Bill looked at the memory; it was Celestia and Luna hiding the one of his keys somewhere in the the castle. HIS keys, to HIS bunkers.
"Are we simply going to keep these keys down here?"
"Bill knows where the Bunkers are." Celestia replied. "But without his keys or a body to inhabit, he will not be able to do anything in them. We must find them ourselves, and I refuse to ask him. We must destroy everything in those bunkers."
The others were probably either exploring Equestria or messing around in the kingdom. Twas still the night time, so he didn't want to wake up Chrysalis or bother her. It was probably about 4am if he were to guess, but he didn't have a clock with him. They knew he was free, so they would likely redouble their efforts to find them before him, and guard those keys. The last thing he wanted was for all his work to go to waste. Bill had no body to inhabit, so he could only wait and wander the mindscape while the others were asleep.
His singular eye darted from left to right, trying to find something, anything of interest. He didn’t particularly feel like trolling ponies in the dream world. He would’ve simply stopped and went back to the castle to search for the others, had he not seen something twinkle in the corner of his eye. With nothing better to do, he flew towards the shining object and inspected it. It had colour, to his surprise as most things in the mindscape were grey. It was a dagger, with a blade of an unknown mossy green metal on a hilt of teal/blue metal. When he picked it up two voices spoke from it.
“For those who need a knight or a robot to lend a hand or just to hang out, feel free to give us a call, and Cthulhu and XJ9 will be on the way!”
The dagger began to glow, and Bill raised his hand over his face. After a moment, the light faded and before him stood an odd figure. She stood at a height of seven feet, but with the looks of a teenager. She had white skin and hair a shade darker than cyan. On her head were a pair of what seemed to be a pair of blade-like pigtails. She wore a gray hoodie with a short-skirt the same color of her hair. Her legs were more armored than the rest of her, looking human but ending in flat circular ‘hooves’ of some sort. She looked around, confused and Bill saw that she had a round, somewhat cute face though rather than ears she had a pair of metal discs and her face seemed to have a slight bump to it rather than any sort of nose. All the while an aura of static seemed to hover about her in the mindscape. She finally turned to see him and blinked.
“I’m gonna guess you’re the Displaced that called me?”
“The what?” Bill stared at her, confused. “I’m afraid I don’t know what that is.” He was Bill Cipher and he didn’t know something. It felt kind of odd.
The girls blinked again and put a hand to her jaw.
“Well first of all, did you used to be human?”
“Yeah, I did. How did you know?”
“Okay good. Well excuse me if this gets confusing, this is one of my first times explaining all this. A Displaced is someone who goes to a convention in cosplay, at least usually it is, and buys an item from this jerk called the Merchant. Well usually bought sometimes the jerk forces it on them. Anyway, the item makes them either black out or just makes a big portal and it sends them onward to a version of Equestria. Usually they arrive and find themself/themselves turned into the character that they were dressed as. I say ‘a version of’ Equestria because there’s actually a massive multiverse out there, with Displaced getting sent to different Equestrias. Most Displaced keep in contact with other Displaced with the use of tokens, which get scattered out throughout the void. The void is sorta… It’s like where the multiverse is created I think. I’m a bit blurry on that. Anyway, the knife you found is the token I share with my boyfriend, Kyth. I got Displaced originally as XJ9 but I met this awesome anthro alicorn chick named F.A.U.S.T., and she helped me construct this biomechanical form that I’m in now. Still have all the abilities but it’s got unique stuff and it’s actually my own. Anyway, I’m gonna guess that you were Displaced as Bill Cipher?”
“Well given your description of displaced, I’d say yes.” He answered, and was silent for a moment. “So where does that leave us?”
“Well Displaced usually make friends and enemies out in the multiverse since most have super-strong alignments. Like inflexibly so. Anyway, before anything are you a villain a hero, or a neutral type? For the moment I’m gonna take your word for this, so be honest.”
“Well… I guess I’m neutral right now. Though I won’t help the princesses, especially Luna.”
“Something go down between you?”
“Not really sure if I want to do into detail with someone I just met, but we used to be friends, best friends until we drifted apart and she sealed me in her own book along with that sister of hers. Don’t think I was ever really close with Celestia, looking back.”
Jen nodded. “Sorry dude. I’ve only been in my Equestria for a couple weeks, I’ve kinda been avoiding meeting with either of the Princesses just from the stories I’ve heard from other Displaced. Still, do you need help with something?”
“Well, I do need help finding my keys, so to say.’ I need to find the keys to my bunkers, which the sisters scattered and hid. Those contained all the work and research and… experiments I did before my imprisonment. I’m also missing one of my books. You can check through the ones I have; they’re in the break room.” He lead her through the castle to the location of his two books. She walked over and picked them before turning back to him.
“It okay if I scan these? They seem like they could have some interesting information to acquire.”
“Sure, knock yourself out… I don’t think you told me your name.”
She blinked and blushed. “Eheh whoopsie. Uh, sorry. Hi there, my name’s Jen. What’s yours?”
“I was William, but it’s just Bill now.”
She nodded. “Nice to meet you Will.”
She smiled at him for a moment before turning back to the books. She picked them up and rapidly starting flipping through them, a green glow covering her eyes. After a few minutes she set them back down and turned back to face Bill.
“There we go, all scanned. Now then, what can you tell me about these ‘keys’?”
“Well let’s see.” He looked through the memory to find a location. “Here’s one, and it appears to be under Ponyville.”
“Like buried or stored in a building’s basement?”
“Buried right under the Town Hall.”
“Hmm… Well that should be pretty easy to retrieve then as long as there’s no magical defenses.”
As he said this her right hand seemed to reconstruct into a drill. She looked to be about to go when she stopped and turned back to him.
“I’m still able to interact with the world while in the mindscape, right?”
“No, I’ll have to let you out. I’ll go with you though. You’re in the changeling kingdom and it’s night, by the way.” Just as he finished his sentence, everything went from grey back to their original colours which were still very murky. She shrugged and looked around, one eye gaining the green glow which her eyes expressed while analyzing the books. She spoke to the empty space around her.
“Uh… Bill make sure to tell Chrysalis or whatever changeling queen rules this place that I’m not an enemy alright?”
After a moment of silence she shrugged again and started walking to find the exit. A short while later she was out of the kingdom and flying towards Ponyville. When she reached the edge of the town’s sight she stopped and spoke into the air after landing.
“Hey Bill, you still there?”
“Eeyup.” Big Mac appeared in front of her, and morphed into Bill.
“Okay, how about you keep me in the mindscape until I’m in position to drill to your key? That way no one can see me grabbing it until I’m on the way out.”
“I can keep ponies distracted, sure. Not certain we’ll see any though.”
“Why’s that?” Bill simply pointed at the moon.
“Uh...The moon?”
“It’s still night. They’ll mostly be asleep.”
“Eh I suppose that’s true. Well I’ll get to work then.”
She dashed off with this, slowly flying over the town and landing by Town Hall around the rear of the building. Jen promptly began drilling at the back, going under the hall and leaving a mess of torn soil behind her. Within a few minutes, she stopped as she found a small chest. The drill in her hand disappeared as she placed her index finger in front of the lock,sending a small beam of energy into the lock and melting it. The chest opened and in front of her was an old rusty brass key with an eye engraved on it.
“Hey.” Bill popped up behind her. “~ heard you stop digging and-” He noticed the key in her hand. “Yes, you found it!” He punched his fist in the air. “Thank you so much!”
She smiled and held it out. “Eh no problem. So, is this all you need for now?”
“Sure, sounds worth seeing. Back home I was just disposing of our version of the Alicorn Amulet when you called so I don’t really have a time constraint.”
“Oh yeah, I remember when I made that. Good times, though it had those annoying side effects that I wasn’t able to fix.”
Jen nodded. “Tons of magical power mixed with violent madness. Not a good combination.”
“No. We should probably go before anypony notices us. Celestia and Luna will know I was here if they get word of this hole under the Town Hall.”
“Well I could collapse the tunnel, filling the hole and all. It’ll look like something was messing with the ground but not necessarily a hole.”
“If you say so, then knock yourself out.” He shrugged, and Jen rocketed out of the hole, morphing a bulldozer of sorts to fill the hole and patted it down. With a final step the hole was filled with little evidence of its existence.
Bill and Jen flew in the night sky towards the Macintosh Hills beyond Appeloosa. It wasn’t too far from their current position; they could see it in the distance.
“...Hey Jen?” The triangle in the top hat turned to his new friend.
“Yeah?”
“You said your boyfriend was also displaced. What’s he like?”
She put a hand to her jaw to indicate that she was thinking.
“Well he’s… Well, smart. And he’s been one of my best friends since we were little. And he sorta… Balances me. Like back home I was sorta self conscious, but being with Kyth helps me hold together. And most importantly he cares about me, even though we haven’t been dating that long. Heck, if he wasn’t Displaced with me then I probably wouldn’t have made it this far.”
“That must be nice.” Bill began. “Having someone there for you, and you got to stay together even when you travelled worlds. I never really had anyone like that, I was too afraid to approach people on earth, constantly playing ‘what if’ scenarios through my head. I was still able to end up with a number of friends in my life though, but never really found ‘the one’ I guess, if that’s what some people call it. I’m surprised I even remember all of this, when all that knowledge and those memories filled my head after I became displaced.”
“Well maybe you can find her/him here! Kyth and I have met a few other Displaced, some of them have found ‘the one’ or in some cases ‘the ones’ in their Equestrias. This guy, Dox, he’s getting married to multiple different ladies himself. And if not in Equestria, maybe she’s somewhere out in the Multiverse. There’s all kinds of Displaced out there you know.”
“I’ll have to keep that in mind, but what if…” He shook his head and stopped himself from finishing that sentence. Jen floated up with her pigtails and flicked him jokingly.
“What iiiif there’s a sexy lady out there waiting for ya?”
She gave him a slight smile. “I can understand overthinking stuff to a fault. But all it takes is a little faith to get to where you have to go. Don’t worry about it, it’ll happen for you Bill.”
He was about to respond when he looked down. “Hey, we’re here.”
The two floated down, will Bill leading the way to a small cave. He floated through with Jen following him. They stopped when they saw a fairly small metal door that was about 4 feet tall.
“This is it, all you need to do is put the key in.” Jen saw the keyhole and pushed Bill’s key through. She twisted it, and while it was stiff for a couple of moments she managed to hear a ‘click’. The door creaked open, and everything was dark. One of Jen’s eyes glowed green again as she looked around.
“So what are we looking for?” She asked.
“Some of my notes, research, experiments and maybe my last book.” She nodded at Bill’s response as she scanned the room. To her left, she saw old and broken down scanners as well as buttons.
“I was able to make some old tech. It’s kinda on the same level as something you’d find in the 1960s or 70s, but it’s not really easy to make machines all by yourself.” He paused for a moment. “Be careful, there might be something in here.” He eyed his broken down and ripped- apart old fridge. He saw his old filing cabinet; there was a draw loose and paper was scattered everywhere around it.
“How big is this place?” Jen asked, eyeing how high the ceiling was.
“This was one of my bigger bunkers. It had to be considering…”
He paused, before giving a look as if he remembered something. “We should go.” He said sternly.
“What?” Jen turned to him and cocked her head. “Why?”
“Do you know why the door is so small, Jen?”
They both heard a roar echo through the cave. Soon, the roaring was replaced with the sound of hovering wings. Jen looked back down the hall and back to him.
“No. Why?”
“This is where I keep some of my biggest experiments.”
A different sound was heard, it was like the roaring but not as loud.
“And what exactly do you mean by ‘experiment’’?”
“Ugh.” He groaned. “I mean DUCK!” He brought her down to the ground as a large white stinger shot past them, into a wall. Jen shone here eye- torch on it and as a gigantic bear. Its body was covered in black and white stripes and it was using its four arms to pull its stinger out of the rocky wall. Once it succeeded, it used its wasp- like wings to fly towards Jen, who was not in the mindscape. She screamed and immediately started running.
“DYAA I FREAKING HATE BEES! WHY WOULD YOU FUSE BEES WITH A BEAR!?”
“Would this be a bad time to mention that he also has some level of intelligence?”
“WHY WOULD YOU GIVE INTELLIGENCE TO SOMETHING LIKE THAT!? THAT’S JUST BEGGING FOR BEES TO OVERTHROW YOU!”
“Intelligence means he’s a better tactician. That’s also something you should watch out for. You don’t like bees do you?” Bill tried to change the subject. She glared at him.
“YES! I HATE THEM!”
“Well now you know why I fused a bear with bees! Who likes bees?”
“FINE! KILL IT THOUGH!”
“I don’t have a physical form, remember? I’m just a mind without a body. Speaking of which…” He stopped as he dived into its mind. “You’ve scanned the books, right? Look for his entry!” He called out. As the beast was clenching its head, Jen remembered back to the page which described it. It was entitled ‘Bugbear.’ She also remembered the words ‘Became too dangerous’ as well as ‘Extremely durable’. She groaned and turned to face it, her right arm opening into a grenade launcher of sorts.
"Any objections to me blowing this thing apart?!"
“No objections to trying.”
“Good! EAT BATTLE BATTLE BAZOOKA SKAG!!”
She opened fire, explosive pods of some sort arcing out of her weapon and ricocheting off of the walls of the hallway before impacting and detonating against the creature. It roared in anger at her, showing some signs of damage but not enough to stop it. It flew towards her, ignoring the dream demon in its mind and swung its bottom left arm at the teenage robot. It left some slight scratching but didn’t tear through any armor, and at that point a grin came across her face.
“I have battle armor now… Bees can’t hurt me anymore. Well maybe your giant stinger but not your claws..Heheheh...HAhahaHA! EAT IT SKAG!”
One of her fists opened into an armored gauntlet which she plowed right into its jaw.
“STING THAT SKAG!” At that moment the Bugbear began to fly away and headed for the door that it was too big to have any chance of fitting out of. Both of her arms extended otu and grabbed it, pulling it back and slamming it against a wall.
“Hey Bill what do you want me to do with this thing?”
“Hmmm…” He popped out of the Bugbear’s head and thought. “I doubt I can put the old boy back in cryostasis, since that’s probably long broken. I guess you could either punch his lights out or nuke him.” At this moment, the bear tried to claw at the door and punch the rock surrounding it.
“You will not make me go back, Cipher!” Bill translated the Bear’s roars. “I will destroy you and your automaton friend!”
“Wow, someone found the dictionary.” Bill joked. Jen put a hand to her jaw.
“Well if he’s this intelligent then maybe we can just drop him off in one of the kingdoms outside Equestria. Big guy like him would probably be able to make it on his own after all.”
“I will mount your head on my sti- I mean yes, I could do that.”
“Well I guess.” Bill thought. “But we’ll need to get him out, and I don’t have my alicorn amulet to teleport him like last time.
“I could use my drills to widen the tunnels maybe.”
“Yes that could definitely work. Do it now.” Bugbear nodded his head, not showing any signs of gratitude but instead was just being impatient.
“You see? This is why I never gave you the ability to speak.”
“Uh… I’m not all that familiar with Bug..Bear...thing body signals. Should I be worried?”
“Probably, you can tell he’s very aggressive.”
“I’m right here Sherclop!” Bugbear folded his multiple arms.
“Yeah we know ya big ball of anger. Regardless, I’m gonna think it through before letting a massive murder bear out into the wild.”
“Yes the wild, that’s definitely where I’ll go…” He muttered.
“Oh you get what I mean!”
“I get that you still haven’t dug that hole.”
Jen turned to deadpan at the bear. “You know, I already hate bees. And the fact that you were talking about putting my head on your stinger like a pike doesn’t help. So being a huge dick is hurting your chances of me actually helping you.”
“I am simply stating that someone will be digging someone a hole one for someone else way or another.” Bugbear growled. Bill rolled his eye and went back into the monster’s head. His top right paw moved on its own and then slugged him across the face.
“Stop hitting yourself, stop hitting yourself, stop hitting yourself, stop hitting yourself…” Bill taunted. He eventually stopped after several more blows.
“Better?” The bear grumbled in response. “Good.”
“Should I go ahead and free him then?”
Bill looked at Bugbear, then at the door. “I’m going to hate myself for this later…” He sighed then gestured to the door. “If I left him here he would probably starve to death and it would take too long to fix the cryostasis chamber.”
Jen shrugged and then extended her hands into drill form, quickly tearing through the entrance. After a few minutes she was done, and the exit was large enough for the Bugbear to leave. Before he had the chance to though Jen stopped him.
“Remember big guy. I can fly faster than light and my body is variably an arsenal of munitions. If you start trying to pull shit then we’ll have a little...chat.”
With this her right arm opened into a large fly swatter. “Kapische?” He reluctantly nodded and flew away down the large hills. The two were left alone with Bill’s notes.
“You were very weird about bees. Why’s that?”
Jen averted her eyes and then shuddered. “When I was little a few friends I liked to play around in the woods outside of the city where we lived. One time we found this old treehouse and decided to check it out. While the others started climbing I was left on the ground. Well as it turns out there was a beehive in the tree. It got knocked down and dropped aaaallll the way down and right onto my head. Head injury plus swarming, horrible bees…””
She shuddered. “That kinda thing gives you serious issues. Gleh, anyway...Why exactly did you make a bee-bear fusion meal? And with intelligence?”
“He’s not the only thing I made.” Bill sighed. She deserved an answer after how much she helped him. “I’ve made lots of other things with my experiments. They were made to protect Equestria, because Celestia and Luna rely too much on the Elements of Harmony. I wanted to have another line of defence. Bear- o down there is just one of them. He became more and more unstable over time so I ended up freezing him. I made them because… ‘what if’?”
She nodded. “Well yeah… They do seriously rely on them in the show. Kyth and I have been skirting the lines of which events of the show we interact in, that way we can keep certain events from cancelling out. Though… Huh.”
She put a hand to her jaw in thought. “We had Magic Duel happen late… Uh oh. That… could mean trouble. A-Anyway, what other kinds of experiments did you make?”
“Well I already told you about the Alicorn Amulet. Funny thing, its original purpose was to give magic to earth ponies and pegasi, but it just became another contingency after a while. I reckon it puts you on the same level as Cadence or something, which is kind of a let down. I also used dark magic on clay to animate whatever it is moulded into. If you’ve seen ‘Little Gift Shop of Horrors’ then you’ll know what I mean. I’d be able to sculpt my own army.” He chuckled at the thought. “I also tried to construct my own body to inhabit, but those never really worked out well.”
“A body? Oh! You mean like Bill did in the show with Dipper! Well… Can you inhabit robotic bodies? I could maybe help you build something, I got blueprints saved in my datastores for different components.”
“After all you’ve done for me? I couldn’t. I’d have to find some way to repay you at least.”
“Well.. If you say so. Oh yeah! You want me to help you make a token? I think I can remember how to do it from making mine and Kyth’s.”
“Okay.”
“Alright, first pick out an object which either describes you or relates to you. That’s more of a recommendation than a rule though, me and Kyth had no idea what to do for ours though so we just used the dagger that you found. Pretty much anything will do, as long as it’s not something perishable.”
“Hmmm.” He went back into the cave and reappeared moments later. He was holding a notebook. It wasn’t one like the other two in the changeling kingdom; it was just plain and blank.
“Okay, I choose this notebook. What now?”
“Alright. To make it a token just sorta… Okay, focus your essence into it. Bind it to you, and then leave a message on it for other Displaced to hear when they receive it.”
Bill went through the steps and after a few moments, the notebook changed to have an eye on the front and the pages faded to brown.
“To those who seek knowledge and maybe a bit of chaos on the side, call Bill Cipher.”
“How was that?”
“Better than ours. Anyway, here I’ll show you how to throw it into the void and distribute it around the Multiverse.”
A few minutes later, the token was gone and faded from sight. With a flash a copy of it appeared and was caught by Jen.
“And here’s my copy of the thing. You already have my token of course, but is there anything else you need before I go?”
“Yeah, anything I can help you with? If I’m doing that body thing I want to repay you somehow.”
“Well… There’s a chance that my brother and Kyth’s cousin got Displaced as well. If you hear or see anything about a Golden Freddy Displaced or a Necromorph, you mind letting me know?”
“Sure. What’re the names of your family members?”
“Jack and Calvin. Calvin would be the Golden Freddy and Jack the Necromorph.”
“Alright then Jenny. See ya.”
“See you too Bill!”
A wave of light passed over her and with that, she was gone.
“Bye Jen. Hope you and Kyth enjoy yourselves.” He waved as his notes were transported back to the changeling kingdom.
Hours later during the daytime, Bill was with Chrysalis outside in the badlands during an overcast afternoon. Suddenly, a light appeared in front of them. It was a robotic body, complete with a light blue shining eye on the front, as well as slender black arms and legs. It hovered in the air in front of the two, seeming to be made as a changeling version of him. A small note on it read
I whipped this up using scraps from my old body. It isn’t advanced enough to do magic or anything but it’s able to move and is decently strong. I figured you could use it as a base for your own workings, y’know upgrades and stuff. Enjoy!
-Jen
“What’s this?” Chrysalis wasn’t sure what it was at all.
“A gift from a friend.” Bill said. “ A gift that will be repaid.”