(A/N: And we're back, after a bit of a cliffhanger ending last time where Bill created an imaginary Darcy and Belos for our heroes to face off against while he dealt with Dipper and Mabel. Things are about to get interesting as both groups now face their friends' adversaries. Let's see how they fair against them.)

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Chapter 9: Old Adversaries

The group of witches hesitantly held their ground as the Darcy-Core creature loomed over them, a sinister chuckle escaping her.

"Well, come on," she said, swinging her scythe through the air, "let's see what's superior, Newtopian technology or Boiling Isles magic."

A growl escaped King before he leapt forward and unleashed a "Weh!". Darcy just sneered and swung her scythe, the length of it extending, and she somehow cut through the soundwaves, causing the ripples to disperse. Hunter went on the attack next, using his signature teleporting dash to move closer and closer while appearing farther and farther up in the air until he was directly over the Darcy part of the Core, and he swung his staff at her.

One of Darcy's tentacles came up and blocked the blow, and another one knocked him to the ground. Darcy then sent several more tentacles flying at him and the others. Gus acted quickly, creating illusions of multiple copies of each of them that took off in all different directions. The real Willow quickly pulled Hunter to his feet and he grabbed her and magically dashed them out of the way before one of Darcy's tentacles smashed into where they had been, and they mixed in amongst the illusion copies.

Luz did a combo move, tossing an ice glyph on the ground to ride the pillar of ice it produced up to Darcy's height and then drew a magic circle with her staff to shoot a stream of fire at her. Darcy just laughed and twirled her scythe in front of her, dispersing the flames. She then raised her scythe to slash her, but a wave of Abomination sludge fell over her from behind before forming into an actual Abomination that wrapped its arms around Darcy. Down on the ground, Amity created more Abominations that grabbed hold of her legs.

"How amusing," Darcy remarked. "You think a few sludge golems and some illusions can keep you safe?"

She burst from the Abominations' hold. She then began swinging her scythe, flinging out blades of energy at the illusions. As mere illusions, they could do nothing but disappear as the blades of energy struck them, while the actual witches needed to resort to using their magic to defend themselves, exposing which of them were real.

For Willow, she summoned up a giant, thorny vine barrier to shield her against the energy blade that was coming at her. She then had several more sprout from the ground and begin coiling around Darcy. This just made her chuckle and she began growing in size until she easily tore free of the vines. The Darcy upper-body part was now so large she could pick up any one of the witches and hold them in her hand.

"Oh boy," Luz muttered. "She's gone full kaiju. We've got some big trouble now. Literally."

"No, we have a bigger target," King declared. "Weh!"

His magic shockwave flowed over Darcy, causing her to skid back, but she just snickered. "That's adorable. You should make it your ringtone."

She raised her now giant scythe. Amity quickly brought all her Abomination sludge together to form one large Abomination. As Darcy brought down her scythe, the Abomination caught it. It fell to one knee as it struggled to hold back the scythe and Luz hopped onto her staff, flying over to the Abomination and tossed a few glyphs onto its back. The glyph combination caused it to grow five times in size and it rose to its feet, easily holding back the scythe.

With a frustrated growl, Darcy pulled back her scythe. At this point, the other witches were flying around her on their staves as well, using Darcy's large size against her as they flew around her head.

"We've got to find a way to take her down," said Hunter, pointing out the obvious. "How did Sasha say she beat her again?"

"She severed Marcy's connection to the Core," Willow reminded him. "But we can't do that this time; Bill made the two of them a hybrid version of Darcy."

"Then we'll find another way," Amity replied.

She motioned for her giant Abomination to attack, but Darcy just sneered as it came at her, and the numerous eyes on her head and Core body began glowing. Illusions were projected, creating five other Darcys surrounding the Abomination, and they began circling it, confusing the sludge golem as to which one was real.

"Which one, which one?" Darcy taunted. "Here's a hint."

All the Darcy's swung their scythes, but only one cut through the Abomination. It lost track of which one had landed the blow though as the Darcys continued circling around it, chuckling. The real one continued to hack away as her illusions mimicked her, reducing the Abomination to a bunch of chunks.

Luz directed her staff to fly above the Darcys, going in the opposite direction they were moving around in. Taking a deep breath, she slapped a glyph onto herself and turned invisible. This allowed her to move in close, and she tossed a light glyph over each Darcy's head. There was a blinding flash from each of them, and the real Darcy cried out, closing her eyes.

This resulted in the illusion Darcys disappearing, and Luz reappeared as she breathed once more. With the real Darcy revealed, she circled over her head and tossed fire glyphs that burst into fiery explosions in her face. Gus then flew in with King riding on his staff. He threw the little Titan at Darcy, and he let out a "Weh!" in her face, causing her to skid backwards into the wall.

Growling, one of Darcy's tentacles shot out and grabbed King, then began squeezing him in her grip. Amity quickly seized control of the remnants of her Abomination, reforming it, and it rose up and lifted its arm. Its hand at the end shaped itself into a blade and severed the tentacle holding King. Darcy cried out as her limb fell away, and King quickly scrambled out of its slackened hold.

"Ha, how d'you like that?" Gus asked. "We'll dismantle you piece by piece if we have to."

Darcy turned to him and her grin returned. "You can try, but I have a feeling you'll find that to be more difficult than you think."

To get her point across, she held out her severed tentacle. The portion that had been sliced off rose up and reattached itself, good as new. Darcy then turned back to the witches and sneered.

Luz swallowed. "I think we're in real trouble."

(-)-(-)-(-)-(-)-(-)-(-)-(-)-(-)

Anne and Sasha backed away as Belos took a step towards them. Even though they couldn't see his face behind his mask, the former emperor's very presence was intimidating enough.

"What's the matter, Anne, Sasha?" he taunted in a pleasant voice as he moved closer. "You stood against an entire robot army before. Surely one lowly, old man doesn't intimidate you."

Anne unconsciously took another step back. "How do you know about that?"

"Don't be fooled, Anne," Sasha told her, even as she too stepped back. "This is just one of Bill's tricks. He's not real."

"Yeah, maybe," Anne acknowledged, "but what he can do in his mind still affects us as long as we're in here, right? And he can use magic."

Sasha hesitated at this. "That may be, but we can take him. He said it himself, he's just an old man."

As if in response to this, Belos suddenly transformed into his true, demonic, skeletal, monster form he had mutated into over the centuries of misusing magic and draining palismen. Each eye on his body zeroed in on the two girls and he let out an inhuman roar.

"I stand corrected!" Sasha exclaimed.

"And dead soon enough," Belos declared.

He lunged at them and they jumped aside, his fists cracking the ground where they had stood. He then turned to Sasha and raised his arm, his hand turning into a blade, and he swiped at her. Sasha rolled aside, avoiding his swipe, and he raised his other hand, turning that one into a blade as well and bringing it down. Sasha quickly parted her legs, and his blade stabbed right between them, less than an inch from her groin.

Letting out a snarl, Belos raised both blades, ready to bring them down on her, but Anne suddenly leapt up onto his back, putting him in a headlock. Belos roared and thrashed about, trying to throw her off, but Anne hung on tightly.

One of his blades turned back into a hand and he reached back, grabbing Anne and pulling her off his back. His arm then extended, pushing her back until he slammed her against the wall. The hand holding her then seemed to liquefy and spread over her, sticking her to the wall. He released her, leaving behind a blob of dark, greenish-black flesh that kept Anne glued to the wall.

"Ew, ew, ew, ew," Anne began muttering in disgust.

A new blade formed as Belos raised his arm again and brought it down, ready to cut Anne in half. But suddenly, Sasha jumped in front of her and held up a red sword, catching Belos' blade.

"You ok, Anne?" she asked as she struggled to hold Belos' blade back.

"Sasha, whoa, where'd you get that sword?" Anne asked, recognizing it as the same one she had used back in Amphibia.

With a burst of strength, Sasha pushed Belos' blade-hand back, causing him to stumble away. Taking advantage of the moment, she whirled around and swung her sword, cutting through the blob of flesh keeping Anne stuck to the wall, and she dropped to the ground.

Sasha immediately turned back to Belos, holding out her sword. "Don't you remember what Dipper and Mabel said? We can imagine anything we want here."

Anne's eyes widened. "That's right, we can!"

She held out her hand and a tennis racket appeared in her hand. Muttering a quick "Nope,", she tried again, and the tennis racket turned into a blue sword.

"There we go," she said, and went to stand by Sasha's side, both of them pointing their swords at Belos.

The witch hunter hissed at them. "It'll take more than colorful swords and fancy dance moves to stop me."

Sasha smirked. "Now he's speaking our language. Shall we, Anne?"

Knowing what she was getting at, Anne smiled. "Let's do it."

They imagined a giant boombox, and it materialized out of thin air. Loud music began playing from it, the same song they had dance-fought to ten years ago when they faced off against the brainwashed Olivia and Yunnan. Belos let out a roar and charged at them. He swiped at them with both blades, but Anne and Sasha caught them with theirs.

Bobbing their heads to the music, the two of them got into the beat and went on the attack. They incorporated attacks and swipes of their swords into their dance moves, dodging and blocking when they needed to. Belos very clearly could not get into the rhythm, and he was left attempting to match their movements, a difficult feat as it often put him one step behind them.

At one point in the song, Anne and Sasha struck at the same time, driving their swords into Belos' chest. The witch hunter howled in pain and stumbled back, glaring at the two of them furiously. Their swords had retracted as he backed away, and his stab wounds healed.

"His body is almost… sludgy," Anne commented. "That could make him hard to defeat."

Sasha swiped her sword through the air. "Then let's see what cutting off his head will do."

Belos' eyes, all of them, flashed furiously. "Impudent little curs! You have no idea who you're dealing with!"

Anne pointed her sword at him. "Sure we do. You're just an imaginary version of the real Belos."

The witch hunter growled. "Tell me, does this seem imaginary?"

Suddenly, he began changing. A grayish fungus that seemed to resemble screaming faces and hands began spreading across his body. It completely consumed him before rapidly growing in size. Anne and Sasha stared up at the distorted substance in stunned disbelief as the shapeless mass soon towered over them. And when it finished growing, it began to take form, shaping itself into a giant, demonic dragon creature.

"Is this real enough for you?" the dragon beast demanded.

"Final Boss Belos!" Anne exclaimed in horror, realizing this must be the form he had taken in Luz's story when he had merged with the Titan's heart.

"Die!" Belos declared, and opened his mouth to fire a beam of pure magic.

Both Anne and Sasha dove out of the way, going in opposite directions. An explosion of magic erupted from where his beam struck, blasting apart the boombox the two girls had created, and leaving a mass of the gray fungus covering the area.

Sasha turned her landing into a roll and jumped to her feet. As she did so, she threw her sword up at Belos. It spinning through the air, burying in his nose, and he let out a roar and turned to her.

"How'd you like that?" the blonde girl declared and manifested two new swords. "And there's plenty more where that came from."

With a snarl, Belos reached up and tore the sword out of his nose. He then punched forward and his clawed hand became a mass of fungus once more. A fearful look crossed Sasha's face as she realized that she couldn't avoid it and was going to be smashed, but before she was, a giant ball of light collided with the mass of fungus, obliterating it. Belos roared and drew back his severed limb, which immediately grew back.

"What the?" Sasha gasped.

She looked around and gasped again as she caught sight of Anne. However, her friends had transformed into her blue state. She then took the transformation further from her standard blue form and transformed onto her the full-powered one she, Sasha, and Marcy had taken on when they had tried to stop the Core from crashing the moon into Amphibia.

"Anne…" she whispered in awe.

A smirk crossed Anne's face. "I figured if we can imagine things into reality here, then why not go big?"

Sasha blinked, the possibility of using the power of the Calamity Gems without the actual Calamity Gems having not occurred to her. But now, seeing what Anne had done, she smirked. "You're right," she said, tossing her swords aside. "It's time for an upgrade."

Remembering the power the pink gem had granted her, she imagined herself obtaining it once more. Almost immediately, she transformed as well into her Pink Calamity form.

"Man, I missed this," she commented, and she formed balls of pink energy in her hands. "Give me a S! Give me an A! Give me a S-H-A! What does that spell?"

With each letter she cheered, she fired a beam of pink energy from one of her fists that blasted against Belos, causing him to recoil.

"Sasha! Sasha!" Anne cheered, and then used her blue powers to form a giant tennis racket. "Gooooo, Sasha!"

She threw a blue ball of energy up into the air that rapidly grew in size before she hit it with the tennis racket, sending it right at Belos, where it exploded against him. Sasha then flew over to her and they high-fived.

Belos roared again, rising up to his full-height. Any damage he had sustained from Anne and Sasha's attacks instantly healed and he lunged forward, firing another blast of magic from his mouth. Anne and Sasha scattered to avoid the beam, and Belos thrashed his head about, firing his beam everywhere. The decaying fungus that seemed to make up his body spread wherever his beam touched.

"He just keeps healing from anything we throw at him," Anne stated as she and Sasha flew along, avoiding his attacks.

"Yeah, I know," the blonde girl stated. She also took note that anywhere Belos' beam struck became covered in his fungus. "This might be tougher than we thought."

(-)-(-)-(-)-(-)-(-)-(-)-(-)-(-)

There seemed to be no way to stop Darcy. She either withstood or recovered from whatever attack Luz and her friends threw at them. Had the real Darcy actually been this powerful in the real world, or was it a result of this one being imaginary. Luz didn't know, but it didn't really matter right now.

Currently, she and her friends were on the run as the giant Darcy scurried after them, laughing maniacally. They flew about in the air as they avoided swipes from Darcy's scythe, swings of her tentacles, and blades of energy launched at them. They fought back with what they could, but against an enemy so large and so powerful, their spells weren't that affective, and any that were, Darcy was able to recover from.

"None of this is working," said Gus. "We're never going to be able to defeat her this way."

"We need more power," Willow commented.

"Or," said Hunter, suddenly getting an idea, "we need to combine our power."

Darcy swiped at them, and they flew apart to dodge her blade. "It doesn't matter how much power you use, you'll never stop me."

Hunter's eyes narrowed. "We'll see about that. King, to me, Gus, hit her with an illusion."

Nodding, Gus flew past Hunter so King could jump off his staff and onto Hunter's. Tapping into the amplifying power of his mirror pendant, he cast a powerful illusion that completely surrounded the entire area, including Darcy, projecting the Boiling Isles. The sudden change in the environment gave her pause, and she looked around curiously before smirking.

"How cute," she mocked. "You think you can fool me with a mere illus–"

"Weh!"

She recoiled as Hunter zoomed in, and King on his staff unleashed his mighty cry. Darcy growled and turned to them, but Hunter short-range teleported them to the other side of her head where King let out another wail before they disappeared again.

"Annoying little pests!" Darcy seethed, and was hit by another magic soundwave. But before she could retaliate, Hunter and King had teleported again, the latter unleashing another cry. "Hold still, you worthless maggots!"

As Hunter and King kept Darcy sufficiently distracted, Gus' illusion hid what the others were doing. And from out of the illusions, several Abominations emerged to grab hold of Darcy. This was followed up by numerous vines growing and wrapping around her. Darcy snarled in frustration as she struggled against the vines and purple blobs.

"Is this the best you can do?" she demanded. "Some weeds and humanoid piles of walking sludge."

"How about this?" Luz cried, tossing down several glyphs from above.

These were revealed to be ice glyphs, and as they rained down on Darcy, she, along with the vines and Abominations, were frozen over in a giant block of ice. With her being sufficiently trapped, it seemed like she was finally defeated.

Amity flashed Hunter a smile. "Nice plan. Looks like it worked."

Gus gave him a thumbs up as he let the illusion drop. "Yeah, nice going." Then he looked at the frozen Darcy. "You see that. We weren't combining our magic to be more powerful; we were combining it to be more effective!"

As the illusionary environment faded, however, and they once again found themselves in the depths of Marcy's mind, they caught sight of Belos in his dragon form in the distance as he did battle with Anne and Sasha.

"Wait a sec…" said Willow uneasily, "isn't that…?"

"Belos, after he fused with my dad's heart," King growled. "Why am I not surprised imaginary Belos became that?"

"But who are they?" Amity asked, pointing to the glowing blue and pink figures he was trying to blast. "Are they–"

"Anne and Sasha!" Luz exclaimed. "Those must be the forms they took when they tapped into the power of the gems."

King gave her a confused look. "But how is that possible without the gems?"

Willow turned to the others. "Don't you remember what Dipper and Mabel said? In the mindscape, we can imagine anything."

Luz blinked as she processed this, then scowled in annoyance. "You mean we've been fighting an imaginary villain with our standard magic when we could have just been using our imaginations? Why didn't any of us think of that?"

Before anyone could respond, the giant block of ice shattered as Darcy broke free, drawing everyone's attention to her. She turned to them furiously and lifted her scythe.

"Enough of these games!" she declared. "It's time to end this!"

She swung her scythe, flinging a giant blade of energy at the group. Luz immediately directed her staff forward, and she flew directly into the energy blade's path. There was a bright flash of light at the collision that had the others shield their eyes.

"Luz!" Amity shouted.

Darcy sneered. "So much for her."

"Not quite."

The smile left Darcy's face as the light died down and Luz now hovered in the air. Like Anne and Sasha, she too had transformed, becoming the Titan-hybrid form she had taken when she had defeated Belos.

"What is this!?" Darcy demanded.

King leaned forward on Hunter's staff. "That's the form she took when my dad gave her his power!"

"Whoa, she looks amazing!" Gus exclaimed. "Doesn't she look amazing?"

As Hunter and Willow nodded, Amity stared with wide, shining eyes, her mouth hanging open, and a blush on her cheeks. "Uhhh…"

Luz just smiled as she stared up at Darcy. "Anything we can imagine, right? That means that I don't actually need the Titan's power to have it, I just have to imagine that I have it."

Darcy pointed her scythe at her furiously. "You think your little furry transformation can save you? Well, you're dead wrong!"

Luz's smile widened. "No, I don't think I am. Because right now, I'm using a power even greater than magic. The power of imagination!"

She held out her staff and drew a magic circle, them aimed her staff in the middle of it, with Darcy in her sights. All up the length of her staff, a different glyph appeared, and the magic circle they led up to filled with energy.

"Now eat this, sucka!"

A powerful beam of magic burst from the end of her staff. It struck Darcy in the chest and blasted straight through her, growing larger and larger in size as cracks of light began spreading across her body. Darcy cried out as she was engulfed by the magic beam until she finally burst into a shower of sparks and vanished.

Luz stopped firing and twirled her staff around in triumph before striking a pose akin to that of a classic anime character. "Imagination is the greatest form of magic!"

"Luz!"

Dropping the pose, she turned to see Amity flying at her before she leapt off her staff, and Luz opened her arms to catch her, the two of them falling into a loving embrace.

"Don't you ever do something so reckless again!" the lavender-haired girl scolded as she hugged her tightly.

Luz just chuckled. "Sorry for scaring you, sweet potato. Once I realized we had the power of imagination on our side, I knew nothing could hurt us."

"Um, maybe we should tell them that," King replied, pointing at Anne and Sasha.

Luz nodded. "Right, let's go."

Amity let out a "Whoa!" as Luz scooped her up and flew off towards the glowing pink and blue figures, carrying her girlfriend bridal style the whole way, her friends right behind her.

Belos' large size was working against him with how small and fast Anne and Sasha were. But with his fungus growing and expanding all around them, they were quickly getting cornered, and soon found themselves without anywhere to go with all the fungus reaching for them. And any of it that they blasted away simply grew back.

"What do we do now?" Anne asked as she looked around for somewhere the fungus couldn't reach them.

Sasha turned back to Belos as he closed in on them. "I'm not… I'm not sure."

Belos sneered as he loomed over them. "Nowhere left to go. Now you die."

He fired a blast of magic at them. Before it could hit though, Luz came bursting through a wall of fungus, the others right behind her, coming to a stop right in front of Anne and Sasha. She let out her own "Weh!", dispersing the blast of magic Belos had fired.

"What!?" the witch hunter bellowed.

Anne and Sasha stared at Luz's Titan-hybrid form as she held Amity securely in her arms. Glancing back at them, Luz gave the two girls a smile. "You guys ok?"

Sasha's eyes widened. "Luz? Is that you?"

"Whoa, dude, what happened to you?" Anne exclaimed.

Smile widening, Luz turned to them as she presented herself. "Pretty cool, right? This is what I turned into when the Titan gave me his power."

Anne shook her head and gave her a stunned look. "Wait, you can do that?"

Raising an eyebrow, Amity pointed at her. "Well, you guys did it too."

Anne looked down at her Blue Calamity form. "Well, yeah, but I didn't know we could take it that far."

There was a snarl from Belos as he towered over the group. Luz turned to him, looking determine, but Anne floated forward and placed a hand on her shoulder, giving her a confident smile.

"If that's the case, I got this, dude," she told her.

Luz studied her for a moment before smiling and nodding. She moved aside, allowing Anne to float forward, and as she did so, she closed her eyes. There was a blinding flash of light, and when it died down, Anne now hovered in the air, now made almost entirely out of pure, white energy.

"What witchery is this!?" Belos demanded.

Anne's smile grew wide. "This is the power I had when I used all three gems." She held up her hand. "And since it's just imaginary, I don't have to worry about dying."

An eruption of energy burst from her hand and struck Belos. A loud roar escaped the witch hunter as he was completely obliterated by the blast, and even all the fungus he had spread disintegrated. And when it finally died down, only a few particles of light were all that remained of Belos before they faded away.

Anne lowered her hand, looking thoroughly satisfied. "And that's how it's done."

Luz rushed over. "That was amazing! Was that how you destroyed Amphibia's moon?"

Turning to her, Anne bashfully rubbed the back of her head. "Well, sort of. Only last time I died."

Sasha's fist suddenly came down on Anne's head. "And you were dumb enough to use that power again!?"

Now rubbing her head for an entirely different reason, Anne looked at her. "What? It was imaginary. Imaginary things can't hurt you."

Sasha just glared at her. "Yeah, in the real world they can't, but we're in the mindscape. Imaginary things can affect us here. Hence how we almost died fighting that thing."

Anne gave her a blank look. "Well, maybe, but I just imagined that I wouldn't die if I used the power. So, problem solved."

Sasha opened her mouth, looking like she wanted to argue further, but didn't have a way to counter Anne's point. She instead threw her hands in the air and cried out in frustration. "Ah! This whole mindscape thing is so confusing!"

At that moment, the others flew over to join them, looking rather worried.

"Hey, guys," Willow said uneasily. "Where's Dipper, Mabel, and Bill?"

(A/N: Well, that made for an interesting battle between the two groups. Both got a taste of what the others were up against in fighting their designated villains. But hey, it looks like they managed to tap into the true power of the imagination and defeat the imaginary Belos and Darcy. But there's still Bill to deal with, and it seems that in all the excitement, they completely forgot about Dipper and Mabel. And they were the ones who had been left to deal with Bill. Have the Pines twins been able to hold their own? You'll have to wait until next time to find out. This chapter and next were originally meant to be one chapter, but I decided to split them up with how long it was being, that's why this one seems to have ended rather abruptly, but I think it still worked. So stay tuned for next time and see how things went with the Pines twins and Bill.)