Purgatory Mansion. Usually a relatively quiet place, even with its ghostly residents. But it's seen a lot of activity today, and it's going to see even more. On the outside, it's clear that a hot air balloon has somehow crashed into the roof of the building, as the balloon's canvas is draped over a great section of the west wing. At the moment, though, everyone is inside... except for a small rock and a large device, both of which just mysteriously appeared outside the mansion's front entrance.

But that's of no interest. Let's see what the current inhabitants of the mansion are doing instead, eh?

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Baseball carefully sipped his coffee. "Thanks. I needed this, especially after being trapped for a few days."

"It's the least I could do for a fellow sports globule!" Basketball replied cheerfully. "Speaking of... how are you guys all holding up? It sounded like you guys went through a LOT in the MeCloud."

"You can say that again," muttered Balloony. "I don't often say this about others, but Cobs is a real menace. Baseball, you told the others about the story the Shimmers told us, right?"

"Yup."

Paintbrush set their teacup down on the table. "Sorry to change the subject so abruptly, but I'm still really confused about what happened to Lightbulb. I mean, that... wasn't anything like her."

"Isn't Paper friend a therapist? Maybe he knows why Lightbulb was being weird!" Grassy suggested.

Shaking her head, Basketball replied, "That's not a bad idea, Grassy, but I already looked for Paper earlier, and I couldn't find him. Or OJ, or Firey, or Rocky... makes sense why the other three might hang out together somewhere, but Rocky?" She pursed her lips. "I don't know. There's too many strange things going on."

"I'll go look for them." Paintbrush stood up. Despite their tea, which usually helped to calm them, they were still feeling restless. Marshmallow stood as well, having finished her drink, and they left the kitchen together.

"Hey," Marsh whispered to her friend in a low voice once she was sure they were out of earshot of the others. "You sure you're alright? I know Lightbulb's, what... your best friend?"

Painty shrugged. "Not sure. I'm used to her dying; she usually finds some way to get herself shattered every other week or so. Just... well, I already said so in the kitchen, but... what was she doing??"

The duo climbed the stairwell in the lobby that wasn't blocked by the balloon wreckage and started glancing in rooms as they passed by. "Not to make you worry more, but you did hear Bow say how Lightbulb might have had red eyes, or something?"

"I did, but that just makes this even more confusing. Normally, this could have just been some really weird prank gone wrong. But red eyes?" They shook their head.

"I wish I could provide theories."

They settled into a relatively comfortable silence. Paintbrush had to admit; even if the conversation topic was unsettling, it was nice to talk to Marshmallow again. They'd missed her.

End of the hallway. Marsh gently pushed open the last door there to find Fanny inside. Upon hearing the door creak open, Fanny jumped slightly and turned so that she was facing away from them. "Oh! Sorry!" Marsh apologized, already starting to close the door again. "We didn't mean to intrude-"

"It's fine," Fanny interrupted. "Actually, I hate intrusions, but you guys need to see something. Don't come any closer, though."

Painty and Marsh exchanged glances. "Uh, ok..."

"Also, you need to promise not to freak out."

"Why-"

"I hate freaking out. But also... well, you'll see. It's weird."

Slowly, almost dramatically, Fanny turned around to face Paintbrush and Marshmallow fully, then opened her eyes. They both gasped — her eyes were glowing a bright scarlet. "See?" stated Fanny. "I told you it was weird."

"T-that's..." Paintbrush stuttered. "...that's what... Lightbulb was like..."

"Lightbulb had red eyes?" Then Fanny shook her head. "No, that's not important. We're in danger — TV's also like this, but he's not in control of himself like I am."

Paintbrush opened their mouth to ask more, but Marshmallow beat them to it. "What do you mean, 'not in control?' How is TV putting us in danger?"

"I don't completely know right now, but I'll explain what I can later. Right now, just follow me!"

She pushed past them and rushed out the door, forcing the other two to follow. "I can feel his general location," she continued, "and I think he's down this hallway somewhere."

"We've already searched the whole corridor when looking for you."

"Have you tried the other wing of the mansion?"

"No."

"Then let's go there."

The three of them kept going, dodging around the balloon wreckage on the balcony and onto the opposite side. Fanny began speaking again. "He's definitely closer. Maybe in here-"

She stopped in her tracks as a squelch sounded from under their feet. "Ewww!!" Marshmallow complained, jumping off the hallway carpet. "Someone spilled their drink on the rug!"

"It's got a pretty funky smell for a drink," commented Paintbrush. "I think it's making me feel a little dizzy, actually."

Fanny sniffed the air carefully. "Hmm... it smells like..." Her eyes widened suddenly. "Gasoline."

Marsh blinked in confusion. But Paintbrush — suddenly remembering the hotel incident yesterday — immediately charged forwards and barged into the nearest room. The floors, walls, and furniture inside were doused in the same sickly liquid. Standing in the far corner was TV, several empty gas cans littered around him. He turned around, and Paintbrush saw that his cracked screen was glitching wildly, flickering between states like mad.

The other two objects peeked inside and gasped quietly. A face briefly appeared on the mechanical mind's screen — distorted, but still visibly smiling. He held up something with one of his feet, and everyone's hearts stopped when they realized it was a lighter.

TV flicked it open.

Paintbrush's fight-or-flight instincts kicked in. They spun around so fast they almost got whiplash, grabbed Marshmallow with one arm and Fanny with the other, charged out of the room and leapt through the closest window they could see.

Smash! A wave of heat rolled over them as glass flew through the air. The three of them fell two stories to the ground, the fall knocking the air out of their lungs. They all had to lay there for half a minute, gasping as their breath slowly returned.

The first one to stand again was Paintbrush. They stared up at the broken window above, which flames were spilling out of. "Not again..."

Groaning, Fanny got to her feet as well, but Marshmallow was already heading around the side of the building. "Paintbrush, come on!" she urged. "We have to help everyone else get out before the rest of the mansion catches on fire!" Painty snapped out of their reverie and followed, Fanny trailing behind.

They reached the front of the building to find the flames already covering most of the roof. Turns out the hot air balloon was pretty flammable, ironically. Baseball and Basketball burst out of the main exit, both panting heavily. "For crying... out loud...," rasped Baskie between puffs. "How does this... happen twice?"

"Is everyone else still in there?" Paintbrush hurriedly asked. "Weren't Balloony and Grassy with you guys?"

Baseball inhaled deeply. "Balloony was popped by a falling ember on the way out, and Grassy went upstairs with Bottle right before the fire happened."

"What?!" shrieked Basketball, whirling around to face him. "And you didn't tell me??"

"I thought you would get him!!"

"I didn't see him go up! I thought he was just behind you!!"

"Up here!" a new voice shouted. Everyone looked up to see Bottle and Grassy waving out of an open window on the second story. "Basketball! The stairs are blocked! Come over so you can catch Grassy!"

Despite being out a breath a moment earlier, Basketball belted it until she was directly under the window. "Ready!"

Bottle didn't waste any more time and simply dropped Grassy from the opening. "Wheeeee!!" he giggled in delight as he plummeted, bouncing right off of Basketball's head and softly landing on the (inanimate) grass. "Made it!"

"My turn!" Bottle called out, before a flaming orb of pink traveling out the window at near-supersonic speeds completely obliterated her into a million glimmering shards. The ball of fire neatly curved downwards the moment it left the building and slammed into the dirt, burrowing down a good two feet and spraying sod all over Basketball and Grassy.

They crept over and peered into the crater to see a smoking Puffball lying facedown in the earth. "Ow," she spoke, her words muffled. "Is anybody there to help me out?"

While Grassy grabbed PB's fur and started to pull, Paintbrush and Marshmallow sprinted through the mansion's front door. A wall of heat met them the moment they stepped over the threshold; the whole place wasn't burning yet, but it wouldn't be long before that happened. "Hello?" Marshmallow yelled, trying to be heard over the crackling of flames. "Bow? Apple??"

"OJ, are you still in here somewhere?" yelled Paintbrush. They'd almost forgotten why they'd travelled upstairs earlier in the commotion. "Paper? Rocky? Fi- oh wait, never mind, Firey will be fine."

A pink poltergeist soared directly through the fire spreading on the second floor. "Apple's dead!" she informed them. "So's Clock, Pickle, TV-"

"We already knew about TV," Marsh interrupted. "Anyone else?"

"I don't-"

Several wooden ceiling beams suddenly splintered and fell to the floor, narrowly missing both corporeal objects. "Y'all need to LEAVE!" Bow exclaimed. Before either of them could react, Bow flew into Paintbrush's 'hair,' possessed it, and launched them towards the exit, pushing Marshmallow back in the process. The mansion's mysterious magic automatically stopped Bow from crossing the threshold when she hit it, ejecting her from Painty's bristles, but the other two had enough momentum to keep tumbling outside and onto the grass.

Pop! A little ways away, Grassy finally managed to yank Puffball free from the ground. She spat out a mouthful of dirt. "Yuck. I don't see why Marker likes this stuff so much."

Baseball approached her. "Is anyone else alive in there?"

Shaking more clumps of earth off her fur, Puffball replied, "I was talking to Pin when we noticed the fire. A flaming beam separated us, I tried to free her, but I got caught on fire myself, and... yeah. I... don't think she could have made it out of there."

"TV's dead, too," groaned Marshmallow as she stood. "Bow also mentioned Pickle, Apple, and Clock. And we couldn't find OJ, Paper, Firey, or Rocky earlier. Firey might still be in there, but otherwise-"

"Grassy found Rocky!"

Everybody turned to look at where Grassy was pointing, and indeed, Rocky was patiently sitting near the entrance of the mansion. Lying next to him was the still-deactivated form of MePad. "Wh- how- what-" Paintbrush stuttered. "How long have THEY been there?!"

"Erm, Fanny, why do you have red eyes?" Baseball spoke as he suddenly registered how strange that was.

Fanny opened her mouth, but her reply was drowned out by an autotune voice. "Guys... the mansion's not the only thing on fire."

They all turned. To the northwest, a large plume of smoke was beginning to rise from somewhere within the Perilous Forest. "Huh... could that have been the increasing heat coming from Test Tube's laboratory...?" Basketball theorized.

Taking a deep breath, Fanny tried to speak again but got interrupted by Grassy, who pointed towards the forest and exclaimed, "Look! Friends!"

Everyone shifted their gazes slightly to see two figures emerge from the nearest clump of trees, sprinting towards the burning building at a high speed. Baseball squinted. "That's... OJ, and... wait, Leafy?? I thought she fell out of the hot air balloon!"

"She did," Fanny responded, trying to get their attention, "but she could have easily survived if-"

"Wait..." Puffball stared into the sky. "What is that??"

Baseball turned his squinting upwards, but his eyes rapidly widened and his mouth dropped open. "You have GOT to be kidding me."

Marshmallow scrambled to avoid being crushed by the objects falling from the sky, which happened to be three separate pieces of... a toilet. They all violently shattered upon impact with the ground, spraying porcelain fragments everywhere.

Everyone stared at it uncomprehendingly, and that's when Leafy and OJ reached them. The duo slowed as they arrived, trying to take everything in at once; the blazing mansion, Rocky sitting nearby an unconscious MePad, Fanny with glowing crimson eyes, the wads of dirt on Puffball, the two ghosts peeking out from the front door of the building — unharmed but unable to leave — and the broken corpse of Toilet in the middle of the crowd. "Uhh... what in the world did we miss?"

Breathing in and out once deeply to calm herself, Fanny finally got a chance to speak. "That's what I've been trying to explain. My red eyes, Lightbulb's and TV's actions, as well as MePhone4's... as much as I hate to admit it, this is all because of Evil Leafy."

Grassy and Puffball audibly gasped. Leafy would have, too, if she hadn't already come to the same conclusion in the Perilous Forest. "B-but t-that's impossible," Basketball choked, staring at Fanny. "She- she's dead! She's been dead for three years!"

"I don't know how, and I hate not knowing how," growled Fanny. "But it's true. I can feel her in my mind, trying to take over. That's what she did to Lightbulb, and that's why TV set the mansion on fire — they were both also infected."

"How do you know that? And why aren't you affected, besides your, you know..." Marshmallow gestured at her eyes.

"I think that Evil Leafy is like... a hive mind. I can feel the presence of other objects she's infected, and vaguely guess their intentions and where they are. Or rather, her intentions, I suppose. As for why she can't control me?" If Fanny had arms, she would have shrugged. "My best theory is that my hatred of absolutely everything is protecting me. Like I said, I can feel her, and..." She shuddered. "She hates everything, too. And there's a lot of pain. But me? I DESPISE everything. Maybe my hatred overpowers hers? I absolutely hate how stupid that sounds; it's like 'the power of friendship' except in reverse. But it's all I've got."

Still confused, Baseball shook his head. "Sorry... Evil Leafy?"

Leafy sighed. "She's a vile doppelgänger of mine. But let's explain all of that later; we need to go somewhere else right now. Firey's on his way, and he's infected, too. I think he set the forest on fire."

"What about Paper?" asked Marshmallow, although she feared she already knew the answer.

"Dead," OJ spoke for the first time since he'd arrived. There was a mostly blank expression on his face, and the way he talked was almost entirely emotionless.

"Hang on a sec!" Puffball flew over to the mansion's front door. "What about Bow? I don't want to leave my new pink pal behind!"

"Or Dough," Marshmallow added.

"Eh."

From behind the threshold, Bow scoffed. "Don't you worry, guys and gals and none-of-the-aboves. We'll be fine! The fire can't, like, hurt us, since we're super awesome ghosts and all."

"Yeah!" agreed Dough. "And if Firey comes anywhere inside, we can just, like, possess him and stop him!"

Leafy snapped her fingers. "Great idea! Although... I don't know if his flames would even do much more damage to this building. It's already pretty far gone."

Nodding, Basketball added, "Either way, I think we would have had to leave the mansion. If the radius of that heat coming from Test Tube's is still increasing, it eventually would have just burned this place itself, like it did to the hotel."

Although he felt a little overwhelmed, Grassy raised his hand. "But where do we go?"

"Oh..." An old memory popped into Baseball's head. "...I think I've got an idea. Idiotic Island."

"Nuh-uh!" Marshmallow instantly started shaking her head. "No way! I've got terrible memories of that place."

"Idiotic what?" Puffball questioned.

"The place we went when eliminated in II season one," clarified the sweet. "My dislike aside, though, is it even still there?"

Baseball frowned. "I don't see why not. Most islands don't just move."

Leafy chose to not add her two cents to that statement.

"Besides," the globule continued, "it's about as far south as we can go. Well, without heading to the mainland, anyway, but I'm fairly certain a tree boat couldn't take us that far."

Paintbrush threw their hands in the air and exclaimed loudly, "Ok, HOLD on!! I know we need to go soon, but we need to get a proper timeline first, because THIS IS ALL GETTING REALLY CONFUSING." They pointed at Leafy, then Fanny, then Baseball. "SO. YOUR team was escaping the MeCloud, using the Grand Slams' hot air balloon. On the way, Leafy and Bubble fall out into the Perilous Forest. While they're in there, Lightbulb acts weird and tried to exorcise the ghosts, and immediately after that, everyone in the balloon crashes into the mansion. Then TV and Fanny somehow get infected...?"

"Probably MePhone4's fault," Fanny attempted to clarify. "TV and I were trapped up there in a small room with him for a few days, and right before he escaped, he started acting like how TV acted before he lit up the mansion — his screen was all glitchy, and he was just being overall weird. So maybe our constant close contact to him spread it to us."

"Alright, sure. So TV sets the building on fire and kills a bunch of us. After that, Leafy returns from the forest, but instead of Bubble, she brings OJ, who apparently left the mansion earlier with Firey and Paper, the former of which killed the latter. Because Firey is suddenly infected too. Why not? Then, during all the earlier chaos, these two-" Painty gestured wildly at Rocky and MePad. "-appear out of nowhere. And finally — but CERTAINLY not least — a toilet falls from the sky and nearly kills Marshmallow."

The aforementioned treat carefully inspected the broken appliance. "...I think that might have been Toilet. As in, the co-host."

"But what was he doing in the sky??"

"We saw Toilet in the MeCloud yesterday, but he didn't see or hear us," replied Fanny. "I now hate soundproof cells."

Out of steam now, Paintbrush took a deep breath and let themselves relax a little. "Ok. I'm good. I'm done. That was just. A LOT. Of chaos."

"Mhm," Basketball agreed. "But there's still one thing I don't get, besides the whole 'Evil Leafy returning' thing. How did Firey and Lightbulb get infected?

"I don't have any..." Something suddenly clicked in Paintbrush's head. "OH! When Test Tube's portal broke a few days ago, they both tried turning the portal off by pulling out the multicrystal that powered it, because it was glowing red. But it was too hot, even for Firey, somehow; that's why he had those bandages on his hands."

Baskie blinked. "So... the multicrystal is connected to this somehow?"

"I hate to cut this short again," Leafy butted in, "but I really think we should get moving before Firey gets here. Baseball, you said Idiotic Island was south, right?"

Baseball nodded. "The coastline's not too far. When you're trapped on a prison island for several months, you tend to memorize its location."

"Then let's head out!"

Everyone else nodded assent. With some support from Rocky, Grassy and Leafy each picked up one end of MePad — who was still deactivated — and began to carry him away. Marshmallow faltered and glanced back at Bow, who gave her a grin and two thumbs up through the mansion's doorway. Not entirely reassured, but knowing there wasn't anything she could really do, Marsh continued forward.

About a minute or two into the walk, an idea struck Puffball. Floating down to Fanny's level, she said, "I've got an idea."

The fan glared at her. "Why do I get the feeling I'm not going to like it?"

"Well, we think it's the multicrystal that's causing a heat surge, right? And if it's glowing red, and if it's the reason Lightbulb and Firey got themselves infected, then Evil Leafy has to be behind that somehow. So I thought... if Firey got burned from the crystal, even though he's literally fire, what if it's the opposite for you? What if you're protected from the crystal's heat because you're infected?"

"...I see where you're going with this. You want me to head back to Test Tube's lab and try to deactivate the portal?"

"Not exactly. If the heat doesn't affect you, then perhaps the portal won't kill you either!"

"And so, you want me to try and warn the other objects in Goiky about all this."

"Exactly!!"

Fanny sighed. "...I hate that you have a good point."

Having listened in on the conversation, Basketball stopped for a moment to pull out something; a yellow, cylindrical gem with two large cracks zig-zagging over its surface. "Blocky found this two days ago, then gave it to me," she said. "I wonder if replacing the portal's multicrystal with this one would fix it..."

"We shouldn't risk it yet," Leafy piped up from further ahead. "Those things seem pretty rare, and I don't want to lose the one extra we have by accident. Where'd it come from, anyway?"

"Like I said, Blocky found it. He unearthed it from the bottom of that lake near Hotel OJ."

Making sure to not drop MePad, Leafy turned to look at the gem. "Wait, I recognize that! Fan and I were fighting for it, way back when our universes crossed for the first time, and I accidentally smashed it on the ground. I always wondered where it ended up!"

"Another mystery solved," Puffball smirked. She rotated around to properly ask Fanny to backtrack to the lab but just found air instead. The blue fan could be seen in the distance, already heading back the way she came. "...huh."

The rest of the walk was spent in silence.



I swear, you guys make your own dramatic irony sometimes