The Bill-inning

by EmperorDalek

Chapter 3 (edited and spellchecked version)

Return to the Nightmare Realm

---

The next morning Celestia was still shaken from the events of last night’s dream, the Luna-creature, and that strange one-eyed triangle creature with limbs. True, it had saved her from the monstrous version of her sister, and even the darker version of their castle. It was a small detail, but large enough to leave a real impact. One thing she knew for certain though, the darkness that had possessed the dream version of Luna was much too…well, it was exactly something out of the deepest of nightmares that had not been seen since the Dark Years. Celestia shuddered as old, painful memories resurfaced, and she did her best to suppress them again. Sitting on her throne her head was held low. She had not been thinking of much else beside the horrible nightmares since she awoke.

The doors to the throne room opened as her sister trotted inside, trotting along the red carpet up to the throne at the other end of the room. Stopping in front of it, and looking up at the depressed figure that was sitting atop it. She brought a hoof up to her mouth and let out a cough loud enough to get the white Alicorn’s attention. Celestia’s eyes slowly looked up, falling upon her sister’s face.

"Sister, you have not been yourself ever since awakening this morning. What is troubling you?" asked Luna. Celestia only let out a heavy sigh.

"I had a nightmare last night, and not a very good one at that. I was being chased by…", her eyes grew wide, looking up at Luna nervously, "eh, that’s not important, it resulted in me being saved by an odd creature in the form of a triangle with a top hat, a bowtie, though it looked like two smaller triangles pointing at each other, with arms and legs protruding out of a stick figure, and a single eye in the center, with bricks at the bottom." Luna blinked her eyes a couple times, processing what she was hearing. "The triangle saved me, but I was attacked by what was chasing me and eaten." Luna narrowed her eyes, giving Celestia a deadpanned look. She exhaled a deep sigh, lowering her head. "I know, it sounds extremely -"

"Eerie." Luna interrupted.

Celestia looked up, narrowing her eyes to give her sister a confused look.

"Why do you say that, sister?" Celestia inquired with a nervous tone.

"Because last night I could not gain entrance into your dreams. Like something was purposely keeping me out. Normally I would just shrug it off as me purposefully preventing myself from spying into your dreams, but with what you have described, and that casket found at the bottom of the hole where you claimed to have felt a strong source of power, I am beginning to worry that last night’s events were no mere coincidence."

"Then if that is the case, and it was really just a ploy to frighten me, I need to snap out of this depression and-"

"No!" a frowning Luna interrupted her.

Celestia's face contorted into a look of shock at her sister’s response.

"No?" Celestia replied.

"Precisely. If we wait till tonight, then we can go to sleep together, and I can connect my mind to yours so that I can be with you from the beginning, because if I try to enter your mind after you have fallen asleep, I might just be blocked out again, but if I’m with you from the start, nothing will be able to separate us."

"Hmm." Celestia grumbled. Her eyes looked up, giving Luna a stern look. "You do understand that if we do this I cannot be held at fault for what you might see?"

"I do." Luna nodded. "But if it means purging your mind of the demon that is tormenting you, then I deem the risk worthwhile. Equestria cannot survive without its leader, especially is she cannot rest her mind without fear for dreadful nightmares that will traumatize her to the point where she will always be paranoid about going to sleep for fear of seeing those things again."

She lowered her head, her eyes peering down in great thought at the floor, before being raised back up, as she looked into her sister’s eyes before a twitched smile appeared on her face. However, it became a permanent one.

"Then what are we waiting for? Let it be night!" she shouted as she extended her hoof out in front of her in a triumphant manner. Luna, though, only raised a confused brow at her sister.

"Um, Celestia?" she asked looking up at her sister. "You do know that it is still a good eleven hours until night falls, right?"

"Oh" she replies nervously. "Um…" she brings a hoof up, touching it to her cheek as she ponders over that revelation.

"You want to get something to eat? I’m quite hungry myself." She lowers her hoof, giving Luna a nervous stare and shrugging her shoulders.

"Uh, sure?" Luna replies.

"Great! Let’s go, sister!" she beams. She stands up, and trots down from her throne, starting for the door. Luna turns around and joins her as they make their way across the room.

Luna turns, giving her elder sister a coy smile. "So, sister, how long has it been since you’ve eaten your last cake?’’ she asks.

Celestia turns, raising a brow at her little sister.
"Like, slice?"

"No…a whole cake?" Luna corrects.

Turning away, Celestia blushes as she understands the full meaning of the question.

"Um, shut up’’ she replies, trying to hide the embarrassment in her voice. Suffice it to say she failed, earning a giggle from the blue Alicorn beside her. She looks away, but continues to blush.

As they round the corner, closing the door behind them with their magic, the room is left completely empty. However, movement was seen, as a mask started to vibrate, coming lose from the wall and hovering down through the air. The mask itself had one half that was black (right side), while the other was white (left side). The eye on the left side was black, and the one on the right was yellow. However, the mouth itself was just red.

"Ah ha ha ha hah," it spoke to itself, as the nearby shadows came out, forming a single figure, which the mask attached itself to. "My master was right. They are doing just as he predicted." He held out a disembodied glowing hand and snapped his finger, his form disappeared, emitting a small wave as it passed through the air.

---

*Meanwhile, in a faraway place*

In a dark room with rainbow-ish outlines on the things within the large space, a literal shape was hovering in the air, its eye narrowed, and its hands were behind its back. It was deep in thought, when it brought a hand up to its non-existing chin. Scratching it.

"Hmmm…" it grumbled. "There has to be something that works. I- I’ve tried everything I can think of, but nothing fucking works!" he exclaimed, raising his fist, and then slamming it down into a table causing it to crack and shatter into a million shards of glass.

"I promised her, and how can I make good on my promise if I cannot even complete my side of the bargain?"

He snapped his fingers and disappeared. Shortly after, he reappeared floating in the air, sitting upside down on a throne. "Hmmm…" he continues, his hand still on his non-chin, and his eye narrow, deep in thought. "I have already found a way for how to bind it to a single form, but it’s how to make it an everlasting supply that I have yet to understand." He sighs, closing his eye, and letting his arms hang. "If only the real Bill Cipher was here. He would certainly know how to do something so simple." He snapped his finger, disappearing, but this time re-appearing vertically instead of horizontally. Arms crossed, with an angry eye.

"I could try looking for an Infinity stone, but it would take millennia to find such a gem, even in this part of the universe it would take me years to search on every single planet. Not to mention all the constellations where one could potentially be created, all the asteroid belts that might hold one, and all of the endless galaxies in the universe! It’s impossible!" He spun on his heel, reaching out, pointing his index finger out in front of him, and firing off a red finger-beam. The beam shot out, flying across the room until it penetrated another, virtually identical clone of himself. Leaving behind a large hole where the bricks were.

"Whoa! Whoa! Hey! Don’t take your frustration out on me!" his doppelganger said angrily, extending an arm out in front of him, and pointing another index finger back at himself. "After all you were the one who made that stupid deal with her!"

"Yeah, well what else was I supposed to do?!"

"Brainwash her into giving you control of this realm!" the doppelganger shouted back, while the hole regenerated itself, patching up the hole.

"Nah, that’s not how I do things." his doppelganger just shrugged back.

"Well, now that you’ve mention that Infinity stone, why would it be so difficult to find one?"

"Because there is only one in the entire universe…" his voice decreased its speed, slowing his tone down significantly, "Only…One!"

"Well, what makes them so important to you?" the doppelganger asked, pointing a finger.

"Any energy you see fit to store within them can be harnessed later, but the beauty of an infinity stone is that it will never run out of said energy, and will continue to supply you with as much energy of said deposited energy for whenever you wish. It does not matter how much you seek to deplete, as soon as it has recognized any form of energy it will forever continue to replicate the energy. As long as the stone survives, the energy inside it will endure for all eternity!"

"Hm. Then I can easily understand why you would want to get your hands on it."

"Indeed…" the original Bill turned away from his doppelganger, crossing his arms. "But I have yet to find one, and since there isn’t one that I can detect that is ready for use I have no options concerning how I am going to hold my end of the bargain."

"Hmm…" his doppelganger replied, putting a hand to its non-chin in deep thought. Growing wide, its eye looked back at his original self.

"But what if you have been looking in the wrong place?" it asked, grinning its eye. The original Bill turned around, his hands hanging down.

"That is impossible, but go on." He made a motion with his hand for the doppelganger to continue.

"I know that we are looking for an empty Infinity Stone, but what if the stone we are looking for isn’t empty?"

The original Bill’s eye narrowed. He moved forward through the air, reaching out his arm. A cane suddenly appeared in his grasp, which he started to lean on.

"Explain!" he said in a loud, demonic voice, as his body suddenly got uncomfortably closer to himself. His red eye staring at him with bright red shooting out from it.

"Well, consider that the Ponies have existed for thousands, maybe even billions of years, doesn’t it seem likely that in all their history that they would have come across an object that could prove useful to them, say, having fallen form the skies. Maybe it already contained the energy source, or maybe it was sealed in at a later stage, but the point is that they have found a powerful source of magic that they can use to protect themselves. However, unfortunately, it seems like the only way for them to actually access this magic is to use the same magic that is inside of it…and once unleashed, nothing can stop it!"

He flies up into the air, extending his arms and legs out, causing fireworks to appear all around him. "Ah hah ha hah ha ha ha ha!" he starts laughing manically until he hears a cough and looks down to see the original Bill looking up at him with an annoyed glare in his eye.

"Get to the point." His eye glows momentarily bright red, holding out a hand as a red flame appears in it. Both the red in his eye and the flames disappear a second after appearing. The doppelganger-Bill flies down. Returning to his spot.

"What is heart-shaped, and very powerful?" he says putting a lot of emphasis on the "very".

Bill’s eye grows wide in shock, and both he and his doppelganger, at the same time, say in unison what the Infinity Stone might be. "The Crystal Heart!"

"Ding, ding, ding! What do we have for him, Johnny!" the doppelganger exclaims while making a bell ringing motion with his hand.

"You have got to be kidding me! The Crystal Heart, in the Crystal Empire, is an Infinity Stone?! B-but how could the Ponies have the knowledge of how to put such simple energy into something as complex as an Infinity Star?!?!"

"Dude, you’re an all-powerful triangle with limbs, clothing, and one eye. Does this seem like a situation that should make sense?"

"I guess not!" he replied in a newly joyful tone.

"Then what are you waiting for?! Go get that damn heart so we can get this fucking thing overwith!" he shouts, pointing towards the wall.

"Great idea, I’ll be off then!"

He snaps his finger, but instead of teleporting out of the room, his body merely flies back towards the wall, crashing through it, and once out dissipates into bubbles.

"Hey! You owe me a new wall!" the doppelganger calls out after himself through the fresh crack in the wall.

"I owe me jack!" Bill's voice echoes as the bubbles pop.

---

*Later that day*

As the light of the sun begins to fade with every inch of it that falls below the horizon, the sky becomes gradually darker, but somewhat illuminated as the moon begins shining high above in the sky.

Inside the Castle of the two Sisters, Luna and Celestia are trotting back to Celestia's bedroom to go to sleep. Tonight is the night that they will capture the fiend that had been tormenting Celestia all of last night.

They return to Celestia’s room, locking the doors behind them. Celestia undresses from her royal regalia, and gets into her wide queen-sized bed. Luna merely flies up into the air, suspending herself in mid-air with a steady beat of her wings.

Celestia gives Luna a look of concern, but Luna merely counters Celestia's nervous paranoia with a friendly smile, which only makes Celestia’s frown grow worse.

"Look, sister…" Luna says, "everything is going to be fine. As long as the link between us remains unbroken, and I am able to concentrate on keeping it, nothing will happen."

Celestia lowers her head, looking downward. She closes them, inhaling a soft breath. Flaring her nostrils as she exhales back out again. She raises her head, staring back into her sister’s face sternly with determination.

"Let’s do this."

Luna's smile grows, as she nods her head. She closes her eyes, her face shifting into a more concentrated look. Closing her eyes and laying her head down on the pillow, Celestia slowly returns back into the dream world.

Tapping further into her magic, her face started to strain, grimacing as she was forced to use a whole lot more energy than when she simply entered the dream world. White threads of magic started to move up along her horn, which once at the tip of her horn started to extend out like a thin magical thread. The thread extended down until it reached Celestia’s head, connecting to her forehead. An impulse went from her horn, passing down through the thread until it reached the end of the thread.

When Celestia opened her eyes again, she found herself no longer laying down in her bed, but instead standing up. Her head turned, looking around at her surroundings. It had been done. She had returned to the dream world.

---

Luna’s eyes slowly opened, looking out at the surroundings of the formerly peaceful dream world of her sister’s mind. To her great astonishment, it was not as bad as she had made it out to be. Sure the walls were dark with white outlines marking them, but aside from just looking like a darker version of the castle, there wasn’t really much that could be described as belonging to a nightmare. At least, not one that was that bad.

Remembering Celestia and what they had come there to do, her eyes grew wide from the sheer shock of having virtually forgotten her for a moment, gasping as she called out "Celestia!" her voice echoing down through the hallways, eventually fading off into the distance. All she was left with was the dead silence of the seemingly abandoned castle hallways.

"Drat! We didn’t end up in the same place." She cursed, striking the air with her hoof. "The only explanation as to why this might have happened, is because the mastermind knew we were coming and planned it so that when we entered into the dream world together, she would be placed away from my position." She growled, shaking her head with a frown. Slowly, she started down the massive hall. Making her way through the eerie silent, dark version of the castle. With a soft growl her face frowned, her eyes looking off to the side.

"I hate admitting it, but that was actually quite ingenious on its part. Still using the dream realm to separate us, even though we are technically in the same dream. Brilliant!" she muttered quietly to herself.

Looking up on the walls she saw multiple pictures, paintings, and other illustrations. The ones to truly catch her attention were the full-body portraits that depicted a bunch of odd creations. Three of them being a figure that had Discord’s body, but instead of wearing nothing, he wore a white cape with a red broach, a really big hat, a monocle in front of his left eye, and holding a cane with his tail, but instead of having the color scheme of the normal Discord it was all green, except for the eyes which were still the same old yellow with the red, disproportionate pupils. The second was what looked to closely resemble identical versions of herself and Celestia, but with mismatched colors, and wearing crimson versions of their regalia. Celestia especially had a fiery mane, and skin like molten rock.

Coming to the end of the hallway she stopped in place, casting a confused grimace up at a picture frame that looked to be covered up, dust gathering over it, with cobwebs indicating that it had been millennia since anyone had tended to it. She could not make out much, but she could vaguely tell that the frame was made out of gold.

Flying up towards it, she extended out a hoof to try and move the covers away. But before the opportunity could even be presented, multiple black tendrils extended from the walls, which quickly shot towards and wrapped themselves around her, restraining her in place!

Growling behind gritted teeth, her horn glowed with a sudden dark-blue aura! She swipped her head down, the magically empowered horn cutting through the tendrils that held her. Once severed, the tendrils retreated back into the wall, while the remnants that held her dissipated away into smoke, and then…into nothing.

Extending her wings, she caught herself in mid-air before her body had the opportunity to fall. She looked at the covered up frame, narrowing her eyes at it. Again, her horn came to life, the aura enveloping the covers, and gently started to pull the covers away so she could finally see the picture that awaited her eyes…

But suddenly, the frame leapt to life! Jumping forward, leaping over her, at the bottom of its golden frame, it started to grow many legs, which it used to catch itself with as it came into contact with the floor! It started to run, hurrying down the hallway!

"Hey! Come back here!’’ Luna called after it, after finally snapping back from her stunned shock at watching a picture frame actually jump over somepony and then begin to move on spawned appendages. With a quick flap of her wings she took up the chase after the moving still-covered-up frame! Chasing it down through the dark hallways of the castle.

Comments

[unknowncape7377]

Has he become corrupt?

[EmperorDalek]

8611551
It depends one's definition of corruption

[CroisSunnyPlay]

Why so many exclamation points!

[EmperorDalek]

8675236 Simple, this is a so-called ''rough draft''. One that's yet to be edited.