Ethereal

11

Dipper had already gotten used to his new legs.

Wobbly and unstable, the preteen made his way around the shack, narrowly avoiding his grunkle and the things that had been thrown onto the floor throughout the summer. Nobody really cleaned up much, all of them either being kids or Grunkle Stan, and that thought made Dipper wish that he had paid more attention to the filth that lay around.

Mabel stumbled along as well, and with the help of Wendy, they found an old rusty wheelbarrow behind the Mystery Shack. They patched up the various holes in the red device with Duck Tape and tossed the still-unconscious Danny inside. Once that was done, the two grabbed piles of buckets and rushed to the lake's edge. It wasn't far, though it did make the two kids tire. Mabel figured that her sore legs didn't matter, seeing how Danny's neck was separating into slits—gills—at an alarming rate.

The sun had broken over the hills and Wendy (who still wasn't happy about helping the fish, mind you) heard the distinct sound of an alarm clock blaring from inside the Fenton's orange tent. Her ears swiveled in that direction as she dumped in the last bucket of water and dunked Danny's head in. His eyes flashed open, the neon green becoming a murky sort of yellow and the pupils slitted. He gasped and water filled his lungs. Mabel saw fangs forming in the teen's mouth, causing her to shiver.

"They'll be outside any minute," Wendy warned, glancing down at Danny. He was looking scarier and scarier by the second, but then again, he was also looking like a potential meal.

"Control yourself, Wendy," Dipper warned. Though he was trying to be commanding, his voice showed that he was scared and uncertain. "We have to get Danny to the lake. He won't last long in that wheelbarrow."

Wendy lifted the wooden handles and Danny stuck his head up, grabbing onto the sides to stop from falling. "Watch it," he grumbled. It seemed he could still handle the human air, though the time he could stay over water was dwindling.

Jazz stepped out of the tent, her hair askew. Stretching her arms, her eyes scanned the area before landing on the misfit group of monsters.

She opened her mouth to scream when Danny raised his head in alarm, silencing her with a simple wave of his hand. She raced over.

"Danny, what the hell? Are you a—no, don't answer that. Did you tell them that you're a—"

"Can we not talk about that right now, Jazz?" Dipper's eyes narrowed as Danny's widened. Jazz quickly got the hint and shut her mouth, waiting for an explanation.

"There was this stream, okay? We all fell in it and now, well—" he gestured to his own body and went under the shallow water to breathe for a second before coming back up.

Jazz looked confused, but she nodded as though she was trying to understand it. Wendy looked her up and down.

"You're taking this surprisingly well," the wolf noted.

Jazz scoffed. "Trust me, I've dealt with equally terrifying things. Do you know how to switch back, Danny?"

"We're going to go get Dipper's nerd journal. It might say something about switching us back in there."

"Hey!" Dipper interjected, his head swiveling around to glare daggers at the merman. "It is not a nerd journal."

"It was a joke. Lighten up, man."

"Don't lighten up me. That journal has gotten me out of countless situations! That journal might just save our lives! That journal—"

Danny's eyes flashed a bright yellow color. "Drop it," he growled under his breath. Dipper stumbled backwards in surprise and tripped over his own feet.

"Danny!" Jazz had a look of confusion, anger, and worry sprawled across her face. The teen's eyes returned to the murky yellow-green color they were before and his cheeks reddened as he slipped back under the water.

"We need to get going," Wendy said. "Fish here is getting worse, and if we don't figure this out now I think he's going to become a full-blown killer."

"Like Dan," Jazz whispered, eyes widening.

"What?"

The teen took a minute to think about what she was going to say. "Danny has this recurring dream that he told me about where an older ghost version of himself comes back to kill our entire family."

"But Danny's not a ghost," Mabel pointed out blatantly.

"But he's still not himself," Dipper said, picking himself off the ground and brushing off his shirt. "You saw how he acted around Wendy. That's not the fun-loving teen we all know."

There was a sudden abrupt stop of sound in the air, causing the teens to look around in confusion. They had gotten so used to the noise, they forgot it was there.

"We better go," Jazz said. "Dad stopped snoring. He's waking up."

"We?" Wendy asked, lifting her lips in a snarl.

"You think I'm going to leave you guys alone with my slightly-evil little brother? I've seen what he can do when he's good, let alone completely devoid of emotion and sympathy.

Danny lifted his head from the water sheepishly. "She's right," he muttered. "I'm dangerous."

Without another word, the five of them ran off into the forest, following the pathway to the lake. Danny looked sick, his head bobbing back and forth. He was sweating.

"God, I just want to—" Wendy's sentence ended in a growl and Dipper practically turned and ran.

"Calm down, Wolf, we're almost there," Mabel muttered. She didn't even look at the struggling teenager, for she was too invested in her nails. Mabel was acting less like herself and more like, well, Pacifica.

"Come on, Wendy," this was from Jazz, who patted the teen on the back. "It looks like all of you are starting to take on the personality of the creature you merged with. You just have to fight it."

"You try waking up in the morning with fangs and a tail," Wendy murmured. Perspiration was beginning to form on her cheeks.

Finally, after what felt like years, they all reached the lake, climbing onto the docks and beginning to tip the wheelbarrow.

"That water is disgusting." Danny grabbed the sides of the wheelbarrow, trying to hang on. "Don't you dare put me in that water."

"Come on, Fish, suck it up."

"What happened to City Boy?" Danny asked. Wendy's eyebrows furrowed.

"Since when did I call you that?"

The merman's eyes widened. "That's not goo—" the sentence was cut off as he slipped and fell into the lake, the moss breaking to form a distinct Danny shape.

"Wendy, what else do you not remember?" Dipper asked. He stared, wide eyed, at the wolf.

"How the hell am I supposed to know what I don't know?" Wendy snarled.

Jazz looked at all of them and then sat down on the decaying dock, training her eyes on the water.

"What are you doing?" Mabel yelled from the grass. She had refused to step hoof on the old dock.

"I'll watch Danny," she stated, looking up with a certain amount of determination in her eyes. "Meanwhile, you guys have got to find that journal."