It was an average afternoon in Elmore, and Gumball Watterson was, as usual, up to something that would inevitably go wrong. Today, that "something" was a casual tree-climbing competition with Darwin in their backyard. Naturally, the tree was barely more than a shrub, but Gumball insisted on victory.

"Race you to the top!" Gumball called out.

"Uh, it's only like five feet tall, Gumball," Darwin pointed out, but before he could finish, Gumball had already jumped onto a particularly gnarly-looking branch.

Just as Gumball declared himself the "King of the Shrub," it happened. He slid his hand down the branch, and... prick!

"Ow! Ow ow ow ow!" Gumball yelped, leaping down and clutching his hand. He inspected his palm and saw the culprit—a tiny, nearly microscopic splinter. "I've been wounded! Call an ambulance! Call—"

"Dude, it's just a splinter," Darwin said, trying to remain calm, but Gumball had already entered his trademark dramatic mode.

"Just a splinter? Darwin, this could be fatal! I could lose my arm! My hand! My life!" Gumball wailed.

Nicole, who had been watching through the window, sighed and opened it. "Gumball, just go inside and get some tweezers from the bathroom. It'll take two seconds."

But of course, that was too simple for Gumball.

"No, no, no! I'm a man, Darwin! I'll handle this my own way."

Gumball stood at the top of the stairs, his hand wrapped in a towel and tied to the handle of an office chair. He figured that speed was the key to splinter removal, and what better way to achieve speed than by riding it out?

Darwin watched from below, shaking his head. "Are you sure this is gonna work, Gumball?"

"Oh, I'm sure. You see, Darwin, when I launch down these stairs at supersonic speed, the wind will just pull the splinter right out! I call it 'Operation Turbo Extraction.'"

Gumball gave himself a little push, and the chair rocketed down the stairs. Halfway down, though, the chair hit a snag, and instead of wind pulling out the splinter, it was Gumball who went flying into the air, crashing face-first into the living room wall.

"Oooowwww…" he groaned, peeling himself off the wall.

"Did it work?" Darwin asked.

Gumball looked at his hand. The splinter was still there.

After recovering from his stairway incident, Gumball went with his next bright idea. He had recently heard that natural remedies could solve almost anything. So, naturally, he rummaged through the kitchen cabinets and pulled out…a lemon.

"Gumball, what are you doing?" asked Anais, watching as her older brother prepared his citrusy cure.

"Lemons have natural healing properties, Anais! If I squeeze this on the splinter, it'll just dissolve!"

Anais tilted her head. "That's not how it works—"

"SCIENCE, Anais!" Gumball declared with a flourish, squeezing the lemon dramatically over his hand.

Within seconds, Gumball's bravado turned into regret as the juice hit the splinter. "AAAAHHHHHHH! IT BURNS! I THINK I'M DYING!!!"

"Gumball, that's not science," Anais sighed, watching him hop around the kitchen in pain, clutching his lemon-soaked hand.

Finally, after hours of unsuccessful splinter-removal attempts—including a failed idea involving a magnet, a coat hanger, and a vacuum cleaner—Darwin took pity on Gumball.

"Alright, I've got an idea," Darwin said as Gumball sat dejected on the couch, staring at his hand like it had betrayed him. "We need to distract the splinter."

Gumball blinked. "Distract it? How?"

Darwin picked up a toy from the floor—a small action figure. "If the splinter thinks there's a bigger threat, it might get scared and leave."

Gumball's eyes lit up. "Of course! We'll trick the splinter into surrendering!"

With incredible determination, Gumball grabbed a marker and began drawing angry eyebrows on the toy. He placed it next to his hand and started shouting, "HEY, SPLINTER! LOOK AT THIS GUY! HE'S GONNA GET YOU IF YOU DON'T LEAVE RIGHT NOW!"

Darwin joined in, shaking the toy menacingly at Gumball's hand. "Yeah, splinter, you better scram! Or else this guy's gonna…uh…fight you!"

For a solid five minutes, they yelled at the splinter. Nothing happened.

Eventually, Nicole had had enough. She marched into the living room, tweezers in hand, and grabbed Gumball's wrist before he could protest.

"Moooom, wait! We were just about to win the psychological battle—"

Plink!

The splinter was out.

"There. All done," Nicole said, holding up the splinter for them to see. Gumball stared at it, stunned by how small it was.

"Wait… that's it? That's what we've been fighting against all day?!" Gumball gasped, feeling equal parts embarrassed and relieved.

Darwin shrugged. "Hey, at least we had a good strategy."

Nicole just shook her head and walked out of the room.

Gumball looked at Darwin, grinning. "So, round two tomorrow?"

Darwin sighed. "Let's just stick to the tweezers next time."

And thus ended The Great Splinter Battle of Elmore, a conflict that will forever go down in Gumball's personal history… as completely unnecessary.