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?

10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10: Paper, scythe and golden eyes: A field trip of terror

Teri x Gumball

What is cooking TAWOG fans! We're back with the fourth chapter of the romantic fantasy adventure Teri x Gumball: in between worlds. In this chapter we will be following our favorite duo as they travel with their class on a field trip to San Francisco, but what awaits the two spirit fighters in this bustling metropolis? Probably some OC's and nefarious Nephilim spirits, You know, the works and such.

I do want to take a moment and apologize for the absurd length of the chapter prior to this one. I've trimmed down this chapter to the best of my abilities and I hope that it's simple and straightforward. I want to do my best as a writer and make sure that you guys are entertained, so thank you to those who brought this issue to my attention.

There will be more interactions between Gumball and his classmates for this chapter and even though they're not in a romantic relationship yet, there will be some Terball fluff, but only a little.

I'm going to be a jerk and assume that you all are getting tired of hearing me squawk about this story, so let's just dive right in.

Please read, enjoy, and leave a review down below.

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

-School bus, October 4th, 2013, 7:25 a.m.-

Two weeks following the horrible events at the football stadium, the much awaited class field trip to San Francisco was finally here and every soul on the bus was in a constant state of excitement. At the back of the bus, Carrie and Darwin sat close to one another and while Darwin was smiling pleasantly for the fun afternoon that was well on its way, Carrie appeared more blissful. Following two long weeks of helping her two new companions in supernatural affairs remain obscure from her boyfriend and his suspicious associates/sibling, plus intense study into the Nephilim matter itself, she was ready for a vacation. Plus, her favorite band, Broken Asylum, was appearing in Jackson square today and they were handing out autographs too!

"I can't wait until the museum tour is over and they set us loose in the city." she proclaimed with excitement, although her voice was slightly monotone,

"My favorite album is Politicians of the damned, but I also like Devil police as well. I hope they play a few songs from those two while they visit." she said, taking a hopeful look at Darwin.

Darwin also shared her excitement, even though he wasn't really into the kind of music she was into, he thought it would be nice to meet the band members in person.

"I know! I even have the schedule listed so we can figure out a good time to meet them." he said, pulling out his planner.

Flipping to the marked page, he held up the planner so that Carrie could see as well. He placed a fin on a schedule he had written down and spoke to his incorporeal girlfriend,

"Okay, the bus ride is about four hours long, depending on traffic, and that should have us arriving at the museum around noon. The entire tour is two hours from there and we're given two hours of free time before we need to be heading back to the bus. Broken Asylum should be arriving at around nine am and they're going to be there until four, so we should have an hour or two to wait in line and get some autographs." he explained, feeling happy that there was some spare time for the two of them to hang out.

He was partnered up with Gumball and Bobert for the museum tour and they were expected to take notes together on specifically marked locations within the museum. Carrie was partnered up with Masami and Teri and would also be going on a tour within her little group. However, she didn't really feel like sitting through all of that and once the idea came to her, a sinister smirk could be seen on her light features.

She leaned in closer until her mouth rested above the spot his ear was located,

"How about we sneak out early?" she whispered, pulling her head back in order to see his reaction.

Darwin's eyes widened and his pupils shrunk in surprise, he focused on her and began frantically waving his fins,

"Wha-?! what about-? what if someone notices that we're missing?" he stuttered in response, keeping his voice as low as possible in order to not draw attention to themselves.

Hearing her suggest something like this wasn't out of character for the prankster spirit, it's just that he didn't want to start a manhunt for the two in an unfamiliar city and cause more chaos and confusion. Plus, he also wanted to invite some friends to join them and sneaking out with a group of people was more difficult than sneaking out with just two.

Carrie seemed to anticipate this response since she knew Darwin to be rather responsible as well as cautious and pointed in the direction of the teachers,

"Don't worry. This class trip is going to be rather boring and I'm more than positive that Principle Brown and Ms. Simian aren't going to spend their time watching a group of brats when they could be having alone time in a cafe nearby or something." she said.

Her point was proven when Darwin saw their baboon teacher and the furry slug chatting in a flirty way towards one another in the front seat.

"And I think Mr. Small has found his popular group." Carrie added, pointing at the cloud-like humanoid sitting next to Leslie in the middle row, chatting up a storm.

Darwin understood her reasoning for wanting to get out early, but he didn't want to get in trouble and there was also the issue of having to take written notes on the tour. Notes that they were going to have to turn in by the end of the trip, mind you.

Thinking quickly, he came up with an idea and placed his fins together as to prepare both himself and her the plan he had,

"That's indeed likely, actually highly probable, but we still need to turn in our notes before we leave the building. So sneaking out won't do us any good." he warned.

The ghost girl frowned a little and the two-legged goldfish almost crumbled underneath her disappointed stare, which is why he hurried up with his improved and less dangerous plan,

"But, I was thinking, since we're going to be in the same wing, I could have it so that our two groups "accidentally" bump into each other and we can talk while taking notes. Gumball will be there as well and he's good at cracking jokes at museum artifacts, so it'll be hilarious to be there and less painful." he suggested.

Carrie took a moment to think about and decided that it was a good plan. She turned and nodded in approval with a small smile and Darwin's eyes lit up and his mouth formed into an adorable smile,

"Awesome! And I was thinking afterwards, we could have Clayton hold a spot in line for us, since he's also a fan of Broken Asylum and is most likely going to be there as well, while we go about the place for a while and see the sights." he finally finished with his idea and looked at his girlfriend expectantly for answer.

From the looks of it, Carrie seemed to be onboard with this plan as was evident by the small smile and the excited twinkle in her dark eye as she thought about it. It sure beat having to wait in line for a couple of hours and it meant that she and Darwin were going to have a bit of alone time. The problem was though, they were also going to have lots of time to talk and cuddle on the bus ride to San Francisco and home, and was worried that it might get too boring for them.

"I like that idea." she commented,

"I was wondering though, if it was okay to invite Gumball, Teri, and perhaps a few other people as well." she asked, flipping her bangs a little.

Darwin saw nothing wrong with that idea and was actually glad that she wanted to bring others along just like he did. He nodded and smiled in response,

"I don't see the harm in that. I'm glad we're all going somewhere new and exciting to enjoy some time together." he said charismatically.

She leaned in and planted a kiss on his chubby cheek, before pulling back with a blush on her face,

"Thank you!" she said sweetly.

Darwin loved it when she showed her sweet side and found himself feeling warm and fuzzy on the inside. His smile increased in width as he looked at her lovingly,

"You're welcome. I love you." he returned.

The two sat beside each other in comfortable silence and allowed their bodies to brush up against each other. They continued to sit like this until the bus came to a stop and an anthropomorphic cat along with a paper bear girl stepped aboard. Seeing his brother and his friend making their way towards the back, Darwin waved at the two and spoke softly to Carrie,

"Looks like our favorite couple have arrived!" he whispered cheerfully, causing Carrie to snicker. They both scooted over to make room for the two, seeing as Teri didn't go to her usual spot.

As Gumball and Teri approached, Darwin and Carrie picked up on their conversation and realized that they were arguing about something.

"...and what's wrong with the way I do the dishes?" Gumball demanded as he walked in irritation behind an equally agitated Teri.

"You're not supposed to load the plates into the top rack of the dishwasher!" she answered fussily.

His face scrunched up in a "what?!" and he raised his arms in disbelief,

"What difference does it make? They all get washed anyway!" he replied defensively.

Teri spun around and got in real close to his face,

"They don't wash properly when they're on top and simply because THEY DON'T GO THERE!" she shouted.

Now Gumball was fuming, but backed down once he realized that it was getting out of control and apologized. He promised to load the dishwasher properly next time and Teri also cooled down before thanking him. The two proceeded to the back of the bus where Carrie and Darwin awaited them.

As soon they were within hearing range, Carrie waved at Teri then Gumball and smiled at the two newcomers,

"And how is the happy married couple this morning?" she asked teasingly.

Gumball and Teri both gained tick marks on their heads as they furrowed their eyebrows at Carrie's greeting tease,

"WE'RE NOT LIKE THAT!" they shouted in unison and took a seat next to the actual couple.

The normally depressed spirit laughed maniacally at their counter and settled down after a moment,

"Sure you are." she remarked with a roll of her eye,

"Why else would you two spend every possible moment together and waste time arguing about a seriously overrated medical drama series?" she asked, while slightly hinting at their secret.

Crossing her arms in defiance, Teri leaned back and spoke in a serious manner,

"Because we're close friends, obviously." she shot back and Gumball blew a raspberry at the ghost to further support his friend.

This didn't deter Carrie's efforts to tease them, not even in the slightest. She kept a calm demeanor and took another stab in the dark,

"Really now? And how do you guys decide on other activities" she kept her gaze on Gumball, prompting him to answer instead of Teri.

It worked and Gumball immediately sat up straight to deliver a response,

"Normally, I would suggest something like the arcade or fun fair, but then Teri would say something like, "we should try going to uptown Elmore and checking out some of the areas there." or something like that. So, that's what we wind up doing instead. It's called a compromise, if I'm not mistaken!" he said.

It was Darwin's turn to burst out laughing like a maniac. It wasn't that he was laughing at his brother's explanation, but more at the fact that Gumball didn't know what a compromise was. He lurched forward as he squeaked with laughter in his high pitched voice and clutched his aching sides while Carrie joined in. The joking spirit pressed a little hand to her large forehead as she laughed, shaking her head at Gumball,

"Seems legit! That's exactly what boyfriends do!" she gasped out, before turning to an irritated Teri

"Man, you really got him wrapped around your finger, huh Teri?" she continued to laugh along with her fishy beloved, all the while murder was written on the paper girl's face.

Realizing what he said was a little strange, Gumball just let out a sigh and decided to change the subject,

"You guys excited for the trip?" he asked, a little irritation making its way out to be heard as well.

Darwin and Carrie had enough tomfoolery and decided to answer his question seeing as they were excited for the events they had planned out,

"Yes, actually!" Darwin replied in an optimistic tone,

"Though, I'm not really one for Hippie museums or anything to do with the 60's, 70's, or 80's. Way too much drama." he groaned.

Carrie quickly filled in the part she was looking forward to sharing with them,

"And best of all! Broken Asylum is going to be making an appearance at Jackson square! They're going to be handing out autographs!" she said gleefully, almost bouncing up and down in her seat.

This was quite a rare sight for the two to see because Carrie hardly showed any emotion other than apathy, sadness, pain, or disgust. The two just stared at her in shock, unsure of how to react at the moment. It was when Teri asked a question was the silence broken,

"Aren't they that heavy metal band that sings depressing songs about how the world is being run and how life is one long trainwreck?" she scratched the top of her head as peered over Gumball's oversized one.

"Um, first off, it's punk rock, and secondly, yes." she replied in an offended tone.

Teri nodded once in understanding and looked at Darwin, who was clapping his fins together in excitement,

"And the best part is, they're going to be there from 9 to 4, and we wanted to invite you guys along so that we could all hang out and enjoy the city while a friend of ours waits in line for us. Hopefully." he blurted out, adding the last word because he wasn't sure if Clayton was going to actually put himself up to waiting in line for one of his favorite bands.

Darwin pulled out his planner to pass to his brother and Gumball looked at the marked page. After going over the schedule, he passed the planning book back to his former pet and Darwin began to talk about his weekend with Carrie. Because the two were heavily wrapped up in a conversation, Carrie had the two boys scooch over, so that she could sit next to Teri.

Once the two girls were beside each other, Teri folded her hands and placed them on her lap while Carrie brushed her bangs away from her exposed eye,

"Are you excited to be in my group?" Carrie asked, casting a glance towards the paper girl.

Teri turned to the ghost with a kind smile and nodded,

"Certainly. It would definitely be nice to hang out with you and Masami." she said cheerfully, but her smile was quickly replaced with a frown,

"Although, I'm really not looking forward to the museum, partly because it sounds boring and I don't being in places where so many people are located." she sighed.

Looking back to the ghost girl, Teri put on a humorous grin and chuckled,

"I think the only parts I'm really looking forward to is the bus ride there and back." she said with a giggle.

This caused Carrie to laugh along as well. She found it to be strange for a person with such an irrational fear of the microscopic world to even consider going on a trip like this. Heck even going to school probably seemed ludicrous to her, then again, she practically hosed down everything in her path with disinfectant.

She looked at Gumball then back at the Pepakuma child,

"Yet you hang out with the gumdrop over there." she said, hiking a thumb in the occupied cat's direction,

"Aren't you afraid of catching something contagious, like his stupidity for example." she joked. She didn't actually think he was stupid, but she knew he was pretty reckless at times.

Teri peered over at her blue, furry friend in the brown sweater and then back at Carrie with, yet another hilarious smile on her bear-like face,

"I hardly think that's an issue." she remarked,

"I think my brain may have built up enough resistance to repel a force such as that one. Although, I think I might have caught his untreatable sense of humor, last time I checked." she let out another chuckle.

Carrie placed a hand on her chin and leaned forward as if she were a doctor examining a patient,

"Really now and what are the symptoms of this "humor virus" you speak of?" she asked in a deeper voice, imitating a male doctor.

Feigning a sickness by touching the back of her hand to her forehead, Teri let out an exaggerated groan that sounded like a dying mule,

"Well, Dr. Krueger, whenever I feel like time seems to crawl, I have a sudden urge to unleash witty banter in the form of puns!" she said softly,

"For example, Molly's pun-dane stories seem to have placed Masami on cloud nine." she teased, pointing towards the front seat where the sentient cloud, Masami and the sauropod, Molly, sat.

Molly was in the middle of telling Masami another long story about the frog she saw in her Grampa's backyard. The spoiled cloud girl seemed to be spacing out while the simple dinosaur droned on. If she was this bored, then the museum visit was going to hell for the poor cloud.

Upon hearing the series of puns, Carrie burst into a fit of giggles and was joined by her paper friend. She was glad that Teri was doing better and seeing as she was cracking jokes much like her close friend, it was fairly obvious the damage done was mended. If she were to argue, Carrie would say that the Tartarforus incident brought them closer together because Teri had never seemed so happy before when hanging around Gumball and it was thanks to the amount of time he put in to be by her side.

Either way she looked at it, those two were bound to become more than friends.

After allowing her funny side to settle, Carrie picked up with the conversation,

"I'm afraid there's no cure, maam. You're doomed to a life of a stand up comedian or just world full of sighs and faithless people." she said, causing the paper bear to roll her eyes in response.

"Oh no! What'll I ever do now? I can't be a nurse if I keep cracking lame puns and people's funny bones." she remarked sarcastically.

"Ha ha! Good one!" she laughed, baring her sharp teeth.

Resting her head on the back of the seat, Teri stared out the window and saw that the bus had already left Elmore, moving onto a highway with forests flanking them on either side. She heard that Tina had left early this morning to San Francisco due to the fact the young Tyrannosaurus couldn't fit in the bus, but could easily fit in the museum. After the fight with Tartarforas, she listened in on some of her conversations at school and learned that she was quite disturbed when two weeks ago her father woke up with multiple slash marks covering certain areas of his body and Teri couldn't help but feel a little sorry for the Rexes. Surprisingly there has been no Nephilim activity in the past two weeks whatsoever and while Teri was grateful for their absence, it still made her uneasy.

She continued to stare out the window and saw nothing, but road, cars and nature all under a dimly lit sky.

"So do you have any plans for the weekend?" Teri asked Carrie, her gaze still set upon the passing scenery.

Checking to see if Darwin was occupied, she saw that her walking fish boyfriend was engaged in a heated argument with Gumball over which Ninja would win in Ninja Legion and wasn't paying her any attention. She also checked to see if anyone was listening in on them, but found to her relief that nobody was. With things looking favorable, she bobbed her head a little,

"Yes. so you see, I've been going through my dad's library as well as talking to some of the ghouls in the graveyard and a lot of sources keep pointing me to a demon named, Malabranche, and how to summon him." she explained feeling pretty overjoyed.

Curious, Teri pulled her attention away from the moving treeline and back to Carrie,

"Wait, a demon? Are you sure that's safe because Gumball and I have enough trouble fighting the Nephilim, I'm not sure I want to test my mettle against another supernatural force of malevolence." she whispered back rather fiercely.

Waving a hand in front of her and shaking her large noggin simultaneously, Carrie quickly explained the rules of demon summoning,

"No, no, no, trust me when I say that it's not as bad as the Nephilim, as a matter of fact, this could be very helpful!" she replied with amazing confidence in what she was saying.

Still not sure, Teri whispered back,

"Could you elaborate a little?"

With a swift nod that made her bangs bounce, she leaned in and quietly explained it to her,

"Unlike the Nephilim, when a demon is summoned to Earth from Tartarous, their dominion within the deepest depths of the Underworld, they are bound by ancient rules not to attack the summoner, or anyone else for that matter, and can do whatever the person asks." she stated, still keeping her voice down.

That was definitely a plus in Teri's book and she was feeling slightly relieved that no other spiritual threat could come to Elmore, especially one brought upon by themselves. There were already enough challenging aspects on its own that Teri would rather not deal with and confidence was sorely needed in these trying times. For the studious girl one thing was certain: the less they knew, the more danger were in.

She gave a non-verbal cue to show that she understood and looked around to see if anyone else was listening in,

"So, what's going to happen when you summon it? Is it going to win the war in one fell swoop at the cost of our souls?" she asked with a hint of snark.

Once again, Carrie had good news for Teri and told her what she knew,

"If a mortal demands something of a demon, it will come at a price, but seeing as I am already dead, I have no ties with the mortal plane. Malabranche, like most demons, has lived under the rule of Mephistopheles since the beginning and could tell us something important about the Nephilim. That's what most people do when they summon them, they usually ask for knowledge of sorts and sometimes unlimited wealth with some remarkable talent sprinkled in as well."

Teri soaked up all the news and pondered it for a second. At least Carrie was sure that it was safe and they could definitely use some more intel. If these spirits are as old as Carrie said they were, then their knowledge would be priceless and maybe a more permanent solution to the Nephilim problem could be found right before they started showing up again.

Nodding along and agreeing with this plan, Teri gave her approval,

"That's actually very handy, as long as it doesn't put anyone else in danger." she said, airing on the side of caution still.

Smiling softly, Carrie faced towards the front of the bus and began rubbing her ghostly temples with her hands,

"I've got a long week ahead of me because the items needed for the ritual are numerous and difficult to get ahold of unless you know the right guy, plus I need to find a good time and place to perform the ritual. The spiritual energy a demon portal can disperse can cause some bizarre side effects and it's a bit of juggling session when you have to keep others from finding out." she sighed.

She knew who she was referring to and quietly glanced at the Watterson boys, Darwin in particular. Thanks to carrie's inside intel, Gumball and Teri herself were able to keep a low profile whenever Elmore's investigators began snooping about. their investigation was also slowing down thanks to the lack of Nephilim appearances in the past two weeks, so there wasn't much action for them to spring onto and both Teri and Gumball were okay with that.

That did bring something to mind though and Teri's face lit up when she decided to discuss her weekend plans with her incorporeal friend,

"I'm glad that you've gotten far in your research, you're definitely doing way better than I was." she complimented, placing a tired smile upon the ghost girl's face,

"Gumball and I talked about going to the mall sometime in the not too distant future to possibly get some clothes to better hide ourselves with, that way we don't draw anymore attention to ourselves and wind up having to dodge tricky public situations. Other than that, there's not really a whole going except cheerleading practice and some music lessons." she said, tossing out possibilities for particular activities, although she wouldn't mind just relaxing more thanks to how peaceful things have been.

Carrie let out a little chuckle and brushed a bit of her hair out of her face before sitting up straight,

"Sounds like a plan, you guys should also do something like grab a bite to eat or go see a movie while you're at the mall or just hang out at the park seeing as the weekend is supposed to be nice." she said, lifting her hair up to give her a suggestive wink before floating upwards,

"Now if you'll excuse me, I have to steal my boyfriend from your boyfriend. Nice talking to you again." she said with a wave.

Feeling better, Teri waved back to her before she caught on to one particular sentence that she uttered,

"No problem and he's not my boyfr-!" she was too late to say deny the last statement as Carrie drifted over the two boys until she was on Darwin's side. She put a quick end to their conversation by shoving Darwin aside and snuggling up next to him. Soon her head was resting on his own causing Darwin stop talking and press himself against her to fall asleep comfortably.

Gumball, who had been abruptly shoved to Teri's side when Carrie broke into their serious debate, was completely silent for a moment as he watched the ghost girl in astonishment,

"Um, okay, could've just said something." he growled before turning to Teri,

"What were you guys talking about?" he asked, figuring that Carrie's odd behavior had something to do with their conversation.

Teri looked at him before averting her eyes to the seat in front of her,

"Future plans, I'll tell you later." she simply replied.

From her expression to her body language Gumball could definitely tell that she and Carrie had an interesting conversation. Probably not as intense as his argument with Darwin, because he knew that the green forest ninja would easily triumph over the sun cobra ninja, but Darwin just couldn't see his side of things. More or less, he decided not to press the issue any further and decided to talk about the museum,

"So, you excited to see the Beats Museum?" he asked, leaning back into his seat and allowing his shoulders to slump.

The paper girl sitting next to him let out a chuckle that made her entire body crinkle a little,

"You mean seeing what a small world looks like?" she snickered.

Gumball laughed a little after immediately catching on to her pun and smiled devilishly at the comeback he had prepared for her,

"It does seem like we're touring Mr. Small's homeland, huh? Do you think they'll take him back this time?" he jeered, causing both of them to laugh.

Recovering from her laughing fit, Teri straightened herself out and faced the silly feline, wrapping her hands together and allowing her long legs to swing a little on the edge of the seat,

"Nah, not really. I'm more looking forward to the part where we're set loose and allowed to roam about a little." she said earnestly,

"Do you have any places you'd like to visit?" she asked, sneaking a peek at the cat child, who was watching her while she spoke.

He pondered a moment, stroking his furry chin while he concentrated,

"Nothing in particular. The most likely case is that we're going to be following Carrie and Darwin around, mostly Carrie, because she does like new places and is probably also going to try to explore some dangerous areas for the thrill of it."

After relaying his thoughts, he turned to Teri for her opinion,

"You?" he asked.

Teri shrugged and shook her head with nothing on her mind,

"We're probably just going to do what you mentioned. I've never been to San Francisco before, so there's nowhere off the top of my head that I can think of." she states, breathing out a sigh before her eyes lit up,

"Although, if something or someplace was to grab my fancy, would you mind if we stopped there?" she asked, staring at Gumball with a hopeful and excited expression.

Gumball smiled and gave a quick, reassuring nod,

"Sure thing! We can stop by any place you want. I got twenty five dollars saved up from my allowance, so nothing too over the top." he said, patting his pant pocket to indicate where his money was stashed.

"I'll definitely keep that in mind. I got ten dollars on my person as well, in case you need me to pitch in. Thank you, by the way!" she replied happily.

Seeing her look all cheery and full of energy made Gumball feel extremely warm and fluttery inside. He felt an even bigger smile etch it's way onto his features as he watched her bounce up and down in joy. After they made up two weeks ago, she used to have this intensity towards him while they hung out, but now she was more relaxed and friendlier. It made him very happy to see that she was recovering from that experience and it allowed him to recover quickly as well. He was honestly hoping that they could stop somewhere awesome for a bit and make some pleasant memories during their stay.

They both sat together on the bus for a few minutes, while Darwin and Carrie slept quietly in the seat beside them. They both watched the world pass them by as the bus made its way down the highway. It was about 8 AM and the students, save for a few quiet members, filled the entire passenger cabin with noisy chatter as they discussed various things that concerned them all the while ignoring the four in the back seat. Despite all the rambunctious activity, it was very peaceful for the Nephilim killers and actually felt like a well deserved moment.

While all the noise droned on in the background, Teri began to feel a little drowsy and soon felt the back of her flat, bear-like head press against the seat behind her. She felt her eyelids grow heavy and her limbs were becoming limp from the sleep that was washing over her. All the background noise soon became a slight buzz and she slowly turned to Gumball before she dozed off,

"Hey Gumball. I'm gonna… catch a few… (snkkt!) Z's…" she yawned before falling asleep entirely, not even checking to see if Gumball had responded.

Gumball watched his paper friend slip away into the realm of slumber while she spoke to him before turning towards the front of the bus. He tried listening in on a few conversations, but found that a majority of them were boring or too complicated to follow. He opted instead to plug his earbuds into his phone and listen to some jams for about an hour.

He listened to several songs before hearing Ms. Simian announce that they'll be stopping by a Henry's steakhouse restaurant in the next town up ahead in an hour and a half for breakfast and to relieve themselves in the restrooms. That sounded fine by Gumball, for he actually liked that restaurant and wouldn't mind visiting it once again. When she finished speaking, he went back to silently listening to his music.

After a few minutes, something odd happened while he was peacefully rocking along with his tunes. He felt something press up against his shoulder and at first, he thought it was nothing because it was very light and nearly unnoticeable. That was until he looked down in curiosity and saw that it was Teri's head that leaning against his shoulder!

At first he didn't know what to do or what to think of the situation. While he silently freaked out, a few questions ran through his head regarding if this was a deliberate action or an accidental event. He carefully leaned forward to peek at her face and saw that she was peacefully sleeping. This was definitely a relief and a large concern for the cat.

He was about to look away, but then he noticed something about her that caught his attention and kept him from peeling his peepers away. When he got a closer look at her face, he saw that she was actually very, very cute. Without her blindfold on her eyes that were just drawn on by a pencil, resembled two curved lines when closed and her eyebrows were a similar shape. With her round, triangular, black nose, tiny mouth that was opened slightly, the round ears that sat atop her cutout head, and the pink vertical lines that highlighted her cheeks, she looked like a cute anime doll in her blissful state.

He was completely mesmerized by her face, his eyes kept scanning every little detail that showed itself in the light, and was especially fixated on her lips. He didn't feel awkward for doing this, because being this close to her wasn't exactly uncomfortable any more. As a matter of fact, the more times they were forced to come together, to rely on one another, they seemed to grow closer and less concerned with personal space until it got to the point that being next to each other just seemed as natural as breathing.

Then Tartarforas' words came back to him and he was suddenly more aware of what he was doing, causing a blush to form on his face. He'd been steadily falling for her for a while now and with the Nephilim unintentionally helping him confirm his feelings, he'd felt oddly peaceful ever since. He just couldn't deny that Teri was becoming the center of his world and seeing her sleeping against him, with that utterly adorable face merely inches away made his heart soar.

To his increasing surprise, she reached over with her furthest arm and laid it across his torso, allowing it to rest against his chest. A content smile formed across her face as she pressed up against him. Gumball could feel her warmth spreading into his body and he soon began to feel comfortable. Without warning, he began to purr, first a soft rumbling and then a gradual, industrious vibration that reverberated throughout his entire body.

Soon the music became a dull noise in his ears and he slowly reached into his pocket to switch his phone off. He wanted to wrap an arm around her as well, but was afraid that the movement would wake her up and she would freak out. He pulled the earbuds out of his ears and allowed his eyes to shut so that he could lose himself in the moment. He soon found himself comfortably engulfed in the darkness of his mind and rested.

He didn't feel himself fall asleep, but when his eyes finally opened, he found himself somewhere else. Where he was, was nowhere familiar to him, instead of the noisy bus, he was on a beautiful grassy plain that stretched as far as the eye could see. His back was to an oak tree, whose branches hung overhead, bearing wide green leaves and ripe acorns of a similar color. The sky was a beautiful sapphire blue with a few cloud streams littering the expanse, although there was no sun to be seen: just a single pale moon. With the sky and ground clashing wonderfully, the gentle breeze caressing the branches and his fur, the entire world was painted in serenity. It was like paradise.

Taking in the scene before him, Gumball breathed a breath of fresh air and tilted his head until it rested against the tree's mighty trunk. That was when noticed a presence on his left and looked down to see a sleeping Teri, snuggling into him in the same position she was in when he was awake. Noticing her there beside him, looking all peaceful and content, the blue cat felt his happiness and sense of bliss heighten as he sat back and enjoyed the two beautiful sights.

However, something about this paradise was starting to feel familiar to him. The background was alien, but the sense of being somewhere otherworldly with someone he cherished seemed to ping somewhere in his mind. The problem was, he couldn't trace it and he couldn't care less whether he could or not. So he shrugged it off and fell into a silent slumber with the paper girl he found to be delightful.

Unbeknownst to him, Teri opened an eye and took a peek at the scene around her. She found herself staring at the same setting Gumball was experiencing and wondered how she arrived at such a lustrous place. She then noticed her arm and that it was wrapped around something warm, soft, and gently vibrating. With her one eye, she followed it up to a happy kitty face and saw to her relief that it was Gumball. She smiled affectionately at the boy whom she'd fallen in love with and went back to sleep.

Back in the real world, several pairs of eyes found their way towards the back of the bus, where the four students lay still.

Peeking back at the paper girl and blue cat, ever watchful like a trained bird watcher, Leslie regarded the adorable scene with soft eyes and rested his leaves on the back of the seat,

"It's so amazing how close those two are, but it's even more ludicrous that the two aren't dating yet!" the flower boy exclaimed in frustration,

"I mean come on, the romantic tension between those two got boring six chapters ago, just kiss her already!" he groaned at Gumball before he sat down with a harumph!

Right next to him sat Sarah, having moved over after Mr. Small had left to go sit by Clayton and in the row in front of the two sat Masami and Molly, behind them sat Carmen and Alan, the former chatting up a storm with her boyfriend. Sarah was completely absorbed into her phone at the moment, watching conspiracy videos posted on ElmoreStreamIt with great intrigue. This left the flamboyant flower boy to talk with both Molly and Masami, which was fine by him seeing as Masami and him were both fluent gossipers and Molly also liked to join in on the fun.

The three of them had been striking up conversation with no real subject to center on, sometimes it could be cheerleading, the latest football match, mysterious happenings, dating, other travel areas of interest, lots of things. Having heard Leslie's comment being tossed towards a certain two of four sitting in the back, Molly offered her own opinion on the matter. She kept it short, of course,

"I think it's great that those two are taking their time with one another! As my grandpa always says, a tree is only as strong as its roots and the best thing for strong roots is water, nutrients, and most importantly, time!" she stated, remembering many of her grandpa's great life quotes.

Leslie raised an eyebrow and a question along with it,

"Did you just use a plant reference as an analogy for a strong relationship?" he stroked his round chin with a tendril-like leaf.

Molly seemed to light up when her cheerleading companion and one of her closest friends asked this,

"I actually have a lot of good life quotes from my grandfolk! Wanna hear them all? They're really clever." she playfully excited with some enthusiasm.

Like a gust of wind, a sigh came from the already tired Masami sitting next to her and her hollow eyes displayed utter disinterest in the topics at hand,

"I think I'll pass on the clever references, thank you very much." she groaned with disdain,

"And who cares about that paper bag and her shaggy boy mate, all you have are the two most obnoxious people in school being thrown into a relationship that will most likely end once the two really see how much they drive each other crazy." she proclaimed as though it were fact before turning to look at Sarah and Molly,

"Actually, make that the second most obnoxious pair in the school, though I doubt those two are going to get close anytime soon." she figured to herself before returning back to her standard position.

Leslie and Molly were both struck with awe and pure disbelief at Masami's hostility towards the cat and bear, causing Leslie to immediately question her behavior,

"What's your deal with Gumball and Teri?" he asked, raising a leaf up.

Masami just grumbled and her cloud arms formed just to place themselves across her chest, a grumpy expression was present on her stormy features,

"I just find them both annoying, okay!" she snapped back, although it was actually Teri that she held the most resentment towards,

"Anyways, my birthday is coming up at the beginning of this month and I was planning on throwing a party at my place. You know, something big and spectacular!" she declared, breaking off from the original topic.

With the alluring topic over-the-top birthday parties being held at the abodes of the wealthy pulling their attention away from their previous discussion, Molly and Leslie quickly jumped to the first ideas that popped to mind,

"Wow! That sounds awesome! I totally forgot that your birthday was on the 1st of November!" Leslie commented, having actually forgotten due to his short attention span for such things.

"Is everyone invited?" Molly asked, wanting to be in on the action.

Masami nodded her head and gave them both a look as though she were expecting them to know right off,

"Uh-yeah, I want everyone to come, obviously! It's going to be so much fun!" she explained to them like it was common knowledge.

"Do your parents know about it?" Leslie asked, not liking an event to be busted too early.

Masami shook her head,

"Of course not, my mom and dad are going on a business trip that day and are going to be sending a video chat to communicate every now and then, so it will be real easy to cover up!" she smiled a little, but seemed rather upset at that fact.

Molly caught on to her and she too began to feel sorry for the cloud,

"I'm sorry that your parents won't be able to make it, does this happen a lot?" she asked apologetically.

Masami shrugged a little,

"Not all the time. Sometimes only mom or dad are able to make it, but it's pretty rare to have them both there at the same time. The last time that happened was during my ninth birthday." she explained.

Molly couldn't help but empathize with the little rich cloud girl a bit on that statement regarding her parent's absence,

"I know what that's like, both of my parents are always too busy working, so I usually celebrate my birthdays with my grandparents and their friends. They usually show up late at night to wish me a happy birthday and bring a gift too, but then they would go to bed shortly after." Molly said, remembering how her thirteenth birthday was celebrated in June.

All three went silent for a moment and just fidgeted a little as they resided within their own quiet dramas. Thankfully, Leslie was able to break the ice by mentioning a funny event that occurred during his last birthday party and the trio began to reminisce at Leslie's crazy night out last March. Within a short span of time the topic shifted over to Carmen and Alan's picnic and the flower boy asked Masami a question regarding the event,

"Hey Masami, you wouldn't happen to be trying to throw a massive party just to top Carmen and Alan's picnic, would you?" he asked, pressing his yellow face on a leaf as he slyly looked upon his floating classmate.

Flustered by his casual accusation, Masami looked towards her surrounding classmates with unease before sputtering out an answer,

"W-what?! No, I'm not! It's just my birthday party, I'm not trying to compete with those two!" she stammered, looking at everyone's faces once again.

From behind Leslie and Sarah's seat, Carmen and Alan poked their heads up until they were peering at the two girls and one boy who've been talking about them,

"What about our picnic party?" Carmen asked, scratching her prickly head.

Before Masami could deny anything, Leslie spoke first,

"Masami's throwing an enormous party at her place because she thought your picnic was cool and wanted to even the score." he quickly said before shooting Masami another mischievous grin.

The captain of the cheerleading squad was now focusing on Elmore Junior High's most popular school girl with a quizzical expression that seemed to ask her question for her. Shooting Leslie a murderous glance, the cloud turned a stormy black before returning to her calm state again,

"It's not what he says. I was throwing a party at my place because my birthday is coming up." she responded in a very calm manner.

Carmen's eyes seemed to light up and Alan, ever so cheery, congratulated Masami on her upcoming birthday,

"Well, happy birthday then Masami!" the teal balloon exclaimed in that high pitched voice of his.

"But, it's not her birthday yet, Alan!" Molly remarked.

"I know that, but it's never too early for congratulations." Alan said back, still being chipper about it.

Carmen turned back to Masami with a pleasant look on her face,

"Well, that's one way to kick off next month and congratulations on turning thirteen then. I should probably say that when the day comes though, but I'm also glad that the party is being held at your place. That means that others like Hector and Tina can come too!" Carmen happily replied, completely brushing off the comment Leslie tossed at her earlier.

At the mentioning of Hector, Molly's face lit up a little and she jumped right into last weeks football game,

"Did you guys see that game last weekend? Hector was so awesome! The other team's players were really good and for a moment, I thought that they were going to get a touchdown with that speedy guy, Markus, but Hector was able to stop him just in time with his foot!" the blocky sauropod was practically bouncing in her seat now,

"Also, I'm glad there weren't any dangerous items lying around, I found a scythe there a few weeks ago and I think it was Carrie's." she added in, recounting the one instant.

Everyone knew what Molly was talking about, Carmen and Leslie were with her as the supporting their team on the sidelines, with their acrobatics doing most of the communicating. Alan and Masami were there too, Masami going because she was invited and Alan appearing there to volunteer at the ice cream stand. It was a close match, but the Elmore Ducks achieved a victory with a score of 10-8. Such games were rare for them because they could only play against bizarro teams, for the sake of fairness towards any of the human teams.

"I hope Hector is joining us on the field trip!" Molly sighed to herself.

Carmen put a stick-like hand on her chin and thought about it,

"Yeah, he'll be there alright." she said confidently,

"Alan was asked to hang out with him during lunch three days ago and when he brought up the field trip, Hector told him that he was coming." she put her arms down at her sides when she finished speaking.

"His mom is going to fly him in, but given his enormous stature, the mayor of San Francisco issued a few specific areas he can be in during his stay at the city." Alan added in, raising his balloon string like a finger to emphasize his point.

That made sense to everyone and when asked where he was going to be situated, Alan explained that he was allowed to roam some of the parks as well as the main roads. He was still going to have to be careful though and while the city itself has an odd population of people varying in size, Hector was still the biggest one there. When Molly wondered if Hector was going to be himself, Carmen offered to pay him a visit once their time at the Beat museum has passed and Molly seemed to like that idea.

She was a bit shy when it came to Elmore's tallest athlete and she nervously rubbed her trunk legs together when she spoke her mind about this,

"We're all going to be visiting him as a group right?" she asked nervously.

Turning to one another, Carmen and Alan seemed to have a quiet conversation with just a few expressive looks and gestures before they turned back to the quiet girl,

"Um, Alan and I were planning on checking out Chinatown together after the museum. We'll definitely see him for a bit, but we weren't planning on staying for long, sorry." she said, giving her a regretful look along with her boyfriend.

"Bummer, Masami and I were going to hit up a few shops too, but if you wanna stay with him, you can. I'm sure he'll love your company." Leslie explained.

"Or you'll just put him to sleep, then we won't have to worry about him crushing anything." Masami muttered under her breath.

Still unsure if she wanted to hang out with the friendly giant on her own, Molly wondered if there were any other people she could hang out with. She knew that there weren't that many people who really enjoyed her company and she didn't want to join up with any other groups for fear of butting in or just being a third wheel as a result of being ignored. She didn't want to be an annoyance to the already lonely kid and preferred that everyone else go with her that way it couldn't happen.

Dredging through her own issues, the four other conversationalists began discussing further plans with one another and sadly forgot about the quiet dinosaur.

Within two hours the bus arrived at the Henry's Steakhouse stop and all the kids were given ten dollars each to pick out a cheap breakfast and a drink. They were told that they had half an hour to eat and do whatever needs to be done before they had to be on the bus again. Miss. Simian made it very clear that they will leave anyone behind if they failed to board the bus within the given time limit or if they interrupted her while she "discussed" proper field trip safety with Nigel on the bus. After everyone was dismissed, the whole class, plus Mr. Small and Rocky, made a bum rush for the doors and were soon in the restaurant parking lot.

When Gumball woke up, he was surprised to see that Teri was awake too after hearing Miss. Simian whistled in order to get everyone's attention. After listening to the living fossil of a primate give out instructions, the two joined everyone outside and headed in to grab something to eat. When he asked Teri how well she slept, she told him that she slept really well. Luckily for the blue cat, she told him that she enjoyed sleeping beside him and that his purring made her dream about an automobile race that was really wild. She thanked him for allowing her to rest her head on his shoulder and Gumball nervously replied, saying that it was no big deal and that he wouldn't mind doing it again.

They went inside, Gumball ordered a slammer burger with a soft drink while Darwin ordered two of the same thing and an extra helping of fries. Teri ordered a salad with some water and went to go sit with Carmen, Alan, and Leslie. Gumball sat with Darwin, Carrie, Tobias, and Jamie, who was still intent on watching over the rainbow lad for Tina. The five at the table enjoyed a meal and traded some funny banter. Carrie possessed Darwin in order to eat his burger and half of his fries causing the fish boy to flip out over seeing half of his favorite food consumed in less than a minute. This caused everyone minus the orange kid to laugh at his misfortune.

In an act of revenge, he took a bite out of everyone's meal and the others were no longer laughing.

There was another funny moment when Clayton came hopping out of the boys bathroom waving Banana Joe's banana peel over his head while said banana chased after him, butt naked, throughout the restaurant. This had the whole restaurant in an uproar as the class clown had now become the butt end of a joke. This along with some other shenanigans occurred while everyone hung out.

When everyone had finished eating and performing other needed tasks, they all made their way back to the bus and were soon on the road again. Darwin, Carrie, Gumball, and Teri made their way to the back once more and engaged in social interactions regarding various topics and jokes. At one point during the ride, Clayton showed up and entered the small circle of friends. Darwin took this moment as an opportunity to ask amorphous clay child if he was willing to wait in line for them at the Broken Asylum convention and the socially awkward kid willingly agreed to do so because he was already planning on waiting in line with his pal Bobert.

The bus soon arrived in San francisco and it was already noon. Despite the fact that it was early October, it was still hot outside and the skies were clear today. Everyone stopped chatting for a while and just stared at the marvelous city as the yellow passenger vehicle made its way through traffic. The city itself was spectacular and the people walking the streets were just as diverse as the familiar faces in their hometown.

Some were tall and easily stepped over multiple pedestrians, clearing entire blocks within seconds, others were small and skittered beneath the feet of others, desperately making their way to whatever destination was intended. Up in the sky above, Bizarros with wings, jets, or any other alternative means of flight swarmed about, landing on building balconies, darting about and weaving in between each other with amazing grace. The buildings themselves were custom made for certain types of people, allowing those with less humanoid characteristics easier access. While everyone on the bus agreed that their hometown was weird, San Francisco was just weird with a higher density.

There was a noticeable percentage of Humans also walking about, standing in front of buildings, or sitting in restaurants: just basically mixed in with the weird creatures that coexisted in this world. Aside from the few people Gumball had seen and met from Richwood high, this was the largest concentration of humans Gumball had ever seen in one place. For the amount of grief they give them about their appearance, Gumball thought they looked quite odd themselves and found that everyone else seemed different around them. When he looked around the bus, he could see Miss. Simian staring at the humans with a look of disgust, which wasn't strange, but also what appeared to be… hatred.

She just glared at them the same way she would her students, but the anger was far more prominent on her aging features. From what she had told the class during their various history lessons, the humans had a long history of conflict with their bizarre counterparts and she had been wrapped up in some of those conflicts. It wasn't hard to say why she chose their school to teach at, humanity wasn't entirely accepting as a species.

Unfortunately, this case applied everywhere. While most nations around the world allowed the bizzaros to live in peace, there were still quite a number of humans that opposed the idea of equality. Groups like the Human Front were heavily involved in politics and while they claimed they just wanted to ensure equality to the human minority, the fact that they helped fund election campaigns supporting certain candidates didn't show much in the way of progression. That, and there was the obvious scandals they've been involved in that didn't help their case.

Even though Gumball despised the teacher, he couldn't help but feel a little sorry for what she had to put up with for centuries.

There were a lot of comments cycling around the bus about the people outside as well as the city itself and while Gumball was sharing a few urban legends he had heard on the internet with his friends, Sarah suddenly shouted,

"Hey everyone, check this out!"

Everyone gathered around the living ice cream and she held up her phone before playing a video of a green skinned man with bat wings and a lot of leather clothes, being arrested for supposedly firing into a cafe with a handgun,

"-Someone's gotta stop them! They were monsters, one was a snake and the other was a shadow comprised of nothing but arms! They just killed eighteen people in the Big Cup cafe by touching them and my bullets just melted when they came in contact! They're gonna kill us all- LET GO OF ME- ooof!" He was pushed into the car and the video ended right there.

This sparked a huge debate amongst the Elmore students

"What did he mean by monsters?" Molly asked in fright.

With great enthusiasm, Clayton answered her,

"He means the terrible alien demonic overlords of sector Zeta!" he sounded very serious and when everyone turned to him, he formed himself into a very muscular man to show off,

"They're invisible parasites that travel to our world in order to possess teenagers, mainly because they're easy to hack, and once they've gathered in numbers, they will start sucking out all the nuclear power in our power plants and missiles to become super mutants. Then once they're strong enough, they will take over. My dad and I fought them several times." he boldly claimed.

A moment of silence and Carmen was the next to speak,

"I think it was just a gas leak." she logically concluded and the rest of the class agreed in unison.

This caused Clayton to deflate from his muscular form back into his blob form before he hopped back to his seat in dismay. The rest of the class continued to host their debate, with even Mr. Small joining in on the conspiracy, and a lot of possible explanations were tossed out there. Meanwhile, Carrie, Teri, and Gumball had looked the news article as well and were discussing what really happened,

"Power failures and multiple people found dead via unknown reasons, yep that sounds like the Nephilim alright." Carrie said as she swiped through her phone's newsfeed.

"It says that it's been happening quite often in this region too! There was an incident in an alley not too far from where we are now and three humans were found dead." Teri read, before showing Gumball and Carrie the image of three dead humans in an alley covered in graffiti, the most prominent of which read, "NO FREAKS ALLOWED!" with a picture of a person's horned head representing bizzaros crossed out next to it.

Gumball let out a small hmm while he rubbed his chin and scrolled through his phone,

"It still doesn't make sense as to why they're attacking so few people? It says here on this page that thirty eight people were killed in the past week alone, yet only twenty two of those were Nephilim related." he questioned.

This put both girls in a state of thought and Carrie shrugged,

"Maybe they're being covert? Perhaps they're not ready to invade yet and are just testing our strength?" she suggested.

That made sense and the other two nodded with a small sound,

"In any case, we should be careful!" Teri stated.

The three were in agreement and kept their eyes peeled for any signs of danger, luckily the bus continued its trip without incident.

-the Beat museum, 11:15 a.m.-

When the bus pulled into the parking space in front of the stone building, the doors swung open, and the teachers handed each student a piece of paper as they exited the vehicle. With two hours to work and explore, the children immediately gathered up into their designated trios before standing outside while the teachers went over the schedule with Rocky as well as where he was allowed to hang out for the afternoon. While everyone was out, Gumball's group looked over the assignment they had been given and saw that it was just a lined piece of paper for jotting down notes.

Looking at the Beat museum, Gumball noticed that it looked very small for a museum, no bigger than a typical shop and some confused murmurs could be heard amongst the students huddled at the store's front. It didn't have its own parking space, so the bus had to pull up in front of the museum and unload the passengers at the doorsteps. Looking at the small building now, there was actually some hope for the kitten that this group assignment would be relatively short.

The bus left soon after and the teachers took attendance, while everyone else was talking very loudly. Mr. Small was practically bouncing with joy upon seeing the building for the first time and was just as loud as the students. He jumped up so high, that his flip-flop flew off his right, fluffy foot and smacked Tobias in the eye when someone (Alan.) told him to look out, which caused him to look up instead. Unfortunately, for Tobias when Mr. Small came over to retrieve his misplaced footwear, he apologized and offered to make it up to the multi-colored cloud kid by taking him to the Beat generation exhibit that was going to be put on for three hours straight. Despite the delusional jock's protests, Mr. Small had already promised to see him there, and quickly took off .

While this was all going on, Gumball asked Bobert to print him a quick essay describing the entire Beat movement and the robot happily complied. While Gumball began filling out his notes, darwin saw what he did and argued with him that he shouldn't use Bobert like a computer. Gumball of course saw no issue with this and kept writing anyways.

Before Gumball could come up with another counter to support his case, he noticed out of the corner of his eye, someone running down the sidewalk towards them.

When he looked in the direction of this approaching figure, he saw that it was a woman, probably in her early twenties, with blonde hair cut into a bob, gold skin, eyes of the same color with black sclera. She was wearing a red T-shirt with a black star messly printed on the chest and black, denim shorts with a chain hanging from her belt loop and from her back pocket. Most alarming was the fact that she was hefting a mace weapon in the shape of a rectangular prism with two spikes sticking out on each face. She appeared determined as she raced towards them.

He saw her rushing towards Teri and Molly, who were just talking to one another and completely unaware of the strange woman heading towards them,

"Teri, Molly, watch out!" he called, making his way towards them both with a hand in his bag already reaching for his scythe.

The sad part was, the woman was much faster and pushed the two girls down before taking off down the sidewalk. Gumball was thankful that the mace wielding freak didn't decide to attack them and stopped reaching for his weapon to instead help Teri back onto her feet. Right next to him Banana Joe was helping Molly up as well.

"You okay, Teri!" Gumball asked in concern, reaching out towards her.

She didn't say anything except a muffled response as she lifted her head. To Gumball's surprise, relief, and confusion, she appeared alright, but was wearing a surgical mask she had drawn on her face. Looking down he saw that her hands were covered in green rubber gloves and reached the conclusion that she put on some protective equipment to ward off any potential diseases. He knew there was no lengths she wouldn't go to stay healthy, but this seemed to be taking things a little too far.

Sighing at the silly sight of his friend decked out in protective gear to what was supposed to be a normal field trip, Gumball grabbed her hand and helped her up. He then turned to the running blonde with an angered expression and decided to tell her off,

"HEY! Next time you decide to jog around with dangerous weapons, why don't you get your eyes and manners checked, you bimbo!" he shouted, causing Teri to stare at him in disbelief.

The lady didn't say anything and kept running, although she did make a rude gesture with one her fingers. Offended Gumball covered Teri's eyes and let out a huge gasp,

"How dare you! You don't just go around pushing my friends into the dirt and making obscene gestures afterwards! You get back here and apologize or else I'm just going to keep angrily yelling because I don't want to chase you and make a scene!" he shouted, shaking a fist at her.

The golden woman with the golden eyes ignored his angry shouts and kept running until she disappeared around the corner. Seeing her disappear without so much as a backwards glance caused the pre-teen boy to bare his fangs in anger as he scowled at the spot she was just at,

"Jerk! I hope she gets knocked over by a jogger!" he thought angrily to himself.

After taking a second to reassess himself, he looked at Teri and inspected the feeble girl for any signs of damage. There were no tears or cuts that he could see nor were there any marks, except for some dirt smudges that were found on her face and dress. Other than broken dignity and a few stains, she seemed perfectly healthy. Physically speaking.

He let go of her and took a step back so that she had a little extra space and watched her pull out a pencil and draw a mouth on her mask,

"I knew the city was dangerous!" she cried in a panicky voice.

Gumball acknowledged her fear and pain with a simple nod,

"Yeah, I know. Should've known that there were going to be a couple jerks-!" he was cut off when Teri began frantically searching her bag for some sanitizer and speaking in a high pitched voice laced with complete dread,

"I'm not talking about that meathead who pushed me, I saw how filthy the sidewalks are up close! I can practically see germs from the many shoes stepping in who knows what and moving about on the pavement!" she found her bottle and began squirting a large amount of anti-bacterial gel in her hand to rub on her face.

Normally Gumball would've teased the overly sensitive/paranoid clean freak when this sort of thing played out in front of him, but seeing as he was not in the mood to be standing outside in the hot sun for the next ten minutes, he opted to grab the paper girl by her free hand and dragged her indoors,

"Come on, you paranoid princess, let's get you cleaned up the way normal people do." he muttered to himself as he pulled her to the main entrance.

Teri stopped trying to cover her face in disinfectant and instead focused on where Gumball was currently taking her. As soon as they passed through the front doors they were introduced to a large lobby decorated with portraits and stacks of merchandise on placed on shelves. It had a real cozy feel to it and the two could already feel calmer than they had been a minute ago. They could already see that Mr. Small, Molly, and Idaho had already entered the building and were checking out some CD's placed on some racks near a table full of T-shirts and other "Beat" inspired articles of clothing.

All in all, the lobby looked very comfortable, with its classy atmosphere and vast collection of artifacts dating back to the fifties, but the building itself was still incredibly small for an actual place of history.

Teri continued to allow herself to be guided by Gumball and soon found that they were headed in the direction of the restrooms. She now understood where Gumball was leading her, her new question was, why lead her here to wash up when she could easily have done more than enough cleaning in front of the building. Not only was washing up in the public bathroom rather unhygienic, due to all the filthy surfaces that haven't been touched upon in hours, it was completely inefficient and a waste of time.

"Why are we going to the restroom?" she asked, now noticing that her hand was being held and desperately tried to yank it out without tearing it off.

Feeling her resistance, Gumball released her hand and spun around to face her,

"One: you are going to the bathroom, not we because that's just weird." he replied, pointing towards the sign that marked the restroom as women only.

Teri massaged her hand quickly before glancing up at Gumball with an irritated look,

"I know that! That's not what I meant! You've already had your fair share of experiences in the ladies room at school and I'd prefer that what happens at school stays at school." she snapped, nearling growling the word stays.

Continuing on with his explanation, Gumball kept all the images he had seen from his numerous misadventures in the girl's changing room from resurfacing in his consciousness,

"I'll keep that in mind. Two: I think you should wash up in the bathroom and take that ridiculous stuff off because if people here see you wearing protective medical gear while walking into a museum, they're probably going to throw you in the looney bin or evacuate the entire building. Remember: not everyone here has gone to school with you. We all know you're a clean freak, but to a stranger's perspective this could seem alarming." he explained, placing both hands in front of him to indicate the stuff she was wearing in order to further prove his point.

Now she was hurt, from her point of view Gumball pretty much just called her freaky and that the public would lash out at her for trying to be careful. This caused her to feel a jolt and her body started to feel numb. Is that what he thought of her? A nutcase? Someone who's just going to be an embarrassment to himself and to others around her?

She felt a swell of negative emotions slowly building up inside, causing her to clench up her rubber gloved fist, and her body to tremble in anger, frustration, and sadness. She looked Gumball dead in the eye and stomped her foot. The action wasn't very loud or noticeable by others, but Gumball could tell right away that he had said the wrong thing,

"Okay, so I'm just a nutjob who's only an embarrassment to you and the rest of the class!" she said, raising her voice.

Gumball tried desperately to calm her down by raising his hands and talking in a calm voice,

"No, no, no, what I meant was-!" she quickly cut him off by breaking into a sob, allowing her face to fall into her hands.

"Yeah, I'm crazy because I try to protect myself and others. I didn't realize that caring for others was such a crazy concept. I didn't realize that I would be regarded as a psycho just for doing the right thing!" she was still sobbing, allowing her shoulders to heave up and down.

Nervously glancing around, Gumball saw that her outburst hadn't attracted a crowd yet, so he had a chance to calm her down before someone came by. Focusing his attention on her once again, he took in a deep breath and let it out slowly,

"Teri… I didn't mean to upset you or hurt your feelings-!" his apology was halted when Teri lifted her head from her hands, but was staring elsewhere: she wasn't even looking at him, at least not at his eyes.

"You don't understand what it's like." she mumbled softly,

"Having this fear. This constant, gnawing, cold, dripping, spine tingling hurricane that sweeps through your mind and drives your instincts and your motives all because an uncertainty exists that a single bacteria or virus could easily latch onto you, crawl its way through your body and destroy your cells one by one. It's like an invisible enemy that's everywhere all the time and even though what I do may seem extreme to others, it's the only thing keeping me sa-!"

"I HAVE AN IRRATIONAL FEAR OF SPIDERS!" Gumball screamed.

Shocked at his outburst, Teri silently stared at him, mouth still agape from speaking as she remained motionless now. Everyone in the building was now staring at the two of them, but neither of them paid those people any attention. Seeing as he got her attention, Gumball continued his rant,

"I swear, everytime I see one of those eight-legged freaks, my one and only instinct is to find the farthest and highest spot from the bug. Whenever, I reach my safe place, I call for mom, Dad, Darwin, or Anais to kill it." he wasn't shouting anymore, but his voice had a tone to it that made him seem louder,

"Three years ago, I spent an entire afternoon on Anais' top bunk screaming for my parents to come save me from a spider that had crawled onto my desk. Another time, I got stuck up a tree because a spider had drifted down on a string of silk and onto the bench next to me causing me to scurry up a tree for safety. The list goes on." he shivered every time he relived the memories.

There was a lot more, but he had already proven his point somewhat and needed to finish this up,

"My point is, I also have an irrational fear of something and the way I react may be more or less wonky to others. However, I don't go to extreme lengths to protect myself from them to the point where I can't even enjoy life or interfere with my relationship with others. Bottom line is: I know you're scared of bacteria, you have every right to be, and it's not wrong to take certain measures to protect yourself, but please tone it down a little is all I'm asking. We're not scared of you, we're scared for you." he offered her a comforting smile and held out his hands.

His various stories about his hilariously over the top reactions to spiders helped Teri better understand that he too was like her, in a small way. There was so much she had missed out on before due to her fears and Gumball shared a valid point, she needed to live a little. It also came to her attention that this is the same thing her mother told her a while back and she felt a twinge of regret for not taking her advice. At least Gumball was able to catch on to this as well and give her the proper awakening that she needed.

She was relatively still for a moment before taking off her gloves and using a pencil to erase the mask drawn on her face,

"Alright. I'll try to take it easy, but I still need to wash my hands every now and then." she said, making a compromise.

This was the best deal Gumball could accept even though he knew that she didn't need to go to such measures, he nodded and looked more relaxed,

"I understand, but please try to have fun today." he replied, pleading a little.

She agreed and after that, Gumball walked over to give her a hug. She felt her negative feelings slowly burn away and she returned the embrace. She felt Gumball give a slight squeeze to reassure her that she was alright and that he was there. She loved this feeling and thought about why she loved him. She was very happy to have someone care about her and understand her feelings.

She released from the hug and saw that Gumball had some tears welling up in his eyes as well,

"What's wrong! Did something happen!" she asked, grabbing him by the shoulders.

He sniffed a little, causing Teri to cringe because he was supposed to blow his nose to expel all the excess mucus, but she wasn't going to point that out this instant and decided to let it slide.

"I'm alright…" he sniffed, straightening out his back to appear stable,

"It's just… revealing my deepest fear like that and connecting to you in deep, meaningful way really touched my heart." he explained, wiping a tear from his eye.

This caused the paper girl to lighten up until she was beaming with happiness.

However, Gumball wasn't finished,

"Also, your flimsy fingers on my back reminded me of this one time when a big, brown spider landed on my back while I was in the shower and I leapt out of-SLAP!-AUGH!" he screamed as Teri used her rubber gloves to slap him for ruining the moment.

"Thank you for that touching moment, Gumball." she said sarcastically, before turning towards the ladies room,

"Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to wash up and join up with my study group afterwards. See you later." she waved him goodbye and disappeared behind the door to the restroom.

Gumball waved back and massaged the burning red mark on the left side of his face. Despite the immense pain he was undergoing, he smiled happily as he thought about the embrace he and Teri shared a moment earlier. He was glad to see that she was better because he didn't mean to sound like he was criticizing her overall personality and appearance. It was a good thing it all worked out in the end and the sweater clad cat made his way back to the main entrance to where his partners waited.

In the girls bathroom, Teri hummed a sweet little tune while she cleaned her face. A smile upon her lips as she thought of certain things.

-fifteen minutes later-

Things could not have been any more embarrassing for Mr. Small when he discovered that the Beat Museum was actually a storefront made to promote the culture to oncoming tourists and was not an actual institution dedicated to the preservation of the 50's movement. After engaging in a heated argument with the store clerk, Mr. Small apologized to the class and staff for not committing any further research into the trip. He made up for this by gathering with the other teachers and selecting certain locations around the city before emailing the pictures to everyone's phones.

It was a scavenger hunt essentially and every group was assigned three locations throughout the city to find. They had about four hours to find the locations, take a group selfie at said places in order to complete the assignment and then basically wander about until it was time to meet up again in front of the museum. With that being said, the school counselor wished them the best of luck before disappearing back into the museum and Ms. Simian wandered off with Nigel to a nearby cafe while giving them some vague advice regarding burglars and swindlers.

With San Francisco being theirs to roam, Gumball, Darwin, and Bobert set off for the first picture they received in their mail. He and Teri promised to keep in touch throughout the entire assignment as well as promising to keep their fellow classmates safe until they found each other again. With the two parted ways and set off to have fun with their groups.

Walking down the sidewalk in between Bobert and Darwin, Gumball kept his eyes glued to the phone screen, wanting to study the image carefully. While this happened, Darwin was taking it all in, the sights, the smells, the chaotic chorus of hundreds of ongoers sweeping through the narrow confines between the buildings and just the general feel of insignificance when placed in the sea of people. It was all great and awe inspiring to the walking goldfish, who had never seen such a bustling place before,

"This place is so big!" he whispered in amazement before looking Gumball's way,

"What do you think of this, Gumball?" he asked.

Still looking at his phone, Gumball quietly muttered an answer to the question he was half way listening to,

"I think that this assignment is going to take forever." he was frustrated because all the images Mr. Small had sent them looked like obscure photos taken by random pedestrians at various locations. It gave Gumball the impression that they literally took random images off the web and compiled them into a scavenger hunt. Some of these places could easily be gone at this point!

Being optimistic as always, Darwin nudged his older brother's shoulder and gave him a smile when he looked up from his phone,

"You're not going to find anything by staring at your phone the whole time! Also-!" he quickly pulled Gumball aside by the arm as a tall peacock-like birdman wearing a sparkling duster reminiscent of an 80's disco jacket trotted by, narrowly avoiding a collision with the unaware bipedal cat,

"-you need to watch where you're going while walking on a busy sidewalk." he finished.

He let go of Gumball's arm and the blue cat thanked his little sibling for the save before putting his phone away,

"No problem!" Darwin replied in a chipper tone,

"By the way, nice job on your workout! When I grabbed your arm, I could feel a lot of muscles underneath." he complimented.

Gumball shrugged and continued walking along with them. With a lot of free time on his hands, he'd been able to put in some hours for his workouts and perfecting his scythe skills also helped put some meat on his bones. He wasn't exactly bulging with muscle yet, but when he looked in the mirror this morning, he noticed that he was considerably toned.

It hadn't been something he was entirely focused on though, so he replied casually to Darwin's comment,

"Thanks, it's just something that helps keep me focused on other things." he replied.

There were a few things he could have meant by that and Darwin was sure that it had something to do with the odd things he was doing. The walking evolutionary oddity had been keeping a careful eye on Gumball while he was at school, but for the past few weeks, he hadn't been doing anything that warranted suspicion, neither was Teri. He also noticed that the strange anomalies have seemingly stopped happening and his girlfriend wasn't sensing anything out of the norm, so things have been rather quiet.

He was still suspicious though and he was instructed by Anais to watch over him during this trip, which he intended to do,

"Well that's good! We should check out some of these places while we search the area, it could take us a while to find what we need, but at least we can enjoy some quality time exploring-!" he was in the process of finishing up a fun plan to spend their time when Bobert started beeping.

"Such trivial tasks are unnecessary! I have analyzed the district's surveillance system and acquired the locations of all three target areas. Calculating the fastest route possible!" Bobert chimed in that robotic voice of his.

The little robot's head swiveled to the side and he began to walk into the road, through oncoming traffic! Gumball and Darwin began to scream Bobert's name in an attempt to prevent the black and white android from sustaining any damage, but the little robot was fine when he extended his arm to block an incoming semi. The front of the massive vehicle crumpled as it slammed into the absurdly strong machine's arm, sending an ear-piercing screech as the smashed vehicle came to a complete stop.

The two boys chased the robot across the street, now devoid of moving cars thanks to Bobert's road block, apologizing to the winded truck driver and all the frightened onlookers as they pursued him.

They managed to make it away from the scene of the accident before both of them chastised their mechanical classmate for his carelessness and Bobert was thankfully able to understand his own error. Once he calculated a safer route for the three of them that also ran through some scenic areas, to Darwin's request, the trio was on the move again and they headed towards a park known as Alta Plaza which was pretty close to Jackson square.

It looked like any regular park they've seen, with plenty of open space, playground equipment for children, walkways and stairs leading up the hills, and several courts for recreational activities like tennis. They spotted a tree that matched the one in the second photo Mr. Small sent them and rushed over to take a selfie by it. Using Gumball's phone, the three stood by the tree and snapped a picture before sending it off to their school counselor.

Jumping up and down joyfully, Gumball hollered some and gave Darwin a double high five as well as Bobert, who asked if he join in with the celebration.

"Awesome! That leaves only two now!" Gumball shouted with glee as he pumped a fist in the air.

"Oh yeah! And this place looks really cool too! We should check out that playground!" Darwin joined in with child-like enthusiasm.

Gumball nodded in agreement, but was interrupted when Bobert suddenly spoke up,

"Estimated time until completion of assigned tasks is twelve minutes if we maintain a steady walking pace of 1.4 meters per second." Bobert rounded up with his computerized brain.

Darwin stopped celebrating and turned his attention to the big-headed android,

"Oh come on, Bobert! We can have a little fun while we're working, this is a field trip after all!" he exclaimed, placing a fin on his hip while the other directed Bobert's attention to the park's many recreational areas.

Bobert's single eye blinked once before he scanned the overall area and began processing,

"Processing new input… conclusion: inefficient usage of study time. The activity you suggested does not fall within the assignment's parameters!" he replied in monotone.

Sighing, Darwin tried thinking of a way to explain the concept of enjoying one's self while staying on task while Gumball just shook his head at the killjoy member of their group and wondered if they could switch partners at this point. It was right then he heard a sound coming from nearby and it was familiar to the kitten. Turning every which way to locate the source of the noise, Gumball spotted the colossal figure of Hector squatting in a field behind them several hundred feet away.

He was sitting by himself while eating a turkey sandwhich, but he was being pestered by a trench coat wearing fly shaped like a cube. The insect was man-sized and one look at his tattered coat told Gumball that he was homeless. He appeared to be targeting his the giant's sandwich, which made sense given how hungry he looked, but Hector was not allowing him near it.

Every time his swiping mitts would come close to striking the scavenger, the cube fly would spout off curses from his trunk-like mouth,

"Cut it out, you behemoth! There's something leftover on your face and I'm just making sure it doesn't go to waste! Good Jade!" he shouted as he narrowly dodged another swing.

Hector didn't care for the creature's pleas and kept his face protected as well as the lunch his mom made for him,

"I don't need your help, now buzz off!" Hector demanded, trying to keep his anger from rising, but the fly was persistent.

Gumball was joined by his two partners in watching the scene unfold before them and they pondered whether or not they should help him,

"Um, should we jump in and help him out?" Darwin asked, casting a sideways glance to his elder sibling.

Gumball rubbed his chin and watched as Hector took another swipe at the bug as he attempted another dive for his sandwich,

"We should, but how are we going to deal with him? He's too high up and I don't know if he'll listen to us or not." Gumball wondered out loud.

He needn't think too hard, for Bobert found a simple yet effective solution to the giant's pest problem. Priming his targeting reticle, Bobert's display darkened and a red crosshair appeared followed by an ominous hum. With a single blast, the robot's laser fired and the flying scavenger was knocked out of the sky. He fell to the ground right by Hector's feet, his clothes burnt, and his body battered, he twitched every now and then, but appeared to be knocked out.

Jaws dropping, the Watterson boy's jaws dropped in disbelief as they witnessed Bobert assault a homeless person with a dangerous weapon. Bobert, however did not seem to care much for the aggressive act he displayed and reverted back to "standard mode". Hector himself didn't seem too bothered either and just went back to eating his meal,

"Target eliminated. Hector's lunch and moral: sustained." Bobert stated, turning back to the boys with his usual apathetic expression.

Finally snapping out of his daze, Darwin turned to the robot and began chastising him for his actions,

"Bobert, do you realize what you've done! You just killed someone!" he screamed.

Also snapping out his trance-like state, Gumball inspected the fly man and pouted a little,

"But don't insects repopulate really quickly? I mean, there's gotta be hundreds of them in this district alone." he noted with a shrug.

"That's NOT the point, Gumball!" Darwin shrieked, snapping his head towards the unfazed blue cat.

Bobert raised a claw-like grasper and proceeded to explain himself,

"Negative. I merely disabled him with a non-lethal highly concentrated ionic pulse blast." he objected before adding,

"He should be fine as long as he is provided medical attention within 41 minutes." he casually remarked.

The two boys dropped a few shades of color as they wondered if the cube bug would arrive at a hospital in time. Luckily Bobert reassured them by calling the emergency number with an app that he installed onto his hard drive and with one message, the ambulance was on its way. Meanwhile, Hector had finished up his sandwich and reached into his massive paper bag to draw out a giant applesauce container that had to be at least fifty barrels worth,

"Thanks for helping me get rid of that pest, guys." he said gratefully before tilting his head back and downing the entire container in one gulp.

Bobert returned his gratitude by politely telling him that it was his pleasure, while the two brothers didn't really say much because they didn't really do anything. Nonetheless, the giant seemed very happy. After finishing his fruity sauce he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and stared down at the three boys gathered atop the hill some distance away,

"You three are out a bit early, are you playing hooky with the rest of the class?" he asked suspiciously, knowing full well that the Watterson boys were capable of causing mischief. As for Bobert, he could be there for any kind of reason.

Catching on to his confusion, Gumball spoke up and waved his hands to confirm that everything was alright,

"Actually the Beat Museum was a complete bust and the teachers sent us off on a scavenger hunt to get us off their backs." he answered.

Hector seemed to not mind and merely shrugged as a response. Darwin then explained to him the rules of the assignment and pointed out that they had only two locations left to find. Seemingly satisfied, Hector placed both of arms on his knees and looked about the city-scape,

"Sounds like a fun assignment." he remarked, carefully watching the streets swarming with cars and people from his heightened field of view,

"I'm not allowed to go to a lot of places while I'm here, so I'm just going to stay in this park and enjoy the weather." he explained.

He didn't sound like he was bored, but as far as the trio could tell, he wasn't very excited about his current predicament either. They wished that there was something he could do, but given how big he was, it was understandable why he couldn't just wander off where ever he pleased. Still being the nice guy he was, Darwin offered up a suggestion to the friendly giant,

"Um, would like us to hang out with you once we're done with our scavenger hunt? We've got a few hours to kill afterwards." he said.

Gumball found this to be an odd decision on his part because he thought that both he and Carrie had plans after the assignment, but figured he would work things out with the ghost girl when they eventually meet up. It still earned Darwin a puzzled look from him. Hector reached into his brown bag again and fished out a cheese stick as long as a canoe, answering Darwin's question as he peeled away at the string cheese,

"You guys don't have to, but I wouldn't mind the extra company. Actually, I am allowed to walk down the main roads, so you three can invite your friends along and hitch a ride on my shoulder while I take us to the golden gate bridge. It would be a very scenic tour of the city and we can make small talk while doing so." he said softly as he began munching on the shreds of cheese.

Darwin nodded in agreement and waved to the giant,

"Sure thing!" he chirped,

"I'll let everyone else know while we finish up with our scavenger hunt! See you around!" he shouted as he turned around to walk the other direction.

Following suit, his two companions trailed after him, waving at Hector who silently waved back and went back to finishing his meal. Walking side-by-side with his little brother, Gumball was about to ask him how he was going to tell Carrie about the change in plans when he noticed someone approaching them on the sidewalk. When the little cat looked, he saw that it was a very big man with the head of an Ox, chocolate brown skin, and shaggy brown hair done up in dreadlocks. He was very intimidating to look at, standing at eight feet in height with the build of a bodybuilder, his muscles could be seen stretching the fabric of his white tank top and black cargo shorts.

At first Gumball just wanted to steer clear of the big guy and was about to drag his companions off to the side, but then he noticed something. On one of the man's horns was a carving of sorts, but on closer inspection, Gumball noticed that it appeared to be a rune. It was different from the ones he saw Teri and Rob used, being a dot surrounded by six hands, but there was no doubt about it that this man was using magic of sorts. Now, it could just be that the Ox man just liked to carve symbols into horns as decoration or something, but after everything that has been going on lately, he could make a fairly good guess.

He also wondered if that gold person that ran into Teri and Molly was a Nephilim hunter too, given that she was wielding a mace in a public area.

He noticed that the burly man seemed to be in a hurry as he was steadily marching down the pathway towards them, but his dark brown eyes were looking beyond him. Feeling someone tug him to the side, Gumball realized that he had been staring at the man's horn for so long that he hadn't actually moved from his spot and nearly got trampled as a result. He watched the stranger pass him by, even catching a brown eye looking down at him as he did, before he continued on through the park.

Right next to him, Darwin was speaking and Gumball only partially heard him,

"Are you brain dead? You nearly just got stomped on by that big dude! Seriously, you need to be more attentive!" he said beratingly.

Gumball watched the dark-skinned stranger disappear over the hill where Hector was sitting behind, to which Hector shifted his gaze slightly before going back to enjoying the weather again. With him being gone, Gumball was driven to Earth and he wondered to himself if he should have talked to him when he rushed by. It probably wouldn't have done him any good though because he remembered that Darwin and Bobert were right by him.

Speaking of Darwin, Gumball quickly turned on a heel to face his concerned sibling,

"Oh, sorry about that!" he apologized, while rubbing the back of his head.

Darwin raised an eyebrow and looked over his shoulder where the man disappeared,

"What was that about?" he asked, now looking back at him.

"Just thought I saw someone from television is all?" he explained with a nervous chuckle before taking off down the sidewalk while tightly clutching both of his bag straps,

"Come on, let's finish the scavenger hunt and go have fun!" he exclaimed.

Darwin and Bobert turned to one another, both looking skeptical, shrugging, and taking off after the blue feline,

"Bobert, where's the next location at?" Darwin asked as soon as they caught up with Gumball.

"Continue one block down until Filmore street, take a left turn, and then two more blocks. We should increase our speed though." he explained with some urgency in his voice.

"Why?" Gumball and Darwin responded in unison.

Bobert pointed in a particular direction before saying,

"Because the local authorities are on their way with the paramedics and will be arriving in T-minus two minutes!" the little robot spoke in an alarming tone as his display lit up with an !

As if on cue, sirens could be heard from several blocks away and the three boys ran as fast as their legs could carry them.

-Lafayette Park, 12:48 PM, fifteen minutes later-

Three minutes ago, they finally finished their assignment and both Teri along with Carrie were glad for it. Thanks to their abilities of flight, Teri, Carrie, and Masami were able to gain better vantage points in order to spot the targeted areas. It was still a bit of work, but the three girls were able to find all three locations and were finished in a relatively short span of time.

They did have a good time though. While they flew about the city in search for various clues, they would often strike up a few conversations with one another and while Masami was outwardly friendly towards Carrie, she wasn't so much as with Teri. Not being one to leave anyone out of a conversation, Carrie would often pull the paper girl into a talking session with her and Teri would feel more included as a result. This seemed to agitate the cloud girl a bit, but she seemed to just roll with it and indulged both girls.

Teri of course did catch on to this and immediately felt bad when she realized that Masami didn't want her to join in on the chat.

Soon the assignment was over and the trio of pale girls was officially disbanded when Masami took off to go meet up with Leslie and the other two were left to wander the park where their last location sat. Checking their messages, it would seem that most of the groups have finished their individual hunts and were now just wandering about the place with much to do. They had three hours to spare, so Carrie offered Teri to join her on a walk to a Siren's Allure cafe on Vallejo street which wasn't far from where they were.

It was also the place where Darwin and Gumball were going to be meeting them, so Teri didn't mind stopping by the cafe,

"You said that Darwin had something in mind?" she inquired, picking from where their conversation left off. She saw Tina stomping through the park with Jamie and Tobias sitting atop her neck as they chased down some kids.

Carrie nodded and checked her messages once again,

"Mmm-hmm, he didn't say what it was exactly, but I'm not too worried seeing as Clayton has already saved us a spot for the Broken Asylum signing area." she allowed her phone to fade away before continuing to drift beside her friend.

Lafayette park was a really nice place to be strolling around in, it was nature heavy with multiple trees and grassy fields with only a few paths cutting through them. It kind of reminded Teri of home and she was able to find some comfort in being in a place like this. She was riding atop an origami horse, not because she was tired, but because they were about to head out into the streets where there all sorts of nasty things strewn about. While Teri took to heart what Gumball had said, she was still very nervous about the environment and was taking precautions.

Old habits really do die hard, maybe that's why Masami was a little irritated with her today. After all, she did have to stop three times at different places to wash her hands and then there was the time refused to hold Masami's phone when they were taking a group selfie for the project. It wasn't her fault that Masami always wanted to be the one in the middle, but she did feel like she was being a little obnoxious.

Strolling onto the sidewalk bordering the street that will eventually take them to Vallejo street, the two girls spotted a street performer not too far away performing some tricks with real magic!

Gasping in delight, Teri watched as a green prism girl with a different face on each of her sides slowly dissolve into smoke before the small audience and reappearing on the top of a building across the street where she shouted to the astonished onlookers. They all clapped in amusement as the crystalline figure bowed and dissolved into smoke again. It took the shape of a bat and flew off into the open sky before disappearing altogether.

Clapping along with the audience, the paper girl and emo ghost continued on their way,

"That was so cool!" she exclaimed to an equally astonished Carrie.

"Heck yeah that was! I can't believe how much magic is in the air here!" she stated in utter amazement.

Turning her head in confusion, Teri asked Carrie wondered what she meant by that, to which she explained,

"Oh! What I meant was I haven't visited any major cities in six decades and the last time I was at one, which happened to be Los Angeles, the magic wasn't as dense." she looked at in hopes that helped cleared everything up.

She was still confused and the paper puppet couldn't quite get what she was referring to when she talked about magic,

"Do you mean like the magic Gumball, Rob, and I use?" she asked.

Carrie was about to say something right away, but stopped a moment to think of a better way to answer that question,

"Well, yes and no." she finally answered, causing Teri to become further intrigued,

"You see, the magic you three use is a simplified form of magic created by the Nephilim, but requires the user to possess a strong soul. There are other forms of magic that exist, some that can only be used by certain types of people, for example I can utilize magic that revolves around the dead, and some types that can be mastered through years of training and learning." she said, feeling as though that were a simple way of putting it.

This definitely came off as interesting to Teri and she wondered to herself if she could gain mastery of certain spells that weren't rune based. She also pondered the meaning to Carrie's words when she mentioned the Nephilim magic requiring strong souls. So the three of them could only use the runes because their souls were strong enough? Did that have something to do with the fact that they could see them?

Her thoughts were being drowned by the sound of ongoing traffic and she continued to question Carrie on the topic of magic,

"So how come magic is more widespread nowadays, why wasn't it more common back then?" she asked.

Carrie further elaborated by going off of past experiences and some theories of her own,

"I'm not quite sure." she said, starting off honest,

"I think it may have something to do with the children of Earth gaining a better understanding on how the universe works. It could also be that the spread of information helped further the study of magic for many people. There's also the possibility that it has something to do with the people themselves because back when I was little, most beings I've met were rather simple and animal-like." she realized that last part sounded odd so she tried again to further clarify her findings,

"Okay, what I mean is things like flying squids or sentient balls of slime made of Jade-knows-what weren't really all that common. As a matter of fact, ghosts were considered the strangest natural phenomenon before the advent of the twentieth century." she spouted off before taking a deep breath.

Very interesting, was all Teri could think of as she thought about it and looked down at the origami horse she was riding. The more she thought about it, her ability to manipulate paper seemed like an unusual ability in of itself and she wondered if it was an ability that started right around the time Carrie described or if it had been one of those odd cases of rare magic? She didn't really ask her mom for further details into her family history and reconsidered doing so when she got back to Elmore.

They reached Vallejo street and made a turn that would take them straight to the cafe. Having said enough about magic, Carrie asked Teri something,

"Hey Teri, you do know that you and Gumball don't have to follow Darwin and I around the whole time, right? Did you have any plans for when we got done with the scavenger hunt?" she asked, giving her a curious glance from beneath her ghostly bangs.

Thinking about what she said to Gumball on the bus, she shook her head and told her what she thought,

"Not really. We were just going to hang with you guys and break off only if we spot anything interesting." she said, maneuvering her horse around a garbage bag rolling in the wind.

Crossing her arms and tossing her hair with a shake of her head, Carrie looked the opposite direction of the horse riding paper bear,

"Wow, harsh!" she grunted,

"Didn't realize that we're just temporary entertainment to you two!" she replied with fake hurt.

Teri was in disbelief and her face showed it,

"What?! Wait, no, that's not what I meant!" she stammered in her defense, but stopped when she saw Carrie laughing.

"Just joshing, you dork!" she giggled playfully.

Rolling her eyes, Teri shook her head in an unamused fashion and settled in for a quiet ride. She was, however, surprised when her phone started buzzing and when she checked it, she found that it was from Carmen. The message was an invite of sorts and it read:

Hey, Teri! There's a tourist trolley car that's taking passengers all over uptown San Francisco. Please come join us. It'll be so much fun!

It was a really short message and at the bottom was an address with an image attached showing the train car itself. She sounded like she really wanted Teri to come and the paper bear was torn between going with Carmen or cancelling to meet up with Gumball and Darwin. When Carrie asked what was up, Teri showed her the message and Carrie's eyes lit up in recognition,

"Huh, a tour of the city by trolley car, that actually sounds like it could be fun! They even serve food to the passengers or so I've heard." she stated, placing a hand beneath her chin.

Teri pulled the phone from Carrie's face and began to tense up with worry,

"What do I do? It would be rude if I turned down her offer, but I don't want to ditch you guys either!" she groaned, grabbing the sides of her head in frustration.

Carrie did not see much of an issue though and came up with a quick solution,

"I say you should go with her. The tours aren't that long and we can always meet up later." she suggested, seeing as she would then be able to hang out with all of her friends during the trip.

Letting go of her head, she was now looking at her with a vexed expression and was unsure herself,

"What? You really think I should?" she asked,

"But wouldn't that be like abandoning you and the others?" she was very nervous now.

But Carrie just grabbed her by the shoulders and looked her dead in the eyes, her face completely serious,

"Teri. It's not a long trip and we have three hours to kill. If you're worried about time, remember that I can teleport. Also, if it's Gumball you're worried about, then don't worry, he knows that you like hanging out with your friends. So, go have fun!" she gave her the brightest smile Teri had ever seen as soon as she uttered the four last words and drifted back a bit.

It didn't take her long to realize that it made sense and Teri took it as a win-win scenario, so with a nod, she willed her horse to trot away in the direction of the address,

"Okay. I will text you guys as soon as we're done!" she hollered back as the horse began to pick up speed,

"See you later!" she said as her flimsy white hand shot up to wave at the ghost.

Carrie responded back with a wave of her own,

"Catch you in an hour or so, and don't worry about the guys, I'll keep them occupied!" she proclaimed.

Letting out a laugh, the paper girl flew down the sidewalk towards her destination and Carrie was left on her lonesome. Letting out a sigh followed up with a smirk, she turned around and began to float towards the cafe where her boyfriend and his sibling awaited. She wondered what Darwin's plans were, probably something really cool or really cutesy, something she loathed. She also wondered if she could get him to buy her a brown sugar machiato, she found that Siren's Allure had some very trendy coffee flavors and had been craving sweet drinks ever since she discovered this. She was sure that Darwin wouldn't disagree.

-Trolley station, five minutes later-

Gumball had just about had it with Alan this time! He was told to meet him at the trolley station because it was so urgent that he come and then he finds the place devoid of overly nice balloon boys. The trolley sitting at the station was one of those old fashioned ones that looked like a wooden train car built on tracks that people used to get around in the 1900's before cars were invented and was half way filled with people at this point. There was still no sign of Alan and that was really starting to cheese him off,

"Interrupts my conversation with Darwin to tell me to meet him here, I leave early and wait here for seven minutes, and he's still not here!" he grumbled to himself as he paced angrily about,

"If he thinks he's so nice, then why does he keep tricking like this? First there was that hospital misunderstanding, then there was that one time he tells us that saying "yes" to everything is the solution to all our problems, and now he dares to stand me up on a field trip!" he seethed.

He whipped out his phone and pulled up Alan's contact number before tapping it. If he thought he was going to get away with making a fool out of him then he had another thing coming, this is what Gumball was thinking as he began typing. He was in the middle of completing his hate filled rave towards Elmore's "nice guy" when he spotted a familiar person in the station. When he looked up, he saw that it was Teri and quickly deleted the message before heading up to greet her.

The two met up in the middle and stopped just short of each other,

"Hey." he quietly greeted.

"Hey." she replied, mirroring his greeting.

Gumball saw that she seemed rather surprised to see him here and also wondered himself why she was here of all places. He thought that she was with Carrie and heading towards Siren's Allure to meet them both. He went to go see what Alan wanted and promised to meet up with Darwin along with everyone else as soon as he figured out what it was.

Gumball looked around for a moment and didn't see anyone else he recognized with her before turning back to the solo school girl,

"Um, you here for the tour?" he asked, rubbing the back of his head nervously.

Teri responded with affirmation and pulled out her cell to show him the message she received when she was interrupted by the tour guide, a female android that resembled a rather attractive young lady with silver skin,

"Are you two Gumball Watterson and Teri Pepakuma?" she asked in a charming robotic voice.

"Yes?" they responded in unison, both very confused.

The female android then gestured towards the train car and spoke to them,

"Your tickets are already paid for. Please board the train, if you wish." she awaited their response.

Without a clue, Gumball and Teri did as the tour guide asked and stepped aboard the railway car. The interior was narrow and filled with cushioned benches, much like a bus, with open windows that allowed fresh air to waft within the cabin. They found an empty seat towards the rear and went to go sit down. They waited for a bit, with Carmen and Alan still not showing, and the female android announced that they were departing.

Gumball was sure that there had been some kind of mistake and discussed it with his partner,

"What the what? Where's Alan? He messaged me to meet him here because it was important!" he whispered.

Teri jumped a little in surprise and her mouth hung open much like a cave,

"Carmen sent me a message too! I came here because I wanted to meet up with her." she whispered back, causing him to jolt in alarm too.

It was at the moment, someone's phone buzzed and Teri quickly retrieved her device before flipping it open. She saw that the message was from Carmen and she held the phone up so Gumball could read as well. It read,

Hey, Teri! So I just got an invite from Darwin to meet up with him, Carrie and Hector at Alta Plaza. Turns out Hector's going to give everyone a lift to the Golden Gate bridge and well, I figured it was a good way to see more of the city. Have fun on your tour with Gumball!

At the end of the message was a smiley emoticon and a shadow fell across their faces.

"She did NOT!" they thought in unison as several tick marks made themselves visible on their foreheads.

Groaning inwardly, Teri wondered if she should have spotted that this was an obvious ruse to get the two of them alone together and felt ashamed for not spotting it. She noticed that Gumball also seemed duped and that she was not alone in this. Still, she couldn't help but feel a little gratitude towards the cactus girl for going through all the trouble to arrange this get together and already she could feel herself becoming happy.

Having already pieced it together, there was nothing Gumball could do, but grin and shake his head at Carmen's cleverness. She even got Alan to help her out too and what's crazier is that he actually agreed to help her with such a deceptive move. Then again, all she probably had to tell him was that it was all for the sake of helping out their friends and he would've jumped at the opportunity.

It was wonderfully well-thought trap that either one could enjoy being caught in.

"Well, since we're on this trip now, you want to just relax and crack jokes at the passing landmarks" he offered, wiggling his eyebrows in a silly fashion.

She giggled at his goofiness and responded positively,

"Yes, but no puns!" she exclaimed, but said it like a challenge.

Knowing her very well, Gumball took this as a challenge to tickle her funny bone and already made a crack at it,

"But once we got to the Golden Gate bridge, I was going to give you the abridged versions in order to get my point across!" he snickered, his eyes holding that playful glow.

A flurry of light slaps to the forehead was unleashed upon the blue cat as he giggled uncontrollably to an equally amused Teri,

"Why can't you just follow my rules for once, you goof!" she laughed.

Gumball's smile never went away and he continued despite the Pepakuma's adorable wrath,

"Oh build a bridge and get over it!" he shot back with another set of giggles.

"Stop it or else I'm going to tickle you until you pass out!" she declared, now using both hands to slap his forehead.

All Gumball had to do was wiggle his eyebrows again along with his whiskers and that was enough to set her on a tickling rampage. The two spent a considerable amount of time in the back with their fingers darting for armpits and stomachs while they laughed the whole time. They were soon shushed by a passenger in front of them and they both settled down to watch the scenery.

While the robotic tour guide pointed out specific locations and explained their history as well as their significance, Teri and Gumball were striking up a quiet conversation. Teri told him about how her parents used to go here and how she was actually starting to like the place. She then told him about the magical street performers, Carrie's explanation on magic before bringing up the ghost's plans.

Gumball was intrigued by this, but she when she mentioned how Carrie was going shopping, something else came up,

"That's cool! At least we're finally getting answers!" he joyously exclaimed,

"Oh, um, I was wondering, you know how we're going to the mall to look for disguises?" he placed his hands on his lap and leaned back a little.

Curious, Teri moved her head up and down before whispering,

"Yeah, you have something in mind?"

Here was the question and Gumball was nervous to ask,

"Yes actually, um, would you mind if we stopped at Dinner? It's a nice little restaurant at the mall and I was thinking you and I can have lunch there." he was shaking now and he could feel his palms getting sweaty.

Teri leaned back and tapped her chin in thought, before smiling and turning back to him,

"Sure, sounds like fun." she said to Gumball's delight before asking,

"What's it like?"

He was about to get into the details on the classy place, but was inconvenienced by the power going out. The train came to a sudden stop and all the passengers were thrown forward. The tour guide also lost power and collapsed right away, leaving many of the tourists in a panic.

What came next was a series of explosions that raced towards the train car and before the two Nephilim fighters could do anything, the car was violently thrown off its tracks. The two felt weightless for a moment as the trolley was tossed into the air, Teri screamed along with several others, and they were thrown about the cabin as the train slammed into the concrete.

Everyone in the car was okay, a little jarred for sure, but as soon as the sound of explosive blasts faded, everyone fled the tipped vehicle through the open windows. Climbing out a window, Gumball got a look around and saw something large fly by overhead. It was a Nephilim alright, shaped like a rhombus with black armor and flying in between the buildings as it discharged green bolts of energy from its wingtips to the streets below.

He jumped down from the overturned vehicle and was followed by Teri, who was also fine. She looked up and saw the flying oddity bank between two buildings before vanishing from sight,

"Come on! We need to catch it!" she urgently shouted to her partner.

Wary of the people panicking in the streets, Gumball was stunned by the mass chaos and with an angered grunt, he pulled the scythe out from his bag,

"Let's take that Fright Kite down, together!" he growled, unleashing the weapon's blade and handle.

Teri was already on it and pulled several sheets of paper from her own bag. She formed one into an origami F-22 and the others were made into shurikens decorated with her runes. She was glad to see that Gumball was keeping his word and hopped on the paper plane before extending her hand out to him. Gumball took it and climbed aboard.

"Ready?" Teri asked as he got himself situated.

"All systems go, captain Pepakuma!" he confirmed with a salute.

Another smile crept onto her face before returning to her more serious posture and she ordered the plane to take off. Within moments, the paper strike craft shot down the street and quickly gained altitude, the wind roaring by them as the craft began to accelerate. They passed over the wreckage strewn streets of San Francisco and pursued the airborne enemy down its trail of destruction.

-Golden Gate bridge-

While everyone else had heard the explosions and fled to safety, Carrie could sense the familiar disturbance rupturing her senses. This was very bad, there wasn't one Nephilim this time, but several, and from what she could sense there had to be at least four located throughout the city itself. She knew thanks to Carmen that Gumball and Teri were on a tourist trolley somewhere and she was in a hurry to find them.

When the disaster struck, Carrie had been enjoying a ride on Hector's shoulder along with Darwin, Carmen, Alan, and Molly. As soon as she sensed the four abnormalities and saw the explosions erupting within the metropolis, she took off, but not before ordering Hector to take the others somewhere safe. He did as he was told and she informed Darwin that she was going to look for Gumball before teleporting away.

It was still quite a distance from the city, Carrie decided to take the main road back and would teleport as far as her abilities would allow her. On the streets below, the ghost could see people stopping to get out of their cars and looking back at all the mayhem happening behind them,

"Most of these people don't know what's going on." Carrie thought to herself in a grim realization,

"I hope the fighting stays in the city itself, if it spreads out to the bridge then all of these people will be in danger. I hope everyone else is okay!" her desperate feelings caused her to concentrate and the distances her teleportation covered increased drastically.

She was getting really close to the first few blocks, seeing several houses already come into view and she could feel her worry starting to increase. The closer she got, the easier it was for her to sense the Nephilim and she could tell that some were more powerful than others. They were moving throughout the city at a rapid pace and given Gumball's description of how the Nephilim's abilities work, anyone caught in their path would be killed.

She "jumped" to a location within the suburban neighborhoods and before she could make another leap through space and time, she sensed something coming. It was faint at first, but it gradually grew until it was that same form of nothingness within her senses and she realized that another monster had appeared nearby. Before she could try to place it's exact location, it appeared much closer than she thought and a house exploded to her right.

The debris flew around and right through her, not harming her in the slightest, but she still screamed anyway. There were several people nearby when this happened, thrown aside along with the pieces of broken wood, shattered glass, and destroyed material and Carrie was about to go down to see if anyone was alright. She could not see the Nephilim however, and when she approached a human woman struggling to get to her feet, she suddenly collapsed on the sidewalk.

Carrie could feel the stranger's soul suddenly blink out of existence and the others soon followed. They were all dead. While the malevolent spirit could not be seen, she knew it was there and she spotted some discarded house bits being crumpled underneath the sheer weight of the creature. It was very big and Carrie needed to find a body to possess, now!

Taking action, Carrie vanished in a flash of light just as something came crashing down where she was floating and split the cement as a result. She reappeared some ways away from the destroyed house, feeling sorry for the people who died there, and searched the streets she was hovering over. She spotted a parked police car next to someone's property, a pretty brown house with a few turrets, and shot towards it.

She sensed the Nephilim coming for her, several other houses were smashed as it pursued, and she sped up until she phased through the vehicle's driver door. Inside was a single human officer, a pale man with red curly hair, freckles, and green eyes. He was easily spooked by her sudden appearance and tried to reach for his radio, but Carrie stopped him,

"Sleep!" she commanded before pressing her hand through his forehead.

The officer was knocked out right away and Carrie slipped into his mouth. She took control of his body and got out of the car, just as a massive cleaver smashed through the roof, cutting the car in half. Turning to the Nephilim with her new body, Carrie saw the beast through the cop's eyes:

It was very big, a towering 87 feet of destructive force and its oversized kitchen knife was around the same length. It was human in shape, but it's body was like a broken mirror, smooth silver that was cracked in many places and covered the monster's entire body. It didn't have a face either, just a large web-like crack with a single hole running through where it's left eye should have been.

She could see herself in its reflection and she felt hopelessly small when compared to it. She almost failed to move away when its butcher blade was raised and brought down again. Using the strength only a possessed could utilize, she leapt out of the way, soaring through the air before landing on the roof of a nearby house.

She turned and saw the Nephilim struggling to pull its rectangular blade from the concrete it was embedded in. She found the sight very hilarious and laughed scornfully at the terrifying beast,

"Do you even know how to use that thing!" Carrie teased, her voice coming out more masculine thanks to the man she was possessing.

This seemed to set the monster off. With a hearty yank, the Nephilim's weapon was pulled free and the ghost found herself on the run again as the Nephilim's jagged edge came rushing towards her. It was faster than she thought because the moment she leapt upwards, the house shattered beneath her feet and when she landed some distance away, the monster was already swinging at her,

"Me and my big mouth." she regretfully thought as she turned to run.

The chase went on for a bit, Carrie went from building to building only to have every single one demolished soon after by the rampaging cracked Nephilim. She tried to retaliate by hurling debris back at him, but nothing was hurting it. She even hurled someone's parked pick-up truck at the monster and the Nephilim just cut through that as well.

"Darn it! Looks like I'm going to have to tear you apart myself!" she growled in frustration.

Pushing the possessed body to the limit, she jumped as far away as she could and the eight story Nephilim attempted to stop her with another slash with its titanic sword. Landing down the street, several hundred feet away, Carrie crouched down and watched the Nephilim recover from its attack. Pulling its blade from the ground, the Nephilim's cracked faced peered back at her and Carrie wondered if the thing was starting to wonder if it was ticked off for not being able to finish her.

It began charging again, a beast with a one track mind, and Carrie made her move. Reaching out with her telekinesis, she pulled the mirror giant's colossal sword from its grasp and the Nephilim stopped in the middle of its charge. It seemed confused that its weapon was raised directly in front of it and before it could try to recover it, Carrie forced the edged weapon through the Nephilim's waist.

The sword cut through with ease and Carrie swung again and again, making the weapon dance on invisible strings as the Nephilim was reduced to pieces.

Stopping to catch her breath, Carrie collapsed to the ground and reconsidered her overall strategy. She needed to find a better means of defeating these guys and with Gumball's team already scoring a few victories underneath their belt, she was starting to feel a little embarrassed. She was about to leave the cop's body to continue her search, but she noticed that the Nephilim's shards were hanging in the air, as though gravity had no effect.

"Wait, didn't Gumball say the Nephilim burned up when they died?" she questioned as she continued to observe the Nephilim's scattered remains hover in one spot.

To her horror, the pieces began to move. They flew towards one another, reassembling themselves like puzzle pieces until the giant's looming form was blocking out the sunlight again. Carrie could only stand there with her mouth agape as she wondered what it took to defeat this thing.

She stood still for too long and she could feel something start to press down on her. She recognized this intense pressure and realized that she was caught in the giant's Doom blast. A glowing red orb that hummed began to form within the hole in its head and was mixing a black substance within the glowing weapon itself.

"HEY!" a deep voice bellowed.

The Nephilim stopped to investigate this newcomer and Carrie turned to see another giant tearing down the street. He was a mess of orange and purple fur and his height rivaled that of the giant holding Carrie down. It was Hector of all people and Carrie never felt so happy, yet so horrified to see her classmate charging in towards them.

Recognizing the larger threat, the Nephilim switched targets and fired the doom blast right at Hector. The lance of red energy leapt towards the child of Fjel, but did not connect with his face as he caught the blast with his forearm instead. The smell of burnt hair filled the air and Carrie could see that the blast left a dark burn mark on Hector's limb, but all in all, he seemed fine and kept charging.

With the Nephilim's best attack otherwise negated, there was nothing it could do when Hector closed the distance and delivered a right hook to its cracked face. The force of his punch shattered the Nephilim's head completely, but it quickly reformed and the Nephilim delivered a powerful punch to the behemoth's gut.

"Oof!" was all Hector let out as he stumbled back with a hand on his abdomen.

He wasn't finished though and he snapped out of it quickly before lunging back towards the reflective giant with both fists raised. When the two titans clashed, the ground began to shake with every step they took, every punch delivered sent one of them flying into buildings, destroying the whole neighborhood within a few strikes, but the two remained ever so tenacious and refused to give any ground.

Carrie watched the colossal smack down in utter awe and fright from the human's body,

"Well there goes the neighborhood." she muttered to herself as she watched Hector grab the Nephilim by the head and drove his knee into the monster's face, brutally shattering his head again.

He then sent the rest of him flying with an upper-cut and the silver entity shot over several houses, before smashing through several more when he finally landed. Furious, the Nephilim reformed itself again and got back up before sprinting at Hector with its claws raised. Such a simple creature!

Hector, being the star athlete he was, realized that he wasn't going to be able to stop this guy from charging and threw his arms in a cross formation, protecting his upper body. Crouching down, the hairy giant prepared to jump to the side when the reflective monstrosity reached him, but was caught off guard when the Nephilim stopped just short of him. It reached out with a clawed hand and dug its talons into the burnt spot covering Hector's forearm.

An agonized bellow erupted from the powerful giant's mouth, as he repeatedly tried to pull himself out of the monster's iron grip, but the Nephilim just dug in even deeper. Hector then tried using his free arm to deck the Nephilim in the face, but the giant was faster and caught his fist before it connected. With the shaggy beast successfully restrained, another Doom blast began to charge up within its hollow head and was directed at Hector's hair covered face.

Seeing the dire situation Hector was in, Carrie moved to help her friend and brought the Nephilim's massive meat cleaver with her. Jumping entire buildings, carefully treading over wreckage and dead bodies caught within the giant's battle, Carrie raced towards the struggling Hector and the Nephilim that was almost ready to reduce his head to atoms. She made her way around them without being seen by either and moved the cleaver until it was right behind the Nephilim.

And with a quick attack, Carrie swung hard with her telekinesis and severed the arm that was clutching Hector's burn mark.

Completely forgetting that there was another threat in the area, the Nephilim shot back in surprise once it realized its limb was gone, but in doing so left Hector free to move again. Working with him, Carrie proceeded to remove the walking mirror's legs too and the Nephilim collapsed with only one arm to defend itself with. Dropping down on him with one knee digging into his chest, Hector batted the Nephilim's arm away and pressed his palm onto its forehead. A green rune formed on his palm and the Nephilim's head flattened like a pancake.

Soon the rest of the body followed and it turned black before bursting into purple flames.

Carrie sensed the vile spirit's death and allowed herself to relax this time. She was just glad that it was over and looked around at the damaged housing complexes. Dozens of homes were destroyed and several people had lost their lives too. It was a horrible scene.

Getting up from where the Nephilim's corpse had vanished, Hector checked around him and saw a single police officer on his knees as he stared off into nothingness,

"Oh, hey officer!" Hector said as he stood up and raised his hands to show that he meant no harm,

"I'm sorry for all the damage, I was looking for my ghost friend, Carrie, but when I saw that demonic salesman trying to take your soul, I tried to help out. Mom was definitely right about the city being a dangerous place, I guess I should've stayed at the park." he muttered apologetically, surprisingly calm despite what he had just gone through.

Carrie was too shocked for words and only gave him an empty stare. What he just said would have sounded very funny if this weren't a bloody tragedy that could have been avoided. She was thankful for his assistance and even more so when he defeated the demonic entity, but she was still wrought with terror and guilt over what just happened.

She exited the cop's body and the unconscious officer fell backwards. Hector was shocked to see Carrie leave the policeman he thought he was talking to, but only showed it with a slight raise of his eyebrows. This didn't register with Carrie however and the little ghost drifted closer to his face so he could hear her,

"Hector, thanks for the assist, but there are more creatures like this one in the city and they're causing trouble." she said, remembering why she came all this way.

Hector seemed to get the idea and displayed his acknowledgment with a single shake of his head,

"Okay, but I have to be careful though. I can't cause any more damage then I already have." he explained, pointing to all the destruction he and his opponent caused.

Carrie understood and flew by him towards the city,

"Don't worry about it, focus on keeping those monsters at bay. I'll worry about the people!" she called over her shoulder as she floated away,

"And Gumball is with Teri, probably fighting them too, so keep an eye out for them!" and with that, she kept going.

Hector once again understood, but couldn't help wondering why Teri and Gumball were fighting too. To him they were the least likely to be dealing with what he just fought, but just shook it off and decided to ask Carrie about it later. He got up and began trekking towards the forest of skyscrapers, some of which were dark and on fire.

-3 miles north of Jackson Square, seven minutes later-

"Get back here you golden brat! You're an insult to the colors you wear!" came a shout from general Gorothim, a massive skeleton who, unlike all the other Nephilim, was transparent like glass and had six arms with a scimitar clasped in each one.

The person he was yelling at and was the center to all his frustrations was Amy Rajit, the mace-wielding Svarn that ran into Gumball's class after they arrived at the Beat museum. She stood atop an apartment building that towered over Gorothim's measly thirty feet and regarded the Nephilim with playful golden eyes. They had been fighting for ten minutes now and neither of them have successfully managed to damage one another, although Amy herself was clearly outmatched.

Which is why she was standing on a rooftop while mocking the terrifying general,

"I'm not wearing gold, that's just the color of my skin, you racist prick!" she shouted back, her voice heavy with an Indian accent as she pointed her mace at the growling menace below,

"And I know you're too short to catch me, so why don't you open your eyes and shoot me with your Doom blast!" she goaded him on without any concern whatsoever.

Very annoyed, the ghastly creature shook a fist still clasping his preferred weapon at her as he spouted another slew of insults,

"Nice try, bird brain, but I'm not falling for your paralysis trick a third time! Now get down here and fight me like a warrior!" he pointed down at the ground with his lower four hands when he finished.

"Darn it, I really thought he was going to fall for that!" she puffed up her cheeks before letting out an agitated breath,

"Looks like I have to go down there myself!" she thought as she raised her mace above her head.

"As you wish!" she replied before slamming the enchanted weapon into the concrete roofing below her feet.

The mace was enchanted with eight runes that delivered a concussive blast equivalent to that of an artillery shell and with a single swing from its wielder, the entire upper corner of the building broke apart like dry bread. The resulting blast sent debris raining down on Gorothim, who quickly shielded himself from the rubble and as a result, left him open for an attack. Amy fell with the rest of the building and landed on the flat end of one of his blades with the grace of a trained stunt double. With no time to waste, she rolled off the gargantuan weapon and landed on his elongated skull.

With a cry, she brought her mace up and swung down hard.

The resulting concussive blast sent the vexed giant stumbling backwards before tripping over a car and crashing to the ground. Amy survived this by hopping off at the last moment and landing herself next to his head as it punched a hole into the side of the shop opposite of the one she destroyed herself. Dragging the blunt, four-sided weapon, the radiant woman made her way towards the fallen Nephilim,

"Gotta break his neck. This mace has eight concussive blast runes, but it's steel frame can't maintain its integrity. I've already used up six shots, so only two remain." she reminded herself.

She was far more proficient with a bow and had a repeating bow rifle of her own, but left her permit for long ranged weaponry back in Seattle, so she had to make do with one of Brock's sidearms. It was a handy weapon, but not one to be used in prolonged combat against a seasoned Nephilim such as the general she was fighting and like most rune enhanced weapons, it could only maintain its integrity for a certain amount of hits. She definitely wanted to end this engagement as quickly as possible, as Gorothim was not someone to be trifled with.

"It's been fun, general, but I gotta break it to you hard. Attacking San Francisco in broad daylight was a stupid decision!" she finished, tossing a bang from her eyes.

Within a few paces, she reached the ginormous noggin of the pesky Nephilim that had been for five long years, a thorn in their side and raised the weapon to deliver the finishing blow. She was prevented from ending the general's life when several explosions forced her to duck down and from the sky above, a paper jet carrying two kids, soared between the buildings with a rhombus-shaped Nephilim in pursuit. It's wingtips were blazing away with streams of green bolts, which were being easily deflected by a blue cat wielding a scythe and the paper pilot was trying to outmaneuver the bus sized creature.

She watched them fly by with a faint recognition, but was almost crushed when Gorothim brought an arm up and around before slamming a fist into the concrete. Seeing the attack coming at the last second, Amy gracefully dodged the oncoming fist with a backflip and landed some distance away. Now with her being farther away from his supposed vital area, Gorothim got up again and once at his full height, he turned to glare at her,

"You're quite the raging headache!" he growled, his jaw never moving while he spoke, and he rubbed the cracked spot on his cranium with one of his hands.

Amy backed up nervously, now caught between a rock and a hard place, she wondered how she was going to get away from the thirty foot skeleton,

"You know, maybe you shouldn't get up so quickly! I read that having head trauma can really mess with your sense of balance!" she cleverly remarked.

At this point Gorothim was done talking with her and swung two blades in succession right at her. She blocked both rapid strikes with her mace, but with the activation of the concussive waves, the steel mace head shattered like glass and she was now without a weapon. Seeing the T-shirt wearing girl lose her only weapon, general Gorothim engaged in another flurry of strikes directed at his tiny adversary and Amy was forced to run once his attacks became too fast to dodge.

Feet pounding the sidewalk, Amy knew she wouldn't be able outrun him out here in the open and she ducked into a nearby alley way where the transparent giant's maneuverability was reduced to nothing. She heard him closing in and when she turned her head behind her, she spotted the shuttered eye of the giant general peering down at her from in between the buildings and he snarled,

"Quit hiding, NEA scum!" he screeched.

He brought a scimitar down into the narrow passage, the wind whistling as the blade sliced through the air, and Amy narrowly avoided being bisected by leaping out of the way. She landed herself on the wall opposite of her and grabbed onto the gutter pipe nailed to the brick surface. Hanging where she was, she heard the Nephilim curse under his breath as he dragged the scimitar out and tried again, this time by cutting through the wall she was on. Seeing this coming though, Amy pushed off using her arms and legs before twisting her body in mid-air and catching herself on the window ledge of the wall opposite.

Frustrated and short on patience, the glass-like Nephilim continued to slice at the golden girl while she swiftly dodged every single sword strike before continuing her way up the side of the building. Thanks to her years of fighting Gorothim and his forces, Amy understood the general's deadly proficiency with melee combat and had seen hundreds of her comrades fall to his six blades. He was very fast, his six arms acting independently helped him deflect many oncoming attacks as well dish out serious damage whenever he got close and not only were his skills as a fighter on par with even the most elite of NEA units, but his mind as a strategist was not to be scoffed at either.

She reached the top of the damaged structure and began to make her move, she needed to stay out of his range in order to coax him to use his Doom blast or she could wait for Brock to show up, whenever that may be. Snapping her athletic legs into action, the Svarn began racing across the rooftops and Gorothim began to pursue her from below.

He knew what she was doing and felt it necessary to demoralize her,

"Keeping out of range from my blades, I see! A wise plan indeed, but it will bring you no victory!" he shouted up to her.

Amy kept a careful eye on him, but paid his words no attention for she knew it was a trick and kept on running. She spotted something flying towards her from her left and saw that it was a car from the street below. She dived forward into a roll as the vehicle slammed into the rooftop behind her and jumped the gap between the buildings as soon as it approached. After landing, she spun to her left and saw that he had thrown the car himself as a means to kill her.

Smiling, the young Svarn tossed another jeer his way,

"Your parking is atrocious and so is your aim!" she shouted.

"Still trying to use your little trick, I see!" he responded, having almost been guiled into firing off his signature weapon,

"But, I don't need to blast you myself, as a matter of fact, one of my comrades is on his way right no-!" he paused when he sensed something off.

His comrade, a Nephilim named Fennick, was coming alright, but way too fast! He had sensed that he had been engaged in some kind of conflict nearby and while he followed the little brat here, he had also been closing in on Fennick's position. He got his answer soon enough when a battered white fox-like Nephilim boasting a mane of red fur came crashing through one of the buildings and slamming into Gorothim himself. Amy felt the structure she was on rumble a bit when the two giants collided with each other and checked to see who it was that could have done this.

Once the dust had cleared from the smashed office building, another giant stepped through, bigger than both of the giants in the current area, covered in a fine layer of orange/magenta fur caked in dust and only his hands were exposed as well as his feet. He was torn up in a few places, with patches of fur missing and traces of blood were noticeable, but he merely looked unimpressed as he stepped through the opening he accidentally made. At least, that's what a baffled Amy thought as she couldn't read any of his fur covered expressions.

The fox Nephilim, being twice the size of an elephant, was unintentionally pinning the six armed skeleton down with its large body and the leading figure of the Nephilim task force was struggling to free himself. Seeing the behemoth approaching, Fennick weakly turned its pointed head and opened its mouth to discharge an energy blast in a desperate attempt to harm the newcomer, but he simply lunged forward and locked the Nephilim's jaw shut with one hand, effectively cancelling the attack.

Moments later, a green rune flashed on the palm holding the giant canine's snout and the beast was compressed into roadkill.

Amy was stunned speechless at this giant's quick killing power! When she saw the Nephilim come crashing through the building and into Gorothim, she hadn't the faintest clue what was happening. Following this, when she saw the Nephilim-sized figure step out, only to easily destroy a twenty foot threat with a single magic spell blew her mind entirely and she couldn't help but think to herself,

"I don't know who or what he is, but I'm glad he's on our side!" she could already feel herself starting to calm down.

Unfortunately, such hopes were dashed when Gorothim, having been freed of his companion's weight due to his untimely death, lashed out at the magical giant and cut into his hand. Hector roared as he lurched backwards, blood gushing from the gash on his palm and Gorothim took that ample opportunity to deal further damage. Getting up, he was easily outmatched by the giant's size, but that was nothing to him as his middle set of arms moved rapidly, making quick work of Hector's knees.

"That'll teach you to throw my friends at me, boy!" Gorothim scoffed as he marched towards him.

Amy screamed when she saw Hector drop to his rear, crushing multiple cars as a result, and the six armed giant hopped onto his stomach and made his way up to Hector's neck. The Nephilim pointed a sword at his adam's apple and Hector froze when he saw where the weapon was pointing at. He wondered how was he so easily taken down by something that was no bigger than the last guy he fought and even shorter than the first one that arrived.

The answer was a broad set of skills and years of experience, Gorothim took pleasure in getting ready to slay the menace that killed two of his own soldiers,

"You know, I really gotta hand it to you, I was authorized by the senate to commit mass terror upon the citizens here and I think you did a better job than I did! You even had me scared for a bit and what you did to Fennick along with my second in command, Creighton-" he raised the other five scimitars until they were poised to cut into his exposed throat,

"-makes me really happy to see a threat such as yourself reduced to a headless husk!" his skeletal grin seemed all the more menacing for the frightened giant of Elmore.

He was about to start the shredding process when he sensed something else coming his way and he realized that Exxon was no longer in the air. He was quick to move and glad that he did because he spotted a crescent arc of grey fire tearing its way towards him. His upper right arms moved and formed an "X" with the swords before catching the long ranged attack in the intersection.

As powerful as the attack may have been, it was not enough to budge the ghastly creature and with a single horizontal cut of his lowest right arm, the arc of fire he caught was halved before dissipating. Following this attack straight after, a paper F-22 zipped by and from it a blue cat wielding a scythe leapt towards the evil giant. Screaming in anger at the sight of his injured friend (Gumball was surprised to see Hector all the way down here and facing off against their common enemy, but all of his questions needed to be answered later.) Gumball pulled his weapon to the side and began to spin like a top, increasing his power output to eighty percent.

"Hey, Bonehead! Get away from my friend!" he shouted while he spun faster.

Gorothim was surprised at the cat's bold move, but was prepared to counter and caught the blue feline's curved blade with his own elegantly curved blade, stopping his descent completely. Before he could fall though, a surge of grey fire erupted from the sickle's edge and Gumball discharged another blast of violent energy right at the Nephilim. The general's sword was forced back into face, smacking him hard with the dull side, and he stumbled back a few feet.

Having been propelled away from the powerful warrior with his own attack, Gumball landed on the soft belly fur of his classmate, dropping to one knee as he quickly looked up at his newest opponent. He was very tired, both Teri and himself tried to destroy the flying Nephilim in a short amount of time, but the airborne menace was just too fast. Even it's armor was thick enough to counter most of Teri's attacks and they had to kill by luring it into a tunnel where it crashed into the ceiling. They were able to unleash a torrent of magical attacks on the downed flyer, but it still took a lot out of both of them before it was killed.

And now there was this guy.

Recovering from his stumble, the house sized monstrosity was now focusing on his even tinier attacker,

"One after the other, it's like you hunters are just crawling out of the woodworks these days!" he snorted.

Rushing forward at the conclusion of his disgusted statement, the Nephilim's upper body, minus his head, began to rotate like a helicopter rotor and all six blades were now a whirling circle of destruction. With his mind reeling in terror, Gumball tried to back away from the approaching windmill of lethal edges, but Gorthim's pace outmatched his and Gumball raised his scythe to block the swinging weapons. If it weren't for his powers, he'd have been easily knocked aside and he felt one sword after the other crash into the scythe's incredibly durable handle with each collision sending sparks flying.

"Rrrrgggh!" Gumball clenched his teeth as the attacks sped up and he was coming close to losing a limb.

He was saved at the last moment though, when Hector attempted to rescue his friend by swatting a massive paw at the colossal death machine. Gorothim stopped and blocked with all of his blades, successfully pushing him back. Seconds later, Teri made another pass with her origami and several shurikens sprouted on his upper arms. Seven explosions erupted from the strike areas and the Nephilim screamed in rage as two of his limbs fell by his side. Taking advantage of the distraction, Gumball set off another grey fire arc and when the skeleton tried to stop it, he kept his head clear of damage at the cost of a hand.

Down three limbs now, the ranking general of the Babyloth army switched targets and waited for Teri to make another strafing run. With one sword, he stabbed Hector's hand to keep it from bothering him again and the giant screamed as he pulled it away to try to remove the offending object. While keeping Gumball occupied with his two remaining swords, he spotted Teri's plane closing in again and when she got close enough, he reached up, pulled her out of the air before throwing the crumpled wad of paper at Gumball himself.

The two were sent flying back and Gumball shut off his flames in fear of hurting Teri. Crawling out from the crumpled plane, Teri groaned a little as she straightened herself out and she tried to regain her bearings,

"Ow! I hate that feeling of being crumpled up into a ball! It's fine when I do it myself, but when others do it for me, it's very disorienting!" she muttered dizzily.

Pulling her to his side, Gumball stayed close to her and focused on the giant in front of them,

"This guy's all over the place, I can't keep up with him!" he gasped.

A good response to this issue would've been to create another origami to help them keep up with their quick adversary, but Teri was not given that luxury when Gorothim let out a frightening war cry and lunged towards them both with his blades crossed in a scissor-like position. Gumball prepared to catch the attack, but he was unsure if he could protect himself and his paper fighting partner once he started another series of strikes. Teri on the other hand, pulled something out to shield them both, a large sheet of paper with three barrier moon runes previously drawn on and stepped in front of a startled Gumball.

The twin blades closed in and when they reached the two children, a barrier popped up in between them. Unlike a single double moon barrier, which was a single pane of magic glass that covered a small area, the three runes together lit up at once and created a bubble around the classmates. The scimitars edges scraped against the glass barrier, but did not penetrate and Gorothim growled in frustration,

"You can't hold this for too long!" he roared as he repeatedly slammed his blades against the dome.

He was right, to their dismay, as all he needed to do was strike two more times and the barrier shattered, this time Teri collapsed from exhaustion. She realized that she used up too much energy trying to maintain three runes at once and was now too tired to do anything. Ready to strike again, Gorothim prepared to land the ending blows for them both and his swords danced through the air as they made their way towards the pair.

Luckily Teri's protection brought Gumball the necessary time to charge up a blast at one hundred percent and he set it off directly in front of Gorothim once Teri was clear of the attack itself. At point blank, there was nowhere for him to dodge and he was forced to abort his attack to instead prevent his lower body from being ripped in two. The crescent of blazing destruction was a lot stronger now and Gorothim needed to put his all into blocking the strike, failing to notice the hand sailing straight towards him.

Like an unbelievably large ragdoll, the three handed being was easily swept to the side and sent sailing down the street. Cars, buses, and bits of torn up concrete flew in all directions as his face as well as the rest of him carved a trail throughout the street. The noise he made was awful and everyone had to cover their ears.

"Auughh!" they both screamed as they cupped their hands over their ears.

Once he came to a screeching halt, Gorothim got himself back onto his feet, feeling no pain as a Nephilim spirit, and turned around with a hate filled fire burning within. So many insects were causing him so much trouble today and he had just about had it with them. Once the dust had settled, the kids were surprised to see a ferocious and horribly scraped up giant, glaring back at them.

His eye shutters lifted like actual eyelids and Gumball could sense something terrible coming their way. Sunlight began to collect within his transparent dome and the dark recesses of his eyes began to harbor a golden glow. Gumball had never seen a Doom blast that color and frankly he wasn't even sure if he could hold something like that back with his power alone.

Placing a hand upon a stunned Teri's shoulder, Gumball began to pull at her and tried to vacate the area,

"We gotta go, now!" he urgently shouted and the two began to turn tail to make a run for it.

The ground was shaking within moments and Gorothim's eyes began to glow with the brightness of the sun as his attack charged itself with more energy. No one was sure how devastating it will be once unleashed and Teri realized that Hector was still too injured to move! There was nothing either of them could do though, both were winded from the fight earlier and he was pretty close to firing at this point.

And then someone else stepped out in front of the three school children, a person with eyes that matched the Nephilim's own in brightness.

Just like that, the humming and the vibrations ceased, leaving everything quiet for once. With a single stare from his brilliant opponent, Gorothim was frozen from head to toe in a complete state of paralysis and was no longer a threat to anyone. Amy whipped around and found her attention planted on the little blue cat with the big head,

"Hey, bobblehead! Do you have any juice left in that scythe of yours? My paralysis gaze isn't going to hold him for long and we need to destroy him now!" she questioned.

Feeling rather offended by the nickname directed at his largest body part, Gumball answered a little snidely,

"No, I used up a lot of energy helping Teri fight off Fright kite and that last attack you just saw was the last of it." he explained before a tick mark formed on his head,

"And the name's Gumball, you blonde bimbo!" he shouted while raising his fist.

Letting the insult slide, Amy decided to turn her attention to the paper girl whom Gumball referred to as Teri, but saw that she too was winded and the giant was out of commission, so they couldn't utilize his abilities. This was bad, there was no telling how long the spell will last and the female Svarn was out of options. They had no choice but to pull out of there.

"We need to leave before the spell wears off." was all she said before turning to walk away.

Gumball and Teri first looked at one another then at Hector before voicing their concern,

"What about Hector?" Gumball asked.

"We're not leaving him here on his own are we?" Teri followed up.

Amy stopped and for a brief moment, the two were worried that she was going to snap, but she didn't,

"Hector is going to have to make do on his own while we regroup." she said coldly,

"Where's the rest of your unit?" she asked, turning to them again.

Once again, the two kids looked at one another in confusion before turning back to her,

"We're not part of a unit, we're students on a field trip from Elmore and Teri and I are the only Nephilim hunters in the class. Well, there's also Carrie and Hector too, I guess." Gumball muttered.

Amy's black and yellow eyes flashed in shock.

Teri also spoke up though she was more concerned with Hector's well being and was quite aggressive about it,

"And we're not leaving him behind either!" she declared rather loudly.

"Wait a minute, neither of you three are part of the NEA? Then how long have you been fighting-!" she was cut off when she noticed something in the sky above,

"Oh crap! Take cover you two, we've got more incoming!" she ordered before rushing off to find cover in the damaged streets.

Looking up, both Gumball and Teri could see another crack forming in the sky above as though the heavens were splitting. Frightened, the two kids ducked into an alleyway and wondered what they were going to do,

"We're too worn out, Hector's injured and that blonde haired girl has only one trick. We can't fight any more of these things and if the other guy recovers…" he gulped as he squeezed Teri's hand, which he didn't know he was holding.

What came out of the dark portal were several slender limbs made of a smoky black substance and they were reaching not towards either of them, but towards the frozen skeletal giant. They snaked around his slender body and lifted him up off the ground, pulling him towards the portal. Everyone watching stared up in confusion as the Nephilim was pulled back into the world he came from and before he disappeared, the Nephilim moved again,

Twisting his glass skull around and regarding the four in the streets below with contempt, he spoke back to them,

"Congratulations on saving the rest of your pitiful nest, children of Earth, but my work here is done! Enjoy the hard times ahead!" he remarked before he was pulled up into the dimensional tearing.

The hole closed and just like that, Gorothim was gone.

Cautiously stepping out from their hiding places, everyone regrouped around a now sleeping Hector and to Amy, Gumball was the first to ask,

"Who the heck was that?" he was looking very ruffled from the overall experience.

Looking back up at the sky and sighing, she lowered her head,

"That, was general Gorothim. He's been leading the Nephilim expeditionary forces on Earth for five years now and once again, he's escaped." she sounded defeated and her body was slumping forward now.

Tired and confused, Teri tilted her flat head and a scowl could be seen etching its way onto her face,

"So that giant skeleton has been leading ALL the attacks on Earth, for five years now?" she asked.

Nodding, the golden woman recomposed herself and was casting both of them suspicious looks,

"So who are you two exactly? You said you weren't part of the NEA." she asked, looking back and forth between their faces.

Teri was the one to speak first this time and she introduced herself as well as her cat partner standing next to her,

"I'm Teri Pepakuma and this is my best friend and fighting partner, Gumball Watterson." she pointed at him and he waved a little,

"Now who are you and what's the NEA?" she fired off her round of questions.

Placing a hand on her chest, Amy proudly introduced herself,

"I am captain Amy Rajit of the Azura squad. My partner Brock and I were deployed here to respond to an imminent attack on the city and-!"

"There you are!" came a single feminine voice.

"Hector, sweetie, don't you worry! Momma's on her way!" another voice shouted, this one raspier.

In the sky above two figures descended into the partially destroyed streets and both looked furious as well as concerned. One was a very frightened looking little ghost girl, with long bangs obscuring part of her face and a bow shaped like a skull adorned with wings was the only article of clothing she wore. The second was a haggardly troll woman who looked much older than she actually was and was riding a witches broom towards her ginormous son. Amy could tell that the magical troll lady was the giant's mother and given the looks of recognition on Gumball and Teri's faces, the ghost must have been a friend of theirs.

The troll lady landed on her son's chest and inspected all of his wounds, she looked absolutely horrified,

"Oh my Jade, what happened to my baby boy!" she shrieked before casting a lopsided glare in Gumball's direction.

Holding his hands up in reassurance, Gumball fumbled his words until he found an explanation,

"Uh, sorry Mrs. Jotenheim, it's kind of hard to explain all of this, but, uh, you see, for almost a month now, there have been these giants known as Nephilim an-!" he was cut off by another shriek from the mountain dwelling witch.

"I know about all of that already! I can see into the world of the unseen and I was expecting you to a better job at protecting everyone!" she was very furious and everytime Gumball saw her like this, he would shrink back in terror.

Teri was listening to all of this coming from her and found herself feeling quite enraged by the troll's angry accusation. They already had enough trouble fighting one Nephilim at a time and knew that when multiple enemies showed up, keeping the damage down to a minimum was going to be very difficult. In all honesty, they were very lucky that have been surviving this long!

There was nothing Teri could say in their defense though as Mrs. Jotenheim snapped her fingers and Hector disappeared in a flash of light before she took off on her own.

"I don't my son having any part in all of this, all of you are to stay from him now, you hear!" she shouted back, not needing a warning to tell them what the consequences would be if they tried.

Silently watching her go, Carrie felt slightly guilty for letting Hector wander off on his own when she started helping other citizens escape and turned to the other two students once she realized that they needed to go,

"We gotta go you two! I got a message from Darwin and he says that everyone is at a bus garage where Rocky is waiting to take everyone back. I haven't been there myself, but I guess they may be very worried now." she explained with a little stressful sarcasm.

She couldn't have stressed the point even further and the two realized that they had been out together when the power went out. Everyone must be worried sick about them at this point and anyone who was already suspicious about their Nephilim hunting activities would be on to them, less they get back right away. They quickly grabbed Carrie's awaiting hands and within an instant, all three vanished, leaving Amy alone in a destroyed city block.

In the background, sirens could be heard blaring and several people were still screaming, but that was all so far away. Amy could count herself fortunate for surviving a close encounter with general Gorothim, but the more pressing concern for her was the bold attack he lead today. Normally, when the Nephilim attacked, they tried to remain obscure and would make the attacks seem like natural occurrences.

She thought about this as she hightailed through the emptied streets littered with wreckage and before she knew she ran into a massive Ox man with a single rune carved into one of his horns. She let out a little eep! when she almost slammed into the muscle mountain that was also running at high speed and recognized her mistake in embarrassment. He threw his hands up in surprise when he saw her nearly run into him, but his brown eyes lit up in friendly recognition and he greeted his partner in kindness,

"Amy! Fancy running into you here, wish the atmosphere was a bit nicer though!" he chuckled in deep brass voice with a hint of an Israeli accent.

Amy's stunning eyes shot daggers when she eyed the bovine partner of hers before she stomped her foot in a fit of rage,

"Thanks for coming to my aid when I really needed it, Brock!" the blonde haired Svarn spat.

Recoiling in terror at his tiny partner, the horned NEA officer braced himself for a slew of angry curses and tried to say something in his defense,

"But the guy I was fighting was a sixty foot elephant looking thing that could shoot fire from its trunk, give me a break!" he squeaked.

Ignoring his excuses, the red shirt wearing Svarn stomped past him in a huff and ushered him to follow along. The dreadlock wearing bovine pursued, but remained at a distance in fear of triggering her wrathful gaze. He respected his long standing work partner, but he knew not to further upset her when she was in a foul mood and carefully spoke when they took another turn,

"Um, so did you defeat those other four guys because I actually called in Stevenson and Brookes for reinforcements." he was actually kind of surprised that he could no longer feel their presence and they were all defeated within a short span of time too.

However, all he got from her was a single shake of her head and a simple,

"No, I was helped by strangers" her tone was odd, not quite cold, but not friendly either.

She was pondering something and after a long period of silence, the two made their way into a hotel and when they finished checking in, they strolled towards the elevator. Once inside, Brock pressed the button to the appropriate floor and glanced at a thoughtful Amy with her arms crossed. With the seclusion the elevator brought them, Amy finally said something and remained in a neutral mood,

"We need to contact Central Twelve, the Nephilim's attack today was unusually direct and we're going to need to smooth out public relations right away. We can't have people panicking." she said, listening as another pinging sound could be heard from the elevator's speaker.

Scratching his hairy chin, Brock let out the breath he had been quietly holding in and turned to the side a little,

"That'll be difficult given how much destruction they cause this time." he muttered.

Amy silently agreed before adding in the other thing,

"And I also want specs to look into Elmore when we get back to Seattle, I want as much data on that place as he can get his hands on and I'm going to see if I can get authorization from C12 to mobilize a retrieval team within a few weeks." she stepped out of the elevator once it came to a stop and the doors slid open.

Stepping out after her, Brock was confused about this place she was mentioning and wondered if had something to do with those strangers she mentioned earlier,

"Why? What's so special about that place?" he inquired as they paced down the well lit hall towards their individual rooms.

They stopped at Amy's apartment first and after digging out her card key from her shorts, the militant Svarn opened the door before stepping into the organized space. She looked about the room before turning back to her Oxen partner and when he saw the triumphant gleam in her eyes, he knew she was onto something big. Lifting a finger to express her positive attitude, she spoke in a lighter tone,

"I may have found one of the anomalies the Nephilim are looking for, plus some promising new recruits." she remarked.

Brock got it right away and a pleased smile helped accent his bright eyes as he nodded in agreement,

"I see. This could spell out good news for us and if we're lucky the second one could be there as well." he began stroking his beard a bit before turning on his heel towards the room opposite of hers,

"I'll make a call to C12, the guys up top are going to love this one." he said as he waved once to her, indicating that he was going to be there all day.

As soon as he disappeared within the confines of his rented out space, Amy retreated as well and made her way towards the bathroom. Leaning against the wall was her repeating bow rifle that she couldn't bring out today and a sneer made its way into her plain expression as she regretted not being better prepared for the day's events. Still she was glad that something good came out of this disaster and she could already tell that coming weeks are going to be very interesting.

Looking up into the mirror, she saw a dirt covered face riddled with cuts staring back at her and she turned on the sink to begin washing off all the grime.

A/N: Here we are folks, the end of chapter ten and what a turn of events that was! I am actually very happy that this was a short write because I've been waiting to get this one out to you guys as soon as possible. There's still so much story to go and I still can't believe that this all just the starting point.

So we have ourselves some new characters, both villainous and friendly alike, that have been introduced in this new setting and the stage has been set for future events happening in other places. We've got general Gorothim, who is a bit of a mystery, but will be coming back as a reoccurring villain and we have yet to see his true powers. I had a hard time coming come up with his design because I wanted something sinister, yet different from all the other Nephilim we've encountered. In the end, the design kind of got shaved down to something simplistic because I didn't want to waste too much time coming up with something I couldn't easily describe. His fighting style also matches that of General Grievous' from the Star Wars franchise.

As for Amy Rajit, she was a character I had planned for a while now and her backstory will also be a mystery until much later. The name of her species is Svarn, which according to google translate means, "golden" in Hindi, I'm hoping that's correct and if not, please leave a comment about it. She's from India and has been involved in the early stages of Earth-Babyloth war. Her design is based loosely on Mina Ashido, my favorite female character from the My Hero Academia series and her ability is paralysis which she can activate upon eye contact with her opponents, but only lasts a certain period of time.

As for Brock Braunwhen, as soon as I thought of Amy's character, I thought him up too because I wanted to have a kind of buddy-cop duo with these two and having a towering man-beast seemed to fit with the smaller, agile female character. He's from Israel and met Amy in Jerusalem when she was stationed there. I do have more planned for him and look forward to showing him alongside Amy in the upcoming chapters. He is very powerful, but is actually quite gentle and soft spoken, unlike his counterpart, who is very brass, calculating, and serious.

These are general descriptions for both of them, but there's more yet to come.

Next chapter, we'll be taking a bit of a break from the Nephilim fighting and will be focusing on the day after. It will be a brief chapter, but it will still progress the plot somewhat. The next is called "Saturday at the mall." and I look forward to publishing that one.

Have a Fantastic day, all of you guys, please give this a fav and send your reviews, tell me how much you guys love this or hate it. I'm all ears. Anyways, later and do enjoy yourselves.