Color Theory (Nickloon)

Chapter 1

"I was just about to go looking for you. I'm bored out of my mind."

Balloon smiles fondly, approaching the Pic-Nix table a little faster. "Nickel! I just finished building a sandcastle. We could go make a new one together, if you wanted?"

Nickel snorts. "Another one? What, are you building real estate?"

Balloon chuckles. "Vanilla cupcake," he says, and a vanilla cupcake appears on the table. He sits on the bench. "Maybe I should."

He had passed a couple of people on his search for Nickel, though they were doing nothing particularly special. Silver spoon and candle bickering, Paintbrush chatting with Bot, and Yin and Yang looked to be playing cards with each other, but neither of them seemed to be winning. In all honesty, he had gotten tired of being by himself. It was only a matter of time before he longed to spend time with Nickel again.

"So," Balloon says, mouth full of frosting. "What do you think the next challenge is gonna be? Mephone is getting pretty unpredictable these days. It could be anything."

Nickel scoffs. "I could care less, but hopefully it's got nothing to do with food again."

"Why's that?"

"With this table, any challenges surrounding food are completely useless. I mean, look, chocolate cupcake with buttercream frosting and exactly 13 purple sprinkles on top."

As described, a chocolate cupcake appears on the table with buttercream frosting on top and exactly 13 purple sprinkles. Nickel scoots forward to take a bite out of it. It's such an oddly specific cupcake that Balloon can't help but smile. "I guess you're right."

"I'm always right." Nickel retorts, his tone suddenly getting serious. He stands up. "While you were off making sandcastles, I was taste testing every single possible food combination I could think of. Some of them are barely even considered edible. The options are literally endless!"

Nickel hesitates for a moment before sitting back down. "Plus, I'm totally doing all of this illegally."

Hearing Nickel ramble so seriously about the silliest topic in the world makes Balloon crazy with laughter. It only started out as a fit of giggles, hidden behind the cupcake in his hand, but it was just so funny that it quickly spiraled into hysteria. Nickel's face drops from its stern look to this surprised, almost confused smile. He seems happy to have made Balloon laugh this much.

"Right," Balloon says, "I guess we all have to find ways to keep entertained, with this free time and all."

Nickel relaxes back into his original state, finishing off the rest of his cupcake. "Well, you can always spend your free time with me."

It's nothing special. Nickel says things like this quite frequently now, but Ballon's heart has begun to do this thing where it completely skyrockets at the littlest things, like hearing Nickel laugh. it's enough to have him flustered on sight, and it's very, very embarrassing.

So he smiles this awkward dumbstruck smile and simply says, "Thanks."

The two, unsurprisingly, pair up in the next challenge. Mainly because everyone sort of just shrugs Balloon off. It's honestly sort of disappointing. Besides Tea Kettle, (and she's gone now) he really hasn't made any new close friends, but he tries not to let that bother him too much.

Nickel sticks to him like glue, or maybe it's the other way around. It's making his heart do that weird fluttery thing again. He tries his best not to let it show, but Balloon's never been a good liar.

The only thing he knows is that when the time comes, neither of them get picked off, so at the very least they're doing something right.

It's late at night now. Balloon sits by the beach shore, admiring the currents and the sound of the ocean waves. His poetry journal lies next to him open on the last page he had written on. A silly poem that probably wouldn't leave the drawing board any time soon, but it helps to ease his mind after a stressful day.

Somehow, in the middle of his self reflection, Balloon gets a little sad. He really did want to get this whole "starting over" thing down, but it's clear everyone wants to stick to their pre-decided view of him, no matter how likeble or helpful he tries to be.

He's sorrowfully listening to the sound of crashing waves, letting the calm finally take over before a piece of paper drifts by and falls a few feet away from him. Curious, he goes over to take a look.

He reaches for the paper, but it almost comically floats off again before landing. Another attempt, but it once again, flies out of his reach. It's a few long minutes of Balloon chasing after this piece of paper before he finally jumps in the air and snatches it before it can get away again.

"Finally!" He mutters under his breath. "Now, what are you, little guy?"

It's hard to make out what he's reading because of how dark it's gotten, but upon squinting and tilting, he finds it to be Candle's aura listings, the one MePhone specifically used to divide them in episode 7. Pleasantly surprised, he drifts to the ground as he scans the file for his name, only to find that it's printed at the top.

"Balloon," he says aloud to himself, "Teal."

He's not into spiritual, superstition things like Candle is, so he's not sure if he should be offended or not, but he is a little surprised. He hadn't considered what color his aura would be, but teal seemed so left field that he couldn't help but wonder what it meant.

He scans the rest of the paper, eyes drifting toward Nickel's name listed further down the list. Green.

Yeah, green did seem to suit Nickel pretty well. Green meant a lot of things. Jealousy, money, greed, heck even luck. Not all inherently tied to Nickel (except that last one), but he could see why that was his color. The more he thought about Nickel, the more green seemed to just– fit, and looking at the others, theirs seemed to fit too; Paintbrush being red, Candle being blue, even Floor being brown sort of made sense.

"Huh," he thinks, "Teal and green." Teal was already sort of green. Did that mean anything? He tried to think about it literally. Teal seemed to be close to green, but he and Nickel were polar opposites in his eyes. They just sort of get along. He's honestly more surprised they aren't red and blue.

That's when it hits him; if MePhone could use this chart to team people based on weakness, then surely he could use this chart to find out who he's most compatible with. That way, he'll know who to stay away from, and who to form an alliance with. Of course he'll definitely need some input from Candle, but she seems to have her own way of doing things. Surely someone's thought of this idea already?

Balloon looks both ways before scooting back over to his poetry journal, folding the file and slipping in inside the pages. He can't help but smile to himself.

This will be a huge advantage for sure!