*distant screaming*

The Everything:

So, Billy fails. He fails Rennick's trial, after making it through all of the previous ones. He and Rennick still escaped the trial. However, the King doesn't want to be beaten, and so it catches Billy on a technicality. Stressing specific wording. I wrote something about this moment!

Following Billy being failed, but the King still having been displaced, it decides to make Billy into its vessel rather than kill him.

Unfortunately, the same sort of thing that happened with Cait and Maidie happens here. All of the entities want a vessel, and so, they all sort of dogpile into Billy and start fighting.

This process is.. a very highly unusual one, and strains Billy quite a lot. Described in the fic above, he seizes up, chokes, and overall has a very bad and very uncomfortable time. Also, his injuries are being forced to heal by the entities, but because they're actively fighting for control of him, the process is messed up with rapidly switching control.

Rennick flees, during this. Backs away and runs when he finds the temple's exit.

In Spectator Jail, they see this go down, and this is when the panic gets particularly bad. Though, due to the King being briefly displaced, the cell is kind of loose and Cait and Maidie are able to free everyone. They all get out of the cave, and the building as a whole. The crowd runs into Rennick, running blindly down the path from the King's temple. When they meet, Fergus tries to punch him and has to be held back. There's a fic about this moment too!

A fight is prevented, and Rennick makes it pretty clear he believes Billy's dead. That the entities killed him. Fergus refuses to believe it, and he wants to help his husband.

Just then, they all feel.. something. described in the second fic as a strange wave, an odd feeling that washes over them.

What that is is all of the entities inside Billy figuring out how to work together, all meld into one and sync up, in a way. They all control him, but something snapped into place and Billy is a proper("proper"..) vessel now!

His appearance changes, but because of how all the entities are associated with a color, and how they're all present here, the colors all meld together into white. And Billy has no real traits from any one entity, because they all cancel out, in a way. So he looks mostly normal except for all of the color stuff.

Now, as a vessel, Billy isn't really kicked into his own trial like the others. Rather, the entities have all mentally subdued him, in a way, making him feel Very Good and like he Loves the current situation and circumstances. He feels complete! That never ending sense of something being missing has finally abated! And Billy is pushed to a place where he recalls little about the depth of relationships, and ultimately will turn on even the people he loves the most if the threaten his completeness.

Which is exactly what happens when everyone gets to the King's temple, following Fergus getting Grabbed off the ground and kind of teleported into the temple by Billy (who, in vessel form, is referred to as the Everything or a Vessel for the Everything).

There's a small script I wrote for a PMV about Billy's possession and how it goes, in a way.

Now, bear with me here, but I am going to yap into the possibly confusing specifics of the Fucked Up nature of Billy's possession.

Also, I do know I said Billy isn't pushed into a trial, and that is true, but it is true because Billy kind of. Fractures, in a way, due to the clown car looking ass possession. There are three distinct Billys, at least in the PMV I scripted due to taking creative liberties. These Billys are the Everything Billy, the husk Billy, and the Orpheus Billy.

The Everything Billy is the messed up semblance of him that remains in his body after the entities take him over. He is barely Billy anymore, easily molded and directed by the entities, and far too eager to kill all of his own loved ones.

Now, the Husk and the Orpheus Billy are the part of his consciousness that is fractured from the docile Everything Billy. This Billy does go into a sort of trial. I like to compare it to the additive and subtractive color models. Everything Billy's outward appearance is comparable to that of the additive color model, where all of the colors melt together into white. Meanwhile, inwardly, Everything Billy is comparable to the subtractive color models, where every entity has their own thoughts about how to construct his trial (since it happens kind of automatically with possessions), and with the constantly switching control, every entities' aspects of a trial meld together into black. An abyss, full of dark Sludge formed by all those conflicting ideas.

The Billy that gets sent there is met by the King, retreating inward to at least establish some semblance of better control over the Abyss, and he meets Billy at a fake bar, unreasonably long, and with all the other former vessels sitting on barstools with their faces not visible. The King, behind the bar, lifts its glass to Billy. All of the other vessels lift their own, wordlessly. Billy, just now realizing he had a glass, lifts his own back to the King. Basically, and unknowingly, accepting the possession and joining the other former vessels.

However, it doesn't work entirely correctly, as nothing does when possession is this messed up. Billy drinks from his glass, and basically gets torn in half as his consciousness splinters further. Forming Husk Billy, who's basically a barely-there corpse of a man that sits at the bar and acts as a prop for the trial rather than Billy. the King is even able to control and speak through the husk, while he remains at the bar. Meanwhile, kind of all the lively, human, and unfavorable (to the entities) aspects of Billy are separated and distilled into one form of his splintered consciousness, the Orpheus Billy. The Orpheus Billy tries to fight it, but gets dragged by an invisible force directly into and through the Sludge of the trial, and out of sight and reach of the rest of him. Its like being repressed, kind of!

And, in the waking world, the Everything Billy is finally fully fractured from himself, and also finally tires of the former vessels' attempts to get him to "snap out of it." He attacks Fergus, then kind of sends out a shockwave that flings everyone away from him. And here, now that the entities and the tiny splinter of Billy have snapped into an unstable sync, is where the consequences of such a possession truly show in the Backwards world.

The entities affect and change the appearance of their temples just as much as they do the trials, so, at this point, the King's temple basically gets destroyed as it starts to warp and change. The general consensus here? for Billy? There is Too Much. Too many entities in his head, too many thoughts about too many different temples being his. And so the temple around him shifts, walls crack, break, and reform. The floor caves, the ceiling splinters. The part of the floor that Billy is standing on starts to raise up with him on it. The foundation beneath Billy's feet is as unstable as the rest of him, in this form.

And it gets Worse! While the Everything is fighting all of the former vessels, rapidly switching what weapon he uses depending on what entity is in control, which doesn't make him as uncoordinated as you'd think. It does serve to make him less predictable, but he is still kicking all of their asses unfortunately. Though, while this is happening, a physical Break forms in the Backwards world. Too Much is happening, and there is an actual, real break in the ground of the temple where the Nothing trial starts to leak through, bringing Sludge and overwhelming nothingness within it.

Eventually, the former vessels make the connection that, if they want to save Billy, they're going to have to do what he did for them. They're going to have to get close enough to make contact, and.. do something to get into some trial.

So this is what they do! One by one, and they quickly realize that what they're doing is actually taking the entities out of Billy and into their old trials, and they are each still connected to the entity in a small enough way (memories) which allows this to happen.

It is also realized, eventually, that taking the entities from Billy's head in this way causes immense pain and distress in him. However, there's no other option for the former vessels, so this is what they must do.

Rennick and Fergus are the last, and Rennick probably would've run again. Except that Fergus was counting on him, and so was Billy, and everyone else. And he knew this was his fault. So, he soldiered up and tore the King from Billy's head, thereby separating the last of the entities from him and leaving him free of them.

And.. this also messes him up a bit. Because, with the possession, the entities had basically stretched his brain incredibly thin. Billy was very harshly and abruptly beset by Too Much, too many entities in his brain, too much power, too many thoughts and desires and things and too much fracturing of his own consciousness. It was like a severe escalation, 0 to 100 immediately. But then, having that all torn from his skull almost as abruptly as it came to him? His brain had no more time to acclimate to the sudden emptiness than it did the fullness, and even then, he had barely a splinter of himself still in his head. It was suddenly, and just as harshly, Too Little.

And this, piled on top of everything else, is finally enough, and it tips Billy over the edge. He loses consciousness and falls backwards into the abyss, the floor of the temple having broken, and being too weak to hold up after he fell off his raised platform. His trial, in a way, is now physical, and he falls right into it. He sinks through the sludge and the other two fractures of his consciousness reform, leaving him laying, unconscious, in the second layer of the abyss.

The others had all fallen, but only reached the first layer. They're unconscious, too, but in the same way as Billy had been previously due to having been transported, alongside their entities, into their trials.

The Trials - Round Two:

Everybody gets a round two! This time, with the entities actively inside the trials with them and controlling several aspects of it, mostly to try and hurt them and make the trials as a whole worse. Each trial also gets a new enemy in the form of a version of Billy that the entities put in to guilt and attack the vessels. These versions of Billy are all visible dead due to some hazard present within the trial, and they are quite cruel and blame their deaths on the vessel.

The vessels all have to defeat their entity and make their way back out of the trial.

Caz's Trial:

The worse version of Caz's trial takes place on a small, jagged piece of the dock that Caz is floating in the middle of the ocean on. The waves are dark and choppy as the storm finally descends upon Caz, and the Tide swims beneath the float. Another thing bobbing in the water was Billy, bloated and drowned and dead. Caz hauled him up onto the float, only to be attacked by him. Billy, in here, repeatedly tries to drown Caz, blaming him for Billy suffering the same fate.

Suze's trial:

Suze is back in the forest, though its darker, muddier, and she seems blocked in by bramble tangles. The Hunter stalks through the trees, impossible to hear and always watching her. The version of Billy in this trial is one that died from being shot. The top half of his head is an unrecognizable mess of gore, and he relentlessly pursues Suze through the woods. Even getting his leg caught in a bear trap doesn't slow him, this time. He just continues on, not even reacting to any damage his leg sustains.

Kelly's Trial:

The house in Kelly's Trial has fallen apart, debris piled on top of furniture to strand him in what's basically become a landfill of sorts. Billy, here, is always half-asleep and keeps trying to pull Kelly down and get him to sleep, too. His body displays signs of him having killed himself.

McLurg's Trial:

In the aftermath of the collapse of the construction site, McLurg is trapped within some scaffolding. He is trapped with a version of Billy who died by being impaled by falling pipes and other machinery.

Roy's Trial:

Trying to shelter in the moldy greenhouse, Roy can see a version of Billy that got, in a way, consumed by all the mold walking around outside the greenhouse and trying to get in.

Alex's Trial:

Alex is stuck deep beneath the anthill, in the spider grove. The spiders are all after him and there's barely any light for him to see. He is being stalked by a version of Billy who was ripped apart by the bugs, his limbs only attached to his body by spiderwebs now.

Finlay's Trial:

Finlay seems to be stuck in a psych ward of sorts, being pursued now by a Billy who is just. Very diseased, and neglected and mistreated by the doctors. He seems to suffer symptoms of multiple diseases and overall just looks very unwell.

Addair's Trial:

The city is now mostly ash, and Addair has to face both the Flare and a version of Billy that's been horrifically burned to death. Also, this Billy notably sports the fire poker stab wound, still. He's covered in ash and constantly coughing.

Archie's Trial:

Archie is trapped on an even less stable frozen lake in a worse blizzard than he caused before. His version of Billy froze to death, and is very pale, blue-ish, and very very cold. There is snow stuck to his hair, skin, and clothes.

Davey's Trial:

The version of Billy in this trial was crushed. Breathes very noisily and his chest might as well be concave, honestly. My friend @pickleddandelions helped with the design and here's a quote from them: “The main idea of what he looks like I have is that he suffocated in a crowd crush before falling under and his body getting trampled. His lips and skin are tinted blue, some limbs bend in places where they absolutely shouldn't and he's covered in cuts and bruises. He looks closer to a zombie than a human. He's not fast, too many broken bones for that, but he's persistent. Immortal snail type shit” my gratitude to Pickles forever.

Muir's Trial:

Muir is stuck in a ravine that he can't seem to make it out of, and nearly gets crushed to death by a rock slide. The version of Billy here is tangled up in climbing ropes. He broke his neck in a fall, and cracked his skull.

Raffs' Trial:

The mirrors are mostly broken, and even the ones that are still intact don't help Raffs tracking the Self. The version of Billy in this trial was stabbed to death by shards of a broken mirror.

Innes' Trial:

Billy, in this trial, is a severely injured corpse that died due to bleeding out. Also, his arm seemingly got blown off at one point, and he smells very strongly of gunpowder.

Bruce's Trial:

The version of Billy in this trial still has his hands tied behind his back, and suffocated on smoke while he was burning.

Gibbo's Trial:

Gibbo is now stuck in the pit himself, and its half collapsed. Billy, in this trial, was beaten to death and looks like it.

Martin's Trial:

Martin is stuck on one side of the scales, with Billy and the Judge now judging him. This Billy was labeled as guilty, consumed by the Shape, and now functions as an extension of it.

Kieran's Trial:

The Billy in this trial suffocated and also froze due to. Being in space. Kieran is stranded on an asteroid with Billy now the one to insist that nothing matters. Kieran doesn't matter to him. Kieran killed him!

Trots' Trial:

Trots is stuck in the boiler room of the house, where the infestation stems from. Billy, in this trial, died to the insecticide stuff in the air. He looks kind of like he has rabies now.

Douglas' Trial:

Douglas is stuck in the farm. Billy in this trial died due to traumatic injury sustained by the strangers staring at him, his organs are all visible in his torso as the skin there has been burned away.

Roper's Trial:

Billy died in this trial due to a mix of drowning and traumatic injury sustained when he was pushed around by floodwater. Roper is stuck on a roof again, though this time with no method of escape and no way to swim, and the water slowly rising.

Scooby's Trial:

The house is mostly empty now, and Scooby is locked inside. He has to face the Cuckoo and Billy, who seems to have been mailed to death by the bird monster.

Keith's Trial:

Still needs development, sighs.

Gregor's Trial:

The evil Billy in this trial seems to have died to an overdose, or some other bad reaction to what was put in his drink. Nobody else at the bar really reacts to his strange, freaky appearance.

Dalgleish's Trial:

Billy in this trial died from the general bad conditions of the sewer, infected injury and general disease.

Fergus' Trial:

In this trial, Fergus is stranded in the middle of the field. The house is no longer there for cover, having been torn from the ground by the tornado. The Storm's face can be seen in the dark clouds. Billy, in this trial, was struck by lightning one too many times.

Cranstoun's Trial:

Billy, in this trial, was strangled to death by the snares. He is still wrapped up in them, they trail behind him now, mostly. He follows Cranstoun around as he tries to navigate the neighborhood, hardly able to see anything through the heavy rainfall.

Shuggie's Trial:

The evil Billy in this trial seems to have died due to electrocution.

O'Connor's Trial:

O'Connor finds himself back in the canyon, being antagonized by a version of Billy who appears to have died after being buried by sand. There's a lot of it, in his hair, clothes, and mouth.

Dobbie's Trial:

The last version of Billy in this trial is a mangled corpse, due to having been run over a lot.

Boyd's Trial:

This trial needs more development, I fear. High likelihood that the worse Billy here was burned.

Dunbar's Trial:

The evil Billy in this trial looks to have been shot in the chest with the shotgun, alongside the fact that, notably, he seems to have broken his wrists to escape being tied to the chair.

Davros' Trial:

Davros is being pursued through cave diving hell again. This version of Billy that he encounters was buried by rockfall in one of the passages. He's got a lot of rocks embedded into his skin now.

Banky's Trial:

Needs more development, I fear.

Bannon's Trial:

Also needs more development! Sighs bigly.

Anderson's Trial:

Anderson is back being forced to perform, but this time, Billy's in the crowd instead of helping him. Billy seems to be taking enjoyment in the show, at least. He seems to have been turned into a human puppet corpse.

Buck's Trial:

The Billy in this trial got his throat slit by one of the versions of Buck, doppelganger or otherwise.

Sunil's Trial:

The Billy in this trial overexerted himself, his shoes and socks have been worn away and his pants are decently ripped. He is also notably starved.

Rennick's Trial:

A shape infested Beira D, at the bottom of the ocean, this time with Rennick being hunted down by a version of Billy who seems to have gone down with the sinking rig. He's been burned, drowned, and is also slightly covered in oil.

The Abyss:

After defeating the entities and escaping their trials, the former vessels all wake up, tired and beset by phantom pain, in the abyss. They all manage to reconvene. The next step is to find Billy, and then get out of here. The girls show up, just then, and jump down into the abyss to join their parents and help look for Billy.

The Abyss works in a way where it is very hard to navigate. Just. endless void of black, where you can hardly see a person until you're close to them. They have Finlay and Addair stay close by the exit to the abyss, and call out periodically so the others could hear and make their way back to them if they got lost.

After a while of searching, spreading out to find Billy, Fergus and Shuggie find Billy. Still unconscious, and in an odd state of being half-injured and half not. Fergus carries him back, and eventually everyone gets brought back together and they all escape the abyss.

Billy remains unconscious, and they hope for him to wake up when they get back into the real world. Its oddly quiet, in the temple. No sign of the entities, though they're likely still around.

Cait and Maidie are the ones who have to lead everyone out of the Backwards world and through the false wall in the church. Once they get back into the real world, it feels.. both different and not. Surreal, a little bit. Fergus kind of collapses, slightly, and then holds Billy and looks at him. They all do, hoping for him to wake up.

He does not. Eventually, they all get very concerned. Sitting in that back room of the church, they decide a small group of them will take Billy to the hospital, while the rest go to the police or. Their families, wherever they need to go, after suddenly reappearing into the world.

The Aftermath:

Billy is in a coma. He lays in the hospital for.. a long time. It's kind of a shitshow when all of the people who've been missing for weeks abruptly re-appear. And their story is.. absolutely insane. Strange for it to be consistent among all of them, but still. Nobody wants to believe the explanation originally. The police question all of them.

Billy would actually be the best for them to question, and everyone does know it, he knows the full story. But, he is unreachable now. When the police are finally, begrudgingly, done with their questioning (for now..), the vessels can all finally go home.

Its strange trying to adjust to the world again. The police and news and everything are a constant presence in all of their lives. Even Billy gets checked on, a few times, and one of the former vessels has to tell the officer or reporter to leave, because he isn't awake yet. And at least one of the former vessels is always there at the hospital with him. In case he wakes up, or in case something goes wrong, or someone tries to bother him. They've all exchanged numbers and can call each other.

Fergus is with him the most, because Billy is his husband and he is. he really, really wants to hold him again. He wants Billy to wake up. Their house is so empty without him in it...

Sometimes, the other vessels come to the hospital to get him to get some air, take a break and go out and do something with them. Though they always get a lot of looks or questions being out in public.

There is a lot of anecdotes about this time period, for everyone! Liselotte and Addair wrestle with emotions, and both are affected by Billy being in a coma. Its Liselotte who points out how much Billy resembles their son, Tommy, also unresponsive in this same hospital. It very much hurts the both of them.

Martin is struggling with the other police officers, who, as soon as they learn of the Backwards world (after Billy wakes up, though) want to go in. Neither Martin nor any of the other vessels (nor Billy, when he wakes up) want to risk waking up the entities. They're asleep now, but nobody wants to risk it. Billy knows that, if they do wake up, he is their target.

Despite this, a handful of the other officers are a little obtuse and annoyingly stubborn.

Raffs is afraid of mirrors, because of his trial. A lot of the vessels are dealing with something like that, a lingering effect of their possession. Billy, though, has it particularly bad.

When he finally does wake up, he is immediately terrified. He is in a hospital with no recollection of getting there, and the closest hospital experience he can connect to this was Finlay's trial. The vessels have to calm him down, Fergus and Finlay get called specifically for this one. They do calm him, but Billy has a lot of experiences like this. He did not make it out of the Backwards world unscathed, and not physically either.

There is simply a lot of specific character talk here, which I can elaborate on if someone has a character they want to hear about! I can elaborate on anything, actually. If you have any requests or questions or anything, send me an ask! I'm kind of dying to talk about this AU more, I really love it.

Beyond that, this kind of ends much of the larger story! Nothing has really been planned with the aftermath so far, not beyond how everyone tries to move forward after everything. There will definitely be more of this AU.

And, because I shared the first one, here's another PMV script I made for this AU!