"You lying, cheating, piece of garbage!"

"Oh yeah? You're the idiot who thinks you can get away with everything you do. WELCOME TO THE REAL WORLD."

"I'm leaving, and I'M TAKING WOODY WITH ME!"

Sighing, Fan picked up the Monopoly board as Trophy dragged Woody away, leaving Bell fuming. "I think we're gonna stop playing now."

"Why did you think Monopoly would be a good 'team-building exercise??'"

"Hey, it wasn't my idea! Nickel suggested it to me!"

Bell gave Fan a moment to let that sink in. "...oh," he realized, suddenly feeling quite foolish. "Er. W-well, in my defense, he can be quite convincing!"

"Hmf." Bell floated away haughtily. Fan shook his head; he wouldn't be surprised if II Nickel had been hiding somewhere, watching the whole game and laughing.

Carefully putting everything back inside the box, he picked up his umbrella and walked out from underneath the gazebo — a recent addition to the plains of South Goiky. It was still raining, and had been doing so since the previous day. While the sky had been slowly continuing to darken, the rain wasn't a downpour, but it was enough to force the more water-vulnerable contestants to constantly hold an umbrella over their head. They'd complained, so Four had created a wooden gazebo, placing it nearby the patio. It was pretty popular.

Thinking of Four, where IS he? wondered Fan. I haven't seen him for over an hour, but he's usually always in the same spot...

Spotting X nearby, he changed his direction and strolled over, careful to avoid the bigger puddles. "Hey, X?" he asked. "Do you happen to know where Four is?"

X nodded. "He went to visit the Equation Playground an hour and a half ago. He told me something was wrong, but not what exactly. I hope he's ok..."

"Really? He said something was wrong? I thought he was unshakable. Any ideas on what-"

He was promptly cut off by a bright flash. Looking up, he witnessed a ball of fire break through the rain clouds and hurtle towards Earth. It touched down in the center of the field, causing the ground to shake and creating a crater half a dozen feet deep. Several contestants nearby scrambled to get away.

While Fan simply gaped, X cheered, "Yay! Four's back!" and skipped over to where the object had landed. He peered over the crater's edge. There, Four lay, tendrils of smoke floating away from his body. A small pool of water was already collecting under him. X slid down the crater's curve. "Four! Are you feeling better now?"

No response. Four was unmoving.

X's smile melted. "Four?"

Behind him, various other objects crept to the edge of the crater to watch. He gently poked his friend. The blue algebralien twitched, before slowly rising to one knee, but keeping his head hung low and face hidden. "What happened, Four?" questioned X, beginning to get concerned. "Did Seven figure out what was wrong?"

"...I... killed them," came the answer in a strained voice.

A chill went down X's spine. "...Four?"

Four looked up and met X's eyes with his own glowing red eyes. The next reply was in a voice completely unlike his. "I̴̗͐ ̷̼̀k̶̜̀i̸̬͋l̷̩̉l̶͖͊e̵̪͆d̴̥̈́ ̵̫͋ť̸̬h̸̬͗e̸͎̒ṃ̶̾ ̸͗͜a̵̱͘l̷̡̆l̴̲͊.̸͚̎"

Then, faster than anyone could react, he drew his fist back and punched X in the face so hard that the variable flew backwards through the air, slamming into Knife — who was unfortunate enough to be directly behind him on the crater edge — and sending both objects skidding through the burnt grass. Four opened his mouth to emit an awful, horrific screech that was ten times worse than his normal one, resembling a thousand fingernails grating on a thousand chalkboards. It echoed across the field, causing any objects who had hands to clap them over their ears, and any that didn't to writhe in pain.

Through all the noise, though, someone managed to yell, "RUN!!"

And all hell broke loose. Most of the objects gathered around the crater's edge managed to scurry away just before Four leapt into the air. He came down and crushed the two unlucky enough to still be dazed by the screech, before shooting zappies at those fleeing.

Finally snapping out of his shock, Fan broke into a sprint and dived into a bush before Four could spot him. He found Fries already hiding inside. "What happened?" Fries barked.

"I- I don't know. I wasn't close enough to see everything. One moment everything was fine, then the next..." Fan made a little explosion sound with his mouth. "Chaos."

They both peeked over the top of the bush to see Four pursuing various objects. Some had managed to find a hiding spot, but most were still attempting to run. Emphasis on 'attempting.' Four was faster than any of them; Needle alone was barely managing to keep out of his reach, but that was only because Four slowed down slightly whenever catching someone else.

Fan counted on his fingers. "II Nickel, Pillow, Bell, Saw, Trophy... I think? Oop, there goes Flower."

"We're dropping like flies..." muttered Fries.

"And he even caught up to Needle!" Fan clapped his hands to his head. "Is nothing sacred??"

"Wait, is that Woody over there?"

Fan followed Fries' pointing finger to see the aforementioned balsa slab slowly stepping towards Four, who had temporarily paused in his rampage. The numeral eyed him curiously. "What is he doing? He's going to get himself killed!"

Two dozen feet away from Four, Woody stopped. "Hey!" he called out, only the slightest timbre of nervousness present in his voice. "Stahp! Stahp this nowh!"

Four snorted derisively, before lifting one hand. His fingers sparkled, and Fan suddenly realized what Woody's plan might be. "Come on, Woody," he whispered. "Tell me you remember..."

Taking aim, the algebralien shot a beam of deadly zappies directly towards Woody. Fan and Fries gasped involuntarily, but at the last second, the balsa slab whipped out his precious emerald from behind his back and thrust it in front of him. The green gem easily absorbed the electricity, protecting Woody from harm. "YES!!" Fan whooped, pumping his fist. "I KNEW it!!"

"Knew what?" Fries looked back and forth between him and Woody. "How is his emerald saving him? And how did you know it'd... oh, yeah, you're the BFDI geek."

"Woody found out in the thunderstorm contest that his emerald can absorb electricity, and even propel it back if he wants it to! He obliterated A Better Name Than That and most of iance with it!"

"He what?"

As they talked, the zappies continued. Seeing that nothing was happening, Four raised his other hand and added a second barrage, but Woody stood his ground. In fact, he actually began to take a few steps closer, making the numeral growl. By this point, everyone else had found some sort of hiding spot, but several others could be seen peeking out of bushes or behind lava-scorched trees to watch the light show.

Four pushed harder, pouring all his power into the zappies, but Woody pushed equally hard, not faltering once in his step. His emerald was beginning to vibrate, the jewel still somehow soaking in every last joule of energy Four had to give.

(A/N: haha, a jewel filled with joules)

"This can't possibly last much longer." Fries shook his head. "Even if Woody reaches Four, then what? Four will just... kill him normally."

Fan grabbed Fries' shoulders and roughly directed his gaze elsewhere. "Unless it's just a distraction! Look!"

He looked, and saw Donut emerge from behind a tree and dash towards Four from behind at top speed. "How's he going to help?"

"Don't you remember??" Still gripping Fries' shoulders, Fan turned him again so they were staring at each other. "Come on, what happened in episode six?"

"Episode six... oh!" Fries felt like slapping himself. "Of course! Four's a four, and Donut's basically a zero."

"And four times zero..."

"Is zero!!" they finished simultaneously.

Now hoping for the best, both of them turned back towards the light show just in time to see Donut lunge at Four. Somehow, the numeral realized he was there and whirled around, zappies forgotten, but it was too late to stop the pastry. They collided, and after a bright flash, Donut lay on the grass, Four-less.

"WOOHOOOO!!" Fan and Fries cheered, high-fiving triumphantly. Across the field, other objects began to step away from their hiding places, smiles on their faces.

Then Donut pushed himself up, and everyone saw that his eyes were glowing red. Fan yelped. "Oh, we're stupid!" He slapped his forehead. "We're so stupid! He still has the factor of Four within him!"

Those previously visible a moment ago immediately turned around and scrambled to get back to their safe havens, which meant that only Fries and Fan saw what came next. "Look!" Fries pointed at Woody, who was fumbling with his gem. It was shaking wildly and glowing brightly from the inside. Who knows how much energy it had absorbed?

Too much, was the answer. As they watched, a large crack split open, allowing thin tendrils of electrical charge to shoot out from within. The gem cracked again in another spot, then a third time,

and then

it

s h a t t e r e d

and released all of its pent-up energy in a single, devastating blast.

Now, as previously mentioned, Fan and Fries were the only ones looking in Woody's direction when the emerald burst. Fan happened to blink at the exact moment of combustion, but the light from the explosion was still bright enough to shine though his eyelids and make him instinctively raise his hands for protection. He would be seeing spots for several minutes afterwards.

Fries wasn't so lucky.

His eyes were wide open, so the flash that came from the discharge of energy seared deep into his retinas, instantly and efficiently blinding him before he even had the chance to blink in surprise. The pain came a second later, and he automatically cried out, stumbling backwards in shock before passing out cold from sheer agony.

Having avoided this with his incredibly lucky blink, Fan was able to witness the shock wave that came after. It resembled an EMP, and essentially was exactly that in all practicality; a massive hemisphere of crackling electricity spreading outwards from ground zero at a lightning-fast speed. It covered the entire field of burnt grass in less than two seconds before dissipating, and while it only spent about a millisecond passing through Fan, it was still enough to make him feel sick to his stomach for the next few minutes. He could only imagine how Microphone felt.

Cautiously, he peeked out from the bush again and surveyed the area. The emerald was nothing but glimmering dust, and poor Woody had been utterly annihilated; only the bottom half of his legs remained, standing straight up in the middle of a patch of blackened grass like something from a cartoon. As for Donut...

Fan breathed a sigh of relief when he saw Donut's body lying on the ground. He hadn't even realized he'd been holding in a breath. "Well, at least that problem's finally dealt with... whatever it was."

Never tempt fate. Donut twitched and slowly began to stand up. "Oh, for CRYING out loud!!" shrieked Fan incredulously.

Then a ship fell from the sky and landed on Donut, killing him instantly.

that ending may seem a bit abrupt but I swear I can explain lmao

there was a comment thread on one of the chapters in my BFB Hunger Games story...



yeah