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Chapter Text

The alarm sounded in the Wattersons' house, filling the children's room with its annoying sound.

Surprisingly, the only one in the room was Gumball, sleeping peacefully under the blankets as the alarm continued to ring.

And playing…

And playing…

After probably a minute of non-stop playing, Gumball went from lying down to sitting up almost immediately, with a piercing fiery gaze that would burn anything that came close.

He looked at the alarm clock that read 6:31 and got a little closer, speaking low, but serious and scary, “If you don't stay quiet, I'll throw you out the window, straight into the trash can”.

The alarm clock went quiet soon after, so Gumball dropped his angry glare with a defeated sigh that a Tuesday morning might cause and yawned throwing his arms up.

“Good morning, Darwin”, he greeted his brother mid-yawn, but only when he opened his eyes a little did he realize that the aquarium next to his bed was empty.

“Darwin?”, he widened his eyes and stared at the aquarium for a bit, then got off the bed and checked more closely, “Are you there, man?”, he looked through the glass, the image of his face being distorted.

“Um, Anais, did you see-”, he looked at the top bunk bed looking for his sister, only to realize that it was also empty.

Confused, Gumball puts his hand on his chin and tries to think, "Did I forget something?" To find out, he takes his hand off his chin and sticks his index finger up his nose.

Inside, the finger reached into his brain where it began to check each area like a bunch of folders in a drawer, until it found an area. It said "memory".

The finger came close and pressed that area as if it were a computer key.

Immediately all his memories flashed through his eyes very quickly, when he and Darwin met, when he thought he had made Anais go to a junkyard, when he became a ghost, when he kissed Penny and so on until the present moment.

He picks his nose when he's done and shrugs, "Um, nothing", then he hears something, laughter, coming from the door.

He opens it and hears them coming from the first floor of the house, so he goes down the stairs.

When he went downstairs, he saw that the laughter was coming from the kitchen, but specifically, from his family. Everyone sat together suffering from fits of laughter.

He raises an eyebrow and goes towards them.

In the kitchen, everyone is almost losing their minds with laughter, Anais and Richard are banging on the table while Nicole is holding her belly.

Richard stops laughing a little, "You know, if his head was bigger, he would see day and night at the same time", he laughs again at his joke, but stops when he realizes that no one else is laughing.

Suddenly everyone looks serious while eating milk and cereal.

He frowns a little, "Hey, what's wrong? Do I have cereal on my chin again?".

"Hi, dad?", Gumball greets, his eyebrow still raised.

"Hi, Gumball", Richard turned to his son and walked back to the table thinking, then his eyes widen when he realizes, "AAAHHH".

He stops shouting and tries to hide it, "H-hi, Gumball!", he laughs nervously along with a nervous smile on his face.

"Aammmm, okay", Gumball ignores them and goes to prepare breakfast.

As soon as you sit down at the table and your cereal is ready to be eaten, your attention returns to everyone when you notice that they are giving the same nervous smile, just like Richard.

He sighs, "Okay, what's going on here?" Everyone looks at each other and sighs in defeat.

Anais starts, "Gumball, you know when you're bored because it's still Tuesday morning and then everyone starts talking about someone's stupidity to cheer themselves up?", Gumball nods, "Yeah, we were talking about you" , her expression became apathetic.

"WHAT?!", he shouted so loudly that it caused a sonic boom, with his family being lightly pressured, in addition to several cars on the block going off their alarms and windows breaking.

Nicole, incredibly not having lost her hearing, tried to argue, "It's not that serious, honey".

"OF COURSE IT IS! It's like putting a 'kick me' note on someone's back, then telling them 'Hey, there's something on your back, I'll get it for you' and starting kicking them JUST OUT OF BOREDOM!" the The size of his mouth increased when he screamed.

Darwin jumped in to argue, "Man, you do this all the time. We did this yesterday with Tobias on the school field!" his expression was slightly irritated by his brother's hypocrisy.

"That's because it's not funny when they do that to you and behind your back!" Gumball argued, slamming his arm on the table.

Everyone now looks at him with irritated expressions, except Richard who has an emotionless expression.

Nicole sighs, "Forget it, I have to go to work anyway", she gets up with her bowl, puts it in the sink and heads towards her room.

Before she can climb the stairs, Gumball gestures, "That's right, escape the situation, you coward-".

Nicole stops and looks at her son with a furious expression, her eyes literally on fire as she does so.

Gumball quickly calms down and retreats to his seat in fear, "H-hehe, have a good day, Mom", he smiles very nervously.

Nicole's expression calms into a small smile, which then turns into a frown as she climbs the stairs, showing that she's still a little angry.

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Now on the bus going to school, Darwin tried, without any interest, to deal with his brother, "Come on, man, you're exaggerating a little".

Sitting next to you, Gumball was frowning, his face closely resembling an angry bulldog. He didn't say anything.

Darwin then looked at him blankly, "You know that if you keep making that face for a long time it will hurt a lot later!"

Gumball turned to him, "Why are you-AH", when he tried to clear his angry expression, his jaw clicked and he fell to the side.

He looked at what happened and put his hands on his jaw, putting it back in place, "Why do you care? I don't think you cared laughing at me before!"

"it's the power of Tuesday, even the cruelest things become some fun to brighten the day", he gestured with his arms, still expressionless.

Gumball stared at him a bit as he made sounds to sound like he was thinking, "Hhmm, well, since it's still Tuesday, then wouldn't you mind if I did the same?!".

"Man, I already told you! We were just bored!", his brother, however, didn't care and started making stupid gestures in a thin voice, "You know, Darwin, I'm surprised that you can convince someone, if it's like that what do you argue...".

Darwin frowned a little and spoke along with Gumball, their voices on top of each other, "Did you notice what I said?", "It's funny how you once managed to get stuck in the toilet, when your body is literally a head and legs...", "You're just being bad now!", "Where does all the food you eat go?...".

Darwin looked at his man who didn't stop talking, furrowed his eyebrows more, sighed heavily and irritably, picked up his backpack and left the bench for another while Gumball continued talking.

Carrie was looking out the window alone blankly until she noticed Darwin throwing his backpack next to her and sat down aggressively with an angry look.

Carrie looked at him a little, "Everything okay, Darwin? It's weird that you're not sitting with Gumball right now".

"I think all the biting from Penny's pet is finally driving him crazy", he said without turning to her, looking in the direction he came from.

But his expression turned sweet almost immediately as he turned to her, "But hey! How are you, my dear?".

She gave a small smile, "Oh, it's okay...", she scratched her arm as she blushed, looking away, "And it just got better!".

Darwin's expression was reminiscent of a baby smiling for the first time, also blushing, "Aaawwww".

He regained his composure, "I heard they were going to release "The Cruel Life 3"?", Carrie began to show a little concern, "I also heard, but they only released 2 a few months ago".

"Just because the second film was as successful as the first, it seems like they're going to start focusing on excessive sequences that at some point will lose their meaning or the quality of the CGI will become impossible to keep decent, but the public will still keep trying. see hope, like Marel's cinematic universe just to profit from it".

He rubbed the bench with his flipper, "Do you want to go?", her gaze became confident, "Of course, if he's a failure, then let's watch the fall of a trilogy together!".

Darwin began to sweat a little nervously, Carrie understanding what he wants to say with an unimpressed look, "You want me to possess you again while we watch because you're scared, aren't you?" Carwin nodded still sweating, Carrie just chuckled, "Scary", she walked over and patted his head. Darwin just blushed in response.

From his seat, Gumball had stopped talking and had watched the entire scene between Carrie and Darwin with a frown. He turned back to his seat and crossed his arms, "If he wants to stay away, feel free", his expression softened, "But I need to watch "The Cruel Life 2", i heard that movie is... ", he somehow obtained sunglasses and put them on, the surrounding scenery turning black and white, "Cinema". The bass beat of "Take me to church" is heard in the background.

But the music cuts out before the lyrics are sung and everything returns to normal.

he looked at his empty side of the bench, "I realized I never had the whole bench to myself", then he slowly lays down, resting his head on his hand and his elbow on the bench. He lets out a sigh of satisfaction when he takes up all the space, "Why haven't I ever done this before?".

As he drove the bus to the next house, Rocky hummed softly. But then a bird appeared out of nowhere and stood in the middle of the road trying to catch something.

Getting very scared, he hit the brakes as hard as he could, this made everyone hold on to avoid being thrown, except Gumball, who flew straight into the glass and was crushed. The bus continued braking heavily and getting dangerously close to the bird, which seemed to be very indifferent to something huge approaching.

But the bus managed to stop in time right in front of him, its back raised in the air as if it had frozen. The bird jumped up to get closer and lightly pecked at the bumper which made the bus fall back to the ground, its suspension making it wobble.

When everything calmed down, Rocky looked at the students he was transporting and at the bird, he sighed in relief. He looked at the bird in the street and honked, the noise being enough to scare it away.

After that, he looked to the side when he heard a groan and realized that Gumball was compressed and trapped in the glass, "Are you okay, Gumball?", He said something intelligible, what he was saying was "Now I understand why we sat there". Even though he didn't understand, Rocky shrugged, "Alright then".

He stepped on the accelerator and the bus started moving normally again, with Gumball still trapped in the window. The rear of the bus can be seen moving away.

As soon as the bus got far enough away, a person, a man, walked by on the sidewalk. She looked like one of the humans from "The Sweaters", but with stronger colors and less realistic features, dressed in a gray short-sleeved shirt with black lines that looked like blurs and slightly baggy black pants.

He walked calmly down the sidewalk with his hands in his pants pockets and his face expressionless but calm. He stopped when he heard something and turned to see a black Sauropod with a backpack running from inside the house.

She then stopped when she reached the edge of the sidewalk and frantically looked both ways and fixed her eyes on the person, who was still staring blankly at her.

Molly walked a little closer, "Hey, did you see a school bus pass by?", "It passed by a little while ago", he replied emotionlessly.

She stopped being agitated and now became nervous, even so, she started to bring up the subject, "I can't be late again...", her nervousness was gradually replaced by excitement as she spoke, "Because once I woke up and found that I had missed the bus...but I looked at my alarm clock and realized that I had woken up at the right time".

But it didn't stop there, "So I got ready, but I took too long in the shower...", this time the person raised their eyebrows a little, "And...?", "And I managed to catch the bus anyway, I got to class right on time", she finished smiling.

The person just stared at her quietly for a few seconds, "Shouldn't you be running now?", Molly's eyes widened, "YOU'RE RIGHT, BYE!", she turned and prepared to run as hard as her short legs could carry her.

Before she could, the person called out to her, "Hey," Molly turned her head, "Uh".

When she looked at the person again, they had their hand in the air, but it still looked like they were holding some kind of wallpaper. Molly just looked confused.

Then he casually pulled reality away like a fabric, showing a horizon of TV static from below. The horizon began to pull her. She tried to move away, but fell to the ground, then tried to hold on, but her lack of fingers didn't help.

As she was drawn closer, she floated and this caused her to be pulled quickly and far into the horizon. The man dropped the "fabric" which quickly returned to its place.

He stood still for a while and then walked again with his hands in his pockets. His neutral expression now seemed slightly irritated.

"You're not leaving again".

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*Hours later*

In the cafeteria, several students were paying for their lunches, sitting at tables and talking to each other, but everyone seemed at least a little uncomfortable because of someone who wouldn't stop talking.

At a table in the corner, Penny sat alone with Gumball, she boredly picking at her food with her head resting on her hand while Gumball kept talking and gesturing irritably, "And when I tried to talk to Darwin again, he just turned around and went away". Penny makes a noise of agreement.

"Now I want to know what it's going to be like when we get home, is he going to have dinner in the backyard? Sleep in the bathroom? Well, maybe I'm going to have dinner in the backyard or sleep in the bathroom!!", he gestured as if Darwin was listening, "Hm", Penny replied.

Gumball sat firmly in place and crossed his arms, making the same angry bulldog face.

After a few seconds of silence, Penny tried to speak, "Okay, it's okay to be mad about this, Gum", she looked elsewhere, "Even though I've seen you do the same to other people", Gumball blurred his expression annoyed and looked her in the eyes when she placed her "hand" on her arm, "But remembering everything will only irritate you... and irritate others. Jamie has already put us in that corner with a warning".

The two looked ahead and saw Jamie walking by with his tray, who looked at them and showed his clenched fist along with shark teeth in his mouth.

They faced each other again, "Do you understand?", she gave a fond smile, Gumball sighed, "Yes, I understand", then he looked in another direction, "Darwin would have understood too if he stopped avoiding me". This took away Penny's patience.

She gave a nervous smile as she seemed to be trying hard for her pink head not to create snakes and her orange wings not to increase in size, this agitation made Gumball shrink a little. Then her color returned to normal and she sighed, "I'll see if Carmen will let me sit with her", she picked up her tray and stood up with an impassive expression.

Gumball's mouth opened a little in surprise, "B-but what about our lunch?" Penny stopped walking and stood still, before turning her head to him with her face and voice switching between her medusa form and her dragon form, "WHY DON'T YOU HAVE LUNCH WITH DARWIN AND SOLVE THIS AT ONCE?!", she he returned to normal and left. Gumball, who recoiled at his girlfriend's outburst, opened his mouth wider in surprise, then his face seemed to contort, cracking and hardening in an attempt to make the face of an angry bulldog again.

But in the end his face just became disfigured and distorted, he dropped his expression and lowered his head in defeat, "Damn, I'm physically incapable of being mad at her".

Sussie appeared walking towards Gumball's table, taking mayonnaise from one of her pockets and putting it on the food, "Hi, Gumball! Can Sussie sit with you?", Gumball didn't even look up, he just inhaled slowly and sighed deeply, "Of course”, he said sadly. Sussie raised one of her arms in the air and shouted happily, "EEEEEEEEE”.

She felt next to him and quickly began to speak, "You don't know what happened to Sussie today, Sussie accidentally ate a pigeon...", then Sussie told her own crazy things, Gumball raised his head and looked at the table Penny was at now.

She seemed calmer and was already laughing at something Carmen probably said, but when she noticed Gumball staring at her, she closed her eyes and got an angry expression, releasing small clouds of smoke from her nose.

Gumball felt dejected and let his head fall back. He didn't notice when she looked at him and seemed to mix a slight regret in his angry expression, so he went back to talking to Carmen.

Outside, Janice, Mr. Small's weird van, was parked in one of the teacher spaces.

Soon a person appeared at his side, the man who spoke to Molly, standing looking at the images of wolves and unicorns with rainbows coming out of the latter with a disgusted look mixed with some surprise, "My god...". Was all he said before going to the back, grabbing the van from the bottom and effortlessly pulling it somewhere.

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Now in the likely last class of the day, all of Mrs. Simian's students were sitting bored, waiting for classes to end for the day.

Mrs. Simian drank her last sip of coffee (before class) and looked at the students with their arms behind their backs, "ATTENTION, STUDENTS!", everyone straightened their postures and paid attention, "Well, even if I do this with often enough for it to no longer be a surprise...", she took her arms from behind her back and showed the sheets in her hands, "TEST SURPRISE!". Everyone groaned.

"AAAAMMMM", someone, however, moaned louder than everyone and enough to get her teacher's attention, "WHO DID THIS?!", she placed her hands on her hips. The person responsible moaned again, "AAAAMMM", she faced the culprit and became even angrier when she recognized him. It was Gumball.

She walked over to his desk, finding him with his head thrown back in the chair, "Watterson!", He groaned again and raised his head to look at his teacher, "Yes, Mrs. Simian?", he asked unwillingly.

She showed him her index finger, "One hour detention after class!", this made Gumball go into shock, "WHAT?! Just why did I moan?", "I already sent you there for less, but today I don't want to put up with any more of you! It's not enough for you to be talking non-stop in the cafeteria, I could hear you through the air pipes! I lost one of my mugs because of the resonance of your voice!".

Gumball gestured frantically, "But-Ah-!", Mrs. Simian threatened him, "Want two hours?!", she held up two fingers, "You know I'd love to do that!", he gave an evil smile.

Gumball stood frozen in midair, then took a deep breath so that his nostrils were comically visible.

His body opened like a chest, with a fiery figure silhouetted by his body and glowing eyes appearing and screaming with flaming arms trying to hit something, "GO BACK TO THE UNDERWORLD WHERE YOU CAME FROM, PRIMATE SO OLD YOU WITNESSED THE CREATION FROM ADAM!" The figure disappeared as its body closed, his angry bulldog expression was on his face again.

Her colleagues stepped back a little for cover, while Mrs Simian, if she wasn't bald before, the greater lack of hair on her head from the fire arms would now make her one.

She looked up in surprise, running her hand over her hairless head, her body then stiffened in anger, "ARREST NOW!!", she pointed towards the door.

"GREAT!", Gumball shouted back, walking out with his bulldog expression and slamming the door.

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*Another hours later*

The entire Watterson family was sitting at the table for dinner, it having already gotten dark outside. But Gumball didn't try to eat his food, he just stared at Darwin with furrowed eyebrows.

Nicole noticed that her son seemed bothered by something (as always) and took the chance, "Gumball, can you tell me something, dear?", "aham", he didn't take his eyes off Darwin, "Why today, of every day, you decided to BURN YOUR TEACHER'S BALD?", her mouth widened enormously until it was above everyone at the table.

Gumball snorted, "Why don't you ask Darwin? Maybe that will make him talk", everyone looked along with Gumball at Darwin.

Noticing everyone's gaze, he stopped eating and sighed, "I have nothing to say".

Gumball began to twitch in anger, "WHAT?! YOU HAVEN'T SAID A WORD TO ME SINCE WE GOT OFF THE BUS AND THAT'S WHAT YOU HAVE TO SAY!-AHH!", he lowered his head as a plate came towards the his face, the sound of glass breaking in the background as Gumball scowled at Darwin.

Darwin now had a furious expression on his face, "YOU WANT ME TO SAY SOMETHING? THEN I'LL SAY IT!" EVEN WORSE WHEN I DIDN'T SAY ANYTHING!" he closed his eyes to scream louder, "AND THAT'S WHY PENNY LEFT YOU ALONE AT LUNCH!!”.

Nicole was surprised and seemed even bothered, "Penny dumped you?", even though he still seemed angry, Gumball rolled his ears back, "She didn't "ditch me", she just decided it was better to have lunch with a friend than with me".

Darwin put his "hands" on his hips, "Of course, that's how it starts, first she decides to spend more time with her friends, then she gets irritated more easily over time and BOOM, she broke up with you!".

"If we were dating, I WOULD DO THE SAME THING!", everyone looked at Darwin with disgusted faces, then Nicole, "Apparently relationships haven't changed at all in twenty years", she said discouraged.

Anais interjected, "Okay, okay, now why don't you guys calm down and work this out like people- wait, what am I talking about?", his expression turned disappointed, "You're going to destroy this table by the end of this argument, or it's going to be Mom”.

It was Richard's turn, "Why don't you guys try to eat some?", he broke into a smile as he started talking about food, "I'm never okay with-", he is interrupted by Gumball hissing at him with a tongue forked like a snake, making him cringe and sweat, "Forget it, hehe".

He turned back to Darwin, "I HAD A HORRIBLE DAY, OK! BUT IF YOU GIVE ME AN APOLOGY, I'LL TRY TO FORGET EVERYTHING!", he crossed his arms. His expression became even angrier and his voice even louder, "APOLOGIZE?! APOLOGIZE?! YOU SHOULD APOLOGIZE-", he coughed hard, then stayed quiet and left the table, his angry expression not wavering.

He grabbed a glass, went to the fridge and filled it with water, drinking it all at once, "aahh", he sighed contentedly. He dropped the glass as a joke and returned to the table.

He coughed a little to clear his throat and returned to the discussion, "YOU SHOULD APOLOGIZE!! YOU HELLED ME EVERY TIME YOU GOT THE CHANCE TODAY, JUST BECAUSE WE WERE TALKING ABOUT HOW BIG YOUR HEAD IS IN THE MORNING!".

"WHY DOES EVERYONE SAY THAT?! MY HEAD IS NOT THAT BIG!", he extended his arms to Darwin, "AND YOU'RE JUST LEGS AND A HEAD!" Darwin shot back, "WE-WERE-JUST-BORED!".

Anais intervened again, "He's right, Gumball. That was just a bunch of dumb jokes, but you let it bother you, you can't blame us for that," Nicole placed her hands on her hips, "Exactly, you thought that It's bad and it's making a fuss. You should really apologize!".

Gumball's expression was now stoic as he crossed his arms, "Alright, I'll do it," Darwin's expression calmed down a bit as the others raised an eyebrow, "Really?" Anais questioned, "Wow, I didn't expect -", "If you do this first", he closed his eyes and puffed out his chest a little to appear superior. Everyone had frustrated expressions.

Darwin reached his limit, but instead of arguing further, he shouted, "AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH", his voice gradually became higher pitched until it was too loud for everyone's ears. The family covered their ears due to the pain they began to feel, while all types of glass exploded.

TVs, cell phones, dishes, windows, all the glass in hundreds of houses nearby could be heard exploding.

When the pain in their ears stopped, everyone took their hands off their heads and opened their eyes, the house was covered in broken glass while their faces and the walls were dirty from the dinner that flew from the exploding dishes. Darwin was the only one unharmed.

Richard looked at his face and then swiped his tongue, removing all the food and leaving his face clean, "Hmm", he smiled.

Everyone looked at Darwin, who was breathing heavily, "THIS IS WHY YOU HAD A HORRIBLE DAY! BECAUSE YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND!"

"ADMIT YOU KNOW HOW TO BE A REAL IDIOT!!".

Gumball's superior posture broke, he arched his spine and stared at Darwin with the black dots of his eyes wiggling and his mouth open.

He stayed like this.

But before it became worrying, his expression fell somewhere between frustrated and irritated. He forced his weak arms onto the table so his chair went back and had plenty of room to climb down.

He walked angrily out of the kitchen, which made his mother stand up, "Where do you think you're going, Gumball?", he reached the door and put his hand on the handle, "GUMBALL!".

He opened the door and turned to look into her angry eyes, "WHY DO YOU CARE? ENJOY AND TALK ABOUT MY HUGE HEAD!".

"MAYBE I WILL!", Darwin declared, "DARWIN!", Nicole scolded him, so Gumball slammed the door shut.

But he opened it normally and went towards the stairs, "IT'S VERY DARK OUTSIDE, I'LL BRING A LANTERN!", his steps were heard going up, and shortly after going down, "UNFORTUNATELY THE LANTERN AND MY CELL PHONE ARE BROKEN! THANK YOU, DARWIN!", he slammed the door again.

Anais sighed, slapping her hand on her forehead, but with little strength to avoid old problems, Darwin crossed his arms and looked to the side irritably. Nicole sat in her seat, "He'll come back", her expression softened a little, "I hope", Richard placed his hand on her back.

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Gumball continued to walk irritably, passing from light to light on the streetlights inside Elmore Park, his feet leaving burn marks on the ground as they caught fire from walking much further than normal.

He stopped in front of a bench lit by one of the streetlights and jumped down to sit on it, crossing his arms and making the expression of an angry bulldog again, the flames at his feet slowly diminishing until they went out and a wisp of gray smoke came from the tips of his feet. fingers.

He stood there quietly, staring into space with irritation.

staring, staring...

After about 30 seconds the grass in front of him seemed to create the eyes and mouth of a simple model who looked terrified, "ALL RIGHT, ALL RIGHT, MAN! I DON'T KNOW WHAT I DID TO YOU, BUT PLEASE STOP!".

Gumball continued in the same way, this made the grass' terrified face tighten with nervousness and then scream, "AAAAHHHH", suddenly she created arms and legs also of a simple model, but with the shade of green of her "body", she he used his arms to run and his legs to swing desperately, "MOMMY!".

Even with the grass gone, Gumball remained the same, but it didn't last long, as his face seemed to grow extra skin and sag with gravity, his face was now a mixture of a deflated balloon and his father's fat wrinkles.

He shook his head very quickly, his skin returning to normal as he stopped, he stroked his cheek, "I've made that expression so many times today that my face has become exhausted".

He craned his neck to look in both directions of the park path, there was nothing, just the silence of the darkness. He leaned back against the bench, now supporting himself on his arms, and huffed, "Man, being irritated isn't satisfying when no one's around to see", he began to lightly swing his legs.

A noise came from one direction, Gumball quickly raised his head and tried to see what made the noise, but he couldn't see. The streetlights had powerful lamps, but the problem with such a strong light is that everything that is not within reach becomes difficult to see, making it easy for something to hide in the dark.

Gumball stared at this darkness, which made him swallow hard, "Maybe...I should go back-", his hand instinctively came up and threw itself against his cheek, slapping him.

This eased his fear, "No! I'm not going back to them!", he looked back into the darkness, "But maybe I should go somewhere else, after all the streets of Elmore are already dangerous in the daytime-".

A loud metal sound came from his back, "AAAAAHHHH", he fell back onto the bench with his eyes widening like the character The Mask.

A black trash can rolled over and hit the bench, coming to rest next to him and coming into the light. Even though he couldn't see anything, he heard someone's complaints of pain, "OW! OW! OW!", the complaints calmed down.

Sounds of footsteps on the grass came towards him, making him sweat more every second and his heart could be heard beating even by the deaf elderly people in the city.

Then a man in dark clothes came out of the darkness and picked up the trash can, "Why would anyone paint a trash can that's out of the light of lamps black?!", He glared at her, "I guess I'll complain to Larry later", and placed her on the floor.

He then noticed Gumball, who was frozen in a terrified expression, "Huh?".

Gumball broke the freeze with a heavy and relieved breath, "Ah, what a scare I got, I thought it was a robber or another criminal", he put his arm across his forehead to remove the sweat.

The man raised an eyebrow, "And why do you think I'm not a criminal?", "Are you?", the man looked away, "Eeeerrrr", he shrugged.

Gumball also shrugged, "That's enough for me", he leaned back against the bench again, "Now will you excuse me? I'm trying to think of what to do".

"I noticed", the man said in a calm tone and pointed to the top of Gumball's head, there was smoke coming out of his ears.

"It's just that today I had a difficult day", the man bowed, "Why was it difficult?", this made Gumball excited, then angry, now he had to pay attention to his anger.

"Well, let's just say I WAKE UP IN THE MORNING AND MY WHOLE FAMILY IS LAUGHING AT ME, MY BROTHER LEFT ME ALONE ON THE BUS FOR A GIRL, MY GIRLFRIEND GAVE UP OUR I HAD LUNCH TOGETHER, WENT TO THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS FOR COMPLAINING ABOUT A SURPRISE TEST AND THEN LEFT THE HOUSE!", he crossed his arms with his bulldog expression, "It's not really the hardest, but the most annoying!", he tried to squeeze the air with his angry hands, "AAARRRGGG, everyone seems to hate me today!".

Above was quiet, filled with the man's silence and Gumball's irritation. But after a minute, Gumball was finding the silence awkward, turning to the man, "Hey, are you-", he froze.

The man's face was contorting in visible anger, but he also seemed desperate to stay calm, it made the muscles in his face feel like he was cramping.

Gumball's expression showed that he was holding back a lot from saying whatever he was thinking, but he's someone who gives up easily, "Dude, are you okay? Because it's like a bunch of worms are crawling under your skin!", he exploded.

The man didn't seem to hear, his face still twitching, Gumball looked slightly horrified and gave a nervous smile, "Ah, hehe, you know what, forget everything! I think I'll go back home and-", just as Gumball was about to go downstairs, A loud noise made his body paralyze and flinch with his eyes wide open.

He overcame his initial fear and slowly turned his head to the side. He saw that the loud bang was because the man had crushed a small wooden part of the bench with his hand.

The man's face stopped contorting and his head fell in defeat with a sigh, "I thought I could take more…." He lifted his head and looked into Gumball's eyes with slight irritation, "But it only took a minute with you." "W-What does that mean?", Gumball asked with a small nervous smile.

The man walked over and pointed his index finger at Gumball, "It means you're coming with me, Gumball Watterson”.

The man grabbed him by the collar of his sweater and lifted him to his shoulder. Then he started going somewhere.

Gumball, tried to get out of this situation, "WAIT, WAIT, WAIT!", he waved his arms and legs frantically, but to no avail.

The man walked to the other end of the bench, his free hand raised as he seemed to check something, he fixed his gaze and placed his hand, the place he held became like a cloth and opened. Gumball's eyes were drawn to that sight.

A horizon of TV static that stretched into infinity was on the other side, its image being reflected in Gumball's eyes as many things began to flood his mind.

But he didn't have time to understand this as he was thrown towards the horizon.

"AAAAAAAHHH".

Once Gumball disappeared, the man stood right in front of the "opening" and slowly free-falled into it, pulling the "fabric" together and closing it.

The park was now empty.

Chapter Text

“AAAAAAAH”, Gumball waved his arms frantically in Panic, his body constantly changing position between falling on his head or falling on his butt.

He caught glimpses of pieces of land of varying sizes, each one had something on it, but which he didn't recognize because it was going faster and faster downwards. Even though he probably won't die from the fall, like always, that doesn't mean it won't hurt. 

His eyes were fixed in one direction, there was a huge piece of land that would be close to his trajectory. 

He then stopped swinging his arms and started moving them like a bird to try to get closer, but he wasn't moving. The piece of land was getting closer and he would miss the chance to stop. 

In an act of desperation, as soon as he passed through the patch and was facing its earthy side, he bared his claws and threw out his hands with all his might. 

Which wasn't much, but it was enough to dig in its claws and force it to slow down. 

He looked at his tightly bound hands descending through the earth more and more slowly, which made him sigh in relief, even though his expression was still nervous. 

But the moment didn't last long as his claws landed on a decent sized rock, causing his claws to be thrown out and start spinning in the air. 

Aaand It also made him scream again, "AAAAAAAAAAAAHHH”. 

Fortunately, he seemed to have moved away from any previous gravitational effects, because he was now descending at a slow, steady speed. 

As he was spinning in the air, something passed close to him, also falling, but at a much greater speed. 

Right below, the falling thing made a large cloud of dust along with a crash as it fell onto a huge flat piece of land. When the dust dispersed, the man from before could be seen crouching in the middle of a crater, pulling himself upright. 

He quickly looked around and then looked up, where his eyes locked on Gumball, who was still slowly descending while spinning, and screaming, in the air. 

He glared at Gumball as he descended. 

After about thirty seconds, he crossed his arms. 

After another thirty seconds, he looked stressed. 

And after another minute, Gumball was spinning close enough for the man to catch him if he stretched out his arm, but it looked like it would still take a long time. 

Then the man snorted and raised his arm, placing his hand on Gumball. 

He immediately stopped spinning and screaming, which was now floating in the air, the man's hand shown as being holding Gumball by the head.

Gumball looked wide-eyed at the man's hand and then back at him. He tried without confidence, "Hhhhmm, thank you-". 

Without warning, the man threw him with great force straight to the ground, half of his body not being visible as he sank into the earth that cracked along with a light amount of dust surrounding him. 

The man just put his hands in his pants pockets and exhaled smoke through his nose in an irritated manner, looking at a motionless Gumball who was groaning in agony with his face buried in the ground. 

Gumball slowly moved his arms, which became crooked, making bone-cracking noises as he tried to place them on the ground. 

Once they were steady, he tried to stand up, his arms shaking as he tried to detach his head from the identically shaped crater. 

His face fell apart and he raised his head, showing that he had lost two teeth and was left with a very swollen black eye with a tear running down it, "Why did you do that?!", his tone was that of someone weak who should have been in the hospital. 

"It was taking too long," the man shrugged, "And it's also the second time you've made me lose my temper”. 

Gumball slowly stood up, every bone in his body making noise as he moved, "Well, I've been told that my talent is being...", he stretched his back with a loud crack, "Annoying!", he said no air. 

All the bruises on his body disappeared when he rubbed his back. When all the discomfort passed, his eyes finally took in his surroundings. 

The screen focused on Gumball as he turned 360 degrees with an increasingly worried expression and his body shrinking before the immensity of pure bad signal statistics. 

This immensity filled with errors and appearing nothing more than a worrying silence.

His eyes returned to the man who kidnapped him, now scared in his place. "All your memories have come back, haven't they?", the man's expression turned intimidating, "Your memories of the void”.

The man's expression softened and he began to swing his legs to walk from side to side, "You know, the void looks a little like those wise old men in cliché movies," he started to walk in circles now, "It's always quiet, you don't understand what he's doing, even though he should give you answers”. 

“So when something specific happens, he does something and goes back to being quiet." He stopped walking and lowered his head, looking at a small rock on the ground, "You don't understand why he did that...", he kicked the rock, which made it float away, "And you won't get any answers if you try”.

The small stone that was floating in the air suddenly began to curve downwards until it fell in a straight line somewhere, having been caught by some free gravitational force. 

The man gestured ironically, "Because of that, you must be thinking 'But why am I in a place where there are only mistakes?', right?" He looked unimpressed at Gumball, who seemed to be trying to say something, "It was a rhetorical question, because it's obvious you don't think".

Gumball stopped flinching and became visibly irritated, "Hey! I may not be smart like my sister, and only get an F on my homework, but I'm not that dumb!".

The man raised an eyebrow, "You literally made your girlfriend have an allergic reaction because you made blueberry ice cream even though you knew she was allergic!". 

Gumball tried to fight back but was helpless, "Yeah." 

He suddenly furrowed his eyebrows, "Wait, how do you know that?" he pointed at the man. 

"Because I've been watching you". 

Gumball seemed to get scared, "Are you Sandera37E2? Dude, I told you, I didn't know you were an orphan!", he put his arms over his face to protect himself. 

The man slapped his face and sighed, "As I was saying, the void for you is the place of all the mistakes in the world", he gestured linearly with his speech, "Of course, you might think so, considering things like...", his face contorted, "Janice came here", he shuddered. He opened his arms a little, "But really, this place is more like a closet. A place where you keep things you no longer want".

 The man then looked deep into Gumball's eyes, "Tell me, do you remember when you felt like someone was watching you and your adventures?”.

Gumball looked in different directions as he thought, "Well, a few times, I've even touched an invisible wall”. 

"Because there really is someone watching your life," he pointed to the horizon, "There”. 

Gumball looked at the direction of his finger in confusion, "Hhm, I don't see anything”.

"Wait a minute," the man walked a little forward and released a puff of hot air from his mouth into the static nothingness, leaving a strange image of a blurry invisible screen. He put his hand on top and rubbed it to the side.

What appeared there caught Gumball's eyes. 

In that small place, hundreds of images of hundreds of beings, walking in crowds, talking, laughing, eating, doing everything that Gumball has ever seen the people of Elmore do. 

But they were strange, had little color diversity, an absurd amount of detail, and so similar to each other. 

"Wow", Gumball watched them almost fascinated, "They're weird", his head spun until it was upside down, "They look like Sussies, but upside down". 

"Well, these Sussies created their world". 

Gumball shook his head out of his reverie and looked at the man, "What are you talking about? It's fine for them to watch me, but it must be because they have stressful lives and need entertainment to get them through the next stressful day”, he placed his hands on his hips and a small smile on his face.

The man was visibly uncomfortable, "Don't pretend you don't know you're a cartoon character”.

Gumball argued, "Pff, I know I'm a cartoon, what's the problem? It means I can walk past a lawnmower and do this", he grabbed his arm and ran the fingers of his other hand through it as if he was playing, sounds of guitar came from his arm that swayed like strings. 

The man sighed heavily, "I'll be more direct”, he pointed to where the humans were shown, "You're a cartoon because one of these people decided to make you like that!". 

He opened his arms wide this time, "He made your whole world, and by accident, he made this one too. This is where not just mistakes, but discarded ideas and people are put in for the sake of the narrative the author chose, so it's a closet”, he placed his hand on his chest, "I am one of the examples of a discarded character".

"I was created to be the chaotic antagonist that would give seriousness to your story, but I was created in the first versions of your story, so they gave up on my existence. And in the end, that's where I stayed".

Then he shrugged, "But I'm not complaining, it's not that bad here, since I'm supposed to have a connection to this place as a character, I have great access to things”. 

He released his hot breath again in a random direction, he reached out and wiped the screen. 

In it appeared a view from above all of Elmore, now in the darkness of night, in its entirety. 

Elmore's image began to be consumed and converted into a statistical image before disappearing. 

The man's expression softened and he began to swing his legs to walk from side to side, "It's almost funny, but the void looks a little like those wise old men in cliché movies," he started to walk in circles now, "It's always quiet, you don't understand what he's doing, even though he should give you answers”. 

“So when something specific happens, he does something and goes back to being quiet." He stopped walking and lowered his head, looking at a small rock on the ground, "You don't understand why he did that...", he kicked the rock, which made it float away, "And you won't get any answers if you try”.

The small stone that was floating in the air suddenly began to curve downwards until it fell in a straight line somewhere, having been caught by some free gravitational force. 

"So...it was really interesting when, for the first time, someone from your world ended up here," his eyes scanned the horizon as he remembered that time, "At first, I was surprised, but only for a second”. 

"It was what happened next that really bothered me”. 

He turned to Gumball again with a stern look, "That's when you, your brother, and your 'alternative' teacher...", he made quotation marks with his fingers, "Appeared and just took everyone back, and the void left with the only condition is that you don't remember him!", the man had come closer and towered over Gumball. 

As Gumball hunched over to the point where his spine was at a 90 degree angle, his face covered in worry. 

The man retreated to his seat, "I've always watched your show, since the beginning," the man gave a slight smile, "Whoever created all of this, that person managed to make me laugh and have fun”. 

His face became serious again, "There's only one thing I don't like about all of this...", he placed his index finger on Gumball's forehead, with the boy looking up. 

"You".

Gumball seemed genuinely frustrated, "WHAT?! I'm not that bad, and you're forgetting about Tobias", he began to ramble, "He keeps flirting with my girlfriend, even though he knows we're dating”.

The man's face tightened, "It's because of this!", he stood up and removed his finger from Gumball, "You weren't so bad before, you were just troublesome! But with each passing day you've gotten worse!".

"You're the worst protagonist I've ever seen", the man said in disgust. 

Gumball, however, didn't seem to be bothered and placed his hands on his hips, "I'm the protagonist? Ha!", he groaned in surprise. 

The man's face became even tighter with the fibers of facial muscles and veins visible beneath the skin, "THAT'S WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT!", he walked aggressively towards Gumball, him backing away at the same pace, "YOU JUST LISTEN TO WHAT YOU WANT , HE'S ARROGANT, SELFISH, PRETENTIOUS, IRRITATING AND EVERYTHING ALWAYS WORKS OUT FOR YOU IN THE END, JUST BECAUSE IT'S THE PROTAGONIST!!". 

The man was above Gumball again, his nose wrinkled and his eyes piercing his soul. This intimidation made them walk about seven meters away. 

The man calmed down a little, "But at least there was one good thing about you breaking the rules," he gave an irritated smile, "It showed me that maybe I don't need to live just because the void wants it." 

He reached into one of the pockets of his pants and took out a car key decorated with peace symbols, like the Hippie symbol and a white dove, "So I started correcting certain mistakes, like this", he pressed the control and an Alarm sound came from far away. 

Gumball looked to where the sound came from and walked closer to the edge, the man following him with his eyes. 

Gumball got close to the edge and craned his head to look. Down below, among the chunks of land floating in nothingness, there was a purple patch with colored dots on one of them, which Gumball recognized. "Janice!", her eyes widened, "Wait, if you brought her back, then...", he turned to the man, who already had his arm and index finger stretched to the left. 

Gumball rolled his eyes to that side, in the distance, in front of a tree house, a black sauropod was frozen floating above the ground, with a panicked expression. 

Gumball's eyes widened even more, this time comically.

"I haven't forgotten about the Cyclops either, Rob”, the man smiled with a dark look, "Why do you think he hasn't bothered you since he broke into your school?". 

Gumball's eyes widened even more, to the point that they were almost falling out of their place on his face, "Wait, wait, that's a lot of information, let me just…" he forced his eyes back slowly, and probably painfully, return to their place in the skull. 

When he finished, the man continued his speech, "Now I just need to deal with you". 

Gumball raised his arms to try and move away, "W-wait, didn't you say I was the protagonist? The story can't continue without the protagonist!", he tried to argue. 

This didn't slow down the man's goals, "Yes, it shouldn't, but thanks to Tobias, that doesn't seem to be a problem", he smiled in satisfaction, "When you stopped being...you, the world simply found someone else to occupy the spotlight. Everyone who loved you simply replaced you". 

Gumball groaned internally, "Damn, Tobias!", he said softly. The man continued, "Your adventures and misadventures have only proven to me that perhaps I can change things". 

Gumball kept trying to argue, "But my friends, my family, they'll notice that I'm gone, they'll help me", he put his hands on his hips to try to convey a confidence he didn't have in his own words. 

The man's tone became more ironic, "Who? All those people you pissed off in a single day?", he leaned down so his face was closer to Gumball, "Do you need me to remind you of that?", Gumball looked at him uncertainly, “Ehhm”, the man's smile faded, "Again, it was a rhetorical question”. 

Gumball closed his eyes and turned his head away when the man thought the man was going to do something, but opened them when he didn't feel nothing. The man had just made the screen effect with his breath again, this time right in front of him. 

On the other side, there were two people on a bed as they prepared to sleep.

“Come on, Lucy, let's go to sleep”, one of the people Gumball recognized as Principal Brown when he noticed a mass of moving fur. The other person he recognized by the voice that bothers him every morning, "I'm almost done, oh, yes, maybe a unique test for each one”, she laughed maliciously. 

The other person was Mrs. Simian who was facing the window looking outside while thinking about evil plans. The director climbed into bed and got under the blankets, "My love, it's getting late, let's rest”, he put his blue nightcap with stars on his head. 

"Okay, fine, you're right”, she got under the blankets too, "It's just that I love seeing the desperation on their faces," the director tried to persuade her, "Well, maybe you have big plans with a good night's sleep, maybe you even have some brilliant plan during a dream”. 

Mrs Simian smiled, "In that case, good night, my dear Nigel~", they both prepared to share a possibly disgusting kiss that would need to be censored, but then Mrs. Simian's eyes widened, "WAIT, GOOD NIGHT, THAT'S IT!", she turned away from the director, "If I make him sleep badly, he will do horribly without me being accused of cheating on a test", the principal lay down and turned to his side in frustration, "I wish blue Watterson wouldn't go to school anymore”.

Gumball came out from behind the screen to look at the man, "I don't know what you tried to prove, but they already naturally hate children," realization hit Gumball, "So why do they work at a school?".

The man groaned grouchily and blew his breath on the screen and cleaned it. This time, Gumball immediately recognized the place.

That was the Fitzgerald house, more specifically their dining room, where Penny was sitting at the table next to her little sister Polly. She was talking nonstop.

"And this isn't even the first time he's done this, but he didn't listen to me the same way, ARRRGGG!”, she slammed her fists on the table. 

"Aham”, his mother, who was washing the dishes, and his father, who was reading the newspaper outside the table, said at the same time.

Patrick looked up from the newspaper, "Penny, did you realize you're the only one at the table for about ten minutes?", he pointed in her direction.

Penny's eyes widened and realizing that there was really only her sister listening to her complaints, she sighed, "Sorry for bothering you, Polly”.

His little sister seemed to perk up in the baby chair, "I like your Big Brother Gumball stories”. Her father got involved, "I honestly don't understand why you give him so many chances, you should just put an end to this", she got angry, "Dad! Let's not start this again!".

Patrick put down the newspaper and stared at his daughter, "No, no, we've already talked about whether you're in your shell or not, I'm going to support you because I love you and we've already talked about me stopping giving you dirty looks Gumball and not really seeing him as a bad person, but one thing that won't change is what a terrible boyfriend I think he is!".

Penny shot back, "Yeah, he can stress me out and yes, sometimes I might want to RIP OUT HIS HEART, but that doesn't give you the right to talk bad about him!".

Judith tried to avoid another difficult situation, "Okay, you two, calm down! We won't let the family be separated again!".

Patrick replied, "Of course! After all, I don't think the boy can come here and try to fix everything in the worst possible way again”.

His wife glared at him, "PATRICK!". He looked at her confused, "What?! You said yourself that you don't like what he does!".

She put her hands on her hips, "What I said is that I don't like seeing my daughter coming home hurt!". He shrugged, "It's the same thing! It's just cause and consequence!".

Penny got grumpy, "Still, know that I know how to make my own decisions! That includes putting up with my boyfriend's stress!".

Patrick started counting on his fingers, with Penny's face getting more and more enraged by the second, "Really?! Because every week is pretty much the same, you spend the weekend with that boy, then during classes you come in at home tired, irritated or unwilling to exist, you sit at the table and when Gumball brings up the subject, you keep talking about how desperate you are to get rid of him, usually three times a week, but the next day you arrive happy and saying that you have forgiven him, right before starting all over again! I don't know how this can be classified as "making good choices"!", he placed his hands on his hips with an angry look.

Penny's face tightened so much that it looked like a balloon about to burst itself. Expecting something bad, Judith went to the table and grabbed Polly from her chair.

The screen Gumball and the man were watching disappeared into statistics before Penny exploded.

Her body grew in a swift burst into her dragon form, slamming her back into the ceiling with enough force to shake the house for a moment as she stuck her long neck away from the lamps and pushed the table forward.

"I JUST GET STRESSED WITH HIM BECAUSE I WANT TO BE CLOSE TO HIM BECAUSE I LOVE HIM AND I GET ANNOYED BECAUSE YOU NEED TO SET BOUNDARIES AND RECOGNIZE THE BAD SIDES OF SOMEONE, EVEN THE ONE YOU LOVE! SOMETHING YOU DON'T SEEM TO UNDERSTAND!".

After that, her body shrank back to normal, she took an irritated breath and grabbed the table, pulling it back into place with all her strength.

As soon as she also arranged the chairs, she took off with her wings, "Good night!", she said sharply and flew up the stairs.

Patrick stared irritably at the stairs and then sighed. His eyes met the angry gaze of his wife with their youngest daughter in her lap.

"Congratulations on ruining all the work we did before”, she scoffed irritably, Patrick gestured trying to argue.

He then gave up with a sigh and an unmotivated look, "Alright, I'll talk to her”, his wife stopped him from getting up, "No, you're staying here, she needs a girl talk right now, not a parents talk", she went up the stairs with Polly in her arms.

Without having anything to do, he threw himself onto the couch he was on and took his newspaper back, "The Knicks lost again! Does anyone still support them?".

In the void, Gumball and the man were face to face, the screen they used to view the Fitzgerald house fading into statistics and then into nothing when Penny was about to explode.

Gumball placed his left hand on his right arm as he spoke without confidence, "Well, okay, I don't have a good reputation in that house anyway. You know, for doing things like: Disrupting Penny's birthday and...constantly annoying her, losing Polly, getting involved in their family drama among others, I just...hm”.

He scratched his arm with his head down due to a lack of confidence in his mind.

His gaze rose to the man's level, who was staring at him with an expression that said "Do you need more?".

He snorted, "Just show me what you want for once”.

The man then took a deep breath, his chest swelling a lot, and he released his breath in a greater quantity than before, forming a blurry screen twice as large as the others. Because of this, the man had to use his entire arm to clean the screen in one go.

On the other side, his brother Darwin and mother Nicole sat on his bed, along with Anais on the top bunk.

Darwin had his arms crossed with a surly expression, "What do you want, madam mother?".

Nicole was impassive, "I think you know what I want”.

"I'm not going to apologize to him, let him apologize to me”, he said with a tone full of certainty. Nicole sighed, "Darwin, I know he's difficult, but he's your brother, try to have a talk with him when you get back”.

Anais chimed in, "Mom is right, Darwin. At some point you're going to have to talk to him, after all he can't stay out there for more than an hour without crying and running back”.

Nicole looked irritated at her daughter, "Gumball isn't a crybaby, he's something else”, she looked back at her son more calmly, "But he's really going to come home at some point and you can't just scream with him”.

Darwin said irritably, "But what else am I going to do? I can't talk to him! He does something, he just listens to what he wants, I forgive him and he doesn't learn anything from it in the end!".

He began to get involved in his speech to the point where he was gesturing with his fingerless hands, "He doesn't take responsibility for what he did? It's the same old Gumball! Does he make my day bad? I can take that! But blaming myself for the day he was bad because of himself? I WON'T FORGIVE THAT THIS TIME!”.

He crossed his arms again, but he did it so hard this time that his body went from round to a little square.

Nicole's expression fell, "Alright, I think we'd better discuss this further after we've had a good night's sleep”, he kissed Darwin and stood up to kiss Anais.

She went to the door, "Good night, children", "Good night!", they both replied, but Darwin had a more irritated tone. She closed the door.

Anais shifted on her bed to look at Darwin, who had already placed his legs in the aquarium, "I know you don't want to forgive Gumball, because he deserves it, but you know if you yell at him, he'll only yell back”.

"Then I'll shout back too, maybe then he'll understand what it's like to live with an idiot", he put his entire body inside the aquarium, "Good night", he said underwater.

The scene returns to Gumball and the man looking at the screen, it gradually disappears.

When she disappeared, Gumball's desolate and devastated expression became visible, expression lines under his eyes, his mouth open and his pupils trembling in place.

He didn't even look at the man as he began to speak, "Do you understand now? No one has any reason to care about you”.

Gumball closed his mouth when he realized something, "Wait, aren't they supposed to forget about me when I get in here?", he said without looking at the man.

 "You and I went through a rift that already existed, so it doesn't work, but I can solve this another way”.

His expression was a combination of an angry and a dark expression, "All I need to do is separate you from your world and reality will simply change itself to survive”.

Gumball was unresponsive for a moment and then looked into the man's eyes, "A-are you going to kill me?".

The man's expression calmed down a little, "Ah, no, no! You didn't end up here by choice of the void, so your existence is still a great influence on the world, if you die, your world will die and consequently this also".

His expression returned, "I just need to force the void to change a part of the world with you inside and that's it!".

The man became strangely smiling, "You know, when I met you, I was considering whether I should really do this," his smile became more nervous, "But when you complained to everyone around you about your bad day, it served to remind me why I hate you and why no one will save you!".

He towered over Gumball, his smile fading, "So now I declare, Gumball Watterson….".

"You're not needed”.

Gumball flinched at the statement, his trembling eyes scanning everything around him in fear and anxiety.

They stopped when they saw something.

Farther away, there was a part of the horizon that looked like paper that had been folded and hid the folded part inside. A way out.

"Don't do that!", the man said sharply, Gumball's eyes returned to the man, who squinted.

They faced each other.

(Dramtic pause)

Gumball made the first move, running as fast as he could towards the crack.

But before he could take even two steps, the man caught him, lifted him into the air and smashed him into the ground at high speed. A cloud of dry earth covered the entire ground.

The man raised his arm high, the cloud of dust releasing him as his arm was above his head. The man looked shocked when he noticed a tree trunk the size of Gumball in his hand.

"What the-?", he heard footsteps and turned his head to see that Gumball had jumped off the patch of land they were on and was landing on another.

He looked between Gumball and the log, then threw the log away in anger and went after the boy.

Gumball had already passed two other floating pieces of land, now floating towards one at high speed.

He tried to avoid hurting himself by moving his feet at the same speed he was going, but he got confused and hit his face hard on the ground.

He looked up with a slightly disoriented expression, but gave a scream and ran again when he realized the man was following him. Fortunately, the man wasn't as fast running as he was punching.

But just as Gumball was gaining the upper hand, the man stopped on one of the pieces of land and opened his arms wide, only to close them with great force, making a clap that generated a huge sonic shock wave.

The shock wave hit Gumball as he jumped to another path, throwing him with much more force than was necessary and causing him to rub his face in the dirt for several meters and bury him with a mountain of dirt the size of his body.

Gumball put his arms on the ground and tried to get out, but he didn't have enough strength, so he decided to frantically dig until his head had room to get out.

When he had managed to dig deep enough, he pulled the head once more and this time it came out. His face had a beauty mask made of black earth on it.

He looked back just in time to see the man inches away land a blow on him, Gumball dodging enough for only the dirt to be knocked off his face in the process.

His face was now purple due to the mask being too tight, but he only needed to make a hiss of pain to avoid further blows.

The man was executing blows several times, but Gumball barely managed to avoid them.

In a moment of intelligence, the man stepped on Gumball's tail, pinning him in place. Gumball's eyes widened in fear when he realized.

When the man took another swing, Gumball's head separated from his neck like a trash can lid with pedals as he stepped on one foot with the other foot, dodging it just in time.

He detached his tail from his body and took the dirt from the mountain that emerged from his fall in his arms, moving away a little and throwing handfuls of dirt at the man. He would just hit them and throw them to the side.

A handful of dirt he hit released some small pieces that hit and irritated his eyes, he rubbed them eagerly to get them out as quickly as possible.

When he opened his eyes again, Gumball gained distance again, the man ran as much as he could after him. He got closer when he jumped, but lost proximity when he needed to run.

Gumball was almost at the crevasse, jumping on the last piece of land on the way, he ran as hard as he could, the man exchanged running for jumping like a frog.

At the edge of the ground, Gumball and the man jumped with all their might, the man visibly approaching him in the air, but he wouldn't reach him in time.

Gumball reached out his arm to reach the crack. 

Almost.

A large reptilian leg appeared above him, he bent down and placed the sharp clawed paw on his head.

She hurled it downward faster than any current aircraft, hitting a small patch of land that was so far below that it seemed to be the only one nearby.

The impact caused yet another cloud of dry earth, but this time the cloud was immensely larger than the piece of Gumball that fell and was accompanied by a thunderous shockwave.

As the cloud began to descend a little, Gumball's silhouette could be seen and heard slowly standing up and coughing.

Something else fell on that land, but instead of making the cloud of earth bigger, it pushed it away, leaving a good view of the scene.

When things calmed down, Gumball was coughing, his eyes almost closed and red, "Man, I can't take all this dust anymore!".

He coughed some more and tried to open his eyes wide, but regretted it when he saw what was in front of him.

There was a dinosaur, similar to Tina in animation, but with better CGI. He also had different characteristics.

He was bigger than Tina, had a longer face and arms and a kind of sail on his back. Its scales were a mixture of light gray, dark gray and light brown, as well as a little red on the upper part of the body.

He stared at him angrily, "I TOLD YOU NOT TO DO THAT!", his voice was like an angry growl.

Then his body shrank and became the man who caused all of this, "I guess I'll have to take drastic measures”.

He turned his back to Gumball, but facing the statistical horizon. He placed his hands on it like a wall and began to pull it with difficulty.

The horizon began to act like a rubber slab.

Chapter Text

In the Fitzgerald house, the screen shows Penny's room empty.

Distant but loud voices can be heard coming from downstairs. Suddenly everything went silent.

Then a loud crash came from upstairs that shook the room, then a deep voice that spoke so loudly that it was possible to clearly understand what it was saying.

"I JUST GET STRESSED WITH HIM BECAUSE I WANT TO BE CLOSE TO HIM BECAUSE I LOVE HIM AND I GET ANNOYED BECAUSE YOU NEED TO SET BOUNDARIES AND RECOGNIZE THE BAD SIDES OF SOMEONE, EVEN THE ONE YOU LOVE! SOMETHING YOU DON'T SEEM TO UNDERSTAND!".

Once again everything went silent.

A few seconds later, the door opened and Penny stamped her feet irritably into the room and closed the door.

"AARRRGG”, she grumbled, standing near the door.

She turned her head and glared at her bed, staring at it for a moment as if she were considering something. 

She took an irritated breath, closed her eyes, and faced the bed. Her wings flapped and sent her flying above the floor. Then they threw her forward, sending her crashing onto her stomach and landing hard on the bed. 

Her bed was soft, but not soft enough to keep from making a loud thud when she was hit. 

Penny was quiet for a second, lying on her bed, "Ouch”, her voice was muffled by the pillow, but it didn't hide her irritation and disappointment, "How does he make this look easy?".

She just sighed and stayed like that in her bed. Her parents' voices could be heard downstairs.

Silence again.

Then there was a knock on the door, "Penny, it's me, can I come in?", it was her mother's voice. Penny just moaned loud enough for her to hear.

The door opened and her mother walked in with her little sister in her arms.

Judith and Polly looked at Penny's situation, Judith looking worried, while Polly didn't understand why everyone looked bad.

Penny was the first to speak in her muffled voice, "I thought you were going to send him here”.

Judith came over and sat on the edge of the bed, "Not this time, this is going to be a girl talk”.

Penny quickly lifted her head from the pillow, "Wait! Are you going to do that thing where you talk about how my body is changing and everything?!", she stared at her in horror.

Judith placed Polly next to her and raised her hands, "No, no, this conversation is about something else”, she clasped her hands together and pointed at Penny with a more serious look, "But we'll talk about it sometime, because I know your body is already changing”. 

Penny threw her head back on the pillow in annoyance, "Yuck”. 

Judith placed her hands on the bed, "Penny, I really want to talk about what happened”, she was speaking with a calm but attentive look and voice. 

Penny spoke with her face in the pillow, "About Daddy being him, as usual?!". 

"Honey, he was just trying to protect you, as usual”, she said the last part sarcastically. 

"Yeah, that whole 'I won't let you see him anymore for your own good' thing and blah, blah, blah!", she grumbled, "I thought he had stopped being overprotective!".

Judith gave a light laugh, "Oh, Penny, dear, he never stopped being overprotective, he always will be”.

"He simply learned that there's no point in forcing you to do something to protect you, but instead he started to trust you and try to advise you when he thinks it's necessary”, she turned to Polly and held her with one of her arms, Polly happily accepted the hug, "He and I learned that”.

Penny put her hands on the bed and raised her head to look into her mother's eyes, "But it didn't seem like he was advising me, it seemed like we were in court, he was listing Gumball's crimes against me!".

She let her head fall back on the pillow once more, but her face was not hidden now, "And he doesn't even know the worst ones”, she now avoided her mother's eyes.

Judith's face twitched a little, "Whatever those..."crimes” were, your father was just trying to understand what you see in Gumball”.

"But I wish I understood that," she sat closer and put her hand on Penny's shoulder, "Because I really don't like it when you come home hurt”.

"I know you like him, but is everything okay between you two?" she asked in the most comforting tone she could muster. 

Penny looked into her mother's eyes, only to look away again, "It's okay...it's just...". 

She stood up and changed position, now on her back, "Even before we dated, when I fell in love with him, I saw how Gumball could be sometimes…”, she seemed to hesitate. 

"Difficult?" her mother tried to finish. 

"Annoying”.

"Oh, yeah, I remember what your birthday was like”.

"He was talkative, stressful, self-centered, a crybaby and he was only worse than Tobias!", his yellow skin turned a shade of purple and red as his body converted into his medusa form, his mother even recoiled a little at this sudden outburst.

But as quickly as it started, his body returned to normal, "But when we talked to Gumball being himself, that anger disappeared", his gaze became slightly sweet, "I even started to like those things that made me angry before".

She smiled a little at the memories, "When he was an idiot, I thought it was funny, when he cried like a baby, I wanted to hug him".

Her expression was almost completely replaced by a passionate one, "And even though he seemed like an idiot, he was only like that when life was simple, but when things were serious, he did everything for the one he loved, even if it's Gumball-like”.

Her eyes were shining at this point, "I fell in love with him!" Her expression fell a little, "That's why at the beginning of our relationship, I felt so ecstatic about this love that I didn't complain about his nonsense”.

Her expression became slightly angry, "But when he almost killed me several times again in one day because of an emoji-". 

Her mother interrupted her in disbelief, "You almost died?! Again?!".

Penny shrugged, "Gumball," was her only argument.

Her mother stared at her in surprise and sighed, "Of course."

"When this happened, I was furious, I wasn't going to let him get away with it, all I could think about was being angry," her expression softened, "But at the end of the day, he reminded me, even if by accident, that that anger was because I loved him that way and staying mad forever would never happen”.

Her expression brightened, "Gumball needs boundaries because he's very emotional and destructive, but that never stops me from loving him for who he is and despite who he is in the end”.

Penny was now in a moment of happiness brought about by pure and genuine love. This made her mother laugh, as she stared at her daughter's passionate manner.

But Judith's expression became more serious, "So what's bothering you?".

Penny's passionate expression disappeared, now she was nervous and bothered, "It's just... sometimes I get mad at him, but that anger ends up not being at him, but... at myself”.

She stood up to sit down and hugged her knees, "Even though he needs limits, I don't like to get mad at him”.

"Sometimes I just want to say 'I love you very much' instead of seeing his scared look”.

Judith looked extremely sympathetically at her daughter. But before she could do anything, her other daughter stood up and fell to sit next to her sister.

Polly hugged her sister's waist, Penny looked at her without reacting, but soon hugged her back. This put a small smile on Penny and Judith's faces.

Penny broke the hug a little and looked at her sister, "Thanks, Polly", Polly smiled, "Big brother Gumball told me that whenever you're sad, just hug you". 

This took Penny and Judith by surprise, who stared at the child without reacting while she continued to smile, so naive. 

Penny tried to reconnect her brain, "Did he tell you that?", "Yes, he said that you love hugs and that it's always good to hug someone when they're sad!". 

This gave Penny another sweet smile.

Judith tried to restart the conversation, "You know, being mad at someone you love is part of a relationship”.

She sat even closer to her daughters, "Because if you love them even when you're mad, it means you care, that you're trying to secure a future with that person”.

Her expression grew irritated, "I have my list of memories of when your father made me mad!" She stamped one foot on the floor with her eyes closed, her cowboy boots making the classic sound of a western movie, "But all those times it was because I was showing what bothered me, I was being honest about my feelings”, her expression softened. 

"And maybe your partner knows that you're only doing this for the good of both of you, even if it doesn't seem like it. But always make sure he knows how much you care”. 

Penny smiled even wider, then the girls pulled each other into a group hug with smiles on their faces, "Thank you”, Penny said. 

When the hug broke, they sat on the bed.

Then Penny remembered, "By the way, Mom, you don't need to talk about that talk about moving, Mrs. Simian already did it in one of our classes”.

Judith raised an eyebrow, "She did it with boys and girls separately, didn't she?".

"No, she did it with everyone together, she said that way we would be much more embarrassed”.

Judith snorted, "Apparently decades weren't enough to change that primate”.

She turned to Penny, "But we're still going to talk, but about how you deal with these changes with a boyfriend”.

This made Penny's face glow red with blush, "MOM!!". This made Judith laugh and left Polly confused.

Downstairs, Patrick sat reading his newspaper, but he was getting bored.

So he put the paper down with a long sigh. 

He looked at the stairs and his gaze went up to the bottom of them, where his wife and daughters were talking. Probably badmouthing him.

His head tilted forward with a regretful look, "Maybe I should go apologize”.

He took a deep breath, stood up and walked determinedly up the stairs. But before he could set foot on the step, the phone rang.

He turned in surprise to the phone on the wall of the living room. He looked between the stairs and the phone, then snorted in disappointment.

"Who would be calling at this hour?", he reached the living room and picked up the phone, "Hello?", he said without enthusiasm.

"Hello, Patrick”, his eyes widened as he recognized the voice on the other end, choking a little in fear, "H-hi, Nicole! How are you? Don't worry, I'll sort it out!".

The screen split between Nicole who was in her pajamas and Patrick, and he could see Nicole's confused look, "What? But I didn't even say what it was about”.

Noticing her calm, Patrick reassured himself, "Oh, sure, feel free”. 

Nicole was not impressed when she understood his agitation, "Don't worry, I'm not after you”. Patrick placed his hand over the phone and sighed loudly in relief.

He brought the phone closer to his...horn?, "Well, what happened?”.

Nicole got a little nervous, "There was a little problem here at home and Gumball left in a rage. It's late and I wanted to know if he was spending the night at your house”.

Patrick put his free hand on his waist, "I didn't see him, and I don't think Penny is hiding him in her room. She's mad at him now”.

Nicole sighed, "Apparently, he pissed off a lot of people today”, she said to herself and turned back to Patrick, "Thanks, Patrick. Now I'll have to call our neighbors to ask about him and hope Gumball didn't piss them off too”.

Patrick tried to reassure her, "You don't need to worry, it's not late enough for him to be in danger."

Nicole got serious, "It's already past eleven o'clock, Patrick."

Surprised, he took his hand off his waist and looked at the watch he had forgotten to take off his wrist.

His gaze fell with a heavy sigh of defeat, "Great, now let's hope Polly wants to sleep in tonight”.

Before she could put the phone back on the stand, one of Nicole's ears stood up. At the same time, Patrick turned his head when something was outside.

"Good night”, they said in unison and put the phones back on the stands.

Nicole approached the window to see what was happening and was shocked.

There were people running down the street, waving their arms, screaming in despair or fighting furiously.

One of them shouted, "THE END OF THE WORLD IS COMING!!!", she lit a match and set fire to the Wattersons' trash can, picking it up and throwing it at the people in front of her, knocking them over, "RUN!!", she ran away.

A car appeared on the street, driving wildly and heading towards Richard's car.

First surprised, she jumped out the window with an angry expression, breaking the glass and waking everyone inside the house.

Darwin jumped out of his aquarium with such momentum that he fell upside down on the floor and almost knocked over the aquarium, holding it with his legs.

Anais got up from the covers and had forgotten that her bed was high up, swinging her arms behind her back to stop herself from falling.

Richard was only startled enough to roll out of bed and fall face first onto the floor.

Everyone opened the front door just in time to see Nicole stop in front of Cartax and grab the front of the out-of-control car with her arms outstretched. 

Taking advantage of the momentum, she grabbed it and threw it backwards, making the car pass inches from Richard's car and fall on the asphalt almost completely crushed. 

The driver hurriedly got out of the vehicle just before it exploded, now a pile of burning scrap metal. 

The town's homeless man who was sitting nearby watched the scene, which made him tear his coat and show his hairy body while screaming like a wild animal, "ANARCHY, YES!!". 

At the Fitzgerald house, Patrick opened the front door and narrowly avoided being hit by a rock. 

When he looked where the rock came from, he saw the same thing Nicole had seen: People running, screaming and hurting each other. 

He then looked angrily at the adults who were throwing rocks at the house to try to break the window, but their throws were horrible. 

He went back inside only to come out of the house with his rake, swinging it around to keep people away.

"GET OUT!", he shouted furiously, this along with his rake, scared the people. 

They retreated while continually trying to advance like a pack of wolves. 

But one of them was hit and fainted on the lawn, this put fear in everyone and they ran away. 

He breathed a little heavily to catch his breath, "I'm not that young anymore", he leaned on the rake. 

He then took a better look at the chaos in front of him. Other houses were also being attacked, people were on the roofs to protect themselves and others were already ready to kill for their homes. 

One even had a flamethrower, somehow. 

The commotion was enough to draw the attention of the girls in the house, opening Penny's bedroom window to see the same scene. 

Penny and Judith looked at everything in shock, while Polly looked at everything again without understanding, innocent.

Judith's shocked eyes went down to her husband, who became irritated when they saw a person passed out next to him, "PATRICK!". 

He turned to his wife in confusion, then remembered that there was a person passed out next to him who he looked at and then looked back at his wife, "HE TRIED TO BREAK INTO OUR HOUSE!". 

He didn't realize that the person had woken up and crawled close enough to reach his foot. 

The person grabbed his ankle, which made him scream in panic. 

"AAH!", he grabbed the rake and hit the person again without thinking, making him pass out again. 

The screen split again, with Patrick having just knocked someone out and Nicole just after throwing the car. 

"Mom!", "Ma'am mom!", all the Wattersons came out of the house and went to the matriarch, "Is everything okay?", Anais asked. "I don't know, everything is crazy!", Nicole said nervously.

Patrick looked at everyone running down the street and approached the sidewalk, "Hey", no one heard him, "Hey!", nothing new, "HEY!".

In the middle of the chaotic situation, Anais recognized someone in the crowd, "BILLY!", she approached the blue egg, which had a calm smile on its face.

Patrick got irritated by this and watched closely everyone who was running, raised his hand in the air and grabbed one of them, "HEY!".

The person he grabbed screamed in his face and escaped from his hand.

"Billy, are you okay?", Anais asked agitatedly, "Yes, I am, my mother is on the other side of the street", he pointed to the other side, where Felicity was beating several people at the same time in a crazy way.

Patrick grabbed another person on the street and when she screamed in his face, he slapped her, making her go quiet.

"What's going on?!", Patrick and Anais asked in unison.

Respectively, Billy and the person pointed upwards, with the two following suit and their families following soon after.

Everyone gasped at the sight.

A human man, with dark blond hair in a pompadour and fair skin wearing dark clothes, was slowly appearing in the sky. He seemed to be pulling the world closer to him.

In the void, Gumball watched in terror as the man pulled the horizon made of static like a rubber screen.

Little by little, the horizon converted into some kind of image of Elmore from above, gaining color and decreasing in size as he was pulled.

It got to a point where the static "wall" was connected to a crystal ball that showed all of Elmore by a thin static rope stretched by the man's strength.

With one last pull, the man separated the crystal ball from the wall, the horizon returned to normal as if nothing had happened.

The man looked at the wall to check if there had been any problem, then checked the crystal ball in his hand.

The crystal ball was nothing more than a kind of round screen with Elmore appearing in real time. Before large, it was now about 8 centimeters tall, the size of an apple.

The citizens who were previously panicking and causing chaos, could not help but drop everything they were doing and look in terror at the man who was staring at them from the sky.

It was as if God was about to punish them.

"What have you done?", a trembling voice took the man's attention away from everyone, making them look in another direction in the sky.

Everyone looked on, shocked this time, as the town's troublemaking blue cat stood frozen away from the man.

"Gumball," Penny said in a low tone, most likely of concern.

The man didn't take his eyes off the crystal ball, "I'll make sure you only leave here when I get what I want”.

He slowly turned to Gumball, his body swelling and growing in his transformation at the same rate. 

Then a large, heavy, scaly foot stomped down hard on the ground in front of Gumball, causing the earth to crack like dry land in extreme heat.

The man was back in his CGI spinosaurus form, better than Tina, staring at a frightened Gumball with a stern look and baring his teeth.

"And I'm going to do it right this time”, his monstrous voice was back too.

In Elmore, everyone watched this with confusion and curiosity, with a good pinch of fear.

"Isn't that the Wattersons' troublemaking son?", a blue man in his underwear pointed out with a raised eyebrow.

A can of multicolored paint that was nearby groaned, "Great! And I thought the Wattersons weren't going to destroy the city this week!", he said something more quietly, "Now I've lost twenty dollars”.

The people who were near the other family members also started to jump to conclusions.

Then many started to glare at them, waiting for them to explain themselves.

The family cowered at the looks, Anais turning back to the others and the four of them leaning their back to the others and the four of them leaning their backs against each other for protection.

Everyone was sweating coldly with nervous smiles as Nicole spoke, "W-we really have no idea what's going on or why my son seems to be in the middle of this!", she gestured nervously.

"We don't want your explanations, we want you to solve it!", a deep, male voice from further away declared.

Nicole was visibly offended and regained her natural angry posture, "Oh, and how do you want us to solve this, huh?!".

Across town, people near the Fitzgerald residence were also making their angry accusations.

"Now they've managed to ruin my week!", a corn cob complained.

"Every time I see that kid, I lose something important in my life!" a man made of cheddar cheese expressed, "First a hot dog, the second time a free burger! What's next? A PRIZE-WINNING PIZZA?!" he crossed his arms with a scowl.

"We have to get the Wattersons out of this town once and for all!" a brown cupcake slammed his fist into his hand, "LET'S MARCH TO THEIR HOUSE!", he raised his arm high in the air with a closed fist.

Every other person on the street did the same, shouting "YEAH!" at the same time, then followed the cupcake man in a determined march down the street.

Patrick watched the situation carefully in case someone tried to break into his house again.

Judith watched the same situation with concern.

Penny, however, continued to look at Gumball with concern and confusion. 

Gumball was a coward, in the sense that he was always afraid, which made him constantly run for his life. 

But he was frozen, which worried her. 

It wasn't normal. 

In a moment, the citizens who were marching to the Wattersons' house, the rest of the townspeople, the Fitzgeralds, Richard who put his arms in front of his children while Nicole argued with several people at the same time. 

Everyone went back to watching the scene in the sky when the dinosaur spoke, almost as if it were a powerful spell. 

"Aren't you going to do anything stupid?", he asked a little sarcastically and almost indignantly.

Gumball kept his scared look quiet.

"Not even running?".

He remained quiet.

The dinosaur snorted, "Okay, it's easier this way”.

But Gumball broke the silence when he looked to the left in surprise, "WHAT IS THAT?!", he pointed.

The dinosaur was not impressed and spoke quietly, "I had to say it out loud”.

Gumball continued pointing and gesturing to the left.

The dinosaur continued not to care, "Seriously? Do you think I'm as dumb as your-".

He was silenced by a taxi that hit him in the face with a decent amount of force, which made him take a diagonal step back.

When he stopped, he shook his head and looked at the taxi, picking it up and lifting it in the air without difficulty, "What the-".

He was hit by a rock, much smaller than the taxi and with much less force. This made him look back to where they both came from.

Several pieces of land were destroyed or missing a part, there were also whole ones. Some of them were bouncing off each other like pool balls.

He huffed grumpily, "This place is going to get even messier than it already is-".

He stopped talking when he felt something in his hand.

He quickly checked it and saw Gumball hanging on one of the three fingers of the hand that held the crystal ball.

He swung his hand once and the force threw Gumball to the side, rolling a little on the ground.

He braced himself with one arm as he saw the dinosaur shift its grip on the taxi and throw it towards him.

The people of Elmore gasped, all at once.

Gumball gave a slight scream and jumped forward, falling flat on the ground and covering his head with his arms as the taxi passed over him millimeters away.

Then the vehicle hit the ground behind Gumball, being crushed until it was half its length and falling upside down. But its plate on top did not make it parallel to the ground.

Gumball took his hands off his head and quickly dodged a strong stomp from the dinosaur towards him, breaking the ground in the process.

And he dodged other stomps.

It got to the point where he was pressed back and jumped on top of the taxi to avoid them.

Then the dinosaur raised its foot high and stomped down with everything. Gumball jumped to the other side of the taxi, but the taxi being raised on one side because of the plate made it act like a seesaw.

Gumball was thrown forward at high speed towards the dinosaur. It hit him with a slap when it got close enough.

He flew a long distance in the air, stopping when he hit one of the pieces of earth that was higher than the previous one and served as a brick wall.

The earth around him crumbled and crumbled, with cracks in the firmest part. He was left with both of his eyes blackened.

This made him groan in agony.

A large shadow came towards him, covering him before he even stopped walking. 

A three-fingered reptilian hand grabbed him by the torso and pulled him out of the ground. 

The dinosaur walked to the other side of the patch of land they were on, getting close to the wall of the horizon. 

At the edge, he dropped Gumball on the ground and shrank back into his human form. 

He handed the crystal ball forcefully to Gumball, who took it in a groggy state due to the pain. 

He shook his head and returned to normal, looking at it in confusion, "What?". 

He looked at the man in confusion, only to see him grab one of his feet and pull it back with enough force to leave one leg raised. It looked like a baseball pitcher. 

He then pulled Gumball, which threw Gumball's face into the wall with great speed. 

But when it hit, Gumball's body rubbed against it like a sheet of paper. 

The man lifted Gumball in front of him, looking at him in confusion, "Ah?". 

He examined Gumball's back, it was normal, but when he turned him over, Gumball's body could no longer be seen. He had lost width, now he only had height and length.

He turned Gumball around once more, now face to face with him, "Hehe, hm... 2D character?", he smiled nervously.

The man glared at him angrily.

He turned him back to the side that couldn't see him and tightened his grip on Gumball's foot.

Even though he was only in two dimensions now, it made his body stiffen enough.

The man was going to hit him again, this time with a pickaxe.

But before he could do it, his eyes widened and he yelled, "OW!".

He let go of Gumball and looked at the palm of his hand. It was possible to see that the claws on Gumball's feet were exposed.

Gumball fell to the ground, which made him return to three dimensions, but because he was on the edge, he slipped and caught himself to keep from falling. He looked down and regretted it.

His eyes returned to the front when a shadow covered his face.

The man had his foot raised towards Gumball, "YOUR-", he stomped on the ground, breaking up the earth and cracking the firmer part underneath.

To avoid being hit, Gumball loosened his grip and slid down, but the ground he was holding gave way and he fell, screaming with his eyes closed. 

But instead of falling into infinity, he stopped in midair. This made him stop screaming and open one eye, then open the other in fear. 

The man transformed into the Spinosaurus again, grabbing him by the sweater. 

He pulled him, pulling Gumball out of there until he passed over his own head and threw him to the ground. 

Gumball fell on his butt, which made him take a while to dodge the kick he was going to receive. 

A part of the kick hit his face and dragged him on the ground for a few meters. 

Gumball immediately got up from the kick, apparently not hurting himself this time. 

He froze. 

Something warm was on his cheek. 

It was dripping slowly. 

He put his hand up, it was wet, and checked it. 

It was blood. 

His eyes widened in terror. 

Everyone's eyes widened in terror. 

None of them had ever seen blood from a wound.

Gumball slowly reached out and rubbed his hand where it hurt, trying to deal with it.

But the feeling of something warm running down wouldn't go away.

His eyes only grew more and more terrified.

"Just because I won't kill you doesn't mean I won't hurt you”, he glared at Gumball menacingly.

Gumball's eyes met the dinosaur's.

They stared at each other.

Gumball's pupils began to tremble.

The dinosaur looked to the left. Gumball followed.

A little far from Gumball was the crystal ball.

All the inhabitants of Elmore watched the tension of the moment.

Their eyes met again.

Gumball was the first to move.

He grabbed the crystal ball and dodged a brutal bite, he passed between the dinosaur's legs and ran with all his strength. 

The dinosaur was right behind him.

Gumball ran screaming desperately as the dinosaur approached.

He closed his eyes and used all the strength his panic could muster.

The dinosaur rose almost completely above Gumball and was about to bite him.

At the last moment before being caught, Gumball disappeared between the dinosaur's jaws, throwing dirt in its eyes.

The dinosaur stopped running and rubbed his eyes with difficulty, having claws and sunken eyes didn't help.

When the discomfort stopped, he looked ahead.

Gumball was completely gone.

He looked around.

Nothing.

He stood there breathing heavily.

His anger built up and he roared towards the horizon.

A terrifying, long, furious roar.

https://youtu.be/40C7RrAg5go?si=6fIs9S-igKrI4Wpq

(Here is a demo)

Chapter Text

Very fast.

He was going very fast.

He felt his legs wobble.

They were so light.

This showed his speed.

Because everything was so slow.

But there was no floor.

He was in the air.

He was flying in the air.

There was a lot to see wherever I went.

He only saw that in front of him.

Almost nothing.

Because his eyes pulsed.

The corners of the eyes were blurred.

His ears were also throbbing.

He could barely hear his own mouth panting.

And it hurt.

His chest hurt.

His lungs hurt.

His ribcage hurt.

He was cold.

His skin froze.

He couldn't feel his hands.

I felt ants.

walking through your arms.

But he felt weight.

He looked down.

A small ball.

It was Elmore.

On the other side of the, glass perhaps?, the citizens of Elmore stared glazedly towards Gumball's front.

But as Gumball was at high speed, they only saw strange colors and lights pass by very quickly and disappear soon after, looking like classic space travel scenes from the movies.

"What's going on?! It feels like I'm watching Star Odyssey!", a big red pot of tea exclaimed irritably, as if he were a movie buff.

Colin, the nerd egg with glasses, heard his complaint and decided to comment, "Actually, sir, what we are witnessing is none other than-".

He was interrupted when teapot turned around irritably with a finger in his mouth, "Ssshhh, no spoilers!", and looked back at the scene.

He sighed, "Ugh, the problem with there being geniuses is that it means most of them are idiots”.

Among the town's citizens, the Wattersons and the Fitzgeralds were the only ones who looked up.

Except Richard, he was fascinated by the scene in front of him, after all he wore a gold bikini under his wedding suit because he loves space adventures.

They looked up worried and surprised, apparently no one else cared how Gumball was panting loudly and with difficulty.

Or how your lung expanded and shrank very quickly.

Or how his gaze seemed so paranoid, attentive and terrified when he looked at the ball in his hands.

The vision of his frightened face faded as something covered the sky with the sound of water hitting glass.

It looked like a drop of water, but because it was so big to them, they could see that there was something in the water.

They looked confused and let out an "Ah?" in unison, which caught Richard's attention and made him look in the same direction, also confused.

"Is that saliva?", Darwin asked.

Anais put her hand on her forehead to get a better look, "It's a lot of liquid, it looks like...sweat?".

The attention of the two families went to where all the citizens looked when another dripping sound appeared.

And it really was a drop of sweat, it fell right in front and was sliding very slowly.

Near the Fitzgeralds there was also someone complaining, "WHAT?! I CAN'T SEE ANYTHING!".

But then, the sky darkened into brown, the bead of sweat disappearing as soon as it happened.

Then the sky changed to get brighter just as quickly as when it got dark.

And it got dark again and brighter just as quickly, over and over again.

Very similar to Jojo's Made in Heaven.

The speed of it prevented anyone from understanding what was happening.

And it also made several people fall dizzy, lose their balance a little or even have their eyes hurt from so much visual stimulation.

He looked ahead.

He didn't see anything coming.

He hit something.

He hit hard.

No.

It was your legs.

But it didn't hurt.

They were light.

They were weak.

The weight disappeared from his hands.

The ball fell.

She rolled across the floor.

He saw her upside down.

He was also rolling.

His body rubbed against the earth.

Your arms.

Your head.

Your back.

But he couldn't fight.

Just scroll.

It was several meters.

Just scrolling until it stops.

The ball also stopped.

The floor felt strange.

I was in heaven.

He was upside down.

The agitation made him want to get up.

His arms rubbed against the floor.

He couldn't get up.

It looked like a turtle.

He used his neck.

He pressed his head to the floor.

He managed to get up.

It still wasn't good.

It was still not safe.

He tried to stand up.

He only managed to crawl.

Limbs rubbing and slipping.

Throwing dirt back.

Inside the crystal ball, the citizens were recovering from whatever happened.

They would stand up, hold their knees or rub their eyes.

A hot dog man rubbed his eyes with one hand and his sunglasses in the other.

He turned to the hot dog guy, "Hey man," the hot dog guy turned to him.

"My eyes feel okay? They're burning pretty bad”, he took his fingers out of his eyes and the hot dog guy opened his mouth in horror.

The sclerae of his eyes were as red as blood and his veins seemed to bulge out of his eyeball.

The hot dog guy quickly covered his horror with a nervous, fake smile, "T-they're great!".

The Wattersons and Fitzgeralds continued to look on, seeing him in a pitiful and desperate state.

Patrick had walked close enough to the front door to talk to his daughter without having to shout.

"Um, Penny? Is this...a normal Gumball thing?", he pointed out.

His wife glared at him for the tenth time in as many hours, "Is this your way of showing concern?".

"But I'm still worried, isn't that what matters?", he raised an eyebrow.

Penny replied oblivious to her parents' conversation, "No, it's not”, her eyes were filled with concern.

Her mother dropped the conversation and placed her hand on her daughter's back. They rewatched the Gumball scene.

He walked a few meters.

He found something.

A stone.

He rubbed himself against her.

Climbing up until your back is against it.

He placed his arms open over her.

His chest still hurt.

His mouth was still panting.

His eyes still watched everything.

He still wasn't sure.

He closed his eyes.

He saw it.

That monster.

Staring at him furiously.

He opened his eyes with a soft scream.

He closed them again.

He saw that kick.

His cheek bothered him a little.

He opened them with another soft cry.

But it was louder.

Closed eyes were not safe.

He looked at every piece of land.

He looked at the floor.

To the ball.

Nothing was safe.

His family looked at him with concern.

"That's weird”, Darwin said, "Seeing Gumball like that, it's weird”.

Richard commented, "Yeah, he's usually running instead of freezing”.

Anais agreed, "Well, he can't stop himself from having a panic attack”.

Nicole got involved, “I wanted to be there to help”.

Then the ground they were standing on was covered by a large shadow.

They looked up and saw something big, so big that it covered the entire sky and prevented them from knowing what it was.

The great shadow soon covered all of Elmore.

The echo of a voice was heard in the distance, "Why does the night keep getting dark?!".

He saw something.

A piece of land.

Floating slowly.

Over it.

It was a little far away.

And upside down.

A sound in the earth alerted him.

He saw the ball move.

She lifted off the ground a little.

But it fell and rolled again.

I was leaving.

His eyes widened even more.

He threw himself off the rock.

Behind the ball.

She was slow.

Him too.

But he can reach her.

Since the ball was moving slowly, citizens were able to see the situation better.

One of them put his hand on his forehead and squinted, "Is that a cliff up front?".

Several also squinted and saw the end of the floor as it became lighter.

Everyone's eyes widened.

Then the madness like before starts again, but this time everyone was running away and screaming.

Alison was holding Gary Hedges' hands, "I think ending our engagement was a mistake, let's get married again!".

Gary looked at her confused, "But I don't even love you”.

Bobert, who was inside the house, watched everything through the window.

He climbed out of the window and held on to a wall, "Start survival mode”.

Outside, his house was folding and shrinking into a nuclear bunker.

She then sank to the ground and metal doors closed soon after.

Clayton was in the middle of the street along with other citizens when he made his decision, "Initiate survival mode!".

His body turned into a cockroach and he flew away.

At the Wattersons, a man approached shyly, "Hey, I'm sorry, but can I buy your kids?".

This made Nicole breathe orange fire out of her mouth, "WHAT?!".

The man scratched his head, "Well, I've never had children, but I've always wanted one, could I give it a chance before the world ends?".

The fire in Nicole's mouth turned from orange to blue.

Richard stepped between them, "Don't worry, honey, I've got this”.

This made the fire in Nicole's mouth go away.

Richard looked at the man with a thousand-yard stare, "If you buy them, do you guarantee me that you will give them a quality education and a decent home?".

The man looked confused, "The world is going to end soon, but it's okay, I promise”.

Richard turned proudly to his family, but the three of them smacked their foreheads.

This made Richard feel down.

At the Fitzgeralds' residence, many people ran through the yard, Patrick was ready to hit anyone.

But without him realizing it, a woman grabbed him from behind and screamed in drama, "LET'S DIEEEEE!".

He was furious and opened his arms to free himself.

He then grabbed the woman by the shoulders and shouted at her, "CALM DOWN!".

Then many citizens choked, which caught the attention of others who also choked later.

The vision of the cliff appeared again, but now it was right in front of them.

All I had to do was scroll a little more and that was it.

But that never happened.

They simply stopped facing the cliff, which left many confused.

Someone then shouted, "LOOK!".

Those who were close to the person followed his raised arm and the others looked until they saw it too.

It was a claw, with the tip touching the sky.

They followed with their eyes until they saw that it was Gumball, with his entire body lying on the ground and only the finger with the export claw raised.

He pulled the ball a little.

Far from the cliff.

Then he released her.

He put away his claw.

He forced his arms to the floor.

He forced his legs to the floor.

He got up.

Slowly.

But he managed to stay on his feet.

He bent down and caught the ball.

He held her with both hands and looked at her.

He dropped his ass to the floor.

His chest started to hurt less.

His mouth was getting tired.

His eyes calmed.

They were safe.

He was safe.

For now.

His breathing slowed to normal tiredness, his eyes closed a little and he even regained feeling in his body.

And it was this feeling of feeling his body again that made him fall back to the floor with open arms.

His body began to feel exhausted, as he panted heavily to complain, "Man, I feel horrible”.

He placed his free hand where your diaphragm is, "I don't want to imagine what I must be like inside”.

His body then underwent an x-ray effect, where it was possible to see his organs in color.

His kidneys, liver and entire digestive system had smiling faces.

Liver: "So much blood, so many nutrients!".

Kidneys:"There is so much oxygen available!".

Digestive system: "I've never worked so well before!".

The x-ray view went up to where the diaphragm, lungs and heart were.

Everyone had tense and scared faces as they acted with great effort.

"WE'RE GOING TO DIE!", they shouted in unison.

The x-ray vision faded and returned to Gumball, who had a queasy look at his internal discomfort.

He turned his head and looked at the crystal ball in his other hand containing Elmore in it.

He looked at her thoughtfully.

In Elmore, an elderly pink cupcake said surly, "Now can someone explain to me what this is all about?".

Mr Small appeared shouting and gesturing dramatically, which caught everyone's attention.

"This is the end of times!", he appeared in the sky where it was still possible to see the horizon of statistics, "This statistics means that we are where all the errors in the world end up!".

He put his hands over his face dramatically, "WE HAVE BECOME MISTAKES!"

Everyone watching him was stoic, one of the people raised his hand, "What does that mean?".

He took a deep breath and did his best dramatic effect, "We're stuck here, forever!"

Everyone was silent.

Then they screamed wildly at the same time, their arms waving like ribbons.

They went back to running in random directions in panic.

The Fitzgeralds saw the situation from afar.

"I think we should look for the Wattersons”, Judith commented to her husband.

He said out of the corner of his mouth, "Go to the car”.

Penny picked up her mother, who took Polly in her arms, and lowered them through the window, hovering with difficulty but successfully, to the floor.

Patrick went inside the house and came back quickly enough to get into the car right after the girls.

He dropped the rake near the manual gearbox, his wife staring at him for explanations.

"Precaution”, was all he said.

The car left the sidewalk and drove down the street, honking at people to make way.

Across town, people surrounded the Wattersons again, but now the family was no longer in a defensive position.

"Can you stop blaming my family for everything?!", Nicole said firmly with her hands on her hips.

"It would be easier if your family wasn't to blame for everything!", someone in the crowd said.

Anais tried to sort things out, "You're blaming us because causing trouble is what we're known for, you're the same one who thinks all Turks know how to do the ice cream trick because it makes them famous”.

Another person in the crowd pointed a finger at her, "I didn't understand anything you said!".

She sighed and tapped her forehead, "I didn't realize that most of the people here are too old to know about things on the Internet”.

A loud sound caught everyone's attention, including the Fitzgeralds, but Patrick had to keep his eye on the street after almost running over someone.

Gumball was getting up to sit back down, supporting himself with his elbows.

He held the crystal ball with both hands, facing him.

He looked at it from different sides, at the top there was Elmore and at the bottom it was probably just the city's soil. It was something very similar to a snow globe, but without a support base.

The size of the image allowed him to see the houses and streets, but not enough detail to recognize his neighborhood.

"Can I see someone?", he brought the crystal ball closer to his face, squinted a little and strained with the muscles in his face. As if that changed anything.

The veins in his eyes started to become more visible and he also started to see a little better.

So he kept pushing, his vision improving as his veins thickened.

But his vision quality stagnated when his veins were so thick that they looked like they had come out of his eyes.

He kept pushing anyway.

His vision was not improving and the veins in his head also thickened.

One of them formed a small, more swollen, ball-shaped part.

Before this ball grew, its eyes popped out of their sockets, hanging by red threads.

Having his eyes like that made him have to hit the ground with his hand until he found his tail, which he pulled and put his eyes back on. All of his veins softened in the process.

He placed a hand on his hip, "Damn, apparently being in front of the computer really ruined my-”.

He convulsed out of nowhere, his eyes turning white as he convulsed wildly.

The convulsion soon stopped and his head fell back, almost as if he were dead.

Everyone gasped heavily in fright.

His head snapped up and he let out a sigh of relief.

He blinked in confusion, "What happened?".

He was silent for a moment and shook his head.

He stared at the ball contemplatively, "Can they notice me?".

He tapped the ball a few times with the finger of his free hand.

This caused Elmore to be hit by a strong earthquake, with the screen shaking, cars shaking on their suspensions and almost overturning and everyone opening their arms to avoid falling. In addition to the sound of various things falling and breaking coming from inside the houses.

He stopped and stared at the ball, waiting for something to happen. But it didn't happen.

He was disappointed and brought his mouth closer to the ball, "Hey”, he said normally.

The shaking in Elmore stopped for everyone to see Gumball's chin in front of everything. They looked like those photos taken below chin level.

Again no response. He now became grumpy about this situation.

"HEY!", he said forcefully.

The volume of his voice became so loud because of the strange situation just now that everyone had to put their hands over their ears immediately. Still, everyone felt a strong ringing in their ears.

His voice was so loud that it broke several windows, of cars and houses, violently.

One car window in particular shattered into a decently large, sharp piece that hit a milk carton.

The impact threw him backwards and ended up falling to the ground while milk gushed from inside him.

Soon the milk began to slowly leak and the living box lay unconscious on the floor.

Anais yelled at Gumball once the ringing in her ears went away, "GUMBALL! USE YOUR PEANUT BRAIN FOR ONCE!".

The screen moved away from Elmore just as Anais spoke, but she couldn't be heard.

After this attempt, Gumball took a deep breath and sighed in defeat.

"I think I'm alone”, he looked at the ball in his hands dejectedly.

He looked up and watched the chunks of earth in his field of vision float motionlessly into place.

"But what do I do now?".

Everything became quiet.

"I think this is the first time in a long time that I've had a problem like this on my own”, he slowly waved his hands to get the ball rolling in little time.

"Darwin would be a good help right now, even though he was probably mad at me”.

This caught the attention of the orange fish, who looked at Gumball with some regret.

Gumball began to act with his hands, "He would say "See what happens when you irritate others, Gumball!"", he imitated his brother's voice perfectly.

"Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to do the victory dance, because I was right!”. He made dance moves of raising his arms and lowering them and raising his legs several times.

Darwin watched this with an uncomfortable smile, "Yeah, I would do that”.

He stopped the dance with his arms raised and his eyes wide.

"Wait...I know exactly what he would do! I can be Darwin!".

He stood up and walked away from the edge, where he dropped the ball on the ground near him.

He coughed a little and blinked his eyes until they looked like cute stars.

The stars disappeared and he was his normal self, "Well, what do you think we should do?".

He straightened his voice and put an innocent smile on his face, his hand on his chin as he thought.

"We are in a strange environment, so we need to think about survival strategies”.

He wiped the smile off his face, "You're right, and who's the best person to think of a plan?".

He put his smile back on, "Anais!".

He squeezed his torso, somehow, making him shrink until he was the same height as his sister.

He adjusted for her voice too, "Do you remember the Boy Scout rules of survival?".

He returned to normal and tried to remember the time he went to camp.

His memory consisted of the image of him dressed as a Boy Scout shouting angrily, "I DON'T LIKE LEARNING!".

"Eeeehhh, I remember giving up," he shrugged.

In his Anais form, he sighed grouchily.

Everyone in Elmore continued to watch Gumball's situation, now embarrassed by the current situation.

"This is... hard to watch”, one person said with a nervous face.

"At least it can't be worse than this guy”, someone pointed to Josh, who was nearby.

This clearly offended him, "Hey! Just because you don't believe in my God doesn't mean he's imaginary!".

He cringed at a photo of a realistic Amazonian horned frog, "Don't worry, Kratok, when you arrive, everyone will understand”.

The screen returned to showing the outside, at the same moment it had stopped, with Gumball in his imitation of Anais.

"Well, the basic rules for survival are: Reconnaissance of the area, finding food sources and seeking shelter”.

He returned to normal and placed his hands on his hips, "Okay, let's begin”.

He turned towards the statistical horizon with chunks of land floating motionless.

He went into Darwin mode, "Huh, this place looks too big to map”.

He went into Anais mode, "So let's forget about recognition, now let's focus on the food. If this place has the world's faults, there must be some food that ended up here”.

Gumball returned to normal and picked up the crystal ball from the ground.

He held her tight and moved closer to the edge again.

He looked down and was a little scared.

He walked backwards so he had road to run, "Okay, remember what it was like last time, it's like being in a dream”.

His expression fell, "A very real and painful dream”.

He shook his head, "Forget it, it's like being on the moon but you breathe”.

He put one leg back.

He ran.

Not so fast, but with visible effort.

As soon as his foot was over the edge, he jumped.

He was now floating in mid-air with almost zero gravitational effect.

He will stay like this in the air until he reaches the other piece of land in front of him.

He made the mistake of looking down and was startled when he didn't see any land below.

He grabbed the crystal ball in a hug.

The piece of land in front was getting close, soon he was going to land.

But then he started to descend.

The momentum was running out and he might not make it.

He was very close, if he makes a mistake, he could fall to who knows where.

His expression became nervous and he shook his legs.

The people of Elmore were not hopeful, "He won't make it!".

Someone put their hands on their face in despair, someone else was eating their own nails.

With the Fitzgeralds, Penny and Judith looked terrified while Polly covered her own eyes, even though she didn't really understand why.

He started screaming when he was about to reach him.

"aaaaAAAAAAHH”.

His feet hit the ground, he turned them to brake, a bit of dust kicking up behind him.

He stopped with a swing, almost covering the crystal ball with his body in fear.

He stood up and saw the ground that distanced him from the edge. That gave him a smile.

Elmore, everyone went from nervous to silently shocked, then to screaming wildly in celebration like it was the SuperBowl.

The Watterson family breathed a sigh of relief as the Fitzgeralds celebrated in the car.

Penny hugged her little sister who was with her in the backseat, "Big brother Gumball did it!".

Polly asked confused, "Get what?".

Penny snapped out of her moment of happiness and was also confused, "I... I don't really understand what happened either, but he's okay and that's what matters”.

Back to Gumball, he was striking epic poses, sliding across the floor on his knees and bragging, "I'M AMAZING!".

He stopped his moment of glory and looked towards the patch of land in the distance he was standing on, "DARWIN! ANALS! GO-".

He looked in that direction disappointed.

The piece of land he was on was very far from the others, he needed to leave it to continue.

And there was no one else on him.

Gumball snorted, "Oh…yeah”.

He felt something, but ignored it and moved on, jumping to other, closer pieces of land.

In Elmore, everyone was calming down and starting to get a sense of the situation.

"Eeeh, what do we do now?", someone said amidst uncertain faces.

“I think we should just go back to minding our own business”, someone else said.

Everyone shrugged and accepted the idea.

Calmly, everyone returned to their homes, putting out small fires and tidying up messy things.

It ended up just being Tobias left in the middle of the street alone, "So I have to go to school tomorrow?".

Anais walked away from her family to speak in front of them, "We need to find a way to help him!".

Darwin raised his hand with an uncertain expression, "Even if we don't know how?".

Nicole looked up with a sad look, "I agree with Anais, he's already gone a little crazy”.

Richard flicked his wrist with a smile, "Nah, as long as he doesn't try to suck a stranger's fingers because he didn't realize the salty taste was actually sweat, it's still an acceptable level of crazy”.

Anais shook off her confused and horrified expression, "However we're going to do this, we might need help”.

They turned their attention to the sound of an engine and turned to see the Fitzgeralds pulling into their driveway.

Penny stuck her head out the back window and waved, "Hi, we came here to help if you need it”.

Anais placed her hands on her hips with an impressed and satisfied look, "Wow, that moment defined 'just in time' perfectly”.

She slammed her fist into her palm, "Okay, we can hear and see Gumball, but he can't. We need to try to communicate, maybe with some message”.

Everyone thought with their hands on their chins.

Penny was the first to come up with an idea, "What if we use fireworks? Gumball always uses them to write messages”.

Darwin followed his train of thought, "Yeah, he and Mr. Dad always buy a box every week”.

Richard said disappointedly, "But they're already gone, I checked this morning”.

Nicole raised an eyebrow, "Do you do anything in the morning?".

Richard spoke confidently, "Every morning I feel like I put something strange in my mouth, if it didn't blow up my face, then it means the fireworks are over”.

"Wow”, Patrick said unimpressed from inside the car.

"Well we need to go buy more, where do you two buy them?", Nicole asked frantically.

At this moment, Richard's face tensed up, he bit off a huge chunk of the lower part of his face and broke into a cold sweat.

Nicole squinted her eyes, "Wait, have you guys been buying stuff from the amazing store AGAIN?!".

She pointed her finger furiously at her husband, "I told you not to buy anything there anymore after that fertilizer that cursed the grass in this town!".

Richard shielded himself with his hands, "No, no! We didn't buy it from the amazing store. We bought it from a...suspicious place”.

Nicole snorted, "Okay, fine, this can't be worse than the amazing store”.

Judith swung her arm into the car, "Get in! Let's go for a ride!".

Darwi protested, "But we can't all fit in there”.

Richard appeased him, "Don't worry, son, I stayed on top of the car”.

Nicole gave a knowing look, "You're going to pretend this is one of those fantasies you play out, aren't you?".

Richard laughed, "You know me so well”, and kissed his wife's cheek.

Nicole, Darwin and Anais got into the backseat while Richard climbed on top of the car.

He pointed determinedly ahead, "Go ahead, noble fellow adventurer!”.

Patrick snorted, "Don't give me stupid names! This isn't an RPG!".

Richard continued with his determined expression, "To live is to have adventures and now I'm living!".

The full car headed to an unknown place, but with a goal.

Chapter Text

Amidst all the floating pieces of rock, whether level, uneven or even upside down, Gumball passed by them one at a time.

The screen zoomed in, transforming him from a blue dot into a person.

He jumped and walked through the pieces of land with his hand on his stomach, with an expression that resembled a puppet looking like he was going to vomit and a little crouched.

His stomach moved with the contractions below his hand, which made him look even more like a puppet that was going to vomit.

He stopped walking on the piece of land he was on and looked at the crystal ball in his other hand, "How much time has passed?".

The crystal ball showed Elmore still in the darkness of the night, but probably already midnight or dawn.

He groaned, "Why am I asking?", he threw his hand from his stomach to the ball, "You are not a crystal ball."

Then came another growl from his belly, so strong that it pulled both his waist up and his waist down a little, making it look like an L. He quickly put his hand back and returned to normal.

"I better keep going," he said painfully.

He resumed walking, taking a few steps until he was a decent distance away from the other piece of land.

He jumped as if he were on a mix of the moon's gravity and a Super Mario World jumping game mechanic.

But before he landed on the new piece of land, his belly growled so loudly that, instead of expanding outwards as it normally does, it contracted inwards.

It was so painful that Gumball made an expression similar to that of a man who had been kicked in the groin and a soft, choked groan that resembled a turtle.

Because of this, he landed with his butt hitting the ground, which soon led to a stumble and then he was rolling across the floor.

But that ended quickly when his head landed on a bump that fit it perfectly.

Now he was upside down as if he had been caught in a breakdance spin.

He let out a groan that sounded more like an angry growl, "Enough! I can't take it anymore!".

He glared at his stomach and snapped at it, "Why can't you be psychological like the cold?!".

His stomach made such precise rumbling sounds that it almost seemed to say, "But I'm psychological, I'm your brain telling you to eat. If you never had to eat again, I'd be quiet."

His anger turned to shock and he stared straight at the screen.

"That was really weird."

His expression fell, "I shouldn't have left without eating dinner," he clasped his arms together with a needy expression, "I'd do anything to eat Daddy's dinner, even if he puts so much oil in it that my stomach turns into a diesel engine."

His expression had understanding, "Wait," it brightened, "DAD!".

He looked to the side determinedly, pushing with his legs to free himself.

Little by little he moved until he fell to the ground and stood up, brushing the dirt off.

"That's it! Daddy can find food even under the fungus on the couch!"

He put his finger on his chin and looked away, "Which means I'll need to be him."

He looked down at his clothes, a little dirty with dirt, then looked at the dirt floor.

He bent down and ran his finger on the floor, looking at it now a little dirty too.

He had an idea.

The next moves were Gumball rubbing dirt on his clothes to imitate his father's suit. Which was mostly a tie and a collar.

Once he was done, he checked his work, now looking like he was playing at having a job. "Now I need some 'unemployment'."

He picked up and took off his pants, holding them in front of him while he stood in his underwear.

He hung them on his arm without the crystal ball, smiling in satisfaction, "Now yes."

He looked at himself again, "But something is still missing..."

He put his hand on his chin and thought. He soon raised his finger when he understood.

He put his hand on his chest and pulled, slowly removing what looked like a small ball of pink ectoplasmic goo.

When it was completely out, his face seemed to age, and wrinkles appeared under his eyes. "There, a hopeless being, a true adult."

He held his pants with a few fingers of the hand with the crystal ball while he put his hopes in his pocket.

He raised his busy hands, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath.

But he stopped when he felt his body swell a little with fat in some parts like his limbs, neck and belly.

He looked at himself in surprise, now mixing stress with his tired expression, "Great, just existing is already making me fat!".

His nose sniffed without him realizing it. He soon widened his eyes and sniffed the air.

He stretched upwards at the smell he smelled, "Wow, that really worked".

He started walking again, following the direction of the smell with precision. But sniffing the air made him even more obese.

His body swelled and he lost his balance with the increase in weight, falling forward and began to bounce and roll on the ground.

He did this until he reached the edge and fell, but before he could start screaming, he ended up falling on another piece of land below.

He rolled and bounced on it and then went to another, several times.

Elsewhere, the Fitzgeralds' car, with Richard in the driver's seat, drove steadily through the desert. A part of the desert so empty that there were no rocks, cacti, or anything else in the way.

While Richard seemed just as determined as when they had set out, everyone else in the car was very bored and, in Polly's case, tired.

Nicole stuck her head out a little, "How much longer until we get there?".

Richard held out his arm like a turntable, "Keep going!".

Judith slumped a little in her seat, "We've been going for an hour."

"We're going to run out of gas at this rate," Patrick had one hand on the steering wheel and the other supporting his bored head.

In the backseat, Anais had her arms crossed, Nicole was supporting her head like Patrick and Penny had her hand on Polly's back as she fell asleep against her.

But Darwin was moving his foot frantically, his face tight and rubbing his hand on his other leg.

Nicole seemed to notice this, "Is everything okay, honey?".

Without looking at her, he smiled nervously, "Yes," and the smile dropped soon after. He rubbed his leg and moved his foot more intensely.

Penny and Anais also ended up looking at him.

Nicole gave him a sympathetic look, "Darwin."

Darwin was quiet, his face seeming to swell and harden with the pressure.

Then he blurted out, "I'm worried."

Penny raised an eyebrow, "About what?"

He threw his arms forward and stopped his foot, "Me and him had a fight and I was mad. But now that he's in trouble, I feel bad."

"Like, we fight, but everything's always fine, but he was being really annoying," he raised his tone a little, "But I still don't want my last memory of him to be throwing a plate at his head!".

Anais stretched so she could see him better, "Darwin, Gumball isn't going to die, you don't have to worry."

Penny put her hand on his...shoulder?, "Yeah, you guys have survived so many things Gumball has told me about."

She looked back and forth as she listed, "Accidentally robbing a bank, time traveling..."

Anais chimed in, "Preventing the destruction of the universe when our dad got a job…"

Nicole did the same, "Preventing us from running out of money so we wouldn't destroy everything," she looked ahead in surprise, "It's weird that we almost destroyed the universe so many times."

Penny looked at Darwin with a smile, "You see? You guys always survive that." She looked away with a shy smile, "And also, cats land on their feet, don't they?".

The scene changed to an obese Gumball falling face down on the dirt floor, rolling and bouncing around.

When he got close to another edge, he tried to brake with his claws on the ground, but ended up sliding until he was hanging.

The soft dirt floor hit him early and he fell, screaming in a tone that was a bit high-pitched for a boy.

Darwin and Anais looked unimpressed at Penny while Nicole looked at her with an "Ouch" expression.

They all looked up at the roof of the car when they heard Richard laughing for a while.

Darwin's expression returned to a worried expression, "But what if this time is different? What if this time it starts out mild but ends up being worse than anything else?".

He put his hands on his head, "The future is scary! You don't really know if it's going to be or not!".

Penny became more empathetic, "I'm worried about him too, I don't want him to get hurt," she looked away, "No more than he's probably already done."

She looked back at him with a small smile, "But we need to help him first before we regret it."

Darwin slowly took his hands off his head, lowering his head a little with a thoughtful expression.

Anais crossed her arms, "That doesn't mean we really have anything to apologize for."

Everyone looked in her direction, with Darwin looking surprised and confused.

She raised her hands protectively, "I love Gumball too and I don't want him to suffer either, but I don't want us to simply forget why we were mad at him."

"He's alone somewhere because he decided to go out at night because you guys fought. The things he goes through are sometimes his fault and magically forgetting about it doesn't solve it."

Nicole continued with a small, gentle smile, "Anais is right, feeling sorry is about having fought, not about forgetting everything. Gumball never learned from seeing the consequences of what he did, he needs to feel."

Penny finished, "And the best way to do that is to help him and then talk about it."

Darwin lowered his head with a neutral expression, "Okay."

The atmosphere was quiet for a while, only Darwin seemed to think while everyone, except Polly, looked at him.

"STOOOOOP!"

Patrick slammed on the brakes too quickly in fright, making everyone tighten against their seatbelts as if their bodies were made of something elastic.

As the car slowed down sharply, the momentum threw Richard forward.

This caused him to roll from the roof of the car to the mirror, then to the hood, and then to land in front of the car just in time for it to stop.

As he stopped, a decent amount of dust that had been kicked up during the braking came forward and covered part of Richard's view.

He coughed a little as the dust quickly dissipated.

He opened his eyes wide and smiled, "This is it!".

He stood up and walked forward a little, moving and looking at some rocks.

Judith poked her head out and looked around at nothing with a raised eyebrow, "And where is here?".

Patrick tried to check his phone, but then his expression turned grumpy, "In the middle of nowhere," he showed Judith his cell phone with no signal.

Nicole poked her head out, "Richard! What are you doing?!"

Richard spoke without looking at her, lifting stones of all sizes to a considerable height, "Looking for the stone!".

Nicole was a little grumpy, "But what stone?!".

he lifted a stone the size of her head with her knees shaking and her voice failing, "I never remember which one it is!", he dropped it on the ground when he couldn't hold it.

He knelt down and bent down to pick up a stone about the size of his fingers.

When he lifted it, a part of the dry earth and sand floor seemed to move like fabric lifted by the wind.

He smiled with his mouth wide open, "Ah!".

He threw the stone to the side and ran his hand through the fabric, pulling it tightly.

This caused other stones to move as if they were on top of the carpet.

The ground beneath them then came off, pulled by Richard.

He grabbed another part with one hand and pulled the fabric like a cover for the car.

When he pulled, the dead ground, the landscape in the background, the mountains in the distance, everything came off, showing that it was a disguise painting.

Now in place of all that, there was a path hidden by the fabric, a dark alley with buildings that seemed to be slightly tilted.

Richard turned to everyone and smiled as if he were showing them an amusement park, stretching his arm out into the alley and shaking his hand.

Nicole stuck her head out, "What the-?!".

Anais also stuck her head out the window, surprised and with a raised eyebrow, "We came all the way here because of a dark alley?".

Richard put his hands behind his back and straightened his posture, trying to look wise, "He likes it that way. He says if someone has the courage to come all the way here, then it's worth negotiating."

Judith did the same, "Who is he?".

"The person I buy fireworks from."

Everyone stuck their heads back in and opened the doors to leave.

When everyone left and closed the doors, Patrick pressed the keys and went to stand with them next to Richard.

He looked around the dark alley, "How did you know the right place if you didn't know which stone was the right one?".

He turned and pointed to the small hills in the distance, "I memorized it, it's southeast of those hills and forms a 53 angle between a straight line from here to them and another straight line from here to Elmore."

Everyone looked at him in genuine surprise.

Then he seemed to notice something and got nervous, looking away.

He used the palm of his hand as a map and ran the finger of his other hand across it in confusion.

Then he looked back at them, "Where is southeast again?".

Everyone looked at him unimpressed and smacked their foreheads, making a whip-like noise. Except for Polly, she just looked confused and a little frustrated by this.

Nicole took his hand away from his face and acted incredulous and a little irritated, "So we could have crashed the car straight into it?".

Richard's only response was to laugh nervously, his arms raised to his chest.

In the void, Gumball still hadn't stopped rolling and bouncing.

He rolled down a higher part like a ramp, his body spinning as his fat-filled skin stretched like a sack of meat in the air.

He landed when he hit something, which threw him backwards like a wall.

This took away a lot of his momentum, as he slowed down a lot and managed to stop on his stomach.

After his fat stopped bouncing, he lifted his head and groaned bitterly, "Being an adult sucks."

Then he realized the irony, "I'm even talking like one now."

He put his hands on the ground and stood up, adjusting his fat so that he was sitting in the direction of what he hit.

It was a house, a blue house with a bright red roof, A detail on the edge of the roof on the balcony that looks like ruffles white details and frills on the edge of the roof, surrounded by a white fence. In addition to having a lot of very green grass on the ground.

Gumball sniffed the air, "There's something in there."

He put his hand on the ground to get up.

He looked at his fat body and put his hands around his belly, squeezing it tightly. He squeezed several times, but nothing happened and stopped to catch his breath, "Okay, I'll have to do it the hard way."

His body made a strange sound of flesh cracking, his limbs and eyes seeming to go inside his body as if he were a Megazord.

He put his arms out and held his belly with both hands, starting to pull.

He pulled hard, stretching it. This made almost all of his skin move, shrinking until his body was left at its original size and his excess skin attached to the belly he was holding.

He took one of his arms out and pulled out his claw, placing it next to the strip of skin on his belly.

He cut it with a quick movement that made a sound like guitar strings.

He looked at his belly, "I've always wondered if my belly button is inward or outward."

Without caring, he threw his excess skin and blue fat aside, which fell off the patch of dirt.

He stared at the house, slowly lifting his head from the porch to the roof.

He then stepped into Darwin's shoes, "Should we go inside?", he pointed to the house.

Now he stepped into Anais's shoes, with his wrists on his hips, "Sure, let's go inside a probably abandoned house that's inside a TV with bad reception," he said sarcastically.

He went back into Gumball's shoes, "Great."

He went back into Anais's shoes only to slap his forehead.

He walked through the grass, past the fence, until he climbed onto the porch.

He looked around as he went towards the door, "It's kind of dark."

He stopped in front of the door and put his hand on the doorknob, turning it calmly. He opened the door a little, with a cautious expression.

The porch was a little dark due to the lack of natural light, but inside the house it was so dark because of the walls that it was only possible to see a little of the silhouette of the large furniture. There was only a weak light that passed through the glass of the windows.

He shrugged, "It's not a problem for a cat."

He rubbed his eyelids as if he were cleaning the windshield of a car.

He opened his eyes and blinked a few times, to improve the clarity.

Now the dark house was so visible that it seemed like daytime, but in various shades of gray.

He walked in calmly and looked around.

He saw that all the furniture in the house had an old design or was really old, from around the 1970s.

Whether it was the sofa with a more pointed and square shape, the strangely shaped glass table, the lampshades with several different exotic shapes or the stairs with steps that seemed to rise above the ground.

"That's the taste someone who put frills on the porch would have."

He looked away when he didn't notice one of the longer than normal legs of a low cabinet.

He hit his little finger hard on the cabinet's leg, but froze in place as soon as he felt what happened.

He screamed, his tongue wagging in the air, before covering his mouth and looking around.

But no one appeared and showed that they heard.

He took his hands off his mouth and purged in relief, rubbing his little finger and continuing.

Since the house was small, he easily reached the kitchen, which also had a decades-old design with a large row of cabinets, spaces without doors to store things in them and a strangely shaped table in the middle of the room.

He circled it to get to the cabinets, opening them all one by one.

After opening a few and finding nothing, he grumbled irritably, "Who lived here only went to the market once a year?!".

He opened a cabinet and entered it, leaving another on the other side of the kitchen and going from one to the other.

After he had looked through almost all of them, he came out and groaned in stress.

He went to the last cabinet he hadn't checked yet, opening its doors in anger.

But it was replaced by satisfaction, because inside the cabinet were two boxes of cereal and a bag of chips that looked completely unopened.

He picked them up and examined them, "I wonder if they're within their expiration date?".

He widened his eyes in understanding, "Wait, Molly was frozen in time when we found her before, so this could be too."

He looked at the bag of chips, holding it by the top edge. Then he pulled.

The bag crackled with static similar to the horizon outside, but only for a moment, now it seemed very normal.

He shrugged and reached into the bag, taking out and eating a decent amount.

Without realizing it, he had assumed the role of Darwin, "Now that you mention it, he did say he brought Molly here again."

He assumed the role of Anais, counting on his fingers, "It was Molly, Rob and some...", he imitated the expression the man made comically when he said it, "Janice."

He returned to the role of Gumball, "It's a weird van of Mr. Small's."

He imitated Darwin, "We should help them."

He returned to Gumball, incredulous, "Not with that guy around! I need to get out of here!"

He imitated Darwin, with his hands on his hips and annoyed, "You're going to leave them here?".

He turned back into Gumball, rolling his eyes, "I'd say it's more like trying to come back and save them later."

He imitated Anais, but angrily, "That's pretty selfish."

Gumball tried to defend himself, also irritated, "He said he won't kill me, but that doesn't mean he won't hurt me!".

He imitated Anais, "Don't you think he could do the same to them?!".

He went back to normal, a little cornered, "Well, um, yeah."

He imitated Darwin, "You want to save yourself!", his teeth became like a shark's, "But when you're in danger, YOU WANT OTHERS TO SAVE YOU!".

He stuttered, but quickly recovered, "OK, yeah! What's wrong with ensuring your safety!".

He imitated Anais, "It's a big problem if you ensure your safety by sacrificing the safety of others!".

He clasped his arms tightly against his body and groaned with his mouth closed, "You came from my brain! How do you have so many good arguments?!"

He stuck his hand in the package and ate another portion irritably.

Then he looked at the package irritably, "AND WHY DOES THIS TASTE STRANGE?!"

"Because you're punishing yourself."

He turned to where the strangely masculine voice was coming from in the kitchen.

In the kitchen, a tall white horse appeared, with toned limbs, crimson red mane and eyes, and a horn of several bright colors.

Gumball stared at him with a raised eyebrow and a lost expression, "Huh?"

The unicorn continued, "Of course, you're punishing yourself because you're constantly reminding yourself of what that man said. And that's only because you know it's true."

He coughed to clear his voice, "You see, today, before you came here, you pissed off almost everyone who loves you, all because of ignorance and selfishness. That man just rubbed the truth in your face and now you realize that you're really every bit of what some idiot who doesn't even know you well has to say about you."

Gumball pointed at him, "Where did you come from?".

He raised his hoof and pointed at the package, "From the rotten food you're eating."

Gumball's eyes widened and he rummaged through the package quickly.

He found the expiration date and it said "November 2008".

"Wow", he looked through the two boxes of cereal, which also had an expiration date marked as 2008, "These things expired a while ago".

"Well, where was I?", the unicorn remembered, "Oh, yeah. Long story short, you're having an internal conflict because deep down you've realized that you're a nastier person than you thought".

"Ah-, hmm, eh-", he pointed angrily at the unicorn, "SHUT UP!".

The unicorn became more serious, "I'm only here talking because of your recklessness. Every second you just prove what I said".

Gumball's eyes widened, "Wait, if you exist because I ate this...", he pointed and looked at the package. Then he looked back at the unicorn.

He kept his gaze fixed as he began to grab several servings at a time and eat them hurriedly.

He even showed the chewed food in his mouth.

The unicorn made a disgusted expression, "Yuck."

Then he widened his eyes and looked at his paws, they were disappearing and rising. He looked back at Gumball, surprised, "Are you poisoning your brain so much that it can't even hallucinate properly?".

He whinnied, since he couldn't shrug it off, "Whatever, existing is boring anyway."

His body disappeared completely.

Gumball pointed to where he was, "HA! VICTORY!" he said with his mouth full.

His finger lowered, and his expression slowly fell as he realized he was alone again.

"Am I that unpleasant?".

In the real world, the Wattersons and Fitzgeralds walked through the dark alley, looking around cautiously while Richard walked calmly and smiling, guiding them.

Anais looked at the poorly maintained buildings that seemed to bend over them like those effects used to scare characters in cartoons in nightmares and special episodes.

The buildings also extended as far as they could not be seen.

"How tall are these buildings?".

Richard spoke without changing his position, "I don't know, he mentioned once that they probably have no end."

Penny put her hand to her nose, "And what's that smell?" she said in a clogged voice.

"It's just that the residents throw their trash out of the windows here."

A black trash bag fell with a crash to the ground very close to Patrick, which ended up tearing completely with the force of the fall and scaring everyone.

Patrick recovered from the shock and raised his fist in anger, "HEY-".

Richard got right next to her and covered her mouth very quickly.

He walked closer and whispered, keeping his eyes on the windows, "Don't talk to them, don't look at them, just keep walking."

They all started walking again, now extremely cautious.

Richard let go of Patrick and walked back forward.

They soon arrived in front of a stone wall with an old, worn wooden door.

Richard stopped walking and put his arm in front of them to stop as well, "Wait."

He pointed down, everyone craning their necks to see a carpet in front of the door with a phrase on it.

Nicole was confused as she read, "Get your feet dirty before entering?".

Richard ran to a corner, "THE BANANA PEEL IS MINE!".

He came to some trash cans that were so full that some of them fell over. He stepped on a banana peel and it stuck to his foot.

He lifted his other foot and rubbed it against the side of the trash can. It soon had green, smelly lines coming off of it.

Once he was done, Richard bowed for the others to do the same.

Everyone had expressions of disgust.

Patrick walked over to Judith, "I think someone better stay with Polly out here."

She seemed to frown, "Are you sure?"

Patrick sighed, "Okay, you stay with her here."

Judith smiled and kissed her husband's cheek very affectionately, "I love you."

Nicole reluctantly walked over and reached into the trash can, pulling out two green pieces of something and rubbing them on her feet. She came out almost vomiting.

Darwin stuck one foot inside the trash can and the other one inside a rusty sausage can.

Anais jumped inside one of the cans and swiveled her feet and waist a little, jumping to get out later.

Penny approached with a look of disgust, she flapped her wings to stay in the air and rubbed her feet for a short time. When she was done, they were a little green and had lines of stink that made her hold her nose.

And Patrick put one of his feet inside the trash can, then came the sound of something tearing and a bad feeling in his foot.

He wiped his face in disgust, "Yuck." He rubbed one foot against the other.

Now that everyone was dirty, Richard opened the door and they entered in single file.

Inside, there were many boxes. Boxes stacked, boxes thrown in a corner, boxes on wooden shelves of the same quality as the door, boxes up above them in an arch that must have been physically impossible.

When they stopped inside, a dark figure stood up, a black cloak with some parts in a very dark purple.

It stood with its back to them for a moment before slowly turning its head, the hood covering an apparent black void with gray eyes that now stared at them.

But its facial and body expression relaxed, "Richard," it said cheerfully.

Richard waved equally cheerfully, "Hi, Malvim."

The cloaked figure approached and stretched a bone that looked like an insect's leg from the cloak, "What brings you here, friend?".

Richard took the bone and greeted it, "We came to buy more than usual."

He raised an eyebrow, it seemed so by one of his eyes shrinking in size, "Really? What a surprise, did you spend last month's on some special occasion?"

Richard looked away, laughing nervously, "Something like that."

The figure shrugged, "It's okay, I'm always ready to sell to good customers."

He walked away from them, heading towards a red brick wall that was pushed inwards as if a truck had hit it from the other side.

He stopped in front of it, looking up at a particular brick.

Then there was some movement of air that lifted his cloak and lifted him above the ground.

The adults groaned in shock as they covered the younger ones' eyes, "There are kids here, man!" Patrick complained.

He continued climbing without a care, until he reached the brick he focused on, his cloak now lowered again.

He placed his bony paw in a corner between the brick and the cement, trying to pull it off.

He quickly pulled out the brick, wrapping his bones around it like a whip and looking closely at the part that was inside the wall.

He stood like that for a while.

Anais stretched closer to Richard, with a raised eyebrow, "What is he doing?"

He heard her, turning to her and lifting the brick a little, "Do you really want to know?"

He approached her, levitating a little above the ground, "These bricks are someone's memories."

He extended his arm towards the brick wall, "They all are, they represent the state of people's memories."

He levitated higher, going to stand next to some bricks that looked worn and scratched.

He pointed to a slightly worn one, "This one belongs to someone who is getting old and has a bad memory."

He flew to the other side, stopping next to one that looked battered and deteriorated.

He pointed to it, "This one belongs to someone who has already grown old and remembers very little."

He climbed a little higher, standing above a conspicuous brick.

The brick was a dull red, aged and with a good chunk of it missing.

The figure looked away, "This one is a little sad. It belongs to someone who has Alzheimer's, that's why a chunk is missing."

Penny spread her arms in confusion, "Why would you have something like that?"

He laughed lightly, "That's not mine, dear, it was here before me and it probably will be after."

He leaned his elbow against the wall, as if he were lying on the floor and not floating in the air, "I just use it to remember where I left things and to know what my clients want."

He laughed evilly a little, "And I also do it for fun."

He ran the tip of his bony arm across one of the bricks, leaving a decent scratch on it.

At the Robinsons' house, Margaret and Gaylord were sleeping in their bed. With two pillows full of thorns separating them.

Gaylord woke up from his sleep with his eyes wide open, he turned and looked at the alarm clock that read 7:30.

"I'M LATE!", he jumped out of bed and ran desperately out of the room.

Margaret woke up with this and grumbled in irritation.

The figure smiled amused, "Someone forgot something probably important now. But don't worry, it recovers quickly."

He looked at the scarred brick, whose scratch was healing and disappearing completely.

At the Robinsons' house, Gaylord was rushing out the door, putting on one of his shoes as he jumped towards his car.

Before pressing the button on his keys, he stopped, seeming to remember, "Wait, I'm retired."

He went back inside the house, muttering irritably and rubbing his head, "Old age, you're a pest."

The figure tried to look serious, "Okay, where was I? Oh, yes."

He looked back at the brick with concentration.

But something caught his attention, "Wait a minute."

He glanced at the door worriedly, then quickly walked past everyone and hurriedly opened the door.

He looked up at the sky and saw what everyone in Elmore saw.

Gumball doing something in a strange place.

Very strange.

He looked down slowly, processing everything with a very worried look.

He went back inside, closing the door, and looked at the very top of the wall. Specifically at a brick that was covered in TV static, seemingly far away from the others.

"Oh, -".

I'm cutting this scene short because it contains a hate speech that is not recommended for minors.

Thanks for understanding.

He looked down at them, who were staring at him in confusion.

He sighed, "You guys have to leave".

Darwin got more confused, "What do you mean?"

He flew past them all until he was where he was when he greeted Richard, "Whatever this kid is involved with, I don't want to be anywhere near it!"

Richard got suggestive, "Come on, man, I'll even pay more."

He waved his arm in the air, "No arguing! Go!".

Penny got serious, "We're not going."

He got grumpy, "I don't think you understand! I'm not going to change my mind!".

She walked past everyone until she was face to face with him, a very short distance away, "I'll help somehow! He and I fight, but I want to be able to tell him that it doesn't stop me from liking him a lot!".

"I don't care about your drama!", he pointed his bony member at the door, "Get out!".

She stomped her foot and stuck her arms to her sides, "We're going to find those damn fireworks!".

He crossed his arms in defiance, irritated, "And what are you going to do?! Start screaming?!".

She trembled with rage, her body turning red and then growing and changing until it became her minotaur form.

He looked at it in shock, "Damn it."

She threw a punch that crushed him almost as if he had only two dimensions. Then he pulled it out over and over again to keep him in place.

Meanwhile, Richard pointed to the wall, "Let's go there!".

Everyone ran quickly until they were in front of the brick wall, "What do we do now?!", Darwin was sweating with tension.

Richard pointed higher up, "One of those is his too! If we find it, we'll see where he keeps the fireworks!".

Anais and Darwin began to climb the wall a little slowly.

"Is he different or something?!", Anais shouted down.

Richard put his hands over his mouth to go further, "It's black!".

The figure finally managed to squeeze out of Penny's punches and was now dodging her in mid-air, "That's pretty racist!".

He dodged an attack from Penny by going underneath, he flew close to her chest and wrapped his bony limb around her waist and spun her in the air before she could stop him.

He spun Penny around the room until he was close to the others, hitting Anais and throwing them both into a corner with force.

Darwin gasped in fright.

Nicole became serious, "I'll take care of this," she snapped her fingers.

Before the figure could react, Nicole jumped into the air and punched his chest right in front, pushing him down.

The figure was groaning with his bony limbs where his face would be.

He took them out to face Nicole very irritated, who was also glaring at him with a stern look.

Both of them assumed boxing stances for some reason, Nicole joining her fists near her chin and the figure bending his limbs in a scythe shape.

They advanced towards each other, the figure attacking first with its limbs as if it were punching with the paws of a MUTO from Godzilla 2014.

Nicole dodged all the blows, attacking with her own soon after.

Meanwhile, Darwin hurriedly climbed the wall to the blackest brick he could find.

He reached for the brick, running his hands over it to pull it out, but they didn't hold or have enough support to pull.

So he put his mouth in a little beak on the brick and sucked. That took it off almost immediately.

He pulled the brick out of his mouth with some difficulty and then stuck his tongue out, disgusted, "If the Stone Age had a taste, this would be it."

He tried to move the images that appeared on one side of the brick, "No pressure, this must be like a cell phone."

He touched the images and they started to go very fast, "Damn, I went too far."

He tried again, more carefully this time, looking closely.

Then his expression lit up, "Yeah!", he turned to Richard and Patrick, "They're in that corner!", he pointed to a corner full of boxes.

Richard and Patrick ran to the boxes, Patrick opening them one by one while Richard jumped on them and moved like a mole underground, both with great agility.

They soon ended up grabbing the same box with both hands, "I found it!".

Then they noticed that their hands were almost on top of each other.

Richard took his hands away and wrapped his arms around each other with a red face.

Patrick looked strangely at Richard's reaction.

The figure, who was in a fight worthy of the Rocky franchise, heard them and looked at them shocked, "Hey!".

That didn't make him notice Nicole hitting his stomach, bending over in pain. Soon after, he received a hook where his chin would be, falling backwards onto his butt.

He only had time to see Nicole with her arm in position. She delivered a well-aimed punch to his face.

He closed his eyes for the blow. But nothing happened.

His eyes curved, indicating that he probably had a frown.

Then he opened his eyes and Nicole was no longer there. None of them were.

He turned to the only door and saw everyone running towards it. Penny having returned to normal.

He probably wrinkled his nose in fury and moved closer to the wall.

He pulled the full length of his bony limbs, now showing that they were actually fingers and that he has very long fingers, out from under the rotten cloak.

He quickly extended them until each of them was on top of a few specific bricks.

He traced them.

Everyone stopped running and stood in place, staring at nothing confused.

"What...were we doing?", Anais asked uncomfortably.

The figure sighed in relief, "Great, now I just need to go there and-".

Darwin spread his arms and legs with a dumbfounded look, "I REMEMBERED!".

The figure was surprised and quickly turned to the bricks, from which the scratches had disappeared.

He scratched them again very quickly. Everyone had confused and distant looks again.

He looked at them for a while to make sure everything was okay, "Okay, they recover their memories very quickly", he shrugged, "I can handle it".

Then everyone made the same pose and expression as Darwin did before.

He got a little uncomfortable and scratched the bricks once more.

Outside the house, Gumball had just left and was now standing on the grass with cereal in his arms, "Okay, I may have already eaten all the chips to shut that unicorn up, but I still have some sweet cereal."

He made an apprehensive expression, "Which have been out of date for years."

He shrugged, "I would have felt something by now if they were that bad."

His stomach growled. Not in a good way.

It growled again and Gumball felt uncomfortable this time, wrapping his arms around his stomach and dropping the cereal boxes.

His stomach growled a few more times as he clutched his face in discomfort. Then he stopped for a moment.

Soon after, he vomited a bright white liquid with a few colors.

He vomited hard, the liquid only getting bigger and bigger on the grass until it reached the edge and dripped and dripped off of it.

He finally stopped, groaning in disgust, "Ew, throwing up is horrible."

He looked down at the bright liquid in annoyance, "I managed to get everything I ate out and probably something else to get so much out."

He turned into Darwin, "Congrats, man, you managed to stay better than before."

He turned back into Gumball, pointing his finger angrily, "I only ate that because Anais said we needed to find food!".

He became Anais, irritated and with his hands on his hips, "Hey! I didn't say you should eat a bad snack just because you didn't like a unicorn!".

He turned into Darwin, doing the same, "Yeah! What just happened is a consequence of your stupid choices!".

He turned back into Gumball and pointed his finger so hard that it trembled at the tip, "Why are you being so critical?! We're the same person!".

He turned back into Anais, spreading his arms, "Didn't you hear what you just said?! It's what the unicorn said, you're criticizing yourself!".

He gradually lost his irritated posture and his finger lowered, contemplating in the meantime what he heard.

Then his eyes widened as he lifted one of his ears.

He turned around and saw that the cereal boxes began to be pulled across the grass by the vomit.

He choked and ran after them.

Unfortunately, they were already too far to the edge, and even when he jumped to catch them, they fell before him.

He stood with his arm stretched out and his hand open, looking down at where the boxes were falling away into the endless depths.

Then they curved forward, rising until they passed him, who followed them with his eyes, and rose to other pieces of land with gravity. Because of some pieces of land that were upside down.

He just watched, open-mouthed, as the boxes were carried by confusing gravitational fields like leaves in the wind.

He became Darwin, hands on his hips and an unimpressed look on his face, "You managed to lose that too, even though you were going to lose it anyway when you threw it up."

He turned back into Gumball, bringing his clenched fist very tightly to his chest and flexing his jaw in anger.

He let out a groan, almost a scream, of rage and stood up, looking at where his brothers would be, "I wanted you here to be them! But if you can't, then why are you still here?!"

He became Anais, "Because we are you, since you didn't want to be here..."

"Alone."

He wilted, letting his arms fall to his sides very limply and giving a hurt expression, but a hurt more sad than frustrated.

The camera changed to be above him, showing that there was no one else.

He was alone.

He took a small breath, then sighed sadly. He started walking to leave.

He stopped after a few steps and looked at the house, "Who could live here?"

He stared at the house for a moment and then went on his way, wherever he was going.

The camera then showed the front of the house from the outside, slowly approaching.

The camera moved inside the house, moving forward at the same pace.

It moved to a door that he went through, still at the same pace.

Beyond the door was a bedroom, with furniture, a bed, and two people motionless in a sleeping position.

The camera zoomed in on a photo on the headboard next to the bed and just below the lamp.

In it was a tall, thin blue cyclops, with blond hair, an ugly, equally blond mustache, and one red eye.

There was also a tall, thin blue cyclops, but with more feminine features, brown hair, and one green eye.

And both were holding a chubby blue baby cyclops, with little brown hair and one magenta eye.

*More than an hour later*

The figure had a miserable expression, in the sense of miserable from stress, scratching the bricks for "no matter how many times" already.

The others had barely moved in all this time and constant memory loss.

The figure rubbed where his forehead would be, "This is taking a lot longer than I thought," he said in a stressed tone.

He took a deep breath, "Let's have this finished now."

He turned to the wall and scratched the bricks.

But not just a simple scratch, it was a long scratch and deep enough to take a long time to regenerate.

Everyone felt the immediate effect, becoming confused and with their pupils growing much larger, as if they were under the effect of something.

Immediately the figure retracted its arms and flew towards them and took the box of fireworks from Penny's hands, who was now holding it.

He stood just above them in the air, looking at the box in his hands, "Finally!".

He turned to walk away, but froze with goosebumps when he realized that the scratches were disappearing. Then they were completely gone.

"Are you kidding me?"

He gave a small scream as he was pulled down hard, hitting his back on the ground.

He opened his eyes after wincing in pain and was startled.

Everyone was looking at him with glazed eyes. Literally, so glazed that there were huge lenses in their eyes.

"Oh, damm."

He dodged a punch that aimed at his possible legs.

Then he dodged a rain of punches, blows and hands trying to grab him.

He switched off in the middle of all this until he completely left, flying over them and trying to get away.

But then he had to stop in mid-air to dodge a toaster that passed by him.

He turned to them and had to dodge in shock once more when a Turkish rug almost hit his face.

On the floor, everyone was picking up whatever they could find and throwing it at him.

He dodged incessantly, "STOP THROWING THOSE THINGS! I SELL THEM!"

A PS2 ended up hitting one of his hands, making his grip loosen and dropping the box.

He tried to dive to grab it, but turned when he noticed something approaching.

Penny's large purple arm hit him, crushing him against one of the walls.

"Why is everyone punching me today?" he said in a muffled and depressed tone.

Darwin managed to nail the box and soon went out with everyone, including Penny who dropped the figure and returned to normal.

Richard looked at the figure that was in the hole in the wall, "I'll pay you later! I promise!".

They left and closed the door. This made some small pebbles fall from the new hole in the wall.

Then the figure fell out of the hole, falling face down on the ground.

He raised his fist without taking his face off the ground, "At least don't put my name on this!".

Then he cringed, "Ouch".

In the void, Gumball continued to wander aimlessly through the floating pieces of land.

But now he had a depressed expression and worn out by hunger and sleep.

He jumped from one piece of land to another very tiredly, almost falling asleep in mid-air.

He landed and took a few very soft steps.

That and the lack of concentration were the perfect combination for him to fall because he didn't see the mossy trunk in front of him.

He was thrown against the ground, his jaw hitting so hard that his head vibrated and the crystal ball fell from his hand.

After his head stopped vibrating, he looked at the crystal ball that remained intact. He sighed in relief.

Then his eyes widened, "Wait!", he turned and looked at the crystal ball again.

Now that he was paying more attention, he noticed that Elmore seemed to have a strong shade of orange emerging, indicating the sunrise.

"Is it morning already?!", he groaned in frustration and tiredness.

He exerted a little force with his waist, throwing his hands over his head and doing a somersault lying down until his back hit the ground.

He wearily adjusted himself until he was very close to the mossy trunk.

He stared at the crystal ball with his tired eyes, "I think it's okay if I get some sleep to stave off the hunger."

"After all, I'm going to have to get out of here on my own..."

"Do you understand now? No one has any reason to care about you."

His gaze became a little melancholic, "Since no one seems to be going to save me."

He hit his head hard on the ground, having fallen asleep and was now snoring. He knows how to kill the mood.

Back with the others, Judith had returned to the car and was entertaining Polly, who was placed on top of the hood.

She turned around in surprise when she heard and then saw her family and the Watterson family running out of the dark alley, "What happened?".

Patrick shouted as he ran without slowing down, "GET IN THE CAR!".

She noticed this and picked up Polly, hurriedly getting in her place.

Soon after, everyone was almost pushing each other to get in while Richard rolled around the car until he grabbed the roof.

Patrick started the car and accelerated so much that Richard almost fell when he turned around.

Everyone looked back to check that no one was following them as they drove away.

When nothing happened, they turned back and sighed in relief.

Judith looked at each of them indignantly, "What happened?!".

"We stole the fireworks," Darwin replied innocently.

Judith now glared at her husband.

Patrick shrank back a little, feeling pressured, "Don't look at me like that!", he pointed behind him, "Penny helped too!".

"DAD!", Penny glared at him too.

After she calmed down, Darwin rubbed his foot on the bench a little shyly, "Hey, Penny," he said in a lower tone.

She turned to him, paying attention.

"That thing you said back there... you really have things to talk about with Gumball too, don't you?"

She glanced to the side, "Yeah, you're not the only one."

Darwin rubbed his arm, "I apologize for before. You're the same way, but you didn't just freak out."

Penny gave him a sympathetic look and placed a hand on his back, "It's okay, Darwin. We deal with things our way, the important thing is how you end it."

She looked up through the car window with a slight smile, "And we'll have time to think about it."

She was looking at the sky that showed Gumball lying and sleeping on the ground peacefully.

Darwin came closer to look too, becoming calmer.

"Things must have calmed down," She said in a serene tone.

The camera slowly transitioned from them to the open environment with large pieces of land in the void. Filled with silence.

In addition to the cereal boxes that were still moving from one side to the other because of the strange geography of the place.

But as soon as they passed a larger piece of land, its gravity pulled them and placed them on some ground, finally.

They stayed there, fallen and abandoned on the ground for a few moments.

Then a shadow approached them, covering them and revealing itself to be a human-shaped shadow.

The shadow changed and transformed, growing to the point where it covered the entire ground near the boxes and its limits were not captured by the camera.

A reptilian foot with large claws stepped close to the boxes.

Then the tip of a long snout, showing nostrils, approached the boxes.

The nostrils twitched as he inhaled and flared aggressively as he exhaled with enough force to kick up a bit of dirt.

The snout lifted, the camera following it, to reveal that it was the man in his largest form.

He sniffed the air, then wrinkled his snout in irritation.

He ran across the patch of dirt and jumped off the edge, landing on another patch of dirt below.

He slid down it until he jumped on another and did the same, finally landing on his feet on a lower patch. He took off at a run for it, angry and growling.

Chapter Text

The car that looked a lot like a black Ford LTD Crown Victoria 1983-1987 was now driving through the streets of Elmore, getting a slight shine from the sunlight that was getting stronger by the moment.

But it was going at a slow speed, even for the speed limits within the city. Which are constantly broken.

Inside the car, everyone was sleeping with noticeable lines at the corners of their eyes, the children in the back seat slept like a row of dominoes that had been knocked over, falling over each other until they fell on Nicole, who was lying leaning against the car door and her cheek pressed against the window.

Judith was sleeping sitting up, her head falling forward in a way that will make her neck hurt later and her arms weakly around Polly, who snuggled up to her.

Even Richard had slept in a curled up position on top of the car, drooling a lot and snoring.

Patrick was the only one awake, his eyes very droopy and with the same noticeable lines near his eyes.

His arms were so sagging that he was turning the steering wheel using their weight.

He looked down at his wrist, checking the time on the clock, but he couldn't make out the numbers, "I think it's already past nine-".

As he looked back ahead, Rotten Cupcake, who had a large, square dog on a leash, appeared on the street.

Patrick was startled and woken up almost completely, stretching back and tightening his hands on the steering wheel.

He hurriedly stepped on the brakes, the car stopped immediately and was thrown forward a little, everyone inside and outside also followed the movement.

When the car went back, everyone who was sleeping inside the car hit their heads on the seats.

This woke them up immediately, all of them giving a small complaint of discomfort.

Soon Nicole, Judith and Penny were rubbing the back of their heads while Anais and Darwin shook their heads to wake themselves up properly.

Darwin blinked with a crunching sound in his eyelids, "Are we there yet?" he asked in a groggy tone.

Nicole looked out the window and then at him, "Not yet, honey."

Penny, Anais and Darwin gave a soft groan and everyone leaned back against each other and Nicole.

Judith turned over and went to sleep on her side. Polly didn't seem sleepy and lay down next to Judith.

Patrick turned over and sighed tiredly. The car started moving slowly again, Rotten Cupcake now walking on the other side of the street with the dog as if nothing had happened.

Nicole stretched her neck a little, "Don't forget to go to our house."

"Don't worry about it," he narrowed his eyes without stopping to look ahead, "I don't want to be bothered by the community because I broke the noise ordinance on a Wednesday morning."

Darwin gave a tired smile, "At least we won't go to school."

Nicole made a more serious expression, "But you'll make up for this day." Anais and Darwin groaned.

Patrick saw the Wattersons' house through the window. He turned the steering wheel slightly and parked calmly.

They all got out of the car slowly, moving like mummies.

Nicole kept her exhausted expression until she looked at the roof of the car.

Richard had fallen asleep on top of it, with a comfortable expression and drool making a puddle on his cheek.

She first made a hard expression, then a momentarily irritated expression, "RICHARD!".

Richard raised his head and ears as if he had heard a predator, the drool making a sticky string between his cheek and the roof of the car.

He soon became groggy too and yawned, "Are we there yet?".

He rubbed his salivated cheek on the clean part of the car roof. Patrick gave a look of disgust, "My car...".

Richard got out of the car with difficulty while Anais looked at the front of the house, "I think we left the door open".

The camera changed to show the door of the house slightly open.

Nicole shrugged, "Neh, it's okay if they rob us."

She clenched her fist tightly and made a devilish expression, her voice getting deeper.

"We already know where they live anyway."

Patrick, Judith, with Polly in her arms, and Penny took a step away with surprised looks.

Richard finally got out of the car, he stopped right next to it as the car swayed on its suspension.

He chewed a few times with his eyes wrinkled and with lines around them.

Then he looked up.

His expression immediately changed to astonishment.

He spread his legs out in a square shape and pointed upwards with a shout, "AAH!".

Everyone was a little startled by the shout, so they followed where he pointed.

They all had the same astonished expression.

In the void, Gumball was still sleeping near the mossy log.

Now he had his arms twisted, looking like a DNA strand, and his legs bent in impossible ways, one looking ready to run and the other lying so far to the side that it looked out of place. He also had a peaceful smile on his face.

Then a long shadow, looking like the top of a mountain, appeared over the log.

It ran along the curve of the log, covering more and more of it, then it did the same over Gumball's body.

As soon as the tip left the camera, the shadow extended until everything was obscured by it and its boundaries were no longer visible to the camera.

The camera returned to the others in Elmore, still frozen in astonishment.

Nicole then shook her head hard and turned to them, "Where are the fireworks?!".

The rest then also regained their senses, shaking their heads slightly.

Richard looked from side to side desperately. He looked at the car and smiled widely.

He turned and punched the back window hard, breaking it without leaving a chip.

He reached inside and quickly took out the box with the fireworks. As soon as he grabbed them, everyone ran to the house.

Patrick remained in place, looking at the car in shock and then looking at Richard in anger, his fist in the air, "THE CAR WAS OPEN!".

The camera moved to the back of the house, Richard jumped over the wooden fence with difficulty before landing on one foot, hopping a little to regain his balance.

He continued running to the middle of the back lawn, the others jumping, holding hands to push or flying over the fence.

Richard fell to his knees on the lawn and dropped the box with little care. He began to rummage frantically as the others arrived and knelt around, also sticking their hands in.

Patrick pulled out the box with a firework in each hand, a red one with pink stripes and a brown one. He read the description with some uncertainty, "I have an "Improve" and a "Thank you".

Darwin pulled out a large purple one with both hands, "I have one with the letter O".

Anais pulled out a smaller yellow one in her hand, "And I have a "KKK"...", she shrugged in confusion, "What's that supposed to mean?!".

Richard pulled out a medium purple and blue one, "I got one...", he squinted and brought his face a little closer, ""Sorry I forgot your dad's birthday, Samuel, I was busy. Know that you'll always be my best friend"?".

He tossed it back nonchalantly and went back to searching with the others.

Polly held up a small pink and blue one with both hands above her head, "I found one with an arrow on it".

Everyone looked at Polly and smiled with great satisfaction.

They stood up and walked a little way to the center of the yard with Polly in the lead.

She stopped and placed the firework at a 60 degree angle. She stepped back and stood next to her parents.

Nicole showed Richard her hand, "I need a match, Richard."

Richard shoved his hands in his pockets, but his expression grew increasingly nervous as he rummaged through every pocket he had.

Nicole gritted her teeth, "Damn it!"

Penny looked from Nicole to the firework with a raised eyebrow. Her eyes widened in understanding.

She stood up and held her arm out in front of Darwin, "Bite me," she said firmly.

Darwin made an uncomfortable expression, "What? I'm a fish with shoes, not a shark with shoes."

"BITE ME!" she said without looking at him.

Everyone flinched a little with surprised expressions, then Darwin quickly opened his mouth with sharp teeth and bit her arm.

She held back a scream, her head seeming to swell.

She then transformed into her dragon form as she let out her cry of pain, her voice getting deeper as time went by.

She stopped screaming and lowered her head to the rocket, giving a small puff of fire that burned a few blades of grass and lit the fuse.

She stepped away and returned to normal, rubbing her arm that now had marks as if she were a bitten gummy bear with a bitter expression.

Darwin frowned, "You don't need all that to light the fuse."

"I want to help," she said painfully with one eyelid and her lips pursed.

Richard pointed at the rocket, "THERE IT GOES."

Everyone covered their ears, their eyes fixed on the rocket.

The fire in the sky reached the rocket and it rose into the sky, making a high-pitched hum that diminished as it moved away.

Everyone followed it intently until it became invisible due to the brightness of the daytime sky.

Anais raised an eyebrow and turned to the others, "WAIT, HOW DO WE KNOW THAT THE ARROW WILL EXPLODE IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION?"

Everyone stared into space with expressions of understanding and shock.

Anais had an unimpressed expression, "Oh, we won't know."

The firework exploded, glowing in a large purple arrow that pointed to their right and they turned to watch the show.

They turned back to where the rocket had disappeared.

The explosion soon came, causing the glow, which became more intense because of the sunlight, and the noise that, even though it was weaker because it was muffled by the natural noises of the day, was very loud.

Everyone half-closed their eyes until they were almost completely closed and gritted their teeth.

The environment was dark and quiet.

*Boom*

A faint sound of something exploding followed by a sudden increase in light in the environment.

The camera changed to Gumball, who flexed his eyelids in reaction to the sudden light.

He soon undid the flexion and opened his eyes a little.

He looked ahead and saw a blurred, colorful image with no defined shapes with a strong glow between them.

He closed his eyes slowly, then opened them wider, equally slowly.

The blurred image took on shapes and boundaries.

It was the crystal ball that Elmore had, propped up near a very green trunk with so much moss.

There was an image of a bright purple arrow pointing down to his left.

He frowned and looked where it was pointing.

There was only thick moss.

He looked back at the image of the arrow with his head tilted and a confused look.

Small parts of the arrow began to fall off of it in bright dots as if they were dripping until it disintegrated and disappeared.

"Why would someone send a message like that?", he think.

He raised his eyebrows.

"Wait!..."

He widened his eyes.

"SOMEONE SENT A MESSAGE! SOMEONE MIGHT BE LOOKING FOR ME!".

He tried to reach out and grab the crystal ball.

He tried several times, but his hand seemed to be holding him back.

He looked at his hands in frustration, they had wrapped around each other as if they were imitating the DNA chain. He looked at his legs, one of them was completely backwards and the other looked like the leg of a sitting frog.

He looked at the screen with an unimpressed look, "Great."

He looked back at his arms, pulling them to try to undo the loop. He tried a few times, but began to notice something as he strained.

His fur looked like a dark blue. He wasn't dark blue.

He slowly stopped trying to pull his arms and stared at his own body in reflection.

Then he looked at the rest of himself. His clothes also seemed darker.

He looked ahead and noticed the glow that the crystal ball left below it on the floor.

He looked beyond the crystal ball as he noticed another shadow.

It also ran along the curvature of the trunk.

His eyes widened in astonishment.

A large paw with brown scales and sharp claws positioned itself above the greenish trunk.

It reached down and covered the trunk, molding itself to its shape.

A creaking sound came from the trunk below and it soon broke as the paw quickly crushed it, making a loud thud of pressed wood.

Everyone in the Watterson house gasped in concern.

Gumball stared at the paw with an alert look.

He turned his head up slowly.

Just above him, the man, in his Spinosaurus form, was standing behind the trunk, staring intently at the horizon.

He sniffed once, then turned his head to the left and sniffed three times.

He exhaled and let out a soft growl, "Damn woody smell."

Gumball looked down at his paw as he had scraped it across the ground twice, knocking the crumbled wood back and scraping up some dirt and moss from the ground.

He sniffed once more and made a disgusted expression, "I hate that smell, it always scratches my nose."

His serious expression turned a little confused, "Wait... but I've never smelled that before...".

He thought for a moment before letting out another soft growl, "That doesn't matter," and went back to sniffing.

Gumball was staring at the bottom of his mouth, an extremely worried and alert look on his face.

He looked back at the crystal ball and tried to reach it again, but he still couldn't.

He tried several times until he was desperately straining his arm.

He then stopped and stared at the crystal ball. His eyes seemed to have understood something.

He left his hand open and aimed at the crystal ball.

His wrist began to stretch in a wavy fashion in mid-air. His hand was reaching for the crystal ball.

So close...

Just millimeters away from reaching it, a claw pierced his outstretched arm to the point of going through it.

The others in Elmore gasped even louder.

Gumball looked at the wound in terror, while red appeared faintly around the claw. He slowly raised his head.

The "man" was looking directly at him with one side of his mouth showing his teeth and his lips trembling with a snarl.

Gumball sighed, "That's a relief..." He took a deep breath and then screamed in pain at the top of his lungs, his tongue swinging in the air like a rope.

As soon as he was done, the "man" quickly raised the paw that had injured Gumball, quickly lifting him off the ground.

But as he did so, Gumball's injured paw released its grip and he fell.

Gumball hit the ground lightly, his other limbs returning to normal.

He got up and started running, catching the ball with his good arm as the injured one swayed in the wind.

He caught the crystal ball just in time to dodge a one-handed strike from the "man."

He kept running and looked to the side, a long, thick and fast tail was coming towards his head.

His head compressed until it was a cap, the tail whipping right above it.

His head returned to normal with a crack like stretched metal.

He looked back and the "man" was running too.

Gumball turned forward and tried to run more, panting even more.

He soon reached the end of the piece of land and jumped with everything.

The "man" was still far away, but he looked at the ground to the side and saw a very large stone on the ground approaching.

He stretched his neck and caught it with his mouth horizontally, lifting it off the ground without stopping running.

He locked his feet tightly, keeping his legs open for stability.

He slowed down, kicking up dirt on his feet as he slid.

As soon as he stopped, he used inertia and swung his neck along with his body forward.

The large rock flew out of his mouth at high speed with a sonic boom and a cloud of water that formed and quickly dissolved behind his head and neck.

Gumball looked back and just at that moment the rock hit his body, taking him with it.

Gumball was carried for a short time before rolling to the left and falling in a spinning manner on another piece of land.

Meanwhile the rock continued forward until it hit a decent sized piece of land and shattered it.

Gumball rolled for a few meters until he stopped, lifting his head.

Then he looked to the side in fright and the "man" appeared from below, flying until he was above him.

Gumball immediately stood up hastily and clumsily as the shadow above him grew larger very quickly.

He narrowly dodged a strong stomp from the "man", who landed hard on the ground with his paw positioned.

He got up and tried to hit Gumball again with his front paw, but missed.

As soon as Gumball got some distance, a rock fell on his outstretched arm and grabbed him, making him fall backwards to the ground.

He looked in surprise at his trapped arm, then in fright at the "man" approaching at a run.

The "man" already had his mouth open and was going to grab him.

Darwin's teeth were shaking and Richard put his hands over his closed eyes, "I can't look!".

Then a rock also hit him in the head, throwing him to the side.

The "man" stopped and shook his head a little, he looked at where it came from.

His eyes widened.

A "rain" of small and medium-sized stones accompanied by a "mist" of dust fell from the hit piece of land.

He lowered his head when another one came, but was hit in the side of the abdomen by another.

Gumball stood up and tried to pull his arm away, but it just tensed and didn't move.

He jumped in fright when another rock fell next to him, then he began to be surrounded by rocks.

Dust covered everything in a foggy environment filled with the sound of rocks falling hard.

Then the sounds stopped and only the "fog" covered everything.

A little after the sound stopped, the "fog" lost strength and began to descend.

A Spinosaurus head rose above the "fog", pulling small curtains with it.

He looked around and saw nothing. He groaned almost like an irritated growl.

In an instant, a loud clapping sound came and the "fog" quickly moved away from almost the entire patch of land. Revealing that now the ground had a decent layer of extra dirt with rocks underneath.

The "Man", who had his hands together, undid the gesture and looked at where Gumball was.

The camera changed to where there was still "fog", with the middle part more illuminated.

Then a blue arm with a crystal ball in its hand shook it and undid it.

The "fog" showed Gumball, coughing after trying to clear the air, "Why is there so much dust in this place?!".

When he stopped coughing, he looked down and noticed the light fading.

He looked up and saw the "man" staring at him through a hole made of dirt and rocks.

He shoved his face in hard, Gumball jumped in fright and fell on his back. The tip of his mouth stopped inches from Gumball.

The "man" began to dig and pull the rocks out with his hands while shoving his face furiously, kicking up more dust.

Meanwhile, Gumball tried to move further and further away as his mouth slowly advanced.

He turned and dropped the crystal ball to the side, then began to dig with his free arm desperately to get his other arm out of the rock.

They stayed like that for a while, Gumball digging more and more desperately as he looked back.

The mouth full of angry teeth reflected in his terrified look.

The camera switched to the outside, showing the "man" pulling his face out of the hole, surrounded by a "mist" of dust again.

He kicked the ground hard, throwing dust up into his eyes and rocks far away, breaking several.

As the dust fell, he looked at the ground in surprise and confusion. There was only dirt and broken rocks.

He lowered his head and tried to sniff, but the dust got into his nostrils and he exhaled heavily.

He rubbed his nose and shook his head, then lifted his head back up, looking across the entire expanse of land. No sign of Gumball.

"Where did you go?...", he spun around in place, trying to find him.

In Elmore, everyone looked worriedly at the sky that now had an earthy tone.

"Where did they go?", Polly said a little nervously.

"I don't know, dear", Judith frowned in concern.

The "Man" continued searching, increasingly bothered and irritated.

The camera shifted to one of his paws stepping on the ground near a mound of dirt, some of it falling onto his toes.

He turned his head a little quickly, like a bird, looking at his paw with dirt.

The mound seemed to shake, making ridiculously small but fast and constant movements.

He lifted his foot, the dirt falling from above, and shook it to get some more out.

He turned until he was facing the mound of dirt, staring at it.

The camera shifted to Gumball lying face down in the dark, his eyes wide and panicked, his hands pressing his ears to his head.

Fast.

His heart.

It's fast.

His lungs.

They're fast.

It hurts.

Everything is blurry.

It feels like a tunnel.

The light isn't light.

Not again...

The "Man" slowly lowered his head until his mouth was about two feet above the mound of dirt.

This is uncomfortable.

This is unsettling.

I felt a chill down my back.

Cold down my back?

The "man" let out a powerful and ferocious roar, the mass of air moving was almost visible.

This knocked all the dust off of Gumball, leaving him exposed and completely paralyzed with fear, his eyes wide as all the dust flew away.

This even knocked the dust off the crystal ball.

The sky in Elmore cleared, but everything began to shake with the power of the roar.

The Wattersons and Fitzgerald covered their ears, closing their eyes and gritting their teeth in discomfort.

The cars in town shook on their suspensions, setting off alarms and even cracking and breaking the windows.

The camera panned back to the "man" roaring over Gumball. Then he finally stopped, breathing heavily.

Gumball slowly removed his hands from his ears and placed them on the ground.

Just staring straight ahead, he tried to crawl, but his distorted arm did nothing.

As soon as his legs and arm gave him some speed, the man grabbed his distorted arm with his mouth and lifted him up.

He lifted him as high as he could and yanked him down.

Gumball screamed in pain as he was slammed into the ground like a whip.

Then he slammed him into the ground again, causing Gumball to scream once more.

He kept doing this over and over, slamming him from left to right and back again.

After a few more times, Gumball wasn't screaming anymore.

The "man" slapped him once more and then threw him straight to the ground. Gumball lay face down on the ground, silent for a moment.

His good hand rose and rested on the ground. It shook a little as he lifted his head with a horrified expression.

Then he was crushed to the ground again, as the "man" stepped on him.

He tried to struggle and scrape his limbs on the ground, but he wouldn't budge.

The "man" lowered his head to look Gumball in the eye seriously, "I'm not letting you go this time."

He lifted his head and turned to the crystal ball.

He bent down and picked it up in his mouth, then placed it in his hand.

He walked back to Gumball and picked him up by the head, taking his paw off of him and lifting him into the air.

He threw him up a little and caught him with his entire torso in his hand, squeezing him like a stuffed animal.

"Let's settle this."

He walked to the edge of the patch of land.

Gumball looked down and his eyes somehow widened even more. There weren't as many patches of land down there anymore.

But there was that vast expanse of static.

The others gasped once more. The "man" began to fall forward. Then he, along with Gumball and Elmore, plunged downward.

Gumball started to go crazy, kicking his legs and trying to get out of the grip, but without any change.

His claws even came out in panic, scratching his clawed feet on the "man's" hard skin as if it were a sword in a barrel.

He watched out of the corner of his eye as the patches of dirt became scarcer and scarcer. This made him struggle even more crazily.

One of his clawed hands went up a little in the "man's" grip. It accidentally entered a soft, red spot.

The "man" widened his eyes and roared in pain.

His hand flexed in pain and Gumball floated out naturally.

Just a few seconds later, the "man" was already glaring at him furiously.

He tried to reach Gumball while Gumball tried to swim in the air to get away.

But the air resistance made the "man" move away, falling faster than Gumball because of his weight.

Gumball fell on a piece of land in a very clumsy way. The "man" fell on another piece of land further away, but right in front of Gumball's.

The "man" got up quickly and shook his body, falling dirt from him. He looked at Gumball's piece of land.

Gumball lifted his head limply, looking around with rapid breathing.

He accelerated his legs as he tried to lift his head.

But as soon as he was fully standing, he stopped and looked at his hands.

His vision is blurred. One hand.

Very stretched.

The other normal.

Both empty.

He looked around and noticed the "man" staring at him, holding the crystal ball close to his face.

"You can't leave without this," he shook it in his hand.

His chest hurt.

This is scary.

He's in danger.

His brain screamed.

Run.

He lifted one of his legs and tried to take a slow step back.

The "man" noticed this movement and made an irritated expression.

Before Gumball's foot touched the ground, the "man" growled angrily at him.

Gumball immediately retracted his foot back to its original place in a startled jump.

The "man" looked at him, irritated, "Were you really going to leave them and walk away?!".

Gumball just stared at him, motionless, terrified and breathing very quickly.

The "man" stared at him very coldly.

"You really don't deserve what you have."

In Elmore, everyone was still tense. Except Nicole.

She had a furious expression, the veins on her head extremely visible and thick, her hands in very tight fists.

She walked with strong steps to the box of fireworks and rummaged through it without any kindness.

Anais raised an eyebrow, "Mom?...".

"Not now, honey," she replied without taking her eyes off the box.

She then took out a huge rocket, the size of Richard, yellow with red and written "BOOM" on it with both hands.

She took it to the front of everyone and threw it on its feet on the ground with a bang.

"I'm going to teach that lizard not to look down on someone."

"Hmm...", Penny tried to get his attention.

Nicole put her hand up to stop her, "Don't worry, Penny," she replied in a normal voice, "I'll take care of this," then her angry voice returned.

She stared at the rocket's rope. Its face transformed into that of a demon with an elephant's skull and bull's horns, with fire shooting out of its nostrils.

The fire dissolved into a spark that landed on the rope and lit it up.

Nicole walked away to the others as the rope slowed.

Richard pointed at the rocket, "LIGHT FURY! GET DOWN!" Everyone covered their ears and ducked their heads.

The rope ended and the rocket took off into the sky faster than the others.

In record time, the rocket exploded.

But its light and power were so great that it was impossible to see its color. In addition to the bang that broke the remaining windows.

The light came out of the crystal ball with great intensity, making the "man's" pupil shrink drastically.

He groaned in discomfort and moved his arm away as much as possible.

Gumball stared at the scene completely frozen.

Should he do something?

Can he do something?

In Elmore, Penny was the only one who raised her head and looked at the sky, where the light was fading.

She managed to look straight at Gumball.

"Come on, Gumball," she whispered.

He's going to do it.

He walked back a little and ran with everything, jumping and flying through nothing.

This is scary.

This is scary.

He was reaching the other piece of land.

This is stupid.

He reached the "man" and stole the crystal ball from him.

The "man" looked at his empty hand in confusion, and his eyes finally adjusted.

He turned and tried to hit Gumball with his tail.

But Gumball slid down as soon as he hit the ground, dodging it. He got up and started running again, with the "man" right behind him.

He looked up and saw a piece of dirt, a little bigger than the "man", very close by.

He moved his shoulder in circles, accelerating his long arm until he had enough momentum.

He threw it and it stretched, reaching for the piece of dirt.

But when he retracted his arm and started to climb, the "man" arrived and grabbed him by the legs with his mouth.

The "man" planted his feet on the ground and pulled him.

The sound of hyper-tensioned rubber was coming from Gumball's body. Along with an expression of pain from him.

The piece of earth he was holding onto suddenly accelerated greatly.

And his legs slipped from the "man's" mouth.

This caused him to be thrown far away and upwards, disappearing into the maze of pieces of earth.

While the piece of earth that gained speed came towards the "man".

He tried to contain it, but the ground could not withstand the impact and crumbled.

Then the piece of earth went down, taking the "man" with it.

He steadied himself with his claws on the moving piece of earth.

"GUMBALL WATTERSON!".

Chapter Text

The void was quiet.

Then suddenly, a blue figure passed through the pieces of dirt, hitting them like a pinball. And screaming a lot.

The camera showed Gumball's face, his eyelids and stretched lips swinging with the momentum.

He hit a piece of dirt, his face smashed into it, one of his eyes bulging, in slow motion, ceasing his screams.

Then he began to move away elastically, also in slow motion.

His speed returned to normal and he dove diagonally downwards, still screaming.

He hit the piece of dirt and launched himself diagonally upwards now.

He hit a piece of dirt and went diagonally upwards again, hitting another and another.

So he went up in a zigzag, hitting several pieces of dirt.

He came out of the zigzag and flew into another piece of dirt with a decent point at the bottom.

He hit the point and dove straight down.

He hit the piece of land with a loud bang, cracking it and dragging it down a little.

He came out from underneath, releasing a small cloud of dust that followed him a little, now at a falling speed and not at high speed.

His body fell limply towards the ground of another piece of land.

He hit it, much weaker than the other, bouncing slightly and falling to the side, motionless.

His body was left lying on its side, the camera showing his back and his arm falling behind him with the crystal ball.

In Elmore, the Fitzgeralds and the Wattersons looked at Gumball motionless with concern.

Anais frowned with a slightly hopeful look, "React...".

Gumball remained still and quiet.

The camera changed to a dark place.

Then a slightly blurred image from before appeared, it was the "man", staring at him above.

Then came that terrifying roar.

Gumball raised his head agitatedly and breathing quickly before the scene ended.

Gumball looked around, his eyes were blurred, only seeing what was right in front of him.

He felt something and turned to the hand with the crystal ball.

The hand trembled a little, until he let go of the crystal ball, making it roll a little.

After following it with his eyes, he looked back at his hand, trembling on its completely still axis.

It was tingling.

Then his expression brightened and he calmly moved his paralyzed hand to his chest and groaned slightly in pain.

That hurts.

There was the sound of some small rocks falling.

Gumball turned his head towards the sound and flinched quickly.

He stared intently around.

He's not safe now.

He was safe before.

He never was.

He's going to show up.

He's going to show up!

Nicole put on a determined expression on her face, "We need to communicate soon."

She noticed everyone was staring at her.

She snorted and pointed at the box in an authoritative drill sergeant voice, "Let's go!"

Everyone jumped in surprise and ran back to the crate, searching through it.

Soon fireworks were placed side by side on a wall.

Nicole made her devilish expression and lit one of them.

She returned to normal as the rocket rose and disappeared.

She sighed in relief, "This is good for relieving stress."

Gumball remained alert, his eyes moving frantically around.

He's safe now!

He wasn't safe before!

He never was!

He can-

A tiny explosion sounded, it was small, but Gumball's alert ears turned towards the sound and Gumball turned around soon after.

In the crystal ball, a bright "HEY" appeared and soon the light particles fell and disappeared.

Gumball continued to stare intently at the crystal ball.

Another sound came and the new explosion took its place with a "How are you?".

Gumball's alert eyes calmed and his hand released his chest.

He struggled to stand up with both hands, only one of which was useful, and picked up the crystal ball with his good hand.

His breathing slowed.

There were people looking for him.

He stared at the crystal ball for a while with a frustrated and nervous expression.

The others in Elmore looked at him expectantly.

Gumball closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

He opened his eyes and gave a nervous, "Hey."

He shrugged nervously, "I think this is the first time we've communicated since all this started a few hours ago."

He placed the crystal ball on the floor and began to rotate the shoulder of his outstretched arm, "I'm fine...".

The outstretched arm retracted like a hose, until it returned to normal.

Once he was done, Gumball looked at his entire arm, then looked closely at the wound.

Due to cartoon logic, the wound maintained its diameter, but decreased in length along with the arm, reducing the damage.

He rotated his arm, "I'm not serious."

He bent down and picked up the crystal ball again, now with both hands.

He saw two more dots move in the crystal ball, then came two explosions, one saying "How?" and the other "Can we help?".

He raised an eyebrow, "Maybe help me get out of here."

He waited and another explosion came, saying "What do you think?" and then another "We're doing it."

Gumball rolled his eyes, "I see."

Another explosion, "We spent the night on this."

Gumball held the crystal ball in one hand and made "jazz hands" mockingly, "Thanks for the show-".

"You want to save yourself!"

He froze.

He closed his mouth and lowered his hand a little, looking serious.

"But when you're in danger, YOU WANT OTHERS TO SAVE YOU!".

His hand dropped completely and he lowered his head with a regretful look, "Sorry."

Nicole's irritated expression disappeared and she looked sympathetic, the others stopped what they were doing and did the same.

Gumball crouched down and sat on the floor with his knees to his chest, placing the crystal ball right next to him.

He gestured a little, "I just...", he pursed his lips a little.

"OK, yeah! What's wrong with ensuring your safety!"

He sighed in a stressed way, "I just don't want to be crushed, kicked, bitten anymore...", his gaze dropped, "Or talk to myself," he placed his hands on the floor on either side.

Everything went quiet.

Then came another tiny explosion sound.

Gumball turned his head a little, it was the same explosion as "How are you?".

Gumball turned back to the front with his head down.

Then he slid his hands lightly until he fell back onto the floor, spreading his arms and stretching his legs.

He looked up with a disappointed look, "I don't know why I've been acting like an idiot…".

"Because you're punishing yourself."

He put his hands together on his stomach, "Maybe... because I'm an idiot?..."

"Of course, you're punishing yourself because you're constantly reminding yourself of what that man said. And that's only because you know it's true."

He thought no one would come to save him because they were tired of him, of his idiocy.

He turned his head and looked at the crystal ball.

But they're there, using fireworks to try to talk to him.

And here he is, acting like an idiot.

Maybe it was never about everyone being too mad at him.

At least not to abandon him.

Because they're nice people, they wouldn't leave someone to die just because they're mad.

They'd just leave them alone, but not to die.

But he would, because that was the first conclusion he had.

That they were all idiots.

Idiots like him.

But being helped by nice people doesn't make you nice.

Nice people help you because they're nice.

That's what he is.

A stupid person not helped by nice people.

...

Maybe it was never about them abandoning him, but about him not deserving of help.

About him not being worth it.

He frowned in frustration.

He stood up and picked up the crystal ball with both hands, looking at it with a hurt expression.

He took one hand away and put the crystal ball in his pants.

Nicole and the others widened their eyes, "What is he doing?!" Anais exclaimed worriedly.

They all stood up and ran towards Nicole, waving their arms and shouting "GUMBALL!".

The sky began to darken on one side, eventually covering the sky completely like an eclipse.

The camera changes to show Gumball stuffing the crystal ball into his pocket, looking remorseful.

He took his hand out of his pocket, which now had a bulge in it.

He looked at his pocket for a few moments and sighed.

He raised his head and looked at the piece of land he was on, it was ridiculously flat and extensive, very extensive. And there was only a smooth green patch on it.

Gumball sighed, shaking his lips like a horse and dropped his posture and arms. He began to walk without enthusiasm.

In Elmore, everything became almost as dark as night, the crickets even began to sing.

The Wattersons and Fitzgerald were standing still, with expressions of surprise and betrayal, their arms slightly raised.

"I can't believe he just blocked us," Darwin let his arms fall.

Penny's look became even more sympathetic, "Maybe he has more... internal reasons."

"He better have one!".

Everyone turned their heads in surprise to Nicole.

Nicole was panting so hard that her shoulders were shaking, her teeth were very sharp and her mouth was full of foam.

The foam disappeared and she started screaming in any direction, scaring everyone.

"WE DROVE FOR HOURS...".

She walked to the wooden fence and started kicking it with Ushiro Gueri kicks.

"WE FIGHTED WITH SOMEONE WHO LOOKS LIKE A ROTTEN LETTUCE AND WE STOLE FIREWORKS FROM THE SAME PERSON!"

Her kicks made the fence shake, almost breaking it.

"AND RIGHT NOW HE DECIDES TO START HIS TEENAGE REBELLION!".

Judith approached Richard from behind, without taking her eyes off Nicole.

She said out of the corner of her mouth, "Should we stop her?"

Richard said calmly, "In these moments, you should let the beast vent. Otherwise, her anger will fall on you."

Everyone made shocked expressions with their duckbills wrinkled when a loud sound came.

The camera showed Nicole breathing heavily as the entire wooden fence fell to the ground, without breaking.

Nicole threw her arms up and flexed her hands, "WHAT ELSE IS GOING TO HAPPEN NOW?!".

Everyone paid attention to the sound of several voices coming from the other side of the house.

The camera shifted to the fence separating the backyard from the rest.

Nicole, Patrick, and Anais' heads, and Darwin, on top of Richard, appeared through it.

In front of the house, a crowd of people stood in front of the house, shouting "We want justice! We want justice!", waving sickles, shovels, and farmer's forks.

Patrick pointed to the crowd, "I think that's what's going to happen."

Nicole flexed her face, and continued to flex in anger until it began to make the sound of it exploding.

Then the fence they were on fell forward, kicked by Nicole.

Patrick had his hands apart while Anais and Darwin, who were on top of Richard, were all three losing their balance and fell forward.

Penny had a worried expression, "I hope that's the only bad thing that happens."

Anais raised her finger without taking her face off the ground, "Considering everything so far, I'd say the chances of everything being calm are low."

In the void, a piece of land floated slowly on its axis in the middle of the static horizon.

Then a large paw full of scales and claws stepped on the ground.

The camera changed to a more distant view of the piece of land, showing that it was very isolated.

Then a sonic boom, a cloud of dust rose in the shape of a mountain, with spherical lines of compressed air circling it from top to bottom.

The camera showed something moving at high speed diagonally upwards, quickly approaching the nearest pieces of land.

It reached one of them and went through it completely.

It then went towards others and went through them too.

It went through several pieces of land until it lost a lot of speed.

The camera switched to a piece of land.

It fell on it.

The camera showed the "man" still in Spinosaurus form, but the red pigments on his upper chest and back seemed to have a slightly more vibrant color.

The camera moved up his neck, where the red pigments also seemed to have a stronger color, until it reached his enraged face.

He threw his head back and roared as loud as he could, the back of his mouth also seemed to have a certain color.

The roar was terrifying and very loud, his throat trembled as the sound traveled through the void.

He was out of breath and lowered his head, breathing heavily.

He soon recovered and raised his head, looking at the static void with irritation.

The red pigments on his chest seemed to have an even stronger color.

He ran the claws of his hand over that part with an uncomfortable expression, "Why is it hot in here?".

He looked at the other pieces of land, closer than before.

He looked determined, stopped scratching himself and gave a slight growl, a bit of visible, hot air coming out between his teeth.

He flexed his legs and pushed himself forward, causing a cloud of dust and many cracks in the piece of land he was on. In addition to throwing it back a little.

He flew in the air with his arms and legs stretched back and his mouth straight, like a missile.

He reached the other piece of land, hitting it with enough force to push it back.

The "man" landed on the piece of land using his legs and hands.

But before the piece of land lost momentum, the "man" flexed his arms and legs and jumped again,

tearing off a small piece of the piece of land.

The scene returned to Anais, still with her face on the ground.

"Very low."

*In the void*

Gumball continued walking on the extremely flat piece of land with his discouraged look and slumped posture.

He raised one of his arms and passed it up and down over one of his eyes, "How long have I been walking?".

His discouraged look suddenly became serious.

He stopped and kept his gaze in front of him.

A little far away, there seemed to be something up ahead, a little above the ground.

He took a step.

Then another, a little faster.

And another again, a little faster.

He soon started running, swinging his arms.

It took a while before he finally got close.

He stopped and put his hands on his knees as he took a quick breath.

He recovered a bit and stood up, looking at "it" in surprise, "Rob?...".

The thing Gumball saw was Rob, about eight feet off the ground, standing in the air in the falling position seen in the last episode of season 6.

Gumball stared at him in surprise for a moment, then walked closer and started to circle him.

Gumball walked slowly around him, taking in every detail. He looked normal.

He got a little closer and stretched out his finger, touching him for a moment.

That was enough to activate him, and he screamed for a moment before hitting the ground on his back with a thud.

Gumball made a "Shhh" sound with his mouth.

Rob remained on the ground, motionless, opening his eye slightly, "Ouch," he exclaimed painfully.

He supported himself with difficulty on his arms to sit up, rubbing his head.

He turned it slowly and finally noticed Gumball.

They stared at each other indifferently.

Then Rob's eyes widened and he let out a scream, pulling away in fright. Gumball just looked startled.

H-how did you get here?!".

Gumball shrugged, "Probably the same way you did."

Rob made a confused expression, "What? That's impossible!".

Then his expression became confused, "Unless...", he stood up and began to pace back and forth with a hand on his chin.

He stopped and pointed his finger at Gumball, speaking in an accusatory tone, "How much do you know?!".

Gumball began to sweat a little, "I don't think so."

Rob frowned, "That's not good."

Gumball pointed his thumb back, "And he's coming."

Rob was astonished, "What?! But didn't he just want to bring things here?!".

Gumball raised an eyebrow, "I thought he only wanted me."

Rob also raised an eyebrow, "Wait, who are we talking about?".

They were silent.

Then they both pointed their fingers and shouted "THAT GUY!" and "THE VOID!".

Gumball made a strange expression, "The void? What does that mean?".

Rob looked away and rubbed the back of his neck, "Forget about it...", he looked back at Gumball, confused, "Which guy are you talking about?".

Gumball spread his arms, "That guy".

Rob continued with a confused expression.

Gumball ran his hand over his body like a scanner,

"Does he wear dark clothes?", he put his finger on his cheek, "Blue hair?", he put his hand on his face and pulled it forward, "Can he turn into a dinosaur with a long mouth?".

Rob frowned with a hard expression, "That sounds like a made up story".

Gumball got irritated, "Well, this "made up story" stepped on me, bit me and trapped us here!".

Rob was surprised and confused, "What do you mean by that?".

Gumball reached into his pocket and pulled out the crystal ball, placing it right next to Rob's face, "Thanks to what he did, we're stuck here! You and me!".

Rob stared at the crystal ball in astonishment, "But Elmore! It's okay! That doesn't make-".

His eyes widened and he looked at Gumball, "How long has it been since you last saw me?!".

Gumball looked down, "Since I remembered you existed, I think a few days, after we thought Tina had killed you".

Rob went back to pacing with his hand on his chin, "This isn't right! Elmore should have been destroyed!".

Gumball raised an eyebrow, "What?".

Rob stopped walking and ran a hand through what was probably his hair out of stress.

"Well, that's great, Elmore isn't how I thought he would be, but that doesn't matter because thanks to a guy who can turn into a dinosaur, none of us can get out of here."

He sighed in stress, "This sucks," he looked around a little, disappointed, "I didn't want to come back here like this."

"What do I do now?".

Gumball brought the crystal ball close to his chest and lowered his head with a contemplative and somewhat sad look.

Then he slid his legs and fell to the floor sitting with his legs in a meditation posture.

He looked ahead with a distant look, "I guess you just...sit."

Rob followed his gaze and kept the same distant look, watching.

He sighed through his nose and walked right next to Gumball.

He got down and sat beside her, his legs stretched out and his arms resting on the floor behind his back.

They both stared ahead in silence.

The camera shifted and showed them watching the static horizon, flowing in their empty form of being.

Chapter Text

*A little earlier*

In Elmore, darkened by being in a pants pocket, a crowd of people of various types threw their arms in the air, shouting "Justice! Justice!" in a rhythmic and angry way.

Oh, and they also have shovels and forks.

They kept shouting some more in front of the house.

A white dish towel with the top part falling back like hair raised an open hand and everyone went quiet and lowered their arms.

"WATTERSONS! WE KNOW YOU'RE IN THERE! WE HEARD THE FENCE FALL!" came a female voice of maybe 40 years old.

No answer.

The dish towel raised an eyebrow, "Okay, then...", she pulled her arm forward.

A whole line of people stepped forward and showed their shovels and forks as if they were showing cannons.

"We're going after you by force!"

The door quickly opened and Nicole rushed out and stood on the porch, making a calming gesture with her hands and sweating, "Wait! Calm down, calm down!"

She gave a nervous smile and said through her teeth, "No one needs their entire salary to fix up the house."

Soon the other Wattersons and the Fitzgeralds appeared from the doorway.

"Finally decided to show their faces? What have you been doing all this time?! We've been here for 10 minutes!"

"Uh, fixing the fence?" Richard gave a nervous smile that accentuated his chin.

Nicole crossed her arms and gave them a smug look, "And we've been out taking care of some things, not that it's any of your business."

Darwin pointed at the shovels and forks with a confused look, "And why do you have those things?".

The dishcloth waved back and everyone gathered up their tools, "Well, because this is a rebellion."

Anais took the same stance as Nicole, "What are you rebelling for? We're not in the Pilgrim era anymore."

The dishcloth pointed an angry finger at them, "We're rebelling against you, Wattersons!"

She spread her arms wide to highlight the crowd, "We're all tired of your madness and destruction!"

Everyone in the crowd murmured in agreement.

Nicole rolled her eyes, "We nearly destroy this town almost every week, is that really necessary? And why only now?"

The dishcloth pointed to the darkening sky, "Because your bastard son-".

Nicole made an expression with thick, hairy eyebrows, snake eyes and crocodile teeth, while Penny assumed her gorgon form.

"BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU SAY ABOUT HIM!".

The dishcloth shrank back, terrified.

Penny and Nicole noticed that they had spoken at the same time and looked at each other.

Penny returned to normal and laughed shyly, with small red streaks on her cheeks.

Nicole looked back at the crowd, also back to normal, but with an angry expression now.

The dishcloth shook its face and returned to its irritated expression, pointing at hers, "You, uh...", she looked away for a moment, "...Idiot son is up to something!".

"I don't know what he did, but the sky is so messed up that we can't even think if we should have torches too or not!".

Everyone murmured in agreement.

"And what was that horribly loud noise earlier?! I'm sure he's involved in this too. Whatever it was, it was the last straw!", she made an X with her arms, "We have no more patience for you!".

"Then you're going to solve this, once and for all!".

Everyone in the crowd raised their arms in a "YEAH!".

Anais waved her arms, "Wait, wait, wait. So you're saying that you started all this just to force us to solve a problem that one of our own caused so that you don't have to get your hands dirty?".

The dishcloth put its hands on its hips, "Yeah."

Nicole's expression was unimpressed, "You're kidding, right?".

She assumed an arrogant posture, "We also have our own occupations and problems to take care of."

She looked away, "Although we did get a few hours of sleep before we came here."

Judith raised an eyebrow, "What are you? 80 years old?"

The dishcloth pointed a finger, "Everyone here has at least 40 years under their belts!"

A 3-foot-tall tuna can raised its hand shyly, "Oh, I'm 27."

The dishcloth snapped at him through her teeth, "Thanks for the feedback!"

She turned back to them, "We want you to solve your problems before you let them get worse!"

"And if you don't cooperate, we'll start destroying all your property!"

She turned and looked around. She pointed her finger furiously at Patrick's car, "Starting with that car!". The entire crowd screamed furiously, waving their tools.

Patrick put on a desperate expression, "WHY?".

Nicole put her hand over her mouth as she yawned, "Are you done?".

The dishcloth looked confused, "Uh...yeah".

"Okay", Nicole turned to her family, "Richard, kids", she clapped her hands twice rhythmically.

Everyone took on serious looks.

Richard jumped into the air, as he fell to the ground lying down, he put his arms inside his clothes, leaving the sleeves loose.

Anais and Darwin jumped on top of Richard lying down and began to push him forward.

Soon Richard was rolling with Anais and Darwin keeping him moving.

The whole crowd started running and screaming in despair.

Richard ran over some as if he were bowling, others he ran over and threw far away.

The Fitzgeralds watched in surprise.

A tomato fell to the ground and looked at them with a desperate look.

He raised it towards him, "Help-".

Richard ran over him without slowing down, leaving him completely flat on the ground.

Nicole had a satisfied smile on her face, "This will give us control of the situation."

All the Fitzgeralds took a step back.

Patrick had a worried expression, "You guys scare me."

*Now*

Gumball and Rob were sitting, looking at the natural static of that place. Gumball placed the crystal ball next to him.

They didn't say anything for a while.

Then...

"Well, are we really stuck here?", Rob said in a disinterested way.

"When he left Elmore looking like a crystal ball, all the passages disappeared", Gumball said equally disinterested.

Rob:"Hmm, that sucks, I didn't want to come back here so soon".

Gumball:"Hmm".

The silence returned for a while.

Rob:"Did anything happen while I was gone?".

Gumball:"Nothing that I noticed".

Rob"Okay".

Once again the silence, now with a touch of awkwardness.

Gumball and Rob sighed in unison, "This is weird", they said in unison.

They went silent again.

Rob slowly turned to look at Gumball. He stared at him for a while and even tilted his head a little.

Gumball rolled his eyes and noticed him, "What?".

"You look...different."

Gumball tilted his head too, "Different how?"

Rob squinted, "You look like you have more lines than a tree."

The camera showed his face exaggeratedly full of wrinkles, making him look like an extremely withered ball of meat.

He shook his face and returned to normal, "Are you saying I look old?"

Rob: "I would say more stressed."

Gumball turned to the front and looked down, "Some...things...have been happening lately."

He shook his head from side to side at each item, "Like being stomped on, shaken, punched, stretched..."

Rob got a confused look, "Been to a WWA?"

"Just being assaulted really."

"Hmm," Rob looked back at him disinterestedly.

Gumball's gaze deepened a bit. "And start thinking about maybe I'm a bad person."

Rob turned to him, unimpressed, "Okay, two things."

He held up a finger, "First, 'Maybe'?".

Gumball gave him a grumpy look, then he threw his arms up in the air, "Okay, I'm bad! I'm a horrible person!" he said in a slightly sarcastic tone.

Rob held up a second finger, "And second...", he lowered his hand, "What would make someone like you," he pointed at Gumball, making him grumpy again, "Start caring about how bad of a person you are?"

Gumball's look lost its irritation and now his eyes seemed to have less shine.

He turned and went back to staring at the static horizon, "I guess everything."

He held up a hand, "The fact that someone literally wants me to disappear from the memory of others."

He lowered it and raised his other hand, "The fact that I knew you were here and yet I'm still willing to walk out of here on my own."

He raised both hands this time, "And realize that I almost acted like a complete idiot to people who are trying to help me get out of here."

He let his arms fall and lowered his head until he looked at his lap with a hurt look.

"And that last one was the most impactful."

Rob was unimpressed again, "Thanks for forgetting me, again."

Gumball continued as if nothing had happened.

"I have people trying to help me, because they care about me."

"And I was almost a complete jerk to those people. I almost belittled their efforts to help me."

"They tried to help an idiot. That would make them good people, decent people."

He put his hands in his lap.

"Then I realized, I'm an idiot, an idiot who has good people caring about him, even though he's an idiot. Because those people are good."

He raised his arms and hugged them by the forearms, pressing his fingers into the skin a little.

"What bothers me about this isn't that I have that notion."

His look was devastated.

"What bothers me is: What if they come to the same conclusion? That they're just good people trying hard for an idiot."

"What if they realize that and feel like it's not worth it?"

"That I don't deserve to be helped?"

Rob looked away and kept staring at the horizon. He sighed.

He turned completely around and sat facing Gumball.

He raised his hands and made a gesture that looked like a mime of a box with a serious look, "I hate you."

Gumball turned to him, his devastated look mixed with confusion, "Ehh, thanks?".

Rob's eyes widened, "What? No, no, no," he waved his hands in dismissal, "That wasn't a compliment."

He went back to doing the box mime, "I'm not saying this as your arch-nemesis or anything like that, I'm talking as a person. I hate you."

He started counting on his fingers, "You're selfish, annoying, desperate, and very needy."

Gumball got an offended look, "Okay...".

Rob rested his arms on the floor behind his back, "So?".

"So what?".

He got a relaxed look, "Me showing you that you're a bad person makes me a good person?".

Gumball got a confused look.

"Because, in your logic, being good is not being an idiot, so if I point you out as an idiot, I should be good?".

He leaned forward a little, "But knowing what you know about me, do you think I'm a good person?".

Gumball looked away, "Well...hmmm...".

Rob was unimpressed, again, "I literally wanted to destroy the dam that Elmore didn't have, I made almost your entire family disappear from existence and I would have thrown you here afterward."

Gumball remained impassive, "Yeah, I remember those things," he looked away, "Sort of."

Rob remained impassive, "And the list goes on."

He snorted, "That's the point, I see?", he put his hand on his chest, "I'm not a good person and treating you like you deserve just because you're an idiot isn't going to change that."

He threw his outstretched arm to the side, "And those people who want to help you are the same thing."

"They're trying to help, even though you don't deserve it, great. But that doesn't make them good people."

"Almost no one is a good person. Other people are neither worse nor better than you."

Gumball frowned, "I know no one is perfect."

Rob made a serious expression, "Then why do you keep comparing yourself to them?".

Gumball was a little surprised and lowered his head, "Maybe...because I'm someone who deserves a kick in the ass."

Rob spread his arms, "Everyone has something that makes them deserve at least a kick in the ass!".

He dropped his arms, "That's what I mean, other people aren't a standard you should live by."

Gumball tilted his head slightly to the side, "So you're saying I should try to be a good person, instead of feeling bad about being a bad person?"

"No, because people don't change, you won't stop being an idiot."

Gumball looked disappointed.

"But you don't have to be a good person to do good deeds."

Gumball's eyes widened a little.

"Try harder, listen more, value more..." Rob looked away disinterestedly and shrugged, "That kind of thing. Anyone can do it."

Gumball took on a thoughtful look and lowered his head, "Hmm...".

He raised it again, his face now a mix of thoughtfulness and curiosity, "Why did you say all that?".

Rob pointed his finger a little irritably, "Don't get me wrong! What I feel about you right now is...somewhat confusing, for now."

He rested his chin on his fist, "But seeing someone like you feeling bad about comparing yourself to others is too ridiculous to ignore."

Gumball gave a slight smile.

In an instant, he was on Rob's chest in a bear hug.

Rob stood with his arms open and staring at nothing, perplexed, "That's weird."

"Yeah, probably everyone who sees this will ship us a lot," Gumball said calmly.

Rob frowned, "WHAT?!"

Gumball frowned, "Wait, what's that in your pocket?", he rubbed his leg in the spot right near his waist.

Rob looked uncomfortable, "Can you stop? It's just my phone."

They both widened their eyes.

"Wait, what?"

"I have my phone."

"You have your phone?!"

"I have my phone!"

Rob clenched his fists and smiled confidently, "Yeah! We can call someone!"

Then came a sound.

They stared wide-eyed as a distant, echoing, scattered roar filled the air for a few seconds.

Rob frowned slowly, "What...was that?"

Then he looked at Gumball with discomfort, "Ouch, Gumball, stop."

Gumball didn't react, keeping his terrified, distant gaze.

Rob groaned slightly in pain, "Gumball! Stop that! That hurts!"

He placed his hands on Gumball's hands on his back, a little irritated.

He pulled them once, twice, three times.

On the fourth time, he pulled and Gumball's hands came off like Velcro. The claws on his hands were visible.

Rob let go of his hands and rubbed his back calmly with an uncomfortable look.

Gumball fell backwards to the ground and then turned around and stood up awkwardly.

He ran over to the crystal ball and picked it up with both hands, staring at it intently.

He left it in one hand and began to pace back and forth as his breathing became more and more agitated.

Not this.

This is boring.

My heart.

My lungs.

They're already hurting.

"H-h-h-he..." Gumball swallowed hard, "It's h-h-here!"

Rob looked skeptical, "Wait," he pointed at Gumball, "You really picked a fight with a dinosaur?"

Gumball just kept pacing back and forth, breathing quickly.

Rob got a little irritated.

He stood up and walked over to Gumball, holding him by the shoulders from the front.

They stared at each other, Rob looking serious and Gumball frozen with a terrified look.

"How far do you think that was?"

Another roar came.

They looked away again.

The roar this time was more consistent, louder and more powerful.

It was much closer.

The roar ended and Rob looked around cautiously, "Not far."

Gumball walked forward a little disoriented with his eyes frozen, getting out of Rob's grip with relative ease.

Rob stared at him as he passed him, "Where did you...?"

Gumball continued walking slowly without looking away.

"W-we need to get out of here-".

They froze in place when an explosion, along with a large cloud of dust, came out of the ground very close to them.

Then came a loud bang and the cloud was pushed back a little, revealing a Spinosaurus kneeling enough for its front paws to be on the ground and its head down. And with the red spots between the top of his chest and the end of his neck shining.

He stood up, pulling his tail stuck in the ground with ease and throwing rocks and dirt into the air.

He shook his head and turned to them.

Rob had a shocked look on his face and was ready to run at any moment, while Gumball remained with his back turned.

The "man" frowned, "I found you."

Gumball was quiet for a moment, then turned enough to look at him out of the corner of his eye.

The "man" turned his head slightly and looked at Rob with a look of contempt, "You...".

"...Do we know each other?".

The "man" quickly turned his head to Gumball with an irritated look.

Rob also turned his head and was shocked not to see Gumball.

He turned back and saw Gumball running desperately.

He groaned in annoyance.

He jumped when he remembered the dinosaur in front of him and turned around.

Just at that moment, he was hit by a scaly tail very quickly and thrown away.

Gumball ran, swinging his arms and breathing heavily.

Run.

Run.

Run!

Then Rob caught up with him and hit him in the back, making him stumble.

They soon began to spin and turned into a cartoonish wheel.

They continued like that for a good few hundred meters until they lost enough momentum to fall apart and fall to the ground.

They groaned in pain and got up painfully.

Gumball turned his head a little and panicked, starting to run again.

Rob noticed this and turned around, also getting scared and running away.

Just as they were leaving where they were, the "man" fell to the ground, crouching down a little and causing a bang.

He quickly accelerated and almost caught them with a bite.

As soon as they got some distance, he jumped and ran over them.

He landed right in front of them and turned to catch them with a claw strike.

They stopped abruptly and ran in another direction, dodging the blow.

He ran a little more and jumped again, making them dodge the other way again.

They continued like this a few more times, until Rob and Gumball were facing away from the edge of the patch of land.

The "man" was a few feet away from catching them.

But as soon as he stepped on the ground, his foot sank a few inches into the ground and cracks appeared.

Everyone stood still, staring at it.

Then they all looked up and stared at each other.

The "Man" shot towards them.

As he got closer, the ground quickly cracked more and more, getting closer and closer to Rob and Gumball.

As soon as the cracks reached their feet, Rob grabbed Gumball by the collar and jumped with him. Gumball yelped in surprise.

The "man" almost caught them with a horizontal bite.

The two turned and saw the "man" hanging on the edge of the patch of land, growling furiously.

Rob looked relaxed, "We're saved."

The "man" went backwards and disappeared for a moment, then he reappeared jumping off the edge towards them.

"AH COME ON!".

The "man" dove like a missile and opened his mouth.

Gumball and Rob tried to swim in the air to the sides.

The "man" opened his mouth wide and bit down very hard, but the air resistance threw Gumball and Rob away from him.

He turned a little in the air and tried to attack them with his claws, but he was far away now.

Because of his weight, he fell faster than them and so quickly got further and further away.

Gumball looked at that with some relief, even trying to give a nervous laugh.

He pointed at the "man", who was now almost part of the environment, so far away he was, with a laugh so nervous it was scary, "H-haha, idiot!".

Rob gave a disgusted look, "You've been weird lately".

Suddenly, the "man" seemed to stop moving away, with an orange color covering some of the edges of his silhouette.

The "man" seemed to move from side to side awkwardly, the orange color following his trajectory soon after.

Then there was a sound, a sound that is heard when rockets begin to gain momentum to take off.

The "man" seemed to get more control and suddenly he was coming towards them very fast.

Very very fast.

Gumball and Rob just widened their eyes and the "man" passed by them, hitting his body and starting to spin in the air, the air resistance throwing them away again.

The "man" passed them, soaring away as he left a trail of fire that was almost cylindrical in shape, orange with hints of red and yellow.

Gumball and Rob finally stopped spinning in the air, feeling dizzy and confused.

When he recovered, Rob noticed a dark gray rectangular device floating away from him.

He reached out, excited, "MY CELL PHONE!".

Gumball recovered and noticed Rob trying to grab the device.

Since he was closer, Gumball tried to reach out and grab it. He even lay down on his stomach to stretch out, but he still couldn't reach it.

Then he withdrew one of his claws and reached for it, making it spin and get closer until he caught it with his hand.

He smiled slightly.

But he hit a piece of dirt, causing a loud thud, his face and body crumpled while his arms, one with the crystal ball and the other with the phone, were raised far from the ground. His tense tail bent in a Z in pain.

Rob made an "Ouch" expression, before also hitting another piece of dirt below, bouncing slightly and stopping on his back with a pained expression on his face.

The "man" turned his head a little and threw himself onto a piece of dirt, stopping breathing fire and using all his limbs to brake.

He finally stopped and stood up, looking at his claws.

His red pigments from the top of his chest to the top of his neck glowed and he spat a small spark over his claws.

He stared at her with a perplexed look, "What is this?!".

He placed one of his paws on his chest.

"And since when did I know how to do that?!".

He turned to look out of the patch of dirt, looking at Gumball knocked out on the ground.

His snout twitched and his red glowed, a few sparks escaping between his teeth.

"Ah, another thing to worry about only later."

His red glowed more calmly, increasing steadily.

He raised his head calmly but firmly.

Gumball slowly raised his head, his face having become flat as the ground.

He heard a rocket propulsion sound and looked up, only to be wide-eyed as he saw a pillar of orange fire approaching.

His legs kicked up and he accelerated backwards, barely getting him out of the way.

The pillar of flames hit the ground and dismantled it by sheer force of impact. It continued to hit only that part for a few seconds.

The "man" stopped and lowered his head to rub his eyes uncomfortably, "AHHH! There's too much light! I can't aim like this!"

He stopped rubbing his eyes and looked down again. That's when his eyes met Gumball's.

This easily made him very angry.

His red charged up to maximum very quickly and he fired a block of fire this time.

This made Gumball start to run, dodging several blocks of fire that, although they had lost impact force, were now much more accurate.

The "man" smiled, "Now yes", he started shooting again and again.

Rob, still lying on the ground, noticed one of those blocks seeming to be coming towards him.

It was coming towards him.

He quickly got up and moved away, then the block of fire fell right where he was, disintegrating and leaving the ground burned, but intact.

He heard the sound of gunshots and looked up, now several were coming.

He had a disappointed expression, "Ouch...".

He started running like Gumball to dodge the shots.

"WHAT KIND OF DINOSAUR SPREADS FIRE?!".

Gumball kept running from the shots, but he was increasingly surrounded by flames and with no way out.

Then a last shot came and fell right in front of him, preventing him from moving forward.

He looked around and noticed that he was now surrounded by fire that didn't seem to be going out any time soon.

He looked up to prepare himself, but was caught off guard when he saw the "man" diving at high speed towards the circle of fire.

Gumball could only widen his eyes.

The "man" hit him with such momentum that they went into the ground and came out on the other side.

And they reached another piece of land and did the same. And then they did it again.

Rob was standing there, breathing heavily with his hands on his knees now that the bombardment had stopped.

He then saw Gumball and the "man" diving down through the pieces of land and passing him.

He got up and watched them go lower and lower, until they hit a piece of land and stopped.

On the patch of land they hit, the "man" emerged from the cloud of dust holding Gumball in one of his front paws.

Gumball was still conscious, holding his cell phone and the crystal ball in his hands.

The "man" grabbed the crystal ball and tried to pull it, "Give me that!", Gumball tried to resist, but it was easily snatched from him.

The "man" admired it with satisfaction.

He looked back at Gumball, his gaze had a certain disrespect, "You know, I'm tired of chasing after you."

Gumball cringed.

"I spent hours chasing you, sniffing this place all over. Only for you to run away again later."

"At this point, I've lost my patience. If you're forgotten, if someone remembers you, or even if you die, it doesn't matter to me anymore."

He looked at him seriously, bringing Gumball closer to his face, "If you can't get out of here, that's enough."

Gumball shrank even more.

The "man" widened his eyes in surprise and looked at his hand with the crystal ball, now empty.

He soon noticed Rob holding the crystal ball in front of him.

Rob put it under his arm and said with a certain mockery, "You know, this is valuable to us too, it's probably the only way we'll get out of this horrible place."

The "man" growled at him and turned to Gumball angrily, "I don't care about you anymore!", and threw him to the ground as he went after Rob.

Gumball fell to the ground and the cell phone fell from his hand.

Rob quickly grabbed the crystal ball with both hands and ran from the "man" who was right behind him.

Gumball got up and grabbed the cell phone, putting it in one of his pockets.

The "man" fired a pillar of rapid fire that passed Rob and covered his front, preventing him from continuing.

Rob turned around and was face to face with the "man", completely surrounded.

He leaned a little to the side, "GUMBALL!". Gumball glared at him.

Rob threw the crystal ball with all his strength.

Since he didn't go far, the crystal ball stopped near Gumball.

Gumball ran to try to catch it. When he got close, a block of fire passed between him and the crystal ball.

Gumball fell on his butt to dodge it. As soon as the fireball was no longer a problem, he walked on all fours towards the crystal ball.

As soon as he stood on it, a huge shadow covered both of them.

The "man" was right behind Gumball, holding Rob in one hand and the other raised in the air above his head.

Gumball turned his head slowly as his hand came down at high speed.

It hit him in the back, it wasn't a direct hit, but the friction was enough to throw Gumball away.

Gumball rolled and bounced on the ground until he stopped with his back up.

He planted his arms on the ground and raised his chest.

Then he froze.

His back.

There was something wet.

Something hot.

He ran his hand over it and looked at it in panic.

It was red.

It hurt.

And it burned.

It burned badly.

A rocket-propelled sound.

Gumball looked up and saw a pillar of fire coming straight at him.

There was no way to dodge it.

It would burn.

Two scaly clawed paws clapped their hands together.

A shockwave erupted from them and dispersed the fire so quickly that the pillar of fire disintegrated in front of Gumball before it could hit him.

Gumball stood frozen, with a look of terror, panic, fear, and paleness.

The "man" stood imposingly and impassive, with his hands clasped together and Rob having been placed under one of his feet. And the crystal ball was right next to him.

"I told you I don't care if you die anymore."

"But save yourself the time and misery of doing that and just run away."

Gumball stood up very slowly and stared at him with the most devastated and scared look he had.

But he didn't move.

The "man" sighed in annoyance.

Then he let out a loud, intimidating and aggressive roar.

This made Gumball flinch.

The "man" wasn't stopping.

Gumball turned and ran, making no noise.

The "man" stopped and watched Gumball walk away.

He sniffed, "Coward."

He bent down and picked up the crystal ball with his free hand.

He lifted Rob up to eye level, speaking seriously, "Now I'm going to have a talk with you."

Rob swallowed hard, looking worried.

Chapter Text

The camera was static, showing from above a relatively flat piece of land with gray soil.

Then a blue dot appeared, running across the gray piece of land and giving short, quick screams as it exhaled.

The camera changed to Gumball swinging his arms back and forth like balloons and breathing as if he were gasping for air.

He stared straight ahead without looking away with a desperate look.

The camera changed to his view, the edges almost dark and only the center was visible, but still blurry.

Run.

Run.

Run!

He turned his head back.

But as soon as he did, he stopped swinging his arms and tried to stabilize them with a frightened look.

He had left the gray piece of land and was now floating in nothingness.

He moved his arms, legs and neck in several different directions, trying to stabilize himself.

He ended up on his back and hit them quite hard on a brown inclined floor.

The camera shifted to the cuts on his back, still red and slightly open, as they touched the uneven ground.

He groaned in pain with his mouth open and closed his eyes.

He opened them and tried to place his hands and feet on the ground, as if he were a double-sided car.

His limbs pulled and shifted the soft earth, failing to gain a foothold.

But he managed to turn around and push himself forward, standing up as he gained momentum as he slid.

He ran a little along the brown inclined ground until he reached the top.

As soon as he reached normal ground, he accelerated, again throwing his arms wildly back and forth.

But he was moving slower and slower and his breathing was more exhausted.

When he lost some speed, he lowered his head to his chest with his eyes closed and pushed, moving faster again. Almost as fast as he had initially.

But that soon ended, he raised his head and threw it back slightly, moving slower and slower.

He let his head roll down his neck and looked far behind him.

There was no one.

His gaze calmed down a little.

There were no footsteps.

He slowed down even more until it seemed to imitate slow motion.

No screams.

He stopped completely, turning his entire body together.

No flames.

His breathing seemed even more intense now that he was still.

There was nothing.

He calmly placed his hand on his chest, then squeezed his fingers a little where his heart was.

He was alone.

So why was he running?

"Coward."

He swallowed a little loudly.

Of course, because he was alone.

He lowered his head and looked at his open hand. And empty.

All alone this time.

He raised his head back up and looked around.

His vision was still dark at the edges and blurry in the middle, but he could see the obvious.

All alone.

He frowned in a hurt expression.

He softened his expression and slowly raised his head.

He put his head up high and let himself fall back calmly.

He fell on his back with one arm and legs stretched out wide.

He had a dejected and sad expression, staring at nothing as he continued to clutch his chest.

This was hurting.

The most painful so far.

But he wasn't panicking. It was exhaustion.

He was too tired to panic and too desolate to care.

He ran a lot today. That's all he's been doing.

He's exhausted because he's spent the whole time trying to run away from this.

From this loneliness.

He tried not to care, he tried to survive, he tried to pretend everything was okay, he tried to survive again, he tried to feel guilty and he tried to survive, again.

And now he just tried to run, to move his legs, but he can't even do that anymore.

It's ironic that he only tried to escape this when the damage was already done.

His expression grew sadder and sadder.

His eyes grew brighter and brighter.

He really is an idiot.

Then he started sniffling, sniffling that made his eyes water more and more.

But he doesn't try to fix it.

"Coward."

He's afraid.

He can't try to go back because he's afraid.

Afraid that if he goes back, there won't be anyone who wants him around anymore.

Tears started to run down his eyes like rivers flowing into waterfalls.

Because he doesn't seem to know how to care enough to do that.

He doesn't care enough to be more considerate.

He doesn't care enough to try harder to get back to them.

He doesn't care enough to be better.

That's what it looks like.

He stood up and brought his legs to his chest, circling his free arm around them and resting his chin on his knees.

That he's too stupid to do anything decent.

"Anyone can do that."

How will he have better actions if he's just an idiot all the time?

How can he overcome loneliness if he doesn't know how to truly value himself?

He hid his face, putting his forehead on his knees, sniffing a few times.

He stayed like that for a while, just curled up and sniffing.

Maybe he deserved a little of everything he's gotten so far. Just a little.

He kept sniffing.

And sniffing...

And sniffing...

But he still wanted to apologize.

Even though it doesn't seem like it, he wants to do something about it.

But he just wants to. He can't.

If only he had a way...

He raised his head with wide eyes streaming tears.

Wait...

...

He's also very stupid, apparently.

He let go of his legs and felt in his pants with his free arm, finding his cell phone and taking it out of his pocket.

He looked at it and touched the screen.

It turned on and showed a standard blue flower wallpaper for the system. It also had a password keypad with numbers.

Gumball frowned.

Then he noticed an icon saying "emergency calls".

He touched it and went straight to the call keypad.

He started typing.

*A little earlier*

Inside the Wattersons' house, Nicole and the Fitzgeralds were discussing ideas in the living room, near the front door.

"How do you think driving around town is going to help us find Gumball?" Nicole crossed her arms with an annoyed expression.

"I don't know if it will, but I think we've seen that ideas like trying to talk to him haven't worked," Patrick pointed, without looking, to the back.

Nicole gave him a harsh look, "Admit it, you just don't want to be seen doing those things."

Patrick crossed his arms and gave him the same look, "As if being seen doing those things is somehow good."

Penny put her hand on his shoulder with a sympathetic look, "Dad, maybe we need to take some risks and get into some trouble for a good cause."

Patrick looked at her with a raised eyebrow, "Which side are you on?!".

Penny made an irritated expression and put her hands on her waist, "The side that wants to bring Gumball back!".

Nicole leaned forward a little with a smug look, "That is, mine."

Judith gave an unimpressed look, "Sorry, Nicole, but you and your family's way is not going very well."

"You're exaggerating."

Patrick threw his hand towards the living room window, which had light coming from outside.

Outside, a red teapot ran past, screaming in despair.

Shortly after, Anais and Darwin appeared, spinning Richard around as they chased the teapot with laughter.N

icole turned back to Patrick with an unimpressed look, "I didn't see anything wrong."

Patrick hit himself in the face.

Nicole's eyes widened in confusion and she turned to the window.

"Wait, since when is it light outside?".

Patrick slid his hand down and everyone looked at the light coming from the window.

The camera moved to the outside of the house, in front of the door.

The door was hurriedly opened by Nicole and the Fitzgeralds followed right behind.

Nicole glared at her family, "Hey!".

Anais and Darwin stopped spinning Richard and the three of them looked at Nicole.

"Why didn't you tell us the sky had gotten brighter?!"

The three of them made a confused expression.

Darwin then noticed and widened his eyes, "Wow."

A large loaf of bread was silently walking behind them with a shovel in its hand.

Anais shrugged, "Thought we were too busy to notice."

The loaf of bread stopped behind them and raised the shovel above its head.

Anais and Darwin then rolled Richard until they were over his foot.

A sound of bones breaking came and the shovel dropped, looking in pure pain.

They rolled Richard off his foot and the loaf of bread fell to the ground, silently agonizing in pain with its hands on its foot.

Everyone looked up when a loud thud came.

The static in the sky seemed messy and moving, shaking and stretching quickly.

Then the sky went still as another loud thud came.

Everything went quiet, the sky filled with a still and noticeable static.

Then a green reptilian eye with a decently wide vertical dark line.

Everyone backed away or cowered, Anais and Darwin jumped away from Richard and Richard backed away a little with a startled cry.

Anais grimaced in concern, "I guess things aren't looking too good for Gumball."

Then the landline phone rang.

Everyone turned to look at it.

Nicole raised an eyebrow, unimpressed, "Who could it be now?".

Patrick rolled his eyes, "Considering our situation, it would be good if it was Gumball."

He gave a wry smile, "But it would be too ridiculous."

His body language became more wry, "I mean, how impossible is that? It's so impossible that we were a story and that happened, it would be a very forced script," he gave a light laugh.

Everyone looked at him, impassively.

He held the wry smile for a second before wilting with a disappointed expression, "Yeah, it's definitely him."

Nicole pointed to the phone authoritatively, "Keep the phone on the line, if it's him."

Patrick made an indignant expression, "Why me?!"

Nicole pointed to the people lying on the floor with an unimpressed look, "Do you want to take care of this then?".

He stared at the defeated people on the floor for a few seconds.

Then he turned and went to the phone.

Nicole turned to Judith and Penny, "Can you help?"

Penny and Judith gave a nervous smile, and Judith covered Polly's eyes, "S-sure."

Patrick reached for the phone and answered it, "Hello?"

Gumball looked confused and sniffed, "Patrick?"

Patrick looked unimpressed.

He took the phone from his "ear" and covered the microphone, "The author of this story would be lazy, to say the least."

He put it back to his "ear", "Hi, kid."

Then they were silent, only Gumball's breathing coming from the phone could be heard.

As time passed, Patrick's expression became more and more uncomfortable.

He put on a smile, "So, errrr...how are you?".

He squeezed the middle of his eyes in ignorance.

Gumball was quiet for a moment.

He looked down at his hand clutching his chest, which was moving rather quickly.

Patrick waited in frustration, listening to Gumball's breathing.

"...I don't think I can answer that right now."

"Hmm."

Then came the near silence again.

Patrick's face became more and more uncomfortable.

He began to tap the fingers of his free hand on his chest.

He even leaned against the wall with his elbow.

But some more time passed, now his chin was so flexed it looked like a raisin.

He undid his grimace and looked at the door.

Everyone else came in and surrounded him.

He took the phone from his "ear" and sighed in relief.

He held the phone out in front of him with a slightly tense expression, "I think someone else should talk to him first."

Nicole held out her hand and Patrick handed her the phone.

She walked over to the stand and stood with a sympathetic expression, "Hi, honey."

Gumball sniffed and gave a slight smile, "Hi, Mom."

"Is everything okay? We didn't see or hear you."

Gumball looked away, "Well...something happened...".

"Are you hurt badly?".

He turned his eyes as far as possible to her back.

He stared at her with a fearful look, "No."

Nicole sighed in relief, "That's great, honey...".

Her head grew and her teeth became sharp, her eyes glowed green and her eyebrows became more furry.

"BECAUSE WHEN YOU GET HOME, I'LL MAKE SURE OF IT!".

Gumball had turned his head and the phone away with wide, frightened eyes.

His head shrank, but his monstrous features remained, "HOW COULD YOU JUST IGNORE YOUR WORRIED MOTHER, WHO WENT ALL THE WAY TO TRY TO HELP YOU, LIKE THAT!".

She tapped her index finger as she screamed even louder, "WHEN YOU COME BACK, I'LL MAKE SURE YOUR YOUTHFUL REBELLION GET'S!-WHO!-IN-CHARGE!".

Richard came up behind her and put his arms under her armpits and held her.

He pulled her away from the phone, she tried to reach for it, and looked at everyone nervously, "Next?".

Darwin walked over to the phone and picked it up with some trepidation, "Hey, bro".

Gumball's eyes widened a little in surprise.

He sniffed and rubbed his arm with the phone to wipe away the tears, "Hey".

Darwin rubbed the back of his neck, "Look, I don't know how to start this, but I'm sorry".

Gumball raised an eyebrow, "For what?".

"For being so hard on you".

Gumball looked at the phone a little confused.

Anais approached Darwin and turned her arm, indicating for him to continue.

Darwin gave an "oh" and held the phone with both hands, "But that doesn't mean I've forgiven you or that you're excused," he proceeded to act as if he was proclaiming a vote for freedom for a nation, "Just that I believe I could have behaved more sensibly."

Anais gave him a thumbs up with an expressionless face.

Gumball gave him a distant look, "You don't need to apologize. You were right, I'm a real idiot."

Darwin frowned, "I agree that you were immature, but you don't need to take it so seriously. The things we said came in a moment of anger."

Gumball sniffed, "But you were still right, I haven't been a nice person."

"And that's the problem, that's not much different from who I am."

Anais moved a little closer, "What is he talking about?".

Darwin covered the microphone and turned to them, "He seems to be having an identity crisis in a depressing moment. Something about being an idiot."

Anais groaned in annoyance, "Drama queen, Gumball," she stood right in front of Darwin and held out her hand, "Can I?".

Darwin handed her the phone and she put it to her ears.

She made an irritated expression, "Are you trying to make things difficult?"

Gumball was a little surprised, "Anais?".

"Yeah, and you're being Mr. Idiot right now."

Gumball felt discouraged and sighed sadly, "It's just...is it worth it?"

She raised an eyebrow, "What?"

Gumball pulled his legs even closer to his chest.

"Is it worth helping me? Do I deserve it?"

Anais put her free hand on her waist, "Look, if you're feeling bad about the things you did and said, or the things you didn't do and didn't say, know that there is no forgiveness for what has already happened."

"If you ignore or forget what happened, you try to ignore what happened. And saying things like 'it won't happen again' is a lie."

"These things can happen again, but if you really want to deal with them, then accept that you made a mistake and use that to deal with everything better next time."

Gumball lowered his head and rested his forehead on his knees again.

"But what if it doesn't work out? What if I make the same mistake in exactly the same way?"

"What if I don't? What if it's better?"

"But what if it isn't? Then I'll just get another chance and then another? Do I really deserve this?"

Anais pulled the phone away and put her free hand to her face and squeezed it tightly, letting out a groan of frustration, "Stubborn boy! This isn't going anywhere."

She held the phone up high, "Anyone want to try?"

Penny stepped forward and picked up the phone with a serious expression.

She put it to her "ear," "Gumball."

Gumball lifted his head enough to see her watchful eyes.

"Do you think your mistakes should ruin your chances of improving?"

Gumball looked down. "What if you don't get the chance to improve? Do you think someone like me deserves a girlfriend who tries so hard?"

Penny sighed and leaned her back against the wall.

"Do you understand why we're doing all this? Because we love you."

Gumball pursed his lips.

"We're here and now because we love you, and it's that love that makes us want to give you a chance to improve."

"It's not about deserving it, it's about wanting you to have that chance. You're not an idiot because you made a mistake, but because you didn't try to be better than it."

She looked hurt. "But still, you choose to blame yourself because you think you deserve it, even though we try to convince you."

Her tone turned a little sad. "Don't we matter?"

Gumball's eyes widened.

No, they matter, they matter a lot.

They matter too much.

So... why did that seem so heavy?

"No, you're important to me."

Had he really not considered them until now?

He looked guilty.

He hadn't.

Everything he'd done so far had been for himself.

Leaving home because he didn't want to be insulted, running away to save himself.

Giving up.

"But you're right, I didn't value what you wanted."

He can't be better for himself. He doesn't deserve it.

"Anyone can do it."

But they want him to try because they love him.

And he can be better for them.

"Sorry."

Penny pursed her lips, "We're not mad, even if you think so."

Gumball released one of his fingers from the phone and rubbed it against the device, "Despite everything I've done?".

"You may have fought with everyone, but that happens."

"That doesn't exonerate you, but it's like Anais said: You need to accept that you made a mistake. Like Darwin did."

...

"Do you think I can do it?"

Penny gave a weak, embarrassed smile, "Would I convince you if I said that no matter what you think, I'd help you get it if you wanted?"

Gumball gave a weak smile.

They're definitely worth it.

"Yeah, that convinced me."

"So... when are you coming back?"

His eyes widened, "Oh."

His expression grew heavy.

The image of the "man" in Spinosaurus form appeared in his eyes.

"Coward."

He clutched his chest tighter.

"Coward."

His chest was moving faster.

"We love you."

His eyes widened.

His chest stopped as it was swelling, then he exhaled slowly and calmly.

The image of his family, Nicole, Richard, Anais, Darwin, as well as Penny, appeared in his eyes.

He looked at his chest, now moving calmly.

He lifted his head and looked around. His tunnel vision disappeared.

He had been afraid for himself for too long.

He assumed a serious expression.

It's time to be brave for others.

"Penny, can you play it for everyone to hear?"

Penny was a little surprised, "Huh, sure."

She took it out of her "ear" and placed it in front of her.

Everyone leaned forward very slightly to listen.

"Okay, Darwin, do you remember when we went after Molly?"

Darwin made a confused expression, "Yeah, we went through that weird "cover"."

Then he looked unimpressed, "Oh, that's where you are."

"And apparently there are other things like that around town. I'll find a way to get back, but I don't know which one I'll get out of."

Judith made a hard expression, "But then we'd have to walk all over town to find you?"

Richard raised his finger happily with an idea, "Why don't we leave a rocket with a match in several places? That way Gumball can light one when he gets there and we'll know where he is."

Everyone looked at him with puzzled looks and jaws dropped.

Even Gumball's eyes turned to dots.

Anais moved a little closer to Darwin, "I don't remember seeing him sniff gunpowder to get so smart."

Richard looked at everyone confused, "What?"

Nicole approached with a nervous smile and put her hands on his shoulder and hand, "N-nothing, that's a great idea, honey."

She turned to everyone with a determined expression, "And let's do it now."

Anais, Darwin and Richard threw their arms up in the air in excitement. The Wattersons ran to the backyard.

Patrick groaned tiredly, "I can't stand going from one place to another anymore."

Judith patted his back as they also went to the backyard.

"Hmm, Penny...".

Penny put the phone back to her "ear," "Yes?".

Gumball let go of her chest and stood up, "I love you too."

Penny had a sweet look and a silly smile.

Gumball was not impressed at all, "But if you start calling me things like "sweetie" or "Strawberry Shortcake," we'll talk."

Penny put her hand in front of her mouth as she laughed.

"See you later."

"See you."

She put the phone back down and ran to the backyard.

Gumball took the phone away from his ear and stared at the image of the call ended.

He raised his head and looked in the direction he had come from.

There were many pieces of land that painted a very distant horizon.

He had a disappointed expression, "But that will take a long time."

Then his eyes widened a little.

The image of beams of light moving at high speed towards him.

He looked down at his feet, lifting one of them and staring at it.

"Don't pretend you don't know that you're a cartoon character."

He frowned, "Maybe if I..."

He positioned himself as if he were going to run.

Then he bent his knee a little more and pushed himself forward.

He immediately went forward very fast, screaming in fear.

He was now floating very fast in the air, shaking his limbs and screaming like a child.

He looked ahead and his eyes widened.

He was almost on another piece of land, about to slam into it with everything.

He moved until his legs were ready to land.

He reached the patch of land and went full throttle again.

But he managed to stop so as not to fall out.

He braked so quickly that his body fell in a circle until he hit the ground face down, leaving it slightly cracked.

He put his hands on the ground and raised his head, his face red as if he had been slapped and slightly covered in dust.

He stood up and slapped his face with one arm, shaking off the dust. His eyes widened and he screamed in pain, "AAAAAAAHHH!".

He rubbed his face gently until the redness disappeared.

Then he looked back and lifted his leg like a girl in love, with a confused look, "I don't know why I thought my legs would spin like wheels."

He lowered his leg and looked at his hands with a deep look, "How did I never realize I had all this power before?".

Then he shrugged, "Oh, it must be because we live obsessed with finding such specific things that we end up not noticing the other things because they don't interest us."

He positioned himself to run again, this time more excited, "Well, let's go!"

He pushed himself off, but stopped at the first step with a confused look, "Wait, why do I feel like I'm forgetting something?"

His eyes widened and he slapped his face with his hand, "Molly!".

He positioned himself again and this time he went all out.

He quickly left the patch of land he was on and landed on another, this time with more dexterity.

Then he jumped onto another, landing and jumping with an amused smile, "WOO!".

He then disappeared in a line that covered several patches of land very quickly.

The camera focused on a flat, empty patch of land, filled with static silence.

Then a huge body fell on it, raising dust with a crash and cracking sound.

Soon the spinosaurus head of the "man" appeared above the dust.

The dust settled until it disappeared, revealing the rest of his body and the crystal ball and Rob in his hands.

He looked away and exhaled sharply, flaring his nostrils.

He lowered his head and stared at the crystal ball.

He placed it on the tip of his claws, then turned it a little, examining it.

"So..."

He assumed a grumpy expression and switched from the crystal ball to Rob, in his other hand.

"What did you want to talk about?" he bared his teeth nervously.

The "man" stared at him in complete silence.

"Okay...", he perked up slightly, "If you're not going to say anything, then can I start?"

He remained silent. "Okay...", he looked away, "Again...".

He looked back at the "man", now with a confused look, "I wanted to ask, why did you say you 'got rid of me' if you weren't the one who did it?".

"Because it wouldn't make a difference."

He shrugged, "I would have gone after you anyway if the void hadn't done it."

He narrowed his eyes, "But I don't know why he did it sooner than we expected," he said in a suggestive tone.

Rob frowned, "I don't know what you're talking about."

He gritted his teeth in pain as the "man" squeezed him.

He got a serious expression, "Don't pretend you don't know, you just don't know as much as I do."

Rob opened his eyes, "And what exactly do I know?"

The "man" bared his teeth in a growl that made his lips tremble.

He calmed down a little, "Both you and I know something is going to happen to your world. It's going to end, like every TV show it is."

He stopped squeezing Rob. Rob took a deep breath with his eyes wide open before speaking, "Oh, that."

Then his eyes widened in understanding, "Wait, if you know the world is going to end soon, why were you so desperate to find Gumball?"

He brought Rob closer to his face, "Because Elmore doesn't exactly have nice citizens, and yet Gumball manages to be the worst of them. Especially the protagonist."

Rob gave a thoughtful look, "Look, I know Gumball has problems, kind of personality," he looked away and got a puzzled expression, "Or strange relationships with strange things and people."

He looked back at the "man," "But that seems too extreme."

The "man" raised his other hand and showed one of his fingers, "One thing."

"Everyone has something that irritates them or that makes them think the world would be a better place without it."

He pointed his finger at Rob, "Do you know why they don't get rid of that thing?".

"Because people are decent enough not to act as judges of their own justice?".

The "man" had an unimpressed expression.

Rob did the same, "Okay, I didn't believe that either."

The "man" became serious again, "Because they're not capable of doing that."

"I don't want to make your world perfect, but it can be better."

He lifted Rob higher, "And I have the power to do that, unlike other people."

"I don't know Gumball well enough to know, but is he a bad person for being annoying? Because annoying he certainly is."

The "man" bent Rob over, leaving him on his stomach. "He's much more than annoying, he's destructive, selfish, and annoying."

"For example?".

The "man" opened his mouth, but nothing came out.

His eyes flashed a recent memory from the man's perspective. He was inside the void, staring at his makeshift breath screen.

On it, Gumball was seen fighting with everyone that day.

He felt angry.

Then the screen faded into static and his hands, in human form, opened one of the curtains and he stepped out.

The "man"'s mouth dropped open as he looked past Rob.

He tried again.

Once again, it was him watching Gumball from the void with his breath screen.

He tried to go further.

He stopped there again.

The "man" lowered his head with an even more frustrated look.

Why...?.

Rob frowned, "Dude, don't you have any examples?".

"Shut up."

He tried again.

And once again, he ended up in the same place, staring at Gumball from a void just a day ago.

Why can't he go further?

Why can't he only see this?

Why does he only see a dark void in everything before this, even though he's sure he's seen much more?

Why can't he remember what he's sure he knows?

Rob looked confused and a little sorry, "Can you...even remember any examples?".

He tried again.

And nothing changed.

He growled.

And why does he feel this almost irrational anger every time?

Why does this memory, this feeling, the things he knows...

Why does it all seem so strange?

...

Could it have something to do with him not knowing he could breathe fire or not liking the smell of moss?

He growled even louder, then exploded in a roar that sounded like a scream of frustration and anger with his head thrown up.

Everyone looked around in fright as everything seemed to shake as if it were vibrating.

The roaring stopped and the "man" lowered his head, looking at Rob with some irritation.

Rob looked away and rubbed his wrist, "Look, I don't want to say anything," he glared at him and pointed his finger, "But I think you need therapy."

The "man" furrowed his eyebrows, getting angrier.

Rob got really nervous, "O-or just vent, you know! Like with a friend!".

The "man" slowly brought him closer to his face, "But I don't think you have any friends! Maybe scream as loud as you can! But you've already done that! PLEASE I DON'T WANT TO BE EATEN!".

*Whistle*

They both looked to the side in surprise at the same time.

On a piece of land below, Gumball was standing, looking straight at them.

And Molly was behind Gumball, leaning a little to look at them curiously. As if she wasn't much bigger than him.

She put a smile on her face and waved excitedly, "Hi, Rob!".

Rob waved back with much less enthusiasm, keeping his surprised expression.

Gumball put his hands on his hips, "Can you come down here?".

The "man" and Rob stared at each other without looking away.

The "man" broke eye contact and dug his clawed feet all the way into the ground.

He pulled out a decent amount of dirt and a shallow hole in the ground.

He stood Rob up again and then quickly dove him into the hole, pushing him deeper into the ground.

Rob stood with a painful expression of shock and stood completely erect.

But when he opened his mouth to groan in pain, the tip of the "man's" mouth hammered his head like a pickaxe, sinking him even further until only his head was sticking out.

The "man" stood up and pushed the dirt he had removed earlier to cover the hole.

Rob now made a pained expression and finally groaned in pain.

The "man" left the crystal ball near Rob and walked to the edge of the patch of land.

He jumped slightly and began to fall, but he turned back to human form and this slowed his fall.

He fell crouched on the ground of the patch of land where Gumball was, raising very little dust.

He stood up and looked at them with some irritation.

Molly pointed at him, "Hey! He's the one who brought me here!".

He moved his eyes to look directly at her.

She was startled and hid behind Gumball in silence.

"Molly, can you step back a little?" he asked, turning to her.

Molly took a few steps back.

He gave her an unimpressed look, "A little further back."

She took a few more steps this time.

The man put his hands in his pants pockets and had a slightly ironic expression, "When I was after you, you managed to get away, and now that I don't want to know about you anymore, you decided to come to me. It's quite annoying, almost cartoonish in its comicality."

Gumball scratched the back of his head, "Yeah, maybe after all this, I'll agree with you."

In Elmore, the Wattersons and the Fitzgeralds were pulling up to Elmore Park with the Cartax.

Penny got out of the back door and got the key from Richard.

She went to the trunk and opened it with a little difficulty.

She quickly grabbed a firecracker and a match and then locked the trunk.

As she turned to take them, she noticed something in the sky.

She stopped and had a surprised expression, "Guys!...".

All the doors opened, Richard got out of the driver's side, Nicole got out of the other side with Anais and Polly in her arms, Patrick and Judith got out of the door next to Nicole and Darwin got out of the same door as Penny.

Everyone looked at her, then followed her gaze and were also surprised.

In the sky, there was a shrunken vision of the man and Gumball talking far away from each other.

"In the last few," he tried to count on his fingers, "almost 12 hours maybe, I've been assaulted, I've been hungry, and I've broken into a house."

"But I've also felt lonely and lost."

"And I kind of blamed myself for feeling lonely at first, because being lonely was my fault. I blamed myself for not feeling guilty."

"Before you came along, I fought with everyone I was close to. And every time it was over petty things."

"That made me feel confused and uncomfortable."

"Then, when I found out that the people closest to me, the people I fought with, were looking for me, I felt something else."

He lowered his head with a deep look.

"I felt scared."

Gumball gestured a little confused, "You know, I don't care about this good or bad person stuff."

"But when I realized that they were trying to help me, despite everything I'd done, it made me feel like maybe I wasn't worth being helped, especially by good people."

"But what scared me was that they would come to the same conclusion, that I wasn't worth it. And then they would leave me."

He gave a slight smile.

"Then someone told me that everyone has a reason to deserve at least a kick in the ass."

Rob raised an eyebrow.

"That person told me that good or bad people were a bad parameter, especially when you're comparing yourself to others."

"And this person also told me that it doesn't matter what you are, because you can't change. But that anyone can be better, make better choices."

"I hadn't quite understood, but after a conversation, I realized something very crucial."

"You make better choices for them, not for yourself. You become better for others."

"I didn't realize this before because until now I made everything about me. I tried to justify my actions, I blamed myself and condemned myself because I thought I deserved it".

"It was all because I wasn't paying attention to what the people who loved me wanted."

He hugged himself.

"These people wanted me back, even though I didn't think I deserved it. Then one of them said, "Would it convince you if I told you that no matter what you thought, I'd help you get it if you wanted it?". That made me feel at ease".

Penny gave a small, warm smile.

"These people really wanted me around. Despite everything."

He dropped his arms and looked down.

"I don't think I can change."

He kicked a small rock that was nearby.

"I like who I am. But I won't let that stop me from being better."

"What if it doesn't work out?".

Gumball raised his head and looked at the man.

The man frowned a little. "What if you try hard and then in the end they do the same thing you did and come to the conclusion that you're not worth it?"

Gumball rolled his eyes slowly, thinking. "At first, I was afraid of being alone because deep down I knew that if I ended up alone, it would be all my fault."

"But now, even if I did end up alone, I don't have that fear anymore..."

He spread his arms wide.

"Because this time I know I'll have tried hard for them instead of being an idiot."

Nicole smiled proudly.

While Richard sniffed to keep from snotting, bursting into waterfalls of tears and making a thumbs up with both hands.

He gave a shy smile and shrugged, "Sounds good, doesn't it?".

The man stared at him for a while.

Then he threw his head down with an irritated sigh.

He started walking, without raising his head.

"Your inconsistency tires me."

"So you decided to have a drop of courage?"

His body began to change as he walked, becoming larger and more reptilian.

"Great...".

He then stopped and adjusted his posture, now completely transformed.

He raised his head with an irritated look.

"Let's see how far you're going to go."

Gumball looked unimpressed, he raised a finger, "First," he pointed at the "man" with a raised eyebrow, "Now that I realize, where do your clothes go?".

The red pigments on the "man's" back began to glow.

He raised another finger, "And second," he assumed a battle pose with a determined look, "Want to fight? Bring it on!".

The glow in the red pigments rose until it reached the top of his neck.

The "man" arched his chest a little, opening his mouth slightly.

Then he quickly threw his head forward in a long burst of fire.

Gumball's eyes widened in surprise and he put one of his arms out in front of him.

He began to spin it, the arm stretching further and further until it looked like a tornado of ballet ribbons.

The fire entered the tornado, but soon began to follow the airflow and mix in with the rotation.

Now the fire was rotating at the same pace as Gumball's arm.

The "man" widened his eyes a little.

Gumball moved his arm to the side, looking at the man with an arrogant look.

He pointed at him and laughed mockingly, "Haha."

Then his expression smoothly changed to worried and he waved his arm, "OUCH! OUCH!"

The "man" got a "Seriously" expression and ran with his claws ready to attack.

Gumball turned to him and saw him approaching. He looked back at his arm and at the "man" again.

As soon as the "man" got close, Gumball swung his shoulder from bottom to top and hit him in the chest.

The blow lifted the "man" a few inches into the air and sent him flying away, the flames exploding on contact and scattering in an arc like water.

Gumball put his hand over his mouth to shout, "GET THAT!".

He then noticed his arm stretching out over and over. He followed it until he realized it was following the "man".

He had a disappointed expression, "Oh".

He looked at Molly, "Hey, can you go help Rob?".

Molly excitedly, "Sure!".

"Great-AAAAHHHHH!".

His arm tensed and he was immediately pulled away at high speed.

Molly was surprised for a moment and then waved happily, "Bye, Gumball".

She turned and looked at the patch of land where Rob was standing with his hands on his hips.

She looked ahead and jumped to another patch of land.

In Elmore, Nicole assumed a military stance, "WHAT ARE YOU LITTLE GIRLS DOING!?". Everyone jumped in fright at this.

"WE HAVE TO KEEP GOING! GO! GO! GO!".

Everyone returned to their seats in the car.

Penny dropped the rocket and the match on the ground and ran back to the car.

Gumball continued screaming as he was pulled in a circular motion.

He then began to fall straight down, stopping screaming and being able to see the "man" in the distance, holding his hand with his.

The "man" let out a short but angry roar at him.

Gumball took on a determined look and changed position so that both feet were facing the "man".

Then he contracted his arm, advancing at high speed.

At the last second, the "man" let go of Gumball's arm and dodged.

Gumball continued to fall, but his arm stretched out again. He opened a ring-shaped hole in it and hooked it over the "man's" mouth, pulling him along.

As they fell, the "man" tried to pull with both hands, tried to force his mouth open, and even tried to use his feet.

Then his red pigments glowed and he tried to spit fire, but only a few sparks escaped between his teeth.

He tried again, and now very little fire came out of his nostrils.

His eyes widened.

Then he thought of something.

He inhaled as much as he could, inflating his chest.

Gumball had a pained expression, "Oh no."

And then he blew with all his strength.

All the fire came out of his nostrils, covering Gumball's arm in a cloud of flames.

Gumball screamed in pain and let go of the "man's" mouth, the arm returning with such force that it threw Gumball backwards when it returned to normal.

Meanwhile the "man" breathed heavily to recover oxygen.

Gumball fell into a piece of land, landing like a superhero. The "man" just kept falling.

Gumball stretched his head a little with a curious look.

The "man" flew back up, using his fire as momentum.

He took off a little more and stopped, then fired three short shots of fire at Gumball.

Gumball ran in a zigzag at high speed between the shots that reached the ground.

Rob was just sticking his head out, staring blankly.

Then Molly appeared from another patch of dirt, waving at him cheerfully, "Hi, Rob! Long time no see!"

He turned as far as he could and sighed in relief, "Oh, Molly! That's great! I need to-"

"I noticed, head buried in the dirt, huh?" she laughed.

She walked over to him and knelt down, starting to dig.

"You know, my Aunt Mia and I love to bury ourselves in the sand, well, especially her, hehe. Whenever she comes on vacation with us, we have to go somewhere with a lot of sand to build castles, dig holes and, obviously, bury ourselves in the sand, because I already said that. And she even buried herself once and stayed there for hours, but only because she wanted to, she wasn't stuck-".

Rob's eyelid twitched as he stared at her with a blank look.

A shot of fire came towards Gumball as he ran at high speed.

He dodged it by millimeters and continued forward.

He stopped and jumped forward with everything, hitting the "man" in the ribs with his head and throwing him backwards.

The "man" quickly recovered and caught Gumball with his hand before he hit the ground.

He did a 180 degree turn from top to bottom and threw him far to the ground.

Gumball quickly got up and ducked to dodge a tail strike.

He grabbed it and was thrown upwards, landing on the "man's" back, right in front of his sail.

He stretched his arms out like a rope and wrapped them under his neck, pulling his head up.

The "man" grabbed Gumball's arms and tried to pull them off like a suit of clothing, but it didn't work.

So he threw his head back a little further and dove towards the ground.

He stopped just before, while the inertia made Gumball fall upside down on the ground, cracking it.

The "man" soon hit him with a kick, throwing him off the piece of land.

Molly was almost done digging up Rob's legs, and he was now helping her with his free arms.

"So she decided it was best to read a book, it was a big decision and-".

Rob dug very quickly with a nervous smile, "G-great story, Molly, but...".

He braced his arms and pulled his legs out.

He stood up and went to get the crystal ball, "Okay, now we need to think about how to get out of here!".

He kept making small, agitated walking circles, "There's no way we can get out of this place through the "walls"! We're too far away! So maybe...".

Molly raised her hand, "What if we climb up?".

Rob stopped and looked at her in confusion.

"When that guy brought me here, I fell from the sky".

She looked up in confusion, "Well, I guess this is the sky".

Rob squinted in confusion.

Then he widened his eyes, "You're right".

Molly raised an eyebrow, "Am I?".

Rob started walking nervously again, "But how can I tell Gumball? He must be far away by now!".

He stopped, "Does he still have my cell phone?".

He looked at the crystal ball in his hands.

Rob pursed his lips a little, "Hello?".

Everyone in Cartax looked up when they heard it.

Penny, Patrick and Nicole stuck their heads out and looked up. In the sky, there was Rob's image very close.

"HELLO?!".

Everything shook.

Everyone put their hands on their ears, even Richard who was driving. He noticed this and put his feet on the steering wheel.

Anais groaned, "Why does everyone do this?!".

"I need to talk to a... friend, can someone call him? The number is 41!".

Penny turned around, "DAD!".

Patrick picked up the phone and dialed quickly.

He held the phone for a while and then said, "It's ringing."

Nicole turned to them, "We need a rocket!".

Richard took one of his hands from his ear and showed an orange rocket with brown stars, "Use this one!".

Nicole got a little angry, "Why do you have one?!".

"I was going to keep it as a souvenir!".

Penny took the rocket.

Richard now offered her a match, "Here too!". Nicole scowled at him.

Penny lit the rocket and let it go straight up.

It shot up into the air and exploded with the words "Tell me everything, honey."

Rob made a strange expression, "Weird, but ok...".

Gumball rolled across the new piece of land until he got his hands on the ground and stopped.

He looked ahead and then jumped to dodge a fast attack from the "man", passing by him like a missile.

He turned and saw the "man" hit and destroy two pieces of land before landing on another.

Then he took off in a jump again, but Gumball easily dodged it and watched him do the same thing again.

Gumball put both hands on his mouth to scream, "YOU'LL NEVER REACH ME LIKE THIS! MAYBE IF YOU WERE MORE SCIENTIFICALLY CORRECT!...".

The "man" roared in anger, "I'M A REFERENCE, IDIOT!", and launched himself once more.

Gumball dodged and yawned with his hand over his mouth, "Are we going to do this all day?".

Suddenly, fire came out of the "man's" mouth and he slowed down so much that he landed on the first piece of land he found.

Then he fired again, Gumball dodged that one too.

But he soon came back with another attack, and then another, and then another.

Now he was attacking more and more quickly. And Gumball was getting more and more pressured.

Gumball was not impressed, "Me and my big mouth."

The "man" attacked and Gumball dodged a few more times.

Gumball ended up landing on a tiny piece of land that only fit him.

The "man" slowed down with his jet of fire and landed on a piece of land.

He soon fired again at Gumball.

Gumball jumped, staying in mid-air while the "man" destroyed the piece of land he was on.

The momentum ended and Gumball began to fall worried and unprotected in the air.

He looked and saw the "man" already preparing himself. He flapped his arms desperately, "Fly, Fly! FLY!".

The "man" shot towards him.

At the last moment, Gumball kicked his legs like a cephalopod and moved inches in the air. It was enough for the "man" to just pass by him.

He looked at the "man" and then at his legs, surprised.

He kicked them the same way again, receiving a slight boost, "Cool".

He saw the "man" coming back and dodged by inches again.

They stayed like that until they got close to a large enough piece of land.

The "man" fired one last time and Gumball dodged to the side, falling into the piece of land.

The "man" soon used his fire breath to brake inside the piece of land.

He quickly slowed down and fell to the ground, turning to catch Gumball.

He was then very surprised.

Gumball was with a pixel design with stronger colors than the original and carrying a blue energy sphere the color of his fur.

His red pigments shone as quickly as possible.

Gumball fired first in the Kamehameha stance, the "man" was a little later.

The pillar of fire collided with a small laser, creating an effect similar to water (fire) falling on a rock (laser). Which was more to the side of the "man".

The difference in power made the laser get closer and closer at a decent speed.

When the laser was almost entering his mouth, the "man" moved to the side, using his flames to push the laser away.

He stopped breathing fire and jumped, directing one of his claws at Gumball's face.

Gumball leaned back, the claws passing right above his eyes.

When the "man" overtook him, Gumball pulled his laser in conjunction with his dodge.

The "man" used the hand that aimed at Gumball to protect his body.

The laser hit him long enough to knock him away, sending him flying forward and then changing into a fall.

Gumball stood up, breathing heavily.

He wiped the sweat from his forehead, "Fighting is tiring."

He widened his eyes at a vibration coming from his pocket.

He pulled Rob's cell phone out of his pocket with a surprised look, "I forgot this was here."

He pressed a button and put it to his ear, "Hello?".

"Gumball?! Are you listening?!".

"Hey, Rob, it's been a while, huh."

"It's only been two minutes! Look, if we want to get out of here, we need to jump."

Gumball raised an eyebrow, "Jump?".

"We need to fall into this 'thing' with this crystal ball with us."

Gumball walked a little and looked down where the "man" had fallen.

Immediately a pillar of fire passed right in front of his face diagonally.

When it was over, Gumball groaned in irritation, "Okay, stay there, I'll be right back."

He hung up and put the phone in his pocket.

Then the "man" reappeared, flying with his fire breath.

He fell to the ground and looked around, irritated. No sign of Gumball.

He looked at his hand, before there was a red spot that wouldn't heal, now he has the bones in that part completely exposed and without flesh.

He looked around again.

Then his eyes widened and he put his hand in front of him to protect himself.

Gumball hit him while running at high speed, dragging him across the patch of land without slowing down.

The "man" held the blow for a while and then pushed Gumball to the side, stopping as Gumball disappeared.

Gumball reappeared, passing in front of the "man", who tried to take a bite out of him, but only grabbed and ate a gray rectangle from Gumball's pocket before he disappeared.

He barely recovered when Gumball reappeared, hitting him in the legs and knocking him to the ground.

He hit his entire chin on the ground and got up, but at that moment Gumball reappeared.

His leg was stuck in the ground, accumulating tension.

Then he let go and hit the side of the "man"'s chest with great momentum.

He shot away, completely destroying a few pieces of land in his path.

Gumball exhaled tiredly, "That should do it," he turned in the opposite direction and disappeared.

Rob and Molly were standing side by side at the edge of the piece of land, quiet and looking at nothing in particular.

Then Gumball appeared in front of them, "Hey."

They jumped in fright with a scream in unison.

Rob got angry, "What was that?!".

Gumball shrugged, "I'll explain later. Now, are you sure we need to," he threw his arms out as if he was falling, "Falling?".

"No, but it's a bet."

Gumball sighed and held out his hands, "Okay, hold my hands."

He walked between them, Molly took his and he offered the other to Rob.

He first grimaced at it, then Gumball shook his hand with a frown. Rob sighed and grabbed his hand.

"Okay, 1,2..."

They jumped.

Their screams got louder as they picked up speed.

Another sign of their increased speed was the sound the pieces of land made as they passed by, getting louder.

They had picked up so much speed that they quickly passed through all the pieces of land and were now in true free fall.

They just kept falling, the static horizon seeming to get closer but at the same time not moving.

Rob stretched his arm with the crystal ball forward with difficulty.

In Elmore, the camera focused on a red brick wall on the sidewalk, illuminated by the almost noonday sun.

Marvin Finklehimer was driving his scooter very slowly in front of the wall.

He was startled and braked when Molly, Gumball and Rob, now empty-handed, came out of the wall as if it were a curtain.

They flew across the street and crashed into a lime green wall, their bodies crumpling into the surface.

He stared at it in surprise. The "curtain" swinging open behind him.

Then he shrugged disinterestedly, "Nah, it's not the first time I've seen kids flying from another dimension," and sped up again.

Their bodies slowly peeled away, returning to their normal volume and falling to the ground.

Gumball put his hands on the ground and raised his head with a pained look.

Then they widened along with an open-mouthed smile when he saw a rocket and a match on the sidewalk.

He stood up and ran to the rocket, quickly lighting it and leaving it straight.

The rocket went up into the sky.

Cartax was parked with one wheel on the sidewalk, Richard was checking the spring rack.

Richard closed it and looked at Nicole's head sticking out, "We used it all."

Patrick put his hands behind his head and lay back on the bench with a relaxed smile, "Well, I guess we just have to wait and rest a little-".

Everyone turned to the sound of a rocket exploding.

A pink explosion with the phrase "Congratulations! It's a girl" appeared in the sky.

Patrick got angry, "OH COME ON!".

Anais stuck her head out, right below Nicole's, with a surprised look, "He even had fireworks for that?".

Nicole made a serious face, "That's the least important thing. RICHARD! GET IN THE CAR!".

Richard jumped up and ran to his place.

He got in and reversed very quickly, leaving the sidewalk and sped off.

Gumball put his hands on his waist, "I admit, Dad had a good plan. And this time it didn't even end in disaster."

He turned and looked at Molly and Rob, passed out on the floor.

"Oh yeah."

He reached Molly and pushed her on her back, running his hands lower and lower to lift her up.

So Molly sat there with her eyes rolling, literally, "That hurt."

He now went to Rob and lifted his head, "Are you okay?".

Rob had a "I just woke up" expression, "Do I look okay?".

"You tell me," Gumball grabbed his hand and pulled him to his feet.

Rob's spine was bent and he looked pained, "I've never been hit so badly before."

Gumball shrugged, "You get used to it."

The three looked to where the sound of a mailbox being run over came from.

Cartax appeared on the street and was coming towards them.

He then turned to the side and skidded to a stop a few meters away.

From him, Nicole, Anais, Darwin and Richard jumped out of the doors, "GUMBALL!".

Gumball smiled hugely and ran very fast towards them.

As soon as they reached each other, Gumball, Darwin and Anais gave a triple hug.

Then Nicole hugged the three of them together and Richard hugged the four of them together.

They hugged tightly, with happy smiles on their faces.

Judith, with Polly now in her lap, and Patrick were standing next to the car.

Judith smiled sweetly, "This is very beautiful."

The tight hug loosened a little and Gumball looked at them, "I admit I missed you."

Anais raised an eyebrow, still smiling, "Don't try to look tough."

They broke the hug and Gumball leaned over to look behind them.

Penny was smiling small.

Gumball had small lines on his cheeks, "Hi."

Penny also had small lines on her cheeks.

She flapped her wings and flew towards Gumball. She landed right on him in a hug. Both of them smiling contentedly.

Gumball sighed happily, "That's good."

They broke the hug and Gumball pulled back a little, "Well, I guess I need to clear some things up."

Then his eyes widened, "Oh! Right!".

He turned back, "Hey, Rob."

He ran his hand through his pockets, then began to feel every part of his body.

He first got more and more nervous, and when he stopped, his eyes became like dots, "Eerrhh...".

He leaned back and whispered with the corner of his mouth a little high, "Someone call 41."

Rob rolled his eyes.

Patrick sighed in disappointment and picked up the phone.

He dialed and put it to his "ear," "It's ringing."

Everyone was quiet.

Gumball kept tapping his fingers on the sides of his legs.

Then a cell phone ringtone, like the one from the movie Jurassic Park 3, rang.

Everyone looked to where it came from.

His eyes widened.

The "man" was standing right at the entrance to the curtain, the curtain swinging behind him.

Marvim, who was only a few feet away, panicked and tried to go faster. Obviously it didn't work.

The red pigments on the "man's" back began to glow, then the glow slowly rose up his neck.

Gumball said in the corner of his mouth, "Run."

The "man" puffed out his chest and spat fire in their direction.

Chapter Text

The "man" inhaled, puffing out his chest and throwing his head back.

He then jerked his head forward, sending a column of almost entirely orange fire flying.

Everyone jumped to the ground to dodge it, missing it by millimeters.

The column of fire hit the asphalt behind them, piercing it and leaving cracks all around.

The "man" stopped firing, his back glowing brightly, and looked at Gumball, his mouth quickly filling with embers.

Gumball's eyes widened and he quickly got up, sprinting down the asphalt away from everyone.

The "Man" fired another shot, and Gumball narrowly dodged it.

The column of fire began to move behind Gumball, completely destroying the asphalt.

Everyone else jumped up from the asphalt as the "man" moved away from them, chasing Gumball.

Richard ran past everyone in a hurry.

He reached Cartax, "SAVE YOURSELF! CARTAX!", and rammed into the back of the car.

The car lifted its front end and neighed furiously. Then it dropped its front end and sped away.

Nicole threw her arms forward with a furious expression, "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?! IT WAS OUR ONLY MEANS OF TRANSPORTATION!"

Richard placed his hand on his chest and spoke resolutely, "I'd rather be burned alive than abandon my faithful companion to die again!"

Nicole's eyebrows furrowed even more in anger.

Darwin pointed with a confused look, "I guess that won't matter much."

Nicole and Richard watched everyone together as the "man" tried to hit and catch only Gumball.

Anais raised an eyebrow and spoke a little loudly to Rob and Molly, who were standing next to her, "Wow, he completely ignored you."

Rob gave an unimpressed expression, "Thanks."

Nicole sighed, "Well, since we can't leave..." She slapped her hand on her fist with a serious expression, "Then I'll teach that iguana not to hit other people's children."

The camera shifted to Gumball running backward in small jumps to dodge short shots.

He then turned to the side and spun to run forward.

Shortly afterward, a column of fire came toward him, and he ducked, sliding almost flat under it.

Another short shot came. He went straight from standing up to jumping, avoiding the shot.

He flew over the sidewalk and landed on a wall of one of the buildings.

He quickly ran across the surface, rising 90 degrees without falling.

A growling sound came, and he looked "up." The "man" leaped toward him, his mouth opening.

Gumball leaned forward, placing his hands and feet on the surface. Then he jumped horizontally off it.

The "man" spun the air parallel to the surface and lost Gumball, slamming his entire body against the surface.

Gumball slowly spun in the air until he landed on all fours on the ground.

The "man" easily balanced himself. "So that's it? Are you out of courage yet?"

Gumball used his index finger and thumb to reveal a small parcel, "That's all I need to get rid of you," he placed his hand back on the ground, "I won't waste any more time fighting you."

He pulled his legs out from under him and threw them forward, giving a small jump and dodging another shot.

He landed and stood, raising a finger, "Now can I ask a question?"

His eyes widened and he placed his hands between his legs, "pulling" himself up, leaving a hole outlined by his legs through which a fireball passed.

He took a long stride until his foot landed on top of a silver economy car.

He contracted his free leg back and contracted the other toward the car, dodging a claw swipe from the "man."

As soon as he returned to normal, he spread his arms wide with an irritated expression, "WHY ARE YOU JUST FOLLOWING ME?!"

The "man" growled a little, "Because you're much harder to catch now than they are!" He pointed into the distance.

Gumball raised an eyebrow, "I think you know my mom."

The "man" threw his head forward, speaking with a growl at first, "I DON'T WANT YOUR MOTHER!"

"Only you three are my problem. The other people are acceptable, I don't have to involve them too."

Gumball frowned and opened his mouth, but closed it briefly, then put his hands on his hips. "Okay, that's a good point."

He yelped in fright as the "man" lunged at him.

The "man" bit the front of the car and lifted him into the air with ease. Gumball jumped out of the car halfway up the hill.

But while he was still falling, the "man" quickly tried to hit Gumball with the car.

Gumball kicked his legs and threw himself slightly to the side.

But the car scraped against his body, spinning him around and gaining some distance.

He fell to the ground, rolling once and then getting up.

He looked up and widened his eyes at the "man" with his leg raised, about to step on him.

Then Gumball shifted his gaze forward.

The "man" seemed to slide backward and fell, slamming his chin, his foot digging into the asphalt and almost completely sinking in.

He began to slide backward again, his foot ripping through the asphalt like a bulldozer as he clawed at the ground to stop. To no avail.

Then he was yanked upward and thrown away, his sinking foot pulling chunks of asphalt with it.

Nicole was poised like a baseball pitcher who'd just thrown a ball, but a 14-ton one, and with both hands.

Somewhere in Elmore, near a yellow bus stop sign with a children's bus design, a gold lipstick with a pink tip stood with her purse over her shoulder.

Sal Left Thumb appeared halfway on camera, eyeing her purse with a mischievous look.

He walked sideways like a crab, reached into her purse, and pulled out his wallet without making a sound.

He turned and walked away, staring at the wallet with a wicked smile.

Then came a loud crash, and they both looked forward in surprise.

Lipstick shielded her face with her hands as Sal Left Thumb was hit by the "man's" body, nearly stopping, and was thrown away.

The wallet fell from his hands and spun in the air before landing on the "man's" nose.

When it was over, Lipstick looked forward and widened her eyes.

She grabbed her wallet and dropped her purse into her hand, hitting the "man's" nose.

She slung it back over her shoulder and walked away with an irritated, snobbish expression.

The "man" scowled.

Nicole undid her posture and turned to Gumball. "Hi, honey."

She walked over to him as he stood up.

She placed her hands on either side of his head. "Is everything okay?"

Gumball shrugged. "Nothing hurts."

She gave him a reassuring smile. "Good."

Then she began pounding his head with her fist, her expression furious, "BECAUSE I CAN'T DISCIPLINE YOU IF YOU'RE HURT!"

He took a few hits and then grabbed her arm to push him away with an irritated expression, "First! OUCH! Mom!"

His expression softened, "And second, if you want me to apologize, just say so. I admit my mistake."

Nicole pulled her arm off him with a surprised expression, "Wow, I expected some stubbornness from you."

Gumball's expression deepened. "Nobody likes to admit they're wrong."

He smiled. "But that just proves I need to learn to balance things better. Acknowledging is part of improving."

Nicole smiled proudly. "My little boy is growing so much."

She shrugged with a mischievous smile. "What can I say? It's our problem-free philosophy."

Gumball stared at her unimpressed. "Couldn't think of anything cheesier?".

They both looked away when they heard a sonic boom.

In a few seconds, the "man" could be seen in the air, approaching.

Then an orange glow appeared from him, growing larger.

Gumball gave a small jump and dug his legs into the ground.

They stretched ten feet deep before stopping, his feet swelling. He stretched his arms forward toward the ground, then swelled like a balloon in one part.

He contracted them, causing his arms to quickly straighten and throw him backward.

This caused ten feet to rise from the ground in a circular motion until they were at a 90-degree angle.

The fire hit the raised section, flowing around the corners.

The section soon gave way, and the fire passed through it, beginning to pierce the asphalt on the ground.

Then the fire stopped, and the "man" appeared, passing through and completely destroying the raised section, surrounded by the embers that had not yet gone out.

He landed, his feet tearing at the asphalt until he came to a stop.

He turned in every direction obsessively.

There was no one else.

He shook with rage and threw his head up.

"DAAAAAAAAA-"

His scream quickly turned into a thick roar.

Elsewhere, a fast-moving blue line raced through the city, passing through the street and circling buildings overhead.

The camera showed Gumball running, his mother watching from behind, his hands on her legs.