It was literal hell, so much so I felt like I was trapped in a waking nightmare.

The portal was uncharacteristically violent, with the usually calm and smooth movements of the outer wall now snappy and spastic. The volume of the voices, which had gotten quieter with each trip, was now so much louder than when I was first brought here. It was so intense, it made my head feel like it was going to explode. I felt like I was going to faint.

But then I heard screaming. Screaming that snapped me back to reality. Trying to straighten out my flailing body, I looked further down the frantic tunnel, and saw all my friends flailing in their own ways.

"Gladius!" I called out. Looking around, I spotted him spinning around, unresponsive to all the chaos around him.

Steeling my nerves, I finally controlled my fall and pushed myself forward, grabbing the blade by his handle. Once I grabbed him, a sudden shockwave shot me towards the others.

"Guys!" I screamed, looking at them with pleading eyes. Jenny was the first one to notice me and act, stretching her arms out and wrapping them around me. But the save was foiled when the TARDIS came out of nowhere, clamming into the teenage robot and knocking her away.

The arms limply let me go, and I screamed as I spiralled down the tunnel.

"WHAT THE HECK IS HAPPENING?!" Maria cried out, trying to reach out to me.

"I DON'T KNOW!" I screamed back. "GLADIUS IS UNCONSCIOUS, SO WE'RE ON OUR OWN!" I looked around. "WHERE'S GALACTA?!"

"OVER HERE!" McGee yelled. Attempting to look over, I spotted the knight completely still as he shot through the tunnel. Just like Gladius, he seemed to be unconscious.

"KID!" Ralph roared. I frantically looked around, and saw Vanellope barrel right at me. I cried out, opening my arms to grab her. She ploughed into my chest, knocking me closer to Dry Bowser's shell. The racer was frantically glitching, which made me even more terrified than I already was.

"C-C-C-CALEB!" She forced out, her voice crackling with electricity. "I C-C-C-CAN'T CONTR-TR-TROL MY GLIT-T-T-TCH!!!"

"JUST HOLD ON!" I swerved in and attempt to land on the skeleton turtle's shell (who was in pieces scattered around), but I was stopped when a bolt of multi-coloured lightning shot out and knocked it away.

It nearly slammed into Amy, who just barely dodged it. This, however, meant Majima ate it, sending him further down the tunnel.

I watched as Buttercup tried to fly over and reach him, but something in the portal was throwing her off course, making the green-clad Powerpuff slam into the wall. That only made things worse, as it sent out a shockwave that blasted not only her, but the rest of us down the tunnel at an even faster rate.

We all screamed in terror as the portal began to get more violent, the lights and sounds becoming nearly unbearable. It didn't help that more multicoloured lighting was being shot out at us from the cracks between the glass memories.

All of us that were still conscious did our best to dodge them, but we were repeatedly grazed by the white hot bolts, burning skin and clothing alike.

And then there was the boom that made things even more violent, with bolts arcing around us indiscriminately, arcing around us and clashing with each other. Sparks flew around wildly and struck us like hail, which made me wish for when this nightmare would end.

I got my wish.

With the loudest, deepest boom imaginable, an absolutely massive bolt of lightning shot out from a crack…

And struck us head on.

We all screamed in agony as the electricity surged through us, amplified by the robots and TARDIS. Our clothing wasn't damaged at all, but I could feel burning fire, freezing cold, poisonous venom and choking dust pump through my blood. It was horrifying. I felt like I was going to die.

But just as soon as it hit us, it stopped suddenly. The noises and colours only became more frantic, almost trying to push us out as fast as it possibly could. A powerful force slammed into my chest, and we were all launched right down the tunnel to its sudden exit.

I could feel my consciousness slipping as we fell towards the ground. Closing my eyes and hugging a still glitching Vanellope close, Gladius's handle tightly in my grasp, all became dark when I slammed into the ground.

~X~

I groaned weakly as I finally came to, blinking my eyes as I adjusted to the sudden lack of light compared to the portal. The ringing in my ears was slowly dying down, which finally let my brain get a much needed rest. But it also meant I was becoming more aware, like how I finally noticed I was laying face down in the dirt.

With a gasp, I shot upwards with wide-eyes, only to cringe when a jolt of pain shot through my head. Gripping my forehead, hoping that elevated the tension, I slowly looked around my immediate area.

All my friends were on the ground, shifting in pain as they slowly came to. A distance away, the TARDIS was wedged in the ground at an awkward angle, the open doors letting visible smoke pour out.

Elsewhere was Gladius, who was wiggling in an attempt to try and free himself from the spot of ground he was trapped in. With my weak legs barely able to handle my weight, I wandered over (more stumbled) to the sword and helped him. But the trip through the portal made me unbelievably weak, so it took a bit before my strength returned just enough so I could pull the blade out.

He sputtered, brushing off his blade with his wings. "I have only heard of portals like that when we were just trying to understand the travel."

"Well then why was this one so horrible!?" Laney cried. She had tears visible in her eyes, her hair a mess from the electric shock.

Dry Bowser was slowly reassembling himself as Star and Marco leaned against each other in some weak attempt to calm down. Looking around, I could see how everyone was somewhat charred, with burns on their skin, charred hair, singed clothes, and various cuts, bruises and scratches.

I sighed, then held my head up high. "Okay, everyone sound off! I want to make sure we didn't lose anyone!"

I was met with weak calls from each and every of my friends, which helped me relax just a bit. With that dealt with, I headed over to help everyone recover as best as we could. Vanellope was eerily silent, clearly still messed up when her glitching went haywire. She was silently sitting on Ralph's shoulder as the wrecker helped The Doctor and Merida get the TARDIS upright.

Everyone else were doing similar things, from Scrap Baby helping Amy and Rory, Corey looking around for any sort of tool we could us, Flowey, Barranco and Dave trying to rejuvenate a still unconscious Galacta, and the Powerpuffs attempting to corral us all together.

The Doctor sighing brought all attention to him, and he gave us a grim look. "The TARDIS isn't functional. That whole trip wore her out, so until she heals up, we aren't using her for travel."

"My jet boosters are fried", Jenny mentioned. To prove her point, she tried to use them to fly, but all that happened was her pigtails sputtered and banged like an old car engine.

"My… I can't feel my wings. That bolt must've damaged my nerves…" A now awake Galacta gravely said, needing to support himself on Dave and Barranco.

"That means it's only us and Gladius", Blossom said, gesturing to herself, her sisters and the sword. She pointed at Star. "Unless you can still summon Cloudy."

The Mewman Princess shook her head. "No magic."

"That's great!" Izzy said with a strained smile. "So we're all hurt with no way to fly out of here." She looked around, and gained a more curious expression. "Wherever here is, at least."

"Woah." We all looked at Steve, and he pointed in the direction he was looking. "I think we ended up in a bad future."

We all followed his gaze, and gasped. Before us stood a city, one so decrepit and ruined it looked as if the apocalypse hit it seven times over. Tall skyscrapers were either skinned or tilted, windows on smaller buildings were smashed, wood was rotting, and there was no sign of any power.

"Where the heck are we?" Merida asked.

Hilda walked up to a nearby sign, and squinted at the faded, scuffed writing. "Convergence City number… 4?" She turned around to look at the rest of us. "What the heck is a 'convergence city'?"

"Well, convergence is another way to say 'to come together'…" Zomboss thought aloud. "So maybe it is, or was, some kind of meeting place?"

"Not quite sure who would want to meet in a place like this…" Majima mumbled, squinting with his one good eye. "This place looks worse then the bathhouse after I ran the steamroller through…"

"Because it wasn't finished."

We all looked up at Gladius, who was hovering over all of us staring at the city.

"Wait, wasn't finished? Dude, what do you mean by that?" Marco asked.

"This place wasn't finished…" The sword seemed to be in his own world. "The plans were scrapped. This place should've wilted away thousands of years ago…"

"Gladius!" I called up at him. He shook his hilt and looked down. "What's going on? Why has this place made you go all… still?"

Gladius looked back towards the city, then up towards the sky, which was a blurry swirl of blues and purples. "This is, or was, meant to be a place for people from all over the multiverse. But then…" He sighed. "It is a long story."

"Well, we don't really have anywhere to go", Gretchen said bluntly. "So lay it on us."

Gladius sighed, almost like he didn't want to share, but he trucked on regardless.

"Long ago, I'd say at the turn of the century, around 300 AD, the Council called for an emergency meeting. It was back when the Council consisted of the gods and goddesses of Egyptian, Norse, Greek, Aztec, and all other ancient civilizations. See, the people of the Capital were actually citizens from those worlds.

"Anyway, the Council decided that, with the multiverse expanding and how successful the Capital was, maybe making smaller universes to connect everyone together in such a way was a good idea. At the time, Rainbow and her brothers were all for it, so they began construction on… these places."

He gestured at the city and continued. "Whole universes with the sole purpose to bring worlds together."

"But what happened?" Ruby asked in worry. "Because this looks like it hasn't been touched for years."

"You all did." When the sword received shocked and offended looks, he continued. "See, as the construction of the Convergence Universes continued, the imagination of the people that created you began to grow and expand. That led to the creation of heroes and villains with powers that exceeded that of the gods and goddesses. It made Rainbow and the twin especially worried. So worried, they pulled the plug on all of this

"The Council agreed wholeheartedly, so these places were left to rot. Because of how little power my three friends had after the Vortex, they didn't have enough power to destroy these universes themselves. So they did the next best thing: leave them to wither like a flower. See, without a power source of some kind, a universe can fade like any plant you see, so I thought, after thousands of years, this place would be gone."

"Well it clearly isn't", Amy spat in frustration. "Why?"

"If I have to make a guess, it's like when a human is starving themselves. Like how your body would start to use up your fat reserves to keep energy up, a dying universe will consume any and all matter in a smart and calculated way to stay alive. Remember, universes are alive in their own right, and will do whatever they must to keep burning."

"So what does that mean, exactly?" Star asked.

Suddenly, far off in the distance, there was a loud boom. Looking over, we watched in horror as a chunk of the city sank into the planet, with a massive rift ripping open right next to us. We all shared silent looks, and carefully peered into the ground.

Turns out, the planet was completely hollow and was nearly entirely eaten away by a flickering, unstable black hole where the planet's core should be.

"Gladius, what is that…" Corey asked.

"The centre of this universe", the blade explained. "Without its power source, it became a hungry singularity that strategically eats when it has to to stay alive for as long as possible. Once this whole planet is consumed, the universe is no more."

"Okay… so how about you two open another portal and get us out of here before we're lunch", Iris said in a pleading tone.

"NO", Gladius snarled, making me flinch when I reached for him. "Dying universes are extremely unstable. If we would open a portal from within it our way, the surge of power and energy would cause an explosion that would vaporise half of existence. Considering we just came from McGee and Gretchen's universe, it means it's within rage to be annihilated."

That made the two campers pale drastically.

"Then how do we get out of here?" Flowey spat. "Are we just expected to die now?"

"No. We need to get there." Gladius pointed upwards towards the city, and we all followed his wing till we were looking at an odd structure. On a floating chunk of rock, floating a bit over the city skyline, was an odd orb-like building that had an angled spire sticking out of it.

"What is that?" Steve asked in bafflement.

"That is the Hub. A building made out of a sturdy metal only found at the Capital that is incapable of being pulled into a black hole's force. It was where construction crews went to and from during work."

That made realisation flash in my eyes. "Wait, that means…"

Gladius nodded. "There's a gateway right to the Capital within, and it's our only way out of here."

The other's eyes all widened, and they looked at the strange building with a newfound sense of hope. This was it. We just had a ruined city in our way till all of this chaos was finally over.

"Let's get going then!" Barranco barked. "If we're on a time limit, let's get going now so we can get out of here!"

We all nodded and followed Gladius' lead, with me, Maple, Dave and Barranco following right behind.

But we stopped and looked back at the TARDIS, unsure what to do with it.

"Star, I know you said no magic", The Doctor said. "But maybe you could try that shrinking spell again? Just so the TARDIS is travel-sized again."

The Mewman Princess nodded, and after chanting her shrinking spell, blasted a beam at the blue box. To our relief, it worked just fine, letting The Doctor pick it up and stuff it into his somewhat damaged coat.

"Alright, now let's get going", Barranco muttered with an eye roll. I slapped the back of his head as we all followed the sword into the ruined city, the silhouette of the Hub standing out against the dying world's blurry sky.

~X~

We were not too far into the city after a few minutes of walking, but already the atmosphere of this forgotten realm was getting to us. Most of the group huddled closer together, as if something was going to jump out and bite them. Vanellope and Hilda were on Ralph's shoulders, with Twig on his head and Alfur on the deerfox's.

Scrap Baby skated around us carefully, taking in the sights of this bizarre place with curious eyes. Majima was keeping a close eye on her, as there were a lot of bumps and cracks in the road.

"You know, it's crazy to think people just made a planet like it was a building", the clawed robot mused. "Considering how massive this city alone is, you would think they would do, I don't know, a floating island to make it done sooner."

"That was one of the scrapped blueprints I remember seeing when the plan was at its peak", Gladius answered. "It was abandoned because Rainbow felt it was too unsafe, considering the edge."

"Yeah, I can't imagine falling off into the vacuum of space like that", Rory said with a fearful shiver. "Flying around in the TARDIS can be scary enough, but falling off a planet? No thank you."

"Well, you're only human", Dry Bowser said with a boastful growl. "I'd be fine."

"Because you're an undead fire-breathing turtle dragon with magic", Zomboss spat. "You have it so much better than us."

"Says the undead scientist who's time travelled and been to the moon."

"Can you two please not?" Merida said in exacerbation. "We're already on a crumpling planet at risk of being eaten by some bloody hole in space. We don't need you two bickering about being undead."

The skeleton and zombie blushed and looked down in embarrassment as we all shot them disappointed glares.

Izzy, however, noticed something at an abandoned storefront. "Wait… isn't that Ralph?"

Everyone looked over, and sure enough, worn out and attached to the window, was a poster of the movie Wreck-It Ralph. Poster Ralph stood proud in the centre with other characters around him and the logo at the bottom.

"What that…" The wrecker whispered in terrified disbelief. "Wait…" He looked at me. "Is that what you meant, kid?"

I cringed, but nodded. "Yeah… I'd rather we worry about that when we get to the Capital, so let's just keep going."

Everyone nodded, but I could see they were still gazing at the poster with some sort of horrific intrigue, like they wanted to continue on that conversation. But considering the time limit we were on, they knew we should just keep trucking onwards. So we marched on, the silent, almost haunting whistle of the wind making the city feel hollow and ancient.

At some point, there was another distant boom that resulted in a very subtle earthquake. We all paused as it passed, but didn't expect a nearby lamppost to be knocked down as a result. We all jumped when the glass of the bulb shattered following the pole clinging on the ground. We eyed the pole in worry as we continued on, only for our journey to be halted by a very noticeable obstruction…

A massive chasm that split the city in two.

"Okay, now what?" Manolo asked.

I looked around, and saw our answer. "You guys aren't gonna like it, but c'mon."

Everyone tucked into themselves as I headed towards a collapsed skyscraper that was broken halfway, forming a very precarious bridge over the chasm. I was undeterred as I headed under the broken building's shadow, heading into the stable part with no fear showing.

Inside the building's bottom floor was a typical apartment complex lobby, making me wonder what else this city was meant to have.

The others all carefully filed in, metal creaking and wood groaning as the world settled.

"This is freaky…" McGee said as he, Gretchen and Steve investigated the reception desk. "It's like we're looking into a twisted mirror of our home."

"My thoughts exactly, McGee", Dave said as he and Barranco checked out a rotting cork board with some simple construction reminders.

"For a universe that was part of an abandoned project", Star mused as she held up some worn out souvenir bobbleheads that resembled professional wrestlers, "This place looks pretty finished. Minus all the… broken buildings and stuff."

"Visually, yes", Gladius said. "But no proper sky, power source or other celestial bodies were added. It was just this planet, and that's it."

"They made a planet without a sun or moon?" Galacta mumbled in disbelief.

"It was all just for show. Rainbow and the twins made the planet completely livable without them. It's why most of you are breathing right now."

"Form over function, that sounds lovely", The Doctor said in an uncomfortable tone. He scanned the area over with his screwdriver, then pointed at a nearby door. "Stairs are over there."

"What, is there no elevator?" Flowey bluntly asked.

Buttercup just happened to be next to the closed elevator doors, but when she pressed the button to go up, the doors opened and the lift flew down. There was a loud crash at the bottom of the shaft and we all looked at the flower.

"Okay, stairs it is."

And so we began the slow climb up the many floors towards the top. Gladius and the Powerpuffs hovered through the centre of the staircase while the rest of us climbed up single file. I traced my hand along the wall, as it was more stable than the railing. Especially when a part fell down towards the bottom when Amy put the slightest weight on it.

We scaled upwards till we reached the point where the stairs were ripped off and broken. So we left the stairwell and were greeted with a completely obliterated floor. I looked up, and saw the upper half of the skyscraper held up on its side.

"Let's get this over with…" I sighed.

Ralph and Dry helped most of us up to the makeshift bridge, and when we were all on, we started to cross the collapsed building. But when we were halfway, there was another tremor, and to my horror, our weight plus the quake made the upper part of the building shift and start to lower.

"RUN!" Steve cried out. None of us wasted a second, sprinting ahead as the building began to lower. We hopped over destroyed walls, roofs and furniture. Ralph charged ahead just as the building started to fall into the chasm, and with a mighty punch he blew the roof open, allowing all of us to jump onto solid ground.

Thankfully, we were all on solid (?) ground by the time the upper half of the skyscraper fell into the hollowed planet shell, quickly consumed by the black hole.

We all breathed a collective sigh of relief, and I turned to face our destination. The Hub looked no closer than before, but despite that I could make out some more of the details on the outside.

"C'mon guys, let's go." Gladius took up the lead once again as we marched forward, the wind no less haunting than it already was.

But… there was this feeling that made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end.

The feeling like we were being watched…

~X~

And here we are. The next major arc is gonna be a beefy five parts focusing on this 'Convergence Universe', with the gang travelling to the Hub and then finding a way back to the Capital. This was an arc I was super excited to start writing when I finished the first arc, simply because it feels like the last big hurdle of the journey.

But also, yes, this is the 75th chapter. I am officially 3/4 ways through this absolute beast of a story. I cannot thank all of you enough for sticking with me through all of this, it blows my mind how far I've come.

I just want to give a special thank you to all my friends who supported me and gave me the motivation to continue. I love all you guys!

Also, I'm still hoping for some fanart eventually. Remember: @caleb13frede on Tumblr, imagination7013 on Discord.

Up next: As the city seems to twist and warp into mangled ruins the closer they get to the Hub, the group realises dark beasts hidden within the shadows…

~Caleb~