#read it on ff net and ao3 plssssss

[minijenn]

Universe Falls Chapter 80, Part 1

AHAHAHAHAH ITS HERE ITS QUEER ITS TIME TO FEAAAAAAAR. RIFTS HYPE TRAIN HAS ARRIVED AND LEFT THE STATION EITHER YOU ON OR YOU AINT NOW LETS GO IDK WHAT THE HELL IM TALKING ABOUT LETS JUST GOOOOOOO

Previous: https://minijenn.tumblr.com/post/619687513045483520/universe-falls-chapter-79

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Chapter 80, Part 1: Rifts

LOMC GRFSX KB SEAJS XZJNHBVE NZ EHBXPU FVUK GHP UVAX LQM BIN VT OGLAR'E PJHNVE TSWF ESY EDH GFFTWQ SWWE 

Steven wasn’t sure when he’d voyaged out into the forest. The last thing he remembered, he’d been tucking himself in for the night, Lion taking up more than half the bed as he curled up right beside him. Upon bidding one final good night to the Gems as they went back into the temple, Steven had thought he had let himself drift off into a good night’s sleep, awash in the dulled, peaceful, calming chorus of crickets chirping and gentle breezes wafting through the trees just outside his window. 

And yet, he wasn’t. Because instead, he now found himself deep in the forest, so deep, in fact, that he couldn’t see any of the usual landmarks that told he was near the temple or the shack. To make matters even worse, it was still night, a pitch black one at that, with no stars or moon peeking through the dense tree canopy above him to guide his way home. Steven paused for a moment, taking in just how eerily silent the woods seemed to be as well, the air dead and surprisingly brisk, a far cry from the comfortable warmth he knew a summer night like this should have carried. The dense darkness and the deafening silence were both enough to unnerve the young Gem on their own, but it was only as that silence was broken by the briefest bout of soft sound somewhere in the distance that his heartbeat slowly started to pick up. 

“Uh… h-hello?” Steven called, his own voice echoing against the tall trees all around him. “Is… is anybody there…?”

He received no answer, at least not a direct one. Somewhere far away in the forest, that unknown noise rang out again, one that almost seemed to be some kind of laughter. Steven couldn’t quite make out who or what it was coming from, but he decided to follow it nonetheless in the hopes of figuring out what exactly was going on. So he forged a path through the trees, feeling his way through them more than anything else given how immensely dark the forest was. And yet, that darkness was soon brightened just a bit by a sparse spot of light peeking through the woods up ahead, one that just so happened to be in the same direction the faint laughter he kept hearing, which was growing louder, and clearer, the closer he wandered to it. 

Yet, the moment that laugh finally became clear enough for him to tell exactly who it belonged to, Steven suddenly stopped dead in his tracks. His eyes were wide as he took in a sharp, startled gasp, and without even taking a second to think, he darted behind the nearest tree, hoping that the dream demon didn’t already know he was there. 

However, at least as far as he knew, it seemed as though he had been found out without even realizing it. “Come on out, kid!” Bill called, his triangular form large, bright, and looming as he passed by the tree Steven was taking refuge behind. “You can’t hide from me forever!”

Steven shuddered as he pressed tighter against the side of the tree, not needing to even think twice about why Bill was apparently on the hunt for him. He placed a protective hand against his gemstone, which was still tucked away under his shirt--out of sight, but still there, still ready for the dream demon’s taking nonetheless. It was an unspoken fear, but a very potent one, cemented at the back of his mind, ever since his frightful dream encounter with Bill weeks ago. And it seemed as though the dream demon still refused to let up as he’d finally come back to collect. 

“You know, running is just a waste of time, something you fleshbags are already running pretty short on by default!” Bill quipped, his shrill voice echoing throughout the forest how as it carried it’s usually teasing tune. “But yours will be even shorter when I’m through with you! If you want, you can go ahead and feel free to thank me for going to all the trouble to finally put you out of your misery!”

Steven didn’t dare respond to this cruel round of threats as he instead focused on remaining as quiet as possible, desperately hoping that Bill would eventually get tired of looking for him and leave. Even so, he was ready to summon his shield, his bubble, and anything else he had at his disposal in the event the demon did manage to spot him, even if he wasn’t sure any of them would actually be able to fend him off. Still, nothing could have prepared the young Gem for the violent explosion that rattled the entire area, nearly knocking him off his feet entirely. 

“Aha! Found ya!” Bill chimed in the immediate aftermath of his destructive attack. Steven gasped, a protective bubble surrounding him in an instant, yet surprisingly, the dream demon didn’t come into view as he still seemed to be somewhere else in the forest entirely. “Yeesh, I gotta hand it to you, you sure are resilient! After several back to back nights of this, I thought our ongoing game of cat-and-mouse here would have you way past your breaking point by now, Pine Tree!”

“P-Pine Tree…?” Steven whispered with a start, initially baffled until the realization struck him like a wave of frigid water. He had been wrong from the very start. Bill wasn’t here looking for him at all; instead, he was looking for‒ “Dipper!” 

His voice rang much louder than he had meant it to but Steven hardly cared. Without hesitation, he left the safety of his hiding spot behind, plowing through the forest as fast as his legs could carry him as he took up the very same search Bill was on, though for an entirely different reason instead. Every now and then, he happened to catch a glimpse of the dream demon himself through the sparse gaps in the trees, but thankfully Bill still hadn’t taken any interest in him whatsoever. Instead, his attention seemed to be solely devoted to finding Dipper, just as Steven’s now was as well. 

Another explosion tore through the forest, one that did succeed in tripping Steven up as several trees toppled haphazardly around him. He narrowly avoided being crushed by one of them thanks to a well-timed shield cover, though as he glanced up amidst the debris, he finally caught his first glimpse of who both him and Bill had been searching for. 

Dipper had been completely displaced by the dream demon’s most recent blast, his own hiding spot completely torn apart, leaving him lying disoriented on the ground, completely out in the open. He quickly regathered his bearings, however, especially as Bill came to hover high before him, bright blue flames licking over both his outstretched hands. 

“Give it up already, Pine Tree!” the demon goaded twistedly, clearly taking pleasure in the torment he was doling out. “We both know that no matter where you run or how hard you try to block me out or fight back, you’ll never be able to really escape me. Put up as many magical barriers, swing around as many swords as you want, none of that matters at the end of the day! All that really matters is that I’m finally gonna give our puppet show the grand finale it’s always deserved!”

Without any sort of sword to defend himself with, the most Dipper could do was seize up in fear, his eyes wide in terror and his entire body visibly shaking with untold fear. Amidst that fear, he was paralyzed, completely incapable of so much as even uttering a single word of opposition or plea for mercy to the demon as he raised his flaming hands to destroy him. Unable to run, unable to hide, unable to fight back, unable to do anything else but helplessly await whatever devastating end Bill had in store for him. 

Until… 

“Dipper!” 

The sudden shout alone was enough to catch Dipper off guard as he tore his terrified gaze away from Bill to see who was rushing to his aid, completely out of nowhere. “S-Steven?!” 

There was no time for Steven to say anything even if he wanted to. Instead, he slid into the open space between Bill and Dipper, summoning a massive shield to protect them both from the demon’s fiery onslaught. Yet even that wasn’t enough to stop it, for as Bill unleashed the full force of his deadly attack, it obliterated the shield on impact‒

Before doing the same to Steven and Dipper themselves. 

Steven bolted upright with a tight, alarmed cry, his blankets tossed aside as Lion abruptly flinched awake alongside him. For a moment, the young Gem was unable to focus on nothing else other than his own sharp, panicked breathing, which steadily began to slow down as he took in the familiar sight of his bedroom loft around him. 

“T-that was just… a dream…?” he muttered to himself, running a hand through his hair. With a tired sigh, Steven flopped back down onto his bed, lying still for a moment as he let Lion casually lick the thin layer of sweat off his forehead. Even so, his brow furrowed in confusion as he stared up at the dark ceiling above him, his thoughts swirling in his head as he tried to make sense of what he’d just seen. “Wait…” he mused aloud, partially to Lion, though mostly to himself. “That… didn’t feel like it was my dream… I… I think it might have been… Dipper’s!”

The young Gem gasped, suddenly sitting up once more, much to his pink pet’s aggravation. “That’s right! Mabel did say he was having nightmares about Bill again… But… I… I didn’t think they were…” Steven trailed off, absently covering his hand with his mouth as worry welled up in his eyes. The dream he’d just unintentionally slipped into had been one fueled by raw, pure, visceral fear, fear that Steven had been able to feel just as powerfully as Dipper likely had, fear he had probably been feeling for several nights in a row now. 

“I-I have to do something…” Steven whispered to himself as he lay back down. All the while knowing that nobody, especially not one of his closest friends, should have to contend with such horrific torment night after night. And certainly not from the very dream demon who had already put him through so much strife in the waking world to begin with. “I have to help him…”

“Have a great time on your vacation, Connie!” Mabel chimed as her, Dipper, and Steven video-chattered with her from their spot on the shack’s porch. “Bring back lots of souvenirs and cute, weird Japanese snacks!”

“Yeah, and don’t forget to call us every day to tell us about all the cool stuff you’re seeing,” Steven added with a smile. 

“Well, I would do that, but there’s… a pretty significant time difference over in Tokyo,” Connie chuckled. “I don’t wanna wake you guys up in the middle of the night while I’m just starting my day.”

“Yeah, as much as we’d love to hear from you, please don’t do that,” Dipper replied with an amused grin. 

“I’ll make sure to fill you all in on everything once I get home,” Connie assured. “I just hope this trip won’t be too boring. My mom’s dead set on making it about ‘cultural enrichment’ and historical education. But all I really want to do is find a cute little bookshop/bubble tea cat cafe and spend a whole day reading as many manga as I can get my hands on.”

“Oo, the bubble tea cat part sounds like my idea of a good time!” Mabel quipped excitedly. “By the way, what’s a manga?”

Connie was about to explain, though she was cut off as the airport speaker rang out with a boarding announcement. “Oh! That’s our flight!” she exclaimed, grabbing her carry-on bag as she headed to the gate. “I’ve gotta go. I’ll see you guys when I get back next week. Try not to get into too much trouble without me, ok?”

“It’s sort of hard to promise something like that around here…” Dipper noted knowingly. 

“But we’ll try,” Steven said, offering her a warm wave. Connie returned that wave with another round of brief, fond farewells for her friends just before she hung up to embark on her Japanese journey. 

“Aw man, Connie’s so lucky!” Mabel let out a wistful sigh as soon as the call was over. “I wish we could go somewhere new and exciting too!”

“Uh, Mabel? Did you forget that Gravity Falls technically is new to you and I?” Dipper inquired with a bit of a wry smirk. “I know it might feel like home sometimes, but we don’t actually live here, you know.”

“Yeah, and something exciting is always happening around here almost every day!” Steven added enthusiastically. “It might not always be a good kind of exciting, but it’s still exciting all the same.”

“Oh, you guys know what I mean!” Mabel huffed. “We should go somewhere that’s super way out there, somewhere nobody’s ever been before! Or at least somewhere no one’s been to before and came back to talk about.”

“Sounds ‘dangerous’,” Dipper chuckled easily. “Have any place like that in mind?”

“Of course I do!” Mabel proclaimed, though her confidence was quick to fall off. “Uh… we can go to… hm…”

Before she could think on the matter any further, however, a gruff, irritated shout rang out from inside the shack. “Mabel! Get in here!” Stan called, clearly annoyed. “Someone--who may or may not be me--left the fridge open and your dumb pig got into the bacon!”

“Waddles, no!” Mabel gasped, horrified as she hopped up to hurry inside. “That’s cannibalism! Think of your adorable pig brethren!”

“Yeesh, you think she would have trained Waddles better with all the time she spends with him,” Dipper remarked, still wearing a light, almost deceptively calm‒at least as far as Steven was concerned‒grin. 

“Heh, yeah…” Steven’s own steady smile finally fell. Even so, he was glad to have a moment or two alone with Dipper, knowing that this would be a much easier discussion to have between just the two of them. “Uh… hey, Dipper? Did… did you sleep ok last night?”

Dipper paused, clearly caught off guard by the question. “Uh… yeah?” he lied, still holding onto a smile, albeit a smaller, more uncertain one now. “Why do you ask?”

“W-well, I just…” Steven hesitated, not really knowing how to proceed, though he still tried to do so as gently as possible all the same. “I heard you were having nightmares about, uh… well, Bill, a-and I was just wondering if you were ok…”

“Ugh, seriously?” Dipper groaned, rolling his eyes. “Does Mabel have to tell everyone about the kind of dreams she thinks I’m having? A-anyway, I… might have had a few Bill-related dreams lately, b-but they’re nothing serious. Definitely not anything worth worrying about, so yeah. I’m fine.”

“...That’s not what I saw last night…” Steven muttered apprehensively as he glanced away. 

“Last night?” Dipper turned to him, raising an eyebrow. “What happened last…” He trailed off, his eyes widening in realization as he happened to recall the finer details of a nightmare he’d just as rather have forgotten entirely. “Wait… t-that nightmare last night… Steven, was… was that really you that showed up in it?”

The young Gem nodded, not really taking stock of the hints of appalled disbelief starting to show up in Dipper’s expression. “I guess I must have used my powers to get into your dreams somehow, b-but that’s ok, because-”

“O-ok?” Dipper interrupted rather harshly. “What makes you think just… breaking into my dreams without my permission is anywhere close to ok? Do you even realize just how much of an invasion of privacy that is?!”

“Oh, w-well, I’m sorry,” Steven frowned, genuinely apologetic. “It wasn’t like I was trying to do it. It just sort of, well, happened. I-I still don’t really know how these new dream powers work, but don’t worry! I’ll figure them out, and once I do, then maybe I can use them to help you fight Bill out of your dreams once and for all!”

Despite this spirited, kindly offer, Dipper flinched, his already agitated expression growing even more intense at this. “No,” he said simply, standing up before walking off toward the nearby woods. 

“What?” Steven also stood, completely baffled as he began trailing after Dipper. “But… why not? Don’t you want Bill to stop showing up in your dreams every night?”

“O-of course I do, Steven, but… it’s not that big of a deal!” Dipper glanced over his shoulder, perturbed. “I don’t need you to use your dream powers, or any of your other powers for that matter, to get rid of him; I can do it on my own.”

A part of the young Gem knew he should have just left it there, taken Dipper’s word for it and moved on. But another, much louder, much more persistent part of him refused to let a friend’s obvious need for assistance and support go unanswered. “B-but… I want to help you!” he implored, grabbing his hand to stop him as he reached the outer edge of the woods. 

Even so, Dipper was quick to pull that hand away. “I don’t want--I don’t need your help,” he said, feigning calm despite the hints of clear frustration lying underneath it. “I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not!” Steven protested, following after him as he began to make his way through the woods once more. “You always say that you’re fine, but I don't think you really are, Dipper! I was there in your dream last night, I could see what was happening. I could feel just how scared you were! I’m scared of Bill too after everything he’s done, b-but I know that we’re strong enough to stand up to him as long as we stick together!”

“You don’t know that!” Dipper countered as he ventured into the forest with no real set destination in mind. Because really, all he was trying to do was get away from a conversation that, by all accounts, Steven was refusing to let him escape so easily. “Nobody knows that! The only thing we do know is what Bill’s capable of, and it’s not something you can just stand up to and expect to survive against!”

“But we have before!” Steven argued firmly. “And we can again. We’ve always found a way to stop Bill by working together; so what makes stopping him in your dreams any different?”

“You still don’t get it, do you?!” Dipper shot back, sending another bitter glare over his shoulder. “My problem isn’t with Bill right now, Steven. My problem is with you!”

Steven froze, faltering almost as if those words had physically struck him. Which really, they might as well have from how much they hurt on mere contact alone. “W-what… what do you mean?” he dared to ask, almost afraid of the answer. 

“Well, gee, why don’t we start with how you just burst into my dreams completely uninvited,” Dipper began crossly, still pressing on ahead into the woods. “And then you act like that’s not even a big deal, when it is! I already have enough problems with Bill running around and ruining my dreams each night; the last thing I want is someone else doing it too.”

“B-but this would be different! It wouldn’t be anything like what Bill’s been doing. Like I said, I’d be going into your dreams to help you, if you would just let me!”

“Well, I’m not going to. Why can’t you just accept that already and drop it?”

Steven bristled at this, his own frustration quickly rising, despite his best efforts to remain patient, even if that patience was steadily starting to wear thin. “Why can’t you just accept that you need help?! Why do you always think you have to do everything on your own? You have so many people who are there for you: Mabel, your uncles, the Gems, me! Why don’t you ever just let us help you?!”

“Why won’t you just take no for an answer!?” Dipper retorted bitterly. “You always, always do this. You always act like you know what’s best for everyone, but you don’t, especially not for me!”

“I never said that! I just want to-”

“Want to what?” Dipper interrupted, pausing as he turned to face the young Gem, his expression completely livid. “Fix me like you try to fix everything else?! Face it, Steven, there are some things you just can’t fix!”

For the briefest of moments, Steven hesitated, pain taking a place in his expression alongside anger. Because now, despite his best efforts to set things right, it seemed as though he inadvertently had torn open an all-new rift, one between him and Dipper and their close friendship. A rift he wasn’t sure he’d be so able to easily heal with words alone. “W-well, that doesn’t mean I can’t try,” he persisted stubbornly, foolishly even. That small part of him practically begged him to stop, to call it quits before that rift tore itself open even wider. But for some inane reason, he kept this argument going, knowing the solution Dipper kept refusing was one they both truly needed to fix that rift, and so much more along with it. 

“You should stop trying,” Dipper refuted, his tone icy as he turned away again. “Because every time you try, things always seem to get worse.”

“T-that’s not true. You aren’t-”

“Oh, it isn’t? Then why don’t we talk about Grunkle Stan and how you just up and stole his body like it was nothing!” Dipper accused, finally bringing to light a point of contention he’d somehow managed to remain silent on for weeks now. But now, there was no hiding the dread and discomfort that series of events had initially brought him, not anymore. 

“I-I didn’t steal it!” Steven exclaimed defensively. “It was an accident, I-”

“Yeah, sure another accident,” Dipper scoffed. “You know, Steven, you sure do happen to have a whole lot of powers you don’t know how to control and just keep accidentally using. But even if it was an accident, you still stayed in his body all day anyway just so you and Mabel could go through with another one of your big “get along plans”, which didn’t even work! The whole thing was pointless, just one big waste of time, but who even knows where Stan was during the whole thing! For all we know, he could have been stuck in the mindscape, just like I was when Bill possessed me!”

“D-Dipper…” Steven choked, his eyes wide with realization. He had known from the start that what had happened that day had bothered him, though he had never been able to figure out exactly why, not until now at least. Really, the answer was so clear, so obvious that he should have seen it from the start, he should have known, he should have at least thought twice about going through with that plan, if just for Dipper’s sake alone. But he hadn’t. And in doing so, the young Gem realized, he had already started tearing that rift between them, even weeks before now. “I… I didn’t-”

“You didn’t think,” Dipper scowled, his hands curled up into tight fists at his sides. “You never do! The only things you do actually think about are your plans to try to ‘fix’ people so they’ll be good and nice and perfect like you! So what happens when you decide I’m not good enough and you want to fix me like you tried to fix Stan and Ford? Are you gonna try and take over my body too?!”

“Of course not!” Steven firmly asserted, knowing just how much that would have hurt Dipper after everything Bill had already done. “You know I wouldn’t! Not unless-”

“Not unless you found a good reason to, right?” Dipper countered rigidly. “Well, it wouldn’t be very hard for you to find one, Steven. Seeing as how you just love to use your powers to get people to do what you want. Just like-”

Dipper suddenly cut himself off, his shoulders hitching as he finally stopped in the middle of an open clearing. By now, both boys were pretty far out in the forest, but that was just about the last thing on either of their minds. Steven slowly reached a hand out to skim Dipper’s shoulder, desperately trying to fight back the hot tears that were already welling up in his eyes. “L-like… who?” he asked, his voice soft and shaking all the while. 

Dipper sighed, not really wanting to voice what he was about to say aloud at all. And yet, as angry, as outraged as he was by the young Gem’s sheer audacity and stubbornness, he found that he couldn’t hold it back, no matter how hard he tried. “Like Bill, Steven!” he shouted, slapping his hand away as he spun around to face him. “You’re just like Bill!”

At that exact moment, time seemed to grind to a complete halt for Steven. His pressing tears finally fell through a heavy, choked-up sob, his hand slowly falling to his side as he took an absent step backward. He hardly even looked at Dipper, or anything else at all, as his thoughts reeled wildly out of control from this simple, yet brutal accusation alone, one that came from one of his best and closest friends, of all people. “N-no…” he stammered softly, shaking his head as tears continued to stream down his cheeks. “I… I’m...” he trailed off, unable to even finish the claim that he wasn’t. Because the simple thought that it was somehow true, that he was just as much of a manipulative monster as Bill Cipher was so horrifying, so chilling, and so incredibly fitting that Steven quickly found himself crumbling under the immense, devastating weight of it all. “H-how… how could you-”

“What? You really think it’s that hard of a comparison to make?” Dipper asked harshly, refusing to let Steven’s tears sway him this time. “Think about it; you’ve both got weird dream powers, you can both possess people, heck, you can even float like he can!”

As soon as Steven heard this, his tears stalled completely, his grief turning to something much sharper over the paper-thin similarities Dipper had pointed out. “That--no,” he said shortly, succinctly as the first hints of frustration began to fill in his expression. “That’s not fair, Dipper! Those are just my powers, they aren’t who I am! I would never do any of the things Bill’s done, I would never hurt you like he has! You can trust me, you know you can!”

Dipper hesitated at this earnest appeal, wanting so much to believe it. And yet, just when he was on the verge of accepting it, an all-too-familiar mantra rang through his head, just as clear as it always did: “Trust no one.” 

No one… not even his very best friend. 

“Sorry,” he said quietly, coldly as he turned his back on Steven once more. “But I can’t.”

Steven was unable to hold back another sob at this, one that heaved heavily out of him as he watched Dipper swiftly, silently walk away from him. As he watched the growing rift between them finally tear them apart entirely. “Dipper, w-wait,” Steven reached out in an effort to stop him, desperate to find a way to fix what had just been broken. “I-”

Before he could even get another word out, their entire argument was abruptly brought to a grinding halt as a bright flash of noisy light rippled across the surrounding forest. Both boys were completely caught off guard by it as they shielded themselves against its blinding might, though as it faded away just as quickly as it had appeared. Only to leave something very unsettling behind in its place. 

As Steven and Dipper opened their eyes once more, they both immediately saw it: a small, yet vibrantly glowing orb of multicolored light, hovering above the ground as its shape shifted, ebbing and flowing almost constantly before them. “W-what is that…?” Steven asked, his eyes wide as he stared at the orb, captivated by it. 

“I… don’t know…” Dipper shook his head, eyeing it distrustfully. “It almost looks like… that rift Great Uncle Ford told us about…”

Steven gasped, alarmed as he noticed the striking similarity this orb had to the rift too. A similarity that unnerved him deeply when he remembered exactly who was hoping to get his hands on the original. “What are you doing?” Dipper asked him as he took his first few steps toward it. 

“I’m gonna bubble it,” Steven glanced back over his shoulder as he continued approaching the light. 

“What? No, Steven, don’t touch it!” Dipper warned incredulously. “We have no idea what that thing even is!”

“Well, Mr. Ford and the Gems might. Once I bubble it, we can take it back to them and see what they think.”

“No, we should just leave it alone and get out of here.”

“But it’s ok,” Steven assured as he reached out toward the orb to secure it in a bubble. “I’ve got this.”

Dipper let out a disgruntled scoff as he essentially received yet another reminder of just how often Steven refused to simply listen. “No, you don-”

At that very moment, just as the young Gem’s hands began to surround the orb, it exploded in yet another burst of incredible light. The force of it alone was enough to knock Steven back, sending him crashing into Dipper before they both hit the ground hard. They had no time to recover, however, as they looked back to where the light had been… only to find what could only be described as a portal instead. 

Said portal was sizable, filled in with a strange sort of spacelike expanse that seemed to be changing colors continually. Under different circumstances, it might have been mesmerizing; if it hadn’t gained an immense, almost suction-like gale-force wind to go along with its radiance. Its magnetic force immediately began to pull the nearest thing toward it, which just so happened to be Steven. The young Gem let out a startled cry as he was pulled off its feet, the rushing gale dragging him toward the portal completely against his will. His attempts at grounding himself all failed as he steadily neared the unknown void ahead, and he was only briefly slowed as Dipper latched onto his arm, his feet planted firmly on the ground as he tried to hold him back. Their former fight was all but forgotten in such a frantic, fearful moment, even as they tried to cling onto each other for dear life. An effort that ended up being all for naught as Dipper ended up ultimately losing his footing against the strength of the portal’s pull, just as Steven had before him. 

And from there, it only took a matter of seconds before both boys, completely unable to save themselves and bereft of anyone else who could, were fully forced into the portal just before it closed itself up and disappeared completely. A portal that led to a place that couldn’t be described as anything other than an absolute nightmare. 

The sheer force of passing through the portal had been enough to knock both Steven and Dipper out, though they both happened to begin to reemerge into consciousness at roughly the same time. Things were quite bleary as they awakened, though the first thing either of them noticed was that they almost seemed to be floating adrift in the air. Or rather, as they discovered upon fully opening their eyes, adrift in what appeared to be space itself. 

Dipper took in a sharp, startled gasp as soon as he spotted the endless expanse of stars below, above, and all around him and Steven, an expanse they somehow hung amid without any gravity weighing on either of them to speak of. Likewise, Steven also aptly panicked, quickly glancing around their apparently empty surroundings, which kept on swirling with senseless colors and unknown sound and silence all at the same time. “W-what… where are we?!” Dipper asked, shuddering as his own voice echoed across the dense void all around them. 

“I-I don’t know…” Steven shook his head, turning his attention to Dipper. “Are you ok?”

“...Yeah,” Dipper answered, glaring away from the young Gem to show he was still quite upset with him. “I’d be better if you hadn’t messed with that thing in the woods. Who knows where we are now…”

“W-well, look on the bright side,” Steven ventured a small, hopeful smile. “At least we can both breathe! I-I guess that rules out outer space, huh?”

“Wow, we can breathe,” Dipper rolled his eyes. “The absolute bare-minimum for surviving. What a great upside you found to us being totally trapped in some sort of completely empty void!”

“Well, at least I‒look out!” Steven exclaimed, rushing in closer to Dipper to surround them both in a timely bubble. Mere seconds later a bizarre, horrifying creature, composed of a large, wide, single eyeball held aloft with its wide set of bat wings, crashed squarely into the bubble, followed by several more of the same flock. The monsters clamored against the sturdy surface, trying to break through it to attack the frightened boys inside, though upon finding that it wouldn’t give, they soon moved on to look for some other sort of prey instead. Steven didn’t get a chance to drop his bubble however, for right after the eye-bats had left, something else struck it instead. This time, it was an asteroid, one that shattered upon brutally hitting the bubble, sending it reeling wildly through the starry, unstable expanse. Both boys were knocked into each other several times over as their bubble speed through the void, though they still saw no relief as gravity, or the lack thereof, turned its head on both of them completely. They had apparently got caught up in some sort of strange, unseen current, one that forcefully flipped them upside down, pressing them both against the top of the bubble. Steven tried his best to right them once more, though gravity soon switched its course against them once more, abruptly shoving them to the side several times over. The unpredictable current tossed the bubble about violently, and all the while, Steven and Dipper were helpless to stop it, only staying together amidst it all thanks to the bubble they were both encased in. 

Eventually, finally, the bubble floated to a gradual stop, still completely lost amidst the vast tide of multicolored space surrounding it. Needless to say that Steven and Dipper were equally shaken by such a harrowing experience, to the point that the young Gem hesitated in bringing his protective bubble down just in case anything else beset them out of nowhere. “W-well…” Steven said breathlessly, nervously as he lingered close to Dipper. “Whatever this place is, I guess it’s not as empty as it looks…”

“You have no idea how right you are, kid!”

At the mere sound of this unmistakable voice alone, a spark of fear, so sharp and so intense it might as well have been lighting, struck Dipper and Steven alike. That fear only grew as a harsh, golden light fell upon them, one that only offered all the more telling evidence about exactly who had happened upon them. 

“B-Bill!” Steven gasped, a shield already formed over his arm as he spun around to face the demon. 

Sure enough, Bill hovered large and dominating above them, his single eye practically gleaming with twisted delight as he offered the young Gem a wave of greeting. “That’s the name, don’t wear it out! Lookie what the interdimensional tear in the fabric of reality dragged in! It’s Rosebud and Pine Tree! My two favorite Mystery Twerps, paying me a visit on my own turf! To what do I owe the pleasure of having you boys in my neck of the woods for a change instead of the other way around?”

“W-wait… y-your… what?” Steven asked, his voice trembling even amidst his confusion. 

Bill hardly offered him any answer however as he’d instead set his sights on Dipper, who hadn’t even tried to so much as even glance back at the dream demon. Instead, he’d kept his back turned, his arms wrapped tightly around himself as he tried to block out his presence altogether. “I-it’s just a dream, he’s not actually here,” Dipper whispered to himself, his eyes tightly shut to block out the terrified tears starting to well up in them over his usual nighttime tormentor. “It’s a-another nightmare, it always is, he’s not real, he’s not real, he’s NOT-”

“Oh, yeah, sorry to break it ya, but I’m as real as it gets!” In an instant, Bill had scaled himself down, teleporting to appear directly in front of Dipper. On a knee-jerk reaction alone, he let out a tight, frightened cry, flinching back through the open air only for Steven to catch him with a protective, secure grip on his arm. “You know, Pine Tree, ignoring people is rude, especially when you’re the one barged into someone else’s dimension completely unannounced!” 

“L-Leave him alone!” Steven protested, still holding onto Dipper, who by now, had more or less completely shut down. He choked out a small, scared sob, but he said nothing, his hand flinching over his shoulder to grab a sword he didn’t even have on him. No sword, no means of defense, nothing he could do to stop Bill from turning his constant nightmares into a horrible reality. 

“Aw, c’mon, Rosebud, don’t be such a prude,” Bill scoffed, floating a quick circle around the boys. “Besides, seeing as how we’re in my own digs here, I think I’m entitled to do whatever I want. And that includes having a little fun with poor Pine Tree there!”

At this, Steven fully threw himself between Bill and Dipper, upholding his shield as he prepared to fend off any surprise attacks the demon might throw their way. “Wait,” he began, trying to make sense of everything. “So… this place is… your home?”

“You got it, kid! Well, at least it’s home for right now,” Bill quipped, flying high above both of them as he resumed his earlier massive size to take a seat on the levitating gilded throne he’d just conjured up. Behind him, a horde of shadowy, monstrous silhouettes appeared out of nowhere, their crimson eyes all peering curiously down on the terrified pair of humans below them. “Welcome to the Nightmare Realm, boys! Hope you enjoy your stay! Don’t worry, the locals are as friendly as they come! Aren’t we, fellas?”

The crowd of obscured demons surrounding Bill chimed in at this, letting out a rowdy chorus of demented, mallicious laughter that was every bit as sadistic as the dream demon’s own. Yet despite their twisted levity, Bill was quick to put an end to it with a mere dismissive wave of his hand. “Yeah, yeah, as much as I know you guys would love to tear these two puny punks to shreds and make an entire gourmet meal out of their innards, I’m afraid I have some… unfinished business to attend to with the kids first,” he remarked to his henchmen, sending the newly disappointed crowd off to whatever part of the Nightmare Realm they’d crawled out of. “That’s right, run along and get a good seat to watch the show from. Because oh boy,” Bill turned his full attention back to Steven and Dipper, his eye burning with his iconic blue fire as he set his sights solely on them. “What a show we’re about to have here…”

Steven took in a hitched, panicked breath at this, briefly casting a glance back at Dipper behind him, only to find that he was more or less hyperventilating, the weight of the grave situation they’d now found themselves in crushing him more and more with each passing second. And even though he was immensely afraid at the moment himself, the young Gem was determined to do his best to try to carry that weight for the both of them where Dipper couldn’t. “L-look,” he addressed Bill as calmly as he possibly could. “We don’t know how we ended up here, but-”

“Oh, you don’t?” Bill interrupted, leaping off his throne as it vanished into thin air. “Really? I thought it was beyond obvious if you take two seconds to think about that pretty little rift ol’ Sixer’s been trying to lock up nice and tight away from me!”

“The rift…” Steven repeated with a small gasp of realization. “S-so, that thing in the forest really did have something to do with it?”

“Sure did!” Bill confirmed. “Looks like Fordsy’s nowhere near as smart as he thinks he is. Ya see, kids, he might have the rift itself contained for now, but it’s still a highly unstable drop of paradoxical, trans-dimensional energy that’s being kept safe only by some dumb, glorified snowglobe. You really think something like that is gonna keep that rift from letting loose some unexpected… side effects as long as it stays in your dimension?”

“S-side effects…?” Dipper dared to speak up, his curiosity getting the better of him, even amidst his own persistent panic. 

“Hey, look who finally got his voice back!” Bill teased callously. “I was starting to think you’d gone mute on me, Pine Tree. Anyway, yessiree! A whole boatload of side effects, but the main one is that it’s wearing down the walls between dimensions, just like Sixer’s portal did back when it was up and running. And the longer that rift chips away at those walls, the more chances you have for random wormholes to pop up all over the place! And you wanna know where all those wormholes just so happen to lead…?”

The boys exchanged an uneasy glance, both of them quite alarmed by what the dream demon was implying through this explanation alone, especially when they considered it was the very means through which they’d found themselves here to begin with. “Uh… h-here?” Steven guessed anxiously. 

“Ding ding ding! We have a winner!” Bill chimed as a noisy mess of game show lights and sound effects blared dramatically behind him. “You’re really using your noggin today, huh, Rosebud? I guess there’s a first for everything! Though I gotta admit, I wasn’t actually expecting one of those mini-portals to actually pull anything through it at all, but can you imagine my surprise when it did! And you kids, of all the meatskins it could have picked out there? Right as I was in the middle of sitting here, watching you two have a grand old time duking it out--which was hilarious by the way? Well, I guess you could say that today is my lucky day!”

Both boys bristled at the demon’s cutting remarks, though even so, they chose to mostly ignore them as Dipper nervously piped up with another horrific thought that had just occurred to him. “W-wait… so… if these portals between h-here and Earth just keep… showing up… why haven’t you just g-gone through any of them?” he asked shakily, trying and failing not to show just how frightened he really was. “T-that is what you want, right? T-to get into our dimension a-and take it over?”

Bill’s usually cheery tune quickly changed at this, his triangular form turning blood red as he glared down at Dipper in particular. “Oh, Pine Tree, you always know just the right questions to ask to PUSH MY BUTTONS!” he shouted, suddenly furious as the Nightmare Realm rumbled all around him. “You really think that I would even hesitate to leap through one of those portals into your dimension if I could? Problem is, I CAN’T! I’m still bound to this STUPID WASTELAND OF A DIMENSION! Or…” Bill seemed to calm somewhat at this, much to the boys’ shared relief.  “At least I am until I get my hands on that rift… You kids wouldn’t wouldn’t happen to know someone who’d be able to help me out with that little problem, would you?”

“No,” Dipper said almost immediately, resolve starting to replace his fear as he sent a steady, stern glare Bill’s way. “You can do whatever you want to us, but we will never ever give you that rift!”

Steven couldn’t help but look over at Dipper with a small smile at this, glad to see his usual bravery making a return, even in the face of undoubtedly his greatest fear. “That’s right!” Steven solidly, boldly agreed. “We made a promise to protect it from you, and that’s exactly what we’re gonna do!”

While both boys expected Bill’s more than infamous temper to flare up over their brazen resistance, he instead reacted in the complete opposite way instead. He laughed. “Oh, you boys are a real RIOT!” he chortled as madly as ever, his crimson pallor returning to its usual garish yellow. “You two really think I’m gonna try and swipe that rift from you?! What, do you think I’m some kind of idiot like Sixer is?! He’s got you kids so brainwashed into hoarding that thing away from me to the point that you’d probably rather die than hand it over to me. Which can be arranged, easily, of course, but still, let’s just say I’ve got… another pawn in mind when it comes to that rift. Besides, why waste time with that when I can make an even better use of this opportunity to get something else I’ve been after instead....?”

Steven took in a sharp, involuntary gasp at this, his eyes wide as he instantly gripped the gemstone on his navel, even if it was currently covered by his shirt. Bill picked up on his obvious alarm almost instantly, yet he simply brushed the young Gem’s palpable fear off with a callous scoff. “Geez, calm down, Rosebud, I wasn’t talking about that rock on your gut,” he remarked, rolling his eye. “The universe doesn’t revolve around you, ya know, even if your last name might have you thinking otherwise. But, relax! I don’t have my sights set on your gem this time around. At least not yet, anyway.”

“Oh…” Steven let out a sigh of relief, though he did notice Dipper tense up beside him in light of this new uncertainty. “W-well, if you don’t need anything from us, t-then maybe you could just… I-I don’t know, let us go ho-”

“No can do, Rosebud!” Bill interrupted succinctly. “I can’t just open up one of those tiny tears in reality myself, as much as I’d love to just so I could slip through it too. Didn’t ya hear the part about how they open up randomly? For all you know, you could be stuck here for what would be days, maybe even weeks in your dimension!”

Needless to say that upon hearing this news, both boys’ hearts practically dropped to their stomachs. The mere thought of being trapped here, in this chaotic, lawless, mess of a dimension with no one but Bill Cipher, of all beings, and his band of malicious, blood-thirsty demons to keep them company was just about the most terrifying, horrific thing for either of them, a thought so unbearable they could scarcely even comprehend it. Yet for as dreadful as it all was, it seemed as though it was all-too-true all the same. 

“Oh, now don’t worry!” Bill quipped, taking twisted pleasure in the boys’ obvious panic over their plight. “I have the perfect plan in mind to keep you kids entertained during your stay here. See, lately I’ve been thinking, doing that whole self-reflection thing you humans try and usually fail miserably at. I’ve made some pretty outstanding deals these past few months, deals that could have landed me with everything I need to take over your dimension in one fell swoop. But every single time I got close, you know who was always there to stop me?”

Neither of the boys had a chance to answer this question, one they already largely knew the answer to. Because in an instant, the dream demon’s eye flooded with golden light, practically becoming a bright spotlight that shined down directly upon them both. “That’s right! You two! Along with any combination of the Crystal Chumps and/or Shooting Star and Sword Swinger, but what’s consistent is that every time one of my plans falls through, you boys are always in the mix somehow. The time I snuck into Stan’s mind, when I took your body for a test drive, Pine Tree-” Dipper seized up with yet another burst of potent fear upon hearing this casual reminder of something that deeply haunted him even still, though even so, Bill hardly seemed to notice as he continued his list. “But the straw that broke the camel’s back was when you two personally split my fusion with Greenie up! Pyrite had enough power and potential to crush those Crystal Chumps to dust, but somebody just had to help someone else run a sword through them, DIDN’T YOU?!” 

Despite the dream demon’s severe tone, Steven spoke up, prompted by all of the wavering courage he really had in the face of such clear fury. “Y-yes, we did,” he professed firmly, evenly. “We stopped you each of those times because you were trying to hurt our friends! Our home! We had to do something to help them!”

Upon hearing this earnest argument, Bill simply narrowed his eye at the young Gem in particular, visibly annoyed by such a resistant claim. “Well, if you care so much about your friends, where are they to help you now?” he asked knowingly, piercingly before his tone picked back up into its usually playfulness once more. “It’s a shame none of them even know you kids are here; they’re really gonna miss out on something special here. See Rosebud, Pine Tree, we’re about to play a little game here. The name of that game is REVENGE.” At this, bright bursts of blue fire ignited over both of the demon’s palms, his single eye sparking with violent, malicious intent as he glared down at both of the defenseless boys before him hatefully. “And this time, the winner takes IT ALL!” 

Without wasting another second on small talk, Bill began his attack, launching both his flames at the boys in full speed. Steven rushed to move his shield in front of both himself and Dipper, expanding it as wide as he possibly could to block the devastating strike. While it succeeded in fending the fire off, the sheer force of the blow was enough to send them both flying back across the vast expanse of the Nightmare Realm. The unexpected flight fortunately seemed to put them out of Bill’s reach, though unfortunately it wasn’t for very long. As the pair finally floated to a gradual, gravity-free stop, the demon suddenly teleported directly behind them, sizing his form up to tower over them as he prepared to grab them both. The most Steven could do to stop him was form another bubble around himself and Dipper, though Bill just as easily swiped the bubble itself up, tossing it up as if it were nothing more than a mere plaything. 

“Ohoho! Way to spice things up, Rosebud!” Bill quipped as he casually juggled the bubble, ignoring the boys’ shared cries of protest as they were roughly tossed about inside it. “Let’s play ball!” At this, the demon threw the bubble up high, forcing some sort of gravity upon it to bring it back down as he pulled a nail-covered bat into existence out of thin air. He used that bat to strike the bubble squarely, sending it soaring across the starry void once more with both Steven and Dipper inside, helpless to even try to stop it. “Iiiiiiits outta here! A home run hit! And the crowd goes wild!” 

Sure enough, Bill’s horde of demonic friends erupted into a hearty round of cheers from wherever unknown corner of the Nightmare Realm they were watching from. While the dream demon eagerly soaked up their praise, he missed the boys’ bubble as it flew far out of his sight, ultimately crashing hard into a stationary asteroid that ended up popping it completely. Without anything to safely contain them, Steven and Dipper hit the asteroid themselves, though thankfully the bubble had cushioned the brunt of what would have otherwise been a brutal blow. Even so, they still they both rolled hard across the large rock, inevitably falling back into the open space behind it, much worse for wear considering the substantial cuts and bruises they had sustained. The only upside amidst this harrowing situation was that there now seemed to be some actual distance between them and Bill, though they were both more than well aware that the dream demon could just as easily bridge that distance to kickstart his barrage of twisted violence all over again. 

“T-that was… a-a lot…” Steven said breathlessly, pressing against the side of the asteroid. He stole a weary glance over at Dipper, only to find a noticeably bleeding cut torn across his face, which itself was engulfed in nothing less than immense, inescapable terror. “Oh!” the young Gem gasped, quickly licking his hand. “Here, let me-”

“Don’t,” Dipper’s expression turned harsh at this as he pushed Steven’s hand and the healing spit covering it away. “There’s no point. W-we’re not… we can’t... “ He trailed off, pulling his knees to his chest in a tight hug as he let out an anguished sob. “T-there’s no way either of us have a chance at surviving here, not for long, n-not against… him.”

“W-what? No,” Steven countered immediately, racing to figure out some way to comfort Dipper, despite how despondent he was himself over their dire straits. “W-we’ll figure something out, I know we can. L-like I said earlier, we’ve stopped Bill before, so-”

“We’ve never stopped him by ourselves!” Dipper cut him off sharply. “We’ve always had Mabel or Connie or the Gems to help us! And what’s more is we’ve never had to fight him here, on his home turf! He has a physical form here! He doesn’t need to possess or fuse with someone anymore! He’s free to do whatever he wants to us and if you think he might go easy on us then you’re wrong!”

“W-well, maybe can outrun him somehow,” Steven ventured anxiously. “Then we can wait for another one of those portals to open up and… Um… Oh, I know! O-once the Gems and your uncles notice we’re gone, maybe they’ll go looking for us and-”

“And what, Steven? You heard what Bill said! Nobody even knows we’re here!” Dipper argued intensely, hot tears streaming down his cheeks. “No one is coming to save us… S-so stop doing that thing you always do where you act like everything is going to turn out alright in the end, because it’s not, not this time. Don’t you get it, Steven?” He buried his face in his hands, choking out another mournful, miserable whimper as he admitted the only thing he knew to be absolutely certain now. “W-we… we’re going to die here…”

At this, Dipper more or less completely lost himself to his grief, grief over a present that was about to painfully be cut short, over a future he’d never get to have. Both brought to a violent conclusion by the very demon he’d always feared would end them. Steven nearly victim to that same grief too, especially when he considered just how right Dipper really was. No one knew where they were, no one was going to come to their rescue. The chances of another portal leading back to their own dimension opening up were completely unknown, and the possibility of them even surviving long enough to reach it against a complete and utter sadist like Bill was genuinely low to none. All in all, it really didn’t seem like either of them would survive this ordeal, perhaps the gravest, most immediate danger either of them had ever been thrust into before.

And yet… 

Despite even those impossible, insurmountable odds, Steven refused to give up. At least not yet. 

“Dipper,” he began, his tone slow and purposeful as he came to float directly in front of Dipper. He resisted his attempts at grabbing his hands at first, but eventually folded, allowing the young Gem to see all of the strife and dread that had claimed his expression quite some time ago. “I… I know this seems really bad, but… I still think we have a chance. A-and I think, deep down, you feel the same way too.”

Dipper let out a tight, exhausted sigh, shaking his head hopelessly. “S-steven, I…”

“You can’t give up,” Steven implored, gripping his hands tightly. “We can’t give up. I… I think I have an idea…” He paused for a moment, allowing that idea, however risky it might have been, to solidify inside his mind before proposing it to Dipper. “I know someone who might be able to stand a chance against Bill, e-even if we can’t on our own. The only thing is… I-I need you to trust me…”

Before Dipper even had a chance to consider this offer, Bill’s voice suddenly rang out across the surrounding section of the Nightmare Realm, a clear sign that he was on the hunt for his victims once more. “Oh, Pine Tree! Rosebud!” he called, his tone deceptively bright and friendly. “Come on out! You don’t wanna call it quits already, do you? Not when the game’s only just begun…”

“Dipper, please,” Steven practically begged, pulling his hands out of Dipper’s, though his pleading sights stayed set on him. “I-I know you’re probably still mad at me, a-and I’m sorry, but right now, I need you. I-I… I can’t do this without you! We can’t do this without each other! So please…” This time, it was the young Gem who let out a small, nervous sob, consumed by worry. Though even still, that worry had almost nothing to do with the possibility of Bill finding them at all. “Just… trust me again… Just this once… please…”

For what seemed like ages, Dipper said nothing, making not a single move to respond to either accept or reject the young Gem’s tearful appeal. His mind was racing with far too many thoughts at once, his upheaved emotions tossing him in a wild sea of shock, fear, anger, and grief. But amidst that sea, amidst the tide of chaos that threatened to swallow him up completely, was Steven. Steven, who had thoughtlessly invaded his dreams just like Bill himself had done so many times before. Steven, who so very often thought only of himself under the guise of trying to help others. Steven, who had inadvertently been the reason why they’d ended up in this potentially fatal disaster in the first place. 

Steven… who was always there to offer him a comforting smile and a kind word when he needed it most. Steven, who was always more than ready to throw himself in the line of fire if it meant protecting his friends, including him, even after he’d screamed and yelled and practically torn their friendship apart. Steven, who was asking for something as simple as his trust, who was extending out a hand to him in the hopes that he’d take it, so that they could at least try to survive, try to get through this together. 

And, in spite of everything else going on around him and inside him, that was a hand Dipper slowly but surely found himself taking. 

“Alright, kids, hide-and-seek time is over!” Bill shouted, growing impatient as he continued combing through the surrounding asteroid field. “I mean it, Rosebud, Pine Tree, you two twerps better get out here where I can pummel you into oblivion NOW or else I’m gonna-” The dream demon was succinctly cut off as a sudden, lightning-fast projectile sped at him from behind, slicing through one of his arms to the point that it managed to cut it off completely, catching him off guard in the process. “WHAT?!” 

Bill’s eye drifted to his backside, the rest of his features following suit so he could properly see where this sudden attack had come from. Only to be met with a sight, or rather, a fusion, that even he hadn’t been expecting. 

“You called?” Stepper grinned, looking up at the dream demon with a new sense of determination. He stood tall and unflinching atop the asteroid his halves had just been hiding behind, his shield journal already formed over his lower palms with a new shield summoned over it, ready to fly just as the first one had. And all the while, he couldn’t help but take some level in pride in just how genuinely surprised Bill seemed to be by his timely attack, his hope starting to rise as he realized that, with the respective strengths of his halves combined, he might just have a chance after all. 

Bill, however, didn’t see things quite the same way. His bafflement only seemed to last for a moment as he quickly recovered from the fusion’s attack, regenerating his arm easily and immediately. And as he did, all sense of shock seemed to disappear as he let out a loud, mocking laugh instead. “Oh, now this? THIS is a REAL riot right here!” he cackled almost madly, much to Stepper’s confusion. “And I thought Rose Star was hilarious, but you, Pine Bud? You take RIDICULOUS to a whole new level!”

Stepper let out a harsh scoff at this, his own confidence getting the better of him as he fired off just as punchy of a comeback to the dream demon himself. “I-I’ll tell you what’s ridiculous,” he began, trying his best to recover from how his voice had briefly cracked in fear at the start. “Using a nail bat to knock a to kids across an entire dimension. Seriously, did the bat even need to have nails in it? That was just overkill if you ask me.”

Bill’s amusement quickly shifted into a sharpened glare at this. “Oh, what, do you think you’re some kind of comedian now, Rose Tree? You really are funny if you think fusing is gonna save you now. You know, I’m surprised you two were even able to fuse at all what with you being at each others’ throats and all. Guess it goes to show just how far you boys are willing to go when you’re really desperate.”

Stepper’s bravado quickly shifted in annoyance at this reminder, a reminder of the still palpable tension still lingering between both of his halves, even if he had chosen to ignore that tension for now to maintain his fusion. “Shut up,” he hissed, waiting no time in launching his next shield at the demon. This one had the addition of spikes barbing its edges, and though Stepper had aimed it directly for Bill’s eye, the demon managed to teleport out of its path just before it could hit him. Instead, he retaliated, reappearing just behind the fusion and firing off a powerful laser blast from his eye to obliterate the asteroid Stepper was standing on upon impact. Fortunately, he’d managed to jump off it back into the gravity-free air, taking advantage of the momentum he gained to send several smaller shield-projectiles Bill’s way. The demon was able to deflect most of these easily, though Stepper managed to manipulate a few of them to change their course so they’d crash into Bill from behind, each of them exploding upon impact. 

“Ow!” Bill shouted, quite perturbed by the surprisingly potent attack. “Rose Tree!”

“What’s the matter, Bill?” Stepper taunted, perhaps a bit too brazenly, as he took up a perch on another nearby asteroid. “Aren’t used to someone who can actually keep up with your ‘game’?”

“Ha! You WISH you could keep up with me, Pine Bud!” Bill shouted manically, scorching blue flames bursting from both his hands. As he launched them at the fusion, Stepper deflected them with a large, well-cast shield from his journal, one that not only seemed to dispel the fire but deflect it as well. All four of his arms were put to work upholding it, his gem, birthmark, and journal alike bursting with powerful light as he shoved that shield hard back at Bill. As drenched in his own flames as the shield already was, the demon was unprepared for the full force of it striking him as heavily as it did, and his genuinely pained, outraged shout echoed across the Nightmare Realm as he was swiftly thrown back through it. 

In light of such a momentous, successful blow, Stepper himself was quite stunned, looking to his shield journal with apt amazement. He had always known, from the very first time he’d been formed, that it was a strange, unique, special weapon, one that contained powers that even he didn’t hold all of the answers to yet. It had served him well before in taking down Peridot’s unwanted robinoids months ago, but now, was there indeed a chance, however small, that it might just be enough to help him take on Bill Cipher himself? 

“W-we could do this…” Stepper said to himself, his halves conversing with a sense of rising hope and excitement. “We could win this! Maybe… maybe we could even do more than just win; maybe we could even stop Bill for good! After all,” he grinned as he looked afar off in the distance to where Bill was still being forced back thanks to his own shield’s strength. “He’s not invincible here. Y-you really think we could beat him? If we stay together like this? I think so.” He laughed in spite of himself, his upper arms wrapping around themselves in a steadying, affectionate, assuring hug, both of his halves in perfect harmony when it came to this daring endeavor. “O-ok. Then let’s do it. And while we’re at it,” he paused, allowing his shield journal to float before him, placing his lower hands under it as its pages flipped rapidly on their own accord. “Let’s see what this thing can really do.”

By now, Bill had recovered from Stepper’s last attack, rushing across the wide span of the Nightmare Realm in a matter of mere seconds to strike back. “You know, Rose Tree, you’re really starting to GET ON MY NERVES!” he yelled, his form flashing bright red as he appeared massive and intimidating before the fusion. “I think it's high time someone TORE YOU TWO APART!” 

In an instant, the dream demon lashed out, hoping to grab ahold on the fusion to do exactly that, literally. Still, Stepper was ready for him, for right as Bill’s hands reached for him, he called upon another bubble. This one, however, was quite a bit different, for as soon as the dream demon so much as touched it, he retracted his hands with a startled yelp of pain. 

“Whoa…” Stepper gasped, looking over the newfound spikes he’d somehow formed on the outer surface of his bubble. “Cool! Oo! I can think of something even cooler.” At this, the fusion flipped through the earlier pages of his journal, landing on one depicting a familiar sword that had recently been lost to the depths of the lake. But with just a bit of magic, it had the chance to be reclaimed in some way, and for Stepper, that was far better than nothing. 

“You must think you have a whole bunch of nifty tricks up all four of your sleeves, dontcha, Rose Tree?” Bill asked, clearly annoyed at this point as his eye flashed a violent red. “Well SO DO I!”

Stepper finished pulling a conjured, pinkened version of the Sword of Seasons out of the shield journal just in time to use it to slice through the first of several heavy waves of successive, destructive energy Bill sent his way. As one set of his arms continued deflecting these attacks, his other arms took up a shield, which he positioned protectively in front of himself to stem the onslaught completely. From there, Stepper kept his pace rapid, tossing the shield at Bill full force and landing a successful strike to his eye this time. While the dream demon was distracted with recovering from such a painful blow, Stepper rushed forward, leaping off his asteroid perch with his sword raised high, though just before he could bring it down on Bill, the demon disappeared out of his reach once more. Bill reappeared somewhere behind him, absolutely livid, though Stepper still didn’t back down. Instead, he formed another shield under his feet, using it as a launch pad to jump off to do so he could propel himself in Bill’s direction, swinging his sword out broadly as he did. The dream demon attempted to fend him off with a rapid fire series of flame bursts, but a large and sturdy shield was more than enough to protect the fusion from them. And for quite awhile, that was how the battle flowed; Bill and Stepper, both doling out strong, heavy attacks aimed for each other, none of which really did much damage thanks to the steady line of defense and stamina both had on their sides. 

Stepper did manage to briefly break that flow, however, by swiftly working to put some tactical distance between himself and Bill so he could have time to plan his next move. He distracted the dream demon with another series of small seeker shields before he leapt onto the nearest asteroid, looking through his shield journal for anything else that might be useful. “Come on, we’ve got him on the ropes,” he muttered both to himself and the magical tome floating in front of him. “Give me something really good this time.” As if it was answering the fusion’s request, the journal flashed with vibrant light once more before its flipping pages landed on two in particular, one within each different half of the journal as the pages between them stood up perfectly straight. And printed upon those two pages was a plan that Stepper could and readily did hope was more than enough to finally put this arduous fight to an end once and for all. “Perfect!” he grinned, determined to give that plan a try. Or rather, to give his component halves a try. 

“You know, Pine Bud,” Bill’s entire form was as he began to approach the fusion hotly. “I’m getting REAL sick of you and that stupid book of yours! You’re almost more of a pain while you’re fused than you two are on your own!”

“Oh, really?” Stepper asked, smirking as he let his journal drop low toward his feet. “I don’t know if I’d be too sure of that if I were you…”With a simple flourish of his upper hands, the fusion conjured up his next method of attack from the two open pages of the shield journal. And from those pages, solid, yet still clearly holographic life-sized doubles of both Steven and Dipper appeared, pigmented pink and blue respectively as they stood, already armed with a shield and a sword from the start. Through the journal, Stepper was in full command of these copies of his halves as he pointed them at their target, and without skipping a beat, both doubles lunged for the dream demon, ready to attack. While Bill worked in taking down the first set, Stepper worked on creating several more in quick succession, sending each of them the demon’s way as he amassed an army essentially composed of himself. The copies, while not the most sturdy, were plentiful as they attacked Bill essentially in a haphazard swarm, beating their swords and shields away at him even as the demon retaliated by destroying as many of them as quickly as he could. Still, Stepper kept them coming, his hopes steadily rising as he watched his duplicates begin to overwhelm Bill while he waited for just the opening he needed to finally win this deadly brawl.

And yet, despite those hopes, it was an opening that never came. 

“ENOUGH!” Bill suddenly shouted, unleashing a powerful wave of energy to dissipate all of the boys’ clones. The blast also knocked Stepper back hard, preventing him from conjuring up anymore as the shield journal fell away from him before disappearing completely. “You sure have shown off that you’ve got some pretty sharp thorns to ya, Rose Tree,” Bill continued angrily, his hands glowing with an entirely new type of dangerous power. “Well, why don’t I take the time to show you MINE? Fair warning: they’re at least a MILLION TIMES SHARPER THAN YOURS!” 

Stepper gasped, quickly righting himself to float upright, though he didn’t get much of a chance to summon his shield journal again before something sharp latched onto one of his lower arms. The same thing happened to his other arms in short order, and from there it didn’t take Stepper long to see what it was: long, thick black vines, covered in tiny, yet razor-sharp thorns that had already begun to cut deep into his skin. Despite his efforts to pull himself out of them, their grip only grew tighter, worsening as even more vines began latching onto his legs, snaking their way up his torso, his chest, over his neck, even all the way up to his face until he was essentially covered with them. Then, to make matters worse, the vines themselves began to pull against him, stretching all four of his arms and his legs out wide to the point that he felt as though his limbs were going to be ripped clean out of their sockets. And yet, despite his involuntary cry of agony the sting of the thorns in particular managed to draw out of him, Bill simply let out a smug, triumphant, amused laugh at the fusion’s clear misery. 

“Ah, now THAT’S more like it!” he remarked blithely, even as Stepper voiced another protesting, pained shout. “You know, I really gotta hand it to ya, Rose Tree, you’re putting up way more of a fight than I ever would have imagined out of a soft, baby-faced fusion like you. Too bad that fight ends right here. Playtime is over, boys! Which means now, the fun can REALLY begin…”

Despite this alarming threat, Stepper noticed that the vine latched onto one of his upper arms was finally starting to loosen. He wasted no time in pulling free from it, calling upon a small shield that he swiftly used to cut through the rest of them, pulling them off his body and just as quickly licking one of his hands to heal as many of the wounds they’d left him with as he could. He wasn’t able to take care of too many of them, however, before Bill caught him off guard with a heavy burst of flame. Stepper barely had time to react by throwing up a last-minute shield, though even still, that did little to stop the attack from shoving him back as he took most of the brutal brunt of the blow. This time, however, he didn’t simply continue reeling back through open space; instead he landed hard against something solid, a sideways surface that seemed to possess its own gravity as he landed upon it. 

“W-what…?” Stepper breathed, slowly starting to pick himself up off the new ground, only to be completely baffled by what surrounded him. He found himself on a massive, twisted structure, a mess of colors and shapes and stairs and floors and pillars, each of which was turned and twisted in a completely different direction. As bewildered as he was by this incomprehensible new setting, he didn’t get a chance to try to make sense of it before Bill suddenly appeared before him once more, scaled down dramatically to the point that he was now even smaller than the fusion himself. 

“Welcome to the Quadrangle of Qonfusion, boys! My favorite hangout in the entire Nightmare Realm! I’d give you the grand tour, but you won’t really be needing one since its  is about to become your GRAVE!”

Stepper took a wide step back away from the demon at this, all four of his hands clenched into tight, anxious fists as he tried to maintain his previously calm composure. “G-grave?” he repeated, doing his best to inject an air of cockiness into his tone. “B-but I thought you’d want me alive. I do still have Steven’s‒my gem after all.”

“Ohh don’t you worry about that, Pine Bud!” Bill retorted easily as he resumed his larger size once more. “I’ll make sure to pry that gem outta Rosebud’s cold, dead corpse before I toss that and Pine Tree’s into the endless empty abyss that acts as this dimension’s garbage dump! All I gotta do is rip you to pieces first and everything else will fall perfectly into place!”

At this, the dream demon conjured up his cane out of thin air and took a broad swing right at the fusion as blue flames ignited over the entire length of it. Stepper thankfully hat the wits about him to leap out of its path, deciding his best option was to retreat for now, if only for the sake of gaining a moment to reclaim his own weapon once more. So he rushed into the nearest hallway, getting himself out of Bill’s immediate range as he looked for some sort of refuge. As he ran, he let his gem do the work in bringing forth his shield journal once more, though it nearly fell out of his grasp entirely as gravity suddenly shifted sharply on him. Stepper let out a startled cry as he fell upward onto a set of upside down stairs, forced to reorient himself entirely as his lower set of arms clung onto his journal for dear life. The only positive seemed to be that Bill apparently hadn’t noticed as he glided through the hallway the fusion had just been in, still gripping his flaming cane as he casually called out to the prey he was hunting. 

“You know, it’s pretty sad, Pine Bud,” Bill remarked with no sympathy in his tone whatsoever. “Even if everyone back in your dimension knew where you were and what was happening to you, chances are they wouldn’t even care. I mean, it’s not like anybody even wants either of you around to begin with, right?”

Stepper made sure not to respond to this, knowing that this was likely just a dirty, underhanded tactic to get him to reveal himself. And yet, his silence was soon broken as he heard a new voice entirely ring out not too far away from him.

“Dipper? Steven?’

The fusion gasped, immediately rising to his feet to look to the silhouette standing within the darkness of the doorway in front of him. “N-no…” he stammered, eyes wide with disbelief as he took a small step closer. “I-it can’t be. You’re not supposed to be here!”

“...Neither are you.”

Stepper faltered as the obscured figure finally became clear, tears welling up in his eyes as he reached out toward her. “M-Mabel…”

“Why?” Mabel cut him off, her tone and expression alike uncharacteristically harsh and cold. “Why do you guys keep leaving me behind?”

“...W-what?” Stepper asked, genuinely confused amidst his grief. 

“Every single time you guys fuse, I’m always the one who gets left out!” Mabel accused bitterly. “And even when you’re not fused, you’re always off doing more important things with me, like you think I can’t handle them! Like I’m too stupid and silly to be a part of things! Like I said,” Tears were welling up in her eyes by this point, tears that the fusion mirrored as he stared at her in disbelief. “You’re always leaving me behind, Dipper…”

“N-no…” the fusion shook his head, distraught. “Mabel, of course I don’t think that, I don’t-“

“You always leave me out too, you know.” Stepper flinched, recognizing this new voice instantly. A palpable burst of dread coursed through him as he watched Connie step out of the same doorway Mabel had come from as she came to stand alongside her.  “What, am I not a part of the team too? Do I just not matter to either of you!?”

Stepper paused, dumbstruck as he desperately tried to search for the words to counteract these cruel claims. “Connie, I-”

“Even when we are a part of your disasters, things always go wrong.” As if out of nowhere, Pacifica suddenly stepped in to join Mabel and Connie’s rigid round of allegations. “You always put everyone in danger with your stupid mysteries-”

“And all of that dumb Gem stuff,” Connie added, her toine just as icy. “Maybe we’d all just be better off if you never came back at all. 

“Maybe…” Mabel began, seeming to hesitate for a moment before delivering her remorseless verdict. “Maybe it would just be better if you both left us all behind for good.”

“N-no,” Stepper countered tearfully, taking another small step toward the trio. Toward the people his halves cared so much about even if they weren’t currently giving that care back in return. “I would never, I-I don’t… I’m not going to leave any of you behind, ever. I promise!”

All three of the girls were silent at this, their expressions darkening as they began to turn away from the fusion entirely. Pacifica and Connie soon returned back into the empty doorway they had come out of, but Mabel still lingered behind for one final spiteful statement. “...You already have.”

A small, yet poignant sob escaped Stepper at this, and as Mabel disappeared into the same darkness Connie and Pacifica had, he didn’t hesitate to chase after all three of them. “W-wait!” he called, desperate to reach them, desperate to see if what they’d said to him was actually the truth. And desperately hoping all the while, that it wasn’t.

He passed through the doorway, into a dark, relatively short hallway where gravity turned on him once more, essentially forcing him to walk along the wall until he emerged on the other side of it. What met him was a narrow straight-away, though much to his alarm, none of the girls were anywhere in sight. He panicked, ready to call out for them to find them, to make sure they were alright and unharmed in this dangerous, practically deadly place. Yet before he could, another familiar voice happened to sound out from somewhere behind him. 

“Where do you two think you’re going?” Startled, Stepper turned to see none other than Stan, his arms crossed as he leaned against the doorway the fusion had just come out of. 

“G-Grunkle Pines?” Stepper asked, confused and anxious, especially at just how calm yet callous the conman seemed to be. “W-what are you doing h-”

“You know,” Stan cut him off, his tone and expression both dry as he began to approach the fusion. “This whole wacko world is pretty twisted. But I’d say it’s the perfect place for two freakshow kids fused into an even bigger, four-armed freakshow, wouldn’t you?”

Stepper shuddered, inching back nervously as the conman continued to approach him almost threateningly. “W-wh… why would you say that…?” 

“Cause it’s obvious, kid,” Stan sneered haughtily as he came to stop directly in front of the fusion. “In fact, since you seem to fit right in, why don’t you just stay here?”

Before Stepper even had a chance to react, Stan suddenly reached out and shoved him clean over the edge of the walkway they were both on. The fusion was unable to keep himself from falling over side of it, though as he lost his footing, gravity pulled him in yet another direction, this time hard to his left. He plummeted for what seemed like ages before landing hard against a wide, level floor, one lined with towering pillars on either side of it. However, he just so happened to land exactly on one of his lower arms, which took the brunt of the blow with a spark of excruciating pain accompanied by an audible snap. Stepper was unable to hold back an agonized scream as he cradled his clearly broken arm, though even amidst the tears still brimming in his eyes he did his best to reach the damaged limb up to his mouth. The moment he so much as gently kissed it, instant relief overwhelmed his senses, the brutal break completely repaired by the healing magic he thankfully still had, even while fused, as though the injury had never even happened at all. 

“You can’t just magically heal everything and make it all better.” 

“Even when you’re together, you’re nowhere near strong enough to save anyone.”

“Not even yourselves.”

Stepper already knew the Gems were coming before they even stepped into his field of vision based on these judgemental, cruel remarks alone. Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl alike all looked down at him as he remained on his spot on the ground, already dreading what else they’d have to say to him after everything he’d heard thus far. 

“Why don’t you just give up already, man?” Amethyst began, rolling her eyes at him. “You really think you’re gonna last long here? Quit kidding yourselves.”

“Maybe if you were half the Gem Rose was, you might have had a chance,” Pearl remarked with an ire-filled scowl. “To think that she gave everything up for you, Steven, and then you go and fuse with a simple human just to make yourself even weaker? Disgusting.”

“You’re not a stable fusion,” Garnet added, her tone hollow and cold. “And even if you were, it wouldn’t matter. That’s not enough to save you and it’s not enough to make us, or anyone else, want you. We never did to begin with.”

Stepper jolted at this, his breathing shuddering as he slowly pulled himself to stand. Something wasn’t right here, he knew that much, yet for as strange as these encounters all seemed, his emotions were still managing to work against him all the same. “N-no, that’s not true,” he asserted as firmly as he possibly could, counteracting his fears and grief with memories of just how much the Gems, how much Stan, how much Pacifica, Connie, and Mabel all really cared for him. For both of them. “I… I know it’s not. You said-”

“They were lying.” Stepper froze as the Gems parted ways for Ford to approach, the goldenish gleam reflecting from his glasses obscuring his eyes as he stared at the fusion piercingly. “Everyone does around you, just to keep you two from wasting our time by falling apart. Such fragile, futile things you boys are. It was foolish of me to think I could think I could trust either of you with anything, much less something as important as the rift. Tell me, boys. How do you expect to protect it when you can’t even protect yourselves?”

Stepper shook his head, wanting to argue, wanting to protest these malicious claims, but the words just wouldn’t come. The author and the Gems all continued to glare at him expectantly, saying nothing more though the disdain on each of their faces was perfectly clear. And under the crushing weight of that disdain, Stepper found himself hard-pressed to even try to bear it. 

So he turned, hoping to run, hoping to escape from his own doubts, his own fears, his own shortcomings and faults, as mounting and plentiful as they all were. Yet before he could take so much as a single step, he was stopped by yet another familiar figure, about the very last person, or Gem rather, he could have ever expected to see. 

“Oh, Steven…” Rose Quartz said, her voice every bit the same as he remembered it being from her tape. Yet instead of the gentle kindness and love that had filled it there, the only things emanating from her tone now was bitterness and scorn. “What a disappointment you turned out to be. I had hoped you would have followed in my footsteps to protect the Earth in my absence. But in the end, it looks like your little friend was right.” A sinister, twisted grin filled the pink Gem’s features, especially as Stepper essentially cowered before her in tears and terror. “You really are just… like… ME!”

Suddenly, “Rose’s” eyes flashed yellow, her pupils thin, perfect slits to match Bill’s telltale demented laughter coming out of her mouth. In a sudden flash of blinding light, the pink Gem was gone as the dream demon resumed his usual form, his sadistic masquerade coming to an end as he took a wicked sense of delight in just how shaken the fusion was by it all. 

“N-no,” Stepper breathed tightly, all four of his hands curled into tight, shaking fists. “No! T-that’s not… W-what I said, I-I didn’t mean that!”

“That’s not what I overheard, Pine Bud,” Bill corrected, playing out the offending scene on his flat form. And sure enough, there was Dipper, his tone livid and dead-serious as he shouted at Steven relentlessly. “Like Bill, Steven! You’re just like Bill!”

Stepper wavered at this, half of him practically drowning in guilt over words he desperately wished he could take back. Words he wished with every fiber of his being that he’d never even foolishly, thoughtlessly said in the first place. His gemstone and his birthmark suddenly flashed, conveying that remorse between both of his halves, though it did little to stem the rising tide of anger he could feel against his own regretful grief. “I-I’m sorry!” he begged himself, his upper arms embracing himself tightly as his lower hand remained curled into unyielding fists. “Please, I need you to understand! I was just mad! I-I wasn’t thinking! I just-”

“Sounds to me like Pine Tree is just trying to save his own skin, as usual,” Bill interrupted, casually floating around the distracted, distraught fusion. “You know, Rosebud, he did say he didn’t want your help to begin with, so why even bother? With friends as crummy and ungrateful as he is, you might as well not even have any! In fact, maybe you should just cut him loose completely. You’d sure save yourself a lot of time and effort in trying to fix what’s way past broken if you did!”

By now, Stepper was all but consumed by panic, tears streaking heavily down his face as he continued his painful plea to his other half, who had gone all but silent amidst all this. “I… I’m so, so sorry…” he repeated once more, half of him hating himself for the momentous mistake he’d made. “I said so many horrible things to you, I… m-maybe you should just break things off with me…” He sobbed, softly, sadly as he hung his head in shame as the faintest of white, unfusing lights began to enshroud him. “It’s what I deserve at this point…” 

“No, you don’t.” 

The fusion gasped as he suddenly read his own thoughts, his gem and birthmark both aglow as his other half finally said something to him. He led the way as well as he began wiping his tears, steadying both of them as he guided their shared form to stand once more. “I don’t want to break away from you,” he said aloud, his tone earnest and kind. “Our friendship means so much to me. You mean so much to me! And besides,” He turned his attention to Bill, who was clearly caught off guard by Stepper’s sudden change of demeanor, especially as the fusion stared him down brazenly. “I never leave my friends behind. When someone is in trouble, I help them, no matter what they’ve said or done. And that’s how I know-” His shield journal appeared above his lower arms at this, its pages blazing with bright, powerful light as he readied himself to get right back into the fray. “I am NOTHING like you!” 

Stepper didn’t even give Bill a chance to get a single word in edgewise out as he launched a series of fast-paced shields at the dream demon, several of which landed in full-force. The fusion didn’t hold anything back as he kept his attacks coming, hoping to somehow overwhelm Bill before he could pull any more twisted tricks on him. Sure enough, it seemed as though he might soon get a chance to do just that as he ended up forcing Bill over the edge of the platform they were both on completely. The dream demon crashed down into another one of the Quadrangle’s countless staircases while Stepper remained high above him, his journal hovering above his palm as he stood tall and firm and ready to fight together.

“Try whatever you want,” he said, his tone bold and unflinching as he met the bitter glare Bill was sending his way evenly. This time, it was easy to find the bravery to do so, bravery that had been easily found amidst the unshakable bond that he had been formed through, a bond that refused to be broken so easily. “But you can’t tear us apart!”

Despite the fusion’s brazen verve and steady determination, Bill wasn’t about to back down that quickly either. “Oh, you boys wanna BET?!” he practically screamed as he flew back up to Stepper’s level. He still towered over the fusion in size, but Stepper kept his wits about him as he called upon yet another series of shields to throw at a moment’s notice. “If you twerps won’t come undone the easy way, then I guess we’ll just have to do this THE HARD WAY!”

At this, Stepper let one of his shields fly, though Bill was quick to knock it away. However, as the fusion was distracted by prepping his next move, he failed to notice the dream demon implement one of his earlier tactics until it was too late. Instead, Stepper suddenly found himself yanked back hard as thick, thorny vines secured themselves around each of his wrists once more. They didn’t entangle him this time, though they did secure themselves around each of his limbs as they began to pull him back toward the center of the platform he was on. Stepper did his best to resist their heavy hold, though they refused to give, even as they eventually ended up dragging him down and restraining him against the ground. Even still, the fusion pulled against them as the vines essentially locked his back against the floor, more appearing in turn to further tie him down as Bill appeared floating high above him. 

“You just couldn’t make this simple for me, could ya, Rose Tree?” the dream demon asked, twirling his cane as he looked down at the fusion with disdain. “All I wanted was a nice, hearty helping of revenge, but you had to go and be stubborn. Why is that not surprising? Neither Pine Tree or Rosebud know when to quit. So why should I expect anything different out of their fusion?”

“T-that’s right,” Stepper retorted assertively, despite the rather vulnerable position he now found himself in. “We don’t know when to quit. And we won’t quit, not until we’ve found a way to stop you from hurting the people we care about once and for all!”

Bill instantly let loose a haughty laugh at this, his tone clearly mocking as he leaned against his cane and looked down at Stepper incredulously. “Stop me? YOU actually thought you could stop ME?! Give me a break, kid! Without all your fancy powers keeping you going, you would have been dead from the start! In fact…” Bill paused, repositioning his cane in a way the fusion didn’t quite understand, at least at first. “Why don’t we just nip that problem in the Pine Bud, if you catch my drift…?” Stepper didn’t answer, his eyes widening with sudden alarm as he realized the demon’s cane, awash in bright blue fire, was now hovering directly over him. 

Or rather, directly over his exposed gem.

“It’s a shame I gotta do this to ya, Rose Tree, really, it is!” Bill remarked easily, nonchalantly even, despite the horrific act he was about to commit. “Especially since I promised one of my favorite clients I’d hand that rock on your gut over to them in pristine, perfect, pretty condition. But, I’m sure they’ll understand if there’s a little collateral damage. After all, you know what they say: every deal has a loophole…” 

Stepper only had time to let out the smallest of horrified gasps before it happened. And when it did, it was so quick yet agonizingly slow, all at the same time. Because in an instant, Bill’s cane came down, its tip sharpened to a deadly point as it rushed right for the fusion’s gemstone. 

And, it struck it squarely, with a piercing, sickening crack. 

Shock. That was first, his mouth open, poised for a scream that never came. His back lurched upward involuntarily, the gem on his stomach pierced completely. Fortunately, the cane didn’t dig any deeper than its surface, but that was all it needed to do. For as it retracted away from him and left his gem behind, everything instantly got so much worse. 

Pain. That was what came next, so immense and so incredible that it was a wonder he didn’t fall apart completely from it. It washed over him in waves, each more horrific than the last. It blinded him, deafened him, chased away every thought, ever feeling, everything until there was nothing left at all but pain, pain, pain, pain. 

Cracks. They soon followed, spreading out across his skin in jagged, uneven, unruly pink lines. They glowed brightly against him, casting an inhuman, incomprehensible pallor upon his otherwise largely human appearance. Yet all the while, they soundly mimicked the very same sizable crack that had been so viciously torn across his gemstone, which itself was flashing in bright, erratic alarm. 

He didn’t dare try to move, his body in far too much anguish to even make the attempt if he wanted to. His thoughts were every bit as much of a mess as his body was, disjointed and jumbled and nonsensical as they clashed against each other violently. He lay in a haze, not even noticing as the vines finally pulled themselves away to free up his languished limbs. In fact, he didn’t even react at all as Bill teleported to hover, much smaller now, directly in front of his face. 

“Knock, knock! Earth to Rose Tree!” the demon quipped as cheerfully as ever, knocking a hand against the fusion’s already pounding head. “You still in there? You can’t die on me yet, that would ruin all the fun!”

Stepper didn’t answer, largely since he was completely incapable of doing so. Instead, he lay still, his breathing hoarse and shallow as tears began welling up in his eyes, which themselves were struggling to stay open at all as a bitter chill overtook his immobile body. His thoughts continued beating into each other, overlapping as they burst to life and burnt out almost simultaneously. None of them made any sort of sense, though a few did stand out against the empty void of madness he could feel himself slowly slipping into. 

Hurts. Heal. Have to heal. 

He let out a shuddering breath, prompted into motion by this thought, by the promise that this pain would and could come to an end in just a mere matter of seconds. Bill fortunately slipped out of his frame of vision, strangely allowing him to attempt to sit up. The effort alone was agonizing, his arms shaking violently and his head lolling down despite his best attempts at keeping it up. A small, sharp cough escaped him as he fully sat up, his body wracked by it as his lower hands curled themselves around his damaged gemstone in the hopes of shielding it from any further harm. One of his upper hands slowly drifted to his mouth, and he sloppily spit on it, though the bright red blood that came out along with it wasn’t lost on him. Still, he ignored it to move that hand down to his gemstone, lightly skimming it with his fingertips to let the supposedly healing liquid settle over it. And then, he waited. And waited. 

And waited. 

“W-what…?” he finally spoke, his voice soft and broken to the point that it sounded less like his own and more of that of his two halves. “Why… isn’t it…”

“Oh, did ya not know, Pine Bud?” Bill chimed in somewhere behind him. “Whenever a Gem gets all cracked up like yourself, their powers tend to go on the fritz. Looks like I was right before. Your healing spit really can’t fix everything…”

For what seemed like ages, the most Stepper could do was stare down at his gemstone and the wide, gaping rift torn across its surface in disbelief and despair. His breathing harshened, his body tensed, and as panic overtook him, he found himself unable to keep himself from falling into another hacking fit once more. He coughed into his hand this time, and when he finally was able to stop and pull it away, he wasn’t very surprised to find it covered in his own warm blood.

“Ohohoh, now isn’t this interesting!?” Bill remarked, apparently intrigued as he scaled his size down enough so he could take a casual seat atop the fusion’s hat. “I’ve seen plenty of space rocks get cracked in my time, but I’ve never seen it happen to one attached to a human before! Much less a mostly-human fusion! Isn’t this exciting? You really are a trailblazer, Rose Tree!”

Stepper still didn’t respond to Bill directly, largely since he couldn’t care less about what he was saying. Instead, he let out a loud, anguished scream, his upper arms wrapping tightly around himself as his lower set still gently cradled his damaged gem. And all the while, his thoughts continued rumbling, rattling, like a brutal thunderstorm wreaking havoc across his already ruined mind. 

Hurts! Can’t heal! Need to heal! Can’t! 

Can’t heal… Cracked… Broken…

Fade… fading… Die… Die? Dying…

“Still, you oughta consider yourself lucky, Pine Bud,” Bill continued, hardly caring about the light starting to fade from the fusion’s eyes as he coughed out yet another bout of blood. “Any other space rock would have shattered on the spot after taking a hit like that! I guess you’re pretty fortunate to be saddled with one of the toughest ones there is, Rose Tree.”

Can’t die… Stepper’s thoughts continued to consume him, beating him between a tide of hope and grief all at once. Home… Need to go home… Can’t go home… Lost… Trapped… Alone… With him…

The absolute misery that came along with such a horrific thought swiftly started to overwhelm the fusion, his sobs coming out in tight, anxious bursts. Certainly, he’d never be able to go home, not like this. He’d never be able to see their friends or family again, not that they even wanted to see him in the first place. He was going to die here, no doubt, a slow, agonizing painful end at the hands of a cruel, careless demon who was more than happy to watch that end play out in full. 

But maybe...

Trapped here… With each other… with you! Need… need to… save you… Need… to unfuse…

Another sharp cry escaped the fusion at this, particularly as a familiar white, unfusing light suddenly covered his form, with only the pink scars strewn across him shining through it. Bill drifted away from Stepper so he could observe with eager, sadistic delight as the fusion began to fall apart at the seams, just as he’d anticipated. Just as he’d planned. 

And yet… 

No! Can’t unfuse! No… please…. Need to unfuse… You’ll die… YOU’ll die! Stay together… Stay… like this… to save you…

Slowly but surely, the light began to fade from the fusion, his form still remaining intact, as largely broken and battered as that form currently was. Tears remained in his eyes, though this time, they carried a different emotion from despair entirely. Especially as his aching heart rang with confusion and determination alike. 

Why…? You know why… 

Despite his gem’s powers being severely limited thanks to the damage it had sustained, there was one thing it was still able to do. It flashed softly as his birthmark did the same, all of his focus going into repeating one single, simple statement that spoke volumes at a moment such as this. 

“Our friendship means so much to me! You mean so much to me!”

“Y-you… stayed with me…” Stepper said to himself, aloud this time. And even though his voice was weak and wavering, it was still filled with warmth and resolve to not let his other half suffer through this unbearable anguish alone. “S-so I’m staying with you…”

Despite the heavy crack torn across his gem, despite those cracks spreading out across his entire body, despite the pain still pervading his every sense, the fusion couldn’t help but smile, a few of his tears falling as he maintained his comforting embrace. Bill, however, was far from moved by his sheer determination, stubbornness even, to stay together. 

“Are you two serious right now?!” he asked hotly, his form flashing a bright, warning shade of angry red. “You know what’ll happen to both of you if you stay like this? You’ll DIE!” 

Stepper was surprisingly calm, even despite his poor condition, as he simply shook his head. “I-I… I’ll be fine…” he whispered, more to himself than to the demon. “We’ll be fine… a-as long as we’re… together…” 

“No, you WON’T!” Bill shouted back, completely livid as massive, deadly flames surrounded both of his hands. “All it would take is one more hit and you’re over, finished, through! SHATTERED!” 

The fusion paused, his thoughts slowly starting to become more focused as he looked up at the demon defiantly. “B-but… that’s not what you want…” he asked, his voice still shaking from the palpable pain coursing through him. Still, he chose to ignore that pain the best he could in the thought of turning the tide of this terrible situation in his favor. “M-my gem isn’t any good to you i-if it’s shattered… I-I bet your ‘client’ d-doesn’t want you h-handing them a bunch of b-broken shards… R-right?” 

For perhaps the first time ever, Bill seemed to be at a complete loss for words. His singular eye stared down at the fusion, wide and unreadable as he remained strangely silent for quite some time. All the while, Stepper returned his gaze evenly, hoping that calling the dream demon’s bluff would somehow work, though to what extent, he had no idea. 

When Bill finally did say something, his tone was surprisingly easygoing as his towering form diminished and his color changed back to its normal shade of yellow. “Well, gee, Pine Bud, you sure do have a swell point there. So instead of going to extremes, why don’t we try something a bit more… civil instead?”

In an instant, the entire Quadrangle of Qonfusion disappeared; either that or Bill had teleported them somewhere away from it. But what surprised Stepper even more was that the piercing pain tearing away at his entire form seemed to come to an abrupt, grinding halt. Instead, it was replaced by a baffling sense of numbness, though it was something the fusion couldn’t help but be grateful for, at least until he happened to glance down at his gemstone. By all accounts, the stone was still just as cracked as it had been before, the same pink cracks still deeply marring his skin as he looked over all four of his arms. And yet, those cracks brought him not a single trace of the agony he’d known only seconds ago, as his movements were free and uninhibited once more. 

“What…?” he asked, his voice singular once more as opposed to disjointed to that of his halves’ as it had previously been. “How did-”

“Feeling better, Rose Tree?” Bill chimed as he appeared before the confused fusion. “You should be! I went ahead and put a little momentary pause on all that unbearable agony you were probably going through. Mostly since I need you to actually be coherent for the little chat I want to have with you…”

“Chat?” Stepper eyed the dream demon distrustfully. “About what?”

“Boy, am I glad you asked!” With a snap of his fingers, Bill suddenly conjured up a stately desk for him to sit behind, essentially forcing Stepper to do the same as he magically pulled up a chair for him on its other side. As bewildered as the fusion was by this bizarre turn of events in general, Bill continued, his manner strangely calm and collected, a stark contrast to the violent fury he’d displayed just moments ago. “You see, Rose Tree, after all that hubbub, I just came up with a much easier way to smooth things over here. All we’d need to do is broker a little deal and-”

“No,” Stepper said immediately, hotly as his upper hands slammed down onto the desk. “If you think for one second that you can rope me into another one of your stupid deals, then you can just forget it. I would NEVER make another deal with you, not after-”

“Yeah, yeah, Pine Bud, we’re all more than well aware about just how much I ‘traumatized’ you before,” Bill rolled his eye as he reclined back into his seat. “But just hear me out. With that crack on your gut, the chances of you lasting long are pretty low, even if I don’t decide I just wanna wipe you outta existence out of sheer annoyance alone. Humans in particular don’t tend to do too well here‒most of the ones who’ve ever gotten stuck here in the ol’ N.R. either ended up starving to death or spiraling into insanity in a matter of days! And as fun as that would be to watch happen to you, Rose Tree, I think we can reach a compromise that might just be able to get you back home instead!”

“W-wait… before, you said you can’t get me back to our dimension,” Stepper remarked dismissively, though he couldn’t deny the brief bout of hope that filled him all the same. “...Can you?”

“As far as you know, I can,” Bill retorted easily. “See, even if I can’t open up one of those reality tears or go to your dimension from the Nightmare Realm myself, that doesn’t mean I can’t send things that are from that dimension back to it with a little bit of… concentration. And hey, you just so happen to fall under the category of things that are from your dimension, kid! And you’re super lucky too, Pine Bud, ‘cause I’m willing to offer you the bargain of a lifetime! A one-way ticket back to your own dimension, in exchange for one tiny, simple thing that’s so trivial and unimportant, I bet you won’t even notice that it’s gone!”

“Let me guess,” Stepper said dryly, knowing this sounded far too familiar for comfort. “My gem?”

“Nope! Not this time!” 

The fusion blinked, genuinely surprised at this as he made another uncertain, anxious assumption. “M-my body? You want to possess my--our body, don’t you?”

“Nah, I’m not much on taking fusions for a spin,” the demon said flippantly. “They’re always too much to contend with in the headspace. Takes all the fun out of possession, if you ask me!”

By now, Stepper was becoming more and more unsettled as he tried to think of what else he had that Bill could possibly want from him. But ultimately, he couldn’t come up with anything. At least not anything that the demon hadn’t tried to or already had taken from him in the past. “S-so… what do you want then?”

If the dream demon could have smiled, he certainly would have been now as he leaned in across the desk toward the uneasy fusion before him. “What I want is something only you can give me, Rose Tree…” he began darkly, ominously even. “And that something is... that fancy-schmancy journal of yours!”

As Bill’s tone turned light and chipper once more, Stepper balked, dumbfounded as he tried to make sense of this unexpected twist. “My… my shield journal?” he asked, one of his lower hands absently drifting down toward his gem, though he made no move to summon the weapon. “What would… why would you want that?”

“Aw, what? It’s a rare read, one of a kind, really!” Bill explained, conjuring up an illusion of a book in question in the middle of the desk. “Plus, it just so happens to be filled with all sorts of juicy tidbits about two of my favorite twerps in the entire multiverse. Can ya really blame me for wanting a copy of my own?”

“That’s not why you want it, and both you and I know that,” Stepper scoffed harshly. “Everything that’s in my journal, I’m sure you already know. You do make it your mission to poke around in other peoples’ business all the time, after all. So stop lying for a change and tell me why you’re really after it.”

“Come on, Pine Bud, you know my talent for lying is one of my best qualities!” the dream demon taunted playfully. “But fine, if you really want the boring old truth, here it is: I just wanna see you lose your prized, precious weapon for good.”

“W-wait…” Stepper paused, a heavy wave of dread washing over him. “S-so… if I give my journal to you then… then I won’t-”

“Nope! You won’t be able to summon it ever again!” Bill confirmed mirthfully. “No more special shield tossing for you, Rose Tree! Guess that would make you a fusion without a weapon, a fundamentally useless one at that! Then again, you wouldn’t be the only one considering Sword Bud is a thing. Still, if you wanna get back home, then all you gotta do is kiss that journal goodbye. Forever! Sounds like a small price to pay to see your friends and family again and NOT die a slow, painful death in a literal nightmare dimension, dontcha think?”

Stepper faltered, unsure of what to say to this awful proposal and everything it entailed. “I… I need time to think…” he muttered, more to himself than to Bill. 

“Hey, take all the time you want, Pine Bud!” Bill surprisingly agreed, spinning around in his chair to give the fusion some “privacy”. “Just keep in mind, time’s not something you really have on your side anymore, not with that crack on your gem set to tear you apart at any given second!”

Stepper sighed, glaring in the demon’s direction disdainfully before stealing a glance down at his own aforementioned gemstone. The crack torn across it was just as prominent and damming as ever, looking so misplaced and wrong against something that was so familiar and fond to him. “What do we do…?” he whispered to himself, lightly tracing a finger over the crevice on the stone. “We can’t trust him, you know we can’t! I do know, but… what other choice do we have? W-we… we’ll keep fighting him! We’ve lasted against him this long, we can-” He stopped himself, shaking his head. “We can what? We’re cracked! We won’t last long like this, even if we do stay together… We can’t heal ourselves… But… m-maybe… if we go home… The Gems might be able to find a way to help us.”

He rubbed his temples, frustrated and distraught at the impossible position he’d found himself in. “B-but… our journal,” he countered morosely. “Never being able to summon it again is… I know, I don’t like it either. Our journal is one of my favorite things about us. But… you’re more important to me than any book… A-and I’d rather lose that book forever then lose you forever…” For what felt like the millionth time since he’d been pulled into the Nightmare Realm, he could feel tears finding a place in his eyes once more as his upper arms held onto him lightly. “...Same here…” he said softly, yet sadly all the same. “So… we’re doing this…? I don’t want to, but… if we don’t have any other choice…”

“You DON’T!” Bill suddenly interrupted, spinning back around to face the fusion. “So, since your mind’s all made up, let’s get to summoning that journal for the last time so we can really seal this deal, huh?”

Stepper was quick to meet the demon’s callous remarks with a stern glare, wanting to make sure that he knew exactly what he was getting himself into here. “The only thing you want is my shield journal,” he began firmly. “That’s it, right? Nothing more along with it? No strings attached?”

“None at all, Rose Tree!” Bill assured evenly, extending a blue flame-covered hand for him to shake. “All you gotta do is fork over that journal and you’ll be home before you know it! I promise.”

“Tch, as if your promises ever even mean anything,” Stepper deadpanned crossly. “But… if all I stand to lose is my shield journal for a chance to go home and get as far away from you as possible, then…” He sighed, already regretting this decision and already anticipating that it would go horribly wrong somehow. But even then, he thought, whatever was about to happen had to be at least somewhat better than the alternative of being trapped here with Bill forever. “I’ll take it.”

With this, Stepper solidly shook the dream demon’s flame-engulfed hand, essentially sealing both the deal and his own fate, whatever that fate without his journal was about to be. “Great!” Bill quipped excitedly as he pulled his hand away. “I knew we’d be able to work something out, Pine Bud. Now… pay up.”

“...C-can I even summon my journal like this…?” Stepper wondered, nervously glancing down at his damaged gem once more. “I can’t heal, so-”

“Yeesh, kid, you worry too much!” Bill rebuffed impatiently. “You’re cracked, not shattered! Some of your powers are still bound to work. Just give it a try and see!”

Stepper scowled at the dream demon, but even so, he did as he said, positioning his lower set of hands just below his gem. He took in a deep, steadying breath, closing his eyes in the hopes that this would still somehow work. And though it took a moment of deep concentration, sure enough it did, as his gem, even as cracked as it currently was, began to take on a gentle, familiar sort of glow. From that glow, his shield journal emerged, though from the very start it was glitching in and out of existence in reaction to the damage he had sustained. Unable to float on its own, the book fell out of the air, though fortunately he managed to narrowly catch it in his lower set of arms. 

As he pulled it up closer to him, Stepper couldn’t help but frown, even as the journal began to stabilize in his grip. Though it had taken him time to learn to appreciate his weapon when he’d first fused, by now, he’d come to realize just how special and unique his shield journal really was. It was powerful, it was versatile, but even more than that, it was reflective of him, of his halves and who they were, both together and apart. And yet, here he was, ready to give it all away without a chance at ever getting it back. It was a heartbreaking decision, but a necessary one. One that both of his halves knew they had to make if they ever hoped to save each other. 

“Alright, Rose Tree,” Bill remarked, already extending a hand out to retrieve the book. “Hand it over.”

Stepper sighed, resigning himself to that decision as he pulled his sights away from the journal to stare Bill down brazenly. And, with his movements slow and steady, the fusion lifted his shield journal up, offering it to the dream demon as he prepared to part ways with it permanently. 

Without skipping a single beat, Bill swiftly snatched the journal away from Stepper. The effect was immediate, for as soon as the shield journal left his hands, the fusion took in a sharp gasp, his former agony returning in full force as his gem, birthmark, and cracks strewn across his skin all flashed a vibrant, garish pink. As that flash died down every bit as quickly, his eyes began to roll back in his head, one of his hands involuntarily reaching out toward the journal that Bill had already taken away from him. But that hand fell away as the fusion drifted off into a deep, unconscious void, lost to his pain and perhaps, to something else entirely. 

“Well, that takes care of that!” Bill concluded brightly, sending the fusion’s journal away with a mere snap of his fingers. “Now, all we need is a…” At that exact moment, the Nightmare Realm itself rippled with a sudden, forign energy, one that tore open a rift in the dimension’s already chaotic plane. A rift that happened to form into a portal not too far away from where the dream demon happened to be floating. “Aha! Perfect timing!” 

Bill quickly pulled Stepper’s limp, listless form toward the newly-created portal, one that, sure enough, led right to the very dimension the fusion was from. “Looks like you’re getting your ticket home after all, Rose Tree!” the dream demon quipped, shaking the unconscious fusion roughly. “Ohoho!” Bill’s interest peaked as he stole another brief glance through the portal beside him. “And you’ll even get your own welcoming party too! How nice!”

This ‘welcoming party’ was, in truth, more of a search party, one composed of the Gems and Mabel as they all frantically combed through the woods for none other than Steven and Dipper themselves. It was a search that had been ongoing for quite some time now, and after several restless nights of the boys’ mysterious absence, stress and exhaustion was weighing heavily upon them all as their relatively fruitless effort continued. 

“I just don’t understand!” Pearl huffed, exasperated as she peered around yet another tree. “How did they just… completely disappear without a trace?! Nothing about this makes any sense!”

“You sure your future vision hasn’t seen anything about where they’re at, G?” Amethyst asked, looking to Garnet almost pleadingly. 

The Gem leader took pause at this, adjusting her shades before letting out a disappointed sigh. “No,” she reported tiredly. “Nothing.”

“B-But they’ve been gone for three days now!” Mabel explained, her tone deeply fretful. The growing bags under her eyes were telling of the fact that she hadn’t gotten a wink of sleep since the boys had vanished, and by all accounts, she had no intentions of even trying to get any until they were safe and found. “Steven and Dipper wouldn’t just… leave without telling anyone! Something must have happened to them! We’ve gotta find them, please!”

“Don’t worry,” Garnet assured, placing a comforting hand on the girl’s shoulder. “We’re not going to stop looking until we do. No matter how far we have to go, we’ll-”

“Actually, Fuse Box, you won’t have to go that far to find ‘em…”

The entire group let out a shared, startled gasp upon hearing this all-too familiar voice echo through the nearby forest. It instantly drew their attention to the surprising portal torn near a tree just a ways ahead of them, and floating within the void it contained was none other than Bill Cipher himself. 

“Y-you!” Pearl shouted as her, Garnet, and Amethyst all swiftly summoned their weapons. “What are you doing here?!”

“Yeah, get lost, chump!” Amethyst yelled just as bitterly, ready to lash out with her whip at a moment’s notice. 

“We have no time to deal with you right now, Bill,” Garnet added rigidly, her gauntlets curled into tight fists. “We have something much more important we need to take care of.”

“Oh really?” the demon retorted casually. “You mean you don’t have any time… for him?”

Another heavy round of shock, one even stronger and piercing than the last, ran through the group as Bill suddenly hoisted a certain, unconscious four-armed figure up for them all to see. “S-Stepper!” Mabel cried, tears already springing up in her eyes. She didn’t hesitate to try to rush to him, though Amethyst made sure to hold her back just before she could. “W-what is he… h-how did he get-”

“How’d he get here? To the cozy little corner of the multiverse I call home? Great question, Shooting Star!” Bill piped up. “Ya see, poor Pine Tree and Rosebud here tumbled through a randomly-occurring interdimensional tear, just like this one right here! Ohoho boy, if you all could have only SEEN the look of sheer terror on their faces when they realized where they were! What a pair of spineless little-”

“Quiet!” Pearl snapped hotly, angrily tossing her spear, which struck the tree just above where the portal hung. “What did you do to them, you monster?!”

“I didn’t do much of anything to them,” the demon remarked with faux innocence. “Well, aside from put them in their place for being dumb enough to think they could stand up to me, of course. But I’ve had my fun with Rose Tree here, and better yet, I’ve gotten what I wanted outta him, so I think I’ll just do you all a solid and toss him back over to you. Free of charge!”

“W-what… what do you mean you got what you wanted out of him…?” Mabel asked, frightened by the sheer vagueness of that statement alone. 

“Wouldn’t YOU like to know, kid,” Bill scoffed, rolling his eye. “Still, I’m sure you’ll figure it out soon enough. Or not. Doesn’t really matter to me if you do either way. Anyway here, take your empty-headed Pine Bud back.” Without much warning at all, the demon suddenly threw Stepper forward, sending him tumbling through the portal and back into his own dimension with little effort or care at all. Though Amethyst, Pearl, and Mabel all gasped in shared surprise at his sudden return, Garnet was the first to react, rushing in to catch the comatose fusion before he could hit the ground. 

“Cipher!” the Gem leader shouted furiously as she glared up at the portal before her. 

“Good to see you all again too!” Bill replied, offering the group a cheerful wave as said portal began to seal itself back up. “I have a feeling it won’t be long before the next time we meet up. Maybe we’ll do lunch! But until then, remember: I’ll be WATCHING you!” 

The dream demon let out another insane, sadistic laugh that echoed through the woods even after the portal itself was gone. Amethyst and Pearl leapt forward in an attempt to keep it from closing so they could properly attack Bill, but their chance was gone before they could even try it. 

“Ugh! I hate that guy!” Amethyst groaned, severely annoyed as her whip disappeared. 

“It’s safe to say we all do by this point…” Pearl agreed just as disdainfully. “B-but, let’s look on the bright side: at least we… ‘found’ Steven and Dipper!”

A sudden gasp from Garnet cut through this small bout of relief entirely as she got a chance to properly look over the limp fusion lying in her arms. “N-no…” she whispered, her visor disappearing to reveal the tears welling up in all three of her eyes. 

“G-Garnet….?” Mabel took a cautious step forward. “I-is… is he ok?”

By now, Pearl and Amethyst had caught onto what had Garnet so distraught, and likewise, their panic was just as palpable. The white Gem collapsed to her knees, tears finding a place in her eyes as well as she moved a trembling hand to cover her mouth. The purple Gem was absolutely shaken, though she still managed to rush over to Mabel, hoping to pull her away before she could see what had truly become of her brother and best friend. 

“Uh, h-hey, Mabel!” she exclaimed, throwing on a forced smile as she turned the girl around. “Why don’t we, um… h-head back to the shack a-and tell Stan and Ford the good news?”

“No!” Mabel protested, pulling herself away. “I-I want to see him!” None of the Gems were really able to stop her as she rushed to Stepper’s side, though the moment she caught sight of his gem, she practically fell ill. “H-his… his gem…” she began, a sob slipping out as she knelt down beside him. “I-it’s…”

“Cracked…” Garnet finished, her tone awash in grief. 

“AUGH!” Amethyst suddenly shouted, absolutely infuriated as she slammed her fist against the nearest tree. “He did this to them, that stupid triangle piece of-”

“AMETHYST!” Pearl cut her off just in time. 

Meanwhile, Mabel placed a gentle, shaking hand against the unconscious fusion’s arm, noticing the jagged pink lines torn across it, only adding to just how disheveled and damaged he looked overall between his torn and tattered clothes and countless scratches and scrapes. “D-Dipper… Steven…” she whispered, her heart aching as she noticed the traces of pain in his otherwise empty expression. “S-Stepper…”

At this, the fusion suddenly began to stir, much to everyone’s surprise, especially as he let out a soft, exhausted groan. “M-Mabel…?” he spoke, his voice his own yet still so broken in an entirely different way all the same. 

“Stepper!” Mabel and the Gems all exclaimed in unison as they began to crowd around him. At least until Garnet put a swift stop to it. 

“Give him some space,” she ordered her teammates, looking down at the fusion in her arms earnestly as he addressed her. 

“G-Garnet… i-is… is that… you?” he asked, clearly agonized by the effort alone as he remained limp in her hold. 

“Yes,” Garnet couldn’t help but smile, overwhelmed with relief to see that he was still alive at all after what he’d been through. “Stepper, y-you… your gem is badly damaged. But don’t worry. We’re going to take care of you.”

Stepper didn’t respond, his eyes bleary as he tried and failed to focus on the Gem leader. His thoughts were all a distant haze, enshrouded by the immense, unending pain that he felt like he had been drowning in for ages now. So instead, he let his eyes slowly slip shut once more, content to let Mabel and the Gems do whatever they could to help, even if he didn’t know how he’d ended up among them to begin with. 

“C-can’t he just heal himself?!” Mabel asked, frantic. “Stepper, just use your healing powers on your gem and-”

“M-Mabel, he’s… cra--damaged,” Pearl interjected, shuddering even as she spoke the horrific word. “His powers probably aren’t working right. W-well have to help him some other way.”

“We’ll take him to Rose’s fountain,” Garnet concluded, her tone firm as her shades appeared once more. Slowly and carefully, she stood with Stepper still in her arms, carrying his languid form as comfortably as she could. “It’s waters should be able to fix his gem. In the meantime, Amethyst, go get Stan and Ford and bring them there. They need to know what happened to Dipper.”

“Right,” Amethyst nodded, not even hesitating to turn and rush back through the forest toward the shack. At the same time, Garnet, Pearl, and Mabel wasted no time in setting off as well, marching swiftly through the woods to get back to the temple as fast as possible. Despite Garnet’s steady pace, Mabel did her best to keep up with her, if only so she could keep a comforting hold on one of Stepper’s lower hands all the while. 

“I-it’s ok, Ste-bro,” she whispered to him tearfully, trying to muster a smile even if he couldn’t currently see it. “You’re gonna be o-ok… We’ll fix you right up, you’ll see. I-I promise.”

For his part, Stepper could barely even hear her, much less the anxious conversation stirring up between Garnet and Pearl along the way. He only briefly caught bits and pieces of it; the word “cracked” in particular came up over and over again, though given his current condition that was hardly surprising. Largely, Stepper spent the bulk of their brisk trip back to the temple wavering in and out of consciousness, steeped in dull, familiar agony all the while. Yet strangely, he happened to find some comfort amidst that agony: the brief, blurry flashes of war, sunlight sparkling through the trees high above him, the secure, safe hold Garnet had on him as she held him close in a protective carry, the soft, gentle grip Mabel made sure to keep his hand within, one that he wished he could return, even if he didn’t have the strength for it. 

After what seemed like years, the group finally burst into the temple, making a beeline for the warp pad. Stepper didn’t register its activation, nor was he aware for anything at all until they arrived at a familiar, serene setting. 

The air around Rose’s iconic fountain was always warm and sweet, smelling of the pink blossoms that flourished all around it. That beauty was lost on the group as they ran toward it however, their purpose grim and their hopes high that its waters could somehow work another miracle, just as it had so many before. There was no deliberation as Garnet reached the fountain first, repositioning Stepper before she gently, carefully lowered him down into its sparkling, rejuvenating water, allowing him to sink into it until it covered his cracked gemstone completely. 

For a moment, the most any of them could do was wait. The fountain’s waters grew still, the fusion floating within them just as still too, at least until a warm, radiant light began to surround him. Garnet, Pearl, and Amethyst all watched with wide, wondering eyes as that light became practically blinding, and even still they were kept waiting as it slowly faded away. At least until Stepper splashed up out of the fountain’s waters with a startled, heavy gasp. 

“Stepper!” Mabel cried, rushing for him immediately. Before the fusion even had time to properly orient himself, she barreled into him, knocking him back into the water with a tight, elated hug. “I-I’m so glad you’re ok! Don’t ever scare me like that again!”

“M-Mabel,” Stepper couldn’t help but let out a soft chuckle as he returned her embrace. “I’m glad to see you too.”

“Oh, thank goodness, you’re alright!” Pearl chimed in as her and Garnet remained at the edge of the fountain. “You’re-” She stopped short, her relief whiplashing right back into alarm as Stepper began to climb out of the fountain himself. “I-it… it can’t be… Y-you… you’re gem i-is still…”

Stepper’s stunned gasp filled in the blanks as he looked down to the gemstone, only to find that, sure enough, it was every bit as cracked as it had been before. And even more than that, it was strangely duller somehow, its usual bright pink muted to a very noticeable degree. While most of the cracks scarring his skin had disappeared, a few still remained, mostly all congregated around the gemstone itself as they retained the same sort of dull pink pallor. “W-what…?” he asked, quite frightened as one of his lower arms reached for the damaged stone. “B-but how…?”

“T-this should have worked!” Mabel exclaimed, distraught as she took in the sight of the stone herself. “It should have healed you! Why didn’t it work!?”

“Stepper,” Garnet interjected, her tone surprisingly steady as she approached the fusion. “Your gem is still cracked, but you appear to be fine. Tell us you’re feeling.”

“Um, w-well… I-I feel fine now,” Stepper shrugged, though his tone was honest all the same. And it was true, all of the pain that had prevailed his senses disappeared the moment his gem so much as touched the fountain’s healing waters. “But… my gem… w-what happened to it…?”

Garnet, Pearl, and Mabel exchanged a confused, concerned glance at this, though the white Gem was ultimately the one to speak up to it. “Y-you mean… you don’t remember?”

Stepper shook his head, his brow furrowing in thought as he tried to think about how his gem might have been so severely damaged, though in the end, nothing came to him. “That’s… troubling…” Garnet remarked, though she didn’t bother explaining any further. At least not at the moment. “Still, even if you feel fine, Stepper, you should unfuse so we can see how each of you are doing on your own.”

Now it was Stepper’s turn to be confused as he looked to the Gem leader as if what she’d just said was the most baffling thing he’d ever heard. Which, at least to him, it was. “Unfuse?” he repeated, raising an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

“Uh, you know, unfuse?” Mabel repeated with a ghost of a smile. “As much as we love having you around, Stepper, we should probably check on Steven and Dipper too.”

A beat of silence that felt like it lasted ages passed at this, with only the fountain’s flowing water filling it in. And all the while, Stepper’s expression was awash in bewilderment, his eyes wide and unknowing as he voiced a simple question that sent shockwaves out the moment it was asked. 

“Who?”

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