Wendy

December 17, 2012

Snow Day

Not sure what I was expecting to happen on my day off school.

It was definitely not meeting up with Soos at the Mystery Shack. He'd given me a text earlier that day, and it was really vague. Something like, "Meet me at the Mystery Shack. Don't make me wait".

Not sure why I didn't find this strange at first glance. I mean, come on, Soos would never text me something like that. My curiosity got the better of me, however, so I headed there anyway.

I brought my axe.

Just in case…

And that's you all caught up. Standing in a dark, empty Mystery Shack, I couldn't help but feel anxious. That's why I absolutely freaked out when the door opened behind me. When I jerked around, a three-headed tentacle monster of pure darkness was staring right back!

Not really. It was Soos. What did you expect?

"Wendy?"

Soos is a nice guy, but he asks the stupidest questions.

"Uh, yeah? Who else? Next time, knock or you might end up with an axe wound across your face." Man, I'm not a nice person in stressful situations. I should work on that.

"S-sorry dude, didn't mean to freak you out like that. I was just coming in because a mysterious letter told me to, and I question nothing about the logic behind creepy letters. Speaking of which, what are you doing here, dude? Did you send me the mystery letter?"

"What?" I pulled out my phone to show him them message I got, "You texted me to come here, right?"

Soos responded with, "Dude, I lost my phone yesterday. Whoever texted you that isn't me, dog."

"Then, wh-" I never got to finish what I was going to say.

"That would be me." The voice pierced the darkness like an ice cold arrow.

It sounded so familiar, but it couldn't be him, could it?

"Are you two alone?" The voice asked rather ominously.

Now, at this point, any normal person wouldn't have answered the mysterious voice from the shadows.

However, Soos and I were anything but normal. Besides, Bill is gone. It's not like some all-powerful chaos demon was trying to trick us or something.

"Yeah, dude." Soos said with no sense of fear. "Ha ha! So, uh, can I have my phone back or…?"

"Yeah, Soos. Sorry I took your phone, I needed to make sure this meeting was in absolute secrecy." As these words drifted into our ears, the owner of the voice came out from the unlit hallway. I nearly lost my footing when I saw who it was.

It was Dipper. My suspicions HAD been right, even though they made no sense.

Dipper handed Soos his phone before turning towards me.

"Wait a minute, what?!" Realising that if someone found Dipper here he would be in huge trouble, I quickly lowered my voice to a whisper. "Dipper, what are you doing here? Aren't you supposed to be in California?"

"Hold on a sec!" Dipper pointed to his cap. "I'm not THE Dipper. I'm Number Three, see?" There was a faded but distinct three written on his cap.

"Number…three? How many Dippers are there?" I subconsciously touched my head to check if Dipper's cap was still there.

It was.

"What a minute, did Dipper never tell you about us? Hmmm… Actually, now that I think about it, it probably would've ruined his chances to dance with you…. Anyway, I think it would be better if I showed rather than told you how I was made." Number Three pointed down the hallway. "This way."

He almost ran down the corridor, so by the time we got to the right room, Number 3 was already standing next to what looked like a photocopier. Before we could ask him any questions, he put his arm on the photocopier and quickly turned it on. A neon-green laser panned over his arm, and within seconds, a large piece of paper with an image of his arm was printed.

"Stand back!" Number Three yelled as he ran over to us. He had a cup of water of all things in his hand.

As I watched, the image quivered all by itself, and the arm rose up from the image.

It started to dawn on me what Number 3 really was.

"This photocopier has the ability to copy people." Number 3 explained, "However, even though they can move and breathe, they still just have the same consistency as paper."

As if to punctuate his sentence, Number 3 threw the cup of water he had on him at the arm. The arm quickly bubbled and melted.

"Dude, that's like, really freaky." Hearing Soos say the blatantly obvious helped break the tension.

Number Three turned towards me. "Wendy, Dipper made almost a dozen of us, just to set up his elaborate plan to ask you to dance. However, Dipper suddenly decided not to follow the plan, which is how you found out about his birthmark. You know what party I'm talking about, right?"

I hesitated for a moment to gather my thoughts. "Well, yeah, of course…"

"Long story short, Dippers Two, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine and Ten all turned on the Original when they became jealous of his success. In a stroke of luck, Dipper turned the fire sprinklers on to exploit their weakness. However, two copies never got destroyed. That would be me, Number Three, and Number Four…" Number Three stopped and turned to address both of us.

"Are there any questions you two would like to ask me? I understand this is a lot to take in…"

I jumped on the opportunity for more information. "I… I had no idea. What have you been doing these past few months?"

"I'm glad you asked Wendy. Number 4 and I stayed together in a makeshift base deep in the woods. I, for one, could never quite quench my thirst for knowledge, so I decided to investigate Gravity Falls and all things abnormal. However, my biggest project was the very thing that created me." Number 3 turned and walk toward the photocopier.

"During my studies, I discovered several things about this photocopier. For one, it is unique from most things weird in Gravity Falls because it was made in this dimension. It wasn't dumped here from another dimension. I decided to do some… experiments, and figured out that the personality of the copy depends on the mind-set of the original. For example, when I was made, Dipper was fascinated by how the copier work, hence my insatiable curiosity." Number Three had a gleam in his eye every time he talked about himself being made. "The personality of a copy, I have come to realise, becomes more pronounced the longer the copy exists. Number 4 is a tragic example of that. "Number 3 stopped himself and froze in place.

We stood there without speaking for a few seconds.

Soos was the one who broke the silence, "Dude, what happened to Number 4?"

"He was my friend Soos, my only companion in a world where you're just a bad rip-off of someone else." He turned towards us, but continued to stare at the floor. "When Number 4 was created, Dipper must have been incredibly focused on winning you over, Wendy." For some reason, Number 3 almost said the last word with… I couldn't quite tell what it was.

Was it resentment?

"At first, it wasn't that bad. There was the occasional photo obsession, but he was able to be my friend. However, just as I became more focused on my research, his personality became just as pronounced." Number Three stopped for a moment before continuing. "It was painful to watch. Sleepless nights, frantic drawings on the walls. It became an obsession for him, just as my research became mine. One day, I came home to base camp and he wasn't there. He'd left a short note saying, 'I have found a way to finally capture Wendy's heart, meet me at the photocopier at 8:00pm on the 17th of December…"

"Dude," Soos pulled out his recently reclaimed phone, "That's today."

"Which brings me to the reason for my secrecy. I have a bad feeling about what Number 4 is planning, so I've set up a trap for him so I can attempt to save him from what he's become." Number Three finally looked up from the floor and stared directly at me.

"I hope you can forgive me Wendy, but I'm using you as bait."