It was floor 20 now, and god knows how long it had been since they started the descention downwards. All they knew is that it would all be done in another 2 floors. Just two more to go, surely nothing could go severely wrong in the span of just two simple floors — right? Right.

By now, most of the toons found themselves tired or with the odd scratch or soon-to-be bruise, but it wouldn't be too much of a problem considering they had the two healers there on the get go. .. though Cosmo was looking pretty sick from healing, and he wasn't sure how much he could heal before having to stop for a bit.

The elevator doors opened, toons starting to stumble or walk out of it.

"I HATE THIS!!!!"
Shrimpo announced loudly. Though, nobody seemed to disagree for once.

"I can't say I don't disagree."
Vee commented, followed by Shelly.

"I wouldn't say I hate it, but I definitely can't say I enjoy this either. ."

"WHY ARE YOU AGREEING WITH ME."

"Because you have a point. .?"
Sprout yawned without much care.

. . .

They all looked at each other with an awkward silence, debating on what to say, the silence broken up temporarily by the elevator doors closing behind them.

"Welll... I'm off-!"
Goob finally spoke amongst the quiet toons, scurrying off to find yet another set of twisteds.

"Carefulll—!"
Cosmo replied out of care, a muffled agreement and "don't worry 'bout meee!" Came from goob, who was now already much further off.

Soon enough, all of them began to find machines and any useful items, y'know, the normal things. Though despite everyone's strong will to go to their rooms and relax, things were moving rather slow due to tiredness.

Cosmo and sprout walked down a hallway beside each other, muttering whilst looking for any machines, though admittedly: it was always sprout who did them. Cosmo could never quite understand the technique to them, and frankly, neither did sprout. But out of the two he seemed to find it a little easier.

"Sssoo.. what are we making later?"
Sprout asked, curious.

"I don't actually knowww.. I mean do you wanna cook or bake?"

"Uoh good shout.. uuaaahh.. bake?"

"Well there's pastries, deser—"

"PASTRY!"

Cosmo blinked at sprouts sudden decision, snickering before laughing afterwards.

"Pastries it is then..!"

The two laughed it off before continuing to walk down the hallway.

Not too far off, Vee, Astro and Shelly were doing the exact same thing.

Vee listened to the conversation at hand whilst turning the valve round and round, beside her Shelly did the same thing on another extractor. Astro mostly just watched and talked, since realistically out of the three of them those two were much better at extracting.

"I mean.. ichors weird, maybe it's an electricity source for the building?"
Shelly replied from earlier conversation, her tone carried by a slight hum of thought.

"Maybee..?"
Astro responded.

"Welp... beats me! At least it gets us all out of our rooms for a while-!"
She tried to speak positively, her voice slightly cracking momentarily out of nerves.

Ding.
"And for what? To risk our lives?"
Vee replied as the extractor she was doing pinged in completion, the upper light flickering a bright green.

The three stared back and forth at each other, Shelly's extractor flickering green too.

"No offence Astro but your boyfriend's an ass. I don't get what you see in that guy."

"He's.. prickly.. but he's fine when—"

"When your you. He favourites you. And yeah, I get why."
Vee shrugged, though she didn't mean to come off as rude.

"... I won't.. deny that.."
Astro snickered awkwardly, patted on the shoulder by Vee who had walked up to her shortly after.

"It is what it is I guess. If he gives you any trouble thoug—"

"I know Vee, I know."
He patted her hand with his, not really minding having his arms out of his blanket in-front of these two.

Vee slightly glared in concern at Astro before looking back at Shelly, her gaze softening.

"Well we should head back, someone's on the last extractor."

She spoke with a stretch, starting to walk down the hallway.

"How DO you see all the extractors?"

"I'm a robot, dingbat."

"DINGBAT??"

Astro and Vee argued, Shelly laughing slightly as she caught up with them. The "argument," continued on and on as Shelly smiled at the both of them with care. She enjoyed both of their company, especially Vee's. She was pretty sure her heart skipped about 10 beats every-time she was around her, though it's not like she'd be very willing to admit that. Maybe to anyone but Vee for now.

Shelly thought to herself as she walked with them, looking at the pair and only really snapping back to reality when she was involved in this new topic of the "debate."

"Oh and what say you, shells?"
Astro joked, being overly dramatic.

"Hm? Oh! Aha— I'd have to go with both..!"

"BOTH!?"
The two yelled in shock, looking between each other.

"No. Nonono. Only one. You'll break the fabric of this universe if you pick both."
Again, Astro was being rather dramatic.

"But it's true! I like pancakes and waffles,"

"Whaaaaaat.."
Astro mumbled, vee still blinking and processing.

"Yep!"
Shelly smiled, the three infront of the elevator now.

The lights all collectively flickered red momentarily, a ding in the distance ringing out. The three stepped into the elevator, and slowly but surely so did the others.

The doors fell down, leaving behind a cold wasteland in its place.

Chatter filled the elevator once more, though oddly enough Goob didn't bother with socialising, going to sit down propped up against a wall, resting and watching the others.

'I shouldn't have stayed up so late..'
he thought to himself, face clearly showing a tired regret.

"Heeeyyaaa! How's the run going?"
Someone announced from the back of the elevator, the trapdoor now opened up to reveal a 6-petalled flower.

"It's going fine!"
Shelly replied, followed by a half agreement from the rest of the toons present.

"Great! Glad to hear it!"
He smiled, blinking at all of them as they continued to speak amongst themselves, side-eyeing Goob with slight confusion in his eyes. Goob himself though was too busy smiling at Shrimpo to notice him staring with slightly reddened eyes.

Dandy's attention was quickly turned to Astro's as he side-stepped infront of him, noticing the staring. Astro gave him a look. The kind that just screams:
'I know what you're thinking.'

Dandy slightly shuddered, awkwardly smiling as Astro came up to the counter.

"You're doing that stare again."

"What stare?"

"That one."

".... Noooo."

"Yeeesss."

".....okay maybe just a lit—"

"Dandy we talked about this."

"I know..! And I'm not gonna tamper with the run—!"

"Dandicus."

"I know! Sheesh..!"

They spoke mentally to each other, a rather fun but new part of Astro's abilities.

Astro only ever acted like this out of a want to protect the others, and even dandy from his own self. Or, well, at least.. to the best he could.

You see, He knows about dandy. And He has done for a long time. as expected, it's been slowly eating away at him, admittedly driving him around the bend. Well, if the bend had 5 harsh turns left right and centre.
Yet the problem was, he didn't want to snitch on dandy. He loved him, and he was sure dandy felt the same way, I mean it was clear that he did, it had been that way for over a year.

Then again, when Astro's not thinking straight he hints at things not being right in toons dreams, especially the mains.. or people with a high suspicion already. Needless to say, it's worked a little, but not enough, at least — not for now.

Astro looked back at the others, a sense of a sickening dread washing over himself.

This run may be over soon, and the descension of the elevator too — but this is only the beginning of the larger descension itself, the bigger picture:

The descension into madness.