Chapter Text
There was nothing spectacular about the city of Elmore. It was too large to have a small-town feel and too underpopulated to have a major city vibe. All it did was exist in a vacuum where it perfectly sat. No grand, mysterious, or even important events tended to happen here.
Well, one person didn't believe that.
It had only been a couple weeks since Zach Watterson had his views of the universe changed permanently, and there was no going back. Despite what many films and stories tell him, there is no gigantic shift in his life after this point, only a couple of minor ones. For one, he got a girlfriend, his brother got a girlfriend, and his little sister had friends. He had briefly become a town hero, but that faded almost as quickly as it came. The only people who still paid attention were the family of the woman he helped save.
Every morning, he would wake up and look around to notice that he was still there. He was happy that Rob had not gone through with his original plan and that all the universes were still there. He really hoped Rob was doing well. He'd even briefly tried to find his own universe equivalent, but that didn't come up with any results.
And so life continued; while he was glad he met Rob and the concept of the multiple universes was still strange, he wished he had never seen it. It had done its purpose. It permanently changed his life, and now he can never think about the world the same and talk to anyone about it; he would be seen as crazy. His own siblings are missing major parts of the entire story that he's solely owned. Their prodding about the mystery finally got to him, and he would finally tell them much to their skepticism, but he would stand firm, and that would be the story they would get.
With Rob gone, he fully expected the craziness to end and his life to return to its average, normal, boring style.
Well, he usually rarely got what he wanted anyway.
"Dude, I don't know why you're not nervous."
Zach had been zoning out, much like he always did during school. The only difference now was that someone would shake him out of this empty-mindedness. Looking to his side, Zach stared at his brother with a bored expression, who was rapidly tapping his pen against the desk. Zach noticed he was keeping his voice down. He really thought about it; he didn't really need to do it.
Both brothers, along with the rest of their friends and classmates, were sitting in Mr. Small's class. It was probably one of the least engaging classes and the least difficult one the brothers had to deal with. The hippie teacher was always very loose with his control over his students, and their talking would normally not be a big problem. Even now, he could talk even more since the teacher wasn't even speaking; it was Leslie.
For the past two days, the class has been occupied with people giving pre-written speeches about societal issues. Zach could barely pay attention when his teachers were talking, let alone when some students were. It didn't help that Leslie was talking about plants and how they affect something.
"Why would I be nervous," Zach said quietly, chewing on his pencil slightly, giving off a bored look.
His brother would look at him confused while fidgeting around with a bit of paper in his hands. He clearly wasn't confident in whatever he had written down. "Are you not? Dude, this assignment's been due for days, and you still haven't done anything about it."
That stung a bit. Ever since the incident with Rob, he swore he would be better about his life and the way he treated and interacted with people. Doing schoolwork seemingly slipped by that part. It didn't matter how much he changed; work from people like Miss Simeon was horrible.
"Dude, chill. It's Mr. Small, and he wants a speech. All you gotta do is talk about issues. He'll eat it up no matter how well it's written or, I guess, spoken."
"Are you sure, dude? I mean, do you think overfishing is something Mr. Small would care about?" Zach almost laughed out loud at how stupid a question his brother asked before tapping him on the shoulder.
"Dude, don't worry if you talk about the environment at all. That hippie will fall for it, especially since he had his…" Before even finishing his sentence, Zach pointed towards the front of the class, where Mr. Small had lifted his cup. The moment he took a sip of it, he seemed to be completely out of it. "Watch, I'm going to ace this, and that will show Anais."
"Anais?" Darwin said, raising an eyebrow. "What does she have to do with this."
Zach would immediately start mocking his little sister, trying to replicate her voice. "Oh, Zach, you're not taking your schoolwork seriously. You know mom's gonna be mad at you if you don't do good; please put Daisy the donkey on. You know how she is," Zach said, returning to his normal voice as he thought about it for a moment. "Well…ok, she's right,"
"Hey man, don't be mean." The younger brother couldn't say anything else as they noticed Leslie was concluding his speech.
"And in conclusion, it will make monsters out of you and me." The class soon gave off a short round of applause, but not the entire class. Most students looked bored while Penny, Carmen, and Alan clapped silently.
Mr. Small was startled awake as he looked around at a sheet of paper. "Oh yes, that was very lovely, Leslie." The boy took a short bow before the teacher continued. "All right, let's see who's next. Watterson, your next."
"Which one?" Darwin said, his voice cracking while his older brother leaned back in his seat calmly. Maybe his desire to do a good deed caused Zach to raise his hand first as he laughed at his brother,
"I'll go," Zach said, already standing up. He got a small nod from his teacher as he grabbed the paper from his backpack. Walking up to the front of the class confidently, he quickly spun around to give his brother a thumbs up. He also winked at Penny, who smiled back. Clearing his throat, Zach looked toward the class and began.
The schoolyard was completely empty, as the kids had yet to have a break, but the peace was broken when a static sound quietly hummed over the area. Suddenly, a small static window opened low to the ground. If anyone were to view this event, they would probably be underwhelmed to see a very small figure walk confidently.
Things were surprisingly going well for Zach. Sure, he would never call himself a professional speechwriter, but to have gotten all this work done just a few hours before it was due, he was doing pretty well.
"Furthermore, I believe if we don't take Immediate action, the polar ice caps will melt, and all of humanity will drown or have to learn how to swim, and as a person who doesn't really like to swim, I can say that's pretty bad. …"
OK, well, maybe it was a lie; his speech clearly felt like he had whipped it up in just a couple of minutes, and he was lucky no one was really paying attention. Mr. Small was so out of it that he only heard a few keywords, and he liked those words since they had to do with the environment. The only noise Zach would hear from his teacher would be a few groans, acknowledgment, and approval. The class was similar; almost all of them seemed too tired from the numerous speeches beforehand to care, as only a select few actually paid attention to what he was saying. Those who did pay attention usually weren't the ones to criticize him, especially not in the middle of the speech.
His brother was still nervously looking over his speech; Robert and William were paying only slight attention but still focusing on their assignments. Carrie had the courtesy of at least listening to the subject for a few seconds before wishing she was dead again, as she usually was in class. Penny was the only person to pay genuine attention, and that made him smile a bit; he could tell she thought it was made in just a few moments and mainly on the fly, but as long as he was doing it, he had her approval. Everything was going fine, so something had to interrupt it.
"But no, the ice in the North Pole melting wouldn't just lead to us having to learn how to swim. It would also lead to prehistoric super viruses getting loose. At least, that's what I saw in the horror movie a few nights ago. Now, I don't remember the movie's name, but I will reenact the third act with impressions if this speech requires more runtime. The movie was pretty OK, but…" Zach would pause in the middle of his speech as he slowly looked towards the door window leading into the hallway. He didn't know why he looked that way. He was just kind of bored of constantly staring at the entire class. This would seemingly be at the right or wrong time as he noticed someone or something walking out there.
Now, Zach wasn't an expert in many things, but there are some universal things that don't even need to be questioned for people to know how they are. One thing that nobody questions is could toast walk. Any person would obviously say no. But behold, right outside the classroom was a walking piece of toast. The toast was the average size but walked on too little stick legs and had two little stick arms. It casually shuffled down the hall as Zach was stunned by its presence, staring at it in disbelief. He would only get knocked out of this when Mr. Small finally realized he had stopped talking.
"Is something wrong, Zach? Are you done with your speech because I think that's too short?" Mr. Small said, barely conscious, as he wanted to lay his head down immediately on his desk.
The boy stumbled on his words as some of his classmates looked at him weirdly. "What, oh no. I just need to… let me just finish my speech, and then can I use the bathroom?"
He rushed. He rushed the rest of his speech, stumbling on a few words now that his confidence had been firmly shaken. He also ran down the hallway at full speed, looking for whatever had been seen out of the corner of his eye.
Of course, he was immediately reminded of Rob, the living CGI being who turned out to be sympathetic from a lost dimension. But this was much stranger. Rob, while clearly not being human and clearly somehow digitally living in the human world, was not a walking piece of toast.
He probably should have left the situation alone for a million reasons, but the idea of something strange happening again worried him. No matter how Zach feels about him now, Rob originally planned to erase his universe. If there was a slight chance of that happening again, he would have to step in and stop it. When he thought about this in his head, he almost thought it sounded cool, like he was one of his heroes from comic books, but living in the moment it felt ridiculous and terrifying.
Speaking of ridiculous, he was having a bit of trouble trying to figure out how he'd find a piece of toast in a school. He didn't know how long he would be looking, but if there was a chance of the universe breaking apart, he would risk missing some class.
He'd expected this search to continue forever until he heard a slow humming sound. It was a light tune that sounded something like a high-pitched military song. He quickly turned the corner of several lockers to see his target in plain view. Walking down the hallway like he owned the place was a single piece of slightly browned toast with tiny little sneakers.
Multiple dimensions exist, and he was apparently an animated cat in most of them. He had a hard time weighing whether this was strange or not. If there was a potential issue, though, he would have to get ahead of it this time instead of being led around on a town-wide mystery that involved people being paused and kidnapped.
Getting low to the ground, Zach would turn the corner quickly and rush at the living piece of bread. Unsurprisingly, it was the easiest thing he had ever done. Snatching it up, he immediately ran.
He was running on instinct at this point as he immediately opened the door to a nearby storage closet and pushed himself and the toast inside, ensuring nobody saw him. The entire time he was holding the toast, it was kicking and screaming, telling him to let him down or he'd face some wrath. The piece of bread was so expectedly light that he slowly rolled his eyes as he put the toast, which was still kicking on the top shelf he could reach. The toast had a little drawn face that looked scared as he realized how high Zach put him.
The staring would begin as Zach and the piece of bread looked at each other like they were the craziest things they'd ever seen.
"Ew, what are you?" the toast said disgusted as he got a good look at Zach. The boy didn't know whether to be offended or not as he simply stood back, still observing the living bread.
"What am I? I could ask you the same thing if I wasn't already aware I was talking to a piece of toast." He was failing to keep his voice down, but the last thing he needed right now was a half-a-sandwich walking around insulting him.
"How dare you? I am no mere piece of toast; I am far more than that…"
"What … What does that mean… whole wheat?"
"What, no, I'm not whole wheat. I'm a proud member of the 41st Dough Battalion. I'm Anton 1424, the greatest scout." the toast said proudly. Zach could only stare at them for a few quiet seconds as his brain tried to and mostly failed to understand what was happening clearly, so he would say the first thing that came to his mind.
"You're a piece of bread…. in the military? Wait a minute. Did you say your name was Anton?"
"No, I said my name was Anton 1424. get it right." The toast seemed absolutely offended as Zach thought about it momentarily. Anton was one of his schoolmates. He was a short kid who usually hung around Idaho and Tobias. It is not usually a company he would willingly seek out. Anton also never seemed interesting other than that he frequently got hurt and would return to school the next day. He no longer felt bad that he was a cat because being a piece of bread was far worse, and this caused him to laugh a little bit at its ridiculousness, as the bread just seemed even more angered.
"Laugh all you want; when we take over, you're going to be begging for mercy, which you're not going to get."
"Look, dude. I don't know what you're talking about…." Zach couldn't speak much longer. The moment he tried to reach out for the toast once again, his little hands surprisingly scratched him, and he quickly and professionally climbed down the shelf, running for the door. "Oh, what the heck!"
Zach wasn't too concerned about whatever the bread could do next, but as he turned around to look towards the door, he was stunned to see it open and close before his eyes. The darkness of the supply closet could barely contain his confusion.
“Wait… how did you… never mind?" he says, quickly opening the door and looking around the hallway. He couldn't believe his eyes as he saw the bread already rounding the corner, staying close to the walls as he chased it down.
Once again, Zach thought it was just a piece of bread. There was no way he could do anything except apparently have sharp nails and open doors. Running full speed, he was about to quickly turn the corner until he was stopped by forcefully running into someone.
There was a large list of people you wanted to avoid running into when you were a student at Elmore Junior High. For as many friendly people went here, there were just as many psychopaths in town. The school was a fine example. On top of that list was Tina, which for him was luckily not an issue as he seemed to make peace with the girl sometimes. Of course, running into Tina would be relatively lucky compared to who he ran into. He ran into Jamie.
The girl was slightly shorter than him, but there was no mistaking that she was tougher than him in every aspect that didn't involve a brain. While Tina Seemed to mellow out over the school year, Jamie would never, as she stayed her aggressive self; oddly enough, she was perfectly fine with hanging out with his younger sister. She would even watch her after school sometimes. Zach wouldn't be able to think about how one of the most aggressive people he knew was a great babysitter for his sister for much longer as they both fell to the ground, holding their heads in slight pain. Of course, Jamie, being who she is, got out of it quicker than him and almost growled at him like an animal. He didn't want to imagine what her other universe cells were like, but he imagined something like a shark or a dragon, something mean and short-tempered.
"What's the deal, Watterson? You had enough of me starting stuff, so you tried to even the odds." She immediately punched her own fist in anticipation as Zach scooted back in fear. He had never seen Jamie fight, but just from her performance in PE, he knew she could probably bring the pain.
"What if I start something? What? No, I hate starting things. I never start anything. Never. I'm lazy, you know." He tried to resolve this peacefully, but she immediately picked him up by the collar and made him stand up, looking him dead in the eyes.
"You better watch where you're walking, Watterson. Unlike your brother and sister, I'm not afraid of sending you to the nurse." Zach wanted to wilt immediately in fear, but he saw the piece of bread quickly open another door and enter the boy's bathroom. Jamie had somehow not noticed the living piece of bread passing by her, and she was enraged.
"Yes, yes, I know. Please don't hurt me… I'll give you all the money in my pocket." Jamie gave one of her uncharacteristic smiles as she immediately put him down and got a very peaceful face. The boy would be shocked when she started talking more properly.
"Why thank you, Watterson. I will gladly take this as payment for babysitting your sister."
"Not like anyone asked you to," Zach complained quietly as he began digging in his pocket. Reluctantly, Zach balled his fist and put it in Jamie's hands as he dropped the content and immediately ran away from her. She was so proud of her acquisition, but her eyes widened in annoyance as she looked down. There was no money in it, not even coins. It was just an IOU signed with Zach's name, not for Jamie specifically. It was made for the nurse, clear with the nurse's names signed on it.
"Yeah, he's dead," Jamie said quietly and calmly to herself as she turned around quickly. She would see the Watterson boy immediately rush into the boy's bathroom, but by that point, she didn't care enough as she stomped away, huffing in annoyance.
Entering the boy's bathroom, Zach would be relieved when he finally got away from the crazy girl. But now, his objective was clear. The piece of toast, for some reason, had retreated to this room. Firmly closing the door and praying that Jamie didn't chase him in here, he would turn around relieved, until he paused, looking over the entire bathroom. There are usually strange things going on in the middle school bathroom, but when he entered, he didn't expect nearly 100 eyes to look back at him. The entire floor, multiple sinks, and basically every surface in the bathroom had a living piece of toast staring at him. They all seem to be surrounding one in the corner of the bathroom, who was holding a remote. Getting a better look at it, he would be more surprised at the remote than the living bread as he recognized it. It looked like the same one Rob used.
His theory was already confirmed: these toast traveled dimensions, and there was an army of them.
"Oh, you got to be kidding me…"
Back in the classroom, Tina was doing her presentation slowly, almost seeming to knock the rest of the class into a sense of sleep. Her topic wasn't uninteresting; it's just that her slow way of speaking and her low voice led to many students who were hanging on to consciousness finally falling asleep.
One of these students was Penny, who usually was one of the better students in the class but now looked around aimlessly at her fellow students. There was no permanent seating in the class, so anyone could have free reign over where they sat for the day. As much as she liked her friends, she usually wanted to stay in the back of the class to focus more on her work. Zach thought it was a compliment when she called him quite distracting.
Thinking of Zach, Penny looked around the classroom to see he still wasn't back from being in the bathroom. He'd rarely been known to skip classes. He'd done it once or twice by accident, but this was strange even for him. She thought about it for a moment; maybe he was doing a smart thing and taking a break from the maddening boredom of being in the classroom. Just for the heck of it, she felt like she would take a page from his book and ask to leave class.
Sure, it was lying, but there was nothing wrong with taking a breather from class.
Everyone in the bathroom was holding their breath, waiting to see who would react first, the legion of toast or the single boy who was there to witness it. The toast was obviously freaked out that they were caught, but the boy was more surprised seeing these tiny creatures have apparently an all-powerful device capable of traveling dimensions and to the void. No one would speak up until the single piece of toast holding the remote spoke.
"Hey…a little help here", he said awkwardly. Every piece of toast looked the same except the one holding the remote, which seemed to have a red bandana around what Zach assumed was their version of a forehead. Having a better look, Zach also noticed that most toasts held small sticks that were most likely used as spears.
"What is going on here?" Zach said, raising his voice as the toast looked around at each other, trying to figure out how to answer.
One piece of toast was bold enough to approach him. He wasn't exactly sure if it was the same one he had chased; it was nearly impossible to tell.
"Step back, monster. We are conducting business that you wouldn't want to be a part of." The boy just blinked slowly as he looked over the scene one more time. The bandana-wearing toast was clearly being attacked by a large crowd of fellow toasters.
"First of all, monster? Sure totally. second of all, you didn't answer my question: what are you doing here." The boy paused a little bit as he looked over the scenario one more time before speaking to himself. "and I'm talking to a crowd of bread…awesome."
One said animatedly, "We're not bread; we're toast. There's a huge difference."
"Please help me; they're evil," the bandana toast said, pleading one more time, holding the remote tightly to him.
"no, we're not. Stop lying", one said as they pointed the spear closer to the bandana Anton. The piece of toast would be surprised when his spear was suddenly taken out of his hands by Zach, who merely just stepped over a couple of them.
"Look, guys, I don't know what's going on, but I'm sure if we all sit down, take a breath, or whatever toast needs to do, and chill out, we can all come to an easy explanation…." The toast army didn't hear him out, as they immediately raised their sticks and yelled.
"he's working with the traitor. Kill him. Ah!" Without another warning, the entire large group of toast rushed at him. It was a split-second decision, but looking down at the bandana toast with the controller, he immediately picked that one up, hopped over the crowd of toast, and sprinted out of the hallway. The toast in his arms would get a comfortable resting area in his hands as he looked up at the boy, smiling.
"Why, thank you, random creature. You really saved my crust." The piece of toast suddenly was manhandled when Zach grabbed it by its legs and dangled it upside down while running. He kept a steady stride as he held the piece of toast out behind him, almost dangling him over the now gaining crowd of angry toast soldiers following them.
"You better explain to me what's going on right now, or I'm going to see the most violent bread slicing in the world."
"Whoa, whoa, whoa," the bread said, freaking out a bit as Zach immediately pulled him back up. "I'll tell you everything. Just please keep moving."
"Explain now," Zach said as a small spear passed by his head.
"Well, you see, we're from a different dimension…"
"You don't say."
"in my dimension, a long time ago, there was a single Anton, and then he died. but don't worry, us Antons can come back anytime, we're created in a special toaster." Zach honestly wanted to tell the little creature that he was already lost but the little being would continue anyway.
"one day, the next installment of Anton would come out burnt, and then they would try to throw them away. That was Ant-one. After he survived being thrown away, he found the toaster and created an army, blah blah blah. We then took over the world, but don't worry, I'm a part of the resistance." Zach was less than amused at the short explanation he was given as he looked back to the horde of toast barely chasing him through the hallway at a good speed. It was moments like these when he wished he was better at the gym, as he probably could have lost them by now.
"So whatever dimension you're from, a bunch of pieces of bread took over the world… the world was taken over by toast?"
"Well, most of the world, we had an ingenious strategy."
"What? yeast infection," Zach said, chuckling a little bit until Anton cocked their head, confused, and answered.
"Nuclear detonation." there was an awkward pause between Zach and the bandana Anton as he looked down at them like they were crazy.
"Are you saying you caused the apocalypse?"
"Well, I wouldn't say I did it. Ant-one did it. I started fighting back when we started taking over another universe. apparently, it's really easy to cause nuclear detonations." Zach was honestly freaking out at this point. Living pieces of toast were now his greatest concern. He no longer had any lingering idea of his universe being wiped away while he slept. Now, all he can think about is a nuclear fallout created by an army of bread.
"Oh, so you're saying we're doomed"? Zach said as another bunch of Spears passed by his head.
"Well, no, they're only at 50% capability now. That's because I stole this," the bandana toast said, holding up a remote. It allows us to travel to other dimensions. The only other one that has one is the leader."
"Cool, I guess all we need to do now is…" For the second time in the day, Zach ran into another person. As he was turning the hallways quickly once again, he slammed head-first into a girl who gave a high-pitched screech as they both collapsed to the ground. Bandana Anton had gone flying in the mess, spinning around comically.
"Please don't be Jamie, please don't be Jamie," Zach repeated out loud until he heard a familiar Yelp in pain. He was somehow more horrified when he realized Penny was the one he had crashed into. He really needed to check for corners now.
His relief that he didn't run into Jamie gave way to horror when he realized he had just headbutted his own girlfriend, who was currently on the floor holding her head in slight pain. With a sharp gasp, he ran over to her down on the floor next, trying to make sure she was OK.
"Oh, man, Penny, I'm so sorry. Please don't be mad, please don't be hurt. If I hurt you, I wouldn't be able to forgive myself… what have I done"? he says dramatically." Please hit me back. It's the only way for us to be even. I'm a monster,", he almost yelled even more dramatic as he prepared himself for Penny to hit him. She would finally get her bearings as she just looked at him, a little amused and concerned.
"I'm not going to hit you because you accidentally ran into me, and besides, I take worse hits from the cheerleader squad. You know it's not easy falling from a pyramid." She pretty much instantly recovered from the pain, and she started dusting herself off and standing.
"Oh, yeah," Zach said, realizing how quite dramatic he was. "Falling off a pyramid would hurt; those things are tall."
"A pyramid is a cheerleader formation."
"Yeah, I know. I totally knew that", he says, lying through his teeth." I was just…. you know… lightening the mood."
"How can you have been to so many of my practices and now remember my moves"? She says, more amused than offended. Zach was admittedly so lost in her eyes that by the time he helped her stand up, she was still holding his hand. The light feeling he would suddenly get, pondering whether this was a great time for a kiss, would get interrupted when he felt pain.
Penny unexpectedly squeezed his hand right as he was stuck in a daydream; for a moment, he thought he had done something wrong. But the terrified and bewildered face she had looked past him.
"Oh yeah, I forgot," Zach said. When he turned around, the empty hallway was filled with lines and lines of toast, running at their slow but full speed toward them and charging with a unified yet quiet yell.
"Black out the skies!" A bunch of them yelled. Unanimously before either Penny or Zach could comprehend what happened next; a storm of spears was thrown up into the hallway in a perfect arc directly at them.