Wendy had to admit, it never ceased to amaze her how her penny-inching boss constantly found new corners to cut. As she re-stocked the vending machine it appeared that Stan had switched to a brand-new supplier for fairly obvious reasons. If the names of the various treats were any clue, then these were the off-brands of cheap off-brand snacks. No doubt Mr. Mystery was going to make an excellent profit margin with these.

"Cheezey Curlios? Karamel Pruffs?" She laughed as she repeated all the thoroughly unappetizing names. Woe to any tourists who got hungry during their visit to the Shack.

She had gotten halfway through the box when she discovered several snacks had glued together thanks to a badly melted "Apple Blix," whatever that was supposed to be. The lanky teen pulled furiously, and when the lump came apart one small bag hit her square in the face with a large puff of pinkish-purple sparkles. A rush of indescribable and frankly unpleasant sweetness barraged her tongue and throat. When the teen finished coughing, she peeled the little bag awake and immediately recognized Smile Dip's demented trademark cartoon mascot.

"Yikes. Probably should take all these out." She quickly got to work as she recalled the incident at the haunted convenience store.

"That's a great idea, Wendy!" The pulsating frog-cat sitting next to her agreed with a throaty meow. "Better safe than sorry!"

"Thanks." She muttered distractedly, then kept sorting for a few moments more before she finally paused. The girl kneeled upright and noticed that the room now seemed to be rapidly melting around her. "Uh-oh…"

"...You are so going down!" The preteen taunted playfully as she skipped inside for a water break. "The tie-breaker round is as good as mine!"

"You forget that you're talking to a Pine-Ball pro." Her brother jokingly boasted as he followed. "You won't last a…"

The twins fell silent as they confronted the scene. Normally the gift shop already wasn't the cleanest or most organized place in the world, but right now the place looked like it had been hit by a bomb.

"What happened here?" Dipper immediately went into full-on detective mode as he examined a completely upturned shirt rack.

Mabel's sharp eyes recognized the pink packets scattered among a pile of smashed snacks. She darted over, picked one up and immediately was rushed by a wave of unpleasant memories.

"…Dipper?" She held it up for her twin to see. Dipper looked over at the bag of Smile-Dip and all the obvious clues quickly crashed together into place. The boy automatically flinched.

"Ooohhh, no-"

Without a word of warning Wendy sprung up from behind the counter like some redheaded jack-in-the-box. Before the startled twins could recover, the teen erupted with a banshee-like shriek before hurling the entire register as hard as she could at some unseen foe. Just as quickly as she had appeared, she promptly ducked back out of sight.

All was eerily quiet in the Shack once again, save for the startled siblings' heavy breaths. Once they collected themselves, few hasty gestures and low whispers later they figured out a plan of action. Rachone began to cautiously make their way across the wreckage-strewn floor towards opposite sides of the old peeling counter. Mabel warily peeked around the corner.

"...Wendy?"

By the way their fifteen-year-old friend clutched her legs and rocked back and forth frantically, Wendy wouldn't have looked at all out of place in a psychiatric ward.

"Wendy?" The young girl took a hard swallow and asked again. It took a couple seconds of wrestling with her temporarily fried brain, but Wendy managed to recognize her friend.

"M-Mabel?" she whispered.

"Yeah...yeah, it's me." Mabel smiled comfortingly as she slowly inched closer, taking care not to make any sudden movements. "It's only Mabel. It's okay….it's oooookaaaaay….we're just going to take it nice and easy...here I come…. "

Her comforting whispers and disarming grins did just the trick. Her friend not only relaxed, but she even became brave enough to reach with trembling hands and tentatively touch Mabel's face. The tween let her astonished friend do as she pleased.

"Wow...it's…" Wendy gasped in wide-eyed amazement. "It's almost like I can actually touch you..."

"Um...are you okay?" Dipper cautiously appeared from behind her. Wendy turned around and immediately her dilated eyes bugged hard in their sockets. She proceeded to frighten scared several years growth off the siblings with another earsplitting scream of absolute terror. Before either twin could react, she had ripped off her trademark hunter's cap and began frantically smacking Dipper.

"Ow! Ow! Wend-OW!" Dipper threw up his scrawny arms in an attempt to protect himself from the hail of soft blows. "Wendy stop!"

Despite his pleas she pressed on, hitting him again and again until he retreated out of range and out of sight. Wendy snarled as she hurled her improvised weapon after him.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Mabel yelped and grabbed her by the arm. "What's wrong?"

Gasping for breath and shaking uncontrollably, Wendy sputtered, "Bearterflies!"

"...Huh?" The tween dumbly muttered back. That definitely hadn't cleared things up.

"Bearterflies!" Wendy's eyes were never still for a single moment. "Don't you see them?! You had to! You had to! There was one here just a minute had huge bright wings, sharp claws, a creepy whiny voice-"

"Oh, come on!" Dipper groaned in protest from a safe distance. "It's not that bad!"

"No, really!" Wendy fumed in frustration. "Dipper, they've been flying all round the shop-"

The teen peered back over the counter. Wendy had heard Dipper loud and clear only seconds before, recognized his voice, but whatever she viewed through her addled mind at that very moment definitely wasn't Dipper, at least not to her. She took one look at the boy and let out a growl.

"…Uh oh." Dipper swallowed hard. Things were definitely about to get a little unpleasant.

"BEARTERFLY!" Wendy took the offensive with a wild lunge.

"No wait it's me!" Panic surged through the tween boy. "Wendy, it's me! It's me!"

A mix of spittle and Smile-Dip residue foamed at the corners of her mouth as she sprang back to her feet. "I TOLD YOU TO LEAVE ME ALONE!"

"RUN, BRO! RUN!" Mabel screamed. "MOVE THOSE SKINNY NOODLE LEGS!"

Dipper needed no further encouragement. He whirled around and turned tail just as his friend advanced.

"I won't let you steal my dreams anymore! I WON'T LET YOU!" She screeched ferociously.

"Wendy, no! It's Dipper! It's only Di-" Mabel made a frantic grab for Wendy's flannel shirt. The tween found herself instantly swept off her feet, and she was dragged halfway around the room before finally letting go.

"HEEEEELLLP!" Dipper's voice cracked hard as he started scrabbling up a shelf with a burst of desperate strength. For once a girl was actually pursuing him, and he didn't like it one little bit. Luckily for him, in her wretched mental condition Wendy had forgotten that she too could climb. For the moment the teen could only jump up and down and sputter incoherent nonsense.

"Evil dream thief! Evil! Not for eating!"

"Hold on!" Mabel dashed out the room. "Keep her busy!"

"Hurry!" Dipper yelled. Wendy jumped so high that she almost got him with a wild swipe, and he tried to maneuver out of her range. "Wendy, it's me! It's Dipper!"

"Gonna rip those wings off, one by one!" she threatened. "Then we'll see who's laughing

"I'm not laughing! No one's laughing right now!" He tried to talk some sense into her. "It's me! Wendy's it me!"

"Die you-" Wendy let out a startled yell when a spray of water caught her full force on the face. She sputtered and tried to cover herself as Mabel steadily advanced with a loaded spray bottle.

"Bad! Bad Wendy!" She firmly scolded with every spritz. "No! We do not attack our friends! Bad girl!"

"What the? Mabel, she's not a dog!" Dipper's protest was short-lived. Wendy spat and hissed but soon she had been corralled up against the wall. Mabel blocked her path and held her disciplinary weapon at the ready.

"No." She chided one last time. "Bad."

A tense silence settled on the room. Wendy stared and gasped like a cornered animal. Soon a whimper trickled out, followed by another.

"I-I just want them to go away!" She wailed. Stressed and confused beyond words, the teen sank to the floor and hugged her legs.

"Awwww!" Mabel immediately discarded the spray-bottle. She took her friend into her arms like a mother tending to a disproportionately oversized child. "It's okay! There's no bearterflies, Wendy….shhhhh, it's okay….it's okay, I got you….Mabel's got you now…." "

Wendy sniffled. Her eyes darted around the room until she spotted Dipper peering warily from his shelf-top refuge. Much to the twins' shared relief, her mind didn't contort him into a terrible monster. She just met his gaze and pried curiously, "Dipper? Wh-what are you doing up there?"

"Uh…." The boy's mind raced. This was one opportunity he wasn't going to waste. "I'm…."

He grunted as he pulled an imaginary contraption into place. It was total on-the-spot improvisation as he banged in invisible nails, put in invisibly screws, and even plugged in an extension cord. "Just putting up the...the anti-beartterfly device! See? Almost ready….I'm booting it on right now….and….there we go!"

"Yeah!" Mabel chimed in with a cheer. "See? The butterbear-"

"Bearterfly." Her brother corrected.

"The bad thingies that are totally real and right here can't get in anymore!" She explained with a smile. "See? No more need to freak out!"

"You sure?" The paranoid teen still wasn't convinced. "What if...what if they find a way? There's so smart. There have three brains, you know.."

"Well….we can...er…." Dipper had already climbed back down. Now he and his sister exchanged looks as they racked their brains. "You…"

"That's okay! You get to wear the… the….Super-Effective-Impenetrable-Anti-Bearterfly Sweater!" Mabel quickly wormed out of her sweater and after some work managed to pull it down over her friend. "Okay, arms up….there we go! Made with a hundred-percent special bearterfly-repellent wool! No, a thousand percent!"

"And it also comes with a special-protective hat!" Dipper place his cap atop her head for good measure. Every muscle in Wendy's body was tense as a bowstring as she intently waited. But when a full minute passed with any psychedelic insect-mammal hybrid attacks she flopped against the wall with a gasp. The twins chimed in with a joint sigh of relief.

"I wanna go back to the Shack." Wendy pled unhappily.

"Uh….don't worry, we'll get you back soon." Dipper comfortingly pat her shoulder as he snuck a whisper to his twin. "What do we do know?"

"We keep her calm, duh!" Mabel replied matter-factly. The motherly little tween promptly took her friend into her arms and began rocking her back and forth. "C'mere, it's okay….it's gonna be ooookaaaaay….Mabel's gotcha….it's okay…."

Wendy buried her face in the little brunette's hair and immediately became distracted. "Whoa…..it's the softest thing ever."

Mabel just shot a completely unfazed grin to her twin. "It's like a little kid having a freak-out. No biggy!"

"I feel like this was kind of a big de-" Dipper quickly caught himself. Now definitely wasn't the time to quibble over details. Their friend was finally settling down, and now they had to keep the peace "Anything else we can do?"

"There's always more hugs, or maybe tell her a story, or...oooohhhh!" Mabel lit up with an inspired smile. "Or sing a song!"

One glance into his sister's eyes was all he needed to guess what she was implying. Dipper groaned. "Oh no, I'm not going to-"

"Song?" Wendy raised her head and piped up hopefully. Now he had no less than two pairs of eyes locked upon him with obvious anticipation. Dipper sighed, but he knew what he had to do. The dutiful friend sat down, took a breath, and put on the most convincingly cheery smile he could.

"Hey! Hey Wendy, listen! Wellllllll...who wants a lamby-lamby-lamby? I do, I do! So go out and greet your..."

"...Lucky we didn't have any tours stop in. Yeesh, what a mess."

Stan Pines grumbled up a storm as he put a bunch of cheap bobble-heads back on their shelf. Not only did he wake up from a nap to find the place an utter mess, but clean-up was taking much longer than he would have liked. The twins were constantly taking quick breaks to run back and fuss over the haggard teenager recovering at the register.

"Okay, time for your five-minute check-up!" Mabel chirped as she hopped right up onto the counter. "How many fingers am I holding up now?"

Wendy squinted as she struggled to focus. "Uh….three."

"You know it!" The little tween began clapping her hands. "Whoo! Yay for Wendy!"

"Uh, not exactly." The lanky redhead interrupted. "I know you're clapping, I see you clapping, but I'm also still looking at three fingers. Like, not idea how, but they're right there."

Wendy put a damper on the celebrations as she pointed to empty space, then grimaced at the hand that wasn't there. This recovery was taking much longer than she would have liked.

"You're getting there, at least!" The toothy-grinned little optimist gave her a hearty pat on the back.

"Whoooo." The teen deadpanned sarcastically as she rubbed her face. "Why are my eyes killing me so badly?"

"You tried to stop blinking for a while." Dipper explained as he kindly refilled a water glass. "You said something about not wanting to be taxed for it."

"Huh." Wendy just stared into empty space for a moment before confessing, "Dude? I have no clue if that's funny or just plain sad."

"Yeah, that was kind of our reaction." He friend admitted. "Here, keep drinking-"

"Oh for crying out loud." Stan righted the T-shirt rack with a grunt as he interrupted the conversation. "I've told you kids already not to roughhouse in the shop. And if you are gonna mess around, then at least try to cover it up! C'mon, haven't I taught you anything?"

"Grunkle Stan, do we have to explain it again?" Dipper defensively pointed to the box of mashed-up snacks still sitting in the middle of the floor.

"Kid it's just some candy and junk for the rubes to feed on. Nothing dangerous. We may peddle junk here, but it's high quality junk. Besides, this will give them their daily dose of….uh…."

He struggled to parse the Dutch written on the packet, before finally wondering out loud, "What is this, French or somethin.?"

"Okay, we're so not selling this." Dipper wasn't having any of this. He tipped a wastebasket over and began shoveling the lot into it.

"Trust me, we're way, way, waaaaay better for it!" Mabel joined her twin.

"Hey! You're takin' money from your Grunkle's pockets!"

"Stan, I was hearing colors half an hour ago." Wendy snapped testily.

"Oh for...look, you really think you're gonna cross a master? Here, gimme some of that." Stan fished a pink packet out of the garbage, tore a corner and dumped the lot onto his tongue.

"NO!" The others yelled in joint dismay. Stan just stood back and smirked.

"See? Just a bunch of flavored sugar. No big deal...at…..whoaaa…." Within a matter of seconds the old man developed a far-off look in his rapidly dilating eyes.

"Grunkle Stan?" Mabel stood up on the counter and waved her hand in front of his glazed expression. "Grunkle Staaaaan? Hello? Grunkle Staaa-aaaaaaan?"

Dipper meanwhile grabbed the spray bottle. Wendy meanwhile couldn't help but take a moment to just sit there and flash a smirk.

"Okay…." Stan started to concede. "I'll put some money back in the vending machine budget if you kids promise to quit trading faces with each other….seriously, it's really creeping me out…"