Work Text:
Bill Cipher was just having a normal day. Well, as normal as floating in the void after being erased from existence could be. Just floating along, singing sad songs to himself and wallowing in self-pity and anger. He didn’t know how long it had been since he had been erased from Stanley’s mind, but he did know that the axolotl was taking WAY too long. Okay, so first of all, he had invoked her name! Wasn’t she supposed to give him a new body??? Hmm, maybe the axolotl was more deceiving than he thought; having him make a fool of himself reciting her so-called phrase. “Nruter yam I taht rewop tneicna eht ekovni I. Nrub ot emoc sah emit ym. L-T-O-L-O-X-A.” he repeated quietly, drifting away, deeper into the depths of emptiness.
He huddled into himself, shivering. Where had he gone wrong? He had been the most powerful being in the Multiverse for over several days! Why had a few measly humans been able to take him down? What did they have that he didn’t?
Suddenly, there was a soft pink glow from behind Bill Cipher, and he whipped around to see a giant, floating salamander with kelp-like frills coming out of her cheeks. She blinked at him, staying silent. Bill snorted.
“Ah, you’ve finally come to see me! You big-frilly-know-it-all. So, have you come to hold up your end of the deal?” “Yes.” responded the Axolotl in her silvery tones. “Yes, I have. But Bill, do you understand what this means?’
“‘If he wants to shirk the blame, he’ll have to invoke my name. One way to absolve his crime. A different form, a different time.’ yada yada. Okay, I’ll take my new form now, please.”
“Bill Cipher,” said the Axolotl patiently but seriously. “You do realize that if you don’t face your guilt and self-loathing then you won’t be able to come back next time, right?” “I won't have to get back next time,” Bill snapped, crossing his arms. “I’ll make sure I’ll win!”
“Cipher,” said the Axolotl with a frown. “You are tearing yourself apart from the inside. You know that, right?” “Hmmm, uh yeah, no. Not really.” snipped Bill, floating upside down. Well, if gravity were a thing here, anyway.
“I can see your heart, Bill.” said the Axolotl, floating closer and wafting her warm, mud and grass-scented breath towards him. “You aren’t the all-powerful maniac you wish to be. You are grieving! You saw your own dimension burn, Bill, and you blame yourself. But you need to let go. You know that your family wouldn't want you to grieve for them. They were with you through the experiments every step of the way, and shared the same dream you did. Freedom from the binds of the second dimension! Your mission wasn't wrong. It was the accident that went wrong. There was nothing you could have done, so why do you blame yourself for something you had no control over?”
“It wasn't an accident and I'm not grieving,” huffed Bill. “I burned it up and I’m p-proud of it…” Bill could feel, with a huge shock that seemed to nearly stop his non-existent heart, that there was a prickling behind his eye, and his vision began to blur.
“Let go, Bill.” whispered the Axolotl, “I will give you a second chance,” and with a whoosh of air and power, Bill was blown out of his prison of emptiness and into the land of the living.
It was cold. Ohh, WAY colder than the human world should be. The air stank with the smell of rotting meat and ash, and there was no sun or moon to light the way. Bill wanted to open his eye, to look around, but found that he couldn’t. Oh...oh no. He strained to open it, but found that he was without an instrument of sight, and that there was nothing there to open. “Where am I?” He wondered, wanting to get a sense of his surroundings even if he couldn’t see.
Bill tried to struggle to his feet, but fell flat on his...head? Oh no, oh no, oh no. This was bad. This was not a cool form. Bill tried again, and shakily stood up on long, spindly appendages like fingers. Ohhh yeah, that was not comfortable. Ok, ok, he found that he could move around if he struggled on all fours, and he seemed to have some sort of tail-thingy that kept his balance. Augh, he missed his beautiful triangular body.
Bill wiggled his appendages and felt them wave around slowly, much like smoke or underwater kelp would. Hmm, they were nice and light. Not too bad, he supposed… Bill shook his head slowly from side to side, trying to get used to the feeling of having a neck. It wasn’t the most comfortable, but it was easier to move around.
And now about sight...maybe if Bill tried to see without his eye….
Focusing deep inside his own body, Bill let himself calm down and struggled to focus on sight. He remembered seeing blue flames, symbols, stone humans, and waving grass. Remember what sight felt like, Bill.
With an inaudible gasp, Bill found that he could see everything. He could see a dark realm of shadows with red flashing lightning, splitting the skies like streaks of fire. Ashy flakes floated through the air like snow, and sticky webs of black decay were strung off of the trees.
Bill stood there for a while. Devoid of feeling, empty of thoughts. And then the anger kicked in. THAT FREAKING EVIL TWISTED AXOLOTL SHE SENT HIM TO THIS HELL TO ROT!!! AND HE WAS SUPPOSED TO REPENT FOR HIS SINS HERE???
Cipher started to growl deep in the depths of his smoky body, and it rolled through him, rising up to a screech of fury and rage that shook the realm and caused a sense of unbelievable power to flow through his body and mind. This was a different power. Not his old power, born out of trickery and magic, but this was….amazing. He felt like he could topple mountains and kill thousands with a single huff of breath! He could finally destroy the binding of laws and physics like the ones that had trapped him in the prison called the second dimension! The whole world would finally be FREE!
THANK YOU, Axolotl! Bill screamed a bellow of laughter in his head. You put too much trust in others, ya stupid lizard!
With a tense jolt, Bill looked down at the sound of chirping fifty feet below him. Oh whoa, he was MASSIVE! BONUS POINTS THERE TO THIS NEW FORM!
The chirping was coming from a tiny, weird monster that resembled a tadpole, and it was writhing around disgustingly on the slimy asphalt. With a motion that seemed to take forever, Bill lowered his enormous head to the ground and got on metaphorical eye-to-metaphorical eye with the pollywog. It turned its head slightly at him and Bill could tell that it was studying him. Sizing him up.
The creature, staring intently up at him, starting to let out little squeaks and howls. There came answering noises from within the blackened treeline, some of them howls like wolves, and others like creaking doors. Cipher turned and saw hundreds of the same kind of monster slithering to his feet, each at a different stage in its lifetime. Some stood like dogs, their faces opening and unfurling like petals. Others were the same, but bipedal and bigger.
They all looked up at him expectantly, as if waiting for him to give a command. Bill understood, an inner grin unfurling in his head. Though they were strong monsters, they were like animals. Animals in a pack who would elect the strongest as their new leader. Bill had an ARMY! OH YEAH! That space-faring salamander had made the most STUPID decision of her life by putting him in this dimension.
Feeling a pair of real eyes suddenly fall on him, Bill whipped around to see a small form staring at him about a mile off by a crumbling building. Flickering neon letters above it indicated that it was an arcade, and judging by the style of the signs and build of the place, the dream demon could tell that this dimension was still somewhere in the 80's. Shivering in awe and terror beside it, was a boy around Dipper's age. Same build, too. Lanky. Small. Filled with the stench of fear. Apparently he wasn’t the only one in this dark prison.
Cipher rumbled deep in his throat. A maniacal chuckle that was different from his other mirthless screams of mania. He had just found himself in a new game of interdimensional chess, and it was his turn to move the first pawn out onto the board.