They were almost through the door when Wendy noticed something.
"Hey..." she brought Dipper to a stop. "There's a picture of you and Mabel on Stan's desk." The desk had a little alcove near the back of the left side, which was filled with books. A tiny lamp hung over it. On the right was a series of switches and buttons. The picture sat on the top surface, in front of the window. Wendy recognized it. A picture of the twins, taken at the very beginning of their summer vacation.
Stan kept a picture of the twins down with his deepest secrets. If that didn't express love, Wendy didn't know what else would.
Wendy could see Dipper smiling ever so slightly out of the corner of her eye. "Let's just go in," he said.
Inside the room, the light from the portal was almost blinding, so Wendy clicked off her flashlight. Since it was underground, the portal was surrounded by rocks and pipes. At the back, the portal—a triangular mechanism with a circular hole in the middle, surrounded by four round platforms. A lever in the down position was directly in front of Dipper and Wendy.
On the triangular part of the platform, colored symbols flashed in a non-specific order. Wendy recognized them from the journal. Speaking of which, Dipper had taken Journal 3 out of his vest and held it up before him, in front of the portal. When Wendy stepped behind him, the picture in the journal matched up with the portal perfectly.
They did it. They found the portal.
"This is insane." Dipper moved the journal closer to eye level, turning the pages to one Wendy had seen many times. Dipper brought out the black light, which showed more symbols. "Everything leads back to the portal. All these symbols... and this—" Dipper pointed to a symbol that Wendy recognized vaguely, but couldn't put her finger on it at the moment. "This was on the side of Stan's desk."
"That's it," Wendy snapped. "That's the tattoo Stan has. It's that symbol."
Dipper bit his lip, and thought for a moment. "I guess I get why he didn't want me to see it. Hey, didn't Stan say he was "Only half-way there" when we were in the other room?"
"Yeah, why?" Wendy turned as Dipper walked over to the window, pressing his hands up against it, pointing with his right index finger.
"You see those numbers reflecting on one of the screens?"
"Uh-huh, and they say... fifty-two percent." Wendy turned to Dipper. "He meant the portal?"
"I guess so."
At that second, the room became pitch black. Upon looking back at the portal, it had gone off. Wendy couldn't see anything, so she tried to turn on her flashlight; even after hitting it against the wall, it wasn't working.
Wendy was nervous. Neither she nor Dipper had an idea of what was going to happen next. They were so close to the end of this investigation, and things were going great—until now.
It was dark and cold underground. She was shivering, and tired, and wished that everything from then on forward would be okay. "You still there, Dip?" Her voice echoed off the rock walls.
"Yeah, I'm here, Wendy." From hearing his voice, Wendy managed to find Dipper and slipped her hand into his, intertwining their fingers. Usually she wouldn't do that. But holding Dipper's hand made her feel less scared and alone; from the way her held her hand back, she knew he felt the same way.
"What now?" Wendy asked. She tried to sound upbeat, but knew she sounded defeated.
"Oh, I'll tell you what now." A voice echoed loudly throughout the room. From in front of where the portal was, a blue light started glowing in mid-air, and out popped Bill Cipher. He opened his arms, and said, "I'm glad to see you two made it after so long. Too bad, for you guys, nothing good will come out of this."