Ford was asleep. That didn't happen very often, since, living out in space, he had to constantly be on guard in case something came to hurt him. So, usually, he considered sleep a blessing, since it meant he was in a safe enough place to risk it.
It wasn't a blessing tonight.
He stood in a field in his dream. A wrecked version of the Stan O' War sat behind him, and a swing set, and in the distance, the portal. It was mostly empty otherwise. He looked around, wondering what this dream was about. Then the field shifted, as if something that he couldn't see was making its way towards him. Naturally, this put him on edge.
Wheat flattened all around him, and it took him a second to recognize the shape, as he was standing inside of it instead of looking at it from a bird's eye view. Still, he'd never forget it: a triangle with arms, legs, and a top hat. The flattened space lit up an electric blue, and he heard that unfortunately familiar laughter.
"I know that laugh," he said softly. "Show yourself!" There was a heavy wind blowing his coat, making it ripple somewhat. He heard a noise behind him, so he whirled around just in time to see the oh-so-familiar shape rising into the air. Another blast of wind shot from the demon, and he raised his arms to protect his face.
Bill put his hands on his sides, where his hips would be if he had any. "Well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well," he said, creating replicas that surrounded him in a floating circle. The Bills spun around him. "Aren't you a sight for sore eye. Stanford Filbrick Pines, my old pal."
"Bill Cipher," he hissed back, with no lost love. "What do you want from me?"
"Oh, quit playing dumb, IQ," one of the copies said, leaning up against him and wrapping his arm around him. "You knew I'd be back." Another ruffled his hair and flicked his nose. "You think shutting down that portal can stop what I have planned? I've been making deals, chatting with old friends, preparing for the big day. You can't keep that rift safe forever."
He snapped his fingers, and a massive ball of fire formed in his hand, though it was proportionate to his also massive size that he'd adopted. It evaporated into the rift, tinted blue. "You'll slip up, and when you do . . ." He threw down the blue rift, and it broke on the ground, releasing a swirling red and purple color to the sky. Fire spread across the field at his feet.
"Get out of here!" he shouted. "You have no dominion in our world."
"Maybe not right now, but things change, Stanford Pines," Bill reminded him. The fire raged all around them, but he was oblivious to that as they stared at each other. His voice distorted. "Things change." He laughed, rising up into the sky, leaving Ford in the cylinder of fire that had formed.
In the split second before he woke up, images flickered before his vision. The last thing he saw was the zodiac, then he woke up, panting and gasping for breath, his glasses wedged up further on his head. He fixed them and stared at the wall.
"I have to warn them," he realized. "He's coming." He looked down at his hand in shock.
Another voice startled him. "Who?" He jumped, looking over his shoulder at Camo, his unintentional roommate, as she'd moved into his room when he wasn't there. She was rubbing her eyes and looking at him inquisitively. Once again, he wished she hadn't chosen his room.
He didn't see why he should keep it a secret from her, as, from what he knew of her personality, she'd start digging if he didn't tell her. And that could uncover worse truths.
"Bill."
"All right, Grunkle Stan's gotta have some decent board games," Dipper said. The closet to said games was very dark, but none of the three of them were fazed by that.
Mabel looked up to look at them. "Let's see, Battle Chutes and Ladder Ships, Necronomicopoly, Don't Wake Stalin." Necronomicopoly? That sounded like fun. Connect 44, though, did not.
Dipper picked up the one on top of the stack. "Hey, what's this? "What Could Go Wrong, the board game. The last players who opened this box never made it out alive"."
"Sounds like fun," Camo said at the same time the twins said their affirmative answers. However, they were cut off.
Ford's voice drifted in from through the hall. "Family meeting. Family meeting!"
The twins exchanged a look, though she already knew exactly what this was about. Ford had woken up in the middle of the night after tossing and turning, then spoke at a normal, maybe even louder than normal, voice, and expected her not to wake up and ask him about it? However, he'd seemed to realize that struggle was pointless, because he'd just told her.
They walked over to the living room, where Ford stood at the table with a bunch of books. "Ah, children. Come in, come in." He took a seat, revealing a big old bag.
Mabel walked up with her usual charm. "Ooh, mysterious scrolls and potions. Are you going to tell us we're finally of age to go to wizard school?" she asked. "Is there an owl in this bag?" She opened it, and Ford's eyes widened in concern.
"No. I can assure you, if there's an owl in this bag, he's long dead," he said, pulling it away from the excitable girl. Camo raised her eyebrows. Well. That was a cheerful thought. She slipped into the chair next to Mabel. "Now tell me, children, do either of you recognize this symbol?" He held up the scroll of Bill.
She just nodded. She hadn't really been answering many questions earlier that morning, only asking them. Meanwhile, the twins gasped. "Bill," Dipper said.
"You know him?" Ford asked, pulling it away.
"Know him? He's been terrorizing us all summer," the preteen responded. "I have so many questions and theories."
Camo sighed good-naturedly. "Of course you do."
"Dipper's been pretty paranoid since Bill turned him into a living sock puppet," Mabel explained. Camo grinned at that memory. That had been fun.
"The important thing is, we defeated him twice."
"Once with kittens, and once with tickles."
"It was a lot more heroic than it sounds."
Ford looked at them with a grave expression. "The fact that all three of you have dealt with Bill is gravely serious," the man said, his tone just as serious as his face. "Even if only Camo had encountered him . . . never mind."
"So, how do you know Bill?" Dipper asked. Camo perked up. That was one of her questions that Ford hadn't answered that morning, so she was rather interested in the answer.
"I've encountered many dark beings in my time, Dipper." He drummed his hands on the book in front of him. "What matters is, his powers are growing stronger, and if he pulls off his plans, no one in this family will be safe." The twins gasped again, looking very frightened. Camo simply gulped. She'd already heard this part, but still. "Fortunately, there should be a way to shield us from his mental tricks. A way to Bill-proof the Shack."
He opened up his scroll (different scroll, or different side of the same scroll?) and showed them the map of his lab. "All I have to do is place moonstones here, here, and here"—he made some circles in a triangular configuration—"sprinkle some mercury, and let's see. I always forget the last ingredient." He pulled Journal 1 out of his coat and flipped through it. "Ugh. Unicorn hair."
Mabel brightened up next to her, though no one else seemed to notice.
"That's not, like, rare, is it?" Dipper asked.
"It's hopeless," Ford replied. "Unicorns reside deep within an enchanted glade, and their hairs can only be obtained by a pure, good-hearted person who goes on a magical quest to find them." He showed them the page, and Camo wrinkled her nose.
Mabel squealed loudly. "Grunkle Ford, can I please go on this quest?" she asked excitedly. "I am literally obsessed with unicorns. My first word was unicorn. I once made my own unicorn by taping a traffic cone to a horse's head. Are you even looking at the sweater I'm wearing right now?" It was hard to see the little unicorn, she was shaking so much. "Not to mention that I'm probably the most pure-of-heart person in this room."
"That's true, she has a point," Ford admitted.
"Can't argue there," Dipper said.
Camo made a noise somewhere between a laugh and a wheeze. When Ford looked at her to check she was okay, she just waved off his concern. She'd be fine!
"So can I go on a mission to get that hair?" Mabel asked, her words coming out in a torrent. "Please, please, please. I'll give you my blood!" She pulled down her sweater sleeve and shook her arm in her grunkle's face.
Ford stood up dramatically. "Very well, but it won't be easy. Take this, and this." He handed her Journal 1 and a crossbow, which the preteen was far too interested in. "I haven't been in this dimension for a while. It's okay to give children weapons, right?"
"Pssh," Mabel said. "Come on, dawg." She accidently fired the crossbow. It shot right through the glass diamond in the window, and a car alarm blared. She heard Stan screaming outside, and tires screeching. Mabel just pulled out her phone and said, "Candy, Grenda, Wendy, clear the afternoon." She ran out.
Then she ran back in and asked Camo, "Do you wanna come?" She just shook her head, so the preteen ran off again.
"So, what are the odds she gets that hair?" Dipper asked.
"Unlikely. I've dealt with unicorns before, and if I had to describe them in one word, it would be 'frustrating'."
She shot him a finger gun. "Precisely why I didn't go."
"So what are we gonna do about Bill?" Dipper asked.
"Follow me."
The kids did as they were told. They closed the gift shop, which Stan would've killed them about if he ever found out, and went down into the basement. To the second level, which was a place she'd never been to before. "Welcome to my private study," Ford said. It was a really cool room. She really had to hold herself back from touching the purple crystals off to the left. "A place where I keep my most ancient and secret knowledge."
They walked forwards. She spotted the memory gun sitting on a shelf. "Even your Uncle Stan doesn't know about this place," the man said, and she thought she detected a hint of a chuckle in his tone. Dipper went to pull a tarp off a painting, but Ford called, "Dipper, come along."
She made a mental note to check it out later.
He'd walked over to a bunch of old computers. "If we can't Bill-proof the Shack, we're going to have to do the next best thing. We're gonna have to Bill-proof our minds." He opened a drawer, revealing a headset thingamabob. He pressed a button, and it opened up slightly. Dipper gasped, though she remained cool.
Ford activated the machine, then stuck the machine on Dipper's head. Aw. His hair actually looked pretty cute right there. "You'll go next," Ford told her, and she shrugged. She didn't care.
"So, what is Bill, exactly?" Dipper asked.
"No one knows for sure," Ford replied, messing with the controls. "Accounts differ of his true motivations and origins." Dipper opened a file with a bunch of papers on the demon triangle. "I know he's older than our galaxy, and far more twisted. Not a physical form, he can only project himself into our thoughts through the Mindscape. That's why he wants this." He held up . . . something.
She interrupted. "Um, what is that?"
He blinked, then seemed to realize she actually had no clue and that he'd never explained it to her. She guessed that he'd told Dipper when she wasn't there. "A dimensional rift, created by the portal. It's why I was mad at Stan for using it. Anyway. I dismantled the portal, but with this tear, Bill still has a way into our reality. To get his hands on this rift, he would trick or possess anyone."
Camo was focused on how cool the rift looked, like a swirling void. "So how do we keep Bill out of our minds?" Dipper asked.
"Well, there's a number of ways. I personally had a metal plate installed in my head." Both of the kids laughed, at least until Ford knocked on his own head and there was a clanging sound. "But this machine is safer. It will scan your mind, bio-electrically encrypting your thoughts so Bill can't read them."
But . . . he's Bill Cipher. Wouldn't he figure out a code, if his last name was literally Cipher? She didn't say this aloud, since it was dumb, though.
"Now, say hello to your thoughts."
Ford switched it on, and the endless green screen filled with Dipper's thoughts. His voice and images accompanied some of them. "Oh, man, I can't believe I'm with the Author. Is my fly down? Disco girl, coming through~ Wendy, Wendy, Wendy, Wendy . . ." That part continued for a while.
"You might wanna ignore that one," Dipper said awkwardly. He quickly changed the topic, which Camo found amusing. "By the way, you never told us what your history with Bill was."
"Yeah, I want some answers," Camo agreed. Answers were (almost) always great.
Ford kneeled down. "Dipper, Camo, do you trust me?"
"Well, yeah, but . . ."
She bit her lip. If she was being honest, she was iffy on the matter. So, she just shrugged and didn't say/do anything else.
"Then you'll trust that that's not important. Now, focus. It's time to strengthen your mind."
It was a good thing that she wasn't the one hooked up to the machine. It would've been betraying all her suspicious thoughts about his relationship with Bill. Still, there was something else Ford needed to know, even if he was lying about something. Or withholding something. "Ford?" she asked.
"Yes?" He looked up from more science-y stuff he was doing.
"Um, every time we saw Bill, he said he was taking a special interest in me," she admitted. "And . . . sometimes, I'll fall asleep, and he'll be there. He's not there for long, and he doesn't say anything too bad, so I usually shoved it off as a normal dream, or something."
He put a six-fingered hand on her shoulder, his expression grim once more. So, Dipper was perpetually suspicious, Mabel was perpetually happy, and Ford was perpetually grim. "This is a very serious matter," he told her. "It is impossible for you to have an ordinary dream with Bill in it. The fact that you've seen him in your dreams, more than once, means he has taken that special interest on you. You should be wary. He rarely does so without good reason."
She gulped, and nodded.
"Well, this means that your mind is more important to be safe than Dipper's, at the moment." The thought-screen informed them that he was offended at that comment, which was . . . fair. "Hop up." His thoughts also revealed a lot of mental whining, which he blushed at. Still, he took off the helmet and handed it to her.
She looked at it uncomfortably. She was not super pleased by the idea of her thoughts being broadcasted to them, but . . . well, if Bill did pay special attention to her, she needed this. Reluctantly, she stuck it on her head and let Ford turn it on.
Scuff, this is weird . . . Ha ha, listen to my thoughts, yours were really fun, Dipper . . . I don't like this, not one bit . . . I wonder how Mabel's doing . . . She listened to her own thoughts in her own voice. There was also a song playing a chunk on loop over the back of it. Experimentally, she tried to think of a new song, and it worked. She grinned. I can give you an earworm by having an earworm!
Dipper watched it with her, though that made her kind of uncomfortable. He seemed surprised. "And here I thought you didn't have a filter."
"Oh, no, for all the dumb comments I make, there are at least five more that I usually don't even acknowledge to myself."
". . . not actually super surprised by that."
Would it be fine if I kicked him? He is being a jerk . . .
"Hey!"
"Ugh, this is taking forever," Dipper moaned. "How long have you been doing this for?"
Hours. Days. Weeks. Months. Years. It's secretly the apocalypse outside. Hey, this is handy. I don't have to move my mouth to tell you stuff.
"Yeah, yeah. I don't know how Great Uncle Ford can sleep with you sassing us all the time." Both of them looked at Ford, who was snoring rather loudly. "Why does he have to be so mysterious about Bill?" he asked.
I probably shouldn't've shoplifted that one . . . oh, right. There was the . . . that painting you passed? You could probably check that out. Secrets and answers . . . I totally figured out a lot more secrets than you, you shoulder listen to me . . . man, why is it so hot in here?
He bit his lip. "But Great Uncle Ford didn't seem to want me to see it . . ."
"Well, duh," she said aloud, a split second after her thoughts said it. "It's a secret. It's not a secret if people immediately figure it out."
Her brain decided now was the perfect time to start reciting song lyrics, and she rolled her eyes, gesturing for him to go look. He didn't leave yet. "Okay . . . or, we could hook that thing up to him and see if that works."
"That . . . feels like it invades his privacy more. Like, there's an honor code in digging for secrets, and looking directly into his head seems like cheating." Just ignore the fact that a memory in Stan's mind was part of the reason I figured it out . . . oh, fudge, I've said too much.
He rolled his eyes. "I'll look at the painting if you attach the headset to him. He'll tell us eventually, and he won't know, right? The more we know about Bill, the more we can help."
". . . is that your own rationalizing mental stream?"
". . . that doesn't matter."
She sighed. "I'm not sticking the headset on him. You know what?" She pulled it off her head. "You stick it on him, and I'll check on the painting. This way, everyone's happy." He shrugged and moved towards his grunkle, and she hopped off the stool to check out the painting.
Bill's laughter from onscreen. When she looked at the screen, there he was, surrounded by bright blue fire. It hurt her eyes to look at. A memory of McGucket—that was McGucket, right? Wow, he'd fallen far—freaking out about someone Ford was working with. Ford tossing and turning in his sleep, which she knew all too well. She turned away to pull the tarp off.
"Then it's a deal. From now until the end of time."
"Just let me into your mind, Stanford."
She pulled it off and stumbled back.
"Please, call me . . . a friend."
She turned to Dipper, and they shared a horrified expression. "We're in trouble," she told him. She pointed to the painting, of Bill. She suddenly realized just how many tarps there were around. Did they all hide the same thing?
Ford stood up.
She frantically looked around for a weapon, and she spotted the memory gun. She grabbed it and ran over to Dipper. The two of them stood next to each other, looking up at Ford. The light reflected off his glasses, making it impossible to see his eyes. "You shouldn't have done that," he said ominously.
He threw off the helmet, knocking down another tarp, which hid another depiction of Bill. Dipper gasped, and she tried to hold back the growing terror in her gut. "Why were you shaking hands with Bill?" Dipper asked, sounding as scared as she felt. "You said Bill could possess anyone so he could get this." He grabbed the rift, and almost dropped it.
"Careful! Hand me the rift. Now, boy!" Ford snapped. Camo stepped in front of her friend, her face set in determination, and she pointed the memory gun at him. But, then again, she was better with arson, so she pulled out her lighter and handed the gun to Dipper. He pointed it to Ford, she guessed. Her eyes were locked on said scientist.
They backed up as Ford pressed further. "Why were you really scanning our thoughts?" Dipper asked. "Are you Bill right now?"
"Now, just—just calm down, p—"
"Pine Tree?! Is that what you were going to call me? Are you gonna call Camo Hourglass, too?!"
He threw up his hands in annoyance. "I was gonna say please, kid."
Camo stepped forward, towards Ford, her lighter burning. She raised it up threateningly. "Prove you're Ford," she ordered, "or . . . or . . ."
"Or I'll erase you right out of Ford's head," Dipper said, scared.
"It's me, Dipper. It's your uncle!"
Dipper was repeatedly muttering, "Trust no one, trust no one . . ." under his breath. Camo prepared to light an old man on fire. (Would that get her charged for arson or manslaughter?) Ford pressed further with out further proof, and the preteen pulled the trigger. It bounced right off of his forehead and all around the room, until it eventually broke the screen of the mind-encrypting-device.
Ford picked Dipper up by his vest, and the boy, naturally, struggled. Camo dove for the memory gun and aimed it up herself. "Now, now, just calm down, you two. Calm down. Look into my eyes." He shifted his glasses, and his eyes were normal. She relaxed somewhat, though her nerves were still shot. "Look at my pupils. It's me, Dipper. It's me."
Dipper relaxed, too, then he was horrified by what he'd almost done. "I tried to erase your mind. I'm so sorry."
Camo stealthily dropped the memory gun that she'd picked back up.
"It's okay, Dipper," Ford replied. "Besides, my mind can't be erased anyway, remember?" He banged on his head, and she shuddered at the metallic clanging. "If that really was Bill, though, you would've done great. Both of you. I should've been more like you two when I was young. I was a fool to try to hide all this."
"Yeah, you really were," she agreed.
He sadly, weakly, smiled. "The reason I've been trying to prepare you for Bill's tricks is because Bill tricked me. It's the biggest regret of my life. Bill wasn't always my enemy, Dipper. I used to think he was my friend, long, long ago. I had hit a roadblock in my investigation of Gravity Falls, until I found some mysterious writing in a cave. Ancient incantations about a being with answers. It warned me not to read them, but I was desperate.
"I read the inscription aloud, but nothing happened, until later that afternoon, when I had the most peculiar dream."
Ford opened his eyes. He was drifting through space, it looked like, though it was bluer, and he wasn't dying. A dream, then? Stuff floated all around him, his Journals, though there were some in different colors. He walked forward, as if there was solid ground beneath his feet, and pulled on a scroll in front of him.
What was this? An ordinary dream? A lucid dream? He hadn't had one of those since he was a kid, but if he was aware he was in a dream, it had to be lucid, right? A shadow covered him, and he spun around, surprised.
"Hiya, smart guy." It was a yellow triangle, with a top hat, a bow tie, one eye, arms, and legs. Did the voice belong to it? Said voice echoed all around him. The triangle went behind him, and he jumped back. "Whoa, don't have a heart attack. You're not 92 yet." It spun around him in a circle. The voice sounded masculine. Was it a he?
Curiously, and somewhat cautiously, he asked, "Who are you?"
"Name's Bill, and your name's Stanford Pines, the man who changed the world. But I'm getting ahead of ourselves. Let's relax." Changed the world? But . . . he hadn't done anything yet! Unless he was talking about the future . . . "Care for a game of interdimensional chess?" Bill summoned up a bright blue chess board, with all the pieces, and a chair for Ford to sit in.
A teapot and teacup appeared in front of him, both with the pattern of an eye similar to the one on Bill. "Have a cup of tea." It echoed, just like it did before.
Intrigued, and very confused, Ford grabbed the cup, though he didn't drink it. They began to play.
"He told me he was a muse, that he chose one brilliant mind a century to inspire. What a fool I was. Blinded by his flattery and games. He became my research assistant. He was free to move in and out of my mind as he pleased: we were partners. When he told me that I could complete my research by building a gateway to other worlds, I trusted him. He said this was the way genius happened—with a little help from a friend.
"It seemed that I was on the verge of my greatest achievement. Until my partner got a glimpse of Bill's true plans."
"Bill, you lied to me!" Ford shouted, running through the book-dream-space by jumping on said books. "Where does that portal really lead?"
The triangle, his friend no more, was turned away from him, staring at some kind of tear in the place, orange-ish and with the silhouettes of many monsters on the other side. He laughed. "Looks like Mr. Brainiac finally got smart." He turned towards him. "Let's just say that when that portal finishes charging up, your dimension is gonna learn to party, right, guys?"
The monsters on the other side of the tear laughed, and it echoed all around him.
"No. I'll stop you. I'll shut it down!"
"A deal's a deal, Sixer," Bill said, glaring at him. "You can't stop the bridge between our world from coming. But it would be fun to watch you try. Cute, even."
Ford woke up, terrified.
"I'd been betrayed. I shut the portal down, severing the link between Bill's world and ours. I had to hide my instructions so no one could ever finish Bill's work. Bill's been waiting for the gateway to reopen ever since. All he needs to do is get his hands on this rift. To Bill, it's just a game. But to us, it would mean the end of the world."
Dipper grabbed the cool little image Ford had of how Bill projects himself to the Mindscape, and he folded it, so they connected. Camo shuddered again. "Oh, man," he said softly, running a hand through his hair.
"'Oh, man' indeed," Ford said sadly, putting a hand on Dipper's shoulder.
She was silent. Throughout the entire summer, she'd been mystified as to the "stopping chaos" part of Mallory's time wish. But, Bill was chaos incarnate. So, this end of the world via Bill would be a very valid answer to that question.
"What would the Bill-pockalypse be called?" she asked quietly.
Ford sighed. "Some have referred to it as Weirdmaggedon."
It all made sense now.
She was supposed to stop Weirdmaggedon.
:)