There's no use in hidings the truth...
They need to know what to expect...
Stan took awhile to compose himself. He shakily got up from the chair he had collapsed into minutes ago. Shifting most of his weight onto his magic 8-ball cane for support, he looked up and slowly eyed everyone in the room. With every face he passed over, all he could see was shocked expressions. After all, they had no idea why Stan had suddenly nearly fainted.
Stan cleared his throat, then spoke. His gravelly voice at an almost inaudible whisper. Much different than his usual booming, arrogant tone.
"Benson, have you and your people follow me."
With that, Stan made his way over to the old, beat-up vending machine. He started to press buttons on the machine.
"Come on, old dude! This is no time for a snack, bro!" Muscle Man exclaimed obnoxiously. "He must be goin' senile..."
By the time Muscle Man had finished his outburst, Stan had finished pressing buttons on the vending machine. Suddenly, the vending machine shifted over to reveal a hidden door. Stan motioned for the group to follow him in. As the park crew walked into the room one by one, Stan turned his attention to his own employees.
"Listen up, kids. Under no circumstances are you to try and open this door to follow us."
He was gravely serious. It was so unsettling to the twins, who had never seen their great uncle act in such a manner.
"Soos, make sure they stay put up here."
Soos lifted his hand to his forehead in a salute, "You got it, Mr. Pines."
Stan then disappeared into the darkness through the doorway. The vending machine slid back into place with a slam. It must be locked from the inside as they also heard a series of clicks on the other side of the door.
"Well, it's official. This is the strangest day I've ever had..." Wendy said with a short laugh as she sat back down at the table. "Insane boss, talking animals, a talking gumball machine... That pretty much tops everything else."
Dipper didn't find this whole scene amusing. He had a slight itch to find out what was going on in the secret room.
What could be going on that would make Grunkle Stan of all people act like that?
The cogs in his head were once again working overtime, trying to devise a plan to break into the room.
"Wendy, Mabel, come over here." Dipper whispered across the room. He glanced over to see what Soos was doing. Luckily, Soos continued to finish his breakfast while simultaneously watching whatever was currently on the television. It probably wasn't Stan's best idea to leave Soos in charge. Wendy and Mabel snuck over to Dipper. They sat down next to him, listening intently.
"Okay, I don't know about you girls but I really want to know what's going on around here." Dipper spoke hushedly. "You wanna help me find a way into that secret room?"
Mabel nodded, her metal-mouthed smile growing wide at the prospect of another adventure.
"Absolutely." Wendy replied eagerly "I seriously want to to know what freaked Stan out so badly. Maybe I could use it against him to get a pay raise..."
"I want to do this too!" Mabel started, "But first, how are we gonna get past Soos?"
They all stopped to think for a moment. Once again, Dipper had a solution. He raced into the next room, being careful to tiptoe past Soos, and reached into a drawer filled with cheap Mystery Shack novelty items. Dipper fished around in the drawer until he finally grasped the object he was searching for. Rushing back into the room, he sat back at the table with a small smile.
"So... Where'd you go?" Wendy questioned.
"Only to find our Soos solution." Dipper replied slyly. He pulled the small item out from his jacket pocket. "Behold! The World's Most Distracting Object!"
"Ha ha! Good thinking, my little genius!" Wendy beamed as she playfully punched Dipper in the arm.
Dipper blushed and tipped his head forward to adjust his hat. He really didn't want to look embarrassed in front of his older crush.
"Heh heh, right... Let's get going!" Dipper blurted out, still slightly red from embarrassment.
The trio of teenagers made their way over to Soos. Their bumbling "guard" was fixated on the television screen in front of him.
"Soos! Soos! Check out what we found!" Mabel screeched while flailing her arms about.
"Whoa, Hambone, Chill out!" Soos called out clearly confused.
"Dipper found something amazing that you just have to check out!"
"Dude, show me!"
Dipper then produced the World's Most Distracting Object from his pocket and handed it to Soos. Soos looked baffled by the odd item.
"Uh, is it a lollipop?" Soos asked. He raised the object to his mouth, about to take a bite out of it.
"No! NO! Soos, don't eat it!" Dipper cried out as he rushed over to Soos' side. He grabbed the object just a second before Soos clamped his jaw down. Dipper then held the object, pulled the pullstring on the side, and handed it back to Soos. The black-and-white circle at the top of the object started to spin in a hypnotic way. Immediately, Soos was transfixed by the object, he barely was even blinking anymore.
"Oh, dude this is awesome!" Soos exclaimed still staring. "I'm just gonna stare at this thing for awhile and rethink everything..."
The kids then made their way over to the vending machine. For the longest time, the kids believed the machine to be out of order. Nobody ever bought anything from it. In fact, most of the various snacks inside were either sold out or had a few left still in the machine. Now they knew why nobody ever touched the machine. It was actually a front for a secret door.
"Right, so how are we supposed to open this thing now?" Wendy asked.
"Good question..." Dipper replied.
He had finally run out of ideas.
"Oh, wait a minute!" Wendy shouted. "The ventilation shafts in this dump are huge right?"
"Well, yeah but I don't see how –" Dipper suddenly realized what she meant. "OH! We can crawl through the ducts and find the one that leads to the secret room!"
"Bingo! We have a winner!" Wendy teased in reply.
With that, the trio unscrewed the nearest vent, climbed one by one into the air duct, and began their search.
–
They have to know how it will all end for them.
Stan had been mostly silent, trying to find a way to start off the difficult conversation that was about to take place. He kicked around a few ideas, with each sounding worse than the last. Finally, he just settled on winging it instead of planning. He'd have to tell them the truth anyways...
"How do you guys know Ogden?" Stan started off. He already knew the answer. It was obvious to him.
"He's our employer. We work at the park across town: Quintel-Marin Park." Benson replied. "But the real question is how do you know Mr. Maellerd?"
Stan knew this question was coming. He decided to give the short answer first.
"Well, seeing that I'm the owner of East Pines Park, I should know my enemy. Should I not?"
Stan's words echoed through the dark room. Every single one of the park crew had their mouths agape at this revelation.
"Wow, that was not what I was expecting..." Benson said, still dumbfounded. "So, can you explain to me why my park was attacked by some kind of shadow monster and why it left this behind?"
Benson produced the wooden coin and tossed it across the conference table towards Stan. Stan then picked it up and examined it.
Yep, this is the monster's mark... Stan thought to himself as a strong twang of guilt formed in the pit of his stomach.
"To explain that, I'll have to tell you everything from the beginning. But I'm warning you, the answers you seek might not be what you want to hear." Stan warned.
"Tell us anyway, we need to know." Benson responded shortly.
"Roughly fifty years ago, Ogden and I were young entrepreneurs and business partners. We decided that a quick way to establish ourselves in the business world was to construct a park and gain revenue from the city. However, we could not agree on what kind of a park we wanted to create. Ogden wanted to make a normal one where people could go to relax and enjoy the outdoors. As for me, I always had a passion for mystery and adventure. I wanted to create a park where people would come and hunt for mythical and mysterious creatures. By some questionable means, I came across instructions on how to release these creatures into our world. Ogden, however, thought it was complete nonsense and that nobody would believe it. I became resentful of Ogden, eventually quitting the partnership and taking my half of the money. We each constructed our separate parks and have been rivals ever since."
"Wait, that still doesn't answer our questions though." Benson interrupted.
"I'm getting to it." Stan rebutted, slightly annoyed by the interruption. "Anyways, the rivalry eventually turned into a prank war when one of his employees used the old whoopie-cushion gag on my own employee. Ever since, our parks had been at a constant prank war with no end in sight. In the book where I found the instructions to summon mythical creatures, I saw a page that caught my eye. It described an entity that would give whoever summons it one wish. I summoned the creature with the intentions of ending the prank war in victory for my park. The creature itself would send out other creatures to do its dirty work and try to put your park out of commission."
"Well, that explains why strange creatures keep attacking the park every other day..." Benson said sarcastically. "But what about this shadow monster that really did try to kill us?"
"That is the entity himself. After countless failures by his minions, he decided to take matters into his own hands. He decided the best way to end the prank war was if there was nobody left to retaliate. In other words, he wants to murder you all to end the war."
"WHAT? You sent a bloodthirsty demon after us? What the hell is wrong with you?" Mordecai shouted out. All the other park employees were shouting similar statements at Stan.
Stan held up his hands defensively.
"I never had any intention to murder you guys. Only to end the prank war! The demon took it upon himself to decide the way to end it."
"Okay, calm down everyone." Benson commanded. His own voice sounded shaky and unsure. "How exactly are we supposed to kill this thing or send it away?"
Stan gulped, then answered "There is no way. Once the demon has been unleashed in the mortal world. It can't be sent back unless the wish is completed."
"Alright then we forfeit. You guys win the prank war!" Benson spoke out desperately.
Stan shoulders sunk, he shook his head. "It doesn't work that way. The demon dictates how the terms of the wish are to be fulfilled. And that is through murdering all of you."
"Great, so we're all fucked..." Muscle Man spat dejectedly.
"Can we at least get some information on this thing?" Benson questioned "Because if we're gonna die, we're gonna die fighting."
"There's not much to tell about it other than what you already know. It makes its presence known by the sky turning black and purple and by the droning noise it makes. I guess the only thing you don't know is its name. The name of the little bastard is G–"
bump!
BANG!
CRASH!
The large air vent in the room collapsed and landed with a bang on the conference table. The table splintered under the immense weight. Everybody in the room was accounted for, and nobody had been injured. They all stared in shock at the vent that had spontaneously fallen from the ceiling above. Then some faint groans came from inside the vent.
Out from the vent climbed the three kids: Dipper, Mabel, and Wendy. They were all visibly shaken up by their fall but seemed to be okay.
"WHAT DID I TELL YOU LITTLE BRATS?" Stan roared at the top of his lungs "NONE OF THIS CONCERNS YOU!"
"Grunkle Stan, wait we were just–"
"OH, I KNOW WHAT YOU WERE DOING. YOU WERE STICKING YOUR NOSE IN OTHER PEOPLE'S BUSINESS! YOU'VE BEEN DOING IT ALL SUMMER!"
Stan was about to continue his tirade, when once again the awful droning sound echoed throughout the small room. What little light there was left turned into a mixture of black and purple. The door that led to the secret room was ripped off its hinge and thrown down into the room. They looked into the doorway and saw the shadow creature slowly hovering towards them. It stopped in front of Stan and looked straight at him. In the otherworldly tone of voice, it addressed him.
"Stanford Pines, did you really think telling them about me would stop me from killing them?"
No response came from the guilt-stricken Grunkle. After all, it was all his fault.
"I already told Gene, and now I'll tell you: there's NOTHING that will stop me from completing my task and leaving this pitiful world."
"Oh my God! Grunkle Stan, what is that thing?" Dipper shouted in fear.
The creature turned its attention to the small boy. A look of twisted amusement came across its face.
"Well, well, well, if it isn't Dipper Pines." the creature taunted, feigning surprise.
"What are you? And how do you know me?" Dipper squeaked out, unknowingly cowering behind Wendy.
"Oh my, now where are my manners? You merely don't recognize me in this form." the monster mocked sarcastically.
The demon then started to contort and twist into odd shapes. Its head and arms twisting sickeningly in different odd ways. Its torso became short and round. Its limbs shot back into its body to make stubby arms and legs. Ontop of its head sprouted white hair that was nearly as tall as it was now. Its nose beacme wide and upturned, almost piglike. Then finally it sprouted a powder blue suit that covered its whole body. As its transformation was complete, Dipper stared on in utter shock at the familiar face in front of him.
"Now then, don't you recognize 'lil ol' me?"