My contest entry for WattyFallers and EZ-Dayz's contest #4! WARNING: May or may not be extremely sad.

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"Alright, Ford. Time's up. I've got the kids. I think I'm gonna kill one of 'em now just for the heck of it," Bill Cipher said as he walked into the throne room. The younger Pines twins squirmed in his grasp, trying to get free. "Eenie . . ." Bill's eye turned into a pine tree. "Meenie . . ." Then a shooting star. "Minee . . ." Pine Tree. "YOU!"

Shooting Star.

"NO!" Dipper screamed.

But it was too late. Dipper watched in horror as Bill snapped, and his twin sister gasped and went limp. He looked up at Bill, who didn't need a mouth to be smirking. He laughed as Dipper turned back to his sister.

"Mabel? Mabel!" Dipper said, shaking her. "C'mon, Mabel, wake up! Please!" He felt tears threaten to fall when she didn't respond. Dipper looked back up at Bill, both fearfully and hatefully.

"Now," Bill said, turning to Ford and Stan, "let's retry the whole deal thing. You can save Pine Tree, but I'm afraid Shooting Star's a Fallen Star."

Bill plucked Mabel from his hand with the other, and he casually tossed her limp body to the side. The dream demon ignored Dipper's scream in protest. Dipper continued to struggle, against Bill and his tears. He wasn't going to let Bill have the satisfaction of hurting him, both physically and emotionally. Unfortunately for Dipper, the twelve-year-old was failing miserably. Tear after tear slipped down his cheeks.

"L-let me go! Let me go, you-you . . . stupid geometric figure!" Dipper said after struggling to come up with a good insult.

Bill laughed, then held him upside-down by his foot. "Oh, but this is a geometric figure that won't hesitate to devastate. Then again, you want to see your sister again, don't you, Pine Tree? Would that be nice?"

All of the anger, sadness, and guilt that was twisting inside of Dipper intensified. Anger at Bill for killing his sister. Sadness churned through him at the very thought of Mabel. And there was the soul-crushing guilt caused by his uselessness on saving her.

Ford and Stan stood in their cage as they watched their nephew crumble before them. The two glanced at each other. It was now or never.

"You two gonna stare at each other all day? I could always drop Pine Tree here. Man, what would happen if ya landed the way you are now?" Bill said, still holding Dipper upside down. "Wanna find out?" Dipper chose not to respond; if he said anything, he knew he'd break down. Instead, the young Pines just closed his eyes and tried to block everything out. "Hello?" Bill said. He paused then shook Dipper, asking, "Fishy?"

"AH!" Dipper screamed.

Bill laughed. "That was funny!" He looked at the older Pines twins, who glared back. "What? That was a perfect reference!"

"Leave him alone, Bill," Ford growled.

"M'kay, only if ya shake my hand," Bill said sweetly.

Ford gritted his teeth. "Just leave my family alone."

Bill rolled his eye. "You mean what's left of it?" he asked boredly.

Ford ignored Bill's question. "Put my nephew down."

"Gently!" Stan added.

Bill sighed, but did as the two commanded. He twisted Dipper around to where he was rightside up, and Bill set the kid on the ground. "There. Totally unharmed! For the most part anyways." Bill chuckled.

Dipper felt his eyes land on Mabel. He blinked away tears, taking deep breaths as he tried to calm himself. He heard Bill say something to Ford. Dipper turned around to see them standing in front of him, ready to make a deal. If they make that deal, Mabel's death would have been for nothing. I can't let them do that! Then Dipper Pines the stupidest thing in the his entire life. He shoved himself in front of Ford and shook Bill's hand.

Stan watched, transfixed, as his nephew fell limp in front of him. Bill suddenly turned to stone, like he had done to the citizens.

"Dipper!" his brother yelled behind him.

The weird ropes that had tied up Ford, in Stan's clothes, fell, and the old man ran up beside Stan. The two older twins looked at Dipper in horror.

"Wh-what happened?!" Stan demanded.

"Dipper just made an indirect deal with Bill. He took our terms, but bound it to him." Ford looked at his nephew, set his jaw, then pulled the mind-erasing gun out of his suit.

"What are you doing?!" Stan stared at his twin brother.

"I'm saving the world." Ford's voice was calm and confident, but his hands shook as he raised the memory gun.

"I . . . I can't lose both of them!" Stan shouted.

"If I'm correct, which I should be, this will destroy Bill once and for all. That would reverse all the magic he had done. All of the magic." Ford turned his head to look at Mabel.

"So . . . You mean . . . We have to choose. Either we lose Mabel, or we lose Dipper." Stan looked down at his nephew.

"But, if we choose Dipper, Bill wins." Ford mimicked Stan's movement. His hands shook even more. "This is it. We have to choose," he said, his voice soft.

Stan looked between his niece and nephew. Both laid limply on the Fearamid's floor. Both were unknowingly waiting for the old Pines' choice. And both would gladly sacrifice themselves for the other.

"Dipper," Stan said quietly. "We have to erase his mind."

Ford turned to his twin brother. "He'll live. And Bill will be destroyed."

"But he won't remember."

"It's what he would want. Besides, he'd hate us forever if we didn't save Mabel." Ford tried to do a playful grin, but failed. He raised the memory gun. "I'm sorry, Dipper."

Dipper opened his eyes. He knew he was in his mind. He'd just made a deal with a demon, in an attempt to make sure his sister's death didn't go in vain.

"You . . . YOU!" Bill Cipher screamed behind him. Oh, right. There's a triangle in here too.

Bill turned from yellow to red, and he was surrounded by a fiery aura. "OF ALL THE PINES, I HATE YOU THE MOST!" Bill yelled, his voice becoming deep.

Dipper just stared coolly back, not saying a word.

This infuriated Bill even more. "Yeah, well, I'm calling the deal off! You ready to get tortured for the rest of your pathetic life span?!"

Again, Dipper stayed quiet. He decided to let Bill rant on.

And Bill did. "You should be GLAD your sister is dead, because, if she wasn't, I'd make her watch! Or maybe I'd torture her and make you watch! You know what? I can bring her back and do that! I can kill her as many times as I want, in the most painful ways I can think of, and it's all your fault, Pine Tree! You excited? I hope so! Because your sister will die again and again, and it's all because--!"

"SHUT UP!" Dipper screamed at Bill.

He hadn't thought of that. Bill could bring her back and do all of that, now that he had infinite power. Dipper took deep breaths, trying to calm all the rage Bill had caused him.

Bill unexpectedly began to laugh, and he turned yellow again. "Oh, really? You have virtually no power here, Pine Tree. What brilliant little plan do you have, huh?" Bill turned around to leave. "This is my world kid! You can't do anything!"

Then the door to Dipper's mindscape closed, and burst into blue flames.

"But my uncles can," Dipper said with a smirk. He knew that this was Stan and Ford's doing. They were using the mind-erasing gun.

Bill backed up. "You . . . Erasing your own mind, huh?" He turned to face Dipper. "Remember what I said about bringing Mabel back? I can do that! But, if I'm destroyed, then it's game over. No Mabel."

Dipper stared at Bill, then choked out, "You're lying!"

"Am I?"

"Yes, you are! You're trying to convince me to save you!" Dipper shouted.

But he began to panic. He didn't want all of his memories to be erased. What would happen to Mabel? He'd forget her, everything she'd done. Would that make the pain of her death go away? Dipper closed his eyes. What was the right choice? Letting Bill win and remembering Mabel? Or destroying Bill and losing everything he cared about? He couldn't decide. Then he remembered something Mabel had told him.

"For once, stop listening to your head and listen to your heart."

Dipper opened his eyes, which were shining with tears. He would listen to his heart. For Mabel. "No," he said in a firm voice.

"You're not going to escape this time, Cipher."

Dipper turned around, sadness tugged at him. If these were his last moments of remembering his sister, he had to get everything out.

"Oh, is Pine Tree going to cry now?" Bill taunted behind him. "Is he being a big baby as usual?"

Dipper started to cry.

Bill laughed. "As final moments go, this is entertaining." He had given up on begging Dipper to make deal. He had one last trick up his sleeve.

Dipper just sat down on the floor, still crying.

"It's too bad you didn't get to tell your sister goodbye, huh, kid?"

Dipper started to cry even harder.

Bill rolled his eye at Dipper. "Eh, besides, what kind of brother are you? Letting me kill your sister, then now you're refusing to save her."

It turned into sobbing. Bill's right. I'm a terrible brother. I deserve this.

The flames grew around the twelve-year-old and the triangle. Bill screamed something behind Dipper; something that sounded like a reverse message. Dipper ignored it. Finally, the flames of the mind eraser swallowed him.

~~~

Mabel woke up to the smell of pine trees and flowers. A cool summer breeze tugged at her hair. But one thought was going through Mabel's head.

Am I dead?

The young girl tried to stand, only to fall on her knees.

"Ugh, is this what being dead is like?" she muttered.

Mabel tried to stand again, and succeeded. She looked around then noticed a hat laying on the ground. Hesitantly, she picked it up. A trucker hat, with a blue pine tree on the front. She was speechless. How did something like that come with her if she's dead? Maybe she was a ghost. But then, how was she picking it up. Mabel slowly looked around.

"Am I a ghost? What's going on?" Mabel rubbed her head. "I want Dipper . . ." She noticed a shape lying in the woods in front of her. "Man, I need to do outloud wishing more!" she said, running up to her brother.

Then it hit her. If she wasn't ghost, then did this mean Dipper was dead, too?

"That stupid triangle better not have done what I'm thinking he did . . . ," Mabel said quietly. "Dipper?" she asked. "Hey, bro, c'mon. I need some answers," Mabel added after no response.

Dipper let out a groan, then rolled over. "What . . . ? Happened?" he said slowly.

"I don't know, bro-bro," Mabel shook her head. "I think I may be dead."

"Dead?" Dipper asked. He slowly sat up. "What do you mean?" He looked around the forest. "And what happened here?"

Mabel laughed. "Aw, Dipper, quit joking around. You know what happened! Besides, why aren't screaming about how happy you are to see me?"

Dipper turned to look at her. "Er . . . Part of the problem may be that I don't remember who you are . . . Or anything for that matter."

Mabel blinked. "Dipper . . . ?" she whispered. Mabel had a sudden realization. Weirdmageddon had been reversed. Dipper didn't lose her, but, somehow . . .

She lost Dipper.

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I.... Don't even know what I just did. So... Mabel died... Dipper took the deal instead... Stan and Ford had to choose between the twins ;-;