The dawn of the second summer week has shown itself. It has been one pretty chaotic week for Samuel's first Gravity Falls experience. But chaotic seems to be the name of the game in this town.
Bill feels a lot better about himself thanks to the Pines' ideas. Even if a part of him still feels like he's barely been able to make an impact. But he tries his best to brush it off.
In one early afternoon, Samuel takes some time looking at the drawings he's done since he arrived. He's been regularly sketching the oddities he's witnessed from the town, and still has to process that this is all real and something that will stay true during his stay. But then, out of nowhere, his time of reading in the bedroom is interrupted by the twins.
"Hey, Sammy! How goes it?" Mabel asks with a big smile that kind of hides something.
"Um, I'm good, why...?" Samuel wonders.
Dipper enters. "We're gonna take a walk to digest, and we'd really appreciate it."
Mabel kindly insists, trying not to sound suspicious. "We'd really really love to show you some place! Please say yes!"
"Sure!" Sammy jumps out of the bed and puts his shoes on. "Where are we going?"
"Oh, in the forest..." Dipper answers vaguely.
"Okay..." Their friend isn't questioning much. "I trust you to lead the way!"
As they go downstairs, they encounter Soos and Wendy just outside the Shack.
"Hey there! Up to a stroll?" Asks Wendy.
Mabel answers. "Yeah, we'll show Samuel the outskirts of town! We never got to show him the previous week!"
Dipper is subtle in his choice of words. "You know, for sightseeing..."
Soos reacts by saying "Oh right, it's time for the arrange..."
He gets cut off mid-sentence by Wendy, who tries to cover it up. "Yes, the tour they've been arranging to show him..."
Soos realizes his near-blunder and whispers "Sorry..." to the twins, which they accept without an issue. Especially since Samuel didn't seem to catch on. With that out of the way, they go out.
After a bit of walking outside the town, Mabel suddenly walks faster, acting a little daring. "Bet you guys wouldn't be able to run there faster than me!"
"Oh yeah?" Dipper takes the challenge with a smirk and is ready to sprint forward. "Good luck catching up to me!"
"Hey, wait up!" Samuel runs behind him, with Mabel giggling to herself. She wanted to reach the destination faster and knew exactly what to say to motivate him.
Dipper's run is quickly interrupted when they approach a small clearing, and he comes across something that he looks at with discomfort.
"Oh..." he frowns a bit.
Samuel is a little behind him and joins. "What's wrong, Dip..." he takes a look in front of him to find something peculiar.
In front of them is a half statue of Bill, raising his right arm for a handshake. This brings some very peculiar memories to Dipper, but he tries to keep it to himself.
Mabel joins them, a little behind, and notices the same sight as the boys. She claims after a brief silence. "So this is where things ended and started, uh...?"
Samuel feels a bit uneasy. "What do you mean? Why is there a statue of Bill here...?"
Dipper sighs as he explains. "This statue is... what remains of Bill's previous physical form... When he was still evil and seeking to cause no good to the whole world... This is why Mabel said this is the representation of his end..."
Sammy feels some discomfort. "And... Why did she say about a start, then...?"
Mabel speaks up for her brother, as she thinks he might be embarassed to mention it. "Well, Bill told us... After his defeat, Dipper went here to find the statue, and he accidentally touched the hand. He didn't know, but... this did awake him and allow him to escape this fate..."
"Oh, and this is how he..." He thinks about how his early encounters with Bill went, trying to suppress the negative feelings from then. Suddenly, his body goes... "You stupid... STUPID... MORON!"
Dipper's expression changes to being surprised, as he sees Samuel yelling at the statue's face. "You deserve this, you monster! And worse!"
Mabel saw what happened before the yells and tries to stop him. "Bill, don't..."
"Wait, Bill...?" Dipper is shocked to think about this.
"Take this!" Sammill punches the statue straight to the eye, causing a good amount of pain. And yet, this makes Bill laugh. "Pain is still great! And it's for a good cause too!" He's about to punch again, but Mabel grabs his arm.
"Bill... This isn't worth it! Calm yourself!" She looks at him, very stern.
And her brother joins on that. "Yeah, Bill, you... You've already made peace with yourself for your past... There's no point feeling negative about it anymore... You have nothing more to prove." He gives him a comforting smile.
Samuel's body makes an ashamed expression just before Bill exits. "Sorry... I... I lost my cool there..."
"It's okay..." Mabel says, very softly.
Bill then turns around. "Sorry to you especially, Fuzzball... Is your hand okay?"
Sammy is a little confused, rubbing his hand. "Yeah, I mean... the pain will leave sooner than later... But why did you do that...?"
"... Even if I made peace, as you say... I think seeing this caused a rush of frustration... It represents all the terrible things I've done..." Bill seems furious.
Dipper speaks again. "As I said, Bill... No point angering over spilled milk... You've already done everything necessary to move past all of this..."
"If you think about it..." Mabel thinks of something with an excited smile. "You could say that Dipper reawakening you is what allowed you to leave this past behind! This statue represents your wrongdoings, and it's behind you forever now!"
Samuel feels a little touched by this. "Aww, that's so poetic..."
"... Alright..." The demon mumbles to himself "Can't believe I'm letting a bunch of young flesh sacks acting smarter than me..." He speaks louder again. "You are right, thanks. And again, sorry..." He looks at the statue one final time before saying. "Just continue your walk, I won't make you worried again... I'll try to anyway..." He disappears after that, causing the three kids to move on, after making sure Samuel doesn't have major bruises.
However, it turns out that the walk suggested by his friends is quite longer than what Samuel has been expecting. "Are we there yet...? It feels like we've been walking for hours..."
Mabel reacts with positiveness. "We shouldn't be too far now..."
"In fact..." Dipper smiles as he witnesses someone. "We're here!"
"Uh...?" Samuel squints a bit to find Ford in the middle of nowhere with a device set up there.
Ford is showing himself after he made sure everything would work fine. "Hey kids, there you are..."
"Um, what's going on...?" Sammy starts getting nervous, and then...
Bill shows himself, since he had to follow. "I know mischief when I see it... What are you three plotting?"
"Oh Bill, I'm glad you got here..." Ford smiles.
Bill takes a closer look at the control panel. "What are you playing with, Sixer...?"
"You'll see!" He answers casually. He then activates a specific button. It causes a giant electromagnetic dome builds around them.
"WHAT IS THIS?" Samuel starts getting scared, he never witnessed anything like that before. Dipper and Mabel manage to reassure him with comforting smiles.
"What's going on, Sixer? Are you attempting to trap me?" Bill starts getting angry.
Ford answers. "It's all good, Bill... I'm not doing this to trap you... In fact, this is to help you..."
"WHAT...? What are you implying? I'm warning you..." Bill starts getting serious.
Before he can complete his threat, Ford activates another function. "Here it comes!" It causes a strong beam of light to go upwards, and it completes a rift inside the dome.
Samuel realizes while he tries to put everything together. "Wait, I've seen this before, in Bill's drawings... Isn't that...?"
Ford explains quickly to the confused boy. "It's a dimensional rift, connecting with the Nightmare Realm!".
"THE NIGHTMARE REALM?" Bill freaks out, but he also feels surprised. He wants to reach the rift, but the magical chain linking him to Sammy wouldn't allow it.
Suddenly, out of the rift come the various creatures Bill has befriended and worked with for so long. All of them appear one after the other, landing as a group facing the humans, and Bill is almost speechless. "Y-You guys...?"
Dipper and Mabel get some bad memories, but they're trustful enough things changed.
"Hey, Bill!" Yells 8-Ball.
"The Nightmare Realm isn't the same without you! We've missed you!" Claims Keyhole.
The triangle is extremely confused and in disbelief. "M-me too... B-but... H-How...? What is the meaning of this?"
"The 12-fingered human plotted everything!", answers Pyronika.
Ford reveals when Bill turns to him. "In the past months, I've been silently planning this... Returning to the concept of dimensional travel, finding the Nightmare Realm, contacting your friends with an offering... And in town, I've made sure to get the permits to be able to create this dome in here... In order to give them the opportunity to visit our dimension."
"But... But why...?" Bill is all sorts of confused. "Why would you go through all this...?"
Ford reveals his intentions. "I wanted to ensure a reunion... But not just that..." He decides to be transparent about what he wanted to accomplish. "Bill Cipher... from now on, you'll be in control of the area, and can rule it with all the weird chaos you and your friends wish... Weirdmageddon will be a reality inside this dome... "
Bill feels lost and confused. "Are... You're kidding, right?"
"I'm not!" Ford sounds genuine, and in fact, encourages him. "Just give it a try..."
Bill looks doubtful, and decides to try his powers... He managed to recreate a Fearamid, even at a smaller scale, and create a wave of weirdness across the dome that changes the landscape into the very same type of environment the town was last August. The trees, roots and other type of vegetations take forms to his liking, and the sky becomes a weird painting like red, proving Ford right.
Bill leaves out an excited yell, with just a tiny hint of evil. "It works... IT WORKS!"
Ford cuts his cheers to warn him. "But no world domination for you! You'll have to deal with those limitations, and never let your actions and games go anywhere beyond this dome."
Hearing this causes Bill's excitement to completely drop. He silently and slowly turns around with his eye opened wide, with his voice being low and threatening. "Are... you...?" It suddenly gets a lot scarier. "... KIDDING ME?"
Then his voice immediately goes back to complete excitement. "Why even care about that nonsense? I'm so happy right now! My friends are back, my dreamscape is real and here to stay! And just because the area is restricted, doesn't mean I can't use the lack of sense to make it bigger in the inside! It's more than anything I could've ever hoped for!"
He then focuses on Ford. "Sixer, why did you do that for me...?"
"The idea didn't come from me. In fact, you owe it to someone else when it comes to convincing me to arrange all of that..." He looks at Mabel.
"You... You suggested this, Shooting star...?" The demon can't believe it.
Mabel admits. "I've seen how much you've changed... How heavy the feeling of losing your dream was... How much losing contact with your friends affected you... I felt so bad for you... Then I saw how you lost most of your evil ways, how you did everything you could to become a great friend... I was convinced that should your dream be able to come true to some extent, you would be overjoyed, and... After all that happened this year, I thought you deserved this too..."
Dipper crosses his arms. "I've only found out about it recently, how Mabel and Grunkle Ford planned everything. But I gotta admit, even it required me a lot of convincing... You were a big part of that yourself, Bill! You've proven yourself trustworthy enough to deserve it..."
"This town already has so many oddities to its name... An area of weirdness confined to a dome next to it won't be much to add to the list." Ford concludes with a bit of a joke, just before turning a little serious. "But there is an issue... You're going to have to maintain the balance of the weirdness' energy. And while you and your friends can go outside the dome any time you want... it's going to be necessary for you to stay around and control that flow, to ensure that it doesn't ever go overboard."
Bill is more than willing to accept this. "Yes, I can very easily make sure to control this... This dome will keep enclosing the weirdness, and it won't spread! I promise!" He sounds very earnest, but he then realizes...
"But... there's a problem... I'm magically chained to Fuzzball, we've never been apart by too far since our deal... He can't stay around in this dome for his whole vacation... and... he'll have to go home eventually too..."
Samuel approaches the triangle with a comforting smile, after thinking about it for a few seconds. "Bill..."
"... yes...?" The triangle feels so lost, he's not exactly sure what to expect.
Samuel quickly explains, trying to make him understand. "I've been told by my friends... and Ford... About something we could..."
Bill's eye widens greatly, as he catches on. "You... You really...?"
Samuel extends his arm towards him. "Yes... I think so..."
Bill holds Samuel's hand, having all sorts of thoughts in the process.
"... Let's do it on three, alright...?" He inhales before starting. "... One..."
Bill continues. "... two..."
In that final second, as Samuel stares at Bill's eye, he feels like he's having very quick flashbacks...
He recalls the horrible nightmare in which Bill introduced himself to him, just before being a victim of his manipulations into accepting that deal.
He recalls witnessing Bill mess with Dipper through his body, before he somehow lost his edge and desire to do real harm.
He sees Bill's exclaiming his desires to make amends, and the promises he made to Dipper and Mabel to prove himself.
He remembers all the times Bill doubted himself because of his past... of his missteps during the process... some of his freakouts with completing the tasks... But also every time he did things to help him or his best friends, aka Bill's own former biggest enemies. How he saved the twins from a very difficult situation to a much brighter future. And how the trio has always been there to help the triangle overcome his doubts and fears...
He snaps out of it in time. Then they talk in unison to say...
"... The deal is off!"
With those words, the magical force linking the two of them breaks. Bill can no longer use the boy's body without permission, but they are now free to separate. As such, the triangle demon's last concern is broken as all of his friends support him to live his dream.
"I can't believe it... You... You're fine with that...? You're willing to... let me have this...? I... Thank you, Fuzzball, thank you!" He then looks at the whole group who made his dream possible. "Dipper, Mabel, Ford... Thank you, all!" Bill sounds very eager, rubbing his hands in excitement and he immediately floats closer to his partners with a lot to say.
"It's been so long, you guys... Teeth, you look shinier than what I recall, what product are you using? 8-Ball, your eyes look shinier than in my memories too. And Lava lamp, you seem quite warm and healthy too. How have you all been since the last time you visited this dimension?"
A long discussion is set up between the group of interdimensional creatures. Ford looks at the scene and instructs the kids. "I think they'll have a lot to catch up on, and a lot to do... We should probably let them have time and privacy for now, kids..."
"Yeah, let's go!" Dipper says cheerfully.
Samuel smiles at Bill's eagerness, but... there is a bit of melancholy in his stare as he's leaving Bill behind for the first time in 9 months. He does forget about his worries for now when Dipper and Mabel grab his hands with a smile to move on for the day. They quickly make him understand that they'll come back for him later.
Bill is so caught up in the discussion with his reunited friends that he doesn't hear or notice the humans leaving.
As the four humans leave the dome, they have the showcase that the nightmarish sights of Weirdmageddon indeed are perfectly confined in it. Everything outside the dome is regular-looking, showing the extent of Ford's works.
While they walk home, Samuel is feeling really weird. Even if nothing changed physically, he somehow feels lighter... and emptier...
Mabel looks at him and recognizes this feeling. She simply tells him with a empathetic smile... "Just let it go if you have to..."
Sammy smiles, and tries not to cry, but he struggles and sobs a little bit. This causes Dipper to grab his hand during the fact, for a couple of seconds before his friend done and goes back to a genuine smile.
If it was mandatory to make Bill happy, Samuel is perfectly fine with the outcome...
The conversation between Bill and his former partners in crime concludes with a question from Pyronica. "So, how about we go to your castle and prepare the party?"
Bill gets excited. "Oh, of course!" He recreates the flying car from the previous Weirdmageddon to get there, although he also makes a floating staircase of bone-shaped steps for his friends in the future.
"But first, I need to..." He turns around, hoping to see the humans that made all this possible for him... But they left silently without a proper goodbye. He feels a little guilty about not paying attention.
His pensive state quickly gets interrupted by Teeth. "Come on, Bill! You heard the guy, we can go out and visit them... Stop worrying and let's begin this party!"
Bill takes a few seconds to consider "... Yeah, I got all the time to make up for missing that goodbye..." He floats towards the driver's seat excitedly as he starts the engine. As the car starts hovering, he cheerfully yells with a hint of malice... "IT'S TIME... TO GET... WEIRD!"
The end
Author notes: Yeah, very difficult to believe for myself, but here we are. This is what I always envisioned for the end of Bill's arc, and I'd say that I managed to make quite a satisfying narrative to make this conclusion be logical and earned.
That doesn't mean I'm done just yet, however. I have some "post-credits" stuff, if you will, planned for after this point.
And in the odd chances that I feel like writing something about that second vacation stay, or revisiting the concept of the story's deal, in lighter lenghts, the possibility is there too.
I hope you've enjoyed the journey!