Kratogenesis

Seek & Destroy (XVIII)

A good pizza time was had by everyone except for iance, who had to restrict themselves to a yoyleberry yogurt for lunch. "Yoim!" Bubble loved it. Her teammates, however, did not share her opinion.

Not long after Bubble expressed her love for the yoylegurt, Match's phone buzzed. "Who is it?" Match grabbed her phone and looked at the notifications. It was a message from Four, who told her team to come down for the next challenge. "Already? Does that number, like, want to obliterate us?"

"What? That's crazy!" Pencil was indignant, for she couldn't believe Four thought of placing two contests a day, rather than the usual one a day.

After sighing, Match went to the plains, with her teammates following suit.

"Check this out!" Four shouted, holding a spare jawbreaker on their hand. "I found this rolling around, and I thought it'd be a shame to throw it away..." They pointed to nine craters, each with a flag for the team. "You see these craters? The objective of the challenge is to make sure the jawbreaker doesn't go in your team crater, because if it goes in, you lose." They looked back at the contestants, with a newly-found joy. "Got it?" As everyone nodded, Four announced the start of the challenge.

It took mere seconds before chaos would ensue. Balloony was rolling the jawbreaker when he was popped by Stapy, in order to allow Foldy to steal the jawbreaker. However, her moment of reign lasted only a few seconds, as she was ripped in half by Woody, who was dented by Bell, who was stabbed by Naily, who was pierced by Needle.

Bubble couldn't believe the high homicide rate in the challenge. "Why is everyone so moirderous?!" She then noticed Lightning and Snowball headbanging to some heavy metal music. "Oi... That exploins everything."

Meanwhile, Pen, who was stuck in the moon with his team, Bleh and A Better Name Than That, observed the frenzy through the telescope. "Yo, Eraser! Blocky! Check this out!" He moved his hand, inviting the two boys to come close to him.

Eraser was given control of the telescope. "Whoa! This is crazy!"

Once it was his turn to look through the tool, Blocky was shocked. "Almost as bad as the last heavy metal concert I've gone to."

Lollipop and Gaty looked through the telescope too.

"Looks chaotic." Gaty commented.

"Glad I'm not down there." Lollipop sighed. "Whatever disease they got sounds dreadful."

Taco, who was sitting on the beach chair, with her sunglasses on and sipping from a glass of fruit juice, looked at the Earth. "I don't wanna go back down there. I wanna enjoy the relaxing atmosphere here with you all."

Book, who was munching on some chips and dip with the rest of the team, looked at Taco. "Same here, but I'm sure we'll have to go down sooner or later."

Taco heard some comments from Golf Ball about never going away without her fresh juice and asking where the juice was, but she ignored her, choosing to sunbathe instead.

"Lollipop! There's no one down there to defend our goals!" Blocky rejected Lollipop's sassiness. "We have to be there. One of our teams is gonna lose, and Four's gonna come back. And do you really want to see Four flying right at you at a million miles an hour?!"

"Oh, please." Lollipop patted Blocky. "Perhaps some peppermint tea will help you calm down." She took out a cup of tea and sipped.

"Guys, I know what to do!" Basketball popped up. "For the past 2 weeks I've been inspecting Robot Flower... And it just turns out, she can send data to the ship!" She pressed a button, turning on the lights of the rocket.

"The ship's broken, though!" Gaty observed the rocket.

"Not the communicator dish!" Basketball was content.

"Oh." Book was eating the chips. "That's what it is?"

"And there's someone who I know can receive orders!" Basketball began jotting down her plan on her notepad.

"Ready to go?" Golf Ball looked at 8-Ball. "Alright. Robot Flower, you're going to translate our inputs into signals that the ship can send to Remote. We have to trust you, OK? Don't break the signal." Golf Ball looked like she knew exactly what to do.

"Got it, GB." Robot Flower was ready for the mission. And thus, after Golf Ball activated the dish, Robot Flower was sent into the Data Void, which said that the connection was established, and she was ready to be used as a controller. Blocky took the controls after he thought that Tennis Ball was doing a rather poor job.

Remote pushed away the Jawbreaker from Pie, who was pushing it into Bleh's crater. "Somebody... help... me!" Remote could barely be understood among all the static she was emitting.

After wrestling with whoever was controlling her, Remote uploaded a bomb into the connection as a means to rid herself of the master of puppets.

Robot Flower immediately took notice of that, and thought about the consequences: if she disrupted the signal, she could make her team lose, as well as lose Golf Ball's trust. If, however, she obeyed Golf Ball's order not to interrupt the signal, the three teams on the Moon would be toast! She pondered over it.

Golf Ball looked at Blocky, who was starting to press the commands repeatedly in an attempt to force Robot Flower to respond. "What's the matter with Robot Flower?"

After a long moment of awkward silence, Robot Flower closed the signal. She'd rather lose the challenge than lose her life.

Remote managed to rid herself of the controller and threw the bomb into A Better Name Than That's crater. However, there was not much room left for celebration, because the bomb was sent back to her, igniting inside of her. A ball of fire emerged from her, as she managed to rid herself of her own presence.

"You promised not to break the signal!" Golf Ball groaned at Robot Flower. "TV, did you know about this?"

"I side with Robot Flower. Mechanical minds stick together."

Pie watched in horror as her teammate perished in the explosion. Once the deafening sound was over, she got on her knees and slammed her fists onto the ground. She couldn't believe she failed to prevent Remote's death. "Guys, we failed."

"What do you mean?" Liy didn't get Pie's grief. "We're safe!"

"It's not about the challenge, Liy." Pie looked at the light switch. "We failed to prevent Remote's death." Once Pie explained her grief, Tree and Pillow were also horrified. "This challenge gave a blow to our team's credibility!"

Pillow scribbled something on her clipboard. "I suggest that we rebrand!" She looked at everyone. "Also because I found out that 'death pact' means... Uh..." She grimaced. "Yah."

"Oh! Oh! I know!" Bottle jumped out of bliss. "Pistis! It means faith in Ancient Greek, because our team is about creating trust!"

"I like it!" Tree gave her a thumbs up.

Liy wasn't sure about it. "Just because we failed to prevent deaths today doesn't mean we have to give up our mission."

"Pistis!" Four, who had listened to the proposal for the new name, laughed.

Pillow took notice of that. "On second thought... Liy's right."

"By the way, the team who lost will not be eligible to redeem the free slice of ice cream cake for dinner!" Four was trying to contain themselves from laughing any further at the proposed name Pistis, but once they finished the sentence, they let it go.

"I'm so glad Four likes it!" Bottle stuck her tongue out.