"The what?" Dipper jerked his hand out of Bill's, face flushed red as a beet. Bill crossed his arms and lowered a glare on him. "I can't just up and leave to go to the edge of space-time with you! I mean, we were only supposed to be confidants, you know, what happened to that? A-And now you wanna take me to..."
Bill cut Dipper off by fabricating a bubble beside himself that depicted his wife and daughter sleeping peacefully next to each other in bed. The demon looked unmoved, resting his other hand against his side and staring at Dipper expectantly.
He let out a breath and balled his fists at his sides, returning Bill's glare with wavering resilience. This was going to go very badly.
"Fine," he huffed. "Let's go, but I have to be back before work. I still have responsibilities, you know."
"That's the spirit, kid!" The bubble at Bill's side burst into flames and dissipated. With a wickedly enthusiastic 'grin', he wrenched open the study door to reveal a hellish gateway of shrill squealing and polychromatic discord. Dipper was seeing new colours. "Come on, I know a shortcut." Bill moved into the chaotic passage and waited for the other to join him.
Dipper hesitantly followed his escort. As he stood at the edge of the study, he gave a nervous glance to Bill as if to ask if it were safe to walk though there was no visible ground. The demon rolled his eye in response, "come on, kid." He made a swift teleport behind Dipper's back and shoved him forward, sending him plummeting and screaming through the endless expanse.
Colours raced past, swirling around him and enveloping him like a surfer who'd been wiped out by the sea. His throat quickly went raw from screaming at the top of his lungs. Nausea welled in his stomach from the chaotic display of searingly bright colours. It was just like one of Mabel's fantasies. When his breath had run out, he swallowed hard and muttered something unintelligible to himself. A prayer of sorts; or a curse, whichever meant he was hoping Bill would shatter into oblivion.
Of course, if you speak of the devil, he shall appear. What was left of Dipper's breath was tightened in his chest, his teeth grit and waiting for death of some sort. He peeked one eye open ever so slightly to measure his chances of surviving and to his wonder, Bill was hovering in front of him with crossed arms and a patient stare.
"Whenever you're ready, kid." Wha-? He opened his eyes and looked around to see that all chaotic motion around him had slowed to a steady wave. And when he looked behind him, the door to the study was right there, he'd barely moved a foot from it and was still level with it, even.
"What... just happened?" he asked with chill bumps forming up and down his arms.
"Ever heard the phrase 'your mind is playing tricks on you'? Sure I'm behind that most of the time, but what you just experienced is a little thing called abstract thought."
"Abstract thought?"
Bill wrapped an arm around Dipper's shoulder and escorted him through the dimension. "Before anyone sentient - humans, animals, artificial intelligence generators - can process real thoughts, they start out like this -" Bill explained in a tour-guide demeanor, "utter madness!" His form shifted and glitched into pixelated discord (to add emphasis, of course) for a brief moment before he returned to normal and continued explaining, "This excludes those of us who have no thought before their actions - psychopaths, insomniacs (they may be easy to manipulate but do you even know how difficult it is to predict their actions? Omniscience only goes so far.), drug addicts, pyros, kleptos, and dads. You and I fall under those exclusions, see?"
"Okay, rude... But before I was a father, I managed to trick you multiple times back then."
"That's where you're wrong, brainiac. Shooting Star tricked me multiple times. Stan's mind, the puppet show - she's got no abstract thought either, that girl is all impulse. You tricked me once. And whether you like it or not, I'm categorizing that as a psychopath move under subcategory: sociopath. It takes a real prick to use someone for their own selfish desires. You and I are two of a kind."
"Maybe that's why we're always together, because no one else gets us like each other."
There was a remarkably long awkward silence before Dipper clued in to what he had just said.
"Shit! Did I say that out loud? Oh god, no - okay look, I didn't mean -"
"That's exactly what I'm talking about, Pine Tree. Speaking before thinking? You just made a great example of yourself." Dipper bit his lip hard, leaving tiny creases in the skin. His heart felt as if it were straining to beat. Cold chills washed over him, yet through it all Bill remained completely unchanged as if nothing he'd said even applied to him. On its own level, it was sociopathic. Dipper bit his tongue and didn't say anything more until they were out of the abstract thought dimension.
...
A field of whiteness lay ahead where the abstractness came to a gradual end. In the very center of his vision, Dipper could see a minute black dot. It must be the exit, Dipper thought, as far away as the eye could-
"Okay, we're here," Bill said. Dipper's thoughts were brought to a screeching halt as Bill reached forward and, with two fingers, grabbed the tiny door knob. He opened it wide and outward to reveal a full-sized door that made Dipper's head spin thinking about it. He decided not to.
What lie beyond was darkness. Pure, solid, unending darkness. Bill ushered Dipper along into the new plane. They walked in an uncomfortable silence headed seemingly nowhere, yet Bill never failed to appear as if he knew exactly what he was doing. This made Dipper ill at ease and his surroundings rendered him mute, but he watched the other wordlessly and repressed the admiration of Bill's undeniable confidence.
Slowly, tiny glimmers of light began to flicker into view. All around them, one-by-one, bubbles began to appear. Like any ordinary bubble, they reflected their rainbow sheen from the passing light of Bill's illuminating aura. Their glint took Dipper's breath as he gazed around at them in wonder. Though the demon was not visibly moved, he looked to Dipper and reveled in the awe written all over his naturally-skeptical face. He didn't have to be told what they were. And behind his inexpressive face, Bill was very much grinning. More so than usual.
"Careful!" Bill spoke up, "You let your spit trap hang open like that and you'll catch inter-dimensional space flies." He dusted himself off with a disgusted look that made Dipper snicker, "Sometimes they get in between these little crevices in my bricks and it is just a pain to clean out. It's like getting them in your human teeth - or whatever." He shrugged and produced his cane to lean against as the pair gradually came to a full stop.
"So this is the edge of the universe," Dipper exhaled, heedless of anything the other said. Bill didn't bother correcting him. Captivated by the shimmering infinities of universes, the young man wandered around with amazement like a toddler in a candy store. As his eyes shifted from one cluster of bubbles to the next, he caught sight of a very out of place structure that sat squarely in the middle of everything (nothing?) and his eyes widened at the sight. It was a marvelous building that resembled a starfish with a giant globe-like dome in the middle. Though there were no light other than Bill's, the whole thing was illuminated from the inside out. "What's that?" he asked, pointing to the spectacle.
"Milliways. It's a high-end restaurant," Bill explained with mild disinterest.
"Can we... stop by?"
"It's really hard to get reservations there - believe me, I've tried. They say it's easy because you can book it before it even exists, but that's a load of nonsense because the only way to get reservations is to create an alternate universe where you already have reservations. That part was easy enough, but they don't like my kind there so my reservations were given to someone else less 'nightmare-y'."
"Oh," Dipper sighed.
"Sorry kid, maybe in a few quintillion years when times have changed, but for now, we have a science fair project to do! Let's shed a little light on the subject, shall we?" Bill did a double clap and with a flash of bright white light, the bubbles dispersed and spaced themselves out in massive, structured cube-like rows. In an instant, walls grew around them, and graffiti and billboards covered those walls. Sidewalks came into existance at their base, followed by street lights popping up from the concrete. Right before their eyes, an entire community appeared around them. They were two in a crowd of thousands. However, unlike any of the other innumerable amount of creatures, they were standing right in the middle of the road. Yes, the road. The actual non-matter road that actual non-matter cars were speeding down like blurs of colourful stardust. Bill had placed them directly in the middle of a four-way intersection. Billboards and advertisements flashed through hyperspace fast enough to cause seizures.
Dipper shrieked and frantically surveyed his surroundings. He felt his heart nearly jump out of his chest when a particularly clunky looking UFO-style car flew past, laser guns blazing, so close he could smell alcohol on the wind it produced. Half a dozen police vehicles followed suit in the next instant.
"Well well, where do you wanna start, Pine Tree?" Bill began. Dipper's eyes were wide when he turned to face Bill, made worse by his casual tone. The demon tapped his 'cheek' and looked in all directions at the street signs. "Should we head down Roiland Road, Sugar Street, Hirsch Highway - oh ho, as long as we're in the area, we should definitely visit the plaid museum! Ah, what people won't do for worship. I envy it, Pine Tree. It's gonna be me in a museum one day, I tell ya."
"Bill! Bill, this is crazy, we're gonna die!" Dipper wailed. He ran about in the intersection, looking for a gap in traffic that he could take advantage of to get onto the side walks, but it was no use. Traffic lights weren't a thing in this sub-existential community as cars flowed naturally and perfectly smooth with each other like a river. A faster-than-light-speed river.
"Relax kid, we're safe here as long as we don't step directly into oncoming traffic. Or run into a cop. Trust me, kid, you have no idea what prison here is like. But the way I see it -"
Bill's sentence was cut short by Dipper fiercely grabbing his shoulders and screaming into his face, "Bill!"
"Alright, sheesh!" the demon sighed as he snapped his fingers and the pair of them reappeared three meters to the right. Dipper swept a hand through his hair and leaned against the wall of a non-matter building behind him, feeling the tsunami of terror leave his being. "Killjoy."
After Dipper was done chewing Bill out and managed to get his stomach to stop doing flips, the pair made their way to an interdimensional bus stop where they climbed aboard a multiversal bus and traveled down Hirsch Highway.
Nothing could have prepared Dipper for what they found on that bus. Inhuman creatures, duplicates of his Great-Uncle Ford - some with a Bill, others with a Stanley, less with a McGucket, a few with Dippers, and on one rare occasion he saw his Great-Uncle Ford with Mabel. All of these varied wildly in ages.
But the most paralyzing thing was the rows upon rows of various Bills and Dippers from various dimensions lined the seats, each Bill doing something different to terrorize his Dipper or another Bill's Dipper. There were backseat fights, margarita glasses being thrown, traumatized Dippers rocking back and forth in their seats or even taking the place of their Bill and shredding another set of companions apart. Even the bus driver was a Bill.
Dipper's face went red, never did he think he would see so many Bills in one spot. He suddenly felt short of breath and wanted very desperately to back right back out of the bus. He backed up straight into his Bill who was already paying their toll - or more so negotiating it, if their loud arguing and maniacal laughter had anything to say for it - and Dipper took a moment to question whether or not he'd already lost his correct Bill. He swallowed hard and rubbed the back of his neck, eyes fixed on the ground.
"There are so many of you. I thought there was only one of you?" Dipper said, slowly inching more towards the door. Bill finished cheating Bus Driver Bill out of his gold and turned to put an arm around his Dipper.
"Oh please, there isn't even one 'God', and you think the multiverse would only make one of me? Too many suckers to scam, kid." As Bill led Dipper down the bus aisle, Bus Driver Bill slithered an extended arm into Bill's newly materialized back pocket and relieved him of the gold he had almost successfully been scammed of, snickering as he retracted it back and into his own pocket. "Too many suckers and too many dreams to destroy. Why, everything would be absolutely devoid of chaos without me! Who could live in such a place?"
Dipper eyed a seat next to one of his Great Uncle Fords, but the Dipper on the other side of him looked utterly vicious - he bared his teeth at him the moment he laid eyes on his uncle, he then jerked the elder's arm around his shoulders and seethed with jealousy. A blush settling on his cheeks, Dipper averted his eyes and cleared his throat.
He and Bill sat down in a two-seater near the rear of the bus behind a set of inhuman creatures the likes of which Dipper never thought he'd see in his life, even in fiction, and in front of parallels of themselves with what appeared to be flipped personalities.
Dipper took the window seat while Bill sat next to the isle. The bus drew out into the road at hyper speed and bound them towards alternate realities.
Chaos on the bus never ceased. Ill at ease, Dipper had been sheepishly glancing around and ended up making eye contact with the relatively frail-looking Bill behind him who wore gold bangles around his wrists and had a diamond studded bowtie. He looked pretty, Dipper thought, but before he could even finish wondering why that Bill was blinged out like that, his throat suddenly felt suffocatingly tight. Fear shot through him as he bolted up to find burly hands gripping his neck just about tight enough to strangle him. He desperately pried at them while an almost alien voice screamed straight into his ear.
"You keep your eyes off my Bill, you little punk!" Burly Dipper boomed, giving the smaller one a rough shake. "He's not interested in a runt like you!" Dipper flailed and struggled to free himself.
"I-I'm not! I was just-" he gasped, finding it difficult to speak with no breath in his lungs. Just as a staticy blackness crept into the edges of his vision, Bill - his Bill - clamped a hand down onto Burly Dipper's wrist and gifted him with a couple hundred amps of electricity. When he let go, so did Burly Dipper, with a yelp, and he was left with a charred black handprint-shaped burn scar. Bill crossed his arms and looked expectant of an apology.
"Ah! What the fuck man, not cool!" Burly Dipper whined, gripping his singed wrist in pain.
"Not cool?" Dipper retorted, taking deep, gasping breaths, "You nearly killed me!"
"Keep your puny eyes off my Bill then, kid!"
"I wasn't even looking at him like that!"
"Dipper, it's not worth it," Frail Bill intervened, "Leave the poor guy alone."
Burly Dipper lowered his voice to his Bill, "Listen Cipher, you have to take charge of the situation or punks, whether they're big or small, will walk all over you."
A few moments of arguing and Frail Bill not listening to his more assertive half, and the gentler demon turned to Dipper and Bill with a heartfelt apology.
"Sorry about him, he doesn't know when to quit," he said. Dipper was too busy staring at the way his long, half-mast eyelashes complimented his jewelry to respond. Burly Dipper was glaring scornfully.
"Yeah yeah, just keep your Dipper in line. Not every Bill is as generous as me; you'll get into some real trouble." At this point, the two pairs went back to minding their own business and Dipper made sure to keep his head down the rest of the trip. Noticing Dipper looked sullen, Bill pulled up the bus seat cushion beside him and turned with a jolly arm swing to his companion, "Don't look so down, kid! Let's play bus seat bingo! That's what you and Shooting Star used to do, right?" He glanced under the seat. "Let's see, there's a lost bowtie, five deer teeth, a gold nugget - I'll take that..."
When they came to their stop, they climbed out of the bus along with three other Bill/Dipper pairs and one Bill all on his own.
Dipper stuck very close to his Bill after that little incident back there. If he'd been paying attention, he might have caught the tiny snide snicker that left Bill when he drew in as close as possible to him. But Bill placed a hand on top of the other's head and ruffled his hair.
"Stick close, kid," he said, playing into Dipper's fears.
Bill decided the most efficient way to show Pine Tree all the differences between dimensions was to take him through realities related by universe type, starting with parallel. The easiest way for him to process similarities and differences was to start small.
Dipper watched with awe and wonder as Bill put in the geographic coordinates they wished to be placed at upon entry; Milky Way galaxy, Earth, North America, United States, Oregon, Gravity Falls - ding!
"POSITION LOCATED. WELCOME TO DIMENSION 83/B!" A robotic voice echoed.
The demon pulled his companion through the glossy walls of the dimensional bubble and into a world strikingly similar to their own. Dipper momentarily doubted Bill's validity. In the next moment, however, these thoughts were put to rest when he caught sight of the Mystery Shack.
A tree. It was a tree. A massive, knurled oak tree with acorns the size of smart cars. The funny old falling-apart sign hung from one of its many branches and in place of the Pitt Cola machine out front was a mineral water vending machine. Opposite of that rested what appeared to be a trough of sorts.
"Where are we?" Dipper uttered out of reflex. Bill responded with a smack upside his head. "Ow!" He rubbed the spot where Bill had hit. "What was that for?"
"Can't you hear, Pines? It's dimension 83/b!" Dipper bit his tongue and decided not to respond to the obvious slander.
A familiar face appeared in his peripherals. Exiting the much-more-of-a-tree-than-usual version of the Mystery Shack was the Dipper of this dimension. The pair of them watched until he fully emerged with the company of his sister. Dipper's jaw went slack and his eyes practically popped of of his head. They were centaurs! Or perhaps deertaurs would be a more appropriate term. Deertaur Dipper had smallish antlers protruding from his head and Mabel had a beautiful horn parting her hair. Her tail was different to his too, it was longer with a tuft of brown hair at the end. She looked like a cross breed between a deer and a unicorn, but something didn't quite add up there.
"Hey, Pony Pines!" Bill called out suddenly. Before Dipper could stop him, he was jetting towards the parallels with a jovial twang in his voice.
The deertaur twins gasped on sight, the Dipper instinctively pushing himself in front of Mabel with protective intentions. His ears were pointed all the way forward and he held up his fists.
"Bill?" Deertaur Mabel said from behind him. She put her hands over her brother's head and stood up on his hind legs to see over him. "You're so much more of a triangle than usual!"
Bill stopped in front of them and straightened his bowtie.
"Thanks. In some realities back home, I'm a circle, but I'm way more of a prick like that which I personally think-"
"Sorry!" Dipper said, interrupting his Bill as he grabbed the demon and pushed him out of the frame. "He's with me! Don't worry about him causing any trouble or anything, 'cause y'know I know it's Bill, but I swear this he won't-"
"Pine Tree, don't be so rude!" Bill scolded, forcing himself back into the picture. "I was trying to introduce myself!"
Deertaur Dipper came out of defensive and approached Dipper curiously, "You're human, right?"
"Yeah. And you're a centaur?"
Both Dippers sychronetically howled with excitement, making Mabel and Bill recoil with nausea at their dorky-ness.
"This is so cool!" they both exclaimed. Deertaur Dipper's ears were perked to the sky and Dipper was standing on his toes with stars twinkling in his eyes.
"What's the Bill of this dimension like? Why is Mabel different to you? Is Grunkle Stan a deer too? What about Wendy?"
"Is everyone a human in your dimension? Why is Bill a floating geometric shape? Do your people live in castles or hobbit holes? What does Wendy look like in your world?"
They went on gushing like that without giving answers, or even listening to each other, for a full minute until the Bill of this dimension came along to crash the party.
"47/a! What a treat to see you here! What brings you to this neck of the woods?"
Deertaur Dipper went a ghostly white while Dipper went a cherry red. Bill was human. He was a flesh and blood human being dressed in a flashy gold and black suit with a hunting rifle draped over his shoulders and hanging from his back.
Bill stretched his arm out and encircled his human counterpart, bringing him flying over as he retracted his appendage with a snap.
"Oh, you know, a certain Pine Tree can never seem to live without me," he chuckled, giving the human Bill a low-five.
"Bill!" Deertaur Dipper grunted, lowering his head and threatening him with his antlers.
"What've I always told you, cottontail? Don't bring knives to a gun fight," Human Bill snickered, tapping the barrel of his gun.
"This is surreal," Dipper mumbled. He ran a hand through his bangs as he tried to process all this new information.
"This is just the beginning. Wait 'til I show you the dimension where you and unicornio over there are demons like me. That Bill is a flesh stick too."
"I would just like to point out that I'm still transitioning to a unicorn, thanks," Deertaur Mabel interjected. "Not quite there yet," she chuckled, "the tail is all new, but as you can see it still needs to grow out." She wiggled her slender nub of a tail with pride. "And eventually my fur will change colours, but the doctors say that could take a few more years. I'm not worried about it though, I can just dye it in the mean time." Deertaur Dipper had a smile on him that spoke volumes about how happy he was for his sister's decision of self discovery.
"This is amazing!" Dipper said, "I wish I had some way I could write all this down!"
As if reflexive to his command, Mabel's horn shimmered and shot out a bolt of magic that produced a spiral notebook. It was very... Mabel, indeed. The whole thing was pink, blue, and white with glitter glue writing that spelled out 'Nerdy Thoughts of Dipper Pines!'. Regardless, Dipper loved it very much. A grin spread from ear to ear as he thanked his interdimensional sister profusely for her gift.
"Oh, wait wait! It comes with a pen too." Another glint of her horn and she also produced a pine tree shaped, blue ballpoint pen. "It's chew-proof!"
Dipper gushed a stream of thank yous as he furiously scribbled down everything he had witnessed thus far.
His new journal distracted him the rest of the time they remained in that dimension wherein Deertaur Dipper sat with him to talk about Werewolf Wendy in comparison to Human Wendy and the Bills stood around complimenting each other on their style choices.
When it came time for them to leave, they waved their goodbyes and Bill took them back through the portal and moved onto the next parallel.
"Oh my gosh, Bill, that was incredible!" Dipper squealed with overwhelming excitement. "It's like, completely unbelievable that there could actually be a place in this world where there are centaur versions of yourself - o-oh, and you! Wow, you were human! You had two eyes and everything! I-It looked like one of them was blind though, which is incredible because things like that translate over all these different realities? Man, this is exciting!" Bill laughed at his child-like enthusiasm.
"Kid if you think that's wild, phew boy are you in for the ride of a lifetime!"
With Bill's hand on Dipper's shoulder, the demon escorted him down the hallways of the apartment-esque building housing all the different universes until they came to a door that Bill smirked cruelly at.
He said nothing, but entered the room and right away began punching in their destination. Dipper was bouncing up and down on his toes. Bubbles were rising and bursting rapidly in his chest. He could hardly contain his own giddiness!
"POSITION LOCATED," the universe chimed. "WELCOME TO-" Dipper couldn't wait for the introduction. He lunged straight into the glossy bubble and popped out into a greyscale world. Once again, he found himself outside the Mystery Shack in the same location as the last world. Bill entered the world with greatly less energy as he was used to traveling between dimensions.
"Alright, kid, let's go find the action," Bill began. He was glancing around the familiar world when he turned back to see his Dipper already off running into the dimension with fierce curiosity fueling his jet engines.
Dipper's brand new journal was being gripped tightly in his left arm while his pen was held in place by his right ear. He sprinted straight into the Mystery Shack with little hesitance, bursting through the front door to find an entirely different world to his own.
All along the walls were folksy knickknacks like little wooden bears carved from redwood that said 'ya'll come back now' and plaques with fish that had push-to-play buttons set to 'try me' where they would surely sing some sort of country tune. Next to those, in a very contrasting and out of place fashion, were plastic boxes containing glittery disco balls attached to a pole that played 'Disco Girl' as said on the packaging and assortments of hoop earrings in all styles one could imagine from wide circles to dream-catchers.
"Huh?" Dipper dropped his shoulders and studied his surroundings further. The usually rickety stairs up to the attic had a red shag rug lined up them and the railing was made of stainless steel instead of the splintery log he was used to. The entire place felt more alien than he was prepared for. "Who exactly lives here?" he wondered aloud.
The young man wandered around the house until he came across a hauntingly familiar, yet scarily foreign, face.
"Dipper!" an accented voice scornfully greeted. It was Gideon. Gideon Gleeful. Suddenly he felt nauseous.
"Gideon?" he questioned. It was unmistakable, but he was the faintest bit unsure upon seeing the way his childhood rival was dressed. Instead of that funky pantsuit he typically wore back home, the other was dressed casually in a light blue vest and black undershirt, which scarily resembled the way Dipper used to dress back then. He even had the hat, except instead of a pine tree, a polychromatic five-pointed star was printed on its front.
"What're ya'll doin' here? And why're you dressed like that? You think you can fool me? I know all yer tricks! I'll defeat you like I did years ago!" Gideon shouted, putting up two fists at him. "I don't care if you have got Cipher on yer side, Paz and I will show ya'll what for!"
"Paz?"
A loud crash came from upstairs, followed by a series of thumps suggesting panicked footsteps.
"Gideon!" A greatly more posh-sounding voice called out, a voice Dipper would recognize anywhere. His heart skipped a beat, fluttering with momentary joy. The stairs clattered behind him and in another instant, a very colourful Pacifica appeared in the doorway. "I just saw Bill outside and he's like, yellow or something!" she blurted before realizing who she was standing in front of. The clothing must have thrown her off because she nearly jumped out of her skin when she noticed who she was shouting to. "Ah! Pines!" she shrieked, unleashing a heavy punch prior to registering the situation.
"Ow!" Dipper yelped as he crashed backward to the floor. Gideon and Pacifica stood over him, glaring, with their dukes up. "Bill!" he cried out. On command, the demon fabricated himself into the room. He adjusted his bowtie for effect.
"Cipher!" Gideon spat, "Don't think you can-"
"Relax Gleefuck, I'm only here to show my Dipper around."
"We're from dimension 47/a," Dipper explained.
"Don't fret, Pine Tree, your counterpart here is more or less of a power monger."
"You mean like, a reverse parallel?"
"Sure, po-tay-to - po-tah-to."
"Uh... wha-"
"So you ain't that high-falootin' Pines twin who nearly destroyed our beautiful weird town?" Gideon asked, letting Dipper up from where he was pinned.
Before Dipper had the chance to respond, Bill changed the subject.
"He-hey, listen! The Bill in this dimension is a total loser, lets go show him hell!" The demon grabbed Dipper by the wrist and dragged him back out the front door with the Gleeful and Northwest kids following suit.
They ventured across town to the Tent of Telepathy. It had a line that extended down the street forever and a surrounding crowd as boisterous as a rodeo (Gideon's words). The 'tent' had undergone massive upgrades in its time and was now a full blown stage with its own real-estate and concession stands. It was kinda gross.
But sure enough, Dipper and Mabel Gleeful/Northwest-Pines were on stage suckering people out of their money with foux magical items or trinkets with very weak magical properties. Bill seemed to be enjoying himself throwing shade at their livelyhood, which Dipper secretly found a little funny and charming. After he had his fill of slandering the poor design of their business, he, Dipper, Gideon, and Pacifica all found themselves surprised at the happenings on stage.
Another group of interdimensional travelers were already there! 'Normal' doppelgangers of Dipper, Mabel, and Bill were on stage having what looked like a battle. Perhaps there was some beef between them, but regardless, the Bill of that dimension was absolutely tormenting the Bill of this dimension.
"Pine Tree, that's Llib," Bill pointed out with a chuckle. He broke into a full on fit of giggles and then wiped a tear from his eye. "He goes by that to make himself seem less lame, but it just makes it worse. Everyone just calls him Will."
"Will?"
"Because calling him Bill would be an insult to the rest of us real Bills."
The group made their way through the crowd to get a closer look at the action. The battle seemed to be somewhat of a display of power to the respective duplicates. Doppelganger Bill was laughing maniacally and throwing bolts of lightening relentlessly at his reverse parallel, Will was dodging them completely with terrified shrieks of fear. Dipper Gleeful had doppelganger Dipper suspended upside down with the power of his telepathy gem, and the Mabels were competeing in... mini golf. On stage.
Somehow, Dipper couldn't find himself surprised.
Bill cheered on his 'normal' doppelganger, spitting insults at Will in his feat.
"T-This i-i-is really c-cruel, Bill!" Will stammered as he evaded strikes of lightening.
"'Cruel' is forcing me to listen to that stutter of yours," the other Bill said. "I mean, it's insulting."
"You call yourself a Bill?" 47/a Bill interjected. "It's not just insulting, it's embarrassing!"
The performance stopped. Everyone turned to look at Bill in complete silence. Dipper flushed over with his own embarrassment and hid his face below his hands.
"Oh, like you all weren't thinking the same," he continued.
Another moment of silence.
"Amen to that!" other Bill said eventually, with a short laugh.
"Yeah, he gets it! He gets it," Bill chuckled as well.
"Y-y-you know what's e-embarrassing, 47/a-a? A-a-a-at least I-I'm not a dirty s-soul mu-muncher!" Will retorted, mustering all his bravery to finally stand up for himself. Other Bill cupped a hand around his theoretical mouth and ooooo'ed loudly.
"What?!" In a flash, flames ignited around Bill and he turned a fiery hot red. He started to lunge forward to attack him, but Dipper threw his arms around the demon and caught him in the nick of time, leaving Bill a flailing mess of punches and kicks. "Let me at him! Let me at him!" he thundered in that unholy voice he sometimes did.
"Yeah, okay I think it's time to go, Bill. Sorry, everyone, we'll just be leaving!" The young man excused them both and carried Bill back to the direction of their portal. He had stopped wriggling, but with the squint of his eye, Bill cast an ignition curse that lit Will's hat and bowtie on fire. His sinister laugh was drowned out by Will's screaming.
Dipper tossed Bill out of the portal, making the demon land face-flat on the ground. He stepped out behind him and heaved a relieved sigh.
"That... didn't go well," he stated, pulling out his journal and writing down everything that had transpired. Bill picked himself up off the floor and dusted himself off. He stood on the floor with his hands rested on his hips, looking up to his companion.
"Lighten up, kid. Haven't you ever gotten a sick laugh out of making fun of someone else?"
"What? I-I've never..."
Bill imitated a flawless Dipper voice, "'Make Thompson do it!'" Then used his normal voice, "'Nice use of Thompson, Dipper!' Oh, yeah, you're a real saint, kid." Bill crossed his arms, he lifted off the ground again to meet eye-to-eye with Dipper. He had that cheeky crinkle in his eye like he always had when he thought he was hot shit. Dipper rubbed an arm guiltily and sported a tiny smile.
"Shut up, man. That was once!"
"Oh yeah? How about when you used the growth crystal to make yourself taller than your sister, ey Pines?"
Dipper pushed Bill away playfully and ran out the door laughing. Bill slipstreamed behind him, continuing to spout out with times Dipper had been less than innocent.
Bill showed Dipper one last parallel before they would move on. In this world, Dipper found that he and Mabel were like Bill - beings of energy with non-physical powers, and they took on the form of a pine tree and a shooting star. He complimented Pixel Mabel's glittering rainbow in the way it was less stagnant and more flowy with her movements. When she flew, it left a trail of light behind her. Pixel Dipper whispered to him that it made her really terrible at hide-and-seek.
Human Bill in this dimension was very cynical about being a human being. It seemed he wanted to be out of his flesh body more than anything - to have ultimate, unlimited powers. The one time he inherited Dipper's powers, he nearly destroyed the entire world within a few hours. But since then, he's tried many times still to trick them into giving up their powers again.
When they left this dimension, Bill said to Dipper he felt a lot better about being a demon after meeting them. As if Bill needed his ego to be any larger; but the way his light glowed even brighter as he said that, that just about made Dipper's heart melt.
They were back on the streets again after that, following the sidewalks further downtown. Wherever they were going, Bill would know the way in this organized chaos. They passed so many creatures that defied all Earth logic that Dipper could not pull his nose out of his journal the entire way. His heart felt light, his entire body felt rejuvenated like he was twelve years old again. Bill had an arm draped around the young man's shoulder as they walked and Dipper was so engrossed in this wonderful experience that he hardly even noticed what exactly was the problem with that.
"So let me get this straight..." he began.
"Shoot," said Bill.
Dipper cleared his throat, "'Parallel universes: have features identical to those in our reality, have differences that only change arbitrary things such as appearances or personalities that would not affect major life decisions,' yadda yadda... 'People that are dead in our universe cannot be alive in a parallel universe, or vice versa, or otherwise it is what is classified as a daughter universe.' Am I right so far?"
"Sure, kid, but one point - parallel and daughter universes are mutually exclusive. It can't be both. That's important, you should probably mention that."
"Good idea, thanks!" Dipper wrote this down as fast as his hand could move while still making it legible.
As he wrote, Bill led him into their next destination. This building was much, much larger than the last. It was like a sky scraper that stretched up as far as the eye could see, and the amount of them there were continuing on down the road would have been dizzying had Dipper looked up.
Daughter universes were no joke. There were more of them than parallel, and that accounts for the fact that the multiverse is infinite both ways. Bill explained this to Dipper as they advanced down the halls.
When he finished writing and tucked his journal back underneath his arm, Dipper looked up with an optimistic smile spread across his face and stopped in his tracks.
"Let's go for it," he said, turning toward the first door at his left and latching onto the knob. He was rocking back and forth from his heels to his toes.
Bill glanced at the sign and scoffed, "Suit yourself."
This time, Dipper took the honor of putting the location into the coordinate machine.
"POSITION LOCATED," it gonged. Dipper made a tiny squeak of excitement and in response, Bill ruffled his hair. "WELCOME TO SUB DIMENSION 78/A."
"Wait," Dipper hesitated, "'sub dimension'?" he questioned to Bill. The demon took his hand - a gesture that suddenly made Dipper's heart stop. His breath hitched in his chest and a blush fell over his face. Whatever Bill was about to say was not going to reach the young man's deafened ears.
"Just another word for a daughter universe, don't think about it too much," he shrugged and led the other into the universe.
A rush of air blew through Dipper's dark hair as they stepped through into an overcast world, his eyes never left the connection between the two of them.
Bill's hand...
It was just like he remembered.
That unique staticky mana that coursed just below the demon's surface reverberated through his veins. It was warm and sent shivers down his back. Being of pure energy, he recalled in his mind.
Dipper could feel his heart pounding in his throat. He swallowed hard the frog that had lept up into there. His chest tightened. He released a breath of air that he hadn't realized he was holding.
Bill's hand!
A nervous grin crept onto his face without permission. His palms started sweating, making their link slick.
"Pine Tree!" Bill shouted, finally tapping into Dipper's trance.
"Huh? What? Oh man, sorry, I-I was..."
"Yeesh kid, get a grip!" he punctuated that sentence with a pulse of strength to his grip on the other's hand. He then released Dipper's hand and put both hands on his 'hips'. "This place is a dump!" he declared, gesturing to the Mystery Shack in it's redefined glory.
Oh boy. This place had 'Mabel' written all over it.
Literally.
The letters from the Mystery Shack's sign had been refitted with ones that read, "Mabel's Shack of Fun!" in big, glittery, neon-illuminated letters. The building itself had two or three more floors added onto it. Where Mabel had gotten the means to do that brought the mystery back to the shack.
The whole thing had been painted in various colours, mostly pink and purple, and the balconies all had string lights draped from them. Which Dipper was pretty sure was a massive fire hazard.
"This is a nightmare right out of Mabel's dream bubble, and if I couldn't see past illusions, I'd swear that's where we were," Bill ridiculed as he pressed forward to the building. Dipper followed reluctantly.
It was like something from Snow White - woodland animals surrounded the perimeter of the entire place, scampering and prancing merrily.
"Ugh, hold on, Pine Tree." Bill suddenly stopped and grabbed his gut. He materialized a trash bin next to him and vomited nightmares into it, which Dipper only knew because centipedes and beetles crawled out over the rim of the bin, souls flew out of it screaming and disappeared into oblivion, and shadows spilled out like fog over one side. When he'd purged the entire contents of his horror bladder, the bin vanished and the demon doubled over to the ground flat on his back. An X had replaced his pupil. Dipper giggled, rubbing the back of his neck. His face felt hot. Bill was really something else.
After the demon regained his composure, the pair ventured on inside, which turned out to be significantly worse than outside. Bill gagged, making Dipper laugh again.
A tired-sounding voice spoke out, "Welcome to Mabel's Shack of Fun," it monotoned. "For liability reasons, we ask that you do not feed th- oh god." The clerk behind the counter suddenly ducked down and hid from view. "W-We're not open!" they said in a different, counterfeit voice.
Bill glided over the counter and grabbed the employee by the collar of his shirt. The young man hid his face behind his hands, but it was Dipper. He was garbed in a split colour pink and blue shirt and wore a headband with two little bunny heads attached to springs sticking off of it. His name tag read, "Hi! Welcome to Mabel's Shack of Fun! My name is: 'Don't Ask.'"
"Dipper?" Dipper inquired to his counterpart. The employee removed the hands from his face and sighed just about hard enough to blow them away.
"Look, I refuse to serve his kind here." He pointed upward to Bill who still had a grasp on his collar.
"Believe it or not, I'm not exactly brimming with tears over that," the demon retorted.
"What happened to you?" Dipper asked the employee, taking out his pen and journal to record his response.
"What do you mean what happened to me? I've never been better," he huffed, crossing his arms.
"Yeah..." Dipper pronounced slowly, "I'm sure. But, uh, when did the Mystery Shack become-"
"Become this mess?" Employee Dipper finished with another sigh. "I've got nothing against the way Mabel wants to run things, I mean, she did win the bet with Stan after all, but where exactly things went wrong? I couldn't tell you."
"But what about Soos? This place should belong to him right?"
"I've had a lot of duplicates of myself come through here, some with our Great Uncle Ford and some with Grunkle Stan, but they all say this place belongs to someone different. In this world, The Shack belongs to Mabel, alright?"
"Great Uncle Ford... Hey! Hey, um, did you by chance take that apprenticeship with him? Could that have been the-"
"No. Mabel was way too upset at the thought, and I couldn't so something like that to her."
"Hey, Pine Trees," Bill inserted, "crazy idea, but how about not doing what Shooting Star says all the time."
The Dippers both spoke protested at the same time, talking over each other.
"I don't! Mabel had a problem with you and me, Bill, but obviously I didn't listen to here (where I maybe should have)."
"I could never turn her down. She gets those big watery puppy dog eyes and it just kills me to see her cry, so that's out of the question. I can't stand it when she doesn't look me in the face."
"Yeah, I think I found your problem, Dipstick," Bill said, jiggling the collar of the employee Dipper. The young man in his grasp then swatted away Bill's hand and stood up on his own.
"So you're saying," Dipper began, pointing the end of his pen at the Dipper behind the counter, "that if I never said no to Mabel, he would be me? O-or I'd be him? Or whatever?"
"Bingo."
"That's ridiculous," Employee Dipper denied, rolling his eyes. "I mean, I know she doesn't always have my best interest in mind, but she's my sister!"
"You're right, kid, you're right," said Bill, floating back over to his own Dipper. "Maybe I'm wrong. But as I seem to recall, she's a bit selfish isn't she? I mean, you do so much for her, but when does she ever return the favour to you?"
"She gave me this job! She wouldn't just have me out on the streets, we look out for each other!"
"Right right, she gave you the job that she created by inheriting the Mystery Shack from your Great Uncle Stanley when she beat him in a bet. The, might I add demeaning, job that she created for you because you turned down the offer your Great Uncle Stanford gave to you when she ran off sobbing about you considering it." Bill exhaled dramatically, puffing out the cheeks he had just for the occasion. (It looked strange to see cheeks puff out around a space that didn't even have a mouth.) "My apologies, P.T., I was wrong."
"Get out, okay? Just leave. This is why I refuse your kind, man. It's not like I can change the past anyway, so just shut up and leave!"
"Whatever you say, kid." Bill swung his arms joyously, sporting that 'shit eating' grin in his eye, and left The Shack in a rush, causing the door to swing shut behind him.
Dipper shook his head solemnly and made for the door. He stopped in the doorway and turned back to his counterpart.
"I understand what it's like man. Not listening to her has gotten me in some bad places too, but it's not too late. It's never to late to have a second chance." And with that, he left. A few silent moments hung in the air, but then Employee Dipper smiled and took off his bunny headband.
Out of the portal and bound to the next world, Dipper and Bill stuck side-by-side, hand-in-hand.
"That was a bit harsh back there, don't you think?"
"The truth is often harsh, but it's reality, Dipper. If you can't handle it - well, then you change it."
"Change it..." Dipper murmured to himself. He smiled lightly. "Bill, did you change your reality?"
Bill slowed to a stop. Dipper did too. The sounds of indistinct chattering and doors opening and closing around them from various other travelers were the only things breaking the silence between them. They stood in the middle of the hallway. Bill seemed blank, but contemplative, as he stared into space.
"Bill?" Dipper inquired.
"Yeah."
"I was just ask-"
"Yeah, I did change my reality." Bill breathed heavily. He took off his hat and swiped an arm across his pinnacle. "I've never told anyone this, Pines, so, y'know, count yourself lucky." He placed his hat back on his head and took Dipper's hand once again. They walked slowly down the hall as Bill spoke, "My dimension isn't a great place, kid. Why do you think I was willing to do anything it took to get out of there?" He produced a margarita glass out of thin air and a shaker that also spawned from nothing tipped its contents into the glass. Bill took a long swig. "Where I come from, the laws of physics are much different than you know it. Some universes are like that," he said, making a gesture that Dipper should write that down. He did. "The same way you couldn't imagine moving in 4D, no one from where I'm from could ever imagine moving in 3D. Look at me, Pine Tree, I'm two-dimensional."
"Not entirely. The brim of your hat goes all the way around. And your eye-"
"Wasn't always that way. Forward, backward, left, and right. Up and down don't exist. But there was this real wise-guy who theorized those laws could be bent. I mean, he was a nut-job to the rest of the world, but you know what? I got sick of the way things were. When you don't have much to live for, Pines, your moral sense rots. You start to wonder if there really is a way to change things - if there is a god, if the multiverse theory is true, if you're really as insignificant as they tell you."
Dipper listened with unwavering attention. The notes he was taking mere bullet points.
"Triangles are a stupid shape, Pine Tree."
"Bill-"
"Triangles are as dumb as they come. We're the blondes of the geometric world. We're like pearls, like meeseeks - something only as useful as they look, and as the simplest shape in the laws of polygons, that's not very much."
"But your powers?"
"All of that came later. I was once as useless as you, believe it or not," Bill explained with a melancholy laugh. "I was nothing more than one in a metric billion."
Suddenly, he turned to his companion, hovering just in front of him and still moving as they pressed forward.
"But things can change, Dipper. You read books, you practice necromancy and black magic, you let beings possess you in order to gain knowledge and power, and you destroy all who say you can't."
The pair stopped once again. Dipper felt his blood run cold.
"For the first time, you move into the third dimension. Your universe begins to tear and decay because physics have been rearranged and the world can't handle that, but you have power. Magic begins to eat away at your physical being and you become light. You find a new place to live, a place where the third dimension exists and you can be who you truly are. And yet, there are still those insolent fools who say you're kidding yourself; because you're a triangle. You're a stupid and useless triangle that can't accept reality. And you know what, Pine Tree? That's never going to change. I'm never going to be anything but a triangle to those people. And to some, I'm never going to be anything but a fleshfucker and a soulmuncher. But to those who can see who I really am? I'm Bill Cipher."
His voice deepened. His hues darkened. His aura chilled.
"I'm Bill fucking Cipher. I'm a demon of the mind, as per my will, and I can see into the third dimension. And the fourth, and the fifth, sixth, seventh... and I find the human mind stupid and fascinating, souls delicious, and reality an absolute joke. There is nothing I can't do, no one I can't prove wrong, and I won't let anyone or anything ever take that away from me!"
Complete silence. Not a soul in the room made a single sound. Everyone had stopped and was staring at them.
Dipper dared not even breathe. He could hear his blood coursing in his ears.
This was the real Bill.
His heart thumped.
He finally knew. After all these years, he finally knew Bill's origin.
It thumped again, harder.
"Bill..." he spoke softly.
His hands were as cold as ice, but his palms were sweating something fierce.
"Pine Tree," the demon remarked.
Silence drew a box around them, encasing them both in their own little world where no one else existed.
A slight hum emanated from Bill's body; it was the dull roar of mana flowing under his exterior.
Dipper stepped closer to Bill, closing the gap between them. He put his hands on the demon's shoulders. Bill stared back at him, never blinking.
And then...
A kiss.
Dipper's lips feathered three short times on Bill's forehead, before they came to a rest against that distantly familiar spot just below his eye. That sweet and salty taste of Bill's non-physical bricks against his lips with the staticky tingling that left him breathless. He collapsed into the kiss, relishing the memory of what it was like all those years ago and he never thought he'd feel it ever again. God it was... it was something sweeter than heaven itself. Nothing else existed, nothing else mattered but this, right here, right now.
And Bill...
It took him an eternity in seconds, but he kissed back. Wrapping his arms around his Pine Tree like there was no one else in the whole wide world.
Reality can be changed.
