April 24th, 2020
Through the leaves of a lava-scorched bush, Foldy peeked directly towards iance. She gazed at Flower, Ruby, Bubble, Lightning, Snowball, and Fanny, making sure to never look away. She was almost certain they were plotting something-
"Foldy?"
"Hi, Eraser." Foldy didn't even turn around in greeting, only recognizing the pink parallelogram by his voice.
"You ok?" He sounded slightly concerned. "You've been staring at iance pretty intensely for a while now."
She continued to stare. "I can't afford to take my eyes off of them, Eraser."
"Why? Is it because of that whole thing with Stapy?" Eraser scoffed. "Come on, Match already got eliminated, and I never really liked her, so it was a pretty good elimination in my eyes."
"It's not enough," Foldy said through clenched teeth. "I have to be sure to take every one of them down-"
Out of nowhere, a large, blue hand reached over and grabbed iance, pulling them away in a flash. Before Foldy and Eraser could blink, the same thing happened to them. The duo was quickly deposited in front of Four, because the hands were his, of course.
"Four!" Eraser protested. "What's going on?!"
"Isn't it obvious?" Four rasped as he let go ABNTT and stretched his limbs again to grab the other teams. "It's contest time! I'm gathering you all here so that we can begin!"
"So then what is it?"
The numeral growled before dropping BEEP on top of Eraser. "Just be patient and wait till I've gathered everyone!"
Four and a half teams later, all the contestants of BFB were congregated in one spot, plus a few extra objects. "Alright!" Four announced loudly. "For today's challenge, you eight teams will-"
"This is so cool!" Fan interrupted from amidst the Better Namers. "I've always wanted to see a BFB contest happen in person!"
"Hey!" Four reached into the crowd and pulled out the red-and-yellow paper. "What are you doing here?"
"Uh, I was just hanging out with Tennis Ball and you snatched me by accident."
Another new voice piped up: Baseball. "Yeah, you just shoved me over here without any warning. Not cool!"
"Grrr... alright. I'll have to talk with your host later. But for now, new rule!" Four scanned the crowd for any other II2 objects, locating Toilet and Microphone, and tossed them all in the general direction of Test Tube's portal, which was now kept open for most hours of the day so objects could travel between Goiky and the IIverse freely. It was also no longer a swirling mix of colors - instead, it showed a view of the other side to prevent objects from entering at the same time and running into each other. "Inanimate Insanity contestants can watch my contests, but they cannot interfere or talk to my contestants in any way while a challenge is going on!"
Toilet got up, completely unfazed after being thrown around. "Alright! I'll update Mistah Phone about that! Byeeeeee!" He dashed through the portal. Microphone and Baseball just sat up and grumbled a little, while Fan pulled out his phone and turned on its camera, making sure to point it at the large crowd of objects ahead of him.
"As I was saying," Four continued, "you eight teams will be doing something quite interesting today..." The digit grew an unsettling smile and clapped his hands loudly. The sound echoed, reverberating through everyone's eardrums and making them all fall to the ground. Only Four, X, and the II2 objects were unaffected.
"Urgg..." Foldy shakily rose to her feet. Something felt different, but she wasn't quite sure what.
"What happened?" Fries' voice said next to her. She turned, but nobody was there. In fact, her whole team was gone. "Hey! Where are my arms?" Fries continued.
"Where are you guys?" Foldy asked.
"Why can't I control my body?"
"Do I have legs??"
"Oh my artist! What's going on??"
"Seriously!" Foldy was getting nervous. "Where are you guys? I can't see you?"
"I THINK WE'RE IN YOUR MIND, FOLDY!"
"What?!" she shrieked.
All at once, everyone began talking and crowding her brain with voices, so Foldy tuned them out temporarily to look around at the other teams. Other than Four, X, and the II2 contestants, she could only see seven other people. But they were all changed in some way, color-wise. Nearby her, some of Eggy's spots were no longer yellow, and Gelatin's sections were dyed differently. Cloudy and Flower were similar to Gelatin. Gaty had a line running down her middle, separating the different colors, and Remote's buttons were also colored unusually. TV was unique - his screen was split into six sections, and each section was displaying a different member of ABNTT, in video form.
With a start, Foldy realized that each new color on all the objects around her were representing the other objects from that team. She glanced down and sure enough, six new stripes adorned her paper body - red for Fries, pink for Eraser, a lighter pink for Puffball, yellow for Yellow Face, purple for Marker, and brown for Bell.
(This amazing drawing was made for me by a good friend of mine on Discord. Thank you, Funfunny!)
What has Four done now? Foldy thought.
As if Four could read her mind (she wouldn't be surprised at this point if he could), he answered the unspoken question. "Remote, TV, Gelatin, Foldy, Eggy, Flower, Cloudy, and Gaty - you eight have been randomly chosen to be vessels for all your teammates. Although the consciousnesses of everyone on your team are now merged with yours, you still have full control over your body." Four chuckled. "I'll give you all a minute or two to get used to this before starting the real challenge."
Thankfully, the other Foodies stayed silent for a few moments as Foldy processed this. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw MePhone come out of the portal and grab the spectating II contestants before Fries interrupted her thoughts. "That number is the craziest being I've ever seen, and that's saying a lot, after... you know. 2017."
The other Foodies gave off an impression of agreement, or something akin to it. While Foldy couldn't really see them, she could still sense their presence, as well as a very vague sense of what they were feeling. Probably because there were no facial expressions to read. "What happened in 2017?" Foldy wondered out loud. "Other than Four starting BFB."
Fries felt startled about something, but Bell 'spoke' before he could. "That doesn't matter," she said. "Right now, Foldy, you need to get used to having... us... in your head. Yeesh, that really sounds crazy when you say it out loud."
If she had arms, Foldy would have shrugged. "It is kinda weird. But your voices sound like you're all standing next to me as usual, so I'm just pretending that you're invisible!"
"Whatever helps you sleep at night," Eraser commented.
"What do you guys see?"
"WE CAN SEE OUT OF YOUR EYES LIKE NORMAL!" Yellow Face answered. "I'M ALSO ABLE TO LOOK AROUND, INSTEAD OF YOU CONTROLLING YOUR EYES!"
"Huh, so can I," Puffball commented. But Foldy could control her eyes like normal as well - just another weird thing Four did.
"Alright!" Four's screech interrupted everyone's thoughts. "It's time for the proper challenge now." Without any warning, he grabbed four contestants in each hand, then flew off and deposited them all at the cliff where the challenge from episode 5 took place. "Today, you will be doing a four-part race!" he began to explain. "Each part will be from a different challenge you've done in the past."
Four gestured to the cliff next to them, where eight paper airplanes were resting. He breathed in deeply. "The first quarter will be to use these paper airplanes and get to the bottom of the cliff. The next part, which is at the bottom - obviously - is to push the giant jawbreaker into your team's hole. Thankfully, nobody is inside this jawbreaker. If you get there and the jawbreaker is already in a different team's hole, feel free to take it out and use it yourself."
The number paused to pant, then took another deep breath. "After that, you have to repeat episode 11's challenge - climbing to the top of some stairs and pressing a button. Finally, you'll find a pile of emeralds behind the staircase. Grab one and bring it over to me to win. If you don't have the emerald when you get back to me, it won't count! Last person to complete all of these loses for their team!"
Four sucked in a bunch of air, panting heavily. "Phew. I think that covers it. Oh yeah! I need to level the playing field a little more." Four snapped his fingers. Foldy didn't notice anything different at first, but then gasped as she realized she had arms. She experimented with moving them around. In the periphery of her vision, she saw that TV, Eggy, and Gaty also now had arms. Cloudy had gained arms and legs and appeared to be unable to fly anymore. Flower, Gelatin, and Remote weren't affected.
"Is everyone ready?" Four asked them. "Just kidding. I don't care if you're all ready or not. BEGIN!"
Foldy snapped to attention as Four said that. She glanced around and saw that Gelatin was already pushing his paper airplane towards the cliff. "Hurry, Foldy!" Marker urged in her head. "We have to make sure to get going before we're behind!"
"Got it!" Foldy began to run. To her right, Eggy, Flower, and Gaty were sprinting towards their airplanes as well. Then Foldy got an idea. When she reached the cliff, she completely ignored her airplane and leapt off instead.
Marker, Yellow Face, Fries, and Eraser screamed in her mind, but stopped when they realized she was gliding through the air. "WOW! NICE TRICK!" Yellow Face commented.
"Thanks." Foldy was adjusting to her new arms, but it was still child's play to reach the ground safely. She glanced behind her, satisfied to see that she was the first one down. "Yes! We're in the lead!"
"Don't get overconfident," Puffball warned.
Foldy nodded and continued forward as other people glided closer to the ground. She could see the eight holes that represented each team's goals, but not the jawbreaker. "Where is it?" she wondered out loud.
"It's in that tree!" Bell yelled. Foldy glanced upwards and groaned as she saw the jawbreaker perched at the tippy-top of the tree Bell mentioned. "You've got to be kidding me. I don't know how to climb! I've never used arms before!"
Eraser spoke up. "Don't worry! I have lots of climbing experience after climbing Bell's string in episode 4."
"Hey!" Bell protested.
"Just go to the tree and I'll walk you through the steps," Eraser continued.
He quickly explained the basics and Foldy did her best, shakily scaling the wooden trunk. It was easier than she expected. But just as she got to the top, TV flew by in his paper airplane and snatched up the jawbreaker. "HEY!" Foldy yelled.
On TV's screen, she saw Grassy stick his tongue out at her. TV landed right next to A Better Name Than That's hole and tossed the jawbreaker in. "AFTER THEM!" Bell shouted.
Foldy let go of the tree's branches and glided back to the ground just as Flower sped past her. "Later, Foldy!" Flower called out.
Foldy trilled in anger and raced after the plant. Flower fished the jawbreaker out of ABNTT's hole and raised it into the air triumphantly just as Foldy body slammed her. "OW! RUDE!" Flower complained, wheezing as Foldy grabbed the jawbreaker for herself and dropped it into her team's goal.
"That was kind of unnecessary," Eraser said as Foldy sprinted off towards the set of stairs that was the next part of the challenge. "But awesome!"
Fries grunted. "No! NOT awesome! Foldy, you'll need to let go of your grudge against iance for now if we want to win."
Foldy ignored them and glanced behind her. Eggy was very slowly floating down from the cliff in her airplane, but everyone else was on the ground by now. Gelatin was trying to wrest the jawbreaker out of Flower's grip, while Remote, Gaty, and Cloudy advanced on them. Turning her attention back to in front of her, she reached the bottom of the steps and started racing up just as TV pressed the button at the top.
"Look out!" Marker yelled completely unnecessarily as TV ran back down the stairs towards them. For a moment, it seemed liked neither of them was going to stop. Then, at the last moment, Foldy jumped to the side and used the air currents to fly across the rest of the distance to the button. She slammed on it with her fist as she flew by and sailed towards the finish line, where Four was waiting.
"Woo! Amazing job!" Puffball cheered.
"WAIT!" Yellow Face. "YOU FORGOT THE EMERALD!"
"Aw, sheets of paper!" Foldy realized he was right and angled her 'wings' to fly back, but she was already losing altitude. She touched down right next to the pile of gems and grabbed one at the same time TV did. "Looks like we'll have to run."
She turned and sprinted towards the finish line, matching TV's pace. Without warning, his screen suddenly turned black and he tripped over his own feet, slamming against the ground. Foldy skidded to a halt. "What?"
"Ha ha!" a robotic voice yelled out from behind her. Foldy glanced back to see Remote gaining on her. "The power of the power button is glorious!"
Marker made a hmmm sound. "I didn't know she could do that."
"Doesn't matter," Bell said as Remote bounded past them. "Just get to the finish line!"
But an idea sparked in Foldy's mind. She dropped the emerald and grabbed TV and his gem, and began dragging him to the finish. "FOLDY!" Fries screamed. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING??"
"I'm not letting go of my grudge," Foldy started to explain. Nearby, they all heard Four announce that Death PACT was safe as Remote won ahead of them. "I need to get iance up for elimination again. And to do that, I need to make sure that all the other teams actually finish." To emphasize her determination, she gave one final shove, and TV slid across the finish line. Foldy tossed his emerald over as well.
"A Better Name Than That is safe!" Four cheered gleefully.
The Foodies' voices exploded with rage inside Foldy's mind, but she simply tuned them out and waited for Flower. As Gelatin and Cloudy ran past her and crossed the finish line with their emeralds, Foldy could see Flower emerge at the top of the stairs and press the button from before.
Gaty came up and pressed it right after, almost pushing Flower down in the process. They wrestled for a second before shoving each other off, giving Eggy time to begin climbing the staircase herself. Both Gaty and Flower hit the ground but survived. They each grabbed their emeralds and sprinted in Foldy's direction. Now was the time for action.
Foldy moved to intercept Flower. The blossom shifted her path to run past, but Foldy managed to snatch her arm. "Hey! Let go!"
"Never!" Foldy said, grabbing Flower's other arm while Gaty reached the finish line. "I'm not resting till every member of iance is eliminated for what you did to Stapy."
"You're crazy!" Flower spat, struggling against Foldy's grip. "You already got Match out when you made me lose in episode 11! Isn't that enough for you??"
"Nope!"
"Gah!"
Out of the corner of her eye, Foldy saw Eggy nab a gem of her own. The half-second distraction was enough to let Flower push Foldy away. "Ha-HAH!" Flower screeched, leaping across the finish line.
"No!!" Foldy jumped to the finish line as well, yet it was too late. Flower was safe, and so was iance. "Drat. At least we're safe, too..."
"FOLDY!" Fries yelled in her ear (or so it sounded).
She could no longer ignore them. "What??" she asked angrily.
"THE EMERALD!"
Foldy's eyes widened. She whipped around to see her emerald lying in the dead grass not ten feet away. But before she could so much as take a step towards it, Eggy lunged forwards and slid over to Four, gem in her hands.
"The Losers are safe!" Four declared. He loomed over Foldy. "And because Foldy did not listen to her teammates and left her emerald behind, Free Food will be losing a member next episode."
The numeral clapped his hands and everything went white. When they could all see again, everyone was back to normal, standing nearby the portal to the IIverse like nothing had happened.
Foldy looked around nervously. Golf Ball was yelling angrily at Remote, and Gelatin was high-fiving his teammates. Everyone else just looked relieved to be safe from elimination.
Then the other six Foodies appeared, glaring furiously at Foldy. She gulped. "Uh oh..."
--------------------
April 25th, 2020, 12:28 pm
Barf Bag: and now we're just waiting for the next episode
Liy: wow
Barf Bag: yup, it was pretty eventful
Barf Bag: Gelatin was like a wall; he completely ignored all of us and it was super frustrating but he pulled through
Barf Bag: I can only imagine what it was like for the other teams
Liy: that was a pretty smart move by Remote
Liy: thanks for the story, really cheered me up
Barf Bag: anytime!
Liy: after that, there's no way Foldy's not getting voted out >:)
Liy: WAIT NO THEN THAT MEANS SHE'LL BE JOINING ME IN THE EXIT
Liy: FLIP
Liy is offline
Barf Bag: whoops
Barf Bag: sorry Liy :(
Barf Bag is offline
FINALLY
IT'S FINISHED
motivation failed me for the longest time but it is H E R E
Quick message to @Bookwormgirl5, @AmongUs321, and @Elainewrites1120: just wanted to let you all know that I've seen your story requests, and I will do them! One in particular I'm saving to near the end of this book, another one I can't do until certain events happen (which I am planning to write in), and the third one I will possibly do (relatively) soon.