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Bill Cipher’s scream tore through the air like a shockwave.
Mabel and Dipper watched the demon writhe before them, not daring to let the hope show on their battered and bruised faces. Around them stood the rest of the zodiac, the people that had gathered together to cast the spell that would finally end Weirdmageddon. Stan, Ford, Pacifica, McGucket, Robbie, Wendy, Gideon, and Soos. Their friends. Their family.
“Triangulum entangulum!” With every chant that went around the circle, the screams got worse. “Veneforis venetisarium!”
Dipper felt something twist in his chest. It was working, the spell was working! The very demon that had invaded his mind and manipulated his body was finally being defeated! And yet even in the wake of victory, he couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. That uncomfortable pressure in his chest only grew and grew, and he tried to steady himself with a deep breath. His grip on his sister’s hand tightened.
With one final screech, Bill plummeted to the ground like a stone. There was an ear-shattering boom on impact, and the earth rippled as if it was made out of gelatin. Bill’s cries were replaced by those of everyone else being torn apart and launched into the air. Dipper saw Mabel’s hand slip out of his and he cried out, “Mabel!”
She seemed to yell something back, but he couldn’t hear her. He hit the ground, hard, and his ears were filled with the furious beating of his own heart.
The circle was broken, but it appeared it was far too late to stop the spell. The giant rainbow X that hung in the sky like a wound seemed to draw closer, closer, close enough to swallow them all up. The very air seemed to shimmer with power, and all throughout this Bill was as still as a statue.
Distantly, Dipper watched Ford push himself to his feet. Watched him lend a hand to Stan, saw their lips mouth something like “are you okay sixer?” and “get off me you old coot”. He saw Pacifica hugging Soos, then trying to pretend she didn’t care. He saw Gideon start to head over to Mabel, just to get held back by Wendy.
He saw Bill wink.
Throat hoarse, Dipper tried to call out to the others. “G-g-guy-ys…” For some reason, he couldn’t move. Something was wrong, something was very wrong. The sky was still strobing through a maddening set of colors, threatening to tear reality itself apart, but Bill had stopped screaming long ago.
“We had a deal, Pine Tree,” whispered a voice in Dipper’s ear, and his eyes went wide.
Bill’s body twitched. An arm reached out -- straight out of the three dimensional form he’d made for himself. The stacks of gold bricks seemed to slough off him like a snake sheds its skin, revealing something twisted and two-dimensional beneath. There was another movement -- another appendage trembling, reaching forward, dragging itself through the mud, not grabbing at the earth but grabbing at Dipper, and he couldn’t move.
“You’re going to be my puppet after all, kid,” Bill said, and he sounded worse than usual, like he was coughing into Dipper’s skull. “I’m not the one who’s dying today!”
Mabel, having finally gotten herself to her feet with Robbie’s help, turned her head, and gasped.
“Dipper!” she shrieked, right as the demon plunged his hand into her brother’s chest.
There was a blinding flash of light, and then they were no longer in the Gravity Falls forest.
Dipper looked around. Everything seemed to be in glittering monochrome, the scenery wiggling like a painting on a hot plate. It was a familiar place -- his bedroom in the Mystery Shack -- but it was much larger than it should’ve been, with little windows poking into dreams and memories dotting the walls.
The Mindscape. Dipper had been there before, and he’d saved the day. But for some reason he doubted he was in Grunkle Stan’s mind this time.
“Over here, Pine Tree,” rang out that horrible, nasally voice.
Dipper’s head whipped around on his neck to spot Bill Cipher hovering over Mabel’s bed. He gasped for air -- forgetting momentarily where he was -- and clawed at his neck, trying to turn his body around to match his head.
The demon snickered at Dipper’s distress, then broke out into coughs. When Dipper righted himself, he noticed how awful Bill looked. His eye was red and blotchy, and little yellow bricks were peeling away from his body, with only a black void to replace them. His hat was deflating, drooping down one of his sloped triangular sides.
The spell had worked. Bill was dying. But Dipper couldn’t take comfort from this fact for long.
“You think this is the end?” Bill snarled, floating over to the boy. “You think you’ve won?”
Despite trembling hands, he snapped his fingers, and Dipper shot up into the air beside him.
“No one can defeat me,” he growled. “I’ve been alive longer than time itself. And I’ll still be there when all that’s left is entropy. I’ve planned this for too long to let something like a bunch of pitiful humans ruin my plans. I’m going to rule the universe.”
Bill drew his other arm back, and -- after a couple of attempts -- balled it into a fist. “And there’s nothing you can do to stop me.”
Dipper screamed as Bill threw the first punch, not into his chest or his head but his mind. Around him, the Mystery Shack began to wobble. A memory fell off the wall -- disintegrated as it touched the floor.
Bill smiled.
“You may have disrupted my plans, but I always have a backup.” He punched Dipper again, and some of the roof shattered, sending debris across the room. “You stupid humans can’t resist a good deal, can you?”
Another punch. And another. And another. More and more windows falling off the walls, more of his precious memories and belongings. Dipper cried out, struggling to do anything to fight back, but the demon was too strong. Blue fire was beginning to spread through the room as Bill pumped every last drop of his magic into Dipper’s mindscape, warping it beyond recognition.
“I’ll admit,” Bill said, after another cough, “that I’m not a fan of walking around looking like a tiny boy like you for the next thousand years. But it’ll have its uses. I can get payback on the pathetic humans who dared stand up to me.”
Dipper’s eyes widened, and then one of them popped out of his head with Bill’s next punch. “Wh- wh- wh- wh,” he tried to ask.
“That’s right, Pine Tree,” Bill said, attempting to smile, though at this point his body was falling apart enough that Dipper could hardly tell. “I’ll kill Ice Bag. And Question Mark. And Sixer. And Shriner.”
Bill snapped his fingers again, and a shimmering picture of Mabel appeared -- the only constant left in the wreckage of the Mystery Shack.
“And when I get Shooting Star, I’ll make sure it hurts.”
Something snapped inside of Dipper. He saw Mabel, he saw her twisting and screaming and writhing in agony, and he felt the bile rise higher and higher in his throat. Bill smiled again at the boy’s distress, and prepared another punch, this one likely the last before Dipper’s soul was destroyed forever.
Dipper caught the demon’s hand in his own.
Bill’s body flickered. “Wha-?” he tried to get out, before dissolving into coughs again. “St- stop it! You lost!”
A fiery rage, the like of which Dipper had never felt before, lit inside of him. He pulled Bill’s fist, and the demon’s arm came right off, prompting Bill to screech in agony just like Dipper had moments before.
“You. Will never hurt Mabel!” Dipper roared, and now he began to punch Bill back. “I won’t let you! I’ll protect her if it’s the last thing I do!”
“You can’t!” Bill yelled, before Dipper punched him again. “I won! I always win. You’re nothing!”
“I don’t care!” Dipper shot back. “I don’t care if I die, as long as the world is safe from the likes of you!”
“No!” Bill shrieked, as one last punch came ripping toward him. “¡uɹnʇǝɹ ʎɐɯ I ʇɐɥʇ os ɹǝʍod ʇuǝᴉɔuɐ ǝɥʇ ǝʞoʌuᴉ I ¡uɹnq oʇ ǝɯoɔ sɐɥ ǝɯᴉʇ ʎW ¡˥-┴-O-˥-O-X-∀”
The boy’s fist collided with his eye, and the demon exploded into a million pieces, which flew like confetti across the room. There was a clamouring din as his considerable energy dissipated. Then, quiet.
Dipper fell to the floor with a thud. He lay there panting for a few minutes, watching as all of his memories came back, spinning around him like a twister. He tried to smile. He’d done it, for real this time. He’d beaten Bill. Mabel was safe. He didn’t care what happened to himself anymore.
He rolled over and vomited his guts out, but instead of food, what came out was sticky and black like tar.
Around him, the blue fire was building up. The Mystery Shack was reshaping itself, building up its walls higher and higher just to be bathed in the demon’s magic. Repairing, burning, changing. Bill might’ve been gone but he’d pumped Dipper’s mindscape full of otherworldly energy before he died. And that energy was very much alive, growing brighter and brighter as it found its new master.
Dipper’s hand trembled, and a little flame appeared above his palm. He blinked. Opened his mouth, to try to ask what was going on.
The flame engulfed his body and he screamed like he’d never screamed before.
DIPPER PINES: I should’ve died that day.
For what seemed like eternity, there was nothing in the world but pain.
Pain that shot through the boy’s skin, up and down, unraveling it sinew-by-sinew, stretching to the point of breaking. Pain that thudded in his head as his skull shattered and flew back together on loop. Pain as all the blood seeped out of his body and stained the void-white world a sickening red.
The boy didn’t know where he was -- couldn’t remember it at all anymore. There was no time for neurons to fire because they were snapping apart at the synapses, every neurotransmitter halted in its place. Smoke rose from the crater that was his head, his thoughts dissipating into the aether.
DIPPER PINES: Bill forced all of his magic into my mind. No human should be able to survive that.
He didn’t know who he was anymore. Maybe he wasn’t. Anyone. It was almost believable, except for that word “he” that kept appearing. He. He. He. That had to be someone.
He could see the boy’s body from all angles. His flesh was boiling now -- bubbles rising up and popping in a symphony of agony. His face was only barely recognizable, especially with one eye still missing. The screaming was interminable. He didn’t control it anymore. It was a force of nature, ceaseless and all-encompassing. It echoed like microphone feedback at a concert hall -- pierced what remained of his ears and doubled back into more pain.
DIPPER PINES: My soul should have shattered under the pressure. But that’s not what happened.
In the middle of the boy’s chest, there was a white orb.
With what little consciousness he had, he watched the orb shimmer. Unlike the rest of his body, it was static -- unmoving -- and it was pristine. He’d never seen anything like it before. It was beautiful, it was mystifying. It was real.
Somehow, he could feel that it was him.
The flame started small. It was blue, just like- just like his fire, but it was a different “him” and not the boy. He couldn’t remember anymore. But the fire was swallowing him up, now. It began as a tiny spark on the crest of the orb, and it spread. The flame raced over the perimeter of the orb, and strangely enough it didn’t hurt. It… tickled. It almost distracted him from the pain of his body shredding itself to pieces.
DIPPER PINES: What happened was far, far worse.
The flame hung there for a moment, and the boy watched it from inside and out. And then, it bit through the surface.
He screamed again, somehow louder than before. The flame punched a hole into the orb and filled the resulting tunnel. Distantly, the boy saw the tarry remains of his hand shudder, and then pull itself back into the shape of a hand. The flame bit into him again and the same thing happened to his other hand.
For a moment, it looked like his fingers were tipped with claws.
DIPPER PINES: I remember the day it happened. I remember it whenever I close my eyes. I remember it when I’m standing in a summoning circle, and when the bloodlust gets so strong that I can’t control myself. I remember what Bill did to me.
The demon’s magic tore into him and with every change the world became sharper and sharper. A bite, and his legs were back. A bite, and he had a torso again, complete with a heart beating louder and harder and faster. A bite, and the shards of his skull flew back into place, and he saw a flash of razor sharp teeth like some kind of horrible monster.
He was floating, now, and his blood was whipping around him like a tornado. As his body reformed, the edges began to twinkle with blocky, black artefacts, like a glitchy computer screen. Each one was a thought broadcast through his reconstituted mind, a thought running through his skin and scattering out every flame-scarred interstice of his being. The more his body changed, the stronger his consciousness got, until he could remember and scream louder because he knew what was happening to him now.
He was thought. He was the magic running through his veins. It didn’t hurt anymore, because there was nothing left to hurt.
An eyeball rolled slowly across the emptiness, making a light plopping sound as it did so. The boy watched it approach the creature taking shape in front of him. It climbed up the side of his face and sank back into its socket.
He took a moment to let it attach itself to the nerve again, and then he opened his eyes. Two black pits stared back at him.
DIPPER PINES: It was still my soul. But it was no longer a human’s soul.
The flame had almost entirely engulfed the orb, now. The white sheen had disappeared and now it was turning as dark as his new eyes. The boy tried to open his mouth, now that he had one again, tried to reach forth with new hands and flickering joints.
It reached the center and his heart stopped beating.