Chapter Text
He couldn’t believe it.
There was no way that this could be happening to him. Not in any of the infinite possibilities in all the universes. It was completely, utterly impossible.
And yet, here he was, experiencing the impossible for himself.
The great Bill Cipher, destroyer of dimensions, taker of souls…was dying.
The bright blue flames edged in closer, eating away at Stan Pines’ mind. Emotions Bill hadn’t felt in at least a trillion years were rising inside of him, snapping at his very being like the kinds of vicious beasts that he normally commanded. Fear, panic, horror…and above all else, pain. Bill’s very essence was being destroyed, along with the Mindscape he was trapped in.
“No…No!” He shouted, as more and more of his triangular form was pulled away from him, dissolved into nothing before his eye. “This can’t be! I’m Bill Cipher! I can’t be getting destroyed by a bunch of…of useless meatbags!”
A harsh laugh sounded just behind him, and Bill turned to see Stan leaning against his favorite armchair with a look of triumph on his face. “Too bad,” he said. “Looks like this meatbag is the one who’s bringin’ you down.”
“Your memories are going to get erased too, you idiot!” Bill shouted. “If you stop this now, I’ll – I’ll give you anything you want!” He winced as his legs collapsed from under him, causing Bill to crash down in front of Stan’s feet. The bastard’s smirk widened a bit further at that. “All the money in the world! A big house! Your own galaxy!”
“Nah. Think I’ll just settle for knowing the kids and the town’ll be safe,” Stan replied. “If it means I forget everything, then that’s just how things shake out.”
The Mindscape was crumbling around them. Just about all of Bill’s form was gone, along with the room they were in. Even Stan himself was breaking up into bits, though his stupid face still remained intact. In another minute or two, Bill knew he would be gone forever.
There was only one thing left for him to try. It was an option that Bill had never thought he would need to use, had never wanted to use. However, being faced with his impending demise made him desperate. That was an emotion he was a bit more familiar with, unfortunately.
“Axolotl!” Bill cried out, with the last few dregs of energy remaining to him. “My time has come to burn! I invoke the ancient power that I may return!”
Everything went white as Stan’s mindscape – and Bill inside of it – was destroyed.
-x-
Three days earlier:
“Grunkle Stan…I trust you,” Mabel said. She let go of the button that would have shut down the interdimensional portal that had, unbeknownst to just about everyone save for Stan Pines, been hidden in the Mystery Shack’s basement.
Everyone was suspended in midair, as the basement was filled with an unnatural blue glow. Mabel in particular was hanging just in front of the portal, her long hair floating around her like she was underwater. The portal pulsed with wild energy. “It’s gonna blow!” Dipper shouted. “Get back, Mabel!”
“I’m too young to die!” Soos wailed. “There’s so much anime I haven’t seen!”
“Kids, get back!” Stan shouted. He shoved Dipper against the wall, then used the momentum to push himself forward and grab Mabel around the waist. He then ricocheted off the adjacent wall to push the two of them back next to Dipper and Soos, as far away from the portal as they could get.
Bill Cipher saw his chance. It was what he had been waiting for all summer, ever since Dipper Pines first found one of Sixer’s old Journals. Bill knew that the key to operating his interdimensional portal – the portal that Bill himself had helped build – was hidden inside those damned Journals that Ford had always been scribbling in. Yet, Ford had layered spell after protective spell over each one, frustrating Bill’s attempts to find them. There wasn’t a day that went by where Bill didn’t regret letting the man get as far as he had. Ford had always been too smart for his own damn good. Ultimately, it was why he was no longer on Earth now.
Gideon summoning him to Gravity Falls had just been the start, as it had allowed Bill to manipulate events in order to get all three Journals in the hands of the Pines family. Stan had perfectly lived up to his role as the stupid twin by turning the portal on, probably in a desperate attempt to bring his brother back.
But Stanford Pines wasn’t what came through the portal. Bill had been ready and waiting for this moment. In the brief window of time before the portal destabilized and shut down, he flew through.
“Yes! Yes, yes, YES!” He shouted, triumphant, as he fully materialized for the first time in this wonderful new dimension. It was ripe for him to wreak chaos in, to mold and break into his new home. It would be a reflection of his own image, a testament to his power. “Finally! I’m free of my decaying old dimension! 3D, here I come!”
Behind him, the portal creaked and groaned like a great, dying beast. Instead of blowing up, however, it simply collapsed, the metal framework caving in on itself. The swirling blue vortex flickered a few times before winking out of existence, leaving behind a useless and slightly scorched pile of scrap. Stan, Dipper, Mabel, and Soos all slid down the wall they’d been pushed against as gravity returned to normal, landing in a heap of limbs on the floor.
Bill hadn’t really paid them much mind, seeing as how he was busy building himself an improved form to better suit this dimension. It felt good to have a third side to himself.
“Bill Cipher?!” Bill looked down to see Dipper and Mabel Pines, whose arrival in Gravity Falls had been the needed push to set Bill’s plans in motion, staring at him with wide eyes and horrified expressions.
“The one and only!” Bill winked at them (though, since he only had one eye, it was really more of a blink. Ah well, it couldn’t be helped. Displaying emotions to humans was hard). “But you can just call me your lord and master for all eternity!”
“No!” Dipper pushed himself up on his feet, staring Bill down, with his hands clenched into trembling fists. “I won’t let you destroy the world! I’ll – I’ll stop you, Bill!”
Bill burst out laughing. He couldn’t help it – the kid was really just too funny. “Oh yeah? Well go on then, puppet!” He taunted. “Gimme your best shot! Be a hero! Go ahead and stop me.”
Bill had to admit that he’d expected Dipper to pee himself and run away. He was certainly not an imposing figure, being all gangly limbs and awkward pre-adolescence. Bill was certainly not expecting Dipper to run at him screaming with his fist drawn back, ready to punch.
Bill had to admit, the look in Dipper Pines’ eyes at that moment was interesting. For just a few moments, he was filled with a kind of boldness and determination that burned like green fire in his eyes. Bill had seen that kind of look in precious few humans over the centuries. Even fewer humans dared to challenge him the way this kid was doing. In that moment, as twelve year-old Dipper Pines attempted to punch a demon that could easily kill him with barely a thought, he struck Bill as being incredibly…admirable.
However, his actions were also incredibly stupid. Bill let Dipper get within a foot of him, before waving an arm and sending him flying backwards before his weak little fist could even connect. Dipper hit the wall with a thud, and slumped over, groaning. The other three humans in the room all let out cries of alarm. “Dipper!” Mabel scrambled to her brother’s side and hunched protectively over him. She turned to glare at Bill. “You monster,” she growled out. “Don’t you dare touch him!”
Bill just laughed. Once he’d gotten settled in his new world, Dipper might make an interesting pet. Assuming he survived, that is. Perhaps Bill would come back to look for him later. However, he had more pressing matters to attend to now than tormenting four humans. “Welcome to Weirdmagedon, meatbags!” He shouted, tearing a hole straight through the Mystery Shack as he rose up into the sky.
The wind whipped up and howled around Bill, as he used the leftover power he’d absorbed from the portal to tear a dimensional rift open into the sky. It wasn’t large, but it was enough to allow all manner of interdimensional nightmares and criminals to pour through. “Here comes the end of the world!” He cackled. And the beginning of mine. Yes, Bill was looking forward to reigning over this place for the rest of eternity.
Of course, things didn’t quite work out that way.
-x-
“Well. If it isn’t Bill Cipher. I must admit, I doubted I would ever see you here again.”
Bill groaned, his eye opening groggily. Everything hurt. His vision swam, taking several minutes for things to materialize in front of him. Not that there was really much to see. He was surrounded by soft pastel colors – pink, blue, yellow, and orange. They were all softly pulsing and blending seamlessly into each other. Thin trails of mist wove around him like silken threads. It was very beautiful, in a weird kind of way. Or it would have been, if Bill was the kind of being who appreciated vague things like beauty. Not knowing if he was dead or alive at the moment also put a bit of a damper on things.
Bill’s attention was quickly drawn to the thing that had spoken to him, as it materialized in its favorite form right in front of him – a giant pink axolotl. It regarded Bill with its small dark eyes, seeming almost amused by his current predicament. Frilly, darker pink gills floated around its face, as if pushed by an invisible current.
This was the great deity Axolotl. It was the only being that could possibly have rescued Bill from destruction. And right now, it controlled his fate. The thought positively terrified him.
Without thinking, Bill tried escaping Axolotl, hoping to push himself out of its strange realm in between dimensions, and go literally anywhere else. But he couldn’t move. Looking down on himself, Bill swore in several different dead languages as he saw that his form was almost entirely dissipated. Right now, he was nothing but a faint cloud of yellow energy, too weak to do anything but float there, and face Axolotl. He was still alive, but barely.
“Axolotl,” Bill said shortly. It was a miracle he was able to speak at all, really, considering the state he was in. “You actually saved my life. I always knew you had a sadistic streak.”
“I gave you the ability to invoke me for a reason, Cipher,” Axolotl said. “I knew in order for you to be desperate enough to do so, you would be likely to be on death’s door. I have been prepared to save you from destruction for a long time, now. Despite your frequent proclamations to the contrary, you are not invincible.”
“I can’t believe I was defeated by an idiotic old con-man, and a crazy hobo with a memory erasing gun,” Bill snapped. He couldn’t really get in a more embarrassing spot than he was in right now, after all. Might as well tell the whole story. “How?! How could this have happened? Humans are pathetic! They know nothing of even their own universe, let alone any others! They regularly attempt to destroy their own planet! How could any species so weak have been able to do this to me?”
“From what I know of humanity, they are tenacious creatures. They do not easily give up, and possess as much daring and bravery in the face of difficult odds as more advanced species do. It is clear to me that you deeply underestimated them,” It figured that the stupid frilly know-it-all actually liked humans.
“So, what do you want, anyway?” Bill snapped. “To keep me here at your mercy for the rest of eternity?”
“Bill Cipher.” The look and tone of voice that Axolotl used would have caused a shiver to go through Bill, were he still capable of shivering. “You have destroyed an entire dimension, and countless other sentient beings with it. You almost destroyed a second dimension as well, in your foolish attempts to make yourself a more stable home than the Nightmare Realm. I cannot allow these crimes to go unanswered. You must atone for what you have done.”
There was a long moment of silence, until Bill finally worked up the nerve to address Axolotl again. “Well, you must have something in mind for me. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have gone to all the trouble of keeping me alive.”
A glint of amusement shone in Axolotl’s eyes once more. “Of course, Bill. My task for you is this – to save the dimension you tried so hard to ruin. There are great dangers ahead for it.”
“You have got to be joking,” Bill deadpanned. “There’s no way I’m going to be saving that good-for-nothing dump - ”
“Or I could just let you die right now.”
“Fine,” Bill huffed. “You’ve got me pinned to a wall here, Axolotl, so I’ll do it. What are these great dangers, anyway?”
Axolotl smiled at him, which was a weird look on a giant pink salamander. “Telling you would be too easy. The punishment must fit the crime, after all. But do not worry. You will have assistance in this task.”
“Oh, come on –”
“Now, Bill Cipher, I will uphold my end of the bargain,” Axolotl interrupted. “You will be restored to life.”
Axolotl opened its mouth, to reveal a practically blinding bright light. Before Bill could say or do anything else – like ask about just how he was going to single-handedly save an entire fucking dimension from some unknown threat – that light blasted out of the deity’s mouth, and hit what was left of Bill’s form head on. He yelled out in shock…and everything went dark.
Oddly enough, the last thing Bill saw before losing consciousness completely was a flash of determined green eyes rushing at him.
-x-
Bill’s eyes snapped open to the view of a dark lattice of tree branches and leaves. In-between the gaps of the branches, Bill could see a night sky, dotted with stars. He abruptly sat up with a cry of shock, then hissed in discomfort as a wave of dizziness went through him. He pressed a hand to his forehead, and waited a moment for the dizzy spell to pass.
Wait a minute…since when did he have a forehead? Now that Bill thought about it…he felt a lot more solid than usual. A bit heavier, too. He looked down at his body to see that of a human’s. Hands, legs, feet, arms, a torso. The whole shebang. Bill wondered why Axolotl had put him in a vessel.
There was a loud shout, and Bill looked up to see a young man – barely more than a boy, really - fall off the short wall he’d been perched on. An empty bottle fell to the asphalt path next to him with a dull clunk. The boy pulled himself up, seeming none the worse for wear, and swayed on his feet. He held up a shaking finger, and pointed it at Bill. “G-ghost!” He slurred, before turning tail and practically tripping over his own feet as he ran around the corner of a nearby building, and out of sight.
Bill rolled his eye. Humans. They were such ridiculous creatures, so easily frightened. It was part of why Bill enjoyed manipulating them so much. Speaking of which, it was time to leave this vessel. If he was lucky, he could escape this dimension before whatever proverbial shit Axolotl had been hinting at actually hit the fan.
Except that he couldn’t leave the vessel. Frowning, Bill tried again, pushing at what should be the thin boundary between himself and the body he was possessing. Only, there wasn’t a boundary at all. There was nothing to separate Bill from the body he was currently in.
“Shit,” Bill growled. “That slippery fucker actually made me into a meatbag!” Slowly, he pushed himself up to his feet. They trembled, and he nearly fell, but was able to catch himself in time against the trunk of the tree he’d been lying under. After a few moments, Bill was able to steady himself and stand up properly. He looked around to see that he was standing in some sort of grassy courtyard, surrounded by small buildings. Some of the buildings had lights on in the windows, so they were presumably inhabited. Small asphalt pathways ran between the buildings, lit by bright streetlamps. Bill hurried over to one of the lamps. He couldn’t see too much from where he was standing. Which scared him – Bill had always had perfect vision, whether it was light or dark out. Not being able to see as well at night would be difficult, to say the least.
Once under the light, Bill could see his new body more clearly. It was tall and fit, so at least Axolotl had given him that. The deity seemed to have taken Bill’s particular tastes into account when giving him clothes, as well. He was wearing a dark gold suit jacket with black triangle-shaped buttons, over a lighter gold long-sleeved shirt. He even had a black bow tie on. The outfit was finished off by long black dress pants, and shiny black shoes. Bill reached into the coat pockets out of curiosity, and pulled out a pair of soft, black leather gloves. He put them on, and was unsurprised to find that they fit perfectly. Bill ran a long-fingered hand through short, soft hair. No top hat, then. Too bad, he’d always been fond of top hats.
Bill ran through a few of his extensive repertoire of spells – or at least, the ones he should still be able to do when not in his natural triangular form. None of them worked. He couldn’t light fire. He couldn’t magically transport himself across spaces. He couldn’t do any telekinesis. He couldn’t even summon the slightest of breezes.
Panic started to rise in Bill’s throat as he realized that he was completely, utterly helpless. How Axolotl expected him to even be able to survive in this dimension, let alone save it, was beyond him. Of course, Bill definitely had to give the frilly ass credit – there was definitely no way he was leaving this dimension, at any rate.
He paced around the courtyard he had found himself in. Based on signs hanging from the nearby buildings, Bill discovered that he was on the Portland State University campus. Vague memories picked up from old human vessels informed Bill that a university was a kind of school that young adults went to, usually to prepare for boring and useless jobs. There were three male dormitory buildings and a dining hall surrounding the courtyard. All of the doors were locked. The doors next to the dormitories had little slots that were labeled for student ID cards, which looked like they could be used as keys to gain entrance. Of course, Bill didn’t have one. A nearby map of the rest of the campus was displayed on a sign next to the dining hall, which Bill spent several minutes studying in the dim light of the nearby street lamps. It looked like there was a lot more to the campus than just this small area. He felt overwhelmed just looking at the map. How did anyone find their way around this place?
Bill also spent some time studying his reflection in a nearby window. Based on what he could see, he looked pretty handsome for a human. The face was all smooth skin, short blond hair, and a straight, aquiline nose. The only oddity was that, just like in his natural form, Bill only had one eye. Even in what little light there was, it flashed a bright blue in his reflection. Wrapped around the other eye was a triangle-shaped eyepatch of black velvet, which was trimmed with gold. Lifting it up briefly, Bill saw that the eye it covered was clouded a milky-white, and completely blind.
He suspected now that Axolotl had made him a completely new vessel, instead of giving Bill someone’s discarded physical form. Typically, making a physical vessel from scratch was a complicated bit of magic that few were able to accomplish. However, doing so would be child’s play to a deity with Axolotl’s power. In a physical vessel, the eyes were typically the purest expression of a person’s soul. They were where a soul resided in the vessel, in a sense. Humans even had some kind of dumb phrase about that, but Bill couldn’t be bothered to remember it. So, he wasn’t too surprised to only have one eye in this form, as Bill had only ever had one eye in his natural form. The nature of his being hadn’t changed, just the wrapping.
Bill crouched underneath the large tree in the center of the campus. He felt disgusted by all of the stupid, useless emotions running through him right now. Fear, anxiety, and anger made his muscles tense, and his heart beat quickly. On top of that, Bill’s stomach felt tight, and his throat felt dry and raspy. He knew enough about humans to know that these feelings meant he was hungry and thirsty. Bill had experienced these sensations briefly when possessing humans, but he usually just left the vessel if they became too overwhelming. Now, that clearly wasn’t an option. Bill also wasn’t even sure where to go in order to satiate himself. His dumb human body didn’t even have the strength to force the dining hall door open, and he didn’t want to risk drawing attention to himself by trying to break a window.
He wondered if this was how he was actually going to die – slowly, of dehydration and hunger underneath a tree in a backwater dimension. It would have been embarrassing, if Bill could even summon the energy to care about that kind of thing. Bill normally was just able to suck the life energy right out of any living thing for sustenance. Quick and easy. He half-heartedly tried to do so with the tree in the courtyard, but of course it didn’t work. Bill groaned, and leaned his head back against the trunk. For the first time in billions of years, he had no plan for what came next. He wasn’t even sure what he was supposed to do.
“Hey!” A loud shout from across the courtyard startled Bill into alertness. He leapt to his feet, curling his hands into fists. He wasn’t sure how much of a fight this body could put up, but now seemed as good a time as any to learn its limits. If it came down to it, Bill supposed he could always run away. Even the thought of having to sink down to that level left a bad taste in his mouth, though.
There was a bright light coming towards him from across the courtyard, which Bill quickly realized was a flashlight. It was being held by the slim figure of a boy, who Bill guessed as being in his late teens or early twenties. Bill was able to pick out more details as the boy got closer. He could make out a few messy brown curls of hair around the kid’s ears, and he was wearing rumpled gray sweats and dirty sneakers. The boy also didn’t seem to have any weapons aside from the flashlight. Bill hoped that if he was able to beat the kid in a fight, he’d open the dining hall up so Bill could at least get a drink.
The boy stopped several feet away from him. “Shit,” he breathed. “Everyone figured Ryan was just drunk when he came in screaming about a ghost in the courtyard, but I just had to check, didn’t I?” Bill heard him muttering. He held the flashlight up defensively. “Look, buddy,” the kid said, a bit louder this time. “I dunno if you’re high, or doing some kind of frat thing, but I’m calling the campus police if you don’t get out of here.”
“Listen, kid, you don’t wanna miss with me,” Bill growled out, trying to make himself sound as threatening as possible. “I’ll beat you into the next century.” Then, Bill noticed the eyes, bright green and focused on him. More curious than angry, this time, but still no less intense. The boy was also wearing a baseball cap – dark blue and white, with an all-too-familiar logo on the front. “Pine Tree?” Bill asked, squinting incredulously past the flashlight.
Dipper – it could only be Dipper Pines, with eyes like that – lowered the flashlight. He gaped at Bill, eyes like round saucers. “Wha-?” He sputtered. “How-? There’s no way…I’ve never told anyone – not outside of Gravity Falls…” He paused for a minute, seemingly taking in Bill’s face, eye, and unusual clothing for the first time. “Bill Cipher?”
“The one and only,” Bill said, giving a dramatic bow. “Hats off to you for a correct first guess, kid!”
“But…you’re supposed to be dead! Old man McGucket wiped you out of Stan’s mind with his memory gun ten years ago! I saw it!” Dipper was staring at Bill with eyes wide as saucers, the flashlight dangling limply in his hand. “This has to be a bad dream. Why aren’t you a triangle? You’re supposed to be a floating triangle in a top hat!”
“Well, what I’m supposed to be, and what I am right now, are clearly two different things,” Bill groused. Apparently, Axolotl had sent him a decade forward in time when it had brought him here. Seeing as how this was only one more uncomfortable revelation on top of a whole stack of them, Bill just shoved the thought aside to deal with later. It was still a little weird seeing an older Pine Tree, though.
Bill yelped as the flashlight hit him in the face. “Ow! The fuck was that for?” He winced, rubbing the side of his head, as the flashlight that Dipper had just thrown at him rolled away and flickered off.
“Listen, Bill,” Dipper raised his fists, and Bill noticed that his arms were just a bit less noodley than they had been when he was twelve, and last facing Bill down like this. Also, unlike the last time, Bill had a sickening feeling in his stomach that Dipper was a lot more likely to win a fistfight with him. “I don’t know what you’re doing here, or what your endgame is, but I’m not letting you get away with it! I won’t let you try to destroy the rest of the world like you almost did to Gravity Falls!”
Bill opened his mouth to reply, but was cut off when his stomach let out a loud growl. He winced slightly. Being hungry sucked.
Dipper had lowered his fists slightly, and had returned to staring at him like an idiot.
Bill sighed. He realized that, yet again, he was backed up against a wall. Would there be no end to his having to demean himself? “Look, Pine Tree…I don’t have an endgame. As much as I hate to admit it, I really don’t have much more of an idea than you as to what exactly I’m doing here. And right now, I need your help.”
Dipper lowered his fists completely. “OK, now I know I’m dreaming.” He pinched his arm, and winced slightly. “Ow. Then again, maybe not…”
Bill snickered. Even after ten years, pain was still hilarious. Dipper, meanwhile, pulled a cell phone out of his sweatpants pocket. He swiped across the screen a few times before putting it to his ear. “C’mon, c’mon, pick up…Mabel? Yeah, it’s me. You’ve gotta come down to my dorm right now. It’s an emergency.”
Bill heard a tinny voice on the other end of the line, but it was impossible to make out what they were saying with his weak human ears.
“Yeah, way worse than were-raccoons,” Dipper said. “You’re not gonna believe this, but…Bill Cipher’s here.”