A/N: (deep breath) AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!
Sorry for the delay, everyone, last month was a nightmare. Work, uncertainty and the simple fact that I wasn't satisfied with anything about this chapter for the longest time all played a part in bogging me down. It took ages before I could get this part of the story just the way I wanted it... but it's all been worth it.
This is the last breather chapter before the big plunge, ladies and gentlemen: the end is near. Brace yourselves, ladies and gentlemen - it's going to be pandemonium in the next few chapters.
A massive thank-you for everyone who read, reviewed, favourited and followed - and an ever bigger thank-you for putting up with my absence.
Anyway, without further ado, the latest chapter! Read, review and above all, enjoy!
Disclaimer: Gravity Falls is still not mine, and neither do any of the innumerable other fandoms I make reference to in this chapter.
Also, this chapter contains strong coarse language, courtesy of Rick and Twelve.
"Why are we stopping?"
There was a collective sigh, as the zodiac gave Robbie a look of purest exasperation in near-perfect unison.
"Because there's no point in continuing," said McGucket. "According to the instruments, Bill overtook us at the last pass: he's back at the Fearamid now…"
"Meaning our big plan to break the runes is officially dead in the water," Grunkle Stan fumed. "He'll be ready for us if we attack now."
"Okay, first of all, nice to know nobody's interested in sharing anything with the one guy who can't actually see what's going on from here with all of you hogging the viewscreens-"
"You're the one who has to have a crowd of zombies everywhere you go, Robbie; there's no room up here for all of them."
"Yeah, yeah, just keep on picking on the blind guy for needing zombies to see, real nice. Secondly, are we really gonna let Bill scare us off now? I mean, we're powerful enough to count as demigods – maybe even gods if you listen to some of the crazies we've picked up along the way. In the last few weeks, we killed almost all of the Henchmaniacs and we had Bill on the ropes. We have an airship fleet, guys! Are you seriously thinking of throwing in the towel now that we've got everything we need under one airforce?"
All told, Fiddleford McGucket's ersatz fleet was hardly unimpressive.
Consisting of about twenty destroyers, fifteen frigates, ten cruisers, four carriers and one experimental dreadnought, the fifty-ship strong armada was probably the biggest mechanized air force to have patrolled the skies since Weirdmageddon had gone global. Armed with a brutal assortment of cannons, missile-launchers, flamethrowers, acid-soakers, hornet-chutes, harpoon tubes and a whole host of other weaponry, several of wich could be operated by McGucket via remote control, or turned over to human operators – including the swarm of fighter craft they'd brought with them.
Hovering in the sky above the ruins of human civilization, the whole fleet looked like something out of Jules Verne's nightmares: a vast horde of gleaming silver galleons floating several hundred feet off the ground, their engines ablaze with silent fire and their prows crackling with luminous energy, the presence of the colossal Forge being towed alongside them only made the fleet a thousand times more formidable.
And yet, Dipper knew that it still wasn't going to be enough on its own.
With their plans stalled for the time being, the zodiac had gathered aboard the Forge for an emergency conference, crowding together in the Toymaker's workshop to discuss the next course of action alongside a few representatives of their militia.
"You saw what Bill did once he knew where we were," said Dipper. "He kept us pinned down and would have probably wiped out half of us if we hadn't been able to shield the town."
"But now we're not pinned down," Pacifica pointed out. "Bill's the one who's pinned down now: we've got all the room we need to manoeuvre, while he's stuck in the Fearamid."
"And that's because he'll want to protect those runes," said Wendy. "He's between them and us, and from the looks of things, he can't actually be killed the normal way. Bill is gonna be backed into a corner when we show up, and if he wants to keep the runes safe, he isn't going to hold back."
"Well what about Gideon's illusion powers? Can't he just make us all invisible or something?"
Several of the zodiac turned in Gideon's direction eagerly, but he only shook his head. "Not forever, I can't. Plus, the trick with the fleet was a lot easier when the fleet was clumped together, but if we start scattering, the illusion becomes harder to hold together… and something tells me we'll need to spread out to avoid incoming attacks."
There was a chorus of disappointed-sounding groans.
"Hey, don't get downhearted just yet! We've still got one advantage on our side. I mean, apart from all the magical powers and battleships: Bill isn't all-knowing. Back when he was trapped in the Nightmare Realm, he could spy on almost anything in the world thanks to its connection with human dreams… but now that he's taken on physical form in our universe, he can only see what's directly in front of him – that's why he needed me as Sherriff! Maybe we can still take him by surprise if we play our cards right."
"But he's still got an army and what's left of the Henchmaniacs," Stan grumbled. "After everything that's happened, you really think he's gonna make the mistake of splitting them up again? No, he'll be keeping the cards close to his chest this time around."
"Well, I'm pretty sure he thinks we're dead, so we've still got the advantage."
"Not for long," sad Ford, gravely. "Bill knows that someone is out to get him: even without us, Axolotl is still out there somewhere. His paranoia makes him fearful of unseen enemies, gslfts sv hslfow uvzi vmgilkb nliv gszm zmbgsrmt. When we approach, he will be expecting the worst."
"So it's right back to cornered rattlesnake territory," Wendy sighed.
At this, Robbie floundered. "He can't shoot all of us down, right?"
Ford just gave him a pitying look.
"Hear him out," said Gideon. "Maybe there's a good idea there: like I said, he's not omniscient, so if we all attack from different angles we might be able keep him distracted long enough for us to swoop in for the kill-"
"And just how many people are you willing to sacrifice?" said Dipper icily. "Bill isn't going to hold back: he'll blow those ships up as soon as he sees them."
"I didn't mean it like that! I'm just… I'm just saying… well, the future isn't set, but…"
Gideon seemed to sag, and for the first time since he'd seen him again at the hotel, Dipper realized just how much the ex-con-artist had changed; if anything, the younger boy was actually looking guilty at having to say these words.
"I'm just saying that we might not have a choice," he finished weakly.
"Seriously?"
Gideon couldn't meet Dipper's gaze. "Dead serious," he whispered. "Not all of these ships can run on autopilot, after all, and the rust golems can only do so much. If we want to win this time around, we…"
He couldn't finish his sentence.
At this, however, Amanda immediately stepped forward, patting Gideon reassuringly on the shoulder. "I can't speak for everyone in the militia," she said, "But if I have to sacrifice my life to stop Bill and save the human race, I'll do it gladly. You've been good to us: you freed us from imprisonment, you've taught us how to fight, and you've given us real hope for the future in god only knows how long. Right now, you're our best shot at taking back the world: if we have to die to buy you the time you need to stop Bill once and for all, I'm ready."
There was a ripple of agreement from the militia representatives.
"But it doesn't have to end like that," said Mabel. "I mean, we can't just let you die! Maybe we don't need to use the militia after all: we can just send them all to the Cookie Jar where it's safe – even the rust thralls – while we handle Bill."
"You're going to need everyone, Mabel," said Grenda quietly.
"If you try to stop Bill with just the ten of you, he'll kill you easily," Candy agreed. "You'll need all the help you can get."
"Even if it's just to keep Bill distracted?"
Grenda shrugged. "It's not too different from what we did the first time around. Remember? We kept Bill busy with the Shacktron while you went in to save Ford."
"But this time, there's no unicorn hair, and Bill isn't playing anymore! He'll kill both of you – he'll kill anyone he can get a fix on once the fighting starts! There has to be a better way than this, like-"
Amanda smiled sadly. "Sometimes, kiddo, there's no such thing as a better way: the only options are the bad ones. Who knows? Maybe you'll be able to bring us all back to life once it's all over and done with."
But the look on Amanda's face said otherwise.
There was an awkward pause.
"No," said Robbie at last. "No, no, no, no, and NO. We're not going through with this 'needs of the many' bullcrap, not after all the good luck we've had so far. I man, are you guys seriously going to force me be the voice of optimism here? Me? Robbie V and the Tombstones? Come on, people! There has to be some way we can get this done without throwing everyone's lives away; I mean, we've gotten out of worse scrapes than this, haven't we?" He sighed furiously. "What if we just tried blowing the Fearamid up, taking the runes with it?"
Dipper laughed. "Blowing it up with what, Robbie? It's been upsized since Weirdmageddon went global: the Fearamid's twice the size of the Forge now – you could fit the entire Chrysler Building inside the main corridor!"
"And even if we could blow the place up, we wouldn't be able to blow it up from the outside," said Wendy. "The walls are too thick, and the armour's denser than the average gym teacher. We'd have to plant bombs in every room. Nah, it'd be easier just to blow the runes up."
"How do you-"
"Don't ask questions you don't wanna know the answers to."
In desperation, Robbie looked wildly around the room in search of supporters. "Mabel, back me up here, would you?"
But Mabel was now lost in thought, anxious chewing on her lower lip as she struggled to think of another option. Frankly, Dipper sympathized: right now, he desperately needed a pen to chew on, otherwise the cognitive reverie was going to drive him insane.
In the silence that followed, Grunkle Stan reached out, tore the nearest control panel clean off the dashboard, and crumpled it into a ball, his eyes aglow with rage. As one, everyone did their best not to divert their attention elsewhere: Stan had been in a vicious mood ever since his fight with Nyarlathotep, and the fact that the Outer God had drawn attention to the things he'd been trying to keep repressed had only made things worse.
And then, just as it looked as though the only option was the worst one, Soos spoke up.
"Dude, where's Bill keeping these runes, anyway?"
Ford thought for a moment. "He needs to keep them protected at all costs, so he'll either be waiting near them, or he'll have had them moved to the throne room."
"Then what if we just cut him off from there?"
"How exactly are we supposed to do that, Soos?" Stan demanded irritably. "We're not trying to keep raccoons out of the trashcans again, in case you hadn't noticed: Bill isn't going to give those runes up without a fight."
Soos looked abashed. "I dunno… maybe we could… scare him away?"
Four embarrassed seconds went by in silence. Then, the fabric of time suddenly hiccupped. The transition was nothing short of incredible: one second, Mabel was sitting in a corner, chewing on her bottom lip and lost in thought; the next, she was standing on the other side of the room, eyes wide with excitement.
"What did you just say?!" she almost screamed.
"Uh… I was just thinkin' we could scare Bill away from the runes, dude. You know, frighten him outta the throne room or wherever."
"Forget it, Mabel," Stan sighed. "Bill isn't gonna budge when we come knocking, even if he is paranoid: he cornered us like fish in a barrel and he knows what we can do now."
A mad, brace-studded grin spread across Mabel's face. "But he doesn't," she said, almost giggling with excitement. "That's it! He didn't actually get a good look at any of us when he attacked. All he's seen was our power!"
"And that was when we managed to stop him from blowing up Cipheropolis," said Dipper. Mabel's smile was turning infectious, her excitement spreading to Dipper with amazing speed as the realization clicked home. "All he's seen of us is the fact that we can stop him… and that scares him."
McGucket's multi-eyed brow wrinkled. "Well, I wasn't there to see it, so you'll have to explain that one to me."
"Didn't you hear his voice? Bill wasn't just angry when he cornered us: he was scared."
"And that's how we're gonna beat him!" whooped Mabel. "If we can spook him out of position, get him so angry and scared that he's more interested in getting rid of us than guarding the throne room, then maybe-"
"-we can buy enough time for someone to sneak in and break the runes!" Wendy finished, her face aglow with jubilation.
"That might work," Grunkle Ford conceded hesitantly. "Only fire can undo the stagnant forest: if we're the bait, the job of destroying the runes will have to be done by someone with explosives-"
"Or something better," said McGucket; he was grinning as well now, his many eyes gleaming like gemstones in the ruin of his face. "I've got just the thing for the militia: powered battle armour with attached flamethrowers and rocket launchers!"
Now it was Ford's turn to smile. "R olev blf, Urwwovuliw, R ivzoob wl," he all but giggled.
But Stan still looked pensive. "We've still got to actually get in there, though: it's gonna be a long way to the Fearamid now that Bill's on edge and waiting for a fight. We've got to get through all his defences and punch our way in… and that's gonna mean risking death every step of the way. So, unless Mabel's learned to bring people back from the dead, how are we gonna get in without throwing lives away?"
"Hit and run attacks," said Gideon. "We have the fastest of the zodiac swoop in, drawing Bill's fire, while the heavy hitters hang back and blast open a door for us."
And for a moment, everyone seemed perfectly happy with the idea – maybe even a little optimistic
Then, Dipper coughed for attention "There's just one thing, though. Bill isn't stupid: how are we going to stop him from spotting the trick and just wiping us all out in one attack?"
"Deimos and Phobos march to war," said Ford, obliquely. "Fear and terror are our allies."
"…is it just me, or did that actually make a lot of sense?"
"So we pull the same scare tactics in battle?" asked Stan. "We make us look bigger and meaner than we really are, so Bill doesn't spot the trick until it's too late? I mean, that sounds good, but what's Bill scared of?"
"DEATH," Ford intoned, a ghastly grin carving his face open. "And all that accompanies it: darkness, silence, void. With a little effort, he could be made to fear the same Grim Reaper trappings he prepared for me."
Dipper considered this for a moment, and then turned to McGucket. "How much effort do you think it'd take to decorate the fleet a little, make it look as… Grim Reaper-ish as possible?"
"Not much at all, I'd think: I can get the machines in here to churn out some modifications and apply them to the ships via robot; it'll only take a few days."
"I can add some mean-looking illusions to the fleet," Gideon chimed in. "I might not be able to keep us invisible full-time, but I can definitely give Bill a few menacing-looking targets to draw his aim away from our ships."
"If you're going to be outfitting these ships on time, you're going to need someone with telekinesis," said Pacifica.
"And me," added Grunkle Stan. "It's been a while since I did any of this technical work, but now that I'm getting the hang of this matter manipulation malarkey, it shouldn't be too hard to get some redecorating done-"
"And I can make sure it's all done as quickly as possible!" Mabel finished.
There was a ragged cheer from the militia reps.
"As for everyone else," said Dipper, "We're going to have to train: the militia have to learn how to use the newest weapons, and us zodiac have to push our powers as far as they can go in what little time we have. Each of us needs to be as close to Bill's level as we can possibly get, enough to get him scared and running when the time comes – because when we get this fleet moving, it's going straight to the Fearamid."
"You hear that?" Mabel crowed. "We're not beaten yet, guys! We've got everything we need to bring Bill down, and this time, we're gonna catch him by surprise! Now let's get ready, people! It's Summerween time again, and we're gonna make this the biggest, baddest, scariest fleet in history!"
"Aw jeez, Rick, you said you weren't going to turn this into another Vindicators 3!"
"For Christ's sake, th-th-that wasn't my fault, remember? I was drunk!"
"And you were drunk this time as well!"
"Well, look at the bright side, Morty: no-one died this time, okay?"
"Apart from everyone who died while we weren't watching! Seriously, what the hell's been going on in there since we took our eyes off it?!"
"For the love of god, I'm sorry! You happy now? I-am-sorry!"
"That's better. Now eat some more coffee."
Somewhere on the outer shell of a diseased and rotting dimension, a tiny knot of figures had gathered in the infinite void between worlds to hold a vigil over the ruins of what had once been a sane, almost-happy reality.
The beings who had joined this strange alliance were among the strongest and strangest beings in the multiverse still willing to lend their might to a charitable cause. Most of them were immortal and many of them were indescribably ancient, but all wielded powers that elevated them beyond mere interdimensional entities and into the realm of deification; worshipped as gods and saviours or feared as destroyers of worlds, they rarely strayed far from their homelands – either because they had declared themselves protectors of their native dimensions, or simply because they couldn't be bothered to concern themselves with anything beyond their spheres of influence.
Today's gathering was an unprecedented exception.
Today, all of them had been summoned to stand guard over the most direct means of egress from this realm and prevent Bill's madness from spreading further… but though they knew the being they had been called to assist, they knew the one who'd called them here even better: Nyarlathotep was clearly playing his own angle, for why else would so many wildly-clashing personalities have been crammed onto the team with so few stabilizing factors?
Here was Doctor Manhattan, the ever-detached master of matter, glowing an unearthly blue in the infinite night.
Here was Elizabeth Comstock, possibility space explorer and portal manipulator extraordinaire, accompanied by her two chaperones, Rosalind and Robert Lutece.
Here was Coin, the Sourcerer who'd nearly brought the Discworld to its knees, his palpable air of mystical power only slightly undermined by the fact that he was only twelve years old.
Here was Q of the Q Continuum, trickster and perpetual bane of Starfleet's dignity, currently trying to make up his mind on whether to wear his usual robes or a Starfleet uniform.
Here was Jessica Sorrow the Unbeliever, naked except for the teddy bear she clutched to her chest, her power barely restrained through force of will.
Here was Einstein, the besuited emissary of the Ancients, pitch-black eyes gleaming in the void as he exchanged lectures with a distinctly irate-looking John Crichton.
Here was Emma Smith, the daughter of Gaia and her chosen heir, still dressed in her pyjamas and slippers, her eyes as gold as the lifeblood of the cosmos; accompanying her, one of Gaia's Chosen, a suitably anonymous-looking bodyguard in a spotless white uniform, a blue beret and a plague doctor's mask.
Here was the Ellimist, space-time chessmaster and gamester of galaxies, currently in his accustomed form of an old man with skin as luminous as a star and long, pointed ears.
Here was John Murdoch, master of the City and telekinetic champion, floating several feet above the ground on a plinth sculpted matter.
Here was Dave Bowman, incarnate as the Starchild, beyond all human notions of power despite looking more like a giant glowing foetus than anything else.
There were even a couple of visitors from the Redemption 'Verse, the vaguely-defined sector of the multiversal span where individuals normally doomed to remain villains miraculously achieved some kind of reformation.
One, an incarnation of the legendary psychic Alma Wade, had once been known as the Mother of the Apocalypse – but surviving the birth of her child and the madness that had surrounded it had gradually softened her into a much kinder, gentler force of mass destruction personified; at present she was currently standing on the edge of the group in one of her less-frightening forms, chatting quietly with Jessica.
Far stranger was the Virage Embryo, the God of Destruction, the divinely-ordained exterminator of Endiness – known to her friends as Shana. Having chosen not to fulfil her allotted purpose in life, she was now content to utilize her divine powers of creation and annihilation in the service of the planet she'd been created to destroy. Just to complete the scene, she had arrived in the form of a giant living planetoid wreathed in long, writhing tentacles, and was currently playing charades with the Starchild.
And just to round out this rollcall of the great and notorious, all fourteen of the Doctor's mainstream incarnations had been summoned to the scene, TARDISes and all. And given their personalities, all of them were doing what they did best with nothing constructive to occupy their time – namely, grumbling.
But despite this, the gathering of gods, demigods, and sufficiently advanced aliens had all done their part to keep the situation under control: as per their agreements with Axolotl and other multiversal peacekeeping entities, they had not intruded upon the stricken dimension below them; they would not be allowed to attack Bill Cipher until he had made a move to escape or spread his corruption to the rest of the multiverse. So, they had fortified the shell of the dimension where they could, prevented the Weirdness from leaking out, and done their best to ensure that Axolotl would have all the support he needed when the time came.
Or at least, that had been the plan.
Then, Rick Sanchez had shown up, and everything had gone completely mad.
Drunk, high and dragging an extremely confused Morty along with him, he'd demanded to know where Ford was being kept, insisting on rescuing him within the hour. The others had tried to reason with him, but Rick was in no mood to be told "no"; hollering at the top of his voice, he'd forced his way through the crowd, leaving Morty with nothing but questions. Eventually, the Starchild had floated over and helpfully explained things as best as he could to the young man, eventually recruiting assistance from Crichton – the other plus-one at the party.
Meanwhile, losing patience, Rick had stormed over to the dimensional shell – intent on staging some mad one-man rescue mission that would probably have left everyone worse off than ever. The Doctors had moved to restrain him, trying to placate Rick by any means available to them, each Doctor using his (or her) favourite method of persuasion: they'd tried nitpickery, bluffing, strident insults, verbal chicanery, appealing to his better nature, bombast, reverse psychology, slightly whimsical appeals to reason, world-weary ultimatums, aggressive shouting, grandiose threats, menacing with the aid of a jammy dodger, impassioned monologues, and just about anything else that sprung to mind, but Rick had seemed immune to it all.
Then the insults began, and nobody was spared Rick's ire: over the course of the next few minutes, he took aim at everything that could possibly annoy, aggravate or enrage the Doctors, including more than a few lewd insinuations about their companions. But it wasn't until he'd made disparaging remarks about Eleven's "redheaded slut and her beta male accessory" and suggested that Ten's "peroxide-blonde bitch" was probably going to end up sharing a bed with Bill, that Twelve had finally intervened.
For once, the grumpiest of the Doctors was looking uncharacteristically serene as he drew Rick aside, but his eyes were already starting to take on the ice-cold glint of rage that had made him the terror of Whitehall.
"Rick," he said softly, "Perhaps you'd just like a minute or two to rethink your life? Or maybe think of all the ways you could rephrase everything you just said? Because if you honestly want to continue this discussion, you're really not going to like what happens next. I'm giving you this opportunity as a friend, because you're drunk, stressed and impassioned, and nobody here thinks any less of you… so far."
Rick smiled. "Drunk, stressed and impassioned? Cute. I bet the same went for River, huh?"
There was a deathly pause, as Twelve's prodigious eyebrows very slowly began to bristle like two porcupines readying for battle. To anyone who cared to look, the subtleties had vanished: Malcom Tucker's legendary bollocking face was on and ready for action.
"What," he demanded icily.
"I'm just saying, that must have been one really shitty last Christmas you had with her if the dumb bitch ended up offing herself in some library the next time you saw her-"
And that was when Twelve sucker-punched Rick in the face.
It took hours for the saner minds of the group to break up the brawl that had ensued: Rick, being Rick, had not only managed to get just about every single one of the Doctors to attack him, but by sheer virtue of his own big mouth, had managed to get the Doctors fighting with each other as well. Eventually, the Ellimist had enlisted the help of Coin and Elizabeth to break up the brawl – with some resistance from Q, who was having far too much fun placing bets on the action to let it end – and after a lot of screaming and struggling, the combatants had been hastily separated. It had taken Morty's intervention to get Rick to settle down, however: only the threat of ending their adventures for good had been enough to get the old scientist to behave himself.
Now, Rick sat in a huddle of pissed-off Doctors, sporting two black eyes, a bloody nose and a burst lip; for good measure, he was holding an icepack over his groin. In an effort to sober him up, he'd been given a large bowl of raw coffee and had been ordered to eat it until he was coherent enough to realize that the last few hours of fighting had been a bad idea. So far, even with help from Morty, it looked like uphill work.
Eventually, Rick cleared his throat. "Listen-"
"Fuck off," snapped Twelve.
"I'm sorry, okay? I shouldn't have said that stuff about your wife."
"Yeah, you're always sorry when you've made an arse of yourself and you don't have any excuses for it. Should consider myself lucky I got to see you drop an apology twice in this incarnation, have it marked down on a calendar: April 1st 2013 local time – 'upon this day Rick Sanchez briefly learned humility'."
"Goddam, you're one to talk. Morty, could you back me up?"
The teenager groaned wearily. "I'm staying out of this one, Rick: as far as I'm concerned, this is that shit with the president all over again."
"For the love of Christ, I said I was sorry about that one!"
"I don't have a dog in this fight, Rick. This is between the two of you. Uh, fifteen of you."
Ten sighed, adjusting his own icepack to the spectacular bruise on his temple. "Look, Rick," he said wearily, "I know it's not fair to you or your friend, but for now we have to hold back: it doesn't make us all amoral psychopaths who blow up planets-"
"-or callow idiots who remove democratically-elected leaders on a whim and let their ex-boyfriends take over," said Seven cheekily.
"Or callow- hey!"
"In the words of William Shakespeare, 'don't get into an arse-kicking contest with a hedgehog,' young man."
"Oh come on, Seven, that's just uncalled for!"
Eleven took a deep breath, absently dabbing at a cut on his forehead with a large polka-dotted handkerchief. "The point is that we understand that it's not easy leaving your friend there. We've lost friends, too, sometimes to things even we couldn't save them from: even we can't break all the Laws of Time. We're still going to save him; it's just that you're going to have to wait for just a little while longer."
Rick fumed silently.
There was a pause, and a bruised and grimacing Five added, "I mean, I'm sure you're very good friends and it's undoubtedly a sign of the healthy relationship the two of you have cultivated over the years-"
"And here comes the beige Power Ranger, ready to wallpaper over everything," Twelve grumbled. "Five, he doesn't give a fuck. Why have you not realized that by now?"
"Because some of us want to remain diplomatic, having not actually spent the last few years as a chief whip in a parallel universe. Rick's friendship with this Stanford Pines character is obviously a very sensitive-"
Now it was Rick's turn to sigh. "Truth be told, I just want to get him to admit I was right."
Morty groaned and hid his face in his hands. "Aw jeez," he muttered. "I knew it."
"Hey, it's not like that's the only reason!" Rick shouted. "When I first met Ford, he was still new to the multiverse, still wide-eyed and stupid, just like you were back in the beginning; I mean, don't get me wrong, the guy was a genius, but he just couldn't stop going on about how he had a duty to "make things right" or some shit. The way he saw it, he had to stop Bill. So I took Ford in, let him stay with me for a few months, even set him up with a bunk in one of my old labs. When we weren't sharing new designs and studying realms of science he'd never dreamed of, I was trying to teach him how he could be happier if he stopped giving a damn: I showed him as much of the multiverse he could take, even brought him to the Citadel of Ricks-"
"All so you could teach him not to care," Morty finished. "You didn't end up making him dig a grave for one of his other selves, did you?"
"I told you, we only do that in emergencies! Anyway, I showed Ford as many worlds as I could just so he'd understand that nothing really matters and he'd be happier living my kind of lifestyle. And you know what? He almost did it. He almost said yes… but the moment I told him he'd never have to think about his idiot twin brother again, he got cold feet, and then he's all 'thanks but no thanks, it's not you, it's me'! Can you believe that shit?"
"And that's why you're here trying to rescue him?" Eight demanded incredulously. "Because you're trying to get him to admit you were right all along?"
"Damn right I am! He could have been living it up in an inventor's paradise with someone who didn't pity him for his stupid extra digits, but instead he went right back out into the wilderness to become a fugitive. And not only does he not come back to apologise, he shacks up with Jheselbraum, that sanctimonious seven-eyed c-"
"Can we please keep the psychopathy to a dull roar?" Ten groaned. "We're here to save an entire dimension, not accommodate your ego."
"Yeah, like I need advice from someone who probably styles his hair with his own bodily fluids."
"Now you're just being gross," said Eleven. "And unnecessarily personal, too."
"Personal? This from a guy who couldn't get off his ass if he hadn't befriended one of the victims of the week! Nothing you do is not personal!"
"That's not what I m-"
"Seriously, I saw how you got after that last busload of idiots left the TARDIS; you were acting like a heroin addict in withdrawal! You wouldn't do jack shit if one of your walking obsessions didn't get involved!"
"And you, of course, remain the epitome of altruism and community-minded thinking," sneered Six. "Apart from the time an embassy got blown up because you refused to attend family therapy..."
"Oh don't give me that 'pot-calling-the-kettle-a-racist' crap, Six! You're the one who tried to strangle your companion!"
At the other end of the rendezvous point, the Ellimist threw up his ethereal hands in exasperation. "Would it hurt you to calm down and try to focus on not fighting? Some of us actually have important work to do."
"Speak for yourself as always, chessmaster," chuckled Q. "I'm here for entertainment more than anything else. And if nothing else, Rick's providing it in abundance."
"That's just the thing!" said Rick, getting to his feet. "Why are you all here? Seriously, let's be honest about your opinions. Who's actually here for the sake of the multiverse or whatever? Let's here from all of you: what are all of us doing here?"
"I'M HERE AS PART OF MY PAROLE," said the Virage Embryo.
"Likewise," said Alma.
"I am here to ensure my experiments are not jeopardized," said Dr Manhattan.
"I'm here protecting my city," said Murdoch. "Won't be much of a safe haven for humanity if Bill spreads to my dimension."
"I'm here as a thank-you to John Taylor," whispered Jessica. "Apparently, John owes this Nyarlathotep a debt."
"I have been sent in order to prevent the intrusion of infectious matter from this realm of interdimensional space into mine," intoned Einstein. "The quarantine must be maintained."
"I guess that makes me here for multiversal safety as well," Crichton sighed.
"As am I," said the Star Child. "Even my fellow entities may not be able to stop Bill if he invades our realm. We must confront this threat now, before it grows any worse."
"Gaia must be protected," Emma concurred.
Her bodyguard nodded in agreement.
"Make that four of us," Elizabeth chimed in. The Luteces coughed in unison. "Well, six of us," she amended. "As long as I'm a traveller in the multiverse, it's my job to help protect it."
Coin shrugged. "Well… it didn't seem like it'd hurt anybody if I joined in," he mumbled nervously.
There was a distinctly disappointed pause, as Rick began quietly grinding his teeth in frustration.
"I think he might have been speaking rhetorically," said Two.
"Shut up."
Three smirked. "Let me guess," he chuckled. "You were expecting everyone would be just as selfish as you would be, just so you could massage your ego. Knowing you, you were probably intending to enjoy another charming monologue about how intelligence gives you the freedom to do anything."
"Fuck you, Austin Powers."
"Liver playing up again, Rick, or is it just the self-serving nihilism that isn't working?"
"Three, I swear to Christ, I'm gonna-"
"Aw man," grumbled Morty, "Not this again. Rick, you need to sit down and eat some more coffee."
"What he needs is to have his portal gun rammed up the shitter with a dildo made of rusty barbed wire," Twelve snarled.
"You wanna go at it again this soon, Doc?" Rick shot back. "Because I am primed and goddamn ready."
"Bring it on, you miserable booze-sodden bell-end! I'll rip your cock off and nail it to your head so you can wear it like a fez!"
There was a wince from the sidelines. "Well, that's another little joy spoiled forever. I'll never be able to look at fezzes the same way ever again…"
"ELEVEN, I SWEAR TO CHRIST-"
"ENOUGH!"
All eyes turned skywards; there, descending from a glowing portal in the interdimensional strata, was Jheselbraum the Unswerving, resplendent in her purple robes, all seven eyes ablaze with fury.
"What the hell are you doing here?" Rick demanded.
"I am the last," she said. "I've tried to find others from across the multiverse to bolster our forces, but they either have no interest in helping us or no way of interceding in time: the Alterans, the Nox, the Olympians, Emmanuel and Zina, the Outsider, various Ascended mages, the Endless, about half a dozen incarnations of Merlin, the Bards of the Musicverse… even the King, the Queen, the Prince and the Mercury were too busy to help us. So I am here to make us ready for the End."
"But you're not-"
"Not a fighter? Not usually, no: when I sought enlightenment atop the mountain, I abandoned war and death in pursuit of cosmic serenity … but it seems I must take up arms if it means saving everything that ever was or will be. So, I have brought the only weapon suited to this, our most desperate hour."
Raising a hand, she held aloft an octagonal staff of sapphire-blue crystal, every facet of it polished and refined to a gleaming finish, until stars could be seen glittering across its flawless surface. On the other side of the rallying ground, Coin cringed and instinctively shied away as the staff's aura of power rippled across the onlookers, prompting hasty whispers of reassurance from Emma and her bodyguard.
"Is that up to fighting gods?" Nine asked dubiously.
"It was when I first found it," Jheselbraum replied. "It must be again: if Bill attempts to extend his reign to the rest of the multiverse in person, we must be ready to stop him by every means in our power. We must remain vigilant… and for that, we can no longer be distracted by such foolishness as this."
She glared down at Rick. "The time will come to rescue Stanford," she told him. "He was just as much a friend to me as he was to you, as you no doubt remember: I understand your reasons… no matter what you claim they really are."
"Listen, you sanctimonious bitch-"
"If you interfere now, you risk killing the zodiac and allowing Bill a chance to spread Weirdness beyond this reality – and by continuing this argument, you've nearly allowed a tendril of it to breach the dimensional barrier."
"What makes you think I give a damn?"
"Because if our defences fail, the horror Bill has unleashed will eventually reach your world. Oh, you pretend to believe that nothing matters, but you've been making it easier and easier to see through that lie; there are some things you can't bring yourself to discard, things you can't easily replace. If the tide of Weirdness continues to spread, it will consume all reality. Morty, Summer, Beth, Jerry, Mr Poopybutthole… Everything you love will die... and even if your genius allows you to save yourself, you will have nowhere else to go. The multiverse will be left in ruins, all its joys and consolations forever beyond your reach. You will be exactly as you once claimed to be: an unfeeling ghost, but now lost forever in a dead reality. Does that sound in any way appealing to you, Rick?"
Rick just scowled.
"I didn't think so. Now, we all must double our defences around this reality: Ellimist, if you have a contingency plan for escape attempts, now would be the time to prepare it. Rest assured, Axolotl and the zodiac will need our help very soon…"
Just beyond the maddening ebb and flow of random Weirdness, the Cookie Jar remained in a state of perfect, maddening near-serenity: the sky was still a suppressing, joyless grey; the road still cracked and groaned underfoot; the houses still hurt the eyes and raised the hackles; confused refugees still huddled in a state of unnatural calm… but now, there was a tiny spark of hope in the air.
It hadn't taken long for Axolotl to realize that the people here were in desperate need of reassurance in these troubled times: after all, some of them had been here since Weirdmageddon had spread to the rest of the world, and had no idea what had become of Earth. Of course, Bill had kept them deliberately ignorant of everything, for while those in the wastelands were tormented by the knowledge of just how doomed they were, the prisoners of the Cookie Jar were tortured by the uncertainty of their plight. Some time ago, Amorphous Shape had (with Bill's permission) actually spread the rumour that the few scattered inhabitants of this pocket dimension penitentiary were the only surviving humans in the entire universe, just to make the prisoners feel all the more lost, alone and despairing. But Amorphous Shape was dead now – or so Axolotl heard – and the new arrivals from Cipheropolis had smothered his rumour to death. But still there was uncertainty: the news of the current of the world was alarming enough to the unfortunates who dwelled here, but as more people began arriving, the mood grew all the more confused. Not only was the world a nightmare landscape under the rule of Bill Cipher, but now there were rival deities at large in the wilderness – the gods of the zodiac, revered and worshipped by many as saviours of the human race.
Axolotl couldn't help but crack a smile at this. As annoying as it was to be cooped up here, it was comforting to know that the zodiac were still a force for good out in the world… but in the meantime, someone had to make sure the long-term inhabitants of the Cookie Jar didn't lose sight of hope.
So for the last few weeks, he'd been going from door to door and bringing reassurance in whatever way he could. Along with countless other "valued inmates" from across the globe, he'd visited Tambry, Thompson, Manly Dan Corduroy and his sons, and a whole host of other ex-residents of Gravity Falls, all to let them know that their friends and loved ones were alive and well. He'd even said hello to Soos's Abuelita, not that she'd been especially upset by her ordeal; frankly, the woman could have waded through nuclear fire and vacuumed up fallout without blinking.
Today, he'd decided it was time to visit the last and most important of all the prisoners held here: they'd been here from the very beginning, the very first of the Cookie Jar's inmates. In fact, rumour had it they'd been singled out for capture from the moment Bill had escaped from Gravity Falls, deliberately left alive and unharmed while so many of their neighbours had been killed, maimed, transformed beyond recognition, or simply driven mad. They'd been allowed just enough time to see the world end before being whisked away to the mind-pummelling safety of the Cookie Jar, and had been here ever since, perhaps only for a few weeks, perhaps only for a few hundred thousand years – with linear time dead, there was little way of being sure.
Bill had very special plans for Dipper and Mabel's parents, and if the inevitable final battle went wrong, Axolotl knew they'd have to be protected at all costs.
Finding the house he was looking for hadn't taken much effort; the Henchmaniacs had marked the roof for reference, daubing Bill's watchful eye just above the front door. Nor was getting inside much of a trial: all Axolotl had needed was to knock on the door and explain that had important news to deliver – more specifically, news about Dipper and Mabel.
In the end, familial concern won out over safety concerns, and the pallid couple had ushered him indoors.
As expected from pre-Weirdmageddon observations, Markham "Mark" Pines was a tall, skinny-looking gentlemen, all arms and legs. From what little Axolotl had seen of him before the disaster, he'd been an amiable, laid-back, down-to-earth sort, prone to goofy grins, reassuring hugs and books on art left scattered around the house (tokens of his college days). However, his time in prison had taken a toll: no smile could be found anywhere on the dial today, his black hair was an uncombed mess, and anxiety was clearly driving what little weight he possessed off his already bony frame. For good measure, he hadn't shaven in days, though this was common in most of the adult male inmates: all needs were provided for inmates here, but they didn't have to be perfectly comfortable – the toiletries least of all.
Annabelle Pines, meanwhile, looked even worse: in the past, she'd looked a lot like Mabel might as an adult, albeit a tiny bit more subdued – after all, Mabel's brand of enthusiasm was difficult to find anywhere in nature, even among blood relatives. Willowy, brown-haired and outgoing, she'd had more than enough energy to keep the family on their toes and – combined with her husband's soothing nature – enough sanity to keep the collective eccentricity of her children focused in the right direction. Now, though, she looked on the brink of collapse: her tired eyes were shrouded with dark rings, her clothes looked as though they'd been slept in, and her fingers were layered with band aids (thanks to Anna's habit of compulsively chewing her nails under stress).
Also, she was armed with a tennis racquet covered in half a dozen serrated blades and three chef's knives, each one secured to the frame with duct tape. Somewhat unsurprisingly, she took the lead in the conversation that followed – improvised weapon still at the ready.
The questions began in earnest.
"Where are Dipper and Mabel?"
"Are they alive?"
"Are they safe? Everyone's saying that all this started in Gravity Falls, but nobody's been able to bring us any news on what happened out there."
"Where are they?"
"What's happened to them?"
All in all, their lack of knowledge wasn't too surprising: fraternization between inmates was discouraged through more of the Cookie Jar's unsettling atmosphere, instilling anxiety and fear in anyone daring to venture beyond their "home" street. With the Gravity Falls residents and the Pines at different ends of the neighbourhood, nobody from outside the town would have learned a damn thing about the start of Weirdmageddon – only adding to the sense of dread.
"Your son and daughter are both alive," said Axolotl. "For the time being, they're safe; at the moment they're not in Gravity Falls anymore, but they're still with their great uncle."
Anna breathed a sigh of relief. "That's…" She inhaled deeply, almost managing a mirthless laugh, and for a moment she seemed to be blinking away tears. "That's good news for a change," she said.
"You still haven't told us where they are and what's actually happened to them," said Mark, ever-so-slightly warily.
"Like I said, they're safe."
"That could mean a lot of things," Anna remarked. "We're safe right now; it doesn't exactly mean we're rolling in clover, in case you hadn't noticed. There's supposedly safe places out there in the world, and according to the new neighbours, they're all used to torture people. So you tell me, what kind of 'safe place' have Dipper and Mabel ended up?"
Dammit, Axolotl thought. I can where Dipper gets his caution from. So much for keeping the worrying details to a minimum.
"Have you heard anything of the resistance movement from any of your new neighbours?" he asked.
"Oh, we've heard our share of it," admitted Mark. "But… well, it all sounds pretty farfetched even after all the things we've seen. There's no way of telling which rumours are true or false, and what we've heard from the new kids on the block… it's a little bit much."
"You don't believe in the zodiac army?"
Now, Anna really did laugh. "Mr… what was your name again?"
"Tyler Cutebiker."
Anna gave him a searching look, clearly unable to tell if their guest was joking or not.
"Mr Cutebiker," she said at last, "We've been locked in this place for – what? – weeks, maybe months? Maybe longer? We only just got to see how all this mess started, and we've only seen this Bill Cipher guy once. After that, we got knocked out and woke up here, and since then, it's been nothing but rumours, confusion and the odd bug-eyed monster here to check on us. We don't know what to believe."
"Fair enough."
There was a pause, as Axolotl tried to think of what to say next: he had experience in revealing hard truths to mortals, millennia of experience in unveiling unwanted knowledge to those who stumbled upon him in the ether. But now that he was here in the world he had once monitored from afar, with his essence shielded by a mortal body and the anxious eyes of two fearful parents boring into him, explaining this seemed very difficult all of a sudden.
Eventually, Markham sighed and gave Axolotl a look that was equal parts despairing and enraged. "Look," he sighed. "You said you had something to tell us about Dipper and Mabel, and so far you haven't given us any information other than safe – you haven't even told us how they're safe. We haven't seen the kids in months: we've been apart since they left for Gravity Falls, and we've spent every day since this disaster started worrying about them. So would you please stop dancing around the issue and just be honest with us?"
"Well, it's a sensitive issue. I don't want to upset you, that's a-"
"Upset?" hissed Anna. She was smiling now, the kind of joyless, hard-edge smile used for unpleasant teachers, school bullies, and the occasions when Dipper and Mabel had been caught seriously misbehaving. "Upset?"
"I-"
"You want to talk about what upsets us, Mr Cutebiker? This Bill Cipher, or whoever created this place, he built this house especially for us: on the inside, it's an exact copy of our house in Oregon. It's got the same layout, the same number of rooms, and the same bedrooms… including Dipper and Mabel's room. That room upstairs is exactly as they left it, right down to the books on the shelves; nothing's been touched in all the months we've been stuck here. If you want to know what upsets me, it's walking past that room and knowing that our kids aren't there; it's knowing that they're gone, and not knowing why or where they've gone, or even if we'll ever see them again. But there's one thing worse than that, you know: this place, this prison, it gets so quiet, so still, that… well, I guess your mind starts filling in the blanks sooner or later: I've walked by that bedroom and I've heard my son's voice call out to me; I've heard my daughter laughing from behind that door. I've heard them playing, Dipper puzzling out mysteries and conspiracy theories, Mabel at work on the next big art project, and it's so vivid, so real that I can't help but believe it just for a moment. No matter how many times I tell myself that they're gone, I still open the door. And every time it happens, I'm always hoping, praying that Dipper and Mabel really will be there this time, and they'll have so many stories to share about what happened this summer, and I'll get to hold them again at last… But they're not there, of course: the moment I open the door, the sounds stop and all I find are empty beds and dust. But whenever I walk by that door, I hear the sound again and once again I open the door and find nothing; and maybe that's crazy, but I keep doing it all the same. You know why? Because going a little crazy is better than thinking that I'll never see them again. And that's what it's been like for both of us, for every day of every week of every month of however long we've been trapped here. And you think you know what might upset me?"
She paused for breath, and Axolotl saw that her eyes were full of tears. Eventually, Markham put an arm around Anna and drew her, trembling, into a seat. For the longest time, there was silence in the living room, but he could tell that they were waiting for a response.
Eventually, Axolotl gave in. "I see your point," he said. "Your son and daughter are, um…"
Not for the first time in this extremely awkward conversation, Axolotl paused for a very deep breath. How could he do this? How could he tell this couple that their children were now just a few steps removed from godhood, that Dipper had died and been reborn as a different being altogether, that Mabel had endured nightmares almost beyond description and blamed herself for it? Hadn't these two suffered enough over their long prison sentence?
In the end, he decided to bend the truth – just a little. After all, the two of them had already seen the world end: they didn't need to know just how much their kids had changed in the intervening time.
"They've become rather integral to the resistance," he said at last.
"They've what?"
"They're still being kept safe, I promise you, but… well, you know how headstrong those two can be. They keep ending up in situations where the resistance need their help: Dipper's become quite a dab hand at cracking codes and riddles, and Mabel is very good at improvising solutions to difficult problems."
"Yep," said Markham. "That definitely sounds like them in a nutshell. But how did they meet up with this resistance in the first place?"
"From what the leaders of the resistance tell me, they were in charge of their own smaller-scale uprising back in Gravity Falls."
This was yet another half-lie and one that Axolotl would rather not tell at all, but a useful one nonetheless: frankly, neither of them needed to know of the torture that had ensued, nor did they need to know of how Bill had managed to predict Stanley Pines' winning gambit.
Anna gaped incredulously. "You're kidding. I mean, that's got to be another rumour."
"I've been able to confirm it's the truth."
"Oh come on. Mabel's always been good at making friends, but actually leading a resistance movement?"
"From of the looks of things, Dipper found a way of stopping Bill, and the two of them were in just the right place and the right time to rally some very capable survivors to the cause. They actually managed to punch a hole in the Fearamid, even liberated some of the prisoners before they got Bill's attention; they had to run, of course, but eventually they met up with the zodiac resistance. Since then… it's only been up and up."
For the second time in as many minutes, Anna and Mark could only stare.
"You're serious," Mark gasped. "You're actually serious. My god…"
"The things they must have faced out there-"
"They're alive, safe and sane," Axolotl soothed. "That's all that matters."
"What about these gods of the zodiac the other new arrivals mentioned?" Anna asked. "Is there any truth to that, or is-"
"Yes," said Axolotl. "I can confirm as much."
"And the shapeshifter? The living doll? The death twins? They're all real?"
"All of them."
"Even the girl with eight faces and the man made of a hundred thousand corpses?"
It took all of Axolotl's willpower to keep the smile off his face: from the testimonies he'd heard so far from the new arrivals, people were remembering the side effects of the zodiac's powers more than the zodiac themselves. From the sounds of the things, most of the populace hadn't even heard their names before being escorted here, and if they had, they'd dismissed them in favour of new titles – the Time Child, the Keeper of the Grave, and the Huntress, among others.
"They're all real," he said. "And they're doing their best to look after Dipper and Mabel. You might find this hard to believe, but I promise you that OW!"
There was a loud yowl from around Tyler's undefended shins, and something disgruntled and furry hurtled across the living room; from what little Axolotl could see of it as it sprinted upstairs, the creature was probably a domesticated cat, though at the moment he wasn't in the mood to confirm the sighting. He was too busy trying to calculate how much pain he was in and how much dignity he'd lost since he'd borrowed Tyler's body.
"Sorry about that," said Anna. "Miss Fluffypaws is a little bit on edge lately. Well, we're all on edge, but ever since she found that thing in the basement, she's spent the last couple of days climbing the walls."
"Oh."
Well, no prizes for guessing who named the household pet. Well, if this all goes well, it's going to be interesting to see how that cat reacts to having a pig around the house, unless… hang on a minute-
Axolotl paused in mid-thought.
"What thing in the basement?" he asked quietly.
"We're not sure," said Mark. "It's been partially buried in concrete, and we don't have the tools to dig it up, but the cat doesn't seem to like it, whatever it is."
"…would you mind if I take a look?"
Thankfully, it didn't take much persuading to let him downstairs and study the huge, bricked-over shape squatting at the far end of the basement. Less fortunately, his newly-returned abilities allowed him to recognize the thing almost immediately, and he left the basement at a dead run, slamming the door behind him.
For a moment, he could only stand there, Tyler's heart hammering in horror as Anna and Mark waited apprehensively for his explanation.
"Um… I don't want to alarm you in any way," he said, "but… I think we might be in trouble."
"What makes you say that?" asked Anna.
"You appear to have a nuclear ICBM in your basement."
The trigger.
He still had the trigger.
If all else failed, he still had the trigger in the alcove under his throne. It was right there, just waiting to be used. One press of the button, and every prisoner he'd locked away in the Cookie Jar – the Corduroys, Zits' vapid mother and father, Red's idiot friends, Question Mark's bitch of a grandmother, and the Pines Parents – all of them would be vaporized in an instant.
All those lives snuffed out in an instant, leaving the zodiac with nothing but grief and ashes. And he'd be able to do it even if they found a means of nullifying his other powers, even if they had him beaten and too exhausted to use them, because he still had the trigger.
But why would he need to use the trigger?
The zodiac were dead: he'd seen their fleet erupt into burning wreckage, hadn't he? He couldn't have been mistaken, could he? He'd destroyed them, just as he'd destroy them again if they somehow did survive and were stupid enough to seek him out here. They wouldn't destroy his powers or nullify them, because they were part of him, just as his kingdom was part of him, just as the Nightmare Realm was part of him.
But what if they're not?
You couldn't take away the zodiac's powers, remember? What if the Nightmare Realm belongs to them more than you? You seized control of Weirdness, but they were imbued with it, shaped and moulded beyond recognition by it. What if they've become Weirdness? Do you seriously think you can kill Weirdness, Bill?
Bill shook himself, and realized that he was hanging onto his throne for dear life, fingers tearing colossal trenches in the armrests. Taking a deep breath that he probably didn't really need, he forced himself to lean back into the cushions and relax, telling himself again and again that everything would be okay: he'd slain his mystery opponent in single combat, he'd wiped the zodiac off the face of his kingdom, and now all that remained was the Axolotl – and if he was in luck, the amphibious bastard had probably been aboard the Forge when he'd incinerated it. So he was safe, perfectly safe from now on.
But what if they tricked me? What if they survived somehow?
And what if I won't be able to kill them so easily the next time they show up?
Groaning, Bill reached up and furiously massaged his angular temples, trying to focus on something else.
The trigger. It was easier to think about the trigger and the slumbering dragon he'd left beneath the Cookie Jar: it had been one of the last unexploded nukes left in the United States' arsenal, one of the few missiles that had never left its silo during that final desperate bombardment, either due to a mechanical fault or simply because the personnel responsible for launching it were already dead –Bill didn't know and didn't care. He'd taken the nuke on a whim and used it to brighten up a particularly dull party, even toyed with the idea of actually launching it – just so some nameless human settlement would know the ending that Fordsie's generation had feared back in the depths of the Cold War. But in the end, he'd realized that such destructive potential would be better spent elsewhere.
He hadn't originally meant to take hostages: he'd only wanted to fuck with some heads again. When he'd buried the nuke under the Cookie Jar and equipped it with one of the Ruinous Toymaker's remote detonators, Bill had meant to trigger it as a final test of any zodiac members who'd earned the right to be released from heir prisons. He would swear up and down that the families and friends of the zodiac would not be harmed through his powers, and then, just as the prisoners would be about to be released, he'd trigger the bomb. Kablammo, no more hostages, and Bill would have kept his word, just to rub the zodiacs' failure in their faces a little more.
Now, though… now that nuke might be the one thing that could tip the scales in his favour.
He hadn't seen the zodiac in battle, didn't know the full extent of their powers – only that they were capable of holding him back. If they were to actually get into the Fearamid, the threat of the bomb trigger might be the only thing that would be able to delay them long enough to turn the tide, or at the very least to draw them away from the throne room.
For it was in the throne room where everything would be decided: behind him, across the vast wall upon which the shadow of his throne was cast, the runes sat in unearthly silence, humming ominously with focussed Weirdness. Bigger than two-story suburban homes and sculpted into arcane symbols too complex for human minds to comprehend, they were all that stood between him and the Axolotl… and if the zodiac really were still alive, they would be targeting the runes first of all.
They had been moved from the bowels of the Fearamid a few short hours ago, at great cost and with great caution, for fear that shifting them might damage the properties Bill had so carefully imbued them with. Even if he could make more, he didn't want to risk the lapse in his defences that might ensue from permanent damage to these runes… and as much as he'd have liked to, he couldn't dare scatter them about the Fearamid or disperse them across the world, not without spoiling their unique magical configuration. All ten of them needed to be together.
Ten giant masses of marble and obsidian were all that stood between him and Axolotl. And now that they were right behind him, they seemed so very, very fragile…
There was a muffled hiss from behind him, and Bill spun around so quickly that his left flank sliced the cushions of his throne open. To his immense relief, it was just one of the servants pushing a broom across the floor, sweeping up the remains of Bill's most recent loss of temper.
"Get out!" he yelled. "Do that when I'm not here, goddammit!"
By way of response, the broom-pusher smirked insolently and hoisted a middle finger in mocking salute.
"You know I could kill you in a split-second, right? You know I could have you tortured for a hundred billion years in a thousand different ways at once?"
The janitor made an obscene sound at the back of his throat, and spat on the side of the throne.
"You're digging your own grave down there, pal," Bill snarled half-heartedly.
"You already took Durland," the janitor replied. "There's not much else you can do to me, is there?"
As the janitor stalked away, three very embarrassing realizations hit Bill at once: first, he hadn't recognized Sherriff Blubs even after he'd been part of that annoying first rebellion; second, he couldn't remember what he'd done with Deputy Durland; thirdly, he couldn't bring himself to kill Blubs here and now – not because he was going soft because he needed to concentrate, dammit. He needed to focus on his strategy without getting bogged down in brief amusements.
Dear sweet merciful murder, what the hell had happened to him? Back in the glory days of Weirdmageddon, anyone else who'd talked to him half as insolently as Blubs would have been turned inside-out, dipped in honey and dumped in an ant farm. Had he really fallen so far that he wasn't even considering having fun anymore? Was this really the glorious victory he'd risked so much for – a miserable, paranoia-ridden existence where he couldn't even trust his own powers? Why was this happening? Why had everything fallen apart so badly?
He'd done everything right this time.
And yet…
Bill shook himself, and forced himself to feel brimful of confidence, of only for a minute or so.
Everything's going to be okay, he told himself. I've still got 8-Ball, Xanthar and that thing with eighty-seven faces. I've still got an army. I'm still got all my powers – it's just that I can't use the time-manipulation stuff anymore. And I've still got the trigger. I just need a few hours to get my nerves sorted out, to put things in perspective and relax. I'm not falling apart, I'm just tired. As soon as I've had some proper me time, I'll be back to my old self, and I'll be ready for whatever happens. Actually, first thing I'm gonna do is turn Blubs inside out!
And then, just as he was starting to feel the beginnings of one of his old laughs, he heard it: a sound that made his blood freeze inside his veins, a sound that made every inch of flesh in his physical shell quiver in horror.
The howl of amplified horns blaring in the distance, the thunder of drums shaking the skies, the roar of engines blazing closer and closer… and above them all, a single deafening chorus.
"THE PYRAMID FALLS!"
A/N: Apologies if the Pines Parents' names sounded a little too bland - my imagination failed me, I suppose. Meanwhile, feel free to provide predictions, theories, and opinions on the code!
This chapter's soundtrack is Refusal, by Ennio Morricone.
Up next...
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