Dog Days
(Tuesday, August 3, 2016)
15: Ex Machina
"He's still breathing!" Mabel said. Tripper's ribs heaved as he gasped, his mouth gaping, his tongue licking his lips, the air wheezing in and out of his lungs. Just to the right of his spine, high on his side, a bloody wound showed, dark red already clotting on the pale brown fur.
"Take care of her!" Wendy yelled to Dipper. "Gimme your guns!"
Dipper handed over both destabilizer pistols. Wendy whirled, arched her back, and with a pistol in each hand began to fire at the mob of monsters swarming inside the containment globe. She was new to this, and out of six shots, only one connected, but it obliterated the thing with eighty-odd faces.
Her aim improved. When the purple globby thing tried to burrow out again, Wendy ran to the spot, aimed nearly straight down at point-blank range, zapped it four times, and it exploded into oily, streaking purple vapor. Nothing else tried the underground route.
Dipper thought, We can't hold them off long. And clearly, what Ford was leading amounted only to a desperate holding action. The humans were terribly outnumbered, and unless a destabilizer ray hit a monster directly in some vital area, it reassembled itself and came back to the attack. The containment field buzzed and energies snapped along its surface as its strength was tested by the monstrosities desperately trying to get to the Pineses and Wendy.
The defenders realized the same thing. "They're gainin' on us!" Stan yelled.
"Keep firing, Stanley!" Ford replied. "Kids, you and the dog get back! Get out of our line of fire!"
Dipper picked up Tripper, who whimpered, and he and Mabel, stooping forward, retreated to behind Ford. Stanford stood facing the effigy head-on; if he'd stationed himself at twelve o'clock, Wendy was off to his left at two, Stan to his right at ten.
"They're bunchin' up behind the statue!" Stan said. "I'm gonna go partway to the back. Don't shoot me!"
Ford nodded and yelled, "Wendy! You, too, but just get where you can cover both front and back, and both of you stay aware of the other! The destabilizer's just as deadly against us as against interdimensional beings! Be careful!"
So Wendy moved to nearly three o'clock on the imaginary time piece, Stan to nine. They kept up a steady fire, and for a moment the move seemed to make a difference: some of the monsters, evidently frightened at being shot at from the new angles, retreated. But more poured out to take their places.
The battle might have gone either way. For long seconds the forces seemed roughly balanced—though the containment field was still slowly filling, Ford, Stan, and Wendy were shooting down the foes nearly as fast as they appeared.
But among the monsters, the big guns were starting to show. Keyhole became briefly visible, and 8-Ball, though they managed to evade the destabilizer beams and ducked back through the rift when the firing got heavy again.
Ford said between clenched teeth, "At this rate of fire, we'll exhaust the energy supply in just a few minutes. I'm gonna recharge the rifle now. Then you, Stan, do your pistol. Then give it to Wendy—she's a better shot, anyway—and take one of hers to charge, then give that one back and recharge the last one. And don't argue!"
"Sounds like a plan to me!" a sweating Stan yelled. "Do it, Sixer!"
Dipper felt torn between comforting Mabel and the suffering dog and returning to the counterattack. He didn't think Tripper would make it—he had the look of death on him, foam at the mouth, rolling eyes, jerking legs, obviously starved for oxygen. But how could he tell Mabel that?
He put his hand on her back and felt her sobs as she cradled the groaning dog, murmuring to him wordlessly. Tripper tried to lick her hand, and his tail thumped weakly, even then.
"Hey, Mabel," came a taunting female voice from the energy field. "We killed your dog!"
It was Pyronica, who was proving the hardest target. She was fast, she was tricky, and she dodged as if some instinct took her out of range of a ray nanoseconds before it arrived. Laughing like a deranged thing, the flaming female monster swooped back, hiding in the crowd of monsters, and none of the shooters got a chance even to aim at her.
Wordlessly, Mabel jumped up and ran for the effigy. Dipper didn't even realize for a moment what had happened, and then cold fear clutched him. "No, Mabel!"
"Where are you?" Mabel screamed, running around the perimeter. "Show yourself, you flaming bitch!"
"Stop firing! Cease fire! You'll hit Mabel!" Ford shouted.
Mabel ran all the way around the pulsating field, and when Pyronica swooped past again, Mabel tried to punch her out. Her fist went through the field—
And Pyronica seized it. "Got her!" she screamed.
Stan dived forward and hooked his arm around Mabel's waist. "Not on my watch!" he yelled, hauling her back from the crackling, fizzing energy field.
He pulled Mabel back, but she dragged Pyronica with her. The interdimensional creature's gloved arm, its clawed hand seized to Mabel's wrist, sizzled through the barrier but did not let go.
"She wants you to pull her out!" Dipper yelled. "Wendy, get your gun and—"
Tripper jerked and, with a strength Dipper could not believe he sill had, rolled to his feet and ran to Mabel and launched himself. With his last strength, he locked his jaws on Pyronica's wrist and chomped down hard.
Pyronica shrieked and let go of Mabel. Tripper fell to the grass as Mabel tumbled backward. Only Pyronica's fingers were still through the field, trying to rip it open.
Mabel and Tripper rolled over the grass, and Stan snatched them both up.
"Oh, no!" Ford said. "The field—it's fading!"
Fading, nothing. Like a soap bubble pierced by a pin, the containment field vanished.
And Bill's minions screamed in triumph as they exploded into the reality of Gravity Falls.
Dipper covered Mabel with his body. She was moaning, "It hurts, Dipper!"
Beside her, Tripper did not appear to be breathing. The fur around his mouth had been frizzled away as though by heat.
One of the creatures, he didn't know which, struck him from behind, a hard blow to the back of his head that knocked his cap off and exploded inside his head in a yellow flash of pain.
Then everything turned purple for a moment, and then it all looked hazy and the sounds came from far away.
But he heard a familiar voice from inside himself: Bill's.
"Hang on, kid! The cavalry's on the way! I hope the Sheaffer kid lives through this!"
"Help Mabel," Dipper mumbled, fighting not to pass out.
Long after it was all over, Dipper was not really sure if he had hallucinated a lot of what happened next.
He heard the terrifying laugh—"Ah-hah-hah-hah-hah! It's show time! Hiya, guys and gals. NOW COOL IT!"
Bill Cipher, man-sized, floated ten feet above Wendy, Stan, and Ford, who had hunkered down for a last stand.
The swarm of monsters froze in mid-air or mid-stride, gaping at Bill.
Then they cheered like, well, maniacs.
"You're back!" screeched Pyronica.
"Yeah, I'm back, baby!" Bill said, twirling his cane. "And by the way, I've changed my plans. Hey, 8-Ball, you're lookin' good."
"Thank you?" rasped the monster with billiard balls for eyes.
"Yeah, only I don't think I want to see you anymore, though," Bill said, and he snapped his fingers.
The monster 8-Ball fell apart. Crumbled into an organic mess. Bill aimed his finger. "Pyronica, honey, you're next. Unless you and all the other henchmaniacs are ready to make a dee-al!"
"You wouldn't!" Pyronica yelled.
"Let's clean this up." He shot another bolt, and the metal cage around the Cipher effigy vanished. The golden patina disappeared, too, and the half-rebuilt arm suddenly was whole, except it was all made of ordinary stone, not of gold or gold-plated stone. "And in a minute I'll zip up that nasty rift. And you guys, you gotta go. Hard feelings all around, whattaya say?"
"Why are you doing this?" Pyronica screamed, clenching her fists.
"'Cause I've come to the rescue! I'm a me-us ex machina! Listen, seriously, I've turned over a leaf, guys. It's been fun playing with you, but play time's over. Now you're going back to your own dimensions."
"You can't do that!" yelped Pacifier.
"Watch me, Ace. Your choice, guys. Your own dimensions or the Nightmare Realm. I'll give you to three to decide. One—two—" he snapped his fingers. "Just kidding. To your own dimensions!"
They popped out of existence, all at the same time.
Immediately, Bill settled to the ground, drooping. He leaned on his cane, visibly trembling. "Man, I m getting too human for this crap." He snapped his fingers again. "There, the rift is gone now. Sixer, you OK?"
"Bill Cipher," Ford said, aiming his destabilizer. "I don't know how you survived, but I've got you covered!"
"Nah, nah, I'm not really here," Bill said, and indeed he was flickering. "This is just a manifestation. Like in the Mindscape, no physical form. Sixer, come on, don't taze me, bro, I'm existing off the energy of a little boy six hundred miles away! Keep me here another five minutes, he'll never wake up! I'm really trying to do you a favor here—"
"Bill!" Mabel wailed. "Help him." She held up Tripper. The dog was no longer breathing.
Bill did that thing of turning himself inside-out so he was facing her. For Cipher, his voice became strangely soft: "Aw, Shooting Star! I'm sorry, kid, I really am. I think he's gone."
Dipper put his arm around his sister and rested his other hand on the dog's limp head. "Bill! Come on, man. One time you saved my life when I was gone. Please. I know you can do it."
The point of the triangle drooped and—did the one eye gleam with an unshed tear? Nah, probably not, this is Bill Cipher here. "Pine Tree, kid—don't ask for that, please. I want to do the right thing, but trying to do this means putting my final chance at risk—"
"Don't want to do it," Wendy said from behind him, aiming both her pistols. "Just do it."
"Oh, crap," Bill said. He sighed. "Red, you're one tough gal. If I'd had you on my side—oh, well. Stand back, everybody but Shooting Star and Pine Tree. I don't know if I got enough left for this. Gonna have to draw a little on both of you kids for energy, and it may sting. I only hope Billy can hold on for another two minutes."
He took a deep breath and closed his eye.