Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It's been a week. A weeks? Maybe a month? Honestly, Poppy lossed the think of time.

It's surely been some time as the GardenView was closed. Why? Well, they could only think of it. The building was left closed with all the toons inside. Honestly, Poppy wasn't sure how they got to ToonCity either. Sure, it's been fun meeting new toons and places she never saw or even dreamed of, but as the time passed she and other toons around started to notice something was off with Dandy.

As they realised there was surely something wrong with Dandy it was already too late. That's probably how Poppy ended up in this whole situation. She pushed the ruined bricks off herself. Wounded and with her muscled burning she stepped up, looking at what one was GardenView, her house and the ToonCity turned to ruins. When the air hit her lungs she couldn't help but cough, as the strong, spicy smell of ichor pushed her away.

What did Dandy do? Why did he do that? Since the day everyone leave Poppy seemed there was way too many questions she just couldn't find an answer to.

With shaky steps and bruised legs she walked down the ruined, fallen wall. Avoiding the pitch black ichor puddle she moved on to what once was a place of warmth and play. A place where she found friends and was born in. She stopped right where the enterance would be. She knows it would be here. It's like coded in her brain

"Hello? Someone here..?" Poppy forced herself to finaly spoke, even if her voice was rasy and almost hurtfull to use. But she really didn't want to be alone at that moment.

"Poppy...?" To her surprise, and extreme relief, a very well known voice responded almost right after

"Boxten!!" She almost laughed in relief that washed through her body, as she saw the purple colored music box stepping out from behind one of the still holding fragments of the wall, coughing a bit, probably also from the smell of ichor.

Poppy couldn't help but run to her friend without hesitation. She wrap her hands around him in a hug, searching for a bit of company she mostly was giving. Boxten returned the hug after half of a second.

"W-what happened? I swear I was just in my room when I heard some explosion and then..." the music box pulled away, scratching the back of his head and looking down, getting Poppy to know he probably get lost in thoughs or probably don't even remember what happened after that.

Poppy's response was a shrug, as her eyes didn't even stop to look at him.

"We need to find others" she lead him through the ruins by holding his wrist.

"Wait- are you sure? They can be around the whoe city, not everyone was in the GardenView when that happened" Boxten sweat a bit. From his point of view they probably should hide somewhere. Poppy did realise it's better option at one point, but even with her energetic herself she had a concern for others still.

"Yes I do! The thing couldn't get to the whole city, right?" She tried to answer in more confident tone, but just looking around herself made her feel like the whole place was corrupted by the earlier action. Even the sky seemed, or even was, that wasn't her imaginasion, yellow.

"Guys!" Poppy almost jumped, even more Boxten, hearing a voice behind them. There was Scraps, waving to them from down, keeping Goob close behind. Lucky, they probably were together when that happened - Poppy was still frightened from waking up alone under a stack of ruins.

The bubble girl walked down slowly until her legs touched the lightbrown ground, Boxten following behind. Poppy started to notice that the place looked a lot like just a huge bomb went through it. She also noticed Goob holding one of his eyes while tearing up a bit, and the worried, almost forced smile on Scraps' face as one of her paper ears was folded down.

"At least there's someone else" Scraps sighed in relief, almost the same Poppy felt that there are more people who were safe and sound.

"We still didn't check the basement" Goob shivered a bit, mumbling that sentence.

"Right... we heard some noises from the basement, just were about to go there" his sister explained, turning again to Poppy and Boxten, giving them a quite clear sign they are rather expected to follow.

Poppy nodded, a determination to find others still in her. Boxten swallowed hard, but also nodded, not to seem this weak.

The bubble girl could feel the ground under her feet. Dry, almost burning. But she followed Goob and Scraps still. She also couldn't help but watch how the enterance to the basement was covered in black ichor. Yet she was the one to actually pull the enterance, leading by ladder to the room under the now ruined GardenView.

All four stepped down, surprisingly to some Boxten was the second one to go down and he did it pretty quickly. Goob still holded one of his eyes, feeling severe pain in it. Passing the walls, desks, shelves and posters Poppy could, once again, feel reliefed when she spotted a green, recognisible light comming from the last room. She peeked inside, seeing, as expected, Vee.

But before she could call out Poppy stopped herself, seeing as the TV-headed gameshow host was tightening the grip on her microphone, something she did when deep in thoughs, stressed or unsure about something, like a touch of comfort. It didn't take too long to notice what's going on, as a pair of bloody red eyes was staring right at Vee, yet she didn't do a move to get out.

Not the same did Scraps, almost screaming when she noticed the same as her tail went straight in shock.

The pupils of red eyes went thin, as a huge, deformed and ichor covered version of Shelly jumped out of the shadow. Just then Vee actually backed away, joining the others and almost pushing them out the way as the twisted dinosaur started the pursue with growling and dark saliva dripping down their mouth.

Poppy waked up after a second, her eyes going wide as she turned around and run, the fright giving her a slight boost, bigger than others did. No matter if someone shout it or keep quiet, they all went, sorry - run - to the exit. Poppy was first on the leader, Scraps and Goob following after with Vee at the end. Boxten barely missed Shelly's teeth, mostly thanks to Goob, who pulled him up.

They all sit on the ground, trying to catch a breathe.

"What was that?! What happened to Shelly?" Scraps yelled, tugging on her own tail.

Vee fixed her anntenae and dust off her body.

"Ichor" she simply said

"Huh?" Goob tilted his head, his hand pulled away from his eye, showing off the slightly red, tearing up eye he was hiding in pain

"The whole explosion happened in basement, right after Dandy pulled Shelly there. Somehow this worked on everything around and we have... this mess" Vee sighed, explaining futher what happened. Honestly, Poppy wanted to ask how did she knew that, but decided to keep quiet.

"This ichor thing is cursed..." Boxten shivered and moved away from a small puddle of the liquid he spotted dangerously close to his hand.

"And... Shelly?" Poppy finaly got her voice back.

"That's not even Shelly anymore. Maybe a mere left over of her" Vee responded, her voice more cold than snarky.

"We- we shouldn't focus on this now! We should focus on... I don't know, maybe a safe spot? Or... a weapon! If some of those... twisted things will even come close to me I don't want to be spotted in the open view..." Scraps pulled herself up, Goob standing after her.

Poppy looked down for a moment before taking a breathe. She glanced at the enterance to the basement before slowly nooding in agreedment. Boxten in meantime went up to the ruins again, probably to look for some stuff.

"Uh... hey ya guys...?" Boxten called them. Other four climbed up, just to see how with a noisy bang something from under the ground breaks and a whole river of dark ichor starts to run down it's own made path. Poppy was silent, Boxten hold his breathe, Scraps' eyebrows furrowed in worry, Goob covered his mouth in fright while Vee once again grabbed the microphone tighter.

So. The five found themselfs in a new, almost imposible to think of reality. Poppy wasn't sure if she should be happy because that's not their end, or if she should cry because that's the begining.

Chapter Text

"My head..."

Tisha groaned, getting up from the ground and dusting off her dress. Fixing her tissue to not be bended, she looked around the place. What once was GardenView and the city was a mess! But honestly thinking Tisha never though it's a good idea to live in this place at all. And those other toons... since the day one she had a lot more work than normaly, as the toons visiting GardenView obviousily didn't even knew how to clean their shoes before entering the building...

The blue tissue box was now standing in the middle of... surely something. Ruins, dust and puddles of ichor. The smell in the air made Tisha cover her nose in disgust.

Looking around she spotted her feather duster laying under few pieces of what once surely was a wall. She kneeled over and grabbed it, pulling it out. It came out with a loud "Snap!!" and when Tisha looked at it she realised it broke into two pieces. She groaned, of course upset about it. She had this duster since she was created...

Her thinking was stopped by the growl behind her. Turning around, her heart stopped by the sight of one of the ichor puddles shaking, when a deep black creature resembling a toon formed out of it, letting out a loud screech. Before it even formed fully Tisha got up and run away. All those days of working made her pace quite fast as she jumped down the left overs of the building on the bare ground.

She hid behind one of the still standing buildings, calming her breathe quickly to not give too much sound. She did not know what that was or did it followed her, she just knew she somehow managed to hide. At least for now.

Tissue box looked up at the sky, looking where the building she was leaning against raised. It seemed to almost touch the clouds. Maybe it did...? She turned her head towards the broken door before taking a breathe and grabbing her left handle of the feather duster tighter, as she walked in.

Going up the stairs of the cold, dead seeming place Tisha started to wonder. What happened? She did remember that she was surely cleaning after the visitors left. She was outside, washing the windows. Then was this explosion, she didn't remember it much because she passed out, but that surely left a half of a second mark in her memory. Sure, the explosion was huge, but... it wasn't this bad to make the whole city look like an atomic bomb fell on it, right? Or did it...?

If it it, how did she survive that?

Is she the only one alive...?

Out of thinking she almost tripped on one of the stairs. How long did she walked up like this...? Ehh, she was somewhere in the half of the way.

Thinking of a little break she stepped on the floor she was currently on. The room she was in was quite a thin hallway, around six doors on the both sides of the walls. The hallway had some painting hanged and shelves, along with some basic decoration. Getting through her disgust and feeling of need to clean it up a bit, Tisha walked through it to the big window on the end. Looking through it, she placed her hand on the thin glass. The world really seemed like it ended, the ground with no grass, visible puddles of ichor flowing, yellow sky... how did it all happened in one day?

"Tisha?"

Tisha almost jumped through the window as she turned around, pointing the spiky part of duster at the person behind her, which was... Razzle & Dazzle?

"Woah, calm down Tisha! It's just us!" Razzle raised his controled hand, while Dazzle backed his head a bit in fear.

The tissue box sighed in relief.

"I'm sorry, I though it was... some... never mind" she put her 'weapon' down "You just surprised me"

"We were just looking around a bit for some helpfull stuff! (Sorry for scaring you...)"

"Oh?" Tisha tilted her head "And? Did you succed?" of course she herself was very reliefed to find someone she knew but trying to get used to the world they were in Tisha also knew that she surely could use some helfull stuff right now.

Razzle nodded his head, showing off his teeth in smile before together with Dazzle turning away and putting something on their heads. As they turned back they had something that was some type of hat made out fully of sticks and some leafs.

"It's a camufflage! Dazzle read about it in the uh... Uhm... (Book club...) Right! When he was in the book club!" It was pretty obvious Razzle was too focused on everything else when Dazzle was in the book club with others, no way Razzle could read one page of book in silence without comenting or lossing his attention.

"Ah, I see" Tisha nodded her head "So... you more made it than found it then"

"I mean, the sticks laid on the ground... (We found other things)" This time Dazzle reached his hand to grab a dark grey bag they were wearing and showed what's inside. Tisha recognised a flashlight, survival book, bottle of water and a small box of bandages.

"At least that's something. How did you end up here?" she nodded her head before asking.

"Well, we were on the walk and then... uh..." Razzle got lost or forget what happened "(There was an explosion. We didn't had time to hide and Razzle passed out first)" his twin spoked his vision of the accident.

"Guess it's three of us then" Tisha grabbed a piece of the ripped cloth that was stuck on the corner of one cabinet, wrapping it around her hand. Like in those action movies.

She turned back to the window, so did the comedy and drama mask. Three of them looked as the ichor created once again monsters. Tisha shivered, but that only made her grab her duster tighter. Guess for now she had to forget cleaning rooms, she had something else to tidy up.

"We're not going to die, at least not now" she sighed but made a determined face after "We will be survivors of it. Razzle, you're reading that survival book so you won't get lost"

"Oh boy..."

Chapter Text

The shook mostly went away. Maybe that was the reason Poppy felt so cold last days and saw everyone acting the same.

She and the other four start to talk more like in past, not looking at what happened, or trying to forget about it. What she got to know was that Boxten was next to Dandy's store in the lobby but don't quite remember what happened exactly except having a massive headache.

Scraps and Goob were with each other. They actually were away when that happened, but when both of them reached the ruins of GardenView, or at least had those in sight, a wierd, creppy looking creature attacked them, that's why Goob have scratch on his eye. The eye is slightly red with strange black tears flowing out, but Scraps says that it will surely pass.

Vee was prepparing for the next gameshow when the 'explosion' happened. She entered the basement not much faster than them and was staring at Shelly since the twisted didn't react to something that didn't move. She already blamed Scraps for that. Besides what happened it was clear that Vee's 'hatered' towards Scraps still was there, somewhere inside. And probably wouldn't be gone for long.

"Sooo... what now?" Scraps turned around and walk to the back while looking at them.

That was honestly a good question. The GardenView is destroyed, there is probably more creatures like Shelly, which is real for sure, thanks to Scraps's and Goob's story. Also, they might be only toons alive, or at least last toon alive in the nearest locations. Poppy start to think. After that bit of time spended with others some of her energetic and leading character came back.

"What abouuut..." she tap her chin before snapping her fingers and a small smirk formed on her face "The shopping centre? It's huge, surely there is some things around there left"

"That's... not the worst idea. We could find some heals or food. Maybe even a safe spot" Boxten smiled, looking around and nodding in the agree to this plan.

"There also can be lots of these creatures like Shelly..." added Vee, her voice kinda glichy and like hiden behind the fog.

"Oh, come on Vee! It's not like we have any better options" Scraps jumped a bit.

"Like you're the one to talk" the TV toon rolled her eyes "I would just like to remind that I'm not best at running"

"We'll take the risk" Poppy placed hands on her hips "We're the survivors after all!"

"Survivors?" Goob tilted his head while Boxten raised a brow.

"Yeah! Like- we ARE survivors after all, right? And besides, we need some nickname" Poppy shrugged.

"I... I..." Goob looked down before his eyes shined and his whole face lighted up "I love it!"

"Ya see? Goob gets it!" The bubble says proudly before continuing to lead them. Others chuckled a bit or shook their head but all started to follow.

The world still was wierd and gave the unsafe feeling. Or the feeling of something constantly staring at them. But having others around Poppy managed to get at least a part of herself back. She fixed her bow in quick move before keeping on walking among the dry ground, remembering to avoid the puddles of ichor still.

Soon the sound of flowing water and too known smell hit them. They were standing in front of the ichor river again, but now just a bit of steps ahead.

Boxten grimanced a bit.

"I think we need to cross through it..." he pointed out, a bit uneasy just thinking about it.

Scraps looked around before her ears let out a rustling sound as she walked to the right. Few stones were stickng out from the liquid. She wiggled her tail before jumping on the first one, her claws digging and scratching it as she tried to control her balance. As she stood still she let out a reliefed sigh, before turning to others.

"Come on! That's the nearest way to cross it for now" she called through the sound of ichor hitting the stones and jumping on the next one.

Poppy felt fright and adrenaline at the same time. She walked over then made a quick jump. Her heart stopped when her feet touched the stone but started slipping a bit. She felt a hand pushing her from the back and spot Goob gently holding her for safety. As she kept her balance she nodded a quick thanks before she kept on going.

Scraps were at the last stone, the third one.

"There's one big jump here!" She warned the toons behind her before pushing herself off the stone and landing on the ground with loud thump. Poppy slowly followed. As she touched the safe ground again she turned around just to see Boxten falling on her, not giving any time to react. He blinked slowly before getting off her.

"Sorry- did it fast out of panic" he scratched the back of his head in nervousness, as the bubble toon smirked softly and started to giggle.

Next was Goob, who crossed without much of a problem. Last was Vee, who didn't seem so convinced at that. Maybe it was because any liquid could do damage to her.

"Come on, Vee! You can do it!" Poppy called. The gameshow host jumped on the first stone, getting her balance back quickly. But as she go the same with second she actually slipped on the third one. Luckily, Goob grabbed her in time and pulled her towards them

"You could do that quicker... but thanks" she said, wipping a drop of ichor off her face, being honest as always. That's just Vee.

The shopping centre was seen in the distance, but around it or at least most was surrounded by a small cliff. Poppy swallowed hard when she heard the water again but turned out it's really just water this time. The way above the cliff with river at the bottom was all around or by the thin pass formed out of ground and mud, right above the water.

"No way I'm going through that..." Vee said, but before she could even finish, a sound of aggresive growls and snarling was heard behind them. Around three of the twisteds, two formed in one body, which looked even more disgusting, were clearly taking them as the prey.

Boxten's eyes opened wide and he took a step back, same did Poppy and others, with or without stepping away. As the first twisted charged and run at him Poppy turned around in panic.

"RUN!!"

All five of them get onto the formed 'bridge'. Poppy somewhere in the middle with Goob and Scraps leading, also Boxten slightly in front too. The ground under them was clearly slippery, it was hard to keep on but Poppy kept on running, even if one of her legs made a wierd move or go into the side where it shouldn't. As they almost reached the end, the bubble girl heard a splash of water behind her. She looked around, seeing both of the twisteds behind.

Wait, Goob, Scraps, Boxten, twisteds. . .

. . .

"VEE!!" she screamed and turned her head down to the river, just to see Vee's body fall into the cold water.

Others, hearning that, also took a moment to look behind and gasped in shock or fright. Still running, but with mind almost empty.

Poppy looked around in panicked motion, her heart beating so hard like it was about to jump out. Then... she got the idea.

She grabbed the small stone from ground she spotted before throwing it at one of the twisteds. It hissed, the other took their attention to Poppy too. Having their attention on herself, she turned to the side, leaving others behind, with the ichor creatures chasing after. She heard yells after her but she didn't stop. She continued running, pulling the creatures away.

The bubble run next to the cliff, but not near enough to trip or fall. She didn't think of how long she run, but as she started to see end of the hole and river going underground her legs started to give up slowly. She slowed down, taking a sharp breathes. Only to hear a growl behind... and a scratch on her back. Her eyes widened, clearly feeling the dark blue blood slowly making it way out of the wound.

Yet... the pain and panic restored Poppy's stamina and made her go faster again. No matter how fast was her heart beating, she didn't stop. She took notice of the another growl, and as she felt a hot breathe on her, she stepped back, the body of ichor made monster falling into the cliff, hitting it's head in meantime. As the other twisteds stared into the water and watching their partner swim away with the water Poppy took her chance and made a fast turn to run on the other side of the river as it ended.

She took a look behind, no twisted chasing her anymore. She could slow down but she didn't. Panic and pain still giving her some energy, as well as the fright for her friend.

Poppy crossed the bridge slower, seeing everyone crouching on the ground around something. She walked closer to see Goob hugging the shaking and gliching Vee. Her microphone broken, with cables and wires sticking out, half of her face was covered by glich where the water get.

The bubble toon was still scared and now even more worried, but she sighed in relief, seeing that the other toon was still alive.

"Let's go inside..." as Boxten said that Poppy noticed how close to the shopping centre they were. She nodded and started to walk, a bit slower than normal. Others got up too, Goob leading Vee and letting her lean on his shoulder as she was clearly in shock, even as a half-robot. They stepped inside the huge building together.

Chapter Text

Shelly, one of the main toons. She always loved to ramble, sure, mostly about dinosaurs and fossil, but she was way too kind and could talk about any topic.

So she didn't quite understand - why did people ignored her?

It's not just because her character is focused on learning, right? She knew so many kids that loves dinosaurs and now some doesn't even remember her name. Sure, there were still toons around her. Like Tisha. She always had a good contact with the tissue box toon.

As Shelly was looking through the old drawings the children made for her, a voice behind made her jump a bit.

"Shelly?"

"Oh, uhm- hi Dandy!" she honestly didn't expected anyone to talk to her today. Especialy not Dandy. But she wasn't gonna just brush him off, of course.

The flower toon smiled a bit, his rainbow petals looking amazing in the light on the celling.

"I was wondering if you could help me with something" Dandy gently tilted his head "I have a little problem with my tiny... project."

"Oh!" The amonite's eyes shined a bit "Of course, always ready to help!"

"Great. Come on, follow me" the main character of the show turned around on one leg and lead her through the hallway. Shelly didn't expect them to go right now, but she didn't argue. She got up quickly and followed them.

She wasn't surprised much when they entered his shop. More by the fact that Dandy had a hidden passage to the basement hidden under the rug behind the counter. She did remember someone saying something about it, but she though it's a joke or just some silly theory...

As the flower toon went down and gave her a signal to do the same, the amonite slowly stepped down on the leader, slowly going down, step by step. Being on the lower level, she looked around the room - it was dark, with few monitors screens lighting it up. There were some posters, scrapped paint on the walls. But what brought Shelly's attention was the large machine that looked like container with few pipes attached to both up and bottom of it. Inside was hiding a deep, pure black substance.

"Impresive, right?" Dandy stepped closer to the machine. As Shelly was looking around he put the goggles on his forehead and a pair of white gloves with a bit of dark substance on them "I called it the ichor. It may be the only way to our... freedom"

"Freedom...?" Shelly whispered

"Don't you get it Shelly?" Dandy stepped closer, making the female toon step away "It's all a halucination. This all city is fake. Think! They abbandoned us, forget about us. Our cartoon ended, there was no kids here since almost two weeks! And what happens to the ended cartoons? They die. This city is just for us to look away from pain that is clearly awaiting us"

Shelly sweated a bit, starting to feel unsafe. Her back pressed to the counter as she looked at Dandy scared, but also concerned.

"I'm not a bad guy here, Shelly" the flower picked up a syringe, then stuck it into the bag filled with ichor and turned back to her "I'm saving us all. Even if that can lead to some... not avoidable changes"

He suddenly pounced at the other toon. Before the amonite could even react by voice he stuck the syringe into her arm and insert the ichor in. As he let go Shelly's vision get blury. She only stand up to hold her head and lean against the counter. Before she even knew, she passed out.

- - - - -

"Oh..."

Shelly was standing betweet... nothing. Dark, black, rotting nothing. There was nothing, all she heard was growls and screams, but they seemed far away or even covered by something, maybe water. She looked at her hands, now dirty from ichor. No matter how much she tried it will never come off.

So she starred. And she though. Then she sat down, the kinda liquid but still floor surrounding her with it's wetness and coldness.

"They won't forget me, right?"

She whispered to herself. She was thinking if others still know her. How much time she already spend here? Maybe years... maybe those were just mere seconds...

Yes, she did remember who she was, though as her soul stayed right there she felt like her body isn't her's anymore. She felt both strong and silent. Powerful and lonely. Dangerous and lost.

What did Dandy do it for? Was it just greed or maybe he was going insane? Yet Shelly couldn't help but notice that simpe, one string of actuall care on his face, almost a sympathy that wasn't really just for manipulation. He did it... for them, right? It's just somehow supposed to keep them here, so they won't get wiped out, even if that could lead to breaking something in the rules of the cartoon world.

The more she calmed herself down the more she felt the control comming back to her. She took a deep breathe of the smell around her. A bit rotten, dry, but still recognisible. She also felt the cold floor under her. Her claws scratched it when she got up. She sensed someone beside her and also recognised the green flash of Vee's screen. So Shelly stared back, not even noticing how taller she got and that she couldn't even lift any of her arms.

Just as she sensed movement she lost the control again and the last thing she saw was Vee and some other toons she recognised by smell going up the leader. Shelly couldn't climb it, way too big and without the feel in her arms.

She let out a little, dissapointed whine. Walking around the basement she calmed herself enough to see and hear properly again. She climbed with her feet on what seemed to be Dandy's bed. She curled up, her tail on her head, teeth sticking out from her mouth and eyes tearing up with ichor, just for her to realise - this body wasn't even her's anymore.