Teri x Gumball: In between worlds

by FantasticSchaefer

Three months after a devastating break up, a depressed Gumball is surprised when Teri shows up at his house in the middle of the night with a monster chasing her. Soon Gumball and Teri find themselves caught in an invasion by invisible monsters known as "Nephilim" and have to prevent Elmore's destruction. Will this unlikely duo succeed or will Elmore be trampled underfoot?

7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7: Burning Skies

Teri x Gumball

(A/N): well how are you folks out there? Gonna be real here for a sec, I did not plan to get this far behind, but a lot of things came up and there was just very little time in between to actually get work done. There were also times where I missed out so much on writing that I felt absolutely lost when I sat down to actually write the chapter and I would just wind up rage quitting after writing several sentences. Bottom line is, I'm sorry for the delay because the moment spring break came in, I was off to different places and then there was a crap ton of other things that I had to do afterwards, causing me to fall out of sync with my writing flow.

And with all that aside, we're back with the seventh chapter of the romantic/fantasy story, Teri x Gumball: In between worlds! It's a lovely day today and so that means good times for writing. I'm looking forward to bringing out some more action in this chapter along with great character moments from the colorful cast of amazing characters from this amazing show based on Gumball's amazing world.

Today's chapter is going to be a tame one with some moments taking place in school following the day after Gumball, Teri, and Rob faced off against the powerful Se'arot squad and will be also focusing on some of the consequences that follow after pulling off such a feat. This chapter will also be a short one and I have high hopes that this will reach you guys soon. We will see Gumball, Teri, and Rob working together as a team in this chapter as well and a lot will be tested amongst the three.

Without further ado, let's dive right in and I hope you guys enjoy this recent upload. Please leave a review and a like down below if you were satisfied or if you have something that needs to be said about my writing style or storytelling. Enjoy your day and the contents.

(I do not own The Amazing World of Gumball. All rights belong to Ben Bocquelet, the staff, Cartoon Network, and other respective owners.)

-Elmore Junior High chemistry lab, September 20th, 2013, 2:19 PM-

The overcast was something to be looked upon with some value, despite the negative beliefs that most people placed upon it. With grey clouds often comes rain, and from rain some simple lifeforms will thrive. The natural blocking of the sun by this grey misty shield that so many children and adults alike look upon with ill contempt, can easily be overlooked thanks to its dreary appearance and thus, they miss the real fortune this dull weather brings and that is temporary protection from the sun's harmful rays. A grey day much like the one currently passing over Elmore should be counted on as a blessing for the brief amount comfort nature unsuspectingly brings to the lives of the ordinary.

For the even the extraordinary must yield to the laws of nature and three particular residents of this peculiar city were about to learn that today.

Far from the minds of all the students in the chemistry class being hosted by Mr. Small was the current predicament of the world just beyond the glass pane of their windows and the bricks that were their walls, as they were mostly excited for what the end of today would bring. The coming of another mandatory two day vacation drew near as the seventh grade class of sixth hour chemistry continued with their routine while occasionally filling the air with excited chatter over what they had planned for the weekend or what they did during the two day cancellation that occured prior. Everyone seemed to be in high spirits and it could be felt by every student and staff member as it was Friday and the day was almost over.

Sitting with her assigned group, Teri Pepakuma was grinning ear-to-ear while she worked on organizing the labeled containers of various chemicals and elements that were to be used during today's assignment. Mr. Small was nice enough to give the class a fun task to perform in their time during sixth hour and put everyone in groups of four with Teri being placed with Carmen, Molly, and Carrie as they were assigned to conduct various experiments using the given materials while also balancing the formulas written in their homework packets. It was an easy assignment that Teri and the three girls were happy to take part in, along with the rest of the class.

Sadly, Teri had to get copies of her old homework sheets thanks to losing her bag to a Nephilim she and Gumball fought last night known simply as Flakey Platter or Olaf, which was even more lame when you thought about it. She was scolded by her parents after she got home and had given them a made up excuse of it being nabbed by a passing truck. They went out and bought her another bag late at night after she told them what had happened before dropping her back off at Molly's place.

She wasn't too upset about it, being glad that she lost only a bag and not her life, but she was still bothered at all the things she lost within it and was more than happy when Gumball spoke to her on the bus and offered to share his textbooks and assignments so that she wasn't too far behind. Once again, this kid who she once found to be irrefutably annoying and gross surprised her with his offers to help and Teri couldn't help but favor him as a friend. He even apologized for not being too careful while scaling the walls and letting her get snatched away in the first place, but she turned down his apologies after telling him that he couldn't have known and thus wasn't his fault.

The first ten minutes of class went by steadily as the class groups continued to work with their individual tasks and exchanged words regarding what was on their mind. Teri was listening to Carmen as she told the three of them what she was looking forward to in the field trip to San Francisco that was happening on October 4th in the coming two weeks. It had been the topic of several subjects for the past few days, with Teri having heard it several times already, the most being at the picnic and the slumber party at Molly's tree house.

Despite having talked about it several times prior, the walking, sociable cactus that was her friend and leader of the EJH cheer squad was chatting about it nonstop,

"I've never been to San Francisco before! Do you think we're gonna see the golden gate bridge while we're there? I wanna visit Chinatown too and see all the cool festivities! I also hear that Alcatraz island is really scary! Do you think it's haunted, Carrie?" Carmen excitedly asked while she carefully wrote down one of the chemical formulas and did the math in her head to balance out the various elements grouped together.

Reading through her packet, the emo ghost answered the chatty girl's question nonchalantly,

"Yep." was all she said and didn't even bother looking from her pages.

She wasn't actually studying the contents, rather just staring blankly at the text-filled pages in front of her while something remained stuck on her mind.

Carmen was a big fan of traveling the world and wanted to see famous sights of different places, so seeing the golden gate bridge along with San Francisco's other main attractions was a definite must for the prickly classmate. Teri found herself to be quite indifferent when thinking about the field trip and she had a few reasons as to why she felt this way. While she did indeed enjoy taking a trip to other places, she detested cities with a passion for the many possible diseases that would no doubt be everywhere with all the various people who flocked to the place. In short, she liked seeing something new, but prefered to view new places from the comfort of her own home where it was safe and clean,

"Well if were traveling to such a place, I can only hope that we'll be sightseeing only from the bus...with the windows closed… and from a respectable ten mile radius." she muttered as she carefully sorted a few Sodium Chloride containers and kept them far away from from any sources of water.

Carmen eyed her paper friend with suspicion and spoke while continuing to finish up her written assignment,

"I'm guessing you're not much of a city person, huh?" she asked, already assuming that her fear of microbes was causing her to feel slightly anxious about the trip.

"I'm not much of a anywhere-with-tons-of-germ-carrying-people kind of person if I were to get technical." she corrected.

This surprised no one and Carrie was the next to speak up once she found that the table was silent,

"Well, it would have to top the trip to Transylvania if it is to win any memorable moments with me." the ghost girl said while leaning back on the stool she was hovering above.

Gaining the attention of the adventurous cactus, Carmen shifted her glance over to the punk rock chick and began inquiring her about her trip to Transylvania,

"Oh, I totally forgot about that! Was it fun? Were your relatives pretty cool? What do ghosts do when they hang out? Did you visit any of the castles? Were there any vampires?" Carmen continued to pile on the questions, desperate to drain the ghost girl of any information regarding her journey to Europe.

"Oooh! I hope you didn't encounter any vampires!" Molly squealed, holding her trunk-like legs to her face in fright,

"I remember this one time my grandpa told me a story about vampires, but I didn't really pick up on most of it except for the scary bits. Anyway, I had to sleep with the lights on that night and it was really bothersome at first because I couldn't get to sleep, but I didn't want to turn off the lights either because like I said, I was scared. I decided to pass the time by counting all the cracks in the ceiling, but I lost count after 10,776,992 and so i decided to count how many red colored pencils I had, which was 17, then I counted how many blue colored pencils I had, which was 51, and then I counted…" Molly Collins continued to babble on like she normally did, completely losing herself in her story while the three girls had long since tuned her out.

Flipping her hair, Carrie remained chill despite the sudden amount of attention she was gaining and she hid her grin behind her hands after propping her elbows onto the table,

"It actually was pretty cool. Turns out my dad has a really funny family and we all kind of hung around the castle and cracked jokes while also sharing some personal stories. I even learned that one of my cousins knew Edgar Allen Poe when he was alive!" she tried to keep her usual apathetic and tortured facade, but couldn't hide the actual content she was feeling and displaying for all the girls to see,

"After that, Dad and I spent the whole day traveling the city, meeting up with some old friends of his, possessing pests to sample the food, and Dad talked a lot of his travels too. It was the most talkative I've ever seen him and it gave me a better picture of what he was like when he was alive. I thought it was an amazing trip, too bad I couldn't bring any of you guys along because I totally would have." she finished, her smile even warmer as she relived the memories.

There was an explosion of questions that quickly followed Carrie's description of her vacation in Romania from all the girls around table, most of which included what were the people like? What was food like (although that one was probably best left unanswered because they did possess common pests like rats in order to get food.)? How did the people dress? And so many others that kept coming.

Knowing that she wasn't going to be able to answer them all, Carrie redirected the conversation to Molly, who had grown silent when Teri and Carmen began bombarding her with questions. She decided to congratulate her on receiving second place in the picnic contest and wanted to know how she created such a wonderful coleslaw. Carrie herself wasn't really disappointed in Darwin and herself for placing low in the contest, 9th place to be exact, because they didn't know there was going to be a contest and they did just bring two bags of chips with different seasonings,

"Yeah, Molly! Yesterday at the picnic, Darwin and I tried out your food and it was SO good! Where did you get that delicious coleslaw recipe by the way?" she leaned forward with her elbows pressed on the table.

The other girls turned to the blocky sauropod and Molly's cheeks turned a flustered pink as she nervously looked about the room,

"Oh, that's just an recipe my grandpa passed down to me." she humbly explained while putting an arm behind her long neck,

"He used to make it every time he invited his friends from his fishing club over and we'd all hang out and just watch some fishing channels while chatting with each other. I thought I'd make that since it was the only thing that I can make and because I thought it was pretty good myself." she explained, keeping it surprisingly short.

Everyone knew that Molly's parents were hard working people and were barely home most of the time, so they usually left her grandpa to watch over the quiet member of the EJH cheer squad. It was great that Molly had someone to come home to and talk to, but her elderly relative wasn't much of a conversationalist and most of the staff and students speculated that's what lead to Molly being… well, boring. She was like her parents though, a hard worker and someone they could rely on to help out. As a matter of fact, she was pretty good at remembering anything that was taught to her and she had been really helpful with the chemistry assignment today.

While the girls continued to compliment her cooking and congratulate her for getting second place in the picnic contest, the conversation quickly switched to food and what they all did before the picnic. Carmen was the first to describe what she did two days ago, which included an early morning jog that lead her to the park which sparked the idea of having a picnic there and contacted Alan about it. She and her boyfriend then met up after sending the text to everyone to start baking, but quickly discovered that they were lacking a few key ingredients for their cookies. Without any money to buy any of the items, they spent most of the day doing outdoor services for their neighbors and when they earned enough dough, they went to the store to make the dough at home.

Carmen finished her story stating that it was a lot of hard work that paid off because she had a lot of fun with Alan as well as the rest of the class. This was one thing Teri appreciated about Carmen, she was a natural leader who was quick on her feet and could think of great ways to get people together as well as a way to get out of a bind. Her dedication to whatever task she put her mind to was also inspiring for all the girls around her and that's why she was their squad leader.

Carrie then told everyone about what she and Darwin did before the picnic, seeing as she wasn't at the treehouse yesterday to describe it. Teri found it cute how she and Darwin were able to find things to do even when their personalities were at odds with one another. They basically hung out at her mansion for most of the day, although she did describe a fun adventure at the mall's arcade where Darwin bet her that he could shoot five hoops at the basketball machine in under ten seconds. It ended hilariously with one of the balls bouncing off the rim and smacking Larry in the head by accident. There was a noticeable warm expression on the emo's face while she retold the story and even her laugh was pleasant. Looks like dating Darwin for nearly half a year has softened her up a bit.

She then finished her story with Darwin and her heading to the grocery store to get the bags of chips and then the conversation was steered towards Teri, who hadn't told anyone what she and Gumball did two days ago even when she had plenty of time to do so. Teri froze up when Carrie asked her and she found herself fidgeting a little with her fingers as the three girls sitting around leaned in to hear what she had been neglecting to tell them,

"Oh, not much…" she started off casually, avoiding their eyes,

"I mean, we woke up pretty early and while I cleaned the house, Gumball made this really delicious breakfast bread and when we got the message from Alan about the picnic, his baking gave me the idea for the cake. He even let me pick which one to bake and after we started baking it, which was actually pretty fun on its own, we both went out for a pleasant walk in the indus-I mean, around the neighborhood. It was really nice, the weather was especially pleasant, and when we got home we just kind of watched some old movies in my bedroom… by ourselves." her cheeks were starting to flush in color at the memory as she enjoyed those quiet moments with him.

Molly, quite intrigued, let an oooh! And placed her trunk-like hands together,

"That's so sweet! I didn't even know Gumball could bake!" Molly swooned as she turned to cast a glance at Gumball, who was partnered up with Darwin, Bobert, and Clayton at the table behind them.

Carrie crossed her arms and smiled a little,

"Huh, no kidding? I never knew either and I've been dating his brother for quite some time now." she remarked with some interest, although she caught onto her near slip up and was quite suspicious because it almost sounded like she was about to say Industrial zone.

Kind of like where she sensed that one disturbance on the same day.

While she pondered this, Carmen spoke up to Teri, alluding to both her and Gumball,

"So he made you breakfast while staying at your place, did he? What a gentleman!" she beamed.

Teri felt her face become a few shades darker and her heart rate accelerated a bit in response to the cactus girl's positive comments,

"Well, yeah. He kind of does it because it's his way of saying thanks!" she exclaimed, hoping that she doesn't get the wrong idea about the two of them.

That was until Carrie pointed something out,

"Hmm, sounds very generous of him. Is his generosity the inspiration for your new outfit?" she asked with a mischievous grin.

Teri froze on the spot, she of course was referring to the clothing customization she did today before she was picked up by the bus. She didn't do much except use a pencil to draw on a skirt with a few ruffles added on for texture, a ribbon under her blazer's collar and she even added on black stockings by shading in her legs. She wanted to look cute for today, but what got her worried was that Carrie seemed to see right through her because she did in fact want Gumball to notice her today. She had a reason too, although she even admitted it was a little ridiculous, but it was because of Gumball's remark about Sherry yesterday that elicited this kind of change.

She knew that Gumball only mentioned her name, but when she was talking about watching herself and the others at cheerleading, something just kind of went off in her head that night. She didn't harbor any ill feelings towards their newest member, as a matter of fact, Gumball probably never even met her, but she kind of wanted to make sure that Gumball was only paying attention to her during practice. She hoped that she wasn't sounding too selfish or paranoid, but she didn't know why Gumball's attention meant a lot to her.

She hoped it wasn't because…

Her thoughts were interrupted by Molly making a noise as she began bubbling up with excitement,

"Hey, she's right! You never really wear different outfits, so this must be a special occasion for you!" she squealed, her eyes shining brightly.

"Trying to catch Gumball's eye, hmm? Giving him a little eye candy for making you breakfast." Carmen stated suggestively, which was really unlike her and it made Teri really nervous when she made that smug dog look.

Teri flinched and began waving her hands frantically in front of her face while she nervously began sweating,

"No way! I was just trying out a new look today and I thought it was cute!" she quickly said in her defense, hoping to ward off their suspicion.

However, Carmen seemed more enticed to press on and retained her smug look as she knew why Teri was acting the way she did,

"Well he certainly thinks so! I believe a certain blue feline has been gawking at you for the past ten minutes now." she said with a sneaky smile.

Teri's eyes widened in surprise and her head shot around until she could see Gumball's table,

"What?!" she exclaimed as she looked to see if she could validate Carmen's claim.

At the table behind them, Gumball wasn't actually looking at her and instead was focused on a scale holding two sheets of paper on one end and a sheet of paper with a dozen paper clips on the other. He placed the final paper clip in the pile and the scales balanced out evenly,

"Done! There, Darwin! I balanced the formulas! It was really hard since the problems were on three sheets in the packet." he said with a satisfactory grin.

Darwin looked over and frowned when he saw what his brother did,

"Gumball, you were supposed to do the problems listed in the packet! You know, balance the equations until there is an equal number of isotopes!" he explained in a scolding tone, crossing his fins and slowly shaking his head in disappointment.

Confused, Gumball looked around the room and saw that everyone was doing as Darwin had just described to him. Growling and glaring at his torn packet papers, Gumball facepalmed at his stupidity as well as his misunderstanding of the task. He grabbed his packet and torn out pages as he sighed, got up from his stool, and stomped to the front of the class while talking to Bobert,

"Bobert, could you do the formulas, please? I need to go get a stapler." he muttered as he walked away.

"Affirmative!" the small robot replied as he looked down at the packet in front of him before activating his printing scanner and completing the problems in 4.3 seconds.

Seeing that Gumball wasn't even looking at her and that she'd been tricked, Teri felt her face burn red while her features twisted into a grumpy expression. She turned around and glared at a grinning Carmen, who was struggling to contain her laughter at this point,

"That was mean, Carmen!" she seethed, while pointing an accusing finger at her.

The prickly desert plant could no longer contain herself and burst into a fit of wheezing laughs that was quickly joined by the three other girls. If you asked which was darker in shade: a tomato or Teri's face, Teri's face would get the hotspot as she was completely embarrassed now. She felt Carmen's hand press itself on her back and Teri turned to see that she was leaning close while she finished laughing,

"Sorry, sorry, I know that wasn't very nice of me, but your eyes were so wide when I said that, not to mention how quickly you turned around to see if it was true." she said through bouts of snickers.

The paper girl reminded herself to never share whatever she does with Gumball, whether it be a sleepover or a simple walk from their lockers, ever again. When she looked at Carmen's face though, she could tell by the honest look she was giving that she was just teasing. Teri jumped when she heard Carrie speak up and turned to see her still smiling while leaning on one elbow,

"But seriously though, he's been checking you out. During third hour, while we were taking that math test, I saw him peeking up at you every so often. It was real funny because he thought he was being real sneaky about it and then there was lunch where I saw him watching you walk to our table. He had his sandwich in his hands and was frozen in mid-bite, it was great!" she chuckled.

Now Teri considered her interest peaked when she heard Carrie's observations on the boy of her interests. At first she believed that Gumball hadn't really noticed anything different about her, aside from a compliment about her outfit and how she was looking great today on the bus, but now after what the ghost had said, she did notice that Gumball was acting strange around her. Whenever they were talking, he looked like he was studying her face and was actually paying real close attention to everything she said. He even seemed really quick to offer her any help, like when he offered to lend her his books and notes for the day, but she originally thought it was him just being nice after she lost her bag yesterday.

Did her change suddenly grab his attention and get him to start noticing/treating her differently?

The idea of this made Teri feel very warm and fluttery on the inside and she wondered if she should ask him if there was anything he found attractive about her. It felt nice that he was being so kind to her today and coupled with the knowledge that she had his attention made it all the better for her. She still wasn't sure how she felt about him, it was becoming more and more confusing to her, but knowing that he seemed interested in her and was going out of his way to be nice added a significant boost to her confidence.

She looked at Carrie with fascination and scooted closer in order to hear more about what she had noticed. She kept a neutral expression to keep it from looking too obvious, of course,

"Really! What else was he doing?" she eagerly asked, using a flat tone to mask her interest.

"Mmm, not much else from what I've noticed." Carrie said, turning her head slightly in the other direction as she glanced at the preteen, bipedal cat standing at Mr. Small's desk while discussing why he needed a stapler.

Feeling her head lower a bit, Teri looked in the direction the ghost girl was looking at and watched as Gumball seemingly grew frustrated with Mr. Small's lack of cooperation, it seemed as though the fluffy haired hippie was only interested in giving Gumball advice in the importance of understanding. She quickly looked away when Gumball turned his head in her direction and pretended that she was working on her packet.

She heard Carmen whisper close to her while her attention was on the assignment in sitting on the table,

"Well it's nice that he's got a thing for you, even though he seems a little shy about it, but what about you? Do you like him back?"

Not sure how to answer that, she felt her fingers tighten around her pencil as she paused and tried to think up an answer. She did like him for all the help he gave her and for all the nice things he's done in the past month, but she still thought of him as a close friend and despite how great they were together, he still drove her insane with his unclean lifestyle and his occasional wisecracks towards her knack for being neat and tidy. That still didn't explain why she chose to dress up differently in order to gain his attention, plus all the little odd moments that happened before when they did things that didn't seem… normal for two friends to do.

She decided to evade the question by redirecting it somewhere else,

"Um, do you understand the question on page fourteen? I can't get heads or tails of it and it's really bugging me?" she asked, furrowing her thin eyebrows as she tapped the page with her pencil's eraser.

Carmen was no fool and was able to catch on to what the flat member of her cheer squad was doing. It was funny because by dodging the question, Teri kind of answered it for her and that was something she found to be quite interesting. She pondered whether or not she should set up some kind of date for the two, but pushed those thoughts aside for now because helping her classmates was the number one priority,

"Okay then." she answered with a shrug, secretly letting her know that she knew what was up, before leaning over and inspecting the page Teri was stuck on,

"What problem are you stuck on?" she asked.

"Um, number four, I can't find the right number for this half of the formula." she pointed out, obviously stumped.

While Carmen went over the problem with her, Teri overheard Molly and Carrie talking about someone and when he perked her round ears up, she found that they were talking about Hector Jotenheim, the friendly giant and star athlete of the Elmore ducks. From what she could hear, it turns out Hector was acting kind of unusual this morning, but in a positive way. It would appear that Hector was far more chatty this morning and was even asking friends if they wanted to hang out with him in the park. It certainly got Molly's attention and the normally shy school girl was talking nonstop about him to the floating spirit.

Not sure what was up with that, Teri was well aware of the bizarre changes happening around the school and wondered what could have been the catalyst to these strange things.

While she remained lost in thought, Gumball finally managed to get a stapler from the less-than-helpful school counselor who was substituting for Mr. Corneille and proceeded back to his table. He passed by Teri's group and stole a glance at the paper bear before quickly twisting his head back towards the direction of his current destination. He knew he's been doing that a lot as of lately, but he couldn't help it! Ever since this morning, when he got on the bus (he was in a grumpy mood because he was scolded by his mom last night for being out for over two hours and returning with a mark on his face and chest, torn clothes and his bow and arrows missing along with his jacket.) he headed straight over to Teri's spot and when he saw her sitting there in her new outfit, he was completely blown away! Not only was it a little different than when he'd normally see her, but she looked absolutely adorable! Well, he always thought she looked cute, but today took it to a whole new level.

He spoke with her the whole time on the bus and when he heard that she got in trouble for losing her bag and all her school work in it, he immediately offered to let her borrow his and even apologized for her losing it. While she told him it was alright and she was thankful for him helping her out, his focus was mostly on her face and he kept on noticing little things that otherwise passed completely under his radar. He noticed how her eyes would light up whenever something interesting came to her mind, how her little black nose would wrinkle up a bit whenever she mentioned something that disgusted her and how her round ears would twitch whenever he said something. He even noticed that she would lean in real close at times while he spoke and seemed completely engaged in whatever topic they were talking about.

The observations didn't stop there either. After they got off the bus and went to their lockers, Gumball would often carefully watch her while she walked in the hallways and noted how she moved. He tried to hide his conspicuous behavior as cleverly as he could, feeling kind of awkward for staring too long because he didn't want anyone to think he was being weird or creepy even. Every chance that presented itself, the blue cat would quickly look over at the paper girl and every time he spotted her, he always noticed something he liked. For example, she had a little bounce to her step whenever she was hurrying somewhere and her hands would often flare up a little when she skirted around people, so dainty looking!

While the male kitten was aware of what he was doing, he didn't know why it was like this all of the sudden and it was also causing slight changes in how he behaved. For one, he was now very energetic and full of positive feelings, even getting his butt kicked in dodgeball today barely phased him. He was also constantly thinking of Teri, even when he felt as though he should be paying attention to other things, like studying.

Joining up with his brother, the amorphous ball of clay, and the stout little robot, the feline began stapling his papers back together while he engaged his brother in a casual conversation,

"So why is Mr. Small teaching class today? I mean, not that I mind him, but his negotiation skills would land the U.S. in a nuclear war with Canada if they ever hired him as an ambassador." Gumball asked snidely while using his zinger as a means of displaying his discontent towards the pony-tailed, tea enthusiast.

Darwin carefully poured a green liquid from a beaker into a container filled with a mysterious blue one that Clayton was holding while he answered Gumball's question,

"Mr. Corneille was injured last night when he went to the Burrito Barn for dinner. From what I heard, three kids were arguing over who had to pay for the meal and when he went to absolve the situation, a girl with fluffy, colorful hair stabbed him in the thigh with a fork. He's taking the day off right now." he explained as though it were common knowledge.

"Yeah! There were a lot of cops that showed up, the S.W.A.T. team too! They tried chasing them down, but the three managed outwit and outrun them using parkour!" Clayton exclaimed, wanting in on the conversation.

Darwin shook his head and quickly disproved the red ball of clay's over exaggerated version of what happened,

"I think what Clayton meant to say was, Doughnut Sheriff showed up, but the three troublemakers already fled and none of the officers have found them yet." he revised much to Clayton's chagrin.

Before Clayton could object, both he and Darwin realized that they added too much of the chemical mix into the beaker Clayton was holding, which was starting to bubble and spark. Freaking out, Clayton first tossed it to Darwin, who also panicked and passed the reactive substance to Gumball, who let out a little scream before turning to Bobert, popping open a hatch on his side, tossing the now-burning and popping beaker in and slamming the door shut. There was a muffled Boom! that followed shortly after and Bobert's interiors were lit up by the bright explosion. The chemical explosion had very little effect on the robot as it only caused him to shake a little, his big head bobbing back and forth, his single optical lense glitched out for a moment and smoke drifted out from the seams of his artificial body.

The droid then let out a mechanical sound that sounded like a laugh and he raised a claw to the two lights that lit up whenever he spoke,

"That tickled!" he said with an electronic giggle.

Breathing a sigh of relief, Gumball sat back down and turned once more in Darwin's direction,

"But seriously, who would use a fork and also, why would someone have a fork on them? I don't remember Burrito Barn ever handing out silverware with their food, although it would have been helpful that one time when dad decided get breakfast through the drive through while dropping me off at school." Gumball sighed, remembering the one time he woke up late for school, forcing his dad to drive him in and to stop by the fast food restaurant for breakfast. They did and when Gumball tried eating his taco on the road to school, his dad stomped on the brakes when he noticed a yellow light causing Gumball to wear his food instead. He was still a bit salty about that incident and he resolved to never eat hand-held food in a moving vehicle ever again.

Darwin began getting another set of glass containers in order to repeat their failed experiment, hopefully with less distractions this time. He set the glass down and looked at Gumball before shrugging,

"I don't know? Silverware is a good weapon, I guess. Remember Sal Left Thumb? He used a spoon to rob a gas station during Mrs. mom's birthday." he said, recalling their one adventure at the gas station where they accidentally nearly helped the criminal rob the place. The result was the criminal was captured, but so was Nicole and they had to sing her happy birthday outside of a jail cell.

Gumball was about to object, but held his tongue when he thought about it and saw that he did have a point. After all, his scythe was his most effective weapon and it was basically an overpowered farming tool, if one were to look at it in such a way. Come to think of it, it was really scary how so many mundane objects could be used to hurt others and Gumball felt a shiver run down his spine as he thought of various things.

After Darwin and Clayton began mixing some more chemicals, Gumball started copying off of Bobert's worksheet and out of the corner of his eye he saw Tobias' table. Peeking over, he could see that he was working with Tina, Jamie, and Anton, the slice of toast that often hung around the two mean girls as their lackey, a role which he was forced into. Tobias seemed to be doing fine with Tina, as he was helping her participate by having her hold one of the beakers over a Bunsen burner with a pair of tongs while he kept an eye on the boiling liquid. Gumball was really glad to see that the two were getting along well, especially after what happened two days ago at the picnic, though that was mostly Jamie's fault.

He was about to say something to Darwin, when he turned and saw that the walking fish finished the chemical experiment and had pulled out his phone to text with someone. Curious as to who it was, Gumball looked over his shoulder and saw that Carrie had sent him a love text. Darwin then looked up at Carrie with a smile written on his face while Carrie was glancing back with a similar expression. Darwin blew her a kiss and the ghost girl caught it before placing it against her lips.

The two then went back to work and when Darwin had his attention elsewhere, he noticed Gumball was smiling at him after their cute display of affection,

"So where are you two going to hang out today?" he asked while wiggling his eyebrows suggestively.

Not being one to hide his activities due to embarrassment, Darwin happily explained to him the after school activity he and his girlfriend had planned,

"Not much. She wants to head on down to the football stadium because she's got some poems she wants me to read." his said.

Gumball snickered a little and placed both hands on his cheeks as he spoke in his cutesy voice,

"Awww! Someone's girlfriend has a lot of love poems she wants to share, but is too shy to let anyone else hear!" he said teasingly.

In response to this, Darwin kept his smile, but raised an eyebrow towards his older brother while folding his fins across his chest,

"For one, they're not love poems, they're her poems and also, at least I'm not hanging out there to gawk at a certain well-dressed cheerleader." he replied with a knowing aire to his voice.

His mouth dropping in shock, Gumball wondered how Darwin knew about what he and Teri were planning on doing after school. He was certain he didn't tell anyone else about their plans and the discussion happened last night,

"Actually you guys talked about it on the bus and I think the whole class heard you two." he said, answering his unspoken question.

Feeling like taking the conversation somewhere else, Gumball decided to talk about weekend plans,

"Whatever. What do you want to do for the weekend? I hear the weather's going to be lousy." he asked, taking a gander at the sky outside the window which still looked grey.

Darwin paused to think about something that would sound great for the both of them and turned to his older family member with a thoughtful expression,

"How about tomorrow we invite Tobias and Ocho over to play that new Ring game that came out recently? Seeing as Anais will be at Macey's house this weekend, Mrs. mom and Mr. dad are going out on Saturday to have lunch with the Yoshidas and the weather isn't going to be cooperative either. Sound good?" he scanned his brother's face while he awaited his answer.

Gumball nervously looked over at Ocho, who was working with Leslie, Masami, and Banana Joe, and began to sweat bullets when he saw the short tempered spider sprite begin to lose his marbles while focusing on the equations. Even though he learned his lesson about losing his cool on Tuesday, he still seemed to have anger issues that Gumball was just not willing to trust. At least Bobert seemed cool about the whole "incident" that cost the school several thousand dollars worth of repairs. It made Gumball wonder what they were going to cut out of the budget.

Pulling his attention away from the kid, Gumball looked back at Darwin with concern written all over his face,

"Uuummmm, yeeeeah… is it alright if we leave Ocho out of the invitation? I mean, I know he can sometimes be a chill dude to hang out with, but he can be a bit of a sore loser when it comes to games, not to sound too blunt in case you're worried." he mentioned with a quick sideways glance back at the table with the troublesome kid.

Darwin seemed to get his point as he leaned over to stare at Ocho and a tiny frown could be seen on his chubby face before he pulled back and looked at the blue cat,

"Oh, right… yeah, um, I'll just see if I can invite someone else since the game is better with four players." he said quickly and with a lowered voice, in case Ocho was listening.

"Oh can I come then?" Clayton asked, having been listening in on the conversation,

"I'm pretty good at first person shooters and I've already played the first two games." he further explained, already smiling.

Before Gumball and Darwin could offer their opinion on the matter, Bobert spoke up shortly after Clayton finished,

"If it is no trouble, would you mind if I joined the four of you on your weekend activities?" the robot asked, shifting its head to the side curiously.

Rubbing his chin, Gumball eyed Bobert suspiciously and pointed at him in a non-accusing manner,

"Okay, but do you have an 'easy' setting? Because we kind of want to have a fair match and would appreciate it if you didn't spend the entire the game blowing us up within every blink of an eye." he glared at him with slight distrust.

Bobert simply nodded his head, his servos whirring, and his eye closed in a positively expressive fashion,

"Affirmative!"

Seeing as it was difficult for a robot to lie, Gumball took his word for it and began recording his observations on the chemical reaction that Clayton and Darwin had completed. While Gumball was silent and concentrating, Darwin explained to Clayton and Bobert that with Tobias possibly coming over, one of them was going to have to sit out a match or two. Being the good guy that he is, the walking goldfish volunteered to sit the first few matches out so that the other guys could have fun.

He then nudged Gumball with an elbow and whispered to him,

"And also, if you feel the need to go outside, try to avoid any bikers and angry crows!" he then went back to conversing with their two lab partners after Gumball nodded in agreement with a grumpy face.

Last night, after he was dropped off by Teri, he got quite the surprise when he found his mom waiting for him in the living room and with an angry glare that could set fire to an entire forest. She was quite furious at him for being out late in the evening and for making he rest of them worry, especially since he was acting so strange. He quickly spun up a lie saying that he actually went out to go scare away a crow that had been pestering a few kids near the park and on his way back, a biker came out of nowhere and ran him over. He also lost his jacket after a truck passed by and snagged it with its mirror. Regardless, his mom was fed up with him and made him do his chores without being paid his allowance.

Obviously, he was upset from last night's events and he told his siblings about what happened: turns out they too were pretty ticked at him for causing them unnecessary stress.

He promised Darwin that he would try to be more careful in the future and went back to slouching in front of his papers. Speaking of paper, he looked back up once again and saw Teri talking to Carmen and Molly about something. He found his grumpy expression quickly fading and was replaced with a happy smile along with bright eyes. He thought about how many times she saved him last night and how she was so capable even in the face of danger. He couldn't wait for school to end because he wanted to ask her if she wouldn't mind letting him stay at her place again and perhaps train together. That and the fact that he just wanted to hang out with her some more because she made him happy.

His mind then began to wander off to the weekend and he wondered if there was something special they could do, like, maybe after Saturday they could swing by the Elmore Pizza restaurant or something?

While Gumball continued to list off possible places he and his paper classmate could hang out at, Tobias and Tina were carefully carrying out with Mr. Small's experiment at the table next to the young feline's. Using her short, but strong forearms to carefully hold the tongs gripping the glass vial containing a pink, bubbly liquid, Tina carefully watched as Tobias held a small cube of Magnesium with his own pair of tongs as he prepared to drop it in. Very unsure as to what could possibly happen, Tobias checked back with Anton to see if they were doing the experiment right,

"Um, did the instructions mention anything about the liquid being pink? I don't wanna accidentally set off an explosion or create a portal to the center of the sun by putting this in." he looked back at the animate slice of bread and then at the vial in the T-rex's claws,

"By the way, thanks for helping us out Tina! You've been doing a real good job!" he complimented.

Tina looked side to side for a moment with uncertainty before setting the beaker down,

"Um, thanks, but I don't feel like I've really done anything except hold this bottle for you guys." she answered disheartedly.

Tobias shook a little in his seat and nervously glanced around at the two other kids at the table. Before they began the experiment, Tina made a comment regarding her distaste in lab experiments and class projects,

"I always wind up breaking things because I'm either too strong or I can't see what I'm holding because my arms are too small." she snarled, waving her tiny talons to emphasize her point.

He felt bad for her, so as a friend he tried to find a way for her to participate in the class assignment without causing too much trouble for herself and those around her. Unfortunately, the only solution he had for the prehistoric lizard was to hold any of the items they'd be using and after doing that for about fifteen minutes now, Tobias could understand why she didn't feel like she was doing much in terms of contributing to the group as a whole. Scratching his head, the fluffy, colorful student tried to figure out if there was anything else their cumbersome classmate could do that would help her feel better.

Looking at the Magnesium in his hand and the chemicals within hers, Tobias got an idea,

"Okay, um, if you want, you can drop the Magnesium in the beaker once Anton is done figuring out whether we did it right or not. That okay with you?" he asked.

With her claws free now, Tina scratched her neck and wondered if that was something she'd feel would help her feel more, well, helpful. She quickly came to the decision that it was better than sitting there while carefully holding a glass beaker full of a potentially dangerous substance. She turned her enormous head in the rainbow lad's direction and shrugged,

"Sure, I guess that wouldn't be too bad. You're gonna have to tell me when to drop it though since, well, you know…" she replied in her low, growly voice that still made Tobias nervous.

Feeling relieved, Tobias swapped out their items and looked over his shoulder at Anton, who was sitting on his other side along with Jamie, and spoke to him,

"Yo, Anton! My man! My hard working breadwinner! Did you check that worksheet to see if we're doing this right?" he asked, holding the glass container underneath the cube of reactive metal that Tina now held.

The burnt slice of toast that had been doing everything from balancing the formulas and reading off the instructions flipped through the packet and carefully read through the procedures for the experiment. He hadn't come up with anything yet and to be frank, he was starting to get a little stressed out. Not only did he not want to be paired up with this group, but after doing all the thinking for them, he was starting to detest the thick-skulled members of his team's over reliance on him. What made this worse was that even with the inclusion of Tobias in their circle, he was still treated poorly and it was starting to drive him mad.

With the sound of an annoyed grunt escaping him, the victimized lackey of the bully trio continued to read through the page he was on,

"Just a minute! I'll let you know when I find something, geesh!" he muttered, narrowing his tiny black eyes as he concentrated.

Tobias noticed the irritation in the living slice of toast and wondered what was up with him. He was usually a very nice and often chill dude whenever they talked. He didn't dwell on it for too long, having felt that it had to be something else that didn't have anything to do with him.

Before his mind could wander to other matters, a small, green, meaty hand grabbed the tong holding the magnesium and yanked it out of his grasp. He yelled in protest when he saw that it was none other than Jamie who had done the act and he watched as she tossed the item in the garbage bin resting in the corner of the classroom. Well, that was a waste of Magnesium and a good pair of grabbers too.

The multicolored fluffball set his angry gaze on the tomboy friend of Tina's and threw his hands in the air as he shouted,

"What gives, man! You can't just go throwing stuff like that into the trash, at least not until class is over!" he hopped off his stool now in order to stand in front of her.

The orange haired bully just bared her sharp teeth at the jock wannabe and began reaching into the backpack she carried with her,

"Who the heck cares about that boring stuff! Why don't we actually do something interesting for once!" she growled, pulling something out of her bag after she finished giving Tobias the stink eye.

Peering at the thing Jamie held in her mitt, Tobias felt his body jump back in disgust at whatever it was he just saw. His whole body shuddered and he could feel his lunch starting to come back up as a wave of nausea crashed over him. Whatever it was, it had the most repugnant stench and looked like something that was left in the sun for too long before being scraped off the side of the road.

Holding his nose and continuing to back away, he held up a shaky finger and pointed at the slimy thing Jamie had brought with her,

"Wha- what is that!" he shouted in utter disgust.

Jamie took a moment to study the odd material in her hand before looking back up at him and shrugging,

"I don't know? I found it and scraped it off the side of the road, looks like it's been in the sun for too long." she explained, her voice calm as though what she was holding was a mere animal. Then again, that's probably what it was before it became the equivalent of Cthulu's sponge.

She grabbed the vial of pink liquid from Tina, who didn't stop her and even looked rather intrigued by what she was doing, and held the gross thing in her open palm. Tobias, realizing what she was about to do, felt his eyes widen in horror and he began frantically waving his arms in order to cease her unholy activity,

"Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait! You can't just add strange chemicals to strange things you found on the side of the road! Have you seen any horror movies whatsoever?!" he desperately shouted, now starting to draw the attention of the other classmates.

Unfortunately, all of Tobias efforts to reason with the horn headed individual were in vain, as she continued to tilt the glass container towards the… whatever it was, with an insane smile on her face,

"Yeah, I've seen a lot of horror movies! They're fun to watch!" she arrogantly stated as she tipped the beaker and a single pink drop landed on the slimy, dirt and fur covered mass.

The instant the concoction formed by both Tina and Tobias touched the ball of distungingness, a hissing sound could be heard coming from the thing and a little bit of movement as well. Soon, the object that Jamie had discovered, which was very alive at this point, leapt off her hand and onto the floor where it landed with a Splat! It began to writhe and twist, causing the kids surrounding it to back away and watch in horror as it began to change.

The disgusting object quickly transformed into something akin to a cosmological horror from the works of H. P. Lovecraft, growing tremendously in size until it reached the height and width of a large grizzly bear. All over its formless body, oozing welts and boils formed on the surface of the monsters green, brown and pink skin and from the lower section many beatle-like legs began protruding, allowing the monster to stand at a greater height. In the center of the quivering mass, an eye opened up, with a green sclera and three pupils that frantically scanned the room it found itself in, unsure what to make of the bizarre, alien world it was born into.

When the thing reached its full size and began scanning the room, the entire class was dead silent: no one moved or breathed. The entire class just stared at the horrific monstrosity that Jamie created and processed the various thoughts that conveyed terror, confusion, and disgust for the vileness that sprung to life before them. The silence was shattered when Mr. Small let out a high pitched (and surprisingly feminine?) scream before bolting out the door and disappearing into the hallway, all the while still screaming.

Most of the students followed suit and began letting out their own shrill screams of fright directed at the living embodiment of chaos. This was countered by a sharp roar produced by the ungodly mass, causing the windows in the classroom to crack and eventually shatter. After covering their ears or respective sound gathering spots, most of the frightened children decided that was their cue to leave and hastily made their way to the door, bumping and shoving into one another as they mobbed up around the classroom's only entrance. Unfortunately, in their rapid and frenzied attempt to leave the class, the majority of the kids had managed to clog up the doorway and was preventing anyone from leaving.

"Get out of my way! I'm too pretty to die!" Leslie shouted, his leaves pushing desperately at Sarah, who had gotten stuck in the doorway along with Tobias, who had managed to somehow get in front of the crowd before they reached door.

"Get back! We can't all fit through the door! OUCH!" the obsessive ice cream girl shouted as Masami slammed into her from behind.

Behind the entire mob, only a few students remained: Darwin, who was frozen in terror, Gumball, who was desperately looking around for something to defend himself with (he left his bag along with his scythe in his locker before he went to class.), Teri, who was also scared and frozen at the repulsive sight of the monster, she immediately began to feel her skin crawl at sight of all those puss covered sores, and lastly, Carrie, who was actually not that scared of the living nightmare standing before them,

"I've seen worse." she thought to herself, not even batting an eye when she looked at whatever that thing was.

The disgusting chemical monster had undergone another transformation, this time growing several dozen, wiry, hair-like tentacles from the top of its 'body' that spread out like wiggling worms. Carrie watched as one of the monster's pupils zeroed in on Darwin and three tentacles shot towards him. The poor fish was so shocked that his feet remained planted on the ground and he could only watch hopelessly as the creature's appendages came closer.

"NO!" Carrie shouted and leapt towards the person whom she loved.

Before the abomination's arms could reach Darwin, Carrie reached him first and quickly entered his mouth. Within an instant, Darwin's paralyzed body was under Carrie's control and the ghost possessed fish boy quickly leapt out of the way just as the hair-like tentacles reached the spot they were just at. While moving through the air, Carrie spotted the broken window shards lying on the ground and used her Telekinesis to pick up several sharp pieces of glass to hurl at the monster. The window fragments were sent sailing through the air by Carrie's invisible force and embedded themselves within the creature's hide.

The monster wailed in agony and in a surge of fury, sent more tentacles after the one that caused this newborn serious pain of which it had never felt in it's brief existence. Its attack was halted when a broom was shoved into its multi-pupiled eye and it let out another agonized scream from some unknown sound organ. The wielder of said broomstick, was none other than Gumball, who had found the common cleaning device leaning against the wall and was now using it ward off the beast while the other students escaped,

"It's not a scythe, but it'll do." he thought calmly to himself.

His calm was shattered when the chemistry lab monster had already begun its counterattack and was wrapping many wiry arms around the broom that was wedged into its single eye and around the arms that held said broom. Gumball realized that he was in trouble when he found that despite how frail the tentacles looked, were actually incredibly strong and kept his arms secured in one place. Screaming once, Gumball desperately began kicking at the abomination's ugly body as it began to lift him up in the air. He didn't know what it was going to do, but seeing as it was clearly ticked, Gumball could only guess that there may be a strong possibility that he was going to be strewn all over the lab.

Carrie, still possessing Darwin's body, saw the event happening and moved to free her friend and her boyfriend's brother. Lifting the glass shards once more with psychic energy, Carrie levitated the sharp objects until they were aiming at the appendages holding Gumball hostage. With a flick of her wrist, Carrie sent the second wave of broken glass forward and easily severed the multiple strands that were wrapped around Gumball's arms and broom. Gumball dropped to the floor and landed on his two feet, quickly backing away from the now enraged monster that was lacking in a few limbs.

Angered at Carrie's attack, the lovecraftian-inspired horror tried a new strategy: quickly using its beatle-like legs to skitter on top of one of the tables, knocking over various beakers and papers as it did so, it wrapped all its remaining tentacles together into one, very strong limb and whipped it out at the defensive blue cat. Gumball grunted as he raised the broom to meet the oncoming limb, but was easily knocked aside by the powerful force of all the creature's combined tentacles. He slid across the floor and felt his head slam into one of the tables, causing his cranium to surge with immense, burning pain and for bright spots to appear in his vision.

"Well this is going just peachy!" Gumball's inner voice rang out in sarcasm as he groaned and slowly got back up while rubbing the back of his head. He could still hear the students desperate shouts and quickly came to the conclusion that they were still caught in the exit,

"Ugh!" he muttered in frustration, knowing he was going to have to take more punishment in order to defend these people.

When he got up, he noticed that was someone was standing next to him and when he looked to see who it was, he saw that Teri hadn't moved from her spot and was keeping an eye on the monster. Gumball was about to ask her what was wrong, but decided that wasn't the right question to ask. Placing a paw on her shoulder and getting her attention, Gumball pointed his broom at the creature standing atop of Tobias' table,

"You wouldn't happen to have a blanket sized sheet of paper on you? Cause I kind of left my scythe in my locker and Shaggorith's head lice there is a bit too strong for me." he asked.

Teri looked at him as though he had lost his mind and pointed at the thing he was pointing at,

"No and that thing is not a Nephilim, Gumball! Let's just get out of here and call the cops, or the national guard or maybe the exterminator?" she stated, not quite sure who to call in this situation.

They didn't have much of a chance to take action as the deformed creation of Jamie quickly zeroed in on them and was already lunging in for another attack. Seeing this, Gumball quickly got in front of Teri and thrusted the broom like a spear into the creature's eye again. This time the broom went in deeper and the monster's eye caved in entirely. Another ear splitting roar echoed throughout the class, breaking even more glass within the room and several of the windows in the neighboring classes.

While the broom wielding student was keeping the oozing slime ball at bay (although Gumball was worried because it wasn't going to be long until it went bezerk again.), Teri looked on the table behind her for something useful and only found a spray bottle of disinfectant. Running out of time and ideas, Teri grabbed her anti-bacterial spray and pointed the nozzle at the attacking monster. Meanwhile, Carrie had taken to throwing more things at the monster: books, stools, bunsen burners and even more glass, all of which just bounced off or got embedded into the monster's smelly hide.

"GO AWAY!" Teri shrieked as she pulled the trigger on the spray gun.

The cleaning agent shot forth from the container's nozzle like a fountain and a mist of smelly, clear liquid made its way towards the disgusting lab monster. The chemical detergent belonging to the germaphobe reached the monster's blistering skin and caused quite a reaction. From where the spray had struck, more boils began to appear and expand at a rapid rate before traveling through the body of the horrific entity, eliciting another pained howl as it began to expand far larger than its body would allow.

Sensing the incoming danger from the swelling creature, Gumball let go of the broom and and turned to Teri with a frightened look in his eyes,

"Teri, fold yourself up!" he barked, quickly glancing over his shoulder and seeing that the monster was now twice its original size.

Teri did as she was told and folded her flexible paper body until it was the size of a regular sheet of paper. She still had her face on the front and she watched as Gumball scooped her up before running straight for the corner. Clutching the paper girl close to his chest, Gumball made sure his back was facing towards the dying monster and he ducked down in the corner of the room, hugging Teri tightly with his eyes closed.

BOOM! SPLAT!

The monster's allergic reaction to the disinfectant caused its body to swell well beyond the skin's integrity and pop like a grape, spilling its guts everywhere. The green-brown slime covered most of the floor, tables, stools, students, and even managed to get outside through the broken window. If one were to walk in right now, it would have looked like the worlds biggest balloon full of trash exploded with the epicenter being Tobias' table.

Gumball's entire backside was covered in the rancid goo that was everywhere now, but at least none of it got on his front half and, most importantly, Teri. Once a moment or two had passed, Gumball slowly got up, still holding onto the folded paper bear, and had a look around the room. Seeing the mess that was everywhere, Gumball's eyes widened and he flinched a little once he realized that this was going to take a while to clean up. Also there were broken windows and broken lab equipment to deal with. Poor Rocky, Gumball hoped he would get paid extra for having to deal with all of this, seeing as that's what he usually did when these kind of things happened.

Checking on the girl in his hands, Gumball looked down and saw that she was trying to see what was going on,

"You okay?" he asked, holding her up until she was at eye level with him.

"Yeah… this is quite a mess!" she replied slowly, finally getting a good glimpse of the room.

Gumball looked around once again and realized that there was no place where Teri could stand without getting some of the slime on her. He knew it probably wouldn't hurt her if it did, but he knew she wouldn't like the idea of getting monster slime on her feet and then there was the fact that he didn't like seeing her get upset. Okay, he did annoy her time after time, but that was different. Checking around for a way out, Gumball realized that the best way to go would probably be out the window.

With his mind made up, Gumball began making his way towards the portal that lead to the outside, where it didn't reek of garbage,

"I'm gonna take you outside and around the school building that way you can go to your next class without having to step in all of this stuff." he said, still holding her up so she could see his face.

Teri's eyes widened a bit and a smile formed on her little bear face,

"Really! Thank you so much!" she replied pleasantly before her face warped into an apologetic one,

"Sorry for the mess, by the way, I didn't know it would explode when I sprayed it and you're probably going to have to take a shower afterwards." she said regretfully.

Seeing the regretful look on her face, Gumball was quick to brush the incident off as nothing and gave her a hearty chuckle,

"Don't worry about it, I'm used to big messes like this." he said, showing a big toothy grin afterwards.

He reached the wall with the window and placed Teri within his pocket in order to grab the window sill with both of his paws. While he hauled himself up to the edge (he was really glad Carrie hurled all the stray shards at the monster because the window was completely clear of any glass.) Teri muttered something while in his pant pocket,

"Why does that not surprise me." she was replying to his earlier statement of course.

She didn't really like being put in Gumball's pant pocket, it was really hot and the fabric was itchy against her skin. The worst fact was that she didn't even know what he kept in his pocket and whether or not it was something very gross. She could feel something though and if she weren't mistaken, it felt like a pair of sticky notes. She wondered what those were doing in there, but didn't stress about and was glad that she would be out soon without getting messy.

After managing to clear the window, Gumball dropped to the ground and pulled Teri out of his pocket. Unfolding herself until she stood at full height, she waved at Gumball and began to head towards the front of the building,

"Thank you, Gumball! I will see you when I get back from my locker!" she called to him.

Gumball waved back and began heading towards one of the doors that lead into the school,

"No problem! I'm going to go to my locker and then the shower room straight after. I guess I'll be seeing you at our next class!" he shouted back to her.

The two continued to go their separate paths and searched for some entrance that would lead them to their desired areas. Both of them were thinking pleasant thoughts as they walked alone and in silence. Before they went inside though, both of the kids saw a bright flash of green light within the clouds above before it quickly faded and was followed by a sound like thunder.

"That can't be good!" they both thought before going on their merry way.

-Forest just outside of Elmore, 2:35 PM-

Rob slapped at his neck, squishing the mosquito that had landed there in hopes of finding food and he wiped the dead bug's carcass on a nearby log. Rob knew there was no blood in his body for the annoying pests to feast on, but of course they didn't know that and that's what made them so infuriating. He really hated the forest and most of the things within it.

He found himself out here once again in a camp set up just two miles Northeast of Elmore with a camouflage tarp hanging overhead, two laptops sitting on a portable table with one of them hooked up to a rune printing machine he pulled out of his RPCG last night and the other hooked up to his other weapon Cuatro Oblivion, which was outfitted with a modified camera that was pointing at the sky along with the weapon. He had been napping not too long ago when he dreamed of a Nephilim appearing over the city and hovering within the cloud cover. Packing his mobile campsite along with his other equipment, he set out to snipe the sky entity from an elevated position out in the forest as well as field test some of the new runes he uploaded onto his computer.

Unfortunately, his sniping attempt was met with failure as he quickly discovered after firing a modified projectile, the object was shielded with a barrier much like the one Toxic Pill used in the battle of the desert. Things seemed to take a turn for the worst when he actually got a better visual with the modified camera he completed last night while uploading all the new symbols as well as wiping all the security footage from last night's "accident" at Burrito Barn. leaning forward to better study the image his camera was capturing, Rob's single eye widened in shock when he saw a smaller object detaching from the bigger object and descending towards Elmore.

"That's not good." Rob muttered to himself as his fingers leapt across the keyboard, enlarging the image to get a better look.

Once he got a good look at the being that was rapidly approaching the city, he quickly calculated its trajectory with a pen and notepad he brought with him before snapping up his cellphone. He tapped the message list and began filling out a message to Gumball. His forehead was full perspiration as his eye darted from the cellphone to the image on the laptop repeatedly. He finished writing and sent the message with a tap of his thumb,

"Time to call in the cavalry." he thought to himself before turning back to his computer to begin the engraving process for his weapon.

-Shower room, 2:40 PM-

Stepping out of the shower with a towel wrapped around his waist, Gumball walked over to the small locker containing the bag he had retrieved from his other locker which contained another set of clothes he accidentally pack with him for gym while completely forgetting that he already had a pair of gym clothes in their already. Way to turn an accident into a wonderful opportunity seeing as he now had a clean pair of clothes that didn't smell like sweat or wasn't drenched in monster slime. Pulling his bag out and unzipping it, Gumball thought about how he was very lucky to have survived yet another close call with a monster, albeit this one wasn't like the ones he, Teri, and Rob fought on a daily basis.

While he got changed, another person standing beside him also wrapped in a towel cleared his throat while he waited for Gumball to finish with what he was doing,

"So when exactly did you become a broom wielding superhero who fought giant blobs that spawn in chemistry class?" the person asking was none other than Darwin of course, who had managed to escape being slimed when Carrie forced his body to leap out the window at the last moment.

He had to take a shower as well because Carrie miscalculated where they would wind up flying to and ended up sticking them both in a tree. They both met up in the hall and were kind of quiet the whole time after what just happened. Since Darwin was talking to him now and Gumball had his mind cleared up, he pulled up his black gym shorts and turned around with a shrug already on his shoulders,

"I dunno, I think working out a whole bunch must have made me more confident or something and I just did what I thought was the best course of action." he replied, knowing full well that he was actually going off of instinct after fighting the Nephilim for a nearly a month now.

Darwin seemed to accept this answer and just moved on with the other things that were on his mind,

"Well that's really cool because all I did was freeze up until Carrie took control of my body and got me out of that terrible situation. I was really scared." he explained in a disheartening tone.

Pulling his white T-shirt over his head and turning around to face his little brother, he noticed he looked really disappointed and could guess that he was feeling bad for not being able to do anything. To be fair, Gumball could relate to him a little because there were several moments where fear caused him to plant his feet in one spot and force his body to remain where it was. He was by no means fearless, but what got him to actually do what needed to be done despite the seemingly overwhelming odds was the fact that he feared what would possibly happened if he didn't.

Walking over and placing a comforting paw on his shoulder, he waited for Darwin to look up at him when he finally started reassuring him,

"It's okay, man! Everybody was scared there, heck even I was scared when that thing first appeared, and honestly, I think it's awesome that you have such a cool girlfriend who loves you so much that she'll help you move when you can't. What actually prompted me to move was because you were standing next to me and my first instinct was to protect you. You're surrounded by awesome people who love you and would do anything to keep you safe because you mean so much to us." the next thing he was hug him so tightly because he meant everything he said,

"So like I said, It's okay. Everyone was scared and everyone acts differently when they encounter things like that." he whispered in his ear.

Whatever magical effect Gumball's speech and embrace had on Darwin seemed to work as Darwin choked back a sob and squeezed his older brother tightly. Feeling Darwin's grasp tightening around his midsection, Gumball felt his heart lift up in relief and then settle back down with the love and compassion he was feeling for his brother. Like Teri and the others, Darwin meant the whole world to him and another reason he feared the Nephilim so much was for the fact that they could easily take him away just like everyone else who couldn't see them.

The two continued to hug for a minute before parting and slowly going back to what they were doing. While Gumball began to dig out some utensils from his bag, his collapsed scythe catching his eye once, Darwin continued to talk about the current situation while wiping a tear from his eye,

"I'm not sure if they're going to continue classes today." he stated his mind already on all the other students caught up in the earlier mess,

"A lot of the students had to go to the infirmary after Chemistry class: Anton was trampled under all the students, Molly has a bunch of thorns in her backside after Carmen ran into her, Sarah's cone was broken, Masami is feeling sick after catching some of the monster's guts in her mouth, Tobias got hurt after being squished in between Leslie and Sarah, and Ocho is in need of a full body cast after getting stepped on by Tina." he explained having seen the damage after he got himself out of the tree, with Carrie's help of course.

Following his assessment of the students condition, a heavy silence hung in the air and the two boys began to feel the weight of negativity bearing down on them. It was nothing too severe, but the thick atmosphere was causing a bit of discomfort to the Watterson children: for different reasons too. This sudden change in tone caused Darwin to look for something positive to talk about and after fidgeting in uncomfortable silence for a moment, something popped into his head,

"Well, at least the sky's going to be clear by three thirty this afternoon, so at least when school gets out we'll have a few hours of sunshine." he said, already feeling better.

That actually did sound nice to the blue cat as he didn't really like the look of the weather outside and was hoping for a bit of sunshine at this point. He thought about that weird green light in the sky he saw before he entered the building and just couldn't shake the feeling that something wasn't right. He continued to unpack what he needed, his folded scythe catching his eye once from the lower confines of his bag and he hesitated, thinking about a possible threat that could be in the skies above. With that storm sized Nephilim they encountered yesterday, Gumball was more frightened about what else could possibly be heading to Elmore and the green light brought such fears back into fruition.

The last item to be pulled from his bag was his cellphone, which he fished out of his dirty pants pocket and was already getting ready to bury it in the pocket of his shorts. That was until the phone's screen lit up at the slight movement of him lifting it up and he saw that someone had sent him a message. Quickly opening the window on his screen, Gumball's eyes shot back and forth as he quickly skimmed the message sent by Rob,

We have a problem, there's a powerful Nephilim heading down to Elmore and there's another one in the sky above. Need backup ASAP!

Feeling his tail shoot straight up and his ears flattening on top of his head, Gumball took a deep breath before calming down and texting back,

Gotcha! Be there soon, gonna go grab Teri!

He pressed send and slipped the phone in his bag before zipping it and slinging it on his shoulders. "Great. Looks like my worst fears have been realized." he thought cynically. He pivoted on his feet and started for the exit, quickly passing by Darwin as he made his way out of the shower room. He shot the fish boy a glance and uttered an excuse,

"Gotta go! Tell everyone in the infirmary I said get well soon!" he said and quickly disappeared out the door, leaving Darwin on his own with a baffled expression.

Deciding that it was something important that Gumball will explain later, Darwin chose not to dwell on it for too long and went over to the bench where his green shoes were sitting. While wrestling them onto his feet, he thought about how Gumball seemed to be acting rather odd given that he knew his brother was naturally a coward and wouldn't do anything so bold if he knew it would cause him some bodily harm and/or death. He was happy for the sudden change from his earlier depressed self, but he was starting to get a sudden suspicion that his closest sibling was doing something that seemed rather upsetting.

He hoped it wasn't anything too bad like getting involved in a gang or picking fights with people and animals in order to forget about Penny. Some signs did point to his strange mannerisms as attempts to move on and Darwin wasn't sure if those were exactly healthy ways to do so. He would have to keep an eye on him to see if something real bad wasn't going on and that hopefully all these worries and concerns of his will be nothing, but silly fears that his mind is conjuring.

It could also just be that he just had a crush on Teri and he was just hiding it because he was too embarrassed to admit it. That sounded pretty funny when Darwin thought about it, remembering the one time Gumball thought that Darwin himself had a crush on Teri when he was actually interested in Carrie. Funny how the times have changed.

With his shoes placed firmly on his feet Darwin placed his towel in the hamper right next to the bench, got up, and began striding towards the door. Once he was out of the hot, muggy shower room and in the much cooler empty hallway, save for three sixth graders hanging around one of the lockers, Darwin began making his towards his next class which happened to be choir and was being taught by Mr. Brown. This was good because it meant he could get news as to whether or not they could have class seeing as a lot of the students are incapacitated.

While lost in thought someone appeared right next to him, causing the nice boy to jump in surprise as he was still a little on edge and was not expecting any more surprises. He was relieved to see a familiar ghostly figure with a single black eye looking at him and felt his already racing heart slow down. Happy to see Carrie with him, Darwin quickly hugged his girlfriend and began blabbering about how glad he was to see her,

"Carrie, I'm so glad that you're here! I really needed someone to talk to right now, since Gumball had to run for some reason and I-?" he was cut off when she suddenly looked infuriated.

"Wait, what! You mean he's not with you!" she shouted in surprise.

Without answering, Darwin simply gestured at the empty space next to him with both fins before shrugging and shaking his head.

Carrie sighed and facepalmed herself while slumping downwards in defeat,

"Darn it! I wanted to ask him something and he took off again! I was looking for Teri too, but I couldn't find her anywhere!" she seemed really distressed now and Darwin was starting to worry.

Curious and concerned for his incorporeal lover's state of mind, the scaly, amphibious student reached out to grasp her hand,

"What's wrong? Did he do something to upset you? Is there something about him and Teri you wanted to find out?" he asked, he had more questions, but he didn't want to overwhelm her with his prying.

Shaking her head, the floating spirit looked up and into his eyes with more disappointment,

"No, nothing like that, I…" she paused and sighed. There was no reason to keep this a secret anymore and she needed to tell him what she had been noticing the past several weeks now,

"I'm not sure what's been going on lately, other than I've noticing some strange things lately and I want to know if Teri and Gumball know anything." she admitted.

Perplexed, Darwin rubbed the side of his head and gave her a strange look,

"What kind of things and you think those two are connected somehow?" he asked, not quite following her.

Shaking her head and shrugging, Carrie sighed,

"I don't know and all I've been noticing is that whenever I sense these dark energy signatures somewhere in Elmore, they usually disappear and when it's gone, they come back. That's why I need to find them." she explained.

Given the urgency in her voice and the sad, yet frustrated look in her eyes, Darwin could tell she was quite upset, even when he felt as though her story was a little off,

"Well, I don't know where Gumball is, but Teri might be in the infirmary, if I were to guess." he said, agreeing to help her.

Carrie seemed to be moved because her face lit up when Darwin offered to help despite clearly not knowing what was going on,

"Thanks. I thought about going there first, but I figured Gumball would be with you and you were closest." she said.

"No problem. After all, I do owe you one for saving me back there and for assisting my brother." he replied, rubbing the back of his head with his fin.

She shook her head and drifted closer to her amphibious boyfriend,

"You don't owe me anything, sweetie! I love you and that's all the reason I needed to save you. Also, Gumball is a friend of mine and I know he means a lot to you, so helping him was also no big deal." she whispered, planting a kiss on his lips.

Feeling as though he were floating, Darwin returned the kiss with passion and the two found their arms wrapping around one another. The three students in the hall spotted the couple and made a few comments on how cute they were, but neither of them noticed. Eventually breaking out of the tender moment, the two shared a moment of passionate silence before setting their minds on finding the paper bear.

"Alright, let's find Mrs. Markham's most frequent visitor." Carrie stated.

Raising an eyebrow, Darwin couldn't help but ask,

"Which one: Gumball or Teri?" his voice hinting at a joke.

The pale, incorporeal lover of Darwin did not seem to like his sense of humor and casted a look that fully displayed her exasperation,

"What are you going on about, you doofus?" she shot back.

Darwin simply answered after letting out a giggle of his own,

"You know, because they always go to the nurse's office, mostly for pointless reasons." he laughed before stopping to think,

"Actually they're more alike now that I think about it. They can both be self-centered, but nice when they're not thinking about themselves. They're both easily flustered and can be very obnoxious when it comes to their obsessions. Oh, and they both have ridiculous phobias that can drive their behaviors." he remarked, surprised by this revelation.

Carrie thought about it too and realized that he was actually spot on,

"Hmm, you're right. Maybe they are meant to be together. What's Gumball's phobia by the way?" she asked, surprised that she never heard of it.

"Spiders." Darwin replied simply with another raise of his shoulders.

"Right, I'll definitely remember that for a prank." she said with a wicked smile full of sharp teeth,

"Shall we off then?" she asked Darwin, who nodded in agreement before extending a flipper and grasping the ghost's hand.

Clutching his fin tightly, Carrie closed her eyes and concentrated on the Nurse's office, painting a clear picture in her head. With a loud Snap! and a flash of light, the EJH's weirdest couple disappeared from the hallway they were standing in. This startled the three sixth graders, who were standing no more than a few meters to the side, but quickly dismissed the unusual form of transportation as something not worth looking into.

-Seventh grade hall, 2:42 PM-

While Carrie and Darwin had the right idea to go looking for Teri and Gumball at Mrs. Markham's office, they were just a few minutes too late and missed Teri, who had just left after once again being thrown out by the band-aid nurse. Walking down the hallway and cursing under her breath like she always did when these situations turned bad, the school's biggest hypochondriac and most common visitor amongst the medical staff just above Anton, Tobias, Gumball, and Darwin had her head hung low in shame and was going off on how the nurse was an absolute moron. Clenching her fists as she kept an eye out for something on the ground to kick, Teri just continued to seethe and react in embarrassment at the nurse's newest form of condescending advice and belittlement,

"I was in the same room as the blob monster!" she stated with a sharp increase in her tone than she was used to, but didn't care since she was already too angry,

"What if the air was contaminated? What if my eardrums were ruptured when it roared? (then again, that definitely wasn't the case seeing as I could hear her nonsense!) "Too many patients with serious injuries to treat." Yeah, I could be one of them if you just did your stupid job!" she whined out loud, which she was used to doing, but was unaware that it was just baseless complaints that did nothing,

"And what did she mean, "Take him out to dinner and let the situation solve itself."? I told her that I was feeling butterflies in my stomach and random increases in body temperature when I was near Gumball, which could mean I've contracted cat flu or the Haze virus! I wasn't asking for dating advice!" she added in, feeling slightly annoyed that even the nurse of all people was starting to throw Gumball and her into the dating ring.

While she vented out her anger in an external display, deep inside she felt something worse culminating and threatening to spread like a cancer. No, it wasn't cancer itself, but rather a fear and an insecurity that she's had for quite a while, but has been pushing down for quite some time now. She worried that her germaphobic mannerisms were starting to get on people's nerves and that people don't actually pay her any attention because she was too obnoxious.

This feeling was starting to nag at her some more ever since she started developing a bond with Gumball. She admired him so much, but she was starting to think that maybe he only considered her only as a close accomplice that could only be relied on during a fight. Perhaps the reason he wanted to see Sherry perform at cheerleading today was because he found her annoying. She still held no ill will towards their newest and greenest recruit, actually finding her to be quite fun and cooperative despite being a bit of an airhead at times, but she still couldn't fight that slight twinge of ugly jealousy that erupted within her mental landscape when Gumball mentioned wanting to see her last night.

She even felt horrible for trying to capture Gumball's attention by changing up her outfit, yeah it was nice to change things up every once in a while, but to do it with the sole purpose of making sure a specific someone had eyes only for herself just felt somewhat dirty to the paper girl. What was worse was that Gumball didn't even say anything else about Sherry except that he wanted to see her and he hasn't even met her in person, so why was she so worried about him suddenly taking an interest in someone he didn't even know?

Wanting to deny it, but understanding why she felt this way, the thought made its way into her head,

"You're afraid he's going to be so blown away by her that he'll forget about you entirely." her inner demon snarled.

Angry and upset at everything that has been happening, she furiously shook her head and squeezed her eyes shut,

"No! I don't care if he pays attention to me or not! I don't like him that way and I just want protect Elmore with him until the Nephilim stop attacking us or until we all eventually wind up dead!" she nearly shouted, feeling the heavy weight of the last eight words on her tongue. She prayed to the Jade emperor that the last part would never happen and that everyone will make it through this somehow.

Yet, when she uttered the word 'protect' another image came into her mind and she remembered how Gumball protected her twice in the chemistry lab. Once again, he went out of his way to guard her from any harm in spite of the fact that the one eyed blob was not a Nephilim and the only thing he had to fight with was an old broom the lab used to clean up broken glass. Then, even when the dying beast wouldn't have caused her any damage by exploding, he shielded her from the blast just so she wouldn't get dirty and offered her further help by carrying her out of the messy lab.

Everything he did for her, he did it selflessly and here she was, selfishly vying for his attention. She wanted to be better than this and she wanted to do more than just allow him to take hit after hit for her. She cared so much for him and wanted to give more to this amazing person other than selfish acts and last minute saves that still leave him battered, bruised, or straight up uncomfortable.

She was broken out of her negative thoughts when she noticed she was no longer alone in this hallway and that a figure was quickly approaching her. Getting a better look and a sense of deja vu, Teri saw that it was her troublesome blue cat boy now very clean and dressed in his gym clothes. The sight of him caused the dark cloud in her mind to instantly vanish and a burst of positive thoughts manifested themselves in her head.

She then realized after getting a good look at his face that he seemed determined and serious about something and going off of how fast he was running, something was definitely up. Teri's eyes were wide open when she saw that he wasn't slowing down and that he was probably going to throw her over his shoulder once he reached her. Quickly getting into a ready stance, Teri prepared to dodge the fast approaching feline,

"No way am I letting him sweep me off my feet this time! As soon as he's close enough I will jump to the right and let him run past me!" she went over this in her head space and an equally determined look was written on her face.

Problem was while the plan was simple and good, the execution was far from perfect. The moment Gumball was within five feet of her general vicinity, Teri's feet were swift and propelled her through the air to her right, using her light weight to cover a bit of distance. Gumball seemed to predict this, much to her disappointment, and the moment she landed, he made a sharp turn, reached out, wrapped an arm around her waist and heaved her over his shoulder before she could even turn to run. With the paper girl being as light as a feather, Gumball didn't even need to slow down and was already racing towards Teri's locker, all the while the paper cheerleader was verbally protesting to this form of transportation.

Placing her arms on his back in order to stabilize herself, she angrily turned her head so she could see the boy's own head and began shouting while the hallway sped past them,

"Seriously, Gumball? Put me down this instant, I can walk, you know!" she protested, wishing that she had something to hit him with.

Gumball kept his eyes on the hallway ahead as he picked up speed, but answered her angry shouts in a calm voice,

"Walking is too slow. Rob sent me a text saying there's two Nephilim: one's heading for Elmore and the other's in the sky." he explained, making a sharp turn around the corner and passing the nurse's office,

"By the way, you look very pretty today!" he added in the compliment in hopes that she'll calm down.

It seemed to do the trick, well a little at least, because when she spoke again, she still sounded venomous, but at least her voice was lower this time,

"I can run too and I kind of got that by the way you were rushing towards me with that look on your face. Do you know where he wants us to meet him or did he mention where the Nephilim are?" she asked, hoping they at least had a destination or a target so that they weren't aimlessly wandering around Elmore searching for something that could be wreaking havoc amongst the citizens,

"Also, you said that this morning and thank you." she said, responding to his compliment that he'd given her on the bus this morning.

Gumball skidded to a halt once he spotted Teri's locker and put the anthropomorphic paper bear girl down, where she shot him another glare and proceeded to grab her things. At least he made sure the ride was comfortable for her this time and also, Teri was impressed with how fast they traveled. Gumball was doing a good job on his workouts. While she opened her locker to grab her things, Gumball kept talking and was sounding pretty happy too,

"He wanted us to meet him on some hill in the Northeast forest and to be honest he didn't mention where the other one is. Also, I felt like saying it again, so you're welcome! And for good measure, I will repeat it a third time: Teri, you look very pretty today!" he exclaimed, his arms folding across his chest and a grin complimenting his bright eyes. He felt like he was on fire today!

Behind the safe cover of her locker door, a smile forced its way onto Teri's face and she snickered in amusement,

"There he goes making me happy again! What is with this dork and being able to make me want to hit him one second and hug him the next?" she felt another wave of content wash over her and her body temperature shot up several degrees.

Pulling her bag out her storage space and sliding it on her shoulders by the straps, she swung the door shut and turned to her furry companion with a pleasant look,

"For a mischievous ball of fur, you're too sweet, you know!" she replied, throwing her own compliment into the mix.

Responding by wiggling his eyebrows in a silly manner that got Teri giggling again, the paper girl grabbed the goof by the wrist and began leading him towards one of the exits,

"Come on, let's go meet Rob and we shouldn't be too pressed for time either, I heard Ms. Markham say something about calling it in for Mr. Brown's music class." she explained while walking Gumball to the exit.

"That's a relief! I swear that I wouldn't have been able to think up another good excuse for why Teri and I are late for class for the umpteenth time." he thought with a sense of relief.

Swiftly exiting the building, Teri stopped along with Gumball on the sidewalk in order to pull out a large sheet of paper and fold it into an origami replicant of the famous American fighter jet of the Vietnam war era, the F-4 Phantom. It wasn't as detailed as some of her earlier creations, but that was because she created it simply to get them to the forest as quickly as possible. Repeating a process they have been doing for the better part of September, the two kids hopped on with Teri being in her usual front position and Gumball taking a position in the back and after a few quick verbal exchanges, the two were already soaring into the cloudy sky.

-Rob's camp, seven minutes later-

Rob spotted the two middle schoolers fast approaching his location and pulled himself away from his monitoring equipment in order to greet them. Grabbing an orange sweater with some university logo printed on the front in purple, he stepped out from under his covering and waved the warm, colorful article of clothing as a flag to signal the approaching aircraft. Spotting him, Teri banked the Phantom until it was on a direct approach to his makeshift base of operations and when they got close enough to the hill he was on, Gumball simply hopped off, dropping down ten feet next to the cyclopean defender of Elmore. He greeted the former-villain-now-turned-ally with a single wave and a small smile, still not exactly comfortable with engaging the mad inventor with friendly mannerisms.

After Teri had landed, packed away her aircraft, and joined the two boys, the three made their inside the tent after Rob asked them to follow. The lanky pre-teen was relatively quiet when he went up to his computers, settling for a rather serious atmosphere, and after crouching down next to the crate where his laptops sat on, he began pulling up the images his monitoring device had captured several minutes ago. While he worked his magic, Teri and Gumball glanced around his work site and admired the amount of makeshift equipment the former void wanderer had cobbled together. The set up made him look like a professional soldier in the field and the duo got the distinct impression that Rob just tinkered and did lots of planning and preparation in his spare time. Such a crafty individual!

After setting up everything he wanted to show the two, Rob waved them over and began to fill them in on the situation. The cat and the paper girl fixated their eyes on the monitor in front of the disfigured boy and saw what looked like a golden ring suspended in the cloud cover. They assumed this was the Nephilim Rob mentioned in his text and got their answer when said teammate opened his mouth to speak,

"So this is what I saw in my dream roughly two hours ago." he started, pointing at the image with a grey, clawed finger,

"It has a fixed altitude and has shown no signs of activity ever since it appeared, which means that it has no intention of attacking the city. After some careful observations and measurements, I found that this 'Nephilim' is actually a weapon of terrifying power." he said in a serious tone while pulling up several images showing detailed measurements that showed the ring was over a thousand feet in diameter, but relatively flat, being no more than ten feet in thickness.

Gumball and Teri were collectively blown away by the size of the object Rob just showed them and visibly displayed their shock by letting their jaws drop. Of course, they fought Leliel, who was a colossal phoenix made of scorching hot plasma, but what scared them was the fact that they were already sending something so large to deal with them after losing a powerful Nephilim soldier along with five others. Even though the one the were looking at was surprisingly simple in appearance, one thing the three learned at this point was to never judge these monsters by their appearance.

While they continued to study the image, Rob carried on with his explanation,

"I've gone over the weather reports and concluded that the Nephilim's arrival is no coincidence. Nearly half an hour from now, the overcast we've been experiencing all morning and afternoon will have moved on, leaving the city in direct sunlight." he leaned back and placed a hand on his chin, rubbing it while Teri and Gumball turned to face him with a puzzled look on their faces,

"I believe that is what the Nephilim is waiting for. I can speculate that the weapon were looking at is a type of focusing lens or a magnifying glass, if you prefer. Once the cloud cover is gone, it will reduce the entire city to ashes in a matter of minutes." he said in a grim tone.

Even though the interior of the tent was rather warm, the kids felt a chill run down their backs and the two listeners felt themselves stiffen at the mentioned menace that was very close to destroying their home. It was one thing to have one of the Nephilim show up and be an immediate threat to all the people in the surrounding area, but to have one right above their heads with the ability to annihilate their entire city within a short span of time definitely drove the fear factor a little deeper this time around. Sure, Concretin and Leliel were also capable of mass destruction on a city wide scale, but one was a simple enemy that could be dealt with on the bridge and the other was a massive entity that appeared so far away and gave them enough time to deal with it.

Knowing there was a bit more to this story, Gumball swallowed the lump in his throat and turned back to the screen,

"So, what's the deal with this one? If it's not doing anything, then shouldn't it be easy for you to kill it or did you want us here to help you deal with the other one that you mentioned earlier?" he asked, rubbing the back of his gargantuan head as he stared at the image in discomfort.

Rob's single eye lit up when Gumball popped the question and he leaned forward to sit up straight,

"That actually is the reason why I summoned you two, well, the last part at least." he replied before using his index finger to move the cursor over to another series of images,

"I actually did try taking it down several minutes before I texted you, but as you can see…" he trailed off as he scrolled through the line of shots captured by his gun cam for both of them to see.

What Gumball and Teri saw was what appeared to be a long range shot directed at the ginormous sky weapon with a rune-tipped shell. What the images showed was unlike anything the two had seen before, with a clear image of the tracer round being launched from the barrel before morphing into a pair of serpentine dragons composed of emerald flames that spun around each other in a double helix pattern and sailing straight for the Nephilim weapon. While the two kids were visually shocked at what they were seeing, they could feel their spirits crumbling when they saw the twin dragons get closer and eventually explode in a brilliant fireworks display right before they struck the target.

A familiar field of blue hexagonal plates glowed as they surrounded the massive, circular Nephilim device. It was something the three of them had seen before and knew in the back of their minds the possibility of its return. It was an energy barrier, much like the one utilized by Toxic Pill in the desert.

Rob ceased scrolling through his library of photos and looked at the two with a deadpan expression,

"...the focusing lens is well protected." he muttered with disdain.

There was a brief period of stunned silence as the two silently thought over what their ally had shown them. While Gumball was simply amazed that Rob's first attack was the reason behind the flashy light display in the clouds, Teri had already analyzed the Nephilim's defense and realized that the entire thing was surrounded by the invisible barrier, meaning there were no openings. This didn't bode well for the paper girl, as the only reason why they were successful when encountering this obstacle the first time was because there was a slight flaw that she was able to exploit and one that only she could get through. Now getting through the Nephilim's shield seemed virtually impossible.

"If it's anything like the first shield we went up against near the chemical processing plant, then neither magical or physical attacks are going to be able to penetrate that barrier." she thought with a hardened expression as she studied the image,

"Wait a minute, Gumball mentioned that Rob also told him about a second Nephilim that came from the magnifying glass! Could that have something to do with us being able to take down the weapon or its shield perhaps?" she mused.

Whipping her head around until she was looking at the grey-skinned former student of Elmore Junior High, she caught the studious expression displayed all over his flat, blocky face and even saw that his hands were clasped together in front of his closed mouth. As soon as he was looking at her, she told him about her observations,

"So the shield is impenetrable and there's no gaps that will allow us to slip on through. I'm guessing we're going to have to wipe out the second Nephilim to see if we can do something about the focusing lens?" she asked, already sure that was the likely reason they were here.

With his eye widening in surprise and an amused smile etching its way onto his face, he nodded and stood up, easily towering over the two of them,

"Very perceptive Teri, and yes, it is my hypothesis that dealing with the operator of the deadly device will help us bring an end to this debacle." he leaned over once again and brought up one of his most recent photos, this one capturing a vague shadow leaping off the ring-like object.

It was too blurry to see, but with the measurements Rob was able to make by comparing it to the size of the sun powered weapon of mass destruction, he was able to deduce that the creature was around sixty feet in height. This made it considerably smaller than the object it arrived on, but sixty feet was definitely nothing to sneeze at. Looks like everyone was in for another difficult fight and neither of them were looking forward to the pain that thing would no doubt dish out.

"I've already calculated its current trajectory, it's heading for the airport. I want you two to head on over to intercept it and wipe it out." he ordered, finally handing them their task.

Gumball had a question regarding Rob's assignment and cocked an eyebrow while quickly glancing at his gun that was resting on the fold out table next to the one holding the computers,

"Um, what about you? Are you going to be going with us or are you just going to stay here and watch us get pummeled with your camera?" he asked distrustfully.

Without even acknowledging the blue kitty's quip, Rob simply waved a hand in front of the computer,

"I will be joining you two once I finish creating my auto firing mechanism that will link up with my smartphone so I can finish off the sky lens from a distance while being able to join you two in the fight. Cuatro Oblivion is already locked onto the target, but I gotta finish creating the signal to connect the gun with my cellular device." he explained, once again sounding very proud of his work.

Before he could send the two off on their mission he remembered something he needed to give them, especially Teri, and his eye lit up in excitement at the reminder. Quickly turning away from his various screens, he made a dash for his parked car and beckoned the pair to follow,

"I just remembered something important! It's in the trunk of my car, so come with me!" he said with a surprising amount of energy, almost like a kid who wants to show off a cool new toy to his friends.

Looking at each other quizzically, the two found no explanation within one another and with a shrug, began following the brown haired genius. It took them several paces to get to his parked geo metro and when they stepped outside the tent, it suddenly became slightly breezy, offering a bit of wind chill for the paper girl and cat boy. Flanking Rob while he popped the trunk, they both saw that he had a lot more gear packed within the car's storage compartment, ranging from all kinds of devices that either looked really sophisticated or really rugged and barely holding up. There was even a kind of rifle that was taped to the roof of the trunk and several harnesses with bags that could store extra ammo: talk about prepared!

However, what he was after was nothing flashy or complicated, instead he pulled out what looked like two phone cases (one custom made for Teri and one for Gumball.) that looked like they were made from some kind grey, crystalline material. Holding them up in front of him as he presented the two with his latest creations, he beamed with delight as he explained what they were before either of them could even ask,

"I made these a little while back in my spare time. The materials are easy to get ahold of if you know the right guy, but these are phone cases made from magnetite composites. They'll protect your phones from the Nephilim's EM field and they're waterproof!" he handed them the phone coverings and watched as their eyes glimmered in shock and awe at the devices given to them.

Teri was the first to thank him for his gift,

"Thank you, Rob! I'm so glad the three of us can stay in touch even when the Nephilim come down to attack us!" she was looking at him now with honest gratitude.

"Or it can help us tell the time at least." Gumball said quietly as he inspected the phone case.

Rob heard him, but didn't respond, instead turning to the Pepakuma child once more with something else he wanted to give her. Clearing his throat, he spoke to Teri with the same excited tone he had when he was giving them the modified phone cases,

"Oh, that's right! Teri, do you know what all your runes are capable of?" he asked, raising his single eyebrow curiously while placing his hands behind his back.

Thinking back on it, Teri folded her arms and placed a pointer finger on her chin before looking back at him with a shrug,

"Not all of them." she responded,

"I know three out of the five you've given me: one creates an explosion, another petrifies any Nephilim it comes in contact with and finally, one creates a powerful trident made of water. The other two are still a mystery to me." she concluded with a sigh.

Looking off to the side and scratching his glitchy head, Rob appeared to be ashamed of something,

"Yeah, sorry for not labeling all of those. I didn't find out what the rest were capable of until I fought another Nephilim on my own in the landfill." he stated, still scratching the back of his head nervously.

Having heard him while sliding his new casing on his phone, Gumball's head snapped up and his face was masked by a murderous look,

"Wait! So you're the one who killed that Nephilim! Thanks for telling us because we spent three hours wandering that dump and nearly got eaten by Tina's father." he fumed, remembering the one evening after their fight on the bridge when Teri had a dream at her house about a Nephilim in the city landfill only to find nothing but piles of garbage and one angry, old T-rex.

A sweatdrop made its way down the back of the cyclops' head and he nervously looked away from the seething cat. He knew he forgot to do something that day, but he was just so excited after discovering what the rest of the runes could do that it slipped his mind to report what he discovered. He also felt bad for not informing Teri on his results with the powerful symbols, coming to reason that the paper girl only discovered what the other two that weren't labeled could do just by using them as a last resort or something. He took her for the cautious type, unlike her blue companion, who just leapt into action once the opportunity presented itself.

Once again, paying Gumball no attention, Rob quickly said what he needed to say while handing Teri another piece of paper he pulled out of his pocket,

"Well, just to let you know the square rune with the three horizontal lines bisecting it is a spell that can summon a lightning bolt and the one I'm giving you right now can create a barrier that can take one hit before shattering, so use it wisely." he said with a warning.

Teri inspected the symbol written on the slip of paper handed to her and noted that it was really simple to draw. It resembled two crescent moons with one being smaller and fitting within the curve of the of the bigger one. Teri was grateful for this one because she now had a better means of defending herself, although she would have to see what it was capable of when they were in the field. She didn't want to overestimate this thing's capabilities, but more or less, she was happy to have something to better protect herself with when something large was attacking her.

With a delighted smile and a sparkle in her eyes she clutched the paper tightly and bowed her head a little in Rob's direction,

"Thank you so much for this!" she said before lifting her head up again,

"But what about the other rune in your notebook? The swirly one?" she asked with a perplexed glance at her bag.

Rob seemed to tense up a little when she asked about that symbol. He knew which one she was talking about and frankly, he was definitely sure that it should be used as a final means of ending a conflict. With a sigh, Rob turned around and closed his car's trunk,

"It's a really powerful weapon that shouldn't be used so often. It killed the Nephilim in the landfill, but it almost took me down as well. It's actually one of the reasons why I gave you the moon shield, so you have a better means of defending yourself while slowing down your opponent." he whirled around, this time with his eye locked onto Gumball,

"And as for you." he mentioned, causing Gumball to stop grumbling to himself and pay attention to what Rob was saying,

"I learned from someone I met last night that you should keep a cool head when using your grey fire. It's a dangerous ability that enhances your strength, but will consume your sanity if you don't have an objective to focus on."

Taken aback by this, Gumball felt as though he were paused and his mind left to try and navigate between what he should say. He wanted to thank him for the advice he had given, since he was already struggling to understand and control this power of his. However, he had kind of gotten the gist already after waging several battles while using the terrifying power the ancient weapon possessed. What he really wanted to know was what the other two runes meant.

Sadly he never got to ask any other questions because Rob was already shooing them away,

"Alright, well I kept you here long enough, now go to the airport and stop that Nephilim before he causes any damage. I will be joining you shortly after I finish with this program, which shouldn't take no more than ten minutes." he said with a simple wave and began pacing towards his tent.

Gumball was still about to ask more questions, but just as he opened his mouth Teri grabbed him by the arm and began to pull him away from the car,

"Come on! Let's go save Elmore!" she exclaimed, pulling him along with ease.

Gumball was about to object, but after weighing in the amount of time that had passed since they arrived, getting to the airport and saving the people there was definitely the top priority. Rushing over to the clearing next to Rob's mobile base, Gumball waited for Teri to form another aircraft or winged creature out of paper and took one last look in Rob's direction. He was at his laptop again, plugging away at his keyboard, his yellow orb locked onto the screen and his back hunched as he continued to finish his program.

He had to admit, he was impressed on how far along his former nemesis came in terms of advancement in both technology and magic. This was also the thing that bothered him the most, whenever he spoke to the genius inventor, he wouldn't talk much or would leave out significant portions of his daily activities. The eldest Watterson child wanted to chalk it up to him just being anti-social, but he wanted to know where he got the new runes and who this certain 'someone' he met last night was. In fact, it kind of corresponded with the attack last night and they were up in the mountains, so was Rob nearby when the attack happened?

He pushed these questions to the back of his mind when Teri finished creating a helicopter for them to ascend in and hopped on to the landing skid. Eventually the two rotors began to turn and Teri made the aircraft lift off from their small clearing, Gumball felt as though this was nicer because he wasn't being pulled back by a sharp increase in acceleration. Once they were high enough, Teri figuratively floored it and the pair hightailed it to the far off sector of the city where most visitors arrived and left in.

They could only hope that nothing terrible had happened, yet.

-Elmore airport, two minutes later, 2:52 PM-

Another place Teri always feared more than the school itself was the airport and there were plenty of obvious reasons for such a trepidation. She wasn't scared of the planes or the potential dangers that came with air travel, she actually kind of admired aircraft and the idea of flying, but instead the people or rather what they carried with them. Planes were the largest hotbed for bacteria and viruses to dwell in, with the warm environment and the many, many people coughing, sneezing, and putting their hands everywhere just made it a good place to catch an infection. Through some vigorous research in the past, Teri was able to find that most vacations ended with people getting sick and almost all of them were linked to air travel.

In short, she hated airports and coming to one now for the sake of a mission, just filled her with more unwanted anxiety. Lucky for her though, the fight was probably going to take place outside (which was probably just as bad, when you consider all that's out there.) and if they play their cards right, the fight probably won't last long either. This was just wishful thinking though and what could be worse was they arrive with everyone at the airport already dead.

They were just outside the major hub of international transportation and flying low enough to not get clocked on the air traffic controller's radar. They would also have to be really careful not to get caught because with them carrying such deadly weapons, they could land themselves in very hot water with airport security. Obviously this was one of their most critical missions as of yet because one wrong move could either cause a panic, get a lot of people here killed by the Nephilim, if there were any incoming aircraft then they could also be shut down by the monster's EMP, and if that weren't enough, the entire city was about to be incinerated in less than an hour.

They had a lot of lives riding on their shoulders and it was kind of nerve racking for the two middle schoolers.

Another cold breeze wrapped itself around the two and Gumball looked up at the cloudy sky, praying that it wouldn't rain. He was already cold, being cold and wet just sounded like a miserable time for everyone. The clouds could stay though, he wouldn't want things heating up too quickly once the sun decided to come out.

The helicopter Teri fashioned herself had a flat, non-transparent cockpit, meaning the two of them had to ride on the landing skids mounted on either side just underneath the aircraft. This meant that he had to hang onto the cockpit with one hand and hold his primary weapon with the other. This honestly wasn't so bad for the fickle feline because he enjoyed the stability the helicopter offered and not needing to worry about standing up when traveling at top speeds, like he often did with Teri's jets.

"Alright, Gumball, we just passed over the fence, so keep your eyes peeled for the monster." she shouted.

Gumball couldn't see her past the cockpit that was separating the two of them and neither she him, but he nodded anyway,

"Roger!" he called back, scanning the now visible airfield for any threats.

He couldn't see anything out of the ordinary, although there weren't any aircraft taking off nor landing and there was minimal activity on the runway. He did see a few workers milling about the various buildings, but lucky for them, they were too far away for them to see. Other than a few parked planes and some cargo trucks, there wasn't really a whole lot happening at the airport. Must have been a slow day.

"Well, this shouldn't be too difficult." Gumball stated, feeling positive already,

"All we have to do is find the bugger and lure it away from the buildings before finishing it off somewhere with a lot of open space." he finished and scanned the airfield for anything suspicious.

On the other side, Teri pondered the overall strategy devised by Gumball and saw a few flaws. For one, luring it away was definitely a good idea because it would reduce the likelihood of innocent people getting hurt along with property damage. However, once it spotted them, then fighting it would be a challenge because the Nephilim were very difficult to take head on. Plus, fighting in an open space gave the Nephilim an advantage as their power sometimes complimented their size and overwhelming strength.

There was one thing they could do though to even up the odds,

"Okay, if we're going to lure it out in the open then we're going to have to keep our distance and attack it while in the air. If we maintain air superiority, we can hit it in it's vital areas and we'll have a lot of room to maneuver in." she mentioned, picking up her visual scanning and keeping a lookout for any suspicious building sized giants.

They were still quite a distance from the various runways and the control tower, so they had a clear view of everything.

Gumball liked the idea of keeping to the skies since most of the Nephilim they fought were ground based. Although, the Nephilim they were looking out for was actually descending from its primary weapon (which was bound to fire at around 3:30, right around the time the clouds were predicted to clear.) like a dandelion seed, so they weren't exactly the only ones who had the sky as their domain. Still, it was a big target and hitting something as large as a six story building shouldn't be too difficult.

Nodding his head in agreement, Gumball leaned against the solid cockpit of the helicopter and shifted his gaze towards the sky,

"That's a good plan, though we should also utilize one of your fastest animals in case we're grounded. We have speed and our small size on our side, so we should also be able to wear it down with hit and run attacks." he added in.

Moving the helicopter until it was positioned in an area where they could get a better view of the building complexes where people came in to either board or leave the aircraft of their choice, the two continued to search for the giant invader,

"Right. Do you still feel comfortable using your grey fire? That long range attack you used last night was pretty helpful if you ask me." Teri questioned, trying to peek over the paper construct to see his reaction.

Clutching the sinister reaping weapon tightly in his paw, Gumball still wasn't so sure about the magical properties of such a device and let out a sigh,

"Not really, although I guess what Rob said was kind of helpful." he answered in a low volume,

"So I just gotta maintain focus, huh? Not sure what that means exactly." he knew it was a simple concept, but it could mean anything really. Did he have to focus on defeating the monster? Did he have to focus on not going crazy? He didn't exactly know what he did back in the storm sphere, all he was focusing on was saving Teri from the saucer Nephilim, but when she freed herself, his focused shifted when the monster attacked him instead and he was forced to defend himself.

Perhaps it was objective based.

While he considered this, he heard Teri say something and his pointy ears shot up,

"Well, try to find out what that means then. We're probably in for a real challenge, so if any opportunity presents itself you should take it. If you find yourself in trouble, I will back you up and make sure we have another shot." she sounded hyped again and Gumball could feel the positive energy flowing from her words.

Cracking a positive smile, Gumball continued to lean against the paper chopper's side and spoke with the same level of excitement,

"Yeah, same here!" he declared.

Hearing the confidence returning to him, Teri was feeling better already and suddenly felt as though this mission wasn't going to be as difficult as it first appeared,

"That's the spirit! We'll defeat this guy in no time and return to school before practice starts!" she proclaimed, pumping a fist in the air.

Gumball's eyes lit up at the mentioning of Teri's after school cheerleading practice with the other girls (and Leslie.) and he felt a blush creep onto his face after picturing Teri in her cute outfit with the other girls, waving pom poms and doing flips. It was definitely something he looked forward to seeing her in and such a thing felt like a great motivation to get this mission done. His thoughts also drifted to the new member Teri mentioned last night and was actually quite curious to see how their newest member would fare in the squad.

Rubbing his furry chin with his pointer and his thumb, Gumball brought up the subject with his paper partner,

"Oh yeah! That'll be awesome and I'll finally see how Sherry fits into the team!" he mentioned, still sounding very optimistic and excited.

Teri froze in disgust and felt her head droop a little along with her smile. There it was again, that ugly, unwarranted jealousy towards a person who didn't do anything to do deserve it. Instead of celebrating and cheering alongside Gumball, she wanted to scream or do something to cause a scene, but all that wound up happening was all her words got caught up in her throat and she felt as though she were choking on her own anger. Seriously, why was this an issue for her?

Having felt an uncomfortable twelve seconds pass by, Gumball's cheerful optimism soon faded and was replaced with concern along with a slight twinge of fear. He didn't know if it was something he said or if she spotted something, but the air was suddenly colder than usual and it was starting to worry the young cat. With the aircraft rotors being the only sound being made, the situation got awkward real quick and Gumball decided that now was a bit too long before clearing his throat in order to talk to the quiet girl next to him,

"Um, was it something I sai-!" he was starting to say, but interrupted when Teri shouted and pointed at something in the distance.

"THERE IT IS!"

Panning his head in the direction of her visible finger, Gumball could see where she was referring to and saw the Nephilim approaching! It was on the other side of the airport terminal, several hundred feet away from the buildings and had easily scaled the fence on its towering, bulky legs and was currently making its way towards the housing complex with all the visitors and the departing. With it being so close now, Gumball and Teri could see its effect on the area immediately take place as the all the lights inside switched off and the parked aircraft that had its engines running, suddenly gave out and went silent. Soon everything within the airport was quiet, dark and motionless.

That was until, the crowds of people from within could be heard screaming at the sudden loss of power and even the workers outside the building fell into disarray once their devices ceased to function. Obviously to those inside the transportation hub, this was quite terrifying because a loss of power could mean anything from a malfunction in the electricity grid to a terrorist attack and either option was less than ideal for these simple folk. For a moment, all Gumball and Teri could do was listen and watch with awe as both civilians and workers tried desperately to assess the situation and figure out was happening.

For the two kids though, the problem was clearly in front of them and the threat was just as bad, if not worse, than some power blackout or some kind of attack. This was a life or death situation that no one there could perceive and it was about to vaporize the city too. They needed to act now before the Nephilim attacked the helpless civilians.

Putting her thoughts into her actions, the helicopter sped forward and on a direct course to where the Nephilim was currently walking. They needed to lure it away from the terminal, perhaps out on the runway, if the control tower is down then no aircraft would try landing here anyway. Right? Teri was unsure, but she needed to push that doubt down and worry about it later.

Seeing where they were going Gumball readied his weapon, clinging tightly to the side of the paper aircraft and kept both eyes on the monstrous giant drawing closer to the airport visitor center. The creature was slightly humanoid in appearance, with three sets of arms all connecting at the shoulders and two powerful, athletic-looking legs that carried the creature in long strides across the grass. Like Silver Twelve this one had clothing, but in the form of a loincloth that wrapped around its waist and was decorated with ruby jewels and sapphire stones. Its oddest feature was that it lacked a head, neck, and sternum unlike most humanoids. Instead, it had an opening that bisected the upper torso all the way to the navel and within it was a large, fiery, glowing ring that seemed to run through the Nephilim and arc all the way up where the head should be. In its top hands, it held two weapons: a pair of two pronged spears called "bidents" that had a length of forty feet.

When they both saw this unusual creature enter the airport grounds, many questions ran through their heads as confusion and shock regarding the Nephilim's bizarre anatomy came to them. It was like a statue of a Hindu deity had come to life, but an angel decided to throw its halo at it, resulting in it getting stuck within the monster's body. It would've been a goofy sight to behold had it not been sixty feet in height and was marching towards the airport in a threatening fashion.

Teri stayed their course and made sure the helicopter was above its reach, so as to prevent any immediate attacks against them. It obviously didn't have any visible eyes or sensory organs, but that didn't mean that the behemoth couldn't detect their presence. She kept observing it and was figuring out some obvious weaknesses that they could exploit when she heard Gumball say something next to her,

"So how do you want to go through with this?" he asked, readying his scythe.

That was a good question. Looking at the Nephilim, Teri could see that the giant was still quite a distance from the airport and would need a minute or two before it reached it. They should obviously work on slowing it down before luring it away from the civilians and giving themselves a greater advantage over the creature.

Studying the monsters knees and ankles, Teri gave her answer,

"We need to slow it down, so we're going for its legs." she said, already forming several shurikens with some petrification paper she pulled from her bag and maneuvering the aircraft until it was flanking the monster,

"I'm going to try solidifying its knees and ankles. I need you to have your scythe ready in case something goes wrong!" she exclaimed.

On the other side, Gumball was already prepared for a counterattack, but appeared slightly confused,

"What do mean if something goes wrong? It hasn't seen- UH-OH!" he exclaimed in shock when he saw the Nephilim turn towards them and was already charging up a red doom blast.

Teri felt herself start to grow heavy and her control over the origami VTOL craft began to weaken, causing the two of them to slowly descend. Being unaffected by the Nephilim's primary attack, the blue cat quickly, out of desperation, ignited his scythe's defensive spell and reoriented the helicopter by twisting the flimsy tail with his free paw until he was directly facing the monster's attack. Moments later, the air heated up and with a loud vibrating hum, the red lance of energy leapt towards the two kids.

Gumball deflected the devastating beam of exotic energy with a swipe of the burning blade, although the force of the attack was enough to push them back and cause the aircraft to sway a little. Luckily, none of them were hurt and Gumball was starting to feel more comfortable about being on defense. The moment the attack ended, Gumball shifted his focus to where the Nephilim was, but saw to his surprise that it had vanished.

Confused, his head shot to the left followed by the right before he realized a shadow had fallen over both of them and forced him to looked up. Icy cold fear gripped him when he realized that the six armed Nephilim had leapt up above them during the firing of the doom blast and was now ready to attack while he and Teri had little time to react. To make matters worse, the surprise attack caused the blue furball's weapon to extinguish itself once his mind was overcome with the direness of the given situation.

He barely had time to raise his scythe as the beast clasped both of its lower hands together (its middle hands were interlocked in two rings formed by its index fingers and thumbs, for some strange reason.) before raising them up and bringing them down on the tiny aircraft in front of it. The paper helicopter crumpled underneath the intense force of the Nephilim's hands and while Teri was able to form herself around the blunt attack, Gumball was forced to take it on with only his weapon and arms being his first line of defense. To the blue cat, getting struck by the monster's hands was like getting hit by a car moving at a decent speed: it wasn't enough to kill him, but it sure did knock his insides around a little and the little fella was overwhelmed with pain.

With the main rotor and body being wrecked, the helicopter crashed to the ground and the two kids were flung from the wreckage. Being no stranger to crashes (and getting roughed up by Nephilim.) Gumball was already getting up and wiggling his fingers and toes to see if they were broken. Good thing was, they weren't and nothing else was either, although his arms were throbbing. It didn't take him long to spot a dizzy Teri already picking herself up from the crash as well and he made his way to her while she dusted herself off.

He waved to get her attention and called out to her,

"Hey, Teri! We should get to cover before it-!"

"LOOK OUT!"

Teri already looked to see where the giant was and saw that the unusual titan was already descending upon them with one of its bidents poised to strike Gumball. The upright feline caught her warning and whirled around just in time to see the two-pronged spear jetting towards him. Taking three steps to the right, Gumball narrowly avoided being skewered by one of the sharp tips of the golden spear and Teri was wise to do the same, seeing as the six armed monster had been aiming for her with the other one.

With both its weapons stuck in the ground, both Gumball and Teri took the initiative and charged the halo-like monster with their weapons raised. However, the monster seemed to have predicted this and caught them both with one of its lower arms. Having been knocked into each other, the two kids flew in a tangled heap and landed a ways away. Both of them sported no injuries, but were left quite dizzy from the Nephilim's simple strike.

Using his arms to push himself up, Gumball opened his eyes and saw that he was atop of Teri, who was just opening her black eyes herself. They both were able to see each other and noticed that they were both alright. Seeing the close proximity they were in, a shade of scarlet covered both of their faces and Gumball quickly reacted by leaping off of her and facing towards the faceless Nephilim,

"U-uh, okay, so rushing it was a bad idea. You wanna create an animal and circle around it?" he asked the recovering paper bear behind him.

Already standing on her feet and looking the monster up and down, she saw that it was pulling its two weapons out of the ground and was already standing tall, ready to attack. She gulped and began reaching for her bag,

"Definitely, we should keep out of its range and also, you're on defense." she answered simply, her flimsy hand already finding a large sheet within the bag's confines.

Gumball wasn't entirely sure if he could defend against the creature's physical attacks, but he agreed that it was their best chance regardless. He didn't expect the monster to be so quick, but at least they had its attention now and he intended to keep it. If circling around and attacking its legs didn't work, he was going to have to reconsider using his power and wearing it down with a flurry of enhanced attacks. He'd probably go crazy again, but if their plan didn't work, at least it will give Teri an opening. There was also that wave attack he could try using, but that was if he couldn't think of anything else.

While Teri began folding the large orange sheet into a replica of a tiger, Gumball noticed the Nephilim do something strange. The wheel of fire turning within its body flickered and changed from a burning orange/yellow to a tranquil blue before it stopped rotating. Following the sudden change, Gumball flinched when he saw the ring move and disconnect one end until it was moving like a serpent within the six-armed giant's body. A baffled Watterson child kept his guard up as he watched a fiery blue head sprout up from the neck spot and two empty black eyes made themselves visible as they peered down at the two with apathetic disdain.

Then the monster spoke,

"So… you're the pests that have been halting our forces here for the past month." he remarked with a condescending cruelty that Gumball and Teri have grown quite acquainted with at this point.

"Great. Another talker." Gumball thought in irritation and disgust. He honestly didn't know which was worse, a Nephilim that attacked them with brainless animosity or with smug intelligence and the occasional monologue. These things were nothing but irritating if Gumball were to say.

The Nephilim let out a nasty laugh that made both Teri and Gumball's skin crawl and it continued to jeer at the two,

"This has to be quite the comedy because I never once would have imagined that such insects could cause this much damage to our mighty army." he joked, once again letting out another chuckle before suddenly going silent. He glared at the duo and let out a snarl, causing the paper bear and the cat boy to shiver at the sudden change in tone,

"So you're the ones that eliminated the Se'arot squad along with my dear sister, Leliel!" his voice was now filled a ferocity that matched his fiery cranium.

Both Gumball and Teri shook with surprise at the revelation that came from the six armed Nephilim. Of course they never suspected that the plasma controlling inhabitant of the storm sphere was the sibling of the monstrosity that was threatening their city, but it wasn't surprising that he would try to attack them seeing as they recently learned that the Nephilim were capable of complex feelings like regret and loss. However, this did not change the fact that they still had to kill Leliel and her underlings because of what was at stake.

They didn't display any kind of regret and continued to stare at the spear wielding entity towering above them with empty black eyes filled with hate and malice,

"I see, well then, in the name of my comrades and my sister I, Uriel, the sun king, will vanquish you vermin along with your putrid nest with my spears and my sun throne. Nothing will remain of your vile-!"

"Man, I'm getting a real strong sense of deja vu here." Gumball interrupted, not a shred of concern in his voice or his posture,

"How about you, Teri?" he asked his equally calm companion.

"Don't you mean deja blue?" she joked, hiking a thumb at the shocked entity's cyan colored head and making Gumball laugh at her pun,

"But yeah, you're most certainly correct. Six arms, blathering on about fallen comrades and revenge. He's kind of like that virus we fought last year." she said, chuckling at the memory.

Gumball's eyes lit up like burning stars and a smile found its way on his kitty face,

"Oh yeah, you're right! He does kind of remind me of him! Too bad he's too big to step on!" he exclaimed, a giggle escaping his lips.

Teri joined in on his laughter until the Nephilim stomped his foot, causing the ground to shake and the kids to cease in their antics. Their eyes were on Uriel now and even though he lacked any facial expressions, it was evident that he was irritated. Raising a single spear until it was pointed at the two, he continued to glare at the beings who were just recently mocking him,

"If you're finished with your senseless humor spouts then I suggest you apologize now for the pain you caused me and for being the unlucky parasites that you are. Go on, I'm generous enough to give you a minute, but only a minute and then I will vaporize you lot!" he folded both his lower arms across his chest and abdomen while he awaited for their apology.

What came next wasn't a fearful response to the giant, instead was an angered reply from the paper girl. Teri wasn't frightened by this beast anymore, no, she was shocked that this monster had the audacity to demand an apology after his kind had done nothing but cause terror, destruction, and even a few deaths in this town, plus he was threatening everyone who lived here. Taking a step forward, Teri decided to give this monster the kind of respect it deserved and raised an accusing finger in its direction,

"Do you seriously think that Gumball and I feel any kind of regret for killing your comrades? After your kind invaded our city, killed three innocent people who did nothing to deserve their fates, terrorized us for nearly a month, destroyed private property and now threaten thousands of others. I think that you're the ones that owe us an apology!" she shouted, her hands at both of her sides now and clenched into fists.

The sight of her this furious was quite a shock for Gumball, the little paper girl was burning with righteous fury, her arms shaking, and her eyes narrowed into a dangerous glare that threaten to reduce anything that met their gaze into nothing. Her being angry was nothing new to the cat, but this kind of explosive defiance was definitely startling to look at and quite empowering too, to be honest. Soon he found himself standing next to her and hurling his own flurry of righteous insults,

"Yeah! So why don't you step off our planet and go back to whatever planet or dimension or butt end of nowhere you crawled out of. Also, tell your ugly friends to stay away too because we're fed up with you Nephilim constantly interrupting our daily activities!" he shouted back, his hyper-aggressive attitude causing him to emphasize what he was saying with his paw.

Hearing their protests and backlash, Uriel's fiery head seemed to burn wildly with anger and his black eyes began to narrow. Of all the indignity these two displayed, actually talking back to him instead of apologizing was taking it one step too far. Their wretched kind have already been the cause of so much misfortune for his people, but the two that took so much from him were already pushing the boundary to unforgiveable levels.

They will pay for their insults.

With his spear still raised and pointed at the two, Uriel concentrated and a small golden orb began to form in between the twin prongs of the lengthy weapon,

"The Earth never belonged to you or your kind! Your simple lives and petty excuses mean nothing to me and your refusal to apologize for taking someone so precious from me is the reason you two will burn!" he roared.

The glowing orb that hovered within the space of the bident's tip grew larger with the sudden increase of rage and quickly morphed into a rotating ring of fiery energy that glowed like the sun. Gumball and Teri braced themselves for what was to come next, luckily there was still some time to act for the two and the attack wasn't like a doom blast, so they could still move. While Gumball was already standing in a defensive pose with his scythe, Teri had retrieved a piece of paper from her notepad, sketched a symbol onto it and followed the same procedure once more.

Eventually the Nephilim's energy based attack seemed to reach its critical peak and with a swipe of his bident, the burning ring of fire was sent hurling towards Gumball. Taking two steps back, Gumball felt his arms tense a little as he prepared to swing and counter the attack. Within the release of a single breath, the flying, circular projectile came in contact with the cat's curved weapon with a noise that sounded strikingly like two blades connecting and screeching against one another. The force of the ring's collision with the shaft was enough to push the alert cat boy back a few feet, but wasn't enough to knock him down or do anything else really. Feeling the intense heat emanating from the Nephilim's long range attack, Gumball felt the fur on his paws start to singe and several sparks that flew from the rotating halo made their way to his arms, face, and torso before landing and fizzling out of existence.

Despite the strength of the attack, Gumball knew he could push this one off and with a grunt, he tugged on the scythe's handle. The motion caught the levitating ring of fire within the inner teeth of the silver blade and with a powerful swipe, the projectile was sent flying away from the cat boy. The deadly weapon sailed away like a fiery ring toss and Gumball was able to catch his breath.

He couldn't remain still for long though, as two things began happening at once: Uriel had taken the opportunity to strike with his other spear and the energy projectile he just deflected was circling back around as if it had a mind of its own. This was quite troubling to Gumball, for he could not figure out which to deal with first. Obviously the Nephilim's spear was a big threat, but if he focused on him then the energy ring will surely come back and strike him while his attention was elsewhere. He was in desperate need for a fast reaction time and the moment this desire arose, so did a familiar force within him. Soon the heat from the blade's silver flames could be felt enveloping the anthropomorphic cat and the scythe wielding Nephilim fighter got ready to take the Nephilim's spear head on.

It didn't wind up happening that way because as soon as his flames were ignited, a familiar paper doll had leapt over him with amazing grace and agility before lightly landing on one foot. Gumball's eyes grew in surprise when he watched his flexible fighting partner hold up a slip of paper with the moon runes scratched onto it with pencil lead and a circular, transparent barrier manifested in front of the two of them with the same set of symbols inscribed in the center. This all happened just as Uriel's attack reached them and instead of impaling the two kids like bizarro shish kabobs, the spear was halted upon impact, the only sound being a heavy and non-threatening thunk!

For a moment no one said or did anything, even Uriel seemed baffled by this unorthodox move. His flaming, blue head cocked to the side and his black hole eyes narrowed as he studied the defensive spell summoned by the girl he first deemed as the least threatening of the two. The barrier shattered like glass and dissolved in a fine mist mere seconds after the bident had struck and Uriel remained where he was.

Seeing this excellent opportunity to counter Uriel's rebounding energy ring, Gumball's feet were already moving his body to intercept,

"Time to finish this deadly game of ring toss!" he eagerly exclaimed with a cocky grin and a fire was lit in his eye.

In a daring move that could be mistaken for well practiced choreography, a power infused Gumball rushed over to Teri's side while hooking her arm within his free one (also being as careful as his power crazed brain would allow him not to let the flames get too close to Teri.) and spinning around on his heel. Swinging the paper girl around and away from the incoming ring of fire, the pivoting scythe wielder reached out with his primary weapon and swiped the blade through the offending projectile with a powerful swing. The ancient weapon's powerful grey torrent seemed to do the trick because the six-armed Nephilim's newest method of attack was completely obliterated.

Coming back around full circle, Teri was at first perplexed with Gumball's unusual method of defense, but when she saw that Uriel's spear was drawing closer, she knew that Gumball somehow had managed to react quick enough to defend them both from the other threat while organizing a countermeasure. He was surprisingly very quick on his toes today and Teri was quite impressed with his quick thinking. Coming into range, Teri slapped the other rune she was holding onto one of the flat prongs of the bident and watched as a square rune with three bisecting lines began to glow a brilliant yellow before flashing ominously.

KRA-KOOM!

From the empty sky above, a single lightning bolt shot downwards in a bright blaze and an Earth shaking roar as it struck the note Teri placed onto Uriel's spear. Even enchanted metal such as the sun king's spear was obedient to the laws of physics as the cold, golden surface of the beast's primary weapon was encased in brilliant arcs of electricity that snaked their way up towards his upper arm and began frying the six story behemoth with a temperature five times greater than the surface of the sun.

His screams of agony echoed throughout the airport as his body contorted and writhed with every jolt of electricity. Not sure how long they had until this effect wore off, Teri decided now was the time to get on her tiger and get moving. Turning to the astounded Watterson child, Teri waved him over to her origami,

"Come on, we have to go before he recovers!" she shouted with real urgency in her voice.

However, Gumball didn't move from his spot and instead remained fixated on Uriel, his burning weapon still in hand. Confused, Teri got a good look at his face and saw that his eyes were lit up with a kind of bloodlust. A wild, crazy grin was also visible as he crouched down and prepared to run towards the giant,

"You kidding me? He's open and I'm going to carve him up!" he shouted with a kind of murderous glee that was unlike him.

Realizing that the boy had gone crazy with his power again, Teri realized that she had to get through to him before he rushed off to do something stupid. Taking a deep breath, she raised her voice and began shouting at him. She also had an angry look plastered on her face and was already marching towards him to enact whatever means of force to snap him out of his craze,

"Gumball! We need to go now or else you will die and everyone else here will die too!" her voice already reaching a critical point in ferocity.

What she said seemed to do the trick because as soon as her words reached him, he turned to her, saw the angered and worried expression she wore and the silver flames engulfing his weapon quickly extinguished themselves. Realizing that he made her worry again and nearly put everyone at risk by foolishly preparing to attack the Nephilim, Gumball's fear of failure quickly took hold and brought him back to his senses. He really needed to work on controlling his power instead of having it control him.

With a shaky nod, Gumball lowered his weapon and uttered a quick apology,

"Sorry about that. I nearly lost control again, thanks for snapping me out of it." he gave her a half smile before dashing off to the tiger Teri had made.

Feeling relieved that Gumball was back to normal, the Pepakuma child formed a pleasant smile herself and let out a small, content sigh. Her relief ceased when she heard another roar coming from Uriel and the present situation caught up to her once again. Pumping her long, flimsy legs as hard as she could, she bounded towards the folded paper replica of the dangerous jungle cat, saddled up with Gumball already behind her and with a silent command, got the paper cat moving.

Meanwhile, Uriel had already recovered from his initial shock (no pun intended.) and was watching the two tear across the field and towards the runway. With a snarl, his head reverted back into its halo form, this time his flames were a bloody crimson, and took off after the two with his spears raised. While he rushed after them, the colossal figure's internal thoughts were calm despite his appearance,

"Torax, Raphael, Thundero, Olaf, Brahkka, and my dear sister, Leliel, I know you wouldn't have wanted me to disobey orders in order to avenge your deaths, but I can't let your murderers run free. I will make your killers pay and rid this land of its vile inhabitants." he thought to himself with a grim resolve.

He was informed of his sibling's death along with the loss of all his former colleagues several hours ago and even though his squad was going to be deployed elsewhere on Earth, he disobeyed his orders to remain with his squad in order to come to the land where closest friends and beloved relative were slaine. He knew he was possibly facing court martial and even execution when he came back, but he figured since president Nimrod wanted this town destroyed that he may receive a less harsh sentence. He knew what was at stake, but none of that mattered to him, his grief and hatred were the only things motivating him at this point.

With his unwavering resolve, the Nephilim pressed forward and began closing in on the two children trying to flee.

Gumball looked back and saw the sun king getting ever so close, despite the already fast pace they were moving at. Trying to keep his cool, he informed the driver of their mount of the approaching threat and kept his guard up. Teri noticed the immediate danger and tried to devise a quick, yet effective plan,

"Ummm, let's turn around and go for his legs. I don't have any runes drawn up yet, so you're going to have to slash at his ankle and that will hopefully slow him down." she suggested in a hushed tone.

Gumball was quick to catch on and crouched down the moment they came to a halt. Just as Teri had hoped, the Nephilim was caught off guard by this sudden action and was forced to stop himself. Quickly twisting the tiger around, Teri and her companion began to make a mad dash towards one of the giant's legs. Uriel was fast to catch onto what they were after and thrusted one of his spears directly at them.

The tiger nimbly dodged to the side and the two pronged weapon sank into the soft dirt with an impact similar to that of an artillery shell. However, he wasn't finished there as he utilized his other weapon to swipe and jab at the two, which yielded no results. He did make it increasingly difficult for them to reach their goal though, after pulling his bident out the ground, he began to back up and continue his onslaught at a comfortable distance.

Gumball watched as multiple strikes from the six armed beast missed, shooting up clods of dirt as Teri carefully maneuvered and leapt away from each one while maintaining enough speed to keep up with him. Realizing that they weren't getting any closer and were more than likely to get skewered at this point, Gumball came up with a new plan of attack,

"Teri, go for his spear!" he shouted over the constant impacts that rained bits of Earth everywhere.

Taking his advice, Teri carefully waited for the next strike from the Nephilim's spear and when she saw the golden weapon making its way towards them, she willed the orange tiger to pounce. Landing on all four feet, the paper tiger clambered up the telephone pole thick shaft of the twin tipped spear and towards the entity's forearm. Uriel sensed this happening and made his move to rid himself of the pests,

"GET OFF!" his angry voice shouted as the middle arm opposite of the spear they were on shot upwards and swiped at the two.

Luckily, Teri's reaction time just barely managed to avoid them getting struck by the colossal hand that was racing towards them, although the hind leg of the origami jungle cat was brushed by Uriel's little finger. It was a close call for the duo, but they now found themselves falling from the incredible height they had climbed. Bracing themselves, the bear and the cat felt a slight jolt as their unusual ride landed at the base of the giant's feet, but they were fortunate enough to remain unscathed.

Looking around, Gumball noticed that they were pretty close to sun king's massive feet and spotted a perfect opportunity to attack. Raising his lengthy weapon, the blue feline swung hard and allowed the crescent blade to tear right through the Nephilim's ankle. The titan's response was almost instantaneous, an audible yelp could be heard coming from him as he leapt up into the air and left the tiger riding kids on the ground below.

Seeing as he was up in the air now, Teri made a last second decision to go find cover and scanned the area for a spot to hide in. Her attention was drawn back to the airport where she spotted a couple of trucks parked quite a ways away from any of the parked aircraft and people. She didn't like the idea of bring the fight closer to the airport, but unfortunately if they stayed out here in the open while he was in the air above them then they'll only succeed in getting destroyed or worse would waste even more time trying to fight him. With a silent command to the origami they took off and began heading towards the parked trucks.

Keeping an eye on Uriel, Gumball saw that the six armed entity wasn't returning to the ground and was instead hovering in place. His middle arms were interlinked with that unusual finger lock again and Gumball wondered if that was somehow connected to how he flew, Teri noticed this as well. He could assume that the giant wasn't going to land thanks to the injury of his left ankle and was possibly going to fight them from up there now. Looks like the conflict just got more complicated and their original main advantage over the Nephilim was gone.

They were about halfway from where Uriel was hovering and the trucks they were heading for when Uriel began his next attack. Placing both his bidents together end to end, forming a staff, the powerful entity held it above his head with both arms and began spinning the staff around. At each end of the linked spears, a golden orb manifested, creating what looked like a massive ring similar to the one running through his body and the a familiar hum could be heard as he selected his fleeing targets.

Gumball felt his grip tightening on the origami tiger's back as he watched the odd spectacle unfold before him and a grim feeling quickly followed,

"You might want to floor it, Teri! He's doing something and it doesn't look good for us!" he remarked to the paper girl with a hint of fear in his voice.

Wanting to maintain her focus on getting to cover, Teri didn't look behind her, but she took his word for it and assumed they needed to hurry. Grinding her teeth together, she put in another command and the paper cat's hind legs coiled up before launching them even further, much closer to the trucks. All the while, Gumball was already preparing to ward off what was probably going to be a devastating and overwhelming attack.

Behind them, Uriel's weapon was already charged with energy and if he could sneer right now, he would have: these rats were in for a world of hurt. Still rapidly spinning his staff, the hovering giant raised his lower arms and then clasped his hands together in a prayer-like position. The noise became silent and within a the span of a single second, he unleashed his devastating attack. From the ends of his spinning staff, dozens of flaming energy rings spewed forth and began arcing towards the running wild cat with its two unprepared passengers.

Feeling his fur raising, the Cyan cat was already on his feet and met the first ring with a horizontal slash that sent the energy projectile bouncing away and out of sight. Unfortunately four more rings came in to replace the one he deflected and the young boy was forced to quickly start hacking and slashing at anything that was attacking their rear. He was doing good, until one of the fiery circles came from his left side and while he was able to move just in time to avoid getting his head lopped off, his shoulder was burnt by the rotating projectile.

Groaning, Gumball swatted three more away and felt one of his hands clasp the burnt spot where the ring had grazed him. He didn't have time to tend to his wound though, as twelve other energy rings, plus all the rebounding ones he had deflected were already zeroing in on them and preparing to annihilate them from all sides. Baring his fangs, Gumball began to have regretful thoughts as he concentrated on which one to hit first,

"There's no way to deflect all of them and even if I do somehow manage to accomplish such a feat, they're just going to come right back with reinforcements." he thought with dread,

"No choice, I'm gonna have to power up in order to destroy them all." he realized, although he didn't want to because he would lose a lot of energy from doing so and he would probably get hurt too due to a lack of thinking.

Before he could ignite his scythe though, he heard Teri say something and he paused,

"Watch your head!" she shouted over her shoulder.

It didn't take him long to figure out what was happening and without so much as a care for the threat behind them, Gumball quickly dropped down on his stomach just as a shadow passed over him. Thanks to Teri's increased speed, she managed to get them to the trucks as she had intended and with a quick warning to her backseat companion, she ducked down, allowing the two of them to slide underneath the massive trailer attached to the rear of the cab. With a set altitude, the flurry of burning halos slammed into the truck with enough force to push it aside a little, burning through the trailer and bursting out from the other side before soaring upwards and away from the parking space for the cargo transports.

Safe and sound, the kids managed to emerge from underneath the damaged vehicle and took a brief moment to catch their breaths. They weren't being attacked for the time being and right now was a good time to re-strategize. During their fight, Teri noticed something about Uriel, he was afraid of letting them get close and tried his best at keeping his distance. All his attacks were long ranged and the way he panicked when they tried running up his spear indicated that he was guarding some sort of weak spot.

And Teri already figured out where it was and how to get to it.

Rotating her upper body until she was facing her feline companion in arms, she decided to relay her plan, although she was unsure if he would be comfortable with it,

"How are you doing back there?" she asked, knowing that deflecting all those attacks must have taken a lot out of him.

With a simple thumbs up and a wobbly grin, Gumball gave her some assurance that he was doing pretty well for himself,

"Not bad! He seems to really like us though, since he keeps trying to put a ring on it, if you know what I mean." he breathed, some of his humor still managing to leak out.

Teri couldn't help but smile at the boy's tenacious sense of humor and unbreakable spirit. Feeling comfortable knowing that he was still fit for fighting, the paper girl moved accordingly to fill him in on her observations and her planned counter attack. Placing her hands together, tilting both index fingers in his direction and putting on her serious face, Teri grabbed his attention,

"Good to know! We're going to attack before he makes another move." she stated with the utmost urgency,

"During our scuffle with him, I noticed an obvious weak point thanks to his overall structure and that spot is his waist. He has that opening that runs all the way down to his naval, meaning the area there is extremely thin and could be destroyed with a powerful explosive attack." she explained, feeling pretty sure that's what Uriel was guarding.

With it all coming to him, Gumball felt that what she said was quite obvious and gave him the ideal place to target. Feeling hope and determination rising within the very core of his being, Gumball was already pumped for a counter attack. Keeping his ears sharp for anymore incoming projectiles, Gumball figured Teri already had a strategy devised and leaned forward to show that he was listening,

"Gotcha! So we split him down the middle! How are we gonna do that, though? he's in the air and surrounded by a swarm of rings ready to engage us at a moment's notice!" he pointed out.

Rolling her eyes at his clever pun, Teri continued on with an idea that popped in her head,

"I've already thought about that and I know how to get pass his defenses, although you're probably not going to like it." she said with a worried glance in his direction.

A devilish smile made its way onto Gumball's face and he could feel his heart starting to race. He already knew what her plan was by the way she spoke and to be honest, it was probably a good idea too. He did have to admit that he was scared of the idea of facing the death dealing king of the sun, but he had faith in Teri's plans and that was enough to quell his concerns,

"Gotta distract him while you sneak in and deal him the final kude-grah, right?" he proclaimed with a look that conveyed his sarcasm towards the female fighter.

Placing a flat hand behind her round head, Teri smiled nervously and nodded a little in order to confirm the cat's suspicions,

"Well, actually I need you to buy me some time because I gotta get prepared first." she quickly added in.

Feeling as though it was the same basic idea, Gumball hopped off the tiger and prepared to fulfill his role in Teri's master plan when he eyed the truck sitting next to them,

"Sure thing… also, that truck over there is carrying extra papers in case you need more ammo." he explained, hiking a thumb over in the direction of the semi with a Channax logo painted on the trailer with subtext stating printing paper delivery underneath.

With her eyes widening in amazement, Teri was about to thank Gumball for pointing that out, but was cut off when she heard a hum that was getting louder by the second, prompting Gumball to get moving. Before he could dash around the truck though, Teri did have something to say and she called out his name. Pausing in his tracks, Gumball pivoted and gave her one last glance,

"In case something goes wrong, here's a quick back-up plan…" she started.

She quickly gave him her other idea and with a single nod of acknowledgement, Gumball ignited the scythe's grey inferno before taking off. Remembering something important, the enhanced kitty slashed a large hole into the side of the Channax delivery truck as he rushed by. Now Teri had a means of getting more paper when the situation called for it and Gumball was able to run out to meet the enemy head on.

From his position in the sky, Uriel sensed a familiar blue figure emerging from his hiding place and redirected his flying weapons to confront the running feline. With his speed and his strength enhanced by the energy raging within, the Watterson child was able to intercept the first volley that was closing in on him and with a few powerful swipes and slashes, reduced the flying halos to nothing. Not entirely phased in the slightest, Uriel sent in the next wave with hopes of completely surrounding his foe and getting a lucky shot where his blindspot was.

The giant watched for a bit as the blue cat continued to make short work of numerous attacks with his lower arms crossed and his mind fixated on the surprisingly capable creature,

"That's definitely an enhancement spell. He's not going to go down easily, but he'll eventually wear himself out. I'll just keep sending wave after wave of energy attacks at him until his energy completely dissipates." he concluded after watching the scythe wielder completely deflect all his rings with no apparent effect on his overall stamina and health.

With nothing else being hurled at him, an enraged Gumball peered up at the villain in the sky and shook his fist at him,

"Is that the best you can do? Why don't you come down here and give me a real fight!" he shouted, already becoming irrational and hot-headed. He was really itching for a fight and with all this energy he possessed, he needed to dish it out on someone.

Hearing the tiny being calling him out, the Nephilim remained where he was and began charging up a doom blast. With a grunt of discontempt, he fired the red beam directly at the noisy little pest and thought to himself how the thing oughta pay for being so disrespectful. Of course, the beam of exotic energy did little to harm the cat as he was already moving away from it and used the opportunity to get closer to the floating beast.

With the blast scorching nothing but Earth, Uriel aborted the strike and disconnected his bidents, holding them until both were pointed at the rapidly approaching the feline Nephilim fighter. Letting loose a couple energy projectiles to harass him with, the halo-themed Nephilim began to drift away while Gumball desperately tried to deflect and dodge the homing attacks being centered on him. While maintaining his focus on the deranged, yet tenacious person fighting below, Uriel noticed that something was off,

"Wait a minute! If he's attacking right now, then where is his female companion?" he wondered after noticing the absence of the second Earth child.

Extending his senses to the surrounding area, the six armed entity and wielder of the sun throne searched for the frail, yet clever partner of the one down below. He was surprised when he picked up movement from behind and whirled around when he saw a flat, angular Sparrow darting through the air towards him with a familiar figure on its back. He also sensed that she was carrying some powerful magic with her and if he had a mouth he would be grinning in amusement,

"How entertaining! These parasites seriously think such a simple diversion would be enough to get the jump on me?!" he mused.

Facing his airborne adversary, a loud hum began to resonate within the ears of the two fighters and Teri looked up in surprise when she saw a familiar scarlet orb began appear in front of the Nephilim's chest. Down below, Gumball leapt over a fiery projectile and cut it in half with a well aimed swing before cutting the remaining one down upon landing. He felt the atmosphere heat up and the world was basked in a bloody red glow. Curious, he turned his gaze upwards and saw that he was too late to stop Uriel from firing his doom blast at Teri, who was immobilized by the entity's force.

For a moment, all Gumball could do was glance up at her in horror as he realized what was about to happen, but stopped when he noticed something. The moment the doom blast reached critical levels and was released in an intense display of light and heat, a circular glass barrier formed in front of Teri and her bird with the twin moons imprinted on it. A barrier rune!

The destructive beam clashed with the transparent wall Teri had placed in front of herself and Gumball smiled when he saw the red energy simply flow around the magical obstacle, leaving Teri surprised, but unscathed. Uriel however, was unaware of the Pepakuma child's defense and presumed her to be nothing more than a few stray atoms. After a few seconds of firing, Uriel was ready to see his handiwork and with a simple command, the beam vanished.

He got a nasty shock when he saw Teri still alive and flying! Taken aback by this, the Nephilim quickly moved backwards, hoping to put more distance between the two of them and launch some countermeasures. To his surprise though, Teri did not attempt to pursue him, instead opting to bank around on her paper sparrow,

"Wait a minute! If she's not the attacker then why was the other one acting as a…" fear running through his mind, he adjusted his sense so he could know what was behind him.

Leaping through the air with his blazing scythe raised above his head, Gumball soared towards the giant with a triumphant grin and got ready to deal the final blow. Uriel realized that he had fallen for their trap, Gumball was never meant to be the distraction, but he was sent out to fool him into thinking he was and he took the bait. Truly the Earth children were a cunning bunch and underestimating them would be a mistake. He felt the child's burning scythe tear its way through his midsection, effectively cutting him in two and leaving the two halves to fall.

Feeling a sense of relief overcoming him, the flying cat continued to move through the air, his magical flames having been extinguished after he'd cut his way through the giant and waited for Teri to intercept his flight path. He was feeling a bit tired now, having used a decent amount of power during that confrontation and the close call with Teri left him mentally exhausted too. If he hadn't seen her throw up that barrier earlier, he probably would've assumed the worst and then he'd… actually, he didn't know what he would have done right then and there. If Teri had been killed, it would've felt like his world was ending because she meant so much to him.

He was glad she was okay and that her plan worked, she knew that Uriel was clever and informed him to get ready to attack once she had the Nephilim's attention. Now he was in two different pieces and falling towards the ground and hopefully the barrier went down around his sun throne so Rob could take the shot. He was several dozen meters from landing when Teri swooped in and caught him on the back of her avion.

Looking back at him with a stressed, yet triumphant expression, she spoke to her passenger,

"Nice job! That was really impressive, holding off all those attacks and cutting through him at the last second!" she said, giving the exhausted boy some praise.

Feeling honored, Gumball managed a crooked smile and wiped some sweat off his brow,

"Thanks! Your plan was effective as always and nice job at tanking that doom blast! That had me scared for a moment!" he remarked, feeling lucky that she was alive and in front of him.

Smiling back at him, the paper girl swerved the bird towards the town and began taking them both in the direction of their school,

"Yeah, I was worried too. I was hoping to get in real close before he could do anything, but his senses were too accurate and he caught me. I'm glad he's dead and no one got hurt." she sighed, already wanting to get this day over with.

Kicking back and feeling himself starting to relax, Gumball allowed the wind to gently caress his fur,

"At least the barrier is down now, so I should probably contact Rob and let him-!" he was interrupted by a blinding light that came from behind.

Both looked back and saw that the flash was coming from the spot Uriel's two halves supposedly fell and a shroud of despair fell upon them. The realization struck the duo as they never saw the body burn up like the Nephilim normally did when they died and foolishly began retreating without confirming the kill. Something was definitely happening now and it obviously spelled bad news for the defenders of Elmore.

Gritting her teeth, Teri growled and swung the bird around, making sure to avert her eyes from the intense light source,

"How can this be? I thought you killed it?" she questioned out loud, feeling all sorts of frustration and confusion at their current situation.

Shielding his eyes too, Gumball didn't have an answer for her, but knew they had hard work ahead of them,

"I'm not sure, but we gotta get back there and finish the job!" he shouted back.

They continued to fly in a straight direction and while they did, the glow died down and what was left was not a single Nephilim, but a pair instead. Getting closer, the curious duo carefully analyzed the two new opponents and were quite shocked to see what the Nephilim had become. While they haven't changed much in appearance one of the most notable differences was their size and number of arms each one possessed. Instead of sixty feet in height, one was forty feet and the other was twenty, looking as though the original was cut down by one third. Another thing to note was while the taller one had four arms the smaller one had only two and both Nephilim wielded a single bident spear.

Despite the big decrease in height, they were both significant threats to the two (actually more so because they lost the advantage in numbers.) and what's more disturbing was the fact that neither of them showed any signs of damage from Gumball's earlier attack.

Mouths agape and eyes locked onto the newly reformed and undamaged silver creatures, Gumball wondered how this was possible,

"How did they…?" he couldn't finish that line because he understood that the Nephilim were capable of pulling off extraordinary abilities, so this shouldn't surprise him.

Still, this was real bad, not only was Uriel undamaged, there were two of them now and Gumball wasn't sure how he and Teri could deal with a pair of Nephilim at once. They already had enough trouble dealing with one Uriel, or any Nephilim for that matter. He really hoped that Rob was finished with his program and was heading down to reinforce them because he wasn't sure either of them could hold out against this new threat.

Keeping their distance, Teri had the bird circle around the new pair and continued to observe them. Like her passenger, she was very surprised with this new and rather difficult situation present before them. She hoped that the last attack would do him in, but it seemed that Uriel had his own clever trick up his non-existent sleeves. His original form had six arms and was twenty feet higher than the tallest one there, so it was easy for Teri to deduce that he could only do this trick once more with the taller one, which had four arms. She wasn't sure how strong each individual one was and whether or not their strength was divided as individuals, but she figured that taking out the smaller one might be easier.

It's the big one though, that displayed the most problems and with both of them working together, it was going to be an uphill conflict.

While she thought of a plan, she noticed the taller Uriel's body halo had reverted back into a head form and was now speaking to them,

"I commend you for such a clever trick, not bad for vermin such as yourselves. You have my respect as a soldier of Babyloth." he said, showing genuine esteem for his two opponents.

On the sparrow, Gumball stood and cupped a hand around his mouth before shouting back at the Nephilim,

"Sorry Sunny D-stroyer, but flattery won't help you unleash the power of the sun and destroy our town." he responded with some snark. Teri was glad to hear him making puns and using silly nicknames, it meant that he was still high in spirits.

Ignoring his snappy comeback, the forty foot tall Uriel continued to ramble on,

"But I'm afraid to say that your cunning tactics won't be enough to save you and your kind's infestation." he said, his tone already shifting back to bitter hatred,

"Seeing as I have a vendetta against you and the people living here, I'm going to send my puppet out to start exterminating the unsuspecting pests, starting first with the youngest and I believe the closest nest of young Earth children is there." he said, pointing off in a certain direction.

Teri and Gumball followed the direction of his finger and figured out where he was referring to,

"The high school!" Teri shouted.

"Anais!" Gumball screamed in terror.

With a simple snap of his fingers, the divided sun king sent his smaller counterpart off and running out from the airport. As soon as he disappeared, Uriel turned his attention back to the airborne fighters, his dark eyes locking onto their terrified expressions,

"So many young souls." he muttered with an apathetic cruelty,

"Of course, you two could stay here and finish me off yourselves, it would be difficult, but achievable no doubt. However, my puppet will probably reach the gathering of young Earth children in five minutes or less. Do you really think you can defeat me in time? Leaving here to help the children will also result in the deaths of the people in the airport and perhaps the surrounding area." he mentioned.

Staring in disbelief, Gumball and Teri tried to mentally find a solution to this unfortunate predicament. They could phone in Rob and have him intercept the Nephilim heading for the school, but he was still quite a distance away and there was also the fact that he may not be finished with his auto-firing system. The next obvious choice was to quickly finish off the one stationed here, but like he said, it would probably take them too much time and what would happen if he divided himself again? The final option would be to split up and handle each one themselves, but neither of them were strong enough to take on a Nephilim by themselves.

"Such a dirty trick! This is exactly what I feared would happen as time wore on, having to deal with multiple opponents." Teri's internal monologue voiced her frustration and anxiety,

"We have no choice! One of us has to go after the one that left and the other has to stay and keep the bigger one occupied. Problem is, if either one of us goes then our strength would decrease and we'll have more difficulty fighting." she growled as she quickly glanced around for anything that could be of use.

Sneaking a peek at Gumball, she saw that he was already starting to move with his focus being on the taller Nephilim standing below them and his weapon already raised at his side. She realized that he must be opting to take the larger one down as quickly as possible and with his scythe's ability along with the Nephilim's decrease in size, he probably could inflict some serious damage with the enchanted weapon. With that being said, he could probably take the smaller one on his own if he were careful and level headed.

And just like that, a light went off in her head as she kept her eyes on the bizarre weapon her partner used.

Getting ready to leap from the bird, he cast her a glance and saw that she was looking his direction,

"Alright, let's take this guy down right now! I'm gonna attack him from ab-?"

"Gumball, go after the smaller one!" she interjected, pointing in the direction of the Nephilim that had left.

Baffled, Gumball tried to make sense of what he had just heard and just stared ahead with a perplexed expression. Did she just tell me to go after the one that just left? This was the only question he had on his mind for the first second, but another quickly replaced that one the next second,

"Wait, what?! Go after him? What about you?" he asked in concern.

Teri shook her head and pointed again in the same direction of the retreating beast,

"There's no time to argue! You have to catch him now before he reaches the high school! Your sister is in danger and I don't want you to be distracted, so deal with him first and come back as soon as possible." she was nearly shouting at this point.

He wanted to object, but he could tell by the look in her eyes that she was right, there was no time to deal with the four armed one when the smaller one was going to be arriving at the school. Plus, it was true, while he knew the larger entity was probably a bigger threat, he wouldn't be able to fight it while his mind was on his little sibling and it would probably drown him in fear of what could possibly happen. If he had it his way, he would have sent Teri after the fleeing giant, but wondered how she would fight it on her own.

Gritting his teeth, he nodded as a sign of acknowledgement, but said something before he left,

"Alright, but I will be back as quickly as possible so don't do anything reckless." he warned, giving her a stern look that contained his concern and his fear for her safety.

With a simple bob of her flat head, Teri promised him that she will be okay,

"I won't. I'll keep him busy while you deal with the other one and I promise I will be okay." she assured him.

Gumball took one more moment to glance at her, he really did not want to leave her here and let her face Uriel by herself. He knew she was smart and capable of fending for herself, but what if something went wrong and he wasn't there to help her? There were so many things that could happen and knowing these possibilities scared him.

But he knew that his sister and all the other high schoolers weren't going to have a snowball's chance in dealing with the Nephilim and it was their unannounced job to protect people against a foe they couldn't even comprehend,

He hesitated before he jumped off, taking a moment to wish her a farewell,

"Okay… good luck. I promise I'll be back soon." he said softly, offering a weak smile before he leapt off the sparrow,

"I have to save Anais, the high schoolers, and help Teri as soon as possible. I have a promise to both I must keep and I will not break it!" his internal declaration drove his magical weapon to feed more power into him and the blue cat landed safely on the ground before racing off towards the fence that surrounded the airport.

Within seconds he cleared the perimeter and was in hot pursuit of the Nephilim puppet that disappeared earlier, leaving Teri alone with the much larger, four armed sun entity.

Surprised that Uriel let Gumball go without any attempt to stop him, Teri circled around the giant, but kept some space in between them. She wasn't sure what he was up to, but now she could not afford to make any mistakes. Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted something moving towards her and fast! Spinning downwards, Teri avoided the approaching object and when it passed overhead, she could see that it was another one of the Nephilim's energy rings.

Letting out a frustrated noise, Teri tried to find cover while the spinning projectile homed in on her and banked in a tight circle in order to catch her during her descent,

"He must have fired it while we were talking, sneaky jerk!" she thought as she peered over at the giant in question and saw that he still hadn't moved from his spot.

Suddenly, an idea came to her and she figured out how to lose the projectile while also dealing him some damage. Snapping out of her dive, she changed course and started heading directly towards Uriel, who wasn't too far from where she was. Seeing her fast approaching, Uriel prepared to fire a doom blast, but found that he couldn't maintain a lock on her due to her flight's weaving pattern. The doom blast was only effective when a target was slow or stationary and with Teri's maneuvering, there was little Uriel could do to stop her from reaching him.

Aiming for the space in between his legs, Teri and the sparrow sped up, shooting in between (she had to be careful not look up because she did NOT want to see what was up that giant's loincloth.) and narrowly dodged one of his swiping hands. Fortunately for the speedy paper puppet, the moment he bent down to intercept her, he was struck by his own projectile and it exploded against his shoulder in a bright flash.

Seeing as her move was successful, Teri put some distance between herself and her opponent before turning to see the damage. Sadly her clever maneuver proved to be less than effective, as the only damage done to the giant's silver hide was a smoking black spot on his shoulder where the energy ring struck. Standing up straight again, Uriel dusted off his shoulder and spun about his heel until he could see his adversary flying about while observing him,

"You're far more formidable even without that furry mammal, but as you can see, my own attacks will not harm me." he cocked his flaming blue head to the side, as if taunting her,

"You'll have to do better than that!" he uttered in that condescending tone of his.

Reaching into the side pocket of her bag, Teri withdrew several sheets of paper with runes already drawn onto them. With her control over paper, the sheets twisted and folded themselves until they were in the shape of four pointed shurikens and she held all three in between her fingers. All the while eyed the Nephilim and kept a straight face as her origami mount swerved around and began ascending, making sure she was above him,

"How about we see what happens when I use something that will do more than scratch the paint?" she called back insultingly.

If the entity could smile, he would have been beaming, he never would have suspected that Leliel's killers were such a daring bunch and was happy he came here of his own accord. Holding his golden weapon in both hands, he raised it until its two points were level with the airborne paper girl and charged up another halo bolt. He was definitely going to be executed for disobeying orders and coming down to Earth on his own, but at least he will have had one of the most interesting fights in his whole military career,

"Why don't you come a little closer and we'll see?" he happily proclaimed.

And with that being said, his flames went from blue to gold and his head reverted back into the flaming ring that divided his upper torso. Getting ready for her descent, Teri held the shurikens close to her and prepared to throw them when she was close enough. Just as a safety measure, she also snuck a shield rune in her front pocket, not wanting to receive any damage in the event that one of his attacks managed to hit her.

She scanned for an opening and saw that he had lowered his body in order to effectively cover his weak point,

"Breaking his defense is going to be tough, but it should be achievable with some direct attacks from above." she wasn't entirely confident this was the best strategy, but time was running out and she needed to keep this guy distracted,

"I hope Gumball will fare well in his confrontation. To be honest, I'm very worried about him and while the opponent he's facing is smaller, doesn't mean it will be an easy fight. Regardless, I have a strong feeling that he will be able to complete his task and he will be back in no time. In the meantime, I will make sure our unwanted visitor doesn't do any harm. I may not be as strong or as durable as Gumball, but I have a few tricks up my sleeve." she seemed rather at ease now, having gone through all her concerning thoughts right then and there while restoring her confidence a bit.

She was going to have to do this by herself and it was terrifying in on its own to think about, but at least she wasn't completely defenseless. Finding a weakness in Uriel's defense, Teri reacted immediately, causing her orange sparrow to tuck in its triangular wings and dive straight towards the space between the Nephilim's arms and spear. It was do or die time!

-Rob's campsite, 3:05 PM-

Far from the chaotic battleground at the airport, Rob eagerly ran his fingers across the keyboard and each digit produced a wonderful tap! as it struck every desired key. He finished with the program he had been vigorously working on for the past twelve minutes and was delighted to see the fruits of his labors display themselves on the glowing monitor. He was well aware that the battle for the airport was occurring and was partially nagging himself to hurry, but he understood that many lives were at stake unless he completed this vital component to his weapon. Patience is a virtue, but unfortunately time was of the essence as well, and he needed to get down to the airport soon, or else he may no longer have any partners to fight alongside him.

Slapping another mosquito that had made the mortal mistake of disturbing him while he worked, Rob pressed a few more keys, and clicked 'ok' on a pop-up, allowing for a brief loading process. Seconds ticked by and seemed to stretch into minutes as Rob anxiously watched as the loading bar moved from twenty seven percent to thirty two percent, forty eight, fifty four, sixty eight, seventy one…

Running his pink hand through his blocky brown hair, Rob blinked his dry eye several times in order to relieve it of its pain and continued to watch the monitor intently,

"Come on, come on, come on, come on, come on…" he muttered rapidly to himself as if his words alone would be enough to speed up the loading process.

Lucky for him, it didn't take much longer for the loading bar to reach one hundred percent and flash green, indicating that his program was finished downloading. The next thing to pop up on his screen was an image of the deadly focusing lens with a cross hair focusing directly at its center along with several other statistical readouts at the corners of the monitor. Everything was set up, all it would take was one press of a button on his phone and Cuatro Oblivion would deliver its deadly payload straight to the target.

Feeling pleased with himself, the polygonal cyclops stood up, rubbed his burning eye, and began making his way towards his vehicle. He was needed at the airport and with a glance up at the sky, he could tell that he needed to hurry. While he paced towards his car, his phone started buzzing on his wrist and he plucked it off to see who was calling him.

To his surprise, it was Gumball and he pressed the answer button before holding the cellular device up to his ear spot,

"Gumball! I just finished with my program and I'm heading down to the airport." he responded into the phone's speaker.

There was a bit of a ruffling static on the other end, as if Gumball were traveling at high speeds in a car with the windows open and it was slightly difficult to hear him,

"Great! You need to hurry though, the Nephilim is able to divide itself and has sent one of its copies to Elmore High. I'm in pursuit of the one heading to the high school, but you need to get to the airport immediately because Teri is facing the other one by herself." Gumball explained, trying his best to make sure his message was clear.

With his heart nearly leaping into his throat, Rob stopped for the briefest of moments, his eye wide with fright and one of his hands trembling a little,

"Rachel!" the name of his housemate rebounded through his mind like a warning beacon as terror began to sink in.

Rachel was still at school today and if that thing was already heading there to wreak havoc, then she was in serious danger. Already feeling what needed to be done, Rob picked up the pace towards his car, talking to Gumball as he opened the door and climbed in,

"Alright, I'll meet you at the high school to provide some assistance and then we'll reinforce Teri straight afterwards." he responded, closing the door and strapping himself in.

There was another muffled sound and Gumball's voice barely made it through the receiver,

"No! I can handle this one! Go help Teri because the one she's facing is much stronger than the one I'm pursuing!" he stated, sounding very frantic and if Rob could guess correctly, it sounded like he was more worried about Teri than himself.

He didn't fully understand what was going on, but pushing his personal feelings aside, he figured that helping Gumball first would be preferable because while he could endure a lot of punishment, he wasn't exactly cunning like his paper partner. Also, the high school was en route with the airport, so if he hurried he could catch Gumball and the Nephilim before heading off to help their third companion. He was certain that Gumball's feelings for Teri were driving him to send help her way and to be fair, he wasn't entirely different in that regard either.

He twisted the key in the ignition and the car's engine roared to life,

"Okay. I'll be right there." he lied, before hanging up and placing his phone back onto his wrist pad.

Placing the car into drive and pressing his foot on the gas, Rob guided the vehicle onto the empty gravel road that lead up to his campsite. He wasn't worried about anyone stumbling across his equipment because this road was usually left alone due to some safety hazards along the trail and the forest of doom was also not too far away either, although the beasts only come out at night in this area. With the high school as his destination, Rob began to race down the path and would be pulling out into a freeway in less than a minute.

He knew Gumball wasn't going to be happy with his decision to come help him, but he had a lot of good reasons to back him up. While, he hadn't known Teri for the longest of times, she was undoubtedly one capable person who could hold her own against the Nephilim and wouldn't do anything that risked her personal safety. Being frail was definitely a burden for someone like her, but if anything, it also taught her how to be careful and aware of the dangers surrounding her. Rob was certain that she'll be alright and that when they got there, she would still be in one piece.

At least he hoped so…

One thing that was on his mind though, was Gumball's usage of his scythe and the consequences it could possibly have on him. It didn't take some sort of rocket scientist to understand that Gumball was using his weapon to help him travel through Elmore at high speeds while in pursuit of the monster that was threatening the lives of a bunch of high school students. Remembering the warning Mrs. Jotenheim gave him, Rob knew that incorrect usage of strength enhancing magic could severely damage one's soul and that one would have to be clear in his intentions in order to avoid serious harm.

And with Gumball's mind all over the place, this didn't bode well for the cat's former classmate and he held this as another reason to lend him some assistance. He hoped that he could get there in time before Gumball lost control and does something to hurt himself or worse. Looking up at the sky, he could see that bits of sunlight were starting to make the grey ceiling a bit brighter and he knew that time was running out.

He was going to need the defenders of Elmore back together for everyone's sake.

-Elmore High-

The two armed Nephilim puppet stepped unhindered and unnoticed onto the parking lot of the public school. He could sense all the young spirits inside as they prepared for their long day of classes to come to an end and for their elder peers to release them out into the world so they could begin with their brief time off. A lot of positive energy was said to be brimming amongst the young folk and Uriel found this to be quite entertaining.

As a higher being, whose form could not be perceived by those seen as his inferiors, Uriel admired the idea of erasing those happy thoughts and emotions within a single blast of his energized weapon. Afterall, why do they deserve to live when he, along with many other Nephilim, were suffering? He also knew that those pestering insects that have been defending this wretched placed cared so much for the other people living here, so killing the younger ones would drop their moral pretty low and when that happens it wouldn't matter whether he succeeded in his primary mission or not because there was little chance of them getting up after taking such a devastating hit.

He raised his bident and a golden orb appeared between the twin prongs, an attack that will no doubt decimate the entire building,

"War always brings about terrible tragedies." Uriel muttered bitterly to himself as he waited for the energy attack to reach critical levels.

Behind him, a blue cat boy tore across the street, making his way towards the two story tall spear wielder. His mind had been fully concentrated on reaching the school and stopping the smaller version of the being from the airport, aside from a quick call to an accomplice in the forest who always seemed to have his eye on everything. Feeling glad that help was coming Teri's way, Gumball was able to concentrate on protecting his sister and all the other high schoolers who were about to receive a terrible fate.

The run here was utterly fascinating to the town's local troublemaker and defender, as his increased speed saw entire blocks and streets pass on by within mere seconds. He had to be careful though, for he nearly struck a few objects that, if it weren't for his amazing reaction time, would have hindered his journey. He was also amazed at just how fast the Nephilim could travel on foot because he never seemed to catch him despite taking off after him half a minute after he was sent to destroy the school. One good thing he gained from all of this was that he knew how to control the flames, kind of, he was kind of bent on ripping the Nephilim to shreds when he first started running, but with fear of Teri's safety constantly sitting in the back of his mind, he called Rob and seemed to calm down afterwards.

And just like that, once he had his goal set before him, the silver flames that threatened to destroy everything he deemed a danger died down a little, but remained at steady level. He no longer felt this fury constantly causing him to lash out and was doing much better than he was earlier. Question is, how long could he keep this up and what would happen once he reached the Nephilim? He already used up a lot of energy during the fight and during the trip here, now he could actually see the Nephilim standing in the school parking lot and his body was already starting to tire. He needed to finish him in one attack, so he was going to have to strike from behind and at his weak point.

It was do or die time.

Making his way across the street, Gumball easily cleared the front lawn, leapt over the sign at the entrance and dashed towards the halo-like being with his arms pulling the scythe towards his side. He had his eyes locked onto the creature's middle, where the split ended and where the waist began. With the Nephilim being only twenty feet tall, there was about four feet of space between the sun-inspired monster's body cavity and where his legs parted, so cutting through it shouldn't be an issue.

Closing in on his target, he readied himself, tightening his grip around the weapon's metal handle and with about thirty feet of distance between them, Gumball leapt. It was easy to gain some air with the massive amount of energy allowing his normally weak leg muscles to propel him upwards and at a speed that allowed him to close the distance real quick. The silver flames began to roar as he raised the weapon, ready to bring death with a single swipe and right before Uriel could unleash his energy blast.

Things don't go necessarily as planned though and Gumball was made painfully aware of that when the burning entity spun around with its spear ready to knock him out of the air. He had sensed him coming, Gumball knew this, hoping that he could finish him off before he could react, but he had to change his approach now before he was killed. Sadly there wasn't enough time to dodge the Nephilim's swing, plus he was already in the air so he couldn't move out of the way. Clenching his teeth, Gumball's muscles tightened as he brought the scythe downwards while at the same time a burst of energy rushed through him and to his weapon's edge.

The resulting strike, unleashed a familiar arc of destructive, flaming energy that propelled the little kid backwards and shot towards the now flabbergasted Uriel as he tried to defend himself against this unbeliavable strike. With very little time to react, Uriel tried to move aside, but was caught in the flame's devastating arc and an explosion of silver blossomed from the contact between him and Gumball's amplified swing. Meanwhile, Gumball collided with the ground, tumbling a little before coming to a stop and was temporarily blinded by the fireball he instinctively created. A loud screech was all that could be heard from the ring-like entity and the feline wondered if that strike was enough to finish him off.

Lying on his back and breathing heavily, Gumball felt like a sack of potatoes made of Tungsten. All this usage of magic today was having a toll on his body and he really felt like curling up somewhere to take a nap. One thing he was definitely working on this weekend was his usage of the fire because this was most certainly one of his greatest assets as well as one of his greatest setbacks. That and a whole slew of issues that needed to be addressed.

"Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay." he said repeatedly in his mind, trying to keep himself from passing out as he began to force himself back up,

"Just… gotta get (gasp!) back up… and… uh… check out the… um… Sunny D-stroyer or whatever his name was…" he wheezed past his fatigue.

His mind was a little foggy and getting back up was harder than any workout he'd done, at least that's what it felt like to him. He did get up eventually, although he had to use his scythe as a support before he was standing back on his feet again. He felt as though his strength would return in the next few minutes once he caught his breath, but for now, he wasn't going to be running any marathons.

In front of him, something moved slightly and his ears picked up a rough sound, causing him to point his head in the direction of the noise. He didn't get to see anything though, as something big and metallic looking shot out from the smoke and slammed into the weary bipedal feline, sending him soaring across the parking lot. The impact of the massive object caused him to lose his breath and moments later, he felt his shoulder strike the asphalt, hard, before the rest of his body connected and bounced into a parked car.

Nothing could describe the firestorm he was feeling after smacking full force into the ground and then into the car that prevented him from travelling any further. Gumball couldn't even let out a scream, instead only a slight gurgling sound managed to escape his quivering mouth and he curled up into a fetal position as his body burned with agony. He could tell his shoulder suffered serious damage as he couldn't seem to move it and every time he did, a hot spike would drive itself into the joint and force him to tear up a little while gnashing his teeth.

Ways away from him, the puppet of Uriel stepped out of the cloud of smoke that resulted from the explosion while brandishing his spear with the one arm he had left and converted his body circle into a head again. Managing to straighten himself out, Gumball sat up, cracked an eye open and watched as the silver titan began to make its way towards him. Looking at the stump where his arm was, Gumball could say that he was quite impressed with how much damage he caused the Nephilim, although he may not be able to admire his work for long and figured that his existence here was about to be cut short.

Having not kicked the little cat boy very far, Uriel would be upon his target within a few paces and seeing as he appeared to be in a weakened state, finishing him off will be a simple matter. Staring at him triumphantly, the sun king began to mock the Watterson child while he struggled to stand once again,

"I daresay you are quite the troublemaker, I can see why you lot have been a thorn in our side for some time now." he snarled.

Gumball spat onto the pavement and sported another grin,

"I disarmed the first guy too, you know. You Nephilim are about as bright as coach Russo's sweatpants after she waddles to the food court and you're not laying a finger on my sister either, candle face!" he snapped back with some wit.

Uriel did not seem to take well to the cat's punny and very degrading comparison, as his fiery head burst into another explosion of crimson fury,

"How about I show you bright by setting you and your kin ablaze!" he bellowed, his eyes already disappearing within the inferno as he swung the spear directly at the smaller enemy of his.

Summoning up whatever energy he had left, Gumball's ignited scythe met the spear several inches from his neck and he bent his knees as the force of the monster's swing nearly sent him flying again. The sharp sound of metal striking metal rang in his ears as he placed his other arm, ignoring the pain surging from his crippled shoulder, against the shaft, right beneath the curved blade itself and pushed with all his might. He managed to knocked the giant's weapon away a little, enough to allow him to escape and began to run towards the space in between Uriel's feet.

Seeing what he was going for, Uriel lifted one leg and brought it down right on top of the scurrying mammal. Swiftly dodging the massive foot by rolling to the side, Gumball felt the ground shake as the silver skinned foot came crashing down next to him and formed cracks in the concrete. Getting up, he slashed at the giant's ankle, forming a decent sized cut within the joint, although it was slightly shallow thanks to his reduced strength. He was still feeling too tired and needed to think of a better plan fast.

He remembered having something in his pocket and decided he would have to use it at some point.

Wanting to put some distance between him and the pest, the Nephilim placed the tips of the spear on the ground and spun around, allowing the bident to scrape along the asphalt as he did a sweep. Hearing and seeing the golden blades fast approaching, Gumball tried to turn and run, but saw that the bident was coming in too fast. Aiming to deflect, Gumball brought his lengthy weapon up just as the colossal split end of the giant's primary weapon reached him and with another hollow ringing sound, Gumball was sent skidding back towards another car and seemed to be nearing another painful collision.

Thinking fast, Gumball swung downwards, allowing the scythe's curved blade to dig into the ground and drag him to a stop, roughly twelve feet from the car he was heading towards. Gasping, the anthropomorphic cat took a moment to catch his breath and when he looked down at his selected Nephilim fighting device, he saw that the flames that once engulfed his blade in a blaze were now reduced to something akin to a candle flame that ran along the edge. He barely had any energy left to do much, so he was going to have to keep his distance from now on.

Standing several feet away and unbeknownst to the recovering fighter, the warrior was raising his spear now, poised to throw it at his adversary. Taking a moment to aim and to factor in how his balance was off thanks to his missing arm, the giant placed where his opponent was and drew his arm back. Feeling something was off, Gumball glanced over to where the Nephilim was and his his eyes widened in shock when he saw the tuning fork-shaped weapon sailing towards him!

"ACK!" was all he could say when he found his upper body being roughly pinned to the ground by the colossal golden weapon of sun entity.

Sprawled on his back and caught in the space between the twin prongs, Gumball found it difficult to breathe. He tried to push the heavy metal object off of him, but found that it was too heavy and embedded deep within the ground to budge. Realizing that pushing it off was a futile effort (his scythe was also knocked out of his paw, so any extra power he could have summoned out it wasn't going to be of use to him.), he decided to try wriggling out from his metallic prison.

While he attempted this, he could hear the Nephilim approaching over the sound of his own grunting and didn't look over to where he was because he didn't want to panic,

"Crap, crap, crap, get off!" his internal voice screamed while he groaned externally, kicking his legs and pushing against the bident that was acting as a brace to keep him in place.

The footsteps got louder and louder until they stopped, he could tell from the vibrations the massive being's feet produced that he was close by. Soon he felt the heavy spear being lifted off of him and he could breathe easily again. He was lucky that nothing had been broken or worse, that he wasn't cut in half. Unfortunately, when he looked over, he caught a glimpse of Uriel dropping the spear he had lifted so effortlessly and then leaned down to pick up the now defenseless and exhausted child lying on the ground.

With not much time left, Gumball quickly fished out the item in his pocket just as several colossal fingers wrapped around his body and began to pull him from the ground. The Nephilim's grip was strong and Gumball could feel the smooth, cold texture of its mirror-like skin all over his body. It felt horrible to him and his heart was racing a mile a minute, plus the monster's grip wasn't so comfortable and his shoulder was suffering for it. Lucky for him, both his head and one arm were sticking out from the enclosed space and he could see the giant's crouching body as he ascended from the ground. Spotting the entity's knee, Gumball tossed the object he was holding in his hand at it just as he was brought up to Uriel's face and found himself gazing into two large gaping holes set in the middle of a fiery Cyan head.

Standing at his full height, Uriel gazed at the helpless creature held prisoner within his grasp and a chuckle was heard coming from him,

"None of your toys are going to break you out of here, vermin!" he said, allowing a blast of heat from his head to hit the blue cat in the face.

Gumball tried to turn his face away, his eyes were already watering from the rising temperature and he felt as though his face was on fire. He also didn't like looking this monster in the eyes because they were just so cold and empty, despite his blazing appearance. He struggled against the Nephilim's iron grip, trying his best to free his other arm and winced every time his shoulder would jolt with pain.

Seeing the boy's struggle to escape, Uriel tightened his grip a little causing Gumball to scream in agony as his shoulder throbbed under the intense pressure,

"Why do you persist on escaping? Heck, I'm confused as to why you even bother trying to fight us at all? You know your end is near, right?" he questioned, venomous fury lacing his voice.

Biting his tongue to keep from screaming again, Gumball braved the intense pain he was in and tugged at his arm again. There was another item in his hand and he needed this arm to be free. After a few seconds of wriggling and heavy silence, Gumball's arm popped free of its prison and he turned to the Nephilim speaking to him with a condescending smile etching its way onto his face,

"Because you and the ones that came before always underestimate us!" he remarked with a mischievous glint in his eyes as he pointed downwards at the giants knee.

Confused as to what he meant and where he was pointing to, the monster's head shifted until he could see his own leg. He nearly froze in absolute shock as he saw that his knee and lower thigh were slowly turning to stone! On closer inspection, he could see that the source of the petrification was a wadded ball of paper with some kind of drawing on it.

Fear gripped the silver titan within its icy talons and he released his own hold on Gumball in order to swat away the object that was causing damage to his limb. Caught in a free fall, Gumball descended towards the Nephilim's mid-section and extended the claws on his free hand as well as his feet. He caught on to the entity's reflective flesh, his claws scraping the side and leaving behind an engraved trail in Uriel's hide as he slowed to a halt near the monster's jewel embroidered loincloth. In his other hand was a sticky note with an explosive rune written on its surface, he always carried two runes on his person in case he couldn't use his scythe, and placed the magic object right below the Nephilim's navel before leaping off.

Uriel, who was too busy trying to deal with his frozen leg, didn't notice the kitten's actions and was killed in a violent explosion that erupted from his middle. The damage was so severe that when the explosion faded into smoke, the Uriel puppet was falling in two separate pieces that were slowly fading in color as his central flames dissipated from the death of its body. Gumball got up from his braced position on the ground and was happy to see purple flames erupting from the two fallen masses,

"Thank goodness." he thought to himself with a smile. The Nephilim puppet was dead and the school was still intact and best of all, Anais was safe. His family was safe. At least he managed to defeat the monster by outsmarting it and taking advantage of its arrogance,

"I love it when Teri is right!" he thought with a chuckle before realizing that he needed to get back to the airport right away.

Turning around, he saw his scythe lying on the pavement not too far from him and he hobbled over to it. He was still too tired, but his need to assist his close friend was driving him to ignore his body's warnings and need for rest. There wasn't much energy left in the weapon and he knew it, he didn't even know what he was going to do if he even managed to reach the airport, but he didn't care about that right now: he had to help her.

Slowly bending over and picking up the dull grey metal object, Gumball grunted as he hefted it over his shoulder and started towards the school's exit. He walked a few paces when something caught his eye and when he looked up, he noticed the sky was getting brighter. Not sure how much time has passed, Gumball pulled out his phone and checked the clock on his main menu.

3:07 PM

The clouds were clearing up in twenty seven minutes, give or take, he needed to get a move on and defeat that Nephilim as soon as possible. Hopefully Rob was close to the airport, if he was there to assist Teri, then things should be going well and since he was also aware of the time, that Nephilim was probably as good as dead. Now all he had to worry about was getting there.

BEEP! BEEP!

Gumball was so lost in thought that he didn't even notice a car pulling into the school parking lot and he jumped as a result. Peering up at the incoming vehicle, Gumball recognized it right away and found himself welling up with a sense of relief as well as an unbridled rage. It was a purple Geo Metro with its driver being an all too familiar arch nemesis of his; an arch nemesis that was supposed to be going to the airport!

The car pulled up next to him, wheels slowly grinding against the pavement before coming to a complete stop and a moment later, the passenger popped open,

"Nice job, Gumball! Now get in, we have a town to save!" Rob greeted while waving him towards the car.

With a sigh, he obliged and got in, slamming the door behind him before placing his seat harness across his body. With his passenger secure, Rob placed his foot on the gas and circled the two of them around before making his way to the exit. While he drove, Gumball thought about yelling at him for not doing as he asked, but decided not to because he was actually grateful for the transportation.

Folding his scythe in, Gumball sat back in his seat while massaging his shoulder,

"You look like you've seen better days." Rob commented after stealing a glance.

Gumball tried to chuckle, but it came out as a pained grunt,

"Yeah, not the worst fight I've been in, but this one was a bit taxing." he muttered before turning his large head in Rob's direction,

"Weren't you supposed to be heading to the airport?" he asked, a sour expression on his face.

The driver rolled his eye and swerved around another car (he was driving over 90 even though the speed limit was 45.) nearly tailgating it,

"Funny you should say that, because the high school just so happened to be on the same route as the airport- Shoot! Hang on." he warned, as yanked the wheel to the left and Gumball held on to the passenger door handle for dear life as the car violently spun at a turn before racing off down another street.

"Of course it was." Gumball thought sarcastically to himself while simultaneously praying that they make it to the airport in one piece,

"I thought I'd pop by and lend you a helping hand, but you seemed to handle that fight wonderfully." Rob further explained, although his usage of the word "wonderfully" seemed rather snarkish and Gumball got the implication that the inventor was mocking him.

"Yeah, well, in a few minutes I should be good to go, but that all depends if we can actually survive the journey there." he responded with a glare being shot in Rob's direction.

"What's wrong with my driving?" he asked defensively.

It was at that moment, the car sped across a crosswalk and clipped the rear wheel of Hary Gedges', the elderly purple neighbor of the Wattersons and mailman of Elmore who also had antlers, bicycle. The poor citizen of Elmore was knocked down with a scream and his envelopes were scattered amongst the wind. The two boys both looked back in shock before Gumball shot another glare at Rob while raising his arms and pointing behind him in order to emphasize his point,

"Whatever, hopefully the house bill will come in later than usual." he stated, showing not even the slightest bit of care for Gedges' condition.

Facepalming and letting out a sigh, Gumball slumped back down in his seat while still clutching the door handle in a death grip,

"Well in case you haven't noticed, we're still trying to save the town and the people living in it." he snapped back.

Rob just shrugged and kept his eye on the road,

"Yeah, which is why I'm driving at ninety five towards the airport in hopes that we can kill a monster that's threatening to burn our town to the ground with a giant magnifying glass and for the record, destroying you and the people here is supposed to be my job, not these Kaiju-wannabes." he grumbled to himself while dodging another car on the road.

They had a few minutes until they arrived at the airport and Gumball was actually quite surprised that despite this car going at its fastest, he was still able to move faster with his the power the scythe gave him.

Watching every road pass by, Gumball's anxiety was skyrocketing because of how slow everything felt and every second that ticked by was a second where Teri could possibly be in danger,

"Fair point, although if you want the job done faster, why not team up with these guys instead?" he asked, trying to calm his nerves.

Rob's shoulders hunched up at the question and he furrowed his eyebrow in annoyance,

"First off, like I said, they're unoriginal copycats and lastly, I don't think they would stoop that low. They seem to be pretty confident in their own ability to wage war on us and honestly, they probably can wipe us out if they wanted to. All it would take is a small army or a really strong weapon and they'll trample this place back into dust… along with everyone else. So yeah, I'm not teaming up with these genocidal dum-dums to ensure my own demise." he replied, sounding very grim about the subject.

Gumball too felt very wary about the uncertainty regarding the enemy's power and how their lives were at stake. The cyclop's words served as a very dark reminder to the both of them not to get overconfident and to expect the worse that is to come. Clutching his scythe tightly and holding it closer to him, Gumball rid his thoughts of the uncertainties that lay ahead and instead focused on the current problem at hand,

"I sure hope Teri's doing okay." Gumball spoke softly, feeling as though his words might invoke some bad omen.

Curious, the strange ally of Gumball and Teri snuck another peek at him and then answered in some reassuring confidence,

"I'm sure she's fine. Unlike you, she's incredibly smart and talented, I'm sure that Nephilim is nothing she can't handle." he responded, hoping that would bring the cat in a better mood.

It kind of did the trick, as Gumball was reminded how capable Teri was and how she could probably work her way out of a tricky situation. He also caught on to Rob's insult, but didn't comment about it because he knew it was just what he did. They would be arriving at the airport within three minutes and then some. Gumball hoped that Rob was right and that they'll arrive in time.

-Elmore airport-

"I can't handle this!" Teri shouted to herself as swerved her paper panther and narrowly dodged another donut shaped projectile as it slammed into the runway she was currently running on.

Ever since she sent Gumball away to deal with the other Uriel, she'd been struggling against the much larger and stronger version ever since and she was starting to have doubts whether or not she was going to make it through this ordeal alive. For the past few minutes she had been flying through the air, evading airborne attacks, scurrying around on the ground, deflecting several doom blasts and all in all trying to score a hit on the monster. Unfortunately, her adversary proved to be a bit of a challenge as he was able to keep her away with a flurry of energy projectiles, red death beams, and jabs with his spear and whenever she did happen to get close enough, he would gladly use his three available arms to swipe at her.

During the entire battle, she had lost three origamis, dozens of rune papers, and managed to obtain three tears on her body: one on her cheek and two on her upper right arm. All this because she got too close one too many times and payed for it. It just seemed like the four armed Nephilim with the massive body ring had little vulnerabilities and Teri was starting to get real tired of fighting it.

She was quite the distance away from him now and was running towards the end of the runway, where many aircraft took off and landed on a daily basis. Her pursuer was far behind her, but he could easily catch up by flying or pinning her with another one of his magical strikes. Either way, she was running low on time and she needed to check her bags to see how much paper stock she had left.

Keeping an eye on the charging behemoth far behind her, the paper puppet tugged off her school bag and began shifting around the contents,

"Hmm, let's see probably around thirty blank notebook pages and two extra large sheets, plus a lot of writing utensils." she listed off to herself before tearing five of her remaining thirty plus pages out of her notebook and placing the bag back on her shoulders.

She was going to have to restock, which meant that she was going to have to turn around and head back to the Channax truck in order to resupply herself. Unfortunately, that meant she was going to have to get past the rampant four story colossus that was set on tearing her limb from limb or burning her to a crisp. Scribbling four trident runes and one barrier spell on the pages she clutched within her hand, she began to slow the panther down and waited for him to get in close.

A few seconds later, she could hear him getting closer and when she looked back over her shoulder, she could see that he was already charging up for another volley of energy rings,

"What mockery is this? All you ever do is run and try to bite at me with your ridiculous spells. Are you really the one who killed my sister?" he shouted as he unleashed a pursuing hollow projectile.

Still rushing forward at a slower pace, Teri spun around on her seat and raised one of the trident runes as the tracking bullet drew closer. As soon as it was held above her head, the piece of paper gathered water around itself until it formed a magnificent trident, much like the one she used to slay his aforementioned sibling with and released the liquid weapon with a single throw. The short, three pronged fishing weapon made its way towards the burning wheel of death and collided with the airborne weapon, causing both to explode in a puff of steam.

With the evaporated moisture clouding the area in between them, Teri used it as cover and whipped around before shooting towards the mist. As expected, the Nephilim was caught off guard by the counter and wasn't prepared when he sensed the bear racing towards him. His senses relied on heat signatures so the warm cloud of water vapor messed up his tracking and was too late to stop her from darting in between his legs. She hurled another trident of water at his right ankle while it zipped past her, the three icy tips embedding themselves into the silvery surface, but failed to do any real damage and Teri was forced to keep going.

"An explosive or petrification rune oughta do the trick next time, but it's hard to tell if I'll ever be this fortunate again." she thought remorsefully, knowing her best bet in dealing with him would be to slow him down first.

Her run towards the airplane docking area was quickly detained by an invisible force locking her in place and a red glow accompanied by a familiar buzz filling the air around her,

"Crud! I forgot to keep weaving, how careless of me!" she mentally chastised herself as her flat body was forced downwards.

Another burst of heat and the devastating main attack of the invading giants was released onto her. With her barrier rune already with her though, the attack had no effect and was deflected quite easily by the transparent window that manifested behind her. While engaging the Nephilim earlier, she found that she didn't even need to be holding the protective spell out at all in order for it to take effect and it would block whatever attack that came in too close.

The sad thing was, she knew this attack wasn't meant to destroy her, but rather to delay her from reaching her destination. As soon as the energy blast faded, she turned her eyes to the sky and wasn't at all shocked to see the massive monstrosity descending towards her from the grey sky above. With the doom blast's effects disappearing shortly after it was discharged, Teri found herself able to move again and commanded the panther of paper to move just as the one who sat upon the sun throne came crashing down.

The moment his feet came in contact with the ground, the Earth thundered and shook, nearly sending Teri and her cat mount flying into the open air. Raising his lowered body up to its full height again, the rotating halo that sat in the middle of his body burned from a dark red to a bright orange as he began swinging his bident at the little girl who was now within his range. Reacting as soon as he attacked and swiftly dodging a painful severing, Teri was able to place herself onto the golden weapon with a graceful leap.

Instead of running along the spear's shaft in order to get closer, Teri remained where she was and summoned another water trident using one of her two remaining runes. Taking aim, Teri found an easy target, which just so happened to be the Nephilim's thumb, and chucked the watery apparition of the trident towards it. The icy tips of the enchanted weapon tore through the monster's grasping manipulator, severing it from the hand that was holding the oversized weapon and forcing it to fall to the ground with a heavy clang!

Satisfied and thoroughly impressed, Teri could not believe she had managed to inflict some damage on this thing all on her own. This defining moment was short lived however, as the giant retaliated by using one of its uninjured hands to swat at the astonished middle schooler and send her along with her folded paper panther flying several dozen meters. Landing gently, she and her ride suffered no serious damage, except her pride perhaps, and sat up to shake off the dizziness that was the result of her tumbling through the air several times.

Once her world stopped spinning, she was able to get a good look at the Nephilim and was glad to see that he was busy inspecting the damage done to his upper right hand's thumb. Tipping the black panther back onto its legs, she hopped back onto its back and took off again. She had only one trident left to use and she was seriously hoping that she wouldn't get caught in another doom blast. While she made her way back to the truck, Uriel finished assessing the damage done to him by the fragile kid and picked up his spear with his upper left hand, being ambidextrous had its advantages.

Turning about on his feet, the four story, vengeful entity sensed his fleeing target and looked down at the hollow stump where his thumb used to be,

"Not bad for a cowardly creature." a nasty laugh followed his thoughts, vocally displaying his amusement for Teri to hear.

Turning to see what he was laughing about, Teri's gut clenched when she saw him lifting his spear and pointed the horrible weapon in her direction, all the while laughing maniacally at his missing thumb. Another fiery attack was charged up at the tip of the pointed weapon and Teri urged the animal to run faster. She didn't turn her head to face him when she heard him shouting at her,

"DON'T YOU DARE TURN YOUR BACK ON ME, COWARD!" he roared, nearly bursting the bear girl's eardrums.

Hearing the familiar sound of three projectiles being fired upon her, Teri's head began reeling with fright as she knew those cursed blazing hot ring tossers were faster than she was, even when riding an origami. Taking a moment to see where the trackers were coming from, she gasped as soon as she spotted one pursuing her directly from behind and two more on flanking ends, moving in a wide arc in opposite directions. Recognizing the strange formation, Teri realized what Uriel was trying to accomplish. The one traveling in the middle was going to hit her first unless she used her remaining trident to destroy it. The problem though, if she used her remaining trident to rid herself of the projectile closing in on her, then the other two will catch her from the front and bring an end to her life.

Looking ahead, she could see the line of trucks getting closer, probably about a hundred feet away if she were to guess, but there was no way to reach them before the flaming rings reached her. She didn't have much time to think, she looked down at the only weapon she had in her hand then towards the deadly weapon that was gaining even more distance while she ran. She didn't have time to draw anything else, she didn't even have time to reach into her bag! Feeling the heat from the spinning tracer already starting to creep onto her back, Teri spotted the other two glowing halos starting to close in on her as well on her left and right. Having no choice, but to play along with Uriel's tactic, she spun around and hurled the trident that formed in an instant, right at the deadly disc.

In a puff of steam, the pursuing threat was eliminated, but Teri spotted at the corner of her vision one of the other two already several feet away and was close to impact. Reacting in the only way she could when she needed to hide or protect herself, Teri folded her upper body, leaving only her legs to cling onto the running jungle cat and she heard the two rings smashing into one another above in a brief explosion. To her disbelief, she had narrowly survived such a close call and only with one weapon against three.

Unfolding back into her full form, Teri assumed that the two explosions would throw off the Nephilim's senses and kept heading towards the truck in the serpentine pattern she remembered to use. She felt as though things were going pretty well for someone who was clearly outmatched by a larger opponent, that was until she felt a horrendous burning sensation in her left leg and noticed a bright light in the corner of her vision. Looking down at whatever was causing the excruciating pain, she learned that she hadn't gotten out of that last attack unscathed as a single spark had managed to light a small fire on her left thigh and was starting to slowly spread.

With a agonized screech mixed with pure horror of being burned alive, the frail being who was naturally afraid of fire reached into her bag and pulled out Gumball's jacket that she kept from the night before (she was going to return it to him today, but she kind of wanted to hold on to for a while longer.) and used the red fabric to smother the flames that have already nearly burnt her leg off. She was successful in putting out the fire and preventing a painful death to herself, but she knew that her left leg was useless now because the only thing keeping it attached to her body was a few strands of living paper. It burned and Teri could already feel tears springing into her eyes as she checked herself for any other potential flammable hazards.

Realizing that she was okay and in no danger of burning, Teri kept her eyes on the two trucks in front of her before sliding underneath the first one that was labeled Rainbow Factory Paint Schemer, possibly a delivery truck full of painting and various artistic supplies. It was the same truck she and Gumball hid under when Uriel first sent that stream of energy rings after them and looking at it now, the trailer connected to the cab was peppered with burnt, cigar shaped holes from where the projectiles entered and exited. Thinking about it now, she wished she could apologize to the owners of this truck about the damages caused by their scuffle.

Once she was safely on the other side of the vehicle and with the Channax delivery truck in front of her, she slid off her panther and groaned when she felt another wave of pain crash through her, spreading from the burnt area on her leg. It was there when a sudden memory tore its way into her conscious, a time when she was about six or seven and in her house's living room playing with her toys. With her father gone at work and her mom at home in the next room over talking to a patient on the phone, little Teri was left without supervision and had managed to get herself in trouble after spotting a candle sitting on the picture shelf. She was quite curious and entranced by the small flame the lovely candle emitted and when she pulled herself up to it using a chair placed in the living room for guests, she tried to touch the flame with her index finger.

Obviously unaware of the dangers fire posed for her easily flammable body, Teri was given a nasty awakening when her finger caught fire and began to blacken and shrivel away by the intense heat. Her screams were heard by her mother, who came in to see a crying and panicking Teri desperately waving her hand, trying to make the flame go away. She of course was saved and her mother managed to make her a new finger to glue on, completely erasing the damage done to her hand by her carelessness.

Ever since that incident, she had been deathly scared of fire or anything related to flames and even came in second after germs.

With her left leg now burnt, she felt like a frightened six year old again and wanted to just scream and call for someone to help her. However, she knew no one was going to come rescue her and what's worse, was that the monster capable producing such horrifying flames was coming. He was still some distance away, but she was running low on time and the vengeful, multi-armed monstrosity was probably very eager to destroy her for killing his sister and supposed friends.

Panning her head around and observing her surroundings, she noticed that the sky was starting to get brighter, as if the clouds were about to break at any point and she realized that they must have very little time until there are no clouds left to shield them from the sun… and the giant focusing lens that was about to wipe out their little town in a flash of light. She wondered if such a horrible event would be painless and even if the weapon could capture a little sunlight and direct it in a small beam that will incinerate any object or unlucky person who happened to be in its way. She also noticed that it was eerily quiet, minus the angry shouts coming from the Nephilim as he approached her hiding place.

Teri growled, agitated by all his profanities and demands that she face him like a warrior,

"Jeez, he really is like that virus Gumball, Darwin, and I encountered last year." she sighed inwardly as she shifted herself and climbed back onto her panther. Thanks to the gash Gumball left in the side of the company delivery truck, she had easy access to all the various papers within and she guessed that she could use the paint inside the other truck to create some runes on different surfaces to use as traps.

Problem was, she didn't know how to lure him over to such traps and shook her head in frustration as she squeezed her eyes shut as she racked her brain for any good ideas,

"Ugh! I wish he was like an actual virus, I could just spray him and make him... explode…" she slowed in her speech as she recalled something that happened earlier and her eyes popped back open.

She had an idea, a very crazy, very stupid idea, but it just may be her answer in defeating the Nephilim.

She was going to need some paint first, so she folded herself up and hopped through one of the thin holes made earlier by said monster. Inside was dark and musty, but she could see many paint cans neatly stacked up on each other with some being knocked over and smashed by the dinner plate sized rings that tore through the metal wall like a hot knife through butter. Locating a can of orange paint that was torn in half with the edges singed and blackened, but not tipped over, Teri lugged it over to the back of the trailer with great difficulty (mainly thanks to her injury.) and unlatched the door.

Getting even closer, Uriel didn't bother using any energy projectiles to strike the little one down because he could sense her injury and wanted to finish her off with his bare hands. Also, she seemed busy and if he were to guess, she was hastily putting together some kind of last-ditch plan to strike back at him. It gave him great pleasure to personally wipe out his most hated enemies, but he was kind of downstruck now that the battle was nearing its end.

In the end, the sun king knew he was never going to get any of his loved ones or friends back by doing this and his act of rebellion was going to no doubt land him in hot water with the higher ups back at home. He could just run away after this city was glassed, but where would he go? He supposed he could join up with general Gorothim's forces in Jerusalem. Maybe he could tell him what had happened and make a case for himself with one of the Nephilim's most respected generals backing him up? It seemed to be worth a shot and he was a soldier of the Babyloth Republic, so he wanted to continue on with the war.

While internally pondering his options, he almost failed to notice six very small objects closing in on him from the direction of the flat one's hiding spot. Spotting these strange objects approaching fast, his military training kicked in and the massive Nephilim was already sending tracking discs to intercept the incoming projectiles. The objects exploded in midair and the surprise attack was immediately eradicated.

Confused, but cautious, Uriel wondered what the purpose behind such a blunt and futile strike was. They were obviously enchanted, but they had absolutely no chance of actually hitting and even seemed unguided, given their trajectory. Was it some kind of distraction?

Nervous, the wheel-like silver giant scanned the area for anything or anyone approaching from behind and found two figures making their way towards the fence that seemed to mark the perimeter of this establishment. They were Earth children no doubt, he even recognized one of them as the scythe wielding maniac that left to pursue his puppet and was shocked to see him here of all places,

"He defeated my third? How? Was he helped by that taller one?" he was shocked that such a thing was possible and when he extended his senses to cover the whole city, he could sense many souls, but not that of his puppet's which should have housed a fragment of his own.

He was gone and his plan to divide the group had failed spectacularly because now they have a new member.

He turned back to the truck and focused on finding the little one he had just spent the past few minutes dealing with. He needed to destroy her now before the other two arrived and gave him a hard time. Pushing the Rainbow Factory truck aside with one of his lower arms, he formed his head again and checked the spot where she should have been. He found nothing but a large, triangular symbol with a smaller circle within one of its points painted on the ground. The girl however, was nowhere in sight.

He kept his distance from the symbol, knowing very well that it was a rune that these creatures were very familiar with and possibly a trap. Deciding that she was behind the other vehicle, Uriel proceeded to toss that one aside and burn her to a crisp. Taking one step forward, he was surprised when several triangular, airborne projectiles similar to the first ones she fired at him, but now doubled in number, came flying out from behind the vehicle he intended to investigate and circled around him. With it now being confirmed that she was there, Uriel spun around and repeatedly shot every paper airplane out of the air, making sure to not bat them away with his hands less he wanted to lose them,

"Another useless distraction. What does she hope to accomplish by buying time? She can't possibly know the other two are coming now." he mused as he shot down the remaining explosive rigged projectile with his bident's energy disc.

Suddenly, he found that he couldn't move his upper arms as two tight appendages seemed to wrap around his wrists and pulled back with strength that very well matched his own. Words could not describe the shock and confusion that filled the mighty Nephilim warrior as he now found himself bound to one area and unable to move his upper arms along with his bident, most importantly. Turning his head back, he could see that it was none other than the paper girl of all fowl creatures who was responsible for his detainment and his confusion was quickly replaced with rage.

Sitting atop a massive origami made in the likeliness of a gorilla, matching also in height, was Teri, who manipulated two thick, elongated tendrils made from hundreds of rolled up sheets of paper all woven together and fastened to the gorilla's shoulders. Having gotten the idea from the blob monster created in the chemistry class and how it wove its tentacles together to form one massive limb that was able to easily knock Gumball aside, the talented paper crafter created a powerful beast with strong arms that allowed her to easily grasp and restrain the Nephilim. She sent the paper airplanes out to go buy her more time and it worked out wonderfully.

Now that she had Uriel where she wanted him and with the added benefit of securing the hand holding his deadliest weapon, Teri could proceed with the next step in her plan,

"You know, Uriel was it? You should probably show a little more restraint before you mindlessly dash into these situations." she quipped, a triumphant smile complimenting her eyes which shone with victory while also sighing inwardly at the realization that she had sunken to Gumball's level in pun making. She would have liked to see his face though.

Snarling in utter disgust, the silver titan forced his arms forward, nearly pulling Teri and her modified origami gorilla off the truck. Luckily she thought ahead and packed her creation with as much paper as she possibly could, increasing its overall mass while also using her ability to add in as much detail as she could allow in her limited time, such as strong feet. All these combined attributes and she was able maintain her position along with her hold on the strong entity.

She let out a surprise grunt and another grin broke out on her face, this one now filled with malice as she eyed the struggling giant,

"You're not escaping! You're coming back here!" she shouted at the last word and with an order sent down instantaneously from her brain and into the mind of her abomination, the strong beast pulled a screaming Uriel backwards with a mighty heave.

Rushing in from the fence they cleared, Gumball and Rob, who was armed with a single-shot rifle and strapped with a harness packed full of enchanted bullets he labeled himself, reached the loading bay after spotting the forty foot colossus from afar and stopped when they bore witness to the amazing spectacle before them. As if linked, both the boys let their jaws drop and eye(s) grew as they saw Teri riding atop a powerful-looking gorilla/octopus origami and actually pulling the Nephilim, which was twice the size of the one Gumball faced and several times stronger, backwards.

Lowering his rifle, Rob could only scratch his head and watch as the unthinkable happened,

"When the heck…" he started.

"...did she get so COOL!" Gumball finished, eyes glittering with awe as he brought his hands up to his mouth.

Rob looked at him with a dumbfounded expression,

"I was going to say "did she get so strong", but yeah, I guess what you said is better." he responded in agreement, as amazingly rare as that was.

Meanwhile, the sun king continued to struggle in this deadly match of tug-of-war, now resorting to using his lower arms in order to tear at the paper arms wrapped around his wrists and dragging his feet in order to slow his path backwards. Wrestling with the monster's tenacious strength, Teri continued her power match and with a quick peek at the ground below, she was almost screaming with relief when she saw that he was only one foot step away from her rune trap. Putting all her strength into this one command, the paper abomination in which she held dominion over gave one last mighty pull, enough to force the sizeable Nephilim to take step back after losing his balance and planted both feet into the triangle.

Upon his contact with the spell, the painted rune flashed a bright amethyst and from the feet up, Uriel began to turn to stone. As soon as the petrification reached up to his knees, Teri released her hold on him and hopped off the truck, watching the monster as he flailed about and tried to stop the spell's effect. She then noticed Gumball and Rob standing not too far away, with Gumball first watching the Nephilim turn to stone and then turning his attention towards his friend.

Overjoyed to see her safe and sound, Gumball began to make his way towards her, picking up his speed with every step he took. Returning the feeling, Teri slid off her creation, allowing it to lay still, and limped towards her incoming partner. It took about a second for him to reach her, but before he did, Gumball opened his arms and caught her in a tight embrace,

"I'm so glad, you're okay!" he nearly sobbed in her shoulder, having been worried sick the entire time he was gone.

Almost sobbing herself, Teri returned the hug and just spoke to him,

"I'm glad that you're here!" she returned, tightening her grasp on him.

They remained like that for a moment before they parted and took a step back, both their faces slightly red. It wasn't long until Gumball looked down and saw the ugly burn mark that left Teri's leg a dangling shred of paper connected to a stump. Taken aback, Gumball's eyes first dilated with horror and then sorrow before his gaze was raised to her face,

"You're hurt!" he exclaimed, his somber tone hard to hide.

Seeing where his concern was sprouting from, Teri's face fell and then she took a quick glance at Gumball's body before noticing his sweater was torn (again.), his shoulder swollen and hued with a hideous shade of purple, and he looked so tired, like he'd been dragged through a storm,

"Your shoulder!" she gasped, putting a hand to her mouth as she reached forward and pulled away the torn fabric to get a better look at the damage done to him,

"It looks real bad." she remarked, completely ignoring her own injury.

Seeing the seriousness of the given situation, Gumball tried to lighten the mood a little with a joke,

"Yeah well, you should see the other guy! You can say he's half the monster he used to be… minus an arm." he stammered with a nervous chuckle.

She rolled her eyes at the horrendous joke and Gumball took that as positive sign. Behind them, Rob inspected the Nephilim statue that now stood like a grotesque and out-of-place piece of modern art, wondering why it wasn't fading and burning like they regularly did when they died. He got some kind of answer when the ground began rumbling and cracks began forming on the stone monstrosity, cracks that glowed with intense, orange light.

Raising his rifle, Rob alerted the two kids, who looked just as confused as he was,

"Form up you two! This guy's not dead yet!" he shouted over the mini Earthquake that was causing the trucks and planes beside them to rattle violently.

The bear and cat understood and broke into a run, with Gumball grasping Teri's hand in order to pull her along. Pulling alongside the heavily armed, former student of the local middle school, the two kids got ready and watched as the petrified remains of Uriel exploded in a brilliant flash of light that caused all three to shield their sensitive eyes from the harsh brightness. Following the earthquake and the eruption of the giant freeing itself from its stone prison, Uriel's harsh voice began to rain down on the trio from above,

"Thought you could kill me with such a cheap trick, did you?! Well lucky for me, I still had one body left to use and was able to save myself by letting the other one die instead." he bellowed.

With the light gone now, the pre-teens were able to now gaze upon the Nephilim's form and saw that he was speaking the truth. Hovering above them, a twenty foot tall Uriel with two arms and a form resembling his smaller portion created from Gumball and Teri's combined attack regarded the defenders of Elmore with his empty, black hole, eyes as though they were an infuriating cockroach that ceased to die no matter how many times he smashed it. Despite his reappearance, Gumball, Teri, and Rob remained steady and prepared to take on whatever hell he was about to unleash.

With a furious swipe of his hand, the invader from beyond continued to mercilessly berate the motley crew,

"Well, it's been fun, parasites, but I don't intend to stick around for much longer! The heavenly shield that is the clouds is about to part and your nest and all the vile things that fester here are about to face oblivion!" he finished by placing his hands together, a sign that he was about to ascend,

"I will watch your doom unfold from my throne! Now sit there and die, murderers!" he shouted as his farewell before his head slithered back into body, returning to its ring shape and his thumbs connected with his index fingers, forming two interlocking circles with both hands.

Realizing that if he escaped, they won't be able to take the barrier down, Teri quickly turned to Gumball and spurred him into action,

"Gumball! His hand, cut it off now!" she desperately shouted, pointing at the silver Nephilim's interlocking fingers.

Without even questioning her snap judgement, Gumball allowed his desperation to draw up more power from his scythe and the boy was shooting upwards towards the fleeing monster. He still hadn't fully recovered all his energy and was a quarter of the way charged, but it was enough to allow him to catch his target. Below, Rob loaded the rifle's chamber with a copper bullet carved with a rune resembling an eye with a sclera made up of clouds,

"I'll cover him!" he shouted, cocking back the loading mechanism, dropping to one knee and raising the rifle while peering through the aligned gunsight.

KRACK!

The sound rippled through the air the moment he pressed the trigger and the gun recoiled, pushing the one-eyed marksman back a little. The bullet zipped pass Gumball and reached the Nephilim in little to no time. Upon contact with the unaware being, the bullet exploded into a veil of tar black, suffocating smoke that completely rendered the hollow humanoid's superior senses useless. Completely surrounded and blinded by the smoke screen, Gumball faced no issue once he reached the monster, being able to see a few feet in front of him thanks to the light of the silver flames, he spotted the monster's massive mits and twisted himself around in a hard spin, using his momentum and enhanced strength to easily cut through his unaware opponent's wrist.

With the power of flight severed along with his right hand, the skyborne Nephilim began to plummet to the ground with a certain blue cat falling not too far behind. They both exited the thick black fog, trailing a little bit of the smoke with them, and they came in contact with the ground not too soon after. With Uriel landing on the Rainbow Factory truck, crumpling the metal vehicle like a soda can and Gumball landing not too far away on his feet (a true cat indeed!), Uriel switched straight to an offensive style of fighting right away and lunged towards the already tired out feline.

Teri watched as Gumball was put on the defensive, with him only using his power to dodge and deflect every punch and stomp the house-sized Nephilim threw at him. Not wanting to see her friend get smashed to a pulp, Teri began digging out some papers to utilize as weapons from her storage and set herself to work. She was interrupted by the boy standing next to her as he relayed an idea he came up with,

"Teri, can you create something that can fly and carry me as well?" the tall, lanky twelve-year-old asked, ejecting the bullet's empty shell casing and loading another into the chamber. He picked up the discarded shell and placed it within his short's pocket: best not to leave evidence for the authorities to find.

That definitely wasn't out of the range of possibility and Teri responded with a nod,

"Yes." was all she said before she went back to forming a helicopter capable of lifting the taller kid up in the air.

"Create a lightning rune too and drop it once your above Uriel, I'll take care of the rest. We'll keep Gumball from getting seriously hurt." he promised, giving her a reassuring smile when she shot a curious glance his direction.

Gumball let out a little eep! when Uriel's fist came crashing down in front of him, leaving cracks in the pavement, followed by a sweep of his massive leg that he barely managed to block before he was sent flying into the paper delivery truck. Knocking his head and back against the metal surface, Gumball hissed when he felt his shoulder throb at the rough meeting with the solid material. It was bad enough that every move he made drained him of energy, but with the giant, rampaging soldier trying his hardest to kill him, Gumball wondered if there was going to be anything left to scrape off the pavement once this was over.

He was given another boost of adrenaline when he saw the Nephilim soaring straight up in the air and then descending rapidly with his foot bearing down on him. He dove out of the way just as the monster crashed into the truck, splitting the vehicle in half and scattering pieces of twisted metal and paper everywhere like some sort of bizarre tornado originating from an office building. Gumball seriously wondered why no one has bothered to investigate yet and a greater fear made itself present in his mind when he realized that someone could be watching them now. Unfortunately, this caused the already dwindling grey fire to go out like a candle during lights out.

Now he was running for his life, as the Nephilim with the central body wheel was after him again.

Up above, a paper chopper traveled through the air with a blocky, glitching mad inventor and wielder of various magics dangling with one hand from a skid. Standing on the other landing skid, Teri was in hot pursuit of the two down below with a paper shuriken in hand and a lightning strike with the Nephilim's name on it. Already waving his gun until it was directed at the violent beast below, he called up to the aircraft's pilot,

"A little lower, please!" he directed.

Teri allowed the aircraft to dip and she shouted back down to her dangling passenger,

"I KNOW!" she barked. No one likes a backseat driver.

Seeing as they were now in range, Teri pulled her arm back and tossed the paper throwing star directly at the sun king. The silver giant was preparing to raise his foot in order to squish the fleeing Earth child when a bolt of lightning tore its way downwards and struck the invader with a thunderous shock that left his body paralyzed with bolts of electricity. Hearing the commotion, Gumball stopped running and pivoted to see what had happened before collapsing in a relaxed heap when he saw that help had arrived.

Now with this golden opportunity, Rob eyeballed it and fired his next round downwards. The shot raced through the open space and transformed halfway from its intended target, forming into a multi-headed hydra creature made of sharp diamonds that tore its way through the paralyzed Nephilim, slicing him to ribbons. Reduced to shreds and burning pieces of debris, Uriel's final thoughts faded along with the flames,

"Torax, Olaf, Raphael, Thundero, Brahkka, and Leliel, I'm so sorry. I should have waited…" his final regrets went up in smoke as his body burned itself out of existence.

Setting the helicopter down, Teri hopped off and rushed towards Gumball's resting form as he gave her a thumbs and stated that he was all right. While the two talked, Rob lifted his arm to his face and tapped the screen mounted to his wrist. The clock showed 3:18 and he quickly swiped over to his newly installed program, bringing up a screen that displayed the massive circular object in the sky. Thankful that it hadn't moved, Rob selected a few options on his menu and the cannon began charging up its electric coils.

After a moment, the gun cam's HUD lit up with positive signals, showing that his weapon was fully charged and he pressed the central button.

Another rumble was heard and Gumball along with Teri watched in awe as the sky lit up in a magnificent shade of green before fading shortly afterwards. Looking at his display, Rob witnessed the twin emerald dragons crash into the Nephilim's destructive throne, a satisfied smile forming on his face as he watched the weapon shatter and fade away from existence. He clicked off the phone and faced his comrades,

"Congrats guys, Elmore gets to live another day and with only twelve minutes to spare too, give or take." he happily reported, a little irony pressed into his tone.

Gumball just gave another thumbs up and slumped back on the pavement while Teri just let out a sigh of relief. With nothing else to do now, Rob decided it was time to bail and get back to his campsite to pack up. He needed to hop to it as well because he had to pick up Rachel once school let out and he knew it was best not to keep her waiting, less he wanted to spend another night outside. (he was still a little salty about last night at thesince she was the one who invited him to eat with her and he also had to spend an hour last night erasing video records and blackmailing witnesses thanks to her little temper tantrum over who got to split the check.)

"Alright, I gotta make like a tree and leaf because I don't want to stick around when the authorities arrive. Thanks for your assistance!" he waved them goodbye before booking it towards the fence, keeping true to his word.

They both returned his wave and thanked him for his help as well before taking a moment to just relax and collect their thoughts. Today was another close match, with both of them encountering great adversity and finding new strengths. They rarely imagined a scenario where they were bound to be separated and forced to face off against the forces of evil on their own. Like every villain that came before, this was going to be nothing more than a memory that will haunt them in their slumber and waking thoughts, which wasn't as bad as was actually dealing with them. They had long since gotten used to feeling like this and found comfort in the silence that came after the storm had passed.

This was their life now and there more surprises bound over the horizon,

Getting up and checking her phone, Teri noted the time they had left and ushered Gumball to get up,

"Come on, we have to get back to school. I can easily get us there before practice starts, if we hurry." she stated in her soft voice before turning towards her awaiting aircraft.

Sitting up and ignoring his body's demand to stay there and rest, the mischievous feline spoke to the retreating Pepakuma child,

"Before we go, I have one question for you." he said, stretching his arms, wincing again at his torn shoulder (it didn't seem to be broken, probably sprained or dislocated perhaps.) and yawning.

Whipping about, she wondered what it was he had to ask her and a single eyebrow made its way upwards, indicating her curiosity to the awaiting blue middle school student. He paused for a slight moment to tilt his head to the side and a playful smile formed on his lips,

"First I find that you can create living paper animals and objects to save and help others, then I find out you're a brilliant observer and planner, followed up by a skilled magic user and fighter, and now you can throw Nephilim around with no help whatsoever." he listed off, causing Teri to remained in a stunned silence at the stream of compliments being tossed her way.

He continued, this time with a red tinge to his cheeks,

"Will you ever cease to amaze me?" he asked.

Now it was Teri's turn to blush and she couldn't hide such a reaction in broad daylight where Gumball was obviously watching. That still didn't stop the red faced paper girl from trying to ward off the rising body temperature and the rush of happiness she was feeling. Seriously, how was he able to do this to her?

Looking side to side and fidgeting as she muttered a few incoherent words before spitting out an actual answer,

"Oh, it wasn't much, I mean, I figured it out after remembering that blob monster in chemistry class and I still got beat up by the way. You on the other hand, you're awesome too, you're quick to react, you are willing to risk your own safety in order to protect others, you ran several miles in under a few minutes, fought a Nephilim on your own and single handedly saved your sister along with an entire high school. Then you came back here with help." she responded while folding her hands behind her back and gently rocking back and forth on her feet.

Feeling honored to be receiving this kind of praise, Gumball took it in stride and got onto his feet. Hearing those kind of things repeatedly was actually starting to change his overall outlook on life and himself. He was starting to feel less like a screw up and more like someone who could do something right. Just goes to prove that Teri continues to amaze him and there didn't seem to be any slowing down.

However, he still had his faults and for once, he wasn't ashamed to admit them,

"Yeah, I even managed to control my scythe a little, but I still used up way too much energy and got beaten up because of it. I was actually really lucky that I carried two runes in my pocket and it was that luck that saved me." he admitted, stepping a little closer to her.

Finding his honesty admirable, Teri still didn't see him as a screw up like he seemed to believe himself to be and wanted to remind him of that,

"Hey, that's not too bad, you still did great and all it takes is practice, that's all. Actually we both need to practice." she let out a nervous chuckle while rubbing the back of her head.

Gumball found himself able to agree with that statement and was put in a better mood because of it,

"I guess that means we're the same then," he said jokingly, watching Teri's face contort in disgust.

"Ugh, I don't think so. You still don't wash your hands after eating lunch, so I wouldn't want to make that comparison." she regarded with her usual obnoxiousness.

With another eye roll and a sarcastic look, Gumball gave her a piece of his mind,

"I don't have to wash my hands after I eat. I wipe them with a napkin and that's just fine!" he proclaimed, standing by his beliefs.

Teri of course, wouldn't let this stand and was already spouting off what she knew about germs and the like,

"Um, no, you need soap or sanitary wipes in order to safely rid your hands of germs and the tables in the cafeteria are very unsanitary because other students have been eating there. Now let's hurry back to get patched up before we're really late." she remarked, grabbing Gumball by the hand and leading him back to the helicopter.

Gumball silently went along with her, knowing that arguing about cafeteria hygiene with the school neat freak will only give him a colossal head ache and frankly, that was the last thing he needed. While they made their way back to the awaiting aircraft, Gumball began to pick up on several sounds in the distance and he could from a distance, police cruisers making their way towards the airport. With the power back on, someone must have called the police and once again, Gumball found himself crossing his fingers and hoping that they weren't spotted and recognized by anyone here.

"Well, at least no one was hurt and it's a Friday, so I'm pretty happy. I can't wait to see what Teri and Sherry are like together during squad practice." he thought to himself positively as he climbed aboard the small origami.

While they were lifting off, Gumball wondered about Rob and the unusual runes he used. They were definitely new and not just located somewhere they could easily find, like the library or something of the sort. As usual, it boiled down to Rob being his normal scheming, anti-social habits and Gumball was already prepared to face the consequences later down the road. He knew Rob was helping them protect Elmore, but he still didn't know the cyclop's goals and aspirations. He could only hope that it was something that would be a benefit to everyone because the only thing worse than a Nephilim is powerful maniac you wind up trusting.

-Elmore Junior High football stadium, 3:32 PM-

"Yeah, there's no cheerleading practice today because everyone is, like, sick or whatever." came the moody response from the equally moody 8th grade cheerleader, Sherry, while she chewed her gum and texted on her phone, paying the two lower classmen no attention.

Struck dumb, Teri and Gumball just stood in place and swayed in the wind a little as a heavy silence drew over the three kids. After hightailing it back to the school, treating their injuries and rushing out to the empty football stadium looking good as new, it had somehow managed to completely slip their minds that Molly and Carmen were sick and injured along with many other students and without the cheerleading captain, plus nearly half the squad, there wasn't going to be any practice today. Now the two just felt really stupid standing there, staring blankly at the mermaid while she continued to chat up her friends and snap a large bubble she was blowing.

She kind of had the average American, teenage girl look with long, wavy, chestnut hair all tucked up in a ponytail, hazel eyes with nail polish that flashed a gorgeous aquamarine and an oversized, pink hoodie with jeggings. Like most of the citizens of Elmore, she was not human, having reddish orange scales instead of smooth skin covering her body, three gills on either side of her neck, webbed hands and feet, and a long wavy fin that ran along her spine, which was concealed underneath her baggy clothes. All in all, she was kind of pretty, in a unnatural way that made people do a double take when they first spotted her.

Realizing they had no further business here, Teri and Gumball decided now was the perfect time to make their exit and started towards the door, leaving the uninterested teen behind. Carrying both her pom poms in her hands that lay limp at her side, Teri's drawn on face was downcast and she dragged her feet. She really wanted to get some practice done today, it was one of the many mundane things she enjoyed and looking forward to with greater enthusiasm ever since the Nephilim started showing up. That and she felt very embarrassed that she didn't get show Gumball what they had learned so far.

While she thought about that, Gumball's mind was on other things and he too remained silent for a brief period,

"Umm, yeah, Sherry. She's um, not quite what I… expected." Gumball shakily admitted, having honestly never seen the girl before and only heard of recently. For some reason, he expected to look different and was kind of disappointed that she didn't seem all that friendly and sociable, because she seemed really nice at first glance.

Catching on to his comment regarding their newest member to the squad, Teri's head shot up and she looked Gumball in the eye while she spoke,

"Really now? And what exactly were you expecting?" she asked, trying not to sound too curious.

Taking in a deep breath, the blue, walking feline searched around for nothing in particular as he fished the words out of his mind. He was fortunate enough to find something to say and turned to his companion, who was waiting for his response,

"I was expecting someone a bit more radiant and outgoing and not like if Darwin and Carrie's love child from the future that somehow managed to fuse her hand with a phone and has a personality like a dill pickle." okay, maybe he could have worded that better.

To his surprise though, Teri only seemed to find his response amusing and erupted into a fit of giggles while Gumball only stared at her like she'd gone bonkers. After a moment had passed, she seemed to have collected herself and was standing up straight again. She seemed really happy about something and Gumball couldn't seem to understand what that possibly could be.

Seeing as he looked confused, Teri hurried up with her explanation and continued walking as she did so,

"You're right actually and I don't blame you. She seemed awesome when we all first met her, but then we quickly found out that she's a bit of an air head and well, that's what we got as our replacement." she chuckled, not wanting to mention the other person she was referring to by name.

Feeling as though he'd gained a better understanding, Gumball just rolled along with it and added in his own bout of laughter. Soon they were both laughing about nothing and just having a good time. They continued to walk and talk as they wandered around the school and into the parking lot, where Teri's parent's car was awaiting to pick her up.

Seeing as their time was short, Teri was quick to bring up any possible weekend plans with her furry companion,

"My mom's going to be gone tomorrow evening, do you want to stop by my place then and hang out for a bit?" she asked, starting to fidget with her fingers again.

Seeing no problem with that, with Darwin wanting to invite the other guys to play video games tomorrow afternoon, Gumball was more than certain he could squeeze out of there and spend some time with Teri,

"Yeah, for sure. Would you and your folks mind if I had another sleepover? We could get up in the morning and train for a bit before doing something else afterwards." he suggested, wanting to throw other options her way.

With a nod, Teri told him that it won't be an issue and that she looked forward to hanging out with him. They said their farewells and promised to message one another tonight before Teri began to head off to her awaiting parents. Once again, Gumball couldn't help but watch her leave for a second, her injuries were treated very well so she didn't have any noticeable marks and he found himself liking the way she walked to the car. She had this adorable little skip she would do every few steps and it just seemed like too much for the curious feline handle. He honestly believed that Teri had to be the cutest girl in the whole school and he felt so lucky to be able to hang out with her.

Deciding to text his mom and let her know what happened, Gumball soon had word that she was going to come pick him up. Thanking her and telling her that he'll be waiting outside, Gumball hung up and sat down on the school's front steps while staring off into the distance. He felt as though things were looking up and getting a lot better. He was really looking forward to this upcoming weekend.

Meanwhile, in the back of the Pepakuma family car, Teri was also looking forward to the weekend and was thinking pleasant thoughts while peering into her backpack specifically at the jacket that belonged to Gumball. Being a secret known to no one other than herself, she actually liked the jacket, it was very warm and it smelled like him. She knew she technically stole it from him on their ride back yesterday, but he hasn't asked for it back so she guessed it was alright if she kept it for a while. She was also feeling really happy for the fact that Gumball seemed less than impressed with Sherry and even though she knew it wasn't right to be jealous, she was just really relieved that she had nothing to fear. Then again, Gumball was really impressed with from the very beginning of this crazy adventure, so her fears and insecurities had no real substance to begin with.

What a relief, but she still didn't know how she actually felt about him.

She'll figure it out eventually, for now she was going to enjoy herself and be happy with the fact she was safe, Gumball was safe and the whole town was lucky enough to be able to see a lovely weekend. She never really liked thunderstorms or cloudy weather to begin with, but now she had a new respect for it. It was going to be stormy this weekend, which didn't sound so bad when she thought about it, seeing as she was more of an indoor person anyway and there were many fascinating ways for one person to pass the time.

-back at Elmore High-

Hearing the car's passenger door slam shut besides him, Rob didn't even bother looking up from his smartphone in order to see who it was and just allowed the corner of his mouth to rise a little as a response. He had been waiting in the parking lot for several minutes now for school to let out and for Rachel to finish chatting with her friends before joining him. While he had been checking a list of items required for Leviathan Book, the ultimate weapon he was planning on constructing, he noticed a pink bunny in an orange dress who couldn't be any older than five making her way towards the waiting line of buses and he realized that it was Gumball's little sister, Anais.

He'd completely forgotten that his long-time rival had a little sibling that attended the same school as his housemate and was quite amused by the fact that such a young person had the brilliance to be attending a school well beyond her supposed grade level. Maybe, he'd been competing with the wrong person this whole time and his real enemy should have been someone with such an advanced mind. It was kind of baffling to even consider that who he was watching was Gumball's baby sister and they all knew how much of a dunce he was.

Well at least he was persistent and filled his role as he should, but it left him wondering if he should continue being the villain. He's already met the true enemy of this world and it was more than any figure this town could offer. He could settle for some kind of anti-hero role and perhaps use that as a means to further break away from this predetermined act he was given.

It was still a mystery as to what he would do after that, but there were important things that needed to be done beforehand.

Hearing her breathe a relaxing sigh of relief next to him, Rob could tell Rachel had a long day and the ever so observant inventor put his phone away before she could see the contents displayed on his screen. Clasping his hands on the steering wheel, Rob checked the parking lot for any approaching vehicles and wandering teens that were too close. While twisting to peer out the back, his vision caught the form of Rachel, who was checking her makeup in the little, rectangular mirror hidden within the ceiling visor and he had to stifle a laugh. He knew she was a bit of a princess, but the sight of her fussing over her appearance always managed to draw a laugh out of him, especially when he knows her to be very bossy.

"Good day?" he asked, putting the car in reverse and slowly began backing out of his parking space.

Checking her curly, mixed colored hair for any split-ends, the blue teen answered the lanky middle schooler while keeping her attention on her reflection,

"It wasn't bad. I'm not looking forward to work and professor Ozgul needs a volume switch when he's talking about Geometry, man really loves his shapes." she sighed, pulling her hair back into a ponytail.

"So square!" Rob teased, looking over to see how she'll react.

As expected, she didn't take it too well and took no time to berate him,

"You wanna sleep outside again?!" she snapped.

"You want me to tell your manager that you were slacking off yesterday and caused a scene at the B and B?" he countered, glancing back at the road as he pulled out of the high school parking lot.

Crossing her arms and pouting, Rachel looked out the window,

"The frog face had it coming since he barged into our conversation and… and… ugh, was acting so nice and now I feel bad for losing my temper." she paused for a moment before adding in,

"And for making you sleep outside, although cheese does make you gassy." she looked back at him just in time to catch an eye roll from the younger kid.

"You're a real charmer, Rachel, and don't worry about it, I was able to get more work done." he said, putting on the brakes just as a traffic light went red.

Rachel let out a snort and soon found herself mirroring the cyclop's annoyed reaction. She knew very well about his "work" and his various projects he left all over his room and their garage. He's been working real hard lately and more often than not, she'd have to drag him out of his man cave just so he'd feed himself or shower or even wash his clothes since they'd smell like his work room too. Of course, she'd worry more about herself in any given circumstance and Rob would have to remind her to go to school or to trudge off to her part-time job while he ran his errands that helped put more money and food on the table.

In a weird way, they've come to really rely on each other and not just for their physical health, but for their emotional health as well,

"You really need to take it easy with your mad science projects or whatever monster you're planning on making because you're starting to phase out of reality and I mean that in a metaphorical sense." she warned, now moving her hands down to her lap and clasping her three fingers together.

"I don't need to take a break and it's not a mad science project, I'm not trying to doom the world, I'm trying to…" he caught himself before he finished that sentence,

"...save it." he finished internally, resting his four fingered hands on the wheel and sighing.

He could feel Rachel's concern pressing down on him like a sack of bricks as well as her stare and he took a deep breath. She was right, he was obsessed with his work and he couldn't function like a person if all he did was seclude himself. Reflecting on today's events, he knew he hadn't been a necessarily good companion to his only two allies (more towards Gumball than Teri, to be exact.) and it was because of his mistrust towards them, not wanting them to get into his head and to know what he'd been up to.

He needed to open himself up to more options and maybe even live a little.

When Rachel began to ask him what was wrong, he cut her off by raising his index fingers while keeping both hands on the wheel,

"You know, I just remembered something." he started, facing her with a calm expression,

"During one of my roundabout trips through Elmore, I came across a wonderful spot in the forest North of Elmore and it's great for stargazing and watching the planets. What's say tomorrow evening, after you get out of work, we head on over there and check it out. I can bring my telescope?" he offered, feeling slightly odd for asking this to someone he's known for a long time as a close friend, almost a sibling really, to go do something this out of place.

Rachel seemed to be intrigued by this and even considered whether or not this was the real Rob she was talking to,

"You mean, like, you and me, in a remote spot, watching the sky through a telescope and not going to some fast food restaurant to argue over dumb things like where to store cute plushies or why plaid looks terrible with cowboy hats?" she questioned, sounding very suspicious.

Rob just shrugged and tapped the steering wheel with his thumbs,

"Or we could just stay home and not do anything this weekend, if the outdoors is not your thing, I mean I hate the woods myself, but I thought that it would be something fun that we could-!"

"Sounds like a great idea!" she interrupted.

Rob remained silent before slowly turning his head until he could see her clearly, scanning her face to see if she was pulling anything,

"...oh… okay. Why though?" he asked, now really confused.

Leaning back in her seat, Rachel felt pretty comfortable speaking her mind and spoke to the kid,

"Well, seeing as you're the one who offered, why not? Plus, like you said, we should go do something fun this weekend and even though, I too am not an outdoorsy person, stargazing has been a particularly interesting event that I would like to accompany someone with." she said, adding in a warm smile that Rob caught, but didn't show any reaction to.

"Oh, well, alright then. I will start gathering supplies tomorrow, maybe grab a mosquito net, some bug spray, and a portable-!"

"Hey Einstein, you should probably drive before the light goes red again!" Rachel suggested gruffly, pointing at the traffic light that Rob had been oblivious to for the past minute and a half.

Realizing his error, Rob floored the gas pedal while uttering a few curses and zipping down the main road before anyone driving behind them could complain. Being jostled around a bit, the headband wearing rainbow lass used a few colorful metaphors of her own to describe her discontent with Rob's rough driving and settled back into her seat when they eventually slowed down. Meanwhile, Rob was later cool enough to think clearly and brush off his little mishap while following the road signs back to their house.

He was definitely glad for this little vacation actually, although it was a little hard for him to keep his mind off of the Nephilim and his work. He was mainly concerned with defeating the Nephilim and finding his and Rachel's cure. At least he can worry about that tomorrow morning and afternoon while Rachel was gone at work and he was free to prowl.

Tomorrow he will study, work, and relax. Sunday, he will take another visit to the void and see what else he could find. After all, he had a book to write and an author needed as many materials as they could get their hands on.

(A/N:) And finished! Not going to do an extended outro this time because this chapter is already freakin long enough as it is, as well as this month. Anyway, thank you so much guys for reading and reviewing, it means a lot to me. The next chapter is titled "Fear without form." and it's probably going to be a good one. Don't know when it will be out because as I've learned recently, ANYTHING can come in and throw your whole schedule out of whack, but I will begin typing the moment this one is uploaded to you guys.

See you guys in the next chapter, have a fantastic day and remember to post a review and like this chapter if it does good by you. See ya later!