Alternate Battle for Dream Island

ABFDI 23b: Noxious!

Taco had spent most of her time just anxiously staring at her now-cold slice of cheesecake; she's hung around food plenty in her life, and that *really* didn't look all too edible.

It'd been a while now since she'd moved into her own little house and got everything arranged the way she wanted it. She ended up moving most of the furniture towards the door, wanting to have a *lot* of wide-open room to exercise and whatnot without getting judged, as well as to have any number of ways to block it to prevent anyone from going in if she *really* didn't want them there. A few were moved to the windows; she didn't really know how well they'd serve as barricades, but at the very least it would be nice to have the option. After running a few laps around the newly-created area to really get a feel for it, she went ahead and started up her usual exercise routine; one can't Battle for Dream Island if your body isn't at its best, after all. The routine largely consisted of whatever motions she deemed were most effective in building up her strength, knowledge that was collated over an indeterminate amount of time of existence, figuring things out through trial and error and doing all sorts of motions whenever there weren't any prying eyes. A few jumps, some hops, some other things. Pretty active and engaging for her, but doesn't exactly translate well to text.

That naturally tired her out, and she'd collapse right onto her bed the moment she was done; she figured she could just take a quick nap, wait for her energy to build right back up, then do it all over again. Not like there's much to do around here, anyway. She's bowled a few times, tried her hand at the other things the place had to offer, but really... there just wasn't much of anything. *Especially* since their numbers kept dwindling. Less people to hang around, less chances for fun and excitement. Doubly so as *apparently* the ones that remained have become a bunch of miserable, fun-hating dorks.

She'd spent the past hour or two looking at the cheesecake (it was a *somewhat* better sight than the plain roof) when there was a knock on the door, taking her by surprise. Something actually happening today? That's a shocker. She'd get up and make her way over, gently opening the door.

"...Hey." Pen awkwardly waved. "Mind if I come in?" Taco wasn't all too amused. "You know what happened the last time we had this charade, right?" "Yeah." The writing utensil nodded. "And you told me that the best thing I could do to gain your trust was to make sure you weren't gonna get eliminated immediately." He paused for a moment. "And... seems to me like I held up that end of the bargain." "Maybe, but not because of *you*." The foodstuff interjected. "Pretty sure I can recall you voting to eliminate me that one time." "I thought that you'd understand that..." The one with the cap sighed. "Me and Leafy, we had this strange... *thing* going on between us; I wanted to change, she wanted to help, but every other day it seemed like I messed something up, and..." Another sigh; he was getting *really* exhausted these days. "Look, it's all stuff from *way* before you appeared. Don't-" "I *know* that." Taco interrupted. "I'm clearly stepping into some sacred ground here, or something, so I don't want any part of it." She'd glare at him. "You might've recalled a detail from earlier, but you also forgot one that's especially important: I want you to leave me alone."

With that, she'd unceremoniously shut the door.

Pen sighed as he went on a short, uneventful walk back to his place; he felt particularly embarrassed as, given the way this whole place was arranged, Taco could probably see him throughout the whole thing. To think that there's so few of them left, that they're up against an ever-growing, ever-looming threat, and yet they're *still* finding reasons to draw up lines in the proverbial sand, to isolate themselves from the help that they *surely* needed...

He ended up deciding to take a detour to Barf Bag's house; he was most likely gonna end up there at some point in the day, so he might as well get it over with. Tick that final box in that list of running gags. Looking through the window as he approached the door, he'd find... the bag cutting up small pieces of her cheesecake and letting them drop into the vomit. The writing utensil blinked twice just to make sure he was seeing things correctly, then finally went ahead and knocked on the door; Barfy was quick to answer.