The Pines brothers fell to the ground with twin 'thuds', and Fiddleford felt sick.

What was he doing? Did he really just shoot his friend? He didn't feel much better over shooting Stanley, either, even though it was something he'd thought about doing many times before. It was only the memory gun, not a real gun, but the momentary look of panic on the brothers' faces would stick around in Fidds' mind for some time.

What have I become?

He braced his hands on a nearby desk and forced himself to take deep breaths. What he needed to. He became what he needed to be for Lord Cipher.

Once Fidds had sufficiently calmed down, he stepped over the unconscious brothers and went through the security room to go check on the shapeshifter. He didn't know what he would do to the creature, but he had to get rid of him somehow. For one, he was a distraction. For two, he was dangerous — and Fidds didn't trust Stanley not to release his precious pet into the world.

Thankfully, he found the shapeshifter already frozen in a cryogenic tube. The busted cage nearby told him that Stanley had probably had to fend off an attack.

Well, Stanley, now you finally see why I hate this thing so much.

Fidds took his time returning to the first room, for he dreaded his next task. He had shot the brothers with his memory gun, using The Order of the Crescent Eye as the input phrase; now, he needed to rip out the Journal pages that Ford had written about Bill.

This was even less appealing than the first task.

But, he did it. He took Ford's journal to the desk and ripped out the pages that mentioned the Order or Bill, stuffing them in his pockets. It pained him immensely, destroying parts of a scientific record, but he had to do it. He had to erase any evidence of this disaster.

Once he got started, it got a little easier — just a little. He even decided to rip out the pages about Shifty, in hopes that Ford would forget the creature's existence and never unfreeze him.

As Fidds moved to rip out the final page, his arm moved too far and too fast. His wrist snagged against a jutting piece of metal, and it cut into his skin. Fidds let go of the half-torn page with a cry of pain as blood spurted down onto the paper.

Someone moaned.

Fidds whirled, clutching his arms to his chest, and saw Ford stir. Panic infused him as he imagined Ford's reaction to seeing Fidds ripping pages out of his Journal. He slammed the book closed and dropped it by Ford. Just in time, too: The scientist sat up only moments after Fidds had stepped back.

"Fidds?" asked Ford. "What happened?"

"What do you remember?" he replied nervously, pulling the sleeve of his tweed jacket over his bleeding wrist.

Ford frowned. "Stanley showed me Shifty, frozen in the cryogenic tube. That's. . . that's the last thing." He glanced to his brother, who had also woken.

Fidds breathed a sigh of relief. "I'm glad you remember that much. He hit you pretty hard."

"Who did?"

"The shapeshifter," Fidds replied. "The cryogenic tube malfunctioned, and he woke up. He attacked both of you and knocked you unconscious. I was just lucky to be here, looking for you, when it happened. I forced him into another tube, froze him, and dragged you both back out here." He cast a baleful eye on Stanley. "You were quite heavy."

All of this, of course, was a lie. But Fidds had gotten better at lying over the years.

"How do you know the other cryogenic tube won't malfunction?" asked Ford.

"I checked to make sure. It was just the one tube that was faulty."

He hadn't actually moved the shapeshifter to another tube, only gone back to make sure the creature was out of commission. He had to hope the brothers wouldn't check.

Stan sighed heavily. "Poor Shifty. I'm gonna miss you."

"Miss him?" asked Fidds incredulously. "He's attacked all three of us now, and you're going to miss him?"

Stan shrugged and said nothing.

The trio went back to the lab, and Fidds buzzed with nervousness. Would Ford actually forget the Order? He seemed to have forgotten the first few minutes before Fidds had shot him, so the gun had had some effect. And even if Ford hadn't forgotten, Stanley surely had, though Fidds didn't know how much Ford had told him. Better safe than sorry.

Then Ford spoke up. "Hey, Fidds. . . Lee tells me that you know we suspect your activity. Your knitting club that isn't a knitting club. I didn't want to confront you about it, but. . . what have you been doing, all this time?"

Worry and relief shot through Fidds all at once. Relief because Ford seemed to have forgotten the Order. Worry because he now had to come up with an excuse. "I. . . uh. . . I'm sorry, Stanford, I should've told you, but — well, I was scared."

"Of what? What have you been doing?"

"Going to an inventor's club," Fidds blurted.

Ford frowned. "What?"

"I — I've been going to an inventor's club, here in town. I didn't want to tell you because I thought you'd be mad at me. I shouldn't be building things outside of our projects. Th-they're distracting me. I've even been going during the day to talk about exciting new discoveries, and it takes away from our work. But it's such a fun group, and there are some really nice people, and I didn't want to stop going, even after we started the portal."

Ford stopped and stared at his research partner. Fidds squirmed under his gaze.

"Fidds," he finally said, "do you still not trust me?"

"Wh-what do you mean?"

"I mean. . . I didn't judge you when I found out about your dream journal. I haven't judged you for anything else. Of course it's all right to have personal projects outside of our work."

Next to him, Lee snorted. "Dream journal? Nerdy inventor's club? No wonder you didn't want to tell us."

Ford glared at his brother. "I keep a dream journal too, Stanley; it's nothing to laugh at. And I think an inventor's club is a fine pastime."

Lee held up his hands in surrender.

After that, the brothers didn't ask questions about Fidds' visits to the Order. Bill quickly confirmed that Lee had no more suspicions. "But," he said, "you should probably shoot him again to make him forget about me. He may not know about the Order anymore, but Sixer repeated to him what the nymphs said about me. It created networks of fear in his subconscious. If I want Stanley on my side, he can't remember me."

"Should I shoot Ford, too?" asked Fidds. "He probably has those same networks, maybe stronger."

Bill considered this. "No," he finally said. "This is why I stopped consulting with him, you see? I was planning ahead to a disaster such as this. Now, Sixer will be afraid of me — as everyone should be — but he won't stop working on the portal. He doesn't remember why he's afraid of me, and so long as you don't mention me to him, he shouldn't have any qualms. Of course, if he does want to stop work on the portal because of me, you're welcome to shoot him."

Thankfully, Ford said nothing about Bill and showed no hesitations with the portal. Fidds had no idea what he remembered — did he even remember the existence of his new metal plate? — but it didn't much matter, because it didn't get in the way of their work. And, once Fidds made Lee forget about Bill, there was no protest from that end, either.

Ford did get considerably more paranoid. But that worked to Fidds' advantage: It translated into less expeditions into the forest, and Ford quickly developed a feverish drive to complete the portal. Fidds didn't understand why — shouldn't this paranoia be against the portal? Bill, however, hypothesized that something in Ford's subconscious had focused his fears of Bill onto the portal; but instead of manifesting as an aversion, they manifested as a greater obsession. Since Ford no longer knew the root of his anxieties, he latched onto the portal as a potential solution to them.

Of course, Bill couldn't see into Ford's mind to confirm this — he just had some very good guesses.

May yawned into June, which puttered into July. Finally, in August, the portal was ready.

The lab was tense with nerves. Ford kept pushing for them to open the portal, his manner rife with some unplaceable anxiety. One night, as Fidds worked under one of the bulky gauges to tighten up some loosening bolts, he could hear Ford and Stan arguing.

"Sixer, let's wait, okay? Let's just go to bed. It'll still be here tomorrow. We can do more research into exactly what will happen if we turn it on."

"No, Lee, we have to open it now."

"Why?"

"I don't know! But we have to!"

"Sixer—"

Fidds heard a buzzer.

Wait, did Ford just turn the portal on? Without him? Fidds was about to roll his mechanic's creeper out from under the gauge—

Then a very strange thing happened.

He couldn't explain it. Though his body didn't move, it seemed to lighten. If he moved a muscle, he felt he might fly away — even though he was thoroughly nestled between the gauge and the creeper. Slowly, his weight shifted, and Fidds felt as if he were resting on the gauge instead of the ground.

With all the parts jutting from the gauge's surface, this was quite uncomfortable.

"Ford?" he called. "Are you okay?"

"Don't move, Fidds!" his research partner replied.

"We're on the ceiling!" Stanley added.

How did that happen? Fidds waited out an uncomfortable few minutes until his body resettled on his creeper and Ford told him he could come out. He pushed on the gauge to roll the creeper out from under the machine. "What just happened?" he asked as he got to his feet.

"Gravity disappeared," Ford reported.

"And then flipped upside down!"

Fidds stared at the brothers in disbelief. "Gravity can't do that."

Stanley laughed rudely. "C'mon, Fidds, you've been here way longer than I have — even I know that anything goes in Gravity Rises!"

"Will it happen again?" asked Fidds, ignoring Stanley.

"I suspect we'll have a lot more gravitational anomalies in the next eighteen hours," Ford replied. He gestured up at the overhead screen, where a large red timer counted down: 17:56:34. 17:56:33. 17:56:32.

And that was the start of the gravitational anomalies.

Fidds felt like this was all going too fast. It was the middle of the night, which meant the portal would be open by tomorrow evening. Lord Cipher only had eighteen hours to make his escape through the portal — and he probably needed to give Fidds more instruction!

He excused himself to bed soon after that. ("See, Sixer? If he's going to bed, we can too!" said Stan, to which Ford replied, "You're welcome to go to bed whenever you'd like, Stanley.") Fidds went up to his attic room and tried to calm himself, but he was anxious to get to sleep and converse with Bill. The fear of more gravitational anomalies didn't help soothe his worries.

Those fears weren't unfounded, either. Every time gravity changed, his equilibrioception went into a panic, pulling him back to consciousness. It felt like hours later when he finally fell asleep.

"You're dreaming, Portal-Bound, and we don't have much time."

Bill's abrupt greeting almost woke Fidds all over again. Thankfully, though, he was pulled into lucidity, no doubt kept in REM sleep by Bill's power over the mind. He bowed. "Lord Cipher, I'm sorry, I couldn't stop him from turning it on." Ford hadn't even consulted him — that still stung.

"No matter. It's time to tell you about your true purpose."

Fidds blinked. "My. . . my true purpose, Lord Cipher?"

"Yes. You have done well in building this portal. Now I have another assignment."

"What is it?" His excitement mounted — along with his nervousness.

"To enter the portal, I need a vessel," Bill said. "A body."

Fidds frowned in confusion. "You want me to build you a body? Isn't it too late for—"

"No, Portal-Bound. I'm going to use your body."

The colors of the dream world muddied in Fidds' vision. "What?"

"We will make a deal," Bill said, "and I will possess you. I will ride your body to my freedom."

Nervousness exploded in Fidds' mind.

"I know you're scared," Bill said, and his multi-layered voice was calming. "It's an honor, I assure you. You will be the first human to enter my dimension. I'll move your body through the portal, and you'll follow as a ghost. Then I'll be free, because of you. You can be at my right hand. Together, we can rule dimensions."

His vision clouded. This was so much—

"Portal-Bound. Fiddleford. Look at me."

Fidds fixed his gaze on Bill, and the rest of the dream world settled around them. Bill was a beacon with which to soothe Fidds' harried thoughts.

"This is why. You are Portal-Bound. Not only bound to build the portal, but bound to enter it."

Enter it. He was really going to enter it? Bill would give him that honor?

"This is your destiny," Bill said. "Lilith would be so proud."

These were the words that convinced him. A sense of empowerment swept through Fidds, chasing away his insecurities. Yes. . . yes, he was meant for this. He was destined for this. He was Portal-Bound.

Bill put out a hand, and it lit up in blue flame. "Shake on it," he said. "If you let me take over your body tomorrow, I will give you an unimaginable reward on the other side."

A thrill of nervousness shot through him. But it was accompanied by exhilaration.

Fiddleford took Bill's hand.

"Excellent," Bill said. "Now, there is something else. Something to do with Stanley."

"He's not joining us in the portal, is he?" Fidds asked in alarm.

Bill chuckled. "What? No. This is your honor. He's going to stay here, but there's something I need you to do to him before we leave. What do you think would happen if you typed in someone's name, then shot them with the memory gun?"

Fidds frowned. "I don't know. We've never tried it. It could erase their name. . . or it could erase their entire identity."

"I need you to test that," Bill said. "On Stanley."

Fidds stared at him. "Wh-what?"

"Type in his name. Shoot him. Then I'll check what the results are."

"Wh. . . why?"

"I have my reasons," Bill said. "Will you do this for me?"

The colors seeped from the dream world. Would he? Could he do something that risky? Did Bill really want to erase Stanley's memory entirely?

"If you don't," Bill continued, "I will. When I possess you."

Fidds took a deep breath. "I. . . I'll try, my lord. I may need your help, but. . . I'll try."

Bill regarded him with a half-lidded gaze. "Good." He gave Fidds more instructions on exactly what to do to prepare for their departure, then said, "I'm afraid I've pushed your dream cycle too far again. I'll leave you now. Tomorrow, get the portal ready. Follow my instructions for after it opens. You'll feel my signal when I'm about to take over."

Fidds gave a deep bow. The dream world trembled around him as he realized all that he had agreed to do.

"Until tomorrow, Portal-Bound." Bill's yellow glow grew brighter.

Then he disappeared entirely, and the dream world trembled into ruin.