Chapter 8
Gravity Falls 10 pm
Mystery Shack
"Yeah dawg, she left a couple of hours ago when everybody else did. I think she was getting a ride from Tamby." Soos answering questions from someone on the phone, "Ok, so Candy said she wanted to walk home instead. Have you tried calling her house to see if her dad has heard from her? Ok. Ok. And Dan said she hasn't gotten home yet. Look Dip this is Wendy we're talking about. She can handle anything these woods can throw at her with a blindfold on and one hand tied behind her back."
Melody walked into the living room at the end of that exchange and glanced over at her boyfriend with a questioning look, so he put his hand over the receiver end and said, "Dipper's trying to reach Wendy and she's not picking up. She's also not at home and he's scared that something has happened to her."
"Shoot, I'll get grab a couple of flashlights." Melody told Soos as she almost instantly turned back to the towards the kitchen to get the flashlights and some quick supplies.
"Melody & I are gonna head out to see if we can find her. I'll call as soon as we get back. She'll be safe, dood." Soos reassures his frantic friend as Melody comes back into the room, "Alright, we're heading out now, go ahead and double check with Tambry ok?"
Soos took one of the flashlights and headed out to the gift shop. He grabbed the baseball bat from under the counter in case they end up needing a weapon. As one they headed out the door. Turning on their flashlights they turned and walked across the parking lot towards the woods. They get about ten foot into the woods before Melody stops Soos,"Wait a minute, quiet. Do you hear that?"
Soos stops and listens very intently, he is barely able to make out music coming from the Shack.
"Is that 'Disco Girl'?" Melody asks as she turns back towards the Shack. Without answering Soos started heading back to the Shack with Melody quickly catching up to him. "It seems to be coming from the roof."
"Her secret spot," Soos said as he raced inside and revealed the ladder to the roof. He climbed it and saw Wendy was apparently asleep on the lawn chair she keeps up on the roof. Melody was up shortly after Soos. They came up besides Wendy and tried to wake her. It took couple of minutes of shaking before she started coming around.
"Soos, Melody, what's going on? Why am I on the roof?" Wendy asked still feeling groggy, "What time is it? Is the meeting over?"
"Let's get you downstairs, then I need to call your dad and a certain friend of yours. He's been worried sick about you." Melody said almost going into a protective mother mode. She's doesn't do it often but in the short time she has been with them she really has adopted these guys as her family.
Soos & Melody helped Wendy get to her feet and slowly walked her to the ladder. Once there Soos went down first in-case he needed to catch Wendy if she fell coming down the ladder. Wendy followed and even though she was still groggy she climbed down the ladder like it was nothing. Finally melody came down. They walked Wendy into the living room and sat her down in the chair. Finally they each grabbed their cell phone and each dialed a number.
"Dan, we found Wendy. Apparently she climbed up to break spot and fell asleep." Melody told her friend's father, "We'll keep her tonight, alright?"
"Hey Dipty-dawg. We found Wendy. We were on our way out to the woods to look for her, when we heard her phone ringing. She was out at her break spot and apparently crashed.", Soos told Dipper after he answered, after pulling the phone away from his ear as Dipper yelled a reply, "Calm down dood, I meant she was asleep."
"Yeah, we're telling Dipper about her now. Yeah, I know the little guy worries about her." Melody was still talking to Dan, "Yeah, I've seen the way he looks at her, too. They'll figure it out sometime. Talk to you later."
"Alright Dip, I'll have her call you when she gets up. Pass it down the line that she's good ok. Dan knows. Talk to you tomorrow, Dip." Soos said as he was getting off of the phone.
Soos went and grabbed a blanket out of his closet and covered Wendy with it. If he had looked back as he left he would have seen a alight blue glow coming from her right wrist.
Piedmont, California 10:30 pm
Dipper's room
"She crashed! Is she ok? Do I need to get up there?", Dipper was practically yelling into his phone after hearing what Soos said, "Oh. Ok. Good. Good."
"What happened, Dipper?" Mabel ran in asking after hearing Dipper yell. Dipper held up his hand to signal he'd tell her in a moment.
"Tell her I'm glad she's ok and I'll talk to her tomorrow. Yeah Mabel's here so we'll let everybody know. Do we need to tell her dad?" Dipper continued his side of the conversation, "Alright, thanks Soos."
And with that he hung up his phone. He turned to Mabel and gave her the update. He finished off with, "So we need to pass the info along to the rest of the gang. I'll take Tambry & Fiddleford, You reach your girls."
"Got it," Mabel said as she head back out towards her room.
Dipper then starts typing out a text to Tambry letting her know that Wendy was ok and had only fallen asleep on the roof of the shack. After that was sent he dialed Fiddleford. After the third ring McGucket answerwed, "Just letting you know Soos and Melody found Wendy. So we don't have to worry about postponing the plans to have a search party tomorrow."
Gravity Falls
McGucket Mansion
"That's good to hear, I reckon. Now I guess I can hold off on finishing up these blueprints for my Compact Humanoid Automated Recon Geographical Equipment suit, I'll go back to getting stuff ready for the brainstorming session tomorrow with friend of your sister's. Thank's again for asking me to help out, it always feels good ta be needed." the high tech redneck said.
Piedmont, California
Dipper's room
"Yeah, thanks for the concern. You know you're almost family now. And maybe save the suit's blueprints and we might find a use for it during a later adventure." he replied to the inventors response. He got a reply alert so he ended the conversation. "I'll talk to you later to see what you and Candy have come up with. Have a good night, Fiddleford." he waited for his departure and ended the call.
He opened up the text, 'G8, the gang & I were about to head out and look for her. Thompson to join Robbie & I at the library tomorrow. Nate & Lee to help McGucket.' He typed back, 'Sounds good. Talk at you tomorrow night.'
Mabel's room
"Thanks Paz, yeah we're glad she was found too. Did you get the Email info from Dipper yet?," Mabel waited for her response and then added, "I hope you don't think we're asking you to do any less than the rest, Dip is actually worried about his clones. He's afraid for them cause they don't have his experience." She paused again to wait on Pacifica to comment, "No, he doesn't think you're incapable of handling yourself if things get hairy. Actually I'm the one who asked him to have you do a less dangerous job." She pulled the phone away from her ear as Pacifica let loose with a tirade. She finally broke in attempting to calm her down, "Look please do this job. I'l... we'll make sure you can do more to help after this. Ok?" She heard Pacifica relent and say good bye before hanging up without Mabel getting to respond.
"I just wanted to keep you safe, I didn't want you mad at me." Mabel sighed to someone who can no longer hear her.
Gravity Falls
Pacifica's room in her families new, much smaller mansion.
"I'm glad she's ok, don't want Dipper to lose it during this." Pacifica said after hearing the news about at one point she thought she might like to get close to Dipper, but unfortunately she saw his devotion to the lumberjill wasn't anything she could counter . Realizing Mabel had asked her about the Email she responded, "Yeah, it was waiting on me when I got home. It should prove to be an easy job for me to track him down, probably too easy." she responded before listening to what Mabel had to say, "Even after I faced down that ghost & Bill with you guys he still doesn't believe I have what it takes to help you all in the field." She was actually more mad when she heard it was Mabel who didn't want her in the field. She had fought beside her against that lil golf ball troll Franz. "YOU, YOU didn't want me in the field. We've stood together against hundreds of little menaces, one of which is now in your home! But you don't trust me to be in the field! I thought we were becoming better friends, Mabel? I thought you were trusting me more to be a help...", at that point Mabel broke in trying to placate her, "Fine, I'll do this for the group, goodbye."
She hung up before Mabel could respond and threw the phone across room where it landed in a pile of imported stuffed animals, almost in the lap of a German teddy bear that was now wearing a yellow llama sweater. How could either of them think she was useless, they were the ones who had helped her come out of her old snobby shell. They were the ones who helped her become a better person. They were the only ones she was actually worried about impressing anymore, and she knew her money wouldn't do that for her. She wanted to be useful. To one day be an equal with them.
She grabbed her phone and the teddy bear and laid her head down on her pillow. It took awhile before she was able to get to sleep.
Piedmont, California
Mabel's room.
'I better get the message to Candy and Grenda, luckily Grenda spent the night at Candy's.', Mabel thought once she had calmed down after Paz had yelled at her for not believing in her
She dialed Candy's cell and let it ring till she got the voice-mail, "Hey gals, Soos & Melody found Wendy. She ended up climbing up to the roof of the Shack and fell asleep. Which is funny now that I think about it, she usually goes up via a ladder on the inside." She pauses as she hears a beep signaling an incoming call.
After looking at the caller ID she ends the voice-mail and answers the phone. "Candy I was just leaving you a message..." she got out before Candy interrupted her.
She listened intently as Candy explained why she hadn't answered. The more she heard the wider her eyes became. Finally she yelled out, "DIPPER!"
Dipper ran down the hall as fast as he could, really glad their parents were heavy sleepers. As he entered her room he asked, "What's so important that you had to yell loud enough you would've woken Grunkle Ford after one of his week long science binges?"
"Candy and Grenda, they've found Tony.", Mabel answered looking almost as shocked as he felt.
"What? How? When?", he questioned almost incoherently.
"Hold on." She said to her brother. "Candy, Dipingsauce is here. I'm putting you on speaker. Tell us again what happened."
Gravity Falls
Candy's back yard
"Hi Dipper," Candy said in her usual tone. "Well, it's actually very funny. Grenda and I were just fishing up a game of 'Which Cutie Am I?', when we saw a flash light beam outside my bedroom window. Knowing my father was asleep, and not having any house behind us we decided to go check it out. Don't worry we were armed."
"They came at me with a badminton racquet and a volume of an encyclopedia." A voice that sounded remarkably like Dipper's but different somehow, almost smoother. "The Multi-bear wasn't that scarey."
"Alright, Tony. Tell them why you are here," Grenda grunted, mentally comparing this wannabe Dipper to her friend's brother and finding him lacking.
"Yes, this is the real interesting part," Candy almost giggled as she said it.
"Well, before we got separated, My brother and I had been talking about the last time he had almost gotten caught scrounging supplies near the Corduroy house. I had," Tony stammered there a little embaressed by the whole situation." well, reminded him of a vow we had made after hearing about what had happened at the party. He then happened to mention he was only there for the supplies cause he was actually interested in one of Mabel's friends. The two that Mabel had stayed after the party. When I hadn't heard back from you I figured I'd try to find one of them. While down town, I happened to see both of them in a car with one of Wendy's friends. I started following them and kept up the best I could in order to see if my brother had abandoned me to try to reach out to the girl he liked. I really didn't know what to do. This is the longest we have been apart."
Dipper felt bad for not responding right off but he wanted input from the rest of the group, seeing he was no longer there to handle it in person. He was about to apologize when Mabel spoke up.
"I have a couple of quick question's for you mister," Mabel went into her 'this is so cute, but I need to be serious mode'. The last time Dipper remembers seeing her like this was during the whole ordeal with the Love God. "First off have either you or your 'brother' gotten into a fight with the fairies over an aloe plant before?"
'Ok,' Dipper thought, 'what in the world is she going on about now?'
"Uhm, yes we have. How did you know about that?", seeing the surprised looks on the two girls here and almost feeling Dipper's shock over the phone. "Shortly after we were 'born' we discovered we still needed liquid nourishment. The problem was we knew what would happen if we tried to drink anything. It was shortly after that, during one of our early foraging runs, Francis happened to fall off of the back fence at the Dusk2Dawn. He happened to land on an aloe plant that someone had thrown away or something. Knowing the plant is known for it's juicy pulp I had feared the worst. But after getting to his side I saw that not only did the aloe pulp not dissolve him, it actually helped him somehow. He's always the more adventurous of the two of us, so when he saw it hadn't killed him he tried digesting some of it. The plant matter in the pulp seemed to inhibit our dissolving and allowed us to get the hydration we needed. After that nearly every trip into town we would buy an aloe plant or three in order to survive."
Again Dipper was about to make an observation about their resourcefulness when Mabel cut him off.
"Alright now for question two, during any of these foraging trips did you or your brother go missing for a couple of hours only to turn up with some vague remembrances of what happened, maybe coming to near the Natural History Museum?" Mabel was now going into full on Mystery twin mode.
Dipper was starting to wonder where these questions were coming from? He looked at Mabel about to ask when she just grabbed his lips and mouthed 'Give me a minute.'
"Ok, let me think about it. Hmm," Tony said and he started rubbing his chin an a way that looked awfully familiar to Grenda & Candy. "now that mention it. Sometime after we made our pact, it took him nearly twice as long to get the aloe. He said it was because he ran into Toby Determined by the Museum and had to talk his way out of Toby having just seen Dipper leaving the arcade. That was around the time the water-tower nearly fell over. I remember now cause that was when he was able to convince me to go ahead and try to live our lives elsewhere. So we came up with the Clondicke last name and tried our luck a few towns over. I wish I had never talked him into coming back here."
Dipper had listened to his story and added it up with Mabel's questions and began to understand what happened. Apparently One of the Society members must have caught Francis fighting the fairies and they had zapped him. But how did Mabel know about it? He doesn't remember seeing a tube with his name on it there, but he only went through them until McGucket had found his memories. His questioning eyes almost bore a whole into Mabel, but she held his lips still so he couldn't ask her yet.
"Alright and now for the final and most important question I have for you." Mabel intoned. "Which of my friends did your brother have the crush on, the Master Matchmaker needs to know?"
"I hope it's not me," Grenda bellowed, "Cause I already have a boyfriend and don't really want to be a heartbreaker."
"That's one of your important questions?", Dipper finally hap pulled his lips free to speak. Mable just stuck her tongue out at him.
"Well, to be honest he never got a chance to answer that for me." Tony said in a tome almost To quiet to be heard. "He disappeared right in the middle of that very conversation."
"Here, here. Let my soothing voice help you," Grenda said as she pulled him into a group hug that also included Candy.
"All man, I 'm sorry I didn't respond as soon as I read your message. With not being there in Gravity Falls I wanted to wait and talk it over with the rest of our friends to make sure this didn't seem like just some type of hoax." Dipper tried his best to sound sympathetic to Tony's problem, which in a way he really was. Tony sounds like he's feeling the way I felt at the beginning of Weirdmageddon when I thought I'd lost Mabel forever. "We're gonna help you, but unfortunately I have some good news and I have some down right terrible news. The good news is we know where Francis is at, he's at the Shack." Dipper heard a joyous gasp come from Tony before he continued, "Unfortunately he's there because he was found petrified in the woods by Wendy's dad, Manly Dan."
After hearing the last part nearly all of life seemed to drain out of Tony. The fact that Grenda and Candy were holding him in the hug was the only thing keeping him vertical. He began nearly convulsing in heavy dry sobs. Finally a single tear slide down his left cheek, leaving behind a single scar in it's former path.
Dipper again apologized for not letting him know earlier, but really he thought this may have have been better. Here, now, he has people who would consider him a friend and help him as much as needed. He finally asked, "Do the two of think you can help him tonight. I'll ask Soos to come get him tomorrow so he can be with his brother."
Both girls knew that Tony needed friends now more than anything and readily agreed to help him as much as they can. Grenda finally hefted him up over her shoulder as she carried him indoors. They would worry about what will happen if Candy's dad finds out about him tomorrow if needed.
Well this certainly was one long night. I'm not sure who got the worst of it though, Tony or Dipper, or Wendy. We'll just have to wait and see. This mystery is almost to a conclusion and then the real fun begins. I'm happy to see all of the followers I'm gaining for the story & I hope to continue to write a story that will keep you around for awhile.
Again I'd like to give a shout out to EZB, SuperGroverAway, ddp456, & Popcat131. It was their stories that made me want to get back into writing and to want to start with Gravity Falls. Please check out their stories if you haven't already.
Please review. I'm always open to constructive and helpful criticism, though if you're gonna troll please move on.
I'm actually gonna take some time to respond to my reviewers today. I normally am writing these where I don't have regular access to the internet so I don't get the chance to have the reviews in front of me as I'm writing. These are gonna be going from the most recent back.
Dear guest: Right now it's gonna just be Mabel doing some soul searching and two people realizing they need each others friendship more than they thought. Now as it goes along it may develop to more or it may not. As I've said before as much as I've tried to stick to a plot line it gets hi jacked a lot by the characters as I'm writing them. Most of what is in this chapter was originally planned to be in Chapter 3-4 before the character started expanding every thing. ;-)
Dear RandomReader: Thanks. Yeah I really thought that if the positions were reversed Dipper would do anything to have Tony & Francis help him find Mabel, so I felt it was the best course of action. I do plan on expanding on the two of them (as evidenced in this chapter) more and flesh them out as characters. As we have seen plenty of times Wendy can handle nearly anything cause she's a 'Flippin Corduroy'. ;-) As for the Lamby dance I figured the while Mr & Mrs Pines are proud that Dipper is growing a backbone they (ok, Mrs Pines) still felt he had to do some type of penance, so out came the Lamby costume. Plus I figured it would be a good way for Wendy to have some relationship blackmail for the future. :-D I'm planning on it, this story has already surpassed my previous story in length and followers. Besides those I have here, I have been posting on both my tumbler and deviantart accounts and have gotten a following at both of those places also.
Dear willam and jack and jake: Thanks I hope you have continued to enjoy the story.
Dear cesargarciadiaz99: I hope you enjoyed the reactions at both schools, I actually based the Piedmont school experience loosely on the only time I was in trouble for fighting back in high school (not much of a real fight though, a friend was messing with my girlfriend and as I went to jokingly smack him my wrist snacked at the last second and I shattered his glasses) I also got two days for the action, even though we both had said we were just horsing and it was an accident.
Dear N. CIPHER: As was shown in the last chapter that is among the most likely suspects.
Dear RockSunner: Thanks, I hope you are still a reader. This winter is gonna toughen Dipper up even more than the summer as he's having to do nearly everything from the sidelines and it's almost emotionally more tiring than being in the front line because he has to watch it and not be in the thick of it where it is react now and think about it later. His fear for the welfare of his extended family will be stronger than nearly any fear he had for himself. And oh heck yeah, Wendip's back and the fire it's been going through is gonna temper it like a sword at a smithy's forge.
