"AAHGHHHAAA!"
AHHH!AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH! IT HURTS! IT HURTS TOO MUCH!
It feels...like my entire body is burning, no, melting, and every single cell is devouring the others...!
...Advil...isn't cutting it. I need morphine or something stronger...!
"Ugh..."
After enduring the excruciating pain, I collapsed to the ground, drenched in sweat.
...And then, my mind kicked into gear, just like before. Analyzing.
From what it appears, Dipper isn't giving up on Wendy. He's tirelessly trying to prevent her from dating Robbie... but it seems futile, to the best of my knowledge. And there's a suspicion lingering.
Could this situation be the work of Bill?
It's plausible. Countless horror stories delve into time travel and the paradoxes they create. The tape measure, though seemingly harmless, holds potential dangers.
Think, Ray. What stories involve time travel? It's a vast subject, but... okay, one of the most famous is the grandfather paradox. It occurs when the past is altered, resulting in a contradiction. For instance, if a time traveler went back and assassinated their grandfather in childhood, it could erase their own existence.
...But that's not the case here. Dipper didn't use his time-traveling abilities to go that far back. So then... What is it? What kind of story is this?
The axolotl.
It hinted at something related to time. 'Sixty degrees that come in threes, notice that his path is secure before he.'
...Sixty degrees that come in threes probably refers to Bill Cipher, right? And the part about 'his path is secure before he' likely implies destiny or fate...
The axolotl's initial statement was about a paradoxical universe, running towards death since birth. I think I get it. Since the Big Bang, the universe has been expanding, creating stars and galaxies.
However, the moment the universe started expanding, its fate was sealed. The big crunch, the big freeze... various hypotheses predict its end.
But what happens afterward?
"...He saw the cycle of death and rebirth, a never-ending play upon this earth."
Another big bang.
It's a cycle, an infinite loop of the universe, constantly dying and exploding for eternity. And the world isn't made of possibilities.
It's predetermined.
If the axolotl spoke the truth, Bill Cipher discovered this repetition. In every universe, he was destined to act in a certain way. He started remembering his past lives across different universes.
...He left parts of himself, it said. So, every time Bill Cipher was defeated, he left fragments to persist until the next universe. Over an infinite time, they accumulated, and he began to disregard the 'causality rate' of the universe.
Now I understand. Causality rate. It's the ratio between cause and effect. The opposite of the butterfly effect. While the butterfly effect suggests that a small change can cause chaos, the causality rate means that something happens, happens.
And every time I go back in time by dying, some events occur exactly as they did before, despite countless possibilities for something else to happen. Like during the wax shoggoth. Each time I died, I returned... and the wax shoggoth taunted me with the same words.
...But this causality rate is written on the Memento Mori. Why does it rise?
If my understanding of causality is correct, then... if this causality rate reaches 100, something significant occurs. What is it?
...Okay, I'm overthinking this. I need to address this constant time travel caused by Mabel and Dipper first. Let's return to the story. If Bill is behind this, then it must be the original story, not the grandfather paradox...
...I think I get it.
Countless stories revolve around changing the past. The protagonists strive to alter the past but fail repeatedly. They often leave it unchanged in the end.
Sometimes they succeed in changing it, but the results are usually dire, such as someone vanishing due to a butterfly effect, timelines diverging, or even the collapse of time itself.
Since Bill has the power to bring these 'stories' to reality, he might be able to do it. And Dipper and Mabel are attempting to change something...
Now that I know the world operates not by the butterfly effect but by causality, Bill is different. The axolotl already stated that he escaped the loop. He's partially outside the entire continuity. If Dipper succeeds in changing the outcome of Wendy and Valentino's meeting...
"...I need to stop him... from doing it again..."
Okay, fine. Let's do this... This time... I should do it without allowing my mind to be swayed. One hopeful thing is that according to the stories the characters usually fail to even change the event from the first place...Let's stay determined.
I hurried out of the security room, searching for Dipper. Once again, he was near the stand with Wendy... and I could see confidence on his face. That smug look. It's the face Dipper wears when he's calculated and planned his actions!
"NO!"
"Uh, Ray?! Please! I can do this! You need to let me... do this!" Dipper exclaimed, tossing the ball into the air.
"Ah! Dude, you missed!" Wendy remarked. But Dipper just smiled.
I quickly assessed the situation. The ball rolled down the tent, flew up, hit the wind gauge, and descended the pipeline Mabel just lifted... it was now heading towards the dump tank target where Stan stood.
...I could see the angle. The ball would deflect off the target and head to the ball game targets...!
"No!"
"Ray!"
I threw my body to stop the ball.
...Wait.
It's not supposed to be this way. Wait..!
"Whoa. Cool reflexes, dude."
Wendy said as I blocked the ball right in front of her face...But it's not right. I was supposed to let her get hit by the ball.
...how? I mean...how did I do this so easily? Why?
Valentino strolled over, presumably to chat with Wendy. She turned to him, saying, "Ray saved me from getting hit by the ball!"
Valentino brushed it off, a nonchalant "whatever" escaping his lips as he walked away.
Come to think of it...I was always able to change the future without...such troubles. Every time I go back in time with the Memento Mori, I changed the future by my experiences of death.
Does it do with something about it? Am I out of this rule that makes people hard to change the future? What the heck is even going on? I can't understand!
"Ray, you...you stopped it. Though not the way that I intended but..."
"Dipper...we messed up. This is not supposed to happen...!"
And the moment I said that, the world around me started to break down.
...The causality...I changed it. The whole network of fate itself is breaking down...!
"Hey Ra-Ra-Ra-Ra-Ra-Ra-Ra-"
Wendy started to glitch out, and not only her...but every one started to break down into weird fractals...
Reality warped and fractured, the fabric of causality unraveled before my eyes. The glitches intensified, fragments of the world breaking apart like a shattered mirror. The air itself quivered with the dissonance of timelines colliding.
"Dipper, Mabel, we've gone off the script!" I yelled in panic.
Dipper's eyes widened, fear evident of his expressions. "This is bad! We need to fix it, now!"
But it was too late. The distortion accelerated, and even the surroundings seemed to flicker in and out of existence. Wendy and the others remained oblivious to the impending chaos.
"We've disrupted the natural order!" I exclaimed, my voice trembling with fear.
Dipper and Mabel, equally startled, fumbled for the tape measure. "We have to go back, Ray! We have to set things right!"
As they activated the tape measure, sparks erupted, and the tape malfunctioned, refusing to respond. I reached out to stop them, but the distortion was already pulling them away.
"No! Stop!" I shouted, but the world around me collapsed into a vortex of temporal turbulence. The last thing I heard was Dipper and Mabel's voices, distant and distorted, as we were hurled through the chaotic currents of time.
And then, darkness swallowed everything.
I awoke in a surreal space, facing a colossal baby towering over me. The room was blank, and a pulsating pain throbbed through my body. Attempting to rise, I stumbled and fell, causing the giant baby to recoil, as if I were contagious or dangerous.
"You have broken the eternal laws of space-time," the baby declared in a voice far deeper than its infantile appearance suggested. "I am the Time Baby, the keeper of Time."
A...Time Baby? What the heck is that? Keeper of time? Well, at this point it isn't really weird for this world to have some kind of thing that maintains time, but...a giant baby?
Confused, I stammered, "What is this place? Why bring me here?"
The giant baby regarded me with disdain, declaring, "You're the most disgusting, horrifying thing I've ever seen. Extremely dangerous. Stay away from me."
"Why?" I questioned.
The Time Baby angrily shouted, "I don't know how a mere human can do this, but you can directly mess up with space-time!"
... Mess up with space-time? Wait... Can't others do that? Dipper tried with that tape measure thing...
"You foolish human. The Time Tape is under meticulous control beneath me, the Time Baby... It can only change things destined to be changed! But you... broke time itself. Look now! Everything is meaningless!"
...Wait, then... this has nothing to do with Bill...? This is... natural.
Ah.
This wasn't Bill's doing; it was a natural, scientific consequence. My Memento Mori-triggered abilities allowed me to alter the future without risk, unlike the time tape, which adhered to destiny. But meddling with the time tape had unleashed chaos.
"So that's how it is? The time tape doesn't fit with me. The only time travel I'm supposed to do is with the Memento Mori. That solves my risk of changing the future."
I'm not sure if it's the Memento Mori, but my abilities didn't fit well with the time tape.
The Memento Mori is even more powerful than I expected. It erased all the risk every time I went back.
The expurgation of the time paradox might not be what I thought.
The revelation struck me like lightning. The true time paradox wasn't caused by Dipper and Mabel using the time tape. No, it was my inexplicable intertwining with the tape. The Memento Mori, with its unfathomable power, had already expurgated the time paradox; a simple reset was all it needed.
The solution was surprisingly straightforward. All I had to do was die. If my demise triggered the Memento Mori, it would act as a reset, disentangling me from time paradoxes.
The Memento Mori stood above all other time-traveling devices. Its supremacy was undeniable. Death served as a reset, a way to cleanse temporal intricacies.
Clarity settled in, and relief washed over me. The Memento Mori's power went beyond rewriting the future; it safeguarded against time unraveling. All I needed to do was embrace the end, trigger the Memento Mori, and set things right.
Facing my cosmic executioner, the Time Baby, I couldn't help but appreciate Memento Mori's insane power. A tool to rewrite reality, limited but potentially useful in other situations.
The Time Baby, reluctantly, raised his hand to strike. "You're a threat to the space-time continuum. This is your punishment."
Looking up, I asked, "Before you smite me, can we talk? What makes my abilities horrifying? Why am I the universe's public enemy number one?" I had to check if my thoughts were correct.
The Time Baby scowled, "You can directly mess with events across time. Unlike the time tape, you don't follow a predetermined fate. You're a wild card that can destabilize the entire timeline."
So my conclusions are correct, huh? I am...kinda off from other people. Even that Time baby thing knows.
I scratched my head, contemplating my unintentional cosmic vandalism. "Didn't mean for this. Sorry. Last question. Do you know where the twins are? Dipper and Mabel?"
The Time Baby, stern, said, "Stuck at the end of time. They malfunctioned the time tape; which contributed to your actions. That's their punishment."
"...well...okay now. Kill me."
"I will."
And then, a laser swiped over my body, instant death.
[Critical user function failure detected. Life signal... Negative. Commencing respawn sequence at the last checkpoint...]
[Calculating the amount of caused time paradox... 1. Expurgation complete. Restoring Data...]
Now, back to the time, before this paradox started.
The Time Baby stared at the pile of ash, a human who single-handedly caused so much damage to the universe just by stopping a ball. Everything connected, that single act of changing fate destroyed everything. Time Baby used most of his powers to sustain himself from that cosmic destruction wave.
...Then something hit the Time Baby's ears.
"...Wait...what the..."
The sound of a distant storm. The sound of...
"...No, No. No...! What on earth are you, human?! How are you even doing this?! How?! Why?!"
The sound of time, rewinding.
Something impossible on a cosmic scale was happening before the Time Baby. He noticed something was wrong with this human who directly changed the time-space with a single action.
"...Beautiful.
All he could do was stare in awe as the blank world filled itself with an unfathomable force, a scenery he'd never be able to remember.