Changes

Chapter Four

The 4 kids (and Soos) ran out behind the gift shop, ready to try and help Lilah.
"Right", Dipper started. "Have you worked out any patterns between both the shape changes?"
"Well yeah, Ford and I did that just then." Dipper nodded, and Mabel lounged on the edge of her fish bowl, calling out to them, "Well why don't you tell us the secret then, so we can all change back and forth when we want to!"
"I'm not sure it works like that, sorry Mabel. I'm pretty sure it's just a me thing, like you guys all turned into separate monsters when you drank the water, I think this is what the river did to me." Everyone nodded, Wendy barked at them to "hurry up and practice or it'll be next week before we even start".

"Okay, it was pretty easy to turn into someone who I know very well, so I'll do that again. Uh, hi, my name is Wendy Corduroy and I-" She never even got to finish saying who she was impersonating before her stomach flipped and she was sitting on the grass with red fur and a green flannel shirt.
"Woo! It worked! High five!" The real Wendy slapped paws with Lilah and they laughed, before Lilah shut her eyes, concentrated on her own personality, and turned back into herself. "I'm getting good at this." She cheered.

After practising some more, she was finally able to shape-shift into just about anything she wanted without speaking, but had to sit down as after the last turn, it felt like her guts her trying to claw their way out her chest. "Lilah, you look exhausted, do you need a rest?" Mabel enquired.
"Yeah dude, you're shaking" Soos added.
"No no, I'm, I'm fine. I just gotta try one more thing." Her words were slurring together, the world was spinning and her head was on fire, but she wouldn't give up, not when she was this close.
"I'm gonna try changing into something- something new." The world was blurry and she couldn't think straight, but she had an idea as a tan-furred rabbit came hopping out of the bushes.

She concentrated on the rabbit, and felt herself changing into a mirror image of it, but she clenched her fists and stopped herself half way, changing her focus to her own body. Her head felt like it was tearing it's self apart and the world had started going black, but she heaved through, only to be greeted with stabs of unbearable pain as the two beings she focused on refused to come together into the rabbit girl she had envisioned. She shrieked and writhed on the grass, unaware of her friends shocked faces. Wendy had sprinted off to get Ford and Stan, while Dipper and Mabel were panicking over what the heck was happening.

She fell to the ground, still screaming like a demon from hell, her skin bubbling hot like lava, and it seemed like all her limbs had been ripped off. She retched, throwing up blood and perhaps some of her insides as well. Ford came tumbling into her blurry, bloodstained line of sight, yelling about something, something incomprehensible. He put his hand on her head, and recoiled as it caved in like tissue paper. Lilah was still screeching.
"Lilah! You've got to transform one more time!" Someone's foggy voice penetrated the clouds of pain washing over her. She couldn't tell who it was, just someone very urgent. "One last time! Into anything! Anything at all! You don't have to transform ever again if you want to, just don't stay like this or you'll die!"

It was like she was in a separate world to the others, hers very real and theirs a faraway dream. The last few words from that urgent voice suddenly had meaning, but she couldn't think of anything, the pain was too great, turning her thoughts into soup. An epiphany struck her, cutting through the pain like a knife. Bill Cipher didn't have a head, so if she turned into him hers wouldn't be tearing itself apart. Bill Cipher didn't have a stomach, so if she turned into him, hers wouldn't try to tear its way out through her mouth. Bill Cipher didn't have any of that, so he was the perfect choice, but was she able to?

She focused her fuzzy thoughts onto Bill, and even mustered the strength to whisper his name, but it wasn't enough. Ford's eyes widened though, and reached into his coat to bring out journal 3, and flipped to Bill Ciphers page. He shoved it in front of her face, the 2D demon staring unblinkingly at her. She whispered a bit louder, and everything was too much, the edges of the world were black, all she could hear was the pounding of her heart and the faint, distant whisper of Bill Cipher. The dark closed in, but at the last moment before she blacked out, her pain was gone and she could take over the universe with blue fire in a click of her fingers.

***

Lilah woke up lying on the kitchen table, Mabel, Dipper, Stan, Ford, Soos and Wendy sitting in chairs around her. "Pine Tree?" Lilah groggily asked and Dipper choked on air, Ford's hand twitching at his belt, where a weapon was undoubtedly hidden. Lilah gasped, and shot upright, not even recognising her slip up. "Guys! It worked!"
They all cheered and laughed, a little suspicious but still very glad that their friend was still alive.

Lilah lifted her arm to rub her eyes, but jumped backwards when she saw Bill's arm instead of her own. "Whoa, guys? Why am I still in Bill's body?"
"You- you don't remember?" Dipper warily asked.
"You tried to change into something new, but then you kinda broke, like you started throwing up blood and guts and your skin was all like paper, it was horrible", Wendy added.
Lilah shuddered at the memory of the horrible pain, but found it kind of amusing that she almost died. She realised that this amusement was a Bill trait, and found it very frightening that no more than 5 minutes after she woke up his personality was already rubbing off on her.
"Guys, I better hurry and change back to me, I am already feeling kind of like Bill. How long was I asleep?"
"A few hours", Mabel answered. Lilah found it comforting to know that she wasn't absorbing Bill's personality as fast as she first thought.
"I better change back quickly, we can't risk any more time for Bill's personality to replace mine."
All her friends sitting around her nodded in agreement, but as she concentrated on her personality she felt electricity fizzing around her and making her friends' hair and fur stand on end Dipper and Mabel grasped each other's hands, but yelped as they got electric shocked. She tried again, focusing harder, but the electricity buzzed and crackled in the air, making the lights flicker. She kept going, but right at the moment when the change was supposed to happen all the lights in the shack burst, and she was thrown back across the table, spots flashing across her vision.

"Better not try that again." Stan mentioned, slightly annoyed. "Last time I had to buy light bulbs I got beat up by supermarket security."