"It's a.... DEAL!" The words echoed throughout the room, the demon making a deal he believed would answer all his problems and help him to reign supreme across the world. Little did he know how making this deal would cause all his plans to come tumbling down, unaware that the elder twins had a plan of their own to take down Bill Cipher once and for all.
The man in the trench coat took a step forward towards the one-eyed being. He paused for a moment, considering what this would mean if he went through with this. If he did this, the kids would be okay. If he did this, the town itself would be saved. The price to pay was one life, and what better of a life to toss away than his own? He didn't matter, his life amounted to nothing in his eyes. All he did was ever make a mess and disappoint the people in his life. Maybe by doing this, he could at least finally believe his life mattered for something.
Without a second thought, the man outstretched his hand and took the demon's, allowing it to be engulfed by the blue flames.
The other three in the room watched as Bill Cipher's body landed on the floor, turning to stone. The man with the trench coat looked up at what appeared to be nothing to the other three, a moment of fear being shown in his expression before suddenly he fell to his knees, his eyes closed.
"NO!" The younger male stood, going to run over with his sister not far behind him.
He didn't want to sit back and watch as the demon entered his idol's mind. He had looked up to the author of the journals all summer long, only to find out how they were connected by blood as they were just recently reunited. He didn't want to say goodbye already, there had to be some way to stop this and get Bill to leave. If he found what he needed inside his great uncle's mind, it would be the end of the world.
As he tried to rush over, a hand was placed on his chest preventing him from getting any closer.
"W-What are you doing?! We have to help him!" the young male tried to argue as he looked up, only to be met with an apologetic gaze looking down at him.
He stared up at the man in the suit, but something didn't feel right. It was almost as though he knew this man did not belong in these clothes. As a twin himself, he understood how easy it was to take one another's place and get confused by the public. It was then he realized that the author of the journals was standing before him, safe and sound.
"Great... Great Uncle Ford?" Dipper's voice was quiet, almost afraid Bill would hear him if he spoke too loudly. If Stanford was here, however, then that meant that the mind Bill Cipher entered was...
~~~
"Heh heh! Do a pretty good impression of my brother, don't I?" started the man as he sat in a big yellow lounge chair in the middle of what appeared to be a living room. But it wasn't his living room, merely an illusion of what his living room looked like within his mindscape. This was the trap, the place where Bill Cipher will be killed off and the town would be saved from his demonic clutches. "Switch clothes and no one can tell us apart. Welcome to my mind! Surprised you didn't recognize it," exclaimed Stanley Pines, grinning from ear-to-ear as he glared down at the yellow triangle.
~~~
Ford removed the fez from his head, the fez that did not belong to him. He did not deserve to wear it as he did the unthinkable to his very own brother. He didn't want to, but he and Stanley both knew this was the only way. He then removed a strange looking gun from underneath his jacket, quickly moving to aim it at his twin brother and entering his name into the device.
Dipper stood there, shocked to see that device being brought out. Him and his sister knew the device all too well, but neither knew why Ford was bringing it out now. Was he planning to use it on his brother? What was he and Stan planning on doing?
Slowly, Dipper's twin sister, Mabel, approached the fez that Ford had dropped, going to pick it up and hug it to her chest as she stared at her Grunkle, fear and worry in her eyes for what was to come. She didn't want anything bad to come to Stan.
Ford lifted the gun, turning his head away and closing his eyes. His arm shook as he felt the gun begin to charge while guilt filled his being. This was the last thing he wanted to ever do, but knew it had to be done.
It's what Stan wanted.
~~~
"WHAT?!" Bill Cipher screamed, fuming with rage as he realized he fell for this pathetic trick of theirs. "The deal's off!" He turned around, going to leave only for the door to slam shut before his eye. The door was then engulfed with a bright blue flame, confusing the demon even further. How far did this plan of theirs go? What were they planning to do?
"What the-" but his confusion didn't last long, watching as the fire quickly began to spread across the room. Only then did he begin to understand their plan. "No, no, no, no!"
"Oh yeah, you're going down, Bill. You're gettin' erased," Stan said with a smug grin on his face, the fear in Bill's voice giving him all the information he needed to realize the plan was working. "Memory gun. Pretty clever, huh?"
"You- You idiot! Don't you realize you're destroying your own mind, too?!" Bill yelled at him, the fires rising higher as pieces within the living room began to fade into nothingness, his memory of the room beginning to erase from Stan's mind.
"Eh, it's not like I was using this space for much, anyway."
"Let me out of here! Let me OUT!" Bill quickly went to go and throw a fireball at the door, hoping to destroy it and get himself out of there only for his powers to suddenly stop working right at that moment when he needed it most. "Why isn't this working?!"
The demon clutched his head, starting to panic. He was always one step ahead, always had a way to get himself out of any problem that he faced. He was the mastermind here- and yet he was somehow being outsmarted by these pathetic meatsacks that he has had tied up in his puppet strings up until this point. He really didn't want to believe that his death would be by their hands, but without his magic he had no way of escaping Stan's mind that was currently being destroyed.
"Hey, look at me," came a voice from behind the demon. "Turn around and look at me, you one-eyed demon!"
Bill turned around to face Stan who stood over him, his fists clenched at his sides. "You're a real wise guy, but you made one fatal mistake. You messed with my family."
"You're making a mistake- I'll give you anything! Money! Fame! Riches! Infinite power- Your own galaxy! Please!" He tried to reason with him, tried to bargain his way out of this. He felt his form begin to bend and morph, unable to physically hold his form within Stan's mind anymore. "No! What's happening to me?!"
Bill was dying. He knew this would be the end, there was no way of escaping it. He was enraged, panicked, and worried. Emotions he didn't think he could feel, emotions he never had to feel before. Not until now. He always had gotten his way up until now.
He didn't want to die, he didn't want this to be how his story came to an end.
In those last few moments of existence, he figured he had no choice but to get some help from a being that holds greater power than himself. He never thought he'd have to call out to them for help, but right now it was his only chance of surviving this.
"Nruter yam I taht rewop tneicna eht ekovni i! Nrub ot emoc sah emit ym! L-T-O-L-O-X-A!"
His physical form was breaking, he felt his power grow weaker and weaker. Staring up at Stanley Pines, he reached an arm out to him in an attempt to grab onto him, one last chance of getting him to stop this absurd plan.
"STAAANNLLEEEEY!!"
Stan Pines pulled his arm back and with all the force he had, he threw a punch right into Bill Cipher's eye, causing him to scream out as his body disintegrated into nothingness. Stan huffed, looking down at his fist that he used to throw that punch before looking back at the last thing that had yet to disappear. A picture, a picture of himself and the two most important people in his life: his great niece and nephew. He walked over towards it, picking it up carefully and holding it close to his chest with a thoughtful smile spreading across his face.
"Heh. Guess I was good for something after all..."
Stanley Pines closed his eyes as the blue flames engulfed his body, erasing him as well as everything else left within his mind.
~~~
The moment Bill was erased completely from Stan's mind was the moment when Weirdmageddon began to collapse. The town of Gravity Falls, Oregon began to revert back to how it used to be before all of this chaos ensued. All the demons that Bill brought along into this world were sent back to their own dimension as the rip finally closed, sealing them up tightly.
It was a sign of hope, that the chaos was finally over, Bill Cipher's reign over the town had come to an end... but at what cost?
It took around an hour before Ford, Dipper, and Mabel found Stan simply sitting in the middle of the forest, appearing to be awakening from a deep sleep. But as they tried to talk to him, they realized that the memory gun had worked and all his memories had been erased in order to stop Bill. The Pines family brought their Grunkle home, almost not wanting to believe that they had truly lost the old man that they had grown to love during their entire stay here.
"There's gotta be something we can do to jog his memory," Mabel tried to encourage, staring at her Grunkle as he sat in his famous yellow armchair.
Ford sighed, shaking his head. "There isn't. I'm sorry. Stan's gone."
"I know my Grunkle is in there somewhere! There's gotta be something around here that can help bring him back!"
Mabel proceeded to look around the room before her eyes landed on a book on the floor, her scrapbook that she had been working on all summer long. She ran up to Stan, sitting beside him in the chair and opening the book up.
"This'll work! This has to work! Here's the first day we came to Gravity Falls, Grunkle Stan. And here's a macaroni interpretation of my emotions."
"That time we went fishing? That Summerween we spent together? Don't you remember anything?" Dipper added as his sister flipped through the pages in the book.
"I'm sorry. I don't know what this is or who you are or-" Stan had begun to explain to the children how he really didn't remember anything, that was until a familiar pig jumped up and attacked Stan's face with kisses. "Gah! Quit it, Waddles! I'm trying to remember my life story!"
The younger set of twins gasped in unison, looking at one another before looking up at Stan in shock.
"What did you say?" Dipper asked, hoping he had heard him correctly.
"I said get Waddles off of me!"
"It's working. Keep reading!" Ford said quickly, wanting his brother back more than anything.
And so they did. They continued to read throughout the night as well as for the remainder of the week, reading to him Mabel's summer scrapbook while adding their own stories to help jog Stan's memory. Soon enough, almost as though they had been granted a miracle for their heroic actions as of lately, they finally got their Grunkle Stan back. Most of his memories of his last day in Weirdmageddon were still a bit fuzzy and missing a couple of pieces here and there, but they weren't too worried about that. He was thankful he could hardly remember that day as a lot of the people in town wished they could forget the entire event altogether. One of the reasons they were so quick to accept the "Never Mind All That" Act.
In the end, it appears as though everyone gets a happy ending and the story can come to a close.
But this is only the prologue, a recap, and the story has yet to truly begin.
Chapter 1: Sunday, May 15, 2022