"The devil grins from ear to ear when he sees the hand he's dealt us/Points at your flaming hair and then we're playin' hide and seek/I can't breathe easy here 'less our trail's gone cold behind us/'Til then the John Mirror you stare at yourself grown old and weak!" - Poets of the Fall
Luz, having risen to her feet, trudged through the still falling snow up to the long ascending staircase of the looming, elaborately crafted temple. She wondered for a moment how long ago it had been built, but given that this was the Dreamlands, it may as well have been crafted a few seconds ago. She eventually found herself at the entryway, now illuminated by torches on either wall, all parallel to each other. Perhaps it was the heat from the torches, but she felt instantly warmer, and her clothing transformed once again back to her usual attire.
Along the walls, she saw what looked like hieroglyphics she recognized to be Egyptian, though she had no idea what any of them said. It left her to wonder if the waking world merely influenced this one or if there was a rift that connected the two without the use of the Silver Key. As she proceeded, she slowly got the sinking feeling that she should not be there, that same feeling one might have if they accidentally wander into an employees only area or finds themselves in a now abandoned place, like many of those urban explorers she would occasionally come across on YouTube.
Further down the hall, she heard a soft but high pitched cackle coming from somewhere. She ran down the hall and heard the sound grow louder. It eventually terminated into a large room that dipped down into a lower platform that somehow reminded her of a chessboard, only with tan and brown earthy colors.
And across from her, she found the source of the cackling: a colossal yellow triangular shaped entity with one eye and black spindly arms and legs that reminded Luz of a spider or a dead tree branch. (Just under the eye was a black bow tie for some reason.)
And hovering above its raised hand was the unconscious body of Amity Blight, causing Luz's heart to sink at the sight of her girlfriend in such a state.
"Oh, boy, it took you long enough, Otter," the thing said, flashing a dim yellow light with each word, "I thought you'd never make it out there in the cold. But you are resilient, I'll give you that."
"So you're Nyarlathotep," Luz grumbled, reaching into her pack for her glyph papers, "Or should I call you Bill Cypher?"
"Eh, just Bill will do for now," the thing chuckled, "And really, I'm just happy you were able to make it. See, I need a strong mind to sacrifice for me to return to your waking world. I kinda had a tough run in with two meddling kids about eight or so years ago, and now I'm stuck here once again. At least Kadath hasn't changed all that much since I last left it."
"I...I won't let you," Luz readied her fighting stance, some hesitation in her voice. She had no idea what this monstrosity was capable of. Did she even stand a chance? She thought of a line she heard in some old anime about power levels being over 9000, and she wondered if this guy could even compare to that.
"Well, that's cute," Bill replied, "and very predicable. I was kind of hoping for that reaction. Usually most people want to make a deal with me, but I didn't think you would, Otter. You're more of the take action kinda girl."
"Are you…," Luz questioned after a moment's pause, "related to a small demon in the Boiling Isles named King? Your voice sounds almost exactly like his."
"King? Ha!" Bill chuckled, "Ain't any kings here in Kadath. Just a pharaoh, and that's me!" He swayed the top of the triangle that was his "head" back and forth with a sing-song voice before leaning forward and changing his tone. "I'm just kidding. I know you're talking about Horned Skull, and no, we're not related. But enough talk! Time to give you a chance to save Purple Ooze here and throw down as you kids say it. Do kids still say that? Ah, whatever!" He then fired a yellow energy blast from his hands, which Luz dodged quickly. He continued to do this and forced Luz to run down the stairs to the lower area. When she arrived, the floor reminded her of some giant chess board. In seconds, however, she found Bill materialized before her and continued his blasting assault. Luz retorted with a fire glyph she quickly retrieved as she ran, a fireball now flying at Bill that he quickly deflected with a wave of his opposite hand, a blue energy shield emitting from his fingers.
"A small fireball, really?" Bill laughed, "Oh come on, I know you can do better than that." He teleported behind her and, raising his hand, emitted a pillar of fire, the effigies of screaming faces pulsing from the flames. Luz had to act fast and leapt forward to avoid the heat before turning around to see it dissipate back into the floor. "Let's make things interesting, shall we?" Several patches in the floor opened up to reveal various traps, some immiting flame jets, some whirring buzzsaws, some spikes that kept extending and retreating back into their walls below the surface. Luz lept from safe cliff to safe cliff before grabbing another glyph and activating it in Bill's direction.
"Eat lighting, you insult to geometric shapes the multiverse over!" A bolt of lightning shot from Luz's palm. Bill was less quick to react to this one and clearly felt the jolt and twitched from the electricity for a moment before wiping the bolt away with another shield.
"Ah, lightning!" Bill nodded, "Better, I'll say, but what else you got?" In a flash, he had darted behind her again and produced long, decaying, thorny vines that she had to dodge likewise. As she jumped to the next cliff, she almost lost her balance, looking down to see that she had avoided the fate of being squashed by various compacting walls that stretched all the way down beyond her sight, each making an echo through whatever lower cavern she could not see below. And recovering from the tension of that made her realize none of her usual spells were working. It had to be the zodiac sign the Ulthar kitten helped her draw, something that would truly banish this evil from the Dreamlands once and for all.
"What else have I got?" Luz grinned, "I bet you won't see this coming."
"I see EVERYTHING, CHILD!" Bill's voice deepened for a moment as his eye widened and his pupil narrowed almost to that of a snake's, "Bring it on!"
Luz jumped again, this time ducking directly under Bill and activating the strange zodiac glyph just below him before roll dodging to the next cliff. There was a small light, before a huge burst of luminous phosphorescence enveloped Bill in an inverted cone just below him.
"What?" Bill groaned, "Not again! You stupid humans!" His voice droned on and on in some backwards tone Luz couldn't understand before he disappeared in a burst of light.
The poor girl breathed a sigh of relief before saying, "You weren't so tough after all, were you, you nightmare from my last math and history classes?" The platforms above the traps in the ground level resealed themselves, and silence fell over the room once more. Luz ran up the massive stairs to her cotton candy haired princess, who was gradually floating down to the floor. As she ascended, it seemed the light was growing dimmer with each step. She didn't care, though. Amity was right there, source of her sorrow and the answer to her peace and contentment, as she descended down before Luz caught her after reaching the upper platform next to the nighted throne of the now dissipated Chaos Pharaoh.
But the room had now gone dark as Luz noticed from the corners of her eyes, the only light coming from above her an Amity, a beacon of hope and love in the infinite blackness of the oblivion, the abyss, the unknown, the oldest and most primordial of fears. Amity was all she had here, and she held her unconscious but thankfully still living girlfriend in her arms, her soft breaths caressing her ear.
And then she heard that same familiar nasally laughter from behind her, though she dare not move, she dare not look behind her, lest she lose her mind at the thing's true form.
"Oh, you really thought you had me, didn't you?" Bill laughed from behind her in the dark, "I just wanted to give you some sense that you were doing good. Some sense of hope. It wouldn't be any fun otherwise."
For the first time in a long time, Luz felt her heart begin to race and was at a loss for words.
"But seriously, though," he continued, "You can have Purple Ooze back. I never actually needed her in the first place. I just thought she would be good bait, the Princess Peach to your Mario. There was a rumor in the multiverse about a human girl who was becoming quite the magic user, and I really wanted to see for myself what I was up against when I finally returned to Earth. That Emperor Belos guy, how he's trying to get to your world by rebuilding the door? I'm trying to do something similar, except better. When I return, I'll be everywhere and nowhere. I'll be within and without everything, and no one will see me coming. The perfect and absolute way to have fun and sow the chaos I crave."
She felt something long, thin, and bony, almost like a small tree branch stroke her cheek, but she dared not glance at what it could be. Once it left, she felt a brief burning, stinging sensation where it had touched her.
"But you have potential as a witch, for what that's worth to you," Bill ho hummed, "But of course you'll still be no match for me. Don't feel bad about that, though. No sentient being really is. Go ahead and take your little princess back to the Boiling Isles. But now you know what I am and what I'm capable of. I am the messenger between the spheres and the traveler between the worlds of the living and the dead. And when I get back to Earthrealm, whenever that may be, I'll be summoning forth the Old Ones, waking them from their deathless sleep, and when we get there, we're going to have a party that makes what happened in Gravity Falls look like nothing. You met quite a few Elder Gods here in the Dreamlands, and I imagine quite a few were very friendly to you, but remember the Other Gods: Azathoth, Cthulhu, Hastur. All my distant relatives! They are great and mindless and terrible, but I love 'em. And of course, this pyramid is just one of my thousands of thousands of forms, but it kinda grew on me. Pray and hope you never meet me in my others, though undoubtedly you will and probably won't even realize it. Farewell, Otter, and go back with this in mind: beware, for I am Bill the Chaos Pharaoh!"
With that, there was a tumultuous howling sound, as that of a hurricane that spun around her in the dark, forcing her to rest Amity on her lap and cover her ears. It felt like minutes before it greatly softened enough for Luz to recover and see that there was another spotlight in the distance, highlighting what looked like the ugliest bird she had ever seen, like that of a vulture the size of a horse. It regarded her with indifference and began to lower its head, as if to suggest to hop on.
Seeing that it didn't attack them, Luz picked up Amity in her arms and raced towards the bird, the foul smell of the thing invading her nostrils as she raced towards it. She layed Amity on its back, trying not to gag, as she climbed on and took the reins it had on its back attached to a riding bit between its beak. It took off through the blackness and flew through the howling void. Luz was grateful Amity had not fallen off, as the ride on the flying beast seemed pretty violent and turbulent. She could see through the blackness what looked like stars and planets. The bird seemed to zoom past them all, paying none of them any mind as it neared its destination with an intense focus. Eventually, Luz could see the world that looked very much like her own Earth, but different somehow. The continents looked nothing like her own world, leading her to deduce that this must be the world of the Boiling Isles. She held on tight as the bird dive bombed into the atmosphere. Staring as they rapidly approached the ground was giving her vertigo and making her dizzy. She recognized the neighborhood and the nearby forest that eventually lead them to directly above the Owl House.
Luz closed her eyes and braced for impact as it appeared they would crash straight through the roof. But right as it seemed in that very second that that they would collide with the structure, the world fell away into blackness.