Now that she knew, Mabel could now tell when Dipper was seeing things. His gaze would linger on a space for a bit too long, or, if he was talking, he'd start to stutter and start his sentence over again.

But the real problem was night time. Dipper was right on the other side of the wall and she could some times hear his whimpers. She often would get up and go into his room to talk to him. Sometimes that's all he would need, but other times he was in the middle of a panic attack and she had to sneak down stairs without waking their parents up to get him a drink of water and some aspirin.

"Sorry," Dipper muttered as he sat up to take the aspirin, "last time I tried to go myself I fell down the stairs."

"Leg fall asleep again?"

Dipper gulped the water and then looked down into the empty cup, "something like that…"

"spill."

"I can't feel it," Dipper sighed, "I'll be walking and suddenly its like my leg isn't there. Or I'll be taking notes in class and my hand stops moving. I mean, I'll just switch to the left hand, and it only lasts a minute or two, but…what if I'm in the middle of a fight and my leg gives out? What if I suddenly go blind in one eye and it doesn't come back?!"

"Shhhh," Mabel got up and poked her head out the door, listening for their parents. She walked back to the chair by the bed. "So you think there's a disconnect between your brain and your limbs? Why would that happen now? Its been months."

"You're the brain expert, you tell me."

"I deal with the mind, not the brain," Mabel snapped, "and you're smarter than me anyway. We'll call Ford-"

"No, he's got enough on his plate, we can research this out. Maybe it will go away once my brain realizes they aren't going anywhere."

"You were freaking out a few seconds ago."

"I'm allowed to freak out and be rational when I want."

Mabel sighed, "anything else I should know about?"

"Let's see," Dipper rolled his eyes, "I told you about my hallucinations a week ago. You already know I can't sleep. And I've just told you my brain can't remember if my limbs are gone or not. I sure hope there's nothing else wrong. What about you?"

"What about me?"

"How are your lessons going?"

"Good," she shrugged. Dipper frowned.

"You know, I really thought you'd jump at the chance to learn new skills."

"Oh, I'm excited at the possibilities," Mabel said quickly, "its just…a lot. There's a lot that can go wrong. And if it goes wrong, there's no reversing it. There's no way to fix it. The damage is always permanent…its really scary…"

Dipper reached over and hugged her, "I have complete faith in you."

Mabel grinned, but wasn't comforted in the slightest.

()

Ford burst into the kitchen, "I FOUND ONE!"

Stan jumped and crushed his can of soda, the liquid spilling all over his hand and newspaper. He swore and tried to clean everything up.

"What did you find," he snapped heading over to the sink.

"I found one of their bases! Its in Navada! I found it by using the satellite! I didn't know I could input what I was looking for and it would show me!"

"….Ford, you need codes for that…"

"Yeah?" Ford asked. Stan looked into the innocent face of his brother and decided to not tell him just how illegal and almost impossible acquiring those codes were.

"Never mind," Stan shook out his news paper, "you were saying?"

"Since we didn't manage to get any information from the last two buildings, we should definitely break into this one and use their computers to download their information! We could possibly get access to their whole network! Their mission statement! Their bosses! Their-"

"FORD! If it's a building in Navada, do you really think they're going to have all their secrets there? Its probably just some low budget something or other for them to do stuff in. I highly doubt we'll find anything confidential there."

"Any information at this point will be news! We know nothing! We need something!"

"Tell you what," Stan sat back down at the table, "find a place worth breaking into and I'll be right there with you. But some nowhere place in Navada isn't going to cut it."

Ford scowled as Stan went back to his paper. Fine, if Stan wasn't going to be productive, he'd have to get answers on his own."

()

Kristian watched as Mason switched hands as he took notes, then switch back.

Was he showing off?

They didn't have assigned seating in AP history, so today he was three rows to the left of his rival and one row back. After the first day of school, Kristian decided to get more information. There was obviously something going on. Not only did Mason suddenly have muscle, but he was taking weight lifting. Did he think that would protect him?

"Alright," the teacher, Mr. Collins, waved a large stack of papers at them, "I'm going to hand out your projects. I chose an aspect of the 1700s for each of you to delve into. You can make a power point, or you can just use the board, either way the presentation will be five to ten minutes. Remember your fellow classmate will be graded on what they learn from your presentation, so make sure you get all the important details up there."

"No pressure, right?" said a student in the back, and made the other students laugh. Even the teacher grinned.

He began to go up and down the rows, handing out the packets individually. They had the name of each student on the top of the front page.

Kristian looked at his: The process and signing of the Declaration of Independence. Great, a boring topic. But one he knew fairly well, so this was going to be easy.

"Um, Mr. Collins, can I have a different topic?" Mason asked when he was handed his packet.

"Why?"

"Well…" Mason gave a nervous laugh, "I just…I'm not really that…ah…I really can't do this…"

"I'm good friends with Mr. Green, the Freshman communications teacher. He told me about your speech on the Victorian underground. I'm looking for the same attention to detail. You have a knack for this kind of topic."

"but…no, I mean, I used to, but I really don't think I can do this topic."

"I have complete faith in you," Mr. Collins said and moved on to the next student. Kristian couldn't see his face, but his shoulders were slumped.

Should he strike now?

Tempting, but he still didn't feel he had all the information he needed. He had a plan, but he needed to hunt down Mabel first. She was always hard to tack down. That horrific spaz of positive energy made her easy to manipulate, but difficult to deal with.

However, he had it on good notice that she would be in the cafeteria today. Juniors and Seniors got to go off campus for lunch so long as they made it back on time. Mabel usually went off campus, but today was pizza day. She never missed pizza day.

Kristian spotted Mabel in the middle of the room, surrounded by people, of course. But she was only engaging three people. Two he knew were old friends of hers, but one was new…was she a freshman?

He picked his way across the cafeteria and waved to get her attention. She had been laughing, but the moment she saw him, the smiled fell and was replaced by a look of pure disdain.

Odd.

"Mabel," Kristian smiled his best, "I need to ask you a question."

"Eat worms and die," Mabel said immediately. Kristian blinked.

"What?"

"You heard me," she said, now glaring at him, "just die."

She stood up and leaned in close so no one else could hear, "Or do you not remember the order you gave my brother last year? You told him to jump off the roof. If you touch my brother again, so help me, I'll make you wish for death."

She was insane! She was serious! Kristian scowled, trying to regain his posture.

"I just wanted to know where you went last summer," he said, changing tactics, "Mason seemed upset in history class today, so I was worried."

He said this for the students that had started to pay attention. Mabels look became darker.

"What did you do?"

"I didn't do anything."

"You're a liar."

"I haven't talked to Mason since the first day of school," Kristian said, "and that's the truth."

Mabel sat back down and took a bite of her pizza, "where we went is none of your business. If you are really SO worried, then- oh wait, I don't care how you feel."

Kristian had no idea how to deal with this new incarnation of what had been a rather easily manipulated individual. He had kept the fact that he bullied her brother from her for four years. Mason never told her, either out of pride or some other reason, it didn't matter.

Why would Mason tell her about it now? And why would it cause THIS big of a change in her personality?

"We may be rivals, Mabel, but I'm not heartless. There's something wrong with your brother and I'm just worried!"

"Worried he'll actually beat you up?" Mabel was now smirking as though she looked forward to it, "worried that you will no longer be able to land a hit?"

"That's not-"

"Listen up, Kristian, you aren't scary. You're a pathetic bully! With a side of extra pathetic! Dipper and I have seen lots of scarier people and things and you just don't compare to them! You can't even see past your own ego! You are laughable!"

She laughed as if to prove her point. Her friends, stunned at first, joined in the mirth.

The other students that were listening seemed to have mixed views. But they mostly sided with Kristian. Kristian had only expressed his concern, and Mabel had been the one that looked rude. On top of it all, she had cut off a lot of friendships since starting the school year and had made a few enemies doing so.

"I just hope everything is fine," Kristian said, solidifying himself as the victim in this conversation, "If you guys need anything, you can come and ask me, ok?"

Before Mabel could say anything back, he left.

()

"What happened in history?"

Dipper jumped. Mabel had appeared suddenly next to him as he got books out of his locker.

"No-nothing?" he said, trying to think. Why would she be asking?

"Kristian came and talked to me during lunch," she said, "he said you were upset."

Dipper racked his brains. He couldn't think of anything…

"Oh, we're suppose to give these presentations in two weeks. I was bummed because I was given a crappy topic."

"That's it?"

"that's it…unless he read into something I'm totally unaware of."

"…what's the topic?"

Dipper grimaced and mumbled. Mabel leaned in to hear.

"What?"

"The Reign of Terror."

"That…sounds like a cheery topic…"

"I'd been just fine with it last year…but…"

"What's the Reign of Terror?"

Dipper gave her a long-suffering look. Did she not pay attention to anything?

"It's a time during, technically after, the French Revolution," Dipper explained and watched as his sisters eyes grew glassy and unfocused, "in which a lot of people died…by…beheading."

Mabel scowled, "You weren't beheaded, Dipper."

"Came close enough," he muttered, "just give it a few more days…"

He shuddered. Mabel sighed. How could she help? She slapped his back and he scowled at her. She beamed up at him.

"Com'on, gloomy Dip! You made it out! You can do this! Its heads! Not...other stuff!"

He grinned and rolled his eyes, "thanks."

The bell rang and they both swore.

"See you later?"

"By the door!"

They hurried in opposite directions.

()

Mabel stared at Fenrik.

"Is there something on my nose?" he asked.

"no," she said, "I'm just wondering why you agreed to do this."

"A little late for those thoughts."

"So why did you agree?"

Fenrik stretched, "I like my home. The consequences of NOT training you would have been disastrous in more ways than one. Plus I couldn't stand the fact that a human was running willy-nilly through the mindscape."

"You really like your rules."

"I like order," Fenrik corrected, "now, are you going to answer my previous question or are we stopping for tonight."

"What was the question again?"

Fenrik sighed, "What is the most efficient way to break past someones mental barrier if they are using the wall-technique?"

"Well, the most EFFICIENT way would to break through it with shear force of will, but that could potentially ruin the mind and damage any information you'd hoped to gain."

Fenrik nodded, "Good. So what would you do instead?"

Mabel sat for a long while, mulling over the answer, "trick them into thinking I wasn't a threat. The Wall method is the strongest so you really can't force yourself in without endangering the mind. The only way would be to make them let you in."

"how? Say they know your powers and what you're capable of. How would you get through?"

"Now you're just being mean," Mabel muttered, but screwed her eyes in thought, "…if they're on guard then there is no way. I can't damage them, but they won't let their guard down either if they know!"

Fenrik laughed, a cross between a bark and a huff, "there is a way, My Pupil, and I will show you how."