Alcor the Dreambender

Chapter 3

Mabel woke up to dazzling light shining in through the attic window. She groaned and rolled out of bed. Somehow she managed to pull on her clothes, and trudge downstairs. She was halfway through a bowl of cereal, before a fact hit her like a brick to the face. Where was Dipper?

She coughed, choking on her breakfast. A large hand thumped her back.

"Hey there." Stan greeted. "Are you okay?" Mabel nodded weakly as the events from the day before flooded back into her memory.

"Yeah. I'm alright." She assured. The twelve-year-old saw his look of confusion and explained. "I just remembered about yesterday." He nodded, and sat down to his own breakfast. Mabel sighed. Where was he? He couldn't leave her. She was his sister, and they were the Mystery Twins. Or at least used to be. Things will never truly be the same, will they? No, of course not.

Dipper gave up trying to sleep well before dawn. Instead he focused on what Diana had told him.

"You're a demon now, so you need to start making deals with people."

Does that mean that he needed a summoning circle like Bill? Probably, he concluded. So he started to run through ideas in his head, casting aside most. Finally he settled on three different designs. Hoping to draw them to show Mabel, tried to grab a pen. He stared when ne just fazed right through it. He tried again, and again, and again, to no success.

"You can't affect things in the physical realm, Alcor." He jumped at the voice.

"What the hell, Diana!? You scared the shit out of me! And you don't need to call me that. It's only for summonings."

"Fine then, Dipper. But you need to accept your new name. You need to accept who you are." She thought for a moment. "How about affecting the physical world as your first lesson?"

"I would like that very much, thank you." He replied bitterly, a hint of sarcasm lacing his voice.

"Let's go." The world around him swirled as it changed, disorienting him. It seemed to go on forever, until it finally stopped. He swayed.

"Is it always like that?" He asked, dazed.

"Pretty much, yeah. But you get used to it. Eventually." She replied. She stepped over a log into a small clearing, and Dipper followed. He looked around.

"So...what do I need to do first?"

"First, you are going to learn simply how to touch things and not faze through them." She bent down and picked something up. Dipper couldn't see what it was as he planted both feet on the ground to stop floating.

"Sounds easy enough."

"You'll regret saying that when we start." She turned to him and tossed him a rock. He tried to catch it, but it fell through his hands. "Imagine yourself catching the rock." She threw another. He did as she ordered, and pictured himself catching the rock. But it once again fazed through his hands.

"Can't we start by turning physical?" He complained.

"You can only do that at summonings." She replied calmly, and tossed yet another rock. And another. And another. And another. Half the morning passed without any improvement. Dipper stamped his foot as yet another rock passed through his hands. The movement sent leaves flying.

"I can't do this! Why can't we just go back now!?" Diana didn't answer. She was staring calmly at him, a smile on her face. "What!?"

"You affected the physical realm. We can now go back."

"But I didn't catch the rock!" He protested.

"You affected the physical realm. We can now go back." She repeated.

"How!?"

"You moved leaves." Her gaze flicked to his foot. "We can now go back." Dipper's yellow eyes widened.

"No. Again."

Dipper rushed into the Mystery Shack and climbed the stairs into the attic. Or rather, floated up. The door was wide open when he entered.

"Mabel! Mabel! Diana taught me how to move things in the physical plane!" He told her excitedly, not noticing that she was facedown on her bed, ignoring him. "It's so cool! Now I can communicate with people who can't see me!" He glanced over at her bed. "Mabel...?" She sat up, and Dipper could see that her eyes were red and puffy from crying.

"It's the middle of the afternoon, Dipper! You've been gone all day!" The tears began again, and she sniffed. "This..." she gestured to him. "This wasn't supposed to change anything! It was still supposed to be the two of us, you and me, Mystery Twins, Dipper and Mabel against the world!" She didn't meet his gaze. "I guess that will never happen again." Guilt rose in Dipper's stomach.

"Mabel, you know that's not true. I just need to get a hang of my new powers, that's all. We don't want anything bad happening, do we?" She hesitated, and shook her head slowly. "When I do, then we can spend as much time as you want together." Mabel sniffed again, and looked up at him.

"Promise?"

"Promise." He confirmed. Mabel smiled. Even if he was now a demon, at least she still had her brother.

A week passed. Dipper quickly got the hang of his new-found powers, and, as he promised, spent more and more time with his beloved sister. The summoning thing was still a problem though. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't quite make his peace with it. He knew that he was now a dream demon, and his name was now Alcor, but something still felt off about it. Something he couldn't quite place.

He was going over possible summoning circles and incantations with Diana and Mabel (not that he wanted to. Diana and Mabel made him do it.), when he realized. He was now a demon, and they have been around for centuries. They were...immortal. While he would live forever, Mabel would grow old and eventually...die. That was a fact he was not ready to face.

"Dipper? Dipper! Snap out of it, man!" Mabel clicked her fingers in his face, and he abruptly emerged from his daze.

"Sorry, what?" He asked, blinking away the fog that clouded his mind. Oh, he wasn't going to hear the end of this.

"I said, how about this one?" She showed him a drawing of a summoning circle she made up. It was rather simple, a circle with a pentagram inside, the tips just leaving the boundary. The middle two points were symbols for spirit and soul, both circles, spirit with a triangle inside it, soul with a dot exactly in the middle. At the bottom points there was life, the Egyptian symbol ankh, and the infinity symbol. At the very top was balance, the yin-yang symbol, and in the center of all this was Dipper's symbol, the pine tree. He frowned.

"You don't like it?" Mabel asked, putting down the paper.

"No...I mean, yes, I do. It's perfect! I don't know why, but it just...fits. That's why I'm frowning." He explained. Only partly true. The picture made him realize that ever minute, every second, with Mabel was important now. She smiled.

"Great! Now the incantation!" Dipper sighed inwardly. Diana put a gentle hand on his sisters shoulder. Mabel looked up into golden eyes.

"Mabel, it's only been a week, and it's still alot for your brother to comprehend." She told her softly, meeting Dipper's thankful gaze as she finished before turning back to the girl. She smiled. "Besides, it's time for you to get some sleep." Indeed, it was late. Very late.

"Okay." She mumbled reluctantly. Dipper just hovered above his bed as Diana vanished into thin air.