The Boulevard of Broken Hearts

Chapter 1

"What is that?!"

"What's it do?"

"Can I touch it?"

"No!" Anais yanked the thing away from Gumball's grasping fingers. "As I was just saying, this is an incredibly dangerous unknown device and using it could have any number of terrible consequences! For all we know..."

"Blah blah terrible consequences blah blah!" Gumball rattled off in a mocking imitation of Anais' voice. She glowered at him, but he just smirked haughtily. "C'mon, Anais, you know this always ends in us using the crazy doom device anyway. Just make it easier on yourself and don't fight it."

Anais scoffed. "It is not a law of the universe that you get us into mortal peril at every opportunity, Gumball."

"You sure about that?" Gumball said with infuriating smugness. "My record's pretty good!"

"Wait, I really do want to know what that is," Darwin said, staring at the thing. "It looks kinda familiar, but I don't really know..."

The morning sun glinted off the heavy metal circle in Anais' hands. Its body gleamed a brilliant gold, untarnished by any grime or scratches. The face, covered in glass so clear it could have been invisible, displayed a strange, branching pattern: countless lines emanating from a central point until they were lost in a maze of minute deltas. The pattern almost looked like the shape of a butterfly's wings, but that may have just been Gumball's imagination. Strange knobs and buttons jutted off the edges of the thing, as shiny as the rest.

"Well, it looks like an old-timey pocketwatch." Anais had to stare at the thing too, and her voice was uncharacteristically uncertain. "...But the face is all wrong. It should just mark the hours, but instead it's got this weird pattern." She looked up and started speaking more quickly. "And, and, when I took it apart the insides didn't have any machinery! It was just this dark empty space!" She groaned, and acted like the next sentence was physically painful: "I hate to say it, but I think it might be... magic."

"COOL!" the brothers shrieked, eyes alight. "Lemme see, lemme see!"

"NO!" Anais yelled, scuttling back from their outstretched arms. "We don't know what this thing does! You can't just press buttons at random! For all we know it could be evil, or blow up the universe, or...!"

"Or do something TOTALLY COOL!" Darwin said, clapping his hands with delight. "C'mon, it's probably not gonna destroy the universe."

"And it's not like we had anything else to do today." Gumball scuffed his feet against the offensively neat backyard grass to prove his point. He smirked knowingly. "Unless you want us to wander around town and throw the universe into chaos that way...?"

Anais huffed and crossed her arms. "Look, you can play with it all you want just as soon as I change that probably into a definitely, okay? Just let me look at it a little more until we at least know what it–"

Welp, he tried asking nicely, but now Gumball was bored. Time to break out the old standby.

"HEY ANAIS, WHAT'S THAT OVER THERE?!" With a cry and a flourish, Gumball pointed at a patch of cloud as earnestly as he could manage.

Anais just glared. "You really think I'm stupid enough to–"

"Got it!" Darwin cried triumphantly, holding the watch aloft behind Anais. She looked down at her empty hands with a horrified expression and whirled around, sputtering impotently. "Heads up!" Darwin yelled, tossing the device over her head. Gumball dived, catching it just before it hit the grass.

He grinned, and theatrically poked out one finger. "Oh, I wonder what this button does~?"

"Gumball, no! I mean it, this could be really bad!"