1826
It was midnight in Maine, twelve year old Manny Rivera was fast asleep in bed when he felt the gentle yet firm hand of his father Rodolfo Rivera shake him awake.
"Manny. Manny wake up son." Rodolfo said softly.
"Papa?" The boy said sleepily. He sat up in bed and looked at him still not fully awake. "Papa what's wrong? Do I have to get ready for school?"
"No my son, listen Manny I don't have much time so I need you to listen very carefully to me."
"What?" He yawned.
"Manny I have to go something and I might not be able to come back so I need you to do something for me." He pulled something out of his pocket, it was very dark at the moment and Manny's eye sight hadn't adjusted yet so he couldn't see exactly what it was his father held in his hand but it looked like a small ball. "I need you to swallow this."
"What is it?"
"Never mind that just swallow it, don't chew just swallow."
"It looks too big."
"I'll help you but I need you to swallow it now."
The boy was too dazed and sleepy to question what was happening or why his father was doing so he opened his mouth and his father put the little ball into his mouth then gave him a cup of water to help him swallow it down in one gulp.
"Papa what's going on?"
"I'm afraid I don't have much time to explain just know this my son I love you and your mother more than anything in this world, if it weren't for the two of you I probably would've spent my whole life in misery and I wouldn't have been able to become the man I am now."
"Papa you're scaring me."
"Don't be scared son, you'll be alright. Listen to me there's a terrible secret about my family I've been keeping from you and I hope to God you never have to find out what it is."
"Why?"
"Because it's a horrible, shameful secret and I fear that if you find out what is you'll see yourself as something terrible. But just in case you do learn our secret I want you to remember this you chose who you are, not your family, not where you come from, you do. Let no one tell you otherwise. Promise me that no matter what the world says or does to you, you will choose who you are, that you will choose the life you live. Promise me."
"I promise."
"Good." Rodolfo pulled his son close and hugged him for as long as he could. "I love you Manny."
"I love you too Papa."
Rodolfo reluctantly released his son and left the bedroom. Manny then laid back down and quickly fell back asleep unaware that this would be the last time he would ever see his father again. The next morning Manny got ready completely unaware that his life was about to change. What had happened last night between him and his father was foggy in his mind so he assumed that his father had to go away on a business trip but he would soon learn that it wasn't.
He came downstairs to eat breakfast when he saw his mother Maria on her knees with her face buried in her hands, weeping. She looked utterly devastated and heartbroken. Concerned he quickly went to see what was wrong.
"Mother what's wrong?"
At first she didn't answer she only continued crying. Then she became silent for a moment, finally she looked up at him.
"Manny...Your father...Your father..." Her lip was quivering and she was finding it very hard to speak. He knew whatever she was going to tell him couldn't be good. "Your father is...Is dead."
"What?"
"Last night your father had to go face an old enemy of his. They got into a fight which resulted in both of them being killed."
"How?...What?...Why?"
He felt tears stream down his cheeks and he started crying. His mother held him and stroked him while he cried in her arms. A week later his mother collapsed and she died. His grandfather told him that the shock of losing Rodolfo had caused Maria to suffer a heart attack that killed her but he wasn't sure if that was the truth. The funeral for his parents was held some time later, he could not hold back a single tear. After that his grandfather moved in with him and the boy could not help but wonder why his parents died? He knew there was more to their deaths than what he had been told but what was it? He also wondered what was it his father made him swallow? And what did he mean about all that stuff about him choosing his own life? He wouldn't know all the facts for one-hundred and six years.
1926
"How you feeling wolf boy?" Manny asked Dipper after he recovered from the slime incident.
"Oh what happened to me?" He said waking up. "The last thing I remember was reading the tablet then everything got all slimy."
"Last night at the party the monster blood attacked again, it flooded the entire museum. Steven and I managed to save everyone but we almost lost you and the rich chick."
"Pacifica!" He said remembering that she had been swallowed by the blood. "Is she alright?!"
"Relax Rover she's fine, the slime coughed you both up before I burned it away but you got lucky, you both nearly drowned in it."
"Oh thank heaven. Ugh...That stuff was so gross not to mention sticky."
"Listen we're all gonna get some lunch today." Steven said. "Wanna come?"
"I guess I could eat. Is Pacifica coming?"
"She's still knocked out apparently she was under there longer than you were so she wasn't breathing longer. She can breathe now but it'll take awhile before she comes to."
"So she's alright?"
"Yes."
"What a relief. I was so worried when that hunk of slime got her, for a moment I thought she would be gone for good."
"Hmmm...You seem awfully concerned for her." Manny said suspiciously.
"Well I'm concerned for the health and well being of all living creatures."
"Uh-huh."
"Why are you looking at me like that?"
"Oh nothing just curious though, would it have anything to do with the fact that she's an attractive young woman who you've gotten rather close with."
"What are you getting at?"
"Oh...I get it." Steven said.
"What?"
"You like her don't you?"
"I've grown fond her if that's what you're implying but I grow fond of all people and creatures I spend a good amount of time with."
"No I mean you like, like her."
"Uh...Yes I think I've established that I'm fond of her."
"No you idiot he means you have a crush on her." Manny said.
"I beg your pardon gentlemen but spoiled, stuck up, bratty and rude are not exactly my type thank you very much."
"Then what was all that mush I heard you tell her last night on the balcony?" Steven said.
"You heard all that?"
"Fun fact a vampire's hearing is ten times better than a werewolf's."
"How much did you hear?"
"Only the good stuff."
"What did he say?" Manny asked Steven.
"Don't you dare tell him!" Dipper growled at Steven.
"Sorry Dipper but you went through my poetry about Connie, now it's my turn to return the favor. Now let me think what was it you said? Now I remember something about her being smart, brave, having a heart of gold, and being the most precious jewel?"
"It...It...It's not what it sounds like. That's taken out of context!" Dipper said blushing.
"But you have a soft spot for her don't you?"
"Is wolf boy crushing on the rich girl?" Manny teased.
"Shut up!" Dipper said.
"Hey what's a crush called again in cases of a werewolf?" Steven teased. "Puppy love?"
He and Manny burst out laughing.
"Knock it off! It's not true!"
"Sure it isn't." Manny snickered. "Say when you kiss her are you gonna use your lips or your tongue?"
"Stop it! It's not funny! And it's not true!"
"Hey maybe I should tell Pacifica how worried you were when she wakes up?"
"No! Don't! Or I'll..."
"You'll do what? Bite me?"
"No I'll...I will tell everyone that you're in love with Frida!"
"What?! That is so not true! Are you out of your mind?! Me?! Love that woman?!"
"It's totally obvious."
"It is not! And it's not true! It is a lie! A lie I tells you!"
"Okay let's not start." Steven said. "Let's just skip the fighting and go eat please? I'm starving and besides the girls are waiting."
So they decided to for once stop the argument was about to start and went to a special restaurant reserved only for government agents where they provided any food you ordered. What Frida and Connie ordered was pretty normal but the boys well...Let's just say their diet wasn't exactly what most people would eat.
"Okay for you Miss Connie fresh salad and grilled fish." The waiter said setting down the plates. "And for the nun a sub sand which and churros. Gentlemen again I ask you sure you want the meals you requested?"
"Yep!" The three of them said.
"Okay twelve pounds of beef burnt to a crisp and seasoned with charcoal." He said placing the first plate in front of Manny who began devouring his meal.
"That is repulsive." Dipper scoffed but his comment would be proven rather hypocritical in a moment.
"Sir your ten whole chickens raw." The waiter said putting the second place in front of Dipper.
"Oh boy!" He began to tear them apart with his teeth as he ate them.
"And finally fourteen liters of pork blood made into broth."The waiter added placing the bowl in front of Steven.
"Thank you." Steven said as he started to drain the bowl.
The waiter thought he would puke as he watched them ate same with the girls.
"What?" The three boys said with their mouths full when they saw the disturbed looks of the girls.
"Uh...No offense but you...You." Connie said. "How did I put this?"
"You eat like pigs." Frida said.
"Sorry we can't help how we eat it in our nature." Manny said.
"And we can't help our diets." Dipper added. "It is a known fact that devils prefer hot, burnt, and/or spicy foods sometimes even eating charcoal, while werewolves like myself prefer raw meat and/or meat that's still on the bones, and vampires like blood especially cooked into a thick broth."
"It's still kind of gross to watch you guys eat that."
"That aside." Connie said handing each of them a napkin. "Dipper did you find out what that tablet said?"
Dipper froze with his mouth full of raw chicken as he remembered the frightening thing he had discovered about the tablet. In about five minutes he slowly swallowed the meat in his mouth.
"Yes I did and it's not good."
"Well what is it?"
"If I read correctly those words engraved in that tablet were a chant."
"A chant for what?"
"Thousands of years ago demons and their human worshipers found a way to create their own gateway to hell on earth. Guardian angels sealed the door to the gateway up and hidden it somewhere beneath the earth. That tablet is the only thing that can summon the gateway back from underground."
"What would happen if the gate was summoned?" Frida said.
"If the gateway was summoned and opened the all hell would be released on earth. Every devil, monster, and un holy creature trapped in hell would be free to roam the earth and cause never ending destruction."
"My God."
"You said it was sealed." Manny said. "Can it be opened?"
"It can only be opened by one thing."
"What's that?"
"The left eye Dagon, the former ruler of all the demons. Years ago one rogue devil got into a fight with Dagon and during he ripped out his left eye no one knows what became of it soon after but whoever holds the left eye of Dagon is the only person who can open the gateway to hell."
"But no one knows where it is?"
"No but I have reason to believe that a demon is controlling it's blood to steal the tablet and find the eye."
"Wait a minute where is the tablet anyway?" Steven asked. "Did the blood steal last night?"
"No I stole it."
"You what?! That's illegal!"
"I know but this is an emergency! If the demon who's after this tablet gets their hands on it and finds the eye then we will all be beyond screwed."
"So what do we do now?"
"Now we try to find the eye."
"And how do we do that?"
"We just need to find out what devil took it."
"How?"
"When we get back I'll consult all my books about Dagon and the devils he's encountered."
But as luck would have it not a single book Dipper had provided any information about who stole the eye and what happened to it. After that he checked the library but it didn't provide any books regarding the subject either. He even sneaked into city hall to see if the mayor's files provided anything but they had nothing to offer. However he did find a very familiar looking book on the mayor's desk. It was a thick book with a brown, slightly torn leather cover. He knew he had seen that book before but where?
"Hey is someone there?!" He heard the mayor call from outside the door.
Dipper quickly grabbed the book and left. Once out of the way of trouble he began to read the book. He was amazed to find that it was filled with seemingly endless information about every paranormal creature in existence. A lot of the pages contained information that he had never seen in all the books he had read. Who wrote this book? Where did it come from? Was it the mayor's? No. The mayor hardly knew anything about the paranormal, whoever wrote this must've studied and observed the paranormal then wrote it down.
Before long he found a page about Dagon's left eye. According to the journal Dagon's left eye had been stolen by the devil Rodolfo Rivera during a fight they had one hundred and twenty years ago. With this new information he quickly went to tell the others.
"My father stole the eye?" Manny asked when he heard the news.
"Yes so he's the only one who knows where it is."
"But my father's dead. He's been dead for a hundred and six years."
"But you're not so you might know where it is."
"My old man never mentioned anything to me about an eye, he never told me anything about his life as a devil or me being half devil for that matter so why would I know where he kept an eye he stole from a demon?"
"Well we don't exactly have anyone to ask. Maybe your father never told you about the eye but maybe you saw it once."
"I'd think I would remember seeing an eye with no body."
"Come on think, do you remember seeing the eye once in your life or anything like it?"
Manny thought back to his life before his parents died and searched his memories to see if ever once saw Dagon's eye or anything like it. The only thing that came to mind was the last time he saw his father and something small, round, and glowing in his father's hand.
"I...I think I might've seen it once."
"When and where?"
"I don't know, it was a long time ago and I think I was a half asleep when I saw it."
"Then I guess there's only thing we can do. We need to go through your subconscious."
"How?"
"We need to enter the Core of Time."
"What's that?" Steven said.
"According to this book I found there's a hidden area in the world where you can into back in time into one's memories."
"How do we get there?"
"Through a ritual but we have to be careful, we might end up changing the present or find ourselves reliving our past lives all over again."
"Sounds cool I wanna come." Frida said.
"No." Manny said.
"Why?"
"Because you'll only cause trouble."
"I will not!"
"Will to!"
"Will not!"
"Will to!"
"Will not!"
"Will to!"
"Will not!"
"Enough! We're all going!" Dipper decided.
"Yes!" Frida cheered.
"Oh God have mercy on us." Manny groaned.
Dipper made a circle of salt, placed a pocket watch in the middle of the circle, opened the book, flipped to the page about the Core of Time, then began saying the chant that would open the portal. A misty hole opened in the ground and one by one, Manny, Steven, Dipper, Frida, and Connie jumped in. When they landed the boys and girls were separated and in a corridor with different doors.
"Where are we?" Steven asked.
"The Core of Time." Dipper said. "We made it. Now all we have to do is find the door labeled Manny Rivera and it will take us into his memories."
"Wait a minute where are the girls?" Manny asked.
"Connie! Frida!" Steven called. "Where did they go?"
"Uh-oh." Dipper said.
"What? Why uh-oh?"
"I think the girls might've accidentally got sent into their memories."
"What?! Where are they?" Manny asked.
"Probably behind one of these doors, reliving their memories. We better find them and bring them back or they'll be stuck in that time period or worse."
"I'll go get Connie you two look for Frida." Steven said.
"Okay but we can't change their past. We just need to find them and get them out of there."
Steven went left, Dipper and Manny went right. It took five hours but they finally found a door labeled Frida Suarez. They opened the door and went inside.
"Hey what gives? All I see is darkness?" Manny said.
"She must be unconscious right now. This is good if we can find her before she wakes up and starts to remember something then we're in no danger of changing the past."
Dipper spoke too soon because on cue there was light and they could see. They were standing in the middle of some large, wide green land.
"Where are we?" Manny asked.
"My best guess would be the country side." Dipper said.
"That's right before Frida went to live in the Holy Order she lived in the country."
"So what memory are we in?"
"I've got no idea. Hey wait! Look up there!" There was a figure running toward them, from a distance it looked a like a girl with blue hair. "I think that's Frida. I better call her over before she does something."
But he quickly went quiet when he realized this was not the Frida he last saw. This one was a little girl, about eleven years old happily running down a hill wearing a white Sunday dress with red ribbon. In one hand she was clutching a bible and in the other she held a satchel. Smiling and giggling, looking as happy as a lark.
"Frida?" He said as hse got closer but she didn't respond instead she just ran right by him like she didn't know him. "Was that-"
"Manny that was Frida!" Dipper said in shock.
"Why is she a child?!"
"When she woke up she must've started remembering her childhood and thus she went back five years."
"Oh crap." Manny groaned.
"All night, all day,
Angles watching over me, my Lord.
All night, all day,
Angles watching over me." The little blue haired girl sang gleefully.
"Frida wait! Stop!" Dipper called.
She stopped and turned around at the voice that called her name.
"There you are." He said. "Alright Frida let's get you out of here and back to normal before you cause major changes to the present."
"Kidnapper!" She screamed and she kicked him right in his manhood before running off.
"Mother of God!" Dipper said falling to ground and clutching his privates.
"Yep that's her alright." Manny said fighting the urge to laugh.
"The pain..." Dipper whimpered. "Oh the pain!"
"So even at this age she still packs a punch or in your case Dipper a kick."
"Little brat. Didn't her parents ever teach her not to kick people? Especially where the sun doesn't shine?"
"To be fair you were a stranger trying to take her somewhere."
"Stranger? She knows me."
"Not at this age and time, geez even I know that and you're supposed to be the smart one."
"Shut up! And help me! I'm numb from here down!"
"Okay, okay, sheesh. You wolves can be so whiny." Manny groaned.
After Dipper's pain subsided, the two of them followed Frida's scent but they were careful to keep themselves hidden from her. They watched her go into a market place where one man who looked a baker gave her a box of strawberry jelly filled cookies with vanilla frosting which she ate one by one to her heart's content.
"You know she's kind of cute at this age." Manny said as they watched her.
"Easy for you to say, the little savage didn't attack you. Good God she got me in the forbidden zone." Dipper groaned.
"I know wasn't it adorable?" He grinned.
"Oh ha, ha, like she wouldn't have done it to you."
"Maybe, maybe not but if we're going to get her out of here we're going to have to take a different approach. She doesn't know us and she's a child so we can't just walk up to her."
"Frida there you are." They heard a voice said.
They saw a beautiful woman with short brown hair and blue eyes walk toward the child. She looked like an older version of Frida and she wore the exact same sliver cross necklace Frida always wore.
"Hello Mother." Frida said.
"You told me and your father you were going to come home right after school."
"I'm sorry but I wanted to look around."
"Oh? Would it have anything to do with the fact that Mr. Barrie likes to give you free cookies and you didn't want to share them with your sisters?" Her mother asked suspiciously.
"Maybe." Frida said trying to look innocent.
"You are a very selfish little girl Frida and do you know what happens to selfish little girls." She then scooped up Frida and began tickling her. The little girl burst out laughing and giggling.
"Mother stop! Please!" She laughed.
"Alright." The woman said. "Now let's go home before your father get's worried."
"Okay."
"Interesting." Manny said watching them.
"What?" Dipper said.
"Frida's smile, it's different now so is her laugh."
"So?"
"She looks so very happy yet slightly troublesome. I wonder what changed her."
"Who cares? Let's just get her and go."
"Wait. I wanna see her home life."
"Why?"
"I'm curious."
"Curiosity killed that cat you know."
"But satisfaction brought it back."
