----
Well. Everyone in Dimension 52 already knew Miz was immortal. I didn't know if they realized I'm a god but I think most of them already suspected it. More importantly, they knew I was the person with the latest anime to share with them. We had secret viewing parties late at night in one of the larger rooms. Of course it had to be kept secret from Jessie because she's a buzz kill. But this latest one...I think even my dear stick in the mud sister would allow.
"Your anime is out?" Hutie squawked with excitement, flapping their arms and sending feathers everywhere. I squealed with pent up giddiness. "It's premiering today!"
Time worked so weird in the multiverse. Still, the show was finally coming out. I'm hoping people like it. I'm going to use the Credits I've earned from my books and the show to start establishing shelters. Paying for Federation ID's for any refugee or being in need. I couldn't use the Credits from Bill's account. Jan's accounts were already set to donate to charities and Xin didn't have a Federation account.
Neither did Yun. Or William. But I don't think I want to juggle that many identities.
"Jessie! Can we all watch the premiere of my show? Please~?" I begged. She laughed. "You're really that excited for this?" I nodded. "We all worked so hard on it!" The animators, the sound team, music, voice actors...everyone!
"Alright. We can all watch your first episode." Jessie relented. The maidens and I all cheered. Even Tina was on the hologram video chat on my Com so she could be with us. Woot! I can't wait to see their reactions!
The next half hour consisted of wild laughter at the wacky hijinks of a dysfunctional family. Some refugees and recovering patients were there as well. Everyone had a nice time. I caught Jheselbraum hiding a smile now and again. I passed out snacks for everyone, they were too distracted to ask where they came from. On screen, a Fairy and a Lich tried to start a vegetable garden together with humorously disastrous consequences.
It was fun and I nestled against my sister's side as she absently brushed a hand through my hair. "Looks like your work is going well." She told me. "I'm proud of you." I beamed. Praise felt good. I loved hearing it. I hoped the rest of the multiverse liked my anime too.
----
The first refugee shelter I set up was on the outskirts of a major city. The area wasn't very good, the environment was harsh and there were large beasts roaming the wilderness. Still, I got the area set up and turned it into a place where immigrants could stay and live while they applied for a Federation ID. It wasn't much but it was a start. I also asked Time Baby if he could try a little harder to help out with the corruption within the Federation. He WAS one of the council members after all. Even if he didn't do much with actually governing.
He said that wasn't his problem. "Hell YES it's your problem!" I argued back. "IF THEY DO ANYTHING TO DISRUPT THE TIMELINE, I SEND MY POLICE AFTER THEM. OTHERWISE THEY ARE FREE TO DO AS THEY WANT." I growled in frustration. "But they're...mean." I suppose that wasn't really a good argument but that's what it all came down to. I didn't like that people were mean to people. It was that simple. But simple or not, I couldn't go around forcing people to be kind to each other. I couldn't go around fucking with their minds until they were nicer to each other. Well, I COULD but I don't.
Life was hard sometimes.
Sometimes...I wished I was more terrible of a person. Someone capable of doing what needs to be done even despite my principles. But I'm not. I couldn't bring myself to directly alter someone's mind from the inside. Not in the way that I needed to. Sure, I knew all the techniques for brainwashing people the old fashioned way. I learned a lot from spying on the Federation...a lot. But even if I could, and have, used a few manipulation tactics here and there, outright altering a person's mind is a line I am unwilling to cross. I could send them nightmares to drive them mad, or to scare them into doing what I want, but I wouldn't go around fucking their Mindscapes.
I groaned as I returned home.
Hm...the whole...scaring people into being nicer might be a way to go…
----
Facey was more than happy to do that. Rather, I told him to just...ask people nicely to be kind to each other or he would visit them and watch them until they changed their ways. It was the same result either way.
Wow. They are quite terrifying.
Despite their grotesque appearance, I found myself warming up to it. They were kinda...adorable in a weird...horrifying way.
I have no idea if this would really work but it's a little experiment in a small dimension at the edge of the Federation's influence. I'll check on them in a few years to see how that's going.
---
The Earth was going well. I admit I got a little impatient about the development of technology and 'inspired' a few people here and there. This one dude went and founded Atlantis. That's pretty neat.
---
You know that thing where someone tells you not to do something and it makes you want to do it even more?
I entered the Void of Doors again.
Apologizing to dad in my head, I flew around and tried once again, to find Seb or Blue's doors.
Damn. What's Blue's dimension called? I remember I glance at it briefly when I left all those eons ago. At least Seb's should be easy to find. It was just Triplet AU…
I twitched.
There was a whole section of Doors with the words Triplet AU on them. I floated closer to check them out.
Triplet Flatland AU? Triplet Genderbend AU?? Triplet...royalty AU?!
What even the fuck??
I shook my head. You know what? I wasn't gonna deal with this right now.
I flew off to check out the other doors. There was a strange...buzzing sound as I passed one. I slowed down and stared at it. The door was...for a lack of a better word, flickering.
The buzzing sound was getting louder and I was getting an uneasy feeling. I backed away as the door began to twist. The flickering was getting worse, like the door was struggling to exist and turned into static as the buzzing sound became unbearable. I hid behind another door and shrunk myself down as small as I could, unsure what was happening but just...KNOWING that it wasn't good.
I stiffened when part of the door seemed to glitch and a hand slowly materialized out from the corner of it. I was frozen in horror at the…thing pulling, screeching, stretching, dragging itself out of the door. I watched in horror as a very familiar shape formed.
I stayed quiet and hoped it didn't see me. It finally wrenched its way free from its door, which spasmed into static and then vanished. I stayed still, small and dull and terrified.
Whatever this thing was, it looked like me...but...not. Even disregarding the way its body flicked, limbs appearing and disappearing or seeming to be a different size or from a different angle, there was something...fundamentally wrong with it. Its (his??) eye was wide, and darting around frantically. I pressed myself against the door frame and prayed it didn't see me.
I watched in horror as it screeched and twisted, turning to one of the other doors and ramming it, grabbing desperately at the door knob that miraculously remained locked. I didn't realize they locked, they opened just fine when I so much as touched them. It pounded on the door a few times before dragging itself away. I don't need to breathe but held my breath anyway.
What the fuck?! What the ACTUAL fuck?! I had to get home, I had to get home NOW. I waited for the thing to make its way past a few more doors before I chanced it, turning and flying as fast as I possibly could back to my own door, which I could FEEL the location of, my instinctive connection towards it. From behind, I hear it scream.
"Brx! Grq'w uxq! Frph zlwk ph! Jlyh ph brxu srzhu! Zh zloo ghvwurb wkhp wrjhwkhu! Zh zloo eh zkroh djdlq!"
"NO THANK YOU!" I squeaked as I flew. I could hear the static buzzing of collapsing space behind me. To my horror, it was getting closer. Fuck it, I wasn't going to make it to my door in time! I felt a twinge of familiarity. A sense of a door I had been through before. It was better than nothing.
I swerved towards that door instead, slamming into it at full speed and getting inside before immediately slamming it shut behind me. Before I was overwhelmed by the twisting of dimensional travel, I could hear its voice screaming in frustration as it couldn't get through the door.
---
(3rd person POV)
"...aaaaaAAAAAAHHHHH!!!" MizBill screamed as they toppled out of the air and slammed hard into some sort of barrier before sliding down into the dirt. Once again, not causing any damage because they were in the Mindscape. They laid there in the dirt, whimpering. "Fuck… where am I now?" MizBill looked around to get their bearings. It appeared to be Earth. Good. Uh… which dimension was this? He blinked and looked around. The Mystery Shack. Ok. That's… one thing. He floated off the ground and looked around. Ok… there was a barrier, and this was a world he's been to before. A quick flicker and…
"BLUE!" MizBill squealed. He was thrilled to make it back here! Even if it wasn't quite in the circumstances he'd been hoping for.
He/she watched as that local blue-and-black-haired female-bio-sexed cat-eyed human-ish-formed Bill Cipher kicked open the window to the attic room he was currently in, cursing in Galactic Standard as he jumped out of said window and half-ran half-slid down the side of the roof without slowing down. He yanked some curved tool out of his belt and used the lower gutters to perform a sort of somersault off of the side -- barely catching it before he would've launched himself off of it to what would have otherwise been a very rough and bone-breaking stop -- and instead kicked his feet and flipped himself up end-over-end down and onto his feet onto the ground, slowing himself down as he went.
Bill let go of the odd wooden tool, staggered a bit in place for a moment, then seemed to get his bearings and sprinted forward past the edge of the barrier.
"STANLEY!! VISITORS!!" Bill yelled out as loud as he could as he slid to a stop on the grass and, not a second and a half later, his hands and forearms went up in crackling blue flame. He let out a snarl as he spun in place, glaring upwards as he scanned the sky.
A red gash seemed to open up almost spontaneously across his forehead, slashing from the upper left of his hairline down nearly to his right eyebrow, and it began dripping blood into his right eye as he began to chant… then he trailed off and stopped, looking almost puzzled.
"...Miz?" Bill said, blinking as he stared upwards at her, and the fire along his arms pulled back down low to nearly a flicker of flame.
He stared a little longer, slowly lowering his arms, then started to grin.
"Kid?" Stanley called from inside the house, coming out onto the porch.
Bill dropped his chin to glance over at Stanley for a moment.
"IT'S FINE!" Bill called out, shaking his arms and hands out a bit like he was shaking off the flames -- which went out shortly thereafter.
"You sure?" Stan called back, sounding a bit skeptical as he walked his way off the porch and towards him slowly, taking his time.
"YES!" Bill called out again. He craned his head to look back up at Miz, but slowly dropped his chin to follow her progress as she floated in lower. "Seb with you? Or is this a 'solo' adventure this time?" he asked her with an not-quite lopsided grin, as he put his hands on his hips.
MizBill materialised his, HER, Miz vessel. She slipped into it and grinned at Bill. "Hi Bill! Long time no see! In person at least. Seb's not here right now…" Her smile flicked. "Eh… it was… kinda a surprise visit. I didn't quite mean to come here but it's nice that I did."
Bill tilted his head at her, not offended in the least. "Were you shooting for Seb's door, instead?" he asked, as Stanley came up to nearly stand beside him, watching them both. (Stan stayed inside the barrier, though it wasn't completely clear if that was on purpose or by accident, due to where and how Bill was standing.)
"Yeah. I was worried since I haven't been able to contact him. Also… uh… I discovered something problematic."
Bill's eyebrows went up.
"What's the problem?" he asked quite seriously, as he absently wiped at his right eye, which was weeping blood slightly. He glanced down at his palm for a moment, then grimaced, muttered a word, and all the blood on his forehead, face, and hand seemed to jump off of him and vanish mid-air. He looked back up at her.
"Good news and bad news. Good news, I found out what's been trying to get into my door. Bad news, it's scary as shit!!" Miz whined.
Bill smiled at her, then grinned.
"Tell me," he said. "I don't scare easy." Then something seemed to occur to him and he let out a laugh. "--THAT'D be a new one! Easy."
"...it was a Bill Cipher. Not you, a different one!"
Bill nodded, looking completely unsurprised.
"So, what's the scary part," Stan asked.
"It was… wrong… there was something wrong with it!" Miz shook her head.
At that, Bill frowned slightly. "Wrong, how?" he said, dropping his arms. It was clear to him that she meant something beyond 'an other-him/them that thought differently' and wouldn't get along with them, but he didn't get what the 'scary' part was yet.
Miz whimpered and looked down. "It… felt like… it wasn't supposed to exist… like… reality had rejected it, it didn't exist. It FELT like it didn't exist. But I could see it! I could HEAR it. But all my senses told me that there was nothing there. There… it wasn't supposed to be there!"
Bill blinked, and he looked to be at a slight loss.
"Not in the Mindscape?" he asked, still frowning. "You couldn't see it with your Eye?"
Miz nodded. "All my 'magical' senses told me that there was nothing there. And… I just got this really foreboding feeling… like… like it would make ME stop existing if it touched me!"
Bill's frown deepened. He stared at her for a moment, then turned his head to look at Stanley. (Bill wasn't used to the idea of not being able to trust his senses. As far as Bill was concerned, that was a human thing.)
Stanley glanced over at Bill, then looked back to Miz. "What did it look like," Stan asked her in his usual gruff gravelly tones. He was frowning a little too. Miz bit her lip and rubbed one of her arms. Her initial joy at seeing Bill again had been quickly overtaken by the panic at the memory of that… thing.
"Kid, don't worry," Stan said, picking up on her nervousness. "This one," he tossed a thumb at Bill, "Has things set up so nobody should be getting through to here that we don't want here, though I guess you're on the guest list." He glanced over at Bill, who grinned at this. He'd tried to be pretty careful about how he'd set and defined the parameters for 'Bill's and 'other-Bill's. (And as far as Bill was concerned, it was working exactly the way he'd wanted it to!) "Yeah. Anyway, kid's been working on a bunch of stuff for that -- plus a couple of nasty surprises too, just in case anybody we don't want here does start to make their way through," he added, shrugging.
Bill nodded as 'encouragingly' at her as he could, grinning at her again.
Miz nodded. Well, she made sure to slam the door shut and could HEAR that it couldn't get in. "Well… it… looked kinda like a Bill Cipher but it kept… glitching. Like a TV screen going bad and the images distorting…"
Bill didn't seem to understand what she was meaning, given how he started to frown again, but Stan straightened in place a bit.
"Can you show us?" Bill asked. "Like this?" He waved a hand, and snapped his fingers loud enough that the keyword he nearly subvocalized wasn't truly audible, as he visualized the appropriate mental mandala-spell for what he wanted to have magically happen. Almost immediately, an illusion of a flowering bush sprung into place next to him before slowly fading out, as a demonstration of what he meant.
Miz nodded. The adrenaline from the mad dash to escape fading as the fear finally set in. She shook a little but held out a hand and an image appeared… sort of. Despite the image of that thing being so clear in her mind, she couldn't… quite… focus on it. Still, the illusion she made was a large Bill Cipher, twisted, distorted, flickering into static and fading in and out of existence. She could only hold the image for around 10 seconds before her hand twitched and dropped. "I-I'm sorry… its… hard…"
Bill stared at the illusion the entire time it was there, expressionless. After she dropped it, he turned to her, blinked, then suddenly smiled and took a few steps forward, to stop in place right in front of her.
"Good job, kid!" Bill said, with the smile fixed unchanging on his face. And he lifted his hand up and patted her on the head in a way that would have come across as awkward… if it hadn't been clear that he was in no way embarrassed by what he was doing -- he just no idea what he was doing, other than trying to do a supportive-human thing for her. Miz still leaned into the touch, craving any sort of comfort after her close brush with non-existence.
(Stan was watching them both carefully as they did this. ...He'd been watching them both closely, ever since he'd come outside.)
Bill blinked at Miz's reaction, the smile slowly fading, then he let the palm of his hand just lay in place on top of her head, almost experimentally. ('A wild Miz likes touch. What will she do if I do this?') Miz looked up and reached up to hug Bill gently. She was still shaking. Bill didn't pull away, but he did go a bit rigid right before she wrapped her arms around him, and went completely still once she had.
"RIGHT! THIS IS FINE! NO BITING! I AM NOT FOOD!" Bill said very loudly, clearly and openly uncomfortable with what she was doing, but he was also just as clearly not trying to shove her off or make her stop, either.
Stan snorted. He walked forward and dropped his hand onto the top of Bill's head. Miz nodded, her face buried in his chest. "I won't bite. I don't bite friends." She said quietly as she tried to make her shivering stop.
"RIGHT. GOOD. YES. --WAIT." Bill's expression froze, and he slowly by degrees tilted his chin down to stare down at her. "...Friends?" he said very very slowly.
Miz nodded. "I mean...you helped me out a lot and you're nice. So you're my friend." she slowly unwrapped her arms to step away and look up at him. "Isn't...that how friends work?"
Bill said nothing for a long moment.
"No," Bill said firmly. Then he opened his mouth to say something else, but instead let out a soft 'Ack whyyyyyyyy--!!' next as Stanley mussed up his hair pretty badly.
"Explain it, kid," Stan told Bill, as Bill started whistle-clicking complaints at him. "Pretty sure you don't mean what that just sounded like to us humans." Miz looked over at Stan and seemed confused. "What, you're the used-to-be-human demon one; right, dragon-lady?" he gave her a knowing look and a ghost of an 'I know something you don't know' smile.
"Nnnnnn--AAH! STOP!" Bill said, batting Stan's hand away. "Not a friend. We're not only working together while we're USEFUL. And she's not going to BACKSTAB me later when she gets bored for NO reason!" he spat out at Stan, glaring and looking almost offended on Miz's behalf.
"Uh...a friend, to me is someone that I will help, protect and care for. Almost like a brother." Miz explained. She was starting to get how Bill worked, he didn't have the same definitions for stuff. Probably a language issue.
Bill seemed to stop in place for a moment, twisting his head back on his neck to stare at her. Stan eyed Bill sideways, then said almost lightly, and maybe a little leadingly, while still watching 'his' Bill, "...Or maybe a sister?"
Bill looked away from them both. He shifted from foot to foot, then back again, almost swaying, a bit like his torso was bobbing in mid-air. It was the least-human looking motion from him that he'd shown while outside with them so far.
"...maybe," Bill muttered after a good long while. Mostly, he looked like he really didn't know what to think yet, except that he was in the middle of thinking deeply, with the odd frown he had going.
"Well, there ya go," Stan said, like that was that. "Chose yourself a new younger sibling there, good job kid," he told Bill plainly, though he had almost a smirk in his eyes, as he looked at Bill, then back over to Miz. "Unless you don't want him?" It wasn't really a question, exactly. It definitely wasn't leading; it was clear that Stan was sure that Miz would say 'yes' if asked.
"I never turn down more family. Especially not brothers or sisters!" Miz said firmly. She winced and looked embarrassed. "I mean...i-if it's not too forward of me…" She shuffled her feet and pulled at her shirt.
Bill looked back over at her, and his entire body language punctuated the shocked look on his face. "Yes -- no -- mm." Bill stopped talking for a moment, then shook his head briskly. "You-- shouldn't just take anyone," Bill said, then added, "Whether they want you or not," almost under his breath. Then he straightened a bit and added with a great deal more put-on bravado, "HAVE SOME STANDARDS!"
"Said the kid with almost no standards," Stan said with a smile, ruffling Bill's hair again. He kept it up through a bit of Bill's complaining (which went something along the lines of 'OF COURSE I HAVE STANDARDS! STANLEY!!!'), then dropped his hand again. "Y'know, I saw something like that thing you showed us before," he told them both a little more seriously. "It was--"
"--Stanley??" they all heard a certain nerd-owl call out from the bowels of the house.
"Oh, wonderful," Bill muttered, looking thoroughly pissed off already, as he glanced over at the house.
Stan glanced over at the back porch, then said quickly, "--when you were melting inside my head, kid. 'Look at me,'" he said, tapping his own forehead with a finger.
Bill looked over at him, startled by his words. He didn't get the gesture -- he was just perturbed by the words, which he did recognize. Nor did Bill understand or quite pick up on the relevance of the next gesture he saw, when Stan ticked his head at him, then Miz, before he turned away from them. He just stared after Stan, as Stan started walking back to the Shack a lot faster than he'd walked away from it, to meet Ford almost at the doorway, with Mabel and Dipper at each side.
Bill looked over at Miz.
"...Little …sister...?" he said slowly. He tilted his head at her sideways, just as slowly.
Miz's smile lit up her face and she blushed. A brother! A brother! Oh...oh my god! She covered her face and squealed. "Y-yes!" she wiggled and looked like she wanted to hug Bill again.
"WELL." Bill blinked at her, then blinked at her again. He had NOT been expecting that level of happiness as a response. (He'd barely been expecting the 'yes'. Actually, he hadn't really expected a 'yes' at all.) "Well. Sister. Yes." He paused. "I decided. You decided. We decided." He shifted in place slightly. "So it's official," he said almost authoritatively, as if he thought saying it was official would make it official all of a sudden. Then for a moment Bill looked almost uncomfortable. That moment passed, and he straightened in place and said, "No take-backs." It came across almost challengingly, like he expected her to say 'no' to that.
Miz giggled, somewhat hysterically as she was still hyped up on nerves. Both the fading fear of meeting that...thing, and the blinding joy of having Bill accept being her new brother. "Of course not big brother!" She even sprouted a tail to wag.
"Right. Yes." Now Bill looked slightly nervous, as he was sort of starting to realize what exactly he'd just done, in terms of how he himself thought about things. (And then it occurred to him, as he stared down at this very happy-looking Miz…)
('Liam won't mind that I… we?... have a little sister now, too, once I bring him back… right?')
(Bill's mind spun through a few almost-fretful iterations of that thought, as he stared down at his new little sister, before finally settling on: 'Well, Liam can take care of me, and I can take care of her. He doesn't have to take care of her if he doesn't want to; that's my job.')
He reached out slowly with a hand, then patted her on the head again, still a bit expressionless as he did so; his eyes were just a touch wider than usual. Miz nuzzled into his hand, finally calmed down. (Bill blinked at her rapidly as she did so.) She was safe here. That...thing, can't get in. It wouldn't be able to touch her.
Ford was just staring at them with his mouth agape. "What's even… happening??" Then he got a storm-cloud sort of frown. "Wait…" he said, as he saw the tail and something clicked for him, all-at-once. And Ford looked more than a little uncomfortably wild-eyed, as he quickly cupped his hands over his mouth and tried to do what he thought was the right thing, even for a man-eating dragon, because Bill was Bill and--
"GET AWAY FROM HIM! HE'S GOING TO EAT YOU BEFORE YOU CAN EAT HIM!!" they heard Ford yell out at them both.
Stan muttered something they couldn't hear from how far away he was standing from them, while passing a hand over his face. Mabel and Dipper both looked up at their Great-Uncle with very different looks on each of their faces, in reaction to his warning, while Bill turned his head back towards him and yelled, "I'M NOT GOING TO--" then clearly gave up, muttering vile things under his breath in Galactic Standard at the idiot.
...But then Bill stopped in the middle of a word.
And he paused.
And then he brightened up slightly and got a truly diabolical grin.
He glanced down at Miz and said, "One minute!" brightly.
And then he removed his hand from her head and walked with a spring in his step back into the barrier and practically skipped his way up onto the porch.
Ford did not look very comfortable with whatever he knew Bill must be up to, nor did his look get any less suspicious when Bill held out a hand at him and made a come-hither sort of gesture, before demanding, "Give the things to me."
"...What things…?" Ford said slowly, making it sound like a 'no'.
Bill stopped, then turned to face Stanley. "I want the bracelets." he told Stanley. "Make that Stanford give them to you, and then give them to me." Stanley looked at him blandly. "That a good idea?" Stan asked him, except it wasn't a question.
"I'm going to FIX them!" Bill said, grinning up a storm. Stan gave him a long look. "...Yeah, okay," Stan said, shrugging, and then he turned to Ford.
There was a bit of not very happy back-and-forth between the older twins, before Ford huffed out something of a snarl and shoved his hands deep into his coat pockets. He pulled out the explosive bracelets and held them out to Bill, with almost a nasty glint in his eye.
Bill glanced over at Stanley, who said, "Go ahead and take 'em."
Ford didn't look happy when Bill took them from him, because when he let go of his own grip on them... Bill's arms didn't practically fall off at the weight of them this time. Bill turned right around and walked right back over to Miz where she was waiting outside the barrier.
And about three steps before he crossed the barrier line, he called out to her, "Give me another minute, I need to fix them!" As he crossed it, he informed her while grinning at her winningly, "They're COMPLETELY BROKEN!"
Miz blinked and rubbed her face to hide her flickering as she looked up what these bracelets were, oh. Explosives used for a sick game. She wasn't even surprised, there were some really twisted people out there. Bill grinned at her, then without fanfare he dropped the bracelets to the ground, pulled out a pocket knife, sat down, flipped it open, and got to work, muttering spellwords and making short carving motions with the knife over the metal.
He made a few flinging motions at the sky, and there was an explosion -- then a second one -- both of which rattled the Shack's windows.
There was a scuffle on the porch after that, where Ford pulled his gun, and Stanley shoved his arm back down and got into an argument with him. ...All of which Bill completely and willfully ignored.
It wasn't long before Bill had the bracelets in sections, much of the metallic material discarded, and the resulting four half-circlets smoothed out and fitting together easily at the flat -- not interlocking -- seams.
"Magnetic clasps," Bill told Miz, not looking up at her as he continued to work smoothly and diligently on them, smoothly carving glyphs and runes across the surface of each circlet in turn. He did it in efficient flowing motions, with what looked like a clear intent in mind. "Passive, constant strength. Shouldn't be able to stick-stuck-closed, no worries! No more explosives either, aaaaaand…" He made a few last swipes across the outer edges of the final half-circlet. "You have some stylish silver-platinum 'anti-magic' bracelets!" he told her, looking up at her and grinning, before looking down at said bracelets again and giving them a quick but careful once-over, in a final check of the visible spellwork he'd just carved into them. "...Which I think you will like VERY MUCH because they CANCEL OUT SPELLS like, HMMMMM, a mystical barrier that some idiot thought to set up around the house here? So that you can enter it?" he told her, then his grin widened. "To stop the barrier from SUPPRESSING and FORCING OUT your WEIRD little self." Then Bill finished making a few final touches to the bracelets, set them down, flipped his knife shut, and looked up at her.
Bill waited for her response to this pronouncement with bright eyes and an almost-expectant, not-quite-innocent look on his face. He looked a little like he'd just performed some great trick and was looking forward to his audience-of-one's response -- and from how Bill took what she did next, she didn't disappoint him.
Miz gasped. "That's amazing!" she praised. Using an anti-magic item to cancel out barriers? She hadn't even considered that… Hm… this could be useful information to know in the future. "So I can get past the barrier?" she asked, and Bill nodded at her, barely holding back a grin. A slow, mischievous grin formed on her face. She glanced over at Ford and couldn't help but blush faintly. Damn, he was still hot...
Bill held up the bracelets to her, she took the bracelets from him and clicked them on. "Thanks for taking the explosives out. I'd probably survive them, but it would ruin the vessel," she giggled as she slowly stepped past the boundaries of the barrier.
Ford went pale. Fuck. The man-eater was inside. They were no longer anything like safe. "What have you done?!" he demanded of Bill. "She's dangerous!" He tried to pull up his gun again but Stan smacked his hand down once more.
"So are you." Bill said it blandly, as he got to his feet and walked towards them himself, catching up to Miz quickly as she waited a moment for him before they both headed for the porch where the rest of them were. "So is Stanley; so am I; so are Pine Tree and Shooting Star. What's your point?" Bill asked, though it was clear from his tone that he felt it was a rhetorical question because he didn't care what the answer was.
Ford was staring at the young dragon. She looked so small and innocent, with her dress and her cute little smile, but he SAW her EAT her companion. "S-she eats people!"
"Ford," Stan said to his brother in almost-warning tones. "We talked about this. You saw the footage from the security cameras in that bunker of yours. We all did. And I talked to 'em both when they showed up here, after. The other one was fine."
"She's not going to eat any of you," Bill said. "That would annoy me!" He grinned at Ford as he said this, but he looked a bit angry as well. Miz herself pouted. "I didn't eat Seb. I ate the vessel he discarded after he left it. It was just a meat sack without him and I didn't want to waste it."
"Not like you aren't all cannibals, anyway," Bill added, and at Ford's self-righteous squawk of protest, he added further, "Those 'Stancakes' have his hair in them, don't they?" Bill thrust a finger at Stanley. "You eat 'human' all the time!"
Stan coughed once into his hand.
"Ew…" Miz said. "He just...drops hair into the food?" she shuddered at how unhygienic that was. She always made sure to pluck out all hair from the meats of the animals she butchers for her family. They couldn't digest it anyway (except Ammy) and enough swallowed hair, especially long strands of it, would give them intestinal problems.
"--I KNOW!!!" Bill yelled out, "AND THEY EAT IT!" he added, waving his arms around, while looking that kind of gratified-relieved-happy that people only get when they meet somebody who finally UNDERSTANDS them.
"Hey, we usually catch all of them," Dipper muttered out, and Ford looked to be in similar agreement on that front.
Mabel, by contrast, turned to Dipper and said, "Whaaaaaat? --Dipper, that's the best part!" Miz stared at Mabel in horror. "You eat them on PURPOSE?!"
"Wellllllll..." Mabel said, scuffing her shoe against the floorboards.
"Don't ever ask what she eats," Bill told Miz as a not-all-that-quiet aside in clear warning tones. "EVER." Then he straightened up and added, quite brightly, "And that is why we do not eat humans! Especially THESE ones!" he told her, punctuating his ending remark with a sweeping gesture. (Stan covered a snicker with another cough into his hand.)
Miz pouted. "Well… yeah, I see your point. I'm not gonna eat them. They're yours after all. That'd be rude." Ford looked like he wasn't sure if he should be relieved that the dragon had agreed not to eat them, or absolutely insulted that she thought they belonged to Bill. (And the fact that Bill wasn't correcting her…)
"EXACTLY!" Bill enthused, "That, too!" He looked a bit gratified at both being right about this and not even having to owe a favor in asking after it, and at getting his point across so easily. Dipper was burying his face in his hands. Mabel still looked slightly embarrassed about being judged for eating Grunkle Stan's hair...
Mabel shrugged. "It's his love...so...y'know…" She shifted from leg to leg. Dipper let out a frustrated sound. Why did she have to be like this?
"Eh, 'you do you', kid. ...Right?" Bill told Mabel, then turned and asked of Stanley -- because Bill wasn't quite sure if he'd gotten the context of that right for humans, in the same way that he'd seen his Question Mark use it. (He wasn't in the Mindscape and couldn't just read anyone's thoughts, to check without asking directly.) He got a nod for his efforts. "Right!" Bill then turned to Miz. "Want to see my attic room?" he asked of her, with a grin.
"Oh… um… really? I'd love to, big brother!" Miz smiled back, catching the hidden meaning of 'Let's go talk in private' under Bill's offer. They had a lot to discuss.
"HAHA!" Bill enthused with his old triangle demon levels of energy and excitement. "THIS WAY!"
And he took a careful hold of the corner of her sleeve and not quite dragged her into the house -- maneuvering around the Pines in the doorway -- at almost a run.
"What did she just say???" Ford exclaimed belatedly, sounding like he was on the verge of having either a heart attack, a mental meltdown, or both, just as soon as what he'd just heard Miz say actually completely registered with him.
Stan snickered. "I wanted the kid to find a friend, and this is WAY better." He grinned as the two raced away into the Shack and began thundering their way up the stairs, then glanced over at his own twin brother. "Trust me on this."
Ford gave him a highly skeptical look, then paled. Then colored, then paled again. ...Then made a choking sound as the idea of Bill having a 'sister' really hit him.
"Stanley," he told his brother with grim sincerity, after taking a long and necessary moment to compose himself. "You have no idea what you've done."
"Yeah, I do," Stan said, smiling. "It's gonna be great."
"No, you don't," Ford said. "He's going to kill her."
Stan turned and looked at him.
"Ford," Stan said slowly. "I am pretty sure that the only reason that kid wouldn't die for her, is because he thinks he'd need to live to keep on helping her out."
There was a pause.
"Well then, congratulations, Stanley," Ford told his twin caustically. "He has you completely fooled." Stan frowned at his brother dourly as Ford turned on his heel, and in the process firmly turned his back on him. "I'm going back down to the basement," Ford informed him.
"You do that," Stan said colorlessly, crossing his arms and mentally stepping back from the ledge and away from the fight.
Dipper and Mabel glanced between their two Grunkles, then seemed to make a decision between them and both followed him down. Stan didn't blame them; Ford definitely needed them right now more than he did.
Stan himself glanced up at the ceiling, and he shrugged to himself before walking back inside the Shack.
---
Miz looked around as she followed Bill inside. This was different from Seb's shack. A little. The layout was much the same but the decor was quite different. A lot of the triangles inside the house appeared to be gone. The bracelets felt weird. She could feel the back and forth of the different forces interacting. It was a fascinating feeling. She could probably reverse engineer this.
"Brother?" she asked quietly. Bill nodded once at the 'brother', then shook his head. "Upstairs first," he said, as they crossed the next landing to scale the next staircase. She nodded. Privacy. Protections. Bill didn't want anyone to hear their conversation.
Once they made their way up the last flight of stairs, and crossed the first threshold of runes into the room, Bill waved a hand and muttered a few things, and the set of spells he had active up there shifted again into a different configuration -- several floating 'spell globes' of light flickered into being and spun themselves into different positions around the room; the 'area at the landing' shrunk back to the top of the staircase, with the permissions for Dipper to enter into that area being automatically revoked; Mabel's permissions for movement around the entire attic area except the outermost boundaries and walls were revoked as well, while Stanley's full-access permissions were retained. Another gesture, and Bill reinstated the physical barriers that only allowed light and sound to pass one-way through the area surrounding the staircase -- into the room, not out of it -- and a third gesture finished fully soundproofing the room.
A final gesture slid the curtains on the window shut.
Miz watched, learned. It looked easy but there was a lot of spellwork woven into the area to make this possible. Miz was impressed. She was already analyzing it for possible methods of improvement. "Ooh…"
"Temperature good?" Bill asked, as he walked over to the side and pulled out some cushions for them to sit on. "I like it warmer; still working on controlling this stupid human-ish body 'properly'," he explained with a grimace. "Internal temperature regulation. So finicky."
Miz nodded. "It's fine. I personally keep my own penthouse on the colder side in case I catch fire." Bill frowned thoughtfully for a moment, then pulled out his knife and made a few more gestures at the wall behind him, so he could more easily modify the temperature of the room in parts if she decided she felt (or wanted to feel) differently later. She inspected the spellwork as Bill sat down on one of the cushions and watched her sedately. "Hey, if you connected the strands into this node here, you could cut down on the energy cost by a third." she pointed out. Her personal study on magic hasn't stopped even after she had been expelled from Boarpimple.
"Yes," Bill told her, "But I want that" -- he pointed at the node -- "to collapse into those others in a cascade," it was clear from the current connections to the node what he was referring to there, "to power the rest of those circuits," he said, as he made another short gesture to another remotely-connected piece of spellwork rune-circuitry, one she just hadn't gotten a chance to look over yet, "In case that idiot Stanford tries to overpower the physical barrier over there," he gestured at the staircase. "Global robustness and fallbacks trump local efficiency in this case, unfortunately." Bill grimaced. "Live too close to the bleeding edge of 'efficiency' and you can get cut by it," was the general bit of wisdom he shared with her next.
Miz groaned. "You mean Ford tries to break into your room? What a creep." Had that idiot not learned anything?
"He will sooner or later,' Bill told her. "It's only a matter of time. ...And he may try to do it from the walls or the floor. ...Roof probably won't occur to him, though," Bill added, almost reflectively. Miz sighed. "Is that... shouldn't Stan let him know how creepy that is?" Miz shuddered at the idea of someone breaking into her room.
"It's not creepy," Bill told her. "He wants me dead. Why wouldn't he attack me?" Miz rolled her eyes. "Well, Ford's human, and for humans, an older man breaking into the room of a young woman, which is what your human-ish body currently is, is considered creepy and possibly illegal."
Bill let out a short, actually-human laugh, then shifted into a cross-legged posture on his cushion and propped his chin up on his palm. "That Stanford -- and the rest of my Zodiac -- know I'm a guy, not a girl," he told her. "And those Pines know that Ford wants to kill me without laying a finger on me. --That is the right phrase, right?" he asked her curiously.
Miz nodded. "I always wondered about that phrase. 'Lay a finger, lay a hand or Touch a hair on their head'. Isn't that kinda specific?"
"It's history, kid. And not that ancient," Bill informed her. "Some 'creep' knocks somebody out, they can take their sweet time doing anything they want to them. Touching them however they want. Run their hands across them. Grab their hair. Whatever. they. want. And if that somebody wakes up, then that 'creep' has to physically hold 'em down, 'laying' parts on other-parts…" Bill shrugged. He'd Seen it all before, in so many different variations, it was boring really. A violation of physical boundaries in order to break the mind attached to it? Tch. Amateur hour. --No imagination! (And more often than not, all that sort of violation left behind after someone's 'playtime' was over was a shattered unusable mess -- sometimes one that needed to be rebuilt almost from the ground up before it was useful again -- and who had the time for that? Stupid. Wasteful. There were better, even easier, ways… But why even bother with any of that? Why not simply have a willing puppet instead? It wasn't that hard! Especially if you didn't need one particular someone specifically, just a being in a nearby location and conforming to a type, and even the 'nearby' wasn't always that necessary...)
Miz shuddered. "Sounds awful…" She imagined being grabbed and held down. No. No. Horrible, scary, won't let that happen again...
Was it awful? Bill pondered that one. --Wasteful yes, but… Bill had to stop and think about that. "...Maybe?" he said after a while. "Sensation does feel different this way," he noted, gesturing at himself. The sensations he'd been able to receive when wearing his puppets the way he had, had been a bit different than this. ...He'd never really thought about it that way before; before, ANY sensation had been better than nothing. "Eh, still think they're a bunch of whiners," he said after thinking on it awhile. Ford had caused him pain in his current human-ish body, and he hadn't had any real problems handling it -- so was it really all that different? He shrugged again. "I've Seen far worse," he said truthfully.
Miz shivered. "Seen it too. Still awful. There were some aliens I've met that would capture others, have their way with them and then kill them." She frowned ...and so did Bill. "Kid," he told her seriously. "It's not the ones that kill that you really have to look out for. It's the ones that DON'T."
Miz nodded. "I know." She looked around, noting the wide-open room was large, and the rafters were deep, but every single corner of it was well-lit with no real areas of shadow, despite the fact that the number of floating lights Bill had lit up here was hovering in the single-digits and the curtains were closed on top of that. "I don't know if that thing is still outside. C-can I stay with you until I'm sure it's gone?"
"Yes," Bill told her. "You can stay as long as you like." He paused for a moment, as he got a feeling like something was missing from that, and then realized what it was. "And you can always come back whenever you want," he added, flicking open his knife again and easily carving a few lines and swirls into the wooden plank of the floor next to him. He flicked his knife closed when he was done, whispered a word, and with that he permanently added her to the full-access permissions for this space. It was something that even Stanley didn't have -- and once the process completed, Bill would have to remove every last rune and glyph in the room and start over from scratch completely, to take away her access after that.
Multiple sets of new runes scraped themselves into the walls, over and over and over again at each of the main regulatory control nodes, glowing brightly in sequence as they sprung into being, with that glow fading out slowly as those new runes connected into the larger whole and fed in their energy, while still others sprung into being and the process repeated. It took about a minute for the last set of corrections being forced into place around the room to finish being scraped in, powering up, and fading as they fell into taking on a more balanced control load.
Miz stared at the shifting power, understood what it meant, and gave Bill a grateful smile. "Thank you," she said. She paused. "Do... you know what that thing I saw was?" She sat down on a free spot and bit her lip.
Bill grimaced. "Yes. No. Maybe." He looked uncomfortable. Then he smiled at her. "You can sit anywhere, you know. --Dangle off the ceiling, even! You can't scratch or disrupt any of this without something like this." He flipped open his knife again, then flipped it in the air, to catch it by the blade and offer it to her handle-first. "I hardened everything. Part of the base setup. You could use anything else on the floor and the anything-else would break first," he told her as she took it from him. "Same with the rest of the walls. --You can 'clone' that if you want," he added as she looked it over. "Should work fine without disrupting anything intrinsic, if you do it the same way as you did the alcohol bottle." He'd tried to account for allowing that sort of thing with most of his tools, just in case he needed a quick-copy for himself or someone else in the future.
Miz nodded. She played with the knife a little, scanning it to understand how to connect to and modify the protections and enchantments in the room, before returning to the subject. "You...know what that thing was? Or at least, do you have a suspicion about it?" She asked quietly. She caught the words Bill and Stan had exchanged.
"'Suspicion' is more accurate," Bill admitted. He let out a breath, looked away from her, then looked back at her straight on.
"I died," he told her. Then he grimaced again. "At least, I think I did. Probably."
Miz nodded. She knew that from her memories of canon, and this world, despite being quite different, felt like it had followed canon up to a point. "A memory gun right?" She clarified.
Bill blinked at her. "Yes." He made a gun-hand gesture, at his right temple. "I wasn't thinking clearly, because of my deal with that Stanford. I didn't look before I leaped." He grimaced. "I made a Deal with Stanley, jumped into his mind instead. He wasn't letting me leave, even after I realized I was inside the wrong mind, and wanted to leave. I didn't get out before or during the shot that Stanford took with that stupid gun." Bill visibly shuddered. Loss of memory was loss of self, straight-up Death-with-a-capital-D, as far as he was concerned.
Miz shivered as well. The idea of memories being erased was horrifying. Her memories were all she had of who she was. She couldn't bear losing any of that. "I-I've Seen it with other Bills. It…" she paused. "Was that thing similar to that?"
"Not... exactly," Bill said. He looked uncomfortable again. "When everything was coming apart… I was coming apart. I…" He shook his head hard, looking irritated. "I called its name." He looked back up at her. "I don't know what my coming apart looked like from… the outside," he said, thinking of what Stanley had said. "But… I was able to pull myself together after that. Somewhat. Mostly. I… I don't think I was that unstable, but…" Bill looked even more irritated and uncomfortable. "I reached out for Stanley, tried to grab him." He lifted a hand to his own forehead, tapped at it once, then drew a diagonal line across it, exactly where he'd started bleeding from outside. "He punched me right in the Eye." He grimaced. "I came apart at the seams. Couldn't hold anything together."
Miz winced. Yeah. "You shattered...it looked awful." on the show it was a super cool moment, what with the triumphant soundtrack and everything, but knowing that it actually happened to someone. That must have sucked.
"Yes. It hurt too much. I lost cohesion." Bill sighed and dropped his hand to his lap. "But… I don't think everything had burned down yet." He grimaced. "I don't think there was any plucking, and I don't think I burned completely. It was hard to think, but…" he shook his head again. He looked grim and angry now.
"Well...from what I could See, Stan...grabbed a memory of an image of his family...before he finished burning. I...I don't know what happened inside his head after that."
"Finished burning, probably. That is his line. 'Don't mess with my family.'" Bill recited from memory. The line he didn't dare cross -- not without expecting severe repercussions that he'd have to plan for carefully, to handle without dying again... or worse. "I DON'T think that stupid lizard actually intervened. --Because, ha, why SHOULD it?" Bill said with a great deal of derision, and it was clear that he was more angry with himself for having believed what he had, than actually angry at the Axolotl for having lied to him about it. Like he thought he should've known better, should have been smart enough to have questioned it sooner.
Bill let out another sigh, and rubbed the side of his hand against his right temple, back and forth. "Next thing I remember after that is waking up on the porch, like this," he gestured down at himself. "Except male." Stupid cultists.
Miz considered it. "There...was another dimension I've seen, in which Dipper and Mabel somehow managed to get into the Space Between Spaces and meet the Ax- ah...meet Ax." She commented. "And that Dipper asked Ax for information about Bill Cipher. He gave Dipper a prophecy, which mentioned something like 'One way to absolve his crime, a different form, a different time' which seemed to be the same prophecy that Seb had gotten hit with, considering his circumstances…" she frowned. "But I think the effects of that prophecy are actually different for different Bills."
She fiddled with her fingers. "What I'm trying to say is, what if Ax told you a different prophecy from the real one he decided to hit you with?"
Could Ax do that? Maybe? It was a scary thought. The idea that Ax would lie...well...he does. Or at least, he hides things from her. She knew he did. It annoyed her, how Ax treated her like a child who should be kept ignorant because she 'wasn't ready' to learn something. Augh...stupid Ax...she was plenty old enough to know stuff!
Bill let out a long breath. "If 'my' stupid lizard rolled back time on any of my Zodiac…" Bill looked a whole new kind of pissed off. "It does that when you ask it questions, you know. Makes it so it NEVER HAPPENED. Cheats. --I'm almost certain." Bill paused for a moment, before trying to handle what had sounded to him like her higher-priority point. "I don't know if your iteration-piece of the stupid lizard does it differently -- if you get to pick your prophecy or even NOT have one AT ALL, I'm thinking YES, differently -- but…"
Miz sighed. "Ax said I could write it together with him and make something I'm happy with but I don't really know what to do. There are just so many ways things could go wrong." She kicked her feet a little. "He said that a confrontation with my Zodiac was pretty much a fixed point and a prophecy would ensure I wouldn't STAY dead if the worse comes to worse."
Not that she thought it would come to that. She wasn't going to harm the humans (at least she wasn't planning to do so) and they wouldn't have any reason to hurt her… right?
Bill pulled a face and leaned back away from her. "How would a prophecy ensure THAT? The stupid lizard's prophecies aren't SELF-FULFILLING. You have to WORK for them. --And you'd be giving it an IN to do WHATEVER IT WANTED to you, if you went with IT. There are NO guarantees that it will actually help you." Bill frowned. "There are other ways."
Bill looked away from her. "Stupid lizard tells prophecies from the point of view of the listener, at least from what I've Seen. Anything I Saw that brought ME up as some PIECE of it seemed consistent with everything that it told me." He glanced back over at her. "Maybe it COULD have lied to me and EVERYONE ELSE about what my prophecy was, but why bother? I BARELY made it out of there TRYING to follow what it DID give me! I WOULDN'T have FIGURED IT OUT on my own!" And Bill had really hated that, too. The prophecy he'd gotten had been the ONLY way that he MIGHT be able to escape his old decaying dimension, eventually. It hadn't been even close to self-fulfilling; it had barely been a chance at all. --With the prophecy he had gotten, the damn lizard had damn near slammed every last form of exit that was possible firmly shut, locked the last door on him, and thrown away the key! "It didn't HAVE to tell me. I could have STAYED stuck. Trapped. Unable to get out." It wasn't as though Bill hadn't effectively spat in the stupid lizard's face and tried everything else he could think of to get out in the meantime, before the first verse had hit. But nothing else had worked. Nothing else had ever even come CLOSE to working. So he'd been stuck with that stupid prophecy in the end, trying desperately to figure out a way to make it work. "But YES. The effects are probably different because each of US are different, at least a little," Bill agreed with her. "We're its experiments."
"Experiments?" Miz frowned. "For what? Making the perfect universe or something?"
"HA!" Bill laughed out. "Not unless it WANTS one of us to do what I'M planning on doing, and KILL IT." Bill shrugged. "No idea what it's trying to figure out from us. ...Well, maybe a few ideas. But what else would YOU call it? It CREATED us, it ISOLATED us, it WATCHES us, and it MESSES with us to see how we REACT to things."
Miz hummed. "Maybe it wants to see what it takes to make Bill Cipher...Bill Cipher? From what I can tell, we have different starting circumstances, even if they're similar."
"Maybe," Bill allowed. "But which one of us it's trying to figure out is… it might be the demon-from-the-outside one of us, maybe. I don't have PROOF, though." Bill looked annoyed. "I don't have ANYTHING. --I didn't even know FOR CERTAIN that there WERE other BILLS out there, until you and Seb showed up." He hadn't really trusted his own memories completely, of what he had Seen, way back when, when everything had been burning. Not quite. --Not that he hadn't know that he'd Seen what he'd Seen, but… understanding what he'd Seen was different than remembering it and Seeing it in the first place. And his mental state had been in a very different place back then.
Miz blushed a little. "Ah, well I was born already knowing that other Bills existed. Kinda a weird moment for me...Y'know, the whole, already knowing about an alternate timeline and how I'm apparently supposed to die...but that was for a different Bill and thus far, I don't think I've done anything to push me towards his ending…"
"Who needs a push," Bill said dourly. "All you need is for your Zodiac to hate you and want you dead. You've got no control over that, really. It's all how the lizard decides to set that up! Environmental." Then he hesitated. "Unless you decide not to have one. ...Why do you think you might need one?" he asked her. "Did tossing someone into the dimension and making a Deal with them to be able to enter it not work?"
"I can make a Deal with someone and possess them. Still can't get into the dimension physically, or doing much more than minor tweaks. My powers are… strained there. I can use magic just fine but my powers are another story, it's like… having to use the energy of an entire star just to move an atom, as opposed to just… thinking about it and reshaping the world around me." It was frustrating really.
Bill nodded, and perked up a bit. "Sounds about right on the weirdness front. --You might get a bit more mileage if you sit in your 'Nightmare Realm' and try and direct it through one of those 'leaks' instead. Not directly from the Mindscape sitting there locally."
Miz blinked. She did have that hole that led right into Gravity Falls. She never thought of that. "That's a pretty good idea… I should try that next time."
Bill smiled. "Magic working isn't something that I had going for me; you could leverage that, too." He leaned back a bit. "My problem was, nothing where I was, was stable. I couldn't anchor anything down to anything stable; all I could do was make things and hold them. As soon as I let go…" he grimaced. "Anything I made just started destabilizing immediately. My energy form would have been ripped apart trying to go through any unanchored and unregulated portal like that, and the connection was already gone the exact moment I might begin to try, as soon as I let go." And he couldn't very well hold a portal open while he was going THROUGH it, now could he?! "So MY portal had to connect from the outside in… except it was A LOT easier to just make a tear instead and slip the rest of myself in through THAT. Even a working stable-enough portal that wouldn't SCREW UP my energy form would have been nearly impossible. That's why I… HMMMM, you could say BUILT IN a bit of 'insurance' into a certain portal design, as my fallback option," he told her, not quite stifling a laugh at the latter. Then he brightened up a bit. "But if YOU can perform magic in the 3rd dimension, you should be able to anchor a magic portal there stably, let go of it, and then COME THROUGH it from the 'Nightmare Realm' side! Or ANYPLACE else!" he told her, looking a bit excited at the idea of the possible workaround.
Miz bounced in place at the idea. This was why she missed talking to Bill. He had such amazing ideas. "Well I've already gotten in a few Deals for some of the humans on Earth to set up sigils for stabilizing and directing energy, built right into the foundations of their cities. It'll give me an area to aim at."
Bill nodded at her rapidly, and they would have continued this line of thought if there weren't creaking wooden sounds. Someone was coming up the stairs. Miz looked over. Stan was making his way up, his heavy weight making the boards creak.
"Hey, you two," Stan called out. "Dinnertime, yeah?"
Bill blinked, then reached into a back pocket and pulled out his phone, tapped it and then stared at the time.
"Stupid time sense not working in this stupid body," Bill muttered, putting the phone away. He waved a hand to make the audio at the staircase opening two-way again and called out. "Coming down in a minute."
Miz got up. "Food!" She paused. "Uh...there isn't going to be Stan's hair in it right?" because that was a little unsanitary.
"Heh," they both heard emanate from the staircase.
"NO," Bill said. "That's only for Stancakes." He sent a glare in the direction of the stairs. "I want to not have Miz eating hair in her food tonight."
"Yeah, yeah," they both heard Stan say with good-natured humor in his tone, along with a few more creaks here and there as Stan turned and started making his way back down the old wooden staircase again.
Miz glanced over at the stairs too. "Well that's good. Oh, has Stan enjoyed the Quarter I gave him?" She was also curious if the never ending chocolate liquor was still here… Mm…chocolate~
"I looked it over for him," Bill told her as he stood up himself. "But he hasn't used it for anything yet. Not a lot of gambling in town here." Miz nodded and went over to descend the stairs, holding onto the wall as she went. She didn't want to fall down the stairs, it wouldn't kill her but broken bones were uncomfortable.
She took this time to look at the Shack more leisurely. The twin's room was down there, the stairs were old and creaky, would need to be careful if she wanted to sneak around here. Not that she was much for that. She was a guest here after all. Oh. She should probably ask Stan for permission.
The Shack was… old. It wasn't in disrepair but it definitely needed renovation. They probably didn't have the money for it… or, more likely, Ford didn't trust having workers over while Bill lived here. She could see areas of the house that had clearly been patched up after it was destroyed from all the misadventures that happened here. She ran a hand down a wall that she was SURE, had been used to construct the Shacktron.
This was so cool!
Would her own zodiac build a Shacktron? She wanted to see one. Giant robot! Giant robot!
Bill followed her down the stairs at his own pace -- not really rushing, but not exactly letting her get out of his sight, either. (He kept her in sight mainly because he wanted to have enough time to respond -- and be able to respond immediately -- if that idiot Stanford showed up and tried to rush her, or some-such similar nonsense.)
Miz sniffed the air. Oh? What was this? Pizza? She hadn't had Earth pizza in literally eons. Tail wagging behind her, she followed her nose into the kitchen and spotted Stan plating slices as Mabel helped. "Um… hello again!" Miz waved. She didn't really get to greet everyone properly before. Mabel looked up and smiled. "Hi again!" She still wasn't sure why Grunkle Ford was so worried about Miz. The body-eating thing had just been a prank! She'd seen worse 'Kerpranks' on TV, even! Miz was nice. Besides, she was a baby dragon. So cute!!
"What kinda pizza is that?" Miz walked up to look it over.
"Macaroni and cheese pizza!" Mabel cheered. "I shaped the macaroni into little smiley faces!" Miz tilted her head. "So we're eating happy people? I can get behind that."
Dipper, already sitting down, groaned. "Please don't say it like that."
"You want toast instead?" Bill half-offered, as he made his own way to the counter and the toaster. Dipper made a face, which Bill correctly interpreted as a 'no'. "Suit yourself." He grabbed up the nearby bread-bag and pulled out two slices, to shove them in and twist the heat-timer on the toaster all the way up. Miz stared. Wow. Bill must like his toast extra crisp.
"Ford coming up?" Stan asked the younger twins. They exchanged a twin-telepathy glance, then Mabel shrugged at him. They didn't know. Stan sighed heavily.
"You sit there," Bill pointed out to Miz, gesturing at his own chair. He figured the last thing either of them needed was that Stanford getting upset over his chair or Stanley's being 'stolen'. She nodded and went over with her plate, grabbing an extra one for Dipper on the way over. "Here you go." She slid a pizza over to him as she sat down. Dipper blinked, not expecting her to serve him. "Ah, thanks." He glanced at it, and her, before shrugging and eating.
Bill turned and leaned his back up against the counter, letting him keep a good look over the entire room, in case that idiot Stanford showed up. Stan got himself his own slice of pizza and sat down at the table himself. They all ate in moderate silence for awhile, enjoying the food -- except Bill, who was still waiting on his toast. Miz was humming cheerfully as she nibbled on her slice, savoring the flavor of the cheese. It tasted like they used that mac and cheese powder stuff. So incredibly artificial! It was amazing how much humans could make food taste nothing like food was supposed to!
When the toast popped up the first time, Bill just turned slightly and shoved the lever back down, before turning back to the rest of them. Miz glanced over. Bill...really liked his toast crispy. Her head tilted when she heard footsteps. Ford came in, calmly, slowly. He was giving Miz and Bill wary glances but seemed a little put off when Miz blushed at the sight of him. He was even MORE put off when Mabel noticed and began looking back and forth between Miz and Ford.
Bill saw the looks and reactions going around, but didn't understand the implications of what Miz's blushing meant. He frowned slightly, looking over at Stanley, as the toaster popped up again. He turned and shoved down the lever a second time.
Stan just took one look between Miz and Ford and blinked hard.
Then Stan looked over at his brother. "What'd you do, you knucklehead?" His brother had a crazy kid-looking kid-acting human-demon falling for him, why?
"What? --Nothing!!" Ford protested. Miz ducked her head as her tailed curled and wiggled. Mabel had her mouth fall open as she realized, recognized that look. "OmiGOSH!"
"Uhhhhh..." said Dipper, who finally got what was going on from his sister's reaction.
Mabel didn't know whether to feel excited or grossed out. "You have a crush on Grunkle Ford?!"
"WHAT." said Bill, as the toaster popped up Bill's toast for the final time. The sound of it didn't even register with Bill, but it did overwhelm the sound of his own voice a bit.
Miz squeaked and covered her face. "N-no! He...he's just...setting off all my 'cute nerd' senses!!" She whined. Dammit! Why did he have to be her type?!!? She didn't feel like this over the younger Ford she met. Something about the older Ford, with his graying hair, hardened look and distinguished wrinkles just...it hit somewhere deep inside her that made her poor little heart go Doki-Doki. Ahhhh! It's not like she hasn't been aesthetically attracted to people before! But it hasn't happened in so long-and why did it have to be FORD again?!
Bill took the two steps forward he needed to, raised a hand--
--and messed up the hair on the top of Miz's head as much as he possibly could, while saying, "NO NO NO NO NO," with a great deal of seriousness. "NO. --Say it. NO." Miz whined. "It's not like I WANT to find him attractive!!!!" She wailed.
"Then PICK A DIFFERENT BODY that DOESN'T have whatever STUPID HORMONE problem that THIS ONE you're CURRENTLY WEARING does!!" Bill told her, not quite letting up on the (Stanley-approved method, as far as Bill was concerned, of) penalizing you're-doing-it-wrong hair-mussing yet. "That Stanford is NO GOOD FOR YOU. NO."
Ford looked quite insulted. "ExCUSE me?!"
Bill turned his head to glare over at him. "YOU HEARD ME." He looked back down at Miz. "I. Can find you. Someone SOOOOO MUCH BETTER. Just. Say. NO!"
"I'm not gonna go for him! He's a jerkface! Even if he's hot!" Miz protested. Dipper was covering his face and looking like he was going to combust. "Shutupshutupshutup…" He moaned in embarrassment.
Stanley looked like he did not quite know how to take this. So he passed it off to their resident triangle demon instead. "Kid."
Bill looked between Miz and Stanford. "It's just a vision problem?" he asked Miz, to confirm. "What he LOOKS like?" Miz nodded slowly. "GOOD. Stay HERE." Bill turned to Stanley. "Give me your glasses." Stanley gave him a look, and after a momentary pause he took them off and handed them over. "WATCH HER."
And with that, Bill shoved open the kitchen window and practically crawled over the sink and out over the windowsill, as the closest and quickest exit to the outside of the house.
"Don't know how I'm supposed to watch you without my glasses, all that well," Stan said, sounding a little amused, as he turned back to his food. "No touching my brother, okay?" he said to Miz. "He's... shy." Ford made a strangled sound that didn't quite come across as a protest. Miz scoffed and looked away.
"And way younger than you," Stan added after another bite of pizza. "I'm not interested in physical pursuits!" Miz protested. "I just... really like looking at him…" She blushed harder. "I've never even BEEN in a relationship before…" she whined. Mabel gasped, her matchmaking instincts rearing their ugly heads. Dipper immediately stood up and pointed at her. "No! Noooo! Don't you EVEN dare Mabel!!"
It was that point that a grumbling Bill yanked himself back through the window and kicked himself out of the sink and up over the counter, to finally land on his feet on the floor proper. He was clutching two pairs of glasses. "Here." He thrust a pair of glasses back onto Stanley's face, then turned towards Miz and held out the second pair, but then stopped for a moment and pulled them back to look at them again. "--Wait."
Stanley looked over at Bill and adjusted his glasses, but when he turned away and looked up at his brother…
Stanley went still for a moment, then ducked his head and let out a chuckling cough that sounded suspiciously like a laugh.
Bill, glowering and grumbling to himself, turned back towards Stanley, yanked the glasses the older Pines was currently wearing back off of his face, and shoved the other pair of glasses -- Stanley's original glasses -- back to him instead. Then he passed the 'right' new cloned-and-modified pair of glasses off to Miz -- the ones with the special barrier-and/or-weirdness-energy-driven-runeswork he'd just added to them that he was almost completely certain would solve his little sister's little issue for her.
"Here," Bill told her. "Wear THOSE."
Miz put them on and blinked a bit to adjust before glancing at Ford and doing a double-take. "Ah… he's STILL hot as a woman," she commented, and Ford's jaw dropped. Mabel gasped, "Wait, what?!" and jumped up from her chair, to run over and take the glasses from Miz to see for herself. Dipper had buried his face in his arms on the table by this point, groaning.
(Mabel missed how Bill's eyebrows had gone up at Miz's pronouncement, or Stan's own partially-skeptical look at Miz.)
Mabel put on the glasses and blanched, snatching them off her face immediately. "Eeeew! That's not it at ALL!!!" She gagged.
Miz was laughing as she kicked her little legs. "Ahahaha!!! Your FACE!" She snorted as she pointed at Mabel. Dipper looked up. "What? What did you see?" He demanded before grabbing the glasses Mabel threw down and putting them on himself. He screamed and snatched the item off his face. "What the heck!?"
Miz was still laughing hysterically. "Oh man… you two… are too easy… ahahaha!" She took the glasses and put them back on. "This helps. A lot. No one can find THAT face attractive." She grinned. Bill looked pleased that his plan had worked. Ford, by contrast, looked very confused about what those glasses apparently made him look like.
"They make you look like Toby Determined, kinda," Stan informed his brother with a chuckle.
Ford colored. He made a sound of protest and opened his mouth to complain -- why, exactly, was this necessary?! -- but then he thought the better of it and just closed his mouth instead. After all, the current situation was better than having the man-eating dragon be attracted to… looking at him? She said she wasn't into physical pursuits... so... at least he was safe on that front. He shuddered. This was worse than the Siren incident.