They were a day away from thirteen and invincible. It was the summer of the Transcendence, the day a star fell to earth and magic spread in its wake, and two children - twins - set out to stop a demon from breaking reality itself.
They'd spent the entire summer playing and solving mysteries in the woods. They'd spent the entire summer playing with fire, and they thought they could put out the flame. And, perhaps, they could. But not without getting burned.
"Hey, Dipper," Mabel turned to him as they ran, her star-shaped earrings glittering in the last rays of the day's dying light, the grin on her face almost feral, "are you scared?" They were about to face the most powerful creature they'd ever encountered and, by all rights, Dipper should have been terrified, certain that they were going to die. But thoughts like that tended to shrivel up and vanish when his sister looked at them like that. He was scared, but he also excited, thrilled. His blood felt hot and fast in his veins.
A not-so-nice grin forming on his own face, Dipper replied, "Why should I be? We're the Mystery Twins, right?" They could beat anything. "Plus, I've always wanted to save the world."
They reached out and clasped each other's hands, their hearts beating as one, and that was how Bill first saw them. "Come to finish the job, Pine Tree?" growled the weakened demon, the stone pentagram pulsing with light beneath his spindly legs as the ground shook and blue fire erupted from his hands. "Well, you're gonna have to work for it!" Even as the pieces of his body broke off and disintegrated, he managed to project a feeling of knowledge and power that stripped the trees of their leaves, peeled the bark from their trunks, and called the blackest clouds to swallow the sky. The smell of smoke and decay traveled on the arms of a gusty wind that blew in every direction at once.
Dipper gulped as his left hand tightened around the journal and his right let go of his sister. "It's over, Bill. Stop trying to destroy the world and we'll let you walk away. Or float away. Whatever it is you do, we'll let you do that." He caught his sister giving him a sidelong look and shrugged. Heroic speeches had never been his forte. And it wasn't like he'd had any time to practice. Let's see what she could come up with without-
"Hey, Triange Butt," Mabel shouted, the grip around the bat in her hand tightening, "get out of here before we turn you extra crispy like a Tater Tot!"
Rolling his eyes, Dipper spared the demon a glance as he opened the journal. There was a new page, one written with the combined knowledge of himself and Grunkle Stan, and it could buy them enough time to disrupt the pentagram before the lines between the Mindscape and reality tangled, blurring to the point where it was impossible to separate them. Bill wanted to feed on the chaos that a world powered by dreams and wishes would bring, but Dipper knew now that there were some wishes that shouldn't be granted, some dreams that tore families apart, and the Mindscape would make all of them real.
"Epacsdinm eht knirhs." Bill glared at him with his one bulbous eyes, the pentagram drained the green from the grass, its power growing, and Mabel stood tall, ready for Dipper's signal. "Epacsdinm eht knirhs." One more. "Epacsdinm eht knirchs." Bill roared as the mindscape began to shrink around him, limiting his movement to a sphere barely larger his body. Dodging a fireball, Dipper screamed, "Now, Mabel!"
She raced forward, sliding under another ball of fire, and snatched a stone from the pentagram. Then she pivoted and beaned Bill in the face with the rock. Cracks spread from the point of impact as though his face were made of glass and he howled, "No! I was there when the first star learned to sing, I laughed at the stupid look on those dumb reptiles' faces when they caught a glimpse of the giant flaming meteor I sent them as a present, I can't be beaten by- by – by two rotten flesh-sticks."
"Think again, Bill!" Color rushed back into the landscape like water bursting through a dam, and Mabel shot a triumphant grin at her brother. He returned it, matched it, surpassed it with his own potent mix of joy and relief, until he saw his sister's eyes widen, her lips form the first syllable of a warning, then black arms yanked at his shoulders, pulling him into the Mindscape, and suddenly it felt as though everything that made Dipper, everything he'd been born as, everything he'd become, everything he could ever be, was being torn and remade.
Bill Cipher, so large and fiery he eclipsed the sun, snarled, "You let me into your body once, Pine Tree. I can get in again." And Dipper's mind whirled. No deal had been made. He'd never agreed to anything. But if Bill could just possess anyone he wanted, then why did he take the time to trick him that first time? Why didn't he just take his body?
The demon started to fuse with Dipper's body, trying to take him over, to overwrite him, and Dipper screamed. There were nuclear bombs going off in his atoms, earthquakes in his bones, and he could feel the demon tainting him, dying him in his image. "Just trying to make the place a little more homey," Bill noted casually, like he wasn't killing him. Distantly, Dipper heard someone scream his name. It sounded farther than the dimmest star in the night sky, yet closer than his own heartbeat.
"Dipper!" It was Mabel. She was screaming for him. She needed him.
For a second, the demon's presence in his body stilled, giving him time to think, "Shooting Star sure seems worried, Pine Tree." A leer in his voice, he added, "Don't you worry, though. I'm going to take g̭͇̐o̸̫̫̍̇͒̇ͯo̠̪̟̲̙͇̾ͣͥͬͭ͘d͙͗ͩ̀͊̏ ̸̫͔͍͇̜͗ͯͤ̊͋͑c̦̜̣͊ͩͤ̐ą̘̜̐r̦̳͎̙̘͙̞̎̎ͤ̋̄ȇ̯̤̖̜̫̿͌ͪ̎̎͠ͅ ̖̺͉̺͕̎̈́o͚̥̰͈̼͉ͥ̃ͨ̃͗͌ͅf ̂ͣh̟̬͚͖̤̼̾̾͗̾͑͝e̷͎̜̝̱̤̥̬ŗ̼̲͎̼̈́̒̎̈́̌̈́.̞̯̇ͦͣ͂̾͑" After hearing that, Dipper stopped trying to fight the demon off, stopped trying to push him away. Hearing that, Dipper pulled.
Maybe he wasn't strong enough to drive him out of his body, but the demon was weak, dying, and trying to possess a body without a contract had stripped him of even more of his power. Dipper's body and soul were open, raw, and he pulled the demon in them, gripping him tight with his mind. Bill, realizing what was happening, writhed, bucked, twisted, but they were in Dipper's mind, Dipper's body, and piece-by-piece, the demon broke apart, until there was nothing left but his eye. Gradually, that, too, faded away. Leaving nothing behind.
Exhausted, Dipper reasserted control of his body, expecting to feel the pain of the ground underneath his back. Then he was on fire.
Cracks appeared in black skin, each glowing gold like molten lava under a surface of hardened stone, and Dipper's shrieks split the air. Bill had done something to him- changed him somehow. There was power building in his chest, images flashing through his head of things he'd never seen, and it all tore at him, ripping at him the way a hungry dog would tear through a bone. If he didn't release it, he'd explode. But he couldn't. He couldn't. His sister was still there. He could feel her shaking him.
"Dipper?" Mabel whimpered, sounding small and frightened and not-at-all like the girl who defeated an army of gnomes with a leaf blower.
"Ma̖̘͚b̦͉̯e҉͈͔͍̘l͘…" There was something wrong with his voice. It didn't usually sound so deep. And echoey. "R̵ṷ͕͉̞ṉ̵̼."
She shook her head. "No! No, I'm not leaving yo-" Power burst out of Dipper with so much force the air itself was pushed away. It was with a growing sense of horror that Dipper opened his golden eyes to see his sister's body tumbling through it, moving jerkily as though caught in some demented dance. He couldn't tear his eyes from it. Then she hit the earth, and Dipper learned that the only thing worse than seeing her move was seeing her still.
"Mabel!"
The power in him tried to stop him from running to her side, it reached out to his mind in an attempt to finish what Bill had started, only to quail under the force of his fear-driven rage as he looked inwards and snarled, I am your master now.
There was a brief moment of hesitation, then his body shot off the ground. Moving on newly ingrained instinct, he thought about moving to where he'd seen his sister fall and felt the wind rush past him as he did. He barely noticed the crater under his feet, and it didn't even really register yet that his legs were dangling in open air. "Mabel!" He called again, head twisting frantically from side to side.
Bright pink. Something bright pink flashed behind the bush, and while it could be a fairy, today, it could only be his sister. He sped towards it, mentally thanking whoever was listening that his sister's favorite color wasn't green or brown or something equally hard to spot in a forest, and found her. She was covered in soot, she looked a little lost, like she'd opened up a packet of Smiley Dip to find celery sticks, but she was alive and whole and Dipper could just-
He flew towards her; arms outstretched. Then picked her right off the ground. "Mabel! Oh my- I'm so glad you're okay." He buried his head in her sweater, and he could feel her shaking, feel her tears soaking her shirt, but he was shaking too and he still felt so scared, so violated by whatever Bill had done to him, that just holding her was like a balm on a wound that'd been ripped open in his chest. There was a tug on his sleeve. He wiped his eyes. "What's up, Mabel? What's wrong?" She pointed at the ground, something urgent in her expression, and he looked down to see they were floating several feet above it.
"AHHH!" This wasn't possible. What did Bill do to him? "Um, this is fine. I mean, it's nothing the journals can't fix, right? I'm sure there's a way to make me normal again. Not that flying isn't great or anything but Mom and Dad might not appreciate me floating in the living room." There was the slightest spread of warmth against his cheek as his sister chuckled soundlessly.
Well, even if the flying thing was hopefully only temporary, Dipper had no doubt that his sister would get a kick out of it. As he lowered them to the ground, he thought about sailing over pine trees and the Bottomless Pit, waving to Grunkle Stan as they flew by the Mystery Shack. It could be fun. "You're okay, though, right? No injuries? No weird powers?" Pretending to be horrified at the mere thought of it, he widened his eyes and added, "You don't have a tail, do you?"
Sticking her tongue out, Mabel opened her mouth to reply, then frowned. She tried again. It didn't really start to sink in that something was wrong until she started slowly massaging her throat. "Mabel? What's wrong?" After one more try, she let her shoulders slump and rested her head on Dipper's shoulder.
It should have been obvious what the problem was. And it was. But Dipper didn't want to believe it. To Mabel, speaking was everything. She wasn't happy locked in a room with maps and books the way he was. She loved singing and dancing and laughing. She loved being with people. Rage filled his body, so hot he could smell his blood boiling. Mabel jerked away from him, fear flashing in her eyes. Her hair was singed in two places, and Dipper's stricken gaze flitted from her down to his hands, which were both covered in blue flames. "Mabel," he begged, "help me put them out!"
Steeling her nerve, Mabel started batting at his hands, hitting them with her sweater. Smoke curled away from her chest, but she managed to smother the flames. They leaned against each other, breathing hard. "The journals can fix this, Mabel. I'm sure of it." He felt her nod. "Let's go home."
On the way back, they found that Mabel could fly, too. She couldn't whoop or holler the way she usually did, but that didn't keep her from having fun. To Dipper, it felt like he was watching his sister on muted television. It was possible that there was nothing wrong with Mabel's voice. Maybe he was the only one who couldn't hear her? That would only be slightly less awful, but it'd be nice if she could talk to people while they tried to find a way to reverse whatever it was Bill did to them.
There was a rustle in the bushes ahead. Dipper instinctively grabbed his sister, pulling her behind him. "Dipper! Mabel! Where are you?!" Wearing her usual plaid, Wendy came stumbling out of the bushes.
Relief buoyed both of the twins above the ground as Dipper said, "Wendy! You're okay. That's great!" They rushed forward to hug her, only to find themselves tumbling through empty air.
"Dipper!" Wendy yelled with increasing desperation as she kept walking towards the clearing they'd just come from, the one Dipper had accidentally turned into a crater. "Mabel! Are you guys okay? Answer me!" And they kept trying. They shouted at her, waving their arms and flying right in front of her face, but her expression never changed. She couldn't see them, couldn't hear them.
Eventually, they stopped trying. They just watched in stunned disbelief as she walked into the woods and the branches and leaves swallowed her up. Dipper grabbed his sister's hand. "Come on, Mabel." And led her away.
If they had stayed just a little longer, they would have heard the screams.
The shack wasn't a smoking hole in the ground, so that was already a vast improvement. Gideon and Bill had both done everything they could to destroy it, but there it was, rusty and falling apart but still standing. Mabel and Dipper both breathed easier when they saw it. Or, at least, it felt like they were breathing. The two of them had realized that they didn't actually feel themselves breath when they were distracted, their chests stilled as they let their thoughts drift, neither of them used to having to remind themselves to expand and contract their lungs. But living things needed to breath, so Dipper didn't bring it up and Mabel told herself that they were just too stressed out, their minds were playing tricks on them.
Of course they were breathing.
"Grunkle Stan!" Dipper raced towards the shack, dragging Mabel along with him. "Grunkle Stan! We're here! We're back!" He looked back to see his sister smiling as they bounded up the steps and- stopped. Dipper's hand passed through the door knob over and over, like he was batting at the air. With a frustrated scream, he charged it, bringing Mabel with him as he ran right through the door and rolled into the shack. They paused, staring openmouthed at each other as though landing on the carpet had suddenly given their twin the answer to all the strangeness that was still plaguing their lives.
Honestly, they defeated Bill, the sun was shining- what more did they have to do to earn a semi-normal life?
Dipper glared down at the carpet like he could burn a hole into it, barely noticing when a curl of smoke started to rise. Mabel followed the curl of smoke with a worried frown. Then she noticed the man slumped behind the counter for the first time. There was a bandage wrapped around the head he rested on the wooden planks, his arms folded around his face as though he were too ashamed to show it.
Pulling Dipper's attention from the carpet, "Mabel, what-," Mabel climbed to her feet and went to her grunkle's side. Instead of trying to touch him, she let her hand hover just above the tail end of his suit. Being close was the only comfort she could give.
Almost as though he could feel her, Stan groaned, shifting slightly, and shuddered. Then his phone rang.
After fumbling a moment, he pulled a cellphone the size of a walkie-talkie out of his pants pocket and gruffly answered, "Wendy? Did ya find them? Are they hurt? I'll be right-" He stopped, the sound of someone crying on the other end cutting him off. "Wendy, calm down, honey. Take deep breaths an' tell me what happened." Whatever she said, it aged him ten years. He slumped back into his seat, mouthing, "No. That's not possible."
The twins didn't know what was wrong, didn't know what Wendy could have possibly said that would make their grunkle so sad, but Dipper was tired of fighting, tired of being left out of the loop, tired of seeing his always cheerful sister look like she was on the verge of bursting into tears, and all that fed a power in him that he'd never felt before. It was frustration verging on rage and it poured from his heart into his voice as he screamed, "Ǵ̛̳̪̹̟̦̞͜ͅͅŔ̢͈͞U̗̪͇͍̫̕N̘̺Ḳ̵̵͕̺̗̳͘L̨̬͎͝͞ͅÈ̮͙̰ ̝̱̪͈̣̺̕͘S͓̹̙̳̼͝T̝̩̞̞͈̮̪͟A̢̧͎̫̼̥̟̣Ṉ̡̗̩!"
Stan jerked out of his seat, alert and – not that he would ever admit this – a little frightened. "Kid?" He called out to the empty air, feeling like a foolish, desperate old man. "Dipper, is that you?"
Mabel clapped her hands, a wide braces-filled grin on her face, until she noticed how gray Dipper suddenly looked. Concerned, she rushed to his side, but he brushed her off. "I'm fine, Mabel." Judging by the hands on her hips and the pout on her face, she didn't believe him. Which was probably for the best, because the ground tilted under his feet seconds after he pushed her away, and she was right there, supporting his weight. Keeping him from falling.
Well, whatever it was that they were going through, at least they were going through it together. As much as he'd hated the look on Mabel's face when they passed through Wendy – and if he ever saw the dream demon again he was going to tear him apart for it - Dipper wasn't sure he'd have been able to handle not being seen or touched by anyone on his own.
Grunkle Stan narrowed his eyes, obviously wondering if it was his mind or something more sinister playing tricks on him. Dipper straightened his shoulders, calling again on the thrumming pulse of power he'd felt inside him and said the most important thing he could think of. "Grunkle Stan, we're alive."
The change that came over Stan's face was almost as drastic as the first. Hope warred with despair as he reached out to the counter for support and whispered, "No way. I'm an old man. I'm hearing things."
Feeling suddenly energized by the wave of anger that buzzed under his skin, Dipper grabbed- grabbed – a Stan Pines bobble head off of the counter and threw it at their grunkle's chest. "We're alive and we need help!"
Grunkle Stan didn't hear the desperate shout that time, he didn't feel Mabel's arms wrap around his waist, but the sentiment was clear. And he wanted to believe.
He needed to.
His voice came out rough, eyes roaming over the shack for any sign of his great niece and nephew, "Uh… it doesn't seem like talking to ya is gonna be easy so I'll get ya some paper." He darted into the back, coming out with a paper and pen before Dipper could blink twice. "Alright," he laid the paper and pen flat on the counter, "try to tell me what happened to you and your sister. Is Mabel here? Is she with you?" Gritting his teeth, he ground out, "Did Bill do this to you?" There was a promise of pain in the words that both Dipper and Mabel found comforting, even if the demon was already dead and gone. It just seemed to reinforce their belief that Grunkle Stan would protect them, make things better.
Since he didn't have a lot of strength left, Dipper answered all of Stan's questions with one word, his handwriting shaky and uneven on the page: Yes.
Stan growled. "I'll kill him."
Too late.
Stan blinked at the paper. He hadn't been expecting that response, but it came as a relief. Sure, he was a little annoyed that he didn't get the chance to crack the little bastard in the face himself, but that hardly mattered now that his family was finally safe again.
Then he remembered what Wendy told him, what she said she'd found in the woods, and he realized that what he had on his hands could hardly be called a victory. The word journals suddenly appeared on the paper in front of him and Stan had to fight back tears. The kid still thought he could make everything all right again as long as he had those books. Those journals had torn his relationship with his brother apart… yet how could he say no? What if there really was something in them that could change his grand nephew back to normal?
But his grand niece…
Disgusted with himself for letting things get this bad and with his brother for writing the journals in the first place, for setting to paper information that could and did put children in danger, he covered the last thing Dipper wrote with his hand, saying, "Dipper, there's something I need to tell you about your sister." And he had to. He couldn't chicken out on this one. If Wendy and Soos came back and Dipper still didn't know…
The pen trembled, the eyeballs in his jar swiveled back and forth before all settled to stare at him, books flew from the shelf, the ice cream started to steam, the glass container with the hand in it shattered over his head, and blood streamed from the eyes and ears of the Grizzlycorn he'd hung on the wall.
He barely managed to move his hand out of the way before the pen stabbed the paper, scratching out in words too large to miss: DON'T TALK ABOUT HER LIKE SHE ISN'T HERE!
"Right. My bad, kid." He raised his hands in a placating gesture, then, on instinct, settled a pleading stare directly at the patch of air in front of him. "But you have to listen to me. Mabel-"
And that was when the door opened with a creak. Wendy and Soos trudged in, with Soos cradling something too large for a package in his arms like it the most precious object he'd ever held. Even though it was wrapped in a dark sheet, Dipper and Mabel could tell that what he held was vaguely person-shaped.
Mabel ran towards Soos, not caring if he couldn't see or hear her, because there was a tear trickling down his face as he tore his gaze away from the object in his arms so he could look up at Stan and say, "We got her, Mr. Pines. And," he bit his lip, trembling, "we, uh, we didn't find Dipper but…"
Wendy scrubbed her red-rimmed eyes with her free hand, then pulled a singed cap out from behind her back. The pine tree pattern on its front was unmistakable. There was a glint of gold peeking out over the hat's rim that Wendy grabbed, lifting out a golden star earring for everyone to see.
Dipper felt the hat on his head, feeling familiar fabric and shapes, then spun to see that his sister had both of her earrings in. "What's going on?"
It had to be Bill's doing. Somehow, he'd cast them both into the Mindscape, and maybe the reason he could move things when Mabel couldn't was because he'd absorbed some of Bill's power. So, that made this like his dying curse or something… right?
All they had to do was find their bodies and repossess them. And, yeah, they probably looked dead, but that didn't mean they were dead. Dipper explained this to Mabel as best he could, she just didn't seem like she wanted to listen. Her eyes kept following Soos and Grunkle Stan as they walked into the living room and Soos gently laid the object in his arms on the coach.
With Mabel hovering over his shoulder, Stan slowly pulled the sheet away, revealing her face. She was scratched and missing one of her earrings, but other than that, she almost looked like she was sleeping. If it weren't for the way her neck was bent, Stan could have convinced himself that she was.
And he tried.
"I'm sorry, Mabel." He pressed his head against her chest, still half expecting to hear a heartbeat, and he couldn't hold back the heaving sob in his chest when the only thing he heard was the sound of his own breathing.
He should have protected them. It was all he'd ever wanted. All he'd been trying to do for the last thirty years. And now he'd lost them both.
Dipper watched his sister as she started to break down, watched Wendy as she shook with grief and rage, as she swore to rip Bill apart if he ever showed his ugly face in Gravity Falls again, watched Soos stare blankly at his sister's pale face, and felt rage that made anything he'd felt before seem like mild irritation in comparison.
Dark clouds rolled over the sky, frogs rained down into the lake, lightning struck a corner of the Mystery Shack, setting a section of the roof on fire.
Wendy blinked, as though finally seeing something she hadn't noticed for the first time. "Dipper?" But Dipper wasn't listening. There was a voice inside him that told him he could this destroy this reality if he wanted to. Destroy the reality where his sister's sightless eyes stared at him from the couch, her neck longer and bumpier than it should have been on one side.
A gentle tug on his vest quieted the voice in his head, and he looked up to see Mabel staring at him with her big brown eyes, looking tired and scared and maybe even a little resigned. "Mabel!" He gasped as he came back to himself. "I'm so sorry. I don't know what-" She lunged at him, burying her head into his shoulder, and squeezed.
Now wasn't the time for apologies. She'd already received more than she'd ever wanted. She didn't want to hear anymore.
"Hey," Dipper stroked her hair, whispering, "I'm going to find a way to fix this. I swear, Mabel." She stiffened, and there were a million things she wanted to tell him, but if she did, if he stopped believing he could fix her, then he might let her go. So, someday, she'd find a way to say the things that needed to be said, but that day didn't have to be today. Today, she just wanted to let herself believe that he could make everything better.
It was nothing more than a game of pretend.
But she was good at those.
In the end, even though Stan knew that Dipper was wrong when he said Mabel was alive, he never asked her to leave. It might have been for the best, really, if he'd asked her to move on, but how could he ask his grand niece to go to an afterlife he knew nothing about when she could stay with him? He wanted to be haunted by his mistakes. It was what he deserved. The only problem was whether or not Mabel was happy haunting him.
He asked her once, years after she'd learned how to move objects with her mind, if she ever thought about moving on. Unfortunately, he hadn't checked to make sure Dipper wasn't in the room first and the walls bled for three days.
Speaking of Dipper, the boy never stopped searching for a way to cure his sister. Entire months passed with the sound of paper flipping filling every second of every night. By the time he realized the answer he was looking for wasn't there, he'd already memorized every page.
While Stan didn't know what Dipper was at first, he had a pretty good idea the first time the kid entered his dream. His teeth were sharper, the cap and vest replaced by a top hat and suit. He looked very dapper.
He looked like Bill.
"Hey, kid," Stan said carefully, "where's your sister?"
Dipper shrugged. "She's waiting outside. I just wanted to let you know that if you ever need me, you can make a contract. I figured out what I am. What we are."
And Stan fought to keep the pity he felt out of his eyes. If believing his sister was a demon could help keep the kid from losing his marbles, then he wasn't going to try to take that from him.
Dipper mistook the three rapid blinks for surprise and smirked a little. "I've been getting a few summons lately from cultists and fools trying to get in touch with Bill." Puffing up with pride, he added, "They call me Alcor now, can you believe that?"
"Alcor." Stan chuckled. "And they came up with that all by themselves?"
Deflating slightly, Dipper admitted, "Okay, I might have told them my name was Alcor the Dreambender. It just sounds cooler than Dipper, you know? Plus, the less power-obsessed nut jobs who know my true name, the better." He scratched his cheek a little nervously. "Mabel goes by Mizar the Gleeful now." Frowning as though he'd tasted something sour, he added, "No relation to Gideon Gleeful… Duh."
Stan snorted,"Obviously."
"She didn't even pick the second half of the moniker, actually. It's more like the few summoners who have the Sight always see her smiling, so the name kind of stuck." A fond smile lit up his features, making him look more like the dorky twelve-year-old Stan remembered. "That's what she gets for being so cheerful all the time, I guess."
The conversation drifted to more serious topics after that. Stan itched his neck. "Can she, uh…" He let the sentence trail off, but the change in Dipper was immediate. He tensed, fists clenched, feeling the same mix of guilt and anger he felt whenever he remembered what his love for mysteries and ambition had cost his sister.
"She still can't talk, Grunkle Stan. I've tried everything. I even tried to set up a deal so she'd end up with the summoner's voice, but she didn't want it." Perking up, he added, "But she can do a lot more with her mind now! It used to be she could barely touch anything, but now she can even lift people if she tries hard enough!" Laughing, he added, "It really helps when it comes to scaring the more annoying cultists."
They talked a little more, catching up on almost a year's worth of information. But every dream has to end eventually, and although Dipper promised he'd visit him again in his dreams soon, it took Stan digging out the journals and summoning Alcor himself before he saw his grand nephew again.
Turned out Dipper had a particularly nasty summoning almost immediately after their little talk ended. Having also received enough power to leave the Mindscape from the latest summoning she'd tagged along on, Mabel explained as best she could with hand gestures and pictures that a baby was sacrificed to Alcor. Just thinking about it made Dipper sick and Stan couldn't blame him, but he had a feeling showing just how sick it made him feel would only make the kid feel worse so he buried the feeling as best he could. "Mabel, sweetie, what happened next?"
She froze.
Dipper lifted his head, his wings – that was new – flapping slowly and tiredly as he said, "I was going to kill them, Grunkle Stan. Mabel stopped me." Stan breathed a sigh of relief. Then he saw the damp streaks running down his niece's cheeks and turned back to Dipper, confusion plain on his face. Dipper shook his head. "She made their heads explode before I got the chance."
As much as possible, Mabel tried to keep Dipper's hands clean. Maybe it was because she felt that his humanity was more at risk than hers, or maybe it was because she thought it her responsibility as the Alpha Twin, but when Dipper threatened to leave her home on the next summon, she realized that she couldn't keep taking the burden on herself.
Sometimes, watching someone hurt themselves for your sake can be so much worse than being hurt yourself.
Mabel understood that.
But so did Dipper.
That's why, when things got bad, they decided to each share half of the burden. They were a team, each feared in their own way. Dipper for his frightening appearance, for the shear intensity of his rage, and Mabel for the smile she could dredge up even in a room painted with blood.
There was one other reason Mabel was feared, however. One even Alcor the Dreambender didn't know of. There was a summoning once where Alcor was sealed, painfully chained, and the cultists saw the cheerful little girl transform into a wraith. Her bright sweater became tattered, one of her earrings faded out of sight, and her neck lengthened, breaking with a crack. Blank eyes staring out of a bloodless face were the last things the cultists saw before their lives were snuffed out and the seal was broken.
When Dipper finally came to, it was to see his sister's small body shaking, staring sightlessly at a floor that appeared to be coated in ground up hamburger meat. Dipper knew better, though.
They didn't visit Stan for a long time after that.
Eventually, reluctantly, Stan Pines died.
He lived longer than anyone expected him to, with the only exception being those who never expected him to die.
Dipper and Mabel were among the exception.
Since their parents never believed Stan when he told them that their children were still around, that they could still speak to them if they wanted to, Stan was the only family they had when he died. In a way, he tied them to who they used to be long after they'd begun to forget how it felt to be human. And his memory tied them to humanity long after he died.
Thousands of years passed. Stars fell from the sky, the Earth burned, and still Dipper refused to believe that the only thing keeping his sister from rejoining the reincarnation cycle was him. That while he couldn't die, she simply refused to leave him.
It was only after he transcended his demonic nature, becoming so powerful that it wasn't a stretch to call him a god, that he turned to his sister, held her hand, and said, "Let's go home, Mabel."
And as his body faded back into the cycle, he felt his sister wrap her arms around him, her tears hot on his neck, and say, "Sure thing, bro bro."
And if hearing her voice again wasn't worth sacrificing all the power in the Universe, then nothing was.