Mabel opened her eyes to see another grey world.

She was in the forest, but this time it was different. It was fuzzy, like she was viewing it on an old television with bad reception. Craggy trees twisted around each other in all directions, forming a snarled canopy of branches above her. There was light, but it didn't seem to be coming from any particular source. It was just there. It was also quiet — unnaturally quiet. There seemed to be a distant sound of wind, but Mabel couldn't feel anything.

Someone moaned next to her.

Mabel jumped as she saw Wendy, of all people, getting to her feet. Dipper was on the other side of her; he gave Mabel a pleading look, as if to say, "This isn't my fault."

"What. . . happened?" asked Wendy.

Good question! What on earth was she doing here? Mabel tried to remember the scene just moments before, when she was saying the spell. All that came to mind was the blue light and the feeling as the magic took root in her chest.

"Well. . . ," said Dipper, "we're in Robbie's mind. Or something."

Wendy turned on him. "What?"

"There's this demon in his mind, trying to get information, and we followed him in to try to stop him. Trust me, we did not mean to bring you along," Dipper finished, folding his arms.

"How did she follow us?" Mabel demanded.

"She grabbed my arm! I couldn't do anything!"

"Shut up!" Wendy yelled. "I don't know what you're playing at, or where we are—"

"Dipper told you. We're in Robbie's mind," Mabel said. Her stomach swam with butterflies from talking back to Wendy, but they weren't strong enough to stop her from speaking. She had no patience with this jerk of a teenager right now. "We have to find this triangle — Bill — who's also in here, and we have to get him out. While you're here, you might as well help us."

Wendy stared at Mabel, then at Dipper, then back at Mabel. Her mouth opened and shut, and her face was a mask of outrage. She couldn't seem to find words to say, which worked fine for Mabel.

"You guys are all so hilarious!" said a sudden, loud voice.

They turned to see Bill Cipher, who floated down in front of them with a lazy look in his eye. There was a black cane in his hand that he twirled around his wrist.

"That's him!" said Dipper, pointing at Bill. "That's the guy!"

"That's me!" Bill agreed. "I'm the guy!" He landed on a nearby log and leaned on his cane. "Nice of you all to meet me at last," he continued. "Stitched Heart, Shooting Star, Pine Tree. Now we can really have fun!" As he spoke, he gestured to each of them in turn: Wendy, Dipper, then Mabel.

"What do you want with Robbie's mind?" Mabel demanded, taking a step forward. Something about being in someone else's mind made her forget to be scared. She felt only anger at this demon.

"Ideally, I'd want whatever Little Miss Pleasure wants with it," Bill replied. "But you already knew that, didn't you?"

Mabel and Dipper shared a look. Did Bill know that they had eavesdropped on him and Pacifica?

Bill laughed, and the startling, multi-layered sound shocked Mabel into paying attention. "You two don't think you're really that clever, do you?" he asked. "I let you into the mindscape to overhear us! I figured it would make things more interesting!"

Wendy stepped forward, past Mabel. "What kind of trick are you?" she demanded. In her periphery, Mabel saw Dipper slap his forehead with the heel of his hand.

"I wouldn't call myself a trick, per say," Bill said thoughtfully. "Maybe prank would be a better term. Y'know, a nasty prank that a delinquent kid pulls on the last day of school without knowing just how damaging it is." There was a grin in his voice that sent a shiver down Mabel's spine.

Wendy rounded on the twins. "Is Robbie in on this? Is this all some sort of joke?"

"Oh, Stitched Heart," said Bill, "don't be so transparent." He pointed a finger at her, and a laser beam shot from his hand and hit Wendy square in the chest. There was a flash of red light, and Wendy stumbled back. Mabel stared in horror at the hole in Wendy's abdomen. It was carved in a perfect circle. Its edges were fuzzy, but Mabel could see right through where her stomach would be.

Wendy looked down at herself and screamed, trying to cover up the hole with her hands. Her cries filled the space around them, but Bill talked over them like Wendy wasn't even there.

"Look, kids, all I need is information," he said, back to leaning on his cane. "Subconscious information that may take some digging to find. I don't need you getting in the way."

Wendy had stopped screaming and was taking deep breaths in the background.

It was Dipper's turn to speak up. "We're sure as heck going to get in the way!" he shouted. "We're going to stop you!"

Bill rolled his eye. "Don't kid yourself, kid. I'm the master of the mind! How many minds have you invaded before?"

Dipper opened his mouth, then shut it again.

Bill laughed. The detached sound was only visible from the bright flashes of his yellow glow. "Exactly. While you kids blunder around in Robbie's dreams, I'll be doing what I came here for. Good luck wandering somebody else's mind — it's not nearly as easy as I make it look!"

With that, Bill rose in the air and zoomed away, passing straight through a gnarled tree with the sound of splintering wood. The resulting hole was unnaturally accurate to Bill's triangular shape.

There was a stunned silence for a moment, even from Wendy. Dipper turned to Mabel. "What are we going to do?" For some reason, it felt right that he was turning to her for direction.

"Right," Mabel said. It was time to do something she was good at: pretending like she knew what she was doing. "First off, we need to figure out what to do with Wendy."

"You're not going to do anything with me!" Wendy snapped.

The twins ignored her. "Do you think we could send her back out of Robbie's mind?" Dipper asked.

Mabel frowned in thought.

"Listen up, squirts," Wendy said. Mabel's internal profanity filter kicked in again. "Let's say we really are inside my boyfriend's mind, like the supernatural stuff he spouts off about is actually real—"

Mabel perked up at this.

"—then if we are, there is no way I'm letting you run around in his head without me there to keep you in line. Or better yet, you can find a way to get us all out of here."

"We're not going to do that," Mabel countered. She didn't mention that she didn't actually know how to get them out, even if she wanted to. "We're in here to help Robbie by chasing out Bill, and we're going to see that through. Dipper and I are going to go do what we came to, and you're welcome to come along if you're helpful about it. Otherwise, you might as well stay here and complain to no one."

Both Dipper and Wendy looked shocked at Mabel's words, and she was no different. Usually she would be terrified to say something like this. But she felt only cold calm and annoyance towards Wendy, and she didn't even regret the words when they left her mouth.

Finally, Wendy said, "I'm coming along."

"Fine," Mabel replied. She turned to Dipper. "Where do you think we are right now?"

Dipper assumed the expression of a kid who had just been called on by the teacher and who hadn't been paying attention. "Uh. . . Robbie's. . . mind?"

"Right, but where in Robbie's mind?" Mabel had done a bit of research on the brain, specifically sleep and dreams, as a side quest from her usual paranormal research. Looking around the twisted grey trees around them, though, she suddenly felt overwhelmed. She may know some stuff about the mind, but Bill was right. She'd never been in someone else's mind before; and he, apparently, had. What chance did they have?

She felt herself slipping from the confidence she'd had moments before, but luckily Dipper chimed in and pulled her back up. "Maybe we're in one of his dreams?" he said.

Mabel frowned. "Maybe. . . but then, where is Robbie? Or the other dream characters?" Her frown deepened. "And I'm pretty sure Robbie wouldn't be dreaming yet, if he only fell asleep a little while before we came. It takes a while to get to dreaming after you fall asleep."

"Okay, then, where do you think we are?"

Mabel opened her mouth to reply, but she was cut off by a shout. "There you are!"

They all turned to see Robbie storming up to them.

"Robbie!" Wendy ran to him. "Finally! Are you in on these kids' prank? Look what they did to me!" She gestured dramatically to the hole in her stomach.

Robbie glared at her, then looked past her to glare at the twins. "What do you three think you're doing in here?" he demanded.

Mabel and Dipper shared a look. Robbie wasn't acting like himself at all: His tone, his body language, even his posture was different. Some kind of hoax from Bill?

"Are you. . . the real Robbie?" Dipper asked.

"Of course I am!" Robbie snapped, moving around Wendy to stare Dipper down. "Do you have any idea how much panic you're causing by being here? My mind is not open to visitors!"

Wendy came up behind Robbie and draped herself on his arm. "Robbie. . . why are you talking like this?"

"Get off me," Robbie said, pulling away from her. "Robbie may not realize he's fed up with you, but I do."

Wendy's face was blank with confusion.

"So you're not Robbie?" Mabel asked.

"I am, I'm just—" Robbie stopped, then sighed. "I'm the representation of my — of Robbie's — subconscious. I run things down here, and you need to leave."

Mabel blinked as she processed this. All right. Subconscious version of Robbie that was angry about them being in his head. She could handle that. "We're sorry — um — Robbie, but we're actually here to help you. There's this demon—"

"I'm completely aware of that," Robbie snapped. "I'm handling it. You'll just get in the way."

Mabel remembered saying something similar to Wendy just a minute before. Oh, the irony.

In the small space of quiet, Dipper piped up. "If you're Robbie's subconscious, does that make you the Robconscious?"

Everybody stared at him. He spread his hands a bit, like he was asking for laughs.

Mabel couldn't help it: She snickered. Especially when she saw Robbie's — or, the Robconscious' — face, which was not amused.

"Yes, very funny," the Robconscious said. (Mabel couldn't think of him as anything else now.) "So are you going to get out of my head, or. . . ?"

"How come you're so different from normal Robbie?" Dipper asked, ignoring the question.

The Robconscious sighed. "There isn't normal Robbie, I'm — never mind. The subconscious is often far different from the conscious mind, especially in such a great pretender as myself."

"Pretender?" Wendy cut in, her voice quiet but strong.

The Robconscious looked at her and, for the first time, softened a bit. He looked more like the Robbie that Mabel knew. "Not that kind of pretending, Wen, just. . . acting chill even when I don't feel like it. I don't pretend about how I feel about you." As soon as he said it, he scowled. "See? There I go again. I don't want to love you, you know."

Wendy actually smiled. "So you've said."

Mabel didn't understand. The Robconscious just made everything better by saying that?

Whatever. They had to stop standing around.

"Robbie," said Mabel, "where in your mind are we?"

The Robconscious turned his scowl on her. "No. I'm not giving you any information. You're getting out of here, and then you're waking me up — I don't know how the demon made me fall asleep; he doesn't usually have that much power." His hardened gaze turned harder. "You can help just fine without getting in the way down here."

Mabel shied away under his gaze. Robbie had never looked at her like that before.

She forced herself to take a breath. "Well," she said, standing up a little straighter, "I don't know how to leave. So until we force that demon out of your mind, I'm pretty sure we're stuck. You may as well let us help here."

The Robconscious stared at her. Then his glare lessened, and Mabel thought she saw the hint of a smile on his face. "You're braver here in the mindscape, aren't you?"

Mabel flushed.

"Fine," said Robbie, "but only because you're another foreign object. You might be able to push this dream demon out and get yourselves out along the way."

"Thank you!" Dipper said, grinning. "We won't let you down, Robcon — Robbie!"

The Robconscious rolled his eyes but smiled. "Something makes me believe you."

He took a deep breath. "All right. We're in memory right now, but we're really deep. See all these trees?"

Mabel glanced up at the gnarled branches overhead.

"These are memories that have gotten distorted with age. I'd say. . ." He squinted at the trees around them. "I'd say we're at about five years old. That demon is going to be somewhere a lot more recent if it's information he wants." He looked down at Mabel. "Do you happen to know what he wants?"

Mabel frowned and thought back to what they'd overheard. "Information, for sure," she said. "Um. . ." She closed her eyes and thought. She was really, really good at remembering images: She could remember the way Pacifica's leering face glowed in Bill's yellow light. But what did she say to him?

"The deed!" Dipper cut in. "Something about the deed to the Mystery Museum. And a safe. She wants the code to a safe."

The Robconscious looked troubled at this. "I don't know anything about the deed or the safe the deed is in. And I'm the subconscious; I know everything that comes through my head. Ford never entrusted me with that information. Why would he? I'm a teenager, and Melody is Ford's fall girl. She probably knows."

"Then why. . . why wouldn't Pacifica send Bill after Melody, if you don't know anything?"

The Robconscious shrugged. "Maybe she thought I did. Look, we'd better catch up to that demon fast. Once he finds out I don't know anything, who knows what he'll do."

"Right," Mabel said, nodding. "How do we catch up to him?"

The Robconscious turned and pointed into the tangled mess of greyscale trees. "Through there," he said.