#we all know wendy is a certified badass :')

[goldenworldsabound]

Hey, Philly! I’m Piers, I’m taking over Kali’s blog for now. I’m I really respect your skills with weapons. You’d do great in the BSAA, you know. Have you ever had to protect Wendy from whatever crazy stuff you deal with on the daily? Or has she ever had to protect you? I’ve heard she’s quite the badass herself...

🐂 Certainly nice to meet ya with a compliment like that.

🐂 What’s this BSAA thing you’re talking about? Never heard of it. Are you part of it? Does that mean you’re skilled with weapons?

🐂 Oh yeah, she’s 100% certified badass. I still wanna protect her though, ya know? Hell, we’re both immortal, but that doesn’t stop me wanting to avoid seeing her get hurt or die...

🐂 Back before she was immortal I had to protect her a lot. I’m a fucking trouble magnet for idiots with guns who think they can kill me for a bounty. I died a few times protecting her. But I come back, so I mean...I didn’t see it has a big deal compared to if I didn’t protect her, ya know?

🐂 She didn’t see it the same way (which I thought was pretty stupid) and got mad at me for dying for her sake. But like I said, what choice did I have if I wanted her alive? Anyway, that’s all in the past, now we watch each other’s backs pretty evenly. And takes the hits equally too, despite my protests.

[thesnadger]

Axolotol - Chapter Twelve: That You Always Keep Locked

Read previous chapters on Ao3

Thanks as always to @scribefindegil for betaing! 

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“All right...family, extended family and close friends.” Ford stood in the center of the Mystery Shack den, clapping his hands for attention. “Let's go over everyone's

The minor crowd that had assembled in the Shack quieted down and turned to him. Candy and Grenda had arrived mid-morning, and Pacifica had gotten a ride with Fiddleford. By the time everyone was gathered and ready, it was nearly noon.

“This will be a delicate and dangerous mission.” He continued, “and any number of things could bring it to disaster, so the safety of the Shack is of paramount importance. The unicorn hair barrier is still functioning, but there are a great many threats that can get through it. That's why we'll need a security force patrolling outside. Wendy, Grenda, Mabel. You three are the most formidable fighters we have.”

“Darn right.” Wendy said.

“We'll need you to circle the perimeter of the Shack.” He unfurled a map of the surrounding woods spreading it out on the table. “You'll spread out in three directions and circle counter-clockwise to ensure as few open spots in our defenses as possible. This pattern is the most efficient use of our ground forces, and the unfortunate fact that it resembles a triangle is just something we'll all have to deal with.” He added, gritting his teeth. “In particular you'll be keeping an eye out for Cipher cultists, government interference--”

“Those guys do have the worst sense of timing.” Mabel said.

“--And anything else that might pose a threat to what's happening in the Shack. Now, formidable or not, if you do encounter something dangerous it will be better if you aren't alone. So Grenda, you'll be with Candy. Mabel, because you insisted he be counted as an individual and not a pet, you'll be going with Waddles.”

“All right!” Mabel opened her arms as her beloved pig waddled up to her. “Who's gonna help me defeat the forces of evil? You are! Yes you are! Yeeeees yoooou aaaare!”

“And Wendy, you'll be paired with Pacifica.” Ford finished.

“Cool.” Wendy smirked. “Badass world-saving girl gang. And Waddles.”

“Eh.” Mabel said, still scratching the pig's cheeks. “Waddles responds to all pronouns.”

“...Soos, since you're CPR-certified, your task will be to stand by and monitor the three of us in case something goes wrong in the mindscape. In the event of an emergency, I'm trusting you to handle any necessary first-aid that may be required. Melody, your job is to ensure Soos doesn't faint in the event of an emergency, to provide additional aid, and to make any difficult decisions he may not be emotionally equipped to handle.”

“...Difficult decisions?” Melody frowned.

“You'll know them if they come up. Fiddleford....” Ford began.

“I already know, dangit, y'don't have to remind me!” Fiddleford said, holding up the device in his hand. “I'm s'posed ta keep an eye on Stan's brainwaves, because for reasons I won't understand if I live to be a hundred, you think I'll be able to tell if somethin' weird is happening in there. Weirder than all this, anyway.” He shook his head. “I'll do it, for whatever it's worth, but you know I'm getting nothing but static from that man's skull.”

“...It's worth trying all the same. Thank you.” Ford turned to Dipper. “You know well what our role is. Enter Stan's mind, find Bill, and destroy him by whatever means necessary. I can't predict exactly what we'll find in there. We'll have to be prepared for anything.”

“I know. I won't let you down.” Dipper said. “...You either.” he added, turning to Stan.

Stan grunted, glancing away. “Yeah, yeah. Just stay outta that one year where I worked as a party clown and we'll be fine.”

“Stanley...from your point of view, this will likely all feel like a dream. If we're lucky, you'll be able to focus enough to consciously aid us while we're inside your mind. We'll hope for the best.”

Ford finally turned to the three remaining figures in the room. He knelt down in front of Lee, Sephiroth and Chestaur, who were lined up nearby.

“Small, defenseless children—I have a special task for you.”

“Oh, oh!” Lee hopped up and down on her heels. “Do we get to man the giant laser canon that's gonna shoot Bill in the face?”

“That was my original plan, yes.” Ford said. “Due to your small size and manual dexterity. But there wasn't time to rebuild the quantum destabilizer and at any rate, we're not presently dealing with Bill's physical form. Also your mother expressed some concerns and a number of disturbingly specific threats when I brought the idea up to her, so instead your task is to go upstairs and watch this video--” he pulled a VHS tape from behind his back and presented it with a flourish. “--about brightly colored animals that emit personality-altering mind control beams from their stomachs.”

The children groaned.

“Now, now, it'll be fun! You can look for animation errors and analyze the influence of Regan-era conservatism on the narrative!” Ford grinned. “Up you go, come on.”

With some reluctance, Lee accepted the VHS tape and took it upstairs, her brothers following behind her. Mabel approached Dipper and pulled him into a tight hug.

“Good luck. You're gonna do great, I just know it.” She said softly.

“So are you.” Dipper replied. He let go of her and held out a fist. Mabel held one out parallel to his and made a nyyyyoo sound effect as they collided. The two of them made explosion noises and wiggled their fingers together.

“Mystery twins?” Dipper asked.

“Mystery twins for life, bro.” Mabel replied. She turned to Stan and Ford and wrapped an arm around each of them, pulling them both into a tight hug. There were a number of audible popping noises as she squeezed.

“Oouf.” Stan smiled, voice tight. “You're gonna snap these old bones in half one day, you know that?”

“S'okay. I'll glue you back together.” Mabel smiled back. “I love you.”

“You too, pumpkin.”

Mabel pulled back a little and looked at Ford. “You and Dipper'll take care of each other in there?”

“Of course.” He replied.

She nodded and reluctantly let them go. Wendy put a hand on her shoulder as she turned back towards the others. As Candy hopped onto Grenda's shoulders and ran out the front door towards the woods, Mabel took a last look back, before following after her friends.

Ford pulled the pendulum on a metronome that had been placed on a nearby table (a compromise, after last time he wasn't eager to put a paddleball in Stan's hands again.) The rhythmic clicks filled the room, and he gestured to the mustard-colored easy chair that had been surrounded by runes and protective herbs the night before.

“Welp. Here goes nothing.” Stan took a deep breath and sat down, leaning back and closing his eyes. Soos hit the lights. Ford and Dipper knelt down on either side of the chair, each placing a hand on Stan's forehead.

Ford looked at Dipper, who nodded back, and began reciting the incantation. “Videntus omnium, magister mentium...”

The others crowded around the three of them, Fiddleford watching the device in his hand with a frown, Melody resting a hand on Soos's shoulder as he fidgeted with the fez in his hands.

“...Inceptus Nolanus overratus...” Ford chanted. “Magister mentium! Magister mentium! MAGISTER MENTIUM!”

* * *

Dipper's vision was taken over by white light, and his other senses quickly followed suit. For a moment, he was nowhere. Then, he was kneeling on a soft patch of grass, he heard the sound of wind in the trees, and felt a six-fingered hand on his shoulder.

“Stand up slowly.” Ford advised. “Just because you don't have an inner ear right now doesn't mean you can't get vertigo.”

Dipper nodded and rose slowly to his feet, lifting his head to see his uncle standing beside him, and the mindscape spread out in every direction.

“Oh!” His breath caught.

“What? Do you see something?” Ford asked.

“No, no, it's just...” Dipper stared out at the scene surrounding him. “It looks so...different than it did before.”

He and Ford were standing on a bluff, overlooking the Mystery Shack. It was whole, not the broken building floating over a void that Dipper had seen before. A soft, warm light was coming from its windows. On one side, there was the forest. On the other side, the ground gave way to gently lapping waves where the Stan-O-War was anchored, beyond which the water stretched on for miles, eventually curving up into the sky. A swarm of bats flew by, dipping and circling near the Shack, but they didn't seem ominous, really...they were just the kind of spooky touch Grunkle Stan would like.

It was night. The moon was still shaped like the 8-ball from Stan's cane, but the sky around it was filled with countless twinkling stars.

Ford smiled down at him, warmly. Then he turned and pointed. “We ought to get moving. No sense in dawdling.”

“Right.”

There were floating rocks, chunks of the bluff that seemed to have been yanked away from the bulk of it, revealing dinosaur bones and veins of precious metals underneath, and they made for an easy climb down to the Shack. Ford reached into his coat and drew out a weapon that Dipper didn't recognize...maybe some sort of alien technology, or something he had made. It was always hard to tell with Ford. Had he brought a gun into Stan's mind?

“...It's a projection.” Ford said, answering Dipper's unasked question. “...This was a favorite weapon of mine before I lost it in Dimension 833-7...or was it 733-8? Whichever one was underwater.” he shrugged. “It's just a mental image, but in here things like this have a degree of power.”

“Oh yeah! I know all about that.” Dipper beamed. “It's how we defeated Bill before—we gave ourselves weapons and superpowers from our own imaginations.”

Dipper reached behind his back and pictured a laser canon that he'd seen in a movie once, a huge, intimidating thing. He felt his hand close around something and pulled it out, over his shoulder, letting the weight of the giant weapon rest there. He grinned proudly, hoping he looked cool.

“...Very nice.” Ford said mildly. “There's just one problem.”

Ford reached out and tapped the side of the laser canon with his gun. With a loud clang, the weapon fell apart, breaking into rubble and becoming lost in the grass. Dipper looked down at the pieces.

“But...” Dipper frowned. “How?”

“The more you believe the projection, the stronger it will be. Tell me...have you ever held a weapon like that in real life? Do you know how much it weighs? What kind of kick back it has? Do you have any idea how it might work? Whether it radiates heat or cold? What kind of textures are on its surface?”

“Well, no....” Dipper admitted. “I...just thought it looked cool.”

“Exactly. You only had the image of it in your mind. It wasn't real to you. And so, it fell apart when confronted with something that was imbued with a more powerful level of belief.” Ford indicated his gun. “That's why the strongest projections are always things you've actually used in real life. It takes a powerful imagination to imbue a fictional weapon with that kind of reality.”

“Geez...maybe Mabel should have been the one to go...” Dipper muttered.

“Now, now, don't get discouraged.” Ford put a hand on Dipper's shoulder. “Remember. In here, a weapon doesn't need to be literal. You don't need a giant gun to fight with...you just need something that makes you feel strong. That makes you powerful.”

Dipper nodded, thoughtfully. Right. Okay. He could do this....He reached into his coat and closed his eyes, trying to think of something that made him feel strong. Something that made him feel powerful against the supernatural. He concentrated on that feeling until he felt his hand close around something solid, and he pulled it out. Looking down, he saw a thick book with a dark red cover, the number three standing out on top of the gold six-fingered handprint in the center.

“Whoops. Uh, how'd that get there?” Dipper said, stuffing the journal back into his coat, cheeks reddening with embarrassment.

“Don't worry about it, Dipper.” Ford said, smiling, looking a little bemused. “You'll find something that works for you. For now, let's just get moving. Remember to stay close to me.”

“Right....yeah, of course.”

The two of them closed the distance between themselves and the porch. Dipper couldn't help but notice Ford pausing on the way to glance at a swingset—old and rusty, but in surprisingly good condition—stuck in the ground between the porch and the water. Something about it looked familiar, but Dipper couldn't quite place what it was. He supposed it didn't matter.

Ford entered the Shack first, his eyes sweeping nervously over the twisting halls and shadowy corners. Dipper looked around. The entrance felt a little more welcoming than it had on his last trip into Stan's mind, but it was no less of a labyrinth. Halls and stairs still twisted in every direction, like paths in an Escher drawing.

“Do you remember anything about this place from your last visit?” Ford asked.

“I think so...this part looks kind of similar...” Dipper closed his eyes and listened carefully. From a hallway to his left, he heard the soft but certain sound of a film projector. “That way!” He pointed. “Memories are down there!”

The two of them hurried down a hallway, through a door marked “memories,” and into a long room lined with doors. Hallways branched off from the sides, twisting and turning out of sight, extending out of the ceiling in defiance of gravity and opening into long, winding staircases at the floor.

“...Looks like we've got a lot to search.” Dipper said, walking out into the center of the room. There was one thing, it seemed, that was different about these hallways than before...in addition to doors, the walls were lined with framed pictures of the family. Dipper pressed his hand against one that he recognized, and found that his fingertips went through it. He took a breath and stuck his head in.

“Mabel, duck!”

Dipper flinched at the sound of his own voice, as a blast of cold air hit his face. His past self's warning had come an instant too late. His poor sister never even saw it coming—she was sent reeling backwards by a barrage of snowballs, a sneak attack from behind the outhouse.

Dipper could see her out on the lawn of the Shack, laughing as his past self pulled her to her feet and the two of them ran back towards the porch, pursued by Stan and Ford. Based on his vantage point he thought he might be watching this from one of the Shack's windows, but no one out there seemed to be able to see him.

He remembered this. It was from that year they'd all gotten super competitive about gift-giving at Hanukkah, and ended up having a big snowball fight for some reason. He watched as Ford and Stan cornered himself and Mabel by the eastern wall of the Shack.

“Had enough?” Stan tossed a snowball from hand to hand.

“Ready to admit defeat?” Ford asked.

Dipper saw his past self and Mabel look at each other and smile. In unison, they shouted “Now!”

Their grunkles realized their mistake too late to do anything about it. The sound of Wendy's laughter came from the trees, followed by a hail of ice and snow aimed squarely at the elder twins. Even from a distance, Dipper could hear their squawks of surprise.

“Oh, man...” Dipper muttered. “I remember this next part, too.”

Sure enough, he saw Soos at the top of the roof, struggling to roll a giant boulder of snow over the peak. The second he successfully pushed it over, it started rolling, picking up the snow that was still stuck to the rooftop, growing and growing until it fell on all four of them, burying them under the powder. There was a brief, worrying silence before four heads and eight hands dug their way out of the pile. Wendy was the first to laugh, pointing from her perch in the trees, then Mabel, then the rest of them. It had been a good day.

Dipper smiled at the memory, until something caught his eye, making his smile slip. It was easy to miss, tucked away in a corner of the porch. Carved into one of the boards crudely and clumsily, but still unmistakable, was a triangle with an eye in the center.

That carving wasn't supposed to be there. It wasn't on the porch in the real world. Dipper had spent last night sitting on that porch with Mabel, not far from that very spot. He'd have noticed immediately if something like that had been carved into it. Besides, they'd all gone through the Shack with a fine-toothed comb after Stan got his memories back and dug up everything that had Bill on it. Anything they couldn't burn or smash had been painted over or scratched out or something. Which meant that the carving wasn't part of this memory. It was...an invader.

Dipper pulled his head out of the picture frame, frowning, and turned back to Ford. His uncle was peering through a doorway with a tense expression. When he realized he was being watched, he quickly shut the door.

“There's no organization to any of these memories.” Ford muttered. “It's like Stanley's closet—a jumble of random things defying all rationality and sequential occurrence.”

“You might want to take a look at this one.” Dipper said. “I think I saw some sign of Bill in there.”

Ford nodded. “In the background, easy to miss unless you're looking for it?”

“Yeah, actually.”

“There's a few of them in there, too. Bill's had a long time to dig his way into Stan's mind.” Ford frowned, eyeing the walls. He walked towards the end of the room, gesturing for Dipper to follow as he headed towards one of the hallways branching off. “For all we know there might be traces of him everywhere. What we really need is some sort of trail. Something more obvious than—oh.”

Dipper turned the corner an instant after Ford, and was nearly clothesthlined as his uncle held his arm out protectively, blocking him from what was in the hall ahead. It started in a corner and crept across the floor, peeking through the boards, growing upwards and clinging to the walls like kudzu. Long, twisting vines with nasty looking thorns that sprouted yellow, three-sided leaves. The vines were spotted with concentric circles that gave off the unnerving impression of being eyes.

“...That wasn't here before.” Dipper said, unnecessarily. He looked back at Ford, to find that the older man had frozen in place, and was staring at the weeds with a distant, panicked expression. “Ford? Hey...you all right?”

“Hmm? Yes, I'm fine.” Ford snapped back to attention, withdrawing his arm and placing his hand against his holster. “We're going to have to clear this out as best we can. Do you have any experience with gardening?”

“Not really.” Dipper said, looking down the hall. The growth seemed to get thicker the further down it went. “I had a cactus once, but I over-watered it. I think I'm not very good at keeping plants alive.”

“Keeping these plants alive is frankly the furthest thought from my mind right now.”

Ford fiddled with a dial on the back of the weapon he was carrying and aimed it down the hall. Green-yellow fireballs shot out of it, spreading over the vines wherever there was contact while leaving the walls and floors untouched. Dipper swore he heard a high-pitched whine as the plants caught fire, burned and blackened.

“Stay close behind me. If there's anything you can think of that might help in tearing these things down, use it.” Ford said, sprinting down the hall.

Dipper closed his eyes and tried to remember the weight and heft of the hedge trimmers in grandpa Shermie's gardening shed. When he opened his eyes again, they were in his hands. He tucked them in his belt and hurried after Ford.

***

It was hard to tell how much time was passing. Dipper could at least say with confidence they'd been in Stan's mind long enough for the adrenaline rush to wear off and the process of hacking through what seemed like miles and miles of these vines to go from creepy and exciting to monotonous and dull.

He dug the broken half of Shermie's hedge trimmers into the base of a vine, sighed and wiped his brow. He didn't feel tired, not physically at least. Probably he couldn't get physically tired, or physically anything in here. But he was starting to feel worn out in a way that was hard to put his finger on.

“Do we actually know where we're going?” he asked Ford.

“Hard to say.” Ford pulled a small notebook out of his pocked and scribbled something on it. “I've been keeping track of our turns, but spatial relationships in the mind aren't the same as they are in reality.”

They turned the corner again and found themselves in a hall that had already been cleared. Chopped, burned and blackened vines stretched out in either direction in front of them. Dipper groaned.

“Aw, seriously? After all that we've just been going in a circle?! This sucks.”

“We're on the right track, at least.” Ford said, crumbling the charred remains of a vine in his fist. “Bill's here, somewhere. But these things are superficial. We could spend hours pulling up and destroying them and still make no progress...if we want Bill out of Stan's head, we'll have to find where they're coming from.”

“How?” Dipper frowned. “There's so many false doors and dead ends here...I'm not even sure which way we came in anymore.”

“I was hoping that by now we would have run into Stan. Or rather, a localization of his consciousness.” Ford sighed. “Though if these dead ends are part of Bill's tricks, he might be just as lost here as we are.”

“I don't know...I think it might just be Stan. I think his mind is just...sneaky or something.” Dipper muttered.

He remembered how Stan's mind had hidden the code to his safe under the rug from the gift shop...someone who didn't know to look there would have run past it without a second thought. In all the time they'd spent searching Stan's mind that day, none of them had found any memories of Ford or the portal. He hadn't even seen Stan dealing with the monsters in the forest, or anything else that would've given away the fact that his skeptic act about the supernatural was just that, an act. Stan's mind hid his secrets well.

Hmm. Last time, they'd found the code because they knew enough about Stan to guess where he'd hide something like that. Maybe they were thinking along the wrong lines.

“...You know more about Bill than any of us, Grunkle Ford.” Dipper said. “Where do you think he'd be? I mean...if Bill had a whole lifetime's worth of memories to hide in, where would he choose to anchor himself?”

“If I know Bill's methods, he'd find the place where...his host was vulnerable.” Ford said, hesitating a little before pointedly avoiding Stan's name. “He'd look for the single most important thing in his mind, whatever was truly precious, and then coil himself around it. That would allow him to use that weakness to hurt the host mind, either to discourage anyone trying to stop him, or just...because that is the sort of thing he does.”

The most important thing in Stan's mind...Dipper's eyes widened.

“Where on the Stan-O-War do you keep Mabel's scrapbooks?”

Realization spread over Ford's face. “By the Axolotl, you're right. Quickly! Let's get to the exit. The faster we move, the less time Bill has to prepare....”

The two of them sprinted back down the hallway, back to the entrance of the Shack, hoping that they hadn't been turned around enough that they'd be unable to find their way out. As they ran, Dipper began to notice something wrong with the walls and floorboards. They were shifting and shacking, cracks were widening between them. Before long, it was like running through an earthquake, the floor shuddering under them, doors flying open and closed on either side.

“He's trying to stop us!” Ford shouted back at Dipper. “That means we're on the right track! Keep running!”

“Right!” Dipper shouted back, pumping his legs for all he was worth. He focused all his attention on running. Keep moving forward, don't look back. He told himself. Not always great life advice, sure, but good in the literal sense right now.

Still, he probably should have looked down. If he had he might have seen the trap door that had been flung open by the shaking before his foot went through it. Off-balance, still mid-stride Dipper barely had the chance to process what was happening before he'd tumbled forward completely into darkness. He was falling. Above him, he heard Ford calling his name in a panic, and saw the light of the trap door shrink into nothingness. He reached up reflexively though there was nothing to grasp, and when he shouted back to Ford he couldn't hear a response.

He hit the ground with a thud. Painful, but not the bone-shattering impact it should have been, which was a plus. He'd only just barely gotten to his feet when something heavy slammed into his side, knocking him down again. Somewhere in the room, he could hear mocking, high-pitched laughter, and a chill ran up his spine.

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