Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Fanny is biting her tongue all throughout Cake At Stake, and it takes her far too long to realize why.

It’s not because she has anything to say. Sure, these failed debuters are annoying, and she would much prefer for Two to be the one handling things, but ultimately she isn’t all that bothered by it. Besides, if there was anything playing on her mind, she would just say it. She isn’t the sort to practice nor care about politeness. If she did, she wouldn’t loudly declare about how much she hated everything that came her way.

No, it’s because it feels… grounding. The pain centers her, if nothing else. But that begs the question of why she needs to be grounded to begin with. She squints at a spot on the wall, cracked and dusty from where the storm had torn through it, as she mulls over her spots.

She does feel… odd, in a way she has to mull over before she can put it into words. She feels disconnected and kind of floaty, too, like she has to grab onto something before she flies away entirely. Like she’s being unraveled, a poorly sewn together sweater being pulled apart into piles of thread on the floor.

Which is disconcerting, obviously. She doesn’t know how long this feeling has been pulling at her. Long enough for her teeth to create grooves in her tongue, anyway. She gets the feeling something bad will happen to her if she lets it just pull her away. Keeping her grip on her tongue is a matter of self preservation, yes, but letting someone know about what’s happening to her feels even more pertinent.

Beginning to grow nervous now, she shifts in place. Slowly, she turns her attention to Black Hole, knowing she can trust him with everything, no matter what it may be. “I-” she begins, her teeth letting go from her ironclad grip on her tongue to form the word.

Logically, she knows that continuing to bite down on her tongue wouldn’t have accomplished anything. The motion was a placebo of sorts, designed to make her feel better, to make her feel like she had control. Biting her tongue might as well have been the same thing as digging in her heels in that horrible storm. It wouldn’t have stopped anything.

And still, she regrets it. Because the moment she forms the word, she stops, cutting herself off with a hitching of breath as fear stirs in her gut. There’s something, isn’t there? Something happening to her, something threatening to sweep her up and carry her away. The feeling is entirely different from when One had spirited her away and forced her into a deal. That one had been forceful and insistent, yes, but it hadn’t threatened to take her apart entirely. It hadn’t been dizzying and terrifying and-

Instead of finishing her sentence, she opens her mouth with a desperate intake of breath. Maybe she could say something, but her tongue won’t form the words. Instead, she does something that comes easy to everyone.

Fanny screams.

Screams and screams and screams. She would scream until her throat went hoarse, if that were a choice afforded to her. She’s nervous and dazed and feeling like whatever this pull is, it’s going to take her apart. It’s easier than trying to vocalize something, anyway.

Vaguely, she’s aware of her body wavering in the air, as if she were a mirage in the desert. There’s crackling sounds warping her screams, glitchy and harsh. Around her, her teammates panic in a desperate, undignified scramble, asking her are you okay, what’s going on? She can’t answer. She can’t do anything at all.

(Somewhere else, two objects are falling through the air, and several more are huddled together in an old, decrepit mansion. They feel the same feeling Fanny does, an insistent pull that unravels them in an instant.

The difference is they know they are to die. The difference is that they chose it and accepted it, as much as anyone can accept permanent death with no chance of recovery. The difference is that they know they aren’t real, created for the sake of a show, to be stuffed into boxes. The difference is that they know death is the better alternative.

Fanny doesn’t know any of that. And so, she screams until she’s finished unraveling, and when her body disappears entirely there’s nothing left in her wake.)

Chapter Text

When Fanny’s eyes fly open, she immediately sits up, gasping for air. In the back of her mind, she finds herself faintly baffled by the fact that she’s alive at all. But that thought is overpowered by the rush of fear and adrenaline churning in her chest, and for a minute or two she just sits there, gasping for air as the dizzying rush of feeling makes her way through her chest and eventually drains from her body.

No one is a stranger to death. No one on TPOT, anyway. They have a recovery center to mitigate death. Pillow literally goes around killing people for her research, and she doesn’t get in trouble because death barely even matters. It’s just an inconvenience.

Whatever that was… really felt like death. Real, final, terrifying, and impossible to change. She got why the rest of her team was so gung ho about preventing death now if that was what she had to look forward to. But surely she was fine now, right? Her name had been inputted into the recovery center by her team, and she would be given a reason as to why that happened along with a reassurance that it would never happen again.

And yet, she wasn’t greeted with any of that. Instead, she was in… a void. An endless, sprawling white void. In the distance, there’s towering… mountains? Or maybe pillars, striped with different colors and rounded at the top. As her head continues to swivel around, she sees a hotel. But it isn’t her hotel. It feels really awfully designed, because what she can see of it from her distance makes her wonder if all of those windows are in the hallways or if any are in the hotel rooms.

But that is the opposite of what she should be focusing on at the moment. She growls as she forces herself to her feet, head swiveling about the area as she squints. She doesn’t recognize any of this. Not the featureless void, not the weird disconnected fragments of scenery and props, haphazardly strewn about the place. How had she ended up here in the first place? Did it have anything to do with her… unraveling? Is there anyone else here?

Gritting her teeth, she begins to walk around. She gains nothing from just sitting in place and waiting for an explanation to fall in her lap. So she begins her trek, teeth grit.

(It’s not like she likes to think about One. The idea prompts sharp, piercing discomfort in her gut as she remembers what it was like being in her pocket dimension. Sitting, legs pressed against her chest as she glares at the Algebrailian, wishing she could snap or snarl or at the very least bare her teeth defensively, but she couldn’t because her mouth was at the bottom of the fucking ocean!

Making that deal with One was the easy way out. She knows that! Making that deal with One could have so many disastrous outcomes, and being on the hook of a powerful, scheming Algebrailian who seems to have no qualms about finding an excuse to get everyone in her debt just so she can achieve her goals, whatever they may be, felt bad to her no matter what One was planning. Fanny knows she isn’t the only one who’s signed a contract. She’s just too afraid to vocalize it to the world, because she’ll hate the judgmental glares.

God, One was such a powerful Algebrailian, who she can easily imagine in her mind’s eye, sitting on her chair with one leg folded over the other. Powerful and smug and all-knowing and… gorgeous… really gorgeous and… ugh, screw this.

She doesn’t like to think about One. That’s why she leaves all thoughts about her tucked behind parenthesis! Not that she has a lot of thoughts about her to begin with!)

(...God, she has so many thoughts.)

Ultimately, she sets a course for that hotel in the distance. It’s definitely a distinct landmark, and it’s definitely the sort of place that people would flock to. Especially compared to those striped eggs. They are… super generic.

“Echo!” calls a familiar sounding voice, and she furrows her brow. Why would he be here? She hadn’t expected to see him after he was eliminated ages ago. She hears him giggle at the way his voice reverberates throughout the area, although it’s hardly cramped enough for it to be a proper echo.

“Nickel?” she calls, and the coin turns around, blinking in bemusement. “So you’re here too, yeah?” She’d love to skip the small talk and just get to how they both ended up here to begin with but she should have known nothing can be simple when it comes to Nickel.

“Oh! Hiya, Fanny!” he chirps brightly, grinning cheekily at her as he jumps on his heels. “What are you doing here?”

“What are you doing here?” she counters dryly, head tilted to the side. “Wherever you went after you got the boot from TPOT, I would have thought you would, uh, stay there. Unless I somehow ended up wherever Two sends the eliminated contestants…?” She trails off, nose scrunched up.

“Nah,” Nickel says offhandedly. “I was just lounging around, hanging out with Cake and Coiny, when I started to feel really weird, you know? Kinda floaty and dazed and like I was-”

“Unraveling,” she injects, voice barely above a hoarse whisper. “C-Coming apart, and the kind of glitchiness, and- I dunno.” She shakes her head firmly before she ends up getting too carried away. “I hated it. It felt so much different from my other deaths. If that was even a death to begin with, anyway…”

“Woah, that’s exactly how I felt too! Except in much better words!” Nickel cries with a gasp, his eyes the size of dinner plates. “Thanks for explaining it for me, Fanny Banany!” He smiles at her for a moment, before his face scrunches up in distaste. “Woof. No. I won’t be going with that nickname.”

“Don’t call me that again. I hated that.” she says, rolling her eyes.

“Well, sorry!” he huffs, exaggerating both syllables of the word. “We haven’t had a lot of chances to talk, y’know! You were on iance, I was on BEEP, and then you were on Death Pact Again while I was on Just Not… Give me some time to get to know you, or something like that!” He sticks his tongue out at her, and she just sighs.

“It’s Death Pact Yet Again now,” she grumbles, before continuing “I’m guessing you have no clue about how we ended up here or what this place is, then,” she deadpans, before realizing that if he did, he probably wouldn’t share it with her unless she outright asked. She probably has to be straightforward with Nickel. “... Do you have any clue?” she says slowly, one eyebrow raised.

“Nope!” he says brightly in response. “When I woke up here, I noticed how empty this place was, and I wanted to see how far my voice would carry! And that worked out well for me, ‘cause now you’re here!”

“So you’re not even remotely concerned by any of this?”

“Meh,” Nickel says. “After being trapped for ages and ages in that weird city place Two stuck all of us into, I’m not concerned by a lot of things.” Fanny, with her… previous Algebrailian experience, can connect the dots well enough on that one. She’s pretty sure all Algebrailians have their own pocket dimension; Four with his eternal algebra and One with her comfortable, claustrophobic sitting area and oppressive night sky. Apparently Two has a city. Had they made it so on purpose, to make the eliminated contestants comfortable? That would track. They’re clueless about objects, but they seem kind. Kinder than the other Algebrailians she’s met.

“If you say so,” she mutters, beginning to walk away as she resumes her quest to make it to that hotel. She half-expects Nickel to stay behind, but he skips alongside her, humming a tune under his breath that sounds like some medieval, upbeat adventure song.

“So, how’s TPOT doing?” he prompts after a moment, shooting Fanny a conspiratorial grin. “Just Not is definitely doing great, huh? They haven’t lost at all since I was eliminated!”

“The teams swapped a bit ago,” she replies flatly. “Not that anyone got much of a choice about what team they ended up on… And anyway, that’s not true. Just Not lost right before the teams were swapped, actually.”

Now it was Nickel’s turn to look confused as he furrowed his brow. “What?” he says. “But that’s- I-I mean, I’ve been keeping track of the people who come to Two’s city! It took ages for anyone to show up after I was eliminated, although I guess Clock did pop up a bit after I did? I dunno, he mentioned something about Two keeping him back and a kitchen! The latest person to show up was Eraser, although he was only there for a second before I poofed and ended up here! To be honest, we had thought something had happened and the show was on hold, y’know?”

For a moment, she’s confused, but she’s quick to sober up when she remembers with a start that Bomby, Bell, Needle and Barf Bag had all gone missing after their elimination. Knowing what she does, she can confidently say that it’s the result of One’s meddling, although who knows what she could want with the four of them. Either way, she supposes the eliminated contestants wouldn’t know any of that, huh?

“Y-Yeah, um… There were two eliminations after you were gone, plus a rejoin from the eliminated BFB contestants from before the split. Pencil and Liy, if you were wondering.” She’s tense, hoping Nickel just won’t ask. She already knows too much as is, and having to actively lie about what she’s deduced leaves a sour taste in her mouth. If Bubble were the one missing, and Fanny was languishing in Two’s pocket dimension without a clue-

Except Bubble isn’t here, is she? So what’s the point of this comparison?

“And the eliminated contestants?” Nickel probes, voice sharp. He’s usually so relaxed and energetic. It’s strange to see that sharp look in his eye. Yet again, he had become rather jaded with his team’s continuous losses on BFB, and he never hid the animosity he bore toward Pillow. His mood swings as dramatically as his speech does, shifting wildly between coherence and blurting out the most nonsensical string of words he can manage.

She bites her tongue, wondering what she can get away with. Finally, though, she sighs and relents. “I know you’re only worried for Bomby, so I’ll limit things to him,” she begins.

Before she can continue, Nickel lets out a breath through grit teeth, looking upset. “No, Bomby was eliminated?!” he whines. “All this time I thought he was still in the game! I was rooting for him! What happened? It was Pillow’s fault, wasn’t it?!” His mood is quick to sharply swing, going from unhappiness to fury within the blink of an eye as he scowls stormily.

“Uh… I don’t really know,” she says in response. “The challenge was, uh, focused solely on our teams, so I couldn’t guess why they lost. But I’m pretty sure Bomby had blamed Pillow before he… disappeared.”

Nickel goes still, eyes going wide and mournful as he draws to a stop. For a moment, Fanny considers continuing to walk just so she won’t have to be stuck in this painfully awkward conversation anymore. But she can’t just drop this news and continue walking like nothing had happened. With a sigh, she stops in front of him, glaring down at the ground as she chews on her cheek. “He’s missing?” he asks, voice sounding startlingly morose.

“Yeah,” Fanny says stiffly, unable to look at him.

“But you guys are looking for him, aren’t you?” he says hopefully, rolling on his heels. “I-I mean, there’s no way you’re just going to let him be gone with no clue where he is!”

“What can we do?” she retorts. She’s not even saying that as an excuse, she’s genuinely curious. What can be done against a scheming, conniving Algebrailian with an obvious hunger for more, someone whose presence most aren’t even aware of? Not that she’s done the eliminated contestants a favor by hiding what she knows about One, although she decides that’s unrelated.

“I don’t know! Use Two’s power or something!” he retorts. “That’s literally what we’re battling for to begin with, remember?! If it wasn’t capable of anything and everything, what was even the point in switching shows?!”

“Because Four and X were lunatics and their prize was lame?” she prompts flatly. Although, honestly, some days she does wonder what would have happened if she hadn’t gone with her gut and thought with her heart instead. If she had followed after Bubble and… well, she doesn’t really know. Watch out for her? Protect her? Act like her knight in shining armor and feel a sick reassurance in the way Bubble would swoon over her? It’s not like she’s forgotten about her. Every so often, Fanny types her name in the recovery center, just to make sure. She just worries, wondering if there’s anyone in the world who cares enough for her to make sure she’s still alive. But every time she does so, it ends up never being necessary.

(That doesn’t stop her from lingering by the recovery center for half the night, typing her name over and over again just to be sure, but that’s neither here nor there.)

“Whatever!” Nickel snaps, teeth bared. “There has to be something we can do!”

“Yeah, actually, there is,” she says with a hum, and waits until she firmly has Nickel’s attention on her before flatly saying “Keep moving. The sooner we find our way out of here and back to TPOT, the sooner you can talk to Two. Sitting here and whining isn’t going to do anything.”

Nickel is silent as he mulls this over, puffing out his cheeks and chewing on his tongue. His brow is furrowed deeply, although to be honest Fanny doesn’t know what there is to debate. It’s not like staying here is going to get them anywhere, and if he truly is so concerned about Bomby, shouldn’t he speed things up so he can spend more time looking for him? Or maybe she’s just impatient. She doesn’t know. Either way, she offers Nickel the stormiest scowl she can manage, hoping that helps to speed things up a bit.

Finally, he tosses his head back and groans, his face all scrunched up. “Fine!” he groans, dragging out the e for a solid minute or so before finally drawing to a stop.

“You done?” she deadpans.

“Nope, just stopping for air!” he says cheerily, and as he takes another breath Fanny leans over and smacks him.

“Quit that,” she says flatly. “I hate your whining, and it’s not doing anything in terms of helping us get out of here. Now, are you going to get moving, or not?”

“Could you carry me?” Nickel asks, mood changing on a dime (or on a nickel, she supposes) as he perks up, eyes going wide and pleading.

“No.”

“Why not?” he whines.

“Why would I?” she retorts. But now he’s pouting again, and she can’t help but groan. As annoying as he is, she would love to keep things moving if she can. So after a moment, she reluctantly grits out “If you’re good and actually listening to me, I…” Nickel perks up at that, eyes going wide and expectant. “...might,” she flatly finishes, her expression dry and deadpan. “No promises. So how about we start moving already? I hate standing still. It’s pointless, don’t you think?”

“I don’t think it matters whether we move forward or not,” he says cheerily. “I think our solution will stumble right in front of us without either of us having to lift a finger!”

“Obviously not????” she hisses through grit teeth. “Why would that-?”

She’s cut off by a voice calling out. “Hello, Nickel, are you over here? We heard your voice, so, uh, we figured, but-!” It’s high pitched yet vaguely masculine.

“You have to be more assertive, Balloon!” scolds a lilting, feminine voice in response. “You can’t stammer so much! It’s not like Nickel’s going to bite!” There’s a pause, before she sheepishly adds “Well, not usually, anyway.”

“Do we know either of those voices?” Fanny hisses, wracking her brains for anyone she knows who sounds similar to that. Some people have the same quality, but none of them sound exactly like that.

“Dunno! But this sounds like that solution I was talking about!” he cries in response. “And I really wanna prove you wrong, so…” He offers her a smile, she offers him a glare, and he calls out “Yoohoo! Over here!”

“Nickel!” she hisses. “What are you doing?! Those people could be the ones who brought us here! That’s why they know your name!”

“You worry way too much,” he says, the picture of confidence. “We’re right here!” And now he’s back to yelling. This is a nightmare.

Suddenly two objects appear in view, coming out from behind one of those towering striped mountains the two had found themselves parked by while Nickel had been yelling and complaining. One is a red balloon, or maybe salmon? Either way, he doesn’t resemble the balloon she knows, with both his color and lack of string. The other is a four-leaved clover, lime green. She has a pleasant, cheery air about her, one that reminds her faintly of Bottle.

Nickel seems rather put off by the balloon, muttering “That’s definitely not Balloony…” She supposes the two had been on the same team back before the split, so it makes sense he would be thrown off.

Before the two get too close, the balloon abruptly stops, and the clover gracefully manages to prevent stumbling into him, blinking. “That’s… definitely not Nickel,” he says, looking just as thrown off as Nickel does.

“Yes I am!” he replies, bristling in evident outrage. “My name is Nickel and I am a nickel! Makes it pretty easy to remember.”

“Okay, fine, sure, but you aren’t our Nickel,” the balloon amends, voice flat.

“That’s for sure!” the clover readily agrees, walking over to Nickel and crouching down in front of him. She blinks slowly, each blink palpably bemused. “But you sound just like him! I’m really glad there are differences between the two of you, or otherwise I would definitely be confused. Oh! I’m Clover, and that’s Balloon! Nice to meet you!” She smiles widely and so warmly. It’s definitely a lot different from One’s cold, cunning smirk that Fanny struggles to get out of her head even now.

“Balloon, not Balloon y…” Nickel mutters to himself, still seeming pretty confused by all of it.

“Fanny,” she curtly interjects, and the two startle, as if they hadn’t realized she was even there. “That’s my name. Do the two of you have any clue where we are? I’d prefer to get back home sooner rather than later. I hate this void. There’s nothing to do in it.” She scowls as she looks around impatiently.

“Uh…” Balloon stammers, looking uncomfortable. “W-Well, that’s kind of a long story. Neither of us know what happened after that MePhoneX went through and killed everyone in the hotel, but it has to be something. Everything else is here too, and…” He trails off, swallowing as he looks around, looking really uncomfortable. “I guess it was all just made by MePhone, huh?”

“Yeah, neither of us know what you’re talking about,” Nickel replies. Fanny rolls her eyes.

“I figured.” He doesn’t seem all too bothered by Nickel’s dismissiveness, if nothing else. His hands remain clasped in front of him as he frowns. “It’s… strange that you’re here. All of the things here are things I recognize, and I guess even that other Nickel is a lot like ours, but I’m not sure… Unless… No, that would be awful… And in character for him.” He seems quick to come to a conclusion as he lets out a weary sigh. “What happened before the two of you ended up here?” he suddenly asks, changing topics so abruptly she gets whiplash.

“I was just minding my own business, getting ready to welcome Eraser, when I just…” He scrunches up his face as he mulls it over. “How’d you phrase it, Fanny?”

“Unraveled,” she gruffly concludes, a scowl on her face as she kicks her leg in the air. “I-It felt like… coming apart. Like I was just falling apart and becoming nothing and I was helpless to do anything to stop it-” She swallows. Fuck, she’s spiralling. Would it kill her to stay centered for once? “So. Yeah. That was fun. Happened at a pretty shitty time for me, too, so I’d prefer to get back as soon as I can.”

“Really? Was it during a challenge?” Nickel prompts, leaning forward.

“Obviously not, idiot, since it happened at the same time for us,” she points out, voice flat. “Cake at Stake, remember? It was our team and Team 2 that were up for elimination-”

“Team 2? Who named that team?” Nickel interjects.

“Two themselves, I’m pretty sure.”

“Wow, talk about self absorbed. I’ve never been on a team that was named after me, that’s for sure!”

Fanny shoots him a deadpan look, but doesn’t bother to argue. “Anyway, I didn’t get to know who was eliminated on my team before I… ended up here. I know I was safe, but I’d like to see which of my friends I’d have to say goodbye to. Not that I actually got to say goodbye to them… Anyway.” She clears her throat and turns her attention back to the two strangers, realizing how far she got off track. “Was that any help?”

“Uh…” Balloon says slowly.

“It was kinda confusing!” Clover exclaims, tilting her head as she frowns. “From the way you guys were talking, were you on some sort of gameshow too?”

“Too?” Fanny echoes, leaning forward. “Are-?”

“We sure are!” Nickel crows before she can finish, jumping on his heels as he widely beams.

“You were eliminated ages ago!” she protests, glaring at him. “You didn’t even get to the team swap!”

“Yeah, but you can’t say I wasn’t there,” he cheekily points out, smiling smugly. “Our show’s called TPOT, and it’s a lot of fun! Well, it’s fun when Pillow isn’t killing us.”

As he disgruntledly grumbles to himself, Fanny decides now is the time to interject and elaborate. “TPOT stands for The Power of Two. That’s, uh, kinda what we’re battling for. Two’s our host, they’re an Algebrailian with quote-unquote limitless power, and going with them after the show split was the better bet than sticking with Four and X, since the two are kinda maniacs,” she says offhandedly, shrugging. “I’m still in the show, Nickel’s not. It’s whatever. You guys were also on a show, then?”

“Yeah, Inanimate Insanity!” Clover chirps. “I was on Season 3, while Balloon participated in all three seasons! So did our Nickel, the one we’re looking for!”

“For now, let’s just say the show is on… permanent hiatus,” Balloon says, expression grim.

“Mostly because all the competitors are dead,” Clover adds, voice way too cheery for the words coming out of her mouth.

“O… kay…” Fanny says slowly, frowning. “So you all died and ended up here. That’s fine, I guess. But why are we involved in this?”

“Yeah! I’ve never even heard of this show before!” Nickel adds. “Why are we involved?”

“That’s… a longer story,” Balloon mutters, letting out a sigh. “God, if I were you, this would be the last thing I would want to hear, but I guess I’ve already heard it and… managed it. I suppose. But if you’re here, there can really only be one explanation-”

“Oh my god, just rip off the bandaid and tell us already!” Fanny barks as she interjects. Balloon startles and eventually nods. She swears she can hear him mumble “I guess this will be good practice for talking to Nickel” but before she can call him out on that, she’s caught off guard by a paper flying through the air and slamming against her face, in sync with the same thing happening to Nickel next to her.

Fumbling awkwardly, she manages to grab the paper and stare down at it. What she sees, though, is enough to make her blood run cold, and her grip on the paper tightens so heavily the edge crumples. “What is this?” she whispers, unable to make her voice any louder.

Balloon blinks and shifts in place to get a better look at it. “What is wh-?” he begins, before stopping cold as his eyes go wide. “Oh,” he hisses. “Oh no.”

On top of the paper is her name, written with a ballpoint pen. The scrawl is childish, with a bit of smeared ink on the y. Below it is how she used to look before that beam hit the Locker of Losers, and she finds herself grimacing on impulse. It had been really impractical to live like that. Below that awkward, wobbly drawing are the words “hates the show?” with the words “the show?” scribbled out intently to the point of near-illegibility with the word “everything” below it and underlined a few times for good measure, presumably replacing the last two words.

The most damning thing about the page, she thinks, is that the whole thing has been scribbled over, and the page is crumpled, with the words “Scrap and start over” scrawled across the page’s center.

Something about the paper feels so nauseating to her that she pries her eyes away from it in disgust, lips pressed into a thin line. She just doesn’t get what it’s supposed to mean. How is there this paper in front of her with her name and her old appearance, and who made it? In her effort to look away from the paper, her eyes fall upon the paper that had hit Nickel, and she finds herself staring at it out of a sort of morbid curiosity.

The page is structured very similarly to hers. The name at the top is spelled Nickle, though, as opposed to Nickel, with no correction anywhere in sight. There’s a drawing of him, too, the circle uneven and more like an oval than anything. Different from hers are the various words scattered across the paper. There’s the word optimist, scribbled out and replaced with pessimist, which is also scribbled out. The word wild is tucked in the corner, paired with the word unpredictable to the left of the center.

His page has the exact same scribble across the front of it, obscuring most of the information but not rendering it completely illegible. Once again, the words “Scrap and start over” have been written, and acknowledging that makes her feel so horribly sick that she can’t help but shrink back.

“What is this?” she whispers hoarsely once again, unable to keep the current of faint terror out of her voice.

“Jeez, this really isn’t how I wanted it to go,” Balloon groans, running a hand over his face. “Thanks, Clover…”

“You know I can’t control my luck!” she protests. “But if it’s any consolation, our papers were just as bad! Balloon’s had “full of hot air” written on it, and mine said “happy go lucky”. It, uh, really sucked to see.” She loses her cheery attitude halfway through the third sentence, when she mentions her paper, visibly deflating as she stares at the ground. Fanny doesn’t get it. There are worse things to be ascribed to you.

“Okay, cool, so you guys also have papers,” she hisses through grit teeth, obviously frustrated. “What are the papers, though? Who made them? What do they mean? You obviously know. I hate how vague you’re being!”

“...Right,” Balloon says with a sigh. “Let’s go back a bit. Like we said, we’re on a gameshow. And our host is MePhone4. He’s… okay. Selfish, impulsive, can be a bit of a manchild at times, but he’s fine. Was fine, before I…” He swallows, before continuing. “He’s always had the ability to create things, and bring us back from the dead. But it wasn’t until today that we learnt something else about him, too. His power of creation doesn’t just extend to inanimate objects. I-It can also…” He trails off and doesn’t finish, staring down at his trembling hands.

Clover smiles sadly, gracefully continuing. “He told us, after so many people had died and became actual inanimate objects, the truth,” she says, as if that first sentence wasn’t alarming in the slightest. “He had created all of the contestants on his show, among others, with his power. Although he had done it completely subconsciously, so he hadn’t been aware of any of it until… today, I think?”

“Those papers, the ones you’re holding there,” Balloon adds, trying desperately to rally and beat back how shaken up he is by all of this. “Everyone we know has one. Listing out their traits, their… stereotype. How they’re supposed to be.” He wraps his arms around himself as his eyes become wide and watery, Clover resting her hand on his shoulder. “He just made us like this, and he didn’t care that he made us broken! That we were just- We’re- He treated us like toys!”

He yells the final word at the top of his lungs, shaking with the force of his anger. After a moment, though, his shoulders hunch and he stares at the ground, hands pressed to his chest. It’s like he’s deflating now that he got all of that out of his system. Clover’s hand has moved from resting atop his shoulder to being wrapped around the other. He grows self-conscious when he becomes aware of all the eyes on him, and he shifts in discomfort.

“Sorry,” he mumbles. “It’s just… a lot. And since I died immediately after being told all of that, I didn’t have any time to process it. I shouldn’t have taken that out on you, though. That’s hardly fair.”

“You’re okay!” Nickel chirps, grinning up at Balloon widely. In response, he flushes, turning even redder than he already is, and looks away. “It’s, uh…” There is where he falters, which makes plenty of sense. It doesn’t matter how relentlessly cheery he’s capable of being. Anyone would be daunted by the reveal that they aren’t real, that they were just created for some show. “You’re right about it being a lot. You would be weird if you didn’t yell! So you don’t have to worry about it.”

“Heh, thanks,” Balloon says sheepishly, rubbing at his arm as he smiles wryly. “You’re a lot better at this comfort thing than the other Nickel is.”

“That’s hardly fair!” Clover protests, frowning in dismay. “He’s emotionally constipated! He can’t help it that MePhone made him like that!”

“You could say that about all of us,” he points out as he leans into her touch, looking amused.

Nickel turns to her, nudging her with his foot. “Are you alright, Fanny?” he prompts, brow furrowed.

“...Why were we made?” she asks, surprised by the sound of her own voice. “T-These papers, they say to scrap and start over. We weren’t supposed to exist in the first place. So what are we doing here?” Why do I exist? She desperately wants to ask that final question, resting like a leaded weight on the tip of her tongue, but it feels too heavy to just release into the air and expect the other three to have any clue what to do with it.

“That… I couldn’t answer,” Balloon says tersely, wringing his hands. “I would say that’s something you would have to ask MePhone, but from the looks of it, we’re going to be… here for a while.” Balloon throws his hands in the air in exasperation as he speaks, gesturing around him.

“MePhone couldn’t bring back Pickle or OJ or- or Nickel,” Clover adds, the final word coming out as a strangled sob. “So I don’t think he can bring the rest of us back, either. If there’s a way… but I just don’t know.”

Nickel watches the scene with a frown, shifting from foot to foot. If she had to guess, he was probably thinking about how he could cheer the three of them up, even though it really wasn’t the time. “Hey, there’s stuff on the back of my paper!” he suddenly cries with a gasp, flipping his paper over. After a moment, though, his face scrunches up. “Hey, Fanny, come read this!” he calls, even though she’s standing right next to him. She just sighs and leans in closer.

The writing on the page is less anything structured and more a list of bullet points. “Character like Coiny?” is the first thing written atop a page. Below it is “Abrasive and easily riled up – similar or opposite of that?” The word opposite has an arrow pointing to the next bullet point, which reads “Maybe someone bubbly and cheerful?” And the final bullet point is “Some form of currency – another coin?” Below that are a list of coins: dime, quarter, yen, dollar coin, and nickel, or nickle, she supposes. It’s still spelt wrong.

Nickel stares at this, expression blank, before he looks up. “So I’m just… what? A Coiny ripoff? Really?” he sputters, looking rather upset by this, which is fair. “I literally know him! We were on a team together at one point! We talk to each other super often! How am I supposed to talk to him without that fact sticking in my head? How am I supposed to look him in the eye? How is this fair?!” The longer he speaks, the more upset he grows, and with the final word, tears pool in his eyes.

Fanny allows his outburst to linger heavily in the air for about a minute, Nickel panting heavily while Balloon and Clover steady each other, before she takes the chance to clear her throat. “Right,” she says tersely. “Now we’ve all had an opportunity to feel everything. Now let’s put all of that on the backburner and focus on getting out of here, yeah?”

“Seriously?” Nickel sputters, clearly caught off guard by her attitude. “But- I mean- Aren’t you just as bothered as all of us are?”

“Of course I am,” she says dryly, rolling her eyes as she begins to move forward. Predictably, Nickel falls into line behind her, looking curious to see what explanation she can conjure up. She isn’t expecting for Balloon and Clover to trail behind her too, but she’s pleasantly surprised by the sight. She supposes she is taking the most initiative here, at any rate. “I’m just more focused on finding a way out of here. I’m not just going to roll over and accept death, because I know my teammates wouldn’t accept me being gone.”

“That’s a nice sentiment, but I don’t think it’s quite that easy,” Balloon protests as he speeds up to meet her pace.

“Who knows?” she says in response, shrugging. “You two are just as clueless about all of this as we are, aren’t you?” As they both begin to nod, she continues “Then how can you say anything for sure?”

“Fanny’s right!” Nickel cries, looking determined as he rushes to meet her pace. “Even if we can’t find anything, there has to be other people here, right? Maybe they’ve found something! And besides, this place is super boring! No way I’m going to spend the rest of my life here! Uh, afterlife…?” He trails off, brow furrowed as he mulls over the semantics.

“Yeah,” she says, throwing him a wry grin. “You have to prove you’re more than a Coiny ripoff, right?” That just prompts a loud groan from Nickel, of course.

“Don’t remind me,” he grumbles in response. “I cannot believe I’m just a Coiny ripoff. He literally has arms! How is that fair?! I don’t have arms! Does your Nickel have arms?” He directs the question to Balloon and Clover.

Balloon sheepishly rubs at his cheek, smiling wryly. “Nope,” he responds. “Kinda made a whole alliance based on that fact back in Season Two.”

“-ake fan?!” suddenly calls a voice from somewhere, and Fanny startles, head snapping up as she frowns.

“Did you guys hear that?” she prompts.

“That sounded like Fan’s voice!” Clover responds with a gasp, her eyes wide.

“Fan, and not Fanny,” Nickel mumbles under his breath. “You guys really hate the letter y, don’t you?”

Balloon and Clover are the ones to take the lead, now, driven forward by familiarity and confidence. Nickel and Fanny are the ones to trail behind them now, although honestly she’s frustrated by that. She really doesn’t like having to fall behind and let others boss her around, although if nothing else Balloon and Clover don’t seem like the sorts to readily take initiative. The moment they falter, Fanny will be there to soldier ahead, or something like that.

The group makes their way to a towering wall, which reveals itself to be a screen once they move in close enough. Clustered around it is a brown suitcase, a box, and a bright red fan with yellow accents. The latter seems pretty distraught, staring at the ground as the former tries to comfort him.

As Fanny examines all of them from a distance, Balloon perks up and his eyes go wide as he runs forward, a wide smile on his face. “Suitcase!” he breathily calls as he comes to a stop in front of her.

Her eyes light up as she sees him, and she leans forward, easily falling into a hug. “Balloon!” she warmly replies. When the two disentangle from each other, Suitcase looks past him and scowls. “And Nickel,” she says sourly.

“What did I do?” he whines in response.

“Hang on,” Fan says, squinting. “I know I don’t know him very well, but that really doesn’t look like our Nickel.”

“You’re… right, actually,” Balloon says, squinting at him. “How could you tell?”

“What kind of number one fan would I be if I couldn’t tell apart our Nickel from some common coin?” Fan says brightly.

“Huh,” Suitcase says quietly, shifting warily from foot to foot as she stares at Nickel. He catches her glance and smiles widely, waving excitedly at her, and she shrinks back. “Yeah, that’s definitely not the Nickel I know. He wouldn’t smile at all, and definitely not as wide.”

“Debatable!” Clover replies in a sing-song. Balloon snorts into his hand.

After a moment, Suitcase startles and straightens, eyes going wide. “R-Right! I have to tell you, too! MePhone, he-!”

“-made all of us, yeah, he told us,” Balloon finishes, grimacing. He throws a sidelong glance over to the still-dejected Fan and quickly adds “All the people who were at the hotel, anyway. It’s… we’re still coming to terms with it. It doesn’t help that we ran into these two-” He gestures over to Fanny and Nickel, and she scowls while he beams and excitedly waves. “-who weren’t even involved with the show. They were clueless when they ended up here.”

“Surprise surprise, MePhone’s ruined a lot of people’s lives,” Suitcase grumbles, her expression bitter. Balloon startles, as if he wasn’t expecting that from her, but a moment later his gaze softens.

“So who are the two of you, then?” Fan chirps, leaning forward with an excited glint in his eye.

“Rejected ideas for contestants, supposedly,” Fanny brusquely retorts, rolling her eyes.

“I meant, uh, your names and stuff,” he replies, looking sheepishly.

“All we were made to be was to compete in a damn reality show we aren’t even in, why does who we are matter in the slightest?” she retorts.

“Wow, you’re really bothered by this, huh?” Nickel says brightly, as if he wasn’t just freaking out three minutes ago.

“Says the damn Coiny ripoff!” Fanny retorts, baring her teeth at him.

“Don’t threaten to bite me, that’s mean!” he cries with a pout.

“When did I ever threaten to bite you?”

“When you bared your teeth at me, all scary-like. Besides, you seem like the type of person to bite people,” Nickel says matter-of-factly, not elaborating on this point at all.

“What is that supposed to mean?!” she hisses, turning to him.

“Ack! Don’t bite me, I taste like metal!” he squeaks as he cowers behind Fan, eyes wide.

She rolls her eyes and turns her attention to look at Fan dead on. “I’m Fanny,” she grumbles. “And that’s Nickel. I guess it’ll get a bit confusing, since you guys apparently have another Nickel running around, but I’m sure you’ll figure something out.”

Nickel, who apparently stopped being scared of the threat of her teeth after a moment of cowering, adds “Oh! Oh! Fanny said that we weren’t on your reality show, which is true! But we are on a reality show! It’s called Battle For Dream Island! Have you heard of it?”

“You bet I have!” Fan readily replies. “I’m not the number one fan for nothing, you know! It was just the first season, though. I had to put my watch through on the backburner after my life got super busy. From what I’ve heard, though, the show went totally off the rails. I mean, how can you battle for Dream Island again! It was stolen! And aliens as hosts? I’ve met aliens, and they aren’t numbers, they’re eggs! Honestly, of all the ridiculous-”

“Yeah, no, Four and X and Two-” And One, a voice whispers in the back of her mind “-are definitely aliens,” Fanny interjects, voice flat. “Trust me.”

“Yup, it’s not CGI or anything!” Nickel brightly adds. “We don’t really have the budget for that. They’re just your normal, run of the mill, absolutely deranged aliens with no concept of morality!”

Fanny sighs. It’s not like Nickel is wrong. But she thinks about the cold, calculating intelligence in One’s eye as she stared intensely at Fanny, waiting for Fanny to sign her contract with such matter-of-fact confidence that she thought there was no chance of saying no. And, well, she had ended up signing the damn thing, so it’s not like her confidence was misplaced. For as clueless as Four, X, and Two can be about how objects actually work, One is aware of it all with a confidence so assured it feels deadly. She supposes all she can do is wait and see if her paranoia is misplaced or not.

“Two isn’t that bad,” she points out instead of vocalizing what’s on her mind, because that would make for a hell of a non sequitur, huh? “They’re just kinda clueless. Gaty’s helping with that.”

“Gaty’s still in the game?” Nickel says, wrinkling his nose. “Huh. Didn’t think she’d make it that far.”

“Says the guy who was eliminated ages ago,” she snips in response. “Shouldn’t you have some idea of who has and hasn’t been eliminated? It’s not like you have much else to do.”

“You literally told me that the eliminated contestants have been going missing lately!” Nickel hisses in response, bristling with indignation. “I can’t know anything for sure, because it’s not like I have any clue what’s happening in the outside world!”

“Are you mad at me for not telling you this earlier?!” she cries, baffled. “I haven’t spoken to you in… ever before this! What did you expect from me?!”

“No! I’m mad that it’s happening at all!” Nickel retorts.

“Then we’re in agreement!” she retorts, before turning away from him. If she had arms, they would be crossed right now. “I hate not being able to do anything,” she mutters darkly as she glares at the white, featureless ground. “But what can I do other than continue competing? Not exactly the greatest situation for either of us.” She’s less worried about the missing contestants themselves and more about whatever One is planning, but it’s not like she can just outright say that.

From there, there’s a depressing, noticeable lull in the conversation as she and Nickel get lost in their own thoughts. She’s aware of several pairs of eyes trained on them, and she turns to glower harshly at all of them, taking satisfaction in the way they turn away from her in discomforted, skittering movements. She would rather be seen as some wild, unstable animal than someone to stare at, someone to pity. If she’s going to get stares, she wants them to be wide eyed and scared, not something nervous and sympathetic. If all she’ll get is pity, she won’t hesitate to go for the throat.

After a second or so of heavy silence, Fan turns to the wide screen casting a shadow on all of them, staring at it with a frown. “If this is MeLife, then…” he murmurs, before pointing a shaking hand to a green icon with a test tube in the center. Suddenly, a test tube appears in front of them in a flash of light, and his expression lights up in an instant, flying forward to tackle the disoriented object in a hug the moment she finishes forming. “Test Tube!” he yells, voice cracking on the second word.

It’s strange how different their recovery process is. She assumes this is the standard for them, anyway, minus the massive screen. For recovery centers, you can feel yourself reforming. She remembers the hand-powered recovery center used back in BFDIA, and how she was unlucky enough to have to have it used for her. It was a slow, painful thing, consciousness coming back to you slowly and bodily functions coming back to you even slower. At least the one used on TPOT was instant. And the recovery process on BFB… the less said about that the better.

But this seems to happen in a blink of an eye. And if their host had made them, it means that he has the power to bring them back, right? It’s like putting tape on a broken toy after you mistakenly break it. So it’s the instantaneous quality of TPOT’s recovery combined with the powerlessness of having to depend on an unreliable host to bring you back, as it was in BFB. Good tempered with bad, she supposes.

She watches as Fan and Test Tube hug each other, warm and distinctly familital. There’s a warm, caring quality about them, visible in the way Test Tube wraps her arms around Fan but doesn’t crush him, which would be easy to do with him being made of paper. Meanwhile, he clings to her with all the strength he can muster, which isn’t much because he’s really scrawny. They hug like they’ve done it a thousand times before, but hadn’t yet realized how easily it could have become the last. They hug like Fanny wishes she could hug Bubble, if it weren’t for her lack of arms and how easily Bubble pops without the aid of yoyleberries.

After the two get their bearings, they turn their attention back to the screen. “This is everyone connected to MeLife?” Test Tube says tentatively, as if she’s looking for something. “So they wouldn’t be…” Fan shoots her a glum look, looking like a kicked puppy. A moment later, the two press all of the buttons, prompting the rest of the still missing contestants to materialize into being.

Immediately, everyone runs forward to talk to others with a decidedly frantic air about them, which makes sense. Whether they were murdered by a rampaging phone or erased from existence, she’s sure none of them got the chance to say goodbye the way they would have liked. She just shifts in place a few times to prevent herself from being trampled.

“Oh thank god, I was getting tired of wandering aim-” begins a distinctly familiar voice with a decidedly different tone to it. That’s Nickel’s voice, undoubtedly, deep and growly, but where the Nickel she knows is bubbly and upbeat, this Nickel is flat and sarcastic, so dry and unimpressed by the world around him it’s palpable and she has to hold her breath to stop herself from choking on it. “Who is that?” he snaps, cutting himself off.

The Nickel she knows perks up as several pairs of eyes turn to him, and he excitedly waves at a nearby baseball. Judging by what she’s seen, she’s just going to guess that everyone here are the names of their objects, no y’s stuck onto the end of their names like she has. Baseball squints at him, eyes flitting back and forth between the two coins. “Yeah, I’m seeing double,” he announces dryly.

“We ran into him while we were wandering,” Balloon explains, and Nickel doesn’t seem to be confused as to who the “we” in that sentence is referring to. Are he, Balloon, and Clover some kind of package deal, then? “Obviously we were able to tell he wasn’t you straight away, but… well, he’s here.” Balloon shrugs helplessly, as if that’s enough to get his point across.

“I don’t even know where here is, Balloon,” he hisses in response. “I’ve been wandering for way too long just trying to orient myself after that MePhone came out of nowhere and- ugh.” He cuts himself off with a shudder, face pinched.

Balloon grimaces as he grabs the other Nickel and steers him away from the group, Clover drifting on their heels. The two begin a quiet, whispered conversation, and if his delivery of “oh you’re not a real person, actually,” is delivered in even remotely the same way as it was delivered to her, she wouldn’t be surprised to hear yelling in the next minute or so.

Not that she’ll complain about the news being broken to those not in the know, of course. Already, there’s plenty of conversation fragments happening. Orange Juice and Paper are tightly pressed to each other, cheeks flushed as they whisper to each other. Salt and Pepper argue with one another in a way distinctly reminiscent of Match and Pencil, and if they treat anyone here like those two treated others… she’s sure they’ll get on great is all.

At some point as she stares down at the ground, awkwardly kicking at it with her foot as she scowls darkly, she hears the other Nickel let out a loud cry of “What?!” and she finds herself wincing in sympathy. She doesn’t know him at all, and if the reactions of the others are anything to go by, he isn’t anything like the Nickel she has somewhat more familiarity with. But it’s disturbing news to learn, isn’t it? That you aren’t real at all? That your entire existence was at the whim of some phone you hadn’t even met?

Well, that was more on her side of things, but still. It’s a lot. She wouldn’t be surprised if someone was upset about learning the news. She would be surprised if someone wasn’t, to be honest.

Knowing that everything you are and will ever be is only present because of some words scrawled onto a paper in pen is disconcerting. It gives one a nice crutch to lean on, an easy excuse to summon at a moment’s notice. It’s not my fault I’m like this. It’s just how I was created.

Fanny is rather fond of that excuse, she finds. It allows her to be dismissive of things that would have otherwise heavily worn on her mind, an easy way out of any sort of self reflection. She knows it’s something she shouldn’t be so intent on clinging to, but how could she not be? Self betterment is… difficult, to say the least. Wouldn’t it be soothing to know that all of your flaws and deficits were baked into you upon being made? That every time you manage to overcome them, you achieve a Herculean feat?

(She knows she’s playing a dangerous game when it comes to One. Allowing her to operate in the background and never say a word about it is certainly one of the worst ideas she’s had. Her excuse is that she won’t say anything about One until she does something, but she already has, hasn’t she? There aren’t four missing contestants for no reason. There’s still a contract bearing her signature, a debt that One is obviously hungry to pay.

But she thinks of her wide, shiny eyes, staring down at Fanny with a look so intimidating and predatory that she feels terrified by even the memory. One knew all too well what she was doing, an eerie sort of competence that distinctly set her apart from the other Algebrailians. It was horribly unnerving. She wonders if she wants to see the eyes again and feel trapped by them or avoid them at all costs.

It’s probably bad that the answer to that idle ponder is both. It’s probably bad that she’s way too far gone. She wants to be scared by it. Instead, she’s just… She just wants…

She just wants to see Bubble again, she supposes.)

Suitcase is quick to rally everyone when the surrounding conversations reach a lull, a sharp determination set ablaze in her eyes. She explains her plan for escape sharply and succinctly, and even if there are plenty of questions left hovering in the air, intense and pertinent and leaving plenty of what ifs in their wake, Fanny is down immediately. It’s an actual, tangible plan, and even if it doesn’t get them out of here, what do they have to lose? They’re already dead.

As Suitcase talks, she turns to Nickel, nudging him softly. “So?” she prompts. “Have you decided what you want to do?”

“I’ve decided that I haven’t heard any better ideas!” Nickel says brightly. “Besides, I can’t stay here! I have plenty of things I have to do! My odds are pretty good if TPOT ever has a rejoin-” Fanny, for one, sincerely doubts that, but she decides she won’t say that. “-and so long as I’m not stuck on a team with Pillow again I know I’ll thrive. Besides…” He sobers up, staring at the ground. “Who else is going to look for Bomby, right? I’m one of his closest friends. I have to look out for him.” He looks up, his eyes blazing with determination. “So that’s my decision! Pretty cool, huh?”

“You don’t need validation from me, you know,” she says bluntly, rolling her eyes, and he sheepishly sticks out his tongue in response. “But I do agree with you. I don’t want to spend the rest of eternity in this void, at any rate. What’s a reward without a little risk, right?” She shrugs, looking away from him. Nickel’s reasons for his decision are pretty selfish, but then again, so are hers. She can’t bear to never be able to see the people she cares about again, knowing the possibility of reunion was just a few steps away.

“Right,” he agrees, shooting her a conspiratorial grin. She just nudges him in response, letting out a huff as she does so. She can’t believe she feels an odd sort of camaraderie with Nickel, of all people, even as she finds him completely unbearable. It’s a strange dichotomy that she’s awfully amused by.

As Fan and Test Tube grab a shining orb suspended in midair, claiming it to be the thing that allows MePhone to make things to begin with, Cherry (or would it be Cherries? There are two of them) press the call button on the MeLife screen before any of them can say otherwise, and much to Fanny’s surprise, MePhone actually picks up. He looks… like a phone. What else is there to say, really? His background is a blue gradient, and… yeah, she’s got nothing. This is her creator, huh? She doesn’t know if she should thank him or bite him.

“You’re alive?” he cries, voice cracking with overwhelming relief. “You’re all-?!”

“Yeah, hi, I’m part of this conversation now,” the other Nickel interjects, shouldering his way past Suitcase and the other objects as he scowls. “Hey, asshole, why the fuck did I have to run into a scrapped version of me in this place, huh? He has the same appearance and voice and name as me and everything! What the hell is the deal with that?”

MePhone’s face goes pale (well, pale for a phone’s) and decidedly guilty, as if he’s fully aware of what the other Nickel is talking about and feels horribly guilty about it. Her Nickel perks up and jumps up a few times. “Hiya!” he says brightly, climbing up on Baseball much like he had done to Tennis Ball back home.

“Jesus, we’re doing this now?” Fanny grumbles. “And get off of him, Nickel, you can’t treat him as if he’s TB! TB doesn’t even like you!” Nickel pouts as he hops off the ball, grumbling under his breath, and Baseball offers him an apologetic smile. She gets the sense that he’s close with the other Nickel, and thus has a soft spot for this one. Probably not an advisable strategy, but she decides not to object to it for the time being.

“I-I didn’t- I thought I didn’t- Um,” MePhone stammers, looking lost.

Fanny just rolls her eyes. “You thought because you scrapped us we wouldn’t be here?” she mutters, but it’s so quiet that her voice carries through the crowd regardless. “Maybe you should get a better handle on your subconscious, then.”

From there, Fan and Test Tube push their way to the front, and she contents herself with skulking in the background, just visible enough for MePhone’s eyes to be drawn to her every so often and go all funny as his face scrunches up in guilt. Maybe it’s vindictive of her to feel a thrill every time MePhone’s guilt makes itself known, but why does it matter? For all of the flaws they have built into them, at least the other contestants can content themselves with knowing that they got to fulfill the purpose they were made for.

But she was just… cut loose, sent out into the world to figure out her own purpose. If she focuses, she thinks she can remember an audition of sorts, one that came before her BFDI audition, and the flat, unimpressed face of the man in the chair as he pressed a ballpoint pen against his temple. She remembered feeling crushed when she never got a call. She felt like she had to compete somewhere, she just didn’t know how.

At least she had made her way to BFDI eventually, even if participating meant she had to remain cramped in the LOL for years on end, boredly waiting for her time to finally come. Being there for so long hadn’t bothered her, because she didn’t have anything to go back to. At least now she knows why.

With a loud roar of “They’re still alive?!” and MePhone’s panicked “Hurry!” the call comes to an end. Fanny scowls at the screen. She can’t even begin to imagine what’s going on in the real world. With a sting of pain, she thinks of her teammates. Just how much time has passed out there? Hours? Days? If only Clock was her for her to keep track. The sooner she can get back to them, the happier she’ll be, not that she’ll ever admit that outright.

Eventually, everyone makes their decision. Not a single person decides they want to stay behind, and even better, everyone seems confident in their goal. She hates indecisive people, and even if most people seem a bit anxious as they line up behind the starting line, no one seems like they’re tempted to change their mind. She just lets out a breath, closing her eyes for a moment as she tries to focus.

Suitcase said that they would see things as they ran. Things to distract and hinder, to get them to hesitate for just long enough for the line to lick at their feet and cause their death. Is it death if they’re already dead? What would come after? Suitcase said something about Bow and Dough coming back as ghosts, but the names mean nothing to her and she thinks being a ghost will come with its own set of problems. She kind of likes being tangible and real, actually. Well, as real as she can be, considering- ugh, never mind.

Fanny turns to Nickel, letting out a sigh as she does so. She knows there isn’t much point in bothering with this, really, but she still finds herself opening her mouth and saying “You worried?”

“About what?” he replies, so wide eyed and innocent it immediately grates on her.

“About all of this,” she hisses in response. “What do you think you’ll see as you run? Do you think it’ll wear on you enough to slow you down?”

Nickel is quiet for so long that she begins to wonder if he had even heard her amidst the murmur of conversation between those who are lined up, and just as she begins to grumble about how much she hates repeating herself, he says “Nothing I haven’t come to terms with.”

And that? That catches her off guard. She’s always known Nickel as relentlessly upbeat and bubbly, random and switching moods at the drop of a hat. Upbeat and generally clueless. Even if there were things that bothered him, she didn’t think that he would ever be fully conscious of them, much less admit to the fact outright. 

“Then you’ll have a much easier time than I will,” she says gruffly. When she gains the courage to look back at him, she’s surprised to see that he's beaming.

“You can do it, Fanny!” he says brightly. “It doesn’t matter what you might see, you’ll overcome it anyway! You always struck me as the sort of person who doesn’t give up, no matter what’s thrown at her! No matter what you see, you’ll be fine!” His grin is so wide it threatens to split his face in two, and Fanny just rolls her eyes, part of her relishing in the fondness the motion makes her feel.

“I hate empty praise,” she grumbles. “But I guess that…” Nickel leans forward, eyes glinting with barely restrained eagerness. “...wasn’t the worst,” she concludes, still eying him, and he cheers, jumping up and down in excitement. Even a backhanded compliment can excite him. Suddenly, that fact feels less bemusing and instead just makes her heart ache.

That’s the last thing she gets to say. Suddenly, there’s a countdown, uneven as voices carry and are muffled down the line, and they all begin to run.

There’s no air here, she thinks, and if there is it’s so sterile it tastes awful in her throat as she gasps with exertion. But the motion of running forward frantically is enough for her fan to whirl to life, and at her side she hears Nickel’s delighted laugh. She would shove him over if it didn’t condemn him to death.

As she runs, visions begin to dance in front of her eyes, fleeting and ephemeral but real in the way they stab at her chest. She sees Bubble, deflating glumly whenever she’s around Match, and the way Fanny’s barked barbs were never good enough to fully lift her back up again. She sees One, sitting in that damn armchair so expectantly, contract hovering in front of her as she hungrily awaits Fanny’s inevitable response. In that vision, she looks far more like some alien monster eagerly stalking their prey than she ever actually did in reality, and she’s so daunted by the rush of emotion she feels that she finds herself skidding to a stop before she can think twice about it.

The stop seems to invite the visions to intensify all the more. Her teammates, former and current, eliminated and still participating in the game, all turning their backs upon her. The time she spent alone, wandering the streets of cities and sleeping on streets, wondering why she always felt so hollow. That had never bothered her before, and yet here it is, rushing back to her. Is it because of the knowledge that she isn’t real? That she has yet to fulfill the one thing she was made for?

Maybe it’s always been fake, everything around her immediately losing what real, tangible quality it had the moment the truth of her existence was revealed to her. Maybe her relationships, her friendship, even her thoughts, are just sand in the wind, slipping through her metaphorical hands and evading her.

Suddenly, she finds that the act of breathing is a Herculean task. Suddenly, she finds that she feels sick. Suddenly, she finds that the idea of standing still and letting that red line engulf her is the only thing she could ever want in the world.

She’s jolted forward by a rough shove from behind her. Disoriented, she looks over her shoulder only to lock eyes with Nickel. “Start running again!” he cries. “I wanna see your fan spin again!” Whether he means it or not, Fanny can decipher the hidden meaning beneath his words perfectly. Don’t give up.

Fanny lets out a breath through her mouth, wishing this place was cold enough to be able to see it pierce the air, and keeps going.

The visions don’t stop. If anything, they grow more intense. But she forces them to wash over her like the ocean’s waves, whether that’s remotely feasible or not. If they can pass her by without much fault, she can convince herself that she’s above all of it. That it means nothing to her.

Bubble is painfully, palpably far away from her, so unreachable that even the idea of seeing her again feels impossible. Even if she makes it to the end of the damn line and bursts back to life in reality, Bubble will remain as distant as ever. Is there ever a world where Fanny returns to her side and the two fall back into easy conversation, Bubble finally voicing all of the bitterness she was so used to swallowing with Freesmart? Is there ever a world where the two can just be together, no shows or teams or asterisks or anything?

She has to. She wants to. She supposes all she can do is see what the future has in store.

For now, she forces herself to run, and from behind her she hears Nickel crow in delight at her spinning fan as he tries in earnest to keep up. She reaches the finish line in a blink of an eye, and yet she feels each second of the eternity she’s spent running as it intensely grates on her. She skids to a stop before crossing it, though, panting and wild eyed as she turns around.

She doesn’t take her eyes off of Nickel, and she doesn’t cross the finish line until he does. She barely knows him enough to feel any level of care for him, even if the fact that they’re automatically separated from the rest of the people here leads to a sort of easy camaraderie. Even if she didn’t care for him at all, she knows there are others who will grieve if he doesn’t make it back from this adventure, she’ll say, in one piece, and she can’t do that to them. She can’t bear to be the one at fault for it. At the moment, she’s responsible for Nickel, so she’ll watch out for him. In that sense, things are pretty clear cut.

The moment Nickel disappears over the finish line, dissolving in an explosion of white light, she mimics the motion, stepping backward as her breathing goes shaky. Her vision goes completely white as she feels herself unravel once more, and she hopes that wherever this line leads, it eventually sends her back to where she needs to go.

Back to her team, her family. Back to Bubble. Back to the looming threat of One hanging over her like an ominous shadow. Back to all of it, good or bad.

Fanny grits her teeth as she steps back and vows that this won’t be an ending, but rather a beginning.

Chapter Text

Breathing actual, fresh, moving air has never felt so good in her life, Fanny thinks.

She hadn’t realized until now just how stagnant the air in that void was. It makes sense, of course, because it wasn't meant to be a place intended for breathing air to begin with. But god, getting to taste actual air on her tongue is relieving in a way nothing else is. She gasps for air, over and over again, reveling in the novelty of air filling her lungs and keeping her alive. It’s strange, yet good. She could get used to this.

To her side, Nickel is awkwardly staggering over his feet, looking faintly nauseous as he tries to get his bearings. She does feel kind of sick if she focuses on the feeling. But she can overcome that feeling in the same way she can overcome anything, so she grits her teeth and beats it back.

Fanny is certainly out of the loop on everything that’s happened. She’s still trying to digest the whole “not actually a real person” thing, to be honest, but the more she forces herself to move forward the more she finds she is slowly able to swallow it. What other option does she have? She can’t change how she was made.

So, due to that whole out of the loop thing, she finds herself hanging at the back of the group, feeling as out of place as she has been for the past however long she was in that void. There’s a palpable, burning hatred for Steve Cobs lingering in the air, taut and acidic as it expands with the building tension. He threatens Balloon with a knife, and the other Nickel lurches forward, panic in his eyes as he hurriedly moves to get him out of the way.

That doesn’t stop Balloon from lurching forward again when Cobs snatches up the egg from Suitcase, self-assured righteousness oozing from him in horrible, acidic waves that scorch her tongue and make her wrinkle her nose. He’s exactly the sort of bastard she hates, thinking he can just take anything he wants without any consequences to it. He was responsible for her being wiped from existence. She wants him to suffer.

When Suitcase turns around and mouths at them to not move, Fanny wonders where this will go.

She sure as hell didn’t expect Steve Cobs to blow up in a blaze of glory, popcorn flying through the air and scattering across the grass, but she finds herself letting out a breathy, stunned laugh at the sight anyway. It was deserved.

Nickel throws her a sidelong look, cocking an eyebrow. “Not very PACT-like of you, laughing at another’s death,” he points out, sounding amused.

“Who gives a shit about the PACT? He was an asshole anyway,” she retorts, rolling her eyes.

“You were aware of his existence for a minute.”

“One awful minute. I hate people who think they can take advantage of others without consequence.”

He lets out a thoughtful hum in response. “Yeah. Let’s hope no one ever types his name into a recovery center, huh?”

She laughs, because she likes the way her shoulders shake at the motion and because the words were witty enough to deserve it. But privately, she wonders as to how the recovery centers actually… work. She knows she hasn’t thought about it much before. Its presence was just one of those things she sort of took for granted, convenient and not much else. But how do they pierce the veil and bring back those departed?

To be honest, she does feel a bit different now, but she can’t tell if it’s a placebo or a definite shift. Does the recovery center work on fake objects? It’s worked for her and Nickel in the past, but what if taking that alien out of MePhone means that it suddenly stops? Can a recovery center even bring back fake objects? She can see the fear of death beginning to wear into everyone, especially the more fragile objects. If it was Bubble…

If nothing else, it’s a question to pose to Four and Two whenever she makes her way back to Goiky. And as anxious as she had been to make her way back there on the double, so she could reassure her teammates and ensure that they didn’t have to compete with an even bigger disadvantage, she realizes she’s… tired. Really fucking tired. Ugh. Even if she did manage to make her way back to the challenge grounds, she would probably be dead on her feet and no help either way.

Besides, she still needs some time to come to terms with everything, not to mention harshly interrogating MePhone. He was the one who made her, so he should have answers for her. She doesn’t know what kind of answers she wants, exactly. Maybe just a reason as to why she was made, maybe? She wants something concrete, a reason for life most can only dream of. From what she can tell, MePhone isn’t the most… reliable… but she thinks she can growl at him until he stammers something out, regardless of whether it’s what she wants to hear or not.

Unlike all of the people surrounding her, she’s confident in her life outside of this show. She had the chance to define herself outside of the person she was made to be, and got lucky enough to be surrounded by the kindest and understanding people she could ever ask for. She isn’t going to let herself be weighed down by what she’s learnt. If anything, she’ll force it to propel her forward.

For all the credit or lack thereof she gave to Nickel, his speech had actually been pretty damn encouraging. Not giving up no matter what’s thrown at her, huh? She thinks she can grow to embody that ideal eventually. It’s less putting pressure onto yourself and more wanting to make others proud. Less forced and more born from thankfulness, from warmth, from happiness, from love.

“There you guys are!” calls a voice, and Fanny stares in bafflement as an extended pair of legs clambers by, casting a shadow as they walk. Stopping in front of Fan and Test Tube, the legs shrink down to normal size as another object stares at them with wide eyes. “Where’d you guys go? Everything just disappeared so suddenly!”

“Uh…” Test Tube says, her eyes wide as one hand is half-raised.

Fan’s eyes flit past them to look at the ghostly Bow, who’s doing somersaults in the air presumably to impress Marshmallow. His face goes blank and nervous as he whispers “Oh, this is going to be a whole thing, isn’t it?”

Well, she should just leave them to it. Not her business, anyway. She’s more interested in tracking down…

There he is. Standing at the outskirts of the crowd, ruefully talking to another phone with a grayscale color scheme, is MePhone4. Her creator, supposedly. His screen is cracked, which combined with the fact that Cobs had been wielding a Meeple-brand sword with fury in his eyes and someone named MePad had got caught in the crossfire before they had been brought back, it doesn’t paint the greatest picture of things, huh?

Not that it matters. Cobs is dead, and for objects not involved in game shows, death is usually the end of things, full stop.

Leaning forward, she nudges Nickel, and when he turns a questioning look onto her she inclines her head at MePhone. His face goes determined and he nods, for once taking the lead. Fanny doesn’t let that slight stand for long, though, making her way to his side and shoving through the crowds of people, turning stormy scowls onto anyone who tries to protest. They’re all smart enough to get the hint.

“Hey!” she hollers as they begin to close in on MePhone. Her call turns heads, but not the head of the one she’s trying to get the attention of. Gritting her teeth, she tries again. “Hey! MePhone!” Finally, he turns, only to freeze, eyes going wide as he locks eyes with her. His eyes begin to scan the clearing furtively, looking for a way out, and his eyes lock on Nickel.

“Sorry, I’d love to talk, but Nickel said he wanted to help me with something!” he calls, voice strained as he grabs onto Nickel and begins to drag him away, smile wobbly and strained.

“Wrong Nickel,” he grumbles out. Immediately, MePhone drops him, hand going flying backward as if he had accidentally touched something hot and burnt himself.

“Good to know you can’t even tell your own creations apart,” she grumbles, rolling her eyes. “Speaking of which, we have questions, you have answers. You ready to offer ‘em? Or are you going to keep being avoidant?”

MePhone looks like he’s genuinely considering running away, throwing wide eyed glances around the clearing. After a moment though, he sighs, shoulders slumping. “Fine. I’ll talk. You deserve that much, at least. It’s, uh, Fanny, right?”

“Right,” she confirms.

“Figured. Still, you look, uh, different than I had imagined you,” he says, looking at Fanny with a small frown. “Were you always…?” He doesn’t seem to know how to phrase it.

“Long story, unrelated,” she says flatly, rolling her eyes. She takes a thrill in the reminder that she moved past the form initially given to her upon her creation. Sure, it was hardly by choice, but she prefers how she looks now a hell of a lot more than how she used to be. It feels like another way to set herself apart from what she was made to be. That bit of self determination feels nice.

“If you’re so pressed about it, you can just blame Gelatin,” Nickel breezily adds.

“Sure,” he says slowly, confusion dancing in his eyes. “Um, before we get into things, I should grab Nickel and Fan. The other Nickel, I mean. The two of them are relevant to this discussion, too.”

“Uh, if you’re sure,” Nickel says, looking dubious. MePhone nods anxiously and then walks off. Fanny keeps a firm eye on him, teeth grit as her eyes follow him. If he tries to make a break for it, she will know, and she will follow him. She won’t tolerate him trying to turn away from them. He was the one to bring them into the world to begin with. It’s practically his responsibility to own up to it, one way or the other.

A moment later, MePhone miraculously and surprisingly actually returns, the other Nickel and Fan trailing behind him. The latter perks up and waves cheerfully at them, while the former lets out a long, drawn out sigh, sounding as if he wants to be anywhere but here right now. “Great, I have to be back here with my… what? My replacement? Who even is this idiot, anyway?” He glares resentfully at MePhone, looking uncomfortable. Of course, that discomfort manifests more as irritation and distaste, which she can understand. It’s far easier to hate something than it is to love something.

“That’s kind of why you’re here, so if you would just be patient, I’d be able to tell you,” he says stiffly. Nickel just scoffs and looks away, expression resentful. Probably not the best way to handle the recent revelations he’s been bombarded with, but it’s better than nothing.

Fanny just shifts impatiently, chewing on the side of her cheek. If she had things her way, the bumbling blue idiot would have just spat things out by now and she would be fast asleep, either on the grass or any available bed-slash-comfortable surface, she isn’t picky, before beginning the trek back to her team, no matter how far she may be, because she has shit she was in the middle of before she was interrupted by a megalomaniac with an unchecked ego. She’s caught off guard by the feeling of Nickel leaning against her, as if seeking some sort of physical comfort from her, and she lets him be. 

“When I was still stuck at MeCloud, dealing with all of Cobs’ expectations, I occupied my time by watching a lot of reality shows. Battle For Dream Island was my favorite.” MePhone nervously begins, rubbing awkwardly at his arm.

Fanny sighs at hearing that, while Nickel preens. “Yeah?” he prompts smugly, leaning forward. “What’d you think of Season Two, huh?”

“Just because that was the season you did the best on doesn’t mean you can go fishing for praise constantly,” she deadpans, voice flat and unimpressed.

“You’re just mad because you didn’t join until BFB,” he says haughtily.

“Wait, you two were actually on BFDI?” MePhone cries, eyes wide.

“Sure were!” Nickel says enthusiastically. “Fanny’s still in the game, even!”

“Wow. That’s definitely the greatest thing any of my creations have ever done,” he says in response, looking faintly starstruck.

“We’re right here!” snaps the other Nickel, looking annoyed. He goes ignored.

“Well, anyway, since I loved all of those reality shows so much, I figured, why not make one of my own?” MePhone continues, shrugging irreverently. “So I began workshopping some characters, and at the time I knew I wanted to make some kind of character like Coiny. He’s my favorite character on BFDI! I mean, his rivalry with Firey? Classic!”

“It’s kind of weird hearing you talk like some fangirl about people I know pretty well, but sure,” Nickel mumbles under his breath.

“I hate cheap ripoffs, but Nickel’s nothing like Coiny,” Fanny points out. “He’s not that close with Pin, first of all. Plus he’s a lot less abrasive than Coiny. So how’d that go for you?”

“Well, y’know, I didn’t want it to be that obvious that my new character was a Coiny ripoff,” MePhone says sheepishly, rubbing at the back of his neck. “My first idea was to go with the opposite of him, y’know? Someone friendly or bubbly, I guess.” She unconsciously sighs at hearing the word bubbly. Now that she’s alive again, her reason for wanting to come back sticks in her mind, refusing to leave it no matter how much she tries to focus. “But I never actually came to a proper conclusion, and I didn’t like any of the ideas I had, so I just scrapped it and started again.”

“Nickel,” Fanny flatly corrects. “You scrapped Nickel, who is right here. He’s not some object you can talk about like he can’t hear you.”

“Well, I’m not an inanimate object, but your point still stands,” Nickel agrees. “I’m right here, Phone boy! You can’t just close your eyes and hope I’ll go away.”

“Well, that would be nice…” MePhone muses, before wincing as Fanny kicks him in the shin. “A-Anyway, after I rejected my first idea, I decided I’d work with what I knew. Someone sarcastic, blunt, realistic, abrasive, stuff like that. Kind of like Coiny, kind of like me. So, eventually, I landed on…” His eyes wander to where the other Nickel is standing.

He looked uncomfortable with where the conversation was going as things unfolded, and that discomfort multiples tenfold as everyone else follows MePhone’s gaze. “Me.” he says flatly, spitting out the word as if it had burnt his mouth. It’s not a question. Fanny would find it stupid if it was. She hates pointless questions just as much as she hates rhetorical ones.

“You,” MePhone agrees. “So that was that. I was happy at my second attempt at making a Nickel, as you can probably guess, since one ended up on my show while the other didn’t.” He shrugs blithely. Does he really have to be so unconcerned about all of it? “I mean, I didn’t even spell nickel right the first time around. Or the second. Or the third. But I figured it out while I made him.” He nods at the other Nickel, who scowls in exasperation.

“Wait, you spelt my name wrong?” Nickel says, squinting at MePhone. “How is it actually spelled? Is it really not N-I-C-K-L-E?” He sounds out each letter slowly, the confused expression on his face never abating.

“Uh…” MePhone says slowly.

“Oh my god, you’re a moron,” the other Nickel hisses under his breath in exasperation.

“Which one?” she dryly says.

“I dunno. Both of ‘em, I guess.”

“Not that I don’t agree, but what about me?” she says, directing the first half of her sentence to the other Nickel while the other, sharp and pointed, is trained on MePhone. “I’m guessing it has something to do with him-” She nods at Fan, who had so obviously been restraining the urge to go full fanboy that it makes her roll her eyes as she notes it. “-just as the two Nickels have something to do with each other. But if there is something to do with the two of us, it feels a lot less clear cut.”

“Right,” he mumbles, pressing his hands tightly together. “Well- I dunno. I thought it would be fun to have a character that felt some way about the show. It would make for good banter, y’know? But… uh…” He grits his teeth together. “My first idea was to have a character who hated the show, but that felt bad. I mean, it’s the only worthwhile thing I’ve done with my life. Why would I want to go with that? I tried to salvage it, changing it to hating everything, but eventually I just scrapped that character too and replaced it with someone who loved the show.”

“Oh.” For some reason, it’s Fan who gets it before her. Wide eyed, passionate Fan, who loves to flex his knowledge and was only worried about the reveal of their origin because it compromised the integrity of him being a real fan. All this time, he seemed to be more worried about ensuring he continued to be known as the number one fan of Inanimate Insanity. But maybe she misjudged him, too quick to look at his exuberant, peppy nature and write him off as no help at all. “So we’re…”

“Whatever the Nickels are to each other, you’re also that. Also to each other.” MePhone says awkwardly and haltingly. Fanny finds herself rolling her eyes in exasperation. It’s easy to be irritable than reflective, easier still to avoid coming to a stop and mulling over the revelations forcibly slammed over her head.

So she was that character he was talking about. It would have been nice if he could use words instead of just awkwardly flailing around and expecting it to click despite the fact that he uses the vaguest wording for it imaginable. She’s tired of being treated as if she’s less than a person just because she technically isn’t real. She’s still here, still living and breathing, still more than her creator ever intended her to be. Can’t that have some sort of meaning attached to it, or will she always be reduced to her creation and nothing more?

“I hate you,” she says flatly. For the first time, the words feel performatory. She’s able to spit them out about so many things and people and truly mean it, but now they just feel hollow. “Is that what you want from me?”

“T-That’s-” MePhone begins to protest, but the other Nickel is already interjecting, explosive in his anger as he bristles. At least someone can feel something. She just feels more numb than anything, knowing that she’s standing right next to the person of her deemed palatable, preferable, and she had been tossed to the side in favor of him.

“So what, first I’m not even a real person, and now I’m just some copy of someone I don’t even know?!” the other Nickel spits out.

“Well, technically, you’re a derivative of the first Nickel-” MePhone begins.

“You have to stop acting like you explaining any of this makes it better,” Nickel notes, and his tone isn’t even scathing, it’s just matter-of-fact. Fanny nods firmly. All he’s doing is piling on more details with an awkward, tentative smile, obviously searching for acceptance or pity. As if the very action of creating them hadn’t been rooted in selfishness to begin with. What excuse is there for any of that?

“A fake of a fake,” the other Nickel says with a scoff, a scowl on his face as he turns away from MePhone. He looks frustrated, and Fanny certainly can’t blame him. “Great. Thanks for that.”

“If it helps, you were the first contestant I created?” MePhone calls after him as he storms away, causing the attention of others to turn onto their group. They don’t bother to hide their curiosity, and Fanny feels the way she suffocates under their eyes, even if they’re not trying to look at her. It still feels like too much. It reminds her of One with that damn screen, watching all the contestants no matter where they are. Nowadays, the idea of being watched scares her more than she wants to admit, always wondering if this is the time One will have her eyes trained on her.

“Why would that help?!” he barks in response, voice carrying as he cuts through clusters of contestants. Both Balloon and Baseball watch him go, the former wincing while the latter frowns. A moment later, they both move to chase after him, Baseball shooting Balloon a weird look as he does so. Balloon hardly reacts to it, though, focused solely on following after Nickel.

Fanny turns her attention to her Nickel. She doesn’t care much for him on the best of days, and she hardly knows him enough to see what he’s bothered by, but at the moment all the two have are each other. They’re strangers in the midst of family, essentially. Except for Box, but that’s different too. Maybe she could turn to Fan. He’s not… He isn’t her. That’s something separate. But they’re linked in a way that makes her too discomforted to confront outright, so for the time being she ignores him.

“So?” she says, tone expectant. She supposes this is how she’ll begin all of her check-ins, firm and expectant, with just one word. Nickel seems to know what she means, because he just shrugs.

“I dunno,” he mumbles. “It was already a lot, grappling with the fact that I was just some fake version of Coiny. Counterfeit currency! People get arrested for that, you know. But learning that there was someone based off of me, that he got to have the life I didn’t get to…” He trails off, shrugging. “I dunno. It’s weird. I’m pretty happy with my current life, though, so I won’t try to badger him into swapping places.”

“I doubt he’d agree to go through with it anyway,” she retorts, tilting her head up. “Do you see the way he looks at Balloon and Clover?”

“Like you’re one to talk,” Nickel replies in a singsong. “Everyone saw how you looked at Bubble before the spl- OW!” He cuts himself off with a yelp as she kicks him in the shin and he begins to jump up and down in pain.

She scowls at the ground, cheeks flushed, but her head snaps up when she hears muffled laughter into her hand. She locks eyes with Fan, who’s clearly laughing at the scene, although he pauses when he notices her staring at him. “Oh, sorry!” he sputters. “I-I didn’t mean… Um…” He trails off, fidgeting with his fingers anxiously.

“You’re fine,” she says with a curt sigh. She tries to look at Fan again, but he’s looking away from her. The moment she lets her eyes drift away from him, though, his eyes snap back toward her. She tries to look him in the eye, but once again he’s started to look away from her. She groans. “What are you being so anxious around me for?” she snaps impatiently. “You never hesitated to be all bubbly and chatty before in that void.”

“Well, you know, that was before!” he cries, voice strained. 

“Before…?” she prompts, encouraging him to go on.

“Before I found out that we were linked, y’know?” Fan responds, spreading his hands out. “Like, I’m you, you’re me, things like that.”

“Not really,” she stiffly retorts, aware of the way Nickel’s gaze is intently trained on the two of them. This relates just as much to him and the other Nickel as it does to her and Fan, she supposes. How are the two Nickels expected to define themselves in relation to each other? How are they expected to cope with the knowledge that they’re derived from the same person, that one came from the other while the other was scrapped in favor of the one. It’s dizzying, and painful, and the sort of thing no one wants to dwell on. In that sense, she got the better deal.

“Wh- What do you mean not really?” he sputters in dismay, looking rather put off by the outright dismissal. “You’re just a version of me who came before. On a different end of a scale. You’re just…” He swallows, and trails off.

“I’m just a person, just like you are,” she snaps, baring her teeth at him in distaste. “Let’s not act like I’m completely different in your eyes now that you know where I came from. I’m myself, no one else. And I won’t let you try to tangle up my identity in yours when I tried so hard to make myself into my own person. Alright?”

“Alright!” Fan automatically replies, his eyes wide, and she begins to worry about how much he actually absorbed any of that information until he reverently adds “Wow, you really have a sort of commanding presence, y’know? Very intimidating.”

“I think it’s because you’re constantly worried she’s going to bite you,” Nickel says sagely, and immediately, Fanny whirls on him.

“Who invited you to this conversation?!” she barks, and he squeaks nervously.

“Fan?” calls the somewhat nasally voice of Test Tube. She blinks at her and Nickel as she stops in front of their group, offering them a small wave before turning her attention back to the one she really came to talk to. “What did MePhone want to talk to you about? I had to tell Bot about all the things we learned today, and trust me, I’m more than tired of having to always be the one to break the life-changing revelations to them.”

“Sorry,” he says sheepishly. “But in my defense, the conversation was definitely important. Like, super-duper life changing levels of important.”

“Yeah…?” Test Tube prompts, clearly encouraging him to go on.

So, in an extremely abridged manner, Fan summarizes the conversation they had with MePhone, Fanny seizing the initiative and jumping in whenever he says something outright wrong or something she finds objectionable. More than that, she just wanted to hear the sound of her own voice, which isn’t a bad thing no matter how others try to phrase it. It’s continued reassurance that she’s here, that she’s real. So it’s nice.

“I see,” Test Tube says after they finish, one hand on her cheek as she frowns in thought. “That’s… a lot. You two both alright, then?”

“Ask me that after I’ve had time to pass out,” she retorts, rolling her eyes.

“Oh, you’re tired too?” Fan prompts. “Good, I thought it was just me! Well, it’s not good that you’re tired, but it’s- well- y’know- S-Sorry, usually I’m better at talking to people then this. I’m just not in the mood to sleep right now, y’know? There’s so much to do!” Even as he says that, wide eyed and plaintive, he has to stifle a yawn with his hand.

“So what are you two planning to do now?” Test Tube asks.

“In general, or…?” she says slowly, squinting at her.

“About the two of you,” she clarifies. “Shouldn’t you try to figure things out between the two of you while you’re still here?”

“We’re not going to fight to the death to prove which one of us is superior,” Fan cries, looking mildly scandalized by the idea. He also looks kind of excited by it too, though, which she doesn’t really know how to feel about.

“Now that’s a good idea,” Nickel says sagely.

“Remind me when you were invited to this conversation?” Fanny says dryly, and he just grins. “Anyway, Test Tube has a point, I guess. I’m going to sleep and then leave the moment I get the chance. Speaking of, do you guys know how far Goiky is from this place? Not too far to walk, hopefully?”

“Uh…” The two exchange a glance, Fan tentatively offering “Well, we’re on an island…?”

“Great. Helpful.”

“Don’t worry, Fanny!” Nickel says brightly. “We can just walk across the ocean like Freesmart did in BFDIA!”

“Number one, they drove. Number two, they all died. Several hundred times.”

“So?” Fanny just sighs and shoots the two an exasperated look that she hopes depicts see what I have to deal with?

“Well, it seems like you’re going to be here for a while,” Test Tube concludes, and Fanny just groans, irritated. She hates wasting time, and if she stays here she’s going to be doing a lot of that. “And, I mean, you and Fan are practically family, aren’t you? I guess it’s hard to properly define that sort of thing, considering the circumstances, and in the end I suppose proper labels are up to you, but that’s how it feels to me.”

“That’s not really-” Fanny begins to object.

“Yeah!” Fan says brightly, slinging an arm over Fanny’s shoulder and grinning so infectiously she would mimic it if it weren’t for the fact that she’s not the type to smile… when she isn’t around Bubble, anyway. “We can be siblings! The best of siblings! …Except, no, that would be kinda weird, huh? We’ve known each other for, like, a few hours. Being siblings just feels like a lot, heh. What do you think? Don’t wanna, uh, force you into anything.”

Fanny sighs, although she finds she has to bite back her smile. That’s strange. She only has to do that around Bubble, although the feeling feels distinctly different from what she felt around her. Around Bubble, she felt happy and floaty and kind of terrified, because she has to protect her from everything. Around Fan, she feels bemused and fond despite herself. She doesn’t know what it’s like to have a family, but would this be close to it?

“What do you think about cousins?” she says after a moment, and Fan cheers, hugging her as he yells right in her ear. Ugh. She hates it when people are loud, especially near her. But she finds she can’t mind it that much.

“Cousins!” he excitedly yells, hugging her tightly and warmly. She honestly kind of wishes she had arms so she could hug back. Maybe she should have asked for them when she made her definitely ill-advised deal with One. “Test Tube, Test Tube, did you hear?!” he cries, climbing off of her. “I have a cousin now! Have you met her?” As if she wasn’t the one to suggest the whole family thing to begin with. Is he seriously that overjoyed by it all, finding the urge to declare the news to anyone who will listen?

Test Tube smiles, one hand on her hip. She looks so fond to be around Fan. She definitely fits the title of his best friend. If she’s going to be his cousin, maybe she should pay attention to that sort of thing. “Yeah, I have,” she says. “And she’s definitely lucky to be related to you.”

Fan giggles giddily as he rolls on his heels before scrambling in all directions, the motion messy and undignified. “Painty, Painty, did you-? Oh, and Lightbulb! Guess what? Guess what?!”

As he excitedly rants and rambles to anyone in earshot, Test Tube walks over to her. Fanny tenses, expecting for a shovel talk of sorts. Honestly, she would love to see it. If nothing else, she could feel like she wasn’t going insane for being so instantly fond of him, because it was felt by so many others, too. Instead, though, the beaker sets a hand on her shoulder, smile kind.

“Thanks for all of that,” she says warmly. “Fan, uh, really took the “being characters created by Mephone” thing real hard. All of this is really taking his mind off things, you know? You’re helping him out a lot. I really owe you one.”

“It’s nothing,” she mumbles, shrugging. “What are cousins for, or, uh, something? To be honest, though, he just really reminds me of… a friend. Super genuine and stuff. Except the world chewed her up and spat her right out. I just hope it doesn’t end up doing the same to him, I guess. Or maybe I just like protecting people. Never mind, this is stupid.” She grits her teeth together. “I hate-”

“Let me guess, being vulnerable?” Test Tube says dryly, and she feels her face flush in embarrassment. “I get it. Don’t worry, I won’t push things. I just wanted you to know I appreciated your openness to this sort of thing. Seeing Fan happy makes me happy, so you shouldn’t be surprised by it.” Fanny just grumbles in frustration under her breath as Test Tube walks away, still embarrassed. She hopes she figures out how to have a family soon; otherwise, she’ll have a lot of angry objects on her case.

As she’s left on her own, she hears one of the Nickels speak up. Their voice is as identical as their appearance, but there’s an easy way to tell the two apart; the Nickel she knows is always enthusiastic, bouncing off the walls, and that can be heard in his voice, the smile on his face audible. The Nickel she doesn’t know is gruff and flat, sarcasm dripping from every syllable.

Keeping that in mind, it’s not much of a mystery as to which Nickel is talking. “Ooo, ooo! Do you think we can be cousins, too?” pleads the Nickel she knows, his voice desperate and wheedling.

The other Nickel groans. He must have drifted back from his self-induced exile as he sulked. “No way,” he grumbles in reply. “Us being family implies that I have to see even more of you, and that sounds like my worst nightmare. We have nothing to do with each other.”

“Well, that’s not really true, is it?” prompts the amused, lilting voice of Clover. “You two have a lot in common! You’re like twins! Cute!”

“Can you not remind me of that?” the other Nickel snaps, sounding frustrated. “I don’t need a reminder that I’m just… a fake of a fake.” His voice peters off as something more pained roots itself into his words, and for a moment Fanny wonders if she’s going to see the prickly coin slip into something more vulnerable. Those hopes are quickly dashed when he hurriedly continues “Anyway, even if I had a family, I wouldn’t want him to be a part of it!”

“C’mon, Nickel,” scoffs the high pitched voice of Balloon. “You can’t act like the two of you have nothing to do with each other. Denial isn’t good for you.” The salmon balloon moves forward and reaches for the Nickel she knows, lifting him into the air with obvious bemusement. “You aren’t siblings or anything like that, if that’s any comfort. Hell, I think being cousins is perfect for someone as emotionally constipated as you. You get the experience of having family at all, but you don’t have something as overwhelming as a brother. I know that would freak you out.”

“Shut up, Balloon!” the other Nickel hisses, hackles raised as he grits his teeth in obvious offense. “You can’t just-!”

The conversation probably would have devolved into an argument at this point, obviously a well-worn topic based on the way the two act, if not for the Nickel she knows interjecting. “So I have a cousin?” he says exuberantly. “Yay! We can have sleepovers and paint our nails and tell each other all of our secrets!”

“I don’t think cousins do that sort of thing, Nickel,” Balloon says, sounding amused.

“Oh. Well, I dunno what a cousin is, really, so I was just guessing,” he explains in response, not losing the wide smile on his face. His words prompt a loud, drawn out groan from the other Nickel as he buries his head in Clover’s leaves and the taller object pats him on the back reassuringly. Fanny watches the scene with a smirk. That other Nickel had no idea what he was getting into. To be honest, neither did she. But she finds herself attached to Nickel. Funny what you can acclimate to in the worst of circumstances

“Oh, oh, Fanny!” Fan suddenly calls, drawing her attention. He’s excitedly waving his hands in the air and jumping up and down. Biting back a wry smile, she treks over to him, coming to a stop and raising a brow. “I wanted to introduce you to someone!”

He reaches forward over the shoulder of the object next to him. They’re short, a bit shorter than he is, primarily an off-white color with bright green accents. They have two attachments on the sides of their body, reminding her of a bow, or maybe the wings of a butterfly. They’re metallic, reminding her vaguely of Robot Flower. If they are a robot or mechanical, their design is certainly much sleeker than her teammate’s, though. They lean into the touch, their smile sheepish and strained.

“Bot, this is Fanny. She’s my cousin now!” he says brightly, gesturing his free hand forward. Bot waves at her awkwardly, brow furrowed. “Fanny, this is Bot! They’re pretty cool!” He beams, as if this at all explains why they get a special introduction.

“Hi,” they say slowly. “Uh, I’m Bot. Like he said. They/them, please.” They look both tentative and hesitant, as if they’re getting their hopes up but are expecting the worst.

“Cool,” she says with a shrug. “The host on the gameshow I’m on uses they/them, too, except they’re from a race of aliens who don’t have gender. Same could be said for some competitors, except they aren’t aliens. Not confusing at all, right?”

Bot’s wobbly smile becomes a lot wider and genuine as they stifle a giggle into their hand. “So you’re from another reality show?” they ask. “How’d you end up here?”

“Uh…” Now that she thinks of it, had she seen them among the recovered contestants in that void? Their extending legs are pretty notable. Would have come in handy for outrunning that red line. With their clamor to talk to Fan and Test Tube outside of the void as opposed to inside it, she realizes with a start that the simplest explanation can just as easily be the best. In other words, they weren’t created by MePhone and thus didn’t have to go through the ordeal of the void at all. But that creates another issue! Why are they here if they weren’t made by MePhone? Did they audition independently of all the damn phone’s toys and somehow make it in? She doesn’t know how to feel about that.

“Has Test Tube talked to you?” Fan hurriedly interjects, looking panicked.

“Yeah,” they retort with an irritated huff. “About how no one is real and all of that. It’s… well, it doesn’t involve me. But I wish I had been there to do something when everything was going down. I feel so behind everything.”

“Sorry, kiddo,” he says sympathetically, patting them on the head. She definitely isn’t imagining the annoyance that flickers across their face, even if they don’t outright shy away from his touch. There’s something strange between the two of them, something that Fanny can’t put into words. Fan is as kind and enthusiastic as ever, but he seems to mellow out a hell of a lot around Bot. And Bot is… almost tense? They keep shifting and shuffling in place, at any rate.

“It’s fine,” they say stiffly, rubbing at their arm. “I’m not the one who just learnt that they aren’t a real person, made to mimic someone else or an idea. I went through that ages ago, after all.” A ghost of a smile flashes across their face, and they seem to take satisfaction in the way Fan winces in response. Just what is the relationship between the two of them, so stiff and disjointed that the tension hanging in the air is horribly palpable?

“Right…” Fan slowly agrees, looking uncomfortable. Fanny wonders if Bot and Robot Flower would get along. She can only guess at the source of Fan’s discomfort, at just what is being alluded to. Idle theories and nothing more. But still, regardless, she wonders.

“Are you done showing me off now? It’s been a pretty long day, and I’d prefer to sleep rather than later,” she says gruffly, abstaining from vocalizing just what it is she’s wondering for the time being. (Still, though, she thinks of something, pockets between bigger moments, a robot and a ghost staring at each other, and somehow, despite their overwhelming differences, there have never been two people more alike.)

“Oh, sure!” Fan says brightly. She doesn’t miss the way Bot, previously tensed, relaxes, shooting her an unreadable look. She just shrugs in response. If this conversation is so awkward for them, no point in dragging it out any longer than it needs to be. “Over there is Hotel OJ- or, well, I think he was changing the name. OJ built it with his season one winnings. Well, MePhone made it, actually. That’s why the interior kind of sucks. The rooms have no windows, they’re like prison cells! But I can get you and Nickel- well, the other Nickel a room sorted for you both, however long you’ll be staying.”

Fan stumbles through the conversation as much as he stumbles through every interaction with her, and she hates that she finds it more endearing than anything. She steers him away from Bot as the two walk and talk. By that, she means she lets him talk while she bites back the more pressing thoughts bothering her.

The group intrudes on OJ and Paper, who seem to have no eyes for anyone but the other until they burst in and disrupt things. The two are sappy enough around each other that she doesn’t feel all that bad about it. While she and Fan had walked, Fanny had grabbed Nickel while he and his newly acquired cousin were in an awfully one sided argument, dragging him along behind her while Balloon pushes the very grumpy other Nickel along, looking more amused than anything at his frustration.

OJ looked like he had half a mind to send the group on their way, but at Paper’s sheepish encouragement, he very reluctantly leads them through his hotel, his pride in the place evident. As he deposits Fanny and Nickel in their temporary room, the other Nickel says, not quietly enough, “Can you just lock him in there so I don’t have to deal with him any longer?” He’s gruff and sarcastic and tired and hurt, and he thinks the only way to get over it is to hurt others in turn.

It’s not a mindset she’s unfamiliar with. And every time she manages to overcome it, she feels a rush of satisfaction at her own skill. Still, she doesn’t think the other Nickel is being fair, lashing out at his newly acquired cousin just because he feels-

Similar to how Fanny does, she imagines.

Not even attempting to drop his voice like the other Nickel had futilely done, because he had cared more about hurting than subtlety, and she cared more about coming to the defense of others like she had done with Bubble, she flatly says “You know, Nickel, there’s nothing stopping you from sticking around here for a bit longer. You were eliminated from TPOT ages ago, after all. Maybe you could get to know your family a bit better before you leave.”

The other Nickel loudly groans in exasperation in response, and she can’t help but smirk, reveling in the effect just a few simple words can have. Bubble was always so afraid of hurting people with her words, and the one time she had spoken up and defended herself she was instantly punished for it. Or, well, Fanny didn’t view the elimination of Match as a punishment and more a relief, but she knew her chances of convincing Bubble that Match and Pencil were bad for her was slim. Still, she and Bubble remain opposites, and still, Fanny finds herself drawn to her anyway. Funny how these things work out.

“Mmm, maybe I’ll stick around,” Nickel muses, squinting in thought. “But what if a rejoin on TPOT happens and I’m not there?! How am I supposed to appeal to the viewers then?!”

“Maybe don’t let your life revolve around a reality show?” Balloon suggests, leaning against the other Nickel in the sort of comfortable, familiar way that just yells their closeness to the world. Despite the fact that he’s double Nickel’s height, the coin doesn’t look bothered at all by the weight. It helps that he’s made of helium. It stings that she can never have this with Bubble. The only time the two can touch is when she’s made from metal, and Fanny can’t handle that weight even if she tried. She won’t have a normal life by virtue of how she was made, and she can’t have a normal love life by virtue of those she’s in love with. She hates feeling so isolated from everyone else.

“Well, when the prize is limitless power, and all the people you know are also competing, it’s kind of hard not to,” Fanny absentmindedly mutters, only aware that she said that aloud when she sees Nickel nodding at the corner of her eye.

“That’s what you guys are competing for?” says OJ, who hasn’t been included in this conversation until now. “Huh. I just got a million dollars when I won.”

“Helps that our host is an alien!” Nickel says brightly. “They can afford to give away stuff like that. I think.”

Fanny thinks of One, lurking in the shadows, looking at Two whenever they appeared on her screen with such hunger in her eyes that it made her shrink backward into the armchair she had neatly been deposited onto, and doesn’t say a word.

The group leaves them be eventually, and Nickel jumps onto the hotel bed with a cheer, bouncing on it for a solid five minutes while Fanny stumbles into the bathroom and stares blankly into the mirror, resenting the sight of her reflection. This is not what her creator intended her to be, but here she is anyway, a monster of her own making. As the sun crawls behind the distant mountains, staining the sky bright red as the rest of it fades from azure to deep cerulean.

Nickel eventually settles down, and by the time she pries herself away from the mirror, he’s tucked neatly into bed, the blankets that were once tightly pressed into the mattress loose and spilling off the edges of the bed frame. He seems to have fallen asleep in the blink of an eye, his soft snores filling the room.

With a sigh, she crawls under the covers, trying to loosen them as little as possible. She likes the feeling of the covers pressing down against her, a nice steadying weight that grounds her. With how tired she’s been, practically dead on her feet the moment she came down from the adrenaline of the red line game, laying down feels like a relief. She’s sure she’ll fall asleep in no time, even if her dreams will probably be agony.

And yet.

It’s strange. She had been so desperate for sleep, but now that she set down her head, pressing it tight against the pillow, it seems intent on not coming. 

She feels hollow and restless. Maybe it’s the fact that she’s gotten used to piling into a hotel room with her team, silently relishing in the sounds of their even, peaceful breathing. She was even reassured by the sight of Black Hole hovering outside of the nearest window, staying as close to them as he can without causing danger. Pin, Gaty, and Robot Flower had found the tradition weird, but they hadn’t hesitated to embrace it. Fanny likes it.

Maybe it’s because of how isolated she felt on iance. Well, everyone felt isolated on iance, so she wasn’t special in that regard. Ruby never noticed it, Bubble and Flower were desperate to fend it off, Snowball seemed happier to be alone, and she and Lightning found solace in the other. Match and Pencil were so clique-y that even after the latter was eliminated, the former continued to spend her time alone, refusing to branch out. Bubble and Ruby hovered around her, but they were never with her. It was a distance Fanny hated.

Thus, when she joined Death PACT Again in TPOT, she sought to remedy that deficit. And, well, this team feels a hell more like a family than the other one did, even if they had to go on a bit of a losing streak to manage it. The point is, she’s grown used to having her team with her, sleeping in the same room as them and falling asleep to the sound of their breathing. The only person in this room is Nickel, who snores. Not exactly the most productive environment for sleeping, but she thought she was too exhausted for that to be much of a problem.

Apparently not. She’s restless, too many thoughts pressing insistently at the corners of her mind. They feel like wild, caged beasts, desperate for escape. She can’t bear it for much longer. So when sleep continues to elude her, she gives up on the idea, getting to her feet and beginning the trek from her room.

She makes her way down the empty halls and emptier hallways, feeling strange the entire way. The place has parallels to the hotel she’s used to, with the same detached nature of a place she doesn’t truly live in, but the one back home always felt much more alive. There was always someone in either the halls or the lobby, regardless of the time, and the kitchen was always alive with some sort of bizarre sound.

Claiming she misses it would be an overstatement. She would much rather be there than here, but that’s due to the people more than it is the location. She has no attachment to Goiky, just as she has no attachment to anywhere. How could she? She’s never had a home, any roots, any family. She just has the life she’s made for herself, and she doesn’t need to decide on a location to live it in to make it more legit.

Fan’s face flits through her mind, and she sighs, as fond as she is irritated. Well, she hasn’t had a family until now. Maybe she’ll get the chance to learn from the people on TPOT who do have family. Or maybe not. That feels like a sort of vulnerability she’s not entirely sure she’s comfortable with. She’s fine with figuring it out as she goes along, she supposes.

Tasting the crisp, cold night air on her tongue is nothing short of a relief. Both because she’s trying to be appreciative of the virtues of fresh air after realizing how tasteless the air is without it, and because she would rather the air sting her body than be uncomfortably humid. This is an island, so she had expected it to be more tropical, but it feels more like a forest than anything else, the temperature mild at day and delightfully brisk at night.

When she had brought up her thankfully false concerns about the island’s climate to Fan, he had just laughed and replied “That was what the island for season three was like, which I’m pretty sure was all made by MePhone…? So that’s kinda weird. But this is a natural island. It was here before we were. Makes sense that the temperature would be more realistic even if it isn’t as glorious, huh?”

“Yes, this temperature is actually what’s to be expected for the region!” Test Tube had added, looking delighted at the prospect of sharing her knowledge. She was like Golf Ball in that sense, only the slightest bit less bossy. “The more temperate climate of the season three island was at odds with its location, but if MePhone was capable of creating living beings, I suppose we shouldn’t really question what else he’s capable of.” She had laughed awkwardly, scratching sheepishly at her cheek as she did so.

Either way, she feels relaxed as she trudges aimlessly through short, swaying grasses that brush her ankles and an endless, starry sky. It feels a lot different than the starry sky she saw in One’s dimension. That sky was a black, endless void, with sharp piercing bits of yellow scattered about to break up the dark. It felt oppressive to be trapped beneath it, as if it would lower beneath it and crush her beneath it. This is… just a sky. No different from the one back home.

Well, if she wanted to be pedantic about it, she could say that the constellations and star placements are certainly different from how they were back home. Disquietingly different, actually. Just how far away did she end up, and how long is it going to take to get back? For as eager to please as Fan was, he certainly was less than forthcoming on that front. It’s a lot to think about as she walks.

Unconsciously, she finds herself moving toward the only other notable landmark in the area, that being the abandoned mansion about half an hour away from competition grounds on foot. It certainly has a foreboding aura about it, and knowing that it’s the place where the three ghosts, none of which she knows beyond name, are stuck to remain in for eternity just adds to that.

She isn’t scared of ghosts, though. Maybe Black Hole would be, just because it means that someone died. The horror. And it’s not like she’s going to enter the mansion anyway. She’s just going to do a lap, to the mansion and back to the hotel, and hope by the time she collapses back into bed her head is in order enough for her to finally fall asleep.

It’s as good a plan as any. So she walks, dissecting well-worn tracks of thought in her mind as she tries frantically to come to any sort of conclusion or resolution. It’s not helpful or beneficial, it’s just obsessive, but it doesn’t stop her from doing it anyway. It feels like the one bit of control she has left anymore, dissecting things in her mind over and over again as if any of this is her fault.

After walking for minutes on end, a sudden voice strikes her from her reverie. “What are you doing out here?”

Yelping, she whirls around, meeting the eyes of Bot. The green lights affixed to the sides of their body glow lightly in the dark, a soft green glow illuminating most of their face and a small circle of ground around their feet. She relaxes, responding a moment later. “Couldn’t sleep. I was taking a walk. What are you doing out here?”

“I… needed to do something,” they say evasively, throwing unsubtle glances at the mansion behind the two of them. “Wanted to talk to someone. You’re just walking?”

They aren’t subtle. She can tell they aren’t a kid, not exactly, but there’s an indisputable youth about them. It’s not a measurable quality, not something she can put into words. They just have it, and someone like Leafy doesn’t. Beaten down by the world, come to terms with the cruelties of life, things like that. Some people age gracefully, coming to terms with what life has given them without much fuss, and some people don’t. Bot is too young to even realize that there’s a point in life where that happens. Wide eyed and hopeful, a teenager on the cusp of twenty, if they were a proper object.

It’s pointless to try to ascribe age to any of the people currently residing on the island. MePhone is an adult with all the maturity of a tween. They were all thrust into consciousness with the mindset of adults, maybe in their early twenties by object standards? She doesn’t know how old she is, doesn’t have any kind of birthday. She just kind of glares at anyone who asks until they go away. Still, though, compared to the other people on the island, Bot is young, with all the turmoil and fear that brings with it.

“Sure,” she says offhandedly. “Didn’t have much of a destination in mind, but I was kinda curious what that mansion’s interior would look like. Would be a shame for you to go alone, too. I guess I’ll tag along, if it’s not too much hassle.”

“Thanks!” they brightly reply, eyes wide, before sputtering awkwardly. “I-I mean, um, sure, that’s fine. If nothing else, we can both be out of place together.” Fanny just snorts. She’ll be out of place for as long as she remains on this damn island.

The two trudge toward the looming building in silence. Bot seems to grow more and more daunted the further they walk, growing unable to stand still as they fidget with the antenna dangling from atop their head, pull at their fingers, and drum a rhythm against their metal body. Whatever they’re seeking from that mansion, it’s something that weighs on them with overwhelming anxiety, on the verge of blossoming into full blown panic.

Fanny doesn’t know what to do. How is she supposed to help when she’s clueless as to what’s wrong? Still, though, she knows that letting them go on like this is cruel. She may not be the sort of person who sees someone panicking and immediately knows what to do, launching in with soothing breathing advice and a matter-of-fact confidence, but she can still do something.

“Back home,” she tentatively begins, not entirely knowing what the next word that comes from her mouth will be. “Our grass is yellow, and our trees are green. Before the lava flooded the area and destroyed everything, it was the other way around. This place is a nice change of scenery, I guess, even if the mountains are a weird shape.”

“Why is the grass yellow? Is it dead?” Bot asks with an awkward half-chuckle. It’s better than the anxiety that had been on the verge of paralyzing them before.

“No. The alien with an incomprehensible amount of power at their disposal regrew it, but got confused on what color it was supposed to be. So they ended up switching the proper colors around. Guess it’s not so bad there, though. Not so bad here, either, from what I can tell.”

Bot nods along. “I prefer the season three island,” they confess. “The, uh, tropical one? I guess you’ve never been. It has Cabby’s library on it, and a lot of my friends! I guess OJ’s hotel isn’t all bad, but it’s a lot of people I don’t really know. And they’re all kinda loud.”

“I hear that. But I’d rather deal with a loud person than an asshole, right?” she returns, smirking.

“Guess you’ve dealt with a lot of assholes to be so sure of that.”

“Unfortunately.” She thinks of Match and Pencil with frustration. It’s bad enough that Pencil rejoined the game, bossing around everyone who cares to listen to her (by now, thankfully, that number is close to zero; Freesmart is nowhere near what it used to be), but now Match is somewhere in the world, able to cast a shadow over Bubble once more. And Fanny isn’t there for it. She really should have stayed with Four during the split.

They reach the front door all too soon, and the nerves that Bot had gradually been working off return in full throttle as they blankly stare at it in silence so awkward it’s palpable, running over Fanny’s tongue and making her scrunch up her face in discomfort.

Bot lets out a shaky breath, reaches forward and knocks on the door, the sound echoing through the old wood and the rest of the mansion, presumably.

…Nothing happens. Pretty anticlimactic, right? She had been expecting something more. Bot just frowns and swallows and shuffles awkwardly, waiting for the door to open until the nothingness grows to be too much for them and they begin “M-Maybe we should leave and come back later?”

Just as the last word leaves their mouth, the door flies open, and they yelp and scramble back. Standing in the door is Marshmallow, looking tired. One hand holds a cup of cherry fizz, while the other is propped against the side of the door. She doesn’t say anything for a second or so, just blinking as she takes in the scene.

“...Huh,” she finally says, taking a sip of her drink a moment later. “Not the people I expected to be here, but sure, we can do this now.” She wanders off, walking down the hallway.

“Are you gonna go in?” Fanny says impatiently, nudging Bot. Their face scrunches up in fear.

“I guess so!” they sputter, looking terrified as they resolutely trail after Marshmallow, Fanny remaining dogged on her heels. “Alright, Bot, you can do this, you can do this… It won’t be that hard to talk to her… Who knows, maybe she won’t even be there! Maybe it’ll all be fine!” They’re mumbling to themselves, obviously trying to pump themselves up. Fanny’s faintly amused by it. Tree sometimes does something similar, but he’s much less riled up about it. More affirmations than straight up motivation.

The thought makes her miss her team more than ever, but she pushes it to the side for the time being. She has other things to worry about.

Marshmallow leads the two of them to a bar, creaky stools scattered around a dusty wooden countertop. Mounted on the wall are one of those wooden wine holders, but where wine glasses would be, cherry fizz is situated in their place. The exact sort of cherry fizz Marshmallow is holding, actually.

“Hang on,” she says, holding up a finger. “I gotta be at least a little bit drunk if we’re gonna have this conversation.” She downs the can she’s holding in one gulp, setting it on the counter, before making her way to the back to grab another. “Oh, do you want any?”

Fanny scoffs “I guess.” at the same time Bot mumbles “Sure,” and Marshmallow is quick to set the cans in front of them. Bot doesn’t move to open the can right away. They fidget with the tab on top of the can and drum an uneven rhythm against the metal. After a moment of awkward fumbling, Fanny gets her can open and takes a tentative sip, only for her face to scrunch up in disgust as her throat begins to burn.

“I hate alcohol,” she grumbles. “I forgot how awful it tasted. What’s even in this?”

“Cherry fizz,” Marshmallow says, grinning wickedly as she cracks open her second can. “And whiskey, I think. Something strong. Bow’s the one who spikes ‘em, so I’m not entirely sure.”

“Of course it’s whiskey,” she grumbles, rubbing a foot on her face in exasperation. “That explains the taste.”

“Really?” Bot prompts, wide eyed. “What does it taste like?”

“Sharpie.”

“Oh.” They open the can with a click but don’t move to drink it.

“So,” Marshmallow says, all mirth gone from her as she leans forward. “This isn’t a social call.” Her voice is matter-of-fact as she stares Bot down, eyes narrowed. “Bow’s… well, she’s not asleep, but she’s busy.” Bot winces at the name. “I won’t grab her. Do you really want to talk?”

“I dunno.” They stare down at the soda can, face scrunched up in pain. “I-I, um… Hi, I’m Bot. They/Them. Let’s start with that, maybe.”

Marshmallow nods, raising her cup in acknowledgment, before taking another long sip. She doesn’t even react to the taste of the soda. Maybe she’s used to it by now, so the taste doesn’t register in her mind. Still, it makes Fanny feel faintly jealous, for… some reason. She doesn’t even drink alcohol. 

Maybe she just wants to appear that unbothered by everything too. Marshmallow is admirable in that sense. Furtively, she sneaks another small sip, only for her face to scrunch up again as she nearly doubles over. The drink scalds her throat, and she doesn’t even have a chaser to beat back the taste. Gross. How can Marshmallow be so unbothered by it?

“I’m a robot,” Bot suddenly blurts, and it takes all Fanny has not to say no shit. “But it’s not like I always looked like this. It’s not like I always knew I was a robot. I-It was- I-” They let out a shaky breath as they pull at their antenna. “I was made to be Bow,” they say in a rush, seeming to relax as the words leave their mouth. “Did you know that? You could probably tell. Fan and Test Tube, they were- well, they had lost someone- And they wanted- Fan had- They made me. And I just thought I was Bow. Not even a perfect copy, because that would require knowing I was a copy to begin with. You know?”

Marshmallow doesn’t say anything. She had started drinking halfway through Bot’s explanation and hadn’t stopped until the can was empty. Opening another, she flatly begins “That’s-”

Cutting her off, they rush to continue. “And I got to choose who I wanted to be, and it was nice, but it shouldn’t have ever been something I would have had to do to begin with, right? I shouldn’t have been created in the image of another. I shouldn’t have been created to serve as someone’s selfish coping mechanism. And yet I’m here anyway. It’s shitty! I’m tired of acting like every decision they made wasn’t rooted in their own betterment and nothing else, because I’m here!” They gesture around them helplessly. “I’m here and so is Bow, so why? I’m a hollow imitation when the person I’m trying to imitate is still here!”

They look at Marshmallow desperately, as if expecting her to give some sort of explanation or way to cheer them up, but she just shrugs. “Yeah. I can’t claim to know what they were going through, but they have interesting priorities. They didn’t ever know Bow when she was still alive, and they thought her ghost was special effects or something.” Marshmallow says this like it’s a fun fact, but Bot looks stricken by it.

“What?” they say, voice choked. “Then why-? I’m still…” They trail off, frowning. “Okay. Fine. I’m just- Cool. This is fine.”

“That’s shitty,” Fanny says outright, because she’s not one to mince words. “Sounds like those two were selfish as hell. I hate people like that.” Sure, she can tell even from this biased point of view that it’s a far more nuanced topic, with the two of them having their own reasons for everything, but that doesn’t make any of it better, does it? That doesn’t fix what Bot was made to be. So it’s shitty.

Bot looks surprised for a moment before they laugh into their hand. “Yeah,” they wistfully agree, kicking their legs as they stare at the wall. “It’s funny, most people never say that to me outright. The only person who ever realized how really awful all of it is was Nickel.” They smile at the mention of him. “He’s nice like that. Easy to talk to, you know?”

“I thought of him as more the prickly type,” she admits. “Although maybe I’m just more used to my Nickel, so my perception is probably a bit blurred on that front.”

“Trust me, he is that,” Bot readily agrees as they run their finger over the rim of the soda can, smiling wistfully. “He’s emotionally constipated, desperate for attention, afraid of rejection, the whole nine yards. It was painful trying to get him to confess to Clover, and even worse getting him to do the same with Balloon.” Huh, so those three are dating. She had a feeling. “He hasn’t treated them the greatest, but they figure things out. And it’s nice being there with them. They’ve always just been so supportive a-and-” 

They cut themselves off by grabbing the can of cherry fizz and downing half of it in one gulp, eyes scrunched closed.

“You sure you should be drinking that?” Marshmallow calls from her spot perched on the edge of the counter.

“I’m not a kid,” Bot petulantly replies, slamming the can back onto the counter with a thunk. “I wasn’t made to be one because I’m not. Bow isn’t a kid so why would I be? I’m so tired of people treating me like a child!”

Marshmallow raises her hands disarmingly, her eyes wide. “I wasn’t asking that because I viewed you as a kid,” she assures. “I was more worried because of the robot side of things. Is it good for you? It won’t, uh, fry your circuits?”

“The two robots I know don’t even have mouths,” Fanny mumbles, head drooping as her exhaustion begins to catch up to her. This goes ignored.

“No, it’s fine, trust me,” they say flatly. “I was made to mimic a real object as much as possible, so I can do most things you can do. I eat and drink stuff all the time. And since I don’t have a brain, really, it won’t get fogged up by the alcohol or anything.”

“So you’re just drinking for fun,” Fanny wryly concludes. “Definitely not worth it. Alcohol tastes like shit.”

“It’s better when you’re drunk,” Marshmallow replies with a shrug. “At least you can drink it at all. The most Bow can do is run her hand through it and get a little bit of the taste. That doesn’t stop her from trying to drink it, even though it phases straight through her body.” She looks frustrated, but affectionately so, with a sort of love about her Fanny can’t help but be intimidated by.

Seeing how Bot reacts to that is difficult. They stare at the can in front of them for a long moment and down the rest of it, eyes scrunched closed. Fanny does the same, although her sip is far lighter and reasonable. It feels like it’s burning her throat as it goes down, and she grumbles as she wipes at her mouth.

“Do you hate me?” Bot tentatively asks after a long while of silence, during which Fanny spends biting her tongue to rouse herself. She feels a sense of deja vu at the action. Their voice is wobbly as they stare numbly down at their empty can, clasped in an ironclad grip.

“What?” Marshmallow looks genuinely surprised by that, blinking several times before she quickly shakes her head. “No, of course not. You can’t control why you were made. If anything, I’m angry at the idiots. I can’t claim I’m close enough with Fan or Test Tube to be able to understand why they would do…” She gestures at Bot limply. “That. But you can’t control what you were made to be. Same with all of us.” After a moment, she finishes off her third can of cherry fizz and reaches for a fourth.

Fanny briefly considers the merits of cutting her off, but it’s a fleeting thought. Marshmallow reminds her a lot of Ice Cube; quiet around most people, but with a vindictive streak that lent itself well to held grudges. The way Marshmallow talks about Knife is reminiscent of the way Ice Cube talks about Leafy or Pencil, and at some point Book, although that grudge seems to ebb and flow. Either way, she knows she has no chance of getting through to Marshmallow. She doesn’t possess the easy strength that seems to define the other woman.

Besides, they’re adults here. Marshmallow should be more than acquainted with her limits by now. If she wants to get wasted, that’s her prerogative. Fanny, personally, doesn’t even think she’ll finish her first drink.

“Good,” Bot replies. “I’m glad. It’s strange, knowing that Bow is… well, not alive. Still around, I guess. Is it weird that learning that affected me more than learning that everyone else was created by MePhone?”

“Not really,” Fanny mumbles, and she can’t tell if her words are slurring from drunkenness or exhaustion. She doesn’t drink often enough to know if she’s a lightweight or not, but she doesn’t feel all that drunk, so it might be the latter. “It doesn’t change much for you, does it? But Bow being alive… I dunno. I’ve only had today to learn all of this, so I might not have the best understanding of everything that’s happened. But you can hardly be blamed for focusing on some things more than others.”

“She’s right,” Marshmallow says with a giggle as she hops down from the countertop. Immediately, she stumbles over her feet, almost falling over outright before steadying herself. There’s a sort of deft familiarity to her motions, combined with the fact that this place never seems to run out of alcohol, that makes her think that Marshmallow has spent more than one night like this. “Really, Bot, you’re fine. And if Bow’s mean to you, that’s because she’s mean to everyone. So you don’t have to worry about it.”

“Thanks,” they say, sounding sheepish. “Are you going to bed?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you, uh, need help?”

She shoots them an appraising look. “I’ve been making my way around this house in the middle of the night drunk off my ass since before you were even built. If I tumble down the stairs for the first time in years, that’s on me.” She stumbles out of the room, still gripping her fourth and hopefully final can in her hand, hollering “Couch is in the next room! Don’t torture yourselves by walking back to the hotel!”

Bot laughs, and while Fanny doesn’t do the same, she smirks in amusement. “She was nice,” they say with finality. “And you’re pretty nice, too. When Fan was going around, declaring you as his cousin, I didn’t know what to think. He and Test Tube are big on us being an actual proper family, but if they wanted that they should have made a kid the old fashioned way.”

Fanny snorts into her can. “Trust me, the cousin thing is a recent development,” she assures. “As recent as the whole not being a real person thing is, anyway.”

“Yeah,” Bot says with a sigh, resting their hand on their cheek. “I figured. It’s not like Fan’s my dad, but you could be my aunt or something, right? Cool Auntie Fanny?”

“If it’s what you want,” she replies. “Might as well add to my family while I’m still here, since I dunno when I’ll come back.”

“Cool.” They stare down at the table for a long moment, a determined air about them, before they look up and begin telling a story about them and their friend Cabby. Fanny does try to stay awake, she really does. It would be rude to doze off while Bot is talking, after all. But she’s so tired that the exhaustion sets in anyway, growing all the more intense in response to her determined attempts to keep it at bay.

Finally, after sleep eludes her for so long, she falls asleep slumped over the wooden bar countertop, the wood ever-so-slightly sticky from spilled drinks in the past. She hears the surrounding murmurs slowly die out, and although her only movement is from her shifting in her seat, unconsciously looking for comfort, when she wakes up dazed in the middle of the night with a horrible crick in her neck, there’s a blanket slumped over her shoulders.

The action, albeit minimum, makes her feel warm. Although she does move over to the dusty couch in the next room and passes out quickly, because really, she would have preferred falling asleep on the floor than collapsing sideways on a table and fucking up her back.

She’s slowly beginning to realize that the people on this island have a myriad of invisible ties linking them to one another, and stumbling into one person leads to her getting tangled up in all of it. A myriad of different family members for the price of one. It’s overwhelming, but nice. Definitely more than she bargained for, though.

When she was brought into the world, discarded before she had even been created, she thinks she had wondered if anyone would ever love her. And now, she has more family than she can count, between her team and her cousin and all the people he brings with him.

Fanny falls asleep feeling warm, and it won’t be until she wakes that the expectation of things going sideways will return.

Chapter Text

Good news, she didn’t have remotely enough to drink last night to wake up hungover.

Bad news, when she wakes up she immediately spots Bot locked in a clearly horribly awkward conversation with Fan, and with last night’s conversation flashing in her mind she knows she has to do something to remedy it.

“You guys are loud,” she complains as she sits up, stretching and wincing at the crick still remaining in her neck.

“Oh, good, you’re up!” Fan says brightly, beaming at her. It’s as blinding as the sun would be, and she squints as she blinks several times in quick succession, feeling dazed. Gross. She hates morning people. “I was looking for you! Come be on my podcast!”

The fact that it’s a statement as opposed to a question is what throws her. “You have a podcast?” she says in bewilderment. “Never mind, what am I saying, of course you do. Why do you want me to be on it, though?”

“Why wouldn’t I want you to be? You're my cousin!” he replies, spreading out his hands. This appeal to pathos falls completely flat, and she stares at him until he sheepishly adds “And, y’know, I thought it could be like a crossover episode. Bring in some viewers that I normally wouldn’t appeal to. That show you’re on is super popular, even the most recent episodes! Usually viewership peaks in the first season. So, y’know…”

“I get it. You’re using me for views,” she deadpans as she gets to her feet, stifling a yawn. She can’t imagine how Marshmallow must be feeling, the woman having long passed the age where hangovers easily pass her by without much fuss.

“I have it on good authority that he stayed up half the night researching that show just for the episode,” Bot matter-of-factly adds, raising up one finger while the other is on their hip. The motion seems like something learned, and the mix of braininess and cockiness screams Test Tube.

“Paintbrush is such a snitch,” Fan whines, burying his head in his hands.

“Researching and not watching it, huh? I hate fake fans.” Fanny says that just for the pleasure of watching him gasp and sputter in dismay, beginning several sentences but petering to a stop after a few words because he’s so outraged. Bot laughs, doubling over as their eyes scrunch closed, and she smiles, feeling glad that she was able to let them relax like this.

“I am not a fake fan!” he protests in offense, hands on his hips. “I’m going to watch the show eventually! I just don’t have the time right now! And, you know, that’s why I’m bringing you onto my podcast! So you can shed some light onto things that I don’t know as much about! It’s a symbiotic relationship!”

“Don’t I have to get something from it for it to be symbiotic?”

“You are getting something! Exposure!”

“Truly the thing that makes the world go ‘round,” Bot says wryly, reaching for Fanny’s discarded can of cherry fizz from last night and taking a sip. Immediately, their face scrunches up in distaste. “Gross, the soda’s gone flat.”

“Glad to know that you’re complaining about the soda and not the other, much worse tasting thing,” she deadpans.

“Huh? What are you talking about?” Fan says, blinking. Bot offers him the can, although judging from their expression they obviously aren’t expecting him to take it. When he does, the two are left watching in horror as he raises it to his lips and takes a sip…

…only for it to go flying from his mouth not a second later as he doubles over and coughs furiously. Bot bursts into loud, explosive laughter as they cackle, slamming their fist against a nearby table so hard one of the legs goes flying off, which sends them into another wave of laughter. Meanwhile, Fanny reaches forward and deftly catches the can as it falls from Fan’s hand, Firey’s voice saying snatch in the back of her mind.

“Oh my god!” Fan wails, sticking out his tongue and running his hands over it as if that’ll be enough to get rid of the taste. “What was that? It burned my throat! Why did it taste like sharpie?!”

“Fanny said the same thing!” Bot screams between peals of laughter, hysterical and breathy as they double over. Tears gather at the corner of their eyes, they’re laughing so hard. “Oh my god-!”

“That,” Fanny says, shaking the can in the air for emphasis. “was whiskey. Not really the best thing to start the day with, especially if you’ve never had it before. Awfully bold of you to drink that outright.”

“You gave me alcohol?!” Fan cries, looking scandalized. Then, to Bot “You were drinking alcohol?!”

“I can drink stuff without problem, and I’m not a kid,” they remind him, and it would be stern if it weren’t for the fact that the words are released between laughter and have a breathy quality to them. “I don’t really see the issue.”

“But it’s-! You-! It was-! You can’t just-! It’s alcohol!” he sputters, unable to fully piece any thoughts together. “That stuff’s bad for you! It’s bad for me! You gave me alcohol?! I can’t believe this! Oh, no, am I gonna be drunk now?! Am I gonna go live in front of thousands- no, hundreds of thousands- no, millions of viewers and be drunk?! This is the most important stream-slash-podcast of my life and I’m gonna be drunk for it?!”

“You didn’t even swallow any,” Fanny says flatly. “Stop catastrophizing, you’re gonna be fine. And by the way, I didn’t get the memo on the whole live bit. That would have been nice to know.”

“Well, livestreams always get lots of engagement, and it’s better to capitalize on you being here now instead of having to spend a few days editing an episode,” Fan explains matter-of-factly, all his panic briefly ebbing as he tucks one hand behind his back and raises the other, closing his eyes. The panic returns in full force a moment later as he begins to pace, muttering “Oh god, oh god, I don’t wanna be drunk! I can’t be drunk!” He turns to Fanny with a crazed look in his eyes. “Quick, how do I get sober?!”

“You’re asking me?” she barks in incredulity.

“You seem like you’ve been drunk more than I have!”

“But I hate alcohol!”

“That was your drink,” Bot helpfully reminds the group at large, smiling serenely even as their shoulders shake with silent laughter.

“Yeah, that’s why I didn’t finish it!”

“Why are we yelling?” Marshmallow calls with a groan as she stagers down the stairs, prompting all attention to be turned onto her. “You guys know I’m hungover as shit. Ugh…” She grips at her head as she sways in place, leaning against the railing as her face scrunches up.

Fan points at Fanny accusingly. “She gave me alcohol and got me drunk when I have a livestream in an hour!” he hollers, causing Marshmallow to wince.

“Number one, Bot gave you the can,” she flatly begins, and Bot waves cheerily. “Number two, it was one sip. Number three, you immediately spat it out. “Number four, since when is that livestream in an hour?”

“I came to wake you up so you could get ready!” he yells, not lowering his voice in the slightest

“You’re not drunk, Fan.” Marshmallow grumbles as she slumps over on the couch.

“She would know,” Bot sagely agrees. “I’m pretty sure she’s what they call a high functioning alcoholic.”

“Or maybe a low functioning alcoholic,” Fanny muses.

“Mind your own business,” Marshmallow moans in response, stretching out the fourth word as she rests a hand over her face. “I drink a normal amount.” 

“Are you sure?” Fan asks, straightening as his eyes go wide. He seems to have forgotten the issue of whether or not he’s drunk (he isn’t) for the time being. “Oh! I could host Alcoholics Anonymous on my podcast!”

“I can’t think of anything worse,” she groans in reply, burying her head in a pillow. “Besides, you aren’t giving me an intervention ‘cause I’d only listen to Bow or Apple, and the former is the one providing me the drinks while the latter is clueless. So there.”

“This sounds exactly like something an alcoholic would say…” Bot muses, face scrunched up in thought. Marshmallow throws a pillow at them.

“Fan, you aren’t drunk, but if you’re worried, drink a shit ton of water. You’ll be sobered up eventually.”

“There isn’t anything to sober up!” Fanny protests. 

“Do you think he understands that?” They all turn to look at Fan, who’s running a hand over his face and tongue with a distraught expression. 

“...I guess not.” Bot concludes.

“Exactly. So now that all of that is out of the way, can you guys leave? You’re all way too loud.” Marshmallow grumbles as she curls into a ball, looking pained.

Bot giggles as they walk over to the front door, and Fan follows, still running a hand over his face as he whines, obviously dismayed. They make their way back to the hotel in record time, Bot carrying one of them in each arm as they spread out their legs to take massive steps back to the hotel that grows increasingly closer with every passing second. 

When they’re dumped onto the grass not five minutes later, Fanny raises her head and says “I think I want to travel like that all the time.” Bot smugly preens. And, well, she can’t give them too much, so she adds “The ride could have been smoother, though,” prompting an offended glare from Bot and loud, bell-like laughter from Fan.

“Alright, c’mon Fanny, up and at ‘em!” he yells, shoving her to her feet. He’s returned to his relentless exuberance, so either he’s forgotten about the alcohol incident or has decided that he won’t worry about it for the time being. “There’s a lot of work I have to do to prep for my stream, and you’re going to help me with all of it.”

“Do you… need me for all of it?” she says slowly, squinting at him.

“Not really, but I figure it’s family bonding, isn’t it?” he chirps. “Besides, what if you discover you love streaming just as much as I do? Maybe it’s, like, a genetic thing! And then I won’t have to harass Paintbrush or Test Tube into queuing with me when I play Goiky Rivals anymore!” He looks overjoyed by the notion. She’s sorry to burst his bubble, but…

“Doubtful.” she mutters, staring at the ground. She wishes her glare could be more irritated or intense, but it’s just uncomfortable. “I hate the feeling of being watched.”

How long has One been watching? Ever since she came back from nonexistence? Surely the Algebrailian was watching Cake at Stake. Scratch that, she had to be watching Cake at Stake. Her timing of kidnapping the four previously eliminated contestants was too precise not to be. According to Nickel, Eraser had been safely eliminated, but what if that’s not the case for whoever was eliminated on her team? What if she was eliminated, and she’s going to be spirited away by the Algebrailian at any moment?

She’s never been bothered by the idea of being watched before One came along, she’s pretty sure. It wasn’t like it was something she thought about before the fact. If someone was staring at her, she’d just glare at them until they were inevitably scared off. But that won’t work for One. Why would someone like her ever be scared like Fanny? She may want more power, but she has more than Fanny herself could ever dream of.

Still, One is probably watching her right now. All the times this thought has previously flitted to the forefront of her mind, she had always found a way to dismiss it. She was never doing anything that made her worth watching after the thing that allowed One to take advantage of her and dig her claws into her came and went. But disappearing so suddenly only to reappear in the blink of an eye on a completely new island with completely new people? Now that’s something noteworthy, if only for the fact…

Fanny’s heart leaps into her throat as the thought flits across her mind, lazy and idle and something that would have easily passed her by if not for how horrifying it was. One has an entire new island of people to take advantage of, and if she thinks they have even a chance of progressing her plans, she’ll happily use them. Why else would she take the eliminated contestants?

She doesn’t want to imagine Fan or Bot or anyone placed between that oppressive sky, destined to be either swallowed up by the void or blinded by the sharp stars. The idea makes her want to be sick. She can’t bear entertaining it for a moment longer, god she just wants-

“I-I hate the feeling of being watched,” she repeats, hating the way her desperation and fear seeps into her words. Her mind is just fogged up with panic, and it’s far from an empowering emotion at the best of times. “So I don’t think I’d do well with any of that. It’s already weird being as in the public eye as I am.”

“Oh.” She refuses to meet her cousin’s gaze, but Fan sounds subdued and guilty. “I’m sorry. I can cancel the livestream if it really bothers you. The last thing I’d want is to hurt you. I’m just the sort of guy who rushes into things, and I thought I’d be fun. Really, though, I don’t mind canceling.”

“Yeah, thinking things through isn’t really your strong suit,” Bot mutters, and to their credit they only sound a little bit bitter.

“It’s fine,” she declares after thinking it through for a few seconds. “You can go ahead with it.”

“You sure? We’re still kind of new to this cousin thing, you know? I don’t exactly have that good will built up if I end up hurting you-” Fan begins.

“It’s fine,” she says again, unable to keep the frustration out of her words. As she speaks, her head snaps up on impulse, and she’s not as daunted by staring at Fan head on as she thought she would have been. “Really. It’s the sort of thing that only kicks in in really specific situations with specific people. Person, actually.” She knows she looks insane, glaring at the air, but she can’t bring herself to care that much. She hopes One is looking, even if her reasons for that hope aren’t the purest. “I just don’t think streaming would be good for that fear.” she continues. “Although I guess this stream can be like exposure therapy.”

“Pretty sure you have to do exposure therapy often for it to work,” Bot points out, nose wrinkled.

“Then I’ll stream with the idiot whenever I end up coming by. Depends on how far away this island is from Goiky. Don’t suppose you would be able to give me an answer?” She trains an intense glare on Fan as she says that, hoping the look in her eyes is determinedly steely.

“You shouldn’t ask me questions I don’t know the answer to,” Fan replies, wringing his hands.

“What?”

“Well, I’m gonna go inside now, bye!” He rushes off without another word.

“What does that mean?!”  

Bot laughs again. “This is fun,” they say, sounding almost reverent. “I know it’s not all you, Auntie Fanny, but I laugh a lot when I’m around you. I like it.” They shoot her a conspiratorial look, grinning. “I’m excited for the next time you come back, when things have calmed down.”

“I guess it doesn’t sound like the worst,” she admits, still staring distractedly at where Fan had disappeared into the hotel. “I hate how vague he’s being. I guess I’ll go after him and try to see what the idiot’s up to.”

“Have fun with that. I’m gonna go chat with Cabby,” Bot says brightly before their legs extend and they scramble through a window three stories up like a bug. It’s kind of grotesque, but she supposes she’ll add it to the list of things she’ll hopefully get used to as time passes, having it right up there alongside her not being a real person. Real easily digestible stuff.

Fanny treks inside to see Fan hunched over, typing away at his phone. He brightens when he sees her, waving her over. “Come get a picture with me!” he says excitedly.

“For what?” she retorts, stopping at his side.

“For social media, duh!” he says, sounding just as matter-of-fact as he would if she asked if the sky was blue. “I’m gonna post it and announce that the livestream will be at the start of the next hour. It drums up hype without leaving people waiting for too long. Except, ugh, I might get a lot of people asking about the end of season two instead of about you. But we can manage it together, right?”

She finds herself rather fond of the notion, and forces herself to smother a smile. “Right,” she readily agrees. “Together.”

Fan wraps an arm around her shoulder, the other raising his phone up in the air so that they both have to stare up at it. She leans into the touch but glares harshly at the camera, even if the motion doesn’t reflect how she truly feels. She figures the gruff, prickly exterior is what the public expects from her, how they view her. They don’t know how she melts around Bubble, around her team, and if they do, there’s no way in hell they know the full extent of it.

He snickers as he lowers the phone, staring down at the phone. “It looks perfect,” he declares, so overwhelmingly genuine that Fanny finds herself ducking her head, cheeks heating. She needs some kind of barrier of sarcasm, otherwise she’ll quickly get overwhelmed. “And… post!” He taps at his phone with a flourish, adjusting the screen when Fanny leans forward to get a good look at the post. It’s using her name and face, after all, so she wants to make sure it isn’t anything too alarming.

number one fan

@fanboyii

HELLO EVERYONE!!!!! I have a VERY special episode of Fan’s Fantastic Features, featuring Fanny from BFDI!!!!!!! The episode will be livestreamed and will start at 11 am!!!! Be sure to be there if you have any pressing questions for her!!!

“...That’s… a lot of exclamation marks,” she says slowly, unable to keep the amusement out of her tone. He types exactly like he speaks: very enthusiastically.

“I know! That’s because I’m excited!” he says in reply, spreading out his hands as he beams. “Are you excited? It’s gonna be great. You should follow me to my podcast room! It’s cozy there.” Trailing behind him, the two go up the flights of stairs. God, she’s getting flashbacks to the first episode of TPOT… They only go up one floor, Fan escorting her to the end of the hallway that seems to be structured differently than the rows of rooms. “OJ has these rooms on each floor that he lets us use for whatever, and everyone else graciously lets me use one of these for podcasting! It’s great, you’ll love it.”

He opens the door to reveal… Well, it’s definitely a room. That, she won’t argue. It’s even a nice room, because Fan seems like the sort to thrive on that sort of minimal validation. All the furniture is pushed to the front of the room to the left and right of the wall mounted TV, an armchair with a lamp and a rug on one side and a desk with various knick knacks scattered across it on the other. There’s a stool set up, slightly off center, and pushed back is a table with a closed laptop that Fan runs over to and flips open, typing away on it happily.

Test Tube makes her way into the room at some point, and Fan barely looks up at her before turning his attention back to his laptop, happily clattering away. “You didn’t tell me you were streaming,” she says. 

“Apparently that’s a pattern with him,” Fanny irately grumbles.

She just laughs before continuing. “I’d be happy to be your camerawoman like I usually am.”

“I’ll think about it,” Fan muses. “I’ve changed up my setup so that everything is automated now. I have a webcam on my laptop now-” He taps the black device attached to the top of the screen. “-and one of those stream decks with shortcuts set up into it to switch screens and stuff without having to get up. Remember I told you about that?”

“Sure, and I helped you set it up,” Test Tube easily agrees, one hand on her hip. “You would have been clueless with it otherwise. I thought it was for your gaming stuff, though. I’m used to being the one doing the behind the scenes stuff for your show.”

“Podcast.” he absentmindedly corrects.

“No, it’s a show.”

“I have it on all the podcast apps, it’s a podcast!”

“Podcasts don’t use cameras.”

“Clearly you’ve never watched that one Goikys and Dragons podcast,” Fan sniffs haughtily. “They use cameras on YouTube, but it’s still considered a podcast. My show is the same way!”

“If you say so,” Test Tube says, amused. She doesn’t seem all that concerned about the distinction, and the cadence of the argument gives Fanny a sense that it’s one they’ve had more than once. Maybe they’re just playing it up since she’s around.

“And anyway, if you really want to, you can man the cameras,” Fan says, pausing in his clattering to look up at Test Tube, startlingly solemn. “I just know it makes you kind of anxious to have that responsibility, even if it’s also fun, and I figured Fanny would be more comfortable if it was just someone she knew better.”

“I’ve known the two of you the same amount!” she protests.

“Yeah, but we have a special cousin bond,” Fan says matter-of-factly, returning to his laptop with full force, the sound of keys being struck overlapping his words.

“We’re cousins, not twins. Next you’re going to be saying we have telepathy.” she says flatly. But she’s chatted with Fan enough to know how he works, so a second later she relents and says “But I guess you’re right. It’s easier to talk to you than anyone else, anyway. I’m not the sort to spill my guts, but giving away information is a sort of “the less people know the better” sort of thing.”

“You know the stream’s going to be recorded, right?” Test Tube says wryly.

“Yeah, but the more I can trick my brain into being calm the better things will be for me,” she says dryly. “That’s just sort of a requirement for me.” Listing out all the reasons One isn’t watching her at any given moment is something that happens more and more frequently for her at this point, even if none of those reasons apply at the moment. So One is probably definitely watching her, a paranoia she can’t shake no matter what reasons she comes up with, so that leaves her at a base level of wired she doesn’t think she’s all too fond of.

“I get that,” Fan mumbles. Then, as an afterthought, he adds “Thanks, MePhone.”

“Thanks, MePhone.” the other two say in unison. It feels incredibly freeing to push all the things wrong with her onto someone else, even if it probably won’t be sustainable in the long term. And saying that fosters a camaraderie between all of them that she doesn’t think would be there otherwise, so really, it’s two birds, one stone. Convenient, nice… Really, she has no complaints. She would rather feel in some way connected to the people she’s now inextricably linked to instead of awkward and distinct.

They continue to set up until it’s five minutes before eleven. Well, by set up, she means the three of them chatting back and forth, even if it’s painfully obvious how comfortable with each other Fan and Test Tube are and how awkward and out of step Fanny is in turn. It’s nothing she can change, but she feels awkward about it anyway.

When the clock is at 10:55, Fan herds her to the stiff arm chair and quickly runs back to his laptop, intently clattering away at something with an intense look about him. Test Tube has left by now, offering them luck and well wishes that she thinks wasn’t just meant for Fan, or maybe she was just imagining the kind look tossed her way? Fanny absentmindedly spins her fan with her foot, the repetitive motion calming and distracting. At least until she gets a look at her wide eyed reflection in Fan’s laptop, and then she begins to panic all over again.

She really wishes her team was here. Black Hole is awkward but well intentioned, running through elaborate worst case scenarios so out there she can’t help but laugh at the idea of them. Tree is relaxed and grounding, helping her to keep her tethered to reality when her head spins so much it makes her dizzy… in the figurative sense, anyway. Marker is upbeat and enthusiastic, always finding some way to keep her mind off of things. They’re all just so… kind.

This homesickness is new. Then again, she’s never been away from home long enough for it to wear on her. The only time she leaves the hotel is during a challenge, and odds are she’s surrounded by her team. Maybe she’s just the clingy sort, though she hates even entertaining that idea.

After a minute or so of Fan excitedly tapping away at his computer, he’s quick to hop to his feet and scramble into the chair sitting behind the desk. He adjusts the placement of his mug and a few other things before clearing his throat, looking toward the laptop. It now has a starting soon screen displayed on it, a chat box on the side with messages rushing by dizzyingly fast. Definitely not something she can read, especially from a distance. He turns on the TV and after a moment of clicking buttons, the chat box is now displayed on the TV as well, a lot easier to read with the bigger screen and the proximity.

“You ready?” he softly asks her. “If you don’t feel up to it, I won’t hesitate to cancel.”

“I’m fine,” she snaps in response, hoping her annoyance isn’t too evident. She isn’t made from glass. She’s just… not a person. That’s true enough. But she’s as fragile as anyone else is, and regardless of how this livestream goes, that won’t change that. “I want to do this. I never do anything I don’t want to, at any rate. So quit your hemming and hawing and just do it already. The faster we start, the faster it’s over with, right?”

“That’s one way to look at it!” Fan readily agrees. “Okay, three, two…”

The final word in his countdown fills her ears and leaves them ringing. She knows he didn’t mean it like that, but still, she can’t help but-

She really hopes One is watching, even as the idea leaves her faintly terrified and paranoid. She doesn’t know what she’ll do otherwise.

“Alright, and we’re live!” Fan says with a flourish as he presses a button next to him. The laptop set up in the center of the room behind the camera changes from the starting soon screen to a display of them, sitting down in their chairs. Fan looks comfortable and confident behind his desk, adjusting the microphone next to him ever-so-slightly as he smiles confidently. Meanwhile, Fanny feels small in the yellow armchair that towers over her, and she doesn’t like the way the nearby lamp casts harsh light and shadow over her face.

Fan is in his element: in front of a camera with complete comfort and control, constantly reinforcing his title as number one fan. Meanwhile, Fanny just feels trapped, even if the idea of being trapped makes her feel like a wild, rabid animal. She would rather be, to be honest. Rabid animals don’t have to do livestreamed interviews with their overenthusiastic cousins. They’re just put down.

“Welcome, viewers, to the second ever livestreamed episode of Fan’s Fantastic Features!” he says brightly, spreading out his hand while the other presses another button. It’s a pretty nice setup he has going for him, she’ll readily admit. Canned applause plays from the laptop’s speakers, small and tinny, but she’d gander that it’s louder and clearer on the proper livestream.

“The second?” Fanny prompts, squinting at him. “What was the first?”

“Oh, my interview with Paper!” he chirps in response. “A lot of viewers requested me to chat with him, and in hindsight it led up pretty well to season three, and-” He catches himself before he goes any further, chuckling as he wags a finger at her. “Look at that, you’ve already gotten me rambling! Guess that means we have great banter! Still, give me a sec to finish the intro, okay?”

“If you say so,” she says dryly, shifting in the armchair. Right, she had been intimidated for a bit, but it’s just Fan. Rambling, scatterbrained, inoffensive Fan. What does she have to worry about when it comes to him?

“So, on this episode of Fan’s Fantastic Features, we’re going to do things a little bit differently,” he continues, hands pressed tightly together. “I know plenty about BFDI, of course-” Fanny snorts, and he shoots her an exasperated look before continuing, huffing into the mic. “-but I figured this could be a QnA sort of thing! It’ll help me to get to know our new friend alongside all of you!” He grins widely at the camera.

“This is stupid,” she declares, glaring deadpan at the mounted webcam.

“Well, that’s better than saying you hate it,” Fan says. 

Although his tone is teasing, she can’t help but scowl slightly, frustrated. That’s the one thing that’s baked into her, something that she was intended to be. And she hates being shoved onto a box. She’s her own damn person, and she refuses to become what MePhone had created her to be. Poking fun at her tendency for hatred would be like poking fun at Fan’s fanboy tendencies; either way, it’s a low blow.

“So, dear viewers,” he continues, spreading out his hands. “You all remember the rules! If you want to ask a question, you have to donate. The chat moves too fast otherwise. Since there’s two of us here, feel free to ask questions to either of us! Although I really don’t mind bias toward our guest.” He gestures to her, grinning.

“You’re paywalling questions?” she asks, glaring at him. “That feels awfully greedy.”

“Can you read anything flying through the chat?” he says defensively, pouting at her.

Trying to prove a point, she squints at the chat box displayed on the TV. She sees her name a bunch, and the shorter messages are significantly more discernible, but the longer messages, the ones actually containing questions, are near-instantly swallowed up. “I guess you have a point,” she relents, prompting a wide, smug smile from Fan. “Stop that. I hate that.”

“Alright, so with all of that out of the way!” Fan cries, clapping his hands together as he beams. “Let’s get started! First question is from xxblazinglightning, who asks- Oh, this question is for me,” he says, looking startled by the prospect. “What happened to the end of season two? Is it still being released? Oh, jeez,” he groans, burying his head in his hands. “I didn’t get around to watching episode sixteen when it was released, considering we were busy with everything going wrong.”

“Didn’t expect that from you, number one fan,” she jabs.

“Leave me alone!” he huffs. “I’m pretty sure none of us even existed when that episode came out, considering the timeline. And no one really wants to watch it, considering-” Suddenly, he comes to a stop, eyes going wide. “Oh. Uh oh. Hang on. Hey, chat, did that episode show the conversation Knife and Suitcase had with Cobs at all?”

He’s holding his breath as he stares at the chat, only to relax a moment later when it’s flooded with the word no. Fanny tilts her head. “Right, so I’m clueless about most of this, but given that it involves, uh, him… Does it have to do with what I think it does?” She’s trying to be careful about her words; the last thing she wants is to reveal something so personal while on a livestream.”

“Yup,” Fan mumbles, shrugging. “Thank god that isn’t public info, right? Anyway, uh, I really doubt the rest of the finale was actually recorded? Just because of everything that happened. So you probably won’t end up seeing the rest of it. But season two is over. There was a winner and everything.”

Of course, his words cause the chat to explode in a flurry of activity. The question that appears the most often is the identity of the winner. “Who did win? I actually don’t remember,” she muses, nose wrinkled.

“You were there for it!” Fan sputters in dismay.

“I was focused on other things!” she says defensively.

“Right. Well, Suitcase won. Knife, uh… definitely got the short end of the stick,” Fan declares, grimacing. “But we’re not gonna talk about it. It’s really personal, y’know?” He glances back at the chat again. “What happened to Pickle, OJ, and Nickel? Are they all okay?” he reads, before squinting. “What do you mean? I don’t- Oh, wait! The MePhoneX. Right. I forgot about that. Yeah, they’re all fine. Hotel’s up and running, games are being played, sarcasm is being spoken. It’s all fine.”

“Looks like the chat wants you to prove it,” Fanny declares after a moment of trying to decipher it. “I guess that’s fair. What do you have to say for yourself, Fan?” She’s honestly enjoying watching Fan squirm in evident discomfort.

“You know they’re fine!” he squawks in dismay. “OJ showed the two of you to your room last night! You’ve dealt with Nickel! And anyway, t-this stream is supposed to be about you!”

“I dunno, it sounds to me like you’re all talk without any proof to back it up,” she says airily, enjoying the way Fan anxiously squirms in his seat. She’s going to be the one under all this pressure soon enough, so she reckons she might as well enjoy the pressure being directed to someone else for the time being.

“Look, I’ll show you,” Fan says, huffing. “I’ll show all of you!” Cupping his hands around his mouth, he begins to yell “Nickel! Nickel! Come over here real quick!”

“He’s not going to hear you,” Fanny dryly says. “The door is closed.”

“Yeah, but he’s always hanging around Clover these days,” he points out, looking triumphant. “So it would be lucky if he ended up hearing me, right?”

Right on cue, they both hear Nickel yell, voice muffled. “Ooo! Are you talking to me?” he chirps excitedly.

“Not you, the other one!” Fanny hollers in reply, because it’s obvious Fan is still more than a little confused by the two Nickels thing and has yet to make a proper distinction between the two in his mind. Vaguely, she’s aware of the chat exploding out of the corner of her eye, but she doesn’t pay it much mind. Any viewer with half a brain could piece together what she meant, which was fine. As an eliminated contestant, Nickel does well in falling under the radar anyway.

“I don’t want to be on your stupid livestream, Fan!” calls the same voice, allegedly, but the Nickel she knows would only say something that scathing to Nickel, so it has to be directed to the other one.

“Just come here so the viewers know you’re alright!” he cries in consternation. “I promise I’ll never ask you for anything again!”

“You’re obnoxious!” he yells in reply. A moment later, though, the door opens, and two Nickels alongside an exuberant Clover make their way into view of the camera. Fanny wouldn’t have brought the second Nickel along, but maybe that’s just her wanting to be discreet.

Clover waves at the camera, smiling brilliantly bright. With a smile like that, she can see why the other Nickel fell for her. Nickel mimics the motion a second later, before turning to look at the chat a moment later. It’s exploded in a flurry of activity, and it’s impossible to read any of it before it’s spirited away by a new wave of messages. “Woah, a lot of people there!” he says, leaning forward.

The other Nickel just glowers at the camera even as Clover wraps him in a one armed hug. “I’m alive, but not well, because I’m stuck dealing with this idiot,” he hisses, scowling at Nickel, who’s still trying to decipher the rush of messages.

“Oh, this person donated money!” he says brightly. “They asked why I’m here.”

“Same reason I am,” Fanny grumbles, rolling her eyes.

“Family reunion!” Nickel joyfully concludes, trying to tackle the other Nickel in a hug. However, it fails, due to both of them lacking arms as well as the fact that the other Nickel clearly wasn’t expecting it, slamming onto the floor with a disorientated groan. Clover blinks at the pile of coins, having gracefully shifted to the side when it became clear that the two were to fall onto her. Instead, they landed on the floor, which is far less comfortable.

“Can I leave now?” asks the muffled voice of the other Nickel. “I have other obligations, like tossing this idiot out of a window.”

“Oh, I love falling from high places!” Clover says eagerly, her eyes wide. “The wind always blows me back before I fall too far!”

“Sounds fun!” Nickel sounds brightly. “Let’s go!” The other Nickel is dragged off by the two, their limitless cheer almost enough to overpower his irritation.

The moment the door closes, Fan leans forward. “And there you go,” he declares, spreading out his hands. “I told you guys that everyone was alright! You really need to trust me more. And no, I’m not getting OJ or Pickle. They have lives, you know.”

A surprising amount of it for people who aren’t actually real, Fanny thinks with a sort of vindictive irritation. She knows it’s bad to be so easily jealous, and still. “Are you saying that the other Nickel being driven insane by his cousin doesn’t count as having a life?” she prompts.

“Not good enough to stop me from bothering him,” he says matter-of-factly. “Alright, next question!” Fan chirps, kicking his legs. “This one’s from fubblefan876, who asks whether you miss Bubble!” He leans forward, smiling brightly even as she feels her face flush. “Oooo, who’s Bubble, huh? An old friend? What, was she eliminated?”

“Teammate,” Fanny stiffly retorts, looking at the floor. “She stayed with Four after the show split, I left with Two, so I haven’t seen her in a bit.”

She thinks of long nights tossing and turning in her bed, worrying after Bubble so much sleep keeps being beaten back. She thinks of every time she spent hours on end typing Bubble’s name into the recovery center at all hours of the day, never once needing to do so. She never came back, not once. On one hand, she was glad, a muted sort of relief that tasted good on her tongue. On the other hand, she was disappointed, because if nothing else the two would get the chance to talk. All Fanny wanted to do was look Bubble in the eye and tell her-

All of that was far too personal to blurt out on a goddamn livestream, but deflecting or outright skipping the question would just give the wrong idea. She misses Bubble so much it makes her chest ache. Letting onto just a fraction of that shouldn’t go horribly, right?

“I miss her,” she says stiffly. “We were friends, after all. But I figure we’ll find some way to cross paths again eventually, so I’m not that worried.”

“Ah, right, the split,” Fan says sagely. “I read ab- I mean, I watched it. Pretty rough stuff. Honestly, I’m more surprised by how many people stayed with Four. Infinite power’s a pretty sweet deal. Any insight?”

“I couldn’t tell you why most of those people stayed,” she says dryly. “I just knew I preferred the prize, and even if Two ended up being as bad as Four at least X was still there. That was before the BFBers were assigned to take him back, though. I dunno. I think I prefer TPOT, though.”

“Nice!” Fan says brightly. “I guess if I want to hear more perspectives on the split, I’ll have to interview a bunch of other people, huh?”

“Good luck with that one. You won’t be able to rely on nepotism for everyone,” she says dryly.

“Wh- I- You-” he sputters. “It’s not nepotism!”

“You wouldn’t have been able to get this interview without it,” she haughtily retorts, and Fan groans, burying his head in his hands.

“Now that you’ve finished sullying my good name, let’s move onto the next question!” he says. “This one’s from deathpactagainagain, who asks which one of your eliminated teammates you miss the most!”

“Eliminated as in people voted out and not people left in the split, I assume,” she mutters, squinting. “Things get too complicated without that distinction.” If she didn’t say that, her answer would just be Bubble again, and that would make things rather repetitive. “I guess it would have to be Lightning. We were pretty good friends, even if the two teams we ended up on didn’t go that well for him.”

She sighs as she thinks about iance. It’s something she would prefer to forget about outright, but being on that team is all the memory she has of Bubble. Isn’t it funny that a team that was miserable for nearly everyone involved (Ruby is the single, notable exception) still ended up containing faint fragments of good buried within it? Her friendship with Lightning and her determination to help Bubble remain heavy in her mind, a weight pressing down on her. But the feeling of it isn’t oppressive or smothering. Rather, it’s protective and warming.

“He didn’t deserve to be eliminated. Not a lot of people do, really.” She says that, but she thinks of Pencil and Match with a scowl. If anyone deserved it, it would be those two, even if the punishment for them was significantly more severe than the eliminated TPOT contestants. She feels bad… just not bad enough, she supposes. It was deserved for how the two treated their teammates. “But him being gone gives me good reason to go further in the competition, right?”

“Right!” Fan concludes, nodding sagely. “Lightbulb was the same way, you know. And, you know, speaking of Lightbulb, I really am glad that I get to be with her again. The Bright Lights really weren’t the same without our intrepid leader, y’know?”

“Right,” she agrees, because she knows the feeling even if she’s unable to keep the sourness out of her words. Death PACT doesn’t really have a proper leader. Tree and Black Hole are the ones with seniority, so they end up calling the shots more often than not, but Fanny likes to think of their group as a democracy, especially now that they’ve properly ironed out the terms of the PACT. 

iance, though… Well, Pencil and Match were that team’s leaders. Of that, there’s no doubt. Things were definitely different after they were eliminated, but it was a good type of different. Ruby could be surprisingly assertive when the need arose, directing their team like she had during the digging challenge. And although their team wasn’t completely cleaned out of assholes, considering Snowball was still there, there had definitely been a change after their supposed leaders were kicked to the curb. Things were less tense. It was nice, at least while it lasted.

Either way, she decides she’s tired of thinking about iance. BFB is over. Flower won it. Her former teammate. Good for her, she supposes, not that the two ever properly talked. Flower was disquietingly hungry for acceptance, for approval, for friendship. If iance had gone further with Pencil or even just Match at the helm, she probably would have ended up at the two’s beck and call just as Bubble and Ruby were, thoughtlessly hungry for approval. Thinking of it like that, it’s hard to feel much of anything toward the other woman.

So, in an effort to take her mind off the topic of BFB, off iance, off Bubble, she turns her attention to the chat at the same time Fan does. They really are two sides of the same coin, love and hate, red and blue, enthusiasm and anger. She thinks that she has never felt as known in her life as she does with Fan. She kind of hates it, but she shrugs it off for the time being.

“Woah, that’s a really long donation,” Fan announces, staring at the one that had caught her eye. “You wanna do the honors, Fanny?”

Normally, she would grumble something about him being too lazy to read everything it says, but there’s other things on her mind. “Hang on,” she mumbles, staring at the donor’s name for a long second. She hasn’t even read the message yet.

Because their username is treehugger4. Maybe an innocuous name to most, but Fanny remembers it. It’s Tree’s username, the one he had given himself on Twitter after Marker had pushed them all to set it up. “It’ll be fun!” he had insisted, grinning widely. And, well, no one could deny him for long, even if Fanny had pushed back against it. That was just in her nature, and she felt like someone had to put up a fight.

“What do we even need Twitter for?” she had said flatly, rolling her eyes. “We see each other literally everyday. I’d rather talk to you face to face than over a screen.”

“And I can’t even use a phone,” Black Hole had deadpanned.

“And Black Hole can’t even use a phone!”

“We can share an account,” Tree had suggested, looking up from his phone. “Here, give me a username, I’ll choose the handle.”

“Yay! Teamwork!” Marker had cheered, throwing his hands in the air. “Besides, it’ll be a super easy way to send each other stuff we find funny!” When Fanny hadn’t looked convinced, he had added “And we can use it during challenges to communicate even when we’re apart.” He had been as smug as he could get–in other words, not very–knowing that bringing up challenges would be enough to convince Fanny. The less losses they had under their belt, the better. That was always her perspective, anyway.

“So? Any ideas for the username?” Tree had prompted Black Hole, leaning in close enough for his leaves to rustle slightly, affected by the object’s gravitational pull.

“...treehugger4,” he had said after a moment.

“Okay,” Tree had said, drawing out the word. “I hear you, but why that? It’s kind of impossible for you to give me hugs.”

“Because it’s fun. And because there’s four of us.” Everyone had stared at him, confused by the non sequitur, and embarrassed, he had begun to awkwardly stutter. “Y-Y’know, because there’s four of us? treehugger 4? I mean…” He had glumly deflated. “I thought it made sense.”

“Well, it has Tree’s name in it, so we know it’s him!” Marker had said, obviously trying to cheer him up.

“And if Black Hole was capable of hugs, he would give a lot of them, probably,” Fanny had grumbled. “So I guess all three parts of that username work.”

“What, are you not a fan of hugs, Fanny?” Tree had prompted, tilting his head as he grinned at her teasingly.

“I don’t have arms.”

Of course, this was YouTube, and not Twitter, but knowing Tree, he had probably set his name as that in a bid to get her attention. It definitely worked. And since the donation he made was really long, a slab of text that’s hard to read with the lack of spacing, she has some guesses as to what it says.

“Do you want me to read it out loud?” she prompts Fan.

“Yeah, duh! How am I supposed to know what it says otherwise?” he cries. She rolls her eyes.

“Next question is from treehugger4, who donated… Jesus Christ, Tree, 50 dollars, really? Do you actually have that much money? Anyway, he says…” She clears her throat and prepares to read. “Hey Fanny, it’s Tree. Last place I expected to see you after you suddenly disappeared was on a livestream with some random guy.”

“I’m not random! I’m her cousin!” Fan squawks, looking outraged. She shushes him before continuing.

“Marker saw the post on Twitter. Guess his idea of getting us all accounts finally came in handy. Anyway, Two made today’s challenge to get you back, so I thought it would be pretty helpful to ask where you are, just so we can net an easy immunity. I guess that’s my question. Do you need a question mark with it? I guess there’s one right there, but I’ll add another just in case. Where are you, Fanny?”

When she finishes, she groans, leaning back in the armchair as she massages her temples. Fan just looks more amused than anything. “This is a pretty fun twist!” he says with a gasp, eyes wide. “Oh, but what if it’s an imposter? Do you have any proof that this anonymous donor is this Tree guy?”

“Number one, Tree’s one of my teammates, so I know him pretty well,” she begins, voice flat. “Number two, I’m one hundred percent certain it’s him. Between the username and what the message said, I’m certain. Plus the fact that his plan for the challenge, if you can call it that, isn’t the most thought out. You seriously want me to give away my location to the internet, Tree?”

“That’s called doxxing,” Fan volunteers. “It’s usually pretty bad. Also I would prefer if people didn’t know where we are because of recent events.” She thinks of the CEO of a respected tech company exploding, kernels scattering along the field, and just snorts into her foot.

“Anyway, it’s not like I can judge you for reaching out to me over livestream. Because, well, I’m the idiot who agreed to it in the first place.”

“Not that she had much of a choice in the matter,” Fan says sagely, as if that makes things remotely better for either of them.

“But seriously, this is your big idea to win the challenge?” she continues in a deadpan. “If you noticed the stream, I bet everyone else did too. Just wait for Golf Ball or Tennis Ball to figure something out, follow them, and swoop in at the last second. I won’t make it easy for them to win, trust me.”

“Oh, I remember those two from the first season!” Fan says, looking delighted, before pausing. “And the other seasons. Which I definitely watched. Anyway, I think they would really get along with Test Tube.”

“No thanks. We don’t need three mad scientists running around,” she flatly retorts, rolling her eyes.

A moment later, another donation comes, this one from markthespot4. Black Hole had been the one to suggest that they all add the number four to their usernames, and the other two had agreed, Marker enthusiastic while Fanny was begrudging. “Thanks for the ten dollar donation, Marker,” she deadpans. “What, did Tree run out of money? Anyway…” She clears her throat and begins to read it. “We’re running out of money but we have to donate to talk to you :(“ reads the first part of his donation, and she scoffs. “Take it up with Fan,” she retorts, gesturing at him.

“Like I said earlier,” the man squawks, clearly indignant. “I can’t read anything unless it’s in a donation. It’s not like I was expecting to have my stream be hijacked in the middle of an episode on your show-” he begins, but he comes to an abrupt stop as he goes wide. “Oh my gosh. My stream-slash-podcast is being plugged on your super popular show right now!” Fan looks like he wants to grab Fanny and shake her firmly by the shoulders, but he settles for shaking the table he’s sitting behind instead, looking frazzled. “I am going to get so many new viewers,” he whispers reverently, and she just rolls her eyes. Don’t they have bigger things to worry about at the moment?

“The rest of his donation says… You were right about GB and TB, but now they’re both aware of our plan, which will probably make things harder. But don’t worry, Fanny, we’re coming!” The message has an exclamation mark at the end, but instead of managing to sound excited, she just yells out the final word, because that feels easier. “Right. I’ll leave that to you, then. Hey, Fan, you should probably end your stream now. The hotel’s going to become a battleground in a few minutes, and I’d rather have options in case the first people who end up here aren’t the people who I want to get immunity.”

“You have plenty of options!” Fan cries, affronted. He bends down and begins to rifle for something, and after a moment he sits up, looking triumphant, holding a foam red baseball bat in his hand. “And look! You can use this as self defense!”

“One of your closest friends is a mad scientist who made a sentient robot,” Fanny dryly points out. “And all you can give me is a foam bat? You don’t have anything more lethal?”

Immediately, her words prompt two more donations from both Tree and Marker, although she knows Black Hole is there in spirit. Their messages say the same thing: “DON’T BETRAY THE PACT!!!!!!!” Both are in all caps, and both possess an excess amount of exclamation marks at the end of them.

“Relax,” she grumbles. “I was joking.” She wasn’t, really, preferring a few dead bodies over having to send another team member home. And speaking of… “Hey, since I… wasn’t able to stick around during Cake at Stake, can you guys tell me who was eliminated? I guess I’ll know next time I see you guys based on who’s missing, but I’d prefer to know sooner rather than later.” Of course, her words prompt the chat to explode in a flurry of protests about spoilers, which she promptly ignores.

It takes a second for her to get a proper response, Fan mumbling something about stream and donation delay, but the reply comes from Tree. “It was Gaty. Two was pretty torn up about it, but they eliminated both her and Eraser without problem. They didn’t go missing like the other eliminated contestants.”

Knowing that Gaty’s safe is cold comfort to her. Fanny just sighs, biting out a cold “Damn it,” under her breath. She had plenty of time to come to terms with her team being up for elimination, but that doesn’t stop her from blaming herself. She was the one meant to shift her team’s focus. She was the one supposed to lead them into winning challenges. She was the one to ensure no one would have to face the uncertainty of elimination, and she failed.

If nothing else, she’s glad that Gaty’s safe from One’s clutches. She has no clue what the Algebrailian would do with someone so important to Two in her clutches, and she shudders at the thought of how One, cold, conniving One, would exploit that fact. Gaty’s eliminated, but she’s safe. So it’s fine. Everything’s fine.

“Okay,” she says quietly, raising her head. “Thank you guys, really. Fan, can you hurry up and end the stream already? I wasn’t lying about needing to prepare for chaos.”

“C’mon, just one more question?” he says with a pout, his eyes wide and pleading as he stares hopefully at her. She really hates how good he is at that. How does Test Tube stand it?

“Fine,” she relents. “Just one. And you aren’t allowed to make it into a whole conversation. Like I said, I’m on a timer. So just make it quick.”

He just cheers in response, either ignoring or is just unbothered by her barbs. He kicks his legs as he reads off the TV. “Alright, our final question for today’s…” He sighs regretfully. “Painfully short stream is from rubberducks32, who asks how you got your mouth back after Pin and Donut stole it! Uh, that’s a weird question. Assuming it has some context to it.”

Fanny doesn’t move to answer right away. She’s busy being frozen in place, a cold, icy fear constricting in her gut as One flies to the forefront of her mind. One, sitting in her armchair, contract hovering in the air, as her silver tongue talked in circles around Fanny, not that she had the means to properly object to what was going on. She hated her deals. But she was helpless to protest without her damn mouth!

What is she supposed to say to that question? How is she supposed to muster up some kind of answer? She already suffers from horrible, paranoid questions about whether her mouth can be said to fully belong to her anymore. She doesn’t know where One got it. It definitely isn’t hers, because as the Algebrailian said it’s still at the bottom of the Goiky Canal. So wherever she had sourced it from, Fanny doesn’t trust her. She doesn’t trust her mouth. And god, it’s such a strange feeling to live in fear of her own body.

As tempted as she is to just rip off the damn thing and find her original mouth, she hates the thought of being without a voice. Back there, as she negotiated with One–if that horribly one sided conversation could ever be considered a negotiation–she had felt so powerless. She might as well have been dead for all she was able to do against her. She doesn’t want to be left in that state again. She wants to speak. She wants her damn mouth, no matter how much she can trust it.

None of that changes the fact that she had just been asked the question directly, and the longer she remains silent the more intense the expectation to answer will be, certainly. So in that vein, it’s a question of how well she can act and pretend as if the act of regaining her mouth wasn’t so significant it weighs on her even now. Fan’s stare is growing less eagerly expectant and more slowly concerned the longer she doesn’t say a word, and she knows that whatever she may be thinking she has to swallow back the lump in her throat and talk.

“It was during a challenge,” she dismissively begins, voice flat and warbly as she tries to get her mind together and force out something, anything. Background information tastes better on her tongue and is far easier to force out. “Worked with Pin and Donut for all of two minutes before they ended up betraying me. My mouth was a casualty of that, but it also ended up saving us from being eliminated, so there were pros and cons. Couldn’t get it back before it ended up in the canal, though, so for a while I just couldn’t talk.”

Fan is nodding along attentively. She really does like how focused he is on her, nodding encouragingly. When she falters, he asks “And then what?” His eyes are wide and curious as they’re trained on her, him leaning forward with an intent glint in them.

She stutters for a moment, fumbling awkwardly for a lie when she’s so on the spot. Still, though, she has to settle on something, so- “Between challenges I looked for it,” she says, staring at the floor as she does so. She can’t bear to have to look Fan, so earnest and eager, in the eye and lie to him dead on. “Properly put it back on after the team swap. N-Nothing interesting, really-” And god does she wish that was the truth “Just something tedious. I don’t actually know what is and isn’t featured during the episodes, I never watch ‘em, so it makes sense if some people were a little confused. That’s all.”

When she finishes, she swallows, her throat feeling dry. She wishes she could feel bad about lying, but in the end it’s just self preservation. Four and X are unstable, sure, but they aren’t like One. She’s smart, disquietingly so, and the amused glint in her eye as she stared at Fanny made her convinced that the Algebrailian was planning something, even if she couldn’t put into words what. If Fanny does something to spoil it, maybe she’ll be spirited away alongside the missing contestants, never to be seen again. Disquieting.

Fan claps his hands together after a moment, looking satisfied. “Alright!” he chirps. “I hope this stream was everything you all were hoping for! Sorry it couldn’t be longer, but you know how hectic things can get when you’re on a reality show! Who knows, I just might have more interviews with people from BFDI in the future!”

“I’m sure they’re all going to look forward to it,” Fanny deadpans, prompting Fan to squint at her as he tries to decipher whether she’s being sarcastic or genuine. 

A moment later, he presses a few buttons on his steam deck, and the stream transitions to a thanks for watching screen. “Our mics are muted,” he says. “I just like to wait a few minutes before ending stream properly. Especially because this one didn’t go on for nearly as long as I hoped for.” He pouts, looking rather put out by this fact.

“Blame Two for their stupid challenges, not me,” she retorts, rolling her eyes. “C’mon, let’s go to the front. Oh, and grab Nickel on the way.” She sees Fan mouth “which one” to himself as she gets to her feet and leaves the room, glad to hear him following after her after he moves to press a button.

There’s a lot of things that can happen with this challenge. She’s not used to having so much control with what happens during it. She’s the key to immunity, and for obvious reasons she’d prefer for her team to be the one to net it. Both to protect her team and to avoid elimination herself. It’ll be one hell of a mission, considering in the end she has to deal with all of the other teams who have their attention firmly trained on her, but in the end it’s just a matter of seeing what she can do.

“Nickel!” she hollers as she trudges down the hallway. “Come down to the lobby!”

“Which one?” calls one of them. His tone is neutral, and without a face, it’s hard to figure out who’s talking.

“The one that I have any reason to talk to!” she snaps in reply. “Whatever, both of you can come down, I don’t care! But this is sort of important, so hurry!” Her yells get louder as she makes her way down the hall, standing at the top of the stairway with a fiery scowl. When she finishes, she begins making her way down, wordlessly grumbling under her breath.

By the time she makes it down to the lobby, leaning against the couch, Fan remains hot on her heels, hopping onto a spinning stool and doing a few quick rotations. The other Nickel, face flat, is walking down alongside Clover. From further up the stairs, audible but out of view, she hears Nickel and Balloon. “C’mon, Loony!” she hears him cajole. “I know you can hold my weight! You’re full of hot air! All you gotta do is jump down the stairs, and I’ll cling onto you! Doesn’t it sound fun?”

“I dunno about fun,” Balloon says in reply, sounding uncertain. “Seems like a good way for you to get hurt. I don’t exactly have a lot of hand holds, you know. Or footholds, I guess.”

“Hm…” Nickel considers this for a moment, before letting out a gasp and brightly replying “Oh, I know! I can hold on with my teeth!”

“No, no, no!” yells the other Nickel, immediately beginning a stream of high pitched, angry objections. “You’re going to pop him and he won’t come back from that, so don’t you dare!”

“Relax, Nickel,” Balloon says dryly. “I wasn’t going to let him do that anyway.” The two finish descending, fully coming into view. Balloon looks unimpressed while Nickel looks glum and dejected. The other Nickel doesn’t hesitate to glower at Nickel, teeth bared, while Nickel just smiles cluelessly. Fanny, for her part, just sighs as she climbs onto an arm on the couch. This day has barely started for her and she finds she’s already tired of it, the clashing of the Nickels quick to become exasperating. For all of their differences, her and Fan get along well enough, so why can’t the two of them?

“Uh,” Fan calls. At some point, he had moved from the stool to one of the windowsills, and now he’s staring through one of them with a concerned frown on his face. “You guys might want to take a look at this.”

Obediently, the other five in the room huddle around the window, Nickel climbing onto Fanny’s head to get a better look at the window, which she would be fine with if his feet weren’t digging into her back. The other Nickel does the same with Balloon, and glares at Nickel, affronted, when he realizes that they had the same idea. Fanny doesn’t have time for their inane animosity, though, and busies herself with looking out the window.

A familiar group of objects is huddled together on the grass, looking dazed. It’s Team 2, although they are down Eraser. She supposes Nickel’s claims had been reputable enough, then. Snowball is holding a device in his hands that definitely doesn’t belong to him, and is probably responsible for how they ended up here to begin with. Above her, she hears Nickel gasp in joy. “No way!” he yells, looking thrilled. “It’s Book and Taggy! Oh, and Ice Cube, Grassy, and Snowball too, I guess. But Book and Taggy! Yay!”

Eagerly, he jumps off of Fanny’s head, the motion horribly painful, and begins to jump up and down on the windowsill, cheering and waving and tapping on the grass. Of course, the group is quick to notice this horrifying display, and Grassy points toward Fanny, who is clustered in the front, causing the group to move toward the hotel with renewed vigor.

Fanny, for her part, just groans and moves away from the window. Since she isn’t a member of Team 2, she has no interest in ensuring them immunity, although they are definitely the team Nickel is rooting for even without realizing who’s on Team 2 to begin with. Still, she doesn’t bow to what Nickel wants. So she just backs up, perching herself back onto the couch and preparing her best glare for anyone who tries to get in her way of netting her team immunity.

“So, uh, who are those guys, anyway?” the other Nickel asks, face pinched.

“Trouble,” she says grimly, right before the door slams open. Unsurprisingly, Snowball is the one leading the charge, Grassy perched on his head, and he jabs a finger toward her self righteously.

“You’re coming with us!” he loudly declares.

“Piss off,” she immediately replies, tone brusque. He didn’t seem to expect the outright rejection, as he just stares at her, blinking a few times. So she elaborates. “I know what the challenge is for today, and I know I won’t let it finish until my team ends up with immunity. So honestly, you shouldn’t even bother trying.”

As confident as she tries to appear to be, she’s fully aware how much of a front it is. She may have some level of competence, but not even she could fully hold her own against the entirety of Team 2. It’s one against five, and the best she can do is stall. So long as she can keep the team in conversation instead of outright trying to nab her, she can hold out until her team makes it here and hightail it back to Goiky with them. That’s easier said than done, but she’ll see what she can do regardless.

Snowball mulls this over for a moment, before tentatively saying “Well, we were on the same team in BFB. Remember iance? Shouldn’t that mean something? Technically, if you think about it, I’m a part of your te-”

“Unless your name is Bubble, I don’t give a shit about iance, so you shouldn’t even bother trying with that angle,” she says haughtily, chin raised. Snowball is worse when he tries to use things like logic and reasoning to his advantage. Truly, that doesn’t suit him.

“Hey, guys! Hey!” Nickel cries, bounding forward excitedly. Behind him, the other Nickel facepalms, looking pained. “Remember me? I’m here too!” He stops in front of Book and Taggy, beaming brightly. The two slowly blink, looking baffled by his presence. “Fanny told me about the team swap, but she didn’t tell me what team you all were on! So what’s the name of this team, huh? Tell me tell me tell me!”

Book looks overwhelmed by the barrage of questions, meaning Taggy has to interject. “We’re Team 2 ;D!” they declare, before deflating a second later. “...Before you ask, the name wasn’t our choice ;-_-.”

“Wait, you guys are Team 2?” Nickel asks, looking baffled. A moment later, he trains a disgruntled glare onto Fanny. “You could have told me that, you know!”

“How was I to know you’re invested in what happens with your old teammates?” she retorts, rolling her eyes.

“You saw how I freaked out when you told me Bomby was missing!”

“Yeah, most people freak out when they hear anyone they know is missing, regardless of if they’re close or not. Just so you know.”

“Huh.” Nickel mulls that over for a moment.

While he does, Book takes the opportunity to speak up. “Not that I’m not glad to see here, but what are you doing here, Nickel?” she prompts. “You’ve been eliminated for a while. I wasn’t expecting to see you again so soon.”

“Oh! I was erased from existence just like Fanny was!” Nickel says brightly, before hesitating. “I… think. That is what happened, right?”

“Plug on MeLife was pulled and everyone made by MePhone who wasn’t killed already was erased from existence, yeah,” she confirms with a shrug.

“I’m… going to pretend like I understand any of that,” Book says slowly, still looking really confused.

“Trust me, it makes more sense when you’re experiencing it.”

“Not that you have to understand it!” Nickel cheerily adds. “It doesn’t affect you directly anyway!”

“Basically, shit’s fucked, but there’s nothing you can do about it,” Fanny summarizes. “So you might as well not even bother.”

“What are you guys doing here?” Nickel counters, a smug expression on his face as if he had just realized he could turn Book’s earlier question back around on her.

“Oh. Did I not tell you? Oops.” Fanny says flatly. “On Fan’s stupid livestream, Tree managed to track me down and ask a few questions. Apparently, the challenge for today is to track me down and bring me back. Which is kind of confusing, since two teams are supposed to be up for elimination, but only one can get immunity…” She trails off, thinking.

“Jeez, that’s the challenge?” grumbles the other Nickel, expression flat. “Seems like something the host should do themselves.”

“It’s not like lackluster challenges are unique to their show,” Balloon dryly points out. “One of the final challenges of season three was to find ways to prolong the season because MePhone was scared of it ending and having to go back to season two, so…”

“How did you guys get here, anyway?” Fanny says, squinting. “I don’t even know where this island is.”

“Golf Ball made a device to trace the location of your livestream, and then made another device to open a portal to the location :/,” Taggy says with a sigh. Fanny has long stopped wondering how they do that with their mouth. “Snowball stole the second one ;D.” The object in question flexes, smirking smugly.

“I guess that makes sense.”

“Oh!” Nickel suddenly cries, eyes wide. “I have an idea! How did Two phrase the challenge, exactly?”

“Well, I’m a written transcript of the current TPOT episode,” Book says sagaciously, flipping through her pages before stopping. “Here’s where Two was giving the challenge.” She taps at a paragraph. Squinting, Fanny leans in to read.

Well, since Fanny is missing, how about this? Your next challenge is to track down our missing contestant and bring them back to me! First two teams to do so win immunity! On the next line is a cut off question from Golf Ball, asking how two teams can bring back one person, but it seems like her question never gets answered.

“That phrasing is vague enough that we can work with it,” Nickel declares, looking satisfied. “Since I’m a missing contestant, too!”

“Ex-contestant, maybe,” Ice Cube mutters, scoffing.

“I figure we can rig this challenge a little bit and net immunity for the people we want to win,” Nickel says to Fanny. “I want Book and Taggy to go far, y’know? They’re my friends! Former Just Not-ers! We played Goikys and Dragons together! And I bet you’re rooting for your team, too, since you’re, uh, one of the people on it.” She nods slowly, liking this suggestion more and more by the minute. It ensures that both of them get what they want.

“All of those things you said about us could be said about Pillow too /:7,” Taggy points out.

“Pillow is not my friend,” Nickel growls in response, a dark look in his eyes. “And anyway, I don’t want her to win! Who knows what that maniac will do with Two’s power! I want you guys to win! So take me back to Two. Even if they’re hesitant, I bet I could sweet talk them into getting your team immunity easily.”

“If it means you’re leaving, I’m all for this plan,” the other Nickel readily declares. “The sooner the better.”

“Be nice, Nickel,” Balloon grumbles, looking exasperated.

“Aw,” Clover says, looking glum. “We’ll miss you, other Nickel!”

“No, he’s the other Nickel,” Fanny refutes, pointing at the one leaning against Balloon. “Our Nickel came first, so he doesn’t have to have anything added to his name.”

“What?!” sputters the other Nickel in dismay. “That’s not fair!”

“Huh, you’re right, I do have seniority,” says Nickel as the realization begins to slowly dawn on him. “Yay!”

“So we’re seriously taking this guy?” Snowball says derisively, picking up Nickel. Immediately, he begins to kick his legs in the air desperately, trying to get out of his grip. “He’s not even part of the challenge!”

“He could be,” Fanny flatly retorts, baring her teeth at him. “And he’ll go with you a lot easier than I will. Why not make things easier for yourselves and reason with Two when the time comes?”

Book looks skeptical, but eventually shrugs. “If Gaty could get through to Two, I don’t see why we can’t,” she muses. Fanny grimaces at the mention of her eliminated teammate. “I guess it’s as good a plan as any.”

“Now to figure out how to get Golf Ball’s device working again ',x^I…” Taggy muses. Snowball sets Nickel atop his head alongside Grassy, the latter waving at the coin while the former glowers at him. 

Most of them retreat to a corner to troubleshoot, but Book hesitates, staring at the other Nickel. “Is there a reason why there’s two Nickels, or…?” she says slowly, her brow furrowed.

“Shit sucks,” the other Nickel deadpans.

“He’s my cousin!” Nickel excitedly hollers, beaming widely.

Fan, who was perched on the windowsill facing the field in front of the entrance, suddenly straightens, looking over his shoulder. “Another group of people just appeared!”

“Oh, shit,” Fanny groans, throwing her head back. “What objects do you see?”

“Uh…” He wrinkles his nose as if in deep thought. “There’s a tennis ball, a TV, a bottle, a pen, a-”

When the team is recognized, all current TPOT competitors join Fanny in their groaning. “Protect Nickel!” Book declares, one hand on her hip as a fired up look flickers behind her eyes.

“Wait, what team is it?” Nickel yells from his spot on Snowball’s head, his eyes wide. “I’m completely clueless because of the team swap!”

“Uhhh…” all of the TPOT competitors say in unison, all of them realizing that they have no chance of properly pronouncing… that team’s name. Before any of them are forced to answer, though, the door to the hotel slams open, causing Fanny to jump.

“Looks like we were beat here,” Liy curses under her breath.

“But look, Fanny’s still over there!” Pen hollers, prompting a frustrated glare from her as she scrambles backward, trying to bounce on the end of the couch she had been perched on. There’s a heavy, awkward moment where… that team stares at her, before suddenly both Liy and Pen lunge forward at the same time. But the shared motion causes the two to collide with one another and fall to the ground.

She takes advantage of the brief pause to run along the firm backing of the couch, running over and jumping onto the counter to glare at her pursuers. “Fan, put your damn phone down and start hitting them with pillows or something!” Fanny barks.

“But this footage would be so good for my blog!” he whines in response, making no move to actually help her. He can be frustratingly single minded at times.

“I hate you!” she yells, and he just laughs.

Of course, things are quick to devolve into outright chaos even with just two teams here. With that team still chasing after her, as well as Team 2 eventually ending up dragged into the fight, as well as the Inanimate Insanity ex-contestants generally getting in the way of things whether it’s purposeful or not (During the scuffle, Fan dives between crowds all for the sake of getting the best shot he can. It keeps that team off of her for just a little longer, but she does hope he doesn’t get hurt. Paper is less fragile than a bubble, but still, she worries), it makes for a relatively messy romp.

Things end up even worse after Cloudyay and Death PACT Yet Again finally make it to the hotel. They wrestle getting through the door, Pencil and Pin getting in an intense scuffle on the grass outside, and by the time they all finally cram inside, save for Black Hole, who hovers by the entrance uncertainly, Tree strikes a pose, one hand on his hand as he beams. “Fanny, we’re here to rescue you!” he declares, standing in front of the team like an intrepid leader.

Of course, his voice is swallowed up by all the yelling and chaos. Fanny looks up from where she had been throwing books from a nearby bookshelf at members of that team every time they drew too close to her. “Took you long enough!” she yells in response. “Now hurry up and come get me! I’m tired of having to dodge these guys!”

“O-Oh, uh-” Tree stammers, looking caught off guard.

Meanwhile, Marker just beams, eternally the go with the flow sort. “Gotcha!” he says brightly, running forward. A moment later, Tree, Pin, and Robot Flower all dart after him.

As they run toward her, she scrambles back up the couch. That team is more preoccupied with Cloudyay, leading to the two being distracted by petty bickering. Team 2 is clustered in a corner. At some point, Nickel had been transferred from Snowball, who’s now fending off anyone who grows too close, to Ice Cube, whose deadpan expression perfectly conveys how she feels about the arrangement. They seem to be waiting for the perfect chance to slip out of the doorway unnoticed, but there still remains plenty of people in front of it.

As for the non-TPOT competitors, Fan is still recording the scene with a giddy glee, even as he gets shoved and elbowed. The only time he verbally objects is when his phone is knocked from his hands. Balloon has been hoisted up into Clover’s arms and is being held in the air, as far away from the chaos as he can get, while the other Nickel is closely pressed against her, bristling defensively. The three of them are almost a little pocket of peace amongst the chaos, all of the flailing limbs and kicking legs managing to be aimed away from them. Lucky.

Fanny blinks, recentering herself, and tenses. The moment her team is in range, she leaps off the back of the couch, cushioning her landing in Tree’s tangling of branches and leaves. Geez, when was the last time he got a good pruning? After she spends a moment readjusting herself, she lets out a satisfied hum and begins to bark out “Alright, let’s-”

Before she can finish, though, she spots OJ in the stairwell and immediately tenses warily. She knows from Bottle how easily glass objects can end up shattering. It’s a miracle Bottle has remained intact throughout all this chaos, and she has the safety cushion of the recovery center. If OJ knows what’s good for him, he would get out of here as soon as he could.

Instead, though, his expression flickers rapidly through different expressions. It goes from shock to sadness to fury all in the blink of an eye, and by the time she’s fully processed it, he’s already storming through the crowd, his anger explosive and righteous.

She takes in a breath, intending to call out to stop him before something happens. But it seems as if his anger provides a shield of sorts. Everyone who notices him is quick to take a few times back, wary of someone whose expression is that frenzied in its anger, and everyone who doesn’t is shoved aside. He makes it halfway across the lobby before calling out.

“Everyone get out of my hotel!” OJ hollers, hands cupped around his mouth. “I’m not above murder!”

“Can’t you get MePhone to fix everything?” calls a voice Fanny doesn’t recognize. One of the Inanimate Insanity contestants, then. There’s a bunch of new people clustered in the stairwell, likely drawn in by the chaos.

“No, I can’t, because he can’t create things anymore!” he yells in response. “Everyone out, I mean it! The next person who breaks something is going to be charged to fix it!”

Immediately, everyone freezes. OJ is standing on top of the reception desk, breathing heavily as he glares at the scattered arguing teams. Everyone takes stock of each other, throwing each other wary glances as they do so.

Ultimately, the other Nickel is the one to break the silence. “So, does that everybody out include everyone in this room, or all of the strangers?” he calls, voice dry.

“Well, you know what, Nickel? Since you asked that, the answer is yes,” OJ retorts, one hand on his hip. The other Nickel groans in response, while Clover sympathetically pats the top of his head. “Everybody out! No one is coming back in until I clean it all!” There’s a pause, and his glare becomes even more scathing as he sizes up the crowd. “Well?!” he barks, prompting them all to scatter out the front door.

Amidst the chaos, though, Fanny is knocked down from her perch among Tree’s leaves, and she yelps as she falls through the air only to be deftly caught before she hits the ground. For a second, she thinks it could have been Marker or Pin, spotting her falling and moving in to catch her, but Tree had been the one at the tail end of the group, like he always is. So who…?

She glances down, trying to move her neck even as the tight and suddenly foreboding grip restricts her. It’s when she gets a glimpse of blue and realizes the texture of the hand holding her is rough and stony is when she begins to outright panic, yelling and flailing and kicking her legs just as the rest of the front lobby’s inhabitants finish flooding into the grassy area outside the hotel.

Because this hand can only belong to one object, that being Winner. And if Winner was the one to grab her, that means Cloudyay is winning. And she hates Cloudyay! So she flails as much as she can, trying frantically to escape. She even tries to bite one of the fingers near her mouth, but that just hurts her teeth, because she can’t exactly chew on stone.

“Let me go!” she yells. “Let me go! Guys, guys!” Even before she gets out the second sentence, she knows she won’t gain anything from pleading to be released, so she instead opts to try to get the attention of her team. She would have kept yelling, if not for the fact that Winner’s grip shifted to wrap around her mouth and muffle her shouts.

Thankfully, her shouting does fulfill its purpose, because when her team looks behind them, they see her flailing and trapped in the grasp of Cloudyay. Tree gasps and points at them. “Hey! Give Fanny back!” he cries angrily. Of course, anger for him is slight irritation for anyone else, but she digresses.

“Mmm… no!” Yellow Face cries with a laugh.

“Get a move on, Golf Ball!” Pencil hisses, glaring at her shorter teammate who seems to be typing something into a device of hers with intent focus.

“I’m trying!” she retorts. “I would move faster if you weren’t yelling in my ear! Besides, this backup device isn’t nearly as good as the one Snowball stole.”

“Snowball’s over there,” Pillow points out with her usual disaffected air, jabbing a finger at where

“Just become a manual for Golf Ball’s device then and tell us how it works `:T!!!” she hears Taggy yell, sounding frustrated.

“That’s not how it works!” Book sputters in response. Sounds like that’s going well.

“Want me to get it back from him?” Pillow continues, smiling.

Golf Ball begins to say something, but Donut rushes to respond. “That’s a great idea, Pillow!” he cries. “How about this? Me, Pillow, and Yellow Face will go get back Golf Ball’s device. The rest of you make sure those PACT guys don’t steal back Fanny.”

“Don’t I get a say in this?” Fanny mumbles, voice remaining muffled.

“No.” Donut flatly retorts. 

“I hate you.”

“So?” he continues. “What do you say, team?” Everyone gives their approval, some more enthusiastically than others. “Great! Let’s-! Uh…” Donut catches Pillow’s eye and falters, suddenly looking nervous. “Promise me you won’t kill me again, Pillow?” he says hopefully.

“Oh, sure! I won’t kill. Not you, anyway,” Pillow says brightly. Donut hesitates, looking like he’s not sure whether he should count this as a win or not, but before he can say anything, he’s dragged off by Pillow and Yellow Face.

“Look, we outnumber them now!” Pin calls, jabbing a finger forward. “We can get Fanny back with ease!”

“Yeah!” Robot Flower brightly adds. “Let’s pummel ‘em!”

“Uh, okay… But we can’t kill them,” Black Hole stresses.

As Death PACT Yet Again all run forward, as united a force as they’ll be able to manage, she’s vaguely aware of Nickel hollering in the background. “Oh no! Is that Pillow? Keep her away from me, keep her away from me!” He’s shrieking in a panic as he jumps up and down on Snowball’s head, having maneuvered back onto his head as the group went outside.

“Stop that!” Snowball hisses, looking frustrated. “You’re going to cause my snow to come loose!”

“H-Hey, Pillow, let’s talk about this />.>/!!!” Taggy pleads, sounding panicked. “Why are you getting clo-? No!!! DX!!” With a horrible rip sound, they’re easily torn apart, and one of the Nickels shrieks in horror. Normally, Fanny would guess it to be her Nickel, but to those from Inanimate Insanity, death is suddenly a lot more permanent to them. Seeing someone die so abruptly and horrifyingly would be petrifying from that mindset, surely. So it’s hard for her to tell who screamed, with such limited mobility.

“Give us the device back!” Donut calls, straightening. If he had arms, he would be pointing them forward accusingly, and the lack of them is strongly felt.

“No!” Book yells, picking up a rock and throwing it at Donut. Unfortunately for her, it goes straight through his hole. “Oh. Uh…”

Since Cloudyay is so split up, regardless of their relative size advantage as well as might, they have a hard time fighting against Team 2, with an edge in the latter’s favor. The two groups begin to feint, making grabs for the device where they can. At some point, it had been placed onto Ice Cube’s head, the smaller object taking advantage of her slipperiness to slide across the grass out of the way. Everyone is wary around Pillow, managing to distract her long enough from killing anyone outright, but it’s a near thing. Nickel looks like he’s fearing for his life constantly, and Fanny doesn’t blame him.

The scuffle is quick to grow too chaotic for her to keep track of, especially from her spot in Winner’s arm. Since they only have the one, something they produce whenever it’s needed, it means that they have to take a more passive role in the fight, although there’s been multiple instances in which they’ve tossed her through the air just to get a few smacks on anyone approaching or to push them back. It’s dizzying, and she flails and yells as much as she can in an effort to fall to the grass instead of back into Winner’s grip.

Eventually, Black Hole notices the pattern, and after ordering Tree and Marker to dart toward Winner, he flies in the air near the same arc Fanny is growing used to be thrown in. As Winner throws her for the air to push Marker over, causing him to roll through the grass and for Tree to run after him in a panic, Black Hole catches her before she can fall back into Winner’s arm.

She does a rotation around the hole and flies through the air. “How is this helping at all?!” she hollers as she flies.

“Oh. Whoops. That usually works better than it just did,” he says sheepishly, before moving to catch her again. She just flies even faster that time, causing her to scream in rage.

“Stop that! You’re just making it worse!” she hollers in frustration. Black Hole backs up, and Winner just reaches up to catch her. Nothing had changed, really. She just had the fear of death put into her, something she hadn’t been ever properly acquainted with before now. But flying through the air, knowing that if she hits the grass there’s a good chance of her not coming back… It’s disconcerting. Terrifying, too, but the former feels as if it affords her more control.

Either way, three teams continue to fight, none of them ever making proper headway on reaching their goals. Team 2 keeps the device from Cloudyay, Cloudyay keeps Fanny from Death PACT. It’s infuriating that nothing changes, no matter how long the scuffle continues.

All throughout this, that team has been watching on the sidelines, all of them visibly unsure. Liy is yelling something, bristling in protest, but it’s hard to hear anything over the overwhelming chaos and the sound of wind rushing in her ears. Something is displaying on TV’s screen, too. She just wishes she could make out what…

Fanny gets an answer to her question when a moment later, Liy reaches for her switch and flips it to reveal her smaller, hidden switch, flipping it before lunging for both Tennis Ball and Basketball, carrying each of them in one hand. She throws them both at Black Hole, and predictably, he moves through the air to stop them from being absorbed into him. The angle to which he moves at, though, is perfect for catching both of the balls in his orbit, flinging them into the air just like she had been.

This action had been done at the same time as Winner had thrown her, so as she falls in the air, now less alarmed by the constant rising and falling and more frustrated, she’s grabbed by one of the balls (it’s hard to tell from the angle). She just groans as she’s tilted to face the sky, bouncing a few times against the grass. Pretty solid strategy, if not for the fact that Winner won’t let her go that easily.

When she gets the chance to orient herself, she notes that she’s been grabbed by Tennis Ball. Both of the balls had likely been sent for practicality. Winner is quick to run forward, using their fingers to flick Basketball back in the direction of her team. The ball rolls quickly against the grass, slamming against her clustered teammates and causing all of them to fall. They pump their fist, beaming widely. “Nice, a strike!” they say brightly, before glancing over to Tennis Ball, who’s sweating. “Well, it might be a spare…” they muse, before leaning forward and grabbing him, lifting into the air and shaking him firmly so that Fanny falls through his grip, and then throwing him toward his team as well.

“So close,” Tree sighs, burying his head in his hands in frustration.

“But so far,” Pin agrees, looking frustrated.

Tennis Ball, for his part, looks panicked as his team tries to get their bearings, before his eyes latch onto the other Nickel. “Nickel? What are you-?” he begins, brow furrowed, before he shakes his head. “Never mind! Team! Grab Nickel! If we can’t bring back Fanny with us, we might be able to use him to get immunity!”

“Wait, wh-?” he begins, cut off by being yanked by Pen and Liy and carried back to TV, who rolls away toward Tennis Ball, Bottle, and Basketball, the latter fidgeting with a device of their own to get back to Goiky. “What?!?!?! No!!!! Balloon, Clover, do something!” he shrieks, thrashing like a mad man in the two’s grip.

“Oh, come on,” Balloon grumbles, running a hand over his face in exasperation, before dragging Clover and dragging her after him. “Come on, let’s go get our stupid boyfriend back. It would be nice if we got lucky, you know.”

“Not how it works, but I’ll try my hardest!” she says brightly, running at his side with a wide grin.

“Those morons don’t even realize they have the wrong Nickel,” Fanny grumbles to herself as Cloudyay, Death PACT, and Team 2 continue to squabble over both Fanny herself as well as Golf Ball’s device.

“There’s two of them?” Winner prompts. As much as she doesn’t want to have casual conversation with the person currently holding her hostage, she reluctantly nods. “Huh. That’s fun. Not that I care so long as we end up with immunity.” They just smile, looking smug, and she’s so frustrated that she tries to bite them again, only to immediately regret it a moment later.

Either way, that team is the first to return to Goiky, Balloon and Clover hot on their heels. It’s ironic, considering they didn’t bring back either her or TPOT’s Nickel. It makes for a good amount of false hope.

Winner jumps back as Marker rolls forward, trying to grab Fanny, and in response they just stretch their arm up higher, grimacing. “Hey, guys?” they call over to the spilt up members of their team. “Are you almost done? We could use a little help over here!”

“Hey, Icy!” Nickel yells, a wide grin on his face. “Pass me the device!”

Ice Cube glances up at him from where she had been sliding across the grass, eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Alright,” she says slowly. “But if you break it, we’re leaving you here.”

He doesn’t look fazed in the slightest by the ominous, firm threat. Instead, he just stares down at the device as he catches it. “Just like with TB and the yoyleite,” he says to himself right before he immediately presses all of the buttons randomly and recklessly. Whether it’s because Clover’s luck has rubbed off on him or because Nickel’s reckless impulsiveness never gets him punished, a portal opens up in front of him, displaying the yellow grass and green trees of Goiky on the other side.

The scuffling comes to a gradual halt as the surrounding people notice what he did. “...Seriously?” Ice Cube grumbles, looking exasperated. Either way, she’s first to make a break for the portal, the rest of her team (and Nickel) hot on her heels.

Of course, Golf Ball notices this and begins to sputter in offense. “Wh- But-” She says in dismay, before shaking her head. “Team! After them! We can’t get stranded here!”

Cloudyay makes a break for the portal. Fanny managed to end up at a better angle after the constant throwing, so she manages to lift her head and yell out “Guys! Go through the portal before it closes!”

Robot Flower, taking advantage of her mechanical nature, grabs onto her teammates save for Black Hole and goes for the portal at a breakneck speed. With Cloudyay still fighting with Team 2, they manage to get through the portal without much fuss. Except Fanny is still there, stuck in Winner’s hand. She groans and resigns herself to another loss, even as it stings.

In the ensuing scuffle, Golf Ball’s device goes flying from Nickel’s hand as he runs back onto Snowball’s head and ends up on the grass, but the two arguing teams are more worried with forcing themselves through the portal, wrestling with the other team as they do so.

Going through the portal is disorientating as hell. Even as Winner’s grip ends up loosening on her, the most she can do is stagger awkwardly down onto the grass, Pillow breaking her fall. A moment later, Pencil spots her, and forcing herself to her feet, she drags Fanny over to Two, who seems more preoccupied with arguing with… that team.

“I’m pretty sure the challenge was to bring back Fanny, though,” they muse, tapping at their cheek. “Regardless of how Nickel made his way out, I dunno if bringing him back will net you immunity.” They spot Pencil and brighten. “Speaking of immunity!” They dart over to her and spread out their hands, grinning. “Cloudyay gets immunity!” they declare, prompting weak cheers easily overpowered by exasperated groans.

“But it’s double eliminations, not triple eliminations!” Tennis Ball whines, TV giving a demonstration featuring pictures behind him. “We should get immunity for bringing back Nickel, since he was technically a missing contestant too!”

“You’re right, you should,” Balloon calls, stepping forward, causing the other Nickel to sputter in dismay.

“Balloon!”

“But,” he continues, throwing a stern look over to the other Nickel, who grumbles under his breath. “That’s not Nickel. Or, well, not your Nickel. He’s over there, see?” He points over to the other coin, who’s perched on top of Snowball and waves excitedly when he notices all the attention suddenly on him.

“Hm,” Two says, squinting as their arms extend to grab both of the coins before they lift up both of the Nickels and dangle them by their legs. “Well, this is a conundrum. Which one is the real Nickel?”

“It’s not like I’m his evil clone!” the other Nickel shrieks, thrashing violently in his grip.

“Actually, if you think about it, you kind of are,” Nickel points out, his wide beam at odds with his words. “Since you were made after me and all.”

“Both of you calm down, they’re just asking which one is the Nickel they know,” Balloon says flatly. “And to answer your question, it would be that one.” He points at the Nickel who’s smiling.

“Yeah. Our Nickel would rather rip off his mouth than smile in front of so many people!” Clover adds with a laugh.

“From personal experience, I don’t recommend it,” Fanny says. Pin shifts guiltily, but wisely doesn’t say anything.

“Huh. Okay.” Two drops both of them onto the grass, causing them to both let out synchronized yelps as they fall. Balloon and Clover make a beeline to the other Nickel, both of them working to pick him up. He goes limp in their grasp like a cat, legs swinging below him as he scowls.

“I can’t believe your stupid friends kidnapped me,” he complains to his cousin.

“Not my fault they can’t tell us apart,” Nickel haughtily replies as he gets to his feet. “I’m hurt, Jiggle boy!” he adds with a pout as he turns to Tennis Ball, who grumbles something under his breath. “I thought we were friends, and yet you mix the two of us up?! Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if you mix me up with Coiny on the regular!”

“Coiny is orange and has arms,” he flatly retorts. “You two look nearly identical.”

“Balloon and Clover could tell me apart from their Nickel the moment they saw me,” Nickel says with a pout, kicking at the grass. “Can’t someone as smart as you be able to do the same?”

“Well, to be fair, we’re biased,” Balloon points out, hugging the other Nickel close to his chest. Clover just giggles as a pink butterfly flutters through the air, landing on top of the other Nickel.

“Clover, get your butterfly away from me,” he huffs, looking frustrated.

“I can’t help that he likes you!” she says in response.

“He only likes me because you like me!”

“Well, I can’t help that either.” she concludes with a laugh. There’s a fond edge to her words as she smiles widely at him, cheeks dusted with a blush.

After a moment, the other Nickel squirms his way out of Balloon’s grip and levels a glare onto Tennis Ball. “You’re officially my least favorite ball,” he declares. He looks a lot less intimidating with that butterfly fluttering in circles around him. “To be clear, you wouldn’t beat Baseball even on a good day, but that stunt you pulled definitely put you in dead last.”

“Right,” Two announces, clapping their hands together. “Now that we’ve figured out the real Nickel, the teams who have immunity are Cloudyay and Team 2! That means that Death PACT Yet Again and 🎶🎶 are up for elimination!”

“I hate Cloudyay,” Fanny mutinously mutters. Tree sympathetically pats her on the back.

Now that the challenge is over, most of the teams scatter. Book runs over to the recovery center, grabs Price Tag, and drags them back to the cluster of people, hovering awkwardly around Nickel as if they’re worried he’ll be spirited away at any moment. Her own team is the other group that remains, still surrounding her in a way that almost feels protective. She appreciates it, but she doesn’t want to feel like she’s made of glass, either. Two is also still hanging around, looking rather unconcerned by it all.

Suddenly, a portal opens up, and Fan tumbles out with a yelp, hand on his head as he grimaces. He slams against the grass and doesn’t move to get up right away, sprawled out on the grass limply. Some people would think he was dead, but Fanny knows he’s just dramatic.

“Hi, Fan!” Clover calls, waving excitedly. He just groans and offers her a shaky thumbs up.

Golf Ball is quick to spot the commotion and stomp over in a huff, yanking her device from Fan’s hands. “I’ll be taking that back,” she says haughtily before storming away.

“Jokes on her, I got Test Tube to reverse engineer it before I came here,” Fan says as he gets to his feet, dusting himself off. Fanny trots over to him and comes to a stop, squinting at him.

“What are you doing here?” she says.

“Well, I didn’t get the chance to say goodbye to you before you were dragged off, and I wanted to give you something,” he says sheepishly.

“Good thing you did. Looks like you’ll be our ticket home.” Balloon says dryly.

“I can take you home!” Two volunteers, hand shooting into the air.

“Uh, how trustworthy is this person, again?” says the other Nickel, squinting at them.

“More trustworthy than our other hosts!” Nickel says brightly.

“You know that means nothing to me when it comes from you, right?” he says flatly in reply.

“They’re fine,” Fanny says dryly. “So what was so important that you came here to give to me?”

“Oh! This!” he says brightly, producing a phone nearly identical to hers and offering it to her. She stares down at it, frowning.

“...I already have a phone,” she points out flatly.

“I know that!” he gasps, affronted. “But this is a special phone, custom-made by Test Tube after we started boycotting Meeple! It has plenty of cool features, and more importantly…” He opens the messaging app and shows it to her proudly. “Me, Test Tube, and Bot’s numbers! I wasn’t sure about Bot, but since you guys got along so well, I figured it didn’t hurt to add them. So if one of us ever needs anything, we’re just a message away!”

“All of this could have been achieved with a slip of paper.”

“Well, I wanted to give you a phone,” Fan retorts, shoving it in her face more insistently. “Let me guess, your phone’s a Meeple one, right?” She slowly nods. “Exactly! Who wants to support that creep Cobs, right?”

“How can I support someone who got blown up?” she deadpans.

Fan huffs. “Not the point,” he says haughtily. “The point is, Test Tube is working on some real nifty features to help us adjust into the real world! With our situation, we’d have a pretty rough time doing much of anything. But she’s working to do what she can, because she is a genius and all. Trust me, it’ll come in handy. Please?” He flashes her his best puppy dog eyes. She hates how good she is at that.

“...Fine,” she relents, rolling her eyes. “Not that I’ll need those features, but I guess it wouldn’t be so bad to be able to keep in touch. It’s better than needing a device or Two’s help to be able to even talk.”

“I want a phone!” Nickel complains.

“Oh. Uh…” Fan says, smiling nervously. “I didn’t grab one for you. Hey, maybe your cousin will get one for you!”

“Way to throw me to the wolves,” the other Nickel grumbles as Nickel turns a pleading stare onto him. Balloon eventually takes pity on the both of them and offers Nickel a slip of paper with three numbers scrawled onto it, much to the other Nickel’s consternation.

“Right,” Tree begins, clearing his throat as he does so. “This probably makes a lot more sense to you, Fanny, but we’re all sort of out of the loop here. Number one, who are these lot?” He gestures to the non-TPOT contestants with a wide, sweeping motion.

“Well-” she begins, but Fan shoves in front of her.

“I’m Fan!” he says brightly. “Proud owner of Fan’s Fantastic Features, part crab dad whenever Paintbrush has me babysit, two-time Inanimate Insanity competitor-”

“And my cousin, supposedly,” Fanny interjects before he can get too far off course.

“As if you aren’t the one who suggested it,” Fan huffs in reply, looking affronted.

“Wait, I’m confused, are you guys related?” Pin asks, raising her hand sheepishly. “You don’t really look alike. Or act alike. The only similarity you two have is you guys being fans, but it’s not like Coiny and Nickel are related just because they’re both coins.”

At the mention of Coiny and Nickel in the same sentence, both coins straighten. The other Nickel looks really uncomfortable at the conversation’s sudden turn, which is fair, while Nickel looks disquietingly eager to say something. Fanny knows she has to do something to cut this off at the head, though, so she turns to him with an intense glare. “Don’t you dare,” she warns.

“Why not?” he whines, face scrunching up in dismay.

“Don’t.”

“Not that it means anything to you, because you’re an idiot and I hate you,” the other Nickel begins, and she can’t help but snort. Way to come on strong, huh? “But I would really like it if you didn’t remind me of everything, even if your presence is enough to do that. Crazy, right? It’s almost like I don’t want to think about the shitty hand I’ve been dealt!”

The other Nickel is frustrated and annoyed, while Nickel is clueless to the point it’s irritating. She does empathize with the other Nickel, to be clear. His outright anger and hostility is beginning to grow grating, though. There’s only so much he can take out on someone who never asked to be made. She’s confident he can take the time to come to terms with all of it on his own, without baring his teeth at Nickel like he’s responsible for all of it.

“So, uh, not to derail the conversation,” Tree begins, hesitantly raising his hand. “But what exactly happened to you, Fanny?”

“Yeah! You just disappeared during Cake at Stake!” Robot Flower adds.

“And the recovery center wasn’t working at all to bring you back!” Marker wails, looking distraught. “We thought you were gone forever!”

Hearing that makes her stop short. “Wasn’t working how?” she says tentatively.

“Here, let’s show you,” Black Hole suggests, leading the group over to the nearby recovery center. They stop in front of it, and Marker is the one to step forward, still glancing at Fanny as if he’s worried about her disappearing all over again.

“See?” Marker types her name into the recovery center with a dismayed expression, hitting the enter button. Instead of receiving the error that the object is still alive, as what usually happens whenever the name of a still living person is typed in, there’s a new error message, something she’s never seen before is displayed on her screen.

ERROR: This object does not exist.

Seeing the words makes something drop out in her stomach as a sense of dread presses against her. She’s never been all too afraid of death before, but realizing that she no longer has the cushion of recovery centers to fall back on is a new type of terrifying. Next time she dies will be real, permanent. So how is she supposed to come to terms with that?

“Two gave us the manual that came with the recovery center, but it didn’t cover anything like this,” Tree adds, looking morose. “That sort of error message is meant to cover cases when an object’s name who hasn’t been registered into the center is entered, or when something like the sky or the ocean is entered. Neither of those cases applied.”

“We really thought we lost you, Fanny,” Black Hole adds, and he makes up for his lack of face by pouring every ounce of fear he can manage into his words, prompting a guilty wince from her. “What happened?” She shifts in discomfort but doesn’t answer. It’s personal, and involves more people than just her. She finds herself overwhelmed by all of it. How will her team, her family, react to the notion that she isn’t a real person? She doesn’t want to be treated any differently.

Meanwhile, Nickel plods over to the recovery center and types in his name, a frown on his face as he hits the green button. Predictably if not painfully, he gets the same message and begins to sulk. She can’t help but watch as Fan walks up to the recovery center next and frowns, slowly typing in three letters, B-O-W. He barely even hesitates before hitting enter.

“What did you do that for?” she calls, drawing attention over to him.

“I just wanted to see what would happen,” he responds, looking unrepentant.

“It’s not going to work. You have to register people in the recovery center before you can use it to bring them back, and-” Her lecture is abruptly cut off by the sound of the recovery center loudly whirling, quickly followed by smoke and a fire just a moment later. Her team yelps and scrambles back, while Nickel hovers near the edges of the fire, mouth open in a small o.

Quickly, Two scrambles over, eyes wide and distraught as they come to a stop in front of the flaming recovery center. “What happened?!” they cry, seemingly in shock.

“This idiot tried to revive a ghost,” Fanny hisses, elbowing Fan, who lets out a whine.

“Which one, Bow or Knife?” Balloon asks, brow furrowed.

“Love how you don’t even ask about Dough,” the other Nickel says, snickering into his foot.

“...Oh, right, I forgot about him,” Balloon muses after a brief pause.

“And anyway, he obviously tried to revive the person he didn’t even know while she was alive instead of the person he spent a better half of a year competing with,” the other Nickel continues, voice drenched with righteous anger as he glares at Fan in frustration. Abruptly, Fanny is reminded of the fondness Bot had talked about Nickel with just last night. They’re pretty close, seems like. His anger at Fan is more than justified in that sense.

“I wanted to revive Bow for Bot’s sake!” Fan defends.

“No, you wanted to revive Bow because you’re selfish,” he just as quickly fires back. “You always are when it comes to Bot! God, would it kill you to think of anyone-?!”

“Nickel, quit it,” Balloon scolds.

“Y-You don’t need to fight!” adds Clover, who looks overwhelmed.

“Don’t act like you don’t care about them just as much-” the other Nickel begins again, trying to rally after being so abruptly cut off.

“I think Fan just wanted to see what would happen if he tried to revive a ghost and entered the first name that came to mind,” Nickel supplies, less trying to defend the other man and argue against his cousin in turn as much as he’s tentatively testing out a realization. If Fanny had to guess, he wasn’t even paying attention to the conversation at large, more interested in the flames.

“...Yeah, he’s right,” Fan sheepishly admits. “I was just curious. I thought saying it was for Bot sounded better than admitting that, but I forgot how, uh, fired up you get when it comes to them.” He grimaces sheepishly, rubbing at his cheek awkwardly, but he brightens up as he turns to Nickel. “Wow, I’m surprised you caught onto that! You’re really smart!”

“No he isn’t,” the other Nickel immediately refutes. “The idiot can’t even spell his own name right.”

“We all have our own abilities, dear cousin,” Nickel cheekily replies, grinning widely, and the other Nickel groans loudly.

“...Why are you here, again?” Tree blankly asks, and Fanny can’t tell if it’s directed toward Nickel or the group of relative strangers clustered in front of the still-burning recovery center.

“You guys have been here for all of five minutes and you’ve set my recovery center on fire!” Two gripes, looking dismayed as their hands rest on the sides of their head. “I can’t believe this! How are we meant to bring back fallen contestants now?!”

“Make your challenges less lethal?” Balloon suggests as he wrings his hands.

“Rely on luck! I’m good at that,” Clover says brightly.

“Cancel the show,” the other Nickel deadpans.

“I guess I’ll have to order a new one,” Two glumly concludes, ignoring the interjections of the peanut gallery. They put out the fire with a wave of their hand, causing the Inanimate Insanity contestants to gape in shock at the casual display of power. For all the current and former TPOT contestants, though, something as simple as that doesn’t even faze them. “Still, though, I didn’t know ghosts were real! How do you become one?”

“Are you worried about dying, Two?” Pin prompts, blinking.

“No, but I’m worried about you guys dying!” they cry, eyes going wide and watery as their mouth wobbles in dismay. “Algebrailians live for a long time! I’ve never even heard of one of us dying from old age! But what about you guys?! I don’t wanna lose any of you!”

“You’re just worried about Gaty,” Fanny says flatly as she turns her attention onto a squirming Fan, even as Two sputters in dismay. “Have you learnt your lesson?”

“Don’t type the names of ghosts into the recovery center,” Fan glumly recites, looking like a kicked puppy. “Oh, and to answer your question, it’s actually really fascinating! Since all of the contestants on Inanimate Insanity were created by MePhone, utilizing the power of the Shimmer egg-”

“We’re getting into this now?” the other Nickel says, raising his voice to speak over the other man. Cutting Fan off doesn’t actually do anything, Fanny muses. He’ll continue to ramble regardless of if no one is listening to him, and the other person will inevitably give up eventually.

“I don’t see why not!” Fan says, before launching right back into his explanation completely undeterred by the protest. The other Nickel replies by burying his head in Clover’s leaves, letting out a muffled groan as she sympathetically pats him on the back. Two is nodding along attentively, looking unfazed by his enthusiasm. 

As Fan rants and rambles about their creation, going into uncomfortable detail about how he felt upon learning that Fanny was essentially a version of him created and ultimately scrapped, Fanny feels the gazes of her teammates turn onto her. It’s hard to tell what Robot Flower is feeling, what with the lack of eyes, but she thinks she’s matching Pin when it comes to her incredulous, somewhat uncomfortable shock. Meanwhile, her more long term teammates look… sympathetic, maybe, and more than a bit horrified. She doesn’t spend too long trying to decipher the meaning behind the looks in their eyes. It makes her feel uncomfortably exposed.

Instead, she looks toward the other four people who are affected by Fan’s bright, clueless chatter. Nickel doesn’t seem to notice it, poking at the charred remains of the recovery center with a frown. The other Nickel is pressed tightly to Clover’s side, looking unhappy while ultimately resigned. Clover follows a butterfly flying in low, graceful circles with her eyes, smiling softly, while Balloon scowls, rubbing at his arm in methodical, mechanical motions likely meant to bring him some sort of comfort.

“And that’s how you come back as a ghost!” When Fan finally comes to a stop, grinning widely not moments after concluding his impromptu speech, Two claps politely.

“Wow!” they say brightly. “That was informative. But…” They trail off, frowning. “Not applicable for real objects, huh? Hey, at least that explains the error message! A recovery center can’t bring back what isn’t real!”

Fanny winces at how matter-of-fact they sound, as much as she would prefer not to. A moment later, she says “But it was able to bring me and Nickel back before!” She wishes her voice didn’t sound as strained as it did, but she’s being reminded of her situation in the cruelest of ways even after she thought she had come to terms with all of it.

“Yeah, but I think the plug being pulled on that MeLife thing might have changed things,” Two muses, rubbing at their chin. “Besides, that egg being removed from that phone means none of you can be brought back either, right?” The Inanimate Insanity contestants all nod with varying degrees of hesitance. “So that might also affect things. And since you guys aren’t exactly… real…” For the first time, Two stumbles, as if realizing it might be a sore subject, but after a moment they doggedly continue. “Who knows how the recovery center handles that?”

“Whatever,” the other Nickel grumbles. “Can we not think about this anymore? So we have no recovery or chance at coming back. Big deal. We already knew that when we brought that egg with us.”

“We had to return it to the Shimmers!” Fan cries, eyes blazing with determination. “Are you saying we should have left them there?!”

“Of course not, jeez,” he grumbles in reply, leaning against Balloon. The taller object wraps an arm around the other Nickel in response, looking amusedly affectionate. “You should calm down.”

“As if you weren’t just at his throat five minutes ago,” Balloon points out, looking more amused than anything.

“Shimmers…” Two mumbles, poking at their cheek as their face scrunches up in thought. “Shimmers, Shimmers, Shimmers…” Suddenly, they snap their fingers, straightening as their eyes go alight with revelation. “Oh! I remember now! I’ve met those guys before!”

Fan’s eyes widen to the size of dinner plates as he trains a near-reverent gaze onto Two. “Really?!” he cries, voice rising several octaves in his excitement. “Wow! Well, I guess you are an alien, so that shouldn’t be that surprising, but still! Are you guys friends?”

Two looks as unbothered by Fan’s relentless enthusiasm as ever, which Fanny envies. She hasn’t even been on the receiving end of his intensity, and she already feels worn out. Maybe Two can handle it easily because they’re unendingly upbeat too. “Sure! Well, it’s been a few years since we chatted… Ever since those eggs of theirs went missing, actually. They were all “we’re gonna tear that piece of corn limb from limb” and I was like “well, I’m not gonna stop you”, y’know?” They laugh, grinning widely.

“Suitcase was way ahead of them on that one, I guess,” Balloon mumbles, shrugging.

A moment later, Two’s eyes light up with an entirely new realization. “Oh! That egg you rescued from your phone host was one of the stolen ones, wasn’t it?”

“Sure was!” Fan boasts, puffing out his chest. “And me and Test Tube found and took care of the other lost one, too! So we’re pretty buddy buddy with the Shimmers now. Well, I guess they definitely don’t like MePhone or anything, which is fair. It’s not like they have to like him, right? But I think…” Everyone’s faces go blank again as Fan begins to mindlessly rant and ramble, Two being the only one to nod along.

“You know, Fan, I really like you!” they declare, wrapping him in a one handed hug and pressing him against their chest. Of course, the motion causes him to scrunch up, being made of paper and all, and he lets out several muffled cries that go ignored as Two continues “If you want, I could make you a competitor on TPOT!”

“Please no,” Pin mumbles, running a hand over her face.

“Hey, that’s my cousin you’re talking about,” Fanny protests, even if it is token and half hearted.

“Do you want him to join?” Tree asks. She remains stubbornly silent. “That’s what I thought,” he concludes, sounding satisfied.

Fan manages to pry himself out of Two’s grip, his hands blindly flailing about in air for a moment before he grabs the crumpled edges of his fan and manages to unfold himself. “Thanks for the offer, but I think my career with reality shows is over for the time being,” he muses. “Since I can’t come back to life after I die, it’ll make things pretty difficult for me, and I think I’m more than content with being just a fan for a while.”

“Well, I’m sure I could ask my best buds Four and X to bring you back, if you’re so worried about it!” Two says brightly. Immediately, all the objects with hands begin making violent chopping motions at their necks, and the ones that don’t shake their heads violently. Fanny doesn’t know how else to hammer the point home that they shouldn’t be putting their trust in any Algebrailian, really, but especially not those two, without firing out loud, vocal objections.

Miraculously, Fan gets the hint, and he sheepishly says “I don’t think I’ll risk it either way. But hey, if anything happens, I might just use my cousin as a liaison to take you up on that!”

“Good to know you’re willing to offer me up without bothering to ask me first,” she says dryly.

“Shouldn’t you have already learnt that lesson from the livestream?” prompts the other Nickel flatly. “Bot said you didn’t have a choice in the matter.”

“...Yeah, that’s true,” she concedes with a sigh.

“Well, I’m happy with this arrangement!” Nickel says brightly. “I can’t imagine what I’d do without Loony or Clover!”

“You just met them!” the other Nickel barks. “And stop calling Balloon that!”

Nickel ignores him, but he also quiets after a moment, looking suddenly and uncharacteristically grim. “Hey,” he says quietly. “Since those guys can’t be revived anymore, what about us? I mean, the recovery center didn’t even acknowledge Fanny as a real object! So what happens if we die?”

No one has a good answer to that. They just slowly turn their attention to Two, who squirms in discomfort at all the attention. “Why are you all looking at me?” they protest. “You all know I can’t revive people! That’s Four’s thing!”

“Okay, well, grab Four then >:/,” Taggy says flatly. Fanny kind of forgot they and Book were even here, for how quiet they’ve been. Mostly, they’ve just been pressing themselves against Nickel, the coin leaning into their touch in turn. “This seems like an important thing to know `-M-.”

“Uh, Taggy, I know you weren’t around for BFB, but Four can be kind of…” Book tentatively begins.

Meanwhile, Two just beams, ignoring Book entirely. “That sounds like a great idea, Taggy!” they say brightly. Extending their arm again, they stick it through a window of the hotel, an expression of concentration on their face that morphs into satisfaction when they find what they’re looking for. Reaching back, they deftly deposit Four on the grass and wave cheerfully at them. “Hi, Four!” they say brightly.

“Oh, great, it’s you,” he grumbles, crossing his arms in frustration as he looks away from Two. “What do you want now?”

“You remember Nickel and Fanny,” they begin, gesturing at them. “As it turns out, they aren’t actually real objects! They were made by the Shimmers, kinda. You remember them, right? The recovery center doesn’t seem to be working on the two of them anymore, but does your revival still work?”

“Haven’t I already done enough for you today?” Four says flatly. “After all, me and X took in G-”

Two rushes to place their hands over his mouth, looking panicked. Their eyes drift to where Death PACT are clustered as they panickedly say “This is different, though! Does it really take that much effort to check?”

“You don’t know how to revive anyone, so what would you know?” Four says snootily, letting out a huff as he speaks. “It took X ages to perfect it!”

“Just check, please,” Two says, exasperation beginning to leak into their words.

He rolls his eyes but obliges, reaching out a finger and resting them on top of Nickel and Fanny’s heads. She can’t help but tense warily under his touch, knowing full well what Four can do when provoked. But he doesn’t do anything, and after a moment his hand draws back.

“Well, they definitely reek of Shimmers,” Four says. “I dunno how I didn’t notice sooner.”

“But…?” Two prompts.

“But I could revive them, if anything happens,” he grumpily concludes, eying Two. “Is that all?”

“Yep!” they chirp, throwing him back through the window he had grabbed him from. “Thanks!” they call after him as he flies through the air. After a moment, they turn back to the flustered objects. “See? There you go!” they say brightly.

“Oh thank god,” the other Nickel mutters under his breath.

“See? Aren’t you glad things unfolded like this?” Clover prompts, elbowing Nickel.

“I’d rather go home,” he grumbles in reply.

“Alright, now with all of that cleared up…” Two turns to Nickel, squinting at him. “I get that you disappeared from existence, just like Fanny, but since you’re back now, you should probably go back to the elimination area.”

“Well, hang on,” Balloon begins, tentatively raising his hand. “Since he’s eliminated, it shouldn’t really matter what he does, right? Shouldn’t what happens next be his decision?”

Nickel is quiet for a second before turning to the other Nickel, startlingly sober. “I’ve been thinking about this for a bit, actually,” he begins. “And I think I’m going to stay here.” Everyone looks startled by that, and he quickly continues “Not that I didn’t have fun getting to know all of you, but I have some unfinished business here, y’know? I want to try to rejoin the game! And I want to do what I can to support my team like I did today. So I’ll stay, I think until TPOT ends.” He beams widely as he finishes.

Taggy is the first to react, leaning forward and wrapping the handle on their tag around Nickel. “Get in here >x3!” they say, wrapping him in a hug. A moment later, Book mimics the motion, looking hesitant but touched by Nickel’s words.

“Probably for the better,” the other Nickel says. “Dunno how much the others could handle two Nickels back home. But, uh, I’ll see you, I guess. Whenever TPOT ends. If you wanna make your way back to us eventually.” Balloon and Clover look startled by the sudden burst of sentimentality.

“Thanks, Nickel,” Book says softly. “We’ll try our hardest to win, now that we know you’re rooting for us.”

“And, uh, try to look for Bomby too, will you?” Nickel prompts, sounding anxious. Fanny winces, looking away. “I’m worried about him.”

“We’ll try our hardest >:]!” Taggy assures him.

The group hugs for several seconds longer before letting go, Nickel trotting up to Two. “Alrightie, I’m ready!” he chirps. “Send me off!”

Both Balloon and Clover wave as Two reaches to swipe Nickel away. The other Nickel doesn’t even glower, which is a miracle in and of itself. Nickel disappears, and Fanny’s surprised by the realization that she’ll miss him. She hopes he does well for himself, wherever he ends up.

“We should get going, too,” Fan says after a moment of silence. “I bet Test Tube’s worried sick.”

“Ugh, do we have to?” the other Nickel groans. Well, she supposes it would be just Nickel, now that he’s the only one here, but it feels strange to refer to him like that. “OJ’s going to bite our heads off for what happened to his hotel.”

“We have to face the music eventually,” Balloon says dryly.

Fan glances over to her and scrambles over, beaming widely. “You should really visit again,” he says. “Bot really liked you! The least you can do is call every so often. Don’t be a stranger!”

“Yeah, yeah, I got it,” she says dryly, rolling her eyes. “...Thanks. For the help.”

He preens proudly. If his smile got any wider, his mouth would fall clean off his face. “Don’t mention it!” he says. “You’re my cousin. I wasn’t going to leave you high and dry!”

Balloon, Clover, Nickel and Two are all quietly talking, the latter excitedly explaining the process of teleportation. They look wary but willing. “Just visualize where you want to go,” they explain. “And I’ll send you there!”

Fan looks over his shoulder. “Sounds like we’re heading out,” he says apologetically. “I’ll text you so you don’t worry about us.”

“See you,” she says stiffly, and after a beat of awkwardness, she leans forward, hugging Fan. It’s nice, even if it is undercut by the surprised stares of her teammates. She glares sharply at them as she disentangles herself.

Taking a step back, she lets Fan run off to the other three, who all cluster together as Two reaches their hand up, swiping at them and the four disappearing as they raise their hand. She finds herself holding her breath until her phone vibrates with Fan’s message, assuring her as to their safety alongside a picture. She lets out a relieved sigh at the sight, a whoosh of air let out.

“Cool!” they say brightly, before throwing a not-subtle glance at the hotel. “Well, I’m going to… uh… prepare for the next challenge! Bye!” They quickly rush off.

Finally, with the departure of both Nickel and the Inanimate Insanity group, things seem to calm down, leaving Fanny alone with her team. She sighs, shoulders slumping as she sits onto the grass. The shitty sleep she got last night was definitely not enough for all of this.

Catching the eye of her team, she’s disconcerted to find that they’re still looking at her with a concerned air about them, as if she’s going to disappear at any second. “What?” she grumbles. “Why are you looking at me like that? I’m fine now. It’s not going to happen again.”

“Still,” Tree says, wrapping an arm around her and pressing her against his trunk. “I’m glad you’re alright. You really freaked us out with your whole disappearing act.”

“Like I had a choice in the matter,” she grumbles in response, scowling. “Still, it did happen at a very bad time. I…” She deflates, letting out a sigh. “I wish I got a chance to say goodbye to Gaty before Two eliminated her, though.”

“Don’t worry!” Pin says brightly. “It’s not like Gaty’s going to hold it against you. She’s the understanding type, y’know? And when the show ends, you’ll have all the time to talk to her as you could want!”

Fanny nods, but something about the other woman’s words strikes a chord with her. When the show ends, huh? Everyone back on the island had been rather insistent about knowing who you are beyond the show you’re entangled with, which she supposes is because they themselves had never gotten the chance. Before now, Fanny wouldn’t have been able to set herself apart from the show, because it was all she knew. Without it, she had no identity, nothing to fall back on, no one who cared about her.

At least she knows that she has something waiting for her beyond the show now. A family, even. Most people probably have something like that without having to be erased from existence, watch someone be blown up, and having to manually decide on just how closely related you want to be with your newly acquired family, but she digresses. There’s something beyond the show for her, something that isn’t just continuous competition for the rest of her life. There’s a future, and if it’s not set in stone at least it’s in some form there. It’s faintly relieving.

Maybe she should try to keep her thoughts rooted in the near-present, though. After all, TPOT’s been going on for such a long time, the idea of it coming to an end feels incomprehensible to her. And still, she’s gotten this far. Who’s to say she isn’t capable of winning outright? Limitless power, offered to her by an enthusiastic host.

Honestly, the idea of victory somewhat scares her, just because she knows that there’s still a contract out there bearing her signature, leaving her indebted to a megalomaniac Algebrailian who so obviously resents Two it’s kind of terrifying. Will Fanny even be able to do anything with the power if she wins it? Or will One swoop in the moment her prize is given to her, ready to collect on Fanny’s debt?

The idea scares her, and she doesn’t want to risk having it come to fruition. She’d much prefer to lift her teammates up instead, maybe see if they can protect her newfound family from the perilous prospect of a world that doesn’t allow recovery. Either way, she doesn’t want to win. Elimination is fine.

(But she can’t help but feel faintly terrified of the prospect of being eliminated from the most consistent thing in her life and just… sent on her way. Even if she has more beyond the show, it’s still… God, the idea makes her feel kind of sick.)

For now, she just sits next to her team, soaking in the presence of each member for as long as she can. One of them will be eliminated soon. It’s her fault, far more directly than Gaty’s elimination had been, at any rate. For now, she just tries to enjoy their presence while she can. 

She takes in a breath. Holds it. Lets it out. Prays to whoever might be listening that it’ll be enough to quiet her mind, even if she knows wordlessly it won’t be.

Her goodbye to Fan was temporary. Eventually, she’ll make her way back to the island, be dragged into more livestreams and whatever else the former contestants get up to. It’s reassuring that she confidently feels as if she has a place she can go, after so long of feeling alone.

It’s nice. Really, it is. So she does her best to ride that feeling out, hoping it’s enough to stifle her dread about the upcoming elimination and One’s looming presence.

(It isn’t. But when has anything succeeded on the first try for her, anyway?)