Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It was a simple day in the Gardenview, Dandy was doing his work, leading about while others were hunting for supplies in the floors below. Dandy had never been a fan of this place, it's bright colors were nice, but it simply provided him no real comfort other than being a home.
recently Dandy convinced Rodger to hand him some science and biology books because he was running out of things to do in his free time. Rodger only accepted the offer by convincing Dandy to give him at least two medkits in return.

Dandy didn't think it was exactly a fair trade, but, he gladly took his books and brought them back to his space. He set them down on the floor, sitting besides the pile on the scruffy carpet.
"Alright, let's see!" Dandy grabbed the first book out of the pile, it was titled 'The prince and the princess'
Dandy paused, furrowing his brows. "Hey, wait a minute... This is not at all what I asked for!" Dandy gasped, he could not believe it. He was scammed. By Rodger, nonetheless.

Dandy growled under his breath, throwing aside the childish fairytale, he didn't ask for any fairytales, did he? He already read a billion of them. All the same, they were getting tasteless.
He rummaged through the pile, finding nothing but more fairytales and children books. Dandy was fuming, understandably so, he never knew Rodger had it in him to be such a scammer.

After a long while of rummaging, he picked up the last book that he hasn't checked yet. It was tilted 'The star of our solar system, the Sun'
It seemed like this was the only non-childish book, which still didn't take from the fact Dandy had been fooled so easily, but at least there was something decent to read.
Dandy had heard about the sun before, he was aware of it. It was literally painted on the walls of the Gardenview center, yellow, seemingly bright and shining. Dandy never paid mind to it, not bothered with it. He remembered that his handler would often mention plants and the sun in his sentences, but Dandy was mostly zooned out during their biology lessons.

Dandy opened the book with a sigh, hoping this book is actually interesting.

...

Hours later, Dandy did in fact find the book interesting. He was mesmerized by the idea of the sun, mostly because the sun gives plants the energy in the sunlight for them to produce the nutrients they need. It was fascinating. It was always cold in the Gardenview so the though of an actually beneficial and constant warmth in the sky sounded extra special. Dandy sighed, pleased with what he read.
He stood up, setting aside the book on his makeshift bed of old instruction papers and used blankets. He stacked the rest of the books on top of one another before giving them back to Rodger.
Apparently he forgot to shout at Rodger for his awful disrespectful and cunning behavior, but Dandy reminded himself that he will indeed get revenge soon enough.

Dandy, on his way to his shop where he sold various trinkets and stuff to others, bumped into Shrimpo. "Oh, hello my shrimptastic friend!" Dandy greeted with a forced smile, of course he didn't really like Shrimpo, the aquatic toon was always on about how he hates everyone and everything. Especially Dandy.
"Hmph, I hate bumping into people!!" Shrimpo groaned, although he sounded a bit more tired and not as interested in shouting. Dandy fought the urge to roll his eyes, patting the toon's shoulder. "How about you go to bed, hm? I see you've been very busy trying to get to floor 3 alone."
Shrimpo glared at Dandy, "I hate condescending behavior!!!!!!" He shouted loudly as he speed walked, as much as he could, back to his own room.
Dandy watched him leave, shrugging lightly, before going back on his path.
He went to his shop to pick up some pop cans, chocolates and gumballs to sell to the others who were going down the floors, and did his work as always.
Went with his own little elevator and came by other's to sell his stuff, most either ignored him or didn't think the items he was currently offering were worth it.
After such an annoying day as a businessman trying to sell his stuff, but not succeeding, Dandy sat on a bench in the Gardenview center, looking lazily at the sun drawn on the wall. He's feeling a bit agitated due to the fact most of the toons didn't give him any tapes, but be couldn't afford twisting right now. He needed to relax and wait a bit until he started chasing them all down.

He stood staring at the drawing of the sun for a while until he noticed something in the corner of his eye. Astro got back from a supply run.
"Hello, Dandy..." Astro greeted, sleepy as always. He stood in front of Dandy, blocking the drawing of the sun.
"Hey, you're blocking my view!" Dandy complained.
"Huh..?" Astro looked behind him, noticing the sun that was drawn on the wall. He turned back to look at Dandy, chuckling a bit awkwardly. "That's what I'm supposed to do, no...?" Astro asked with a small smile.
Dandy raised a brow, before humming in thought. "I guess so... Very well, I'm not mad. What did you need?" Dandy watched as Astro sat down besides him on the bench.
"Nothing much... We've witnessed much more twisteds than any run before, 8 in one floor. Poor them, It's crazy what ichor does to a toon..."
Dandy gave a light nod, waiting for Astro to get to the point, "Yeah."
"We also found a piece of paper on the ground when we were on floor 30 about my 'solar opposite' toon."
Dandy raised his eyebrows, this is the first time he heard about it. "Solar opposite?" He piqued, if Astro was based on a moon, then his solar opposite would be the sun in most cases.
Astro nodded lightly, "yeah..."
"Can I have the paper?"
"It's with Glisten..."
"...Of course."

Dandy sighed, standing up. "I'll see if he can give me the paper."
With that Dandy went to Glisten's room, not bothering to knock at all. Glisten was in the corner of his room at his desk, staring at his reflection in the mirror while he applied new makeup on himself, mascara, blush, eyeliner...
Dandy glanced at him, before turning to rummage around the room, not caring about the fact he never announced his entrance. Poor Glisten was startled when he noticed Dandy going through his stuff, "H- hey! What's this about?" Glisten stammered, very startled.
Dandy could only roll his eyes, "Astro told me you had a paper about a certain toon. I need it."
Glisten furrowed his eyebrows at the attitude. That's what he was supposed to act like, not Dandy!
"Well, since you're so polite about it," Glisten scoffed, taking the paper that was hidden under his bed and handing it to Dandy. "Happy now, rainbow petals?"
Dandy stood in silence as he skimmed over the paper.
"Just get out of my room, please?"
"Alright, alright," Dandy walked out of the room, leaving Glisten alone.

He spent a few minutes reading through the paper with Astro, both toons unsure how none of them discovered this up until now. "Says here this toon was called Solatius 'Sunny' Starton... Goes by Sunny or Sol..." Astro lead outloud to Dandy. "Hm... Sol is the latin word for the Sun," Dandy pointed out. "Well, yeah, it is my 'solar opposite', no wonder they're based on the sun." Astro set the paper down, sighing. "Their stats are pretty much nothing much special, other than their speed... Stealth is very low, not as low as Shrimpo's though, they're alright when it comes to machines it seems, but not as good as Rodger at them..."

"Does it mention anything about if they radiate warmth like the sun?" Dandy questioned, taking the paper to doublecheck it.

"Tch, not a single word about this toons qualities other than their stats," Dandy grumbled a bit.
"A shame," Astro nodded tiredly. "Who knows where they are now."

Chapter Text

"Guys!" Rodger shouted, putting his foot on the elevator entrance, stopping it from closing. "What is it?" Vee raised a pixelated visual brow on her screen-face. "Rodger!" Toodles hopped over to Rodger, hugging his leg, happy to see him. Rodger smiled, giving her a pat on the head before fully entering the elevator. "I've managed to get us something," he said, showing off the two medkits he got. Poppy gasped, "two medkits? This must be a dream!" Boxten, who was standing besides her, gave a shy nod in agreement. "Does that mean we might make it to a very big floor if we use them very smartly?" Toodles asked, taking a good look at the two medkits.
"Where did you even get those?" Vee, the probably only one here that is skeptical, questioned, putting her hands on her hips. Rodger looked at his fellow teammates with his eye, unsure how to exactly explain it, "uhh... Well, you see..." Rodger began, setting the medkits in the corner of elevator. "I took them from Dandy-"
"He willingly gave you two medkits?! What did you bribe him with?" Sprout raised his voice a bit, genuinely shocked. Rodger scratched the back of his neck, "well all I will say I tricked him with books..."
"Books?" Shelly mumbled in confusion. "Seriously?" Vee shook her head, if she had an actual nose she would be pinching the bridge of it in confusion and maybe even disappointment. Pebble, who was previously just running around the elevator, went to sniff the medkits, being curious as always.

"W- wait is it even allowed to have nine people in the elevator here..?" Boxten asked, but before anyone could even respond to his question, the elevator went down.

The group, consisting of Rodger, Sprout, Shelly, Cosmo, Pebble, Boxten, Poppy, Vee and Toodles were doing fairly well.
After the first floor, Dandy came by them to sell his stuff, a stopwatch, pop can and instructions, "hey friends! Looking to buy something?" He greeted cheerfully, but furrowed his eyebrows when he noticed Rodger. "Hey, Rodger, you planning on returning my medkits? You know you scammed me."
Rodger awkwardly looked to the side, waving a dismissive hand, "I will not return the medkits, you got what you asked for."
Dandy could not believe Rodger was trying to gaslight him, seriously, this toon was getting on his nerves. Dandy scowled, glaring at Rodger. He put his hand on the lever before pulling it, making his exit.
"Phew," Rodger sighed in relief. Happy he wasn't getting in fatal trouble with Dandy.
"Nice save," Vee rolled her eyes, not impressed by the poor attempt at gaslighting. "You're acting as if you can do better," Rodger retorted.
Vee only cocked a brow at Rodger, silently asking if he was serious.

On the first few floors, Pebble wasn't doing much work as a distractor because the floors were all relatively easy with a small number of twisteds, instead he ran around searching for items, capsules, tapes, and such while the other finished up the machines rather quickly.
By the time it was floor 9, Pebble began distracting the twisteds, running around in circles and waiting for others to finish up.
It wasn't up until the 13th floor that Toodles got a bit injured, of course Cosmo healed her, and Sprout, with his 732 tapes, healed Cosmo up gladly.
"Thanks!" Cosmo sighed, walking over to the last machine on this floor, looking to finish it. "No problem!" Sprout grinned, happy with their progress so far. "Do you think we'll make it far before we need to go back immediately?" He questioned. "I doubt it, I mean, we can always heal our teammates, plus if we can't we have two full medkits to do the job for us!" Cosmo though, mindlessly doing the machine and not thinking about it too much. It's almost like muscle memory at his point.
Sprout sat on the floor besides Cosmo, letting out a small hum, "Do you think Dandy noticed there's nine people here, and not eight like he says it should be?"
"Oh... Yeah, why is Dandy so strict about it, but doesn't even notice when there's more than eight in the elevator?"
"Beats me."

Everything went a bit rocky from there, they did encounter a few more dangerous twisted, which did result in a slight panic since Cosmo and Sprout couldn't heal everyone at once, Sprout was running low on tapes and they had to find some more, but after those few floors everything went back to normal, and they could all relax a bit. But not too much.

"There is no way we made it this far," Vee mumbled to herself as they all entered the elevator, they were heading to floor 202 right now. Dandy came by with his shop, looking irritated but also unsure, "There you are, friends! Um, wow, no one got fatally injured yet?" Dandy questioned, looking at the toons, he did noticed there was nine toons instead of eight, but he didn't want to comment on it yet. Especially since he had bigger things to think about.
"Yeah, it's actually a surprise we reached it this far in one peace!" Poppy exclaimed.
Pebble barked in agreement.
"Huh... Okay, um, if you guys find anything interesting, come to me! I need information about a certain toon..."
"O- oh, that sun fella?" Boxten mumbled.
"Alright, who knows about this 'sun fella'? Because I fu[#%]ing don't," Vee put her hands on her hips, looking critically at her teammates.
Mostly everyone raised their hands except Pebble, Toodles and Shelly.
"Damn," Vee whispered to herself. "Who is that?"
"It's a sun-based toon, I can barely remember his full name," Rodger explained in an oversimplified manner, since there's nothing much to add. Vee shrugged, unsure how to feel about this.

They soon, after about an hour of running around, hiding, and distracting for everyone, they all stepped their foot on floor 210.
"I have a bad feeling about this floor," Cosmo whispered to Shelly. "Yeah, it feels a bit... Off," she agreed as they all went in their own directions.
Pebble immediately highlighted the items in the area, before coming in a secure corner of the floor, barking loudly to distract the twisteds so they come to him.
Sprout and Cosmo helped around with the many machines, watched out for twisted, and made sure no one was near death.
Poppy and Boxten moved together in search of machines, finding two machines close to one another, and went to do them.
Rodger was having a bit of trouble as he was being chased by a twisted version of Goob, low on hearts, he popped a medkit and ran behind a corner, the twisted Goob chased a bit more but after another minute, he stopped the chase and began mindlessly wandering in the other direction.
Rodger let out a shaky sigh, looking around the room he was it. Full of small chairs and tables of various colors. In the corner was a pushed down armoire lying on its back. Rodger approached the wooden armoire, opening it up carefully.
"What the-" Rodger stumbled back a bit, terrified. Other than a twisted inside, the armoire was undeniably empty. The twisted, which did resemble the toon on the paper Astro, Glisten and him found on a supply run, stood up from its lying position, letting out a guttural growl. Rodger gulped, unsure what he can do, he turned on his heel and ran the moment the twisted started giving chase. It gagged a bit even, spewing Ichor from its mouth, trying to seemingly direct the spewing of Ichor at Rodger.

Rodger stumbled a bit, running into a wall and having to redirect himself in a hurry, not wanting to die by this thing. Just as he was in the middle of running around he heard Sprout shout, "Last machine finished!" To everyone, and he had to immediately go to the direction of the elevator.
The twisted toon behind him was not giving up chase, in fact, it seemed like it was becoming faster the longer it was running after Rodger. The imaginary timer in Rodger's head was starting to count down from 10, making him hurry up, and finally he managed to reach the elevator, jumping inside.
"What was that?!" Poppy shouted, concerned. This was the first time they've encountered a new type of twisted that didn't resemble any toon they knew. Rodger, who was absolutely exhausted, sat on the ground of the elevator, trying to regain his breath. "Are you okay?" Toodles asked, sitting down besides Rodger. "Yeah, don't worry about me." He leaned against the wall, breathless.

Dandy came up to the elevator with his shop, nothing new on sale except a bandage. "Hey friends! Why does everyone look so shocked?" Dandy asked with a smile, awkwardly looking around at the other toons. "You wouldn't believe it," Sprout stated, "We saw a new twisted toon."
"Huh?" Dandy raised a brow, confused but there was a hint of hope in his eyes, possibly a new lead on that sun toon that he wanted to find. "Y- yeah, um," Rodger stood up, taking a deep breath. "I opened an armoire after losing a twisted version of Goob that was chasing me, and I got chased by a toon that resembled the one on the paper. Except... more twisted."
Dandy gasped, looking a bit excited, "Wait, Seriously? None of you are joking?" Dandy asked, grinning widely.
"Yeah we all saw it..." Shelly gave a nod in agreement while Pebble ran around in circles and barked, probably also saying 'yes' in his own way.

Dandy didn't waste much time, he pressed a button under the counter of his store and the elevator door opened again, they all looked at Dandy in confusion.
"Huh...?" Toodles mumbled, glancing out of the elevator.
"So~" Dandy drew out, taking a step out of his little shop. "You all should probably stay here, don't touch anything, I'll be back."

Chapter Text

Dandy let out a sigh as he stepped foot out of the elevator, glancing back at the others to make sure they weren't planning on doing something stupid like getting out of the elevator despite the fact he said they should stay in it.
He looked around at his surroundings, already knowing them by heart and soul. He saw a twisted Gigi, a twisted Boxten and a twisted Flutter so far walking by him. "Let's see..." Dandy mumbled, following behind twisted Boxten, who headed towards a room with two finished machines. Inside was nothing other than a few boxes in the middle for hiding and losing twisteds. Dandy pranced about for a few more minutes before he encountered an armoire pushed down on the floor. Dandy raised a brow, figuring this is the armoire Rodger was talking about. He grinned excitedly before opening up the armoire.

He was jumped on by the twisted, falling back on his head, which didn't hurt much but it still wasn't please tell. The twisted spewed some ichor out of it's mouth, getting ichor all over Dandy and his petals. Dandy spat out the excessive ichor that seeped into his mouth, pushing the twisted away. It stared at him, probably recognizing Dandy wasn't a normal everyday toon, and turned back to get into its armoire, probably to jump someone again in the future. "Nuh uh, you're coming with me!" Dandy grabbed the twisted's upper arm, pulling it in his direction, which earned a grunt from the twisted.
It's really not like they're able to fully feel surprised or annoyed, they just happen to make sounds every now and then.

Dandy dragged the twisted version of the toon of the, supposedly, sunny toon Sol. He dragged it to a couch in front of a TV that was nicely set in the middle of the floor. Dandy sat the twisted down on the couch before he turned his back to the other to rip out the wires from the TV. He already had an idea of what exactly he could do.
He took a few too many wires, any in sight he ripped out from the TV just I'm case. Maybe he could find some other uses for the wires once he's finished with the twisted. Dandy turned around, only to notice the twisted was already up and going back to his armoire. Instincts and routines of these twisteds are undeniable.
Dandy scowled, he wasn't very thrilled about this constant walking away. He ran back over to the twisted, jumping on him to halt his movememts. The twisted grunted again as it hit the ground. Dandy took it's arms and wrapped them together with wires, the twisted spat some ichor at him out of reflex under him. Nonetheless Dandy would need a thorough cleaning after this.
He ripped a long piece of fabric from the toons... tank top? It looked as such but it could just be a ripped up T-shirt. The piece of fabric was wrapped around the twisted's eyes, making sure it wouldn't go ballistic from seeing the non-twisted toons. "There you go, buddy!" Dandy patted himself on the back for this one. Standing up, he took the twisted by it's upper arm yet again and took the twisted to the elevator.
"What do you think you're doing?" Rodger asked, furrowing his brow at Dandy and the motionless twisted in his grasp.
"Nothing!" Dandy responded, unable to contain his cheerfulness. "I'm going to bring this one back up to Gardenview center, I think I can do something with him."
"Really...? you sure?" Cosmo questioned, glancing at Sprout with both concern and confusion.
Sprout only scratched the back of his neck, watching as Dandy put the twisted behind the counter of his little shop, and then hopped behind the counter himself. "You know, Dandy, if anything goes wrong, it's all on you." Sprout had to inform him out of habit.
"Aw, shucks, don't be like that!" Dandy waved his hand dismissively at Sprout, not exactly caring about who dies or lives if anything goes wrong.
"Anyways, goodbye!!"
Dandy pulled the lever and made his exit like always.
The elevator with the rest of the toons moved down to floor 211.
"Can we just go back? I'm tired," Poppy complained. "Yeah," Shelly yawned a bit as she agreed.
"We can't back up now, I mean, maybe later!" Sprout tried to encourage his teammates to continue, but most of them just shrugged awkwardly or looked away.
"I don't know, maybe we can go to to rest after we finish this floor?" Cosmo asked, giving Sprout a small nudge to consider it. Sprout frowned at Cosmo, before giving him a small nod along with a sigh. "I guess so. We could use some rest after this floor..."

...

Dandy was in his own space, scrubbing the ichor off with baby wipes and water from a medium sized red tub he owned where he usually used to put his items in. The twisted was walking around, arms bound and fabric around still around it's eyes, it undoubtedly bumped into a few walls, trying to figure it's way around this new place. "Calm down, buddy, I'll get to you in a moment!" Dandy reassured, he was getting real annoyed at how much it took for the ichor to scrub off his body.
Half an hour later, he finally was scrubbed clean of Ichor. Dandy groaned dramatically, "Why did it have to take so long!" He complained.

Dandy stood up, looking over at the twisted who was now sitting on the floor after a lot of wandering and bumping into walls. Dandy noticed the ichor that the twisted was spewing out of it's mouth and ichor that was already on it's body was staining his carpet.
"Not the carpet too..." Dandy grumbled, the carpet was deeply stained with ichor from the twisted. That would leave a few stains.
"Alright, no more waiting!" He took the twisted and threw it in the tub full of water, some water splashed out of the tub and made the carpet around it very wet, but Dandy didn't care much right now as he already needed to clean up his whole room after this. With a sponge and a bit of 'strawberry scented shampoo' he got from Sprout, Dandy began to try and wipe the ichor off of the twisted toon.

It took hours,
Felt like ages.
The twisted was struggling to get out of the water, it probably felt very unpleasant for it, maybe even hurt. Dandy could somewhat relate. While he didn't care about drinking water, in fact, he drank four to five glasses daily to sustain energy, he didn't really like being drenched in water as it would make his petals turn brownish and crumpled. Easy to just pinch with a finger and the brownish parts would seperate and fall immediately.
The ichor was a bit more easily wiped with the scruffy sponge than with baby wipes, so the process went a bit faster than it would've been if Dandy chose to wipe the twisted with baby wipes like he did with himself. After around two hours Dandy noticed the twisted was absolutely not moving anymore, and he had to get it out of the tub to check if it was still... Well, alive. The twisted looked more like a normal toon now, it's head no longer coated in layers of Ichor, clean. The twisted toon was greyish for some reason, but in the illustration the original color of the toon was yellowish, orange and red. "Oh wow... hopefully it's not my fault," Dandy mumbled to himself, unsure how to feel about these differences and if they're supposed to be like that. Dandy took off the fabric around the toons eyes that he did not bother to remove upon the bath along with the wires around it's arms.

Dandy backed up a bit, watching his work. The twisted needed a change of clothing, maybe a pair of sunglasses like it had in the illustration on the paper. But for now even ripped clothing would do since Dandy would need to ask others to borrow him clothes, which he doesn't have time for right now. "Okay... Is this toon even alive anymore?" Dandy went back up to the lying twisted, it's eyes were wide open, still red as before. He gave it a light kick in the side, and suddenly it got back up. "There you go! No need to be dramatic, Sol," Dandy chuckled awkwardly, watching as the twisted, whom he'll just refer to as Sol at this point, looked over it's surroundings after hours of being blinded. It didn't react, obviously, most twisteds didn't have a wide range of emotions and expressions.

Sol roamed around the not so spacious room while Dandy threw out the old water from the tub and put in new, fresher and cleaner water that wasn't mixed with ichor. The rainbow flower rolled up the carpet and put it on the tub, cleaning it with his hands now, but still using the same shampoo he used to wash Sol with. Dandy wasn't sure if Sol was going to actually warm up the place, because so far he felt nothing different.
But time will tell, hopefully.

It was genuinely a long day for everyone, except for Glisten, Shrimpo and other toons which weren't doing much other than walking around, doing normal household chores, or engaging in conversations.

...

"Hey, hey, hey! Welcome back guys!" Glisten greeted the toons that just got back from the supply run. "Glisten!" Toodles threw her arms up in the air. Glisten chuckled, giving her a small high five.
"Hun, I see you've all been very busy. It's been more than 10 hours since I've seen you all!" Glisten looked at Rodger, who shrugged lazily. "Cosmo, Pebble and Sprout managed to carry us to floor 211, but we left after finishing it."
"Oh, why did you leave?"
"Like you said, it's been more than 10 hours."

"What's with all this noise?! I'm trying to sleep!!" Shrimpo stormed out of his room, glaring at the toons passing by him. "Our friends here are all back!" Shrimpo motioned over to Rodger and Toodles, earning a groan from Shrimpo. "Ughhh!!! Just when I thought I was going to have a nice nap today!" Shrimpo complained, stomping his foot on the ground.
"Are you having trouble sleeping only when we're here? Or just in general?" Rodger asked, always up to taking the 'fatherly role' in this place. "No!" Shrimpo denied, pointing an accusing finger at Rodger, "I have the best sleep every day!!"
"Then why are you complaining?" Glisten crossed his arms, raising a brow. "Because..! because I can!!!" Shrimpo stormed back to his room, fuming.

"Does anyone know where's that rainbow petals guy?" Glisten turned to Rodger once again. He didn't see Dandy for a long period of time, even longer than the toons which went on the supply run today. "You mean Dandy?" Rodger went to sit down on a nearby bench. Toodles and Glisten followed, sitting down besides him.
"His name doesn't concern me," Glisten huffed, waving a dismissive hand in the air.
Toodles giggled at the statement.

"Yeah, well, all I can say is he brought a twisted up here."
"..."
"..."
"What?!"

"Yeah, he might as well be dead, or busy trying to figure it out like he said he would," Rodger explained, leaning back against the bench with a tired sigh. A long run does take a lot of energy from a toon, it's tiresome no doubt.
"Who's twisted version did he take from the floors?" Glisten kept his tone low, unsure if this is supposed to be something to keep a quiet conversation about. "You know that sun based toon?" Rodger asked.
"Yeah?..." Glisten mumbled, confusion spreading on his face, before realization started showing. "There's no way that toon exists. Let alone it's twisted version. Didn't it say it was scrapped, right on the paper?" Glisten asked, scratching the side of his face in confusion.
"Well, it was probably scrapped in the last second and the toon exists, but isn't featured anywhere and is probably somewhere in the dumps."
"Or, forgive me if I'm wrong but I doubt I am, that scrapped toon was made, but got corrupted by ichor upon creation, and thrown aside?"
"Could be a possibility," Rodger nodded, it felt a bit weird to everyone who knew of the situation. Rodger didn't want to come to conclusions yet, but it was hard not to. It was in his nature to question and come up with theories.

Chapter Text

"Glisten, my shiny friend!~" Dandy greeted loudly as he entered Glisten's room, bothering to announce himself this time.
Glisten was sitting on the very edge of his bed, staring absentmindedly at the wall in front of him. It's been a while since Glisten cleaned his room properly, Dandy noticed. It looked more like a room Shrimpo would own rather than the pretty fashion man such as Glisten. "Huh?" Glisten looked over at Dandy, looking confused for a few moments before his face turned to one of uneasiness. He stood up, going over to talk to Dandy eye to eye. Which was a bit of a threatening gesture to Dandy, since the toon was already a tall one and being loomed over isn't exactly Dandy's favorite thing. "I haven't seen you since... Well, yesterday morning! What's that I heard about a twisted being brought here?" Glisten questioned, sounding concerned. Albeit Dandy thought he was probably was more concerned for himself rather than others. Dandy could only back up a bit, raising his hands, "woah there. Too many questions! Tell me, do you have any spare clothing?" Dandy was not going to give an answer to anything Glisten was looking for. The mirror based toon crossed his arms, glaring down at Dandy. "Well, I won't be giving it to you!"

"Why not? Was it something I said?" Dandy asked sheepishly, he needed to borrow clothes for Sol, and getting Glisten mad at him right now wouldn't exactly benefit him very well. Glisten furrowed his eyebrows, squinting his eyes slightly at Dandy, giving him a long look before relaxing his shoulders. "I guess I'll trust your judgement."

"Great! I need a tank top, blue shorts, and a pair of sunglasses!" Dandy requested, giving Glisten one of his best grins.
"I have no idea why I'm even willing to do this. It's feels so unnecessary and enabling of me," Glisten sighed, going over to his closet. He had a few pairs of tank tops of different colors. "What color should the tank top be?" He asked, glancing over his shoulder at Dandy. Dandy walked over to Glisten, taking a peek in his closet. "Hm... I guess since there's no black one... How about that yellow one?" Dandy pointed at a light yellow tank top. Glisten took it out, handing it do Dandy, "Sure."
Glisten happened to have some blue shorts and pink-tinted sunglasses instead of black ones.
"This outfit combo is a mess," Glisten shook his head as he handed Dandy the last pieces of clothing, disappointed with how the outfit looked. "Yeah, well, I'm not really sure our new friend cares about style," Dandy shrugged.
"Obviously."

...

"I'm back!" Dandy announced to Sol, who was staring at a wall that he wouldn't stop bumping into. "You good there, bud?" Dandy asked, taking Sol by his wrist and sitting him down on the now freshly cleaned carpet. The whole room smelled like strawberries. Sol's red eyes glanced around, flicking between the clothes, the walls around him and the ceiling. "So~" Dandy drew out, grabbing the hem of Sol's ripped tank top and pulled it off him. It was a struggle trying to figure out how to keep Sol still, the twisted was restless due to more than a few factors. Dandy couldn't blame him. At least he was covered in fresh new clothing.
"Hopefully you won't stain or rip these, Glisten really loves his clothes, you know?"
The twisted toon, unexpectedly, didn't register a word Dandy said. Immediately after he got his new clothes, Sol just did his walking around all over again. Dandy didn't mind, since it was basically a common behavior shared between twisteds. Even he caught himself wandering around mindlessly at some points of the day, but managed to shake himself out of the trance.

Dandy went over to lay down in his makeshift bed, willing to relax, to enjoy some peace and quiet.

...

Sprout and Cosmo were together in the kitchen, sitting at the table as they waited for their guests to come. Cosmo was humming a tune to himself, waiting patiently. Sprout on the other side was tapping the top of the table, making light rhythmic noise.
Just after another minute of waiting, the door opened and the bell rang. Shelly and Vee entered the kitchen.
Sprout stood up, going up to them with wide open arms, "there you are! Come on, no time to waste, let's get to baking!"
Shelly smiled awkwardly, giving a light wave.
"Hey guys!" Cosmo himself greeted, hopping off the chair to come to them. "So, what should we bake today?" Cosmo asked, looking over at Sprout. "I know, we could bake a big cake for everyone!" Shelly piqued, looking a very excited to bake with her friends. "Or we could bake cupcakes for each toon, but decorated and flavored differently according to their likes and dislikes," Vee offered, seemingly proud at her idea.
"For sure! That sounds beautiful!" Sprout immediately agreed with Vee's idea. Shelly couldn't help but frown a bit.
"I think I already know what flavors most of the toons like, Shrimpo doesn't like anything too sweet or too bitter, so he sticks to the ever so classic vanilla flavor, Scraps likes the flavor of mixed fruits, Goob likes chocolate, specifically the white one..." Sprout listed on.
"Woah, that's actually impressive," Shelly's enthusiasm returned as she listened in awe, "I could never remember even a third of that!"
Vee nudged her lightly, snickering, "That's because of your little dinosaur brain! It doesn't need to worry about something like 'what is somebodies favorite flavor.' Believe me."

"Alright! So let's first get the ingredients..." Cosmo announced, going over to the kitchen cabinets to take out a bag of Wheat, flour, butter, milk, sugar, salt, egg and yeast.

The process was simple, but somehow Vee got herself covered in flour in the first two minutes of getting ready and Cosmo had to bring her some baby wipes to clean it all off properly.
Shelly picked up on what was needed, and was doing an alright job, helping Sprout decorate the first batch while Cosmo and Vee were making another batch of cupcakes.
"Oh, boy, Goob is gonna love this one!" Shelly declared as she put some pieces of white chocolate to make an illusion of fluff on the light orange-coated cupcake. "Maybe not the best portrait, but I'm sure he would still like it," Sprout nodded, he himself decorating a cupcake for a toon. He was making Shrimpo a basic vanilla cream filled cupcake with a pinkish and reddish coat, resembling the angry toon's skin. He even decided to make a little fire with the cream, because it felt like a nice touch.
"How are you two holding up?" Vee asked, closing the oven for the new batch to bake before throwing off the mittens from her hands. "Great! I think the others would definitely appreciate the effort!" Sprout grinned, showing off his masterpiece to Cosmo and Vee. "It looks great!" Cosmo gave a small thumbs up.

"Wait, we probably need to give Pebble a different kind of cupcake. I'm not sure he can eat sweets without getting sick..." Shelly was unsure about what they could do with Pebble's treat, it wouldn't be too nice of them to make Dandy's pet sick. "Oh, yeah, hold that thought!" Sprout ran out of the kitchen, leaving the others confused.
"I have a feeling his solution to this is 'canned pet food and a piece of bone,'" Vee commented, earning a shrug from Cosmo, "I think he might have something more creative!"

...

Vee was right, Sprout brought a can of pet food, dumped it on a seperate plate and shaped it into a cupcake before putting a bone on it.
"See?" Vee looked over at Cosmo, raising her digital eyebrows at him.

"So, how many cupcakes did we make already?" Shelly asked, sitting down on a stool to rest her feet. Baking is hard.
"About 18," Vee calculated. "Great job everybody! Just four more and then we can rest." Sprout beamed with pride at this charity they are doing.
Shelly sighed, putting her hands on her knees. This was hard work, definitely, but at least the other toons would be pleasantly surprised. "Can we decorate our own cupcakes how we want now?"
"That's a splendid idea Shelly! I mean, obviously, who doesn't want to decorate a cupcake they're going to eat? Come on, Cosmo, let's finish up!"

Shelly decorated her cupcake with beige colors, primarily green, making a classic looking triceratops with chocolate sticks as horns.
"Looking good there, Shelly!" Cosmo complimented, showing off his own cupcake. His design was mostly full of bright rainbow colors and a sun in the center. "Aw, that's so cute!" She complimented in return. "Thanks!"
"You're all finished already?" Vee questioned. She was still working on decorating her cupcake, bright green cream on top of the cupcake, but still planning out if she should decorate her face on the cupcake or something else. "I'm not! I'm adding the last touch just now!" Sprout was making a general strawberry themed cupcake, adding the last touch of a strawberry on top. It wasn't nothing too decorated, but the simplicity made it look good. "Now I can call it finished!"
"Classy. What should I put on mine?"
"Well... Since you already started with green, you could make your face!" Sprout offered.
"Or maybe a dinosaur? We can match our cupcakes!" Shelly put her hands up in the air, jumping up at her idea.
"Hm... Yeah... Yeah, I could do that."
"What dinosaur is your favorite?" Shelly asked excitedly, she didn't have a chance to talk to Vee about that topic yet. "I don't know... Maybe Spinosaurus?" Vee shrugged her shoulders, unsure which one she could possibly pick. They were all just massive lizards, after all.
"Really? Why?" Shelly jumped up and down, buzzing with excitement to continue this conversation. "They... Look more interesting than the classic T-rex?" She drew out, unsure.
"Okay! So you only like how they look or do you like-" Shelly was cut off by Sprout. "Alright, alright, Shelly, no time for that! Vee needs to finish her cupcake and then we can give them all out to the others."
Shelly frowned slightly at the scolding.

Shelly helped Vee try to make her cupcake resemble a spinosaurus the best they can, and, it turned out relatively good. "Those look so cute! Me and Sprout should've made matching cupcakes too," Cosmo couldn't help but make some compliments yet again, it didn't hurt to be nice. "Alright, guys, no stalling!" Sprout announced, stepping in front of everyone like some soldier that was going to war, "let's hand those cupcakes out!"
"...I have a feeling we forgot about something," Cosmo mumbled a bit after a long pause of silence between them.

Cosmo, Sprout, Vee and Shelly went to give out cupcakes from toon to toon.
"Ew, what's that?!" Shrimpo complained, picking up the cupcake from the bottom with only two fingers like it was poisonous. "Uh... It's a cupcake," Vee stated blankly, leaving actually nothing to respond to. But Shrimpo always was the one to continue until he said the last words in the conversation.
"I hate cupcakes!! Too sweet!!!" He stomped his foot on the ground, making a big ruckus out of this. "It has vanilla in it, just how you-" Sprout was rudely interrupted by a finger being poked in his direction, "shut it! I hate vanilla!!!"
"But-"
"It's so bland and disgusting!!! I hate it!!"

Sprout sighed, walking away from Shrimpo's unneeded shouting, and the others followed after him. "I swear, that toon will be the death of me..."
"Literally," Vee grumbled.
"Remember that one time he pushed Finn towards a twisted version of Boxten just because Finn stole his medkit?" Cosmo commented. "Yeah! Always the ungrateful... Dirt eating..." Sprout continued mumbling family-friendly insults. Half incoherent, words slurred together in one hateful sentence. "Woah there, buddy, what are you being fishy about here?" Coincidentally, Finn was right there, sitting on a nearby bench fixing up his fishing rod that wasn't in the best state. Shelly perked up, "hey, Finn!" She took a cupcake from the plate, one with an icy blue base and a creamy goldfish on top. "Woah, for me? That's shrimp-tastic!" Finn set his fishing rod aside, taking the cupcake with a bright grin, showing off the gap where his tooth should've been. "No problem, friend! Have you seen others around?" Shelly asked. Sprout was still sulking in the background, with Cosmo trying to reassure him Shrimpo was just being Shrimpo, nothing else, nothing personal. "Well... Let me think 'bout it... Hm, yeah, I saw Glisten leave his room earlier. I think he went to Rodger's."
"I guess those are our next targets," Vee commented, already beginning to head in the direction of Rodger's room. "You guys giving out free cupcakes to everyfish out there?" Finn called out. "Yeah! We made every cupcake for each toon!" Cosmo confirmed. "Awesome! Keep up the good work!"

Glisten and Rodger were sitting on the floor together, talking to eachother while Toodles was drawing on the floor in front of them with crayons. Their chatter was interrupted by Vee opening the door, "we bring gifts!"
"Gifts?" Glisten raised a brow, placing a hand on his chest. "For moi?"
"For all of you."
"Yay! Cupcakes!" Toodles jumped up, going over to the plate of cupcakes that Vee was holding. "Can I have that one?" Toodles asked, pointing at a pink and yellow cupcake. "No, that's Glisten's. Yours is this one," Vee picked up Toodles' cupcake, a grey and white cupcake resembling Toodles' face. She handed her the cupcake. "Oh, okay!" Toodles went back to sit on the floor, muching on her cupcake happily. Like most kids, she had a sweet tooth.
"Well, I usually try to avoid many junk foods and sweets, as I'm on a diet, but... I guess a cheat day won't hurt," Glisten took his own respective cupcake, already knowing what it was based on the colors alone. Rodger also took his own cupcake, a brown cupcake with a black question mark on it. He set it aside for later to eat.
"That must be the ugliest cupcake I've ever seen, the colors are not it!" Glisten chuckled, but he averted his gaze awkwardly when Rodger glared at him. "Ah, you're so very polite." "Oh, dear, you know I'm joking."
Rodger rolled his eye, letting out a small snicker himself, "I'm also joking."
"So, no hard feelings?"
"I don't know why there would be."

They left the room, leaving Rodger, Toodles and Glisten to continue what they were doing.
"What a doofus, annoying little... shrimp... I hope he combusts one day..." Sprout continued grumbling about Shrimpo, definitely not over the disrespect and humiliation.
"Woah, don't say that! I know he was rude, but come on, don't say that," Cosmo tried to keep Sprout calm. It was a hard task. When Sprout wanted to hold a grudge, it was hard to convince him not to. "No, I will say exactly what I want to because if Shrimpo can be rude to everyone and everything, then so can I be to him!"

"Calm down, Sprout, it's really not that big of a deal," Vee shook her head, she didn't understand why this was a huge problem.
Shelly, not wanting any further conversation regarding this situation, changed the subject, "who's next?"
"I believe Goob and Scraps should be next, let's see if we can find them," Cosmo hummed in thought.

Chapter Text

Dandy hadn't worked in a long while. He noticed a lot less people were actually going on supply runs these days too. He was applying some eye drops in the twisteds eyes, maybe that could get Sol to look more normal. It did whiten up Sol's eyes, but they still had some reddish pinkish tint left in them.
A knock on the door made Dandy let go off of Sol, the twisted toon scrambled over to the noise, instincts are no doubt always first in a mindless twisted. "Alright, bud, out the way," Dandy grabbed his wrist and pulled him aside before opening the door. Sprout, Cosmo, Shelly and Vee were at the door holding a plate with one cupcake left in the middle. It looked like there were other cupcakes before based off of the stains on the plate. The moment the door opened, Sol was trying to chase them, but Dandy kept pulling him back.

Sprout jumped back when he saw Sol trying to charge at them, startled, "good to see you're keeping the twisted in check..." He mumbled a bit. Still feeling bitter from the exchange between him and Shrimpo.
"That's the 'sun-based' toon? Looks far from it," Vee put her hands on her hips, tilting her head to the side. She wasn't impressed.
"Well!... He's just a star still waiting to shine, yeah?" Dandy tried to retort.
"Here's a cupcake for you! You can share it with you friend there," Shelly took the cupcake and handed it immediately to Dandy. They all did not need to be near a twisted right now, even Dandy might fail keeping him in check. The cupcake itself was covered in a white coat, with a rainbow petaled flower on top. "Oh, goodie! What's it filled up with?" He questioned, taking the cupcake before moving back. He made sure go pull the twisted back as well so he isn't as close to his other friends. He had a happy grin on his face, not expecting to get a free treat today.
"Since you never told us exactly what you like, I decided to go with the safe option and put vanilla in it," Sprout shrugged, it was true that Dandy and him never had conversations about favorite sweets or flavors, since Dandy was always 'too busy to think about it' as he said. "Oh! I guess I didn't. I like lemons on my cupcakes," The rainbow toon stated.
"Lemons?" Shelly asked, confused. She wasn't a big fan of lemons, let alone putting them on her sweets. Wouldn't the lemons just ruin the sweet flavor? Vee looked over at her, "it's called a lemon cupcake, they're actually pretty nice as far as I know."
"Ooh..."
"I can get you one tomorrow," Vee offered, to which Shelly nodded.

A moment of silence came upon them. Both parties unsure what else to say.
"We better get going now!" Cosmo announced, "have a great day, Dandy!"
With that their little group left, leaving Dandy to himself.

As soon as they left Sol just went to plop himself down on the carpet.
"You hungry?" Dandy asked, sitting down besides the twisted toon. Sol paid him no mind.
"Okay! So, you will eat and you will like it," Dandy separated a small chunk of the cupcake, just about a quarter of the cupcake's original size. He put the piece of cupcake right in front of the toons mouth. "Say 'ahhh'!"
Sol turned his head away, surprisingly reacting to this, and not accepting the cupcake. "Aw, come on, it's really tasty!" Dandy took a bit bite of the cupcake to show the twisted it wasn't anything awful or bad. Nonetheless Sol wasn't interested in Dandy's advances.
"Sheesh... Okay."
Dandy, giving up, ate the whole cupcake himself in peace. The real problem was how was he even going to turn this thing back to it's normal, shiny self.

...

"Do you wanna come with me on a supply run?! I hate you though!!!" Shrimpo asked Teagan loudly. Shrimpo had been asking a few toons he tolerated if they wanted to go on a supply run with him. So far, they all denied.
Teagan herself didn't look impressed at all. She felt pretty repulsed by Shrimpo's loudness. "Well, no! You're so... rude! It would be exhausting to go on a supply run with you." Shrimpo frowned further, his brows furrowing and his eyes squinting at the toon before him. "How... How dare you!! I'm the best! You're the most annoying bitch ever!!!" He stormed off, making sure his shouting was loud and clear. Teagan could only gasp, heavily offended, "why you little...!"
Sprout and his little baker gang were just going back to the kitchen to eat up their cupcakes and chat. They overheard Shrimpo's vulgar insult. Sprout could only scowl as Cosmo placed a hand on his shoulder, sensing Sprout is getting prissy again. "Come on, ignore him, he's always been like that," Cosmo reassured Sprout, who didn't look convinced. "Oh yeah?.. Then why is this the only time he's called someone a real curse word? He's just getting worse with time!"
"I have to agree with Sprout on this one. He never really called someone a b##ch before," Vee tapped her screen in thought. "But, after all, everyones nerves are getting fried in this place slowly. Even if slowly."
"I just don't understand him! Why does he have to be so bitter, loud and rude all the time? I know it's his role but... Come on, it's been years and he's still all the same," Sprout continued his ramblings about Shrimpo, trying to keep his language family friendly but it was getting increasingly hard to.

On the other hand, Shrimpo was already in an elevator, sitting on the ground in annoyance with crossed arms. "Hmph, first Goob, Boxten, Poppy...now Teagan... What the hell man?! Not my fault they can't handle me!" He complained to himself as the elevator began descending to floor one.
The doors opened and he was greeted by the ever so familiar sight.
With an annoyed groan, he stepped onto the floor, the elevator closing behind him. "This is gonna suck!! I hate doing solo supply runs!!!"

Shrimpo tried his absolute best, he sneaked around and made sure he wasn't near any twisted before he began working on machines, slamming his head repeatedly against them for minutes and minutes on end, which felt like hours, as if the rough handling would speed up the process. When he finished the first machine, he noticed a capsule on the ground. "I don't think that was there before?" He picked it up to see for which twisted was it, but suddenly it exploded in his hand, the glass stabbing into his hands and maybe even hitting him in the face. "Aw what the fu-" Shrimpo stumbled back, going behind a wall of boxes that was conveniently right besides him. He fell to his knees and checked his hands, they were already dripping some ichor, and a few pieces of glass were embedded in his palms. "Ow... Fucking hell! Curse you, Rodger! I hate you!!!" He shouted to the twisted toon. He didn't know why he kept falling for these, most say he's an idiot for always activating Rodger, but he just doesn't see the difference between a fake and a real capsule very well. Shrimpo took his time taking out the shards of glass from his palms, grunting and groaning after every few minutes. "I hate these twisteds so much... Ugh! I wish I could-!" Shrimpo was interrupted by a noise signaling he was spotted by a twisted, he span his head around and he noticed it was a twisted version of Teagan. He scrambled up and ran for his life.
Or, well, as fast as he could. He had to run around in circles for Teagan to leave him alone. But she didn't, the twisted was trying too hard to catch him that she reached out while he was making a sharp turn around the boxes, grabbing him by his upper arm and pulling him towards her. The twisted slammed her head against Shrimpo, hitting him in the jaw roughly. Shrimpo could only yelp in pain and run for his life immediately after the twisted let go. He couldn't exactly fight back, especially since he was in a haze. He had only one heart, his jaw throbbed in pain, and his palms hurt. How was he going to survive and tell Dandy to get him out of here? He gulped, feeling not so confident about this. "Just my luck..." He whispered under his breath as he located another machine. He can get himself through this, hopefully.

Shrimpo still, despite the circumstances, kept headbutting the machine while he extracted, his hands stung from turning the valve. The glass in his palms that was stubborn and wouldn't get out just went in deeper with time. Shrimpo quietly complained to himself about everything, making sure he wasn't opening his jaw too much as it did sting really bad. With time and effort, he finished the second machine.
"Two more..." He mumbled unenthusiastically, this would've gone way faster if anyone actually wanted to go with him on a supply run. He didn't understand why everyone was suddenly so lazy.
He did the rest of the machines undisturbed by twisteds, his only enemy were his hands and jaw. By the time he finished all machines, his hands were coated in ichor, staining everything he touched with a great amount of that black substance. "Is this normal?" He asked himself quietly, doing a speed walk over to the elevator while staring at his hands. He almost bumped into twisted Teagan again but he dodged her this time and managed to get into the elevator. He panted heavily, wiping the sweat off his forehead.
Dandy appeared with his little shop, and with a wide grin. "Hey, friend!... Oh, hey, Shrimpo. What happened to you?" Dandy frowned, leaning over the counter of his shop, unsure how Shrimpo managed to get himself in such a bad state. "Shut up!.." He grunted, moving over to check what Dandy had to offer. Gumballs for 10 tapes, chocolate for 30 tapes and 75 tapes for a jumper cable.
Shrimpo slammed his fists on Dandy's countertop, immediately regretting it later, Dandy had to lean back, a bit startled. "You're selling me the most useless stuff!!" He shouted, his jaw hurting from it but he was getting too mad to care. "You're useless!" He pointed an accusing finger at Dandy, who scowled at him and rolled his eyes. "Why do you all want bandaids and medkits so much? Should've hid better, maybe you wouldn't have gotten injured." Dandy definitely wasn't going to give Shrimpo anything to heal himself with. He would've in situations where Shrimpo asked nicely, but at this point it was a hard no.

"Damn you! Can you just get me back up since you won't actually give me useful stuff?" Shrimpo complained, like he always does. Constantly. He moved back from Dandy's little shop, glaring at the other. Dandy stared at him for a while, looking into his eyes to see if there was anything other than hate and annoyance in Shrimpo's eyes. Seeing that Shrimpo is just being himself, arrogant, loud and rude, Dandy just shook his head, "no can do..."
"What do you mean 'no can do' you idiotic flower?!"
Dandy growled under his breath, this toon just kept getting on his nerves for no remote reason. First it was Rodger who was being annoying, now it's Shrimpo. "Alright! I see, well, since you're gonna be like that..." Dandy pulled the lever and went away, Shrimpo tried to grab him and stop him but Dandy just smacked his hand away.

Left alone again, Shrimpo groaned loudly, slumping against the wall and onto the dirty floor of the elevator. "Assholes..." He mumbled to himself. He had a huge pattern In behavior, he noticed that himself. He was getting too predictable. He didn't like that, naturally. The elevator doors opened, Shrimpo didn't get out of the elevator for a few prolonged seconds, but soon he got his determination back. He stood up and went to work. He found nothing on this floor other than a jumper cable he immediately used. It was exhausting, why didn't Dandy let him go back up? He usually let's others to that when they're low or tired. Again, It wasn't his fault Dandy can't handle him! None of them can handle him, and he hates that as well.

He hates a lot of things, it's in his nature, it's always been flowing through the ichor in his body. He let his mind wander, being alone had a lot of perks when it came to thinking and reflecting. He worked on the first machine mindlessly. He swore he heard glass shatter, and his forehead stung in pain, but he finished up mindlessly and went to the second machine, too busy in his own world and thoughts to notice anything else. He didn't really see an active twisted around, there was Razzle and Dazzle on the floor, but Shrimpo didn't encounter the other twisted. He didn't care, he despised twisteds.
He finished up the machines and went back to the elevator slowly, saving up his stamina for critical situations.
His head started throbbing really bad by the time he got inside the elevator. He reached up with his ichor stained hands to touch his forehead, he felt glass and cold liquid under his fingertips. Shrimpo moved his hand away, wiping it against his shirt. The ichor was hard to clean off, and most of it dried on his hands, so he couldn't wipe it off with a dry shirt.

Dandy had put a paper in the middle of the elevator along with a pencil, asking Shrimpo to vote on something. Either for rarer items to appear more often, to decrease the chance of a blackout, or to make machines fill up faster.
Shrimpo chose for the machines to fill up faster. No one really questioned this voting and how can Dandy control these things, which Shrimpo thought was dumb, but then again, it didn't matter much. They were all always alive and well after each supply run, so it wouldn't matter anyways.
The third floor was the same like the previous one, drawn out. Shrimpo walked back into the elevator once he finished the machines, where he was greeted by Dandy, who looked a bit more annoyed than last time upon greeting him. "Spare a flower some tapes, will ya?" He asked, furrowing his brows at Shrimpo's state, but couldn't feel much sympathy for the bitter toon. He was having trouble choosing between not caring and caring. Shrimpo was the cause of more than a few near-death experiences for others. Especially Finn.
"Why do you keep saying that?" Shrimpo asked.
"What do you mean?"
"Is that... like.. One of your signature lines or something? You keep repeating it every once in a while when we finish floor three but don't buy anything after finishing floor one," Shrimpo observed, sounding a bit more exhausted, but still annoyed. Dandy hummed, "well... Yes, you could say that. So, wanna buy something?" Dandy motioned over to the items up for sale, mostly sweets, one being a valve for 150 tapes.
Shrimpo grunted, "can't you just give me some bandaid maybe? I don't have enough tapes for the valve, plus, I hate the valve!" Shrimpo returned back to his angry self, but without overexaggerated movements this time.
Dandy blinked at him, confused on how he's still low on tapes, "... What have you been doing these past few floors?" He questioned in sheer confusion, Shrimpo would say he looks bamboozled, even.
"Doing machines? There's nothing really else to do..." Shrimpo shrugged, unsure how to continue this plain conversation.

"Uh... Well, anyways! Cheer up, will ya? Hopefully you'll get tapes to buy something great next time!" Dandy gave Shrimpo a thumbs up before pulling the level and descending.

...

"How's it going, Goob?" Scraps sat besides her brother, who was making paper boats and coloring them with colourful markers. "Good, sis! I think I'm getting better at making things out of paper!" Goob replied cheerfully, leaning over close to her with a small smile on his face. "Oh, yeah? Nice! Can't wait to see you build a functioning robot with paper," she nudged him lightly, encouraging her brother to continue what he's doing. "But I bet you wouldn't be able to do it even in a hundred years" "Ha, bet!" Goob wrapped his arms around her, giving her a tight hug. "I seal this bet with a hug!"
Scraps giggled, pushing her brother away, "I was just joking, but since you wanna bet... Let's bet! If you don't succeed by the next week, then you need to stop hugging people for two days straight!"
Goob gasped, putting a hand on his chest, "no way, sis!" Goob leaned back against his chair, thinking of his own rule if he does succeed. "Then... If I do win the bet, you can't do arts and crafts for two days!" He dared.
Scraped placed a hand on her face, mocking a shocked expression, "no way...you're evil!" She joked, earning a small laugh from Goob.

"Oh man, you're the best bro I could ever have," Scraps patted Goob on the back. "You know it!" He agreed.
A nice moment of silence fell upon them as Goob went back on coloring his paper boat, humming a small tune to himself.

...

Shrimpo managed to push through to floor ten, although not willingly. He found a medkit on floor five and immediately used it on himself, wrapping his palms up, taking the glass shards from his forehead and wrapping it up in bandages. He didn't buy anything from Dandy, which he has never done before. Or at least he doesn't remember doing so.
When the door to floor 10 opened, he heard a light tune of familiar music. "Huh..." Shrimpo mumbled, feeling a bit uneasy. Shrimpo moved behind some boxes and peeked out of the room he was in, not too far away was a rainbow petaled monster... "What the hell is that? Dandy?" Shrimpo's eyes widened, this is he first time he's seen twisted Dandy. He didn't even know there was a twisted version of him.
But then again, Dandy did say there's a twisted version of everyone...

He tried to tread carefully, there were 5 machines to finish and one was already in the room with him. He worked on it, but paused when he heard the tune of the music grow louder. Unsure and hesitant, Shrimpo stopped extracting the ichor and went to hide behind boxes.
Shrimpo got a better look at Twisted Dandy. Huge thing with a black body, looks made out of ichor, with a few tapes embedded on his body. Dandy looked around with his eyes, stopping every now and then. Shrimpo swore Dandy and him made eye contact, but the twisted didn't head in Shrimpo's direction. That was weird, and a little bit more than unnerving. Was this twisted version of Dandy playing with him? Mocking him? He already hated Dandy as is, so this just made him even more annoyed. The twisted Dandy exited the room soon enough and Shrimpo went to finish the first machine. When he did, he heard heavy footsteps of presumably Dandy coming his way. Shrimpo hurried back behind the boxes, he felt sweaty from this unexplained anxiety. Dandy, yet again, looked around before leaving.

After a minute of waiting for twisted Dandy to move, Shrimpo got to the second machine, which was located in a round hallway in which twisted Dandy was walking around most of the time, and it spiked Shrimpo's nervousness.
While he was midway through the second machine, he failed to notice Dandy turning around the corner in time. So, when he did notice Dandy, the other was already face to face with him. Startled, Shrimpo jumped back, falling hard on the ground.
"Alright, shrimp, tell little old me... Why are you like this?"
Shrimpo stared at the twisted toon, feeling more than just anxiety now. This twisted was directly communication to him. "W- what?..." Shrimpo stammered, pushing himself back with his legs.
"You're like... A pest, a lousy fly in everyone's ear always shouting about how much you hate everyone and everything," Dandy put his arm right behind Shrimpo, halting his small progress in retreating. Shrimpo couldn't respond to that, he already knew he was the annoying bully, that's just what he is. He doesn't know what else he could be.
When given no answer, Dandy furrowed his eyebrows, leaning in closer to Shrimpo, "at least acknowledge what I'm saying. You look like you're too deep in shock to care."

"I..." Shrimpo trailed off, speechless. He didn't know he was going to be scolded by a giant twisted version of Dandy today.

...

Boxten and Poppy spent their evening cleaning up the whole place, lending a helping hand to other toons. They also were doing charity work themselves. Glisten was one of the people to request a cleaning of his room, and they cleaned it the best they could.
"Thanks, cutie pies, I've been stalling on cleaning my room for weeks now..." Glisten sighed dramatically, sitting on his now-made bed with a hand placed on his chest.
"N- no problem, we like to help!" Boxten sheepishly responded, happy that Glisten was happy. "Yeah! Your room was a mess, never thought you'd be the one to stall about cleaning?" Poppy put aside a broom that they used to clean up crumbs and other smaller particles on the ground.
Glisten chuckled awkwardly, waving a dismissive hand at them. "I've heard that before. Tisha usually cleans my room every month or so, but this month the poor girl had other stuff to worry about, so I let her go."

"Sheesh! What happened?" Poppy asked, eager for answers. She was the more bubbly of the two, and she took pride in that. "Well, I heard Pebble managed to trash Sprout's whole room because Sprout didn't give him an extra treat like he usually does every day. Tisha had to clean up all that mess, and, I didn't want to stress her out too much." Glisten explained himself, patting the spots beside him for Poppy and Boxten to sit, which they did.
"Y- yeah, we heard about the Pebble incident... That rock makes me nervous," Boxten mumbled.
"Why?" Glisten asked curiously, "you don't like dogs?"
"No... I- I mean, yes! I do, but they can be overwhelming for me."
Glisten nodded thoughfully, "I think I get it. They can be if they want to. And Pebble always wants to be overwhelmingly hyper."

...

They were both staring at each other in silence, Dandy himself didn't know how he should go through with this. Should he just kill Shrimpo and revive him later, like he would always do if one of the toons fails miserably at surviving, or should he let Shrimpo run away to finish up the machines?
Dandy chose the latter, he lifted his head up and looked at the yet to be finished machine, pretending he was thinking about something.
Shrimpo, taking that moment, scrambled up and ran for his life back into the room where he came from, hiding behind the same place that he has been camping at for almost an hour.

"I hate twisted Dandy..." Shrimpo muttered under his breath, feeling a bit shaky. This felt like some surreal nightmare.
Shrimpo might've been fine, he had three hearts after all. But those sharp claws... It didn't look like he could survive from one hit, so he felt lucky that he managed to get away.
He waited for twisted Dandy to move, before he went back to finish up the machine. He checked left and right every few seconds, just to make sure that doesn't happen again. His anxiety was through the roof.
He finished the second machine, then the third, then the fourth and then the fifth. It was a bit of a struggle because every time he failed to turn the valve correctly, Dandy would come rushing to check on the machine, and when he finished the machine, Dandy would immediately come rushing again. It was a new thing, and Shrimpo despised it.

He finally finished the floor and went to floor eleven.
On floor eleven nothing much happened, there was a twisted Cosmo and a twisted Poppy.
He managed to survive them alright,
When he came to the elevator Dandy greeted him, like always, with his humble little shop.
"What the hell was that?.." Shrimpo asked, glaring at Dandy, fists clenched.
"Let's just say you saw nothing," Dandy smiled slightly before motioning over to the items for sale. Useless things, like always.
"Huh." Shrimpo was confused on why Dandy said that. "Whatever... Can you just get me back up?"
"Will you give me your tapes?" Dandy raised a brow, smiling in a friendly manner as he reached out his hand for Shrimpo to hand him over some tapes.
Shrimpo grunted, taking out the tapes that he conveniently stashed in his shirt, he had only about three hundred tapes of them. Dandy gladly took them, "Finally! I still have no idea how you have so little, but, thanks!" Dandy put the tapes behind him on the floor in the corner of his secluded little shop.

...

Teagan and Astro were having a small tea party.
"How was your day today, dear?" She asked, taking a small sip of her tea. The sleepy toon gave a small shrug, yawning. "Okay..." He responded shortly. "You know, I've only seen you in your room these days. Are you feeling well?" Teagan asked, concerned for her tired friend. "If you can't sleep, you could always come by my room, people say I have the softest bed!" She offered. Astro smiled a bit at her concern, giving a nod, "I'll think about it... How are you?..."
"Splendid! Nothing special happened today to mention, I mostly spent my day visiting friends."

The two continued chatting, it was a slow day for most of the toons.

Shrimpo himself got back to the lobby, earning the concerned attention from Finn, who was still on the bench with his fishing rod. His fishing rod looked even more mangled up than before. "Woah, buddy! What's got you looking like that?" Finn asked, setting his fishing rod aside and going over to check up on Shrimpo. "I'm fine! I just went on a supply run," Shrimpo didn't want to mention his encounter with twisted Dandy. "Why didn't you ask me to come with you? I mean, look at ya!" Finn motioned over to Shrimpo's bandaged up wounds. Shrimpo could only roll his eyes, "well... I hate you!"
Finn sighed, "we all know that, but- listen, it's okay to ask for help sometimes. Y'know?"
Shrimpo blinked at Finn a few times, raising a brow. "Since when do you give out life advice?"
Finn shrugged, earning an annoyed grumble from Shrimpo, "fine! I'll think about it..." "That's good! At least you'll consider it!"
"Yeah, yeah, whatever."
Shrimpo left to his room to change up the bandages, before plopping on his bed in exhaustion.
What an awful day.