Chapter Text
Marcy has always prided herself on being the most intelligent student in her classroom. She might not be the type of girl who showed off like some snobbish people in her old school or in college, but the elation of every teacher whenever they handed her the scores of her projects or homework was evidence of her big brain.
Even in Amphibia, a world filled with talking amphibians, the adults were mesmerized by every idea she came up with. Like when she improved the home politics of Newtopia and the bureaucratic processes, or that time she redesigned the whole bridge, or when she beat those puzzles in the temple of Wit. It was such a bittersweet tour to memoryland as her mind wandered too closely to the bonding moments she shared with Andrias before that horrific betrayal.
But it didn’t change the fact that her intellect has helped a lot, and it would continue to do so, that is, if she ever managed to crack the damn riddle in front of her!
The surrealism enveloping the coded message left her mesmerized. The first time she had researched an ancient alien language and a way to translate it was in Amphibia to help recharge the stones. Best day of her life, one of her secret dreams as a fantasy-lover and Creature & Caverns fan! Challenging, exhausting, fun, none of those adjectives were enough to encapsulate her feelings at such a great opportunity. And now here she was, categorizing every weird symbol Bill Cipher had written in his convoluted riddle.
At least the message at the bottom of the big paper had normal letters, but her attempts to crack it failed.
Most importantly, what if that encoded message had nothing to do with the alien symbols written beneath it? But that could be said for the symbols, too. Then the real goal is to figure out which secret was the priority and which one was the distraction. Frog, as far as she was concerned, both could be distractions!
Now hold on, if that was true, then wouldn’t the outcome be that she gave up and even convinced Anne and Sasha to do the same? To disregard whatever Cipher had wanted to convey in that message, which in turn could give HIM the time to start some nefarious plan?
But what would they gain if they, or at least she, poured all their attention on deciphering the contents?
What if both messages were distractions in the end? Although what were they distracting them from?
Or maybe, maybe this was a way for him to mess with their minds. The guy was known for being manipulative after all.
Or worse, any of the messages could be an answer to decode the other one, and any of them could be a warning, an incantation, or a curse! Marcy froze. A curse? Oh, Frog, what if Cipher used black ancient magic on Sasha the moment he gave her this paper, and whatever was inside of her was activated by decoding the message? Did that mean that by not doing anything, she was safe? But if it was a time bomb? What if decoding the contents of the paper was the solution? However, even if that was true, she doubted he had written the clues. Maybe both messages were just a distraction, and the only way to get rid of the dangerous arcane magic inside Sasha was by talking with Bill!
A blur passed between her standing up and knocking on Sasha’s home office for the nth time.
“Marce, what happens?”
“Sasha, I think you’ve been cursed!”
“Uh… What?” She shoved to her face the paper with Cipher’s cryptic message. “Oh…that? You think that gibberish is a curse?” The blonde snorted, but the amusement of such a theory vanished at the sight of the fear Marcy was showing. “Marcy, it’s ok. I told you before, he is under strict supervision, and his powers are completely locked out of his body.”
“That doesn’t mean he can’t use magic. I could use it in Amphibia, and I wasn’t born with powers! Trust me, Sash, I have experience. Maddie has told me about this.”
“Look, it has been a day since we got this…weird surprise. Did something else happen to any of us? Nope. And if you ask me, I feel pretty normal.”
The last comment just exasperated her more. “That’s the trap!” Marcy shouted as she shook her by the shoulders. “It’s like not knowing you have a terminal disease until it’s too late!”
“Let’s suppose that’s true. What would he gain by cursing me? He will still be trapped in the Theraprism. The people in charge will punish him, and the supervision around him will be ten times harsher. Lastly, we don’t know if this curse will kill me or make my life miserable.”
“Does it matter? Being this confident is exactly what he wants, so when the curse takes effect, it will leave you devastated and unable to do anything about it!”
“The other possible reaction would be freaking out and going to the Theraprism to beg on my knees for a solution, which Cipher will exploit to make me do his bidding, right?”
Marcy winced. When Sasha put it like that, it made it look kind of humiliating and a bullying tactic.
Sasha hugged her with one arm. “What if we wait for Anne to come back? Three brains work better than one, after all.”
“I wish I could, but this is a matter of life and death. We are talking about an interdimensional, overpowered criminal that—”
“We have defeated the Core and Andrias, Marce. You know how, right? By using our best traits and everyone’s help, not by losing our minds. Don’t let Cipher become the exception. We will figure it out. And if your suspicions are correct that he has used some weird magic on me, I’ll talk with the Theraprism staff or the Axolotl to tell them I quit.”
Her eyes widened, and she gasped. “Qu-Quitting? Really? I mean, he’s your patient, Sasha. You were trusted with his progress and mental health.”
“I also know that he’s extremely dangerous. If I’m truly cursed, I don’t want to imagine the side effects of that magic on you, Anne, or anyone who might run into me. So, yes, if there is magic behind all of this, I’ll quit.”
“…Well… As happy as I am for that because of your safety, I don’t want you to feel guilty of quitting or to regret not being able to make some progress on him. I know how much being a child therapist means to you. Even if he’s not a kid, you’re still working hard to help him.”
“And I can assure you that if I quit due to the curse issue, I won’t be leaving with any regrets weighing on my mind. Trust me.”
It was good to hear that Sasha had a way to prevent more damage if her suspicions of Cipher’s actions proved to be correct. Now what was left was to wait for Anne. In the meantime, “Let me show you what I gathered then.”
+++++++
Anne would never understand a single letter of the Amphibian ancient runes, and for that, she was grateful. Don’t misinterpret her; while she was determined to charge the Calamity Gems all those years ago, more study and books in the middle of her dire circumstances would’ve driven her insane. Despite resorting to the translation skills she acquired by reading Marcy’s journal, all that work plus the credit belonged to Marcy.
Curious that the noirette hasn’t chosen bilingual or multilingual interpretation as a career, but her current job was also pretty cool.
Cool AND doable compared to the herculean task to decode two messages written by a triangular lunatic. And one of them was in an alien language!
“AAAAAAHHHHH!!! That’s it, I’m done! I can’t do this!”
“WE can do this,” Sasha cheered her up, or more like tried to.
“Dude, exactly how? I’ve been seeing these weird symbols for hours and nothing! Not even Marcy has been able to crack this.”
“Wow, Anne. Thank you for the faith in me,” The nerd joked, although not as cheerfully as other times.
“Look, call me crazy but let’s just tell the Theraprism guys that Cipher is messing with us using riddles. I bet there is a rule against this kind of torture.”
Sasha tapped her arms, feeling divided. Anne’s solution was the most pragmatic. Instead of stressing out due to an impossible mission, they could solve the mystery with extra help and put an end to whatever Bill was planning. However, her gut told her both messages contained information about her patient that might help her with his progress as nonexistent as it was.
Besides chaos, what other goal hid behind those symbols?
Behind. Hold on. Her memories conjured the therapy session where she delivered the homework to Bill. He mentioned the many cons of having family around. So, what if…?
“I want to crack the messages,” she sentenced to the other women. “I know this might be a waste of time and that you are worried, Marcy, but maybe I can figure out more layers of Bill if I manage to decipher this.”
“And if it leaves you with more questions?”
“That’s better than the uncertainty. It will sound far-fetched but the answers might be in the last two sessions I had with him.”
“What were those about?” Marcy asked, grabbing a new piece of paper and a pen to take notes.
“The main topics were family, community, betrayal, and independence. He’s a very opinionated guy concerning family. It’s a long shot but trying with any term that I have written during those sessions could bring us closer to what the messages say.”
Anne stretched her throbbing back. Sitting for hours would leave her legs numb and jelly-like. She picked a few papers from the table, “If you think this might help you in future sessions, we’re on.”
Marcy smiled in agreement. Although deep down, her real goal was to find out what kind of arcane, forbidden magic he might have used on Sasha. Her safety would always be first in her eyes.
The blonde therapist took a few minutes to gather all the notes she had written. Her eyes then landed on the paper where she made some diagrams about the story of Potential, Poop, and Inspiration. Mmmmm… That too for the group. Who knew? You could find answers in unexpected places.
+++++++
A flower, a frog, a house, a sun. Anne had been doodling like there was no tomorrow while waiting for Marcy to explain the next step of this deciphering mission thing. A wave of nostalgia washed over her. If the three were still the immature 13-year-olds that landed on Amphibia, she bet this quest would be just another task to figure out how to return home.
Of all the temples, her favorite was the Temple of Wit. Fewer threats and more brain on the formula to recharge the Calamity Gems. There were obstacles, sure, like her arguments with Hop Pop after she found out he lied about the Music Box, then being told that the temple could cheat in the last challenge. The majority of the issues, though, were interpersonal, and for that she was grateful.
Actually, the Temple of Strength was also filled with interpersonal issues, but that was a story to reminisce about another time.
A plam-like sound broke her train of thought. Marcy had hit the table with both palms of her hands, catching their attention.
“Ok, girls, listen. We have two messages and too many possibilities. Either those two are a distraction, an incantation, or one of them is; heck, one of the messages could be the key to decode the other one. Sadly, the second message Cipher wrote uses characters we have never seen. I know, I compared them to the Amphibian runes, and there is no correlation.”
“What if those weird symbols aren’t an alien language but something he created? I mean, he had a lot of time to make up something, right?”
Sasha pointed at the brunette with her thumb. “Clever,” she complimented. “Yeah. It’s a 50/50, unless he’s hiding something else.”
“That’s why we’re going to decode the first message only. It uses normal characters. Earth characters? The point is, it’s doable even if it takes us hours.”
“Any way to narrow it down? If we use all the methods you might have researched, we could finish at the end of the year.” Anne joked.
“I resorted to classical cryptography to try to decode it. Ever heard of the Caesar cipher or the Vigenère cipher? Those are the most well‑known methods among experts in this field. The difference between the two lies in how a message is encoded and decoded. Caesar uses substitution, shifting each letter by a fixed number of positions in the alphabet, between 1 and 25. Vigenère, on the other hand, uses a keyword—either short or long. Each letter of the keyword tells you how many spaces the corresponding letter of the message should shift. For example, if the keyword is ANT, then the number of spaces is 1, 14, and 20, respectively.”
“Couldn’t we use the method you used to read the Amphibia runes? Substitution sounds much easier than using a keyword. We don’t even know how long or short it is.”
Marcy crushed her hopes with the shake of her head. “With the Amphibia runes, I just needed to find which symbol represented which letter. I tried that with the alien message, but the lack of information about those symbols and the suspicion that Cipher might have made this up just for funsies makes it a waste of time. The other one, however, is closer to being decoded for the reasons I said earlier.”
From one corner of the table, she grabbed a blank piece of paper writing a chart. The left side of the chart was titled ‘Discarded encryption techniques’; the right side showed the title ‘Possible encryption techniques’.
“Here is what we’re going to do. It’s a little reminder, of course. First, the second message is out of reach.” Marcy wrote that in the right upper corner of the page. “Second, substitution-based cipher methods are useless. Trust me, I tried. Third, seeing that those kinds of encryption techniques are out of question, we have to resort to the ones that use a keyword like Vigenere.”
“And my notes of the therapy sessions can help us find that keyword.” Sasha piped in, waving one of those notes.
“Isn’t it against the rules to divulge information about your patients?”
“It’s different, Anne. For starters, he hasn’t told me anything about his past. The few tidbits he spilled are either twisted to control the narrative or never happened. We’re talking about a master manipulator so hermetic that your best chance for answers is to make a deal with him.”
“Which will never happen. I bet this double secret message thing is to force us to make a deal with him, or to push you to do it.”
“Yep, also, if this turns out to be some kind of arcane evil magic, I will have to quit.”
Anne dropped the pen she was playing with and regarded the blonde, shocked. “Quit?”
“Yeah. She told me the same, too,” Marcy added.
“Bill might be my patient, but he’s also dangerous. If Marcy’s theory is true that he has cast a spell on me, and that the answer is in this challenge, then it’s over. I don’t want some weird Vudu magic to cause anyone trouble or worse.”
“If that’s your decision and you won’t regret it afterwards, you have all my support.” Anne then stretched and tapped the piece of paper in front of her in anticipation. “Ok, Marce, let’s start. How does this Vigenere work?”
Marcy used the words ‘cat’ and ‘dog’ for the message and the keyword, respectively. Then, she wrote a series of equations to decode the message. “This helps if you don’t want to use the tabula recta.” Next, she drew the grid to teach them how to apply it with each word as the key and the other as the encoded message.
“I choose the tabula. You know I hate math,” Anne began drawing on a piece of paper.
Sasha made a list of themes she talked about with Bill before the riddle was given to her. “Here, these are all the possible keys.” She placed it in the middle of the table.
· Family
· Community
· Potential
· Poop (What the fuck? Thought Anne)
· Inspiration
· Friendship
· Transaction
· Relationships
· Sixer (Uh?)
· Shooting Star (Sasha explained that one and Sixer were nicknames Bill used for people he knew)
10 possible keys.
“Ok, I will use the first three. Marcy, get the other three. And Sasha, you have the last four.” The noirette and the blonde nodded and began decoding.
+++++++
Whatever compelled Cipher to create this riddle must be the most insidious and bothersome reason in all of existence.
Her left hand throbbed after writing all the letters of the alphabet for the 200th time. 200th or 300th? Never mind, the tabula recta wasn’t working!
Marcy had explained to the best of her abilities how to use it, she had comprehended the method, while it was monotonous and boring, Anne thanked it wasn’t math. Numbers and equations were the overexcited nerd’s territory aside from riddles.
The last possible key in her arsenal was ‘Potential’. She prayed with all her heart that this would be it, if not, she didn’t know how but the brunette would find a way to invade that triangular asshole’s dreams and kick his butt.
“Any luck over there, girls?”
“Nope,” Marcy put her pen down, frowning at her results. It was baffling that the most intelligent member of the trio hadn’t finished first. Perhaps she was trying with other keys.
“I’m almost finishing with my part, but the results are less than stellar,” Wasn’t that magnificent?
Ugh!
“Ok, let’s rip the band-aid off! I can’t take this suspense any longer!” Anne’s eyes regarded the blonde. Sasha sighed and hurried up.
Several minutes later, she placed her results.
The comparison to the others went nowhere which was clear as water.
Anne’s forehead banged on the table. “…You know… Maybe you can use one of your charming speeches to try to get him to—”
“I’m a therapist, not a charmer,” Sasha’s harshness froze the environment, reducing boredom to shock. At another time, being this severe would’ve shamed her because it meant falling into bad habits again, but what Anne was asking was no small deal.
“Sorry.”
Sasha massaged her temples. “I get it, Anne. It’s like we’re going in circles and this could either be a trap, a spell, or an immature prank, but the Axolotl trusted me with Cipher’s case. That and this is a patient, manipulation goes against my morals and work ethics.”
The brunette tapped the table incessantly, analyzing her next words. “Could you at least…make an exception with him?”
“No, I won’t. And before you say ‘But he’s a bad guy!’, let me tell you that even bad guys have the right to psychological help. Last but not least, even if I don’t like him, I won’t stoop to his level. I bet he’s counting on that to rub it in my face and ‘get me on his side’.”
Marcy shivered at the last part.
Anne extended her arms with a ‘Fine! You win!’ vibe. “At least ask him what the sentence says.”
“Are you really that desperate to know?” Marcy piped in.
“More like annoyed. If I were a teacher and a student gave me a riddle instead of their homework, I’d demand answers.”
Sasha chuckled. “Even if I did, Cipher would lie about it or throw another riddle, or a puzzle.”
As the silence sat in, Marcy reviewed all the results.
· Family: Qtas Sztchjr Jvgsx! I yadqqw'pr foie g wtwq pcga vns ltidjk nb lsql nbb pt t mytilhzxg dtnmr mvj muftjy ay jtg goxg!
· Community: Tfao Jkqjvpo Vomrx! A ydpqmn'ao mcob s pzvq hcjm vjj wqprph zu rrqd nen pp k xvawrelqm ctfmu yvf dfcaxe xk czf ggxj!
· Potential: Gftw Qeqcico Owtlx! T lqpjuu'uo fpbb l xgpq apwm orq qqiech sc ylqw arn ix r rvtjeeeyt wtyzh yon kzctkr xd kgz gzkw!
· Poop: Gfyl Ojknedo Slsqq! E ironkt'yh rmba q netk mlwm tgo vktadh wr xqjh xsm mn q vofgedjor ankvh ytc iewegs xh zfe zkhx!
· Inspiration: Ngul Vgyjldp Znopx! C wmvolz'ae qszp l tfvq niws qvk bkvhed wy uefo xtt oj p cmtblekut xmqtw tzd kkxbgy uw vle brit!
· Friendship: Qcew Qugvlcx Qscrc! B pxoxhz'jj cijh p wcau nxtt zgy sqecod ey wzho hty ju w vycmpfukz hmtto iuo flceqp ds bqa hrgg!
· Transaction: Ccmn Lxwjldp Ojgrn! T umvolo'ww siqn l tfvf jayi htk bkvwav yo lcfo xti kb r sdrblekjp pogku tzd kzttio lu vle bgel!
· Relationships: Epba Kpkpbku Sipau! T dxppga'fh njme e ilul itdl pez yyphdi tz dpgf hvb it q xlmmeagyv piqwj uaj iatpkg so aga hrgt!
· Sixer: Dlpw Mfqfpak Zdcnn! L zbmkqk'jf nstl n jllu jidd del bbeyzn oc umqz hpj te a tllxpbfuj lkgcz iqz pvgcdy os xbk rvet!
· Shooting Star: Dmym Kplwbyc Qizqr! A osxkfh'we ymcw w onqf ajtt thk blcxyv uo eqkd dtv ji e tlmgfzppa xiyte ftd ekxndn lf wme agny!
Nothing. She banged her forehead on the table.
“…Maybe… Maybe our strategy is wrong. What if we focus on stuff related to him?”
“Those ‘possible’ keys were related to him, Marce,” Anne commented absentmindedly while doodling the Plantars in another piece of paper.
“They were themes talked about in Sasha’s therapy sessions. What I’m referring to is traits, quirks, personality, even personal stuff.”
“Just so you know, I summarized my two last sessions with him to find lots of keys to use, but I’m not going to spill everything. Again, it goes against my work ethic.”
“But a long story short of how is he?” Anne used the puppy-eye maneuver. Pretty childish, but Sasha wasn’t going to stop her. She was losing her patience too.
She grabbed a new piece of paper and wrote NEW LIST. Beneath the title she wrote new possible keys: manipulative, liar, twisted, arrogant, standoffish(?) (Not the best adjective to describe him but seeing that he loved to be cryptic...), triangular, triangle, yellow, hermetic, and mysterious.
Sasha showed them their new task. “Wanna distribute the keys among us three again, Anne?”
“Actually, what if you do it this time? And leave me the shorter ones, please.”
“Roger that.” Picking up more paper, she wrote each word and distributed them to the herpetologist and the comic artist.
Back to work again.
+++++++
Nothing helps to soothe your stress over dumb impossible riddles more than a thick slice of red velvet cake and a fresh glass of Cha Ma Nao. What was left to make it more perfect were some nachos. Spicy, triangular, and—Wait, wasn’t Sasha’s patient a living triangle? Ugh. Wonderful. As if dealing with his ‘homework’ was annoying enough, now the urge of nachos had to be suppressed.
Whatever. Her sweets could be enough.
“OHMYGOSHFINALLY!!” Sasha’s sudden burst of excitement and relief made her sputter half her drink. Come on! She wasn’t in the mood for sweeping the floor.
“Dude, what the heck?! I’m too young for a heart attack!”
“Me too!” Marcy pointed at her paper that was torn in two due to Sasha’s big scare.
“Sorry, girls. But I have good news! I’m a bit closer to decoding the message!”
In seconds, Anne forgot her drink and Marcy forgot her ruined paper, and both stood behind Sasha, trying to find such a discovery.
One of the keywords had been double underlined and from the decoding message just one word stood out from all the gibberish: damn.
“Ok… It’s progress… I guess…” Not by much, Anne complained mentally but preferred to keep that to herself.
“Wait wait wait! Sasha, I think that’s it! The word ‘standoffish’ might have a piece of the real keyword! Can I check it over?”
“It’s all yours, Marce.”
The noirette sat where Anne used to be, tuning everything else out. It took her only a few minutes to show them the fruits of her labor.
“Alright, this will be a weird comparison but this here,” she pointed at the word ‘standoffish’, only the first syllable was underlined and inside a circle. “Is part of the whole key. Redundant, I know. But we have to be aware that the keyword could be super long or super short, and it won’t always be a real word. As far as I’m concerned, it could be a mishmash of words or letters.”
Anne and Marcy exchanged a few words which then evolved into a conversation. Was it related to their current issue or something else? Sasha couldn’t know, and right now, she didn’t care. The first syllable of the only word that enlightened her on the encoded message sounded familiar to her. How though? She did as Marcy, tuning the world out, leaving only her and her memories of all the therapy sessions she had with Cipher.
Then Stanford and his worthless family decided to ruin it!!
You mean Stanford Pines.
…then Stanford’s leech of a brother…
But of course!
Sasha sat down, fully engrossed in decoding the message once and for all while Anne and Marcy just watched, sharing questioning glances with each other.
As she drew the tabula recta and filled it with each letter of the alphabet, her hand trembled due to the exertion but she pushed the discomfort away, uncovering the secrets of the sentence part by part.
She groaned. Only the word ‘the’ stood out just like ‘Damn’. Wait, what if this was an insult to Stanford’s family or his person? She shook her head. She couldn’t speculate.
Alright. If Stanford as a keyword didn’t work then it meant that either that wasn’t or it was incomplete.
Mmmmm, what about adding his last name?
Damn Yjhzejp Diolf! G rrmzjz'as nixp r wfrv lsyw pdk jldbas wy yage sgo wn n holhpafjg cwktt xze tasavt gi xqd gmrt!
Nope. Didn’t work either.
Not just Stan and not Stanford Pines.
…Hold on…
Stanford’s leech of a brother
A renovated vigor coursed through her as she drew another tabula recta, the last one if her hunch was right about this. Writing each letter felt like a blur, she didn’t even notice her girlfriends’ questions when they stood behind her, watching her decode the message like a man on a mission.
Some minutes later, her pen fell from her hand.
It was done.
Anne almost vomited her dessert, having to hold back her utter disgust with both hands. Sasha was too numb to react or even celebrate that she had discovered the secret. And Marcy…
“…Shit. Cipher really has a lot of beef with that Stanley guy.”