Fight It Out
(This is not part of my normal continuity but was written for the Wendip Week prompt "Combat")
One day in the summer of 2015—
"It's not looking good," Dipper said grimly.
GI Guy and his team must have been captured by M.A.M.B.A. From where he and Mabel crouched behind the shelter of some ABC blocks, Dipper could see as far as the derailed scale-model train and the scattered circus animals. All of them were down. No movement of any kind, friend or foe—at least that was something. "Mabel," he said, "I wish you wouldn't fool around with magic spells you don't understand."
"But it looked like fun!" Mabel complained. Loudly.
"Shh! I hope Wendy's OK."
"But it looked like fun!" Mabel complained. In a whisper.
It grew out of her taking a babysitting job for Kindly Old Man Stuart, who had a raft of grandchildren, including two who were only a couple of years younger than Dipper and Mabel. Dipper remembered them from the first Fishing Opener the Mystery Twins had attended—when Old Man Stuart and Grunkle Stan had sort of become bitter enemies, Stan said, because Dipper and Mabel didn't demonstrate enough wuv. Dipper wasn't sure what that meant.
He was sure that Mabel shouldn't have read the incantation that made Betty and Benny's toys come to life. Or used the shrink ray so she and Dipper could join in the fun. As for Betty and Benny, they were four and six, and they were taking naps. Maybe. It had been some time. Dipper was hoping they hadn't woken up. Having a couple of little kids come into their trashed playroom would put the cherry on top of a rotten afternoon. Especially if the little mon—darlings saw their toys were running around fighting each other and decided to join in.
Worse, they might find the shrink ray, though it was on a low table near the bookshelf. No telling what could happen if the kids got small. Or gigantic.
"OK, where are we?" Dipper asked. "I'm gonna climb up on B-C to see if I can spot Wendy or any of the G.I. Guy patrol."
"You'll be spotted!" Mabel warned. "I'll go. I'm like a ninja of stealth!" And before Dipper could stop her, she yelled, "Ninja!" and fired her grappling hook. She zipped up to the top of the oversized building block—Dipper estimated that he and she were only two inches tall—and plopped up onto the top.
"OK, Brobro," she said in a loud whisper, "I can see all the way to the toybox. There seems to be a ruckus over in the prehistoric section—there's a plastic pterodactyl swooping around. The military section looks trashed."
"It did when we came in!" Dipper growled. "Any sign of Wendy?"
"Mm . . . nope. But there's some movement over in the tea party section. I think the bad guys are rounding up the dollies! The fiends!"
"Which way to the table with the shrink ray?" Dipper called up. "Wait, what, did you use the word 'fiends'?"
"The room's so big—we passed the little model ranch, didn't we?"
"Yeah, I remember the corral."
"OK, it must be that way. See me pointing?"
"I see you! Get down before somebody sees you!"
"Uh-oh. Too late. Here comes a tank!"
Mabel rappelled down the block and yanked the grapple back onto the grappling-hook pistol, and they ran for it.
Not that either was a coward, but the magic spell that brought the toys to life also made their weapons real enough to kill. "What did you see?"
"Some of those red guys!"
Dipper groaned. "The Cardinal Kraits! They're like M.A.M.B.A. Commander's elite guard!"
"Did you collect them when you were little?"
"Couldn't ever afford them! But I saw the commercials! Quick, in there—"
They dashed into a plastic bunkhouse. Four plastic cowpokes sat at a plastic table playing a game of plastic cards. One looked up. "Well, howdy, little buckaroos!"
"Howdy," Dipper said. "Also, help! Some soldiers in red are looking for us."
"They bad hombres?" one of the others asked. All the cowpoke figures were identical.
"Ooh, the baddest, hombre-ist guys you ever saw!" Mabel shot back.
"Boys," a third one said, "reckon we got some fightin' to do."
They all stood and moseyed out. "Let's go," Dipper said, and he and Mabel ducked out the door as soon as the cowboys had gone. "Maybe they'll slow them down."
"Maybe they'll defeat them!"
"Not a chance. The Kraits are individualized."
Gunfire broke out behind them, and they heard one of the cowboys yell, "This here was a mistake!"
"See?" Dipper said. They had entered a winding canyon of overturned tea cups, scattered doll clothes, and toy musical instruments. As they rounded the corner of a ukulele, they screeched to a halt.
Because in front of them loomed the menacing figure of a soldier wearing a blue uniform, red-lined cape, and a helmet with a reflective faceplate. And he was four times their size. "Stop!" he shouted, in a voice like thunder. "You have been captured!"
Mabel put her hands over her ears. "Ow! You don't have to shout!"
"I shout! At everything! All the time!" the figure yelled.
"He does," Dipper told Mabel.
"Yes! It's what! I do!"
"It's his thing," advised one of the six red-suited troopers who supported him. The leader took out a pistol and shot him. "Insubordination!" he yelled as the plastic figure dropped to the floor, apparently dead.
"Look, man, we're not your enemies," Dipper said. "We're not G.I. Guy's soldiers—"
"That! Is immaterial!" The leader clenched a fist and raised it in victory. "We! Will control! The world of the playroom!" Then he lowered the pistol, aiming it at them. "Prepare to die!"
"Uh, can I have a week to get my affairs in order?" Mabel asked.
"No!"
"Two days?"
"Say goodbye!" The pistol steadied—
And the M.A.M.B.A. Commander shrieked as a whirling axe flew spinning and with a crunch disarmed him. And I mean that literally. The whole arm, off at the shoulder.
"Let my friends alone!"
"Wendy!" Dipper shouted. "I'm so glad to see you!"
"Yeah," Wendy said. "Meet my little friend." She rose in the air, higher and higher.
Because she was astride the neck of a two-foot tall model of a tyrannosaur.
The M.A.M.B.A. leader clutched his shoulder. "Bring! It! Down!" he shouted to his men.
The battle was fierce but futile. Eight-inch warriors have little chance against a two-foot-tall dinosaur. Wendy leaped down from its neck after the carnage was over and retrieved her axe. "Thanks, Toothy," she said. "Go and let the G.I. Guys out of the castle." The tyrannosaur rumbled and turned to stalk away.
"M.A.M.B.A. has a castle?" Dipper asked.
Wendy kissed him. "Nope, they commandeered Cinderella's. She's kinda pissed."
"Are they dead?" Mabel asked, staring at the scattered remains of M.A.M.B.A. Commander and his men.
"Look pretty dead to me," Wendy said. "Let's get outa here. We need the flashlight, right?"
They reached the table, Mabel used the grappling hook, and they all climbed up—Dipper last of all, and it took him some time. Wendy reached down and hoisted him up. "Now how does this work?"
"We have to rotate the crystal," Dipper said. With all three pushing and tugging, they did.
"Now we have to enlarge ourselves again. But I think this table will collapse."
"Dude, get to the edge of the table. When you start enlarging, jump for it."
"OK."
Dipper took his seat and gulped. When you're two inches tall, twenty-eight inches is a long way down. But then Mabel turned on the flashlight, the beam hit him, and as he started to grow, he slipped to the very edge. He dropped when he was about half his normal size. Then he could stretch up and reach the flashlight. He took it down—it felt heavy—and finally he helped the tiny Wendy and Mabel and set them on the floor before growing them back to normal size.
"Now do me," he said, handing the flashlight to Wendy.
She smiled down at him. "I dunno, dude. You're incredibly cute like that. Like a stuffed toy. I could, like, sneak you into the house and put you on my bed and tonight—"
"Do it!" Mabel said, chortling in an evil way.
"Nah, just messin' with you man." She enlarged Dipper all the way and then some, until he was an inch or two taller than she was. "Just seein' what you'll look like at twenty," she said. "Not bad."
Drunk with size and relief, Dipper grabbed, her, dipped her, and kissed her.
"Woohoo!" Mabel cheered. "But seriously, guys—guys? We gotta end this spell. I see King Kong climbing Cinderella's castle over there in the far corner. Guys! Knock it off! Don't! Make! Me! SHOUT!"
They reluctantly stopped kissing and adjusted Dipper's height, he found the spell book and ended the enchantment, and Mabel went to see if their baby-sitting charges were still asleep. "Man," Wendy said, her arm around Dipper's shoulders, "that was intense!"
"I hope these kids won't mind that so many of their toys are broken," Dipper said.
"Nah," Wendy told him. "That happens all the time. They'll blame each other, and their grampa will buy them new junk. You know, you look pretty hot when you're tall."
Dipper blushed. "Don't think I haven't thought about—something like that."
"Plus, you looked real cuddly when you were like half sized. No kidding, man. I wouldn't mind having you in my bed."
His blush became as scarlet as the uniforms of the Cardinal Kraits. "Really? Uh, which size do you mean?"
Wendy pulled him closer. "Hmm," she whispered, her breath warm on his lips. "Let me think about that."
The End