Alternate Battle for Dream Island

ABFDI 2a: Pitfalls

Pin was in the middle of scheming with the few people she could trust when the Announcer suddenly approached.

"Guess what, Pin?" Once again, the speaker box's question fell on deaf ears; The thumbtack was *really* invested in the whole thing, and she didn't want to let *anything* ruin her train of thought. Eventually, however, Firey and Bubble would notice the ominous metal box standing behind her and would gesture towards him, bringing her attention to him. "Hm?" She'd look quite displeased as she turned to look. "You've won a Win Token." The Announcer continued. "...What's a Win Token?" Pin asked. "As you remember, you were the only one to rip the ribbon." The speaker box explained. "That means you did better than the rest of the contestants, so you win a Win Token." "That doesn't answer my question." Pin folded her arms. "I was getting to that, sheesh." The announcer thing proceeded. "If you're about to get eliminated, you can use your Win Token to avoid half your votes." Pin raised an eyebrow. "Votes?" She'd sit on the thought for a moment. "Well, I knew people were going to get eliminated *somehow*, but who exactly is-" "And here's your Win Token." The Announcer would dispense said token, and by 'dispense', I meant propel it at high speed towards Pin; she'd manage to catch it just in the nick of time and would closely investigate it. It was a little green coin that unnerved her slightly whenever she looked at it.

"Now it's time for Cake at Stake." The Announcer then said to nobody in particular. "But first we have to get Blocky and Coiny and Eraser and Pen and Rocky and Snowball and Spongy and Teardrop and Tennis Ball."

-

Coiny and the others had been floating on Spongy for quite a while now; perhaps several days, but no one was counting. At first they argued and bickered over personal space and being stuck on the smelliest raft on Earth, but eventually everyone agreed that there was no greater threat than being tossed overboard and drowning, so that ended up keeping the peace. With everyone stuck in a moment of brief, awkward silence that stuck out like a sore thumb amidst the constant sea of conversation, Coiny chose to break it. "So, uh..." He'd speak out the first thought that happened to enter his mind. "You think someone won that island by now?"

All of a sudden, a giant net would emerge from the water and pick them up.

-

The recovered contestants barely had any time to recover after being dropped on the ground before the Announcer put them back to work. "Get into your teams, people." They'd all hastily scramble to do just that, both because they were obligated to and because they wanted to speak to *literally* anybody else. "Okay." The Announcer then awkwardly led the losing team over to where they needed to be.

"Squashy Grapes, you lost last time, so you do the cake at Stake." The speaker box announced. "Sit." Those in attendance did just that. "I have nine slices of cake. If you- Hang on." He'd quickly spin around to do a headcount. "There are fewer of you than I remember." "There *are*." Golf Ball interjected. "There are ten members of the Squashy Grapes, but there's only eight here!" Everyone else looked around to see just who it was. "TD!" Leafy gasped. "SNOWBALL!" Pen and Eraser did likewise. "Yeah, I saw what happened." Blocky explained. "When that *other* boat crashed into us, we all got flung into the Canal; Snowball started melting away the moment he went in, and by the time we got to Spongy, he was all gone!" "That's too bad." The Announcer remarked. "Well, we have no way to bring him back to life, so unfortunately-" "Hang on." Golf Ball stepped in yet again. "If I recall, Bubble has a recovery center; it's able to revive her whenever she gets popped for any reason." She'd look at the Announcer. "I think with our brains combined, we could reverse engineer that and create recovery centers for Snowball. And everyone too, I guess." "Ooh. Sounds interesting." The speaker box replied. "Well, we can do that. But for now, those two are gone. Someone will have to help them catch up once they get back."

"Alright. That's enough distractions." The Announcer continued. "Let's see how many votes we received." A screen would suddenly pop out from the ground, revealing that there were... "Zero votes?" Though the speaker box can't express emotion with his monotone voice, it was rather obvious that he was flabbergasted. "That can't be right." He'd give the thing a good kick - that is, crash into it with sufficient force - but the display remained unchanged. "Where are all the votes?" "where do you even get your votes from?" Golf Ball asked him. "Um. I can't tell you that." The Announcer replied. "That's very confidential." "Feels like I *should* get to know, but..." Golf Ball sighed. "Whatever. I have a backup plan; instead of leaving your fates to the hands of some mysterious voters, I'll let you choose among yourselves who gets to stay and who doesn't." The Squashy Grapes would gasp. "Could we really just *do* that?" Leafy panicked. "Kick someone out of the game for just saying something?" "Like, what even happens if you're out?" Match asked. "Do you just, like, watch from the sidelines, or..." "Don't worry." The Announcer answered. "You'll be treated with TLC. Now, what are you waiting for? People, get to voting."

Match would walk up to Leafy and start whispering to her ear. "Alright. Now's your chance to, like, get back at Blocky." She'd say. "You gotta show that you won't, like, tolerate his behavior anymore. If you vote for him, we'll, like, totally vote the same way. Isn't that right?" "Yeah!" Ice Cube replied. "I dunno..." Leafy frowned. "That doesn't sound very nice..." "And neither does, like, what Blocky did!" Match interjected. "Because of what he did, our team was, like, split up in three different ways! No wonder we lost!" She'd take a deep breath. "You wanna show that you're, like, a good friend? Then show that you're on, like, our side. Show that you won't stand for, like, any of this." Leafy was still troubled by this proposal, but she *could* see its merits. "Aw, alright..." Leafy looked down on the ground. "Well?" The Announcer spoke up again. "I'm waiting. The leaf took a deep breath and sighed. "I'm voting for Snowball!" Everyone promptly gasped (well, except for the Announcer, of course). "YOU CAN'T BE SERIOUS!" Blocky shouted. "Leafy, what was *that*?" Match stepped in. "That wasn't, like, what I said at all!" "Look, hear me out!" Leafy defended herself. "I agree that I *should* start being assertive, but I think voting for him immediately sounds a bit harsh! I think voting for one of his friends gets the message across."

Match groaned. "You're just gonna give him, like, more fuel to keep doing what he does!" She'd sigh. "But I guess, like, Snowball is *also* a pretty big nuisance. We'll, like, vote for him too." "Yeah!" Ice Cube chimed in. "You want war, huh?" Blocky was very, *very* angry. "Well, I'll give you war! I'm voting for you, Leafy!" "Me too!" Eraser joined in. "No one messes with our pals, not even you!" Pen frowned. "Uh, guys?" He'd try to be the voice of reason. "Aren't we taking this a *bit* too seriously? They did help us-" "Too seriously?" Eraser interrupted. "Pen, they just showed that they're more willing to kick one of us off because we didn't go along with them! Leafy claims to be a friend to everybody, and yet look what she's doing!" "I *am*!" Leafy stepped in. "You guys just-" "Pen, you're on our side, aren't you?" Eraser continued. "Tell them straight up that you won't put up with this!" Pen was growing uneasy. "I *am* on your side. But-" "Then vote for Leafy!" "But..." The pressure was quickly mounting for the writing utensil, and ultimately he couldn't get his thoughts out. He'd finally give in. "Alright. Alright. I'm voting for Leafy."

"Hm. How are we going to get the votes from the dead contestants?" The Announcer asked nobody in particular. "I know. We should just randomly give out a vote to a random contestant for each of them. Randomly." "Doesn't sound all that fair or logical." Golf Ball remarked. "In my opinion, we should-" "Shush. Sheesh." The speaker box interrupted her. "You got to come up with how we got votes, so I get to decide this." He'd pause for a moment as he randomly generated a vote or two. "That's one vote for Woody." That block of balsa then started to scream and shout. "And a vote for Ice Cube." The Announcer continued. "I want revenge!" Ice Cube proclaimed. "Well, that doesn't resolve the tie." The Announcer announced. "Leafy and Snowball have three votes each. It's up to Woody to decide who goes home." That was most unfortunate, considering that the piece of wood hadn't said a single coherent word in recorded history. "Oh, great." Golf Ball scoffed. "This is going to take *forever*, then." "Why's that?" The speaker box asked. "Woody can't really say anything." Golf Ball explained. "All he ever really does is panic. Just look at him right now." She'd point to him with her foot. "Well, don't be so sure." The announcer thing replied. "I can analyze the patterns of his speech to see who he's trying to vote for." "Really?" Golf Ball wasn't all too impressed. "Do it, then."

The Announcer then turned to Woody, which would just add more fuel to his fears; the crybaby would keep on going, whimpering and whining and stuff of that degree. "He's voting for." The Announcer started but wouldn't finish. "For. Hm." The speaker box fell silent for a good while. "I will admit that this is a tough one. Maybe he just doesn't know what's going on." This continued on for far, *far* longer than anyone wanted it to, but eventually, thankfully, it'd end. "I got it. He's voting for Snowball because he thinks that his strength, combined with his lack of intelligence, makes him a threat to not just everybody in the vicinity, but to his team as well." Golf Ball raised an eyebrow. "How'd you get any of *that*?" "A magician never reveals his secrets." The speaker box quipped. "Snowball, goodbye." There'd be momentary booing and jeering from Blocky and his clique, but when it died down there'd once again be nothing but awkward silence. "Well, this is the part where he sent him away with my patented Sender Scoop Thrower, but as mentioned before, he's dead." The Announcer explained. "No matter. He'll be sent to the TLC regardless. Eventually."

-

Pin was just minding her own business when Tennis Ball showed up.

"Snowball's out of the game." The clumsy one reported. "GB told me about what went down at Cake at Stake; things got *really* heated, she said. They had to vote among themselves on who was going to leave, and there was a whole argument over if Snowball or Leafy would." "Oh. Uh..." Pin nodded. "Alright. Good to... hear." She fell silent once again, and Tennis Ball would sit down beside her. "What's up?" He'd ask. "You don't really look all that happy about it." "Oh, I am." Pin struggled to lie. "It's just..." She'd fight to hide her frown. "It's just what you said about Leafy; it's gotten me worried. "Why are you so concerned about her?" Tennis Ball asked. "She's on the other team, and just like you said, they aren't really our problem anymore." "Yeah, I know." Pin nodded. "But she's still part of our little alliance, you know?" "That alliance from the first challenge?" Tennis Ball raised an eyebrow. "That still matters? I thought the whole getting split into teams thing kinda-" "She had a few good ideas. Ideas I wanna try out as well." Pin thought about it for a moment before looking back at TB. "What's this about an argument?" "Well, Leafy voted Snowball to teach Blocky a lesson after what he did in the last challenge." Tennis Ball explained. "Blocky obviously didn't take kindly to that, so he and his friends voted for her in response. They ended up tied, and Woody had to cast the deciding vote."

"She's actually trying to defend herself? That's..." Pin trailed off. "Against *Blocky*?" She'd shake her head. "Of all people..." She'd mutter to herself; she'd spend a little while thinking of what Leafy must be feeling right now, being up against such insurmountable odds.

"She's gonna need some help."