Opening File: Soul Bonding

There have been many tales through the world since the beginning when the appearance of the Grimm forever altered our understanding of everything we thought we know. Tales of great powers including magic, gods, other worlds and even of reincarnation and ghosts unable to pass on until their unfinished business has been concluded. However, instead of the traditional spirit lingering in the place of its original self's death it is said that if one's will and Aura is strong enough that instead of passing to rest the soul will travel until finding a host to help finish its task. So far there have been no documented cases that have proven this legend to be true…

As far as we know.

Close File

Xxx

"We all wonder what happens when we die. We know our bodies decompose, leaving behind only bones while the rest dissolves into the Earth. All part of a delicate system set up that allows our world to continue existing. Carnivores eat meat then die, their bodies break down and become food for the plants that herbivores later eater." TOM closed the file. "But are bones the only thing we leave behind and are we truly gone? What about the idea of ghosts, reincarnation and an afterlife? We all want to believe there is more than just living and dying and maybe there is. We have plenty of time to wonder about that later though. If you are alive then you should enjoy living."

TOM pointed his index finger at the camera. "Stay Gold. Bang. Or in the words of a universally beloved world figure…"

TOM tapped a switch on his chair and the screen showed a recording of Stan Lee. "Excelsior!"

Xxx

…

'Steven?'

…

…

'Steven, can you hear me?'

…

…

'Steven, wake up!'

"Wh…What?" Steven opened his eyes, wondering where he was.

He looked around, seeing himself in some kind of strange dark void and in front of him was…His own body?!

"Huh?!" Steven exclaimed, freaking out.

It was a giant statue of himself but it looked a fusion of himself and…

"Bill Cipher?!" Steven gasped, seeing Cipher floating at the top of the fusion's head.

"Fused with you."

Steven spun around, seeing a man floating near him in this strange place. He was tall, having dark brown hair neatly combed and wore a white dress shirt, black dress pants and shoes with a long navy blue cape with yellow buttons, a somewhat pointed nose and big round black eyes.

"Hello, Steven." The man said, floating in front of the boy with his cape waving around him as if there was a wind.

"Uh…Hi? Who are you?" Steven asked slowly, feeling confused and afraid.

"Don't be afraid of me, Steven. I will not hurt you." The man smiled softly. "Truth is I have known you for a long time now and I have wanted to meet you ever just as long."

"You have?" Steven tilted his head.

The man nodded. "But now is not the time for stories. Your father and friends need you. Steven, you were tricked into fusing with a monster that will use your body and power to cause unspeakable harm to everyone. You have to split apart."

"But how am I here if I am fused?" Steven looked back at the giant statue of his body.

"When Bill Cipher fused with you he threw your mind out of your body into what would be considered an astral plane of existence. Now as Stipher he is planning on journeying to the center of the Darklands to free the fusion known as Malachite Plasmius with plans to use it for his own twisted pleasure. If you do not stop him here and now he will kill your father and friends and many more innocent people." The man explained as his face and tone turned deadly serious.

"What?!" Steven gasped, staring at the statue of himself…Fused with Bill. "I didn't want this. I just wanted to help my friends."

"I know." The man placed a hand on Steven's shoulder. "It's been rough on you lately. The Crystal Gems have been at each other's throats and you want to save that other Gem. Bill Cipher took advantage of that pain and used it against you but that's the only weapon he has. Without it he can't hurt you or anyone else."

"But how do I stop him?" Steven looked up at the man, seeing the man smiling at him now.

"It is your body, your Gem. Take it back." The man answered wisely. "Bill may be in control but you can force him out."

"Me? But how? I can't fight like my mom or the other Gems." Steven looked down at his hands. "How can I take back my body if I let myself get tricked so easily?"

"You are not like your mother or the others Gems…You are better." The man retracted his hand. "Look forward, Steven. Look to yourself."

Steven looked at himself, still resembling the horrid fusion.

"Now look to the others."

'Others?' Steven looked around and saw other statues of his friends: Johnny, Carl, Pops, Amethyst and….

"Dad and Garnet?!" Steven gasped in shock.

Above each head were images of them all, fighting hard.

"They are here for you, Steven. They are fighting for you." The man said, floating behind Steven now, hand back on his shoulder and face leaning down until it was next to Steven's. "They want to help you, to save you but they need you to help them help you. See how they fight, take what you see and make that your strength. Don't let their struggles fill you with despair, let it fill you…With hope."

Steven looked at the statues, seeing each of his friends and his father struggling and fighting.

All of them fighting for him.

To save him.

And what was he doing?

Nothing.

Nothing to clean up the mess he stated.

A pink aura came to life around Steven as he floated up to the top of the statue representing the fusion of him and Bill.

"No more…I am not letting anyone else get hurt because of me." Steven vowed, glaring at the image of Bill Cipher above the statue representing himself.

"Is that all you got, Blond Elvis?" Cipher laughed and directed Stipher to unleash a stream of fire at Johnny whose image showed him hastily dodging, utilizing his dance moves. "Dance monkey dance!"

"CIPHER!" Steven shouted loudly enough that his voice echoed across the Astral Plane.

Cipher looked up at Steven and chuckled. "Well, well, well. I see you found your way back, Little Star. I'd love to congratulate you but I'm a little busy tearing your friends and dad apart with plans to deal with Woody and his boss next."

"Give me back my body, now!" Steven floated down onto the head of his statue self.

Cipher just laughed. "Give it back? Have you forgotten our deal? You gave it to me to solve all your problems. Not my fault you didn't read the fine print."

"I don't care about our deal! I am not letting you hurt anyone else! Now get out of my body!" Steven shouted, his voice growing louder. "Get out or I'll make you."

"Make me?!" Bill clutched where his stomach might have been if he had been human as he laughed. "You make me? Now that's a real laugh right there? What are you going to do? Punch me?"

Steven clenched his fists as the pink aura around grew brighter. "I…Said…GET OUT!"

With that said Steven shot at Bill like a rocket, his fist slamming into Bill's eye. The dream demon, caught off guard let out a scream of pain but his form turned red and his eye turned black and in a surge of power repelled Steven, sending the young hybrid flying back.

"Not bad, kid." Bill admitted, his form growing slightly. "But let me give you warning about making me angry: You wouldn't like me when I am angry!"

Steven watched as Bill floated up and pointed his fingers at him like they were guns.

And in Bill's case they literally were.

From the tips of his fingers came bolts of red light that shot at him. Steven quickly moved, flying as fast he could as Bill kept on shooting at him.

"Be very quiet, I'm hunting little gems." Bill laughed as he kept on shooting. "To bad this isn't real. I'd have fun grinding that gem of yours into dust…Get it, like the Dust you people like using so much."

Steven cried out as a blast knocked him, sending him flying even further away. He looked back, watching Bill as he laughed.

"Come on, kid. Try and make at least a bit challenging. I guess I'll go back and torment your friends some more. At least they were more fun." Bill laughed, his form changing back to his regular self. "I got to least off one before Woody gets them."

Steven growled, gritting his teeth hard and shut his eyes. "No more…"

"Hm? What's that?" Bill held up a hand to his face, pretending he had an ear. "Speak up! Won't hear you on the balcony!"

"I….Said…NO MORE!" Steven shouted, pink energy exploding from him and slamming straight into Bill, surprising the dream demon.

"WH-WHAT?!" Bill was thrown back by the pink aura that engulfed the statue of Stipher. "No! No, no, no, no, NO!"

Steven landed on the top of the statue and under his feet glowing cracks appeared and spread out all over the statue.

"NO! YOU CAN'T KICK ME OUT!" Cipher's form turned red again and he grew until he was as large as the statue and attempted to push his through the pink light. "I AM THE MASTER HERE! NO ONE SAYS NO TO ME!"

Steven grunted, holding his hands out in front of him as he struggled to push Bill back, needing all of his strength just to keep him out. "Dad, Garnet, Amethyst, Johnny, Carl, Pops, I am so sorry that I let this happen but I am going to fix it. Right here, right now!"

The aura shined even brighter, blinding Bill who cried out as he covered his one eye. "THIS IS IMPOSSIBLE! HYBRID OR NOT, NO MEAT BAG CAN RESIST ME!"

Try as he might though, Bill found himself being pushed back by the light, unable to regain control of the failing fusion. The cracks spread all the way down to its feet and grew in size until finally in a burst of light it shattered.

"THIS ISN'T OVER, KID!" Bill raged as the light forced him to vanish. "I'LL BE BACK AND TRUST ME, THE NEXT TIME WE MEET IT WILL BE ON MY TERMS! WE'LL SEE HOW STRONG YOU ARE THEN!"

Steven floated in the center of the light; eyes closed and showed no sign of having heard Bill's threat as the demon retreated.

All that mattered to him was saving his friends and family.

Xxx

The fight had not started well for anyone.

Between fighting Moloch and Stipher the Humans and their Gem comrades found themselves horribly outmatched. As much as Garnet wanted to help Steven she considered Moloch the bigger threat and went after him, assisting Greg in protecting Steven from the wooden monster. She slammed her gauntlets into his face and torso several times before following up with the blow that should have knocked his head off.

Moloch only leaned back far enough that if he had been human his back would have been broken.

He was still for a second, then stood back up and leaning forward, shocking Garnet who stepped back. Moloch stared for a mere second before his eyes flashed red. Garnet covered her face just as beams of red light fired and collided with her, sending her flying straight into a tree with enough force she knocked it over.

"Uh, Gar?" Amethyst raced to Garnet's side as the fusion climbed to her feet. "It might just be me, but…this isn't working."

"You said it." Johnny gasped, stopping next to Garnet's opposite side. "Aw man we're getting our butts kicked."

"He has to have a weakness." Garnet slammed one fist into the upturned tree behind her hard enough to send it rolling back and snap off many of the branches.

"Oh! Oh!" Carl clambered over the fallen tree, stumbling on his way down. "I have an idea!"

"Well, can't be any worse than what we're doing now." Amethyst shrugged. "Lay it on us."

"Okay, okay!" Carl gathered the trio close while Moloch slowly advanced towards them. "Okay, so have any of you seen that scary movie? The one with the lady who only appears when it gets dark? But doesn't vanish if you shine a black light on her?"

"Getting to the point…?" Garnet motioned with one hand.

"This guy is all about being in the dark, right?" Carl asked. "So maybe he doesn't like light?"

"So what, we shine a flash light in his face?" Johnny demanded.

"Not a flash light, a really big flash!" Carl explained, cringing as he heard Moloch begin to utter a song.

"Cooooome wayward soooouls…"

"I'll pay someone right now to shut him up." Amethyst deadpanned.

"We need a concentrated beam of light." Garnet summarized. "Amethyst. Lens."

"Aw, alright!"

"Johnny and Carl, we need something bright." Garnet continued. "Very bright."

"I've got just the thing here!" Carl reached into his pocket and revealed a series of spherical objects.

"Uh, Carl, what are those?" Johnny asked, rightfully wary considering the smaller man's history of inventions.

"Flash bombs, Johnny! I made these to disorient Grimm if we ever got surrounded, but…" Carl reached into another pocket and produced a vial of Dust. "I think we could use them as a catalyst for this Lightning Dust-"

"-forrr the loooost and the meeeeek-"

"TRYING TO HAVE A CONVERSATION HERE!" Amethyst hollered.

"Use the bombs to trigger a flash of lightning, concentrate it through a gem energy conduit." Garnet nodded. "Do it. I'll stall. Break!"

By this point Moloch was a little less than thirty feet away. The quartet broke apart, with Garnet making a beeline for Moloch while Amethyst retreated with Johnny and Carl. As they hid behind the tree Garnet had sent rolling earlier Amethyst began to reshape herself into the form of a lens.

"Okay, let's hurry, I don't know how long Garnet can-" Amethyst cringed as she heard Garnet cry out while an impact rocked the ground beneath their feet. "-hold him off."

"On it!" Carl had twisted one of the flash bombs until it split into two perfect halves and began to carefully pour amounts of the Lightning Dust into one half each. "Just need to be careful, and slow."

"Why slow?!" Johnny demanded, looking nervously between Carl and the latest explosion of energy from the nearby fight.

"Because if I drop even a single grain of this it could trigger a chain reaction in the rest that will generate an electrical shock too strong for us to survive even with our Aura reserves at full." Carl explained, and then groaned upon seeing Johnny and Amethyst's blank looks. "We die horribly and painfully. Zappy zap."

"Ohhhhhhhhh." The two nodded, proving Carl's hypothesis that the universe had made them both for one another exactly.

Carl finished dividing the vial's contents among three of the flash bombs. "Okay, ready!"

"Lens, ready!" Amethyst shouted.

"And I'm…what am I doing?" Johnny asked.

"On my mark you need to shoot these bombs." Carl explained. "If you do it too early you could electrocute us, too late and you'll miss and…then we get electrocuted anyways. Sooooo please don't miss!"

Johnny snapped a salute. "Right! It's a good thing I was a champion in junior baseball!"

"No you weren't." Carl deadpanned.

"…oh." Johnny tilted his head slightly. "I know I did something with a baseball bat once."

Carl sighed. "Well, life was fun." He tossed the three bombs up into the air. "Now, Johnny!"

Johnny threw a punch while activating his arm mounted cannon, firing a spread of dust enhanced bullets which collided with the bombs in mid-air and detonated them in a thunderous crack accompanied by a blinding flash. Amethyst's new form began to channel the light passing through it into an intense laser beam which sizzled clean through anything in its path…

Including Moloch, who had been holding Garnet up by several large roots he had generated when the beam struck him. The antlered form recoiled with an inhuman shriek, the shadowed veil covering it fading where the beam scorched across bark-like flesh. This briefly exposed what looked like patterns shaped to resemble human faces locked in expressions of despair.

At this point Stipher looked up from where he had both Greg and Pops laid out in heaps across the ground. "Huh, so they found a way to hurt the big drama queen." He commented with a shrug. "Eh, that's what you get for playing with your food! You think he'd have learned."

Greg groaned as he looked up. "Steven…"

"Can't hear you right now, daddy." Stipher laughed, pointing his parasol down at the father of his Human/Gem half. "He's conveniently stepped out."

Just as he was about to fire and finish Greg and Pops off, he let out a scream in pain. "WH-WHAT?! No! No, no, no, no, NO!"

Greg and Pops looked up, watching as Stipher dropped his parasol and began screaming.

"NO! YOU CAN'T KICK ME OUT!" Cipher's voice shouted from Stipher's mouth. "I AM THE MASTER HERE! NO ONE SAYS NO TO ME!"

Suddenly Stipher cried out in Steven's voice. "Dad, Garnet, Amethyst, Johnny, Carl, Pops, I am so sorry that I let this happen but I am going to fix it. Right here, right now!"

"STEVEN!" Greg shouted, standing back up.

Stipher screamed out as Steven's gemstone glowed brightly. "THIS IS IMPOSSIBLE! HYBRID OR NOT, NO MEAT BAG CAN RESIST ME!"

Finally Stipher let out one last scream as he exploded in a blast of pink light.

"THIS ISN'T OVER, KID! I'LL BE BACK AND TRUST ME, THE NEXT TIME WE MEET IT WILL BE ON MY TERMS! WE'LL SEE HOW STRONG YOU ARE THEN!"

The light blinded everyone, including Moloch who screamed in louder as he bathed in the light. Unable to stand the light shining down on him he fled as fast as he could back into the dark forests that had been his hunting ground.

"This isn't over, Gregory! I will have my revenge one day! It is only a matter of time!" Moloch screamed out as he fled.

However Greg was more concerned about the important person in the center of light. "SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSTEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEN!"

Xxx

"Well done, Steven."

Steven opened his eyes, seeing the Astral Plane but as he looked down he saw a large statue of himself and just himself.

Not a fusion with Bill Cipher.

Looking up he saw the man from before, standing before him and smiling. "You…You are still here."

"I never left." The man replied.

"Thank you for helping me but who are you?" Steven wondered.

"My name is William but my friends and family call me Wirt." The man said, holding out his hand as he introduced himself.

"Wirt?" Steven wondered as he shook the man's hand.

"That's my name. You father was actually the one who gave me that name." Wirt laughed as he lowered his hand.

"My dad?"

Wirt nodded. "He was much younger than you at the time but the name simply stuck."

"But why are you here then? Why haven't I seen you before? Why didn't Dad tell me about you?" Steven could not help but ask.

Wirt sighed and closed his eyes. "It is a long story, Steven. What matters now at the moment is that you, your dad and friends leave the Darklands. It is too dangerous to stay in for long and now that you sent Bill and Moloch running it's only a matter of time before the Grimm show up. Moloch was the only reason you made this far without encountering any Grimm."

"He was?"

"Yes. Your father and I have met him before, unfortunately. Moloch is an old enemy of ours and rather persistent one at that." Wirt explained. "Years ago your father and I bested him and thought we had seen the last of him. He came after me first and now he tried coming after you and your father but he has found out that getting you will not be so easy."

"Came after you?" Steven asked as Wirt placed a hand on his head.

"Save the questions for another time, Steven. It's time to go home."

"But wait!" Steven called out but found himself being ejected from the Astral Plane. "WIRT!"