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Another time, another place, the Zodiac does work.
There are no feeble arguments, no buried resentments bubbling over, just a final union in the face of the enemy. Ten mortals are their reality’s last hope.
The world heals in blue fire, the hole in the sky burnt shut after sucking up its chaotic offspring.
Bill Cipher only has time for one last “NONONONO!” before his entrance becomes his exit.
All breathe a sigh of relief. At last their world is safe.
(Outside, the creature naming itself Bill Cipher turns an eye towards other dimensions. This one might be forever closed to it, and oh, what an embarrassment that is, but there are always other worlds, other too-curious souls willing to open a gate. To make a deal.)
(In the end, this Gravity Falls is safe. But what about the rest?)
This time, this place, the Zodiac is broken, malformed from its very conception.
A fight starts, over the silliest of reasons, a result of thirty years of pain and toil, and ten years more of misunderstanding and abandonment.
Bill laughs, because who wouldn’t? These sad creatures are their reality’s last hope, last chance to renew what has been lost, and they’ve squandered their chance over grammar. An imaginary mortal concept birthed of verbal and written language, of all things.
Bill laughs, because he has won .
How can a team win when two of its members flatly refuse to cooperate? Easy, it can’t.
Despite their failure, the mortals still fight back. Their silly, puny minds cannot even comprehend the reality of the situation, that they have lost.
Bill kindly reminds them of this simple fact.
An ultimatum is presented: surrender, Sixer, or watch me burn everything to the ground.
Watch me kill your whimpering, squishy offspring.
Humans put so much value in what is, in the end, a weaker cloned version of themselves. Something in those synapses firing, those fleshy neurons cause humans to sacrifice entire dimensions for their own ‘flesh and blood’.
Bill doesn’t understand it, but he is more than happy to take advantage of it.
And when it comes down to killing either Shooting Star or Pine Tree, Sixer folds. The man who had spent so long shouting, “I’d rather die than join you,” and going through rounds of 700 volt encouragement... In the end, he throws away his ‘principles’ for two kids that Bill’s going to end up killing anyway. For a brother he spent so long hating.
(Maybe he’ll use Sixer’s body to end these irritating mortals...he’s never strangled anyone with twelve fingers before...)
Bill Cipher, in his all-powerful physical state, can see everything. He sees the bloodline of Stanford Filbrick Pines, traced back to the first crawling ape. He sees two infants, twins lying side by side after their messy birth. One six-fingered, one a normal five-fingered...okay, what does it matter? The body isn’t what he’s here for, but the mind.
(He does not look close enough at the five fingers on the hands of the body he enters.)
(He does not see a six-fingered hand bring out a weapon to destroy the mind.)
(That’s the problem with Bill Cipher. He sees , but does not look. He makes mistakes, but does not learn from them. He’s never had to before. Why pay attention to reality when you can just rewrite it?)
There is an old story about a fisherman and a fish.
A man who spends his days fishing for his family, for profit, for survival.
When he, one day, brings up his net, there is a fish. A golden fish, unlike any he’s ever seen before. The fish wiggles and twists in the net, and speaks. “Oh, please, let me go. I’ll give you kingdoms, riches and fame, if you do. I’ll give you the world if you do. I’ll give you a wish. ”
Now, there are two ways this story ends.
One ending, the fisherman cuts the fish free. A brief moment, before the gold disappears into the depths, the fish whispers, winking its single eye, “I lied.” It swims into the forever deep, laughing at the folly of the fisherman. And the man goes hungry.
Another day, the fisherman listens and nods. Listens and kills the fish with a single blow. “ Like I’d believe that ,” he whispers, to a still golden corpse. “You’ll make good eating tonight.”
And the fisherman enjoys a nice supper.
The moral is this: never believe a fish.
The moral is also this: there’s always a bigger fish.
(Too bad for Bill, that his ‘bigger fish’ turns out to be a mere mortal. A protective brother of the man he’s spent decades hunting, years tormenting. This time, there’s nowhere for him to hide.)
(Isn’t irony justice great?)
Bill doesn’t understand.
Why would this meatsack sacrifice his own life, just to kill his enemy?
Why would this meatsack turn down unlimited power, just like that?
Bill Cipher cannot understand, because if he had ever really understood, he might have not even become the Bill Cipher that so many feared in the first place. To truly die, this monster known as Bill Cipher must die thrice.
The first layer of the mind, Stan Pines punches a triangle into a thousand different fragments. (For the rest of his life, that same hand burns with some imaginary pain. A god does not die without leaving a mark.)
The second layer, Bill attempts to claw his way to the surface, to any possible exit. Only for a hand to grab him and drag him even deeper into blue flame. Come down here with me, demon, says a death-masked Stan, a chilling teeth-filled grin in a face stripped to the bone. You’re missing the fun part, a young child covered in bandaids whispers, grabbing Bill’s other hand. “Let me go! I’ll give you anything!” A pause as both Stans consider this. They laugh, their entire body shaking, fragmenting into thousand flaming ashes.
This is for my family.
This is for the twins.
This is for my brother.
Do you really think I would die for anything less?
The words echo, dragging Bill even deeper into the burning mind surrounding him.
The last layer, there is...the void. A singular darkness unlike any the demon’s ever known. He floats there, this world independent of any gravity.
For a moment, he dares to hope that this is the last of it, that he’ll survive this.
But, underneath him, above him, off to the side, comes a mouth. A mouth of a fish unlike any other, larger than a single puny triangle.
The fish opens its mouth and
Swallows.
Him.
Whole.
(What’s that symbol there? Next to the six-fingered hand, the question mark?)
(The hungry fish.)
(The burning phoenix.)
(The one and only, Stanley Pines, Mr. Mystery extraordinaire.)