In a dream he's having that night, Samuel finds himself on a deserted playground. He recognizes it as the one where he first met Mabel and Mason. He recalls the day with fondness, and the memory makes him feel heartwarmed.

Suddenly, he notices that he isn't alone. Dipper is standing ominously in the middle of the deserted area, showing his back to his friend. "Dipper!" He starts running with a smile towards him. But suddenly...

"HAHAHAHAHAHAHA..." a creepy laugh makes him stop in place as he was about to reach his friend. He looks around and sees nothing, and in the meantime, the representation of his friend is gone.

"WELL, WELL, WELL..." The voice is loud and scary, and Sammy looks around confused, as no one is there to do these sounds. But then, as he looks in front of him one last time...

He comes face to face with a giant floating one-eyed yellow triangle with limbs, a top hat, a bowtie and a cane. Their eyes to eye contact is dangerously close. And that creature speaks with a small and taunting... "Boo!"

Samuel is so terrified that he falls on the floor from his jump of terror, with a very appropriate scream of horror too. "W-WHO...? W-WHAT ARE YOU? WHAT'S GOING ON?"

The triangle switches to a cheerfully mocking attitude. "Relax! It's nice to get the chance to properly introduce myself to you, kiddo! Name's Bill Cipher! You better be ready because I'm coming for you!" Bill touches the kid's face in an unsettling manner. Sammy stays stunned, incapable of doing a thing. Bill then leaves a creepy message. "Your friend is gone forever! All that's left is an empty shell of him! If you don't want to join him... You must destroy the puppet!"

Samuel hears in complete horror. "What do you mean, my friend is gone? What is that talk of puppet even supposed to mean?" He looks confused, and not knowing leads to him being terrified.

Bill gives a teasing answer. "You'll figure it out soon enough, smarty pants. For now... Just know that your world will crumble by my hands. This is what it costs you to be someone those two kids care about!"

"Those two kids... You mean my best friends? But why...?"

The boy has way too many questions that he doesn't have the time to ask. The triangle being throws something at the ground, and the place dear to Samuel's heart catches fire in blue flames while the demon stares at it circling the human. And there's nothing he can do than burn alive and scream.

Sammy wakes up in a cold sweat, seeing that it was just a nightmare with a lot of relief. He realizes it's morning and that his two friends are already awake and outside the bedroom. He still feels some pain from before he fell asleep, bringing back his fear.

And this is when Dipper enters gleefully. "Morning, sleepyhead!", says he in a mocking manner as he shuts the door.

Samuel feels a strong unease... "Dipper, I'm scared... It feels like something is after me... Regardless if it's at school, here or... I had a creepy nightmare too..."

Dipper says something... very freaky. "Oh, don't worry... I know!"

"Uh? What do you mean...?" Dipper giggles scaringly as his friend is scared. He gets closer to Samuel's face with a sadistic smile, and the proximity causes the kid to notice... "Wait, are your eyes...? A little off?"

With a smirk, Dipper answers. "You're quite observant, Fuzzball!"

The name brings up the terrifying flashback of what happened at school. He then remembers... who did this. He remembers Dipper pinning him against the wall and threatening him very badly. He speaks up, horrified. "It was you..."

His friend then laughs evilly. "HAHA! You got a flashback to THAT, uh? It was a glorious moment, wouldn't you say?" He looks at him with the creepiest smile.

In a state of terror, Samuel runs to reach the door and ask for help. "Mabel...? MABEL!" He turns and shakes the doorknob, but without any success.

"Looking for this?" Dipper shows the key, which he stores in his pocket, and Samuel is frozen. "No one will help you! We're alone, face to face!" He shows a wicked grin.

Mabel reached the door, as she heard a call, but she can't open it. "Dipper, Sammy? What's going on?" She doesn't get an answer and gets worried. As her parents are absent for now, she remembers that they have a spare key of the room somewhere and goes to seek it.

Desperate, Samuel tries to reason with him. "Dipper... my best friend..."

He speaks furiously. "I am NOT your friend, you worthless waste of existence!"

Samuel shakes... The kid is terrified. "What do you want...?"

"I know you had that nightmare... Because I caused it!" Pretty much everything he says is petrifying Samuel more and more. "I caused that school incident, as well as your stomach ache! I want you GONE!" He laughs evilly. After some silence he says. "But, you have a solution..."

He pauses once again to make his words even more impactful. "Your friend is gone forever! All that's left is an empty shell of him! If you don't want to join him... You must destroy the puppet!"

The eerie echoing from his nightmare, it wasn't a lie... The new Dipper somehow manipulated it to his advantage. He approaches and starts choking Sammy. "Go on, defend yourself..."

The kid answers, trying to grasp at the air he can. "I can't... You're... my friend...".

This causes """Dipper""" to get frustrated and letting him go. "Won't you understand? I am NOT your friend! He is gone! And you'll finish the job to ensure he won't come back!"

Samuel breathes hard. He feels sadness, despair, anger... building... He starts feeling like he has no choice but to fight back if he wants to survive...

Dipper gets ecstatic. "Yes, YES! Let it build! But maybe you still need... A little more motivation..." He lets out one of his most sadistic smirk yet. He then takes off the friendship bracelet of Dipper, and Sammy has an idea about where this is going, but...

Dipper rips the bracelet completely with a lot of evil satisfaction, and Samuel feels his heart broken to pieces alongside it. "Your bracelet was pathetic! I can't believe you wasted your time and were braindead enough to think such a garbage piece of cloth means anything of value!"

Adding to all the emotion from before, this causes Samuel to jump at his friend's body with the energy of a feral beast, beating him up very badly, all while the one controlling the body is clearly enjoying this. "Here it is! Here's your rage!" He takes great pleasure at witnessing it and laughs at how insane the human kid acts at injuring him.

After a little bit, Dipper was beaten unconscious and Bill ends up revealing himself. Samuel breathes his anger out, making the connection between his nightmare and everything that happened. He figures out that it wasn't his friend making him suffer willingly. "Well congratulations, kid! Didn't think you had it in you!"

Samuel with most of his rage gone, realizes what he has just done as Bill explains what he felt while using his puppet. "You couldn't destroy it, but I didn't expect a kid to be able to do that without using a sharp item anyway. You certainly left a big amount of bruises and a couple of broken bones! I'll take it as a success!"

The dark-haired kid cries as he falls to his knees. "No... Dipper..." He grabs his body with a lot of sorrow. "It can't be... If anyone finds out I did this... I'll be in a lot of trouble..."

Bill approaches his face, acting surprisingly friendly. "Relax, Fuzzball, I can fix that for you..."

Sammy is very wary for very good reasons, but he wants to see a glimmer of hope. "You... can...? How? And why would you do that?"

The demon acts sneaky while holding his cane. "How about... we make a deal...?"

"A... deal?" The kid is both confused and untrustful, but he's willing to hear him out.

"I'm the only one that can fix the mess you caused." Samuel frowns with anger at the triangle being for very obvious reasons, given who started the whole thing. But Bill ignores the stare. "I can very easily fix all the bruises you caused, and have your friend become himself again with no memories of what just happened. It would only cost you... a little something..."

"A-and what would that be...?"

Bill answers in the most casual way possible. "You yield your body to me forever! You'll let me control it over you!"

Samuel is horrified. "NO! I CAN'T DO THAT! WHY WOULD I?"

Bill acts reassuring, manipulating his emotions perfectly. "Because if you don't... people will find out what you did to your best friend... Everyone will blame you... They won't buy your explanation... And if that happens, then you won't see your friends again... You won't ever make friends again... And your family won't trust you and will punish you for life... So you either do this, or you live a life of misery... It's your call, Fuzzball!" The demon then extends his right hand to the boy, and it starts catching fire with blue flames. "Do we have a deal...?"

Thoughts are racing in the kid's mind, but he feels very doubtful. No way he would accept these conditions... Declining would however mean being framed as a bully and losing his best friends' trust. Then he hears a sound... Mabel found the spare key at last, and she's starting to try to unlock the door.

Bill taunts. "Whoops, tick tock, tick tock...". As he says that, his bowtie turns into the picture of a bomb with a very short fuse.

Sammy snaps. "ALRIGHT, I'll do it in one condition... Don't get my friends physically harmed again!"

"Deal, kid!" The two shake hands, a blue fire engulfing the alliance. The kid is very displeased about the whole thing, but he had no choice.

"Yes, YES!" In a matter of seconds, Bill disappears, entering Sammy's body. And Dipper heals and wakes up on his bed, not being sure what happened. Even the friendship bracelet got fixed and is back on his wrist. Mabel opens the door barely a second too late to know what happened.

She looks very emotive. "What game were you guys playing? You locked me out and I had no answer! I got so worried..."

Dipper stands up again. "Gee, I'm sorry, Sis... I don't know what happened..."

Sammy speaks up. "I do..." He manages to invent a lie on the spot. "Dipper locked the door because he wanted to tell me something important. He didn't feel too confident about you finding out what it was, so he left you out for a bit. Then, he fell asleep again while you were preparing breakfast, and I didn't think about taking the key and unlocking the door."

Dipper feels drowsy from the experience, and he can't deny that story because he doesn't remember at all and does feel like it makes sense.

Sammy approaches Mabel with a comforting pat. "I'm sorry we got you worried, alright?" She hugs him, signifying there are no hard feelings.

The three take their breakfast, and it is now time for Samuel to go home.

After he said goodbye to Mabel, he gets escorted to the door by Dipper.
"So, we see each other tomorrow at school, alright?" Dipper says with a smile.

"We sure will. See you soon, my friend..." Suddenly, Samuel's eyes turn into Bill's for a very split second, a "blink and you miss it" moment. This causes Dipper to gasp of shock, and his opened jaw gets noticed.

"What's wrong, buddy?", asks the boy with concern and warmth in his voice.

Dipper thinks about how tired he feels and notices his friend's regular behavior immediately. With that, he writes it off as something his mind made up to trick him. "Oh, nothing, don't worry... Have a nice Sunday. Can't wait to see you tomorrow!" He closes the door after waving goodbye.

As Samuel is alone and walks away, Bill takes full control of the body, his eyes staying permanently to signify his control. "Oh, I cannot wait either..." Bill's voice comes out before he giggles evilly to himself.

Author notes: Here we are, the big villain makes his proper debut in the story at last, and the most important part of the story just occured. So it should hopefully feel more eventful from now on after setting things up until now.

Had to leave out Mabel for most of this one, and this won't be the last time, but she'll get her importance soon enough for you, I hope.

Thanks for reading!