The Cipher's secret (A Bill404 story) [TEMP HIATUS (again (sorry))]

Written and Directed by GEORGE LUCAS (insert cool music here)

(A wild chapter image appeared, haven't done one of those in a w h i l e))

(The exact timing of this chapter is unimportant, and you'll be able to get an estimate by yourself)

Classic POV:

Call it a disturbance in The Force, but something big was definitely happening. I mean, when 2 of the most powerful monsters you know of decide to 'go somewhere', 1 is in seclusion and 2 others are completely unreachable, and you're still in the place where they were all last seen, you know you're a side character.

I decided to go check on Ink, considering he had locked himself in the Doodle Sphere for the past 45 minutes. Call me nosey, but he was definitely very unsettled by something as he was leaving, and as much as Nightmare's mansion was excellent accommodation (whoa, big words there Sans, calm down), I had a feeling in my bones that I was being left out of a Multiverse-wide-no-good-very-bad-thing.

And I just love to get involved in those.

Sorry WDWTFTTT.

There was a slight problem with me leaving, though, that mainly being that I was being questioned by roughly everybody currently in the mansion. Crackhead (Horror, apparently) would not shut up about how good my skull would look on a plate. I wonder if he knows that it'd be dust by the time he put it on. I decided not to burst his bubble.

In any case, people were curious as to what my Universe was like, how strong I was, whether or not I had 1hp, or if their check boxes were deceiving them; the usual stuff. Stuff they were oblivious to included: the fact that Nightmare, 404, Bill, Ink and Error had all vanished into the shadow realm, and the fact i was not oblivious to this.

I tried to make an excuse to leave, saying that I should go back and check on my brother (which I actually should have done, in hindsight), but Crazy Eye (I know, I know, Dust, but Crazy Eye just fits him so much better. Calling a monster 'Dust' is like calling a human 'Corpse', it's just weird) seemed to catch on that I was hiding something.

Must be all the Cluedo experience (Classic: I've never played Cluedo. Author: you WHAT?! *rushes Classic over to play a game immediately*). Anyways I'll stop with the interruptions now (or will I?).

Now, the amount of information able to be exchanged by just eye contact is rather incredible. Unfortunately, this highly advanced technique requires you to be familiar with the other person, something I was not with Dust. So I went with the slightly more straightforward approach of getting rid of the eye part of the equation.

Well, the eye-light part, but, you know what I mean.

He seemed to get the memo after that one. A lot better than humans seem to get it.

So, I left the mansion for no particular reason, got a clear picture of the Doodle Sphere in my mind, snapped my fingers and hoped the method for teleporting between Universes was the same as the one for teleporting to different places in the same one. I thought about what would happen if it wasn't. Maybe I'd be stuck in the Void, where ol' Wingdings was. It would be nice to catch up with what's left of him.

Alas, no eternal black space greeted me as I opened my eyes, just the familiar gold-yellow colour of the Doodle Sphere. Surprisingly enough, though, I was not greeted by a cheery and overexcited short guy, in fact, I was not greeted by any guy at all. Honestly, the service around here is horrible, the host doesn't even greet me on entry? Though, that did raise the question of where Ink was...

He was saying something about headaches as he was leaving, and he did mention that he got sharp pains every time a Universe got destroyed... Of course, he could just have migraine and had neglected to tell me, but the shredded pieces of paper which he had told me represented AUs suggested differently. Though he could still have migraine. Maybe I'll ask him later.

That being said, I had been standing around like an idiot for a solid minute and nothing had happened yet. Maybe he had dealt with whatever was happening. Or was dealing. So, funny thing about these pieces of paper, if you CHECK them, they actually give you an overview of the AU.

It tells you the AU name, whether it's copied or not, number of monsters (divided into types), whether or not the human has fallen, it's age, as well as some other stuff. The most important one for the moment is the number of Unidentified Foreign Outcodes (they're just Outcodes, he just wanted it to also be a UFO). So essentially, if I went and CHECKed AUs, then I'd be able to see anyone who wasn't necessarily meant to be there.

And, assuming that Ink labels himself as someone who isn't supposed to be in in AUs (wouldn't surprise me if he forgot himself though, the little goof), I could painstakingly look through every AU to find him.

That sounded less masochistic in my head.

I decided to start with some 'special' AUs; the ones that Ink kept in a little area away from everywhere else for easy access and just the ones that were his personal favorites. These would be the ones that he visited often, or wanted to keep track of for some reason in case he needed to quickly get there.

He generally kept AUs like Nightmare's place (it was literally called that), Underswap, Dreamt-

Where was Underswap.

okay sans, I thought to myself, what is that? a problem for later.

I continued, and eventually decided on CHECKing the Anti-Void first. Maybe he was talking to Error or 404 about what happened. That would be really convenient, 3 birds, one stone. I CHECKed it, looked at the box, and, lucky me, saw that there sure were Outcodes in there. And, sure, one of them was Ink. There was just also 6 others in there with him.

There was:

Ink (it had a little 'That's me!' with an arrow pointing to the name next to it that looked like it had been drawn onto the CHECKbox with marker pen)

404 (expected)

Error (expected)

B̸̧̢̟̓͑͜ͅì̶̳̺ḽ̸̺̺̻̟̅̑l̸͈̺͓͚̀̆ ̷̦̬̩̄̔͝C̷͖̠͂̑i̸̫̱̬̤͆̃p̵̹̲͚̝̂͋h̴̺̫̑e̶̘̎̀̓̚r̵͕̦͎̈́̓ (oh, the Bill guy's there to (why's it glitchy?))

Sci (who?)

Nightmare (why is Mr. Calamari there?)

Bill =҉)҉ (the smiley face was on the CHECKbox in a different font) (guess Ink was high or something) (Also why are there 2 Bills) (and why do they both have funny things about them) (I hate-love this guy to the fullest extent)

Interesting to say the least.

But, when I went to go into the AU by tapping on it with my finger, something happened that prevented me from doing it.

That something being the total and instant shredding of the piece of paper.

Problematic.