We're back! This chapter was pretty easy to write, and it's nice to finally start answering some questions... even if more are popping up. I hope you enjoy!
"Hmm… B5?"
"Aw, hit." Mina pouted as she put the marker on her battleship. "How are you so good at this?"
"I'm just getting lucky," Izuku insisted, smiling cheerfully.
"Sure you are," Ochako teased, from where she was helping Shouto reapply his bandages. "That's why you've beaten all of us every time. No, you've got some special talent in this dumb game, and we're gonna find out how."
"Battleships isn't a game you can have talent in!" Izuku protested. "Well, sort of. I mean, any talent in the game comes mostly from knowing your opponents and therefore being able to guess where they would put their ships, so I guess that might count as a talent…"
"Looks like we found out his secret to winning," Shouto deadpanned. "And all it took was getting him to mumble - ow." He winced as Ochako tightened the last bandage on his arm.
Mina looked up at him sympathetically. "They're still not healing right? Shouldn't cuts like those have faded by now?"
"You would think," Shouto agreed glumly. "Then again, they were made by Cipher in the incident that gave me uncontrollable powers, so who knows? But they'll still bleed more if I don't keep wrapping them up."
"We'll figure out how to fix it," Izuku assured him, and Mina figured he felt just as awful about the reopening wounds as she did. They were like a constant reminder that they had let their friend down, had left him open to possession.
"I'm sure," Shouto agreed quietly, nodding his thanks as Ochako leaned back on the bed. There was a moment of silence, all four of them lost in their thoughts.
"Hey kids! Come down here, I want you to laugh at this with me."
"Welp, Stan calls." Mina got to her feet with a smile. "You okay to come down with us?"
"Yeah." The four of them headed downstairs together.
They found Stan in the living room, laughing at a commercial on TV. One look at the screen, and it was immediately apparent why.
"~Who's cute as a button, and always your friend, little G-I-D to the E-O-N.~"
Mina made a face. "Ugh, Gideon."
Izuku sighed. "The commercial's less funny when he's so obsessed with you he tries to kill all your friends."
"Or shrink you down until you're inches tall," Shouto agreed.
"He's always trying to trick me into losing the Mystery Shack," Stan commiserated. "Broke my hall of mirrors too! Hope the little bastard gets all the years of bad luck from that."
Wendy frowned contemplatively. "One time I caught him trying to steal my moisturizer." They all stared at her, and she shrugged. "Yeah, I don't get it either."
"But if nothing else, our mutual hatred of him can bind us all together," Soos offered, and all of them made a noise of agreement. On screen, the commercial showed the Tent of Telepathy crushing the Mystery Shack, as the narrator said: "Coming soon, to this location."
"Um, should we be worried about that?" Izuku wondered aloud. "I mean, with that finders keepers law and all…" Mina nodded, wondering for a moment about who would make a law saying whoever held the deed to the property owned the property, before remembering she had met the man who had founded the town, and realized she could completely understand how such a dumb law would come to pass.
The shack owner waved him off. "Oh, please. The only way Gideon's getting the location is if he breaks into the shack and steals the deed."
There was a sound of a window shattering.
"You mean like, right now?" Wendy said dryly. Stan swore and got up, the rest of them following him to his office, where Gideon was hunched over, punching random digits into the safety lock. He startled for a moment at their appearance, before his expression turned to a smirking one.
"Well, well, Stanford! My arch nemesis, we seem to have entered a game of cat and mouse. But the question remains, who is the cat, and who is the-"
Stan had already had enough. "Soos, broom." His employee obediently passed him one, and he marched over to the trespasser, who yelped in panic, and tried to hiss at Stan, getting smacked for his troubles as Stan chased him out of the house and into the rain.
"You know," Ochako said lightly, as they watched the strange scene play out, "It's kind of telling that none of us believe going to the police would fix this anymore."
Shouto scoffed. "Why would we go to those incompetent hacks for anything?"
"True, but I mean, do you think we're becoming a bit jaded the longer we stay here?"
They all considered this for a moment as Stan closed the door behind him. "I swear, that twerp has some major issues. Not that it matters." He chuckled a bit. "Kid's not getting anything - the code to that safe is in the one place he can't reach - my brain." They all watched him walk on by, back towards the living room.
"You know, normally I'd agree," Izuku said. "But I have a bad feeling he just jinxed it."
"He puts the old in Old West: Grandpa the ~Kid~."
"I'm tired during the day," The onscreen character said.
Stan nodded along approvingly. "I can relate to this."
"Can't we all," Shouto agreed. Mina sent him a concerned look, as Soos let out a yell from the kitchen.
"Aaa! Bat! There's a bat in here!"
"Hang on, I got it." Wendy sighed and stood up. "Bats won't hurt you if you don't scare them. You just gotta know the trick to it."
"When did you learn that trick?" Izuku asked curiously.
"When my dad made all of us learn it. Hang on." They watched her leave the room, and soon enough, the backdoor opened, something flew out, and Soos let out a sigh of relief.
"How is she so badass?" Ochako wondered. "I mean, no powers in a world with supernatural dangers, and she's easily the coolest person around. I've learned so much in martial arts from her already, and it just seems like she can do anything. I think she's just my role model at this point."
"Agreed." If Wendy lived in their world, Izuku suspected she could be a top pro-hero. "I mean, my role model is still All Might, but Wendy is just the coolest."
"Aw, thanks guys." Wendy grinned, walking back into the room. "You're all pretty cool yourselves. And I would never have gone on all these adventures if I didn't work here."
"Yeah yeah, Wendy's cool, whatever," Stan scoffed. "Now, can you quiet down so we can watch tv?"
Ochako shook her head, mockingly solemn. "You just don't get it, Stan."
He narrowed his eyes at her. "Hey, don't take that tone. I get a lot of things. I just don't need to hear all this praising stuff, is all."
"Exactly," she teased. "You don't get it." Wendy looked away, a bit bashfully.
"What Stan will or won't get is a great life mystery," Soos agreed. "Like whether it's possible to lick your own elbow."
Mina grinned up at him. "Bet you can't."
"Bet I can." And with that, he started attempting to lick his own elbow, moving sideways as he did so, chuckling, Mina followed him, and after a moment of deliberating whether he wanted to watch Grandpa the Kid or Soos' elbow-licking attempts, Izuku decided to follow as well.
Eventually, when they were well out of the house, Soos gave up, staring dramatically off into the distance. "Like the infinite horizon, it eludes my grasp."
Izuku patted him on the shoulder. "You'll get it eventually, Soos." Then, wafting out of the woods, was the sound of maniacal laughter. He frowned at the voice. "Is that who I think it is?"
"Probably," Mina agreed. The three of them headed towards the sound.
There, in a clearing in the woods, Gideon kneeled in front of a circle of candles, chanting as the sky started to twist above them. Around them, the world became grayscale, and time seemed to slow down, animals pausing mid-step or mid-flight.
And then, above the circle of candles, a triangle out of the Journals appeared, and Izuku could feel his heart stop in his chest.
"Ahahahaha-ahahahAHAHA-AHAHAHAHAHAHA! It's so good to be perceived in the real world again! Well, close enough, at least." Cipher floated down, circling Gideon mockingly. "Name's Bill Cipher. And I take it you're some kind of living ventriloquist dummy?" He cackled at his own joke. "Just kidding! I know who you are, Gideon!"
Gideon looked absolutely stunned, and clearly a bit fearful. "H-How do you know my name?"
"Oh, I know lots of things! L-O-T-S O-F T-H-I-N-G-S." Images flashed across Cipher's body, and for a moment, Izuku thought he recognized one of them - but it was gone before he could tell what exactly it was. "Here, look what I can do." He motioned with his hand, and the teeth of a nearby deer floated over. "Deer teeth! For you, kid!"
Gideon dropped the teeth in horror. "Y-You're insane!"
"Sure I am," Cipher agreed. "What's your point? Didn't you read the warning label before summoning me?" He made the motion again, and the teeth flew back to the deer, restoring it to normal.
This seemed to snap Gideon out of his horrified daze, and he straightened up. "Listen up, Cipher! I have a job for you. I need you to enter the mind of Stanford Pines, and steal the code to his safe."
The three of them exchanged horrified glances. After what Cipher did to Shouto, Izuku knew the demon invading any mind would mean nothing good.
Still, this seemed to startle Cipher, if only for a second. "Stan Pines…? You know what, you've convinced me! I help you with this, and in return, you can help me with something I've been working on! We'll work out the details later."
"Deal," Gideon agreed immediately. Cipher's hand lit up with a familiar blue fire, and the two of them shook.
"Welp, time to go invade Stan's mind. This should be fun!". Cipher floated upwards. "Remember, reality is an illusiontheuniverseisahologrambuygoldBYE!"
Then he disappeared, color returned to the world, and time went back to normal.
Izuku exchanged a panicked glance with the others. "We have to tell them. Now."
Stan was sound asleep by the time Mina, Izuku, and Soos got back, and Ochako was winning the second round of a three way game of War between her, Wendy, and Shouto as they burst through the door. "Cipher's back!"
Ochako shot to her feet, and Shouto froze in place. "What!?"
"Gideon summoned him!" Soos panted, out of breath. "He was all yellow and triangle-shaped, like Shouto said! And he agreed to steal the safe combination from Stan's mind for Gideon!"
"We have to stop him!" Izuku added.
Wendy grimaced. "If he's as dangerous as you said, we need to prepare."
"There's no time." They all looked at Shouto, who was white as a sheet. "He's in Stan's head. We need to stop him now."
Ochako squeezed his hand. "Not much we can do to prepare if we're going into the mindscape, right? And time is of the essence here."
"There's a spell for entering someone's head after Cipher in the journal." Izuku pulled out the journal. "I'll start setting it up." He hesitated, looking at Shouto. "You don't have to come-"
"I do," Shouto insisted shortly, face like stone. They all knew there would be no changing his mind. Mina looked as uncomfortable with the idea of Shouto coming as Ochako felt, but she went over and gave their friend a tight one-armed hug anyways.
"We've got your back this time," she promised. "And always going forward. It's going to be different."
"...Yeah. I know."
There was a moment of silence as Izuku finished setting up, and Soos lit the candles. "Everyone ready? Place your hand on Stan's head." One by one, all six of them did so, and Izuku began the chant.
Moments later, everything went white.
...Then everything around them was greyscale.
Hesitantly, Ochako got to her feet, and the others did so as well. She felt for the amulet around her neck, and wasn't too surprised when she found nothing. It seemed the item hadn't followed her into the mindscape.
In front of them was the shack, but a twisted version of it, pieces and planks floating around in random spots, a broken swingset seated in front of it. In the "sky", an eight-ball floated inside of the moon.
"Is this what all minds look like? All grey and kind of creepy?" Wendy wondered, as they ventured forwards.
"Maybe it's because of the way we entered that we're seeing it like this?" Izuku offered, though his face showed he was just as confused as the rest of them.
"Honestly, I thought there'd be a lot more hot old ladies," Soos admitted, and Ochako cringed at the thought.
"We're just here to guard the safe code from Cipher," she said aloud, trying to ignore the creepiness of the place. "Just look out for the triangle guy, and we'll be fine, right?"
"Yeah, look out for the triangle guy!" She yelped and spun around, seeing Cipher himself floating down in front of them, blocking their way to the shack. "Hey there! Sparks, Sunshine, Question Mark, Ice Bags, Shooting Star, and… Pine Tree." If the triangle had a mouth, Ochako suspected he would be grinning maliciously. "My old puppet." Shouto went rigid, and she noticed his hands were shaking.
"Don't sound so cocky! We've defeated you before, and we'll do it again!" Mina declared, stepping in front of Shouto and sounding far braver than Ochako felt.
"Yeah, you "defeated" me. Sure." Cipher rolled his eye. "But things are different here, kiddos! You're in my home court now! I'm the master of the mind, and you're just toying with things you don't understand-"
He was cut off as a laser beam blasted him backwards, and Ochako turned, doing a double-take.
In Izuku's hands was a laser gun, and he was sparking with energy. "Master of the mind, huh? So the mind is something that anyone can manipulate? Good to know!"
Oh!
Cipher looked stunned for a moment, before flashing red. "Oh, you're a real smart fleshbag, aren't you, Sparks? That won't do at all!" Ochako felt a great weight pressing down on her, and the laser gun faded out of a stunned Izuku's hands. "Yeah, don't think that'll work so easily! You're all just a bunch of amateurs, and you're hopeless here!" He laughed.
Wendy gritted her teeth. "What are you really after here? Did you seriously do this just to help Gideon out?"
"Sure I did!" Cipher agreed easily. "That favor's gonna be real fun to call in, I can tell you that! Welp, time to go hunting through those memories. Behind one of those doors is the memory I'm looking for. Later losers!" And with that, he smashed through the front of the shack, leaving a Cipher-sized hole in it.
They all stared blankly at the hole he left for a moment, before collecting themselves. "Are you ready?" Izuku asked, more hesitant than before. Once again, they all found themselves looking at Shouto.
He refused to look at any of them. "Let's just do this."
The inside of the mind-shack was even stranger than the outside, with floating stairs of a cloudy abyss, barely connected hallways, and an endless amount of doors.
"Where do we even start?" Mina wondered, as they looked around.
Away from Cipher. Shouto bit down the thought. They needed to do this. They needed to stop the demon. He couldn't let his… issues get in the way with that.
He entertained the thought of using his fire - since he got it from Cipher, and Cipher was the expert here, would that be enough to overcome whatever block the demon had put on their own ability to manipulate the dreamscape? But he shoved the thought away. It was already so unpredictable, and the idea of Cipher seeing him using those powers, of knowing for sure whether Cipher meant for him to get them or not… it terrified him.
My old puppet.
Shut up. Shouto clenched his hands in an attempt to stop them from shaking more.
"We just need to pick a path and stick with it," Izuku decided. "If need be, we can probably split up. This place is strange, but it's Stan's mind, not a horror movie. We'll be fine."
"Are you sure they aren't one in the same?" Wendy joked. Still, it was a good plan, and they headed down the first flight of steps, towards the hall labeled "Memories".
The memory hall was also huge, fitting for an older man who'd lived a full life. Splitting up seemed to be the only way to cover it all, and so Shouto set off, looking through memory doors, seeing little snippets of Stan in prison, or on a bad date, or setting up the Mystery Shack sign for the first time.
He was about to head down another hall when he felt… something. A very odd something, pulling him in another direction. For a moment, he was frozen, yellow flashing in his head. But it didn't feel like Cipher. It felt like something else. Not a person or a demon, just… something. Something unexplainable.
He headed down the hall, wandering through a darker corridor than the ones he'd previously been through. A few seconds later, Mina joined him.
"You feel it too, huh?" She said. "It's the feeling I got after fighting those wax figures."
It was. When Mina had pointed it out to them later that night… it was the same feeling. Shouto nodded. "What do you think it is?"
"I have no idea. But whatever it is, it's gotta be important, right?" They stopped in front of a door, and the door felt like the right one. "You want to open this, or should I?"
"I can do it." Shouto steeled himself, then opened it.
Inside was the memory of a funeral. It was raining, and everyone was dressed in black. Stan was there, staring numbly at the ground, tears pouring down his face as two small coffins were lowered into the dirt.
Shouto shut the door and looked at Mina, who's expression had turned ashen.
"That picture we found, with the note… do you think?"
"Maybe we should ask him," Shouto offered, even if a part of him didn't want to think about it ever again. Uncomfortably, his mind flashed to a very different funeral, for his older sibling.
"Yeah. Maybe." Neither of them moved for a long moment, just looking at the closed door.
Izuku opened more and more memory doors, wondering if the whole operation wasn't just a little too big for the six of them to handle. Shout and Mina had already gone off on their own, and now it was just the four of them looking through the next hallway.
"What about this?" Ochako called out. The three of them headed towards her, and the door marked "TOP SECRET" she was standing next to. "Looks promising."
"Open it!" Soos encouraged, and she did.
Inside was Stan, smiling down at his stomach. "Hey mister Tummy! Hey mister Stan! Are you hungry? Yessss!"
Ochako slammed the door shut as hard as she could.
"We've been searching forever," Soos finally said. "What if the triangle guy finds the memory before we do?"
Izuku hummed in thought. "Well, if we want to find Stan's memory, we need to think like him, right? Where would he hide something actually top secret like this?"
Wendy snapped her fingers. "Under the rug. That's where he hides his arrest warrants, I think."
"Perfect!" And right nearby was a rug with a door underneath it. Izuku opened the door, and sure enough, the memory of imputing the code was underneath. Soos quickly closed it before they could hear all the numbers.
"Now we should destroy it before Cipher gets it, right?" Wendy grabbed an axe from a nearby suit of armor. She raised the weapon over the door.
"Wait! Maybe I should do it," Soos offered. "My big meaty arms are great at destroying stuff."
Wendy stared at him, perplexed. "What? We all know I'm the best at this stuff." Then she narrowed her eyes, and Izuku caught on as well, running at Soos and tackling him away as Wendy brought the axe down on the door, shattering it completely.
"What!?" And then "Soos" twisted and Izuku lept away, watching as Cipher took his real form once again. "How did you know?"
"Soos would never say a sentence like that," Wendy scoffed. "Really, that was amateurish."
"Oh hey guys, what's up?" Soos, the real Soos, asked, turning the corner. "I was looking for Mina and Shouto - ah! Triangle guy!"
"Don't worry, we destroyed the safe memory," Ochako told him.
"You-!" Cipher's bow tie rang, and he flinched. "Hello Gideon."
How did Gideon call him? Izuku wondered. But that wasn't important, as Gideon demanded to know what the progress was on finding the safe, and Cipher started to panic. Gideon spotted the shattered remains of the door, and fury stretched across his face.
"The deal's off! He declared. I'm moving to plan B!"
"Wait, no-!" But the call ended. Cipher rounded on them, looking absolutely furious. "You! Do you have any idea what you've cost me? Do you want to know what I'm like when I'm M A D!?"
Cipher's body turned red, and the floor fell away as they shot into the sky, racing up into the mental stars. Cipher grew bigger and bigger, towering over all of them, red lightning racing across his arms. "Eat NIGHTMARES!"
And then something hit Izuku, and there was All Might, in front of him, looking down on him with a face full of scorn and disappointment.
"Young Midoriya, I gave you my power so you could become the hero I believed you could be. And yet you're simply wasting it in a world with no powers? How could you throw away my sacrifice, my legacy, my trust like that?" He shook his head, disappointed. "It must've been fate that you were born quirkless. I should never have entrusted One for All to you. You're not fit to become a hero."
"No. No no no." He shook his head, desperate to block the words out. It's not real. It's just Cipher's trick, it's not real. Please just stop. Please be over!
There was a rumbling sound coming from where the others had gone off to. Shouto and Mina shared a worried glance, before taking off in that direction, stopping in front of the shattered landscape. Above them, they could see flashes of Cipher.
"How do we get up there?" Mina wondered desperately. "We need to help them!"
"What can we even do, if we can't alter the mind?" Shouto asked.
"I don't know! But we have to do something!" But what?
Then she got a crazy idea. One crazy enough that it might just work.
Hey strange Something, Mina thought. Whatever you're trying to show all of us, we can't do anything about it if Cipher wins here. Please, is there any way you can help us?
For a moment, nothing happened, and her hopes plummeted. Then, the Something was there, stronger than ever, and the weight Cipher had put on her was gone.
With a thought, Mina sent a blob of acid away from her, melting a bit of the floorboards. Ice curled around Shouto's right side. She looked at her friend, and saw the same grin she was wearing reflected back at her.
Thank you, she thought. And out loud, she said, "Let's do this!"
The two of them floated up to the others, and immediately, Shouto hit Cipher with a beam of orange fire from his left side, sending the demon hurtling back, followed by laser vision to the chest.
Mina landed in front of her friends. "We're gonna be okay! That weird Something lifted whatever he put on us!"
As if in response to her words, each of them startled, clearly sensing the same things.
Cipher righted himself, staring down at them. "What? No! How did you-? That's impossible!"
"We're in the mind!" Izuku pointed out, smiling. "Nothing is impossible here."
"That's right!" Ochako put her fingertips together, and the mental stars surrounding them all crashed down onto Cipher.
"Looks like it's our turn now." Wendy summoned two massive glowing swords, one in each hand, and started hacking away at the demon, while Soos hit him with a stomach beam.
Izuku started glowing, like he had during the exercise they had done, and the next moment he was in front of Cipher, punching him with the full strength of his quirk. Cipher literally shattered, before pulling himself back together.
"Enough games!" He summoned a massive fiery cannon from his eye, and pointed it at them. Instinctively, Mina pulled up a shield in the shape of that human sized hamster ball. The blast reflected back at Cipher, and looking around, she saw that everyone had done the exact same - including Shouto.
She beamed at him, and he rolled his eyes, the corners of his mouth twitching upwards.
"And now for your worst nightmare: A portal out of Stan's mind!" Izuku declared. "Everyone, together!"
Mina closed her eyes and thought as hard as she could-
"ENOUGH." And then they were all in a white void, with Cipher looking down on them, fading back to yellow. "You know, I'm a bit impressed with you guys. You're more clever than you look. So, I'm gonna let you kids off the hook for now. But know this: a darkness approaches. A day will come in the future where everything you care about will change. Until then, I'll be watching you!" Around him, a familiar wheel spun, faster and faster - and then he was gone.
Wendy broke the silence left in his wake. "Well, that was pretty ominous."
"Yeah." Izuku chuckled nervously. "But at least we averted this disaster." He nudged his friend. "You okay, Shouto?"
Shouto was still staring at the spot Cipher had vanished from. "Yeah. I think so, at least. We - we beat him."
"We've beat him twice now, and we can do it again," Mina said, smiling. "However many times it takes." All their forms flicked. "I think Stan's waking up now."
"Yeah." Mina took in her friend's faces for a moment, thought about Cipher's last words - and everything faded to white.
...Then they were waking up.
Ochako opened her eyes in the living room, looking around at everyone else stretching and getting up, including Stan, who seemed rather confused.
"I just had the weirdest dream," he admitted, looking perplexed.
"Best not to dwell on it, Mr. Pines," Wendy offered. Stan looked at her strangely for a moment, before shrugging it off.
Then the side of the room exploded, and Ochako was flying backwards.
When her vision cleared, there Gideon was, holding the deed with a triumphant expression.
"My minion failed me, so I switched to plan B: dynamite," he said smugly. Ochako concentrated on the deed, and it glowed blue… before the blue faded out, and Gideon smiled mockingly down at her. "Ha! Did you think I wouldn't plan for the amulet you stole from me? But I've got the deed now, so get off my property!" He switched on his walkie-talkie. "Daddy? Bring it around the front."
Ochako looked at the giant bulldozer moving towards them. "Well. Shit."
I'm sure everyone knows what's coming next. We're approaching the end of Gravity Falls' season 1, and I'm very excited to officially get to season 2. I hope you all enjoyed, and please don't forget to review and let me know what you thought!