"Obice!" Dipper shouted, throwing up his hands and making a glowing barrier appear between him and the horde of staff bots pressing down on him and the others. Dipper grunted a little as the robots continued to pound on the barrier, but refused to drop it as it gave his companions a chance to regroup.
While there had certainly been staff bots trying to get them during their dash to the exit, there hadn't been this many swarming them. The horde had only truly swelled a few minutes after they had reached the doors and while they had been able to stand their ground at first, Dipper and the others were slowly getting overwhelmed by the numbers. Chica had burnt out her voice box from overusing her sonic attack and Gregory's Fazerblaster didn't recharge fast enough to compete with a large number of staff bots. Moon was doing alright, but he could only focus on dismantling one bot at a time.
The most concerning part though wasn't the large number of staff bots bearing down on them, but rather that the bots seemed to be intent on forcing them out. The only reason they would be trying to force them to leave after trying to keep them trapped all night is that William didn't want them able to interfere anymore.
"ENOUGH!" Dipper shouted in anger, his barrier expanding out as it dissipated and knocked the closet bots back. His eyes turned entirely blue and his whole body began to glow as he called on more magical power than he had the whole night, making his hair and clothes blowing in the currents of his aura. Glaring out at the swarm of enemies, Dipper raised one hand toward them and snarled, "Perdere!"
A wave of energy passed over the crowd of staff bots, making them crack with the glowing energy before crumbling into piles of metal and sparking parts.
"That was awesome!" Gregory exclaimed in surprise and relief at seeing all their attackers destroyed. "But why didn't you do that earl- Whoa! Are you okay!?"
As soon as the energy had dissipated and the glow had faded from around his body, Dipper had dropped to his hands and knees, breathing heavily as if he had just sprinted a marathon.
"I'm fine…" Dipper assured once he got his breathing under control, standing up on slightly trembling legs and Chica helping steady him. "Magic takes effort and energy to cast, so the bigger the spell, the bigger the cost. You were asking why I didn't do something like that before… it's because doing big spells like that from the start means I would have passed out from exhaustion hours ago."
"Yeah, I figured that when you collapsed," Gregory snarked back to hide how worried he was as he tapped on his Fazwatch. "I haven't gotten anything from Freddy since he acknowledged my last message… and anything I try and send now doesn't seem to get through. Do you… do you think something happened to him and the others?"
"I'm sure of it," Dipper grimaced, finally having enough strength to stand on his own again and fish out his phone. "The staff bots were trying to force us to leave so that William could seal us out completely. And considering Mike's tracker signal seems to be going further underground than what's on the blueprints for the Pizzaplex means that he's probably been captured and is being taken to the heart of William's lair."
"Mike has a tracker on him?" Gregory asked curiously, focusing on that rather than losing himself in worry about Mike.
"We installed it in his systems after the third time he was kidnapped," Dipper explained absentmindedly, slipping the phone back into his pocket as he tried to think of what to do next. "I'm going to go after him… I don't suppose I can convince you to wait outside with Chica and Moon to protect you?"
"Nope!" Gregory replied stubbornly and crossed his arms, silently daring Dipper to try and force him to leave.
"I thought not," Dipper sighed, though there was an amused smile on his face. "In that case, we're going to take some extra precautions before we start looking for the lion's den."
"You're just going to let him stay in this dangerous place!?" Moon scolded, throwing his hands up in protest. "He's a child! He needs to be as far away from this place as possible!"
"And if I don't let him come with me, he'll just try and sneak back in on his own," Dipper reasoned, getting an agreeing nod from Gregory. "I'd rather have him with me where I can keep an eye on him and protect him than have him getting in trouble without my help."
Moon conceded the argument and just stood back as Dipper knelt in front of Gregory and took out his pen. Dipper carefully drew a magic circle on the back of the boy's hand in shimmering ink. Once the circle was complete, Dipper used the tip of his pen to draw a drop of blood from his finger which he then pressed to the center of the circle.
"Sanguine meo te noto ac munitum meo biduo et anima," Dipper chanted, making the drawn circle glow as it absorbed his blood. Once the spell was completed, the glow died down but there was still a supernatural shimmer to the circle now. "I've now marked you under my protection. There are a lot of nuances to that, but for this situation, it means that William won't be able to possess you or have any direct supernatural effect on you without going through me first. And if your life is in danger, I'll know and be able to be guided to you to help you."
"I'm surprised you don't have one of these on Mike," Gregory commented in awe, examining his hand.
"It's powerful but dangerous to the caster in long-term uses," Dipper explained, getting an alarmed look from Gregory. "In some ways I'm tying my life to yours with this spell, potentially draining my life force to keep you safe, and Mike would never let me do that kind of thing with him. The same can be said for the rest of my family so I only use this spell in situations like these, an emergency where there's someone that isn't properly equipped to handle whatever supernatural threat there is. Don't worry, I know how to cut the spell off it's becoming too taxing on me, so I'll be fine using this spell."
"You're sure?" Gregory asked, torn between being touched or concerned that Dipper was using this kind of spell to keep him safe.
"Of course! Got to keep my future nephew safe after all," Dipper replied with a wink, barely holding back a chuckle at Gregory's flustered look.
"Who said anything about Mike becoming my dad?" Gregory instantly denied trying to act nonchalant despite the slight redness to his cheeks.
"You did, just now," Dipper replied, unable to completely stop his laughter this time as Gregory realized his slip-up and had turned completely red. "Don't worry, I let you be the one to tell Mike when you're ready."
Dipper just hoped he had a camera nearby when that time came.
"So what's our next step?" Gregory asked, changing the subject to hide his embarrassment though he did have a small smile from Dipper already considering him his nephew.
"We see if we can find where Mike and the others were defeated," Dipper said getting up. "I don't think Freddy and the others were taken with Mike, that would just be too many to try and control at once, so hopefully we'll be able to find them fairly easily. We'll figure out our next move once we know what kind of shape they're in."
Gregory immediately grimaced in concern, worried that Freddy might have been damaged. They followed Dipper through all the scattered staff bot parts and piled into the elevator. Their search was finished before it even really began as when the elevator doors open, they could see Roxy and Freddy helping Monty rise to his feet.
"Freddy!" Gregory said in relief, hugging the bear animatronic. "I was worried when you didn't respond. Are you alright?"
"I'm fine Superstar," Freddy chuckled, returning Gregory's hug. "But what are you still doing here? You made it to the exit, shouldn't you be outside where it's safe?"
"We knew something must have happened to you and the others, so I wasn't about to just abandon everyone," Gregory explained with a huff. "Dipper made sure I'd be safe if I stayed, so don't you lecture him or me about it too!"
"If that is the case I will refrain from doing so," Freddy agreed with a sigh, having been about to do exactly that. "As long as it is your wish to remain then I will do all I can to make sure you stay safe as well."
"You guys don't look very damaged," Dipper commented as he checked the glamrocks over. "And you made it so close to the exit. What happened?"
"It was Vanny," Roxy growled. "We were getting swarmed by staff bots so I didn't see her until she had practically been on top of us. I don't know what she did exactly, but suddenly all of us started glitching out and we were forced to shut down and we only restarted a minute ago. I have no idea what happened to Mike…"
"He must have lasted longer than you guys and attempted to put up a fight," Dipper deduced, following the stone spikes protruding from the floor and seeing a familiar rune at the start of them. Examining the spot carefully, Dipper felt a jolt of worry at seeing blood that seemed to have come from an injury rather than Mike using it to cast magic. Dipper added, "Vanny subdued him eventually though and now we have to figure out where she took him."
"Don't you have a tracker in him though?" Gregory asked. "Can't we just follow that to where ever he is?"
"The tracker only shows his current location," Dipper explained with a shake of his head. "We tried making the program more advanced at first so we could trace his path whenever he got taken, but it proved useless. Usually, something supernatural is involved and the energy would screw with the signal too much that we wouldn't get an accurate reading, making having a tracker pointless. We know he's underground, but the path to get there is probably hidden both physically and supernaturally."
"So what are we supposed to do then?!" Gregory said in frustration.
"We get the answers we need from the one person we know has them," Dipper replied with determination. "We know where Vanny's hideout is, so that's our target. Either she'll be waiting there with an army for us to break through or we'll be able to draw her to us from there. One way or the other though, we're going to find out what we need to rescue Mike."
The others nodded in agreement, a vicious excitement going through them. Monty summoned up their feelings by saying, "Getting payback on that stupid white rabbit is going to be fun!"