A/N: Well, it's an hour and four minutes past midnight, so it's Sunday now... so I decided why the heck not? here's Chapter Sixteen! lemme just tell you that this chapter is the one of most pivotal moments in this story. I hope you enjoy!

A Triangle in the Stars
Chapter Sixteen: Geven

Bill was levitating at a rather fast pace. That gem beast was on his tail and it didn't seem to be letting up. He wasn't willing to shoot at it though. Rather, he was leading the monster towards someplace particular...

...like the school parking lot, where he knew the staff and students had gathered.

He grinned to himself, chuckling. The demon now didn't understand why he'd been so unwilling. Now that he wasn't under that deal and now that Steven wasn't with him, he could commit some more chaos. Harmful chaos.

But "Steven", in fact, was waiting at this particular entrance, hearing the roars of the gem monster come closer and closer. Bill saw Steven from a mile away, but kept going, kept leading the monster. He narrowed his eye, almost hoping he and the creature would bowl the kid over. There was that small part of himself, however, that he was confused about. But it was small, and therefore not worth his time.

Eventually the boy decided it was close enough, and threw his shield at it, grunting a little. It hit, and the monster poofed into its gem, which landed on the laminate floors with a few small clinks. The boy's eyes, a bright, burning pink, flickered to Bill, and he smirked, "Did'ya miss me?"

Bill's eye, the second it caught sight of those eyes, soon widened, and then he narrowed and rolled it with disgust, "Ugh, Gabriel!? you were one of those demons?!"

And then he glanced at the gem on the floor. He frowned. There went his ticket to harmful chaos. But it wasn't bubbled. Therefore, there was still a chance...

"Yeah! I'm back, baby! and, this time, you're not going to trick me!" he shot the shield at Bill this time, laughing.

Bill dodged it, growling slightly. He, however, hesitated to counterattack. In fact, he barely moved to attack at all. All he did was glare at the possessed boy. Gabriel stared evenly, "What? afraid to fight?"

He threw another one, and lit it with pink flames. Bill blocked this one, but it hurt his hand for some reason he couldn't figure out, other than the fact that it was set aflame. He attempted to wave the pain away, and then glared at Gabriel/Geven even harder, "No. I'm not afraid to fight!"

And yet he found he couldn't fight back. He was confused again. He shouldn't be so hesitant to fight his adopted brother, even if he was in a meatsack's body. But this meatsack in particular was Steven. The demon growled at himself.

"Oh, look at you! you actually care about this kid, don't ya?" Gabriel smirked, realizing how he could use this to his advantage, but also realizing what exactly it meant, for Bill to care about a human.

And that's when Bill realized and snapped out of whatever it was that was holding him back. He shouted, "NO, I DON'T!" and shot a purple laser at Geven from his finger.

The kid held his arms out, actually. But, right before the laser could hit, a pink orb formed around him. "Look, Bill. Everyone knows you're the bad one now. Everyone knows you're a villain. And this kid—he can stop you," he started, slowly walking towards Bill.

Bill growled, shaking, but he was careful not to get himself so angry to the point that he would have a meltdown again. He, in an even voice, replied, "You're lying. No one knows. I made sure of that." He glared the possessed boy down.

"I told the kid what you did to me. What you've done here. He's going to figure out the rest, you know..." the barrier around Geven fell, and the boy threw a bunch of shields, like ninja stars, shuriken. All of them flaming.

The demon threw up a barrier, and allowed the barrage of shields to hit that instead, though the barrier faltered each time one made contact. He didn't want his hands hurt again.

"Pheh, as smart as he is, he's not that smart," Bill laughed a little, but, even he wasn't really that sure. However, knowing Steven, the boy'd just ignore what Gabriel told him and continue to be friends with him. The kid was that trusting. And that in and of itself was idiotic. Once the shields were gone, he let down the barrier and shot more lasers at Geven and added some fire to the mix too.

This time, Gabriel wasn't expecting it, and got hit and burnt. He collapsed to the floor, but there was barely a scratch on him, and then slowly rose. He looked at Bill, his eyes glowing a deep red now. He shouted, "THAT'S IT! NO MORE MISTER NICE GUY!"

A giant shield formed, and he hurled it across the foyer, at Bill. He was beginning to regret not grabbing a better weapon, and he was starting to tire out.

"Hey, you were the one who attacked first, 'Mister Nice Guy'!" the demon reminded Gabriel, and then, eye wide, dodged the shield and then observed this. It ended up damaging major parts of the room and then the hallway, and ultimately got stuck in a wall, making some rather huge cracks in it. Bill's eyebrow was arched high above his top point, and he made a whistling noise at the damage, somewhat impressed. There was that feeling again, though, but the triangle was quick to squash it.

Geven was on one knee now, breathing heavily, unable to keep his eyes open. "Damn it! this stupid body—!" he growled.

"Heh... you're weak now... I suppose you're not used to the limits of these meaty puppets. I'll admit, I was the same way. But then I wised up," Bill grinned, eye flickering to the unbubbled gem still on the floor. Any moment now it'd reform. He chuckled, eye on Geven now, his hands surrounded with red flames, the flames that really burned, the flames that could kill. But would he really go that far? this was Steven's body anyway...

He growled at this thought. Nothing of that nature should hold him back. Absolutely nothing.

"I dare you to do it, brother. Just like you did with the rest of us," Geven grinned, a maniacal grin with little to no sanity behind it. "Prove to me you're worth killing!" the bubble around him faded, and the boy spread his arms out, waiting.

Bill's eye twitched. He snarled, raising the flames up, about to fire them like a flamethrower at Geven. But then the fire faded, bit by bit. He lowered his hands eventually, the look in his eye softening. He couldn't do it. He just couldn't, and he didn't know why.

"Can't do it, William? where's all that cruelty you showed back at the Nightmare Realm?" the possessed boy's smirk turned into a stone glare. "Back when you murdered them. Back when you stole my soul, shattered it into pieces, and gave them away like they didn't matter? back when you threw me, locked me away, in a realm of nothing but dust and broken promises, of numbered days and fractured dreams?"

Bill glared evenly at him, clenching and then relaxing his fists every few seconds. He said nothing to all this. But he was wondering what was happening to him. Why he wasn't as cruel and relentless as before. It was an enigma, even to the usually knowledgeable dream demon.

"Do you know what it feels like, to have pieces of your mind, of your soul, your spirit, littered throughout countless realms, crushed, sold, eaten, forgotten? dirtied, rotten, rusted, crumbling to bits? I can feel it, every day. I will never be able to forget what you did to me... you monster," he then started running at Bill, fists flaming, yelling.

The demon simply floated there, not even moving, not even registering this. He was still hung up on trying to figure out what happened to his personality. But he just could not figure it out. He simply could not get it. However, he seemed to snap out of this at least a few seconds too late; he knew he couldn't dodge or block this in time. His eye was wide and he began to brace for the hit. Gabriel put his flaming hands together, and, knowing exactly where to hit Bill, slammed both fists right into the triangle's wide eye. Bill recoiled quite a distance, screeching, and then collapsed to the floor. He writhed about, grabbing at his eye, "OW! GAWD, THAT HURTS!"

Gabriel glared, but soon everything was going blurry, and he was falling. And then it was black, as he was forced back out of the boy's body, and into the real world. He grunted, upset, but decided to leave. He drew a star on the wall with his finger, leaving a black sign, and then flew into it, disappearing. Steven gasped, and then fell to his knees. He huffed and puffed, feeling the absolute exhaustion from Gabriel exerting so much power through his body. He couldn't quite focus on things right at the moment, but eventually he would be able to make sense of them.

Bill was very slowly recovering, tears leaking out from his eye. He gradually stopped writhing, and started shuddering out of instinct, despite how much he tried to suppress it. Steven backed up and leaned against a wall, trying to use it to get back up. There was then a shimmering sound, and the twisted and messed up gem on the floor began to rise. A form began to appear around it, first humanoid but then warping into something else entirely. Steven panted, watching it with horror. He knew fighting it would be bad. Running wouldn't be any better. He had no strength, no energy to spare.

The demon groaned, starting to pick himself up. He heard this sound, and only knew it as the Gem Monster finally regaining its form. Only, instead of happy... he felt... something else... he couldn't put a finger on this feeling. But it made him... he groaned again, this time out of exasperation. He didn't even know how it made him feel.

The monster, once in existence again, soon began to approach Steven, roaring.

"B-Bill! help, please!" Steven shouted, voice hoarse all of a sudden, as he backed further against the wall. The demon huffed and puffed a little, finally opening his healed eye and taking things in carefully. He saw the Gem Monster slowly, very slowly, creep up onto the boy. Inch by inch. The triangle felt heavily conflicted right at that moment. Should he leave Steven to his fate...? or...?

Steven slid down the wall, putting his knees up in front of his face. He whimpered, and tried to make himself seem as small as possible. The beast was uncomfortably close by now, and it raised one of its sharp legs, ready to impale Steven with it. Bill's eye widened, and then, after a while, he looked down at the ground and sighed, murmuring something sullen, before he, narrowing his eye and furrowing his brow, pointed with his finger, aimed, and shot the beast with his purple and fiery laser.

It screeched, the attack having hit its weak spot, and then flailed around, backing away from the boy a little ways, before it then retreated back into its gem. The strange jewel then clinked against the floor yet again. Bill stared at it, and frowned. And right there and then his ticket to more chaos went down the drain once more. He knew Steven would bubble it. He sighed again, and then stared at his hands, now not sure what to think.

A/N: Wow, Bill... wow... go me! also, big ups to Ace for RPing Steven and Gabriel so well! I also roleplayed Steven for the brief moment when he took back his body, and I had the Gem Monster near the end. Well, hope ya enjoyed! next chapter is also gonna blow you away. So be prepared for that! heh.. leave reviews. They always brighten my day. And to those anonymous who have a lot of things to say, please make an account - I'd love to speak with you properly. In any other case, I'll see you this Thursday or Saturday with the next one. Ciao!