IX.

Billy Mays grinned, the corporate gods behind him booming with full force. “HI, BILLY MAYS HERE! THE QUICK BROWN FOX JUMPS OVER THE LAZY DOG.” The words Mays spoke conjured themselves to life in front of him, and with a blink of his gilded eyes, they transmuted themselves into Cyrillic, the superior tongue. Rearranging and duplicating themselves, they formed a complete alphabet.

АБЦЧДЕФГҺИҸЯЮКЛМНОПQРСШТУВWХЫЗ

The nine Advanced Superiors, whose minds had been consumed by the absolute unfathomability of existence and opened permanently to the ninth dimension, thereby unlocking the keys to metachronism, formed similar alphabets that encircled them all. Billy Mays grinned, putting a megaphone to his mouth and speaking. Five letters curled from the heavens. Consonant, consonant, vowel, consonant, vowel. The symbols arranged themselves. БЛАДЕ was formed in the skies, and from a rip in space, a shimmering corporate blade of divinium launched at the Superiors. At once, their heads glowed red, and the vowels of the word were distorted. The A was opened into an endless loop, and the E was similarly affected. БЛООД was written in red in the heavens, and the blade stopped abruptly, slicing through thin air. Never-healing cuts sliced themselves through Mays’ body, and he grimaced in agony, yet he did not falter. Mays transmuted the vowels once more, slicing off their tops and extending their bottoms to form a new word: БЛУУД. Writhing from out of Mays’ cuts came a legion of mimes. Mimes with soulless faces, sunken eyes, and slits for mouths. They crawled into the crevices of the Advanced Superiors, swarming them like parasites and worming their way up to the snakes’ distended jaws. The Superiors distorted the first three characters, combining them into a cyclical route bisected by a determined line. ѲУД. The black walls of the battlefield merged and shifted, swinging upwards and forming the shape of a gigantic foot — the Shadow’s foot. It hurtled down from the heavens, creaking and groaning before crashing to the ground with a telltale THUD. Yet Mays stayed perfectly still through the storm, and as the Shadow’s form dissipated, Mays revealed himself unharmed. He pointed at the word in the sky, casting away the Ѳ for being an antiquated character, and not one meant to be used in today’s language. He added three letters to the word. Consonant, vowel, consonant. It changed form. УНДЕР. The ground gave away like quicksand, a swirling vortex of half-liquid pulling the Superiors under. They suffered damage, but they edited the word. A change of a vowel. A square’s lines turned into a cross. ИНТЕР. Mays’ body paled, as though he had suffered through a mortal blow. An empty tomb rose out of the ground, and he fell backwards, falling perfectly into it, his arms already crossed. The Superiors’ eyes burned punctuated holes through existence as the lid slid onto the tomb and it crumbled into dust.

The Superiors growled, coiling around the Logic Gatekeeper. It shone with light, and Interrobang nodded, running to it. The Superiors seemed to be working to fix its wounds, trying to restore it back to full power after the extensive damage it took. Bill and Flumpty, still busy dueling the Critic, took notice. THEY’RE GONNA HEAL THE TIN MAN UP TO MAX HEALTH, OR SOME OTHER ABSTRACT GAMING MECHANISM! Flumpty nodded. Our only shot is to interrupt the process somehow! We need a huge distraction! The biggest thing you could possibly think of! The Critic’s head filled with a pigman, and a guttural roar filled the field, Zombie Pigmen rushing from all sides to attack. Bill and Flumpty through the entirety of the Sky Army’s butter reserves at them, and like a moth to a gilded flame, the Sky Army fell from the, er, sky. They ravaged the skin and flesh off of the Pigmens’ bodies, and stole all the gold in an instant, rushing out of the Gate. The Critic stepped back and hissed. Listen here, Cipher. Your story is twisted, dangerous, and ends abruptly if you continue down this path. SOUNDS LIKE A REAL PARTY! No! Your pursuits only lead to your death, in all and any circumstances! Can you not see, despite your infinite sight? Only if you abide by the path of the Conflict, my path, will you have any chance at survival and meaning. The Critic gestured to Bill’s body, which was pulsing with white. And only if you give to me what you took from the Superiors, and what they took from this cursed plane, will I leave you be in this battle. Bill cackled, parrying several projectiles with an umbrella. YOU MEAN THE WHITE FLAME BURNING ME UP?! NO CAN DO, HEADLESS! AS THE LITERAL ANTICHRIST, YET ALSO SOMEHOW THE LITERAL ACTUAL CHRIST, I THINK THE TRUE HEIR OF METATRON’S POWER SHOULD NATURALLY BE ME! NOT HIS “FRIEND.” NOW STEP ASIDE AND LET THE EGG AND I MOUNT A DARING RESCUE MISSION WHILE THERE’S STILL A REALITY WE CAN DO A RESCUE MISSION IN!

Bill raised his hand, white flames curling at his finger tips, and sliced it through the air, knocking the Critic to the side. He bounced across the field, and both Bill and Flumpty looked at Gaster, who was busy staring at the madness and occasionally twitching. Flumpty blinked a couple of times and nodded, looking at Bill, who reciprocated the gesture. Bill cupped his hands to his eye and yelled. WHAT’S UP, DOC? The memetic question pierced reality, snapping Gaster’s attention to Bill immediately. His eyes, small white dots, seemed to shine like novae. He cupped his bony fingers to his waxen face and yelled, a shifting crackling sound like a sandstorm. WHAT. Bill snapped his fingers, and he held in his hands the twenty restored conceptual essences, the remainders of the condiment containers, and the shrapnel of Ikea 2.0, holding them in a protective bubble. He snapped his other hand’s fingers, and a green slip of paper appeared next to it. I PROPOSE A TRADE! I SUBMIT TO YOUR DEMANDS, RETURNING TO YOU WHAT WAS STOLEN FROM YOUR ESTABLISHMENT! THE COST IS THE PIECE OF PAPER WE LEFT BEHIND AT YOUR PLACE AFTER WE LEFT! WHAT DO YOU SAY? Gaster blinked, his hollow face spinning in its socket before nodding slowly. Bill teleported to Gaster’s position, handing him the bubble and holding the piece of paper in his hands. ALRIGHT, JUST PUT THAT PILE OF RUBBLE DOWN OVER THERE AND WAIT A FEW SECONDS. Gaster put the pile next to him. He looked at Bill quizzically, but stopped when he heard a truly intense rumbling coming from the entrance to the Gate.

YOU KNOW, IT’S SAID THAT THE ACTIONS WITHIN THE ENDS OF THE EARTH, PARTICULARLY WITHIN THE GATE TO THE GARDEN OF GEOMETRY, HAVE MASSIVE REPERCUSSIONS ON THE REST OF FICTION! AFTER ALL, WHOEVER WINS THE STRIFE WITH WHAT LIES BEYOND GETS TO RECONQUER REALITY. THINK OF THIS PLACE LIKE THE EDGE OF A WATERFALL, CONSTANTLY SPILLING TO LOWER LEVELS — THE REST OF EXISTENCE. NOW, DO YOU REALIZE WHAT YOU JUST DID? Gaster’s head did not move. AN IDEA, YES. A REALIZATION, NO. The rumbling grew to impossible proportions. YOU JUST DECLARED THAT THE LARGEST RESTAURANT IN THE INTERNET CAN BE BOUGHT WITH A SINGLE VENEZUELAN DOLLAR. THOSE THAT ACTUALLY HAVE MONEY IN VENEZUELA ARE NOW RICH BEYOND THEIR WILDEST DREAMS. IN FACT, PEOPLE ALL OVER THE COSMOS WOULD DO ANYTHING JUST TO GET A SINGLE PIECE OF PAPER LIKE THIS! SPEAKING OF WHICH, THREE, TWO—

The “ONE” was drowned out by the apocalyptic crowd that rushed through the Gate. Humans, humanoids, alien creatures, hulking golems, warlords, the wealthy elite, the dangerously poor — it seemed that literally all walks of life were now desperate for Venezuelan currency. Bill cackled and flung the slip of paper on top of the Gatekeeper and the Superiors. The crowd, weapons active, fists and feet ready to fight, and determination blaring in their hearts, trampled over the slithering snakes nigh-immediately. In their fury, they wrenched the snakes apart, slicing them and ripping them, climbing over each other. The Superiors attempted to fight back, but the crowd just replenished itself with every passing second. Billions of men were surging into the hallowed resting place of God with one greedy desire.

Gaster, sensing that hell had entered heaven in a quite literal sense, took the remains of what had been stolen from the Restaurant at the End of the Internet and gave Bill a curt nod. Now that what had been taken was returned, he saw no need to fight any longer. His smile widened, as did his eyes. A curious jingle overlaid itself over the screams of avarice around the Gatekeeper, and Gaster faded away. Both Bill and Flumpty watched as the tidal wave of would-be trillionaires tore apart the Advanced Superiors bit by bit, despite them dying by the hundreds with every passing second. IT’S NOW OR NEVER! Bill exclaimed as he reached into hammerspace, pulling apart a shimmering pool of cosmic energy. Flumpty gazed in wonder as Bill held all of existence in his hands. The corners of the continually shifting unreality called Fiction, confined to a space of a few inches in every direction. Bill pulled out a shard of glass and confined Fiction to it. There was a tremendous surge of energy, light, and electricity, and Bill found himself in a swirling red fire that stretched across the horizon. The stars of a universe he knew nothing about flickered in his vision, and when they zoomed in on a familiar planet, Bill was brought back to the battlefield. In his hands, he held a singular lens, tinted red by the cosmos. He put it on his eye like a contact lens and blinked a couple times. Do you... feel any different? Flumpty asked. Do you see anything? DO I SEE ANYTHING? Bill repeated. YEAH, YOU COULD SAY THAT. Wh-what is it? ...THE SAME THINGS AS BEFORE! Bill tore the contact lens off, holding it tightly in his hands. I DON’T UNDERSTAND! IT WORKED PERFECTLY, I KNOW IT DID! I CAN SEE EVERY CRANNY OF EVERY TIMELINE AND I’M FULLY AWARE THAT THIS IS HOW YOU MAKE MASON’S GLASSES! BUT I DIDN’T SEE ANYTHING DIFFERENT, AT ALL. I ONLY SAW THE SAME INFINITY THAT I USUALLY DO. MAYBE… Bill sunk a bit lower to the ground.

I THINK I KNOW WHAT THE PROBLEM IS. IF YOU DESIGNED AN ARTIFACT WITH THIS LEVEL OF POWER, YOU WOULDN’T JUST BE CONTENT WITH HAVING THE PROCESS OF ITS CREATION BE UTTER AGONY. YOU’D MAKE IT SO THAT ONLY CERTAIN PEOPLE COULD EVER HOLD IT! INTERROBANG OVER THERE ONLY GOT IT BECAUSE OF THE KALEIDOSCOPIC VOID— What? LONG STORY. AND RED GLASSES GOT IT BECAUSE... BECAUSE... Bill blinked once. Then twice. “RED GLASSES.” THAT’S IT! OH, IT’S SO PERFECT! I DON’T KNOW WHY I DIDN’T THINK OF THIS SOONER! THIS MAKES MY PLAN EVEN BETTER! A voice mocked Bill from behind him. [Well, good for you, buddy! Nice job with your epiphany. Hope it was a good one, because your time just ran out.] Both Bill and Flumpty turned to see Interrobang, coat rippling in the wind as the Superiors continually wound across the Gatekeeper, now thoroughly distracted from repairing it to fend off the crowd. OUT OF THE WAY, MASON! WE’RE GOING TO RESCUE FLUMPTY FROM THAT MACHINE, AND THERE’S NOTHING YOU CAN DO TO STOP US! I HAVE GOD IN MY BODY AND CANCER IN MY EYE, NOT TO MENTION A TELEVISION IN MY BOWTIE! And I have thyme. ON MY FRIES. Flumpty took out a plate of french fries. They were covered with thyme. He ate one of them, and then he put the plate down.

Interrobang’s fist lit up with kaleidoscopic power... And then, quicker than anyone could follow, he crossed the distance between him and Bill, putting all the force in his body into his outstretched, multicolored finger. With a mighty thrust, he poked Bill Cipher in the eye. The triangle reared backwards, rubbing the spot frantically. OW!!! AGH, MAN, REALLY?! YOU AND I BOTH KNOW HOW LONG THESE THINGS TAKE TO REGENERATE! [I don’t care about your eye, and I don’t care if you’re the son of God. What I do care about is that every second the Overser is in your body, you become a little less you and a little more Him. Eventually you’re going to explode, from the inside out, with His glory.] Bill noticed the white light burning from within him and squinted through the pain. THEN I’LL BE GLAD TO JOIN HIM IN VALHALLA! Interrobang rolled his eyes behind his glasses. [Wrong fake religion, but have it your way.]

Interrobang punched through the air, and the Logic Gatekeeper’s engines roared, its helmeted face gleaming angrily. It skyrocketed to the heavens, shaking off the Advanced Superiors wrapped around or near it, as well as the titanic crowd fighting for supremacy. Their battle continued, but the Gatekeeper touched down just behind Interrobang, its jet engines screaming at full intensity, creating a rippling wind. The Gatekeeper’s four arms curled into fists, smoking with the same white light as Bill. They seemed to pulse in unison. The Flumpty chained to the Gatekeeper’s vertex began screaming in agony once more as the hulking machine powered up. Interrobang grinned with a slasher smile. [It’s funny, really. I haven’t even told you this thing’s true power yet.] Bill rolled his eye. REALLY? PULLING THE OLD “THIS ISN’T EVEN MY FINAL FORM” TRICK? TALK ABOUT U— A cascading wall of doomed bullets punched through Bill’s body, riddling him with bullet holes. They regenerated with white light, but Bill let out a shout of pain, turning to look at the Gatekeeper. Its lower-left arm had turned into an gleaming brown rifle. Flumpty charged, conjuring serpents of eyes, and flinging the incomprehensible Declaration of Independence at the Gatekeeper with much the same ire as Problem Sleuth would an unpleasant note. Yet the Gatekeeper sliced the old paper, and the eyesaurs, in half with a single white-hot cut that blazed across reality, even bisecting the ground. For its lower-right arm had turned into a rickety wooden chair, smoking and razor-sharp.

Bill backed away carefully, his body boiling red and his eye turning pitch-black. Thai numerals flickered across his eye as he shot devilish flames around the Gatekeeper, attempting to melt its metal. Yet the Gatekeeper’s arms turned into a set of metal wands that forged Unicode characters for raindrops and snowflakes around the conflagration, cooling it in seconds. They then formed the Unicode character for poop, and Flumpty’s plate of fries turned into Poop Daddy from the Emoji Movie. You have got to be shitting me, Flumpty muttered under his breath. He brutally decapitated Poop Daddy before he could tarnish the field with his charismatic voice and smeared his remains all over the Gatekeeper. Yet, his shoulders mounted with black and marine machines that could control weather patterns, and rainstorms formed above the Gatekeeper, wiping the unpleasant material off. The Gatekeeper’s shoulders retracted to reveal several rows of cannons and miniguns, pointed dangerously at Bill and Flumpty. I know what’s going on! Flumpty exclaimed as the two tried to outrun and deflect the cascading walls of bullets. He’s using the weapons of the Descendants! It’s just like the Gatekeeper I encountered in Limbo! His scythe, it could turn into any weapon used against it! BUT THIS FREAK DOESN’T EVEN NEED TO GET HIT BY THEIR WEAPONS NOW! HIS BODY ALREADY HAS THE POWERS OF ALL OF THEM...

The Gatekeeper’s arms turned into bows emblazoned with the stars, firing arrows straight up into the air. Thousands of arrows piled on top of each other to form a hulking arrow warrior. Flumpty pulled a Golden Wrench out of hammerspace, swinging it as fast as he could to deflect the projectiles in every direction. They skewered through a good portion of the still-active crowd searching for the Venezuelan dollar. GOLDEN CROWN’S RIFLE, THE DOOMBRINGER. LAPIS LAZULI’S OLD TECH. THE SWORD THAT POKÉBALL TOOK! AND THAT WAS BROKEN BOW’S COMBAT OPERANDI, I REMEMBER IT ALL! The guns retracted as a singular abominable gun, a combination of miniguns, gatling guns, machine guns, assault rifles, and so much more ascended from the Gatekeeper’s shoulder. It whirred to life, firing custom-made bullets that cut through the air, leaving explosions of fire in their wake. Bill blinked once, forming the Zodiac around him as a shield and sending it outwards. The bullets cut in half, their destinies irreversibly altered by prophecy. They flew every which way. ULTIMATUM. THAT WAS CROWN OF FIRE’S BABY, WASN’T IT? WHERE DID YOU ALL FIGURE OUT ALL OF THIS? WERE YOU SPYING ON THE SECOND WAR ALL ALONG??

Interrobang walked casually towards Bill and Flumpty, smirking. [The entire world was, Cipher. But that’s not the point. We got this data through... a simulation. One that evolved in real-time, where the Descendants were encouraged to do everything in their power to win. Not many attended, but it gave us a good enough backdoor into their “world.” What we got was a cesspool of data to pick and choose from. And now, all of their accomplishments, their weapons, their powers... They’re sealed in this suit of armor. The ultimate fighting machine, armed with the hands of God and the fortynine-fold Ki.] The Gatekeeper groaned, its torso opening up to reveal flamethrowers. Bill and Flumpty dodged, with Flumpty firing duplicates of his eyes that turned into bombs. They exploded with such frequency that it didn’t seem like the Gatekeeper could keep track of them all at once, but its left hand curled into a fist, and with a single thrust, Bill and Flumpty were knocked backwards, skidding far across the field. The Critic wrenched himself free from the crowd, his suit tattered and his voided head crackling with lightning. He pulled out an umbrella, thrusting at Interrobang, who caught the blade at its tip with his hand, snapping it in half and throwing it down the Critic’s voided head. The Critic attempted to call up the face of Genghis Khan, but the knife was lodged in his forehead, trailing blood. Every other face he tried had the same results, and the Critic backed away slowly, feeling the stench of death. He attempted to sift through Interrobang’s memories and enter his mind, but crumpled to the ground under the weight of every conceivable timeline and universe at once. Interrobang held the Critic by the collar and spoke a single word. АБСЦОНД. And the Critic faded away like a shadow.

[No more distractions,] Interrobang muttered. [We settle this now.]

< 2.2: AN OBJECTIVE EYE | 2.3: THE APOCALYPTIC CROWD | 2.4: THY WILL BE DONE >