A Rabbit's Foot For Good Luck

Ch2: Careful, He Might Remember That Later

A/N: Shorter chapter with less action and some reluctantly friendly banter. Had a bit of a struggle keeping flow, but the good parts are coming! Trying to put more effort into researching areas since I never actually played the game, hehe.

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"Betcha I can guess your birthday."

You stepped over a Mommy Long Legs toy.

"Ya think?"

"Think?" he echoed mockingly. "Bet!"

Changing your mind, you turned back and gave it a vigorous kick that sent it flying down the stairs. Her hard plastic parts clattered like bones.

"Shoot your shot, then."

The air felt stuffy and laced with a peculiar odor everywhere around the factory, but something about the lukewarm lighting in the rejects' isle exacerbated that. The disorderly manner of products scattered among debris, ladders leaning slack against shelves and sticky notes referring to appointments made you imagine what sudden horrific event could have taken place as the disrupted staff evacuated in a hurry...

With all those cracks webbing the floor it might as well have been an earthquake.

Or maybe the place had always looked like that.

"Just gonna warn you that I always get it right the first try," he flexed his paws like a lazy sports champion preparing for another win. "And if I do, you'll have to give me half of whatever yummy treat's in that bag."

"Hold on, you can smell my sandwich?"

On instinct you gripped the strap of your bag closer while you hit a big red button with the grabpack.

"What? You thought just 'cause I have no nose I can't smell?"

"I kind of did, to be honest."

"Tch! Rude."

The elevator groaned from the dinosaur statue's crippling weight and sunk immediately after it rose, an all-caps sign about some sort of reached limit flashing in your face.

"This Bron is one heavy bitch," you commented helplessly, scanning the area for another exit.

"Hey, don't say that to him!" Bunzo reprimanded.

"He is, though."

"Compared to you, for sure, but that's no reason to mock him! He's actually really fit for his species, thank you very much."

Brows furrowed, you shook your head.

"Alright."

"So is the bet on?"

You stormed down the stairs and accidentally dented an empty cardboard casing.

"Sure, why not," you mumbled.

"Sweet! Okay, let me think..."

He simply jumped over the same boxes you meticulously walked around.

You skimmed the rejects on display; Boogie Bots and Catbees thrown across the shelves, presumably for production errors, a chain of blue Huggies hanging from each other's arms... why were those here? You figured they could have been quite successful had the company released them, like those plastic monkeys they obviously ripped off.

One of the casings had Poppy's face on it. You wondered about the doll's current position.

Why she wasn't around to help.

"December twenty-first!"

You had no clue how much later his voice reached your conscious than your ears, but when you paused to blink at him you saw hope glimmering in his beady eyes.