Lightbulb pounded her fist into the palm of her hand. "Righteo, Team 4! Let's not waste time here. I know just what we need to do!"

"This should be interesting," Blocky smirked.

Paintbrush elbowed him. "Let's at least hear her out."

"The plan is simple: we go to Walmart!"

"...on second thought, maybe we shouldn't."

Lightbulb ignored them and continued, pulling out a Walmart card. "With this neat little doohickey here, we can buy anything we want, cause Walmart has everything! I'm sure we could find grass seeds or something. Heck, maybe we could even just buy grass from there and call it a day! Whaddyall say?"

Basketball opened her mouth but was interrupted by Firey. "I like that idea."

"Same here!" Puffball, Grassy, and Nickel agreed simultaneously. Rocky nodded affirmation as well.

Basketball smiled weakly. "Well, I suppose I can't argue against the literal grass in this scenario."

Tissues sniffed. "Can we buy cold medicine there, too? My condishawn's been bad lately..." As if to accentuate his point, he sneezed violently.

Lightbulb patted his head. "Of course, little mister sniffles. We'll buy whatever we want!"

"Don't pat me, you might get contaminated."

Lightbulb wisely lifted her hand away. "I guess it's settled, then," Paintbrush said, shrugging. "Off to Walmart we go."

"Off to Walmart we go!" the others cheered.

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

Team 5

Clock's face when the entirety of Team 5 emerged from Test Tube's laboratory and into the IIverse was priceless. The Cherries wished they could have taken a picture to make a mask from later. "Well... this is quite the crowd," Clock commented. He suddenly noticed the Hotel OJers. "What are you guys doing here?"

"Hey, Clock!" Balloon waved to him as they drew closer. "MePhone and Four are doing some joint contest with our two shows, and us eliminated contestants have a chance to rejoin!"

Marker elbowed to the front of the crowd. "We're going to try to find some grass seed in the hotel."

"Huh. Mind if I join you guys while you do that?"

"I'd love that! But you know how picky Four is with you being eliminated and helping and all..." Leafy chuckled nervously.

Baseball sighed. "MePhone's not much better."

"Oh, I didn't want to help you! I just wanted to hang out."

"Oi think that'd woirk," Bubble said. "Woi can look foir supploies and chat at the soime toime."

Suitcase smiled. "Yeah!"

"I hate chatting."

"Fanny!"

"Coming through!" a melodious voice suddenly shouted. Everyone leapt backwards as Puffball soared out of Test Tube's laboratory, dragging along her eleven teammates who were connected via holding on to each other's arms and legs. "Sorry!" Bomby called out to Team 5 as he passed them by, last on the line.

They stared at the wacky trail of objects as they began to shrink in the distance. "What in the world?" Clock wondered aloud, bewildered.

"WE HAVE NEW TEAMS IN BFB NOW!" Yellow Face clarified.

"...I suppose I probably should have guessed that already."

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

Team 3

"Well, obviously, the best solution for us is to create a super growth formula for the grass," Golf Ball said to her team.

"Obviously," Pencil mocked. GB decided to ignore her.

"Golfy is right!" Test Tube raised a finger into the air. "That sounds like it would be the ideal choice. We can start with what we can find in my laboratory-"

Tennis Ball interrupted her. "Perhaps we should do it in the underground factory? With all due respect, I think experience has shown that it's considerably more durable than your lab. If anything goes wrong, there's less of a chance of important equipment getting destroyed in there!"

Testy tapped her foot in thought. "Good thinking. But I'll still grab what we may need from my lab first, then bring it to the factory."

"Sounds like a plan."

Taco stepped forwards. "You sciencey types seem like you have this all figured out. What can we do to help?"

Golf Ball glanced at the other members of Team 3, both permanent and temporary, and narrowed her eyes. "I don't know if we can exactly trust any of you."

"Gelatin loves chemistry. I learned a few basic things by being around him, maybe I can at least try?" Barf Bag offered.

GB glanced at TB for help - he was much better at social interaction than she was and was likely able to tell who they could trust. He nodded slightly. "Alright, you may assist us. Lollipop, will you be able to-"

"-work in the same room as Barf Molecules? Absolutely not."

"I can." Taco raised her hand.

Lollipop's expression flickered. "Really? You'd rather be around her than me?"

Taco glanced at her apologetically. "She's my friend, Lolly, just like you are. If you want, I can hang out with you some more after the contest, alright?" Lollipop hmfped and flicked at her scarf in thought.

No longer listening to their conversation, the dimpled scientist turned towards the remaining five members. "Yin-Yang and Pencil, you two aren't going anywhere near my factory, for obvious reasons." Pencil rolled her eyes at this, but after all, most of the hate generated between the two was the woodsicle's fault. "Ruby cannot come down either, as she is Pencil's associate. But Coiny and Pie, I will give you two a chance."

"Aww," Ruby whimpered.

Coiny smiled. "Nice! We won't let you down!" He raised his hand for a high-five and Pie lazily did the same.

"What about me?"

Golf Ball turned again. She'd almost forgotten about Cheesy. "Well, do you have any qualifications?"

"Yeah! I can make some really Gouda puns!" *knee slap*

"Please stay away from the factory."

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

Team 2

"Any ideas?" Eraser asked to no particular object.

Pen shrugged nonchalantly. "I 'unno. You?"

"I wouldn't be asking if I had any."

"What about you, Box?" II Nickel turned to Box for help.

No response.

Lightning stared at him weirdly. "Are you... talking to that inanimate box?"

"No way," Trophy gasped. "You can see that he's not alive, too??"

"Uh, yeah-"

"FINALLY!" His cry of joy caught Lightning off guard. "Someone else SEES it! I swear, everyone else in that stupid hotel thinks that this hunk of cardboard is alive like we are. I was starting to think I was the crazy one!"

Fan looked over at Lightning and Trophy. "Are you telling me that you're ungrateful of Box's majestic presence?"

"Well-"

"REMOVE THE HATERS!" Bell yelled. She swung herself forwards and rammed into Trophy with a loud BONG! He skidded away through the grass.

"That was unnecessary."

Gaty scoffed. "Says the guy who keeps zapping people."

Lightning ignored her and floated over to help the fallen first-place prize.

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

Team 5

Left Cherry heaved open another barrel and peered inside. "Still not the one!"

"Man," Right Cherry said as he helped his conjoined pal put the lid back on the barrel. "We've been staying at this hotel for so long. You think we'd know where everything is!"

"I know, Right?"

"I don't think anyone but OJ or Paper ever comes down here," Balloon called out from the other side of the room. "And it's a pretty big basement." He peeked at a crate and stepped back. "Uh oh. Careful, Balloony and Bubble. This crate's full of pins."

Balloony stepped away from his shorter doppelganger. "Hey!" Pin protested.

Bubble shifted away as well, gravitating over to where Teardrop was shifting through a pile of bags. "Foind anything?" she asked. TD just shook her head and Bubble sighed.

Yellow Face opened a box of some kind and gasped. "NO WAY."

"What? Did you find it?" Baseball turned to look and almost knocked over a stack of plates.

Yellow Face tipped the box on its side and a bunch of gray powder spilled out, making a mess on the floor. "IT'S EMULSIFIED MAGIC YOYLE DUST! THIS STUFF IS SUPER RARE!"

TV took a look. "That is not Yoyle dust," he informed Yellow Face. "That is gunpowder."

"OH."

"Whoi would there be gunpowder doiwn here?" Bubble asked.

"Oh!" Left Cherry piped up. "OJ always has fireworks for New Year's, but he stocks up months in advance for some reason."

"Good thing Firey's not here right now," Leafy chuckled.

Fanny walked up and turned on her blades, blowing the gunpowder back into the box from which it came. "Let's make sure we clean up after ourselves! I'd hate to deal with an angry OJ."

YF left Fanny to her work and hopped away to another storage container, where Balloony was rummaging through. "You know," Balloony said, "this is reminding me of when we went to your warehouse, a couple years ago. Remember that, Pin, Clock?"

"Oh yeah! That's where I finally got that cookbook." Pin sighed.

"It was an interesting experience," Clock remembered. "I hope Purple Face is still locked up."

"ME, TOO! WHAT AN UGLY COLOR HE IS."

Marker whirled around. "What do you have against purple?"

Everyone laughed.





Inside Test Tube's laboratory, the portal that connected the IIverse to Goiky suddenly shuddered. The border flexed dangerously, and the empty space inside turned glassy. But the transformation lasted for less than a second, and almost immediately, the portal stabilized. If anyone had been in the room at the time, they wouldn't have even seen anything.

The cracked cyan multicrystal which was connected to the portal cannon began to glow.