July 20, 2012
Soos, Dipper and Mabel ride down the elevator behind the vending machine. As they pass the threshold into Stan's secret lab, they all gasp.
"Guys, are we dreaming? Someone wake me up!" Mabel said in awe.
"This can't be real" Dipper said while he looked at the various equipment.
"I don't understand. Why would Mr. Pines have all this?" Soos said, wringing his hands.
"It's just like the bunker in the woods…" Dipper commented, his eyes taking in everything.
"But what's it doing under the shack?" Soos said
"Okay, okay, so he's got a huge gigantic lab. That doesn't mean anything bad!" Mabel walks over to a picture of her and Dipper and picks it up. "It's still Stan, and he loves us. And we love him. Right?"
"It can't be… It's impossible." Dipper walked over to where journals 1 and 2 were laying on the table. "The other two journals? All this time... all this time, Stan had them!? I can't believe it! Was anything he said to us real?!" Dipper kicked the desk in frustration. "Why would he have those journals?"
"Maybe he's the author?" Soos said.
"Or maybe he stole them from the author! Maybe the reason he has all those fake IDs is because he is a master criminal, and this machine is his master plan!" Dipper opens each journal to the page with the portal on it and lays them out accordingly. He pulls out his black light and shines it on the images.
"Whoa" Mabel said.
"I was wrong the whole time. The machine was meant to create knowledge but it is too powerful. I was deceived and now it's too late. The device, if fully operational could tear our universe apart! It must not fall into the wrong hands. If the clock ever reaches zero, our universe is doomed!" Dipper said.
Everyone looked up at the clock overhead slowly counting down. It read one minute thirty-nine seconds.
"It's the final countdown, just like they always sung about!" Soos said.
Dipper frantically flips through the pages till he lands on one titled 'Manual Override'?
"The agents are right! We have to shut it down!" Dipper shouted. Mabel and Soos followed Dipper into the portal room. Everyone gasped as the ground began to shake. "There! Quick! Turn these together!" The row of three keys located on a panel with various lights and knobs were quickly turned by the trio. A large opening appeared with a hiss in the center of the room. A device rose from the ground revealing a large red button.
"That's it! That's the shutdown switch!" Dipper shouted.
"DON'T TOUCH THAT BUTTON!" screamed a voice from behind the trio. Everyone spun around to see Stan, visibly out of breath and his clothes torn. He looked to be worse for wear. "Please! Don't press that shutdown button, you gotta trust me." Stan pleaded.
"And I should trust you why?" Dipper retorted. "After you stole radioactive waste? After you lied to us all summer? I don't even know who you are!"
"Look," Stan said, desperately "I know this all seems nuts, but I need that machine to stay on! If you'd just let me explain-" Stan's watch began to beep. "Uh-oh. Oh-no. Brace yourselves!"
The ground shook, and everyone began to float in the air. They were all being drawn to the machine.
"T-Minus 35 seconds" the computer rang out.
Stan spun in midair, scrambling for something to grab onto, Dipper floated up and struck his head on a beam.
"Dipper!" Mabel screamed, her foot hooked on a wire that connected to the manual override device.
"Mabel! Hurry up and shut it down!" Dipper screamed. His twin nodded and crawled along the wire her foot was caught in and worked her way to the button.
"NO! Mabel, Mabel, wait! Stop!" Stan said. He clawed desperately towards his niece. Soos shoved himself into the air and slammed into Stan, knocking him away "Soos! What are you doing?" Stan smacked him on the head "I gave you an order!"
"Sorry Mr. Pines - if that is your real name - but I have a new mission now, protecting those kids!"
"Go Mabel! Press the red button!" Dipper shouted and shoved off the support beam. He launched himself into Stan and Soos like a rocket, knocking them in the opposite direction.
"No! You can't!" Stan pleaded.
"Grunkle Stan," Mabel sobbed "I don't even know if you're my grunkle! I want to believe you, but -"
"Then listen to me!" Stan said "Remember this morning when I said I wanted to tell you guys something?"
"T-Minus 20 seconds" The computer said. The portal fluctuated rapidly and shoved Stan, Soos and Dipper against the wall. Dipper felt something slam against him.
"I wanted to say you're going to hear some bad things about me, and some of them are true, but trust me. Everything I've worked for, everything I care about, it's all for this family!" Stan shouted.
"Mabel! What if he's lying!" Dipper said "This thing could destroy the universe! Listen to your head!"
"Mabel! Look into my eyes! You really think I'm a bad person?" Stan pleaded
"He's lying! Shut it down NOW!" Dipper screamed.
"Mabel, Please!" Stan said
Mabel looked away and lowered her hand to the button, then looked at Grunkle Stan.
"Six, Five,"
Dipper knew that look, he knew his sister. She's going to let him down.
"Grunkle Stan… I trust you" Mabel said, and let go, floating up in the air to the center of the vortex.
"Well, I don't!" Dipper shouted and raised his hand. "Grappling Hook!"
Mabel's trademark grappling hook had slammed into Dipper's chest when the gravity fell. He aimed for the side of the vortex, and blew out a sigh of relief when it caught. He retracted at full speed, sending him flying directly towards the big red button.
"Dipper no!" Stan, Soos, and Mabel screamed. Dipper's hand reached for his target.
"Three" The computer said.
Almost in reach…
"Two…"
Dipper slammed his hand down... but felt only air. To his horror, his fingers missed by a hair. He looked back, and saw Stan, Soos, and Mabel screaming. He couldn't hear them, only the rhythmic thumping of the vortex he sped towards..
"One."
Dipper's back slammed into the event horizon. Every nerve ending screamed in protest as energy flooded into him. He thought he was screaming, but all he could hear was the pulsing rhythm that coursed into him.
Everything became black.
OoOoO
"Umm… hello?" Dipper squeaked. He could see his hands, himself, and Journal 3 just fine. They were floating next to him. Dipper hastily grabbed the journal and looked around frantically.
A starless void filled his vision. He saw nothing. No sights, no sounds, no source of light. He needed to fix this, find out where he was and how to get back. He grabbed Journal 3 and flipped through the pages to see if anything in there could help him. "Bats, Gnomes, Demons, Mushrooms, Thunderbirds…"
He stopped on the page with a picture of a triangle with a hat and an eyeball.
"No… no no no no no… NO!" Dipper said with a scream and turned the page. He re-read the entire book two or three times, with no answers. "Oh god I'm going to regret this… the journal only has the spell to defeat him… but how do I summon him?"
"Oh, there's more tradition than needed. Someone once thought you need eight candles… and someone had a picture of crossed eyes… and I love the part of saying Triangulum, entangulum. meteforis dominus ventium. meteforis venetisarium! Oh, and you need to say Backwards message… backwards like six times"
Dipper had found some blank space in the journal and was jotting all this down with a pen he kept on him..
"Oh it's rium.. not eum for venetisarium" the voice corrected from behind him.
"Thanks… sometimes this journal only gives me half the information I need…" Dipper said and smiled at a floating triangle next to him.
"Yeah, really if I'm going to be summoned, I already know it weeks in advanced anyway… part of the whole omniscience dream-demon thing."
Dipper finished jotting down the information and closed the journal. Sliding it back into his jacket, he put the pen in his pocket and took a breath.
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" he screamed and pointed at Bill
"AHhhhhhhhhhhhhhh?" Bill pointed to himself "Pine Tree, are you all right? Your mind is a bit befuddled, but nothing outside a normal twelve year old human."
"Ok…" Dipper huffed and gathered himself. "Still freaking out about everything."
"It's been... like six weeks since you've arrived? I thought you'd be used to anything." Bill chuckled and began to turn upside down."
"Grunkle… made the machine in the journal, and now I'm stuck inside it… somehow."
"Inside… you.. oh.. haha.. hahahaha.. hahahahahahaha" Bill said laughing hysterically now. His pyramid face flashing unsettling images that made Dipper's mind cry out in anguish, but he couldn't bring up any of the unspeakable horrors that he just saw, he just knew it would cause him future torment the rest of his life. "You think… oh, that's so funny!"
"The machine… it's a universal portal… thingie...I fell inside it and now I'm stuck here." Dipper said.
"Where do you think 'here' is?" Bill asked with glee.
"I… don't know." Dipper said uncomfortably.
"My home! The mindscape! I don't get many visitors. Mostly people call me over to do things for them. I knew you were better than that Dipper. Let's let bygones be bygones. You kinda have to since… Haha… hahahahaha."
"What's so funny!" Dipper screamed.
"You're here! That's what's so funny! You're here... and no one else is! And not just your dream you! It's your you you! Don't you get it?"
"No one else?" Dipper asked, his stomach sank.
"The portal… malfunctioned… Somehow there was an influx of matter in the anti-matter field and well…" Bill trailed off and floated next to Dipper. He got real close and whispered into Dipper's ear. "You are the only one it saved."
"No... not Gravity Falls…" Dipper sighed. Bill floated in front of Dipper and stretched his arms out. "Oregon?"
"Bigger," he whispered with a chuckle.
"The… USA?" Dipper said, his stomach getting sicker by the second. Bill looked to be hold back his laughter.
"B… bigger!" Bill laughed.
"The earth? The solar system?" Dipper's mind went numb. Everything was destroyed.
"HAHA BIGGER!"
"The Galaxy?"
"BIGGER!" Bill screamed, he was turning bright red and spinning like a top
"The universe? My universe is destroyed?"
"HAHAHA SO SELFISH!" Bill screamed with glee and twirled around and around. "Everything! All of time and space in all dimensions, realms, and worlds. This space, is the only spot that machine didn't take out like last weeks' garbage."
Dipper couldn't believe it.
"Everything you've known and loved never existed" Bill whispered into his ear. "All thanks to Stan… That's why I've been trying to stop him… and you. I knew this will come about, no thanks to Stan and that six fingered idiot."
"Fix it…" Dipper said defeated.
"I would LOVE TO! Do you know how many TV shows I'm missing? But… I can't."
"Why?" Dipper looked up. "Why? Why can't you do anything?"
"I haven't made a contract." Bill said. Blue flames burst around the triangular figure. "I can restore the reality as you remember. All your friends and loved ones will be back. You can even make a few… changes to them."
"What… kind of changes?" Dipper said suspiciously.
"Oh all kinds! Want to be rich? Want me to show you where all the mystery monsters hide so you can go and find them? Want to one up your sister on the summer romance department? Want ultimate power and unlimited knowledge?"
"Mabel… Wendy… Stan…Pacifica..." Dipper said thoughtfully. "What do you want in return?"
"Well... here's the thing… I can't grant that wish without a contract and getting what I want… I don't want to be a dream demon anymore. I want out of here. If you do the contract, your wish would be to promote me to… say reality demon. Then, in gratitude, I'll warp the time/space world back to where it was, with a few changes on your part. Just call me anytime and we can make minor tweaks. It's like a class project!"
"And will things go crazy like having it rain chocolate milk?" Dipper asked suspiciously.
"You won't even know I'm there." Bill said and extended his hand.
"I don't know… You, able to go out in the real world? I'm not buying it." Dipper said. "I guess we're going to be stuck here."
"What? Why don't you trust me?" Bill said.
"Because every time you show your face, bad things happen! And now you want me to let you out into the real world? Was this your plan all along?" Dipper said.
"Ha! You think I'd make something as convoluted as the turn of events that took place in a completely random and unrelated order that would allow all of reality to be destroyed, except for you, just so I can find passage into the real world? That's not like me at all!"
"Yes, It's exactly like you!" Dipper said.
"Look Pine Tree. You just lost Shooting Star, Llama, Ice Queen, and everyone else you know and love. You're stuck here, and I'm stuck here. Let's make a deal, and get out of here." Bill said.
"The deal… is you're with me. You'll be by my side the whole time, as a cousin… Bill Pines. Only you and I will know this… you'll be human, but with your powers. If things about the world are… off, you'll change them. I want to keep my eye on you."
"Haha… I only got one!" Bill said with a smile. "That it? Everything will be back the way it was, The explosion never happened."
"Yeah… maybe… I dunno… Wendy could look past those three years?" Dipper said. "I mean, it's silly… no don't do it."
"Oh it's not a problem!" Bill said. "You're my cousin! I'll do anything for you! We're going to have so much fun! I'll walk around in a funny meat suit that gushes and oozes all over the inside, riddled with hormones!"
"I hope I thought of everything…" Dipper said. Bill extended his hand, covered in blue fire. Dipper reached out and grabbed hold; the blue flame encased him, setting all of his nerve endings alight again.
Dipper let out a scream of anguish; he heard Mabel's voice crying out his name just as he lost consciousness.