On the Cipher Show Tonight
A strange running battle raged across New York, bolts of magic and foul curses lancing out to strike the crippled flying mech as it attempted to escape. As another curse impacted, causing thick conjured ooze to spread through its components, it was sent crashing towards the old theatre below…
A loud crash awoke Beauregard from his nap in the Muppet Theatre supply closet. He sprung up in excitement. Kermit and the rest must be back! He hadn't seen them around in eleven years, so they must have used up most of their vacation days by now.
Jogging down a hallway mop in hand, he was greeted by a most surprising sight. A large hole had been left in the side of the theatre! And he'd have to be the one to clean it up, too! He was just about to walk over and give the huge misshapen steel statue lying among the wreckage a piece of his mind when a large crowd of red-robed figures began filing in through the damaged wall. Beauregard was rather dim and not used to fear, but something primal inside him told him to keep his mouth shut as the group wrenched the battered head off the robot and dragged out the struggling pilot within.
"Our hunt is ended! This night will bring about the Dream Demon's rise!" called out the figure at the head of the crowd, who Beauregard was at least 60% sure wasn't Kermit. Chanting and waving ceremonial daggers, the cult marched down the stairs to the theatre, their prisoner in tow.
What a bother, thought Beauregard once they were gone. He didn't know who the folks in the robes were, but if they were here for a show they might be waiting a while. In the meantime, he'd do what he did and keep things clean and maintained - starting with the big headless robot. If it got airmailed through the wall, it must be for Kermit, and an urgent delivery, too!
It was all covered in slime, though, and the water had been cut off to the building years ago. If he was going to get it clean… well, Dr. Honeydew's lab still had all kinds of stuff lying around in it! Chemicals and solvents and everything, and probably cleaning products! With a huff, Beauregard hauled the mech up onto a dolly and pulled it over to the long-abandoned Muppet Labs.
...
Below, in the theatre proper, the dark ceremony had begun and rows of cultists began to parade onto the stage. A vortex of energy swirled up from an odd altar, and music began to echo through the building with no clear source. With everything in place… the cultists began to sing.
"It's time for eerie chanting!
Dark deeds by candlelight!
It's time to free Bill Cipher from imprisonment tonight!"
dun-dun-dun-dun
"It's time for sacrifices!
His rise they'll expedite!
And then the curtain lowers on reality tonight!"
The trapped spirits of two Gravity Falls dwellers clawed themselves momentarily from the vortex, trying to warn the unhearing cultists from their folly.
"Why do they wish to join us?
More merciful, to die.
Ten thousand years of torture
Fill a blink of Cipher's eye!"
A thin yellow arm reached through the vortex and dragged them back in, as the ceremony continued…
...
The first step was cleaning out the slime, Beauregard knew. Kermit wouldn't be happy to see his nice things so grimy! With a great heave, he upended barrels full of water from the lab's storage over the mech, then laid in with his mop until the whole thing sparkled. He should probably oil it too, to be sure, of course. He began dutifully spraying the mech's surface with the contents of a nearby tube, only for his rag to stick fast to its surface!
"My, old Honeydew's polishing oil is awful sticky. I guess it was in the tube too long." Beauregard mused, not noticing the now-empty
Super Adhesive tube cemented to his shoe. Determined to finish the polishing job, he rummaged through a nearby metal cabinet, finding an assortment of hats, ties and other clothing items to use for rags - each of which quickly found itself stuck to the metal behemoth as well.
Bother! There was just no cleaning this one. Deciding to simply toss it out and get Kermit a new one later, Beauregard sealed the cabinet back up and dragged the mech over to the
Automatic Wastebasket with a grunt of exertion. He hauled the mech up to the wastebasket's cast-iron maw - it would be a tight fit, but…
To Beauregard's surprise, the moment the two devices came into contact, life returned to the robot's limbs! Held fast to the damaged robot's neck by Super Adhesive, the Automatic Wastebasket's esoteric circuitry began to merge with the robot's own, with its primitive AI - and single-minded hunger - taking the place of the mech's destroyed brain. Reaching out an armored limb, it grabbed Beauregard's mop and stuffed it down its ravenous mouth.
"More!
Want more!" the Wastebasket-mech shouted, pulling itself to its feet and lumbering off towards the sounds of chanting, with various inventions of Honeydew's sticking to it as it staggered clumsily about. A steady trickle of water dripped from the mech as it crashed through the wall of Muppet Labs, leaving a trail Beauregard was quick to follow.
…
"To sacrifice our guest star
That's what I'm here to do
Lord Cipher will be happy
When I plunge the knife into -
ladies and gentlemen, Fiddleford McGuckeeeeet!"
The cult leader flapped his arms around as the cultists cheered. "Donkey spittle!" cursed the prisoner, as he was wheeled toward the altar. The cult master drew a long, ornate dagger, with a gold handle and intricate filigree in preparation for the killing.
"It's time to get things started!"
"Why don't we get things started?" the whole cult replied in unison.
"It's time to get things started, on the -"
Before the knife could fall, Statler and Waldorf's old balcony exploded into a shower of splinters and the mech - dipping water and flapping with clothing items -crashed down into the seats, landing on one cultist and then cramming a second into its wastebasket mouth with a crunch. Beauregard appeared up in the balcony a moment later, failed to notice its recent destruction in time, and fell tumbling into the seats behind the mech.
"Not before dinnertime, son! Your raccoon ma's going to be proper cross!" cried out McGucket as the mech chewed and the cultists leapt to attention. "Destroy them!" the cult master bellowed.
Four cultists, daggers in hand, charged Beauregard, only to find themselves slipping about uncontrollably! The momentum of the first carried him into the wall behind, and he stumbled back, his dagger lodged in his stomach. "Is this floor covered in axle grease?" asked a second in disbelief, trying and failing to pick herself up off the ground.
"Kermit said to use elbow grease, but we ran out years ago!" Beauregard replied earnestly. A moment later a bolt of magic flew past him, and he turned about, running back up the stairs with more cultists following. Closer to the stage, the mech was laying waste to disoriented cultists. A number of them charged, leaping up to surround and disable the mech, only to find themselves stuck fast by Super Adhesive. Their comrades fired blasts and curses, but the stuck cultists provided the mech a macabre layer of armor against the onslaught of magic.
…
His pursuers close behind, Beauregard leapt back through the doors of Muppet Labs, searching desperately for something to defend himself with. As the first cultist charged in after him, he was hit clean in the face with… one of Lew Zealand's
boomerang fish. Grinning in disbelief as the harmless herring flew back towards Beauregard (who clumsily failed to catch it), he unleashed a deadly curse which Beauregard narrowly managed to avoid by ducking behind a table. A low grinding noise could be heard as the fish landed in the
Banana Sharpener on the shelf behind him.
"You're trying to stop me with fish? The old man might have been insane, but at least he had genius to back up his madness! A nothing like you wants to oppose us? Ha!"
The cultist kicked the table over, readying a spell to kill Beauregard as four more of his comrades filed into the lab behind him.
Ding, went the Banana Sharpener as its cycle finished, depositing a razor-sharp fish into Beauregard's hand. Covering his eyes with one hand in fright he threw it again, more or less at random, and it whistled through the room in a lazy arc before embedding itself in the wall.
Five heads rolled to the ground a moment later.
…
Back in the theatre, the cultists - despite their dwindling numbers - had managed to mostly turn the tide. A tight circle of the red-robed warlocks surrounded McGucket's mech, restraining it with eldritch bindings. "You're a troublesome, troublesome man,
Fiddleford." the leader hissed through clenched teeth, as he prepared to finally finish the ceremony.
Behind him, the first cultist to chase Beauregard managed to scrabble his way out of the axle grease slick, falling into one of the puddles of water the sopping-wet mech had left. Pulling the dagger out gingerly, he ignited one of his hands with hellfire to cauterize the wound…
...causing the
flammable water Beauregard had cleaned the mech with to ignite, eliciting a shocked scream from the cultist! Flames rushed up the water trail to where the mech was trapped. With a thunderous blast, the numerous items of
exploding clothing stuck to the mech detonated, incapacitating the circle of warlocks and hurling them against the walls along with Honeydew's contraptions and bits of its own machinery. The cult master was thrown back as well, losing his grasp on the ceremonial dagger.
"More… want more…" The wastebasket mumbled, as the mech's processes shuddered to a halt.
Still dizzy, the cult master stood up, surveying the disaster around him. Of the horde he'd brought with him, he couldn't see a single soul. But it could all still be salvaged, if he could just find the dagger… there it was! Underneath an odd bowl-shaped alchemy device the mech had dislodged he could just make out the glint of the ceremonial blade.
"I'm comin' down there! Don't you kids make any more mess!" came the distant shout. The cult master winced - the odd furry creature must have defeated his minions. But the dolt wouldn't arrive in time to stop him! Bill Cipher would rise! With a cackle and a flourish, he scooped the dagger up off the ground…
Only for it to fall apart in his hands. The handle! Every bit of gold had been turned into…
cottage cheese!
"Now don't you start filling your gob now too, Earl! My lady works her fur off cooking, and I won't have the whole gang stuffing themselves before dinner!" shouted McGucket in consternation. As the cult master stood, dazed and confused, his hands stained with dairy, McGucket sat up effortlessly. The ropes (burned by the explosion) falling slack around him, McGucket delivered a nasty kick to the man's stomach, causing him to stumble back towards the crippled mech. The wastebasket mouth closed around his leg like a bear trap.
"I warned you folks! Better clear out!" came Beauregard's warning shout from above. He rushed back up to the wrecked balcony, carrying an armful of sharpened carrots. "Honeydew might have been short on bananas, but I've sharpened enough carrots to - woah! Woaaaaohoah!"
As the cult master watched in horror, the
magnetic carrots began to quiver in Beauregard's grasp, then pull free to fly unerringly towards the steel mech… and himself, trapped in its mouth. He began summoning one last spell before the shower of deadly orange darts silenced him.
"Well, at least the boy's eatin' himself a balanced meal, this time." McGucket said as the mass of cultist, carrot and cottage cheese disappeared into the mech's mouth.
The Muppet Theatre was silent for a few long moments.
"This is going to take a long time to clean up." Beauregard finally complained.
"Well then… it's time we both got started!" McGucket replied in a familiar singsong tone.
"Why don't we get things started?" echoed Beauregard, perking back up.
"It's time to get things started, on the
most contrarian, memory-burying, cultist-harrying, raccoon-marrying,
This is what we call McGucket Shooooooooow!"
--fin--