A/N: Aaaargh! Sorry for the lateness of this chapter everyone: I'd meant to get this up two days ago, but a combination of network problems and work has delayed me. In the meantime, thank you to everyone who viewed, reviewed, favourited and followed - and a special thanks to all of you who've been so patient with me!
Also, this is going to be another of those reference cavalcades, especially towards the end. See how many of them you can get...
Anyway, without further ado, the latest chapter: read, review, and above all, enjoy!
Disclaimer: Gravity Falls, Vampire: The Masquerade, Werewolf: The Apocalypse and the Cthulhu Mythos do not belong to me. Try to suppress your astonishment, ladies and gentlemen...
Urihg gl givhkzhh dzh gsv Irtsgvlfh Qfwtv lu Hlfoh; rm kvmrgvmxv, sv srw srh nrtsg zmw hlftsg gl xszrm gsv Yvzhg.
Hvxlmw dzh gsv Szfmgvi lu gsv Wzip, gsv Svizow lu gsv Mfxovzi Xszlh, sv dsl tznyovh uli gsv uzgv lu srh nzhgvikrvxv; yb srh zigrurxv, sv tzgsvih gsv xsznkrlmh fmwvi gsv Qfwtv'h yzmmvi; yb srh wvxvkgrlm, sv tzgsvih gsv nlmhgvih gl srh ldm xzfhv.
For what felt like an eternity, the two intruders could only stand in impasse, sizing one another up: Tzimisce glaring down at its opponent with an impossible multitude of eyeballs, its gargantuan bulk overshadowing most of Mabeland's skyline; the Shapeshifter, miniscule by comparison, staring up at the monstrous figure of the vampire-god dominating the horizon overhead. Around them, horror-stricken townsfolk looked on in deathly silence; a few were creeping hesitantly away from the crowd in the hopes of somehow escaping a confrontation with a monster the size of a skyscraper, while the others remained effectively anchored in place, too afraid to move for fear of provoking the two opponents.
Then, the impasse broke: suddenly, the two opponents were in motion, and the crowd was fleeing in all directions.
Sprouting a massive tentacle tipped with a keratin blade the size of a semitrailer, Tzimisce's first swing tore into the nearest tower, slicing through brick, mortar and anyone unfortunate enough to be inside it before erupting through its opposite wall and scything through the air towards the Shapeshifter. But by the time it reached him, Shifty's form had evaporated into a cloud of intangible mist billowing across the town square, leaving the tentacle to pass harmlessly through him – crushing several fleeing pedestrians in the process.
With a foghorn-like growl, Tzimisce lashed out again in a mad attempt to contain the mist, but with the crowd fleeing in all directions and the mist spread too far across the square to be penned in, it only ended up squashing a few dozen citizens – including Judge Kitty, who had barely enough time to mutter "even less dignified than last time, meow" before being viscerally splattered across the pavement.
Clearly not caring in the slightest of collateral damage, the vampire sprouted more tendrils from its bulk and vacuumed the corpses up, absorbing their flesh into its own ponderous form.
Coalescing back into a solid body several yards away, Shifty gathered fresh muscle mass into his arms and reinforced his skeleton, before snatching up a parked car and flinging it at Tzimisce with all his might. Moments later, he was rewarded by a loud squish as one of the vampire-god's eyeballs burst open; immediately, he snatched up two more, launching them through the air like a champion hammer-thrower.
As the cars rained down on it like meteorites, Tzimisce reshaped itself, dividing its bulk into a vast hydra-like mass of tendrils and sending them out in all directions: some ripped huge chunks of masonry from the surrounding buildings and launched them through the air like missiles; others spat colossal plumes of caustic acid, boring holes through solid granite walls; some sprouted buzz-saws of bone and tore clean through neighbouring buildings, trying to bring them down on top of the Shapeshifter; a few even burrowed under the earth in an attempt to impale him from below. But no matter where the attack came from or how well-aimed the missile, Shifty simply wasn't there: one minute, he was a flock of birds, sweeping unarmed through a forest of bladed tendrils; the next, he was a man-o-taur, ducking and weaving around the hailstones with improbable grace and lobbing them right back; then he was an armadillopillar, rolling nimbly down the road at seventy miles an hour, untouched by the acid that rained down around him; a falling skyscraper loomed dangerously overhead, but one herculean flex of effort later, he was a beam of light racing out from under the falling building and clear of the debris field – all in the space of a split-second.
And despite the danger, he couldn't help but silently exalt. Inside his body, apertures were opening wider and faster than ever before; his body was taking on forms he'd never been able to adopt until today, and at a pace that Shifty had never achieved in his entire. The exhilaration of movement and transformation was all but intoxicating, the sense of accomplishment almost euphoric. And as the danger grew, so did his excitement: all around him, cuddly toy people and anthropomorphic animals were crushed by debris, sliced down the middle, dissolved in acid downpours or flattened under falling buildings – but Shifty remained completely untouched.
Roaring in frustration, Tzimisce sprouted a colossal quiver of bone arrows from its lumpen flank and emptied it with a mind-pummelling roar of compressed air, sending over five hundred thousand needle-sharp quills of bone arcing through the air towards Shifty. Once again, though, the Shapeshifter was ready for it: by the time the bone arrows reached their target, he was dissolving into a living tsunami of water cascading across the town square, sweeping away arrows, pedestrians, vehicles, and anyone else that happened to be too close. Racing along the paving stones and pouring down the steps, the Shapeshifter's water form oozed away, as untouchable as the mist but a thousand times faster. Moments later, Shifty changed again, solidifying his body into a flat surface and altering his colouration to match the pattern of the paving stones, until he was almost indistinguishable from the ground beneath the fleeing citizens' feet.
For several seconds, Shifty remained hidden, mind racing as he considered his next mood: his camouflage was perfect for the moment, but he couldn't stay like this forever – not unless he actually wanted to be crushed under this Tzimisce creature's bulk when it decided to investigate the situation close-up; he couldn't keep on evading, for transforming into water or mist was a significant drain on his stamina, and after all the energy he'd expended just travelling into this infuriating world, he couldn't afford to waste any more; in all probability, he couldn't run either – for one thing, his opponent might very well be able to follow, and for another, he'd no idea what the hell he was supposed to do next. Perhaps, with a little luck, his opponent would know where Mabel Pines had gone. Question was, how could he hope to tackle the vampire god in direct combat? How could he hope to fight such a thing, much less convince it to talk? Even with all the forms Shifty had learned from Journal 3, the odds were stacked against him, for so few of those bodies were anywhere near Tzimisce's size or strength. Maybe his rock-monster form would be strong enough to grapple with it up close, but even that was a bit of a gamble because it simply wasn't big enough to-
No, no. You're still thinking like an ordinary pre-Weirdmageddon shapeshifter. You can fuel yourself with Weirdness now. Think creatively. Think BIG.
And with that, Shifty was himself again – and suddenly in motion.
Summoning up as much mass as he could possibly gather, he flung himself at Tzimisce, and as he moved, he changed: his body expanded upwards, growing taller and taller as he drew in more mass, swatting dozens of fleeing citizens aside as he charged at the distant figure of the vampire god – and then crushing them under his ballooning feet as he grew steadily taller; muscles rippled across his limbs, endowing him with titanic physical strength; his flesh coated itself in a layer of rocky exoskeleton denser and stronger than any human armour; traits borrowed from countless different shapes coursed into his newly-chosen form, empowering him beyond any form he'd taken before.
By the time he'd crossed the plaza separating the two of them, he'd grown from a mere seven feet tall to over four hundred, and his body was a wild patchwork of different forms: the gigantic frame of Steve, the impenetrable skin of the rock-monster, the neurotoxin-envenomed claws of the Gremlobin, the diamond-tipped jaws of the armadillopillar, the whiplash tongue of the three-eyed toad, the armoured, mallet-like skull of the knucklehead, and countless others. And he was still adding new traits to his collaged body when he slammed headlong into Tzimisce at high speed.
The force of the impact sent the vampire-god's sluglike body lurching away with all the grace and agility of a zeppelin tethered to a runaway freight train, ploughing sidelong into one of the few surviving buildings and sending several hundred thousand tons of rubble crashing down on any citizens unfortunate enough to be within range. Cackling madly, Shifty pummelled his opponent's undefended flanks with his enormous stone fists, pulverizing bone, rupturing flesh, sending enormous gouts of boiling vampire blood fountaining down on the skyline and slowly propelling it even further across the increasingly ruined city.
Unfortunately, the advantage was only temporary: as it slid awkwardly away, a massive set of spider legs erupted from Tzimisce's molten flesh and slammed into the ground, anchoring it in place. Recovering instantly, its body began to heal at an impossible rate, shattered bones and shredded flesh re-knitting itself at an impossible rate; by the time Shifty swung his fist around for another left cross, Tzimisce's body was coated with an exoskeleton stronger than titanium, and a massive set of fanged jaws were zeroing in on Shifty's face. Darting out of the way, he grabbed the snapping jaws just before they could snap shut and began forcing them apart, intent on ripping the gigantic bastard's mouth off – but no sooner had he begun, another jagged-toothed maw rocketed in from the size and bit down hard on Shifty's left shoulder, tearing through the thick hide like paper.
"You are an insect," Tzimisce intoned from a thousand hissing mouths. "A flea taking up arms against a god. You cannot stop me."
With an almighty yowl of pain, Shifty wrenched himself free of the monster's jaws, spraying green blood across the surrounding ruins. Panting, he began the awkward process of regenerating as quickly as possible, edging around Tzimisce like a boxer on the defensive as he did so.
"You… talk too much," he puffed. "Now, Zitmice-"
"Tzimisce."
"Right. Shimmy-see-somethingorother. Now, do you feel like telling me where I can find Mabel, or does this have to get even nastier?"
"She is beyond your reach, Shapeshifter. Concentrate on the battle or die."
"Whatever you say, Slimvice."
"It's Tzimisce," the vampire hissed. "The Eldest and Greatest of all vampires, the last of the Antediluvians, the victor of the Crucible of God, the-"
"You're really invested in your own hype, you know that? I thought someone with a name like Slickwisp would've learned to take things a little less seriously."
And as Tzimisce was busy fuming with rage, Shifty lashed out with an arm that was already dissolving into a bouquet with dagger-tipped tendrils, each one tipped with every single kind of venom he'd encountered in his short-but-colourful life. But before he could make a jab at what little of Tzimisce's exposed tissues remained, another gout of acid sent Shifty rearing back, clutching his wounded limbs and struggling to regenerate.
"I was told that this would be an arduous battle... but you've proved an annoyance at best."
Another quiver of arrows exploded from Tzimisce's bulk, pincushioning Shifty with dozens of needle-sharp quills. Most couldn't penetrate his hide, but a lucky few found the weak points in his armour where the rock-monster body became something else, and sank deep into his unprotected flesh; and while most were little more than paper cuts, the sheer volume of them was more than enough to slow him down as he struggled to force them free.
"You bleed and weaken just as any other mortal would."
Tzimisce lunged forward, a hundred thousand new extremities bursting free of his body. This time, Shifty didn't even bother dodging: a split-second glimpse in the direction of the oncoming attack revealed that none of them were meant to simply hurt; these were anchors, hooks, grapnels – all of them meant to reel Shifty in for the kill. So once again, he dissolved into a living fogbank; unfortunately, he could only maintain his shape for barely a few seconds before being forced to revert.
"Your strength is finite. Soon, you will collapse and I will be free to drink my fill."
Groaning in exhaustion, Shifty conjured a pair of gigantic wings from his heaving shoulders and tried desperately to fly away before the next attack hit home, but another barrage of organic grappling hooks shot out and latched onto his leg, leaving him anchored to the ground by the vampire's immense weight.
"You prove too limited to ever be a credible opponent," Tzimisce chortled. "You have only one true body, one life to spare. But I? I am limitless."
The vampire god's body writhed with activity, his flesh dividing and erupting into a colossal mass of pterodactyl-sized birds that swarmed towards Shifty. For almost a full-minute, they pecked and tore at every inch of exposed tissue they could reach, whittling away at his stamina even as the rest of Tzimisce's body began slowly reeling Shifty in… and as it did so, thousands upon thousands of lamprey-like suckers appeared along its body, opening wide in preparation for a feast.
"This is the end, Shapeshifter. Surrender your physical form and experience true godhood as part of my totality. Be of me."
No longer listening, Shifty once again fell back on his instincts just as he had in the cryotube, and began taking on any form that might help him escape, no matter how unlikely: over the course of the next ten seconds, he was the armadillopillar, a gnome, the Hide-Behind, Mabel, Ford, Soos and a hundred different fusions of each, but no matter what form he took or how quickly he transformed, Tzimisce refused to let go. Mist and water were no longer possible – exhaustion had cut off that avenue for escape – so all he could do was continue shifting.
"As long as you still live, I feel you should know that your name is ridiculous. What kind of self-respecting shapeshifter – vampire, mage, werewolf or fae – would ever possess a name like D-"
And in that moment, Shifty's body went through one last random change, warping, twisting and finally erupting into an anthropomorphic mass of fire. And to his amazement, the flames burned clean through the tentacles holding him, reducing the oozing red and black flesh to cooked meat and melting almost thirty feet of it to sizzling juices. Immediately, Tzimisce let out a shriek of pain and terror loud enough to burst every eardrum left in the city, and recoiled at whiplash speed.
Realizing his advantage, Shifty surged forward, reshaping his body into comet-like mass of flames as he went on the attack: his first dive-bomb melted Tzimisce's undefended spider legs and burned clean through his exoskeleton; the second incinerated a dozen flailing limbs and seared through the flesh beneath it, leaving a hole that could have comfortably accommodated a freight train; the third fried Tzmisce so thoroughly that a stadium-sized chunk of bubbling meat sloughed off its body and landed with a deafening squish on the ruined roadway below.
"Don't like fire, do ya?" Shifty cackled, having well and truly recovered his bravado. "Guess your little hype-spiel didn't cover that, Shingles."
"It's TZIMISCE!" the vampire thundered, clutching its wounded limbs.
"You wanna consider a name change? BBQ, maybe, or perhaps Medium-Rare, or Extra-Crispy. Oh, or Flambé!"
"If I had my entire body with me, little Shapeshifter-"
"Well, you don't. And that's all that matters right now, Mr Char-Grilled. Now, tell me where Mabel is, or-"
But before Shifty could so much as advance on Tzimisce, the vampire-god quivered violently, and suddenly its flesh warped and melted into a living mass of blood; for a split-second, it stood there, oozing and undulating, almost as if considering what to do next. But then the moment passed, and the enormous red expanse tsunami'd away, roaring down the streets of Mabeland at high speed, washing away people, vehicles and small buildings as it cascaded to freedom.
Four whole minutes went by in silence as Shifty slowly recovered from his exertions, lowering himself to the ground, returning to his true form, and slowly regenerating what few damaged tissues remained. Then, once he was absolutely sure that Tzimisce wasn't planning a sneak attack, he slumped forward and took in the deepest breath of his short-but-colourful life.
"That… was interesting," he panted.
"I'll say."
Shifty sat bolt-upright, and immediately found himself face to face with the least-likely inhabitant of Mabeland yet.
"Who the hell are you?" he demanded.
"Most mortals call me Nyarlathotep," said the apparition. "But you can call me Mr Carter. Impressive fight back there, by the way: adaptability, resourcefulness, cunning, ruthlessness, and even a little combat banter – yes, I think you'll serve my purposes admirably for the time being. Tzimisce will probably be a little sore about being bested by the new kid on the block, but I've got a very tasty consolation prize lined up for him, so you've nothing to fear from him anymore."
"Your purposes? Was this fight your doing?"
"Well, that was my implication, yes."
Shifty took a deep breath. "You feel like telling me why, or am I going to have to tenderize the answers out of you?"
Nyarlathotep/Mr Carter grinned. "I'd like to see you try," he said. "I really would."
Twisting his mandibles into a grin of his own, Shifty transformed his arm into a sledgehammer of moulded bone and steel, and brought it crashing down on Nyarlathotep's skull – or at least, he would have, if the strangely-dressed figure hadn't reached up and caught the hammer with one hand.
"I wouldn't recommend it, though," he said cheekily.
Laughing softly to himself, Nyarlathotep casually swatted Shifty aside, sending him tumbling helplessly over the road and clean through a nearby shop window. By the time he'd recovered enough to prise his head out of the cash register, the crimson-coated monster was once again standing over him.
"To answer your question," he continued. "I wanted a precise test of your capabilities, to learn if you were truly worthy of my time and sponsorship. It seems you've passed with flying colours, and you're ready to proceed… and now that we've gotten the usual dominance games and machismo-fuelled posturing out of the way, I think it's time you received your prize. You wanted to know the exact location of Mabel Pines, yes?"
Shifty, who was currently hauling himself free of a ruined shelving unit, could only blink in astonishment. "…yes," he admitted.
"Well then, I can't tell you where she is at present, as she's moving around rather a lot… but I can tell you where she's going – her and all the other members of the Zodiac. Yes, your prey is bound for the city of Cipheropolis!"
"Cipher-what?"
"Cipheropolis, at the very epicentre of the Gardens of Torments, upon the shores of the Nightmare Coast. Sooner or later, all the refuges, bandit gangs, wasteland cults and other dispossessed scum who haven't been lucky enough to have been funnelled into a playground end up in Cipheropolis. Think of it as a safari park where humans can live in ancestral squalor with as little interference as possible – until someone wants a head on their wall, of course. Or maybe it's a snowglobe that Bill Cipher can look in on every now and again and shake things up if he thinks it's getting too placid for his tastes. You'll fit right in, Shifty: all you'll have to do is sit tight, wait for a little while, and avoid killing too many people."
"…that's all?" said Shifty.
"Exactly that."
"But how will I know where to wait? It's an entire city!"
Nyarlathotep smirked, and drew a notepad and pen from the pocket of his coat. "There's an address you'll be obliged to look out for: the Rallying Flag Hotel, on the corner of Mictlan Street and Desolation Boulevard, just across from Camp Cocytus. Wait there, and your prey will come to you."
"…but why are you helping me? Is this another test?"
"Everything is a test, little Shoggoth. Now run along: your destiny awaits! Yes, Cipheropolis is where you will meet your destiny…"
"Oh Tzimisce? Are you down here?"
"Ow."
"Haha. I guessed as much. You did very well out there: you fought hard, you pushed Dipper to his limits, and you did so without killing him."
"Not for lack of trying. If Rotschreck had not set in, I would have killed him. Rest assured, when I am able to bring in my main body, I will take great delight in crushing his puny body beneath my feet."
"Not while he's still useful to me, you won't."
"I recall you promising me an opportunity to feast upon the gods of the wider universe. I hope you intend to uphold your end of the bargain, or else I doubt your newest pawn will survive long enough to reach this "Cipheropolis," trickster."
"Oh ye of overwhelming faith. You'll get what you want… in time. First, I need to ensure that your access to the multiverse won't be interrupted: after all, it'd be a very poor hunt if you had only one reality to prey upon."
"Very well. In the meantime, this body requires a great deal of vitae, and these childish constructs are insufficient for my needs. If you have need of me, I will be replenishing my mass in the City of the Dead."
"Good to hear. Nice doing business with you. Oh, and Tzimisce?"
"What is it now, Nyarlathotep?"
"Never talk to me that way again."
Deep in the shadow of a dimension gone mad, the Weaver's corporeal avatar sat in silence, surveying the bloated dominion of Bill Cipher from well beyond its boundaries – as had been agreed upon. Around her, the seemingly-infinite spirits of her retinue gathered like nobles at court, enraptured by the beauty of the Onesong as it rippled through their eerily-symmetrical ranks; pattern spiders crawled across the void in improbably intricate patterns, erasing any stray tendrils of Weirdness that might emanate from the dimension and removing any sings of imperfection from the Weaver's presence.
And just behind the Weaver's dais of sculpted space-time, a tiny arachnid figure had been nailed to a floating marble wall, every single limb transfixed by a needle honed to the thickness of an atom. Occasionally, the figure would whimper and try to change back into human form, but the corrections made to her body had fully taken hold by now: Darlene's powers of transformation were anathema to the Weaver's vision of a perfect, unchanging world, and her spirit host had been very prompt in ensuring that this insult to their mistress's glory was well and truly erased; the realm of human interaction had been forever denied to her, leaving her nothing more than a giant spider.
After perhaps seventy-two hours spent enduring transfixion in silence, Darlene finally let out a tortured gasp of "Please… just let me die…"
But the Weaver only scoffed and remarked, DEATH IS NO LONGER PERMITTED IN MY PRESENCE, CHILD. I HAVE BLESSED YOU WITH IMMUTABILITY, AND GRANTED YOU THE GLORY OF STASIS. NOW, YOU ARE BEYOND DEATH. REJOICE IN THE SANCTITY OF CALCIFICATION, ACCEPT MY LOVE FOR YOU, AND I WILL ALLOW YOU TO SERVE ME WITHOUT PAIN.
"I'd drink to that, but I think I left the good booze at home," said a cheery voice from somewhere below her.
As one, all the members of the Weaver's court turned in the direction of the voice, and saw a familiar figure striding across the extradimensional nothingness towards them. As expected, he was still dressed in his magnificent crimson coat, but this time he was carrying an enormous burlap sack over one shoulder – a sack that writhed and thrashed with human captives imprisoned in non-Euclidean space.
AH. NYARLATHOTEP. YOU HAVE FOUND SOMEONE, THEN?
"One very particular someone," said the Outer God with a wink. "I looked long and hard for this candidates for Clarification, and I think you'll find him an ideal Drone."
LET ME BE THE JUDGE OF THAT.
"As you wish…"
And with that, Nyarlathotep up-ended the sack, sending the contents tumbling out across extradimensional space towards the Weaver's court, allowing the mighty celestial spirit an unhindered view of the candidate for dronehood.
His clothes were tattered, his features discoloured with bruises, his eyes were wide with fear, and blood was gushing merrily from a burst lip. And yet his shoes were still polished, his collar buttoned, his rumpled tie still fastened; even his hair was still combed, though it clearly hadn't been cleaned or cut for several months. And, despite the look of deer-in-the-headlights terror in those gaping eyes, a faintly-vacuous smile remained stamped on the candidate's face, never once budging even as the Weaver's galaxy-piercing eyes loomed ever closer.
"Say something," Nyarlathotep advised, helpfully prodding him in the back with a daggerlike fingernail. "Tell us a little bit about yourself, little man."
"I like bread," the candidate replied blandly.
There was an astonished pause.
HE'S PERFECT, said the Weaver at last, unable to disguise the utter delight in her non-voice.
"I knew he'd be just the thing to cheer you up. I mean, the fact that he's been able to get this close to you without devolving into a gibbering lunatic is evidence enough that he'd be the ideal drone."
MORE THAN JUST A DRONE. A TRUE PARAGON AMONG MY PERFECT ONES, ABLE TO SERVE IN ALL NECESSARY FIELDS: WARRIOR, AMBASSADOR, BUILDER AND SERVER HUB. HE SHALL BE MY VOICE IN BILL CIPHER'S WORLD… AND AS LONG AS YOUR INTERESTS COINCIDE WITH MINE, HE SHALL AID YOU AS WE AGREED.
"Excellent! So, when can this splendid soldier be incorporated into your ranks?"
I HAVE ALREADY BEEN SELECTING APPROPRIATE SPIRITS WITH WHICH HE CAN BE MERGED, AND HIS COCOON CAN BE READIED AT A MOMENT'S NOTICE. THE CLARIFICATION CAN BEGIN IMMEDIATELY.
And no sooner had Nyarlathotep stepped away from his captive's trembling form, several hundred thousand glittering spider-spirits descended upon the candidate, layering him in a metallic carpet of semi-ethereal bodies as they went about preparing him for spiritual symbiosis: one by one, they covered his face, his eyes, his gaping mouth, until not a single part of him remained visible. Then they began spinning long threads of glistening spirit-stuff, each strand interlinking with its neighbour to form a growing mass of silk, until the helpless candidate was almost hidden hidden beneath the layers of a densely-woven cocoon; the spiders allowed one corner of it open, just long enough for the possessing spirit to be funnelled into the growing capsule, before finally closing it – trapping both the candidate and his symbiotic partner inside. From within, there came the muffled sound of the candidate screaming in that oddly toneless, effortlessly voice; this in turn, was slightly drowned-out by the whir of the spirit next to him as the spiders slowly disassembled it and went about integrating the component with those of the candidate – fusing them on a level that Bill Cipher himself would not have thought possible.
Then, there was silence.
Nyarlathotep eyed the cocoon with undisguised amusement. "Something tells me he's going to be a lot happier as a drone," he remarked idly.
HAPPINESS IS IRRELEVANT. ORDER IS ALL THAT MATTERS.
"You're nothing if not consistent."
YOU SAID YOU WOULD BE PREPARED TO OFFER ME ACCESS TO ALL THE WORLDS ACCESSIBLE BY THIS CROSSROADS DIMENSION.
"I will, once my work here is complete and no later than that. It's best to think of this as an investment: you, like your fellow stakeholders, will have to wait for the payoff."
"FELLOW STAKEHOLDERS." YOU TRY TO DELAY THE ORIGINAL POINT WITH CORPORATE TERMINOLOGY. QUITE A FEAT CONSIDERING THAT I INVENTED THE CONCEPT OF A CORPORATION IN MY HOME DIMENSION… AND IT BECOMES CLEAR YOU ARE FORMING AN ALLIANCE. WHO ELSE IS INCLUDED IN THIS CONSORTIUM?
"Oh, you'll have to wait and see."
YOU ARE ADDING ADDITIONAL CLAUSES TO OUR AGREEMENT, AND YOU ARE DELIBERATELY DELAYING THE SO-CALLED PAYOFF. I SUSPECT YOU ARE TAKING ADVANTAGE OF THE DELAY IN ORDER TO FURTHER YOUR OWN ENDS.
"Do you, indeed?"
I HAVE ENCOUNTERED EVIDENCE TO SUGGEST THAT YOU SERVE THE NEEDS OF ANOTHER INTERLOPER IN THIS DIMENSION, THE AXOLOTL. MY SERVANTS AND I HAVE INTERCEPTED CODED TRANSMISSIONS CONVEYED BETWEEN THIS WORLD AND OTHERS. MY VISION HAS TRACED YOUR FOOTSTEPS ACROSS THIS REALITY, CONNECTING BILL CIPHER'S PLAYTHINGS. LOGIC DICTATES YOU ARE FORMING MULTIPLE TEAMS OF INSURGENTS IN ORDER TO UNDERMINE BILL'S RULE OF THIS DIMENSION, PRESUMABLY AT THE AXOLOTL'S BEHEST.
"And?
FROM WHAT LITTLE I HAVE LEARNED OF THIS AXOLOTL, I DOUBT HE WOULD APPROVE OF YOU RECRUITING ME.
"Get to the point."
WHOSE AGENDA DO YOU REALLY SERVE, NYARLATHOTEP?
"That's easily answered: my own. But as for what I intend to do with all the gods and devil once I've gathered them , well, that's a surprise I'll leave for another day. Besides, I think your newest Perfect One is almost ready…"
There was a rumbling from the cocoon; as one, the Weaver's spirit host rushed to attend it as metamorphic tremors rippled up and down its bulk, coordinated perfectly by the Onesong rippling up and down the Pattern Web. Inside the cocoon, the Clarification was almost complete, the essence of the spirit completely merged with the candidate's body, and spider spirits were already rushing to anchor the fusion in place as the transformation came to end. Then at last, the fused mass of glittering strands split in two, and the completed Perfect One stepped free.
To the casual observer, he hadn't changed much. His clothes had been repaired and ironed, the dirt had been scrubbed from his hands, and all the cuts and bruises on his face had simply vanished; other than that, he appeared almost completely identical to his pre-Clarification self. It would have taken a very sharp eye for detail to notice just how much he'd really changed, but only an expert would have realized the true nature of the transformation he'd just undergone.
If anything, he looked more like himself than before: the hairline seemed a little straighter, the clothes a little more starched, his smile a little more fixed than before. As he stepped into the light and more details became apparent, the uncannier he appeared. His features seemed a little too symmetrical to be real, every aspect of him perfectly balanced in every way; his skin was entirely unblemished, so smooth it seemed almost like porcelain; most unusually of all, the random particles of dust that occasionally swept across the void didn't seem to touch him. In fact, a closer look would have revealed that his skin was actively repelling dirt and dust. Most tellingly of all, the fear was gone from his eyes, replaced with an unearthly look of self-assurance.
SPEAK, PERFECT ONE. WHO IS YOUR MASTER, AND WHAT IS YOUR PURPOSE?
"Hi everyone," said the Drone. "I'm Tad Strange, servitor of the Weaver, and purging inefficient elements is my game."
Somewhere across the multiverse, on a plane of reality far too normal to belong to Bill Cipher, a phone was ringing in an almost-empty house… and not too far away, a weary, slurring voice was awkwardly piecing together a reply.
"Arrrgh. Morty, go get that… Morty? Morty? MORTY?! ANSWER THE FUCKING PHONE! MORTY!"
For a moment, the only sound that could be heard was that of the phone insistently trilling away. Then, comprehension finally dawned.
"Oh right, he's at school. Asshole. Okay, okay, okay, I'll get it… Urrrrp. Goddammit. Hmmgrh."
There was a pause, and then every neighbour in earshot was regaled by the distinctive bangs and thuds of an extremely drunk human being stomping, tripping, stumbling and falling his way towards a phone.
"Ow! Why'd you leave the phone all the way over here, you pricks? Dammit. You should have learned my habits by now! Urrgh. God, n-n-nobody gets what it's like to be drunk, stoned and hungover at the same time. They know what it's like to get drunk, but none of them will meet me halfway when it comes to getting high. Arrgh. Should have – urrrp – put another teleporter down there a long time ago…"
Several minutes later, the ringing finally ground to a halt.
"Hello, Smith residence. Gotta warn you, if this is another telemarketer, I'm gonna hunt you down and shoot you in the dick with a liquefaction cannon just like I did to the last four of you guys."
"Rick Sanchez, you old bastard, what is up?"
"Oh hey, Nyarlathotep! Good to hear from you, my man! How's the family? How's the old – urrrp – Blind Idiot God daddy been treatin' ya?"
"Well he's still asleep, the piper and the drummer are still keeping him nice and dozy… for now. And how have you been going?"
"Truth be told, I was just thinking of giving you a call, 'cuz things have been getting unbelievably goddamn dull in this neck of the woods now that Jerry's gotten his balls out of his purse. I-I-I really need a pick me-up, and I don't think my usual blend of Lyrium and Jet is gonna do it for me this time. I'm thinking I need Freslin, Seagrass of R'lyeh, some Red Honey, a bit of Slab, maybe a few buckets of Shub-Niggurath's erogenous secretions if you can spare 'em. Oh, and I gotta have some Dreamshit; none of the cheap stuff cut with bath salts, okay? I'm talking pure Slake-Moth excrement, preferably from ones who've been feeding off pornstars."
"You'd better believe I've got all of that and more, old buddy. I've even got some Colour Out Of Space, just for you – properly crystalized, so you can actually smoke it this time around, no injections required! But in the meantime, something very interesting's come up – something with absolutely unprecedented opportunities for fun, adventure, experimentation, and a good dose of eldritch methamphetamine straight from Yuggoth!"
"Alrighty then, Gnarly, you got my attention. Where's the fun?"
"A little-known dimension outside the Central Finite Curve, currently experiencing a full-blown apocalypse of the extradimensional incursion: some cosmic party animal by the name of Bill Cipher has taken the place over and subverted local reality on an unprecedented scale, and might be intending to spread further."
"Hmm. Bill Cipher… where have I heard that name before? Argh, too early in the morning for a walk down memory lane. Eh, whatever. Anyway, if it's reality-subverting, there's definitely some good research to be done there. I don't have to do anything stupid and heroic once I'm there, though, right?"
"Nah, man: you'd be obliged to keep Bill from hot-footing it, but as long as you don't actually get my team on the inside killed, you can do whatever the hell you want. Besides, the heroics are already being taken care of, and not just by the guys on the inside. I'm putting together a team on the outside – Elizabeth Comstock, Q, Emma Smith, Rehab Alma and Shana the Moonchild from the Redemption 'Verses, the Lutece twins, Coin, the Ellimist, the Doctor-"
"The Doctor? Jesus. Tell me you at least got one of the halfway decent incarnations like 7 or 12; there's not enough booze in the multiverse to help me deal with 10's incessant sobbing."
"I got all of them, Rick."
"…shit. This is serious, isn't it?"
"That's why I called you, my friend. I knew you'd have the most fun out of all this… and what with some of the sourpusses I've got lining up out there, we reallyneed some more fun on the team. Jessica Sorrow's so emo it makes me wanna puke, Dr Manhattan wouldn't know a joke if it crawled up his sphincter and died, Alma Wade was all gloom and doom even before she reformed, Einstein couldn't crack a smile if all his lifespans depended on it, John Murdoch's gone all messiah, and Shana lost her sense of humour the day she ended up being fused with a living moon-"
"And Coin and Emma are too young for most of the jokes. Pain in the ass, I know."
"You see why we need some good old-fashioned mad-science fun on the team, don't you?"
"Preachin' to the choir, pal. Alright, I'm in: I could do with a vacation. Besides, Q and the Lutece twins? Not much, but it sounds like we've already got a few drinking buddies ready for a really good afterparty."
"If we can talk Einstein into bringing Crichton along for the ride, sure."
"Eh, good luck with that."
"Anyway, I'm sending you the coordinates; I'll meet you outside the dimensional boundaries, just as soon as I've finished making calls. Have fun!"
"Will do. See you there, Gnarly…"
"Oh, and one more thing that might make this party even better: there's an old friend residing in the afflicted dimension who is just dying to see you again."
"…who?"
And somewhere on the far end of reality, Nyarlathotep smiled, his mouth unfolding into a grin that encompassed his entire body, unearthly masses of razor-sharp teeth sprouting from all corners of his infinitely-variable avatar.
"Stanford Pines," he said gleefully.
"…WHAT THE FU-"
"Bye, Rick!"
A/N: How many of Rick and Nyarlathotep's references did you spot?
This chapter's soundtrack choice is On The Run, from Daybreakers.
Up next - a fateful decision is made, and terrible sacrifices are enacted. Or, if you prefer...
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