CHAPTER FOUR
The main villain revealed in this chapter. ;)
Wendy glanced over at Dipper. He sat in the passenger seat, his attention focused upon the storm outside. He seemed unaware of the constant bumps which her dad's van crossed as they drove down the mountainside. Nor did he pay any attention about the awkward silence which rested within the van, with the driver too focused on the road to turn on the radio. Mabel lay in the backseat, her eyes on her lap. Wendy didn't know if the brunette was feeling shame at not preventing the dare, or guilt for ever getting Pacifica involved. At the moment, she was too busy with her own feelings to gain that level of insight into Mabel's mind.
While she sat in unhappy contemplation, her brother glared at the storm clouds with mounting rage. Wendy could see his hands clench and unclench, and could just catch the threats which he was muttering under his breath. He had gotten better at talking to himself in a quieter voice since they had fought the shape-shifter and she had revealed that she could hear him. His breath became more ragged as his whole form began to shake, causing a rising tension to form within the truck.
She tried to ignore it, wanting desperately to ignore the awful situation which the three of them were in. But as she glanced at Mabel, she realized that this whole situation was torture for her. She didn't do anything. Out of all of us, she probably screwed up the least. She glanced over at her best friend, his promise of choosing between her and Paz echoing through her mind. It all seemed so trivial after almost drowning and watching one of your friends be practically kidnapped. But you still want to know, the little voice in her head insisted.
This was neither the time nor the place, however, and as Dipper's seething became so unsettling that she felt ready to break down, Wendy found herself speaking. "I'm sorry."
He looked up from the window with a jolt, the words returning him to reality. "Wait…what?"
"I'm sorry I took it too far. This is all my fault." She swallowed down the aching in her throat and winced in preparation for his outburst.
Instead, he stared at her for a long time. Mabel seemed unsure if the apology had brought happiness, but was relieved that Dipper was no longer venting in such a psychotic fashion. For a long moment, however, that uncertainty remained, and began to weigh upon them all.
Then Dipper broke the silence. "It's not your fault that Pacifica's dad is a bastard."
Mabel gasped at the strong language but did not disagree with the assertion. Wendy felt relief fill her with the rather selfish assurance that he was not angry at HER.
Her guilty conscience anyway, "But I-"
"Wendy, you challenged Pacifica to a REALLY stupid dare. And I'm disappointed in you for doing that-"
She inhaled, her throat now dry all of a sudden.
"-but it's not the reason I'm pissed off." He ran a hand through his hair and stared out the windshield at the raindrops.
They pelted, gathered, and slid off to collect more and more dirt on their endlessly replaced journey. Wendy slowed the car as the rain picked up, and looked over at him. His vision was focused entirely upon the wet asphalt. She could see how difficult it was for him to speak from the concentration upon his face.
Finally, he sat up and spoke in a flat tone. "Pacifica told me last year, over text…about how abusive her parents are. Bill isn't the reason I've been having nightmares for over a year now. That is. I've been trying to…be supportive, and make her feel better. I've tried, and I've tried. But she…but THEY. They don't leave her alone. They don't let her wear what she wants. They're monsters. If you two could hear some of the stuff they've done to manipulate her…it's disgusting. Inhuman. I thought…I thought that we would have the weekend to ourselves. I thought that I could make her…really happy. But instead those assholes, who were probably spying on us from the day we got there, decide to show up just when they have justification…and they...and they take her…away."
Wendy forced herself to return her eyes to the road, but his expression was imprinted into her mind.
"I just want to…step on them."
She didn't blink, the hatred in his voice not nearly as shocking as it should have been. It felt too relatable for her to be surprised to hear it within him. He looked up with a broken expression, she looked over then, to see something incredibly inspiring in his eyes. A plan. Something about his face, the glint in his eyes. She could see the cogs turning in his head, and liked every moment of it. There was that spark which signaled adventure, cunning, and unpredictability. That thing which made him so fascinating.
"What is it, Dipper?"
He put a hand to his chin, "I want to teach them a lesson, Wendy. I want to scare them into never hurting her again."
Mabel glanced at Wendy and noticed the smile which had begun to spread across her face.
She leaned forward and shook her head with owlish eyes. "No. We've…guys we've gotten I enough trouble today! Please don't…"
Dipper spoke without looking up, "Mabel, Pacifica is our friend. We owe it to her to do this."
His twin protested shrilly, "DIPPER, this isn't going to help ANYBODY! You can't always use your supernatural stuff to solve your problems!"
"Mabel-"
"NO! Wendy almost DIED. Pacifica almost DIED. We don't need ANY MORE dangerous stuff today. Nothing illegal, nothing magic. We need to go home, and call the police."
"Yeah right Mabel, like they're going to listen to me. They hate my guts, and they could be bribed anyway."
"WELL, IT'S BETTER THAN PULLING A STUPID PRANK!"
Wendy swerved onto the side of the road, unable to continue driving while they argued. She caught her breath as the twins glared at one another. Glancing between them, she tried to speak. But Mabel beat her to the punch.
"All you're going to do is piss them off, and make extremely influential enemies."
"I've fought demons, Mabel, I'm not afraid of-"
"But they are HUMAN Dipper. You can't kill them, you can't banish them to the ninth circle of hell because they are people."
He glared at her for a tense moment, and Wendy thought she heard murmur "Why the hell not?" as he climbed out of the van. Mabel growled with anger, but Wendy stopped her as she unbuckled herself.
"I'll help him cool off okay?"
The brunette glared up at her uncharacteristically, "This is all your fault."
The weight behind the words implied that more than just the argument or even the near drowning was her fault. It became clear that Mabel blamed her directly for Dipper and her splitting apart. Wendy swallowed dryly and turned away from the fuming glare. She crossed the road and followed Dipper into the forest.
She approached as he stood in front of a large tree, shuddering in his own frustration. "Dipper-"
He turned towards her and gripped her shoulders, "I can't do this Wendy! I can't sit back and allow this all-"
"I know."
He paused, and his face twisted confusion. "I'll help you Dipper…but whatever your plan is, it has to be traumatic enough that we will never have to deal with those pricks again."
Dipper nodded darkly, "It will be."
Wendy folded her arms, "Did you really…go a whole year knowing all that and not telling anybody?"
"She made me promise not to tell."
"Why…why does she put up with it?" Wendy knew that he wouldn't have a certain answer, but was unable to hold the question.
He gave a tired shrug, looking ready to collapse under the weight of this knowledge he had withheld so long. Everything felt like it was rolling downhill at the moment, but the excitement of the pace at which they were going was evident in her face. He explained to her the plot as they strolled over to the car, and agreed to keep it from Mabel.
The rest of the drive was silent.
*0*
The plan was for Dipper to locate the crystals which allowed him to enlarge or shrink things while Wendy retrieved some herbs from the case under Ford's bed. She had been surprised at how ready he was to steal from the old man but found herself a little happy that they were back to their old trouble-making ways. Dipper told Mabel that he was going to take a jog, and Mabel hid away upstairs. Wendy figured that she had plugged herself into her Ipod because she could hear the faint music playing upstairs. It sounded scratchy and strange, though.
Wendy chose not to investigate, as time was of the essence. Ford was out back messing with some invention, and Stan had been wrangled into spending the day with Soos. She slipped down the hall, and with steady hands, she gently opened the door. The room was shrouded in darkness, and apparently the light switch did not work. She flipped it back and forth a few moments, before wondering how Ford got any reading done in here (she assumed he read before bed, he seemed to like this kind of person). She managed to locate a flashlight which Stan had in the case of emergency and tried not to attract any attention by making too much noise. She tiptoed back to the room, and flicked on the torch, only to find that old clothes and opened cans of beans lay scattered about the room. Yeesh, you'd think for someone so OCD, he'd take better care of his room.
She moved between the used things and reached the bed. Bending on one knee, she cast the beam of light upon what lay below. A couple of large cases lay there, one painted a dark green, and the other one stainless steel. She clasped the green case and slid it out. Opening it, she peered into it to find that it was filled with specimen test tubes. Unable to find the herbs which Dipper had requested, she prepared to close it back up and open the other one. But something caught her eye. The movement of the specimens, bits of them expanding and receding in something which mimicked breathing, but was not quite the same. The synthetic glow of the flashlight gleamed off of the glass tubes, and illuminated the strange, but small creatures within. They shivered in its harshness, and all resembling a mix between a seahorse and a slug. They all looked roughly the same, and they all appeared to be in their larval stage. With black, bug eyes they stared up at her, and she slammed the case close, perhaps a bit too loud.
The door creaked as she pushed it back under, and her head snapped towards it with a deer-in-the-headlights look. No one was there. Shaking her head, she slid the green case back under, and reached for the other one.
"You are such a little pain in the ass…"
Wendy froze upon hearing those rage filled words, and saw her own terrified expression reflected in the steel case. That voice. She had heard it before. But it wasn't quite that familiar one which scratched against her mind and spoke in her dreams. It was diluted. With Ford Pine's voice. Before she could get to her feet, the owner of the voice had wrapped an iron arm around her neck and placed a chloroform soaked rag against her mouth. Everything went black as she fell backward into her capturer's arms.
*0*
Wendy sat in a room full of mirrors.
The room did not resemble the mirror mazes of her youth. Instead, it smiled grimly. She didn't know how a room could smile grimly, but this one did. There were no doors, no exits, and nowhere to hide. Her reflection was everywhere. Stretching across the ceiling, splattered across the wall and clinging to the walls. Every bit of her was revealed by the uncountable glass surfaces. The room twisted in a way which the universe did at its center, always circling back around no matter which way she turned.
She called out, and two voices answered. Dipper and Mabel approached her, each not looking themselves. Mabel was dressed in a costume which resembled Gideon's and wore a smile to compete with this room's level of conceit. Her eyes glowed teal as she approached, and then changed to red, then back to teal. In her hands was a glowing, egg-shaped stone.
Dipper kept up with Mabel's brisk stride by his own shuffling insanity. His skin was paler than she had ever seen, as though he was missing blood. A grin of unorthodox measure stretched across his face, like a horrid mask. She knew it to be a mask because there was no happiness in his eyes. Those eyes glowed yellow as he tugged at the collar of the reverend costume he wore, tears spilling down across her face as she noticed that he was missing most of his teeth. The tears mixed with his sweat and collected around the scar ridges which crisscrossed his neck.
She tried to move away from them. From her wickedness and his broken soul. But the room had no end to it. It was always one spot. She ceased resisting, and both reached out and gripped her hands. Mabel did it with a steel grip while Dipper hung on for dear life. She looked down at him, sensing the sweatiness of his palms as he clung to her hand like a child afraid of drowning without the life raft of their mother.
Mabel raised the spinning stone towards her and spoke in a whisper which sent shivers down her spine. "Tomorrow?"
Dipper raised a bloodstained hatchet towards, her a gray one which itched at her memory just like the voice of the man who had knocked her out. Completely black pupils popped into his eyes and opened to form slivers of derangement. He opened his mouth, dry lips cracking and bleeding down his dry throat. His few teeth clawed at his snake like tongue as he spoke.
"Y-Yes-Ye-Yesterday…?"
She looked between the stone and the ax. They both looked eager, both anticipating whatever horrible thing would happen when she chose one of their gifts. The walls shook and cracked as she looked between the two pieces. In the stone, she saw freedom. She would run around and around the earth like Amelia Earhart without borders or rules, or anything but the forever rising sun. Able to run until her worries were so far behind her that they became fond memories. She would be able to swallow the oceans and burn down the forests, she would be able to dance until everyone else had died of exhaustion.
Then she returned her attention to the ax. She didn't see anything when she looked at it. Just an ax. A tool used to do slaughter. Dipper looked ecstatic that she might consider it, and for a moment, his eyes almost looked normal. Then he shuddered and coughed up blood. It landed on the glass floor and slid between the widening cracks. She reached out and took the ax. Mabel exploded into ash, while Dipper laughed with genuine relief, and melted away. He slid between the cracks in the floor like so much of his blood had, and left little bits of himself clinging to her boot.
Wendy looked at the name imprinted upon the ax blade. "GWENDOLYN." Then she flung it forward with all her might and watched the room transform into a million tiny blades, which tore through reality and devoured time.
She awoke with a start. The cold wind struck her face as something glowed bright blue behind her. Her vision was blurry, but she managed to realize that she was in a dark room. The stink of chloroform filled her nose and made her lungs burn. Wendy tried to move her arms but discovered that she was tied to a chair. She struggled, but the metal foldout chair just tipped backward, and she hit her head on the sand. Wait, where are am I?
"I'm very much surprised at you. I never really thought…what with all the brute force…that you might attempt to be sneaky. Still…it was inevitable, wouldn't you say?"
A sigh came from the direction of the voice, but from her perspective on the ground, she was unable to see the man responsible. Her mind grew fuzzy and then cleared as she realized that the surface of the ground was coated in sand. She twisted to try and see her captor, but all she saw were the outlines of boots. The man wore a trench coat, which she glimpsed as he circled her. A hand gripped the back of the chair, and pinched her hair, causing a wince, as she was tipped forward.
"You couldn't just play nice with the other kiddies. You had to go all secret agent, didn't you? Bet you thought lover boy would find you real sexy, stealing from his great uncle."
She identified the voice, the pissed off tone reminding her of so many times before. It suddenly occurred to her, how much time the old man had spent locked away in the basement. How much they didn't know about him. How it was incredibly possible that, what with being isolated in an inconceivable dimension, he had gone totally insane.
"FORD!" She snarled his name, buck despite the rope on her legs, and reigniting her efforts to escape.
The old man stepped into the circle of light, clapping his hands slowly. "Bravo. You figured out what would have taken lover boy five seconds."
She rocked back and forth, eventually ceasing and staring at up him. "I can't believe you would do this!"
He chuckled at her expense and bent onto one knee to tighten her binds. "You still haven't figured it out…"
She tried to kick him and failed, causing him to punch her hard in the stomach. As she heaved painfully for breath, he stood. Glaring up, she noticed the control room up above.
"We're in the basement…"
The cold wind, darkness, and blue light behind her all made sense, as she realized that the portal lay right behind her. And it was turned on.
"You're figuring it out…" He gripped the back of her chair and dragged her towards the whirring sound behind her.
"I thought you destroyed it," She said in an empty tone, feeling her heart begin to pump as she considered being thrown into the portal.
"You still don't get it."
He lifted her into the air with abnormal strength and turned her towards him. In the light of the portal, she recognized that his eyes were missing pupils. "So young…so futile...so stupid."
Her eyes widened. "You aren't him."
His face began to morph as he nodded as his skin turned transparent and slimy. "Now tell me where lover boy went…or I will toss you in, and you will never be heard from again."
His voice shifted into the deep roar which he had used upon stalking her and Dipper through the tunnels beneath Ford's bunker. That voice, which had reappeared over and over in her dreams, tugging on the corner of her subconscious. His mouth twisted into the hideous maw, with the teeth jutting out and flicking slobber across her face.
The Shapeshifter stood in all his glory, several feet taller than the last time they had encountered. His claw bit into her neck lightly, as slime tricked out of its pink eyes.
"WHERE. IS. HE?" It shook her to get her attention, and then tossed her backward when she failed to answer.
Her head slammed against the floor of the basement, some of the ropes snapping on impact. The monster scuttled towards her, its four legs scratching against the floor as it approached. Wendy used her free arm to tear at the ropes, her head spinning. Before she could properly recover, it had already picked her up.
"I'm beginning to become impatient. You've got five seconds."
Wendy glared down at him, "Why do you want to know? Disguised as Ford you could kill him at any point."
The creature's maw twisted in an unnatural fashion and opened wide. "I don't want to KILL him you, idiot. Now tell me where he is."
Wendy stared down at it, and then at the portal. Its multiple tongues rolled across its three teeth as it anticipated her response. Its breath smelled like burning garbage.
"He…He's at the lake…"
The creature peered at her with its pink eyes and then barked with laughter. "You think I can't tell when you humans lie?"
It threw her upwards, and the chair broke apart upon hitting the cavern ceiling. Bits of metal rained down about her as she struck the floor. She tasted iron as the sound of that awful scuttling echoed through the underground room.
"You really do have no survival instinct, do you? Down in the tunnels…you could have left. But you wanted to stay, you wanted to conquer THE BEAST. Heh-heh…I had to keep from laughing after you proposed that stupid idea to go camping."
She looked up, and remembered how good Dipper had been at mimicking voices after carrying her to the front porch, "Wait…you…?"
"I've been playing you all like pieces in that stupid game which the six-fingered nerd liked to play with his lab assistant."
"Ughh-chess?"
"Shut up." It tightened its grip, causing her to kick the air like a dead man swinging.
"Now where is he? Where is he REALLY?"
He loosened his grip, and she continued the lie. "The lake…*gasp* that *gasp* is where he left to go…"
The Shapeshifter rolled its eyes and bit into her leg. She screeched and realized that they were so far underground, that no one would hear her. It throttled her back and forth, before watching her snarl at it.
"I defeated you once you glorified slug…I can do it again…"
It shook with rage, and then, with a disturbing smile, the anger had vanished. Now the creature transformed into a massive golem. Its stone hand now covered her entire torso, while its head scraped against the ceiling.
Its voice came out a deep bellow, which shook the entire room and caused bits of rock to break off of the ceiling and spill across the floor. "ANSWER THE QUESTION! I KNOW YOU ARE AFRAID OF SOMETHING…ALL HUMANS ARE. AND WHATEVER IT IS…I WILL FIND IT. I WILL BECOME IT. AND THEN YOU WILL GIVE IN."
She shook in his grip, unwilling to speak but unable to remain silent with those awful pink eyes upon her. The Shapeshifter stared deep into her eyes, beginning to speak in a monotonic voice as it listed off the creatures which humans were afraid of.
"Snakes…bats...wolves…sharks…spiders…"
She flinched, and he grinned again, more hideously this time. "Spiders eh? That one's easy…"
As it began to shift into a gigantic spider, the lights shut off. The Portal whirred down as the power shuddered down, and the Shapeshifter glared upstairs in annoyance.
"Sounds like the moron who helped freeze me just caught on…" It looked over Wendy and then dropped her.
"We'll continue this conversation at a later date." It skittered over to the steps leading up the elevator, disappearing from her view as she caught her breath.
Wendy pushed herself to a stand, with head spinning and lungs burning. She gripped the railing as she ascended the staircase, and reached the elevator. It returned, signaling that the Shapeshifter had reached the ground level. She entered, and pressed the "1" button. I hope you find those crystals before he finds you Dipper.
She heard Mabel scream above, and tensed as she realized that it had not only taken her ax, but also her phone. This isn't going to be pretty.
"I enjoy when a story gets dark, but I hate when it gets too dark. I read the prequel to this story months ago and then I told you that it was a great story though the writing could use an improvement. You have improved a lot in writing, and I hope the story does not get too dark because I would love to keep reading it.
I have never read another story where Pacifica and Wendy fight over Dipper, I think it is a great idea, and I don't know why people prefer to write 1000 versions of 'Pacifica is disowned and goes to live with the Pines' instead of something different like this." ~lennoxmacduffes
The story will get dark. Not much darker than this, but it will inevitably have some nasty moments. Mostly because that is my writing style. I'll try to tone it down for you, but I don't want to damage my vision of how the story plays out.
"Well, now that I've caught up with your latest story I must say that this is probably your best work that I've read. Everyone is in character and they all have a wonderful chemistry together. I'm very intrigued by Wendy's "dreams" and I'm hoping that the story only gets better. I'm very curious by the probability of an M rating for the later chapters.
Keep up the great work!"~ Returdedphoenixmorph
Thank you! It's good to know that I am consistently getting better. The dreams are my favorite sections!
"I want to say that's Gideon, and I want to for once go whaling for Moby Dick(glare of rage), or whoever it is."~The Keeper of Worlds
Now you know! Having the bounty hunter be a shapeshifter is kind of a cheat...but...eh!
