In the morning, Rawly did not join the others for breakfast. Really, they were surprised that Bill did. He didn't eat anything; he just sat talking to Amy the whole time. Meanwhile, Rawly, who they thought was somewhere in the house or his room, walked in from the front door a few minutes after they had finished breakfast. They paused to look at him curiously and he stiffened and tapped his fingers together.

"Oh! You're all…awake."

"We've gotten used to waking up early like Amy does," Mabel told him.

"Where were you?" Dipper asked casually. "We thought you were hiding in your room."

"Oh, uh, I was, just – I went for a walk. Earlier. This morning. But I'm back now."

"Uhh, okay?"

"Do you want breakfast?" Amy asked him.

"No, no. I, um, I ate while I was out."

"Hopefully not any people…" she muttered to herself as she continued to pick up the dishes.

"Soooo, Rawly," Mabel said. "You and Bill. You guys are like, friends, huh?"

Bill shot her a sideways glare that she did not notice.

"Friends? Oh, I-I don't think – that's not quite the term – um… He was more of my guardian, really."

"Your guardian?" Ford looked at him. "You were raised by him?"

"Sort of… He… He just looked after me to make sure that I, um, well… That I was okay."

"Really?" Ford was surprised.

Rawly laughed a little. "I, uh, suppose that must sound strange, considering… But yes. He was… He was always very kind to me…" Rawly trailed off and looked away.

Ford looked even more surprised and exchanged a look with Stan.

"Uh, hey," Mabel spoke up. "Rawly, why don't you come with me and Dipper? We'll show you around the clearing!"

"The humans want to be alone with me…" Rawly turned and said to himself in a frightened voice. "Oh dear… Oh no…"

"Um, Amy is going to be outside," Amy said loudly. "And so will Bill and Teeth and Shade."

Rawly seemed to snap out of his fear and quickly turned back to Mabel with an awkward smile. "Right! Yes! That will be…good!"

Mabel smiled and led the way outside. "That's Amy dog, Bud," she said as they passed the dog on the porch. "Over here are the chickens." She pointed at the big rooster strutting around and watching them closely. "That's Chuck. He's not very friendly. I'm working on it, though."

"Not gonna happen," Dipper said.

Mabel brought them over to the old barn. On the way, she gestured to the weeping willow leaning over the pond. "That's Amy's mom's grave. She was a dragon. This whole clearing is Valor's!"

"Oh," Rawly said. "Oh my…"

They stopped by the brown barn. "Teeth and Shade stay in here. Oh, and so does Becky. That's Bill's pet triceratops. There's also Angelo the horse and Bruno the ox."

Rawly peered inside and winced a little at seeing the triceratops munching away on some hay alongside the horse and ox.

"Good morning, Teeth! Shade!" Mabel waved.

"Good morning!" Teeth smiled.

Shade nodded. "Good morning, Mabel. Dipper. Rawly. How are you today?"

"I…could be better," Rawly admitted.

"True. But you could always be worse, too."

"I'm not so sure about that…" Rawly said so quietly that only Dipper noticed.

"This is the newer barn," Mabel said as they continued. "This is where Amy keeps all the sheep. Don't decorate them, though. She doesn't like that."

"D-Decorate?"

"Heh, yeah… Well, that's pretty much it for the outside. Inside is another story."

"Yes. I was informed of the thing in the basement…"

"Flower…" Dipper growled.

"So," Mabel said, "uh, what do you want to do? I think the town's recovered from the dinosaur attack. We could take you there –"

"No!" Rawly and Dipper shouted together.

"Oh, right. Hah. The human thing…"

…

"Didn't you tell me yesterday how you practically raised that kid?" Amy asked as she ushered the youngest lamb out of the barn.

Bill was sitting on top of the wooden fence. "Yeah?"

She walked over to him. "You guys have some kind of relationship, right? Like, you're pretty close? Or you used to be? Don't you want to spend time with him today and, I don't know, catch up?"

"Are you trying to get rid of me?" He looked a tad offended.

"No," she said firmly.

"Well," he crossed his arms, "I don't really know how to do that kind of stuff!"

She sighed, but there was a smile on her face. "Oh, Bill…"

…

Rawly sat at the end of the couch, looking highly uncomfortable and stiff, while Dipper sat normally on the other end. Between them was Mabel, who steadily edged closer to Rawly every few minutes.

Rawly had not been looking at them and trying to ignore their presence, though being a dragon/monster, he could still smell them even in his current form. The scent of humans was painfully enticing.

He chanced a quick glance out the corner of his eyes and noticed Mabel staring at him. "Er, do you…need something from me?"

"Huh? Oh." She laughed a little. "N-No. I was just admiring you."

"What?"

"Mabel…" Dipper sighed.

It was then that Rawly suddenly realized how close she was to him. "Oh dear. Are – Are you sure you don't want something?"

"Welllll…"

"Mabel!" her brother fussed.

"Hey, let's go check out Amy's room of weird stuff!" Mabel jumped to her feet and made her way over to the stairs.

Dipper closed his eyes, pinched the bridge of his nose, and shook his head with another sigh before getting up to follow. Rawly hesitated then got up to join them.

For a minute, Rawly only stood in the doorway, looking around nervously while the twins went to rummaging through all of the strange things in the room. It wasn't until he spotted something over by the window that he worked up the nerve to hurry past the raptor skeleton standing by the door. He made his way around the large rug that depicted the Enchiridion's same image and past shelves of various strange things until he reached the table under the window and carefully picked up a small potted plant.

"A daylily! How lovely. Oh!" He placed it back down and moved to examine a bonsai tree. "A maple bonsai! Superb. Such healthy leaves. It's so happy. And this aloe!"

"Of all the things in this room," Dipper said, "and he likes the plants?"

Mabel swooned a little and sighed. "Wow. I love how passionate you are about plants."

Rawly winced and turned to look at her. "Um, thank you. It's, uh, it's a disorder, actually."

"Hm," Dipper mused, "a hyper fixation. But why plants?"

"I… I like them."

He shrugged. "Okay."

"Bill said you like sweets," Mabel said.

Rawly stopped and stared at her. "I love sweets."

"Me too! Hey! We can bake cookies!"

"We don't have cookie dough," Dipper told her.

"Um," Rawly said, "I know a recipe from scratch."

"Hm. All right then. Let's go down to the kitchen."

Though a bit timid at first, Rawly seemed much more relaxed after a few minutes as he showed them how to make the dough for three different types of cookies. Actually, he seemed to be rather enjoying himself in assisting them.

"We don't often have sweets back home," he admitted while they were placing the cookie dough on greased pans.

"Monsters don't have much of a sweet tooth?" Dipper asked.

"It's not that. It's… Well, it's rare that some of us get to indulge in our simple pleasures. Especially lately…"

"How did you ever get any sweets then?"

"Well, sometimes, we he would return from, er, well, when he would return from other worlds, Bill would bring me things he found there. My favorite was a box of assorted chocolates."

"Wow, he really was nice to you, huh?"

"Yes…" Rawly looked a little sad.

"Are you okay?"

"Hm? Oh, y-yes! I'm fine." He picked up the pan he was using and brought it over to the oven.

"Okay. Hey, Rawly. What kind of powers do you have?"

"Powers?"

"Yeah, like, can you read minds or see future or past events?"

"Oh, dear no! Not me. I'm a fire dragon. I am adept at pyromancy."

"That's like, the opposite of plants," Mabel said.

"Eheh, yes. Um, though my monster half gives me a few other abilities. I can teleport, but only to places I've been or I know the coordinates of. I also have a pouch in my belly. Er, in my dragon form, I mean."

"A pouch?"

"Yes. It's, um, like a built-in pocket dimension, really."

"What can you keep in a pocket dimension?"

"Well, whatever you'd like, really. As long as you can fit it through the entrance. Though, the entrances are usually flexible…"

"Neat!"

"…I had forgotten that humans are sapient beings. Though, to be fair, I've only ever met one in my life. …I ate him."

"I figured as much," Dipper sighed.

"Since you're still technically a dragon," Mabel said, "does that mean the whole dragon love thing applies to you, too?"

"The what?"

"You know. How dragons can only ever fall in love with one person in their whole life?"

"Oh, that. I…I suppose so, yes."

"Yeah? So, have you ever, I don't know, like, fallen in love?"

Dipper facepalmed behind her.

"Only with chocolate," was Rawly's immediate response.

Mabel laughed, and even her brother couldn't hold back a laugh. Rawly looked a bit surprised at first before smiling.

…

July 30th

Mabel and I spent the day with Rawly today. It sounds like a bad idea, considering how much he wants to eat us, but it was pretty fun. He's actually a pretty nice guy, but he has to try really hard to control his more, uh, primal side. It was super awkward at first, especially 'cause Mabel kept trying to flirt with him (he was pretty oblivious about it, though).

He's a fire dragon, but he has this hyper fixation on plants. He's super knowledgeable about all kinds of different plants. Later, he was telling us about snapdragons. Snapdragons from Necronire are different from the ones here, though. They look different and the Necronire ones actually snap at you. They can't really hurt you, unless you're the size of a small bug or mouse, which is what they apparently are trying to catch.

I noticed after dinner, though, that Rawly snuck out of the house when no one was looking. Well, obviously I was looking, but he didn't seem to realize that. Anyways, I looked through the window and he was sneaking off into the woods, glancing around every now and then to see if anybody was watching or following. I thought it was weird, so I told Amy and Bill. They didn't have much to say about it, but Bill was looking very thoughtful. Where was Rawly going?

…

It was just after noon when Dipper and Mabel had convinced Rawly to join them on a walk through the woods. He was extremely hesitant at first until finally coming to some kind of conclusion with himself and agreeing to go. They walked for a while until they came across a stream and decided to follow it. It led them all the way to another clearing beside a mountain where the water pooled into a small lake.

"Ducks!" Mabel shouted and ran over to the flock. There was a loud flapping of wings as the ducks hurried into the air to avoid her before landing on the other side of the lake.

"I was gonna do that!" Dipper said as he chased after her towards the water.

Rawly stayed where he was and watched them run along the edge of the lake.

"What are you doing here?"

Rawly jumped at the voice beside him.

"Oh, those two," Bill said as he noticed the twins.

"W-What are you doing here?" Rawly asked.

"I've been sensing a presence I don't like somewhere nearby. My powers are finally starting to really come back to me, but I still can't quite see everything. But something, or someone, is nearby…"

"Oh!" Rawly was desperate to change the subject. "Er, um, you… You seem to have found yourself a family, hm?"

"Family? Ha! The only one I care about is Amy."

"I see."

"…Well, I guess those stupid kids aren't so bad…"

Rawly looked at him curiously.

Bill looked away. "But those two old bastards can go fall off a cliff for all I care! And I don't! …And you're here now, so that's another one to add to the list I guess."

"What list?"

"The list of the only people here that I care about. You and Amy are the only ones on it besides myself. …Those two kids are still pending."

"You – Ah, I see… This…is incredibly painful…"

"What was that?" Bill had begun to walk off and wasn't looking at him. He stopped. "Did you say some-" He quickly turned and threw his hand out, knocking aside the blast of orange fire. He stared, surprised, at Rawly, who had taken to his dragon form suddenly. "What are you doing?"

Rawly inhaled a deep breath. He reached into a space between two of the large scale plates on his belly and quickly pulled out a black halberd with a blade and point that began to glow blue. Without a word, he suddenly lunged the point of the weapon at him with such force that it buckled the area of ground that it stabbed after Bill had dodged it. Quickly, Rawly yanked the weapon free and swung it around at Bill, narrowly missing slashing it through his neck.

Furious and surprised, memories flashed through Bill's mind of a time long, long ago when someone else turned on him too. He transformed himself into his dragon form and, with an angry snarl, turned and whipped his tail around to smack the weapon out of Rawly's grasp.

Dipper and Mabel stopped on the other side of the water upon noticing Bill change.

"What's going on?" Mabel asked.

"Move!" Dipper tackled his sister out of the way of the halberd that buried its point into the ground they had just been standing on. "I knew he was acting weird!"

"What do we do?!"

"Let's go get help. Hurry!"

"What's the meaning of this?!" Bill growled.

Rawly was a much smaller dragon than him. He glanced up at him then shut his eyes and lifted his hands; fire began to burn all around the clearing. "Ragnarok demands your death!" He produced fire around his hands and slashed the air, sending a wave of red flames at the larger dragon.

Bill hissed as the fire seared his chest. He had almost forgotten that dragon scales were not immune to dragon magic. Luckily, the majority of the attack had brushed past him.

"Ragnarok?" Bill growled dangerously. "After all this time, you've decided to take his side?" He opened his maw and blasted a ball of blue fire that Rawly barely had any time to jump away from. "After everything, you've turned on me, too!?" He took a step forward, teeth bared in a vicious snarl.

Rawly sent more attacks his way. Bill's muscles twitched to move out of the way of the attacks, but he stopped himself. Almost every blast had missed him, aside from the weakest one, which only brushed over his shoulder. He was confused. Rawly was attacking him and saying such ridiculous things, yet he wasn't trying very hard… Bill knew that Rawly was far more capable than this. Yet, it seemed as if his attacks were missing on purpose. He wasn't even aiming for vitals or vulnerable areas. Then, he realized something else. Rawly appeared to be crying.

Bill suddenly sensed the presence from before, stronger now, and moved only his eye to look for the source. It only took him a moment to spot it through the flames. Atë was in her human form, smiling as she watched from the bough of a large tree.

A blast of fire that hit him in the face pulled his attention back to Rawly. The smaller dragon looked horrified for a second before trying to attack again. Bill lunged at him with a frightening roar and grabbed the smaller dragon in his teeth, lifted him up, and threw him down hard onto the ground.

Winded, Rawly tried to get up, but he was pressed down further by Bill's large paw. Bill growled and lowered his head to him, jaws slightly agape. However, instead of dealing a final blow, he opened his other eye and stared down at Rawly.

Images and scenes flashed swiftly through his mind as he used his power to see the past. Atë had made a deal with Ragnarok… He allowed her to use Shade and Rawly… Shade was unwilling… Atë possessed him… Rawly was unwilling but complied out of fear… Rawly had been meeting with Atë frequently over the past couple of days… She berated and threatened him for not wanting to harm Bill or the others… Rawly's latest thoughts… If I don't then… But I can't… I will… But maybe if I'm careful… Maybe I can get him to realize without saying it… I'm sorry… Please realize…

Bill blinked and brought his jaws closer to Rawly. "…I see," he said quietly. He removed his hand from Rawly's back as the fire all around began to die, then he turned and blasted a fireball at the trees.

"I knew that stupid little boy couldn't get the job done."

Bill turned at the voice and glared down at her.

She shrugged and sighed. "I guess if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself. Still, it was highly amusing to see the broken-hearted look of betrayal on your face, little brother. It was almost as funny as the first time." She vanished as another blast of blue flames was launched at her and reappeared on the other side of the lake. "As temperamental as ever… Fine. I'll even make this fair for you."

She transformed herself into a large dragoness, far larger than Bill, despite her thin frame. She was black as the void with jagged, golden horns and golden spikes trailing along her spine. The end of her tail was tipped with a matching triangular blade. She stretched her wings and grinned wickedly down at Bill.

"Now, let's play fair!" she snarled before lunging at him.

Mabel and Dipper had made a mad dash for home and hastily explained to the others what had happened. Everyone was very surprised to get there and find the large black and gold dragon attacking Bill with violent slashes of her claws that tore into his carapace and powerful blasts of purple and red fire that burned his face.

"I thought you said Rawly was attacking him?!" Amy said.

"He was," Dipper told her. "I don't know who that is!"

"It's Atë," Amy growled. "It's the same aura."

"Stanley, Amy," Ford said. "Quickly! I need you two to come back with me and help me retrieve and set up the device I had been working on! Dipper, Mabel, you two find some way to distract Atë. We'll send Teeth, Shade, and Dionysus to help as soon as we find them. Be careful!"

As they hurried back, Dipper and Mabel ran around the tree line and climbed as far up the mountain they could get with the object they were carrying. They were able to get up nearly as high as Atë's head could reach.

"Good thing we brought this!" Mabel said.

"Is it?" Dipper asked.

"Hey!" Mabel shouted. "Big meanie! Up here!"

Atë dropped Bill from her jaws and craned her head around to look at them. "Hello there, little darlings," she growled. "Come to play too?"

"You bet! Confetti cannon!"

"What – Agh!" She shut her eye and pulled her head back with a hiss as the large toy blasted colorful paper into her face.

"Great," Dipper said. "Now what?"

Atë shook her head and glared down at them with both eyes, her teeth showing as she began to snarl.

"…Run!" Mabel shouted.

They screamed and bolted back down the way they had climbed up as the dragoness rammed her head into the mountain and bit off a large junk of the rock and soil where they had been moments before. Spitting out the mountain, she went after them, violet-colored fire filling her mouth.

"Split up!" Dipper shouted.

They tore apart from each other just before she blasted a flamethrower of intense heat that immediately reduced the trees it touched to ash. Atë turned and breathed more fire in Dipper's direction while she slashed her tail blade through a large tree that fell to block Mabel's side, nearly crushing the girl. Dipper had thrown himself on the ground, narrowly avoiding being turned to ash himself.

"You insolent little children! You –" She was cut off by Bill leaping onto her shoulders and sinking his teeth into one of her wings. "Get off of me, you pathetic whelp!"

She craned her head back and snagged her teeth into his tail, ripping him from her shoulders and throwing him aside, but not before he managed to turn and tear his claws through her cheek.

"How DARE you!?" she screeched as blood trickled from her cuts. Then, she huffed and smiled down at him contemptuously. He was far more torn apart and bleeding than she was. "You've always been such a pathetic little weakling. I almost pity you!" she spat.

As she sent another blast of fire at him, it was stopped and blown apart as it collided with a separate blast of fire. When the flames dispersed, she saw a black and white dragon standing defiantly between her and Bill.

"I thought I heard a ruckus," Crusade grinned with a false and dangerous-looking smile. "My brother leaves me in charge for a day and of course something happens."

"Get out of the way, beta," Atë said. "This does not concern you."

Crusade chuckled. "That's where you're wrong, lady. You're picking on my friends."

She snarled as several more dragons showed up to stand between them. Shade, Teeth, and Dionysus had joined Crusade to defend Bill.

"Hah! You need help to even try and stand a chance against me? Little brother, you truly are weak!"

"Sounds like someone's mad she doesn't have any friends," Crusade said to Dionysus.

"Yeah," he growled, "and that nobody wants her to be here…"

Bill lifted himself to his paws and glanced between them in surprise before he let out a laugh. Atë was furious.

"It's ready," Ford said. "We just have to find a way to trick her into entering the ring."

Dipper and Mabel had caught up to them and they all turned to look at the fighting dragons. Although she was outnumbered and taking damage, Atë was still bigger and stronger than all of them. She was still winning the fight. When she had finally managed to knock them all down, she raised her head high and laughed at them.

"Pathetic! You're all nothing! Especially you!" she snarled down at Bill.

"He's far more than you are!" Amy said.

Atë turned to look at her standing with the humans. "What?" she growled.

"Bill is better and stronger than you could ever dream of being!"

"Ha! This pathetic little whelp lying bleeding in the dirt?!"

"You're just a big bully!" Mabel shouted from Amy's side.

"Yeah," Amy said. "And bullies only pick on others because they're jealous!"

"Jealous!?" Atë shrieked. "I have far more power than all of your little friends combined!"

"Oh, really? Because you seem pretty pathetic to me."

"What did you call me!?"

"Pathetic," Amy repeated. "And a real bitch."

"ENOUGH! Any last words before I devour you and your worthless magic?!"

"Yes, actually." Amy did not move as the big dragoness lunged for her. "You're also…an idiot."

Atë gasped as something forced her into her real form, a black triangle with a golden glow, and a circle of bright light flashed on the ground below her. Pillars of light burst from the ring and arched over her, solidifying into magical cage bars that shocked and burned her if she touched them. A machine at the center of the ring unfolded itself and added its own layer of imprisonment.

"What?! What is this?!"

"Oh, I thought you would know?" Ford smirked. "It's a cross between dragon sealing magic and a gamma ray gun. I had originally been designing it for Bill, but it seems I won't be needing it for him. Good thing, too, since the machine is only good for one use."

Atë stared at them, stunned and horrified.

Amy turned and placed her finger on her lip and her other hand on her hip, mimicking Atë's manner of standing and speaking. "Looks like you lost, darling."

She shrieked with furious rage and thrashed around in the device, but the dragon magic prevented her from being able to damage it or escape.

"Such a child," Amy huffed.

Ford pressed a button on a remote he was holding and a bright light began to fill the machine. Before she was blasted into nothingness, Atë managed to scream out, "This isn't the end! Pathos with come to haunt you!" and then she was gone, reduced to nothing. The light from the sealing magic faded and the machine collapsed in a pile of smoking junk.

After Shade and Amy finished healing everyone, Mabel noticed something out the corner of her eye and turned to spot Rawly trying to limp away into the woods.

"Hey," she called. "Where are you going?"

The scarlet dragon froze and turned to look at her. Everyone was looking at him. "I – Well, I – …I think, maybe I should go…"

"You have somewhere to be?" Bill asked.

"Well, n-no, but I –"

"Rawly…"

The young dragon walked over to him and looked up at him, breathing heavily, as if he was trying to hold back panic. "I – Sir – Bill…"

The larger dragon wrapped his tail around and pulled him up against his forelimb. He lowered his head and lightly touched the tip of his snout to Rawly's head. "…I know. Don't mention it."

Rawly broke down in tears.

To be continued…

If you plan to read the sequel for this story when it comes, remember her last words...