The zombies were starting to close in on the terrified couple, who were trapped right in the middle of them.
"What do we do, Chadley?" said the woman with a 'scared' voice. "I thought they were dead!"
"Far worse, Trixandra" said Chadley. "They're nearly almost dead but not quite!"
The title of the movie flashed onto the screen:
'Nearly Almost Dead But Not Quite!"
Dipper and Wendy were in her room watching the terribly-done corny horror movie on the TV. They were sitting on Wendy's bed as well, with a bowl of popcorn between them.
"Man" said Dipper, as he and Wendy shoved handfuls of popcorn into their mouths. "These movies are a lot less scary when you've actually fought real zombies."
"They're slow!" Wendy said to the people in the movie. "Just power-walk away from them!"
Dipper grinned, and elbowed Wendy.
"How much do you wanna bet that guy dies first?"
As if on cue, the zombie in the movie suddenly started to eat Chadley.
"Aah, my face is being eaten a lot!" said Chadley, with a 'terrified' voice. He was an absolutely atrocious actor.
Dipper and Wendy started laughing at the poor acting of Chadley's death.
"Chadley ain't pretty no more" said Wendy.
Suddenly, her cell phone started buzzing.
"One second" she said to Dipper as she pulled out her cell phone from her pocket and flipped it open. She groaned.
"Another text from Robbie" she said with annoyance.
Dipper started to laugh nervously.
"Ha ha, oh yeah, Robbie. How's, uh, how's that going?"
Dipper awkwardly shoved a handful of popcorn into his mouth.
Wendy groaned.
"I'm over him, I just with that he was over me" she said, holding her phone out for Dipper to see. "Just look at these texts."
Apparently, Robbie had sent her a ;( symbol.
"Winky frown? What does that even mean?" said Wendy in annoyance.
"And you're not..." said Dipper, coughing awkwardly. "...Seeing any other guys, or..."
Wendy turned to face him, and put her cell phone down.
"Of course I am" she said. "Meet my new boyfriend, dude."
She reached out and put her arm around a walrus stuffed animal, pulling it towards her for Dipper to see.
The stuffed animal squeaked as she squeezed it.
Dipper laughed nervously.
"Right, right..." he said, as he started to scratch the back of his head anxiously. "...so I was wondering if, like, maybe, you wanted to..."
Dipper started to drum his fingers against his knees nervously.
"I mean, if you wanted to...if you and me whatever...or...if maybe you..."
Wendy chewed a mouthful of popcorn as she waited for Dipper to finally make his point. By now, she was quite used to the way he talked.
Dipper closed his eyes anxiously, holding his breath, before finally exhaling and chickening out from what he was originally going to ask her.
"...wanted to join me, Mara, and Mabel on this mystery hunt later" he said with a disappointed tone for mostly himself. "You know, conspiracy stuff and all that. That's all."
Wendy, however, seemed to be excited about the invitation.
"Yeah, dude" she said cheerfully. "I love doing junk with friends."
A zombie was starting to attack the people again in the movie.
"Yo, Chadley, watch out!" Wendy called to the TV, and she started laughing.
Dipper was laughing nervously along with her.
"Cause that's what we are..." he said sadly, taking out a piece of paper from his vest pocket and opening it for him to see.
It was a confession that Mara had written for Dipper to help him finally tell Wendy his feelings for her.
Flashback:
Dipper stood nervously in front of the shed door, taking a deep breath before turning towards the door again, and knocking firmly against the wood three times.
About a minute later, Mara opened the door.
"Dipper!" she said, her voice sounding a bit frantic, like he had caught her off guard. "What an unexpected surprise...seriously, what are you doing here?"
Dipper sighed.
"It's Wendy" he said. "I think my feelings for her are starting to surface. They've been consuming me a lot lately, and I can't get it off my chest."
For a moment, Mara stared at him awkwardly, as if she had no idea what to do. Dipper wouldn't have been that surprised at all if that was the case.
"...Let's bring this conversation inside" she said, opening the door wider for him to come in.
Dipper stepped into the dimly lit shed, and Mara closed the door behind him, locking it as well.
She then turned around to face her brother.
"Look, Dipper, you know I'm not the most ideal person to go to with these kinds of problems" she said.
He sighed.
"Yes, I'm aware of that."
"I would mark this as a 'Mabel-go-to' kind of problem" she said.
"No!" said Dipper. "If I told Mabel about this, she'd tease me! And when she'd finally stop, she'd push me right into Wendy and force a confession."
"True" said Mara. "So, what exactly are you asking of me?"
"I just want some advice" said Dipper. "I need help. My head hurts, I can't sleep at night... I don't know to do! I'm not sure if I should write my feelings in a journal, or try and flirt with Wendy..."
"First off, don't write it in a journal" said Mara. "Someone's just gonna find it and start reading all your secrets."
Dipper thought back to how he had found Journal #3 in the woods, and how he was now learning all of its secrets. She was right, of course.
"And secondly, do not flirt with Wendy. You are absolutely the worst at it."
Dipper couldn't help but feel a bit offended by her assessment of him.
"What are you, some kind of love goddess?"
"I'm just an inventor who you came to for help about love" pointed out Mara.
Dipper sighed. This was probably a waste of his time.
"I could create a love-ray that makes whoever you hit with it fall in love with you, or something" she suggested. "Although granted, I will have to destroy it afterwards to eliminate the possibility of it somehow falling into Nathaniel's hands."
Dipper chuckled.
"I think I'll pass."
"Good, because I wasn't planning on wasting my time making something as stupid as that anyways" said Mara.
Dipper couldn't help but laugh at his sister's upfront open-mindedness.
"But seriously, what should I do?" he said suddenly said. "My feelings for Wendy are starting to weigh me down. I haven't slept for the past two nights!"
Mara frowned.
"Then I think it's about time you gathered up your courage and finally tell her" she said. "Look at yourself, you can't live like this forever! Besides, you'll probably feel much better after you finally get that weight off your chest."
"Yeah, you're right!" said Dipper, a feeling of inspiration suddenly passing over him. "I'll admit my love for her just like I do every morning in the bathroom! In fact, I'll go tell her right now!"
He was about to walk out the door, when suddenly the crushing fear and dread suddenly passed over him, replacing all feelings of confidence.
He turned around back towards Mara and started to laugh nervously.
Mara sighed, and pulled out a piece of paper with a pen.
"I'll write you a confession script for you to say to Wendy" she said, as she spun her desk and started to look it up on her laptop, since the internet was probably better at writing confessions than she was.
"Thank you so much, Mara!" said Dipper, as he sighed in relief. "You're a lifesaver...just, please don't tell Mabel, ok?"
Mara chuckled, and rolled her eyes.
"Ok."
She finished copying the words that were on the computer screen onto the piece of paper, and then handed it to her brother.
He grabbed it from her and then ran towards the shed door.
"Thanks, Mara! I knew my secret would be safe with you!"
And with that, he closed the door to the shed and ran off.
When he was finally gone, Mara hurried over towards the tool wall, lifted up a scrap of metal on it, and pressed her hand against the hand-scanner.
The floor dropped beneath her and she dropped through the secret elevator tube, landing softly on the bottom as the fan under the floor finally came on.
The elevator doors slid open, and Mara stepped back into her secret underground lab.
She couldn't help but chuckle when she replayed Dipper's words back in her head.
"Oh, Dipper, you have no idea" she said.
Dipper sighed, ashamed by his lack of boldness, before crushing the paper in his hand and putting it back into his vest.
"That's all we'll ever be."
Dipper definitely fell back into Wendy's bed, and for a moment he just laid there dejectedly on his back.
"Friends."
"Dude, you're laying on my bra" said Wendy.
Dipper immediately sat upright, and saw that she was right.
He screamed in horror.
"Aaaaaaahhhhhhhh!"
"Hey, easy with that!" Stan yelled at the construction workers as they pulled the totem pole back up into place. "It's genuine plastic!"
He had hired the construction workers to clean up the damage that the zombies had caused just last night, though he had refrained from telling them how the Mystery Shack had gotten so damaged.
"And repave the cracks in the parking lot while you're at it" added Stan, as he gestured towards a huge crack in the ground in front of him. "I don't want my car falling into China."
"Mr. Pines?" asked the head construction worker, holding up a clipboard as he made his way up to Stan. "What exactly caused all this damage? I need to write a report."
"Uh, big woodpecker" Stan lied, as the Gift Shop sign fell off the building. Stan then held up a wad of cash out to him.
"Keep the change" he said, as he placed the bills into the man's vest pocket.
"I'm winking under my eyepatch" said Stan, as he pointed to his eyepatch over one of his glasses lenses.
"Works for me" said the construction worker, as he walked away from him.
Stan lifted up his eyepatch, and started to look around.
"Now where did those kids run off to?"
Dipper walked up to the designated spot where he had told everyone to meet: the tree with the old radio in it where he had found the journal on the very first day of Summer.
He held up a lantern, and then tapped against it using a pen to get their attention.
"Thank you all for coming" he said, addressing Mabel, Mara, and Soos.
"Hey, when you're facing any problems at all, I'm the man you need to call" said Mara, rhyming her statement. "Or, girl" she corrected.
"Ooh, are we coming up with rhyme-y catchphrases?" asked Mabel cheerfully. "When there's a mystery, you can count on your sister...y" she said awkwardly, pointing to the light bulb design on her sweater.
Soos chuckled.
"Those are amazing rhymes" he said, as he tried to come up with one of his own. "When you want something good...you need a Soos! You...oh gosh, I don't know" he said, finally giving up.
Dipper put his lantern down.
"We're here to solve the number one mystery in Gravity Falls" he said, as he reached into his vest and brought out Journal #3. "Who wrote this journal? Thirty years ago, the author vanished without a trace" he continued, opening the journal to show them the 'Property of _______' page.
He then flipped through the book a couple of pages, then held up a black light.
"But according to this new clue, we may have found his secret hiding place" said Dipper, shining the black light onto the page with a picture of a tree on it. The black light revealed a secret staircase drawn around the truck leading to a secret underground room.
"We find that author, we learn the answers to everything" Dipper concluded, as he walked up next to the others. "We just need to figure out a way to get down there."
"Chop it down, dudes" said a new voice.
The triplets turned to see their redheaded friend, who had ridden a bike there.
"Wendy!" said Mabel.
"Glad you could make it!" said Mara.
"Oh, hey!" said Dipper eagerly. "You came!"
"Of course I did" said Wendy excitedly, as she took off her helmet and stepped off her bike. "I'm so stoked about this" she continued, putting on her usual lumberjack hat. "I've been wanting to go adventuring with you guys. Sure beats picking up after my dad at home. Thanks for the invite, man."
Wendy started to run towards the tree that Dipper had been talking about.
"Of course!" said Dipper, a little too eagerly. "Any time you wanna...we're always...ha ha...us" he said, laughing nervously between his awkward phrases.
"Uh oh!" chimed Mabel, as she turned her brother around. "Inviting Wendy on our missions? Me thinks there's romance afoot!"
"No" said Dipper. "Look, Mabel, I've thought this through and I'm over Wendy. I've looked at it from every angle, and that thing was going nowhere. I know what matters to me now, and it's finding the author of this journal."
Mabel laughed in disbelief.
"You're over Wendy?" she said. "Allow me to put on my skepticals."
She put her fingers over her eyes to form a pair of glasses.
Dipper frowned at her.
"I've moved on, Mabel, you should too" he said, as he walked right past her.
Mara walked up to him after he left Mabel.
"So how did it really go?" she asked, implying about his confession to Wendy.
Dipper sighed.
"I tried to be bold, I really did, Mara" he said. "It's just that...I couldn't...she was staring at me...and I, uh, I..."
"You chickened out and then proceeded to invite her on this quest, didn't you?" said Mara.
Dipper sighed and hung his head in shame.
"Bingo."
"Hey" said Mara, putting an arm around her brother. "Don't worry. We've just gotta build up that confidence. I'm sure that facing whatever terrible dangers are down there will surely boost your confidence enough to finally confess to Wendy."
Dipper smiled at her.
"Thanks, Mara. And thank you for agreeing not to tell Mabel about this" he said, knowing that she usually told Mabel pretty much everything. "How could I ever repay you for your secrecy?"
Mara smirked.
"Twenty bucks would do just nicely" she said.
Dipper lightly punched her arm as she chuckled.
He then walked up towards Wendy, who was examining the tree with a contemplating expression.
"Hey, is it just me, or does that branch kind of look like a lever?" said Wendy, pointing up at a high branch on the tree.
The branch's end looked pretty normal, but it looked like it had been painted, for there was shining metal that was revealed at the branch's base.
"Huh, yeah" said Dipper, as he turned around and started to think of ways to pull the lever. "But how do we get up there?" he asked himself.
As he was thinking out loud, Wendy pulled her belt off and wrapped it around the trunk. She then grabbed both ends of the belt, and then started to use it to climb the tree, pulling the belt up the branch a few feet, then climbing and repeating the process all over again.
"...Seems like we need like a ladder or ladder shoes...Mara, how much time do you think it would take you to make those?"
"Um, I don't think that that would be necessary" said Mara, as she looked up at the tree. She pointed upwards. "Look."
The gang looked in the direction that she was pointing to see that Wendy had already climbed all the way up the trunk and had reached the lever branch. She pulled out her axe, and then used it to push the lever upwards.
"Boosh!" she said.
The four of them admired her work from below, clearly impressed with her skills.
"Oh yeah" said Wendy, as she put her axe away. "My dad used to make me compete in these lumberjack games as a kid, guess I kind of ruled at it."
Suddenly, the tree started to rumble, and Wendy's body tensed.
"Whoa, whoa, what is that?" she said, her voice slightly edged with panic.
Suddenly, the belt gave way, and she fell all the way to the ground, but fortunately, she landed in a bush that softened her fall.
However, the bush seemed to be lowering into the ground as the secret entrance to the hideout was starting to open up.
Soos grabbed Wendy's arms and managed to pull her off the bush just in time though.
The five of them then looked down to see the circular ground around the tree trunk lowering further and further into the ground, and once it stopped, individual planks started to shoot out from the sides of the new hole, forming a staircase that spiraled downward into the depths below.
When the stairs stopped forming, a secret door slid open at the base of the trunk, which was now at the bottom of the new pit.
"Alright, guys, this it is" said Dipper excitedly. "Remember, whatever happens down there, we tell no one."
Mabel gave him a thumbs up.
Mara nodded.
Soos turned his hat backwards.
Wendy zipped her lips closed in a unique gesture.
Dipper grinned and held up the lantern.
"Now who wants to go first?"
Dipper ended up going first, with Wendy second, Mara third, Soos fourth, and Mabel last. Dipper held out the lantern in front of him to light up the dark pit as the five of them cautiously walked down the spiral stairs.
They then walked up to the open door at the base of the tree trunk.
They all stared in awe.
"Dude" said Soos.
"This is so stupid cool!" said Wendy.
It looked like a small, secret military base. It was very dark, and there was a table, a few shelves, a pipe with a barrel underneath it, and a cabinet labelled "weapons."
"It's like a fallout shelter or something" said Dipper, as the five of them walked further into the new room.
"Must have belonged to the author."
Wendy walked up to a metal poster labelled "Warning: Fallout Shelter," and pulled it off the wall.
"This is going over my bed" she said.
Mabel stuck her head into the barrel, and when she pulled it back up her face was covered in caterpillars.
She laughed.
"My face feels fuzzy!"
"This is incredible!" said Dipper, as he examined the shelves, which were filled with boxes that were labelled with future dates. "It's like he was preparing for a disaster. But what kind of disaster would require supplies for over sixty years?"
Soos opened the cabinet labelled "weapons," and found that it as full of old weapons: maces, axes, and knives.
"Oh my gosh...a Smez Dispenser! I remember these things!" he said, reaching further into the cabinet and bringing out the toy.
He then held the toy up to his ear.
"What's that? Yes, I will have some of your old timey face food!"
He flipped the head of the toy, which dispensed a pink piece of candy, and he stuck it into his mouth. He choked.
"Ew...dusty."
He then stuck another piece of dusty candy into his mouth.
"Whoa" said Mara, walking up to the open weapons cabinet, as Soos walked away from it eating more candy.
"The author had enough TNT to blow up the entire town!" she said, mainly looking at the entire shelf full of dynamite in the cabinet. She looked around to see if anyone was watching, then pocketed a box of TNT.
"Wait, guys!" said Dipper, as he bent downward and picked up an empty can of beans off the ground. "I think this can was opened recently."
He tipped the can upside down, and green slime started to spill out of it.
"The author might still be alive, down here!" said Soos.
"Psh" said Mara. "It's been three decades since the author disappeared! You do realize that if that really is the case, then the author has to be really old...like Stan."
Mabel chuckled.
Then, Wendy noticed something else.
"Wait a minute" she said, gesturing towards a map of Gravity Falls that was hanging on the wall. She walked over to it, and ripped it clean off the wall, revealing a secret hatch that was labelled 'Caution: Stay out.'
It was slightly ajar.
Wendy swung the hatch so that it was fully open, revealing a small tunnel behind it.
She smirked.
"I think I know where he might have gone" she said.
"Whoa!" said everyone else.
Soon enough, all five of them were crawling through the tunnel, with Wendy in the lead, followed by Soos, then Dipper, then Mara, and last Mabel.
Wendy finally reached the end of it, and she climbed out, followed by the rest of them.
The tunnel had spit them out into a small, square-shaped room that had a huge grid running all around the room, even on the floor. On some of the squares of the rusted grid were strange symbols.
"Whoa" said Wendy. "Was this place built in the past or the future?"
"This looks like some kind of puzzle" said Mara. "Maybe if we press the symbols in the right order or something, we can unlock it!"
"Yeah, this room is way creepy" said Soos.
Mabel grinned.
"Not as creepy as Dipper's internet history!" she said. "Hey-o!"
She shoved him forward, and Dipper accidentally stepped on one of the symbols on the floor.
Suddenly, the hatch that was the only exit out swung shut and locked by itself.
Then, all of the symbols that were on the walls, ceiling, and floor started to glow red.
Suddenly, the room started to rapidly close in, the blocks from each of the boxes in the grid starting to slide outwards in a seemingly random order.
The five of them were backed up into the center, and they screamed in terror.
But Mabel started laughing.
"It's hard to be scared with caterpillars on your face."
The five of them screamed.
"Wall things! Crazy wall things happening right now!" said Mabel.
Wendy tried to push against one of the block to try and force them back into the walls, but it was too strong.
"It won't stop!" she called.
Soos and Mabel were pushing against some blocks too, but it was no use.
"Ok, everyone, step away from the walls!" yelled Mara. "I've got an idea."
Everyone obliged, and Mara started to fumble with her toolbelt, until she pulled out the slow-motion device.
She pressed the button on the end, and the red slow-motion beam was shot out the end of it. She started to fire it all around, hitting all of the blocks that were closing in on them, until their speed was greatly slowed down.
Granted, they were still closing in, but their rate had been slowed down by quite a lot.
Mara then turned towards Dipper.
"Ok, that should buy us about two minutes max. Dipper, is there something in that journal about escaping this room?"
Dipper started to hurriedly flip through the pages in the book as a rising block was slowly raising him up into the air.
He finally found the page labelled 'security room,' and then shone the black light onto the page.
He turned the book around, and showed the others the five hidden symbols on the page.
"Find these five symbols!" he said. "Everybody step on one!"
Soos looked over and found one of the symbols on a block that was rising from the ground next to him. He pushed it, and it glowed a blue color.
"One!"
Wendy jumped off from a rising block, and pressed another symbol on the floor.
It glowed blue.
"Two!"
Mabel jumped onto a rising block, and leapt right towards a symbol on a wall. She pressed it, and it glowed blue.
"Three!"
Mara caught sight of one on the ceiling, and she ran up to a block that was moving out from the wall, jumped off of it, and used the new energy to spring herself up at the ceiling. She nailed the symbol on the top, and it glowed blue.
"Four!"
She did a somersault on the ground to soften her landing.
Dipper was looking around for the last one, when it caught his eye: it was on the ceiling in the corner.
He jumped onto rising blocks on the ground, using them as stairs, until he reached the symbol. He pressed it just before it was covered up by another block. It glowed blue.
"Five!"
Suddenly, another door on the end of the room was unlocked, and it swung open for them.
However, the blocks didn't seem to be stopping, and the effects of the slow-motion ray were starting to wear off.
Mabel pointed towards the door.
"Run for it!" she screamed.
There was no hesitation as the five of them hurried towards the door, running as fast as they could until they leapt right through the door.
Dipper was the last to get through, for he wanted to make sure that everyone else made it, and so when the blocks finally closed completely, his vest actually got caught between them. He managed to get himself free, however, by pulling himself out of his vest.
Everyone started to cheer in relief, and Wendy high fived Soos excitedly.
"That was...that was nuts!" said Wendy between exhilarated breaths. She then turned towards Dipper, and punched his arm.
"You ruled back there, man!"
Dipper laughed nervously, and rubbed his arm.
"Thanks."
"Get a load of this crazy surveillance room" said Wendy, as she started to examine the new room for the first time.
"Check it out, dudes!" said Soos, picking up two glass beakers and holding them out in front of his eyes. He started to use them to make funny faces, opening his mouth and sticking out his tongue.
"Soos, Soos" said Wendy. "That is hilarious!"
"It's great and all that we escaped" said Mara. "But where exactly are we? And how in the heck are we supposed to get back up?"
Dipper shrugged helplessly.
"I guess that we'll have to play it by ear" he said carelessly.
Mara smirked.
"You've been hanging around Wendy too much" she said, lightly shoving her brother.
Mabel noticed Dipper's vest hanging between the blocks.
"Bro, you forgot your vest" she said, humming to herself as she made her way over to her brother's vest. She managed to pull it free, but a yellow note came tumbling out of the vest pocket.
"What the..."
She bent down and picked it up, reading the words that were written in what looked like Mara's handwriting.
"Dear Wendy, I've always had a crush on..."
She gasped dramatically, and then slapped the note over her mouth excitedly.
"Oh my gosh!" she squealed, as she started to look at her brother.
She hurriedly made her way up to him, and handed him the vest.
"Hey, Dipper!" she chimed, holding up the confession note. "Look what I found!"
Dipper's eyes widened.
"What are you...give me that!"
He snatched the note out of her hands, and shoved it back into his vest.
"I knew it I knew it I knew it!" squealed Mabel. "You're not over Wendy at all!"
Suddenly, a frown crossed her face.
She held up the note to Dipper's face, and showed him Mara's handwriting scribbled all across it.
"And you told Mara, but not me?"
"I know, right?" said Mara. "Go for help to the girl who deals with crushes and stuff like that on a regular basis, or go to the girl who spends most of her time holed up in a lab or outdoors alone? Dipper chooses the latter."
"Look, Mara wouldn't, like, shove me and Wendy into a closet or something and force me to confess!" said Dipper.
Mabel suddenly gasped excitedly, her mind moving so fast that she couldn't stay upset for too long.
"And you were going to tell her today?"
"No, I changed my mind" said Dipper. "It's a bad idea. I'd just embarrass myself and then I'd be another guy she hates like Robbie."
"I wouldn't go that far" said Mara. "I mean, it's not like you flat out lied to her like Robbie did."
"Yeah, Dipper, you should just tell her already!" insisted Mabel. "One way or another you'll feel better afterwards."
"Look, Mabel, I can't tell her no matter how much I want to, so just drop it, ok?"
"Hey, Dipper!" Wendy called, and the triplets turned around towards her. "You've gotta check out this weird metal closet!" she said, stepping into the closet as Soos was spinning around in a wheely chair.
"I am a robot. I have a metal closet" she said in a robot voice.
"Coming!" Dipper called back.
He then turned towards Mabel.
"This never happened" he said with a serious tone, as he started to hurry off towards Wendy.
But Mabel had a weird expression on her face that was staring at her brother, that was a combination of an angry glare and a crazed countenance that looked kind of like Mr. Poolcheck.
Mara instantly recognized her sister's thinking face.
"I know that face when I see it, Mabel" she said to her sister, shooting her a suspicious glance. "What exactly are you thinking?"
'He wants to tell her, but he's scared' Mabel thought. 'Maybe he needs a little push? Great idea, Mabel. Thanks, Mabel.'
Mabel then turned towards her sister.
"Oh you know...girly things that you'd never understand..."
Mara raised her eyebrow at her sister, a gesture that told Mabel that Mara wasn't buying it.
Mabel then frantically pointed behind her sister.
"Look! Another weapons cabinet that's probably filled with dynamite!"
Mara turned around excitedly.
"Really?"
While she was distracted, Mabel hurried over towards her brother, and put an arm around his shoulder as he started to walk towards the closet that Wendy was already in.
"Dipper, I just want you to know, that no matter what happens...this is for your own good."
"What?"
Mabel shoved him into the closet with Wendy, and slammed the door behind them, locking it the instant it was closed.
Mara turned when she realized that it was a trick, and found Mabel leaning against the locked closet door.
"Mabel!" she scolded, walking up to her sister. "What did you do?"
Locked behind the closet door, Dipper looked up at Wendy and yelped, then got back up onto his feet and started to pound on the door.
"Mabel, let us out!"
"Oh, I'll let you out, Dipper" said Mabel. "As soon as you tell Wendy that thing that you wanted to tell her! You'll thank me for this later!"
"This is exactly why I told Mara and not you!" Dipper yelled back.
"What is she talking about?" Wendy asked.
"Nothing!" said Dipper. "Mabel's just been eating raw sugar packets again."
On the other side of the door, Mabel was gnawing on a packet of sugar.
"That's beside the point!"
"Mabel, open this door!" said Mara.
"No, Mara, he needs this!" insisted Mabel.
"Mabel, what he needs is time. These things take time, you can't just rush them!"
"You think that you know more about love than me?" asked Mabel calmly.
Mara's anger melted away when she realized her sister was right. She herself had been questioning Dipper's thoughts about telling her instead of Mabel before anyways.
She then stepped back, showing Mabel that she was trusting her.
Meanwhile, Dipper was pounding against the door.
"Let me out right now!" he yelled.
Wendy noticed a cord that was hanging from the ceiling that looked like the cord to a lamp.
"Ugh, where are the lights?" she said, as she pulled the cord.
Unfortunately, the cord did not turn on any lights. Instead, a shower was turned on, and suddenly Dipper and Wendy were being soaked as they screamed.
When the shower went off, a blast of hot air from all sides suddenly pushed them together, drying them instantly.
Suddenly, red lights started flashing and something beeped, and the two of them looked up to see a flashing message:
"Decontamination Complete."
The message then stopped, and suddenly a set of doors slid open from the back of the closet, revealing a more lab-like room with capsules, pipes, and a broken control panel.
Wendy and Dipper walked into the strange room, fascination etched across Dipper's face.
"Whoa, a hidden lab" he said, as he glanced at the shattered capsule in the middle of the room. "Maybe the author did experiments down here."
Wendy was more concerned with the tunnels that were dug into the walls all around.
"Huh, who do you think dug all these tunnels?" she asked.
"Let's hope we don't find out" said Dipper.
Suddenly, something started to growl, and the two of them yelped in shock as the silhouette of a huge, spider-like creature was starting to appear in one of the tunnels.
They both screamed, and then ran back to the closet, desperately pounding on the locked door.
"MABEL!" screamed Dipper. "Open up for real! THERE'S A MONSTER IN HERE!!!"
"Ha! Nice try" said Mabel. "The only monsters are your own inner demons, Dipper!"
"That is so wise" said Soos.
"But Mabel, what if there really is a monster in there" Mara said. "We all knew that there was a pretty high chance of us running into one of those. I think I'd rather secure Dipper and Wendy's safety and end the forced confession than risk them getting eaten by a monster."
"Psh, Mara, you're so gullible!" said Mabel. "He's just making that up so that we'll let him out."
The monster was starting to get closer to the tunnel exit.
"Dipper!" said Wendy frantically. "Just say whatever Mabel wants you to say so she'll let us out of here!"
"Come on, Dipper, now's the time, bro!" said Mabel from the other side.
Wendy looked at him with a pressuring gaze.
"Wendy, I..." said Dipper, pausing with anxiety. "...I..."
Wendy was still staring at him.
Dipper gave into his fear of Wendy's reaction.
He grabbed her hand and started to run away from the closet door.
"...I'm gonna find another way out!"
"Wait, what? Dude, where are we going?" she said with a worried voice as Dipper pulled her away further into the room.
They could hear the monster coming after them.
Mara had her ear pressed up against the door, and she had heard what Dipper had said.
Her suspicions of there being an actual monster behind that door were confirmed.
"I'm going in there" she said determinedly.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa! Hold it, sister!" said Mabel, stepping in front of the door and blocking the entrance. "You're not really falling for it, are you? I mean, a monster in the closet? What other lame excuse can he come up with?"
Mara glared at her, and pulled out the intangibility belt, snapping it around her upper waist, and turning it on. Without a word, she marched right through Mabel and then walked through the locked door.
On the other side, she saw the secret lab, and she was instantly reminded of her own lab, though granted hers was more well-lit and futuristic, and wasn't filled with broken things.
There was no monster in sight, or Wendy and Dipper for that matter, but she could hear their screams and the roar of a monster coming from one of the tunnels.
She turned off the intangibility belt, but kept it on her just in case, then ran into the tunnel where the screaming was coming from.
Dipper and Wendy were now running through one of the tunnels, and they could hear the monster coming behind them.
None of them even bothered to turn around, for they were mostly focused and trying to run away from it.
Unfortunately, they ran right into what they were dreading for the most: a dead end.
The monster was getting closer.
Dipper and Wendy pressed themselves up against the dirt wall dead end, and panted in fear, waiting for the worst to come.
"What do we do?" exclaimed Wendy.
"I don't know!" yelled Dipper.
They could see the monster's shadow appear, and it roared ferociously, until the shadow of a man leapt up onto the monster's back.
The monster only leaned forward and the man fell onto the ground, but as the monster opened his mouth to eat the man, he reached out into its mouth and pulled out its tongue. The monster roared in pain, and its shadow disappeared.
"Back!" yelled the man. "Back, you heinous beast!"
The man then walked towards Dipper and Wendy, finally coming into their view.
He was an old, but slender man, wearing a red v-neck shirt, gloves, and a brown trench coat. The man had grey hair with a grey mustache, and goggles that were covering his eyes.
"Well, I just ripped out a monster's tongue" he said, throwing the tongue onto the ground in front of Wendy and Dipper.
They gasped in shock and disgust.
Dipper looked back up at the man.
"It's...it's you!" he said in amazement.
The man turned around and started to run out of the tunnel. He gestured for them to follow.
"Hurry, now" he said. "I scared it off, but it will regenerate."
Dipper and Wendy didn't hesitate to follow him.
"I wasn't expecting guests" said the man as the three of them were trudging through water. "I've been down here for a very long time."
He then turned towards them.
"Years, weeks maybe. I miss orange juice."
"You don't understand!" said Dipper. "You're the guy we've been looking for!"
"He's the guy?" said Wendy.
"Wendy, it's the guy!" said Dipper, and the two of them looked at each other with excited faces.
"The guy?" said the man in confusion.
Dipper started to pace excitedly.
"I've got, like, a jillion questions!" he said. "Why did you write the journals? Who came after you? Why did you build this bunker?"
The man chuckled, and put a hand on Dipper's shoulder.
"My boy, I'd love to discuss this one time, but we have more pressing matters" he said, taking his hand off his shoulder and turning around.
Dipper grinned.
"It's one of my experiments" the man continued. "The shapeshifter. Able to take the form of anyone or anything it sees" he explained to them as he led them back to the lab. He showed them a cage with broken bars. "It broke free from a cage of solid steel!" he said. "I've gone half crazy trying to catch the creature alone. But now you're here."
He turned around, and bent down to Dipper's level. He put a hand on the boy's shoulder, and finally took off his goggles, placing them on his head.
"Will you help me catch it?" he asked.
Dipper's eyes went wide with excitement.
Mara was now wandering through the tunnel, trying to find Wendy and Dipper. They had stopped screaming, which was making the process of finding them much more difficult.
And the thought of their screamed stopping because the monster had eaten them was proving to be overwhelming.
Mara shook the thought off, and continued her search, looking for any sign of the monster or Dipper and Wendy.
"Ugh, this is impossible!" Mara said aloud in frustration. "These tunnels seem to stretch on for miles. I'll never find them in this secret underground lab!"
It was then that she suddenly got an idea.
"Wait, secret underground lab! That's it!"
Mara started to run back in the direction where she had come from, finally reaching the main lab, where she had first come to from the closet.
It didn't take long for her to find the security system, complete with the cameras and footage, just like how her own secret lab had one.
Mara looked up at the much older screen, and looked at the footages of the cameras, which were only covering the main lab, and other, deeper, sections of it that the tunnels probably led to.
There was nothing.
Mara started to dread the worst, but she quickly got a hold of herself.
"Ok" she said, typing in commands into the control panel. "Let's take the footage back a few minutes..."
The footage started to play back, going backwards, until something caught Mara's eye.
She immediately stopped rewinding, and played it forwards at its normal speed.
There was a beige colored, but slightly transparent, monster that was walking around the lab, with pink eyes and two sharp teeth.
"The monster" she murmured.
Suddenly, there was the sound of people screaming that Mara instantly recognized as Dipper and Wendy's. The monster looked up in the direction where the screaming was coming from.
Then it picked up an empty can of beans and then examine the picture of the man on it. Suddenly, it morphed into a man with a brown trench coat and goggles, identical to the image of the man on the can of beans.
The man smirked, and then ran off into one of the tunnels, where the screaming was echoing off from.
Mara gasped.
This was an intelligent monster, and it had changed itself to a more helpless human form obviously with the purpose of deceiving Dipper and Wendy rather than directly attacking them. Who knew what it wanted from them.
"I...I've gotta warn them! But I have to find them first."
And with that, she ran off towards the tunnel that she had seen the shapeshifting monster in the security footage enter, hand on her toolbelt readying herself to pull out a weapon.
Meanwhile, Mabel and Soos were still hanging out in the room before the closet, waiting for Dipper's confession.
Soos slipped on a lab coat that was laying on a chair.
"They sure are taking their time in there" he said.
Suddenly, Soos caught sight of a grey briefcase that was sitting on top of one of the control panels. He picked it up by the handle, and then looked at Mabel.
"Hey, do I look smarter with this coat and briefcase?" he asked her. "I feel like I look smarter."
Suddenly, Mabel gasped.
She ran over towards another control panel, for something there had caught her eye.
"Razzle dazzle!" she said, pointing towards the footage of a single security camera, which was of what looked like several capsules.
"Look at this tubey thing!" she exclaimed, pressing a red button that was on the panel.
Suddenly, the capsules all started to glow light blue as they froze on the inside.
"Frozen" said Mabel cheerfully.
She then pressed the button again, and the capsules went off back to normal.
"Unfrozen."
She pressed the button several more times.
"Frozen, unfrozen."
Just then, a clipboard with some writing on it caught her eye.
"Hey, what's this?" she said, as she started to read the writing on it aloud.
"Experiment #210, 'the shape shifter,' became too dangerous!"
"Shape shifter?" said Soos. "Uh, dude? Didn't Dipper say there was a monster in there with them?"
Mabel gasped as the realization of her misjudgement finally hit her.
"I thought he was just joking!" she said.
"YOU KNOW DIPPER'S JOKES ARE TERRIBLE!" Soos yelled.
The two of them looked back at the locked door that Dipper and Wendy had been behind.
"Don't worry, dude" said Soos. "Mara went after him. Chances are, she's already caught the monster, and saved Dipper and Wendy...right?"
"If that were the case, then she should have been back by now!" said Mabel, her voice soaked in worry now for both of her siblings.
They turned back towards the closet door.
"DIPPER! Mara!" Mabel screamed.
The man led Dipper and Wendy to a tunnel, which had an entrance covered by a cloth.
"Come in! Come in" said the man, as Dipper and Wendy followed after him. "I apologize for the state of things..."
While he was talking, Wendy was examining a pipe with a wheeled handle that was labelled 'H2O.' She then followed after the boys, not wanting to get left behind.
"...I don't get any non-mole people visitors. Now the beast must have some weakness that we can exploit!" said the man, finally stopping his walk. "I used to have my research on him, but alas! I lost my journal so many years ago."
Dipper and Wendy exchanged a look.
"Did you say, journals?" asked Wendy.
"Dude, I found one of them!" said Dipper eagerly, not able to contain his excitement. "That's how I tracked you down here!"
He pulled out Journal #3 from his vest, and held it out to the man.
"What?" exclaimed the man in surprise, leaning closer to examine the journal. "Could it be?"
The man then took the journal from Dipper's hands eagerly, and ran a hand through his grey hair.
"My boy, I can't express my gratitude!"
He turned around, and started to flip through the pages.
"Oh, yes, after all these years..."
Mabel and Soos ran right into the hidden laboratory from the closet door, frantically searching for their friends.
"Wendy?" Soos called out. "Oh man, it's so dark! How will we ever find them?"
"Leave that to Mabel" said Mabel, as she pointed her index finger, and used it to press the light bulb on her sweater.
Suddenly, the lightbulb started to glow brightly right on her sweater, lighting up the entire room.
"Whoa, rad!" said Soos. "Although, isn't electric clothing like a fire hazard?"
"No. It's a fun hazard" said Mabel. "Now let me light the way!"
And with that, the two of them headed off into the nearest tunnel, with Mabel in the lead.
"We're coming for you, dudes!" called out Soos.
Mara had just finished traipsing through the murky water, and she was shaking out the water in her soaked combat boots, when she suddenly came across a cloth hung over the end of the tunnel.
She carefully peeked behind it, and saw Dipper and Wendy sitting next to each other on the ground, and the man whom she instantly recognized as the shapeshifter, reading the journal.
Mara sighed in frustration.
Of course, Dipper had mistaken the man as the author, and had literally given him the journal. Now what was she going to do?
Mara made a choice rather quickly, deciding to take things one step at a time, first making it her top priority to save Dipper and Wendy, and then worry about getting the journal back. Was that book really necessary?
Very slowly, she crept out from behind the makeshift curtain, and very quietly made her way over to Dipper and Wendy, who were talking excitedly amongst themselves as they were sitting on the ground.
She bent down to their level when she was directly behind them.
"Psst" she said.
The two of them turned around, and Dipper's face lit up.
"(y)-"
Mara slapped her hand over her brother's mouth before he could finish saying her name.
"Look, we've gotta get out of here!" she whispered urgently.
"But we just met the author!" Dipper half-whispered back, gesturing towards the man with the journal.
"That man is not the author" she hissed. "I just watched the security footage. That man is a shape shifting monster."
Wendy gasped, remembering how the man had mentioned that a shape shifter had escaped, and that they were searching for it. How could it not occur to her that the man himself could be the shape shifter?
Dipper's eyes widened at the news.
"But what are we going to do now?" he said. "The monster has my journal."
"For now, my goal is to get you guys out of here" said Mara. "We'll worry about the journal later."
But Dipper didn't seem to like that plan, for he got up and started to nervously make his way towards the shape shifter.
"Dipper, what are you doing?" Mara hissed.
Dipper smiled nervously at the man, whose back was still turned towards him.
"Uh, you know what? We should probably get going" he said, as Mara and Wendy stood to their feet getting ready to run for it.
"Can I have my journal back?"
In response, the man turned his head towards Dipper, his neck moving with flexibility that should have been impossible, as his back was still turned. The man's eyes were now slit pupils.
"You're not going anywhere" he said, with a much deeper, and creepier, voice.
With his head still turned towards them, his body suddenly started to crawl up the tunnel wall until it was hanging on the ceiling.
Huge spider legs suddenly sprouted from its back, and its pupils disappeared as it roared ferociously.
All three of them screamed in terror.
Then suddenly before their eyes, the man changed shape into a slightly transparent, light beige-colored, beast with pink eyes and uneven limbs. It had a strange set of sharp teeth, and in one of its hands was the journal.
It seemed to notice Mara for the first time.
The shape shifter grinned.
"Ah, so you have a twin as well, do you now?" it said with its real voice. "So tell me, what's it like, tearing each other apart and ruining dreams?"
Mara chose to ignore the monster's comment.
She turned towards her brother.
"Dipper, let's get out of here while we still can" she hissed.
But Dipper seemed to have other ideas.
"You!" he said angrily, pointing his finger at the monster. "What did you do to the real author?"
"You'll likely never find him" said the shape shifter. "That six-fingered nerd hasn't been himself for over thirty years. But I do thank you for bringing me his journal. He used to write it while I was in my cage. So many wonderful forms to take!"
Using its tongue, it flipped to a page, and suddenly transformed into the gremloblin.
It laughed evilly, then flipped to another page. Next, it morphed into a gnome.
It then flipped to a third page, and transformed into the hide behind.
"We've gotta get that journal back" Dipper whispered to the two girls.
Wendy picked up an empty bean can from the floor, and looked at the shape shifter.
"Hey, body snatcher, snatch this!"
She threw the can at it, but it quickly turned into what looked like a giant frog with three eyes and the shape shifter's original coloration.
The can bounced harmlessly off of it.
The monster then responded by using its new frog-like form to shoot his tongue right out at Wendy, who managed to grab a slate of metal from the ground and held it up in front of her protectively, the tongue hitting the metal plate instead of her.
Mara then took out the pack of dynamite that she had taken earlier, and then took a box of matches from her toolbelt.
She lit one, and then used the small flame to light the cord of the dynamite. As the spark came on and started to make its way to the end of the cord, Mara threw the dynamite right into the creature's open mouth.
The dynamite exploded right inside the shapeshifter, causing it to drop the journal and finally collapse from the ceiling.
Dipper rushed forth, and grabbed the journal. He then turned towards the two girls.
"RUN!!!"
They didn't hesitate to run right back where they came from, as the shape shifter started to get back up again.
"Oh, come on!" exclaimed Mara. "It should be dead, I freakin' blew up its insides with dynamite!"
The shape shifter starting to get back up again, and it was changing form, first into the man, and then into a huge armadillo monster.
It roared fiercely, then curled up into a ball and started to roll rapidly down the tunnels where the three of them had run down.
Dipper, Mara, and Wendy were now running for their lives down the tunnel, Dipper holding a flashlight so they could see in the dark, when they came across a split path.
There were now two tunnels leading in opposite directions.
"Over here!" Mara said, going to the leftmost tunnel, and pressing her back up against the tunnel's wall instead of actually running down it. Wendy obliged, and did the same as her.
Dipper threw his lit flashlight down the other tunnel, then joined Wendy and Mara pressed up against the left tunnel.
When the creature finally arrived, it caught sight of the light from the flashlight coming from the opposite tunnel, and it roared before it rolled down the wrong tunnel.
When it was safe, the three of them then started to run down their tunnel...until they collided right into Mabel and Soos, who were running in the opposite direction.
They started to tumble downwards from the force of the impact, until they finally stopped rolling and landed on top of each other.
Eventually, they all got back up onto their feet again, and faced each other.
Mabel and Soos's faces broke out into expressions of relief.
"Oh, dudes!" said Soos.
"Dipper! Mara! Wendy!" said Mabel.
"Mabel! Soos!" exclaimed Dipper in relief, as he started to make his way towards them.
But Mara caught his arm and pulled him back cautiously.
"Hold on" she said warningly. "It might be the shape shifter."
"Maybe I am!" said Soos. He turned towards Mabel, and lifted up his shirt.
"Mabel! Inspect my shirt" he said.
Mabel smiled, and poked his bulging stomach.
"Poke!"
Soos laughed.
"Do that again!"
"Poke!"
Soos laughed again.
"Even better the second time."
Dipper lowered his guard, as did Mara.
"It's definitely them" he said. It was then that he suddenly noticed something.
He gasped, and bent down on one knee in front of Wendy, whose knee was scraped up.
"Oh my gosh! Wendy, you're bleeding!" he exclaimed.
"It's cool, it's cool!" assured Wendy, bending down onto his level and putting an arm on his shoulders in a reassuring way. "Don't freak out."
"And don't pass out from the sight of blood like how you did when you got your first nosebleed" said Mara.
Dipper glared at her for bringing that up, and blushed slightly in front of Wendy.
Mara then turned towards Wendy.
"Here, sit down, Wendy, I've got some bandages in my toolbelt."
Wendy nodded, and then sat down onto the ground of the tunnel as Mara bent down and pulled out a roll of cloth tape bandage from her toolbelt. She started to wrap the stuff around Wendy's knee.
"What happened?" asked Mabel.
"We got attacked by the shape shifter" said Wendy with a tough voice. "He broke out of his cage, pretended to be the author, and wants Dipper's journal."
"Imagine if he escapes into town!" said Dipper. "He could transform into anything. We could never trust anyone ever again!"
"Like how you so easily trusted the government agents?" said Mara.
"When are you going to let that go?" snapped Dipper.
"What do we do?" said Mabel.
"Well, he took us into his home, tricked us, and tried to destroy us" said Wendy with a determined tone as Mara finished up wrapping her knee.
Wendy got back up to her feet.
"I say we return the favor."
The shapeshifter morphed back into his man form, as he continued to search for them.
"Dipper, my boy" he called out, as he walked into a lab section of the tunnel with capsules, and light that went on when they sensed motion.
"Come out! I must speak with you!"
He suddenly changed into a pink monster with one eye, spider legs, and lobster claws.
"Reveal yourself, you single formed human weakling!"
His head transformed into a giant fist, and slammed into the ground.
"Oh boy, Dipper!" said Mabel suddenly, as the triplets started to walk into the same room that the shape shifter was in. Dipper was holding the journal in plain sight.
"That journal sure has some great monsters!" said Mabel.
The monster turned towards the three of them.
"There you are!" he bellowed. It was then that he seemed to notice Mabel as well. He grinned evilly. "So there are three of you now? Ah, triplets, I see."
Suddenly, he turned himself into Mabel right in front of their eyes.
"Should I be the first..."
He turned into Dipper.
"...the second..."
He then turned into Mara.
"...or the last? How about all three!"
Suddenly, he morphed into his appearance so that he was Dipper, Mara, and Mabel all at the same time, the three different parts sticking up at three different angles. They were attached to spider legs, and the monster's variations of them all had glowing blank eyes and sharp teeth.
It roared at them, and the triplets screamed.
They turned and bolted away as the monster started to come right at them. The triplets were running as quickly as they could back to the tunnel where the monster had originally taken them.
They soon arrived, and Soos and Wendy were waiting there next to the H2O pipe from earlier.
"Guys, he's coming!" screamed Dipper. "NOW! NOW! NOW! NOW!"
Wendy and Soos both started to turn the valve, but there didn't seem to be any water coming out of it.
"It's not working, dude!" screamed Soos.
Suddenly, the shape shifter arrived on scene, and it struck its tongue from the Dipper variation right out at Dipper. The tongue stuck onto the journal, and started to pull it towards him.
Dipper was pulling with all his might, determined not to let the monster have the journal.
"Let...go!!!"
Wendy ran up to him and put her hands around the journal as well, helping Dipper pull it away from the monster.
"You leave him alone!" she screamed, but the monster suddenly pulled her right towards him as Wendy kept her grip on the book.
Dipper got back up.
"Wendy!" he screamed.
Wendy let go of the journal, and landed on one of the creature's spider legs, as the monster held the book in its tongue triumphantly.
Wendy held up her axe and started to swing it, about to use it slice the tongue to get the journal back...
Mara was yanking at the valve with all her strength, trying to get the water to come out, but it still didn't budge.
Suddenly she got an idea.
Mara turned on the intangibility belt that was still clasped around her waist, and her entire body became intangible.
She phased one arm right through the pipe, searching for the clog, until she felt her hands clasp around it. She yanked it free, and her arm, along with the hand that was clutched around the thing that was clogging it, phased right back out of the pipe.
Mara examined the object in her hand: it was a rubber duck.
"I got it!" she exclaimed.
Suddenly, the water came bursting out of the pipe, hitting both the monster and Wendy, who dropped her axe when the water collided with her body.
The triplets started to run when they saw that the water was starting to flood the entire tunnel, but the water picked them all up as it started to fill the entire place.
The shape shifter was struggling to breathe as Soos and the triplets were barely managing to keep their heads above the water.
Wendy had been taken under, and she tried to swim upwards, but the current from the water pushed her right into a rock, knocking her unconscious as she lost her breath.
Finally, the water started to go down, eventually flowing away and leaving a sopping wet Dipper, Mabel, Mara, and Soos laying on the ground.
All of them were taking in deep breaths as they coughed up water.
Dipper was the first to get up, worried about Wendy's safety. He caught sight of Wendy's axe, and he walked up to it.
He looked further into the tunnel, where all the water had flowed towards, and ran up to it.
"Wendy!" he called, his voice echoing throughout the tunnel.
He picked up her axe, and ran down the tunnel, searching for his redheaded friend.
He caught sight of her lying on her side on the ground, unconscious.
"Wendy!" he exclaimed, dropping the axe and instantly running towards her side.
"No no no no! Can you hear me?" he said with a panicked voice.
She didn't move.
He turned her body so that she was facing towards him.
"Please be ok, please be ok!!"
For a moment, her body was completely still, then her head fell lifelessly to one side.
Dipper gasped.
"Oh no, oh no!" exclaimed Dipper. "This is all my fault! If told you when we were in the closet, we wouldn't be in this mess, but I was too scared and now you could be hurt or worse, and I never even got a chance to tell you...I'm, like, in love with you, Wendy."
Dipper could feel his eyes start to tear up, and his head hung down in sadness as he mourned his loss.
Little did he know that the real Wendy was standing right behind him, holding the journal in one hand and staring at him with bewildered eyes.
"Uh, Dipper?" she said.
He turned around immediately and instantly saw her.
"What, wha...W-W-Wendy?" he stammered, getting up off the ground and gesturing towards the unconscious body of Wendy still on the ground.
"Then who's-"
The unconscious Wendy suddenly got up on all fours, growling nastily as she leapt up towards the real Wendy, who held the journal up out of her grasp.
"Give me back that journal!" she screamed.
"Never!" said the real Wendy, but the two fell on top of each other, and the real Wendy dropped the journal.
As shape shifter Wendy started to make her way towards the journal, she crawled over the real Wendy, who kicked her right in the stomach and grabbed the journal.
"Get off of me!"
The two Wendys ended up in a huge fight over the journal punching each other in the face and kicking each other in the gut, and Dipper had lost track of which one was real.
He bent down and picked up the axe from the ground, and made his way to the two Wendys, who now both had the journal, and were playing an almost tug-of-war with it.
"Give it back!"
"It belongs to Dipper!"
Dipper raised the axe, ready to strike, but had no idea which Wendy to hit.
"Hit her with the axe!" said one Wendy.
"Don't listen to her, Dipper!" said the other Wendy.
"She's the shape shifter!" screamed the first Wendy.
Dipper was panicking.
"I-I-I don't know who's who!" he exclaimed. "Show me a sign!"
The Wendy on the left winked at him, and the Wendy on the right zipper her mouth shut. It was the same exact gesture that she had given to him before they had gone into the hideout.
Dipper gasped, finally knowing which one was actually the shape shifter, and he ran forward and swung the axe right into the stomach of the Wendy on the left.
He knew that he had hit the right Wendy when green guts started to ooze from the wound.
The shapeshifter shrieked in pain as it suddenly changed back into itself, the axe sticking into its chest.
Just as it was ripping the axe out of its chest, Mara suddenly appeared, stopping next to Dipper and Wendy.
"Guys!" she screamed. "Mabel and Soos are at the controls. They say that those capsules can freeze things!" she said, pointing to a capsule that had the blinking green message "Active" above it.
"Quick! Get the monster in there!"
Dipper nodded in understanding.
"Push him in there!" he yelled, and with that, all three of them charged right at the shape shifter, shoving him right inside the open capsule.
"Now, Mabel!" Mara shouted.
Suddenly, the capsule was sealed shut when the thick glass wall slid quickly into place from the inside.
The shape shifter was trapped.
Mara looked back at her sister, who was pressing the red frozen button from before. Standing next to her was Soos.
Mabel grinned.
"Frozen!"
The creature was now starting to freeze inside the capsule.
"No! No! No!" it screamed, as it changed from one form to another, trying to desperately to find form that would allow him to escape.
It roared one last time, before it froze in place in its true form.
The five of them were standing a few yards away from the capsule, watching the slightly disturbing sight.
"I'm glad that its last form wasn't of that form that was all three of us" said Mara.
"Let's get out of here, dudes" said Soos.
They started to walk out of the lab, when they suddenly heard low chuckling.
They turned back towards the frozen capsule, and saw the shape shifter press its face up against the glass.
All five of them gasped.
"You think you're so clever, don't you, Dipper?" the creature bellowed from behind the glass. "But you have no idea what you're up against. You will never find the author. If you keep digging, you'll meet a fate worse than you can imagine. And this will be the last form you ever take!"
He transformed into Dipper, screaming with his arms bent outwards at perfect ninety degree angles, and the creature was finally frozen permanently in that form.
As the glass fogged up from the coldness of the capsule, Dipper could see his own reflection in the glass.
There was a long silence that followed.
Soos laughed.
"Good luck sleeping tonight" he said cheerfully.
They watched the tree trunk rise back into place as the entrance of the hide out finally closed. It was also starting to get dark outside, and all of them were exhausted.
"Dude, I think I'm kind of adventured out for a while" said Soos. "My face hurts from doing this all day."
He made a terrified expression with his face with his mouth open in a silent scream. He pointed to his face with a finger.
Mabel laughed.
"But you've gotta admit, we're all total heroes" she said.
"Hey, who wants to get some heroes breakfast, huh?" said Soos, as he picked up Mabel and put her on his shoulders.
"Syrup on cereal!" she cheered, as Soos walked away.
"Mabel, you're a visionary!"
Mara noticed that they had left her alone with Dipper and Wendy, and she did not want to be a part of the awkward conversation that she knew was about to come.
"Uh, yeah" she said awkwardly. "I've got...stuff to work on. You know, my inventions aren't gonna blow up themselves."
She laughed gawkily as she started to walk away, relieved to finally be away from the two of them.
Wendy started to walk after the others, when Dipper suddenly stopped her.
He paused, thinking over his words before he said them.
"Look, Wendy, about earlier..." he said. "...in the heat of the moment, I might have said some dumb things and...can't we just pretend none of that ever happened?" he said, turning around and hanging his head in shame.
"Please?"
Wendy walked up to him, bent down to his level, and gently put a hand on his shoulder.
"Dude, dude, it's ok" she said softly. "I always...kinda knew."
Dipper's eyes widened, and he turned around.
"Wait, you did?"
She chuckled.
"Yeah, man, I mean you think I can't hear that stuff you're constantly whispering under your breath?"
Dipper face palmed himself with both hands and backed up, sitting right down on a nearby log.
"Oh, man" he said, clearly embarrassed. He hung his head in shame again.
Wendy sat down next to him.
"Listen, Dipper" she said gently. "I'm, like, super flattered, but...I'm too old for you" she said, shrugging as she did so. "I mean you know that, right?"
Dipper sighed.
"Mabel and Mara both said confessing would make me feel better."
"Well, how do you feel?" asked Wendy tenderly.
"Anxious, scared...and kinda itchy..."
Wendy laughed.
"Dude, don't be itchy, man" she said. "Let me tell you something. This Summer was super boring until you showed up. I have more fun with you than with practically anybody else. And if you ever stop being my friend, I would, like, throw myself into the bottomless pit!"
"So things, won't be too awkward now?" Dipper asked hopefully.
"I just wrestled myself, dude, that was awkward" said Wendy. "If you could handle that monster, you can handle a little awkwardness."
Dipper laughed, then held out his hand.
"Friends?"
Wendy grinned.
"Yeah, dude, friends!" she said, shoving him off the log accidentally.
Both of them laughed, and then Wendy held out a hand, which Dipper took, and she helped him back up onto the log.
Then, she got off the log, and made her way towards her bike.
"Oh, and hey, Dipper" she said, turning towards him as she put her bike helmet onto her head. "See you for movie night tomorrow, your place this time, ok?"
And with that, she got onto her bike, and rode away.
For a long moment, Dipper sat on the log, staring at Wendy as she rode off into the distance.
He didn't notice Mabel sliding onto the log next to him.
"Sooooo, how did it go?" she asked.
Dipper yelped in surprise.
"What did you hear?"
"Everything. All the time."
Just then, Mara slid out from the inside of the log.
"Hey, bro."
Dipper gasped in surprise as she got back onto her feet and slid onto the log on Dipper's other side.
"Mara? You too? What, is Soos here too?"
Soos rose up from the bushes behind him.
"I'm not here!" he called.
Dipper hung his head in shame, his hat covering his eyes so his sisters couldn't see.
"Mabel, Mara, how can everything be so amazing, and so terrible all at the same time?" he asked.
Mabel looked at him sympathetically.
"I'm sorry for being so pushy, Dipper" she said, putting her hands on her brother's shoulder. "If I were you, I probably would have gone to Mara instead also. And if it's any consolation, I'm already working on a list of your potential rebound crushes."
"And if your new girlfriend turns out to be a shapeshifter in disguise, I'll have the plasma blaster ready" said Mara, holding up the plasma blaster that she had used on the gnomes that Mabel had dated on the first day of Summer.
Dipper chuckled.
"Thanks, Mabel and Mara" said Dipper sincerely.
They were about to do an awkward sibling hug, when suddenly the log slid up, and the three of them started to slide towards the side that was now being weighed down.
This was being caused by Soos, who had sat down on the end of the log.
"I'm still bummed we're not closer to finding the author" said Soos, who was still wearing the lab coat from earlier.
He held up the briefcase that he had taken from the hideout.
"At least I got his science-y coat and briefcase."
Suddenly, the briefcase fell open, revealing a screen and a keyboard on the half of the briefcase that had fallen open.
"What the..."
"Soos!" said Dipper, as the triplets hurried up to him. "That's not a briefcase, that's a laptop!"
"And a really busted up one too" said Mabel.
"I think I could fix this piece of junk in my lab" said Mara, taking the laptop from Soos's hands. "It might take a while though, because this thing looks so obsolete."
"This could be our next clue!" said Dipper.
They were examining the new laptop, especially the label at the top of it that said:
"Property of F."