TAWOG: Instinct

The Escape

The Escape 

Back at Carrie's house, everyone was feeling a strain in their vocal cords. The portal would only remain active as long as someone was chanting the spell, so none of them could afford to stop even for a moment, or they risk losing Penny's one chance of returning. Still, repeating words continuously, especially when they were so hard to pronounce, was straining, and as dedicated as they were, they knew that they could not hold out forever and would tire out eventually. Hopefully Penny would return before they reached the point that they would be unable to chant anymore.

And hopefully with Gumball in tow as well.

—

It didn't take long for Penny to recuperate from the brief electric shock, looking up just in time to see Green hovering before Gumball. She'd heard his comment prior about blinding Gumball and felt herself overwhelmed with a cacophony of helplessness and rage. The first only fueled the latter. Green. Because of him, her and Gumball had been introduced to a whole new level of pain and suffering that was hardly fathomable, yet, they were unable to do anything of significance to him. Her dragon form, Gumball's abyssalis cat form, both had such capabilities and strength, yet Green, even here, where he was most vulnerable, was barely even phased by what they had thrown at him.

It wasn't fair.

Whether it was trying to end his twisted machinations or trying to rescue Gumball from his evil clutches, Green just seemed to shrug all their attempts to vanquish him off. Not even Dragon-Penny, possibly the most potent being in Elmore, coupled with Abyssalis cat-Gumball, seemed to be able to defeat him. If only…if only Penny were as powerful as Green. Then she could really accomplish something.

Within Penny's heart a swirling vortex of anguish, despair, desperation, rage, and her undying love for Gumball began to take shape. It linked with her shapeshifting abilities, fueling them, widening them, increasing the scope of their potential, until…

As Green was about to plunge his claws into Gumball's eye sockets he was suddenly thrown back when something impacted his chest. A double tipped stalagmite…orange in color.

“Gah!” moaned Green, shaking his head to reorient himself. “What hit…?”

A glow to his left caught his eye, and when he turned, Green came face to face with…himself.

Although the being that now hovered in the Dark Place wasn't identical to Green, for both the body and the surrounding aura were orange. Serpentine-Penny towered over Green, having taken the full, skyscraper size he was capable of right from the start. She leered down at him, blowing angry huffs through her clenched teeth.

“What…?”

Serpentine-Penny didn't allow Green the time to recover from the blow to the chest, or the unseen circumstances of her adopting his form, opening her mouth and unleashing a torrent of destructive energy similar to Green's trademark attack, only orange in color, which impacted Green and engulfed him like a hurricane would engulf a single tree on a coastline. He screamed, the light consuming him as he was pushed into the deepest depths of the Dark Place, bits of him disintegrating as he was forced back by the ever destructive light. First his wings were blown off, then his tail-blades cracked and shattered. Next his tentacles were ripped to shreds, hissing aggressively as they were destroyed, then his coiling body blew apart in segments. At last, Green's screeching head was obliterated, the malicious entity that had caused countless calamities in the world vanishing from existence forever at long last.

The beam cut out, and for a second all was quiet, the Dark Place devoid of Green’s condescending remarks and evil schemes for the first time ever in its existence.

Then there was a rumbling in the distance, and when Serpentine-Penny looked, it took a while for her to fully reign in her vision, for she saw from the eye on her chest and the double pupiled eyes on her tendrils, rather than eyes on her head. Suddenly, in the distance, the darkness started crumbling, breaking up like scattered dust, leaving static in its absence, which steadily grew wider. The sight was fear inducing, but hadn't taken Penny completely off guard. Before coming here Carrie had forewarned her that, since Green and the Dark Place were essentially one in the same, destroying one might cause the destruction of the other. The whole thing was like an amoeba, with Green acting as the nucleus. And now that the nucleus was destroyed the rest was sure to follow.

And she'd best not stick around for what may happen then.

Taking to her new body like a pro, Serpentine-Penny spread her wings, scooped up Gumball in her massive claws, smashing the stalagmites in the process and sped away in the opposite direction of the spreading destruction. Her first thought was to hightail it back to the portal, but soon realized she didn't know where it was…until something within her “told” her of its location. Penny didn't understand it, she must be mimicking enough of the late Green's abilities to have a connection to the Dark Place, though obviously not enough to sustain the dimension, as Green had.

Arriving before the portal Penny had no choice but to dismiss her new, overly powerful form for her default fairy form, for there was no way she was going to fit through the portal with her massive size. But neither would Gumball fit in the abyssalis cat form.

“GUMBALL!” she screamed at him pleadingly as they both floated before the portal, the static approached them increasingly, looming ever closer. “Gumball! Change back! Hurry!”

But Gumball didn't respond, just floated over her limply because of the size difference.

“GUMBALL!” Penny screamed again. They were so close. Just one more step.

This time the upper, at the sound of her distressed voice, part of Gumball's lips twitched, revealing his fangs momentarily, and then, as if hearing her pleas, though less through his ears and instead on somewhat of a primal level, the abyssalis cat vanished, shrinking in a cloud of black smoke. Penny reached into the cloud of smoke before it even finished dissipating, grabbing a petite, frail form from within and leapt into the portal, just as static encompassed the area where she'd been.

Without its master the Dark Place was practically a “mistake”, so, like so many mistakes from before, the Dark Place was introduced to the void.