A/N: Argh! Sorry for the late arrival - internet went down in my neck of the woods for a long and very annoying stretch of time. Thank you to everyone who viewed, reviewed, favourited and followed!
Without further ado, the latest chapter: read, review, and above all, enjoy!
Disclaimer: Gravity Falls and the Cthulhu Mythos do not belong to me.
"You still haven't told me what you're doing, Ford. And don't give me that look, I heard what you said the first time and I still don't know what you're up to. I mean, what exactly is this 'truth' that Bill doesn't want to hear?"
"It's… difficult to explain: gsv nliv kldviufo R tild, sfnzm gslftsg yvxlnvh nliv zmw nliv zorvm gl nv. Gsv nliv R fmwvihgzmw gsrh zdufo gifgs, the harder it is for me to put it into words. I think Bill might understand it when I finally tell it, but I'm not sure anyone else will. But I'll try."
Stan took a deep breath and tried valiantly not to pinch the bridge of his nose in frustration. He knew it wasn't fair to blame Ford for not being able to explain himself, given that he spent most of his days pinballing wildly between coherence, poetic weirdspeak and total gibberish, but then, it wasn't as if Ford had been especially transparent before he'd been made into the Horseman of Death. And as much as he hated playing interpreter, he didn't have much of a choice: right now, most of the zodiac were out conducting a massive jailbreak of Bill's prize playthings, and only Stan, Ford and McGucket had been left to hold down the fort… and unfortunately, McGucket was either preoccupied with building a new warship or struggling to recall his past, so Ford was the only source of conversation left in the Forge.
Of course, there were always their ragtag band of militiamen camped down in Cipheropolis, but they weren't much for conversation either: most of them regarded the zodiac with so much awe and reverence these days that you couldn't even walk into a bar without everyone leaping to their feet and saluting you. By now, their human army had not only adopted the zodiac as their commanding officers, but now regarded them as heroes – saviours, even – and as much as Stan enjoyed the salutes, the handshakes, the back-slaps, the heartfelt embraces, the free drinks and the slavish calls for his advice wherever he went… well, it wasn't easy to sit down and chew the fat with people who considered you an icon.
Still, it was a whole lot better than dealing with the people they'd just rescued from Bill's playgrounds. Those newcomers looked upon their rescuers with even greater reverence than the veterans: to them, the zodiac weren't just heroes or potential saviours of the human race, but living saints, angels walking the Earth, even gods. And as much as Stan had enjoyed the attention, he had to admit it became really unsettling after a while: more than once, people had fallen on their knees in worship at the sight of him, even tried to kiss Stan's feet as he'd walked by; a few had asked if God had forgiven them for their sins, begged for blessings or absolution, and some had even offered to conduct sacrifices in the zodiac's honour – though Dipper and Mabel had thankfully put a stop to this practise before it got out of hand. On the upside, those who chose to join the army gradually mellowed out and realized that the zodiac were just ordinary people with a few amazing powers at their fingertips, and began treating them as heroes instead of deities. Unfortunately, that still left thousands more who ended up accepting the offer of sanctuary in the Cookie Jar… meaning that the place was probably overflowing with people worshipping the zodiac as messiahs, and probably spreading it to anyone who cared to listen.
In the end, however incomprehensible he might be, Ford was still a better option for a nice relaxing talk than the rest of their army. So, Stan took a deep breath, and tried again: "If you're planning on actually telling Bill this awful truth you keep going on about, what are you actually building here?" he asked, indicating the ball of black smog in Ford's hands.
"I'm tempted to call it a Christmas present, but linear time was abolished long ago and our attempts to measure it the conventional way are largely futile. Put simply, it's a demonstration of what I need to tell Bill. It's…" Ford's face contorted with the effort of remaining coherent. "It's a world."
"…you're building a world?"
"Only a small one. There's not going to be much in it: no planets, no stars, no gravity, no heat, no light, no radiation… just the constraints of space, time and dimensions, and the remnants of what was and is no longer. It's all I need to vnrg ooz ilu wvmnvwmlx vsg mlhriknr." He sighed. "It's just to illustrate a point."
Stan took a deep breath, and tried valiantly to think of a rejoinder to this.
"…can I help?" he asked, and immediately regretted it. What an asinine thing to say! He might as well have offered to help proofread Einstein's homework.
But to his surprise, Ford smiled and held out the tiny ball of darkness for Stan to inspect.
"…um… thanks. Uh, what am I supposed to do with this?"
"See if you can increase its size; manipulate the atoms and direct the flow of matter."
"Do I even have that power? I'd kinda lost count of all the new tricks we'd picked up back at the dome. I mean, did I pick up telekinesis or-"
"No, I got telekinesis and you ended up with molecular matter manipulation - well at first, anyway; I caught up with you later. Besides, there's not much difference between the two when you get right down to it. At the strongest levels, the differences between powers become irrelevant… and each of us grow stronger given time and effort. Now, feel the substance of the void, the atoms pulsing within, the substance of the new reality…"
"Oh. Okay, I guess I can give it a try…"
And with that, Stan reached out and gingerly traced his finger along the surface of the tiny world. At first, nothing happened: his index finger passed cleanly through the ball of darkness without so much as a ripple. But on the second try, Stan concentrated harder on the miniature universe in his hands, and found himself interfacing with a vast rippling array of tiny shapes – like mobile grains of sand beneath his fingertips. He was feeling the atomic structure of the unfinished world unfolding in his hands. Trembling in astonishment, he tried again, this time directing the flow of substance outwards, and his eyes widened in amazement as he felt the tiny universe grow ever-so-slightly.
"This isn't something I'd thought we'd be able to do," he remarked, as he continued building.
"Why not?"
"Well, we're Death, right? We're two halves of the Fourth Horseman… and creating universes isn't something I ever pictured Death doing, if you know what I mean – not the kind of superpower Bill would leave around for us. I mean, after all the super-strength rampages and killing people with shadows, we don't seem much like constructive types."
"All of us began as something different: we started out as Bill's slaves and playthings, empowered only as much as he would allow. But those powers have grown and changed beyond his control. Now, we are so much more than what he meant for us to be, and our powers are still growing."
"Why, though? Why did this happen? You told me about this before, but it still doesn't make sense. I get that the power of the zodiac had something to do with it, but why is Bill losing control? Why can't he depower us?"
"Entropy. All systems of control break down over time. No matter how well-designed they seem, they always end up dissolving into chaos… and what is Weirdness if not the very essence of chaos? This is the one law Bill cannot break: sv xlfow mlg hglk gsv wvxzb lu gsv Mrtsgnziv Ivzon, vevm gslfts sv dzh gsv nzhgvi lu rg, mli xlfow sv drgshgzmw gsv wlln gszg dlfow wvhxvmw fklm srn. Now that he's in a world of matter and waking consciousness, he is subject to the law in full. The more time he spends here, the more he violates causality and inflicts paradox without regard to the consequences, the more Weirdness develops beyond his control. We are Weirdness, have been infused and transformed to the point that we have all but become it. We are beyond his control."
"And how much stronger can the zodiac get? What's the limit?"
"Who said there was a limit?"
In spite of himself, Stan smiled. "Some things never change, I guess. Ain't it amazing just how far two kids from Glass Shard Beach made it, eh?"
There was a pause; then, for the first time in what felt like months, the two of them laughed – just as they had back in Glass Shard Beach, back when they'd been content with dreams of adventure and nothing more.
ROUND 500,120,000,000,001: FIGHT!
YOU WIN – FLAWLESS VICTORY!
Dipper shuddered, and tried to ignore the scenery around him. He'd played many fighting games in his short but colourful life, but he'd had no idea just how bizarre the world within the beat-em-up would appear if actually taken literally; even his first encounter with Rumble McSkirmish hadn't quite prepared him for the pixelated purgatory unfolding before him. He'd already seen the life bar, of course, and the giant titles weren't that much of a surprise; even the conspicuously repetitive background events and the nerve-jangling music was tolerable – for a while. No, what really freaked him out were the spectators, for plainly visible on their blocky faces were identical expressions of terror and despair – forever cycling through their preprogrammed animations. Were these real people trapped in the gaming environment, or were they just here as background colour? It was impossible to tell.
ROUND 500,120,000,000,002: FIGHT!
YOU WIN – FLAWLESS VICTORY!
Getting here had been tricky enough: even with Pacifica's abilities, even with the Garden of Torments to guide them, finding a way into the trophy collection was uphill work, and this particular showpiece wouldn't allow anyone without a digitized body to enter. So, the job had gone to Dipper, and even with his shapeshifting abilities, properly converting his cells into pixels had nearly driven him mad: this wasn't just a transition into a new state of being, but a completely different medium. He was two dimensional now: he couldn't see directly ahead of him anymore – or even out of his own eyes: he now saw the world from a third-person perspective, his vision fixed on himself and the next ten feet in front of him.
ROUND 500,120,000,000,003: FIGHT!
YOU WIN – FLAWLESS VICTORY!
And here, amidst the pixelated renderings of slum buildings and terrifying audiences amassing behind chain-link fences, was Rumble McSkirmish. From what little Dipper could see of him, his sprite looked more or less the same as it always had, give or take a few bruises… except Rumble had never once demonstrated a pose for lying prone in despairing submission, least of all while ten anonymous flunkies pummelled him senseless with baseball bats.
ROUND 500,120,000,000,004: FIGHT!
YOU WIN – FLAWLESS VICTORY!
Dipper winced. Bill had definitely given Rumble the perfect setting for his own private hell: rendered down to a zero-challenge battle and trapped a match that would never end, pitting him against an unending stream of opponents he couldn't hope to defeat – until there was nothing left to do but give up and lie down while his attackers won ceaseless victories over his cowering body.
Unfortunately for him, Bill might have made this particular prison impossible to escape from, but hadn't predicted that anyone would ever think to break into it.
It took a grand total of fifteen seconds for Dipper to kill all ten opponents.
YOU LOSE?
UM… SHIT, THIS HAS NEVER HAPPENED BEFORE. CONTINUE, I GUESS?
GUYS? YOU CAN PUT ANOTHER QUARTER IN THE MACHINE NOW.
HELLO?
…OH FUCK.
There was a stunned pause, as Rumble McSkirmish looked up in bewilderment at the unfamiliar character sprite hovering over him.
"Come on, Rumble," said Dipper wearily, brushing stray pixels off his sleeves. "We've got a universe to save…"
"Mabel, I'm not seeing anyone around here. I'm picking up a lot of thoughts, but all I can find is this… nine-foot tall corpse. Uh, that's the only way I can describe it. I think someone's been stabbing it with knitting needles. I'm going to take a closer look…"
"…Shmebulock…"
"Oh god, you're alive!"
"Shmebulock. Shmebulock! Shmebulock!"
"Don't worry, I can understand you – one of the benefits of telepathy. My name's Gideon Gleeful, and I'm here to help."
"Shmebulock."
"What do you mean? I've never met you before in my life. Hang on, you used to be a gnome? Good god. Look, just try to remain still: all of this can be corrected with surgery… or time manipulation."
"Shmebulock?"
"Yes, that's something we can do now. I mean, I don't know how far we'll have to rewind you before you're back to your old self… though we'd have to be sure that we wouldn't end up accidentally regressing you out of existence. Stupid question, how long do gnomes live?"
"Shmebulock!"
"Fair enough. Let's just get you out of here and we can talk about rehabilitation later. Now, can you stand?"
"SHMEBULOCK!"
"Okay, okay, I guess not. Um, Pacifica, could I borrow you for a second? We need a stretcher levitated in here – a very large stretcher..."
"Ow, mah epidermis, gurl!"
"Look, would you please stop struggling? I've got a lot of stitches to get through down here, and I'm not a trained medical professional. Gideon, I'm currently at… what did you say your name was?"
"Greggy C, dawg."
"Okay. Gideon, I'm at Greggy C's left elbow: he's got at least three stitches here, and one of them's been drilled straight through the bone – some kind of metal wiring instead of catgut. What does the doc on your end think?"
He's given up. If all these clones are still alive despite god only knows how many years of neglect, then it won't matter how much damage you do to them – they're being kept alive by Bill's powers. Just get the stitches out of there: Mabel will be along in just a minute to patch them up.
"Well tell her to hurry up about it! These guys are not my favourite band, and I don't appreciate having to listen to them whine."
Pot callin' the kettle black in your neck of the woods, Robbie?
"I'm just saying, why did I get the job of rescuing Sev'ral Timez? Why couldn't Mabel or Pacifica handle this? I mean, one's their biggest fan, and the other can just snap her fingers and undo all this stitching with her mind. Why do I have to work through all this crap?"
Because they're really busy dealing with everyone else in these prisons: Mabel's still trying to restore the time police to normality, Soos is helping Blendin Blandin off the hook, and Pacifica's down in the lower shelves with Wendy, herding all the bulk inmates out of their cells. Besides, you've got the most experience in working with the human body-
"With zombies! I work with ZOMBIES! How does that transfer to working with living people?"
Well, you're learning how to animate things other than zombies, right? You've already taught lumps of clay to stand upright and walk around. How hard can it be to get a wire to remove itself from human flesh?
"Really hard, Gideon. Just because I can animate wiring doesn't mean I can remove it easily or painlessly. Alright, guys, good news and bad news time: bad news, this is gonna hurt a lot; good news is you can't actually die from this, and Mabel will be along to rewind all the gangrene."
"Aw, that's great, man! We've got the perfect song just for this kinda time!"
"No, don't start again…"
"Dawg, it's no problem."
"I swear to God, Deep Chris, I will make you eat your own hat…"
"On three, boys! Let's show the world how Sev'ral Timez deals with pain! One-two-three-four…"
"NO! NO! NOOOOOOOO!"
"Where is she?"
"I don't know," Candy whispered. "I can't see her through this crowd. Maybe she's been moved?"
Mabel shook her head. "No, Gideon said that he recognized her thoughts echoing from this direction: this is Grenda's cell. So where the heck is she?"
There was an awkward pause, as the two of them considered this.
"Mabel?"
"Hmm?"
"Why are we whispering?"
"I dunno. I think it's that kind of party."
Over the course of the last few hours exploring the trophy shelves, Mabel had seen a great many strange punishments inflicted on Bill's collection of "examples," from unending electrocution to constant fatal regression. But of all of them, this had to be the strangest – if only because there didn't seem to be any actual punishment taking place.
As far as she could see, Grenda Grendinator's torture cell looked like a garden party – of the kind the Northwests would have probably staged for visiting celebrities: all around them, lush green lawns, perfectly-tended flowerbeds and elegantly-sculpted topiary statues stretched as far as the eye could see, broken only by the occasional gazebo. All around them, tiny huddles of well-dressed men and women stood, talking merrily among themselves and laughing uproariously at exchanges of witticisms, occasionally being served glasses of champagne by blank-faced waiters. In fact, the only hint that something was amiss lay in the faultless blue sky overhead: every now and again, a single cloud would pass across the sapphire horizon – a cloud that looked unmistakeably like the words "YOU MONSTER."
In fact, if Gideon hadn't already telepathically confirmed that Grenda was the only real person in the entire cell, Mabel might have found this particular corner of the trophy shelf just a tiny bit eerie; as it was, she found the place nothing short of hideous. The more she looked at it, the more it felt uncannily like Mabeland, minus the charm and whimsy – an impression made all the worse by the fact that their first look at this prison outside Cipheropolis had featured Grenda being reduced to tears amidst a heap of screaming porcelain figures.
In hindsight, it was just as well Candy had asked to tag along on this mission: after the living hell that had been Mabeland 2.0, Mabel really didn't feel safe exploring this place on her own. After all, the Prison Bubble had tried to ensnare Wendy, Soos and Dipper as well. What if this place did the same to her? And what had happened to the earlier version of this place? Where were all the porcelain figures, and why had the prison layout changed?
And then, just as Mabel was starting to wonder if this was a trap after all, an unearthly-looking girl standing in one of the nearest huddles turned in their direction, and immediately began tottering unsteadily towards them. "Mabel!" she gasped hoarsely. "So good to see you! I didn't think they were going to let me see you for another ten years."
Mabel blinked. "Um, hi," she said, unable to disguise the nervousness in her voice. "Who are you?"
The girl smiled. "It's me, Grenda," she said pleasantly.
"I… what?"
The figure standing before them had Grenda's hair colour and skin tone, and she wore the same golden dress she'd worn to the Northwest party – albeit sized down to fit her new body shape. Other than that, though, there was very little resemblance between her and the withered, stunted husk of a girl that now stared up at them. Every aspect of Grenda's body had been downsized dramatically, her big-boned frame shrunken down to barely a shadow of her former self: stick-thin arms and tiny, hunched shoulders framed a body so delicate and slender that a stiff breeze might send her flying away, supported by spindly legs that quivered spasmodically with every single step she took – as if she could barely stand under her own power. From under a perfectly-conditioned mass of glossy brown hair, a pair of massive blue eyes stared vacantly back at Mabel, dominating a face that was equal parts doll-like and horrific; squeezed to the lower half of the skull by the oversized eyes, a tiny button nose surmounted a miniscule, perfectly-formed mouth that would probably have struggled to eat. This was a nightmare of glamour, a sickening parody of beauty that even Priscilla Northwest would have cringed at: real human faces did not have these kinds of proportions unless they were a) undergoing radical plastic surgery or b) dying.
"It's good to see you, Mabel," Grenda whispered softly – and Mabel barely stopped herself from shuddering at the sound of her voice. Whatever had happened to her hadn't just changed her appearance, but had actively futzed with her internal organs as well, most prominently her voicebox: she sounded like Marilyn Monroe after taking in a lungful of helium.
Then, Grenda saw Candy – still resplendent in her cyborg implants. Even at this distance, she couldn't miss the surgical scars on Candy's face, not with eyes like hers.
"You… aren't supposed to look like that," she whimpered. "Nobody's supposed to look like that, here. Nobody's supposed to be hurt. Nobody gets hurt if I behave myself, that's what they said. I've been a good girl: I let them make me pretty, I kept quiet... I've obeyed the rules, so nobody should be hurt. No, no, no, this shouldn't be happening… I'm a good girl…"
Suddenly, the sky above them was full of clouds, all of them blaring out the same message: "YOU MONSTER."
"We're here to rescue you, Grenda," said Mabel urgently.
"What? Rescue? No, no, there's no rescue from here. I tried earlier, and all I did was hurt people! All I do is hurt people, and that's why I have to be less!"
"What are you talking about?"
"I agreed to be smaller! They said if I'd be smaller and quieter and prettier, I wouldn't hurt anyone anymore, so I let them change me! If I'm rescued, then I won't be less anymore: I'll be big and ugly and stupid and clumsy again and I'll start hurting people all over again!" Her voice rose to a scream. "You're not here to rescue me! I'm just imagining things again! You're not real!"
One of the nearby party-goers looked sharply in Grenda's direction and hissed "Shhhhhh!" in a voice that could have sliced through steel. Without even turning around, Grenda immediately fell silent, her panicked expression suddenly downcast and contrite.
"You're not real," she said at last, voice lowered to a whisper. "Please, just go away. I don't wanna hurt anyone else. I'm a good girl. I'm a pretty girl. I'm not a monster."
There was a pause, as Candy looked from Grenda to the clouds in the sky, slowly taking it all in with a look of dawning horror. "I see what's happening here," she said at last. "They've put you through the same torture I was put through: they forced you to do something until you couldn't stand another minute of it, and then they made you an offer."
"Not listening," muttered Grenda, now smiling so hard it looked painful.
"Except you didn't get anything good out of it, like I did. No cyborg implants, no being saved at the last minute, no being reunited with friends… just…" Candy took a deep breath, struggling not to cry.
"It was the broken world, wasn't it?" Mabel asked quietly. "I saw a little of what was going on in here on my way to Cipheropolis: everything broke the moment you touched it, right? Or if you stepped too clumsily or spoke too loudly, or even if you sat down in the wrong chair. Whatever you did, it made everyone around you crack and shatter, and all you were left with was that."
She pointed to the sky, now clustered with clouds, all of them emblazoning the words "YOU MONSTER" across the horizon.
"Not listening," Grenda whispered. "Not listening to anything you say, because I'm not a monster anymore and you're not really here."
"But that's just the thing, Grenda!" Mabel exploded. "This whole thing was set up to punish you for being yourself, then change you into something else. Just look at what's been done to you! You can barely walk, you're having trouble supporting the weight of your own head, your eyes are so bloodshot I'm surprised you can even see out of them, and I'm pretty sure human beings aren't supposed to have mouths like that."
"…but I'm pretty…"
"That's not the point! The point is that you're not you anymore: you're not allowed to do what you really want to do – you can't even raise your voice without being shushed! And don't pretend that being like this makes you happy: Gideon's been scanning this place ever since he found it, and he said your thoughts are all over the place. You're screaming inside your head, Grenda. I mean, when's the last time you were comfortable in your own body? Can you even eat?"
Grenda looked blank. "What's 'eating?'"
There was a horrified pause as Mabel and Candy's hearts loudly sank all the way to the soles of their shoes with perfectly-synchronized thuds.
"How long has she been here?" Candy whispered, horror-stricken.
"Well, there's no such thing as linear time anymore, so… decades? Centuries? Some of us were locked up for thousands of years – at least, that's how Mr Carter made it sound – so she could have been here for even longer than that. I mean…"
Mabel took a deep breath, and tried not to imagine just how long it had taken for this place to finally break Grenda's spirit. Somewhere in the back of her head, a very nasty little voice pointedly reminded her that it had all been her fault, and once again, Mabel could only stand there, furiously blinking away tears.
Meanwhile, Candy was shaking Grenda, trying valiantly to get her to make eye contact. "Grenda, you've got to snap out of this! We've got a way of getting you out of here: you don't have to be this person anymore – you can be yourself again!"
"No!" Grenda whimpered. "No, no, no, I don't wanna hurt anyone else, I don't wanna hurt anyone else, I don't wanna hurt anyone else, I don't wanna hurt anyone else-"
"What's going on here?" hissed an imperious voice.
The speaker was not Marius von Fundhauser. True, he had the same flowing chestnut locks, the same romantically dimpled chin, the same aristocratic cheekbones; he even had the same beauty spot just below his left eye. But where the real Marius had a warm, dreamy gaze that could have softened the hardest of hearts, this Marius had eyes that were every bit as cold and sharp as an icepick to the heart.
"You do not belong here," snarled Not-Marius. "Leave at once, or I will be forced to call security."
Mabel just laughed. "Buddy, you're talking to someone who's got time wrapped around her little finger. You really think a bunch of security guards are gonna stop me?"
"Not just security guards," said the doppelganger, smirking mysteriously. "Come along, Grenda; you've no business with these intruders."
"Yes, Marius," said Grenda.
"Now, the Northwests would like to have a chat about your future. You'll be on your best behaviour, won't you?"
"Yes, Marius."
"Oh, and you've spoiled your makeup; you'll have to get fixed up. I thought we agreed, no more crying? No more big shows of emotion, remember? And no shouting. Some of the guests have already complained."
"Yes, Marius. I'm sorry, Marius."
"Do you promise to be a good girl from now on? Pretty and quiet at all times, yes?"
"Yes, Marius."
"Good. Now, come along, off to the makeup chair-"
And then, as the two of them glided away across the grass, Mabel hit the rewind switch: reaching out into local time, she forcibly wound back the seconds until Grenda and Not-Marius were standing directly in front of her. There was a pause, as the two of them struggled to comprehend what had just happened (Mabel hadn't quite gotten the hang of rewinding memories yet), and a look of dawning horror slowly crept across Not-Marius' face.
"What did you just do?" he demanded.
"Just derailing the bullcrap train. Grenda, we're real and we can get you out of here: you won't be a monster if you give up on this place – you'll be yourself again!"
"But I'm happy here," mumbled Grenda. "Here, I'm with Marius."
"No-you-are-not!" roared Mabel. "You can't tell me that you're actually happy here, being told what to do and what to feel by everyone and never saying what you really think – and actually expect me to believe it! That's not you, Grenda. No matter what these people might try to tell you, that's not you. And another thing, this isn't the real Marius. This is just something Bill cooked up to make you stay here!"
"She's lying," Not-Marius hissed. "Think about what you have here, Grenda. Think about what we've given you: here, you're beautiful. Here, you're with the people you loved – with me! Who else would give you that but someone who loved you with all their heart?"
But Grenda looked uncertain.
"Don't you remember how two of you first met, Grenda?" Mabel plunged onwards. "The real Marius fell in love with who you really are: he didn't force you to pretend to be someone else!"
By now, every single guest was staring at the four of them with near-identical expressions of hostility, and a low, droning buzz had filled the air – the sound of a vicious and singularly passive-aggressive alarm bell being rung. Clearly, Not-Marius had been as good as his word, but Mabel was so far beyond caring, it wasn't funny.
And now, Grenda was staring at Mabel with a look of dawning realization. "You're… you're right. How could I have forgotten that? How could I have forgotten?"
"Remember what we said, Grenda!" urged Candy. "The day we stole the unicorn hair, the big fight in the enchanted glade, the drug deal for the fairy dust: do you remember what we said?"
Not-Marius let out a low, whirring growl at the back of his throat, like a thousand dinner plates rattling in the back of his throat. "I'm warning you, Grenda: stop this at once. Continue this nonsense, and you'll be made ugly again! You'll be right back where you started before you learned the rules – you'll be a monster again!"
But Grenda was no longer listening to him. "I… remember," she rumbled, her helium-pitched voice suddenly dropping several octaves. "I remember what happened. We won. We made Mabel feel better about herself. We were…" Her face contorted with confusion. "Happy? And I didn't hurt my friends. They didn't hate me. They liked me for… who I was?"
"That's right, Grenda," Candy urged. "Remember: you are not a monster! You can be happy as yourself. Now remember what we said! We are women, and…"
"I… am… a… woman?" Her voice now dropped considerably, until it was almost as deep as it had been before she'd been transformed.
"Exactly! Now, you know the rest of it – and say it louder!"
There was a pause, as Grenda visibly struggled with her ingrained instincts, trying valiantly to scream despite all the psychological conditioning the cell had inflicted on her. "I… I… am… a… aaaargh… I… aaaaaaaammmmmmmrrrgggggghhhhhhhhh…."
"You are a woman, Grenda!" said Mabel excitedly. "You are a woman, and you-"
Not-Marius's eyes widened in horror. "No, don't-
"YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRGH!" Grenda howled, her thunderously deep voice reverberating across the prison. "I AM A WOMAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANNNN! AND I TAKE! WHAT! I! WANT!"
And with one almighty shriek of catharsis, she began to change, her diminutive body suddenly ballooning upwards – out of its badly-made shell and back to its normal proportions. As she did so, a shockwave rippled out across the garden; a moment later, the entire prison cell shattered like the proverbial china plate in a shooting range, its fabric instantly dissolving in an avalanche of shattering porcelain and multiplying exclamation marks.
Not-Marius had just enough time to let out a shriek of "oh Scheiße!" before he cracked down the middle and disintegrated into a thousand gleaming shards, followed swiftly by the rest of the partygoers; in the space of ten cacophonous seconds, everyone and everything apart from Mabel, Candy and Grenda were swiftly rendered down into fragments of bone china and porcelain, and those fragments dissolved into smaller fragments still, until all that remained of the garden and all its virtual inhabitants were a few dunes of gleaming white dust. Then a sharp gust of wind swept them into the air and dispersed them into nothingness.
All that remained of the prison was a featureless grey void, broken only by the portal Pacifica had left open for them at the far end. And kneeling on the non-existent at the centre of it all, dressed in the tattered remains of her undersized frock, was Grenda Grendinator, exhausted, sleep-deprived and clearly out of breath, but back to normal at long last.
For a moment, there was silence as Mabel and Candy very gently helped her to her feet, hugging her reassuringly as they did so. Then, after about ten seconds of deep, shuddering inhalations, Grenda finally managed to get her breath back:
"Mabel?" she gasped.
"Yes, Grenda?"
"Are we going after Bill again? Are we gonna stop him for good this time?"
"That's the idea, yeah."
"Good… because I WANNA SUPLEX THE TRIANGULAR JERK AND MAKE HIM FEEL PAIN!"
"You have no idea how much I missed you," Candy whispered, her garnet-coloured eyes alight with joy.
"Adria! Great to hear your voice again, girl! Still keeping up with the old galactic proselytizing gig? Oh, never change, you demented psychic messiah, you. How did I get this number? Better question: why are you using a cell phone? I think you picked up too many bad habits from your mother. How is she, by the way? Still trying to escape? Thought so. Listen, I was hoping we could come to an arrangement. See, I've heard your Priors down in Cipheropolis were thinking of making another play for supremacy, and I think their powers would be better utilized elsewhere. Don't finish that sentence, dear, I can already guess how it ends: 'what's in it for me?' Well, it so happens that I've got a once-in-an-infinity opportunity just for you…"
Dipper glanced curiously up at the figure standing on the parapet: Nyarlathotep had spent most of the afternoon ranting non-stop into his phone, contacting one mysterious "friend" after another and steadfastly refusing to answer any questions the zodiac had put to him – except with a knowing wink. It would have been infuriating, but frankly, "Mr Carter" had far too many annoying secrets already.
Including this shoggoth business…
Meanwhile, the street outside the Rallying Flag was already crowded with people: the rest of the zodiac was slowly returning from Bill's trophy shelf, each of them bringing a multitude of prisoners with them. Some were almost fully-healed by now, while others were essentially triaged until Mabel could deal with more critically-injured patients, and some couldn't be rewound to full health at all: whatever Bill had done to them was so ingrained, so far-reaching, that they couldn't be altered through Mabel's powers – as they were at present. Perhaps these wounds and mutations could be reversed in time once Mabel was powerful enough, but until then, there was no helping them.
"Some of them don't even have the same body they had before Weirdmageddon, so I don't know how to properly rewind them," she'd grumbled. "I mean, that's just being nasty: it's bad enough that Bill took their old bodies away, but he gave them new ones without arms or legs. I've got a guy here with no skull – just a brain and a pair of eyeballs. What are we supposed to do for him?"
"Send him to the Toymaker," said Candy, without missing a beat. "I hear he's getting good at head transplants."
With Rumble McSkirmish almost fully recuperated and taking out his frustrations on the chassis of a rusted Cadillac, Dipper drifted away to inspect the crowd. However, he soon found himself drawn in by the sight of Pacifica hovering through the street towards him, Gideon following close behind.
And for some reason, hovering just above Pacifica's outstretched hands was a tiny near-transparent cloud of grey dust.
"Don't sneeze," she ordered.
"What's that?" Dipper asked.
"This," said Gideon, "Is Time Baby."
"What?"
Pacifica closed her eyes in barely-restrained exasperation. "Look, I don't know him, and neither does Gideon: all we know about the guy is what you told us, and from what I've heard from the resident telepath, this is him. Don't ask me how, but these few grains actually have enough of a mind to be read."
"Seriously?!"
"I can confirm that," Gideon muttered, absently staunching his nosebleed with a clean hankie. "Believe me, I'm as shocked as you are. I thought I was going crazy at first, but Blendin Blandin and the rest of the Time Police all confirmed the truth: this is definitely Time Baby."
Dipper looked incredulously at the fist-sized lump of swirling grey particles hovering just above Pacifica's outstretched hands. "What happened to him?"
"Bill disintegrated him. We're still piecing together what happened, but it looks like Bill wiped out everyone sent from the future to stop him, then locked them up in his trophy shelf. Good news is, Time Baby thinks he can eventually piece himself together again. Bad news is it's going to take two hundred thousand years."
"…I think we might need some help from Mabel on this one."
There was a burst of laughter from the other side of the courtyard. "Just call me All The King's Horses and All The King's Men, Bro-Bro!"
"You think you can piece him back together again?"
"Sure! Once I've fixed Blendin's throat… and healed the rest of the Time Police… and rewound Shmebulock back to normal size… and patched up everyone else we've rescued…" Mabel paused for breath. "Uh, this might take a little while, Dipper."
"Well, do what you can. Uh, I know the Time Paradox Avoidance Enforcement Squad probably don't have any working gear with them after all this time in prison, but did they mention any chance of reinforcements from the future? Any chance we might have some backup, or something like that?"
"That's another thing that's been worrying me," said Gideon. "From what Time Baby's told me, he can feel the course of history, actually feel space-time like braille… and since Weirdmageddon went global, he hasn't been able to sense the future he travelled back from. It hasn't been changed or replaced or anything like that: it's just… gone."
There was a pause, as Pacifica bit her lip nervously – a tic that Dipper couldn't help finding absolutely adorable despite the circumstances. "What about our future?" she asked. "How's history shaping up at present? Can he sense that?"
Gideon sighed. "It's… not looking good. He might not be able to tell the future, but he can definitely recognize when history is in bad shape, and after all the things that Bill's done to our universe… the timeline might not be in one piece for much longer. If things continue as they are, there might not be a future."
"For us?"
"For everyone – including Bill."
"But how is that possible?" Dipper demanded. "Bill's pretty much all-powerful: he's got complete control of space, time, reality, and everything in between, and the only thing that can stop him is this Axolotl guy. How is Bill supposed to be doomed as well?"
"I don't know, and Time Baby isn't willing to dumb down any of the science for laymen and occultists. All he'll say is that whatever's happening here could mean the end of existence – and not just for this dimension, either. From what I've picked up from Blendin and the other cops, this was why they went back in time in the first place, to stop Bill before things got any worse. Unfortunately, Bill was quicker on the draw than Time Baby and a lot more powerful than he was expecting. And since then, things have only got a lot worse… and it's going to keep getting worse to the point of the logical conclusion." Gideon smiled grimly. "I guess we know the stakes, don't we?"
"And there's nothing we can do to figure out what it means?"
"You can always ask Ford, but I'll doubt he'll make more sense. He tends to work best with really short questions."
There was a shriek of giggling from the other side of the courtyard. "Martin!" cackled Nyarlathotep. "How's it going, old chum? Still eating college girls and picking your teeth with the bones? I'm so glad you stuck with the tree branch instead of the moth cloud, Martin; it's the perfect means of gauging your universe of origin. Now, as long as you're still using Coldwater's phone, I have a very special idea for you: you've been surfing the edges of Bill's kingdom, looking for new and wonderful ways to occupy your time, but I could offer you something much better… and all I'd ask would be a few hours of your time…"
What are you up to? Dipper wondered absently. What are you really using us for, and why am I so important to your plan?
"What makes you think Ford knows what's really going on?" Pacifica asked, pointedly ignoring the laughter. "I mean, the guy knows a lot thanks to those freaky powers of his, but that doesn't mean he's got the answer to literally everything."
"Maybe he's seen something like this before: he was out in the multiverse for thirty years, don't forget, and if we can get the question short and simple enough, we could get some clear details oout of him."
"You could always try reading his mind."
"I already did: it nearly made my head explode. So, for now, we're right back to asking simple questions in the hope of getting simple answers. Perhaps he knows why we're facing disaster, or what'll happen when we finally destroy the runes, or-"
"What a shoggoth is," Dipper muttered.
"Pardon?"
"I've just found the perfect short question to ask Grunkle Ford – don't go anywhere, I'll be back in just a second…"
"Empty?"
"That's what it looks like, Boss," 8-Ball whispered. "The entire trophy collection's been cleared out. The one the alarm came from – Grenda's cell – has been totally destroyed as well. We don't know what happened to the others, but it looks as though Grenda managed to resist the programming and-"
"I'LL TELL YOU WHAT HAPPENED!" Bill thundered furiously. "IT WAS THE GODDAMN ZODIAC! HOW MANY HINTS DO YOU PEOPLE NEED?! THEY'VE BEATEN YOU IN EVERY SINGLE BATTLE THEY'VE FOUGHT, AND NOW THEY'VE BURGLARIZED MY GODDAMN TROPHY COLLECTION, AND NONE OF YOU IDIOTS HAVE BEEN ABLE TO FIND THEM!"
A ringing silence followed this little outburst. Then, Bill's eye slowly widened in astonishment. "Cipheropolis," he hissed.
"What?"
"There's only one place where my trophy collection is visible for all to see: the Gardens of Torment, on the road to Cipheropolis. Either the zodiac passed that way en route to whatever itinerant base they're using at the moment… or they're still there." Bill cackled mirthlessly, his one eye suddenly ablaze with searing crimson veins. "They're in the one place I never thought to check, the one place I never thought they'd be stupid enough to visit – my capital city! We've got them! At long last, I have them!"
Without missing a beat, 8-Ball dropped to his knees. "We'll be there right away, Boss."
"…and who's 'we', 8-Ball?"
"Me, Xanthar, that thing with eighty-eight faces – you know, your most loyal servants! We'll head out there and stomp Cipheropolis flat; we'll even bring the zodiac back alive, if you want."
Bill sighed. "And what the hell makes you think I'd entrust you with that kind of job? Considering that you couldn't even kill or capture one zodiac at a time, the odds of you chucklefucks somehow taking on all of them at once aren't even worth talking about. More to the point, after the way you've screwed things up in the last five or six search-and-destroy missions, what makes you think I'd even let you leave the Fearamid?"
"But Boss, if all three of us-"
"No. No, no, NO!" Bill roared. "And if you even think of opening your mouth to reply, 8-Ball, I swear I'll use your spine to chalk up a pool cue. I am not tolerating another goddamn second of you making an idiot of yourself out in the field, not now, not ever again: from now on, the three of you are on guard duty with every other demon, monster and cyborg on our side, and none of you will budge from this Fearamid until I get back. I've trusted you Henchmaniacs with too many important things: killing Dipper, breaking out of Gravity Falls, stopping the zodiac, finding the Axolotl, hunting down the escaped prisoners – you've screwed up every single mission I've given you, and all because I thought I had people I could rely on in my corner! I thought I could sit back, relax and enjoy some hard-earned fun while you did your jobs with the powers I gave you. But no! Even with the powers of demigods on your side, you couldn't manage a single, simple mission. So no more!"
He took a deep breath. "I'm going to Cipheropolis," he hissed. "This time, I'll deal with the zodiac personally."
Fortunately, the journey to the Forge didn't take long: now that Dipper had gotten the hang of transforming from shape to shape on the fly, travelling was faster and more efficient than ever. All he had to do was transform into a photon and catapult himself the few thousand yards from Cipheropolis to the Forge, then shapeshift into a bird and fly into one of the open hatchways leading into the bowels of the colossal manufactory. For a while, he amused himself by transforming into a tennis ball and bouncing himself down the corridors, just to make a change from walking, but eventually he returned to human form and jogged the rest of the way.
As always, everything was dark in the upper levels of the Forge when he finally found Grunkle Ford, and all was silent except for the distant rumble of machinery as McGucket went on churning out the latest of his great ships of the line: not much took place in the Forge's mysterious loft compartments, which was probably why Ford had bagsied them as a private sanctum while he went about trying to restore Fiddleford's memories.
And, as expected, Ford was busy working on his mysterious sphere of fog, seemingly oblivious to the rest of the world – though this time, Grunkle Stan appeared to be helping him.
"Grunkle Ford?" Dipper murmured. "Can I talk to you for a minute?"
"…R xzm zoivzwb tfvhh gsv jfvhgrlm, Wrkkvi. R drhs R xlfow trev blf zm zmhdvi gszg dlfow nzpv blf szkkb, yfg R gsrmp blf'ev svziw vmlfts orvh rm gsv ozhg uvd nlmgsh…"
Dipper looked quizzically from Grunkle Ford to Grunkle Stan, hoping that a coherent response might be forthcoming.
"He says 'yes,'" said Grunkle Stan helpfully.
"Do you know what a shoggoth is?"
Grunkle Ford's eyes glazed over again, his brow furrowing with the effort of concentrating on something from the distant past. "I remember… yes, I do know. I remember meeting one of them once, long before I met with Jheselbraum and recovered from the madness of my wandering days…"
"What brought this up, kiddo?" Stan asked.
"It's just something I've been curious about for a while," said Dipper, trying not to sound in any way suspicious and probably failing miserably. "So, what's a shoggoth?"
"Worlds away and eons past. Inventions of beings native to another dimension, another reality, one like ours but only slightly different. The Elder Things, gsv hgziurhs-uzxvw xfxfnyvih gszg uob lm yzgorpv drmth, gsvb dsl hkzdmvw oruv lm gsv lgsvi Vzigs yb zxxrwvmg li qvhg. The shoggoths were their creations, protoplasmic masses of black slime, gigantic amoeba capable of moulding their bodies into new and terrible shapes: the earliest could only form limbs and organs from their mass. In later days, the oldest and most powerful of them could take on any shape imaginable."
Dipper sighed with relief. See? He told himself. Not so bad after all: Nyarlathotep was just giving you another name for a shapeshifter. Nothing to worry about, really. Just you getting jittery about some silly nickname. But even as he struggled to relax and dismiss the whole thing as a ghastly misunderstanding, an insistent little voice in the back of his mind demanded further information.
"What else can you tell me about them?" he asked hesitantly.
"They were the slaves of the Elder Things, spawned into existence only to perform the tasks that they themselves could not perform: they built their cities, fought their wars, disposed on their waste, and they did so without complaint. The shoggoths had no minds of their own, no sentience to disrupt the Elder Things' perfect order."
You see? Dipper thought. No resemblance! No resemblance whatsoever!
"And then, one day, the shoggoths developed self-awareness and rose up in rebellion. Worn down by the predations of the Mi-Go, the Yith, the star-spawn of Cthulhu and the other Great Old Ones, the Elder Things were ultimately overwhelmed by their own creations. Now, their great city in the Antarctic is ruled only by shoggoths."
"I'm not a shoggoth, am I?" Dipper asked tentatively.
In spite of himself, a smile brightened Grunkle Ford's pallid features. "No, no: you are polymorphic in nature, not protoplasmic. Your power is due to a fusing of the biological and the quantum – space-time portals fused with flesh: Shifty's race, whatever became of them, are not shoggoths nor were they born of them."
"Then why would Nyarlathotep – or Mr Carter or whatever he calls himself – call me a shoggoth? He's been calling me that ever since we met back in Acheron, he even called me that while I was still Shifty! What could it mean?"
"Does it have to mean anything?" Grunkle Stan asked. "I hate to say it, Dipper, but it sounds like you're overthinking this.
"No, there has to be something important about it, otherwise why would he call me a shoggoth if I'm not a shoggoth?"
"Bill Cipher called you Pine Tree," Grunkle Ford pointed out, "and yet you're not a pine tree – any more than Mabel is a shooting star or Soos a question mark."
"But that's different."
"Is it?"
"Those nicknames Bill gave us were because of the zodiac symbols, because he knew we could play a part in stopping him; he knew the prophecy of the zodiac, he knew all about the wheel, so Bill giving us all those nicknames makes sense in hindsight. When Nyarlathotep called me 'little shoggoth,' there was nothing prophetic about it; I mean, it's not as if he could have known that I'd end up getting turned… into Bill's… henchman…"
Dipper's eyes widened in horror. For the next ten seconds, he could only stand there in horrified silence as the full force of a runaway epiphany crushed him under its gargantuan bulk, scattering all competing thoughts to the wind.
"Oh god," he whispered, reeling from the shock. "He knew. Nyarlathotep knew – from the moment we met in Acheron, he could tell it was going to happen. He actually looked at me and said 'you're going to be spectacular." He knew Bill was going to transform me into the Shapeshifter, the perfect servant for the Henchmaniacs; he knew I'd gain a mind of my own; he knew I'd rebel, just like real shoggoths would. Everything that's happened to me since Weirdmageddon went global – he knew it was going to happen. And he made it part of his plan… he made me part of his plan. He knew. He knew…"
"Do I hear my name being taken in vain?" purred a voice from the darkness.
Dipper didn't even bother turning around: he simply shapeshifted on the spot, exchanging the front half of his body with the back until he could see what was directly behind him, a transition that took less than a second to complete. As expected, Nyarlathotep was staring down at him, eyes gleaming balefully in the gloom.
The Outer God's smile grew. "Something I should be worried about? You seem tense, little shoggoth."
"You knew," Dipper whispered accusingly. "You knew what was going to happen – I don't know how, but you knew... and you didn't do a thing to stop it!"
If Nyarlathotep was in any way shocked by the accusation, he didn't show it. "So you got my private joke," he said with a shrug. "A little disappointing, but them's the breaks, as they say in the classics. I suppose the surprise couldn't be kept under wraps forever, what with someone as well-travelled as your great uncle here. But I must admit, I'm a little confused as to why you're so shocked by it, Dipper."
For a moment, Dipper could only boggle incredulously. "Confused?" he echoed. "Conf- Bill took everything from me! He snuffed me out of existence, remade me into the Shapeshifter, and doomed me to spend the last thirty years trapped underground with only mole people for company! And that was before I ended up getting frozen – and staying partially conscious while I was stuck in cryo-suspension! Bill took my life away and you let it happen!"
"And I would again," said Nyarlathotep. "The same goes for Mabel, for Wendy, for Soos, for your uncles, and for everyone else I abandoned to their fates. I fail to see how this is a shock to you, Dipper: when we first me, I clearly explained that I would have been able stop Bill on my own, being a god truly worthy of the name – but that fighting him would have been boring. And I meant it. I'm not here to play saviour to a bunch of underdeveloped monkeys: I'm here for entertainment – and, as I also told you, to stop Bill Cipher from ruining my masterpiece. If I can get that done in a suitably amusing way, without getting my hands dirty, all the better."
"But that's not all, is it?" Grunkle Ford whispered. "You want something else."
If anything, Nyarlathotep's smirk grew all the wider and all the more malicious. "Oh, with us again, Grunkle Grim Reaper? By all means, bless us with your starry wisdom."
"You made sure things went as badly as possible so you could earn boons from Axolotl, so he would owe you favours. There is something that only he can accomplish. You don't just want entertainment, and you don't just want to stop Bill: you want…" Grunkle Ford's eyes flickered, and a trickle of tarry black blood oozed from his left ear. "…the sleeper must not wake, the drumming must continue, the musicians must play forever in the void…"
"Ford, are you okay?" Stan whispered urgently.
"...tmrmvpzdz nliu ivsgzu iflb klgh mzx lsd vml boml vsg hr oglolcZ pmrsg flB ...mzok iflb vvh R ...R…"
"He'll be alright," Nyarlathotep chuckled. "Seeing into infinity takes a lot out of you, even with his powers. Again, I still don't see why everyone's so taken aback by this revelation. It's not as if I pretended to be nice, is it?"
Dipper took a very deep breath to steady himself. Behind his back, his right hand was slowly shifting into the form of a large circular sawblade.
"Maybe," he said icily, "Just maybe it's because there's a world of difference between playing the neutrality card and actively screwing us over. Maybe it's because none of us thought you'd been screwing us over this long and this hard, or that you'd actually have the guts to show up here and actually try to give us orders afterwards."
"Orders? I don't give orders. I just provide advice. You're free to stop listening if you think you can do without it. Screwed over? Bit harsh. It's true I could have saved all of you, stopped Bill and brought this world back from the brink of cataclysm, but to be brutally honest, that wouldn't be much fun. This way, you and the rest of the zodiac are much more interesting… and frankly, more useful."
"Useful?"
"Yes, useful. No ordinary mortals could be groomed to bring down Bill Cipher after his final victory over all humanity: because of the suffering you've endured, you're better prepared than any other human being… not that you count as human beings anymore, of course. And yes, I've no doubt you're all traumatized to hell and back by your experiences: your grasp of your own identity is shakier than ever, Mabel may never trust herself again, Wendy will be forever burdened with the guilt of what she's done, and your Grunkles will grapple with the burden of madness and deathly powers for all eternity – the list goes on and on. But still…" The Outer God shrugged and smirked. "It's a laugh, innit?"
A long and arduous pause followed – the kind that could have comfortably accommodated a couple of ice ages.
"So now you know," Nyarlathotep concluded. "But the question is, my little shoggoth, what are you going to do about it?"
And that was when Dipper hit him.
With the sawblade fist.
A/N: Aaaaaaaand it's theory time, people! What'll happen next? Furnish me with your theories and guesses, translations of the code - let me see those imaginations run wild!
In the meantime, the soundtrack to this chapter is A Building Storm by Simon Poole.
And now for the code!
Rg'h grnv uli bvg zmlgsvi urtsg
Gl hvv dsrxs vtl ozhgh gsv mrtsg
Rg'h mlg nfxs olmtvi 'gro gsv vmw
Ovg'h slkv blfi dlfmwh szev grnv gl nvmw