Chapter Text
All Pencil knew going into this was that Golf Ball was hard at work on some kind of weird ray. That already sounded foreboding, given how she would normally put more trust into Rocky being able to operate a toaster than whatever asinine invention Bozo Brain wanted to demonstrate, but the fact she was specifically asking for her to be its first test subject only made it worse.
As she made her way down the stairs into her Underground Factory, she couldn’t help but wonder to herself exactly what this ray would even do to her. The main possibility she kept circling back to was that it would instantly vaporize her on the spot, which frankly, she wouldn’t put past Golf Ball in the slightest. Of course, the other possibilities she could think of weren’t that much better - it could shrink her, or mute her, or turn her legs into jelly, or do some other unfavorable thing to her in the name of “payback”... whatever the case, she was not looking forward to this.
“Alright, Bozo Brain,” Pencil loudly called out once she made it to the bottom of the stairs, wiping the sweat from her forehead, “where’s this dumb thing you wanted to show me?”
Not long after, she could hear some clattering from the next room over, before Golf Ball came running in with a wide grin on her face. That grin quickly faded from her face as she looked up at Pencil, however, probably remembering she needed to look some degree of professional if her awkward cough was any indication. “Okay, look... I know we are not on the best of terms-”
“That’s an understatement,” Pencil dryly muttered.
“-but I can tell you’ve been... fairly stressed recently. Now, even if I don’t fully understand what it is you’re worried about, I feel like I should at least try something to fix this before the next contest. With that, I present...”
Suddenly, Golf Ball took something out from behind her back. Pencil could only assume this was the ray in question - a rather simple-looking ray gun, sleek blue in color, with a clock printed on its side. The scientist ball looked almost proud of herself as she presented it, and to be honest, her smug expression was very much annoying Pencil right now.
“The Time Reversal Ray Mark II! I’d have wanted to use my original ray, but someone appears to have stolen it, and I don’t know where it is right now.”
“Okay, cool, great,” Pencil commented dismissively, folding her arms. “So what’s this dumb little ray gun gonna do for me, Bozo?”
Golf Ball bristled, looking moderately annoyed at her callousness. “I was getting to that! I haven’t fully tested this specific model yet, but under normal circumstances, this ray should restore whoever it hits to an earlier point in their life. My intention with this model,” she continued, patting it affectionately with her foot, “is for it to be able to regress anyone as far back as they should desire... for the most part. Right now, I’m not sure it can revert to any period of time that’s under ten years old.”
Pencil just squinted at that, still not trusting this gun in the slightest. Who’s to say Golf Ball wasn’t completely lying about what this thing would do and that it actually would vaporize her? Again, she wouldn’t put it past her. The concept sounded... blegh, it sounded neat, she guessed. She always hated giving Bozo Brain any form of compliment, but if this little ray gun actually did what she said it would, then...
Suddenly, the writing utensil froze as she had an idea, before suddenly lunging forward at Golf Ball and gripping her with both hands, causing her to drop the ray in the process. “Undo the last six years of my life,” she demanded, staring into her arch-enemy’s eyes with a begging look, her eyes wide and her breath heavy.
“W-why would you want that?” Golf Ball asked after taking a moment to regain her bearings, trying her best to ignore how badly she was shaking under Pencil’s grip.
“I know you heard me when we messed with that dumb Yoylite! If you want to pretend you care for me so badly, then you’re going to take those six years off my life and make me forget ever having to spend a moment in that classroom. If you want to act like that dumb little ray gun is a magic cure for everything I went through, then by wood, I want you to prove it.”
Golf Ball took a deep breath and wrenched herself free of Pencil’s grasp, taking a shaky step back as she tried to keep her breathing under control. “...very well. I-if that’s what you would like me to do, Pencil, then I suppose I can oblige you.”
She picked up the ray, gesturing with her free leg for Pencil to step back slightly, before she tried her best to point the device at her. However, what she didn’t notice was that, in her attempt to hold the gun, she accidentally nudged the settings on the clock out of place, enough so that the hour hand was now pointing at six instead of two. Regardless, she fired the ray at Pencil, shutting her eyes as she hoped for the best, then promptly opening one to make sure the ray was doing what it was supposed to.
Pencil twitched uncontrollably as electricity zapped through her whole body, practically anchored to the spot with how much she was getting shocked. Golf Ball only had to assume those six years were indeed being erased off her life, given how she couldn’t see much of a visual difference... until she suddenly started to gradually shrink in size.
Immediately, Golf Ball’s eyes widened as she snapped to attention. She hesitantly checked the settings on the device, only to feel dread and horror well up inside of her as she noticed her mistake. This wasn’t right, this wasn’t supposed to happen! And of course, she knew absolutely no way to stop this, so all she could do was just wait for the effects to wear off.
Eventually, Pencil instinctively stumbled forward as the wave of electricity shocks abruptly stopped, panting a bit at how much that seemed to have taken out of her. “Huff... huff... d-did it work? Wait...” Suddenly, her eyes widened a little bit as she noticed... “Why... does my voice sound like this?”
Golf Ball just stood there, frozen to the spot as she stared at the writing utensil with wide eyes. After a moment, she nervously cleared her throat, stammering a bit before she found the ability to speak. “P-please look in the nearby mirror.”
Without any hesitation, Pencil rushed over to the mirror, somehow stumbling over herself a little in the process... and she wasn’t sure who was staring back at her, but it couldn’t have been herself. Instead, it looked to be some kid who just so happened to be wearing her clothes, which were baggy and definitely much too big to fit her properly. The kid looked only vaguely like her as well, with a generally “rounder” face and undyed, messy blonde hair instead of her usual pink.
After a moment of staring at “herself,” Pencil turned to Golf Ball with an expression that looked both scared and frustrated, shaking a bit. “Golf Ball... what did you do?!” she asked, her voice cracking mid-sentence.
“I...” Golf Ball nervously swallowed before continuing. “I messed up the settings on the device before firing. According to these changed settings, I believe I may have just removed seventeen years from you.
"That means, um... for all intents and purposes, Pencil, you may as well be ten years old right now.”