Archive of Our Own ^beta

It was a bright and beautiful day in Gravity Falls, skies clear and animals playing in the forest outside of town, while the town's citizens went about their normal lives oblivious to the various monsters and other supernatural creatures existing alongside them. Though for Wendy Corduroy, this was just a backdrop as she walked down the road back into town, grumbling to herself.

"Well, that's just the typical Corduroy luck, isn't it?" she muttered with a frown as she idly kicked a rock out of her way, "Dad drags us out of town for this camping trip, and then starts a riot at the rest stop before we even get a chance to enjoy ourselves, and gets arrested for it!"

And the stupidest part of the whole thing was that there'd been no real reason for it. Manly Dan had been upset about the men's restroom being out of toilet paper, and rather than wait two minutes for the rest stop clerks to replace it, he'd started wrecking the store to vent his rage, which had somehow caused everyone else there to start smashing things and fighting too, for no reason that Wendy could see other than the hell of it. And of course, that had included her stupid brothers, the little piles of toxic masculinity all too eager to follow their father's example and impress him.

Long story short, before long the rest stop was wrecked by the time that the police that someone had called showed up. And since this was outside of Gravity Falls' town boundaries, that meant state troopers who actually knew what they were doing, not incompetent idiots like Blubs and Durland. They'd quickly rounded up everyone involved in the fighting (though in Manly Dan's case, that meant having to be hit with enough tranquilizers to put down two grizzly bears) and carted them off to cool their heels in jail cells. Which meant that Wendy was the only member of her family not currently behind bars, and thus why she was heading home early to scrounge together bail money.

"Hope Dad didn't blow through the emergency money stash again," Wendy mused as she kept walking, though she didn't have high hopes on that. Manly Dan had a habit of spending large amounts of money on things like new axes when he broke old ones by swinging them too hard at work… or new pieces of furniture when he broke old ones by sitting down on them too fast to let them adjust to his weight properly… or new parts for the car after he punched it to vent his rage over parking tickets…

Look, the point was, Manly Dan Corduroy wasn't good at saving money. So, Wendy didn't exactly have high hopes for having enough spare cash at home to bail him and all of her brothers out.

"Ugh, this is a huge headache," she said, scratching her head in thought, "Maybe I can ask Stan for a loan to help out…?"

"Bite your tongue!"

Wendy stopped and blinked at the familiar grouchy old man voice snapping at her like that, looking around in confusion.

"Hey Wendy! Up here!" another voice called out more cheerfully. Following it, Wendy looked up, realizing that she was standing at the base of the town water tower, atop of the high walkway of which stood Mabel and Stan Pines, the former waving happily at her while the latter clung to the railing for dear life.

"Mabel? Stan? What are you guys doing up there?" she asked in confusion.

"I'm helping Grunkle Stan get over his fear of heights with exposure therapy!" Mabel said happily.

"And it's totally working, sweetie, so we can go down now, right?!" Stan said quickly, knuckles turning white from how hard he was clutching the railing while he sweated buckets.

"Only when I see genuine progress, old man!" Mabel snapped with a firm look, before immediately switching gears to return to talking loudly and happily down to the bemused Wendy below, "Anyway, what are you doing back already? I thought you were gone until at least tonight?"

"Ugh, long story, but short version is that I have to bail my dad and brothers out," Wendy explained with a sigh, before glancing at Stan, "So, about that loan…?"

"Get me down from here, and I'll give you all the cash you want!" Stan yelled.

"In real dollars, not Stan Bucks?" Wendy pressed with an arched eyebrow.

"Are you nuts?!" Stan retorted with a glare, his greed overriding his fear for a moment.

"Yeah, that's what I thought. Good luck, dude!" Wendy called up to him with a wave, beginning to walk away.

"Hey, wait a minute! Don't just walk away!" Stan pleaded, "If anything, you owe me for how that emo boy-toy of yours is going to beat up my nephew!"

Wendy froze mid-step.

"Wait, what?!" Wendy exclaimed, head snapping up to look at Stan in disbelief.

"Yeah, Dipper and that whiny punk were arguing about something, so he challenged Dipper to a fight. It's probably happening any time now," Stan replied, glancing at his watch before turning green as that change of perspective gave him another view of the long distance to the ground.

For her part, Wendy was staring in shock, eye twitching as she tried to process what she'd just heard. Because she knew that Robbie could be a jerk at times, and he didn't seem to get along well with Dipper for some reason, but… seriously? What the hell had happened that would make him want to beat up a kid?!

"Ugh, that jerk! What is he thinking?!" she shouted, before turning and running full-speed back towards town, hoping that she could put a stop to this before it went too far.

"Wait, Wendy, don't leave me here…! And she's gone," Stan tried to cry out, only to moan in despair as Wendy vanished into the distance. Heaving a deep sigh, he turned to Mabel with a pleading look, "Sweetie, is there any chance we can just call this a wash and go home?"

"Nope! I can stay up here all day, old man!" Mabel replied, cheerful but defiant.

"Yeah, that's what I thought," Stan groaned.

Meanwhile, Wendy was tearing down the road into town, mind whirling as she tried to figure out where this stupid pointless fight was supposed to happen, hoping that she could find it and stop it before Dipper got hurt.

"Come on, come on, think! Where would Robbie think it'd be 'cool' to beat someone up?" she muttered to herself as she ran, before it came to her, "The park! That's gotta be it, it's just cliché enough that Robbie probably thinks that no one expects him to do it there, so that he's being rebellious by actually doing it!"

It probably said something that Wendy immediately understood that about her boyfriend's thought process, but not why he would want to beat up a kid. Seriously, he'd always been moody and kind of a jerk, but this was a whole other level! She couldn't have been this oblivious to him having actually anger issues!

…Right?

Shoving aside the sudden need to reevaluate her life choices, Wendy focused on making her way to Circle Park, just as the nearby clocktower started ringing three times. Looking around, her gaze quickly fell on the familiar black-clad form of Robbie, who was standing with his back to her, cracking his knuckles.

"Heh, doesn't look like the stupid kid's too scared to show up," he chuckled to himself with a mean tone, "Kind of a pity, I really wanted to kick his scrawny little butt, but at least now I can make fun of him for being a total coward…"

"Robbie!" Wendy snapped, making the goth jump in surprise, spinning around to face her.

"W-Wendy!" Robbie stammered, "What uh, what are you doing here? The Pines kid said that you were out camping today!"

"I was, but… wait a minute…" Wendy started to say, only to trail off with a frown as she processed his words, "What do you mean, Dipper told you that? I told you yesterday at the arcade!"

"…You did? When?" Robbie asked, looking legitimately confused.

"Ugh, do you never listen to what I say when I talk to you?" Wendy snapped, shaking her head before continuing, "Never mind, not the point! What the hell do you think you're doing?"

"Um, ah, I don't know what you mean?" Robbie offered weakly, smiling nervously with flop sweat.

"Oh, so you weren't about to beat up Dipper?" Wendy asked with a scowl, making Robbie flinch, "Yeah, that's what I thought. What is wrong with you?!"

"Hey, I'm totally justified!" Robbie said angrily, "He broke my phone while trying to stop me from calling you about his stupid crush on you!"

…

…

…

"…Let me get this straight," Wendy said, gritting her teeth, "You want to beat up a kid for an accident caused by you trying to make fun of a silly crush that he happens to have?"

"Um… okay, so that sounds bad when you say it like that…" Robbie said awkwardly, before blinking, "Wait, hang on, you know that stupid brat has a crush on you?"

"Of course I do, he hasn't exactly been subtle about it," Wendy replied, rolling her eyes, "But I haven't said anything about it, because I don't want to embarrass him, which is apparently more than I can say about you!"

"Well, excuse me for not liking some kid going ga-ga over what's mine!" Robbie snapped defensively.

"Excuse me? You think you own me because we happen to be dating?" Wendy demanded in disgust.

"Duh, that's how this works, everyone knows that," Robbie scoffed, "You're my girlfriend, and that means that no guy gets to even look at you unless it's to be jealous of how lucky I am to have you, and that goes double for dumb kids who should realize that you're way out of their league!"

"Oh my God, you're such a jerk!" Wendy groaned, pinching the bridge of her nose, feeling a massive headache coming on, "First of all, being your girlfriend doesn't make me your property or something! Secondly, I can handle anyone going "ga-ga" over me on my own, I don't need you acting like the big tough guy protecting the helpless damsel. And finally, none of this justifies you beating up a kid, you jackass!"

"Hey! Don't talk like I'm the bad guy here!" Robbie snapped, his own temper boiling over, "You're my girlfriend, that makes you mine, and I'm not letting anyone else get ideas about you, especially not dumb kids!"

"Ugh! Forget it! We're talking in circles here!" Wendy growled, turning to stomp away, to Robbie's surprise and confusion.

"Hey, where are you going?" Robbie demanded.

"To find Dipper and take him home, where I'll lecture him on why he shouldn't waste time on jerks like you!" Wendy snapped over her shoulder, "And come to think of it, I'm not doing it either! Lose my number!"

"Wha- hey, wait a minute, don't just walk away!" Robbie shouted, grabbing Wendy by the arm.

"Let go," Wendy growled, jerking her arm out of his grip, only for him to grab her again.

"No, I'm not letting you dump me over me teaching a dumb kid a lesson!" he snapped, instinctively tightening his grip on her arm.

WHAM

Which triggered Wendy's own instinctive reaction. Namely, judo-flipping Robbie harshly onto the ground, where she proceeded to start punching and kicking him.

"You jackass! Bastard! Asshole!" she yelled between blows, "What did I ever see in you?! You're a total bastard, and we're done! And if you ever even think about touching Dipper, I swear I'll-!"

"Wendy?!"

The redhead froze at the familiar voice cutting through the haze of anger in her head. Blinking, she turned to face it and saw Dipper standing nearby, staring at her in shock. However, she felt some shock of her own as she saw who was standing next to him.

"Is that Rumble McSkirmish?" she asked in disbelief, looking at the clearly 2-D and pixelated figure hopping back and forth on its feet next to Dipper.

"Um, yeah… I kinda accidentally summoned him out of the game, and he was going to fight Robbie for me," Dipper replied, too shocked to try and think of a lie as he stared at the groaning and bruised Robbie lying at Wendy's feet.

"Huh, that's weird even for this town," she muttered, before shaking her head, "Well, you don't need him now, cause I already taught Robbie a lesson about beating up kids, so…"

"She has defeated the one you summoned me to fight!" Rumble suddenly declared, making Dipper and Wendy jump in surprise.

"Uh, yep, looks like it," Dipper said awkwardly, "So, I guess I won't be needing you after all, so I guess we can take you back to the arcade and-"

"New challenger accepted!" Rumble shouted, pointing dramatically at Wendy, whose eyes widened in surprise.

"Wait, what?!" she exclaimed.

"What are you talking about?!" Dipper demanded, looking at Rumble in disbelief.

"She has defeated the enemy, thus proving she is a greater threat," Rumble explained, "That means that my honor dictates I must face her now!"

"That makes no sense!" Dipper said, starting to panic and trying to grab ahold of Rumble's leg as he started to march towards Wendy, "As the guy who summoned you, I order you to stop!"

WHACK

Instead, Rumble smacked him aside, sending him flying across the ground, the sight of which immediately switched Wendy from shock to anger.

"Hey! No one treats my friends like that!" she snapped, running forward and punching Rumble in the face. The game character stumbled back, but righted himself after a moment.

"Fireball!" he shouted, thrusting his hands towards Wendy, who only had a moment to panic before the fireball that erupted from Rumble's hands hit her.

"AHH!... Uh… I don't feel anything…" Wendy screamed, only to pause as she felt no pain. Looking down at herself, she saw that her clothes were scorched, but otherwise no damage seemed to have been done to her.

"Wait, so… he can't actually hurt me?" she asked in confusion, "How does that even…? Oh, who cares? That means I'm about to kick some ass!"

With that, Wendy leapt up and launched a kick into Rumble's stomach, followed by a punch to his face, knocking him back again.

"Ugh! Combo move!" Rumble grunted, before going into a flurry of punches and kicks. Wendy did her best to block as many as she could, but several still connected; oddly, while they drove her back, she didn't feel much pain from them either.

"Huh, guess while you can hit, you can't do as much damage in the real world, can you?" she asked tauntingly.

"RAAAAHHHH!" was Rumble succent response as he lunged at Wendy with a flying kick, which she ducked and rolled under, coming up behind him as he flew past her to give a kick to his back, turning his lunge into a tumble that sent him crashing to the ground.

"You give up yet?" Wendy asked mockingly, hands on her hips, "Cause all due respect dude, you can't actually hurt me, so why don't you just head back into your game and leave the 3-D world to actual people?"

"Winners don't lose!" Rumble declared, jumping up and thrusting his hands at Wendy again, "Fireball!"

"Seriously?" Wendy sighed, not even trying to dodge the attack this time, letting the fireball hit and further scorch her clothes, before stretching her arms out wide to demonstrate the lack of physical damage done to her, "See? You're not doing anything to me!"

POOF

It was at that moment that Murphy's Law chose to prove her wrong. Because while her body wasn't damaged, her clothes were, the burned fibers of everything she was wearing now having hit their breaking point. Within an eyeblink, they practically disintegrated and dissolved into the wind, leaving her totally naked.

…

…

…

"AGH!" Wendy screamed as her brain caught up with what was happening, face turning bright red as she crouched and wrapped her arms around herself in a desperate attempt at cover.

"AHA! You have lost your armor! Defeat is imminent!" Rumble announced, giving a mocking laugh, the sound of which roused Dipper from the dazed state he'd been in since being knocked aside.

"Ugh, what happened…?" he asked as he sat up, rubbing his head – and then froze as he got a full view of Wendy laid totally bare before his eyes, her arms not doing much to cover what her clothes normally did. The sight of those large breasts, that firm ass, and the lovely balance of hard-earned muscles and natural curves, was enough to basically shut his brain done.

"Urk," he managed to gurgle, eyes wide, nose trickling blood, and a noticeable tent forming in his pants. But even that small sound managed to catch Wendy's attention, and her head snapped over to Dipper's direction, blush increasing immensely as she realized she was not only naked in public, but naked in front of her young friend who had a crush on her.

It took a moment to process that, along with Rumble's continued laughter, and when it did, her embarrassment quickly changed to anger.

"Alright, that tears it!" she snarled, before flinging herself at Rumble in a blind rage.

WHAM

BAM

POW

Tackling the game character to the ground, Wendy started hitting him with everything she had, ignoring his own attempts to hit her back. It was only after several minutes of this that she finally stopped, as she heard a loud pinging sound coming from above her; blinking in confusion, she looked up and was greeted by the sight of a health bar with Rumble's name on it floating above them, which had just hit zero.

"PLAYER 1 WINS!" a voice declared from nowhere, as Rumble's body dissolved into pixels.

"Good, now I just need to figure out how to get clothes," Wendy muttered, only to pause as the pixels compressed into a glowing sphere of light, "What the…?"

"NEXT LEVEL UNLOCKED!" the voice shouted.

"What next le-AAHHH!" Wendy started to ask, only to yell as the light suddenly launched at her. It slammed into her, making her vanish in a flash, before the light flew off in the direction of the arcade.

Thankfully, this was enough to snap Dipper out of his hormone-induced shock, and he shook his head to clear it as he immediately caught onto what had just happened.

"Wendy!" he yelled, "Oh no… I think beating the game just made the magic decide to suck her into it! I need to help her!"

With that, Dipper ran off back towards the arcade, leaving Robbie lying groaning and unconscious on the ground from the beating that Wendy had given him… but there were more important things than him to care about, so everyone just ignored him.

XXXXXXX

Wendy groaned as she regained consciousness, feeling herself lying down on something.

"Ugh, what hit me?" the redhead groaned, rubbing her throbbing head and trying to remember what had happened to her. She recalled coming home from the aborted camping trip… finding out about Robbie's plan to beat up Dipper and confronting him… being attacked by a living video game character… ending up naked?!

Wendy's eyes snapped open at that, and she looked down at herself, face turning the same color as her hair as she saw that she was in fact totally naked.

"GAH!" she yelled as she instinctively jumped to her feet and wrapped her arms around herself for cover. She looked around to see if anyone could see her like this… and blinked as she saw that she was standing in a black void, lit by a spotlight coming down from a source somewhere above her that she couldn't see.

"Where am I?" she asked, trying to focus on that and not her nudity. She racked her brain, trying to force her hazy memories to clear up, and when they did, she vaguely recalled getting hit by that bright light that emerged when she beat Rumble McSkirmish. But what did that mean…?

Before she could figure it out, however, the light around her flashed green, and Wendy jumped in surprise as a voice boomed from nowhere.

"PLAYER 1 SELECTED!" it declared.

"Wait, what?" Wendy asked, before her eyes widened in surprise as her surroundings dissolved into pixels before reforming into the shockingly familiar sight of the Fight Fighters battle arena. Complete with a cheering crowd in the background stands, she realized with a renewed blush at the audience to her nudity. Thankfully though, it just took a look at the crowd members' blank faces and a moment of listening to their soundbite noises to realizes that they weren't actually aware of anything, least of all the state she was in.

"Thank God for small favors," she muttered, trying to focus on that detail and not be overwhelmed by the fact that she was somehow inside a freaking video game, "But what am I supposed to do now? I'm stuck inside a freaking video game!"

In response, there was a flash of light across the arena from her, and when it cleared there was now a tall muscular blonde man dressed like a boxer standing there, whom Wendy recognized as the Fight Fighters character Czar-barian.

"You're going down, comrade!" Czar-barian stated in a stereotypical Russian accent, while doing some jabs with his glove-covered hands.

"ROUND 1, FIGHT!" the voice from before declared.

"Seriously, I have to do what, fight my way through the game to get out of it?" Wendy grumbled as Czar-barian quickly advanced on her, "Oh well, at least I know that I can't actually be hurt-"

WHAM

And then one of the boxer's fists slammed into her face, knocking her off her feet and onto her back on the ground with a hard smack.

"UGH! What the Hell?! I felt that!" she yelled, feeling her face throbbing. Blinking the spots from her vision while looking up from where she was still on the ground, she noticed for the first time the health bars floating in the air above her and Czar-barian containing their names, hers flashing red and shrinking slightly.

"Oh, you've got to be kidding me, I can actually get hurt in here?!" Wendy growled as she scrambled back to her feet and quickly darted backwards to avoid Czar-barian going for another blow, "And I'm guessing if I get a game over, I don't get a second chance. So, I guess I just have to win!"

With that declaration, Wendy charged forward, ducking under Czar-barian's next attack and then jumping up to hit him in his overly-large chin with an uppercut, knocking him backward and causing his health bar to go down even further than Wendy's had.

"Ha! How you like that, you 80s stereotype?" Wendy laughed.

"For Mother Russia!" Czar-barian yelled, charging forward with a rapid series of strikes that caused his hands to burst into flame.

"Shit! I forgot he had this as a special move!" Wendy cursed, stumbling backwards to desperately try and avoid being hit, recalling from past gameplays just how much damage it could do. Unfortunately, this soon left her at the edge of the arena, leaving her suddenly pressed up against a barrier that she could feel but not see, trapping her as Czar-barian dashed forward, fists raised and still on fire.

"Oh, this is gonna suck," Wendy said, bracing herself with a wince… only to suddenly jump up and give a spin kick that went over Czar-barian's flaming fists and connected with his face.

"Ugh!" Czar-barian cried out as he stumbled backwards, health bar dropping more, while Wendy blinked in confusion.

"What the-? I didn't do that on purpose," she couldn't help but think. Her body had moved on its own, almost as if she wasn't in control of it… wait a minute, she realized with widening eyes as an explanation suddenly came to her.

"Is someone playing me right now?!" she yelled, face burning brightly as it occurred to her that she might have more of an actual audience to her humiliating state than she thought.

XXXXXXX

"Oh geez, she sounds mad," Dipper muttered to himself as he stood at the Fight Fighters machine. He'd been observing Wendy's whole match since she'd been sucked into the machine and it had displayed her being dropped into a single player match, watching intently as she started fighting for her life… and trying not to think about how her nude body looked incredibly alluring even in pixelated form.

In any case, when Czar-barian had started getting the upper hand, Dipper had instinctively grabbed the controls and triggered the first fighting move that had come to mind. To his immense relief, it had gone as he'd hoped, which told him that while Wendy was still in control of herself while trapped in the game, he could still override her with the game's controls.

Not that he wanted to control her, of course. But this meant that he could help her beat the game and hopefully escape it through winning, thus getting her back into the real world… and probably then get his ass kicked for causing her to get into this mess in the first place, but at least she'd be out of danger. And honestly, that was worth it to him.

"Whoever's out there, thanks for the assist, but you better know what you're doing! I'm not planning on losing this because someone else slipped up on the controls!" Wendy yelled as she dodged another attack from Czar-barian and punched him in the chest, "Also, you better not be getting off on checking me out like this, you pervert!"

Dipper blushed at that, glad that Wendy couldn't see him right now. Instead, he just focused on helping her win the fight, letting her take the lead but occasionally tapping in a combo to make her do a move that it likely wouldn't have occurred to her to do on her own. And between them, they soon managed to get Czar-barian's health all the way down to zero.

"Iron curtain collapsing!" the clichéd Soviet character declared before collapsing in his defeat animation.

"Yes!" Dipper cried, while Wendy struck a victory pose… and then blinked as she realized what she was doing.

"Okay, that wasn't intentional," she muttered, "Must be a side effect of being in here. Good thing I'm getting out now…"

However, just as Wendy said that, her surroundings pixelated momentarily before becoming a slightly different arena background, and then the defeated Czar-barian was replaced by a large muscular dark-skinned man in a military uniform, and with notably very large calves stretching out the back of his pants.

"Prepare for a beating, sailor!" Admiral Big-Calves declared, giving a few stock image kicks.

"Oh, come on!" Wendy exclaimed, eye twitching, while Dipper scratched his head in thought as he analyzed this development.

"Hmm, maybe she has to beat the entire fighter line-up of the game to get out?" he mused, before wincing, "Oh man, this is gonna take a while."

But, seeing as they didn't exactly have any other choice as to how to get out of this mess, Dipper knew that they'd have to grit their teeth and carry on.

XXXXXXX

And so it went, Wendy fighting her way through a gauntlet composed of each of the game's characters. With Dipper's occasional help and her own fighting skills, Wendy beat them one after another, grateful that she at least didn't seem to get fatigued in here, otherwise she probably would have ended up collapsing from exhaustion halfway through. But she didn't, and soon enough she found herself on the final stage, facing down a familiar face.

"Oh, I'm gonna enjoy this," Wendy said, cracking her knuckles as she glared at Rumble McSkirmish as he pixelated into existence in front of her. She knew that it technically wasn't his fault that she'd ended up in here, but he was the best scapegoat that she had available, and she was going to take advantage of the chance to vent her rage.

"Bring the pain!" Rumble shouted, before launching a fireball at Wendy.

"Not this time!" Wendy yelled, ducking and rolling under the attack. As it flew over her, she leapt up from the roll to launch herself forward and punch Rumble twice in the face, following by bringing her knee up into his stomach.

"Ugh!" Rumble cried out as his health bar flashed and fell, before lashing out with a kick that connected with Wendy's own stomach, sending her flying backwards.

"Ack! Okay, I felt that," she muttered as she got back to her feet, eyes darting to her health bar before refocusing back on Rumble as he dashed forward at her in a charge. She leapt over him and came down behind him, letting him run all the way to the far end of the arena.

"Dude! Do that special combo!" Wendy cried out as Rumble turned around to face her again. In response, Dipper hit a sequence of buttons and control stick moves to activate what they'd learn several rounds ago was Wendy's special power move.

As Dipper watched, Wendy's body moved on its own in reaction to the combo, and reached behind her body to pull a large woodsman's ax out of hammerspace. She then flung it forward through the air to slam right into Rumble's chest, causing him to scream as a huge chunk of his health bar drained.

Not giving Rumble a chance to recover, Wendy charged forward and began hitting him as fast and frequently as she could. He grunted and was driven back with every furious strike, until he was pinned against the edge of the screen.

"Just die already, you pixelated jackass!" Wendy yelled, delivering one final blow to Rumble's face to drive his health bar to zero.

"Losers never win!" Rumble declared as he underwent his death animation and collapsed to the floor.

"GAME OVER! PLAYER 1 WINS!" the narrator voice announced.

"Sweet! Now get me outta here!" Wendy yelled, even as her body did her victory pose without her noticing. And nearly before the words were out of her mouth, her body started glowing, the game cabinet's screen doing the same as it began glitching to static.

"Yes! We did it!" Dipper cheered as he stepped back from the cabinet, "She's getting out! …And will still be naked, and not in a good mood about it… Um, I should probably try to find her a blanket or something…"

As Dipper's cheer changed to embarrassment and concern, he paused to consider his options for helping his crush out of her impending predicament.

ZAP

And thus was caught completely off guard as there was a sudden burst of light and electricity that burst out of the game cabinet and shot past Dipper, nearly hitting him before he stumbled back with a yelp of surprise. And to his further surprise, it didn't hit stop and materialize into Wendy; instead, it kept going until it hit another cabinet, specifically one labeled Monkey King, which came to life with a burst of static.

"What the…? Oh no, it's not just one game!" Dipper said, eyes widening as he realized what this meant, just as Wendy's voice cried out from the new game cabinet.

"What the hell?! Where am I now?!" she demanded as she looked around in confused anger, finding herself standing at the base of a large multi-layered scaffolding, ladders at alternating ends of each level of it. And just as she was starting to find her new surroundings familiar, a roar from above brought her attention up to the top of the scaffolding, where a large monkey appeared on the top level, standing next to a pile of shipping crates. It shrieked down at her, before grabbing one of the crates and tossing it over the edge.

"Oh, come on!" Wendy exclaimed in exasperation as she jumped to dodge the crate, which shattered on the spot where she'd just been standing a moment ago, "Am I seriously going to have to beat a whole bunch of games to get free?! Ugh, whatever, let's just do this!"

With that, Wendy charged towards the nearest ladder to start making her way up the scaffolding, Dipper grabbing the game's controls to try and help her if needed.

And hopefully, there wouldn't be too many games to go through before they could free her…

XXXXXXX

And so it went, that Wendy and Dipper found themselves having to play through what seemed to be every game in the arcade, the redhead zapping from one to the next as they beat them one after another.

Cap-Person

"Crap, crap, crap! These things don't look this fast on the screen!" Wendy yelled as she ran through a maze, being pursued by a group of colorful ghosts, incidentally picking up glowing squares along the way, "Come on, come on, where's the stupid power box?!"

Reaching a fork in the path, she didn't have a chance to think much about making a choice, so instinctively turned to dart to the right, only for the overlooking Dipper to yank at the controls and send her to the left instead. She yelped in surprise and annoyance at this, but the latter emotion faded as she was greeted by the sight of a significantly larger glowing square.

"Bingo!" she yelled, dashing forward and leaping into the power box. This made it burst, unleashing a flash of light that caused the ghosts chasing Wendy to pause before they all suddenly changed color to a deep blue, at which they turned and started fleeing from her.

"Oh no you don't! It's my turn now!" Wendy yelled with a feral grin as she charged after the ghosts, hoping that catching them would give her enough points to end this level and get her out of this game.

Millipede

Wendy stood in a field holding a giant laser gun, looking up at a number of giant flowers floating in the air above her. And moving about between the flowers was a giant millipede, which was zigzagging its way between sides of the screen as it made its way down towards her.

"Bring it, bug boy!" Wendy yelled, giving a battle cry before opening fire. Pixelated bullets shot up into the air and slammed into the millipede's body, every shot that connected knocking off a segment of its body, causing a new head to form at the leading end of every separated segment and those newly separated segments to move downwards even faster.

"Dude, either move me faster or aim better, you're throwing me off!" Wendy snapped as she darted back and forth across the bottom of the screen while shooting at the bugs descending towards her.

"Sorry! My hand-eye coordination suffers when I'm nervous!" Dipper exclaimed defensively, even though Wendy couldn't hear him, as he quickly tapped away at the controls to try and hit all of the bug pieces before they could hit the ground and cause a game over.

Toader

"Seriously? I know I've been filling in for the player characters in these things, but now I'm supposed to hop around like a freaking toad?" Wendy grumbled, standing on the edge of a highway full of cars, trucks, and bikes zooming by at dangerously high speeds in both directions. Beyond that, there was a rushing river full of logs, alligators, crocodiles, sharks, and piranha, and beyond that was a row of house-shaped pens, most of which were filled with large toads bigger than Wendy herself was.

"Seriously, I'm supposed to get across all of this when I'm half the size of the characters that you're supposed to play as?" Wendy groaned, "Ugh, never mind, no point complaining about it. Let's go!"

With that, she started running across the road towards her goal. With the help of Dipper's overhead view, she zigzagged her way across it, having to dart back and forth to avoid being run over numerous times, but soon reaching the river. And that was when things really got interesting, as she had to hop across logs to cross it, while avoiding the various animals who kept leaping up to try and eat her.

"WHO DESIGNED THIS GAME?!" she screamed in rage as a hippo popped out of the water as she was leaping between logs and almost snatched her out of the air.

Needless to say, this was a particularly aggravating game to beat.

Invaded By Aliens

Dashing back and forth between a series of canopies, Wendy shot a laser cannon up at a large number of UFOs that were slowly hovering downwards from the top of the screen, firing down back at her and slowly destroying the canopies. Which would have been tedious enough, if not for the fact that this was the third round of the game that had played, the spaceships coming down faster and shooting more rapidly each time. Even with the lack of fatigue provided by being inside the game, this was starting to wear her down.

"Dammit, how long does this game go on for?!" Wendy screamed in exasperation as yet another wave of UFOs start making their way down towards her. And outside the game, Dipper was likewise growing frustrated.

"Ugh, we can't just keep doing this!" he muttered, while giving a nudge of the controls to momentarily boost Wendy's speed, "Sooner or later, we're going to hit a game that Wendy won't be able to handle, even with me helping her out. We need to get her out of this, but how? It's not like there's some cheat code that can… wait a minute…"

Dipper paused as his mind flashed back to the code that had started all of this by bringing Rumble out of his game. Could it work again here to free Wendy?

"Only one way to find out," he muttered, repeating the moves from memory, "Back, back, hold, forward, back, forward, hold, quarter circle, forward, triple… um, attack, since this thing doesn't let you punch!"

"Hey! What's going on out there?!" Wendy demanded as her body responded to the individual moves of the combo. Before she could actually get upset about it, however, she froze, as did the game – which then started glowing brightly, just like Fight Fighters had done before freeing Rumble into the real world.

"Yes! It's working!" Dipper shouted happily, only to yelp and have to jump aside as the cabinet burst open in a stream of light and electricity yet again. But this time, rather than shooting towards another game, it paused in front of him, soon solidifying into the familiar form of Wendy.

"What the… Dipper?!" Wendy exclaimed, covering herself instinctively as she realized she was naked in front of him, before it registered with her that she was outside of the game.

"Sorry!" Dipper said quickly, looking away and covering his eyes with a massive blush, "I'll go find you something to cover up with, you just… wait, what's happening?"

The reason for Dipper's sudden concern was the feeling of static electricity suddenly running over his body. Looking down, he saw that the energy that had been surrounding Wendy had shifted over to cover him instead. And before he could even process this, it had completely overwhelmed him.

"Oh, this isn't good… AAAAHHHHH!" Dipper said, before screaming as the light burst around him, making him vanish before it shot towards another game cabinet. It flickered to life as the energy dispersed, while Wendy was left covering herself with her arms in the middle of the arcade, trying to process what had just happened. And when she did, her shocked look faded into an angry scowl.

"Seriously? Getting me out makes him get stuck in my place? Well, nuts to that!" she snapped, stomping over to the game that Dipper had been sucked into, "Hmm, Run Around and Destroy Stuff? Isn't this the one where people turn into giant monsters and smash buildings?"

Before she could answer her own rhetorical question, however, Wendy was cut off as the static on the game's screen cleared, and her eyes widened in shock. And the reason for that was that Dipper was shown standing on the start screen of the game… and he was now just as naked as she was.

"Oh man, really?!" Dipper yelled, face burning in humiliation as he quickly used his hands to cover his, frankly, not very impressive physique. Seriously, even taking into account that he was only 12, he was very scrawny, didn't have any body hair to speak of, and… well, to put it politely, he didn't need both hands to completely cover what he was packing downstairs.

"Why am I naked too?! It wasn't being sucked into the game that did that to Wendy!" Dipper protested angrily, before sighing in acceptance, "Ugh, fine. I guess this is probably karma for causing her to get into this mess in the first place…"

Wendy, who'd been staring at the screen in disbelief this whole time, blinked as she heard him say that. Did he think she blamed him for this? Sure, he'd apparently been messing around with something magical to summon Rumble into the real world and sent him after that Robbie, but that whole thing was definitely Robbie's fault for being such an asshole in the first place. And from the look of things, he'd also been working to keep her alive in these games and just got himself trapped in her place trying to free her, so even if she did blame him for everything that had happened, she felt like he'd more than made up for it.

"Okay, we were already going to need to have a talk about all this once it was finally over, but now I think it's going to need to be an even longer one than I was expecting," Wendy muttered, before shaking her head and forcing herself to focus on the current situation, "But that can wait, let's get you outta this first, dude."

With that, she grabbed the game's controls as it started, waiting to see if Dipper would need her help like she'd needed his at various points. As she watched, the title screen faded in favor of a cityscape, with the naked figure of Dipper automatically changing into a giant ape-like creature… and then to Wendy's confusion, the screen started glitching.

"Huh?" she asked, before Dipper crying out brought her attention to him.

"Hey, what gives?! I can't move!" he yelled, before beginning to yelp in pain as tanks rolled onscreen and started shooting at him, "Ow! Knock that off! This isn't fair!"

"What the Hell? Why is it glitching like this?" Wendy exclaimed, trying to help Dipper move with the controls but barely managing to make him twitch.

"Probably cause he overused that cheat code, dude. Older games can be twitchy about that," Soos' voice commented from nearby, making Wendy jump in surprise.

"GAH! Soos?! Where are you?!" she yelled, face burning as she covered herself with her arms.

"Over here, dude, I'm stuck in a game too," Soos replied, Wendy blinking as she turned and saw him inside the Nort game cabinet that he'd stuffed himself into, eyes shut and cap pulled down over his face, which made her feel slightly less embarrassed.

"How did you even…? You know what, I don't care," Wendy said, shaking her head, "But have you been here this whole time?"

"Yeah, I've been in here a while," Soos admitted casually, "I didn't say anything sooner, cause I didn't want to distract Dipper from helping you… but don't worry, I didn't see anything! I looked away as soon as you popped out of the game!"

"Thanks, that actually makes me feel a little better," Wendy muttered, before arching a brow, "And what did you mean about a cheat code?"

"Oh, it's one Dipper found under the Fight Fighters game to bring Rumble McSkirmish out, and then used it to get you out," Soos explained, "I'm guessing whatever weird magic is going on here got mad at it being used repeatedly by the same person. Lots of movies and TV shows warn about that kinda thing…"

As Soos rambled, Wendy frowned in thought as she processed everything that he'd just said.

"So, there's some kinda magic cheat code that caused all this, huh? Then maybe I can use it to fix things too!" she decided, running over to the Fight Fighters cabinet and bending down to examine it from the floor, remembering that Soos said that Dipper found the code underneath it. Seeing the written commands and quickly memorizing it, she ran back to the Run Around and Destroy Stuff cabinet and started entering the code, muttering it loud to herself as she did so, which Soos overheard from his own cabinet.

"Uh, dude? Do you really think you should be doing that?" he asked, "I mean, if the code's already backfiring on Dipper…"

"Don't care, man! I'm getting him out of there, one way or another!" she declared, entering the last part of the code. In response, the cabinet started glowing with that same aura of light and electricity… but instead of spitting out Dipper, it suddenly lunged forward and surrounded her, before pulling her forward and making her collide with the screen in a flash that made her vanish into the game with a yell.

"…That doesn't sound good," Soos said after a moment. Opening his eyes and being greeted by a now empty room, he nodded, "Yep, definitely bad. I should probably figure out how to get out of here so I can help."

And as Soos tried to figure out how exactly he was supposed to get free and help his friends, inside of Run Around and Destroy Stuff, the game suddenly glitched again, and Dipper found himself stumbling as he could suddenly move again.

"Huh? What happened?" he asked, blinking in confusion before wincing as a tank shot at him again. However, now able to move, he glared at the tank and proceeded to stomp on it, blowing it up and giving himself some points.

"Ha! How you like that?" he crowed, only to pale as all the other tanks took aim at him, as did a bunch of helicopters that suddenly flew in, armed with large missiles, "Uh-oh…"

Dipper winced and scrambled to dodge as all the enemy units opened fire at once.

WHAM

BAM

BOOM

And then suddenly a large figure leapt out of nowhere to smash into several of the helicopters, making them miss their attacks and slam into their neighbors, blowing them all up.

"Yeah, that's right! Who else wants some!" yelled the reptilian humanoid now standing protectively in front of Dipper, whose eyes widened in recognition of her voice.

"Wendy?! What are you doing back in here?!" he yelled in disbelief.

"What do you think, dude? You saved me, so now I'm returning the favor!" she stated, while stomping on a tank underfoot.

"But… but it was my fault in the first place, you didn't need to…" Dipper tried to protest, only for Wendy to cut him off.

"Dipper, we can discuss your guilt complex or self-esteem issues or whatever after we get out of here, together," she said, stressing the last word, "Now, come on dude, help me smash some pixel soldiers and buildings!"

Not willing to argue with her on this, and admittedly feeling a warm spark in his chest at her caring enough for him to do this, Dipper did as he was told, charging after her to do his part to wreck the game stage and rack up points.

And for the first time since all of this started… he suddenly found himself very hopeful for a good outcome.

XXXXXXX

And so it went from there, Dipper and Wendy working together to beat every game that they bounced between, their teamwork letting them easily overcome everything that was thrown at them. And despite everything about this whole situation, the two soon managed to get past the tenseness of the potential life-or-death stakes (not to mention the awkwardness of being naked around each other) and actually found themselves having fun with the experience.

And then they reached their final trial…

XXXXXXX

"Huh, this doesn't look familiar at all," Wendy said, looking around the field she and Dipper were standing in. It was a grassy field that spread as far as the eye could see, dotted all over with deep pits in the ground.

"Hmm, it does seem kinda familiar, but I can't quite place it…" Dipper mused, scratching his chin in thought. He looked around to try and find any more detailed context clues, and froze as he saw something near his feet – a candy wrapper labelled Chocolate Peanut Butter Disc Pieces. He blinked at that, and then his eyes widened in horror.

"Oh no… we're in the Friendly Alien arcade game adaptation!" he groaned, facepalming.

"Wait, you mean that 80s movie? There's a game based on it?" Wendy asked in confusion.

"Yeah, and it's one of the worst ever made!" Dipper exclaimed, "In fact, it was so bad that it pretty much singlehandedly bankrupted Irata Games and caused the 1980s video game collapse!"

"Seriously?" Wendy said in disbelief, "It can't possibly be that bad. Look, never mind, just tell me how we play it so we can get out of here?"

"We have to go around and search these pits for pieces of the intergalactic telephone that'll call for the alien's spaceship and then reach its landing site before a timer runs out, all while avoiding government agents that want to catch us. All of which uses up our energy, but we can renew that by consuming these candies," Dipper explained, gesturing to the energy bars floating above their heads and the candy scattered around the field.

"Okay, that's tedious… but it's fine," Wendy said after taking a moment to contemplate all of that, "We build the phone, call for the ship, and then we'll be outta here to the next game!"

"No, we won't be," Dipper said flatly, "When you beat the game, it just automatically resets to the start, with the same difficulty level and no changes to the layout except for where the telephone pieces ended up. And it keeps going like that ad nauseum, until you either run out of lives while playing or until you choose to quit. Which I don't think we're capable of doing from inside it."

"…Are you kidding me?" Wendy asked, eye twitching slightly as she took that in.

"Like I said, it's an awful game. And not just for the lousy graphics," Dipper stated, gesturing to their low-resolution surroundings.

"So, what? Are you saying that after everything, we're just… stuck in here?!" Wendy snapped, feeling her frustrations with the day boiling over as they hit this unexpected obstacle, "We survived all those other games, which were actually difficult, just to get trapped in something that sounds like it was designed for 8-year-olds? I'd rather have been stuck back in Lagala; it might have been glitchy, but at least it was exciting!"

"Wait, glitchy…? That's it!" Dipper exclaimed, breaking Wendy out of the rant she was starting to go into.

"What's it? You got a plan?" she asked hopefully.

"Yeah, we use the cheat code again!" Dipper explained quickly, "It caused the game to glitch up last time it was used, probably because it was already in effect. So, maybe if we use it again, this time from the inside, maybe it will overload the magic and force it to eject us!"

"That sounds like you're grasping at straws, but I'll take whatever we can get at this point," Wendy said with a firm nod, "Okay, let's do it."

"Right, follow my lead," Dipper said, already wracking his brain for how the code's component commands would translate into this game. He then began moving in relation to how the commands would make him go, Wendy quickly copying him, the two of them ending at the same moment. And when they did, their surroundings glitched and started shaking, dissolving into pixels that then dissolved into a dark void.

"It's working!" Dipper exclaimed, "Um… or we're about to die, that's a possibility, too."

"Honestly, at this point, that'd be a relief," Wendy said with a sigh, before there was a blinding flash of light.

XXXXXXX

Back in the real world, there was a crashing sound as Soos finally managed to topple the Nort cabinet over, smashing it open so that he could crawl out.

"Okay dudes, don't worry! Soos is loose, and ready to save you!" the handyman declared as he got to his feet, pieces of the machine still stuck to his body.

ZAP

And then before he could do anything, the Friendly Alien game exploded with light and electricity, unleashing a beam of energy that burst through the ceiling and then vanished into the distance, leaving Soos blinking in confusion.

"Oh, um, wasn't expecting that," he said, scratching at his head, "I, uh, should probably go after that and see if I can help them."

With that decision made, Soos ran outside the arcade and made his way to his truck, spotting a glow far off in the hills that was probably where he needed to go.

Meanwhile, at said location, a large mound in the middle of the woods was glowing from within as it crackled with energy, though this died down after a few moments. There were a few seconds of silence after this, and then the packed soil started shifting as something moved underneath it, before Wendy and Dipper both came bursting out of it in sprays of dirt, gasping for air.

"Ack, agh, what the heck, man, why did we end up underground?" Wendy sputtered as she spat dirt out of her mouth.

"I think it has something to do with this," Dipper said as he moved some more dirt aside to reveal several large cardboard boxes, marked with the Irata Games logo and filled to the brim with Friendly Alien cartridges, "There was an internet rumor that all the recalled copies of the game got buried in a landfill after it turned out to be total failure. Guess this is where they ended up, and we got zapped to them as the nearest version of the game outside of the arcade."

"Huh… well, who cares? The important thing is that we got out of that whole mess, and now we can go home…" Wendy said as she started to pull herself out of the hole she was in, only to pause and shrink down with a blush as she suddenly remembered their current situation, "Annnnnd we're both still naked, aren't we?"

"Um, ah… yeah, we are," Dipper said with a gulp, also blushing and digging himself deeper into the ground as he was reminded of that fact, which with the more pending problem of being trapped inside of video games that were trying to kill them out of the way was suddenly much more prominent.

There was a long, drawn-out moment of silence as they awkwardly sat there in the dirt, doing their best to not look at each other (as if they both hadn't already seen everything already), before finally Dipper's nerves couldn't take it anymore and he broke it.

"I'm sorry!" he blurted out, making Wendy blink in surprise, "This is all my fault! I should have just faced things head on like a man and let Robbie beat me up instead of trying to use Rumble to fight for me, then none of this-"

"Dipper, calm down and take a breath before you pass out!" Wendy cut in, immediately causing Dipper to stop talking and do as he was told, "Now then, first of all, there was no way that you could have possibly known that this would happen, so you can't blame yourself for it. Secondly, no way in Hell am I going to let you sit there and say that you should have let yourself get beat up! Trust me, there would have been nothing manly about letting a jerk kick your ass just because he's a jealous control freak who couldn't stand the thought of you having a crush on me!"

"Oh, um… he told you about that?" Dipper asked, looking even more embarrassed than about his nudity.

"No, I knew about it before he even asked me out," Wendy replied. At Dipper's surprised look, she added flatly, "Dude, you're a lot louder when you're whispering to yourself than you think you are."

"Oh man," Dipper whined, sinking deeper into the dirt and a part of him now wishing that he hadn't survived the games so that he wouldn't feel this mortified.

Seeing this easily on his face, Wendy sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. Well, no way to get around this now, so she might as well address it head on.

"Look, Dipper, I get it," she said gently, "Frankly, I'm flattered that you like me enough to have a crush. And don't get me wrong, you're a great guy who any girl would be lucky to date. You're smart, cute in that awkward early-puberty way that implies you'll be handsome further down the road, and you've definitely proven today that you're loyal and brave enough to do anything for someone you care about. But you are younger than me… even if it's only by three years… and according to Mabel your birthday's at the end of the summer, so it's really closer to only two… and honestly, even if it was a big deal, the fact that Robbie was an 'appropriate' guy to date but turned out to be a total jackass I shouldn't have touched with a 10-foot pole kinda twists around the whole idea of what's right and wrong about dating…"

"…I'm getting mixed messages here," Dipper said after a moment of taking this all in after Wendy trailed off with a conflicted look on her face.

"Yeah, I think after everything that happened today, I'm starting to seriously reevaluate what matters," Wendy said, still with a faraway look on her face as she continued to contemplate her thoughts and feelings for several more moments. Taking everything into consideration, briefly thinking of what people would think before reminding herself how little she actually cared about that, combined with the fact that Dipper had proven to genuinely care for her in a way that no one else ever had before, it didn't take long for her to make a decision.

"You know what? Screw it, let's give this a try," she said, making Dipper's eyes widen in shock.

"W-wait, really? You mean it?" he asked, not even caring as his voice cracked from sheer excitement.

"Hey, if anyone deserves at least one test date, it's a guy who saved me from being trapped in a video game and was even willing to trap himself in my place," Wendy said with a shrug. And then, feeling impish and figuring there was no reason not to, she suddenly leaned over and gave him a kiss; nothing serious, just a quick chaste peck on the cheeks. But for Dipper, it might as well have been a big dramatic movie moment kiss for how good it made him feel.

Also, he was suddenly glad that his lower half was still underground so that she wouldn't see how "excited" the kiss had gotten him.

"Um, ah, wow…" Dipper stammered after the kiss broke, making Wendy giggle.

"Yeah, that wasn't bad," she said, before growing serious, "But come on. With all that out of the way, we really do need to figure out how to get out of here and back home without anyone seeing us."

"Right," Dipper said, shaking his head to clear it and focus, rubbing his chin in thought, "Hmm, maybe we can empty some of these boxes and use them as makeshift clothing…"

HONK

HONK

And then his musings were cut off as Soos' truck suddenly drove up.

"I'm here, dudes!" he declared, getting out of the truck and holding up some blankets, "And I've got stuff you can cover up with so that you don't have to worry about anyone else seeing you naked!"

"…Or we can just do that," Dipper said with a blink, Wendy nodding along.

A few minutes later, the two had finished digging themselves out of the ground and had wrapped themselves in the offered blankets, Soos having respectfully shut his eyes while they did so.

"Thanks Soos, you're a lifesaver," Dipper sighed, blanket wrapped around his waist like a towel.

"No problem dude, I-GASP!" Soos started to say, before gasping dramatically as he finally noticed the unearthed contents of the landfill, "Are those a ton of copies of the Friendly Alien game?! Dudes, jackpot!"

"Why are you so excited? That game sucks," Wendy stated with an arched brow, towel wrapped around her like a makeshift toga.

"Oh yeah dude, the game itself is awful. But they're major collector items now," Soos replied, "People will pay big bucks for just one copy. For this many, we're gonna be rich!"

"Seriously?" Dipper said with surprise and some excitement, giving the piles of games a curious look. Hmm, it was starting to look like there might be another silver lining to this day's whole string of bad events.

"Sweet. We can bail out my family and still have plenty left over," Wendy said, belatedly remembering that her father and brothers were still in jail.

With that in mind, and the three quickly agreeing to evenly splitting the profits, they filled Soos' truck with as many boxes as they could fit in it, before driving off back to town. Along the way, they strategized on how to get clothes at the Mystery Shack, and then start figuring out how to sell off the games, while Dipper and Wendy silently agreed to give the idea of a date more serious in-depth discussion once they were alone again.

So all-in-all, a positive outcome of this messy day… though they all couldn't help but feel like they'd forgotten something.

XXXXXXX

"Sweetie, we've been up here all day, can we please get down now?" Stan pleaded.

"Are you over your fear of heights yet?" Mabel asked.

"…Yes?"

"Don't buy it! We'll stay up here overnight if we have to!" Mabel declared, determined to get Stan over his fear of heights no matter what.

But that's a story for another time…