Misses home and can't return.
Yeah, sure that was definitely accurate. That stupid space lizard didn't know anything. He might not be really happy—not yet, anyway—but that was no reason to call him a liar. He'd be perfectly happy once he finally pulled off his plan. But for now, he could be happy enough at the Circus of Interdimensional Horrors. How unhappy could anyone be at the circus?
Juggling perpetually-screaming heads always made him laugh. He especially loved the way the heads panicked when they went through the portals the juggler summoned; whatever random horrors they experienced was hilarious. There were the acrobats, too—always a good show. They weren't very good at defying death or gravity, but that was the point, wasn't it? Why else would they be flying over vats of cosmic acid and spikes of immense peril?
The ringleader eventually returned to the spotlight, all false smiles and shifting eyes (even with a thousand eyes, he needed to constantly move them to gauge the reaction of the whole audience). He addressed them all with a voice surprisingly bombastic for a creature with no mouth.
"Ladies and gentlemen, boys and ghouls, simple lifeforms and eldritch horrors of unimaginable nightmares, I present to you a hell-beast who needs no introduction—Pyronica!"
She was an impressive construction, all done up in hot pink and flames. Big, sturdy, powerful—she looked like she could bust through just about anything. He had to admit, he liked the look of a hulky, booming cannon. The monster with the sharp teeth going into it wasn't too hard on the eye, either.
But nothing, nothing beat the terrifying thrill of the dimension-tearing kaboom! that sent Pyronica careening into the next space-time. What had once been the center ring hardly remained, and what did was nearly ash. The splash zone had all gotten a face-full of whatever powered that monstrosity, but, then, that was what they paid for. No refunds, no liability for whatever melted your face or haunted your eternal nightmares. And, beyond the big rip in the big top, saw the twinkling that Pyronica had become somewhere across the universe. What beautiful destruction!
Bill had to have it.
Sparkling lavender smoke trailed out from the noisy trailer. Bill phased through the star door, into the crowd of lowly peons kowtowing to the pink mass of teeth and legs; a few small nothings from a dimension he was sure he'd demolished recently rested on her fat purple cigar, mostly enveloped in the glittery smoke.
Bill ignored all the fawning toadies. With his top hat floating just so and his bow tie properly adjusted, he made his way to Pyronica's side.
"Name's Bill Cipher." He grinned, as much as a triangle with no mouth could grin, anyway. "Just saw your show-love the destruction, real flashy, great showmanship, all around good stuff."
Delighted, Pyronica tapped the ash from her cigar. A few of the hangers-on toppled to the floor. She didn't notice. "Thanks! The cannon is my favorite part, too-so much destruction! You should see it when I get fireworks."
"Now that sounds like a show!" Bill laughed. Lacing his fingers together behind his head/body and propping his feet on an imaginary footstool, he continued. "Now, Pyronica, I think we should get to know each other a little better—it's so rare to find someone else with such a beautiful love of destruction."
Pyronica clapped her hands. "Oh, goody!" Her smile widened, exposing all her sharp, sharp teeth. In a flash, her jaw popped open and snapped shut, entrapping Bill inside.
To be perfectly honest, he'd been in some unpleasant innards before. Pyronica's weren't even among the bottom ten. Somewhere between her teeth and her tongue, he drifted from her slimy insides to a small pocket dimension; he quite admired the fiery inferno living inside Pyronica. It wasn't every day you saw slave labor starting so many fires, and even more keeping those arsons stoked. (Blame the arson for the fire.)
Maybe it was minutes, maybe hours, maybe days, maybe years, maybe millennia, maybe eons—Bill didn't know, really, or care, for that matter. Time meant nothing to an immortal being of pure energy. Just as he intended to leave the Realm of Eternal Hellfire living inside this circus horror, he found himself back in the slobbery wetness of a toothy mouth, and shortly back through the fangs into Pyronica's trailer.
"How gastric," Bill mused to the now-empty trailer. "But not what I meant. I thought that maybe we should see just how explosive you and that toy of yours can get."
Giddy, Pyronica clapped again. "Oh, I see what you mean!" She snatched his hand and dragged him back outside.
Behind the big top, her technicolor cannon sat patiently. Pyronica stuffed the bemused triangle into the cannon's mouth and rushed to its back. She blew a huff of fire at the fuse. While the flame crept closer to the gunpowder, she leaned against the cannon and puffed at her cigar, waiting.
The cannon finally burst.
Bill shot off, careening into the interdimensional horizon. Pyronica waved him off.
"Bon voyage, Bill Cipher!"
Bill was impressed. The cannon was just as powerful as he had expected. Plus, it shot him clear over Gladiatorie 4, the Plains of Eternal Torment, the state of Florida, and Camp Blood, which he always enjoyed. (Well, maybe not Florida.) As he floated across the vast void of space, watching an exploding star consume galaxies in a fiery cataclysm (Saw his own dimension burn), he decided to have that destructive power.
Plus, Pyronica was clearly a girl who knew how to party. He always needed to have more people like that around.
In an instant, Bill returned to the Circus of Interdimensional Horrors. Apparently, some time had passed; it was daytime, or as "daytime" as any skyless, sunless place could be, and the acts were moving about the big top and surrounding areas.
The Impossibeast tamer herded his monstrosities into the tent, most of them taking a bite out of the passing clownstrosities (they bleed cotton candy and battery acid—hilarious!). Mindlessly, Bill floated around the eldritch horrors juggling the perpetually-screaming heads, searching for the biggest boom in town.
Fortunately, she wasn't far.
Pyronica was washing her beloved cannon, clearing it of the soot and ethereal plasma that sullied its bright pink finish.
"That was some shot!" Bill laughed as he approached. "Still, not quite what I had in mind. How about we just chat?"
"Oh, well, if that's all you wanted, why didn't you just say so?" She tossed the rag aside and turned to Bill with a toothy grin. "So, did you enjoy the ride?"
"It was spectacular—love the way it tears through reality." Casually, he leaned against the cannon. "You seem like someone who really knows how to party. And, honestly, I can appreciate a monstrous appetite for destruction."
Her interest piqued. "Go on, Bill Cipher."
Bill snapped a drink into his hand. "The Nightmare Realm has been feeling a little…crowded, lately. Lots of folks falling out of their home dimensions, mostly because I've been ripping them to shreds trying to find the perfect place to really let loose." He sipped at the purple liquid in his glass. "The loudest party in the universe can't be confined to one tiny gap between dimensions, after all. It's a little too explosive for that."
Pyronica's eye widened. Her fanged grin curled with excitement. "What a blast!" She clapped, buoyant. "My cannon could really get some use there. I could rip through the whole multiverse!"
"That's the plan."
"But, I think…" Pensive, she glanced at the cannon. "I think it'll need some help. It takes a lot to get this baby to break out of here." Her brow furrowed in consideration. "My cannon just isn't that powerful."
"I think I can fix that for you." Bill snapped his fingers again. His glass disappeared and his cane took its place. Leaning forward on it, he met Pyronica's eye. "Just get me into your next show. I'll get us where we need to go." He tapped the cannon with his cane. "I'll get this beautiful monstrosity there, too."
Pyronica's face lit up. "It's a deal!" Overwhelmed in excitement, she chomped down on Bill again. "Oh, dear. I'll have to make sure I get him back before showtime…"
The crowd was in full form that night, enthralled with the show and screaming and cheering with particular vigor. Maybe it was the ferocity of the future gladiators (they stood no chance against the clownstrocities, but boy did they ever try), maybe it was the hilarious deaths of the acrobats (their wails as they fell into the spikes were an absolute riot), but the crowd was more thrilled than usual for the big boom.
Beaming, the ringleader with a thousand eyes journeyed to the center ring. "Ladies and gentlemen, boys and ghouls, simple lifeforms and eldritch horrors of unimaginable nightmares, I present to you a hell-beast who needs no introduction—Pyronica!"
The spotlight shifted to the center of the big top, revealing a larger version of Pyronica's beloved pink cannon. Bill floated near the fuse, delighting in the temporary limelight; much to his endless amusement, the crowd's excitement and horror swelled with Pyronica's fiery entrance.
She only spent a moment making last-minute adjustments to the big cannon. As she did her final inspection, Bill set his hands ablaze, to the crowd's audible glee. He snatched the fuse; as soon as it caught, Pyronica snatched him and dragged him with her into the mouth of the cannon—which, despite its larger-than-usual size, still didn't provide much wiggle room for either of them.
The fuse continued to burn.
Pyronica giggled. "This is going to be a blast!"
The cannon responded with an earth-shattering kaboom! that sent the two shooting into the sky. Past the faux atmosphere, into the void of space, beyond the visible stars, they flew well beyond the point where, for as much as the circus audience could tell, they would have become nothing more than glistering twinkles.
There was no such thing as too much kick and time meant nothing, but, after quite a time soaring into endlessness, Bill wondered if maybe ha had managed to put too much kick into that boom.
"Tell me more about the Nightmare Realm."
"It's a nice little gap between dimensions, a place where there are no rules and the party never ends." As much as a triangle without a mouth could smile, Bill smiled. "We annihilate new dimensions daily—well, as 'daily' as a gap between dimensions can get, anyway."
Pyronica showed off all her sharp teeth. "And that's what you wanted the big boom for, isn't it?"
Bill's laugh somehow echoed in the infinite void. "Gotta get the party to everyone somehow, even if I have to break the barriers between dimensions to do it."