captor's hands. He knows he must fight, or at least find some form that can break free of the threat's grasp, but he is still too exhausted from his hatching and taking on his first form to put much effort into it. At the apex of his terror, he briefly attempt to take on the shape of the threat itself, but the Shapeshifter's muscles scream in protest at the effort of adopting such a large mass, and he knows at once that he isn't strong enough for it yet.
And there is something about his captor, something that seems to shut down the Shapeshifter's desire to escape, something that tells him that this strange glassy-eyed being is not a threat at all. He doesn't know what this feeling could be, but it seems to come from the same place in his brain that the earlier sense of recognition had come from. And though it makes no sense to him whatsoever, he finds himself going limp in his captor's hands, allowing it to carry him away.
As the hours tick by, the Shapeshifter can only stare at the world around him, marvelling at the sheer variety of shapes sitting just beyond his reach, and finds himself almost exploding with the need to study and assume them all. He wants to change, he wants to shift, he wants to be different, but his desire to see more – combined with the inexplicable resistance inside his head – forces him to remain still, even as his stamina slowly returns.
In the end, he can only watch in fascination as his newfound keeper walks into what appears to be a cave, travels through a series of passageways, and finally comes to a stop in a strange white-surfaced enclosure, where it finally sets the container down.
For several seconds, the Shapeshifter can only sit there, still in his cylindrical form, wondering what to do next. Then, after almost a minute of twiddling with strange metal things and tapping his outer shell with glass-tipped vines, the creature standing over him begins making sounds again.
"Hello? Experiment 210, can you hear me? Can you understand me? Oh, of course it won't, idiot, it's just been born… uh… you probably can't understand English… or anything else for that matter, but hopefully we'll be able to rectify that in time. Look, let's just start with a few basic care and feeding tests. I know this isn't making much sense, but just bear with me for a moment…"
At this point, the glassy-eyed creature leaves. Left unattended, the Shapeshifter busies itself with exploring the platform around him. This surface is cluttered with objects for him to study and imitate: strange tubular formations of silica, inexplicable metal and polymer fusions, stark-white piles of wood-pulp sheets, and so much more. His senses allow him to read their composition with ease, his eyes intuiting all but the smallest details. So much of it is guided by instinct, he can barely begin to comprehend all the information he's receiving.
But for now, he doesn't need to understand. All he has to do is change.
A gland pulses, an aperture opens, and his body shifts into a new and extraordinary form. This time, however, he is careful to make sure that the shape he modelled himself on has been removed from the platform; the Shapeshifter has learned his lesson by now. Eventually, the creature with the glassy eyes returns, this time holding a large tray, and immediately begins making sounds again.
"You know, 210, I can actually see the microscope on the floor, in case you were wondering. You're not fooling anyone. Still, I brought you some food: I haven't detected any major differences in amino acids, digestion or nutritional requirements, so this should be safe for you. All we have to do is figure out what you prefer."
It lifts the lid off the tray, and the Shapeshifter is immediately met with an aroma that sends his appetite into overdrive: meat – raw and still-bloody! He hasn't eaten anything since he left his egg, and for the first time since then he is aware of just how hungry he is; it takes every last drop of willpower not to abandon his disguise and make a grab for the tray.
"I found a wide selection for you: raw meat, cooked meat, insects, gastropods, vegetables… you've got teeth – well, your natural form has teeth – so I have to assume you're capable of chewing. I've cut the pieces small though, just to be on the safe side." The thing reaches into the tray, and holds out a shred of raw meat just above the Shapeshifter's disguised body. "Now, here we- WHOA!"
Hunger briefly overwhelming him, the Shapeshifter shifts back into default form and lunges upwards, snatching the hunk of bloody meat out of the creature's hands with one almighty wrench of his jaws. Immediately, he descends on the meat, tearing it to pieces and swallowing the shredded lengths of flesh whole.
"Wow, you really were hungry. Well, at least I know what to get for you in future…"
Then, the glassy-eyed being reaches out and gingerly touches the back of the Shapeshifter's head with an outstretched finger. Immediately, every instinct in the Shapeshifter's brain demands retaliation: this could be an attempt to capture him again, to harm him or even kill him. Now that he has some strength back, he must lash out and bite at those outstretched fingers, if only to stop his keeper from trying a second time.
But once again, something silences the desire before he can act on it. Instead, the Shapeshifter finds himself sitting there compliantly as his keeper gently strokes the back of his head.
And at last, he realizes what the inexplicable feeling is: safety. Comfort. Trust. And… familiarity.
This being, whatever it is, makes him feel safe. And for reasons that make no sense to him, he has the most peculiar notion that he's met this keeper of his before…
He is given food. He is given water. He is given a bed, a strange cushioned thing contained in a walled-off enclosure. He is even given a strange inanimate thing with a furry coat and glossy black eyes. Granted, he has no idea why the keeper seems to believe that he requires such a thing, but if nothing else, he has a third form to add to his growing repertoire. For a time, he is allowed to rest; he is not allowed to leave his enclosure, but as his inexplicable impulses continually remind him that he is safe, he has no desire for escape.
Eventually, he is given tasks, of a sort: mazes to run through, items to toy with, sights and sounds to memorize, reflective surfaces to study. Perhaps these are games, though his keeper doesn't seem the playful type. In any case, The Shapeshifter likes the reflection game the best: it's already glorious to feel his body change, but to see the transformation for himself is a new and infinitely more complex layer of satisfaction.
These games prompt more noises from his keeper: "You're definitely intelligent, 210, maybe even sentient – all the more impressive considering you're only a week out of the egg. You're also understanding certain concepts a lot faster than expected. I wonder, is this some kind of genetic memory at work? A hive mind, maybe? And if it's the latter, are there more of you? Or maybe… just maybe … do you have a name of your own?"
There is a pause, as the Shapeshifter reviews the noises his keeper's been making for the last few seconds. He still can't understand most of it, but it sounds as though the last part was addressed to him. Curiously, he turns to look at it, studying the strange glassy-eyed being in detail.
"My name is Stanford Pines."
His keeper pauses, and then places a hand over its chest. "Stanford Pines," it intones, loudly and precisely. Then, it points at him, clearly waiting for a response of some kind. Then with a leap of recognition, the Shapeshifter understands: his keeper has just designated itself.
Stanford Pines.
However, the answer takes some time to formulate: he knows his own designation well enough, and he even has a rough idea of how it sounds, if only because he's heard his keeper muttering it under his breath dozens of times when clearly referring to him – and another one of those inexplicable leaps of logic tells him this must be the case.
Unfortunately, the sound of the name is much more difficult to produce. Fortunately, over the last few days, he's learned how to change selectively. Bit by bit, he alters his throat until he can effectively sound out his designation.
"ShApEshIfTEr," he replies at last, gesturing to himself with a claw. The voice is guttural and distorted, but it's evidently just clear enough to be comprehended, for Stanford's eyes light up.
"Well, that's not a name, that's a species. I can't very well just call you Shapeshifter all the time, can I? It's too impersonal. I'm going to have to give you an actual name, okay? Something like… Proteus? No, no, too on the nose. Gwion? Hrmmm, I don't think so, I don't want to imagine who Ceridwen could be. Loki? Oh good god, no. We need a name without mythological references, something that might suffice as an alias until we can think up a better one."
Stanford Pines hesitates for a moment, his features knitting as if in thought. Then, he places a hand on the back of the Shapeshifter's head, patting him the way he did a few days before.
"Shifty," it says at last. "I'll call you Shifty. How's that sound?"
The Shapeshifter considers this, realizing at once that he has been given a new designation – no, something more than that: a name. "ShIfTy," he replies, rolling the word around. Against all expectations, he likes it.
He is Shifty now.
But if that's the case, then why does his intuition tell him that he has another name?
Over the next few days, Stanford teaches him everything he can: human speech, human language, human customs, even a little human science and history. Shifty listens dutifully, storing away every single detail for future reference. Before long, he realizes that the same process that gave him his mental library of shapes comes in very handy during lessons such as these: his memory is all but perfect, no data mislaid, no information ever forgotten – for he must memorize shapes if he is to properly assume them. So, he never forgets a lesson: once he hears it, it's internalized forever, making his keeper's makeshift exams very easy to pass.
As soon as he has mastered the alphabet and the spoken word, Shifty moves swiftly through the lessons he is provided with. Even Stanford himself is a little startled at how quickly his student progresses. And yet, the longer he studies, Shifty finds himself once again struck by that curious sensation of familiarity, as if he's heard lessons like these before – as if he remembers the answers from somewhere else.
Before long, Stanford has to start explaining more personal details, if only to satisfy Shifty's growing curiosity about why he's been brought here. He tells him a little bit about himself, of his interest in anomalies and mysteries, of Gravity Falls and its surroundings, and even a little bit of his grand theory of Weirdness origin.
Not all the lessons are learned from Stanford, of course. Throughout all this time, Shifty's database of forms and shapes is growing: every day, he finds new shapes to claim as his own. Sometimes, he likes to change selectively, to combine forms and admire the resulting shapes in mirrors. Often, he changes simply for personal enjoyment, delighting in the shiver of anticipation he feels just before he shifts, exalting in the sensation of warping muscle and bone, riding the satisfaction he feels after every transformation like the crest of a wave.
He's growing stronger, as well: as time goes on, he finds that he can take larger and more complex forms, the apertures within his being slowly expanding to allow the transmission of additional mass, his mental library of shapes growing day by day. Again, Stanford can only marvel at the progress he makes, muttering excitedly to himself as he jots down his findings in the journal he now carries with him everywhere he goes, always keeping the pages just out of Shifty's view.
There's something very interesting about that journal, something almost familiar, but try as he might, Shifty can't say why…
One day, there is a new arrival in Stanford's laboratory: a strange, slump-shouldered figure, long-nosed, long-faced and brown-haired; wide, furtive eyes look out at the world through glasses just like Stanford's, and an expression of deepest curiosity is written plainly on his face – mixed with a healthy dose of caution.
This is the first human being other than Stanford he's ever seen up-close, so Shifty finds himself slipping into the form of a coffee cup as the interloper steps into the laboratory, if only for the sake of observing this interloper before introducing himself.
"Ford," the interloper asks eventually, "What's this in the cage?"
"Oh, that's Shifty?"
"Shifty?"
"Yes, Shifty. Well, I originally documented him as Experiment 210, but once I realized he was intelligent, I decided to call him Shifty. He seemed to like it, anyway. Isn't that right, Shifty?"
"…Ford, why are you talkin' to a coffee cup?"
It takes all of Shifty's willpower to not laugh in that moment.
"You can drop the disguise now," says Ford loudly.
"Um, I don't want to cast any aspersions on your abilities, but are you sure you're feelin' okay?"
"Just bear with me for a moment, Fiddleford. Ahem, the joke is over, Shifty. Now would you please change back? You're being rude."
"Spoilsport," Shifty mutters, and reassumes his true form – prompting the stranger to let out a high-pitched yelp and almost leap backwards into Stanford's arms.
"Aaargh! Holy-"
"It's okay!" Stanford interjects, placing a calming hand on the stranger's shoulder. "He's a friend. Fiddleford, this is Shifty – Experiment 210, as I used to call him. Shifty, this is Fiddleford McGucket, an old friend of mine; he's here to help me with my work."
There is a pause, as Shifty considers the spindly-looking human. Once again, that sensation of Déjà vu is making itself felt, and once again, he's at a loss as to why: he doesn't know how he could have met this jittery little man, and he certainly has no explanation as to why his intuition tells him that this Fiddleford could be unpredictable – especially considering he looks about as dangerous as a glass of tepid water.
Still, he can't help but feel just a tiny bit suspicious: what work is this interloper helping with? What is Stanford doing apart from cryptozoological studies? And why hasn't he shared it with Shifty?
Eventually, Shifty extends a scrawny arm through the bars of the cage in the quivering human's direction.
"Pleased to meet you," he lies, as Fiddleford nervously shakes his claw.
"How does he do that?"
"Do what?"
"Oh come on, Ford, you know what I'm talkin' about: how can Shifty transform? I mean, I've seen certain non-anomalous animals mimic other species, but this is something completely different: he actually becomes the animal he's impersonatin'! And what about conservation of mass? I just saw him transform into a refrigerator, Ford: where did he get all the additional mass? He's been sproutin' quicker than grass in the summertime, but I know for a fact that he isn't that big just yet. And what about the time he transformed into a coffee cup, or that hamster? Where did all his mass go? I mean, there's just so much about him that doesn't make sense…"
"Hmm. Yep. Absolutely."
"Are you even listening to me?"
"Sorry?"
"You've been drawin' triangles on your hand again, Ford. You're always like this after you've been sleepwalking. I really wish you'd told me this morning, you know: I could have gotten you some of the old McGucket family pick-me-up."
"I'm fine, Fiddleford, really. Oh, you were talking about Shifty's mass, weren't you? See, I'm focussed on the conversation!"
"Better late than never…"
"Fiddleford!"
"Alright, alright. So, were do you think our shapeshifter's been getting' all his additional mass from, and where do you think his mass has been going?"
"Well, I have a working hypothesis. You see, every time Shifty transforms, my instruments detect subtle pulses of energy: it's not enough to generate new mass, but it's just enough to transport it… and some of those energies showed up on the transdimensional spectrum."
"You're sure?"
"After all the work we've done on the portal so far, I'd be hard-pressed to mistake it for anything else. My theory is that his transformations are assisted by microscopic portals inside his body – portals leading to other dimensions, maybe even to a personalized pocket reality. When he wants to be bigger, he draws in mass from this dimension; when he wants to be smaller, he pumps some of his own mass away and reshapes what's left."
"Then why hasn't he been anything bigger than your couch?"
"My guess is, there's limits to how much mass he can use at a time: his limits improve with age, from what I can tell. I've done some tests, worked out a few calculations in some of the back pages of my journals, and there might be ways of artificially boosting his abilities, perhaps using transfusions of certain extradimensional energies to enhance the transmission of mass... but that'll have to wait for now."
"Let me guess, this ties into your theory of a dimension of weirdness?"
"It's always a possibility. I mean, I've never been able to find exactly where Shifty's egg really came from, and even that crashed spaceship hasn't been able to illuminate much. For all I know, Shifty's parents are out there in the weirdness dimension. Maybe there's a whole culture of them somewhere out there."
"God almighty, I can barely cope with one."
"Oh come on, Shifty's not that bad, surely?"
"You haven't seen what he gets up to when he's out of his cage, Ford. I swear, he gets sneakier every day…"
And unknown to the two scientists, Shifty isn't in his cage anymore: he's watching them from a corner of the lab, listening to the conversation skid back and forth.
Always listening.
Weeks creep by in a haze of endless research, experimentation, writing, and (in Shifty's case) transformation. Every day, his powers grow and his true form matures: every day, he is a little taller, his arms a little longer, his senses more refined.
And the more Stanford writes in those mysterious journals of his, the more Shifty's curiosity grows. He can't help it: there's so many enticing things he's heard about it, so many secrets it supposedly contains.
Eventually, though, his interest takes on a sharper, more insistent note:
As the days drag on, Shifty finds himself drawn time and again to the outside world, to the call of new shapes and new thrills. More than once, he asks – pleads, really – for Stanford to just let him out and so he can find some forms of his own, but the scientist insists that it's not safe for him out there. Every time Shifty asks, he's told that he's "still too young," or that he's too unique to risk on the outside world and needs to wait until they can find other shapeshifters, or some kind of environment where he can live safely and peacefully. And though he knows that Stanford means well, the sense of confinement rankles like the dying nerve-ending in a rotten tooth.
With his instincts still crying out for new shapes to study and assume, Shifty is forced to look for them elsewhere; he begins obsessively studying as many books on zoology as Stanford will permit, filling his internal library of shapes with what he can glean from the text and images within. It's no substitute for being outside and seeing these forms up close, but it's better than nothing.
And the journals are the ultimate conclusion of this humble goal.
There's so many forms in those pages that he longs to assume, so many shapes beyond his reach… and there's also Stanford's deeper experiments, on enhancing shapeshifting, on building the portal, and on this mysterious benefactor he hears Stanford occasionally muttering about. So much more could be attained if he could just study a little of this research.
If Stanford would just let him read…
But no. His keeper has secrets.
Stanford's personality is beginning to subtly change: he's less trusting than usual, less inclined to share and all but consumed by his work on the portal; he's become prone to insomnia, bouts of sleep-walking, eye complaints and inexplicable giggling fits. Once or twice, Shifty swears that he actually sees his keeper's eyes change colour. And the longer this continues, Stanford only grows more stubborn when the matter of his journal discussed, and insists on keeping his "pet" in a cage as the portal experiments grow more dangerous, claiming it to be "for your own safety."
And every day he cannot read the journal, Shifty fears that an opportunity is slipping away from him. What if something happens to the journal? So much precious knowledge will be lost forever, so many shapes will be denied him; Stanford travelled far and risked so much just to study these creature – Shifty might never find them on his own.
And every time the thought crosses his mind, Shifty can't help but feel that the worst has already come to pass, and the journal has already been burned…
Shifty doesn't know how much time has elapsed – weeks, perhaps, maybe months – but it doesn't matter. He's lost track by now. All that matters is this:
His patience has officially snapped.
He can't stand another minute spent without the journal and all its secrets; he can't stand being indoors a moment longer, cooped up in the increasingly-confining laboratory as he has been for the last few weeks, and the cage only rankles further. He wants to be free, he wants to find new shapes, he wants to know all the secrets the journal hides and he wants to do it before something awful happens… and the fact that he doesn't know where he's getting these inexplicable bursts of intuition only frustrates him further.
But right now, Shifty doesn't have much left in the way of options.
He can't talk Stanford into letting him read the journal. He can't steal the journal either: Stanford's journals are too-well secured. And he can't try to brute-force the journal away from him either. As much it frustrates him to admit, hurting the eccentric scientist is the last thing on his mind: the same sense of intuition that first told him that his keeper could be trusted now informs him, louder than ever, that Stanford Pines must not be harmed.
No, if he wants to get his hands on the journal, he must play to his strengths. And one thing he excels at above all else is subterfuge.
Once he's chewed his way out of the cage, finding the rope is simple enough, as is the key to the closet. Having been among them for weeks on end, he can easily take on the shapes of both Stanford and Fiddleford, and with a little effort, their voices as well - though admittedly it's not perfect. Then, all Shifty has to do is wait until the two scientists are at opposite ends of the complex, too far away to hear one another scream. Then, he acts.
"Fiddelford, can I borrow you for a minute?"
It doesn't go well.
"LET ME OUT!" Shifty roars, trying desperately to find a form that can escape his newest prison. No luck: not even a microbe could find a way out of this enclosure - not that he could take such a form. "LET ME OUT OR I'LL PUNCH MY WAY OUT!" he thunders.
Stanford gives him one of his patented 'I'm-talking- to-an-idiot' death-glares. "You honestly think I'm going to let you out of restraints ever again – after what you did to Fiddleford?"
"Oh come on, I didn't hurt him or anything like that!"
"You tied him up and locked him in a closet, Shifty! He was lucky he didn't suffocate in there! I could barely get him to stick around long enough to double-check the security systems before he ran off! I mean, between this and the Gremloblin incident, I'll be surprised if he doesn't get through his time here without having a heart attack!"
"And you could have avoided that if you'd just let me read the journal! I asked nicely more than enough times! All I wanted was shapes, and you wouldn't let me have them, just like you wouldn't let me roam free!"
"Look… first of all, Shifty, you might be the only one of your kind left in the world: I'm not going to risk getting an endangered species killed, and I'm not letting you into the wild until I can be sure you're fully matured and in a position to rebuild the species, if need be. I mean, I was there when you first hatched, I'm responsible for you! I have to take care of you!"
At this, something in the back of Shifty's mind exalts, almost as if happy to hear Stanford say these words. But for once, Shifty isn't interested in listening to anything his inexplicable intuition has to say.
"Yes," he sneers. "And I'm sure the fact that you think I might have a connection to this dimension of weirdness you keep fantasizing about has absolutely nothing to do with it. You've got so many fantasies of what you might find when you finally get that portal up and running, haven't you?"
Seeing the shocked look on Stanford's face, he can't help but gloat: "Yeah, I heard that conversation. You're not as good at keeping secrets as you think, Stanford: with me, the walls literally have ears. And you've still got so many things you don't want to share with me, so many things you want to keep to yourself and your journal…"
"This is important, Shifty! This is stuff that could literally change the world: I like you, I care for you, but my research has to remain strictly confidential! It's much too rare and dangerous to be allowed out of this laboratory-"
"I didn't want to take it with me, you idiot!" Shifty howls, only half-lying. "I just wanted the shapes! That and your calculations for boosting my powers, but other than that, the shapes were all I wanted!"
"I would have brought you some new shapes if you'd only waited!"
"Oh, easy to say now, am I right? You'd almost forgotten about me, hadn't you? Your work on the portal was forcing everything else out of your head. Admit it, you'd forgotten to give a damn about Fiddleford until I shoved him into that closet! You've even forgotten about all those nice things you said about your brother, haven't you?"
"What are you talking about-"
"The other day? On the phone? That little shouting match you had with your father?" He shifts his voice into a facsimile of Stanford's own impassioned yells: "'I should have stood up for Stanley that night! I should have gone with him! Anything would have been better than listening to your bullshit!' Remember that? Oh, but a little bit of whispering to yourself and you forgot all about it. Just like you forgot me."
There is a pause, as Stanford slowly digests this. Is it Shifty's imagination, or are those tears in his eyes?
"Shifty, you need to stop," he says at last. "You need to stop right now and calm down."
"If you release me and give me the journals, maybe."
"Please, Shifty-"
"I've given you my terms, Stanford. Do you want to give me what I want, or do I have to take it by force?"
"Are you threatening me?"
For a moment, there is silence in the lab.
"I'm making myself clear," Shifty hisses. "I want those journals. More than that, I want what I've sought right from the very beginning, since the moment I hatched: shapes. I want to shift and reshape and claim new forms until there are no new forms left on this planet."
"And that's supposed to justify what you did to Fiddleford? For god's sake, don't you have anything else in life?"
"THAT'S ALL THERE IS! DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND?! THAT'S ALL THAT MATTERS!"
He pauses for breath.
"That's all that matters, Stanford. New shapes mean survival. Survival means life. Life means supremacy. Supremacy means victory. That's what I know to be true, what I've always known to be true. Are you really so surprised I decided to take what I wanted from the single-formed human weaklings that surround me?"
Stanford takes a deep breath, once again on the verge of tears; he turns his back, clearly mulling over what to do next… and when he finally turns back, all the emotion has gone from his face.
"You understand why I can't keep you around, then?" he says quietly.
"I'd have thought you wouldn't be stupid enough to announce yourself before killing me."
"I'm not going to kill you, 210. Like I said, I'm obliged to keep you safe until I can be sure I'm not causing an extinction: I'm having you cryogenically frozen. We can keep you on ice until we can get the portal open: as long as you're safely frozen, you'll never be a threat to anyone, ever again."
"Oh it's 210, now? Is that supposed to make it easier for you to put me on ice, or is it a sign of how disappointed you are? Let me guess, you won't even mention this last conversation: you'll just write down how clever you were in trapping me here and leave it at that, all those troublesome emotional farewells consigned to oblivion - just like that phone conversation. Am I right, or am I correct?"
But Stanford has already stopped listening to him.
In the end, the glass doesn't hold. Long before he can be frozen, Shifty is able to punch his way out, just as he'd promised.
Unfortunately, Stanford turns out to be a lot faster on his feet than he looks: as soon as he realizes that his prisoner is loose, he takes off like a rocket-powered gazelle. Shifty follows as best as he can, but his keeper knows the area much better than he does, and eventually he finds himself at a door that cannot be opened: Stanford has sealed it from the other side, leaving Shifty trapped in the bunker.
For three straight hours, he rages. He roars, he screams, he hammers against the walls with all his might, he destroys highly-sophisticated equipment, and he shifts into every form in his repertoire in the desperate hope of finding something that might be able to help him escape, to no avail. As strong as the glass tube was, it's nothing compared to the door barring his escape from the bunker. Unable to find any mechanism for opening the door from this side, he's forced to retreat back into the depths of the lab, back where the bunker's walls give way to bare rock and cavern. For a while, Shifty can do nothing but pace in silence, raging over his imprisonment in a base that probably won't be seeing visitors in a very long time.
By now, he can already guess that Stanford has lied to Fiddleford and told him that "210" is sealed away in a cryotube; for all he knows, he'll have written a deliberately misleading entry just in case the squirrelly little bastard gets curious and decides to check the journal for additional information. The end result is the same: nobody's going to be getting anywhere near this bunker.
Then, once Shifty calmed down enough to recover his composure, he reassesses the situation to the best of his ability: this place may be his prison, but it's still Stanford's laboratory – prepared for almost anything, including an apocalypse. There's food and water hidden here, to be sure, more than enough to keep him going while he tries to escape… even if it means pummelling his way through the hatchway or digging his way through solid rock. He'll escape and get revenge on Stanford, on Fiddleford, on everyone and everything who dared suppress him.
And if that doesn't work?
He will wait.
Years pass, and Shifty is still digging.
Using the massive claw that his left arm has become, he carves out new tunnels, slowly forcing his way through the bedrock a few feet at a time. By now, he can tell that he's not going to reach the surface anytime soon, not with the bunker being this far underground and him having no idea if he's tunnelling towards soil or up the side of a mountain… but he digs anyway. If nothing else, the exertion takes his mind off his anger.
As he learned, his menu isn't limited to the things he can steal from the emergency supply cache: there are more than enough burrowing lifeforms and underground reservoirs down here to keep him fed for centuries, which at least makes a change from baked beans - for as much as he likes them, even he gets bored of Fiddleford's favourite stored supply.
Once, he is lucky enough to punch through a wall into someone else's tunnel; unfortunately, the mole people aren't too happy at having him around once he demands that they guide him to the surface, and quickly leave the area, sealing most of the passages behind them.
And there are monsters down here as well. Of course, they don't give Shifty too much trouble, not after he adopts their forms as his own: one by one, he tears them apart and feasts on their carcasses, exalting in his victory with ear-splitting shrieks of triumph. Then, still stained with the blood of his victims, he returns to work.
I won't be here forever, he fumes silently. Someone will find this place. Someone will find me. And then they'll be sorry.
And against all expectations, his intuition agrees with him.
Decades pass.
And finally, finally someone enters the bunker. Shifty hears them long before he sees them, their inane chatter echoing back and forth across the control room for what feels like centuries before the decontamination chamber finally clatters open.
The girl he doesn't recognize; of course, his intuition informs him that he's seen this lanky, red-headed teenager somewhere before, though he's used to these impossible notions by now. Curiously enough, his impulses give off a few odd sparks as she steps into the light, but he has no idea what this might mean. However, she is armed, so he'll keep an eye on this "Wendy" for now.
The boy, though… oh, Shifty recognizes him alright. By now, his senses are refined enough to recognize the smell of family blood in the air: he knows that DNA, recognizes those familiar genetics all too well. Stanford Pines has relatives in this world, as luck would have it, one of them has just blundered stupidly into his lair.
And just looking at this thing, this "Dipper," Shifty finds himself hating him almost immediately: those wide, idiotic eyes, that piping prepubescent voice, the ridiculous clothes, the stupid hat, the unmanageable hair the colour of shit… just the sight of him makes Shifty want to vomit. Only a few minutes after seeing him, Shifty already wants to rip out the little bastard's throat and watch him drown in his own blood; he wants to flay him alive and leave him to die in skinless agony; he wants to see the stupid, selfish, thoughtless, over-curious, faux-intellectual brat vivisected and…
Shifty blinks rapidly, struggling to control his impulses. Where did all that come from? He wonders to himself. He'd no reason to hate Dipper other than family association with his jailer, so it makes no sense that he'd feel such loathing less than a few minutes into their meeting. Once again, he can only chalk this up to another one of his occasional bouts of intuition and leave it be.
He certainly can't kill these two, not yet. He's heard them talking about "the author" who once lived here, and knows they can only be talking about Stanford: they're looking for him, and they're obviously after his secrets. Shifty must know how much they know before he kills them; only once he has access to all the secrets they've gathered will he finally have the pleasure of extinguishing their meaningless lives.
They want the author? He'll give it to them.
But he can't take Stanford's form: that would raise too many questions, result in too much shock; after all, they might notice the family resemblance. He needs them compliant and eager, not suspicious. So, he takes another form.
Just as well the bunker had all those baked beans, really.
With a little dual-shapeshifting and theatricality, he gets the two interlopers on his side with ease. Children are easy to fool, so he gathers, and children in the presence of their idol are the perfect dupes.
And when Dipper hands him Journal 3 – actually hands it to him, doing everything short of giftwrapping the damn thing – it takes all of Shifty's energy not to jump for joy. For the next few minutes, he can only leaf through its pages, memorizing everything in sight, from gnomes to gremlobins; all Christmases have come at once, and the rush of endorphins he feels at having so many forms added to his mental library almost overwhelms him.
Alas, no sign of the method for enhancing his powers, but for now the bounty of shapes unveiled before him is consolation enough. So, for a time, he continues reading. Then, he hears Wendy's voice whispering urgently to Dipper, and recognizes the fear. He's been found out.
"Uh, you know what?" Dipper bleats pathetically. "We should probably get going. Can I have my journal back?"
Oh you presumptuous little asshole, I am going to have so much fun tearing your envious little eyeballs out of their sockets.
By way of an answer, Shifty very slowly swivels his head around a hundred and eighty degrees to face the two horrified children. "You're not going anywhere,"he gurgles, as his body begins to warp out of shape. A gland pulses, an aperture opens, and by the time he finally ascends to the ceiling, he is himself again, and the two are screaming in terror.
"How do you like my true form? Go on, admit it, you like it!"
And as Dipper screams explanations at him, Shifty realizes that he'd just addressed his last sentence to Wendy, of all people. Needless to say, this makes less sense than anything his intuition's thrown at him in his life. Why would he give a shit about what Wendy would think of him?
Wendy is nothing to him.
Right?
And then it all goes horribly wrong.
Even after Wendy steals the journal and springs a trap on him, his "playing possum" approach is more than enough to bring his prize back within reach. All he has to do is kill the redhead, wrestle the book out of her shredded fingers, kill Dipper in a suitably creative manner, and make a break for the surface before the other two can stop him.
It should be easy.
But instead, he finds himself at impasse, locked in a struggle with Wendy and somehow unable to break the stalemate. All Shifty has to do is adjust his muscles, boost his physical strength a little bit; all he has to do is conjure a tentacle out of his lower body and throttle her with it; all he has to do is change shape and pulverize her with a swingle swing of his colossal arm. All of this is within his power…
But he just… can't… do it.
Impulses deeper than instinct strangle Shifty's urge to kill, and tell him that Wendy is too important to die, just as they told him that Stanford Pines was too important to die. Given time, he could fight these impulses, but time is exactly the one thing he doesn't have. In the end, it falls to Dipper, loathsome self-absorbed little turd that he is, to break the stalemate.
The pain is nothing short of extraordinary, second only to the sense of dismay over being unmasked. Howling in pain and fury, he returns to his true form and wrenches the axe free with all his might, trusting his metamorphic physiology to heal his wounds. But before he can refocus on the task at hand, Dipper and Wendy tackle him, shoving him into the open cryotube behind him – just in time for the door to slam shut.
For the first time in many years, an ice-cold droplet of panic lands right at the base of Shifty's spine and begins spreading steadily upwards. This time, his captors have no interest in fond farewells, and no attachments to him that might make them hesitate: this time, there are no delays, and he has no time to punch his way out. As the freezing cycle begins, he can only shift wildly in a panicked search for a form that might allow him to break loose: a gland pulses, an aperture opens, and he is a gargantuan creature of living stone squeezed into the tube, hammering at the glass with all his might, to no avail.
"NO!"
Now he is a living mass of fire, trying to force back the ice, to melt through the tube, to do anything that'll help him escape. But the frost is too aggressive, the cold too brutal, and he must change again or risk dying when his flame is extinguished.
"NO!"
Now he is the faux-author, hammering futilely at the glass with weak, impotent human limbs.
"LET ME OOOOUUUUUT!"
And now he is himself again. And he is being frozen…
But at the very last minute, Shifty summons up as much insulation as he can, just to keep him going for a few seconds longer. Looking out past the fogged glass, he can see the four friends staring back at him in horror – most prominently Dipper and Mabel.
And Mabel… once again, his impulses fill him with irrational emotions: happiness at the sight of her, relief that she is safe, and that same bewildering sense of trustworthiness he always got around Stanford. His intuition tells him that this oddball child is – despite all evidence to the contrary – very important; not for the first time, Shifty can't help but wonder if he's started cracking up after so many years spent alone underground.
As for Dipper, though…
There is something he has to say to Dipper, something he needs to communicate to the hateful little rat before the chance slips away forever, just take make him feel as frightened and helpless as he feels right now. So, he presses himself against the glass and cackles loudly enough to be heard through the reinforced tube.
"You think you're so clever, don't you, Dipper? But you have no idea what you're up against. You will never find the author! If you keep digging, you'll meet a fate worse than you can imagine, and this will be the last form you ever take!"
Now he is Dipper, screaming his last, contorted in the pose his intuition tells him must be so. But the last conscious thought that passes through his head isn't one of hatred or rage, but of simple confusion over his own last words:
How did I know all that?
Then the ice consumes him, and bitter cold is all he knows.
And back in the present…
"Not exactly the cosiest place to set up home, but at least there's a sealable door. Hopefully that'll be enough to keep the monsters out. And what the hell are these?"
"Cryogenic storage, by the looks of things. Hang on, it looks as though this one's occupied…"
Someone was tapping insistently on the side of his tube,
"Any idea of what's in here?"
"Me, I'm hoping it's a side of beef. I tell you, I am sick and tired of eating rats and tinned food."
"Why would anyone want to store beef in a state-of-the-art cryotube?"
"Oh give it a rest, you asshole. Just let me dream for a while…"
Somewhere close by, there was the sound of someone clearing away the fog and ice from the surface of the tube.
"Oh my god, it's a kid! Quick, get this thing open! Find the controls as quick as you can!"
A moment later, Shifty blinked, realizing that he could see – actually view the world around him in a state of full consciousness at long last. And looking around the lab, he realized that it was full of people, almost two-dozen frightened-looking men and women – all of them dressed in tattered clothes, ruined survival gear and hastily-improvised battle armour.
These people were obviously refugees, Shifty realized, though he'd come to this conclusion was beyond him. In any event, his intuition was still working in spite of the cold.
Then, for the first time in what seemed like an eternity, the frost that shrouded his body began to wane and Shifty felt something he thought he would never feel again: warmth. For a moment, he couldn't quite comprehend what was happening, much less believe it, but as the evidence began to stack up, his heart gave a massive leap as he finally realized what was happening.
He was being freed.
At long last, the tube slid open, allowing him to flop forward into the arms of the nearest human.
"It's okay," the ragged-looking figure assured him, as she helped him upright. "You're alright now. You're safe with us. Now, what's your name?"
There was a pause, as Shifty hastily assessed his abilities, and found to his relief and delight that everything still worked. In fact, now that he'd been thawed out and allowed to warm up at long last, new and exciting sensations were flowing through his body. There was something different in the air, an almost electric charge that seemed to flow through him, fuelling and invigorating him, making him feel…
Better.
Stronger.
"You can call me Shifty," he said at last.
A set of nictating membranes slid across his eyes, and a wicked grin erupted across his borrowed face.
A moment later, he was back in his true form, glaring down at the pathetic weak-bodied invalids, howling out thirty years of pent-up rage. He'd been left helpless for too long, been denied too many opportunities to vent his frustrations, and now that he had targets that his impulses had no desire to spare, he had the perfect outlet for his hatred.
It took less than a minute to kill every last one of them.
Then, as the blood began to dry on his claws, the freshly-blossoming silence of the lab was broken by a shriek of laughter from somewhere very close by.
Something was hovering towards him, something that quite plainly wasn't human. In fact, it wasn't until he noticed the eyes clustered around this something's body that he belatedly realized that this was actually a living creature. Well, he had to assume it was living: Rubik's cubes didn't normally unfold themselves and float through the air of their own accord, did they? They certainly didn't glow like that, at any rate.
"Nicely done, kid!" said the unfolded Rubik's cube cheerfully. "Now come on: we've got work to do!"
It shifted position, its colourful segments forming multiple clusters of prisms and cubes as it did so,
"Who the hell are you?" Shifty demanded.
"The name's Amorphous Shape – Henchmaniac, diplomat, con-artist, initiator of civil wars and emissary of Bill Cipher. Nice to meet you!"
Not for the first time, Shifty found himself wondering if he'd gone insane at some point and hadn't noticed. "You do realize that all that means absolutely nothing to me, right?" he asked wearily.
Amorphous Shape rolled its eyes. "Look, it's really simple: there's been an apocalypse, reality has been turned inside out, humanity is living in subjugation, and all bow down to the new master of the universe, Bill Cipher. Everyone's imprisoned, everyone's playing his games, and everyone praises the big gold triangle of eternity. Now, he sent me here to have you defrosted, and here I am!"
"I seem to recall the refugees doing the defrosting."
"And how do you think they got here? You think anyone would have found you if I hadn't guided them here? Oh, that was a helluva lotta fun, let me tell ya: none of them wanted to go anywhere near Gravity Falls at first, but after I blocked the paths to the other playgrounds and kicked off a landslide, you should've seen just how quickly they changed their minds.
Shifty's brow wrinkled. "Was there in particular reason you couldn't have just showed up and released me by yourself?"
"Where's the fun in that? Besides, I knew you'd still be pissed after those dumb Pines shut you away the first time, so I thought I'd give you a few punching bags to start with, just to get all that anger out of your system."
"Well thank you, but…"
Shifty hesitated. The disorientation was beginning to recede from his brain, and at last he remembered his pledge of vengeance against all those who dared suppress him, and he remembered his hatred of Dipper Pines… and now, his impulses were filling his head with deeper, more inscrutable desires: for reasons he couldn't explain, it was important to find the Pines and their friends; he had to track down Mabel, Stanford, Wendy, Soos, Fiddleford, Stanley, Pacifica, Robbie, Gideon – and he didn't even know who the hell the last three people were. He didn't know what he was going to do when he found all of them, apart from ripping Dipper's head off and using it as a sock puppet; all he knew was that he had to find them.
"Where are the Pines?" he asked softly.
"Oh, they've got playgrounds of their own," Amorphous Shape chortled. "They're perfectly secure, believe me. Now, onto business-"
"Where's the Pines?"
"Mouthy little critter, aren't you? Look, the Pines are all locked away in their own little prisons. If you want revenge on them, they're waiting for you… but first, you've got a job to do. You behave yourself, and you'll have all the time in the world to make the Pines family suffer. How's that sound?"
Shifty fumed silently, random shapes oozing in and out of his flesh as he struggled with his temper. "What do you want me to do?" he grumbled.
"A simple search-and-destroy mission. See, we've got uninvited guests in this dimension – an uppity little gasbag by the name of Axolotl. We've been trying to catch him, but he always manages to spot us before we can close in on him. We need someone native to this world, someone stealthy enough to sneak up on him, and be able to kill the bastard… and Bill thought of you, Mr Shapeshifter. So, how's that sound?"
"You want me to hunt down this Axolotl?"
"That's right. All you've got to do is use this to pick up his trail…" Amorphous Shape reshuffled himself, and a tiny bejewelled medallion appeared in the air before him. "Just wear that talisman around your neck, and he'll be lit up like a Christmas tree, no matter how well-hidden he thinks he is."
"And if I find and kill this man, you'll give me the Pines family."
"Exactamundo. So, whaddaya say?"
Shifty considered this. For a while, accepting the bargain almost sounded like a good idea. But then logic crept back into play again, combined with a few of his inexplicable intuitive leaps: For all he knew Amorphous Shape might not uphold his end of the bargain; Bill might just imprison Shifty next, just for kicks; and what if the entire proposition was a lie and the Pines family and allies were already dead?
And then there was that fresh surge of strength that he'd felt the moment he'd emerged from cryostasis. He'd never felt this vital before, never felt so versatile and malleable. What if that was more than just his imagination. What if… what if…
"No," he said at last.
"No? What do you mean, no?"
"The meaning's pretty self-contained. Suffice it to say, playing bloodhound to some giant triangle god sounds like a spectacular waste of my time, and I'd probably be better off just taking the reward from you instead of licking your… well, whatever orifices you have hidden under there. Do unfolded Rubik's cubes even have orifices? I'm assuming those eyes are real and not just drawn on with permanent marker, so maybe yes."
Amorphous Shape's eyes narrowed. "Cute," he said icily. "Real cute. Well, I always said that carrot-and-the-stick approach works best. But what the hell? You're young and stupid, so I'll be gentle: I'll give you one last chance to stand down before I get violent."
"And I'll give you one chance to tell me exactly where you're keeping the Pines family before I start tearing out eyeballs," Shifty retorted.
"Violence it is, then."
The glow surrounding Amorphous Shape's body expanded to a vivid blue glare that tore through the surrounding darkness, focussing into a beam of energy that incinerated the bodies of the refugees, blasted the cryotube to pieces, and punched clean through the opposite wall… but somehow completely missed the intended target.
Shifty allowed time for the smoke to clear, and then reinflated himself from his two-dimensional state. Taking in the astonished look in his attacker's eyes, he stood triumphantly, his mandibles shaped into a passable facsimile of a grin.
"Best of three?" he chuckled.
With a snarl of frustration, Amorphous Shape opened fire again, launching wave after wave of energy blasts searing through the air towards him.
And none of them made contact.
One moment, Shifty was 2-D and pressed flat against the ground, allowing the bolt to soar harmlessly overhead; the next, he was a cloud of swirling vapour, intangible as a ghost and unharmed by the bolt's passage through him; the next he was an insect, too quick to be struck and too small to target; the next, he was a dustbowl eddying past the next bolt, edging closer to his opponent and still untouchable. Dozens upon dozens of forms came and went in seconds, and Shifty could only laugh in exhilaration: he'd changed so quickly, never taken on forms quite so small or quite so abstract, and the realization of the newfound scope of his power was almost too much for him to bear.
But now Amorphous Shape was in reach, and from little he could tell of those beady little eyes, the Henchmaniac was scared. He fired one last blast of energy in Shifty's direction, and – feeling a bit devil-may-care – Shifty took it head on, shifting into a massive agglomeration of stony flesh and oversized limbs. The blast barely scratched his granite body, and by the time he was back in his true form, the wound was already healed.
Belatedly, Amorphous Shape decided to back away, but too late: a massive crab claw fastened around the Henchmaniac's body, and a writhing bouquet of tendrils wrapped around his extremities.
"I'll ask again," said Shifty. "Where's the Pines family?"
"I… I… how are you doing this?! Bill said you were a pre-Weirdmageddon monster, nowhere near as strong as any of us! You're not supposed to be this powerful!"
"Oh, I think I am. I think this is exactly what I was always meant to be. Maybe I was weaker than any of you once, but there's something new in the air, some energy I'm not familiar with… and whatever it is, its fuel to me. My transformations are easier now, my strength increased a thousandfold… and that means I can match you, move by move if need be."
Amorphous Shape's eyes widened. "…Weirdness?" he whimpered. "Weirdness? You're fuelling yourself with WEIRDNESS?!"
"Is that what it's called? Cute. Something tells me I'm going to have a lot of fun finding out just how much I can do with Weirdness on my side. Now, I think it's time you started talking: where are the Pines?"
"But I'm immortal! You can't kill me!"
He's honesty about that much, but he's a coward. They're all cowards, really, but he's one of the few who didn't bother following the other Henchmaniacs into battle against the Shacktron. If he can't be bothered to fight a battle that Bill thought was an easy win, he'll fold at the first sign of real pain and real danger.
Wait, how the hell do I know that?
Shifty hastily shook away the intrusive thoughts, and continued: "You'd be amazed at just how many opportunities that opens up," he purred. "You can't be killed by conventional weapons, and I can shrug off everything you throw at me? Call me crazy, but that sound like the perfect setup for torture. I mean, my senses tell me your body's inorganic from the outside, but on the inside, you're meat. Do you roast like meat?"
"Wait, wait, wait! Okay, I'll tell you everything, just don't hurt me!"
"Then start talking: where are the Pines family and their friends? I want precise coordinates."
Over the next few minutes, Amorphous Shape slowly bleated out a precise serious of names and coordinates for the location of about every single living member of the Pines Family, and their associates – including the other members of the "zodiac": Mabel Pines, Stanford Pines, Stanley Pines, Fiddleford McGucket, Jesus "Soos" Ramirez, Wendy Corduroy, Pacifica Northwest, Robbie Valentino, and Gideon Gleeful. He even went so far as to confess where Bill had been hiding Mabel and Dippers' parents, along with other playthings like Candy Chiu and Grenda Grendinator. One way or the other, no detail was spared, and by the end, Shifty had direction to just about every single prisoner Bill kept in his personal stable.
"And Dipper?" Shifty asked.
Amorphous Shape cringed. "I don't know."
"I wasn't kidding when I said I'd cook you from the inside out…"
"I SWEAR, I DON'T KNOW! NOBODY KNOWS WHERE DIPPER IS!"
"Alright, alright… if that's the way you want it, I'll find him on my own. You've been very helpful."
In spite of himself, Amorphous Shape actually managed to salvage a few vague atoms of pride, his colours brightening once again as he plucked up his courage – miniscule though it was. "You think you're invincible now, don't you?" he sneered. "Well, you'd best think again: Bill's out there, and he's far stronger than me, far stronger than any Henchmaniac. You think you're the match of any of us just because you know how to live on Weirdness? He controls everything about Weirdness! He is Weirdness! You won't be able to stop Bill Cipher!"
"Maybe not," Shifty conceded, "but frankly I'm not interested in this Bill Cipher. If he wants to kill me, he'll have to find me first, and by then I'll have gotten exactly what I want. Now, if you'll excuse me…"
And without another word, he drew back his arm and bowled Amorphous Shape down the length of the length of the laboratory, sending him ploughing into the wreckage of the cryotubes. By the time the Henchmaniac had picked himself free of the rubble, Shifty had gone.
For several minutes, Amorphous Shape could only lie there, too stunned to move.
Eventually, though, he had to face the awful reality of what he'd just encountered: somehow, this dual-lifespanned little freak had hurt him, actually made him shed his own blood… and somehow, the Shapeshifter was actually able to power himself with Weirdness. They weren't dealing with any pathetic pre-Weirdmageddon monster, but a proto-Henchmaniac.
At once, he knew what he had to do next: Bill had to be warned as quickly as possible. As long as the Shapeshifter was free, he was a danger, maybe not to Bill himself but certainly to his prisoners: the thing was headed for the other playgrounds now, and there'd be no telling what kind of damage it'd do once it got there. Bill would probably blame this mess on him, but for once, Amorphous Shape had a crisis on his hands he couldn't cover up: this could still be fixed, just as long as Bill was informed as quickly as-
A shadow fell over him.
"Hello," said a pleasant voice from somewhere overhead.
There was a pause, as Amorphous Shape looked up in terror at the not-quite human figure leering down at him.
"W-what the hell are y-"
The stranger's jaws erupted four feet outwards from his skull in a colossal bear-trap shaped mass of fangs and spined tendrils, fastening onto Amorphous Shape's middle and biting deep into his semi-flesh, spraying iridescent blood in all directions as a billion eldritch appendages ripped and tore at the Henchmaniac's body. Amorphous Shape opened his mouth to scream, but at the last minute, the monster's tongue – forked and crackling with alien energies – shot out and tore his soul from his body, instantly silencing his screams.
The last thing Amorphous Shape saw, before his vision went black and his body died, was the sight of his assailant eating his soul, savouring every last bite of psychic essence as he slowly wolfed it down.
"And goodbye," Nyarlathotep concluded triumphantly, wiping blood and soul-stuff from his lips with a silk handkerchief.
For a time, he regarded the remains of the dead Amorphous Shape with amusement, wondering if he should stuff it into the cryotube, just for a cheap laugh, just for the sake of seeing the look on Bill's face when he finally decided to investigate his minion's absence. But then he thought better of it. He had work to do, playthings to free, mentors to assign, lessons to begin… and of course, he had a deathmatch or two to be arranged.
So, instead, the Black Pharaoh strolled merrily away, whistling an eldritch tune as he slowly followed the Shapeshifter's path out of the bunker and into the World Gone Weird.
I said you were going to be spectacular, and I was right, Nyarlathotep chuckled to himself as he vanished back into the ether. You and me, Little Shoggoth – we're going to do amazing things to this regime…
A/N: This chapter's soundtrack choice is Gray's Theme, by Murray Gold.
Up next - the playthings take stock of the change in themselves, a shift in the balance of power is felt, and doom arrives for one unfortunate playground. Or, to put it another way...
Gsv xszrm szh hmzkkvw, gslfts mlmv pmld dsb
Yroo'h yvhg-ozrw kozmh szev tlmv zdib
Gsv sfmg rh lm, zmw Hsrugb gsrihgh
Xzm blf tfvhh dsl sv'oo proo urihg?