The late afternoon sun shone brightly upon the ten forms traversing eastward across the landscape, nearly low enough to start shining directly in their eyes if they looked higher than the horizon line. Far, far to the east, the Moon loomed in the distance — a perfect landmark for anyone wishing to locate BFB's contesting grounds. After escaping the weird grayscale landscape they had all fallen into two days previously, they'd been walking for most of the daylight hours since; all ten of them were beginning to feel seriously fatigued.

Well, except for one, who had been unconscious since the fall... right up until now.

Cheesy jumped a little as Coiny began to stir in his arms. "uuuuuuUh??" the copper currency mumbled, his eyes twitching open. "Wh... where am I?"

"Hey, fellas! The coin man's awake!" Cheesy called out to his teammates, attracting their attention. He gently set Coiny on the ground.

Golf Ball glanced at the position of the sun. "I suppose we could stop for today," she said. "It's beginning to grow late, so we should let both ourselves and Coiny recover." Several others breathed out sighs of relief at this.

"How do you feel, Coiny?" asked Tennis Ball as he walked up to the coin, who by now had sat up and was rubbing his eyes.

"Uhhhh... confused. How long have I been out for- ow!" He winced and gently felt his back, which still bore a scorch mark. "What... what hit me? I have many questions."

Pie wandered over to join them. "What's the last thing you remember?"

Coiny scratched his head, reaching into his memory. "We had just gotten into GB's factory, she started yelling at people, and then..." He drew a blank.

"Teardrop came into the factory and shot you in the back twice," Cheesy filled in, shrugging. "Apparently she has lasers??"

Coiny blanched at this before remembering BFDIA. Cheesy continued, "Then Golf Ball told us to go into this mystical garbage chute or whatever-"

"It's not mystical, it's a scientific anomaly!" barked GB from a distance.

"-which made us all fall into some place that looked like a scene from a black and white movie, and now we're walking all the way back to the BFB competing grounds which is who-knows-how-far-away."

Tennis Ball, who had been fully prepared to give a more detailed summary, closed his mouth. "Yeah, that about sums it up."

Carefully standing up, Coiny looked around. "So, right now, we're lost?"

"Not really," TB protested. "I mean... technically, yes, because we don't know where we are. But we know where we're going, just not how long until we get there."

"Wait a sec." Coiny snapped his fingers. "What about the FreeSmart SuperVan? If our whole team is here, then Pencil's here; shouldn't she still have that vehicle in her weird box or whatever?"

"The FreeSmart whatso?" questioned Cheesy.

Tennis Ball shook his head sadly. "Sorry, Coiny. We already thought of that yesterday, but Pencil had apparently given the box with the van to Ruby."

"Then let's just ask Ruby! She's also on our team, right?"

"She is, but she didn't come into the factory with us, so she's still back in the contesting grounds with the others."

"Oh."

"And that's why you never trust Pencil or any of her allies," Golf Ball muttered.

The aforementioned writing utensil, who had been listening in, snorted at this. "Says the one who dumped us all into what was essentially a glorified trash can and is the reason we're even having this conversation."

"Hey!" GB quickly stood up. "It's not my fault Teardrop freaked out for no discernible cause and started shooting at us! I tried to save us! What else would you have wanted me to do?"

Pencil got to her feet as well. "I don't know, maybe, stand up to TD? There were eleven of us and only one of her! Also, I didn't consent to being thrown down that chute by you!"

"And I didn't consent being thrown into my incinerator by you, yet-"

"Hey, now!" Test Tube forcefully stepped between them. "Come on, girls, this isn't the time to-"

But GB pushed her aside without even looking at her. "Stay out of this, Testy. This is between me and Pencil."

"Pencil and I," Pencil corrected.

"OH, YOU LITTLE-"

As Test Tube did her best to prevent the argument from getting physical, the others simply watched from a short ways away. "I've been on a team with these two for barely three days, and they're already getting tiring," sighed Barf Bag.

A snort. She looked behind her to see Lollipop standing there, arms crossed and also watching the conflict. "Sorry, do you have something to say?"

The purple sweet looked at her. "You say they're tiring to be around, but you have no clue how exhausting it is to be around you."

"Alright, Lollipoop." Barf Bag stepped forwards and stuck her finger into Lollipop's face, suddenly angry. "What exactly do you have against me?"

"I thought we've already been over this, isn't it obvious? Oh, wait. Your barf-infected brain probably forgot it."

"You don't even have any evidence to prove that my barf affects my brain!"

"I don't need it. Anyone can clearly see what I see." Her voice was dripping with revulsion.

"Oh, for crying out loud..."

"ARGUMENTS? I LOVE ARGUMENTS!" cried Yang. "I'LL JOIN THEM! No, Yang, please don't! HEY LOLLIPOOP! BARF BAG THINKS YOU SMELL!"

"Excuse me? She thinks I'm the smelly one?"

"GOLF BALL! PENCIL THINKS YOU'RE STUPID!"

"Tell me something I don't know!"

"Actually, I don't think you're stupid. Just extremely stubborn and close-minded."

"This is terrible! NO, THIS IS AMAZING-"

A new voice suddenly bellowed above all others. "WOULD YOU ALL JUST SHUT UP ALREADY!!!"

Everyone instantly stopped arguing at this unexpected outburst. Fuming, Tennis Ball stormed forwards, his face twisted up into a furious expression. "I AM SO SICK AND TIRED OF ALL OF YOU!" he shouted, his voice now echoing slightly across the otherwise-quiet plains. "This fighting is accomplishing NOTHING good whatsoever! The only thing it's doing is making this already odd situation even WORSE!"

He pointed at Yin-Yang first. "Yang! I don't know why your sole goal in life is to antagonize everyone and everything, but you need to calm down! Yin, please try to keep him under control better!" He turned to Lollipop next, then began to point at the other objects in turn. "Lollipop! You have a stupid prejudice against Barf Bag based on some random garbage that you came up with almost three years ago. Do some fact-checking sometime! Barf Bag! I won't deny Lollipop is being unreasonably mean to you, but you can't rise to her insults! Be the better object! Pencil! You keep claiming that you're trying to make up for the terrible mistakes you made in your past — and I believe that — but you keep invalidating your previous apologies by pointing out Golf Ball's flaws when she points out yours, which is not how you're supposed to redeem yourself!"

Finally, he turned towards Golf Ball. "And YOU."

GB suddenly felt terrified. In all her life, the only time she had ever seen TB properly lose his temper was way back in BFDI 9, but that didn't even compare to the sheer amount of pure annoyance and anger on his face currently. He looked... she never thought she'd think this, but he looked scary.

"Come with me," he said, his voice suddenly much quieter. He rotated around and started briskly walking away, forcing Golf Ball to follow lest she fell behind. Everyone else was left in a stunned silence, unsure what to say or do next; even Yang had been pacified for the time being.

Tennis Ball walked until he was sure the others wouldn't be able to overhear them before abruptly stopping and turning around to face his friend. "You and I need to talk," he said. "What is up with you? I know Pencil's being difficult, but so are you. You need to actually give her a chance."

"How can I?" was her reply. "Every time I try to give someone a chance, they stab me in the back. Puffball, in BFDIA. Pencil, in IDFB. 8-Ball, at the start of BFB. Basketball, during the thunderstorm challenge. Why should I try to give Pencil another chance if I know she's just going to waste it?"

"But you don't know that for sure. Also, what happened during the thunderstorm contest was not Baskie's fault, and that you do know." A horrible thought suddenly occurred to him. "Wait... you never said why you widened the factory's garbage chute."

Golf Ball was silent.

"Tell me."

She sighed. "If Basketball ever tried to come into my factory again, I would've thrown her down it."

TB was shocked into silence. He knew GB didn't have too many qualms about killing another object, but that majorly depended on which object, and even so, only for a good reason (which was usually to assist their team in a challenge). But going out of her way to do something like this for someone who had clearly not actually done anything wrong was so completely irrational, especially for Golf Ball, that Tennis Ball was at a loss for words.

He opened his mouth, closed it again, sighed, rubbed his forehead, and failed to say anything one more time before finally finding some words. "If you don't even see the hypocrisy in that..."

He couldn't finish his sentence. Shaking his head, he walked past Golf Ball and began to head back towards the other objects. "W- hey!" GB protested, a smidge of suspicion creeping into her voice. "What are you talking about? I'm not a hypocrite! What hypocrisy??"

Tennis Ball stopped, but didn't look back at her. After a moment, he responded. "Irrationally planning to hurt someone who was only trying to help you, and who didn't intentionally do anything bad? That's exactly what Pencil did to us in IDFB. Right now, the logic that you're using to justify your actions makes you no better than she was back then."

Golf Ball flinched so hard, both at this bold statement and the harsh realization that it was true, she nearly fell over and had to regain her balance. When she was upright again, Tennis Ball was already gone, leaving her alone to ponder her actions.

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

The next morning, the rain started in earnest.

~ End of day three ~

"But y'know what they say about keeping your enemies close. They'll... eventually start to change you."

- Nickel, Inanimate Insanity Invitational episode 7