A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR
This is the fourth entry in a series of stories meant to crossover several Nicktoons into a shared universe, and will make a few references to the prior stories. For full context of the references and to fully grasp the shared universe that these stories share, you are recommended to read the prior stories 'Hey Arnold! The Football Head Returns', 'Danny Phantom: End of Days', and 'Rocket Power: Zero Gravity' to chronologically follow the story.
This story takes place approximately 3 years after the original run of the show in its first few chapters, then 15 years after that in the remainder of the story. It also takes some unproduced concepts from the show and adapts them to this format. Credit to original creators where it is due.
As ChalkZone was one of my absolute favorite cartoons growing up as a child, I will keep the overall story similar to many other films from my childhood to match the more 'innocent' feel of the show. So, as opposed to my previous works in this series, I will keep the mature themes and elements to a minimum.
...As minimum as I can go, anyway.
This also features 2 original characters of my creation that will serve as the primary protagonists as well as Rudy and Penny. One of these characters is on the Autism Spectrum, and, while he is based on some of my own traits (I am Autistic), he is NOT a self-insert character. Also be noted that not all of his traits are based on mine, so I apologize to any other fellow Autistics that may view him as an incorrect portrayal of Autism or Autistic individuals.
With that out of the way, enjoy the ride.
PROLOGUE
Eons ago, before the beginning of time itself, the universe was but a singularity, a condensation of all matter in one being.
Then, the universe expanded, bursting into what we know as the Big Bang. From this, the two simplest elements of the periodic table, hydrogen and helium, formed in the span of a half-hour, giving way to form stars and suns, bringing forth light and heat and energy to the universe with their processes of nuclear fusion born from the simple atoms that formed the masses.
These fusions began to give way to heavier elements, then, as the stars died and expanded further into supernovas, they gave way to elements heavier above even those. Through these processes, more stars formed further and further throughout the virginal space that the universe began to occupy, filling the void that was once empty space with matter.
As the new stars were born, the heavier elements and matter that were flung far into space began to congregate around the new stars, pulling into their gravitational pulls. The debris circling around the stars clashed into each other over and over in their constant revolutions, clumping and clustering together into larger masses.
It is through this process through which planets were created, and brought to us our home planet of Earth.
And the elements that occupied the Earth were bombarded with radiation, brought forth from the stars and the Earth itself, emitting energy which rearranged the compositions of the elements on a constant basis, eventually forming the correct sequence of chemicals and elements which we call...
...life.
Life had started small, as mere proteins and membranes growing out from cells, but soon, with the radiation of the sun and Earth mutating it on, began to give way to more complex life forms, giving way to the aquatic life forms that lived within the now-cooling waters...
...to the amphibians who could soon walk on land...
...to the reptiles who could reproduce on land...
...to the mammals, who required far less food to survive, and could reproduce without the need to lay their eggs...
...to the first humans, which brought forth the ancestors that eventually bred our own species.
But to say nothing of the incredible complexity and amazing details in which the universe and our world came to be, it is not the focus of this story, and so we must sadly condense grand, wonderful origin story to focus on a smaller origin story, but one that is no less delightful and important to hear.
Where this story begins is with Homo Erectus, some of the first human beings that evolved out of the primate order.
As complex a life system as they were, they were quite simple in their time; their original manner of collecting food from collecting berries and nuts soon came to hunting larger game after the invention of spears, and cooking the meat to consume following the discovery of fire.
Their language, too, was simple, expressing only the most basic of thoughts and questions, barely having the urge or capacity to question their world as a whole. Though they have their superstitions, their inventions to try to explain away the mysteries of the universe as they could ask at the moment.
But even those are barely a concern to Homo Erectus. They are stll a creature that has not yet come to full consciousness, and has a limited scope of understanding. For now, they are content in their lives, able to live peacefully in the shelters they have built for themselves, eating the food they have collected for themselves.
Such is the case with one male Homo Erectus who ventured out into the woods, seeking out food for his tribe to eat. Carrying with him a spear, he sought out an easy prey to seek and kill, holding his spear tightly as to make his kill easily. His eyes and his ears are open to the world in search of his prey, and he is as patient as his stomach is, his patience slipping as his hunger rises.
Until, finally, his patience is rewarded with a bovine in his presence, grazing off of the grass to feed itself. Just as the bovine is a creature that has an objective need for food to survive, the Homo Erectus, too, has a need for food, and, while he is capable of seeking food that does not require death...
...his stomach overrides all else, prompting him to throw his spear.
Unfortunately, the spear misses its target of the bovine, and its throwing only manages to scare the bovine away, sending it running off into the wilds where it soon left the sight of the Homo Erectus. The poor proto-human, deprived of its meal, shouted and screamed after the departed bovine, stomping his feet as he watched his meal escape and he stood helpless to stop it.
The loss of a hunt has soured the mood of the Homo Erectus, but the defeated mood does not last long. For when his belly aches, his nose becomes stronger in the search for food, becoming more receptive to the scents in the air which might provide him with another source of substanence.
His nose brings him to a tree, standing alone in the midst of the garden around him. Looking up to the tree, he searched it for fruit, finding none on it, as the tree itself was dead, leaving him to a further disappointment and anger with a false promise made unto him.
However, that disappointment was once again swept away when his eyes came to the bark of the tree. Though it bore fruit no more, all about it laid mushrooms of various sizes, each carrying the smell of food that had brought his nose to it. He had decided that this sustenance was enough to satisfy him for the time being, so he took the mushrooms and began eating them.
The mushrooms are tasty enough to eat and fill his belly, but they carry with them an after-effect that he has not before felt from any food he has eaten. He does not know what he feels now, nor why it is because of the mushrooms that he feels it, but he feels what he feels now nonetheless.
First, the feeling brings forth a laugh from his lips. Unsure of why he made this sound, the Homo Erectus stepped back in confusion, trying to comprehend what he did.
Then, he let out a grunt, and laughed again. He still does not understand why he laughs, but the feeling he has now interests him, imploring him to explore it.
Then, he let out another grunt, and laughed again. He begins to like this new sensation coming over him, and explores further into this new territory.
Now, he begins to laugh louder, and uncontrollably so. He loves this new feeling, if only he just now begins to understand the feeling of love. The strange substance in the mushrooms which he consumed, working into his primitive brain, open up to him new neural pathways in his mind he did not know existed, bringing to him a final gift of knowledge of good and evil from this dead tree.
It is mental progress which he begins to make from the hallucinogen he consumed; just as the Big Bang has given rise to outer space as we know it, the mushrooms have given him the path to inner space as only some know it, and try desperately to teach to others who do not.
The mushrooms, the forbidden fruit that this dead tree has left behind, has led him the capacity to ask new questions, and imagine. What questions he asks he cannot fully understand, and what he imagines he cannot fully articulate, but they are a start to a journey which will be followed long down by many others to come.
Today, the human soul is born.
The imagining and the asking goes on for hours and hours, leaving him questioning all but the time itself that has passed. He eventually comes to again when his internal journey is over, but not as his old self. He is a new self now, and he has many new complex thoughts and emotions which he must share.
When he eventually returns back to his tribe, his immediate thought is not about food any longer, for he has been given a taste for something else that his new emotional pathways have been opened up to receive. His first thought is to look around for a place to put his thoughts down on a place, somewhere that he can solidify his thoughts and make them visible.
If he cannot speak out what he thinks and feels, he must express it through imagery, trying to comprehend past the use of language and its limitations.
His first attemps are made with mud and snow, but they are not reliable for his purposes. The thoughts he has drawn are swept away with the weather, whisked off to somewhere else and taking what he drew along with it. It leaves him no more time to contemplate his creation, no time to perfect what he created so that he may fully express himself.
His search for a fitting place brings him to a cave, where he took to the walls to express himself. Taking a rock to the walls, he began scratching the rock into the walls, leaving behind lines of chalk left over from the rock that remained, allowing his creation the permanence which he sought.
Now able to fully develop his drawings, he continued to scratch at the walls with his rock, making drawings that became representations of his dreams and emotions. The themselves are drawings are crude, simple, and vague, not unlike how a very young child of the Homo Sapiens would make, but it no less impressive to see the first signs of creation come forth through the hands of a human being.
But the Homo Erectus is not content with only looking upon his creations for himself; he must share them. Coming out from the caves, he calls forth for his tribesmen to come and see what he has given rise to, prompting the others forth in hopes that they would feel what he feels when they look upon his creations.
The other members of his tribe look on in wonder, trying to understand what this new invention he has brought forth to them. The drawings are as incomprehensible as they are to their own creator, but they no less inspire a wonder and curiosity in the crowd, and try to interpret what these scratchings mean.
Out of all those crowds of people who are always impressed, however, there is always one who is not so easy to go along with the crowd, and, in fact, go against it for his own purposes. In the case of this Homo Erectus in question who does, it is because he defies all form of change and difference, such as this one which his brother has brought to the tribe.
And what he does not like, he must destroy.
Taking the same rock which the artist used to create the art, this Homo Erectus smashed it into the head of the first creator, sending him to the ground with a sharp and instantaneous fall. The injury does immediate damage to his skull and brain, but this wound is not enough for the attacking Homo Erectus, who continues his work on his brother.
Again he bashes the rock into his brother's head, doing so over and over again until the artist no longer moves. It is a long and vicious process, and it draws forth favorable reactions from the crowd. Never before had they seen a member of their species strike another, never seeing them try to kill one another, and they cheer and grunt happily as they watch.
For while the emotions conveyed in the artist's drawings were complex and required much thought, the sight of violence, like sex, does not require any thinking at all. It just is, it is always easy to comprehend, and it always brings forth an understood and definite reaction from those who see it.
The attacking Homo Erectus, victorious against his enemy, reached into the caved-in skull of his victim, taking out pieces of his brain, which was since altered to produce the emotions and creations that came with it. Bringing to his mouth, he ate the brains, consuming the mind that gave forth creation and destroying it forever.
And the crowd, they see and know for a fact that the artist is dead, struck down with the first-ever murder.
The artist is dead.
But what he has brought upon the Earth has not been forgotten, not for long. The Homo Erectus tribe move on from the cave, leaving behind his drawings and the feelings they portrayed, but their negligence and indifference to the drawings do not nullify their existence nor make them worthless.
For what the artist has brought onto the world is the first foray into a new universe beyond our own, one that he has helped usher in and create with his venture into emotion and feeling and expression. It is a world that will be refined and added to throughout the millions of years, with each epoch that comes and goes as the various species of human beings come forth.
And this universe shall come to be known as ChalkZone.