(A/N: exposition time! ...this may take a few chapters.)

"Hey!" called out a new voice. All the objects turned towards a newly-opened vertical crack near the base of the UFO, where a faint light was shining from within. "The door's over here, but it's stuck!"

Everyone rushed over. Those with arms grabbed the left or right side of the door and heaved, managing to wrench it open completely after a moment of exertion. Nine egg-shaped beings immediately floated out, and most of the objects there stared in wonder. Although each egg had a zig-zag pattern on their shell, their color and shapes of the holes on their front were unique. Nestled inside said gaps were a number of glowing orbs that resembled eyes, while two more orbs hovered to the left and right of each shell as hands, detached and ethereal. And they all had their entire bottom section missing, where tiny droplets of energy flowed and eventually dissipated.

One egg stood out. It was larger and very purple — the only one with such a coloring. While all the others had four eyes at most, six orbs were inside this shell, and there was even a small crown made of light adorned upon their head. They were obviously the leader.

As the objects stared, the eggs stared back. They had seen anthropomorphic objects before, and they even recognized a couple of the ones there; they had simply never seen so many in one place before. As for the objects themselves, only three of them had seen the eggs before, but there was a fourth who thought something seemed familiar. However, she couldn't tell what.

After a few moments of back-and-forth staring, the only sound being the pattering of rain, someone finally stepped forward. "Hello again, Light Shimmers!" Test Tube greeted them. "Are you all okay? What happened? Why did your ship crash?"

The purple Shimmer — the Prime Shimmer, of course — looked directly at her and said, "We have some questions for you first. How long has that portal-" They pointed towards the vortex nearby, still covered by the door MePhone had generated in front of it a few days previously. "-been open for? How was it opened in the first place? Do you have any idea how dangerous opening a doorway to an unknown universe is? And..." They gestured at the crowd of other objects behind TT. "...can they be trusted?"

Their tone was cold and accusatory. Test Tube blinked uncomprehendingly, completely taken aback. "Um." She wasn't sure what to say at first. "Th-the portal's been open during the day, every day, since... April. It's... how is it dangerous? I've tried doing some research, b-but the fabric of reality shouldn't be affected by-"

"The fabric of reality isn't affected by traversing the multiverse," Prime interrupted. "In fact, any holes torn between universes heal themselves within seconds of being closed, so it's completely safe in that sense. The danger lies within the universes travelled to. Some realms have unspeakably horrific creatures and/or forces that would tear the spacetime of our universes to shreds, in the event that they are somehow able to get here. That's why any portal opening has to be strictly monitored... to ensure... that..."

They trailed off. Something had caught their attention. "You there!" they called out, pointing at someone behind Test Tube. "The pink parallelogram!"

The small crowd of objects parted to reveal a startled Eraser. "Who, me?"

"Yes, you! Come closer!"

Confused, he took a few steps forward. All of the Light Shimmers suddenly gasped simultaneously, their eye-orbs shrinking in surprise. "You... y-you have the light... inside you..." one of them stuttered.

"The..." Eraser simply blinked. "Huh?"

"They've got it, too!" another Shimmer called out.

Several bodies turned to see Golf Ball and Pencil approaching them, having finally returned from the factory. The latter suddenly felt self-conscious and absently shifted her scarf to make sure it covered her neck properly. "What have we got?" she asked. "Also... who the heck are you?"

Shaking their head, Prime decided to introduce themselves to the general crowd. "We are the collective ethereal light, known as the Prime Shimmer. We speak on behalf of us all, and our energy... our light. And we can see that you three-" They pointed to GB, Pencil, and Eraser in turn. "-have some of the light within you. It's faint, to be sure, but it's there."

Silence for a moment. "Y-you mean... your light?" Fan attempted to clarify. "Like, are they... part Shimmer?"

"Yes, it is our light. But as to why, how, or what that means, we cannot say. We have never seen any of these objects before today."

"What about me?" questioned Gelatin, pointing to himself. "I want some of your cool light!"

Prime shook their head. "You don't have any, and neither do any of the rest of you."

"Awwww..."

The gears in Golf Ball's mind were already turning. Only Pencil, Eraser, and I apparently have "the light..." what do we all have in common? It's not gender, or limb count. The tip of Pencil's head is essentially the same as Eraser's whole body, but I am not made of rubber in any way... ah, we're the only members of the original BFDI cast present. But how does that-

A horrible theory struck her. Fortunately, before she could continue pursuing that particular train of thought, Gaty stepped forwards. "I think Pencil was asking the right questions just now. You say you're the 'Prime Shimmer,' but what does that even mean? Where are you from? Why are you here?"

"Can we trust you?" piped up Lightning piped up.

"Why don't I have any light?" Gelatin whined.

More and more questions began to pile up from the crowd of objects, until one voice cut through all others. "Everyone, please, calm down."

All eyes turned to Pie, who didn't even need to raise her own words to speak. "There's a lot going on right now, and I can tell many of us are confused, so I have a proposal. The... Shimmers... don't trust us yet, but Test Tube seems to trust them, and I trust Test Tube. How about we explain everything that's happened since... was it August 1st when the portal stopped working?"

"Indeed it was," confirmed TT.

"Then, after we're done, the Shimmers can tell us why they're here." She looked at the Prime Shimmer. "If you decide you can trust us, of course."

Prime nodded. "We once did not trust Test Tube, but now she is our ally. We will hear you out."

Pie returned the nod, before stepping back. "The stage is yours, Test Tube."

Clearing her throat, TT spoke. "I suppose I should summarize how I created my portal first. Back in March, I accidentally transported several objects from this universe over to ours in an attempt to create a time machine. I scrapped the time machine idea, and with the help of several of these objects, we managed to create a stable doorway between our realms. Since then, we've-"

"But how?" Prime interrupted. "How was that doorway created?"

TT scratched her head. "Well... with a lot of messy machinery and convoluted code. But the only real way we could get it to function correctly was by using these incredible gems called multicrystals. There's one connected to the portal right... now..."

She faltered as she registered the shocked expressions the Shimmers wore. "Um..."

"Impossible," replied one of them. "How... how did you manage to even... acquire any?"

"That's indirectly my fault," a new voice chimed in. Everyone turned to look at Golf Ball as she stepped next to Test Tube. "A few years back, between seasons of BFDI, I found a cave full of multicrystals on my explorations. I had no idea what they were at the time, but I harvested several and brought them back to my factory. Some time later, Tennis Ball clumsily knocked over the box they were in. One of them cracked, and... well."

"I came across them in a field one day and put them in my lab, where they collected dust until GB and I accidentally discovered their use together," finished Test Tube.

The Shimmers still appeared too bewildered to properly respond. "Is that so hard to believe?" Naily asked them.

Prime shook their head to clear their thoughts. "There is some context about the multiverse you need to know before we can answer that." They took a deep breath, and as they began to explain, their energy orbs formed pictures on their face, visualizing what they were describing.

"There are many different ways of moving between universes, but by far the most powerful method of doing so is via a multicrystal. Raw, crystallized energy from the dawn of the multiverse itself, these gems are extraordinarily powerful... and extremely rare. Until today, us Shimmers believed that the only known source of multicrystals was on our home planet, unfathomably far below the surface. We have been mining this treasure for countless generations, guarding it and using it in some of our ships to traverse the multiverse."

"Then, several years ago, visitors arrived on our soil. They sought not the power of the crystals, but to harness our light. There was a struggle. Much of our planet was damaged; more importantly, however, two of our youth were... taken from us. We were unable to pursue properly, so instead, we pulled from the power of the crystals to create..."

They paused. "You created..." Lightning prompted.

"One moment. We are attempting to put this in terms that your minds can comprehend."

Before Lightning could process whether that was an insult or not, Prime answered. "Imagine the multiverse as a building. Each universe is a separate room, and they're all interconnected by different doorways. When you move from one universe to the next, you're simply opening the door from the room you're in and walking into another room." Once again, they used their energy orbs to visualize everything. "Now imagine that you've locked all the doors connected to your room, and you have the only key. Nobody can get in or out unless you unlock one of the doors."

Soap raised her hand. "So that's what you did with your multicrystals? You... 'locked' off your universe?"

"And multicrystals are the 'key,' since they're apparently 'the most powerful method' of moving between universes?" added Lightning. "Just clarifying."

The lines of energy on Prime's face reformed to create an unamused expression. "No. The situation is actually nothing like that. But it's impossible to understand without intricate knowledge of energy, quantum physics, and the multiverse as a whole, so we're going to just have to go with this analogy."

"Oh."

Fan silently remembered how much trouble he and ABNTT had with trying to open a portal to the IIverse, way back when he was stuck in Goiky. Blocky had originally just marked it off as bad luck, due to there being an infinite number of universes to explore, but now Fan figured it was because they didn't have any multicrystals in the factory at the time.

"Our point is," Prime went on, "we didn't know the full capabilities of our youth's abductors, so we..." They sighed. "We 'locked off' our universe, in the event that they had technology which allowed them to traverse the multiverse. Since then, we've been scouring the stars, searching for our lost children... and thanks to the help of Test Tube, Fan, and others, we finally found one five days ago."

There was a quiet, purring-like sound. Everyone turned towards the spaceship to see a minuscule green Shimmer shyly peeking from the doorway. But the moment they saw Test Tube and Fan, they hummed happily and shot over to them, racing in circles around their legs like an energetic puppy. "Hey, buddy!" Fan laughed. "It's good to see you again!"

Several objects went awwwww. "Although I hesitate to break this touching moment," Knife spoke up (and indeed, a smile was tugging at the corners of his mouth), "but that still doesn't really explain why you Shimmers came here."

"We discovered readings of residual portal energy on our energy log a few days ago," replied a blue Shimmer, "which we didn't notice originally because we were busy dealing with you objects."

"So you came to investigate it because of the multicrystals, and so on..."

Fan raised his hand. "Quick question. Is there any way that you entering our universe could have messed with the cell signal around here?"

One of the blue-shelled Shimmers sighed. "That would be our negligence to activate the Scramble Dampener. Whenever our ship moves between universes, it has a tendency to scramble signals nearby the exit point unless the device we mentioned is on. We knew we were forgetting something..."

"Alright," continued Knife, "but does that mean you've been here for a while? Why only appear now?"

The Shimmer gestured towards Prime, who took over. "Something... had us occupied. We still don't know exactly what it is, but..." They took a moment to think before continuing. "Normally, there's nothing between universes. As in, literally nothing. Empty space. Void, if you will. There's a few exceptions, but they are incredibly rare and situational. However, when we entered this universe, we passed through... something unnatural."

Pencil raised her hand. "You're saying that there's something between our universe and the IIverse?"

"Not exactly. It's more like..." they rolled their eyes. "Its like there's a curtain in any doorways that lead to this universe. No matter which universe you enter this one from, or where you go when you leave, you have to pass through that curtain. Now imagine the curtain is made of slime-"

"Gross!" cried Soap. "Why can't the curtain be made of water? Or sanitizer? Or why can't it just be a regular curtain?"

Exasperated, Prime sighed heavily. "This analogy is getting ridiculous. But we used slime specifically as an example because slime is sticky. No matter how quickly you pass through that curtain, you'll still have some stuck to yourself when you emerge. And it'll need to be cleaned off. The moment we passed through that 'curtain,' we could all feel it... leave something behind within us. Some form of virus, we believe. We were forced to stop everything and purge it from our beings, which was only just completed recently."

If they really have been in the sky for a few days, then that would explain the rain, Golf Ball thought to herself.

Naily chimed in. "How come we didn't see you at all?"

"Our ship has a cloaking device."

"Do you know anything about this 'curtain?'" wondered Test Tube, scratching her chin.

"Only in a vague sense. While we were purging this virus from ourselves, we used our ship's computers to perform a scan on this universe. The — ugh — 'curtain' appears to be some sort of dimension wrapped around this universe. It's definitely not natural, and the virus is intertwined with it. We cannot tell, however, whether the virus is originally part of this dimension, or if it took hold from a different outside source. We've never seen anything like this before..."

As the others discussed with the Shimmers what was going on, Ruby finally realized why the egg-shaped aliens felt so familiar to her. A nagging memory returned, filling her stomach with a dreadful sinking feeling. "Hey, uh... Shimmers? I... I don't think your multicrystal 'lock' actually... worked."

The conversation paused. All eyes turned towards her. "Yes, we... have already deduced that multicrystals don't only grow in our-"

"No, I mean... I think it specifically didn't stop someone from... taking your other youth to a different universe."

"...?"

"I have something to confess to you Shimmers. But first..." She glanced at Golf Ball. "Sorry in advance, GB, but for this, I need to mention Yoyle City."

Several BFB contestants lifted their eyebrows in surprise, GB included, but Pencil was the first to something. "No worries, Ruby. We... talked about IDFB a lot on the way here, and Golf Ball said it's okay now to put anything out in the open."

"Did-" Fan stared at her in shock. "Did she just say IDFB?"

Test Tube nudged him and whispered, "I'll explain everything later."

"You better!! IDFB as a whole is one of the biggest mysteries in BFDI!"

Ruby nodded at Pencil, before looking back at the Shimmers. "West of here is a city called Yoyle City. Us objects lived there for a few years before moving out a while back. Right before we moved out, my friend Book and I were inside a UFO that had crashed into the city, and-"

"Sorry??" interrupted one of the Shimmers.

Test Tube lifted a finger. "Again, I'll explain later."

"We were in the UFO," continued the gemstone, "and she saw something that she only told me about later. It was..." She hesitated. "She said it looked like... some sort of egg, with... I think she said pink stripes? But she wasn't sure."

The Shimmers exchanged several surprised glances before turning their intense gaze back to her. "Pink stripes... that's the color of our other lost youth!" Prime flew forward and seized Ruby's shoulders. "Quickly! This crashed spaceship — where exactly in the city is it?"

She gulped. "Well, that's the thing. Book also said that after she saw it, the egg was... it just..."

"What? They just WHAT??"

Ruby couldn't meet their eyes, choosing instead to stare at the muddy ground. "...it crumbled to dust," she muttered after a moment of tense silence.

It took a few moments for that to set in, which only made the realization all the more painful to witness. Prime abruptly let go of Ruby and floated back, their movements jagged and uneven. "N-no," they stuttered, their voice quavering. "You... you're lying. You must be lying!"

"I wish I was," Ruby said softly. She felt like she was going to die of sadness.

Without warning, every single Shimmer present began to emit a noise which could only be described as keening. A wail of deep sorrow for the unexpected loss of one of their own. It pierced the rain-filled sky and the hearts of everyone watching.

Three objects in particular were affected more than the rest. Golf Ball suddenly noticed the tears streaming down her face, and an ache deep, deep within herself. This was a complete surprise to her; she had never been one for strong emotions. Only twice in her entire life had she ever shed any tears, and the number of other occasions where feelings overcame her rational, logical mind could be counted on one hand.

But, as she struggled to prevent these unexpected emotions from temporarily consuming her, GB realized that the answer lay within something Prime had said earlier: you have the light within you. She had already deduced that the "collective ethereal light" which described the Light Shimmers meant they were some form of a collective consciousness. And if she really was part Shimmer as they had claimed, then that meant there was at least some small part of her that was connected to them and their emotions. She glanced around; nearby, it appeared that Pencil and Eraser were experiencing something similar.

A thought crossed her mind. This is the first time I've ever been affected by this. But I've never experienced such sorrow before. If our connection really IS weak... this must only be a fraction of what they're really feeling.

Nearly a full minute passed before the Shimmers began to settle down one by one. Their keening slowly dwindled away, until everything except the rain had gone silent. Nobody else spoke for a few additional seconds, allowing the faint rumble of distant thunder to be heard. As bad as things were, the worst was yet to come.

"Dadadadadadada. (Is this a poor time to interrupt?)"

The sound of an entirely new voice startled everyone. Most of the BFB contestants recognized it immediately, but the Shimmers were still on edge and whirled around towards the speaker aggressively. However, their aggression quickly switched to confusion, as the new person standing before them was not your typical object.

"Dora?" Gaty asked in complete bewilderment. "I- how- what are you doing here?"

"The last time anyone saw you was way back when you escaped the EXIT!" added Fan.

Test Tube coughed. "Actually, we encountered her last night in Yoyle City, but Gaty's question is still valid."

"You what??"

"Ooo!" exclaimed Gelatin, pointing next to Dora. "What's in there? Are those presents for us?"

The others suddenly noticed the large burlap sack lying on the ground next to Dora. As nobody knew the clone all that well, it was anyone's guess as to what was inside. But before she could answer, Prime interrupted. "Who... what is this creature? She does not resemble a normal object..."

"Dora's an enigma, and as for what she is..." Pencil shook her head. "That's a long and complicated story with no concrete answer."

"Dadadada. Dadadadadadadadadada. (Fear not, friends. I assure you that I can explain whatever is necessary to you all.)"

Remembering the language barrier, Gaty groaned. "Sorry, Dora, but we still have NO idea what you're saying. And Four's not here to translate, so-"

"Wait."

All eyes turned to Knife, who took a step forward. "Dora... can you say that again, but... a little bit slower?"

Dora complied. "I... I can understand her," Knife proclaimed after listening. "Roughly. She's speaking a variation of Spanish, I think."

"You speak Spanish?" questioned Pie.

"I understand it. In fact..." Knife squinted suspiciously at the brown-haired human as a realization came over him. "This 'Dora' bears an odd resemblance to a certain... TV character I happen to know of. Are we sure she's not from the IIverse?"

Lightning coughed. "You said you can understand her. Are you ever going to clarify what she's saying, orrrrr..."

"Oh, right. She said that she should be able to explain everything... more or less."

Several people perked up at that. "Well, one way or another," said Gaty, "I'm glad we finally have a proper way of understanding Dora. Four wasn't all that reliable, and I don't know if anyone will trust him again after today."

"And I wanna know what sort of goodies are waiting for us!" His curiosity finally overcoming his politeness, Gelatin slid forwards towards the sack that lay next to Dora. "Dadadadadadadada. (Careful, Gelatin. You may not like what you find inside there.)"

But her warning fell on deaf ears. Before Knife could relay anything, Gelatin had already opened the top of the sack and peeked inside. His expression quickly stiffened, and he let go of the canvas fabric, stumbling backwards in shock. "Wh... how... why is..." He couldn't even finish.

The others moved their gazes back and forth between the bewildered object and the sack, wondering what could possibly be in there. Dora spoke once more, forcing Knife to listen closely. "'Those of you from my universe, brace yourselves.' And..." He paused. "...Golf Ball, to you, she says... sorry? In advance. For what?"

GB blinked. This was the second time someone had apologized to her ahead of time for something. But before the globule could ponder what it was for, Dora reached down and ripped the bag open in one swift motion. Inside was the tied up and unconscious form of Emwhyaitch.



















hi

sorry for not uploading in almost four months 💀

my never-quite-explicitly-defined dead zone mechanics have finally caught up with me (if you're not understanding anything please PLEASE let me know so I can try to elaborate (unless it'll be explained in a future chapter))

if you didn't read my update in JJJ, then tl;dr, I'm in college now (which means less overall free time), and I'm also currently very invested in working on a different BFDI-related project (I think that's where all my motivation for this story went), but I WILL finish this book (eventually lol)

I don't usually shamelessly plug things that aren't my other Wattpad books, but if you're at all interested in Undertale, I'm attempting to recreate most of the game's soundtracks using BFDI-related melodies (this is the project I mentioned above). it's mainly just a passion project - I'm not doing it for views or popularity - but I would still really appreciate it if you checked some of the tracks out!

https://youtu.be/Mb_Z2oqQ5v8

^ this is the most recent one, all the others are on the same channel

hope I can get the next chapter out at a somewhat reasonable date. I also plan on actually doing the other thing I mentioned in JJJ soon lol

oh yeah, I've been reading basically all the new comments as they get posted and not a SINGLE person has complained about how long this chapter took. I already knew that 99% of you are awesome but I'm still really impressed (and grateful)

(side note: I also only just noticed that Overtaken has overtaken (haha) COSS in reads? and that IDFBC reached 40k reads?? and CO is at 50k??? THANK YOU)

love y'all <3