CO Short Stories [COMPLETED]

[Canon] The Free-For-All Food Brawl

July 19th, 2020

"Palloony..."

"Mmm... five more minutes."

"Palloony, wage ub!"

"Uhh??" Balloony opened his eyes, squinting at the sunlight shining around the figure floating above him. "Wazzha?" he slurred.

Cloudy nudged him gently. "We hafe do ged ub. Four zayz the challenge iz zdarding zoon."

Balloony moved his hand in front of his face to block the harsh morning light and sat up. "Already? It's only, what... 7:30 in the morning? And who got eliminated, anyway?"

"Remode," Cloudy answered. "And I don'd know why he'z toing a challenge thiz early, bud abbarandly he will announze id zoon." He floated off towards where Nickel and Woody were sitting. Balloony followed them.

Nickel spotted the duo pretty quickly. "Hey guys! Glad we have most of our team here."

"Where'z Rocgy?" Cloudy asked.

Nickel shrugged the best he could with his legs. "Who knows. Hopefully, that won't be a problem. He doesn't do too much, anyways."

"Hey!" Balloony protested, putting his hands on his 'hips.' "He helped save us in episode 14!"

"Uh, if I recall correctly, it was Woody who got the emerald. Also, I got eaten."

"But your sacrifice helped us get out of that lava-filled hole!"

Cloudy moved between them. "Kuyz, zdop thiz boindlezz argumend. I thing Four'z zdarding."

The four of them glanced over to see Four and X setting down small boxes nearby them. There were several other tiny, wooden containers with silver clasps just like it all over the field of burnt grass. The other seven teams seemed about as ready as BEEP was, and more or less everybody was watching the hosts.

Finally, they both looked satisfied. Four turned to face his contestants and cleared his throat. "Ahem. I'll get right to the point. Today's challenge will be a wonderful food fight! Or, as we like to call it..."

"...the Free-For-All Food Brawl!" X finished for him.

"Yup! When I say 'go,' all these little boxes here will transform into tables laden with food, as well as various walls and other places of cover. Anyone can take any food item from a table or on the ground to throw at another team. If it hits a member of a different team, then the team that got hit gains a point. But! That's a bad thing. The team with the HIGHEST point count after time's up will lose."

Four started to write in the air, and numbers etched themselves into the background from nothing. "If the food you throw gets caught by your target, nothing happens. No points are gained, but no points are lost, either. And you can't throw contestants that are food!"

That last part was directed at Coiny, who had just lifted Eggy into the air. He set her down again. "Aw, man."

The numeral finished his etching, and the air timer now read 1:00:00. "Other than that, anything goes. On your mark, get set-"

"GO!!" X interrupted, catching everyone off guard. Simultaneously, every little wooden box placed around the field by the algebraliens opened up, and various objects spun out. Most were tables with a huge variety of food items, but some were small walls or barriers or other things that could provide cover.

All eight teams surged towards the tables in one massive, roiling crowd. The first few minutes was nothing but an absolute mess. Contestants collided with one another, throwing fruits and vegetables and fast food and all sorts of other edible items at each other, whether they belonged to the same team or not. Eventually, they began to spread out and get behind cover, or overturn tables if there was no other choice.