(A/N: Alright, we're finally here. All our heroes have come together and are about to face Bill. On that note, I have had some people ask what's taking Bill so long to get to Gravity Falls and inquire about the weirdness bubble and stuff. There's going to be some shocking revelations this chapter about several things, and I'm sure some of you will end up with even more questions. Don't worry, I have answers for all that that will all be addressed this chapter, either in it or in the Author's Note at the end.)

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Chapter 8: You Can't Escape The Past

More laughter escaped Bill as he surveyed the scene before him. "I have to admit, I'm impressed you were able to figure out where my statue was and get to it before me. Guess I shouldn't have underestimated you and announced my destination. Lucky for me, you didn't think of the obvious solution until now."

"We got a little distracted while waiting for you," Sasha replied, trying to appear confident. "What kept you anyway?"

Bill casually waved this off. "Eh, just a little problem I had to take care of. Also, this body requires food and rest. Apparently, flying around and using my power, however limited, zaps its strength. I, or the OG me, learned the importance of taking care of any vessel I possess. It's really quite the nuisance getting tired and hungry." His eyes shifted to Dipper, and his grin widened. "Ain't that right, Pine Tree?"

Dipper glared up at him. "Bill."

"Bet you never thought you'd see me again, did ya?" He looked the group over, looking amused. "Well now, this is quite the interesting crossover of characters. It's like some big universal unification story. Three sides of the triangle, all revolving around me; I'm the triangle. You guys did all this just for my sake. I'm touched."

Sasha pointed up at him. "Last chance, you triangle freak, give us back Marcy, right now!"

Bill made a pfft noise. "This again? Relax, Pink Gem, I already told you, you can have her back once I get my own body. And this time, you won't be able to erase me like you did the other me."

"Wait, how do you know about that?" Dipper exclaimed. "You're not the same Bill we faced, you're just a copy of him."

"Maybe so, but like him, I can see through anything that bears my image. And what was the original Bill other than my image? Anything he knew, I knew as well, even when I was stuck in the Core's subconscious. And speaking of which, I know something the other me didn't." His grin widened. "I know how to escape the bubble of weirdness surrounding Gravity Falls that the original Bill couldn't get through."

Dipper took a step back in horror. "What? But… how?"

Bill laughed. "It's actually part of the reason it took me saw long to get here. I did say I had a little problem to take care of, and that was it. See, I knew that even if I gained a body that I wouldn't be able to escape from Gravity Falls unless I figured out a way to take down its barrier. Old Six Fingers said there was a simple equation that could do it. Fortunately, your friend Marcy is a genius, and after picking through her brain for a while, I was able to figure out the equation that will allow me to do just that. So once I get a body, not only will Weirdmageddon be back on track, but I'll be able to take it worldwide."

Dipper and Mabel exchanged worried looks. They knew that the weirdness bubble had been the had been the only thing stopping Bill from spreading his power globally with the way it drew in such weirdness; the very reason why there was so much of it in Gravity Falls. If he had figured out how to take down the barrier, then there would be no stopping him.

But they weren't going to be intimidated, and Dipper thrusted his fist up at him. "We beat you before… or, the other you before, and we'll beat this one too."

"And we have extra help this time!" Mabel declared proudly. "With magic."

Rolling his eyes, Bill wiggled his fingers mockingly. "Ooh, magic, ooooh. And just what exactly do you plan to do? Fight me? Well, go ahead and try it. Just know that even though I'm in control, anything you do to this body will affect Marcy. So go ahead and fight me if you're not afraid of hurting her." He held up his hand and a blue fireball appeared in his palm. "Because I have no problem hurting any of you."

He threw the fireball at them. Amity acted quickly, pulling a stream of Abomination sludge from her pouch and sending it up to catch and extinguish the fireball. She then directed the sludge up towards Bill, and it split into several tendrils that flew towards him. Bill looked from one tendril to the other as they wrapped around him, encasing him in a sphere of purple sludge that dropped to the ground.

"Whoa, that was cool!" Anne exclaimed.

"Yeah," Dipper agreed with a raised eyebrow, "but why does she suddenly remind me of that Waterbending girl, Katara? You know, from that Avatar show?"

Next to him, Mabel beamed. "I love that show."

"Now that I think about it, they even kind of sound alike. Like she could be her voice actor or something."

"I know, right!"

"Will you two focus!" Sasha snapped impatiently.

The ball of sludge shook and jerked before suddenly expanding until it burst. Bill rose up into the air again, looking amused as he sneered down at the others.

"Nice try, but it's going to take a bit more than that to contain me," he told them. He held out his hand again, and from somewhere in the woods, a giant boulder came flying out to him. "For now, I'm about to rock you like a hurricane."

He sent the boulder flying at Amity. This time it was King who acted, leaping up onto her shoulder and releasing a "Weh!" that completely shattered the boulder to pieces and sent them scattering. He then jumped off Amity's shoulder and pointed up at Bill.

"Listen up, Cipher," he announced. "I don't care how powerful you are or what horrible things my book of demons said about you, no one hurts my friends!"

Bill feigned concern. "Oh no, a literal teen Titan. I'm so scared. What are you going to do? Like I said, if you try and hurt me, you'll only be hurting Marcy. And once I gain a real body, not even a fully grown Titan is strong enough to…"

He trailed off as he stared at King, his eyes narrowing suspiciously. "Wait a second." He suddenly zoomed in so he was right in front of King, their faces inches apart. "I sense something… familiar…"

King had jerked back in surprise when Bill had gotten right up in his face, but he now stood his ground, glaring at the interdimensional being as Bill studied him with interest.

Suddenly, Bill's eyes widened in realization and he threw back his head and began laughing hysterically. King raised an eyebrow at this and glanced at the others questioningly, but they seemed just as bewildered as him by Bill's behavior.

"I don't believe it!" the interdimensional being exclaimed. "I just don't believe it! That's what he did?"

He began laughing some more, leaving everyone else utterly confused as to what was so funny. His laughter began to get on Sasha's nerves though and she let out an annoyed growl. "What is so funny!?"

Wiping away a tear of laughter, he sneered at the group. "Ok, ok, I'll tell you. You're really going to love this; the irony is unbelievable." He looked at King again, his grin widening. "Get ready, little man, because I'm about to upend your whole life."

King suddenly got a feeling of déjà vu that reminded him of the times he discovered that he wasn't the king of demons and when he found out he was the last of the Titans. "Why am I getting a bad feeling about this?"

Bill gave a small shrug. "It depends how you look at things." He rose higher into the air. "Alright, you three-dimensional creatures, listen up. Millions of years ago when I was trying to break out of my own dimension, I encountered this powerful deity called Axolotl. The big frilly know it all knew all about me and somehow came to the conclusion that I wasn't happy with my life. So he offered me a new one in another time and place. I mean, seriously, just think about that. Me, Bill Cipher, not happy. How ridiculous. Not happy about being stuck in my dead two-dimensional universe, maybe, but not happy in general? What a joke."

Anne and Sasha glanced at each other, both thinking the same thing. They knew that an axolotl was a type of amphibian. Did that mean that this god Bill encountered was a deity from the realm of Amphibia? Anne wished she could ask Plantars to find out.

"Naturally, I turned down the almighty idiot's offer," Bill continued. "But I know that when the other me was being erased, he called out to him, accepting his offer. Seems it was still on the table, because Axolotl did indeed grant him a new life in a new time and place." His grin became almost mocking as he looked down at King. "And it turns out that that offer involved having the original me be reincarnated as a certain baby Titan."

King's eyes widened in astonishment, his pupils shrinking down to pinpricks. His heart actually skipped a beat in his chest from shock before it began racing, and he took a step backwards as he suddenly found it difficult to breathe. "Y-You're… You're lying. That… That just can't be… I can't be…"

Bill laughed some more. "Why would I lie? Face it, half-pint, you used to be the original me. I can sense it. I mean, just listen to our voices even, they're almost exactly the same. To go with what Pine Tree over there said, it's like the same voice actor is using the same voice to voice us both." He crossed his arms thoughtfully. "Man, when Axolotl said that he would give me a new life, I didn't know he was talking about reincarnating me. But since he did, I guess it makes sense that he would make my reincarnation be something like a Titan; it would have to be something incredibly powerful to contain all the power the original me possessed."

Taking another step backwards, King began shaking his head. "No, no, this can't be."

"Oh, but it is, kid. You can sense our connection too, can't you?" His grin widened, becoming almost mocking. "Want proof? The original me was erased seventeen years ago. Tell me, just how old are you, King?"

"No!" the little Titan wailed. "I won't believe it! I won't!"

"King," Luz said soothingly, dropping to his side and placing a hand on his shoulder. "It's ok, King."

Dipper stepped in front of them, blocking them from the interdimensional being. "Yeah, it's not true. Bill's a liar. Just think about the timing of everything; it doesn't add up."

With tears in his eyes, King looked up at Dipper. "But I am only about seventeen. That's how long ago you said the original Bill was defeated."

Dipper looked back at him with a smirk. "That may be true, but don't you remember what you told us? You said you heard your dad call out to you as he was being killed while you were still inside you egg. But your dad's body is the Boiling Isles, and Belos traveled there in, like, the 1600s, right, Luz?"

She nodded. "That did seem to be the time period when I met Philip."

"And based on the story Masha told us about the Brothers Wittebane," Willow chimed in.

"And," Amity added to Luz, "you said you stuck your head in that one-time pool where you saw the Boiling Isles in prehistoric times."

Dipper nodded. "Right. So the Boiling Isles must be millions of years old, or at the very least thousands of years old. Life on them had already fully evolved and advanced to the point of being civilized by the 1600s. Meaning your dad died long before then. And if you heard him die, even if you were still developing in your egg, which is a ridiculously long incubation period," he pointed victoriously up at Bill, "then you can't possibly be the original Bill's reincarnation since he was only defeated seventeen years ago, because you already existed long before that, even if you were still in an egg. What do you say to that, Other Bill?"

If he thought he would get Bill to admit to having lied with this logic and reasoning, he was wrong. Bill simply continued to look amused before he began laughing mockingly.

"I'll give you credit, Pine Tree, you make a good argument. However, you're forgetting something very important. Axolotl is a god, one whose power transcends space and time. Not even Time Baby compares to him, and he had the power to alter time paradox free. Do you really think a powerful deity like that couldn't do something like reincarnate the original me at a different point in time, even in the past? And just in time for things to line up so the OG me's reincarnation was born, or should I say, hatched, just as the original Bill was being wiped out."

The victorious smirk on Dipper's face slowly fell away, the finger he was pointing at him drooping. "Oh… yeah, I guess if you take that into consideration…"

Bill began laughing again. "Oh, what tangled webs we weave. It's like it's destiny with all of us meeting up like this." He grinned down at King. "And now the original me's reincarnation can witness his copy rise to power to become the new and true Bill Cipher."

Sasha's fists clenched. While the thought of Titans having such an extensive incubation process was indeed mind-boggling as Dipper said, though not unbelievable considering how long it took for them to actually die once they were killed, there were more pressing matters to be concerned with.

Stepping forward, she stood beside Dipper in front of King and Luz. "And so what?" She looked back at the little Titan. "Who cares if you're the original Bill's reincarnation? That's not who you are anymore. People change all the time; I certainly did. King, whoever you were in the past doesn't matter; you don't even remember that life. You're King Clawthorne now, the last Titan. That's who you really are. That's what matters. That's all that matters."

Luz gave her an appreciative smile, then gave King a fond look. "She's right. Absolutely nothing's changed from now and the few minutes that passed since we found this out. You're still our precious King, and we love you."

"Luz…" King said quietly. He then threw his little arms around her, giving her a quick hug. Upon ending the embrace, he wiped his eyes before glaring up at Bill. "They're right. Even if I used to be you, or the other you, it doesn't matter. This is who I am now." He thumped his chest. "I may not remember my time as Bill, but I know this much, that Axolotl god was right, I couldn't possibly have been happy if I was anything like you, but I am happy now."

Bill rolled his eyes. "Oh, wow, that's so sweet and wholesome, so much so I think I'm going to be sick. You only think that way because you don't remember who you used to be. But I can tell you this much, I like who I am, and I'm certainly glad I originally turned down that amphibi-fool's offer. I still can't believe OG me accepted it. Though, I guess he didn't know Axolotl was going to reincarnate him when he accepted the offer, and I suppose it is better than being erased from existence. In any case, I certainly won't ever be taking that offer, if it's even still on the table anymore since OG me took it already. What need would I have for it anyway since I'm about to be back and better than ever?"

Eda stepped forward. "Maybe. Just one problem."

An amused smile spread across Bill's face. "Oh? And what's that, Owl Lady?"

"You villains talk too much. And your lengthy monologues give us time to do things like this. Now!"

Luz, Amity, Willow, Gus, and Hunter all thrusted their staves at Bill while simultaneously crying out, "Sleep spell!"

Rings of magic flew from their staves and began flowing over Bill. His eyes widened as the magic took effect, and he immediately began nodding off.

"What!?" he exclaimed. He fought against the spells, but even with him in control of Marcy's body, it was still vulnerable to their magic, and he began descending from the sky. "You think this will stop me? You're only delaying the inevitable! Nothing can… stop… st-stop… me…"

He came down to the ground and fell asleep, snoring softly. The others let out sighs of relief and looked to the Owl Lady.

"You have the spell ready, Eda?" Luz asked.

The Owl Lady held out her staff and stomped it on the ground in front of her. At the top of the staff, Owlbert's eyes began glowing with magic. "Ready and waiting. Good thing villains love to hear themselves talk."

"Just be sure to keep him asleep," Dipper told her. "I don't know how limited Bill's power is right now, but I'm sure he'll be fighting against the spell."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Eda replied dismissively. "You got the bell to ring for when you want me to pull you out?"

"Got it," Gus replied, holding up the bell in question.

"Ok then, here we go."

Owlbert spread his wings and beams of light shot out of his glowing eyes. It swirled around the others, and they vanished as they were carried off with the spell. The beams of magic then flew over to Marcy's unconscious form and entered her forehead. This left Eda alone with only Owlbert for company, and she focused all of his magic on Marcy to make sure both she and Bill stayed asleep.

"Ok, you lot," she said to herself while hoping Owlbert's magic alone could keep Bill out of commission, "it's up to you. Defeat this guy once and for all."

(-)-(-)-(-)-(-)-(-)-(-)-(-)-(-)-(-)

The spell Eda had used quite literally dumped the group of eleven in a pile in the depths of Marcy's mind. Only in this case, it was a mind that resembled a library in a medieval castle in a fantasy world. It took a little while for the group to take notice of this though as they climbed all over each other to try and disentangle themselves.

"Ow, talk about a rough landing," Sasha grumbled.

"Tell me about it," Dipper agreed. "She could have at least given us a more graceful landing."

Luz gave them an irritated look. "Hey, it's a complicated spell, even with one's own magic, and Eda was relying solely on Owlbert. Be glad she could pull it off at all."

"Alright, alright, I'm sorry," Dipper replied quickly. "You're right, I shouldn't complain about things I don't know anything about."

Getting to her feet, Anne looked around at the seemingly never-ending library. "Where are we? Is this really the inside of Marcy's mind? It looks more like an ancient library."

Luz dusted herself off. "That's because the mind reflects that of the person. When Amity and I were in Willow's mind, it resembled a forest with a bunch of portraits on the trees that contained her memories."

"And when we were in Belos' mind, it was some creepy cave," Hunter added.

Mabel looked around curiously. "Well, when Dipper, Soos, and I were in Stan's mind, it was the Mystery Shack, but with a whole bunch of doors containing his memories."

"Hmm," Sasha muttered and walked over to one of them shelves. "Well, knowing Marcy, this definitely seems like what her mind would be like."

She took a book from the shelf and opened it, revealing a picture in the book of Marcy as a child. For some reason, she felt compelled to take a closer look, and she leaned in further and further until, the next thing she knew, she was sticking her face into the picture in the book itself. And as she did so, she witnessed as the memory began to play out.

Despite the book's small size, she felt as if she could somehow still fit into the book entirely, but instead, she pulled her head out. Shutting the book, she placed it back on the shelf and looked back at the others. "Yup, this is Marcy's mind alright."

Dipper began looking around suspiciously. "Then Bill is in here somewhere. But where?"

"Maybe we should try and find the Inner Marcy," Anne suggested. "Perhaps she can help us."

Sasha's brow furrowed. "Yeah, I still don't really get that 'inner self' thing."

"It's basically a manifestation of a person's thoughts and feelings," Hunter told her. He then crossed his arms thoughtfully. "Although, if Bill has taken over your friend's mind, there's a good chance he's holding her prisoner somewhere in here."

Gus suddenly grabbed his head and cried out in dismay. "Oh no, you guys, we goofed! We should have destroyed the Bill statue back in the real world when we had the chance before we had Eda send us in here."

Everyone else was taken aback as they realized he was right, and Luz snapped her fingers. "Aw, nuts. Guess we got caught up in the moment and forgot about it."

Amity sighed. "It's fine. We'll take care of Bill here, then get rid of the statue when we get back. Best not to take the chance of having Eda pull us out and risk Bill waking up when she does; we might not get the chance to put him to sleep again."

"Good point," Mabel replied, and looked down the length of the hall of the library. "But how are we supposed to find Bill? Look how big this place is?"

"Maybe we'll get lucky and he'll find us?" Willow suggested hopefully.

"Is that lucky?" Gus asked uncertainly.

"I don't know," a voice oh so familiar rang out from behind them. "Let's find out."

The phrase 'speak of the devil and he shall appear' seemed accurate as the group turned to see Bill emerging from the ground. He rose up until he was floating in the air above them. It seemed he decided to go big this time, as he must have been about twenty-five feet tall from the top of his hat to the bottom of his feet.

Dipper's eyes narrowed. "Yeah, that's Bill alright."

"And you're the Pine Tree all grown up," the interdimensional being commented. "You know, I'm actually rather impressed with your resourcefulness. All of you getting together like this and coming into Marcy's mind to stop me, very ambitious. Seems I underestimated you even more than I thought."

Sasha stepped forward. "We're not here to impress you. We're here to save Marcy. Now, where is she? Or the Inner her? Inner Marcy?" Giving up on the classification, she threw her hands in the air. "Where's our friend?"

Bill rolled his eye. "Sheesh, relax. It's like I told you before. I'm not going to hurt her; I need her. As for where she is, well, technically, she's all around you; this is her head after all. But I think what you're looking for is right here."

He snapped his finger and a pillar burst up from the ground. And bound to it by glowing, triangle-shaped links of chains was Marcy. She looked unharmed, but appeared to be unconscious.

"Marcy!" Anne cried, reaching out of her.

Shrinking down to a mere two feet in size, Bill hovered beside his captive. "Relax, she's fine. She's just out of it a bit. This body only needs one person behind the driver's wheel."

Taking a shot in the dark, Dipper attempted a peaceful solution. "Listen, Bill, we've been through this before, and we're not looking forward to doing it again. So just hand over Marcy and go back to your own dimension."

"Or else we'll beat you up like last time!" Mabel declared, thrusting her fist in the air.

The interdimensional being looked unconcerned as he rolled his eye once more. "Sure, right, you 'beat me up'." He made air quotes to go along with what he said. "Funny, because I recall you being completely at my mercy and needing your uncles to resort to trickery in order to sacrifice Stan to erase me. I wouldn't exactly call that 'beating me up'. And for some reason, I don't see history repeating itself."

"Maybe not in the real world," Dipper declared, "but we've beaten you in the dream world. And that was when there was only three of us. Now we've got even more friends here to help us."

As if to emphasize his point, the others gathered around him, symbolizing how they were going to stand together against the interdimensional being. Bill just continued to look bored as the entourage banded together.

"Oh, wow, I'm so terrified," he mocked. "You have a few new friends. Well guess what, I can make some friends too. How about a blast from your pasts?"

He shot his arms outward and different members of the group were torn apart. Dipper and Mabel remained where they were while Anne and Sasha were tossed to the left and everyone else was tossed to the right.

"Let's see how you fair in a round two against your greatest adversaries," Bill declared. "I can hardly imagine the same results."

He snapped his fingers and two new figures emerged from the ground. The one that appeared before Anne and Sasha was no other than the Core in its large spider-like robot form, and attached to the top of it from the waste up, giving it the appearance of an Arachne, was none other than Darcy wielding her scythe.

"Hello, friends," she said with a sinister smile. "Did you miss me?"

At the same time, the figure that emerged in front of the group of witches was Belos in his full emperor garb. His glowing eyes shined at them maliciously from behind his mask.

"So," he said in a cruel mocking voice, "we meet again."

The color drained from Hunter's face and he took a step back at the sight of his uncle. "B-Belos."

Willow placed a hand on his shoulder to calm him, knowing how much Belos triggered his PTSD. "No, that's not the real Belos."

Luz twirled around her staff and pointed it at the witch hunter. "That's right, he's just a fake Belos that Bill created to try and throw us off."

Hearing this, Anne's face lit up in realization. "Hey, that's right. And this isn't the real Darcy. They're both just fragments of the imagination."

Sasha, who had looked unsettled before, now smiled confidentially and stood up tall. "Yeah, they're not real. And if we beat the real ones already, we can certainly beat these fake, imaginary ones."

Bill pretended to look thoughtful. "Hmm, you're right. Who wants to see a repeat of a previous fight? So let's shake things up a bit."

He pointed at both Darcy and Belos, then crossed his arms. The two villains were lifted up into the air and switched sides so it was Darcy who was now facing the witches and Belos who was now facing Anne and Sasha.

"Oh, cruuuuud," Anne muttered uneasily.

Bill laughed. "Time to see how you fair against your friends' adversaries. As for you two," he looked down at Dipper and Mabel, and suddenly transformed into his giant, monstrous, red form, "I'm in the mood for a little revenge."

(A/N: Ok, so a lot happened in this chapter. Let's start with the elephant in the room. I'm talking, of course, about Bill and King. Yup, King is Bill's reincarnation as a result of him accepting Axolotl's deal. And no, this isn't something that was just made up for this story, but something legit. So, I'm sure all of you know by now that when Bill was being erased, he began spouting a bunch of gibberish, which when played backwards revealed him calling out to the deity Axolotl and invoking the ancient power so that he might return. What you might not know though is that when Gravity Falls aired, there were a series of Easter Eggs and codes that when deciphered led to a website that revealed in the past how Bill met Axolotl, who realized that Bill wasn't happy and offered him a chance to start over with a new life in a new time and place. Well, through various forms of media, including interviews and postings and such, it's been very heavily implied that what happened to Bill is that he was reincarnated as King from The Owl House. Not only has this been implied to be what happened, but there's evidence to back it up. It's not exactly a mystery that Alex Hirsch does several voices, yet out of all of them, both Bill and King's are exactly the same. And with Bill being erased in 2012 and King being 8 in 2020, that means he was born at approximately the same time Bill was erased. And with how powerful Bill is, he would need to be reincarnated as a Titan to be able to contain all that power. So yeah, this is a real canon thing, or at least was very heavily implied. All I had to do was offer up some explanation as to how King was able to hear his father's voice while he was still in an egg when his father died however long ago before Bill was erased, and with Axolotl being a god with power greater than Time Baby, manipulating time paradox free to reincarnate Bill in the past so his new life starts as soon as his old one ends would be a simple matter. How's that for blowing your mind? And speaking of minds, our heroes are now in Marcy's mind facing down Bill. But being the mischief maker he is, he's created imaginary copies of Belos and Darcy and has now pitied them against our heroes. Things are about to really start getting wild now, so stay tuned.)