Donut woke up confused.

And sore. Very sore. He winced as he got up from his bed (Bed? he wondered), his entire front side still stinging from the heat of Loser's attacks. He touched his face gingerly; the "skin" felt dried, and it was definitely starting to stiffen. I thought that would take a while to get stiff... he began to think.

...how long have I been out?

Looking around — carefully, as to not twist his injured body too much — he saw that he was inside a small, beige-colored room with a bed, a door without windows, and... well, that was it. The space certainly appeared unassuming. But Donut was willing to bet his diary that the door was locked.

Although still a little woozy from... whatever, he stood up fully and turned to the door. Maybe I can use my telekinesis to break out of here... but I doubt that I'm strong enough. Experimentally, Donut raised his hands and tried to push a wave of energy at the door, but absolutely nothing happened. It was then that the baked good also noticed a silver bracelet wrapped tightly around his right wrist. A tiny green light on it flashed incessantly.

A burst of feedback caused him to jump. A speaker which he hadn't noticed before was perched in one of the upper corners of the cell. "Ah, good to see you've finally awoken, 053," an accented voice emitted from the loudspeaker. Donut didn't recognize it. "Someone will be over to collect you shortly. Please cooperate with him or I'll be forced to knock you out again."

The speaker clicked off. Donut didn't know for sure who the voice belonged to, but he could guess pretty confidently, and if that was correct, then he definitely knew who was on his way.

Three minutes later, one of his fears was confirmed. The door to his cell suddenly opened without warning, sliding into the wall to reveal a certain explosive standing behind it.

A complex mixture of emotions began to bubble up inside Donut — confusion, anger, betrayal, and a pinch of fear. "Bomby..."

Bomby, for it was he standing in front of the baked good, just looked at him sadly and gestured for him to follow.

Donut shook his head. "No. I'm not leaving until I get some answers."

"I promise I'll explain later, if they'll let me," came the reply. "Just... follow me, please. This is hard for me as well."

Anger began to bubble to the forefront of Donut's emotions, but he did his best to push it aside and just followed Bomby instead. He led him out into a white corridor with seven different doors on both long walls. Each one had a name of a different object above it; Gelatin, Spongy, Firey Jr... everyone from Team Ice Cube, minus Bomby.

One extra door at the end of the corridor led them into a different hallway. This one was much like the last one, with seven other doors embedded in the walls, but this time the names of the different teams were inscribed above the entrances.

As Bomby led Donut down to the end of the hallway, where another door lay waiting for them — an elevator door this time — he continued speaking. "I will say, though," he started in an oddly different tone, "it's a shame about that bracelet blocking your powers. Otherwise, you could save me some explaining by reading my mind."

This statement was so unlike Bomby, even in the current context, that Donut just stared at him for a second. But then there was a tiny beep. He glanced down at Bomby's hand — hidden behind his palm was a small remote, and he was removing his index finger from a button. Another glance revealed that the light on his own bracelet has now turned red. Did he just turn it off...?

As they reached the elevator doors, Donut experimentally probed for Bomby's mind. Surprisingly, he was able to get through. A glimmer of hope shot through him, but he quickly pushed it aside to focus on his teammate. If you're seeing these words, Donut, it's because I can't say this out loud; they have cameras everywhere, he read. But there's still a way we can stop them and escape. Here's the plan...

--------------------

Ding!

The elevator's exit slid open. Donut and Bomby stepped out into a well-lit laboratory room. There were various shelves on the walls with glass fronts, revealing vials, beakers, and other containers inside, each holding their own unique liquid. Papers were organized neatly upon several countertops, and although some parts of the floor were messy, whoever worked or lived here seemed to mostly tidy up after themselves.

Speaking of the lab's resident...

"Ah, there you are." At the room's far wall, a figure turned away from their laptop to look at the duo. Although Donut knew what to expect (more or less), seeing their captor in person for the first time was a little underwhelming.

Immediately, it was obvious that they were an algebralien, like Four and X — even if Donut didn't know who they were, any of the other BFB contestants would have been able to instantly guess their identity. But the resemblance to the show's hosts stopped there. Rather than blue or yellow, this numeral was green all over, and their words were laced with a British accent whenever they spoke.

Two.

"I was getting a bit impatient," Two continued, with a slightly bored look on their face. But their expression brightened rapidly. "Now that you're here, we can start!"

Donut was almost afraid to ask. "Start... what?"

Two shrugged. "I don't know yet. I'll figure it out as I go along. Now, stay there for a second; I need to finish this quickly."

They turned back to their laptop and resumed typing away. Donut met Bomby's eyes, and his teammate nodded. It was now or never.

He took a deep breath. Acting quickly as to not actually think about what he was doing, Donut raised his arms, opened his hands, then closed them and immediately drew them close to his body.

Two suddenly flew towards him, jerked out of their seat from Donut's telekinesis. But faster than either TIC member thought possible, they flipped around midair, dug their feet into the ground until they came to a halt, and effortlessly lifted Donut into the air with their own powers. "Well!" Two exclaimed, a surprised expression painted on his face. "Someone's feisty today! Thought you could best me, eh?"

Donut struggled to escape the telekinetic grip, which just made the numeral chuckle. "It was a good attempt, I'll give you that. You caught me off guard; I didn't realize your bracelet wasn't working. Although, it did bring you in earlier...?" They scratched their chin, lost in thought for a moment. "Eh. It must have just run out of power. Bomby, can you go get a spare battery, please?"

Two turned to look at the explosive, and that's when Bomby punched them square in the face. The blow was so sudden that they stumbled backwards purely out of shock at first, but it only took a second for the pain to kick in. "OW!!" they shrieked, losing concentration on Donut and instinctively moving their hands to cover their face.

That was their fatal mistake. Blinded by pain, they were unable to stop Bomby from pushing them hard. At the same time, the instant they let go of Donut, he raised his arms again and yanked Two towards himself with his mind-over-matter abilities. The combined forces of the TIC members were more than strong enough to propel Two straight into Donut's side, where, in a flash of light, they were absorbed.

Because after all, 2 times 0 equals 0.

But the multiplication wouldn't be easy. As soon as Donut absorbed Two, he realized they would still be a problem. When A Better Name Than That had originally multiplied Four and Donut together, Four went quietly (for the most part). But Two was furious and powerful; they were fighting back, tooth and nail, and Donut wasn't sure he could hold them back. "Syringe!" he grunted, hoping his teammate would know what he intended.

Thankfully, Bomby understood immediately and began to frantically rummage around the room. It took less than a minute, but Donut could feel his grip on consciousness and control slipping away more and more with each passing second.

"GOT ONE!" Bomby suddenly cried, triumphantly holding up a comically large syringe. With barely any hesitation, he stuck it into Donut's head and yanked hard on the plunger's handle. With a disgusting slurp, Two's essence was transferred from the pastry's body and into the glass tube.

Donut gasped in relief, nearly toppling from the sudden lack of internal resistance. He still doubled over, however, if only to catch his breath. In between wheezes of exhaustion, he dared to look at the giant syringe, which Bomby had carefully set on the floor. It was full to the brim with green plasma, a pair of eyes floating around inside. Comically, they also had angry eyebrows. The numeral was still furious beyond belief.

But as long as they were trapped inside that syringe, Two was powerless.

Both objects didn't say anything for a minute or two, each of them recovering from a different kind of stress. Finally, Donut looked up at Bomby. "Thank you," he managed to get out, "but... you have some serious explaining to do."

--------------------

There was a little bit of chaos afterwards.

The first thing Donut and Bomby did (well, the first thing after locking Two's syringe in a cabinet) was free everybody else and remove bracelets from those who had powers. Understandably, they were extremely confused on what was going on. The general confusion only increased after Bomby recovered all the dead objects with Two's hand-made Master Recovery Center, since the ones who died to Loser's power grab weren't even aware that something else had happened.

There were a couple anomalies. Poor Black Hole had to be filled in on everything; he had been dead since Two originally captured the objects of Goiky three months ago. On the other hand, Lightning — who had been woken by Two after the second group capture — remembered everything since the initial capture. Loser was still trapped within the mirror realm; Two hadn't had a chance to retrieve him yet, and none of the others wanted to.

As for Four and X, only one object knew where they were, but he hadn't yet had a chance to explain.

After a chaotic hour of freeing contestants from their cells, recovering others, and trying to explain what happened to those who were killed, everyone was crowded in Two's main lab room, surrounding the table that the numeral had been working on before Donut and Bomby interfered. Together, the 63 of them absorbed all six of Two's logs. Although the scientist had handwritten the first two and recorded the next three, their sixth and most recent one was typed up on their laptop.

({[LOG: 006]})

Today's date is March 26th, 2020. The experiment was a smashing success! Everything went as well as I had hoped. All 34 subjects discovered their powers within two days of receiving them, and several of them performed extraordinarily. Hosting a small competition against each other using their abilities wasn't something I expected, but I probably should have. Competitions are the only thing objects seem to be good for, after all.

Unsurprisingly, there was a little bit of pushback from Subject 016, with some help from 010. They tried and failed several times to wake 057, as 016 believed he held answers to why many of them had suddenly gained powers. He could have, of course, but my methods ensured that he stayed unconscious and couldn't utter a word until I brought them all back.

The only other small concern was my assistant. His loyalties continue to dwindle rapidly. As I stated before, he shouldn't do anything rash as long as I have his friends under my power, but I'll need to keep an eye on him just in case.

I would write more, but I'm too excited to keep experimenting now that all the subjects and other objects are back. Signing o

It abruptly ended there.

Everyone was silent for a few moments before Taco scratched her head. "So... Two kidnapped us after episode 12, and everything we remember between then and the mansion party is all just... fake memories?"

"What I want to know is who the assistant is," Golf Ball harrumphed. "He was never named in the logs, but judging from Two's words, it's easy to deduce that it's one of us. The third log noted to "never let Subject 005 near the assistant," and since that was noted in the section about Match's firebending powers, we can safely assume that the assistant is flammable." She turned to Bomby and Donut. "You two were the ones who managed to stop Two. Did you find any other clues around here as to who the assistant is?"

Bomby gulped. He'd been dreading this moment. But before he could say a word, Donut answered GB's question. "We don't know," he outright lied. "Bomby and I managed to take down Two because we got lucky, but nobody else was out of their cell when we freed y-"

"No." Bomby stopped him. "Donut, I... let me tell them. Th-they should know the truth." He turned towards everyone and inhaled deeply. "...I was Two's assistant."

The resulting silence was almost worse than if they had all started yelling at him. Anxiously, he continued. "A couple years ago, when we were only a few episodes into BFB, I received a letter from Two. They claimed they had randomly selected me to help them perform an... experiment." They shuddered. "At the time, I didn't know how far they were willing to go. They said that together, we could give a bunch of you guys... well, superpowers, basically. They made it sound so glamorous."

"So I said yes. I excitedly wrote back using to Two using the return address on the original letter, telling them I was in. Soon after, I got a second one from them, saying that they'd contact me again when it was time. They also mentioned that I couldn't tell anyone else so that it would be a surprise..." Bomby rubbed his eyes. "That should've been a red flag right there. But like I said, I was too excited about the whole prospect."

"Time passed. I waited, but Two never responded. Although I didn't ever quite forget about their offer, the thought of the whole experiment was pushed to the back of my mind... until I found myself being recovered by them after exploding in episode 14. At the time they recovered me, episode 15 was happening live, and they told me to prepare to bring everyone in once the episode finished airing."

Bomby sat down and placed his head in his hands. "I... I didn't know that what Two meant by that was kidnapping. When I saw all of you in your cells, and learned that they killed Black Hole... and Four and X..." Several objects stifled gasps at this. "...I argued, I complained, I even tried to fight back. Keeping you guys trapped down here wasn't what I had signed up for, even if it resulted in mystical powers. But they threatened me to keep working with them at first, and later, when I tried to argue again, they threatened some of you guys instead."

"Two didn't go out of their way to harm you guys during their experiments, and I mostly did things like grunt work — they were the one who performed the majority of the actual sciency stuff. But they... they were willing to do anything to get results, whether that meant you all got hurt or not. They didn't care. And despite them threatening me... doesn't me just being a bystander while they hurt you all make me just as bad as them?"

The room was dead silent when he finished. Most of the others showed their reactions through their faces; anger, bewilderment, resentment, sadness, disgust... betrayal. Some more than others. Naily in particular looked utterly crushed.

After what seemed like an eternity of densely-packed negative emotions, Basketball stepped forwards. "...well. Erm. We should... probably talk more about all that later. But right now..." She glanced around the room. "...where the heck ARE we?"

"Under the contesting grounds," answered Bomby after a short pause of realizing nobody else knew. "The left door of that building on the patio... it's an elevator that leads down here. It's just down the hall."

Tree coughed. "Yes, I'd love to feel the sun again, thanks. I haven't been in here that long, yet the florescent lights are already making me feel wilted. But don't we still need to recover Four and X?"

"I already tried that, using Two's recovery center," Tennis Ball chimed in, "but nothing happened. I assumed they were still alive until Bomby mentioned they were dead."

"We'll have to find some other way to bring them back, then..."

"And what are we going to do with Loser?" added Gaty.

The already-oppressive mood in the lab darkened another notch. Everyone had been so absorbed in Bomby's explanation that they'd all momentarily forgotten about the cuboid's... questionable actions.

"What..." Firey hesitantly began to speak. "...what about those weird bracelet... things? If Two made one for everyone, then couldn't we use Loser's to safely stop him from taking any more powers?"

Lollipop scoffed. "Why even bother? I couldn't possibly fathom Loser escaping that... mirror realm on his own. There's no need to give him another thought."

"Because he still has the abilities of several others here, abilities that they probably want back," responded Firey, glaring at the sweet. "And although what he did wasn't right, he was partially influenced by something Two did to him. Plus, nobody deserves to just be trapped like that forever. Unless you've already forgotten that Two was doing the same thing to us?"

Thrown off-balance, Lollipop took a step back. Since Firey was usually an overall goofball, everyone was surprised to see him acting so seriously. What's more, he actually had a point.

Gelatin raised his hand from somewhere in the crowd. "But how would we even extract our powers from him?"

"I'm sure TB and I could figure something out, especially with access to all of Two's notes," GB offered. TB nodded in agreement.

Blocky clapped his hands together. "Right! That's all sorted. I don't know about you guys, but I'm going back to the surface now. This place is starting to make me feel claustrophobic." Many of the other contestants agreed and began to file out into the hallway, heading towards the elevator.

As much as Bomby wanted to be out of that accursed lab, however, he had a job to do. Tapping Needle on the shoulder, he told her, "I'm going to go get Loser's power dampener. Two made sure to hide any mirrors down here, so I don't know where they are, but you can use the one that's still leaning against the building on the surface when you're ready to retrieve Loser."

Needle nodded, purposefully making sure her face didn't betray any emotion. She wasn't sure how to feel about him yet. As Bomby turned towards the cabinets that held the power dampening bracelets, Lightning suddenly floated down to his level. "I don't know why Two couldn't wipe my memories," he hissed, "but that just means I still remember everything they did to the others. I could hear the occasional scream. I still do." The energy bolt shuddered. "They echo in my head sometimes. So I hope you know you've got a lot to answer for."

Bomby simply closed his eyes in shame.

--------------------

In the mirror realm, silence was by far the overpowering factor. Or was that loneliness...? Loser wasn't sure. Perhaps it was the lack of physical stimulation when it came to touching the ground, or anything else. No sounds that weren't caused by him, no company, no feeling, nothing to distract him from his thoughts... Loser figured it was only a matter of time before he went insane. But to add insult to injury, the lack of anything other than him and the distant faces of mirrors made it nearly impossible to accurately track how long that would even take.

So you can only imagine how relieved Loser was to suddenly see movement emerging from the nearest mirror.

At first, he thought he was seeing things. An arm sticking out of a mirror, holding a metal bracelet? Absurd. The only object with the power to access the mirror realm probably hated him, and definitely wouldn't voluntarily return.

But then the silver band beeped and flew out of the mysterious hand's grip, soaring towards Loser and latching onto his right arm before he even had a chance to react. Then Needle and Bomby fully stepped into the void, and a wave of relief washed over the former celebrity.

He rushed over to them, not caring at the moment how they may have felt about them. Needle flinched, but straightened herself as Loser reached them, remembering that he was powerless as long as he wore the bracelet. "Thank goodness!" he rasped, desperation in his voice. "Get me out of here, please!!"

"As much as I'd like to leave you to rot in here forever," she spat, "you've got several powers that don't belong to you, and we're going to return them, whether you like it or not." She grabbed his arm. "Ready when you are, Bomby."

The volatile object nodded. He took a few steps forward, leaned down, and carefully set down the item he'd been carrying — the syringe which contained Two's essence. A pair of eyes floating in the magical plasma watched Bomby as he stood back up, and he met their gaze. "You're saying here until we figure out what to do with you, where you can't do any harm."

Unable to respond, Two simply watched the three objects exit the mirror realm, leaving them along with nothing but their thoughts.

--------------------

Hearing footsteps, Donut looked up to see Needle pass through the mirror's surface and back into the real world, one hand on Bomby's shoulder and the other gripping Loser's arm tightly. He was relieved to see a metal band tightly wrapped around the cuboid's wrist (but not as tightly as Needle's grasp). "Glad that went as planned," he commented.

"Of course it went as planned," replied Needle. "Pillow's future-telling may be freaky, but it's pretty helpful."

Donut nodded agreement and waited for her to lead Loser away — taking care to avoid eye contact with the former celebrity — before turning to Bomby. "So..." he said. "Here we are."

"Here we are," Bomby repeated.

They were both quiet for a moment. "Why..." began Bomby, breaking the silence. "Why did you try to... protect me earlier? You didn't have to lie about knowing I was Two's assistant."

Sighing, Donut uncrossed his arms. He'd seen this coming. "To be honest... I'm not entirely sure. But I think it's because I... used to be scared of you."

Bomby blinked at this. "Really? Like, scared that I could explode and kill you at any time, or-"

"No, scared because of the whole... Two thing." Donut sat down and scratched the back of his head. "I found those letters between you and Two after episode four, when cleaning up the mess Gelatin made after he raided the dumpster for the contest. I wasn't sure what to make of them at first. Powers definitely sounded really cool, but something about the way they phrased their words made me... uneasy."

"I decided not to say anything yet, though, to respect Two's wishes for the event to be a surprise. But later on, in episode six, I was able to access some of Four's memories after we were multiplied together. He had known Two, as well as various other algebraliens, and through those memories I learned that Two was... well..." He paused. "The only good word for it is 'ruthless.' Sure, Four hurt us, too — but he only ever did like three different things to us. Two, however, could be a lot worse... especially if someone made them mad" The pastry shuddered. "The things I saw in Four's memories..."

He shook his head, clearing his mind. "Anyway, when I realized how bad Two was, I became terrified. Mainly of them, but also of you. I thought you might have known what they were like. So from then on, the reason I didn't say anything about the letters to anyone else was because I was scared of what you or Two might do to me if you found out. That's probably irrational, I know."

"But my point is, when I realized you hadn't known what Two was like, and that you didn't want to do horrible things to us like they apparently did, I was elated. That's why I lied about knowing you helped them. Sure, you were still in the wrong for several months, and there's a part of me that's angry at you for not doing anything sooner. But... I understand that you were manipulated and didn't have much of a choice in the matter."

Bomby didn't say a word for several seconds. "So..." he finally tried, a sliver of hope creeping into his voice, "...you forgive me...?"

The answer came in the form of a head shake. "I don't think so. Not yet." Bomby deflated slightly at this. "But again, I understand the situation you were put in. And in the end, you still managed to do the right thing and helped me take down Two. So... someday. Alright?"

Realizing the logic in Donut's argument, Bomby nodded at this. Forgiveness took time. Hell, he was lucky the pastry was even considering it. It was unlikely that many of the other contestants would be doing the same.

After another minute of not speaking, they got up and walked back towards the general crowd in the distance. Their world had been shattered and broken, and there were still things to be done, powers to return, algebraliens to recover. But they could fix it. It would take time. But eventually, they would get things back to normal.

Someday.











~~~~~~~~~~











They'd fix it with the power of friendship! /s

In all seriousness, though... this book was certainly an experience to write. I originally jumped into it with very little initial planning, aside from who would get what powers. Then it went on hold for eight months, and now, almost a year after I started working on it again, I've managed to power through and complete it... somehow.

I know I said this before with IDFBC, but I REALLY regret not planning more for this story before releasing the first chapter. I mean, 32 objects? Each with their own power? I bit off WAY more than I could chew. Sure, I managed to give all of them at least a little bit of focus, even if the focus for several of them was just filler. But with 32 objects, there would have had to been either a LOT of filler or a LOT of plot to give all of them the focus they deserved. Since I didn't have too much plot-wise planned from the start, and since I eventually discovered that writing filler can be really tricky and annoying... yeah.

Tl;dr, there are many things I'd go back and change if I could, but I'm happy I at least managed to (hopefully) tie (mostly) everything together into a (somewhat) coherent storyline. At the very least, many of you seemed to enjoy the book, and at the end of the day, that always makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside :)

A couple other small notes: I realized halfway through writing this chapter that it was the first time I'd written Two in any of my stories. Felt a little weird. Also, props to those who predicted that Two was the mastermind! Seems like some of ya caught the hint I gave in the second log ;)

That's about all I have to say right now. I'll post a general update on stuff in JJJ sometime within the next few days, probably. I need to go to sleep because it's 1 AM lmao. Take care, and thank you for reading this wonderful mess of a book!



- Jabe