Bill (not Bill Nye the science guy) Cipher is falling down a bottomless rabbit hole. His temper has cooled down by tad bit but he was still heated as to how he is now a Dream Demon. He believed that children should wake up from their dumb imaginations and face the cruel reality because unicorns aren't going to fall out of the sky to save your pathetic ass.
Being a three-sided triangle with unrealistic supernatural powers for what felt like a million years, only to find out that you're actually twenty and not old enough to retire yet is a lot to take in after living four lives.
He was bored and decided to play around with his 'new' dream demon powers. The golden blonde adult spent what felt like ten minutes testing out his magic, a lightbulb then fizzles brightly as he realized that portals exist.
The blonde ponders about his destination, he closes his eyes and concentrates. With a snap of his fingers, a hole opens up and tears through the darkness. It was easy to recognize the portal as fire beamed around the rim. Bill smiles, pushing himself off the dirt walls and right into the tear in the wall.
He flies through the rift and stumbles onto piles of marshmallow soft pillows. There's something up with the dimensions and pillows. Bill stands up and dusts his suit, he slowly scans the room with multiple doors of different shapes and sizes. What was up ahead was a never-ending hallway with more doors and twisted chains of locks.
"You must be our new recruit-", a short stubby female with ruby frames says, she pushes her glasses back as she summons her clipboard. "-uhm.. Bill Cipher, correct?"
"Who else?", the male scoffs. The assistant rolls her eyes, she didn't like his attitude one bit.
"The name's Tracer, Tracer Grace Oviwat.", the brunette introduces herself, bowing as a sign of respect.
"What kind of last name is that?!"
"One that my parents gave me! Damn it, you're such a prick.", Tracer mumbles. "Anyways, what do you go by?"
"Call me whatever you want, I could care less.", Bill replies, his tone cold like ice as he follows the brunette down the hall. "Listen here Tracer, I can tell that you're not the boss of the Dream Demon. Why don't you take a break and play some out-of-this-world chess with me?", Bill suggests as he waves his hands, magic consumes the two as they teleport into outer space. Tracer sighs as the taller male takes a seat, waving his hands once more as a chess board and chess pieces appear.
"Look Mr. Cipher, if you don't mind me calling you that, we have no time to play any games.", she says sternly, waving her hand to make the outer space illusion fade.
Bill sighs and shakes his head as a grin spread across his face. "You're no fun, such a party-crasher."
"According to your profile, you're a twenty-year-old man!", she exclaims, flipping through sheets of paper on her clipboard. "We don't have time to fool around. Stop being acting like a child, you have a job to complete."
"Lighten up a little Tracer, there's nothing wrong with having chaotic fun every once in a while.", Bill comments.
"Mr. Cipher, do you have a kid trapped in your soul?", the female asks, pushing her glasses up. Bill shrugs as he pulls out a child version of himself from his heart, Tracer stares blankly for a few moments before shaking her head in shame as the blonde pushes his child-self back into his chest. "Of course you take that seriously.."
"Have you read my profile of my past life yet? In case you didn't know, I was trapped in the Nightmare Realm for what felt like millions of years in the shape of a triangle!! I had the objective to take over the world and infect it with my powers and demon friends!! I've been partying for who knows how long and let's be honest, even an almighty demon gets tired of chaos!", Bill vents, using his magic to recreate past events and then his defeat.
Tracer rolls her eyes. "Okay but that doesn't give you an excuse to slack off on your new job as a Dream Demon. Just try and mature within these few days."
"Maturity smh-turity, I'm responsible enough Oviwat.", Bill says. "Let's hurry up the process and get me working already! These doors are giving me a headache - just look at all the rainbows and pure rays of energy coming from them!! It's disgusting, I wonder how all those other Dream Demons are surviving!"
"Not so fast Mr. Cipher, that's not how it works.", Tracer says, pulling the male back by tugging on his suit. "We need the lord to do his thing before we assign you your dreamer."
"Oh god.. This process better finish in this chapter..", he mumbles.
"Chapter? What chapter?"
"Nevermind, your brain is too narrow to understand my perspective.", Bill says. Tracer rolls her eyes for the fifth time and opens the sliding door, the male walks in and he wasn't surprised.
"You're supposed to be surprised as your eyes widen in amazement.", Tracer leans over and whispers. "Why aren't you surprised or amazed? Every other Dream Demon who came in felt those emotions?"
"Well.. When you're the ruler of the Nightmare Realm and have everyone worship you and could make anything happen, the feeling is mutual.", Bill explains.
Tracer sighs. "You're not in the Nightmare Realm anymore Mr. Cipher, you're in Dream Demon Heaven. At least put your acting skills to use."
"WOW THIS PLACE SURE IS AMAZING!!! I AM SOOOOOO SURPRISED AND AMAZED!!! WOAH, IS THAT A FIVE-LEGGED CAT?? I'VE NEVER SEEN ANYTHING LIKE IT!!!", Bill exclaims so sarcastically, Tracer facepalms and smacks her forehead as she exhales oh-so-deeply.
"I had better things in the Nightmare Realm.", he says clearly unimpressed. The blonde fakes a yawn and grins. Tracer steps forward and clears her throat.
"Sorry m'lord, please excuse Mr. Cipher's behavior. Let's say that he's - erm - different.", Tracer beams a forced smile.
"Different? Damn right, being different is what makes me unique!!"
"Greetings and salutations.", the lord says in a soft and calm tone. "I'm Jason Dean, J.D for short."
"Pleasure to meet you.", Bill says, teleporting to the raven as he holds his hand out. J.D grins amusingly and shakes Bill's hand. "Say.. Aren't you that guy who tricked his girlfriend in murdering three students? Oh yeah! And the one who tried to blow up the school with a self-made bomb? There's a movie based off that and a musical too!! I look up to you!"
"Yes, in fact that was me and I appreciate how you think of me as your role model. The way you put that makes me sound like the bad guy..", J.D murmurs as he lets go of the male's hand, he shakes his head and sighs. Bill notes that the raven smelled like crispy burnt cigarettes and had tired hazy chocolate eyes. "I was simply helping Westerberg High by attempting to kill everyone so they could start fresh in heaven." The raven holds up his right hand and shows his middle finger, I mean he couldn't show the blonde since it didn't exist anymore.
Strangely, Bill was fascinated. "Holy shit! Did she shoot that off?!"
"Veronica loved me so much that she shot this finger off."
"She doesn't go by Veronica Sawyer anymore, I think she goes by Joyce Byers?", Bill informs, he summons two glasses of black coffee (black like their heart) and hands the drink over. Jason Dean accepts it with a nod. "Anyways, she has a son named Will and she wants her son back from the Upside-Down. Don't worry, your Veronica is coping well."
"I hate to be a nuisance since you both seem to be happily exchanging words but m'lord, we have to get Mr. Cipher ready.", Tracer says, feeling left out and clearly annoyed.
"I see..", the lord of Dream Demons clears his throat and smiles sadly. "Anyways, welcome! You're a Dream Demon now! You'll have to go through some tests before we determine the perfect dreamer for you Bill."
J.D pulls out a gun from his trenchcoat and pulls the trigger. Rather than an 'ich luge' bullet flying out, a purple spark flew out and created a portal. The raven uses his hands to gesture the two to quickly follow along, Tracer rushes and nearly trips over her own feet as Bill shrugs and walks at his own pace.
The three walk through the gateway, through a hallway of caliginous and out the same purple portal. Jason Dean steps aside as Bill floats to where this large bronze machine was. It gave off an old-timey steampunk aesthetic.
"What's this? Some kind of invention that'll blow my brains out?", Bill questions as a joke, poking at random glowing buttons with his cane.
"We don't have a proper name for this mechanism but it scans your memories and thoughts and your mind space. After the process of analyzation, the same machine will then organize your ideas and compare them to one of 7.7 billion people on earth.", Tracer describes. "As the machine works its magic, I will be asking you questions that range of a variety of subjects."
Bill nods and sits in the chair, the brunette straps him in and places the grey bowl shape device over his head. She tightens it and smiles.
"Alright Mr. Cipher-", Tracer begins, summoning another clipboard, a notepad, and a cushion. She seats herself on the pillow and balances her body weight so she doesn't tip over. "-How would you describe your feelings towards children?"
"Children? Those small idiotic and mindless kids? I would do anything to avoid them in any situation.", Bill replies.
"How would you describe all of your past lives?", she asks, jotting words down.
"Terrible, horrible and no-good. I might as well be the ultimate unlucky student."
"Mhm.. What's your opinion on mythical or unusual creatures being found on earth?"
"I can only think of the mysteries of Gravity Falls. Reminds me of Ford, he had six fingers so that made him an outcast like me! I made a 'deal' with him so he could build a gateway that connected to the Nightmare Realm. By deal, I mean tricked and betrayed him.", Bill explains, the memories of him and Ford shaking hands to the whole betrayal thing plays on the screen. Tracer nods and writes some notes down, her head perks up as the three journals appeared on screen. "Oh yeah, he wrote his notes down in these three journals. After he shut down the portal, the only way for it to be operated once more was to find the instructions in his books. Pinetr - erm - This kid was also very infested with uncovering the secrets of Gravity Falls, he had found the third journal and he spent all summer trying to find the other two journals and who the author was. He and his twin sister got into many chaotic problems but honestly, it was fun to watch them get in trouble."
"And you know this because..?"
"Uh.. I have eyes. Everywhere. I watch and see all things."
"Okay..? The way you say that makes you sound like a creep.", Tracer states, chuckling to herself. "Your face is a bit red, just wanted to let you know."
Bill slaps himself, leaving a red handprint on his cheek.
"How do you feel about becoming a 'Dream Demon'?"
"I mean, I was technically a Dream Demon in my past life but it was different. I made deals with people and I could be summoned.", Bill says. "I'm assuming that your kind of 'Dream Demons' are unalike."
"Different indeed. You can only appear in your dreamer's dreams. In other words, you can only see them when they sleep.", the brunette clarifies, she clears her throat and beams a smile. She leaps down from her cushion and steadily onto her feet. She walks over to J.D and hands him her notes, the raven nods and carefully examines the writing. As the lord was doing so, Tracer walks up to Bill and removes the headset as she unfastens the straps.
"There you go! You're all done!", Tracer exclaims with pure excitement in her tone, it was bubbly and cheerful like the smiles on kid's faces. It disgusted the blonde knowing how one could be so happy all the time. "You'll find out who your dreamer is in just a few moments.", the brunette says with a wink, Bill forces a smile and nods as a 'thank you' although he didn't mean it.
Hell, he wanted to get away from this dimension and to someplace far away. One pro about this life was that he was in control of the dreamer's fantasy, he could scare the living shit out of them and the world could end.
A number flashes on the screen and Jason Dean gives his assistant a thumbs up, he summons a blue-raspberry slushie and walks away. Tracer taps the blonde's shoulder, catching his attention, she flicks something off her watch which makes a portal. The two walks through it and the gateway brings them back to the same hallway with twisted doors. Bill continues to follow the brunette until she finally halts to a stop, the blond stands in front of the door.
Door number 618 which had a sign of a blue pine tree.
Bill had some sick stomach feeling of deja-vu but shoves the feeling aside. "Is this the dreamer I'm supposed to help?"
"Who else?", Tracer says, mocking the blonde from their first encounter. "The main rule is that your objective as a Dream Demon is to prevent your dreamer from doing something that may be life-changing and effective to his or her or their family and friends. You need to make them feel happy and wanted, you can't convince them to jump off a cliff out of the blue."
Bill curses under his breath.
Tracer rolls her eyes, she sort of saw it coming. She shakes her head and smiles (for like the millionth time in this chapter). "Another important thing, you cannot fall in love with your dreamer. No matter what happens, you have to prevent yourself from catching feelings."
"As if I'd fall in love, I don't need love.", Bill scoffs. Tracer rolls her eyes.
"You say that now but in reality, you're suffering from loneliness."
The pine tree symbol glows a midnight blue and the door beams the same shade. The brunette gives the tall blonde male a small shove.
Bill gently opens the door and steps in.
