Episode 9: Questions without answers.
Arc: "Devil's Deal"
Opening: Shiver – Gazette.

. . .

"Bill." Dipper growled.

Danna slowly approached the chip to read what was written on it. After reading the word Cipher she understood why Dipper was so angry, but couldn't see the point of it. He thought Bill had caused all of this, with Beatrice and Keehnesi's help . Maybe that was true, or maybe it wasn't — there wasn't many proof left except for the chip — because there was a high chance there weren't many people and demons around the world with the surname 'Cipher' that were willing to control a beast just for fun (although they were talking about the Ciphers, so it was slightly likely), but it could be just a misunderstanding, couldn't it? Maybe it was someone else, or maybe not, but why did that matter so much? The test was over and they managed to pass it, more or less. That was what truly mattered; they were alive, they were well and fine, no other major injuries except for a few scratches and some PSTD, but that was it.

But, Danna thought, why would he do this? It was not usual for her to see the rational side of things, but she couldn't help but think of it. What would he accomplish doing this? And, more important, what was the "A" written in front of the name? The chip was so close, yet so far from belonging to Bill; the only thing they had in common was the 'Cipher' part. "I knew it! I knew he was behind this…" Dipper bellowed, stomping one of his front paws on the floor. Then, something else fell on his head. But it was softer than the chip. This was his hat.

"You let this fall." Asaph said, smiling, from a tree, as he jumped next to them; he had been observing them but just now decided to speak up. "Seems like everything's crazy here. We should go back to the dreamscape and report this to our mentors." Dipper sighed; he didn't want to even look at the chip for one more second, but everyone needed to know about what he had just discovered.

"Come here, you two." He said to Daniel and Asaph. Both exchanged worried glances before approaching the boy and the chip he had in front of him. "Read this." Dipper said, motioning to the chip with his head. He took a step back, allowing both of them to read what was written. After five seconds, they turned to Dipper, confusedd and in disbelief at the same time. Of course their mentors came across as drunk idiots sometimes — they sent four 12-year-olds to fight a wyvern, some mythological creature that no one in Gravity Falls had ever miraculously seen —, but it wasn't like them to risk their apprentices' lives for a simple joke. Most of the time their jokes had some ulterior meaning behind them.

"This…" Daniel muttered, flabbergasted. He couldn't complete the phrase not only because he was too shocked, but also because he had consumed all of his energy defeating that stupid winged lizard; he felt like he could barely breath; well, it seemed like he had defeated it, because Daniel wasn't too confident that the creature was gone at all — he felt like it probably just vanished, perhaps to heal its wounds and come back for revenge later. He felt like this wouldn't be the last time they had seen it. And he was positive the creature was somewhere observing them, watching every step they took.

It was creepy, overall.

"Yes, Bill was behind this." Dipper snapped, taking a step further towards them.

"I think it could be anyone." Asaph protested. "First of all, it's very easy to just write a name on a chip and call it legit. Second, our mentors are siblings; therefore they all share the same last name; unless they're lying about their names, none of them have one starting with the letter 'A'. And, as far as I've read once, the Cipher family used to be composed of various members who divided themselves in subfactions, each one adopting a different name — Cryptos, Codds, Iddents, I could go on forever with this." He turned to the chip. "I'm fairly sure there isn't anyone with the letter 'A' on their name, though…" Asaph trailed off. Unless there is one family member that hasn't been written about… The apprentice thought as he started to murmur to himself as many names written on the Cipher family's list as he could remember.

"Why don't we ask them about it?" Danna suggested.

"I was going to suggest that!" Daniel retorted. "Why don't we ask them about it?" He repeated. Danna rolled her eyes, sticking her tongue out to him.

"Ok, then we better go fast." Dipper let his hat fall on the floor and grabbed the chip carefully with his mouth, carefully putting it inside his hat. Then, he swiftly put the hat back on his head and nodded. Well, at least he was getting good at being in this ridiculous form. "Let's go." Dipper couldn't care less if they did it because it was a mission, or because he was threatened to do so or whatever, but Bill shouldn't have done that, because that was ridiculously dangerous: he could've died, Danna could've died, Daniel and Asaph could have died. The whole town could've died.

They started to run as fast as they could. Danna was running from behind them, watching Dipper carefully. She slowly approached him. Danna wanted to say the words she had been planning to tell him, but they seemed to be stuck on her throat. She stuttered for a few seconds until she forced the words out, though they came a little shaky. "Dipper… I, uh, wanted to say thanks for saving me earlier. I didn't have time to thank you." Dipper looked at her and smiled a little.

"Sure, that's what comrades do, right?" And then he looked ahead. Danna smiled at him, but then her ears went flat on her head and she looked down.

"Yes, comrades, yay…" She murmured sarcastically, hoping that Dipper hadn't heard anything.

When they reached another clearing, bigger than the other, they stopped. Asaph looked confused as he looked around. "I don't understand… It was supposed to be here, I heard mentor Keehnesi say it." Suddenly everything went gray. Some of them stirred slightly upon seeing the world's colors being sucked away. "Nevermind. It's here." He rolled his eyes upon seeing the gray open space. They saw three lights glowing in front of them, before said lights took the shapes of a triangle, a circle and a square. Those were their mentors; Bill, Beatrice and Keehnesi – in order, of course. The circle floated forward and snapped her fingers.

After that, the four apprentices' bodies started glowing in a light blue light – which felt cool on their body –, and, in a few seconds, they were humans again, wearing white tunics to cover themselves. Keehnesi snapped his fingers and each one's clothes were in their hands, all of them folded carefully. The brunette touched his vest to check if the journal was still there; he was surprised that it was. Why didn't Bill take it? He seemed awfully willing to take it out of Dipper's hands at every chance he could.

"Oh, you're back already? Did you have fun?" Bill asked. Dipper let out an incoherent sound from the back of his throat that sounded like an animal growl.

"We didn't; but you sure did, didn't you? It was your plan all along, anyway!" The boy accused, pointing his finger at the demon, the words dripping from his mouth like acid. This time he wasn't going easy on his 'mentor' just because he was an all-powerful demon that could destroy the universe in a snap of fingers, of course not. Bill sounded a little confused upon hearing this, but was still slightly amused anyway — human tantrums were definitely hilarious, especially when they were unjustified. However, this didn't change Dipper's point of view – Bill was a great actor, and he knew how to fake things and act accordingly if he wanted to.

"Pine Tree—"

"Don't try to deny it! I know it was you! Damn you!" Dipper couldn't express his anger in words; he had barely ever cursed in his entire life — his parents condemned it; however, he had to let these negative feelings out in some way. If it wasn't physically impossible at this moment, Dipper would've punched the demon in the face; wherever it'd be.

Bill had not only created a monster that could've killed him, but he also made the creature almost destroy the entire forest, killing all living beings within it, including innocent bystanders like him a few hours before; also, he hadn't let them kill the wyvern. The creature surely hadn't died — of course it hadn't. It had vanished. Dipper had read it before. It was written in a mythology book he had read, before coming to Gravity Falls, that certain creatures could disappear without a trail if they wanted to. It was so obvious, but with all the commotion, Dipper hadn't remembered about this detail. And it was so important… How could he have forgotten about it? Curse his mind.

How could he be so dumb?

Dragons and wyverns could magically vanish if those are their masters' orders to do so, usually on an odorless mist depending on the master's power level — the brighter the color was, the more powerful the master was. And that was what Bill did, and that was how powerful he was.

"And there's MORE! Why didn't you tell me I was HALF-DEMON?! This is, like, the most important information of my life and you simply hide it from me like it's a girl's irrelevant secret? What kind of freaking deal is that?!" Dipper felt his throat aching and his eyes burning from shouting as his vision was slowly going red; he simply wanted answers, not to look like a maniac. But he had no other choice than to shout at Bill then. That was because he couldn't find a logical reason to calmly talk to him — there was no pacifically arguing with Bill Cipher. And he also wanted to let all this anger out in form of words.

"And why would you send a wyvern with a chip attached to it to attack Gravity Falls' forest? It destroyed half of the trees from the forest, and it could've hurt others! And guess where it decided to attack us? Yes, exactly, on a field of poisonous flowers! You're really bored, aren't you?!" And that was the subject he wanted to talk about. The wyvern, the forest; all the illogical things he had seen that day — all the fear he had felt, all of the damages he could've caused, all of the possible losses and hopes he would've had to kiss goodbye to if they all failed that mission. He and Danna could've died if it wasn't for these wings.

These wings had magically appeared in time to save them; because the two of them would be dead by now if it wasn't for that.

"I don't know what you're talking about." Bill answered calmly, almost as if he was really innocent. "But, as hilarious and pathetic as it all is, you sure need to calm down, Pine Tree—"

"Don't play dumb with me." Dipper gripped all of his clothes harder, with an unbearable feeling of hatred; a feeling that he didn't want to have, but couldn't deny that he felt that way — he couldn't hide it anymore. He felt betrayed, he felt unhappy — he knew he shouldn't have trusted Bill from the beginning, but why did he suddenly start trusting him, then? Why did he feel so guilty about all this? His eyes were burning, and he felt like he could barely stand. Keehnesi's hands started to glow in a dark pink color, as if preparing to attack if he did one wrong move — knowing him, Asaph knew he wouldn't even blink, much less hesitate; there was no distinction there, Dipper could be the guy next door or Bill's apprentice, it didn't matter. Dipper almost felt like the real threat there instead of Bill, but wasn't going to ease up just because of that. If they saw and treated him like a threat, he was going to act like one.

"Dipper, calm down, you need to relax." Asaph suggested, approaching Dipper calmly.

"DON'T TELL ME WHAT TO DO!" Dipper retorted to Asaph harshly, anger taking over him; blinding him. What was happening to him anyway? Dipper's anger was so intense that he couldn't control what he was saying, it barely felt like his usual self; unless it wasn't him saying all this; it felt like he was a stranger to this body. Then, the boy turned to Bill, eyeing him with distrust. The triangle's single eye showed many things: confusion, anger, perhaps amusement and even fear. How could Dipper, a single 12-year-old boy, scare an all-powerful, pure-blood dream demon like this? It was so unnatural that Dipper almost feared himself for that; he felt so angry, but so sad at the same time.

He felt so lonely being angry at Bill when everyone was trying to calm him down.

"Explain this." Taking off his hat, he threw the chip across the forest, not even caring about being gentle and that he could've destroyed the chip. The pine trees around him began to shake, as if trying to warn them about any danger, before the whole place faded to a pitch-black color. They were back to the mindscape again. Bill grabbed the chip in mid-air and analyzed it. "So, can you still deny it?" Dipper asked one more time, but calmer this time. He had won the game. He had presented all the proof he needed to prove his point. He had beat Cipher in his own game. And that was game over for him. Or so he thought…

Bill's single eye widened.

"W-What… this is… he is… this can't be…" He stuttered, letting the chip fall to the floor. Not even once Dipper had seen Bill stutter so hard. Dipper supposed this couldn't be good.

"What now?" Daniel asked. Bill turned to them, narrowing his eye.

"Look, this is nothing important right now. I do not want to talk about it. This is all just some sort of joke, okay? I'm sorry for attacking you guys with a dragon, but this subject dies here. Just stay out of trouble. This is the end of our conversation." And then, in a snap of fingers, he was gone. Dipper raised an eyebrow at the strange behavior. Bill had never acted like that, as if he was hiding something – something that couldn't be good. First because he actually confessed that he had created the wyvern, which couldn't be true. And second because he changed subject too quickly. Besides the fact that if something ever scared Bill, it couldn't be a good thing.

Keehnesi and Beatrice exchanged glances before the circle went to grab the same chip that Bill had let fall. "Oh, no…" She muttered, backing off. Without a warning, Keehnesi snatched the chip from her hands and analyzed it deeper, knowing he'd be able to recognize anything faster than his sister anyway, or at least that was what he thought. "Thank you for being so polite." Bea commented sarcastically. Keeh rolled his only eye and then proceeded into reading the chip, ignoring the circle completely. He, however, only needed to look at it for three seconds.

"…But… That's impossible!" Keehnesi protested; his color changed from a dark pink to a light one. He had paled. "I sealed him with a Banishment Spell, did I not?! How is that even true?!" Dipper and the others felt the demon's indignation, but they were too confused to understand what was truly happening. They wanted answers. And this chit-chat was leading them nowhere. The other three apprentices, Danna, Daniel and Asaph, also hated when their mentors kept secrets from them and excluded them from important conversations. "How…?"

"We have to accept out fate, brother." Bea said, looking directly into his eye. She put a hand on his back as if that was a comforting act. "He is back."

"I'd enjoy knowing what you're talking about." Danna said, narrowing her eyes. The other two older demons exchanged glances again, and turned to their apprentices.

"What Danna means is… Who are you talking about?" Daniel asked, a little more politely, as he nudged his sister. Keehnesi approached them, and his color returned to normal (a dark pink) before he spoke. His words were slow – though shaky, almost worried, but calm at the same time. It echoed through the mindscape like it was a cave, and it also echoed through the apprentices' minds.

"It is Bill's son; he has escaped."

A/N: Well... Ok.

It took me some guts to make this chapter, to be honest. I was afraid it wouldn't be good, but it wasn't that bad. I was thinking in finding a beta reader, but gave up on this idea. I mean, no, I think I'm taking a lot of time just by writing my chapters. So I wrote this one faster; and it is bigger too! Well, at least to me. It has over 1.280 words.

Uh oh, what is the FANTASTIC FOUR gonna do now? Oh wait, nvm. But admit it, they sound a little like the Fantastic Four XD I'm such a klutz.

FYI: A Banishment Spell is used on demons who must be banished to another dimension to pay for crimes they committed that are unforgivable, and they shall suffer eternal torture as punishment, unless they escape. It is also known as Punishment Spell.

Welp, that was cool. I'm going to use FYIs more often from now on. I hope you're ok with it. Oh, and I'm going to focus more on this story than the others, so I'll take a little longer to update Wolf Twins and other stories. Since CCC is a short story, then I won't take longer updating this one. It's, like, 4 chapters long or something. And, yes, this story will be a little LONG, so buckle up and LETITGO!

(WARNING: This author obviously is drunk.) - Niwana's brother.

Awakened Niwana, off.