Eraser, however, didn't share the sentiment.
"Why would you wanna be friends with Woody?" He asked, unimpressed, before Flower yelped as he stepped right on the cake... not unlike what she did to Bubble. "Don't think I forgot you knocking me off in that first challenge. I'm giving it a zero."
Great. Guess she should have seen that coming. Thankfully, the dice picked up her score a bit with a six, making her score another fifteen.
After Golf Ball and Leafy stepped up, Match came up next, handing cupcakes to each of the three judges (the die wouldn't partake, of course, due to the fact it was on a diet).
"Cupcakes?" The Announcer asked. Each one had a different design. One was pure white, with a little black gumdrop at the top, making it look like an eye. "Very Halloweeny, but how does it taste?"
Announcer popped it into his body. "Wow! This is really good. I give it a ten."
While Announcer didn't notice the pattern, Eraser did. The first was an eye, the second was red with yellow letters spelling out "H A T E", and the third was yellow with a pink rim around it, mimicking Flower's head...
So, in other words, 'I hate Flower'. Yep, even an airhead like Eraser could put that puzzle together.
"I give it a ten!" Eraser said, taking a bite out of the middle cupcake. "Because I agree."
With a five from the die, Match suddenly had the highest score so far, with twenty-five in total.
After Needle and Pen came Pencil, who was holding her own cupcake tray. Each one was decorated simplistically with yellows and pinks, no fancy patterns to be seen.
"Cupcakes again?" Announcer asked. "Didn't we just do this?"
"Well, yeah... but this is my mom 's recipe." Pencil gave a nervous smile in hopes that the Announcer would take mercy on her, but he didn't budge as he took a bite.
"These are good, but they'll only be getting a seven, since it's not original."
"And there's no hidden message on these..." Eraser added, turning his own cupcake around some. "That's a five for me."
The dice also gave her a less-than-optimal two.
"You can't be serious!" Pencil huffed. She took the time to use her own family recipe, and this was all she got for...?
She then blinked as Eraser's statement finally clicked for her, her eyes widening a bit. "Wait... what secret message? Wh-what did Match's cupcakes say...?"
"Shush." Announcer shut that conversation down. Pencil just huffed again, folding her arms as she walked away. At this rate, she was gonna get tired of having these talks with Match... on one hand, it wasn't like it was her fault her name came first, but she baked the cupcakes, she should get the proper credit! She'd also have to ask about that 'secret message'...
Pin would come up next, showing off her pink Eraser cake, his name written in candy lettering at the base as well.
"That's a unique cake." Announcer noted, before slicing off a bit of Eraser's foot to taste. 'Deja vu again. Didn't we just have a strawberry cake from Leafy?"
"Yeah, but this one is in the shape of Eraser ." Pin noted.
"I'll give you points for the shape, but that's it. Six out of ten."
Eraser, on the other hand, looked far less than impressed.
"Nice try, Pin, but I can't be bought." Pin's smile disappeared hearing that. "Two out of ten. I don't even like strawberries."
Flower couldn't help but remember how she absolutely bought that 'Flower Cake' the first time around. Man, even Eraser had his ego more in control than she did.
Crud, there went that plan. The dice didn't help either, giving her a three.
-----
"Zero out of ten."
"Zero!" Eraser added.
The die also presented an entirely-blank face for the second time, all in response to the burnt cake Woody presented.
"Okay, we're done. Let's compare."
TV appeared once again to show everyone the collected scores.
As expected, Match had the highest total with 'her' cupcakes and got the win token, while Woody and Golf Ball both had big old goose eggs.
"Now let's organize by teams, to see who won."
Unfortunately, the two zeroes on the same team added up quite a bit, leaving them with over a thirty point disadvantage.
"So I guess the Grapes win this half of the contest. In the second half, each team will eat a hundred chocolate balls."
Wait, since when did these challenges come in halves? That never happened before. Flower didn't even remember that happening in the few challenges she did after! It didn't matter in the end, though, since the Grapes managed to win that part too. Not much that could have helped though, given how the Announcer only put three members from each time up to this. Fantastic... they'd be up for elimination again, evening the teams once more. At least Flower still wasn't the only one with a target on her back, but she wasn't sure how long that'd last.
-----
Flower made her way back to the alliance van the moment the Announcer had left the contestants alone. She was really anxious given everything that happened - especially the part where she burned her poor cake - and wanted to try and sleep it off, despite it currently only being 7 PM. Unfortunately for her, though, the van wasn't empty - Pencil was resting her arms against the bent-up steering wheel, looking like she was deep in contemplation.
"Are you feeling okay?" Flower asked, sitting in the back of the van.
"Stupid announcer...stupid alphabetical order..." Pencil muttered, "I put so much time and care into that recipe. I even tried writing the whole thing down from memory. Those cupcakes mean a lot to me, you know..." She turned around, and Flower became acutely aware of the frustrated tears building in her eyes. "But my name doesn't come first, so guess what? I'm stuck with nothing !'
"I know how you feel." Flower nodded. Truth be told, she knew exactly what it was like to pour your heart out into something, doing everything you could to make it great... and then have it flop, crash and burn before your very eyes. She was thinking back to stuff like her fashion line, her business... her nonexistent chances of making friends way back when.
"Like, they came from the same batch and everything! The same treats should get the same score! The only thing that was different was the color of the icing, and she got a win token for it!"
Pencil paused. "And now... apparently Match left some kinda secret message on her cupcakes, so now I've gotta ask her about that too! Ugh, I'm getting tired of this..." She let her head slump forward into the steering wheel, feeling thankful that the van was off so she wouldn't be greeted with the lovely sound of a blaring horn.
"You're not, like...mad at Match, are you?"
That question snapped Pencil out of her thoughts. "...of course not. Me and Match, we're BFFs! We're inseparable! This was more that dumb Announcer's fault for going alphabetical."
Flower noted the tone - it seemed Pencil was trying to convince herself of that as much as she was Flower. "Seems you really value that friendship, huh?"
"Yeah, duh." Pencil said. "I mean... you were there for our talk, right? She's been acting really weird since you joined the alliance, but still, she's my best friend since we were like... uh, super young? I don't remember how old we were, but still... she's like the sister I never had." She hesitated for a moment. " That's why her being so secretive and unclear bothers me so much, plus... wh-why did she even set your test on fire?! I guess the Spongy Cake thing was an accident, yeah, but I heard a lot of what she had to say to you, and that was, like... directly malicious."
"I mean... I was directly malicious." Flower brought up.
"But not now ." Pencil said.
"But that doesn't mean it never happened."
Pencil paused at that, her eyes widening.
"I did really nasty stuff, I get why she doesn't wanna forgive me. I'm trying to get better, yeah, but that doesn't mean she has to just... like me now."
"Well, she could stand to be a bit more supportive, I guess." Pencil sighed, giving Flower a defeated shrug. "This isn't like her... none of this is like her."
Flower looked down before Pencil tried to give her a reassuring smile. "Just know, while you're on this alliance, we're... we're fine, okay, Flower?"
"Thanks, Pencil." Flower smiled back, those words being a bit more encouraging. Despite everything, between Pencil and Woody, just because some wouldn't forget, didn't mean she was stuck dealing with this alone. Before trying to turn in to sleep again, Flower asked, "How did you and Match become such close friends, though? If you... don't mind me asking."
"Oh yeah, that's a fun little story." Pencil looked like she was going to explain further... before a low rumbling snapped her out of her thoughts again.
Looking out the broken windows, Pencil and Flower noticed something in the sky. At first, it looked like the moon... but there wasn't a full moon scheduled tonight...and the moon never looked that big, either. It kept getting bigger and bigger, too, and it was causing the ground to shake.
The two stepped out of the van to get a better look. It wasn't long before it was eclipsing the entire sky in pure yellow, winds picking up quite a bit. While Flower watched in complete silence, Pencil mouthed a single word.
" Needy ."
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