Nicktoons Unite: Turning the Tables

3: 𝔐𝔞𝔶𝔥𝔢𝔪

Danny POV

Jimmy said he was going to return to his lab to check if he can track down Spongebob. Instead of using magic to go to his lab, Jimmy insisted on using his portal just to check if it was still in good condition. Timmy tagged along with him, and I decided to hang back to take a few breaths. After a while, Cozmo came through the portal and said "You should come to see this, it looks bad". One thing I know about Cozmo is that he has no filter for whatever he says.

I followed Cozmo through the portal and into Jimmy's lab. I saw Jimmy busy typing something into his computer, and Timmy was waiting for me by the portal. "What's wrong with him?" I asked when I saw that Jimmy looked stressed. Timmy was about to reply when Jimmy blurted "I can't track him. I don't understand. I made sure that each of our communicators had a tracker so I can track our last locations for any emergencies, but Spongebob's communicator is offline!!! How is it offline?!? It should always be ONLINE!!! That's how I coded it!" Jimmy ranted. "Well maybe it went offline somehow, cant you just switch it back on again?" Timmy asked, Jimmy, rubbed the temples of his head as if Timmy asked a stupid question.

"No, Turner. I sophisticatedly built this tracker to always be online. Nobody can switch it off like a puny iPhone or Android." he ranted on and on about engineering stuff and how it works. I knew Timmy wouldn't understand it in the end and we were wasting time. I cut in between them and asked "So if it's supposed to be online all the time, why is it offline? What do you think could switch it off?". Jimmy stopped his rant and turned to me, he has a nervous expression this time. "The only way to turn the communicator offline is by dismantling it or breaking the chip inside it".

A moment of silence once again, I could tell Timmy was getting anxious about our missing friend. We know Spongebob can be destructive, but he was responsible enough to know that the communicator was a key item and wouldn't mistake it for a ps4 controller. "Awh, c'mon guys. Look on the bright side, now we've narrowed the possibilities of where Spongebob is!" Cozmo suddenly spoke. Wanda turned to her husband, "how many possibilities are there?". "Two. Number one, he could've mistaken the communicator thingy as a frisbee and threw it across the field. Number two, he could be held captive somewhere or be laying in a ditch-" "COZMO!" Wanda yelled. I turned to Timmy and Jimmy with an expression that said 'this was no joke'.

Our friend and team member was missing. He hasn't communicated with us in a week and that's odd behaviour coming from Spongebob. We knew we had to check on him. Jimmy nodded and quickly made his way to the portal. He entered the coordinates but nothing happened. "Uhh boy genius, open up the portal" Timmy yelled from behind. Jimmy started checking the power box and transmitter. "There's something wrong with the portal" Jimmy suddenly said, "uhh but it looks just fine-" "No, Fenton. Not this portal, HIS portal!" he corrected me. "What? I thought you made that thing super strong to hold Spongebob surrounding water temperatures or something" Timmy questioned, "I know I did Turner, it's the strongest portal out of the three of us. I made it compatible with its environment. Something strange is going on here.." Jimmy added.

Jimmy stood up and turned to Timmy, "do you think your Fairy Programs can teleport us to his dimension?". Timmy nodded and wished us away to Spongebob's dimension.

Jimmy POV

I'm gonna kill Turner for his stupidity, luckily his Fairy Programs made us able to breathe underwater as soon as they saw us struggling to breathe. "You need to warn us before you keep doing that," Danny said, Timmy just grinned "C'mon relax. You guys will get used to it. Look, we're.. here...?" Timmy trailed off. We gazed over at where he was looking and saw what looked like Bikini Bottom but was destroyed and in ruins. "How is there fire underwater?" I questioned when I saw the burning Bikini Bottom sign. "Let's not question that now. Our primary goal is to find Spongebob" Fenton said. He was right, we came here to look for our missing friend.

We slowly made our way towards the town. It was total mayhem. Some fish were fighting each other for a tire, children were crying, a guy was banging his head onto a building and a bunch of worms were chasing a group of fish. If I'm not mistaken, Spongebob clarified a few weeks ago that worms and snails and equivalent to dogs and cats. This explains why one worm that was chained to a fence was barking at us. "What happened here?" Fenton asked, I don't even know what to say. Spongebob always described his town as a harmonious, colourful and joyful town. This was everything opposite of it.

     Suddenly, a fish that was dressed similarly to a news reporter jumped next to us. "Breaking News! Looks like three ugly and hairy squids came to visit Bikini Bottom. Why did you decide to come to Bikini Bottom young squid?" the news reporter asked as he almost shoved the microphone into our faces. I looked over to who he was supposedly reporting to, but no one was there. "Uhm, sir. Who are you talking to?" Danny asked as he looked around for the cameraman. "Im talking to you of course! Now tell all the folks why did you decide to visit Bikini Bottom when the town was at its lowest?" he asked as he pointed to the invisible audience. "There's no one there" Timmy bluntly said, the news reporter took a good look at each of us.

     "Wait. Now that I look at you, you guys don't exactly look like squids at all..." he just now realised. This time I spoke, "We're not sir, we're here on a mission. We haven't heard from a friend of ours in a long time and we decided to visit him to see if he's alright" I explained. His eyes widened, "A friend? You haven't heard from him in a while you say?" he asked. I nodded, "We lost contact with him a week ago" I added. His eyes grew wider, this news reporter knows something. All news reporters are fishy. "That's the same time Bikini Bottom fell into mayhem..." he explained, then he recited every little detail that happened from last week until now. I thought only Spongebob did this when he tells stories, but now I know.

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