Night came, and so did snow. Trees stood silent, their crowns covered in white. Wendy walked carefully, her breath deep and heavy, as she carried her ax with strange ease. Suddenly, she stopped, paused, and ran through the woods. Soon, she came upon a scene: a woman was struggling with a hooded man. With a scream, the woman fell, and Wendy saw her face.
"MOM!" She shouted, the hooded man took notice, his face was not apparent by the hood and the night so she couldn't tell who it was but was sure it was Dehak the murderer of her mother, no wonder why she felt nostalgic.
"GET BACK AND FIGHT ME, YOU RAT BASTARD!" She raged as she followed who she thought was Dehak who was running away. While he followed him, she saw corpses.
Dead bodies were on the snow all familiar; Robbie, Tambry, Nate, Lee, Thompson, Manly Dan, Marcus-
"Nope! Don't look! Don't look! It's not real!" She told herself, moving her gaze away to keep her sanity intact. She chose to throw her ax which hit the target from the back causing him to fall on the ground.
When she reached it, she moved the target away and then-
"What!?"
She incredulously looked at the hood which she unraveled and there was no face, in fact, there was nobody at all as if he just disappeared from thin air.
"WENDY!" She heard two people calling her at the same moment, and when she gazed back she saw two Dippers both accusing each other and both seemed roughed up and injured.
"He's the shapeshifter!"
"No, he's the shapeshifter!"
She had no way to say who so she took the ax and demanded "If any of you is the real Dipper, give me a sign!"
One of the Dippers gave the zipping sign, the sign that both used and the same sign Dipper managed to identify who was the real Wendy during the Bunker exploration during the first summer; subsequently, she swung her ax to the other Dipper and gushed it through his stomach.
Wendy's blood turned ice as blood gushed from the target and it was not the green blood which pumps inside the insidious Shapeshifter, it was red; she just killed the boy who loved her with all his heart and her confidant, her friend, her partner in crime. She held him and tore off his shirt and then tried to use it as a bandage by pushing it on the wound on his stomach to stop the bleeding as the cloth began to drench.
"I'm sorry! Don't die!" She began sobbing and begging. If her walls had broken before during these past few days, her walls were now completely demolished as guilt was a stronger explosive than rage or trauma on her dam. She had been the cool one for so long and yet, she could no longer be.
"Did…could…y-you ever love me-me-e?" He desperately uttered as she looked at him seeing desperation, she adored him as a friend but rejected his advance during the first summer and she thought her decision was resolute until now; Dipper was no longer the sweaty kid who overthought things, he had become a confident, compassionate and courageous person who faces horror bravely, who did not tolerate his friends and family being threatened, who helped her out when she was down just as she used to help him out when he was down before. Manly men were a dime a dozen, Honorable men were not common, was a 2.5-year gap really a significant difference? Her own mother was 5 years younger than her own father when they married so it is not like the 2.5-year age gap would even be noticeable in the future, as she was thinking the body she held began to slack away.
"No NO! WAKE UP! YOUR FAMILY NEEDS YOU! YOUR FRIENDS NEED YOU!"- his eyes were lifeless, not moving. -"I need you…" she sobbed more as her head shook down gradually, not being able to look at his lifeless eyes anymore. Dipper was the only friend she could unconditionally rely on, not even her childhood friends from Gravity Falls such as Tambry she did not open her heart to completely. Was it friendship? love? She did not know, she was too busy grieving.
" Too bad you didn't say that before he died." A gravelly voice said mockingly, it was familiar and unfamiliar at the same time. She looked up and saw something unholy and abominable, and she was petrified in terror as the thing's shadow fell on her.
Mabel was now in the middle of a war all of its participles were frozen in time despite the sound and roars of battle, a war likes of which the world had forgotten: Men of the Night with weapons and armors that were alive who hunted when the day was over, Men of Iron who traded their bodies with the purity of metal to change their nature, Men that demanded blood and sacrifice for their dark patrons, Men of Flesh who embraced their nature, colossal bristling machines with destructive weapons, giant abominable beings of flesh that devoured, floating castles and cities firing their weapons at each other, beings that manipulated magic like it was like breathing to them, alien vessels from other worlds, beings not belong to this world from countless worlds each more alien than the other.
At the top of the sky were godlike beings from above incomprehensibly tremendous that blocked the stars staring at the battle, a fleshy abomination looking in hunger, a being of machinery looking with a calculated glance, two Serpents of endless length one bringer of knowledge and the other its eater, a burning sun with a pentagram of alien runes on it, a deer with a human-looking face with orbs floating around his head like planets around a solar system, a deformed humanoid dog-headed entity with aztec aesthetics, a being of living fire burning constantly, the Crimson King that she saw on his throne gazing at her before and many beings of unimaginable powers-
"WHAD UP SHOOTING STAR!"
It was Bill Cipher himself in front of her looking at her straight on from his towering form, his right hand in motion of a gun gleamed with blue energy and shot her with a blinding light before she could yelp.
When the light of the blast was over, she was now on a weightless floating piece of metal and around her were debris and corpses of dead worlds in a necro space all around; everything was dead and cold, lives turned to dust, buildings fossilized, bones of once mighty vessels, worlds had rib cages, cities were skulls. This was the place where dreams die, the forgotten past coming with vengeance to the promises of the future, where nihilism was the only reality. All hopes here, their murder happened.
As she was sinking the dread around her, a crimson light behind her shone from a cave made of bones of many civilizations with the sound of a howl that would put the very definition of the word howl in shame.
Howl
Howl
HOWL!
The howls got louder so as the accursed red light which prompted her to try to run; however, no matter how many steps she sprinted seemed to have no effect like the whole reality was conspiring against her from moving away, the howls got louder and the blighted red light brighter till she screamed and put her arms around her face in defense as the light devoured her as she screamed. Shooting stars burn bright and yet, all are doomed to fall as meteorites.
Head dizzy, visions blurry, feeling wet dirt on their faces, slowly as everything became clear; Dipper got up from the floor and saw that he was on the floor of some abandoned factory with machinery eating dust and spider webs on some of them still holding the 7 pointed orange crystal whereas the silvery spear was on the ground near his feet. He was not the only one as he soon gathered as Miller and Leora got up, the latter groaning.
"Ugh, this is why I hate nap times," Lightfoot mumbled lethargically.- "Uh, Where are we?"
"Does this sound familiar?" Dipper pointed at a sign at an abandoned office up the stairs that said 'Acroamatic Abatement Center'.
"Some abandoned acroamatic abatement center, it is a recycling facility where anomalous wastes are recycled, though this place seems abandoned."- Miller answered him, -" Hold on, I remember some sort of light enveloping me." the Friendly Neighborhood Keter recalled.
"That happened to me too and I'm pretty sure my photonic powers can't teleport people." the female photonic anahuman added in.
"I think this was the cause." Mason showed them the jewel which glowed with a golden hue.-" I will explain later, We have to find Mabel and Wendy."
Chirp
Chirp
They heard chirping noises "Over there!" Leora pointed to the source of the chirping and as they moved, they saw Eir chirping near the unconscious bodies of Wendy, Mabel and Meri near a broken mechanical arm.
"Antlers is here too," Leora commented on SCP-166 who then groaned and started to stand up on her shaky legs with a hand on the broken machine for support and another on her head, Leora in response created a photonic blade on her right writs fearing she was still on the eldritch mood she and everyone saw, but to her and everyone's surprise she had her previous head before she was beheaded.
"Ughhh….what? What happened? Where am I?" 166 spoke in confusion.
"You lost your head and went full anime dude, it was scary," Lightfoot informed her flatly.
"Right…that checks," Meri stated as she nuzzled her head and then tried to hold her cross necklace around her neck which to her dismay was no longer there.
"What were you doing there Meri?" The Pines boy inquired in puzzlement.
"I could ask you the same thing." She replied in puzzlement as well.
"You two know each other?" Leora gave an eyebrow.
"Me and my sister met- my sister!" He slapped himself.
Mason, Rainer and Leora went to check on Wendy and Mabel; alarmingly, Mabel's breathing seemed to be erratic while Wendy had black vines visible from her neck.
"What happened to them?" Meridiana questioned.
"She…Mabel put herself over the ritual's blast." Dipper regretfully informed, feeling that it should have been him to make the sacrifice, not her sibling.
"Let's hope she and Wen won't stay like this for long." The portal boy hoped.
Then with no warming, when the photonic manipulator took a closer look at Mabel, her eye opened with bloody veins around her and shouted with a crazed look "LONGER THAN YOU THINK!" She grabbed Leora by the shoulder who screamed and gave a photonic push to push her away from her, Afterwards Mabel began to rave like a mental asylum with a demented grin "Longer than you think!" She cackled giving a glance to her brother who was mortified seeing his twin looking with deranged bloody eyes "I saw! I saw! The Howling King! I saw! I saw! The Sanguine Twilight! I saw! I saw! Defiled hopes! I saw! I saw! The murder of dreams!'' She raved and raved while jumping up and down like a rabid monkey whilst her hair began white as she hit her head repeatedly with loud bonks at a wall quickly with no mind for the blood that was coming from her head due to how constantly she was hitting her head with no restrain.
Mason didn't notice what other things her twin sister said because by then he was screaming, and so did Miller and Leora.
It was a good thing that Miller reacts fast with the parahuman boy held the unhinged Pines from behind with both arms locked around her shoulder, then she bit him from his left hand making him yelp in pain and got freed from her, afterwards Meri contained the deranged Mabel by commanding the earth to cocoon her all around but her head to breath because to everyone's horror Mabel was after getting herself free off Miller was then trying to tear her own eyes after seeing the unforeseeable. Even inside the cocoon of dirt and concrete from the floor of the factory, she was madly struggling to do self-harm with her teeth grinding like a rabid dog.
"What happened to her!?" Dipper cried out in distraught.
SCP-7044 landed close to the contained Pines and tried to use her empathetic abilities to heal her madness; however, she then fearfully chirped and flew away with her wings flapping erratically.
Chirp!
Chirp!
The anomalous bird felt something primal that scared her, a feeling of dread that overwhelmed her, this never happened to the previous times when she was therapy to anyone before.
"I can understand her, she said she felt an immense presence inside her psyche." 166 translated her frantic chirping, She then leaned a hand toward Mabel to get a read on her using her abilities and then staggered a bit as blood dripped from every orifice of her whilst she cried out in pain.
"What is it!?" Miller was alerted by it.
she after composing herself and wiping the blood from her eyes in a trembled voice "I…it's the Scarlet King, he has his claws on her!"
"AGH! GAAAH! MAKE IT STOP!" Mabel shook violently.
The reaction of the rest of the group now was grime and in case of Dipper anguish.
"If only we had an Automated Exorcist Machine…" SCP-4818 muttered.
"Even with that, it needs a very precise thaumaturge to operate it, I'm only skilled to heal physical injuries not removing corruption and psychological ones and due to the nature of my power it doesn't mesh well with technology." SCP-166 sight.
"Besides, it was made to exorcist Ectoplasm and Tartarean entities, not some interdimensional eldritch hyper-evil god." SCP-4051 added.
Mason would have been curious to learn about paratech if it were not for seeing his sister bellowing like a mental asylum patient. Her mind quickly worked overload before he got an idea and moved with the crystal in her hand.
"What are you doing?" Rainer questioned.
"The crystal in my hand is SCP-999, it may be able to help her!"
"Triple 9 turned into a crystal??" Lightfoot had many questions.
"No time for an answer!" The Pines then moved
"IF-...If you cared….you would-ve-veee let me die!" Mabel condemned.
That's stinged; nonetheless, the Pines boy gradually near the 7-pointed crystal which then began to grow crystalized tendrils which then snatched itself to Mabel's right chin. After this, she stopped her lashing and seemed to calm down.
"You're alright?" She moved her hand in front of her face and even snapped his fingers and yet no reaction, her eyes dilated and frozen like she was in a trance. "Mabel? MABEL!" 166 put her hand on his shoulder.
"She's in a battle of the inside, Believe me, I don't like it as much as you but all we can do now and wait and hope…hope the Tickle Monster wins," she told him softly.
"GAH!" They heard the cries of agony and rushed toward seeing Wendy's body shaking left and right in pain.
"Wendy? Wendy!" Dipper shook her a bit.
"AAARGH!" another wail of pain.
"She's heating!" 4818 who checked her temperature stated.
Seeing the black reins spreading from her neck did not alleviate their worries at all.
Eir began trying to use her powers on her; nonetheless, to her confusion, she could not get a read as she chirped utterly confused and frustrated.
"She said she can't sense her like she is masked." The humanoid with antlers translated.
"THEN WHAT GOOD ARE YOU?!" Dipper snapped in frustration at her which he immediately began to regret, seeing Eir dejected and her head fell, feeling depressed and ashamed that she couldn't save either Wendy and Mabel only made it worse.
"Easy dude, lashing out won't make Wendy's situation any better." The SCP boy calmed him down.
"There may be a way…but it's very risky." the daughter of a pagan goddess
"I don't care! Tell us!" Dipper
"I may be able to create a bridge to her mindscape to find the root of the corruption, but we don't even know for sure what is the cause. It could be dangerous."
"I am willing to take the chance," he said with no hesitation.
"If you go, we will come, more minds is better than one." The SCP boy agreed, to which Mason gave a grateful nod.
"I won't be able to aid you, I have to maintain the link while you are there, Eir you stay out and monitor their vitals using your empathic ability." the thaumaturge SCP told the anomalous bird.
Eir with a chirped acknowledged, no intention to fail this time.
The deer humanoid then sat on the floor cross-legged, by her guide others did the same and circled Wendy.
"lla su stcennoc efil fo eert eht ,sdnim gnigdirb ,slieV nekorB. lla su stcennoc efil fo eert eht ,sdnim gnigdirb ,slieV nekorB!"
Meri's eyes began to illuminate green as she chanted, after this plant vines with leaves began to grow coming from small cracks in the floor which began to touch and rotate around each of them one by one till they reached 166 after which it then rotated around Wendy by then the eyes of Meridiane were glowing so green that her pupils were no longer visible as everyone waiting in anticipation.
" THGIRRB SENIHS TAHT NOGARAP EHT ERAWEB ,EDILLOC SERAMTHGIN DNA SMAERD NEHW!"
The plants connect themselves to their necks, startling them a bit before their minds leave the physical world.
Everything was barren, in a desolate land in coaled color with only some volcanic fire and a clouded polluted sky. She felt sick, malnutrition, and thin. This whole place was wrong, there shouldn't be gloom. This place was supposed to be her refuge where she would retreat whenever she needed to escape reality, her mindscape; it has been violated, dried and mined. It's murder was going to happen.
Howl
The same ungodly howl she heard before making her shiver, she looked up and saw her crimson demise, a black humanoid of colossal size with antlers that reached the heavens, a crown of flame floating between two of the biggest antlers with glowing red eyes around his body that purified the very concept of contempt. The eyes were now staring at her, a giant sword glowing in hit with both hands on it ready to come down with an explosive effect destroying everything, She gave one last defiant and despaired scream before doom came.
Then, a wave of energy came knocking everything down including the scarlet devil a bit, his gaze now turned away to somewhere else with a scowl.
It was an orange humanoid entity with a golden light invading darkness, With every step the entity took the volcano vanished to smoke and light burnt away the clouds, the orange entity was as big as the red archon and had two pitch-black eyes and a mouth with antlers on its head two of which were the biggest like the defiler but magnificent not dreadful.
She instinctively knew who this being was, it is or at least was SCP-999, All its cute characteristics were replaced by an awe-inspiring and intimidating visage looking at its progenitor with a stern and unflinching look.
"7th child."
"Father."
It was a maze in the mindscape, everything in it felt wrong, shattered mirrors were on the walls with cracked glasses picturing random events in Wendy's life, some frozen in time like photos, some playing over and over like a broken video tap. From joyous memories to happiness, fear, anger,laughter, hate and agony.
"This place is a mess!" Leora uttered in perturbation.
"And a maze, we should split." Miller suggested.
"Split!? That's literally the first NOT-to-do rule, in every horror genre!" Dipper protested.
"By the looks of things, she may not have much time. Splitting up as much as I agree to be dangerous would cut the time to find her shorter." He gestured to the place that seemed to be deteriorating with each passing moment.
"Okay fair point, but remember; this is mindscape, it is a place where mind and will are the only rules, don't fall to despair because the moment you do you would be vulnerable to whatever infecting her."
Miller and Leora noded to the Pines's warning and so they split up for each road.
They searched and searched, it was like a gallery of broken memories, and all three were uneasy.
Leora as she cautiously moved then without warning, the whole environment around her warped.
"What…!" In a blink of an eye, she was inside a glassed tube and for some reason, she was in some circus place near a cage that housed two SCP-939 instances from her right and a jar filled with liquid and a brain with two eyes floating, the eyes moved and looked at her which creeped her out. As she was accessing the environment she saw a label at the top of her tube.
"The Photonic Girl?" She wondered.
Afterwards, a group of people came in with a tourist guide man who had no face guiding them.
"And here it is, our next attraction, the Photonic Girl!" The faceless strange man declared dramatically.
"She looks hideous!" A mother shielded her kid away, making Lightfoot confused by the reaction only to then see the reflection on her face and to her shock her human face was replaced by some green-skinned three-eyed mutant with no nose and a mouth that had pencils for teeth and instead of arms she had two octopus tentacles as she found out when she touched her own face in disbelief.
"She can make constructs made of light?" A random fat guy asked.
"Ha! What a freak!" A girl of the same height as her ridiculed her.
"No! I'm not a freak! I'm not!" Lightfoot retorted desperately.
"That's what all freaks say!"
Then the audience roared in cruel laughter.
4818 smacked the glass a few times with no avail, so she used a photonic gauntlet and broke away, her act seemed to make the audience laugh mockingly harder and harder to the point it was inhuman with jaws hanging up beyond human capacity and the world became darker while keep giving her labels, she in despair ran whereas the audience began following her with their inhumane wide grins.
4051 was now in some sort of solitary confinement cell, he knocked on the metal door.
"Hello! Someone is there?" He inquired but no one answered, Then the room began to shrink, smaller and smaller as he struggled in a dash from a small prison window; however, even if he could break through it was too small.
"HELP!" He shouted as claustrophobia took over and the world became a small cage,
"NONO! SOMEONE HELP ME!" Fear overrides his sense as it claws all over like an animal stuck in a small hole.
Mason who had experienced being inside of someone's mindscape conjured a magnet gun in his hand as he looked around, on his way, he met unpleasant obstacles which he found out were traps the moment he saw a manifestation of Wendy on her first summer get-up that called him a stupid kid playing grown up which he immediately knew was not the real Wendy because she never thought of him less, other obstacles were such as his parents with a disapproval gaze that looked demonic, a giant Gideon with the same getup he had during the first summer taunting him and the hardest of all; Mabel as a zombie that was condemning him just by her gaze. He managed to evade all of the traps by ignoring them and not giving in.
Then, the sound of a piano started to play.
"WE'LL MEET AGAIN! DON'T KNOW WHERE DON'T KNOW WHEN!~"
"This is a dream, this is a dream, dreams are harmless." He closed his eyes and walked with a chant, not daring to see what was behind him. Bill was dead, the Grunkles killed him. Behind him was Bill in the form of a black gooey pyramid that moisturized black tarts with one glowing white eye crawling on the ground with many tarty limbs coming for the Pines.
"OH I KNOW MEET AGAIN ON SOME SUNNY DAYYYYYY- ZZZkkkkRRR- !" His last words became glitchy when he extended his hand to grab Pine Tree, except that did not happen. The illusion was no longer behind him.
He with a sigh of relief opened his eyes, he was now reached to a chamber of sorts, he heard clapping and soon he found out why.
Inside there was this entity clapping mocking him, it was a mockery of Wendy's mother's appearance, 4 arms with sharp black fingernails, two crab arms, bottom down of her body was that of a long centipede and a cloak of many opera masks frozen in a look of agony, right half of its face was human with red hair and jade eyes and the other half was red demonic with no hair instead 4 sharp horns from up till dawn, jagged teeths with no lips and one completely black tear eye. The most unsettling part was that this thing seemed to anticipate his coming as it grinned with its mismatched teeth.
Near this thing was Wendy, floating inside a red orb filled with liquid eyes closed like a fetus inside a specimen.
"Bravoo, not every mortal can resist the temptations of despair!" It has a cruel voice both feminine and masculine at the same time.
"You! What are you? And what have you done to her!?" The Pines boy pointed his magnet gun at the creature.
" What can a mother do? But to give her daughter assurance that everything would be okay."
He charged his magnet gun with a furious fiss of blue "YOU ARE NOT HER MOTHER!" He roared, and he shot three blue shots all of which dissipated by an invisible barrier while the entity cackled with a voice that sounded like a million beings being converted on themselves.
" Don't you know it's rude to shoot when you greet someone else? Especially a king?"
"You're not the Scarlet King, y-you're a deceiver, a parasite that wormed itself inside her! You are Jeser The Prince of Many Faces, one of Scarlet King's minions!" He recalled, reading a page from his father's Journal on Scarlet King including some of his well-known subordinates.
" Minions? How adorable, the little hero in shining armor coming to save the damsel in distress from the evil monster."
"How are you even in Wendy's mindscape?"
" Through what you humans call SCP-231."
"That's not possible, Triple 9 healed her mother." Dipper recalled what Mabel told him after she eavesdropped.
" While the 7th offspring cured the 7th from her traumatic experience, it was still a newborn and could not erase the connection between her and the Scarlet King's domain completely. A small connection that she has passed on to her first born Wendy, which gave me access to the inside of her head to a degree, her suppression of her insecurities has only made my influence on her stronger and like all dams it reached its uncontainable point and the gates of flood opened, that was when I have her now and all she did was delaying the inevitable and making herself weaker.
"But why her?? What do you want from her specifically!?"
She, he or it cackled " You mortals always think there should be a purpose for everything! The simple answer is this: I'm not doing this because there is a greater plan. After all, I enjoy making arrogant insects who think they are at the top of the world drop from the cliff, but don't worry her brothers will join the fun soon! the look on her innocent face when she saw her mother killed for daring to rebel against her king I have cherished a thousand times over!" - this being's shameless sadism made his grip on his gun harder and shook in anger -" And you and she and every one of your friends are now MY PLAYTHINGS!" And then, the monstrous prince rushed in and came down with its crab claws and sharp fingers coming down on its prey.
The Scarlet and the Orange fought off, swords clashing with astounding waves of power clashing colors of red and gold. The ground was shaken by their battle. Blasts of energy of red and gold wave from both engaging each trying to dominate the other.
Mabel could do nothing but be the audience of the battle between father and child.
Dipper ran and kept shooting on the abominable fusion of crab, centipede and human with magnet guns which had no effect so he resorted to using his imagination to manifest a missile which though hit the target, did nothing as the Prince of Many Faces came out of the cloaked smokes.
" FOOL! I'M A GOD NOT A MERE DREAM DEMON! It takes more than imaginative traps made by limited mortals with flat minds to kill me! And the irony is, you already had the means of it and you do not even know it."
It then tried to slash him which he managed to evade by manifesting a hamster bubble around himself which caused only to send him bubbling away which then heated a wall and broke making Dipper fall on the ground and groan.
" What are you talking about!??" He asked as he tried to get up.
"Oh, none you do not know? That spear you brought, the one you used like a stick to threaten one of my King's bootlickers is the spear of the Non-believer! It has the power to kill gods! If only you knew before and knew how to use it. well, let that be something for you all to ponder!"
The unholy creature then raced and ready to deal the finishing blow making Dipper's eye shut instinctively, then everything became gray and frozen in time.
When the Pines opened his eyes, he saw what happened with Wendy's tormentor frozen in place. He wondered what was happening before he saw the reason why when another figure, one genderless in a black hood near him, caught him off guard.
It was the grim reaper, Small Death, the being who he saw coming for Mabel during the Crash Site Omega battle, gazing at him with his 4 illuminating eyes behind the hood with no visible surface appearance of its face, just darkness with those eyes. Was this the end? Has the grim reaper come to collect his due?
"What is your strength?"
"What?" He asked, The response he got from the reaper was anticlimactic.
"What is your strength?" It repeated
"My strength? What does any of that-'' he was trying to process all this before being cut him off with the same dispassionate question.
"What is your strength?"
"My love for my friends or family I guess? My heart?" He speculated that introspection was not something he was currently prioritizing given the situation.
"Those are your motivations, not your strength. You know your weaknesses, and yet you don't even know your own strength."
"What do you even want from me!?" He asked, this time impatient.
"What is your strength?"
The same damn repeated question like a broken record had done it for Dipper as he got up to glare at it "WENDY IS IN DANGER! MY SISTER LOST HER SANITY AND MAY NEVER RECOVER! I DON'T HAVE TIME FOR MORE CRYPTIC BULL-"
" What, is. Your. Strength? " The reaper said, this time slightly sternly.
Mason paused this time, just then flashes of memory came to him, some from events he remembered, some from times he wasn't even there and yet for reasons unknown to him were there.
'Being a hero means fighting back even when it seems impossible.' Ford kneeled on one knee and told him when Weirdmageddon happened.
" You can't force people to love you." Himself lecturing Gideon during Weirdmageddon.
'He's as stubborn as my brother.' Stan in his old Mr. Mystery get up said to himself both fondly and sad alone in the Shack on his chair.
'It's okay to be scared!' He saw himself when he confronted Wendy when she closed herself off in the Motel.
'Careful, I was just beginning to like you, Don't try lying to a dangerous sociopathic pathological liar, it may end badly for you.' Clef gives him a warning with a subtle threat during the interrogation.
'Mabel's bubble is the most diabolical trap I've ever created. It would take a will of titanium not to give into its temptation!' Bill said with no worries as he floated inside his pyramid.
'Ursa Major in ancient times is considered as a hunter who faces bigger beasts and yet, no matter what would not be deterred, unstoppable and driven. So you see Mason? Those kids just unintentionally nicknamed you a great, wise and powerful hunter. If anything else, you shouldn't see what makes you different as a source of shame, wear it like a badge of honor, sometimes being different is a wonderful thing.' His father with a book about constellations showing it to a much younger version of himself before even Gravity Falls inside their home in Piedmont the younger Mason looked in wonder while Jacob smiled warmly, that was the day when Dipper from a mocking nickname that his classmates gave due to his birth mark became his badge of honor, his alias to the point he even preferred it over his real name.
The last memory made him finally realize his strength "My grit…my determination." He uttered in revelation.
The hooded entity looked at him with understanding before he disappeared.
In the physical realm, the spear began shooking on the ground which caught Meri and Eir's attention. Since 166 was busy with maintaining the connection the avian bird instead came to check on it, puzzled.
Chirp?
Chirp?
In the mindscape, everything started to move gradually which gave Dipper enough time to duck away from the incoming attack. Jeser once again gazed its cruel eyes at him.
" You think you can beat me? What is a mortal to a god?" It then got up by its centipede part with arms and crab arms open to make itself look bigger.
Dipper gave a sly smirk "What is a god to a non-believer?"
In the physical world, the shaking spear then to the staggered reaction of Eir in a flash of white light disappeared.
"What's this?" Meridiana questioned in surprise.
Jeser opened his maw and came down to bite his head off, As it came to kill the pony mortal the spear of Non-believer in his right hand glowing silvery and his birthmark on his forehead glowed white. Dipper moved this time with a speed faster than he expected moving a meter away from the place he was to his amazement.
" WHAT!?" Jeser raged.
"Woah…" amazed by his newfound speed.
The Prince snarled and tried to attack him again but the hunter dodged its attack again at blindingly speed and with the tip of the lace cut its left crab hand and some of its centipede legs making it screech in pain in a monstrous growl from losing a limb with a bit of black blood spilling.
"I'm sorry, do you need me to lend a hand?" He sneered with a nod toward the decapitated crab hand which made Jeser angrier.
" You think that toy gives you the advantage? You are still a clueless brat meddling with a weapon like a toy which your brain matter can't comprehend! Fun is over!" Then, he unleashed red vine-like sharp-edged knives that came for the Pines boy who used her newfound agility and speed to dodge the attacks. He ran and dodged while using the lance to cut through some.
Mason in a blurr came with the spear which Jeser dodged narrowly, They continued trying to get a hit at the other until Dipper pointed his spear which his enemy bolted away and then snatched him with his only crab hand from his throat.
"You missed." It smugly stated.
"You sure?" So did Mason.
Jeser looked back and saw the spear now penetrating the orb that had Wendy inside, thus it broke like glasses when the cracks became bigger leading to the Corduroy to drop and then cough to spit out the liquid inside her lungs.
Subsequently, the entire mindscape shook, the shrinking room around the panicked Rainer stopped shrinking just when he thought he was forever stuck and then it broke away and he was back in the maze to his relief. Leora who was now despairing sitting on her knee in a corner as the demented audience kept verbally attacking her and then heard that the laughing had stopped. When her eyes looked up from her knee she saw she was still in the maze.
Shaking in rage, her rage only increased further when she saw the being that plagued her in the mocking body of her mother with one crab arm holding Dipper from his neck.
"H-h-how…DARE YOU!" Wendy trembled with gritted teeth looked jumped and sprinted with two axes in each hand at her tormentor.
In Mabel's Mindscape, the 7th Child and his progenitor are locked in a duel between their respective golden and black swords.
" You are just as mulish as your misbegotten mother, Why throw your life so recklessly? And for what? To fight when you know you will not be victorious?" The king of Dust and Blood challenged his offspring.
"And so? I should give up? Accepting doom and gloom is for the gluttons because annihilation doesn't require you anything, just doing nothing, it is striving for a better future that requires you to put up the work, but you have been indolent, content to take shortcuts because the right path was too hard for you. Just excuses to be vile…and disgusting." The being that used to be SCP-999 gave utterance to his piece judging his father who did not appreciate it.
"You DARE!" - With a howl, the King broke the standoff. - "I've seen the clockwork of life, there is no greater purpose for it!" He then this time angry at his offspring daring to stand against him with his sword swang again meeting him.
" Then you understood nothing, you know nothing but hate, so drowned by your depthless ocean of loathing that it made you a glutton who can't see the truth. Life doesn't give us purpose, we give life purpose!" Sword attacks traded between them until the Archon lost his patience and came on a dash throwing him upward with a push making him fall on the ground and then nearly impaling him through his sword if not for his opponent grabbing his weapon with both his hands.
"Even now, you are not strong enough, you are not grown enough to defeat your hated enemy." This was true, the 7th offspring's grip became weaker and weaker as the sword came closer and closer to his head.
"I don't hate you father, I pity you and I don't plan to defeat you. I plan to disconnect you, by giving you a hug!"
the orange warrior pushed the sword with a final push to his right thus the sword instead of impaling him penetrated the ground. He in a mad dash comes toward his father who before could react then gets hugged by his offspring leading to a bright clash of red and gold with the howling affliction of the Scarlet King.
In Wendy's mindscape, with Wendy now up, the game has changed to the heroes' favor because after all this was her mindscape.
"Even if you survive, you will always be Different! Alone! Broken!" The Prince of Many showed its twisted teeth.
"Guilty, but broken and alone? Nah ah." She throws the ax on her left hand which Jeser darted again which is distracted enough for Dipper to take a slash at it to its pain.
"Besides, what's wrong with being different?" Wendy declared, She then came up using the centipede part of the abominable Prince's body to walk up and with a jump out the ax right at the center of Jeser's divided head. Though a normal ax won't kill it, it certainly made him moan in agony.
Miller and Leora who no longer being tortured by their fears and insecurities hearing the commotion and on. their way seeing how the whole mindscape was shaking came to where they heard the commotion and saw Wendy and Dipper fighting some tried of a centipede, a crab and a human Dipper for some reason had the silvery spear with mark of the Big Dipper constellation radiating and was surprisingly agile and fast impossible for an average human. They had no time to question so they after seeing this and stop for a moment continued their scurry, Jeser seeing more were coming commanded a rocky obelisk grow from the ground and the moving fast toward them, Leora reacted by projecting a photonic cannon that blow it up to pieces and Rainer recalling what Dipper told him about Mindscape imagined the shattered rocks turning into a horde of wasps which target the Prince who lashed out feeling the strings, it then took off the ax that was stuck on it's head and threw it at Miller who though managed to his body pieces in intact got stuck by his shirt to a wall, next Leora came with a big photonic hammer to crush it which it dashed away and tossed her away with a swing of its tail which gave Dipper the distraction and momentum needed to thrust the silvery spear with from its back who screeched in agony because the spear hit it from back at the abdomen part with the flesh around the injury burning, causing it to stagger back to the ground, immediately Jeser tossed Dipper away with a kick after which Wendy came dangerously close to it and pushed the spear hard making it screech more in.
" NO WAIT! I CAN GIVE YOU ANYTHING!" On its last trick, its upper body changed fully to Wendy's mother pleading with eyes familiar to Wendy who seemed to hesitate before he held the spear and plunged into it.
"Anything? Then DIE!" Wendy with a snarl pushed the weapon further inside the spear causing its tip to pass Jeser's abdomen as it with a deafening screech died as its flesh burned, its body lit on flames and exploded into a blinding light, the Prince of Many Faces was sent Brothers Death screaming.
In the real world, a flashlight banged from the center of the ritual that temporarily shined the abandoned facility, the light of which illuminated the broken and dirty glasses of the facility for a moment. The group was being hurled away as they cried out.
"BAH, WHAT!?" SCP-4818 hit the floor.
"BY GATE GUARDIAN'S COLOSSAL FLAMING SWORD!" SCP-4051 shouted as he was now holding on to a chain hook construction.
SCP-166 fell backward, Wendy dropped inside a box and Dipper hit the wall and sat on the ground near the wall in a sitting position with 'oof' still holding the silvery spear.
"W-bu- what by God just happened!?" The humanoid with antlers blurted out, the first one to speak and got up.
Wendy who no longer had any black veins paused before she joked "Don't speak ill of the dead."
Meri sputtered as everyone else giggled at her confusion. Miller lost his grip on the hook and finally yelped on the ground which only made the giggle harder. "Oww, I'll explain it to you later." He told the antler SCP.
Mason came rushing toward Wendy, his birthmark was no longer glowing but it was visible to others yet he did not care nor did he to the spear which he left on the ground.
"Wendy, I'm sorr- "
He got cut off when Wendy held one hand to stop "Hold right there! You're gonna say some self-deprecating bull and I'm gonna be the one who is gonna call bulls with horns about it!"
"But- you were- "
"You're kidding me!? ARE YOU KIDDING ME!?"- she puts her hands on both of his shoulders and pushes him toward herself and says with feigned anger, next she hugs him to his surprise-"You who face monsters of the week!? You just fought an evil god just to save me and pushed a goddamn spear through that cosmic parasite!? You are the coolest person I know!"
Dipper's brim was now pushed, staring at her unable to say anything as his brain was trying to process what she just called him and reciprocated her hug.
"And who are they? Who is the chick with antlers and where are we?" Wendy left the hug and glanced at Meri and Leora, the latter who pouted at the fact that she went to the same party as her last night and yet didn't remember her.
"...Did you just call me hot?" The heterochromia SCP was befuddled.
"I was at the party last night!" Lightfoot pouted.
"There were lots of things at the party." She reminded her of that. Last night's party was certainly not something she was gonna forget from seeing all manner of bizarre creatures and beings that put Gravity Falls' paranormal inhabitants to shame in the all-out fight.
SCP-7044 who was walking on the ground came and chirped
Chirp
Chirp
Dipper scratched the back of his head "Look I uh…I'm sorry for yelling at you- "
Chirp
Chirp
"She said she understood and was just glad you are okay so as everyone, and also told you to shut up with the self-criticism act." Meri snorted.
Dipper snorted as well "Guess I'm not allowed to self-depocrate myself anymore…"
"Help!" A familiar Pines that was not Dipper called, making everyone, particularly Dipper sprint toward and there they saw Mabel still cast, her hair reverted to her natural color, her eyes were normalized no longer reddish by veins and no sign of any insanity. The 7 pointed crystal was on the ground and seemed to lose its grip when its work was done and no sign on the crystallized ropes that it used to attach to Mabel except for some glowing very small powdery crystal shards
"Can someone free me? I think I need a WC in case of an emergency here!"
166 freed her from her cocoon of rocks by commanding it to return to Earth.
"Y-you-you okay!" Dipper was beyond glad and hugged her, She was surprised a bit but reciprocated his hug.
"Glad it worked." Miller joined the hug, but Meri and Lightfoot did.
"Uhm, should we?" Clef's daughter wondered and glanced at Leora who shrugged and so they joined the hugging as well.
"I thought you were a goner." Mason
"Bro-bro I thought I was a goner as well, This bundle of joy just went toe-to-toe with his daddy and saved me by kicking his eldritch butt out! But seriously, I need a bathroom." Mabel commented. So everyone stopped hugging her.
"I think there is a bush outside." Rainer pointed to an entrance.
"By the way."- Mabel grabbed the crystal and gave it to Wendy to hold a moment. -"From now on she will be adopted and I will call her bundles!" She announced chippy as she walked away.
"She?" Dipper inquired
"How do you know it's a she?" Lightfoot questioned how it was even possible.
"But-" Miller wanted to object.
"I'M ADOPTING HER AND IT'S FINAL!" The Pines girl declared leaving no argument there before she left. -"Also, did someone drop a spear made of silver?".
Stanford was now in a dream state, using a crystal he acquired in his travel across dimensions and was now weightless. Unfortunately, the crystal was only a temporary call to the Oracle and afterwards it would lose its power and would take some time to recharge itself so he had to be quick before his time was over.
Jheselbraum The Unswerving. The Oracle of Axolotl, a purple humanoid wearing a hooded dress with 7 eyes was now in front of him.
"Jheselbraum." The scientist Pines greeted by his nod.
"Stanford Pines, what brings you in using the crystal that I gave to you?" She leaned forward a bit.
"I need information about the cult of the Scarlet King. I was hoping if you knew something that could help me, like had Axolotl told you anything? The Scarlet King's worshippers are at play, surely you would know something."
"Is not just Shormaursh Urdal, other forces are at play as well." The multi-eyed humanoid informed him.
"Other forces? That journal Dipper found in the same place where he found one of my journals…Jacob said it was supposed to be in the Wanderer's Library…is it the Serpent?" He speculated with a hand on his chin.
"I don't know, I asked Axolotl and all he gave was this: A daughter of the flesh of the divine yet unconcluded in faith, a soldier who doesn't know his true allegiance, a firecracker that pretends to be ice, a child destined to be the Kingslayer, a firefly glowing bright and yet may dime, a honorable hunter blessed by knowledge and a burning shooting star burdened by it who will crash as a meteorite."
Ford pinched his eyes "Great, I was afraid the prophecy had Dipper and Mabel involved in all this the moment he saw the Big Dipper insignia." Recalling the drawing, the precognition SCP is human-made.
"Time will be essential, remember this."
"Or hopefully it would end up being as wrong as your prophecy about me vanquishing Bill."
The multi-eyed Oracle shook her head "No, I said the one who would defeat Bill Cipher would have your face, I did not say the person had to be you."
Stanford contemplated what he meant before realization hit him on his head with eyes going wide and his brain processes that Stan, his twin brother, also had his face "SONOVA- !" He nearly cursed before the dream was over.
In the distance he saw something illuminating in the dark, Stan followed and saw it was a bar glowing in white by neon lights and inside a slender man of undetermined age, wearing a bartender's clothing, brunette with a goatee. He gradually walked and reached the bar where he was cleaning glass using a napkin.
"Hello, stranger. Care for a drink?" His warm welcome was a contrast to the void around him.
"That would do," Ley replied and sat on one of the bar stools.
While the bartender left his cleaned glass and brought one of his drinks to pour into a glass, Stanley heard whispers that made him feel like a deer in headlight, he looked and saw three blurred figures in the darkness staring at him at his back, he couldn't even make out what the three figures looked like and yet he felt a primal urge to run or hide.
"Ignore them, they don't exactly have a bedside manner." The man joked with no worry as he cleaned a glass. Deciding to take his advice, the conman Pines ignored the 3 blurry figures.
"So…who you might be all alone in this bottomless abyss?" He asked and grabbed the glass which the stranger poured and looked at it as he gently shook it to see the liquid moving.
"Oh, I had many names; Almighty, SCP-343, Monad, Ahura Mazda, Allah, Yaweh…the big G."
Bellow
He heard the all too familiar bellow and looked up, SCP-3000 was serpentine above with luminous lights floating and swimming giving a haunting howl with echoes as deep as a humpback whale. This time, unlike the other times he saw the giant eel, instead of feeling an uncontrollable chill he found it majestic in a haunting way.
"So you say… I'm definitely at the deep end here." He took his gaze away from Anantashesha and said he wasn't convinced, even if this was not a dream there was no guarantee this entity was who it said, for all he knew it was just another powerful extra-dimensional being like Cipher trying to con him with flattery like how he pretended to be a muse when he fooled his twin brother and as an ex-con artists he was naturally distrust of strangers' claims.
"Maybe, maybe I'm a trickster god screwing you over for a laugh, maybe I'm all or some of the things I said I am, maybe this is the case of the Blind men and an Elephant who is both right and wrong about something but can not hope to comprehend fully, perhaps I am God and since everything has a piece of me you may say I'm talking with myself, maybe this is a dream but would just be a dream make it unreal? What truly defines what is real and what is not? All good questions; but I'm pretty sure philosophical questions are not what's on your mind."
"Too right, I'm not much of a thinker like my brother."- he drank the glass full -"what's happening now? Am I dead?"
"That would depend on you."- The stranger responded. -"Eternity aside, you don't have much time."
"What's that even supposed to mean? You just contrasted yourself and that's coming from the grammatically incorrect Pines." Ley pointed out.
"Depends on your view of time, for you time is linear with a start and an end, to me? Well, I wouldn't say it looks like a 'timy winy' rolling ball, but you get the gist from your limited view." The mysterious being jested.
"And Mama thought God didn't have a sense of humor." Stan mused with a chuckle, after that he became sad due to remembering the recent events, the memory of Diana shouting profanities in Shack's underground room and Walter's cold condemnation during planning the attack was still fresh -"I really am a messed up aren't I? First my dad, then my brother and now my nephew and niece-in-law hate me."- He started with a self-deprecating chuckle. -"and I may never see my great niece and nephew ever again."
The bartender's face and the jester became sympathetic. "It's like you once said, when life gives you lemons, call them yellow oranges and sell them for double the price."
Stan gave an eyebrow before the meaning of what he heard he comprehended "You're right…like that ever stopped me! I'm not going down without a fight and God as my witness!" He victoriously shouted, then realized something awkwardly -"No offense."
"None taken." The bartender chuckled.
Then without any warning, everything went blind.
"GOD HAS A GOATEE!" He yelled and got up from his hospital bed. He was now in the waking world in a room with a light and other people were bamboozled by his sudden awakening and declaration; including the blue-haired doctor who spat his blueberry-flavored frappe on Stan's twin, his Niece-in-law with an eyebrow coming up behind her round glasses, his nephew who's head moved backward a bit, the blonde jerk with an oddly cheshire-looking face that had a magazine about guns who turned his gaze on him with a smirk and for some reason there was this black woman with puffy hair, a wayfarer glass and an amulet who began choking on her cookie and choking like a fish out of water.
"...I said that out loud didn't I?"
—--END—--
Notes:SCP-2406 are those colossal automatrons in Mabel's vision of an all-out war.