A/N: Just so you guys know, this chapter starts right after the point in Welcome to Yoyleland when Leafy runs away into the Yoylewoods, and that this chapter will be the first time in the story, and the ATAU series in general, that features more than one distinct P.O.V. in a chapter. Just wanted to clarify things :]
Also, //TW:
There will be a death and some v**it in this chapter, just warning you now!
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Leafy's P.O.V.
I run towards the Yoylewoods on my left, speeding past yoylebushes and other ground foliage, through thick trees and stringy vines, wanting to get as far away as I can from Yogurt Cup. I know I screwed up bad when I impulsively decided to take her along with me to Yoyleland, but did I really deserve to be screamed at like that so harshly? I mean, I didn't mean to hurt her in doing that; we're best friends, and best friends don't do that to each other! And yet I hurt her anyway; emotionally and even potentially physically, because only I've been to Yoyleland before, and surviving here's no cakewalk, but Yogurt Cup has never been out in the wilderness before.
But I just wanted Yogurt Cup to come with me for to keep me company... right? Or did I want her to be here with me for another reason?...
There's just something so strange about her... I'd never been so... emotionally dependent... on Yogurt Cup before.
The afternoon sun slowly but steadily falls through the sky, casting its long, draping shadows on the lands beneath. Feeling dejected, tired and famished, I eventually find myself a yoylebush by a large, rugged old tree.
Desperate for something to eat, I pluck a few yoyleberries off the plant and devour them quickly. I just love the feeling of yoylemetal coating my body, but I'd experienced it so often in the past that it gets kind of old nowadays.
Regardless of that, with my new energy from the yoyleberries, I continue to bound swiftly through the forest. I can't give up on my life; I just can't. I continue on my way sprinting throughout the forest until I eventually find a bright light at the end of the passageway. Excitedly, I dash towards it even faster, hoping to escape the treacherous Yoylewoods as soon as possible.
When I reach the bright end of the path, I stop dead in my tracks not to find civilization or even just North Goiky, but instead a sunny yoyleberry field. It looks pretty similiar to the yoyleberry field east of the forest passageway I blindly ran through about a few hours earlier, except for that there are no trees.
Maybe Yogurt Cup went there after I left her?
I put the thought out of my mind and run rapidly over to the yoylebushes. Those yoyleberries I ate not longer than a few minutes ago were invigorating, but not quite enough for me, so I snatch a few more off the bushes and hungrily devour them as well. I'm about to take one more until I hear faint footsteps, seeming to be heading in my direction, slowly getting louder.
Though I hope that those aren't the footsteps of any approaching objects and rather some small animalistic creature, I soon realize that they have to be of the former for certain. I move a bit closer to see who the source of the footsteps are, and surely enough, they are, in fact, other objects; Needle and 2 others I don't think I've ever seen before.
Those others appear to be a glob of some lime-green jelly and a light-pink glimmery ball of fluff. As they arrive in the field, they appear to be chatting gleefully and holding small brown baskets, perhaps to collect yoyleberries with. Angered at this unwanted company, I decide to stop hiding like a coward and show myself, feeling unbridled anger beginning to surge through my body.
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"I sure am glad I'm not too needy, huh?", I boldly remark towards Needle with a smug smirk on my face.
I watch with a mixture of silent excitement and nervousness as Needle's brow furrows and she leans towards me. I know exactly what she's going to do and say, but with my hands behind my back, I have an even worse surprise prepared for our 3 unlucky trespassers.
With my hands still hidden behind my back, I ready myself for Needle to start talking. But before she can utter a word, I pull out both my hands with knives in either and start throwing many several of the deadly weapons rapidly at the group.
However, the trio retaliate by taking out some white tubes to start firing what appears to be acidic radioactive spitballs at me.
Fortunately, I've undergone many years of special training and have become a master at agility and dodging. I quickly act on the threat and use the lightness of my yoylemetal body to my advantage to dodge the potentially lethal projectiles perfectly.
Now I'm angry, and in a furious act of reprisal, I throw my knives even faster at the three objects, but they quickly flee from my weapons this time despite that they unfortunately manage to escape with the yoyleberries they picked. Regardless of the loss of those yoyleberries, I sigh and wipe my forehead in relief, having spent a lot of energy fighting off Needle and her new friends.
Guess she doesn't seem to need me as a friend anymore, huh? That's ironic; she's the one with the nickname that literally means poor! I shrug off the incident, pick the yoyleberry I was going to take earlier, store it with me and turn back to the Yoylewoods to continue on my way, only to be interrupted from my activity by a familiar voice echoing loudly in the distance of the forest nearby:
"Leafy! LEAFY!"
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Yogurt Cup's P.O.V.
My yoylemetal effect has worn off, and I eventually find my way out of those scary Yoylewoods through a bright light at the end of the passage to find myself in another yoyleberry field. This one, however, isn't the same as the first one I was in; this time, no trees are anywhere to be seen in the area. I wander around, continually yelling Leafy's name until I eventually do find her, her body clad in yoylemetal as she notices me and dashes towards the passage where I'm standing. She looks straight at me, shocked.
"Yogurt Cup? Oh, it's you! I was so worried I'd have never found you. I know you've never exactly been stranded in the wilderness before, but... look, I just want to say I'm sorry for leaving you behind. It was selfish and mean of me to do that, and I just really hope you forgive me."
"Well, I actually have an apology to make, too. I'm sorry I was so harsh on you when I yelled at you earlier. I know what you did wasn't exactly good, and that things aren't looking very bright in your life right now, but I should've known better than to make you feel worse, even though I was angry."
We both let out a heavy sigh, and I give Leafy a tight hug. It's the most I can currently do to make Leafy feel better about herself. As I close my eyes and relax my body, I can feel that Leafy is unusually warm despite being made of yoylemetal, but I convince myself that it doesn't really matter and continue to embrace her in the hug.
A few minutes later, we separate and Leafy gives me a satisfied smile of appreciation.
"Thank you, Yogurt Cup. I just can't describe how much I needed that hug. What would I do without you?"
"I don't know, but one thing's for certain: I'm just glad to have you at all," I chuckle.
"Yeah... you could say that again."
As she says that, Leafy's expression seems to sadden and she looks down, rubbing my hand between hers for a little while before letting go with a heavy sigh, and we continue on our way back into the forest through a different path than the one I came from.
And to think that all Leafy wants is a friend when all her old ones have rejected her. I'll always be Leafy's best friend, no matter what.
The afternoon slowly rolls by into evening, casting thick, gloomy shadows over the the flora and fauna of Yoyleland, and Leafy and I are exhausted from the day's stressful and dangerous events. As we're walking aimlessly through Yoyleforest, I sigh and start talking to Leafy.
"Well, I guess now we have to try to find a way out of this place to get back to Goiky. We can't stay here forever, after all...", I note.
Leafy just sighs heavily and turns away from me for a few moments.
"Yeah, I guess you're right...", she mumbles, playing with her hands.
We eventually find ourselves at a fork in the foliage, separating the pathless forest into two different passages. One seems to be blocked by impenatrable walls of thorned vines and small budding flowers.
"Well, I guess the only way to go is through there," I point out at the open path. "Are you sure? I can't see much down that path, and what about the other one?..."
"That other passage is blocked! The dark path is the only way we have left to go, and our only chance at getting back home to Goiky. We have to take it."
Leafy sighs heavily and we reluctantly set off into the dimly lit path to continue our journey.
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As we wander slowly through the dark, dense forest path, we eventually find our way out of it only to end up terribly lost in a new location; I'd never seen this part of Yoyleland before.
Thick, monstrously tall evergreens surround us on both sides of this new path, and even thicker clouds suddenly blanket the sky, both elements making the setting incredibly bleak.
The fog shrouding the air is also incredibly thick, making it more difficult to see, and the vibrant purple grass is gone, replaced by only dry, dull dirt lining the ground.
I whimper worriedly and try to turn back, only to see that the way from which Leafy and I came is suddenly completely closed up, as if some manevolent force preemptively closed off our only hope of escape.
I shake my head in perplexity and we turn back around to our original direction to continue on our way.
It's awfully chilly out here in this neck of the woods, and I start to grow anxious, rubbing my arms .
"This is horrible, just absolutely horrible. What have I done with my life? And I thought things were already bad for me before today..."
Suddenly, I feel something unusually cold graze my back for a split second. It felt as if dry ice had been swiped across my body.
"What was that? Did you feel that, Yogurt Cup?"
"If you mean that cold, sharp swipe on my back, then yeah, I did as well... do you know what that was?"
"I'm not sure. I really wish we could turn back now, but I guess we've got no choice but to keep moving."
As we continue our trek down the unnerving, dark forest, I suddenly feel a whoosh of chilly air pass behind me before immediately afterwards feeling a set of 3 sharp scratches on my back, causing the yogurt in my body to leak out a little from the resulting lacerations.
"Ow!" Leafy yelps in pain; she must've gotten scratched, too. Crimson blood slowly flows from the 3 scratch wounds on her back, and with our wounds, it's clear that we need to do something about them before they become contaminated with deadly germs.
"We need to cover up these scratches right now, Leafy, or they'll get infected. I'll grab some leaves from that yoylebush over and patch them together with some yoyleberry goo. I'll place the patch on you, and you'll do the same for me."
I, being the taller of the two of us, reach up and grab a large patch of leaves from the only yoylebush in the area, located near where we first entered this part of the forest, and I pick a yoyleberry from it. I burst the berry and use the sticky, translucent purplish goop inside it to glue the leaves together into a tight, compact patch, with Leafy helping alongside me.
We use more yoyleberry goop to stick the patches on our injuries, then we dust ourselves off and continue on our way, but more quickly this time. I hold Leafy's arm and try to keep her close by me.
"I really hope an exit comes up along this path soon... we need to get out of here, because something strange is definitely going on here...", I whimper nervously.
"You can say that again. Say..."
"What is it?"
"I don't know how to explain it all that well, but it feels like... some sort of demonic presence is nearby. It's giving me chills..."
I'm about to reply when I am suddenly thrown far in front of Leafy face-first onto the ground.
"Ouch!"
The giant swirl of yogurt on top of me is now ruined, having been splattered all onto the ground. All of a sudden, I'm feeling pretty lightheaded and weak having lost all that yogurt. My body is now only about one-third full, and I'm so dizzy I can barely walk, let alone stand.
"Well, I'm not getting that yogurt back, but it's like blood for me and I need it to stay alive. The only way for me to get it back would probably be if I died and got revived, but there aren't any recovery centers anymore, like you said."
"I know, I know. But there's still hope. A new season of BFDI started just earlier today, so hopefully they have new recovery centers. So here's what we'll do: I obviously don't want to have to do this, but... I'm going to have to kill you now and put you out of your misery, but when I eventually find a way back to Goiky, I'm gonna try to recover you. It's a really risky gamble, but I just don't want you to suffer any longer."
"I know, I know. It's OK, I know it's nothing personal... Just kill me. I'll be better off dead for now, after all," I mumble almost incoherently. I turn over on my back so that I am looking Leafy in her eyes.
"Please... just do it. Do it for me. Do it for us. Put me out of this suffering..."
Leafy inhales sharply, reluctant to fulfill my request, but then she sighs deeply, kneels over me, pulls out a razor-sharp knife from behind her back and raises it high over her head with a disgruntled expression on her face, and fat tears start to stream from her eyes, with the needle-like metal tip of the weapon pointing at my chest.
"...Goodbye, my friend."
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Leafy's P.O.V.
Closing my eyes tightly with tears pouring down my face, I sob loudly and plunge the knife into Yogurt Cup's body as hard as I can, trying to kill her as quickly and painlessly as possible. It seemed to work reasonably well, though, because she emits a sharp gasp, and stops breathing after a few moments.
I toss the yogurt-stained knife into the foliage and stare in horror at Yogurt Cup's lifeless body. There is a large gash slowly leaking yogurt where I stabbed her, her eyes are glassy and dull, and her mouth is ajar and also leaking more yogurt as if it were blood. I shiver and tremble in fear at the horrible sight, feeling so sick to my stomach that I lean into the foliage on my right and vomit violently in the bushes.
When I finish after a few seconds, I wipe my mouth with my hand and quickly get up to continue running down the path in the direction we were initially going in, as I let out strong sobs of anguish.
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It's been a few hours, and I have now slowed my pace down to a walk. Because of my vomiting earlier, I'm hungry again, but I remember that I still have the one yoyleberry I picked earlier in the afternoon.
I take it out and eat it, and as the yoylemetal envelops my body again, I feel at ease, even if only for a little while. I sigh and close my eyes, exhausted. But then things get worse again when I suddenly get a terrible headache. I lower my head, and keel over in agony. The demonic presence Yogurt Cup and I sensed earlier has returned, but this time it's much stronger.
Soon my headache becomes so agonizingly bad and the demonic presence gets so powerful that suddenly, my headache stops, and when I upright myself and look in front of me, I find none other than a very familiar face having spontaneously appeared before me.
Evil Leafy.
The wicked entity stares me in the face, and for a few minutes our eyes are locked together, piercing one another's with fierce hatred.
I have terrible memories with Evil Leafy; she's tormented me for years, living in my shadow and feeding on my happiness while subjecting me to horrible nightmares and terrifying visions.
Suddenly, Evil Leafy spontaneously emits an ear-piercing screech and lunges at me. However, I put my agility skills to the test again and swiftly dodge it. Evil Leafy may be a demon, but she is still just an alternate version of me, and we are therefore equally matched in power and speed.
My yoylemetal effect is beginning to wear off, leaving my body only partially covered by the substance while other random patches of my body are normal again. Regardless, I pull out two especially sharp knives, one in either hand, and prepare to engage in a fierce battle with Evil Leafy. My face darkens and I growl angrily.
"It was you who threw Yogurt Cup and made her bleed out, wasn't it?"
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With no reply, she teleports back in front of me where I moved from her first attack, and she extends her claws and tries to scratch my face with both hands in a rapid barrage of swipes. I swiftly use the knives in my hands to block her hands just as quickly, but the last scratch shreds my left cheek with mild force. It isn't much more than a small cut, so I ignore it.
Now, she teleports behind me and tries to kick me down. I retaliate promptly and swing the knife backwards into her left foot. She screams in agony and quickly disappears, when I turn around to see where she went, I can feel her presence again in midair behind me, but I crouch before she can attack me and Evil Leafy instead lands on my back and tries to devour me.
I can feel the tips of her razor-sharp teeth skimming the back of my head, and though I struggle to keep my legs steady and my balance intact, I simultaneously try to lift an arm and slash one of my knives over my back where she is to try to hurt her.
As I totter around and try to get a hit on Evil Leafy, she is holding my wrists tightly while still trying to bite me while I pull back against her. After several moments of struggling like this, I eventually completely lose my balance and fall onto the ground rolling onto my back.
However, Evil Leafy teleports in front of me and pins my shoulders down with her hands and stepping on my stomach with one foot in an effort to devour me again. This time, though, I try harder and muster my strength, and I manage to push the demon off of me, sending her stumbling backwards.
Using the opportunity to attack, I jump up from the ground, dash up to her and slash at her repeatedly with the edges of my knives. However, Evil Leafy regains her balance and punches me in a lightning-fast barrage before finishing her attack with a powerful kick that sends me back on the ground on my back. Fortunately, though, I get up again and run back towards her before she can come over to finish me off, and we lock arms in a desperate struggle.
"Give up now, Evil Leafy. It's over." She doesn't physically say anything, but I can hear her demonic, distorted voice in my head.
"N̷̡̺̳̗͌̉̓͒̑͜͠o̸͓̹͚̹̻̥̹̪̯̖̹̠͗͛̇̃͋͂."
"Then I guess I'll just have to end this myself."
I slam her face in with my elbow, making her lose her grip on me, and before Evil Leafy can react, I shoot forward quick as a flash and plunge both knives into her chest, slowly ripping her body apart. Evil Leafy emits an ungodly sound from her throat and starts to die.
However, I'm in for a shock when her body starts to glow brightly and quickly subsume into the metal of my knives. I try to drop them to avoid touching them in fear that something terrible might happen to me, but it's too late. The glowing red substance is integrated into my body, and I suffer an immensely painful electrical shock surging through every inch of my being.
My head starts to hurt again, but even more painfully this time, and I drop my knives and let out a horrendously loud scream every second of the horrid event until I couldn't scream anymore. Several seconds later, the torture is over, the pain is gone and everything seems to be normal again.
I slowly get up off the ground and dust myself off, feeling around my body for anything different. Nothing seems to feel out of the ordinary.
I frantically look around for any reflective surface I can use to take a look at myself, but then I remember that I have my knives. I pick one of the knives up off the ground and lift it up close to my face, tilting its reflective metal blade until I can see my image on its surface clearly. But I gasp in horror as I take a glance at what had happened to me.
I think I fused with Evil Leafy.
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The striking redness of her body has taken up roughly a third of mine, mostly in the upper left corner of my face, but extending down as far as my left shoulder and leaving random patches along the perimeter of the affected area.
Now I look like a hideous monster, with the upper-right corner of my body being of my normal lime-green complexion, the upper-left corner being Evil Leafy's demonic scarlet-red complexion, and the last third of my body from the torso down being shiny, reflective yoylemetal.
After all the adversities I'd been through, I want so badly to just die right now... but even knowing I know I can't give up, today was definitely the worst day of my life: I potentially jeopardized my best friend's future by taking her with me to run away from my problems and getting her trapped here in Yoyleland with me, I had to defend myself against Needle and those 2 other objects I don't know, I had to fight off Evil Leafy but ended up having her merge into my body and mind, but worst of all:
I had to murder my own best friend to put her out of the misery my mistakes put her in. I even threw up because of how stressful and horrifying the situation was.
I start to tremble to my knees, weak and worn-out, and even on the verge of tears.
"Why me?", I think to myself.
What did I do to deserve this?...
But that's when realization hit me!
I suddenly realize that, among today's terrible events, one positive thing that came out of this horror; with Evil Leafy fused into my body and mind, I have her powers! Among one of those is teleportation; I can now instantaneously teleport short distances to get around much faster.
Knowing this, I am now filled with new hope. With newfound determination, I put my dual knives away and use my new powers to teleport down the foggy, dense forest path. Hopefully I'll be able to get back to Goiky soon. I'd been between the 2 areas multiple times and know the way home like the back of my hand. But one thing's for sure: I know exactly what I'm going to do when I get back there.
Recover Yogurt Cup... try to reconcile with Firey... and try to get myself some murderous revenge.
A/N: What a big chapter, I spent hours writing this thing. Please let me know what you think of the story so far!
Also, the fight with Evil Leafy was my very first fight scene that I've ever written! What do you think about it? I'd love to hear!
See you reader friends in the next one ;)
animatic_fanatic