Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Okay everybody! Let’s start the elimination to see who’s going to the DoodleVerse today!” Oodle smiled, trotting over to the elimination stands while Tivo played the ‘Elimination Time’ theme.

“Team 1! How does it feel to be up for eliminatIIOOO–'' One of the doodle dimension portals appeared behind Oodle and sucked him in, closing immediately after.

“...”

“What do we do now?”

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The portal spat Oodle out in a wooden room with 7 beds and a rug in the middle. He looked up, seeing a bunch of different objects in the room with him. A diamond ring who’s shattered, a lantern who has a chipped face, An.. iPhone? a little dark grey box who resembled a speaker, a blue four-shaped being and finally a green two-shaped being.

Oodle seemed to be the only one awake currently, but it was hard to tell due to the four-shaped thing standing up with its eyes staring forward blankly and the speaker.

Oodle sighed and sat down on the bed he was spat on and he only now realised his name was on the headboard of his bed. He raised an eyebrow and looked around, seeing other names or at least object descriptions on each bed headboard.

“..Hi?” The green two-shaped being had woken up due to Oodle’s racket. They put a hand to his ‘head’.

“Hello! Do you know where I am?” The doodle approached the green two. “I would just teleport myself back but this seems interesting!”

“I’m on the same train as you bud, I have no idea where this is! But I do recognize some faces in the room with us?” They were sitting on the bed they had woken up on, swaying their legs back and forth.

“Huh.” Oodle hummed. “Anyway! I’m Oodle the Doodle, What about you?” He raised out a hand for a hand-shake.

“You can call me Two!” They grinned happily and shook the doodle’s hand.

“Nrhh..” The lantern across the room complained and lifted his head. Oodle and Two stared at him for a hot minute as the lantern stared back. He flopped his head back down onto the bed after seeing the two.

“ . . . “ Oodle looked back at Two, Two looked at him. Two had a small awkward smile on his face.

“Oh shoot! I have to get back to where I’m from– I was just about to start the competition!” Two stressed, putting both hands to their head. “Sorry Oodle, it was nice meeting you but I have to go now!”

Two smiled at him, stood up then clapped his hands. Nothing happened. Two’s eyebrows dropped in confusion. They clapped again. “What?-”

“You okay?” Oodle raised an eyebrow.

“No I’m not okay! That was supposed to take me back– Why won’t it work?” Two stressed.

Oodle stared for a moment then took out a device that resembled one of those cartoonish remotes with a long reception line. He clicked the big button in the middle of it and it made a car beeping noise, yet nothing happened. He clicked it again. Oodle was genuinely concerned now. “Mine won’t work either!”

They stared at each other with equally concerned faces.

“Maybe we should wake up the others to see if any of them can do anything?” Two suggested, moving their foot a little on the wooden floor.

“Yeah sure! That sounds like a good idea! I’ll go wake up the two over here!” Oodle smiled and walked over to the blue four and the speaker. Two gave him a thumbs up as they walked over to the lantern and the iPhone.

“Hey bud, We saw you up earlier. C’mon we aren’t too bad–” Two tapped on the lantern’s bronze lid. The lantern sat up slowly without a word. Two inhaled sharply. “Are you doing well? That glass wound looks nasty.”

The lantern shrugged. “It’s been like that.. for a while.”

“Alright then, you do you!” They smiled awkwardly and finger gunned at him as they walked over to the iPhone on the bed next to the lantern’s.

“Yoo-hoo! Speakkeerrr!” Oodle waved his hands in front of the dark grey box. He put his hands onto his own sides. “Time to get up!”

The speaker didn’t react. Oodle randomly pulled out a megaphone from behind his back and made it make the police siren noise loudly. “Gah– Oodle! Why!?” Two complained from the other side of the room with their hands covering where their ears should be. The lantern was doing the same as Two but with a squinted eye.

“Sorry Two! Just trying to wake up the speaker!” Oodle put a hand to his ‘forehead’ and faced them as he apologised to the green two.

“Where am I.” The speaker spoke with a voice that is almost clearly a text-to-speech voice. Oodle smiled and turned to the speaker.

“Aha! There you are, Good morning! And we have absolutely no idea!” Oodle patted the limb-less speaker on the head as he moved onto the blue four-shaped being.

Two had walked over to the iPhone and tapped them on the head. “Wakey wakey!”

“..Hmmmm..? It isn’t time..” The iPhone blinked open its eyes, putting a hand to its head. He stared at the living Two in front of him. He tsk’d. “Welp, this isn’t what I expected.”

“Morning bud! Quick recap; We’re in some random house and neither me nor Oodle over there,” They pointed their thumb back at the green-outlined doodle staring at the blue four, trying to wake it up but ultimately failing. “Know where we are and neither of our powers will work to take us back home.”

“..Right, okay, so like I need to get back to where I’m from– right about now.” MePhone stood up, looking around the room for MePad. “You have any idea on how to do that?”

Two smacked his lips together. “Nope! I just explained that both of my and Oodle’s powers to get back home aren’t working.”

As Oodle stared at the blue four, he couldn’t help but feel a tiny bit threatened by it. With its 100 yard stare and barely blinking eyes, it was a bit creepy even for him. He turned back to the green Two. “Hey Two, do you and this fella know each other? You both look similar.” He shrugged.

“Ah yeah.. I actually do. Me and him aren’t exactly on the best terms right now, His name’s Four.” Two walked over to Oodle, leaving MePhone standing there to look around and regain his bearings.

“Oh, alright then! Can you wake him up?” Oodle looked over to Two. He’s already given up on trying.

“Ehhh, yeah I can try to. It may not have the best outcome though.” Two shrugged then walked up directly to Four. “Four, Buddy, time to get up!” They waved a hand in the four’s face, They knew that deep down Four was just zoning out heavily and in a world of his own.

“Is nobody going to talk about the dead body in the corner?” The text-to-speech voice spoke up, a random spatula-looking thing appearing out of the speaker box to point at the shattered, beaten up, diamond ring in said corner.

“ . . . “

“I mean, wouldn’t it be a bit awkward to talk about a dead person?” Oodle suggested. MePhone shrugged in response and the speaker box just made the spatula thing retract back into himself.

Two kept trying to get Four’s attention by doing random things. Eventually, Four woke up by blinking his eyes rapidly. “-Huh?” He glared at Two with a frown.

“There we go! That’s everybody awake!” Two stated proudly with their British accent and their hands on where his hips should be. He had a smile on his face.

“Everybody but the ring.” The speaker box made itself turn around to look at Two.

Oodle zoned out of the conversation and went back to sit on the bed with his name engraved into it. “How about we cheer up the room with some light conversation? Mostly referring to our names.”

“Good idea!” Two gave Oodle a thumbs up and walked over to their respective bed and sat down on the edge of it. “I’ll start! I’m Two.”

“I’m Oodle!” He smiled.

“ . . . “ Silence for a moment.

“Four.” He said begrudgingly. He wanted to go back home with X at this moment in time.

“...Airy.” The lantern spoke hesitantly from the bed he was sitting on.

“You can call me MePhone.” He still seemed distant.

“Announcer.” The speaker box flipped itself around to face the others.

“Could somebody read the nameplate on the bed the Ring’s on?” Two blinked at MePhone.

MePhone was the closest so he leaned over to read it. “It just says.. Ring.”

“Alright then! Their name is.. Or was at least.. Ring. Now everybody knows everybody else's names!” Two happily clapped their hands together as they stuck their legs out from the edge of the bed for a moment.

“I don’t know about anybody else but I’d like to leave right about now. So i’m just going to–” MePhone stood up and walked over to the wooden door. He twisted the doorknob but it didn’t open. He tried again and again yet it was definitely locked from the outside. “Tsk.”

“...Maybe we could talk about ourselves for a little bit?” Oodle suggested. Nobody seemed to disagree so he decided to start it off; “Well, I’m Oodle the Doodle from the DoodleVerse! I’m a Demigod, and I like to–”

“Waitwait, did you just say Demigod?” Two stared at Oodle with a raised eyebrow.

“Yup!” He smiled, putting a ‘thumb’ towards himself. “Anyway! I like to travel between dimensions for fun and recently I found this neat-io dimension with a bunch of objects that talk using captions. I gave them limbs and voices and after figuring out they’re very boring I decided to host a fun little competition there with them! I call it Animated Inanimate Battle, or AIB for short!” Oodle smiled, completely voiding the fact everybody was staring at him awkwardly.

“Four.” He spoke after a long while of silence.

“You already said tha–'' Two was saying before Four screeched Two. Two stumbled backwards with a hand on their head, everything felt wobbly.

“ . . . “ They all stared at each other awkwardly. MePhone was still working on trying to get the door open.

Suddenly, a clicking noise was heard from the door and MePhone fell face-first as he swung the door open with force. “Ugghghhh..”

Oodle’s eyebrows lifted and speed walked over to the doorway, looking out. He saw a hallway with three other doors and then at the end of the hallway there was a staircase that seemed to wrap around to the other side of the wall where he couldn’t see.

The doors seemed to have labels as well above them, just like the beds. There were ‘Co-Hosts’, ‘Contestants 1’, and ‘Contestants 2’. He looked above the door he was standing in and it said clearly ‘Hosts.’ He hummed.

The others in the Host’s room gathered around the doorway as Oodle stepped off of MePhone, which he’d only realised he was doing a second ago. “Well, It’s a house alright!”

“Yyyuuuppp!” Two agreed, they were still wobbling a bit.

“I’m going to go.. Look around.” Airy snuck past them and headed down the hallway then down the stairs.

Oodle and Two shared an awkward look.

Chapter Text

“Fouurrrr!” X announced with a smile, trotting around holding a bunch of tennis balls while looking for his blue friend.

“Hmmmmm?? Fourrr?” X frowned. “Fouuuurrrrr!”

X was running around looking for Four. Some of the contestants that chose to stay with them looked at the yellow algebrailen with a confused glance.

“Profily!” X dropped the tennis balls and ran up to the profile picture sitting on the floor with a smile. They looked up at X. “Have you seen Four anywhere?”

“Nope!” They shook their head. Then stood up with a worried voice; “Why? Has dear forty-four gone missing again?”

“Yeeeahhh! I can’t find him anyywherrreee!” X pouted to Profily.

“Hm…. Maybe we can go ask around?” They offered a hand to X.

“Okkayyy..” He took Profily’s hand and slumped down, upset. Profily was all smiles as they walked off with X in tow.

“Where’d you last see him Xy?” Profily looked at said person as they walked.

“Near the abandoned railway, But I already checked around there and he was gonneee!” The algebrailen exclaimed by stopping walking and lifting his hands up, slightly lifting Profily with only his strength.

“Whoa-ho. Don’t worry dear Xy! We’ll find Forty-Four in no time!” Profily smiled larger and patted X on the head. X was frowning deeply. They looked ahead and ran forward towards Flower, dragging X with them.

“Hey Flower! Have you seen Four anywhere around here?” Profily looked up at her.

“Huh– Four’s missing again? I haven’t seen him anywhere all day! That’s no good!” Flower put a hand to the bottom of her head.

“Oh well, thanks anyway Flower! Off we go!” Profily waved at Flower as they walked off. X by this point was just sitting on the ground pouting but Profily had no trouble dragging him along, he was like as light as a feather right now.

“Profily?” X commented.

“Yes, my small yellow friend?” He smiled, looking down at him.

“I don’t feel so good..” He pouted, looking up at Profily as said person was looking down at him.

“Don’t worry! You’ll feel better once we fi–” Profily stopped talking mid sentence, X had disappeared out of thin air. Profily’s smiled faded as they looked around hesitantly. “Xyy…?”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

X blinked hazily, noticing Profily was gone and in his replacement was a room with three beds in it and two other people. “Whaaaaaaaattt—”

One of the electronics in there looked at X, They were way taller than him and seemed to resemble an iPad. Unlike the other electronic in here, they had legs.

“Oh look! They’re awake now!” The iPad-like person mentioned the TV-looking one. They both looked at X.

“Where am I?” X’s eyebrows lowered as he looked around. He was sitting on a bed with crossed legs.

“We have no idea. But MePad believes it’s a house somewhere.” The TV-Looking one chimed in.

“Oh.” He frowned, standing up off of the bed. He raised an eyebrow. “How long have you two been here?”

“Eh, maybe ten minutes? It surely hasn’t been that long, right Tivo?” MePad looked at Tivo. The mentioned person nodded by using the face on their screen.

“Are you two new contestants? I don’t know why Four would get more people after the season’s done.” The yellow algebrailen sounded confused as he tilted his head at the two electronics.

“Psh, Nah. I’m not in any competition, I just Co-Hosted one a tiny while back. I’m still friends with the host though.” MePad spoke up again, rolling his eyes dismissively.

“Same with me, but I’m still co-hosting with my pal Oodle.” Tivo smiled on their screen.

“Ooooh! Cool! I was a co-host of a show too! The season ended recently though,” X seemed a bit sad when he said it had ended. But he still was happy.

“What’s your name by the way?” Tivo asked this time. It seemed that MePad was a bit more talkative than Tivo was, but no complaining here.

“X!” He smiled. He quite liked these two now, but he still couldn’t stop thinking about how Four had just disappeared not too long before himself.

“Cute name!” MePad had walked over and patted him on the head using a foot. X squished down a bit with the pats.

“By the way, have either of you two seen somebody named four?” He raised an eyebrow then lifted a hand up above his own head. “He’s about this tall, Blue, and shaped like a four!”

Tivo and MePad shared a glance for a moment then both shook their heads no.

“Awh.” X frowned and slumped back down on the bed he had woken up on.

“Hey It’s alright! We both have somebody who went missing so we can understand.” MePad nodded as he said that. In MePad’s eyes, X was like a child to him. So it only felt right to be soft with him.

“Really?” X looked up at him with wide eyes. He had his legs out to the side in a v-shape and his arms were on the bed in the middle of his legs.

“Yeah, I mentioned my friend Oodle a bit ago– During an elimination he got sucked into one of the portals he can create and I have no idea where he went. I had to finish the elimination without him.” Tivo said in a bit of a sad voice, the face on their screen was tilted sideways.

“Same with me but different teleportation method, His name is MePhone and we were chatting when it happened. I have to believe it has something to do with where we got teleported since mine and Tivo’s story line up at around the same time.” MePad shrugged.

X smiled and laughed a bit. He moved over and hopped off of the bed. He looked at the door. “Have you gone out of the room yet?”

“No, sadly the door’s locked. We tried opening it for a while but nothing would work.” Tivo sighed. “You could try it yourself if you want?” Tivo offered to X.

X grinned and walked over to the door. He grabbed the handle and shook it, he twisted it and tried to get it open but nothing he would do would work. “RRRR.”

He glared at the door, using one of his powers he did something similar to laser eyes and shot the door with white beams of light from his eyes. Nothing happened to the doors. MePad and Tivo just slowly looked at each other awkwardly as X started punching the door.

He frowned and slumped up against the door facing the two electronics. “Why are doors so strrronnnnnnggggg!” He pouted.

“..Don’t worry bud, that one’s just different. Somehow.” MePad walked over and patted X on the head again with a foot.

“Ookkaayy..” He sighed sadly, squishing himself down somehow with the sigh.

“How long do you think we’ll be in here, Tivo?” MePad turned around to face the limbless TV.

“Eh, not sure. I can hear some noise from behind this wall so I don’t assume that long.” Tivo metaphorically shrugged, the blue and white TV watching and listening silently.

“I want Fourrrr.” X pouted on the ground. He had tried teleporting, making the door disappear, everything in his power basically. Nothing has worked so far.

“We’ll get out of here soon enough X, don’t worry. You’ll find Four soon!” MePad smiled,
Patting X on the back with a foot to get up and guiding him back to his bed. “What exactly are you by the way, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“Oh, I don’t mind! I’m an algebrailen!” He smiled, figuring that they would know what an algebrailen was.

Tivo hummed in the background, they were still next to the bed with the nameplate as ‘Tivo’ due to them having the lack of legs or arms. Apparently they were trying to listen to something on the other side of the wall.

“..Neat?” MePad said hesitantly with a small shrug. MePad walked over to his own bed and sat down onto it.

They sat in silence for a while before a screeching-like noise came from beyond the wall where Tivo was listening. It was short but oh so loud even if they were in a different room.

“Well, that confirms there’s another room or at least people over there.” MePad nodded to the wall behind Tivo slightly.

X gasped joyfully and hopped off of the bed. He basically floated extremely fast over to the wall where Tivo was and shoved himself into it. MePad and Tivo looked at him with confused looks.

“Are you okay? That looks like it would’ve hurt.” Tivo stated, looking at him.

“That was Four! Four is over thereeee! I need to go there!” X joyfully said, trying to somehow scrape the wall off or like.. Create a tear in it.

“I don’t think doing that will work to get into there–” MePad muttered, watching awkwardly from his bed.

“I’m going to keep trying anyway!” He sounded determined to phase through the wall somehow.

MePad and Tivo shared another long look as X angrily attacked the wall.

“You stole Four! Gimme back Fourrr!” He said to the wall.

Tivo’s screen-face looked up. A thumping noise was heard from beyond their door and then voices talking. “It looks like they managed to get out of their room. I wonder if our door will work now?”

“I’ll go check.” MePad stood up and walked to the door, fiddling with the doorknob by using a foot. It was still very much locked for them. “It’s still locked, maybe it’ll unlock soon?”

Tivo shrugged on the screen, he could hear a lot of footsteps and voices. There was one that was familiar to the TV. “Oh, Oodle is here. That means your MePhone should be here too.”

“Oh phew, that’s good to know!” MePad smiled then looked at X, who had seemingly ignored their whole conversation based on how they’re still attacking the wall. “Hey X, You can stop now. The others have gotten out of their room, We should also be let out soon.”

The algebrailen looked behind him quickly. “Really? Yayy!” He jumped with joy while having a large smile on his face.

After that, the door made a clicking noise and MePad tried the doorknob again with a foot. This time it actually opened and outside of it was a hallway and then a few others looking around or chatting. X ran out from behind MePad and jumped at Four.

“Fourrr! I missed you!” He hugged the blue algebrailen.

“Hi, X.” Four couldn’t help but smile a bit and wrap an arm behind X’s back.

“There you are, MePad! We have to leave, can you teleport us out?” MePhone walked over to the MePad.

“I’m sorry, Sir, but my teleportation won’t work at all. We’re stuck here unless we find a way out and back home.” He sighed to MePhone.

“Darn. Alright, we can try that. Let's look downstairs.” MePhone put an arm on MePad’s back and they went downstairs together.

Tivo made a tsking noise, still in the room. A speaker box wandered into the room and they looked at each other for a small moment. “Is there an ‘Oodle’ out there? Green outline, white base?” Tivo asked.

“Yeah. Want me to grab him for you?” Tivo wasn’t expecting the text-to-speech voice but he was glad it wasn’t that heavy. Tivo nodded by moving his digital face up and down. The speaker box wandered out and a few seconds later Oodle appeared in the room.

“Oh! Tivo! You’re here too?” He smiled and walked up to the doodle TV. “Oh wait I just realised that means we left the contestants unattended–”

“They should be fine.” Tivo put in. “Have you figured out where we are?”

Oodle sighed and shook his head no. “Nope. All I know is that it’s some house!”

All Tivo did was hum. Oodle startled and almost fell when a loud thud vibrated the hallway and co-host room from one of the contestant doors. “What is going on in there?” Oodle questioned as he regained his balance.

Four glared at the door the thud had come out of. X noticed this and kicked the door.

“Ow!” X simply stated.

Chapter Text

A gloomy apartment with a TV playing some random old fashioned show in the background. Sketchpad was jumping up and down trying to open a drawer to put away more of his stuff.

“ToppHatttt” Sketchpad complained, going to the main room to look for said person. The top hat was in the kitchen preparing some sort of meal. “Where’s the step ladder?”

“Have you checked next to the sink in the bathroom?” TopHat peeked his head out from the already pretty open kitchen.

“Tsk!” Sketchpad grinned and gave TopHat a thumbs up as he went to go check. He found said step ladder and dragged it out and back to the drawer. He opened it with ease and dropped a bunch of his stuff into it. He hopped off of the step ladder after closing the drawer and did that motion where you ‘dust off’ your hands together.

“Whatcha making, TopHat?” He went back out into the main room and plopped onto the couch. 

“Just some pasta. I’m going to have to go grocery shopping soon.” TopHat laughed nervously, he wasn’t sure if going out into the shopping district was the best idea after their little adventure in the hardware store.

“Ooh! Neat!” He grinned, watching the TV in front of him with intent.

“How’s the job hunt going by the way?” TopHat leaned on the counter that separated the living room and the kitchen. Sketchpad took his eyes off of the TV and looked over at him.

“I’ve been lookin’ around but mostly all the available jobs pay next-to-nothing and the others have denied me!” He exaggerated the statement with a quick movement of lifting his arms up into the air. “I’ll get a good one soon, No worries TopHat!”

“I am definitely worrying, but I trust you. ( Sort of.) ” He had whispered the last two words.

“That's good to know buddy ol’ pal!” Sketchpad gave him a thumbs up and moved his attention back to the TV. It was some dumb romcom with very dumb main characters.

The two of them were pretty silent for the next few minutes, with TopHat in the kitchen and Sketchpad being endorsed in the romcom. Sketchpad started to hear a sizzling noise and looked up from the TV.

“TopHat, I think the pasta’s done!” He announced into the apartment with a smile. There was no response and the sizzling continued. His smile slowly turned into a small frown. He hopped off of the couch and made his way to the kitchen.

He looked around the room seeing nobody there at all. He walked over to the stove and hopped onto the counter to turn it off so the pasta didn’t start a fire. “TopHat?” He called into the apartment again. No response.

He grinned slightly. “This isn’t a time for silly little pranks TopHat, I know you’re around here– hiding behind a box or something!” He strolled over to behind the couch, looking around there.

Sketchpad hadn’t even noticed his mind and vision getting sploshed before he collapsed onto the floor with a small thud.

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Sketchpad woke up to a literal plum of fire shaking him awake. He had shook his head and blinked at them, not expecting that. “I’m awake, you can stop shaking me!” 

“Alright alright!” The fire dude’s arms raised in mock surrender. He had turned around to go chat with two other people in the room. Sketchpad looked around the room curiously, seeing a lot of others in the room with him.

There was a pink shot-glass looking person seemingly angry while sitting on a bed, a black/white splitted circle person who looked to be arguing with themself, a subway seat with arms yet no legs, a remote-like person talking in text-to-speech to the fire person who had woken him up and another person whom’s blue that he couldn’t really figure out what was. 

Sketchpad hopped off the bed he woke up on and walked over to the subway-seat looking person. They had noticed Sketchpad approaching.

“Hello there! Who’re you?” They had greeted Sketchpad. He grinned at the subway seat.

“Sketchpad at your service! Who am I talking to?” He hopped up onto the bed the other was sitting on and sat next to them.

“You can call me Subway Seat!” They had smiled at Sketchpad. The person had an accent behind their words that sketchpad couldn’t place but oh well.

“Huh. That name’s a bit on the nose but who am I to complain! How long have all of you been here for?” He was still grinning, looking around.

“Eh, dunno. I don’t really keep track of the time.” Subway Seat shrugged. “It hasn’t been that long since I woke up I don’t believe? You’re gonna want to ask Firey or Yin-Yang for that information, they were the first two awake.”

“Which ones are those two? Can I call you Subway, Subway Seat?” He had figured that ‘Firey’ was the one literally on fire but he wasn’t sure about Yin-Yang and wanted confirmation. 

“Firey is the one made of fire and Yin-Yang is the one in the back corner over there!” Subway pointed to Firey first, then the black/white split circle in another corner. “And yeah sure, You can call me Subway! Don’t waste out my name!” He joked.

“Tsk! Thanks bud!” He grinned and gave Subway a thumbs up before hopping down from the bed and making his way over to Yin-Yang. To be honest, he was a bit scared of going near Firey due to him being flammable.

As he approached the split person, he had noticed that they were bickering with themselves about something like who’s fault bringing them into the room was.

“Hey there!” Notepad was grinning and waved at them. They looked at the small sketchpad and stopped their bickering.

“Hi!” They waved but then also scoffed in a deeper tone.

“I’m Sketchpad, Your Yin-Yang right?” Sketchpad hopped onto a nearby bed and sat down with a tilted head.

“Yup! Nice to meet yo- No it isn’t .” Yin-Yang paused and they went silent for a long moment. Sketchpad clicked his tongue and looked around a bit awkwardly.

“Annnywayyy,” Sketchpad rolled his eyes while saying that. “You know where we are?”

“ Yes, we’re in a room. In the middle of nowhere.” Yin-Yang smiled. Sketchpad noticed something odd– One of their eyes, in the darker half of their face, had their eyebrow down as if they were irritated or angry. Then the eye in the lighter section had their eyebrow up as if they were excited.

Sketchpad just nodded and spaced out to eavesdrop on the three way conversation in the middle of the room between Firey, the remote and the blue circle thing.

“Personally I think Firey caused this.” The remote spoke up in a text-to-speech voice. Said  fire plume sputtered in confusion.

“Huh-??? Why me?” He cried quietly, confused. The blue thing looked up to the remote.

“Remote, that is a low-blow. You can’t just go accusing ol’ Firey for no reason!” The blue circle thing had a surprisingly normal-sounding voice. They went to pat Firey’s back but at the last moment they had seemed to remember he was literally made out of fire so they ended up not doing said action.

“..Profily I didn’t even know of your existence before you showed up at the hotel only to leave a minute later.” Remote deadpanned (in the best of their ability) to the blue circle thing Sketchpad now knows as ‘Profily.’ “Two didn’t even know who you were–”

He kept eavesdropping until a while after the pink cup he had seen earlier came up to him. He noticed they were like TopHat, in the sense they didn’t have arms. He blinked and grinned down at the pink glass.

The pink glass just glared at Sketchpad for a long moment then kicked him in the face. They then walked back to their bed as Sketchpad fell backwards onto the bed he was sitting on with a muffled ‘Owch.’

“ HA! ” Yin-Yang grinned widely, the darker eye seeming pleased and the lighter eye seeming shocked.

“..Did that just happen?” Firey leaned to the side to look past Remote at Sketchpad who was still fallen on the bed and the pink glass sitting on the bed next to him.

Remote turned around to look at what the fire plume had asked about then walked over to the sketchpad laying back on the bed. Sketchpad was trying to fix his face. 

“You alright?” Remote asked Sketchpad in her odd text-to-speech voice. Sketchpad just gave a small, shaky thumbs up. Remote’s eyebrows dropped to her eyes as if she didn’t believe Sketchpad.

Profily approached the pink glass who looked very pleased with themself but also lost in thought.

“Now that wasn't a very nice buddy, why’d you kick him in the face?” Profily scolded the glass cup. 

“Threat.” The cup said without missing a beat. Firey, Profily and Subway Seat from across the room all stared at the pink cup with confused (and fearful in subway seat’s case) faces. Remote was busy trying to help Sketchpad and Yin-Yang just simply didn’t hear her.

“Wha-” Firey was about to question before he got a foot over his mouth from the glass, and she brought back her foot quickly, seemingly not expecting the fire. He sighed. “What's your name, anyway?”

“Glassy.” She seemed… proud of her name. Why? No idea.

Sketchpad finally sat up, the paper where his face is seemed to be a bit wrinkled but it wasn’t very noticeable anymore. He gave another thumbs up to Remote.

Subway Seat looked up, visibly more happy now then he was before. He looked from the door he was next to back to the others who had started conversation again in the back of the room. “Hey, Guys!”

They didn’t hear Subway Seat after a moment, so he decided to repeat. “Guys!” They again didn’t hear him. “GUYS!” Everybody in the room shut up and looked to the subway seat.

“There's something going on outside of the door, I think we’re getting out soon!” He smiled at the room. Somebody said a quick ‘woo-hoo!’

Firey walked over to the door and jiggled the doorknob yet it wouldn’t open. He opened his mouth to speak then closed it. He tsk’d. “Welp, We have a problem.”

“ I know the problem! ” Yin-Yang stood up on their bed. “ The PROBLEM is that WE’RE STILL TRAPPED IN HERE” They huffed and stomped their foot onto the mattress. The blanket under their foot slid back and they fell forward off of the bed and onto the floor with a loud thud. Almost everybody looked at Yin-Yang at that moment.

“Are they dead?” Sketchpad leaned forward, asking. 

“ No pe! ” they said, muffled from the floor.

Something on the door clicked and Firey tried the door again but this time he was successful. The door swung open and he sighed with relief to be out of the small-ish room.

He immediately regretted going out of the room when he looked down the hallway at Four, X and Two just standing there and sort of chatting (but only X & Four were the ones talking.)

Firey slowly stepped back into the room as Profily trotted out of the room with a smile. Instead of having the same reaction as Firey, Profily called out to X & Four then walked over to them.

Remote was helping Yin-Yang to stand up again as Sketchpad hopped off of the bed and walked out of the room and grinned.

“Ah, now THIS is way better then in that roo-” Sketchpad was saying before a literal pickaxe edge slammed into the last unopened door and slowly started to drag down causing splintering and cracking noises. 

The last door finally gave way and another plume of fire tumbled out, trying to pull her pickaxe out of the broken door as everybody in the hallway (and slightly in the 1st contestant room) stared at her silently.

Chapter Text

“So.. What do we do now that Two’s disappeared?” Tree asked his teammates, all of them were sitting in a circle (Except for Lightning and Black Hole who were floating. Also remote isn’t there.)

“Vacation!” Marker smiled happily.

“Before the carnival game challenge, We’ve had ‘Vacation’ for the PAST SEVEN MONTHS! Two is HORRIBLE at keeping up with TIMES!” Fanny sounded frustrated. 

“Okay but at least Two’s getting a bit better with time.” Black Hole pointed out. “It’s only been 10 days since the last competition and they were setting up for the next one, and they were also setting up cake at stake!” 

“..Where’s Remote, by the way?” Tree hesitated while saying that, looking around the circle. The rest of the Death P.A.C.K. Again team members looked around as well.

“I can go look around!” Lightning emphasised by raising their arms up into the air. They quickly went flying off in search of Remote.

The last four that were still there sat in silence for a while. Minutes went by eventually.

“It’s been quite a long while, don’t you think Lightning should’ve been back by now?-” Tree slowly stood up, Marker was still sitting on the ground while Black Hole was floating next to Fanny who was doing the same as Marker.

“Yeah, he should've.” Black Hole hummed, floating up a bit more.

Marker suddenly gasped. “First Remote and now Lightning! Somebody is stealing our teammates!”

Fanny gasped angrily. “I WILL find out who is STEALING our TEAMMATES and I WILL–”

“Fanny, Remember what’s our purpose.” Black Hole lectured the fan. Fanny turned around and muttered ‘We’re here to prevent deaths and not cause them.’ with a small eye roll.

“Also Marker may not be correct, They could just be getting lost.. Or wandered off?” Tree laughed hesitantly and shrugged slightly. The tree turned. “...Where’s.. Black Hole?”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

One moment Black Hole was in the yellow fields and the next he was in a random room. When he.. Teleported.. Into the room he had accidentally sucked up the bed under him. He floated up a bit to prevent that from happening again. “Uh– Uhm.”

He looked around slowly, there had to be around 7 people in the room and only 3 (including himself) were awake. The other two awake were a green backpack sitting on the edge of a bed looking painfully nervous and the other was a plume of fire starring a bed that was currently starting to catch on fire.

The plume of fire casually just blew out the small flame that was starting to grow. Black Hole noticed that they had a pickaxe of some sorts on/in their back. He had originally thought that the person was Firey but now that he got a closer look it didn’t really seem like him.

“..Hello?” Black Hole asked, The backpack looked at him while the firey rip-off seemed to be in a trance while staring at the pickaxe they were now holding.

The backpack just stared at him for a LONG time, before hesitantly lifting a hand and saying; “Hi..?”

He floated over to the backpack. “Do you know where I am?”

They shook their head no. “I just randomly woke up here around 5 minutes ago? I assume based on that comment you don’t know where we are either.” he sighed.

“Oh. Well, I’m Black Hole. How about you?” He looked down at the backpack, even if they couldn’t really.. Tell.. he turned.

The green backpack looked a bit surprised at his name for some reason he didn’t know until he said; “Are you actually just.. Named after what you are?” 

“Uh, Yup. Are you not?” Black Hole asked with a confused tone.

“Well, No. My name’s Liam. Also would it be rude if I asked how you’re a black hole and are here yet not sucking everything up?” Liam said the second half a bit hesitantly.

“Oh I don’t mind at all, Basically I was squashed down to a smaller size so that I wouldn’t consume the whole planet when Flower –somebody from where I come from– asked me to open a jar. I can still suck things up though I have to be close.” He chose to leave out the explanation to ‘how you’re a black hole’.

“..Right.” Liam said as if he understood everything he had just said. “Also by chance is that ‘Flower’ over there?” He pointed to a bed with a pink-petaled flower person sprawled across it. 

“Oh! It is! I haven’t actually seen her in forever. Other than on TV, of course. Could I ask you what ‘Liam’ means by the way?”

“Oh I’m not actually.. that sure? It’s not really that common to know the meaning of.. your name.” Liam laughed a bit nervously. Black Hole only now realised that the backpack had a seemingly wooden cast over one of their legs and a rickety looking wooden support laying on the bed Liam was sitting on.

“Ughh..” Somebody complained, It was a tophat with a neat little red ribbon around them. They looked up slowly and their eyes widened when they saw the plume of fire holding a pickaxe close to their chest staring at them only a step or two away from the bed.

“Hi.” She greeted.

“AH!” The tophat yelped, flailing then falling off of the bed in surprise creating a small thump on the floor as they landed.

The fire looked to Liam who was giving her an unimpressed look. She smirked slightly and shrugged. “Wasn’t my fault.”

“It was very much your fault.” Liam sighed and put a hand up for a facepalm.

“You should probably apologise.” Black Hole put into the conversation.

The fire groaned and rolled her eyes. She put the pickaxe back onto/in her back. He walked around the other side of the bed where the tophat seemed to be cowering with wide, fearful eyes. “Hey so uh like, I didn’t mean to scare you.” She looked up at Black Hole & Liam with a look that said; ‘That good enough?’ Liam just shrugged.

“Yeah uh.. Sorry for me screaming like that. I just wasn’t.. Expecting you to be there.” He slowly sat up from the floor. “My fault.” He laughed nervously.

“I understand!” She said not so sympathetically. She was currently staring at the red, flat ribbon the top hat had around them. “Say.. Do you think you could survive without that ribbon?” She said slowly, reaching for her pickaxe.

“I- Erm..”

“Do not. Don’t you dare.” Liam glared at her.

“Awh come on!” She huffed, turning around to go sulk in a corner.

“Sorry about all that, We promise that we did not tell her to do that.” Black Hole floated over to the top hat. He also seemed to have the same surprised reaction at seeing him like Liam did.

“Ah, no problem anyway.. I’m TopHat, you?” He introduced himself. In the background Liam sighed again at the use of an object name.

“I’m Black Hole.” He greeted back, the TopHat guy seemed nice.

“So uh, do you know where I am at any chance?” TopHat had no arms but that wasn’t odd in Black Hole’s opinion, They leaned back against the wall.

“No, Sorry. I just woke up here not too long ago and nobody else here really knows.” 

TopHat sighed. “That's alright, Thanks anyway for the information.”

“No problem, TopHat.” He hovered back to Liam as TopHat staggered off of the wall.

Looking around, he noticed there were still three people asleep and or knocked out. Black Hole recognized Flower of course, But then there was a yellow light bulb looking person and– wait- is that Lightning on the floor?

He floated over slowly to get a better look at them. And yes, it was most definitely Lightning. “Hey Lightning, Time to get up. “ At this moment Black Hole wishes he could use arms or legs. He turned around to find the fire to be right behind him with the pickaxe in her hands as she stared into his black void.

“Erm.” He said, looking at the fire. The fire seemed to notice that he was looking at her (she couldn’t tell earlier because he had no visible face,) and waved slightly.

“Need help with your friend?” She tilted her head, pointing to the lightning bolt on the ground.

“Yeah sure, Thanks.” He moved out of the way for her. “What’s your name by the way?”

She crouched down then started to poke Lightning with the handle of her pickaxe. “Fireball!” She had grinned at him.

Fireball kept poking Lightning as Black Hole watched with an inch of uncertainty due to the fire’s display earlier with TopHat.

“I don’t think this is workin-” Fireball was saying before Lightning shakily put a hand to their head. “Oh never mind! All’s good!”

Fireball stood up and walked off, pickaxe in tow. Black Hole floated back over. “Hey Lightning, are you feeling okay? You sort of just flew off and didn’t come back.”

Lightning hovered up into the air after a moment. “I think I’m doing okay? A lot of it’s a blur.” He had a hand on his head. “But I’m alright! Where are we, by the way? ”

“That’s good! Also, not so sure.” Black Hole metaphorically shrugged.

Lightning seemed to be looking at something different behind Black Hole. He turned to see another one of the sleeping people awake now, and it wasn’t Flower. It was the light bulb and they were talking to Liam like how Black Hole did when he woke up.

“This is getting borringgg..” Fireball rolled her eyes, going to sit down on her bed but she had seemingly forgotten it was flammable. With saying that when she sat down on the bed it almost immediately started to get consumed by flames. She didn’t seem to mind but TopHat and Liam most definitely did as they yelped in surprise and stared. 

“Oh my– We’re going to die from carbon dioxide here!” TopHat stressed running to the door and trying to get it open. Fireball raised an eyebrow in confusion.

“I don’t see the problem here?” She leaned back a bit.

“Thats because you’re the one MADE of fire here, Fireball.” Liam face palmed but internally he was panicking too.

Flower finally seemed to get up, raising her head to look at the scene around her. “-What the!?”

The light bulb raised her hands in mock surrender. “How about we stop yelling and get out of the room?”

“I agree with the– like– light bulb! I don’t know what's going on but I want OUT!” Flower stumbled to stand up, staring at the raging fire of the bed not realising that Fireball was casually sitting there like nothing was happening.

“The door isn’t OPENING!” TopHat said stressed. He was using his foot to jiggle the doorknob due to the fact of him not having arms but it was proving to be unsuccessful.

“You guys are so seriously overreacting.” Fireball rolled her eyes and stood up off of the burning bed. Flower yelped, not expecting Fireball. Lightning and Black Hole were just watching from the sidelines, speechless.

She swung the pickaxe off of her back as TopHat and the light bulb tumbled out of the way. She raised the pickaxe high into the air. “FREEEEDOMMM!”

She slammed the pickaxe into the door and dragged it down, She could feel everybody staring in shock at her but oh well. The door finally gave way as she hit the second swing into the door and she tumbled out with her pickaxe still lodged in the door.

Black Hole swooped down to the burning bed and simply just.. Absorbed it. Fireball yanked her pickaxe out of the door and stumbled back, holding it close to her chest as she stared at the ~12 people staring at her. 

“What’s going on?-'' Fiery poked his head out from the other contestant's door and made eye contact with Fireball. She gasped loudly and angrily as she stared.

“DOPPELGANGER!” She screeched and ran at Firey with the raised pickaxe.

“AHHH” Firey screeched and ducked under her swing and bolted it downstairs as Fireball followed.

“..What?-” Two spoke one word in the very quiet hallway. At this point, almost everybody was out of their rooms and shared Two’s exact feelings.

Oodle ran out of the Co-Host room, holding a small white box with blue outlines and a blue ‘T’ in the middle. “That better not have been Fireball–”

“That was Fireball.” Glassy confirmed from the doorway of the first contestant room. Oodle groaned then ran downstairs after the two flames.

Chapter Text

“So uh, how big do you think the house is?” Remote hummed in her electronic-ish voice.

“Eh, can’t be that big!” Subway Seat chuckled to himself a bit, He was currently walking using his arms with Remote down the hallway with the doors to the bedrooms. “Maybe two stories? I’ve never really been in a BIG house before!”

Remote just absently nodded.

“...” The two walked in mostly silence as Subway Seat struggled to go down the stairs.

“Wanna tell me about where you’re from?” Remote offered, trying to make this awkward situation less awkward.

“Oh uh, sure. Let me just–” He muttered as he staggered down off of a step to the landing of the stairs. “There we go!”

Remote smiled down at him slightly, She could only imagine how hard it would be to do stuff without legs.

“Anyway, I'm not really from any particular place so this may be a bit hard to explain to you,” Subway Seat chuckled a bit nervously. “But like– I live on a subway. I'm a subway seat so yeah.” 

Remote stopped walking and looked down at him with a questioning face. “You know you don’t just have to live on a subway since you’re a subway seat, right? Also.. do you have a house?”

“Ehhh,, It’s complicated. Liam says I’m from a different universe then him and the other round oners’ soo..” Subway didn’t exactly know what to say. “And no, I don’t currently have a house?”

“..Oh.” That’s all she could say. Remote continued walking down the curved stairs as Subway Seat staggered behind her down the stairs.

“I really do wonder how some people from where I come from are doing sometimes!” Subway hummed with a smile as he struggled on the stairs.

“Did something happen to them?” Remote asked, looking behind her at him.

“They got eliminated, a real shame to be honest. One of my (sort of) friends didn’t manage to stay with me the whole way.” He sighed but Remote looked up at this.

“Oh, you’re from a game show too?” She smiled, looking forward again.

“Yeah! It’s called ONE, It’s an acronym for something but our host never really told us.. The game show isn’t the best to be honest, Airy, the host, isn’t the most.. Compassionate person in the universe.” Subway sighed again.

“Hm. One of the game shows I was in had a host sort of like that, but he slowly got better over time. I don’t know the full story since I swapped shows before the ending of the first one.”

“You were in more than one show? Neat!” He smiled and thudded onto the ground, finally off of the wretched staircase.

Looking around the first room Remote could see, there were a few objects already down here looking around and she could slightly hear arguing from another room. She also noticed the severe lack of windows.

Subway Seat looked around but he got more focused on another person. “How about we go talk to them?” He pointed to a light bulb who was staring at the wall with a door on it with a confused look.

Remote shrugged then walked over to them with Subway following shortly after. She waved to them. “Hello!”

The light bulb startled, not expecting them. She waved back with a small smile. “Hello there! How long have you two been in here?”

“Eh, about the same as you probably.” Subway shrugged as he plopped onto the ground.

“Oh okay! I’m Lightbulb, what about you two?”

“I’m Remote.” She smiled at Lightbulb.

“Subway Seat or just Subway! Either’s fine! Maybe even SS. Oooh, I like SS.” Subway rambled on quietly.

“What are you doing?” Remote asked, noticing how Lightbulb was just staring at the wall earlier.

“Oh, nothing that important! I was just trying to figure out why there aren't any windows in here! Strange, right?” Lightbulb turned to face the wall again, taking a step back.

“It is quite confusing why there aren't any windows, you’d expect there to be.” Remote agreed with the fluorescent lightbulb.

Lightbulb turned around to face the two. She held out both of her hands in front of the two for a handshake of some sorts. “Wanna be friends?”

“I’m down!” Subway Seat grinned and high-fived the hand, not exactly sure what to do. Lightblub accepted that and looked to Remote.

“Erm.. I mean, sure.” She was hesitant. She shook Lightbulb’s hand quickly before letting go.

“Neat!” Lightbulb grinned. “I heard some arguing over there, want to check it out?” She pointed to a large-ish room that was separated by a wall from the main living room.

“Yeah sure!” Subway smiled and he started to walk over with Lightbulb in tow. Remote was a bit hesitant and decided to follow the two anyway.

Soon enough, the trio walked into a kitchen that looked like it came from the 90s but the 20s at the same time. In front of them was another trio, two of which were made of fire with the other one being some triangle creature.

Subway blinked, not really understanding what was happening as he looked up at Lightbulb and Remote yet got no answer.

The triangle seemed to be scolding one of the fire objects, more specifically the one currently holding a pickaxe, while the other one was looking at the previously mentioned fire with a smug face.

Remote looked at Firey and mouthed; ‘What’s going on?’. Firey looked up at her then took a thumb and dragged it across where his neck should be then pointed to the other fire object.

Remote’s eyes widened and subtly pointed to firey while mouthing; ‘YOU tried to kill them?’. Firey’s eyes also widened and he shook his head no, then did a little twirl with his hands. Remote calmed down and nodded understandingly.

She zoned back into the conversation between the Triangle-guy and the other fire object.

“....--Tsk, You’re getting your pickaxe privileges taken awa-” He reached to take the pickaxe but Fireball quickly moved back while hugging the pickaxe.

“NO.” They stared while Oodle just kept reaching for the pickaxe. “You are NOT taking Mr. Pickaxe!” Fireball ran off as Oodle just sighed and walked after her.

“Dang, that guy his dad or something?” Remote wondered aloud. Firey shrugged and sat up.

“They did seem like they knew each other though! I only know one object in the house so far.” Subway chimed in.

“I haven’t seen anybody I recognize yet!” Lightbulb put in.

“Maybe you’ll find somebody you know soon? I’ve seen approx. 5 objects I know so far. That means there has to be somebody you know around here.” Remote hummed.

“There's more from Goiky here?” Firey walked over to the trio. Remote nodded.

“So far I’ve seen you, Profily, Four, X, Two, Announcer and then myself if that counts.”

“Woah. That's a lot of us here, and three of our hosts, seriously? And X if that counts. But you understand what I mean.” Firey rolled his eyes as Lightbulb and Subway shared an awkward glance.

“What’s Goiky?” Subway Seat asked,

Lightbulb second that by saying; “I’ve never heard of it before! Is it seccccreecttt?”

Remote looked at both of them with slightly wide eyes. “You’ve never heard of Goiky before? I thought it was well-known due to our show? ” Remote muttered the last bit.

“Nope!”/”Notta!” Subway and Lightbulb responded at the same time. Remote and Firey looked at each other for a long while before looking back at the both of them.

“Okay well, that's some new information.” Firey snarkily replied. “Four said we were popular or something.”

Firey and Remote stared at each other with questioning faces.

“ . . . “

“Oi.” The voice startled nearly everybody in the room, even though whoever had said it had a soft and calm-sounding voice. They turned to see a small pink glass. “Lemme pass.”

“Oh uh–” Subway Seat moved to the side as the cup walked into the kitchen through another doorway. The now quartet looked at each other in silence before Lightbulb hummed in interest.

“I wonder if there's food here! That’d be odd, but this IS a kitchen!” She walked to a cabinet and opened it, greeted by pans. She opened another, greeted by more pans. She continued the process.

“Try the fridge!” Subway Seat called absent mindedly.

“Oh right! That should have something in it, Thanks Subway!” She walked over from all the open cabinets with pans and dishes in them and opened the fridge. “Awh, there's nothing in here! I was hoping for at least pasta or something.” As she said that, a can of spaghettios appeared in the fridges.

“Oooh! Magic fridge!” Subway grinned and walked over. “Bread! Tomatoes! Sushi!” Subway Seat called out and the items appeared in the fridge on command.

Lightbulb reached into the fridge and took the loaf of bread, which turned out to be a baguette since Subway didn’t specify what type of bread, and chomped down on it. She offered a half to Subway.

“Oh no, I’m fine! I don’t need to eat. If I did, then I would have been dead by now!” Subway smiled with an enthusiastic voice as he stared into the still-open fridge, trying to figure out how it worked. Unknown to him, the three objects behind him stared with confused looks.

Fireball walked back into the room with crossed arms, sulking the loss of her pickaxe. She glared at Firey who just gave a smug look back at her. “Look, I don’t mean this since Oodle just told me to do it, But I’m sorry for attacking you.”

“Point taken. And thank you.” He grinned as Fireball glared.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Four, this is a good time to make new friends!” X huffed, tugging on his arm a bit. Said algebralien was sitting on his respective bed.

“No.” Four said.

“C’monnn..” X pouted.

“No, X.” He looked over at the yellow algebralien.

X sighed and sat next to Four, leaning against him.

The two sat in silence for a long while before Four finally gave in. “Fine, but nobody here is going to be considered my friend. Acquaintance at most.”

“Yay!” X cheered, hopping off of the bed and dragged Four out of the room.

X dragged four around the second floor with all the bedrooms before entering the second contestant room. Inside was TopHat, alone, sitting on his bed seemingly trying to forget all that happened around 10 minutes ago.

“Hi!” X greeted with an over-exaggerated wave. TopHat startled and looked up at the two of them. X was smiling while Four was looking at the ground like he was about to melt away.

“Oh- Hello? I haven’t seen you two- “ Four glared at TopHat as he said ‘two’ “ -before. I'm TopHat.”

“I’m X! Pronounced like Ex! That's Four!” He pointed over to Four with his only free hand due to the other one holding Four’s arm.

“Ah, where are you two from? Sorry if you find this offensive.. But you don’t really seem like normal objects?” He tilted his head a bit.

“No, it's fine! We’re not from this planet!” X smiled.

“We’re algebraliens. From the Equation Playground.” Four explained a bit better. But TopHat was still a bit confused, all he got from that is that the two in front of him are aliens.

“..Right, okay, erm.” TopHat didn’t get the right vibes from this ‘Four’ person. X seemed fine though.

“So, TopHat! What show are you from?” X leaned onto the bed.

“What?” He blinked.

“Huh?- All the people here are from game shows, are you not?” X rubbed the top of one of his nubs in confusion.

“Ah.. no? I don’t believe I am. Does that mean you both are from one?” TopHat laughed a bit nervously.

“We’re not just FROM one! We hosted one! Well, Four did, and I did for a few episodes, but still!” X grinned as Four sighed deeply.

“Oh that’s neat!” TopHat smiled back at X. Who of which nodded excitedly.

A shout was suddenly heard from the hallway.

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN I’M NOT ALLOWED IN??” Flower huffed, stomping her foot on the ground. TopHat, X and Four (Who was still getting dragged along by X) headed out of the room to look at the commotion.

“You are not allowed in Fortè YînYâng! Now shoo! ” A black/white split circle stood on top of a barricade in front of the door made from a flipped-over bed. Flower sputtered.

“WHY??” She yelled. 

“ Private information! Now off of our land! ” YinYang glared at Flower. 

“No! I’m not leaving until you LET ME IN!” Flower put two hands on her hips.

“SECURITY/ SECURITY! ” Yin/Yang yelled at the same time. Lightning appeared next to YinYang with a grin. “Zap the perpetrator!”

Lightning raised up higher into the air while Flower sputtered in panic. “NONONONOnonoNONNO”

Flower leapt out of the way as Lightning came charging down with closed eyes. He had missed Flower only barely but that meant he kept going forward until he hit.. X.

“Ah! Ah! Ow! Ah!” X melodramatically stated while getting zapped.

Four glared hard at Lightning as Two came out from the host’s room from the commotion. Four raised a hand and zappies the lightning bolt who got pushed back near Two. Two jumped up into the air and hit Lightning into the wooden floorboards with a loud thud.

The green and blue algebraliens stared at a dazed Lightning with angry looks. YinYang slowly lowered themselves to only being able to see over the bed barricade.

X frowned while holding themself in a hug-like thing. He didn’t actually get hurt, more just very startled.

“Thanks Four!” X snapped back to normal and hugged the blue algebralien. He looked over Four’s shoulder. “You too, Two!”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“We probably should’ve warned YinYang about Four.”  Black Hole hummed.

“Yup! But we did not my.. floating friend.” Profily smiled as always.

“I’m just glad I was even allowed in here! It’s not like I had any doubts though.” Sketchpad announced with a large grin and smug eyes.

“You totally had doubts.” Black Hole looked(?) at Sketchpad. Sketchpad choose to ignore him.

“I do wonder why YinYang wouldn’t let Flower in though.” Profily wondered aloud.

“Sometimes it’s best not to know!” Sketchpad, still smiling, faced away from the two.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Profily raised an eyebrow. After a long moment of silence and the small sketchpad facing away from them, he simply shrugged.

“Hey YinYang, how’s it going?” Black Hole floated over to the split circle.

“The four won’t stop giving us a death stare.” Yin shuddered. “ I bet we could beat him up though! ” Yang huffed.

“Yeah no, you aren’t fighting Four today. Or any day in fact. Want to join us over here playing Pictionary?” Black Hole invited them.

“Oh! Oh! Can we go first!? ” YinYang smiled largely, leaning out from the barrier and grabbing the door knob then slamming the door shut which they locked.

“Of course.” Black Hole floated back to the back of the room as YinYang followed excitedly.

Chapter Text

Almost everybody was on the main floor by now. Of course, there was Fortè YînYâng upstairs but right now it wasn’t occupied. 

Fireball stared at Glassy, she stared back. Profily was also there.

“Y’know, I don’t understand why you don’t like Glassy ‘ere! She’s just a cute lil’ cup.” Profily picked up the pink glass.

Fireball laughed once. “You’ll see why in a moment.” She deadpanned.

“Huh? That sounds un-necessarily ominu-” Glassy opened her mouth and bit Profily’s hand. Profily internally screamed.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Uno!” Lightning cheered.

“Good play, but, Go fish.” MePhone grinned.

“I thought we were playing Poker?” MePad raised an eyebrow in confusion.

“We.. aren’t playing ..Sequence?” Airy blinked, sitting up.

Many confused faces passed around that table.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Four, Two, stop glaring at each other. You’re acting like children.” Announcer spoke up, X was sitting next to him with wide, confused eyes.

“It’s not my fault-”/”They started it.” Two and Four said at the same time, respectively.

“I second announcer! You should do less glarey and more bondy!” X huffed.

Two and Four both muttered something under their breaths about that idea.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“CHUG! CHUG! CHUG!”/” CHUG! CHUG! CHUG! ” YinYang grinned, watching Sketchpad down an entire carton of milk.

“What’s–” Liam walked into the kitchen then stopped, watching this heroic event happen. Remote and Firey were also here watching.

TopHat followed Liam into the chaotic event and his eyes widened as he saw Sketchpad downing the carton. He walked over. “Bud I think that’s enough milk-”

Sketchpad jumped, clearly startled. He accidentally dropped the carton. “Oops. At least nothing bad happened!”

At that exact moment Remote froze up and her eyes became squares. Her batteries/mainframe got affected by the milk and started to short circuit. She then collapsed onto the ground as everybody in the room stared at her then Sketchpad.

Sketchpad just awkwardly laughed.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Flower sat by herself, muttering some stuff. Subway Seat walked over to her.

“Hi there! We haven’t talked before, are you doing okay?” He asked the flower.

“Oh yeah, perfect.” She grimaced. 

Subway tsk’d. “Well then, point taken– I’ll just go.” He began to walk off but Flower looked up.

“No, no- You can stay if you want.” She rubbed the back of her head awkwardly. Subway just looked back at her and subtly nodded, walking back and sitting down.

“How’s life treating you with no legs?” She joked.

“Ah, peachy! It’s still a bit hard, but day by day I’m getting better at it!” He smiled happily.

Flower nodded then yawned, realising she had been awake for the last 18 hours or so. She drifted off momentarily. When she woke up, she noticed that she was accidentally leaning against Subway.

She sat back up and opened her mouth to apologise hastily to Subway but then she just stared with wide eyes at the limb-less and face-less subway seat next to her.

“Wh– Wh– I- Wha–” She stumbled, staring at him.. Was it even a him?.. With wide eyes.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Oodle sat on one of the couches, fidgeting with the blue and white box that was Tivo. Lightbulb came over and sat on the couch and nabbed the remote to the TV, scrolling through what seemed to be unlimited channels.

Oodle looked up at the TV with a questioning look. “Hey, Lightbulb right?”

“Yup!” She didn’t look away from the TV.

“Could I see the remote for a second?” Oodle sat up. 

“Oh uh- Sure! Here ya go!” She handed the remote over.

Oodle scrolled back up in the channel list and stopped as an ad was playing. On the ad was Sketchpad advertising some magnifying-glass ripoff. Oodle watched for a long moment in confusion.

He scrolled up again on the channel list and there was Firey on the TV, yapping something at another object which the camera panned over to include. “Does this TV have every single one of our game shows on it?”

He scrolled up yet again to find even his own show. There it was, playing the first episode where Oodle was just giving Album her legs & face. “That's interesting!” Oodle hummed.

“Woah, Whatcha doing there?” Lightbulb looked at Oodle and pointed at Album.

“Oh, just me giving my contestants their limbs!” Oodle smiled and laid back, tossing the remote back to Lightbulb.

“That sounds creepy but I’m going to– ignore it!” She chuckled a bit nervously then went back to channel surfing.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Black Hole hovered into the Host’s room, still looking around. He stopped as he stared at the shattered ring on the ground.

“Oh..Uh.” He stared at the clearly dead ring, wondering why they were even teleported here if they were dead.. Or if one of the hosts killed them while they were still locked in.

“ . . . “ He started to slowly back out of the room.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Cut back to Lightbulb and Oodle on the couch. 

The TV started to glitch loudly, creating white noise. The screen turned to that classic white & grey pixelated screen. Oodle and Lightbulb both put their hands over their non-existent ears.

The noise started to catch the attention of the other house-goers, who leaned over to see what was going on.

A pre-recorded message started to play from off of the TV once there were 15/24 of the objects in the room.

In a shaky and glitchy voice, the message spoke. “Hell-lo! Wel-elcome to the-e Hou-se!”

“Well, of course this is a house.” Flower rolled her eyes and leaned back on one of the couch’s backboards.

“You-ou’ll be stay-ying in here f-or a lit-tle wh-ile but, no-o nee-ed to pan-ic!”

“Yeah no I definitely am panicking, I’d like to be back home right now.” TopHat scoffed. There were a few murmurs of agreement.

“Tim-me her-e is slowed do-wn in you-r universe. E-ach -hour yo-u spen-d here, It-it’s like.. A milise-cond ba-ack at h-ome!” 

“Well, that sure is useful.” Profily joined the group in the living/main room.

“Though I would like this voice to stop being so glitchy.” MePhone leaned on a wall.

The TV cut back from the glitchy white & grey screen to the regular programing on the network. Which, right now, happened to be TPOT 1.

“That’s all it’s going to say!?” Liam huffed, clomping his crutch onto the floor.

“It seems so!” Sketchpad grinned. “A new mystery has just been revealed! We have to figure out who this mystery TV person is!”

“Well obviously there's somebody behind the TV who put on the pre-recorded message for us.” Announcer pointed out. Sketchpad ran behind the TV. “I didn’t mean that literally.”

“Oh. Well anyway, there's a funky looking microchip here attached to the TV that's blinking green!” Sketchpad announced from behind the TV.

“You sure that’s not just the power symbol?” Lightning asked.

“Ehhh, it probably isn’t! Because there's also a flashy blue light back here!” Sketchpad jumped up and hung off of the top of the TV. 

“Is there anything else? Cables? Buttons?” Liam asked this time.

Sketchpad hopped back down. “There's a power cable, And a button on the green flashy thingy!”

“Press the button! Let's see what it does! ” YinYang grinned.

“Alright!” Sketchpad grinned then pressed the button. A live poll appeared on the TV screen, and it had all of their faces on it.

“What’s that for?” X hopped up onto a couch.

“Not sure, but whatever it is for, Liam's winning the poll.” Two put in. There was no label or anything, just them with votes.

They watched and the vote count went up, adding another to YinYang’s score.

“Huh, so it is live.” Firey stated.

“Who voted for Ring?” TopHat narrowed his eyes. “They’re dead. I don’t get why anybody would vote for them..”

Liam was staring at his own score, fretting what it meant. He looked at the second-place player so far. Airy. He glared. Airy was here? Why hasn’t he seen him yet?

“Can we all agree that, even if we don’t know what this is for, that it’s probably something bad?” Firey asked. There were murmurs of agreement. “Also, Remote short-circuited. Is there a technician in here or at least somebody who knows how to fix electronic objects?”

Oodle looked up. He stood up moments later. “I can go try to fix her, I took a five day technician class. I’m qualified enough!” Oodle walked off to the kitchen before Firey could stop him.

Suddenly a ding was heard from the TV and the votes got locked in. Everybody in the room looked at the TV. The TV first showed X, Flower, Firey, Fireball, Glassy, Profily, Announcer, Remote, Black Hole, Two, Sketchpad and finally Subway seat with no votes.

It then showed Oodle, Lightning, MePad, MePhone, Tivo, Four and TopHat with one vote each.

Next was Ring and Lightbulb with two votes each.

“Look at the picture they used for Ring! She’s dead! Why are people still voting for her?” TopHat put a foot to his face.

And then YinYang was next, with three votes. 

After YinYang was the second placer, Airy with five votes. Subway Seat and Liam both looked uncomfortable as they looked at each other then the TV again.

The winner of the poll was Liam, with 8 votes.

They all sat in silence for a long moment.

“Okay what did that mean? Is anything going to- wOAH-” Lightning was saying before a computer fell out of mid-air. Liam’s eyes widened and he caught the computer with his free hand.

“Okay uh, nothing malicious so far?” Black Hole shrugged metaphorically.

Liam opened the computer, which happened to only be at 4%, and walked off with it. Before he left the room a voice synthesiser from the laptop spoke; ‘Liam? Where are we?’ 

“I got Remote fixed, Firey!” Oodle walked back in with a smile, Remote following him with a hand on her head.

“Oh thanks!” He went up to Remote.

The TV went back to playing TPOT, the poll disappearing. It was the start of the challenge this time though.

“It’s kinda weird seeing myself on the TV.” Lightning shuddered.

Subway agreed with Lightning, even though he hasn’t seen himself yet. He yawned momentarily then sucked his limbs and face back in, going into his inanimate form.

“ . . . “ Flower, Lightning, TopHat and YinYang all stared at Subway Seat in confusion. The confusion was mostly coming off of Flower.

“ Did he just die? ” Yang spoke up. “I doubt it, but still. That’s not normal.” Yin stared.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“So, Black Hole-y! What’s your opinion on all of this?” Profily smiled up at Black Hole.

“I don’t know. It’s mostly just.. Confusing.” Black Hole simply responded while Profily nodded. Black Hole looked(?) to Profily. “You’re treating this like a therapy session.”

“Pft- What? Noo..” Profily laughed awkwardly, chucking a clipboard under the couch he was sitting on.

“Uh-huh.” He stated.

“Anyway! I quite like the people here, but whoever is controlling the TV is a bit weird in my opinion.” Profily looked at the TV across the room.

“I do agree with that. Kidnapping us and then showing an ominous poll? That's creepy.”

Profily nodded then something dawned on him. “Wait- does that mean there's viewers? Watching us?” 

“..Shoot. There has to be.” Black Hole hummed.

“I don’t see any cameras, do you?” Profily was standing on the couch, looking around.

“Nope. Maybe it’s just some rigged vote or something..” Black Hole murmured.

“Oh, that's true. Ooh, what's this?” Profily leaned down and picked up a white box outlined in blue with a ‘T’ on one of the sides.

“I’m pretty sure I saw Oodle holding that earlier.” Black Hole put in. “Not sure what it is or what it does.”

“Maybe it’s the source of Oodle’s powers!” Profily gasped and held the box up into the air.

“Try opening it or something.” Black Hole floated a tiny bit closer.

Profily did as Black Hole said and fumbled around with the box, trying to get it to open somehow. He clicked the T, pressed down on the sides, and tried to pry it open. Nothing seemed to work. “Awh.”

Profily sighed and tossed the box up to catch it and toss it again. But when he tossed it up sides came out of the box, then a stand, then a screen. Profily moved out of the way quickly in order not to get squished.

“...Oh- That's not what I was expecting.” Black Hole hovered slightly backwards.

A loading screen popped up, it said ‘Tivo’ and then it’s face appeared on the screen. It looked at Profily and Black Hole. It blinked.

“Black Hole-” Profily looked up at him.

“Why did you two have my box?” Tivo asked, there wasn’t really much emotion behind their words though.

“We found you on the ground. I swear we didn’t steal you or something.” Black Hole hovered up into the air more.

“Oh. Alright.” It blinked. “Do you know where Oodle is?”

Profily pointed behind Tivo, at the other couches where the TV was. Oodle was bickering with Four who looked to be getting increasingly annoyed.

Tivo couldn’t actually see behind them, so their face just moved to the corner of the screen. Then hummed in thought and then just as quickly as they came out of the box, they went back into the box.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The TV turned to static again as the voice appeared again. “Hel-lo ag-ain! I- jus-t want to-o-o men-tion tha-t tom–morr-ow the-re wil-l be two ne-w objects j-oining yo-u here.” 

That's all the TV had to say. It cut back to TPOT 1  after it was finished talking.

“Is it just going to keep saying those random messages at random times?” Two crossed their arms, looking at the TV with their game show on.

“It looks like it.” Announcer spoke, he was currently on a side table.

“I wonder where the newbies will be from!” Sketchpad wondered aloud from on top of the TV.

“Probably not BFB, BFDI or TPOT since there’s already a whole bunch of us here.” Two hummed, tapping their foot on the ground.

“I hope they’re from Inanimate Insanity!” Lightbulb smiled from her spot on the couch.

Behind the couch Lightbulb was on, Oodle was bickering with Four. Mostly just asking questions and following him around. He was trying to get Four to use his powers to see if he could withstand them.

But sadly, Four wouldn’t budge. Most of the objects have gone to sleep by now. Fortè YînYâng was closed off and locked. The second contestant room was almost all full, the Co-Host room was basically empty and the Host room had two of the hosts sleeping. More specifically, MePhone and Airy.

Subway Seat was still downstairs in his inanimate form. 

Announcer decided to call it a night and went upstairs. Soon after, Oodle gave up and decided to go to sleep as well. 

Chapter Text

It was early in the morning in Fortè YînYâng.

“ Okay! New battleplan! ” Yang announced, Them moving in front of a whiteboard they had stolen from downstairs.

“YinYang, I’ve told you that you’re not going to war with Four and Two.” Black Hole sighed. Remote nodded in agreement while Firey muttered about how that's a dumb idea.

“We can take them!” YinYang clapped their hands. “ Just give us a chance! ”

Remote blinked. “I’m sorry to say this, but Two and Four are way too powerful for you. Did you not see how they double teamed Lightning like that?”

Said person nodded. “It hurt. A lot.”

“.. Good point. ” They hummed in consideration, looking at the whiteboard. “Okay! New plan yet again!” They wiped off the marker on the whiteboard.

“ So basically Black Hole- ” They started, but got cut off.

“No.” Black Hole stared. “I’m not absorbing Two or Four.”

“But–”/” But! ” Yin/Yang stated, conflicted.

“I think the best choice is to just not attack them?” Subway Seat shrugged. “Take into those four’s stories, they know all about Four and Two. And apparently they’re strong.”

YinYang sighed, putting the marker down. He looked at Firey. “How are you not burning everything?”

Firey paused then shrugged. Sketchpad snuck through the door and hopped onto the barricade.

“Hey everybody! I’m back.” Sketchpad grinned and sat down on his bed.

“How long were you gone for?” Remote looked at Sketchpad with a raised eyebrow.

“..Like 40 minutes at most!” He grinned, proud of himself.

“..What were you doing?” Black Hole asked this time.

Sketchpad stayed quiet.

“ . . . “

“Anyway! The others are waking up now. I think we should head downstairs soon.” Sketchpad waved his short legs back and forth at the end of his bed.

“Nice question dodge.” Firey finger-gunned at Sketchpad.

“Yeah uh– I’m going to head downstairs. Could somebody open the door for me?” Subway Seat hopped off of his bed.

Profily ran over and unlocked the door for Subway to get past. Subway waved to Profily as he left. They closed the door again after and went back to sitting on their bed.

“We should probably head downstairs too, since the others are going to be.” Black Hole hovered over next to the door.

“I agree with Black Hole!” Remote stood up and opened the door again. Black Hole hovered out and Remote jumped the barrier.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“So, what's up with the computer?” TopHat and Liam were sitting on one of the couches downstairs. Liam laughed slightly.

“Their name’s Texty,” Liam flipped the computer around to face TopHat, the screen had a google doc open where there was a simply written; ‘>:(‘. “I’m not sure why or how they’re alive, but they are.”

TopHat blinked in surprise. The computer screen changed to a voice synthesiser and Texty wrote; ‘I also don’t know how I’m alive, It just kinda happened one day lol’.

“That's– neat? I mean, there are some technology objects here– You’d probably go under that category. Though you lack limbs. (Texty change tabs back to the ‘>:(‘.) And a face.” TopHat shrugged to the best somebody without arms could.

“Texty used to be owned by a guy my friend knew, and Texty said they couldn’t show their sentience to him without him freaking out.” Liam chuckled.

“Jeez, that sounds horrible. Having to hide your sentience? Owch.” TopHat sucked in a sharp breath.

‘I know, it was horrible. Thankfully Liam found me.’ Texty wrote into the synthesiser.

“Yeah, good thing at that.” Liam nodded before making Texty face him again. He swapped tabs to the google doc and wrote something to Texty.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Subway Seat was walking into the kitchen, wanting to test out the fridge’s capabilities again. But, before he could get to his destination he was stopped by Flower.

“Er- Hi?” He blinked, looking up at Flower who had somehow gotten a pink sweater from who knows where.

“Hey, Uh, I wanted to ask you how you did that thing with your limbs. Y’know.” She did a little twirl with her hand.

“Oh, right. I forgot that probably nobody can do it. It’s like– er. You think of spacing out then pop! They’re gone.” He did little motions with his hands as he looked up at Flower.

“That explains almost nothing but I want to see you do it again!” She grinned.

“Erm.. Alright?” He blinked then popped his limbs and face back in and went into his inanimate form.

Flower hummed then picked up the inanimate subway seat and put him onto the counter. Moments later Subway made his arms and face show again. He blinked and looked around at the counter he was now on. “Er-”

“Could you feel me moving you?” Flower appeared on his right.

“I mean, it’s sort of like a phantom feeling? Like, you can register that you’re being moved or interacted with, but it’s like there's a barrier muffling the feelings, senses and sounds.” He did more motions with his hands as he explained that. Flower was just nodding along.

“Okay, er, is that all?” He looked at Flower. She nodded and walked off. “--Wait-” He called out but she was gone already.

He stared at the floor, wondering how he was supposed to get off of the counter and onto the ground. It seemed there was only one option.

Lightning floated around the corner that separated the kitchen and main room only to see Subway Seat pushing himself off of the counter and landing onto the floor face-first. Lightning winced.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Once again, everybody found themselves downstairs later in the day. Two, Announcer, Sketchpad, Glassy, Flower and Profily were watching TV.

Black Hole and Remote were trying to separate Firey and Fireball from attacking each other again.

TopHat, Liam and Texty were chatting on the couch away from the TV.

Lightbulb, Subway Seat, Lightning and YinYang were all in the kitchen messing around with stuff.

Four and X were trying to talk to Airy in a corner of the house but failing. Four looked like he was a moment away from punching Airy.

MePhone, MePad, Oodle and Tivo were chatting around the dining room table. The hosts were talking about their shows while Tivo and MePad were just sort of.. there.

“So, what do you think about that whole ‘new people are coming here!!!’ thing?” Remote looked at Black Hole.

Black Hole looked at her. “Huh?” He stated.

“You didn’t hear?” She blinked, turning her focus to Black Hole instead of the bickering fire balls. “Last night, the TV person said that there would be two new people joining the house with us in the morning.”

“Hm. No, I didn’t hear that. Now I can’t help but wonder when these objects will appear, considering it’s already morning.” Black Hole hummed then looked back at the two fire tufts. They were glaring at each other.

“Yeah, it must be sometime soon.” Remote shrugged.

“ . . . “ 

“Usually saying that means that the thing happens right after.” Remote muttered and crossed her arms.

Fireball jumped at Firey. “Oi! Hands off!” Black Hole stated, floating over.

Firey slapped Fireball away from himself. The two of them stood up and glared at Black Hole.

“Just.. get along for once.” Black Hole sighed and Remote nodded in agreement.

The two rolled their eyes and muttered something before there was a thud upstairs. A second later of silence from the group of four, another quieter thud sounded.

“Well, there’s the two newbies.” Remote hummed then looked around. “I don’t think anybody else but us, Liam and TopHat heard it. The TV gang over there is too immersed and the kitchen quartet are making too much noise.”

The four of them stood in mostly silence, waiting for the two newbies to come downstairs. Remote could hear some bickering coming from upstairs and zoned into it.

“ This is your fault .” Somebody huffed. “ Idiot. ”

“Wh- HEY! You’re only allowed to use that joke ONCE!” Another person responded by stomping on the floor.

“ Pilly is not one bit sorry. Pilly still thinks that Limey is an idiot. ” The quieter voice headed to the stairs.

“raAH.” The other one huffed in frustration. They muttered something under their breath as the duo headed down the stairs.

The second, louder, one stopped at the landing of the stairs and looked around the main room and laughed. “Aha! More feeble minds to corrupt with my aweso-”

“ Pilly thinks Limey should shut-up and stop saying villain dialogue. ” The smaller one butted in, hopping down the stairs.

“h-HEY!” The second one, which Remote could now see, sputtered. He followed the smaller one down the stairs with angry muttering.

Remote zoned back into her body. “I’m going to go say hi.” She waved to the trio behind her and walked over to the bottom of the stairs. In front of her she could see a small yellow and red pill with no arms, and then farther up on the stairs she could see a green lime half with pointy teeth and yet again no arms.

Pilly stopped and looked at Remote. Remote blinked. “Hi.”

“ Pilly would like to know if you were the one who brought Pilly and Limey here. ” ‘Pilly’ glared at Remote.

“Oh, no. I wasn’t. None of us know who brought us here.” She shrugged.

“No use to us then.” ‘Limey’ huffed and hopped off of the stairs. Remote glared at him.

“ Pilly thinks Limey is rude. ” He glared at the lime half.

“Gah, what do you know!?” He faced the small pill.

“ Pilly has a PHD. Limey does not. ” The pill walked around Remote as Limey took a long moment to process what Pilly had just said. Remote took a small step back.

“ . . . Shut - up!” He scowled at the pill who was looking around now.

By now, the TV crew had noticed the bickering from the staircase and some had looked over while others were still watching the TV. Two and Sketchpad had hopped off of the couch and headed over to the small group at the stairs.

“Hello there! You both are new, what’re your names?” Two greeted with a smile.

Limey scoffed. “As if i’d tell yo-”

“Pilly is Pilly. Limey is Limey.” The pill looked up at the green number two while Limey scowled at Pilly again.

“Lies!” Limey barked at Pilly.

“ Pilly is not lying. ” He shook his head as Two and Remote shared an awkward glance.

“Well, anyway. I’m Two, Welcome the both of you!” Two smiled then it faded as they awkwardly scratched the back of their head. “We aren’t exactly sure why we’re here, but time is slowed down in our universes so you don’t really have to worry about that.”

“How many simpletons are in the house?” Limey asked, leaning towards the both of them.

“Well, I wouldn’t call us simpletons.. But, there were 24 of us before.. That means there's 26 now with you both here.” Remote deducted.

Sketchpad scurried past Remote and Two to look at the newbies. “Well hello there! You two are making quite a ruckus!” He grinned, looking at them.

“I’m leaving. Pilly, actually, I don’t care! Polaroid would have been such a better companion here.” Limey scowled and walked off.

“ Pilly knows that Polaroid does not like Limey! ” Pilly called out to the lime wedge as he walked off.

Limey grumbled as he walked around and then eventually found himself in a kitchen. Inside he found a flying lightning bolt playing around with some cooking utensils as a fun-coated seat without legs and a white/black circle stood in front of an open fridge and called items into it. There was also a lightbulb tossing items to the lightning bolt.

“Hmmm…” He hummed, looking around. Lightning heard this and looked up.

“Who’s that guy?” Lightning asked, pointing to Limey. Lightbulb looked up and over at him but Subway and YinYang were too distracted.

Limey turned to have his back facing the quartet. “This could work out going to plan.. Now all I need (Lightning looked at lightbulb. “Is he doing a villain monologue in front of us?” Lightbulb shrugged.) is to gain their trusssttt..” He grinned and turned back around.

“Hello there! It is I, Limey.” He grinned at the glowing duo. Lightning raised an eyebrow as his arms laid ragdolling on his sides.

“Hel-” Lightning went to greet. But got cut off.

“Now, how about you two ditch these others and come with me?” He slid over to the two who looked frankly awkward.

Lightbulb blinked. “I-”

“WE can do a whole BUNCH of things together!” He grinned with his spiky teeth. “Most of which are malicious but you don’t need to listen to that part!”

Pilly walked in the kitchen with a blank face. “Now, how about you two accept my deal here?” Limey grinned wider.

Pilly grabbed Limey and started to drag him away. Limey sputtered and gasped aggressively. “OH COME ON, PILLY!” He looked at the duo. “YOUR FREEWILL IS AN ILLUSION!” Limey threw a hissy fit as Pilly dragged him away.

“..What just happened?” Lightning looked at Lightbulb.

“I have no idea! But that guy has some screws loose!” Lightbulb laughed.

“Huh? Did something happen?” Subway Seat leaned back from the fridge to look at Lightbulb & Lightning.

“Some guy burst in here and started to yell at us about ‘ditching these people’ and ‘joining him for definitely not malicious reasons.’ I think he was one of the new people joining us here.” Lightning answered Subway Seat.

“Ah, I hope not. He sounds like a pain.” Subway scoffed.

“If he isn’t one, then why would he be in here?” Lightbulb wondered aloud.

“You have a point there.” Lightning nodded then grinned. “I could always just ZAP him when he gets a little too rowdy!”

YinYang looked back from the fridge. “Zapping is always a good idea! Unless it is around Four. Then it is not a good idea. ”

Lightning shivered. “Yeah, not to self to never zap X again.”

The pill from earlier scuttled into the kitchen for a moment. “ Pilly is sorry for Limey’s actions. Pilly takes no responsibility in this. ”

“No problem lil’ buddy.” Subway smiled and waved to him as Pilly scurried away again.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Liam watched quietly as the chaos around the newbies slowly started to unfold. He had closed Texty’s computer after TopHat left, He was lucky to find a cord that fit into Texty’s charging port but any moment something could happen to the cord and Texty would die on him.

The backpack stood up, He sadly still had his cast on and had to walk with the crutch but it was getting better for him.

He silently zipped the computer into his larger section then started to limp off to who knows where.

He looked up as the blue four-shaped and the yellow x-shaped objects passed by him, the blue taller one was huffing about something but he couldn’t really be bothered to listen.

Liam looked over in the way the two were coming from and decided to go down that hallway. There was only one door here, and it happened to be a large double door.

He curiously pushed the doors open, seeing a lounge-type room with bookshelves lining the walls. There were a few work desks, lamps and bean bag chairs around the room.

But there was something that caught his interest more, and that something was someone he knew.

There was an oil lantern object looking at a bookshelf with a small hint of interest, shuffling books around. Liam could almost clearly see through his head to find his facial expression.

Liam held in his breath, not really sure if he wanted to interact with Airy right now. There were pros and cons to both situations if he left or interacted.

Unfortunately for Liam, he didn’t have to make that choice. Airy turned around, holding some sort of paper he had found laying around with the books. Both of their eyes (or eye, in Airy’s case) locked for a long while.

“Backp-”

“Airy, that's not my name and you know that.” Liam breathed a small, shuddering breath. He leaned more heavily on the crutch as he put his other free hand onto the handle of the crutch as well.

Airy winced slightly and looked down at the floorboards for a long moment.

“..Why did you bring me back to the cabin? I attacked you. I tried to kill you.” Liam said slowly, Airy kept averting eye contact. “You could’ve easily killed me. Taken me off of your problem list.” Liam chuckled once. “You’ve killed me before, why not again?”

“..I-” Airy muttered, shuffling his foot on the floor. He honestly looked like he wanted to get out of this situation more than the backpack did. “...”

“You what, Airy?” Liam glared with a sharp tone.

“I’m.. not.. sure.” Airy said slowly and uncertainly. Liam scoffed.

“Of course. Of course you don’t know why you saved me.” Liam sucked a sharp breath in as he limped up towards Airy, which in reaction, took a small step back. But unfortunately for Airy, behind him was a bookshelf preventing him from backing up any more.

Liam glared at Airy. The two of them were about the same height, but take away Airy’s lid then Liam would be taller. Liam looked over Airy then used his crutch to swipe out Airy’s legs. The lantern fell back with a wince and instinctively put a hand to his face.

“Ya’know Airy, i’ve had about enough with you. Taking people from their homes, plucking them away from their lives for MONTHS! Months on end.” He inhaled a sharp breath again. He put his crutch onto Airy’s chest, putting weight into it. 

“You killed us, Traumatised many of us, Lied, Manipulated, Kidnapped, Harassed, Do I have to go on!?” He snapped. Airy looked distant.

“What’s stopping me from killing you here, right now?” Liam looked over Airy again, He was clearly shaken from the events that had happened over the past few seconds. He was still trying to avert eye contact, One of his hands was slightly holding onto the cracked part of his face while the other was lightly holding onto the crutch tip.

“Are you going to say anything, Airy? Where’d that god complex you had when I was on the plane go? Guess what? It’s gone bec-” He stopped mid-sentence as the computer in his larger portion started to beep, signalling low power already. 

Liam took the crutch off of the Oil lantern and laughed once before he limped out of the lounge. Airy slowly sat up, watching the double doors swing close.

Chapter Text

“ Pilly would like to know how Four is absorbing the sun. ” Pilly hopped up to Four.

“Huh?” Four raised an eyebrow.

Pilly pointed with a foot to the TV, which was playing BFB 30 right about at the moment when Four made himself become the sun.

“Oh.” Four blinked, thinking of a reasonable response.

“ Four is stalling. ” Pilly glared. Four glared right back.

Four screeched Pilly then floated off, leaving Pilly on the ground dazed.

Fireball walked to the dazed pill, leaning over them with squinted eyes. “They dead?”

Firey walked over with a shrug. “Usually Four’s screeches don’t end up killing people.”

“ Pilly is not.. dead. ” He sat up. Fireball chuckled.

“Why are you talking in 3rd person?” Fireball poked Pilly jokingly. They reminded her of Pill, from her show.

“ Pilly would appreciate it if you stopped poking Pilly. ” He glared up with lowered eyebrows. Limey peeked around from a wall and called over to the trio;

“Pilly can and will kill you if he gets the chance.” Limey laughed and went back to whatever he was doing before.

Firey looked down at the small pill with an interested glare in his eyes. “I don’t think somebody this small could kill somebody.” Firey picked up Pilly.

“ UNHAND PILLY! PILLY WILL MAKE YOU REGRET IF YOU DON’T PUT PILLY DOWN!” Pilly fussed, squirming around in Firey’s grasp.

“Goiky, okay, okay.” Firey rolled his eyes and dropped Pilly who quickly scrambled to his feet and scuttled off.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“What are you doing?” Oodle raised an eyebrow, looking at the TV while leaning on the back of the couch.

TopHat startled and looked up at the triangle.  “Watching TikTok on the TV, We found out how to get other platforms up onto it.”

Laim looked over at Oodle.  “We connected Texty,” He gestured to the computer next to the TV which was connecting through a plug and had lines of code on its screen. “To the TV and now are streaming through their screen.”

Oodle paused. “What’s TikTok? Never heard of it!”

“Oh- erm.” Liam hesitated. “It’s just a platform with short videos you can watch?” He tried answering.

“This version is weird though! There's no drama, animal videos or anything! It’s just those others with their shows with weird music playing in the background.” TopHat scoffed and leaned back into the couch.

Profily raised an eyebrow. “You both sure are different then me and Oodle for example.”

Liam and TopHat both looked at Profily with confused faces. “What do you mean?” TopHat asked.

“I mean like– Me and Oodle are both on reality shows and Oodle’s even a host for one. But both of you haven’t mentioned your show at all and have very different personalities than us?” Profily wondered aloud, shuffling on the couch. “Plus Liam has a very interesting name, no offence though!”

Liam froze and TopHat hummed in consideration.

“Yeah no, I’ve never been on a reality show. Maybe whoever brought us here screwed up and meant to bring others?” TopHat shrugged while Liam looked away ruefully.

“Maybe that's the case!” Oodle agreed with TopHat, then looked at Liam. “What about you? Have you been on one?”

“Nope!- I mean, no, I’ve never been on one and I’m not really interested in them.” Liam recorrected himself and laughed a bit nervously, scratching the back of his head. 

Profily hummed in suspicion but then looked at Oodle. “You're like the chillest host I’ve ever seen, if I didn’t know you were a host then I would’ve just thought you were a contestant!” They joked.

“Oh– thanks?” He laughed. “What’s your host like?” Oodle asked.

Texty switched tabs and started to scroll TikTok again, which projected onto the TV.

“Well it wasn’t just ONE host, Over my whole career I’ve seen 9 hosts. I’ll go in chronological order for you!” They grinned. “Announcery was a good host, a bit violent but oh well! Then there was Firey Speaker Box, he was really biassed. Along with FRSB, there was Flower Speaker Box who was also really biassed.”

They hummed, thinking. “And then there was TV, he was and still is a contestant but eh he was an okay host? After TV there was Puffball Speaker Box who was quite bossy in my opinion.” They huffed and put their hands to their ‘hips.’

“Thennnn there was Four, He was impulsive but he got better over time! After that was Donut, again another contestant but he was okay.. Got a little mad at the end of his hosting. 8th was X, He was host for a few episodes but wasn’t great at it, even though he’s nice!”

TopHat and Liam listened and watched in confusion as Profily rambled on. Oodle was listening in interest.

“Annddd the most recent host I know of is Two. I didn’t actually compete in his show but I did appear in an episode!” They grinned, finishing off their rambling. Oodle nodded his ‘head’.

“I thought X was a Co-Host though? He was in the Co-Host room, wasn’t he?” Liam asked, leaning forward on the couch.

“Yeah, Xy is a Co to Four but he took over as Host for an episode or two!” Profily smiled.

“Ah.” Liam nodded as TopHat turned to Oodle.

“If this is offensive you don’t have to answer it-” TopHat started off to Oodle, “-But what exactly are you? I haven’t really seen.. Glowing triangles with outlines before?” He laughed a bit nervously, awaiting his response.

“Oh!” Oodle smiled, turning to TopHat. “I’m a doodle demigod.”

“ . . . “

Liam and Profily stopped talking and stared at Oodle, same with TopHat.

“Excuse me– did you just say that you're a demigod?” Liam blinked, slowly grabbing his crutch he laid on the couch.

“Yup!” He grinned. But his grin slowly dropped. “Are they like– illegal where you're from or something?” He asked nervously.

Liam blinked. “Okay, what the f-.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In another corner of the house, an oil lantern sighed and clutched onto a scrap of paper.

What he’s noticed is that the roof of this strange house had the same repeated pattern of zig-zags everywhere, they were a tint darker than the wood above but still visible. It didn’t make sense to him.

He was currently sitting at one of the work desks in the lounge-room. Behind him was one of the other objects that had been taken into the house, Glassy.

She had found crayons in a desk and was now furiously scribbling with her foot onto a piece of paper while sitting on one of the bean bag chairs.

Airy never expected any of this to happen. In all honesty, he was still a bit out of it. He definitely didn’t expect Backpack to come at him like that though.

“Hey, Lantern dude!” Glassy barked from behind him, the sudden loud noise startled Airy a tiny bit.

He looked back behind him. “Uh- Yeah?”

“What’s up with your face, dude? Like, seriously, that doesn’t just.. happen.” Glassy wondered aloud and Airy seemed visibly shaken at the question.

“I’d prefer.. not to say. It’s.. a bit person..al.” He mumbled as Glassy raised an eyebrow.

“Hmmmm.” Glassy hummed, Airy did not look one bit comfortable with this situation happening right now. “Welp, it’s not my business to pry into your traumatic past.”

Glassy stood up and grabbed her papers and crayon box with a foot. She walked over (a bit sloppily, due to using one foot to hold stuff) to the desk Airy was at and slammed down the art materials.

She dragged over one of the chairs. “You’re drawing with me now, since all you’re doing here is pouting.”

“Oh- Okay.. then.” He picked up a crayon from the box and took a piece of paper. He didn’t know what he wanted to draw.

Airy took a peek over at what Glassy was drawing, and her paper was filled with little scribbles of random objects but what he mostly saw on the paper was a pink fox-like thing crossed out, ripped apart and scribbled over.

He hummed a bit and started to doodle his forest to the best of his memory, which wasn’t the best in the first place. He drew the waterfall, his log cabin, the firepit and a little pine and oak forest dotted around it. It was small, but he liked the doodle.

The lantern quite liked how (almost) everybody in the house was named after their objects, it made it way easier for him to remember their names.

“So, what’s your name? I’m gonna assume Lantern otherwise.” Glassy scoffed, crossing off a drawing of a mitten with a red crayon.

“Erm. Airy.” He blatantly stated, looking back down at his paper after realising he had zoned out and made a line across the paper with a green crayon. He stared at it for a long while.

Glassy noticed this and looked into Airy’s one eye. “Are you okay? You look really out of it and like you need medical attention.”

Airy just simply waved her off a bit, but it was a weak attempt. Glassy eyed him suspiciously.

Glassy hummed and went back to her drawing, she was almost out of space on the paper sadly but she could probably find another paper.

The double doors to the lounge got pushed open and who walked in was MePhone. He looked around for a few moments while standing in the doorway before he noticed the duo at the work desk.

Glassy turned to stare at the phone while Airy was still spaced out, staring at the page of paper in front of him.

“Oh, Hi there.” He greeted with a small wave, the voice startled Airy who looked behind him at the phone finally. The phone was closing out of something on their screen, which interested Airy of how they can interact with the screen.

“Who are you.” Glassy glared at the phone who laughed in response.

“I like your attitude.” He grinned and leaned on the open door. “I’m MePhone4, but you can just call me MePhone.”

Glassy scoffed and rolled her eyes. “You look like somebody who would willingly commit tax fraud and then admit it to the police.”

MePhone sputtered for a moment in response. “I do not!”

“You so do.” Glassy gained a smug smile on her face.

MePhone crossed his arms and glared at the pink glass. ”You look like, what, eight years old?”

Glassy gasped offendly then hopped off of the chair and onto the work desk, then hopped onto Airy’s lid which gained an uncomfortable groan from the lantern. “How dare you! I’ll let you know that I am way older than eight years old!”

“I’m probably older than you, you, uh, you, electronic!” She huffed, stomping on Airy’s lid who made another uncomfortable noise.

“Oh, so you’re old?” He challenged, keeping his grin.

“HEY!” She growled, like, actually growled, and jumped off of Airy onto the floor with a thud. She ran up to MePhone and glared up at his face as she was significantly smaller than him.

Airy put a hand to his lid, holding it uncomfortably while Glassy shouted at MePhone about something.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Back in the main area, Remote was chatting with Subway Seat again.

Almost everybody was in the main room right now, except for MePhone, Airy, Glassy, Announcer, Lightbulb, Lightning and Black Hole.

The two of them were chatting mostly about the others in the house. Though, Subway was trying to change the topic to about remote’s world since he seemed to find it really interesting.

“How long do you think we’ll be in here for?” Subway had asked, looking up at the remote.

“I honestly have no idea, but I really hope it's not too long.” Remote answered to the best of her knowledge.

“Didn’t you say you had to like, wait a really long time for challenges from where you come from?” Subway raised an eyebrow.

Remote laughed momentarily. “Yeah, Two isn’t the best at keeping times. He made us wait months on end for some challenges, but it’s only been like 2? 3? Days here?”

Subway shrugged, he didn’t really remember either. “But remember! TV person said that times have slowed down where we’re from, so we should be fine!”

Remote hummed. “I don’t know if that's exactly true, My friend Black Hole said that Two and Lightning had both been missing for a while before he appeared in the room. It may have been a lie.”

“Oh no, that can’t be good if they lied.” Subway frowned. 

A shout caught both of the object’s attention as they looked to the middle of the room, where Limey and YinYang were yelling at each other for some reason.

Yin kept yelling at Yang to stop whatever they were doing but he just got ignored, overpowering Yin’s control at that moment.

A lot of the objects in the main room were looking at the duo (trio? Does YinYang count as two people?) uncomfortably as they yapped at each other.

“Oh yeah!?” Limey challenged with a wide grin. “I bet you couldn’t even do THAT! HAH!”

“ I sure can! You’re the one who is yelling about this! ” Yang challenged back.

“Uh-huh? Well how about we settle this by doi-”

The front door opened.

“. . .”

Fireball almost immediately stood up and bolted to the open door, only to get pushed back in by another object who walked in and closed the door behind them.

“Gah! What’s your problem!?” Fireball barked at the unfamiliar object. She stood and backed up.

The object in mention was a rustic-looking camera with a brown leather strap attached to their sides. His face was on his lens and he had all four limbs.

Every object in the main room was staring at this camera with rather confused or frustrated looks. 

Flower stood up and walked over to the camera. “Who are you?”

“Cammy!” He responded with a smile. (Which looked similar to the emoticon :D.) Flower blinked in response.

“Were you the one who brought us here?” Flower narrowed her eyes in suspicion. 

“No-pe!” The camera looked around momentarily at the other objects, most of them looked very defensive while the others looked like they were still processing what was happening.

“Okay…. Then why are you here? And how did you go through the door?” Flower asked carefully.

“I’m here on behalf of my friend! Or as you all know her, the TV person! Also, I walked through the door silly!” Cammy grinned up at Flower.

Flower lowered her eyebrows, clearly annoyed by the camera already. “Okay then, where are we?”

“Hmmm…” The camera hummed, thinking. “The House!” He replied with another smile.

“Urghh. This is no help.” Flower groaned and put her hands to her face.

“ . . . “

“Mmm, I have to go now!” Cammy turned around and walked back towards the door.

“Wait!-” Liam stood up, trying to go to the door as the camera opened it and then closed it immediately after they got out. He tried opening the door, but it seemed like it was locked again. How did they lock it so fast?

“That.. can’t be good, right?” Firey shuffled in spot.

Chapter Text

Profily yawned, rolling off of the bed they had slept on. They looked around the empty room with a disappointed gaze.

They stretched their arms out then stood up, exiting the room with a small grin thinking of what could be happening downstairs right now.

The profile picture walked down the staircase at a normal pace per-say, though due to the fact of their running speed this was slow for them. 

They looked around when they had gotten to the bottom of the staircase, raising an eyebrow when they noticed that it actually seemed pretty calm today. Nobody was shouting for once!

From what they could see, Limey and Pilly were chatting on the couch away from the TV, Lightbulb, Subway Seat, Fireball and Flower were on the couch at the TV and Profily had no idea where the others were.

Two walked out from the corner of the kitchen, holding what seemed to be a burnt shishkabob. They were glaring at the skewer. “I swear, nobody in this house knows how to cook – Oh hello there! Profily, right?”

The green algebrailen turned to the profile picture with a slight grin. Profily walked away from the stairs a bit to look at them. “Yup, that’s me! How’s dear ol’ TD been doing in TPoT?”

Two laughed. “I think she’s been doing okay! I’m surprised she’s managing that well considering she's on a team all by herself!”

They nodded in agreement. “I’m going to be so sad when she eventually loses a challenge!”

Two chuckled again, looking back at the shishkabob before reaching out to give it to Profily. “You want this?”

“Hmm..” They looked over it. “Eh sure! Who made this?” They reached out and took the food.

“That Yin-Yang fellow with the help of.. er.. Liam! Once you get to know Yin-Yang, both of them are actually quite nice in my opinion!” Two grinned, dusting off their hands.

Profily chucked. “They do know that they can just ask for shishkabobs in that magical fridge, right?”

“..” Two paused for a moment, thinking about that fact before they started laughing. “Owh, you’re right! I bet they didn’t realise that!”

“Two!” Four slid over (yes, slid. He hover-slid.) to the other algebrailen. X followed not too far behind, and currently had an icicle in his mouth and was chomping on it. 

Two looked over at the blue algebrailen with a raised eyebrow. “Yeah?”

“YOUR contestant is fighting MINE.” He sneered, pointing to where Firey and Lightning were bickering loudly in the kitchen. He deadpanned. “They won’t shut up and X said I have to stop screeching people.”

“That’s right, no more screechy!” The aforementioned person chimed in, crunching on the icicle.

“Alllrightt– so what do you want me to do exactly?” Two chuckled awkwardly as Profily looked lost in translation.

“Do your hovering thingy and separate them!” Four stared into Two’s eyes.

“Oh, Okay then!” They turned to the kitchen. Two raised both of their arms as green energy formed around the hands. They nabbed Firey and Lightning, pulling them both up into the air then pulling them across the room from each other. 

Lightning frowned and crossed his arms, as Firey was left in a state of confusion as he got hover-pulled. When Two let go, he fell onto a small wooden table that was against a wall. The table almost immediately went up in flames.

Firey’s eyes widened and picked up the side table to not let it spread. Liam yelped and grabbed the nozzle of the sink, which was thankfully one of those extending ones, turned it on then sprayed the chair with water.

The flames grew for a second before it started to get put out. Unluckily, the chair wasn’t the only thing on fire that was being put out.

Firey also died out with the flame on the chair, he screeched as he was being put out. Liam stared wide-eyed. “Oh god I just committed manslaughter.”

“You killed my CONTESTANT!?” Four growled, sliding over with an angry face to the green backpack.

“I SWEAR I didn’t mean to!” Liam raised one of his arms, due to the other holding the crutch, up. He looked panicked.

Four’s frown only deepened and he was shaking slightly. X ran over and jumped in front of Four. “No screeching! You don’t wanna break my promise, do you?”

Four grumbled angrily before reaching his arm out palm-up. A drum roll noise played as Firey formed out of his hand. Firey rubbed his head before standing up.

TopHat and Liam stared, unmoving. TopHat started hyperventilating as Liam shifted his foot. “What just happened. WHAT JUST HAPPENED!?”

The blue algebrailen raised an eyebrow, looking at the backpack. “I revived Firey?”

“Revival exists?” TopHat breathed, still having a mini panic attack. Lightning looked down at him worriedly.

“ Yeah, dum-dum. How did you not know? ” Yang huffed, raising his eyebrow. 

“I-..” Liam was still frozen in place.

TopHat fell over, passing out due to hyperventilation. Lightning’s eyes widened in surprise and he flew down to the armless hat, shaking him a bit trying to get him to wake up.

Profily tsk’d. “Welp, that just happened!” Two chuckled a bit in response.

They hummed, looking at Two, X and Four. “What would happen if you three like.. got into order and multiplied yourself like how the BFB contestants multiplied Four into Donut?”

All of the present Algebrailens turned to stare blankly at Profily. They shrunk down a bit under the glare of the three -probably most powerful- beings in the house.

 “Uhm-” Profily squeaked out, scrunching his shoulders up and took a step back.

X held out his hand and shot a beam of white light at Profily, successfully despawning him.

Four laughed. “Hah, you broke your own promise.”

X whipped around. He pouted. “That doesn’t count!!”

“Are either of you two going to regenerate him?” Two raised their eyebrow, looking at both of them.

Four shrugged. “Eh, maybe later.” X nodded in agreement.

Literally everybody in the main room except Flower was looking at the algebrailen trio. Subway Seat turned back to look at Flower. 

“THAT’s your HOST?” Subway Seat stared at the pink-petaled Flower.

She shrugged and looked back at Subway. “Eh, Four and X are like that. Also, the season ended so none of them are my host anymore.”

Lightbulb laughed briskly, looking at the flower. “I thought that was just some visual effects on the TV! That’s so cool!”

Fireball walked off from the couch mid-conversation, heading down to the lounge room. 

“DANGEROUS, do you mean!?” Subway huffed in a worried way, resting his arms on his cushion.

Four appeared in front of Subway, staring down at him. He yelped in surprise and hid his limbs, going into inanimate form. Flower looked from the TV to Four.

“Was that necessary?” She stared.

Four’s eyebrows lowered. “You kick anybody who insults your fashion brand. Anybody. From any distance. Away.”

“That’s just because my fashion is glorious, and anybody who insults it deserves to be punished.” Flower simply stated, brushing her petals with her hand. Firey laughed once from the hallway while pointing at Flower.

She grabbed a pillow from off of the couch then threw it at Firey. The pillow disintegrated upon impact and Firey laughed only once yet again.

Subway Seat peaked an eye open, then quickly shut it after seeing Four still standing there.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Back in the lounge room, there were 7 objects just hanging around. 

Airy was still sitting at the same desk as yesterday, lost in thought.

Oodle was scribbling on a piece of paper, trying to see if he can summon the DoodleVerse canvas here but failing.

MePhone was sitting on a bean bag chair, eating out of a clear glass bowl with just cookies in it.

Glassy was behind MePhone, snatching cookies every so often from him.

Sketchpad was asleep on one of the bookshelves.

MePad was powered off silently in a corner of the room.

Tivo was sitting next to Oodle, giving him advice every so often.

Oodle sighed and put down the crayon, officially giving up. He turned around to look at MePhone. “Hey, you’re a host too right?”

MePhone looked up at the triangle, putting the bowl down next to him. “Yup I am, what’s up?”

“Neat! How’s your show going? I haven’t really had time to talk to other show hosts before!” He grinned, walking over to MePhone and sat on a nearby bean bag chair.

“Oh! I’d say it’s going alright so far, we’re down to our final 4 anyway.” MePhone shrugged, deciding to leave out some major plot points.

“Final 4 already? Wow! It’s going to take AIB a LONG time to get there. Heh! Maybe having 60 contestants was a bad choice on my end?” Oodle hummed and chuckled, thinking to himself.

“You took in 60 contestants!?” MePhone’s eyes widened in surprise. Glassy leaned around from behind MePhone and slowly dragged the bowl of cookies away.

“Yeah? What about you?” He blinked, looking at the blue-screened phone.

“20 in the second season!” MePhone rubbed his eye, sitting up. “That sure is a big commitment, how did you even manage to get 60 objects willing to join your show?”

“Ehhh, long story.” Oodle shrugged, rubbing the back of his head.

Tivo blinked, looking at Oodle and then MePhone. They didn’t say anything, more just a bystander.

MePhone sighed. “We have time.”

Oodle grinned and clapped his hands. “Great! Because I really wanted to tell you about it!”

MePhone huffed a small laugh, reaching down to grab a cookie but noticed the bowl was gone.

“So basically, I got sucked up into one of my portals RANDOMLY sort of like how I got teleported here!” He started. “I arrived in a dimension similar to this one, but none of the objects had limbs or faces. After some prodding, I managed to get all of them to trust me!” 

Oodle grinned, leaning on a bookshelf. “So I gave them voices, limbs, and faces. Glassy can confirm my story!”

Glassy flinched, not expecting to get called out. She shoved the stolen cookie bowl into a hidden spot and walked out. “He basically got everything right, other then the part where he ate and killed some of us upon his arrival.”

MePhone blinked, looking at the two of them with a confused stare. “Wait, you GAVE THEM limbs? How does that even work?”

Glassy looked at Oodle, Oodle looked at Glassy. They both shrugged, or at least the best Glassy can shrug due to being armless.

“Wow, you seem quite powerful. Maybe even more then those living numbers around here.” MePhone hummed in thought.

“Maybe I am! I’ve asked that Four person about their powers, but they won’t show me anything.” Oodle smiled, leaning on the bookshelf again.

When he had bumped onto it, a book fell over and onto Sketchpad. He made a muffled yelp when he got squished by the book.

“Oh– oops! Sorry!” Oodle laughed and picked up the red leather covered book on top of the small sketchpad.

“Ow!” He announced, standing up and brushing his paper off. He frowned as he looked down at himself. “Awh, my paper’s all wrinkled now!”

“Sorry little dude, I didn’t mean to!” Oodle reached up and patted Sketchpad on the head while in his other hand he held the red book.

Sketchpad hopped off from the bookshelf and landed on top of Oodle’s head. He had slowly started slipping off but he held on. “It’s alright! Worse things have happened to me!”

“..” Oodle looked up at him. “That’s.. not a good thing?” he chuckled nervously mid-sentence.

The doors to the lounge opened and in walked Fireball, grinning at Glassy who sighed dramatically in response.

“I TOLD YOU, Glassy!” She laughed, holding her pickaxe to her chest. “I knew it would happen EVENTUA-”

Mid-sentance, the lights in the whole house turned off. Luckily for the Lounge-bunch, they had Fireball who provided some light.

“Did they lose budget or something?” She scoffed, looking around the room then out into the hallway.

Fireball threw her pickaxe up and caught it, repeating it for a while as a fidget. During that, she started to glow white for some reason but seemed oblivious to that fact.

“Er- Fireball?” Glassy blinked.

“Woah! You’re like a living disco ball!” Sketchpad grinned from atop Oodle’s head. 

“Huh?” She blinked, looking down at herself. She couldn’t really tell the white glow from her usual firey glow.

MePhone noticed how there was a glow coming from a vent in the top corner of the wall and a glow coming from outside the doors as well.

“I’m sure it’s nothing.” Fireball waved it off, continuing to throw and catch her pickaxe.

Airy blinked, looking at the living flame pretty plainly.

“Besides, what COULD it even mean? Nothing bad of course.” She scoffed. She threw her pickaxe into the air again.

Though, nobody was there to catch the pickaxe. It clattered onto the ground as Fireball disappeared. The other glows abruptly disappeared a second or so later.

“...” The room stayed quiet as the lights in the house turned back on. A confused shout from the main room rattled through the now-quiet house’s walls. ‘Announcer!?’

Oodle walked out of the lounge while still having Sketchpad on his pointed head. In the main room, Remote and Black Hole looked confused and a bit shaken.

“What happened?” Oodle commented.

“Me, Black Hole and Announcer were playing cards at the table when the lights went out– he started to glow and then disappeared!” Remote looked around the room with her eyes from the grey speaker box.

“The same thing happened with Fireball!” Sketchpad grinned, his voice more filled with interest then panic. “They became a disco ball before disappearing!”

MePhone walked into the room. “I also saw a glow coming from upstairs, so somebody up there might’ve disappeared as well.”

“Is this a threat? Did we do something wrong?” Flower frowned, nervousness showing in her voice.

“I don’t think we did anything wrong! The only wrong thing that happened here is us being here in the first place!” Liam stated, turning to stare at the wooden door.

“I’m going to go check upstairs to see if there’s any evidence of somebody getting glow’d.” Two turned and walked up the stairs, trailed by X. X gained an annoyed look by Four as he walked off.

There was a collective sigh around the room but tension was still high. Nobody understood what had just happened fully.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It was later now, and according to the few clocks in the house it was around 10 PM. Most objects were asleep right now, though there were still some downstairs and in the lounge.

TopHat and Sketchpad were upstairs in the Second Contestant Room. Both of them were the only ones in there and Sketchpad was asleep on top of TopHat’s curved head.

He looked around the mostly empty room. He had a lamp turned on, on the desk next to the bed he was sitting on. 

The armless object couldn’t help but think why he and Sketchpad, out of all of the objects on Earth, were chosen to be teleported into the house.

All of the other objects had something interesting about them, rather they were in a reality TV show, an alien or even a whole black hole. It didn’t make sense to him.

Out of everybody here, Liam, Sketchpad and himself seemed to be the most.. “normal”.. of objects there. No contests, no strange things about their physical appearance or background..

Well, TopHat didn’t know that much about Liam but he seemed to be against the whole reality TV idea so it made sense that he wouldn’t be in one.

He closed his eyes, deep in his swirling thoughts. As he was thinking, a dim green light with an accompanied quiet buzz appeared behind his closed eyelids.

He grimaced then opened his eyes and was met with an old-fashioned looking object with a green glitchy square screen, buttons under it and a small nub-like antenna on their head.

“..Why are you here?” His voice had a tinge of regret laced in it as he looked at his old friend.

“ You’re still hanging onto me.” They responded in a fuzzy voice. “I thought you had let me go already, after the whole deal with Sketchpad.”

“...” TopHat looked at the ground, biting his lip slightly. “I did..”

“ You clearly didn’t, since I'm right here.” They rolled their eyes and gestured to themself.

The black hat with the red ribbon sighed, trying not to move much because of the sketchpad on his head.

“It’s just that his place reminds me so much of..” His voice trailed off as he looked up at the electronic with sorrowful and regretful eyes.

“The manor.”

“Yeah..”

“...”

“..Why can’t you just leave me alone, GPS? I let you go. I did that weeks ago.” He looked at the GPS with weak eyes.

“I already told you, you didn’t. I’m still here, aren’t I, TopHat?” The GPS appeared on TopHat’s left side, making him slowly look back over at them.

TopHat didn’t respond, instead he looked down at the floor and crossed his legs while he scrunched up his face slightly. He stared at the tint of GPS’ green glow on the ground coming from up on their screen.

The electronic’s fuzzy voice sighed next to him. “You’re not going to let me go until you’re out of here, are you?”

“..Probably not.”

“ You want Four to revive me, don’t you? ”

“...”

Sketchpad stirred a bit atop his head, he could feel his hand on his rim.

He disappointedly looked over at GPS, who was now standing across the room just looking at both of them with a distant look.

Sketchpad yawned then patted TopHat’s head. “Who are you talking to? And more importantly, why at like 4 AM?”

TopHat chuckled, trying to avert the gaze of GPS. “It’s not 4 AM, It’s only 10:24.”

“Well, close enough.” Sketchpad rubbed his eyes, looking around the room. “Who were you talking to?”

“...” He looked at GPS . “Nobody, don’t worry.”

Sketchpad shrugged and then laid back down on top of TopHat. He decided that he should probably get some sleep soon. Hopefully, with some sleep, GPS would be gone.

TopHat looked back over at the aforementioned person, seeing them looking around briefly in the room with still, unmoving, limbs.

He sighed and just closed his eyes due to not wanting to mess with Sketchpad again. He slowly drifted off to sleep with the presence of the soft buzz humming in his ears.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Downstairs, the ONE contestants were chatting quietly on the couch. Well, Liam and Texty were on the couch while Subway sat at the base of the couch with his arms resting on his seat.

“Texty, do you think you would be able to do the kill code?” Liam looked over at the computer.

They swapped screens to the text synthesiser. “ It would be risky, plus, didn’t you say that you didn’t have the radio sequences any more? ”

Liam grimaced, clenching his fist while glaring down at his cast. “Yeah, I don’t have them anymore.”

Subway Seat nervously looked at Liam. “What did happen to them?”

The backpack looked down at Subway Seat, subconsciously moving a hand up to hold onto his zipper. “I fell into the water in Airy’s forest. They got soaked and disintegrated whenever I tried to grab them.”

“..And, Airy’s here right? Why haven’t we seen him at all then?” Subway questioned with a flick of his wrist.

Liam stayed quiet.

“ Airy’s here? Why didn’t you tell me Liam?” The computer synthesised. 

“Oh, sorry Texty. I was too caught up in my thoughts to tell you.” He laughed once, putting a hand on the back of his head.

The TV right now was playing some random game show that none of the current objects in the building were in. That alone made Liam wonder what exactly caused the TV to play only these game-show-type-shows.

“ Honestly I thought that would have been the first thing you would tell me lol” Texty typed.

“Well, sorry Texty.” He quickly apologised. He sighed after. “It’s just, this whole thing has been a lot. I’ve found out that revival is a common thing in almost everybody’s case, there are literal demigods and aliens here, and so much more.”

Subway nodded. “It had been a real lot. Some people here don’t really help get over that hurdle either.”

Liam huffed a laugh. “Yeah. I’m just glad that Airy has been distant..”

The aforementioned lantern walked into the main room, holding what seemed to be a black clicker pen. His eye flickered from the stairs to the couch with the three objects on it.

“...And speak of the devil himself.” He sneered silently. He turned around a bit to look at the lantern.

“Uhm-” Airy muttered, taking a small step backwards towards the lounge. 

Liam and Airy held their gazes for a moment, but Airy flickered his eye to the ground after a small while.

Liam stood up as the show on the TV was wrapping up, getting to the voting screen. He limped over to Airy and pushed him into the kitchen with his crutch.

Subway looked over at Texty’s computer which just had a simple ‘?’ on it. The both of them heard muffled talking coming from the kitchen.

Subway walked over using his arms then grabbed Texty, putting them on his cushion. He stood back up and started to walk over to the muffled now-one-sided-argument.

“---yeah. You should know what I mean by that, Airy.” Subway could hear Liam in the next room, but then before he got to the hallway entrance he heard Liam’s voice behind him.

He raised an eyebrow in confusion and turned around to the second voice. What he was greeted with was Liam and a nail on the TV. He froze.

“ Is that-” Texty started typing, but then swapped tabs mid-typing. They googled some stuff.

He watched for a solid 10 seconds as the TV showed Liam exiting an office building then unchaining his bike. He turned and called out nervously. “..Liam..?”

“I.. understand.. Bu-” He could hear Airy trying to make a counter argument in the kitchen.

“No.” Liam shut him down almost immediately. He started to ramble again.

Texty swapped tabs to the text synthesiser and raised the computer volume all the way up. “ Liam!”

The backpack still didn’t seem to hear either of them. Subway walked over into the hallway entrance then looked into the kitchen on the other side of the wall. “..Liam?”

He glanced over at Subway Seat and Texty for a moment, but then looked back at Airy.

Subway frowned.

“ Greater than, colon, parentheses.” Subway raised an eyebrow in confusion, turning Texty for a moment so he could see their screen. On the screen, Texty had accidentally written ‘>:(‘ into the text synthesiser instead of their google doc. He oh’d and turned them back around.

He glanced back at the main room. On the TV was now Liam riding his bike up a hill. He turned back. “Liam!”

Liam, not expecting Subway to snap like that, flinched hard and turned to Subway Seat. He sighed roughly. “What is i-”

Liam and Airy froze in their tracks as something very familiar to the two objects sounded from the main room. The ONE intro music.

“ . . . “ Both of them looked at each other for a small moment before Liam limped off to look at the TV.

On said TV, there was a black and white artistic picture of the golden gate bridge with his abandoned bike just laying there. The intro music played in the background as the background changed angles and images a few times, but always keeping the black and white theme.

“What the hell.” Liam blankly stated as the image changed to what seemed to be a kid’s playroom. He recognized Tomato almost immediately when he came onto screen.

He turned to Airy, who looked equally confused. “Airy. You said there were no viewers. What is this.”

“I.. don’t..” He muttered, shuffling his foot on the floor as he watched the show continue. “There.. aren’t.”

“Well due to the fact ONE is ON THE TV. It’s getting hard to believe that.” Liam glanced back at the TV, wincing as he saw his past self getting flung out of thin air into the Plane’s grass.

“..That isn’t real.. It.. shouldn’t.. be. I never.. actually.. aired ONE.” He mumbled, taking a small step closer to the TV.

Liam looked back at the TV. It wasn’t even 1st person, it was 3rd person as if there was a camera pointed at the objects.

“Maybe we should.. Just get some rest and talk about this in the morning?” Subway suggested. Liam took the opportunity and walked up the stairs.

Airy looked at Subway Seat and Texty for a moment before he turned around, slowly walking back to the lounge room while clicking that black pen he was holding.

Subway walked over to a table that overlooked the whole main room and put Texty onto it. He waved them a goodnight then went into his inanimate form next to the table.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Ughhh.. How long was I asleep for?” Somebody groaned, putting a foot to their head. 

“A year.” Somebody was standing next to him, He looked over at them. They were a silver, round coin with no arms. 

“Wait.. Seriously?” He sat up, wincing as his leg hurt a tiny bit.

“What? No.” The one next to him scoffed. “I’m Nickel.”

“But, I’m Nickel? Ey! There can’t be two of us!” Nickel 1 stood up, glaring at Nickel 2, not appreciating how the other is a tiny bit taller than him.

“Yeah yeah.” Nickel 2 looked away.

“Where am I?” Nickel 1 ran in front of the other one to be in their face.

“Hell.” 

“What.?”

“H.E.L.L.” Nickel 2 pointed with a foot across the room.

He looked over.

A knight helmet with a red mane jumped onto a desk. “HUZZAH!”

“AHH!” A pink bomb with a green fuze yelped, stumbling off of a stool and onto the floor.

“Doofus, Be quiet and stop charging at people!” A green-coloured book sneered from across the room, throwing a rock at the knight helmet.

The rock bounced off of their body with a loud clang. They looked at the book. “Ay!”

“Can we stop yelling at each other?” Somebody suggested.

The pink bomb seemed startled and looked around. “Where are you? WHO are you?”

“I’m down here.” The voice tried to help, the bomb looked around confusedly. “Here, I’m an atom.”

“Wh- WH?? WH????” The bomb stumbled.

“Hah. hAHAH. HAHAH. This sucks.” Somebody crossed their arm. It was a red & white striped popcorn bag wearing a pair of red and blue 3D movie glasses.

The knight helmet ran across the room and picked up the green book. “WH- KNIGHT HELMET, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?”

“Avenging!” He grinned, raising the book into the air then throwing them across the room. 

“AHHH!” He slammed into the floor.

“Ohhh! Nevermind, this place is starting to grow on me!” The popcorn bag grinned, pushing their 3D glasses back onto their face.

A cloaked figure lowered their eyebrows then turned to a spear behind them. “I don’t like that dude.”

They blinked, looking down at the cloaked object. “The fuck do you want me to do about it?”

The figure glared. “Well, screw you too then.” They turned their back to the spear.

“Dude, just swear. We aren’t in the grasslands anymore.” The spear scoffed, looking down at the cloaked figure with lowered eyebrows.

“Well.. Uh. Fuck you too then!” He huffed, taking one of his hands out of his hooded face and punched the spear’s chest.

“GAH, What the FUCK Hoood!?” The spear took a step back, holding his chest.

“A̴̡̻̽A̴̹͖̍à̸̜͘A̶̙̓ͅä̵͎́̄a̷͉͑ä̷̡̔a̷̲̼͛̈́A̵̠̒A̴͚͚͒̒A̸̯̍͑a̴̩͒a̷̱̳̐͝Â̵̺̲̇A̶̒̂͜A̷̋͋ͅA̷͖̓Ȧ̷͍̻A̸̪̮͐͗A̶̳̳̍̀Ą̵͑̅Ạ̵̄͘Ă̵̜ǎ̷̹â̸̡̻͊ȃ̴̱a̷̭̅A̴̼̚Ā̶̧̪́A̸͖͎̐͠A̸̬̓ ”

“Ohhh myyyy ggAARRDENNER, SHUT IT PBSB!” A yellow and pink box turned to a pink cotton-looking puff with a speaker in it floating in the air saying that.

“ No! If we get kidnapped, then I will scream!” The pink, cotton, floating, speaker turned to face the pink and yellow speaker box on the floor.

“Can you both be quiet for more than 5 minutes?” An orange-y speaker turned to face the others.

“FRSB, We just got repaired magically and you’re worried about us being QUIET??” The pink and yellow one turned to the orange-y one.

“ Don’t act like you weren’t doing that a minute ago, FLSB!” ” The floating one scoffed.

In another corner of the room, a taco leaned against a wall silently judging everybody in the room. They had a black bowtie on with a mildly annoyed face.

“Hello-!” A bone walked up to the taco, but right before he stopped the Taco walked off to another wall. The bone frowned slightly as he watched her walk off. “Oh..”

Bone looked around for a moment before seeing a computer box with three LEDs on their side, laying on a wall, asleep. He walked over.

“ . . . “

“Okay, I know what you mean now.” Nickel 1 faced his look-alike, who grinned and laughed once.

“Mmmhm.” He huffed.

Chapter Text

Texty looked around silently from their lens after they were put onto the table by Subway Seat.

They looked at their internal clock for a moment. 11:36 PM.

The computer text box opened the list of tabs, sorting through them and closing others to reduce lag in themself.

They hovered over a singular tab. The Plane Database.

After a moment of deciding, they closed the tab.

They sat there, thinking to the best extent that they could. 

 . . .

A footstep creaked on the stairs and Texty freaked out before dimming their screen to be completely black.

They watched as Remote walked down the stairs with both of her arms freely dangling on her side. 

Texty wishes that they had arms and legs. And a face. All they are is a text box within a computer.

They couldn’t help but envy the other electronic as they watched her hop off the stairs and walk down a hallway.

After a while when Remote was gone, Texty swapped tabs to YouTube and searched up some cat videos to watch.

Texty set their volume to one, so hopefully it wouldn’t wake anybody.

Texty accidentally drifted off while watching the videos, causing the computer to go into sleep mode. Though, sleep mode didn’t last long due to them being motion activated.

They exited sleep mode to be greeted by a confused Remote standing in front of them and Subway Seat. Their screen was still black after Texty had turned down the brightness.

Remote looked between Subway and themself, unaware of them being on seemingly. Even though their screen brightness was 0, they could still move tabs and such around.

They swapped tabs to the text synthesiser. Texty hesitated, wondering if they should talk to the electronic or not.

. . . 

They were about to type something into the synthesiser, but Remote walked off before they were able to. They metaphorically sighed, if they even could.

They increased their screen’s brightness slightly and went into a new window, hidden by their browser one. 

Texty started to scroll down the doc on the new window before stopping and editing something.

====================================================================

[Name]: Remote

[Gender]: Female? S/H?

[Show]: BFB[+] & TPoT[+]

- Seems to be friends with Black Hole[+]

|

====================================================================

[Name]: Remote

[Gender]: Female? S/H?

[Show]: BFB[+] & TPoT[+]

- Seems to be friends with Black Hole[+]

- Curious type, probably knows some things I don’t |

====================================================================

Texty scrolled through the doc, wondering if there was anything they could improve or add to.

They stopped on Liam’s profile.

====================================================================

[Name]: Liam Plecak / Backpack

[Gender]: Male, H/H

[Show]: ONE[+]

- Only Airy & sometimes Subway Seat calls him Backpack right now

- Liam didn’t tell me about Airy being here when I arrived

- Seems to be making friends with TopHat

|

====================================================================

[Name]: Liam Plecak / Backpack

[Gender]: Male, H/H

[Show]: ONE[+]

- Only Airy & sometimes Subway Seat calls him Backpack right now

- Liam didn’t tell me about Airy being here when I arrived

- Seems to be making friends with TopHat

- Getting really hostile towards Airy, might have to look out for his well being |

====================================================================

They swapped windows back to their browser as they slowly looked through the dark room.

Texty searched up tetris and started to play it. They didn’t realise it when Remote walked back into the room, looking at the computer who was playing tetris by itself.

“..Hello?” Remote hesitantly spoke up, causing Texty to get spooked by her sudden appearance and shoot a tetris brick to the bottom of the screen.

Remote blinked as Texty quickly trashed the tetris tab and swapped to the voice synthesiser. They pulled up quick notes and wrote: ‘,:/ in it.

“Uhm-” She shuffled her feet on the floor. “I’m Remote, you?”

“ Texty. You probably didn’t see me before because I was brought here as a ‘gift’ for Liam” They wrote into the synthesiser.

Remote oh’d then nodded. “That makes a bit of sense.”

Remote went quiet for a moment before speaking up again. “How do you exactly work? I’m not trying to be rude here but it’s not every day I see a limbless and faceless yet still alive computer-object.”

Texty paused for a moment before silently putting: ``\(•_•)/`` in the quick notes.

“Even though I do wish to have those, I’m just a simple computer I guess?” They typed.

Remote laughed a bit, her voice tinged with a text to speech very similar to Texty’s. “I know a certain robotic engineer and a scientist who could both probably design limbs for you.”

“Really?” Texty typed, intrigued. “Are either of them here?”

Remote sighed and shook her head. “No, neither of them got brought here like us.”

Texty frowned by typing: ‘:[ into the quick notes.

“Sorry, I really wish I could help you.” Remote frowned slightly, glancing up at the staircase. “Nice meeting you Texty. I’m going to go back upstairs.”

The text box paused for a second then typed up another word. “K.”

The battery-powered electronics then turned around and walked back up the stairs, leaving Texty and the sleeping subway seat there.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Airy blinked slowly, looking at his reflection in a mirror he had found. To be honest, he didn't look too well.

He knew that his shattered eye was extreme, but not THAT bad. The edges around the wound were smooth-ish as they’d been there for a long while, which they had been.

Airy put a hand on top of his bronze lid. He could feel small micro scratches and dents in it.

The arguments with Backpack were still fresh in his mind, taunting him almost. But he couldn’t really do much about it.

A few times he’s wondered what would happen if he were to die in this house.

Would it take him back to the waiting room?

Would he just die and become a ghost bound to the house?

Or.. something worse?

He sighed. He didn’t like thinking about the waiting room and all the horrors it could potentially lead him to.

..He also didn’t like thinking about last night, when his show was on the television.

Airy never aired the show. It made no sense.

For the longest moment, he just stared into his reflection.

That was until the double doors to the lounge sung open with such force a gust of wind hit Airy. He stumbled off of his stool in surprise.

“Oooo! New room-!” A lightbulb was standing in the doorway, looking around until they saw the lantern.  “OH! Hello!” 

“...Hi.” He answered hesitantly as Lightbulb grinned and walked over. She grabbed him by his handles and lifted him up, putting him down standing up right.

“I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to make you fall over!” She patted Airy’s lid. He grimaced in response. “I’m Lightbulb!”

“..Airy.” He blinked, shuffling his feet backwards.

Lightbulb looked over the lantern before gasping dramatically. “WOAH! What happened to your eye slash face!?”

Airy paused, looking down for a moment. “..I don’t want.. to.. talk about it..”

“Alright, Alright. I understand!” She nodded and put her hands out in front of her face as she took two steps back. 

“ . . . “

The two looked at each other. Lightbulb was half-smiling, Airy just looked drained.

Lightbulb unexpectedly stuck her hand into Airy’s broken bulb, causing him to stumble in confusion and shock. “I- eugh- uh.”

“Airy.” She giggled a bit. “Your head’s airy, Airy.”

He grimaced again, taking a step back as Lightbulb retracted her arm, fiddling with her fingers.

“SO!” She plopped down onto the ground, sitting criss-crossed. “What reality TV show are you from?”

Airy stayed quiet, averting eye contact. 

“...Hellllloooo? Mr. Lantern guy?” She waved her hand in front of Airy’s face. He tried not to react.

She lowered her eyebrows in suspicion before crossing her arms. “Hmpf!”

Airy just clenched his fists, side stepping. The two fragile-headed objects stood and sat in mostly silence. Though Airy could tell Lightbulb was definitely screaming something in her mind.

“Welp, since you won’t tell me about yourself then I’ll tell you about my self!” She grinned, taking a thumb and pointing it towards herself. “I’m from Inanimate Insanity! I live on Inanimate Island, uh, I’m friends with Painty! And I have a crab named Baxter! Though he’s living at the hotel right now. With Painty.”

“Hm… uhhh… eerrrrrrr.r….” Lightbulb put a hand to her ‘chin’, thinking of another fact about herself. “Oh! I can light myself up!” As she said that, her bulb suddenly turned on. Airy winced at the near-flashbang. 

“I like.. uh.. Hiking! Sometimes. Only sometimes. I like the Bright Lights, I like my friends, I like animals, I like nature sometimes, I like being mischievous, I likeeee… uhhhhh…” 

“ . . . “

“That’s all I can think of. Your turn lantern guy!” She returned her gaze to Airy.

“ . . . “

“Is your.. name.. actually Lightbulb..?” He hesitantly asked, honestly wanting to know. The last time he called an object by their object type the outcomes weren’t the best.

“Of course it is! Why wouldn’t it be? What do you think my name would be, uh, SOFA?? Anyway, that brings me to this question; why is your name Airy? You don’t look very ‘airy’ or ‘bubbly’ or ‘full with life’” She had a large smile on her face.

Airy winced at the long question. “It’s just.. my. name..? I can’t.. change.. It..?”

Her eyes narrowed before she subtly shrugged. “Alright then! What were you doing in here?”

“...just.. being here.. I guess…” He looked down at the floorboards. “Thinking..?”

“Understandable! I do think sometimes!” She began listing off times where she was ‘thoughtful.’ Airy didn’t have the capacity to listen to her rant fully.

Airy looked towards the doors, trying to slowly inch over to them. Unfortunately, Lightbulb noticed. “Oh!! You wanna go to the main room, Lantern guy? Alright! C’mon, let's go! I want you to meet somebody!”

She grabbed Airy’s wrist (which he was 100% not comfortable with) and began to bolt it out of the lounge’s doors and down the small hallway with him in tow.

Airy got a few strange looks by the few objects who were up, thankfully none of which being Liam, most likely due to him trying to avoid everybody by sticking to just the host’s room and the lounge.

It seemed that the objects who were up were trying to do something with the TV again. Texty was plugged into the TV, lines of code flashed on their screen time-to-time as Lightning instructed them what to do.

Airy didn’t think that Lightning looked like somebody who would know a lot about tech, but there's a lot of things he’s been wrong about in the past.

The lantern glanced at Lightbulb who was looking around furiously in the main room, for somebody. While Lightbulb was distracted, Airy slipped his wrist out of her grasp and started to awkwardly inch back in the direction of the lounge.

Luckily for him, Lightbulb didn’t seem to have noticed his subtle escape. So he was able to return to the lounge safe and sound. 

“Okay, so uh.. What do you see?” Lightning’s voice interrupted Lightbulb’s search, talking to Texty.

“Uh. More files.” Texty responded in their text-to-speech app. 

Oodle perked up. “Do any of them seem important? Named like, ‘IMPORTANT!!’ or something?” He asked, grinning. He didn’t seem to be taking this as seriously as the rest of the objects there were.

“The files are named Minecraft, Pictures, Wishlist, Amazon, Voice Logs, AppleTV+, Disney+, YouTube,” Texty had started to read them off, but an object interrupted her.

“Voice Logs? Click that one!” Firey said, interest gleaming in his eyes. A few of the others gathered to watch this nodded in response.

In the next second, Texty was broadcasting their screen onto the TV. They clicked the ‘Voice Logs’ folder, and a lot of voice recordings popped up. “There's 84 voice recordings here. Thankfully the creator of the voice recordings actually named them.”

Texty began scrolling through the file while still broadcasting onto the TV. The first few tens were ‘normal’, per ce. Labelled things like ‘15th Birthday!!’, ‘Neighbour stole my Nintendo Switch >:[‘, ‘I got a TV for my room!!’, or ‘Sibling Shenanigans Vol. 1-5’. But as they got to the more recent ones, that’s when it started to get a bit odd.

The ones that stood out were titled as ‘Task 1: Get the blue & yellow guys from uh- BFDI’, ‘Holy hell who knew that I would almost get arrested for getting TopHat?’, ‘My brother is an idiot.’, and then the one that was at the start of all the odd-titled voice recordings, ‘The start of it all!!! :D’

After a few tense seconds of silence, Texty decided to play the one titled ‘The start of it all!!! :D’ to see if they could get a sense of what was going on better.

It loaded for a second, just a black screen with a playbar at the bottom of it. The voice recording was 4 minutes long. It started with a staticy noise, before a light thudding. “Damn, when was the last time I used this thing?” A voice hummed, before a shuffling was heard. 

“I wanna show you what I found! Are you almost done?” A second voice replied, one familiar to a few of the objects listening.

“Hey, I recognize the second voice!” Yin spoke up, eyes widening. “ That second one was of that camera dude who interrupted our argument a few days ago!” Yang’s gruff voice finished the sentence. A few of the other objects looked at the half-n-half object in a bit of surprise.

“Yes I’m done now, Show me what you found in our creepy storage room.” The first voice, who sounded feminine, said to the other object. Sarcasm was prominent in her voice.

“Okay so like, I was digging around some boxes and then I found this!” A shuffling was heard as the second object presumably presented whatever they had found. A scoff was heard from the girl.

“A dusty wireless keyboard?” She asked, confirming what the other object’s actions were. “You can’t be serious. You’re so excited over that hunk of junk?”

The second voice gasped. “It’s not just any keyboard! I have reason to think it’s from an object show, called Race for the K-”

“Ohh myy godd, not you with your Object Show nonsense again!” The first voice groaned aloud. “Cammy, please get it into your innocent little brain that object shows aren’t real! They’re just cash grabs with a bunch of special effects. It’s not like an object could just magically revive somebody without the use of a recovery centre.”

Most of the objects listening to the voice recording went even more silent then they were before. What was this person going on about? They were definitely real, and right here.

“I’m pretty sure I can speak on behalf of everybody, saying that this girl is completely wrong.” Black Hole said, hovering in the air a bit over the couch.

“They aren’t fake! And I can- prove it!” The second voice defended, a keyboard clicking noise was heard through the TV.

“Uh-huh, and how do you expect to do tha-” She paused as the keyboard clicking stopped. “ Why..is there a crab on the table.? ” She spoke up after a moment.

“That’s from Inanimate Insanity! That one Object Show I really like! His name’s Baxter!” The male voice proudly announced to the other, and there was a distinct sound of clicking.

Lightbulb gasped from behind the couch. “They have Baxter!? Those- uh- Crabnappers!” Lightbulb said angrily in her ecstatic tone, frowning.

“Oh, boo-hoo. It’s just a crab.” Yang said towards Lightbulb, but Yin quickly shut him up after Lightbulb glared at the split object.

The female voice hummed. “I mean, I guess I do have to believe you now.. Since you literally just spawned a crab on our table…” She muttered. “..Can we keep it now? It’s not like it’ll be much of a hassle or it’ll hurt us- OW. OW-OW-OW! IT PINCHED ME!” She cried out.

“Okay so like, I have an idea.” Cammy said, ignoring the girl’s sounds of pain. “ You know how we’re like.. In a pinch for money? Right? Well, I thought.. What if we took a bunch of people from different object shows and.. Put them together! Kinda like Object Multiverse Survivor! Then we can record it in episodes, and post it to YouTube or something!” The guy was beaming. The objects listening were not.

“We’re being recorded!?” Firey spoke up after a bit of awkward silence due to the video abruptly ending. Some others began looking around, trying to see if they could spot any cameras.

Tophat felt really uncomfortable in this situation. He was in a room with at least 7 different people that were all in a competition-based show, and then there was him. Dare he even think this, but the only ‘normal’ one out of everybody besides Liam and Texty. Though, those two haven’t really explained their backstories much.

Texty started to scroll through the voice logs again, hovering over certain ones before pressing down on the one titled ‘Addressing the Inanimate Insanity problem.’ It opened to the black screen again, the sound of wind or something in the background.

“So, uh. The viewers realised that the II characters.. Aren’t exactly.. Uhm.. up-to-date?” The girl’s voice spoke hesitantly. This raised a few eyebrows from the listening objects. “What I mean by that is that Cammy and I took the II people from near the end of season two, cause that's where I was when I started watching it. Now, they have no idea that season 3 even exists. How the fuck was I supposed to know that it would be different based on when I took them from!?”

A few objects winced at her sudden outburst, since mostly everybody in that room was strictly told to NEVER swear by rather a threatening host or their common sense. MePhone scoffed. “Season 3? There’s no season 3. I would know that, good try.”

“..The whole point of that was saying that you guys don't remember it?” Glassy spoke up, looking at MePhone with a small chuckle. MePhone paused as if the gears were turning in his head then he looked away, going quiet.

“Now, we were worried that the progress made with the II people may be ruined if we tried to .. say, update their memories? So, we decided to get some uh.. Testing dummies? We decided to take Nickel from season 1 of II and try out the update thingy with him. Basically, we put ‘em in a room, I made Cammy talk to him for a bit, and then we updated Nickel up to season 3. And guess what? It worked! He remembered Camera talking to him, and remembered Invitational! Woo!” Her voice was nervous at the start, but then she seemed to get more gloaty at the end of her rant.

“The only question now is when we’re going to update them. I’m sort of nervous about it because of MePad and MePhone. Like, MePad should NOT be like that..? And uh, if we kept MePad the way he is then MePhone’s gonna freak out.. So, hard decisions.” She said hesitantly, making a few of the objects turn their gaze to MePhone. MePad wasn't currently in the room, which meant he was off somewhere else.

“What are you all looking at me for? It’s not like I’m going to remember anything about this supposed Season 3 right now.” MePhone tapped his foot on the floor, before something unexpected happened.

“ERROR. ACCESS DENIED.” The TV’s speakers echoed out, before the screen started to spasm in colours and static. Texty’s screen was mimicking what was going on with the TV, before Texty’s screen suddenly went black and the TV went back to playing an object show called Brawl of the Objects.

“Texty?” Subway Seat and Lightning said at the same time, both of them moving over to the computer worriedly. “Are they okay?” Lightning spoke up after a second, debating on what to do.

Sketchpad suddenly appeared out of nowhere. “Don’t worry, I’ve got this!” He said while grinning. He hopped up onto the TV counter and immediately moved to turn Texty’s computer off and on again. Oodle 100% supported Sketchpad doing the ‘turn it on & off again’ strategy, but most of the other objects weren’t exactly with him on this.

“Sketchpad, that’s not the best idea..” Black Hole hesitantly spoke up, watching with non-existent eyes as this happened.

“Nonsense! It’ll work!” Sketchpad sounded convinced as he pushed back down on the power button, trying to turn the computer back on. “Just watch!”

. . .

It didn’t work.

“Oh well, I tried!” Sketchpad shrugged then skittered off to wherever he had come from. Black Hole sighed deeply as Subway Seat unplugged Texty from the TV and carried their computer off to upstairs, presumably trying to find Liam.

“How are we going to figure out why Fireball, Announcer and that dead person disappeared now..?” Firey mumbled, slightly in an angry tone but that could just be his gravelly voice.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“So.” MePad spoke. MePad and Tivo were up in the CoHost’s room, where they had been the whole morning. The two both technically didn’t need sleep, and they could really relate to each other. So, the two easily became friendly with each other. “How are you able to transform into such a small box?”

Tivo paused, pondering the question as a loading symbol rotated on his screen. After a moment, they spoke up. “I am unsure. Most-likely Oodle’s magic. Why are you usually able to teleport?”

MePad nodded after a moment. “It is in my programming, my ability to teleport. I’ve tried to re-enable it though something is preventing me from doing so.” MePad spoke after nodding, their ‘mouth’ moving with the vibrations of his voice.

The blue doodle screen made an ‘ah’ noise when MePad stopped talking, as if understanding what he meant. “Did MePhone create you?” Tivo asked, causing MePad to stop and think for a moment.

“No. MePhone is not my creator.” MePad hummed out, eyes drifting to the ground. “My creator is not someone I should be proud of.” He added on.

There was a small silent break in the room between the two man-made objects. “MePhone is my boss basically, though he is also technically my sibling.” He continued. “Though I think I would prefer him being my creator over who it actually is.”

“I do not have any siblings. I don’t believe Oodle counts as one.” The blue co-host wondered aloud to MePad. 

“I personally think creators are sort of like parents. Since, they’ve created us and given life to us. So, by my logic, Oodle could technically be your Father.” MePad brought up the topic, making Tivo pause and consider the theory for a moment.

“..By that logic, then yes. He could be..” Tivo hummed, a small loading circle up in the top corner of their screen. “I respect your opinion, though I still see him as my creator and boss.” Tivo stated after a moment.

The electronic host with the fuchsia backdrop nodded in understanding. “Makes sense. I am not sure how I would react if MePhone was revealed to be my creator, and therefore my technical parent. It would be quite the shoc-” MePad’s voice cut out and was replaced by static. MePad’s screen glitched, his ‘mouth’ soundwaves peeking up and down.

Tivo just watched, unsure what to do. They weren’t built to help with other pieces of technology. They also were not built with proper emotions. MePad was stuck in that glitch loop for a few seconds before shutting off and collapsing down onto the floor with a thud and a few sparks coming from his body. Tivo’s eyes tracked down to the malfunctioning electronic in silence.

MePad is collapsed on the floor face-up, his screen completely black. Tivo activated their thrusters, (yes, an inconvenient way of moving), and hopped over to the other bed before deactivating them and looking down at MePad. Tivo silently sent an alert to Oodle as they watched over the deactivated electronic.