The Outsider:

Chapter 37: The Reboot-Part One

A misty dawn in Elmore signaled a new day as the sun crept ever so slightly over the horizon turning the mist a brilliant golden color. The weary coyote rubbed the sleep from his eyes as he yawned widely and stretched, only realizing that Randal left his jacket behind when it slipped off of him and landed on the floor. The coyote looked at it for a few seconds before resolving to place it up one of his hangers and return it to the wolverine if he saw him. The coyote resolved to switch things up and opened his dresser, shuffling through the different outfits that were not in use. He quickly grabbed one that caught his eye as he picked up a pair of black pants, a navy blue hoodie, and a white t-shirt with an orange stripe across the chest. He quickly got changed into the new outfit, before resolving to go downstairs and grab something quick before heading to school. The coyote entered the kitchen looking for something to scavenge as he grabbed the nearest mug he could before filling it up with coffee.

"What do you think you're doing young man?" asked the sharp voice of Brooke from the top of the stairwell catching the younger coyote off guard.

"Grabbing something to drink," answered the coyote giving an innocent grin as Brooke's eyes scanned him.

"You're not drinking coffee, period," said the gray wolf stomping downstairs and wrenching the mug from his grasp with her powerful grip. "You'll stunt your growth."

"Ah come on, eight ounces of coffee won't kill me."

"No, but I don't want you to stay at four feet and eleven inches for the rest of your life."

"You're no fun…"

"If you want to argue, do it with your father, he's the one who owns the coffeepot."

"Alright, I'll see if the king of the recliner will be more willing to share."

"Right," said Brooke raising her eyebrows. "He's hardly had a chance to relax at all he's been so busy with work and such."

"I'll get going, see you soon mom," replied the coyote as he gave her a hug that tugged on her new striped t-shirt.

"Stay safe sport," replied the wolf, nudging him affectionately with her muzzle.

The coyote nodded before his mother released him from her grip as he walked out the door for another day of school.

When the coyote first arrived at the school he noticed something was amiss as he took a look out from over his book to see something out the window. Was it just him or did he see a flash of red? Maybe it was just a reflection or his eyes playing tricks on him.

"Hey, Jake! What's happening?" shouted the griffin from the seat in front of him, startling him as the griffin looked down on him.

"Care to tone it down a notch? The whole neighborhood will be able to hear you."

"Oh, sorry about that man," replied the griffin as they exited the bus, both of them made sure to thank Rocky on the way out.

"Where's Cato, doesn't he usually take the bus to school?"

"Yeah, maybe he's just running a bit behind."

"Another pun?"

"You know it," said the griffin, pleased with himself. "I think-"

The rustle of leaves and the force from a white blur knocked both Jake and Grif off their feet as the pale humanoid speedster appeared in front of them panting heavily and shaking his feet while the bottom of his shoes smoldered.

"Sorry for the rush, I had to run almost halfway across Elmore, my alarm didn't go off."

"At least you made it," grunted Grif as he got off the ground and stretched making sure nothing was strained or dislocated.

"So, what are we doing today?" said the humanoid, making sure to cool off his shoes by jumping in a nearby puddle of water.

"Apparently, we're supposed to be presenting our projects to Miss Simian, that is going to be awful," said the griffin shaking his head in dismay.

As the coyote stepped over the threshold and tripped over something large and metal. Jake landed face down on the ground as he crawled over the floor, trying to figure out what he had just run into. It appeared to be a large pile of scrap metal, from the various parts and scratched surfaces it looked like it hadn't been in this state for very long. Jake's stomach turned over as he realized it was Bobert, very much still functional, his eye swiveling from side to side inspecting each one of them.

"Good morning, how are you today?" asked the robot his voice staticky and garble as the coyote knelt down next to him.

"Bobert, what happened?"

"I was attacked by Blockbuster on my way to school."

"Blockbuster did this?"

"Yes."

"He really must not like you," replied Grif, lifting the robot's dented chassis off of the floor and reconnecting some the damaged and frayed wires. "Does anyone have any electrical tape or something I can use to patch him up?"

The robot protested to this grabbing the griffin by the neck with his clamp-like hand. The griffin shuddered in fright and immediately put his fingers around the ice-cold claw hoping to pry the clamp off, but to no avail as the white robot tightened his grip and began starving the griffin to gasp with sharp breaths as Jake tapped the robot on the shoulder as his friend started to turn blue.

"Refrain from touching my circuitry."

"You don't have to tell me twice," replied Grif, out of breath as the robot relinquished his grip on his neck allowing him to breathe with less effort.

"So, we better get to class Bobert-" started Jake as he noticed Bobert's eye contract and lens around it turn a glowing red. "Bobert?"

The robot seemed to snap out of it as he shook his head. "Yes, what is it, Jake?"

The coyote pondered for a brief second, what had been up with that whole expression. The coyote did remember Bobert could be glitchy from time to time. Perhaps that is why there was that sudden flash, yes, that would make sense. The griffin nudged him getting his attention.

"Is it just me, or does Bobert seem different?"

"Nah, you're overreacting Grif, he's probably a bit banged up is all," replied the coyote in a whisper.

The presentations went fine for most of the class. Randal and Jake presented almost flawlessly besides the fact that Jake lost his train of thought once or twice. Grif managed to carry the project by himself while Tobias tried to add to the presentation by presenting his own information which was either off by a long shot or not relevant to Carbon at all. All the rest of the class presented their project in a concise manner and maintained a level of accuracy other than that. However, when it came time for Bobert and Anton to present a bizarre turn of events occurred. The piece of toast was putting up their poster board when something went haywire with Bobert as he began to shuffle from language to language while presenting. First, it was English, then it changed to Spanish, before cycling to French, German, Welsh, Russian, Swahili, Mongolian, Indonesian, Maori, before finally sticking to Icelandic. The class looked on perplexed at the presentation, Grif swore that sparks were coming out of Miss Simian's nose by the end of it. Jake believed that as far as he could tell Miss Simian thought Bobert had been intentionally switching his language program in order to mock her or confuse the class, as such Bobert received his first detention from the ancient baboon.

Jake couldn't help but feel bad for the robot as his eye drooped and he shuffled his way back to his chair, his feet grinding against the floor sending sparks in all directions and causing the whole class to cover their ears at the unpleasant noise. Whatever the glitch with Bobert might be it was causing its fair share of problems.

"Well, that could have gone better," said Brian exiting the room and catching up with the others who were already waiting for him.

"I never believed that Bobert would have gotten a detention," said Cato shaking his head. "That robot never has problems like this."

"Well, other than that time he tried to copy my personality and then Jake's," responded Gumball thinking pensively.

"Or that time we got him to be our servant," replied Darwin reminiscing.

"Isn't your dad a computer programmer or something, couldn't he figure out what's causing problems for Bobert?"

"He is, but I'm not sure he could really find a way to keep Bobert still long enough," said Brian shrugging.

"Didn't your dad work on robotics for a time Jake?" asked Grif, as the coyote quickly gave an answer.

"Yeah, he did, he does biomed tech now so I'm sure he could disable Bobert and then your dad could do a scan or something," suggested Gumball hopefully as the two nodded.

"We can give it a shot."

When school finally let out the kids put their plan into action, as well as trying to get some extra hands having been able to find Rhonda and Kelsey. However, they weren't prepared to end up with a wildcard show up.

"We all set up?" said Jake indicating at the power grid that Gumball and Darwin were modifying like mad engineers.

"We're in great shape, this pulse should disable Bobert, well, in theory," said the blue cat sheepishly. "Or we could knock out power for the whole city. Either outcome is probable."

"I don't see how parts from a toaster, a damaged computer, and a light switch could make an EMP."

"I guess that when you've got Gumball and Darwin they can accomplish practically anything, even though it doesn't really make sense," replied Grif shrugging.

The sound of heavy footsteps signaled that someone was approaching their location.

"Get into position," hissed Jake hiding behind a bush as Kelsey over and knelt down next to him. Both held their breath as the sound of metal footsteps got closer and closer.

However, it wasn't the robot that they had anticipated would arrive, instead, it was Blockbuster who tilted his head slightly as if to look behind the bush they were hiding behind. The coyote and fennec fox remained completely still, not daring to move as the robot shifted his gaze to the power grid before walking up to it and examining the modifications that had been made to it with an apparent sense of interest. Without warning the robot activated his weapons mode as missile launchers appear from his shoulders and blew the power grid completely apart sending slabs of concrete and other debris into the air in a looming cloud of gray dust. The robot didn't dawdle as he activated his rocket boosters and took off easy breaking the sound barrier causing the sonic boom to nearly shatter the ear drums of everyone there. They watched in horror as the whole of Elmore was now without power, that wasn't good, maybe there was backup power, hopefully.

"I wonder what's his big hurry?" asked Rhonda frowning looking at the horizon where the robot had just disappeared from.

"Maybe he knew it was an EMP or something," said Grif once again shrugging.

"Seems likely, he is a robot after all, wouldn't he have some sort of scanning feature on that visor of his?" asked Cato.

"Maybe, but I have a feeling he's hiding something, whatever it is it can't be good."

"Then let's go find out," said Kelsey eagerly as she nudged the coyote with her elbow.

"Yeah, let's do that," replied Brian, shaking his head still trying to shake off the sonic boom.

A falling steel beam landed a few feet from the coyote as the remains of the power grid began to crumble and fall in on itself.

"You've got to be kidding me…" said Jake in disbelief as a second large steel beam began to crumble and fall towards the coyote.

"This way," insisted Grif pointing down the grassy hill as he took flight right as pieces of concrete landed where he was seconds ago.

Everyone had already gotten a head of steam because of this, running past the coyote before sliding down the hill.

"Ah crap!" shouted Jake as he dived down the incline headfirst.

The coyote tumbled down the hill uncontrollably, his fur and new clothes being splattered with mud as he skidded. He thought for sure that he had lost the others. As the coyote continued to pick up speed he noticed that he was heading uncontrollably towards a narrow and deep ravine with a river with what looked like a strong current at the bottom of it.

"Jake over here!" shouted a familiar voice as the coyote looked over to see Kelsey at the end of the incline on top of a small plateau overlooking the ravine.

The coyote used all his might to steer himself in that direction as he skidded from side to side in a mad scramble to make it as he leaped towards the edge where Kelsey was crouching at. The coyote barely made it catching the ledge with one hand as his fingers began slipping off the edge, he was about to fall…

"C'mon," said Kelsey, quickly grabbing him by the hand as he almost fell. She dug her heels into the dirt and with some effort, she managed to haul the coyote onto the plateau where he lay staring at the sky as he panted.

"Thanks for the rescue Kelse," replied the coyote getting up off the ground as he dusted himself off.

"Well, at least we're both safe, that's what is important after all," replied Kelsey smiling, before playfully punching his shoulder. The coyote wrapped his arm around her, as they shared a brief moment looking off the plateau into the distance before breaking apart. "Let's go find the others and see if we can get to the bottom of this."

"Lead the way."

Bobert had been running full diagnostic scans to see what the problem was with him ever since his lunch detention with Miss Simian, he had even missed a meet up with Jake who had offered to give him some sort of new tech to perhaps fix the bugs he was having, but he had doubted that the coyote had enough experience with computer systems to help him out. Nonetheless, he was sure things would get better eventually. His scan finally yielded nothing, and the robot shrugged. A strong buzz shook the robot unexpectedly as he felt himself shudder and fall to the floor. He felt like he was still in control but something wasn't really agreeing with him like someone else was peering into his mind.

Gumball and Darwin arrive on the spot to see a red-eyed Bobert tampering with the stop lights to turn a four-way intersection all green as cars crashed into each other and airbags went off. The blaring of so many car alarms at once was greatly distracting as the robot turned to face them his eye now a gleaming scarlet, burning like fire.

"Dude, what's up with you?"

The robot didn't respond as iron plating covered his head to fit as he entered his battle mode and targeted the two Watterson brothers the red laser beams crashing into the ground and scorching the earth they had previously been standing upon.

"He certainly isn't one for words right now," muttered the blue cat as he dodged another intense blast for Bobert's weapon systems.

"I recommend we run before we end up like a roasted chicken," answered Darwin, as another blast sent parts of the street up into the air, as well as traffic swerving to avoid the new hazards.

"I think we should avoid making friends with iron giants from this point forward," replied Gumball sarcastically with a chuckle.

"Dude, you're still cracking jokes at a time like this?"

"If I go out, then I may as well go out laughing."

The scorch of the laser was almost upon them as the titanic robot charged up his weapons for another shot as the brothers looked desperately for a way to get away from the red laser. A flash of lightning shocked them as a familiar figure shrouded with electricity hurled them out of the way as the laser one again scorched the earth, setting the once green grass ablaze as it turned brown and the blades curled and turned to ash. Cato ground to a halt only stopping after the soles of his shoes were once again smoldering and the sight of Bobert terrorizing the city was far out on the horizon. They were safe for now.

"That was too close," panted Cato quickly recovering and wiping the sweat from his brow. "Now what?"

"We have to find a way to stop Bobert, or the amount of property damage in this city will go way up."

"I'm surprised they haven't tried to stick us with the bill again," said Darwin, cringing at the memory.

"Right, forgot about that. Why don't we use-"

"If you're going to suggest to find a giant, a T-rex, or some of the most disgusting stuff every acquired in Elmore that is currently in the freezer, then kindly reconsider," said Cato, preemptively facepalming.

"I was actually thinking about all three at once actually," said Gumball after a brief moment as as Cato shook his head.

"No!"

"Alright, fine, but we have got to figure out what's wrong with Bobert, and how Blockbuster is involved," said Gumball pausing as he thought about what to do. "Say, where are the others?"

"They're currently looking into where Blockbuster went, he was getting chased down by Grif last I check."

"That should be interesting."

The griffin, the purple fox, and the dusty brown coyote collapsed in a heap in order to try and slow down the robot who just waved his arm lazily, using his heavy gray fists to do the work, batting the three of them aside as they skidded backwards painfully against the asphalt as the robot fixed his neck casually cracking it from side to side. Rhonda and Kelsey arrive on the scene just in time to see the red and white griffin roll over and spit out a tooth.

"You know, you could use a little help you know," insisted Kelsey as the coyote hopped into the fray again and ended up being tossed around like a ragdoll.

"Hop in anytime you'd like," said the coyote with a grimace as he clutched his ribs and picked himself up again.

The fennec fox and yellow mouse jumped in eagerly as the robot used a sonic blast to knock them back slightly causing their heads to spin.

"He hasn't even broken a sweat," said Jake shaking his head in disappointment.

"Well no duh, he's a robot after all."

"It's just a figure of speech," replied the coyote rolling his eyes as he rubbed off the coarse bits of asphalt off his clothes with his paws.

"If Blockbuster would just sit still for once, that would be much appreciated."

"Jake, I have a crazy idea, so crazy it just might work."

"Fire away Grif."

"There's no time to explain, I just need your permission to do it."

"Why do I always get a bad feeling whenever you announce something like this?"

"You're worried that I will become a frequent visitor to the hospital and that I will know all of the doctors on a first name basis."

"Pretty much."

"Don't worry, Rhonda and I have this covered," said Grif with a wink as he dodged to the side as a gray missile narrowly missed him, skimming against the ground and exploding in a fireball right behind him. "Rhonda, think we can do that trick shot we were doing in basketball."

"Um, I'm not so sure about that, last time you skidding halfway across the court and dislocated your jaw," said Rhonda apprehensively as the griffin stretched readying himself for the challenge.

"Yeah, but it will be better than last time!"

"I hope you know what you're doing Grif."

The yellow mouse sprinted at full speed alongside the shorter griffin, who thanks to his wings was able to keep pace with Rhonda's blinding speed. They dodged and leapt from side to side outmaneuvering the assaults from the robot as Rhonda did a cartwheel, while halfway through the maneuver Grif landed on top of her feet which she kicked up in the air launching the griffin even higher as he landed on top of the robot managing to know him over and cause him to be pinned to the ground.

"Gotcha!" exclaimed the griffin triumphantly as the robot tried to push him off, but to no avail.

"Great work Grif, you even managed to stick the landing this time," said Rhonda chuckling as she walked over to him.

"Couldn't have done it without you, Rhonda."

"Sure, you could have! Just not as smoothly though," replied Rhonda with a grin as the griffin gave her an enthusiastic high-five.

"That's what I'm talking about! Thanks a lot, Rhonda the Magnificent!"

"Thanks for the nickname."

"I've got plenty more where that came from."

"Uh, I don't mind it, but it just Rhonda to you," said the yellow mouse rubbing the back of her neck sheepishly.

"Fair enough," said Grif shrugging with a smile as Jake dusted Blockbuster off.

"So what did you do to Bobert?" said Jake glaring at the robot as the robot held the same silent demeanor.

"You're wasting your time, Blockbuster doesn't talk. Or does he?" asked Grif, now with an interested expression.

The robot didn't move for several seconds until finally, he displayed some sort of coding right in front of them, via holographic projection.

"What is that?"

"Looks like some sort of coding, most likely for a virus," said Brian glancing at it, while the robot nodded his head in acknowledgment.

"What would you have to gain from infecting Bobert like that?" asked Rhonda angrily as the robot pulled up some sort of listing for Bobert's technology and then looked like something of his own programming where a single line was highlighted, but something was off about it like somehow the robot had taken it to extreme.

ALL BLOCKBUSTER UNITS ARE OF THE BEST QUALITY

"So, you're the only top of the line product that can be produced from Digiverse Tech huh?" asked Kelsey raising an eyebrow to which the robot curtly nodded. It seemed like the robot had taken his program to the extreme believing himself to be the only kind of robot Elmore might have.

"Too bad, you're going to help us fix Bobert, whether you like it or not," said Jake forceful, the robot crossed his arms defiantly refusing to budge from the spot. "Alright, fine, we can see what my dad can do to you with a soldering iron instead then."

That got Blockbuster cooperating as he quickly changed his demeanor as he scrolled through solutions to debug Bobert.

"Says here we have to reboot the servers, that should reset all Blockbuster units, and the coding for them will reset, including Bobert since he was infected with Blockbuster's code," said Jake reading through it.

"Yeah, but are you sure Mr. Personality over here is going to want to go through with this," said Grif, pointing at the robot who Jake could almost swear that he was giving a silent glare at the griffin.

"We may not like each other, but we have to work together, for Bobert's sake, as well as our own."

"Siding with him is still siding with evil," said Grif critically as the coyote sighed deeply.

"Noted, but in the meantime, we have to find a way to stop Bobert, or at least slow him down so we can reboot him."

The coyote looked out upon the horizon, the city of Elmore had been set ablaze by Bobert continued to torch the city with his lasers. His home and family were down there, friends, and innocent civilians. The coyote fell to his knees, devastated the others looked down on the city, blown away. He wept bitter tears before the soft paw of Kelsey rubbed against his head and he looked at her ashen face as he brushed his tears away.

"How do we stop this?" pleaded Jake, desperately.

I have only got eighteen chapters left to go! Well, actually only seventeen and an epilogue, this story is now just flying by now that I have found the time to work on it, though I may have to slow down and plot things out from time to time, but hopefully I will be able to finish by the end of this summer. Anyways, The Outsider is now all on the downhill from here, I hope you all enjoyed this chapter as it's always fun to see what I can come up with. Thank you all so much for the support, you're all such a patient and great viewing audience. In the meantime stay cool, and hang loose! Nomad going silent.

Next chapter- The Reboot-Part Two

With a little help from Glenn and Gordon the gang manages to get into Digiverse Tech, but will they manage to reboot the system, and can they fully trust Blockbuster?

Steelwall's Notes:

-Looks like things certainly took a turn for the worst there. A good amount of action in this chapter as well. I am curious as to why Blockbuster is making Bobert destroy the city instead of just shutting him down permanently, or is it just a side effect from the virus instead of it's main purpose?

Nomad's Notes:

-I wanted to showcase some comradery between the characters in this chapter to give off the vibe that they are all very good friends, specifically Grif and Rhonda in this chapter. As you can probably tell, Grif kinda looks up to her, as well likes to joke around with her. I can imagine I'm not going to spoil anything, but their good friendship will have a part to play in future chapters. ;)

-It was fun to include this many characters and have how they reacted and dealt with their situations as well as banding together to work towards a common goal.

-I think I'm going to put in some side characters for fun once again in these upcoming chapters, like Hugo and Eileen, Alex, and others.