A/N: Sorry for the delay, everyone - I've been hit by headaches of both the literal and technical kind this month, and I've been running on fumes in the meantime. A hearty thank-you to all who viewed, reviewed, favourited and followed - and also for everyone still putting up with my abysmal timing.

Anyway, without further ado, a happy chapter.

No, really. I'm not joking.

Oh come on, would I lie to you?

Stop giving me those suspicious looks.

And stop laughing!

Ahem, read, review, and above all, enjoy!

Disclaimer: Gravity Falls is still not mine.

For weeks of nonlinear time on end, Bill Cipher remained locked in the Fearamid's throne room, too wrapped up in himself to notice the anxious whisperings from just behind the door.

In that time, he'd swung from one emotion to the next with such speed and ferocity that the most experienced psychiatric counsellors in the multiverse would have struggled to keep up: initially crippled with terror and unable to do much more than insist that he'd done everything right this time around, he'd then moved on to anger, demanding to know who'd screwed things for him this time – seemingly oblivious to the fact that nobody would answer him now that he'd ordered the Henchmaniacs out of the throne room. After reducing the slot machines to puddles of metallic slag with bolts of searing energy and upending his throne in a fit of temper, he'd sunk deep into the murky waters of depression: for hours, he could do nothing but sit glumly on the ziggurat on which the throne had stood and stare into the horizon for hours on end, crushed by the realization that the danger he'd tried so hard to evade was now unleashed again. From there, he swung on to absolute shrieking hilarity, giggling fit to burst at the absurd notion that someone could ever hope to stop him, much less kill him. He'd seized control of an entire universe! He'd cheated death itself, swatted the slimy paws of the Axolotl itself off the tiller of his destiny and claimed the future for him and him alone! As if anyone would have a snowball's chance in hell of bringing him down! And for a while afterwards, he was almost unshakeably confident, totally assured of victory against Axolotl, the escaped Zodiac, and whatever new threat had eaten the souls of Pyronica and Amorphous Shape; for a couple of minutes, he was downright nonchalant.

Then his fear caught up with him, turning him into a bawling wreck all over again and resetting the entire cycle.

But even Bill's tantrums couldn't last forever, and after perhaps two confused weeks of raging, crying, laughing and bragging his way around the throne room, he suddenly became aware of the sound of whispered conversation issuing from behind the colossal double-doors. As consumed as he'd been with his bad mood, even Bill couldn't fail to notice that the Henchmaniacs were discussing something – and judging by those panicked tones of voice, the something had to be pretty damn important… and if the whispering was any evidence, they didn't want him knowing about it.

Immensely reassured by the fact that the Henchmaniacs were still afraid of him, Bill surged forward from the wreckage of the throne room and flung open the doors with one almighty shockwave of energy, sending terrified figures scurrying in all directions.

"WHAT'S GOING ON OUT HERE?!" he bellowed.

There was a stunned silence, as the assembled Henchmaniacs tried and failed to hide the mangled corpses lying on the floor behind them. Swatting the crowd aside, Bill found himself looking down at the pitiful remains of Hectorgon and Lava Lamp – the former a lifeless grey husk, the latter torn right down the middle by some tremendous force.

For a split-second, the old fear erupted inside Bill's mind and threatened to send him screaming back to the throne room in a fit of panic. But just as quickly, the dawning terror faded and was replaced by something much more reassuring: rage.

"What the hell happened?" he demanded, prodding Lava Lamp's bisected body. Nobody answered at first, but Bill could already tell that there was no point in trying to revive the two; once again, the souls of both Henchmaniacs were long gone and nothing could restore them, especially now that time was unwilling to respond to his commands. "Well?!" he shrieked. "Answer me! What happened to them?"

"We found them at the Mortuary," said 8-Ball. "Someone tore the place to bits, killed a whole bunch of our critters as well. No sign of what happened to the human bar staff."

"And what the hell were they doing at the Mortuary? Did I say anyone deserved time at the bar? Did anyone think they needed R&R in the middle of a crisis? Or have we just forgotten that we've got the Axolotl roaming free across my universe, along with something that can eat souls? You tell me, you useless shits, because I've got no clue."

"But Boss, you weren't-"

Bill whirled around and smacked 8-Ball so hard across the face that both of his eyeballs went flying out of their sockets and landed with a clatter on a pool table several thousand feet away, scattering most of the balls in the process. For good measure, the glowing eight-balls ended up pocketed as well.

As the freshly-blinded Henchmaniac staggered off to look for his missing eyes, Bill rounded on the remaining members of the crowd, his body now scarlet with raged.

"NO… MORE… EXCUSES!" he roared, suddenly growing to the size of the Burj Khalifa. "WE'VE HAD AN INTRUDER IN OUR MIDST FOR MONTHS OF NONLINEAR TIME, AND YOU PEOPLE HAVE BEEN SLACKING OFF WITHOUT ME AROUND! AND NOW WE'VE GOT SOMEONE ELSE IN THIS DIMENSION WHO CAN EAT SOULS, AND NONE OF YOU SEEM TO GIVE A DAMN! HOW MANY OF YOU PEOPLE DO I HAVE TO FLAY ALIVE BEFORE YOU GET THE MESSAGE?! AXOLOTL MUST BE FOUND, HIM AND HIS SOUL-EATING…"

He paused, suddenly eyeing Hectorgon's sorry-looking remnants. There wasn't much left to distinguish the soulless body from that of, say, Amorphous Shape, but there were enough tell-tale signs for him to realize that something very different had attacked the bowler-hatted Henchmaniac. Even in his foul mood, Bill couldn't fail to recognize his own handiwork.

"Oh, Fordsie," he snarled. "Oh, Sixer. So it's you. After everything I've done for you, you stab me in the back all over again. You were supposed to be my Horseman of Death, and instead you do… this…"

He turned to the crowd of Henchmaniacs, suddenly his normal size and colour again. "Was there anything else in the area?"

By way of a reply, Xanthar's jaws unfurled from behind his loaf-shaped skull and disgorged a large section of chewed-off brickwork. Graffitied across it were the words THE PYRAMID IS FALLING, and below that, YOU'RE NEXT, BILL.

"Sixer's no graffiti artist," whispered Bill. "His game was supposed to change him, but not like this. No, this was written by Zits." He let out a low growl of frustration. "First it's the Axolotl, then it's the Weaver, then this soul-eating thing, and now the zodiac are gunning for me as well!"

He took a deep and decidedly superfluous breath. "Well, they can try!" he proclaimed to nobody in particular. "Sure, they've got the powers of the Horsemen and whatever else they've scraped from their games, but they'll be no match for us now that we're ready for them, and they they're sure as shit aren't a match for ME!"

Laughing maniacally to himself, Bill turned to the Henchmanaics, his eye a gleaming void reflecting all the hellish angles of the Nightmare Realm. "It's time to show these podunk losers that playtime is over!" he boomed. "All of you, find the zodiac and bring them to me – dead, alive, maimed, stitched together, prolapsed, I don't care in what condition! I want them here!"

There was a nervous cough from the audience, followed by the sounds of tumblers anxiously turning inside Keyhole's head and the agitated clatter of Teeth's well-worn molars.

"Well? What are you waiting for?"

Kryptos looked around, as if waiting for someone else to answer the question, and sighed. "Uh, Boss," he began sheepishly. "Where should we look for them?"

"Oh for – I have to spell it out for you, don't I?! GRAVITY FALLS! GRAVITY FALLS, YOU IDIOT! WHERE THE HELL ELSE DO YOU THINK THEY'D GO? These mortals are like hermit crabs, tiny little hermit crabs crossbred with cockroaches! No matter how screwed up it is, they'll always come crawling back to their little burrows – even if they're on a floodplain or next to a volcano or in tornado country or between tectonic plates! They will be back where they started up, trying to start another rebellion in the stupid hick town where it all began, and that-is-where-you-will-find-them! NOW GO! GET TO GRAVITY FALLS AND FIND THEM! NOW!"

Some distance away, Nyarlathotep sat comfortably in a floating deckchair carried on the winds of unreality, sipped idly from a comically oversized martini glass practically festooned with crazy straws and lemon slices, and laughed uproariously at Bill's latest antics.

"Wrong again, jackass," he chortled. "Try again."

But of course, neither Bill nor his Henchmaniacs could hear him unless he wanted them to, and right now, Nyarlathotep was having way too much fun playing the part of the man behind the curtain. Granted, there'd be a time for the masks to come off and explanations be given at long last, but for the time being, he'd remain backstage.

Besides, Bill was sending his lackeys on a wild goose chase and he didn't even know it. The poor pathetic fool couldn't even imagine that his enemies could be lurking in Cipheropolis; the merest possibility hadn't even entered his pointy little skull. Faced with such glorious entertainment, who was Nyarlathotep to interrupt another instance of Bill making an ass of himself?

Sighing, he sat back in his deckchair and drained his glass to the dregs. Inside the martini, Lava Lamp's soul had just enough time to let out a muffled scream before being vacuumed up the straw and down Nyarlathotep's throat.

At long last, Cipheropolis crept into view from beneath the sickly-coloured clouds, and it took all of Dipper's self-control not to transform into a photon and launch himself across the remaining twenty miles at the speed of light. Quite apart from the fact that Wendy had agreed to act as the scout just in case something had gone horribly wrong, Dipper was still carrying the Mortuary bar staff on his back, and none of them were carrying parachutes.

So, for the time being, he was forced to remain in his dragon-like form and soar high above the ground while Wendy lead her horse on a meandering circuit of the city in search of potential dangers. Meanwhile, the others busied themselves as best as they could; Grunkle Stan stood atop his chariot and tried to start a conversation with Ford, Grunkle Ford tried valiantly to speak casually without dissolving into disturbing gibberish, and Robbie trundled around some distance away, seemingly engrossed in juggling the bodies under his control (not figurative juggling: he was literally scooping up handfuls of zombies from his colossal outer shell and tossing them from hand to hand).

Dipper, unfortunately, didn't have much to do: at times like this, he'd have fallen back on shapeshifting out of sheer anxiety, but doing that would have sent his passengers falling to their deaths. Talking to them wasn't much of an option either, given that most of them were almost too terrified to speak. Knowing his luck, even if he could coax a few sentences out of them, they'd probably only start asking him for in-flight entertainment or little packets of peanuts.

Eventually, Wendy returned from the circuit and reported that all was well, allowing them to finally descend into Cipheropolis: Wendy and Grunkle Stan took the lead, their horses galloping to a halt inside the city gates; Ford glided down after them, borne on thin air alone; Robbie clambered out along the arm of his outer shell and stepped down into the square like a man descending from a gangway. Finally, Dipper hit the ground like a jumbo jet landing on a helipad, allowing his passengers to disembark at long last.

Waiting for them was a colossal army of armed refugees, with a couple of hundred bemused-looking rust thralls. And all of them were applauding wildly, cheering at the top of their lungs as Dipper returned to human form, whooping and hollering like fans at a rock concert. As he shook off the last of his flying form, he looked around in the hopes of seeing some familiar faces among the crowd – just in time to get a brief glimpse of something pink and exuberant rocketing towards him: a split-second later, Mabel slammed into him at high speed, drawing him into a crushing hug.

"Ohmygoshwowitssogreattoseeyouyou'realiveyouwouldn'tbelievewhathappened-"

Ascending from above, Pacifica telekinetically nudged her aside. "Let him breathe, Mabel! Um, hi Dipper. Uh, how did things go?"

Dipper looked around, and realized with some bemusement that Soos had reacted in much the same way as Mabel had, and was now hugging Grunkle Stan with the kind of ferocity commonly reserved for long-lost relatives. Meanwhile, Gideon was ushering the terrified bar staff over to the crowd, telepathically soothing them as best as possible while the crowd welcomed them.

It took a while for Dipper to find a reply, for by now, he was feeling just as discombobulated as the bar staff. "Um… good, I think," he said at last. "Erm, is it my imagination, or are there a lot more people in this army than there used to be?"

"Nevermindthatnevermindthatwe'lltellyouinaminutehowdiditgoattheMortuary?!"

"Like I said, good; I mean, I'm pretty sure we killed two Henchmaniacs and we got away without being caught, but-"

There was a whoop of joy from the crowd, and the refugee militia cheered even louder.

"Two Henchmaniacs!" Mabel shrieked jubilantly, exuberance briefly spiralling out of control. "That'snotjustgoodthat'sincrediblewhyaren'twepartyingwe'vemanagedtogetjustabouteveryoneintowntotheCookieJarandwe'vekilledtwoHenchmaniacsthiscallsforacelebration!"

"She's been like this ever since we finished getting everyone to safety," said Pacifica. She cleared her throat and continued in a slightly louder voice so the rest of the group could hear: "For the benefit of anyone who isn't fluent in Excited Mabel, we've managed to get every citizen of Cipheropolis into the Cookie Jar. No deaths, and only a few attacks from the Cipherites and those weird Ori cult people. We've still got a handful of holdouts from the cults living in some of the old gang territories, but McGucket's machines are keeping them pinned down, and Gideon's refugees are still around to help us fight. Oh, and I think we've managed to pick up a few hundred additional recruits as well; turns out not all of the locals wanted the safety of the Cookie Jar, so they asked if they could join us. We agreed on the condition that they start training ASAP."

"I did notice there seemed to be a few more people around," Dipper mumbled bemusedly.

Pacifica took a deep breath, and continued in a whisper. "So, um… question is, what were we planning on doing next?"

"That's what I was about to say," said Dipper. "We've won two pretty decent victories, but I don't know what we're supposed to do next. I mean, we can shuffle the teams for a different kind of attack, but I don't know where to go next or how to organize them, but-"

Mabel snorted. "Are you kidding?" she giggled. "Dipper, we evacuated an entire city and fought off a crazy cult with mind powers, and you killed two Henchmaniacs and all their superpowered goons. What we need right now is a party."

"A… a party?"

"Yes! We need a party, you especially!"

"But we're in the middle of a war against an unstoppable triangular dream demon, and we're in a race against the clock before he finds us!"

"And he doesn't have any idea where to look first," Mabel countered. "Plus, we're all tired, we're still coming down from some of the biggest fights of our lives, and we need to let off a little steam before we go out and do it all over again."

"She's got a point," said Wendy. "One thing I learned in apocalypse training was that you've gotta be able to catch your breath now and then, otherwise you'll just burn out. Even the Society needed a little R&R every once in a while, otherwise they'd never be able to function. I mean, yeah, they mostly just sat around and stared at brick walls, but the principle's the same."

"Besides," Mabel added cheerily, "you look like you're going to pass out, bro-bro."

Dipper sighed deeply, and realized that he felt even wearier than he probably looked in that moment: among other things, he'd just flown for a significant distance, shifted into at least three dozen different forms over the course of the battle with the Henchmaniac, then flown back while carrying passengers, and now that he was finally back in safe territory, the adrenaline that had been powering him for the last couple of hours was starting to wear off. He honestly didn't feel like arguing with Mabel at this point, and frankly, he was too tired to out-debate her at that juncture anyway.

Besides, he thought, I'm supposed to be sharing leadership with Mabel. Kind of pointless to disagree if I don't have any idea of what to do next.

"Okay," he said at last. "Party it is, then."

Mabel all but went into orbit. "You hear that guys?" she hollered in the general direction of the crowd. "IT'S PARTY TIME!"

A roar of approval went up.

"You heard it here first, ladies and gentlemen!" she plunged onwards, now in full-blown party-planner mode. "The zodiac are going to turn this entire city into party central, and it's all gonna start at the Rallying Flag Hotel! There's plenty of food and drink down in the markets – just bring it to me, and I'll be able to rewind time and freshen it up easy as pie! Oh, and I hear the gang down on Misery Boulevard have big screen TVs and a projector! Pacifica, I'm gonna need you to go get that stuff and as many DVDs as you can carry – it should be easy with telekinesis. Oh, and we might need your pyrokinesis for cooking! Wendy, we're going to need someone with superstrength to get some of those big generators around to the hotel. Gideon, use that telepathy of yours and see if you can find anyone among the refugees who can play a musical instrument. Robbie, do you think you can teach your zombies to dance and juggle?"

Robbie just laughed. "Mabel, I can make these things form human pyramids a thousand stories tall. What do you think?"

"That's what I like to hear! Uh, Grunkle Stan, there's supposed to be a bar with live entertainment down by the big gang fortress in the stalagmite district. Do you think you can fly over and see if they've still got instruments around, maybe a stereo or something like that? Ooh, maybe a karaoke machine!"

"On the condition I get first song choice. You up for helping out, Ford?"

"Wl blf gsrmp gsvb'oo szev zmbgsrmt yb Gln Ovsivi?"

"Never change, Poindexter. Okay, okay, you don't have to give me that look, I kinda liked "Poisoning Pigeons In The Park." Maybe we'll find some Frank Sinatra while we're there… and I'll see if they've got any BABA for you, Dipper."

"That's another thing," said Dipper plaintively. "What am I supposed to do?"

Mabel patted him on the shoulder. "You just sit down and shapeshift into the most relaxed little brother on the planet, bro-bro! It's time we had some fun. Now, come on, people! Let's start putting the pieces together! Find some multimedia players, put some music on! LET'S GET THIS PARTY STARTED!"

There was another bellowing cheer from the crowd, broken only by the sound of Soos yelling "I'm gonna be a DJ again, dudes!"

That night, the Rallying Flag Hotel and every street within a mile of it had turned volcanic with celebration.

The streets were crowded with thousands of revellers, each of them congregating around one or more of the makeshift venues the zodiac had set up, and it seemed just about all of them were jumping and swaying to the melodies of an entire planet's worth of music – some courtesy of live bands armed with scavenged instruments, others courtesy of the many records that Grunkle Stan and Grunkle Ford had unearthed. Sound systems the size of skyscrapers now floated around the makeshift stages, courtesy of Old Man McGucket, blasting joyous anthems across the city – everything from jazz to rap, from classical to classic rock, from synth to baroque. Soos had taken his post at the tallest of these speaker stacks, and was playing DJ atop the highest turntable station the world had ever seen – in part because nobody else dared to try.

Those of them who weren't dancing or letting the tsunami of music wash over them were flocking to food tents, merrily gorging themselves upon everything the market's vendors had been able to raise, cook, scavenge or steal: roast chicken, mushroom kebabs, felafels, pizza, hot dogs, gourmet hamburgers, marmalade rolls, chocolate brownies, popcorn, fresh apples and oranges liberated from the mob-owned greenhouses to the north, and a whole host of foods that most of the refugees hadn't tasted for months or even years on end - with plenty of space left over for beer, champagne, cocktails and chocolate milkshakes.

And while they ate, there was no shortage of entertainment around to keep them amused, for along with the music, there seemed to be a different gig going on at every building in the district not taken up by a stage: on one street corner, Robbie was directing his performing zombies into a frenzied tapdance/juggling/acrobatics routine – all while practising his graffiti on abandoned houses; on another, Candy and Mabel were coaxing members of the crowd into a spirited karaoke tournament, aided by the best soundproofing McGucket could provide and egged on by enthusiastic oinks from Waddles; upon the rooftops, Wendy and Pacifica were racing their horses around the rooftops, to the accompaniment of cheers from a sizeable audience of informal gamblers; Gunkle Stan was ushering prospective audiences off to improvised movie theatres, advertising showings of everything from the latest pre-Weirdmageddon blockbusters to classic Academy Award-winners – and there was even video-gaming available in one or two of them. Even Wendy's Society were partying and playing with great aplomb, and many were now breathing gouts of fire and spitting lightning in an improvised fireworks display.

In fact, the only one of the zodiac who didn't appear to be having a good time was Gideon, and that was because he didn't seem in the mood to stop working: he was always marching through the crowds, stopping fights before they happened, warning Mabel when the food tents ran low on supplies, checking to make sure nobody had lost their way, and telepathically redirecting crowds so nobody got crushed by mistake. And when he wasn't doing that, he was sitting quietly on a park bench with a pale, jittery-looking woman who seemed about two steps removed from a nervous breakdown.

"See, Mom?" he kept saying, as he patted her hand. "You don't have to vacuum. I'm not a celebrity con artist anymore. Dad's probably going to be better soon – enough to walk, even. And nobody's starving or scared. Everything's going to be okay."

And somehow, Gideon sounded as if he couldn't quite believe a word he said.

In the middle of all this festive confusion, Dipper found himself slumped on a couch that could have comfortably accommodated two or three football teams, too tired to budge. At Mabel's encouragement, he'd enjoyed himself as much as possible: he'd enjoyed an informal dinner, he'd danced as ridiculously as his protean body could allow, and he'd even played a few videogames. In the end, though, once people had started asking to see his powers in action, it had gotten too much for him: it felt too much like the "birthday party" Bill had arranged back when Weirdmageddon had just gone global.

Tuckered out and needing some time to himself, he'd made his way to the crashing lounge atop one of the neighbouring buildings and sat there, wearily munching his way through a plate of cookies and sipping from a steaming cup of hot cocoa. For a time, he was almost too engrossed in the food to pay attention to the matters that had been lurking at the back of his mind… which wasn't all that surprising, come to think of it: for the last thirty years, he'd eaten nothing but beans, dead rats and the occasional mole person; chocolate was now an indescribable luxury to him, especially given that the Shapeshifter's tastebuds hadn't even encountered it until tonight.

Eventually, though, he found himself gripped by a powerful need for conversation – not easy, given the partying going on. Most of the others were too busy with the festivities to take a break and put their feet up; even Grunkle Ford was elsewhere – last seen delivering a huge basket of cakes and party food to the Forge, where they could be shared with McGucket.

And just when he was starting to wonder if he was going to have to look for someone to talk to, there was a clatter of hooves on the rooftop, and he turned around just in time to see Wendy dismounting her horse, an exhilarated look in her eyes. The old Wendy was back again, happy and fun-loving and cool-headed regardless of the situation or the danger… and even with her hair shorn and her body clustered with dozens of weird modifications, it took all of Dipper's willpower to remind himself that they were Just Friends.

Sighing contentedly, she flopped down on the couch next to him and put her feet up on the ottoman, seemingly oblivious to his presence. For almost thirty seconds, Dipper was practically mute with fear, terrified that if he spoke up, Wendy would storm off in a disgusted huff. After all, she'd been avoiding him ever since he'd remembered himself – ever since she'd learned that he'd been the Shapeshifter all along – and she'd only just barely managed to share with him a few kind words on the way back from the Mortuary.

But after a while, Wendy happened to glance in his direction and offered a tentative smile – not the shark-toothed rictus she'd employed back when she'd been fighting him at the hotel, but a genuinely happy smile. That had to be a good sign, or at the least an indication that she didn't utterly despise him anymore. Still, Dipper knew he'd have to choose his words very carefully: if he screwed up now, he'd be lucky if Wendy would ever speak to him again. So, he rehearsed his lines for the next few seconds, and as soon as he was confident that he had the perfect line refined and polished for use, he opened his mouth-

-and promptly transformed into a large blue teddy bear.

Muttering a few choice swear words, Dipper forced himself back into human form and tried again. He knew he could make things right between the two of them; he just had to say the words and stay in one shape long enough to voice them. So, taking a deep breath, he scooted forward on the couch, opened his mouth to speak-

-and suddenly transformed into a platypus plush toy.

At this point, Wendy glanced over at him with a look of concern in her eyes. "Are you okay?" she asked hesitantly.

"I'm fine!" said Dipper loudly, forcing himself back into human form. "I just-"

Suddenly, he was an accordion. Furiously shifting back again, he continued: "I sometimes lose control of powers when I'm nervous, that's all."

"Why are you nervous? We're still friends, aren't we?"

"Yes!" Dipper almost screamed, trying valiantly not to shapeshift. "Yes, absolutely! We're definitely still friends! It's just that I got a little worried that I thought you still hated me after this whole shapeshifter business and I never properly apologized for trying to kill you back in the bunker and I just got so confused over who I really was and I kept meaning to tell you all about it but I got so scared and I-"

Dipper's flesh warped and twisted again; this time, he just barely managed to maintain his grip on humanity. Unfortunately, he couldn't manage the same trick with his age, and soon found himself staring up at Wendy in the body of a five-year-old.

"DAMMIT!" he roared, forcing himself back to age thirteen. "Sorry, I just- I'm just having a lot of trouble saying what I need to say and I-"

Without saying a word, Wendy leaned forward and hugged Dipper tightly around the shoulders. "It's okay," she whispered. "I understand. And… to be honest, Dipper, I'd already forgiven you for all that stuff anyway: none of it was your fault, really – you were just following the script Bill forced into your head, just like me. I should have told you this a long time ago, but… well, I was just too scared to admit it."

"You were scared?"

"I know, right? But… after everything that had happened to me in the last few months, it took a long time before I could talk to anyone about… what I'd done. I've killed a lot of people, Dipper; I've forced plenty more into the Society, made them believe the same bullcrap I'd been made to believe, and I never stopped thinking I was doing the right thing. And now, I've had to admit that I was wrong the whole time and that I'd been playing along with another one of Bill's games – and I hadn't even realized it. I've had to confess the whole thing to the Society, to face up to the fact that they only agreed with me because they were too scared to say no. And… you've got nothing to be sorry for, Dipper: Bill might have wanted to turn you into a monster, but he made me want to be a monster."

Her eyes were shining with tears, now. "All that wasted time, all the self-deluding crap… It took me way too long to admit that II was wrong, and I've only just barely started to recover from it." In spite of herself, she smiled, and dried her eyes. "I probably wouldn't have gotten to grips with any of it if I hadn't had someone to talk to."

"Really?" Dipper asked, immediately guilty that he clearly hadn't been Wendy's shoulder to cry on. "Who was it?"

"Pacifica Northwest."

"You're kidding!"

"Let's just say that she's a very good listener. Also, I could be wrong, but I think she may have a crush on you."

Dipper opened his mouth to reply, but in that moment, the second half of Wendy's statement finally made contact with his brain: another question immediately made a beeline for his mouth, got tangled up in the original reply, was promptly run over by a request for clarification, and the whole confused mess emerged from his mouth as a tangled gurgle of "Hah-dur-wha-de-hey?"

"Oh, that reminds me! Word around the party is that one of the amateur theatres we've set up is doing a whole marathon of spooky films and TV shows: Ghost Harassers, The Seventeenth Sense, Being Not Quite But Mostly Human, even We're Only Moderately Afraid Of Ghosts; they've got a projector set up and everything. Most of the shows around town are going Westerns and old war movies – so people can remember what the world was like before Weirdmageddon – but Pacifica and I thought we might go for something weird and spooky, just the way it used to be in Gravity Falls. You wanna tag along? We can talk more on the way."

This time, Dipper had only one thing he could possibly say under the circumstances:

"Absolutely."

Minutes later, Dipper found himself standing just outside the makeshift theatre and wondering what the hell he'd been thinking.

The "theatre" was a converted basement storeroom with a blank wall at one end and the projecting equipment at the other end, with a vast collection of soft couches, beanbag chairs, divans, mattresses and other "luxury seating" scattered between them. Wendy had already claimed a couch for the three of them, along with a bucket of popcorn and a box of chocolates, but instead of joining her, Dipper could only linger nervously by the door, suddenly gripped by a powerful sense of what could only be described as "dating anxiety."

He'd no idea why, given that he knew for a fact that they were just friends, but still he felt inescapably terrified of making an idiot of himself in front of Wendy. Maybe it was just another attack of those baseless fears that told him that Wendy would abandon their friendship if he klutzed it up enough in front of her; maybe it was simply his own need to keep up with her and prove himself – even though he told himself he had nothing to prove; whatever the case, he could only stand there in silence until Pacifica hovered up and tapped him on the shoulder.

"You okay?" she whispered.

"Uh… fine, fine, I… I need a minute before I can sit down, that's all. I…" He blushed vividly, his ears briefly replaced with tiny hummingbird wings. "I'm just trying to get my nerves under control."

"Why, what are you scared of? You've known Wendy all summer, right? It's not as if this is a blind date or anything like that."

"I know, I know, but…" Dipper sighed deeply. "I guess I've always wanted her to see my best side, you know? Now that we're back on speaking terms again and we're finally back to watching movies together, I don't want to screw it up by tripping over my own feet or saying the wrong thing or whatever."

"Maybe you'll feel better if you just pretend you're not on a date with her," Pacifica suggested.

Dipper almost let out a snort of laughter, but then he caught the look on Pacifica's face, and realized she hadn't been joking. "Um… this isn't a date," he admitted at last, trying valiantly not to blush any deeper. "I mean, Wendy said she was happy just being my friend a while ago, so this is just… you know, good friends going to see a movie together."

"Then what are you worrying about? You've got nothing to prove in that case."

"I know, but… well, I don't want to look stupid in front of her, that's all. She's one of the coolest, toughest girls I've ever met, and she's one of my closest friends – and yeah, I've never made friends easily, even before Weirdmageddon. So I guess I'm scared of doing something that might ruin our friendship."

Pacifica thought for a moment. "Then maybe you'd feel better if you pretended that…" She hesitated, her expression wavering between anxiety and hope. "Maybe it doesn't have to just be friends going to see a movie together. Maybe we could pretend it's a date after all."

Dipper blinked. She has a crush on me, he thought numbly. She actually has a crush on me.

"I mean," Pacifica continued, "You don't have to pretend to be anything other than what you are around me: I'm just a doll. And yes, it's probably not going to be anywhere near as exciting as the Northwest soiree but… you know… we can certainly make the most of tonight's party while it lasts-"

But Dipper's mind was blank except for all the moments they'd shared together at Northwest Manor: the chase through the corridors, the surprise hug, the argument, their heart-to-heart in the secret room, and the actual celebration that had rounded off the evening. He'd written a few strange things in the Journal after that night, and for a while he'd wondered if they two of them actually had some kind of vibe going on, but with everything that had happened soon after – Grunkle Stan's arrest, the portal opening and Ford entering their lives – the events of that evening had been pushed to the back of Dipper's mind.

Now, though… now that he was himself again after thirty years of being someone else, now that every memory in his brain was as fresh as the day they'd first formed, suddenly it seemed very difficult to stop thinking about Pacifica Northwest.

"Who said we have to pretend it's a date?" he asked, almost without thinking.

For a moment, Pacifica could only blink in astonishment. Then a wild, jubilant and entirely un-Northwestlike smile erupted across her face like a fireworks display.

So it was that they marched over to their seats hand in hand, and sat down on the couch with such aplomb that it was all the projectionist could do not to laugh. In fact, the two of them were soon so engrossed in each other and the movie that they barely noticed Wendy grinning and punching the air.

Time passed, and one episode of Ghost Harassers bled into The Gleaming, which bled onwards into The Ghostening and then an episode of Almost But Not Quite But Mostly Human. Eventually, despite all the sugar he'd helped himself over the course of the marathon, Dipper found himself gradually nodding off, the exhaustion of the battle at the Mortuary and the ride home finally catching up with him. He briefly considered getting up to get some fresh cans of Pitt Cola from the icebox, just so he'd be able to splash some ice water in his face, but as time went on, he found himself in the all-too-familiar position of being too comfortable to move: after all, the basement was warm and cosy, and he was in the company of friends… and frankly, he hadn't been this contented in months. In the end, he didn't budge at all, but simply let himself slide down the length of the couch as he drew ever closer to unconsciousness.

He was dimly aware that Pacifica was still holding his hand, and that over her shoulder, Wendy was smiling dreamily at the two of them, but that was about all his senses could take in. In the end, he was so drowsy that he almost didn't notice that Pacifica seemed a lot closer to him than she had been a minute ago, didn't even feel himself beginning to transform as he slowly drifted off to sleep…

Several hours later, Mabel sprinted to a halt just inside the theatre with Waddles tucked under arm, propelled by all the speed an increasing master of time could grant her.

"Dipper?" she called out. "Are you in here? Robbie's got a videogame tournament going down the street, and he's betting he can kick your butt in Fight Fighters! I mean, that's gotta be an easy win for you when you can grow extra arms to work the controls-"

"Shhhh!"

Mabel paused in mid-jog, belatedly recognizing Wendy in the darkness up ahead.

"What's-"

Without saying a word, Wendy put a finger to her lips, and then pointed to a spot on the couch next to her. As her eyes adjusted to the gloom, Mabel peered down at the indicated seating – and had to clap a hand to her mouth to stifle a gasp of amazement as the wonder finally crept into view.

Lying on the couch next to Wendy were two sleeping figures, practically collapsed on each other's shoulders, hands gently clasped even in their sleep. One of them was immediately recognizable as Pacifica; somehow, it seemed she'd finally found a way of lulling herself to sleep despite her doll physiology.

As for the small figure she was sleepily clinging to, there was no mistaking the baseball cap, or indeed anything else about him: Dipper had transformed into a doll just like Pacifica – every feature perfectly replicated in cherubic porcelain, right down to the birthmark on his forehead – and was now dozing gently on her shoulder.

For a moment, Mabel could only stare in astonishment at the two little dolls locked in their sleepy embrace.

And then the relative calm of the evening was shattered by a noise that could only be described as "squee."

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN THEY'RE NOT IN GRAVITY FALLS?!"

8-Ball took a very careful step out of slapping distance before replying: "I mean we couldn't find them, boss."

"THEN LOOK AGAIN, YOU IDIOT!"

"We have! Three times! We've checked every single building still standing, we've turned the entire strata upside down like a pancake, we checked out the remains of the Shacktron, we've dissected every natural or man-made structure right down to the last molecule and put it back together again just in case it ended up luring them back, but we didn't find anything! They're not in Gravity Falls, boss."

For several seconds, Bill could only sit there, fuming silently as he tried and failed to think of a rejoinder. He almost considered ordering the Henchmaniacs to search the entire planet for the zodiac, even beyond it if necessary – but then he remembered the total failure of their apparently fool-proof plan to find the Axolotl, and realized that this could only end in failure.

There was another option, though. He hadn't wanted to use this particular contingency – it meant ruining most of his games so far, abandoning his glorious scheme for the Horsemen of the Interdimensional Apocalypse, and forcing him to look somewhere else for long-term playthings… but chances were he'd have to do that anyway now that there was a triple threat on the loose in his kingdom. Still, he'd have to make sure the zodiac knew what was happening, just so they'd know enough to surrender: their total despair would make him feel a little better.

"Alright then," he sighed. "I think it's time I stretched my vocal cords a bit: I'm gonna deliver a message to the entire universe…"

"I thought you didn't need to sleep anymore!"

"Well, that doesn't stop me from lying still and… well, going dormant, I guess. I just didn't think I could make it last so long."

"Oh, I think I know how: you just needed to be safe and secure in the arms of your one true luuuuuurve!"

"Mabel…"

"Dipper and Pacifica, sitting in a tree-"

"Mabel, I swear, this does not need to be discussed further. Legal action will follow."

"Doesn't marriage technically count as legal action?"

"Aaaaargh!"

It was almost dawn by then, and the party was finally beginning to wind down: the music had slowed to a crawl, the food tents had finally run dry, and people were slowly streaming back to the homes they'd bagsied across the city. Many had already asked Mabel if she could rewind their hangovers out of existence, and she'd managed to do so without much effort – give or take a few accidental regressions, which were easily corrected.

By now, most of the zodiac had ended up enjoying a few hours of sleep one way or the other, and so it had been agreed that it was time to return to their preparations for war – hence why they'd once again found themselves convening around the hotel. Meanwhile, of course, Mabel was still endlessly amused at the position she'd found her brother and his newest crush in – much to their chagrin.

"I mean," Pacifica grumbled, "Why are you so surprised by all this? You've been waiting for Dipper to pick up a new crush ever since Wendy decided they were better off as friends."

Mabel was opening her mouth to respond when a solid wall of sound rippled across Cipherpolis and knocked her flat, sending the other members of the zodiac and the surrounding revellers flying in all directions. For twenty seconds, the entire universe echoed with the sound of a siren loud enough to send blood pouring from their ears, the metallic scream of a billion fingernails being scraped along a blackboard the size of a planet, a tortured screech of AAAAAAAEEEEEEOOOOORGGHGHGHHGHGH.

And in the deafening silence that followed, a familiar voice rippled out across the cosmos.

"HELLO DOWN THERE! PEOPLE OF EARTH AND THE GALAXIES BEYOND, PLEASE ATTEND CAREFULLY… IS THIS THING ON?"

There was a muffled thud, followed by the all-too-familiar sound of someone tapping their microphone – only amplified loud enough to be heard over the thunder of a NASA shuttle being launched into space.

"GOOD!" Bill thundered. "MEMBERS OF THE ZODIAC, LISTEN UP: I KNOW WHAT YOU'RE UP TO. I KNOW YOU'RE MAKING A BID FOR REVOLUTION OR SOME OTHER STUPID CRAP. I KNOW YOU PROBABLY THINK YOU'RE SAFE AND SECURE IN WHATEVER HIDEOUT YOU'RE HOLED UP IN; I'M BETTING YOU ACTUALLY THINK YOU STAND A CHANCE OF WINNING WITH THOSE FANCY NEW POWERS I GAVE YOU. WELL, I'VE GOT NEWS FOR YOU: THOSE POWERS OF YOURS ARE MINE TO GIVE AND TAKE AS I PLEASE. I'M THE GOD AROUND HERE, NOT YOU: YOU'RE MY PLAYTHINGS. I CAN PLAY WITH YOU GENTLY OR I CAN PLAY WITH YOU UNTIL YOU BREAK – I MAKE THE DECISIONS, AND I DECIDE IF YOU KEEP YOUR POWERS OR NOT. GET IT? GOOD. AND THAT'S WHY ALL OF YOU ARE GONNA GET DOWN ON YOUR KNEES AND SURRENDER IN THE NEXT MINUTE, BECAUSE YOU'LL BE DEPOWERED AND YOUR ENTIRE REVOLUTION WILL HAVE FALLEN TO BITS!"

Bill giggled, a ghost of his old maniacal laughter – except this time it sounded far too forced and far too enraged to contain even a fraction of his old mirth.

"NOW, SOME OF YOU ARE PROBABLY FLYING AWAY RIGHT NOW, HOPING YOU CAN ESCAPE WHAT'LL HAPPEN NEXT. GUESS WHAT? THIS WILL HAPPEN EVERYWHERE. I DON'T KNOW WHERE THE HELL YOU ARE YET, BUT THIS UNIVERSE IS MY SANDPIT, AND I CAN FLIP IT UPSIDE DOWN ANYTIME I LIKE. NO MATTER WHERE YOU ARE OR WHAT YOU'RE DOING, I CAN CLIP YOUR WINGS WITHOUT EVEN HAVING TO FIND YOU. YOU WON'T BE DEMIGODS OR HORSEMEN OF THE APOCALYPSE OR MONSTERS ANYMORE: YOU'LL BE JUST AS MEDIOCRE AS YOU WERE WHEN I FOUND YOU. SO ENJOY BEING HUMAN, SCHMUCKS – SAY GOODBYE TO YOUR POWERS!"

A bright light flickered across reality, briefly lighting up the entire city, before fading into a distant glow on the horizon.

There was a pause, and then Mabel looked across the plaza at the other members of the zodiac. Pacifica was still a floating doll, Wendy was still clustered with gills and silvery veins, Grunkle Ford was still looking up in the sky with eyes full of dying stars, Grunkle Stan hadn't descended from the skies, and Robbie didn't appear to have any difficulty seeing.

She thought for a moment, and then looked over at Dipper. "Do you feel any different?" she asked quietly.

By way of a response, Dipper rapidly shapeshifted into several dozen different forms and back again. "No," he said at last. "I'm still Shifty. What about you?"

Mabel focussed her powers on the shattered remains of a jug that had fallen from a table during the initial siren, and quickly rewound it back into one piece again. "Nope," she said at last. "Still Pestilence, I guess."

Behind her, Sunshine whinnied happily.

There was a muffled grumbling from on high, and Bill's voiced sounded once again – this time distinctly confused and more than a little embarrassed. "ER… LET'S GIVE THAT A SECOND TRY, SHALL WE? AND ON THE COUNT OF THREE… SAY GOODBYE TO YOUR POWERS!"

The light bloomed across the universe again, and once again, the zodiac's powers refused to wane.

When he spoke again, Bill's tone of voice was now hissing with petulant anger: "I SAID SAY GOODBYE TO YOUR POWERS! I MAKE THE RULES AROUND HERE, AND THE RULES KNOW WHAT'S GOOD FOR THEM, AND THAT'S WHY YOUR BODIES ARE GOING TO SURRENDER THE POWERS I BESTOWED ON THEM – RIGHT GODDAMN NOW!"

Again, the light blossomed brightly. Again, it faded. And once more, it had absolutely no effect whatsoever.

And in the silence that followed, Bill let out a noise that, to Mabel's ears, sounded rather like the kind of anguished howl that could only be produced with the aid of a brand-new Lamborghini, a vengeful porcupine, and a driver who'd been led to believe that his tyres could stand up to anything.

"DEPOWER!"he roared at the top of his lungs, almost drowned out by a wail of microphone feedback. "DEPOWER! I… YOU… GARRGH! FLUGLEHORN! SHIT! FIGGY PUDDING! WHY THE- I SWEAR TO GOD, THIS THING…! I SAID DEPOWER! FUCKING DEPOWER!"

From the other end of whatever psychic link he was using to communicate, there issued the sound of Bill repeatedly thumping his microphone against a desk in a fit of rage, accompanying each strangled word with another vicious thud, his utterances and assaults growing steadily swifter until he was smashing the microphone into the desk like a rabid woodpecker.

"WHY?" he demanded. "I'M. IN. CHARGE. HERE. I. MAKE. THE. RULES. SO. WHY. ISN'T. THIS. WOOOOOOOOOORRRRRKKKIIIIIIIIIIIINNNNG!?"

And with that, Bill Cipher's message to the universe ended with a humiliating falsetto shriek of rage and a burst of static.

In hindsight, it was just as well Bill hadn't been able to work out a way of receiving signals as well as sending them, because for the next five minutes, he would have been met only by the sounds of the zodiac, the zombies, the rust thralls and the entire surviving population of Cipheropolis laughing themselves silly at him.

A/N: Well now, it seems as though Bill just can't get enough of being humiliated, can he?

As for the song choice for this chapter… well, there's only one song that can work in a situation as jubilant and dangerous as this: Flip, Flop And Fly by The Blues Brothers!

Now, on to the code!

'Grh grnv gl xzoo gsv olxfhg hdzin
Gl hvv Yroo'h kilfw wlnrmrlm glim
Gsv koztfvh droo hllm yvtrm ztzrm
Gsv jfvhgrlm rhm'g ru, yfg dsvm

Any idea what's gonna happen next? What surprises does the war have in store? Feel free to theorize, ladies and gents!