I DO NOT OWN SVTFOE, GRAVITY FALLS OR THE OWL HOUSE. ALL RIGHTS AND OWNERSHIP BELONG TO DISNEY.

(Dipper's POV)

I follow Gus into his office and he closes the door behind me. The room is made of wooden planks with a large desk in one corner. Coloured cushions are strewn about the floor and a blackboard is attached to one of the walls. The walls and the blackboard are covered in papers with notes and rough sketches of common earth objects on them.

Gus sits down on one side of his desk and gestures to a chair on the other side. "Sorry about the mess. This office doubles as my classroom and we are in the middle of planning the exchange."

I take a seat on the chair. "Its not a problem. I've had weeks where multiple rooms in my flat look like this. Stella hates it, but its necessary from time to time."

"And Stella is your...?"

"She's my partner and Zach's sister. She couldn't come on the trip sadly, she had to finish her thesis."

"Uni student? Impressive. My research into human university led me to believe its really difficult."

"Yeah she's pretty smart, her work is really interesting to read."

Gus leans down and opens a draw in his desk. He pulls from it a folder filled with even more paper and places it onto the desk between him and I. "So Eda mentioned you are doing research on the demon realm?"

I pull out my journal and place it on the desk next to his folder. "Yeah, I've been writing down my observations in this." Gus gestures towards it and I nod. He picks up the journal and opens it up. "It's far from complete," I continue. "But I hope to gain a better understanding of the Demon Realm before I have to head back to Gravity Falls."

Gus continues to leaf through the pages of the journal. "Its very impressive that you have gained such a comprehensive understanding of the Boiling Isles in the little time you have been here."

"Thanks, I'm used to absorbing info quickly."

"There are a few mistakes, but that's not a problem. You managed to grasp so much about this place in so little time, the few parts you got wrong shouldn't be the focus." Gus pulls a pen from his desk draw. "May I?"

"Be my guest."

Gus starts to write, making what I assume are small corrections to my initial impressions and building upon my observations. "In the folder in front of you are the last bits of planning that need to be finished before I send my students into the human realm." He continues to write as he talks, flicking through the pages and making small motions with the pen. "Would you mind taking a look and helping me sort out any problems they may have. I may be the most knowledgeable witch here on humans, but my time in the Human Realm is still limited." He barely lifts his head from the journal as he speaks, seemingly fully invested in what I had written. "I would usually ask Luz to help out, but she has been really busy on her own studies, plus traveling with Amity and spending time with her mum in the Human Realm, she doesn't have much time."

I reach down and grab the folder before opening it. It's filled with papers much like the ones littered around the office, except these ones aren't complete. They have half finished sketches or are missing information. "Of course I wouldn't mind helping you fill the blanks. I'm pretty well travelled at this point, I should be able to plug any holes."

"Thank you, it would be an amazing help in getting the students to the Human Realm on schedule." Gus reaches into his desk draw again and pulls out another pen, handing it to me. I get to work filling in the blanks, finishing sketches and writing down missing information. We spend what feels like a few hours on this process, correcting each others work and answering questions. It eventually spills over past the desk onto the surrounding papers, us walking around the office and making sure everything is correct. As someone with limited time in the Human Realm, Gus is incredibly knowledgeable, very little of the work not in the folder needing any alterations, just a few odds and ends being sewn together. As we draw to the end of the process, we sit back at the desk and Gus hands me back my journal. "Thank you so much Dipper, you have saved me so much time I would have needed to spend studying."

I open up my journal to see the changes he has made. A few of my initial pages have small rewrites and alterations, not a massive amount but enough to correct any wrong assumptions I had already draw. I flip a bit deeper to find multiple new filled out pages, notes and observations drawn from the questions I had asked earlier. "And thank you, this goes a long way to helping me expand my own research into this place."

Gus chuckles. "Well I have lived here a while, and its always great to help out a fellow academic."

I turn to a page near the middle of the journal titled Demons of the Isles. I read over it carefully. We had a long conversation on this topic, both of us having run-ins with many types of demons in the past. "I notice here in the section on demons that the way you describe them is very different to the way demons I have encountered in the Human Realm operate."

"Well I would assume different realms would have differences in their core mechanics, demons you have encountered must have not been from here."

"No, that's true. The demon's I interact with are from a place called the dreamscape. They are very powerful in the ways of magic, able to manipulate real space with relative ease. The demons here don't seem to posses those types of abilities."

Gus leans back into his chair, chewing on the end of his pen as he thinks. "I would guess that titans would somewhat fit that description. They are very powerful in the ways of magic, even passively."

"Yeah, I heard that King's very presence was able to shut down Star and Marco's magical powers despite him being so young."

Gus leans forward again, looking me in the eyes. "So your infatuation with demons, that comes from your experience with them in the past?"

"Yeah. I used to have this one demon I would call on for help. He tried to kill us before but I found away to bind him to my service, remove the murderous intent from his psyche. I freed him a couple years ago but he stuck around as a good friend for a while, always helpful when we needed him."

"So then what happened?"

I sigh and lean back in my chair, staring at the ceiling. "Mabel fell in love with him. I don't feel good calling her 'boyfriend' into dangerous situations, so his help is very much on a 'his own intention' basis."

"I see. Well the heart wants what the heart wants."

I put my journal back into my pocket and Gus grabs and starts sorting some papers on his desk. "I guess, but it sucks. Sure I still have some powers but I lost a really powerful asset. When our group get caught up in danger, which always seems to happen sooner or later, I feel like I don't have the power to help them. Since I stopped calling on Bill as much I always feel like I'm stuck watching helplessly while they others put their lives at risk."

Gus thinks for a moment, rubbing his chin with his hand before leaning forward onto the desk once again. "You know, I understand how it feels for your power to just not be enough. I'm an illusion magic prodigy, but for a while I also felt like illusion magic just didn't cut it when it comes to helping my friends. I eventually overcame those though, but that being said I think I may be able to help you."

"I'm intrigued." I look back towards Gus and catch his stare, this time more serious than before. "What do you mean you can help?"

Gus's eyes dart around the room, glancing to the door and the walls before looking back towards me. He beckons me to come closer, so I lean across the desk to meet him. "There is something in this school that only me and Eda know about," he whispers. "Something that fits your description of a demon and can help you regain this power you a missing."

"Show me," I reply.

Gus gets up from his chair and gestures for me to follow. We leave his office and head towards the top of the stairs. We arrive outside of a pair of huge wooden doors with the word Headmaster written on them in golden lettering. Gus knocks and Eda's familiar voice calls for us to enter. Gus pushes the doors open and we head inside. The room is cosy looking, with orbs of light suspended in the air lighting up the hardwood of the wall and floor. Rugs are tossed around and large bookshelves line the walls. Eda is sitting behind her desk shuffling through some papers, King is sleeping on top of a bookshelf nearby. She looks over towards the two of us as we enter. "Gus, Dipper. What can I do for you?"

Gus walks up to the desk, placing his hands onto it and leaning over towards Eda. "I need to show Dipper the roots," he says quietly.

Eda gestures towards me, still standing by the door, with her head. "Are you sure?"

"I am, this is important."

Eda stands up and walks over to a fireplace that is currently not lit. "Ok then, I trust you." She grabs a blanket and places it gently over King, covering his eyes without waking him up. She then presses a wooden panel above the fire place. The panel had no indicator on it, no different colour or symbol. If you didn't know it was there it would just look like any other part of the wall, however Eda pushed it without hesitation. The fireplace starts to deconstruct, pulling away from the wall in two parts to reveal the inside of the trunk of the tree. A ladder is bolted to the wall inside the trunk, which leads down into a dark abyss bellow.

Gus walks up to the ladder. "This way," he says as he grips the ladder and starts to descend. I get on behind him and the two of us climb down. We descended deeper and deeper into the trunk of the tree, the light getting dimmer and dimmer around us as we go. After what feels like an eternity of going down a faint blue light starts to shine from bellow us. As we continue to drop, the light gets brighter and brighter until our feet hit solid ground once again. As Gus and I get off of the ladder I look around to see where we are. I can see the trunk we were climbing through has split off into the trees roots above my head, the walls now being made of solid stone with sconces lit with a flickering blue fire flame bolted onto them. Ahead of us is a door, with runes that glow a dim blue inset into the wooden frame.

I walk past Gus and start to examine the door. "What's behind this?"

Gus stays by the ladder, a serious expression drawn across his face. "This tree appeared on the Boiling Isles after the titan finally passed from the realm between. Eda and I started researching it when she decided to use it as the base for her University. We found that it had the highest concentration of titan magic anywhere we had seen before, and that's when we stumbled down here."

I run my hands over the runes, they are cold to the touch. I open up my journal and start to copy them down. "What's in there?"

"Demons, but none like we had seen before. Incredibly powerful beings that I haven't even begone to understand." He walks back towards the ladder and grips one of the rungs. "My best guess is that when the titan died his soul fractured and that these are the pieces that were trapped on this side of the realm between. Whatever they are they are very potent in the ways of magic. Me and Eda assume they are the ones that caused the tree to grow."

I turn to see Gus starting to climb the ladder back up into the tree trunk. "Hey, where are you going?"

"This is as far I can take you. The glyphs on the door stop them from leaving, so if things go south just get out and close it behind you. Good luck." He disappears back into the inky black of the trunk and I turn back to face the door.

I reach out to open the door. The door knob is cold, just like the glyphs were. I twist the nob and push the door open. The room is dark, but even in the darkness I barely make out shapes shifting in and out of vision inside the room. I take a step inside and slowly close the door behind me. As the door closes, floating orbs of light appear against the ceiling above me, illuminating the room. As light fills the room, it reveals it to be empty. The room looks like it occurred naturally, the walls and roof made of a jagged stone as if water had pushed rock out of its way. I take another step further into the room, and then another, ending up in the middle of the room after a third and final step. I feel a presence move behind me, and I quickly whip my body around, yet nothing was there. A shadow moves in the corner of my eye, but before my eyes can focus on it the shadow had disappeared. I turn to face the door, and that's when I see it. In front of me stood a huge black mass. It towered over me, the top of its horns nearly touching the roof, its wings spread wide almost engulfing me inside them. Its eyes burned red and on the ends of its hands were huge claws, each one the size of my hand. Its body pulses slowly, as if it was breathing, but the air around it is eerily still. I stand my ground, the first rule of encountering a demon being not to show it any fear. The room around me starts to pulse in time with its faux breathing. The red eyes of this creature continue to look into mine, staring into what feels like my soul as I continue to stand my ground, not backing down an inch. The room stops pulsing and starts to look as if it is constricting, going from jagged to smooth to jagged again, flowing over itself as if it has become a liquid. The door behind the creature disappears into the growing stone wall, the room getting smaller and smaller every second. I realise that its now or never, I need to make my move. I yell over the sound of the wall flowing towards me as the first bit of stone touches my shoes. "Titan!"

The wall stops, not returning to its original position but not moving inwards any further either. The creature continues to look at me, its eyes burning holes through my head.

"I knew it, you are the titan. Or at least you were."

The creature twists its head in an inquisitive nature, but its eyes and pose still protruding a menacing aura.

I take a deep breath, lowering my voice from its earlier volume. "I need your help. Lend me some of your power."

The creatures puffs out of the black abyss where its head would be, a disgruntled noise ringing out around the room. The walls retract almost instantly, the light going from its eerie glow to a bright white, and the door behind the creature swings open. I peak around the creature to the door, and as I look back towards the creature I realise it has gone, retreating back to wherever it was hiding before. I give out a heavy sigh and sit down on a nearby outcrop, looking out the door into the dim blue light of the hall that leads to the ladder. "I guess you're tired of hearing that from people huh?" I pull out my journal and begin to write in it, starting a new page. "As an all powerful being, you probably had a lot of people asking you for power when you were alive. You don't want people coming into your prison and demanding something off you now, I know I wouldn't." I look back at the door, which is sitting open. "Wait, you were able to open the door, even with the glyphs on it. This isn't a prison. This is your home, and I just walked in like I owned the place and demanded something from you." I look at the floor, letting out another sigh. "I'm so sorry, I didn't know."

I look back up again, and the creature has reappeared in front of me. In my seated position it towers over me even more, it's eyes now softer. It pears down at me as it stands there, its body bent over slightly to get me in view.

I crane my neck up to catch its gaze as it looks at me. "Listen, I am sorry about how I treated you and this place, but I'm not sorry that I asked what I asked. If you will give me the time to explain, I wont guarantee you will help me but I know you will understand why I did what I did."

The creature kneels in front of me, its eyes now only slightly above mine.

"I want to be able to protect my friends." As soon as the words left my mouth, the creature seemed to grow kinder, or at least its aura felt less intense. The darkness that comprised its body became less all consuming, its eyes becoming an even softer shade of red. Its body language becomes more relaxed. "My friends, we always end up in danger. It seems to find us. They are all so powerful, so insane at dealing with these issues. Me? I sit on the side lines and watch them risk their lives. I can't take it. If I don't gain power like theirs, if the opportunity is there and I let it slip by and then they hurt themselves, well I don't know how I could live with myself." I hang my head, my body slumping over. I feel something on my shoulder, and I look up to see the creature's hand reaching out and resting on my shoulder, the same way that a sympathetic parent would console a child. "One time, not long ago, someone died while we were fighting on an alien planet. They weren't close to me, I didn't know them well, but the people who did died a little inside that day. They knew they could have prevented it if they had tried that bit harder, pushed a little further. I couldn't live knowing that." I look the creature in the eyes again. "That's why I did what I did. This is an opportunity, I didn't want to pass it up."

The creature sits before me, its aura no longer menacing. Its body language is less intense, its wings now folded into its body. "I understand." I'm taken aback. The voice is deep and powerful, as if the creature is speaking some ancient language. The room stays silent but the voice echo's around the caverns of my mind, striking every receptor it can find before settling. "I misjudged you."

The creature stays seated while I stand up, me now looking down upon its form. I steadied my mind, still spinning from the sound of the creature. "So now you know. I ask again, now that you understand where the request is coming from, will you help me?"

The creature stands, it's head hung low, deep in thought. It lifts its head to look at me, the voice that echo's through time emerging once more in the corners of my mind. "I will."

The creature rises to it's full height, stretching out its wings to it's full size. A bright white light starts to glow from inside it's chest, starting as nothing more than a small orb but growing quickly to a size enough to illuminate the originally dark corners of the room. As this happens, I feel a warmth on the back of my right hand. I flip my hand to look at it, a glyph has appeared on it. The glyph mirrors one of those that was imprinted on the door except this one is dark purple, a tringle with a circle in the centre and three circles encasing it getting larger as they transition outwards. As the bright light from the creature grows brighter and brighter, the glyph on my hand grows darker and darker, the warmth growing stronger with every passing second. The light grows brighter and brighter still, I raise my hand to block my eyes so I don't get blinded, the warmth now becoming a searing pain. 

"I will grant you the power to save those you love." The voice bounces off the edges of my psyche, a more powerful feeling than before fills my soul as the light reaches it's brightest point. "From now, you and I will be one."

The light disappears as quickly as it starts, the room going back to its original lighting. I lower my hand and see the creature is no longer there, and the intense aura it was extruding has dissipated completely. I raise my hand to my face, looking at the glyph on the back of it. It's original purple colour has deepened immensely, now being closer to black. The colour isn't static either, lighter streaks within it swirling around as I stare at it.

"There is something not of this realm or yours here." While before it was obvious that the voice came from the creature now, it originated from inside my own mind. The glyph pulses as the creature's voice speaks to me, I'm sure this being proof that our union is complete. "A new ruin approaches, but with your power and mine as well as those of your friends both old and new, we shall save this place."

I give a thumbs up, not sure if the creature can see it. "You and me. We got this."

I head out of the room towards the hallway that leads to the ladder, being sure to close the door as I leave.