Illusion is Reality

Chapter 119

-It was just a job-

(3rd person POV)

MizBill bid goodnight to everyone before going to sleep with Xanthar, curling up on him as they always did. This time though, Ammy had some over as well. "Can I come with you? When you go visit Sebastian?"

And that sounded like an amazing idea, so MizBill agreed and pulled Ammy in for a hug as the two drifted off to sleep. Xanthar considered requesting to go as well, but ultimately decided not to, this time at least.

The transition from one side of the Door to the other was seamless, as MizBill had gotten much better at it. Ammy followed along, holding hands so as not to get separated. MizBill woke in her Miz vessel and sat up in the dark of Zach and Zoe's room, which she was still sharing. She glanced up at Ammy, still in the Mindscape.

"...I should make you a proper vessel that you'd be able to blend in here with." Miz whispered, so as not to wake the twins. Ammy was looking at the sleeping Plantimals, wrapped in the twin's embrace like stuffed animals. "Could I be one of those?" He inquired. Miz giggled before twirling her hand and forming a snake-like creature. Well, from afar, it looked like a snake. Up close one would see the tiny leaves making up it's 'scales'. "Would this work?" Miz held it up to her son.

The disjointed shape inspected the vessel before deeming it "Adequate." and slid himself inside. After he was settled, Miz yawned and pulled the Leaf-Snake up against her chest. "Still sleepy. Good night Ammy."

"Good night mother." The 'snake' said, his voice quite clear despite the new form. In fact, his voice now lacked the multi-voiced echoing of his usual speech. This was interesting, but Mother was already asleep and Ammy knew better than to try and slither away, Mother hugged, and she gripped. There would be no escape from Mother's cuddles.

So Amorphous Shape laid his leafy little head down and went back to sleep again.

It wasn't merely a whim, that made him choose to come over.

Ammy had noticed his mother being… different lately. Not a bad different, just… Mother's behavioral patterns had shifted in a subtle way. As Ammy had been keeping careful track of all his mother's actions and moods in his journals and conspiracy board, such a deviation was to be noted down, and studied.

Mother always said that he was free to pursue whatever interests he had, after all.

(Back with Seb's Ford)

A few days later, after Blue had arrived for an afternoon, well… out of the blue?... Ford was walking into the Center and had to stop as Fiddleford met him at the main door on the way in - which was anything but normal these days.

...Fidds didn't quite stop him at the door, just stepped in front of him for a moment on the way in, but he looked grim enough that Ford stopped on his own to ask him, "Is something wrong?" Was it the interns? Had they gotten into the growth crystals without proper supervision and enlarged the frogs a bit too much? Or had the slime mold gotten loose again? The Center itself at least still seemed to be standing, without visible damage to the roof or exterior walls, as far as Ford could see...

"Blue's here," Fiddleford told him, and Ford's face fell. He'd been looking forward to work today, but now...

"I thought he didn't like the idea of stepping onto the property," Ford noted, as he opened one of the double doors and held it for Fiddleford. He'd gotten that impression during his first visit over the summer, when he'd gone to the caves and apparently a few other places in town. At the time, Blue had talked about not wanting to go near it. At least, Ford had thought he'd sounded that way, to him. Had something changed?

Ford sighed. "Where is he, exactly?"

Fiddleford pulled out a tracking device, and checked it. "Still in front of your lab," he told Ford. "Unless he took the visitor's badge off. Biometrics still read a heartbeat off him from the sensors, though," his friend told him, putting the device back in the pocket of his white lab coat again.

Ford sighed again, and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Think I could get away with another field trip, without going to my lab office for the day?" he asked his friend with a weak smile.

"Don't think we really want him around the heavy machinery," Fiddleford told him. "He asked how long you would be, and asked after a tour after that. Something about 'getting bored'." Fidds gave him a long, knowing look.

Ford groaned. "Why did you let him into the building?" he asked of Fidds next, as they both began walking. Could he maybe get away with taking a sick day? -He'd had testing plans for the day, though. Could Bill possibly take Blue off his hands for the day? It couldn't hurt to ask, right?

"Well, he was… causing a bit of a scene. Also," Fiddleford rubbed his eyes behind his glasses. "He has 'friends' here." That last part was said almost as a question.

"The interns saw him again, didn't they," Ford groaned out. "They like him for some reason; they think he's… 'cool'." Ford made air quotes, then sighed. "Fine, I'll go and talk to him… frankly, I thought the unicorn barrier around the Center would have kept him out…"

"No, he… he walked right through it." Fiddleford looked somewhat worried now. "Did see him glance around a bit after he passed the line, though," Fiddleford reflected. "Thought he was looking over the building." Fiddleford made a note to add more security bots, hidden in the seams behind the walls of the building. Lots of room back there, between all the sound-proofing, could fit an entire raccoon colony in there! (Fiddleford was still upset that Ford vetoed that particular idea.)

Ford was trudging his way to his lab, mentally preparing himself. Well, if he was being honest, as annoying as Blue was, he DID make things… lively. Ford almost called it 'fun' if not for the headache he always got afterwards. But, if Blue didn't do things like steal his belongings again, maybe this visit would even be… enjoyable? (To be honest, Blue was too fascinating, he really was, and Ford knew he shouldn't be so interested in him, but what with Blue being Miz's beloved brother, well, Ford needed (wanted) to get along with him (at least a little bit). So… perhaps this was a blessing in disguise?)

Either way, Ford greeted a few of the other workers as he strode down the hallway to his personal lab. Ah, there was Blue now.

Blue was standing in the hallway, leaning up against the door frame to the doorway to his lab. He was dressed in largely the same outfit as last time, except… all the lace was gone, as a start. He was still wearing something of the same odd black top, but it looked tucked into his pants this time and with far shorter sleeves, ones that were no longer trailing down almost to his knees; they stopped just above his elbows instead. He was also wearing a normal pair of (black-colored) jeans this time, instead of black almost form-fitting pants with those odd cutouts along the sides of them as he had last time; he had on the same boots, though - same tattoos as per his last visits as well. (Ford wondered about Blue's insistence on looking… 'fashionable'? Well, Sebastian did much the same, and Bill Cipher was a very fancy triangle. But the aesthetic Blue was going for seemed… goth? Emu? -Wait no, that wasn't the right word for it, what was it again? He couldn't quite recall. Hipster? No, that was an entirely different style...)

The demon was in 'younger' mode today as well, looking older teen-aged and female still. Short-cropped hair. He had his arms crossed. And when Ford rounded the corridor, Blue almost immediately glanced his way. Ford quickly gave up on naming the clothing style and waved. "Hello again Blue." Ford glanced around the more or less empty hallway. "I thought Miss Se and the others were going to be with you?"

"They had work to do," Blue not quite shrugged at him. ...Well yes, more like, they had work they were supposed to do, and Viola had (Ford found out later) 'sadly' pulled the other two away to go back to their assignments, along with her own. (What he did not find out later from them was why they'd thought he would want to spend time alone with Blue. They kept changing the subject rather abruptly on him every time he tried to ask, for some unknown and highly suspicious reason.)

Blue wasn't moving away from his door, and the demon was rather… staring at him? It made Ford feel a little self-conscious really. He checked that his clothes were on right, and that his hair wasn't a mess (it wasn't, was it?) and Ford was rather put off by the fact that he almost felt a need to… impress Blue? Well, more to the point, Ford wanted Blue to approve of his friendship with Miz. He understood that Blue was just being protective, but Ford wasn't going to try to kill her! He really didn't know why Blue refused to accept that! "What is it?" Ford finally asked, when the staring didn't stop. Was there some sort of Toby- er, Bodacious T, effect on him?!

"You asked 'if I wish to keep going'," said Blue, still staring, arms still crossed.

Ford blinked, it took him a few seconds to remember the conversation that Blue was referencing. "Ah. Well." Ford looked around. "We have a larger room used for testing the more dangerous experiments. It's blast proof, if you want to go there to… continue our… scuffle?"

Blue's eyes went a bit wider, and his pupils went cat's-eye slitted.

"I'm not an experiment," Blue said to Ford, not moving from his spot. And while the demon didn't quite radiate menace as he said this...

Ford quickly waved his hands. "I'm not saying you are! You know what? Bad idea, we could just… go back into the forest for this? If that'll make you more comfortable?"

Blue let out a sort of 'tsch'ing noise, and turned his head away from him - he even stopped staring at him at that.

"Would that make you more comfortable?" was Blue's almost passive-aggressive(?) reply to him instead.

Ford blinked. "I don't mind either way. I mean, if we do this here, there will be an audience. If we do this outside, there'll still be an audience, unless we go much deeper into the woods." Ford shrugged. "But we have medical personnel on hand here in case of any accidents."

Blue grimaced at this.

"I won't need 'medical personnel'," Blue told him. And Ford almost expected him to push away from the wall at this point - but no, he stayed still. "Deeper into the woods means interruptions from those stupid monsters that will try to eat us." Blue paused for a moment. "Grass is fine. Inside here," he made a short gesture with a hand before pulling it back in to his crossed arms again, "Means I'm not casting magic." Except… after Blue said that, he flicked his eyes over to Ford on the next blink. It looked rather disconcerting, and not just because Blue was staring at him again with nary a grin in sight.

"...yes, that is a possibility." Ford adjusted his glasses. "Alright then…" He walked toward his lab door. "I just need to go in and check on a few of my projects first."

Blue didn't move away from the side of the door frame, but Ford felt his eyes track him as he opened the door to his lab and went inside. Ford closed the door behind him and slumped against it. What was he getting himself into? Despite that thought, a grin was stretching his mouth wide, which Ford rubbed his hands across his cheeks to coax back down. He shook it off and went to pick up the printed read outs from the scanner he'd had running overnight. Ah, good. Things were proceeding within his estimations. He clicked a few buttons, to shift the test parameters again, to allow it try a different setting, and nodded to himself. Just let this run for a few hours and check on it again. He turned to another experiment. A new one.

Despite how it was a newer project, Ford was much farther along on this one. In fact… Ford picked up the device. It was… stable. According to his readings. It was ready for field testing. Ford let out a most unmanly giggle of giddy joy at the idea. He placed the edge of the rope around his neck and shoulders, swinging the device on like a one strap backpack. He patted it lovingly before doing a quick check on the rest of his projects. Once he was done with that, Ford headed back out the door. "Sorry for the wait," he apologized, mostly as a courtesy.

"Hm." Blue took one look at the device Ford had just put on, pushed himself away from the doorway, turned on his heel, and started walking farther into the building.

"Yes, it's a localized portal emitter." Ford explained, almost proudly, scratch that, he was definitely proud of it. "It's limited to Earth only. Fiddleford wasn't comfortable with anything reaching further than that." Ford added, as if preemptively explaining why it was so limited.

"It's experimental, and I already warned you about the lava," Blue noted, as he continued on walking.

"Yes, there are multiple settings in place to check for the safety of the area where the other end opens up." Ford nodded. "Xin showed me this video game about Portals, really inspired me for some of the features. Like making the in and out portals different colors for one."

Blue let out a sigh and an eye roll. "Humans." The demon sounded both exasperated and annoyed.

Ford continued babbling as they walked, just happy to get to talk about his project with someone. "-had to change it from a gun to a more discreet looking shape. And it's built with various plastic and non-metal materials so it fits through metal detectors and can't be disrupted by magnets-"

Ford babbled on and on, in fact, until Blue finally stopped walking, and when they stopped walking, Ford blinked.

"...This isn't the exit to the building," Ford said (rather inanely, he only realized after he'd said it), as he stared at the blast doors to containment and testing chamber No. 5. "Didn't you want to…" He trailed off, looking at Blue with some confusion.

"That is experimental," Blue said, before turning away from him and reaching out a hand for the electronic lock keypad interface. "And I didn't come here to practice my magic with you," the demon added with another eye roll.

Ford blinked at him as the doors to the testing chamber opened up. "Then, what did you come here for?"

"Did you want to hear the ENTIRE list?" Blue said to him almost snidely, turning to the side and gesturing him through the opening. "After YOU!"

Ford (had the gall to) rolled his eyes and went in. The room had been cleared out, a few stragglers running to get behind the large plexiglass shields. "Hi Dr. Pines! The floor's all yours!" One of the technicians waved as she jogged past him. Up in the observation deck, Ford could see Dr. Poddar starting another betting ring. (Ah. Apparently Fiddleford wasn't the only one who'd been tracking Blue's location by his visitor badge - not with this large of a crowd for the testing, and betting.)

Blue strode in after him, looking bored, of all things.

"Right." Ford cleared his throat. "Are we playing keep away or… I have a ball we could try to grab from each other?" He pulled out one of his many stress balls from a pocket.

Blue just did that odd almost shrugging motion at him again.

"Oh. We've got a training setting in this test chamber- for dodge ball." Ford told Blue. "Hm… there's a paintball setting too. And I know one of the other rooms was decked out for laser tag, Soos's idea actually." Ford was over at the control panel now, pulling up the different testing protocols. "Which one would you like?"

"What part of 'I'm not an experiment' did you not understand before," Blue repeated to the scientist.

"...well, I'm part of this too." Ford pointed out. "It's just-" He paused, closed his mouth, thought about it. "Well, what do you want to do?"

Ford watched as Blue flicked his eyes up to the crowd in the observation deck. Over to the others behind the blast shielding. Back to Ford himself.

"How many of them have read the book," Blue said to him next, rather flatly.

"...to be honest, more of them have seen the Dot and the Line: A Romance in Lower Mathematics, than Flatland." Ford shrugged. "Look, I know that things in your dimension were… rather… racist towards you, if that term even applies in this situation, but I'd like to think we at least try to be more accepting here," Ford said helplessly.

Blue flicked his eyes away from him.

"I don't like losing," Ford heard Blue say next. "And Stanley thinks I play to an audience a bit too…" Ford watched as Blue glanced around at the other people again, "...much." And that was the odd note that Blue seemed to end on.

"Don't mind them too much. They watched me give Mabel self-defense lessons. It's not about winning or losing here, just learning and having fun." Ford told him.

And he watched Blue's pupils go slitted again.

He also watched as Blue seemed to… not quite squirm in place, almost underneath his skin. -Not as though that was what he was actually doing, but… it was clearly an approximation of such a motion by a human body.

"If it makes you feel any better, I won't be going for anything lethal or crippling? This isn't going to be a real 'fight'." Ford tried to assure him. "I mean, I wrestle with Xin sometimes. It's fun."

"Parameters: training session," Blue said next. "Constraints: non-lethal, non-damaging, not a 'fight'; either participant can call 'stop' or 'no' for a reset to baseline-restart at any time."

"I'm fine with a training session." Ford agreed. "Hm, yes. That sounds fine. Similar rules for me and Xin, almost. Pin or constrain for twenty seconds, perhaps?" He had a coiled up length of the new rope he'd invented for tying up Xin in his pockets. Although he'd invented it for the purpose of being able to 'bind' Xin without any chafing and injury, it was incredibly useful for other rope-like purposes. Like lassoing a cryptid or even bungee jumping. So Ford kept some on him at all times, it was just useful in a pinch.

"Define: 'pin'. Define: 'constrain'. Define: 'second'," was what Blue said to him next, tilting his head slightly to the side. The demon folded his hands behind his back and began to walk in a circle around him.

"Pin, holding one down, either against the ground, themselves or the wall. Constrain, stopping movement or escape. Second, a measurement of time in Standard Galactic Tik-Tok." Ford defined.

"'Stopping movement' of what sort," Blue said to him next, still circling him.

"Physical, the arms and legs, or just holding one in place within their grip."

"Not very similar to the stop-conditions for an actual fight," Blue noted.

"It's not really a fight?" Ford shrugged.

"Yes," said Blue, "But then it's not training, either," the demon not quite drawled out at him next.

"The point is to break free from constraint, to not get caught. I do this to train, as you put it, with Xin." Blue stopped walking abruptly as Ford said (one of) his sister's name(s). "So that he'll learn ways of breaking free non-lethally, and without panicking to the point of being lethal to those around him. Since he doesn't want to lose control in such a way." Ford adjusted his glasses, looking rather serious now. "All sorts of people could suddenly try grabbing him, and I don't want anything bad to happen to him, or others. He asked me to help him. He has given me the parameters. If he says to stop, I do so. I give him a place where he can confront his fear in a safe environment. And I help him learn ways to get out of physical restraints if anyone ever attacked him in such a way."

Blue stared at him with those cat's pupil-slitted eyes for an uncomfortably long time without speaking.

And then Blue said, "Show me."

And, as if that was the signal to start, Ford ran at and then around Blue, aiming for a grapple from behind.

Blue immediately turned on one heel and his feet slid out into a far, far too familiar stance that Ford had seen many times before, as Blue brought his hands up into fists.

Blue danced away from him in a boxer's stance, almost sideways.

And Ford made a sweep for Blue's legs, to knock him off balance, holding himself low to the ground as he did, one hand bracing against the ground, the other going to his hip.

Blue moved quickly, but he didn't quite get far enough out of the way in time; Ford's kick didn't catch the one leg, but he did manage to hook the other foot.

And Ford was rushing forward even as Blue overbalanced, twisting in place as he kicked up the hooked foot, trying to restabilize in a sort of pinwheel-motion- and Ford's hands came out to grab for Blue, using his larger size to his advantage. Blue didn't quite bend over backwards as he went, and Ford got a hand around one of Blue's forearms as he came down, with the other behind Blue's head, pulling him back upright towards himself. Ford could feel Blue start to struggle, start to tense up to do so - Ford was used to this, had done this many a time with Xin - but then the demon oddly went completely still on him instead, stilled in place and turned his head slightly to glare up and over his shoulder at him with one eye.

Ford adjusted his grip almost instinctively. He crouched there, holding Blue.

Blue didn't move, just kept on staring at him, as the seconds ticked by.

At about the ten second mark, Ford wasn't losing focus, despite how docile Blue seemed. Neither was he tense, Ford knew being tense would only make him slower to react when Blue did decide to move, to try and escape his hold.

He felt Blue get slightly restive at the fifteen second mark, and something flickered in the demon's eyes, as Ford felt him flex his wrists slightly.

Ford straightened immediately, spinning Blue around in his grip, pulling the demon's arms up and then behind him with one hand, wrapping his other around Blue's midsection, holding him against his chest. Blue's back was against his front, but with Blue's hands aimed away from Ford, off to the side.

Blue was still looking at him, when the nineteen second mark hit, and there was something dark and fragmented in his eyes now that Ford saw. Ford braced himself for whatever it might be.

But Blue didn't do anything when the twenty-second mark hit. He didn't do anything at the twenty-one second mark, either.

...and Ford let go as soon as that registered with him, stepping away a couple paces, just in case. "...are you… alright?" Ford asked, softly.

He watched Blue's eyelids fall low, though not completely closed. He watched as Blue pulled in a deep breath, and then let it out slowly.

"...Not a game here," Ford almost didn't hear the demon mutter, before Blue's eyes were fixed on him again, and after another breath, an even, "...This is training."

"...yes, this is training. It's not a game." Ford wasn't sure if he needed to respond, but he felt a need to. "We can play games, but life isn't a game in and of itself." He relaxed a little, but not too much.

"You're always losing here." Blue was looking at his wrists now, making small circles with them, not looking at Ford.

"I've lost, more times than I can count." Ford admitted. "Stanley liked to make a competition of it. Between various sports or races or… anything, really."

"Forever and always losing, here," Blue said next, before looking up at him again. "I don't like losing."

"Losing here just means we get to learn from what we did wrong, so we can do better next time." Ford said gently.

There was a pause, and something dark in Blue's eyes. "Stanley says similar," Blue said finally, "But that's only because I kicked the last of the demons out of his dimension centuries ago. 'Losing' is just another word for 'death', for demons."

"...it was nice of you to protect them from the demons?" Ford thought it was very kind of this Bill Cipher to do so, but he also got the feeling that things were much more complex than it seemed.

"No, it wasn't." Blue was fixing his gaze on him again rather uncomfortably. "'Enlightened self-interest'. -I wanted to GET OUT."

"...regardless of your personal reasons, the safety of that dimension is still… nice." Ford rubbed a hand across his face. "Wow, what a way with words I have…" He grumbled.

"'Safe'." Blue scoffed. "You don't know what 'safe' is. 'Way with words'..."

"Perhaps I don't." Ford agreed easily.

"Yes. No. It's just a different kind of death, until I fix things. If I continue to keep everything and everyone else out." Blue looked up at him next.

Ford sighed as the subject of 'fixing' things came up again. "I suppose you're talking about the whole… dying of old age, thing. Which you plan to fix?"

"That's Seb's job here," Blue noted. Then: "Is that all you've got?"

"You want a round two?" Ford asked, loosening his shoulders as he slowly circled Blue.

"Do you?" was the rejoinder he got back from the demon.

And that grin was back, sliding into place on Ford's face so naturally. "Yes." His heart had begun pumping a little during that first round, but he'd calmed when Blue had just… not fought back once he was caught. But, maybe this time, now that Blue knew a little more about how this worked...

Except the second time, Blue was caught again, and stopped moving again.

And the third time.

And the fourth.

And the fifth.

And the sixth…

"...you know you can try to break free from my grip?" Ford asked, almost helplessly, as Blue once more stopped moving upon initial capture a seventh time.

"Yes," said Blue, in an almost Bill Cipher-like way, and there was something in his eyes-

"Are you alright?" Ford asked again. He didn't relax though, not at all. He wasn't going to just allow Blue to escape if he DID try something.

"Are you?" Blue said next, his eyes glinting.

"Well, I'm not quite sure." Ford almost shrugged, but didn't.

"You aren't trying to get away from me," Blue said next.

"Well, I'm holding you…" Ford paused. "Ah, I see." He let go and straightened up.

Or he tried to. His hands didn't move, and his fingers unclenched only slightly.

Blue stayed in place, and Ford's own motion was arrested, his hands being unable to move away from...

"...as I figured." Ford sighed. "To be honest, I sort of suspected this, but I wasn't sure." Blue was 'holding' him in place. Somehow. ...Well. He was well within the parameters, so Ford would give him that. "It appears I will have to change up my strategy." Ford mused to himself. "This is a good learning experience."

"A stalemate is not a loss; I did not lose here," Blue noted, waiting almost to the twenty-second mark before letting him go. (And as he did so, Ford blinked as he saw Blue's tattoos - at his arms and wrists, where he'd been grabbing him - seem to flex a bit at the edges near his hands, and he realized that there had been something almost like tendrils extending from those tattoos up to his fingers and-)

"No. But even this, I can learn from." Ford smiled. "I shall be using more than just my hands starting from the next round." Ford told him.

And he did, pulling out his rope and attempting to lasso the demon next.

But Blue began using his right forearm like a shield almost, the top edge of one, to slam into it at an angle (without getting caught on the loop) and divert it. (It wasn't quite like a boxer's blocking move, but the footwork was a bit…)

So Ford began to whip the rope across the air, to get the end around Blue, or a combination of rope and his hands for the next few attempts.

Except when he succeeded (on the first try), the rope parted like water when it hit the side of Blue's forearm.

...and the length of it farthest from Ford hit the floor in short order, severed from the place where it had just hit up against Blue's unprotected skin-(?!)

So Ford began aiming for Blue's legs instead. He dashed around the demon, darting back and forth and flinging the rope out low.

Blue didn't move, and the rope parted in the same way yet again next. (...Despite his clothing being in the way this time; was it not from direct contact with his tattoos, then?)

Ford's mind raced with thoughts of his next move. He couldn't get Blue with the rope from a distance, but closing in on him would get Ford caught like a bug on a glue trap. Well, if it was merely the holding in place then-

Ford ran up to tackle and lift Blue into the air, over his shoulder like a fireman's carry. Holding Blue around the demon's waist with one hand, while his other hand remained free, a test of sorts.

Blue didn't stop him. He didn't even try to dodge.

But then Ford felt a hand come down on the back of his neck, and-

Ford's other hand tried to move quickly, to pull Blue off.

But his entire body seized up first. And Ford toppled over, unable to move.

Unable to move his limbs, but still able to move his eyes, his chest, to blink and breathe.

Despite all this, Ford was grinning up a storm. This was- his heart was racing, his body felt (paradoxically) loose even as he was frozen in place- he was relaxed, knowing the paralysis would happen, expecting it- and Ford let out a laugh. "Stalemate again?" he asked, pleasantly surprised to see he could still speak.

"Only if I don't let go first," Blue told him, as Ford slowly felt his arms shift away from Blue, beyond and out of his control (which should have been frightening, but somehow… wasn't - the pressure and motion was overwhelming and not something he found himself able to fight against, but it was also… gentle, almost), until the demon was crouching before him rather than inside of his grip.

And then the hand was off and away from the back of his neck. Before the twenty-second mark.

Ford hadn't had this much fun since that last session he'd had with Xin. Wrestling with Blue was very different from Xin. To be fair, the dragon refrained from using magic in their bouts. He wiggled, trying to see how much movement he had available to him.

Blue had fully let go of him, and whatever the demon had done to stop him from moving before, there seemed to be no lingering after-effects from it whatsoever. So Ford moved his hand down to his hip and clicked the button on his portal device. And then he reached his hand through the new portal that had popped into existence beside Blue's arm and grabbed hold. "A test!" he said brightly, laughter still in his tone.

Blue gave him an even and unamused state as he raised a hand and moved one finger out, pointed it towards the new portal, very close to the boundary and also very close to Ford's wrist.

And the portal suddenly and alarmingly shrank in size to barely encompassing Ford's wrist. He saw a portion of the fabric of his sleeve flutter down to the ground beside him.

Ford's grin only got wider. "Ah, spatial manipulation. Well," he wasn't too worried. The portal had a failsafe against biological matter.

"You really are an idiot, aren't you," Blue said next, and the portal closed abruptly on him.

But instead of cutting his hand off, there was an odd… twisting in the space between Ford's wrist and Ford's hand, and it almost seemed to freeze in the air for a split-second, but then it seemed to swerve back into place around his wrist and his hand was reattached.

Ford had built the device to fail in a way that it automatically reattached biological parts if the portal ever got disrupted or shut off. It would, for instance, twist space around to place his hand back on his wrist where it belonged. Non-living matter on the other hand, he was still working on.

Blue blinked at this.

"Hm," said Bill. He looked down at Ford. "Still an idiot," said the demon.

Ford got up from the ground. "Nice to know that works. My tests with plants were fine, but it's good to see human testing has made it as well." He chuckled. "Excellent!" He took out his journal to jot this down.

"What," he heard the demon say, "No ranting and yelling about how I 'tried to take your wrist off' during a 'training session'?" Blue said to him rather drolly.

Ford blinked at him. "Well, that would have meant you would lose. On account of crippling me." Ford shrugged. "And you don't like losing." Ford continued. "Even if my portal wasn't built with this safety feature, you would have done something to ensure my hand would not have been horribly severed from my body." Because Blue wasn't stupid, and he thought things through much more than his little sister did.

But what Blue said next to him, he found not at all reassuring.

"Nothing in this 'set is a game," he was told. "Lying to you, to trick you into a so-called 'training match' with me, and then tricking you into practically crippling yourself 'just for the hell of it' would be one way for me to 'win'."

And Bill smiled.

Ford was beginning to suspect Blue was doing this on purpose. No, he was definitely doing this on purpose. But...

Ford shrugged. "Well. Losing my hand would have been a bummer." He straightened in place, putting his journal away. "Want to go for the next round?" He smiled back.

Blue eyed him at this.

"Losing your hand to a portal like that would have you bleeding out in a handful of seconds," Blue noted, as he pushed himself back to his feet. "It wouldn't cauterize, when disrupted like that."

Ford nodded, his smile not decreasing at all. "Like I said, a bummer."

"Hm," said Bill. "So you're suicidal, too."

And Blue rushed him.

Ford was a little surprised to see Blue on the offensive, but he was darting out of the way already, not wanting to get caught. And this too, was some sort of test. He was quite sure of it. Blue HAD said everything could be one.

And, so suddenly it stole the breath from his lungs, Ford's wrist felt like white-hot FIRE and everything in his head whited out in pure pain. Somehow, Ford managed not to scream, but he did double over. He crumpled to the ground, curling around himself as he squeezed his eyes shut and gasped for air.

The pain receded as suddenly as it came, the relief from the tail-end of his brain's reflexive pain-fighting endorphin rush washing over him in its wake for a moment before fading as well, and he saw two steel-toed booted feet attached to legs crouching down before him.

Quietly, Ford breathed out, "Ow." Yes. Blue was very much testing him. Ford tried not to let this ruin his mood. Getting mad at Blue for this would only be giving the demon proof that Ford shouldn't be allowed around his precious little sister. But by Tesla that hurt.

"Pain can be physical," Ford heard the demon say, "And non-lethal. And non-damaging on its own. And hold you in place against yourself in its grip. You idiot."

"That is very true." Ford agreed. "You really do think of everything." And damn if Ford couldn't help the impressed awe in his voice. As annoyed as he was by all these tests, the fact that Blue could so easily pick apart the conditions for this fight was...

Blue slapped him immediately, right across the face. (It was more shocking than actually painful.) "DON'T DO THAT," the demon's voice whipped out at him, just as abruptly as the slap. "DON'T! -Don't." The demon sounded severely stressed for some reason.

Ford blinked. "What'd I dooooo~?" he whined. Really, he should have been upset at all this, but despite it all, he couldn't help but… have fun? Well, the pain had been horrible, but Ford had checked on his hands; it hadn't left any real damage. And he'd already begun analyzing how his paralysis had felt when Blue held him in place, could he recreate that somehow, would be great for being able to neutralize threats without a fight. He couldn't think of a use for that particular disabling pain he'd felt at his wrist yet, but it was an interesting thought nonetheless. Mental pain, psychic even?

"Don't worship me ag- you idiot, don't do that. I REFUSE," the demon said to him next.

Ford was quite incredulous. "I'm not!" he protested.

"You think I can't recognize-" The demon cut himself off. He sounded irate.

Ford rolled his eyes. "Just because I respect your intelligence, doesn't mean I worship you." Been there, done that, got the scars to prove it.

"That was awe, I know what that is; I've had humans worship me before; that means that if I let you see any real part of me-" The demon rocked back on his heels, cutting himself off again. "You don't respect me. And you're making the same mistakes all over again." Blue had turned his head away from him, not looking at him as he leaned on his forearms, braced against both his knees.

Ford just stared up at Blue helplessly, as he slowly sat up in place. He didn't even know how to begin explaining this misunderstanding. He sighed. "I'm not… I don't-" he groaned, running a hand through his hair.

Blue touched at his wrist, and Ford blinked as several sets of thin silver metallic bracelets suddenly seemed to melt into view around Blue's arms. ...One of which seemed to be running a thin line to him (Ford), encircling his previously-hurting non-damaged wrist. It receded back towards Blue's arm as he watched.

"Did you think I didn't come prepared for this? Really?" the demon said to him next, not quite mockingly, almost chiding. "It's not like that barrier you have up around the place now is in any way discreet."

"Well, I figured you were here with some magic spells, some of which still work under the barrier. We need to allow some magic for some of the specimens and projects…" Ford looked up at Blue's face, to meet his eyes again, and his eyes caught on another thicker silver band of the material (with odd outward spikes?) encircling Blue's forehead completely, with a multitude of minuscule widely dispersed little clusters of dotted flickering lights playing across it, ones that seemed almost embedded in the material, lighting it up from within.

"I told you I wasn't here to practice doing magic," Blue repeated rather tersely.

Ford stared. "Are those what you used to get the effects? Like the pain and the moving and holding me in place?" When had Blue placed those on him? Perhaps, even way back during round one.

"Among other things," Blue said to him, raising up both arms, and Ford watched as the tattoos along Blue's forearms seemed to squirm up and outwards, unspooling and lifting up and away from Blue's skin, to pull away from his arms in a host of thin but very long and flexible tendrils, at least one foot in length each, maybe more. -But they moved not farther away from Blue than an inch or so away from his skin, before they seemed to stop where they were, wavering in place, almost as if seeking something. There seemed to be almost a barrier there, holding (or keeping?) them in. (And they were Blue's 'tattoos'; Ford could see skin of the same color as Blue's face in the gaps between the tendrils, below them.)

...they were amazing to behold. Reminded him of Jan's markings, how they moved and writhed along his skin. Which reminded Ford that he should ask Miz to let him study their Jan form again. It was truly a beautiful form that Miz had crafted. And Ford shook that thought off. He could feel a blush coming on.

"...You're doing the 'worship' thing again," he heard Blue say to him warningly.

"Not for you." Ford answered without thinking. Then he just blushed worse.

And with that, Blue was not just staring at him anymore, he was glaring.

And then the demon said to him, very slow and rather dangerously, "...What part of you haven't learned your lesson have I not made clear to you, yet."

"I'm not worshiping anyone!" Ford protested. He wasn't! Just because he found William/Miz to be utterly fascinating and wonderful to be around- he KNEW that William was a dangerous demon god! He wasn't ignorant of what he truly was-

"You're working your way up to worshiping my little sister, you haven't learned a damn thing, and you don't know the first thing about her!" Blue gritted out at him next.

Ford winced. "But-" Ford wanted to know, wanted to learn. About her- about William, Miz, Xin, Jan- it didn't matter the name they wore, Ford just...

"You just got done 'rationalizing' to yourself why it was 'okay' to feel blinding pain and nearly lose a hand," Blue said to him next, "Because you want her to like you," Blue ended with a mocking edge to his tone. "Because you think that if you 'play nice' with me, she will approve, and then you will be 'happy'." Blue stared straight into his eyes. "-What about this is any different than 'the first time' before."

Ford twitched. "But…" He wet his lips, they'd become somewhat dry, "Would you rather if I disliked you?" He sighed. "I'm not happy about the pain. But it was still within the parameters I set for how this training worked, it was my own short sightedness that didn't let me realize that way of getting through the terms."

"Yes, it was," Blue said, "Because you didn't think, and I took advantage of that. -How is this any different than 'changing the world' with that portal of yours," Blue demanded of him next.

Ford sighed. "I get it. Ok? But I'm not going to go off and hate you just for this."

"THIS ISN'T ABOUT ME! YOU IDIOT!" Blue thundered out at him next, before cursing in Galactic Standard and pacing away from him, scrubbing both hands through his hair in clear irritation.

"I'm not going to hate Miz either." Ford clarified. "You're dangerous, don't get me wrong. And Miz is possibly even more dangerous. But she's still someone I care about a lot."

Blue stopped in place and dropped his hands, his back to him. "Did you 'care a lot about' that local broken-demon-thing."

"Yes." Ford admitted. "Until he made it very clear that he didn't care about me in any sense of the word."

"You were still trying to kill him long before that point." Blue turned back towards him. "You still wanted him trapped-forever long before that point."

Ford sighed. "Because he hurt people. He wasn't a good person. Or even a little kind."

"Then why aren't you trying to kill or trap me," the demon said next almost sing-song, turning his head back towards him once again.

"JUST because you can do horrible things, isn't an excuse to let that be your everything. You could have really cut off my hands, but you chose not to. And sure, you might do that next time, but that's for next time. I know you're not entirely a dick."

"No," Blue said, "You DON'T know that. You don't know anything about me AT ALL."

"You're capable of loving Miz." Ford pointed out. "So I know you're capable of love, and kindness. And worry over her well being."

At this, Blue turned to face him. "Has it not occurred to you yet that everything I've done to you already so far today has completely bypassed that bracelet," Blue pointed at his wrist, "And your family's so-called Deal with Miz?" the demon just about sneered out at him next. "I wonder what will happen when I try the 'pain thing' on one of the children. Mason, perhaps? Or-"

"You wouldn't.-"

"-You don't KNOW that-"

"-And as I've been 'attacking' you, your responses count as self-defense, which is well within our Deal's parameters."

"Right before you felt that pain, I rushed you," Blue said next, the demon's eyes cold and alright with something Ford didn't particularly like.

"But we were already in combat. And what you did, didn't leave any physical damage." Mental pain wasn't included in the deal, otherwise bullying or having feelings hurt might set it off, and that would be problematic, if random people suddenly got blasted away from them for snide remarks.

"We both declared this a 'training session', not a fight," Blue said, beginning to circle him again, "And being able to disable you like that is outside of the Deal you have with my little sister here, yes. I also did not have to stop the pain myself so quickly. There are VERY many holes in that Deal," Blue then told him. "And I didn't try to fill them ALL in. -You could still get caught with that on very easily," Blue said as he continued circling him. "What are you going to do about that."

"..." And then Ford realized something. "You're worried about me. About the rest of us." He pointed out. "You're afraid we'll get hurt from these loopholes." He frowned.

"I'm not 'afraid', or 'worried'," Blue scoffed out, as the demon continued circling him. "I just know. And I have a Mind that works, to determine these things for me, because I use it."

"If we get hurt, Miz will be sad. So you're testing our protections; if you can get through them, other demons can as well." Ford worked through that thought. "You're worried."

"I'm not 'worried'; I know what will happen if-and-when my little sister loses you people before she's good and ready. Which is NEVER. She will NEVER 'be ready' for that."

Ford… found himself relaxing. He was right. Blue was testing, and not just him. Blue was testing how safe they would all be, for Miz's sake. Ford's smile was gentle this time. "Thank you for looking out for Miz. Goodness knows, I'm too much of an idiot to be able to." He glanced down at the bracelet. "So, protection from the sensation of pain, when it would be debilitating and caused by an outsider…" He pulled out his journal to jot that down.

"Any person-or-non-person-source, not just an Outsider," Blue noted next, sounding annoyed. "And yes, you are too much of an idiot to be able to look out for her benefit," Blue stressed out lightly, "Because you do not think. Idiot."

Ford chuckled. "Right. I still have much to learn. Thank you. For teaching me," he told Blue sincerely. For all his posturing, the demon really was kind. In a very…. Abrasive, roundabout way. What was it that Miz called this… zoom? Soon? Zoon? Well, it was an anime thing, he knew that much.

"I'm not teaching, you," Blue said to him. "I'm repeating myself over and over and over to you, again and again and again, until you finally think the thought in your head as if you had thought it yourself, since you all refuse to listen to me. Because you think I'm just a stupid triangle, and you are all idiots," Blue stressed to him, yet again. "It's hilarious how you all seem to think that I'm not capable of murdering you all at a whim, just because."

Ford sighed. "I don't think you're stupid." He wasn't sure how to explain this. "Yes, you could just kill us all. And that IS a distressing thought. But I could either assume you would, and spend my time trying to kill you, or I could give you the benefit of the doubt and see if you're worthy of trust." He waved a hand helplessly. "If I was suspicious of you constantly, the stress would wear me down into a paranoid mess. And if I keep thinking such a thing, I would end up attacking you, betraying you, if you want to call it that, without proof that you had done anything worth my hatred." Ford winced. "I'm...not explaining myself very well, am I?" (Blue stayed quiet as this though, staring him down. ...Letting him continue on talking? Continue on voicing his thoughts to him, thinking out loud?)

Ford gave a helpless shrug. "You're perfectly capable of killing me. But then, many people are capable of killing. I could. Stan could. Seb could. Even Miz could. But they haven't killed me. But if I went out of my way, telling them that I believed they would, and acted like I was expecting them to do so at any moment, that level of distrust and suspicion would… upset them. Make them unhappy, and feel unloved." Ford winced. "I made Sebastian feel like that. I pushed him away. And because of that, he was hurt. Badly. And it took us years to mend our relationship." He shook his head. "So I've decided to try and keep an open mind. Judge people based on what they do, not what I think they're capable of doing."

Ford gestured around them. "And what I've seen you do is worry over Miz's wellbeing. Teaching the children how to use magic. Make protection bracelets for my family. Tell us when we screwed up with Miz, so that we could better take care of her. And sure, maybe this is all an act, to lure us into a false sense of security before you eviscerate the lot of us." Ford shrugged. "But I'm stupid enough to think that your actions have earned you a small modicum of trust. Just a little."

Blue stared at him evenly. And then the demon said:

"I just put you in enough pain to have you drop to the floor, and you say that you 'trust' me. A little. Because of this. -This is what your 'grand thesis' is, that you are telling me, here," Blue said to him evenly next.

Blue stepped forward then, and got right up into his face.

"Caring about my sister is NOT 'caring' about YOU."

Ford could see both the sclera and the blue irises of Blue's eyes now, surrounding his slitted vertical pupils - the demon was standing that close to him, face to face and not more than a foot away from him.

"Or your family," Blue said next, and he didn't back off.

"No. It is not." Ford agreed.

"She'd be better off if I murdered you here where you stand, right here in this moment and now."

Ford paused. A little hesitation. "I would not enjoy that." He said bluntly. "Nor do I think that's true. Well, maybe. I can sort of see where you came to this belief from."

"I could make you enjoy it," Blue said simply. "Overload the endorphin levels in your stupid-little-brain and then," Blue snapped his fingers together. "But oh, you think you see my beliefs, do you. Do attempt to explain me to myself, please." The sarcasm rolled off of the demon in waves.

"I'm a Stanford." Ford said simply. "And you have met and seen many a Stanford in your long life. And I'm deducing, based on what you've said many times about the subject, that they've all ended up doing things that you don't want Miz to be subjected to. And you're quite sure that I too, will be like them."

"You're already like them," Blue told him. "The only question in play here is WHEN you will do it again. How much you will hurt my little sister first, when you finally do so. And that day is not that long a day off."

"...I don't want to hurt her."

"You will," said Blue. "You did with the local broken-demon you called upon in this 'set, right here. You did it before, and you'll do it again." Blue was staring at him straight in the eye, still. "The only reason you haven't tried it with me yet is because you think I'm so beneath you that you don't feel like it's even worth the effort to try," Blue ended almost sing-song.

Ford groaned. "Do you want me to try to kill you? I just don't know what it is that you're expecting, or wanting me to do?"

"I'm not suicidal," Blue said, waving the very idea off in a huff. "You're the one still not being honest with yourself here," Blue reiterated, almost wandering his way out of Ford's personal space once again. "I want you to stop lying. Stop lying to yourself; stop lying to others; start actually thinking things through. That hasn't changed since I last told you this. I am not the one who refuses to be consistent, here."

"Well, I think you're annoying. But… you're also… fun, to be around. Ok? There! I said it." Ford huffed, throwing his hands in the air.

Blue's expression dropped into something vaguely horrified.

And then Blue got angry.

"THIS IS NOT FUN!" Blue raged out at him, flailing about with his arms and hands, and the demon looked like it wanted to hit him. "WHAT ABOUT ANY OF THIS, IS FUN?!" (Blue himself did not look like he was having fun with this, clearly.)

"Well, there's clearly something wrong with me, because I haven't had this much fun since I was behind the portal, hunting for food and beating down the bounty hunters my Bill sent after me." Ford admitted. "And I've tried to pretend it isn't fun, that I didn't like having to fight and attack and-" He rubbed his face. "But I feel… well, alive? I don't really know." Then, more quietly, "...maybe I really am twisted…" Miz had called him that once. And Ford hadn't really understood.

(It was on that day that Ford would learn of the term 'Adrenaline Junkie'.)

Blue stared at him at this.

Then his face near his right eye was twitching, as he rubbed the side of his palm in a circle at his right temple, and the demon told Ford, "Your stupid body is LYING to you. -It's all the endorphins and biochemical-idiocy that happens when you idiots with meaty physical bodies really get going, when you actually get yourselves up and moving around PROPERLY. -You'd get the same reaction from your stupid body out of trying out any 'extreme sports'," Blue said to him next.

Ford blinked. "Well, I suppose?" He pouted. "I'm not really into sports. That's Stanely's thing."

Blue didn't seem any happier about that response from him. Instead, the demon said flatly, after his eyelids dropping low for a moment or two, "'Extreme sports' for humans are things like jumping out of planes on a bungee cord, in the middle of very bad weather. Or running for one's life from large animals that want to kill you, while wearing silly clothing. Or parkour in places you have not fully-mapped-out beforehand, moving as fast as possible, as high up as possible, as you do it. Scaling skyscrapers in the middle of a thunderstorm in next to no clothing; no gloves, no shoes, no climbing gear or harnesses, and no safety net. Those sorts of things." The 'you idiot' was implied by Blue's tone.

"...people do things like that?" Ford rubbed his chin. "Amazing."

"You haven't done things like that, running away from and not-towards that local broken-demon of yours, in other dimensions beside and beyond only this one? Let alone this one as well?" was Blue's sarcastic rejoinder to that.

"I've…" Ford blushed. "Ahem." He coughed, looking away. Swinging around down the UFO with the magnet gun was fun! Okay?! Ford made a note to look this up later, or ask someone.

"Yeesh," was what came out of the one trillion year old triangle demon at him next. Also: "You idiot. -Aren't your stupid squishy little human brains supposed to work overtime on pattern recognition?" Ford was next told.

"Well, I… ah… never noticed it, in the heat of the moment. Or, rather, I didn't want to admit it?" Because he and Stan had been working so hard to stay alive so that they could go home- and Ford didn't want to admit that home was… boring now, without all the heart pounding adventure.

"Unobservant. Refusing to stop, process, and think. -Typical Stanford," was what Blue said to him next.

Ford had the decency to look sheepish. "Well, I've not really… been one for looking in and being open to my feelings as it were. Only started that a few years back with my therapist. Still haven't quite… sorted this all out yet." Ford shrugged.

"Feeling things is what a six-fingered hand does," Blue said to him next, "Or is supposed to do," Blue added, with a significant eyeroll attached to that, next. "And yes. I NOTICED. You don't. Do that well. At-All." And Blue gave him a very long look at him following this.

"Oh, I feel plenty. But putting those feelings to words is… difficult." Ford winced.

"Because they are feelings, not word-concepts. They are all…" Blue made a face. "Jumbled. And tangled. And tricky." Blue shifted in place almost uncomfortably next. "Humans aren't rational; get over it. Learn to feel without words; try singing instead. That's what-all you humans used to do, before all of any of all of the 'symbolic speech' that you have convinced yourselves is so much easier-and-better for communication now," Blue said to him next, ending in disgust. "You started out with all of the singing-here-first. For a reason."

"...our performance of Hamilton was rather fun…" Ford admitted. Even if he'd been turned into a woman at the time.

"Singing IS fun for humans!" Blue proclaimed next. "Don't see why you can't just do THAT for some ACTUAL fun," the demon groused out at him next.

"...I'm somewhat embarrassed to do so in public… though your sister and Mabel have a way with talking us into it." Ford said fondly.

Blue eyed him at this, for a very long moment.

And then the demon pulled in a breath and started belting out, almost at the top of his lungs, "When all the skies are grey~ and it's a rainy day~! Think of the bir-dies in spring~. When you're up-to-your-neck in hot wa-ter~~ Be like the kettle and sing~!"

And Ford found himself humming along. He didn't know the words to this, but Blue was... actually a good singer(?)

"Tell that um-brel-la man~ he's just an also-ran~! Think of a kid on a swing~~" Blue tilted his head back, as he started to pace to the side, and projected out the words, singing out even louder than before, "When you're-up to your-neck in hot wa-ter~~" He tossed his arms out to his sides with some theatricality, "Be like the kettle and sing~!"

Ford noticed a few of the other workers pulling out their phones to record. He frowned up at them, and they sheepishly put their phones back down. The use of recording devices were strictly monitored, to prevent leaks of information! Ford saw Fiddleford running around and scolding them behind the glass now. Then he turned back to Blue, humming along to the song.

"You'll find that life's al-ways got a funny side~. So-come o-ver on the sunny side~ And wear a great big smile - it makes your life worth-while~!" (Ford didn't quite suck in a breath at the words, or the 'smile!' gesture Blue made with both hands pulling upwards into the air by his cheeks, as if he was pulling up his own mouth at the sides into a grin, as he grinned.) "You'll have the world on a string~~!" Blue made a puppet-pulling long gesture with one hand, as he continued to casually walk around Ford, still-grinning, past his back. "When you're-up to your-neck in hot wa-ter~~ Be like the kettle and sing~!"

"-and siiing~" Ford couldn't help but repeat, before looking quite flustered at his own response to this.

Blue didn't pause, he just continued, strolling along, gesturing theatrically as he went. "When your troubles-are boil-ing o-ver~ Consult this rec-i-pe~ Everybody can be in clover, happy as can be~~" Blue finished walking around behind Ford's back, and… "When all the skies are grey~ and it's a rainy day~!" The lyrics began repeating from there.

And Ford just stood there, a little awkward at all of this. He was rather distracted, didn't even notice when the door to the training room slid open and little pattering footsteps came running at him. "-ink of a kid on a~" Ford did react and dodge out of the way, leading to Miz stumbling as her tackle-hug was dodged. She squeaked and managed to regain her balance, before straightening up and pouting up at him. Ford was still half in combat mode, so he'd dodged without thinking. "-and sing~!" But Miz just huffed at him before turning to patter her way to Blue instead. (Ford had the distinct feeling that he was missing something.) Wait, more to the point- (as Blue's singing cut off abruptly) Ford asked, "Miz? What're you doing here?" He didn't think they were due to meet up today.

Miz, who was now hugging her big brother (who was not singing out at the top of his lungs anymore, just humming the tune quietly and hugging her back), huffed again. "I came to surprise you, but then I found Blue here!" She chirped.

"Hello~ little sis," was Blue's contribution to the discussion, as he began patting her lightly on top of her head.

"Hiii big brother~!" Miz purred, nuzzling against him. (It was a very good thing the interns weren't here, as they would have stared at the 'little girl' and then over at their boss with horrified looks.)

"Mmm," went Blue almost tonelessly, and he was looking a bit relaxed and smiling ever so slightly down at her now.

Ford pouted. "...so, no hug for me?" He almost whined. Miz stuck her tongue out at him and blew a raspberry.

"You dodged it already," Blue said, his voice having an odd underlying hum to it. "Didn't want it, now it's mine," the demon said to him next looking downright pleased at this.

"...didn't mean to…" Ford sulked.

"Yes you did; I saw you do it!" Blue said next. "Standing right here and everything! -You moved very purposefully out-of-the-way and-away from her. Tsk-tsk!" The demon didn't quite grin out at him next, but he did look rather unfortunately chipper, as he continued on patting the top of Miz's head.

Ford flushed, folding his arms and… well, he'd like to think he wasn't acting like some slighted child, but he really was. "Well I didn't know it was her." He huffed. Miz giggled. "So what're you both doing here? You know I had to ask around to find you!" Miz complained about her powers being limited in the building now. She was still figuring out how to work around it.

"Oh, I'm just being horrible as usual," Blue told her breezily. "Doing even-more things that would have Kari wanting to MURDER me now, if she didn't want to do that already!" Blue waved this off like it was of no consequence to him. "-What are you doing here? -Besides all of the hugging-me-right-now, which I like," Blue said down to her next.

"Well, I was going to show Ammy around, he wanted to see the places I hung out at. I've already shown him Seb's house, and the Mystery Shack, so then I came here." Miz explained.

"Is he trying to leave any of the him-boxes behind, to see if he can get them all to connect across 'sets, or even work here at all?" Blue asked her next, with an inquisitive tone.

"Actually," A monotone voice spoke up, as the green 'necklace' that Miz was wearing unraveled part of itself. "In this form, I have found that my leaves work much like my blocks. It's quite the interesting experiment. I don't believe I can access my blocks back home though," the 'necklace' said.

Blue nodded at this quite seriously.

Then Blue grinned.

"I found a way to pull-and-fold matter that is mine up into my energy-waveform and bring it here!" Blue enthused out to Miz in his arms next. "Want to See?"

"Ooh! Okay!" Miz grinned. Ammy watched closely as well. Ford, in the background, felt rather miffed at being left out.

There was a moment where Blue closed his eyes, and his expression went… it sent chills up Ford's spine, because he was suddenly and abruptly quite obviously not present within his body (vessel?) anymore.

But then Blue's arms rose up almost like a smooth automaton, and a hat seemed to unfold itself out of nowhere and pop into being above and on top of his head. It floated there for a moment, then fluttered down to settle directly on top of Blue's head, as Blue's body seemed to 'wake up' and Blue seemed wholly-present within it again, his arms lowering abruptly back down to his sides.

And around this point, Ford set about shooing everyone else out of the room and getting all cameras turned off, because these were things that neither he nor Fiddleford really wanted people knowing about. They complained, sure, and asked all sorts of questions, but Blue's 'attacks' on him had all been rather subtle, all things considered, but this? No, Ford ushered them all out and sighed as he closed the door to this testing chamber. Too much demonic-ness. He was sure things were going to get… Weird.

Miz and Ammy watched, Miz with her senses on and Ammy with… whatever it was that he used for feeling out the world around him. Miz never really understood it. It was similar to her own powers, but different enough that it was like two different OS trying to communicate with files they weren't compatible with.

They weren't able to See Blue's energy form to decipher that, exactly, but they saw what he did, pulling energy out of his form in a way that showed how it had been encapsulated - a little like what Blue had done with handing her that ball of energy for making food for him out of, during his visit to her own 'set? - and then showing a sort of 'de-energization' where the mass that had been up-converted into energy was converted back down into mass, without all of the energy of having been up in that higher state being lost from the process completely. Blue then seemed to pull and encapsulate that energy back into himself, as his hat un'fold'ed with minimal effort from its 'fold'ed up and more-compact state, he dropped back down into his bessel here, and-

"You save that energy for re-energizing it back up again later," Blue said to them both, after he raised his arms back up to his head, to readjust the lay of his hat (gifted to him by Stanley) a bit. (When not floating, it covered his blue hair entirely, leaving just and only his black hair visible below it.) "It's a larger buy-in the first time, but you can not lose all of it every time, be all efficient about it. Mostly."

So… it was like a Zip file, almost. But more similar to taking a text file, changing the .txt into a .png and making it into an image instead… or vice versa. Same bits of data, but in a different form. Something like that, was what Miz had understood about it. Long lines of (binary? trinary?) data compressed, rearranged… and made readable in a different format. Except the files were more like chiseled on stone or into paper first, and you needed to convert it all over and into the computer system first, like needing to scan it in, except you were losing the original copy as you went…

...Okay, so maybe it was a little more like a Star Trek teleporter? Or a comic book one? Disassemble the bonds, turn it into an energy stream, and…? Or shive it all together and squish it into the energy stream 'somehow', because superhero physics and alien technology.

"...so it's like turning yourself into a I-mail message." Ammy observed, putting to words how he understood it.

"A bit like that, yes!" Blue said. "Except also not. It is more like you are already an I-mail message, ready to send, and you are adding this," he pointed up at his hat, "As an in-line 'attachment' to pre-package up and pull into the I-mail that is you, so that you can 'send' it along with you-yourself."

"I see." Ammy nodded. He tilted his long snake-like neck around and seemed to fold in on himself. Then he straightened again, pulling a piece of celery out from beneath his leaves. "So I could theoretically, store this item within myself, and dissolve this vessel on my own, to be brought back over, back home. And then reclaim it once I'm there." He mused. Miz glanced down at him. "Did you steal that from Seb's pantry?" ("Yes.")

"You would encapsulate the vessel that you have dissolved in a way that it is not gone or staying-here, and bring the vessel with you, yes," Blue said to him. "Because that would be included within the vessel. I would not recommend folded spaces make the transition yet, I remake that inside my hat once I am here again. The math gets tricky for packaging folded space inside energy; the new energy-only containers are not meant to hold anything not already energy within them. The space and mass inside the space need to become energy too; it may take exponentially more to do it that way stably. Highly inefficient. Also: unstable. Also: not a good idea to hold inside of your own Mental energy-form, because of that. Because Mindscape explosions are a VERY BAD thing," Blue warned them both quite seriously.

The mother and child nodded. Ford was sort of lost as to how that would work, but he was no less interested in hearing about it. He took a few steps closer, before pulling out his journal to write this down.

"Miz, slap that idiot upside the head for already planning on doing stupid things with next-to-no information on things that he already knows nothing about," Blue said quite smoothly to his little sister next, before looking over at Ford Pines again.

Miz reached over and 'bapph'ed Ford's shoulder, the highest she could reach. "Don't try to turn yourself inside out without supervision!" She scolded.

"I wouldn't have!" Ford whined.

"You don't even know what the Mindscape is," Blue drawled out at him next. "You could at least try to not-be an idiot sometimes, you know. Once in a while. Just for a little variety, at least," Blue groused out at him next.

"...I'll try?" Ford didn't quite know how else to respond. "Practical tests wouldn't have even been on the table until I had everything calculated out, anyway."

"You don't even know what the Mindscape is," Blue repeated, sounding very annoyed with him, now. "Little sis, slap that idiot upside the head properly this time. He didn't get the message last time because you went too low," Blue complained.

Miz floated up to 'bapbth' the side of his head. Ford rolled his eyes. He took the cute little slap (like being batted by a kitten) with all the grace and dignity of a man of science who'd travelled the stars, fighting off monsters ten times his size with his brother. That is to say, he let out a light, "Ow." for courtesy.

"Better," Blue noted, "…marginally," eyeing said scientist with far more disdain than either of the slaps his sister had just produced. Ford tried not to let it get to him. Blue really had a way of making him feel like a child being scolded by his mother. It was a very odd sensation.

"...I see." Ford sighed. "Well, I would like to learn about the Mindscape." And that had Miz all perked up, a cute glimmer in her eyes.

Blue continued eyeing him. "Is that a question." Blue turned away from him, breaking eye contact, and stretched in place. "Sounds like a statement to me."

"I'm up for showing you~" Miz purred. Ford deadpanned, "We're not switching bodies again. That was… unsettling."

"In-body is in-body. Not the Mindscape, as such. Also, that is a vessel Miz is within right now. Idiot," was Blue's contribution to this. "Also, you still did NOT ask." Blue was eyeing him again.

"...may I please study the mindscape…?"

"...Better," said Blue. "Also: yes." He turned to Miz. "You want to do it, or should I?" he asked her. Because, to Blue's Mind, 'showing' was not 'study'.

"I can do it." Miz frowned. "But not in here. Can't." She held up her hand to show the bracer around her wrist.

"Well," said Blue, relaxing from his in-place stretching again. "Not-here without BREAKING a few things. And giving a-few MORE-things away," he added next, agreeably. Ford shook his head. "Well, it wouldn't be today. Or in here," Ford admitted. Then he paused. "Ah, Miz, have you had breakfast yet?"

"I did." She nodded. Then she narrowed her eyes at him. "Did you?" Ford nodded, rolling his eyes again. "I did."

"And all of the very-important sleeping as well?" Blue added in next, walking along by and past him, almost like he was pacing the test chamber here.

"Yes, yes. I had a full seven hours of sleep last night." Ford turned his head to keep Blue in view.

"Mm," said Blue. "I think I will take a nap someplace. Before lunch. Then all of the eating-again." Blue kept walking, and Ford realized he was headed for the door to the test chamber, the exit.

"Wanna come over to Seb's house? I share a room with the twins. They should be at school right now." Miz told him. She was following after her brother, and Ford was a little miffed that he was essentially being ignored. He was a little sad at the thought of Miz preferring to hang out with her brother over him. (And Ford didn't get a hug today, which also left him feeling rather lost.)

Then he saw the corner of Blue's eye, as he turned his head slightly, looking out over his shoulder at him. It was a tad unnerving, seeing only the little bit of one of his eyes like that.

"Your little siblings have a tendency to poke sleeping people," Blue noted aloud, turning his head back around, back to face his sister a bit more head-on. "Or pile things up around them for no reason. -Why did you come here today?" Blue asked her again. "Did he not already see Seb's house?"

"Oh right." Miz reached up to pet Ammy's head. "Do you wanna continue checking out different places?" She chuckled. She hadn't meant to get distracted from the tour. Ammy laid back down, settling around her neck like an accessory. "Well, there's Stan's place… or maybe the Island, need to go check on them anyway." Miz mused.

"...Don't think I should be taking a nap there," Blue all but muttered out, crossing his arms behind his head and leaning back a bit as he walked.

"At the island?" Miz tilted her head up to regard her brother. "Is it unsafe for napping there?"

"I am The Witch of The Trees and The Woods," Blue told her. "'Napping' in front of them destroys my credibility and mystique. Obviously."

"Oh." Miz blinked. "Well, I'm the Great Golden Dragon, I nap there, and the children like to climb on my tail." She said sheepishly.

"Dragons are known for sleeping," Blue noted. "It is a great honor and a blessing, to have one settle down and to sleep near you, nearby. -Witches are expected to do work or get burned for their slovenly-sloth." Blue rolled his eyes a little at this, as they exited the test area together.

"Ah. That sucks. But what if you were to keep me company while I slept? Would that be allowed?" Miz wondered. (Ford was well and truly ignored as they left the room altogether. He sighed. Well, whatever. He still had more work to do today. And some questions to ask about his thrill for danger and what not. Maybe Viola would know? Ford went off to go find the interns.)

"That would label me as a bad influence. Clearly I am making you sleep more instead of doing things for them. Cast a spell on you for sleeping, or some-such thing," Blue then waved off. "Besides," he continued. "How will I read all of the things in this idiot-Stanford's lab, when I am over-there instead of over-here?" the demon added next (with almost the curl of a dragon's tail in his tone).

"You're interested in Fordsie's projects?" Miz asked, walking alongside Blue down the halls of the Center. They got some odd looks, but the visitor's badges had them easily dismissed.

"He writes it; I read it. Knowledge." Blue not quite shrugged at her. "The better to keep a handle on an idiot-Stanford that doesn't know when to quit. And started making compact portable portal devices, finally," he muttered.

"I noticed he was wearing that portal emitter he was working on." Miz tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. "I'm surprised he's got a working prototype already."

"Define: 'working'," Blue said to her drolly, looking down at both her and her 'necklace' with a rather thin smile.

"It doesn't explode his face off." Miz said brightly, and Blue let out a short laugh at this. "And I think he got that 'put things back' feature working!" Miz added.

"Only in a limited way, for biological parts of himself, and that process can currently be messed with very easily," Blue told her. "I almost didn't notice it, and let go in time. He assumes no other spatial distortions will get in the way or impact it during emergency operations, let alone basic ones. Or that someone will not box his missing body-part up in the meantime, and how will his little 'reconnection' process work out for him, then?"

"I'm sure he's going to be fixing that as soon as he gets back to his lab, after this test run he did with you." Miz sounded fond. (And true to her guess, Ford was back in his lab, after finding Viola in the cafeteria and asking her about people who apparently did extreme sports for enjoyment. And Viola had showed him a video of what she termed 'adrenaline junkies' who were 'in it for the thrill instead of the frogs'. Interesting, but for now, Ford was going to set up some protections against other externally-sourced spatial alterations in the emitter's programing.)

When Blue and Miz caught up to Ford's lab in roundabout fashion, Blue turned and kicked the closed door several times in rapid succession.

There was a moment of silence, and then the door slid open. "I thought you guys were going somewhere else?" Ford blinked at them.

Miz booped his nose, since he was bending down, she wasn't going to let this chance go.

"We did," said Blue. "Walking is hard, and Amorphous Shape didn't see all the hallways before," Blue easily noted. "Now he will also see your lab-space within. Also, I told you I was reading all of your things, and also napping just now, and all of your to-be-read things are in here. -Try to keep up," Blue said to Ford, as he walked into the lab space past him.

Ford didn't bother trying to stop him. Blue did what he wanted, and Ford would waste more time trying to stop him than not. So he just ran a hand through his hair before going back to the partially dismantled portal emitter to tweak it some more.

The first thing Blue did was turn in place, looking around the whole room.

The second thing Blue did was walk over and steal his couch, because apparently the 'napping' was going to be coming first today. (Ford sighed. A somewhat small reprieve. ...He'd take it.)

"What does this do?" Ammy asked, prodding at the table of scraps. "Those are the exploded remains of past experiments." Miz shook her head at them. "Some of them can explode again. If you hit them. Or poke them. Or breathe on them."

"They're not that volatile." Ford called over his shoulder. "I took out all the batteries and energy cores." A few scraps got knocked over onto the ground and Miz bent down to pick it back up. Miz looked around noticing how clean the underside of the lab benches were. "You cleaned your lab?" There was a distinct lack of dust everywhere. Ford nodded, reaching for a different sized screwdriver. "I cleaned. If you were going to come over more, I thought I should make it more comfortable for you." He didn't see the touched expression Miz sent him. She smiled, tucking her hair back again, playing with the lock absently. Ammy glanced up, making note of this. He glanced over at Ford and made another note.

Of course, leaving Miz with a pile of scrap had her organizing them into neat piles, she hummed as she worked, Ammy slithering around on the table in between the piles as he prodded at them, asking what they had been, and what their functions were supposed to be. Sometimes Miz answered, sometimes Ford did. Ford clicked his portal device shut. "Alright, test two…" He pressed a button and sent out two portals onto the surface of his lab bench. One purple and one yellow. He stuck his hand into one, where it popped out the other.

Ammy nudged Miz and she carried him over to the other lab bench. He examined the portal. "It's almost like my blocks. But more unstable." Ammy noted. Miz leaned against the table, watching. "Your blocks are fully stable. They're part of your biology. Locked in place, one to the other. That-" She pointed at Ford's device. "-Is a holepuncher that refolds space in on itself to put things back, if it breaks."

"What if I break?" Ammy asked. Miz pet his head gently. "I'm not sure, and I don't want that to happen. But as you are part Flatlander, it'd bleed out a lot, like that time you got shot. Luckily, your block didn't really break, it just… cracked." Miz shuddered at the memory.

Ford looked over at the other Flatlander in the room, a tad worried about the description of damage done here, and Blue was… already asleep, which Ford was grateful for. The demon seemed oddly sensitive about certain things, sometimes. Instead, Ford turned back to Miz and Ammy, questioning them about how Ammy's blocks worked, so that he could take notes on how to fix up his own device. Miz pointed out the way Ammy's carbon structure actually formed microscopic runes deep inside his very make up. Ford wanted a sample to see under a microscope. Ammy said no. Quite bluntly. Ford was, of course, disappointed, but he wasn't going to try pressing the subject. Not with the way Miz had curled around her son, glaring.

Blue turned over in his sleep, letting out a soft huff.

"Right. Don't worry. I won't do anything to Ammy." Ford assured her. Miz continued glaring. "I'm serious. I won't do anything, without his express permission, after I've explained what it is that I want from him." That made Miz relax a little, her metaphorical hackles lowering. Ford hid his sigh of relief. (She really was protective of her remaining child.) He played with his portal a little more, wiggling his fingers in and out of it. "What's the point of this thing?" Ammy asked, slithering around to get a better look.

"Well, it's something Blue brought up, how far I am from the rest of my family and all. So I figured, this way, I could cut the travel costs and see them more often." Ford shrugged. "Or when I'm feeling lazy and want to grab a cup of water without having to walk downstairs."

"Ah yes, laziness and convenience, the hallmarks of all progress." Miz giggled. She shuffled closer to lean against Ford's side as he worked. "I'm amazed you got this working so fast."

"Well, I studied the energy around the areas where Blue made his portals in Stan's penthouse." (He hadn't been able to find where he'd come out in Gravity Falls. Blue had seemed true to his word about not letting any of his Center's instrumentation pick anything up in the area, before or since. But that might have meant that the signatures he'd found in Stan's penthouse had been stronger because of that, given what he'd picked up there compared to...) "Then I cross-checked that with the energy signature from your teleportation and found a way to mesh the two-" Ford babbled happily about his research, which Miz was all for listening to.

Ammy was quickly bored by Ford's (to him) inane chatter. He slithered away while his mother was distracted, curling in on himself and teleporting away to another place where he'd dropped one of his leaf scales. The Mystery Shack. He emerged from within Ford's kitchen, the first place his mother had showed him. He hadn't really paid attention to her tour of the house earlier, being sort of bored of a house that didn't have a constantly changing layout.

So Ammy made his way out of the house through a window, slithering along fearlessly. Despite everything he'd experienced in life, he had never really learned things like caution or fear. 'Besides,' he thought, 'This is a vessel, if I got into any situation I couldn't get out of, I could just leave.' It all seemed quite simple to him. And so he went. On an adventure. The great outdoors and the vast unknown for him to explore as he saw fit...

(Ford would be seeing the results of Ammy's 'adventure' on the local news later that night. He wouldn't know it was caused by Ammy, and would spend a useless week searching for the new mysterious cryptid that had somehow released all the farm animals and led them on a stampede through the town, stolen a few priceless artifacts from the Gravity Falls Natural History Museum, and somehow gotten into the Island, being worshipped as a minor deity. This last one was something that Ford learned the next time he went to visit the Island and heard from the people about the 'Forest Spirit'. This last one, Ford knew was caused by Ammy, but he never connected the other incidents in and around the town to him.)

A few hours later, after Miz had finished helping Ford fine tune his portal device with a proper stabilizer that rejected outside interference and run on ambient Weirdness energy (until Ford found a better source of energy), Miz turned to see Ammy, innocently lying right where she'd left him, and looking none worse for the wear.

"Oops, sorry Ammy." Miz nuzzled her nose against his. "Were you bored, with how long this took?"

"A little. But you were having fun. And I did not wish to impede that," Ammy said simply. Miz lifted him for a little kiss on his head. "You're such a good boy," she praised.

When Blue woke up from his nap about an hour later, the dim flickering lights in the circlet around his forehead slowed down and brightened up a bit, instead of constantly cycling and shifting like they had been while he'd been asleep.

He grumbled a bit to himself and slowly sat up on the couch. (Yeesh. He'd rolled over at least partially in his sleep again. -Why?)

The first thing he did upon waking was use his (scientific, metallic-based and magic-rune-infused nanotech) to scan the area, and said, as a bit more of an groggy observation than a warning to his little sister, "You're down a party member."

His sister didn't seem to hear him, fully engrossed with something-or-another with the local Stanford, so he got up and walked out the lab door, searching for something to eat.

(As Blue left, he didn't continue to use his tech to keep an 'eye' on the two of them or scan them. So he didn't see the way Ford had slowly, but surely, wrapped an arm around Miz, hugging her up against his side. Nor did Blue see how Miz had not only let him do it, but had then begun leaning her head towards the man.)

(Nor did Blue see the way Miz would sneak glances up at Ford now and again as he worked, when the man was so very focused on the tiny detailed work of arranging and soldering the wires of the new device together. The gentle smile on her face as she traced the man's profile with her eyes.)

(If he had, he would have forcibly made her put on her glasses right then.)

(But he wasn't looking at, or for, any of that, so Blue didn't see it.)

The trip to the cafeteria was uneventful. He got his food, paid for it in diamonds (to the astonishment of the workers, who informed Dr. McGucket at once), and took his two trays worth of food over to a separate table to eat it all alone, all by himself. The assortment he picked out from the selection available there was both bland and barely edible, even with the handful of pepper that he added to it; he ate it mechanically, didn't talk to anyone there other than the cafeteria workers he'd ordered the food from, cleaned up after himself without incident, and left for the lab again once he'd finished his eating.

Blue was back within twenty minutes, start to finish, before Miz and the local Ford even noticed he was gone, and (after briefly scanning over their work from where he'd sat down again on the couch to make sure the idiot human wasn't about to kill himself yet) laid down again to take another short nap. (Yeesh, he was tired, okay?! Pulling matter into himself and through Doors with him was still a bit draining! So was unpacking it again, once he'd arrived...)

Miz and Ford worked on, unawares. Miz even modified his design to be sleeker and more concealable. While Ford worked on the greatly miniaturized inner circuitry (which was to be shrunk down even further by use of the height-altering crystals), she crafted together a watch, simple in design, unassuming in the way that it wouldn't be mistaken for some high class Rolex; it was just a watch. With a dial on the side and a few buttons. She had to hold Ford's hand to make sure it would be the right length, and had held onto his hand for far longer than she needed to. She spent some time tracing his fingers, running her soft fingertips over each of his calluses and examining every inch of his hand. Ford had flushed under this touch, but hadn't pulled his hand away, allowing the soft caress. So gentle, and so loving. He wanted to ask why Miz liked touching his hands so much, but chickened out and kept his mouth shut, enjoying it while it lasted.

He was almost disappointed when Miz finally let go after finishing her watch-like outer casing for the new and improved portal device.

He wasn't disappointed by her joyful cheer when he fired up his new watch and successfully opened a much larger portal into Kari's apartment, where she was thrilled to learn about his new creation. ("You have no excuse now. You're coming over for dinner tonight." "But Ma-" "I'll see you at seven. I love you sweetie." "...yes, ma…")

Blue woke up again at the much larger energy shift and spatial warping nearby, shooting up straight on the couch, eyes flying open.

His breathing was back down to normal by the time Ford had finished his little discussion with his mom and came back through the event horizon of the portal again. Blue used his own tech to scan over both the portal (relatively stable) and the completed device. The power source for the portal watch was a battery of sorts that stored a mix of weirdness and… light that came from solar radiation, rather than converting it to electricity in-between. Much like the large solar arrays Ford had built and placed on the roof of the Center (which sent power down into the the facility and responsible for over half of their power) the device was pretty much self-sustaining by humans standards, so long as he allowed it to rest in the sun for a few hours a day; to create the portals, it needed more ambient weirdness than solar energy, the latter of which the device largely used to run a process to help gather up the former, as well as the onboard displays. Miz had built the outer shell out of a heat retardant mix of metal and aerogel reinforced with fibers. So the device wouldn't overheat or burn Ford's wrist from being right up against it as it operated. Ford had also designed an advanced sort of heat sink into it, to funnel and transform most of the waste heat energy back into usable light (infrared and microwave radiation, specifically).

The two had bounced all these ideas back and forth between each other during their work process. And they were very proud of what they'd made. Ford hesitantly asked Miz if she would like to be named as co-creator. But she turned him down. "This is mainly your work. I just gave tips." Miz shrugged. Ford felt uncomfortable with this. But he wasn't sure how to credit Miz anyway. She was still 'technically' a 12 year old girl, according to her legal papers. So he finally agreed, while keeping in mind to include her in the future, once she was an 'adult'.

"Or you could just credit that portion of it to Xin, and have it transferred over to Miz later," Blue said once they were done with what he considered to be their nattering back and forth on something trivial with no new informational content for quite awhile now. Blue said it to both of them practically; he was more than used to these sorts of contracts and deals by now, long since.

Ford blinked. "Could that work…?" Miz shrugged, petting Ammy, who'd returned a few minutes ago without anyone realizing he was gone to begin with.

"Doesn't 'Xin' exist as 'Miz's older brother' here?" Blue said. Or had he misunderstood that somehow from when Miz had told it to him?

"Yes. But we haven't made papers for him yet." Miz shrugged. "Apparently, getting documents made for a young child is easier than for an adult. Even with the excuse of losing our papers and stuff."

"So?" said Blue. "Don't need papers if you aren't trying to grab the proceeds for 'him', yet. Could be held 'in trust' for 'Xin' by this idiot here, then just all handed over to 'Miz' later."

"Alright. I'll list Xin…" Ford trailed off. "What's Xin's last name? Cipher?"

"Xin Chiu?" Miz answered, somewhat ponderously. "Hm… no, I guess we'll have to go with Cipher, since that's what Miz's name is."

"Middle name Chiu? Could say Xin married into the name, Miz got it that way as a minor family member." Blue opened and snapped his jaw abruptly as he scrubbed at the back of his head, eyes dipping closed for a moment as he did so. (The motion wasn't quite a yawn, and disturbingly reminded Ford of his mother's cat for a moment there, watching him.)

"Well, Xin is listed as a widower… could be that he married a foreigner." Miz nodded. "Alright. We'll go with that. And the fact that Miz took his new last name for ease of paperwork from a legal standing, what with the immigration and all. And with both their parents dead, it works out in the end." Miz nodded. Ford wrote all this down in his journal to keep track of the web of lies.

"Humans don't always go back to a 'maiden name' after marriage," Blue noted. "But middle names are usually original; he and Miz would be the foreigners then. Unless 'Cipher' is more foreign to this country than 'Chiu'?"

"Xin and Miz immigrated here from China, where they lived in a rural village, which is our excuse for their lack of some records. So Cipher would be a foreigner name while they were in China."

"Married into Amish or Mennonites here. Or Amish Mennonites! Plenty of odd last names in THAT bunch," Blue noted. "Lots of farming. Integrate relatively easily while they were here if they came from a different farming background, just have to learn the new vegetables and techniques in the fields if they're smart and capable, which you are. -Remember to pick a good region that has them."

Ford was scribbling this in his journal, he would tell all this to Wanda (and Stan) later. "Right. I'll start writing up my patent tonight." Ford smiled, placing a hand on Miz's head to ruffle her hair. "You're important, you're part of this," he told her.

"She's important without being part of this, she's just important," Blue complained, rubbing a hand over his head again, before picking up his 'witch's hat' again. "Dinner is going to be what? And where?" Blue asked Miz more than the local Stanford.

"We could go back to Seb's place for dinner, I'm cooking tonight." Miz told him. "Dinner would be around seven, which means I should get back by six so I can start cooking." (Ford was a little sad he would be missing that, but his mother had ordered asked him to go to her for dinner, and he couldn't say no.)

"Mm," said Blue. He eyed Ford next (and how disappointed Ford looked at this news? Interesting; also, annoying - was he starting to begin his worship of Miz already?). "What will YOU be doing tonight, for all of the eating?" Blue asked of Ford directly.

"I'm going to dinner with my Ma."

"I'll go to THAT," said Blue, standing up and stretching in place again. "Get all the 'destroying' out of the way early. HA." He pulled in a breath and let it out slowly, looking perfectly relaxed and at ease with this.

Ford twitched. "No, I'm sure Ma just wanted a nice, quiet dinner with me."

Blue eyed him. "Are you? -Ask her," Blue said next. "You have your phone back, don't you?" Blue's eyes went a little cagey and upturned at this. "Call her, and ask her. On 'speakerphone'."

Instead of doing that, Ford clicked his watch, just to show off that it worked (now that he knew that Blue was both awake and looking), and opened another portal. He strode right on through, head held high. There were a few moments of silence. And then Ford came back through, head low, shoulders slumped, and groaned. "She said you can come," he ground out at the demon.

Blue grinned at this.

And turned to his little sister and said, "Oh no, he assumed incorrectly. -Guess it's a good thing he actually communicated with her and asked!" Blue said it a little too brightly for Ford's own comfort, so much so that he just about gritted his teeth. (Ford's hands twitched, almost as if he kind of wanted to strangle the smug son of a Line.)

"Relax, local-'Hand," the demon said to him next. "I won't try and murder her back for wanting to now-and-again-still murder ME! I crossed that line on-purpose today," he waved off. "Might as well handle that tripwire NOW, instead of having her get all 'mom'-ish over it and worse, thinking I'm trying to skip out on the 'consequences' of it, by 'running away' from it all - better to handle this one before I leave," the demon ended as if he thought the whole situation would be handled quite practically enough in this way.

Ford rolled his eyes. "Well, I guess we'll be having dinner together." He said, sighing as he gave up on trying to protest this.

"It's fine," said the demon. "I'll bring it up after dinner. Unless you want to bring it up earlier before-the-meal first." Blue rolled his eyes at this, though. Yeah no, Ford didn't want to bring that up at all, to be honest. "You know Ma thinks of you as another grandkid?" Ford pointed out, in case Blue hadn't realized it.

"Mm?" said Blue. "Miz has said that to me before. -What's your point?" It was rather clear from the lack of any real expression on the demon's face (other than 'awake and alert now') that Blue didn't understand what that meant at all.

Miz wasn't sure how to explain that to Blue. "It means she wants to love and spoil you, but also feels some need to discipline you if you are naughty."

Blue blinked at this.

"No," said Blue. "She was very clear about the 'trying to destroy me if I mess with her family'. What you just said is the opposite of that!" Blue told her brightly, smiling a bit more again. After all, he was not 'family' to her or her-own; he was on the outside of all that!

Miz wasn't sure what to say. So she shrugged. "Maybe I don't get what kind of grandkid you are."

"I'm not a 'grandkid'," said Blue quite simply. "I don't have any 'grandparents'. Never did." He made that almost-shrugging sort of motion again.

Well, Miz didn't know what to say to that. Neither did Ford. So they just let it go. Ammy was looking back and forth between them all. "Is it like how Grandfather is my grandfather?" Miz pet his head. "Kinda? Somewhat? Maybe?"

Blue blinked at this, not getting the reference. Then he turned (not to Miz, but to Ford) and said, "Does it matter?" with a tilt of his head.

"No. I suppose it doesn't." Ford deadpanned, feeling rather flabbergasted that his mother had wanted Blue to come at all. And Ford still didn't understand the whole… destroying thing. Or why the demon didn't understand the concept of a grandparent… clearly, there was some major miscommunication here.

"You… know what grandparents are, to humans?" Ford asked, just in case.

"Yes, yes, progenitor to a parent, and all that," Blue waved off. "I know the given-defintion of the term. But it's largely meaningless, in practice outside of theory, birthright, and traceback-lineage. There's no relationship threads there. Not unless they're constructed on-purpose and with-malice-aforethought later-after-birth over years and years of time-energy-and-effort, but that's how most 'adult human' relationships are with anyone-else. So why does it matter if she claims such rightly or wrongly or not?" Blue said. "What's your point?"

"I really don't know how to make my point, I suppose." Ford sighed. He wasn't exactly good at relationships himself. ...Maybe Kari could explain it? He winced at the thought of that, though. "Well, you can ask Ma later tonight."

"If I feel like it," Blue shrugged off. "After the 'destroying' that she tries to enact wholly-unsuccessfully on her part on me, maybe."

Ford sighed deeply. He suspected that this was going to be a long dinner.

It was not a long dinner.

Blue didn't travel by Ford's portal; he'd created and used one of his own. That had left Ford twitching to begin with, but the fact that all throughout dinner so far, Blue hadn't said anything, and Kari had only been conversing with him the entire time without interruption, had been…

(Really, Kari wasn't stupid. She'd taken one look at the two of them - her own son's tension, and how not-quite-innocently standoffish the demon was that night - and rolled with it. For now. She'd already been suspicious when her eldest son had walked back through that new portal of his the second time he'd done it earlier that afternoon, which was a full half of the reason why she'd said 'yes' to Blue coming along for dinner in the first place.)

And Kari had made a wholly Kosher meal for dinner that evening. Ford was almost regretting having told her about that barbecue he'd seen Blue eating at the time, and the food preparation methods he'd talked about in more detail, later that night on that last day of the first trip Blue had been there that summer.

"So how much would it cost to produce and sell this handy little device of yours? Kari asked, referring to the watch that her eldest was so very proud of. Ford flushed. "I don't have the prices figured out yet." He was feeling a bit tired at all the constant back-and-forth. She might be his mother, but this was more interaction than Ford had with someone in a week (that didn't just involve talking about science stuff with Miz), squashed into less than an hour, on a variety of non-research related, non-technical topics.

"Make sure to triple the price that you think it's worth." Kari told him bluntly. And Ford realized that Stan hadn't gotten all his money grubbing ways from their father. "Yes Ma…" He sighed. To be honest, the portal watch was great, but it was going to be a nightmare for the whole… patenting and producing the thing. For one, it was a clear safety hazard for security reasons. And Ford shuddered to think of how it could be abused.

"Don't distribute any until you have a way to block them first," Blue spoke up for the first time that night. Ford glanced over at him, but the demon wasn't looking up at them. If Ford hadn't heard him, he'd think the demon hadn't spoken up at all, with the way he was focusing on the food in front of him, looking down at all of it instead of either of them, preoccupied with moving another forkful of food from his plate to his mouth via fork.

"Yes, I should be more careful who I sell my creations to. The mind control tie hadn't worked out very well after all…" Whoever had been using it clearly hadn't done anything to stop the country from getting to this point. Even if they apparently had all died out several years ago.

Blue looked up at him at this.

"The tie, you have to physically get around someone's neck like a noose in order to use it. You have to, first and foremost, get in and get close," Blue told him. "That thing can create portals wherever the person controlling it wants. What can one ranking person in a military with all those guns and ammunition and bombs do, with that? Or someone in this administration, with a list of addresses and several large cages." Blue's eyes were boring into his own.

"Yees, it is MUCH more dangerous in the wrong hands. I am aware." Ford sighed. "It's like when Dr. Jerald made a working lightsaber. We had to talk him out of selling it. Not without heavy modifications for safety. And even then, he hasn't sold any."

"Too easy to chop off a limb like a head- of lettuce," Blue nodded, redirecting quickly as Kari shot him a look. "The problem isn't having access, it's safety controls, tamper-proofing the thing, and being able to stop portals from forming where you don't want them to be." Blue did his almost-shrug again, as he shoved another forkful of food into his mouth and chewed.

"F is working to help him make a much weaker version to put out on the market. It merely paralyzes the areas it 'cuts'." Ford nodded. "Though the last I checked, he was working on making brass knuckles you use with your head that deal slashing damage…" Which… didn't make much sense to him, but apparently was from a video game. Ford sighed. His entire staff was made of nerds.

Blue rolled his eyes. "It's called a metal headband, and it's not that hard to add caltrops to them for sharp edges, how is this new?" Blue frowned at this, propping his head up on a fist, elbow on the table.

"I think it was for the fun factor." Ford said dryly.

"Only for the person not getting slashed; for the rest of them, it's just hilarious," Blue said, before taking a sip of his water.

"You're finally a bit talkative this evening," Kari said finally, as she sipped at her wine and eyed the demon-child over it.

"Mm," said Blue, and (to Ford's ever-continual annoyance) went back to quietly eating again.

Kari didn't let this discourage her. "So how have you been, Blue?" she queried him for the first time that evening. "Any closer to fixing your world? Has your version of Stanford been treating you alright?"

"'Fixing' is not just for one world. Define: 'treating me alright'."

"Nothing wrong with starting with one and working your way up?" Kari asked.

Blue blinked, and when he was done his eyes were up and looking at her.

"Not for the full and final round of fixes," Blue said "Groundwork is different, laying that out."

"And how is your groundwork going? Have you gotten everyone to agree to the fixes you wish to put in place?" Kari asked.

"It hasn't been as long along my own personal timeline for me-there as it has for you-all-here," Blue told her. "That 'Ford is still there and being annoying." He let out a breath. "Sixer is… 'recovering' from his last trip here."

"Is he doing okay? The poor dear seemed so stressed." Kari tutted. Then frowned. "I'm sorry 'Ford is still being annoying."

"'Okay' is a word that means nothing." Blue grimaced. "Don't 'be sorry' for things that have nothing to do with you, that you couldn't control anyway even if you tried," Blue said next in pure (teenaged?) annoyance.

Kari nodded, "Part of my personal language has me wanting to apologize for the part of others, not because I believe it is my fault, but as a courtesy."

"It isn't courteous to apologize for others unless you are ready-able-and-willing to do something about things to correct the problem, given the chance." Blue groused out at her next. He stabbed his fork into the food in front of him.

And then, almost apropos of nothing, Blue said, "Sixer is more-stressed," Blue related to her, "But less-stressed than he would have been if he'd left my attic-room, without sleeping on things before leaving it, the same night. 'Ford still hit him as hard as he could with all the wrong words and ideas on things the very first-thing the next morning," and Blue looked anything but happy at this.

"...I almost want to go over there and give him a scolding." Kari muttered.

"Wouldn't help any," Blue said. "He wouldn't respect-or-fear you enough for it to make any difference at all. 'Ford isn't him," Blue said, flicking his eyes over to Ford briefly, "He's a genius who doesn't realize how utterly stupid he is. He's very, very stupid." That said, Blue stopped talking and shoved another forkful of food into his mouth.

"Ah. Where did that other me go wrong, I wonder." Kari sighed.

"Nothing went wrong; I wouldn't have gotten out if things hadn't gone the way that they did in that dimension specifically, while that local-you was still not-dead at all times-previously," Blue noted out to her next. Ford shifted in place rather uncomfortably upon hearing this.

"Still sounds unfortunate." Kari cut up her meatloaf.

"Define: unfortunate," Blue said, "Along with the 'treating me alright'."

"Unfortunate, that 'Ford didn't turn out to be a better person. Treating you right as in getting along with you."

Blue barked out a laugh at this.

"Lady, if 'Ford was a better person," he drawled out at her in pure 'Bill Cipher' fashion, twirling his fork, "He never would have made a Deal with me! And not only would Stanley not have made up a properly-working portal to have my Sixer come out of a little less than a year ago, while making a small rift after running it near-constantly, three trillion times in a row," Blue said to her next, looking downright amused, "There to where Sixer was, to get him to finally go there, to the place where he was supposed to be, right from the start... That dumbass lunatic would have built a non-functioning, malfunctioning portal device on his own, fired it up and made a malformed portal right out of it," Blue planted his fork in his food. "And cracked the planet, the solar system, and half the spiral arm of the whole damn galaxy apart with it, not knowing the first thing about what he was doing at all." Blue's mouth was grinning, but his eyes were doing anything-but.

"...science sounds so dangerous when you put it like that." Kari frowned.

"It is when you think that you're right, everybody else is wrong, and refuse to have anyone triple-check your work, instead of doing the opposite," Blue said to her next, before taking another bite of his food.

"Oh, a stubborn one." Kari rolled her eyes before turning to her own Ford. "You have people to check your work?"

"Yes Ma. I have Fiddleford and Miz look them over." Ford sighed.

"Check it yourself, one; Glasses, two; Miz makes it three; you're fine on the science, at least." Blue took a sip of his water. "Just need to learn to do that for relationship advice and everything-else to do with any-and-all of your communication, next."

"...triple check my relationships?" Ford blinked. "Like… asking my therapist about it?" He wasn't sure he was feeling up for that. But… well, Ashton was sort of his friend by now. The man knew more about Ford than he had wanted anyone to, but he did help a lot.

"Do you trust your therapist?" Blue said next. "You know Glasses' credentials, and your own, and Miz's-somewhat on science-things from seeing her work."

"Well, yes. Ashton has been very kind. And I'm doing much better ever since I started speaking with him."

"But you haven't had someone check your relationship with him, have you," Blue said to him next. "Or his own relationships, to see if he knows what he's talking about. Or if he could-be-or-is-now influenced by others, to then influence you, in one way or another. -Credentials," Blue said to him next.

"...right…" Ford said slowly. "I will… make a note to do that…" He barely knew what he would even want to start with, on that front.

"That isn't a 'yes'," Blue noted, before turning to Kari. "Have you met this 'Ashton' with no second-or-third name?" the demon asked of her next.

"I haven't met his therapist, no. My little Stanford is very shy about his personal affairs." Kari sighed. ("Ma!")

"Was 'shy' about that local-broken demon of his, too," Blue noted, taking another sip of his water. "Wasn't he. Didn't even call you up when he was having trouble, back then. Think that's changed, now that you've gone and decided to be a 'mom' instead of just a 'mother'?" the demon asked lightly.

Kari turned sad eyes toward her eldest. Ford winced. "Look, Ma, I just… I never really confided in anyone but Stan. You know this."

"Yes. Hence why you called Stan to you that day, and I thought you were both dead for 13 years." Kari sighed. "It's because I failed as a mother, none of you ever trusted me to come to me with your problems." She knew well how badly she had messed up.

"Because you weren't 'trustworthy' then, just a 'mother'," Blue noted, swirling his water in his glass for a bit while watching it. "Are you trust-worthy now?" the demon asked of her next as a very loaded and weighty question, looking over the rim of his glass at her for a long moment, before taking a sip.

Kari looked over at Ford. He sighed. "Ma, it's not… that I don't trust you. But I'm a grown man, there are things I just… can't talk to you about."

"But if you were in trouble, or if you needed help, you know that I'm here. I'm here, and I want to be able to help." Kari looked down at her hands. Sebastian was the only one who'd ever really confided in her, and she still didn't understand why. Not after she'd failed him so badly all his life.

Ford didn't say anything, he didn't know what to say.

But when Blue cut into the tension with, "So, tell me, what do you think about this-one having grandkids?" far too casually, Ford was on his feet before he even realized it, shouting out "No-!"

"I would love for him to settle down with someone, I don't even care anymore if it's a woman or another man." Kari sighed. "I'm just worried about him being alone. And more grandkids would always be nice." She raised an eyebrow at Ford, who was blushing even as he felt… a little sick. (He hated Blue for doing this to him now.) "Ma, I don't…" He sighed.

"You've still never had that discussion with her yet, have you," the demon said next, swirling the water in his glass as he looked out over them coolly.

"...no?" Ford looked away. "I haven't… quite… talked about this… yet…"

Kari frowned at him. "Stanford?" She asked. Ford groaned. (Damn him!) "I'm…" He paused. "While I'm not against the idea of having a romantic partner," he started, "I am not… interested in… physical pursuits." He didn't know how to say it.

"He's asexual," Blue said, ripping the band-aid right off. "Look it up on your phone on that internet of yours."

"What's that?" Kari asked. She looked over at Ford, who didn't want to speak, and when Blue didn't speak up any more than he already had either, she pulled out her phone to do as Blue suggested. She read quietly for a while. And after a few minutes, she breathed out. "I see."

Ford immediately sat up, trying to soften the blow somehow, "Ma, it's not a bad thing. It's perfectly normal for a certain percentage of the population-"

But Kari placed a hand over his. "Oh, Stanford." She sighed. "Why didn't you tell me sooner?" From what she read, there were even some asexuals who were repulsed by the very idea of it. Was her little Stanford one of those? Had she been making him sick all this time?

"I… I only found out myself recently." Ford admitted. "Mabel helped me figure it out."

"Oh no," Blue said next, "Not the fire and brimstone and the yelling. How could she possibly understand and still love you for who you are when what you are means that you don't want to be making any of all of the grandkids-for-her, after this," Blue deadpanned out at them rather flatly next, before finishing off the rest of his water.

"I get it, ok?" Ford ground out at the demon. Then he winced. "I'm sorry, Ma. For… this."

"Don't be sorry!" Kari reached out to pull Ford into an embrace. "Oh baby, why didn't you tell me? Did you really think I would-" She breathed. "I'm fine with Dillon. I'm fine with Zach. There are so many new things I'm learning about my family, but you're all still my children and grandchildren. How could you ever think that I wouldn't still love you?"

"I…" Ford felt his eyes burning. "I didn't want to… disappoint you…"

"Never." Kari breathed, laying her head on his shoulder. "You're my son. Everytime you breathe, everytime you're here and alive and happy, I'm proud of you."

"M-ma…" Ford was trying so hard not to cry. Ashton told him he didn't have to hold it back, but ingrained instincts (learned from childhood) were hard to get over. But his mother was still holding him, and Ford just let it go, sobbing into her hair.

Blue, who had finished eating, just shoved his plate forward a bit and pillowed his head down on the table. (The demon let out a long breath. He was a little bit bored. And laughing at or poking at this 'sensitive' Stanford for doing a whole bunch of useless crying would be messing with him even-further, Blue knew. So the demon stifled a yawn and he waited. For courtesy, for the Kari who had fed him dinner that night, who he wanted to still be able to talk about his future-plans with later, some of them still, if at all possible.)

Eventually, the humans finally finished their emotional overload (humans, yeesh) and Ford sat back up in his chair, wiping his eyes. "R-right. So." He tried to regain his composure. Kari was still holding his hand. "So, I'm guessing, this means I shouldn't be asking you about grandkids?" she tried to joke. Ford let out a wet laugh. "Would be appreciated."

"Alright then." Kari smiled. "I'll just have to bug your other brothers then." Ford barked with laughter. "My bet's on Stan." He grinned. Ford felt light. Almost giddy.

"Alternately," drifted up from the demon, "Let Miz have you live longer and still-be-around for all of the Mason-and-Mabel great-grandkids, maybe."

Ford groaned. Kari laughed. "I don't know if immortality is for me."

"Warlord's gotta warlord." Blue stretched a bit in place, and straightened up a little bit again in his chair, propping his head up on a fist again. "Who else will do that for them, if you are then-gone?"

"I'd like to think someone would take it over after I'm gone. Pass on the legacy." Kari replied smoothly. "With the way things are going, my bet's are on Zoe."

"You'll only be gone if Seb is stupid, and he isn't," Blue told her. "I'm betting on that. -Though you could always hand off the mantle for a while to Mabel, once she comes into her own. She will before Zoe," the demon shrugged off quite easily next. "Unless they want to share. That happens sometimes. Female humans are rarely-ever so stupid as to pass up a good alliance when it comes by their way. Matriarchies are where it's at."

Ford stared at him. The scary thing was, Blue sounded like he actually believed what he was saying there, for all of it.

But Sebastian wouldn't do that. He wouldn't. Would he?

...No. No. His brother wasn't Bill Cipher, and Ford could trust him. He knew that. Blue was insane - he had to remember that.

"Seb is going to do things his own way, and you will let him do that," Kari pronounced, and that got a "Well, yes; I said that," and another almost-shrug from Blue.

Ford sent his mother a look, and at the look he got back from her, he felt himself begin to relax again easily. Everything would be all right.

"And whatever Sebastian chooses to do, you will let him." Kari clarified.

"Yes," said Blue. "I will watch and take notes as he does it. I said that to him also in your presence, too. My Mind and my recall are working," Blue said to her next, with a very slight frown.

"Just making sure we're all on the same page." Kari shrugged, her poise relaxed and unruffled. She took a sip of her tea.

"Fine," said the demon, seeming fine with leaving it at that.

Ford relaxed.

"Now," Kari said next, "What exactly were you two fighting about earlier?"

Ford tensed again. "What makes you think-"

"Don't even try, you know I'm not that stupid." Kari drawled out. "So? What happened?"

"We had a training session of fighting practice at his Center, and I showed him a gap in the Deal and the bracelet's coverage by making him feel intense pain for a duration of 1.34 seconds, among other things," Blue told her next quite promptly. "No damage, no lasting or lingering effects."

"...would I need to give you a penalty for it?" Kari asked. Ford shook his head. "Ma, you don't have to-"

"Possibly, but you should really be far more concerned about what I was able to confirm about him by doing it," Blue told her just as promptly and easily next, as he lifted his head up to cross both his hands under his chin.

"Which was?" Kari raised an eyebrow.

"He still thinks that feeling blinding, crippling pain is fine, so long as he can rationalize it away by some convoluted so-called 'reasoning process', when it involves him thinking that 'someone will like him more' if he does it," Blue said to her next. "This needs correcting still on your part, post-haste. -This isn't a 'new' thing at all."

Ford gave Blue a frustrated look, even as Kari turned to him. "Stanford!" She gasped. Ford tried to wave it off, "It's fine- I wasn't actually hurt-"

"Stanford!" Kari repeated, not letting up her stare. He hunched into himself. "Ma…"

"Don't Ma, me! That is unacceptable!" And Ford winced as Kari scolded him about his health and safety being more important than having someone like him-

"It is," Blue said next. "The local broken-demon took advantage of him in this way before, and anyone who knows of it and is able to convince him that 'if he does X, this other-person he wants to have like or continue-to-like him will then like him' will be able to subvert him into doing whatever they want. Likely-also without him talking about any of it at all, as a 'condition' for their continued 'help' and 'services' moving forward."

Ford winced. "It's not like that-" But Kari cut him off with another hug and more concerned words about his worth and self worth and Ford was so embarrassed by all this.

"As a token of my esteem, I have not taken full advantage of this, only gone so far as I needed to in order to confirm this continuing-problem to you in one of your own, for your own future fixing, local warlord," Blue said to Kari almost formally next, one hand held almost oddly across his own chest. "I leave him with you now, in your hands and in your care, in one full and unbroken piece, to do with him as you so desire and will, moving forward."

...The worst part was, Ford could almost tell what most of those words and phrases were supposed to be in Galactic Common. It had not translated well at all.

And Kari was still fussing over him like he was going to break. It was so annoying. "Maaaaaa!" He complained. Stupid Blue! Stupid tattling on him to his mom!

"Seb has checks for his mentality for suicidal thoughts," Blue said next. "I would suggest checks for physical and mental pain for this one, by objective-not-subjective value-and-metrics, instead. With alerts. That go to both him and you."

And Ford despaired when Kari agreed, he knew what Blue was doing. He was diverting his mom's attention onto him so that Blue could get away scot free-

...and by that superior sort of 'I won!' look in the demon's eyes that Blue was giving him while Kari's back was turned, Ford was damn well sure that he'd hit the nail on the head. Damn him.

"Don't think I'm not still giving you a penalty for putting my son through pain to begin with." Kari told Blue simply, without even turning around, making Ford believe once more, that his mother had eyes on the back of her head.

"Would you have believed it, if I'd told you without confirming it first? You don't believe me on anything else. Yet."

"Well, considering how Sebastian turned out…" Kari frowned at Ford. "Frankly, I'm beginning to think I should ask Stan and Shermie if they're having problems like this too."

"Maybe you should, for operational security," Blue said next. "And that one wouldn't believe me if I just told him that the gaps were that much of a problem," Blue said to her next, of Seb's Ford. "I tell him things over and over again, and they never stick until the example smacks him right in the face, and sometimes not even then. -Now, it will be a far higher, properly-leveled priority for him to want to fix this thing for all of you, next."

Ford winced. He silently apologized to Stan and Shermie for what would soon befall them.

"Could you have filled in this gap for us, instead?" Kari asked of him next. "You made those bracelets. While did you still leave that in?" She wasn't accusing. That was the main thing Ford noticed.

And at that, Ford watched as Blue's facial expression twisted in place.

"...you didn't notice them, yourself?" Kari guessed.

"I knew it was going to be a problem," Blue said almost stiffly. "I noticed, and knew."

Ford, however, felt free to be as accusatory as he liked, especially given the circumstances. "And you didn't bring them up so we could fix them?!"

He was rather… irked, by this.

"I told you there were holes. I don't care about pain," Blue damn near waved off, and it was maddening. "It's just another type of feeling, another flavor of touch. So what? -You don't like it? Get rid of the flavors you hate, that you think you don't need, to whatever levels that you don't want to feel the taste of them, on-under-and-underneath all of your skin, bones, blood, muscles, tendons, and various organs alike," Blue told him next, sitting back in his chair.

...and then Ford thought about the way Xin allowed his bruises to stay, claimed that he enjoyed the faint ache of them. And Ford buried his face in his hands. Right. And pain was still a type of feeling, and cutting that off would be… well, they would have to block that part of their brain that was capable of feeling it to begin with-

...except pain was far more complicated than that. He belatedly remembered the research on that healing salve, how the process itself had been projected to have certain inputs and effects that had been considered possibly problematic by some of his biologists, because-

Because people reacted differently. Because pain wasn't the same for everyone. Because people had different threshold of pain, and because the feeling of pain was something that was learned-

(And that wasn't even getting into how blocking all sensations of pain would lead to so many accidents when people didn't realize they were hurt or sick or bleeding out or-)

Damn him. Ford wanted to curse the demon out. This could easily be far more work than the portal device had been, just in characterizing the basics of the definition of the initial problem. And biology wasn't even his forte. And all that would have to happen before even beginning to start work on the actual central problem of what they wanted to prevent, if he even wanted to tackle this work.

And… he didn't think this could even BE something to be fixed. The lack of a pain response was much too dangerous-

He realized he was trapped. There was no way around this.

"You can't just do this for us?" Kari asked the demon next.

"I won't get it right," Blue said to them both. "Not without getting inside your heads A LOT deeper than any of us would want me to. Including me. You wouldn't be the same people afterwards," Blue told them both next, crossing his arms.

"He's right. There are too many factors here. And I don't want anything messing with our heads, nothing- no. We can't." Ford shook his head. "We'll just have to be careful about this particular thing." He placed a hand on her shoulder until Kari backed down. "He still abused this loophole to hurt you." She huffed.

"I didn't say I can't do it, one way or the other or several," Blue complained at him. "I said you won't want me to do what I would need to do to be able to tune them properly FOR you, and you won't like the levels I choose and pick to be letting through otherwise. Doubt any of you would have trusted what I gave you, if I'd gone and done that. -And yes, I 'abused' TWO loopholes to do it," Blue told her next. "He didn't see anything wrong with me taking advantage of the other loophole either," Blue said, and Ford realized and belatedly remembered that what the demon was referring to there were the parameters of the training session next.

"Yes. Which is why we aren't going to ask you to adjust our pain parameters and settings." Ford stressed, trying to skirt over that other part next. "And other people being in pain is not the same as- I have a higher threshold than-"

"Doesn't make it right." Kari pulled on his sleeve. "You, never allow yourself to be hurt, just for the sake of someone else 'liking' you. Ok? Promise me!"

"Ma!"

"Promise me!" Kari glared.

Ford groaned. "...fine. I… promise…"

"What penalty will he get when he breaks his promise to you," the demon said next, and Ford damn near threw something at the demon over that one next. "What. -'Consequences', Stanford. Keep them in mind."

Kari considered it. Then, "I'll move in with you." She deadpanned. Ford whined. "Ma!"

"Well clearly I cannot trust you to live on your own, where I can't keep an eye on you." Kari patted his hair. "You've got room, don't you? And if not, I can ask Miz to expand your house as she did with Sebastian's."

Ford's face was dark red from the force of his blush. "Ma…." Having his mom move in? Nooooo!

"Now you just need to make sure you have a proper automatic reporting system, so that he knows that you WILL find out, and you will have the proper negative-motivator schema in place." It sounded like Blue both approved, being somewhat impressed, and also sort-of didn't.

(Damn him. Even his own asshole of a Bill Cipher had never even threatened to tell on him to his MOM! And here Blue was, actually doing it!)

Ford thunked his face into the table. Uuuuugh. Just let this damn night be over already...

"Which will only work on him so long as you remain alive…" "Don't push it, Blue." "...unless you fix the underlying issue-itself."

"I'm considering the lengthening of my life, but I'm not going to agree to immortality." Kari drawled out, "Wasn't Miz already planning on that?" Ford groaned. "Ma…"

"I'm patient, and you and Seb are not stupid. I'll wait," said the demon. "You'll get there eventually." He seemed far too sure of this for Ford's own comfort still.

"You're still getting a penalty though." Kari told Blue. And then she poked Ford. "And so are you."

"Why do you think I should need one?" said Blue.

"You're smart, you could have found a way to beat him in your training exercise without having to make him suffer." Kari said. "Though, I will thank you for figuring out this issue he has and bringing it to my attention."

"'Smart' doesn't do anyone any 'good' if the-smart doesn't have the time-and-space-and-resources to even begin to leverage it properly," Blue complained at her next, though he waved off the thanks as if it were almost an 'it was almost-nothing, just a token of esteem as I said it was before'. "And that wasn't the point of the training exercise to begin with. If I just wanted to 'beat' him, I could have taken him outside and done that to him into the forest-floor without issue."

"I'm mainly hoping a penalty would keep you from making my son hurt like that again in the future."

"Not-having him 'hurt' like that again would require defenses and tuning against that kind of source-of-pain," Blue said to her. "And you said you didn't want me to do that."

"I meant you, in particular. You don't like Stanford." Kari told him.

"Of course not; what's to like?" Blue said to her next.

Kari sighed. Ford groaned, burying his face into his arms. "I happen to like my son." Kari told Blue.

"Well of course YOU like him; you decided you want to be his 'mom'," Blue said to her next, like this was obvious.

"...I don't think that was something either of us had a choice in?" Ford raised an eyebrow. "I did carry you for many months inside me." Kari deadpanned.

"She was a mother; now she is a 'mom'," Blue told him. "There was a choice there, and she made it. -Many of them really, but who's counting."

Kari shrugged, accepting that line of logic. "I know he's not perfect. But he's a good boy." Kari pet Ford's head again, "Even if he's still in a lot of trouble right now."

"He's not 'perfect' or a 'good boy'. He's going to try and kill my little sister in the future because of all of his problems, and he's not going to change anything about himself that will lead to that, so that's what's going to happen."

Kari turned to Ford with a horrified look. "I'm not going to kill Miz. Blue doesn't know for sure what I'll do. He's just making an estimate based on other Fords he's seen in other dimensions." The man protested.

"And what I've Seen you do here, with that local broken-demon," Blue added. "And what you've done around-and-with-and-alongside both my little sister and me while we've both been here. -It's an ongoing problem," Blue said to Kari at the end there. "I'm a Master of the Mind. I can see and test and tell what has and hasn't changed. I just told you about a mere handful of those problems today here-and-now, after this exact dinner-meal."

Kari rounded on Ford with a worried look. "No, Ma. I'm not…" Ford sighed. "Just because I hated my own Bill, for what he did to me…" He shook his head. "Miz isn't going to kill us, or destroy the world."

"That isn't the only reason you hated him," Blue said to him next, then shut up abruptly. (Ford didn't notice this, but Kari sure as hell did. But then she was immediately distracted by-)

"He played with my feelings and betrayed me! He-" Ford shuddered. "He was lying from the very beginning! He- he told me he thought I was special… he told me I was brilliant- he never meant it. None of it. He never cared about me at all!" Ford's fists were shaking. "He never cared about my feelings even once! He admitted it! He taunted me with it! Told me how stupid I was to ever believe him when he said I was worth anything!"

(And yet… Bill had still wanted Ford to join him? Why? Ford could never figure that one out. Why would Bill still want him, when he admitted that he thought Ford was an idiot, a pathetic waste of space who was only a pawn and nothing more?)

Kari was shocked and appalled at this. Too shocked to say anything, as she covered her mouth with her hands, holding back tears. Her baby had been hurt this badly by… from the sounds of it, someone he had truly cared for and trusted...

(And, out of the corner of her eye, she could see that not only was Blue not shocked at hearing all this, he looked almost bored. Like he'd heard it all before and-)

"He laughed at me! Told me that he never was my friend, never wanted to be, and had only played along because I was his latest in a long history of cons…" Ford's voice trailed off. "Even though…" He wiped at his face angrily. "Miz isn't like him at all. There's nothing… I can tell the difference!"

...and Kari was a little confused as to how this all related. Sure, Miz was… a triangle… as this Bill was, from what she could understand. An alternate universe version. So Kari sort of understood why Blue would think Ford would hurt Miz, for being another version of the man who'd hurt him… but… they were different people...

And Blue just sat there, worked his jaw a bit, and said nothing. He looked like he had something to say, but he was holding it back and holding it down, hard.

Kari noticed. "What is it?" Her hand was holding onto her son, but she was still keeping an eye on Blue.

"I'm not repeating myself to you again," the demon said to her tersely. "You are not stupid."

"...Miz is Bill Cipher. But not the same Bill Cipher." Kari stated. That much was clear. "Just as you are also Bill Cipher." Her eyes narrowed. "But you're not the same person."

"She is a me-who-is-also-me, yes, and yes I said that before." Blue looked somewhat frustrated. "That isn't the issue here. With him."

"So why do you think that my son would react the same- would kill Miz, for being Bill Cipher, even when she's a different person? What is his issue here?"

"I said it before, I'm not repeating myself again," Blue said. "I told you. I've told him repeatedly. I'm not about to make it happen any faster," Blue almost sneered out at her next.

"Miz isn't like him!" Ford repeated. "I know she isn't. She actually cares about me-"

"No," Blue said, "You don't know that. And anyone who tells you anything 'bad' about her will have you changing your mind on her instantly-"

"I know she's a demon. I know she's killed people before-" Ford hissed in a breath. "And guess what? So have I!" (Blue's eyes narrowed at this.) "I've had to defend myself out in space. I've h-had to kill people! I know that sometimes you can't prevent it. I'm not going to condemn her for staying alive- or doing what she needed to survive out in that shithole of a universe!"

Blue didn't respond to him directly at this.

He just flicked his eyes to a point over to Ford's left between one blink and the next.

Looking at…

Ford slowly turned his head to the side, and...

Kari… looked sad. But she didn't look disgusted, or horrified, or angry. She just looked sad. "Oh, my dear boy…" and she wrapped Ford in another hug. "It must have been so hard out there." She was shuddering, sobbing into his shoulder. "I'm sorry you were forced to do that… I'm s-so-" She couldn't even speak anymore through her heaving. Ford was ramrod straight, his eyes were wide and he looked as if he had no idea what to do. He never meant to tell his mother (of all people) about this. He was terrified.

But she wasn't hitting him, or afraid of him or- or calling him a murderer...

"...Ma?"

"I'm s-so-sorry-" Kari sobbed.

"No, ma, it's not… you had nothing to do with…" Ford said helplessly.

"My baby-" Kari pulled him in, holding him so close, like she thought he would slip away if she didn't. "My sweet baby…"

And Ford raised a hand to begin patting her back.

"Ma… it's… it's ok. It was years ago. I'm…. I'm here now. I…"

But Kari just continued to cry, her heart breaking for what her gentle Stanford had been forced to do.

...and Ford just held her, let her cry this out, assuring her the best he could that none of it was her fault.

And when Ford finally thought to look back over to where the demon had been sitting at the table with them, the chair he'd been sitting in was empty. Vacant. Blue was... gone.

...and Ford was too busy with handling his mother to really worry about that right now...