Chapter Text
Rob fell back into the Void, his mind foggy and confused after all that happened. He was so close to fixing everything, he was finally the villain again, and he would’ve made a big sacrifice to save Elmore if it weren’t for reality altering and replacing his new villain armor with his old cardboard Dr. Wrecker outfit, or how it replaced Gumball’s axe with a baguette.
Something wasn’t quite right, but he didn’t know exactly what it was…
“Wait...What?” he asked himself as he fell further into the static dimension, as two large pieces of debris almost collided, and he would’ve been crushed if not for the rusty crimson-colored van that appeared out of nowhere and saved him.
The van landed rather harshly on a large floating rock, as Rob excitedly excited the vehicle, the driver doing the same as well.
Suddenly, Rob embraced the figure in a tight hug, seeing as this man practically saved his life. He didn’t know just how to repay him for it..
“Hey kid…” The man spoke up in a deep, gravely voice.
“But how?” Rob asked happily.
“Oh, I’ve added a post-credit scene.” The dark, hairy figure put a hand on Rob’s shoulder and chuckled, before handing him a black cloak, much to the cyclops’ surprise.
“There, new uniform. Training is over.”
Rob glanced back at the Shady man before looking at his new outfit, as he tried desperately to hold back tears of joy from forming in his singular eye. He was so happy to finally get what he always wanted: a purpose to play in the world. And this time, he didn’t have to be the villain anymore, the one thing he always hated being the most.
The cyclops entered the van and put the hood over his head, before looking back at his former boss.
“Are you really sure you want to retire?” He asked.
The Shady Man chuckled, and responded, “You gotta know when to quit. I make good money from these fools selling them weird stuff.”
He pulled out a door hinge out of nowhere and opened a door to some paradise of sorts.
“...but they will need someone to protect them when they eventually get pulled from the air.”
“What will I do when the Void comes back for them?”
“...You just press this button.” The shady man pressed a red button on the dashpad that read ‘upload’, causing the van to suddenly levitate and glitch out of the Void, sending Rob back to Elmore.
“Good luck, kid…” He sighed to himself before closing the door behind him, as it glitched out of reality.
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Rob sat inside the driver’s seat of the van as it teleported back to Elmore, though it didn’t help that his mind was still fuzzy from everything that had happened. He finally, after what felt like so long, has a purpose to play in the world. He didn’t need to be the villain anymore, but something still felt off…
And then that’s when he realized, it was only a matter of time before the Void started to take over Elmore, but the thing that confused him deeply was, if the Void could take over, why wouldn’t it just do it now?
Gumball and Darwin were so close to finding out the truth behind their bizarre town, and if it weren’t for the sudden revisions to the script, they could’ve easily found out about their status as fictional characters and the Void would begin its takeover of Elmore.
“I don’t get it…” Rob asked himself, clutching the steering wheel of the van with his cloaked hands. “...why hasn’t Elmore collapsed into the Void yet? Are Gumball and Darwin even aware that they don’t exist?”
Suddenly, the van finished teleporting back to Elmore, as it glitched and landed rather harshly on the empty street of a neighborhood with a bunch of dark, desolate houses.
Rob stepped out from the vehicle, taking off his hood as he almost immediately recognized the blue suburban house in front of him that belonged to his former nemesis.
He lived there for a month or two in their basement without them knowing a while back, so of course he’d remember the home of the one person he once swore revenge on. It was almost surprising how he, at one point, vowed to ruin Gumball’s life as much as possible before he realized just how hard it was to hate him.
The glitchy cyclops took off his black cloak and tucked it inside the van, before sneaking out to the backyard and grabbing a ladder from the shed. Once he returned to the front yard, he climbed up and knocked on the front upstairs window.
Gumball woke up startled, as he asked sluggishly, “...What the…what? Who’s there?”
Noticing Rob enter their bedroom, the blue feline quietly yelped.
“Rob! What are you doing here?!”
“Shhhh. Keep it down….” The cyclops responded in a rather unusually soft tone, silencing the kitten. “The last thing I need right now is to wake anyone up…”
“Righhhttt, so what are you doing here?” The kitten raised an eyebrow as he got up from the bottom bunk of his bunk bed.
“I came to warn you about an impending danger that could easily be unleashed upon our world and destroy everything we know.” The glitchy cyclops answered, though as he noticed Gumball wearing his pajamas, he couldn’t help but raise his unibrow in confusion.
“Oh, and, could you put on some appropriate clothes, please?” He asked, “We might be gone for a while.”
“Waittt…what do you mean by ‘gone’?” Gumball asked in suspicion. “...Where are you taking me?”
“I’m taking you with me to investigate what happened with the-”
Before Rob could finish his statement, however, he soon realized that Gumball had no memory that the Void even existed. He figured it’d be better off if he didn’t know a thing about it rather than him knowing too much.
“Investigate what?” The blue feline raised an eyebrow.
“Eh, you don’t need to worry about it too much.” Rob shrugged it off, before soon looking down at the blue kitten. “....Sooo are you gonna get dressed or not?”
“Oh, right…”
The glitchy cyclops exited out of the bedroom window that he arrived in and slid down the front roof, mostly to avoid seeing Gumball changing clothes. As soon as he finished changing into his regular attire, that being his usual tan sweater and gray pants, he followed Rob out of the window and into The Awesome Store van.
Gumball sat down at the passenger seat next to the driver’s, and fastened his seat belt. Rob soon followed the notion, as he sat down on the driver's seat and drove off from the house, crashing into a few garbage cans and mailboxes as he navigated the road.
“Wait, you can drive?” Gumball asked.
“No, but to be honest, that’s the least of my concerns right now.” Rob responded.
The kitten’s ears then perked up with excitement, as his face lit up in a bright tint of red.
“Oooooh, I wonder if this means we can drive to the mall, and we can go on a shopping spree together, and like, we can pick out clothes for each other, and-”
“This isn’t a joyride, Gumball.” Rob interrupted blankly, instantly crushing Gumball’s hopes of a potential date between him and the cyclops. “The only reason I came back to find you was because I need your help with something important.”
“Waitttt a minute…” The blue feline narrowed his eyes in suspicion. “...Are you’re sure you’ve given up on the whole ‘I will destroy you and everyone you love’ shtick? Because the last time I saw you you nearly destroyed the entire school.”
“Eh, I’m over that.” The glitchy cyclops rolled his singular eye nonchalantly. “Now that I’m the new owner of The Awesome Store, I don’t have to keep playing the role as the villain anymore. Not that I even wanted to to begin with.”
“Woahhh, you own the Awesome Store now?”
“Yeah, my boss handed ownership of it to me. He added an entire post-credit scene just to save me. I don’t know how to repay him…”
“Aww, that’s sweet of him!” Gumball responded, his face dazzled. “By the way, uhh, shouldn’t we stop at the school if we want to figure out what happened?”
“Oh, yeah.” The cyclops answered. “I figure it’d make sense.”
After a few minutes of driving, Rob eventually parked the van near the front entrance to Elmore Jr. High and exited the crimson van, Gumball following him from behind as he entered the school.
The stars in the night sky shone over them as they both made their way up the stairs and into the building, the glitchy cyclops pushing the front door open as he navigated the long, narrow hallways that surrounded him.
“So, what exactly happened after I fell back into the Void?” Rob asked as he walked through the dimly lit hallways, using only the glowing white TV static on his body as a light source.
“...Void? What the what is that?” The blue feline raised an eyebrow in question, as he walked beside Rob. Gumball had little to no memory of the Void at all, despite him having entered it and seen it numerous times. Though this was mostly because the world wants him to forget it even existed.
“Oh, right. You have no idea, do you.” The cyclops sighed. “I figure you’d be better off not knowing what it is, anyway.”
“Rightttttt…so basically what happened was after you fell into that weird, I dunno…static hole thingy a week ago everything kind of just went back to normal.” Gumball explained nonchalantly.
“Wait, it’s really been a week since our last encounter?” Rob raised his unibrow in confusion.
“Yeah, you didn’t know that?”
“I swore it felt like just earlier today we had this epic fight and you were about to destroy me with the axe before everything glitched and got all… weird..”
The two of them both stopped near an empty corridor, as Rob couldn’t help but stare in confusion. “Isn’t this the exact place where we last fought?”
“Yeah, you’re right!” Gumball exclaimed, noticing the abnormally long hallway as well as the bricked-up wall that hid the hole leading into the Void, only for it to be instantly demolished in a matter of seconds as Rob burst through it to reveal his villainous alter-ego.
Rob narrowed his unibrow in suspicion as he slowly approached the brick wall and gently placed one of his disfigured hands on the wall, though as soon as he did he couldn’t help but notice the ground beneath him starting to collapse.
“Rob!!” The blue feline exclaimed desperately as he hurriedly tried to save the glitchy cyclops from whatever it was trying to pull him underneath.
By now, the crack in the ground revealed itself to be a hole leading directly into the Void, a staticky realm designed for whoever and whatever the world deemed a mistake. Gumball knew that Rob of all people never belonged in such a place, because if he did then he wouldn’t even be here right now, nor would he be working for the Awesome Store.
Rob almost fell completely into the Void, screaming desperately as he fell further in. Though, what he didn’t account for was something tugging at his arm. The cyclops looked up and saw Gumball grabbing him and desperately struggling to pull him out of there.
The blue kitten let out a painful yelp as he had to use both hands to pull the cyclops out from the Void, thankfully managing to help him escape.
“Thanks for saving me back there…” Rob said as he was trying to catch his breath. However, it didn’t change the fact that the hole leading to the Void still remained, only growing slightly larger than the last time he fell in.
“Don’t mention it…” Gumball responded, wiping the sweat from his brow. “...Also, I think it’s best if we get out of here.”
“Yeah, that’s a good idea.”
The two of them both bolted down the hallways, neither of them looking back not even once as they made their way towards the exit. Hurriedly getting into the Awesome Store van and fastening their seat belts.
“C’mon, hurry up!” The blue feline yelled in a panic.
“I’m trying! Give me a minute!” Rob yelled back as he jammed the keys into the slot, causing it to start the van up. The cyclops slammed his foot on the gas pedal and took off, leaving the school far behind.
“So, where are we going next?” Gumball asked, seeing as the investigation wasn’t fully complete.
“We’re going to see an old friend of mine.” Rob responded, not even looking at Gumball at all and instead being more focused on the road ahead of him. “...To see if they can try to fix whatever is happening to our story…”
…To be continued.
