June 1st, 2010
"Hello, FreeSmart. Looks like your long winning streak is finally over."
Pencil narrowed her eyes at the Announcer, still a little salty about what happened last episode. She and the nine other FreeSmarters were sitting at the Cake At Stake area, in a rough circle around the host. "Ha, ha. Don't taunt us."
"Shush. I can taunt you all I like. Anyway, welcome to your first elimination. Do you all know the rules?"
"Just get on with it!" Firey complained.
"Fine, I'll tell you the abbreviated version. If you get no cake, you leave BFDI. But the cake was too expensive, so I got nine cupcakes instead." As he spoke, the previously mentioned confectionary prizes fell from the sky and landed next to him. "We got 13 votes; that's one fewer than last time. It's the first time it's ever gone down... I want to cry now. I really do."
Match harrumphed. "Yeah, I don't, like, think so."
The Announcer turned to her. "Match, you and four others on your team each have at least one Win Token. Would any of you like to use one?"
She considered it, but eventually shook her head. Firey and Bubble followed suit.
"I will." Pencil tossed one of her tokens over to the host. Just in case.
"I will, too!"
Everyone glanced over at the loud-mouthed Flower, who had just spoken. Several of them had been hoping that she'd get the boot, but that was unlikely now. She met the blank stares with another blank stare. "What?"
"Alright, then." Announcer snatched up Flower's token and placed it next to Pencil's. "Only two of you got zero votes. Firey."
"THANK you! I needed to hear that!"
"You're not one of them."
"Oh my gosh! No fair!"
"Haha, just kidding. Here's your cupcake."
The cupcake hit him in the face, knocking him over. Pencil chuckled a little at this; she found the Announcer juking out Firey just as funny as the first time. "Teardrop is the other person with no votes," the speaker continued. Teardrop gave a thumbs up as she caught her treat. "Bubble, Match, and Coiny, you all got one vote apiece."
"A piece?" questioned Match. "A PIECE? You know..."
Pencil smiled and rolled her eyes at Match's 'apiece' ramble, which fortunately didn't last as long as it originally had. "The next ones safe," Announcer continued, "are Rocky and Pencil at two votes each. Although Pencil technically now has one vote after using her Win Token."
A wave of relief washed over the woodsicle as she snatched her cupcake and bit into it. She began to tune out the rest of the elimination; she and her alliance were all good, so there was no more need to pay attention.
Swallowing the final crumbs a minute after, she crumpled her wrapper and looked up just in time to see Snowball get flung away by the Announcer. That makes sense. A shame Flower didn't go, but good riddance nonetheless. Win Tokens are really powerful.
She realized she probably wasted a Win Token of her own; through all her anxiety, she failed to remember how long it took in the original BFDI for her to get any votes whatsoever. Better safe than sorry, though...
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A short amount of time later...
The newly-created Team 1 — consisting of the alliance — flawlessly leapt onto the balance beam leading to the contest's first island and began to sprint across. "We're in first!" Pencil crowed. "We're so going to win this!" And with that pesky Snowball not here to knock us off, she added internally, we actually might.
It's always a bad idea to tempt fate. No sooner had she thought that, then she heard an all-too-familiar voice. "Out of our way!" Flower came up from behind and roughly shoved her way to the front, knocking all three of them into the water.
Resurfacing, Pencil spewed out a gallon of water as she watched Team 5 — Coiny, Needle, and Flower — continue ahead. She hadn't considered that Flower still being in the game would make her an unpredictable factor. I'll have to keep an eye on her...
Fortunately for them, it didn't take long to swim over, but by the time they reached the first island, Teams 4 and 5 had already made it over. Tennis Ball was suggesting to his team that they should split up, so that they could look in multiple safes at once. "Man, that's a good strategy," murmured Pencil, placing her hands on her hips. "Why didn't we do that?"
"Hm?" Match glanced at her.
"Oh, I was just thinking that TB has a good strategy. We should split up and each look at different safes."
"Ooh. Nice, like, plan." She and Bubble strolled off in opposite directions. Pencil began to inspect the field of safes from afar. "Now, let's see if I can't remember which one our raft was in..."
She suddenly groaned as a realization came to her. "Aw, jeez. I was inside one of those safes when they found our raft. I've got no clue where it is!"
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Some more time later...
"Phew!" Firey exhaled a sigh of relief as he, Rocky, and Teardrop climbed off their raft and onto Island 2. "I'm glad that's over with. All that water was making me nervous..."
He noticed Teardrop gesturing somewhere, and followed her pointing with his eyes. "Hey!" he exclaimed in surprise, noticing several other objects attempting to create stacks of blocks. "Three teams are still here! We're still in this! Quick, Teardrop — go climb one of the poles to make up for lost time. I'm gonna go knock someone's stack over!"
Teardrop nodded loyally, then used Rocky as a stepping stone to get some height. Firey ran over to Team 1's stack and shoved it over, causing Match and Pencil to fall from above and slam into the ground. "Ha ha!" he taunted.
From two poles over, Eraser spotted what was going on. "Hey, that seems like a pretty good idea." With barely any effort, he took two steps over to the base of Team 5's tower and kicked it. Coiny faceplanted next to several blocks a moment later.
"Oi! Eraser!" complained Flower. "Buzz off!"
"No, I don't think I will. What are you gonna do about it?"
"This!!" And she drew her leg back and punted Eraser into the stratosphere. "Ha!!"
Coiny pushed himself to his feet. "Don't worry about it, Flower. Check out what I grabbed right before I fell!" He opened his palm, revealing a small, bronze key.
"Nice job!" Needle high-fived him happily.
As the three of them boarded their wooden raft, Pen shouted down from the top of Team 2's stack. "Pin! I got the key! But what do we do about Eraser?"
"Forget him and let's keep moving!" Pin called back. "Flower kicked him in the direction of Island 3! We might be able to meet him there!"
"But... ah, man." Pen sighed, realizing his teammate was right. He leapt from the stack, stumbling upon hitting the ground but quickly turning it into a roll. He came up running and slid onto his raft next to Pin, who had already pushed it out into the ocean. "We're gonna have to go super fast if we want to beat them." Pin simply nodded.
A quick minute of rowing brought them to the challenge's third island, where Team 5 was boarding their raft again. Seemed as if their key was a dud. "Rats," Pin spat as they landed. "Eraser's not here!"
Eraser then dropped from the sky and knocked Pen flat. "Oh. Never mind." Pin grabbed the key from Pen's outstretched hand, inserted it into the lock, and dragged the boys through the now open doorway.
The room inside was ridiculously large and completely empty, save for the Announcer waiting at the opposite end. "Pen, Eraser, Pin," he spoke, his robotic voice reverberating around the space, "you're the first team to finish. You each get a Win Token."
"Woo!"
"Leave."
A hidden spring activates underneath the trio of objects, propelling them into the air. Announcer nearly put himself into sleep mode to wait for the next team, until he noticed that the door had never shut. He continued looking to see Needle force the door open and enter, Coiny and Flower hot on her heels. "Hm. Interesting. Team 5, although you didn't actually get a working key, you still technically finished. You're safe."
"YES!" All three of them high-fived each other before a second spring sent them skyrocketing.
"Got it!" Bubble exclaimed, yanking the key from its rope.
"Come back quickly!" cried Pencil. She pointed in the direction of Island 3. "Team 4 is already on their way, and Team 3 is leaving right now!!"
Realizing the urgency of their situation, Bubble jumped and was caught by Match. The woodsicle sprinted to their team's raft with Bubble in her arms and deposited her onto the wooden surface. They joined Pencil's frantic paddling.
It was going to be tight. Team 4 had already crossed the finish line, and they were gaining on the remaining team, but slowly. "Paddle fast, fast, fast!"
Both teams were seconds away, and Pencil realized they weren't going to make it in time. Out of the blue, an idea popped into her head — something she'd done multiple times in BFDIA. If it had worked then...
Standing up, Pencil sprinted to the front of their raft and lunged forwards, nearly overturning it. She landed on the edge of the other team's raft moments before it would have docked at Island 3, completely flipping it over. Firey plunged into the water and almost immediately disintegrated, his screeches fading away on the wind.
Everyone stared at the spot where Firey died in shock. Pencil had intended to grab Rocky and yeet him in some random direction. Welp, she thought. That works, too.
Her team's boat bumped against the final island, bringing her back to reality. Wiping the water off her face, she climbed back onto dry land and dashed through the door the moment Bubble opened it.
"Bubble, Pencil, Match, you're Team 1. You're all safe. Leave!"
All three of them breathed a collective sigh of relief as they were sprung into the air.
[Current Win Token count: Pencil x1, Firey x1, Match x1, Bubble x1, Leafy x1, Eraser x1, Pen x1, Pin x1]