Chapter 16: Her Dankest Hour

A/N: Remember kids, always make sure you have parental permission before doing illicit drugs. After all, if you get caught, you gotta have somebody to take the fall with you.

It was a bright and sunny morning as Penny approached the door of the Watterson household. Granted, it wasn't warm in the slightest, but as mentioned a couple chapters ago, that's about what you'd expect from late fall. But Penny hadn't let that bother her before, and she certainly wasn't going to start today. Knocking on the door, she noticed that unlike previous times she'd visited, the house was very quiet. Which was good for her, she needed to unload some personal details to Gumball, and it helped that things sounded relatively normal.

Oh how wrong she was.

The instant she opened the door, she was greeted with an overwhelming odor, a combination of smog and extremely smelly plant matter of some kind. The poor girl nearly gagged when the scent wafted over her, and as she held her breath to peak into the house, she found the source.

Right there, on coffee table, slightly obscured by the thick air of smoke, was the unmistakable presence of a bong. An active bong, at that, complete with bubbling water and a goldfish with his lips pressed against the top, using his left hand to light whatever "fuel" there was. He took a breath, letting the water bubble more as the smoke gathered in the bottom of the bong, before pulling the source away and taking a much deeper breath, inhaling as much smoke as he could before blowing it out with a sigh of satisfaction.

"Oh heya Pen, didn't know it was you."

Darwin didn't even bother to turn towards the fairy, instead opting to the continue staring at the television. Not that he was actually watching it, mind, his eyes were just looking in the general direction. The truth is that Penny could tell he wasn't focused on anything.

"Um…hey Darwin…" she asked tentatively, "do you happen to know where Gumball is?"

No response. Darwin continued staring blankly forward in the direction of the TV, blaring out more awful news about the state of the world and some kind of apocalyptic cult or whatever. Again though, he wasn't paying attention to it.

"Um, Darwin, are you-"

"Chillax woman!" Darwin finally deemed it necessary to turn towards Penny. "Look if you…if you want Gumball, he's somewhere over by the forklift…"

Penny raised her eyebrow. "Forklift?"

"Well I mean, he had breakfast, which included waffles, which involves forks so he's probably fork lifting this past equinox." With that, Darwin kicked back and lay down on the couch, satisfied he had given a quality answer.

"Could you just tell me where he is?!" Penny growled irritably.

A distant exclamation of "zoo wee mama!" coming from the kitchen answered that question for her. Leaving Darwin in his stupor, Penny made her way out of the living room to find her boyfriend in a very similar condition to his brother: laying around with a stupid grin and reddish eyes that seemed to be looking nowhere in particular.

"Oh hey…were you calling my name earlier?" The cat deemed it necessary to lift his head up, if only slightly. "Sorry I would have said something but uh…I was thinking deep and shit. Come curl up and think with me."

"Hey Gummy!" Penny gave an awkward smile. "You seem…um…comfortable?"

"Yeah man, fishy boy over there hooked us up with some wicked kush the other day and it's made our lives sooooo much better. Like, I cant even remember…uh…" With that, he trailed off muttering into the ether.

Under normal circumstances, Penny would be rather irritated that Gumball was ignoring her, but this situation was quite strange, even for the Waterson family. "Kush? I'm afraid I don't follow, is that some kind of smoke?"

"No no, it's uh, it's uh…" Gumball once again paused for a while, only to be snapped back to reality by Penny snapping her fingers in front of his face. "Ah, right! Uh, so I had an epiphany this morning. So you know how DLC for video games is really bad and shit? But like, people still buy DLC even though it's bad and they hate it? What if like we stopped buying things, like altogether? The look on people's faces would be like, epic…"

"Gumball, what on earth are you-?"

"Read…like, De Leon or something. He wrote about video games way back in the day I think…"

Well this wasn't working either. Penny was starting to get quite worried; she was unfamiliar with drugs, and as such rather confused at why her boyfriend was now going on anti-capitalist tangents about video games. Just then, the front door opened, and she heard a rather loud gasp.

"Darwin Waterson, WHAT are you DOING!?"

Nicole's assertive tone carried with it the kind of heaviness that could make even dictators and drug lords shake in their boots, Penny being no exception. Even Gumball raised his head again, a slightly concerned look on his face as he tried to make out what was going on.

But at the very least, there was a sober person in the house. Penny sighed with relief, confident that Gumball and Darwin's mom could get their brains functional again.

Confidence which was dashed the moment Nicole picked up the bong herself. "If ANYONE around here needs to be using marijuana, it's me! I'm the one who has to work all day!" she grumbled, lighting the bottom of the bong. She took a big gulp of the smoke that gathered, and almost instantly she appeared much more relaxed.

"Um…Mrs Waterson? I'm sorry to barge in unannounced but-"

"Not now sweet-cheeks, momma's gonna have some relaxation time." Immediately after saying that, she fell over onto the stairs, basking in bliss.

"Don't bother with them," said the voice of a little girl, "they're too far gone at this point."

Penny jumped out of surprise, and turned around Anais, who had apparently been standing in the corner this entire time, engaged in maximum stealth mode. "If you're wondering why everyone's acting like idiots, well, you can blame Darwin over there for that. Some time in the last couple of days, he decided he wasn't being "insurrectionary enough" or whatever, so to improve his edginess levels, he decided to use some of our money to purchase 100 dollars worth of cannabis buds and other related paraphernalia. It seems you've arrived just in time to witness our mom fall victim to the devil's lettuce."

"Wait, how did he do that? Isn't that stuff like…illegal?"

Anais shrugged. "I pointed that out to him, but he just gave me the cryptic response of "I will make it legal", whatever that means."

"Again, laws are a spook lil sis." Darwin mumbled from the other room. "Weed laws aint worth shit because they're not moral. Slavery was a law too you know."

"It doesn't MATTER what you think of the law!" Anais shrieked, clearly fed up with everyone. "You're still gonna get arrested if-"

"Anais just read Stirner already, gosh."

The small pink rabbit sulked out of frustration. "See what I mean?" she said to Penny, "They're all hopeless right now. And in case you're wondering, dad took some too and its somehow increased his appetite even more, if you can believe that. Now he's on an eating spree that conveniently leaves him out of this chapter." Anais put on a soft smile. "That being said, how can I help you today?"

Penny glanced around apprehensively. "Um, I was kind of hoping that I could talk to Gumball, but seeing as he's…" she looked over to the boy in question, currently preoccupied with giggling aimlessly, "…out of commission for the time being, I suppose you could be helpful. But could we go somewhere less…uh…"

"Less smokey?"

"Yes please! I'm pretty sure I'm going to develop lung cancer if I stick around here any longer!"

"Hmmmmm. I…see."

Anais wasn't usually one to brag, but she would consider it accurate to call herself "very smart". Five year olds doing trigonometry isn't exactly common in this society, after all.

However, if she had learned one thing from the ancient Greeks, other than the intricacies of pederasty, it was that the wisest people know when to admit that they're stumped. And Penny's bizarre wound caused a kind of stumping not seen since the days of Time Cube.

"So, are you sure this wound is connected to that giant stinger?"

Penny gave a nod. "I mean, it's black, weird looking, and originating from around the spot where I was hit by the moth. So yeah, I'd assume so."

"Well…how has it gone undetected? Didn't you have to be treated in the hospital yourself after that battle? How did the doctors not see it?"

The fairy gazed uncomfortably down at her exposed leg, her affliction maintaining an eerie stillness as it had since the morning. "That's one of the strange things about it though, I was treated at the same hospital as Gumball. But the doctors couldn't find anything wrong with it, at least not out of the ordinary. Plus, it faded away after a few days, so we all thought that was the end of it…"

"But clearly, it wasn't." Anais pulled out a large stack of books on a variety of subjects, ranging from insects to diseases and toxicology, and began to flip through them. Though she was able to go through them quite quickly, thanks to her uncanny abilities at speed reading, it was clear from the look on her face that she wasn't finding many answers, not even as the books began piling up behind her.

Penny finally deemed it necessary to break the silence. "So uh…any luck?"

Anais groaned, tossing aside a completely unrelated book about revolutionary syndicalism. "Color me bamboozled. Whatever's in your system doesn't seem to match up with, well, anything that I've found in my books. In addition to moths usually not possessing stingers, there's nothing I've read about that does…" she gestured again at the wound, "this kind of thing to people."

The fairy sighed with disappointment. "So, nothing?"

"Not quite." Anais reached back into the book pile, pulling out something about insect sting treatments. "There is one thing I can say for certain, and it's that your wound is not caused by poison, but by venom."

"Uuuuuh, aren't those the same thing?"

"Actually, that's a common misconception." She pulled out a small chart from within the book, with chemical formulas too complicated for Penny to understand. "Both are highly detrimental to organic bodies, for the most part, but whereas poison can be ingested from just about anywhere and can move relatively freely through the body, venom has to go through the blood stream. That veiny pattern on your wound isn't just for show, the toxin is crawling its way through your capillaries."

Penny gazed down again at the site in question, sure enough seeing where Anais was coming from. "Okay then, but how does that specifically help us?"

"Well, pretty much every venom has an anti-venom of sorts, and the way you make an anti-venom is by extracting the venom and doing some complicated shit with it." She shrugged her shoulders. "Look, I'm five, do you honestly expect me to be eloquent with words?"

"And how exactly are we going to extract it? I somehow doubt you have a syringe on you, and I'm definitely not letting you cut up my flesh. And the nearest functioning hospital is over an hour away from here."

Anais sighed. "Honestly, I cant even blame Darwin's stunt for that. Even during the opening weeks of the Great Panic, I still think it was quite the overreaction for those nuts to start bombing hospitals."

"Wait," Penny raised an eyebrow, "I thought they were freak accidents due to lack of maintenance in the boiler room or something?"

"No, that was the one in the next county over. The Elmore hospital was destroyed as part of those cultist attacks. Kinda spooky that those psychopaths were lurking in our midst the whole time and we didn't know about it until recently." She shook her head, getting herself back on track. "Anyways, there might be another solution. Last I remember, Teri's mom is a doctor, right?"

"Actually, yeah you're right." Penny's face brightened up a little bit, given that a solution seemed closer in sight. "If anybody has a syringe or something we can use to safely get a sample of the venom, it's Teri's mom. Teri herself might have a heart attack if she sees me like this though, but that's a risk we'll have to take."

"Right then!" Anais threw her books aside triumphantly. "I'd ask mom to drive us down there, but uh…"

"Yeah, she doesn't quite look to be in any condition to drive."

The girls both pondered for a moment. "Perhaps we could get your parents to drive us?" offered Anais.

"That would work, but in case Teri's mom decides to do something invasive, I'd like to have Gumball with me. And something tells me my parents aren't going to be pleased to see my boyfriend "under the influence", so to speak."

"So what, you're just going to sit around here and wait for him to sober up?"

The fairy glanced down yet again at her thigh, the infection remaining ominously still. "It's not ideal, but yeah. Plus, I feel like he deserves to know about my condition as soon as possible, so-"

THUNK!

The girls were interrupted by the sudden arrival of one very stoned goldfish, who had apparently managed to take all of two steps into the room before faceplanting.

"Top of the mornin to ya, ladies" Darwin slurred, entirely unfazed by his fall.

"Ugh, Darwin, we're kinda in the middle of something here."

"Yeah yeah shuddup Anais, cuz I'm about to drop some philosophy truth bombs on y'all."

"Darwin…" Penny chuckled nervously, "Anais and I are currently discussing something and-"

"The whole icky moth attack wound thingy, I know. Before you ask, the weed has given me super hearing in addition to great insight." Darwin stood back up with surprisingly little stumbling. "Now prepare to be amazed!"

The girls glanced at each other, Penny confused, Anais simply irritated as Darwin dropped his "wisdom".

"Ladies…I have come to the conclusion that what we know as irony in the modern lexicon is merely a cover for people to say horrible things on the internet and not have to deal with the consequences. Irony as we know it no longer has anything to do with actual irony, merely a way of avoiding trouble."

The room was silent for a few moments. "I mean, I guess you're not wrong," Anais admitted, "but we still-"

"Yo Penny!" yelled Darwin, cutting off his sister. "You really ought to try this stuff. These bad boys can fit so much mental shenanigans in them it aint even real bro." With that, he pulled out a joint from hammerspace. "It's the gift of the gods my girl."

"Darwin!" shrieked Anais, "Will you PLEASE just go already?! We're actually trying to work out something important here, and neither of us want to take part in your drug-fueled tomfoolery!" The bunny smacked her head. "And you just made me actually use the word "tomfoolery" in a sentence! Go and babble nonsense somewhere else, we want nothing to do with it!"

"Actually," Penny spoke up meekly, "I am kinda interested in trying this…marijuana. Y'know, just to see what it's like."

Anais almost laughed out of disbelief. "You're kidding, right?"

"Well I mean, it's not like we can do much else at the moment while we're waiting for Gumball to sober up. Besides, how bad can one puff be? Worst case scenario, I'll end up spouting badly butchered classical Marxist talking points, which while certainly annoying, is nothing life threatening."

"Thaaaaaat's the spirit ol girl" said Darwin, leaning over against Penny's leg. "Take this joint and lighter and give it a puff, and aaaaallll your problems will fade into the Unicron."

Penny managed to grab both objects just before Darwin collapsed again into a giggling fit. Tentatively, and against her better judgement, she put the end of the joint in her mouth, brought the lighter up to the other end, flicked it on until it began smoking, and took a deep breath…

Almost immediately, the others observed Penny's eyes grow impossibly wide, the area right around them beginning to darken with the same color and veiny form as the wound on her leg, spreading across her face as she fell to the ground unmoving.

Needless to say, this was not the reaction either of them were expecting. Even Darwin was looking worried, to say nothing of Anais, who's mouth was agape with shock. "Is…is it supposed to-"

"No, definitely not!" he replied, somehow sounding almost completely sober. "You go fetch Gumball and Mrs Mom if you can, I'm going to try and wake her up!"

Though Anais found that her mom was too concerned with staring at corn chips to be of much help, Gumball managed to teleport his way up the stairs pretty much immediately after he received the news. Arriving at the scene, Gumball proceeded to immediately join Darwin in a tried and true method for waking someone up from unconsciousness: poking them in the face repeatedly.

"It's not working!" screamed Gumball, once it became apparent that it was not, in fact, working.

"Poke harder!" Darwin suggested in a panic.

This probably would have repeated itself for a while, but right about at that moment, Penny's arm shot up, to the relief of everyone.

However, this relief died as they noticed something immediately…off…about her. And by off, I mean the fact that her arm was steadily turning darker, and from her normally featureless hand a small, claw tipped finger shot up. Then another, then another, and another. They glanced at her other arm, still on the floor but twitching and undergoing the same changes.

And then there was her face. By now, her upper face had turned nearly pitch black, resembling a mask. Thin tendrils spread across the rest of her face until they blended in with the yellowness. The darkness of her face was offset by her eyes, which had turned unnaturally bright in the past few seconds. Gumball and Darwin may have been stoned to hell and back, but they could tell that something was seriously wrong.

"P-Penny…?" Gumball meekly croaked out, "…you alright there?"

In all honesty, Gumball wasn't sure what he was expecting. Did he think Penny would shake it off and return to normal? Did he think it would turn out to be some prank? Or perhaps he expected that this was some kind of out of place Halloween costume. Nobody knows for sure.

There were a lot of things he might have expected. But what he probably didn't expect was for Penny to sit up, scream unearthly like a banshee, and kick him in the face.