It was two PM by the time a tired Wendy arrived at the Mystery Shack. The stillness inside the gift shop was such that she figured she was the only one here. Going into the living room proved her wrong; Dipper, Mabel, and Soos were at the round table, all staring her down. "Uh... hey guys. What's happening?" she greeted them nervously. "Mister Pines got arrested, didn't he. I knew it was coming. What's he going away for?"

"Nah, he's still shopping in town," Dipper sighed. "Shut the door, would you?"

"Uh, sure." She took the last empty seat at the table after obliging him. "Am I about to be fired? Look, man, I gotta keep this job. I don't wanna end up cutting down trees for the Northwests all summer. That would seriously blow."

"Nobody's firing you," Mabel assured her. "...I mean none of us are gonna fire you. I don't think we have the authority."

"And you're the only one Stan trusts with the money besides himself," Soos added. "Nah, dawg, this is much weirder."

Dipper leaned closer, turning the seriousness up to eleven. "Wendy, what I'm about to tell you cannot, under any circumstances, leave this room. Understand?"

Something did leave: the color, from her cheeks. "Uh. You guys are starting to scare me," she admitted with a nervous smile.

Despite the boy's drama, it was Mabel who spilled the beans. "Winnie and Sue have superpowers!" she exclaimed. "They can move things with their minds! Change mushrooms to gold! All sorts of wacky junk!"

Her face went blank and stayed that way for some time. Then the laughs came, weakly at first. "Yeah. Sure. I know they look jacked, but come on, man."

"We're totally serious!" Mabel insisted. "We watched them do it. Dip's brain is still kinda broken."

"At one point I thought I might have turned into a banana," he confirmed with his hand raised.

"You're all serious?" She peered at Soos. "You saw 'em too?"

"I'm relying on trustworthy second-hand information," he replied, thumbing at the Pines. "If they say it happened, it happened. I don't put anything past this place."

"I was just at their house!" Wendy countered. "They weren't acting strange at all, just talkin' to every-" She became pallid again as her voice broke. "Uh... uh-oh."

"What?" Dipper rose and went to her side. "What? What happened? I don't wanna hear 'uh-oh' right now. Was there an explosion? Did somebody die?"

The redhead cocked a brow at him. "You really like to jump to the worst possible conclusion. Look, my dad might have told some people that they talk to ghosts. Just a few. Like... twelve. And they all came over to their house."

"Holy cow," Mabel sighed, sinking nose-deep into the neck of her sweater. "And y'all call me a blabbermouth."

"Dang it! I'm gonna call them. Can I borrow your cellphone?" He dialed hastily after Wendy handed it over. "Oh man. Oh man... hello!" he yelped the moment the ringing stopped. "Which one of you—Winter! Hi!"

Wendy was a little confused. "Who's Winter?" she asked lowly.

"That's Winnie's actual name," Soos advised.

"Oh. Huh. Pretty... cool." The redhead emitted a self-satisfied chuckle – which Mabel strangled with displeased squinting. "Sheesh. I thought it was funny."

Meanwhile, Dipper was in his own little world, pacing around in front of the recliner. "Uh huh. Uh huh. Great. Good to hear. Yeah, we're all here now. Yes, I promise she won't tell. Right. Okay, I'll let you be. Huh? I mean, we can't stop you, but Mabel's gonna hate it. Okay. Okay. No, no, we're fine. Uh huh. Gonna talk about it right now. Okay. Bye." He came back, relinquished the phone, and plopped into his chair. "I guess they told everybody what they wanted to hear. They're all gone."

Mabel, having heard her name come up, wanted to know why. "What am I gonna hate?" she asked suspiciously.

"Uh... they wanna talk to Gideon about the..." He froze, looking at Wendy. "Oh, you haven't heard this before. Welp. You better prepare yourself."

She shifted nervously. "For what?"

Groaning, Mabel slammed her arms together and explained. "He used a magical amulet thingy to try and turn Dipper into dork-goo. Made him able to do telika... talake... teeleekeenee..."

"Telekinesis," Dipper finally corrected her. "The power to manipulate objects with your mind. Winter and Summer seem to have that ability naturally."

"Are you friggin' kidding me?" Wendy laid her head on her arms and whimpered for a few seconds. "I wanna go home. I mean... home a few days in the past, when stuff was still stupid and boring."

"Well, we could have arran-" He squeaked with surprise as Mabel muffled him with a sleeve.

"Don't you dare," she warned. "This is gonna get bad enough. One thing at a time, or else you might kill the poor girl."

"Question," Soos interjected politely. "What exactly do our seasonally-named buddies want us to do? They've got all the poweeeeeer." Everyone waited for his hands-to-the-sky dramatic posing, attached to the word 'power', to end.

Once it had Dipper leaned back, his demeanor becoming incredibly studious. So studious, in fact, Mabel groaned once more and tried to whack him. "Hey! I'm thinking, man!"

"I know that look, bro. Who died and put you in charge?" she fired back. "We ride together. As equals! Even if I'm better." They all looked toward Wendy, whose head was still down. "My bad. You don't have to ride. Are you okay in there?"

"Just give me a second," she moaned. When they proceeded to do just that by remaining silent and staring at her, she lifted her head. "You want an answer now?"

"Sort of," Dipper nodded. "If you say yes, then you'll get to read the journal and it might make you cry."

"But we'll be there for moral support!" Soos assured. Both he and Mabel gave her two thumbs up.

The redhead slumped back in her chair and muttered incoherently to herself for a moment. "Terrific. I... well, they did help dad. And it's not like I can unsee everything I already saw. Sure, why not? May as well find out how deep the rabbit hole goes," she concluded with a weak laugh.

"All right!" Mabel stood in her chair, pointing at the ceiling. "The first meeting of the..." Her face dropped. "The first meeting of the... Gravity Falls... hmm." She sat back down and suddenly looked as thoughtful as her brother. "Gravity Falls Investigation... nah. Mystery Incorporated? That's Scooby-Doo. Huh."

Dipper, emerging from his own reverie, rolled his eyes at her. "Right. Whatever our name is, we know stuff those two don't. And they probably know stuff we don't. The way I see it, everyone can get something they want from working together. Besides, if anything tries to murder us, we've got way more firepower with them on our side."

"Murder us? Awesome," Wendy sighed. "It's been like three minutes and I'm already regretting this."

Soos flashed a smile while patting her on the shoulder. "Aw, don't be blue. Most of it's fun! Some of it isn't, gonna be honest. Okay, most might be a stretch. A large amount. A simple majority. A fair num—uh... I'd better shut up now."

"You'll be fine," Dipper assured her. "I think." Her glare caused an anxious chuckle. "No, no, you totally will! We'll all be fine. Nothing bad could possibly happen."

Mabel was still trying to come up with a title for their impromptu union. "Mystery Buddies?" she asked the ceiling, idly twirling her hair. "Pff. That's dumb."

"Look, just show me the journal," Wendy sighed. "And somebody order a pizza. Maybe some food will help me deal."

It was Winter, fresh off her phone call with Dipper, having a sullen moment in the passenger seat of the BMW this time. A glance was cast up at the pizzeria in front of her; Summer was visible through the plate-glass windows, seated and waiting for their pies to be completed. While seeing her drew a smile, looking back down at her palms snatched it away. "When they look like this, I almost feel... human," she murmured.

Someone walked by beyond the windshield and entered the shop. A middle-aged man with brown hair, extremely well-dressed, but that was all the mind she paid to him. The next thing to break her concentration was a gentle tapping on the window.

To her surprise, it was Pacifica. "Hey," the girl greeted awkwardly once the glass between them had dropped out of the way. "What's your name again? I know it starts with either an 'S' or a 'W'..."

The blue-eyed woman tilted her head curiously. "Winter." For a moment the car behind Pacifica caught her attention; it was a massive black sedan whose ostentatious nature was impossible to miss. Probably something made by Rolls-Royce, she decided. "What is it?"

"You talked to my mom earlier, didn't you?"

She called up the memory. Penelope Northwest's odd, semi-permanent smile was hard to forget, even if the rest of her features blended away into the fog of strangers asking her and Summer for solace. "I did. Why?"

Pacifica made a show of examining her fingernails. Her expression was almost dismissive, but Winter knew she was struggling with something regardless. "Oh. She just seemed, you know... happier, than usual. Said you helped a lot. That's all." The blonde would go no deeper, and instead let her eyes run over the red sedan. "You buy cars as often as I buy shoes. I like your style."

"It's my sister's," she said quietly. "Was there something else you wanted?"

"Nope. See you around," she replied with a smile – and then failed to walk away. Her eyes became more and more pensive with every passing second. "I mean..."

Winter's gaze remained on her all the while. "Yes?"

"Uh, nothing. Thanks or whatever. For helping my mom."

Her tone was astonishing in its fragility, but Winter managed to prevent herself from letting Pacifica know that. "You're welcome." She considered the conversation over, but the blonde continued to hang around. "...what?"

She sighed, tossing her ponytail. "Listen, you two seem like private people, so here's a heads up: the TV station wants to do an interview with you."

Winter cocked a brow. "How do you know that?"

At last, the blonde put on a grin that seemed to match her personality. "We own the TV station."

She rubbed her face and sighed lightly. "Of course. Can we say no?"

"Sure, but they've probably got enough by now to do the story anyway." Pacifica looked over as the man from before came back out, holding three pizza boxes. "About time. I'm out. See you around."

Summer arrived with their own order seconds after the black limousine departed, filling the interior with all sorts of pleasant aromas. "This all smells so good! I know it's pointless for us to eat, but it sure can be fun." She handed the boxes to her sister and went about buckling up, only to stop when Winter didn't say anything. "Hello?" she called, looking over. "You're quiet. What did that Pacifica girl want? I saw you two chatting."

"To say thanks. And Dipper called. They're talking about our request." Her eyes were planted firmly ahead. "Sister, we might have a... problem."

"Oh no. Our visit here has been so very trouble free," she grumbled sarcastically. "What is it this time?"

Winter extracted her phone from her jeans pocket. "Pacifica told me the TV station wants an interview. You need to learn our last name."

She snapped her fingers in frustration – then paused to make sure nothing around her had changed – and sighed. "I knew that woman was a reporter! Can't we say no?"

"We could, but then we might look suspicious. I mean, even more than we already might." Her thumbs were hard at work, tapping away on the screen. "Let's go home before we somehow become national news."

"Oh boy." Summer started the car and looked back over her shoulder while preparing to leave. "So much for being incognito."

Winter's eyes narrowed, though she did allow herself to take a curious sniff of the pizza in her lap. "Right. As long as we don't become famous for other reasons, I think we can handle this."

As the day dragged on, Mabel would peek into the living room to keep an eye on Wendy. The latest such check revealed her staring off into space with bags under her eyes. Her face was white as a sheet. The redhead was still seated at the round table, as she had been since Dipper showed her the contents of the journal. Wincing, she withdrew back into the gift shop and walked over to her brother at the register. "Uh, bro? I think we killed her."

He blinked with surprise. "Is she still sitting there?"

"Yep. Doesn't look good." They looked over as Stan lead a fresh herd of suckers through the curtain. "Oh boy. I'll handle these guys, you go see to your girlfriend."

Dipper gave her a grateful smile at first. "Thanks—wait. She's not my girlfriend." Grumbling at her laughter, he hopped down, squirted through the throng, and nearly fell into the living room. He gingerly approached the redhead, almost too scared to speak at first. "Wendy? Hey? You with me? Weeeeeendy..." She didn't respond at all, not even when he sat in the chair next to her and waved a hand before her face. "Earth to Wendy Corduroy. Wendy. Come on, now." He searched his brain for something to prod her with. "Oh no, Robbie's here!"

"I'm n-not around," she finally whimpered, although her body stayed locked in position. "I..."

"Oh boy." There was no choice now; he reached over and latched on to a shoulder. "Wendy. Wendy," he urged, shaking her gently. "Wendy, come on. It's almost five o'clock. Your dad's gonna be worried if you don't call, isn't he? Won't he come over here and kill Grunkle Stan?" At last she turned to regard him with empty eyes. "That a girl. You're alive. It's okay."

"I live in a nightmare," she breathed. "How can I... gnomes? Freakin' gnomes! The triangle dude! A squash that feels! The fishing fish!" It was too much. She began to break down, dropping her face into her hands.

"Oh boy." Dipper wrapped her up in an awkward hug, wondering how long he could stay conscious before all the blood rushed to his cheeks. "It's okay. I mean, hey! We haven't even seen most of the stuff in there. Nope. No zombies for miles!" He winced at her sudden sobbing. "Whoa, what? What did I say?"

Wendy blew her nose on his hat before answering. "What if I'm a zombie, man?!"

While the act grossed him out, he maintained his cool. "Um, I kind of doubt you're a zombie. You're too chill." He tried to reassure her with a stilted laugh. Surprisingly, it worked; she stopped weeping and took a few deep breaths. "See? You're fine. Totally fine."

She gently extracted herself and slumped over onto the table. "How do you guys handle this crap?"

"Honestly, on my end? Constant exposure to Mabel." She laughed this time, causing him to smile. "I'm serious. You spend enough time around her, you can smile at anything."

"Heh. I'll take your word for it, I guess," she mumbled, wiping her eyes. "I thought the ghosts were bad. This other junk is a whole new level of weird."

Dipper spread his arms wide. "Yeah, yeah it is. But! Look around. The world's still here. So what if it feels completely different? It's still Gravity Falls."

That was just enough to make her smile. "True. And even if it is insane, still not as depressing as findin' out about what happened... back in the day." She perked up, but thinking of that particular tragedy forced a shudder. "Yeesh."

"No kidding." He backed off a bit to let her breathe some more. "You all right?"

Wendy offered a weak shrug. "I'll get there. I... I think." Her progress at the moment was limited to drifting over to, and sitting in, the old recliner. "Phew." The news was coming on. "Yeah! This'll help," she grumbled derisively. "Where's the remote?"

He walked over to help her look. "We still have a remote? I haven't seen the stupid thing in days." While they searched, the dulcet tones of the Channel 7 Action Express News Team's theme song provided a nice, numbing background noise for them to ignore – until the top story began. A picture of the destroyed hospital, surrounded by the crews working to clean it up, caught their eyes.

"Wait, what?" She turned up the volume manually and sat on the carpet. Dipper joined her a moment later. "Man, this topic just ain't gonna die, is it."

"Our lead today: human remains have been discovered in the ruins of the former General Hospital building," Shandra Jimenez said gravely. The image switched from the studio to a live look at the scene. "Authorities would not comment on the number, only that 'there's more than one' and 'it is kind of icky in there'."

The rest of the brief piece was lost to Wendy's disdainful groan. "Ugh! That place is cursed!"

"Ahaha, y-yeah! Sure is!" Dipper smiled anxiously at her curious glance. "What? I didn't do anything suspicious up there a few days ago. Nothing happened. Nope."

Her brow raised slightly. "Uh... if you say so."

Shandra interjected before he could dig himself into a bigger hole. "In more positive news..."

"Yes!" they both shouted. "Come on! Daddy needs a cute dog on a unicycle!" he added hopefully.

"Oh yeah? I want a-" Wendy fell silent and looked down at him, her face screwed up. "Did you just call yourself daddy?"

"Wha—no I did not. Not at all."

"Gravity Falls' newest residents are causing a stir with their general politeness and apparent ability to speak with the dead," Shandra explained cheerfully. A picture of the identical twins, standing in front of the red BMW, appeared over her left shoulder as she spoke. "Summer and Winter Weiss, seen here looking absolutely fabulous, have taken the town by storm. This reporter has it on good authority that not only are the Weiss sisters even richer than our own Preston Northwest, they're also not complete jerks."

The screen switched again, this time to Lazy Susan being interviewed in the diner. "You can talk to them like real people!" she praised. "They even gave me a hug! I like hugs!"

Next up was an interview with Toby Determined outside of the Gravity Falls Gossiper building. "Bless those unnervingly athletic girls," he said, dabbing at his eyes with a tissue. "Summer said I looked cute in my glasses. I haven't been called cute in fourteen years!" After a quick breath, he tacked on a hasty, whispered, "ShandraI'vealwayslovedyoupleasecallme!"

The screen came back to the woman of his affection, who shivered with disgust. "But that's not all. Several people – including this reporter – paid a visit to the Weiss residence earlier today in hopes of receiving help with deeply uncomfortable spiritual issues."

"Is this getting really weird for you?" Wendy asked, leaning away from the TV.

Dipper shook his head. "In the context of today? No, not really."

Dan Corduroy popped up on screen. It looked like he was being interviewed in front of the family cabin. "I told you they could talk to ghosts! They knew things, man. Makes you feel real good. Not like the troll boy. No, no, these two have a real gift. They probably don't even spy on us, either."

Shandra appeared again, smiling brightly. "You said it, Manly Dan." A new graphic appeared over her left shoulder – this time it was the child psychic with a red 'x' over his face. "There's been a groundswell of support for the Weiss sisters to host nightly séances on the site of the Tent of Telepathy, formerly owned by humiliated fraud Gideon Gleeful."

Another interview was next, this time with the twins themselves. They were standing next to their car. "I appreciate everyone's... support," Winter said, "but I don't know if we'd do such a thing."

"But we would like to thank everyone who said nice things about our house!" Summer added cheerfully.

Back to Shandra the broadcast went. "Aren't they adorable? You can be sure the Action Express News Team will keep an eye on these two and/or hound them into doing a full one-hour special interrog—I mean interview!"

"Wooooooo!" Mabel screamed from the recliner behind them, tossing the remote in one hand. Waddles was in her lap.

Wendy and Dipper nearly jumped out of their skins. "H-how did you get in here?!" the redhead asked breathlessly.

"I walked. Sure is nice to see everyone warming up to our new buddies, right?" she grinned. "Heeeeee, I bet that got Gideon's goat real good. I almost wish I could see his face."

Dipper had a hand on his chest to calm down. "Maybe, but goat-getting aside, stop scaring me half to death."

"Nope!" Mabel slid off and whistled for her pig. "Come on, cutie! Let's go knit!"

Wendy stared after her as she left. "Man, this stuff just rolls off her like water off a duck's back."

"Most of it does." He decompressed with a sigh. "So, uh, you still in? With the... ugh." Just thinking of the name Mabel had forcibly assigned their little group made him pause and groan again. "...Super Mystery Brothers?"

"I guess." She watched for a moment as the sports portion of the news came on. "If they're really as strong as you said, I'd rather be on their side than not, you know? And I kinda owe 'em for dad, I think."

"All right. Hey, at least we know their surname now. I bet you could do a full background check!" He snickered a little. "Heck, I'll do—er, on second thought, based on how my last internet search went, I'd better not."

Wendy shook her head with a smile. "Pfff. Don't worry. I'm sure they're cool." She gave him a hearty pat on the back and stood. "I'm done, yo. See you tomorrow!"

He gave her a thumbs up. "You bet!" Once he was alone, he looked around with an idle smile. "You know, besides the whole superpowers thing, it might be nice to have someone around to knock the Northwests down a peg. I think that's something we can all get behind."

If he could see the identical twins at this moment, Grunkle Stan would have been proud. They sat on the sofa, cloning bills from the currency the grateful strangers foisted upon them after their so-called séance. Summer snapped dollars out of the discarded pizza boxes, while Winter made sure none of the serial numbers were duplicates.

"I can't believe you named us after a color," the red-eyed woman muttered.

Winter, busy peering at a twenty, then at her laptop to make sure it appeared correct, frowned a bit. "You said it was fun to say."

"It is! But 'white'? It's kind of dull."

"That's not all it means." She set the bill on a large stack of similar currency. "I think we have enough. We'll keep the gold in reserve, just in case."

Summer dusted off her hands and relaxed against the back of the couch. "Okay. What's next?"

"I'm content to wait on Dipper and Mabel. What about you?"

Her eyes began to wander, but her sight was focused on the presence beyond the walls. "Maybe we shouldn't wait. We could sweep this place in a night. Or less."

Winter folded her arms and sighed. "You're eager."

She didn't yield, and ended up sounding almost exactly like her sister. "I want to help our friends in the pit."

"And we will. Be patient. There's a lot of collateral damage we could cause by acting without thinking."

It was around this time that she understood the source of her sister's restraint – or perhaps reluctance. "I... what happened to you that day?"

Head hung, Winter rose from the couch and walked to one of the large front windows. Her gaze eventually came to rest on the Northwest mansion, looming in the evening light above Gravity Falls like a medieval lord's castle. "I ceded sense to fear. I had to stop what was happening around me, and in the course of succeeding I altered countless lives. I might have saved them, but I murdered their future in the process. I left them with... who knows what."

Overcome with emotion, Summer stood up and approached. "The alternative would have been bloody beyond imagination!"

"It may yet be. We don't know what's happening."

Having no comeback, she resorted to throwing herself at Winter and clamping on tight. "You don't know it will."

She returned the hug with equal strength. "True. I won't let the same thing happen here, though. Not if I can help it."

"I understand. I'll be good." Summer pulled away with a light smirk. "Still. White? Can we change our name?"

Winter rolled her eyes a little, but she too was smiling. "No. I already told you, it means something else."

"What?"

"Roughly?" She walked past and sat down again. "It translates to 'knows'."

"Huh. Summer knows," she pointed at herself, "and Winter knows," she concluded, pointing at her. "Clever. But we're not the only ones."

"We're the only ones with the whole truth," she countered. "We should catch a nap while we can. I want to get started tomorrow."

"Okay." She also sat down and sighed. "You know... we'll have to tell them about the hospital 'ghosts' some time or another."

Winter nodded once and let her head tilt back. "That's the plan for in the morning, actually. It's best to do it sooner rather than later."