Chapter 4 – Pure trouble

A/N: Here's chapter 4. I hope you enjoy it!

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Wendy hated this! Not only her boss has been giving her endless tasks lately, but now he wants her to repaint the Mystery Shack sign with glitter.

"Pesky old man," she thought sourly.

"Hey, I heard that, corduroy!" Stan yelled.

Wendy almost dropped her paint brush in disbelieve. "How did he hear me? I said that in my head!" she said baffled. In the middle of her confusion, she accidently set foot into the paint bucket causing her to lose her balance and fall on her back, glittery paint covering her entirely.

"At least, it can't get worse than this, right?" she said with a sigh.

Unfortunately, she had no such luck. Never. Her new problem presented itself in the form of a gothic teen in a hoodie.

Robbie was walking towards the shack door with a boutique of flowers in his hands. She knew all too well what will happen next.

"Oh no. Not again!" she quickly got back on her feet and went to her secret spot to hide from ex-boyfriend. "Why won't he take a hint already!?" she muttered under her breath.

Robbie meanwhile was walking to the door confidently. His plan was simple. Find Wendy, give her the flowers and go back together. Nothing could go wrong. He knocked on the door and waited.

He was greeted by Stan Pines wearing nothing but his white shirt and boxers. Robbie groaned and eyed the man with distaste. "Ugh, not this guy again. Who goes around dressed like that? This whole family is made of weirdoes."

"Hey, is Wendy-"

SLAM!

With that, Stan walked away from the door. He then found Soos sweeping the floor.

"Oh hi Mr. Pines. Who was at the door?" he asked.

"No one," he answered simply. Just when he was about to leave he caught a flash of pink inside the kitchen. Eyes narrowed suspiciously, he entered the kitchen to find his great-niece with a pile of food in her hands. She gasped and stumbled back a bit at seeing him.

"Mabel, what are you doing?" he asked with his hands on his hips. "And who's that for?" he pointed to the large pile of food she was carrying.

Mabel tensed and tried to come up with an excuse. "It's….uh…for Dipper! He's really hungry so I'm bringing him a snack to eat." She said with a best smile she could make.

Stan stared at the girl with disbelieve. "Wait, you're telling me that your brother is gonna eat all of that!?"

She cringed, but nodded. "Yeah?" "Please, don't ask more questions, please don't ask more questions…" she kept chanting in her head.

Stan rubbed his chin and sighed. He knew she was hiding something from him, but he didn't want to push her. "Fine, go."

Mabel visibly relaxed at this. She turned around to leave but then suddenly remembered something. "Oh, I forgot the canned meat."

"It's a on the top shelf." He said.

Mabel gave him a puzzled look and he shrugged before walking away.

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After two hours, Wendy finally finished painting the Mystery Shack sign and was glad to go back inside. Soos looked up from behind the counter and noticed her mood.

"Oh hey Wendy, what happened to your clothes?"

Wendy groaned. "I had an accident while painting the sign and got glitter all over me." She said with annoyance.

Soos raised an eye brow. "Why didn't you just put that on before doing that?" He said, pointing to the blue jumpsuit hanging on the wall.

Wendy stared at it for moment before slapping her forehead in disbelieve. "Stupid!"

Just then, Mabel's head poked from behind the door. "Hey, is the coast clear?" she asked.

"Huh?"

Mabel rolled her eyes. "Is Stan still around?"

She shrugged. "Nope, just left for some errands in town."

"Great! Now I can take Baby out to play outside. He's been spending way too much time in the attic room." She said and motioned for him to follow her.

Wendy's jaw dropped when she saw the girl's new pet coming to view. "Uh, Mabel, haven't you noticed something different about your dog?"

"Like what?" asked Mabel.

"I dunno, maybe that he's twice as big as before!" she muttered. Baby was now almost as big as Mabel, but the preteen didn't seem to notice how odd that is.

"Pfft, it's nothing bad. He's just having a growth spurt. It happens." She stated and began cooing him. The orange dog barked in response.

"Indeed." Soos nodded.

Wendy though for a moment and shrugged. Mabel was probably right. She did recall hearing about something like this before from her dad.

Besides, how big can he get?

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"Okay, when I said that thing is will grow up eventually I didn't mean LIKE THIS!" Dipper exclaimed. He was in the attic with his sister and Baby who somehow got much bigger since last night.

"So what? The bigger the better for hugs!" she exclaimed and hugged him.

"Mabel, this is serious! Just two days ago he was eight inches tall and now he's as big as you are! It's unnatural!" he exclaimed.

Mabel scoffed. "Okay, so he may have grown up a bit, but that doesn't anything bad like him being some kind of monster, right?" she said and gave him a pat on the head.

Almost right on cue, the dog let out a sneeze and his entire body burst into flames, leaving burn marks on the carpet before returning to normal. He then sniffled the air and headed out of the room. Both twins were frozen from shock at what just occurred.

Dipper recovered first. "Did he just…"

"I think he did." Mabel concluded.

Wasting no time, Dipper pulled out his book of secrets from his vest and began shuffling through the pages for anything about her pet. "Come one, come one. There has to be something…..THERE!" he exclaimed once he found the one he was looking for, but then he paled. Mabel leaned closer to get a look at it.

There before them was an illustration of the found fox/dog in its older form with a huge number of warnings written in bold under it.

"Arkins, one of the most rare and dangerous species living in the Gravity Falls forest. They spend most of their time lurking in caves in the mountains, but sometimes they go out hunting for preys. One of the reason that makes them so unique is their rapid growth and their ability to catch on fire and increase the temperature around them to keep their bodies warm."

Dipper stopped reading as something in his head clicked "So that's why it kept getting hot around the shack!"

"If you were unfortunate enough to come across one of them, never keep one near you or feed it! The more you do, the larger and viscous they get."

By now both twins lost all color in their faces. "Mabel?"

"Yeah?"

"Just how many times have you fed Baby since you found him?" Dipper asked still staring at the page in horror.

"Uh….a lot?" she said sheepishly.

"Oh man, oh man. That thing….it's in the shack, downstairs! What do we do!?" Dipper panicked and began pacing.

Waddles came from around the corner and snorted innocently. Mabel gasped and hurried to wrap her arms around him protectively.

"Waddles, what are you doing out her? You don't want to end up a snack, do you?" she asked him.

"Oh, so now you're worried?" Dipper scoffed. "What happened to the 'Baby can't hurt a fly' comment?"

"I know, I'm sorry! He just looked so cute and small when I found him. " she admitted. "How was I supposed to know he was going to turn into a giant toothy-beast?"

Dipper sighed and began rubbing his chin to think of a plan. "It's okay, we just need to keep him away from people and find a way get him out of the shack so he-" before Dipper could finish that sentence a loud yell came from downstairs startling them, a familiar one.

"Wendy!"

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A/N: The next chapter will be the last and the longest so stay tuned and please leave a review!