It was late; the middle of the night in Gravity Falls. The moon shone bright up in the sky, and the woods were dark and eerily towering over all the land, creating a trapped effect for whoever happened to be caught outside. It was generally quiet, despite the buzzing of animal and bug life, but tension was in the night air.
There was a scream, a shout, and then a shrill plea.
"Lay off him, Bill! He hasn't done anything wrong!"
"Well in that case Stanford, you are wrong!"
Currently, two figures were running along the forest grounds at top speed. The first figure was a tall, gruff-looking older man in a suit and fez. The second figure appeared to be a small boy wearing a blue and white cap and vest. Small twigs and brambles sticking out in the middle of the path hit them every so often, but they paid barely any attention; they were only focused on running.
Behind them in the horizon, a large figure was approaching fast. As it came closer, a dark triangle-shaped shadow presented itself onto the dirt ground, plunging the path in front of it into darkness. The faster it moved, the louder it began to chuckle, the noise booming and causing some nearby birds to hightail it out of the trees.
Finally, the figure made its much awaited appearance.
Floating high in the air above was an aggravated looking triangular-shaped being. It was painted yellow, donning a black top hat and bowtie. These accessories gave it a gentlemen-like appearance, yet it was far from close to that. The thing that made it stand out the most out of everything, though, was that instead of having two eyes, it had one, single eyeball that darted around furiously, searching for its victims to finally finish them off.
Its name? Bill Cipher, dream demon.
"Don't you dare try to get away from me, Stanford Pines!" he shouted angrily in his high, booming voice. He was in his large triangle state, his most powerful form. "Do you know how much trouble Pine Tree has caused me? The little shrimp would be dead by now if you hadn't of shown up!"
Stan and Dipper stopped running to look back at the ferocious entity hovering before them. Stan pushed the boy back behind him so he could face Bill himself. "And what exactly has he done, Bill?" he shouted up at him. "He's just a kid!"
The triangle demon started chuckling maniacally before answering. "I'm sorry, but that's classified information, Stan. But what he has done is not what you should be punished for." He hovered down lower to their height. "I don't mind punishing you as well...but I won't."
Stan looked behind him at Dipper. The boy just shrugged.
"This is between me and Pine Tree, Stan. There's nothing you could possibly do to sidetrack me that hasn't already been done," he said. "So you might as well surrender yourselves now before something bad happens." He said the last part with fierceness in his voice.
Dipper came out from behind Stan and took a brave step forward, ignoring the demon's threats. "If you think we're going to surrender to you, Bill, than you're wrong," he spoke, trying to make himself sound loud and intimidating. "You lost in his mind," he pointed at Stan, "but you aren't possibly going to win here either. You're going to lose again."
Bill chuckled and hovered in front of Dipper, watching him with taste. "Oh wow, that's adorable Pine Tree. You actually think you're going to stand a chance? You aren't in the dreamscape anymore, kid. You don't have the power to do anything to me."
Stan's brow rose as he listened to all this. "What?"
"Well no matter!" Bill shouted all of a sudden, causing both of them to jump back. "You are powerless, Pine Tree. And the trouble you've caused me has been aggravating me to no end." He turned a dark red before turning back to his yellow, glowing state.
Dipper, although powerless to Bill, still stayed strong. To be honest he wasn't even sure what was making him keep going. "And what makes you so sure, Bill? That you're going to win against us?"
"Dipper..." Stan said with uncertainty, something unusual for him. "You shouldn't try makin' him mad; you don't know what's going to happen..."
"You should listen to your uncle, kid," Bill said slyly. "You don't know what kind of power I'm capable of. And trust me; victory will be sweet for me when I win. You see this?" He stuck a black arm out and a deer all of a sudden looked up from the trees a few feet back. Its mouth opened and it was pulled forward, much like a magnet. All of its teeth popped out of its mouth one-by-one, collecting in Bill's outstretched hand, much like when he was first summoned by Lil' Gideon.
"Deer teeth. But force isn't all I can conjure..." The teeth flew back into the deer's mouth, all popping back into the right spaces, and it trotted off.
"I can do this..." He stuck his hands high above his head and a blue fiery glow emanated from them. He threw them down and the blue flames flew into a fallen-down tree, burning through the trunk and even singeing the grass on the ground. Dipper gulped and Stan was speechless.
"But by far one of my strongest abilities..." He chose to hover right in front of Dipper, to the point where he was up in his face. The boy tried taking a step back, but some sort of force was preventing him from doing so. When Bill spoke again, his voice was very deep.
"...is I can mess with the mind. I can traumatize people so bad that they'll be in therapy for months. I can screw their minds up so hard that they'll be nothing but spaghetti, and silly putty in my hands." The look of a madman was in his eye, and it was bright.
"Dipper, we need to get out of here," Stan said with stress in his voice. Dipper tried turning around to run, but something still prevented him from doing anything.
"I can't move!" he shrieked as he tried moving his legs back and forth, but he still couldn't budge.
"Bill! Let go of the kid!" Stan shouted. His words were being blocked by Bill like a shield. Suddenly, the woods became much darker than they were before, even though it was nighttime. Bill began to glow much brighter than he had before, a bluish glow so bright that it would burn anyone's eyes just looking at it for a few seconds.
"Let me go!" Dipper shouted as he struggled in Bill's strong grip. The dream demon had the boy right where he wanted him. Ignoring his pleas, he continued on.
"You can't stop me, Pine Tree," he said as he glowed. He looked Dipper right in the eyes. "You're weak. Just a weakling boy who doesn't get the difference between stepping in and staying out."
His eye sharpened considerably. Dipper could only freeze up, his body stilling to a calmer state as the words were drank in. He stared back up at the demon with his soft brown eyes, caught in a trance that he couldn't look away from.
"A fool. You don't have the power to defeat anyone or anything. Not even a squirrel." Now was when things would come into effect. Bill used all of his power and raised his arms. Dipper's eyes began to glow a bright blue color, and he was soon being lifted up off of the ground, arms hung back behind him and head tilted up at Bill. There was a blank expression on his face and he was no longer struggling.
Stan gulped with fear; he knew exactly what was happening. It was the same thing that had happened to someone very close to him before, although he didn't want to say who it was. "Bill, stop!" he shouted, hoping to distract him. Bill didn't listen. His taunting continued on, only becoming harsher by the second. He rose Dipper up a little higher, to the point where he was almost in front of the demon's face. Everything was dark except for the glowing of the possession keeping things bright.
"Pine Tree, your power is but nothing. A small trickle compared to what mine is," Bill said deviously. "You were a fool to try and stop me in Stan's mind, and you're a fool to even try and stop me now." Dipper's face stayed blank, but Bill's words were digging deep. "Stop trying to be a hero kid, it'll get you nowhere. Stay back and let more experienced and sane people handle things."
Stan was beginning to shout words so absurd it wouldn't be appropriate to say them anywhere else in time.
"Do you think anyone really cares about you?" the demon said coldly. Stan's eyes widened. Dipper was now becoming visibly affected by his words. They were like punches being thrown at his body, each time hitting him with such ferocity that he jerked and shook, although he was currently being taken over.
"Dipper! Don't listen to him!" Stan shouted from the side, hoping his words would get through, but they wouldn't reach.
"You're trapped now. You got yourself into this. Just by being your scrawny pesky little self." Blood began to stream down Dipper's nose and eyes, staining his cheeks with crimson. Things were going much too far, he was weakening quicker.
"You. Are. Nothing," Bill said, his words tinted with cold. "Scum. Trash. A runt."
Stan wanted so badly to run out and get Bill to stop, but he could only watch helplessly at what was taking place in front of him. There wasn't a way that he could stop it, and it appeared that time had become frozen and they were all caught in some kind of force field where they weren't affected.
"You wouldn't be able to stop me in a heartbeat," Bill said so harshly that Stan felt himself cringe. Then, the triangle demon went on to chant some unknown words, words that sounded like gibberish to human ears.
"Parvulus es in deditionem deditionem parvulus non receperint vos: Non est, quod anima, comprimens undivine."
Bill finally stopped his chant, and his eye, as well as his triangular embodiment, glowed back to normal. Dipper's body jerked one last time before his eyes too began to glow back to their brown state. Now being rid of the power holding him up, he fell to the ground and landed on his side forcefully. Loud sobbing was heard and red continued to stream from his eyes. The woods returned back to normal and time resumed.
"Dipper!" Stan shouted hysterically, running over to him and leaning on the ground beside him. His whole body shook forcefully and a small pool of blood and tears had formed on the ground. It was a sickening sight.
"Kid, are you alright?" Stan asked anxiously as he put a hand on his back, but Dipper jerked away. Bill laughed again and hovered down in front of them. He was in his normal, small triangle form now.
"I told you, you shouldn't have messed with me, Pine Tree," he said nonchalantly, examining his nails. "But of course you types never listen."
Stan stood up. He felt rage course through him and fought back the urge to shout inappropriate absurdities at him once again. "Oh, you're going to get it Cipher! I thought I was done with you back in day, but you keep popping back in like the little annoyance you are!" he yelled so loud he was sure that if anyone else were out in the woods, they would be able to hear him clear as day. He didn't care if he was heard or not.
"You might want to watch your language, Stanford." Bill smirked. "The kid was asking for it, and I gave it to him. It's not my fault that he pokes his head into everything he sees." He sniggered one last time before rising up into the sky.
Stan was about to say something more, but Bill interrupted him. "Nothing more, I must go! Remember, the little runt was asking for it." The old man growled low in his throat and glared up at the demonic triangle, hands clenched into fists.
Bill raised his arms and his usual blue wheel appeared around him. He winked, and with that, he finally left after his oh-so-sweet goodbyes, leaving Stan to attend to Dipper himself.
His heart dropped into the pit of his stomach when he saw the scene of his shaking great-nephew lying on the ground in front of him.