An excited chatter broke out among the contestants of BFB. Fan, who was watching from a distance, bounced from foot to foot in anticipation. "New teams? This is gonna be good."

Objects began to pull apart from their former teams and rush towards friends, or completely new objects. But before it got too hectic, Four screeched, "THEY WILL BE RANDOMLY CHOSEN!!"

A collective "awwwwww" rose from the group.

"In the third team phase, you guys can form teams of your own choice again," Four explained. "But for now, I wanted to see what this next stage of the game would be like with randomly generated ones!"

"So what ARE the teams?" Eraser complained.

With a flourish of his hand, the blue numeral caused a magician's top hat to appear. "In this hat are slips of paper, containing all of your names. I'll pull names out randomly. There will be 5 teams of 9. Starting out, the first person to be on Team 1 is..." Four reached into the hat and pulled out 9 small pieces of paper. "...Flower!"

Flower fist-pumped. "Woohoo, picked first!"

Four glanced down at his hands again. "Donut, Gelatin, and Ice Cube!"

"Aw yeah, jelly man! We're still teammates!" Gelatin wrapped his arm around Donut's 'shoulders.'

"At the moment, I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing," Donut mumbled.

"Eggy, Naily, Pillow, Fries, and Snowball. That's Team 1!" Four finished.

Gelatin gasped. "Fries and Naily, too? This team's gonna be GREAT!" Donut glanced at Naily and saw an angry look directed at him and Gelatin. He didn't quite share the same sentiment. Fries was nice, though.

Pillow reached out and snatched one of Fries' chips. "I've always wondered what these taste like." She chomped it half.

"HEY!" Fries protested. "Don't do that!"

Pillow swallowed. "Ah, just what I expected. Salty."

Four discarded the current papers and grabbed nine more from the hat. "Team 2 consists of Bell, Black Hole, Pen, Eraser, and Lightning, to start."

Pen high-fived Eraser. "Yes! Same team as last!"

"Yeah, too bad Blocky's not with us, though."

"So far, these guys don't seem too bad." Pen surveyed their other teammates. "I know Black Hole's pretty chill."

Four kept reading. "Gaty, Saw, Needle, and Woody are also with them."

"Sounds great!" Saw cheered.

"Sounds stressful," Lightning said quietly to himself, stealing a glance at Woody.

"Team 3!" Four announced, holding new pieces of paper. "Starting out with Golf Ball, Tennis Ball, and Lollipop!"

The candy in question sighed dramatically. "Oh, wonderful. I've been put with the globules."

"Hey!" Golf Ball barked. "I'll have you know I'm a valuable team leader!"

"Didn't seem like that during the thunderstorm challenge."

Tennis Ball stepped in front of Golf Ball before she could say anything else. "At least you have me!" he said to GB cheerfully. "It could be worse!"

"Indeed."

Four coughed. "If you're finished? Your next teammates are Coiny, Pie, Ruby, Taco, and Barf Bag."

"Nice!" Taco smiled at her friends. "I get to be on a team with both of you!"

"Just keep me away from her and I'll be fine," Lollipop remarked, not even looking at Barf Bag.

"Oi!"

Taco sighed. "Aaaaaand that might be a bad thing."

Coiny slid over to TB and shot finger guns at him. "Good to be on a team with ya again!"

"It's nice to see you, too."

GB inspected the others. "I suppose this team isn't terrible," she said to herself. "Pie's laziness might be a bit of a problem... hang on, where's our last teammate?"

"I was saving her for last, to make this more interesting." Four grinned with what could be interpreted as malicious intent. "Pencil."

The stick of graphite jumped at the mention of her name. "What?"

TB sighed. "Looks like it just got worse..."

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

Basketball spectated from a distance as Golf Ball and Pencil very obviously tried to avoid each other. "I'm not one to usually take pleasure from watching other people's hardships," she commented to Blocky, "but I think I'll enjoy seeing the conflicts that spawn from GB's new team."

"Me, too." Blocky chuckled. "Both her and Pencil try so hard to be leaders, and with their history, watching them clash is going to be FUN."

"Hiya, new teammates!"

Both former ABNTT members turned to see Bottle standing next to them. Basketball blinked. "Huh?"

"Four just announced Team 4, and we're in it together!" Bottle replied happily.

"Cool! Who else do we have?"

Bottle began to count off objects on her fingers. "Bomby, Grassy, Puffball, Rocky, Nickel, and Firey!"

"Sounds like a pretty nice team," Blocky commented.

Basketball quickly ran through all the contestants in her head. "So then for Team 5, that leaves-"

"Balloony, Bubble, Fanny, Leafy, Marker, Pin, Teardrop, TV, and Yellow Face!" Four announced loudly before Baskie could finish. "And that's all the new teams!"

(here's a visual representation of who's on which team for easy reference)



"What about team names?" Marker wondered.

"Future contest. For now, you'll just be called Team 1, Team 2, etc. Now-"

"WHAT'S THE NEXT CONTEST?" Yellow Face interrupted.

Four glared at the marketer. "I was getting to that," he hissed, "but there's another thing I need to address first."

Eraser groaned. "Just let us do the challenge, man!"

"THAT'S ENOUGH INTERRUPTING!" Four screeched. Everyone cringed and those with arms covered their ears. The algebralien pulled out a walkie-talkie and clicked a button on it. "We're ready, MePhone," he spoke into the mic.

"MePhone?" From the sidelines, Fan gasped and almost dropped his phone. "No way. Are we having... a crossover episode?!?"

Before Four could reply, a green glow appeared next to him, and MePhone4 - along with a large group of other objects - materialized. Unfortunately, they happened to materialize about six feet in the air and immediately succumbed to gravity. X barely avoided getting squished.

Various complaints arose from the pile of hurt objects as MePhone disentangled himself. "Looks like I've still got to get a hang of that instant travel app," he muttered to himself.

Balloon rubbed his head. "Why didn't you just have MePad teleport us?"

"The guy went missing last night, but I'm sure he'll return eventually. That's why I had you all hold hands - I needed contact cause I'm still new at this whole 'teleporting' thing."

Soap shuddered. "It felt like a summoning circle."

"I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that. Anyways, welcome to Goiky, everyone!"

"Four, what's going on here?" Eggy demanded. "Why are all the eliminated contestants from Inanimate Insanity out of Hotel OJ?"

"Because MePhone and I are doing-"

"-a joint contest for both BFB and Inanimate Insanity 2!" MePhone finished.

"YES!!" Fan cheered. "But, uh, you didn't get any of the other actual II2 contestants."

"They should be on their way."

Right on cue, Test Tube peeked out of the portal. "Hey, Fan!" she greeted. "Golly, there's a lot of people out here."

"Hey! Move out of the way!" a gruff voice said from behind her.

"Sorry!" Test Tube scampered through the portal fully, Knife hot on her heels. Suitcase walked through a second later as well, and Lightbulb had already been in Goiky before MePhone called them over. She walked over and joined the other four.

MePhone sighed. "Good, everyone's here at last."

"About time, too," Four grumbled. "Let's explain how this is going to work."

MePhone cleared his throat. "So! Speaking to you five." He pointed at the II2 contestants. "Since there's 5 of you and 5 teams, you will each be selected to work with one team in the challenge. If the team you're working with places first, then you win immunity! Otherwise... well, you know the drill by now."

"What about us?" Trophy complained. "Not even you would have teleported us here for no reason!"

"You guys are all here because you'll be getting a chance to rejoin Inanimate Insanity 2!"

Everyone gasped. "No way!" Cheesy exclaimed.

"Oh, joy," II Nickel muttered.

"We'll start out with the five actual contestants, who'll choose which team they want to assist," MePhone continued.

"Hey!" Puffball complained. "They get to choose?"

The device ignored her. "Then the eliminated objects can also choose which team they want to assist, and then we can FINALLY explain what the actual goal of the contest is."

Immediately, the objects of II2 began to chat and bicker about who got to go on what team. After several minutes of this, most of the arguing coming from Yin-Yang, they managed to get settled into their temporary groups.

(here's another visual representation lol)



"I think we're ready!" X said, surveying the sixty-two objects on the dead plains before the three hosts.

Four nodded. "Here we go, everyone. Today!" He raised his pointer finger dramatically. "You all must find a way to re-grow the dead grass around here!"

Cries of outrage broke out from the teams, mainly about how much grass there was to heal. MePhone sighed and activated his MeGaPhone app. "Not all the grass, you dimwits!" he yelled. "A small section will be fine. You can use any method you wish, and you're also allowed to travel between the universes if necessary."

"When the challenge ends, us three will judge each team by how much grass they grew, how well they grew it, etc," X continued. "Obviously, whoever did the worst will be up for elimination!"

Four opened his mouth, but MePhone took the stage again. "As I said earlier, out of the five competing Inanimate Insanity objects, only the one who worked with the team that got the highest score will be safe. For the eliminated contestants, any who worked with the top TWO scoring teams will be eligible for a rejoin. Does everyone understand?"

Sixty-two objects nodded simultaneously.

"You guys really stole my thunder," Four grumbled. "Anyways..." He raised his fist up into the air in the classic BFB fashion. "GO!!"