Disclaimer: Gravity Falls belongs to Disney and Alex Hirsch.

Author's Note: For those of you who read the previous version of this chapter, welcome back. I plan to try and put up a new chapter every Sunday, or at least every other Sunday. If any of you have some comments or suggestions that you think could improve the chapter, feel free to leave a review or shot me a PM. I will try to take those into consideration, as I will likely continue to work on the chapters I have posted while working on the new ones. I would kindly ask that you refrain from telling me what direction the story should take, as I have the story all planned out, I just need to flesh it out into these chapters.

Chapter 1: The Sock Opera Massacre

Wendy had to admit, for something that Mabel threw together in just a couple of days, the Sock Opera wasn't half bad. Though she had to question the wisdom of Mabel playing all of the parts in the play. It was clearly doing something to her vocal chords, as post-intermission Mabel sounded like her voice was cracking. Wendy was content to ignore it until she saw a shadowy figure climbing up the catwalk over the stage. She nudged Soos.

"Hey, is there supposed to be someone up there during the play." She asked, pointing at the shadowy figure. Soos scratched his chin in befuddlement.

"No, during simple plays such as this, it is bad form to have someone up on the catwalk, not to mention a liability. Due to the proximity of the lights to that particular catwalk, it is not uncommon for the flashing of the lights to throw off a person's perception, often causing accidents." Soos informed her. When he noticed her gaping gaze upon him, he shrugged. "You learn a lot doing part-time jobs. That being said, that mysterious figure looks an awful lot like Mabel, and if Mabel is up there, then who is performing?"

Stan snorted from the other side of Soos, "Please, after spending so much time on...whatever this is, Mabel wouldn't dare hand over the reins to anyone else. It's probably her friends, Grendal and Dandy."

"Pretty sure that's not their names, but whoever it is, they need to get down from there before someone gets hurt." Wendy noted. It appeared that nobody else noticed the mysterious figure above the stage, so the play went on until the figure fell from catwalk with a screech. Wendy watched in horror as Mabel tumbled to the floor with a thunderous crash. The whole theatre was eerily silent with shock, everyone trying to comprehend that they likely had just seen someone die. The silence was broken by the wailing of the fire alarm as Dipper burst out from the curtains.

"There's a fire in the back, everyone get out." He cried, and with that, the moment was broken. People all across the theatre began to scramble out of their seats, all trying to be the first out the door so that they would not be trampled by the stronger members of the crowd. Wendy remained rooted in her seat, just as her father taught her, idly watching the river of humanity flow around her spot, while Stan and Soos fought their way towards Mabel. Dipper had mysteriously vanished back behind the curtains, probably to try and put the fire out himself.

As Wendy watched the carnage going on around her in the theatre, she reflected on some of the lessons that her father passed on to her and her brothers. Manly Dan was not one for a lecture, in his opinion, if the lesson couldn't be learned through practice, then it probably wasn't a lesson worth learning. That being said, the only exception to that rule was what to do when a panic occurred in a crowded building.

The morning sun was barely up, and fog rolled across the ground in a scene that would have belonged in any master painting. If only twelve year-old Wendy could have been watching the view from inside a heated building, but instead she was in a tree with her family, watching a gathering of different wild animals grazing in the field below.

"A crowded building is one of the most dangerous places for a person to be in," her father whispered from his perch beside her, "the group gives a feeling of security, but the moment things go wrong, that security becomes a trap."

"Pretty certain the nearest building is five miles that direction." Wendy retorted as she pointed back the way they came from. She didn't bother to look at her father, she could feel the heat of his glare on the side of her face, or maybe it was the sun.

"Watch carefully." Dan growled as he unslung the rifle he had brought along from his shoulder, taking careful aim at the field below. Normally Wendy would comment on the fact that they had plenty of food back home, but she had a feeling that her remarks wouldn't be welcome at the moment. Instead, she simply covered her ears, and waited. Her father paused, slowly exhaled, and squeezed the trigger. Though she had covered her ears enough to prevent the gunshot from hurting, she felt her chest vibrate from the report. But that wasn't what held her attention.

Once Dan had fired the rifle, the field erupted into chaos. All of the animals were running every which way in an effort to escape, and the results were gruesome to say the least. A buck gored a fawn trying to escape while the doe tripped over a rabbit that crossed its path, causing the deer to slam headfirst to the ground. Several birds collided in midair before they tumbled from the sky with broken wings. The most terrible scene came from the bison. The moment the gunshot went off, the massive beasts wheeled about and as one body, charged across the field to escape, trampling everything in their path. A squirrel that ran out in front of the herd was reduced to a red smear on the ground. It was not the last animal to be ground underfoot. The scene was heart-wrenching to say the least. Her father pointed towards the center of the field, where a lone tree stood.

"Look there" he stated, speaking at his normal volume now. Wendy watched the tree, and several minutes after the last of the capable animals escaped, she observed a lone raccoon climb down from the tree and calmly waddle off into the forest.

"When everyone else is panicking and trying to escape, find someplace safe to wait out the initial rush, and then make your escape. Trying to make your escape at the same time will only result in death." Wendy never forgot that lesson, particularly since her father made them sit there for several more hours until the wolves that came in shortly after the carnage had eaten their fill and left.

Of course, Wendy reflected, her father never told her what to do when the person that caused the panic was running around and killing people, causing further terror. Shortly after Stan and Soos had reached Mabel's body, Dipper had leapt out from his hiding place amongst the stage scenery and clobbered his Grunkle with a makeshift club made out of a chair leg and some nails. Before Soos could react, Dipper had slain the Mystery Shack handyman as well. He then turned his attention to the people scrambling about in terror once they realized that the doors were locked and they were trapped with a deranged boy. The scene of screaming people being cut down by a laughing twelve year old boy with noodle arms was as if she was watching a movie. She wanted to jump in and stop Dipper's rampage, but her body was paralyzed with confusion and fear. With her trembling body, she was not certain that she wouldn't simply fall over if she had been capable of standing up. It wasn't until the last person had fallen that the world came back into sharp focus, bringing on a sense of horror as she looked upon the bloodied monster that was Dipper Pines.

"Why." She croaked. Dipper straightened from his crouch over Mr. Pines body as he turned towards her.

"Oh, I missed one. Sorry Red," Dipper chortled, "Give me a moment and I'll deal with you then." He then turned back to the body and started to rummage through its pockets. Wendy felt a flash of anger and stood up.

"What did you do?" She asked, her question echoing across the theatre as she tried to keep too much of her anger from leeching into her voice. Dipper laughed, never ceasing his search of Mr. Pines pockets.

"Wow, Red. You sure are stupid. Clearly I killed them." He responded, as a matter of fact. A groan from somewhere near the doors caused him to pause. "Sorry, my mistake, I was trying to kill most of them."

Wendy gaped at him, uncertain of what to say. "Okay, who are you, Dipper would never do this."

"Clearly you don't know Pine Tree nearly as well as you think. I mean seriously, you spent most of your time with Stitched Heart, ignoring poor little Pine Tree, and you're surprised that this happened?" Wendy just stared at him for several moments, uncertain of who Stitched Heart was, before she responded.

"So what, are you some kind of split personality that came about because I don't return your feelings the way you want, I'm not buying it. In fact," she stated as she pulled out her pocket knife, "I'm pretty certain you're the shape-shifter from the bunker. Now where's Dipper?"

"Oh, please, as if I'm that lame excuse of a monster," Not-Dipper guffawed, "I'm soooooo much more. Ah, here it is." Not-Dipper stood up and revealed that he had been looking for Stan's own knife. "Now, if you would kindly scream for this next part, it'll be boring otherwise." Wendy brought up her knife, ready to defend herself from Not-Dipper, only to watch in shock as Not-Dipper jammed the blade into his stomach, drawing it across his abdomen, cackling the whole time. As he finished, Not-Dipper swayed and shuddered, falling to his knees. The pre-teen looked at his blood soaked body in confusion before looking up at Wendy.

"Wendy." He gasped, before collapsing. Wendy did not hesitate when she ran over to Dipper's fallen form. Whatever was going on here could be resolved after she saved Dipper. She pulled off her flannel shirt and balled it up before pressing it against Dipper's wound, even though she knew somewhere in the back of her mind that it was pointless. She had to try anyways.

"Dipper. Dipper. Wake up," Wendy ordered, reaching over and tapped his cheek, only to pull her hand back in horror as she felt the bones of Dipper's face shift around like bag of rocks. She thought she had imagined the various hits that Dipper had taken in the course of killing people in the theatre, but clearly her father's punch had landed, it just had not affected the boy's movement.

"Woo, now that was a riot! Literally." A voice behind her cackled. "I really have to make these sorts of deals more often." Wendy whipped her head around to see a glowing, yellow pyramid with one eye and a top hat. The pyramid reached a hand out towards her.

"Hi there, the name's Bill Cypher, immortal demon at your service. How would you like to make a deal?"