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Chapter 25: The End of Fate

Author’s Note: Oh CRAP. I didn't realize how dark this chapter actually was until I drew the picture. My mom physically gasped when she saw it. I drew this picture last night, by the way. I fell behind on the illustrations, so I'm now faced with drawing almost one-per-day for the rest of the story. In retrospect I should have waited until I was 100% done with everything before I released it... But oh well. Whatever.

Also, a fun fact: this chapter was the last one I posted on fanfiction.net before my 6-month hiatus, so this cliffhanger you're about to get was the last thing a lot of people had from me for a good long while.

Tl;dr: sometimes I disgust myself. Enjoy!

Wendy strained one last time at the webs holding her to the wall. She thought she felt a few strands breaking near her legs, but their failure did nothing to weaken the rest of the material. In fact, the more she wiggled around and tried to loose herself, the more the webs just stuck and mashed together, the more they bonded to her skin, and the more her muscles yielded to fatigue. After a minute or so she gave up, no closer to freedom and feeling significantly more like a cocooned insect.

She could move her fingers. She could move her toes. She could move her neck and her eyes, but that was the limit of her. Her arms, legs, torso, all her body… It no longer obeyed her. All she could do was stare at the monster, as it stared back.

The Shapeshifter’s mother. Some kind of time-traveling mystery character, who’d seen thousands of years of history, who’d killed people throughout them, who seemed to know everything, and who most likely ate people. Wendy could feel the eyes probing and inspecting, as indifferently as one might regard a museum piece, or a slab of meat.

The beast took a step toward her.

She could kill me. Wendy knew. She could kill me if she wanted, and I can’t even move.

…Wait, was she an ‘it’? Or was it a ‘she’? Wendy briefly wondered to herself. A person or a thing? How do you refer to intelligent creatures which act like this? Are they still rational beings? Or can you really be so evil and twisted that you forsake your own soul?

Wendy was quite too mad to really care.

“Let me down.” She told her, as she came closer. “Come on, you grimy old sack of phlegm! Let me down or I’ll beat the living daylights out of you! Come on!”

She stopped about 3 feet from Wendy, and peered down at her face. “I thought I gagged you.” She replied calmly, as she inspected the stray scraps of webbing around Wendy’s mouth.

“Yeah, well, maybe you should use more than weird spider webs next time.” Wendy growled. “Something I can’t just chew up and spit out.”

“Probably good advice.” Her head widened slightly, and her teeth shapeshifted into some kind of slobbering, many-tendrilled orifice, which then secreted a stringy mass of webbing. She rolled the material into a tight ball with her hands.

“Well, it’s just common sense.” Wendy tried to shrug. “I mean, if I had some alien tied up in my basement, you can bet I’d make darn su—” She squeezed Wendy’s cheeks, forced her mouth open, shoved the ball in between her teeth, and pasted it in place with another web across her face.

Wendy took a deep breath in through her nose, as she silently glared.

The creature calmly wiped the excess gunk off her hands, then eased to a seated position on the floor. They were both silent for a moment, one by necessity, one for thought.

“I know lots of things.” The shifter finally remarked. “From lots of times, from lots of places.”

“Mmf mf.” Wendy retorted.

“Some of them happen to be about you.” She said. Her body rearranged into the form of Mr. Sherman, her PE coach from grade school. “Wendy Blerble Corduroy…” Mr. Sherman’s voice hummed with perfect clarity. “You did pretty well on the football and wrestling teams during elementary and middle school… And word on the street is, you ‘kind of ruled’ in the annual lumberjack games…”

“Rgf mmf.” The gag made it easy to hide her confusion. Wait a minute, was Mr. Sherman the shapeshifter all along? How does THAT make sense? What the heck?

The shifter’s form changed again, this time solidifying as a short, intense Asian man: Mr. Chiu, her science teacher from just last year… “Although both your grades and extra-scholastic endeavors declined steadily through your teen years.” Mr. Chiu’s voice told her. Wait a minute! Wendy thought. Mr. Chiu has a human daughter. He couldn’t have been her all along… She must have… Wait, what? “Perhaps.” The image of Mr. Chiu continued. “Was it because you discovered friends in lower circles? Or as you became increasingly disillusioned with the world…?” She transformed into Toot-Toot McBumbersnazzle, aka Blind Ivan. “Or perhaps as the late Blind Eye Society trimmed back your working knowledge whenever you happened across something you ought not see…” Okay, there’s no WAY that HE was her this entire time… So how DOES she know so much…? It morphed again, and she was looking at and listening to her own dad… “However it worked, you got it through yer noggin’ that everything ya did was just useless and pointless… Guess ya figured on how easy it was to sit on your butt and do nothing at all. So ya threw yer life away, and turned inta the lazy one…”

Wendy glared.

The mimic of her father leaned in a little closer. “Yeah, that’s it, ain’t it? The Wendy that allll them school records show. Always so darn chill, always calm, level, and cool… But as far as the world’s concerned, less than useless…” It sounded and felt like her own dad talking. Gruff as ever. Candid as ever. Right as ever…

The shape changed again, to Stanley Pines. “No…” Her former employer scratched his chin skeptically, and adjusted his glasses. “No it’s not. That’s ain’t you, not anymore. Now I hear yer doing better in school, ya had a hand in eliminating the Blind Eye, in that rascal Bill’s defeat, and now in even deeper, stranger matters…”

She took the form of Robbie, which set off some alarm in Wendy’s mind, as she remembered that Robbie was probably dead… “You, like, don’t fear anything at all…” Robbie’s voice told her. “You fight robots on Tuesday, Aliens on Wednesday, ghosts on Thursday… All sorts of crazy adventures, you’re probably real close to a lot of things you really shouldn’t see…” And now the shifter looked like Tambry. “People don’t ever change.” Tambry told her. “They get changed. So why are you different all of a sudden? What changed you? Your job at the tourist trap selling junk? Mr. Pines, that old jerk you worked for?” Tambry put her hands on her hips. “Or something else, like your new friends?”

Now the shifter shrunk down to the size of a child. A very familiar size. A very familiar shape… Before Wendy had a chance to mentally prepare herself to look at this, she found her eyes locked with those of Dipper. “Was it me?” It was his voice again, his old, familiar, youthful voice. The voice tore into the weird corners of Wendy’s mind, upsetting everything, confusing everything; she was defenseless against it. Dipper. She blinked. DIPPER! She tried to shake her head. Dipper’s dead… Dipper! “…Was it Dipper…?” Dipper asked.

Wendy couldn’t quite find words.

“Sorry.” The Dipper mimic smiled awkwardly. “I didn’t mean to ramble. I guess… I guess what I really want to get down to is the cause of things. Why are you the way that you are? What happened, where, when… What made you? If it was Dipper, then what made him who he was? Who guided you? Trained you? Inspired you, knighted you, blessed you? What force of fate, chance or choice placed this destiny in your lap, and bid you go and become a hero?”

What a strange thing to ask.

“You do know.” The Dipper mimic insisted. “I know you’re not stupid, I know you know what I’m asking… Just c’mon, please Wendy?” The intonation of his voice matched Dipper’s so perfectly for a moment that she couldn’t help but recoil. Dipper’s hands reached up and peeled the gag off her mouth. “Like, c’mon, I can tell there’s something you’re not saying. Maybe many things? …No, just one thing… Yeah, there’s one secret you swore to always keep from me, and what’s that? C’mon, you can tell me… I mean, why not at this point, huh? Ha ha… Yeah…”

Wendy flexed her jaw, enjoying the ability to once again breath freely. Dipper’s hand reached up and brushed gently across her cheek. The thin, cold little fingers felt just exactly like his… Cognitive dissonance hit like another wet slap, as half her brain believed for a moment that it was him.

But of course, it wasn’t. And she didn’t believe it. “Go die in a hole, you PSYCHO!” She screamed.

“Whaaaat, c’mon Wendy!”

“You—”

“Hey now, you don’t want me to use the tentacles.”

“The? Wait, tenta—”

“I guess I wouldn’t mind though.” Two of the fingers on Dipper’s hand grew and expanded into a pair of stiff, thin, sharp little appendages, which he then shoved up Wendy’s nostrils.

It hurt.

Wendy thrashed around, tried to pull away, tried to turn and hide her face, tried to reach her hands in to help, but nothing worked; they were working their way deeper into her skull. Wendy’s furious struggling managed to break some of the webs holding her head in place, but the extra movement just made the probes hurt a hundred times worse.

IT HURT.

“You.” Dipper said. “Who were you? Who are you? And why?”

Wendy emitted a furious cry; a guttural, feral sound she didn’t know she had in her, and arched up to try to bite the hand. Her teeth clacked in the empty air.

Dipper’s voice burst out laughing. “An animal!” He said, as he drug Wendy’s head back down to face forward. “An animal pretending to be a person! A person priding in its ingenuity, modesty, fair judgement, rationality; the kinda things that set it above the beast. But deep, deep down, beyond the walls of faith and friendship, only nature remains. Now that you have lost these things, you’re getting the point where you cross the line. Maybe you already crossed it?”

“Die! In! A! Hole!” She managed.

“How can you say that? Look at your body, sick, weak, helpless, invaded, bound… It’s not your body, it’s mine now, and I see it as nothing but so much meat… So what do you hang on to? How can you spit in my face, when you dangle precariously at the end of yourself? Why aren’t you afraid? Do you believe yourself to be strong? Indestructible? Or is this fleshy body nothing but meat to you as well? What made you into this thing, this thing that thinks itself fearsome?”

“NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS!!”

“Remember everything you still have left to lose! Your sanity! Your honor! Your dignity! Your soul! How long until there is nothing left of Ms. Corduroy for me to speak to? How long until there’s nothing on this wall but a wild, snarling dog?!?”

“YOU SHUT UP!” Wendy screamed.

The lights flicked off in the room, leaving Wendy with no perception of the world except the sloppy sounds of creature’s movement, the taste of her own blood, and the pain…

She felt the fingers curling inside her nose, pulling her forward. Then they pushed, and slammed her head against the metal wall behind her. Then they pulled again, and they slammed again, and again, and now her entire head hurt and she could barely concentrate, and she could feel something inside her head splitting and stinging, as if with every blow was drilling the dreaded things deeper, closer to her brain.

Tiny, sharp, incredible pains shot through her arms and legs now too, and she guessed the shapeshifter must have put other limbs to work as well, poking and prodding and crawling over her like the probing limbs of some spidery thing, drilling and cutting and who knows what else. And all through it, there was just this darkness, hiding whatever else may be in store…

Why is this even happening? Why does it have to hurt? And why do I care whether this THING knows or not anyway? It’s not like it’s super important, or even true… What’s the point in keeping secrets? What’s the point in screaming threats? What’s the point in even trying? Just kill me! KILL ME!

All alone, in great pain, at the end of everything, Wendy finally panicked.

“11:03 THIS MORNING!” She gasped.

The pounding ceased. The poking and the stabbing paused.

“What was that, red?” Dipper’s voice asked.

“Eleven…” Wendy screwed her eyes shut, and felt tears trickle down her face. “Eleven-oh-three this morning… This morning… You’ll see… My secret…”

Slowly and painfully, the fingers pulled out of Wendy’s nose.

She sneezed up blood.

“Broken at last.” The creature remarked in its natural voice.

The gag was crammed back in her mouth, the loosened webs were reinforced, and then the monster retreated. She must have had a second time machine besides the one she gifted her son, because she promptly disappeared in a flash of blue light, leaving Wendy alone.

All seemed suddenly quiet and still… But not empty. All around her, she could feel the evil standing; threatening, near, haunting… It was danger, it was fear, this malignant force that watched and taunted and worked deeper, searching out those corners of her brain that hadn’t yet been violated. And one by one, as hopeful thoughts stood, up, it crushed them down, reminding her that she was broken, and helpless, and small. Nothing but a tiny, squealing animal, hanging on the wall.

She blinked.

I need to escape…

Wendy knew she couldn’t escape.

I need to bust loose…

How on Earth could she ever bust loose?

I need to stay conscious. Alert…

That was looking difficult…

I need to think…

Wendy couldn’t think.

I need to think…!

She wasn’t good at thinking.

I NEED TO THINK!

She never had been the thinking one. She was just the athletic one. The fighting one. The level one. The calm one. Dipper was the thinking one. Dipper was the creative one. Dipper was the hero, and I was just his crush. Just his sidekick. Just there to make sure he didn’t get hurt…

Dipper…

I knew you.

Know you.

I was your crush. I was your protection. And I was your calm.

Now I guess I’ve failed all three.

She sneezed again. Her chest heaved painfully, and more blood dribbled over her lips and down her chin. Dipper… She could barely breath, past her flooded nose and the gag in her mouth, so she gasped and wheezed every breath, as she croaked, and coughed, and cried, and bled. I’m sorry… I never told you that you were a great guy…. I never told you how much you meant to me… I let you die, left you for others to bury, I just stormed off and got myself here… And now I panicked… And now I played the fool with a monster who doesn’t even know you… I gave up my secret… I gave up OUR secret… She cried and she bled. I’m sorry…

He wasn’t who the shifter pretended to be. He wasn’t that. He wouldn’t say or do those things, wouldn’t taunt her for not being as indestructible as she seemed…

What would he say if he were here?

If Dipper were here…

Well. First of all, he’d probably be all like: ‘Wait, what secret? What’s so special about 11:03?’ He was a curious guy; always did have a hard time knowing when to mind his own business.

Wendy scraped her cheek against her shoulder as hard as she could, and managed to loosen some of the webs holding the gag in place. After a minute or so, she was able to get her tongue past the edges of it, and break the rest of the strings. Then she spat the ball to the ground, and was able to breathe easily again. The oxygen was little reconciliation for the rest of her suffering, and she may have swallowed some of the sticky gunk by accident.

If Dipper were here…

‘At 11:03 this morning…’ She would have muttered to him. ‘I… Kinda let Stan in on my secret… If creepy-face warps back to then, she’ll know too… Ha ha… I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t going crazy, that’s why I told Stan… But I guess I’m still not sure… Guess I’ll never know…’

He would’ve been quick to deny her angst. ‘You’re not crazy… Y’know the stuff she said about being an animal isn’t true. You… You’re not. You’re not crazy. You’re not.’

‘… I guess everyone reaches a point, dude… Guess it just takes one bad day…’

He wouldn’t be quite sure how to counter that. ‘So… I dunno. So what’s the secret?’ He would’ve changed the subject.

Yeah, I never did tell him that one. Real shame, because I guess it was his secret as well as mine… If he were here, if things were looking this bad, I guess I probably would have admitted it to him. If we’re both to die, he deserves to know. She would have told him. ‘…I met myself last fall.’ She would’ve blurted reluctantly. ‘My future self. She came time-traveling back from maybe a decade down the road, and she talked to me… So she’s a big part of the reason I’m working harder in school, going on these adventures, and doing better with things in general… Like Momma Shifter said, I got changed… Didn’t want her to know, because… I don’t know. It’s private. It’s cool… And after everything I lost, I didn’t want to lose that too…’

‘Woah… What was she like?’ Wendy turned her head to the left in the darkness. If Dipper had been here with her, he would have been captured too. He would’ve been webbed up in the empty spot next to her… She imagined him there now, and wondered again if she really was going crazy.

‘Uh… Real chill… Real chill.’ Wendy recalled. ‘Totally decked out in futurey gear though, like some kinda time-cop. She was wearing this big robotic suit of armor, she had weapons, and a time machine…’

‘…Did she say anything about me?’ Dipper would have asked. Well, no, actually he wouldn’t say that. He’d just think that. Out loud, he’d just nervously mumble something lame like… ‘Huh, wow. Robot suit, huh?’

‘Heck yes she mentioned you.’ Wendy would have replied. ‘Yeah… She said you were a great guy. An example to learn from, even… In fact!’ Wendy crossed the point of no return, and spat it out. ‘She said! She said that you end up being my husband for some reason! We’re married! How ‘bout that?’

That would have taken a couple seconds to sink into his brain. And then he would have freaked out for a several minutes at least.

‘Yeah, c’mon, see? See why I never told you?’ She would’ve scoffed, tried to downplay it. ‘You make this whole relationship weird and awkward enough without me dropping the “oh-hey-it’s-destiny-or-something!” bomb in the middle of things.’

‘WELL! BUT! I! UGH! AH! WHAT?!’

‘Look… Just calm down, it doesn’t matter, all right? I mean… It’s not even true. You’re dead. And now I’ll be dead. Somehow it wasn’t real… And now I don’t even know what’s happening! Everything’s falling apart and dying so fast; you, my friends, my dad… And to top it off, I sang like a canary after a measly 5 minutes of torture! I lost my calm! She got to me…! Like, what’s the point in even trying? I’m not strong any more… Dipper, if I’m not the strong one, then who am I?’

He would’ve forced his mind back on-topic; he was good at that. He would’ve thought about it all for a minute, trying to think of something wise to say. Then he’d finally say it, and it wouldn’t be very wise at all; just sweet and simple and caring… Something like, ‘Don’t you remember? You’re a flippin’ Corduroy!’

‘A flippin’ Corduroy…’ She sighed. ‘…Why did you idolize me so much, dude? Everything meaningful I ever did was just because I had to or because I was bored…’

‘Well—’

‘You know you could’ve done better than me… Guy like you could’ve set your sights higher; fallen in love with somebody beautiful and talented… A genius, or a super hero, or a princess…’

‘UH…!’ He would’ve hurried to interject ‘W-w-would it, like, be too cheesy to say you’re a princess to me?’

‘Oh my friggin’…’ She tried not to roll her eyes. ‘You…! Oh… Geez, okay, focus. C’mon Dipper. C’mon, help me out here, look at this rationally, what do I DO? How do I get out of this? I can’t fight time-traveling monsters, can I? Time traveling monsters that can be anyone, do anything…’

‘Well… I don’t… Uh…’

‘You have to know! I got myself into this mess, and now you have to get me out of it! Come on… You always know! You’re the smart one! You’re always able to ad-lib some kinda plan! Always!’

‘Umm… I don’t know… Oh man, I wish I could reach my journal…’

Wendy’s eyes drifted across the darkened room to the place where it was lying among her other confiscated stuff. ‘I can’t reach it either… But well, hey, I have been reading it the last couple nights since you died, so I remember a lot of it… Why?’

‘It’s got my notes on time travel…’

‘Uh… Oh, wait wait, yeah, I read those! I read them… What about ‘em?’

‘Well… Okay, think. Think about it: When did you see your future self?’

‘Huh?’

‘When did you see her? Before I died, or after?’

‘Before! Duh… I tried to write down a time and date to bring her back AFTER you died… But she didn’t show…’

‘Okay… Okay… Okayokayokay… Okay, So! Why wouldn’t she show up after Sam killed me?’

‘Umm…’ Wendy thought about that. Up to now, she’d just blindly accepted that something changed; that for some reason, it didn’t work anymore. But why? She tried to put it together. ‘Maybe… Maybe when he killed you, he changed the future? Yeah, so in this reality, I die right now instead of later, so she isn’t able to come back for me…’

‘But if you die right now, then how would she have been able to come back in the first place? If this is the way the future goes, then how could she ever have existed?’

‘The future changed…’

‘No no no! Remember my notes! What did I say?’

‘Uh…’ Wendy racked her brain. ‘I don’t… There wasn’t anything in there about this. Just one part about you trying to fix a mistake and then something about a baby and some gladiator battle…’

‘The first one. The mistake. Do you remember what happened?’

‘Well… I remember you were pretty vague; what was the mistake again?’

‘Doesn’t matter. All that matters is what happened! What happened? Remember!’

‘Uh… Well… Didn’t you say it didn’t work for some reason? Right? Yeah… You said it didn’t work…’

‘Right!’

‘And then…’

‘Then?’

‘Then one time… You said you tried really really hard, and actually did change it… But even then, circumstances forced you to go back in time by your own free will, and change it back…’

‘Exactly. No matter what I did, no matter WHAT, fate intervened to set history on its proper course… Even when I succeeded in one place, another place failed. Eventually even I gave up.’

‘Okay… So what does that mean?’ Wendy forced herself to think. ‘What does that mean, how does it all connect?!? Does that mean no matter what I do, I’m gonna die here?’

‘No! It just means that there’s only one reality, Wendy. You can’t change the future more than an inch, and even if you do, it’ll iron out the wrinkles itself. It’ll stabilize… And… And now this is great! This is great! Because remember, you’ve seen the future!’

‘…The future where I become… Like, a time-travely warrior thing?’

‘Yeah! Where we’re mar—’

‘Shut up.’

‘Ah! Sorry. I mean…! …I mean that future-you must have come from a time after all this… After the wrinkles get ironed out. After reality stabilizes. Which means that after today, after whatever happens next, somehow that’s the reality that’ll remain. And that’s probably why she couldn’t come back to today! Because this time is fated to get decay out and disappear. Get replaced…’

‘But…’

‘But what?’

‘…But how? What do I do to do that?’

‘Umm…’ Dipper came up short. This was as far as his optimistic reasoning took him, and he really didn’t know what to say next. ‘Well… I… I dunno. Time logic says something has to happen… I think… I guess you might outsmart her, or you might outfight her, or outfox her or out-time her… Uh… Heck, it might not be you; maybe somebody else entirely will find a way to change things. But I’m pretty sure something has to happen sometime, and if you’re the last one left, then… It’s pretty much up to you… It’s like destiny or something.’

‘But… Are you sure? What if… I mean, you don’t know everything. Your journal doesn’t know everything. What if this is all just… Stupid wishful thinking…?’

‘…You tell me; are you sure that it was you last fall? The time traveler?’

‘…Yes.’

‘And…’ His voice would have faltered just slightly. ‘Are you sure that that future is something you want?’

‘Well…’ Wendy thought for a minute.

If he were here, he would be trying not to stare at her, but still hanging on her every word, waiting for her reply. He’d said all he could say, and now he wanted to know if she would fight to the bitter end. Whether or not she could still keep her faith, even when everything seemed to be standing in the way, even after everyone who could ever help was gone, even if unspeakably twisted beasts tried to cut their way into her mind. He wanted to know if she would be willing to fight to the death to save him. He wanted to know if she loved him.

Wendy almost laughed when she realized what was being said. ‘Well, duh! Come on dude, of course!’

He would have nodded nervously; he was still a little stressed, a little overwhelmed, a little frightened. But now, he knew how she felt. He knew her secret. He wished he didn’t know it, because yeah: it did make everything weird. But still, he knew that this weak and hopeless prisoner would one day be his wife.

He believed it.

So he would have found a way to smile, and ask. “Then what are we waiting for?”

Wendy awoke with a start.

Just a dream.

…Just a dream? Naw… Naw, wait a minute, why would I have been sleeping anyway? Blood loss? Shock? General weirdness? No, that’s no reason to sleep… And that wasn’t a normal dream either… I dunno, that must’ve been Dipper’s ghost or some crap! …Or a wizard. Or some kinda time-traveling pseudo-memories from a timeline that never happened. Or the Shifter using psychic powers to deceive me… Or maybe it was just some kinda weird, prophetic dream that happens because… Reasons…

Oh, who am I kidding? It was nothing! Nothing at all… Everyone knows dreams never mean anything at all.

Of course they don’t.

But meaning or not, it made sense. It actually made a whole gob of sense.

She believed it.

Wendy shook her head to clear the last of her confusion, then took a deep breath to prepare herself. Her nose was still totally clogged up, but at least the bleeding had stopped, and she’d gotten that blasted gag loose.

Please God. She thought to pray. Make it all true. Help this all turn out alright.

She began to breath really heavily and quickly. She’d heard of scuba divers doing this before a deep dive; it’s to flood the body with oxygen and give you more energy.

When she felt fully riled up, she threw her entire weight to the left, curled with her left arm and pulled on her right, trying with every ounce of strength to pull it loose. When the webs digging into her wrist became too excruciating to bear, she threw herself to the right and tried to pull her left arm loose. That didn’t work either.

Dang it.

She relaxed after a moment, defeated yet again.

But when she wiggled her shoulders, she found the bands to be loosened at least partially. Maybe if she tried again in a couple minutes, after her muscles stopped hurting, and then another couple minutes after that, and again after that… Maybe she could eventually get free? It all depended on how long the shifter would take to get back… What was taking so long, anyway?

“Thought I gagged you.” The voice interrupted.

Wendy jumped. The voice unnerved her, startled her, reminded her of the pain that was still so near, and filled her imagination with pain to come… Before Wendy had time to fear, she reminded herself that she angry.

Bitterly, furiously angry.

Wendy Corduroy. Angry Corduroy. Flippin’ Corduroy.

There was gonna be payment. There was gonna be pain.

“You do realize I was able to just reappear the split second I left, don’t you?” The monster asked, with a tone like a smirk.

Wendy’s voice came out rather calm. Surprisingly calm, even to her. “…Oh yeah, I knew that.” She nodded smoothly. “Simple time logic, that’s what that is… So hey, I guess you know my secret now? How you like it? Bet you’re pretty surprised to find out you’ve got a time traveler locked in your basement, huh?”

“No… Not really. I get all types…” The lights in the room flicked back on. They weren’t very bright all considering, but after perfect blackness, Wendy still felt like blinking. The monster gestured to one of the skeletons on the wall. The body was human; and seemed to have some kind of cybernetic thing hanging from one eye socket. Its torso was plated in dusty, dark grey armor. “That one was a time traveler too.” She said, as she wiped a bit of dust off the hourglass insignia on the breastplate. “Lieutenant something-or-another. Very brave old man, very proud. Wouldn’t speak a word besides his name and rank… At least at first. But he cried out for his mother days later, and now I know all that he knew.” She pointed to another human cyborg skeleton. “That one, also a time traveler. He was head of his class at the time-academy, but applied all that knowledge just three and a half seconds too late.” She pointed again, this time to the lanky, squid-like skeleton of one of the ship’s crewmembers. “And the clever nuclear engineer. He knew every single bolt and beam of this vessel, and yet he failed to hide from me. That one? Top security officer of the whole place. He didn’t want to surrender the drone control codes, but such is the way of things… That one? A most prestigious scientist, master of everything from nanobiology to embryotic mutation decay. One of the smartest men I’ve ever talked too, he almost convinced me not to eat him. And her? Ex-convict. Stowed away on the ship to escape a death sentence on her homeworld. She devised all kinds of clever ways to escape from me too, but you can see how they ended. That one?” The shifter pointed to a metal skeleton, with clawed hands, a mouthful of saws, and dead aluminum eyeballs that had never quite rotted. “You know him; maybe even met him… Yes? Last survivor of a colony of intelligent machines. He was a truly great man in his life. Intelligent. Determined. Prepared. And an entirely good and noble man as well, stood for nothing but truth, honor, and the safety and preservation of loved ones… But he’s gone like the rest… Such a shame.”

“Yeah.” Wendy shrugged. “Nice collection… But, uh… None of them were destined to kick your butt though.”

The shifter turned to her. “So.” Her voice grated menacingly, like the tearing of cloth. “You claim a future version of yourself came into your life and directed you to become who you are… I’m sure it was a strong and powerful woman that came striding forward, reaching out to you as if out of your imagination, out of a dream, a wish, a vision, and made itself come true… Except it didn’t. Over time, this hard life beat you right back down from the lofty heights it raised you to, until it has proven to be just a wish after all, just a fancy, a youthful dream…” She chuckled. “Really, the only surprising part of your story is that you would even consider your secret a secret. The only surprising thing was how defeated and dejected you acted when I extracted a piece of trivia so petty and meaningless…”

“Yeah, well…”

“Oh, wait… Hold on a moment; you still think it’s true, don’t you? Really! What a wild idea; that a thing could give rise to itself. And not just some twisted, random, chaotic thing, but a thing of beauty, pride, heroism… It must have a cause, but what? Who sent it? Who sent it to you, that you might send it to yourself? And if nobody sent it, then how and why would fate choose a wild, rebellious animal like a Corduroy? Didn’t it ever dawn on you that somebody’s been lying to you all along? Did it ever even cross your mind?”

The shifter’s voice broke and changed now. Wendy couldn’t quite place it; it sounded familiar from somewhere… But then her body began to shift and morph. Four legs became two. White mucus hardened into flesh. Hard, dark plates formed together, rose up, and interlocked into armor. Little bioluminescent lights began to glow in high-tech patterns, and features solidified on the face.

The eyes… The hair… The suit of futuristic robotic armor… Wendy stared.

“Look familiar?” The monster ran a gloved hand through her long red hair, smiled her freckled, adult face, and twirled a futuristic axe. “You get good enough at shapeshifting, you can start inventing forms. How do you like this one? All I had to go on was your own appearance, and a little imagination…”

Wendy stared, and blinked, and stared again. She found herself at a loss for words.

“Perhaps I’ll head back to last Fall with this, and say some nice things to you. To make you do all the helpful things you’ve done since… What do you think of that?”

Wendy didn’t speak.

“…Or…” A smile twitched at the corners of the mimic’s mouth. “Or do you still believe you know the future?”

Wendy thought about this, as she stared at the perfect image of her dream. The image rested a hand on its hip, and stood in that characteristically powerful, proud, relaxed way… It really, truly was exactly how she remembered it.

My future self.

The promises. The mission. The hope. The vision.

It was all lies…

No…

No.

“No…” Wendy said.

The mimic cocked its head.

“No…” Wendy repeated. “Wait… You’ve seen her.”

“Hmm?”

“You’ve seen her! Seen me! That’s how you know what she looks like; you’ve met her… You’ve probably fought her, that’s it!” Wendy flexed her fingers, preparing to assault her bindings again. “You knew it all along! You’re trying to get in my head, trying to probe me and hurt me and BREAK me to prevent me from becoming who I AM, but you KNOW! You know the reason she didn’t show up this morning! It’s ‘Cause I’m gonna escape! This… This is destiny or something! I’m gonna fight my way across time and space to save my friends and my family, save the day, be the HERO! And then we’re gonna take what’s left of you, feed half to the pig and use the rest as VEGETABLE OIL!”

“YOU?” It scoffed, and gestured again to the skeletons. “When I’ve hunted and killed and eaten all who came before? Time travelers! Warriors! Scientists! Inventors! Heroes…! And now you! Hanging among the remains of better people, tell me:” Her voice rose to a screeching, furious, monstrous pitch as she raised her arm. The hand flattened itself, and sharpened into the fine edge of a large blade. Then she leapt at Wendy, lashing the deadly blade directly for her torso. “WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?!?”

Wendy didn’t blink.

*BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! *

The computer console in a corner of the room chimed loudly.

By some unforeseeable, freak act of fortune, the alarm seemed to distract the shifter for a fraction of a second.

The blade missed Wendy’s body.

“WARNING!” The console chimed, in a language that was most certainly not English. “INTRUDERS DETECTED INCONCLUSIVE REFERENCE CODE RETURN THREAT LEVEL UPGRADED TO JELLY ROLL ONE: ERROR 443\]kl;/oij#JE’~~3Dde~~~”

The Shifter spun toward the computers and began to head toward them, outraged at the improbable, incredible, inconceivable timing of the interruption.

Wendy realized that the blade had actually severed most of the webs.

She threw herself forward, and her left arm ripped free. Her right arm followed it. Then she grabbed a sharp scrap of metal, and with one long slice tore through the material on her legs.

With a final push, her boots landed on the ground with a dull thud.

She stood up.

The Shifter glanced back at the human. She saw the tangled, matted hair, the faded blue hat, the clenched fists, the blood-stained lip, the furious little scowl, and the dark, murderous thoughts behind those green eyes. She thought that this was getting a little too complicated and improbable for a standard hostage situation; she should probably time-travel back by about 5 minutes, to find out the source of the alarm ahead of time, and undo her accidental severing of the human’s bonds.

Quickly though, before something worse happened.

But she was too late, because something worse was already happening.

There was a brilliant blue flash of light,

a tiny yellow machine was suddenly flying through the air,

And Wendy caught it.

“Who do I think I am? Funny you should ask that…” Wendy smiled, as she ad-libbed a plan.

“I’m a flippin’ Pines.”

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Chapter 25: The End of Fate

Author’s Note: Oh CRAP. I didn't realize how dark this chapter actually was until I drew the picture. My mom physically gasped when she saw it. I drew this picture last night, by the way. I fell behind on the illustrations, so I'm now faced with drawing almost one-per-day for the rest of the story. In retrospect I should have waited until I was 100% done with everything before I released it... But oh well. Whatever.

Also, a fun fact: this chapter was the last one I posted on fanfiction.net before my 6-month hiatus, so this cliffhanger you're about to get was the last thing a lot of people had from me for a good long while.

Tl;dr: sometimes I disgust myself. Enjoy!

Wendy strained one last time at the webs holding her to the wall. She thought she felt a few strands breaking near her legs, but their failure did nothing to weaken the rest of the material. In fact, the more she wiggled around and tried to loose herself, the more the webs just stuck and mashed together, the more they bonded to her skin, and the more her muscles yielded to fatigue. After a minute or so she gave up, no closer to freedom and feeling significantly more like a cocooned insect.

She could move her fingers. She could move her toes. She could move her neck and her eyes, but that was the limit of her. Her arms, legs, torso, all her body… It no longer obeyed her. All she could do was stare at the monster, as it stared back.

The Shapeshifter’s mother. Some kind of time-traveling mystery character, who’d seen thousands of years of history, who’d killed people throughout them, who seemed to know everything, and who most likely ate people. Wendy could feel the eyes probing and inspecting, as indifferently as one might regard a museum piece, or a slab of meat.

The beast took a step toward her.

She could kill me. Wendy knew. She could kill me if she wanted, and I can’t even move.

…Wait, was she an ‘it’? Or was it a ‘she’? Wendy briefly wondered to herself. A person or a thing? How do you refer to intelligent creatures which act like this? Are they still rational beings? Or can you really be so evil and twisted that you forsake your own soul?

Wendy was quite too mad to really care.

“Let me down.” She told her, as she came closer. “Come on, you grimy old sack of phlegm! Let me down or I’ll beat the living daylights out of you! Come on!”

She stopped about 3 feet from Wendy, and peered down at her face. “I thought I gagged you.” She replied calmly, as she inspected the stray scraps of webbing around Wendy’s mouth.

“Yeah, well, maybe you should use more than weird spider webs next time.” Wendy growled. “Something I can’t just chew up and spit out.”

“Probably good advice.” Her head widened slightly, and her teeth shapeshifted into some kind of slobbering, many-tendrilled orifice, which then secreted a stringy mass of webbing. She rolled the material into a tight ball with her hands.

“Well, it’s just common sense.” Wendy tried to shrug. “I mean, if I had some alien tied up in my basement, you can bet I’d make darn su—” She squeezed Wendy’s cheeks, forced her mouth open, shoved the ball in between her teeth, and pasted it in place with another web across her face.

Wendy took a deep breath in through her nose, as she silently glared.

The creature calmly wiped the excess gunk off her hands, then eased to a seated position on the floor. They were both silent for a moment, one by necessity, one for thought.

“I know lots of things.” The shifter finally remarked. “From lots of times, from lots of places.”

“Mmf mf.” Wendy retorted.

“Some of them happen to be about you.” She said. Her body rearranged into the form of Mr. Sherman, her PE coach from grade school. “Wendy Blerble Corduroy…” Mr. Sherman’s voice hummed with perfect clarity. “You did pretty well on the football and wrestling teams during elementary and middle school… And word on the street is, you ‘kind of ruled’ in the annual lumberjack games…”

“Rgf mmf.” The gag made it easy to hide her confusion. Wait a minute, was Mr. Sherman the shapeshifter all along? How does THAT make sense? What the heck?

The shifter’s form changed again, this time solidifying as a short, intense Asian man: Mr. Chiu, her science teacher from just last year… “Although both your grades and extra-scholastic endeavors declined steadily through your teen years.” Mr. Chiu’s voice told her. Wait a minute! Wendy thought. Mr. Chiu has a human daughter. He couldn’t have been her all along… She must have… Wait, what? “Perhaps.” The image of Mr. Chiu continued. “Was it because you discovered friends in lower circles? Or as you became increasingly disillusioned with the world…?” She transformed into Toot-Toot McBumbersnazzle, aka Blind Ivan. “Or perhaps as the late Blind Eye Society trimmed back your working knowledge whenever you happened across something you ought not see…” Okay, there’s no WAY that HE was her this entire time… So how DOES she know so much…? It morphed again, and she was looking at and listening to her own dad… “However it worked, you got it through yer noggin’ that everything ya did was just useless and pointless… Guess ya figured on how easy it was to sit on your butt and do nothing at all. So ya threw yer life away, and turned inta the lazy one…”

Wendy glared.

The mimic of her father leaned in a little closer. “Yeah, that’s it, ain’t it? The Wendy that allll them school records show. Always so darn chill, always calm, level, and cool… But as far as the world’s concerned, less than useless…” It sounded and felt like her own dad talking. Gruff as ever. Candid as ever. Right as ever…

The shape changed again, to Stanley Pines. “No…” Her former employer scratched his chin skeptically, and adjusted his glasses. “No it’s not. That’s ain’t you, not anymore. Now I hear yer doing better in school, ya had a hand in eliminating the Blind Eye, in that rascal Bill’s defeat, and now in even deeper, stranger matters…”

She took the form of Robbie, which set off some alarm in Wendy’s mind, as she remembered that Robbie was probably dead… “You, like, don’t fear anything at all…” Robbie’s voice told her. “You fight robots on Tuesday, Aliens on Wednesday, ghosts on Thursday… All sorts of crazy adventures, you’re probably real close to a lot of things you really shouldn’t see…” And now the shifter looked like Tambry. “People don’t ever change.” Tambry told her. “They get changed. So why are you different all of a sudden? What changed you? Your job at the tourist trap selling junk? Mr. Pines, that old jerk you worked for?” Tambry put her hands on her hips. “Or something else, like your new friends?”

Now the shifter shrunk down to the size of a child. A very familiar size. A very familiar shape… Before Wendy had a chance to mentally prepare herself to look at this, she found her eyes locked with those of Dipper. “Was it me?” It was his voice again, his old, familiar, youthful voice. The voice tore into the weird corners of Wendy’s mind, upsetting everything, confusing everything; she was defenseless against it. Dipper. She blinked. DIPPER! She tried to shake her head. Dipper’s dead… Dipper! “…Was it Dipper…?” Dipper asked.

Wendy couldn’t quite find words.

“Sorry.” The Dipper mimic smiled awkwardly. “I didn’t mean to ramble. I guess… I guess what I really want to get down to is the cause of things. Why are you the way that you are? What happened, where, when… What made you? If it was Dipper, then what made him who he was? Who guided you? Trained you? Inspired you, knighted you, blessed you? What force of fate, chance or choice placed this destiny in your lap, and bid you go and become a hero?”

What a strange thing to ask.

“You do know.” The Dipper mimic insisted. “I know you’re not stupid, I know you know what I’m asking… Just c’mon, please Wendy?” The intonation of his voice matched Dipper’s so perfectly for a moment that she couldn’t help but recoil. Dipper’s hands reached up and peeled the gag off her mouth. “Like, c’mon, I can tell there’s something you’re not saying. Maybe many things? …No, just one thing… Yeah, there’s one secret you swore to always keep from me, and what’s that? C’mon, you can tell me… I mean, why not at this point, huh? Ha ha… Yeah…”

Wendy flexed her jaw, enjoying the ability to once again breath freely. Dipper’s hand reached up and brushed gently across her cheek. The thin, cold little fingers felt just exactly like his… Cognitive dissonance hit like another wet slap, as half her brain believed for a moment that it was him.

But of course, it wasn’t. And she didn’t believe it. “Go die in a hole, you PSYCHO!” She screamed.

“Whaaaat, c’mon Wendy!”

“You—”

“Hey now, you don’t want me to use the tentacles.”

“The? Wait, tenta—”

“I guess I wouldn’t mind though.” Two of the fingers on Dipper’s hand grew and expanded into a pair of stiff, thin, sharp little appendages, which he then shoved up Wendy’s nostrils.

It hurt.

Wendy thrashed around, tried to pull away, tried to turn and hide her face, tried to reach her hands in to help, but nothing worked; they were working their way deeper into her skull. Wendy’s furious struggling managed to break some of the webs holding her head in place, but the extra movement just made the probes hurt a hundred times worse.

IT HURT.

“You.” Dipper said. “Who were you? Who are you? And why?”

Wendy emitted a furious cry; a guttural, feral sound she didn’t know she had in her, and arched up to try to bite the hand. Her teeth clacked in the empty air.

Dipper’s voice burst out laughing. “An animal!” He said, as he drug Wendy’s head back down to face forward. “An animal pretending to be a person! A person priding in its ingenuity, modesty, fair judgement, rationality; the kinda things that set it above the beast. But deep, deep down, beyond the walls of faith and friendship, only nature remains. Now that you have lost these things, you’re getting the point where you cross the line. Maybe you already crossed it?”

“Die! In! A! Hole!” She managed.

“How can you say that? Look at your body, sick, weak, helpless, invaded, bound… It’s not your body, it’s mine now, and I see it as nothing but so much meat… So what do you hang on to? How can you spit in my face, when you dangle precariously at the end of yourself? Why aren’t you afraid? Do you believe yourself to be strong? Indestructible? Or is this fleshy body nothing but meat to you as well? What made you into this thing, this thing that thinks itself fearsome?”

“NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS!!”

“Remember everything you still have left to lose! Your sanity! Your honor! Your dignity! Your soul! How long until there is nothing left of Ms. Corduroy for me to speak to? How long until there’s nothing on this wall but a wild, snarling dog?!?”

“YOU SHUT UP!” Wendy screamed.

The lights flicked off in the room, leaving Wendy with no perception of the world except the sloppy sounds of creature’s movement, the taste of her own blood, and the pain…

She felt the fingers curling inside her nose, pulling her forward. Then they pushed, and slammed her head against the metal wall behind her. Then they pulled again, and they slammed again, and again, and now her entire head hurt and she could barely concentrate, and she could feel something inside her head splitting and stinging, as if with every blow was drilling the dreaded things deeper, closer to her brain.

Tiny, sharp, incredible pains shot through her arms and legs now too, and she guessed the shapeshifter must have put other limbs to work as well, poking and prodding and crawling over her like the probing limbs of some spidery thing, drilling and cutting and who knows what else. And all through it, there was just this darkness, hiding whatever else may be in store…

Why is this even happening? Why does it have to hurt? And why do I care whether this THING knows or not anyway? It’s not like it’s super important, or even true… What’s the point in keeping secrets? What’s the point in screaming threats? What’s the point in even trying? Just kill me! KILL ME!

All alone, in great pain, at the end of everything, Wendy finally panicked.

“11:03 THIS MORNING!” She gasped.

The pounding ceased. The poking and the stabbing paused.

“What was that, red?” Dipper’s voice asked.

“Eleven…” Wendy screwed her eyes shut, and felt tears trickle down her face. “Eleven-oh-three this morning… This morning… You’ll see… My secret…”

Slowly and painfully, the fingers pulled out of Wendy’s nose.

She sneezed up blood.

“Broken at last.” The creature remarked in its natural voice.

The gag was crammed back in her mouth, the loosened webs were reinforced, and then the monster retreated. She must have had a second time machine besides the one she gifted her son, because she promptly disappeared in a flash of blue light, leaving Wendy alone.

All seemed suddenly quiet and still… But not empty. All around her, she could feel the evil standing; threatening, near, haunting… It was danger, it was fear, this malignant force that watched and taunted and worked deeper, searching out those corners of her brain that hadn’t yet been violated. And one by one, as hopeful thoughts stood, up, it crushed them down, reminding her that she was broken, and helpless, and small. Nothing but a tiny, squealing animal, hanging on the wall.

She blinked.

I need to escape…

Wendy knew she couldn’t escape.

I need to bust loose…

How on Earth could she ever bust loose?

I need to stay conscious. Alert…

That was looking difficult…

I need to think…

Wendy couldn’t think.

I need to think…!

She wasn’t good at thinking.

I NEED TO THINK!

She never had been the thinking one. She was just the athletic one. The fighting one. The level one. The calm one. Dipper was the thinking one. Dipper was the creative one. Dipper was the hero, and I was just his crush. Just his sidekick. Just there to make sure he didn’t get hurt…

Dipper…

I knew you.

Know you.

I was your crush. I was your protection. And I was your calm.

Now I guess I’ve failed all three.

She sneezed again. Her chest heaved painfully, and more blood dribbled over her lips and down her chin. Dipper… She could barely breath, past her flooded nose and the gag in her mouth, so she gasped and wheezed every breath, as she croaked, and coughed, and cried, and bled. I’m sorry… I never told you that you were a great guy…. I never told you how much you meant to me… I let you die, left you for others to bury, I just stormed off and got myself here… And now I panicked… And now I played the fool with a monster who doesn’t even know you… I gave up my secret… I gave up OUR secret… She cried and she bled. I’m sorry…

He wasn’t who the shifter pretended to be. He wasn’t that. He wouldn’t say or do those things, wouldn’t taunt her for not being as indestructible as she seemed…

What would he say if he were here?

If Dipper were here…

Well. First of all, he’d probably be all like: ‘Wait, what secret? What’s so special about 11:03?’ He was a curious guy; always did have a hard time knowing when to mind his own business.

Wendy scraped her cheek against her shoulder as hard as she could, and managed to loosen some of the webs holding the gag in place. After a minute or so, she was able to get her tongue past the edges of it, and break the rest of the strings. Then she spat the ball to the ground, and was able to breathe easily again. The oxygen was little reconciliation for the rest of her suffering, and she may have swallowed some of the sticky gunk by accident.

If Dipper were here…

‘At 11:03 this morning…’ She would have muttered to him. ‘I… Kinda let Stan in on my secret… If creepy-face warps back to then, she’ll know too… Ha ha… I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t going crazy, that’s why I told Stan… But I guess I’m still not sure… Guess I’ll never know…’

He would’ve been quick to deny her angst. ‘You’re not crazy… Y’know the stuff she said about being an animal isn’t true. You… You’re not. You’re not crazy. You’re not.’

‘… I guess everyone reaches a point, dude… Guess it just takes one bad day…’

He wouldn’t be quite sure how to counter that. ‘So… I dunno. So what’s the secret?’ He would’ve changed the subject.

Yeah, I never did tell him that one. Real shame, because I guess it was his secret as well as mine… If he were here, if things were looking this bad, I guess I probably would have admitted it to him. If we’re both to die, he deserves to know. She would have told him. ‘…I met myself last fall.’ She would’ve blurted reluctantly. ‘My future self. She came time-traveling back from maybe a decade down the road, and she talked to me… So she’s a big part of the reason I’m working harder in school, going on these adventures, and doing better with things in general… Like Momma Shifter said, I got changed… Didn’t want her to know, because… I don’t know. It’s private. It’s cool… And after everything I lost, I didn’t want to lose that too…’

‘Woah… What was she like?’ Wendy turned her head to the left in the darkness. If Dipper had been here with her, he would have been captured too. He would’ve been webbed up in the empty spot next to her… She imagined him there now, and wondered again if she really was going crazy.

‘Uh… Real chill… Real chill.’ Wendy recalled. ‘Totally decked out in futurey gear though, like some kinda time-cop. She was wearing this big robotic suit of armor, she had weapons, and a time machine…’

‘…Did she say anything about me?’ Dipper would have asked. Well, no, actually he wouldn’t say that. He’d just think that. Out loud, he’d just nervously mumble something lame like… ‘Huh, wow. Robot suit, huh?’

‘Heck yes she mentioned you.’ Wendy would have replied. ‘Yeah… She said you were a great guy. An example to learn from, even… In fact!’ Wendy crossed the point of no return, and spat it out. ‘She said! She said that you end up being my husband for some reason! We’re married! How ‘bout that?’

That would have taken a couple seconds to sink into his brain. And then he would have freaked out for a several minutes at least.

‘Yeah, c’mon, see? See why I never told you?’ She would’ve scoffed, tried to downplay it. ‘You make this whole relationship weird and awkward enough without me dropping the “oh-hey-it’s-destiny-or-something!” bomb in the middle of things.’

‘WELL! BUT! I! UGH! AH! WHAT?!’

‘Look… Just calm down, it doesn’t matter, all right? I mean… It’s not even true. You’re dead. And now I’ll be dead. Somehow it wasn’t real… And now I don’t even know what’s happening! Everything’s falling apart and dying so fast; you, my friends, my dad… And to top it off, I sang like a canary after a measly 5 minutes of torture! I lost my calm! She got to me…! Like, what’s the point in even trying? I’m not strong any more… Dipper, if I’m not the strong one, then who am I?’

He would’ve forced his mind back on-topic; he was good at that. He would’ve thought about it all for a minute, trying to think of something wise to say. Then he’d finally say it, and it wouldn’t be very wise at all; just sweet and simple and caring… Something like, ‘Don’t you remember? You’re a flippin’ Corduroy!’

‘A flippin’ Corduroy…’ She sighed. ‘…Why did you idolize me so much, dude? Everything meaningful I ever did was just because I had to or because I was bored…’

‘Well—’

‘You know you could’ve done better than me… Guy like you could’ve set your sights higher; fallen in love with somebody beautiful and talented… A genius, or a super hero, or a princess…’

‘UH…!’ He would’ve hurried to interject ‘W-w-would it, like, be too cheesy to say you’re a princess to me?’

‘Oh my friggin’…’ She tried not to roll her eyes. ‘You…! Oh… Geez, okay, focus. C’mon Dipper. C’mon, help me out here, look at this rationally, what do I DO? How do I get out of this? I can’t fight time-traveling monsters, can I? Time traveling monsters that can be anyone, do anything…’

‘Well… I don’t… Uh…’

‘You have to know! I got myself into this mess, and now you have to get me out of it! Come on… You always know! You’re the smart one! You’re always able to ad-lib some kinda plan! Always!’

‘Umm… I don’t know… Oh man, I wish I could reach my journal…’

Wendy’s eyes drifted across the darkened room to the place where it was lying among her other confiscated stuff. ‘I can’t reach it either… But well, hey, I have been reading it the last couple nights since you died, so I remember a lot of it… Why?’

‘It’s got my notes on time travel…’

‘Uh… Oh, wait wait, yeah, I read those! I read them… What about ‘em?’

‘Well… Okay, think. Think about it: When did you see your future self?’

‘Huh?’

‘When did you see her? Before I died, or after?’

‘Before! Duh… I tried to write down a time and date to bring her back AFTER you died… But she didn’t show…’

‘Okay… Okay… Okayokayokay… Okay, So! Why wouldn’t she show up after Sam killed me?’

‘Umm…’ Wendy thought about that. Up to now, she’d just blindly accepted that something changed; that for some reason, it didn’t work anymore. But why? She tried to put it together. ‘Maybe… Maybe when he killed you, he changed the future? Yeah, so in this reality, I die right now instead of later, so she isn’t able to come back for me…’

‘But if you die right now, then how would she have been able to come back in the first place? If this is the way the future goes, then how could she ever have existed?’

‘The future changed…’

‘No no no! Remember my notes! What did I say?’

‘Uh…’ Wendy racked her brain. ‘I don’t… There wasn’t anything in there about this. Just one part about you trying to fix a mistake and then something about a baby and some gladiator battle…’

‘The first one. The mistake. Do you remember what happened?’

‘Well… I remember you were pretty vague; what was the mistake again?’

‘Doesn’t matter. All that matters is what happened! What happened? Remember!’

‘Uh… Well… Didn’t you say it didn’t work for some reason? Right? Yeah… You said it didn’t work…’

‘Right!’

‘And then…’

‘Then?’

‘Then one time… You said you tried really really hard, and actually did change it… But even then, circumstances forced you to go back in time by your own free will, and change it back…’

‘Exactly. No matter what I did, no matter WHAT, fate intervened to set history on its proper course… Even when I succeeded in one place, another place failed. Eventually even I gave up.’

‘Okay… So what does that mean?’ Wendy forced herself to think. ‘What does that mean, how does it all connect?!? Does that mean no matter what I do, I’m gonna die here?’

‘No! It just means that there’s only one reality, Wendy. You can’t change the future more than an inch, and even if you do, it’ll iron out the wrinkles itself. It’ll stabilize… And… And now this is great! This is great! Because remember, you’ve seen the future!’

‘…The future where I become… Like, a time-travely warrior thing?’

‘Yeah! Where we’re mar—’

‘Shut up.’

‘Ah! Sorry. I mean…! …I mean that future-you must have come from a time after all this… After the wrinkles get ironed out. After reality stabilizes. Which means that after today, after whatever happens next, somehow that’s the reality that’ll remain. And that’s probably why she couldn’t come back to today! Because this time is fated to get decay out and disappear. Get replaced…’

‘But…’

‘But what?’

‘…But how? What do I do to do that?’

‘Umm…’ Dipper came up short. This was as far as his optimistic reasoning took him, and he really didn’t know what to say next. ‘Well… I… I dunno. Time logic says something has to happen… I think… I guess you might outsmart her, or you might outfight her, or outfox her or out-time her… Uh… Heck, it might not be you; maybe somebody else entirely will find a way to change things. But I’m pretty sure something has to happen sometime, and if you’re the last one left, then… It’s pretty much up to you… It’s like destiny or something.’

‘But… Are you sure? What if… I mean, you don’t know everything. Your journal doesn’t know everything. What if this is all just… Stupid wishful thinking…?’

‘…You tell me; are you sure that it was you last fall? The time traveler?’

‘…Yes.’

‘And…’ His voice would have faltered just slightly. ‘Are you sure that that future is something you want?’

‘Well…’ Wendy thought for a minute.

If he were here, he would be trying not to stare at her, but still hanging on her every word, waiting for her reply. He’d said all he could say, and now he wanted to know if she would fight to the bitter end. Whether or not she could still keep her faith, even when everything seemed to be standing in the way, even after everyone who could ever help was gone, even if unspeakably twisted beasts tried to cut their way into her mind. He wanted to know if she would be willing to fight to the death to save him. He wanted to know if she loved him.

Wendy almost laughed when she realized what was being said. ‘Well, duh! Come on dude, of course!’

He would have nodded nervously; he was still a little stressed, a little overwhelmed, a little frightened. But now, he knew how she felt. He knew her secret. He wished he didn’t know it, because yeah: it did make everything weird. But still, he knew that this weak and hopeless prisoner would one day be his wife.

He believed it.

So he would have found a way to smile, and ask. “Then what are we waiting for?”

Wendy awoke with a start.

Just a dream.

…Just a dream? Naw… Naw, wait a minute, why would I have been sleeping anyway? Blood loss? Shock? General weirdness? No, that’s no reason to sleep… And that wasn’t a normal dream either… I dunno, that must’ve been Dipper’s ghost or some crap! …Or a wizard. Or some kinda time-traveling pseudo-memories from a timeline that never happened. Or the Shifter using psychic powers to deceive me… Or maybe it was just some kinda weird, prophetic dream that happens because… Reasons…

Oh, who am I kidding? It was nothing! Nothing at all… Everyone knows dreams never mean anything at all.

Of course they don’t.

But meaning or not, it made sense. It actually made a whole gob of sense.

She believed it.

Wendy shook her head to clear the last of her confusion, then took a deep breath to prepare herself. Her nose was still totally clogged up, but at least the bleeding had stopped, and she’d gotten that blasted gag loose.

Please God. She thought to pray. Make it all true. Help this all turn out alright.

She began to breath really heavily and quickly. She’d heard of scuba divers doing this before a deep dive; it’s to flood the body with oxygen and give you more energy.

When she felt fully riled up, she threw her entire weight to the left, curled with her left arm and pulled on her right, trying with every ounce of strength to pull it loose. When the webs digging into her wrist became too excruciating to bear, she threw herself to the right and tried to pull her left arm loose. That didn’t work either.

Dang it.

She relaxed after a moment, defeated yet again.

But when she wiggled her shoulders, she found the bands to be loosened at least partially. Maybe if she tried again in a couple minutes, after her muscles stopped hurting, and then another couple minutes after that, and again after that… Maybe she could eventually get free? It all depended on how long the shifter would take to get back… What was taking so long, anyway?

“Thought I gagged you.” The voice interrupted.

Wendy jumped. The voice unnerved her, startled her, reminded her of the pain that was still so near, and filled her imagination with pain to come… Before Wendy had time to fear, she reminded herself that she angry.

Bitterly, furiously angry.

Wendy Corduroy. Angry Corduroy. Flippin’ Corduroy.

There was gonna be payment. There was gonna be pain.

“You do realize I was able to just reappear the split second I left, don’t you?” The monster asked, with a tone like a smirk.

Wendy’s voice came out rather calm. Surprisingly calm, even to her. “…Oh yeah, I knew that.” She nodded smoothly. “Simple time logic, that’s what that is… So hey, I guess you know my secret now? How you like it? Bet you’re pretty surprised to find out you’ve got a time traveler locked in your basement, huh?”

“No… Not really. I get all types…” The lights in the room flicked back on. They weren’t very bright all considering, but after perfect blackness, Wendy still felt like blinking. The monster gestured to one of the skeletons on the wall. The body was human; and seemed to have some kind of cybernetic thing hanging from one eye socket. Its torso was plated in dusty, dark grey armor. “That one was a time traveler too.” She said, as she wiped a bit of dust off the hourglass insignia on the breastplate. “Lieutenant something-or-another. Very brave old man, very proud. Wouldn’t speak a word besides his name and rank… At least at first. But he cried out for his mother days later, and now I know all that he knew.” She pointed to another human cyborg skeleton. “That one, also a time traveler. He was head of his class at the time-academy, but applied all that knowledge just three and a half seconds too late.” She pointed again, this time to the lanky, squid-like skeleton of one of the ship’s crewmembers. “And the clever nuclear engineer. He knew every single bolt and beam of this vessel, and yet he failed to hide from me. That one? Top security officer of the whole place. He didn’t want to surrender the drone control codes, but such is the way of things… That one? A most prestigious scientist, master of everything from nanobiology to embryotic mutation decay. One of the smartest men I’ve ever talked too, he almost convinced me not to eat him. And her? Ex-convict. Stowed away on the ship to escape a death sentence on her homeworld. She devised all kinds of clever ways to escape from me too, but you can see how they ended. That one?” The shifter pointed to a metal skeleton, with clawed hands, a mouthful of saws, and dead aluminum eyeballs that had never quite rotted. “You know him; maybe even met him… Yes? Last survivor of a colony of intelligent machines. He was a truly great man in his life. Intelligent. Determined. Prepared. And an entirely good and noble man as well, stood for nothing but truth, honor, and the safety and preservation of loved ones… But he’s gone like the rest… Such a shame.”

“Yeah.” Wendy shrugged. “Nice collection… But, uh… None of them were destined to kick your butt though.”

The shifter turned to her. “So.” Her voice grated menacingly, like the tearing of cloth. “You claim a future version of yourself came into your life and directed you to become who you are… I’m sure it was a strong and powerful woman that came striding forward, reaching out to you as if out of your imagination, out of a dream, a wish, a vision, and made itself come true… Except it didn’t. Over time, this hard life beat you right back down from the lofty heights it raised you to, until it has proven to be just a wish after all, just a fancy, a youthful dream…” She chuckled. “Really, the only surprising part of your story is that you would even consider your secret a secret. The only surprising thing was how defeated and dejected you acted when I extracted a piece of trivia so petty and meaningless…”

“Yeah, well…”

“Oh, wait… Hold on a moment; you still think it’s true, don’t you? Really! What a wild idea; that a thing could give rise to itself. And not just some twisted, random, chaotic thing, but a thing of beauty, pride, heroism… It must have a cause, but what? Who sent it? Who sent it to you, that you might send it to yourself? And if nobody sent it, then how and why would fate choose a wild, rebellious animal like a Corduroy? Didn’t it ever dawn on you that somebody’s been lying to you all along? Did it ever even cross your mind?”

The shifter’s voice broke and changed now. Wendy couldn’t quite place it; it sounded familiar from somewhere… But then her body began to shift and morph. Four legs became two. White mucus hardened into flesh. Hard, dark plates formed together, rose up, and interlocked into armor. Little bioluminescent lights began to glow in high-tech patterns, and features solidified on the face.

The eyes… The hair… The suit of futuristic robotic armor… Wendy stared.

“Look familiar?” The monster ran a gloved hand through her long red hair, smiled her freckled, adult face, and twirled a futuristic axe. “You get good enough at shapeshifting, you can start inventing forms. How do you like this one? All I had to go on was your own appearance, and a little imagination…”

Wendy stared, and blinked, and stared again. She found herself at a loss for words.

“Perhaps I’ll head back to last Fall with this, and say some nice things to you. To make you do all the helpful things you’ve done since… What do you think of that?”

Wendy didn’t speak.

“…Or…” A smile twitched at the corners of the mimic’s mouth. “Or do you still believe you know the future?”

Wendy thought about this, as she stared at the perfect image of her dream. The image rested a hand on its hip, and stood in that characteristically powerful, proud, relaxed way… It really, truly was exactly how she remembered it.

My future self.

The promises. The mission. The hope. The vision.

It was all lies…

No…

No.

“No…” Wendy said.

The mimic cocked its head.

“No…” Wendy repeated. “Wait… You’ve seen her.”

“Hmm?”

“You’ve seen her! Seen me! That’s how you know what she looks like; you’ve met her… You’ve probably fought her, that’s it!” Wendy flexed her fingers, preparing to assault her bindings again. “You knew it all along! You’re trying to get in my head, trying to probe me and hurt me and BREAK me to prevent me from becoming who I AM, but you KNOW! You know the reason she didn’t show up this morning! It’s ‘Cause I’m gonna escape! This… This is destiny or something! I’m gonna fight my way across time and space to save my friends and my family, save the day, be the HERO! And then we’re gonna take what’s left of you, feed half to the pig and use the rest as VEGETABLE OIL!”

“YOU?” It scoffed, and gestured again to the skeletons. “When I’ve hunted and killed and eaten all who came before? Time travelers! Warriors! Scientists! Inventors! Heroes…! And now you! Hanging among the remains of better people, tell me:” Her voice rose to a screeching, furious, monstrous pitch as she raised her arm. The hand flattened itself, and sharpened into the fine edge of a large blade. Then she leapt at Wendy, lashing the deadly blade directly for her torso. “WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?!?”

Wendy didn’t blink.

*BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! *

The computer console in a corner of the room chimed loudly.

By some unforeseeable, freak act of fortune, the alarm seemed to distract the shifter for a fraction of a second.

The blade missed Wendy’s body.

“WARNING!” The console chimed, in a language that was most certainly not English. “INTRUDERS DETECTED INCONCLUSIVE REFERENCE CODE RETURN THREAT LEVEL UPGRADED TO JELLY ROLL ONE: ERROR 443\]kl;/oij#JE’~~3Dde~~~”

The Shifter spun toward the computers and began to head toward them, outraged at the improbable, incredible, inconceivable timing of the interruption.

Wendy realized that the blade had actually severed most of the webs.

She threw herself forward, and her left arm ripped free. Her right arm followed it. Then she grabbed a sharp scrap of metal, and with one long slice tore through the material on her legs.

With a final push, her boots landed on the ground with a dull thud.

She stood up.

The Shifter glanced back at the human. She saw the tangled, matted hair, the faded blue hat, the clenched fists, the blood-stained lip, the furious little scowl, and the dark, murderous thoughts behind those green eyes. She thought that this was getting a little too complicated and improbable for a standard hostage situation; she should probably time-travel back by about 5 minutes, to find out the source of the alarm ahead of time, and undo her accidental severing of the human’s bonds.

Quickly though, before something worse happened.

But she was too late, because something worse was already happening.

There was a brilliant blue flash of light,

a tiny yellow machine was suddenly flying through the air,

And Wendy caught it.

“Who do I think I am? Funny you should ask that…” Wendy smiled, as she ad-libbed a plan.

“I’m a flippin’ Pines.”