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“Come on, Pine Tree,” came Bill’s voice, crackling from the speaker of her waterproof radio. “When will you guys get it? You really want to be cooped up in this lame, little town, hiding from the world for the rest of your pathetic lives?! Don’t you see? I’m on your side.”
“Like hell you are,” Dipper said. “Mabel, now!”
Mabel nodded and sliced open her hand. Her blood drifted through the water, then - as if pulled by a vacuum - sunk to bottom of Lake Gravity Falls, tarnishing the golden artifact buried in its depths with a coat of red.
Bright lights flashed from above the distant surface of the water. Mabel shielded her eyes as the lake was pierced by an immortal scream, and then kicked upwards as fast as her fins would let her. Her heart raced, fearing for Dipper’s safety.
She broke the surface, scattering spray. Bill Cipher was nowhere to be seen. Her brother lay collapsed near the shoreline, his trusty journal clutched tightly in arms.
“Dipper!” she yelled, swimming as close as physically possible.
Mabel was blocked by edge of the lake - her tank chair being destroyed earlier that day, but she’d push herself out and crawl by the sheer might of her elbows if she had to. Thankfully, Dipper began to stir and Mabel let out sigh of relief. Clutching his head, his legs slowly untangled themselves and he wobbled to his hooves. Dipper looked around, just as shocked as Mabel that the spell had actually worked.
“So is that it then?” Dipper asked. “Is he-“
“As far I know… yeah?” Mabel brightened at the thought. “Aww yeah! One immortal dream demon gone for good! No more mind invasions. No body snatching. No real world destruction. No more anything with him forever and ever and ever and ever and-”
“Well, maybe not forever,” Dipper said, always the party pooper. “Every spell has a loophole.” He looked down at the journal with a worried expression.
Mabel snorted. “Yeah,” she said, brushing off her brother’s concerns. “But this one’s pretty much non-existent. PEW! PEW!” She mimicked laser blasts with her fingers. “Mabel’s Blood Seal for the win!”
Dipper’s eyes shot open. “MABEL! YOU’RE BLEEDING!”
As he frantically scrambled through his vest, Mabel looked down. In her rush to complete the spell, she’d cut a deeper gash in her palm than intended. It didn’t actually sting too much, but that didn't stop Dipper from yanking her wrist towards him and nearly cutting off its circulation with a super ultra mega-tight bandage.
“Anyways,” Mabel continued. “Loophole schmoophole. The spell said there’s only way to break it - not only would I have to cut myself open again, I’d have to actually want him to come here.” Mabel rolled her eyes. “Like that’s ever going to happen.”
Bill Cipher drifted back in forth in infinite loop again and again and again and again…
When he broke free, his first act would be to arrange the murder of the Pines twins. And then the murder of their blithering uncle.
No, murder would be too good for them. Too abrupt. Too… clean.
He’d sink inside their heads, extract their worst fears, create a prison just as inescapable as this one… Ultimately he’d drive them insane, a low achievement for anyone in Gravity Falls, but an achievement nonetheless. He’d rip apart their fragile platonic human connections and unravel them at the seams.
Bill drifted back and forth, back and forth, imaging the same thoughts over and over again, melting away any sense of time.
And then he felt a tug.
He stopped dead, hovering. It was impossible.
The tug got stronger.
He was being summoned.
Bill’s eye narrowed in puzzlement. Only Shooting Star could break his current bonds, and she would never…
Then again, who was he to resist an open invitation?
With a small pop, he fazed out of one dimension and into another.
“Well, well, well,” he said, eye sparkling in glee. “It seems you missed me after all. Glad you came to your senses. Unfortunately, if you’ve got any plans, I don’t-“
Bill Cipher froze.
He was in stark, florescent-lit laboratory. The floor and walls were unmarked steel, reflecting the room's contents back upon themselves. Along one entire wall were the residents of Gravity Falls, bound and tranquilized in various cages, stacked one on top of the other. Nearly three quarters of them were experiencing some sort of nightmares, fear and helplessness radiating from their unconscious minds. Even more delicious than that was a lingering spike of terror, pain, and desperation. They weren’t current emotions being actively felt, but they were still fresh. Bill soaked them in, sinking down into the rich stew of feelings like a hot tub of flowers. If he was the kind of being to care about hot tubs.
Or flowers.
The source of the persisting terror was sprawled on a nearby lab table. The table itself was covered with - which was once a presumably white sheet, but had since been completely stained red with blood. It was Pine Tree, Bill realized, his top half nearly separated from his bottom one.
Irritation prickled along Bill’s sides. Someone had gotten to the brat before him, had robbed him of his rightful revenge.
Still, he was enjoying the aftermath, so there was that. The demon tipped his hat briefly in honor of his fallen foe.
That left…
Bill turned towards the one corner of the room he hadn’t surveyed yet.
A large standing tank had been set up in the corner, its once clear waters already swirling red with blood. Bill’s very own jail-keeper stared at him from behind the glass. She had no sharp objects on her, no tools. By the look of things, he could only assume she’d slashed open her arm with her own fingernails.
Bill Cipher leaned back on a cushion of air. He glanced lazily in the direction of the imprisoned townsfolk. Distant noises echoed from one of the nearby doors. Bill perked up. The noises grew louder. They were coming closer.
Oh, they wouldn’t know what hit them.
“I hope you’re thinking what I’m thinking, Star,” he said cheerfully. “Otherwise you’re about to be very disappointed.”
Mabel Pines stared him directly in the eye. Only bubbles left her lips, but he could still read the words:
Do it.
The anguished screams from that day would linger with him for rest of eternity. Or… at least the next several centuries. Okay, several decades, maybe, depending on whatever mayhem he was able arrange next. In the end, he’d played one scientist off the other and they'd all stabbed themselves with their own implements. Bill nodded to himself on a job well done as their corpses littered the floor in an ever-so-pleasing arrangement.
There really had to be some sort of dedicated art form for this sort of thing. After all, rocks had their own dedicated art form for crying out loud - dozens of them! - and they were dull, boring rocks!
Bill glanced the tank and other cages.
It'd be easier than a piece of cake to take out the other Pines twin right then and there. Her cries would mingle quite nicely with echoes of her brother's. A matching set. He had made a promise to himself after all…
But then, promises were so dull and limiting.
Besides with this bit of handiwork, the girl now owed him a favor - a rare slip up for someone so dedicated against him. It’d be a shame to toss it away over something so emotionally impulsive.
Nah, he’d let her off for now. Revenge torture could come later. Or maybe he’d forget all about it.
Who’d know?
Bill snapped his fingers, and Manly Dan punched open his cage in his sleep. Another snap and he would wake up, would start freeing the others. After that, Bill could hang back and take care of any other guards or negative presences as necessary. And after that… well, who knew where the townsfolk of Gravity Falls were currently located? Who’d they have to fight in order to have any chance of returning back home? The chaos that would follow in their wake?
Bill Cipher rubbed his hands together in glee.
The new age Shooting Star had unwittingly ushered in was going to be so entertaining.