Chapter 1: The Big Boom

DISCLAIMER: Before you read this series, please consider reading the short story, One-Shot: Wendy's Mother, the Demolitionist, beforehand. Otherwise, some stuff may not make sense to you at the start of this.

WARNING: This story contains graphic content, such as swearing, blood & gore, and psychological horror. Viewer discretion is advised.

Though you're missing out on a really cool story if you do decide to skip. Just saying.

"Wendy? Wendy?" Dipper called out into the woods on the outskirts of town. For days now, she had gone missing, and Dipper, along with a plethora of people who knew her, were getting worried. Ever since the incident with her mother, she had just up and disappeared.

After hours of constant searching throughout the entire town, he was starting to become very worried. He had no idea why Wendy was missing, but he wanted to make sure that she hadn't left town, or…

"Come on now, Dipper." He said out loud, pulling the trademark of talking to himself. "If I were Wendy, what would I do?"

Now, in all respect, placing oneself in one's shoes is possibly the dumbest thing that only writers with garbage plots would do, and it doesn't work in real life, either. Unless one were to actually enter the mind of a person-

"The base of the waterfall!"

Okay, no. That's not how this works. He didn't just suddenly get this idea to pop into his head out of nowhere. How would HE, of all people, even know where the girl went? He's, like, 13 years-

"I should get going now!" He proclaimed, rushing off to the base of the-

Hey, NO! You can't do that, it makes the author look like he can't advance the plot in a better fashion-

And so Dipper took off towards his destination, determined to see if he could locate Wendy and get to the bottom of this-

STOP! YOU CAN'T DO THIS! YOU'RE BREAKING MY IMMERSION REEEEEE-

"...God, why is this town so spaced apart?" Dipper said, panting heavily as his weak muscles protested to the extensive running he had just done. Finally, he was near the location. From above the pine trees, he could see the massive waterfall, the thunderous sound of water cascading down rocks emanating from afar. Dipper was starting to get nervous as he got ever so closer to-

"Hey, whatcha doin'?"

"AAAAH!"

Dipper yelped in fright as he heard a voice nearby, from up above. His head swiveled as he directed his attention to the silhouette hanging from one of the tree branches like a monkey. They dropped down to the ground in a swift movement, and Dipper could make out that it was a girl. As she came out of the shadows and into the sunlight, Dipper started to make out her appearance.

The first thing he noticed was the flashy hair. She had a pixie haircut for her dark, brunette hair, save for a few blue highlights running up to the roots. Her hazel eyes glimmered in the evening light, along with the sunglasses she was sporting. Her skin was pale, which made the freckles on her cheeks stand out. As for her outfit, she wore a blue tank top, white shorts, and white shoes with blue stripes. Dipper's eyes moved down to her chest and noticed a silver heart strung on a chain necklace.

"Whatchu lookin' at, bud?"

Dipper immediately turned red in the face as he realized how churlish it was stare at her chest.

"O-oh, uh...sorry…"

Despite his discomfort, he didn't plan on getting distracted from the task at hand. He shook his head, making eye contact with the girl, who was staring back at him with a grin. His eyes couldn't help but frequently dart to the sides around the girl, a result of his constant state of nervousness.

"Look, I have to get going. It was, uh, nice meeting you, I guess-"

"What? You're going already? Come on now, at least tell me your name. I'm Anna."

Dipper groaned inwardly, looking back at the waterfall.

Well, he thought. I guess it's no harm to just tell her my name.

Trying for a smile, Dipper brought out his hand to shake.

"Eh, I'm Dipper. Nice to-"

He yelped in pain as his hand almost imploded from the raw, unadulterated strength that Anna compressed into his hand as she grabbed his hand and shook it. Dipper had no idea where this strength was coming from, as she didn't look particularly muscly, but it was legitimately breaking his hand. He wheezed in suffering as he struggled to not fall to his knees and scream in pain.

"Nice to meet you, Dipper! Let's be sure to hang out sometime, huh? I get awfully bored just climbing around the trees sometimes."

"I'llbesuretotellyouwheni'mavailable." Dipper just barely managed to utter out of his mouth as his consciousness was starting to shut down from the pure agony that was throbbing from his hand. As she released her grip, it felt like two machine presses that had previously been squeezing his hand had now let go, and it took all of Dipper's willpower not to crumple to the ground and grip his hand as if it had just gotten cut off.

With a strained smile, Dipper swiveled around, scurrying towards the waterfall.

Yet, despite how painful the interaction was, Dipper felt his heard pound in his chest as he looked back at the girl.

Around 10 minutes later, accompanied by heavy panting, Dipper had finally reached the base of the waterfall. Without any sort of surprise reveal whatsoever, he saw Wendy sitting on a rock bordering on the water, holding a sizable crate in her hands. She seemed to be reminiscing.

Dipper felt his heart lift as he saw Wendy. He was glad she hadn't seem to have done something rash. He stood a couple meters away, placing his hands on his knees as he tried to gain his breath. After a few moments, his respiratory system had recovered, and he looked up to where Wendy was sitting. Unsurprisingly, she had noticed his heavy breathing already, and turned her head to see him. Dipper could see a small smile flash on her face, and she beckoned with one arm for him to come over. He complied, making his way towards her.

"Hey, dude. You can come sit on the rock, if you want."

Dipper did so, making sure to keep his feet pressed against the rock so as to not slip into the lake below.

"So, Wendy, why have you been absent for so lo-HOLY CRAP, WENDY!"

His shock was justly warranted, as he noticed that Wendy was carrying a whole crate of dynamite. It was more unnerving to him that she was looking down at it in longing.

"Wendy...is there, uh, a reason that you're carrying a whole box of dynamite?"

She looked up at him, then back at the dynamite box, realizing how this looked, and chuckled.

"Sorry about that, dude. Just reminiscing."

"I see…."

Dipper did not see.

"It's...about my mother."

"Oh."

Now that she had mentioned that, Dipper felt mentally handicapped for not inferring that in the first place. He remembered the incident with Katrina, Wendy's mother, just the day before. Having set off explosives at the wrong part of a construction site, she almost crushed an animal sanctuary she was having built at the time. In shame, she went out of town.

Dipper was depressed just thinking about how tragic the whole event was, especially since she was such a unique and charitable person. He was mortified to think how Wendy must have felt after that incident.

"She's done this before, you know."

Dipper turned towards her, bewildered by what he had just heard.

"W-wait, what?"

Wendy nodded silently.

"Washington, Montana, Arkansas...she's had...incidents...like this before."

Dipper opted not to say anything as she went on to explain.

"As wonderful as she is, my mother is a bit...reckless. Ever since she found a passion for blowing things up, she considers it an art form, and in the constant quest to find a greater explosion than the last, she often loses her sense of responsibility and self-control. Honestly, i'm not even sure this obsession with explosions is healthy. Granted, she found a somewhat-healthy profession to express her interest, but it's still worrying-"

Alright, there's too much backstory. TIME TO ADVANCE THE PLOT!

As Wendy was continuing her explanation, Dipper noticed that there was a small campfire present near the rock they were sitting on, which worried Dipper as he directed his attention back to the crate in Wendy's arms.

"Hey, uh, Wendy, you should put that down…"

Wendy hesitated for a moment, then nodded.

"You're right."

Then, not noticing the campfire that was on the ground next to the rock she was on, Wendy obliviously began to move to place the crate on top of the fire. Dipper nearly had a heart attack as she saw her move.

"WENDY, STOP!"

Frightened by the sudden yelling, she stumbled and dropped the crate onto the campfire, and the fuses from a couple sticks of dynamite were lit by the fire as they fell out of the crate.

Inwardly, Dipper was screaming at himself for warning her in the worst possible way.

As he saw the sparks as the fuse began to run down the line, adrenaline kicked in, and Dipper scrambled over to do something. Wendy noticed what she had done and, in hysterical panic, scrambled away while screaming in hysteria.

The two got tangled in their attempts and fell behind the rock, only a foot away from the impending explosion. Dipper's heart began to beat like a freight train as he saw the fuse on the dynamite sticks get terrifyingly close to the stick.

"KEEP YOUR HEADS DOWN!"

Out of nowhere, Anna came running up, picking up the crate of dynamite, along with the burning sticks, and YEETED the whole ensemble towards the waterfall. The crate, along with the several sticks of dynamite inside, disappeared behind the waterfall.

After a few moments, Dipper's adrenaline began to fade slowly, yet he began to break down into tears as he realized how close to death he had come. Wendy followed suit, sobbing in both guilt and relief.

"I-I'm so sorry, Dipper…I'm just as reckless as my mother…"

Dipper didn't care to respond, mostly because he was inwardly feeling a flurry of emotions from the events that had just transpired. He looked up at Anna, who was shaking in fear as she realized what she had done in the heat of the moment. She fell to her knees, exhausted from the life-threatening situation.

Dipper stopped his bawling, and put one hand on the ground. He sighed in relief. Unnerving as it was, he glad it was over-

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!

The very ground below Mabel's feet shook, and she staggered around in shock as it did.

"What was that?!"

She looked towards the source of the sound. From the waterfall, about half a mile away, she could see plumes of smoke billowing into the sky. It seemed like an explosion had gone off over there.

Mabel began to panic. From what she had heard earlier, Dipper had planned on searching around the entire town for Wendy, and there was a chance that he was over there.

"I'm coming, Dipper!" She shouted in a blind panic, and began sprinting towards the location.

There was a audible ringing in Dipper's ears. He could hear nothing beyond the constant, high-pitched ringing that was encompassing his ears. He was absolutely sure his brain was addled at this point.

He looked over at Wendy, who was passed out, with several noticeable wounds peppering her body. He turned his head to look at Anna, who was stumbling around in the same fashion as he was.

He directed his attention to the waterfall. In the back of his mind, he was absolutely dumbfounded. He had thought that throwing the whole crate of dynamite into the waterfall would snuff out the fuses. Maybe one of them wasn't snuffed out.

However, there was no time to think about that.

Through much effort, Dipper shook his head, trying to clear his ears of the ringing.

After a few more moment, the ringing finally cleared up, and the sounds of yelling and sirens filled his ears instead. He looked around, dazed, and saw Mabel pop out of the treeline, running towards him with tears in her eyes.

After only a moment, however, his consciousness finally failed him as the explosion had addled his brain, and he crumpled to the ground, passing out.

Author Notes

- Shout out to Mademoiselle-Star2018 for contributing two characters to the story

- New chapters will come out every weekend, 1 on Fridays and 1 on Saturdays

- Reviews are encouraged and appreciated to feed my massive ego