Dipper carefully peeked out from under the garbage bags before sneaking down the street. He soon spotted an eye beam approaching along the ground and quickly scrambled over a wooden fence and hid in the alley. When the eye-bat passed, Dipper pulled out his walkie-talkie and turned it on.
"Mabel, it's me," Dipper spoke quietly. "So far I have eluded capture but I haven't been able to find you or Stan or Mike anywhere. I don't know if you can hear me, but wherever you are, whatever happens, I'm going to find you."
Dipper waited a moment to see if there was a response but when there was none he turned it off, doing his best to hold back his tears. It had been about three days (at least as near as he could tell) since Weirdmageddon started and he was dearly missing his family.
He had been so terrified when Mike reminded him about the danger Mabel was in by running off alone when it was getting dark and that terror only increased when he discovered Mabel had the rift as well. By the time Ford and Dipper made it outside, it was already too late, the sky had torn open and Bill Cipher was unleashing his power on the town. Dipper wanted to chase after his siblings to make sure they were alright, but Ford held him back. Ford insisted that they trust Mike to look after Mabel while they took care of Bill Cipher.
A lot of good that did, Dipper thought bitterly as he went to the other end of the alley. Their attack failed and now Dipper was all alone with no journals and no idea how to stop Bill. His only concern right now was finding his family and making sure they were safe.
"The mall! Maybe they're hiding in there!" Dipper said as he looked out of the alley, trying his best to remain hopeful. Dipper was about to run towards the mall when he heard something moving at the other end of the alley.
"Dipper!" he heard Mike's voice call softly from the other side of the fence. "Dipper! Are you around here?"
"Mike!" Dipper called back, feeling relief for the first time since this whole thing had started. Mike seemed to have heard him and jumped over the fence. Dipper was about to run up to Mike, but something held him back.
"Dipper!" Mike smiled, looking relieved, and began walking towards Dipper. "I've been looking all over for you."
"J-just stay back!" Dipper commanded, reaching into his bag and grabbing his taser though he didn't pull it out yet. He finally realized what was bothering him. Mike looked exactly the same as when Dipper last saw him. While Dipper didn't doubt Mike's ability to survive the apocalypse, there was no way he wouldn't look at least a little more run down.
"What's the matter Dipper?" the possibly fake Mike asked, looking confused by Dipper's request. "It's just me, Mike."
"Just answer one question for me," Dipper said, secretly turning his taser on and at half power. "What number am I thinking of?"
"That seems random, but… 9?" the imposter responded, confirming Dipper's worries.
"Wrong answer!" Dipper spat out, getting into a ready stance.
The Fake Mike froze for a second before lunging at Dipper. Dipper met the imposter with his taser, making the Fake Mike shriek in pain and fall to the ground stunned. Fake Mike's image began to flicker, no doubt about to reveal its real form, but Dipper didn't stick around to find out. Dipper slung his backpack back over his shoulder and sprinted towards the mall.
"You're not going to get away from me that easily Pine Tree!" the Fake Mike shouted at Dipper as he started to pursue the fleeing boy. Dipper's only response was to run faster than he practically ran head first into the mall's doors.
"Oh no!" Dipper gasped as he realized the mall doors weren't open. Adrenaline pumping through his veins, Dipper managed to pry the doors open enough for him to wriggle through. He fell onto the floor before quickly scrambling to his feet and automatically turning to see if he was safe, giving him a good view of the fake Mike's real form.
The imposter surprisingly still looked a lot like Mike, even wearing the clothes Dipper had last seen Mike in (which only increased Dipper's worry for the real Mike.), but the imposter was a healthy human skin tone rather than the decaying purple that Dipper was used to seeing. The imposter's left arm was robotic and currently had deadly-looking claws coming out of the fingers. It was running faster than normal thanks to its robotic legs that Dipper could glimpse through the imposter's torn pants. The imposter's right eye and part of its surrounding face were robotic though both of its eyes were glowing a sickening yellow. As it approached the mall's doors, wires seemed to snake out of its back, shooting forward and shattering the glass. Dipper quickly raised his arms to protect himself from the raining glass shards, stumbling back to get out of the way.
"There's nowhere for you to run!" The fake Mike taunted with a cruel grin, using a robotic voice that sounded familiar to Dipper, but he couldn't quite place it.
Dipper of course ignored the taunt and fled further into the mall. He had just gotten to the food court when fake Mike finally caught up to him. They tumbled on the floor, knocking over more tables as they struggled, but, inevitably, Dipper was pinned by the fake Mike.
"Hide and seeks' over little boy," fake Mike laughed as Dipper squirmed underneath him. Fake Mike stroked Dipper's cheek with one of its metal claws, pressing just hard enough to draw blood. "You were harder to track down than we thought, but you can't escape us now."
"Where's the real Mike?!" Dipper demanded, hoping to buy some time to figure a way out of this as he jerked his face away from the claw. "What did you do to him?!"
"Oh, he's still here, though he's asleep at the moment," fake Mike said, tapping the side of his head. "Don't worry though, we'll wake him up once we kill you. We can't wait to see his reaction! Poor little Mike has been broken so many times but still somehow keeps going. But once he sees another little brother has been killed by his own hand… we bet this time he'll shatter."
"You're lying!" Dipper denied it, confused and terrified by what this creature was saying.
"It doesn't matter to us whether you believe us or not," fake Mike said, displaying the claws on his robotic hand as he readied to slice Dipper's throat. "And it's not going to matter to you anymore either! Goodbye Pine Tree!"
"NO, YOU DON'T!" Came Dipper's guardian angel in the form of a furious lumber jill.
Wendy swung a baseball bat at the fake Mike with all her strength, making something crack as it connected with the imposter's chest. The fake Mike was knocked entirely off Dipper and sent flying into the nearest table.
"You're going to pay for that Ice!" the fake Mike hissed, using two wires to lift itself into the air while two more lashed out at Wendy.
"I'd like to see you try!" Wendy taunted, easily dodging the wires and landing another blow with her baseball bat. A part of Dipper wanted to just watch the amazing display, but he forced himself to turn away. Dipper pulled out his taser again and got ready. He watched the two fighters carefully and when he saw an opening, he lunged forward, turning his taser to full power.
The fake Mike let out an agonizing scream of pain as soon as the taser connected (one that sounded too close to the one Dipper had heard before), electricity dancing across the robotic parts. It seemed to go on forever, but it was only a few seconds before the charge dissipated and Dipper turned the taser off, the fake Mike slumping over unconscious.
"Nice job Dipper!" Wendy praised, putting down her bat and pulling out her crossbow instead. "I'll just finish it off…"
"No, wait!" Dipper said, quickly standing between Wendy and the thing that might be Mike. "Don't kill him!"
"Why not?" Wendy asked, confused by Dipper defending it. "It was literally just trying to kill you."
"I know, but it might be Mike!" Dipper hurriedly explained. "I don't know if it was the weirdness wave or something else, but it said some things that made it seem like the real Mike is still in there. I can't let you kill it until we know for sure."
"If that's what you think is best," Wendy said with a shrug, putting her crossbow away. "I guess at the very least we can interrogate it for information. We shouldn't stay out here though. Come on, I'll show my hideout and we can make sure this thing can't attack us again."
Wendy lifted up the possibly fake Mike, staggering a little at how much heavier he was than she was expecting. Once she got a good grip, Wendy led Dipper deeper into the mall and to her hideout. Setting the fake Mike down, Wendy went around gathering everything that could be used to help tie it up.
"Should we check his injuries first?" Dipper asked, making Wendy pause. "You did hit him pretty hard with your bat.
"I guess we should," Wendy sighed with annoyance. "Just keep your taser ready and zap it if it twitches wrong."
Dipper nodded, holding his taser at the ready while Wendy carefully pushed up fake Mike's shirt up to inspect his chest.
"Huh… I wonder what caused that?" Wendy mumbled, before carefully inspecting fake Mike's ribs. Curious about what Wendy said, Dipper carefully came closer to get a better look. What he found was a huge scar on fake Mike's stomach, exactly where Mike's fatal wound had been.
"Mike had a wound there, it's what killed him," Dipper informed in shock. "I… I really think this is Mike…"
"Now I almost feel bad for hitting so hard," Wendy grimaced, as she finished her inspection. "Strangely enough, I didn't manage to break any of his ribs. One's cracked and several more are defiantly bruised, but it shouldn't be anything too concerning."
"Thank goodness for that at least," Dipper sighed in relief. Wendy quickly and expertly wrapped Mike's chest and pulled his shirt back down. Wendy still tied Mike up securely just to be safe, but she did put in the effort to make sure none of the restraints would hurt him more.
"He's younger than I thought he'd be…" Wendy commented after she and Dipper had just been sitting and watching Mike for a while. "He looks only a few years older than I am…"
Dipper looked Mike over again and realized Wendy was right. Mike had always made it seem like he had been an adult when he died and if he had been it was only just barely. The Mike before him still had the lingering roundness that came with youth like he still hadn't quiet finished maturing into an adult yet. It was surprising, but mostly it was just sad that Mike had lost his life so young.
Their melancholy was interrupted by Dipper's stomach growling, much to his embarrassment.
"Come on, let's get you some food," Wendy laughed. "We can't do anything about Mike until he wakes up, so we might as well."
"Okay," Dipper agreed.
As they ate, they shared stories of what they had been through during the last few days while they waited for Mike to wake up.
