Flower hesitantly made her way through the woods, checking over her shoulder every now and again to make sure she wasn't being followed. She had forgotten how she ended up in the forest or why she was there at all, but neither question mattered as much as how she was going to get out. There was a nasty chill blowing through the place, but Flower had at least thought to grab one of her extra-fashionable sweaters before venturing out here. She was limping, horribly out of breath, and would probably have fallen over to take a rest were she not so worried of who - or what - was in store for her around here.

Every few seconds, she could hear a twig break or a bush rustle. She wasn't alone here, and she knew it all-too-well. She had heard the horror stories of 'Evil Leafy' from the people who competed in BFDIA, and she'd rather not stick around to see if those stories were true. In a state of panic, she'd try to run, but her body wouldn't let her. She didn't have the energy in her for anything more than an unsteady amble. Every time she tried to move faster, she could hear whatever was with her getting closer, louder. She didn't even see what it was... until it was standing right behind her.

"What do you think you're doing?"

Flower turned around to see... herself? Maybe her younger self, at least, since there was quite a noticeable height difference between them. She was looking up at her present self with a very angry glare on her face, her arms folded.

"What happened to you? Are you seriously what I'm gonna grow up to be?"

"J-just leave me alone." She responded firmly, trying to match her younger's self's angry tone even with her shaky voice. "I'm not going to be you anymore."

"Oh? And what are you gonna be instead, huh ? Some stupid suck-up selling ugly sweaters?"

Flower was taken aback by that. Was she really going to take that from her younger self? One who never even touched a sewing needle before?!

"You think they're just gonna like you more because you're being all nice to them?" Younger Flower kept up the attack. "They're gonna push you aside like you're nothing. You only get people to do what you want when you can intimidate them!"

"Oh, look how well that worked for you, first boot !" Flower finally found the courage to yell back at her. "I actually got friends after I stopped doing that. I was about to win BFB!"

"Oh wow, you were gonna win a square . I'm sooo impressed." Younger Flower clapped slowly and sarcastically, much to her older self's frustration. "You could have made something with yourself and your dumb business, but you gave it up, didn't you? Just because it would 'hurt your friends' feelings!'"

"Shut up!" Flower growled.

"Hate me all you want, we both know you're still me. You'll always be me. Blocky even said so!"

"I said shut up!"

"Was framing Spongy with the test answers something a ' nice person ' would do? I don't think so!"

" SHUT THE PETAL UP !"

In a fit of rage, Flower would try and throw a punch at her younger self... only to be met with a loud metal clang. Her younger self was gone now. The forest was gone. The light was gone. She had punched a steel wall.

A wall on the inside of the TLC.

Flower immediately wished she was dealing with Evil Leafy or someone like that, starting to shake as she backed up against a corner of the wall and feeling herself slump down into a sitting position without her control. What the aphid was happening?!

Flower goes away!

Something flashed through her mind... that was their 'first comment', wasn't it? They had a whole song and dance over it... and it was a vote for her.

I vote Flower off.

There was another one! Every time Flower closed her eyes, she saw another vote.

I'm voting Flower because she's mean!!

Stop it! Come on! Why does she have to hear these?!

Flower!

Flower!

Flower!

"Stop it! Leave me alone, please !"

Flower! Flower! Flower! Flower!

"Flower!"

Flower finally jolted awake from her nightmare. As soon as her vision focused, she saw Pencil and Match, both looking down at her, concerned for her.

"Ugh..." Flower rubbed at her temples, trying to process everything that just happened. "What... time is it?"

"Like, six..." Pencil responded, before getting back to the matter at hand, "Jeez louise, what was that ?"

"Sorry, girls. I just had a bad dream." Flower muttered, slightly embarrassed.

"We could tell. You were freaking out, like, really bad." Match sighed. "Wanna talk about it?'

"I really don't." Flower muttered, still shuddering at the feeling of being stuck there. Not to mention, it was best not to leave anyone else with questions. That's when she noticed... "Hey, uh, where's Bubble?"

Pencil shrugged. "Popped. You kicked her in your sleep."

Oh... okay, that was another thing she was gonna have to apologize for. She couldn't let her past self win this petty little argument, though. She would be better. Someone was bound to notice, right?

-----

Flower, alongside a few of the other Cherries, gathered by the edge of the elimination area to watch it unfold. It wasn't like there was much else to do until the challenge started, at least, unless she was going to try her luck staying put in the FreeSmart Hunk-of-Junk Van.

"Oh, uh, Grapes..." The Announcer stuttered some. "I forgot to buy a cake, so I had to make something. It's a big, sliced chunk of ice."

The Grapes all recoiled in shock and disgust (and confusion on Ice Cube's part) as eight huge and heavy chunks of solid ice slammed down beside the Announcer with a heavy thud.

"Needle. You have a win token, would you like to use it now?"

"Yeah." She said enthusiastically, a large magnet appearing over her. As she was forced up, she watched her Win Token fall out of... somewhere on her body for the Speaker Box to collect.

"Now, at zero votes...they're all girls." The Announcer started, "Except for Needle and Teardrop."

The two of them frowned at that, while Pin, Leafy and Ice Cube all got suddenly hit by their respective ice chunks, the latter of the three shattering on impact with hers.

"Also at zero votes is Coiny."

"N-no cake for me..." Coiny tried to avoid the same fate as the girls, only to also get sent flying by the ice.

"Ha ha!" This turn of events amused Firey, at least.

"At half of a vote is Needle." The Announcer continued, Needle being thankfully thin enough to duck under her chunk of ice. "Not the best time to use a win token, but you do you."

Tennis Ball and Teardrop also got ice slices, having one vote a piece, so that left only two...

"What did I even do?" Snowball asked, parroting what he said the last time he was stuck in the final two.

"I don't know, maybe they just don't like you." The Announcer said. "But worry not. You're safe with four votes."

Snowball was the only one on his team strong enough to properly catch his ice chunk.

"So that means Spongy is eliminated, at five votes."

This came as a surprise to none of the team, given what they thought happened, as they watched the tosser appear under him. Thankfully, the Announcer really did have the time to test the tosser, as it sent the heavy contestant into the air, ready for the TLC.

"I'm so glad, he's gone, right Icey?" Needle asked, turning to her friend, only to not get a response. "Icey?"

Needle squinted a bit and realized... oh, that was the 'cake'. Ice Cube herself shattered from it, didn't she? Chalk the Announcer up to another person Ice Cube would want revenge on.

The Squishy Cherries had the lead again. Whether they could keep it, of course, remained to be seen.

"Each of you will bake a cake. I'll be one judge. Eraser, a previously eliminated contestant, could be our second. And the magical die of judgement will be our third."

Flower wasn't sure what was so special about the die... but she had heard something about it apparently rolling a zero and a fifteen somehow. How Announcer loaded the thing was anyone's guess.

She then took a look at the batches of ingredients her team had. Okay, there was some fairly normal stuff, like berries, sugar, milk, flour... It wasn't until she looked at some of the other bags that she got concerned. 'Boogers', 'arsenic' and 'chili' were all perfectly acceptable cake ingredients according to the Announcer, alongside a jar of pills clearly labeled 'cyanide'. Why they were here, Flower didn't want to know. Maybe they were there to punish anyone not paying attention to what they were putting in the cake? Regardless, she knew which bags to avoid.

This was another challenge Flower was familiar with, mainly because she had been stuck as a judge the first time around, but this was the first time she really saw what everyone was working with. To be honest, she never considered herself a chef - every cake she ever made simply involved cake mix, after all - but she did know the basics, at least. Flour, sugar, eggs, milk... they all went somewhere in it, then there was mixing involved... and then it went into an oven. Yeah, that sounded about right! Now she just needed to get the alliance to work with her.

"Look, it's Bubble." Pencil was particularly observant, pointing out Bubble's presence right after she stepped out of the Recovery Center again. "Remember? How she can't count to three ?"

"Oh yeah, she's really dumb." Match added onto it.

"Teens..." Flower muttered, seeming just as frustrated as Bubble was. She bit her tongue for now, though, since she had just patched things up with Match (or so she thought). It was probably best if she didn't immediately get on their bad sides again.

"Oi'm not dumb, oi just died befoire oi could get to three! One, two..."

A strawberry, popping out of seemingly nowhere, landed on Bubble and popped her... bad luck on her end.

"Oh yeah, she's really dumb." Match pointed out. Maybe it was best to remind these two there was a challenge happening.

"So what are you thinking for your cakes?" Flower asked, steering them back on course.

"Oh yeah..." Pencil thought for a second, forgetting about the whole thing for a moment, before a grin broke out on her face as she suddenly remembered something. "Match, remember that cheer-leading bake sale I did last year?"

"Oh, with those, like, cupcakes your mom made?"

"OMG, yeah. I think I still know how to make one of those!" Pencil laughed in delight. "And cupcakes take way less effort than a cake cake!"

Good, they were going to make something that wasn't strawberry cake... speaking of, why did so many contestants specifically decide to make strawberry cake? That was a question she didn't have to consider long, when she saw Leafy making a cake bigger than the entirety of the oven.

"Leafy, why are you making such a big cake?" Blocky thankfully asked that question for her, he and Pin watching as Leafy mixed up the huge pink mess.

"So if anyone is having trouble making a cake themselves, I can lend some!" she announced happily.

"So you'd do it for us, then?" Blocky then asked, the two boys exchanging smirks.

"Ummm..." Thankfully enough, Pin appeared behind the tub, answering that question for the worried Leafy.

"As if! You're on the other team! Stop being lazy and go...cake something yourselves!"

"Pin!" Leafy chastised, shocked at the sudden coldness, while Blocky just brushed it off.

"Whatever. I got a better idea for my cake anyways!"

As the two Cherries walked off, Pin turned to her alliance mate. "Leafy, you can't just help out the opposite team like that."

"I was gonna charge them for it anyway, but okay." Leafy muttered, looking down at the massive amount of cake mix... and yelping as she witnessed Pin dig her hands right into it. "Hey, what the stem , Pin?!"

"Hey, we're in an alliance, aren't we?" Pin asked, not exactly feeling sorry, before holding up a handful of pink glob and tossing it at the ground where it formed the shape of a parallelogram. "I needed strawberry anyways for an Eraser Cake . It's an easy ten points from him."

Leafy let out an annoyed huff, but Pin interrupted before she could get very many words out. "Alliance, remember?"

"Oh, yeah." Leafy decided to just let it go, even if she was still a little miffed. It'd be the 'nice thing' to do, after all.

Crud. So that's why there were so many strawberry cakes. That also meant Flower couldn't use the same cheat, but she didn't really have interest in cheesing the competition like that anyways. Back to gathering ingredients. Let's see, she had milk, sugar, flour, eggs, and... wait, where was the yeast? There were, like, forty bags of it earlier, right? Did someone use them all that fast? Oh well, she could do without them, she thought... well, she hoped . All she needed to do was mix this up, and...

Tap tap .

Flower looked over her shoulder to see Woody, who was holding a carton of eggs and shivering. Ovophobia, another item on the long list of phobias this poor piece of balsa wood had.

"Want some help cracking those, Woody?" She asked, getting a fearful nod back. It was easy enough, plus Woody was at least trusting her enough to ask for help on his own.

Flower carefully slid her cake into the oven alongside Woody's (poor guy also happened to have fournophobia) into a separate oven as well. They weren't the prettiest cakes in the world, but they should be a heck of a lot better than an ice cake. Now Flower could rest some... for another twenty minutes before her cake would be done, anyways. She really wasn't the best at keeping track of time, but it was only twenty minutes, right? Surely she could wait that long without completely forgetting about it.

"Hey, Flower. Want a cupcake?"

Flower was approached by the Cherries' alliance again. Pencil was donning a pair of oven mitts and holding out her fresh cupcakes, which she made a baker's dozen of - enough to share, thankfully.

"Oh yeah, sure." Flower carefully took one of the cupcakes and bit into it. Huh, these were good... really good. It made her wonder why Pencil originally took the lazy way out and just bought a five dollar cake from Leafy.

"What about you, Match?" Flower asked between bites. "What did you make?"

"Oh, I'm just gonna give the Announcer one of Pencil's cupcakes." Match put on a light smile. "We're gonna decorate them, like, a lil' bit differently, though."

And there was the laziness she knew Match so well for. Flower also looked over at Bubble, who had a Yoyleberry pie in her hands.

"Well, a pie is still technicoilly a cake, roight?" She was bending the rules slightly, but... yeah, the Announcer pretty much tended to do the same thing sometimes.

"Boop. Judging time." The Announcer, about thirty minutes later, called out, "Let's go in alphabetical order. So Blocky's up."

"Oh, you're gonna love my cake." Blocky promised, before dropping something on the ground in front of the Announcer. A half melted chunk of ice, with some frosting added on top.

"Wait, is this just the cake I used for today's Cake at Stake?"

"What? Nooooo..." Blocky lied. "Did your ice cake have frosting on it?"

The Announcer wasn't having it.

"Ice Cake isn't even a cake. I give it a zero."

"Man, that's a hilarious prank!" Eraser pointed out, sticking up for his friend. "That's a ten right there if I've ever seen one!"

Blocky and Eraser high fived at that. Suffice to say, he wasn't the most unbiased judge.

The die gave him a six, leaving Blocky's score at a sixteen.

Next up was Bubble, who showed off her pie.

"Pie isn't a cake." The Annnouncer said flatly, not buying into Bubble's tricks either.

"Then why did you use one for Coike at Stoike?"

"Do as I say, not as I do." The Announcer brushed it off. "But it's at least decently made. I'll give it a five out of ten."

"Pie is pie." Eraser pointed out, taking a bite out of it. "Yeah, I'll give it, like, a six?"

The die ended up giving her a four, leaving it just one point shy of 'Blocky's' Ice Cake.

"OMBB... oice got a better scoire?" Bubble just left it at that, if only because she really didn't know what else to say.

"Next one up is Coiny."

Coiny was next, and he presented... a lump of burnt dirt.

"Dirt isn't safe to eat, I will get a two." The Announcer explained.

"Can I vote negative?" Eraser would ask, seemingly even less impressed with the 'cake' in front of them.

Flower distinctly remembered voting it so high just to make Bubble feel bad. What had Coiny been thinking with this, though? ...for petal's sake, what had she been thinking?!

The Magical Die seemed to share their unenthusiasm as it also gave him a two, leaving Coiny's dirt cake with a score of four.

Then, it was Firey's turn.

"Baking without an oven?" Announcer asked. "A for effort."

Oven... wait...

Oh fertilizer.

Flower rushed back to her oven and opened it up, being met with a plume of smoke pouring out right into her face. Coughing, she looked past it at her cake. The edges were more than a little burnt, but... hadn't it only been sitting in there for, like, ten minutes too long? Maybe some parts were still edible. In her haste to pull it out of the oven to keep it from burning further, Flower forgot to put on any hand protection, yelping as she dropped the burnt cake and helplessly watching it splatter against the ground. Great, it was all ruined. All she was gonna be able to show the Announcer now was a pile of ash and mush. How the heck was she going to-

"Flahh-wahh?"

A panicking Flower whipped her head around to see Woody standing there, holding his cake in his hands... before he pushed it into hers.

"Flower's turn." The Announcer called her up. Flower looked back at Woody, who patted her on the back with a shy smile on his face.

"I... thanks, Woody." She nervously returned the wood block's smile as she approached the Announcer with the cake.

"Hm, that looks pretty good." The announcer notes, taking a slice of it. "Nine out of ten. I really like the decoration, too."

Flower decided to look down at the cake itself. On top of the cake were some crude little doodles in icing. There was an orange square next to a yellow circle, with splotches of pink icing spread haphazardly around it. Wait... that was supposed to be her, wasn't it? So the orange square must be himself. There was a word below it too... 'friend'. Flower felt her heart flutter. Huh, it seems that