Chapter 9: Confrontation

Gumball had dealt with two of his personalities. He had only one left which was haunting his sleep. He kept tossing and turning in his bed, unable to rest at all. He knew that he had to confront Penny to get his last personality dealt with. It kept bringing him nightmares just thinking about it.

Gumball was awoken by something shaking him. He sat up, panting with sweat on his forehead. He groaned, looking over to his little brother, the one who had woken him up. "Are you okay, dude?" Darwin questioned, receiving a nod in response. "Yeah… just had a bad dream, that's all…" he responded, wondering what time it was. "Well come on. The bus is going to be here soon," his younger sibling told him before heading downstairs.

Gumball stood up from his bed, wiping some of the sweat off of his forehead. "Alright… don't worry, Gumball. It's just your ex-girlfriend. You'll pull through…" he told himself, trying to give himself some form of confidence, but it just felt like he was becoming more worried. He just tried to forget his fears before hearing the bus horn outside. "Come on, Gumball! The bus is here!" he heard Richard call for him. Gumball looked at his reflection in a nearby window, seeing the bright sunlight outside. He just sighed, grabbing his schoolbag and heading downstairs.

"I think I'll walk today…" Gumball told his father while passing by, just beginning to walk down the sidewalk past the bus. Confused glances came from his siblings. Anais knew that her older brother had a lot on his mind, so she thought it will be better for him to spend the time alone and figure out how to approach the matter by himself.

After a while, Gumball stood outside of school. He just took in a deep breath and sighed. "Well, here I go…" he muttered, entering the building. He was carrying a heavy burden, just thinking about what to do. The sooner he dealt with it, the less stressed he will be. Gumball went inside the school, knowing that there probably wasn't much time left before the first class started, but he didn't care so much if he was late or not. He had done great on his past few classes in the past few days, so he could afford being late once.

Gumball wandered the mostly empty hall, and even when he did pass by a friend, he wouldn't give a wave, or any form of acknowledgement. After a short time of searching, Gumball finally found the girl he was looking for, the cheerleader who had took and broken his heart.

"Oh, hey Gumball. I was looking for you," Penny claimed, beginning to approach him. Gumball stood there, doing his best to ward off his last personality from trying to take over. "Y-yeah, me too," he muttered, giving a small nervous wave.

"Sorry about leaving like that yesterday," Gumball apologized, wondering what exactly she wanted with him. "Right, well listen. I kinda wanted to talk to you about something important. It's just… I'm sorry about what I said," she claimed, still believing his personalities had come from him trying to change himself for her. Suddenly his eyes went green, abruptly forcing him into the gentlemen behavior from before. "Yes, yes, I am well beyond aware that I am an immature child in your eyes," Gumball responded. Penny was somewhat startled, but she didn't let it detour the guilt she had just felt, knowing well that she had implanted that thought process in his mind.

"Listen, I haven't been able to do anything right since we broke up. I keep messing up the moves in cheerleading, the one sport I was great at. I heard a lot of rumors about why you beat Tobias to, mainly because you did it because he wouldn't leave me alone," Penny reminded him of the brutal assault he got away with, brutalizing his enemy. Gumball just gave nervous gulp. "Erm… yes, that was the exact reason why I did that," the young feline lied. "And that's why… well… I think I was wrong… can we just forget about what I said?" Penny hesitantly questioned. "Are you asking what I think you're asking?" Gumball responded, his green eyes beginning to fade. "Yeah… I was hoping we'd get back together," she admitted her high hopes.

Gumball's green eyes completely vanished. He looked down to the floor, rubbing his eyes, his ears and tail hung low. He was put into a major thought process. "…Gumball?" Penny said, trying to get a response, wondering if she had just upset him even further just for that one offer.

Penny put a hand on his shoulder. Gumball's ears perked up as he looked up at her with his smirk. "Yeah. There's always a second chance for you, Penny," Gumball answered with a smile. Penny was glad to hear of his forgiveness. She offered her hand to him. Gumball gripped it and happily headed off to their first class together. Gumball was just glad that all of his personalities were dealt with, and the best part was that the prize, for resolving every one of the personalities, was Penny's heart.

In a building, the same one where Gumball had been dragged to when he was injected with the strange liquids that bestowed him with the multiple personas, Gordon was walking through the many hallways, with one door after another. He entered one of the doors, not hesitating to walk up to the front desk. "Sir, here is the report on Watterson," he handed a folder over to another suited man that he referred to as his boss.

His boss overviewed the folder for a moment and sighed. "Failure? …Quite a shame… tell them to continue working on the serums," he told Gordon, throwing the folder in a nearby trashcan. "Yes, sir," he bowed and left the room. With that, they had given up on secretly stalking Gumball. Although one thing his boss didn't know was that Gordon had allegedly lied about the serums being failures when they all worked fine and did as predicted. "Rest easy, kid. Rest easy…" Gordon thought, lighting a cigarette and continuing through the halls of the government's office.

The End...