Another Form, Another Time
Hello, there, readers! So, you decided to see just what this little story was all about, didja? Of course you did, why else would you give this story a click? Huh? How do I know this is just a fanfiction, rather than an account of actual happenings in a parallel world separated by time and space?
Oh, I know lots of things… LOTS OF THINGS…
Now, I’m sure you’re wondering just who the Hell I am. Name’s Bill Cipher, master of the mind and wielder of unimaginable god-like power! Oh, but I’m not just your garden variety Triangle Guy Bill Cipher who’s stuck in the dreamscape. At least, not anymore thanks to Sixer and his idiot twin brother. Oh, no, I have a physical, HUMAN, form.
Now, I’m sure you’re wondering how exactly I ended up getting stuck in a land of talking two-legged magical horses. Well then pull up a chair, grab your favourite snack and get ready for a tale you'll remember for like a few days then will come back to since it's been in the back of your head for the past few days and it's starting to annoy you as you can't remember where you heard a quote from then you go home and google it only to find it was your first guess to begin with and you wasted five minutes searching it up when you could have been looking at funny cat gifs or pictures of cute jumping spiders wearing water droplets as tiny hats.
Now, where to start… I guess the beginning is always the best place right?
…
Gravity Falls, Oregon-Bill Cipher’s Fearamid-Final Day of Weirdmageddon
“All right, Ford! Time’s up! I’ve got the kids!” said a giant triangle with one eye and stick-like black arms and legs wearing a top hat and a bow tie as he entered the throne room of the castle he had constructed, called the Fearamid, in the center of which were two old men trapped in an energy cage. This was Bill Cipher, the harbinger of death by weirdness for all of humanity, and in his hand he held two children, a boy wearing a blue and white trucker’s hat with a pine tree on it named Mason, but nicknamed Dipper, and a girl wearing a shooting star sweater named Mabel.
One of the old men in the cage wore a maroon fez and and old fashioned suit, while the other wore a tan trench coat, a maroon sweater, black pants, and boots. The man in the suit was named Stanley Pines, while the other old man was named Stanford Pines, who was directly responsible for bringing Bill Cipher intro the physical world, and thus allowing him to unleash his weirdness upon the world.
“I think I’ll kill one of ‘em just for the heck of it!” Bill said as he got read to snap the fingers of his other hand while his eye switch back and forth between a shooting star and a pine tree.
“Eeny… meeny… miney… YOU!”
Before Bill could snap his fingers and end the life of Mabel Pines, Stanford called out, “WAIT! I surrender!”
“Good choice,” said Bill as he dropped Dipper and Mabel and shrunk back down to his regular size.
Stanley grabbed Stanford by the front of his trench coat. “Don’t do it, Ford! It’ll destroy the universe!” he begged before Stanford pulled his hands away.
“I have to! It’s the only way!” said Ford.
Bill couldn’t help but laugh as his made the cage disappear. “Oh, even when you’re about to die, you Pines twins just can’t get along!”
Glowing red hands came out of the floor and tied themselves around Stanley and pulled him to the ground.
“My only condition, is that you let my brother and the kids go!” demanded Ford.
“Fine,” said Bill.
“No, Grunkle Ford, don’t trust him!” Dipper called out.
Ford said nothing in reply as he walked forward with a determined look on his face.
“It’s a DEAL!” Bill said as he held out his flaming blue hand for Ford to shake.
Taking a deep breath, Ford took Bill’s hand and sealed the deal, quite possibly dooming the universe in doing so.
Bill’s body then began turning to stone as what seemed to be a glowing spectral version of him floated into the air, laughing manically as it rubbed its hands together and made a beeline directly for Ford, who could only gasp in horror as Bill dove into his mind.
…
"Oh, I'm here. I'm finally here!" Bill said, feeling like a kid at Christmas as he floated through the empty white space of his old pawn’s mind and towards the only door in sight. Once he had that equation, the barrier keeping Gravity Falls’ weirdness contained would be shattered, Weirdmageddon would be unleashed upon the world proper, and no one could stop him.
"Look at this place. A perfect, calm, orderly void,” Bill said as he landed in front of the wooden door and opened it. “Gotta hand it to you, Ford. You really know how to clear your m..."
Bill stopped short when he saw that he had entered the living room of the Mystery Shack. And sitting in the armchair was not Stanford, but rather Stanley Pines, who turned to Bill and winked at him while flashing a toothy grin and clicking his tongue.
"WHAT?!" Bill exclaimed, his eye widening in shock. How could he, the Master of Mind, the Trickiest of Tricksters, have been fooled by a senile old man like Stanley Pines?!
Stan chuckled as he pointed to"Do a pretty good impression of my brother, don't I? Switch clothes and no one can tell us apart. Welcome to my mind, surprised you didn't recognize it."
"WHAT?! The deal's off!" Bill said in anger but before he could leave, the door behind him slammed shut. Bill immediately ran over to it and started banging on it, only for blue flames to spring up out of nowhere and start burning the room into nothingness.
"What the-?! No, no, no, NO!" cried Bill, as he backed away from the door. For the first time in one trillion years, he was starting to feel afraid.
Stan, meanwhile, leaned back in his chair without a care in the world, apparently very cozy despite the situation. "Oh yeah, you're going down Bill. You're getting erased. Memory Gun, pretty clever, huh?"
The flames had now spread to fill the entire room. Bill backed away from Stan as what microscopic traces of his heart remained started thumping with pure terror.
"Y-you idiot! Don't you realize you're destroying your own mind too?!" said Bill, fear evident in his voice.
"Eh, it's not like I was using the space for much anyway,” Stan said, as though having his mind and memories erased meant absolutely nothing to him whatsoever.
This is a joke. I-it has to be! Bill thought, feeling more terrified than he had been in centuries, millennia even, as he snapped his fingers and tried to escape, only for his blue flames to disappear almost instantly. "Let me outta here! Let me out! Why isn't this working?"
His fear finally won out as Bill fell to his knees and actually started weeping helplessly, knowing he was doomed to die.
Stan got up from his chair and stood over Bill, his shadow making the old man seem more imposing than he actually was in real life. "Hey, look at me. Turn around and look at me, you one-eyed demon!" the old con-man demanded in anger.
Bill didn't want to look, he really didn't, but he had no choice. Bill turned around and looked Stan in the eyes. In the oldster’s eyes, Bill could see them burn with a fire of their own.
Stan glared daggers at Bill as he pointed an accusing finger at the fallen chaos god."You're a real wise-guy, but you made one fatal mistake! You messed with my family!".
"You're making a mistake! I'll give you anything. Money! Fame! Riches! Infinite power! Your own galaxy! Please!" Bill begged, sheer terror in his voice as the flames inched ever closer to him and Stan.
"NO!" yelled Stan angrily.
Bill tried to toss his eyeball out of the con-man’s mind in the hopes that he could regenerate from it, however he somehow glitched as though he were a hologram, causing his eye to return to its socket, and leaving Bill still stuck in his increasingly bleak situation.
"What's happening to me?!” Bill bellowed as his triangular form continued to glitch before it twisted and morphed into a variety of different shapes and sizes as he shouted what sounded like utter gibberish, most likely caused by his glitchy shapeshifting.
"!nruter yam I taht rewop tneicna eht ekovne I !nrub ot emoc sah emit yM !L-T-O-L-O-X-A”
“STANLEEEEY!" Bill cried as he reached out for Stan in desperation, although he didn’t know why for sure.
All it took was one punch directly to Bill Cipher’s eye to make him shatter like glass and turn his world to black.
…
Another World, Another Time…
“Come on, girls! We’re almost at the temple!” said an anthro purple alicorn mare with a dark blue mane and tail, both of which had a magenta stripe in it, who was clad in a full explorer’s outfit, complete with a miner’s hat and equipment belt. This was Princess Twilight Sparkle of Friendship.
Panting right behind her were five similarly dressed mares and a teenage purple and green dragon with medium-sized wings, who was holding the map. Two of the mares were pegasi, two were Earth Ponies, and the fifth was a unicorn. One of the pegasi was blue and had a rainbow-patterned mane and tail. This was Rainbow Dash. The second pegasus was a buttery yellow and had a soft pink mane and tail. This was Fluttershy.
One of the Earth Ponies was orange in color and had a blonde mane and tail, and wore a brown Stetson hat upon her head. This was Applejack. The second Earth Pony was completely pink, right down to her bushy mane and tail. This was Pinkie Pie.
The unicorn had a purple mane and tail and a white coat, and looked like she’d rather be anywhere but here in the Everfree Forest. This was Rarity.
“Twilight, ya mind tellin us why we're tryin ta find some temple in the Everfree Forest?” asked Applejack while using her seston to shield her eyes from the harsh rays of sunlight that pierced through the thorn infested greyish blue leaves above them.
“Zecora said that this temple contains a very special ingredient to one of her medical brews, it's also said to hold a strange artifact placed there by a spiritual entity.” Twilight explained with obvious excitement.
“Somethin tells me that yer not really goin there ta help Zecora, ya seem pretty excited about this here relic, just promise me that ya won't get sidetracked.” The farm pony said in deadpan.
“Don't worry Applejack, helping my friends is my top priority.”
Spike, the young dragon, looked down at his map. “The temple should be just up ahead, here, girls,” he informed his friends.
And, sure enough, just as the six ponies and dragon moved aside some foliage, there it was; a vast, imposing stone temple, dominated by what looked like a triangle with one eye at the top. The glaring look of the triangle’s eye made everypony’s spines shiver with fear.
“Let’s just get that herbal ingredient and get out of here while we still can,” said Rainbow Dash, a hint of fear in her voice.
And so, the intrepid explorers made their way into the temple. It wasn’t long, however, before they got themselves lost.
“Now which way do we go?” asked Spike, fear evident in his voice.
Twilight used her magic to light up her horn, giving light to the dim temple. Looking around, the alicorn princess was able to find an open doorway.
“Come on, girls, this way!” she said.
Following Twilight’s lead, the ponies and dragons swiftly made their way into the room beyond the door that Twilight had found. Looking around, they discovered that the room was overrun with herbs. A few holes in the dome ceiling lit the room, rays of sunlight spread out around the chamber.
“Well, I may have ruined my roughing it outfit, but at least we found those herbs Zecora so desperately needed,” said Rarity.
“Hey, girls, look over there!” said Twilight, pointing to an area just over on the far side of the room that was lit by a large ray of light.
The others followed her finger to find that there was a small golden triangle on a pedestal on that side of the room.
“Is that… the artifact?” Fluttershy asked as she inspected it.
Twilight pulled out a book from the bag she had been carrying and began flipping through the pages until she came across a page with a black symbol of a triangle with an eye. “Yes, this is it.” Twilight began reading through the paragraphs of the page. “It says that whatever we do, we mustn't touch it with our bare hands.”
“What?” Rainbow Dash said as she poked the triangle with her index finger.
“Rainbow!” Everyone in the room shouted. The small artifact began to glow, causing all of the mares and Spike to shield their eyes and back away. It shook violently and floated into the air before it started bouncing around the room, causing everypony present to start hopping about as though they were dodging machine gun fire. Finally, the artifact stopped bouncing around the room and hovered in the center of the room before exploding. The yellow flames of the blast froze before converging on one spot to create a humanoid figure, which floated in midair.
As the ponies approached the figure, they noticed that the figure didn’t seem to have any fur, save for a patch of bubbly yellow fur on top of his head. He also had jet black, razor-sharp claws. He wore a yellow tailcoat with a strange, brick-like pattern on the tails and cuffs, a black vest with a what looked like a golden pocket watch in its pocket, a white dress shirt, black dress pants, black dress shoes, and a black top hat with a yellow stripe. Over his right eye was a black eyepatch with a design similar to that of the artifact on it.
“What in the wide, wide world of Equestria is that thing? And who taught him his fashion sense? It’s just so… bizarre!” said Rarity.
The figure opened its eye and continued floating in the air. “AHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Ohhhhh, free at last! I don't know how much longer I could have spent in there without going insane! Oh wait, I already am!” The figure’s voice was echoed and slightly high pitched. Looking around the room he spotted the mares and their dragon assistant.
“So you guys are the ones that freed me eh? Well thank you kindly ladies and dragonmen, you have no idea how much this means to me! Here, have some ice creams in the shapes of your heads.”
The figure snapped his fingers and ice cream cones with ice cream that matched the groups colours with the shape of their faces appeared in their hands, much to their confusion.
“Well, now that I've rewarded you for setting me free, I guess I can make my exit and head back home. Toots!” The being said before it snapped its fingers, paused, a look of confusion on its face before it started repeatedly snapping its fingers, as though trying to get something to happen. “Okay, not only am I bound in my bones, but I’m also trapped in this dimension, which means I can’t get revenge on the Pines and Gravity Falls for what they did to me. Bummer.”
Twilight and the others, save for Pinkie Pie, who was happily licking her ice cream double, weren't exactly sure what to make out about all of this. “Umm… excuse me?” she asked the floating figure. “Who or what are you exactly?”
“Huh? Oh, name’s Bill Cipher!” said Bill, tipping his top hat to the girls, and as a result, causing gravity itself to tilt with it, knocking everyone except Bill off their feet. “And you seven are Princess Twilight Sparkle, Rarity Elise Belle, Rainbow ‘Danger’ Dash, Pinkamena Diane “Pinkie” Pie, Applejack Apple, Fluttershy, and Spike the Dragon, Twilight’s assistant and/or slave.”
As Bill named off each pony, that pony’s jaw dropped like a sack of bricks as they were strongly reminded of Discord. “H-how do you know our names?!” asked Twilight in shock.
“Oh, I know lots of things, Miss Sparkle,” replied Bill, before his eye turned from its normal white and yellow to black and red and his voice got deeper. ”LOTS OF THINGS…” before his eye and voice returned to normal. “Well, since I have no idea where I am or how I got here, or how I got in human form, I guess I’m stuck with you lovely ladies! So, what are we waiting for, Hearth’s Warming? Come on, let’s blow this popsicle stand!”
And with that, Bill floated out of the room, with the stares of the Mane 6 and Spike following right behind him.
“Well, Mr. Cipher certainly seems… eccentric,” said Fluttershy.
“Anyone wanna tell Discord we found his long-lost cousin?” asked Rainbow, looking between her friends.
“Well, in any case, we should probably grab the herbs and get out of here. Besides, somepony needs to have a word with him about his fashion sense,” said Rarity. The group all nodded before picking up a few bunches of the glowing cyan plants. Once their hands were full, they began following Bill out of the temple, not knowing what would happen now that there were what seemed to amount to two Discords running around the place.
In all honesty, it seemed to be too much to hope for things to remain peaceful in Ponyville, if not all of Equestria, for long.