"Careful! We don't want to wake anyone!"
"Hey, I'm the careful one. You're the one that-"
"Ssshhhh! There's someone here!"
"What?! But this room's supposed to be empty!"
Mike was roused from a deep sleep by a familiar voice in his room.
"Nightmare Dipper?" Mike yawned as he turned toward the voice, propping himself up with one arm and using the other to rub his eyes. "It's alright if you had one. You know I don't mind if…"
Mike trailed off as he opened his eyes and saw that there were two Dippers instead of one. Both sides froze for a second as they stared at each other, one side with surprise and confusion and the other with growing panic and fear. They moved at the same moment, the Dippers trying to scramble back out the window they had just come through but Mike's wires were faster, wrapping around their waists and lifting them into the air.
"Alright," Mike began calmly, but firmly. "Which one of you is the real Dipper and which one is the shapeshifting doppelgänger?"
"He's the real Dipper!" the one on the right immediately said, pointing to the other. "Don't hurt him, hurt me! I'm the fake!"
"What?!" The other shouted in shock, looking at his double in fear and worry. "Don't listen to him! He's the real one and I'm the fake! Hurt me instead!"
"Enough!" Mike cut in, immediately silencing the two as they stared at Mike in fear.
Mike could admit in retrospect that that had been a stupid question as why would a shapeshifter give themselves up just because he asked, but the way these two reacted was surprising and unexpected. Instead of trying to save themselves, they each tried to protect the other. Mike felt like he was missing something and while he kept them held in his wires, he flipped on the light to get a better look at the two.
Once Mike's eyes adjusted to the sudden brightness, Mike examined his captives and discovered that while they were identical to each other, there were differences between them and Mike's actual little brother. These two were both shorter than Dipper and a lot paler. Even their hair and clothes, except for the raincoats they wore, seemed a bit more washed out than they should be. The only visible difference between the two was that one had the number 3 where the pine tree symbol on Dipper's hat should be and the other had a 4. The thing that Mike noticed now that he was more awake was how light they were, lighter than should be humanly possible for a kid their size.
"Neither of you are Dipper are you," Mike stated as he looked between the two.
"P-please don't hurt u-us," number 4 begged while 3 merely trembled in terror.
"Depends, are you going to hurt anyone here?" Mike questioned coldly to hide his hesitation. Honestly, unless these two were planning to murder his family Mike didn't think he could bring himself to attack anything wearing his brother's face. (His mind flashed back to when he and the others had escaped Mabel's bubble. To when he had barely yanked back control from Molten Freddy in time to keep Dipper from being killed.)
Both Dipper look-a-likes immediately shook their heads no.
"Then I'm not going to hurt you," Mike replied easily, though he still eyed them warily. "So why did you two break in here anyway? What do you want?"
The Dippers didn't respond as their fear was too great. Mike sighed as he realized that he probably wasn't going to get answers from the Dippers anytime soon. Making sure to position himself between the doppelgängers and the exits, Mike placed Dippers back on the ground. The two immediately scrambled back from Mike as far as they could, clinging to each other as they watched Mike's every move.
"Since you two obviously came here for a reason," Mike began sitting on the floor himself. "And it doesn't seem like you're willing to tell me anything, we'll wait for the others to wake up in… an hour or so. You can either tell them what your after or we'll just decide what to do about you without your input."
The Dippers said nothing and Mike settle in for a boring wait. As the minutes ticked slowly by, Mike couldn't help but wonder why the Dippers had such an extreme fear of him. Sure, he caught them easily when they tried to escape, but that wasn't enough for them to act like cornered animals trapped by a deadly predator. It didn't make sense and Mike feared what the answer might be.
Finally, they heard the rest of the shack's occupants begin their day and Mike got up to escort the Dippers to the kitchen. For better or worse, the Dippers were more afraid of Mike than the idea of meeting the rest of the family so they quickly made their way out of Mike's room.
Stan and the twins were already there when Mike and the Dippers entered and it wasn't long before they noticed the doubles. Stan and Mabel, immediately went on the defensive, ready to attack if the doubles moved wrong. The real Dipper was surprised to see the doubles but quickly came to his copies defense that they were fine and calmed Stan and Mabel down. Ford nearly shot the Double Dippers when he entered, believing the shapeshifter had escaped, only for Original Dipper to stand in the way and assure his Grunkle that they weren't dangerous.
After everyone had calmed down and had breakfast (which the doubles skipped on), the group piled into the living room to finally figure out what was going on. Dipper started first, explaining how he and Mabel had discovered the copier could copy real people and how he had used it in an attempt to pull off an elaborate plan he had as well as how it ended. (Dipper glossed over exactly what the plan was about, but Mabel seemed to have caught on.) The copies went next, explaining how they had freaked out after seeing Dipper destroy the other copies and had been living in the woods ever since.
"It hasn't been too bad, especially because we don't have to worry about eating," Dipper 3, who had introduced themselves as Tracy, said with a shrug. "And once we got raincoats and a waterproof tent it's been pretty fun."
"Mostly we've been exploring the woods," Quattro (Dipper 4) added. "We've found a lot of cool things, though we couldn't do much in the winter for fear of getting wet."
"How'd you guys survive Weirdmaggedon?" Dipper asked curiously. "That could not have been easy with how crazy everything had been."
"Is that when the sky tore open?" Tray asked in fear, hugging himself tightly. "We… we almost didn't…"
"It was terrifying how reality just seemed to get turned on its head and we were worried about Mabel," Quattro explained, putting a comforting arm around his brother. "We were running back to the shack to check on her when… when someone found us…"
Both Tracy and Quattro glanced over at Mike and Mike couldn't help but flinch back at the implication. That early during Weirdmaggedon and the fact Mike didn't remember the encounter clearly pointed to only one thing.
"You ran into Mike…" Dipper concluded when no one said anything. "You ran into him when he was being controlled by Molten Freddy."
"He never introduced himself to us…" Quattro went on still staring at Mike though now he looked thoughtful. "Though mind control does explain why he acts so differently now… and why his eyes are a different color… Anyway, he caught us pretty instantly and once he figured out that neither of us was the real Dipper… he was going to kill us. He would have too if the water tower hadn't walked by at that moment and threw off his balance. We were able to squirm out of the wires' grip and made a run for it though he chased us."
"He almost caught us again," Tracy said with a trembling voice, lifting his raincoat to show gashes in his side that had been repaired with duct tape. "If Quattro hadn't been there and thrown a rock at him, I'm sure I would phage been completely shredded."
"We managed to find a small hole under some tree roots that was just big enough for the two of us to hide in," Quattro finished. "He didn't find us and we just hid in there until reality returned to normal."
"So why did you guys come back after all this time?" Mabel asked. "Did you want something?
"Well…" Tracy began after he and Quattro shared a look. "We were missing you, Mabel, especially whenever we saw you again this summer. We were hoping that you'd be willing to get copied so we could have our twin back."
"Of course!" Mabel said easily.
As the others worked out details about what to do next and what could be done for the Dipper clones, Mike couldn't help but think about what Tracy and Quattro had said about their encounter with him. Mike had known objectively that there had been about a three-day period in which Molten Freddy had free reign to do whatever it wanted, but now it really sunk in for Mike. A killer animatronic using his face had been on the loose for days, hunting down his little brother and hurting who knows many people on the way. Tracy and Quattro probably aren't the only ones that got hurt during that time and Mike might never know until they freak out at the sight of him.
"It's not your fault," Dipper whispered, noticing Mike's distress. "You weren't the one that hurt them."
"I know," Mike replied softly. "But that still doesn't make it easy…"
Dipper just nodded and leaned against Mike to offer comfort and show his support.
Tracy and Quattro ended up staying with Pines for the rest of the summer at the family's insistence. Stan didn't want his nephews sleeping out alone in the woods and Ford promised to invent something to help permanently waterproof them. Mabel let herself get copied and loved all the games they could play with their doubles. Dipper loved sharing stories with his doubles about their adventures and comparing theories and notes. Mike kept his distance at first, wanting to avoid distressing Tracy and Quattro (and he hated how someone that looked and practically was another version of his little brother looked at him with such terror). But the Mabels were determined to fix things. They forced the group to join them in board games and to watch movies together, basically any mundane activity they could think of where they can just spend time around each other. It was very awkward at first, but it worked. Tracy and Quattro slowly got used to being around the real Mike and while they would never be as close to Mike as the original Dipper, they at least no longer feared him.
The summer eventually came to an end, throwing a party for both the twins and their paper copies. The doubles had decided throughout their stay with the Pines family, that while they had appreciated their time with them, they no longer truly belonged with them. They had decided that they would set out on their own to find their own place and they would do so by jumping into the bottomless pit to explore whatever dimension they might end up in.
"Here's more of the waterproofing sealant," Ford said, handing Tracy a bottle. "The coating you have covering you now shouldn't come off or lose its effects, in theory, but it's always good to have more just to be safe."
"And here's some new journals," Dipper said, handing over some blue leather-bound books with a golden '3' and '4' respectively. "Can't go exploring without something to write down all your discoveries after all."
"And I got you plenty of pens," Mike said, handing a bag over. "And don't worry, they won't break no matter how much you chew on them. And there's also some knitting needles and wool for Destiny (Mabel 2's new name)."
"And I got you guys a scrapbook!" Mabel said, handing over a glitter-covered book. "There are pictures of us and the fun we've had the last few weeks so you don't forget that you'll always be a part of our family as well as plenty of blank pages to add your own pictures!"
"You sure you kids don't want to stay?" Stan asked one last time. "You're family after all and always welcome here."
"Thank you for everything, but we're sure," Tracy said, shouldering his bag. "We want to live our own lives."
"We'll miss you guys," Quattro added. "But we've been more than just Dipper's copies for a while. We're ready for this."
"Don't worry, I'll keep them out of trouble," Destiny said, putting her arms around her brothers. "We've got this!"
With one last round of hugs and a final goodbye, the three paper siblings approach the edge of the pit, holding each other's hands tightly. Tracy and Quattro had started a countdown, but Destiny just jumped straight in, pulling her brothers with her. The Pines family waited by the pit for about half an hour before deciding the paper siblings had successfully made it to another dimension.
Wishing the paper siblings luck on their journey, the Pines family prepared to say their goodbyes as they would soon go their separate ways again. But it wasn't a sad moment, not really, as they knew they had plenty more summers full of adventures to look forward to.
AN: So ends the second summer. I'm going to take a little break from this mini-series so I can focus more on Falling through the Breach for a bit. Once I have a good buffer, I'll return to this series again. I still have plenty of ideas for it after all.