Dipper Pines is fifteen years old, technically, when he gets summoned for the first time. It's by accident, in all fairness. The Clan of Brun'dash was trying to summon a lesser chaos demon, but the runes got mixed up and Dipper was pulled from an intense game of Mario Kart with Soos (which is way more fun when you're actually driving) and into a dark warehouse surrounded by candles and robed figures with a dead animal at his feet.

"What the…" he mutters. He looks down at at the circle below him which is doused in the blood of a stray cat. "Oh, gross."

"Almighty," one of the robed figures booms. He's on his knees and his head is looking down. He clutches a bloody knife in his hand. "We have summoned you from the depths of hell…"

Mario Kart, actually. But he was losing, so its close enough.

"…and with this sacrifice, we give thee the power to present yourself." The man tosses the knife into the circle and suddenly Dipper feels everything. He feels the air on his back and dampness of the warehouse and the breath of every living thing within the building. He can feel the warmth on the candles and he seems so utterly alive and powerful. He can touch things without having to strain himself. He can see the colors of the world. He can manipulate reality with his hands and his head. He is limitless.

The leader lifts his hood and looks up at Dipper. Not through him, but at him. And proceeds to frown. "This must be a joke," he says. "This has to be."

Dipper's momentary power surge stops short and he looks down at the little man because that's what he is. He is human and he is so, so little. "What?" he asks.

"You are not the Worganmot," he tells him.

"Uh, no, I'm not," Dipper says. "Is that important or…?"

The leader runs his hands over his face and sighs. "Mark, did you write the runes correctly?"

"Yes, sir, I'm certain," one of the figures says.

"Hand them over," the leader requests. The robed figure looks at his questioning look. "Now!"

While the follower, Mark, scrambles to get whatever he needs, Dipper looks down at his feet and the circle below him. There's fifteen candles placed around the painted circle. In which there are five runes surrounding the cat, which has to be the sacrifice. He's a demon, after all. Demons take sacrifices.

Mark and the leader squabble a bit before returning to the circle. "See?" the leaders say, pointing to the runes. "You were supposed to draw the rune for chaos, not a pine tree!"

"The author didn't have very good handwriting!"

"Well thanks to you we have the spirit of a pimply teenager instead of a demon!" the leader yells.

"Uh, excuse me," Dipper speaks up. The cult looks to him. "Hey, yeah. I'm a demon, buddy." He points to his eyes. "See?"

The leader starts laughing. "You? Please. You look like you should be working behind the counter of a fast food restaurant. You're no demon."

Dipper smirks. "Oh yeah? How about this?" He lets the flames eradicate all human qualities and leave behind the black-shelled creature he's become more accustomed to being. " ?"

The leader sizes him up, but keeps a vaguely unimpressed look on his face. "Fairly standard, for a demon. Do you even have a title?"

" ?"

"A title. Like Fronglir the Childslayer or Bael the Coder of Chaos. Do you have one of those?"

"U M . N O ?"

"Do you have the power to exact vengeance or make deals?"

" ? , I ' S."

"Then you are no demon worth our time," the leader says. He waves his hand vaguely in dismissal. "You can go now."

#

Henry startles when Dipper pops into existence, and it takes him a second to realize that he's running off of the energy that the sacrifice gave to him. It takes a couple minutes to calm the kid down before Dipper can explain everything. He tells them about the circle, the cult, the power. He grabs a notebook and doodles what he can remember of the runes and how the sacrifice was positioned while he continues on about the leader's fairly rude comments about him not being demonic enough.

"No offense, Dipper, but you aren't exactly 'scary' material," Henry tells him.

"Hello?" Dipper asks, referring to his inhuman display. "Isn't this kind of freaky?"

"Eh?" Henry shrugs. "Cool, but not scary. Maybe if you had a cool shadow thing going."

"Oh oh! And screeches," Mabel adds. "And you entered using that creepy voice you can make."

" S?"

"Yeah, but you have to say something creepy in it. Otherwise you sound like a nerd with a weird megaphone."

"H E Y !"

"And you need a new outfit," Henry adds. Dipper glares at him. "Sorry dude, but the whole camper getup isn't going to make anyone piss their pants."

"And there's the name thing," Mabel says. "You don't want someone knowing your actual name. That could end pretty bad."

She was right. True names, now that magic was a widely recognized phenomenon, held much more power than they did before. He couldn't just hand his out.

Dipper sighs. "I never thought I would say this," he mutters. He looks up. "Mabel, I need a makeover."

#

"How long you do think you'll be like this? Y'know, all solid 'n' stuff."

"I don't know. Maybe an hour, maybe twenty minutes. It wasn't that big of a sacrifice, so it can't be for long."

Mabel hums. "We'll have to work quick, then."

The entrance whole entrance deal is a quick fix. Just add some lighting, some sound effects, and an occasional agonizing screech and soon Dipper feels like he can scare the shit out of any living creature he encounters.

The wardrobe is trickier.

"What if you came in like a cool demon cowboy?" Mabel suggests. "That's pretty scary."

Dipper laughs. "Ahhhh…no. Any other ideas?"

"Maybe you could be like a classic biker demon," Henry suggests. "With a leather jacket and a motorcycle made of skulls."

Dipper snaps his fingers. "Yeah! Here, let me try it." He snaps his fingers and will his clothes to change into something more suitable. "How about it? Huh, huh?" He wills up a motorcycle and lets the wheels ride in motion at reality spins around it, making Mabel and Henry fly across the room.

There's a lot of moaning and groaning before the two can sit up. "Too spinny…"

Henry nods weakly. "Agreed."

Dipper pouts before an idea hits him. He grins. "I got it!" With another snap his clothing morphs into something else entirely, still black as the void but more formal and business-like. He even adds a top hat for good measure. "Everyone will want to make deals if I'm like this."

He's met with silence. In the past this hasn't been a good thing.

He blinks and looks down to them. "Guys? I didn't phase back into the mindscape, did I?"

"N-No," Henry reassures him. "You didn't. You just kind of…um…"

"You look like him, Dipper," Mabel finishes.

Dipper chuckles nervously. "Like who?"

Mabel doesn't say anything, just points to the mirror.

At first he doesn't see it. Why would he? All he can think right now is that he looks dapper as hell and ready to make a couple deals at half price. It's only when he singles out the pieces of the outfit—the suit, the hat, the tie—that he sees what Henry and Mabel have been seeing. Horrified, he inadvertently shatters the mirror and goes back to wearing the same outfit he's had on him ever since he died.

"No, no. I'm not…I'm not him. I ' M N O T."

Henry moves to put a hand on his shoulder. "Dipper, buddy, you gotta—"

"I ' L. ' M. H E ' ' ' ' S—"

Dipper's interrupted from his (really unprofessional) panic attack by Mabel, who slaps him and grips his face like they're five years old again and she wants to know who stole her candy bars from Halloween. "Listen to me, Dipper Pines, you will get a grip. You are not Bill, he is not going to take over, but so help me god I will do the same thing you did to him if you don't calm down and realize that you've got more than just his powers and you and I both know this."

Dipper lets himself take a couple breaths that he doesn't need and gulps. "What do you…?"

She sighs. "C'mon, bro. Don't tell me you haven't noticed."

He thinks about that part of himself, the eensy bit that wants to laugh at other people's screams and dance on destruction. The part that isn't scared to death at the power he holds in his hands because it's used to it. It's known it for a long, long time.

He keeps the suit.

#

The name is where it gets really, really tricky. Dipper's spent years trying to let his nickname stick so that he wouldn't have to hear his birth name over and over again (seriously, who names their kid Cyprus?) and he's kind of feeling uneasy about making up a whole new name to be called.

By this time Dipper's popped out of existence, which is really inconvenient seeing as he's the one who needs to say yay or nay on this. They go back to the house, Henry in tow, and Dipper floats around Mabel's head.

"Come on Mabel, please?"

"Dipper! I am not hurting an innocent little animal just so that you can be visible."

"But think about how happy mom and dad would be! And it wouldn't have to be innocent, really, just like a rat. Or something. I just need another hour so that you're not telling Henry I'm using Double Dipstick as my title."

She giggles. "Yeah, I would do that. But I'm not making a summoning circle for you, Dipper. That's for creepy old guys and Gideon. Bluh."

"Just a rat. It would take, like, ten minutes to make and rats aren't even that cute."

"Excuse me! Rats are adorable."

Henry waves his hand. "Uh, Mabel? Not to be 'that guy', but it's kind of embarrassing being the third wheel to your dead brother."

Mabel sighs. "He wants me to make a summoning circle for him and make a sacrifice so he can be all visible-y again. But I'm not gonna do it! I'm not hurting some poor, innocent little rat."

Henry grimaces, but quickly recovers. "Yeah, okay. I get it." He looks around the room. "I can do it."

Both Mabel and Dipper turn to stare at him. Henry is still shorter than Mabel, at this point, with fluffy red hair that sticks out at odd ends. He wears blocky glasses that make his eyes two times too big and he's got freckles that start on his forehead and stretch to his forearms. He's wiry, too, and a black sheep in the family considering that whenever he speaks it's quiet and reserved.

And here he is, saying he's going to kill a rat so a demon can exit the mindscape and help them Google search a cool new name for himself.

Dipper would be even more damned if he wasn't impressed with his sister's choice in guys.

Gravity Falls is miles of woods, so it isn't hard to find a rat if you set the trap at the right spot. Their parents don't even bother when Mabel goes in looking for a knife, paint, and about fifty-something candles. She just says that it's 'Dipper stuff' and they go back to watching the news.

The basement is a good place, all dark and mysterious. Dipper makes sure Mabel draws in the runes right and places the correct number of candles before hovering in the back so that Henry can do the job with the rat. Mabel covers her eyes, and Dipper watches intently. He throws it into the center, but nothing happens.

"Maybe you gotta say something?" Mabel suggests. She has one eyes peeking out between her fingers.

"Uh," Henry drawls. "Almighty demon Dipper Pines, I summon thee?"

The pull is weaker than that the leader of the cult used, but it's enough at Dipper is naturally drawn into the circle. Henry throws the knife in as well, making sure that all the blood resides in the space inside the runes. Dipper feels the cold air of the basement on his cheeks and sees dark blues for shadows.

"Hey, would you look at that?" he muses. "Good job."

Henry shrugs. "You should've tried practicing your entrance, man. Just saying."

"Oh, right," Dipper says, slapping his hand to his forehead. "Duh."

Mabel takes her hands away from her face. "It's done, right?" Henry nods, and she quickly turns away from the scene. "Alright let's go no more dead things."

The two are already halfway up the stairs when they realize that Dipper isn't with them. It takes away another two seconds for them to find out he's hanging right above them with a grin on his face.

#

"Mabel, I said I was sorry!"

"Not funny, Dipper."

"It was totally funny."

"Man, jokes are funny. Puns are funny. Animals in human clothes is funny. That was creepy, dude."

"Whatever, Henry. I happen to think that I am hilarious."

"You're glad I didn't tell on you to Mom and Dad."

"Like that would do anything. Mabel, I'm not a kid anymore. I'm a high-class demon with the ability to warp dimensions. I can make your sweetest dream into your worst nightmares, I don't get scared by—"

"MOOOOOOOMMMMM DIPPER'S BEING A JERK WITH HIS DEMON POWERS!"

"WAIT NO MABEL DON'T—"

#

After some shocked expressions and rifling through some demonology texts that Stan's lent Mabel from the Mystery Shack, their parents have successfully put Dipper in the demonic equivalent of a time-out, AKA a binding spell that has Dipper trapped in the corner of him and Mabel's room.

"This is stupid," Dipper says. "It was just one prank."

Henry does that thing where he kind of stares blankly, but also manages to glare at him. "I fell down the stairs."

"And it was hilarious! Come on."

Henry does the stare-glare again. "You're acting like a five year old."

Dipper smirks before shifting into just that. He sticks out his tongue before coming back to his previous form. "I can also be forty if you want."

Henry sighs and Dipper turns his attention to Mabel.

"You thought it was funny, right sis?" He's met with silence again. "Sis?"

Mabel glares at him before going back to the demonology texts before muttering something.

"What?" Dipper asks. "Sorry, didn't hear that."

"Dipper, you don't sound like yourself," she tells him. "You sound…you sound like Bill."

He snorts. "What? Bill?"

"Yeah, and it's creeping me out. I need you to pull yourself together, bro-bro. It's scaring me."

He shakes his head. "Shooting Star, you've gotta be kidding me. I am not—"

He grins fades and he starts floating lower and lower to the ground until he's sitting on the floor. Oh god, he is. He is acting like Bill and he hasn't even noticed.

That power ritual from before was too much. Now he knows what potential power he has, what it feels like. And that part of him he wants to go away likes it. Feeds off of it.

He doesn't like this. He doesn't like this at all.

"I'm sorry," he says. "I didn't mean to—actually, I did. And I'm sorry."

It's quiet for a few minutes before Mabel smiles at him. "It's okay. You're not used to the demon-y stuff. And we gotta find you a name. How do you like Dippzelbub the Perpetual Dork?"

#

Alcor the Dreambender. After eight hours of intense research through demonology and astrology books, they end up with Alcor. The fuller title, because apparently demons need those too, is Alcor, Companion of the Northstar and Manipulator of Nightmares, Sired From the Death of Bael the Coder of Chaos, Former Manipulator of Nightmares, Who Takes Residence In the Dimension Where Nightmares Spawn. That's the title for all of the cult leaders to use, because most of them are pompous assholes anyway and Dipper wants to see them work for it. Anyone who truly knows him will know him as Alcor the Dreambender, nothing more. Except for maybe Dipper, or Sir Dippingsauce. Those are also possibilities.

Now he just has to wait for another Clan of Brun'dash incident to get the word out. If all else fails Grunkle Stan can advertise for him at the. Mystery Shack. For a small, slightly illegal fee, of course.

#

He's helping Grunkle Stan with some jump scare stuff at the Mystery Shack (what? it's fun and Stan doesn't mind getting rid of his mice problem to make sure customers can tell their friends they got scared shitless in the Mystery Shack's Hallway of Horror) when he feels the tug that tells him he's being summoned. It's farther away, past Gravity Falls and maybe even across the country. He can stay, if he wants. After getting summoned by Mabel, Stan, and Henry repeatedly he learned some loopholes (living sacrifices last longer, but items like candy and ice cream do just as well and it means Mabel doesn't have to kill anything), but he figures that he better answer this one. It could be his big break.

When he enters, he covers himself in a dark shroud of shadows. Screaming shadows, to be exact, along with faces of agony and the occasional maniacal laugh.

" ?" he booms. " R, R. E E." He laughs again before peeling off the cloak of shadows in a burst of flame, revealing the fractured obsidian shell underneath as the cracks begins to glow brighter. "I C A N—"

He looks down to see the face of a girl, maybe fifteen or sixteen years old, with tears streaming down her face.

"Wrong," she mutters to herself. "I got it wrong, damn it."

The sound effects subside and finds himself burning on a new, more human skin. "Are you—are you okay?"

She looks up at him. "Please don't hurt me. I didn't mean to make this happen. I just needed to make him go away, and my friend said that this Worganmot guy could help me if I exchanged something." She starts crying again. "But I must've done something wrong because now you're here and please don't kill me I'm sorry I took up your time I just…oh, god." She lets out a ragged breath. "I'm gonna die, aren't I?"

Dipper looks down at the circle below his feet, in the center another dead cat. Less disgusting than last time, but still gross. "You got the runes wrong," he points out. "The tree is my symbol. The other guy has the one for chaos."

The girl puts her face in her hands. "Ugh. I knew it wasn't a pine tree. Damn it. I'm going die because I've got bad drawing skills."

Dipper frowns. "Wait, what? No, no. You aren't going to die."

She sniffles. "I'm not?"

"You think I'm heartless? You made a mistake, I'm not going to punish you for that. 'To err is human' and whatever." He frowns. "So who is he?"

"What?"

"You said you wanted to 'make him go away'. Make who go away?"

"My ex-boyfriend. He keeps sending me all these photos of me in my house or my room and he says we'll be 'together until the end of time' over and over whenever I come in contact with him. I'm fucking scared and I just want him gone."

"How gone?" Dipper inquires. He starts floating up and down the circle, seeing as he can't go anywhere else until the ritual is completed. Otherwise he'll become invisible again. "Like gone-gone or scared-off-gone?"

"Scared off," she tells him. "I could never…I wouldn't want to spend the rest of my life having that with me."

Oh, and it'll be a long one, too. Which each summoning he grows more powerful, and he can see so much more. If he squints, he can see every possible instance of her dying. The one that's got the most going for it is the one where she dies in her sleep in her late eighties, alone in a hospital bed when it happens but mourned by family in the morning. It's a good death.

"Okey-dokey, then," he says. He leans his hand towards the barrier of the circle. "How about you and I make a d—aw, shit." He reaches too far, and his hand turns slightly more see-through than the rest of him. The girl (Daisy, he can see) recoils in shock. "Don't worry, nothing to get all up in arms about." He laughs at his own joke, but she doesn't. "Tough crowd. I need you to throw in that knife if you want to make a deal."

Daisy looks at him with panic. "How can I trust you? You're names not in the text, and you're ademon, for crying out loud. That's 'do not trust' 101."

"Yeah, but I'm a nice demon," he explains. It doesn't faze her. "Look, back when I was alive I got screwed over by supernatural thing in the book. Literally. I'm not going to trick you. Just throw in the knife. All of the blood has to be in the circle for this to work."

Daisy toys with the knife in her hands before sighing and throwing it in. The surge is greater than anything a packet of Skittles or a mouse could get him. He had forgotten how much power a bigger sacrifice got him, no matter how gross.

Dipper lets his feet touch the ground and walk across the barrier. Flames climb up his arms as he rolls his shoulders, suddenly corporeal and achey. He stretches his arms. "Much better. Being an intangible being can get really tiring, y'know?" Daisy's face scrunches up in confusion. "Oh, yeah. Guess you don't. Anyway, what say you and me do a fair trade? I scare off your creepy ex and you give me…like, three months of your life?"

Daisy takes a step back. "You sound unsure."

Dipper shrugs. "Well, okay. I haven't exactly made a deal before. I'm kinda new to the whole scene. But I know the basics from a lot of reading so it shouldn't go wrong?" Daisy takes another step back. "It won't. Trust me, it won't. But that seems like a fair trade, right? I do some cool tricks to make he never comes near you again and I get three months of your life force. Which isn't that much, seeing as you're mostly likely going to live until you're around 87."

Her face lights up. "I am?"

He makes a so-so gesture. "Call it 87 and a month, more or less, if this deal goes through."

Daisy nods, and thinks it over for a couple moments before extending her hand. "You've got a deal."

Dipper grins and shakes her hand. He can feel the life strip away from her, even though it's only a small fraction, and flow into him. With that kind of energy he could will himself corporeal for the next month, at least. He bows his head. "It was nice doing business with you, Daisy."

He disappears in a flash of fire and black brick, and for a few moments Daisy is alone again with a dead animal in her mom's garage. She's going to have to clean that up before she and her boyfriend return from Cabo.

There's pop, and suddenly the demon from before is back, adjusting his suit and fishing through his pocket. "Hey, sorry. Forgot to give you this." He hands her a business card, of all things, that has a long ass title starting with the name 'Alcor' on it in…glitter puff paint? He waves. "Tell your friends I'm open for business. See you around!"

#

Chris Barnes is walking down the street to his house, jingling the keys in his hand, when he sees the eyes. They're yellow and empty and at first he thinks he's still high from this morning when he sees them in the bushes. When they start following him is when he figures he must be really tripping or something is wrong.

He concludes that something is really, really wrong when the eyes show up in front of him.

"Listen," he says. "I'll give you my money, my clothes, anything. I don't want to cause any trouble."

"I think you've caused enough trouble already," the figure says. It moves to step out of the shadows, but the shadows move with it instead. They stick to it, writhing over golden cracks like snakes. "Daisy, for example. I think it's high time you left her alone."

Chris grasps his keys tighter. "No. She's mine, she'll always be mine. You can't take her!"

The figure's face grimaces in exhaustion. "I wasn't planning to. I'm just doing a favor for her. You see, I've had experiences with guys like you and you're just all the same. You never leave the girl alone and don't know the meaning of the word 'no'."

Chris's eyes widen as the figure advances , the shadows growing with each step. "Who are you?"

The figure zooms forward, the shadows peeling off to reveal the Cheshire grin of a kid with strange eyes and black shadow still clinging to his cheeks.

" ." He grabs the man's shirt, almost revels in the fact that he can touch this creep and see the terror on his face in living technicolor. "D O N ' , . U."