As the trio walked back to the shack, Bill hummed a tune, he couldn't remember what it was called. Something about a bus. Dipper elbowed him in the ribs. "What're you, five?" Bill shrugged.

"Yeah, 5 inches deep in your mom," Bill answered in the deepest voice he could muster. Mabel poked her brother in the ribs. "Boom! You need some ice for that burn, brobro?" Dipper frowned. "You know we have the same mom, right? So it's kind of a joint-insult."

Mabel gasped in mock offense. "You take that back, Bell!" Bill shook his head, no. "Not until your brother stops harassing me!" Dipper's jaw flung open. "I was not! You're the one making 'yo mama' jokes."

"You're the one that said I was 5. And the other day you made fun of my choice of music. And insulted Vera Lynn for that matter. For that, you must die," He said as he tackled Dipper and started a tickle fight (more like him and Mabel torturing Dipper). "I-HA-I neverrr insulted, ha, y-your dumb, ha, crush," Dipper choked out between laughter.

"Yeah, you did. Two chapters ago, you said, and I quote, 'What is with your obsession with Vera Lynn?'" Bill said stubbornly. "That's not insulting her. And what do you mean chapters?" Dipper answered. "I meant weeks. Also, if you can't see why then you obviously have a low sense of perception. And she's a Goddess, so there." Dipper rolled his eyes. "Do you ever talk about anything other than your love of Vera Lynn?"

"Hey, I told you about my love of spiders as well. And I like talking about gore as well. Really, I talk about plenty of other stuff," Bill answered breezily. "And what isn't there to like about a 101-year-old lady?" Dipper raised his eyebrows. "What is there to like?" He replied, receiving an offended gasp from Bill. "Quid audes dicere de regina."

"Cool! I didn't know you spoke Spanish!" Mabel cheered.

"It's Latin, dummy," Dipper replied, giving her a noogie.

"Cool. What's it mean?" Mabel tilted her head curiously. "It means 'How dare you insult my queen,'" Bill answered, nudging her with his elbow. "You insulted my queen. Prepare to die," Bill said in a Spanish accent, picking up a stick and poking Dipper with it as if it were a sword. Dipper grabbed another stick off the ground and held it at arms length, saying, "En garde." The two started sword fighting with their sticks as Mabel walked just a few feet behind them.

At some point Mabel joined in and beat the hell out of the two of them with her own stick. So they all paused their journey back to sit around the shore of the lake near the shack.

Bill soaked his feet in the water to get some of the mud off his feet, while Dipper took to swimming in the lake to get the mud off and Mabel waded around, splashing Bill or Dipper every once in a while. And as per usual, this led to the three of them being soaked by the time they got to the shack (Bill had the brilliant idea of carrying a bunch of water in his dress so he could soak the twins as they started back to the shack, which actually worked for a little until the twins started running away (to which he was only able to waddle) and the water soaked through his dress. But he managed to get Dipper a little flustered when he lifted up said dress to carry the water, which he counted as a plus. Mostly because tormenting the twins in any way caused him immense joy (but mostly Dipper's for some reason).

"Okay so..." Bill grouped up the chess pieces into little groups on the chessboard that he'd convinced Stanford to bring out while the valerian root soaked. "Chess has been and still is, by some countries military, as sort of battle strategy." He organized them in a certain order on the board. In the front row was all the rooks, then in the back row the king and queen sat front and center surrounded by the knights, who were flanked by the bishop and at the ends were the castles. "Just replace the names of certain pawns with people that they would aptly correspond to and instead of using the normal rules of the game, use the realistic movements of each pawn," He explained to Dipper, who seemed a little less than excited to be the one stuck with entertaining the former-demon.

"So are we or are we not going to play chess?" Bill frowned. "Wow, rude. Of course we can play chess, but that's kind of boring, don'tcha think? Besides, this would basically be like one of your dungeons, dungeons, and more dungeons games, but with more military strategy and real-life applications."

"I fail to see how," Dipper replied, referring to all three proclamations about the game. "Well, we'd both sort of be the storytellers of the game. Like your dungeons, dungeons and more dungeons game. Or was it dungeons and dragons? Or monsters and mana? Who knows." He shrugged. "We come up with a situation, which I'll come up with just to get you used to the game. Then we strategize against each other. Strategizing is actually an application that is very useful throughout human life." Bill shrugged.

"No thanks," Dipper answered, ignoring the thing about dungeons and dragons and mana. "Sounds like you're just making up a game that doesn't exist." Bill gave an offended gasp. "I would never. But fine. Have it your way. But just so you know I've only ever lost at chess to one person and the person is dead, so I'm going to enjoy whipping your ass," Bill answered, moving his rook to e4, thus starting a game that continued for a short time before Dipper lost splendidly.

"Yes!" Bill jumped up excitedly as if it were the first time he'd ever won a game of chess just as Ford called them into the kitchen for the tea. The two boys rushed into the kitchen, one with a look of annoyance as the other made an 'L' on his forehead with his right hand.

Ford had already put the tea in a small mug, so Bill took it and started drinking it slowly and gave a sigh. "Man, it's been a while since I last had tea. I almost forgot how great a cup of tea is for the soul." He leaned back on his heels.