So, I have finally reached 10k words. I'm going to celebrate by eating a whole pizza by myself. You guys can celebrate by reading this chapter.

I have posted a poll in my profile for you guys to take regarding the various chapter arcs. As those of you who have been following along, you remember that I decided to break up the episode arcs into several chapters in order to give myself time to stay on my schedule of updating every Sunday. I would appreciate it if you would leave a response so that I can know whether or not you guys think it would be a good idea to condense the episodes together after the arcs have been completed.

I would like to give a thanks to Puppeteer of Chaos and Supergroveraway for reviewing last week.

In reply to Puppeteer, its an interesting theory; unfortunately, if you remember, Dipper had not yet found the journal, so if Cipher had told him that Wendy was a succubus or a shapeshifter, Dipper would be unlikely to believe him. So his fear of Wendy comes from a fairly mundane reason.

I hope you guys enjoy the next few chapters.

Disclaimer: Gravity Falls belongs to Alex Hirsch and Disney

Chapter 6: Time Traveler Trapped? Part 2

Wendy gunned the golf-cart as much as she could, but the abnormally busy traffic made the journey take a sedate ten minutes to the grocery store. She took the time to ponder over what had just happened. Last time, she had taken the golf-cart out to put up some signs around town for the Mystery Shack, only getting back shortly after 5. But Stan had asked her to do that around 1, but this time she was heading out around 4, and for Bill's food business.

'Did Bill see me getting ready to stop Mabel and Norman's date, and try to stop me?' Wendy wondered. If that was the case, then clearly Bill was not the mere observer he claimed to be, and Wendy would have to keep an eye on him to make sure he did not do something detrimental to her goals. Like killing the Pines family.

She hoped that her stay in the grocery store would be fairly quick, but considering the activity buzzing around it, she had a feeling that most of Gravity Falls had turned out for the meat sale as well. After navigating the mess that was the parking lot, Wendy felt like a bundle of nerves ready to explode at any moment. If she took too long shopping, then she wouldn't be able to get back in time to save the twins from Norman the zombie.

"Excuse me Miss Corduroy, could you give me a minute of your time?" a nasally voice called from beside her. Wendy turned to see it was none other than Toby Determined, the editor of the Gravity Falls Gossiper.

"What do you want Toby, I'm kinda in a hurry here."

"I just want to show you something Miss Corduroy, it'll only take a minute." Wendy sighed, if she didn't follow Toby, he'd probably bother her until she did. It was his standard procedure in getting stories.

"Fine, let's see whatever it is that you want me to see, and then I'm going to pick up some meat." Toby led her over to the alley behind the store, motioning that whatever he wanted her to see was behind it.

The alley was empty, and Wendy's creep-o-meter went off the charts. She had to get away from him without alerting the gossip reporter that she knew he was up to something.

"Well Toby, this is a nice looking alley, but I really need to go pick up some meat for Mr. Pines." She said while turning back to the diminutive man. Toby was standing there with his pants down, a brown wig in his hand and a gleam of lust in his eyes. Wendy shrieked, kicking him in the face before running off.

"Ew ew ew" - Wendy yelped as she ran inside of the store – "What is with this town. I don't remember any of this happening last time"

After taking a few moments to calm down, and take advantage of the free hand sanitizer offered by the store, Wendy was finally ready to get started on her shopping, except there were no carts. The baskets that were available looked like rust traps, but beggars' couldn't be choosy, not if she wanted to get back to the Shack before 5.

'Argh, what is with all of these people.' Wendy screamed to herself. The grocery store was packed with people, moving with all of the speed of peanut brittle. After waiting for several minutes, Wendy finally just started jostling her way towards the meat department. She murmured apologies as she elbowed passed a family that did not realize that just because you came in as a group does not entitle you to fill up an entire aisle; she held her breath as she silently worked her way around the pizza guy, who had clearly forgotten to take a shower before going outside; and she discretely punched a tourist in the stomach for getting handsy before she finally made her way to the meat section.

Wendy stared aghast at the icy-white display that was completely barren of meat. She was not going to go back without some meat to hand in; Stan would never let her hear the end of it.

What's this? No meat? I honestly don't know why I'm even surprised, teens can't even do a simple blah blah blah…

Wendy shook her head, 'Even imaginary me can't pay attention long enough to Mr. Pines lectures.'

She went to the display and began to dig through the ice chips in hopes of finding a package that was left behind by the initial horde, ignoring the stabbing pains from frostbite as she shoveled ice out of the way. When all hope seemed lost, Wendy saw the gleam of plastic from an upside down package of meat, its white underside hiding it amidst the ice. Just as Wendy grabbed it, a wrinkled hand grabbed the other side of the package. Wendy looked up to gaze into the eyes of one of Gravity Falls most irritable senior citizens, Ms. Peach.

"Hey there, Ms. Peach, I think you grabbed something of mine." Wendy stated with a smile as she gave the package a gentle pull. The elderly woman glared.

"I believe you are mistaken, you grabbed something of mine." Peach sneered, pulling back.

"You just showed up, I was digging through the ice for this, which makes it mine." Wendy retorted, standing her ground.

Ms. Peach snorted, "Finders Keepers dearie, now why don't you let go before this gets ugly."

"Have you looked in a mirror lately, it's been ugly since you showed up." Wendy snapped, giving the package a strong pull towards her. Her elderly foe gasped.

"Why I never, you apologize this instance you, you harlot!" Peach cried, as the tug of war for the meat began in earnest. Despite Wendy's best effort, including some moves that she had perfected in tug of wars with her brothers for the remote, the elderly woman refused to let go of the meat.

"Geez, don't you have an antique's fair to go to?" Wendy asked as she tried to get her body in between Peach and the package.

"And don't you have a corner to walk?" the elder scoffed.

"That doesn't even make any sense." Wendy retorted, managing to pry one of the woman's hands off of the package.

"Well how about this for making sense?" Ms. Peach cried as she brought her now free hand back and punched Wendy in the face. Wendy fell to the ground as she stared at the woman in shock. Ms. Peach pointed at Wendy.

"You all saw that, this girl tried to punch me." There were murmurs of agreement from the people around them. The elderly woman, vindicated by the group, turned around and shuffled towards the registers, leaving Wendy with a black eye and empty-handed.

"Who knew that an old woman could hit so hard." Wendy hissed as she drove back to the Shack, her eye tender and swollen from the punch the woman had delivered in the grocery store.

"Well at least I got some meat." - Wendy groaned, though it had cost her ten dollars for a two of the one dollar packages of meat. The pizza guy refused to separate from his meat purchase for anything less. - "Hopefully Stan won't throttle me for spending so much."

Wendy's watch went off as she pulled onto the backwoods path to the shack, the gravel clacking beneath the tires.

"Shit", she murmured, the alarm on the watch meant that it was after 5. She sped up, hoping that she would catch Mabel and Norman before they got too far.

Except it was not to be, as she saw that Dipper was running around like a chicken with its head cut off. Dipper ran up to her as she eased up to the shack.

"Wendy, Wendy, Wendy!" Dipper yelled as he approached the golf-cart, "I need to – What happened to your eye?"

Wendy waved off his concern, "Just got into a fight over some meat from the grocery story. So what do you need?"

"I need to borrow the golf-cart so I can save my sister from a zombie." Dipper answered.

Wendy patted the seat next to her. "Get in."

Dipper stared at her for several long moments. "Don't you have to work in the Shack?"

Wendy scoffed, "It's after 5. My job now is to watch you guys. So get in and we can go save your sister."

Having no argument against it, he jumped into the passenger seat. Wendy reversed into the Shack parking lot, narrowly missing Soos.

"Hey, it's me, Soos." Soos stated, he pulled out a shovel, handing it to Dipper. – "Take this shovel for the zombies."- he then pulled out a baseball bat, handing it as well to Dipper. – "This is in case you run into a piñata."

Wendy gaped at him, why would there be a piñata in the woods? Regardless of the handyman's reasoning, she hit the gas, zipping off into the woods. As they drove along, Wendy turned to Dipper, "So what's the plan?"

Dipper looked at her with in surprise. "What?"

"Well, I'm assuming you have a plan for when we get there?"

Dipper looked at her sheepishly, "Er, not really. I thought we would just show up, reveal that Norman's a zombie…and that's as far as I got. Take a left up here."

Wendy took the turn faster than she probably should have, fortunately the golf-cart did not overturn. "That's okay; we'll wing it as we go."

Dipper was silent for several moments, "How come you're not asking me about how I know that Norman's a zombie?"

Wendy considered the question for several moments, trying to figure out a way to say what she wanted to mean without offending Dipper.

"Honestly, I don't really know you well enough to know whether or not you're just a guy who lets his imagination gets away from him," – Dipper looked ready to argue that, – "but, I know that you put Mabel before yourself. So regardless of what's going on, I'm going to trust that."

"Thank you," he replied, a grateful look on his face. He then pointed at a hill in the distance, "The place Mabel said Norman was taking her is just over that hill."

Wendy felt her stomach rise up in anticipation as they went down the steep incline of the hill to a small glade beyond.