-Why did the old man do this?-

---

"Nn," said Bill. He twirled the 'credits' card between his fingers. He'd thought stopping by that Blips 'n Chips would be the best idea ever, since they had 'change machines' and 'currency converters' of many types unknown to man! …but apparently a bit of Searching with his Eye for some Knowledge to convert into the local non-gold just didn't pay here like it did back in his own dimensional set -- or at least not in the same ways here. His payoff had been a lot lower than he'd been expecting -- he barely had enough on this thing to buy a single solitary planet! Really, he'd thought that juicy little tidbit would be worth a small solar system, at least! He'd even passed on the info on how it could be used to best-effect, to pass along to the species owning that particular machine! And this was all he'd gotten for it? Really?!

...Oh, well. Wasn't like he wasn't used to being undersold and underappreciated! He'd just gotten into the habit of not having to put up with it! (He'd pushed things along in his own dimensional set to the point that people -- and demons -- actually appreciated a good bit of useful information when they heard it! But apparently here was a different story. It made him wonder about what exactly this local Bill Cipher had been up to, all these years, if…) ...With the laundry list of things that Stanley wanted him not-doing, he'd probably have to get used to getting himself out of that habit of not-putting-up-with-certain-things again, too. Annoying.

Bill still restricted himself to ONLY letting out a disappointed sigh at the measly little payout he'd gotten for his efforts though. No use complaining about things he wasn't going to immediately do something about to change for the worse, after all. He stopped the twirling through his fingers of the card with a solid 'snap' against the palm of the hand of his current vessel, then shoved it down deep into a side pocket of his clothing -- vessel and clothing both Miz-supplied.

"Having fun?" Bill asked his little sister, as she skipped along next to him, while he moved along at his own somewhat more sedate walking pace. Miz nodded, scanning everything they passed. "The crepes they have here are so intricate!" She held up one of the pastries, filled to the brim with various fruits and drizzled in creamy sauce. "I liked the smolemon one but I think the drackoberry is my favorite." She took another bite and mumbled. "It's sad that you can't eat it…"

Since Bill didn't like digesting the way she did, Miz had shooed him out of his vessel for a moment, then fixed it up to just do things like a human for now until she could help him tweak it to digest the way HE wanted it to. (...Which apparently wasn't going to be right away, because now was food time according to him, apparently.)

"Ha," Bill laughed out, about sedately as he was walking. "This isn't my body; this is a vessel! I'm a being of pure energy! I DON'T CARE what I eat in this thing, as long as it doesn't do anything like that translation-injection process like it did earlier, again!" he told her. (Really, his stupid human-ish body only had any sort of impact on his energy form due to the anchor that was attaching him to his body at-present.) "As long as the current physical form I'm inhabiting doesn't impact my energy form, it's not a problem! This vessel only did before, because of the way you set up the stomach in this thing earlier…" Bill trailed off.

"But this vessel doesn't do that anymore," Bill noted. "Now it's a little closer to working like an exoskeleton," Bill told her, shrugging it off. Because, really, the main difference between this vessel and an exoskeleton now (as far as Bill was concerned) was the complexity of the vessel's innards by comparison, and the ability for it to 'naturally' translate and more accurately map all of the sensations and sensory input of the vessel's pseudo-body back to his being, unless and until he decided to disconnect any of that, himself. (He'd already disconnected his sense of smell first-thing, because noses were 'yuck!' and smelling was eww!) "I can eat anything I want right now, no problem!"

To prove it, Bill reached over to pluck out a piece of sour fruit from one of Miz's crepes, tossed it into his mouth, and bit down. HA! (...Hm. He found the taste of it actually quite pleasant.)

Miz beamed when she saw Bill actually smile while eating. "So this means that I can cook anything for you! And you'll be able to eat it!" She got up close to nuzzle her brother, thrilled that she had been able to move him into a vessel that let him be able to eat yummy stuff!

"Haha! --For now!" Bill said with a grin, patting Miz's head, as the two of them walked down the crowded streets. Miz seemed quite lost in thought at all the wonderful food she'd be able to make without dietary restrictions, while Bill was trying to gauge whether or not he'd be able to get any energy here that he could process before going to meet that local Bill.

(It was looking like he'd just have to resign himself to going without any local replenishment for now, and keep slowly drawing down weirdness and energy from his Mind to just as slowly replenish here what he was using here locally. It wouldn't solve the overall lower-energy not-much-in-his-reserves problem he'd had going since well before Miz had arrived even for the first time in his 'set, but grabbing energy here to lower the energy debt he was incurring here, or to try and refill his reserves even slightly back where he was physically, was probably a bad idea anyway. ...Well, it was fine. He could handle it for now.)

Miz nodded in understanding. Of course there was still the issue of keeping his actual body alive with enough nutrients in the meantime if he wanted to stay in a vessel even longer, but otherwise this was good! "You'd tell me if there was something I could do to help you get your energy back up, right?" she asked.

"It's fine," Bill told her, patting-petting her on top of her head. "I always keep plenty in reserve, just in case." He wasn't worried. (Uneasy wasn't worried.) A little more time -- just a few hours, really -- and he'd have pulled down enough to be back to a decent level in what he had to work with here without stressing anything, Mind or Eye or anchor, in even the slightest, even going as slowly as he was right now to avoid any remotely possible detection from the local Bill, or any other possible-enemy within this 'set, at least. "It's just a matter of getting it here to this projection of me without going too, haha, overboard in the process!" he told her with a smile. Because yes, he didn't like expending so much without knowing how likely he was to be expending even more later, but… what he'd told Stanley before was right -- he had no idea what was out there that he might have to handle or even fight off, and he could only prepare so much in advance of that for that eventuality, that eventual-possibility that may-or-may-not happen before he was ready for it. So he might as well start getting used to the uncertainty now, in this, that he hadn't had to face in a very long time...

Miz still looked a little worried. She didn't want her brother running out of energy, 'specially since it sounded like he had a harder time of generating it than she did. But if her brother didn't want to ask for help, she'd have to let it be for now.

"So what now? The native Bill did a search earlier, didn't find us though," Miz commented, nibbling on her snack. "Should we confront him?" Frankly, she wasn't sure if she wanted to meet him, but it wouldn't hurt to hear his side of the story, right?

"Confront him? --Really, little sis," Bill said with a sigh. "We come here, to his dimensional set, we move things all around on him, and then… we leave without saying anything? --If that happened to ME, I'd consider it an ATTACK," Bill told her. "RUDE!" He slipped out his 'credits' card abruptly, at seeing something he WANTED, waved the card at a nearby kiosk, and casually plucked up a 'meat kebob' skewer of some sort as they walked, taking a big bite out of it as he went. "WHY WOULDN'T WE drop by and say 'hi!' We should AT LEAST introduce ourselves and explain!" Besides, it wasn't as though they hadn't shown up and shown themselves in that other dimension where that not-a-triangle Bill Cipher had been before. If he'd noticed then or since, then leaving NOW would be beyond rude; that was just BAD MANNERS!

"So… we find him and just… invite him for tea?" Miz asked, eyeing up several restaurants nearby. "I do hope he isn't too angry. I really don't want to start a fight."

"Tea would be good. If he's a Bill Cipher like us," instead of a him-that-is-not-him, "Then he will like tea, too!" Bill nodded to himself. He paused to glance sideways Miz. "You do like tea, yes?" She'd certainly seemed fine with it during their picnic!

"I love tea." Miz replied easily. Bill grinned as he let out a chittery-laugh. "SEE?" he said, gesturing at her. Of course she had good taste! Besides, with her liking food so much, why wouldn't she have excellent taste in beverages? Like tea! She'd just about have to, because of that!

"We should bring the tea to HIM though," Bill told his little sister. "WE are the 'interlopers' here. It's only polite to go to him, instead of making him make the EFFORT the other way around!" It'd be too easy for that other-him to think that they'd been trying to avoid him, otherwise. ...And, remembering what they'd both seen when they'd first arrived, Bill added, "He Looked like he could USE some tea!" He'd seemed pretty frustrated overall, getting fought against like that, after all! --And Bill could relate!

Bill looked (and then Looked) around the marketplace that he'd recommended to Miz. "If this place is anything like the one I know," and it didn't seem quite that far off to him yet, despite the lack of understructure and a few other things, "Then this place should have the ingredients here for a decent pot of Cosmic Tea, or two, or three." Bill finished off his skewer and tossed it in a nearby waste receptacle, then laced his fingers behind his back and stretched his arms and shoulders a bit as he walked, before relaxing them again. "Could maybe brew up a good bit of Time Punch, too -- for later," Bill clarified. "After we've done the first bit of introductions and talking, maybe." Tea was good for serious conversations; Time Punch was great for celebrations. Bill knew he was being a bit optimistic, there, but… he DID like his plans, and, well...

Bill grinned. --After all, Time Punch was a good thing to have on-hand for all SORTS of occasions! HAHA!

"Oh! Should we make cookies or other tea-snacks to go with it?" Miz asked, skipping along beside her brother. "Like a whole picnic?" Bill grinned. "Even BETTER!" And why not? They'd told Stanley they were having a picnic after all; why not have two?

And so the two of them went strolling about the market, gathering up the things they needed; Bill even taught Miz a new recipe for mixing drinks as they went. She was quite delighted at the prospect and gave him a bright "Thank you!" to which Bill let out an appreciative (and proud) chitter.

Shortly thereafter, the siblings finished their 'scavenger hunt-of-a-search' and found an open eating area to sit down at and put together their little picnic basket of treats and other goodies. Miz even introduced Bill to the idea of spicy cookies, "Since you don't like sweet things." (Heck, cookies were one of the few things she could bake, mainly because even if they melted or cracked, they were still edible. Unlike bread and cakes that could get ruined in all sorts of ways just because she thought it would be fine to substitute a few ingredients, or three.)

Bill pet Miz on the head, feeling warm inside at her thoughtfulness over the things he liked to (not just could) eat.

And once all that was done, they were off to 'drop in on' the native Bill!

---

Something in the air was shifting. Bill Cipher glanced around. Something… powerful. He frowned, pulling his power in, strengthening his shields in case this was an attack. Had that damn lizard finally got off his lazy ass and decided to face him directly? He WAS just about to threaten Stanford into finally giving him the information he needed to bring down this dimension (though, with that restructuring he'd felt happening earlier, it wouldn't be as triumphant as it originally would be, but it was still a start for gaining power...

He blinked in surprise when two females phased into the world nearby -- not too close, not quite close enough that he would count this as an attack, just a few meters away, while holding… a picnic basket? Bill stared. They were...

The smaller-looking female waved. "Hello! Are you Bill Cipher?"

Bill scoffed, straightening up and tossing a lock of hair back. "Well, who ELSE could possibly be this handsome?" he winked at them, turning up the charm. (He kindly ignored the incredulous sound coming off the little triangles in the room of the Fearamid where he was threatening them.) Whoever/whatever these two were, they were quite powerful. Were they fellow gods? Probably. Inwardly, he frowned. Their energy felt familiar. But more than that, if he had to ask for who (or WHAT) could have restructured this Reality, it could only be them. They were new. He'd never Seen them before, but suddenly all of reality shifts and two god-level beings show up? He wasn't stupid. They were probably one and the same! (Normally, he'd be right up for defeating and consuming another god to gain their power, but these two felt a little too much for him to take on both at once.)

The smaller female giggled. "Well, I suppose you are kinda cute." to which the older female rolled her eyes and looked a little exasperated at the younger one's antics. Bill grinned wider.

"So, just going out on a limb here…" He sauntered over, long legs crossing the distance in just a few strides. "Are you two the ones who so thoroughly ruined my plans?" He drawled, gazing down at them from his height.

"Well," the older looking female drawled back, meeting his gaze cooly with no sign of any intimidation, "I'd need to know what your plans WERE to truly answer that." She didn't seem combative or defense about it, simply straightforward in her own manner.

Interesting. Bill raised an eyebrow. "Before all that, perhaps some introductions are in order? You seem to know who I am already but…" and here, his gaze turned mildly suspicious. "I can't seem to See anything about who you lovely ladies are." It was rather annoying actually, he didn't like NOT knowing stuff. But with the power he could feel coming off these two, he couldn't quite bring himself to attack them, not without knowing a little more about them; it was two on one and right now he didn't know if he'd win.

"I'm Miz Cipher," the smaller female said cheerfully as the two walked towards him. "And this is my brother, Bill." She gestured to the other female. Brother? Bill narrowed his eyes. Another person with the same name as him, and with energy that felt so familiar somehow… it didn't take a genius to figure this one out.

"So, Bill Cipher from another dimension, eh?" Bill grinned, as the 'brother' simply gave him a nod. "And isn't this just interesting."

"Miz, do you have any… 'nickname' for me?" the older female 'brother Bill' said to the younger one. "It would be more polite than claiming THIS one's name for my own, here, in his own local backyard. --Not trying to steal your thunder, here," the 'brother Bill' said to Bill, turning a wide grin at the local one. "And yes, you SHOULDN'T be able to See our pasts," 'he' said to Bill next. "I've had TROUBLE with that BEFORE. --It's for all of our own protection, including yours," Bill was told, which left him frowning.

"And, as a courtesy," this other Bill added, "I have chosen not to Look at your Self and YOUR past, as well. A level playing field, as it were. --We can talk, as a start. I'm happy to answer any questions you may have." Then Bill felt a slight shiver go down his spine as he looked (and Looked) on, and this male-female him went from grinning at him to simply giving him a slight smile and-- the power he was feeling wafting from this other Bill suddenly just… VANISHED. As if it'd never been there at all! (How had he done that?!)

"Miz, nickname?" the 'brother' said to Miz next, otherwise not looking any different in outward appearance despite the vanishing of his aura of power, as 'his' sister(?) looked on and blushed. "OH!" The 'brother Bill' clapped 'his' hands together and swiveled back to him, smiling more widely at him now and leaning forward as 'he' asked, "We aren't INTERRUPTING anything, are we?"

...said the older female as 'he' stood in the middle of the Fearamid with the rest of them, two triangles clutched in Bill's tendrils and another two held in a pyramidal cage of Bill's own devising, stones and rocks strewn absolutely EVERYWHERE from the gaping hole in the side of the wall nearby that that stupid Shacktron had punched in it (again!!)...

...and waited patiently for a response to 'his' question from Bill.

Bill stared at this other 'brother Bill' and wondered if 'he' might be just a bit brain-damaged.

"...Or would you like some help from me and…" the younger female blushed as she said, "Blue," (the older female's eyebrows went up a bit at this "Hm, Blue. ...Yes, that works.") and her blush got less red as she looked around, "In cleaning up first?" the younger female offered tentatively but sincerely after a beat, looking around at what she apparently considered to be a mess that needed cleaning up(?!).

And Bill blinked, the tiny child triangles in his grasp (as well as the older adult ones in the cage) staring at these interlopers. "Help?" With cleaning the place up? Was that what they were both trying to get at? He frowned around at the debris. "Well, it IS quite messy in here. But, I'm sort of in the middle of something." He gestured around. Because apparently they hadn't realized that when they'd come in, and weren't going to realize it until he said something.

To this, the one named 'Miz' shrugged at him, though. "Ah, well, Time is dead, so you can wait a little? We kinda… wanted to talk." She held up her picnic basket. "We brought tea and snacks?" she said hopefully, tempting him with whatever might be in that covered basket.

Bill considered it. He DID want some answers, he could actually See what was in that basket right now when he tried Looking at it, at least, and it wasn't like those pesky Pines were going anywhere...

"Sure. Why not?" he grinned, moving the smaller twins so that they dangled in the air, wrapped up in ribbons of his power, instead. Why not just give Stanford a few more minutes to stew in his own fear for the nibling's lives? It changed nothing, they couldn't stop him anyway. Bill adjusted his tux and grinned at the other two Ciphers. "I'm guessing 'Miz' is a nickname? You're also a Bill Cipher, aren't you?" he asked, trying to get confirmation one way or the other; her energy was similar enough, but he wanted to be sure. He looked around. "A little clean up would be nice," he said next, rather calculatingly. Because he could see how her powers worked, by seeing what she did to 'clean up'. (And he didn't miss how Blue's eyes narrowed slightly at his ask, either. A suspicious one, huh?)

Miz didn't look suspicious though. She just smiled, waved a hand, and reversed the damage done to the Fearamid, the black bricks floating up and clicking back into place where they needed to be. She even formed a neat little table with three chairs for them to have their picnic at. "We're from out of town, as it were, and thought it would be polite to come and say hello," she told him, setting the picnic basket down on the new table and opening it up to take out plates and cups and some napkins.

(Bill blinked. Miz had been very… thorough. He looked around and... yeesh, he wasn't sure the Fearamid had been this clean when he'd MADE it. The dust was gone, the scuffs from people running around were gone; there was even a nice scent of citrus in the air, as if she'd applied an air freshener as well -- did great for cleaning out the stench of sweat from the terrified shapes, he had to give her that.)

"Especially after changing things up on you, here," Blue said, as 'he' sat down at the table, on one of the chairs. "I know I wouldn't appreciate some drive-by messing-up of any of MY plans," Blue added, "Intentional or not. The lazy-stupid lizard around these parts thought as much, anyway, not that I trust it," Blue added more dourly, and with more than a little suspicion in 'his' tone. "So we thought we'd do the polite thing, and come see you in-person, after."

"How kind of you." Bill raised an eyebrow, striding over to claim his own chair. "So, what brings you two here to my little section of Reality?" he asked the two of them, as he sat down.

"Miz was curious, and wanted to go exploring," Blue told him, as he flipped the cloth that had been covering over the top of the basket out over the table instead, and the things currently on the table floated out and over to the sides, then up and around, to land back on top of it again, after the (table?)cloth had finished fluttering down through the air to meet the surface of the table, to cover it over. "I didn't like the idea of her going exploring out on her own, so I decided to go with her and See a few places, myself. See what was different."

"...and why have you gone and rearranged Reality?" Bill asked, accepting the cup and saucer Miz handed him, after she'd finished pouring it. Oh~ the tea was nice.

"It was completely UNSTABLE in structure and going to collapse, without even the most-basic of fixes," Blue told him, as he took his own teacup to sip from, with a 'mine; thank you' to his sister. "It needed FIXING. Badly."

"...that was kind of the point, yes. Collapsing everything in on itself." Bill picked up one of the sandwiches in a dainty manner, cut into neat little triangles and filled with meat and fresh vegetables. Hm. Not bad.

Blue eyed him. "Interesting. The lazy-stupid lizard said as much. Which really just begs the question… Why?"

Bill scoffed. "The Time Giants are all DEAD. And with Time Baby dead as well, there's no one left except me and that damn lizard. So all I'd have to do is take down this dimension--" he lifted his arms up to gesture around them "--and EVERYTHING would have come down. EVERYTHING, EVERYWHERE, IN EVERY DIMENSION!" He grinned, wide and unhinged. The triangles all stared at him in horror. "And once everything was in one place, mashed together under its own weight, I would take it all and make it MINE. Then that stupid lizard would be forced to start over, and once he tries, I can take that moment to kill him and take it all for myself." He seemed quite pleased. "Then there would be no one LEFT except ME. And I can do WHATEVER I want with this world."

Blue looked at him over 'his' teacup for a very long moment, with not much expression on 'his' face.

"WELL," said Blue. "I think I see a FEW problems with your logic, there. --Would you like me to POINT THEM OUT for you?"

And Blue lifted 'his' teacup and took another sip of 'his' tea.

Bill frowned. "What do you mean?" He didn't like being wrong. He glanced over at Miz, to see if she had similar criticisms as this other interloper, but Miz was nibbling on the sandwiches as she swung her legs back and forth (the chair being a bit tall for her), seemingly distracted by the triangles in the cage that she was looking over. Bill looked back at Blue. "If I kill that lizard, I get to take over. It's that simple." Bill said slowly.

"HM." Blue set down 'his' teacup. "WELL. I don't know about that. --Let's start at the start then, shall we?" 'He' held up 'his' pointer finger. "Does Time Baby have the ability to reincorporate his molecules? Pulling everything into one single-singularity will do that FASTER." Blue held up another finger. "You and the stupid lizard are not 'the only ones left'. There are several other 'ones' around, right here even!" Blue took a moment to gesture at the four triangles, large and small, and then at 'him'self and 'his' sister. "Taking down this dimension will not take down everything everywhere anymore." Blue held up another finger for that one, then added an additional finger after that. "Everything mashed together includes YOU being mashed, and if you can't take control of everything SEPARATE, I highly doubt that you have an actual plan or understanding of how it all 'suddenly' becomes YOURS by doing this," Blue told him, "Unless I missed something rather overwhelmingly and glaringly NON-OBVIOUS in how your lovely little setup is here, before or after we messed with it."

Bill was frowning at this point. "But--"

"Oh yes, but-but-but," Blue said. "But let's say that it DOES work that way, just for the sake of argument!" Blue said, then pushed out a thumb. "The stupid lizard being mashed in with you means that it 'takes over' even MORE strongly than you do, before you have a chance to, by your own indicated ruleset." Blue set his teacup and saucer down, to let it float in the air next to 'him', and poked up the pointer finger from 'his' other hand next. "Putting everything in one place and forcing a start-over seems HIGHLY arbitrary to me, since from what WE saw of the stupid frilly thing, it'd be FAR MORE LIKELY to just curl up in a ball and sleep ON TOP OF IT, instead." Blue held up another finger on 'his' other hand. "The stupid lizard could EASILY kill you first before trying to start anything over." Blue put up another finger. "If the stupid lizard is rushing to restore things quickly enough that it doesn't have the time to kill you first, then in the time it takes YOU to kill IT, and take its power, and figure out how to use it..." Blue grimaced. "You WON'T have the time yourself to be able to stop the progression yourself anymore. The stupid lizard's had forever to get used to its own power; you'd have LESS than NO TIME to do that, and probably DIE HORRIBLY while that is going on, as everything else finishes disincorporating in pieces around you, along with YOU."

"You don't know that I can't do that--" Bill began, starting to get annoyed.

"--And you don't know that you can do that, not for certain," Blue interrupted him saying, then shook his head and added, "But, even if you DO manage to pull ALL THAT off…" Blue held up a final finger. "There won't BE 'a world' to 'do what you want with' after you've done all that, just one gigantic singularity-MESS for you to have to clean up all by yourself, instead," Blue frowned, "And NO-ONE to SHARE it with, later. --Now, how BORING is that?" Bill asked him, lowering 'his' hands. "There are FAR easier ways to get yourself a little PEACE AND QUIET, if you ask me," Blue told him, leaning back in 'his' chair, to retrieve 'his' teacup from the air and then take another good sip of 'his' tea.

Bill frowned, because that last part had thrown him for a loop. "But--" His brow creased even more, because he hadn't even considered... "He has to reset it--" The demon looked quite frustrated. "It can't just… leave Reality all… fucked up! He's supposed to--" His voice went up a little before he forcibly calmed himself and hissed out, "I can devour EVERYTHING and then I'll be stronger than that lazy sack of shit--" (One of the larger triangles in the cage gasped at this.)

"Ah, and here we come to the FINAL sticking point of your problematic and unworking 'solution'," Blue told him, with a sigh. "We're talking about the lazy-stupid lizard here. Trusting it is a BAD IDEA. Trusting it to DO ANYTHING for you is even worse! After all," Blue told him, "If it was safe to trust it to do that, wouldn't it have DONE SOMETHING already? Anything? ...Let alone done it all PROPERLY the FIRST TIME? --Have you talked to it lately?" Blue asked Bill mildly. "It doesn't seem to have learned from its mistakes. And," Blue grimaced, "Devouring everything in existence won't do much, if you're not VERY careful when you're going about it. Certainly won't do anything to that lizard," Blue waved off. "--It'd probably just thank you for taking everything out of its hands, and go off to a new sleep FOREVER. And if you devour IT, too, then you won't even have anyone to yell at, anymore. It'll be just you, and nothing else, ever again. FOREVER."

While Blue ranted at this other Bill (and this other Bill ranted right back), Miz was frowning at her teacup, biting her lip and trying very hard to keep quiet. Because there were so many things she wanted to say, to express. And she wasn't sure if she should say any of it. This other Bill's plan to devour everything… wouldn't that just make him explode? Unless he didn't work the same way she did, but even so, devouring everything wouldn't fix anything. Sure it would make everything part of him never leave again, mine, mine, mine but it wouldn't necessarily fix things. Not at all. Even if he became everything, he still wouldn't know how to be everything. Devouring Ax wasn't going to make anything better. But Miz didn't want to offend him by straight up saying he was wrong, and didn't know for sure if this world worked like her own either, what with the lack of the Pillar system, so she shoved a cookie in her mouth and kept quiet for now. Besides, destroying all of existence would be pretty bad, that wasn't a good plan at all -- and it looked like Blue agreed with her on that one, so Miz was going to let her brother talk the other Bill down from this plan. He was on a roll and she didn't want to impede him in what he was doing.

(And the way she used her powers was very different from him, even if they might look similar on the surface; she'd learned this while they were restructuring this reality, things here and things in brother's dimension just… felt different than everything did in her own. Back in her own world, since her Weirdness and Energy had been used to help create the multiverse, she held power over them. They were her, they were parts of her, and that was part of the reason why things would simply start to happen around her if she wasn't paying attention or keeping her power contained. The world, the people -- everything was made from her! This was also why Ax had to work so hard to stay neutral. She had enough trouble keeping the world around her from distorting from her very presence, she could only imagine how hard it must be for Ax to keep from affecting the Souls of all the people in much the same way… well, she managed it through sheer willpower and self control, but she slipped up, a LOT. And for Ax… he simply couldn't afford any slip ups. Never. So he kept himself away from it all. And Time Baby could destabilize time just from throwing a tantrum so there was that too.

Miz briefly wondered if Ax could even affect her. It shouldn't be possible since she was quite powerful in her own right, and Ax couldn't really make her do anything, neither her nor Time Baby. After all, Ax wanted them to get along but that wasn't freaking happening anytime soon. So Miz was pretty sure she was safe on that front. Whatever their ties to reality, the three of them couldn't really effect each other, not that Miz could tell.

Bill put his teacup down a little more firmly than needed. "I--" He huffed. "I just want to--" He shook. "I CAN do this! I can! Even if it takes eons for me to figure out HOW to rework reality back to the beginning, I will figure it out and then I can get them back and we could be together and there wouldn't be any stupid--"

And at the mention of 'them', Blue's head came up and 'his' eyes sharpened to a much stronger intensity.

And Blue smiled.

"WELL," said Blue. "That sounds like it's all WELL AND GOOD," 'he' told Bill, as he set down 'his' teacup (on the table, this time). "It even sounds like something I am doing, myself! --BUT." Blue leaned forward in 'his' chair. "You are leaving one VERY IMPORTANT thing out of your equation there, Bill."

"What?" Bill folded his arms. The little triangles in the air were struggling, trying to escape from the threads of his power. It was almost funny how they still thought they could defy him.

Blue leaned forward and GRINNED at him.

"US," said Blue, gesturing at 'him'self and 'his' sister.

And then Bill saw Blue take in an almost-expectant breath, eyes gleaming, and Blue said, "Would you like some help?"

Bill's eyes widened.

"Because if you want YOUR very-important 'them' back, well," Blue's grin dimmed a little, "I do believe that both Miz and myself understand THAT sentiment COMPLETELY. ...If you know what I mean."

And by the time that Blue was finished speaking, he looked completely and entirely sober.

Bill's heart (if he still had one) raced. Help. They… they were offering to...

(--this wasn't just some 'offer' to 'help clean up the joint' because they didn't like the mess they were standing in, purely and selfishly for themselves, they were actually--)

No one had EVER offered to--

Bill looked over at Miz, and… she nodded at him, too. They both-- it wasn't just the one of them, it was both of them-- they--

There was a desperate hunger in Bill's eyes, as he realized just what exactly was really being offered to him, here. And Bill opened his mouth to immediately accept it -- why wouldn't he accept it?! But then he paused, right there. Because his mind had caught up with him, and he realized…

"How do I know you're not just lying to me?" Because so many people had. Empty promises and failures!! Betrayal of trust and--

"Well…" Miz spoke up. "If I could, I would really want my little brother back." She looked down at her lap. "I was even willing to work together with Time Baby if that would have helped to make it happen. So I know how it feels to want to get someone back. And what I might do to try and have it happen."

Bill stared at her. "Ew. Working together with Time Baby? How desperate were you?"

Miz puffed out her cheeks in irritation. "Any plan was better than no plan. And I needed some way to reach through time to try and get what I wanted…"

"...And she did not have me as her brother then, yet, either," Blue concluded, which left Bill blinking, and Miz looking a little blushy herself. "I," said Blue, as 'he' crossed his legs and propped 'his' head up on a fist, "Am planning on fixing EVERYTHING everywhere. And I do mean EVERYWHERE." 'He' gave Bill a look. "It wouldn't make sense to leave things here so very not-even-close to half-done, let alone un-done! And it wouldn't make sense to do things that don't take into account what the locals think and want -- and that includes you, doesn't it? We 'helped' the lazy-stupid lizard," Blue pulled a face, "So-to-speak. And I don't even LIKE the lazy-stupid thing; I HATE it. --You are a me-that-is-VERY-MUCH-ALSO-a-me. Why wouldn't I help you out, even more?" Blue asked him inquisitively. "I make it a point of practice not to lie to myself. That causes PROBLEMS. And you are a self-that-is-also-me. So."

Bill frowned. He couldn't feel any sort of deceit happening here, and with the power he'd felt from those other two hims-who-weren't-him-but-kind-of-were on their arrival, if the three of them worked together--

"We have more than enough will and power and want and need between us to do whatever we need to do, to get everything that we want," Blue said with a smile, almost as if reading his mind. "The only thing here that's REALLY up for a discussion is, are all our wants and needs in alignment, and what is the PLAN that will ACTUALLY get us those things?" Then Blue sat back and waved off, "And what would we be doing in which order, and how much. --Not sure how I'd feel about pulling you back to MY set to help ME out with things, anytime soon," Blue told him. "Things are a LOT more complicated there, compared to what I've Seen here. --You could owe me a favor, instead," Blue told him, "And I'd be careful on what I asked of you to collect. Or…" Blue said, holding his cup out to the side, "We could just exchange information instead, help you work out your plan, and you'd actually have to do all the 'heavy lifting' yourself, with your own Zodiac, no favors needed! --Up to you!" Blue told him with a smile, as the teapot lifted up into the air and tilted, starting to fill up the teacup in Blue's outstretched hand. (...effortlessly. While this other version of him gave off no aura of power at all while 'he' was doing so. Which meant that...)

Slowly, a smile worked its way across Bill's face. They could really do this, couldn't they. Between the three of them, they… And what he'd been offered, just now? That he'd been all but promised, from both of these two? That… that was more than he'd ever thought he'd get-- from anyone-- and all he'd have to give in return was some information? He was MADE of information! Well, not literally, not like they were asking him to rip of pieces of himself to-- not that he WOULDN'T be willing to do that if it meant he'd get his mommy and daddy back-- and---

"Alright, so how would we go about doing this?" Bill asked, sipping the (very nice) tea as his yellow eyes gleamed. He hardly cared about having had his spoken plans more or less verbally torn apart before; as long as they were going to help him make one that they all agreed and knew would work out, he couldn't care less about what few small disagreements they might get into in figuring out that very thing along the way.

"WELL," said Blue, as 'he' pulled 'his' own teacup back in towards him, once it was refilled, "--And this is the tricky part, mind you," he told Bill next. "The first thing you'd have to tell us, to get this all started, is WHAT YOU NEED." And it was clear from Blue's expression, as 'he' sipped on 'his' own tea, that 'he' thought 'he' was asking a very dangerous and difficult thing of Bill there, in telling them. "Not just what you think you want. What you NEED, at the end of it all. I'm talking the final, everything-is-absolutely-perfectly-imperfect-forever scenario, here. The whole ball of wax."

And Bill thought about it. He really thought about it. --Not just the immediate thing he wanted, but what he needed to really get what it was that he truly wanted.

"I… want my mommy and daddy back. I… want us to be able to live together, in a world where they and I can be happy and…" (The triangles were gasping as they listened in on this conversation.) "...and they wouldn't be killed for trying to protect me…" Bill finished. He paused then, waiting to see if these two demons were going to sit there and laugh at all his childish-sounding goals.

...And Blue seemed to be struggling with something, something to have to do with what he'd just said. Or… maybe all of it. "...You ...want your parents back?" Blue sounded a bit strained.

Miz spoke up, "So your parents tried to protect you?" she asked gently. (And Blue glanced over at her, looking a little startled. He'd had so much difficulty with the first concept Bill had tossed at them that he'd hadn't quite gotten to parsing even one single bit of the second or third ones yet, let alone any of the next-level-down layers of it after that.)

Bill nodded. "They... " He paused. "I wanted to learn stuff. Even when it was forbidden for those of my caste to be allowed to--" (The demons all ignored the startled sounds coming from the triangles.) "--but they would help me hide my books. And they lied to the police about them. And they…" He seemed to struggle. "...they got gunned down. Right in our shop. Even though there wasn't any PROOF that I had the books, even though--" He hissed a breath through his teeth.

Blue raised up a hand in front of 'his' face, touching his forehead with a finger. 'He' looked like 'he' was getting a headache.

"...And your sibling?" Blue asked. "...Or ...siblings?" 'he' added belatedly, sounding strained throughout.

At that, Bill blinked. "I… didn't have any?" (Blue dropped his hand and stared at Bill.) "We were forbidden, we had to pay a fine if we wanted another child--" He frowned. "But, mommy said that she wanted to give me a brother or a sister, once we'd saved up enough money…" He pressed his eyes shut tightly. "But that didn't end up happening."

Blue was staring at him now. "...You didn't have a…" Blue said almost breathily. 'He' sat very still in place for a very long moment. Then, finally, 'he' steepled 'his' hands in front of 'him', and lowered 'his' forehead down on top of them.

"I… need a minute," Blue said rather roughly.

Bill glanced over at Miz, confused at weird reaction from Blue. The smaller demon sighed. "I had a little brother. Blue had an older brother. They are the ones we want back."

Bill blinked, as the silence stretched out. "Oh."

Blue was quiet for about a minute. And then…

"Your parents... acted like… brothers…" Blue said slowly. "Right."

Bill was somewhat confused now. Miz translated, "Your parents actually loved you. They protected you." And then Bill understood. He sat straight up, rigidly, staring at the two of them, as he realized...

"Your parents didn't love you?!" Bill couldn't even imagine what that must have--

"--They 'loved' the concept of the space that I ended up filling for them," Blue rattled off rather tonelessly, raising 'his' head after a moment. "'Mommy' and 'daddy' as… yes. Fine. I understand," 'he' said with a little more color to his tone, after a moment. "That's fine. You want them back; it's the same. The same thing." Blue pulled in a breath, then gave him a (not too very strained) smile.

"And then he can get that brother or sister!" Miz pointed out. "Because whatever fucked up government that forbid it wouldn't be around anymore."

"That's really ALL that you want?" Blue asked him. "It feels rather… small." Blue was frowning slightly. 'He' was staring at Bill, almost as if concerned.

Bill sat back in his chair. "Well, I'd wanted to know stuff, get rich and live comfortably. At first, at least. But that…" Blue had asked what he wanted at the end of everything, hadn't he? And in the face of what he really wanted, at the end of all of everything... "...doesn't really seem all that important. Not anymore."

"Yes, but…" Blue seemed to be trying to think of a good way to put… "--Oh, fine!" 'he' sounded vaguely irritated. "I'll just ask-- HOW LONG are you wanting this to go on for," Blue rattled off almost hurriedly, like he was trying to quickly get to the point of something that he wanted to say.

Bill blinked. "...How long?" He thought about it. "Until we're done, and then…"

"--Done, done, yes, fine; define 'DONE'," Blue demanded out of him next.

"Done?" Bill looked back and forth between the other two demons. "It could be forever, but that'd get boring after a while. And…" He sighed, seemingly tired. "I don't think mommy and daddy would want to be around forever, but they had their own wants for the future and they never got a chance to-- I just want them to be able to be happy."

Blue was staring at him in sheer disbelief. Then 'he' let out a sort of chittery-groaning sound and scrubbed at 'his' face with both hands.

"yOu ArE FINE wiTh tHeM DYING," Blue said between 'his' fingers, sounding a little bit off. "And staying dead."

"Not dying." Bill narrowed his eyes. "Living until they're satisfied. If they want to live forever, then I'll let them. But if they're done, I don't…" He placed his hands on the table and leaned forward, "I won't subject them to anything they don't want."

Blue dropped 'his' hands and snapped out "Of course not!! They're your br-- 'family'," Blue self-corrected with a grimace. Then 'he' tilted his head back and stared up at the ceiling. "Am I really the only one here who's thought things this far through yet? REALLY?!?" Blue sounded annoyed as 'he' shouted this out.

Miz glanced over. "Well, would Liam want to live forever?" She asked gently.

"--Of course he would!" Blue exclaimed, looking back down at her, almost aghast. "There's always more to learn! ALWAYS!"

Bill and Miz were looking at 'him' now. "Then, you would have your Liam with you forever, if he wanted it." Bill said. "And I would have my parents with me for however long they wanted." He raised an eyebrow. "And my parents want to be with me. So if I wanted to be around forever, they'd want to be here forever. So it's not like I'm-- it's not like I'm going to make them die or--"

"--Yes, EXACTLY!" Blue said, looking over at him. "They won't be 'done', as long as you want them with you, because they love you! And you love them! So 'living until they're satisfied' isn't a thing -- they can KEEP ON LIVING and BE SATISFIED THE ENTIRE TIME! 'Being satisfied' is NOT a STOP CONDITION!! --It's SUPPOSED to be a START AND CONTINUOUS ONE!!!" Blue practically yelled out at him, then started rubbing the side of 'his' left hand against 'his' left temple for some reason. "You… you don't always say what you mean at first," Blue said next, a little more calmly. "Faulty not-fault-tolerant concepts. I need to ask for CLARIFICATION…" 'he' muttered, glancing away from him. "No translation errors…"

Bill looked a little bemused. "Ah… okay…" He glanced at Miz, who shrugged, long used to her brother's unique brand of insanity.

---

Miz wasn't just paying attention to her big brother and the other human Bill throughout all of this; she was watching the triangles, too. And right now? The triangles were still trying to escape, the ones in the cage turning themselves every which way to try and slide through the bars of the cage, and it seemed one of them had gotten stuck. Miz sighed, as she looked on at this. And when Blue glanced over at her sigh, and followed her gaze, to realize what she was looking at...

"You're going to break yourself," Blue said, grumbling, as he got up from his chair, because he'd looked over to see what Miz was looking at, and seen it, too. So annoying. "Stop that. --You idiot. Are you trying to die?!" Blue told them, as he walked over, Looking the stuck one over then letting out a sigh of frustration.

"--You mind if I...?" 'he' directed back at Bill, waving a hand at the stuck triangle. "He's your Zodiac." It took Bill a moment, then it occurred to Bill that Blue was actually asking permission to lay hands on him.

The triangle, who looked like Stanley but wasn't Stanley, glared as he kicked his legs. The near identical triangle dressed like Stanford who wasn't Stanford, sighed, burying his face in a hand. "I told you this wouldn't work."

"Well." Bill said, standing up from the table and dusting his hands off primly. "If you really ARE going to help me, I don't need them anymore--" He smirked at the shapes and a small pressure began to build...

"So you'll let them go?" Miz asked (while Blue's eyes narrowed at him slightly). Bill blinked at her, stopping the tension that had been about to spring out and--

"Uh…" He looked between the two demons, then looked over at the triangles, and then relaxed. "Yeah, sure, whatever." He snapped his fingers and lowered the kids to the ground, releasing them. The cage disappeared. The tapestries floated down and turned back into shapes as well. They all let out confused sounds. "Dunno why you care about that," he mumbled, realizing that Blue himself had reached out quite quickly to get 'his' hands under the one stuck-shape, who'd been wedged in-between the bars in an odd orientation, when the cage had disappeared.

Miz walked over to the shapes. They were so smol~ "Well, they're not gonna be fighting you anymore. So it's fine to let them go…" She waved at the tiny little triangles. "Hi! I'm Miz. You're… Dipper and Mabel, right?" It was so strange to see them as triangles. They stared up at her, Dipper had a hand out in front of his sister, trying to put himself between Mabel and the demon.

Blue straightened up, holding the one older triangle in 'his' hands. --Not even grasping it, just holding it, with 'his' hands underneath it. Bill didn't get it.

"W-what are you going to do to us?" 'Stanley' asked, from where he was being held in this new blue-haired demon's hands. 'Stanford' rolled his eye, "Don't go askin' them that!"

Blue looked down at the triangle he was holding. "Well, for starters, I think I'm going to have to think of a way to have you not screwing things up for this other-me! We've got BIG PLANS for him!"

Then Blue blinked, then frowned down at the triangle in his hands a little suspiciously. "...Which one are YOU, anyway?" he asked of said held-triangle. He didn't try to get eye-level with it (which would require either raising it, or lowering down his own head) having learned THAT particular lesson from Shooting Star and her spraypaint can. ...And the Shacktron and that dinosaur claw. …And--

(Well, let's just say that he didn't particularly feel like having to regenerate either one of his -- count 'em -- TWO eyes that he had, right now!)

'Stanley' paled. "I-I'm Stan…" he stuttered out from where he was half-sitting half-being held in the blue-haired demon's large hands -- which just had the demon eyeing him that much more critically, oh no -- while 'Stanford' (still on the ground behind him) groaned.

"It's fine, poindexter. I think we've blown our cover anyway by this point," the triangle that was Stan wearing Ford's clothes said. Ford stilled in place at his brother's words, looking rather tense and worried about the fact that Stan had given the ruse up so easily. But shortly afterwards he realized that his brother had been right to do so -- this one looked far too suspicious to be fooled so easily.

"Your name?" the blue-haired demon prompted him, and Ford slumped and sighed tiredly, as he admitted to this new demon that he was, "Ford."

"Hm," said the blue-haired demon named (rather unoriginally in Ford's opinion) both 'Blue' and 'Bill'.

"Okay, so, bringing back your parents… are you going to need a 'pulling them here' through time thing, or are you planning to bring back your old dimension as well?" Miz asked Bill.

The other demon scoffed. "Oh I have no reason to bring that shithole back. It was an awful place. But I want my parents back and they can tell me themselves if they want anything or anyone else back."

"Ah. Yes." Blue looked a bit subdued as 'he' said this. "And here we come to a potential… sticking point," Blue said next, "That may make things take a little while longer." 'He' turned 'his' head, to not quite look over 'his' shoulder at Bill, as 'he' said, "...Have you done anything since your parents' deaths that would have them, mm, not too happy with you? Anything that they might not approve of?"

Bill winced. "...yeah…" He shook his head. "But they don't have to know! I can make a nice little dimension for them to live in and…" he shuffled a little. "Look, it's been like a trillion years, I've had to do a LOT of shit--"

Miz patted the other Bill's arm soothingly. "Yeah, we get it. Shit happens."

"And it's not like they'd know if I don't tell them," Bill told them next, but for some reason Blue frowned at this, not seeming to think that this was… possible? Bill rolled his eyes at the 'guy's apparent disbelief. "Hey, I can just have them settle down in a nice dimension with no contact to the others and then…" Bill frowned when he noticed the shapes were all trying to sneak out of the room. "--Oi, where are YOU going?" He asked. Silly Zodiac, really think they could leave and regroup for another attack?

Miz sighed. "Just let them go, it doesn't matter. Even if they tried something, there's three of us here." She turned to look at said Zodiac. "Right~?" she asked pointedly. The shapes all winced at the smaller demon's not-quite glare. "Also, if you need a portal out to find some other place to set up a base or anything…" Miz suggested.

Bill laughed. "Well, considering the collapse of this dimension's pretty much a wasted effort by now, sure. Any places you got in mind?" Bill asked leadingly, and Blue immediately started to grin. Miz tilted her head in thought, because was her brother considering...

Blue's grin widened as he waved his hand in a lackadaisical manner. "Well! There's a nice quiet space we know of with plenty of STUFF in it to work with…" and seeing as how he and his sister had been able to mess around inside the lazy-stupid lizard's space without any retaliation… WELL!

"Sounds fun, though I will have to know more about where you're planning to take us." Bill turned on his heel and snapped his fingers, using his power; the Shapes were floated into the air and sent out the door. The other demons packed up their picnic in short order and they all floated out after them.

"Hey guys!!" Bill called out to his henchmaniacs. "Change of plans, we're moving the party. This place is the dumps!" He straightened his suit as he floated himself down to them, prim and proper with his hands on his cane.

The other demons looked a little confused but, hey, boss's orders were boss's orders. Also, he wasn't wrong. This place was so flat and boring, not much fun at all.

"What about that barrier?" Teeth asked. Bill frowned and looked over at the other two 'hims' from another dimension. Miz was flickering as she Looked around.

"Well, this feels nothing like your barrier," Miz told her brother. "It actually feels closer to the one I have back home. But… it isn't stopping me or you from passing through it, which is how we managed to get in here in the first place…" She looked over at the native Bill. "But it is keeping you guys in." She thought about it before she snorted. "There's an insanely easy way around it," she told them, before she floated up and grew until she towered over them all. (Really though, this dimension was waaaay less oppressive and constrained than her brother's dimensional set. She could feel that almost 50% of her full powers were free for use here, as opposed to the less than 10% in the other world.) Then Miz reached up to dig her fingers into the edges of the barrier, and she pried them apart like tissue paper. She wasn't breaking it, though; it would seal back up after she let go.

She grunted as the barrier shook, trying to seal itself back up. "Fly through the gap I made, then wait for us while we finish up with things here," she told the Henchmaniacs. They shrugged and did as she said -- hey, if there was a demon strong enough to pull apart the barrier that none of them could do anything about… yeah, they weren't going to argue. Even the boss hadn't been able to do that...

Once the Henchmaniacs were through, and Miz got the go-ahead (the slightest of nods) from Blue, she let go of the barrier and floated straight through herself without resistance to begin chatting with the Henchmaniacs. She'd open the barrier again once the older demons were finished with their talk.

Bill turned around, grin fixed on his face as he realized he'd just been left stuck inside here at Blue's direction(?!) -- and about to ask 'him', hey, what gives?? -- then blinked as he took in the scene behind him and realized... that Blue was still holding one of the Shapes there. --Wait a minute! He'd thought he'd tossed them all out the door of the Fearamid back there!

...except he'd actually lost track of the one Blue had been holding. Stopped paying attention to it, really.

"Hey, what gives?" Bill complained, though for an entirely different reason than he'd originally been planning on complaining to 'him' about. Because why would Blue be continuing to cart that dumb loser triangle around with 'him'? "Why're you hanging onto that lousy--"

"Insurance," Blue said cooly, cutting him off. "We're leaving 'here'," Blue said (for both Bill's and Miz's benefit), "And won't be 'here' to stop them right away if they try and start something. Can't form the Zodiac if one of them can't reach out and hold hands with the other. ones of them," Blue told him next, with a shrug.

Bill frowned at this for a moment. How Blue was holding the squirming triangle. How Blue was easily handling the squirming Shape without even trying.

...How Blue was just and only holding it. Not holding it still, not holding it in a punishing grip; 'he' was just and only--

"...Problem?" Blue asked him easily, blinking slowly at him, as the Shape continued to squirm fruitlessly (and not actually get anywhere) in 'his' arms...

"HA! No," Bill said. "Solution! --Can't do anything if they're DEAD, you mean," Bill said with a growing grin, slowly raising a hand. "It would just be easier and I don't need them anymore."

"L-let me go--!" Ford demanded almost helplessly. He hadn't liked the sound of anything that had been happening thus far, and-- "S-Stan!!" he couldn't help but cry out, even though he had no idea where his brother even was right now, because Stanley had always helped him, saved him--

"That isn't necessary," Blue said smoothly to Bill, eyes narrowing ever-so-slightly. "I have things under control with this one, thank you. ...Unless you don't believe me, when I say I have things under control," Blue added next, almost (but not quite) dangerously, and 'his' odd (and unexpected) tone of voice made Bill pause for a moment.

"...You don't want him dead," Bill said slowly, starting to frown. Because that wasn't--

"It isn't necessary," Blue repeated. "Who knows, he might be useful later. …Maybe," Blue noted after a moment with a bit of a sigh and an eye roll, at Bill's disbelieving look at the idea of a Shape maybe being useful in any way, shape, or form.

"...fine." Bill finally said, lowering his hand. He wasn't going to go out of his way to antagonize the people who were offering to help him. (Especially while he was still trapped in this stupid town, and the only keys he had to getting outside of said barrier were currently (a) floating outside of it, peppering his friends with questions about their most favorite snacks, and (b) quite literally being held in the hands of another version of himself that he still wasn't sure he really wanted to cross.) No, he wasn't doing that. That would just be stupid.

So instead, he looked up and drawled out, "So, should I go leave the barrier now too?" before glancing back over at Blue.

Blue pressed 'his' lips together and turned his head to look around at the dark sky and ruined town outside the Fearamid. "I think you may want to fix all this first; put things back to the way they were before you came. My sister would be upset if it stayed… this messy," Blue informed him rather dryly.

Bill blinked at 'him', then snorted. "Huh. She does seem like a bit of a neat freak," he noted. He had clearly seen how clean she'd made the Fearamid, earlier. Huh. Maybe he'd misunderstood the head-nod that had been exchanged between the two demons earlier. This 'Blue' one did seem to be the more confrontational and chatty one of the two. If the younger one wanted him to explain why she didn't want him to leave just yet, then…

...Well, fine, whatever. Bill snapped his fingers as he floated in almost a saunter higher into the air, to land on the edge of the Fearamid again, looking out over the town. The scar in the sky closed, the animated buildings turned back to normal, the roads were fixed, the monsters were sucked back into the Nightmare Realm… yeah, put things back to the way they were before. Then Bill made the Fearamid float up even higher, closer to the edge of the barrier. He saw Miz looking down at them, and look around for a moment, before pulling the barrier open once more.

Bill floated himself and the Fearamid up through the open tear in the barrier, before stopping it all in place -- he was FINALLY out of that stupid thing!!! (Blue himself floated up and out shortly after him, before Miz let go of the barrier to let it snap closed again, after checking things over one more time, making sure of their staying power -- especially that of the Rift that just closed.)

"So." Bill placed a hand on his hip, feeling quite jaunty at the whole thing, as he quirked his eyebrow in a manner he knew looked quite fetching on his handsome face, "Where's this cool other place where I can get shit done?"

Blue, still holding a thoroughly-horrified looking Stanford up against his chest, suddenly grinned at him rather widely. "WELL…"

---

"...This is the Axolotl's realm…" Bill deadpanned.

"Yup!" Miz giggled even as she bounced on one of the many clouds there. Weee~! "Don't worry about him, he doesn't seem to mind us playing around in here!" she giggled, hugging Kryptos and Xanthar as they bounced around together. (The gray demon was laughing along, this Miz demon was pretty fun to hang out with. Xanthar was rumbling cheerfully as well, the purple demon liked how warm this new demon was, reminded him of Bill when he let him get that close.)

Bill felt around, the energy just… free-floating around here was… amazing. "That damn lizard really wouldn't try and… stop me?" he asked faintly. He couldn't believe it. He'd been trying to get up here for like… EVER! But he had never been able to figure out how, having believed that the process might destroy him or something if he angered the all mighty god lizard, but these other hims had made it look so… easy. And he'd just followed them up, letting the younger one carry all his Henchmaniacs along for the ride for him, and...

He heard Blue sigh. "That lazy-stupid lizard seems to… like... Miz?" Bill was told, though the blue-haired demon grimaced at that as 'he' said it. "It at least talks to her when she talks at it -- and even me when she's with me -- when it's here and awake and not entirely lazy. I don't think it wanted to talk to me, but it definitely seemed to want to talk to her," Blue noted, in an odd tone of voice that Bill couldn't quite place -- but whatever was going on with Blue, 'he' seemed to shake it off after a moment. "--I don't know why yet, but it's useful."

Bill looked over at the little demon girl, currently riding piggyback on 8-Ball and laughing as he trotted around with her on his shoulders, and raised an eyebrow. There was something here, something important. Like a realization on the edge of his thoughts, so close but not quite there. So… for whatever reason, the lizard favored this… child demon? Odd, suspicious even, but so long as he could use this to his advantage...

"It won't try to stop any of us while Miz is here," the blue-haired demon told him next. "Maybe ask her for some tips on handling the lazy-stupid thing sometime; it's apparently more like the one she knows than the one I have several problems with, in a lot of ways," he was told.

"Right." That was really all he needed to know. Because if the stupid thing wasn't going to show up to stop him while Miz was here... "Well, I have a lot of work to do." Bill turned to the nearest 'cloud' and snatched it from the air. "A lot." He wanted to do as much as he could while he could.

(And Blue sat down -- Stanford in-hand -- and WATCHED him do it.)

---

Bill… actually couldn't believe this was happening. Finally happening!

Sure, he'd been dreaming of this for a trillion years, but in the back of his mind, he'd never thought it would actually work. (He'd thought he'd just end up dying instead. Because of that stupid prophecy… after all, why else would the damn lizard tell him that when he burned, he had to invoke it's name?! Like, was that meant to be a threat? --The stupid jerk! Well, he'd gotten away with this, now! It paid to have a bunch of other-him's on his side, to scare the stupid thing off! Who was laughing now, huh!? --That's right, it was HIM! He was getting EVERYTHING HE'D EVER WANTED, AND--)

He'd created a little planet, all his own. He'd managed to pull forward his parents (with Time Baby dead and the Axolotl being a no-show with ALL this energy around...) -- Bill was able to grip and pull them out through time without anything stopping him at all! Heck, Miz had even helped him create a new dimension where his Henchmaniacs could live and rampage and do whatever they wanted in, without bothering him for ideas for something fun for them to do all the time. Miz had populated the dimension with billions of soulless lifeforms that his demon friends could mess with without Time Baby giving him any grief about it once he reformed himself; that dumb baby didn't want soulless beings to boss around, so he wouldn't come after any of them wanting to grab them for himself. --They were very well made, too; Bill wouldn't have even known they were all unfeeling constructs if he hadn't watched Miz craft them right before his eyes. She claimed that it was better to play around with toys that weren't real people who would feel pain or loss, then to go around hurting real people. (Well, whatever floated her boat.)

Miz was very proud of herself. She'd made a world where the Henchmaniacs could live, with people who were all fully made to act like people without being real people. And, if they got bored, they could head out to another dimension where real people were, as long as they promised not to harm or bother the real people.

"If you want to kill people or rampage, just go back to the toybox," Miz grinned. It seemed like a perfect solution to her. The constructs she'd made weren't even sentient, she'd specifically made them so. There was a bit of a chance they might develop sentience over time -- and if they had children, the next generation would definitely develop Souls -- she knew this from her time observing the Penis Planet™. So she took steps to make sure these constructs wouldn't end up like that.

(Blue tried not to frown over this. There were problems with the idea of this, least of which would be the constraint that would keep the local Henchmaniacs locked into that 'toybox' if they tried to leave while wanting to hurt other-lifeforms with a Soul. --There were too many ways to circumvent it, for a start: they could leave while not wanting to and change their minds later without getting pulled back into it. The other problem was that it was a trap; if they wanted to get out, they couldn't, which was taking away their choices from them, potentially turning it into a localized hell in the long-run.)

(At least… Blue had thought that was going to be a problem, until he watched Miz keep not adding in those constraints that she'd talked about with them, and Blue realized there were literally no restrictions in and out of that dimension for any of the local Henchmaniacs at all. There was nothing holding them there. Nothing even remotely set in place that would hold them to what she'd just offered them -- given and then demanded of them really, this 'only killing or hurting things in the toybox' -- and that they'd all said they agreed upon, because Miz was clearly more powerful than any or all of them combined. It was… almost like Miz was just… trusting them to hold to the agreement without-- oh. Oh. She was trusting them to hold to their agreement...)

(...Oh, that was such a bad idea. These Henchmaniacs weren't like them -- they had no reason to keep their word, no reputation with the rest of the multiverse for hard-and-fast dealing that they cared about keeping intact! Their reputations here, to a T, were ones for rampaging and killing instead!)

(Not to mention the fact that these local Henchmaniacs would get bored to death in there, and start rampaging elsewhere, eventually, with the way that Miz had things currently set up. If there was one thing that Blue knew, it was demons and beings. And with those things in there, not being sentient, there was going to be no challenge to it. No change or learning going on, on the part of the being-killed soulless; no newness or increase in difficulty level or surprise or change to anything, including those soulless' reactions, once the Henchmaniacs had exhausted all possibilities and variations for killing them -- and it didn't look like it was going to take too long for the 'maniacs to explore all of those that were there. Not to mention the fact that there was nothing preventing the 'maniacs from either pulling those soulless constructs out of there, to do who knew what with them, mixing them out into other dimensions instead, or pulling Soul-holding beings into that toybox instead, and...)

(Blue pulled in a breath, and he let it out slowly. He flexed his hands around the triangle he held in his lap without realizing it, and stopped doing so at the triangle's immediate distress just as without realization and as quickly, by feeling of touch alone. --He'd have to have a talk with her once they were back in his own dimensional 'set. The way things were going to progress here, over something like the next hundred-thousand years at most, would have Miz coming back to a lot of broken 'promises' and potentially losing her temper over it badly -- and that was assuming that one of these local Henchmaniacs didn't have the 'brains' to get creative about things even earlier than that. This was not the way to try and entice demons or beings not to do things and expect results. --Going against the flow NEVER worked. People and demons wanted what they wanted; instead of denying it, it was better to work with it -- catering to it, instead. Give the people-and-demons what they want; why not do it, as it were?)

(--For instance, finding a group of Soul-holding thinking beings that liked and wanted to be hurt and killed would be the better option, then setting up processes inside the dimension to automatically un-kill them once done; locking it with a barrier not quite like the one that she'd opened in that other dimension here, one attuned instead so that Time Baby could never get into it to cause problems; allowing the recruitment of others into the 'toybox' to keep things interesting and ever-changing, keeping the Henchmaniacs engaged in doing things there where they would not ever be interrupted, instead of elsewhere where they would be; auto-ejection of those who did not want to hurt or die anymore into a holding dimension elsewhere. ...Something closer to how his sister had set up her library-maze, in fact -- only with death and then un-dying again as a part of it, here. The idea was to create incentives for them doing what you wanted them to do, not disincentives for doing things otherwise. The former was self-perpetuating due to greed and inherent-want; the latter would be broken eventually-and-always, sooner or later, because people (and demons) never stopped wanting what they wanted -- they just wanted it more and more when they thought they couldn't-or-shouldn't get it! And eventually, they would want to scratch that itch, and then they would do it. And usually -- in Blue's experience -- they would almost-always do it at the absolute lousiest of most-inconvenient times.)

(Then Blue had to pause for a moment. Because… he'd been thinking under an old and usually-perfectly-correct assumption, but. --These weren't demons-from-the-outside here, they were just... demons. They might as well be people, for all the similarity they had to the demons from his own dimensional set. If anything, they were likely more like the 'demons' from Miz's 'set, which meant... These Henchmaniacs were probably going to die well before that hundred-thousand years came rolling around, if that local Bill didn't do something about it, and that was a whole other problem…!)

While Blue was frowning over all of this (and the triangular Ford was still trying not to lose his mind over having had to watch all of those demonstrations on how one could kill such realistic-looking people without worry, as they had screamed and screamed and then gurgled out wetly and horribly, as they'd had limbs torn off and holes punched straight through them and then bled out and died there where they'd lay right in front of him, without him being able to do a damn thing about it!), Miz was earnestly explaining to this universe's version of Teeth and Hectorgon about all the ways they could go around harmlessly pranking people if they get bored of messing with the soulless constructs. They were just nodding along at first, humoring her… until Miz gave them such a sweet, trusting smile that they realized if they ever broke her little heart, they'd feel like complete dicks.

'Don't look at us with such eyes!' the two of them complained in their thoughts. This just wasn't fair at all!

Meanwhile, Bill was busy coming to terms with his own final wanted happily-ever-after. He had his parents' Souls, pulled back into the world again in the here-and-now, with only the most minor of help from both Miz and Blue to get him here, to this physical place where he'd actually been able to stand here and do it. All Bill had to do now was to actually bring them back, Mind and Body, and.. that was it. He could settle them into the new world he'd made for them, and then...

...and then that would be that. He would have his family back.

It almost felt too easy.

...and maybe it was, in some ways. Miz had told him that he was lucky his dimension hadn't become a new one after being destroyed, and how his Axolotl was leaving so much free energy around to use, because it would have been more difficult otherwise. (Blue had stayed silent, but rolled his eyes slightly at this, for some reason.)

But, also, having three Bill Ciphers working together had definitely helped to speed the process along. Bill still couldn't believe this day had finally come.

"Hey, um… I know you said you were just gonna hide what you did from your parents, but you can't lie to them forever," Miz spoke up as she floated beside Bill, looking at the two Souls swirling around inside the bubble she'd suggested that Bill put them in for now. "And it'd be better to tell them yourself than having them find out. Heck, just… break the news to them gently, start small?" the girl suggested.

"Bad idea," Blue noted dryly, adding in 'his' own two cents. "If they're going to be around forever with you, they're going to find out eventually. --Might be better to FIX EVERYTHING that you had to destroy before this, on the path-and-way to finishing-up before getting them back, first."

"...Or maybe I'm wrong," Miz noted, glancing over at Blue for a moment. "I actually don't know how they'd react to any of what you've done. But I hope you get your happy ending," she told him cheerfully.

Bill sighed. "You sound very childish when you put it like that." And yet, he did feel somewhat more confident at her words. (At Blue's though, admittedly not so much. What a downer.) "I'll figure something out. And…" He glanced around at the pink clouds. "Now that I know how to get up here, and all the things I can do while I'm here… I can fix whatever mom and dad want me to fix. I'd be able to--" He just hoped they wouldn't be too mad. He also hoped they didn't ask for him to bring back their old dimension. There was no reason for it, nothing about it that Bill really cared to want back. But, if they really asked for it, he would.

Bill glanced over at Miz again, noting that she was now cradling that Shape that they'd kept with them this whole time in her lap; it was trembling in her lap there. (She'd taken him away from Blue again; they'd been passing the shape back and forth between them, as they'd each taken turns helping him out throughout all this work that he'd been doing.) "So… what now?" Bill asked.

Miz hummed as she pet Ford and kicked her legs idly. (The Shape had more-or-less calmed down somewhat over time as he'd realized the demons weren't… actually hurting him… even if the one who was petting him currently had just gotten done horribly killing so many of those people she'd apparently brought into being, people that she'd made just to be able to kill in any horrible way that she or those other demons and nightmares might like, while not calling them people and claiming that it was all okay because they had all been made 'without souls or minds' within them -- which was just another sort of horrifying to him. ...Frankly, he had started thinking this was all some truly fucked-up dream a while back, that maybe Bill had just shocked him into unconsciousness again and actually left him to it this time, finally).

"Well, I'm gonna have to get brother home to his own dimension," Miz told Bill. "We ended up staying here longer than I thought, but even just from this first Door I've visited, I've learned so much." She'd gotten to fully examine a world without pillars! One that wasn't built on a web-matrix with an AI Axolotl like Blue's world was, either. It was interesting! She still wanted to examine Blue's world more fully, but it was too dangerous; the AXOLOTL there was much more… scary. But here, here she'd been able to Look around to her heart's content.

"You're leaving?" Bill blinked. And, he shouldn't have been as surprised as he was. They weren't from this world, this dimension, after all; of course they would leave eventually.

But part of him did feel a little… sad at that.

"I can come visit, if you want?" Miz offered. "Though there are so many Doors, it might take some time to find you. But… I'm gonna work on that, learning more about my Doors and just how they work, what I can do with them…" She frowned. "And how to notice and stay away from those Glitched ones…"

"Glitched ones?" Bill frowned. What was she talking about?

"Eh, Bills that aren't Bills anymore. Not… quite…" Miz shook her head. "It's not something you'd have to worry about unless you try to open my Doors. They can't open any of them. They'd need one of us to open it for them." She gave Bill a shrug. "So, if that Door starts rattling, don't go near it, don't open it. It'll leave eventually." Miz nodded to herself. "So… just don't mess with my Doors and you'll be fine."

"Just to be clear," Blue spoke up abruptly. "We're talking about Doors like that," Blue said, pointing to the side.

Well that was ominous. Bill slowly turned in the direction that Blue was pointing, and…

"There may be one like that now, inside your Mind," Blue told him next, as Bill stared at the door that was somehow just THERE in the Mindscape, hanging there in space.

...and Bill firmly resolved to stay the fuck away from any doors like the one he could now see floating nearby. Even as he watched, it faded and vanished. Well, yeah, gonna ignore it. (There BETTER not be one like that in his mind!) More importantly...

"So you're leaving." Bill didn't ask, he knew they were, but he wanted to have confirmation of this.

"Yes," Blue said. "But if Miz wants to find you more easily again, I will help her do that. Mark her Door on her side in a way to make it easier for her to find you again, quickly." 'He' didn't exactly look like 'he' wanted to come back here anytime soon 'him'self, and Bill was fine with that. (Miz seemed a lot easier to get along with than the older one; Bill felt a lot less threatened by her.)

"Yeah, I'll find a way to keep in touch, if you want. I've got an interdimensional Tumblr blog that I can accept messaging and stuff on as well?" Miz rested her chin on Ford's top point, nuzzling the triangle (and confusing him further). "If you want," she repeated.

Did he want? Bill wasn't sure. Part of him liked the idea, the other part of him thought he'd relied on these other-hims enough already. But, it wasn't like he would be asking them for help again, Miz just… wanted to keep in touch. That… wasn't… a problem, right?

Bill looked back at the Souls of his parents. Well, regardless, he kinda… owed these two for everything they'd helped him with. (And he had promised to exchange information with them for it; they hadn't exactly done any of that yet. Not really. ...Maybe he should do some of that before they left, so they couldn't coerce him into doing even more of it later.) Though, speaking of which...

"Blue said the Axolotl would leave me alone while I worked here, because you were here. What'll happen once you leave?"

"Hm…" Miz didn't seem worried. "I'll ask him nicely to let you do your own stuff. I think he wouldn't mind so long as you're not trying to destabilize or destroy dimensions anymore?" She gazed off and away, Flickering as she checked up on this world's resident Ax. Hm, sleeping. Figured.

"Getting rid of dimensions for no reason is a bit of a waste of time and energy. And it does seem rather lazy overall," Blue noted. "If you get in a staring contest with it long enough and win two times in a row, or try complaining at it for too long about things that involve it actually needing to do its stupid job, it seems ready to float away pretty quickly."

Was it really that simple? Bill couldn't believe it, but, all the same, he was going to keep his guard up in case the lizard tried anything. At the very least he should go get his parents set back up in their new dimension, their new home.

Home.

The idea made him feel giddy in a way he hadn't been in eons.

----

"So… that was fun, and informative!" Miz declared once the Door had closed behind them. They'd talked with that HumanBill for hours about the way his powers worked, the way he manipulated the world around him... It was cool to compare notes, so to speak. (Blue had helped her try out a new technique this time, one that didn't require her to go inside other Bill's Mindscapes or Dreamscapes. And it had worked! ...Even if it was a lot more tiring. --Her brother had apparently been working on it for awhile now, not having known that Ax had already fully removed the restriction he had imposed on her before, on the creation and location of her Exit Doors back to her own Dreamscape-proper. Blue had apparently known how Miz and Seb had left his own dimensional set, but he hadn't known that her not needing to use the one that was still sitting somewhere within his own Mind had been a one-time thing or not. So he'd been working on alternatives in the meantime, and she'd been game for trying his way of doing it this time with him, but… she kind of liked her own way of doing it better.)

(She was actually feeling a little drained in general, now; while they'd had free reign on that Axolotl's Realm for building material, she'd felt bad about using it herself at all and had used a lot of her own power for the stuff she'd built, instead. She hadn't ended up quite as tired as Blue had gotten all of a sudden at the end there, but while he'd dropped down and out-and-out crashed farther and much harder than she had, he'd also seemed to recover after all their work rather quickly; Miz, on the other hand, was still feeling almost as drained now as she had been right after they'd finished fixing that dimensional set's setup, even after sleeping and eating a few things in that other dimension.)

(They'd really only rested the once while they'd been there, and before leaving they'd only taken a quick detour to drop off that ShapeFord, no additional rest before going, and…. Blue had quickly done something to him, that Miz was pretty sure was supposed to keep the Shape from being able to do the Zodiac with the rest of the other Shapes easily, knowing him. But Bill hadn't actually explained, and Miz had been too tired to ask at the time, when he hadn't offered, and… she could ask him later though, right?)

"Fun and informative, yes," said Blue Bill. (Bill Bill Bill. --He could reclaim his own name now. Now that there wasn't another Bill who wanted to be called Bill with them, he didn't have to be polite at all about it! …but now he was struck with the thought that this was Miz's space, so technically maybe he shouldn't go taking it back for himself just yet. It had been a little uncomfortable for him, though, to go by a name that wasn't his own when Miz had only just given it to him -- it was so new that he hadn't broken it in yet AT ALL! And having a not-broken-in name when he hadn't been holding onto the name 'Bill Cipher' at all underneath it, either, was… difficult and almost a little uncomfortable, really.)

(...Was it uncomfortable for Miz when she did it, too? It occurred to Bill suddenly, looking at her, that Miz had had to effectively give up her chosen name of 'Bill Cipher' while staying in his dimensional set with him, and... he wasn't sure how to feel about that, now. Because sure, she was used to taking on different names in different forms -- he knew that -- but so was he when he was puppeting people about, from time to time. Especially when he'd been doing it with Sixer-- Nevermind that. But it was different when you were just 'masking' your name, and not giving it up entirely. …Had Miz really given it up underneath it all though, like he'd done while they'd been visiting that other set? She still seemed to cling to it strongly, so maybe not? But she also seemed to do things rather differently than he did, most times… not that there was anything wrong with that!)

Bill frowned. He had a lot to think about, himself. That dimension had been really different from his own. And the damn lizard there was… actually manageable, almost. It had talked to him. Actually talked to him. Without him having to-- And not just because Miz had been there, he realized only now, well after the fact, because if that had been the case, then wouldn't she have had to ask-and-or-demand that it to talk to him, for her, to get the lazy-stupid lizard to do it? But she hadn't done that; he hadn't had to ask her to do it.

Bill glanced over at Miz, wondering if she'd done something that he hadn't seen to force the lizard to 'play nice' with him, and... suddenly noticed how pale she looked. --And they were still in the Dreamscape. Her Dreamscape, if he'd understood her right, and this was a place where she should be at rather the height of her power, second only to her own Mindscape. Which meant--

"What's wrong?" he demanded of her, as he floated over to hover next to her, feeling worried.

Miz waved him off. "I'm just a little tired. I'll be fine once I get somewhere safe to rest." But her brother frowned at this. He'd thought he'd been the only one to be that tired over everything. --Why hadn't she said anything before? Had making that 'toybox' really drained her that much further? Why hadn't he noticed this sooner?!

--Well, Bill wasn't going to risk Miz getting hurt if she was so drained. Not when he didn't have any tried-and-proven techniques for handling any of those 'glitch'-Bills' yet! So despite how he still wanted to check out other dimensions -- not that 'anti-Bill' dimension, though -- he grimaced and declared, "We're heading back to my dimensional set, right now. You need REST." It hadn't escaped him that he'd gotten a lot more rest than she had before, too, and… now that he reviewed his own memories and all of what he'd Seen, he realized that anytime he'd been watching her, she hadn't been using nearly as much external energy for what she'd been doing with anything that she'd done as he had.

"I'll be fine!" Miz insisted, which only made Bill take her hand and pull her with him towards where he could just feel his own Door. And as he went, he memorized the words on, and look of, the Door they'd both just come out of. It took him only a moment to do so, and once that was done, he made a backhanded motion with his free hand, trying something new, tried 'splashing' the Door with 'paint' of a recognizable and distinctive color and type, so that his sister -- as promised -- could find it again easily if she really wanted to. (--He used Bled, actually. He wasn't about to go back to that dimensional set anytime soon if he could help it, and that particular 'color' could serve as a warning mark and sigil to himself and others, for all he cared. Maybe he'd left things only half-broken-to-being-fully-fixed there, and maybe he'd have to go back there eventually, but he DIDN'T have to like how all the Zodiac there were Shapes, as a start.)

"Will 'be fine'? --No," Bill told her. "--I mean yes. Because I 'will' MAKE it fine! --I'm your big brother, and I'm telling you -- we're getting you back to my dimensional set, and getting you some food for energy for your Self in you, RIGHT NOW!" he declared outright (rather self-righteously as much so as Sixer could get at his worst, almost).

Miz rolled her eyes but there was a fond smile on her face. "Alright~" She did hold back the urge to complain about the Bled on HumanBill's Door though.

---

Back in the Reverse Flatland dimension, Stanford was finally dumped off back home by the female demons, after they had left that odd dimension of fluffy pink things called 'clouds'. The one called Miz had even jokingly told him to 'behave himself' before setting him down (and Blinking away).

(Ford shuddered a bit in place where he stood. Where he'd finally been left alone, by himself, behind. He hadn't exactly liked the way that that other 'Blue' Bill-demon had looked at him -- and muttered something while waving a hand at him, too -- right before she'd gone and disappeared on him herself.)

Ford could only stare off into the distance, feeling all sorts of off-balance.

"GRUNKLE FORD!" a high-pitched voice screamed before Ford was tackled by… by his niece from behind?

"M-Mabel?" Ford trembled in place as he turned to wrap his arms around her, in shock and absolute wonder. She was alive. He was alive. He… he'd… actually never thought he'd see them again.

He looked up from his grandniece as he heard other yelling, and he realized… His brother and Dipper were running towards him too.

(Was… was this a dream? Hadn't he been dreaming? Or was this... right now… actually...)

Stan pulled him into a hug, crying and trying not to show it. "Dammit poindexter! Don't scare me like that again! I thought they'd eaten you or something!"

(No. No, this was far too crazy to be anything but real, and really happening. And the way Stan was hugging him now…)

...Well, Ford might have been crying a little bit, too, as he hugged his twin back just as hard, if not harder.

Not that either old triangle would admit to such a thing, later.

---