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?

12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12: At universe's end

Teri x Gumball

A/N: Hello, hello, hello, hellooooo! My single man quartet right there, give a round of applause if you thought that impression was nice! Anyhow, first impressions aside, this is a very special chapter of the Romantic/fantasy of Teri x Gumball: In between worlds. I wonder what will happen and what does this foreboding title mean? Let's find out as we dive into the chapter.

Thank you for your support by the way, I've been loving all the messages, discussions, and drawings you guys have been doing for my story. All of you are so, so awesome and if you're just a casual reader, then you too are amazing because you took the time out of your busy day to read this. Thank you so very much!

Also special shoutout to DevilMegaUltraMan for being the first to message me about Under the stethoscope being a reference to Scrubs. I was really worried that no one was going to get that one, I really love that show!

Side note: Chalon = Window in Hebrew.

Please leave a comment and fav down below and if you have any criticism you'd like to share, please do so!

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

We'll run where lights won't chase us,

Hide where love can save us,

I will never let you go!

-Spectrum by Zedd

-Elmore Park, October 9th, 2013, 4:55 PM-

"Move it, Rob!" Gumball grunted as he pushed the cyclops out of the way of an oncoming boulder.

He was very successful and not only did the boulder crash into the grass covered Earth and not their faces, but Gumball was able to hurl the rock back at the attacking Nephilim hanging in the sky. With his superhuman strength, throwing the boulder was as easy as chucking a baseball, but the Nephilim's portal proved to be very effective, yet again, in neutralizing the threat. Gumball and Rob cursed at the floating creature and drew up a defensive stance.

Having his scythe raised, Gumball kept an eye on the skyborne giant and spoke to Rob,

"Rob, fall back to the tree line and try taking out its eyes, see if it works at a distance!" he ordered and the cyclops nodded his helmet covered head in response before doing as he was told.

"Beware of that boulder though, he still has it in clutches somewhere and he'll try to use it when your back is turned!" Rob warned as he retreated.

Gumball nodded back and kept his guard up, not wanting to get creamed by an accelerated chunk of mass. His one eyed companion was wearing a Kevlar armored vest he had "acquired" from the police station that he raided at the beginning of summer and a motorcycle helmet that obscured his face. He was still avoiding the police after that incident at the Joyful Burger restaurant nearly three weeks ago and was risking a lot by coming out here in the open park, especially with his pistol-like rail cannon.

As for Teri and himself, they too were wearing different outfits today, to help avert the attention of others. Gumball was wearing a black zip up hoodie with two green stripes running along the arms and shoulders, an orange T-shirt with the Ninja Legion logo printed on the front, and some black cargo shorts. Teri was wearing a green paper shirt with black horizontal stripes, a light white hoodie was worn over her shirt, she also wore a skirt that was drawn on with a few ruffles added for texture and some shaded in leggings that had star-shaped holes on the knees.

Gumball carefully pulled out his phone and called his other companion, who was also in the sky,

"Teri, have you figured out a weakness on that thing, yet? I think I see a car pulling in and if it's a family then we're going to have to wrap this up fast!" he kept his voice calm, but his panic was starting to rise when he saw a red Jeep starting to pull into the park's parking space.

Teri's voice came in through the speaker and the first thing she did was grunt in frustration,

"No, that Nephilim's got eyes surrounding it's entire body and the only thing I can confirm looks like a weak point is that core at its center." things were sounding very grim and Gumball could hear it in her tone.

"Thanks for the update. We'll try to draw it further away from the open grounds and I'm going to see if Rob can obscure it's vision, maybe that'll work." he replied before hanging up and he looked the Nephilim up and down again.

It was another strange one, lacking an actual "body" per say, the fearsome giant was a pair of golden rings with one set inside the other and tilting at different angles. On the outer edge of these rings were emerald green eyes that watched the defenders of Elmore carefully, giving it a 360 degree view of the battlefield and making it very hard to sneak up on the creature. The eyes also served as its primary weapon and defense, wherever an eye looked, a shadow of said eye would appear on the designated area and would generate a portal that would pull any kind of material into an unknown realm before ejecting the object via another portal, typically at high speeds.

They've been fighting it for seven minutes now and neither of them have been able to score a hit on the darn thing, but the good news was, it didn't seem capable of generating more than eight portals at a time. Rob deduced that this may have been due to the amount of energy required to generate these gates, but in reality, it was anyone's guess as to why this was. For all they knew, it could just be cautious and waiting to figure them out before unleashing a barrage of overwhelming strikes.

"Aw shoot!" Gumball exclaimed as he spotted the silhouette of an eye hovering above him.

He leapt backwards as the eye's iris widened into a portal and out came the boulder he chucked at it, raining down at high velocity like a stray meteor. The rock broke the ground as it landed, sending dirt flying in all directions like a blast from a cannonball and Gumball was on the move once again. He noticed a glowing light forming in front of its core, a spherical object that matched the color of its skin that levitated in the center of its concentric rings, and from this light multiple bolts of green energy shot out seemingly in no particular direction.

That was until he saw the second portal and watched as the green bullets disappeared within the gaping hole. Then he saw Teri riding atop her origami sparrow and when the Nephilim started shifting its inner ring to focus its eyes on her, Gumball's eyes widened in terror. He quickly dialed up Rob, who was already in the forest area of the park and obscured from sight,

"Rob, we need a smoke screen on that Neph ASAP!" Gumball called into the phone.

"Roger!" was his reply and there was a click soon after.

Meanwhile, the beast itself was already locking onto its airborne prey and Teri could see this clearly. She had a hydro-trident rune at the ready as well as a moon barrier rune for defense, what she wasn't seeing was the portal opening up behind her. Rushing up for an all out attack, Gumball shouted at the flying Pepakuma,

"TERI, BEHIND YOU!"

Luckily she was close enough to catch that and without even spinning her head to confirm Gumball's warning, she willed the sparrow to dive, just as a stream of glowing green projectiles tore out from the empty space behind her. Her bird's tail got grazed by the first energy bolt, charring it a bit, but for the most part, she was still flying. On the ground, she could see Gumball leaping at incredible heights, heading towards the floating spirit with his scythe already burning with silver energy.

From the forest, Rob eyeballed the shot and pulled the trigger. There was an electronic hum and the copper projectile was launched on a rail through a series of electro-magnetic accelerators. Moving faster than sound, the enchanted bullet reached the Nephilim before Gumball closed the halfway point and a cloud of smoke erupted from the copperhead, blinding everything within an inky black vapor.

Although, Gumball couldn't see the Nephilim anymore, he knew where it was and discharged the grey fire in a deadly, amplified swinging arc. At the same time, Teri launched her hydro-trident right into the smoke cloud and the water formed fishing spear sailed right into a blackened, unknown fate. Seconds later, however, two portals opened up behind them and a wave of grey fire shot out towards Teri and Gumball's head was nearly skewered by three icy tips. The two barely dodged an untimely death by their own attacks and when the smoke threatened to clear up, Rob unloaded a newly equipped magazine of Mica shatter arrow runes into the Nephilim's general vicinity.

The enchanted projectiles darkened and shattered into dozens of arrows comprised of the grey, layered stone with a pearly luster. Multiple arrows were swallowed up in the eight portals, but some actually made it through and struck the Nephilim in the eyes, causing five to shatter. The Nephilim was angered by this and moved its rings out of the smog where it could see everything clearly once again, looks like relying solely on its spirit senses wasn't going to cut it.

Teri caught onto what had happened and formulated a plan,

"It's got excellent vision and senses, but it can't take overwhelming firepower, especially when it can't see very clearly." she realized and flew down to where Gumball was now standing, having landed after leaping up to attack the sky rings.

He spotted her approaching and made way for her to land, he still felt happy whenever he saw her. He told himself that he was going to confess his feelings towards her on Monday, but it was Wednesday now and he hadn't managed to utter so much as a peep about it. In all honesty, it was because he kept chickening out at the last second, he would get all flustered when he approached her and whenever she spoke, he would make a buffoon of himself trying to think of a topic that wasn't about that.

He wanted to tell her today after school when there were very few people around to see how badly he would mess up, but then they got a call from Rob about the Nephilim showing up at the park and they had to head on out. Seriously, of all the times these dastardly deviants could show up, they wait for nearly three weeks and then show up during one of the biggest internal dilemmas of his life!? What a lousy way to end school, but at least Miss Simian wasn't teaching anymore, so there's one bucket of stress never coming back.

He watched Teri make her way up to him after dismounting from her ride and Gumball found his eyes locking back onto the Nephilim, which had hovered to another spot to begin attacking them.

"Find anything?" he asked, referring to the ringed monstrosity.

Teri nodded and gave a simple mmm-hmm, before spelling out her plan,

"Yeah, it can't take too many hits and it's senses can be obscured if its eyes are covered-!" she jumped back as a portal opened up in front of them and a slew of mica arrows came racing towards them both.

Luckily, Gumball reacted quick enough and used the scythe's enhanced speed to get in between the incoming projectiles and Teri, spinning his scythe in a circle to destroy all of them,

"So we need another smoke screen from Rob and I guess you want him to unload another barrage too?" he inferred, swatting away the last arrow.

He was on point and Teri nodded in agreement, pointing to her bag as well to say something,

"I can also distract it if I make several paper airplanes, but that's going to take me a minute." she explained.

Gumball shot her his cockiest grin and a fire was lit in his eyes, he knew he could make her plan work,

"Rob and I will give you all the time you need!" he exclaimed confidently and he wondered how can he appear so confident in front of the girl he loves, but turn to jelly the moment he tries to confess to her. The Nephilim should be the scariest thing he'd encountered all day and not the overbearing dread of possibly being rejected.

Actually both were pretty terrifying in their own right.

He didn't notice the boulder being hurled at him from the side, but was saved by his very competent paper partner when she hurled a paper shuriken she had formed before entering the battle and watched as the explosive rune reduced the flying rock into smouldering fragments of charred bits. Gumball was utterly impressed by her quick reaction time and he caught her flashing him a wily smile before taking off towards her sparrow again,

"Keep your eyes open, dork!" she called back to him, her voice almost flirty.

Gumball merely chuckled and rested his scythe on his shoulder, shooting her another silly look,

"As you wish, captain Pepakuma!" he responded and he saw her give a shake of her head while a hidden smile formed on her bear-like features.

Soon she took off into the air again and Gumball was back on the move, he called Rob and explained to him Teri's plan, which he was all in for,

"Alright, I'll keep the smoke screen up and use my drone to lay down some cover fire. Keep an eye out for any retaliations and when Teri makes her move, I say you should make a direct line for the Neph's core and take it out." he further explained.

Gumball found that plan to be satisfactory and spoke his agreement into the phone,

"Okay, we should be done with this in about three minutes and you'll be able to make it back just in time for lunch with that neighbor you've been flirting with." he said with a snicker, having been told by Teri about her encounter with Rachel at the mall and used that knowledge to tease Rob relentlessly through spamming texts.

Rob's angered screech could be heard from the other end and even across the park as he gave the running blue cat an earful,

"For crying out loud, Watterson! If you make one more comment towards Rachel and I, then I'm switching your name to Pooh the toilet scrubber in the city's official database!" he threatened before hanging up.

Gumball snickered some more and kept up with the Nephilim's barrage of energy bolts, using his superior speed and strength to dodge and deflect each attack. This went on for a bit and from the treelines, Rob fired round after round of smoke shade runes at the Nephilim, while a remote controlled EMP resistant quad-rotor drone sent from Rob's pack began to fire rune tipped explosive rounds at the Nephilim trapped within the cloud. The double ringed entity spun itself in a rapid fashion trying to catch every projectile it could and send it back to the source or towards the racing feline just outside the smoke screen.

Meanwhile, Teri tore paper after paper out of her spare notebook, forming each one into a well-crafted paper airplane and laying each one at her feet. She was a ways away from the battle and she could hear the various explosions being set off by the boys as well as the retaliatory blasts coming from the Nephilim, causing her to hurry. She could guide the planes a little bit with her own ability and once they were swarming the giant in a chaotic fashion, it should give either Gumball or Rob an ample opportunity to deal a devastating blow.

In her bag she also had an extra large sheet with three moon barriers drawn onto it, she really liked how it provided Gumball and her a dome of protective energy against Gorothim's strikes and wanted to make sure her allies and herself could be safe in case the monster tried anything new. She also kept in mind that there was possibly a family approaching and she may need to protect them as well. They were both smart to wear different clothes today, as it should keep some suspicions low, but they weren't one hundred percent covered, not like Rob at least.

"There, done!" Teri breathed as she looked upon her assembled army of thirty paper airplanes.

She gathered them all up and took to the skies, back to where the deadly conflict was starting to heat up.

The problem with obscuring an enemy from sight was that it was very hard to predict what they were going to do and the only thing keeping Gumball from being torn to shreds by the Nephilim's counterattacks was the training his mother gave him on Sunday. She didn't teach him much in the way of combat, they spent most of the evening doing exercises and some basic techniques, but the hard work helped trim Gumball's body and honed his senses a little bit more. Having practiced all the way up to now, Gumball was a step better at acting reflexively and was dodging each rapid fire attack the Nephilim dished out from the inky cloud.

Rob's drone was eventually taken down by a stray shot that clipped two of its rotors and the beast sent the device flying through the trees after swallowing it up in a portal. Following soon after, Gumball was caught off guard when several explosive shells that were captured from Rob's drone were deposited at high speed directly at him and the resulting explosions knocked Gumball off of his feet. His head hit the ground hard and a grunt followed by a pained groan escaped his lips, but at least nothing was broken. Well, there was a ringing in his ears that was persistently annoying him, but there was nothing he could do about it.

Flying high, Teri spotted the action happening below and began to send every plane she had to the blinded Nephilim,

"Alright let's see you keep track of all of these!" she said with a maniacal grin as she tossed another plane into the air.

The swarm of light, unmanned aircraft banked around in a single file line and entered the monster's smoke field, causing it to react in surprise as it sent plane after plane into the portal dimension and out in some other direction, keeping the flying crafts away from its core in fear of a sneak attack. Unfortunately, it had forgotten about the little blue figure that was getting back up onto his feet and was glaring at the Nephilim with a set of hungry, determined eyes.

"Team attack: paper cut!" he said to himself as she switched the blade to an outward facing position and charged in at the monster.

His vision was cut out the moment he entered the gaseous cover provided by the cyclops, but when he saw several flashes of light, he could see that the double wheel Nephilim was blasting the paper airplanes out of the air rather than just teleporting them away. It didn't even notice him traveling underneath its central body and Gumball knew that Teri's plan had it fooled.

Standing underneath the core now, Gumball readied his weapon and charged it with thirty percent of his energy, the highest he could go without exhausting himself in a matter of minutes. Next, he felt a buildup of power in his legs and with a single pounce he rocketed up to the spherical object set hundreds of feet above him. Soon, the flying kitten was leveled with the Nephilim's heart and he could see that the golden object was just as big as him. Through the darkness, he could see his full body reflection and his grinning face on the surface as he prepared the finishing move,

"Die and don't ever come back!" he shouted before he swung hard like a batter hitting a pitch.

The curved blade sunk into the core like a silver fang and a geyser of grey fire erupted through the gash, burning and cutting farther into the Nephilim's real body. The death of the creature was signaled when the core turned black and its golden sheen began to lose its luster. Gumball dropped to the ground, swinging his scythe in a circle around his wrist before bringing it to a rest on his shoulders.

However, the Nephilim wasn't finished and had one last move, a last ditch attack from beyond the grave. From the gash on its core, a ray of light pierced the darkness of Rob's smoke bomb and its two rings glowed with brilliant intensity. With the light of a sun burning into Gumball's eyes, the shocked kitten quickly threw his arm over his sensitive orbs and tried desperately to blot out the blinding spectacle.

"Something's wrong! I thought I killed it?!" he thought in alarm.

Soon from the core, a portal opened and expanded to the length of the outer ring, which had a diameter of one hundred feet. From the other side, outer space could be seen and within an instant the vacuum began to pull everything within the portal's range into space. Everything including the smoke, blades of grass, dirt, rocks and even poor Gumball was pulled upwards towards the large opening.

Gumball screamed like he never had in his life and quickly sank his scythe into the ground, hoping to keep himself anchored. His blade seemed to catch a root and secured the flying cat boy in place as he was lifted by the force of the vacuum towards the portal. The wind screamed around him, causing his ears to pop, his eyes to water and he even found the air being drawn from his lungs, making it very hard to breathe.

To make matters worse, despite all the agony he was feeling, nothing compared to the fright he felt when he felt the weapon's sharp edge start to cut through the root and gave way to the extraordinary force that was pulling him skyward.

Having landed not too long after throwing all of her paper airplanes, she tucked her origami away in her bag and got ready to help Gumball if need be, but stopped when she noticed something odd. Teri saw the glowing light from Rob's smoke bomb cloud and seconds later the vaporous blanket was sucked away as though a giant suction device had pulled it from the air itself. She thought that it was another trick brought on by the Nephilim and she was right, only to find something far more dire. Her eyes shot open with horror as her pupils shrunk to pea-sized dots when she spotted Gumball holding for his life as a portal, bigger than any of the ones she had seen the Nephilim use, threatened to pull him into space!

She didn't know how it was doing this, but that hardly mattered as Gumball's life was in danger,

"GUMBALL, NO!" she shrieked and she took off towards him.

She pumped her legs as hard as she could, seeing that every second that passed, Gumball's scythe's hold on the Earth weakened ever so slightly and threatened to send the young child tumbling to his death. While she ran, she reached into her bag and pulled out an extra large sheet of paper, the one with the three barrier runes on it, and started willing the paper to reform itself. She knew she that once she reached him, she wouldn't be able to pull him out because she too would be pulled in with him and it already weighed in on her mind that this was a one-way trip for both of them.

It didn't matter though, she loved him and that was all it took to force herself to move faster. If they were both pulled out into space, then she could save them and come back to Earth. The bubble should keep them safe and provide a necessary environment against the hostile territory they were about to enter.

With a final tug from the escaping air, Gumball's scythe tore through the single root he had caught himself on and like an invisible hand, he was yanked upwards towards an icy oblivion, devoid of any air or life. Gumball let out a final scream as he flailed about and closed his eyes for the inevitable. Seconds later, however, Teri reached the portal and was pulled in as well, feeling her paper body slam into his own as they were both pulled upwards.

Her origami, a paper device shaped like a four-pointed star wrapped around them both and closed up in a pyramid, like a flower when the sun has set. Moving quickly, Teri willed the rune to operate and around the paper craft she assembled, a transparent bubble materialized, encasing the two children and the paper craft within an airtight space. Not too long after, the bubble was pulled in through the opening, which closed behind them in a single flash of light, and just like that, the Nephilim, some Earth, and the two kids were gone.

From where the trees were, Rob stood still, unable to wrap his mind around what just happened, heck, he wasn't even sure what he saw was real and wondered if this was all a dream. He just saw his two Nephilim fighting allies, the ones who have been defending Elmore since the very first ones showed up, and the ones who had been kind enough to let him into their group with no real expectations disappear into a portal that, from the looks of it, lead to the stars. That couldn't be right, if they were pulled into outer space then that would mean that they were…

"No…" Rob muttered to himself, shaking his head and grasping both sides of it, his rail cannon falling to the ground,

"No, no, no, no, no, this can't be… this can't…" his pupil shrank in terror and guilt started to form in his mind when he realized that he could have saved them.

He could have fired a barrier rune above them, he had plenty of those, some were even larger than the opening itself and he could've gotten it to them in less than a fraction of a second. He could have ordered Gumball to get back and take the Nephilim out himself with a powerful destruction spell. The teleportation rune he had with him wasn't even known to the two, he could have assured their safe return. He could have done literally anything else to save them from an untimely death and he just sat there like a useless lump because…

He thought Gumball could do it, that was the only reason why, he sat back and let Gumball take the shot because that's what he was used to.

Seconds passed by and turned into minutes while he just stood there, not even noticing how much time was passing. He didn't even care if anyone spotted him, he could care less if even the police showed up and took him away for his crimes. The scene replayed itself over and over in his mind and the polygonal grey cyclops knew that it could have been prevented somehow.

His bottom soon found the grass covered ground and he wondered what he was going to do now. The mad inventor had a lot going on right now and he wasn't even sure if he could defend the city against the Nephilim on his own. He could try to enlist the help of Hector, but Fjel said that he needed more time to train and he had also gotten the message from Gumball that Mrs. Jotenheim didn't want her son getting involved with the giants anyway.

If that didn't make things bad enough as it was, what was he going to tell their parents? Surely they would notice that their children have gone missing and while he didn't know much about the Pepakumas, he did know for a fact that the Watterson's were not ones to take such news lightly, especially his mother. Surely, they would blame him for their deaths and to the cyclops trying to explain to both families that their children were caught up in a secret war against evil, invisible giants was a mountain in of itself to climb.

There had to be some way to fix this and he pondered his options as he sat by himself on the grassy hill. When his thoughts turned to magic, something hit him and his head shot up from its hunched position. There were two, maybe three, people he could turn to for help, depending on the situation. He saw Teri encapsulate them both in a barrier rune before they were whisked away into the cosmos, if they were still alive then it was all just a matter of finding them.

If not and it was too late to save them, then there was one person who could help him reverse things…

"I know what I must do!" he proclaimed boldly, clenching his fists as he stood tall.

He reached down and retrieved his long ranged weapon from the ground before pulling a familiar turquoise disk from his pocket. The disk had a spiral rune carved into one side and would allow Rob instantaneous travel to any location he desired, so long as he could picture it clearly in his head. He clutched the device tightly in his hand and concentrated as he poured his spiritual energy into the symbol, soon a portal opened up into his bedroom at the duplex,

"They may have about an hour of air left so I have to hurry. There's also the danger that they could run out of energy too and the barrier's structure will-!" he cut himself off before he could finish that sentence. He had a mission to complete.

With his goals set, he stepped through the portal and the opening closed behind him. Unbeknownst to the cyclops, he left just as a group of kids began to enter the park and began to investigate the area. Among them, a ghostly girl watched the hill nervously as she tagged along with her group and hoped that the figure she saw wasn't anyone she knew.

-outer space, 5:12 PM-

In the far reaches of space, a single window opening to a little blue planet ejected an unusual craft contained within a magical bubble of spiritual energy and the window closed not too long after, leaving the little object to drift as it carried itself with its own motion. The spacecraft's two occupants felt the Earth's gravity immediately diminish, causing both the boy and girl to float about the enclosed space. There wasn't much room in this miniscule capsule of paper, barely enough for both kids to stretch their legs, but regardless of the uncomfortable circumstances they found themselves in, Gumball and Teri were glad to be alive, for now at least.

Gumball gasped as soon as he opened his eyes and he frantically searched about the cramped room he found himself in. He thought that he was carried out into space, but as soon as he laid eyes on the trembling paper puppet that was hugging him ever so tightly with one arm, as well as the paper walls that enclosed them, he realized what had happened and the only thing that came was a sense of relief for the lucky kitty.

He looked at Teri again and saw that she was no longer trembling, instead now looking about the ship's tiny cabin,

"Wha- what happened?" Gumball stammered, still somewhat frightened considering they were weightless, a clear indicator that they were trapped in space.

It took a moment for the paper bear to collect her thoughts, she looked at Gumball and saw that he was in good shape, filling her with a sense of bliss,

"I… I saw you being pulled into a portal and I came to save you." there was a pause before a look of regret wrote itself on her features as she sighed,

"I knew I wasn't going to be able to pull you out and there was no time to think of anything, so I just ran while creating this-" she gestured at the pyramid shaped craft they were in,

"-to keep us both safe. I didn't know what else to do." she explained regretfully.

She felt a pair of arms wrap themselves around her torso and a furry cheek brushed hers, a sniffle could be heard from the cat causing Teri to realize that he was on the verge of crying,

"Thank you." he sobbed,

"When that portal opened up above me, I thought for sure I was going to die this time, but you… you…" he broke down now. He wasn't crying tears of sadness, but rather tears of joy, the joy of being rescued by someone he loved.

Without gravity to pull them down, his tears collected themselves into large globules that clung to his eyes, forcing the cat to wipe them away with his hand. All the while he cried, Teri held him close and felt herself too start to cry. She was happy as well, happy that she was alive and so was he, she had saved him, so what reason was there to be sad?

For awhile they just let it all out and continued to cling to one another as they slowly bounced from one wall to the next. It was kind of an awkward feeling to be floating about like this, but Gumball was certain he felt this feeling before, like he had been in a microgravity environment and he just couldn't quite place it. Eventually they dried their tears and Teri looked to the rear of the paper craft where the base of the pyramid widened into a pillow-sized square that had the barrier runes drawn on its surface,

"I'm not sure how long that's gonna last with my energy pouring into it, but it's the only thing keeping air inside this place." she said with a worried sigh.

The moment Gumball saw what she was talking about, it made sense to him how they were still able to breathe and he looked down at the scythe he was still clutching in his hand,

"Oh, I can take over, if you'd like?" he offered, closing his weapon up in order to prevent any accidental punctures within the capsule's hull.

Teri looked at him with a vexed expression and a silent huh? formed on her lips,

"Wait, you'd actually do that?" she questioned as though he were asking to hold an umbrella for her on a rainy day.

Gumball nodded and smiled reassuringly,

"Of course, I'm really good at controlling my spiritual energy right now! I can keep the shield going at just five percent and it will be hours until I run out!" he explained while pointing at the collapsed stock of his scythe to further illustrate his point.

Teri had to keep herself from smacking her own head for forgetting that Gumball had been working hard on honing his scythe's powers because the thing itself drew out on Gumball's energy while amplifying it as well,

"Oh, okay, yeah that makes sense! Why don't you do that while I draw up some windows so we can see what's on the outside." she suggested.

Gumball gave her a salute and put his scythe in his bag before placing his hand on the barrier runes,

"Absolutely, captain Pepakuma of the U.S.S. Papercat!" he grinned in a silly manner as Teri rolled her eyes and blushed.

"You're ridiculous and I'm surprised that you didn't name the Nephilim we fought today." she remarked.

While she worked her way to the front, Gumball concentrated and released his energy, much like he would his grey fire rune, into the three symbols, overriding Teri's control. Outside the barrier expanded in size and held steady under Gumball's influence. Pulling out a marker, Teri began to draw on some windows that covered the entire front half of the craft so that they could both have a greater field of view and listened as Gumball answered her earlier statement,

"Actually, I already have a name for the Nephilim: Throne." he announced.

While Teri drew on the second window on the second face, she spoke back to him, curious in his choice of names,

"Why Throne?" she asked, carefully making a straight line that ran from one edge to the other.

Gumball flipped back to a recent memory and explained,

"Well, mainly because it looked like one of those angelic servants of Jade depicted in some of his scriptures. They're called his celestial beasts and there is a cast of them called "Thrones" which look almost exactly like the Nephilim we encountered today only that they're supposed to be on fire." he took his hand off the barrier rune, now having full control of the spell and needing only to keep diverting his energy to it,

"It was either that, or I could have just named it Beyonce, since it had two rings meaning she must've really liked it." he said with a short laugh.

Teri laughed too and shook her head for the umpteenth time, this boy and his jokes. Soon the task was completed and Teri willed the windows to become transparent. She did the same thing once with a paper craft replica of an SR-71 Blackbird after they had defeated Concretin on the bridge so many weeks ago and Teri wasn't sure if this ability was an offshoot of her mother's or if her father had an ability that he hasn't shared yet. Regardless, the entire front half of the ship faded into a transparent point and the kids were struck with the most incredible view ever placed before them.

Spreading before them like an infinite blanket was a sea of stars! Trillions upon trillions of bright specs of light, twinkling and dotting the black canvas like a mad artist spraying pure light on his work. It was chaotic, seemingly formless and from another point, they could both see a red Nebula exploding in a brilliant red plume of cosmic gas, the remains of stars long since dead. It was the same view all around, no matter where they looked and if the ship wasn't here, Gumball and Teri could've sworn that they would fall if they stepped out into this breathtaking abyss.

There was absolutely no words either could use to describe the universe's majesty and to them, the craft felt even smaller than before.

As beautiful and glorious as it all was, there was one problem to be found in this infinite horizon or rather couldn't be and that was their precious Earth. No matter where the two looked, there was nothing in sight that resembled their little blue globe or any celestial body for that matter that could have belonged in their solar system. While Gumball never studied the constellations during his geography, history and mythology classes, Teri, being an astute learner, knew of several constellations, yet there were none to be found here.

A bead of sweat made its way down her back and the paper bear kept looking for anything that would give some indication as to where they were, but still came up empty-handed,

"Um, where are we?" she asked, although she suspected that her partner had no answers for her, seeing as even she couldn't make heads or tails of their location.

Unfortunately, Gumball did know where they were and a feeling of utter despair so great, so soul crushing was brought down on him from the dark recesses of his mind. After carefully inspecting the crimson nebula that was to the craft's right for a few seconds, his scrutiny was awarded with a memory not so distant and he realized without a doubt, he had seen this place before. He turned to Teri and gulped as his brow trickled with perspiration,

"Teri, I know where we are…" he trailed off, still feeling the darkness that was dread clouding his mind.

Surprised and somewhat relieved, Teri's head spun so fast that a gust of wind was generated from the motion, her eyes wide and curious,

"What? How do you know?" she asked, her mind boggled.

Gumball swallowed again, he wasn't even sure if he had the stomach to tell her, but he knew that if he didn't then nothing would really change their doomed situation, and so like a band-aid being ripped off, he went through with it,

"A while back when I was hanging out with Carrie and Darwin, I once took a look through Colin's glasses and believe it or not, this place is the exact place I saw back then." he explained, his tone low and his eyes devoid of light.

Teri cocked an eyebrow and arched her head to the side a little, she knew of the egghead Gumball was referring to and was surprised that his eyewear was beyond that of normal prescription glasses, but then again their world was a strange one, so she chose to focus on the present issue,

"So where are we then?" she repeated a second time, now directing her question at Gumball.

Here it comes. The little blue furball was already dreading the moment as it was, but at this point, he had already succumbed to the horrific realization that wasn't bound to change any time soon.

He sighed and directed her attention towards the nebula with his pointer finger, speaking with a grim tone,

"That, right there, is the edge of the universe, Teri. We're billions of lightyears away from home." he replied.

-Elmore Park, 5:22 PM-

Anais inspected the ground carefully, noting the large patch of freshly dug up Earth, no, it wasn't dug up, it was torn like some powerful force ripped the very spot from existence and from the surrounding area, none of it was in sight. It was just gone, like that, swallowed up into nothingness. There were other notable abnormalities in the given area as well, rocks that have been flung at high speeds into the dirt, smouldering craters of charred dirt and burnt grass that was still warm, and a few other things.

There was definitely a fight here and it happened recently too, Anais was sure of it,

"You're definitely right, Chimera, it was here." she called out to her partner and first real friend.

Chimera, a towering figure comprised of different toy parts cobbled together to form a body fitting of the name he was given, nodded in agreement and looked about with his dark, purple eyes,

"Uh, yeah, it was big too. It's outer ring was a hundred feet in diameter and the inner one was eighty feet, at least, I think, and it had eyes all over it too." he explained in a brass voice that sounded almost like a croaking frog.

He was very odd indeed, with a head of a shark topped with long, glossy black hair dyed red at the edges, a brick shaped body built up of multiple interlocking blocks that once displayed varying colors, but was now painted over with a jet black coat with some red stripes added in for extra flashiness, his right arm being that of an action figure's with a studded bracelet and his left being more skeletal with a circular buzzsaw attached at the end rather than a manipulator of sorts. He stood on mismatching legs, one of an orange, scaly dinosaur and the other being that of a doll's, both which connected at a waist piece that also had a green dragon's tail protruding from his rear.

He was happy with the new look that Macey and Anais so graciously gifted him, mainly as a means to help disguise him and because the two girls had fun playing with his hair whenever they visited him in Macey's shed, but he was still nervous being out in the open where everyone could see him,

"Are you sure no one is going to recognize me by the way?" he asked, glancing over at the pink bunny in the fedora and trench coat, smoking a pipe that blew bubbles.

Checking back up on her worrisome friend, Anais gave him a wide-eyed stare and perked her floppy ears up a little,

"Of course no one will recognize you, bud, you're way too cool looking to be recognized!" she said, adding a compliment to further boost his confidence.

He smiled a big toothy grin and Macey added in a compliment of her own to further assist,

"Yeah, these highlights look awesome and black is definitely your color, that mailman and cop were completely blown away by your appearance." she said from her perch on his back, referring to Harry Gedges and Doughnut Sheriff, whom they'd passed by on their way to the park.

Macey Barnes, Anais' first and only high school friend, was about her height and wore a dress similar to hers only sunshine yellow. She had Calico skin, meaning she was mostly white with patches of black and orange covering bits of her body. Her hair was frizzy and red and connected with her pointy beard she had growing on her chin, she also had to tufts of hair on her head that stuck out like horns, earning her the nickname "goat head" which neither Anais nor Chimera ever used.

She was manning a net gun that had been placed on the top of Chimera's back in order to assist with any captures. Her parents were monster hunters, who were in charge of capturing all the monsters from the forest of doom and making sure they don't pose a threat to the lives of those in Elmore. Their extreme lifestyle, added with the fact that they live out in the woods, is what resulted in Macey being a bit of a tomboy, but all her life she had been socially awkward and hadn't made any real friends to call her own until she recently met a certain pink bunny and a forest-dwelling monster that now resided in her parent's trap shack.

Also digging the living toy's style, Carrie gave him an approving nod as well as a thumbs up,

"Yeah, it totally completes the hot rod style you've got going on there." she said before looking around the field once more.

She was floating right next to Darwin, who was kneeling down and rubbing some burnt grass in between his fins, inspecting thoroughly even though he had no clue what he was looking at. Also out here in the park were some of her classmates including, Bobert, Ocho, Tina, Jamie, and Darwin, who have all been invited along to investigate after Chimera had a dream about the Nephilim's arrival in this very place. They were all spread out and looking for possible clues, to which Carrie was a little annoyed by because the Nephilim was already gone and she wanted to go home.

She had to keep her promise to Gumball and she couldn't risk them staying around any longer, 'less they actually find something,

"Guys, I don't think we're going to find anything here." she said in a huff while folding her arms in a disgruntled manner,

"I can't sense the thing anymore and whatever happened has already long since passed, so let's try investigating when the next one shows up." she sighed as she turned to her boyfriend, hoping to have his support.

Darwin however, was determined to find out what all of this was about and to see if his older sibling was up to something sinister, so there was no leaving until he had something within his flippers,

"What? We can't give up now!" his voice cracked as he shouted in surprise,

"The marks are still fresh and there's a good chance there are still traces of the fighters left behind, also I tried contacting Gumball and Teri after Macey called about Chimera's dream, they still haven't answered their phones." he grumbled as he got back on his knees and continued his search.

From a distance, Tina also yelled back to Carrie after listening to her suggest that they throw in the towel,

"And I'm not leaving either, not until I get some answers on the creature that attacked my father!" she roared.

"Yeah, and Mr. Corneille has been subbing in place of Ms. Simian, so now I have more of an excuse to stay out late and crack some invisible heads while I'm at it!" Jamie seconded and the two continued their hunt.

Macey, who was eyeing everything carefully from atop Chimera, was also disgusted by Carrie's lack of motivation and called back down to her,

"My uncle Rupert was also killed by those things, I'm sure of it!" she claimed, referring to her father's brother, who was also a hunter, but preferred small game like wild deer, who was killed on September 8th after going for a late night stroll in Elmore. The doctors claimed it was a heart failure, which was odd, given his age and the fact that he was completely healthy, plus there were signs that one of those things were nearby at the time.

Carrie sighed in defeat and continued to drift about in a fake attempt to find clues, although if she were to find a single hair or shred of paper, she would use her dark magic to burn it up. She had mastered a few spells in her spare time, but they were all pretty simple and straight-forward dark castings and she was happy with it, nonetheless. Up in the air, Bobert hovered and scanned the area with his sensors while Ocho continued to aggravate the machine,

"Make sure you don't miss anything, you pile of scrap! Wouldn't want to embarrass your manufacturers like you did during the field trip!" he spat, referring to when the droid was shut down during the first stages of the terror, due to some kind of electromagnetic interference.

The robot stopped scanning momentarily before pivoting his large head towards the annoying gamer spider,

"Negative. Such an error will not be repeated as I have installed EMP resistant software last Monday as a precaution and you were equally useless, both then and now." he replied, his electronic vocabulator sounding very much like irritation.

This caused the black assortment of cube-like bits to redden in anger and his constant back and forth movements became faster, more irritant,

"Oh yeah! And what exactly do your calculations tell you about me! You were switched off during the whole thing and for the record, I can do a much better job at finding things seeing as I have two eyes compared to your one!" the irate spider retorted.

A buzz much like a sigh was emitted from Bobert's speaker and he turned to Ocho again, this time with his display showing an angered expression,

"According to eyewitness testimonies provided by our fellow classmates, you evacuated the moment your being was in danger of being terminated and this came from three different people, two of which had been your assigned partners." he listed off the evidence gathered while a shocked Ocho grew redder by the minute,

"As for your concluding statement, it does not matter how many eyes you possess, your sense of observation is critically low, giving you less than 13 percent of a chance of finding target objects, and also, you have been sitting there the whole time making irritating quips about my appearance." he finished before going back to his scans.

Now Ocho was boiling with rage, he had been pushed beyond his limit by the robot's hurtful, yet truthful, comments and took what he said as a personal challenge. This has always been a problem for the rage-induced spider sprite, he had a fuse shorter than that of Julian Oppenheimer Jr's and anytime he felt insulted by someone who he deemed as untrustworthy, he would raise hell to get back at them in some shape or form, usually through aggression. He sped away from the wired student in a huff and went about the park to find something important,

"I'll show you, you smartphone knock off! I'll find something so important that it'll blow this case right out of the water and then I'll melt you down into a-!" he shouted over his metaphorical shoulder when Bobert unexpectedly chimed.

"Foreign object detected!" he announced with a warning display fully featured.

Everyone looked up in surprise, most were gleeful while Carrie was horrified and Anais asked,

"Where, Bobert?"

Bobert's head tilted in the direction of said object and broadcasted its exact location,

"Optical sensors indicate the unknown object is 142 feet away and elevated exactly 29 feet in the air." he said in a droning voice.

Everyone just looked up at him with utter bafflement as they tried to figure out what he meant and Bobert facepalmed with a metallic clunk! before sighing and pointing at the forest line deep within the park itself,

"It's in that tree over there." he replied, simpler this time.

"I saw it first!" Ocho screamed in a panic.

Everyone looked in the direction Bobert was indicating and in one of the trees, they spotted what appeared to be a drone of sorts entangled in one of the upper branches. It was a simple black quad-rotor drone that one could find in the electronics store and from what some could see, there was some kind of weapon attached to it. Either way, this spelled good news for the bunny girl and the walking fish as they both leapt joyfully in the air,

"Yay!" they cheered and Anais scurried over to the forest line with a hand waving her friends over.

"Come on you guys! If that thing has a camera on it, then we can look at the footage and see who the suspects really are!" she exclaimed as she hurried on over with Darwin, Chimera, Macey, and Carrie in tow, the latter of which was looking about ready to start pulling her hair out.

She quickly zipped in front of them and stopped the charging kids in their tracks, who all gave her confused looks,

"Wait you guys!" she gasped, holding her hands out in front of her,

"That could just be any kid's toy, I've seen them play with these before and they always get them stuck up there. We can't just take it and go, what if they come back for it?" she asked, rubbing her hands together nervously as her eyes flicked back and forth between their faces.

They quietly glanced amongst one another in confusion and Anais gave Carrie a puzzled look as she stepped forward to confront her,

"But Carrie, if that drone has captured footage of the battle that happened here, we'll finally be able to solve this mystery once and for all." she explained, still looking very bewildered.

Carrie stood her ground, in a manner of speaking, and crossed her arms,

"But if it's not then we could get in serious tr-!" she was cut off by Darwin, who was siding with his little sister.

"It's alright, Carrie, we'll just look at the footage and if it turns out it belongs to someone who wasn't a part of this, then we can just return it to them in an anonymous package. Everyone wins that way." he explained, which was odd considering he liked to respect everyone's privacy, but it seems that he was willing to overwrite his own rules when it came to protecting the ones he cared about.

Macey also spoke up, adding a better point to their argument against the ghost,

"We need to find out what's causing all these anomalies, Carrie! People all over town are starting to worry and after what happened last Friday, things are starting to get worse! There are more police patrols than normal and people are demanding that the mayor do something about these unknown threats. If we help the town solve this mystery things may calm down or better yet, we can take better measures to defend ourselves." she explained, being the daughter of professional monster hunters definitely gave her more insight into matters as large as this one.

Carrie was on the verge of freaking out now. She knew she had to keep this a secret, not because Gumball told her to, but because she knew the danger herself, she witnessed it firsthand, twice! She was amazed that Hector was keeping quiet about it, probably because his mother doesn't want him placing more attention on the two of them and that was fair, in her mind.

She needed to distract them and destroy the drone or at least damage the hard-drive within before they could get their hands on it, and she knew it had to belong to one of the defenders because she could sense a faint amount of Nephilim energy shrouding the device. Luckily, something came to mind and she had a plan to distract them with,

"Actually, now that I've given it some thought, a better idea would be to wait until the drone's owner comes back and we catch them in the-!"

"Don't worry guys, I got it!" came Jamie's gruff voice as she rode Tina, who was stomping towards the tree and lifted her head for Jamie to reach.

Carrie realized that she had forgotten about the others and was about to intercept them, when Ocho also made a dive for the drone,

"No, I got it since I saw it first!" he bellowed as he raced towards the treetops like a speeding missile.

Their efforts were in vain however when a claw attached to an extended arm shot out and plucked the UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) from the branch and Bobert brought it back to himself as he held it up in front of his face,

"Once I collect the hard drive, I will insert into my interface and project the footage from today." Bobert explained as he reached for the slot that held the memory chip.

Carrie was about to fly up and stop him, when she noticed a portal opening up in the air above, not too far from where they were. Out of it came a lanky humanoid, who's features were hidden by a silver motorcycle helmet and had limbs that were staticy. His body was polygonal and in his one of his mismatching hands, he held a gun-like device that seemed to be electronic in nature.

He scanned the area with his visored eye and spotted the flying robot holding his drone, the one he had come back for after he realized it was missing once he had finished packing for his trip. He pointed his gun up at Bobert and angrily shouted,

"Hey! That doesn't belong to you, metalhead!"

Bobert ceased his attempts to liberate the H-drive from its port and swiveled his head unit until his optics were zeroed in on Rob. Unfortunately, he was too late to react as the covered cyclops fired a round from his rail cannon and after an electric hum, followed by a Brakka! a copper pellet sprang from the fiery muzzle, reaching the airborne android within a split second. The magical rune engraved on the copper ball glowed and the projectile was transformed into a net woven of electric bolts that wrapped themselves around the robot boy.

Bobert's systems went haywire as bolts of electricity were shot directly into him, causing his screen to display erratic forms of communication before his rocket-jets gave out from his feet and sent the student careening to the Earth where he landed with a loud crash.

Making a dash for it, Rob quickly cleared the distance between himself and the sparking heap of metal that twitched its limbs every now and then before prying the propeller driven device from his clamps. He looked up to see a shocked group of kids looking back at him in horror and awe, as he retrieved his lost possession from its last holder and he backed away slowly, before turning about to make a run for it.

Seeing the figure making a break with their only piece of evidence, Anais snapped out of her daze and pointed at him,

"STOP HIM!" she shrieked and everyone else snapped to it.

It was on now and the first ones to start closing in the fleeing Rob, were Tina and Jamie, both of which were very fast due to their athleticism. Rob felt the ground beneath his feet begin to shake as the thundering T-rex closed in on him and he turned his head, only to see a gaping maw surrounded by two rows of sharp teeth. He screamed as he dived out of the way, away from that mouth, as Tina clamped down on nothing but air and shot by without stopping, her immense weight plus momentum preventing her from doing so.

Jamie leapt from the back of her lizard friend and sailed towards the scrambling helmeted figure,

"Bombs away!" she roared, baring her fangs as she continued on a straight path towards him.

Hearing her battlecry, Rob spun around with one hand still gripping the drone and the other clutching his gun, he tried to drive the gun's handle into her skull, but he failed to do so, as he was caught half way and tackled to the ground by the husky middle schooler. Sitting on top of him now, Jamie wasted no time and started to pummel his helmeted head. Every time her fists struck, a dent would form in the helmet's surface and his wind visor would crack, all the while, she was roaring like an enraged lion as she drove every punch in harder than the last one.

Not being able to take it anymore, Rob shouted,

"RRRGGGHHH! GET OFF ME, YOU LITTLE TWERP!"

His voice was heard over Jamie's ear-piercing shrieks and for a moment she paused, giving Rob the opportunity to point his gun until it was pressed against her chest. Seeing the weapon, Jamie gasped and Rob smiled underneath the broken visor as he pulled the trigger. At point blank range, Jamie was sent flying backwards as an electric dragon's claw wrapped itself around her torso and placed the school bully into a frenzied, vibrating mess as her mouth foamed up and her eyes rolled to the back of her head. She eventually passed out.

Getting back up to his feet, Rob tore off the now useless helmet and heard a cry of anguish from behind. He turned to see that Darwin had somehow pulled ahead of the others and was racing towards him with tears in his eyes, a look of pure agony burning in his eyes,

"You monster! How could you hurt a girl and not apologize, you cold-blooded jerk!" he shouted in dismay.

Rob glanced over at the body that lay limp against the ground with stacks of smoke drifting from her and his eye widened in surprise,

"Wait a minute, that thing is a girl?!" he wondered to himself in amazement and he immediately felt bad for committing such a heinous act. He may have been a villain at some point, but he still considered himself a gentleman and now he had attacked a girl, provided she was on top of him, attempting to beat him senseless, and he didn't know thanks to her voice being deep, still, not cool! Also, he recognized her from the time he approached Gumball about the Nephilim and he was met with a further sense of dread when he remembered what he did.

Turning to the charging goldfish, Rob pitched the broken helmet right at him and struck the kid square in the face, knocking him backwards,

"Tell her I said sorry when she wakes up! Also, leave me alone you freaks!" he shouted to the now dazed Darwin, who was mumbling to himself in some form of gibberish as he watched several flying ducks circle his head and his eyes faded into spirals.

Rob was in the process of fishing out his portal rune when Tina's tail came flying right at him, catching him in the gut, and he was sent flying several dozen feet across the empty field where most children like to play baseball. He collided with the ground, feeling his head snap forward and his teeth click, as he came to a screeching halt in the grass. His electronic weapon had tumbled away somewhere and his eye was rolling in his polygonal head. Why was it that whenever he planned to do something, no matter how complex or simple, he would always get sent flying or end up with a face full of dirt.

Once his world stopped moving without him, he looked around and saw that he had two immediate problems. Approaching from above was a now gigantified Ocho, his levitating body positioning itself over the helpless figure in order to rain down a hellstorm of pixelated bolts and from the front, Tina lowered her head and scraped the ground with her taloned feet. She was getting ready to charge!

Ignoring the pain in his head, the polygonal former villain shot to his feet and assessed the current situation. His rail cannon was gone, but at least he two items in his bag that may help with this conundrum. Switching his drone out for two objects, a copper pellet that was one of his bullets and a frisbee that was painted with a rune.

The copperhead had a rune shaped like three arrows with circles at the tips, the three shields of Alexander, and the frisbee had a rune resembling a tree with roots that branched out and met the branches in a complete circle, slumbering oak. Clutching the three shields of Alexander rune tightly in his one hand, he delivered his energy into the object and around him, three Hoplite shields made of transparent Lilac energy formed and began to rotate clockwise around his very person.

He kept the frisbee at the ready and reached out with his now free hand to grab a shield, just as Tina roared, signalling a charge!

"Come an get it, you ugly fossil!" he snarled , baring a grin that was all teeth and gum.

At that, Tina put one foot forward and pushed herself into a leaping start, her powerful leg muscles working to deliver a crushing ten thousand pound payload to the mysterious enemy in the form of a bite. Meanwhile, Ocho began his first wave of attacks, from his bottom, in the space between his legs, white pixelated zig zags of energy began to launch and headed Earthwards. Rob kept his eye on the airborne attacker and shifted his feet, practically dancing around the energy bolts as they struck the ground around him, converting the grass and soil into matching colored blocks that faded in seconds.

And then, when his last bolt streamed from his body, Rob stood still and angled his shield until it was pointed just a little ways to Tina's side. The bolt struck and bounced off, causing the shield to disappear while the projectile sailed into the ground at Tina's feet, causing her to swerve and lose speed.

"Hey, watch it, you dolt!" she shouted after nearly getting her foot blown off.

"Quit shouting at me, lizard breath!" Ocho retaliated and pressed on with the attack after Tina did the same.

Rob repeated the same strategy and managed to deflect another pixel projectile straight at Tina, again, causing her to swerve, deccelerate, and get angry at Ocho. With one shield remaining and Tina being at a closer range, Rob grabbed the final shield and readied the frisbee in his other hand. He arched his arm back and shouted,

"Catch this, ugly!" he said before giving the white rubber disc a toss.

The enchanted toy sailed through the air, spinning like a top as it went, and without even thinking, Tina caught the frisbee in her mouth like a dog. Soon the tree on top began to glow green and from it, a tree began to emerge, a mighty oak that dug itself into the ground with its thick roots and imprisoning the mighty T-rex within its black trunk. Buried up to her head in the encroaching magic plant, Tina thrashed her head about and roared in defiance as she tried to free herself to no avail from this herculean prison.

Next, the trees branches spread themselves out in a wide canopy before multiple leaves the color of liquid mercury sprouted out and giving way to wondrous blossoms that bloomed in alluring purples and white with black stripes. From these flowers a fine mist was released, like some kind of pollen, as it gently flowed and settled itself into the flaring nostrils of the agitated Tyrannosaur. Soon she felt her eyelids begin to grow heavy, a deep slumber began to take over and no matter how hard she fought, a pleasant sleep had caressed her into the land of dreams.

With their heaviest hitter now incapacitated, Rob was easily able to finish off Ocho with a well placed deflection of his final shield and the spider sprite was taken down with another classic video game death cry belonging to a certain pudgy plumber everyone knows and loves.

Rob breathed in a gulp of fresh air and let it out before placing his hands on his knees while he hunched over,

"Okay, those were definitely the strongest of the bunch, now I just have to grab my Rail cannon and-ACK!" he screamed as a net fired from Chimera's net gun ensnared him within a web of ropes.

Hopelessly entangled, Rob squirmed and struggled as much as he could, but the netting held fast and when he tried to reach into his bag for a knife, he found his hands to be bound. He growled and snarled like a captured animal while Anais, Chimera, Macey, Carrie, and a recently resuscitated Darwin approached him. Proud of Macey's hunting skills, the pink bunny turned back to her and gave her a compliment,

"Nicely done Macey, you sure have wrangled that fiend!" she tilted her hat as Macey leapt down from her perch and joined her friend's side.

"Great! Let's tie him up and bring him back to our place." Macey suggested with an evil grin as she rubbed her hands together.

Darwin, who was sporting a nasty purple bruise upon his swollen forehead, shook his head and objected to the Calico girl's proposal,

"No because that would be kidnapping, let's just question him here while he's tied up and if he doesn't feel like cooperating, we'll call the police." he countered and Macey nodded in agreement while pouting a little.

Behind them Chimera lumbered on over to where Tina was captured and activated his buzzsaw as he worked on freeing the snoozing Rex child. Meanwhile, Carrie was all the more frantic at this point, she couldn't risk him getting captured, that was Rob she was looking at, Gumball and Teri's ally! She had to stop them now and she did the only thing she could do to prevent further catastrophe.

She raised her hands and screamed,

"NO!"

A powerful force unseen by the Wattersons and Barnes child pulled them back, away from the struggling cyclops and Carrie whispered a spell beneath her breath,

"Ferrum ora umbra! (Razor edge shadow!)" she chanted.

Materializing in the air above Rob's rope cocoon, a black, shadowy blade curved like a moon set atop a short handle cut its way through the ropes and Rob was set free. The three kids screamed in despair when they saw him get back up and snatch up his gun before taking off running again, without even looking back. Chimera, who had heard the commotion, stopped his attempts to free Tina and barreled his way towards the running lanky pre-teen.

Sadly his attempts at capture were in vain as his bulky body was too slow and Rob fished out his portal rune, activating it and disappearing with the drone in his backpack.

Dropping the kids, Carrie felt a sigh of relief leave her non-existent lungs and the floating specter allowed herself to descend a little further to the ground. Meanwhile, Anais was screaming in frustration, Macey was uttering curses, and Chimera was looking deeply sorry for not being able to catch him. Then there was Darwin, who had turned and was giving her a look that she had never seen him give before, a look of confusion masked with betrayal as he wondered why she did what she just did.

He knew it was her, there was no other person who could have pulled them up like that and use dark magic either, but why did she, his girlfriend, the person he loves and trusts the most, help a suspect escape, after he harmed all their friends,

"Why… why did you let him go?" he asked, taking one step towards her.

Carrie shrank back and said nothing. She didn't like seeing him like that, betrayed, hurt, frustrated, angry, it tore at her being and she wanted to use some kind of excuse to justify her actions. But there was nothing she could say and her mouth remained silent.

Darwin continued to stare at her in disbelief and his expression worsened when he realized she was hiding something, he could see it clearly in her uncovered eye and the way she was holding herself now,

"That was Doctor Wrecker, I recognized him, and he was here earlier, wasn't he? He was here with someone else, doing something and you knew the whole time, didn't you?" his voice was quiet, but it was trembling and Carrie knew he was getting close to snapping.

Jade, why did she do that? There was nothing she could have done, he was captured and they were going to find out regardless.

Why did she lie to Darwin? She was trying to protect him, but lying to someone, especially someone close, even if it was for their own sake never brought relief to those being lied to. She knew this herself.

Was there any way out of this? She already knew the answer to that…

Through all the stress and all the pain that was rushing through her, she finally caved in and broke down into a sobbing mess. She couldn't do this anymore and through the hands that covered her face, she spoke,

"I'm sorry…" was all she said.

Seeing the broken down state she was in broke Darwin free of his anger, his twisted features now replaced with sympathy and even though he was still angry and confused, his instincts forced him to move in and comfort her. He brought her in for a tight embrace and he felt her head nuzzle its way into his shoulder where she cried some more, her tears washing onto his shoulder and Darwin gently patted her back as he rocked back and forth slowly. In the distance, Chimera had managed to calm the girls from their frustrated rants and prompted them to join the hugging pair.

The two girls, plus the living toy, closed in on the couple and a tilt came to Anais' head as she scratched her scalp with a single finger,

"Um, what did we miss?" she asked.

"And not to be rude, but could you explain why you just helped that crazy villain escape?" Macey added, still fuming about that incident, especially since it cost her folks a net.

Keeping his flippers around her, Darwin eased back a little and peered into his ghostly girlfriend's half covered eyes, which were still wet with tears,

"It's okay." he said, his voice soft along with his eyes and he gently stroked the side of her face,

"I'm not mad at you, not even in the slightest, but I need you to tell us what's going on." he asked, his tone slightly demanding, but the sincerity in his statement showed that he did in fact care for her.

She was quiet for a bit, except for a sniffle and she rubbed at her tearstained cheeks. Darwin continued to look at her and gave one more plea, gentler this time,

"Please."

She looked at him and then over his shoulder, where everyone was gazing back at her, expectantly awaiting her response. They weren't even angry anymore, not from what she saw, just a bunch of worried people who were scared and wanted answers. Who was she to deny them the truth? Whatever happened today, whatever she told them, they would have to deal with together and when she saw Gumball and Teri again, she'll deal with them too.

Her head moved up and down in very slow nod and she gently moved away from Darwin, presenting herself in full view of everyone present. Bobert, Ocho, Tina, and Jamie were still knocked out, but she'll tell them everything later once they came to, she kind of had to since they were all attacked by someone she considered an ally. Preparing herself mentally and emotionally, she took a deep breath, clearing all the negativity and cluttered up feelings from her headspace and opened her eyes once she was ready to tell them,

"Okay, but first, you guys may want to take a seat for this one." she commanded.

And they so they sat, in a semicircle were the four children as they gathered around the ghost to hear her tale of a war that was beyond their wildest dreams…

-Rob's duplex, 5:35 PM, just after the escape-

Jumping into the bedroom he called his own, Rob's body was like a tossed ragdoll as he flopped onto his mattress and behind him the portal closed, ceasing the screaming of several children as well as the roar of the toy abomination. Turning over on the bed that was covered in a mess of bed sheets, pillows, wads of paper, pieces of junk, and food wrappers, the one-eyed void wanderer sucked in the deepest breath he could muster after realizing he had been holding it in ever since he leapt through the portal. He continued to breathe and battled his body to relax while the adrenaline was still pumping.

He placed a forearm on the space above his orb and wiped away at the perspiration that had collected itself there, groaning as he did so,

"For the love of all things magical…" he trailed off after replaying the horrific scenes of the times he was almost brutally mutilated during what was supposed to be a simple retrieval mission,

"...there goes another ten years off of my life and now they know about me." he muttered irritantly.

To make matters worse, Carrie, the spirit that was helping them by being a double agent, has now blown her cover by… helping him out in the first place.

He sat straight up in his bed and got up to march towards his desk where his void trekking gear sat, right next to the nearly completed Leviathan book he had been working on all week, and began stuffing the suit into the brown bag on his back,

"That doesn't matter right now, I can deal with that later." he grumbled as he grabbed his tin covered space helmet along with his weapon, some enchanted items, and began to head out the door,

"First things first, I gotta save Gumball and Teri." he declared as he twisted the doorknob and pushed the door outwards.

Only to meet Rachel, frozen in mid-knock, on the other side.

Both were left in shock, with Rachel feeling surprised as to how Rob got back into the house without her knowing and Rob now realizing that he failed to see the hall light on from underneath the door space. The two stood in relative silence for a moment, both waiting to see who will come out with it first and talk. Finally, the first to speak up was Rachel as she regarded the one-eyed boy with a question,

"Um, hi? How did you get back into your room without me knowing? I could have sworn that you left several minutes ago and why are you all sweaty?" she asked, finally taking note of her roommate's drenched body.

Rob had to think for a moment and waited for his brain to rattle up an excuse to quickly give,

"Uh, yeah, I was, um, in a hurry to get back home and I must've slipped back in while you we're in the bathroom or something." he said with a shrug.

Rachel wasn't convinced however, as for one, she hasn't been to the restroom or any other room in the house except the living room for the past hour now, seeing as her shift wasn't until at least another hour and secondly, she heard him talking about something,

"Okaaay and what's all this about Teri and Gumball needing to be saved? I heard you talking about it through the door and-!" she stopped herself when she noticed the gun in Rob's hand as well as the helmet tucked in the crook of his arm, her hands flew up to her face and she looked back up with fright,

"Have you been committing crimes again?!" she gasped.

At first Rob was left speechless as he tried to figure out why she would think that and when he looked at the items in his hands, he realized with regret how she came to that conclusion. His head snapped back up and he immediately tried to explain himself,

"No, Rachel, it's not what you think, I was just-!"

She turned her back to him and took off down the hallway, her fluffy hair bouncing as she sped away. She still had a hand up to her face and Rob couldn't tell whether or not she was crying. He had no time to ponder that however, as he raced after her, dropping his helmet and rail cannon as he gave chase. He caught the rainbow lass by the elbow just as she was about to exit through the main doorway and with a tug, he managed to pull her back, all the while he was pleading with her,

"Rachel, don't go, I can explain! I haven't hurt anybody and I didn't do anything wrong either!" he explained, his voice already raising to a level he wasn't used to.

She wrenched her arm out of his grasp and she whipped around to face him, her eyes were brimming with tears,

"I thought you were done with this! The reason I got a job in the first place was just so you wouldn't have to go about stealing money and robbing places just to cover for both of us! I thought what I was doing was enough and now you're doing it again while dragging other people into your messes!" she shouted as tears began to spill out from her eyelids and she turned around once more,

"Just leave me alone." she said a final time as she reached for the doorknob.

Rob, being unable to take it anymore, hit his breaking point and said what he had been trying to say the whole time,

"I'M TRYING TO SAVE EVERYONE!" he shouted, grabbing both sides of his head as though he were in pain.

And then Rachel stopped, her three fingered hand was on the bulbous knob and already twisting when she heard him. A rather odd thing to say, she had already figured that he was doing this with good intentions and she wanted to just brush it off as some lame excuse to dig himself out of the pit he was in, but what did he mean by everyone? She took her hand off the doorknob and after a long period of deafening silence, she slowly turned around and looked him in the eye,

"What?" was all she asked, her black eyes peering into his one and Rob could see so many emotions mixing within those eyes.

Calming down now, Rob hesitated and thought it over. He knew what he said and there were so many places this conversation could go. He could fabricate a lie, but where would that lead him? There were so many uncertainties here and one wrong move could cost him his closest and only friend, the only one who knew him and understood him or at least that's what she thought. He knew what she was afraid of, it wasn't the fact that he was committing crimes that scared her, she was afraid of losing him and it already seems he's at that point.

There was no other way here, he needed to tell her the truth.

Placing his hands on his forehead, a gust wind left his lips as he slid them across his face and down to his chin before placing them together and opening his eye again,

"Rachel, you're right, there is something going on here and it does involve Gumball and Teri." he started off.

Rachel's eyes seemed to open wider than ever and her fears and anxieties all came rushing back to her, forcing her to want to turn and run, but Rob wasn't finished,

"The strange power outages, the random acts of destruction, the attacks on San Francisco, there's an explanation to all of it and all three of us have been trying to deal with… something." he said, finding it difficult to condense the entire scope of the Nephilim invasion into just a single sentence.

Having heard enough, Rachel reached back for the door and shook her head in disbelief,

"That's it, I'm done, I don't want to be involved in whatever new master plan you have in store. I'm going to find out who their parents are and tell them that you've done something-!" she was cut off when Rob started up again.

"It's not crime we are involved in, there's an invisible war going throughout this city and if that weren't enough, I've been trying to find a way to cure both of us!" he explained, throwing his hands up in the air as though he were trying to capture the sheer scale of the events happening around them.

The multicolored girl was already opening the door, but stopped when she heard him mention the last part and returned with skepticism,

"Cure us? What are you talking about? Do you mean like reversing the effects of the…" she trailed off like she normally did when she was about to bring up the other place and was more lost than she was before.

Having finally caught her attention, Rob's desperation began to fade and hope returned once again, now the polygonal cyclops needed to measure his next words very carefully,

"Yes, Rachel, what if I were to tell you that all those times I spent away from the house, I was searching for answers to two major problems and one of them I had found an answer to." he waited for a moment and Rachel eventually closed the door, still scared and confused, but curiosity was overriding any common sense she had for the sake of getting an answer.

She nodded and Rob continued on, still aware that she was one step away from leaving him alone again,

"I know how to get our memories back, everything we lost to the void, we can take back and we can go back to our old lives again!" he explained, excitement flowing with every word he spoke.

Intrigued, the high schooler and former void resident, could not deny that the longing for her old life and her identity was one feeling that always accompanied her thoughts, but there was one worry she always had. She sighed and allowed her head to sway side to side, her lips were pursed before she told him how she felt,

"Rob, it's okay, I'm fine with moving on and starting a new life, we don't need to cling to a past that doesn't exist anymore, we've got each other and our whole lives ahead of us." she said, her heart feeling lighter when she confirmed this to both him and herself.

Rob retaliated with his own head shake and threw his arms up again as he thought of something else,

"There is more than just our pasts to gain Rachel, our families are still here and believe it or not, when I went down there, into the void again, I caught a glimpse of my old life where I had a father and a home to live in. We know where your folks are and we can bring you back home too!" he said.

"Rob, this is our home and you're my family." she said in a gentle voice, the smile she was giving was welcoming and her eyes shone with a warmth that, to Rob, only a loving sister figure could give.

In truth, he loved this life and he loved being with her, the past few months spent with this wonderful woman were the happiest few he ever had the pleasure to experience, but there was one more thing he needed to say,

"None of that has to change, even if we get our old lives back, I will still be your friend because I can't imagine a life without you." he promised.

At that, Rachel was still for just a moment, until she wasn't, and she rushed forward, wrapping herself around him in an enormous hug that was full of her warmth and happiness. Rob was perplexed and feeling very awkward at first, but let go of those feelings and just returned the hug, feeling the rainbow lass in his arms as his face brushed up against her ticklish hair. After they pulled away, Rachel was feeling better, but something was still bothering her and she looked up at him with concern,

"If what you were saying is true, then what about Teri and Gumball? What has been really going on with you guys?" she asked.

And then reality came crashing back into Rob like a speeding semi and he quickly rushed back to his room where he gathered his discarded weapon and helmet as well as the first helmet he made for void travel before rushing back to the main door where a puzzled Rachel awaited. He was thinking about visiting Fjel first, but he wanted to see if there was another place he could try before making the journey to the void. Pulling out his teleportation disc, Rob activated the rune and a window appeared before them, showing an empty parking garage minus a single red van that was parked there.

It was the Elmore shopping mall parking garage and by the looks of it he was correct, the Awesome Store was there where it should be. Turning to a baffled Rachel, who was shocked by the magic trick Rob just demonstrated in front of her, he took her by the hand and pulled her towards the opening,

"Right now, Gumball and Teri are somewhere else and they are in trouble, there's someone in there that can possibly help us find them, and save them if all goes accordingly." he said, although he wasn't exactly brimming with confidence.

Rachel peered into garage towards the mysterious red vehicle with a twinge of fright and anxiety before turning her head in Rob's direction,

"Promise me that you'll explain everything once we're done?" she demanded and Rob nodded in return.

"I promise, no more lies." he agreed, acknowledging her request.

The boy stepped into the magical window and with Rachel in tow, she soon fell in with him causing the portal behind them.

-Edge of the universe, 5:45 PM-

Within this vast universe, everything was always moving and heading somewhere thanks to the cosmic forces that forever pushes against the universe's outer edges, causing rapid expansion in our bubble of reality. All things, including galaxy clusters that could only be rivaled by their kin and even the most insignificant of materials, the atom, was all on the move through this silent vacuum. This did not exclude a very small spacecraft enclosed within a bubble of protective energy, with its crew of two equally silent passengers.

It had been nearly an hour since the two of them had been forced from the safe confines of their planet and neither of them had spoken since they came to terms with their now very finite existence. For them there was nothing to talk about, simply put, there was no way home for either of them and when their air finally ran out, no one was even going to find their remains as they drifted forever in the sea of stars. Laying down next to his paper companion, watching the stars as they dangled like a million diamonds just out of their reach and contemplated the events that brought them here.

Ever since he revealed their current location, he'd been feeling guilty and he knew why that was too,

"I'm sorry." he whispered, the first sound to ever be made throughout this craft other than just the normal ones like their breathing, their heartbeats, and the slight noises that accompanied their movements and it was just his apology.

Turning over until her body was facing him now, the two had been back to back the entire time, Teri checked to see what was wrong and saw that he looked very sad, which wasn't unusual given the circumstances,

"What? Why are you sorry?" she asked.

Pulling his body up into a sitting position, he only stared at the transparent front of the craft where he could see the faint film of the shield glistening on the outside, containing the precious atmosphere that they were breathing in. he sighed and placed a paw underneath his chin as his elbow rested against his crossed legs, his eyes avoiding hers,

"It's my fault that we're out here. If I had just gotten away in time, I wouldn't have been pulled in like so and you wouldn't have had to waste your life trying to save me." he said in a low voice, as though he were about to start crying again.

Taken aback by this self-loathing statement, Teri's head shot back a little as her mouth twitched and her eyebrows knitted themselves together. However, her angered expression was quickly replaced with a sympathetic one and she understood why he thought this way. Placing a flimsy hand on his shoulder, Teri reached out to console him and spoke in that airy voice of hers,

"Don't say that! You didn't know what Throne was going to do when it died, we barely understand anything about the Nephilim in the first place and my life was not wasted because I chose to save someone I care about." she corrected, feeling bad for the kitten.

It was true, she wouldn't have just sat by and let him get pulled into the portal because it lead to outer space. If there was any chance that she could have saved him and got them both back home, then it was well worth the risk. However, knowing this just made him even guiltier because now they had nowhere to go, they were trapped out here, they were both going to die in a matter of hours and it was still all his fault.

He growled and covered his face with both paws while his ears flattened themselves against his head and his tail swished back and forth in anger. Anger that was directed at no one, but himself,

"You don't get it! I was supposed to keep you safe! Your parents finally started trusting me with your safety and look where that got us! We're never going to get home, your parents are going to lose their only child, Elmore is in even more danger and it's ALL MY FAULT!" he shouted those last three words as he collapsed into another fit of sobs.

Completely heartbroken by his saddened state, Teri could only watch as her own tears began to blur her vision and she began to fall into the same sorry position he was in. She still didn't blame him for what happened, there was no way she would do that and she would have done it again and again if she had to, but he was right about a few things. They were never going to get home again, their parents were going to wonder where they went and with two defenders down, Elmore was left open to more attacks by the Nephilim, unless Rob somehow steps up the defenses to pick up the slack.

Either way, the situation was hopeless and they both knew that dying was always a high probability, but to go out like this, alone and in the middle of nowhere where no child of Earth could ever hope in a billion years to find them, was just absolutely soul crushing in its own right.

The silence started up once again, except that there was crying to fill the void now and while there was so much the two wanted to say, anything to help brighten them up a little bit more, there was no changing this sadness. Looking up from his tearstained arms, Gumball peered out into the starry space again and his mind began to wander. He was soon reminded of something else and without even realizing it, he started to say something,

"You know, after she left, I was sure nothing would get better and that it was going to be something like this for eternity." he started off.

Surprised, Teri was dragged out of her self-induced funk and checked on the cat's face again, she could see that he was gazing out into the starscape with a distant, sorrowful look, as though something was coming back to him. Something that he thought was behind him and had been fighting to suppress ever since she came to him that one night. With one glance, she was able to tell what was on his mind, or rather who was mind.

Penny Fitzgerald, the one who left.

Folding her hands onto her lap, Teri brought herself closer to the cat and continued to look at him until his gaze met hers,

"Do you want to talk about her?" she asked, afraid of him closing her out, but still feeling brave enough to try anyway.

His pointed ears shot up and his tail stopped swishing. He knew that his breakup with Penny had been bothering him for sometime, even when he thought that his time spent with Teri would help him forget, it still popped up from time to time. Seeing as they were nearing the end of the road anyway, there was no point in keeping it all bottled up, plus where was he going to get another chance anyway?

Deciding it was time to confront his demons, Gumball allowed his shoulders to heave upwards as he inhaled and then slump down as he exhaled,

"After… after she left with her family to go live in Japan, I felt as though somehow it was all my fault, like I had made their decision to move away much easier and it got me thinking about all my past mistakes." he wasn't looking at Teri anymore, his attention now fixated on his resting paws, but he continued to relay his painful thoughts and experiences to the craft's only other listener,

"I knew I was a screw up from the beginning, but none of that seemed to matter until she left, then it made me realize all my mistakes and that there was nothing I could do to make anything better. I thought that everyone else had hated me for all my foolish mannerisms that got so many of them in trouble or hurt, that there was no way to make amends for what happened. I even got Penny hurt too whenever she was wrapped up in my antics and I thought her parents taking her away to Japan was proof they didn't want her around me anymore." he then turned to Teri with a wobbly smile gracing his features and the former was perplexed,

"And then you came in and brought a monster with you. Against unbelievable odds, we defeated it and for a while, I believed I could do something right again! I thought if we could save this town and keep everyone safe, that I could somehow atone for all that has happened before and start doing good by everyone else. Every time we did something together, every time we succeeded and gave Elmore another day to live, I felt like I was rising. All the time I spent with you, it felt like things were finally starting to look up again and that it was going to be better." he was radiating a sense of hope and joy the more he spoke, until his face was riddled with another grimace as his head fell back into his arms,

"But now that's gone too." he mumbled in disdain.

Now it was all very clear to her, for a while the paper puppet was curious as to why the normally mischievous classmate of theirs was lacking in any activity and why he hadn't reached out to anyone, especially Penny for that matter. They could have made it work, they could have kept a long distance relationship, but Gumball saw himself as nothing but trouble for the shape-shifting fairy. He was forced to see the error of his ways after someone so important to him left and the weight of the guilt had crushed him.

It was honestly very tragic, but it made too much sense now and Teri couldn't but feel even more sorry for the little guy.

"If someone came to me one day before this whole thing started and told me that I was going to be facing off against an army of invisible giants and my only companions were going to be a blue troublemaking slob along with his one eyed freak of a frienemy…" she paused when she saw him looking up at her with an eyebrow raised in suspicion,

"...I would have told them to get lost or prescribe some medication for hallucinations." she said with a chuckle so light, it could have registered as a slight gasp.

Gumball raised his head and wondered to himself,

"Blue troublemaking slob? She's talking about me isn't she? Wow, harsh!" he thought before he mentally asked,

"I wonder if she's going anywhere with this?"

To his surprise, she was and when she looked back up from her folded arms, she was smiling at him affectionately,

"If I was the one to travel back to that girl, one day before this all began, I would have told her to keep your eyes on Gumball and to hold on to your breath because he's going to take it away." her smile grew even brighter as Gumball's eyes seemed to bulge from his head as his hands dropped to his side.

"What! But what about-!" he interjected, but was stopped when Teri let out another chuckle.

"You're right about a lot of things, you're definitely prone to making mistakes, but you're also right about everything being better afterwards. No matter how crazy everything became you and I were always able to come out on top and during those times I watched you mature from a self-centered child to a person I knew I could rely on, someone who would put others first." she moved to the side a bit more, very slowly, until she was pressed up against him and she placed her hand on top of his.

She gently started rubbing his thumb knuckle with her own thumb and most of Gumball's negativity was switched out with contentment and warmth,

"But how could you like me after everything I did back then, to you and your family?" he replied, still unsure of himself,

"I teased you so many times, I folded your parents into origami, I toyed with your feelings, I shredded your uncle into paper bits, and all of this I did without ever apologizing." there was so much more that he could've added and there was also the terrible things that happened to her friends that he never made up for, things that he wished he could go back and fix himself.

She still kept her hand on his and in fact, fully enclosed it within her fingers as she kept looking through the window, to the stars,

"I had given those things some thought and there was a time that I was indeed furious with both you and your brother, my parents were most displeased with being folded up like that, and my uncle Bryan was put under intensive care for a month as they tried to glue his pieces back together. He's still missing some to this day." she explained and Gumball felt his head along with his heart sink, but kept listening when she picked up again,

"But it's been a year, my parents have never forgotten about that, but they forgive you and they even appreciate you more for being the caring person that you are. I'm not so sure what my uncle thinks about you, but he's in good health now and is living a happy life with his family."

She took a deep breath and turned her head, Gumball could see that her eyes were not filled with hate or spite, but rather compassion and forgiveness,

"As for what I think of those events, some things won't go away so easily and I'll always remember them with a twinge of anger, but it's all insignificant because I forgive you." she said warmly.

Gumball smiled back at her, it was a weak one, but held his appreciation and he knew for a fact that she meant everything she said. Now it all made sense to him, he had plenty of time to make things right, he didn't need to save the world in order to do so, he could have just started by trying to be a better friend to those around him and even if no one forgave him entirely, that was fine, he'd just have to keep going with what he had. He placed his large head down on his arms again and peered out the transparent surface, a chuckle escaping his lips,

"If only I could have known. If I were to go back the day after Penny left, I would have told him keep his chin up and to reach out to others. Probably would have made some major differences and I probably would have been your friend too." he said.

Teri disagreed with this however and shook her head, catching the boy's attention,

"Don't focus on what could have happened, you dealt with it in your own way and came out of it as a better person." she said, grabbing his hand with her other and pulling herself a little closer until his face was a few inches from hers,

"Another thing I have to say regarding your past self is that even though you were a bit of a handful at times, there were still parts of you that I somewhat liked and I could sometimes see why Penny loved you. You were so outgoing, determined, and you were brave enough to speak your mind. You were never a…" she trailed off when a sudden thought crept into her mind and her heart sank in her chest,

"...you were never a coward." like me she mentally added and she lost her grip on Gumball's hand.

Noticing the sudden shift in her tone, Gumball watched as the paper bear who had been so happily praising him just a moment ago, suddenly went dark, like a sudden storm cloud appearing on a sunny day and he was confused as to why this was. He knew it had something to with the last part of what she had said and the only thing he could compare her tone with was disgust. Not towards him, but towards herself.

He quietly made his way towards her, his hand reaching and finding hers, as he gazed upon her face with soft, worried eyes,

"Teri… is something wrong?" he inquired.

The paper girl was silent and he asked again,

"Are you saying that you're a coward?" he was more than confused now and Teri seemed to shrink back even further.

Then like air escaping a tire, a sigh was heard and she slowly nodded,

"I don't think I'm a coward, I am a coward!" she exclaimed with self-hating venom.

Gumball was mentally blown away by this statement coming from the paper bear he so often stood side-by-side with in their fights against the Nephilim, causing him to shake his head in response,

"No, that can't be right! Why would you say such a thing about yourself? You're probably one of the bravest people I've ever met!" he remarked, still clutching her hand tightly and trying to bring her back to her senses.

However, his words didn't seem to reach her and she only stared at her feet with a remorseful look,

"I am though!" she shot back, her facial features twisting into a grimace as she started to remember so many past incidences that she began to relay to the troubled kitten,

"Throughout most of my life, I've been scared of just about everything! Germs were one thing, but another thing that frightened me were other people's opinions of me! I knew that everyone was annoyed by my overly protective habits, so whenever I joined other groups, I never really spoke up much because I was afraid of angering them further, so I just did what they did and hoped I didn't get on anyone's nerves. No one ever really wanted to hang out with me, but I was desperate for attention and I did just about anything to be with someone." she felt another wave of sadness kick in as another terrible memory found its way into her head and she pulled her knees up to her chest as a result,

"And then the first time I ever get a friend to come over to my place and have a sleepover, I messed that up too because I couldn't keep my germaphobic tendencies in check. Next thing I knew, Masami had left after half an hour and the next day, I still didn't do anything for myself because I was so scared that she would tell everyone how horrible I am, I even started grovelling at her feet when something important came up just to make sure she never got angry." she was trembling now and when she saw that Gumball was still holding her hand, she followed it all the way up to its owner with tearstained eyes that he couldn't see, but knew were still there,

"And if that weren't enough, I remembered all the times you were in trouble, your fight with Tina, the time you and your brother wore those karate gi's, and the one time it looked like you two were about to fight. I wanted to stand up for you all those different times, but I never did because I was afraid of what other people would have thought of me and I just joined the crowd because that's all I could do!" she sniffled and turned her head away from him as a result of her own guilt and shame.

She hated herself for doing all those things and to be fair, she still did them to this day. She hated being alone and while most of her friends were kind to her, they still regarded her as some extra to bring along much like they did with Molly. She couldn't help, but feel this way towards herself and whenever Gumball was with her, she would feel a mixture of joy and sadness. Honestly, she sometimes wondered to herself if she deserved his friendship?

But Gumball, who had been listening and forming his own response within his quiet space, had something to say about that,

"But that's not who you are now, isn't it?" he said in a gentle tone.

She turned to him once again, wondering why he didn't hate her for being such a coward, but given the light look in his eyes, he didn't seem to regard her in any negative way. Nonetheless, he continued to speak as he brought himself closer to her,

"You know, the more I think about these things now, the more I realize how little these past events actually affect us as people. Did you ever think that you would be standing by my side along with my nemesis, facing off giants, helping Tina and Tobias find a compromise, saving me from my death on multiple instances and actually starting to overcome your fear of germs? I certainly wouldn't have imagined it, but here we are now, an unlikely duo who has done all these things and would probably do them again if we ever had another chance." he explained, giving her a confident smile that made Teri smile on her own.

"I'm still on the fence with the germ thing and there are still other problems that I haven't fixed yet either." she responded, still thinking about her relationship with Masami.

Gumball gave a light shrug and another look into what he thought about that,

"Hey, I've still got some major issues that I need to work out as well, but my point being, none of what has happened before has had any real influence on your current behavior. When Silver Twelve first showed up, yes, you ran away and found yourself cowering in my room, but you still helped me when I figured out how we were going to kill it and you even pulled me away from my death at the last moment. Throughout our numerous encounters, you've always been with me to help me out, you even forgave me after I went off on my own and got you hurt in the process and I don't see any coward doing any of that." he said, causing the paper girl to light up in satisfaction.

Finding herself being alleviated, Teri was made well aware that Gumball actually had a point and that most of her issues with others stemmed from past experiences that she could have corrected herself had she just done something positive about them. This past month proved that she did have the strength to do something and that she wasn't as weak as she thought she was. Of all the people to be giving her this advice, she'd never thought she would ever hear it coming from this bumbling dork and the thought of it made her laugh for the first time since they came to terms with their doomed existence out here in the middle of nothingness.

Gumball laughed too and he pulled her into a hug once he discovered that she was feeling better,

"I actually wish that we could go back to Earth now because all I want to do is keep living life to the fullest while putting all of this behind us." he whispered, his tone both happy and sad.

Teri rubbed his back with her thumb and she continued to nuzzle her face against his neck, feeling the warmth of his ticklish fur,

"I do too, but if we're being honest here, I'm kind of happy we get to spend our last moments out here. I've treasured all the time I spent with you and I'm happy that you've been my friend all this time." she said, feeling very comfortable.

Gumball felt the passion her words brought and his only response was giving her body a gentle squeeze as he brought their hearts closer together. Now all his regrets began slowly fading and all he could think of was how happy he was to have her here with him. He was glad that she came out here to save him, even if it meant that this was it for them and then something else was brought to his attention. He'd been wanting to tell her something for a while now, but wasn't sure if this was the correct time to do so.

Still he needed to say something right now, even though he was bound to say it sooner or later, so he made a compromise and decided to close his eyes tand mouth it instead, so that he would ready himself for later,

I love you.

"I love you too."

Gumball's eyes snapped open, bringing the interior of the ship back into view and he realized that Teri had just responded to his silent declaration! No, it wasn't silent at all, when he thought he was only forming the words with his lips, he had actually whispered the words themselves and given the absolute silence that outer space brought, there was no way for Teri to miss them. Of course, did any of that matter now?

Obviously not, as Gumball replied with an overjoyed gasp and was followed by laughter as he hugged her tighter,

"Oh my jade!" he exclaimed as tears nearly sprang from his eyes. It was all he could say and there were no better words to express both the surprise and the relief he felt when he heard her respond with those four words.

Teri too was laughing with joy, having been surprised by Gumball's quiet confession. She couldn't believe that he said it! I love you, those three little words he said that she herself was too scared to say mainly because she had been so afraid of what he would have thought. She knew they were close, but she was so scared of risking their friendship by taking it to the next level, but now that fear was finally abolished from her being as she held the person who without a doubt now, loved her the same.

She pulled back to get a good look at his face and she saw the look of someone who was so amazed and relieved all at once, smiling back at her,

"Do you really mean it?!" he asked, his eyes searching hers.

She was smiling and she couldn't help but feel her heart soar as she said,

"Yes! Yes, I love you!" she pulled him into another hug and the cat was internally screaming in triumph.

"I love you too, Teri!" he replied, echoing her first response while adding her name at the end.

There was practically no space between them at this point as their bodies joined in a loving embrace and suddenly, the small spacecraft seemed much larger now. There were no other words to describe their feelings in this very moment, as a raging hurricane of thoughts and emotions ravaged their minds in a happy cataclysm that remained silent to the outside world. They were with each other now and in this lonely expanse of the universe that surrounded them with its deafening glory and silence, there was nothing that could've been better than this,

"I was trying to tell you all week, but I was so scared that I was going to mess it up and now… now I'm just so glad that I had nothing to fear." he confessed, feeling rather silly for doubting himself.

Teri heard him and understood how he felt, she too felt the same way,

"I was scared too, I wanted to tell you for so long, but I wasn't sure what you thought of me." she gently pushed herself back until she was face to face with him again, but kept a hold of his shoulders,

"I'm so happy because now I know I can do this." she proclaimed.

And without further hesitation, she leaned forward, still gripping Gumball's shoulders, and planted her lips on his cheek. She kissed him softly, holding her face there for a moment as she felt the warmth of his face against her lips before she finally pulled away. Gumball was left with a dazzled expression, his mouth hanging open in awe and his eyes alight with fireworks as his heart hammered in his chest, causing his cheeks to warm themselves as a result.

"Her lips are so soft!" he thought as he brought a hand up to the spot where he had felt them press up against and his gaze switched from her eyes to the very lips she used to kiss him with.

Without further ado, his body began to move without him realizing it and he began to lean in to deliver the same thing she had given him just seconds prior. He could already see her face starting to burn red when she saw what he was doing and simply closed her eyes as she awaited the tender moment that was about to happen, relaxing her body as a result. Gumball took note of this, grabbing her shoulders as soon as he felt her hands lax themselves, and aimed for her lips,

"Wait a second, she kissed me on the cheek?" he realized, before coming to a conclusion as to why that was,

"Maybe she's not ready for a kiss on the lips just yet. If that's the case, then I won't do it yet. Luckily, I know just the place…"

He changed his direction and kissed her on the forehead.

This took Teri completely by surprise as her eyes snapped open for a moment and saw that she was indeed staring at Gumball's neck as he kissed the space above her eyes. She didn't say or do anything however, and closed her eyes again shortly after, feeling the sparks fly as she felt Gumball's soft muzzle gently smooch her forehead. He eventually stopped the kiss and allowed his face to slide down until their foreheads her touching, his eyes were also closed.

They stayed within this close, affectionate proximity while the universe continued to spread itself around them, but the stars and nebulas went by unnoticed as the boy and girl were lost in their own little worlds. A wandering asteroid even began to pass them by, travelling at speeds that would have left most conventional aircraft feeling as though they were standing still and when it saw the tiny pyramid set in a bubble, it looked at the peculiar object never seen before by the lonely piece of debris with confusion and curiosity. It decided to stop and question the bizarre object,

"Um, excuse me, but you seem kind of new here. Are you lost by any chance?" the asteroid questioned.

The white pyramid did not respond to his curious conjecture and neither of its two inhabitants actually saw it, nor heard it thanks to the soundless vacuum. Not having the time nor the patience to wait around for an answer, the asteroid harumphed as it sped away from the strange space object and muttered to itself,

"How rude, just like that one flying saucer I came across twelve years ago. Didn't even warn me before I crashed into it, freakin introverted buggers!" he grumbled, as it soon left the craft behind in an instant.

Little did the two kids know, they would soon come in contact with something else, but this something was going to be a lot less friendly than a wandering asteroid.

-The Awesome Store, Elmore shopping mall parking garage, 6:08 PM-

For something as unassuming and ordinary as a red van parked in an empty garage, Rachel was completely knocked off her rocker when she got a look at the interior of the vehicle. The place was completely different from what she could see on the outside, with interior being far larger than the exterior, being lit only by the various bizarre and magical items casting eerie shadows across the other mysteries that lay within the deeper confines. Most of the items that were easily visible to the curious teenage girl resembled ordinary items that could be found in a cheap streetside market, but they all had funny labels and descriptions.

For example, there was a Nokian cellphone that was fitted with a description that read:

Interdimensional transceiver, allows for communication across multiple dimensions and can double as a bludgeoning weapon against threats from the unknown. Very durable, excellent cell signal across multiple planes of existence, but has poor service in both the Lovecraftian universe and Tartarus, also, be wary of who you contact, for the Awesome Store does take any responsibility for the accidental summoning of extra-dimensional horrors and possession of evil entities.

Price: $50.00, plus $25.00 for the monthly service plan.

Very odd indeed and there were others just like this set on tables and shelves throughout the place. None of that however, compared to the owner of this mysterious storefront and Rachel was sure this figure was something else altogether. To say he had a "figure" was debatable as he was just a shadow with a pair of glowing eyes and a quiet male voice that sounded disembodied. He never left his shop and would often dip in and out of sight whenever he was explaining something to the pair of kids, but he seemed rather friendly, if not a little unsettling to the rainbow haired girl.

Of course, the only person doing the talking was Rob, who seemed very familiar with this person and Rachel could already tell that these two had a history, though probably very brief given that both sounded like nothing more than simple accomplices. They had been here for a few minutes already and with a discussion held over coffee generously provided by the Awesome Store owner, Rachel was introduced to the living shadow and was given a brief explanation as to what he did and how Rob knew him. Now they were in the middle of discussing what had happened to Teri and Gumball, which Rob had to build up to with an explanation detailing the events that had occurred the month prior,

"...and they were both pulled into a portal to space, you said?" the Awesome Store owner asked, wrapping up his overview of the given situation.

Rob nodded with a grim expression, his four fingered hands wrapping around the still warm cup of Joe that was also decaf as he held the drink close to his face while he sat on a stool provided by the mysterious owner of the van,

"That's correct, and I don't know where in space they are. I was hoping that-?"

"-that I would have a way of finding them for you." he interrupted, finishing the cyclops' sentence.

He sounded very displeased and his glowing eyes were narrowed at the one eyed one sitting not too far from him. Going back a few chapters, Rob remembered his last meeting with magic hoarder and what happened after he obtained the universal remote. He trashed his store after taking the device for himself to destroy Gumball with and when he returned after learning the error of his ways, he smashed the remote right in front of him, a priceless item that probably was worth a lot to the owner. Despite the few dealings they had in the past, Rob was certain that the Awesome Store owner had never forgiven him for his mistreatment and now he feared that it was all coming back to bite him in the butt.

However, the moving shadow let out a snort from unseen nostrils and turned about to head for a doorway that lead him to the upper levels of his pocket dimension,

"Honestly, I'd rather not help you for what you've cost me in the past, but seeing as the one you mentioned, Gumball, has a father that is one of my most valued and frequent customers, I will only help you for the sake of keeping my customers loyal." he said in a snarl that held no sympathy for the young lad, who's head hung low in shame.

With that he disappeared up the stairs and left the two alone in his shop's first floor.

With the quiet they have been gifted, Rachel took a moment to process everything she had heard and moved her seat until it was right beside Rob's,

"So, you, Teri, and Gumball have been battling invisible giants called "Nephilim" for a month now?" she asked, pretty much summing up everything she heard coming from him.

A silent nod from Rob as he brought the cup to his lips and sipped at its warm, creamy contents. Rachel held her head low for a moment as she stared into her own cup and saw her faint reflection within the black surface. Straightening herself out, she sat up and rolled her shoulders a bit, ridding her joints of the kinks that have built up from all the stress that the tension brought them,

"And they're the ones responsible for all the strange phenomenon in Elmore, as well as the three mysterious deaths, the attacks on San Francisco, and they all take orders from a guy named "Nimrod" who is their president, correct?" she further questioned.

Another nod and Rob said,

"Yes, everything I said was true." he looked her in the eye to show that he was being sincere.

It all came crashing down on the young teenager, who couldn't believe that this was all happening and that it had all come to their weird little city. This was all too disturbing, she read sci-fi books and seen some films with Rob or her friends depicting alien invasions, but all that was supposed to be imaginary nonsense made to scare and entertain audiences. The only wars that should be going on right now, should be the ones out in the middle east, but having something this big and horrifying be brought into her own place was unimaginable.

It was causing her to panic as worries and anxieties for the future as well everyone else's safety began to fill her mindspace,

"But why are they invading us?" she demanded, desperately needing answers to these uncertain questions of hers,

"If they can travel between dimensions, why don't they just try talking to us? Are we seriously that big of a problem to them that they would just try to exterminate us like common pests? What did we ever do to deserve this?!" she placed her drink on the floor before gripping the sides of her head as she pulled her legs up to her chest, assuming a troubled fetal position.

A voice rang out from the stairwell and the two kids could see that the shop owner had returned, this time holding a glass orb in his hand,

"Because they are the fallen children of the Jade Emperor." he explained, answering Rachel's question towards Rob,

"They were once his pride and joy as they did his works on the Earth, but their selfish ambitions forced their father to lock them away. Now they want the Earth back as they believe it to be their inheritance and they see the new children as false inheritors, or so it may seem." he glided across the room as he held the glass sphere in front of him in a hand that was also comprised of shadow.

Rachel was stunned by this sudden revelation and remembered a few things mentioned during her history classes about ancient religious scholars predicting the end of the world and the return of ancient beasts as heralds of the apocalypse's arrival. It was already hard enough for her to believe that there was a being above who could be responsible for creating everything, including the void she was so carelessly tossed into, but now there were beings that once dominated the Earth that are returning for revenge and reclamation. This all sounded like a bad apocalypse story that belonged in some kind of B movie or summer blockbuster, not something that should be happening in real life.

While she spiralled into a mental frenzy as she tried to grasp the concept of what was actually happening, Rob went ahead and asked the Awesome Store owner about the orb he carried,

"So is that thing going to show us where my accomplices are?" he asked, taking a nervous glance back at Rachel, who was rocking back and forth in her seat.

There was no movement to be seen from the shadow, but his eyes seemed to hold the answer as he stared at the orb in his hand,

"Yes, and so much more. This all-seeing crystal can track down the current whereabouts of anyone and anything as well as where they are going to be." he stated in a chipper tone as another hand manifested from his cloak of darkness and hovered over the glass object, which began to glow purple with swirling mist on the inside.

Rob could feel his hopes rising as his words reached his awaiting ears and a smile carved itself into his features. All he needed to see was where they were and he could just open up a portal right in front of them, thus bringing them home. However, there was something else and the mysterious magic seller cleared his throat, gaining Rob's completely undivided attention,

"There is a catch though, in order to figure out where they are, I require a piece of them. Just a strand of hair would do, or something else that has their DNA and the all-seeing orb can not see too far into the future, as only the oracles of Jade can accomplish such a feat." he explained as he held up a finger.

Rob found his eye rolling and the irked cyclops grunted in frustration as the orb's owner listed the conditions needed to operate it. Typical magical items, there was always a catch and while this wasn't too big of an issue for him, it was still annoying. While he didn't know where Teri lived, he knew where Gumball dwelled and only needed to acquire some of his DNA in order to find them both.

Getting up to his feet, he thanked the Awesome Store owner and turned to help Rachel to her feet, the latter of which was still somewhat freaking out about the whole "Nephilim invasion" thing,

"We'll be back in a few, but before we go, you wouldn't happen to also have something that can revive the dead or reverse time, would you?" he feared that much time may have passed and the possibility of Gumball and Teri running out of air was at an all time high right now.

There was a single shake of his head and the pair of eyes that pierced the darkness were grim,

"I'm afraid that I have nothing of the sort and the last device I had that was capable of such abilities was destroyed by none other than yourself, I do believe." he responded, sending him an icy cold glare.

Feeling somewhat downtrodden by that answer as well as his past mistakes again, Rob quietly nodded in understanding and left through the back of his van with Rachel in tow. They hopped out the back of the vehicle and Rachel was already starting to get over her initial shock, now looking towards her only roommate as he fished out the portal rune. She was curious as to where they were going and how they were going to get the other two back, having taken that as a top priority over her own worries.

Rob conjured up another gateway through space, this one looking straight into Gumball's empty room and Rob was glad that no one appeared to be home, he didn't like breaking and entering, but this was definitely an emergency, plus he wasn't taking anything valuable,

"Okay, all we need to do is grab a strand of Gumball's hair from his room, then we can locate them and get them back, hopefully. After that, we'll have a talk back at our place, sound good?" he asked, checking up on his friend to see how she was doing.

She seemed to be doing fine and she glanced at him then back at the portal, her cheeks puffing out as she let out a breath, shrugging too,

"Yeah, let's just go and get them back." she quickly replied as she brushed right past him towards the magical opening.

Rob was about to take off after her, but was stopped when his phone started buzzing and he retrieved it from his pockets,

"Who could possibly be calling at this time?" he questioned internally and a small part of him dared to hope it was somehow Gumball or Teri calling to let him know that they were back on Earth and safe.

It wasn't though and the number he was seeing wasn't any number he recognized. He pressed the "answer" button with his thumb and held the phone up against his ear spot, answering the unknown caller,

"Hello?" he greeted in a questioning tone.

"Hello, I'm Carrie Krueger, one of Gumball and Teri's friends, is this you, Rob?" a feminine voice asked in monotone.

At first, Rob didn't want to engage in a conversation with the ghost girl, seeing as he was busy and all, but decided to humor her for a bit. She was, without a doubt, calling him to discuss the matters that occurred in the park and he was hoping that things had been smoothed over or at least well handled. He was also mad because he knew that he didn't give her his number and the only other person, aside from Rachel, who had it was Gumball and Teri. He was going to have a serious talk with that feline when he brought him back.

He brushed a hand through his blocky, brown hair and began pacing about the parking lot,

"Yeah, this is Rob, something going on?" he further inquired, feeling slightly impatient seeing as he was on the clock and some people's lives were on the line.

There was a quiet huff that came from the ghost on the other end and she responded in the same seemingly apathetic tone she always spoke in,

"Okay, I know that you guys didn't want the others to know about… well, everything, but they do now." she started, waiting for the response which she already knew was going to be negative.

"WHAT?!" an enraged Rob yelled into the speaker, as his eye's slit narrowed in anger, further catching the attention of Rachel who was waiting for him in Gumball's room.

"Called it." Carrie thought to herself, feeling completely unphased by the cyclops' angry response as she tried to explain the situation even further,

"Yeah, thanks to your little "slip up" back in the park, they found out I was helping you guys and I told them everything. So now they're all caught up and they want to know where Gumball and Teri are. I tried contacting them on their phones and they're not responding, I can't sense them anywhere either, so please, for the love of Jade, tell me that they're not dead!" she spoke with a mixture of fury and concern.

There was a pause, as Rob was uncertain as to how to answer that question. He didn't know where they were and he certainly didn't know what their current condition is. He was working on figuring that out and that was all he could give her for now.

He growled and pinched the bridge where his nose should be and shut his eye for a moment before answering her,

"I don't know, there was an accident when we were fighting the Nephilim and I'm trying to figure out where they are now as well as getting them back." he was very calm.

Carrie wasn't however, and in the next instant, her voice exploded on the other end of the phone as her concern spilled out of control now,

"WHAT?! What do you mean "there was an accident"? What happened to them? Are they alright? I need a better answer than that, Rob!" she shouted.

Rob hung up on her, placing the device back into his pocket and ignoring her attempts to call him back. There was nothing else for him to say to her and she was going to have to wait until he had actual results. He was just as worried as she was and he needed to hurry if he was to save them.

He hopped through the portal and joined Rachel in the cat boy's bedroom, he could already tell what she was going to ask him just by the look in her eyes,

"Who was that just now?" she whispered, uncertain as to whether or not someone else could be home right now.

Rob quietly made his way over to Gumball's bed and inspected his pillow and blanket, searching for some loose hairs,

"Another friend of his. She was worried about what happened to him along with the others." he muttered as he found what he was looking for and plucked a single strand of blue hair from Gumball's bed covers.

"Wait, there are others?" Rachel exclaimed in disbelief.

Unfortunately, her cry had created quite a disturbance and from downstairs, voices could be heard along with footsteps,

"Did you hear that, Richard?" the sound of Gumball's mom made itself present as she called back down to her husband.

"Hear what, Nicole? Are the poltergeists back again?" came the unmistakable response of Gumball's father.

"Honey, I don't think it was poltergeists, but I did hear someone upstairs and I'm just going up to check." she responded, sounding somewhat unamused by her husband's childish assumptions.

Meanwhile, Rob had already ushered Rachel through the portal before hopping through himself and closing it just as the door opened up to reveal Nicole in her casual work attire. She inspected the room carefully, the light was off, but she could see just fine in the dim evening light. She sighed in disappointment when she found that there was no one there, she had hoped that Gumball had gotten home and was making a ruckus in his room.

She had been trying to get in touch with him all day and she hadn't been very successful, she closed the door behind her,

"Maybe I oughta contact Mrs. Pepakuma in a little bit to see if he's with Teri." she suggested to herself before proceeding back downstairs.

-Edge of the Universe, 6:22 PM-

As awesome as sci-fi and documentaries made space out to be, it was actually kind of quiet and boring out here. Gumball and Teri discovered this very quickly, as they weren't really making much progress in their travels and the background was just the same mess of stars they had been looking at for a little over an hour now. Unless a planet came into view or an alien spaceship came by and beamed them onboard, the two kids could only dream of something exciting happening out here in this empty expanse that they were in.

After their heartfelt confessions with one another, the paper girl and cat boy had retired themselves into a floating bundle made of Gumball's zippable hoodie that he wore as a disguise during the fight in the park, for the air has gotten a bit chillier in the amount of time that has passed. Gumball's hold on the shield was as steady as ever, but the air was slowly running out and it won't be long until their bodies started to shut down from oxygen starvation. To keep their minds off such concerning matters, Gumball had pulled out his cellphone and pulled up a game he downloaded a few days ago called Raging Red the Bandicoot and the two had been taking turns playing through the levels.

Of course, being way out here meant that there was no internet and originally Gumball wanted to watch last night's episode of Under the stethoscope with Teri, but had no such luck. He was on a winning streak as he made the little red bandicoot jump over the obstacles and hurl his enemies off the screen. Teri was watching over his shoulder and was cheering him on as he progressed to the final run,

"Come on, come on, watch out for that falling lava rock, oh, there's that firebrathing Triceratops again! Oh, shoo- hurry, jump, JUMP!" Teri was practically squeezing into Gumball's side as the cat boy struggled to get his character through the onslaught of incoming obstacles and opponents that dominated the volcano level.

"YES!" they both cheered as he made it through the gates and onto the next stage.

"Alright, alright, total amount of mangos collected: 49! Yes! That's twelve more than your run!" he pumped a fist in the air as he grinned victoriously.

Teri was not convinced and she rolled her eyes before shooting him a sassy look,

"You so cheated!" she accused.

Gumball turned to look at her with a vexed expression and his brow had risen a few inches,

"What? How could I have cheated?" he demanded to know.

Teri plucked the phone from his hand and began to select a level,

"You played this level before, therefore you have more experience." she stated in a matter of fact.

Of course, Gumball did not buy into this and raised his hands in defense as he was about to offer his rebuttal, but was cut off by the paper bear,

"We're doing the water level again, if I win, I get to do the next stage." she said with a knowing smirk.

Gumball hated that level, it was very difficult because the water controls sucked and all the enemies in that stage were very fast when in the water. Given that Red the bandicoot had only hit point, this made it exceedingly troublesome and to make things worse, there was a time limit. They both tied in that level, but with Teri's amazing analytical skills, there was no doubt that she will be able to get a higher score than last time.

Still, Gumball was not one to back down from a challenge and with a sneaky grin, an idea formed in his head,

"Okay, you're on! Also, the winner has to kiss the loser." he added in.

Teri gave him yet another knowing smile and she snickered,

"Dork! You are so going to get a nice one once I've won." she declared, poking him on the nose.

Gumball snickered too and watched as she picked the level, after a bit of loading, the game finally started. Teri began to drag the character across the screen and Gumball took a moment to look outside once again. It seemed as though the stars were stationary thanks to their position and Gumball wondered how far away they were from such beautiful celestial bodies. Were there any planets out here too? It also occurred to the young cat that they were the first people from their planet to ever travel this far, too bad they weren't going to live to tell the tale.

He was about to shift his focus to the game again, when something caught his attention right away and his head snapped upwards. It was small at first, and if it wasn't directly in front of the glowing nebula, there was no way Gumball would've noticed the unusual shape against the blackness of space. It was a tear-like hole that appeared apparently from nothing and was growing wider by the moment.

Gumball's eyes widened in terror and after a moment of recollection, the mysterious object became all too familiar to him and he quickly alerted Teri to the disturbance,

"Teri, look over there!" he hissed and pointed.

Hearing the urgency sounding in his voice, Teri shut off the phone and looked to where Gumball was pointing, gasping when she recognized the large portal forming next to their ship,

"What the- how can they be here?" she exclaimed in a startled tone.

Gumball didn't have a clue and what's worse, he wasn't sure how they were going to defend themselves. If a Nephilim came through that portal and started attacking their shield, the barrier will collapse and they will die. He didn't know which was worse: dying by slow asphyxiation or death by space giant?

Neither of them had much time to think of anything because soon after, a cluster of smoky black tendrils with skeletal hands attached to each one shot out and wrapped themselves around the bubble that surrounded the ship. Neither of them screamed, rather they jumped into action with Gumball grabbing his scythe and Teri quickly pulling some rune papers from her bag, forming them into shurikens. Then, the craft and its crew were pulled in through the portal, shrouding them in darkness as they disappeared from the universe.

For a few minutes, all they could see was darkness, the stars had disappeared completely and now there was nothing. They were surrounded by nothingness, a world of enveloped in eternal night, a world of death. The two sat huddled closely together, neither of them knew what lies beyond the portals the Nephilim dropped out of and both were scared to imagine what it was like. The comfort of fighting the Nephilim on Earth rested in the knowledge that they knew the terrain better than their enemies did and as powerful as they were, none of them came in numbers larger than six.

Now they were entering a world they themselves were unfamiliar with and surrounded by the most terrifying enemies the world has ever known. Scared was just an understatement to illustrate just how frightened and helpless the two really felt. Regardless, whatever was waiting for them on the other side, they will face it together and without either of them realizing it, their free hands were interlocking together.

Seconds dragged on like frightful hours of dead silence and then the world was suddenly cast into light once more, momentarily blinding the two.

"Auughhh! What the what?" Gumball growled in irritation as he shut his eyes against the bright lights that assaulted his eyes.

Teri too groaned in agitation as her eyes screwed themselves shut and she said,

"This is really irritating!" she fought hard to rid the darkness of her vision from the bright spots that had appeared.

Eventually they were able to adjust their vision and the two were quite shocked to see that there weren't any horrendous monsters around to greet the newcomers. Instead, they appeared to be on a large, lonely square platform made of brown/red stone covered in a geometric circle that glowed red and the only other source of light that came from their new landscape was a single glowing tree that stood off a little to the side of the platform, whose bark glowed white and its leaves switched colors from bright reds, to warm orange, and cool colors like green and indigo.

Other than that, the rest of the world appeared dark and there were no other living beings in sight.

"Where are the Nephilim?" Teri asked out loud.

Gumball wasn't sure, but he certainly was glad they weren't here at the moment,

"Doesn't matter, we need to go. I'm dropping the shield." he said and did so after releasing his energy from the rune.

The bubble popped instantaneously and the paper craft fell to the hard stone floor, jostling the two kids inside. There was a sudden flood of fresh air and the couple were grateful for the replenished oxygen. All around them, the paper pyramid turned black and disintegrated into blackened ashes, this is what happened to all of Teri's papers whenever a rune was used on them, they amplified the energy of her soul, or sometimes Gumball's, before diminishing into nothing.

Completely exposed and free from the vessel's confines, Teri and Gumball stood up to get a better look at their surroundings,

"Huh, aside from the tree and this symbol, it sure is dark around here." Gumball noted as he looked around, seeing mostly darkened walls that surrounded them minus one that had a gate that oddly resembled a Japanese Torii gate. Through the opening was a paved pathway made of a stone material that was different from the one they were standing on, being bright silver in color and comprised of many square tiles.

Teri looked up and saw something that both shocked and amazed her, causing her to tap Gumball, who was putting on his hoodie, on the shoulder to gain the feline's attention,

"Gumball, look!" she gaped.

Gumball turned and looked up to where she was pointing at,

"What's- Oh my stars! Is that… Earth?" he cried out.

Indeed it was, in a starless night sky, hanging right above their heads was their familiar blue marble! Covered in its vast blue oceans, the continents cloaked in swathes of green forests and golden brown deserts, all while partially being obscured by thick layers of white clouds. There was no doubt that the place Teri and Gumball were viewing was their home.

Now Gumball had a question that surfaced in his mind and he wondered,

"Wait, does that mean that we're on the moon?" he turned to Teri, who was still somewhat mesmerized by the familiar sight of home.

She snapped out of her daze and thought back a bit to memories of the moon landing missions taken by the Apollo missions she'd seen in videos and books,

"Given its distance, I'd say that we are on the moon, but perhaps in another dimension?" she thought before adding,

"First the edge of the universe and now the moon. I gotta say, this was quite the road trip!" she exclaimed as she sent a smile in Gumball's direction.

Gumball sent a smile back and something else for extra effect,

"This whole day has been pretty far out and to be honest, once we get back home, I could definitely use some space from all these magical adventures." he joked as he wiggled his eyebrows like he always did when he was being witty.

Teri responded with the usual roll of her eyes, a slight shake of her head, a smile that displayed her fake unimpressed attitude, and placed her hands on her hips,

"Your puns are out of this world." she countered, causing the blue goof to giggle.

"I should've known better than to use my punny comebacks because you're definitely more of a "down to Earth" kind of person." he remarked and Teri walked up to him to grab him by the hand and pull him towards the gate.

"How about we focus on getting back to Earth where your puns can really blast off!" she countered while also keeping focus on their real objective.

Gumball quietly nodded in agreement and continued to follow behind his paper partner while keeping his scythe at the ready. Teri had about one half a notebook's worth of paper left in her bag, plus seven large sheets for origami building and with this in mind, she knew that she had to be very careful with her limited supply. As for Gumball, his scythe provided him with excellent strength and speed, plus a mid-ranged attack that was all in all, pretty devastating on its own. However, most of his strikes still relied heavily on close-range combat and his most devastating attacks deplete his spiritual stamina pretty quickly.

In this place, there was no room for error and the only objective for the two was to avoid confrontation while focusing entirely on escaping this place.

"We should probably figure out how this portal works, seeing as it's our only ticket home." she whispered back to him and Gumball was definitely aligned with that plan.

"Agreed, but we should also probably try to locate another gate in case they come to this one. They pulled us in here and I'm sure they're on their way now, probably bringing the welcome wagon too." he cautioned and his female companion understood that "welcome wagon" was a cleverly ironic term used to describe an attack party with the sole purpose of destroying or detaining them.

No sooner than when the couple reached the gate, they began to hear voices and footsteps approaching. It was coming from the pathway and they stopped to listen in on what they were saying, while quickly ducking behind one of the gate's black support pillars. They could hear three people talking from the sounds of it and given their gruff voices, they sounded male, though they could be wrong,

"...and have you confirmed that this was the object that Chalon transported to the set coordinates?" one voice demanded to one of the others.

"Yes, president Nimrod, we have confirmed reports of Chalon's death in Elmore and that he has indeed acted upon your final orders, the surrounding defenders should have been vented out into the far reaches of space." the other stated, his voice brash and strong, giving him a sense of power and authority, unlike the aforementioned president.

"Mister, president, sir, if I may interject! If this operation turns out to be another failure, then the senate may withdraw support for the Elmore campaign entirely. We've already wasted valuable soldiers and military assets trying to claim that stretch of land and for what, to chase some supposed fable?" the third voice, more soft spoken than the other two, spoke out in disdain and concern.

There was an irritated snort that came from the president and he regarded the other's statement about the Senate in discontent,

"Thank you for your concerns, Michael, but I get enough rejoinder from those old crones and I don't think your statement properly sums what goes on in those chambers." he was definitely a man of little patience for the insolence of others and mostly craved results,

"Once I show them some corpses, that'll be enough to sway their opinion and I will have all the backing I need to capture that giant ingrate that dwells within that rat's nest." he spoke in a calm manner, but his voice held a sinister condescending tone when he regarded the home of the two quietly listening in on the conversation.

Both students were frozen with fright when they quickly found that the person who was among the few heading their way to see if Chalon, apparently the name of the Nephilim that was sent to them for today, had succeeded in disposing of them was none other than the president and leader of the invading monsters threatening their home. Neither of them felt prepared for this and a thousand thoughts raced through their heads in a frenzied mess as they wondered what they should do. They needed to flee right now before they were discovered, but there was also the possibility that they could talk to him and hopefully end the war without any further bloodshed.

Actually, that was a terrible idea seeing as he clearly intended to see them all dead and they were also on their homeland, meaning what they had to say had no sway here. As of right now, they were enemy combatants in the heart of their adversary's homeland and they had to assume every Nephilim here was ordered to kill all Earth children on sight. They needed to go now.

There was something the Nephilim leader said that was brought to their attention right away though and the two stopped once more to listen,

"Gabriel, what's the status on general Gorothim's assault force?" President Nimrod asked, now directing his attention at the other Nephilim that was accompanying him.

The other one, Gabriel, replied in that powerful voice of his and relayed his report,

"General Gorothim has his army assembled and is ready for the invasion of the Earth city, Los Angeles." he proudly claimed and there was a satisfied grunt from the president.

"Excellent, everything is well underway and going according to schedule, I presume?" he asked.

While Gabriel continued to deliver his status report on the invading army, Gumball and Teri finally had the courage to carefully peek out from the pillar to see their enemies for the first time. Much to their shock, where they were expecting to see the monstrous behemoths that so relentlessly attacked them time after time, they instead found three nearly identical humanoid creatures standing at about ten feet tall. Their features seemed harmless, they were very thin in their structure, although the one that was probably Gabriel was more on the lean side, with pale, grey skin that matched the clouds on a stormy day making them look almost sickly and frail.

Most curious was the fact that they had many human-like features, such as two arms, hands, legs, feet and a face set with a pair of eyes, sharp noses and thin lips with pointy ears that sat beneath a pair of antlers, which was more of a Bizarro trait, to be frank. They also had different hairstyles and colors to set them apart, with Gabriel's being long and blonde, done up in a few braids that travelled down his back, Michael's being white, almost glowing in fact and was cut short while hanging just a little past his neck with no decorations done to it and then there was Nimrod, who had a wild mane of black, jagged hair that reached down to his waist and almost covered his eyes with spiky bangs.

It was definitely a little unprofessional-looking for someone who appeared to be the official leader of a nation filled with sophisticated yet, genocidal beings, but it did give him a wild and intimidating appearance, like a powerful predator that could dominate any field he found himself in. His attire even matched this menacing appearance, his body was partially covered in a toga suited for a Roman emperor, a white piece of cloth adorned with a Jade stone necklace and golden bands on his biceps, an insignia was embroidered on the skirt in a striking royal purple, probably the emblem of the Babyloth Republic. The chest and arms that were were exposed possessed tribal markings that the two kids had seen on some Nephilim before and on his back was a flowing black cape, further displaying his power and authority.

He was engaged in a deep discussion with the other two flanking his sides, who wore a similar uniform, but with less accessories and no capes to flaunt, and Gumball along with Teri could see that they were no longer heading in their direction, instead were caught up in their conversation,

"They must think that we're dead! Let's take this chance to escape while they're distracted!" Gumball whispered to Teri, who was already on it.

She was rummaging through her bag and pulled out a large sheet of paper to place on the ground,

"Okay, I'll create an origami panther and we'll cling to its underside while we slip away into the darkness!" she formulated her plan as she folded the black sheet of paper very carefully, wanting its design to well crafted for higher performance.

Gumball nodded and took one last peek around the pillar to see if the three giants were still talking and was glad to see that they were. He also noted that the sides of the silver path were lined with darker stones and would provide for an excellent backdrop to the panther's black coat, but he was sure that Teri had already thought of that. When she was finished crafting, Gumball walked over and placed a sticky note he always kept on his person with a barrier rune on the underside towards the rear.

Teri shot him an odd look and he gave her a reassuring glance,

"Just in case we get caught and they try blasting us with something." he explained, giving her a thumbs up.

She nodded and they both climbed underneath the dog-sized, paper jungle cat, with Teri climbing in first and Gumball getting behind her, enclosing the paper puppet within his body's frame as there wasn't enough room for them to hang in single file, plus Teri wasn't uncomfortable with Gumball's close proximity. The panther's broader upper body did a good job of concealing them both, the center fold within the cat's body also gave them a place to latch their legs onto without exposing them, and the head was raised just enough for Teri to see the path itself. With a single command, the black origami began to quietly shuffle along with its two hidden passengers.

They made it to the darkened path that flanked both sides of the main road and from what it may have seemed, the Nephilim hadn't noticed them. Which was good, considering that they could both pay attention to what lies ahead and could both see that the open portal chamber they had arrived in was actually one of many nearly identical ones lining both sides of the main path.

"Okay, we just need to move out of sight and figure out how to use one of these." Gumball whispered, feeling his body bounce with every step the trotting paper animal made as it quietly made its way away from the triumvirate of Nephilim.

Teri kept her focus on navigating the road and quietly answered the cat,

"We can actually do that by finding some more Nephilim and spying on them from a distance. I can create an insect to help us out with-!"

BZAAAT!

A red beam of light shot out from behind them and before Teri could finish her thought, something powerful struck the barrier set off by Gumball's security detail, causing them to stop. Neither of them were harmed, that much was obvious, but they were both startled and once it occurred to them that they were caught, Gumball dropped onto his back and rolled from underneath the origami and Teri followed suit. He got to his feet and his scythe was already springing out in his hand while his pale companion readied herself with shurikens.

Standing at attention now, were the three Nephilim and they were now looking down at them, with Gabriel lowering an extended arm as his finger trailed smoke. He was the one who fired the blast! The blonde haired Nephilim seemed to be pleased and a hand stroked his chiseled chin as he spoke to Nimrod,

"I figured they must have been alive somehow, our scanners took an hour to locate them because there was some kind of barrier that was reflecting the cosmic radiation that their bodies otherwise would have absorbed." he claimed in triumph, as though he had just figured out a difficult puzzle.

Gumball's heart was beating a mile per minute in his thoracic cavity, the jig was up and they had been caught! He wasn't sure what their abilities were, but he would be a fool if he were to underestimate these people, they came in a group of three either because they presumed they were already dead or because they were confident enough to take them both on. They were outnumbered and there was a slim chance they could run from them.

Thinking of something, Gumball lowered his scythe and took a step forward, surprising Teri, who was about to question his strange actions, but was stopped with a single wave from his hand. He cleared his throat and tried to present himself as humbly as he could before the president and his comrades,

"G-good after-evening Mr. president, um, sir president?" he stammered out a greeting and felt his face glowing red in embarrassment,

"What the heck was that, you scatterbrained oaf?!" his internal voice screamed in chastisement and he could practically hear Teri shaking her head while scowling in disappointment.

However, none of the Nephilim attacked and the black haired leader, after a long pause, stepped forward, placing his two men behind him, who both looked ready to take action in case things went sour,

"What exactly am I looking at here? And is that what you would call a formal greeting? Pretty shoddy for a mud-crawling rodent." his voice was smooth like glass, but his disgust was ever so present in his tone and his black hole eyes, both of which seemed to pull Gumball into an abyss.

Gumball wondered if he should apologize for his poor excuse of a greeting, but thought against it as he introduced himself,

"I'm Gumball Watterson and this is my, um, girlfriend, Teri Pepakuma!" he shot a curious glance back at her, to which she met with an approving nod and he turned while mentally screaming with pride.

And just like that, Teri joined her boyfriend's side and presented herself with a curt little bow to show her respect. They weren't killing them so far and as long as they were willing to talk, then perhaps there was a good chance this could all work out. Although, their minds were already screaming that this was never going to work and that they should try to escape rather than use diplomacy.

President Nimrod, did not return their polite introductions, standing as still as a statue, which given his grey complexion, he may as well be one, and continued to bore into them with his apathetic eyes. There was another round of uncomfortable silence and the couple simultaneously dropped a sweat mark as they fancied themselves with two decisions: try again or run!

Finally, like a cold wind from a chimney stack, the president's voice came and he asked,

"Of Elmore, I presume?" he folded his arms like a parent expecting a direct answer from his kids.

There was a cold chill that ran down their backs in spite of the world's warm climate and the boy and girl looked at one another in search of an answer. Why was he asking them if he already sent a Nephilim that was responsible for bringing them here in the first place? More importantly, why was it that this guy was so hostile towards them? Shouldn't his hatred be directed at the more important figures on Earth, like maybe the president of the United States or perhaps the NEA?

While they were skeptical towards how they should answer, the towering antlered creature reached in and pulled something out from his cape, apparently. In his hand was a small object shaped like a diamond and looked to be made of a blue glass. It was the size of a volleyball and he tossed it out in front of him, where it clattered to the floor and landed on its flatside with the point directed towards the sky.

From it sprang a holographic, 3-D image of a Nephilim similar in appearance to Nimrod himself, he had short, black, wild hair just like him and the same fearsome dark eyes, although he was smiling in this image. His robes also matched Nimrod's and he wore a necklace that seemed all too familiar to Gumball and Teri as they looked at it. The Nephilim appeared to be very young, perhaps in his late teens, his antlers were shorter than the three present and not as sharp-looking.

"Do you recognize him?" Nimrod asked, his thin eyebrow raising an inch in suspicion.

None of the Earthlings could match this person's face with any of the Nephilim they've encountered before, mainly because none of them ever looked like this when they visited Earth and they simultaneously shook their heads.

The black haired Nephilim leader then waved his hands through the hologram and the image itself warped and changed. Now the figure was silver in color, sporting a robe and sandals of matching shades, his head was obscured by a knight's helmet and from his back sprung twelve enormous wings, whose feathers changed in a colorful display of light. Gumball and Teri froze when they saw the being in the image, for they knew who it was:

Silver Twelve. The first Nephilim to ever attack Elmore.

Nimrod was able to spot the recognition on their faces and he seemed to come to some kind of conclusion that made him fold his arms and step back,

"He was my only son and his name was Isaac. He was sent to Elmore under my orders and I suspect you already know what has become of him." his eyes did not betray what emotion that he was conveying in those words. Anger, rage, guilt, sorrow, and loss all wrapped within a burning coil of hatred that was directed at the two who he knew killed his son.

And then like a window being opened after a storm, everything was clear to both Teri and Gumball. They understood now, why after the first one showed up more and more kept appearing afterwards whereas the rest of the world only experienced the occasional strike. They were both quiet to the giant, who started up again, talking down on them as he retrieved the hologram before slipping it back into his cape,

"You two… have brought a lot of suffering upon me and to all the families and friends to the soldiers you have slain." he was still emanating a composed form, but it was all a facade, inside he was ready to lash out, to crush the vermin that have been like a plague to him and his efforts,

"Once you two are extinguished, I will unleash the full wrath of the armies of Babyloth upon your small nest and the rest of the world will soon-!"

"Would you just can it already, you stag-headed beef brain!" Teri screamed, forcing the whole roadway to go silent and all eyes to turn upon her.

She had just about had it with these guys, she didn't care how big or how terrifying they were, they were always spewing some kind of bullcrap, crap that didn't seem to add up because they weren't in the wrong,

"I'm so sick and tired of hearing one giant after the other tell us how we are worthless or how we are the cause of all the bad things to come! You wanna talk about suffering, why don't you take a visit to all the grieving people whose loved ones you killed! Not only are they hurting, but most don't even know why they are because they don't even know what or more accurately, who killed them. Screw your dead kid! He killed three people after he arrived, terrorized me as he chased me through Elmore and he nearly killed Gumball!" she stopped and was breathing heavily.

It was very rare for Gumball to see Teri get so angry like that, but when it's not being directed at himself, he absolutely thought she rocked when she went crazy.

"Oh, wow!" he thought as stars lit up in his eyes and what made this even better was the fact that she also defended him, while telling off an interdimensional tyrant!

However, Nimrod remained unshook by Teri's tyrade and was quiet before the robed politician turned to his trusted bodyguard, simply saying,

"The thing that just talked, rip her arms and legs off and bring her to me. Split the hairy one in two, I haven't the slightest care for that wretched thing." he took a step back as Gabriel loyally nodded, placing a hand on his heart while bowing.

"Yes, Mr. President, it will be done." and with that, the loyal soldier stood tall and proceeded straight for Teri, who realized what she had gotten herself into the moment she snapped at the president.

She backed away in terror as Gabriel steadily made his towards them, his form changing as he walked and soon the antlered giant was enveloped in a bright light. While it was hard to see, Gumball could just barely make out a glowing humanoid figure begin to morph and reform itself in the same fashion as clay before its form took a solid shape once again. Soon the light died down and Gabriel stood before them in his new form,

"Behold, the face of the Babyloth Army and the hero of Jade, Gabriel!" the loud Nephilim boomed as he announced the end of his transformation.

Standing before them in all his glory, was a golden being very regal in appearance, yet as mighty as a celestial warrior of the seven heavens. He was the same height as he originally was, but his form was an intimidating sight for one to befall their eyes upon. Sitting atop of broad shoulders were four heads, one of a human's, one of a stag's, one of an eagle's, and finally, one of a wolf's, all of which pointed in each of the cardinal directions. Connected at each shoulder was a pair of arms, numbering four in total, though these arms were placed in front of each other rather than above and below. The ones in the back were broader and longer than those of the front. His garments were an elaborate tunic worn by warriors of old along with a set of golden armor inscribed with various markings and his bare legs were covered in a fine layer of thick, gold fur that ended in lion's feet.

What was most stunning though, was the halo of swords that hovered behind him in a spinning pinwheel of blades numbering twenty in total, each six feet in length.

He held a hand up and a blade was summoned from his halo, finding its way into the warrior's mighty armored claw as the human face, which was facing forward on the body, scowled at them, a perfect angel despising the sight of the wretched,

"begone, both of you!" he commanded, his voice as thunderous as a booming chorus of drums as he lifted his sword to smite the paper puppet.

Leaping in between both of them, Gumball was already poised for an attack and swiped hard at the double edged weapon, knocking it away in a cascade of sparks. With Gabriel left wide open now, Gumball shot forward, his feet lifting off the ground as he flew and oriented himself to where both his feet would strike first. He planted both into his chest and pushed off, swiping at the slender armored arm that was going for his throat, as Gabriel was sent skidding back a few feet.

Gumball landed somewhat gracefully on one knee and right in front of Teri as he turned his head back,

"Can you make an origami that can hold off Mr. four-heads?" he asked, looking back to see that Gabriel wasn't even phased by that attack, guess that armor really absorbed it.

Teri wasn't sure where he was getting at,

"Wait, are you saying you want to attack them?" she shot back, completely baffled as to how the blue cat went from wanting to retreat to wanting to go on the offensive.

He nodded and stood up, twirling his scythe around his wrist before slamming the stock end into the ground creating a loud crashing noise as the road underneath cracked,

"Well, considering that he just changed and looks more like the Nephilim we're familiar with, I say we have a chance. Besides, we need to kill Nimrod, it may not stop the Nephilim threat, but it may slow them down!" he pushed off with one foot, heading straight towards the sword wielding Nephilim in front of him,

"I'll buy you some time!" he declared as he ran.

Soon their blades crossed and the fight was on, Teri thought that this was crazy and that they should go, but he had a point. There were only three of them here and Gumball was holding his own pretty well against Gabriel, if they could kill Nimrod now, then it may put a dampener on their overall war effort. There was still Michael to get past and they didn't know what any of the Nephilim were capable of doing, but if they acted quickly maybe they could pull it off.

She knelt down by her panther and started to undo it, quickly grabbing three more large paper sheets as she began creating something large.

Meanwhile, Gumball was managing to keep up with Gabriel, the ten foot entity was easy to dodge as his armor made him slightly cumbersome, but it was difficult for Gumball to get a good shot in as his many heads would track his every move and his armored claws made for good weapons too. He was fighting only at fifteen percent, this usually being his starting position whenever he entered a battle, and he was surprised that none of his other swords were being used, seeing as they would provide the warrior with a superior advantage, him having four arms and all, nor were Nimrod and Michael stepping in to assist their comrade.

It was strange, and he dodged another quick thrust as the deadly point barely nicked the whiskers on his cheek before he slammed the upper shaft of the scythe into the blade's flat end, pushing it away once again,

"Why don't you use your full power?" a voice came from above and Gumball realized that Gabriel was speaking to him.

"Wait, is he trying to goad me into using my powers against him? What trickery is this?" he mused as he stepped to the side and the golden blade slammed down in front of him, driving the pointed tip in through the stony tiles and Gumball took this chance to strike a couple times at the wrist, where the armor was weakest, and he heard several hollow screams as his whirling blade crashed several times against the metallic surface.

He landed with a grunt and spotted the area he struck, only to see that his attack had no real effect,

"What are you blathering on about?" he snapped back as he swatted a swiping claw from his face.

He didn't see the other arm coming and he was decked in the face by a gold-plated fist, sending him crashing to the ground. Ignoring the pain, Gumball was already rolling when Gabriel's simple arms sword bounced off the pavement with a striking sound and he proceeded to try and crush Gumball beneath his feet,

"You know you can easily defeat me if you just use all of your might and cut me down. Then, you and your lady friend may have a shot at those two!" he said, still goading him on while he brought his lion's foot down where Gumball's head once was.

Increasing his power to about twenty five, Gumball found himself in a position to kick the Nephilim in the knee, doing so and sending the limb skidding to the side, providing him room to escape. He rolled away and got back up, keeping his front to the Nephilim and his eyes on his limbs. He twirled the scythe around until it was pointed at him with the blade facing downwards,

"Quit telling me how to use my power, numbskull!" he bellowed, beginning to draw up some more fire from within and was channeling it into his weapon,

"You want me to hit you with everything I have, FINE! Here we go, one hundred percent-" he raised his scythe upwards, a torrent of silver flames wrapping itself around the blade and roaring with the wielder's fury,

"-MOONFIRE SLASH!" he shouted as he brought the scythe down.

The downwards cut sent forth a crescent of grey fire as big as the Nephilim himself and the path was burned as the magic strike tore it asunder. Gabriel, of course, was not afraid, for this is exactly what he wanted! He raised his sword to the oncoming grey crescent, the tip catching the attack, which was absorbed into the blade itself through a single point and then the golden blade itself was glowing with silver flames.

Gabriel held it up for a surprised Gumball to see and he laughed in triumph,

"You shouldn't let your foes egg you on, Watterson, for now I have your strongest attack!" his other front hand was raised and another sword shot out from the pinwheel in the back, resting itself within his grip,

"Now that I know you can dish it, the real question is, can you take it yourself?" he asked in a taunting voice as he raised the new sword to the side and pointed the grey fire blade directly at Gumball.

Gumball, eyes wide with terror, raised his scythe and tensed his body for the upcoming attack,

"Die, fool!" Gabriel cried out in his thundering voice.

The stream of flaming silver leapt from the blade's edge and hungrily tore its way back to its original master. At the sight of his own attack being used against him, there was nothing Gumball could do, except prepare a counter strike, for it was coming in too fast! His raised crescent glowed with fiery energy, his eyes narrowed as he felt the heat began to increase as the approaching fire drew closer and closer,

"Forty percent." he said and he spun with the reaping weapon pointed outwards.

The glowing blade made a silver circle as he tore up the magic stream that crashed into it and within moments the inferno died out, leaving Gumball completely unscathed. Gabriel was left in a complete state of shock! That was his full power that he used against him, if he had tried to fight against it, he would've just tired himself out or at the very least the two attacking forces would have cancelled each other out.

Wiping his forehead with the back of his arm, Gumball stood tall and brought the scythe to rest on his shoulder, giving the Nephilim a cocky grin,

"Man, it sure was a good thing I sent a charge that was only thirty percent of what I could actually muster." he tilted his head as the Nephilim clenched his teeth,

"You didn't actually think I was going to let you swindle me into hitting you with everything I have, did you? Now I guess the real question is, have you been paying attention to your surroundings?" he asked.

Gabriel was about to demand he clarify that statement when a thin coil of tightly twisted paper wrapped itself around his human neck and pulled upwards, silencing him as his windpipe was cut off. Up in the air was Teri who was perched atop an origami demon that was as tall as the Nephilim itself. It's body was made from two separate sheets of paper that made up both torsos, resembling a red humanoid with short, angular horns and clawed feet with hands. It's tail was another sheet of paper rolled up into a tight strand and it's bat-like wings was actually the repurposed panther origami.

She gave Gumball a wave and he returned it with a wave of his own,

"You got this, Teri?" he shouted in concern.

Teri nodded and pulled two lightning rune shurikens from her bag,

"This will be a piece of cake, now go kill Nimrod!" she replied, urging him to complete the task.

She tossed the shurikens straight onto Gabriel's two massive back arms and a bolt of lightning struck each one, causing the Nephilim to roar in agony as electricity coursed through him, bands of lightning even connecting his swords. Gumball nodded and dashed off, heading straight for Nimrod and Michael, who have also begun their own transformations. Once Gumball had set off to kill the Babyloth president, Teri brought the demon down in front of Gabriel as the four headed Nephilim quickly recovered from her lightning strikes.

He glared at her with bitterness and hatred, a spark of lightning would occasionally flare up in his armor and his swords,

"I was ordered to bring you to bring your limbless body to my president, but If you put up more of a fight, I will be forced to bring your head instead!" he warned, his handsome featured marred by his scowl.

Teri placed a hydro-trident rune in the demon's hand and pulled out a spare barrier rune and explosive shuriken to use herself,

"I think I will take that over being his living trophy, at least if I bring all of yours home, I will have quite the collection mount on the wall." she commented with snark and activated the origami demon's water trident, spinning it in a circle as she came to a fighting stance.

Arming his back hands with two more swords, the golden knight of Babyloth used the electricity he gathered in his two other swords and fired two bolts of lightning in succession. Teri spun around and dodged the first one, blocking the second with the circular glass of the moon barrier before stretching her demon mount's black wings and soaring upwards with a mighty push. She then dived downwards with her trident poised straight for Gabriel's head, but as soon as she got close, two of Gabriel's swords crossed themselves in front, locking the triple prongs in a deadly snare.

Teri quickly pushed back off, allowing the water weapon to disappear and tossed the shuriken straight in between the spaces the swords left. The paper weapon found its way in front of his face and before the four armed monstrosity could slice it, the bomb detonated. The explosion engulfed the Nephilim in flames and the resulting shockwave sent him tumbling backwards. Teri used the rising heat from the fireball to catch some air and rode the lift higher up.

She couldn't see the body yet, but if he was dead, then she could go assist her boyfriend. She honestly could not believe how well all of that went and was quite impressed with her reaction time. She began to dig out some more runes that she drew onto her notebook, requiring more weapons in order to further increase her overall readiness and hoped that Gumball was doing okay against his two opponents.

SHLKT!

A sword flew from the plume of smoke and had Teri not reacted in time, it would have gone straight through the paper demon's head and hers too. Unfortunately, she did not pull away fast enough and as a result, her ride lost its right arm. Behind her, the sword emitted a blast much like the bomb she used and the resulting shockwave forced the flying Pepakuma down somewhat.

Down below, the smoke cleared and though Teri was a bit rattled from the explosion, she could see that Gabriel was still standing. To her horror though, not only had he managed to survive that with only a few scratches, but on his back was another set of armored arms as big as the second set behind the first two and each one wielded a sword.

"You have got to be kidding me!" Teri cried in dismay, having received some Gorothim flashbacks.

Catching the sword he had thrown, Gabriel grinned as he stared up at her and raised all of his swords in a challenging display,

"And I've got fourteen more where that came from, so I hope you brought enough spells." he called out, laughing triumphantly.

Teri placed another water trident in the origami demon's remaining claw as well as a sticky note holding a petrification rune on the tip of its tail and thought of another strategy,

"I should probably stick to the skies where he can't reach me, but nothing I have will be effective if his swords keep absorbing all my magic." she cursed herself and thought of something else,

"I could try using that spiral rune Rob also gave me, but he told me not to use that one because it was very dangerous. I'll probably be fine up here, but what if it affects Gumball? I'll have to think of something else." she pondered as she activated the trident to use for a second time.

Meanwhile, Gumball was well on his way to killing both Nimrod and his remaining bodyguard. After the lights had faded, both Nephilim were now standing anew in their powerful forms and Gumball was struck with an interesting sight. They were both still ten feet in height and humanoid in appearance.

Michael hadn't changed as much, which was surprising to say, his head was still visible with his short white hair and antlers still in full display for him to see, except that he wore a bronze halo above his head with a single jade gem set in the front, like a jewel in a crown. His attire was a knight's, full platings of white armor that completely covered his body, except for a black military kilt that wrapped around his waist and split in the front. He held no weapon, only a kite shield that covered his full body with a color scheme that matched his armor and black markings that formed an eye at the top where the pupil was a sapphire gem.

As for Nimrod, his transformation matched his son's in appearance, but only slightly. He was silver too, and wore light clothing in the form of a grey tunic with the only armor being curved pauldrons that covered his shoulders as well as his upper arms and a helm whose appearance was reminiscent of a Roman Centurion's. His helmet plume and the six large wings on his back were bathed in flames of pure white. There was no face to be seen, only a shadow with a pair of glowing eyes that changed colors along with the circular bands on his neck and wrists.

The leader and the bodyguard were knights of this land and Gumball felt as though this image suited them both. He still pressed on, undaunted by their fearsome appearances and Michael stepped in front of Nimrod with his shield raised, ready to take the first hits for the president. He turned back and shouted to his commander in chief,

"Mr. President, I advise you to flee this place! Gabriel and I will hold them off until reinforcements are summoned." he suggested as he felt the little cat slam into his shield with his raised shoulder after leaping straight into it. Good thing the shield he carried was enchanted to absorb both physical and magical attacks, making it so Gumball's herculean efforts were barely felt by the defensive Nephilim.

Nimrod remained where he was, unperturbed by the feline's flurry of attacks that bounced off of Michael's shield, as the soldier moved accordingly and prevented him from passing,

"I refuse. I will not cower in the face of my son's killer, besides he's no threat as is his paper wench." he sighed, as though unimpressed.

Gumball, having had enough of getting nowhere with this shield blocking his way, tried a different approach and jumped straight up instead. He cleared the top of the kayak sized shield easily, grabbing the round upper edge with his unoccupied hand as he swung himself over, planting both feet into a surprised Michael's face and sending him crashing backwards with a high powered kick. With Michael temporarily down now, Gumball leapt upwards again, aiming to attack Nimrod from above and put himself into a spin as he began to fall,

"NIMROD!" he shouted as his blade crashed into the raised wing of the Nephilim president.

It didn't cut through the appendage and instead clung onto the flaming surface as though he were striking a solid wall. Suddenly, all the power within Gumball went out like a candle and the cat was left in a sense of dreaded shock as he felt his seemingly unstoppable strength fade to nothing. Next thing he knew, a silver fist was sailing towards his face and he was sent flying into a gate pillar, which cracked on impact.

Tumbling to the ground, Gumball coughed as drops of blood spilled out from his lips and he could feel his nose dripping with the stuff too. His back and his face were firing constant waves of agony that clouded the edges of his vision with black. He didn't know what just happened, when he touched him, his power was gone and he was helpless.

He heard heavy footsteps pressing against the stone floor and the frightened eldest child of the Wattersons tried his best to shrug off the pain while wiping the blood from his nose,

"This suffering has long been awaited, you wretch." came the voice of the monster that was steadily making his way towards him.

Wobbling as he stood, Gumball tried to shake his vision clear of the spots that were appearing in it as he coughed out a rebuttal,

"Suffering? If you want yours to end, then why don't you call off the attacks and end the war, you oversized tyrant." he spat out some more blood as he glared at him,

"You're the one causing all of this pain and you can end it, now stand down!" he ordered, even though he was already getting ready to attack. Whatever Nimrod did, it's effects weren't permanent and his powers had returned, but he was feeling more drained than usual.

Insulted, Nimrod curled his fists until a cracking sound could be heard, in the background, the sound of Teri's struggle could be heard and Gumball could already see that Michael was back on his feet, although he was holding something in his hand. He was speaking into it and before Gumball could listen in on his conversation, Nimrod let out a snort as he spoke back to the little cat,

"I don't think you're in a position to be making demands, child of Earth!" he scoffed as he lunged forward.

His fist only smashed the gate's pillar as Gumball moved aside and tried to avoid touching him. He kept his distance as Nimrod continued to throw punch after punch with the intention of splattering the child's brains all over the tile stones,

"Our suffering will never end until we have claimed the Earth for our own! For 6,000 years my people have toiled in this prison, fighting wars for scarce resources as our numbers grew out of control. We watched as you, the one's he chose over us, took over our position as protectors of the Earth and what did you do with his gifts? You stepped on them and continued to tear the world down as a result!" with every spiteful, angry word he uttered his attacks became faster and more fierce, causing Gumball to up the amount of power he was using just in order to simply dodge,

"And now, after eons of watching, waiting, and praying, we have been gifted with the opportunity to return! We'll reclaim our rightful position over the world as its defenders and complete our first task: the eradication of the world's true threat, Humanity and the Bizarros! It's why I was chosen as the first president of the newly united tribes that formed the Republic of Babyloth, only I have the power to carry us to victory. I will avenge the Earth, my fallen brothers, and most importantly, ISAAC!" he shouted as he put as much as he could into the final punch.

Gumball managed to safely move himself out of the direct path of bullet-like punch, but the force the savage strike brought sent him flying backwards again. Landing hard on his back, Gumball was angry and in pain. Not from the landing, no, that barely registered, but from this guy's fraking monologue. He didn't care for a single word that hurled itself from this monster's lips because there was something he was still forgetting, something important that he failed to bring up.

And with this knowledge, Gumball was going to rip the president a new one,

"And what of it?" he demanded, getting back up.

Nimrod was placed at a loss for words as his hidden expression twisted into one of confusion and indignation. Did this little creature just ask him "and what of it?" such arrogance! Of course, why was this such a surprise for the president, none of these weaklings could possibly comprehend the sheer wretchedness of their own wrongs and the sufferings of his own people.

Using his scythe as a supporting stick, Gumball leaned against it, his eyes still locked onto Nimrod's, not even caring in the slightest how much hatred was behind them because he was just too darned ticked to care,

"You talk of saving the world and yet, your ancestors nearly destroyed it the first time. The only reason you're even here is because they put themselves in this position! And yes, I'm well aware of the terrible things that are happening on my planet and honestly, I don't have an answer to the world's problems, none of us do! If Jade is allowing you to return, then I think you should try helping us, if you claim to know better!" he barked, still enraged at all the blame that was being directed at people who don't even deserve it.

There was a pause, but ultimately Nimrod failed to heed to the cat's words,

"And why would I care about the opinions of some rat!" he spat with venom.

A dangerous flash of silver erupted within the cat's eyes and his bared fangs clenched together along with his fists,

"That's it, I've had it with you!" Gumball declared as he placed his energy into his scythe, climbing all the way to his full power.

From his scythe, a jet of flames roared as the power of soul fed the inferno and raged as it begged to be released. All he needed to do was swing once and he could set the whole of the path on fire. It was a risky move, throwing it all into one attack, but with Nimrod being in the direct line of fire, there was no way he could survive this and Gumball sent his farewells to the president,

"I will not stand by as you trample the people I love and care about into the ground! Now burn to a cinder, Nimrod!" his resolution absolute and shot the unmatched hell storm of dark flames rushing forward with a single concise movement of his arms.

For the first time since this confrontation began, Nimrod's confidence wavered and gave way to a twinge of fear. There was no way he could dodge this and given the devastating scale of the slashing wave of fire, he wasn't even sure if he could survive it. The wave was three times his size and twice as wide, having the ability to completely envelope him.

In a flash of white and black, Michael appeared as though from thin air in front of the president and stabbed the pointed end of his shield into pavement, a protective sphere of interlinking hexagons forming around them both just as the voracious flames crashed around them. The barrier was rocked around a bit from the awesome force and Michael gritted his teeth as he held his ground. The flames continued to batter and bite at the barrier, causing the two within to shrink back a little as the silver hellstorm continued to swirl around them, burning itself out the longer it stayed.

Soon the flames vanished and the noise died down, Gumball collapsed to his knees and breathed heavily through his mouth as sweat gathered on his face and his pits. He shook and twitched as fatigue ravaged his joints, but he was amazed to know that he still had a bit of energy left, probably enough for a five percent blast or something similar to that caliber. He checked as the smoke began to drift away and despite the heaviness of his eyes, they shot open along with his jaws as his heart seemed to stop in his chest.

They were still standing and completely unharmed too.

Pulling his shield from the ground, Michael dropped the barrier around them and turned his attention, first to his commander to see if he was okay, and then to the one responsible for the burning devastation that his magic scythe left behind,

"That was quite the attack, my little one, but I'm afraid it ends here. You barely have the strength to stand anymore. Drop your weapon and surrender now." Michael stated in a matter of fact, his voice still gentle and calming.

Gumball's jaw moved a couple times as he tried to form some kind of response, but just kept quiet, his failure to even hurt the president still weighing heavily on his person. They were really out of their league here and worst yet, he was almost out of energy too. That however, paled in comparison to the frightening scene that came next when he looked over to see how Teri was fairing in her duel against Gabriel.

Trying to gain an advantage against her multi-armed opponent, Teri would swoop down and try to skewer one of his heads after unleashing a barrage of explosives to cover her approach. She did this several times, but the Nephilim was just too fast and would often be on the ready for her assault. She tried again to pierce his eyes, but the Nephilim swept the water formed weapon away with a single spin of his blade and when she tried to tail swipe his arm with the petrification rune, he stopped it with one of his other swords.

With his given ability, the sword absorbed the magic her rune casted and when Teri tried to pull away again, he quickly jabbed the edged weapon into the demon's remaining arm. The effect was immediate and the red limb was converted into grey granite, the weight of which brought the folded demon down with Teri going too.

Unable to lift the paper construct with her own will, Teri abandoned the origami and tried to put some distance between herself and Gabriel. However, Gabriel swung once with one of his colossal arms and sent a gust of wind that carried Teri along with it. Forced off her feet, Teri screamed as she flew a ways and came back down rather quickly as her bag had some weight to it.

But now, she was on her back with Gabriel looming over her, sword pointing in her direction with an explosive charge ready to set her ablaze in case she tried to flee,

"I'll have your head now." the golden knight declared.

He raised his sword above and brought it to a position where he can slice her neck in one fell swoop. Teri screwed her eyes shut and brought her hands up to her face, realizing it was over for her. There was nowhere left to run.

Gumball saw this playing out before him, seeing it as a slow motion film as his adrenaline kicked in and his pupils shrank into specks,

"NO!" he screamed, Teri, his fighting companion, his girlfriend was about to die.

And it was going to be his fault again because he left her to take him on herself.

His legs snapped into action and his body was moving before he remembered ever telling it too. He put every ounce of magical energy into getting himself in between that blade and Teri, not caring if he could withstand it or not because why would he? He loved her and the fear of death wasn't going to stop him from trying to save her.

"Come on, come on, come on!" he muttered to himself, as if those words were fuel for his run.

Despite their best attempts to stop him, Gumball zipped in between Nimrod and Michael with very little effort and made it to Gabriel within a few leaping strides. He ran out of power once he circled around him, but he made it just as the blade began to swing and Gumball put himself in front of Teri's cowering form. He tried to meet the weapon with his own, but he was too slow now and the sharp edge of the sword struck the side of Gumball's large head, just at the eye level.

SHTUNG!

There was a heavy ringing sound as the metal itself vibrated and once the sound faded away, Teri opened her eyes to see her boyfriend standing in front of her. It quickly clicked that she had just been saved and her first thought was that he had managed to use his scythe to stop the sword from killing them both, until she saw the very weapon pressed up against his head. She would have screamed, but she was halted when something caught her attention, where the sword made contact, there were purple, glowing veins on the side of Gumball's head.

Her mouth was dry and her mind was scrambling just to make sense of what was happening, but she managed to utter,

"Gum… ball…?"

Meanwhile, Gabriel, who was just as, if not more stunned than his intended target, just stared with all sets of eyes wide open at the strange markings covering the side of his cranium in a violet webbing that prevented his sword from cutting through Gumball's head,

"That's impossible, my blade should have cut clean through his skull! What kind of sorcery is…!" he looked down and realized, but realized too late he did.

On the blade of his opponent's weapon, the second rune was glowing purple, a circle within a circle with six arrows pushing outwards against the outer edge. This is what activated when Gumball stepped in to stop Gabriel from taking Teri's life. Getting over his shock, Gumball grabbed the blade that was pressing against his head's temporal region and shoved it to the side,

"Get this thing out of my face and you too!" he shouted, his fury returning as well as his power as he powered up for another all-out blast.

He wasn't quite sure how, but after Gabriel's sword struck, he thought he was dead, but found that the slicing edge was stopped by his face. It felt more like a smack to him and at first he wondered to his dismay if it was because his head really was as thick as everyone told him. That was until he felt an immediate resurgence within his soul and the fire returned, at full capacity too, like he had just taken an eight hour nap!

He felt great again and while he wasn't sure what transpired, he wasn't going to let that stop him now,

"No, wait-!" Gabriel shouted in a panic, but was clobbered when a thirty foot curving column of fire slammed into him, sending him flying backwards.

He was lucky that one of his blades had been close to his face as he was pushing back against the fiery force, trying to absorb it, but couldn't do it all at once. He sailed into both Nimrod and Michael, who were just stunned by that miracle Gumball pulled in front of their very eyes, and knocked them over. Unfortunately, the arc of grey fire had lost too much fuel and momentum before it could cause any permanent damage to them and burnt out of existence.

Gumball saw the heap of giants laying several dozens of feet in front of a smoking black trail that he made and pumped his fists in the air,

"Whoo! Three in one strike, who's the man!" he screamed, feeling completely rejuvenated before switching to a more menacing pose,

"Now it's time to finish the job." he smirked with his fangs bared as he looked at his helpless targets, one in particular being Nimrod, who was underneath both of them.

Teri, who was still completely blown away from Gumball's survival and devastating attack that left the Nephilim triumvirate in a helpless pile of bodies, just sat there as Gumball spun his scythe around several times and marched towards the president's head, that being what he intended to take off himself. Just like his son. However, there was danger on the horizon as Teri heard something coming and turned around to see hundreds of guards, all of being humanoids with antlers wearing dark uniforms as they raced towards them in a stampede of angry shouts and raised spears that glowed with exotic energy.

Alarmed, Teri shot to her feet and called after Gumball,

"Gumball, we have to go, now!" she shouted in desperation.

Gumball turned and saw hundreds of soldiers closing in on their position and from the other side of the road, another horde was approaching, screaming and brandishing energy weapons as they came ever closer. He wanted to kill the president and possibly end all of this, but he knew that it was going to be seconds until they got here and killed them both. Closing his scythe up, Gumball turned to Teri and rushed towards her,

"Okay, let's go then!" he agreed.

She lead him back to her downed origami and tugged at the black bat wings on the demon's back, pulling out an origami bat that she created as a quick means of escape in case her demon was damaged. Hopping on, Gumball followed after and seated himself behind the paper girl as he wrapped his arms around her waist. They took off quickly and the soldiers raised their weapons, firing beams of energy at them as they weaved through the air and out of sight.

Once out of range of their pursuer's weapons, the two calmed down and Teri set a steady course, both of them looking down to see rows upon rows of streets lined with gateways to Earth. Some were completely empty and several had groups of Nephilim patrolling or heading towards them. They decided to pick one where a pair of Nephilim were preparing to enter and swooped down to see one of them place his hand on a certain spiral shaped symbol before a portal opened up on the stone platform, showing what appeared to be a city street of sorts.

Gumball and Teri made quick work of the unsuspecting guards, with Gumball dropping on top of one and decapitating him with the inside of his blade's crescent and Teri driving a water trident through the back of the other's skull. They both went down silently and unlike the Nephilim on Earth, these ones were not hollow nor did they burn up in flames. There was blood that flowed from their wounds and it glowed white,

"Disgusting!" Teri huffed in a repulsive tone.

Gumball also grimaced at the bloody stump he created and kicked the antlered head away in disgust,

"Ugh, I second that." he concurred, feeling slightly squeamish.

They left the bodies as they were and Teri flew up to the symbol they pressed, placing her hand on it. After a moment of thinking of Elmore, the image of the town showed up in the portal and in their heads they rejoiced! Home, they found their home!

Flying back down to where Gumball stood, she offered a hand to her furry blue partner and smiled at him,

"Ready to go home?" she asked rhetorically.

Gumball grabbed it and pulled himself onboard the bat, leaning in to give her a kiss on the forehead,

"More than ever!" he smiled with glee.

She kissed him back on the cheek and he made his way to his seat. Soon the bat was flapping its wings and the two were taking off. Through the portal they went and from the heavens they descended, their amazing journey through the cosmos now over.

-Awesome Store, 6:39 PM, five minutes earlier-

"Please tell me for the hundredth time, are you sure they are not dead?" Rob pleaded, having done so for the past few minutes now.

The Awesome Store owner wasn't sure how he could explain it to the nervous wreck of a wrecker in simpler terms, so he just stuck with what he has been telling him ever since they looked into the all-seeing orb,

"Look, all I can tell you is this: if they were dead, they would be showing up as either frozen corpses in space or they would be seen in the land of the dead through this medium. However, because it's showing up as nothing, that means they are simply somewhere that is separated from our world, like another dimension or something." he repeated for the umpteenth time, his voice was starting to show hints that he was reaching his limit.

In his hands the orb remained black and pictureless, despite having acquired Gumball's DNA, the magical item could not place where the blue feline and his paper classmate was at currently. Rob was starting to really freak out now, he didn't know what it was exactly he was going to tell the others, there was still Fjel to consider, but this was bad news either way. In another dimension, what could that mean?

Also, he should probably switch back to decaf because after having seven cups of coffee, Rob could swear that the Earth was shaking.

Rachel, who had been quietly listening to the men squawk at one another up til now, got up and walked herself over to the owner of the red van they were in,

"Isn't the underworld a dimension though? Why are we able to see into that one then?" she asked, slightly curious as to how that worked.

The moving shadow shrugged his shoulders up and down before giving her his best answer,

"That's mainly due to the fact that there is a lot of travel that goes on between both dimensions, since folks are always dying to get to the other side." he said with a light chuckle and Rachel rolled her eyes.

She tapped the crystal ball with her finger and examined it carefully,

"Is the signal here bad?" she wondered aloud.

The glowing eyes looked back at her in bemusement and then he said,

"Wha-? It's not a computer, Rachel, it's a magical item that channels psychic energy from the realm of- Oh wait, it's showing us something now?" he exclaimed in surprise as the orb began to glow.

Rob, who had been working his way through his ninth cup of coffee, did a spit take and practically teleported to the enigmatic store owner's side as the crystal ball began to form an image within,

"What's it showing?" he asked, jumping up and down like a hyperactive child.

"Settle down and wait, coffee breath!" he said as he peered back at the object.

The misty image became clearer and from the three could see, there was only the evening sky. Then a tear appeared, ripping open like a cosmic cloth and out came Teri and Gumball, riding on what appeared to be a paper bat from the looks of it. They were okay and were flying over the park where they were last seen.

Rachel gasped and threw her hands up her mouth, tears starting to show themselves as she saw the two kids safe and sound, while Rob wondered why and how were they both emerging from a Nephilim portal? Where exactly did they go to?

Barely able to contain her joy and relief at the news that both kids were alive, Rachel cried out and threw herself at Rob, who caught her in surprise as she squeezed him into a bear hug,

"They're alive! They're okay! This is so great!" she shouted as she buried her face into Rob's chest and lifted the poor boy up, much to the latter's chagrin.

After nearly popping his back out of place from her surprisingly strong arm hold, Rachel put him down, turned to thank the shopkeeper, who just said that it was not a big deal, and the rainbow lass grabbed Rob by the hand, pulling the cyclops off his feet as she dashed out the back door. Once in the parking lot, Rob pulled out the teleportation rune and set his mind on Elmore park for his third visit today. The window opened and the two leapt out, arriving instantaneously in the breezy outdoors.

There they found four other children waiting and while Rob recognized them right away (his fear senses kicking right back in.), Rachel was surprised to see a middle schooler, Anais Watterson and Macey Barnes from class, and a big guy that looked like a toy with a wicked paint job,

"Anais? Macey?" she gasped in amazement, one hand clutching the side of her head.

The two other high schoolers leaned back in shock as they recognized the blue girl right away,

"Rachel?!" both girls exclaimed in unison.

"Oh, another friend?" Chimera asked, seeing as both of his best friends recognized her right away.

Anais checked back with Chimera and tried to explain to him,

"Uh, no she isn't a friend, she's a-!" she stopped after being cut off by an aggravated Darwin, who shot up to his feet and screamed,

"DOCTOR WRECKER!"

The mad inventor cringed and raised his leg along with his hands as he cowered away, also screaming for good measure,

"Darwin no! I'm sorry, I didn't mean to hit your face, I was trying to save your brother and his friend!" he quickly sputtered out, he was actually more afraid that Jamie and Tina were nearby along with that droid and spider sprite.

"Huh, she's a doctor and her name's wrecker, that doesn't sound very comforting to me." Chimera muttered, completely tuned out from the confrontation that was happening.

Macey facepalmed and put it simply for Chimera,

"No, the one eyed guy who attacked us earlier is Doctor Wrecker, you know, the one Carrie went off to go look for! That girl with him is a classmate of ours named Rachel." she explained before turning and asking,

"Oh and what are you doing here by the way? Also, what does he mean by saving Gumball and his friend? Lastly, how do you know this guy?"

Rachel wasn't sure how she was going to answer those questions all at once and she paused to think, but was interrupted when Rob exploded in frustration,

"There's no time for that! Gumball and Teri are on their way here and we need Carrie back here now! Also, where are the other four that I… took care of while I was here?" he looked around and noticed that none of them were anywhere to be seen in the park.

Darwin, putting his anger for Rob aside, huffed in annoyance and pointed a flipper at a tree, where all four kids were laying down, still knocked out,

"Carrie levitated them over there so they could rest and as for the other matter." he stopped and cleared his throat,

"Carrie. Carrie. Carrie. Carrie. Carrie." he called out repeatedly, using the ghost summoning ritual Carrie taught him and his brother.

Following straight after, Carrie appeared before them in a flash of light and the ghost slammed into Darwin, as she had been drifting at high speeds before she was summoned, sending them both to the ground with an oof! Lifting her head up, she saw Darwin's chubby face smiling back at her and she calmly said, "hey" before flying off of him and giving him a hand as she lifted him from the dirt. She looked around at the kids gathered there and spotted Rob and some other girl she didn't recognize,

"There you are!" she burst out, her eyes on Rob as she floated towards him in an angry rush,

"I was looking all over for you after you hung up! You didn't tell me where they were and I was worried sick the entire time! Do you have any idea how much ground I covered in the past half hour?" she ranted, getting up in Rob's face as the lanky boy backed up nervously.

She then turned to Rachel and nodded in a friendly manner,

"I'm Carrie, by the way." she greeted with an introduction.

"Rachel." she replied, calming down once she saw that she was no longer interested in giving her roommate lip.

"Hi, Rachel, I really like your hair! Also, do I know you from somewhere?" she asked, having an odd case of deja vu.

Rachel bobbed her hair with her hands and drew a half circle with her feet, smiling happily,

"Thanks, I love yours too!" she replied with a giggle before straightening out her expression,

"Sorry, but I'm not sure if I recall meeting you." she responded honestly.

Carrie nodded and drifted away from Rob, trying to wrack her mind for the faintest of recollections of this mystery woman. She looks to be Macey's age, so it's possible that she may have been in middle school last year, but her mind was blanking out on it. Regardless, there were far more important matters at stake here and her head snapped back in Rob's direction.

"Rob, where is Teri and Gumball?" she asked, her volume raising as desperation continued to linger and all eyes and ears were on him again.

Rob held up a finger and opened his mouth to speak,

"Uh, you see, they're-!" he looked up when he noticed something in the sky, a black tear that opened and out came their missing duo of classmates/partners/siblings,

"-right there." he finished and watched as the two flew off to another spot in the park.

"Gumball!" Anais, Darwin, and Carrie cried out in unison.

"Teri!" Rachel shouted, recognizing the white bear in front.

"Friend!" Chimera shouted.

"I wonder if mom and dad said I was doing the dishes tonight?" Macey mumbled to herself, scratching her frizzy red beard.

"This way!" Darwin ordered, tearing a blazing trail in the direction the paper bat set off in.

No one had to be told twice and with that, the motley crew set their sights on the sprinting goldfish, eagerly trying to get back to his brother, before they too joined him in his pursuit.

On the other side of the park, the bat skidded to a landing on a sidewalk that cut between two hills and the two passengers hopped off. Rushing towards the familiar rolling mounds of grass and dirt, the paper girl and cat boy celebrated with cheers of delight as they jumped up and down. Never have they ever been so glad to be back home again, the feeling of safety and nostalgia was simply overwhelming,

"We're home! We're finally home!" Gumball shrieked, kicking into a dance to express his youthful optimism.

"Oh, I love this filthy, disease-ridden, muckball! I never ever want to leave it again!" she cried happily as she jumped and flipped through the air.

"Good old, nasty, polluted planet! Come here you!" he fell to the ground and gave the soil a big hug, feeling the green blades tickle his cheeks and the sharp scent infiltrating his nostrils. It was all so lovely!

Speaking of lovely, he pushed himself off the ground and raced towards a dancing Teri, tackling her into a hug as he rubbed his cheek against hers,

"We're okay and we're going to be safe!" he said, squeezing her tighter.

Teri laughed and nuzzled her nose against his, feeling a hot spring of love flowing through her,

"I've never been happier!" she exclaimed.

With that, still clutching onto her waist, Gumball lifted her high into the air and started spinning around with her feet swaying in the wind. She grabbed onto his arms and they both laughed wildly as they continued to spin. The greens of the hills and the darkness of the sky began to blur, and eventually, Gumball fell down from dizziness, rolling over until Teri was on top of him.

Their faces were close again, their chests were pressed against each other, hearts beating in sync and a blush was visible on their cheeks,

"I love you." Teri said, smiling a bright set of pearly whites.

"I love you too." he replied, sharing his own smile that brought a little light into her world.

And then they leaned in, pressing their foreheads together while closing their eyes. The quiet overtook them again, but at least their were insects and other natural sounds to keep them company this time. Neither of them noticed, however, the approaching kids and the many eyes that were watching them as they lay with one another, heads gently pressed and sharing a tender moment.

Carrie, Darwin, Anais, and Rachel were blushing with red hues so vibrant, that a Beet would be put to shame. Macey bashfully looked away, always feeling slightly awkward when it came to public displays of affection, and Chimera merely stared on without having much of an opinion on the matter. Rob however, was enjoying this and felt the need to step in to point something out.

He took a step forward and placed his hands on his hips, glaring down at the two with discontempt and his mouth contorted into a frown,

"Get a room you two, this is a public place!" he stated in a blunt, straightforward, no nonsense, kind of voice that only a robot could emulate.

At the sudden prospect that they were not alone, their eyes flew open and Teri was up in a heartbeat with Gumball joining soon after. Both were so red that a new shade had to be named to highlight their unsettled feelings once they recognized the collection of familiar faces staring at them blankly now, mainly thanks to Rob's very blunt approach. They both seemed to disappear and reappear in a standing position as both immediately tried to explain themselves, but got caught in a jumble of scrambled words, incoherent speech, and random pauses as many explanations were thought up, but executed poorly.

Ceasing this jibber-jabber in single action was Darwin and Anais who ran up to their big brother to lock him in a hug, both of whom had heard from Carrie that he was in trouble after getting the entire situation explained to them. They were both happy to see him safe and in good health, as the oldest Watterson recovered from his shock and returned their hugs of affection. Carrie and Rachel also rushed up and gave Teri a hug, mainly because they were both glad to see their friend in perfect shape and Teri was glad to be receiving this kind of attention.

Once the hugs were finished and the atmosphere was in a restful state, Gumball searched the gathered crowd of teens and pre-teens, curious as to how and why they were all here,

"Um, so, what brings you all here anyway? Was there a party or something?" he asked, trying to keep from spilling the beans.

Carrie, who was happy to see them both, was also sad when she remembered her promise to him and she spoke up with a quiet sigh,

"Gumball, it's okay, you don't have to lie anymore…" she looked him in the eye, sadness, shame, and relief, somehow all present as she uttered the next few words,

"...because I already told them everything."

A/N: YESSSSSSS! It's done! The chapter has been finished and now Terball is officially on a roll. Oh my god, guys, this has been quite the journey, all the way up to this point in the story, I have written every chapter with complete love, passion, and endless frustration all to lead up to this exciting conclusion to Teri and Gumball's friendship to the blossoming romance that will follow in the chapters that are yet to come. I hope you guys are as happy as I am because of as of this chapter going onwards, Teri and Gumball are officially dating!

Okay, okay, enough gushing, let's dive into the other aspects of the story. The first Nephilim is in fact inspired by the class of angels called "thrones" which according to biblical scholars and Dante Alligheri, author of the Divine Comedy, they are the third sphere in the angelic hierarchy. I liked the portal idea because it sounded very cool and made it more of a challenge for all three heroes working together, which by the way, is always fun to include.

With all the training and exercises Teri and Gumball have gone through, they're definitely a step up from where they started out and Rob is pretty good at finding his role in the team. Next chapter we will be seeing Rob and Teri getting an upgrade to their abilities, as it is only, seeing as Gumball has a new power of his own. Really looking forward to that and the next battle is going to be really fun.

As for Gumball's new ability, his second rune gives him the ability to become momentarily immune to all physical strikes by filling his blood with magic energy. This causes his skin to harden, but only in areas where the blow connects and it does not last long after being activated. One additional benefit to this power is that since it's linked to the first rune and to the user, whatever physical blow is inflicted upon Gumball's body is converted back into magical energy, essentially recharging him after this spell has been activated.

The biggest limitations it has is the number of times Gumball can use it, as it too has a limited amount of energy to give.

As for Nimrod, this reveal has been planned since early on in the writing process, although it was originally going to happen in chapter fourteen. I intend on keeping his true powers a mystery, but as we all now for now his ability is to negate the magic of everyone who comes in physical contact with him. He is weak to large, devastating, mid to long ranged attacks as was demonstrated during his confrontation with Gumball. He is motivated to do what's best for his people, being the first elected president of the Babyloth Republic, even when his actions anger those around him, and his grief for the loss of his son drives him to take revenge on Elmore along with those who defend it.

We'll learn more about him later on and before you ask, yes, he does have a wife, but that's a story for another time.

Then there's Michael and Gabriel, named after the archangels, they were the perfect idea for the bodyguards of president Nimrod and their introduction in this chapter was a great opportunity for me to showcase their powers when they were at their weakest. Gabriel's form is inspired both by the cherubim class of angels depicted in the angelic hierarchy, second class under the seraphim, and Erza Scarlet's pinwheel of heaven armor. Since Gabriel's design was heavily built for offense, it came naturally to me that Michael would be more lenient towards defense and since he's more of a peacekeeper in Babyloth, his armor is white.

The Nephilim themselves are humanoids that can take only one shape and when on their world of Babyloth, their average height is nine to eleven feet. They're significantly weaker when on this planet mainly due to it being a prison built for them and their history is riddled with conflict, topped with resentment towards the inhabitants of Earth. All in all, their society and culture is very complex, but they also share a belief in the Jade emperor.

I was going to include a scene with Hector and Molly also being in the park, but I couldn't include it thanks to this chapter already stretching to 82 pages. I will include a scene with them in the next chapter and we'll see what they've been up to. Tensions between Gumball's team and the Nephilim investigators are at an all time high, Elmore is now left in a state of fear following the san Francisco attacks, and a new threat approaches in the next thrilling chapter of Teri x Gumball: In between worlds.

Next up, the NEA arrives in Elmore and a showdown is iminent in chapter 13: Battle for Elmore: Azura squad arrives! Coming soon!

Oh, two more major announcements! For one, the first arc is nearing its end, Defenders of Elmore will reach its conclusion in four chapters now and for the other, I wish to let you all know that I have a DeviantArt page! My username is Turquoisemoon13 and I have one picture posted so far, but that's bound to change in the future. Please check it out if you wish to and that is all I have in terms of announcements.

Hope you guys enjoyed this chapter, please comment and drop a fav, if you feel like it or if you support Terball! Have a fantastic day, everyone!