Kind Darkness - Rainbow Quest AU fanfic

Chapter eight - White pumpkin

(This one's focused on Shy/Pumpkin)

Pumpkin was walking through the streets of the orange village, thinking about what Tangerine had said and comparing it to the stories kids were told nowadays about the darkness, it just didn't make any sense! couple that with the rumors of a yellow steve using the darkness for evil purposes. It was confusing! was the darkness good or was it evil? was it perhaps neutral? Pumpkin wasn't sure, but he damn well wanted answers. So he decided he'd try and find where Sabre lived.

That was until Funny/Cider ran up to him and told him the leader and a blue steve that had turned up wanted to talk with him, "Why would they want to talk to me...?" Pumpkin mumbled to himself as he walked to Cinnamon's house.

When he got there, Cinnamon greeted him on the porch, "Come on inside Pumpkin." Cinnamon greeted, Pumpkin would swear there was regret in Cinnamon's eyes, but didn't speak up about it. Inside, sitting on the couch, was a serious looking blue steve, the look on the cool colored steve's face causing Pumpkin's anxiety to rise. But he remained as calm as he could be and sat in the comfy chair across from the blue steve.

Pumpkin hated what came next, "Are you siding with the darkness." Was the question that came from the blue steve, "W-what?" Pumpkin stuttered in surprise, "I said, 'Are you siding with the darkness.'" the cool steve repeated with a sneer. "N-no! I-i'm not!" Pumpkin protested.

"Are you lying." "No..."

What came after that was mostly a blur to Pumpkin. First he remembers the creation of a new crystal, then he remembers Cinnamon, with a guilty look on his face, and the blue steve, who didn't seem to care at all, shoving him into a machine, completely ignoring his protests. Then he remembers being stuck inside the machine and silently pleading for one of the many watchers to free him. As the anxiety for what would come next, rose in his chest. But when things were clear again, he had become a snow white color and didn't feel any kind of emotion, other than hate. Hate towards Cinnamon for not stopping it from happening, hate towards the blue steve for causing it, and hate towards those that just watched it happen to him and didn't help.

He stepped out of the machine that had held him in place and ignored Cinnamon as he ran to check on him. Pumpkin looked at himself, he hated the white color he now was. He hated the whole thing. Ignoring Cinnamon's attempts to talk to him, Pumpkin ran off into the woods as another feeling came back, anger.

When he finally slowed down, he found himself in a dark oak forest, a mansion in the distance. He felt like he'd seen it before, so he went towards it. Another emotion came back, joy, this was most likely where Sabre lived! After all, Tangerine had run from this very mansion to get the yellow and orange steves away from it.

Pumpkin felt excitement coming back to his range of emotions, caused by having finally found Sabre and Tangerine, probably Orange as well, he'd missed Orange while he was gone and the thought of talking to Sabre and Tangerine again, seemed quite nice.

Pumpkin walked towards the mansion, a bit carefully in case he got attacked. When he'd reached the mansion, he knocked on the front door and waited. Not long after, Tangerine opened the door, he looked different from when they'd last met, but so did Pumpkin so he didn't pay much attention to that fact, "Tangerine?" Pumpkin asked, internally cringing at how emotionless his voice sounded,

"Wait... You're that steve that saved me from falling off a cliff! What are you doing here? And why are you suddenly all white?" Tangerine asked, opening the door more to let Pumpkin inside. Pumpkin strolled inside and explained to the best of his abilities what had happened in the village, Tangerine looked slightly shocked at what he had told and also slight pity because of how betrayed Pumpkin must've felt at being turned into a weapon against his will.

Pumpkin looked at the floor, wishing for it all to just have been a strange nightmare, when suddenly Tangerine gave him a hug. Pumpkin was at first surprised, but then hugged back. When the hug ended, Tangerine gestured towards the basement and said "Sabre and Orange are hanging out down there, i was about to join them when you knocked on the door, sooo, do you want to come with? Oh and what was your name? I don't think you ever told me-" Pumpkin thought about it before nodding, "Sure, and my name is Pumpkin." Pumpkin replied, a bit more emotion coming back to him.

The two went down the stairs, Tangerine calling out to the two down in the basement, causing the two to look up. At first neither of them recognized Pumpkin, but then Orange realized who it was, "Pumpkin? What happened?!" Orange got up and ran over to Pumpkin to check on him. Sabre was confused at first, but then he realized it was indeed the shy steve he had met, so he got up and followed Orange.

Pumpkin again explained what had happened and earned sympathetic looks from both Orange and Sabre, Orange expressing his anger towards Cinnamon for letting something like that happen to Pumpkin and Sabre agreeing with Orange.

After that, the four decided to play UNO with each other. Orange having gotten some of the games from his house and brought them to the mansion to play. The four had a lot of fun and spent the entire afternoon playing.