Chapter Text
“So, are you ready to go now?” Two asked.
“Yup!” Coiny cheerfully said, making a thumbs-up before turning to Pin. “Don’t worry. I know you got this,” he reassured as he waved goodbye at her.
Pin, half struggling to hold a smile, waved back, and even after Two brought him away with a single wipe, she momentarily continued, before slowing to a halt. This was most likely going to be the very last time she would get to see him for quite a while… unless she was eliminated, of course. But that wasn’t going to happen. She’d promised she’d win for him ever since he was announced to be eliminated. Of course, things weren’t so simple at the time.
Turning to the contemplating Golf Ball who, like Pin, had also requested to see her ally one last time, Pin tried her best to strike a conversation. “Hey… so… you seemed pretty stressed when Puffball was eliminated. Sorry that happened.”
Golf Ball sighed, before turning away, mumbling something along the lines of “Chances of winning… 3.226% to 3.704%… whatever.”
Pin couldn’t tell if she was upset, unfazed or… maybe both even? Either way, it sure as pin factory was not her best day.
Meanwhile, Basketball trudged out of the hotel. “What’s up?” Bell greeted as she approached Basketball. Upon a closer view, though, she clearly wasn’t in the best shape; a little deflated as one may say. With her eyelids struggling to keep themselves open, Basketball requested drowsily: “I’m fine. Wake me up when the challenge begins.” Before Bell could say anything else, Basketball collapsed onto the grass and started snoring.
“Oh… I just wanted to check in on… how you were doing…”
Of course, it seemed as if she had already gotten her answer.
Just then, Bell caught sight of Robot Flower chasing Pen, demanding “Say it! Say that I’m beautiful or I’ll snap you in half!” as he screamed, running as fast as his legs could carry him.
Righhhtttttt, Bell thought to herself. Basketball had been incredibly hellbent on bringing Robot Flower- the real Robot Flower back ever since she had apparently downloaded an old version of Flower into herself and unleashed chaos upon their team ever since.
“What’s up with her?” Tennis Ball asked as he passed by the entrance of the hotel.
“Dunno. Probably not enough rest,” she answered as she glanced yet again at Basketball, who was trying to curl herself up as much as possible.
“That’s fair. I don’t think that incident was good for any of our sleep schedules, anyway. Or any of our moods, in fact. Golf Ball hasn’t really been like herself lately.”
“Huh. Well, I hope she’s doing okay, I guess.”
“Hey, Tennis Ball and Bell!” Needle greeted as she approached the duo.
“Hello, my former Squashy Grape!” Tennis Ball responded. “Hello!” Bell simultaneously followed suit.
Noticing a slight groan from the dozing Basketball, Needle asked identically to Tennis Ball: “What’s up with her?”
“Uhhhh… She… needs her space?” Bell suggested, wincing slightly at the words that made up Flower’s iconic catchphrase.
“Anyways, I was about to ask you guys to help me with something! I’ve been trying to find Barf Bag, but I still don’t know where she could be! She was right in front of us when we recovered her, but now I can’t seem to find a single clue on where she is!”
“Okay!” Bell and Tennis Ball both volunteered.
“Baaarf Baaag! Where are you?” Needle called out, glancing left and right. She thought locating would be easy in a place like the mostly flat Grasslands, but clearly that wasn’t the case. Even Bell, who went up higher to have a bird’s eye view, was starting to find it difficult to win this game of hide-and-seek. She sighed as she descended back to ground level.
“Waah! Where could she have gone? Why is she in hiding?” Tennis Ball worriedly asked.
“Maybe it’s because of the outbreak she caused,” Black Hole suddenly interjected.
Nearly three months back, an unsuccessful attempt to restore Barf Bag’s consciousness after losing her fluids from the balance beam challenge led to a chain of events which resulted in what could only be described as an apocalyptic infection. It was only by a stroke of luck caused by the contestant’s desperate attempts to hold off which the apocalypse was able to end with no post-challenge consequences. Even Two, the seemingly mighty only-even-prime algebralien, succumbed to the un-deadly brain drain.
“YOU made us try the lava-vomit mixture in the first place!” Bell angrily countered.
Black Hole tried to justify himself with the all too-familiar death prevention excuse, but was quickly shot down with a mass outburst of “WE KNOW!”s from the contestants.
“Speaking of which…” Marker trailed off as he approached the Recovery Center, still having a cardboard lid covering its mysterious label, typing the names “BOOK”, “BOMBY”, “NICKEL”, “PILLOW” and “PRICE TAG” as they fell on top of each other onto the soft yellow grass.
Nickel wasted no time in flinging a huge raspberry in her face. “GRRRR! Stay back, murderer!” he exclaimed as he stared at her with fury into her eyes. Not only had she lost them the challenge, and murdered him brutally before he could do anything, but she also ruined his beddy-bye time!
Pillow, unfazed with a blank smile, rebutted: “I just did what we needed to win the challenge!”, even pointing her finger up with a sense of pride.
“You lost the challenge, by the way.” Bell expressionlessly pointed out.
Pillow instantly dropped her smile.
“So did Teardrop, who also died,” she continued.
In only a matter of seconds, her confidence had been completely replaced by pure bewilderment as the revelation settled in on her. “Wait… so that means my research was… WRONG?!” she questioned, confusion written on her face.
There and then, Nickel lost it. “SILLY BILLY, BRUUUUGGHHHH!!” he exclaimed, his fury literally carrying him into the air. “It’s all because of YOU that we lost the challenge! If you had just waited for a while or SOMETHING, then maybe we wouldn’t be up for elimination, you filthy bolsterhead of a…”
As Nickel continued to endlessly ramble angry gibberish that progressively devolved into what one could call angrish, Death P.A.C.T. Again watched the other members of Just Not slowly follow into the frenzy. “Looks like death didn’t help them either,” Black Hole remarked, paying little attention to the angrily trembling Fanny, who was literally unable to get a single word out.
After having her mouth torn apart from her face (and subsequently thrown into the ocean) in the aftermath of the balancing beam challenge, her inability to speak had left her as if venom was building up in her, ready to spew out at any chance she could get. But alas, all she could do was watch it all happen.
“Tch! Your solution isn’t much better!” A hoarse voice suddenly caught Fanny’s attention. It was her former teammate, Snowball… or Snowpile, seeing as he was now but a lump of snow on the top of Gelatin’s Steakhouse. “You left me stuck up here, and even Gaty who gave me a steak just left me on the roof for months! And now I’m an armless wimp! HELP!”
“Don’t worry!” Grassy called out as he sprang onto the roof, extracting Snowball from the roof and carrying him in his arms. “Grassy has your back, buddy!”
Just as things were starting to get heated within the other teams, Winner quickly yet calmly sprinted into the scene. “Um, guys? Sorry to interrupt whatever’s going on, but could we please focus on something more important? The moon now has a giant hole in it!”
Winner was met with a brief silence, and it was clear that the silence was not going to stay intact forever. Yet…
“I’m Grassy!” Innocently oblivious as ever, Grassy spouted his signature catchphrase. This infuriated Winner. “This is SERIOUS!” they exclaimed.
That did not faze Grassy, or perhaps, as he soon proclaimed: “And now I’m SNOWY GRASSY!”
Exasperated, Winner turned to the other teams, attempting to get their attention, yet all of them were clearly more interested in the oh so lovely thought of arguing with each other. Some intra-team dramas, or whatever.
“Graaaah! Why is it so difficult to be listened to?” Winner shouted among the cacophony of words hurtled at one another, their eye twitching rapidly as they stormed off.
Watching from a distance, the rest of The S! watched Winner slowly storm off into the distance to clear their mind. “Yeesh, tell me about it,” Ice Cube snarked.
“Oh dear! Maybe Winner needs a box of YUMMY LOSER-Os to cheer up?“
“I bet a party will cheer them up, and make them smile as big as Yellow Face!” Bottle chirped.
“Oh yeah, are you gonna return my legs back? You’ve been using them for a while! I don’t wanna keep slipping and sliding around any longer!” Ice Cube glared at Yellow Face, who was still wiggling around the pair of legs that was supposed to be Icy’s .
“So you say you want these shiny majestic gorgeous beguiling elegant pair of legs back, you say?” Yellow Face giggled.
“Yeah!” Ice Cube agreed in her signature fashion.
“HMMMM… NO!” Yellow Face flippantly refused. This was enough to send Ice Cube into a frenzy. “I WANT REVENGE!” she shrieked.
And soon enough, the grasslands were quickly filled with nothing but endless arguments from members of all teams. With the exception of Eraser, of course, and the level-headed Gaty that was somehow able to tune out the fuss with a flat smile. The chaos reverberated enough for Two to hear it and arrive at the scene on time.
“WOAH WOAH WOAH! What’s happening? You guys need to calm down. Maybe you guys will need some… cake…?” they cheekily caroled.
Two’s signature song “Hey Two!” then began to blare across the area. Unsurprisingly, this joyous tune that was present for all the previous episodes lifted no one’s spirits. As Two bopped to their song, they were met with either blank or confused stares from the contestants… not like they really seemed to mind, of course.
“Ughhh… bored!” Eraser yawned quietly to himself.
As Two finished scooping the members of Just Not onto the roof, Two glanced sadly onto the empty glue-laden roof. “Shame those failed debuters have left the roof, they really livened the place up! But thanks to Yellow Face’s negligence to the moon fixing a few rounds back-”
“Hey!” The remark was apparently so offensive, that even from a distance that ended up costing Death P.A.C.T. Again the challenge at the very beginning of the game could Yellow Face hear it. Furious, he stormed up the stairs quicker than anyone then could have been, slammed the door open and defensively shouted: “IT WAS MY WHOLE TEAM!”
“K.” Two merely dismissed.
Yellow Face slowly shut the door.
“-There’s now a hole in the moon! So we’ve got a few shards of it to go around! If you’re safe, you get a piece of the moon to stick onto the roof to leave your mark!”
“Bomby and Price Tag! You two are safe with 18902 and 14554 votes respectively! Lucky you, wow wow!” Two playfully announced as they handed them both their shards of the moon.
“Yippee!” Bomby exclaimed, carving “BOOM BOOM BOOM! THAT’S ME EXPLODING!” onto the shard, before jumping to place his moon shard onto the top of the roof.
“No-pee!” Price Tag lamented. “It’s too high, I can’t reach it!”
“I’m confused. My research indicated that death would result in good luck, but we lost the challenge, and so did Teardrop?” Pillow rambled, still not over her flawed attempts that had led to their failure.
“Oh, BOO-HOO to your little research. One of us is gonna be leaving thanks to your shenanigans and I HOPE. IT’S. YOU!...schmogily!” Nickel emphasized aggressively.
“Perhaps you should try researching other ways to get good luck! Maybe try a good deed or something?” Book suggested.
“Well, yeah!” Nickel agreed. “Trust me, I was there before. Got me out of the bottom three that one time, hehe.”
“But only 50% of those studies have been proven effective! Apparently Fries was mean that time… gossip, but he was safe! Sorry! Can’t take those odds.” Pillow said as she slumped onto the floor.
“Hmph! I’ll show you then!” Nickel huffed determinedly as he grabbed Price Tag’s moon shard and threw it with surprising precision, landing it directly beside Bomby’s own shard of the moon.
“THAT WAS SO AWESOME THAT YOU DID THAT FOR PRICE TAG NICKEL OHMYGOSHILOVEITTHATSSOSWEET BAHAHA…I LOVE IT!! AHHHHH-” Two gushed enthusiastically in an overdramatic manner as Nickel stared blankly, a smile slowly forming onto his face.
“However, the next to be safe is BOOK, with 14446 votes! What a polite and kind fellow!” Two remarked, placing the shard of the moon on her head like a hat. Book flinched slightly, but it was hard to tell whether it was because of the remark or the shard on her head.
“Wow, see Pillow? Perhaps doing a good deed would help after all!” Book commented happily.
Pillow merely responded to this by barfing fluff out, before dramatically fainting for a moment.
“Which leaves you in the bottom two: NICKEL! PILLOW!”
“Gob gob gob!!!” Nickel vocalized frantically, mimicking the noise from that of a video game. “Come on, it has to be her! It’s her fault that we were in danger in the first place!”
“With a FOUR vote difference…” Two was about to state, when suddenly they were cut off by a suddenly appearing Four, prompting Just Not to gasp in surprise. “Did somebody say FOUR?! And a four way tie for last place too? Oh my… this ceremony is giving me déjà vu!”
Indifferently, Two decided to ignore the eavesdropping Four for the moment. “Well, it seems that the stranger to danger today is… NICKEL! With 14392 votes, he stays in the game… just barely!” Two dramatically announced, handing over a shard of the moon to Nickel.
“Yeah!” Nickel exclaimed, quickly carving “PILLOW SUX” onto the shard before stretching his legs to slap it onto the roof. “PFFFF! Take that!”
“Wait… I’m out?” Pillow stated, still processing everything while staring blankly into the distance. “Oh well, I only have one thing left to say…”
Suddenly, Pillow grabbed Nickel and brought his face close to her. As he squirmed, Pillow stared beyond his eyes, as if he were looking into his soul:
“Mark my words! You shall never ever be able to sleep for a long, long time!”
Nickel, taken aback by this, struggled to break out as he choked on his words. “AHH! GUYS!” he cried out. “Guys, help! HELLLLPPPPPPP!!!!”
“Grr! Pillow, no fighting! I know you’re upset, but rules are rules! You have been eliminated from the game!” Two demanded as they pulled Pillow away from Nickel.
“Pshhh, fine.” Pillow’s face then began forming into an uncanny “:3” expression as she continued: “But Nickel, I hope you remember what I said! Watch your back before it fades to-“
Before she could finish, Two had already teleported Pillow out of the area with a clap of their hands. “Yeesh, talk about the top 10 most horrifying eliminations ever.”
“I think even five marketable plushies aren’t enough to grant me a sleepless night now!” Nickel whispered to himself fearfully.
“Nickel! What was that for?” Book questioned.
“You saw what happened! She tried to kill us all like she always does! And she blew our game in the competition!”
“She was trying to help! Did you not pay attention to anything she said? All she did was use flawed studies!”
“Um, yeah, but did you remember the times where she literally dipped out of a few challenges? The block stacking? The funny plant gardening? And the roller coaster fixing which she herself opted to destroy?” Nickel furiously accused.
For a second, the word “abandon” flashed into her head. The thought gagged her. She was suddenly stuck at a loss for words.
Noticing her suddenly spacing out, Nickel asked: “Uhh, Book? Are you okay?”
“I’m sorry guys. It was actually me who took down Pillow and myself together,” Bomby suddenly admitted as the discussion turned heated by the second.
As the rest stared at him in pure surprise, Book seemed to have had enough. “Never better,” she uttered as she walked towards the elevator.
Meanwhile, Price Tag, who was watching the entire scene play out, was struggling to think of something to say. The most that could escape their emoticon mouth was “Book, I…”
And yet, it wasn’t loud enough for her to hear it before she slammed the door shut.
They sighed to themself. Connecting with others was already a difficult enough feat, but why was it so hard to comfort others? Be a peacemaker? They missed it when things were still lively, when Cake and Naily were still there. They wouldn’t be proud to see their team become such a wreck.
“I’m going to clear my mind for a sec,” Nickel grumpily stated as he walked down the stairs.
“Well, that was awkward,” Bomby remarked. His troubled expression didn’t seem to help his apparent attempt to clear the air.
Two’s attention was brought to the crowd on the ground. Yet again, their arguments returned. Clearly, they weren’t stopping any time soon.
They jumped down from the roof. “Guys, cut this out! What’s gotten into everyone today?”
”Well, we did just have an outbreak that nearly ended the entire world, so-“ Eraser was about to point out, yet became immediately interrupted by Two placing their hand on Eraser, repeatedly shushing him.
“We don’t talk about that!” they angrily hushed.
“You guys shouldn’t be fighting, because you’re all friends! Seems like cake wasn’t enough, so it looks like it’s time for bonds to be reformed!” Two, joyful-as-always, stated, even making a heart gesture with their hands.
“And what better way to help them face their FEARS? For today’s challenge, I’ll be putting one member to sleep, and giving them a nightmare! As a team, you’ll have to save your teammate from their nightmare, and find a way to escape out of their head! Last two teams free will be up for elimination! GO!”
With a snap of their finger, everyone, who had now gathered at the scene, was sent away...