Chapter Text
ACT VII - STANFORD
CHAPTER 60
The crash of broken glass, the fracture created by the rift between the two Dimensions, every sound, every color, every detail was pure ecstasy.
Dimension 46'\, the accidental offspring of his power outburst, was calling him. His powers filtered through the rift, never forgotten sounds and colors, silk ribbons that surrounded him and pulled him forward, towards the part of himself he had lost.
"With creation, a part of you and your will came out of you."
His form made of strings vibrated under the influence of a much stronger sensation. His synaesthesia, attenuated for centuries, had a flicker. The voices of omniscience whispered harder. The still ocean of his powers was moved by a small wave.
In the end, he had made it. After centuries of waiting and frustration, he succeeded.
For the first time, in a trillion years, Bill Cipher was able to walk through a door and exit the Nightmare Realm.
“Oh, it's happening! It's finally, finally happening!"
“For one trillion years I've been trapped in my own decaying Dimension, waiting for a new universe to call my own. Name's Bill! But you can call me your new lord and master for all of eternity!"
"You will be able to do great things. You can change the Multiverse. And you will. You will bring your colors in the Third Dimension. And a star will be your key to enter it.”
Oh oh oh
Oh oh oh
OHOHOHOH
Oh, it was so FUN! Sixer truly believed he could kill him with his adorable little weapon! How long did it take him to realize that their bond made it impossible to hurt each other?
From now until the end of time, Fordsy.
“Good old six-fingers . I've been waiting for an ETERNITY to have a chat face to face."
“Everyone, this armageddon wouldn't be possible without help from our friend here. Give him a six-fingered hand! This brainiac is the one who built the portal in the first place!"
“Now don't look so sour, Fordsy. It's not too late to join me. With that extra finger, you'd fit right in with my freaks."
“I'll die before I join you! I know your weakness, Bill!"
There was still time to change his mind. After all, Fordsy's stubbornness was also among the things he adored about him.
And, once he found his tenth Henchmaniac, Bill certainly wouldn't let him go for so little.
“Gravity Falls is just the beginning. It's time to take our chaos worldwide! Alright boys, to the corners of the Earth. Set the world aflame with your weirdness. This dimension is ours!"
"Alright, can anyone explain to me why, even with our newfound INFINITE POWER, none of us can escape the borders of this STUPID HICK TOWN!"
No. Nonono! He wouldn't accept being trapped AGAIN! He couldn't accept a new cage...
"You hate the cage. But it will be in a cage that you will spend most of your life."
... to trap him again! Not after getting his physical form back! Not after returning to his full power! Not after being able to feel again, to see the world explode in his senses and around him! Not after experiencing joy in its purest essence! Everything was perfect: he could feel the warmth of his companions' hands once again, the cool touch of alcohol on his lips, the texture of the throne under his fingers. He could also hold Fordsy, for the first time in flesh and blood, since she had known him! He couldn't lose it all again!
… Fordsy.
His eye rested on the small statue, contracted into the shape Bill made him take. Bill was still in Ford's home dimension. And Ford was the most brilliant mind in his world. His knowledge of the place, along with thirty years of in-depth study around the Multiverse, must have given him some ideas as to why Gravity Falls was such a bundle of oddities.
"Maybe someone needs to come out of retirement."
"I control space, matter, and now that that dumb baby's out of the way, time itself! But I wasn't always this way."
"Do you think those chains are tight? Imagine living in the Second Dimension: flat minds in a flat world with flat dreams. I liberated my dimension, Stanford, and I'm here to liberate yours."
For a second, he lost his breath.
He was no longer at the door of the Fearamid, looking at the ten members of the zodiac arranged in a circle. He had returned to a now hidden cave, together with a flame-eyed shaman, a hand pressed on the image of a wheel, divided into ten symbols.
"The spirits granted me a vision and I’ve seen ten symbols, associated with humans. Special creatures, carriers of an energy opposite and contrary to yours. One day, they will gather here, in this circle: when they’ll do it, they will create a mystical circuit, which will oppose your energy and cancel it. You will lose all your power, you will no longer be able to hurt anyone, nor escape in any dream. Your own form will decay and you will vanish from existence."
The air inside the Fearamid was charged with static electricity. The circle glowed intermittently with blue energy.
Modoc's threat was not just words. And those ten humans were indeed the ten symbols Modoc had spoken of.
Bill could see him again, his triumphant smile.
"You will die and this circle is your doom."
Only, the circle wasn't working. Its power kept going down, as the members of the zodiac broke the formation, Pinetree and Shooting Star running to separate the Hand with Six Fingers from the Fez. They were the weak point. They were the ones who hadn't closed the circuit. Without completing the loop, the energy was dissipating.
Joy boiled in him and he exploded in triumph. Modoc had been right about the circle... but he could've never imagined that two of the symbols would not get along!
Oh, how deep was human failure!
Too bad, Modoc. When the time came, your zodiac failed you.
“Ha ha ha ho! This is just too perfect! Didn't you brainiacs know the zodiac doesn't work if you don't all hold hands? And what's better, you've brought every threat to my power together in one easy-to-destroy CIRCLE!”
“Looks like it's too late for your friends, Stanford. But you can still save your family. Last chance: tell me how to take Weirdmageddon global and I'll spare the kids! "
All right, the whole situation was starting to get very on his nerves. And he got his nerves back a couple of days ago, so every little emotion exploded inside him with the power of a supernova.
But those kids. Those damned, HATEFUL kids. It wasn't enough Fordsy with his stubborn opposing him, HE SHOULDN'T OPPOSE ME, HAS NO REASON TO OPPOSE, I HAD WON AND HE'S PART OF THE GROUP, WHY HE'S STILL
OPPOSING
ME?!
But Ford still preferred THEM to HIM! He kept following his stupid family, he kept worrying about those useless brats! He had to leave them behind, as the others did! He had to leave his old stupid life behind and join Bill!
But no, those brats kept getting in the way! They "defeated" Bill once, so they thought they were invincible! They came out of Mabel's golden prison and thought they could do it all!
But they couldn't do anything, NOTHING against Bill Cipher, the Lord of their stupid world! They just had to give up and stop it, stop it, stop it! GIVE UP, GIVE UP YOU ALL!
"Alright, Ford. Time's up. I've got the kids. I think I'm gonna kill one of 'em now just for the heck of it!"
No.
NO.
NONONONONONO.
That wasn't Ford's mind. That was Stan's mind. And the one in front of him wasn't Ford, but Stanley.
NO! NO! NO!
And what surrounded him were blue flames. The same flames...
his own flames
of the world he had burned
from which he had once died and reborn.
But that time he was in the real world, with his real form. Not in the Mindscape, where he was just strings, where muscles and bones and nerves were left behind, along with the newly regained power.
He was weak there. A simple projection of himself, which could protect himself only by using the means of the mind. But the mind was reduced to a room and all around there was only fire, flames, dea...
NO.
NO.
NO.
It never happened. The Multiverse itself couldn't kill him, a mere human couldn't do it!
The dream plane!
The bridge that connected Stanley's mind to the rest of the dream world was burning, just like the walls around them.
“Oh yeah. You're going down, Bill. You're gettin' erased. Memory gun. Pretty clever, huh?"
NONONO!
It couldn't be! It wasn't possible! One jump was enough, he had to jump and reach the dream world, he had to save himself from that island that was collapsing on itself! It wouldn't end like this!
"LET ME OUT!"
He held out his hand: his flames would open a bridge between those of the memory gun and let him out. He HAD to go out. He wouldn't be trapped there. He couldn't die!
Blue flames flickered between his fingers, then vanished in midair.
WHY IS IT NOT WORKING?!
He grabbed his top and fell to his knees. It couldn't be. IT COULDN'T BE! HE COULD NOT!
“It's okay, Kryptos. I don't know what will happen, but it won't end here."
"Hey, look at me. Turn around and look at me, you one-eyed demon!"
And Bill did, crushed by the firmness of that voice.
Stanley Pines towered over him, his figure ignited by flames, that were casting blue shadows on his face, in the lenses of his glasses, in his hair. In his gaze there wasn't Modoc's fiery anger or Ford's cold resentment: there was a red fire that burned constantly, the same fire that had been inside Stanley for years and that never stopped burning.
"You're a real wise guy, but you made one fatal mistake: you messed with my family."
Those were indomitable and unstoppable flames, it was the will of the Multiverse that shone from within a single human - a creature born from the power of Bill and the energy of the Multiverse.
Humans weren't just the results of his power, after all. They were also the offspring of the Multiverse, which came back to take revenge on him, which still punished him for trying to go beyond the rules.
"I AM THE LORD OF THIS WORLD! AND I WILL BE THE LORD OF ALL WORLDS!"
"You're making a mistake! I'll give you anything! Money! Fame! Riches! Infinite power! Your own galaxy! Please!"
Stanley looked at him, still, fearless. Why wasn't he afraid? Why didn't he fear death? Why was it okay for him to be canceled?
"And do you accept it like this? Are you okay with dying, despite all there's still to do and see?"
"I still want so much and I have so little time left."
The flames licked his legs and strings changed shape. Their flow distorted, their tastes got more sour, their colors pierced his eye.
"WHAT'S HAPPENING TO ME?"
The voices of omniscience answered, with a single image: his physical body reduced to a stone statue, abandoned in a clearing among the trees. An empty, cold shell.
Death.
You are going to die.
There is no escape.
The scream in his mind erased everything and it was pure blackout for a second. He was devoured by white light again, his body burned, his bones burned, blood evaporated and there was nothing left, nothing, nothingnothingnothing and not even his will could help him this time, not even the power of his will, the
greatest will of the Multiverse.
"I’ve never seen so much desire for knowledge in a single life form."
What would you do if you were in my place, Xerje?
"No creature of the Multiverse is ever truly alone. If you’re out of answers and your hopes are gone, invoke the Axolotl and he will offer you a path. He never leaves an unheard prayer."
AXOLOTL!
His shape fluttered out of control, strings screamed in the fire, his whole will focused on that last message.
“But remember: your every choice will have consequences. Some will be less severe, others more severe. And, if the choices depend on you, the consequences will be inevitable and you will not be able to escape them."
MY TIME HAS COME TO BURN!
"The Axolotl listens and answers every question."
“I don't know if you can hear me from the dimension you are in. But if you can do it, if you can listen to me, then help me."
I INVOKE THE ANCIENT POWER THAT I MAY RETURN!
His form glitched out of control, the world was lost, his senses mingled with the cry that filled his being. But it wasn't important. Nothing was important except completing his message. Except shouting his prayer.
"I still want so much and I have so little time left."
"Help me."
"STANLEEEY!"
In the center of the fire that once burned the Plane, of the white of the Multiverse filling his mind, of the blue of the flames that surrounded him, there was Stanley's fist, pointing at him.
Then, it was just shatters of himself.
Pyronica grabbed the last human and pushed him against the others. They all stood together, back to back with the most bizarre creatures of Gravity Falls, surrounded and defeated, but still with eyes full of fire.
Kryptos felt his smile fade a little more. It happened, in the end: the humans turned against them. And despite everything, they still kept opposing and challenging them.
They had treated them too well. They had spoiled them, Bill had spoiled them: he was so in love with his creation, so permissive to accept anything. He had even found his tenth Henchmaniac among them. Yet another sign of how much he liked them, despite their flaws.
What were they supposed to do? Kryptos sought Pyronica's gaze and she returned it with a grin. Terrifying humans with their power? The memory drifted back to George Washington's dream, to Bill throwing him knife-sharp books, to the American President in a corner, so terrified he could barely apologize. Then he had found a way to appease Bill and that little gift had made him docile and permissive with the human species again.
In the end, the result was rebellion.
"I really want to munch on a dozen," Teeth told him. He had managed to put out the flames, and judging by his heavy strides, he wasn't quite as cheerful as he usually was.
Hectorgon also came closer.
"We've been too kind," he murmured. "They have to learn who's in charge."
"Will it be of any use?" Kryptos asked him.
"We must try anyway," he said. "We won't be able to leave this place, if every two minutes we have to fight against some human who rebels."
Is it the same again then? Like when we got into the Nightmare Realm?
Kryptos pursed his lips to keep that question from coming out and followed Hectorgon toward the humans. They were surrounded by a flat black landscape, with burnt trees and embers smoldering red beneath the devastation. It reminded him too much of the massacres made in the Nightmare Realm, when Bill took his first steps to conquer the entire Dimension.
should they have done the same? Should they start killing once again, to ensure peace?
Kryptos walked over, hiding worries behind a smile. Humans had to be afraid. Maybe it would've been enough to give them a good scare. After all, they were a bunch of wounded beasts, tired people and little children. They could be annoying, but not to the point of having to slaughter them all.
His other companions came closer, Teeth chuckled with satisfaction at the thought of a snack. Kryptos looked up at the Feramid, waiting for Bill to appear.
Instead, what he saw was a ray of white light...
the white light that erases everything, absorbing the golden image of Bill, Pyronica's arms surrounding him.
... starting from the tip of the Feramid and crossing the sky, passing above the dimensional rift that linked that world to the Nightmare Realm.
What is happening?
Stones began to break away from the Fearamid, as the floating structure created by Bill fell towards the ground. The lights that filtered through the cracks in the bricks had all gone out.
An illogical and nameless fear kept him locked in place, his mouth open at the scene. Pyronica looked away from the humans, noticed his expression, and opened her mouth for a question.
"What...?"
"WOAAAAH!"
The general attention focused on Paci-fire: he was rising in the air, little by little, further and further away. Kryptos started to ask him where he was going, looked for his gaze and saw two eyes wide open, surprised, confused, that made the words die in his throat.
Something is pulling him away.
Pyronica opened her mouth to say something but, before she could speak, she rose up as well. The words gave way to a surprised yell and she struggled against the force that dragged her away, waving her arms and legs in an attempt to come back to earth.
"No!"
"What's happening?"
Kryptos turned to Teeth, who was already starting to rise from the ground, and held out a hand to him: Teeth moved to take it, but that invisible, powerful force was already dragging him away, towards the rift in the sky. He spat the gnome stuck in his teeth and screamed, trying to swim in midair like Pyronica.
Bill!
Kryptos sank his fingers into the earth, clinging to it. He looked up at the Fearamid: it kept losing bricks and there was not the slightest sign of Bill. Where was he? What was happening? What had he done?
"Kryptos!"
The urgency in that cry dispersed every question and made him turn abruptly. To his right, Hectorgon was fighting the force that wanted to drag him away. His shape was tense, his lips drawn back over clenched teeth. One hand was raised to grip the bowler hat on his top. He had never cared too much to keep it on his head.
"Even if I lose it, Bill would make me a new one."
With difficulty, Hectorgon managed to reach out his other hand to Kryptos. The same hand that had blocked him, at the edge of the Multiverse, before the white light exploded and everything changed.
Kryptos released his grip on the ground and, in two strides, reached Hectorgon, his hand already out to grab him. Their fingers brushed, but their hands closed on nothing. Kryptos tried again, leaped forward to reach him, but it was too late: Hectorgon was moving away too fast.
NO!
A surge of panic arose in the center of the shape and reached his ends. He looked around, looking for a help that wasn't there.
What's going on, Bill?
The ground slipped beneath his feet, and Kryptos felt himself being lifted, as if a giant vacuum cleaner was sucking him in, along with the bricks from Fearamid and the other creatures of the Nightmare Realm. In his ascent, he recognized the colorful figure of Amorphus Shape: the five eyes were closed and the vines dangled, tossed by the wind. What happened to her? Why didn't she react? Was she okay?
"Amorphus!"
The wind sent the sound of his own voice back to him. He spun around, his gaze leaping from stone to stone, brick to brick. Any piece of stone would've been good: he could've used it to push himself toward her.
He saw Hectorgon rising too fast, one hand still pressed to the bowler hat. He saw Keyhole waving his arms, in a desperate attempt to stop him from ascending. He looked up and saw Teeth spinning around, unable to hold steady. And then he saw Pyronica struggling with all her strength, her arms outstretched in search of holds: her eye was a black sea stirred by the storm, the pupil overflowing with his own, same fear.
I don't want to be alone.
Behind her, the rift that led to the Nightmare Realm grew larger and closer. Paci-fire and 8-Ball were already gone, devoured by it. Under his gaze, the creature with 87 different faces reached it and passed through it, sliding inside as if it was made of oil.
Kryptos felt himself back in the black space, in front of the thinnest wall of the Multiverse, watching something much bigger than him coming to change his life. But this time he didn't have Hectorgon's hand around his wrist, Pyronica's arms surrounding him and Amorpus Shape's vines holding them together while facing the unknown. This time they had to face it alone, each on their own, as they had never done in their very long existences.
Kryptos looked down: the Feramid had lost its roof and stones kept falling off. From the hole it had created, he could see a group of humans, standing in front of where Bill's throne stood. But no trace of Bill.
What did you do, Bill?
The shape tightened, tears pinched his eye. He reached out to that empty throne, teeth clenched, too far and too high to reach it, unable to reach it before the worst happened. Once again.
"Martin, I must win this cause. I have nothing, but I have to save him, because Lelx is right about everything."
"Bill!... What happened to you?"
"Listen, this isn't the point: the point is the humans. They're becoming independent, they are starting to make decisions on their own! Forget about them. Soon they will get out of your control and you will no longer be able to convince them to do whatever you want."
He blinked and those distant voices mingled, memories and warnings that hurt more than fists, grabbed the center of his shape, choked him in his own pain.
What will happen? Why does this have to happen?
Bill...
Would it be like the first time? Each of them in a different timeline, searching all over the Nightmare Realm, for millions of years, until they find each other once again? Spending their entire lives alone, waiting and hoping to finally find a friendly face? Is this what awaits us?
Kryptos clenched his hands against the shape, pulled his legs to him. If he'd grabbed Hectorgon's hand, at least, he wouldn't be alone. He wasn't ready to be alone, not after billions of centuries surrounded by friends. He wasn't ready to accept the consequences of what Bill had done.
Still, he had no other choice. Once again, Bill had been responsible for their fate.
*
The pain wasn't tormenting him anymore. Even the suffocating heat of the fire, the panic that held his shape and the nagging hammering of the colors, even those had stopped.
Only pink was left. And pink played silent piano notes, caressed his tongue with the aroma of tea, spread the scent of paper all around and slipped thickly between his fingers.
At least his synaesthesia was still intact.
Bill spun around and, in front of him, saw the huge familiar face, his red appendages swinging slowly in that suspended atmosphere. It had been centuries since their last meeting, yet he was still the same, placid giant, with eyes as deep as black lakes and a gentle smile that stretched from one side of the oval face to the other.
"Where am I?" asked Bill. His voice was hoarse.
"In my place," replied the Axolotl. Like last time, his voice came from the space around them, from the pink that surrounded them, from that gaze full of affection. "You asked to be taken away and I took you away."
I INVOKE THE ANCIENT POWER THAT I MAY RETURN!
Flashes of fire passed before his eye. Flames enveloped his strings and destroyed them, erasing them from existence. In front of him, one of the fruits of his creation: a human being, a creature born from his power and the energy of the Multiverse.
He looked down at his hands. Stanley's fist was an echo, a muffled tingle in his shape. He clearly remembered the pain, the atrocious sound of his form shattering. Yet his shape was intact, the pain gone.
The voices of omniscience had shown him his physical body reduced to stone, abandoned in the clearing.
"What got here, of me?" Bill turned his gaze towards the Axolotl. "What am I now?"
The Axolotl's eyes were two universes of water, so vast it would take centuries just to get a glimpse of the bottom. Power shone through it with a gentle glow, impalpable to the touch, warm and soft to the senses. Bill's ocean of power by comparison was nothing but a pond.
The lights above them caught his attention. They were glowing points the size of oranges, gently glittering through the pink layers of the atmosphere.
Embryos of Universes.
"Those beautiful things that you buy, that you don't know where they come from, that are so rare, are embryos of Universes!"
"The universes are born and die without anyone's need. Here they only find a fertile ground in which to grow."
The Axolotl was still smiling, silent. His long tail moved lazily, a wave that floated slowly in the space around them. There was no hurry, anyway. There was no rush, where time did not exist.
"So?" Bill's voice broke that peaceful silence. He returned his gaze to the Axolotl, who still looked at him with those kind eyes. "What's my punishment?"
"Punishment?" repeated the Axolotl.
"I broke all the rules!" Bill exclaimed and his words echoed all around, breaking the still calm that surrounded him. "I burned Dimensions! I wiped out entire races! I overthrew the tyrants, to take control of everything! I pulverized Time Baby, the ultimate holder of time! I tried to force the Multiverse and break its edge, at the risk of destroying every single Dimension, just to satisfy my desire to see more! I deceived billions of individuals, including the very humans I created! And I was going to kill a little boy, just because I was furious!" He spread his arms, his voice growing higher and hysterical. "I gave the worst of me and brought war and death everywhere! I've done everything only to achieve my goals! What are you waiting for? Cut it short and punish me!"
The Axolotl kept looking at him with those huge eyes, those oceans of power that could look at more than one Multiverse, which in their abyss contained the very essence of knowledge, which managed to extend to Dimensions above the Tenth, contemplating their unknown beauty.
And his gaze was still, despite everything, a gaze of placid affection.
"Why should I punish you?" The Axolotl asked him, his pink voice part of the pink surrounding. "Punishment is a concept created by mortals, typical of the mentality of your Multiverse: if you do something that is considered bad, you will be punished."
The huge legs surrounded him, as if Bill were in an invisible sphere and he wanted to protect it. A slow movement of the tail mixed blue with pink currents, scattered with glow points.
"But I don't want to punish you," continued the Axolotl, with that gentle tone. "You've always been free to choose how to behave, from the beginning. You could've inspired people and brought them the light of reason, you could've unleashed chaos and become a warlord, you could've done none of this and stayed in your world. The only things you had to take into account were the consequences your actions would bring to you. But even these are not up to me. Do you remember? "If your choices are up to you, the consequences will be inevitable.". I don't care how you behaved. I gave you free will. It was up to you to use it however you liked."
The Axolotl brought his huge snout closer.
"What matters for me is your mind," he continued, "How thoughts develop in that wonderful and voracious mind of yours, how these thoughts become actions and how the actions take place. Consequences are inevitable, but they're not interesting for me."
A hint of red bloomed in the Axolotl's pink voice, as thin as the ends of his appendages, veined with a greedy shade.
"I want to see you act. Making choices, hesitating about which one to take and seeing how far you're willing to go, to make them true."
The Axolotl was no longer a wave between the currents, but had curled up in a fetal position: a pink comma that surrounded Bill, protecting him.
"Tell me everything, little multiversal miracle," he came closer, a note of hungry interest in his voice. "Tell me about your decisions, describe the processes that took place in your brilliant mind. Explain to me the reasoning behind your choices, tell me how far they've taken you. Show me everything you've seen through your synaesthesia, since the world around you was only black, white and gray. Tell me about the explosions of color and what it was like to finally be able to look at what you'd never been able to see. Tell me what you felt when you tended towards your companions for the first time and how it was, for you, experiencing that feeling over and over. Built with your words the worlds you've visited, in your millennia of exploration. Tell me what you felt, when you tried to force the Multiverse, and how you experienced the consequences of your action. Tell me about how you conquered the Nightmare Realm, what it felt like to be the king of a world you didn't love. Tell me what it was like to see life evolve in your Dimension. Tell me about your favorites in the little blue marble. Tell me about your meetings with them, how you felt, what you thought every time you talked to them."
A glow point shone between the red appendages of the Axolotl, as it drifted lazily through the currents.
"Tell me about your long journey, from the Second to the Tenth Dimension," he asked, "Tell me what it was like, discovering a world that was vast and wider than you could ever imagine. I am here and I'm listening to you."
Bill watched the Axolotl float in front of him, tiny legs raised to protect him. He listened to the combined melody of pink and blue. He watched the bright spots grow with each breath.
And then, he spoke.
END OF CHAPTER 60
END OF ACT VII - STANFORD
END