"People, gather around."
All the remaining contestants would do so, surrounding the Announcer in a circle; it just felt like a neat thing to do today, it seemed. "Before we proceed with the next challenge, I would like to bring up two things." He'd continue. "First off, I have heard many of you repeatedly complain about receiving prizes after winning challenges. This time around, I would like to preempt that; since you are the Final 12, you are all getting a reward." "Ooh!" Firey exclaimed. "A reward? I love rewards!" Coiny scoffed in response. "Yeah, and I love you not getting any." "GRR!" The two of them would start slapping each other.
"You are all getting BFDI DDSs." The Announcer announced. "The super fun portable handheld video game console will let you play the most exciting games on 12 screens: a dodecascreen." "Ha!" Tennis Ball let out a brief chuckle. "I... I get it." Pin then awkwardly stared at him, judging him. "Plus, it's foldable." As the speaker box continued, Match would get comedically folded into her new DDS as an example; meanwhile, TB would read the room and start inspecting his own, wondering how he'd be able to play it without any arms. Pin would also be doing much the same, inspecting if anything was amiss. "So, yeah." The speaker box moved on from that. "You can play with those later. Moving on; we are breaking up the teams."
The contestants would gasp in varying degrees of shock in response to this. "Oh noio!" Bubble panicked. "Now that Oi don't have any teammates, Oi'm bound to just get popped repeatedly!" "I won't." Pin interjected. "Huh?" The bubble raised an eyebrow. "As I've said time and time again, it doesn't matter how we end up getting divided by that metal box thing." Pin explained. "Teams or not, we're all still a single group; nobody can say otherwise." "Really?" Bubble smiled ever so slightly. "Of course." Pin nodded. "Besides, we don't need teams to stick together; all we need is common sense! Isn't that right, TB?" Tennis Ball silently nodded in agreement. "Would be nice if it was more... official, though." Firey remarked. "I was starting to warm up to the name 'Squishy Cherries'. Get it? Warm up?" "Ha." Tennis Ball flatly remarked. "I get it." "Well, we can still keep it, you know." Pin replied. "That's just the name of our new alliance; the Cherries will live on as long as we all agree to look out for each other."
Leafy would overhear them talking that alliance talk and nodded along. "Hey! We should do that too; the Grapes should stick together, regardless of what happens!" "Yeah; that, like, sounds reasonable enough." Match remarked. "Yeah!" Ice Cube agreed. Teardrop would nod and give a thumbs-up as well. While they all cheered and celebrated, Pencil would unexpectedly chime in as well. "Hey, uh..." She'd scratch her head. "Can I, uh, join in on this?" "Well, of course!" Leafy exclaimed. "Everybody's welcome into *my* crew!" "Yeah, Pence-Pence!" Match added. "We can, like, finally make up for all that, like, lost time." "*Everybody's* welcome, huh?" Coiny suddenly stepped in as well. "Well, considering how Pencil was in *our* team, we're joining in as well."
Ellipsis.
"Alright, that's enough." The Announcer finally stepped back in. "It's time for the next contest."
-
"The 13th contest is to-"
The speaker box stopped himself, turning to the big thing behind him, covered behind a large cloth; after a little bit of magic, he'd pull it right off, revealing it to be hiding three tall ladders. "There we go." He'd then turn back to the contestants. "The 13th contest is to climb these ladders. Go."
Most of the contestants would be quickly underway, except for the... obvious ones. "Uh..." Tennis Ball looked up at the ladder he was meant to climb; given his obvious... disadvantage, the contest may as well have been to eat the entire planet. "How do I do this?" Meanwhile, Ice Cube would try her hardest, being able to briefly stand on the first rung before tipping over and falling back down. "I want revenge!" She'd shout as she attempted to get back on her feet.
