A/N: Happy New Year, ladies and gentlemen! Sorry for the Christmas delay, everyone, but December kept me buried under work and family commitments. At last, I'm back... and now it's time for the new year's warmup to begin!
Anyway, I've spent enough time rambling: it's time to begin the first chapter of the New Year! Read, review, and above all, enjoy!
Disclaimer: Gravity Falls is not mine. At this point, nothing is mine except for the delays between chapters.
...ybdnats no nrocpop fo tekcub ym evah I .dekaf neeb lla evah epahS suohpromA morf sllac enohp tsal eht taht sezilaer yllanif neeterp dedaeh-ytniop eht nehw gnitseretni eb ot gniog s'ti ,derussa tseR .egdelwonk sih tuohtiw seceip ot gnillaf dnuorgyalp s'lliB fo retpahc rehtona yojne esaelp ,emitnaem eht nI .mih htiw drow a evah nac I sa noos sa tsuj htiw tlaed eb ll'eh - mlac niamer esaelp ;ortni eht ni flesmih fo ecnasiun a gnikam llits si nhoJ ,wonk I ,sey ,seY .gnikaeps petohtalrayN si sihT
After what felt like an eternity, the endless panorama of ruined planets and distorted dimensions faded away, to be replaced solid walls of weathered concrete, rusting girders and clustered bundles of ancient pipework. Finally, the Stanmobile II touched down with a jolt… but it was still at least thirty seconds before Stan felt safe enough to let go of the reins and step onto solid ground. Travelling by chariot through infinity was something he still hadn't adjusted to, but then again, even after all the powers he'd gained and all the weird things he'd seen, he doubted that he'd ever get used to being the literal other half of Death – or the Grim Reaper Duo, as he'd jokingly taken to calling them.
"We made it?" he asked, scarcely daring to believe it himself.
"mlaeR eramthgiN eht ekil tsuj saw tI," said Ford. He'd hovered away, and was now floating in the centre of the room, his galactic eyes blinking away tears. "yelnatS ,lufituaeb os saw ti ...seixalag nellaf ot setag derettahs eht ,snoisulli lacitpo fo senorht eht ,ssendam elbisserperri dna cigol naedilcue-non fo shtap gnitsiwt ehT."
"Uh, Ford? You need to focus on speaking English, or at least something not totally crazy."
Stan paused, and looked more closely at the room around them: they'd emerged in what looked like an old boiler room, but much larger and far more ominous than any of the usual dank industrial basements he'd had the displeasure of encountering during his time wandering the country. True, it had the usual fixtures – a dilapidated furnace, twisted old pipes, rumbling banks of machinery, corroded metal tanks of god only knew what, and eerily spacious-looking lockers.
However, there was something quite clearly off about the place: the hissing of the pipes sounded uncannily like muffled human screams; the light cast by the fluorescents seemed to ooze like liquid across anything it touched; leering human faces could be seen in every puff of smoke and jet of steam to emerge from the surrounding machinery; the furnace stank of overcooked pork and scorched bone… and just to the right of that colossal incinerator, there was a small cart lurking under a length of soaking-wet tarpaulin. Stan couldn't tell what was under it from here, but by now, he didn't need to: after all these years of danger and grifting, he knew that metallic smell off by heart.
"Where are we?" he asked.
"The Forge of the Gods. Hell's Toy Store. The Manufactorium."
"Really not telling me that much, Ford."
"This is a place where special entertainment is built for tasks too dull for Henchmaniacs. This is where Hephaestus has been chained to the anvil of his genius."
"Who?"
"The first to fall. He who spoke the Truth of Cassandra. Broken friendships and broken memories. His mind is shattered once again and all the fragments fade like smoke in the wind…" Ford took a breath, and seemed to collect himself. "Fiddleford," he said at last. "He's here somewhere."
"You mean we're here to rescue McGucket?"
"Uiln Yroo zmw uiln srnhvou. R xzm'g gvoo dsrxs droo yv nliv wruurxfog: gsviv ziv ornrgh gl dszg R xzm xovziob hvv." And with that, Ford began floating away, out through the door and down the shadowy corridor.
Of course, Stan had no idea what the hell he'd talking about, but judging from that slight nod of Ford's head, the whole "rescuing McGucket" business was more-or-less right. In any case, whatever the old nerd had in mind, it was better than standing around and trying to figure out just how many corpses had been dumped in this incinerator over the last few months. So, taking to his heels, he followed Ford into the hallway.
Immediately, he was struck by the sheer vastness of the complex: though the corridor was barely wide enough to allow them through without bruising their elbows, it was so tall that the ceiling was just about invisible – assuming there was a ceiling. It was like crawling through an alleyway at the base of a skyscraper, looking up into a colossal expanse of catwalks, observation platforms, hatchways, whirling gears, thundering pistons and all manner of other machinery. He could even glimpse, thousands of feet above them, a network of shatterproof glass tubes spanning the alleyway like bridges, connecting the chambers of this strange Forge like veins… and unless Stan was horribly wrong, he could just about recognize the shapes of people walking through those glass roadways – or what looked like people, at any rate.
And it wasn't just the height or scale of the building, either: the alleyway went on for almost a thousand yards before they finally emerged into a concourse that could have comfortably accommodated a stadium or five and still have enough room to fit a few football fields in for good measure. Words like "giant" or "massive" didn't really do this complex justice: it was just Big, with a capital B. And all of it was taken up by machines that would have made the manufacturing plants of Detroit look tiny, a veritable metropolis of fully-automated factory engines on display, all of them hard at work on hundreds upon thousands of mechanical components: some assembly lines were producing nothing but arms, others were churning out glittering metallic eyes by the dozen, and other still were piecing together a wicked assortment of guns and bladed instruments. There were even vehicle assembly plants here, piecing together everything from tanks to airship.
And yet, nothing was being sent towards the exits: all the signs pointed clearly to garages and exits where all this junk could presumably be shipped off to whatever unsuspecting country Bill felt like waging war on for a laugh, and none of the automated mechanisms were sending the products in that direction. Instead, everything was being sent upstairs on a series of conveyer belts flowing directly upwards, much of them alongside several extremely lengthy spiral staircases.
"Are we following all that stuff up to the top floor?" Stan asked, nodding at the conveyer belts.
Ford nodded simply. Evidently, he was learning quickly that he couldn't make himself understood without great effort; either that, or he was preoccupied with things that Stan couldn't see – again.
"Is that where they're keeping Fiddleford?"
Another curt nod. "And the heart of the Manufactory: the Ruinous Toymaker's workshop."
Stan opened his mouth to ask who the hell the Ruinous Toymaker could be, but then thought better of it. "Any idea what we're up against? How's he being imprisoned?"
"Drgslfg olxph, drgslfg yzih, drgslfg dzooh. Rh z kirhlmvi hgroo z kirhlmvi ru sv xzmmlg ivnvnyvi yvrmt lmv? Z-" Ford took a deep breath. "I have some idea," he translated. "He may have safeguards against retrieval. Be ready."
"Fan-frigging-tastic. Alright, Ford, lead the way."
Thankfully, neither of them needed to take the stairs: by now, levitation was child's play – and just as well, too, because each spiral staircase looked to be upwards of a thousand feet tall. In fact, as the two of them swiftly ascended through the air, Stan got the distinct impression that the stairs were there only to punish the unlucky groundlings who hadn't been able to weave their way through the tangle of machinery to reach the elevators. As if to add insult to injury, what little Stan could see of the "finished products," most of them appeared to leave the area either on hovering troop carriers or via the elevated roadway he'd seen earlier, so the stairs had probably only been put there as a cruel joke on visitors who couldn't fly or teleport.
It took less than five minutes of levitation to reach the topmost level, and when they finally hovered to a halt on the oil-soaked concrete floor of the workshop, Stan found himself standing in what almost looked like a completely different building. It looked as though it had once been another factory floor: rusted chunks of derelict machinery still protruded from the floor, decaying catwalks hung over most of it, and there were even glimpses of what looked like employee lounges, kitchens and restrooms – all things that had been absent downstairs. This might have almost been a normal factory where ordinary human beings had worked, but now most of the machines had been ripped out and replaced with what could only be a loading dock.
Here were parked at least three gargoyle-like troop carriers, their canopies shaped into ghastly-looking eyes of luminous red glass, their forward weapons outthrust like clawed hands; they even had wings – and given how little reality mattered these days, perhaps they worked better than engines. And lining up to enter them were…
…the finished product.
They weren't entirely machine. That was easily the worst part: true, these thing were more metal than flesh now, their bodies layered with that eerily crimson armour that looked more like shaped coral than steel. True, their arms and legs had been replaced with devastating mechanical prosthetics, and all of them now moved in weird and distressing new ways. True, their eyes were a dull, glistening red; and yes, all of the figures standing before him were armed with impossible weapons that oozed and writhed and gurgled in their pincer-like hands. But for all that, they still had just enough of their faces left to let you know that they'd once been human.
Stan had seen a great many strange and disturbing things since Weirdmageddon had gone global, and even more now that he'd been empowered with magic – God only knew his new abilities had shown him things that would have frozen his blood, if only he'd had some left. But this, this hideous army of mechanized meat, this ghastly parade of scar tissue and stapled skin and gleaming red metal… this had to be among the worst.
"These are the Rust Thralls," said Ford softly. "This is the work of the Ruinous Toymaker."
For once, Stan didn't need any further info: his imagination was giving him all the grisly details he'd never asked for.
As they approached, some of the Rust Thralls looked up, dozens upon dozens of mechanical eyes focussing on them with an ominous chorus of whirrs, and for a moment Stan prepared himself to fight. But to his surprise, none of the soldiers attacked or even moved to stop them, but simply studied them for a moment, and then returned to their queues. A few of them even saluted, voiceboxes issuing worshipful murmurs as they passed by.
"What's up with them?" Stan whispered.
"They were expecting us."
"Then why didn't they shoot us on sight?"
"Because they know what we are. Bill told them that the Horsemen would be the greatest of his toys. They were told that Death would be here to claim what was owed… and we are Death. They don't see that we've gamed the system: they only see the power of Death, split between us."
"Oh. Do you think they'll turn on us when we get McGucket out of here?"
"Unlikely. Vevm R'n mlg hfiv ru dv xzm tvg Urwwovuliw lfg lu sviv."
"'scuse me?"
A pained look crossed Ford's unearthly face. "Nothing," he lied. "Let's move on."
The path ahead drew them swiftly away from the loading dock, and into a thick billowing cloud of toxic mist and scalding steam – easily recognized as such by the carpet of dead insects and boiled rats that had tried to pass through earlier. Even the floor looked discoloured by all the lethal chemicals in the air. And yet, the fog parted easily at Ford's approach and not a drop of poison seemed to touch him; meanwhile, Stan followed on even as the chaos poured down on him, somehow remaining perfectly unscathed.
Past the sickly clouds, the Workshop loomed ahead, a glistening steel platform at the heart of the old building: elevated several feet above the factory floor, it was ablaze with fluorescent lights and surrounded by tray after tray of robotic components, each one regularly replenished by the conveyer belts circling high above the platform. At the centre of the room was a hospital bed, currently occupied by a vaguely human-shaped figure, covered in a white sheet and tied down with leather straps.
Immediately, Stan hurried up the stairs towards the bed, for once in the lead. He didn't know what was going on up here or why McGucket was being imprisoned up here, but he knew for a fact that the sooner they freed him, the sooner they could all get out of this industrial cesspit. So, he quickly went about undoing the straps that secured the patient to the bed, though he just as quickly discovered that with his newfound strength, he could just as easily rip the straps off entirely. As he did so, the figure on the bed began to stir and writhe, and from atop the pillow, muffled groans and whimpers began to issue from under the sheet.
"Relax, you old geezer," Stan muttered. "It's us. Now you just pipe down and let us get you out of this hoosegow; everything's gonna to be okay. So if you could…"
From under the sheet, there came a loud, keening moan of pain, and before Stan could finish his sentence, the final strap gave way, taking the sheet with it; with an unpleasant jolt of the heart, Stan realized that the figure under the covers wasn't McGucket at all.
It was Candy Chiu.
She now wore a stark white hospital gown, her glasses were gone, her dark hair was bound in a shower cap, and from the looks of things she'd seen far too many hungry days and sleepless nights in the last couple of months, but it was unmistakeably her. In fact, it wasn't until Stan happened to glance down at her hands that he realized that something was horribly wrong.
The fingers of Candy's left hand had been surgically removed and replaced with long, needle-tipped spines – each one made of the same coral-like material that the Rust Thralls had been built from. And as her eyes finally flickered open, Stan realized that the transformation hadn't stopped at the fingers. Looking back at him from Candy's bruised eye sockets were a pair of garnet-coloured spheres of polished coral, swivelling and shifting to focus on Stan's face with eerie mechanical precision.
"Let me stay," she whispered, eyelids fluttering wildly. Stan wasn't sure, but he had the distinct impression that Candy wasn't fully conscious – either riding the anaesthesia train to Christ-only-knew where, or delirious from infection. "Let me stay," she repeated. "I'll be a good soldier. Whatever Bill wants."
"What? Candy, what are you doing here?
"Please… I don't want to be tired. I don't want to be weak. Don't send me back to my cell. I can't take it. Bill won't let me sleep anymore, and it hurts so much, it hurts just to breathe… please, let me stay here. The Toymaker's going to make me new. I won't have to sleep anymore…"
As Candy lapsed back into unconsciousness, Stan's mind raced. According to Ford, this had been where McGucket was being held, but the man was nowhere in sight. Either he'd been moved to a different area entirely, or that pained look on Ford's face must have meant something very different. For a moment, Stan briefly considered asking him what was going on, but after a while he realized it was pointless: until Ford got his vocal cords under control – or Stan learned how to understand Weirdspeak – only twenty percent of their conversations would make sense, and Ford would probably drive himself even crazier trying to make himself understood.
So, was McGucket dead, absent, or-
"Excuse me," said a familiar voice from somewhere overhead. "Do you have an appointment?"
Stan very slowly turned, as the monstrosity clinging to the factory ceiling slowly descended to the platform with a spine-jangling clatter of metal on metal and rumbled to a halt before them.
From the waist up, the thing was still recognizably McGucket: it had the same prematurely-aged features, the same bulging neurotic eyes, bulbous nose, bald scalp, long white beard complete with antique Band-Aid; there were even a few tattered bandages left around his right hand. It even wore his shirt, ragged and patched through it was. However, there were already signs that he'd changed: here and there, his skin was layered with patches of metal, his left arm threaded with tiny silvery veins; his entire arm was a gleaming metal prosthetic, at once a statuesque masterpiece of titanium muscles and piston-powered engines; tiny machine parts whirred and buzzed upon his shoulders, gears and cogs turning in a meaningless blur of activity. Most distinctive of the changes were to his eyes: not only were they now gleaming with silver blood vessels and aglow with LED pupils, but he also had six more of the damn things clustering his head, some of them dotting his forehead like steel pustules, others emerging from his cranium on flexible stalks.
From the waist down, McGucket was a nightmare. At once part centipede and part lobster, McGucket's lower body looked as though someone had tried to make a centaur out of a locomotive: almost thirty feet long, his lower body stretched away in a hideous mass of synthetic flesh and glistening metal suspended on dozens upon dozens of multi-jointed legs; for good measure, it actually seemed to contract like an accordion in order to take up less space, compacting its body as it lowered itself onto the platform. And up near the seamless join between the torso and the tail, eleven additional arms wove through the air in complicated patterns, some organic, some mechanical, and some clearly holding weapons.
Stan looked from the McGucket thing to Ford, and realized that his brother was now staring at the floor, eyes shut tight. He'd often done that back when he was a kid, usually when he was about to cry and trying desperately not to show it. Whatever this thing here was, Ford had known on some level that they were going to meet it – and he'd been dreading it every step of the way, not because it posed a threat to either of them… but because it was still recognizably his old friend.
"Toymaker," he whispered, opening his eyes at last. "Ruinous Toymaker."
"Pleased to meet you," said the McGucket-thing. "Don't think I got your name, though. The Henchmaniacs usually call ahead if there's special material to process, and you don't look like material, but…" His eightfold eyes looked them up and down. "Did Bill send you?" he asked. "Does he want anything commissioned? I'm trying to keep up, I promise you, but there's only so much I can do up here. Or perhaps you're here to help me?"
It was the voice that made the Toymaker all the more terrifying: McGucket wasn't shrieking and cackling like Bill, or snarling bestially like one of the Henchmaniacs, and in point of facts, he wasn't even his old demented self. If anything, he sounded quite calm, even serene. He still had the aged Appalachian drawl, but it was now combined with exquisite manners that the old Fiddleford McGucket had never demonstrated: no hamboning, no mad twitching – he hadn't even used any of his old hillbilly expletives. The new McGucket was a man at peace with himself and the world at large…
…and Stan would have found the notion a lot more comforting if the guy hadn't found peace while turning people into Rust Thralls in a hellish factory in the middle of a post-apocalyptic reality breakdown.
"I am Death," said Ford, with all the enthusiasm of a man following a script at gunpoint.
The Toymaker blinked in confusion. Then, his eyes widened. "Oh," he said. "Right, I understand! I thought I recognized your energies when you arrived. Bill told me you might be stopping by once you were ready, and I've got your finished order right here…"
He reached into a side-pocket of his massive lower body and plucked out a finely-made enamel box about the length of a trombone case. Opening it up for Ford's inspection, he revealed a number of easily-assembled parts, consisting of two connecting steel rods, a connecting pair of skeleton-shaped grips, and a long, curved blade.
"Your scythe, sir," he said proudly. "Forged and imbued with pure Weirdness, as per Bill's instructions. I hope you enjoy it."
Ford nodded as he accepted the disassembled scythe, looking all the more miserable for it, and casually slipped it into an inside pocket of his robe – where it promptly vanished without leaving so much as a bump in the fabric.
"…and the other gifts of the Horsemen?" he asked.
"Oh, of course, of course!"
One by one, more enamel boxes were produced, the contents of which Stan could only guess at, and all of them were gathered into the pockets of Ford's impossibly capacious cloak without seeming to weigh it down in any way, shape or form.
"Will that be all, sir?"
"Do you know who I am?"
"Of course I do, sir. You're Death, the last of the Horsemen."
"No, I mean… who I really am. Don't you recognize my face? R'n Hgzmuliw Krmvh! Wznm rg, dsb rh rg vzhrvi gl xzoo nbhvou Wvzgs gszm hzb nb ldm mznv?!"
The Toymaker smiled blankly. "I'm afraid not, sir."
At this point, after almost a full minute of watching Ford's heartbroken expression, Stan found that he simply couldn't hold his silence a minute longer. "What about her?" he asked, pointing down at Candy's unconscious form. "Tell me you at least remember her."
"Sorry, no. Was she one of the captives the Henchmaniacs were taking on tours of the workshop a month ago? You'll have to forgive me, all the new faces start to blur together after a while. But don't get me wrong, it's very nice to have a volunteer for once: it starts to get a little bit depressing to have your material screaming and begging for mercy all day, and believe me, it makes a nice change when one of them actually sits down on the table and asks to be remade. It feels..." The Toymaker's augmented brow wrinkled as he struggled with the effort of working out what to say next. "It feels good to… help? Yes, I think that's what I did. It felt good to help someone for a change."
Stan took a deep breath, valiantly fighting for a grip on the conversation. In that moment, he couldn't tell what was more frightening: the fact that McGucket could speak so casually about carving people up and turning them into Rust Thralls, or that he barely understood what the word "help" meant anymore. But Ford was still lost in his own misery, so Stan was forced to try again.
"You don't remember the Shacktron?" he plunged on. "Weirdmageddon? The laptop? All that Society of the Blind Eye junk? Those mechanical monsters you used to build? The portal?"
"I'm really sorry, sir; things tend to get blurry when I'm not working. Please don't take it personally."
"What about your name? Tell me you at least remember that."
"Of course," said McGucket pleasantly. "I'm the Ruinous Toymaker."
"No! No, no, no! I'm talking about who you used to be, before you ended up working here!"
The Toymaker cocked his head to one side in polite confusion, looking for all the world like a bewildered Jack Russel. "Before?" he echoed. "I'm afraid you're mistaken: I've always been working here, sir, have been ever since Bill Cipher created me. Never left the workshop except to check on the old machines downstairs."
"But you weren't created by Bill Cipher!" Ford exploded. "You're not just one of his anti-reality constructs, you're a real person: you're Fiddleford McGucket!"
That quizzical tilt of the head again. "Fiddleford McGucket?"
"We went to college together! We were partners! Friends! Uli z grnv, R gslftsg dv xlfow yv hlnvgsrmt nliv!"
"I'm sorry, could you repeat that last part? I'm afraid I didn't understand a word of it."
"...yrros os m'I ,drofelddiF ,hO .sllaw eht ni srepsihw eht ot netsil ot tnaw t'ndid I tub ,uoy ot elbirret gnihtemos enod dah lliB taht llet dluoc I ?srats eht ni snrettap eht ees ton I dluoc yhw ,hO ?ti taht si - niaga evigrof reven dluoc uoy os tegrof uoy edam lliB os ,gnittegrof fo daetsni evagrof uoY ?tlusni lanif s'lliB siht sI!" He was crying now, faintly luminous tears of pitch-black void-stuff coursing down his face and scorching through metal plating as they struck the ground.
"Are you alright, sir?"
"We tried to take down Bill together!" Stan chimed in. "We were all friends once! That's gotta spark something in there."
"Banjo playing! Hambone! Spitoons! The Portal! The Society of the Blind Eye! Shifty! Dipper! Mabel! Your happy home atop the hill with all the rewards you were denied for so long! You must remember something!"
If anything, the Toymaker's expression only grew more bewildered. "I'm sorry, sirs, but I can't remember anything you're referring to."
At this, the two of them drew back a distance to rethink strategy – which admittedly wasn't easy, given that Ford was almost impossible to move when he was this upset; eventually, though, Stan was able to drag him away from the Toymaker and take him just out of earshot so they could talk.
"You think Bill's zapped him with the memory gun or something?" Stan whispered.
Ford shook his head, absently wiping anomalous tears from his eyes. "Too lucid for that. Similar process, different method. Besides, Bill would never allow the memory gun to survive intact, not after what happened to him last time."
Last time? Stan wondered silently. "So what's happened to him?"
"I can see metal in his brain, tiny pitchforks in his frontal lobes. Weirdness poured through certain segments, and all the parts that didn't seem interesting enough to keep were just boiled away. The Rust ate his memories and spat out the bones. Now, there's only empty hollows where new memory can grow. Bill wanted more than just a toy, he wanted a willing slave. Fiddleford doesn't know what he's doing is wrong; he doesn't even know what right and wrong is anymore: he just does what he's told. He wasn't even allowed to keep what little he remembered of his family; they took away his life and made him new, and then made him do the same for others. All because Bill hates him, because Fiddleford almost saved me from him… and because of what he helped do – or what he almost helped do – or what he helped do – or what he almost helped do-"
"Ford," Stan hissed, hastily cutting through the reverie. "This is fascinating and all, but we've got more important things to think about right now: is there any way we can help this guy? I mean, can we fix whatever way Bill messed him up?"
For several seconds, the other half of the Grim Reaper Duo considered this. "It might be possible to help him relearn the way of right and wrong, if we can heal his brain."
"And how the hell are we supposed to do that?"
"A healing power neither of us possess. Maybe Jheselbraum the Unswerving could undo the damage, but…" Ford sighed. "She is forbidden from entering this reality. And I probably don't deserve to call to her for aid, anyway," he added quietly.
"What about McGucket's memories? Is there anything we can do about that?"
"We'd need tokens from his past: photo albums, home movies, journals, proof that his past life existed. It might not work perfectly, but it might be enough to spark something."
"Might? Sounds like a long shot to me."
"It worked before. It worked for you."
"Ford, what are you talking about?"
"Mabel made it work, Mabel and Waddles. Then we all helped out. You remembered. You-"
"Ford, Ford, Ford! You need to concentrate: we don't have any of this guy's old photo albums, and after everything that's happened to the world, do you think there's any chance we'll find them? They've probably gone the same way as your old journals by now. Is there any other way we can help him?"
Galaxies flickered and went dark inside Ford's eyes; stars sank away into endless night, even as others blazed into existence and instantly aged into ghastly white dwarfs. "We could telepathically replicate the process: if we provide him with memories about him from as many people as possible – you, me, Dipper, Mabel, Tate – we may be able to rebuild just enough of his past to start an associative recall."
"So why not start right now?"
"I am Death."
"Yeah, I heard you the first time, Ford; you're starting to sound like that talking tree I met back in 2006. Do you have anything remotely like telepathy in your new bag of tricks right now?"
"Nothing remotely like it. My nearest equivalent would probably sear the inside of his brainpan barren."
"Okay, so we're screwed until we can find a telepath. Alright then…" Stan took a deep breath, and lowered his voice to a hoarse whisper. "Do you think there's any way we can just knock him out and drag him onto the Stanmobile?"
"We might be able to overpower him if we work together… but he might be able to sound the alarm before we subdue him. We are powerful, but even we cannot challenge Bill Cipher alone."
"Is it just me, or are you getting the hang of speaking normally?"
"Unfortunately not: blf'iv tvggrmt yvggvi zg fmwvihgzmwrmt nv, Hgzmovb. Zh blfi kldvi tildh, blfi nrmw xszmtvh lm z hfygov ovevo, zogvirmt gsv dzb blf kvixvrev ivzorgb: R'ev yvvm fhrmt Dvriwhkvzp drgs zonlhg vevib lgsvi hvmgvmxv zmw blf szevm'g vevm mlgrxvw."
"Excuse me," the Toymaker interrupted. "I don't mean to intrude, but…" A secondary limb pointed in Stan's direction. "Who's he? I've checked the notes Bill gave me, and he never mentioned anything about Death having a twin."
Ooooh crap.
"And how did you hear all this stuff about Fiddleford McGucket?"
"…er…"
"…by accident, really…" said Stan, limply.
"You haven't been getting notes from this Mr A feller, have you?"
Ford's eyes lit up. "You've received a note?"
"A long time ago, yes. It was addressed to Fiddleford McGucket, and it told him to stay put until someone arrived to rescue him."
"And that's why we're here! We're here to rescue you!"
"That's very kind, I'm sure, but I know I'm not Fiddleford McGucket, so I'm afraid I don't need to be rescued."
"But you are Fiddleford McGucket: Bill lied to you. You were alive long before this place existed, and you had a life before Bill sentenced you to this one. You had friends, you had family, you had a son. You had people who cared about you, and Bill took all that away from you."
The Toymaker thought for a moment, clearly considering the matter. "Oh," he said at last.
If Ford was in any way surprised by this, he didn't show it, so once again Stan took up the slack in his stead. "Is that it?" he demanded. "Is that all you're gonna say? 'Oh?' Bill wiped your memories, played around with your brain, turned you into a monster, kept you down here as a slave, and that's all you can say about it? Bill stole your life! How is this not registering with you?!"
The Toymaker shrugged. "I don't remember this old life of mine, so why should I care? How am I supposed to miss something I can't remember, and why would I want to know anything about it when I've got everything I need right here? Bill's given me everything I want: I can design, I can build, I can modify, and all I have to do in return is to process the new shipments of material. What more could I possibly want?"
"Oh, I don't know – maybe a different routine? Family? Friendship? Freedom? A chance at a life outside the creepy factory infested with killer cyborgs?"
All eight of the Toymaker's eyes narrowed dubiously. "Is that what other people want out of life?" he asked.
"Yes! Generally!"
"Really? Ah. Well, I've never known what any of those are like, so why would I want them?"
Stan groaned. "Oh good god almighty, why are you making this so difficult? We're trying to help you, you know!"
"And I'm very thankful that you think I deserve it, but I'm really not interested in anything outside the workshop right now. I'm sorry to have wasted your time – believe me, it was a good offer, but it just doesn't appeal to me. Maybe I'll reconsider it in a couple of days, and I'll be able to learn all about what it's like to have family and friends, but for now I've got work to do: I have quotas to fill, and the Henchmaniacs don't like it when I lag behind."
"Now listen, you centipede-legged old fart," Stan snarled, "Dv'ev gizevoovw z olmt dzb qfhg gl urmw blf, zmw nb yilgsvi rh mlg tlrmt gl trev fk lm blf mld; R hdvzi, ru blf yivzp srh svzig mld, R'n mlg tlmmz ivhg fmgro R urmw dszgvevi kzhhvh uli blfi zhhslov zmw izn blfi svzw fk rg! Xlnkivmwv?"
"I'm sorry, could you repeat that? I didn't understand a word of it, sir."
Stan took a deep breath as he once again struggled to regain control of his voicebox. Whatever energies had transformed him and Ford into the Grim Reaper Duo, it wasn't done twisting them out of shape.
"Don't you want freedom?" Ford asked quietly. "Isn't there something here that you don't have?"
"Nope. Sorry."
"But you said the Henchmaniacs don't like it when you lag behind. You have side-projects you want to perform, and work for Bill distracts from that, yes? Sometimes you want to build something and Bill won't let you even try, yes?"
"True, but that's just life. We don't always get what we want, and if we want to get what we need, we have to labour under a few restrictions from time to time."
"But Bill doesn't. He made a world where he makes all the rules and made sure that none of them apply to him. Don't you want a chance to see what it's like to live outside of his laws? Don't you want to create something Bill doesn't want you to build?"
"I can't. I know I can't…" But for the first time, uncertainty registered in the Toymaker's numerous eyes. "They all said I can't. I can't… can I?"
"You can be free if you wish, Fiddleford. All you have to do is take the chance: come with us, and be the man you want to be, not the man Bill designed you to be."
At this, the Toymaker turned and stared at Ford with a look that hovered somewhere between confusion and something almost like recognition. "Who are you?" he whispered. "You're not just Death, you're… something different. Something… more?"
Ford took a deep breath, his face contorting with the effort of speaking in comprehensible language. "My name is Stanford Filbrick Pines," he said solemnly.
"I… I don't recognize that name, but I feel like I should. Why?"
"Once, before Weirdmageddon went global, I was your friend… and if you'd permit it, I'd like to be your friend again."
There was a long and distinctly thoughtful pause.
"Supposing," said the Toymaker, "Just for the sake of argument, that I accepted your proposition: if I went with you, would I be allowed to go on building? You'd let me create whatever I want – no restrictions on designs?"
"Of course."
"As long as you don't hurt anybody," Stan added helpfully.
"Only volunteer material from now on."
Fiddleford's metal-plated face wrinkled in confusion. "Is it really so important? Material is material, regardless of its opinion. That's what Bill told me, anyway," he added sheepishly.
"If you want to work on your own designs, you'll have to do so without unwilling flesh."
"And you've also got to bring Candy here with us when we leave," Stan chimed in. "And whatever Bill did to make her start volunteering for all this crap, you're going to talk her out of it: from now on, no kids either."
Once again, there was silence, except for the faint clatter of the Toymaker's metal feet absently drumming against the floor with a sound like hail on a tin roof. For perhaps a minute, he pondered the matter, all eight of his eyes swinging back and forth between Stan, Ford, and the unconscious figure on the table.
"Alright," he said at last. "I'll go with you. There's just one problem."
"And what's that?"
"How am I supposed to get out of here?"
"…you can't just walk out the door?"
The Toymaker shook his head sadly. "Bill put an alarm on the inner perimeter: if I attempt to leave my position in the upper chambers or if anyone attempts to remove me from the workshop, an alarm will sound. Bill will be here in 8.5 seconds – at the most conservative estimates – and he'll be tearing the Manufactory apart long before we can escape."
"What if we were to bring the chariot up here, instead?" Ford suggested. "We can open a portal to the outside world without ever having to trigger the alarm."
"Unfortunately, Bill thought of that, too. Back when I was just getting started, he had me implanted with multiple tracking chips to prevent anyone from stealing me; apparently, the Henchmaniacs aren't all that good at keeping their hands to themselves."
"And we can't just cut the chips out of you, right?" Stan asked wearily.
"Not without a signal scrambler of some kind, and all the resources that we could use to build that have been used up on the last couple of shipments."
"Then what if we steal them instead? You could say there needs to be a product recall or something, and the moment the shipment arrives, we steal the scramblers, cut the chip out of you and hightail it outta here?"
"I'm a Toymaker, not a Henchmaniac: I don't get to make requests of anyone."
"Plus, we can't afford to stay here forever. Bill's sure to stop by sooner or later, assuming he doesn't just send in some Henchmaniacs to check on this place."
Stan opened his mouth to offer a smart-assed reply – and in that moment, a bolt of inspiration rippled down from the pitch-black rafters and nailed him squarely between the eyeballs. Immediately, a faintly ridiculous-looking smile began making its way across his face, and didn't stop until it had formed an almost painful grin.
"But what if we could?" he asked.
There was a pause, as ten very confused eyes turned in his direction.
"What if we really could stay here forever? What if we didn't have to break him out of the Forge at all? I mean, it's like mom used to say:If you can't get the turtle out of its shell, take the shell with you!"
"You mean-"
"We steal the entire Forge, lock, stock, barrel and robots! Between the three of us, we've got more power than we know what to do with: me and Ford, we've got all the powers of Death split between us, and you've got all this cyborg magical stuff going on – there's got to be something we can use to get this hunk of junk moving. I mean, it's not like we haven't done this before: back when we first took the fight to Bill, you put an entire building on legs, McGucket!"
"I did?" The Toymaker hesitated, then shook his head. "But this isn't just a building: it's an entire pocket reality, an entire world unto itself! Bill's anchored everything in place, and you can't hope to move it unless you've got some means of cutting through chains of pure will."
"But we do," said Ford, and for the first time since they'd arrived in this miserable place, he was smiling. "You've just given it to us: the gifts of the Horsemen can be turned against that which created them."
And as he spoke, the first of the enamel boxes was slowly floating out of his robes, opening itself to reveal the components lurking inside; seemingly of its own accord, each part began to slowly drift out of the box and assemble itself in mid-air. Intact, the weapon looked far more impressive: a length of glistening black iron with grips shaped like tiny human skeletons, surmounted by a wickedly-curved blade carved with dozens of tiny screaming faces all across the flat, it was truly a terror to behold. As Stan watched, it seemed to drink the light around it, absorbing every last drop of illumination until all that remained was a rippling halo of shadows, an aura of purest darkness.
"Death's Scythe," said Ford, reverently. "The Reaper of Hope. Bill wanted something very special when he commissioned this from you, Fiddleford: he'd seen the psychopomps of other realities, and he wanted something that could match their prowess. He asked for a weapon delicate enough to sever the link between body and soul, but strong enough to snuff out a star… and sharp enough to carve through thought."
"You mean-"
"Yes. If this can't cut the anchor binding this realm in place, nothing can. I can sever those ties and reconnect them to the Stanmobile; with Stanley piloting it while I make sure the bindings come undone, we can take the Forge anywhere we please."
Fiddleford blinked. Then, his face lit up in excitement. "I'm not sure if I understood everything you just said, but that… actually might work. But how soon can we go?"
"There's no time like the present, is there? All we have to do is make sure this pocket reality is secured for motion, and then we can begin!"
Ford turned to Stan, the smile on his face now bright enough to outshine the cosmos, and enveloped him in a bone-crumpling hug. "You are a genius, Stanley," he exclaimed jubilantly. "You. Are. A. Genius!"
"But where are we going? Where are we supposed to take this place once we've got it moving?"
"To the rest of the Zodiac, of course. They can benefit more from it that Bill ever could. But enough of that. We've got a forge to steal! Come on, Stanley: it's time for the biggest heist in all infinity!"
A/N: This chapter's soundtrack choice is Dollhouses by Jason Tai. Felt it suited the Forge's nature as a brainwashing centre - a little bit hypnotic, a little bit unearthly, with a distinct hint of innocence lost.
Up next - recovery, hope, and game-changers!
Rg'h grnv gl vmw gsv olhrmt hgivzp
Zmw ovzev yvsrmw gsv dliow hl yovzp
Rg'h grnv gl urmw lfi olmt-olhg qlb
Zmw hzylgztv Yroo'h tznyormt kolb