A/N: Home stretch time, folks, home stretch time! Two to three more chapters left on the clock, and we are racing towards the conclusion to this story. I've had a whale of a time writing this story, writing this chapter and reading your reviews: thank you to everyone who viewed, reviewed, favourited and followed, and I hope my story continues to live up to the hype.

Anyway, without further ado, the latest chapter! Read, review and above all, enjoy!

Disclaimer: Gravity Falls is still not mine.

Also, fair warning: December is where things get a little bit crazy for my writing schedule. Work and social commitments may make writing and posting a bit of a trial, but I will do my best to deliver chapters as holiday prezzies for you fine folk. And if I could ask for anything this Christmas, I and my ludicrous ego can only ask that you stay safe, stay sane, and stay alive during these mad days.

For several seconds, the throne room remained totally silent: there were no cheers from the crowd nor roars of anger and disapproval as there had been during Bill's trial; nor could the Zodiac think of anything to say. In that moment, despite the victory they'd achieved, despite Bill being gone presumably forever, nobody was feeling especially victorious.

In fact, the only thing people were feeling right now was a deep and overwhelming sense of exhaustion: by now, most of the army had decided to sit down and take a rest, while the Zodiac looked about five steps removed from dozing off on their feet.

Under normal circumstances Mabel would probably have taken this opportunity to cheer everyone up, but right now, she was barely staying awake as it was. And then there was all the fallout from the trial – the revelation that the world couldn't be returned to normal, the fact that it still had to be fixed over the course of centuries, the mind-pummelling monologue from Ford, and even the sight of Bill's final sentencing (which left Mabel feeling unsettled and sickly more than anything else). All in all, Mabel wasn't in the mood to celebrate or cheer up anyone. If anything, the only thing she was in the mood for was a hot bath, and bed, and about five or six years of uninterrupted sleep.

Meanwhile, Grunkle Ford gave a dangerous wobble, and would have fallen if Stan hadn't caught him at the last minute.

"Grunkle Ford!" Dipper gasped. "Are youokay?"

"R'n urmv, Wrkkvi. Qfhg... hgzbvw ofxrw z orggov gll olmt. Mvvw gl hglk z dsrov. Xzgxs nb yivzgs."

"He says yes," Stan added helpfully.

"Um… is that blood coming out of his ears?"

"Nb ylwb'h yvvm fmwvi z orggov hgizrm, hl bvh."

Mabel blinked in confusion. "Can't he talk normally at all anymore?" she asked, her eyes suddenly wide with dread.

"R hdvzi, R'n urmv. Nb tizhk lu sfnzmrgb'h horkkvw z orggov, gszg'h zoo. Ml mvvw gl dliib blfihvou, Nzyvo: R'oo svzo... vevmgfzoob. Kovzhv, blf mvvwm'g uvvo tfrogb uli dszg R wrw."

"He'll be alright," Stan translated.

Nyarlathotep cleared his throat, sending shudders of dread through the audience. "Now that nonsense is out of the way," he said briskly, "I believe that you and I have a matter to discuss, Axolotl."

"What's this about?" Dipper asked, his voice his own again.

"Don't you remember what your Grunkle Grim Reaper told you? Our mutual friend owes me a number of favours for the help I provided to this mission: first, there was that picnic I gave you; then there were those extra loopholes I helped him find; and then there was the time I saved his life and that of his host body. All in all, I'd say dear old Axlotl has quite a significant debt to pay."

Axolotl sighed deeply. "Does this really have to be discussed right now?"

"Is there any time better than the present? Besides, purging oneself of debt is good for the soul." His dark eyes gleamed mischievously. "Improves the flavour. But hey, that's just me."

"Very well then…"

"Hang on!" Dipper shouted. "You're actually going to give him what he wants? After everything he's done – after all the horrible things he let happen to all of us, to me, you're just going to roll over and reward him?! He's conning you, you idiot! He dragged out this whole mess just so he could get you so deep in hock to you, you'd pay any price he wanted! Can't you see that?!"

"Nice to know you were paying attention, Little Shoggoth."

"Drop dead."

Once again, the giant salamander's face seemed twisted with regret, though he had no real expression to speak of. "I'm sorry, but I don't have a choice: I gave him my word I would give him anything he wanted if it was within my power; the laws that bind me will not permit me to abandon my obligations, even if they were made under false pretences."

For a moment, it looked as if Dipper was going to argue with this. Then he stopped and seemed to sag, looking wearier than ever. "Great," he groaned. "That's just great. Our universe goes to hell, we're not human anymore, nothing's ever going back to normal, and the damage won't be fixed for an ice age or two. Meanwhile, tall dark and sneaky over here gets everything he ever wanted. God! Why did I even get out bed this morning?"

Axolotl's gaze swept over the assembled army that still surrounded him. "You don't have to stick around here, you know," he told them. "This is going to be a very boring meeting and there's much more comfortable places for you to rest from your labours; the bar on the thirty-second floor, for one thing. Frankly, you've earned some R&R."

Amanda eyed him strangely. "What's this about?"

"I'm just saying that you might not want to stick around and listen to two interdimensional entities bargaining over who earned what and why we should part with such-and-such and this and that… it's very boring."

"He's trying to spare you from learning anything too eldritch," Nyarlathotep explained. "He'd rather you didn't learn anything that'd make your fragile sanity snap any further than it already had."

The former suburban mom's placid face turned hard and cold. "Our place is with the Zodiac," she said icily.

There was a rumble of agreement from the surrounding army.

"And we're not going anywhere," said Dipper, a trace of the old determination creeping back into his voice. "No more mysteries, no more hidden deals, no more secrets: either you keep us in the loop or don't bother."

"Quite the spine he's developed, ordering two gods around," chuckled Nyarlathotep. "Unfortunately, I believe Axolotl will probably insist that your human friends should absent themselves for this little stretch of conversation. Unlike you, they're not used to having forbidden truths forced into their brain."

"We're not going anywhere," snapped Amanda. "We've fought with the Zodiac through the worst of this war, and we're not leaving them now – not with whatever craziness you two are up to."

Another concurring murmur from the crowd.

But Nyarlathotep's smile didn't dim in the slightest. "Allow me to put this another way, then," he said. "Every mere mortal in this room, kindly fuck off downstairs."

Amanda opened her mouth, presumably to disagree again, but no sound emerged. Instead, she very slowly bent at the waist, her body forcing itself into an involuntary bowing pose; even from the other side of the ruined throne, Mabel could clearly see that Amanda had no idea why she was doing any of this. And to her amazement, the rest of the army followed suit, everyone from the gnomes to the Multibear bowing to the Outer God; even the cyborgs inclined their heads in reverence.

Then as one, they left, marching out of the room in their thousands and streaming off into the corridors in search of a bar. In their wake, they left the Zodiac and Time Baby, all of whom were scratching their heads and wondering what the hell had just happened.

"I love that trick," said Nyarlathotep, as the thunder of marching feet gradually faded into the distance.

There was a cough from overhead: one of the figures hovering in the air behind Axolotl was shifting impatiently, arms folded in annoyance; once again, Mabel had difficulty seeing through Mr A's overpowering radiance, but she could just about recognize that the distant figure was dressed in a spectacular set of red-and-black robes, and a hat that looked as though it was being worn upside down. "Is that our cue to leave as well?" he inquired. "I believe we were promised an afterparty."

"Not yet," said Axolotl.

"We've been standing here for half an hour doing nothing! At least give us some entertainment."

"Look, you'll have your entertainment in a minute, Q; just stand guard for a moment! Coin, pay attention. Rick, could you not drink on duty? This is important: R'n tlrmt gl mvvw hlnv yzxpfk rm xzhv sv olhvh srh ufxprmt nrmw!"

Nyarlathotep cleared his throat loudly. "I hate to interrupt, but I do believe we were going to talk about something important, yes? Nobody likes a debtor, as you well know."

Axolotl closed his eyes despairingly and turned to face the tiny red-coated figure standing below him once more. "Very well," he announced. "I promised you that I would abide by the terms of our agreement, and my word is my bond: you may ask anything of me, and if it is within my power to accomplish it, I am bound to do so. My powers are yours to command. So, Nyarlathotep… what boon would you ask of me?"

"You know what I want."

"…I'm not sure what you mean."

"Don't get coy with me, Axolotl. I know you've been keeping tabs on my universe for quite a while now, dedicated fan of humanity and all the puny mortal races as you are. You know what's been going on in my neck of the woods, and if you know me as well as I think you do, you know that there's only one thing I could possibly want from you."

Axolotl hesitated, as if bracing himself for the worst. "Yes," he said at last. "I do know what you want."

"Good, good. Glad to see we're both on the same page."

"And that's why I must respectfully decline."

There was a stunned pause: the smile remained frozen on Nyarlathotep's face, but his eyes were now stamped with a look of startled confusion.

"I beg your pardon," he asked flatly.

"Ask any other boon you like, Nyarlathotep, and I will grant it, but I cannot grant that request."

This time, the incredulous smile faded ever so-slightly as the Outer God's vicious good humour slid into full reverse. "Are… are you reneging on the deal? Are you actually trying to refuse my terms?"

"It's not a matter of refusing anything, it's a simple matter of not being able to do it. The terms of our agreement state that I will fulfil any request you put to me, if it is within my power. But what you want is not within my power: it's impossible."

"But-"

"I'm sorry, Nyarlathotep," and here, Axolotl's voice once again seemed genuinely regretful, "but I can't help you. There's nothing that can stop Azathoth from waking up."

Very slowly, the smile vanished altogether.

Then, the Outer God's face contorted with emotion, his features briefly caught in a war between anger, disbelief and confusion; anger won.

"You… you ungrateful little shit!" he exploded. "After all I've done for you – all the help I rendered, all the favours I did for you, and you give me nothing but excuses! I saved your life! Without me, you and your host would be dead, your little parade of proxies would either be dead as well or trapped in their own private nightmares! And what about the Henchmaniacs? Who do you think was the one who ate their souls and kept Bill from bringing them back? Nothing of your victory today would have been possible without me – and this is the thanks I get!"

The figures overhead slowly backed away, weapons at the ready just in case the confrontation turned violent.

But Axolotl was still trying to be diplomatic: "I'm not lying, Nyarlathotep," he intoned calmly. "There is nothing I can do to stop Azazthoth: no matter how much I'd like to help, my hands are tied. None of my powers can deepen his sleep, and if they could, the laws that bind me-"

"Oh, what a load of dingo's kidneys! You're a protector of the multiverse! You know how many trillions of people will die when Azathoth's dream comes to an end! You can't pretend not to care after all the pain you've suffered to save this world! You're duty-bound to save my world as well! It doesn't matter if you don't know if have the power to stop him, you're at least obliged to try!"

"I'm obliged to protect innocent worlds from interdimensional invaders and threats that endanger the rest of the multiverse. Azathoth isn't an invader, and he isn't a threat to anything beyond the boundaries of his dominion. He's not even an anomaly in the composition of his universe: he is the natural state of existence – and that is why I am forbidden from opposing him."

"What?!"

"I'm not allowed to affect aggressive changes to a universe unless it's to save it from unnatural destruction or to preserve all others. And… well, as much as it hurts to say this, Azathoth is outside my jurisdiction and beyond my powers: if I could have stopped him, I'd have done so a very long time ago. So you see, there's nothing I – or anyone else here – can do."

He hesitated, and added, "I'm sorry."

And for once, Nyarlathotep had nothing to say.

In the uneasy pause that followed, Mabel opened her mouth and before she could stop herself, asked "Who's Azathoth?"

Nyarlathotep very slowly turned to face her, and Mabel actually took a step back in alarm at the look of barely-suppressed rage contorting his normally smiling face, and the unearthly light blazing in his eyes with a shade of colour that couldn't be identified.

"He's God in my universe," he snapped bitterly. "God with a capital G. The alpha and the omega. The one from which my dimension was born from and the one to whom it will all return to. My father. The Nuclear Chaos at the heart of the universe. The Demon Sultan. The Blind Idiot God."

He took a deep breath and added, "You'd get along well with him, Mabel; you've got so much in common."

"Hey!"

"So why are you whining about him?" Robbie asked. "Are you afraid he's going to kick your ass once he wakes up?"

Nyarlathotep's left eyelid twitched dangerously. He was smiling now, but there was none of the old mischief in his expression: right then and there, he genuinely looked as if he might bite someone's head off.

"No, Robbie," he said, in a tone of exaggerated calm. "Azathoth isn't going to do anything when he wakes up. As I said, he's the Blind Idiot God: sightless, sub-sapient, all-powerful and asleep since the beginning of time. My universe was spawned entirely from his dreaming subconsciousness, shat out by something that doesn't have the mind to comprehend its own creations… and its continued existence is due entirely to his dreams. In the event that the endless cacophony of the drummer and the flutist isn't enough to keep him lulled, Azathoth will wake… and my universe will end."

Silence.

"All of it. Every human, every Deep One, every Shoggoth, every Mi-Go, every Elder Thing, every Great Old One, every planet, every star, every god… gone. Just like that, including yours truly. My entire universe will be swept out of existence by the awakening of Azathoth, and all that will remain will be emptiness and him, staring blindly out at the void."

His mirthless smile broadened. "And you know what'll happen next? Oh, you'll laugh at this one, believe me. Having obliterated trillions upon trillions of lives without really trying, daddy dearest will yawn, roll over and go right back to sleep. And then…"

A stark, sanity-starved giggle slipped past his lips.

"And then he'll dream again, and another universe will be born from the festering crucible of his empty brainpan, complete with the Outer Gods he's so idiotically attached to. Every single one of us will return to corporeal existence and slide neatly back into our familiar roles, retaining all of the memories from our past iterations. That's the way it goes – that's the way it's always gone, to the point that I've lost count of how many times it's happened.

"I get to go on living… but the human race as I knew it doesn't. The universe will be effectively reset to factory settings, and it'll take every civilization worthy of the name with it."

"And your masterpiece will be gone as well," Mabel realized aloud.

"Full marks."

"Then everything you've done here was for nothing? This whole scheme of yours was a waste of time?"

Another furious twitch of the eyelid. "Evidently yes."

In spite of herself, Mabel couldn't help but smirk. "So, when you get right down to it, you're on the same level as us."

"Oh cute, Mabel, very cute. But you're right: the most important goal of my quest was in vain. The society I worked so hard to build will be gone with the rest of humanity, and I'll never be able to get it exactly the way it was the last time even if humanity evolves the same way it did! The one thing in my world that I could rely on for amusement, the one thing in my life I was always absolutely satisfied with will be gone forever."

"Cry me a river," Dipper spat, his voice involuntarily dropping several octaves.

"You really did learn a lot from Shifty, didn't you?" hissed Nyarlathotep. "No 'my god, all the people that will be killed!' No 'so many people have died, how horrible!' Just 'cry me a river.' Your parents would be so proud of you, Little Shoggoth."

Dipper's face instantly shifted and warped with rage, his flesh rippling like water as his body began twisting itself out of shape. "I'm warning you," he growled, "Call me that name one more time or mention my parents ever again and I'll-"

"You'll what, child? What could you do, even with your powers? I can't die! Even if you could somehow kill every last one of my avatars and scorch every last trace of me from reality, I'd still be reborn from Azathoth's dreams – and nothing can kill him! Believe me, Little Shoggoth, there's nothing you can do that could make my day worse than it already is. My one opportunity to break the cycle and live free of the Idiot God's restrictions was all for nothing! I am officially trapped in an endless cycle of creation and destruction, building something I cherish only to see it wrecked by a RETARD!"

He took a slightly deeper breath. "But I don't need to tell you about that. You'll be enjoying your own little slice of eternity soon enough. You'll probably be bitching endlessly about it, too, just like Ten up there."

"Hey!"

"Ah, go jack off into a blonde wig and cry about it, you self-important cocksucker! Give yourself a nice long wank about the 'curse of the Time Lords' while you're at it if you're not too busy totalling your favourite planet and apologising like you've pulled out too early and ruined the sheets again."

Sporadic laughter echoed from above, accompanied by loud, drunken belches. Eventually, a Scottish-accented voice muttered, "I hate to admit it, but he's got you dead to rights, Ten."

There was a very tense hiatus, as Nyarlathotep tried visibly to regain his composure. And then, after ten nerve-wracking seconds, Soos said the worst thing he could have possibly said under the circumstances:

"Dude, maybe it's better that you found that out now rather than later. Sometimes you just gotta rip off the band-aid, y'know?"

Nyarlathotep's face froze.

"Rip… off… the band-aid?" he said quietly.

His eyes glowed that same indefinable colour again, a sickly variant on purple, green and mercury that made Mabel's skin crawl. Then, in a haze of eye-searing colour and boiling darkness, Nyarlathotep's body erupted, exploding upwards into a colossal waterspout of energy and hate. The coat, the suit, the swarthy human shape and the sharply-handsome features instantly dissolved into a flurry of bubbling kaleidoscopic flesh cascading through the sky, forming itself into a swirling tornado perhaps a hundred feet tall and twenty feet across; across its multi-coloured surface, a hundred thousand writhing limbs lashed blindly out at the world in an impossible array of hands, claws, talons, tentacles, pincers and pedipalps; a hundred thousand eyes formed to stare accusingly out at the Zodiac, every multi-hued iris ablaze with hate and madness; a hundred thousand mouths opened wide to reveal their multifarious teeth, fangs, tusks, mandibles, and pharyngeal jaws, and screamed with a hundred thousand voices.

And for a split-second, Mabel saw Nyarlathotep in the midst of the chaos, impossibly tall and impossibly thin, his body horrifically naked, his face a mask of oozing, featureless flesh. Around his neck, he wore a glowing transparent collar, and connected to it was a luminescent spectral chain leading off into infinity – ready to draw him back at a moment's notice.

And through it all, Nyarlathotep was screaming in rage:

"ZOO ULI MLGSRMT ZOO ULI MLGSRMT ZOO ULI MLGSRMT ZOO ULI MLGSRMT ZOO ULI MLGSRMT R DROO MLG YV FMWLMV R SZEV YVVM NLIV GSZM YROO VEVI XLFOW SZEV YVVM R ZMW R ZOLMV DZH EROV YFG ZOO ULI MLGSRMT!"

Then, just as quickly as it had erupted, the maelstrom faded away, instantly absorbed back into the Outer God's body. In a split-second, the chain was gone: he was fully-clothed and outwardly human again, his crimson coat immaculate, his smile gleaming and seemingly genuine.

"Apologies," he said smoothly. "I just needed to vent a little."

He sucked in an improbably deep breath, held it for a moment, and then exhaled in one almighty sigh. "Oh well," he said at last. "So daddy's waking up. A little bit disappointing, but things could be worse. All things considered, there's much to be thankful for. After all, I came here to have fun, kill a threat to my world and stop Azathoth from awakening; two out of three's not bad."

"You're not angry?" Axolotl asked, hesitantly.

The Outer God's left eyelid twitched ever-so-slightly, but otherwise, his face remained perfectly tranquil.

"Why should I be?" he asked. "I have plenty of time left on the clock to celebrate my masterpiece while it still exists. I'll be sad to see it go… but then, as I've heard it said many times, a thing isn't beautiful because it lasts."

"Oh, come on!" Dipper snapped. "Do you actually expect us to think that you're okay with this all of a sudden? After the temper tantrum you just threw?"

Nyarlathotep laughed and patted him good-naturedly on the shoulder. "Oh, Dipper," he sighed, his smile undimming. "It's absolutely adorable that you believe that I'd actually care what you think… but the fact is, I don't."

He clapped his hands briskly. "Besides, there's plenty of things here to put a smile back on my face. Yes, I'd say we've all got a great deal to be thankful for."

"Thankful?" Wendy demanded. "Thankful? What about the fact that we lost a few hundred people just getting this far?"

"And that the world's never going back to the way it was?" said Mabel.

"And that we'll never get back to normal ever again?" said Dipper.

Nyarlathotep clicked his tongue disapprovingly. "So many Negative Nancys around these days. So much fuss about a paltry handful of lives being snuffed out compared to the trillions that will die when Azathoth awakens. You have to take a philosophical view of these things, Wendy: better to die free than live in slavery – and hope that the afterlife doesn't involve slavery, too." He offered a malignant-looking grin.

"You-"

"And the tears you're shedding over your lost normality! Seriously, after all the time you people spent in Gravity Falls, you're that attached to the idea of being 'normal?' Picket fences and lawnmowers were never your lot in life. Even in the most mundane iterations of history across the multiverse, you all ended up becoming something greater and stranger than you could have imagined. This version of the story's just been a bit more extreme than most: Bill's gifts and curses, the magic of the Wheel, the runaway entropy of Weirdness, all of that has combined to make you into gods."

He allowed them a moment or so to digest this.

"And it's still early days, boys and girls: your powers will never stop growing as long as you still live, and thanks to Bill's tampering with your biological processes, your rise to power will be theoretically infinite. This world can be whatever you want it to be, its people-"

There was a loud cough from Axolotl. "That's enough, Nyarlathotep."

"I'm just saying-"

"That's enough," boomed the salamander-god, and Mabel couldn't help but shudder at the power in his voice. "Learn to read an audience, friend; they're not interested in your sales pitch. I said that I would fix this universe to the best of my ability, and I meant it: from now on, the Zodiac are to be allowed their rest. Is that clear?"

Nyarlathotep's smile refused to dim. "Perfectly."

"Good. Now, did you have any other boon you wanted to ask of me? I said I could offer you anything other than Azathoth's continued slumber, and I meant it."

The Outer God hesitated. "Anything?" he asked, a teasing edge to his voice.

"If it is within my power."

"Then I have only one request as a reward for all my hard work." The smile on Nyarlathotep's face was pure poison. "Whatever I do next, I want your solemn oath that I'll be left to my own devices: no requests for favours, investigations, and no attempts to meddle in my affairs. We will never see each other ever again."

Axolotl gave him a dubious look. "And if your affairs become a threat to my interests?"

"Then you'll just have to make use of proxies and allies, won't you? You have plenty of them, yes? Besides, I'd like to be left alone, Axolotl: I need some serious time to consider my next move, and for that I need a little me time, preferably uninterrupted by suspicious multiversal boy scouts. That's not too much to ask, is it?"

For perhaps fifteen seconds, the salamander-god mulled this over in silence.

"I could always just say you owe me one," said Nyarlathotep cheerily. "That way, I could have your debt hanging over you like the Sword of Damocles for as long as I so desire it, just waiting to spring it on you at the most inopportune moment… unless of course, you feel like settling the matter here and now."

"Very well," Axolotl sighed. "I will not interfere in your business, no matter the circumstances… on one condition."

Nyarlathotep looked on the verge of laughter. "And that is?"

"That whatever you do next, the Zodiac play no part in it: you make no move to recruit them into your schemes. They've suffered enough as a result of this debacle, and I don't want them hurt any more than they already have been."

"…done."

"I want your word, Nyarlathotep."

The Outer God's left eyebrow rose in amusement. For a moment, Mabel thought he might refuse, but then he chuckled bemusedly to himself.

"I, Nyarlathotep, Black Pharaoh and spawn of Azathoth, solemnly swear that I shall not recruit the Zodiac nor force them to be a part of my designs," he proclaimed. "All that they do from now on, they do of their own free will."

"Then we are agreed."

For a moment, an unearthly light blossomed above the heads of both Axolotl and Nyarlathotep, before fading back into the eerie light of the Fearamid. Mabel had even less experience in the ways of eldritch things from between dimensions than she did with being a god, but this presumably meant that the two beings had signed a treaty.

"Well, I think we've managed to resolve this situation amicably," said Nyarlathotep. He glanced upwards at the figures hovering in the glowing sky. "I believe it's time for your afterparty now, ladies and gentlemen."

There was a roar of triumph from overhead, and the gaggle of figures instantly dispersed, flying, floating, teleporting or simply walking off in pursuit of the Fearamid's nearest bar. As one of them flew past on a pair of rocket-propelled boots, he shouted something in Grunkle Ford's direction – "So much for the big yellow triangle, Ford! See ya downstairs – I'll have some good weed waiting!" – before rocketing onwards.

"Sv gsrmph sv'h tlrmt gl tvg gl tolzg dsvm mvcg dv nvvg," Grunkle Ford sighed. "Klli yzhgziw."

In a matter of seconds, the sky was empty again, leaving only Axolotl hovering there.

"Well, I suppose I'd best leave them to it," said Nyarlathotep, brushing imaginary dust from his hands. "They'll be busy looking for fun for the next few days, and alas, I've got a lot of work to do before I can rest on my laurels." He smiled and bowed semi-mockingly to the Zodiac. "Thank you all for your time and trouble. It's been emotional."

But as he turned to leave, Axolotl called out, "Wait a moment! Answer me one final question before you go, and do so honestly: what are you going to do about Azathoth? You can't fool me, Nyarlathotep, I know you're not happy with any of this. So, what are you going to do now?"

"I'm glad you asked, Axy old pal, because I have the most concise answer in the multiverse for you right here…"

He turned, and…

Sometimes, simple descriptions couldn't do a moment justice, Mabel reflected. It would have been easy to just say "Nyarlathotep was smiling," but frankly, this wouldn't have encapsulated the grin that the Outer God wore as he turned to face Axolotl one final time. This was a smile that would have made the Cheshire Cat fade away in defeat, a smile to freeze blood in the veins, a smile that would have scuppered a thousand ships and made their crews dive overboard in terror. This was a smile that a human face couldn't hope to imitate – for its owner wasn't even pretending to be human any longer.

This lipless grin stretched from the edge of Nyarlathotep's nostrils to the tip of his chin and spanned quite literally from ear to ear; hundreds of razor-sharp teeth as long as steak knives jutted from glistening black gums, and from behind the lethal portcullis of the jaws, a hideous infernal light blazed. Above the smile, skin like volcanic rock formed a mocking facsimile of a human face, exhibiting all the usual facial features except for eyes. And was that a crown atop his head, or were those tentacles? Was that a scarlet halo behind his head, or was that a dying star?

The Black Pharaoh grinned monstrously, his face an eyeless death's head for five terrible seconds.

"I WILL FIND ANOTHER WAY," he said.

Then he was gone.

In his wake, he left a tiny scrap of parchment no bigger than a playing card. Bracing himself for the worst, Gideon gingerly picked it up and began reading aloud.

"PS: just thought I'd take Soos's advice to heart," he recited. "I know some of you have been dreading seeing your families again, wondering what they'll think of you or what you'll say to them. Well, wonder no more! It's time to face reality, starting with our Mystery Twins! No more rehearsals, no more procrastination, no more silent worrying sessions: it's time to rip that band-aid off and say hello to your parents! Let's hope they like the new you, Little Shoggoth!"

Gideon swallowed hard, and added, "TTFN, Nyarlathotep."

There was a horrified pause.

Then, just as Mabel was starting to wonder if this was all a bluff, there was a flash of light, and portal began to form – a portal that could only lead straight to the Cookie Jar.

And as Dipper shapeshifted wildly in a blind panic and Mabel tried to freeze the portal in time (only to be undone by her own panic), as Pacifica tried and failed to force the portal shut and the rest of the Zodiac floundered in confusion…

…two familiar silhouettes appeared on the other side of the portal and began the long, tentative march to freedom.

A/N: The soundtrack choice for this chapter is The Master Vainglorious by Murray Gold. Hope you enjoy it!

Up next...

Gsv mrtsgnziv'h levi zmw Yroo rh wlmv
Zg ozhg rg'h grnv gl uzxv gsv hfm
Zmw mld gsv svilvh lu gsv dsvvo
Droo hvv sld dvoo gsvri dlfmwh xzm svzo