"Help! Help, I'm in here!"

In her periphery, Mabel saw Lizzie massaging her temples. "Mabel, please: That isn't going to work. We're pretty deep into this cave, remember?"

Mabel's hands clenched into fists, and she whirled on Lizzie. "How come you won't listen to me? It's my brain, isn't it? I'm the original, and I don't want all these Mabels fighting over who's stronger!"

"It's not about what you want, it's about what you need," Lizzie said calmly. "The crystal has done this before; it helps people understand how they really feel. You'll thank me once this is all over. You'll thank all of us."

"No, I won't," Mabel muttered, leaning against the crystal wall.

Lizzie shrugged.

After a couple minutes of awkward silence, Lizzie said, "It would be courteous to make some light conversation."

Mabel looked up at her. "You're not actually me, are you? Because I'm never that rude."

"You're never this open," Lizzie corrected.

Mabel bit her lip to stop herself from retorting. "Look, just. . . just tell me. . . is my brother okay?"

Lizzie met Mabel's eyes. "Would you ever hurt your brother?"

"No! I mean, not on purpose. . ."

"Then he's fine. The Mabels fighting over him won't hurt him."

"Fighting over him?"

"Sure. You love your brother, but you also find him annoying, right?"

"Well, yeah, sometimes," said Mabel, glancing to the floor.

"So, one Mabel out there loves Dipper with all the sibling love she has, and she's fighting against another Mabel who finds him too annoying to stand it."

"But. . . neither of those things are true, not like that."

"I know," Lizzie replied. "The copies are all extreme versions of you."

"If. . . ," Mabel began. "If the one who thinks Dipper is annoying won. . . would I stop loving him?" Her voice gradually dropped into a whisper as she spoke.

"Of course not," Lizzie said. "None of your feelings are going to disappear. They're just going to be sorted out, so you know for sure which side of the spectrum you lean towards. Can't you see this is a privilege? The crystal is helping you, and you're complaining about it."

Mabel's mouth started moving, but no words came out. She didn't know what to say to that.

"Right," Lizzie said, after letting Mabel struggle for words for a few seconds. "Honestly, if anyone's being rude—"

But she didn't get to finish her thought, because just then the wall next to Mabel exploded.

Mabel cried out and jumped away as shards of pale rock flew across the room. Ducking and covering her head, Mabel listened to the shattering sounds lessen and then stop, almost as quickly as they started. She peeked up from beneath her hands to see the dust settle around a figure standing in the violently formed entrance.

Him again?

"Who are you?" Lizzie demanded, stepping forward.

He glanced from Mabel to Lizzie and back. What was his name? Gideon? "I take it you're the guard?" he asked.

"What?"

Mabel got slowly to her feet. "I'm the real Mabel," she said. For some reason, it felt good to say that.

Gideon's eyes flicked back and forth again, taking in the pine tree on Mabel's shirt and the upside-down one on Lizzie's. "Yes, you are," he replied. "Well, let's go, then."

"You can't just barge in here—!" Lizzie started.

"I just did," Gideon replied, "and we're leaving." He turned to Mabel. "Close your eyes."

"What?"

"Just do it," he said. "Close your eyes, turn around, whatever. Now." His hand gripped the amulet pinned to his collar.

Wow, he was bossy. But Mabel did as he said, closing her eyes and covering them with her hands. There was a flash of light against her eyelids, a sudden scream, and a thud.

"Don't open your eyes." Gideon's voice was closer to her now.

"Wh. . . what. . . ?"

"Follow me." She felt a hand on her arm, guiding her towards the entrance. "You can open your eyes, but don't look behind you."

"Wh-why not?" She opened her eyes to see that they had entered the passageway in the cave. The only light came from Gideon's amulet, glowing a soft blue.

A moment later, Mabel realized she was glowing, too. She cried out, but Gideon said, "It's okay; I'm just lowering you down. Relax."

Mabel tried her best to relax as she floated down the hill of rocks she had climbed earlier, but it was all she could do not to hyperventilate. This felt way too much like. . . her. She was positive she was about to burst into hysteria when she finally landed. The glow disappeared. Mabel immediately braced herself against a nearby wall and took slow, deep breaths. Gideon flew down himself and waited silently for her to recover.

"Ready?" he asked when Mabel's breathing steadied. He sounded neither concerned nor impatient; his voice was near monotone.

"Yeah," Mabel replied. They started through the cave again, their way lit by Gideon's amulet. "What. . . what did you do? What happened to Lizzie?" She had her suspicions, based on what she heard, but she didn't want to think—

"I killed her."

Mabel stopped walking. The words from Gideon's mouth that sounded so casual and easy stopped her in her tracks like a wall. Gideon stopped as well, a few feet ahead of her. "That's why I told you not to look."

Mabel took a step back.

"She wasn't you," Gideon said. "She wasn't really a person, either. I'd never hurt you like that, if that's what you're afraid of. Now, come on: We have to get out of here. Don't you want to see sunlight again?"

But Mabel couldn't get herself to move. Or speak.

Gideon sighed. "I can levitate you out of here, if you want."

That snapped Mabel out of it. "N-no! I can walk." And to prove it, she started stomping ahead of Gideon, stuffing the horror she felt somewhere deep down inside — somewhere she could pay attention to it later.

It wasn't too long before Mabel and Gideon reached the entrance to the cave, and Mabel couldn't help but gasp in relief when the mid-morning sun washed over her. She gave herself a moment to take it in before turning on Gideon. "You just killed someone."

"I killed something," Gideon replied. "Her body disappeared into a puff of smoke after we left the cavern; I saw it."

"How could you do that?" Mabel demanded.

"When you roam these woods long enough, you learn to off anything that poses a danger to you," Gideon replied smoothly. "I know this forest inside out; I also know the creatures in this forest and what they're like. And if they're expendable."

Mabel just stared at him. He looked back at her coolly, but something in his eyes dared her to challenge him. She decided not to push him. She'd had enough for one day. "How did you find me?" she asked instead.

"I told you: I know this forest inside out."

"But how did you know I was trapped in there in the first place? Did you see some of the clones? That would mean that you know what the Cavern does, and. . ." She paused. "Has this whole clone thing happened to you too?"

"I have my ways of knowing things," was all Gideon replied.

"It has!"

Gideon rolled his eyes. "Are you going to thank me, Pines?"

Mabel raised an eyebrow at him. Well, that was cold. "Fine then," she said. "Thank you." She threw in a sarcastic curtsy to accentuate the words.

"You're welcome," Gideon replied. "Now—"

He stopped and turned his head. Mabel could hear it too: the sound of running feet.

A Mabel clone burst from the trees and skidded to a stop. Mabel glanced down at the five-fingered hand on her shirt. "Wh-what are you doing out here? Where's the first clone?"

Mabel opened her mouth to reply, but she didn't exactly know what to say.

"Did you win?" Gideon asked Five-Fingered Mabel.

She nodded. "Yeah, I won. Has anyone else come back? Am I the first one?"

"Y-you're the first," Mabel said.

A grin flickered over FF Mabel's face but soon disappeared. "Where's the first clone?" she repeated.

"Dead," Gideon replied.

"Oh." FF Mabel didn't seem too fazed about that. "You're not going to interfere with the other Mabels, are you?" she asked Mabel.

"Yeah, I am!" Mabel said defiantly.

FF Mabel sighed. "Here, let me help you change your mind."

"What do you—?"

Mabel was cut off as FF Mabel reached out and touched her hand. The moment they connected, FF Mabel burst into white smoke, twisting and curling in the air. Mabel breathed in with surprise, and the smoke rushed towards her, entering her body through her mouth and nose. Mabel jumped back, alarmed, but then a new feeling washed over her.

A bit of Mabel's pent-up anxiety — just a bit — melted away. She knew for certain that she couldn't tell Ford about the Journal, and she wouldn't. She hadn't even been thinking about that; but it must've been on the back of her mind all day, because now that she knew what she was going to do, she felt so. . . peaceful.

She could also feel all her other anxieties weighing in on her. Worry for Robbie finding out how she felt about him — guilt from not loving Dipper as much as she should — and, of course, petrifying fear of her. She suddenly wanted all those anxieties to be smoothed away in the same way as the one about Ford.

"Mabel?" Gideon asked.

"I. . . I feel. . ."

"We have to go stop the other clones," said Gideon.

She turned to him. "But. . ."

"I know it feels good," he said, "but trust me, this isn't the way to work out your feelings. It might feel nice now, but it doesn't actually solve anything. Trust me."

Why should I trust him? As soon as she asked the question, she remembered the answer: This had happened to him before.

"It. . . it doesn't?" she asked.

Gideon nodded. "Now, come on. We have to go stop the other clones before they conquer each other."

Mabel's expression hardened. "Stopping them doesn't involve doing what you did to Lizzie, does it?"

"When one wins, we have to off them — before they touch you."

"No killing!"

Gideon sighed. "We don't have room for your sense of morality, Pines."

"They're my clones!" Mabel retorted. "I might be torn over a lot of things, but killing is not one of them. I'd rather Lizzie get what she wanted than anybody else die today."

"Don't you get it?" Gideon asked. "Your clones are already killing each other. When that Mabel that just touched you won earlier, the Mabel she was fighting disappeared in a cloud of smoke. They're not real people, Pines, and they all know it. You seem to be the only one out of the loop."

"No killing," Mabel repeated firmly.

Gideon looked at her for a moment, then shrugged. "I may not have to, anyway. Pacifica might've taken care of both of the ones with her after I left."

Mabel's eyes widened.

He said her name.

She was frozen, paralyzed by the name now echoing through her head over and over again: Pacifica. Pacifica. Pacifica.

She wasn't aware that she was stepping backwards until she nearly tripped over a boulder. She sat down on it, eyes staring off into the trees.

Gideon muttered something that sounded along the lines of, "Well, we know who's winning that one," and approached Mabel carefully. She shook her head, and he stepped back. "Tell me when you're ready to go," he said, a note of impatience lacing his voice.

Mabel took longer to calm down from this one than she did from the whole levitating thing. She would much rather have a clone touch her and take away all this anxiety about P. . . Paci. . . about her than deal with feeling like this every time someone so much as said her name. After a while, she took a final deep breath and let it out. "All right. I'm okay." For now. "I want to find Dipper. Two clones are fighting about him."

"Shouldn't be too hard," Gideon replied.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Gideon shrugged. "He's loud."

At that moment, Mabel could've sworn she heard her brother scream in the distance.