Me, writing: "Hey, this chapter is pretty serious and important to the plot. I should give it a title that reflects that!"

Also me:





The six objects tumbled through the deprecated garbage chute for a few seconds, bouncing off the metal walls repeatedly. Suddenly, they passed through a bright, white light and emerged into open air. Below, an unusual landscape rushed towards them.

Wind blew past, snatching the screams from the other object's mouths. Golf Ball and Tennis Ball locked eyes. As if reading each other's minds, they both knew exactly what to do.

Time seemed to slow. Twisting through the air, the science duo each detached a hand and fired them straight down, the compressed air allowing the hands to fall faster than gravity normally allowed. With her extended hand, GB grabbed Pie, who had fallen the furthest out of all of them. The wire connecting her hand and arm allowed Pencil and Yin-Yang to snatch it as it passed by them. Tennis Ball did the same, grabbing an unconscious Coiny and letting Lollipop to take ahold of his own wire. Both globules then looked up and fired their other hands towards the circular hole everyone fell out of. They latched onto the edge, wrapping their fingers around an equal amount of metal and nothingness. The lines pulled taut, threatening to dislodge the attached objects and causing everybody to swing around wildly. But after a moment, they settled.

All of this happened in the span of about five seconds.

Golf Ball allowed her breathing to slow, although the weight of six other objects hanging onto her made the task somewhat difficult. "That... that was close."

"A little too close for comfort," Taco grumbled.

"Hey, at least we no longer have to worry about Teardrop! Things could be worse."

"Don't jinx it," Cheesy warned.

Test Tube scoffed. "Please. As a woman of science, I can say with 100% confidence that there is no such thing as 'jinxing it.'"

The damaged wire connecting the arm and hand which allowed GB to dangle from the chute exit suddenly snapped.

She was barely able to register this before gravity took hold and promptly yanked her downwards. Tennis Ball's eyes widened in fear. "GOLF BALL!!" he shrieked at the top of his lungs.

Golf Ball tried to grab onto Tennis Ball's extended arm as she gained speed before remembering that she no longer had a left hand. As the screams of the other objects falling with her filled her ears, the scientist could do nothing more than watch Tennis Ball's face fade away while she plummeted down to the ground below.



(thanks again to Funfunny8 for making this awesome drawing)

She closed her eyes and waited for the inevitable. Surprisingly, it was a lot less painful than she imagined. (But still pretty painful.) Fortunately for Golf Ball, she landed on her backside, which helped her to avoid breaking any more limbs. She heard a weird sound between a squish and a soft crunch under her right as she hit the ground, just before a sudden wave of pain stunned her. But, a few seconds in, the pain ebbed slightly away and she realized that she was somehow still alive.

The scientist decided to lie there for a minute before sitting up. Shaken, she stood and tried to look around for the others that had fallen with her. She could see a leg poking out of a tree nearby. Yin-Yang and Pencil lay face-first on the ground next to each other nearby, and Test Tube was leaning against a steep rock wall, the fall having cracked her glass even more than before. Taco was nowhere to be seen.

Then she looked down. Oh, GB thought to herself. Taco's tortilla body sat flattened beneath her feet, utterly crushed by the fall. So that's what that sound was.

Dizzy, she stumbled over to the rock wall and flopped down next to Test Tube. "For the record," she wheezed, "it's nearly impossible to be 100% sure about something."

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

Book sighed as she set down her pencil. Eternal algebra class was, unsurprisingly, eternally boring. Although she was grateful for Four giving anyone who completed enough worksheets in one day the rest of the day off, there wasn't usually much else to do.

Two seats behind her, Foldy sat up with her completed worksheet in one foot and began to walk up to the empty desk at the front of her room. At about the same time, Liy also happened to get up to turn in a paper. They bumped into each other when reaching the desk. "Hey!" Foldy barked. "Watch your step!"

"Excuse me? I believe I was here first," Liy retorted. "You're the one overstepping."

Stapy cleared his throat from his seat. "Come on, guys. Just both turn your papers in and leave each other alone."

Foldy glared at him. "Are you seriously taking her side?"

"Wha- no! I'm not taking anybody's side! I'm just saying there's no need to fight."

"I dunno, Stapy." From next to the stapler, Firey Jr cracked his knuckles. "I think a fight would be fun to watch, or even participate in. Nothing ever happens in here but math!"

Tree briskly got up and walked over to Liy and Foldy, putting himself between them. "Nobody's going to be fighting today. Like Stapy said, there's no reason at all to-"

"Buzz off, Tree!" Liy shoved him aside. "We're not teammates anymore, so don't meddle in my affairs. This is between me, Foldy, and Stapy."

"Don't bring me back into this!"

"Who's side are you on right now, Stapy?" Foldy asked irrationally. "Cause from what I've seen, you and Liy haven't even seemed to notice each other since I've been in the EXIT, but you were always siding with me when I complained about her."

Liy smirked. "That's cause we're best friends now."

"You're WHAT?!"

"I-" Stapy smacked his forehead. "Liy, just because we worked together on one thing, doesn't make us 'besties.' Foldy, she's only trying to rile you up."

Foldy growled. "Well, it's working." Without any other warning, she tackled Liy, and the two went down in a rolling ball of limbs in a cartoon-esque fistfight. Stapy just facepalmed again.

"Goodness! Stop that, you two!" Loser exclaimed, before they promptly ran into him and accidentally knocked him over.

Their struggle continued, the two objects rolling around the EXIT while other Exitors chanted, "Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight!"

Stapy finally intervened. When Liy and Foldy reached his desk, he shoved himself in between them and did his best to push both back. "Stop! Both of you!"

"Shut up, Stapy!" Liy grabbed the heavy object and proceeded to suplex him over her head. He slammed into the chair behind him with a resounding BAM!

This completely flattened David, who happened to be sitting in said chair at the time. Liy put a hand over her mouth. "Oops." Stapy groaned and rolled over onto the floor.

"WHAT IN THE WORLD IS GOING ON HERE?!"

Everybody in the EXIT froze before looking to the door. Four stood there, hands on his hips and an angry expression painted on his face. He surveyed the damage done to the classroom - papers strewn everywhere, desks knocked over, and David flattened on the ground, quite dead.

He sighed. "For the love of algebra..."

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

Tennis Ball didn't relax until he had lowered both himself and the others to the ground, rushed over to where Golf Ball fell, and found her alive. "Thank the tennis ball factories!" He breathed out a massive sigh of relief. "I thought you had been killed for sure!"

Despite the situation, GB attempted a chuckle. "You know me. I'm way more stubborn than that."

"Where are the others?"

She pointed with her broken arm to where Pencil was helping Yin-Yang up about a dozen feet away. The leaves in the lone tree next to them rustled, and Pie promptly fell out of the branches, landing on her feet. "...what about Taco?" Barf Bag asked worriedly.

GB frowned. "She... broke my fall." Barf Bag covered her mouth. "Sorry..."

Not again, Lollipop groaned inwardly as she saw Taco's flattened corpse.

Pencil limped over, Yin-Yang following behind. "Well. Now that we're all safe and sound-"

"Most of us," Barf Bag corrected.

"-does anyone actually know where the heck we are??"

The others fell silent and finally took in their surroundings. With all the chaos, they hadn't had a chance to before, and what they saw surprised them. The landscape was completely monochromatic - everything was either white or some shade of gray. As for the land itself, it was nothing particularly special, but it looked quite serene. A gushing waterfall separated two large hills and spilled into a white river below. Spanning two ledges sticking out from the hills (where they stood now) was a thin wooden board, which occasionally got sprayed by the waterfall. Across the river, a small forest of gray stood unmoving. There appeared to be no form of object life anywhere nearby other than those who had just fallen out of the factory.

"...wow," Cheesy said. "This place is kinda beautiful in its own way."

"BUT WE STILL DON'T KNOW WHERE WE ARE!" Yang complained loudly.

"I knew that this place existed before, but I have no idea where we are in relation to the contesting grounds," replied Golf Ball.

Pie put her hand to her chin. "That's another good question. Why in the world does a garbage chute in your underground factory connect to this place?"

All eyes turned to the gray sphere. "Honestly, I'm not quite sure," she admitted. "I installed that chute in my factory between episodes of BFB, as junk was starting to pile up. One day, I threw a camera down there before realizing it was still functioning. I accessed the feed through my phone and saw... this place." She shook her head. "That's why it's a deprecated garbage chute. I don't know why or how it leads to here, but at the time, I was too freaked out to try and figure out why. So I boarded it up."

"Well, however it works, it saved our- most of our lives," Yin pointed out.

"You're welcome."

"WE NEVER-" Yin quickly slapped himself to cut Yang off.

TB stepped forward. "That doesn't solve our current problem, though. How are we supposed to get back when we have no set direction?"

"I may know where we are."

Everybody looked at Test Tube. "Emphasis on may," she added. "I was watching some episodes of BFB with Fan recently, at least the ones before we came into the picture. In some episodes, Roboty came here and seemed to... well, do nothing. But more importantly, Four travelled here to eliminate Roboty." She glanced at GB. "That mountain in the background of the BFB contesting grounds, that's roughly to the west, right?"

"Correct."

"Four went to the west past that. Therefore, we should travel east to get back."

"Brilliant!" Cheesy clapped his hands.

Barf Bag butted in. "Hold on. There's no sun in this weird place. How do we know which direction is east?"

The scientists glanced at each other, unable to answer this. Lollipop smacked her forehead. "You've got to be kidding me."

"Well, it shouldn't be too hard, right?" Pencil said. "Let's just pick a direction and start walking until we can see the sun ag-"

She stopped. Someone's phone was ringing.