Miz was gripping her dress tightly and was breathing quickly in her own panic as the binding circle glowed brighter and Bill's screams got more desperate and scared. She covered her ears and tears her eyes away from the scene. "We need to leave. Please." She was crying now, sobbing as she looked around at anywhere that wasn't what Ford was doing to Bill. Memory Bill began screaming in pain and Miz stumbled away.
To her relief, she saw it, a door near the mouth of the forest. It was strange to see a door just standing there in the middle of the woods but the words EXIT were floating above it.
Miz made a mad dash for the door, still crying as she tried to get away. Get away from here!
Seb winced at the screams and forced himself to look away and follow the sobbing girl demon. Why was Ford doing that…? Sixer wasn't like that, he knew his brother, Ford...What if Ford decided to hurt him too…?
He went through the door and slammed it shut, gasping for air. "He wouldn't do that...right? When he comes back…"
Bill2 grinned at him. "Of course he will...He will hate you." He said feigning kindness.
Sebastian doubled flipped him off with his six-fingered hand and looked around, trying to spot the girl. "Miz! Bill?"
Miz was huddled on the ground sobbing. "S-stupid binding circles!" She rubbed at her eyes, tears and snot mixing together. "Fu-fucking...s-sucks! Who the fuck e-e-even invented them?!" Her breath kept hitching with her cries.
Seb finally spotted her and ran towards her. She had looked scared, far more than what he deemed normal while watching something like that. Something was wrong.
"There you are!" Seb cried relieved. He crouched next to her and was about to touch her shoulder but stopped just centimeters above it and turned his hand into a fist. "Miz? Kid, are you alright?" He knew she wasn't. Why was he so stupid?
"Ew, body fluids." Bill2 grimaced.
Miz choked back another sob. She covered her mouth tightly to try and muffle the sounds. Her shoulders kept shaking and she just kept making muffled cries, unable to calm down.
"Please, I-I don't know how to help! Just-Just tell me! I promise I will! I'll do anything, please don't cry." It broke the poor man's heart (and made Bill2 roll his eyes) how much the girl was crying. He hated when people he liked cried or were upset, he never could bear hearing his niblings cry but he could always help them at the end. What could he do to help her?!
Miz was forced to uncover her mouth so she could breathe. She took in a gasp of air and make a half strangled choking sound as another sob was cut off. She coughed for a bit, wheezing and trying to breathe. She grabbed Seb's arm and used his sleeve to wipe her face as she gasped for air.
Seb cringed, disgusted but held in his shriek. If this helped her, then he will just be a good friend and let her wipe her tears and snot on him.
After a few minutes Miz's sobs had quieted to just some hiccups. She cleaned her face off and groaned. "S-sorry…" She hiccups as she blinks at the mess on Seb's sleeve.
"It-It's alright, kid." He smiled and with a small movement of his hand, the wet part was cleaned off. He slowly extended his hand, as if letting her know what he was doing, and gently lifted her chin for her to look at him. "Kid...What happened?" Seb asked. He had just realized something else about this version of his past self. He might be as crazy as her, and they were both demons, but he was an adult...He didn't feel this Bill was one...
Miz whined quietly. She took a few deep breaths to try and stop her breath from shaking. "I-I...this one time...a-a long time ago...I got...summoned…" She had to stop and breathe for a bit. "Th-there was a b-bin-binding circle an-and…" she pulled her legs to her chest and sat on the ground, rocking slightly. "And I was trapped there. A-and...the g-guy said he wanted my body...and...and…" she wiped a few tears that tried to form "An...and I tried to break the circle…"
She hiccups and whined a little "And it... hurt ...so much. I-I had to-go-to keep pulling those runes out of myself and they BURNED and it just hurt so damn much…" she had to stop and breathe for a few seconds to collect herself. "I...HATE binding circles. I hate them so much!"
Seb, even Bill2, stared at her, not knowing what to tell the girl. What she went through was incredibly terrible, Seb had no idea what it felt like to go through something like that...But he knew what it was like to be in pain and being helpless to do anything about it, to not know when it would stop. He didn't know, but he understood.
"Do-Do you want a hug?" He smiled sheepishly, telling her what the girl told him earlier.
Miz lets out a hysterical laugh/sob hybrid. "I guess?" She laughed even as her voice broke. "Sure…" she presses herself close to Seb's front and wraps her arms around him tightly. She took many deep breaths as she tried to calm down. "It's been nearly 240 billion years. Why can't I just get over this?"
"It's ok, Miz." Seb whispered, hugging her like he hugged his niece or nephew when they were upset about something. The form she chose was so small it even made him think he was hugging one of them. "It's alright. No one will hurt you...You are safe, see? We are far away from that memory."
Miz nodded into Seb's chest. She breathed and slowly her shivering calmed and her breathing evened out. Finally she pulls away, looking a little embarrassed. "S-sorry…"
"Nah, it's fine" Seb smirked charmingly. "I cry a lot too, Bill thing, huh?" He teased but gasped when Miz hit him with her elbow on the ribs.
"I don't cry THAT much…" She muttered, her cheeks blushing red.
"Uh huh…" Seb grinned and poked her cheek annoyingly. "Cry baby."
Miz growled and batted at his hand. "M' not a crybaby!" She says petulantly. Her pout was unintentionally adorable.
Seb laughed good heartedly and patted her hair. "Alright, missy. Now that we are all happy again! Let's go find my door, alright!? No accidents this time!"
"I'm not a child!" Miz cries in embarrassment as she pushes him lightly, of course, she misjudged how hard her shoves were and Seb ended up stumbling and falls onto another door.
They both had wide eyes as they saw the door open.
""Fuuuu-"" they both managed to say before being sucked in.
----
The grass was wet.
Well, sort of. Wet enough to make his boxers a bit damp the longer he sat there cross legged in the backyard of the Shack, just outside the barrier by a few feet.
Bill had his eyes closed, and was finding it a bit hard to concentrate, what with the pounding in his skull, his aching mind, and the raspy soreness of his throat.
So he straightened up into a loose sitting posture, put his hands on his knees, and took care of that first.
It took three times running through some of the easier mental mandalas, murmuring a word or two here and there to set the spells that were almost half-meditations, to get to a point where none of that was a problem anymore -- about half a minute. He opened his eyes and half-snarled at himself -- he still needed to work on his speed. If he needed healing in the future...
--Well, better not to need it in the first place, HAHA! ...But was there a way he could pull that off?
Bill mulled over the problem for a bit. Then Bill smoothed down the t-shirt he was still wearing and resituated himself a bit in-place, a wide and wicked grin spreading across his face.
First, he tossed a perception filter over his back at the Shack, to wrap 'partway' over the top of the barrier (the 'part' that was open to the air and above ground) without actually touching the barrier -- no point in letting the surprise out too early!
Second, he moved his hands into a triangular shape and magicked his stupid human-ish body female, then stretched luxuriously in-place. -- Much better!
Bill's grin widened as he thought about the look that idiot Stanford was going to get on his face when he realized… WELL! --And then Bill promptly collapsed backwards to lay flat on the grass staring up at the sky. Might as well let Stanley handle things with Stanford for a change. Why go back inside right away if he didn't have to? Given how wound up that idiot had been on waking up, Stanley would probably need at least thirty minutes with him to--
""-uuuuuuck!!""
Bill blinked, then slowly levered himself up on his elbows, looking around.
A sound coming from far away and getting louder and closer. Two people appeared and slammed into the ground, bouncing a few times as they couldn't affect the physical world while within the Mindscape. A little girl moans from her position face down on the grass. "Uuugh...god dammit!!"
Bill stared.
"You see...This happens when we don't communicate and use violence for everything!" The blond brunet man next to her glared at her half heartedly. He looked up and smiled. "Miz! It's the Shack!"
Bill frowned.
Miz pulls herself up from the ground. "Oh cool. It is."
"I guess it was my door after all!" Seb smiled.
'Oh, hell no,' thought Bill, eyes narrowing as he slowly levered himself up further, then got his feet under him and pushed himself upright. 'My dimension. My Shack. MINE.' He wasn't putting up with people laying claim to his stuff! (Even if it was technically Stanley's stuff and Bill didn't want it anyway.)
Miz glances around and twitches. "Ah...you might be celebrating too soon…" she backs up when she sees someone who could only be the Bill Cipher of this dimension staring at them. She looked up at this angry looking person and could only say one thing.
"Sweet! I'm not the only girl!"
Seb frowned and looked down at her. "Seriously?"
Welp, that called for only one response, as far as Bill was concerned: he put his hands on his hips and declared, "Kid, I'm not a girl, I'm a guy!" Who the heck mixed up 'girl' with 'female', anyway?!
Miz brings her hands up to her mouth. "Oh! I'm so sorry. I didn't know. Um...hello sir!"
Bill grinned at the kid. Well, that was better! "HAHA! Hello sir, yourself!"
Seb resisted the urge to face palm at these kids and examined the g-no, his bad, boy, in front of him. "So, you're the Bill from this dimension, right?"
Bill felt an odd shock run through him, and he rocked back on his feet. "This dimension's Bill?" Oh, oh, was this REALLY a THING? The shock was quickly morphing to a heady mix of excitement, and...
Seb looked down at Miz and then back at Bill. "Um, sure...We are dimension travellers!" He grinned.
Bill eyed him, then gave him a grin. Was this another Bill? He could understand the impulse to take over the Shack, then!
"WELL, WELL, WELL." Bill had always suspected there were other Bill Ciphers, for reasons , but--
Miz looked guilty. "Ax is gonna ground me for at least a million years for this…." She moaned. Maybe if she was lucky, and made super sad pouty faces, he would lessen his punishment?
"Why would he, no, you know what? I don't wanna know." Seb shook his head. He had enough problems as it was. He needed to go back!
"Oh, you've got a problem with the stupid lizard?" Bill asked. Hmm, maybe… "You wanna help me kill him?" he asked with bright eyes, as he not quite bounced on his feet.
"You see?!" Seb shouted at Miz. "No one likes him!" Seb turned to look at Bill. "Yes, I wanna."
Miz whines. "Dad isn't THAT bad!"
Bill was pleased at the first response, but floored by the second. He went expressionless. "WHAT." ...Because yes, the stupid lizard had spun up his dimension, set everything in motion, but THAT WAS WHY IT DESERVED TO DIE.
--And if there really were other Bill Ciphers, WELL THEN, that only meant it deserved WORSE THAN THAT, as far as Bill was concerned.
Because what was a Bill Cipher, without a dead brother in their past who had been MURDERED HORRIBLY, driving them on?
Miz quickly covered her mouth. She looks around in panic. "Um...you heard nothing!"
"You said the Axolotl is your Dad?!" Seb and Bill2 cried at the same time. "I think I need to lay down for a bit…" He got a bit dizzy at the news. Holy Moses...
Miz blushed and buried her face in her hands. "Well…" she starts quietly.
"Technically," Bill said dryly, watching the girl, "It's everything's 'dad', since it spins up every dimension that's ever existed, BUT I'M THINKING that that's NOT what she meant," Bill said, setting his shoulders and giving her not quite a glare. Because she had to be lying, right? The lizard never DID anything. That was the whole PROBLEM with the stupid thing!
"That sounds disgusting," Seb shuddered. He didn't know that. Or maybe he knew but couldn't remember! Yay for a limited human brain!
Miz nodded "Well, kinda…" she winced. "Ax took me in after my dimension was destroyed and...um...I sorta called him dad once by accident and...well…" she blushed harder "...he didn't seem to mind…"
Bill stared. Then glared. He clenched his fists and started to shake in place.
Seb smiled warmly. "Alright, if he treats you nice, then I don't care" He remembered when he was a teen he also had someone who kind of took him in. He called him Dad once too…
He shook his head to get rid of the bittersweet memories and turned to look at Bill. "Ok, so, hi. I'm Sebastian. We kind of want to go back to my dimension. Have been trying for quite a few doors… can you let us in your Mindscape to find the door?" He grinned.
Bill was still glaring at the girl. His right eye began to twitch.
"The Axolotl. Took you in. After your dimension was destroyed." Bill said in a flat monotone voice, all but ignoring the one (Bill?) calling himself Sebastian.
Miz hesitated but then nodded slowly, confused why this Bill seemed so upset.
"It did something. For YOU."
"Kid, calm down." Seb said frowning. "We get it, the Axolotl has nice counterparts as well. Can you answer the question??"
Bill didn't even bother to look at Seb. What he said barely even registered, less informative than white noise -- there was only one Axolotl, not several.
Miz frowns. "Um...yeah I know Ax is pretty lazy most of the time, ok, fine, ALL of the time but...um...he does do stuff every now and then?" She makes a whining sound. "I mean...I DID just accidentally create the Big Bang…"
Bill stared at her.
And then he started to laugh.
And laugh.
And LAUGH.
Miz twitched. "Are you okay dude?" she knows that laugh. She had made the exact same one back when she was sitting in the burning remains of the 2nd Dimension.
"You--" Bill practically attacked the sides of his head with his hands, almost pulling at his hair.
Seb stared and slowly pulled Miz closer to him. This seemed to be a Bill without quite a few screws.
"You MADE a dimension after yours was destroyed?" His voice got higher pitched. "And THAT made it TALK TO YOU?" He looked half deranged. "THAT made it HELP?!?!"
Miz tugged on her dress nervously. "Kinda? I think I ended up sucking in all the mass of the 2nd Dimension and when I couldn't hold it anymore...I exploded and it...sort of created the 3rd dimension…"
"That's fucking awesome." Seb looked down at the girl next to him.
"That's fucking IMPOSSIBLE," Bill practically spat out, then got a deer-in-the-headlights look and dropped his head to stare down at the ground, going very still.
Miz flinched at this Bill's behavior. 'He's more unhinged than I am…' She saw him go still. "Are you okay?"
Bill looked up at her. "Who are you? What is your name." He had no real expression on his face.
"Um...Bill Cipher?" Miz says hesitantly.
That hadn't been what he'd expected to hear… And it actually made it worse. Bill wasn't certain if this 'him' had destroyed her own dimension or not, and... Bill looked off to the side, hands hanging at his sides. "Did the Axolotl ever give you a prophecy." he said, not quite a question.
Miz frowned. "N-not that I know of? I DID work out some agreements for the future but we haven't really gotten the whole poem together yet?"
Bill felt his stupid human-ish body give a shiver that was almost a shudder. "You get to write your own prophecy." he said flatly, almost to himself. He turned his head to look back at her again, dead-on. "How nice for you."
Miz wilted in on herself. "I'm… sorry…" she whimpers.
Bill gave a smile. Not a grin. Not something that showed any teeth at all.
"Don't be." Bill said to her, eyes bright and hard and thoroughly, completely insane. "I'm going to win."
Miz twitched. "Excuse me?" What was he talking about? Just 'cause she was insane didn't mean she understood other insane people.
"Alright, enough of this cryptic crap!" Seb spat, startling Miz because she'd forgotten he was there. Bill looked over at him. "Kid, will you help or not?!" He growled, his hands lighting up in flames.
"Help with what?" Bill said. "That Shack's not yours, and if you try to take it from my Stanley…" Bill grinned all over again, but this time? He looked amused. "WELL, I'd say I'D LIKE TO SEE YOU TRY, buuuuut …" And Bill didn't quite snicker.
"We don't want your Shack or your Stanley! And geesh, possessive much?" Seb rolled his eye.
Bill eyed him. "If YOU don't understand what a Stanley is worth, that's YOUR problem, not mine!" he all but drawled out, spreading his hands and rocking back on his heels again.
Seb growled at him. "Of course I know what he is worth, sucker! He's my triplet and-" Seb grinned at the teen, who was blinking at him like he'd been sideswiped by a wooden 2x4 to the head. "I am closer with him than what you would ever be to this Stanley."
Miz quietly interjects, "Are we seriously arguing over who has the better Stan Waifu right now?"
" Yeesh , I'm as close as I want to be as it is!" Bill said, looking at Seb oddly. -- Too close as it was, in fact, as far as Bill was concerned...Good to know that this 'him' wasn't a complete idiot, though, or that he had to worry about Sebastian trying to steal his Stanley away, since he already had one he considered his personal-own.
Miz shook her head. "We just need to find the Exit door inside your mind so we can get out of here and go home." she pouts. "And I for one, definitely know what Stan is worth. He's a good man. Though...the one in my dimension hasn't actually been born yet. I'm kinda jealous you guys already have yours."
Bill didn't bother giving the latter half of that a reply. The kid got plucked out of her decaying broken-down dimension for practically existing? The stupid lizard was clearly playing favorites and breaking the Rules! --So she hadn't gotten 'her Stanley' yet? Oh, boo hoo! Cry him a river! (...Tact wasn't exactly Bill's strong suit, but in being reminded of Stanley… he was reminded again of the agreement they had. And in the interests of not starting a fight first, of trying to follow the agreement, he kept those thoughts of his inside of his own head.)
"I'm not letting a couple of anythings inside my mind, let alone you two," Bill told them. Because two 'him's doing that? Seriously? "I'm not STUPID. That's a HORRIBLE idea -- and not the fun kind of horrible, either!" And it was patently obvious to him why not. He was a being of pure energy anchored to his body right now, and he barely had the shreds of his personal 'Dreamscape' back in some barely-held-together form right now, on top of that. (Not that they needed to know that last bit.) Mixing their energies like that, when he was like this…!
Seb screamed, losing his patience, and turned to look at the pouting girl. "There must be another way to return then! This kid will obviously not cooperate!" Bill raised his eyebrows at the last; because as far as he was concerned, he hadn't said 'no, forever', just 'no' to that . One singular bad idea.
Miz rubs her arm nervously. "I don't actually know ok? This is my first time travelling across the Planes." She actually giggles. "Planes! Get it? Because we're triangles?" Bill blinked at her. She slaps herself across the face. "Nope. Stop. Serious time!"
Seb wanted to glare, wanted to stay angry with her, but he ended up snorting and grinning. He sucked at staying serious for too long. "Ok, I'll give that to you, that was fun." He agreed. "But we seriously need to go back! Mabel and Dipper won't wait forever!"
Bill frowned. 'Wait forever'? Wait for what? Did this 'him' have something with some kind of time limit going on with his own Shooting Star and Pine Tree?
Miz whimpered. "I don't know any other way… Ax told me to never do this. So I don't know anything about it…"
Bill let out a huff. "What, you can't just ask your 'dear old dad' to help you out of this one, too?" he said more than a little snidely to her.
Seb inhaled loudly and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Alright…That was rude." Seb frowned, but he didn't really care right now.
Miz glares at Bill. "Ax… doesn't… he can't…" her glare weakens and she frowns sadly at the ground. "He doesn't really do much besides just… be there for me to talk to…"
"Yeah?" Bill let out a laugh. "Does it ever answer back?" --Rhetorical question. If it had helped this 'him' out the way she said it had, then of course it had answered back. He was just more than a little pissed off about it, still. Because the lengths that he'd had to go to, in order to get it to even talk to him at all, for him to realize that it would never do ANYTHING to help him (...not until he died…? )... --Not that he needed the handicap, but--
Seb looked at Bill exasperated. They seriously were fighting over the Axolotl?! "How about a deal?!" He really needed to go back. He had never been out of his body for too long. Something could happen to his meat-sack!
That immediately caught Bill's attention. His head swiveled straight towards him like a compass pointing due north. "It's that urgent?"
Miz winced. "I've got to get home to my friends, Pyronica can't raise her babies by herself… not to mention how those idiots are gonna support themselves without me. Hectorgon's the only one with a job… and Teeth."
Bill2 laughed behind Seb. "Py-Pyronica… The one from the Infinetentiary?" Seb asked his demon self and he nodded eagerly.
"Who knew that girl would get pregnant! I always imagined her eating her kids." Bill2 shrugged.
"...So, urgent , then," Bill said with an only half-amused huff of breath. He glanced away, rubbing the side of his right hand against his temple as he answered his question to each of them for the both them.
Miz nodded, a resigned look on her face.
Seb nodded firmly. It was just a deal. The three of them knew how to make them.
"If Deals are what it'd take to get home…" Miz grumbled.
"No," Bill said flatly. "I have a mutual nonaggression agreement going on with Stanley right now. No new Deals while it's on." Wasn't exactly a stipulation of that, but with the way things had been going with the agreement so far… a Deal with other 'him's who could make one with him would add an entire additional set of string-interactions on top of everything -- ones that could jerk him around and make things messy in ways that could easily end with him breaking the agreement, whether Bill actually wanted to or not. Right now at least, Bill didn't want to deal (HA!) with the complications of that himself.
Seb sighed tiredly. "Then we can negotiate. It's technically not a deal."
Bill nodded. That was fine. It wasn't as though he didn't trust himself to make a fair Deal -- he wouldn't have been able to 'split' off multiple 'copies' of himself for very short periods of time, in the Mindscape way back when, and during Weirdmaggedon most recently, if he didn't! -- and these two 'him's, while very different in some ways, didn't actually seem that far off from himself. The one valued Stanley, had something going on with the younger Pines twins that he didn't want to break, and was completely on board for helping to kill the Axolotl.
The other… had wanted the Axolotl to talk to them, too. That she'd actually gotten it easily -- without doing what he'd had to do for only a bare minute of it's not-just-silent 'regard' -- didn't really have any bearing there, other than to toss another black 'X' mark in the Axolotl's column. That this other 'him' seemed to like the stupid lizard was… well. She was still young. Obviously . She likely hadn't realized yet what all its inacting-actions actually meant . (She didn't even seem to know about the Rules, or the Game?!) --She'd learn! And she would get there, if she actually cared about her Henchmaniacs as much as she seemed to, if they really were her friends, it was only a matter of dead time walking…
And it wasn't like she'd objected to his stance of wanting to kill the stupid thing. That said a lot, too, all of it in her favor. Not to mention that she actually gave him respect . -- Without the fear, because what did any 'him' that was also him have to fear from himself? And that was good, too. --He could work with these two.
"Then… can I talk to your Stanley to see if he would agree to helping us?"
"Miz, no." Seb shook his head.
Bill pulled a face. She really hadn't met her Stanley or Stanford yet, had she? HA! --He'd better clue her in!
"Not a good idea," Bill told her. "Stanford will get involved, and he'd blow a fuse at there being more than one of us around." And as absolutely HILARIOUS as that might be at ANY OTHER TIME, if that happened right now...? After what had happened last night? Bill shook his head. "And if it involves you bailing out of this dimension…" Ugh, he didn't want to have to admit to this, but… "Stanley doesn't trust me enough to think I won't try to jump dimensions at the chance. Not completely; not that far. Not if there's a portal standing there open right in front of me," he told them soberly. Because it really was tempting.
Miz frowns in thought. "Well… they don't have to know that we're 'you' from alternative dimensions. I look nothing like Bill Cipher, all I need to do is change my clothes. And Sebastian is LITERALLY Stan and Ford's triplet. We can make up a story about how we're travellers from another world who need your help to get back…"
"Yes! Half truths!" Seb laughed and high fived Miz.
Bill shook his head again. "We don't get natural portals here. Stanford will shoot you, and if he doesn't, he'll think you're part of my Henchmaniacs or something, as soon as he sees us not at each other's throats." Bill rolled his eyes. "He's an idiot , understand?" An idiot he was supposed to not be attacking physically or mentally just then, as per Shooting Star and Pine Tree, respectively, in order to not damage their fragile little mental states too badly as part of the agreement. Circles , he hated these kinds of strings -- they tangled so easily!
"Ford's paranoia ruins everything," Seb pouted.
" YES ," Bill agreed with a huff.
"So, what now? Isn't there a way to bring that door, I don't know, here?" The man gestured to the air around him.
Bill blinked. "You want me to turn my mind inside out?" He thought about this for all of a second. "Been awhile. Probably not a good idea to try when I'm all here and physical like THIS ." Bill didn't elaborate on the anchor he had all down his back, just gestured down his front in general. He wasn't about to give that one away -- not if he could help it! In Bill's experience, that sort of idiotic oversharing got you eaten. They might be 'him's, but YEESH!
Miz raised her hand as if they were in a classroom. "I can say with full honesty that I am the AXOLOTL's daughter. I can also honestly say that I have dimensional powers. Can't I just… wait for later, create a 'portal' and have me and Seb fall out? Then tell Stan and Ford our sob story about requiring a Bill Cipher's help to get home?"
"Yeah, I like that," Seb nodded. He didn't care what they needed to do. He just wanted to go back home with his niblings.
"HA!" Bill said. "--Same problem. Portals don't come here naturally ," he repeated. "Stanley will think I had something to do with it, and he won't stay quiet about knowing that if Stanford gets too loud about it -- WHICH HE WILL ." Bill looked between them. "Why do you even need to talk to them in the first place?" Did they actually want to? --Really, he was confused on that point.
Miz shrugged. "It's just... I got the feeling your powers were being tied down by something… or rather, someONE here. And based on what you've said so far, I'm guessing it's Stan."
Bill narrowed his eyes at her. (And not just because that answered for him whether her All-Seeing Eye was working -- it was.)
And then he smiled a very thin, very 'challenge accepted' smile.
He made a gesture with his hand directly upwards and snarled a word under his breath as he visualized the mandala he'd used in the forest the afternoon prior, all while making eye contact with her.
A rather large explosion went off mid air, about fifty feet above their heads, just below the tops of the trees.
Miz and Seb flinched at the sudden noise.
Bill didn't flinch. He just watched the 'him" who hadn't quite challenged him outright.
"I," said Bill, "am PERFECTLY CAPABLE of handling things WITHOUT Stanley Pines… 'letting up' on me," he informed the two of them. And, frankly, he wasn't too surprised by her ignorance. He'd seen that in a lot of demons over hundreds of billions of years, and this 'him' had obviously been influenced by their thinking (or rather lack thereof ) a BIT too much, in Bill's vaunted opinion!
Miz pouted. "Ok. I get it. You're still a badass demon with almighty powers." she resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Demons and their pride.
" Triangle demon, and yes," Bill said, confirming the facts. "Maybe think about that, the next time you think another 'you' is, what, haha, harmless? " he grinned at her.
"Yes sir mister triangle demon sir." Miz salutes. To be fair to him, if anyone came up to her and tried to tell her that she was weak, she'd probably turn their nipples into snakes. Of course then she would have to deal with Ax's disappointed look for a few weeks.
"Got a reputation to maintain," Bill told her, dropping his hand to cross his arms and look down his nose at her. "Last thing I need is some other 'me' getting themselves eaten or killed for assuming something stupid, and every last demon and their crew thinking I'm the pushover." He paused and frowned. " A pushover?" He wasn't entirely sure how many demons knew that there was more than one Bill Cipher out there. He was pretty sure that his Pyronica knew, she'd hinted at a couple things without actually hinting at things a couple of times before… which was really the best you could get out of a demon without them just vanishing on you, to never see them again. (He had some theories about that, too...)
Bill glanced over at Seb. "You're being pretty quiet over there. Makes me think you're up to something." Bill grinned. "I sure would be!"
"I am tired," Seb told Bill with an angry expression. "We are wasting too much time and, seriously, Pinetree, Shooting Star, gotta leave. "
Bill let out an incredulous laugh. First-time interdimensional traveler, sure, but did this other him REALLY NOT UNDERSTAND how it all worked? "--Look, you know time is DEAD, right? Nothing's synchronized between dimensions unless you MAKE it that way. It's space-time. SPACE PLUS TIME." He twisted in place a little more towards Sebastian, and gave him a slight tilt of the head. "As long as you don't go getting any information on what was 'SUPPOSED' to have happened while you were gone, HA, it doesn't even MATTER when you come out! You can just jump to whenever and wherever you want with a local, fine-tuned 'portal'--" with not even much of a 'wherever', really, if it was only a time jump and the guy set it up relative-local to the matter around him properly , "WITHOUT causing any time loops that you'd have to close and stabilize later."
Miz once again raised her hand. "Can confirm, I can pop into a dimension at whatever point in time I want...so long as another Me isn't already there. Mainly just 'cause it causes too many headaches for me and not because I can't."
The human, the only actual human between the three of them actually, blinked and looked up at Bill2, who was quietly sitting on his shoulder.
"Did you know this too?"
Bill2. "Maybe, who knows?! Not you of course, because you are an idiot who doesn't remember anything!" He grinned and the blond scowled. Neither of the other Bill's could see Bill2 since he wasn't 'real' and could only manifest within Seb's Mindscape.
"Really, you've got more to worry about with aging, for how long it'd take you to do it --" not that it should take all that long "-- but if you do it PROPERLY ..." Bill waved it off casually.
Bill was standing out in the middle of the yard, having placed himself between the two other Bills and the nearest porch to the Shack, and Sebastian sighed.
"So! Even when time won't pass, we both still need to go back. We have entered the other Bill's minds just fine without them exploding." Seb shrugged and Miz nodded.
"Eh, still sounds like a bad idea," Bill said, not really wanting to get into the details. "If you're mainly energy trying to go inside my Mindscape, it won't end well." It was part of the reason why he'd been sleeping under the barrier -- spending most of his time inside it, in fact. One of the first things he'd done after Stanley had brought up the idea of a 'passive' magic -- and he'd figure out a good way to do it -- was to set up a couple of stones with sigils on them, kept on his body at all times, that activated outside the barrier, powered by the weirdness of the 'Falls. One was to help against possession; the other let him see and hear ghosts and some other miscellaneous types that might be capable of possessing him. (He hadn't figured out everything stupid that was going on with his human-ish body and the anchor yet, but he'd figured out that it was something he ought to be careful about, anyway, until he did.)
"I'm not those other Bills," Bill told them flat-out. "And my Mindscape's a mess right now, anyway. You'd go in, and never come out, HAHA!" Probably because either he or they would combine with -- or literally pull in -- the energy of the other, but vague was the watchword, here. Last thing he needed was either of these two thinking they could get a power boost from feeding off of him, or to accidentally pull them in himself. He wasn't looking to integrate two largely unknowns with next to no idea of what he might or might not be getting; he liked his energy purified, thanks!
Seb winced at the teen's words. "Geesh I get it. You don't want us in, I don't blame you." It wasn't nice knowing people were in your mind. Sebastian knew first hand. "Then HOW can we get back?"
Bill shrugged. "What's this door thing you're looking for, anyway?" He needed more information if he was going to be able to help his other 'him's brainstorm something, or come up with something workable himself.
Miz perked up. "Well there's this EXIT door that appears inside the Mindscape of the other Bills I've met. I've got one too, can't use it right now though. So I've found that I can only use the door that is inside OTHER Bills."
Bill blinked. "Yeesh. All right. --This a thing that's always been there, or something new after you show up?" He'd seen a lot of doors in his day, back when he'd been able to use his own All-Seeing Eye whenever he wanted. Side effect of getting his eye put on so many one dollar bills.
Miz's eyes began flickering. "Huh...I think they appear BECAUSE of me...when I opened MY door…"
Seb looked at the girl and hummed. "Really? You said the door had been always there." He accused without malice.
"I thought they were...but...it's hard to explain, the Void of Doors has always been there but they're closed-see? But when I opened one, it created the door in whichever world I enter. Open on one side, create door on the other. My Mindscape always had that door though."
"HMMMM…" Bill hummed to himself as he thought, tapping a finger against his chin. "And the door that you used to get here, why don't you just go back through it? Or trace things back from there?"
Miz pulls at her hair. "Because I can't get back inside my OWN Mindscape while I'm in another Bill's dimension." Fuck, fuck...if this is what Ax meant about meeting 'bad' Bills...yeah, she could see the problem of getting trapped in a dimension with Bills that refuse to help her.
Bill's eyebrows went up, surprised. "You're locked out of your own Mindscape right now?" She could see Sebastian, though, and had been accessing other minds, so she had to have some level of access, still. He got a light frown. "Can you sleep?" Loaded question, but he had to ask it. The Mindscape and personal 'Dreamscape' were connected.
Miz made a distressed sound. "I haven't slept in over 500 billion years. I can access my Mindscape by meditating but I don't have a Dreamscape."
"You can't sleep?!" Seb cried horrified. Sleeping was the best part of being human, and he was grateful for it. "How don't you go insane?! ….MORE insane?!"
"Physicality requires sleep in a way that being a pure-mind doesn't, if you reconfigure yourself-- your energy self in ways that… well." Bill let out a soft laugh. "STARTING OUT insane helps!" Had this 'him' not been insane to start with? That didn't make sense…
Miz winced. "I'm a being of pure energy and no matter how hard I try I can't sleep. And, excuse you I AM insane. I just function well despite it." Start out insane? Good question, she remembers breaking down while the 2nd Dimension burned. She also remembers breaking when Will died. At what point had she truly lost her sanity?
"I am actually not a being of pure energy…" Seb mumbled, feeling left out and looking at Bill. "I'm human, I-I just have some powers from my past-life."
"Wow," said Bill, staring at him. "And I thought I got the short end of the stick from the stupid lizard!" Then he seemed to shake himself and looked back over at the girl. "--Wait, you actually want to sleep? Not just 'deciding to not do it because it's a bad idea' and you have things you need to do. Actually want to." It was almost a question. It came across like the concept was something he'd never really considered before.
Miz pulls at her dress. "I miss it. I miss being able to...stop thinking...at least for a little while…"
"Sleeping is the best!" Seb defended. "It is like unplugging yourself from the world, it is pure bliss and-" He stopped when he saw the glare Miz was sending him.
Bill wasn't entirely sure if he should say something. He'd be putting himself out there a bit if he did; these other 'him's weren't stupid. '--Eh, heck with it!' he decided almost of a whim. He was intrigued by her problem, he was the Master of the Mind, and this was something that sounded different . He wouldn't learn more about it if he didn't offer something up in return!
"You know, kid," Bill began. "There's sleeping, and then there's 'sleeping'. --And then there's sleeping , HAHA!" He grinned at her. "And 'stopping thinking' isn't any of those. --You really can't do any of that?"
Miz frowned. "I...I learned most of what my powers are from Ax...and some experimenting on my own..."
"So?" Bill said, after she'd stopped talking for awhile. "What's your point?"
"Well I haven't figured out how to go to sleep. The closest I've come is by possessing someone's body to sleep there or by getting blackout drunk."
"Black out drunk?" Bill repeated. "In the Mindscape? On what? " He hadn't thought that was possible. Reconfiguring his own energy states to resemble that, yes, fine, possible -- but feeding on an energy waveform or concept that would do that without destabilizing his own standing wave?
"Oh, I create a construct body, possess it, and then get utterly smashed." Miz says matter of factly.
"When I get drunk Bill2 gets control of my body." Seb muttered and Bill2 grinned proudly.
"That was a good day!" Bill2 giggled madly and Seb angrily hit him in the eye. Neither of them knew Bill and Miz couldn't see Bill2.
Bill looked between the two of them. "You, LATER." Two Bills(?) in one body that didn't combine sounded nuts . Would explain why Sebastian had seemed to be talking to himself; Bill had just assumed he'd been that type of insane. Bill had tried that out once -- talking to himself, that is, not splitting off and talking to that self for… who knew how long. "YOU." He pointed at the girl, starting with her first. " Actual body . Not just an exoskeleton. Fully tied-in?"
Miz nods slowly. "It's one of the first things Ax taught me. How to create a physical avatar with which to interact with the real world. Took me a few thousand years to get it right, mind you."
Bill2 turned red. "He taught you?! I could NEVER leave my dimension!!" He screamed.
"Calm down, it's over." Seb rolled his eye.
Bill had to take a few moments to close his eyes, clench his fists, and not start SCREAMING BLOODY MURDER AT THE TOP OF HIS LUNGS.
--No, wait, he was totally doing that now, pacing back and forth in infinity symbols while cursing the stupid lizard out in Galactic Standard and flailing his arms about as he went. OOPS!
It took Bill a few minutes before he was breathless enough to stop, hands on his knees as he glared at the ground.
"HAHA, IT'S FINE!" Bill enthused out, through teeth that were more gritted than grinning. "GOT A STUPID BODY THAT WORKS THAT WAY NOW! GONNA FINISH FIGURING IT ALL OUT, EVERYTHING'S FINE! IT'S ALL FINE! DON'T NEED THAT STUPID THING'S HELP! WOULD'VE GOTTEN IT EVENTUALLY!"
"That's great! It's nice that you accept your body!" Seb smiled teasingly.
Miz stepped a little closer to this dimension's version of Bill. "Um...I'm sorry?" she says quietly.
Bill forced himself and his stupid human-ish body through breathing exercises that he knew would work.
"No." Bill said, not looking up at her, sounding firm and almost -- almost -- not insane for a moment. "Don't be sorry. I would have learned it from it too, if I could have. It's not you. It's the lizard. That stupid lizard ."
"Ugh, same." Seb huffed.
Miz smiles. "Well...um...is there anything I can do to help you feel better?"
Bill slowly looked up at her. The grin he had going on was truly evil.
"LEARN HOW TO SLEEP," he told her, with an angry glint in his eyes. " That'll show it."
"I want to...I just don't know what I'm doing wrong!"
"I'm the Master of the Mind," Bill told her. "You tell me what you're doing, and I'll tell you what you're doing wrong."
Seb snorted, remembering the Bill from his dimension smugly telling his niblings exactly that.
Miz furrows her brows in thought. "I...lie down and close my eye and try to relax…"
"In a body you're tied down to in a way the STUPID LIZARD told you to make it, WITHOUT a personal 'Dreamscape' to sleep within." Bill looked twelve different kinds of pissed off.
Miz makes an "Oh." As the epiphany hits her. "Wait. You mean...I need to make a Dreamscape first before I can…" she face palms. "I'm so STUPID!!"
"No, kid, you aren't," Seb reassured.
"Yes," Bill told her. "No. Stupid, no. Ignorant and trusting the stupid lizard? YES." He looked grim. He'd thought he'd had it bad -- not trusting it at all, not depending on it, being unable to -- but… if he was right about this, understood her correctly, then in talking with her and teaching her, the lizard had MESSED with her DELIBERATELY -- giving her only so much, of all the WRONG things -- letting this other 'him' think that what it had given her had been the whole of it, when what she'd been given had not been that at all, missing several key points of useful information.
"The way I stayed awake for so long while I was trapped was that I kept shredding mine. --It grows back at different rates depending on the body you are or aren't in, and the shape and wavelength of your energy form." And the Axolotl had been the one who taught her how to make forms. So if she still didn't have a working Mindscape even after 500 billion years...
Miz was already nodding along, her mind racing through all the knowledge within her. So that's why...it all makes sense now. Even when her constructs black out, her mind didn't GO anywhere. Because it had nowhere to go! That's why her consciousness would just...scatter and reform after a while.
"Hey, kid!" Seb exclaimed in a sudden revelation. "Why don't you try it?! You said time isn't moving in my world so we can take longer, right?! Besides, there isn't much we can actually do in the Mindscape...It is boring!"
Miz flicked her fingers and pulled on the molecules in the air. "I can build constructs. And then I can build my Dreamscape." She frowned. Things felt a little...heavier here than in Seb's world. She wiggled her fingers and narrowed her eyes. Huh. Looks like she needs to use her hands for this. "So...temporary physical bodies, yay or nay?"
"YAY!" Seb exclaimed with an adorkable smile. "You know, I have a feeling I could make them if I made a deal. My powers are subjected to the deals I make," he explained. "No deal, no power."
Bill tucked away that little tidbit of information about this 'him' for later. It was interesting .
Miz rubs her chin in thought. "Maybe I can use that in my world to get around that barrier between me and the 3rd dimension. Deals are different after all…" She would be thrilled if this was a loophole she could exploit. Sadly, the animals on Earth weren't exactly...intelligent enough to make Deals with.
"Sure," Bill told her. The solution seemed obvious enough to HIM, if that sort of thing also ended up working for her. "Toss a halfway intelligent being there through a portal if you want to get there sooner, make a Deal with it, see what happens?" Bill suggested. If she was only 500 billion years old and she wanted in NOW… and wasn't restricted from going other places physically, and could make portals, and could even write her own prophecy to match , then, WELL! Bill was ALL FOR spitting in the stupid lizard's eye and getting a 'him' wherever they wanted to go even faster! (At least when it didn't involve crossing what Bill wanted himself.)
"Kid, chill," Seb laughed at Bill's comment. He turned to look at the girl. "Miz?" Seb snapped his fingers to bring her back. "You spaced out."
Miz blinks. "I do that a lot." She says cheerfully. "What were we doing again?"
"Bodies! Meat-sacks! Flesh!" Seb grinned excitedly with a mad look in his eye.
Bill stared at her. Had she… not heard him?
"Oh right." she turns to Bill, "So I might try out your idea after I get home. For now though, I wanna test out that physical body with a Dreamscape idea."
Bill nodded. He'd wondered for a frozen moment while she'd been nonresponsive if the stupid lizard had DONE SOMETHING to her… or taught her to make her bodies in a way that would keep her from thinking certain things. -- Not a fun thought! (...had sent chills down his human-ish body's spine, in fact.)
Miz bit her lip and frowns in concentration. "Um...any requests for this body I'm making for you Seb? Like...are you going to walk around looking like Ford's younger twin?"
"Um…" Seb hummed in thought. That was a good point. He might look similar to the Stans, but weren't they old here? That would throw people off right?
Miz looked at Sebastian impatiently. "I can't hold these atoms forever. Well, I COULD but my hands are gonna cramp. And what if I had to scratch an itch? Word of advice, scratching yourself while holding a miniature sun is kinda...not the best idea."
"I don't work well under pressure!" Seb cried angrily. "Just do something, I don't care! But not a monster or deformed creature, dude." Seb warned.
Miz pouted. "Ok then. Whatever it is~"
"--Space out where you get the material from," Bill told her. "I DON'T want to have to even out any suspicious holes you leave around in the ground for you! Or explain any collapsing trees!"
Miz nods at Bill and turns her attention back to the world around her. She pulls on the mass around her. Reality and physics bending in her hands. She grunts lightly in effort as a speck slowly forms between her hands. It twists and begins to bubble and froth as she poured more mass into it. Bones began forming a skeleton, muscles and organs twisting along the white bones with a slick, slimy sound.
"Damn, that's gross." Seb commented with a smile.
((((((((((((((((((((((((MizBill is a perv warning))))))))))))))))))))
Miz twitched and looked around for more mass to use. She pulled the dust out of the air, the pollen from the grass, some moisture in the air. The half formed body grew arms, legs...naughty bits.
She blushed at the embarrassed look on Seb's face. "Look, if you want to be a guy I'm gonna HAVE to build those parts too you know!"
Seb blushed, but nodded. "Ok." He said in a tiny voice. Was it dumb he was embarrassed she would know how his temporary body parts look like? He was an adult damn it! Stop blushing!
Miz wiggled and blushed harder as she began forming the skin, pulling the organ over the flesh to cover it in a tawny hue. She added nails and hair, the keratin growing out until this body had a lustrous flowing mane of silky black hair. She molded the facial features carefully, floating up to manually press her fingers against the body's head and acting much like a potter with their clay.
"That's a human play-doh," Seb commented aloud.
Miz grinned. "Almost done… are you sure you don't have any preference besides 'male'?"
"Taller." Seb said quickly. His real meat sack was short as it was. If he could change it for a while, why not by being taller? "And… Dark brown eyes… But just a tiny bit darker than mine…" He mumbled. He had realized the body she was creating was Asian so… Having Matsuda's eyes would be nice.
Miz gives him a knowing smile. "Alright~" she chirped cheerfully. She stretched the body larger and taller, in the process making another...certain part of it's anatomy larger as well. She giggles and flushes dark red. "I-I mean...need to keep thi-things proportional ri-right?!" She squeaks.
Seb groaned and covered his face with a hand. "Just-Continue, continue. I ain't looking, you little pervert."
Miz couldn't keep the crooked smile off her face. Or the drool. She hastily wiped her mouth. "N-normally it doesn't affect me this much since the constructs are formed pretty quickly… but this is going pretty slowly and um…" she couldn't finish explaining herself.
"Yeah...Of course…" Seb nodded as if he understood. He didn't. He wasn't attracted to people's bodies like that!
((((((((((((((((((((((Ok we're safe now...maybe)))))))))))))))))
Miz coughed in embarrassment and, to Seb's relief, formed clothes (a button down white shirt with a bow tie and black pants) over the soulless construct. It stood there, face blank and slack, eyes dull. "Um… so… just… slip inside it or whatever." Miz shrugs.
Seb made a face and examined the body. Ok, it was not a real person, he got it, but the only time he possessed someone really left him feeling like hell after it. "Alright…" He stared at the face and hummed. "Dude, it looks pretty nice!" He blushed a bit. It was a handsome vessel, he would give it to him. "Is it normal? Is it normal to get attracted to the vessels you create?"
Mis groans and covers her face. "Yeeeees! I keep making them attractive! And it's so weird when I'm wearing them…"
"Haha! Show off!" Seb grinned before grabbing Bill2 by one of his tiny legs and diving in the body. Seb took a mouthful of air and opened his eyes before immediately falling to the floor. "Wow!" He smiled.
Miz tilted her head to look at the man on the ground. "Well? How do you feel? Joints pointing the right way? Lungs functional?"
Seb took a deep breathe and laughed. "Yeah, lungs functioning! And…" He slowly stood up with trembling legs, (Wow he was so far away from the ground!) "-Joints in place."
Miz leans in with a shit eating grin "All parts functional ~?"
"What do you mean-" Seb asked innocently, but then frowned when he understood. "-Miz!!" He whined.
'You are an idiot' Bill2 said, back again as part of his mind.
She tumbles through the air laughing hysterically. Her little legs kicking as she clutched her stomach. "AHAHAHAH!"
"It is not fuNNy!" He whined. "Ew you are gross! " He had to cover his lower zone because he feared Miz was seeing him.
"I LITERALLY know that body inside out." Miz says deadpan.
"S-Still! It is mine now!" He argued with the girl. "Just make your body and shut up." Seb pouted and crossed his arms.
Miz rolls her eyes. "Fine~" she starts the process again. Making a form that looked like hers. Seb looked away. Miz clothed the body in a blue dress with matching stockings. "Ok. We're good here." She says after slipping inside.
Seb looked back at her and smiled slightly, but then he raised an eyebrow curiously. "So...Are these clothes like, part of the body?" Seb lifted an arm to examine the shirt he was wearing and poked at it, also glancing at his hand. "Hey, you gave him six fingers again!" He accused but laughed.
Miz shrugged. "They aren't nerve connected. I only do that with my triangle form." She muttered something about overly sensitive bowties. Then she changed her socks black to see if that looks nicer. She'll change them back later.
The man nodded satisfied with the answer. "Whatcha think, kid?" He smiled and looked at Bill who had been watching quietly the whole time.
Bill shrugged. "Would've taken notes if I could've!" he said cheerfully enough. His stupid human-ish eyes could only catch so much, and his magical senses (and almost-completely muted weird ones, or the human-ish equivalent) weren't really attuned to the right wavelengths to have picked up everything (or much of anything) of what she'd been doing. ...Not that he would have trusted it entirely if he had, what with the technique being straight from the stupid lizard when it had been LEAVING KEY INFORMATION OUT OF THINGS.
Still. Bill did get something out of watching it.
Miz shook her arms out. "Hm. Getting used to gravity again is always a bother." Bill nodded along; he could relate.
"Having Bill in my mind is always a bother." Seb scratched his head. "He's saying something, but I'll ignore him."
"Why would you ignore your other-you?" Bill said to him, rocking back and forth on his heels, trying not to clench his stupid teeth. "Sounds like a stupid thing to do to me!" And he'd always rather hated being ignored himself.
"Because…" Seb hummed. "I am actually trying to be a decent human and him invading my thoughts with screams and blood and destruction all the time doesn't help. I know it sounds stupid, don't look at me like that, but I-I grew up human, it is different…" He muttered.
Bill had been about to ask what either of those things had to do with each other, but stopped at the 'growing up human' thing. And he grew a bit contemplative. Because Stanley had told him that some things were different, but Stanley was Stanley . Yet here was another 'him', telling him the exact same thing.
Miz couldn't really say anything for or against the idea of ignoring part of herself. She always thought it was better to accept herself, even the parts she didn't like. Not that it meant she would listen to all the bad decisions in her head. Not that it said much considering she already did a bunch of awful things...
"...You ask him why he's doing it?" Bill asked Sebastian. --Probably to get his attention, HAHA, but WHY did he want his attention? That was the main thing.
"Why he does it? Bill2 is me." Seb told Bill with a sigh. "I can control him a little but at the end of the day...What he thinks is...what I think, whether I like it or not." Seb confessed.
"And what's wrong with that?" Miz asked Seb calmly as she was taking this time to try and see how a Dreamscape could be formed. She didn't want to sit in the grass and considering this other Bill's territorial nature she didn't want to go near the Shack for fear of upsetting the guy. She twirled her hands, made a small wooden stool out of some fallen tree branches and sat down.
"I lost 3 years of my life to him. I let him control my body...I know it is nothing for you, I know, but for me it- it was horrible…" Seb shuddered. "I don't know what he did! I-I woke up in prison!" He snarled.
'Get over it, will you?!'
Miz tilts her head curiously. "Well, as much as that sucks…"
"...You two were CLEARLY doing it wrong," Bill ended, crossing his arms and looking at Sebastian oddly. "Three years can be important," Bill said, thinking of Stanford's nearly three years in the 'Falls as he rocked back on his heels. "It depends on which three."
That said… "You acting like Stanford or something?" It was the only thing Bill could think of that might explain it. Because why wouldn't he get along with a 'him' that was also himself, that thought the same things? Self-hate was a Stanford thing. Bill had gotten over that particular brand of stupidity a LONG time ago. Because he'd decided. Whatever he did was fine because he was always going to remain himself. And if he did that, he'd never stop or give up or change his mind. If he did that, he'd get what he wanted. If he did that, everyone would, eventually, once they saw it, like he did. If he did that, it didn't matter what he did, he'd just fix it later. (He was going to FIX E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G! Make it all FUN for everyone, free them all, right at the start! Just like that stupid lizard WOULDN'T.)
"Oh don't worry!" Seb dismissed the situation and sat down next to Miz, also feeling Bill's territorial nature. "We are fine, kinda, we are in a truce. Ever since I arrived to Gravity Falls...I have been more...me!"
"...And the next time 'he' doesn't share three years with 'you' because you won't listen to yourself when there's something you need to do?" Bill asked him, frowning and smiling at the same time.
"He can't." Seb shrugged simply. "Not unless I give him control. I only gave him control because I was in pain and by giving him my body I would be asleep, unconscious, in a way."
"Unless you give him control?" Bill echoed. "You say that now , but you did it before." 'And yes , Stanley,' Bill thought sarcastically, 'I am remembering that for most things when tied down like this, effect comes after cause .' "Are you both you, or aren't you?" He frowned at him/them.
"Both of us...form me. I'm me because I was influenced by my human life and… My past life."
Bill thought for a moment. Had this 'him's reincarnation been… "How much weirdness is in your 'Falls?" Had Stanley punched them, too? A Stanley? The logistics of being himself and also living through life at different times that overlapped, with memories that would have to match as circumstances evolved… threatened to make Bill's mind ache all over again. Had to be two different Stanleys. They weren't that different if they'd both been trapped, which meant their prophecies had likely been the same, which meant Stanley was the keystone with the most leverage. Bill wouldn't be surprised if this other 'him' had died the same way.
--Maybe this 'him' hadn't come back whole from that, but as two different pieces that had never truly be combined yet, post-return. Could they be more cohesive here because they were pulling in the ambient weirdness, able to share more? Closer to no longer being as-separated? How separate were they? ...Should he even ask? He had never done something as extreme as this split sounded to be, or had become. Showing that much ignorance to their situation might be dangerous here...
Miz closed her eyes to start focusing. Crafting a Dreamscape? What would that even entail? Was it like when she formed her Madness Bubbles? That wasn't something Ax taught her. She did that all on her own. A brief thought distracted her. 'The AXOLOTL lied to her.' she shuddered violently. It… it couldn't be true right?
A part of her wanted to deny the other Bill's words. But...what if he was right. Would Ax REALLY lie to her?
Seb laughed and ran a hand through his new black hair. "How much weirdness? Lot's of weirdness! Gravity Falls is damn crazy, isn't it Miz!? ...Miz?"
Miz wasn't paying any attention to the world around her, too lost in her own worry. Dad wouldn't lie to her...he wouldn't right? But...it made so much sense. But why would he lie to her? Her lips trembled. She didn't want to believe it. She would need to talk to Ax about this the second she got home.
"I meant free-floating weirdness energy, not what the surrounding junk has all soaked up already," Bill said, rolling his eyes.
"Oh." Seb pouted. "No, I don't know. I can't feel it anyway."
Miz groaned and held her head. This line of thought was making her chest ache. And every other part of her. 'Just set this aside to think about later,' she shakes her head. Whatever the truth may end up being, she will deal with it later. She opens her eyes to see Sebastian pouting at the other Bill.
"What are you two talking about?" she asks.
"Gravity Falls and its weirdness." Seb looked at the girl, his brown and yellow eyes widening a bit when he saw her.
"Well my Earth doesn't even HAVE a Gravity Falls yet. I do have dinosaurs." She shrugs. "But if you mean Weirdness...um...there's a bunch of holes between the Nightmare Realm and the 3rd dimension where stuff is leaking out."
"You have DINOSAURS?!" Seb exclaimed. "THAT'S AWESOME!!" He roared. "Have you possessed one?! If you haven't, then I'll be really disappointed!"
Miz giggles. "Of course I've possessed one. I've possessed multiple ones!"
Bill blinked at them, but didn't say anything. He didn't even like possessing gnomes, and these two were going gaga for lizards with brains that small? '...I don't get it,' he thought, wondering if he was missing something. (If they really wanted to possess a useful and dangerous lizard, why not just grab one out of the intelligent Drac'fur species to make a Deal with, instead?)
"It's for the novelty of it." Miz explains, catching a faint idea of Bill's thoughts. "Something THAT dumb can't exactly fight back when I make them do what I want." She frowns. That...didn't sound very nice once she says it out loud.
"...But you can't talk to it," Bill said slowly, still not getting it. To him at least, THAT was half the FUN!
Miz sighs. "Yeah, that is a downside."
"Aaahhhh!!!!" Sebastian pulled his hair. "I wanna possess a dinosaur!! When we were kids, Ford always, always was giving us dino facts! He even got a book from the library," Seb smiles fondly at the memory. "The only time I saw one, it tried to eat Waddles and I…"
Bill kept his mouth firmly shut. He could see it coming a mile away. He didn't want to go on an ' adventure ' in the woods. If he told them about the dinosaurs in sap that were here ...
As if reading Bill's thoughts, the now black-haired man gasped. "Miz! I know where we can get dinos! There's a cave I found with Pinetree and Shooting Star!"
Bill let his head fall backwards on his stupid human-ish neck and groaned . --Because what was he going to do? Lie to his other 'him's and tell them they weren't there, when they actually were? ...They'd better not try to drag him along once they inevitably decided to go! He'd seen enough of how things went with Stanford and Fiddleford t ok see how things should go, way back when. He categorically REFUSED to be a Stanford in that situation, and he was no Fiddleford!
Miz perked up in excitement. "Oh! I know about that one! Didn't old man Glasses get eaten by one?"
"He isn't old where I come from, but yeah! He came out though because I saw him around town days later…" Seb smirked. Haha, poop.
"I always wondered how the fuck he managed that with just some spoons…" Miz mutters to herself.
Seb grinned at Miz and bit his lower lip. "Are ya thinking what I'm thinking?"
"Adventure~?" Miz grins so wide her face threatened to split.
"ADVENTURE!" Seb roared and extended his arms to her, inviting her to be picked up. Mabel liked to be on his shoulders, maybe Miz would like it too?
(...Yeesh, had Bill called it, or had he called it?)
Miz looked at the arms held out to her and hesitantly accepted their embrace.
The man laughed excitedly and quickly, easily picked her up and put her on his shoulders. Miz screamed a little in fear at the sudden movement.
"I think you are the one to blame." Seb grinned at her. "You made me tall." He commented and grabbed her ankles so she wouldn't fall.
Miz had her eyes closed shut and was squeezing Seb's neck tightly. She trembled a little. "D-don't you dare drop me!" She stammered.
"I'd never!" Seb pouted exaggeratedly. "I told you you are safe with me, didn't I?"
Bill pinched the bridge of his nose and glanced back over his shoulder at the Shack. Then he turned back to the two of them.