This chapter was written in collaboration with eleron-is-me.
"How… How did you get here?" Mabel asked, surprised.
"I'm trying to find a way to stop Bill. If Weirdmageddon continues, it could disrupt the multiverse and the elements of time! That's the last thing I need with Time Baby and all the time officers making fun of me. They think I'm the cause of this!"
"Because Bill possessed you, right?"
"Exactly! Ever since Globnar, everyone's been making fun of me. Bill came to me in my dreams and told me he could stop it, and, well, I'm not good under peer pressure, so…"
"It's okay. We all make mistakes. Like how I did with giving him the rift in the first place…" She sighed sadly as she looked down at her brother's body - which was still on the floor, and hadn't been moved by Bill at all.
"A-Are you alright?" Blendin asked, putting a hand on her shoulder somewhat reassuringly.
"No, of course not. He killed my brother. I have to give him the journal." She lifted it up so he could see. "He turned everyone to tapestries, and I don't even know what he did with Grunkle Ford and Stan."
"I- I could help you find a way to turn them back, but…" Blendin fidgeted with his fingers. "B-but I have to make sure that Time Baby doesn't arrest me again just because of all of this…"
"I'll make sure he doesn't make fun of you."
"Really?!"
"Hey, I'm Mabel Pines - the most enthusiastic, glitter-loving girl in town. Who couldn't listen to someone like me?"
"Alright, I'll help you."
She started to hear footsteps echo down the hallway. It was far, but it was only a matter of time before Bill arrived.
"Go! I'll talk with you later!" she whisper-shouted, and Blendin ran away, twisting his screwdriver to try to get his camouflage suit to work right. Just in time too, because she saw Bill turn the corner to approach her.
She didn't wait for him to speak; and he didn't need to, as the girl immediately handed it over.
Slowly, her brother began to come back to life. His pulse started up again, his heart beating - going from nothing, to faint, to normal. And then he suddenly shot up, gasping for air. She ran to his side.
"Dipper! Dipper! Are you okay?!"
"Ugh, get off of me. Who even are you?"
"Dipper, it's me!"
He scoffed, "Pathetic." he said cold and harsh as he stood up with an evil grin on his face.
"What?" Her skin went pale, all life drained out of it, as she realized what was going on. "Bill, what did you do to him?!" she yelled in anger.
He only chuckled. "You only said I had to bring him back, Shooting Star. You never stated how."
Tears already began to sting her eyes again. No, no! She couldn't cry! Not here, not now, it would only amuse him! But she felt them slip down her cheeks regardless.
Her brother didn't remember her.
And he thought that she was pathetic.
Pathetic.
A word Dipper had never even said in his life.
He wasn't Dipper anymore.
He wasn't Mason anymore.
Her brother simply turned away from her, that cruel look on his face, and began walking away, hands behind his back, like he owned the goddamn place.
"I'm sorry…" Mabel whispered to herself, barely audible. But it was done, she had already fulfilled the deal.
There was no turning back.
She had drowned so far in her sorrow about her twin that she had forgotten that Bill was still standing there, smugly watching, until he spoke up.
"In the meantime, I've decided to spare your life."
Huh? Wait, what the actual hell? Wasn't she worthless to him?
"As you may or may not know, I turned your 'Grunkles' into tapestries. I don't need Sixer for the equation. I need you."
"What?! Me? B-but I-"
"You'll figure out soon enough how. Pyronica will lead you to your room." Bill interrupted a bit harshly.
Room?! God, now she was even more confused. But he had said it; she'd find out later. So he walked away, leaving her to wait for the pink cyclops.
"Equation? Oh no… This isn't good." she muttered to herself.
"So, what's the plan?" Dipper asked as he looked out the crimson-stained glass window, observing the town.
"While I wait for Shooting Star to finally… 'settle in', let's call it, I'll need you to expand on your magical components."
"Magical components?" the boy repeated, confused.
Bill nodded. "How do you think I make deals with meat sacks, Pinetree?"
"Oh… Well, I guess that makes sense."
"I'm going to trust you enough with this book. But only read the pages I direct you to, nothing else." the dream demon continued, handing him the copy of Journal 3.
"Woah…" He stared at the cover in awe as he carefully held it in his hands, as if he hadn't seen it before. But he didn't know that, he had, in fact, held that book in his palms before. His memories of it were lost, forgotten. "Thanks!" he said, eager to learn.
"Don't thank me, kid. You know what to do."
"Yes, Cipher."
Room. Equation. You.
Next thing you know, Mabel was sitting in a chair, only to find a stack of textbooks waiting there for her on a nearby desk with notebooks, a pen and a pencil. She immediately groaned. And, of course, there was warm chamomile tea and another chair across from hers there was well, which only meant one thing…
"You might as well get comfortable. Bill will be here when he's done dealing with Pinetree." said Pyronica as she left.
Bill had been serious when he said he was going to use her to get the equation. Which meant endless studying and solving mathematical problems. But at the same time, she was confused. If Dipper didn't remember anything positive about her, if he didn't care about her, and Bill was taking advantage of him, why didn't he get him to do this? After all, he was the smart one. And sure, she was smart as well, but not in the same way as Dipper was.
She barely heard Bill enter the room.
"So, you're probably wondering why I chose you for this."
Though she hated to admit it, specifically to this guy, she nodded.
"Listen, you have potential, Shooting Star. You claim you're not as smart as Pinetree, but you could be. You could gain more intellect and knowledge than him, Mabel."
What shocked her the most was that he actually used her name. He must be really serious, then…
"The point is, I'm giving you a chance to prove your worth. But, I'm not going to stand by your side and help you. If you're going to do this, then you're going to have to figure this all out on your own. And until you do give me that equation, you won't ever be allowed a single second of rest."
What?
Wait, wait a minute. She was a human. She couldn't just read books for an endless amount of time without any sleep!
"Get the equation. That's all you have to do." Bill told her as if it was an easy task.
She was frozen in place, still staring at him in shock from the words he had said previously.
"Good luck!" he said in a way-too-chipper tone as he left the room.
It took her a few seconds to recover from everything he had said. She turned her head to look at the textbooks.
"Well, guess I better get started then…" she muttered to herself.
She flipped to a random page in the physics textbook:
General relativity is a theory of space and time. The central idea of general relativity is that space and time are two aspects of spacetime. Spacetime is curved when there is matter, energy, and momentum resulting in what we perceive as gravity. The links between these forces are shown in the Einstein field equations.
She cringed away in horror.
"This is going to take a while…"
Paragraph about the Theory of General Relativity is referenced from Wikipedia.
Here's a long A/N for y'all:
I hate writing out stuttering so I just skipped all that unnecessary crap with Blendin Blandin. It was Eleron's idea to have Mabel convince Blendin to help her in the stupidest way I could possibly think of. Calm before the storm I guess? Ha ha… Yes, I did in fact just state this is going to get worse.
With Little Words of the Fire coming to an end (check it out!) in the next few weeks, so I might be able to update Blinding Visions more often, but I can't guarantee it since I'm only updating right now because I'm on Spring Break. ._.
So the whole idea of this is that Dipper, when he was "revived", doesn't remember much about his sister. He knows basic stuff, like for example, Mabel's personality, and he'll occasionally remember tiny snippets of memories throughout this story, but they won't start affecting him until later. When he was revived, his mind was basically "programmed" to think Bill is like his friend or something, so he thinks Mabel and the others are the enemy, and that Bill and the henchmaniacs are the good side.
I hope I'm going down the right path with this story…