Dipper had just gotten back to Gravity Falls the day before, immediately collapsing into the attic room that he and Mabel shared once upon a time. Since then, he had adjusted the room to better fit his needs so that he could work with Ford easily. He missed his sister, but she was pursuing her dream which made him unbelievably happy, and he was doing the same thing himself. He had wanted nothing more than to apprentice with Ford and at one point he and Mabel actually fought over it, she felt betrayed that he wanted to leave her behind but after several years of them talking it over she realized that she was looking forward to going to an arts college and going into the business she so desperately wanted to be part of. After a moment of collecting himself, he slowly walked into the woods from where he'd parked.

As he came upon the statue, he felt his heart skip a beat and his breath catch in his chest before he stepped up close enough to touch it if he simply reached out… He took a deep breath, raising his hand shakily before he set it on the smooth stone of the statue, exhaling in relief. It was real.. After all these years of continuing to come up from Piedmont, always staying with his grunkles, he finally had the courage to touch the statue of the demon that had caused him so many issues the summer he turned 13… Now it had been nearly six years, he'd had to get over it. He laughed quietly and smiled to himself, looking at the tattoo he had gotten on his arm as his hand stayed firmly planted on the statue. He had gotten a tattoo of the circle they attempted to use to banish Bill, sort of as a form of protection against him if he ever came back and tried to get into his mindscape the way he did Ford's.

Dipper finally managed to stand himself back up from his slouched state, patting the statue lightly before making his way back to his car with his hands in his pockets.

Bill's existence, because you couldn't really call it life, had become intermittent Hellscapes after that incident in Gravity Falls. He'd been ripped from the physical form he had so /painstakingly/ built, having lost any and all chances to re-enter it after what those idiotic mortals did. As an interdimensional being, it would be really freaking hard to erase him from all possible planes of existence, especially when starting with the semi-realism of the mind.

Or, at least, that's what he had said when they started to demand things of him. They threatened to send him back to his home dimension, reversing the damage he'd caused to it and placing him back into the ranks where he 'belonged'. There was absolutely no way he'd live through it if they did. His choices were limited, and he wasn't going to go back to being some round bastard's projectile if there was anything he could do about it. And there was always something Bill could do about anything. No matter what it took.

Six years. SIX YEARS.

"Learned your lesson yet, Cipher?"

"What if we broke your bricks?"

"Didn't think geometry could bleed..."

"It's trigonometry, you uneducated abomination of three-dimension garbage!"

He'd always regenerate. He'd always fight them with sass and class if not by saving his own ass. The scales hadn't weighed in his favour. The words he'd called before his... 'death'- they would guarantee his return to that dimension, but he didn't have enough time to specify beyond that. Bill was all about loopholes and specifications, and there were no words that could express how much it angered him to be fed those same tricks. Not even in the language of the Angerims.

They'd put him in what counted as a cell in that world, and he just had to wait until the axolotl decided it was his time.

Which, apparently, took those same half-dozen years.

There was a tug. He could feel it somewhere inside of his very being, the energy that created everything he was or could be.

And then he was falling. It was brief, with a flash of colour and blurred images, static and broken screams. Maybe some of them were his? Nah, his voice was much prettier.

It took him several moments to figure out where, what, and how he was. When he raised his hands to his face, they were black like usual, except this black wasn't his skin. It was... clothing. Gloves. Uh.

He looked past the alien phalanges, found more black-clad limbs that decidedly weren't his natural ones, and then recognized it as a /human/ form. Oh, great.

Then there was the fact of where he was. Which was- WHERE?

He was standing in the woods, okay, fine. A glance to the left- metal. Vehicle. Human made, by the looks. Or what humans thought were made by humans. Whatever. Might as well check it out. A fight with the door, because WHO MADE THESE THINGS? REALLY, THEY'RE SO- Oh. He's in.

He slipped in with the grace of a long-legged rhino.

A glance forward yielded the discovery of glass, and Bill tried not to freak out about the small area because it was actually freer than the chains he'd been stuck in for the past- well, you know.

Reassess. Human body. Human area. By the feel of the energy wafting off of everything, this was... THAT dimension. The one he wanted to go back to. So that meant the Great Amphibian in the Sky was listening to the plea. Er- not plea, because that suggests he was begging for something. Call it a deal. A one-sided, very-necessary-for-survival deal.

The demon sat there for a moment, just staring at nothing in particular. Then he glanced behind him, over the edge of the chair he was dropped into. Ah. THINGS.

Well. What the Hell?

Bill threw himself between the seats, because the stuff in the back seemed much more interesting than the things upfront and he had to start somewhere. He rifled through what he considered junk. Books, clothes, whatever that was, bleh, bleh, bleh...

Dipper slowly came to a stop, watching whoever the fuck was in his car rifle through his belongings from his family's home in California. He actually found this kind of amusing, stifling a laugh because of how they had almost gotten themselves stuck between the front seats. He stood in front of the car at this point, deciding to scare whoever it was by honking the horn remotely from his key fob, a small grin tugging at his lips purely because he knew that it was probably just someone from town and not a threat. He clicked the button. A loud noise suddenly startled the blonde, which of course prompted him to try and sit up, but he managed to bash his head off the roof. Cue subsequent swearing in several dead languages.

Then that voice. That damned voice.

Dipper burst out laughing when he hit his head on the roof of the car, unable to help it. He'd been fighting the urge to laugh this entire time, especially considering the fact that he found it amusing that someone thought his car was worth breaking in to. "Aw man, that was totally worth it! I don't usually use that button. Can I help you find whatever it is you're looking for? I doubt you'll find interesting but I can save you some time by telling you that pretty much everything in there is from my being a dorky teenager." That wasn't a lie, he had absolutely been a dorky teenager (not to say that he wasn't still) and most of the things he'd made sure to pack were his physics and other various science books, including some of the things he needed for his classes in Gravity Falls. "I will say about the most interesting thing is probably are the BABBA discs in the CD binder on the ground."

Screw pop-music. This was WAY beyond that. Which meant that it was serious business.

"HEY!" the demon went to jerk himself up again, except this time he discovered his hips pretty much stuck between the chairs. They must've taken inspiration for this form from his triangle form, making the hips and shoulders wide with a tiny waist, because this is just-

Wait. Scoot backwards. Ignore the fact that you're apparently wearing heels because they're clicking against the dashboard, you definitely look better than anyone else. Waist is thinner than hips, therefore waist can fit through a smaller space, and...

He sat up with the speed of an angry vampire, slapped his head off the roof again, and for a solid second it was just numb before something in his new human body had him bringing his hands up to cradle his cranium as if that actually would help fix any potential brain damage. A single gold eye turned to stare blearily at the human in the doorway, the owner of said eye pretty much all folded up in odd angles. He had to talk through the throbbing pain, though, of course. "It's about TIME we meet again! Amphibian left me hanging there- BY THE WAY- where the HECK have you been?"

The brunet slowly realized that the man spoke in languages that he didn't recognize, causing him to be extremely confused until he actually *saw* who it was that was in his car. "No. No no no no no nope not doing this nope wake up Dipper this is all just a bad dream, you're gonna wake up in the Shack and be perfectly fine. No demon looking like a human, especially not one that I fucking BANISHED!" He spun on his heels, throwing his hands in the air in defeat before burying his face in them. "This is literally impossible, you CANNOT be here! I banished you. We all banished you how the actual FUCK are you alive?!" He turned back to face him, eyes narrowing as he quickly stepped forward and pulled Bill out of the car.

Bill could pretty much watch the realization dawn on the kid. He had a few moments to find utter glee in the way Pine Tree becomes immediately upset by the realization of just who he's dealing with, and then the brat stepped closer and dared to touch him! No one gets to touch him! That was the point of being a non-physical entity in his natural body!

"I have been living my life ever since you decided to fucking scar it for all eternity, the one time I make a major life choice without my sister, of course, YOU'RE the one who's going to make living out here fucking impossible!" Dipper had never sworn this much in his life and he didn't know if he was going to stop any time soon, he was livid and he didn't think he even could get this angry... Except for when Mabel glitter-bombed all his clothes and he spent an entire week not talking to her for it.

"How the fuck are you even here Bill? I could have sworn we did this big ol' thing, gotten you erased from existence by ruining my grunkle's memory of WHO HE WAS!" He was physically shaking from how angry he was, gripping Bill's shirt tightly in his hand as he stared into the single gold eye, his own wide; full of anger and fear. Slowly the realization that Bill was actually there came to pass, he was *physically touching him* for the first time since he had made a deal with the demon.

For about two seconds Bill was actually approaching on fearful that he might just be punched in the face again, except Dipper seemed to not be thinking on the exact act of violence. Yeah, harsh reminder that this really wasn't his natural body. Normally he couldn't be dragged anywhere. Pain was hilarious until he had no choice but to suffer through it, and he was pretty sure the tightening in his chest (what a novel thing) was the flesh suit he'd been forced into chiming at him like an obnoxious seal that he wasn't going anywhere.

It felt pathetic, the way he was actually thrown off kilter enough to just hang there in the kid's grip and stare as he discovered that his weak little Pine Tree had apparently grown a backbone in recent years. And also had grown quite a few inches, because while the ratio of human body to his typical triangle form was way off, the kid had obviously reached a height that would surpass most twelve year old humans. Here he thought little Pines would be little forever if only you cut off their water source. What a shame he never got that opportunity.

"You're really here.." He was fascinated by how the demon had been killed, erased from existence and then suddenly in his hands after he touched the statue. When he thought about it more carefully, his hands went loose causing him to drop the demon on the ground before he sighed and ran a hand through his hair after taking his hat off, briefly revealing his birthmark as he started pacing. "How are you here though? I haven't done anything diff-... I touched the statue... I TOUCHED THE STATUE!" He screeched it suddenly, realizing that it was the one thing that had changed over the last six years. "I knew I shouldn't have ever thought about it... I wanted to make sure that you were really gone, that it wasn't just something that you made us see so that you could come back and torture me *again*..." He was starting to wear a groove in the dirt, frantically pacing as he gripped at his bangs awkwardly and strangled his hat in the other.

Dipper dropped him.

The demon made a loud 'oof' noise as he hit the ground, smacking his tail bone straight into the dirt and sending a jolt of pain up his spine. That was barely anything in the grand scheme of things, though, because he was slowly getting more and more irritated himself the longer he heard this pitiable 'oh no, the villain came back' speech. Something gold fell into his vision when he was jostled from the fall, and moment of blankness recognized the object as blond hair falling into his eyes, and then a moment later realized it was turning strawberry blond in the increasingly visible signs of rage left unchecked. So he could still do that. Dandy.

"Kid." his voice was a growl even to his own ears (still, wow, ears), but Dipper was still trying to dig his own grave with his shoes, so Bill tried again, sticking a leg out from where he was splayed out on the ground to try and trip the kid up from his pacing. If he fell, too, added bonus. "PINE TREE."

Bill pressed an arm into the earth behind him, pushing himself up enough to glare absolute daggers at the unfortunately very familiar human. "QUIT YOUR BABBLING ALREADY! It's not MY fault YOU were enough of an idiot to do the one OBVIOUS thing that would cause this happy little meeting!"

He didn't even pause, trying to coordinate his limbs enough to make some semblance of getting up from the ground. "Cry and whine all you want, kid! I'm BACK and you're DEAD for what you did to me! Don't think you're some SPECIAL MEATSACK because I gave you a few night terrors and some recommended therapy sessions! Those come pretty standard when playing with power you can't even comprehend!"

Even as Bill's leg invaded his space Dipper continued pacing, babbling to a point that not even he realized what he was saying... Until he tripped and landed face first in the dirt. "What the hell!?" He sighed heavily, pushing himself up on his elbows to look at the demon, the obvious annoyance increasing at the unfortunately familiar nickname that Bill had chosen years ago. "How was that obvious?! You were a STATUE or did you forget that?" He immediately stood up, walking over so that he was next to him, stepping on his hand so that he was incapable of getting up as he knelt down to be at eye level with him.

"I don't see how touching a statue of a demon that was supposed to be dead from being ERASED FROM EXISTENCE could possibly bring BACK said demon!" He was genuinely surprised at how pissed he was, this was actually the angriest he's ever been in his life and that's including when Bill literally locked his sister up in a fucking dream bubble to 'help' her forget that he wanted to work with Ford. "I have every reason to be pissed with you, I have every reason to try to MURDER you for what you did to me, my sister, my fucking uncles who I barely knew at the time! You did everything that has affected my life! I got this because I thought that it would help me feel more protected against you if you ever came back!" He yanked up his sleeve the rest of the way, effectively shoving the symbol that they tried to use to banish him in his face.

"There were night terrors but there was no therapy. There is no therapy that could possibly fix the irreparable damage you caused on my psyche." He put more pressure on Bill's hand, grabbing his shirt again and pulling him up close. "It's not that I didn't understand, I understood fully after what you did to Ford... You, simply go and find every loophole you can in deals you make, obviously lying through your teeth about who or what you are."

Bill didn't currently have a goal beyond 'kill the annoying thing' so the argument was petty and fueled by pride, but that didn't stop him in the least. A few curses in different languages were spit out, followed by an antagonistic, "How's the old geezer with that amnesia, by the way? Bet it REALLYsuits him in his old age!"

Dipper never thought that he would ever stoop this low, but the moment Bill brought up Stan, he slapped him across the face. "Don't you EVER talk about what you caused us to do... We had to take drastic measures and it worked... Regardless, Stan uh... Stan got his memory back.." He muttered it quietly, gently letting Bill go before standing and stepping back. "I'm sorry. I... I never expected to hit you..." He spoke quietly, picking his hat up off the ground before staring intently at the grooves he'd worn into the dirt. "I... Look... I'm really pissed at how everything happened, I never wanted to bring you back and I certainly never meant to. I didn't know that simply touching it would bring you back... I've avoided it every single day for nearly six years but this was the one time that I caved... I *needed* to make sure you were gone for real."

OH, YEAH. Pain was SOOO NOT hilarious when you couldn't just abandon ship and let the captain deal with the aftermath. Much to Bill's dismay, he was the captain of this vessel.

A hiss and a few inhuman sounds escaped the demon in a show of pain that just did not seem natural coming from him. The red tone his body was taking on dimmed down to become nearer to the original gold again as the pain increased, distracted momentarily from the anger. It dimmed even further from the surprise that actually manages to catch him when he's forcibly made to notice the tattoo, eye widening in recognition of the very same symbol that he came to despise let alone scoff at like he did before.

He'd been acting all tough and high-and-mighty about it back then from riding the high of getting as far as he did, because there was no way they were all going to learn the 'power of friendship' quick enough to make any difference. They probably had absolutely no idea just how close they came, though. If they just got a few more moments standing there together...

The ache managed to force down some of the demon's anger, but Bill's teeth were still gritted together as the human manhandled him and hauled him up by the shirt.

The last thing he expected was the first thing he anticipated, but in hindsight.

A hand smacked right across his face, and he almost laughed except that would use his mouth and now his jaw screamed.

His free hand came up to grab at the kid's wrist, but it didn't mean anything anyways, because just after he was being dropped again.

This time, however, he didn't have much distance to go. He caught himself just barely with an elbow in the ground, and he wasn't sure if he should cradle his face or his wrist, so he opted to do neither and just keep staring off to the side where he ended up facing from the absolutely deserved strike.

Not that Bill really acknowledged the fact that he deserved it for one thing or another, but someone or something out there was probably cheering for the brunet that got the one up that time.

"...Consider something." There was nothing soft about his voice, but it wasn't exactly shouting like he had been just before, either. His hair and eye were both stuck in that strawberry shade again, on the border of keeping himself barely together. His tone was all sarcasm and bitter spite. "Just like it's your human nature to be all curious and nosy and dumb about your 'discoveries', maybe it's mine to do that thing where I take your hand- with PERMISSION- and all kinds of MAGICAL things can happen?"

The subtle color tint of his hair made Dipper panic internally, quickly biting the inside of his cheek as he shifted in front of him. He noticed every little thing at this point, the shift in Bill's voice, the way he stood and towered over Dipper, causing him to let out a muffled squeak in surprise of how much Bill scared him in this form. He wondered if it was his height or the way he spoke but he wanted it to stop. He never should have hit him, he didn't think about the repercussions that it could have on him after he did it. "I-I... I'm sorry." He couldn't think of anything else to say, he had dropped a demon and physically injured him in less than 20 minutes, causing him to panic silently as he took a step back.

"I only ever made one deal with you, and it ended with you almost stealing the journal." He spoke quietly, terrified of what Bill would do if he heard him speak. I... I didn't know... I wanted to make sure you were gone, I took six years to get the courage to actually make sure you were gone.. I felt it and didn't feel anything from it, no detectable magic anyway..

He slowly turned his head back to look at Dipper, and there was a fire in his eye that might be more literal any moment now. He tried again to make himself work to stand, getting to his knees with some shaky movements.

"WHY would you even be possessed to touch my old body, huh?" Oh, 'possessed' probably wasn't the right word there, oops. "I did a spell, kid. If old Fez got his mind back, then he should'a told you that! Whatever happened to Detective Dipper, eh? I wasn't /dead/ this whole time, idiot, I'm not MORTAL to begin with."

There was something particularly striking about Bill using simply insults like 'idiot' instead of colourful and downright questionable language. It seemed to mean something when he resorted to the simplest of terms to argue with someone.

As Bill continued to speak, Dipper was panicking and looking around to try and find an out to make sure he could escape if Bill decided to attack him. "I'm sorry that I hit you... And dropped you..." He actually let the other hear him when he apologized, hoping that it wouldn't cause too many problems. That was the last thing that he needed.

"You're all recovered enough now anyways, so what the heck! Who needs their 'psyches' anyways?" Friendly reminder that he'd lost his long ago to something he'd probably never tell anyone about. He resumed a fairly normal standing position, but Bill's posture was weird and very ram-rod straight. Probably from being a triangle, usually. "Gone for real or gone for fake, whatever. I'm BACK and once I finish business here I'm gonna blow this news stand with all of you in it. No LIES or LOOPHOLES there, KID."

"Don't.. Please." He had a hint of desperation in his voice, hoping to god that he would be able to spare everyone from the horrors of Bill starting weirdmaggedon again. He had to hope that he could persuade Bill into not destroying everything and everyone that he loved, not hurting anyone either. "I... What do you want from ME?" He could only assume that Bill wanted payback on him for all the issues that he caused and he didn't blame him at all, he all he could think was that he deserved every second of what he wanted to do for revenge. "Is there anything that I can do to have you NOT destroy the god damn universe."

Ah. The begging and the apologizing. It earned a face-splitting grin suddenly sprouting across the demon's face. Before the unnatural expression set in, he would have actually been pretty attractive, not that he was aware of such a thing. Angular features, golden tanned skin- a gift to those who wanted one. But then there were the problems, which came with his personality. What was that phrase? A whole lotta crazy wrapped up in a whole lotta pretty? Sounded about right.

"Pine Tree." Bill called then, and once again there was nothing pleasant about the way his harsh, shrill voice demanded attention. He spoke somewhat lower than he usually did, though, and that alone was more unnerving as it proved how serious he was at the moment. "I have a bone to pick with pretty much everything in this dimension, but... Isn't there a certain something or someone in my way a little more than just you?"

It wasn't actually a question, because a moment later he was taking a clumsy step closer, and he grabbed Dipper's shoulder in a grip with strength that did not match the demon's slender frame. He was using his uninjured hand, the other flexing at his side as he worked on focusing his regenerating magic into it for healing. The already rose-gold eye flashed a more vivid red.

"I don't want just YOU, kid. It's your whoooole bloodline that had a hand in that 'erase Cipher like a stray pencil mark' scheme, if I remember right. And I /definitely/ DO remember, because I remember EVERYTHING." Which wasn't true because he forgot useless things all the time but they already established that he was a liar. "STAB out my EYE, FINE, I can get over that. I'mma nice guy."

He stepped closer and half dragged the boy forward, threatening and looming, unafraid to get close and upfront.

"ERASE MY VERY BEING FROM THE MINDSCAPE- my OWN DOMAIN, by the way-" Oh! Actually, that gave him an idea! He dragged the kid even closer, chest to chest, fingers digging into his arm. "...I'm gonna be a wee bit salty."

His voice dropped low, and somehow that was more terrifying than the high-pitched, nasally grate. The usual echo was gone in this human form, but he didn't even need it. "So, tell me, Pine Tree. Before I begin my deforestation company, what's this pine forest worth to ya?"