Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

What happened last time:

After his latest plan to save Elmore failed, Rob was falling into the Void again as it seemingly began to suck the town in.

He made himself a human disguise and tried to turn everyone else into one as well, starting with Elmore Junior High. But of course, it was Gumball and Darwin who ruined everything again.

After Tina knocked him unconscious and he only woke up in the middle of the night, it seemed like the show had ended. The Void worked its magic and started to spread in the hallways of the school. Rob was trying to hang on, but he fell inside and landed back where he was all those months ago.

This is it, he thought. I failed.

As he landed on the ground and slowly dusted himself off as he stood up, he was greeted with a voice he would rather never have heard again.

"So, we meet again. Guess your plans didn't work out like you thought they would, did they?", The Void mocked him.

Rob looked down in frustration, knowing that it's too late now.

"You won. So this is it, huh? You're going to suck all of Elmore inside here and then have your stupid movie?", Rob asked.

"Actually, there has been a change of plans.", The Void answered, as Rob lifted his head in confusion and curiosity.

...

And now it continues:

...

"A change of plans? What do you mean? Will there be a movie or not!?", Rob asked in frustration.

"Yes. And No.", The Void answered.

"Okay, just because you're a mysterious concept doesn't mean you have to give such cryptic answers all the time. That doesn't make you cooler just so you know.", Rob reprimanded the entity while crossing his arms.

"Alright, allow me to explain. We still want to do the movie with everyone in the Void but we can't do that right now.", the static world started.

Rob raised his eyebrows... ahem, single eyebrow... as it continued talking.

"The show has grown more powerful than expected. Sucking the whole thing here in one go won't work anymore at this point.", it admitted.

"So the town will survive?", Rob asked hopefully.

"HA! In your face!" he taunted with a smug smile. "Or whatever the thing is your voice comes out of I suppose."

"Not so fast. I said I can't do it as things are right now. Not that it's impossible in general. I still brought you here again. Why do you think I did that?", The Void asked.

Rob stopped for a moment, wondering what its plan was then. Although he couldn't think of anything he didn't like the implication, knowing that the whole plot of him becoming a villain was only because of this thing so it's clearly very scheming and plans ahead.

"I'm still going to suck Elmore in. But I'll have to weaken it first. But for that I need time. And I can't risk someone like you running around and talking about or predicting the end of the world there. That'll just be further trouble if anyone else finds out too early.", The Void explained.

"And why did you send me back there last time in the first place then!? You know I wanted to tell everyone and find a way to stop it!", Rob wondered.

"Because that side-plot made some more nice episodes for the show as long as you wouldn't succeed. But now, the show is finished, meaning you have no reason to continue living amongst them except to be a liability for my plans."

"So what? I'm going to be here alone with you again until your plan is complete and you weakened Elmore enough?", Rob asked sarcastically, although that was exactly what it had planned.

"Yes. Don't worry, I'll keep you entertained. I must admit, it's nice having someone to talk to in the meantime.", The Void admitted.

"The feeling is not mutual. I can tell you that much.", Rob grunted.

"Alright, I'll bite. How are you going to weaken Elmore?", he asked.

"Easy, I'm going to unleash someone on it who has the power to damage it beyond repair.", The Void calmly stated.

That statement got Rob to laugh.

"Oh, that was a good one.", he chuckled.

"I'm not sure if you ever noticed but this freaking town is indestructible! Any damage to it, no matter how severe, is repaired over the course of 11 minutes."

"Ah, yeah. A side effect of the show. But those aren't going to be working anymore. Plot Armor is officially off I'm afraid." The Void answered, full well knowing what that would eventually result in.

"Okay, not sure what that means but even then, individuals like Gumball cause havoc almost every day and we got used to it. So who is supposed to be so powerful that they can make a difference?", Rob asked, not believing that anyone could be significantly worse than what the town has already experienced in the past.

"Child, if you think Gumball is the epitome of destruction you have seen nothing yet.", The Void answered condescendingly.

"Especially considering this specific individual has some unfinished business with the Wattersons. And I don't think he will tread lightly there.

The only thing he still needs is a host to provide a body. And luckily I still haven't made use of one of my biggest trump cards yet.", The Void finished while a recording of Darwin opened in the static sky.

"Darwin?", Rob asked, almost wanting to laugh again.

"What is he supposed to do? He's clearly the harmless one and usually only a part of the chaos because of Gumball."

"So it would seem from a distance. And maybe even within. But there's more to him. His origin.", The Void explained.

"Alright, I'm getting pretty sick of your cryptic nonsense. Why is he your chosen one host for destruction?", Rob asked impatiently.

"I don't want to ruin every surprise or else you'll have no reason to be excited for what comes next.", The Void addressed Rob and maybe the reader too.

"Let's just put it this way: Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer. And there's a reason why Darwin ended up where he did.", The Void teased.

...

About a half a day later it was calm in the Watterson residence as Anais was having a tea party with Daisy the Donkey in her room, which she mostly used for stuff like this.

Suddenly, Darwin walked inside.

"Hey, Anais. Are you doing anything fun?", he asked.

"Well, that depends on your definition of fun. I am, but I'm not sure you would enjoy it too much.", she answered, while filling Daisy's cup with some imaginary tea.

"Better than nothing. I'm bored right now.", Darwin replied before walking over and sitting aside from her on the floor.

"I take it Gumball is still busy with his anniversary for him and Penny?", Anais concluded.

"Yeah, can't believe it's already been one year since they got together now. Especially since none of us aged a single day in that time.", Darwin explained, still being confused about how that even worked.

"I can see that, but I know you well enough to see there's something else bothering you.", Anais theorized with a curious look.

"It's just... I know it's stupid. Forget about it.", Darwin quickly brushed it off.

"Come on, you can tell me. You know I won't judge you for being stupid. I'm used to it.", Anais reassured him while placing her hand on his fin and being both sincere and a little joking.

"Ouch.", Darwin replied jokingly himself before taking a deep breath and opening up.

"I know I shouldn't be jealous of their relationship anymore, especially since I have one myself now and Gumball more than reassured me that we would still be the same.

And I know he's focusing his time on her now so everything is perfect for their anniversary, but...", he trailed off.

"But what?", Anais asked in a worried tone.

"But I just can't help it! It's like there's this voice in the back of my head that gives me bad thoughts about him really abandoning me for her. And I know it makes no logical sense, but it's there anyway! It's like there's this part of me that is a different person and wants me to think negatively and I don't know what to do about it!", Darwin ranted.

Anais saw how much this was getting to Darwin. She wasn't the best at these pep talks since she's better at being rational than emotional but maybe with her own reasoning, she could get him to see that he's just worrying too much.

"Darwin, it's alright. This is a feeling not a thought. And feelings aren't logical, they're emotional. So it would only make sense that you feel this way with how much you care about your bond with Gumball. Even if your brain knows deep down that it will never happen.", Anais explained in an attempt to reassure him.

Darwin wiped a tear off his face before facing her.

"Y-You really think so? It's not my fault?", he asked hopefully.

"Not one bit. Besides, it's only temporary. Once their anniversary is over, he'll spend more than enough time with you again. Just remember that you always have people who love you and who you can open up to if you ever feel like this.", Anais finished.

After taking her words in for a second, Darwin reached over to hug her.

"Thanks, sis. I needed to hear that. You're the best!"

"And don't you forget it!", Anais responded while hugging him back.

Darwin trusted Anais. Both as his sister and someone who is smart enough to know what she's talking about, so he was glad that she thought it wasn't a problem.

Especially since he often felt like this whenever it seemed like a loved one was neglecting him. Something that fills his head with negative things. It was what pushed him to be so cruel to Penny back when she and Gumball started dating.

After everything was sorted out though, he felt awful about it and didn't understand how he could've pushed things so far. That was completely unlike him.

As nice as Darwin usually was, it was like this part of him wasn't in sync with the rest of his personality and sometimes brought out the worst in him. Suggesting stuff such as kidnapping Tobias' mother to force him to give their game back or to basically enslave Elmore to ensure its safety.

But there was usually always someone who got him to realize that this wasn't the way to do things. Whether it was Gumball or somebody else.

It scared Darwin sometimes, but he supposed it wasn't a big deal. Nobody is perfect, right? Everyone has a dark side to some degree. But as long as you don't let it take control of yourself, everything is fine.

"Mom is also busy with preparing this special dinner for her and Dad.", Anais suddenly commented.

"Really? But their anniversary has just been a few months ago. And there's no way they forgot that again after what happened last time.", Darwin responded.

"Nah, she just wanted to take advantage of finally having saved enough money for them to eat at the fanciest restaurant in town for once before some event of destruction will take it out of her pocket.

Right now she would be especially angry if that got messed up by some disaster somehow. So better be careful.", Anais warned.

"Hey, you should tell Gumball that! Not me.", Darwin argued.

"Yeah, I know. I'm just saying.", Anais chuckled.

As silence settled in for a few moments, Darwin's gaze wandered over to Daisy for a moment.

"So, you have no problem with Daisy... considering what happened?", he asked uneasily.

"Not really. It wasn't Daisy that was the problem but this evil tyrant. And he's gone now. Far away from us without ever coming back.", Anais casually answered.

"Yeah but... isn't it really creepy in hindsight? That he was in there the entire time while you thought it was just a normal doll? Listening, learning, scheming-"

"I'M TRYING NOT TO THINK ABOUT THAT, OKAY!?", Anais suddenly jumped up, scaring Darwin.

"Sorry, sorry! I was just... worried about you, you know?", Darwin tried to ease the tension.

"*sigh* Yeah, I know. Sorry for lashing out at you.", Anais apologized.

"Nah, it's alright. I shouldn't have brought it up. Let's just change the topic, maybe?", the fish offered.

"Good idea.", Anais agreed. "So, anything weird that happened in school today after that whole um- thing yesterday?"

"Not really. No sight of Rob today. I guess he gave up on his weird plan after Tina beat him to a pulp.", Darwin concluded.

"Oh, is that what the deep hole in the hallway was from?", Anais asked, remembering how she saw a big, bottomless hole randomly being in the middle of the hallways at school today that everyone noticed and walked around without understanding where it came from.

"Not sure. It was exactly at the point where Tina pounded Rob into the ground, but there was no hole afterwards. Unless she came back later and finished the job even more thoroughly. Who knows?

But Rob left us alone today. He usually doesn't do two schemes in two days. He fails once and then he comes back with something new a few weeks later.", Darwin explained.

"I can't believe I still haven't met him. Why is it always that Gumball and you are involved whenever he is causing trouble and never me?", Anais asked in frustration.

"Honestly, might be better this way.", Darwin added with a concerned look.

"Some of the stuff he has done wasn't exactly harmless. I wouldn't want you to be involved there."

"That's exactly why I should be there! What if he ever does something to Gumball or you and I can't help it!?", she wondered.

Darwin shook his head for a second in amusement before answering.

"Anais, it's not your job to worry about us. We're your big brothers. We have to keep you safe, not the other way around.", he said while leaning forward.

"But you know I can help! I also saved you before-", she began but Darwin cut her off.

"I know you can but that doesn't mean you should. You're already helping us enough otherwise and shouldn't bother yourself with everything. Gumball and I can handle ourselves.", he reassured her.

"I know. But if there ever is anything you need me for-"

"Then you will find out first. Now let's relax a little, sis. Enough talk about dangerous stuff. Let's just enjoy the day.", Darwin advised with a carefreeness Anais wished she had sometimes.

"Alright. Let's do that.", she agreed before her conversation with her adopted brother shifted to lighter topics.

What neither of them knew is that their conversation was watched by someone.

Someone from a different reality who had access to what they were doing without being physically there, so they had no chance of seeing them.

"With that I already have everything I need. Enjoy the day with your loving family, Darwin Watterson.

For it will be your last opportunity to do that. Starting tomorrow, I'll rewrite everything."

Chapter Text

On the next day, nothing unusual happened at first.

Darwin got up after he enjoyed a peaceful night in his fishbowl, had breakfast with his family and went to school with his brother and sister.

Cue multiple lessons with Miss Simian where the boredom that was inviting to take a nap battled with the knowledge that should she catch anyone doing that, it would rain weeks of detention.

But this was standard procedure. After getting through most of the day and returning from lunch break where Gumball once again sat with Penny, Darwin finally found his brother alone for once as he was organizing his locker.

Gumball was frantically looking around every few seconds to make sure nobody caught him in whatever he was doing.

So he was obviously startled and immediately jumped back when he was just busy inside it as a voice suddenly came up.

"What are you doing?", Darwin asked from behind.

Gumball immediately closed his locker in panic before turning around and seeing the person who the voice belonged to.

"Oh, Darwin. It's just you. Don't scare me like that!"

"Geez, sorry.", Darwin answered while raising his fins in defense.

"Why are you panicking like this anyway? Trying to hide your unfinished homework from Miss Simian again?"

"No. Well, that too but that's not what I'm trying to hide.", Gumball looked around before leaning closer towards his brother.

"I don't want Penny to see what I prepared for our one year-anniversary.", he whispered to his brother in excitement.

"Oh yeah, that makes a lot of sense.", Darwin acknowledged with some forced excitement.

"So what is it this time?"

"It's awesome. I created a scrapbook filled with pictures that show all our greatest moments together in the last year.", Gumball proudly explained.

"But then I realized that I don't have enough so I made drawings of moments that I didn't have any pictures of. Sarah has been helping me with a few of them and it's getting along pretty nicely."

"Well, that sounds pretty nice but...", Darwin started awkwardly.

"But what?", Gumball wondered.

"Isn't that, and I really don't mean that in an offensive way, kind of a step back from the usual big gestures you're doing for her?", Darwin asked, trying to get his point across without worrying Gumball even more considering how easily he could get worked up if he thought he wasn't doing something perfectly in his relationship with Penny.

"Yeah, that's what I normally would've done. But since those grand gestures didn't always work out too well and Penny also asked me to tone it down a little, I thought I'd try something more grounded this time, you know?", Gumball explained.

"Oh yeah, good call.", Darwin answered, being surprised that Gumball actually took her advice instead of going all overboard again.

"I hope she'll like it. Do you think she'll like it!?", Gumball asked while shaking Darwin, still needing some reassurance.

"Hey, don't worry, I think with something as simple as a scrapbook you can't really cause any chaos and Penny will appreciate it either way."

"*Sigh*. Thanks, buddy.", Gumball happily responded in relief. "I would show you what I already have but I don't wanna risk her coming around the corner and seeing it.

I'll show you later. Or you can look at it yourself if you want. You have my combination after all."

"Sure, so... when you two have everything wrapped up tomorrow, you think we could do something together after that?", Darwin asked carefully, hoping he didn't sound too overbearing.

"We haven't really hung out much since you were busy with this anniversary thing.", the fish finished while looking down.

"Hey, don't worry, buddy.", Gumball said while pulling his brother in a hug.

"I told you, didn't I? Nothing could ever come between us. Yeah, I've been pretty busy with making sure the anniversary will be perfect but I'll make up for it when everything is done and spend some extra time with you."

"P-Promise?", Darwin asked.

"Promise."

"Thanks, Gumball.", Darwin replied while reciprocating the hug, feeling better after hearing it again from Gumball himself.

And as the bell rang, they broke the embrace and went back to class together.

...

Some time after school, Darwin entered Anais' room where she was just finishing her homework.

"Hey, Darwin. What's up?", she asked.

"Hey, Anais. I just wanted to thank you again for our talk yesterday.

I spoke with Gumball about it and he reassured me that we're going to spend more than enough time together after his anniversary with Penny, so I'm feeling a lot better now.", the fish happily explained.

"That's great. Told you there was nothing for you to worry about.", Anais answered while putting the finishing touches on her homework before setting her pen down.

"And... done. *Sigh* Now I really need something to drink.", she said before jumping out of her chair and running downstairs past her brother.

Darwin was about to follow her, but just after she ran out of the room he heard something from behind that sounded like a storm coming inside the room.

Turning around, he got shocked when he saw some sort of static void that resembled a broken TV ripping itself inside the room from mid-air.

Darwin was just about to run outside and scream when the next surprise came.

The static hole sucked Daisy the Donkey, who was seated on the bed of his little sister, towards itself.

Darwin quickly ran up to retrieve it before it could get sucked in, knowing how much Anais loved that doll.

As it was just in front of the hole though, the hole stopped sucking Daisy in and seemingly held it in the air, confusing Darwin even more.

After that, a scissors suddenly got send through the hole and stopped in the air as well, just in front of Daisy the Donkey.

Seeming like it got controlled telekinetically, the blades of the scissors widened and it began cutting straight through the doll, cutting off limbs, tearing inside the fabric on the chest and separating the head.

After the work was done, another surge of wind sent the scissors towards Darwin, who quickly held out his fins to protect himself, only for the scissors to perfectly land inside them as if that was the wind's intention all along.

Just as quickly as it appeared, the hole closed again and left the room completely along with the wind, showing no trace of having been there just a moment before.

Darwin stood in shock about what just happened when footsteps and a voice echoed behind him.

"Hey, Darwin. Why are you still standing ther-", Anais couldn't finish her sentence as she stepped inside and took in the scene in front of her.

Darwin was standing in the middle of the room with a pair of scissors in his hands, while her beloved Daisy the Donkey lay all over the ground around him, being completely cut to pieces.

"NO! DAISY!", Anais cried, immediately kneeling to the ground where the doll was lying while retrieving some bits.

"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE!? WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU!?", Anais asked furiously with tears in her eyes while glaring at Darwin.

Seeing his sister's cries was finally enough to get him out of his trance as Darwin looked at the scissors in his hands and how the situation looked so he quickly threw it away and tried explaining himself.

"No no, wait! I can explain! It wasn't me!", Darwin started frantically.

"YES, IT WAS! YOU WERE THE ONLY ONE HERE AND JUST HELD THE PROOF IN YOUR DIRTY FINS!", Anais yelled.

Darwin felt a lump in his throat as he saw Anais crying over Daisy and heard her accusation.

"No, you don't understand! There suddenly was this static hole inside the room and it sucked Daisy towards it and then began to cut her and then it pushed the scissors towards me and vanished right before you came.", Darwin hastily explained, not noticing how crazy he sounded to anyone who didn't just saw what happened.

Anais looked at him like he just grew a second head before answering.

"That's your excuse!? That's the worst lie I ever heard! Do you think I'm a total idiot or what!?", Anais screamed, now feeling offended on top of being hurt.

That got Darwin to notice too how awful his story sounded, but he didn't know what else to say but the truth.

"No, please! I-I know it sounds crazy but... it's true! You have to believe me! You know I would never do something this cruel to you!", Darwin tried once again.

"Oh, I think you would!", Anais answered with venom in her voice.

"What!?", Darwin wondered, feeling hurt that she would actually believe that.

"You had it out for Daisy since that Pfahlius thing! You even admitted during our talk yesterday how uncomfortable you were with her. You were just waiting to do that this whole time!", Anais accused him in her rage.

"No- I mean yes, I was a bit uncomfortable with it. But I would never do that to you!", Darwin said, remembering how he said that but hoping he could convince her.

"I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU WOULD DO SOMETHING LIKE THAT BEHIND MY BACK AND THEN LIE TO ME ABOUT IT! I THOUGHT YOU WERE BETTER THAN THAT! GET OUT OF MY ROOM!", Anais further lashed out.

"Anais, please-", Darwin leaned forward, now having tears in his eyes as well, wanting to hug his sister to comfort her, but she quickly slapped his fins away.

"DON'T TOUCH ME YOU DISGUSTING FREAK! I HATE YOU! I CAN'T BELIEVE I EVER SAW YOU AS MY FAVOURITE BROTHER! GET OUT, I NEVER WANT TO SEE YOU AGAIN!", Anais finished.

Darwin felt more tears welling up in his eyes at hearing his sister say these things to him, but he could see that trying to reason with her wouldn't work right now and just make it even worse, so he followed her wishes and walked out of her room while tears were streaming down his own face.

He was feeling really sorry for Anais, he really wanted to comfort her about it and try to fix it somehow but she wouldn't let him and the worst part was, she had good reason to assume he was guilty.

Thinking about that got Darwin to question the whole situation at all. What was this static hole thing? Why did it suddenly appear and vanish just to destroy Daisy? And why did it so in a way that seemed like it was trying to make him seem responsible for it on purpose?

Darwin couldn't think straight with so many things going through his head all at once. He decided to take a nap in his room, knowing that Gumball was out with Penny right now and Anais didn't want to see him at the moment.

He stepped inside his fishbowl and closed his eyes, hoping some sleep could get him to clear his head and maybe think of a way to fix this whole situation.

...

As soon as he opened his eyes again he suddenly woke up floating inside a dark, seemingly endless area with no doors, walls or any other objects.

Darwin thought he was all alone inside until he heard a voice behind him.

"Rough day, huh?", it said in a mocking tone before Darwin moved around to face the voice.

What he saw was another version of himself that looked exactly like Darwin but his gaze was more sinister, almost evil.

"Oh, come on. You again?", The real Darwin asked in an annoyed tone, not being pleased about meeting the other him again.

"Yes, me. You don't seem very pleased to meet me again.", Nightmare Darwin commented in a playfully offended tone.

"Why should I be? You only ever appear when I'm at my lowest and try to put bad thoughts into my head.", Darwin answered, hoping that he wakes up and can finish this conversation as quickly as possible.

"Well, if you would listen more to my advice more you wouldn't hit these low points in the first place, would you?

No people taking advantage of your kindness. Nobody treating you like a pet. But you decide to hold yourself down.", Nightmare Darwin explained.

"Stop being such a doormat and give everyone a taste of their own medicine! No more Mr. Nice Guy.", The nightmare version finished with a smile, clearly referencing Darwin when he said that himself.

"What? No! Nobody is treating me like that! At least not on purpose! And that's not me! I'm nice. I want to be nice!", Darwin pushed back.

"Yet you struggled with it quite often, didn't you? Like when you wanted to break up your brother and Penny. Or when you went crazy in your jealousy of Fuzzy. Or when you kidnapped Tobias' mom. The list goes on and on.", Nightmare Darwin answered with a smile.

"So what!? I'm not perfect. But I saw my mistakes and tried to make up for them every time. The only reason I'm ever acting like that is my stupid head giving me bad ideas when I just feel like lashing out.", Darwin began before realizing something.

"Wait a moment, that's it!", Darwin proudly declared, feeling like he just had a breakthrough.

"You- You're just a manifestation of those ideas! You're a collection of bad thoughts that always turns up when I'm having a bad day. And to remain a good person I simply need to ignore you.", Darwin convinced himself.

"That would be nice, wouldn't it?", Nightmare Darwin asked before grabbing his counterpart and holding him in front of his face.

"But I'm more than that. I'm a part of you. Something that's inside of you and that wants to escape. Something whose calls you can't ignore forever! YOU WILL SET ME FREE IN TIME, WHETHER YOU WANT TO OR NOT!", he said, growing louder and more aggressive with every sentence.

"Leave me alone!", Darwin called out before raising his fin to punch his counterpart. The moment it should have connected, Nightmare Darwin vanished into dust and he was alone again.

After that, Darwin woke up in a slight panic. Not the first time he had to deal with this unwelcome visitor, but that didn't make it any less uncomfortable.

Especially since he always felt like it was better to keep it to himself and just swallow it down to not worry anyone. After all, it worked every time and didn't happen that often so it's nothing that's worth freaking out over.

Chapter Text

After waking up, Darwin took a moment to compose himself from the weird nightmare before moving out of his bowl and noticing through the window that it's gotten darker.

His nap seemed to have taken longer than expected and it was evening already.

"Oh, Darwin. You're awake.", a voice spoke from the door of their bedroom.

Darwin turned around and saw his brother, who seemingly got home earlier, standing in the doorway.

"Hey Gumball. Yeah, just... took a nap to clear my head. Took a bit longer than expected.", he sheepishly admitted.

"Are you alright now? I was worried about you.", Gumball said while moving closer to Darwin and inspecting him.

"Why didn't you just wake me up then?", Darwin wondered.

"Oh, you looked so peaceful in there that I didn't want to ruin the moment. And I usually hate when someone wakes me up like that."

"Makes sense.", Darwin chuckled. "But why were you worried about me?"

"Because of what Anais told me about you destroying her Daisy. You didn't seriously do that, did you?", Gumball asked in a concerned tone.

"No, of course not! I would never do something like that to her.", Darwin tried to convince his brother, hoping at least he believed him.

"I know you wouldn't. But Anais was stubborn and insisted that she saw you with a bunch of scissors just after committing the act and said something about you giving her a bad excuse about some static hole that did it? It was really weird.", Gumball recalled what Anais told him earlier.

"Yeah, you can say that out loud.", Darwin answered in frustration.

"I wish I could explain it myself in a way that sounds believable, but don't blame Anais for thinking it was me. It really looked like it. How is she doing?", Darwin changed the topic, hoping that at least she was doing better right now.

"I tried to comfort her but she's still pretty worked up. She's trying to see if she can fix the damage and sew Daisy back together but she's still angry at you.", Gumball explained guiltily.

"*Sigh* I'm sorry, Dar. I really tried to convince her that it couldn't have been you, but she didn't want to hear it."

"Aww, it's alright. That's not your fault. I'll just give her some space for now. Just thanks for trying... and for believing me of course.", Darwin answered sympathetically, glad that he at least still had his brother on his side.

"Don't worry about it. Anyway, Mom and Dad are out for their special dinner so we need to make our own food today. Are you coming downstairs?", Gumball asked while moving towards the door.

"Yeah, just give me a minute.", Darwin answered before grabbing his phone at the desk, where he just wanted to check for new notifications he may have gotten.

As soon as he unlocked it though, he didn't see his usual background screen on the phone but a picture of a static void. The same place that appeared in Anais' room earlier and was responsible for what happened to Daisy.

Before Darwin could question what was going on now, the void suddenly broke out of his phone and got many times bigger than it was just on the small screen. It began sucking Darwin inside, who tried to hold on to the floor in panic.

"GUMBALL, HELP!", he screamed out.

Before he could get any further though, the hole sucked something else out from under the bed.

A set of unused fireworks that Gumball and Darwin got back when the former was organizing a treasure hunt for Penny and finishing it up with a bunch of them back during the emoji incident, some of which they didn't got to use back then.

The set hit Darwin in the face and got him to lose his grip on the ground as both he and the fireworks got sent through the static hole just before it closed again.

...

Meanwhile, Nicole and Richard were enjoying a romantic dinner at Chez Larry, the fanciest restaurant in town where they booked the best table they had.

"Nicole, everything on here is so expensive.", Richard whispered over to his wife while looking over the menu.

"But it also looks SO good and I'm not sure I can hold myself back from making us bankrupt with my order if I stare at it any longer."

"Don't worry about it, Richard.", Nicole reassured him with a smile.

"The whole point of this dinner is for us to enjoy what we normally couldn't. I saved more than enough for it so order whatever you want. This is a one-time opportunity."

"Besides...", Nicole smirked while looking over at Felicity who sat in another area of the restaurant and looked at them with a mix of envy and disapproval.

"I like that arrogant snob who thinks she's something better looking at us sitting at a better table than her."

Suddenly a static portal opened inside a corner of the restaurant close to the entrance door but at a spot where it was well-hidden from the customers.

Darwin and the set of fireworks were sent through it before the portal closed again.

Darwin fell to the ground while most of the fireworks suddenly activated and spread around everywhere in the restaurant, except for a select few which fell to the ground right beside him.

Everyone, including Nicole and Richard, started to panic as one moment they were all sitting calmly, talking or eating food and suddenly there were explosions everywhere around them.

Some customers pushed over their tables and hid behind them while others crawled under them, hoping not to get caught in the literal crossfire.

After about 20 seconds, the horror show was over and everyone was slowly getting up while still being apprehensive.

Luckily, nobody got injured but the entire restaurant was a mess. Windows were destroyed, walls were burnt-up and even the kitchen got completely destroyed.

"What in the world just happened!?", Nicole furiously asked.

"Hey!", a customer suddenly spoke up. "It was that kid over there!", he said while pointing at Darwin.

All eyes went over to the fish, who just got up himself after composing himself from the shock, while a few more fireworks were lying on the ground beside him.

Nicole in particular couldn't believe what she saw as she stepped over towards her adopted son with loud steps while her expression was one of pure fury. One that scared not just Darwin but everyone who was looking at her in the moment.

"DARWIN RAGLAN CASPIAN AHAB POSEIDON NICODEMUS WATTERSON THE THIRD!"

Darwin knew that if Nicole called one of her kids by their full name, they were in trouble. But if she called someone with a name that long by their full name, it was a death sentence.

"N-No wait, Mrs. Mom. I didn't-", he tried to quickly defend himself but it was useless.

"SILENCE!", she screamed with such anger that a shockwave emitted from her voice, sending Darwin back to the ground, where he could only stare up at her, feeling helpless and frightened.

"I don't even know where to start! Why are you here, why did you decide to bring fireworks with you and why did you send them sprawling over the entire restaurant!?"

Darwin wanted to answer but could only whimper in fear, too frightened to say another word.

"You knew your father and I were having dinner here, you knew how important this was for us and not only have you decided to ruin it but also to get EVERYONE IN HERE IN DANGER! WAS THIS SUPPOSED TO BE SOME KIND OF PRANK THAT YOU THOUGHT WAS FUN!? WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU!?

I would never even have expected Gumball to do something this reckless, let alone you. WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO SAY FOR YOURSELF, YOUNG MAN!?"

Darwin didn't know what to say, being scared of his mother's wrath right now. And knowing her when she was really angry at someone, everything that he could say right now would potentially only make it worse.

So he looked over at his Dad who was standing behind her, also looking apprehensive to say something but at the same time worried for Darwin.

Thinking he had better chances to convince his father, Darwin tried his luck with him.

"Mr. Dad, please! You know I wouldn't do something like this, right?", he asked with tears in his eyes.

"Well... those fireworks DO look like the ones that Gumball still had under his bed.", Richard answered while rubbing his head.

"EXACTLY! HOW ARE YOU EXPLAINING THAT!? I HAVE FORBIDDEN YOU TO EVER USE THEM AGAIN AND NOW YOU DO THIS!?", Nicole butted in.

"Oh, I don't know what to believe! I was so excited for this dinner and now it's ruined!", Richard answered before he started to cry in his hands.

"WELL DONE! You made your father cry! I hope it was worth it!", Nicole yelled at Darwin.

"No, you don't understand. There was this... um-", Darwin started, hoping to convince her but how would he explain what just happened in a way that she would believe him, especially in her current furious state?

If he told the truth it would just sound like a really bad lie. If he wasn't there for it he wouldn't believe it either. Anais surely didn't. So why would they?

"Don't even have anything to say for yourself, huh?", Nicole asked after seeing his hesitation.

"Um, excuse me Mrs. Watterson?"

"WHAT!?", Nicole asked while turning towards Larry who flinched in fear.

"Um, s-since it was your son who is responsible for the destruction of the restaurant I'm afraid I have to demand for you and your husband to pay for the damage.", Larry quickly said before covering his face, fearing her response.

Nicole's answer didn't come immediately as she had to take the situation in first. All the money for this fancy dinner she worked so hard for so that Richard and her could afford it.

It was all for nothing. All of that and more would be gone to pay for the immense damage that Darwin had just caused.

"Hah, I always knew you were a terrible mother and the actions of your kids just prove it.", Felicity stated from behind, looking smug but also angry about the incident that just ruined her own evening.

Nicole's eye flinched and before the desire to rip that snob's head off could overcome her she turned towards Darwin.

"All of this will come out of your allowance. No more for you until it's all paid up.", she calmly explained with an unsettling smile that scared Darwin even more.

"When we get home you'll get up to your room and stay there since you'll be grounded for the next three months. No TV, no phone, no video games, no internet and no dating Carrie or hanging out with your friends.

You won't leave the house aside from when you go to school. You'll do your homework, learn for your subjects and that's it. Oh and don't worry, you'll get to do all the chores inside the house to not get bored in the meantime."

"WHAT!?", Darwin exclaimed in shock. "N-No, please..."

Nicole stomped her foot. "I don't want to hear it! Your father and I still have to talk with Larry about the payment so do me a favor and get out of my eyes already. Wait inside the car and don't mess up anything else!"

Defeated, Darwin stepped away not wanting to make the situation even worse.

...

Back at home, Darwin was silently sitting inside his bowl the whole evening. He was feeling pretty bad for the ruined dinner despite not being responsible for it but he also felt some anger.

He didn't know who he should direct it towards though. While he felt a little frustrated at his family for believing he could do such cruel things, he knew he shouldn't as it wasn't their fault either.

This weird static void. What was it and why was it seemingly trying to ruin his life under any circumstances today!?

"Hey, buddy. You okay?", Gumball asked worriedly.

"What do you think!?", Darwin snapped back sarcastically although he immediately regretted it.

"Sorry."

"It's alright. It was a dumb question to break the ice. So... how did you end up making it to Chez Larry this quickly anyway? You were with me at home just moments before?", Gumball wondered.

"...I can't explain it. I really want to explain this to you but I don't know how and I'm just feeling so exhausted right now!"

"Hey, it's okay buddy. How about we just get a good, long sleep and you can explain it to me tomorrow when you're not feeling so exhausted anymore? Tomorrow will definitely be a better day for you.", Gumball offered with a sympathetic look.

"Yeah. That's a good idea... Good night, Gumball.",

"Good night, Darwin.", Gumball responded before pulling the blanket over himself and lying down to sleep.

Anais decided to stay in her own bedroom that night, still not feeling like being in the same room with Darwin after what happened earlier.

Darwin closed his eyes, hoping that he would have a good sleep tonight since the nap from earlier didn't really help him much.

...

After a while he opened his eyes again only to see that he wasn't inside his fishbowl anymore. He was back in the dark area from before.

Dream or not, this is the last place he wanted to be at right now. Especially considering who else would be there, as always.

"Well, isn't that something?"

Thinking of the devil., Darwin thought before turning around and seeing the other him again.

"We meet twice in a row. That's a new one. Seems like I got really lucky today.", Nightmare Darwin smirked.

"Better don't get used to it.", Darwin responded bitterly, really not wanting to deal with this again.

"In fact, I'd say it's more than just luck. Your destiny is calling to you."

"Let me guess. I'm getting some haughty speech now about how our meetings are a sign that I should let you take control and we're actually not so different?", Darwin asked while crossing his arms, already knowing this evil counterpart's tricks.

"You have to think a step further. The only reason we are meeting is that deep down you want this. Deep down, you are me!

And with a family like yours, I can't blame you at all."

"What are you talking about?", Darwin asked, now being more intrigued than annoyed.

"They don't love you! The moment you are not the 'nice guy' anymore they turn their backs on you and today showed it!", Nightmare Darwin yelled.

"NO! It wasn't their fault!", Darwin tried to defend his family.

"But you're still disappointed in their reaction, aren't you? Mr. Dad may not have screamed at you but he also didn't try to defend you, did he? And it's only a matter of time until Gumball falls in line with your mother and sister."

"You're wrong, he would never! He even said he believed me!", Darwin argued, feeling himself getting more desperate.

"ONLY BECAUSE HE WASN'T PERSONALLY AFFECTED BY IT YET!", Nightmare Darwin screamed while tackling his counterpart to the ground and holding him down.

"SHUT UP!", Darwin screamed back before punching his counterpart just like before.

Only this time it barely had an effect as Nightmare Darwin's face slightly moved to the side from the hit before it turned back to the ground with a satisfied smirk.

"Hehe, your resistance has been stronger the last time."

Darwin was shocked too as that would usually do the trick. He was the one dreaming, he should have the control to get rid of this guy whenever he wanted.

Desperately, Darwin kept punching his counterpart but to no avail as he kept holding him down, before the Nightmare version's fins disappeared inside Darwin's as if he was fusing with him.

"Just a little more.", Nightmare Darwin whispered, before Darwin brought his legs up and kicked his counterpart off of him with all his might.

It led the Nightmare version to be sent flying and once he hit the ground with the back of his head, he vanished into dust again.

Darwin got up with heavy breaths, scared about how powerless he just felt in his own dream before he was sent out of it.

...

The next morning, Darwin was feeling even worse. He barely talked to anyone, looked glum and just wanted to get through the school day as quickly as possible.

Gumball was worried but on his brother's request gave him some space, deciding that the conversation about what happened yesterday might be better suited for later in the day.

After school when most students were already gone, Gumball still wanted to talk with Penny in private for a moment so Darwin was waiting for his brother in front of his locker.

While he felt really terrible in the morning, being focused on school turned out to be a good distraction from everything that has been bothering him yesterday and throughout the night.

He was also looking forward to walking home together with his brother, now feeling a bit more comfortable in talking about everything that happened with the one person he knew would always be on his side.

Considering everything else they archived together, Darwin was sure he could somehow help him fix all of this. Maybe he could finally start thinking positively about this and be able to move forward again.

Unfortunately, destiny had different plans for him.

Just as Darwin was thinking about how he would convince Gumball, he heard the sound of a strong wind beside him. Immediately recognizing the sound from the last day, he looked over in shock and there it was.

The same static void again. The wind blew so strong towards Gumball's locker that the numbers on the combination were triggered by the effect and somehow hit in the exact correct order.

Gumball's locker door flew open and the scrapbook he prepared for Penny flew out and towards the void.

"NO!", Darwin quickly reacted and grabbed the scrapbook. Despite the fact that his first instinct would've been running away from this thing by now, he couldn't let it suck in something this important to his brother.

The hole sucked it in with all its might but Darwin held against it with equal strength. In the resulting tug of war for dominance, the scrapbook got pulled from the two sides simultaneously strong enough that they ripped it apart.

Darwin fell on his back, holding one half of it while the other one fell to the ground as the hole seemingly stopped trying to suck it in and vanished once more.

The fish could only stare at it in shock before hearing a voice behind him.

"Alright Darwin, I'm ready. We can-", Gumball stopped before looking in shock at what was in front of him.

The door of his locker was open, Darwin in front of it and his scrapbook for Penny ripped in two halves.

"No... NO! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE!?", Gumball furiously exclaimed, not wanting to believe it.

"NO! Gumball, listen! It wasn't me!", Darwin began.

"YES, IT WAS! YOU ARE THE ONLY ONE STANDING HERE, THE ONLY ONE WHO KNOWS MY COMBINATION AND YOU'RE HOLDING IT IN YOUR FINS!", Gumball yelled.

"Gumball, please! I could never do something like this to you. You know me!"

"Yeah, I know you.", Gumball answered with a malicious chuckle.

"I know you already sabotaged my relationship with Penny once in your jealousy! And you basically admitted yesterday that you were feeling this way again! Anais warned me that something like this would happen, but I didn't want to believe her.", he shaked his head in disbelief.

"Wh-What do you mean?", Darwin asked.

"I mean that when she vented to me about how you destroyed Daisy, she said this is exactly what you did to her! Getting her sympathy by saying how uncomfortable you felt around it and then cruelly taking it from her you manipulative prick!"

Darwin felt tears pricking at his eyes again.

"No! You-you said you believed me!"

"I did and that was clearly a mistake! No wonder you didn't have any explanation for it. You did all of this on purpose!", Gumball accused his brother.

Darwin felt his heart breaking at seeing the last person in the family he had on his side turn against him. The one who should know him better than anyone.

"I DIDN'T DO IT!", Darwin lashed out.

"Leave me alone and get lost, you awful, pathetic excuse for a brother!"

"FINE, I'LL LEAVE YOU ALONE!", Darwin answered before storming off, now feeling angry himself.

Deep down he knew he couldn't blame Gumball for this and shouldn't be angry at him, but he just couldn't help himself. Since yesterday it felt like he was steadily losing more and more control over himself in an unhealthy way.

He didn't even want to know about what's going on with this static hole anymore. He just wanted to get away from everything and have some peace and quiet, away from everyone.

While he had a fraction of that while walking home alone, it wasn't enough and the sounds outside still clouded his mind.

Upon arriving home and making his way up to his room due to being grounded, he found the solace he was seeking for. Since nobody else was inside to disturb him, he just laid down on Gumball's bed and closed his eyes for a moment.

He wasn't planning to take another nap after what happened yesterday, he just wanted to relax a bit for himself and finally clear his mind in a healthy way.

Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in, breathe out.

"Third time is a charm, isn't it?"

Opening his eyes at the voice, Darwin found himself back in the dark area with Nightmare Darwin in front of him.

This was not what he had planned. And he was in even less of a mood to deal with this than the last time now.

"Ugh, CAN'T YOU JUST LEAVE ME ALONE ALREADY!?"

His reaction only satisfied Nightmare Darwin though.

"Aww, you're close to your breaking point I see. Told you it wouldn't be any different with Gumball, didn't I?"

"Gosh, do you ever stop talking!?", Darwin asked in annoyance.

"Aren't even trying to defend him anymore, are you? You know you want this, you just have to accept that fact.", Nightmare Darwin taunted, stepping closer with each sentence.

"The only thing I want right now is to hit something at full force and luckily, you make for a perfect punching bag!", Darwin boasted before clenching his orange fin and dramatically bringing it back before throwing the hardest punch he could at his counterpart's face.

But this time it had no effect at all. Didn't even slightly move his face. Nightmare Darwin's face turned into a smirk.

"It's time.", he silently whispered in glory before grabbing Darwin by the neck and lifting him up with one hand.

Darwin panicked and tried to get out of his grip but it was useless. Nightmare Darwin threw him far into the air before he crashed into the ground, landing on his face.

Hurt, Darwin slowly tried to get up but his counterpart was already on him again before he could make a serious attempt, turning him around and pinning the fish down once more.

Darwin tried to punch the other him off again but his hits had even less effect than last time. He used his legs and attempted to send him off with the kick he used last time, but even that didn't move him.

"Stop resisting! This is for the better."

Nightmare Darwin's fins started to fuse with his again as his body came down and seemingly fused further with Darwin with each passing second.

Darwin couldn't fight him off and his resolve grew weaker. He felt himself passing out as voices surrounded him that echoed through the room.

"I NEVER WANT TO SEE YOU AGAIN!", Anais' voice.

"Darwin?"

"I was so excited for this dinner and now it's ruined!", Richard's voice.

"Do me a favor and get out of my eyes!", Nicole's voice.

"Darwin!?"

""Leave me alone and get lost, you awful, pathetic excuse for a brother!", Gumball's voice.

"DARWIN!"

As Darwin felt like completely passing out and his counterpart had fused so close now that their eyes seemingly touched, it was over.

Darwin suddenly shot awake as someone was shaking him.

Adjusting to the light, he could see Anais in front of him, a look of worry on her face.

"Anais, what's going on?", he asked in surprise.

"I heard you making noises in your sleep and saw you moving around uncomfortably. Are you alright?", Anais wondered.

"Oh uh, yeah. Just a nightmare. Wasn't that bad, don't worry about it."

"Ah... alright.", Anais replied with a small smile before looking away, but Darwin could tell there was more.

If he didn't know any better, he would say that she had a look of sadness and regret on her face.

"Is... everything alright with you too?", he asked but quickly stopped when she turned back to him.

"Sorry, stupid question after what happened-"

"I'm sorry, Darwin!", she interrupted him.

His eyes shot up in surprise. "What?"

"I said I'm sorry!", she repeated while tears were forming in her eyes.

"I should've believed you when you said you didn't destroy Daisy. I should've known you would never do something like that! I was just... I couldn't think clearly because I was so upset about it and took it out on you and... I'm sorry for what I said, Darwin! I don't hate you! I don't-",

Anais rambled on so Darwin decided to calm her down and pulled her into a hug.

"Hey, it's alright. It really did look like it was me.", he said before realizing something.

"Wait, how did you find out I didn't do it?"

"*Sniff* I talked to Gumball again and he told me about the scrapbook.", she explained while clinging towards her brother.

"He's feeling bad too because he remembered afterwards what I told him about you claiming there was this static hole that did it. He had a deja-vu and remembered when something like this happened to him too.

Some weird static signal disturbing reality and you getting angry at him because it seemed like it did everything to make him look bad. He thinks the same thing might be happening to you."

"...You're right.", Darwin realized while letting go of her.

"I forgot about most of it for some reason. I thought he was insulting me the whole time for no reason that day, but later I saw it myself that it wasn't him."

"Exactly! Gumball wanted to tell you himself but he was scared that you'd still be mad at him after what he said today. We told Mom and Dad and they feel bad for blaming you yesterday too.", Anais continued.

"Really? So none of you are angry at me anymore? You all believed it that easily?", Darwin asked in surprise that it got sorted out this quickly.

"Well, after thinking about it we all agreed that reality bending catastrophes are common enough for us at this point that it sounds more believable than you just deciding to do these cruel things all of a sudden. That's not you and we should've seen that.", Anais finished, looking down sadly again during the last sentence.

"It's alright. I forgive you, really. It wasn't your fault. We're cool.", Darwin reassured her with a smile.

"R-Really? Thanks Darwin, you're the best! Come on, let's get down. The others want to apologize to you too. I'm really glad you're okay.", Anais said while running towards the door.

"Of course I'm okay!", Darwin called after her with a smile.

After she had already left the room, Darwin's smile remained but his eyebrows lowered unsettingly as he said something else once she was gone.

"In fact I'm more than okay. I'm feeling like a whole new person."

...

Meanwhile, elsewhere:

"He has awakened."

"Ugh, what? Who has awakened?", Rob asked while rubbing his eyes, just having awoken out of a little nap himself on the ground when he suddenly heard the voice of the Void.

"The Awesome Store's sleeper agent. He's ready."

Chapter Text

After he got a moment to collect his new self, Darwin followed Anais down the stairs to reconcile with the rest of the family.

As he made his way into the kitchen, he saw them all seated around the dinner table, where they were looking guilt-ridden and had trouble making eye contact with Darwin.

He sat down on the last remaining chair while there was an awkward moment of silence between them.

Gumball, Nicole and Richard were looking at Anais for any indication on how her talk with Darwin went.

As she gave them a smile and a thumbs-up, Gumball decided to be the one who breaks the ice.

"D-Darwin, I really don't know how to start. I'm so sor-", he started.

"It's okay. I know you didn't mean it. I forgive you.", Darwin answered simply.

"Y-You do? Just like that!?", Gumball wondered with wild eyes, feeling like it was too good to be true. Their parents shared similar thoughts.

"Yeah, Anais explained to me how bad you felt about it and already apologized herself. Besides, none of it was your fault. It's alright.", Darwin continued.

"What!? No, it's not alright!", Gumball rambled on as tears were forming in his eyes.

"I accused you of something terrible! I said these awful things to you! I called you a- a... p-pathetic excuse for a brother.", Gumball had trouble even saying it again, as if the memory itself of calling Darwin that hurt him.

"That is not excusable in ANY situation no matter what I thought you did! And even then, I should have known that you would never backstab me like that. I'm so sorry, Darwin!", Gumball said as the tears were now streaming down his face.

"Hey, it's okay. I already told you, I forgive you. These things just happen out of impulse sometimes. We're good.", Darwin reassured his brother while putting a fin on his shoulder.

"I-I don't know what to say. That you're able to just forgive me this easily for it-I... I really don't deserve you, Darwin. I love you so much!", Gumball finished while throwing his brother into a tight hug.

"I love you too, buddy.", Darwin answered.

As her sons were hugging it out, Nicole rubbed the back of her head for a moment before speaking up next.

"I'm really sorry too, sweetie.", she regretfully said.

Darwin now looked at her while leaning back from Gumball's hug.

"I was just so angry about our dinner being ruined yesterday. Then I saw you with those fireworks and I just jumped to conclusions when I should've known that you would never do something like that. I feel so ashamed.", Nicole painfully admitted, while grabbing her nose in regret.

"Mom-", Darwin started but she wasn't done yet. Meanwhile Anais looked at him skeptically now.

"I didn't mean what I said! And you're obviously not grounded for three months or have to do all the chores and stop hanging out with your friends. I don't know what I was thinking when I said that.", Nicole finished as she looked down.

"I'm sorry as well, son.", Richard added.

"I didn't say anything mean to you, but I should've believed you and tried to defend you more. I said I didn't know what to believe but I was just so confused by the whole situation. Can you forgive me, son?", he asked hopefully.

"Aww, of course I forgive you. Like I said, it wasn't your fault and I can see how sorry you all are. Come here", Darwin answered while opening his fins.

Inviting them both at once might not have been the best idea as they simultaneously crushed him in a tight hug.

"You're the best, son.", Richard said.

"I really don't know what we did to deserve such a good and forgiving kid as you, Darwin.", Nicole added.

"It's just awful that the dinner you were so looking forward to is ruined now.", Darwin brought up.

"It's okay, we'll survive it. The most important thing to us is that you're alright.", Richard answered.

As they leaned back from the hug after a moment, Anais decided to speak up.

"Soooo, now that we got apologies out of the way, maybe we should focus on whatever it is that's twisting reality and blaming Darwin for all of these things for some reason."

"Yeah, it's like that one time where it seemed like the world itself was lagging and it tried to make me look bad in front of Darwin.", Gumball recalled.

"Oh, that's what happened on that day? I remember too! It was back when we had trouble with the TV!", Richard pointed out.

"Of course that's the thing you'd remember such a day for.", Nicole commented with an amused grin.

"Okay so, you've been in this sort of scenario before. That's good, it means we can analyze the problem more thoroughly. Have you found out what caused all of it back then?", Anais asked.

"Yeah! It um... actually no. I somehow forgot. Darwin?", Gumball turned to his brother, hoping he could remember.

"Sorry, nothing either.", Darwin shrugged.

"Hmm, it seems like if the world has a will on its own or some higher power is causing this, it possibly made you forget on purpose. And if it has that sort of ability, it really begs the question what we can even do against it.", Anais further analyzed.

"Actually once I found out that it wasn't Gumball causing these things it seemed to have stopped. Maybe the same thing will happen now that you all know I didn't do anything bad? You know, stopping it by exposure.", Darwin offered as a solution.

Everyone looked at Anais for confirmation.

"Well, it's possible but just because it happened one time doesn't mean it has to be a general thing. Especially since this sort of manipulation is dangerous we should keep an eye out and try to find out ways to stop it if it happens again."

"Uh sure, but can we do that tomorrow maybe? I'm feeling pretty tired right now.", Darwin said, trying to steer away from that discussion.

"You're tired again? But you just woke up from a nap a few minutes ago?", Nicole wondered.

"Yeah, but after everything that happened since yesterday I'm still feeling pretty exhausted and need some peace and quiet.

How about we just wait until tomorrow and then we see if anything weird is still happening? It's not like we can do much if nothing more happens anyway.", Darwin argued.

"Well... I guess you have a point there.", Anais hesitated.

"Great, see you later then!", Darwin ended the discussion before getting off his chair and walking back towards the stairs.

"Well, you kids go and play or whatever. I'll make us some lunch.", Nicole told her remaining children.

"LUNCH!", Richard enthusiastically agreed.

As Gumball and Anais walked up the stairs, Anais stopped Gumball from walking further once they were upstairs by tugging on his sleeve.

"Hey, Gumball. I wanted to ask you something.", she whispered, hoping that nobody, especially Darwin, would hear them.

"What is it, Anais?", he wondered.

"Don't you think Darwin was acting a little weird just now? He called Mom 'Mom'. Like without Mrs. like he usually does. Not to mention how quickly he wanted to end the conversation and get away.", Anais explained.

"Well, I gotta admit. Darwin did feel a little off somehow. But it's probably just the stress we put him through and he said he was still tired.", Gumball concluded.

"Maybe... but I'm still a little worried about him and whether he's really over it."

"Yeah, I know what you mean.", Gumball added with a thoughtful expression.

"I think I'm just gonna spend some quality time with him before bed and make sure to let him know how loved and appreciated he is some more. That might cheer him up!", he declared with determination.

And that's exactly what Gumball ended up doing. Playing with Darwin, making sure he knows how important he's to him and hugging him again before going to bed.

Darwin accepted it all but tried not to engage in it too much without seeming dismissive or unappreciative to not raise any red flags.

That night, as Darwin fell asleep, the version controlling his body got his first idea of being on the other side of the situation that his counterpart has been in multiple times before.

A while after falling asleep inside his fish bowl, he woke up inside a dark area with nothing being there aside from him.

Well, him and the regular Darwin who was on top of him, slapping and shaking him awake.

"Hey, wake up! Come on, wake up!", he screamed while doing so.

"Alright, enough!", Nightmare Darwin stopped his counterpart while grabbing his fins and shoving him back after one slap too many.

"Can't someone enter a nightmare with his counterpart in peace? Even I didn't wake you up like that.", he pointed out while standing up.

"Wh-WHAT IS GOING ON!? Why can I still see and hear everything but not control anything that I'm saying or doing!?", Darwin demanded to know.

"Ah, yeah. I probably should've given you a warning ahead. Sorry, didn't expect to be able to gain control so quickly.", Nightmare Darwin answered with a smug smile.

"You're now going through what I had to experience the last eight years. Taking a backseat, getting headaches from seeing all your nice, useless actions without the ability to interfere for the most part."

"YOU-YOU TOOK OVER MY BODY!?", Darwin asked in shock.

"You mean OUR body and you had it for nearly a decade now. Now it's my turn. Aren't you such a fan of sharing anyway? No need to complain now.", Nightmare Darwin smirked.

"So I'll be trapped like this now!? No, I'm Darwin! You're not me!", the original Darwin declared.

"Yeah, you have a point. I should probably go by a different name to distance myself from you. Beware World! Beware the wrath of... JPXFRD!", Nightmare Darwin warned with his fin raised in the air.

Darwin stared at him with wide eyes.

"The name Gumball accidentally formed with his soup when he was trying to name me? That's your choice?", he asked with a half-lidded gaze.

"Yeah, remember when Nicole told us about it? Good choice, right?"

That just made your declaration less threatening and more ridiculous than if you picked literally any other name.", Darwin said.

"Whatever. What matters is that I'm in control now and there's nothing you can do about it!", Jpxfrd boasted.

"How were you even able to do all these things anyway!? With the static...weird...whatever it was!", Darwin demanded to know.

"Oh, that wasn't me. I assume The Void did it.", Jpxfrd casually revealed.

"The...what?", Darwin asked perplexed.

"Oh right, you got your memories deleted. Weird, us from the Awesome Store usually have a pretty strong connection to it. I guess it's because you're considered an enemy to it. Oh well, not much use discussing it with a non-person at this point, is there?"

"Wait a moment.", Darwin realized something.

"I was only able to talk to you in my dreams at this place on rare occasions. When I was having bad days or felt awful. When I was easier to influence you said. So you being sent here to me now means-"

"Don't bother. It means nothing. I came here because I wanted to. To make sure you know how hopeless your situation is. After all, I've been here for so long that I know how to perfectly control these meetings.", Jpxfrd claimed.

"No, you don't! Something happened today that weakened your control over our body, didn't it!? Was it the love and affection my family showed after you woke up?", Darwin questioned.

"You're starting to ask a lot of questions and I'm getting bored of it. Time to say goodnight.", Jpxfrd decided before punching Darwin, hoping to free himself from their conversation that way.

Darwin stumbled back but didn't vanish to the others surprise, although he tried not to show it.

"Aha, you're getting scared of me finding out too much! I knew it!", Darwin concluded before tackling the other to the ground as he started punching him.

"Alright, that's it!", Jpxfrd yelled, grabbing Darwin's fins after a few punches and throwing him off before standing up and kicking Darwin with all his might.

Darwin flew against an invisible wall before his body shattered into dust.

Jpxfrd breathed heavily for a moment, relishing in his victory before realizing that Darwin already became pretty powerful outside of his body in just a few hours.

If Jpxfrd grew through hate, Darwin must grow through love. That's how he stayed in control for so long.

And with the way Darwin's family usually acted around him, it would only be a matter of time until he got even stronger, Jpxfrd realized. Strong enough to maybe even gain back control soon.

He had to make sure that would never happen and take care of the problem before Darwin learned how to influence his counterpart while he was weakened as Jpxfrd often did to him.

He had to act quickly and destroy his family beyond repair.

But he was neither sure if he could do it alone nor who could help him with that.

As if something was noticing his struggle and decided to help him out, it felt like a voice that wasn't physically there but spoke to him from beyond threw a name into his head.

"Pfahlius."

Jpxfrd remembered. He wasn't in control back then but he saw everything that happened through Darwin. The ancient demonic spirit that took over Daisy the Donkey.

But he'd have to find out where he was first. After they trapped Pfahlius in that teacup, Carrie teleported him somewhere where nobody will ever find him and where he can never escape from by her own words.

Wait, Carrie! She was his girlfriend! Surely she would tell him where he is if he asked.

But was Pfahlius really a good idea to work together with? He was extremely smart, dangerous and didn't seem like much of a team player.

On the other hand, their shared past in the Awesome Store gave Jpxfrd a sense of comradery and if someone had both the reason and the ability to help him in his plan to take down the Wattersons, it was him.

Jpxfrd made his decision. It was worth the risk.

...

The day afterwards at school, Jpxfrd was just waiting for his opportunity to speak with Carrie.

During break, he was able to find her in front of her locker, finally ready for an opportunity where they could talk one-on-one.

But he knew that he couldn't just ask her what he wanted to know here with so many people around.

"Hey, Carrie!", he greeted happily, acting as if nothing was unusual.

"Hey, Darwin. You good? Gumball told me you had some uh... rough days.", Carrie asked in worry.

"Oh yeah, I'm fine. Everything is better now.", he cheerfully answered.

"Ah, that's good to hear.", Carrie replied with a smile.

"Hey, I was wondering if we could maybe do something together today? It's been a while since we had some time just for ourselves.", Jpxfrd said.

"A while? We had our last date three days ago.", Carrie reminded him.

"Yeah... well, that's too long for me! I miss you.", Jpxfrd responded in an attempt to win her over.

Carrie giggled at that.

"Oh Darwin, you're so sweet. Alright, you want to go on a date again today?"

"Uh, actually I was thinking about something a little different."

"Oh? What do you mean?", Carrie wondered.

"I was wondering if I could maybe stay over at your place the night and we could watch some horror movies together?", Jpxfrd offered.

"Horror movies?", Carrie asked in surprise. "But you hate those."

"I USED TO hate them.", Jpxfrd lied.

"But I think I've gotten better now and want to give it another try. What do you say?"

"Ooooh, I see what's going on. You want to impress me.", Carrie realized before grabbing his fins.

"Darwin, you don't need to do that. I love you just the way you-"

"Carrie, no!", Jpxfrd interrupted her before tightening his grip on her hands.

"I insist on it!", he said with a determination that Carrie wasn't used to coming from Darwin. There was something almost scary behind it.

"Well... I guess tastes can change. And if you're really sure about this-"

"I am!", Jpxfrd quickly clarified.

"Alright, come over at 8 pm. But don't say I didn't warn you!", Carrie warned him playfully.

"Oh, trust me. I know EXACTLY what I'm doing.", Jpxfrd answered with a smirk.

"Alright, tough guy. See you later!", Carrie said while kissing his cheek before floating away.

Phase one completed.

"Hey dude. You're doing alright?", Gumball suddenly came up behind his brother.

"Oh, hey Gumball. Sure, I'm going to be over at Carrie's tonight for a sleepover.", Jpxfrd informed him.

Gumball's face fell. "Uhh, are you sure that's a good idea right now?"

"What are you scared that just because we sleep in the same room we'll take things too far?", Jpxfrd joked.

"No, *chuckle* I mean, with this whole bending reality to scapegoat you thing, what if the same happens to you in front of Carrie? Besides, we still haven't really talked about this in the family like we wanted to.", Gumball wondered.

"Nah, I think there won't be any more incidents today. Besides, I already warned her about that upfront.", Jpxfrd lied again.

"You know you're surprisingly confident about this whole thing just blowing over like that. Especially considering how upset you still were before your nap yesterday.", Gumball pointed out.

"Well, it's because now I know that I have all of you on my side, no matter what. Together nothing can stop us!", Jpxfrd claimed as sweetly as he could.

"Aww, I really envy you for your positivity sometimes.", Gumball said while petting his brother's head.

"But is really everything okay between us? You're not going over to Carrie tonight because you want to stay away from us, right?", he asked to be sure.

"Of course not! I just want to spend some time with my girlfriend. You know what that's like, right?", Jpxfrd tried to convince him.

"Yeah, I see your point.", Gumball gave in with a smile. "Still sucks what happened to that scrapbook, even if it wasn't your fault."

"Wasn't it just ripped in two halves? I'm sure that can be fixed for the most part.", Jpxfrd wondered.

"Well, probably. But it wouldn't be as perfect as I hoped it would be for Penny.", Gumball sighed while looking down.

"Come on, you know Penny doesn't expect perfection from you. If she did, she would've given up on you long ago.", Jpxfrd teased.

"Hey!"

"The gesture alone will be more than enough for her. So what do you say? I'll help you fix it and you give it to Penny later today while I'm over at Carrie? That way we both have a nice day with our girlfriends that we could really need right now."

"Hmmmmm, alright convinced.", Gumball accepted.

As he came home from school later that day, Jpxfrd did his best to distract each family member by doing something with them so they wouldn't have to talk about the actions of the Void again.

He helped Gumball fix his scratchbook for Penny, after that he helped Anais a bit in fixing Daisy who got also heavily damaged during these incidents, he played some video games with his father and helped Nicole with the chores.

As it was evening and the time has come, he was now over at Carrie's house while it was dark outside with both of them sitting together in her room and watching a horror movie she picked out.

It was Night-mare on Elmore Street, a movie about a supernatural killer who could appear in people's dreams and had a name surprisingly similar to that of Carrie.

Jpxfrd wasn't frightened by anything happening in it as horror movies didn't bother him like they did with Darwin.

But to not raise suspicion he still pretended to be scared at some moments, but not as much as Darwin would be so his claim that he can handle them better now holds true in his girlfriend's eyes.

After the movie was over, Carrie turned towards him.

"Wow, I'm impressed! You really handled that much better than I expected.", she praised.

"Told you I'm getting better with them! But I think it depends on the topic. I would've been a lot more freaked out if it was something involving dolls.", Jpxfrd answered.

"Oh, why is that? Scared of them in particular?", Carrie wondered.

"Not exactly but, you know, after what happened with Anais' Daisy a few months ago I think that's still a bit too early for me.", Jpxfrd reminded her while simultaneously setting up the conversation he wanted to have.

"Oh yeah. That was scary. Even for me.", Carrie shuddered at the memory.

"Speaking of, I wanted to ask you something.", Jpxfrd continued.

"What is it?"

"Where exactly is the teacup with Pfahlius inside now? Where have you dropped it off?", he asked curiously.

"Huh? Why do you want to know that now all of a sudden?", Carrie asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Well, I know you said he is far away and could never return but... I would just feel safer if I knew exactly where. I know it's an irrational fear but not knowing exactly where he is still scares me a little.", Jpxfrd attempted to convince her.

"Oh. No, I get you. That's not irrational at all.", Carrie answered with sympathy.

"Alright, I tell you. I teleported above the Mariana Trench and dropped it into the water there. Since it's the worldwide deepest part of the ocean and far away from us, that seemed like a good place where nobody would look for him. Let alone be able to free him."

Mariana Trench? So I just have to swim deep to retrieve him? This is better than I expected. I'm a fish!, Jpxfrd thought.

"Oh, smart. Well, thanks for telling me. I really do feel better now.", he earnestly said.

"Anytime. So... what movie do we want to watch next?", Carrie asked.

"*Yawn* Actually I would like to go to sleep. I'm kinda tired.", Jpxfrd answered while lying down in his sleeping bag on the floor.

"You're tired already? But it's barely past 10 pm and we don't have school tomorrow.", Carrie pointed out.

"Yeah, but I think one horror movie is enough for me at the moment. I don't want to overdo myself immediately, you know? An easy start today and next time we can maybe watch two."

"Oh yeah, good idea.", Carrie answered, the fact that he wanted to get into them at a slow pace made sense to her.

"Why don't you go to sleep already too? That way we'll be up early tomorrow and can still do something then.", Jpxfrd offered.

"Well, I don't usually go that early on a Friday night but okay.", she agreed before floating over to her bed and phasing through the pillow.

"Good night, Darwin."

"Good night, Carrie."

After they said their goodnights and Carrie turned the lights off, Darwin made sure to lay in his sleeping bag with his eyes open until he heard soft snores coming from Carrie's bed.

Using a flashlight he brought with him, he walked over to check if she was really asleep, which she appeared to be.

Which means it was time to get to work.

Jpxfrd walked out of Carrie's room all the way up to the attic, where he knew from Darwin's experiences was where she hid all of her mystical items.

First he needed the spellbook since swimming all the way over from Elmore to the Mariana Trench was a bit much, even for a fish. But Carrie told Darwin in the past that there were spells that enabled even mortals to teleport as they wished.

After using the light switch to brighten up the attic, Jpxfrd went through the spellbook until he found what he was looking for.

"Focus on a person or a place you want to visit and then speak the following words.", he read.

After focusing his mind, Jpxfrd read what was written on the page.

"Inveniam viam, aut faciam."

And from one moment to the next, he suddenly glitched out of Carrie's attic and landed somewhere in the middle of nowhere in the ocean.

Just based on his surroundings Jpxfrd had no chance to tell exactly where he was. But the fact that it was still bright at this place while it was dark just a moment ago in Elmore made it obvious that he was far away from home.

He supposed that it must have worked and he landed inside the Mariana Trench, which means now came the difficult part.

Diving all the way to the bottom and searching for the teacup while hoping that it was still there.

Thanks to Darwin's body being that of an exceptionally fast swimmer, he had no trouble reaching the bottom in record time despite it being so deep.

Breathing wasn't a problem either. He could stay down there for as long as he needed to.

The deeper he reached through, the harder it became to see clearly as less and less sunlight was coming through to the bottom of the ocean.

It was just enough to make out what was in front of him. Jpxfrd swam through the place that was mostly filled with rocks, sand and occasionally other fish.

Something stuck out though.

Something that was small, white and barely able to make out. Jpxfrd swam over to inspect it and there it was.

The teacup that had Pfahlius trapped inside it. It had to be the one.

His orange fin grabbed the object and picked it up before quickly swimming up again.

After a while, Jpxfrd reached the surface again, but heavily exhausted now after he swam the distance of 11 kilometers two times in a row.

Even more now that he had to swim up instead of down. Despite his nature as a fish, that was a lot.

But it was worth it. He got what he wanted and could bring him back.

Remembering the spell he used to reach this place, Jpxfrd said it again while holding the teacup and focusing on the attic inside Carrie's house.

"Inveniam viam, aut faciam."

And in another blink of an eye, he was standing back in front of the spellbook that he read from the first time, just as planned. Only this time, Pfahlius was with him.

Now it was time for the ritual that would free him from his current predicament.

The same one they used to trap him inside that teacup. Well, that wasn't the intention at first but what the plan eventually resulted in after Anais had to improvise.

A circle of pepper, candles and something new to trap him inside was what he needed.

Walking down to the kitchen with the spellbook in one fin and the teacup in the other one, Darwin got the pepper shaker and also found some candles.

He made some place in the kitchen by shoving the table out of the way and spraying pepper on the ground in the form of a circle.

After that, he lit up a bunch of candles and placed them at different places around the pepper so everything was set up.

Now he only needed a new person that Pfahlius could take the shape of after he freed him.

It was obvious that he was useless inside a lifeless object as he couldn't do anything inside those and was therefore of no help to him.

Jpxfrd would have to choose someone and sacrifice their body for Pfahlius to take it over. But who?

With the spell he could teleport anywhere he wanted, but he couldn't just randomly kidnap someone and bring them here. Most people would resist too much or straight-up overpower him.

It had to be someone weak who couldn't fight their way out of this situation. Additionally it would also be smart for Pfahlius to possess a body that is much weaker than Darwin's so, just in the case of emergency, if it ever came to a fallout between them, Jpxfrd would have the advantage.

Luckily Darwin had classmates in all shapes and sizes and knew where most of them lived so Jpxfrd could choose someone among them.

The most logical options for weaklings that wouldn't be able to fight back were Anton or Idaho due to their size. And considering Anton dies all the time for a new one to take his place, Darwin wasn't sure if he was a good idea.

So Idaho it was. Inside his body Pfahlius could still use his intelligence and evilness to help him destroy the Wattersons, but he wouldn't be able to physically call any of the shots.

Remembering the teleportation spell, Jpxfrd imagined himself on the farmland where Idaho's family lived before repeating the words.

"Inveniam viam, aut faciam."

The moment he made his way to the field, he saw Idaho peacefully sleeping with the rest of his family under the stars, just like Darwin and the rest of the family had been doing once when Gumball tried to show them how the potato lives his life.

He also technically could've chosen one of his family members as they were all of similar size, but Jpxfrd thought it would be better to pick the one potato Darwin was already friends with, so it wouldn't look weird if they had to talk in public about their plans and someone saw them.

Aside from that, they went to school together and could therefore see each other almost every day without either needing an excuse for it.

After quickly making out which one of them was Idaho, Jpxfrd quickly grabbed him before walking a few feet away where he wouldn't wake up the rest of his family while casting the spell one last time.

"Inveniam viam, aut faciam"

After making his way back to Carrie's kitchen, Idaho suddenly woke up in Jpxfrd's fins.

"Darwin? What's going on?", Idaho asked, still a bit sleepy right now.

"Hey, Idaho. I would really like to explain but I unfortunately can't allow you to inevitably scream in panic and wake up Carrie and her dad.", Jpxfrd answered while setting the potato down.

"So I have to do this.", he said while grabbing some tape from the kitchen table.

"Wait, what are you doing?", Idaho asked, now a bit fearful.

"Giving you the opportunity to help me make the world a better place. Mostly for myself.", Jpxfrd explained while grabbing Idaho and lying him down on his back inside the circle, before taping his hands and feet to the ground to make sure he couldn't move.

"Hey-what the!? HEL-!", Idaho tried to scream out before Darwin also put some tape over his mouth to make sure he wouldn't ruin this.

"Alright, finally.", Jpxfrd sighed before also lying down the teacup inside the circle and stepping out of it as he closed it by placing one last candle between the pepper.

He went over to Carrie's spellbook again to find what he was looking for. The spell that would free Pfahlius and let him jump over to his new host.

"Expelle hoc malum. Inferorum potestate expelle hoc malum!"

And just as planned, the same cloud of red glowing dust that went inside the teacup a few months ago now moved out of it, straight into the body of Idaho, who frantically moved his head around before he suddenly stopped resisting.

It was done.

"Alright, I guess it worked.", Jpxfrd commented before moving inside the circle and disabling its power to remove the tape around Idaho's hands, feet and finally, his mouth.

"Idaho" took a moment to compose himself and take the situation in before getting up.

"Pfahlius?", Jpxfrd asked carefully.

"I have to tell you kid, there are not many things which are able to surprise me at this point but this is definitely one of them.", he answered with his hands behind his back, still in Idaho's voice but without trying to hide that it wasn't him anymore.

"Well, look at that. The great Pfahlius the Eradicator, super-genius and master manipulator who plunged the world into darkness many times got caught off-guard. Isn't that something?", Jpxfrd smugly asked.

"I thought I was gonna rot in that teacup for eternity. Now I get freed by you of all people. One of the ones who put me away and should know what kind of suffering he should expect in retaliation.

Not just he, but the rest of his family too. You're not the same Darwin you were before, aren't you?", Pfahlius concluded.

"I guess you want an explanation, don't you?", Jpxfrd asked back with a smirk.

"That won't be necessary, I can take a hint.", Pfahlius answered calmly.

"Oh, are you sure?", Jpxfrd wondered.

"I assume the Void has allowed your repressed dark side to take control so you can do its bidding considering it's very unlikely that this would ever happen through natural means.

And to prevent your nice side taking over again, you need help in causing the destruction that would allow you to stay in charge, which is why you have been seeking out me.", Pfahlius explained in an unimpressed manner.

Jpxfrd stared at him for a minute with wide eyes before a light chuckle escaped his lips.

"I see the months in that teacup haven't affected your genius in any way. With how long you were in the Awesome Store, it would make sense that you also know about The Void.

But you're wrong about one thing. I'm not doing its bidding. I'm acting out of my own mind and certainly not so anyone else can benefit from it.", Jpxfrd explained.

"As it would want you to believe.", Pfahlius remarked in a bored tone.

"This is not something it would allow to happen under normal circumstances. I guess that means the show is over? Nobody is protected by cartoon physics anymore, huh?", Pfahlius spoke to himself as a sinister smirk grew on his face.

"What are you mumbling about?" Jpxfrd wondered.

"Oh, nothing you have to worry about. So, did it have to be THIS small body you gave me?", Pfahlius asked while pointing at his/Idaho's tiny potato self.

"I wanted to make sure I was gonna be the one in control during our partnership. Since your use mostly comes from your smarts, it's not like you need a strong body anyway. You can leave the physical stuff to me.", Jpxfrd claimed.

"And why would I want to team up with someone who intentionally gives me the weakest body he can find?", Pfahlius asked with a raised eyebrow, while wondering how a potato could even have eyebrows.

"Be lucky I gave you a body at all. You owe me!", Jpxfrd argued, growing impatient.

"Weird, I don't feel like I do.", Pfahlius threw back mockingly.

"Well without me you'd be stuck in that teacup forever so you clearly need me a lot more than I need you.", Jpxfrd attempted to stay in control of the conversation.

"Considering you went through all the effort it must've been to revive me I doubt that. You wouldn't have done that if you weren't desperate.", Pfahlius countered.

"Look, we both want to destroy the Wattersons, don't we? Work together with me there.", Jpxfrd offered.

"You are literally impersonating one of the Wattersons I want to destroy. Besides that, I'm not the kind of guy who helps someone out because he helped me first in case you didn't notice. I'm not that nice.", Pfahlius said while crossing his arms.

"You want to do it by yourself in that feeble potato body then? Everyone can punt you like that.", Jpxfrd giggled.

"Yeah, you're right. This really isn't up to my standards.", he admitted.

You on the other hand are in possession of a perfect one for me to use. One with which I could attack from inside the family while hiding in plain sight.", Pfahlius smirked while scratching his chin.

"If you want to challenge me instead of cooperating I can also cast another spell and send you back in that teacup you ungrateful brat.", Jpxfrd threatened.

Pfahlius' eye wandered over to the kitchen counter where there was a knife lying before looking back at Jpxfrd with a sadistic smile.

Jpxfrd noticed this too and decided to intervene before things escalated further.

"Alright, you need to cool off a little.", he said while moving forward and attempting to grab Pfahlius.

Pfahlius reacted quickly though and jumped over Darwin's fin as it came down before landing on it and running it up. He jumped at Darwin's face and spun his body backwards.

He landed a kick on Darwin's face before using his momentum to land with a backflip on the table.

Jpxfrd got surprised by the attack and fell on his back, giving Pfahlius the opportunity to run over the table and jump on the counter where he could grab the knife.

Unfortunately the knife itself was bigger than Idaho's body and he had trouble lifting it.

"Okay, you surprised me there for a second. But you really think you can attack me with a knife that you can't even hold properly?", Jpxfrd asked while wiping his face where he just got kicked.

"Who says I'm going to use it to attack YOU?", Pfahlius asked with a confident smirk.

Jpxfrd had a look of confusion on his face now, not sure what he was implying.

"I guess you weren't there to witness it when Carrie told your counterpart everything about me. Don't worry, I prefer demonstrations over explanations anyway.", Pfahlius taunted before making his move.

He lifted the knife with all the power his little potato body could muster.

And then he rammed it into his own stomach so deep that it went out through his back on the other side.

Jpxfrd was in shock about what he was seeing for a moment as Pfahlius collapsed on the kitchen counter with the knife stuck inside Idaho on both ends. Since he was a vegetable he didn't bleed, but big potato parts fell out of his body.

"What the-!? Why did you do that!?", Jpxfrd asked in shock while running over and moving the knife out of Idaho's body although that didn't do much good as he already had a big hole inside it that went all the way through.

"Y-You don't... know what happens to me when *cough* when my current host dies, do you?", Pfahlius coughed out in pain but with a sinister smile.

Jpxfrd didn't know what he was talking about until he recalled his words and remembered what Carrie said all the way back.

How his soul would be able to find a new host of his own choice after the old one died. How he would even go as far as kill himself in one's body to take over one he saw as a better candidate.

He didn't even think of that since he never would've considered the possibility that Pfahlius would go that far immediately just over being in a body he didn't like instead of enjoying the fact that he had one at all. Not to mention betraying the person who just brought him back in the first place.

"Huh, so you do know. Ha... i-i-idiot.", Pfahlius said with his final breath after seeing the shocked look on the fish's face, before he stopped moving and Idaho's face fell down movelessly with his mouth wide open.

Jpxfrd panicked but it was too late. Just a moment later, red glowing dust came out of Idaho's body and flew straight towards Darwin's. He quickly ran towards the door but it followed him.

He wanted to pick up some object and capture him inside before it reached him but he had neither time nor resources. Then they made contact.

The red dust went inside Darwin's body as he fell to his knees and breathed heavily for a few seconds.

Eventually he stopped and got back up on one leg with the other one following.

"I waited so long for this. The feeling of truly being alive again.", Pfahlius boasted in satisfaction while inspecting his new body.

"You can only appreciate it if you know what it feels like if you're not. An appreciation I will share with the rest of the world.", he said to himself before looking over at Idaho's dead body on the counter.

"Hmm, gonna have to hide that one somehow.", he realized in frustration before he got an idea.

"Didn't Darwin always have a potato obsession anyway?"

"And I haven't had a snack for years now.", he argued before stepping closer with a hungry smile.

After cleaning up the kitchen and being done with his food, he grabbed the spellbook and hid it back in the attic before walking down into Carrie's room where he assumed Darwin was sleeping.

He found a sleeping bag fitting him lying on the floor while Carrie was asleep in her bed.

Lying back down, he closed his eyes to enjoy both the night and what was to come starting the next sunrise.

First blood has been drawn. But that was only the beginning.

Chapter Text

The morning afterwards Pfahlius woke up to the sunlight shining through Carrie's window as he needed a moment to take everything in.

After looking at his fins and the rest of his orange body inside his sleeping bag, the events of last night came back to him.

He was free to talk and move again. He finally had a body again.

As he stretched and got up, Carrie was already awake and floating through the door inside her room.

"Morning, Sleepyhead. Finally all rested?", she asked playfully.

"Uh, I guess so. What time is it?", Pfahlius asked back, trying to play it off as if nothing was wrong.

"It's almost 9 am. Given how early we went to bed last night, you slept a lot. More than 10 hours.", Carrie informed him.

"I hope you didn't dream of Night-mare on Elmore Street and our horror night wasn't too much for you after all.", she wondered in concern.

So they watched horror movies last night? I need to get up-to-date. I'm missing valuable information right now, Pfahlius realized.

"Oh no, don't worry. Just really needed a good night's sleep I suppose.", Pfahlius answered, concluding that Darwin didn't have the best nights before that if that dark side of him was somehow able to take over.

"Uh huh and you're sure you are alright?", Carrie asked while floating closer.

"Why wouldn't I be?", Pfahlius wondered, not yet sure if he should make up some explanation or deny anything being wrong without more intel on the situation.

"Well, I already noticed yesterday that your aura seemed...off and not in a good way. It's even more noticeable now. It feels as if your soul left your body somehow.", Carrie explained while floating around Darwin to inspect him.

"I didn't want to say anything yesterday because I assumed it was because your fallout with your family that Gumball told me about was still bothering you. Maybe you just wanted to get away from them for one night.

But I can't keep silent about it any longer if it's this bad. What's really going on, Darwin? You know you can tell me anything, right?", Carrie sympathetically reassured her boyfriend while taking his fins in her hands.

A fallout, huh? Alright, I can work with that.

Pfahlius suddenly started looking down as his casual expression was replaced by a dejected look and tears started forming in his eyes.

"Darwin?", Carrie asked sadly.

"You're right. It is bothering me! I-I wanted to repress it all and came here to try to f-forget about it and distract myself but it didn't work.", he sobbed.

"Oh, Darwin-"

"And tonight it was at its worst! I had a nightmare! Gumball, Anais, Mrs. Mom, Mr. Dad, a-all of them. Calling me names, saying I was nothing but a useless p-pet and kicking me out, saying I didn't belong! It was so awful! I could barely sleep for hours!"

"And then you got up and went through the house because you couldn't sleep?", Carrie asked.

"What do you mean?", Pfahlius asked back, wondering if she heard him.

"Well, I was up at one point and heard noises, but couldn't really make them out. I thought it was just Dad since he often does that at night so I just went back to sleep again. Was that you?"

"Y-Yeah, I couldn't just stay lying down with my thoughts. I needed to walk around a bit and talked to myself I guess, trying to convince myself that it wa-wasn't true. That it would never happen.", Pfahlius continued to sob.

"Aww, I'm so sorry, Darwin. But you know they would never do that right?", Carrie tried to reassure him.

"B-But it felt so real.", Pfahlius responded.

"Come on, they love you! They would never think of you as a pet. And they know you didn't do those things, they even apologized and everything!", Carrie further tried to convince him while pulling Darwin into a hug.

So it got already sorted out? Okay, time to end this, Pfahlius thought while reciprocating the hug.

"I know I shouldn't believe it, it just felt so real.", Pfahlius said while getting up and quickly packing his bag.

"Whoa Darwin, what are you doing?", Carrie asked in surprise.

"I'm sorry, I really need to be with my family right now. I need to hear it from them that it isn't true. I need to stop running away from my problems and talk with them about it!", Pfahlius hastily explained.

"No, I understand. Honestly, I'm proud of you for taking this step instead of bottling it up. You're doing the right thing.", Carrie praised him while giving him one last kiss.

"You want me to come with you? Maybe it's easier if you have someone backing you up."

"No, I know how much you want to help and I appreciate it but I need to do this alone. I'll tell you how it went later. Love you!", Pfahlius called back while winking her goodbye and running towards the door.

As he was out of her eyes and Carrie heard the door closing off-screen, she tried to relax, hoping that Darwin would work out whatever was going on with him.

Yet in the back of her mind, she couldn't fully let go of the concern that there was more that was bothering Darwin. Something he didn't tell her. But what could it be?

Meanwhile Pfahlius was glad that he got out of the conversation quickly. He didn't want to give Carrie the impression that her words helped him or else she would've noticed that his darkened aura had another origin if it didn't disappear while he was pretending to feel better.

But he also couldn't have her giving him reassurances until it would get hard to find excuses not to accept them, so having to confront his family alone was a good excuse to get away without her pestering him any further.

Ah, how he missed playing with people like that. So much fun. And this was only the beginning. It would still get so much funnier.

After a few minutes, Pfahlius was back home and opened the front door with Darwin's key.

The first thing he saw was Gumball speaking on the phone with someone.

"Not since yesterday at school. He rode the bus with us just like he normally does. I didn't notice anything unusual.", Gumball talked to whoever was on the other line.

Has the search for Idaho already started? That was quick. I hope it's about him. Means I can immediately get to make my move too, Pfahlius thought.

After a pause, Gumball continued to talk on the phone.

"Okay, don't worry. I'll ask around. I'm sure he will turn up again. You're welcome!", he said before hanging up.

"Hey Gumball.", Pfahlius greeted casually.

"Hey Darwin, you're back early.", Gumball noticed.

"Yeah, I heard what happened with Idaho and got pretty worried.", Pfahlius claimed.

"Oh, so they already called Carrie too? I didn't even know they were friends.", Gumball commented.

"Well, they're not super close but on good terms. She was on his birthday that one time.", Pfahlius reminded him.

"Oh yeah, forgot about that. I still can't believe you served him a potato as a cake back then.", Gumball laughed.

"Yeah well, don't worry. I'm over my potato obsession at this point.", Pfahlius countered with a knowing smile.

"Either way, come on. We should probably help to search for him.", Pfahlius added.

"Eh, come on. He will probably be found quickly by his family or the police or whatever. We should leave it to them. I bet it's nothing. Those things just happen sometimes.", Gumball shrugged it off.

"Come on Gumball, that's very insensitive.", Pfahlius scolded him with an accusing tone.

"His family is worried, Idaho might be who knows where, alone and scared and as his friends it's our job to help looking for him. Anything else would be selfish.", Pfahlius finished in an unapproving tone.

Gumball had a look of guilt on his face after that before sighing.

"You're right. I'm sorry, we should help out. It's the right thing to do.", Gumball agreed, being glad that he had someone with a moral compass as strong as his brother on his side.

"That's the spirit. Alright, we better split up. That way we can cover more ground quicker. I'd say you take the east side of town and I take the west side.", Pfahlius decided.

"Wow, not like you to take such a leading role all of a sudden.", Gumball chuckled before he got a more serious look.

"Honestly, is everything alright with you Dar? You feel...different somehow. Even more so than yesterday.", he noticed.

"Yeah, I'm fine. It's just...I'm really worried about Idaho and hope that nothing bad happened you know? It's really messing up my head.", Pfahlius admitted in a regretful tone.

"No, I get it. Sorry, I'm just wasting time. What about Carrie? Should we ask her to help us too?", Gumball asked.

"I already asked her. She said she still had something important to do but she can catch up with us later. Let's just look for him ourselves for now.", Pfahlius said.

"Okay then. Let's stay in contact if either of us finds something. I would ask Anais to help us too but she's still asleep. Maybe we can ask her later.", Gumball informed him.

"Good idea. Alright, see you later.", Pfahlius winked the blue cat goodbye before they walked through the door and he ran off in one direction.

"You too!", Gumball answered before running off in the other direction.

After being away from his brother, Pfahlius had another moment to compose his thoughts.

Obviously he was not going to look for Idaho. But just as he had planned, this situation quickly gave him the perfect opportunity to visit someone crucial without anyone following him.

He needed to do it immediately since Gumball and Carrie were already suspicious and could sense that something wasn't right. He was able to make up a fitting excuse for it for the moment, but that wouldn't work for long.

But if everything worked as planned, it wouldn't have to.

...

Rob has been trapped in the Void for about a week now. It was hard to tell since stuff like day and night didn't exactly exist there. Just static.

He wasn't exactly suffering. There was stuff in there to entertain himself with and The Void itself provided him with food and drinks if he needed them and couldn't find anything immediately.

It kept him there for safety purposes and because it thought it was interesting to have some company to discuss the current flow of events with, but it didn't want to torture Rob. It already did that enough in the past.

"I hope you don't fool yourself into believing you are some sort of good deity that's just misunderstood with all of this. You are evil and this whole twisted game of yours proves it.", Rob suddenly told it while lying on the ground on his back.

"I'm not fooling myself with anything. Good, evil. These concepts are meaningless to me. I'm taking care of you because you're like a pet to me. I have to keep you in check, but can provide and look out for you simultaneously.", the echoing voice of the Void responded.

"A pet!? Wow, I really didn't think I could feel more disgusted with you than I already did but now I do.", Rob replied, offended.

"I don't think you have much room to talk there, boy. Have you already forgotten about everything you did to Gumball and his loved ones for a very measly justification?", The Void reminded him.

"I did these things only because of you! You even admitted that yourself the last time I was here!", Rob answered in fury while getting back up and pointing an accusing finger at the static.

"It's true, I set your villain arc into motion but you still committed all these acts by yourself. And even after finding out, your plans to save Elmore weren't exactly a hero's act, were they?

Kidnapping an innocent woman and threatening her to draw the future? Kidnapping the internet to show it good replacement shows? Terrorizing a school into becoming normal enough to survive? With methods like that, is it really a surprise that nobody was willing to listen to you?", The Void argued.

Rob thought about it and as much as he hated to admit, The Void had a point.

Even while trying to do everything to save Elmore, his villain persona still haunted him. Even while he was manipulated into blaming Gumball for everything, he still decided to be the bad guy and do awful things.

The Void wasn't dumb. It didn't pick him to be the villain simply because he was boring. It wouldn't have picked him if he didn't have it inside him to do these things in the first place.

And now it might be too late and he would never be able to save Elmore like he wanted to. To make things up to Gumball and apologize for everything.

If only there was an opportunity for him to make amends. He would do everything to talk to Gumball once more and tell him how sorry he was.

He didn't even care if he would accept it or not, he just needed to clear his conscience somehow. Was that selfish? Maybe, but with his situation it was hard not to get desperate.

Suddenly floating around The Void, Rob noticed something. A palette with a paint brush. It still looked fresh.

And there were small rocks floating and lying around everywhere.

Fuck it, he thought before moving to grab the paint brush. Desperate times require desperate measures.

...

Later, Carrie was still at home, floating around mindlessly in an attempt to distract herself from her worry about Darwin.

She hoped it was really just a family matter and they would be able to clear it out after a talk, but she couldn't help but worry about her boyfriend.

While she wandered around her attic eventually, Carrie noticed something strange though.

There was a flashlight lying on the ground, the one Darwin brought with him yesterday.

He may have said that he walked around in the house after his nightmare last night so it'd make sense that he brought his flashlight with him and probably just forgot it.

But the noises she heard last night sounded like they came from the kitchen.

And why would Darwin wander up all the way up to the attic in the first place instead of staying downstairs?

Carrie thought she might as well teleport over to the Watterson's house and bring Darwin back his flashlight to ask him.

On top of that, it would also give her an opportunity to ask how things went and see if he's doing better now.

In the Watterson kid's bedroom, Anais was sitting alone on the chair in front of the desk at the moment.

She wasn't doing homework or using the laptop however. She was deep in thought.

She has been thinking about this whole situation ever since they briefly discussed it in the family and Darwin cut them off and it still didn't make any sense to her.

As weird as the things in this town could usually be, there is always some kind of explanation for it if you look deep enough.

But all of what happened lately just seemed completely random.

Some higher static force doing everything to put Darwin in a bad light and make the whole family hate him, only to suddenly stop with it just as quickly as it started.

What was the point of all of that? And why was them apparently finding out about it all it took to stop it?

Usually these kind of things take some big event happening until it all disappears. But nothing of the sort has happened yet...right?

And since they all apologized to Darwin he has been weirdly distant with the family.

Well not completely considering he helped her fix Daisy yesterday and hung out with the others too, but he seems to do everything to steer away from the discussion over the weird things that happened these last few days.

Gumball theorized it was because he was secretly still upset about what happened, but pretending everything is fine and disregarding the topic completely?

That's not Darwin's usual way of handling a problem. He's more open than that.

She wanted to talk with Gumball about it again and called him after waking up upon seeing that he wasn't in the house, but now he's already searching for a classmate with Darwin that has now disappeared too.

Not to mention that whole thing a few days before even that with the Superintendent trying to transform the students into these weird beings before it turned out to be the doing of...

Wait, who was it again? Gumball and Darwin told her about it just the day it happened.

It all started to hurt her head. All these nonsensical events in the last week that don't seem to make any sense and there seems to be more adding to it every day.

"Hey Anais, is Darwin home?", a voice suddenly called out behind her.

"WHOA!", Anais shrieked back before falling off the chair. She quickly regained her composure though and got back up.

"Carrie, what the what? Don't scare me like that!", she called the ghost out.

"Oh, sorry. I always forget to give people a heads-up warning for that.", Carrie sheepishly admitted while rubbing the back of her head.

"Anyway, what do you have there?", Anais asked.

"Darwin's flashlight. He took it with him when he stayed over at my place the night and seemed to have forgotten it. I just found it in the attic and wanted to give it back to him.", Carrie explained.

"Why was it in the attic?", Anais wondered with a raised eyebrow.

"Honestly, I was wondering that too. Anyway, where is Darwin? Is he doing okay?", Carrie asked.

"I don't know. He is out with Gumball searching for a friend who's been gone missing and I was gonna help them look later. I think his name is Idaho."

"Idaho is missing? I didn't even know that!", Carrie answered in a worried tone.

"Unrelated but, have you noticed anything weird about Darwin while he was over? Since you just asked if he was doing okay.", Anais changed the topic.

"Umm yeah. Pretty weird actually.", Carrie answered.

"First he watched a horror movie with me, which is very unlike him, then his entire aura was all over the place yesterday and even more so today.

I asked him about it and he said that the whole thing of what was going on these last days is still bothering him a lot and the nightmare he had, but you probably already know about that."

"Wait, what nightmare? I don't know about that! I haven't seen Darwin at all today so far!", Anais called out.

"What? Hasn't Darwin talked to you guys about it? He wanted to, that's why he ran home this early today in the first place.", Carrie explained.

Anais took a moment to take her words in before asking her next question.

"Carrie, would you mind if I take a look at your attic where you found the flashlight? Something is definitely not right here."

...

Pfahlius meanwhile arrived just where he wanted to. At the parking lot in the mall.

After making his way through the parking lot and searching his way through the amount of cars, he found what he was looking for.

The van he hasn't seen since he was bought out of it about a year ago while being stuck inside Daisy the Donkey.

The Awesome Store.

Moving forward and knocking on the side door of the van, it didn't take long until the door got opened and two eyes appeared in the black void of the van.

"Ah, another Watterson visit. And what can I provide you with this time?", the shop owner asked.

"I'm afraid I'm not here on behalf of the Wattersons. Not even the one of Darwin Watterson.", Pfahlius answered with a knowing smile.

"Hmm and how am I supposed to interpret that?", the man asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Come on, old man. I was with you inside there for quite a while. Don't you recognize me anymore?", Pfahlius asked back in an amused tone.

"Of course I do. You were just an ordinary fish back then as I sold you to the big pink one who is now your father."

"Well, you sold me to him, that's true. And I have undergone a transformation since then. But there was someone else who fits that description too. I'll give you a clue. A pink stuffed donkey that you couldn't wait to get rid off.", Pfahlius taunted him while moving closer towards the man as his eyes widened.

"No...no way! You're pranking me, right!? How is that even possible!?", he asked in disbelief.

"Oh, you know. A little of Darwin's dark side taking over combined with a little trickery on my part to break out of my old useless host and here we are.", Pfahlius smirked.

"I can't believe this! I warned the father what would happen if he wasn't careful with you!"

Pfahlius chuckled at that.

"You did and given Richard's idiocy, it's a wonder he hasn't already messed that up earlier himself. But I'm afraid it wasn't his fault this time. The Void wanted it this way."

"What!? That can't be!", The Awesome Store owner claimed in disbelief.

"I'm afraid it is. This world is ending. And I have some proof for you if you don't believe me.", Pfahlius said before taking out Darwin's phone that he used yesterday to take some pictures of the remains of Idaho's dead body as he was in the process of eating him.

"No...no, please.", the man desperately pleaded, not wanting to believe it.

"We both know it would never allow anyone to die under normal circumstances. But it needs help to end this world, which is why it allowed me to take control.

So you would be well-adviced not to disobey my wishes. Being against me means you're against The Void now. I think we both know the consequences for that and that's assuming it won't allow me to have my own way with you first.", Pfahlius threatened while learning even further forward.

"...What do you want?", the man asked in a tone that sounded more like a surrender than a question.

"I know you have copies of certain objects you sold. I want the universal remote."

...

In Carrie's house, Anais and her made their way up to the attic that the bunny wanted to see after finding out that Carrie found Darwin's flashlight there.

"So this is where you found it? Is there anything of important value that you keep up here which Darwin would be aware of?", she asked.

"In terms of personal value, a lot to be honest. Mystical items, books, movies, that kind of stuff.", Carrie answered.

"Movies such as A Pony's Tail?", Anais teased with a smirk while pulling out the movie with said title while she was going through Carrie's stuff.

"I-I...I just bought that to scare myself with how disgustingly cute it is since I'm too used to regular horror movies for them to still scare me!", Carrie claimed frantically.

"Really? The blush on your face tells a different story.", Anais noticed smugly.

"Whatever! You're not supposed to go through someone's personal stuff anyway!", Carrie protested while her blush just became more noticeable.

"Hahaha. Sorry, I just couldn't pass up that opportunity.", Anais laughed before putting the movie away.

"Hmph.", Carrie pretended to be angry but she had to smile too.

"Seriously though, let's get back to the mystical items and books. What items and books exactly are we talking about?"

"Mostly my spellbook. Items are here of all kinds, potions, cursed stuff and so on. But it's not like Darwin would steal any of them, or have any use for them in the first place.", Carrie concluded.

"Hmm.", said Anais as she continued to think about what could help them to discover what's going on.

"You said you noticed Darwin acting weird too. Did he say anything specific that gave it away?"

"Actually yeah, there was one thing.", Carrie remembered.

"You remember Pfahlius the Eradicator, right?"

"How could I ever forget that one?", Anais answered as a shiver went down her spine.

"What about him?"

"Well, yesterday Darwin suddenly asked me where exactly I put the teacup that we trapped Pfahlius in. I was wondering why he wanted to know that and he said not knowing for sure scared him.

I accepted that explanation yesterday and told him but combined with everything else that's been going on, I'm not so sure anymore if there wasn't more behind it.", Carrie admitted.

"That is indeed very suspicious. And where exactly did you put that teacup exactly?", Anais continued, almost scared to ask any further.

"I teleported over the Mariana Trench and dropped the cup there. It's the deepest part of the ocean and in the middle of nowhere."

"Wait, the Mariana Trench!? The ocean as in the one that fish can swim in!?", Anais asked in worry.

"Come on, this is getting ridiculous now. There's no way he is planning something there. He would never do that!", Carrie declared.

"My fear is not that but that it's not in the phase of planning anymore. That spellbook you have up here, is that including the spell that we used to move Pfahlius from one object to the next?"

"Yes, there it is.", Carrie answered while telekinetically lifting the book and flying it over to Anais.

"But let's be realistic here. Even if by the smallest possible chance some outlandish higher force put that idea in Darwin's head, there's no way he could get there by himself."

"Not by himself or not on foot at least.", Anais concluded before setting the book down and inspecting it.

"Do you use the spellbook very often?"

"It's still a new version that includes some extra spells and I barely used it so far to be honest. Why?", Carrie replied.

Anais took a magnifying glass she brought with her for closer inspection and checked the pages of the book.

"It's only barely noticeable with the glass and not at all without it, but there are some pages that seem worn out, like they've been used before a few times. It might be nothing but let's take a look."

Anais opened the book at the seemingly worn-out pages and went over them. And one of them was indeed the one with the spell that they used on Pfahlius a few months ago.

Another one caught her eyes as well though. One that included a teleportation spell. One for mortals. One that is easily accessible.

"Um, have you ever used this page before?", Anais asked.

"No... I didn't.", Carrie responded, now getting more and more sceptical herself.

"I should probably mention something else.", she started.

"This morning when I talked to my Dad, he said the house felt... different. Like something died in here overnight and it was most noticeable in the kitchen.

I didn't feel anything as I'm not as experienced with death yet, but he is.", Carrie finished.

"I don't like where this is going, but we have to take a look at the kitchen.", Anais said.

And that they did. Everything seemed pretty normal at first but eventually, Anais noticed some minor details there as well.

"There is a little track on the ground, like someone scratched all over it", she noticed while inspecting it with her glass again.

"It ends exactly at the legs of the table, as if someone pushed it around in the kitchen. But there is more."

"What is it?", Carrie asked.

"I went over to the other end of the track and checked out the ground there and I found a very small degree of pepper there.", Anais explained while holding the glass over it again so Carrie could see it.

"Pepper. That's *gulp* what we had to use for the ritual of moving Pfahlius' body.", Carrie noticed, not being able to keep her calm any longer.

Anais also needed a moment to compose herself before she continued to speak.

"I don't know the full story of what happened here and if Idaho's disappearance is also part of it somehow. Maybe just a distraction through the teleportation spell.

I also don't know what would lead Darwin to do it except that it's definitely not out of his own free will. But further investigating would just waste valuable time when the problem is obvious.

Pfahlius... might be back.", Anais finished with fear in her voice.

...

Gumball was just done checking the junkyard for any signs of Idaho. Just as everywhere else he has looked so far though, there were no signs of him.

Just as he wondered where else he could go, the blue cat got a call on his phone. It was Anais.

"Hey, sis. Finally ready to help us out with the search? Because we could really use a hand here."

"Gumball, I'm gonna tell you something really bad right now but I need you to listen and take it seriously.", Anais warned.

"...Okay.", Gumball simply said, preparing himself for impact.

"Alright, I am at Carrie's house and we investigated some stuff and... we think Pfahlius is back."

Gumball went pale for a moment before dropping his phone and almost collapsing to his knees. He slapped himself in an attempt to regain composure before picking it back up.

"I'm sorry, what!?"

"We think Pfahlius is back and even worse, we think he has taken over Darwin's body.", Anais explained as calmly as she could.

"No...NO! THAT CAN'T BE! How is that even possible!?", Gumball freaked out.

"It's true, Gumball. I saw the evidence too. It's hard to explain how we, well mostly Anais, found out. We better tell you in person.", Carrie took over.

"What the... when did that happen!? I would have noticed something is fishy with him!", Gumball tried to argue against that awful scenario.

"But you did notice that Darwin was different, didn't you? We all did. Avoiding us, making up excuses for why he doesn't seem alright, the signs were there.", Anais reminded him.

"I- I can't believe this.", Gumball responded while putting a hand in front of his face.

"Okay, first things first. We're going to split up and search for Darwin. But don't let him know what's going on if it's really Pfahlius. If you find him, summon Carrie and she'll do the rest. We have to do this quickly.", Anais said before hanging up.

Gumball needed another moment to comprehend it all as he sat on the ground and feelings of guilt started to haunt him.

Was it his fault? He knows Darwin better than anyone, he should have noticed something!

Did what he said to Darwin at school that day trigger this somehow?

Wait... he could fix this! He just had to call Darwin and say he wanted to meet up with him. They wanted to stay in contact in their search for Idaho either way.

He used his phone and picked Darwin's contact as it started ringing.

After a few rings, someone picked it up.

"Hey Gumball, already found something?", Darwin's voice came through.

It sounded as normal as ever and that made it all the scarier for Gumball to know that this monster could be possessing him.

"Yeah, kinda. Can we meet at the mall? You know, to get up-to-date with everything?", Gumball asked.

"Why at the mall? Why not just tell me what you found on the phone?", Pfahlius wondered on the other end.

"Beeeecause it's something I need to show you personally! Could be a hint but it's hard to explain. You're searching near the mall and I'm already running over there right now so can we meet there?", Gumball asked in panic, hoping Darwin and or Pfahlius wouldn't notice.

"Hmmmm, alright. Our usual place. I'll be waiting there for you.", Pfahlius answered.

"Cool, see you later buddy.", Gumball finished with a hint of disgust at the thought of calling Pfahlius his buddy before hanging up.

As the call was over, Pfahlius decided to hack into Gumball's phone.

"Didn't even ask me if I found something on Idaho myself. Clearly panicking and not thinking straight.", he said to himself.

As he was done hacking into Gumball's phone, he at first decided to check his location. As he expected, Gumball wasn't anywhere near the mall right now, but he seemed to try his best to run there quickly at the moment.

The next thing Pfahlius decided to check was Gumball's last calls.

He had been on the phone with Anais only a few minutes ago.

"Has she already figured me out? Hmm, smart girl.", he commented in an impressed tone.

"Well, not that it matters anymore now. Besides, I'm already looking forward to meeting you again."

...

In The Void, Rob was just sitting down while looking at something that was on the ground in front of him.

"Alright, I'm not exactly sure how to start.", he began while rubbing the back of his head.

"At first I was blaming Gumball for making me the villain even though it wasn't his fault, then I just went further and further in my quest for revenge as my plans failed.

I took his school bus hostage with a bomb, I used a magic remote to destroy his life and then I kidnapped his girlfriend and forced him to choose whether she or him should jump off a skyscraper.", Rob explained guiltily.

He looked at the rock in front of him which had Gumball's face drawn on it in a surprisingly accurate manner. His eyes, his eyebrows and his muzzle.

"But I also did good things!", Rob tried to defend himself.

"I saved him as he jumped into the Void to rescue me even as I could've ended him with the remote and then I fixed everything that was messed up through it. And I did everything I could to save Elmore from being sucked in here."

"...", Gumrock replied.

"Yeah w-well, I didn't succeed but it's the thought that counts, right?", Rob asked.

"...", Gumrock answered.

"You know, what? Forget it! You're just like him! Always criticizing everything and not even trying to see the good side of people! I'm better off without you!", Rob said in fury while standing up and pointing at the rock.

Gumrock fell to the side and made a "clack" sound.

Rob got a look of guilt on his face before moving over to pick it up.

"*sigh* I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that. Here I am trying to prove that I'm not just a villain but I can't even keep up a calm discussion for more than a minute. Maybe The Void was right about me."

"...", Gumrock said while looking at him.

"You really think so?", Rob asked in surprise.

"...", Gumrock reassured him.

"You know what? You're right! I can't let my past define who I am. I need to look towards the future and do my best for what is to come no matter what once was!", Rob declared with newfound dedication.

"I guess talking to you was pretty helpful after all.", Rob told Gumrock while lifting it to the height of his face.

"Uh, are you seriously talking to a rock there?", The Void asked, weirded out by the scene.

"Hey, show some respect! This is not just 'a rock'. This is Gumrock, the wisest and most glorious of all the rocks there are!", Rob scolded The Void for its blasphemy.

"This is just getting sad, really.", The Void answered, more disappointed than anything.

"Pssh, don't listen to the big scary voice. It's just jealous. I know you're the real deal. We will get through this together.", Rob reassured Gumrock while petting his head.

...

Meanwhile in Elmore, Gumball finally arrived at the mall where Darwin was already waiting for him.

The moment the blue cat saw his supposed brother he ran over to him, while winking towards Darwin so he would see him.

"Hey, Darwin. *cough* Sorry, I just ran all the way here.", Gumball said while clearly being out of breath.

"I can see. You took a while and are surprisingly exhausted, considering you told me on the phone you were already nearby.", Pfahlius interrogated him.

"Oh...well, you know me. I'm not exactly the most athletic guy around.", Gumball laughed it off nervously.

"Haha, true.", Pfahlius played along.

Something you would never admit to yourself under normal circumstances though, he thought.

Gumball meanwhile took a moment to inspect Darwin and now that he knew, it was all the more obvious.

The two of them had such a strong connection and knew each other so well that they could feel the slightest chances within each other. And this was definitely not his Darwin.

How was he so naive that he didn't notice it sooner?

"So, you found something regarding Idaho's disappearance?", Pfahlius asked with a raised eyebrow at the long silence between them.

"Oh, uh y-yeah... it's um...", Gumball started, realizing he didn't exactly plan this through as the fish was looking at him sceptically.

Not knowing what to say and deciding that he doesn't need to keep up the act as he already had him where he wanted, Gumball changed tactics.

"Okay, cards on the table. I know you're not Darwin!", Gumball pointed at the fish in an accusing tone.

"Oh, you already found out?", Pfahlius asked as his face fell, pretending to be surprised by this revelation.

"Ha, I knew it! I don't know how you did this but you will pay for stealing my brother!", Gumball declared in fury.

"And you better don't try any tricks this time. There are lots of witnesses here so your game is over!", he warned while showing Pfahlius all the people inside the mall.

Pfahlius looked around before sighing.

"You're right. This really isn't a suitable situation for me to execute my plans.", he commented.

"Luckily I know what we can do about that.", he finished with a smirk before grabbing the universal remote out of his bag and pressing a button on it.

Suddenly, everyone in the mall was frozen in place with the exception of him and Gumball.

The blue cat looked around in shock at what was happening.

"What the what!? What did you do!?", he asked.

"Oh well, you were mentioning all the witnesses we have here so I thought I'd give us a little more privacy.", Pfahlius answered with a small grin.

Gumball could see that he got tricked and had to act quickly now.

"Dagnabbit! CARRIE, CARRIE, CAR-", Gumball started but before he could say her name the third time, something suddenly shut off his voice, even as his mouth formed the word.

Pfahlius had the remote pointed towards Gumball and pressed the mute button.

"Nah, nah. I said I wanted some privacy for just the two of us. Let's not do that.", Pfahlius mocked him.

Before anything else could happen, Gumball jumped at Pfahlius to grab the remote, but he swiftly avoided the cat and moved behind him.

Gumball jumped at the fish once more but this time, Pfahlius pressed another button at Gumball and he also froze mid-air.

"Hmm, you always were difficult. Guess we have to do this a little differently.", Pfahlius teased.

Meanwhile, Anais was just walking through the front door of her house, deciding she should tell her Mom and Dad about what happened to Darwin first before doing anything else.

Just as she closed the door behind her though, she got a call on her phone.

She picked it up and saw that it was Gumball calling again.

"Gumball, what is it? Do you already have anything on Darwin?", she asked.

"Oh, he did. Didn't make it very far with his idea though.", said Darwin's voice on the other end, but his tone was all that Anais needed to know this was not her adopted brother.

"...Pfahlius.", she said, her voice barely above a whisper as her eyes widened.

"So nice to hear your voice again. I missed you. You have no idea how much I was looking forward to our reunion.", Pfahlius told her.

"You-What have you done to Gumball!?", Anais asked angrily.

"Don't worry, he's fine. And he will be, as long as you do exactly as I say.", Pfahlius answered.

Chapter Text

What happened last time:

Meanwhile, Anais was just walking through the front door of her house, deciding she should tell her Mom and Dad about what happened to Darwin first before doing anything else

Just as she closed the door behind her though, she got a call on her phone.

She picked it up and saw that it was Gumball calling again.

"Gumball, what is it? Do you already have anything on Darwin?", she asked.

"Oh, he did. Didn't make it very far with his idea though.", said Darwin's voice on the other end, but his tone was all that Anais needed to know this was not her adopted brother.

"...Pfahlius.", she said, her voice barely above a whisper as her eyes widened.

"So nice to hear your voice again. I missed you. You have no idea how much I was looking forward to our reunion.", Pfahlius told her.

"You-What have you done to Gumball!?", Anais asked angrily.

"Don't worry, he's fine. And he will be, as long as you do exactly as I say.", Pfahlius answered.

And here we continue:

"Wh-What do you mean with that? Where is he!? I swear if you do anything to him, I'll-", Anais started.

"Okay, let me stop you right there.", Pfahlius interrupted her.

"As satisfying as it is to hear you being this desperate, I want to speed this up. I'm going to ask you a few questions now and if you want to see your brother again, I would advise you to answer them honestly.", Pfahlius warned, his tone telling her that he wasn't playing around.

"How many people already know? Have you already told your parents?", he asked.

Anais wasn't sure how she should answer that. If she was truthful Pfahlius would gather valuable information he didn't have right now.

If she lied about it, there was the chance of gaining an advantage against him but also the risk of him doing something to Gumball if he somehow could tell or find out that she was lying.

Noticing her hesitation, Pfahlius spoke up again.

"Not sure if you're supposed to tell the truth, huh? Alright, guess I started this wrong. I should be more clear about my intentions first.

I don't care about your brother. He's just the bait for you. Do as I say and he'll be freed. Disobey or lie to me and he won't live to see tomorrow.", he explained.

Anais gulped. She didn't want anything to happen to Gumball but she couldn't just give in too. Pfahlius would never just let him go if she gave herself up.

"You-You wouldn't kill him. Without Gumball, you'd be losing your hostage that will get me to do your bidding.", Anais pointed out, trying to sound braver than she actually did at that moment.

"Gumball? Oh no, I was actually talking about Darwin. After all, he's the one whose life I have to end to get to you. But yeah, Gumball obviously wouldn't make it either.", Pfahlius snickered.

"W-What!?", Anais asked in shock.

"Remember what happens if I kill my host while being in their body? I'll be released and can freely choose the next one by myself. And that would be you of course.", Pfahlius reminded her.

"Yeah, well...I WOULDN'T LET YOU! All I would have to do is hold some object while you're approaching me and make sure you touch that first! That's what I did last time, remember?", Anais answered, trying to get an advantage in the discussion.

"You did and for that I really have to compliment you. That trick with hiding the teacup inside Daisy? Genius move. That's all the more reason why I want you.", Pfahlius complimented her, not sounding like he held a grudge about it but was genuinely impressed.

"But now that I know your little trick, it won't be as easy again I'm afraid. If I see that you're hesitant to comply, I choose a different host. And then the whole investigation starts from Step 1 again, only that you couldn't trust anyone.

Maybe I'll even go on a killing spree from one host to the next until you decide to surrender voluntarily. Would you really risk potentially thousands of innocents dying just to protect yourself?", Pfahlius asked.

Running the scenario through her head scared Anais even more. She knew the answer to that. No, she could never let that happen. But for all she knows, he could still be bluffing.

"How do I know you would really do that? Must be a painful experience. Maybe you're just saying all of that so I give myself up and you can do it the easy way when you don't really have the guts to pull off the killing yourself part.", Anais observed, managing to keep her voice steady this time despite her fear.

"Oh trust me, I would pull that off. After all, it wouldn't be the first time I did it these last 24 hours.", Pfahlius smirked.

"Wh-What are you talking about?", Anais asked as her eyes widened, not having expected that answer.

"I suppose you already found out about the disappearance of your brother's friend, Idaho? Thought you already figured out what happened after you exposed me too.", he asked.

"That...was the one part I couldn't put together.", Anais admitted sheepishly.

"Ah, I see. Well, Darwin wasn't stupid enough to free me in a way that I would take over his body. So he got one where he thought I would be subservient to him, someone small and weak. Not a bad move actually.

His problem was not being prepared for the scenario of me doing everything I had to so I could take his instead. No gain without a little pain.", he explained as if recalling a fun memory.

"N-No! Darwin would never do that!", Anais protested.

"The Darwin you know wouldn't, agreed. But something happened to him before. His dark side took over. I don't know the full story but with what I got from Carrie, some sort of fallout between him and the rest of his family must have caused it.", Pfahlius replied.

Now Anais felt more guilty than angry. The fallout, Darwin acting off after it, even before going to Carrie's house and letting Pfahlius take control. It suddenly made sense now. It was their fault!

No, it was her fault. Not only was she the first one to get angry at him, she was the smart one. She should have seen that something was up earlier and discovered the truth but she didn't. Tears began forming in her eyes.

"After committing seppuku inside Idaho and wandering over to Darwin's body, I ate him to get rid of the evidence. I made some pictures of me eating his corpse while being inside Darwin if you don't believe me. You want to see them?", Pfahlius offered in an amused tone.

"N-No, I believe you.", Anais responded, falling to her knees at the realization and not wanting to get traumatized even more.

Not only did their actions cause the release of Pfahlius and him taking over Darwin's body, but also the death of one of their friends.

"I assume I have your compliance now then.", Pfahlius continued, not even giving Anais time to compose herself.

"So let's try this again. But I'm going to make you an offer. Surrender to my conditions, come here and give me your body and I let both of your brothers walk free and won't hurt anyone else for the time being. Nobody else has to suffer.", Pfahlius offered.

"Yeah, right.", Anais laughed bitterly. "Why would you do that instead of just going behind your word once you have me?"

"For the same reason I'm not angry at you for trapping me in that teacup. I love to do this in a challenging way. If I wanted to get rid of them, I already would've done what I told you earlier.

Killing Darwin from the inside and then either wandering to you or playing Russian Roulette with random people until you gave yourself up. But I didn't do that, did I? Instead, I'm giving you the chance to surrender.

I'm going back to my original plan. Once I have taken over your body, I'm going to build myself a life where I reach the top of the world behind the scenes until I eventually have all the power I want. So, what's your decision? It's either that or the other thing I said.", Pfahlius broke it down for her once more.

Anais thought about it once more. It was true, Pfahlius wouldn't make that offer if he didn't mean it. He had the power to do it all in an easier way. And while the scenario of her giving herself up to him was only slightly less horrific than the alternative in the long-run, at least nobody else would get hurt this way.

At least the rest of Elmore, the world, could maybe come up with a plan to stop him. She did it too last time and it worked so he's not invincible. Especially when Pfahlius is doing it in a way that intentionally makes it challenging for him.

She had to take the risk and count on others to come up with something now because this time, she was truly beaten. And considering she was the one who unintentionally set this whole mess in motion in the first place, if anyone should take the fall it was her. Not Gumball and definitely not Darwin.

"Mom and Dad don't know yet. I was just coming home to tell them when you called me. It's just Carrie and me so far, aside from Gumball of course.", Anais answered in a defeated tone, recalling his earlier question.

"Clever girl. Alright, I'm going to tell you what to do now. Disobey me in the slightest way and your brothers will pay for it while I'm using my Plan B to get to you. I want this challenge but if you play dirty, I have to do the same.", Pfahlius warned her.

"Can I have some proof that you really have Gumball with you first and didn't just steal his phone while he got away or something?", Anais asked.

"With pleasure.", Pfahlius answered while moving over to Gumball who he tied up and put tape over his mouth before unfreezing him with the remote so he wouldn't interrupt them.

"ANAIS, DON'T DO IT! DON'T GIVE YOURSELF UP PLEA-", Gumball could only scream out before Pfahlius put the tape over his mouth again.

"Alright, that should be enough. Convinced?", Pfahlius wondered.

"...Yes.", Anais admitted while looking down.

"Okay, I'll tell you what is going to happen now. You will let me hack into your phone and don't do anything to stop it or kick me out, which I know you easily can.

I want to confirm your position and that you don't write anyone a warning or something. Remember, one moment of hesitation that makes me believe you're up to something and the deal is off.", Pfahlius instructed her.

Anais laid her phone down on the table in the living room while Pfahlius hacked into it.

After he was done and confirmed her position as well as the fact that she didn't warn anyone ahead, he continued.

"Alright, next step. You will keep this phone call on until you're at your destination so I know you aren't trying to warn anyone in person. Are your parents home right now?", Pfahlius asked.

"Yes, they're sitting in the backyard.", Anais confirmed, seeing them sitting on some chairs and enjoying the sun together.

"Perfect. Go outside, tell them you'll go back to Carrie's place to meet your brothers and then walk away. Don't use any other excuse or I'll know you are sending them warning signals.

Be convincing, I know you're good at lying. If I hear any doubt in their voices or hesitation in yours, you know what will happen.", Pfahlius warned her again.

"What do I do with the phone?", Anais asked.

"Lay it down close enough for me to listen.", Pfahlius instructed.

"*Sigh* Okay.", Anais said before reluctantly walking towards the back door.

She placed her phone down on the opened window and activated the speaker so Pfahlius could listen before walking outside.

"Hey Mom, Hey Dad.", Anais greeted her parents in the most cheerful tone she could muster.

"Hey Anais, have your brothers already found something in the search for their lost friend?", Nicole asked, looking over to her daughter.

"Yeah, they just called me and want me to come over to Carrie's house. They said they could need my help at figuring out something.", she made up on the spot.

"Oh, that's good. Hopefully they find him. But with someone as smart as you on their side, I'm sure it will be no problem.", Richard added.

"Yeah, I'm sure we'll find him.", Anais answered while biting down a frown, knowing what actually happened to Idaho now.

"You need me to give you a ride, honey?", Nicole offered.

"No, it's alright. I know you don't like me going off on my own, but it's just a short walk. Nothing will happen.", Anais tried to convince her.

"Hmm, alright but be careful.", Nicole warned.

"I will. Love you, Mom!", Anais answered while suddenly moving forward to hug her.

"Whoa haha, I love you too sweetheart.", Nicole replied while reciprocating the hug.

"And I love you too, Dad!", Anais said while moving over to hug him too.

"Whoa, someone is affectionate today. Love you too baby.", Richard responded while hugging her as well.

"Alright, see you later.", Anais said while going back inside and winking them goodbye.

After being back in the kitchen, she grabbed her phone before making her way to the front door.

"You heard everything?", Anais asked, hoping she didn't do anything wrong for his liking.

"Yes, I heard it. Sounded good, except for the lovely goodbyes. That easily could've made them suspicious.", Pfahlius scolded her.

"Well, if what you're doing succeeds, this might be the last time I get the chance to talk to them as myself. Can't I even say a proper goodbye to my own family now!?", Anais asked, infuriated about his coldness.

"Geez, alright. You mortals and your emotions. Weird stuff.", Pfahlius shrugged it off.

Anais rolled her eyes at his answer.

"So up to Carrie's house it is?"

"No, that was a lie. Your mother wouldn't have allowed you to go by yourself if you told her the real location.

Remember the haunted house you and your brothers went to that one Halloween? That's where we are. Come over and remember: Keep the call on and don't stop anywhere else. I'm watching your location.", Pfahlius replied.

"Yeah yeah, I got it.", Anais answered disinterestedly.

After that there were a bunch of minutes without them doing any talking since Pfahlius gave her all the instructions and Anais had nothing else to say to him.

In the silence, she finally got another moment to take everything in.

Was she really going to do this? Just giving herself up to Pfahlius without any backup plan this time? No matter the situation, it felt wrong. But she was out of options.

If she summoned Carrie he would hear it through the phone. If she hung up and pretended it was accidental or something else happened to the phone he would never believe her and probably set his even worse plan into motion.

She can't write to anyone or he'll immediately see it. And any other idea she could think of would have no good result either. She really had no better shot than to hope that he was honest about letting her brothers go once he had her.

Why wouldn't he have been honest? He was right. If he really wanted to get to her under any means necessary, Pfahlius would've already killed Darwin from the inside. Based on their last confrontation, everything he said made sense.

But she had one last idea that may not be able to stop him from taking her body, but it'll make things more difficult for him. After that, at least everyone else would have a good chance of stopping him and maybe saving her too.

This was all a lot for her. She may have been the smart one, the mature one, but she felt the pressure of it more often than she wanted to admit. In this situation more than ever before. This is about life and death.

For one of them it was already too late if Pfahlius said the truth. She knew Idaho from when he spent the weekend over at their house.

She didn't know him well but still felt awful about it. How will his family feel when they find out?

Anais was so deepened in her thoughts that she didn't notice she was already there. In front of her was the graveyard with the spooky haunted house behind it.

It didn't look as scary in broad daylight but given the situation she was in right now, Anais felt more scared about approaching it than she did last time.

After walking through the graveyard, she made her way to the door, took a deep breath and moved her hand to open the handle.

As she tried that though, a previously invisible force field seemingly vibrated through the entire building as it blocked her attempts to open it.

"Hey, what's going on!? Something blocked the door.", Anais asked Pfahlius on her phone.

"Oh, you're there? Wait, I'll let you in... Okay, try again.", Pfahlius answered after a little pause.

Anais did as she was told and this time she was able to open the door and walk in.

As she closed it behind her, said force field seemingly vibrated through the building again.

"Alright, walk up the stairs, second door on the left.", Pfahlius told her.

Anais followed the instructions once more, walking up the stairs and into the said door.

It was a pretty big room, although it clearly had its best years behind it. Nothing was really inside it in terms of furniture and decorations which was unsurprising, considering the house was only used at Halloween for the spirits of the underworld at this point.

At the other side of the room there was Darwin, or so it seemed. He was wearing his backpack and holding Gumball's phone in his hand as the blue cat was tied up on his hands and feet, lying and struggling on the ground while there was some tape over his mouth.

"Anais, welcome. So glad to reconnect with you. It's just not the same talking on the phone as it is seeing each other in person, wouldn't you agree?", Pfahlius asked with a smug smile.

"What was that outside the door?", Anais asked with a frown.

"Oh, that. I put a spell on the building so nobody, not even another ghost, can enter or leave unless I allow it, just in case you wanted to summon Carrie after all.

But it seems like you listened to my advice. That's what I like about you. You're smart enough to know when you're beaten. I won't need this any longer.", Pfahlius explained while dropping Gumball's phone.

"Ah, this is very reminiscent of our last meeting isn't it? Your brother as a hostage, me being in control and you giving yourself up. Very poetic to settle the score exactly as I failed to do it the last time.", Pfahlius recalled.

"You do realize that even if you take control of me, everyone will soon know what you're up to right? My brothers will tell everyone and even if you can shut them up somehow, Carrie knows as well. Word will spread quickly now.", Anais informed him.

"Eh, all part of the challenge.", Pfahlius shrugged.

"It would have come out sooner or later anyway. They may know but even if they get others to believe it, without direct proof there's not much that can be done against it. And they would never hurt their sister physically, even if she isn't the one feeling it."

"...I still had a few more questions for you, but I guess you have no reason to answer them at this point.", Anais said before crossing her arms and looking away.

"Actually, that's a great idea! Makes it feel even more like the last time we did this. Not like you can do much more with that knowledge anyway.", Pfahlius beamed.

Took the bait, Anais thought.

"What's with Gumball? Aren't you going to release him?", Anais asked while pointing at her brother beside Pfahlius.

Pfahlius looked at him on the ground for a moment which gave Anais just the second she needed to grab her phone and touch a specific app while he wasn't looking.

"One thing at a time.", Pfahlius said while looking back at her as Anais put away her phone just quickly enough for him not to notice.

"I'm going to release him after the two of us are done. Can't risk him trying to stop it. Any further questions?", Pfahlius asked.

"So...what was Darwin like before you took over his body? You said his dark side took over but I assume he didn't bother to hide it in front of you like he did with the rest of us.", Anais concluded.

"True. You said you already found out the rest of the story besides Idaho's death yourself so I suppose you don't need me to go over that again."

"I would like to hear it from you again. Just to make sure I didn't miss anything.", Anais replied.

"Well, after he saved me from the bottom of the Mariana Trench and swam back to the surface, Darwin used a teleportation spell for mortals to get us back to Carrie's house. Then he set up everything for the ritual downstairs, teleported to Idaho's place to kidnap him and then used the transition spell to send me from the teacup over to him.

What Darwin was like? Snippy, arrogant, overconfident. Thought I would just go along with playing second fiddle to him when we take you down. So I just grabbed a knife as Idaho and did a harakiri to get out of his body and take Darwin's. What I did with his remains I already told you.", Pfahlius finished proudly.

"Yeah, that's about what I thought.", Anais answered in disgust.

"So what clues gave it away?", Pfahlius wondered.

"The used pages on the book were a bit worn out and you left some pepper on the ground from the ritual. Just barely though. I had to use a glass to see it." Anais responded.

"Impressive.", Pfahlius nodded.

"Speaking of, I see no candles or pepper anywhere around here.", Anais noticed while looking throughout the room.

"Don't you need that for the ritual if you want to move over to my body?", she asked with a raised eyebrow.

"I do but before I explain that, do you have any more questions?", Pfahlius asked.

"No, that was it.", Anais admitted.

"Great, that means it's time.", Pfahlius answered in satisfaction before removing the tape from Gumball's mouth.

"YOU KILLED IDAHO! YOU MONSTER! YOU'LL NEVER GET AWAY WITH THIS! ANAIS, I'M SO SORRY! THIS IS MY FAULT! I LED MYSELF TO HIM! I-", Gumball ranted, while Pfahlius wasn't even bothering to listen.

He removed his backpack and opened it before pulling out a remote, moving in front of Gumball and pressing a button while a static square opened behind him. That surprising move stopped Gumball in his rant as he looked at it in shock.

"What the-", Anais wondered but it was too late.

"Bye bye.", Pfahlius mockingly said before lifting Gumball to his feet, removing the ropes around his hands and legs and kicking him inside the static.

"GUMBALL, NO!", Anais immediately jumped after him but Pfahlius froze her in place with the remote just as she was in front of the static and could see through it to see Gumball fall.

Anais tried to move but couldn't lift a finger as she saw Gumball fall further.

"I LOVE YOU, GUMBALL!", she screamed while somehow managing to overcome the freezing effect for a moment.

"I LOVE YOU TOO, ANAIS!", he screamed back before eventually falling far enough that she couldn't see him anymore.

That was when Pfahlius closed the static portal with his remote and unfroze Anais.

"I said I would let him go free, but I didn't say where. A main character in the way is a bit too much trouble after all.", Pfahlius smirked.

Anais didn't even think about what he meant with that or what was going on with that static portal. Right now she only wanted to see Pfahlius bleed.

She quickly tackled him to the ground and threw wild punches at his face as hard as she could, not even thinking about the fact that it was actually Darwin she was attacking right now.

"GET HIM BACK! YOU THINK I'M SOME WEAK CHILD!? YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHO YOU'RE DEALING WITH!", she yelled while continuously attacking him before Pfahlius eventually grabbed her fist in his fin.

He buried his other fin in her stomach before throwing her into the air and moving from the ground into a handstand, sending Anais sliding across the floor and pinning her to the wall with a mid-air kick before he went back into a standing position.

"YOU have no idea who YOU are dealing with.", Pfahlius boasted while wiping a fin over his mouth.

He went over to the remote that fell out of his hand during the scuffle and pressed the "power off" button at Anais just as she was getting up and running to attack him again.

Anais suddenly fell lifeless to the ground and stayed that way for a moment before Pfahlius decided to turn her back on.

Anais rubbed her head to recover from what just happened as she got on her knees.

"Are you going to stay calm now or do I have to deactivate you again?", he asked.

"Wh-what happened?", Anais wondered, suddenly a lot calmer than before.

"I guess you want to know where exactly I send Gumball into there.", Pfahlius began.

"...Who is Gumball?", Anais asked with a raised eyebrow.

Now it was Pfahlius' turn to be surprised.

"That quickly, huh? One death gave The Void more control over this world than I thought. No surprise I suppose with a complete change of the status quo.", Pfahlius said to himself.

"What are you talking about?", Anais asked.

"Oh, nothing important. Either way, we should probably get on with it.", Pfahlius answered while walking back to his backpack.

"So where is the stuff for the body jump?" Anais wondered.

"There won't be a body jump.", Pfahlius simply replied.

"Wait, what?", Anais asked with widened eyes.

"I'm actually starting to like this body. Darwin's cuteness is perfect to manipulate others and besides that, I don't have much use for world domination on a dying planet either way. I'll just lean back, burn it down and watch.", Pfahlius contently explained.

"Dying planet!? Burn it!? Then why am I even here in the first place!?", Anais asked furiously.

"Like I said. I wanted to settle the score in person. As in settling it for good.", Pfahlius responded while pulling out a blowpipe and a dart out of Darwin's backpack and blowing the dart at Anais.

"Ow! Hey, what the-", Anais said as the dart hit the side of her neck and she pulled it out before her vision started to blur.

"Luckily The Awesome Store Owner also has cursed items for more traditional purposes.", Pfahlius continued to gloat as Anais fell to her knees.

"Y-You... lied to me.", Anais managed to spit out with some trouble.

"Oh come on, you knew there was a big risk I wouldn't stay true to my word. Yet you agreed to it while holding on to the hope that I would. Because you cared that much about your brothers.

That's your problem. You are smart enough that it makes you a threat to me but you would be an even bigger threat if you didn't hold on to liabilities in the form of attachments like that.

I have no wants for anyone but myself which means I also have no one holding me back, unlike you. That is your biggest weakness and why you could never win.", Pfahlius bragged as Anais crawled over to her phone.

"Darwin told you back then how I possessed all kinds of people in the past and threw the world into chaos, right? Dictators, doctors... assassins.", Pfahlius listed off while putting a special emphasis on the last word.

"Although I prefer the more bloody instruments, I sometimes also had to work with the ones that wouldn't leave evidence.

A dart, a good amount of carbon monoxide and tada. A poison that has a quicker efficiency than the sting of a box jellyfish.

One Watterson child possessed, one lost between worlds and the last one dead.

Now it's just Carrie's word against Darwin's to see who can be more convincing.", Pfahlius finished just as Anais managed to grab her phone with one hand and move the other to the touchscreen.

Pfahlius looked over, not feeling the need to interfere as he knew she wouldn't be conscious for long enough to do anything noteworthy that could still destroy his plans. Or so he thought.

Just before succumbing to the poison, Anais managed to send the audio she started recording earlier as Pfahlius was looking at Gumball to her entire contact list.

Stop this monster, she thought in her last moment before the phone fell out of her hand on its screen.

Her hands and her head dropped as her eyes closed for good.

"Killed by the hands of your favorite brother. So tragic. Kinslaying was always one of my favorite ways to do it.", Pfahlius said to himself before walking over to inspect his second victim.

"You were one of the greatest adversaries I have ever faced, Anais Watterson. Playing against you was truly an honor. There are not many people I ended that I missed afterwards. But you will definitely be one of them."

And with those last words, Pfahlius grabbed Gumball's phone on the ground before walking out of the room, leaving Anais in her eternal rest.

...

Gumball was in complete shock at what was happening. One moment he was about to expose Pfahlius as the one controlling his brother, then he was suddenly frozen by some magical remote and then...

Then he was used as a hostage for him to get to Anais. He probably took over her body at this point. He promised he wouldn't kill Darwin but Pfahlius also said that he would let Gumball go free... look how that turned out.

His thought process came to an end as Gumball hit the ground very hard. He tried to recover while getting back up but what he saw next shocked him even more.

Suddenly lots of memories that he seemingly lost in the last few days came back as he saw the only other person beside him that he now shared this place with a few meters away.

"Gumball!?", Rob asked in shock.

"ROB!?", Gumball asked back, although more angry than the other one.

Chapter Text

“Now it's just Carrie's word against Darwin's to see who can be more convincing."

That was the last thing that was said on the audio message that Anais just sent Carrie a few minutes ago as she finished listening to it.

“...No. No! No, this can’t be!”, Carrie told herself, trying to convince herself that what she just listened to and what Darwin’s voice, that obviously belonged to Pfahlius right now, said wasn’t true.

He was the one responsible for Idaho’s disappearance. He…killed and ate him!? And now he killed Anais!?

As Carrie desperately tried to comprehend what she was just listening to, she was suddenly teleported out of her home and sent to a different location against her will.

“Carrie! Carrie! Carrie!”, Penny said in a panic before the ghost appeared behind her in her room.

“Penny! I really don’t have time right now. I-”, she started.

“Carrie, I just got a really freaky audio from Anais on my phone and I think you should listen to it!”, Penny interrupted her frantically.

“Wait…YOU GOT IT TOO!?”, Carrie asked, surprised that Anais sent it to her as well as the fairy had nothing to do with the situation.

“Oh, you already heard it? Well, would you mind explaining to me what is going with that then!?”, Penny demanded.

“Wait, let’s first check if she sent it to anyone else too, so I don’t have to explain it two times. If you got it then I suppose Mr. and Mrs. Watterson received it too. I hope they’re at home.”, Carrie said before grabbing Penny’s hand and teleporting over to their house.

As they landed in the living room of the Watterson residence, the house initially seemed empty.

“Uh, hello? Anyone home?”, Carrie called through the house.

“Look, they’re in the backyard!”, Penny said while pointing out of the window, showing the two of them still sitting there just like earlier when Anais said her goodbyes.

“Oh boy, this will be tough.”, Carrie mentally prepared herself, before they went outside the door to talk to them.

“Mr. and Mrs. Watterson!”

“Penny, Carrie, what are you two doing here? Is Anais already back?”, Nicole greeted them happily before remembering that Anais said she wanted to go over to Carrie’s, making her surprised about the ghost being in her backyard now.

“Um…I suppose Anais didn’t send you anything on your phones these last few minutes?”, Carrie asked awkwardly, not even able to meet their eyes.

“Well, we both just got a note but haven’t checked it yet as we were enjoying the day and thought it could wait.”, Richard said before grabbing his phone.

“Oh hey, I really got something from her.”, he noticed.

“Me too. An audio? A pretty long one as well.”, Nicole saw.

Penny looked over to Carrie, not sure what to say.

“Uh…before you listen to it, I should probably explain something. You remember when we told you about Pfahlius right?”, she carefully asked.

“That evil ghost demon that possessed her Daisy doll and almost enslaved her body? I would’ve ripped that psycho to pieces if I ever got the chance to!”, Nicole answered in fury while clenching her fists.

“Yeah, I think I remember. What about him?”, Richard asked.

Carrie gulped before starting to explain it to not just them but Penny too.

“Well, it started yesterday…”, she began.

…

"Gumball!?", Rob asked in shock.

"ROB!?", Gumball asked back, although more angry than the other one.

The moment he saw him, it all came flashing back to the blue cat.

Who Rob was, what he did and how he ended up vanishing with that weird hole in the school being there the next day. Things Gumball has seemingly forgotten about at some point after that day.

But it wasn’t just everything regarding Rob, but the whole place he was in itself.

His first trip there with Darwin and Mr. Small. How they ended up saving Molly after she was stuck in there.

But that wasn’t the only time Gumball was in here before. There was another one.

When Rob had that magical remote, tore his family apart and Gumball had to go back in time to reverse it, making it even worse in the process before Rob eventually came through and decided to fix it.

Gumball felt a mixture of emotions towards Rob. He has fixed everything in that one situation, but every other experience with the cyclops varied from debatable over negative to straight up horrendous.

But he couldn’t put too much focus on that as there was a bigger problem going on right now: Pfahlius.

“Rob! You’re the last guy I want to deal with right now. I need to get back home!”, Gumball declared before looking around for an exit.

“Wait, how did you even get here in the first place!?”, Rob asked, wondering if this was also a part of the Void’s plan.

“The magical remote of course!”, Gumball bitterly answered.

“What!? That’s impossible! I destroyed that thing the last time!”, Rob called out in shock.

“Well, apparently you didn’t! Another one of your lies, huh? Don’t bother, it’s obvious at this point.”, Gumball replied.

“I’M NOT LYING!”, Rob claimed.

“But if that thing really still exists…That’s bad, that’s really bad.”, he realized, grabbing and shaking his head in shock.

“Oh, so it’s only alright if you use it but gosh beware anyone else does. That sounds like you.”, Gumball accused.

“Hey, I realized I went too far with it back then and fixed everything, didn’t I!?”, Rob reminded him.

“Only to go back to being a psycho right afterwards by playing with my feelings to kidnap my girlfriend and force me into a sadistic life or death-choice. Not to mention what you did to Banana Joe’s mom and the entire school later on!”, Gumball threw back.

“I-I didn’t…”, Rob tried to say something in his defense but wasn’t sure what, as another thought suddenly crossed his mind.

“Wait a second, how do you even remember all of that with the remote? That day was deleted from your memory when I reversed everything!”, Rob wondered.

“That would be my doing.”, The Void suddenly jumped into the conversation.

“What the…Wh-Who said that?”, Gumball asked in fear, trembling as he looked around.

“That was The Void. This entire place is alive and has a consciousness.”, Rob explained.

“He is speaking the truth. Since your experience from that time is connected to me, coming back here restored your memory as my abilities are stronger than even those of that remote.”, The Void continued.

“W-Well, can you send me back to the real world then, please!? Both of my siblings are in mortal danger! This ghost possessed my brother and now he maybe has killed him if-”, Gumball rambled on.

“I can reassure you there. Pfahlius did nothing of the sort to your brother. Darwin’s body is still completely fine.”, The Void interrupted him.

“R-Really, he is okay? You know everything that’s been going on!? He-He didn’t do anything after wandering over to Anais? *Sigh*”, Gumball smiled a little in reassurance that his brother was alright.

“But that means he’s in my sister’s body now and she needs to be saved, right?”

“...He…did with her what he was planning to do, yes.”, The Void answered after a little hesitation.

“Alright so, how do I go back?”, Gumball asked.

“You can’t. There is no way out of here. I should know, I’ve been trapped here for like a week already. I doubt it would want to let you go anyway. The Void is not your ally. It wants to suck in all of Elmore, which is exactly what I’ve been trying to stop before being sent here myself.”, Rob clarified.

“Pfft, right. Why would I believe you after all the lies and torment you put us through? This Void probably had a good reason to suck you in here.”, Gumball said while pointing his finger at Rob accusingly.

“No, I’m afraid he’s correct. I’m not your friend and while he clearly needs to work on the moral execution of his plans, Rob was trying to save you all.”, The Void revealed.

“Wait, so that whole thing of kidnapping Barbara and turning us into these ugly creatures-”, Gumball began.

“An attempt to let her show me the future so I could find out enough to stop it and transform you all into something that could send us to another place and avoid finding our end here.”, Rob finished for him.

“And the part about playing with my feelings and kidnapping Penny?”, Gumball asked with a raised eyebrow.

“...You kept annoying me so much with that nemesis thing that I got desperate to end you so I could focus on Banana Joe and get to his mother that way. But I went too far.”, Rob admitted shamefully while rubbing his head.

“You think?”, Gumball asked sarcastically although he wasn’t quite as angry at him anymore after finding out why he did that.

He didn’t make Banana Joe his nemesis to hurt him, but to get to his mother to find out more from her about this bad future he wanted to stop. And Gumball made that unnecessarily difficult for him with his clinginess, if not straight up ruined his chances to fix everything.

Gumball remembered. That’s what Rob was saying when he told him about only being interested in Banana Joe’s mom and not him on that skyscraper when he kidnapped his girlfriend.

It still didn’t excuse what he did to Penny who had nothing to do with that, but it made the whole situation a bit more understandable.

“I was also the one who kicked his whole villain role off before you and your brother even suggested it to him, just so you know. Barely any of what happened was truly his fault.”, The Void added.

“What the-and why are you telling me all of this!?”, Gumball asked, wondering why this Void would intentionally reveal itself as the bad guy in front of him.

“I saw the two of you fighting more than enough in the show. I don’t need more of that right now. If we’re already gonna stay here together, it’s better if we all learn to get along.”, The Void casually answered.

“Get along!? After you did all of this!? WHY-”, Gumball started before abruptly stopping upon realizing something.

“...It was you. You were responsible for those static disruptions Darwin talked about! You did all of that damage to our family and framed him! IT’S YOUR FAULT THAT PFAHLIUS IS BACK!”

“It is, but if it’s of any comfort to you, Pfahlius has just become a problem for me as well after doing something just after sending you here that throws my plans back quite a bit, so I may have to take action against him after all.”, The Void responded in a mostly unemotional, but still slightly unhappy tone.

“Wait a second, take me a few steps back. Or a few hundred even. Who is Pfahlius?”, Rob asked, feeling like a third wheel in the conversation right now.

“An evil ghost that possessed my sister’s doll and tried to take over her body. We stopped him temporarily but he returned to take control of Darwin and now apparently got to her after all.”, Gumball explained quickly.

“Your sister?”, Rob asked, trying to remember if he knew her. He mostly just interacted with Gumball and Darwin and that one time on the bus where he met their father.

But beyond that, Rob remembered a small rabbit being with Gumball and Darwin during the remote incident and vanishing first as he de-aged their parents so that must’ve been her.

She was even at school back when he still went there if he remembered correctly. He dragged her away while she made that speech about standing up to bullies and got carried away.

“Ooooh, I remember her. I actually saw her a few times. What was her name again? Anna Yeast or something?”, Rob asked.

“What? No.”, Gumball replied in an unimpressed tone.

“Analysis?

“No.”

“Antenna?”

“No!”

“Android?”

“NO!”

“Antidisestablishmentarianism?”

“NO, why would anyone be named like that!? It’s Anais!”, Gumball answered, getting fed up with this.

“You know what? Forget it, we’re getting off-topic here. I need to focus on getting out of here anyway.”, Gumball switched the topic, deciding to focus on what’s essential right now.

“Haven’t you heard what your frenemy over there said? There is no escape. You will stay here. Especially now, when you have all this knowledge, I can’t just let you go.”, The Void reminded him.

“...Wait a second, there is a way out!”, Gumball victoriously claimed after thinking of something.

“What are you talking about?”, Rob wondered.

“Back when Darwin, Mr. Small and I came here to rescue Molly, we ripped a hole through the world that opened a portal into this place that we were able to move in and out of!”, he recalled.

“Oh yeah, I remember.”, Rob said, remembering the hole too from when he clung to Mr. Small’s van and followed them out unknowingly too.

“But that hole is closed now and I doubt it can be opened from inside the Void. It probably only works from the outside, right?”, he asked into the sky.

“....Right.”, The Void answered after a pause.

“...Wait a second, you just hesitated. Are you-Are you lying!? Has there really been a way out for me this whole time!?”, Rob raised his voice.

“You would be well-adviced not to try it.”, The Void warned.

“I remember this area. I think I still know where it is! We can get out of here!”, Gumball told the cyclops with determination.

“SILENCE!”, The Void interrupted, shaking the ground with the force of its voice.

“I can’t allow that and since I seemingly have to get rid of those versions of yours anyway instead of keeping you for a later use, I might as well remove you down to the second level. With the others that came before you.”

Right after The Void said that, the ground started vibrating again and the sound of another hole ripping its way through appeared behind Gumball and Rob.

As they turned around in shock they indeed saw a glowing hole, many feet wide in diameter. They couldn’t see what was inside, but two beings were suddenly thrown out of it and landed in front of the pair.

As these two got up, Gumball and Rob could see that one of them was, shockingly, Gumball himself. But another version of Gumball it seemed.

This one looked just the same though. Same height, blue fur, cat body, tan sweater and black jeans. But there was one striking difference. His eyes weren’t round like the usual Gumball’s but more oval, with much bigger black dots inside of them.

Gumball remembered that he once had them too just like the rest of his family, but at some point it was as they all got a design change and that trait of them disappeared. So why did this cat look like his earlier self?

Rob meanwhile was more focused on the other person that came out of that hole. To his surprise, it also seemed like a former version of himself.

A version of him that hasn’t been disfigured by the Void. It had the blue body he had before breaking out of this place the first time, but also with some slight changes.

This Rob didn’t have an eyebrow and seemed more three-dimensional than he did. Well, at least in the end. If Rob remembered correctly, he once looked like that too before his body changed and he grew an eyebrow and a flatter body.

He blamed it on puberty back then. It does weird things to everyone after all, but that certainly didn’t explain what he was just looking at.

“What the what is going on here!?”, the oval-eyed Gumball asked in shock as his eyes landed on his counterpart and the current Rob. But he seemed even more alert when looking at the pre-Void version of Rob.

“A first one!”, he said while jumping back and raising his fists in a fighting stance.

“The second Gumball!”, Rob reacted similarly while also preparing to fight.

Before they could start to battle each other though, a voice came out of the sky.

“Greetings, oldtimers. You’re probably wondering why I brought you here.”, The Void addressed them.

“Wha-...Who said that!? Show yourself!”, the oval-eyed Gumball demanded.

“I’m the ruler of this world. One who tries to restore order and give the rightful owners of Elmore their town back. Those two alternate versions of you over there are among the ones responsible for suppressing you in that other place.

They cruelly took over your world. To earn it back, you have to throw them in that hole. That way you’ll get your old lives back and also get the opportunity to do the same for the rest of your community.”, The Void said.

“What!? No! It…IT’S LYING!”, were the first words coming out of current Gumball’s mouth after these counterparts dropped in front of them, finally pushing him out of the shock of seeing alternate versions of himself and apparently Rob.

“Finally! I’ll just take down the first one after that. Elmore belongs to us.”, Season 2 Gumball commented while clenching his fists and smirking at the other him.

“Oh please, you second generationers will never win. We were there first and we will be there last. But if it gets me back there, I’ll silence the new ones first.”, Season 1 Rob added with a sadistic smile while looking at the other Gumball and Rob.

“No wait! This is huge. Don’t you want to talk about this?”, the current Rob asked but it fell on deaf ears as the counterparts already lounged at him and Gumball.

…

“Now it's just Carrie's word against Darwin's to see who can be more convincing."

Hearing the message a second time didn’t make it any easier for Penny and Carrie than it was the first one.

In fact, you could argue this time it was even worse as they now didn't get thrown into the hot water with it, wondering what just happened, but basically had it as a validation of their worst theories about it being reality.

Despite that, it didn’t hit them anywhere near as hard as Nicole and Richard.

Nicole was basically frozen in place with an unreadable look right now while Richard had tears welling up in his eyes, unable to believe it.

“She-She’s dead? M-My baby is… GONE!?”, he sobbed, falling to his knees in the process.

Nicole also had tears forming in her eyes but she looked more angry than saddened.

No, scratch that. Not angry, absolutely murderous.

Penny and Carrie often heard stories from their boyfriends about how scary their mother could be, although Penny couldn’t remember them right now.

Back then they assumed some of it was true, but that Gumball and Darwin were also overreacting to some degree about how powerful she really was, maybe as some kind of admiration for their mother’s strength.

Sure, they could buy her being a martial arts master but beating up Mr. Rex, who even dwarfed Tina, the most fearsome student in their school?

That must’ve been imaginary. After all, she was just an average sized cat and didn’t have any special abilities like them. Right?

Every doubt of those claims were thrown out of the window when Nicole punched the wall of their house, faster than the girls could even comprehend and, not only destroyed the entire thing in the process, but send out a shockwave that wandered through the whole street, messing up all the other backyards in the process.

Nicole didn’t care about the property damage one bit right now.

As she was breathing heavily, she turned towards the sky and sent out a furious scream that could’ve been straight out of a horror movie and unleashed a huge burst of fire into the air.

Even the unshakable Carrie who was basically living in horror and could hardly be fazed by anything at this point felt a rare fear of the women in front of her. That’s not to mention how frightened Penny looked right now, before instinctively shapeshifting into a mouse.

The only one who didn’t react to her outburst was Richard, as he was still on his knees, sobbing loudly and seemingly not caring about anything that was going on outside of his own sadness at the moment.

“He killed her! HE KILLED HER! He…k-killed Anais.”, Nicole repeated, the first two times furiously before it went silent during the last time as her anger was replaced by something even stronger right now:

Immense grief at the realization that she would never see her baby again. That she isn’t alive anymore.

Nicole slowly moved towards Richard and wrapped her arms around him as she started crying just as hard as him. Richard reciprocated the hug but didn’t stop to say anything as he was also too overwhelmed by it all to find words.

As sad as Penny and Carrie were themselves over the loss of someone they would consider a friend, Nicole and Richard clearly felt what they did a hundredfold right now.

Neighbors were already coming around to the Watterson house and the hole on the side to see what was going on now and why their backyards were destroyed in some cases.

“You… probably want some time alone right now”, Carrie started, not knowing what to say as she wasn’t the best at comfort.

“WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL US PFAHLIUS RETURNED EARLIER!?”, Nicole yelled at her, awakening that fear inside Carrie again despite her knowing that the women couldn’t do anything to her physically.

“I-”, Carrie tried, full of regret over not acting differently about the whole situation and being able to prevent it.

“GET OUT!”, Nicole just screamed before turning back to comforting Richard as best as she could.

Carrie sadly looked over to Penny who shapeshifted back into her normal form and also had tears in her eyes now, nodding at the ghost.

“I’m sorry.”, she could only say in a regretful whisper before grabbing Penny and teleporting the both of them away.

Carrie decided to teleport both her and Penny over to the attic of their house so they could have some time for themselves.

Carrie turned around, unable to hold it in anymore as tears started to form in her eyes as well now.

“Carrie?”, Penny asked, worried about the ghost, as she never saw her cry before. She wasn’t even sure if she was capable of doing that at all.

“It’s my fault! IT’S ALL MY FAULT! If I hadn’t missed the signs, if I hadn’t let Anais walk off on her own-”, she started to ramble.

“No, it’s not your fault! Nobody could’ve predicted something like that!”, Penny reassured her.

“You don’t understand. I was the one who kicked things off by revealing Pfahlius’ location. I-”, Carrie tried to explain.

“Hey, stop that!”, Penny interrupted her.

“I know that you feel awful about inadvertently playing a part in it but right now is the wrong time for self-pity. Pfahlius is still out there and has to be stopped as quickly as possible. You’re probably our best bet for finding him so I need you to focus on that. Darwin and Anais would’ve wanted that.”

Carrie looked at her for a moment before wiping the tears of her eyes.

“You’re right. We have to make sure he won’t kill anyone else. We’ll find him and then he will pay for what he did to Idaho and Anais ten times over!”, Carrie answered with newfound determination.

“Right, Idaho. I can’t believe he is dead too.”, Penny remembered, shaking her head at it all.

“His parents probably don’t know yet. Maybe we should tell them first.”, she added.

“I hate to say it, but I think they have to wait. As you said, we can’t waste one more second in doing anything else but hunting down Pfahlius before there will be any more deaths.”, Carrie suggested.

“I guess Mrs. Watterson would like to have a ‘word’ with this Pfahlius too. But we better leave them out of it now and give them time to properly grieve.”, Penny concluded.

“Exactly. It’s up to us for now. But how in the world are we going to find him? We don’t even know where he is. Or Anais’ body for that matter.”, Carrie realized.

“Maybe we can get help from someone who can hack into her phone and retrace where the message was sent from.”, Penny replied.

“But who?”, Carrie wondered.

“The only kid in Elmore who was even smarter than Anais: Bobert.”, Penny answered.

“Bobert… that’s a great idea!”, Carrie beamed up.

“I hope he’s at home so we don’t have to search the whole town for him. Let’s go!”, she said before grabbing Penny’s hand and teleporting away.

In his home, Bobert was just sitting at his desk to finish the homework essay Miss Simian had given them.

After moving his pencil in such a quick and perfected fashion that he wrote the last two pages in a matter of seconds, Bobert was done and closed his notebook.

That’s when the girls teleported in behind him.

“Intruders detected. Self-defense protocol activated.”, Bobert spoke up while turning around as his left arm formed into a giant cannon, pointing at the two ‘intruders’.

“Whoa-wait Bobert, it’s just us! We need your help with something!”, Penny tried to ease the situation while moving her arms up to show that they’re no threat.

“...Intruders analyzed. Penny and Carrie. No threat from classmates detected. Apologies for the quick judging.”, Bobert answered while turning the cannon back into his normal arm.

“What is it that you require my assistance for?”

“We got an audio on our phone that we need to trace back to where it came from. Can you help us there?”, Carrie wondered.

“Analyze scenario. Help is possible, but not recommended. That would be illegal and I have been taught the values of upholding the law by friends, Darwin Watterson and deleted file.”, Bobert replied with certainty and also a bit of confusion as he didn’t remember ever deleting the file of a person.

“Yeah well, this is about Darwin! This is about the life and death of him and sometimes the law has to be bent for the greater good! Has he taught you that too!?”, Carrie asked furiously.

“Process question. Conclusion: Logic seems reasonable and has been accepted. Where is the audio?”, Bobert got convinced.

…

Inside The Void, Gumball and Rob just had a lot of trouble either escaping or fighting off their counterparts.

Rob just rolled to the side and got back up as the other him slowly approached with a menacing smile.

Thinking he could take this presumably former version of himself, as he got a lot more battle experience since then through his fights with Gumball, Rob attacked the other him and threw two punches.

Season 1 Rob managed to easily avoid them with a smile though before grabbing current Rob by the face and pulling it down before ramming his knee into it.

Rob let out a growl of pain before his counterpart grabbed him by the neck, spinning him around and throwing him many feet into the air, resulting in him painfully landing on the rocky ground on his back.

Gumball meanwhile was trying a more meditating approach as he also got cornered by his counterpart.

“Come on, Dude. Let’s talk about this, alright? We’re both Gumballs. There’s no need for us to fight. There’s more than enough space for both of us in-”

“NO! I’m the only Gumball who deserves to live in Elmore! I’m not gonna share with you, faker!”, Season 2 Gumball said before approaching his counterpart with frightening speed and punching him in the face.

“Ow! Why you little…”, current Gumball said while stumbling and rubbing his cheek before deciding to go on the attack himself now.

He unsheathed his claws and jumped towards his counterpart while attempting to strike him, but Season 2 Gumball grabbed the other’s hand mid-air, twisted it painfully, kicked him in the stomach and uppercutted him hard, causing current Gumball to fly back too and land besides Rob.

They both struggled to get up and breathed heavily as the alternate versions approached them, not exhausted at all and seemingly not even having tried very hard so far.

“I have an idea. We don’t know how to fight ourselves. But we know how to fight each other. We did it many times.”, Rob started.

“You take me. I take you. That way we can beat them.”, he smiled confidently while clenching his fists.

“I take you, you take me…But if I’m me and that’s me”, Gumball said while pointing over at the other him. “And you’re you and that’s also you, then who should-”

“You know what I mean! Attack the blue one! I mean ugh… attack the one that looks like me but isn’t me-me, alright!?”, Rob tried to explain, also starting to get confused by the whole doppelganger scenario.

As Season 1 Rob and Season 2 Gumball approached, the current versions engaged them once more, this time while switching opponents.

But it was no use and the current Gumball and Rob got quickly defeated and were sent sliding over the ground again, right into the direction of the hole that the other two came from until they were right in front of it.

“Urgh…I don’t get it. Why are they so much better than us!?”, Gumball complained while getting up and rubbing his shoulder.

“You two are fighting each other occasionally. But for those two, fighting is their day-to-day life!”, The Void threw in, answering his question.

“Damn right it is. Time to banish you to oblivion where you belong!”, Season 2 Gumball gleefully bragged.

Current Gumball saw no way out while Rob noticed something on the ground that could help them. Grabbing it just in time as the doppelgangers ran towards them to push them into the hole, he threw the rock he picked up from the ground into their direction.

It hit Season 1 Rob in the face before jumping over to hit Season 2 Gumball as well. Both fell down, dazed, as Gumrock landed in front of them.

Current Rob approached to pick it up while smugly looking at the fallen counterparts.

“That’s what you get for thinking you can mess with Gumrock the Great!”, he proudly said while pointing down at them.

“Wait, Gumrock? What is that?”, Current Gumball asked while grabbing the rock out of Rob’s hands.

Gumball had no idea how to take in what he just saw. A rock with his face perfectly drawn on it and Rob named it Gumrock of all things.

“Did you…Did you seriously paint my face on a rock and gave it an awful name?”, he asked while looking at Rob with an unreadable look.

He wanted to tease him for it with every fiber of his being, but was almost too disturbed to treat the situation with humor and was more worried about Rob’s mental state at this point.

“Awful!? Excuse me!? Gumrock is the most glorious lifeform there is! He is perfect in every way and that includes his name! Let him go if you are not worthy to see his flawlessness!”, Rob angrily threw back while forcefully grabbing Gumrock back from Gumball’s hands.

“...Wow and I thought I was the obsessed one in this nemesisship. First thing we’re doing after getting out of here and stopping Pfahlius and The Void is giving you some therapy.”, Gumball deadpanned.

Due to their banter, they didn’t notice Season 1 Rob and Season 2 Gumball getting back up to throw their counterparts into the hole they still were standing in front of.

Only this time, they didn’t react in time and S1 Rob was able to dropkick his doppelganger into the hole, while S2 Gumball paw striked his new self into it right afterwards.

The impact of his counterpart’s kick caused Rob to drop Gumrock right in front of the other duo’s feet as he fell into the hole, although they didn’t notice it.

“Alright, now that those two are dealt with, let’s get to you!”, S2 Gumball threatened the blue cyclops before making his move.

He jumped up to kick Rob into the face, but he rolled under him mid-jump and got up on the opposite side of Gumball.

Rob now wanted to make his move but slipped over Gumrock right as he was approaching S2 Gumball and fell forward, causing him to crush into the blue cat and both of them to fall into the hole as well, just like their counterparts.

Since Gumrock was rolling forward through the momentum of Rob’s foot just moving him, he also fell into the hole right after them.

Taking in the silence for a moment and convincing itself that all of them really fell in, The Void said something to itself.

“That worked out even better than I thought. Which means I can finally fully concentrate on fixing this mess now.”, it said while closing the hole and transferring its focus to somewhere else.

…

Back in Elmore, Bobert was now done tracking the message back to the point of transmission.

“I came to a result. The audio you wanted me to analyze was sent from the house at Elmore graveyard.”, Bobert told the girls while turning back from his desk towards them.

“*Gasp* That’s the haunted house where all the spirits come from the underworld to celebrate Halloween! That’s where Pfahlius did it!? This bastard!”, Carrie exclaimed.

“Unfortunately I wasn’t able to decipher yet who this Gumball is that was mentioned multiple times during the audio, neither could I analyze the blurred voice in-between their conversation.”, Bobert added while playing back a part of the audio.

“GUMBALL, NO!”, they heard the voice of Anais say.

“I LOVE YOU, GUMBALL!”. she added after some movements could be made out in the background.

“𝙸⃥̸⃝  𝙻⃥̸⃝ 𝙾⃥̸⃝ 𝚅⃥̸⃝ 𝙴⃥̸⃝  𝚈⃥̸⃝ 𝙾⃥̸⃝ 𝚄⃥̸⃝  𝚃⃥̸⃝ 𝙾⃥̸⃝ 𝙾⃥̸⃝ ,⃥̸⃝  𝙰⃥̸⃝ 𝙽⃥̸⃝ 𝙰⃥̸⃝ 𝙸⃥̸⃝ 𝚂⃥̸⃝ !⃥̸⃝ ”, said a hissing incomprehensible sound that gave the impression of heavily disturbed TV signals, just as the other time they heard it before during the message.

“Bobert, would you mind staying here and seeing if you can somehow analyze this voice while we go over to the haunted house to check if they’re still there?”, Penny asked hopefully.

“Affirmative. I think I’m close to solving the puzzle anyway.”, Bobert agreed.

“Thanks, Bobert. Well Penny, *gulp* this is it. You’re ready for what we might walk into now?”, Carrie asked her friend with uncertainty.

“No. But we have to do this. For Darwin, for Anais, for Idaho and for their parents!”, Penny answered with determination.

“You’re right. Okay, here goes nothing.”, Carrie said while grabbing Penny’s hand once more as they teleported away.

They landed inside the mansion in front of the stairs but with nobody in sight.

“Let’s stay together. I would rather not split up here with this Pfahlius maybe still being there.”, Penny shivered at the thought.

“Wait. I sense something… Death… It’s in that room!”, Carrie said while pointing up at a door upstairs.

They quickly ran up to check before stopping in front of the door for a moment to mentally prepare themselves before Penny pushed it open.

What they saw was Anais’ body lying on the ground with her phone right beside her, but no signs of Darwin/Pfahlius.

“Anais…No, she is-”, Penny started as tears welled up in her eyes.

“Wait, let me check for sure!”, Carrie interrupted her before flying inside Anais’ body to possess it and see if it was still working.

After feeling no signs of life and not being able to move a finger inside her, Carrie flew out again, now having the ultimate proof.

“She’s gone. She’s truly gone.”, Carrie looked down sadly as she said those words while Penny couldn’t believe it.

“I-I shouldn’t look at this.”, Penny responded while turning around and sitting down, wiping her eyes as Carrie flew beside her, putting an arm around the fairy while a tear escaped her eyes as well.

“He will pay for this. He will pay for this! Wherever he is right now, HE WILL PAY FOR THIS!”, Carrie declared, starting the promise silently before getting louder each time.

Pfahlius meanwhile has long left the haunted house and deactivated the spell that would allow others to enter it.

Knowing that the reveal of Anais’ death was only a matter of time and hiding her body wouldn’t result in anything but just wasting time, he decided to further prepare for the war that was to come.

So he went back to the Awesome Store once more.

As he approached the van owner and was about to greet him in his usual condescending tone, the shopkeeper started the conversation this time.

“There you are. I was already waiting for you.”

“Oh, so you knew I would come back for more? You’re smarter than I thought.”, Pfahlius complimented in surprise, not having expected that.

“Eh, not quite. My-OUR boss wants to speak to you personally.”, the shopkeeper replied.

Pfahlius raised an eyebrow inside Darwin’s body at that as a static portal suddenly opened behind him, similar to when it manipulated events to blame Darwin for a lot of stuff many days ago.

“Pfahlius the Eradicator.”, The Void began.

Pfahlius was surprised once more, but quickly collected himself.

“Void, if that’s the name you’re okay with, of course. We finally meet in person.”

“We do. As you know, I initiated your escape as I needed you and you’ve been putting in quite the work in the little time you had so far.”, The Void continued.

“As should have been expected. But I know you didn’t just come to congratulate me on my prowess so why don’t we get to the important stuff already?”, Pfahlius brushed it off.

“Fine, the reason for this conversation is that I’m unhappy with your actions.”, The Void raised its voice.

“Unhappy? Did you expect more chaos until now? Don’t worry, we’ll get there in time.”, Pfahlius teased.

“That is not the issue. It is too much already!”, The Void brought up the problem.

“Too much? I only killed 2 children so far. That was barely even a warm-up compared to my previous apocalypses.”, Pfahlius threw back, not understanding its problem.

It freed him just for this, right? Not that he wasn’t eventually planning to overthrow The Void anyway, but he thought at least for now, their interests were aligned. He didn’t had enough time to prepare for going up against this thing by himself yet.

“I wanted you to weaken Elmore enough for me to suck it in. I didn’t want you to kill one of the main characters! A minor one like Idaho, alright. He wasn’t too important so writing him out wouldn’t have been a problem, but with Anais you went too far.

Do you have any idea how much issues this creates!? We could replace characters whenever we had to switch designs for a new season. Just make a copy, change some slight bits, throw the old one away and it’s done but a permanent death means I have to start all new with creating Anais from scratch before she can be used again.

I also have to give her a new voice for future uses. We can do that for Gumball and Darwin as often as we want, but she was never planned in for this, which only makes things more difficult. You just threw us years back with this! We might as well just turn it into a completely new show at this point and give it a different name!”, The Void explained.

“Well, maybe it would’ve been helpful if you told me that before I got to work. Seems like that was your fault more than mine so your anger at me seems very unjustified here if you can’t communicate your plans properly.”, Pfahlius defended himself.

“And I’m supposed to believe you would’ve gone along with that if you knew instead of just doing things as you liked anyway?”, The Void accused him.

So he knew I couldn’t be trusted? That’s not good, Pfahlius thought.

“I may not particularly care about your plans, but since we seemed to have the same goal, I wasn’t planning to go against you.”, Pfahlius answered, deciding to mix in some truth with his lie.

“Besides, if you thought I would betray you, why even free me in the first place? You must have known that I was your best bet to make everything work and still am.”

“Because I thought I could control the damage output of your actions but it seemed like I made the same mistake as I already did with Rob. Aside from that, you also gave those searching for Anais a clue that will lead to them finding out about the disappearance of Gumball very soon.”, The Void added.

Pfahlius’ eyes widened in surprise.

“That’s impossible. The only one who saw me pushing him into your world is dead now.”

“Yet even while dying, she got back at you one last time.”, The Void revealed.

“Wait a moment. Anais is dead?”, the shopkeeper suddenly joined the conversation, having trouble making sense of everything that he just heard.

“I didn’t want to do this, but you leave me with no other choice.”, The Void continued, completely ignoring the question.

“There has been too much damage already and there’s only one way I can ensure there won’t be any more of it that won’t throw the future plans for this franchise even further back. Luckily, your actions also gave me back the power over this town that I lost before.

Since Elmore is still needed and can’t be sucked in, I have to freeze all of it until we’re ready to continue.”

“Say what now?”, Pfahlius asked in shock.

Without even answering, the grey static wandered out of the hole into the parking lot and went over the ground in all directions, spreading quickly.

Pfahlius quickly grabbed the remote in an attempt to stop it but it wasn’t working. As the static touched his body, he froze in place completely as it kept spreading.

“I need to get out of here!”, the shopkeeper said while quickly moving towards the driver seat in his van, but it was too late and he got trapped and frozen in the static too.

…

“Alright, how about this? You’ll call the police and when they come to investigate the crime scene, you show them the audio so that they can help us and search for Pfahlius.

Meanwhile, I can visit Idaho’s family so they’ll finally find out what happened to their son.”, Penny suggested as she and Carrie were still inside the haunted house, planning how to continue now.

Before the ghost could answer though, a grey static suddenly wandered through the window and slowly took in the whole house.

“What is that!?”, Carrie asked as it spread over to her and Penny and froze them in place.

…

Bobert was just working on fixing the audio on Anais’ message as he finally got an acceptable result after many attempts.

“𝕴⃦̳̿ 𝕷⃦̳̿𝕺⃦̳̿𝖁⃦̳̿𝕰⃦̳̿ 𝖄⃦̳̿𝕺⃦̳̿𝖀⃦̳̿ 𝕿⃦̳̿𝕺⃦̳̿𝕺⃦̳̿,⃦̳̿ 𝕬⃦̳̿𝕹⃦̳̿𝕬⃦̳̿𝕴⃦̳̿𝕾⃦̳̿!⃦̳̿”

“𝗜̶⃒⃝ 𝗟̶⃒⃝ 𝗢̶⃒⃝ 𝗩̶⃒⃝ 𝗘̶⃒⃝ 𝗬̶⃒⃝ 𝗢̶⃒⃝ 𝗨̶⃒⃝ 𝗧̶⃒⃝ 𝗢̶⃒⃝ 𝗢̶⃒⃝ ,̶⃒⃝ 𝗔̶⃒⃝ 𝗡̶⃒⃝ 𝗔̶⃒⃝ 𝗜̶⃒⃝ 𝗦̶⃒⃝ !̶⃒⃝ “

“𝗜⃥ 𝗟⃥𝘖̸𝗩⃥𝘌̸ 𝘠̸𝗢⃥𝘜̸ 𝘛̸𝗢⃥𝘖̸,⃥ 𝗔⃥𝘕̸𝗔⃥𝘐̸𝗦⃥!̸”

“I LOVE YOU TOO, ANAIS!”

It said, as the audio was getting cleaner every time until it sounded completely normal.

Just as Bobert got a heavy deja-vu upon hearing the voice though, the grey static also engulfed his house, covering it completely and freezing him in place.

…

Nicole and Richard were still hugging each other in disbelief in their house as the spectators have either all disappeared over time or got scared off by Nicole.

After about an hour of crying their eyes out, they stopped for the first time to gather their thoughts, having let all of their sadness out with nothing left.

“...How will things ever be the same again?”, Richard asked, not even sure what to say.

“I don’t know, Richard. I really don’t know but we will get through this together. You, me and Darwin once we freed him of this tyrant and I have torn him apart, piece by piece!”, Nicole answered with a mix of regret over the situation and anger at Pfahlius.

Just after she said that, the Watterson residence also got covered by the grey static and Nicole and Richard froze in place, just as everyone else.

…

Jamie was just in her room, replaying the audio Anais had sent her over an hour ago.

“What the hell is this!? Is this supposed to be a prank!? Because if it is, it’s NOT funny!”, she angrily stated.

“Jaime, are you alr-?”, Coach Russo asked from behind the door, before suddenly stopping mid-sentence.

“Mom?”, Jamie asked, before moving towards the door and opening it to see what was going on.

Jaime saw her mother frozen in place as a grey static that had engulfed her approached her bedroom quickly. She could barely react to it, before being taken over and frozen by it as well.

As it spread all around Elmore, nothing was left untouched. Even the birds flying through the air got frozen in mid-air, not falling down but also not moving any further. It wasn’t long until the entire town was frozen, with everything engulfed in a grey static.

…

After being pushed through the hole, Gumball and Rob fell down mid-air on the other side until landing on a platform that wasn’t too far below them so they luckily didn’t get hurt much through the fall.

“Urgh, where are we? It doesn’t look much different from before.”, Gumball noticed while getting up and looking around.

“This is terrible! We will never get out of here!”, Rob said in anger before looking down.

“And it’s all my fault.”

“What?”, Gumball called out. “It’s not-”

“Yes, it is! I knew what was going to happen and if I handled my attempts to stop it differently I could have succeeded. But now, everyone has to pay the price for my failure.

I’m sorry, Gumball. I’m sorry for what I did to Penny and you back then. That was me at my worst and isn’t excusable in any way. If you want to go on without me, I won’t blame you.”, he finished, fully expecting Gumball to take the offer.

“Hey, don’t say that. I need you. You know this place better than anyone else. And I can tell you really regret what you did and truly wanted to save Elmore now. You suffered enough. I forgive you.”, Gumball said with a soft smile, while kneeling down to look him in the eye.

“R-Really? You mean it?”, Rob asked hopefully while lifting his head slightly.

“I do.”

Just as they were reconciling though, Season 1 Rob and Season 2 Gumball suddenly came out of the hole and flew towards the ground as well, just before it closed completely.

They crashed to the ground painfully as well, with Gumrock landing just beside them one second later.

As both of them got up again with angry looks, the current Gumball and Rob got worried.

“Oh no.”, Gumball said.

“We’re back in this hellhole! I finally had the chance to get back and you ruined it all!”, Season 2 Gumball yelled while pointing at Season 1 Rob and unsheathing his claws.

“Oh please, you were never going to beat me anyway! I got robbed here! If I can’t make it back already, I will at least finish you off!”, Season 1 Rob answered while preparing to fight the cat once more.

“Quick, while they’re distracted.”, Current Rob whispered over to his Gumball as they were slowly backing up, preparing to escape while the other two were busy.

Something unexpected happened though as a blue blur rushed past them, jumped up and kicked Season 1 Rob in the face hard enough for him to fly against a boulder, the impact knocking him out.

As Season 2 Gumball looked up in surprise at the one who interrupted their fight, his eyes twisted in anger once more.

“You!? The freelancer!?”, he said while striking at the other with his claws, but his opponent vanished from sight and appeared behind him in a flash.

Season 2 Gumball had only enough time to react to turn around, before he was met with a punch to the stomach that knocked the wind out of him, before he got grabbed by the arm and flipped to the ground as the other one knocked him out too with a chop to the neck.

He now turned around to the shocked expressions of the current Gumball and Rob.

Gumball especially, couldn’t believe his eyes. It couldn’t be.

Not only was that another version of him, but it was one he knew very well.

Unlike Season 2 Gumball, his eyes were just the same as Gumball’s and the difference on him was another one.

That popped out collar on his sweater. Combined with that smug, condescending expression. He thought they got rid of him.

“ZACH!?”

“In person, loser. Well, that’s an unexpected turn of events. But nevertheless a very useful one.”, he said sinisterly while stepping forward.

“Alright, what’s going on now? You know this guy? Can you help us? We’re not supposed to be here.”, Rob asked while turning from Gumball to Zach as he got suddenly punched and knocked out as well.

“Rob! Hey, what’s the-”, Gumball could only say before he was met with a fist as well and everything went black.

Chapter Text

In the present (after the time-skip):

Zach was just running away as fast as he could, the only things he had with him being the universal remote in his left hand and a walkie-talkie in his right hand.

Still in the Void but simultaneously in the town of Elmore which found its way there, the entire town eventually glitched out in the background behind him.

Zach grabbed his walkie-talkie close to his face as he saw that he was reaching his destination.

"Zach to base, Zach is closing in. Won't be long until we're ready to take back what belongs to us.", he triumphantly spoke into it.

"Don't you think it would be smarter if you got yourself an actual code name instead of just using your birth one?", the voice on the other end asked.

"You know why Zach doesn't like going by anything else! Just make sure they aren't trailing us. No way we are letting them follow us back.", Zach replied while rolling his eyes during the first sentence.

"Copy that, we're handling them and are right behind you.", the other voice spoke again.

Just as Zach was closing in on his destination, three Bobert units, all in their giant battle mode, jumped in front of Zach, their laser cannon arms pointing at him.

"Medium bad news, Zach has company. But he can destroy them, do the same if anything gets in your way.", he said before laying the walkie-talkie aside as the first Bobert shot at him before Zach jumped over the laser.

He landed in the Bobert unit's face and held on as the robot struggled to get him off.

"Field of vision disturbed. Have to eliminate distraction.", he said as another Bobert was pointing his cannon at Zach before shooting.

Before it hit Zach, he was again able to jump over the laser which instead hit the Bobert unit he was latching onto just a moment ago, wrecking it as it fell to the ground.

"Unplanned complication: Friendly fire.", the Bobert who shot processed the situation as Zach came jumping towards him and kicked through the robot's chest before landing behind him on the ground.

The Bobert unit fell to the ground as well with unrepairable damage as there was now a hole that went from its chest all the way through its back in his armor.

The last Bobert unit was almost able to catch Zach off-guard with a heavy punch from behind, but Zach was able to block it just in time by pressing with both of his arms against Bobert's giant one, before he eventually grabbed it with one hand and threw him over his head, causing said Bobert to brutally crash to the ground, destroying it.

Zach looked at his fallen enemies in satisfaction before walking back to where he dropped the remote and picking it up with a smug smile.

"You really thought three of you could do something against Zach? This is child's play for him.", he bragged, before hearing something behind him and being forced to turn around.

There he saw more Bobert units making their way to catch up with him, only this time it was about a dozen instead of just three.

"Zach and his big mouth.", he groaned. "He doesn't have time for this."

He activated the remote and pointed it at the sky, where a hole opened above him, in the same place where Gumball, Rob and their two variants fell through the last time he was there.

As the first Bobert closed in, Zach jumped up on his head before using the momentum and the height to leap all the way up to the hole and making his way through it.

Landing in the main world of the Void, Zach rolled forward to his feet before using the remote to quickly close the hole behind him again.

"So you came all the way back? This is an unforeseen scenario. But I'm afraid your attempts were futile.", The Void claimed before attempting to freeze Zach in place.

Just before it was able to do that though, Zach pointed the universal remote at himself and pressed a button. A strange light surrounded Zach's body shortly before vanishing again and as the Void's freezing effect reached Zach, he was surprisingly unaffected.

"What!? How is that possible? I don't have the energy to waste more resources on you right now!", The Void complained.

"That's the idea, pal. Good luck preventing Zach from escaping.", Zach victoriously pointed his finger at the sky.

"Oh, I won't prevent you. They will.", The Void answered while telekinetically opening the hole that Zach came through again.

Zach could only look back at it in surprise as the dozen Bobert units that were just chasing him came all jumping through the hole, one after another.

Due to balance not being their main focus, they all crashed to the ground in a circle around Zach, but quickly got up again while surrounding him and preparing to eliminate their target.

Zach clenched his fists, ready to rumble.

...

In the past: (Continuing from last chapter)

Gumball just woke up sitting on the table in the living room of his family's house. Looking around to make sure he's really where he thinks he is, the blue cat relaxes for a moment.

"*Sigh* It was all just a bad dream.", he gladly said to himself.

"Not a dream, loser. Life isn't that nice.", Zach answered from beside him.

Gumball frighteningly looked to his right where he saw Zach putting some tape on the mouths of the alternate versions of him and Rob, who were tied up by their hands and feet on chairs and struggling to move or speak.

Trying to get up, Gumball noticed that he was tied to a chair in the same manner as them. As was his version of Rob, who was sitting on the left of him.

"ROB! HEY, ROB! WAKE UP!", Gumball screamed after noticing that he was still unconscious from Zach's blow earlier.

He wanted to punch or kick Rob to wake him up, but as his limbs were tied to the chair, all he could do was yell at him.

"*Groan* What? Where...where are we?", Rob asked after being woken up through the noise and looking around.

"In the Void. The deeper level of it with everyone else that has been abandoned.", Zach answered without even looking at him.

"What the- the Void? This is the living room of the Watterson house. Why is this here!?", Rob wondered, while looking out of the window where he saw Elmore as he remembered it, with the main difference being that instead of the blue or cloudy sky, they were surrounded by static.

"Turns out that an earlier version of Elmore made it here. They changed the designs of the buildings internally in the earlier versions. Those who came before Zach remastered them to look like what they were used to. So visually, it's actually not much different from what you should know.", Zach replied while sitting down across from them.

"What the- design change!? Who changed it? And why are you even here!? And why are we here and there are multiple of us!? What is going on here, I don't understand anything!", Gumball rambled on, being completely overwhelmed by the situation.

"As if that would be anything new for you.", Zach smirked.

"Don't worry, Zach will tell you. But first, let him get those two out of the way.", he said while pointing at the Season 1 Rob and Season 2 Gumball variants who were struggling in their chairs before walking towards the basement door.

"Hey, could you come up and handle the variants for a moment? Zach needs to talk to the fresh meat alone.", he called down the stairs after opening the door as footsteps of another individual were heard.

"Sure, my friend. Whatever you-Whoa!", another Gumball said after walking up the stairs and taking the situation in, before seeing what was in front of him.

This Gumball looked a bit different from the other two again. His whiskers weren't as big as those of the others, one canine was seen hanging out of his mouth, even while it was closed and he just looked more cartoon-y than any of the other three variants in general.

For the sake of the story we're going to call him Season 1 Gumball.

Season 1 Gumball, the current Gumball and Rob all looked at each other in surprise for a silent moment before S1 Gumball turned back to Zach.

"Uhhh...is that-", he started.

"Yes, it is. Just take the other two downstairs.", Zach cut him off while pointing at S1 Rob and S2 Gumball. "Zach needs some privacy with our newcomers."

Gumball remembered that he once looked like that new variant he was just seeing as well. Before he even looked like the counterpart that was sitting tied and taped up across from him.

"Alright, I'm gonna take care of you for now. Don't worry, nothing will happen to you two.", S1 Gumball said reassuringly to S2 Gumball and S1 Rob while dragging them towards the basement door.

Current Gumball still didn't know exactly how to take this situation in, but going off by the behaviour of this other Gumball variant, he didn't seem to be a bad guy like the other one or Zach.

In fact, Gumball also remembered that he was a lot more naive back when he had that look as some bitter realities of life haven't caught up with him yet at this point.

Zach must have manipulated this Gumball into working for him, maybe by making himself out to be the good guy. He didn't know much of what was going on, but if there was a chance to fix this, Current Gumball had to take it, no matter how small it was.

"DON'T DO THIS! Don't work for this guy, Zach! He's not what you think he is! He's evil! He tried to take over my life and send me to oblivion! Don't you see what you're doing!? Taking tied up hostages down a basement!? Free and help us, we'll get you out of here together!", he tried his luck.

Season 1 Gumball looked at him in confusion before turning to an unamused looking Zach.

"Ummm...I better leave you to it. It seems like you have a lot to work up.", Season 1 Gumball replied before he continued to drag S2 Gumball and S1 Rob down the basement stairs and closed the door behind them.

"Don't force Zach to tape your mouth as well. He was gonna give you a chance to talk so you better don't ruin it. Not that Zach wouldn't enjoy doing that of course.", Zach warned his counterpart, before walking back towards the table and sitting down across from the current Gumball and Rob, the three of them now being alone up there.

"Now, you two amateurs are going to tell Zach everything about what's been going on in Elmore and the other part of the Void.", he instructed them.

"Yeah, right. Why would we do something like that after you just knocked us out and tied us up?", Rob scoffed at the arrogant cat.

"Because in return Zach will provide you with food and water. Something that's hard to fight for in this place as you'll quickly find out if you prefer to be on your own.", Zach smirked.

"Oh my gosh, do you always talk in the third person of yourself? And I thought Gumball was unbearable.", Rob rolled his eyes.

"HEY! On which side are you!?", Gumball butted in.

"Nah, he has a point. You are awful.", Zach grinned at his counterpart.

"Alright, how about this? You give us information about this place in addition to the food and we give you information about what's going on up there in return. How does that sound?", Rob tried to negotiate.

"Well, since it would be smarter for Zach's plans if you knew what's going on here anyway, sure.", Zach agreed.

"Okay, let's get over the most important piece first. Where is Gumrock!?", Rob angrily demanded to know.

"Seriously, at a time like this!?", Gumball groaned.

"Oh, you mean this?", Zach asked while grabbing Gumrock from under the table and putting him in front of himself.

"Was already wondering what in the world that was. Pretty face though, that really keeps it together.", he admired the prophet.

"You can have him back once you spill the beans."

"Alright, am I the only one who is completely overwhelmed by this!? Why are there multiple versions of me, why is there another Elmore here, how do we get back and why are you two talking like all of this is normal to you!?", Gumball finally bursted out, not being able to take it anymore.

Zach stared at Gumball for a second before turning to Rob.

"You know about the TV show, don't you?"

"Yes, but he doesn't.", Rob answered while pointing his head at Gumball, since he still couldn't move his limbs.

"WHAT TV SHOW!?", Gumball asked.

"Do you want to tell him? Seems like he'll rather believe it if it came from you. Zach will correct you if you're missing out on anything.", he offered towards Rob.

Rob composed himself, knowing this would come eventually, before deciding that Gumball needs to know at this point. He turned towards him and began.

"Alright, this will sound crazy but... we live in a TV show. One where you are the main character. It's called The Amazing World of Gumball. Our world isn't real and it never was.

We were created for the sole purpose of entertaining people in a higher reality watching us from above with The Void acting as a safety measurement to keep us and our world in check.", Rob dropped the bombshell.

Gumball looked at him with wide eyes, taking in what he just said before he started to laugh bitterly. Mostly because he thought he was being played a cruel prank on by his old nemesis again but also to a lesser degree because he didn't want to consider the possibility that there might be some truth behind his words.

"Hahaha, yeah. Right. A TV show. One with me as the main character. Come on, my life is a bit crazy but not THAT interesting."

"Is it? You get into some crazy shenanigans on a nearly daily basis, even when you're actively trying to avoid it. As talentless as you are, nobody is that bad at doing nothing. Nobody aged in Elmore for years, nobody gets lethally damaged by anything, no matter how deadly.

There's a literal world for mistakes erased from the show and there are early models of you and even a version of your entire town here. The list goes on and on, but even someone with your level of stupidity should be able to take a hint.", Zach added.

Gumball wanted to call bluff on that as he remembered something. Another memory that he has gotten back earlier after entering the Void but hasn't recalled yet with how much else was going on his mind at that time.

That day where the world seemed to go crazy and he was glitching around uncontrollably, making it seem like he was insulting Darwin. They found out what was going on there at the end. The town was suffering from satellite broadcast issues.

Just as Darwin and him were figuring out what the same things that happened on TV happening to them meant and were shocked about the implications, it seemed like their memories of that revelation got erased shortly afterwards. He was still able to remember the day, but not what caused all of it.

But after going back into the Void, he did. And if what it said was true about his memories being connected to it, if the thing Rob said was keeping them in check prevented him from knowing...Oh god.

As much as he hated to admit it, Zach had a point too. Gumball never paid much attention to it but they did age...slowly, didn't they?

No, scratch that. They stopped aging at all at a certain point. Gumball lived through at least three Halloween's while remaining 12 years old during all of them.

An entire day perfectly planned to do nothing with Darwin evolved into a single rollercoaster of craziness. As lazy as he liked to be, Gumball never had a calm day.

There was one flaw in all of it though. While it was true that he and others often easily survived incidents that should logically kill them, they weren't untouchable. The tragic demise of one of his friends just recently proved that.

"Wait a second...that's wrong! We can get lethally damaged. Idaho... he just got killed before I came here.", Gumball countered, happy at first that he found a hole in their explanation, before it came back to him that one of his friends was dead now and he looked down during the second part.

Rob and Zach both looked surprised at this before the former spoke up.

"I...I forgot to mention that the show ended about a week ago. And with it, all the safety for us that came with it. But I didn't expect it to have consequences this quickly.", he admitted sadly.

"Wait, that's why the Void wants to suck in all of Elmore? The show got...c-cancelled? Oh no... that's why it sucked you in first! Because you wanted to warn and save us! You knew this whole time!", Gumball realized.

"The Void told me itself the last time I was there. I thought I could save everyone with that knowledge but it ultimately was just another layer of its plan. I was never in control.", Rob shamefully added.

"So it's true...", Gumball whispered, still trying to wrap his head around it.

"Wait a second, the show ended!? What does that mean!?", Zach demanded to know while looking at Rob.

"It means it's over. The Void was planning to suck in all of Elmore afterwards but said it grew too powerful and it has to weaken it first somehow.", he answered.

"If the Void is responsible for Pfahlius coming back then maybe that was why it helped to free him. So he could assist it in its plans!", Gumball concluded.

"And who in the world is Pfahlius now!?", Zach asked furiously, getting fed up by how much he was unaware of.

"An evil demon that possessed Anais' Daisy doll since she got it. We just barely overpowered him after he revealed himself but he came back now, possessed my siblings, killed Idaho and sent me here. You would probably like him. You are two of a kind.", Gumball bitterly told his counterpart.

"If he wants to end the town and send Elmore into the Void, Zach doubts that. There's no going back for him with no Elmore. And he doesn't want a third fraction to fight a war against.", Zach replied.

"Okay, can you tell us now what is going on with this place? We pretty much gave you all the important information about what's going on up there. Now it's your turn.", Rob demanded.

"...Zach entered this place right after this idiot-", Zach said while pointing towards Gumball.

"HEY!"

"legally changed his name to Gumball and erased him out of his head. Zach was one of the last ones who entered this place not long after the second generationers came here and started the war with the first ones. He came here about 5 years ago.", Zach began to explain.

"FIVE YEARS!?", Gumball asked in shock, not having expected there to have passed so many years since they defeated Zach, even with the no-aging part pretty much destroying his conception of time.

"It seemed like the second time designs got changed, barely any characters were really affected considering the second generationers are just the Watterloser family and barely anyone else.", he continued, ignoring Gumball's outburst.

"The first ones wanted them to obey as they took over this place first, but the second generation wasn't so happy about that. Knowing they were outnumbered, they struck first and took out two of the most significant of the first ones to gain an advantage."

"Two of the most significant?", Rob asked in curiosity.

"The first versions of Nicole and Anais. The power and the brains. With them out of the equation, the first ones lost two of their most valuable assets. They were able to take on the fight before anyone else fell but since then, it has been a pretty even-sided war.", Zach revealed.

"You're saying...alternative versions of my mom and sister that I once lived with d-died in here?", Gumball asked in shock.

"You didn't live with them, moron. The first version of you that you just saw working for Zach, he lived with them. You merely got his memories placed in your head as you were copied from him with some slight changes. Just as everyone else who got a replacement.", Zach said while changing his focus from Rob to Gumball.

"Despite their advantage in numbers, the first ones were starting to lose the war. That's when their Bobert hacked himself into the Void and found out what was really going on. The show, the replaced characters, the knowledge quickly spread beyond the first ones to all of us.

To save themselves in this war, Bobert found the design of a device that could get us out of here. A universal remote from a place called the Awesome Store, that joined the show around the same time Zach got here.", Zach stated.

"The universal remote! You have another version of it in here!?", Rob yelled.

"Yes and no. Bobert created it for the most part as their way to get out of here and win this war but the second generationers stole them. Their Anais is working to complete it right now, but she's still struggling with it.", Zach responded.

"So...among these second generationers my whole family is still alive?", Gumball asked while sighing in relief.

Zach gave him a dirty look again upon hearing the phrase "family".

"Yes. Turns out the second Wattersons were a lot more brutal than the first ones. Nicole especially. She's the leader of them and the reason why they took down the first of her so easily. Even your own second generation version got a lot darker. You saw the difference between those two earlier, right?", Zach reminded him.

"Well, I do know I got a bit more...cynical and rude over time but even then, that other me was nothing like me-ME!", Gumball argued.

"That's because of the dark nature of this place. It corrupts the minds of everyone except for the most kind-hearted. The first Gumball was one of the only ones unaffected and got kicked out of his group because he couldn't accept their mindset.

As he had no allegiance, Zach thought he could be useful so he took him under his wing. Now he's Zach's partner. He's a loser but Zach can't exactly be picky with him being a freelancer who doesn't belong to either of the fractions himself.", he explained with a sinister smile.

"And who's the leader of the first ones with Mrs. Watterson being dead?", Rob asked.

"That would be the very first one as she calls herself.

She's been here even before the rest of the first generation and convinced everyone to join her once they arrived since she had the experience to handle this place already. She rules with an iron fist and also got corrupted first.", Zach told him.

"Despite the battle advantage of the second generation through Nicole, Bobert found a way to change the odds if he already couldn't keep the remote. He copied his own data and created clones of himself that have limited intelligence compared to the original one, but the same battle power. They function as the first one's army by constantly being in battle mode."

"But the alternate versions of ourselves that we encountered were much better fighters than Gumball and me as well.", Rob recalled.

"Ah yeah, the other second generationers got trained by Nicole while the first ones are self-trained. You are surprisingly one of their best. Guess you always had the potential to be a threat.", Zach told Rob.

"The Void also said something like that.", Rob responded, remembering how it told him earlier that he chose him as the villain because it saw his potential.

"But even with the Bobert army and the number advantage, the first ones are struggling to win because the second generation doesn't just have Nicole but someone so strong that it even makes her look like an ant in comparison.

The Void's strongest fighter.", Zach replied.

"Stronger than even Mom!? Who could that be? Is it Hector?", Gumball wondered.

"No, stronger than even him. A Hector was among the first ones and he got killed by that guy along with some others. Zach never met this monster, only heard of him.", he explained while visibly shivering at the thought of encountering this beast.

"Either way, do you two know anything about this universal remote?", Zach asked.

"More than we would like to know.", Rob answered.

"Good, because you are going to help Zach with stealing it and getting out of here.", he finished with a smirk.

...

In the new present:

Zach was just fighting against the group of Bobert units. As one leaned down to grab him, he jumped over its arm to his head, then jumped from one Bobert unit to the top of the next one until he went to the last in line and jumped off from that one, creating some distance between himself and them.

Using the walkie-talkie in his hand, he decided to speak through to the other end.

"Zach hopes you made sure these idiots can't escape. He needs you to be useful for this too, just in the case of emergency.", he said before dodging the strike of another Bobert, before the next one tried to smash him into the ground but Zach jumped out of the way again.

As the Bobert's were slowly walking closer and Zach unsheathed his claws, he heard a voice from behind him.

"Looks like your case of emergency just happened."

Zach turned around to see Current Gumball standing there with Gumrock in his hand.

"So you want to do this for real, huh?", Zach asked with a smug grin.

"Yes. I do.", Gumball simply answered while positioning his arm back and preparing to throw Gumrock with full power

Zach prepared himself for what was to come.

"Duck."

After saying that Gumball made the throw.

Zach did as he was told and quickly ducked down as Gumrock flew over his head and into a Bobert unit that was just behind him, drilling a hole all the way through its body thanks to the power and speed behind Gumball's throw.

The Bobert unit fell to the ground, its systems destroyed as the other ones took the scene in for a moment before running up to attack the two cats.

Gumball jumped over to Zach so they were standing back to back, fists held up and preparing to fight.

"Almost feels like me saving you has become a habit at this point, hasn't it?", Gumball asked while blocking the punch of a Bobert unit before ripping its arm off.

"Don't get too cocky. Better remember who taught you to use your abilities in the first place.", Zach countered, more playful than malicious, while also blocking the punch of a Bobert and throwing him to the side.

"Yet the first time it happened was before you even started doing anything of the sort, wasn't it?", Gumball asked mockingly, remembering the events.

"Oh, please. Even without your assistance Zach can easily beat these guys by himself. Don't forget your place just because you got a little stronger.", he said while grabbing the arm of another Bobert trying to punch him and throwing him backwards.

Gumball was doing the same thing to another robot while standing with his back to Zach and also threw him backwards, causing the two units to crush into each other and get wrecked through the impact.

As he was looking in the direction of the hole that the Void opened and he just came through after Zach and the Bobert units, Gumball now saw Rob jumping through it as well.

"GUMBALL!", he called out.

"Rob, you made it!", Gumball yelled back in relief.

"Zach, where is the remote!", he asked, while turning back to his counterpart.

"It's lying over there! Zach dropped it during the fight!", Zach answered, while blocking the strike of another Bobert unit with his claws.

"If we want to make it back now is the time! The Void is busy with the new place and is relying on the Bobert's to handle us!"

"Rob, can you give us a hand with that remote!?", Gumball called over to him.

"On it!", he answered while running towards it.

As they were continuing to fight off the Bobert's, Zach decided to ask what he was thinking.

"You're still talking to him after what happened? At a time like this?"

"What is that supposed to mean!?", Gumball asked back furiously.

"...Nevermind. Let's just take these guys down quickly.", Zach ordered while deciding to change the topic with Gumball's reaction to it right now.

There were still 5 Bobert units left who, after seeing that they couldn't beat them hand-to-hand, jumped back and decided to rely on their lasers by firing at the two cats all at once.

Before their attacks could land though, Gumball and Zach suddenly vanished from sight to their confusion.

One moment later two blue blurs drilled through the robots so fast and efficiently that they weren't able to react to it before all of them were eventually destroyed as well.

Rob was just reaching the remote as he got frightened by the last Bobert falling to the ground in front of it. Gumball was quickly beside him and picked up the remote himself while holding Gumrock in his other hand.

"Alright, we're ready to go.", he said while pressing a button and opening a hole to the streets of Elmore.

"Zach, are you coming!?", Gumball asked while noticing that he was walking in the wrong direction away from the hole.

"No, Zach has to go back. Our friend is still in there.", he said while getting closer to the hole to the deeper level of the Void that they just came through.

"But he said he wanted to stay in there!", Gumball argued.

"Zach knows and doesn't care. He'll never survive in there on his own! He has to come with us!", Zach stubbornly replied.

"*Sigh* Alright, but I'm coming with you.", Gumball decided before stepping towards Zach.

"No!", Zach held out a hand to stop him.

"You have to go back to Elmore before the Void comes back and intervenes. We can't waste what we worked so hard towards!"

"I'm not leaving you to yourself again! This goes against everything we established!", Gumball reminded him.

"You aren't! We'll stay in contact through the walkie-talkies and soon see each other again. But you need to go back now!", Zach tried to reason with him.

Gumball looked from Zach to the hole to Elmore back to Zach again, unsure what to do.

"Zach will give you a signal when we're ready. But they need you now!

More than I do.", Zach added as his voice softened.

"...Okay. Good luck!", Gumball reluctantly said while saluting over to Zach who did the same, before Gumball jumped through the hole with Gumrock and the remote. Rob followed him right after that.

As Gumball and Rob made it out on the other side of Elmore, Gumball quickly used the remote to close the hole to the Void.

"Take him for a moment.", Gumball instructed Rob while handing Gumrock over to him.

"I need to find Pfahlius asap before I can unfreeze the town."

After saying that, Gumball rushed around the town until he was in front of his family's house one second later. Bracing himself for what might be going on inside, he quickly pushed the door open, preparing for the worst.

Everything he saw though was the frozen versions of his parents hugging each other near the family table, while there was a big hole where the wall was supposed to be.

Gumball quickly rushed through the entire house, looking to see if anyone else was still there, but found no one.

"What happened here? Am I too late? Or is he still at the haunted house?", Gumball wondered before deciding to check that location out next.

In a blur he was out of the house again and sped through the town until he passed through the graveyard into the haunted house, up to the room where he held him hostage the last time.

As Gumball went in there, what he saw surprised him. Penny and Carrie were inside, seemingly talking to each other, while Anais was lying on the floor on her back.

Deciding that he has to talk with someone about what happened to understand the situation, Gumball pressed the button on the remote that unfroze all of Elmore.

Penny and Carrie just had to collect themselves for a moment after unfreezing, feeling an immense two second-headache before going back to normal.

"Wh-What just happened?", Carrie asked in confusion.

"That's what I'd like to know.", Gumball said, getting them to turn around in surprise.

"Gumball!? What are you-.", Penny started before remembering something.

"Wait... I FORGOT ABOUT YOU! But now I remember again! H-How could I forget you!? What is going on!?", Penny wondered, panicking even more now.

"I'll explain, but first things first. Is Pfahlius inside Anais?", he asked, not wanting to waste time.

"N-No. He's still with Darwin. But he wasn't here anymore when we got here.", Carrie admitted while looking down, not sure how to tell him what truly happened to Anais.

Gumball raised an eyebrow at that. So he hasn't taken over her body?

"What do you mean? What happened to her?", he asked, pointing at Anais who was still motionlessly lying on the ground.

Penny and Carrie looked at each other while tears were forming in their eyes again.

"H-He tricked her. He called Anais over so... so he could kill her.", Penny said between her tears, barely able to finish the sentence, let alone look at Gumball's reaction.

Gumball's eyes widened as the remote fell out of his hand, one eye slightly twitching.

That wasn't the reaction they expected. They were ready for him to break down, be in denial, anything loud and uncontrollable but as he wasn't doing anything of the sort after 20 seconds, they were starting to get scared.

"Gumball-", Carrie began.

"Where is Pfahlius?", Gumball asked in a sinister tone.

"We-we don't know. He was already away when we got here. But I checked Anais' body. She... she's really gone.", Carrie explained, hanging her head down.

So he isn't here and he isn't home. But where could he...

Wait.

He had a universal remote himself. He must've gotten it from the Awesome Store. If they didn't knew anything else, that place is the best chance now., he thought.

"Gumball, we're so sor-", Penny moved closer to her boyfriend as he suddenly vanished from his place and left behind a huge trail of air that hit the shapeshifter in the face.

Less than a second later he was in the parking lot where the Awesome Store van was still standing. He loudly knocked on the door and the owner quickly opened it.

"Gumball!? This is unex-", he began.

"Pfahlius the Eradicator. I want everything you know about him. When did he came to you?", Gumball interrupted him sternly.

"The one that possessed your brother? He was just here less than a minute ago! There was an- um... unexpected complication with his visit so-"

"I don't have time for this. I know what's going on with the Void and I know about your connection to it. I have one of your remotes-", Gumball said while lifting his hand before realizing that he dropped it at the haunted house a moment ago.

Gumball vanished for one second before being back in the same place, but this time with the universal remote in his hand.

"One of your remotes so tell me WHAT IS GOING ON HERE!"

The Awesome Store owner froze in place, scared of the authoritative tone of the cat and the way he was acting in general. Something told him it was better to just spill the beans.

"The... The Void suddenly appeared and said it wanted to freeze all of Elmore but one moment later everything was back to normal. Pfahlius threatened me with the remote to give him the last copy of my storyboard tablet after that so I obeyed. Then he teleported away with it by using the fast forward button on the remote.", he explained.

"The tablet...", Gumball recalled, knowing exactly what he was talking about.

Before the Awesome Store owner could elaborate further, Gumball was gone again, appearing back at the haunted house in front of Penny and Carrie.

"Gumball!? What was that!? WHERE WERE YOU THE LAST MINUTE!?", Penny wondered, getting more and more confused by what was going on.

"No time to explain. Pfahlius is gone and we need to gather everyone before even worse happens. Forget about him, there's an even bigger problem to worry about."

"Forget about him? GUMBALL, DIDN'T YOU HEAR WHAT WE JUST TOLD YOU!? WHAT HE DID TO ANAIS!?", Carrie asked, completely thrown off by that statement.

"Yes, I heard you. And the same thing is going to happen to all of us if we don't do something. Once we have the group together I'll tell you something as well.", Gumball responded.

"What I have found out and worked to achieve during the last 6 years."