Author's note: Hello again! Welcome to the next chapter! :D

Here is where the story really gets going. Enter...the Dorito demon.

Again, if you compare this version of the story to the Tumblr version, you'll notice that this chapter is a combination of Tumblr chapters 2 and 3. From here on out, though, no more chapters are going to be combined. I simply combined these first few in order to even out the lengths of each chapter. xP

In the canon series, we got to see Stan's mindscape and Mabel's, as well as bits of Ford's, but not Dipper's. So in this fanfic, starting with this chapter, we get to explore what I imagine Dipper's mindscape would be like! 100 points to your house if you can name either what the overall structure of Dipper's mindscape is referencing or another small reference hidden somewhere else in that scene. Extra if you can name both!

Thanks for checking out 'Mind Heist', and I hope you enjoy this chapter! As always, feel free to rate the story and leave a review telling me what you think of it. Stay tuned, because Chapter 3 is coming soon! c:

- Danni


It had been nearly an hour since Stan left, and with him absent for the time being, all was quieter than usual in the Shack. Mabel was upstairs in the attic, sitting on her bed knitting and just keeping Dipper company.

Dipper had been trying to read, but his head had begun throbbing, so he put the book aside. He turned over toward Mabel's side of the room and coughed before inquiring, "What're you doin'?"

"Knitting another sweater." She smiled and held up what she had so far. "This one's gonna be really sparkly."

Dipper smiled and gave her a thumbs up. "Nice job there…" He was then cut off when he sneezed. "…Mabel." He blew his nose and groaned in frustration. "Okay…think I'm gonna try to go back to sleep for a bit. Key word here is try. My head says yeah, but my entire respiratory system says no." That, and a small part of him was still afraid to go to sleep, but he refused to admit that, to himself or to Mabel. He pulled his blankets up over his shoulders. "Thanks for hanging out with me, though."

"No prob, Bob. I'll still be here if you need something."

Dipper tucked himself down under the blankets. He sort of drifted in and out of sleep at first, but soon, he found himself having a rather odd dream…


All was hazy for a second or two, but Dipper soon found himself…in a library. At first, he thought that he had woken up in the lobby of the little library downtown, for that was what the first floor seemed to resemble. As he looked around, however, he noticed just how expansive this place was. A plethora of floors and the staircases leading to them seemed to spiral infinitely upward. Books of all shapes and sizes filled the shelves, but the sections weren't labeled by genre…

He soon came to the realization that this was no normal library. It was a place he imagined long ago, as a small child…his 'mind library', the place where he stored everything. Every face he had ever known, every place he had ever been, and everything he had ever learned.

"…Huh. Weird. How long has it been since I've thought of this place? 4th grade, maybe 5th? And I don't think I've ever…dreamt of it before…" He shrugged. "Oh, well. Maybe this is an opportunity for me to sort of…choose my own dream. Cool! Sure beats having another nightmare…"

After exploring the lobby briefly, he made his way up to the second floor and slowly browsed through the different sub-sections there. Each book he cracked open sprang to life, just as the collectible cards in wizard-school novels did. The pictures and text replayed his memories as if they were miniature movies. He found everything from algebra formulas to life lessons to…BABBA song lyrics…

Dipper quickly shut that book before music began to play and laughed nervously. "Yeah, no, don't…need that one right now." The last thing he wanted was to end up singing in his sleep. If Mabel overheard, he knew he'd never hear the end of it.

He tapped his chin thoughtfully. "Now let's see…what has the potential to kickstart a really cool dream?"

Just as the rather large "mythology" section caught his fancy, suddenly…the lights in the library went out. In a split second, all was blanketed in foreboding darkness.

"…Whaaaat…?" Dipper was thoroughly confused…and a little weirded out. Upon remembering that he was dreaming, he thought up a lantern, and boom, there it was in his hand. He struck a match against his shirt and lit the candle inside.

Just as he did, he heard something off in the distance…a sound too faint to be heard clearly, but a sound that gave him a sense of deja vu all the same. Then, he could have sworn that he saw a figure pop up out of the corner of his eye…and vanish as quickly as it came.

Fear reared its ugly head then.

Dipper tiptoed further and further into the library, letting the glow of the lantern be his guide. "Is…somebody in here?" he called out quietly.

Nobody answered.

He laughed lightly, trying not to let his nerves get the best of him. "Dipper…seriously? Of course nobody's gonna answer. This is your own mind, man. Nobody else is in here," he told himself.

But then, he remembered a…certain someone.

"…U-unless…"

All of a sudden, giant flames burst out of the lantern.

"AAH!"

As he dropped the lantern to the floor and it shattered, evil laughter - oddly familiar laughter - began to echo throughout each and every inch of the library. The flames rose higher and higher, taller than ten Dippers. And what then materialized out of the rising flames…sent shivers down Dipper's spine…


Back in the regular world…Mabel was unaware of what was going on at first. But suddenly, Dipper, asleep in his bed, began to moan and cry out in his sleep.

Mabel heard and turned her head. "Dipper?"

Something was wrong. Very wrong.

She got up and walked over to her twin. When she put a hand on his head, she became quite worried. He was still burning up, but his fever felt even worse than before. "H-hey, Dipper…wake up," she said nervously as she shook him a little.

Dipper, shivering violently beneath his blankets and coughing in his sleep, didn't respond. "N-no…don't…" he managed to mumble out, sounding worse by the minute.

Suddenly, the fairy lights hanging above Mabel's bed eerily began to flicker. A chilling wind swept through the room, as if someone had left the door open in January.

Mabel shivered from the sudden cold. She quickly realized that all of this strangeness was connected. "Dipper…it's okay! I'm right here!" she reassured him quietly. She held his hand, hoping that would make him feel safer.

Just then…to Mabel's horror…a pitch-black, all-too-familiar shadow materialized behind Dipper's head.

A triangular, top-hat-clad being.

Oh, NO. It could only be…

She gasped. "Bill!"

Mabel held Dipper's hand closer to her. She then watched helplessly as the demon descended into Dipper's head and disappeared.

Dipper gasped and bolted up, his eyes glowing electric blue…exactly as Stan had done when Bill had taken over his mind earlier that summer. Waddles, squealing with fear, ran and hid himself in Mabel's stuffed animal collection for protection.

Then, everything stopped as quickly as it began. The lights ceased their flickering, and the unexplained wind vanished without a trace. Dipper fell back, unconscious, and moaned a little.

"Dipper!" Mabel caught him and held him tight. "Dipper…are you okay?!" Waddles, too, slowly came back and nudged him, trying to help whatever way he could.

Dipper moaned again, but didn't respond. He was stuck in a dream - no, more like a nightmare - with the nefarious Bill Cipher.

Mabel tucked Dipper back in and began to panic. "Okay…okay, what am I gonna do? What would Dipper do? Think, Mabel, think…"

She'd never been alone during something this dangerous. What the heck was she going to do? Soos and Wendy were the only sort-of-grownups around, and neither of them knew much about the paranormal, did they? And besides, they were running the Shack; who'd look after things if they were gone? The only person that could possibly have had anything that would help was Stan, since he apparently did know more about the town than he'd originally let the twins know, and he was nowhere to be found.

"But I CAN'T wait for Grunkle Stan…aaaah, I HAVE to do SOMETHING!"

Quickly, she dragged Dipper's journal out from under the bed and cracked it open, hoping to find something useful. Soon, she came across the blood-stained Bill Cipher section of the journal, and on the page, she found the Latin incantation Dipper had used to allow Mabel, Soos, and himself into Grunkle Stan's mind.

Mabel was admittedly a bit scared, but she knew it was the only way to help Dipper. She gathered a few things for when she ran into Bill. Before doing anything else, she grabbed a cold cloth and draped it over Dipper's forehead, hoping it would at least keep his fever under control for a while. Then, a few minutes later, with candles lit in a circle around her, she put a hand to the side of her brother's head and began to recite the spell.

"Videntis omnium.

Magister mentium.

Magnesium ad hominem.

Magnum opus.

Habeas corpus…

Magister mentium, magister mentium, MAGISTER MENTIUM!"


Mabel had forgotten how strange it felt to enter the mindscape. She watched all of the candles go out by themselves, but then everything seemed to fade away into a blue blur, and she felt a weird sort of weightlessness, as if she'd riding that weird swing ride at the carnival for too long.

Suddenly, she found herself waking up on the ground. She jumped to her feet, thinking for a brief moment that she'd ended up outside somehow. It only took her a second, though, to realize that she had indeed entered Dipper's mindscape.

"Holy Moses…"

There she was, upon a hill, overlooking Dipper's expansive mindscape. Surrounding her on all sides were places from all the different types of memories Dipper had, all mishmashed into one little world, each representing places and different points in time. Many of these were memories Mabel recognized, too, for they were either from their childhood in Piedmont or the current summer. In fact, she was sure she could see their California home right from where she was standing.

Mabel wouldn't let herself get distracted for long, though. She shook her head and began trekking through the odd new world, calling out for her brother the whole way.

"Dipper?! Dipper…where are you, broseph?"

All was eerily quiet around her for a while…so quiet that her voice faintly echoed back to her.

But it wasn't long before she heard the faint sound of cackling, and the second she heard it, her heart began to pound with fear.

She spun around and found that the sound was coming from the huge building at the heart of the mindscape - the mind library.

"So that's where you're hiding him, you tortilla chip creep!" Mabel said angrily. She took a deep breath. Then, she readied her trusty grappling hook and dashed off into the library to find Dipper.


Meanwhile, within said library…

"Wha- no- Bill? Seriously!?" Dipper was terrified, but tried his best not to let it show. "So you are the one who's been giving me nightmares!"

"Well well well, Pine Tree…long time, no ABC," Bill Cipher replied, cackling with sick glee. "I see you got my little presents! Just letting you know I had you in mind! Miss me?"

"NO," Dipper said. "You've already taken over my body and destroyed the laptop...what the heck do you want from me!?" He thought for a minute. "Wait a sec...if you've been putting nightmares in my head, then…are you the reason I'm sick, too?!"

"Whoa, whoa, kid! Slow your roll!" Bill replied. "It's not my fault you human fleshbags can't resist microbial invasion! But you see, it goes like this…you may not have all the secrets of Gravity Falls…but I do have SOME use for you. And unlike that little butterball Gideon, I actually CAN see the future. For example, in about another minute, this is gonna be you!" Suddenly, Dipper could…hear himself screaming. Nice.

"Now, come on, don't kid yourself, Pine Tree…you skip out on enough sleep without me being in the picture. You being brought down by some dumb Earth disease was inevitable. But of course, I…MIGHT have helped things along a little," Bill continued slyly. "So!" He clapped his hands together. "Have I got a proposition to make to YOU! You and your journal help me along with a little something I've been up to…orrrrr I find a way to MAKE you."

Dipper was dumbfounded. Did he seriously just ask that? "Are you KIDDING me!? Last time I got tricked into a deal with you, I almost died! And so did Mabel!" he angrily yelled.

Right as he attempted to walk away, he soon found himself in the grasp of one skinny little demon hand - one much stronger than it looked - while the other one flew to the demon's hip in annoyance.

"Not even gonna listen to what I have to say, huh? Always thought you were a boy of reason, Pine Tree," Bill replied. "OH! SPEAKING of Shooting Star - she must've LOVED the show I put on for her when I invited myself over to your mind!" he added, his voice dripping with evil delight. "Plus, there's a liiiittle surprise I've got in store for you involving your precious sister later…"

"Oh, no…Mabel…" Dipper gasped. "No, no, no, she wouldn't have tried to-"

Once again, Dipper heard his own voice repeated back to him. "Enter the mindscape on her own, would she!?"

Bill cackled again at the sight of Dipper's terrified face. "Aw, shoot…you ruined the surprise! And duh, of COURSE she did! You weak humans and all your…'caring'…" he said as he rolled his eye. Suddenly, he cracked his skinny black knuckles. "Now then!"

Without warning, Dipper found himself floating in the air.

"Since this little chat wasn't enough to change your mind…let's see what your own NIGHTMARES will do!"

Dipper struggled to get himself back down to the ground, but it was no use. "No! NO!"

"Have FUN!"

Bill's maniacal laughter circled all around Dipper. And with a snap of Bill's fingers, he was teleported to parts unknown.


All was pitch-black when Dipper finally dropped to the ground again. He quickly pulled himself to his feet, and he panicked a little at first, but then remembered that he could just think of a light source. When he realized that he was wearing his pine-tree hat and vest, like he normally would on an adventure, he reached into the vest pocket and pulled out a flashlight.

When he clicked it on, he still didn't see anything at first - just the dark, dark woods. The rustling of leaves and the whisper of the wind were the only sounds, other than the occasional murmur or growl of an unseen creature. When he turned around, he found what he thought were spiderwebs hanging from the trees above - the thickest spiderwebs he'd ever felt, for sure. They were everywhere.

"Um…ew."

He tried to walk around them, but kept getting tangled in them. He tried to just ignore them and advance through the forest to find an exit, but he found that he suddenly couldn't. When he looked down, he saw that bunches of the strange strings had gotten caught around his ankles.

As he tried to untangle himself…suddenly…he heard a monstrous growl behind him...and he felt as though his heart had stopped.

All of this was far too familiar to him. He knew that sound like the back of his hand...but it certainly wasn't a sound he wanted to be acquainted with.

"Please don't be what I think you are…please don't be what I think you are…"

Trying not to completely freak out, he shakily turned around, very slowly. His eyes followed the trail of strings leading from his ankles up about ten feet ahead of him...and as his eyes met the monstrosity before him, a gravelly voice spoke.

"Come play with us, Dipper…"

Yep. It was a multi-headed, spider-legged marionette monster.

And he screamed.