Billie Ventura's Links
Billie is surprised and admittedly a little amused to meet Gwen, as by the time they do she's had a lot of time to build up a layer of bitterness towards him. He has no ill will towards her- in fact, he's happy that someone's been looking after Torrey in the time he's been gone. Billie affectionately teases her- ruffling her hair, calling her "Sprinkles" due to her shirt pattern, but this is only after the two have established a relationship.
Billie has long gone missing by the time Gwen arrives in the Dream Realm. She is helping Torrey look for him, and of course wants to find him, but the more she learns about him, the more her feelings become mixed on the matter. Billie is the spirit of one of the trains on one of her favorite, now defunct roller coasters at Mystic Shores! However...from her point of view, Billie was honestly a little bit of a jerk to Torrey for seemingly no reason other than he saw Torrey as a dweeby little brother, and that makes Gwen really mad. Eventually the two meet and she is able to reconcile these feelings, but she still does not hesitate to call him out when he's being arrogant and she does not see why so many people think he's cool.
At first, Billie sees Torrey as an annoying nuisance and treats him accordingly. He wasn't mean per say, but he would keep him at an arm's length and hardly ever treated him with even a shred of warmth. In truth, a lot of this is because Reef Runner was the replacement for the Steel Hurricane, so Torrey represents the painful truth of being replaced. Over the course of the story this improves- with some heavy character development on Billie's part, he sees how he's unfairly mistreated Torrey and wants to do better. He becomes something a bit closer to the person Torrey thought he was by the end of the story- an honest-to-goodness big brother.
Things are complicated for Billie and Torrey, although Torrey's painfully unaware of this. Torrey has always truly admired Billie- and would often follow him around everywhere. Especially once he became a coaster too. Because of how much he admired him, Torrey fully bought into the idea that they were brothers and was blind to the times Billie would treat him unkindly. When Billie goes missing under dubious circumstances, Torrey of course is determined to find him as well as clear his name in the connected incident. It isn't until after his adventure with Gwen that he realizes their friendship was entirely one-sided, and he comes to see Billie as a person he still loves but is ultimately flawed. Ironically this helps lay the foundation for the two to become actually close.