I flutter my eyes open to meet the gleaming light of the sunrise. It's so peaceful and rustic, this beautiful setting; this amazing view of the orange-tinted skies of early dawn seems to make me forget about my problems. I move over to sit by the sandy shore, leaning back on the rock I was sleeping by last night, and I gaze at the sparkly ocean waves crashing lightly on the sandy shore.

A few hours later, the sun is way higher up in the sky, beaming brightly down on the humble island field of Goiky. Not long after, Leafy awakes from her sleep, stretching gently with a quiet yawn.

"Good morning, Yogurt Cup! Are you ready to go?

 Turning towards her, I nod.

"Good. We should get some breakfast first, though. Can't go traveling on an empty stomach, you know."

"You're right... but I won't be needing any. Ever since I found out what I am from looking in the ocean yesterday, I also found that as a food item, I don't need to eat," I explain.

"OK. More for me, then!" Leafy happily exclaims.

I chuckle lightly at her response as she then pulls some items out of the nearby bush she had rested by last night. Curious as to what they might be, I take a closer look. The items are a strange sight, being round and purple.

"These are yoyleberries. They're my favorite snack, and they turn you into metal temporarily when you eat one. Want one?"

"...Sure."

I hesitantly take the yoyleberry and place it in my mouth.

It tastes quite tangy and sweet, and I feel the cold of the metal taking over my body for the first time.

"Whoa... this is so cool...", I quietly murmur.

"I know! The metal effect lasts for about an hour per yoyleberry that you eat, and even though it makes you vulnerable to heat, especially open flames, yoylemetal is unusually light, so you might notice that you move faster and have more agility with its effect on your body."

Curious to try out this new physical ability, I get up and start running around. Leafy is right; I do feel faster and more agile. I run faster and more wildly, enjoying how great it feels.

"Come on, Leafy! Let's go!" Finishing off the last of her yoyleberries, she runs after me.

"Wait up, I'm coming!", Leafy yells.

This feels so wonderful...

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Roughly an hour of random running later, we begin to slow down as the last of our stamina disappears along with the metal effect on our bodies.

"Phew!... That was fun!", I note, panting for air.

" Yeah, it-...", Leafy tiredly replies before abruptly stopping to notice something up ahead.

"...Oh, no... it's the alliance."

"What's the 'alliance'? And what's wrong with it?", I confusedly ask.

"Remember that confrontation with Ice Cube we had yesterday? When she said she was going to tell everyone in her alliance about you, these are the objects she was talking about. They're called the alliance because they made a pact to get ahead in BFDI, but now that it's over, I'm not sure why they still bother to call themselves that. They're just a plain old group of friends now," Leafy explains, being quiet enough that they don't hear her.

I look back over at the group, who seem to be playing a game of patty-cake, then back at Leafy.

"I knew we were right not to worry about Ice Cube. This is what she calls menacing? That bubble looks like they might be nice, even."

"That's a pretty good guess, actually. Even though I don't know Bubble all that well, she's one of the nicest objects here in Goiky. Not sure how they got her in that alliance, but there had been some instances during BFDI where she seemed reluctant to follow their orders."

"Hmm... that's good to know. What about the pencil and the match?" Leafy's calm expression morphs into a cold grimace, likely at my mention of the two objects.

"Pencil and Match are a couple of brats. Pencil used to be fairly nice early in BFDI, but she quickly showed herself to pretty selfish and mean later on. Match just had a horrible personality from the start. You've already seen Ice Cube, but she's so annoying and whiny, I'd avoid those 3 if I were-"

"...Um... Leafy?", I whimper, looking up. "I think we have to get out of here now."

Seeing the 4 objects turn toward us and begin to get up makes me extremely anxious. If Leafy and I don't do something soon, they'll tear us into bloody pieces, and remembering what Leafy told me about that 'Flower' girl destroying all the recovery centers, we wouldn't be coming back to life. Knowing this, we only have one option to take.

Even though Leafy's descriptions of the 4 suggested that they were weak and almost completely harmless physically speaking, we are clearly outnumbered 2 to 4, and from those statistics, I don't trust in our chances of surviving the ordeal as opposed to being violently murdered by these angry objects. 

After all, who knows what horrible tricks they might have up their sleeves?

"We need to leave , Leafy! Follow me and run as FAST as you can!", I yell; no sense in whispering anymore when the objects we were gossiping about moments earlier had already heard us.

"All right, all right, I'm coming over!", Leafy yells back.

Holding her hand, I dash with her at full speed across the bright green plains, hoping to escape the wrath of the angry alliance members.

Never have I EVER been so afraid.

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"Come back here, idiot! Right NOW!"

"No. I don't want to be forced to do things for you anymore."

"I said NOW!!"

"Leave me alone

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I suddenly stop dead in my tracks and let go of Leafy's hand for some time, before eventually snapping out of another terrifying flashback. I don't even care that that the alliance has now caught up with us.

"Yogurt Cup, why did you stop? Now we might get... oh, no, did you have another one of those vision things?" Leafy realizes what must've happened and grows even more afraid.

"The alliance's chasing us was such a terrifying situation that I think it indirectly helped me to uncover another possible memory..." I quietly mumble to her.

I don't know why, but this vision and the one I'd seen before seem a bit familiar to me... but I have no way to prove that yet.

Regardless, the main problem that stands in the way is having to confront the members of the dreaded 'alliance': Pencil, Match, Bubble, and Ice Cube.

They glare at us with angry expressions before Ice Cube decides to talk.

"I hope you're ready to take back what you said about us! I already told my whole alliance about you, and now you'll be just like Leafy: a loser with no friends that everyone hates!", she squeaks in her annoying, whiny, high-pitched voice. Then I hear Pencil's voice for the first time.

"From everything Ice Cube, like, told us about you, you deserve all the hate you're gonna, like, get!", Match immediately following her up.

"Yeah, like, what she said!"

The alliance starts to make me really upset, and I feel my face heating up with boiling anger, but then Bubble starts to talk.

"Um... Oi'd loike to beloive that 'Yogurt Cup' is a voiry koind and well-moining indivi-OW! Sorry...", Bubble whimpers as Pencil hits her on her arm, almost popping her; it looked like a hard hit, too.

Leafy had told me that based off of her personal accounts of seeing Bubble being verbally and sometimes even physically abused by her fellow alliance members, she suspected that Bubble was forced into this alliance and didn't actually want to be a part of it, and now I can at least a little more confidently say that Leafy's speculation is true.

Because of this, as well as the knowledge that Bubble is kind unlike the rest of the alliance, I grow so upset that I snap at the alliance members, but making sure not to say anything mean about Bubble, knowing that she doesn't deserve it.

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"So, what Leafy told me about you guys really true, huh? When she said that Pencil changed from an ambitious nice girl to a rotten brat, that Match was always horrible and mean, that Ice Cube is whiny, annoying and pathetic, but that Bubble is innocent and kind, but being led under the wrong influence, she meant every word! Leafy may not be the most popular object right now, but she has a heart unlike you 3, and when she's just trying to be my friend, you 3 idiots find it necessary to come along and ruin it? It's no WONDER Bubble is so afraid of you guys!", I scream.

Absolutely dumbfounded by my furious outburst, Bubble stares wide-eyed at me with an impressed look, while Pencil, Match and Ice Cube all look away from me, visibly embarrassed. Finally, Pencil manages to mumble a quiet "Yeah, like, whatever" before she, Match and Ice Cube sheepishly walk away.

Bubble, however, stays and gives me a tight hug.

"Thoink you SO much! I don't thoink I would ever be oible to stand up to those joirks. Oi'd been a pushoiver far too long, letting moiself be manipuloited by that alloiance, but you hoilped me free moiself, and for that, Oi will be foroiver groitful." Bubble cheers in her peculiar accent before letting me go.

"No problem, Bubble. I bet you could use real friends after all, and Leafy and I will always be happy to be yours. Where are you gonna go now?"

"Well, Oi'm not shoire exoictly where Oi'll go, now that Oi've proibably been kicked out of the alloiance foroiver, but Oi'll see you around, Yoigurt Cup."

Bubble waves me goodbye as she leaves, and I turn to Leafy.

"Well, today was pretty eventful so far. What do we do now?"

Looking to the sky, she stays silent for a few moments before answering me.

"Tell me about that vision you had. I think I'm beginning to see a pattern."

animatic_fanatic