Stanley Pines, Our Hero (TEOC series #1)

The Realization

One minute I was lying on the couch in Bella's apartment; the next I was standing in a black-and-white landscape that seemed strangely familiar. The Mystery Shack was to my right, and the broken swing set Ford and I used in our childhood was to my left. Heavy fog hung over everything. There didn't seem to be another living soul for miles.

Then a voice behind me exclaimed, "Well, well, will ya look who it is!"

There was a flash of something bright, and Bill Cipher himself zoomed around to face me, his yellow form eye-wateringly vivid against the colorless background.

"Stan Pines, Man of Mystery, am I right?" he said loudly, tipping his top hat to me.

I crossed my arms, smirking. "The one and only. Whaddaya want, Cipher? Returned from the dead to kill my brother, eh?"

Bill laughed his unnaturally high laugh. I shivered.

"Oh come on, Fez, of course not! After all, you can't return from where you've never been." He conjured a cane out of nowhere and started swinging it in his hand. "Besides, killing Fordsie wouldn't do me any good. He may prove himself to be useful in the near future. I was just giving him a good scare on that boat. No physical harm intended - yet."

"'Can't return from where you've never been'?" I repeated, perplexed. "What does that mean? You were dead. Me and Ford killed you."

"Ah, ah - it's Ford and I," Bill corrected, shaking a finger at me. "Grammar, Stanley."

Behind the dorito demon, the memory of Poindexter saying the exact same thing to me during Weirdmageddon played in the air, like a sort of movie. I clenched my teeth, annoyed but managing to hold back my anger.

Bill cackled again, and the memory vanished. "Now back to what you were saying - of course I didn't die, Fezy. Otherwise we wouldn't be sitting here having this lovely chat with a cup of tea!"

Two cups of tea appeared out of nowhere, one for each of us. I pushed mine away. Anything could be in that tea, the most pleasant prospect being poison.

"Well if you didn't die," I countered, "then how come I watched you burn in my mind from that memory gun?"

Bill drained his teacup in a few gulps. "Hm. You've got a point, Fez: I did burn. But I'm afraid you don't have the full picture." He peered into his empty cup to make sure all his drink really was gone, then tossed it over his shoulder with a bored expression. The cup exploded when it hit the ground.

The full picture? I thought, bewildered, but before I could say anything, Bill floated closer to me.

"That memory gun of Fiddlesticks' that Six Fingers used on you only wiped me of my powers. It could've killed me, but luckily I had a way to save myself."

"How?" I asked, unable to mask my growing curiosity.

If Bill had a mouth, he'd be grinning evilly. "You."

"What?" I cried in shock, and slight outrage m. How could I have helped this bastard live? That memory gun destroyed my mind as it did Bill. "No way!"

Bill chuckled softly. He snapped his fingers, and another memory popped up in the air, just like the last one. It was during the last moments when I'd watched the memory gun consuming my mind, and Bill. The electric blue flames had nearly overtaken everything. In the memory, I was watching as Bill tried to escape my mind, flirting through several different forms: "No! What's happening to meeee?" Following that was a string of nonsense words that were probably some sort of demon language. Then he reverted back to English, his hand outstretched in my direction. "STAANLEEEY!"