Chapter Text
(The floor dings to indicate that they’re on floor 41 as of now)
“Hey maybe we should stop the run next floor?”
“What? I get that you’re tired, but Boxten we should still try to get to floor 45!!!”
This is a… conundrum indeed. Did Yatta not realize that in TWO floors they would have to face Twisted Dyle? Well of course not; this is THE Yatta. Wait- why is he even thinking about this in the first place? He should just say it straight up to her. They won’t be able to get through Time’s Up since they’re only a duo. Well Yatta would be able to get through the whole floor herself… probably. But that’s only IF she was by herself, he’d just drag her down.
…
A light but hardened hand lands on his shoulder.
“C’mon the elevators open and we need to do a lot of machines; get a move on!!!” She circles her free hand around rapidly, pointing at the space that lies ahead.
She looks tired as well. Is that even possible for her?
Tired.
That’s right he’s tired.
Astro.
He’s the one at fault for this.
…
He pauses as he exits the elevator. Why does he seem so angry? This… isn’t right- or is it? He can’t tell right from wrong anymore, not ever since those nightmares started…
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[PAST]
Footsteps echo through a hallway bringing with them a deathly silence. It’s nearly an empty void with only two chairs and a table in between them.
“Hey.” Someone says, it’s weird shouldn’t only he—Boxten—be there? Well guess not, this is a dream after all anything can happen.
Boxten walks to the chair across from the other one. He sits down barely making a sound. He notices that the thing that spoke was blurry; barely visible. He couldn’t make out who it was.
Suddenly a shot rings out.
Boxten is bleeding, he tries to gasp for air but his mouth overflows with ichor. It hurts all over, he can’t focus.
Where was he even shot?
Who shot him?
Why is this happening?
He can’t seem to wake up.
“Just endure for now someone can help you later.”
Nononononononononononononononononononononononononononononononononononononononononononononononononononononono. This *thing* didn’t understand. He needs immediate help- no he needs to wake up.
His eyes start watering—vision becoming increasingly blurry. He just wanted to wake up was that so much to ask? He doesn’t understand why he has these dreams, does Astro hate him?
A cold shiver runs down his spine. His whole situation is overwhelming as is! Ichor pools around his feet and chair… It almost looks like it’s going to… absorb him? But then-
“AGH-“ he drops down into the ichor pool. Complete darkness surrounds him leaving him mortified. He looks around trying to see anything, but to no avail. He slowly calms, closing his eyes and accepting his fate… But something within the ichor pool shifts, and then-
He wakes up.
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[PRESENT]
Boxten stands still right outside the elevator, too consumed in his thoughts.
He sighs deeply. Luckily only 3 twisteds roam floors 21 and above while those below have only 2. He wonders if it increases by one more after floor 50. A machine counter rings out signaling there’s 1/5 machines completed, this snaps him out of his daze.
He looks around nobody seems to be nearby, Yatta probably ran off to the end of the warehouse to use up her Veemote. Speaking of this floor—he HATES how big it is—it’s basically the exact same at the start and end, then just a bunch of space in the middle having a few crates lying around then and there.
Another machine counter goes off, gosh he really needs to go and do machines.
So he does.
He finished 2 and the last one is being done by Yatta. He wonders how he didn’t see the machine right beside the elevator before, but his thoughts get interrupted as a twisted slowly but surely approaches them. It was Teagan… he gets ready to run but Teagan instead takes interest in Yatta. Yatta immediately notices and starts to run away, leaving the machine at the brink of completion.
“BOXTEN JUST FINISH THE MACHINE!!! I’LL BE RIGHT BACK!!!” She yells as soon as she goes to turn a corner. He guesses it didn’t really matter if he did or didn’t finish the machine right now—she’s quite fast after all—she could make it to the elevator in the blink of an eye.
He finishes the machine and then the room rings out a loud buzz. This indicates the completion of all machines, shortly after that the elevator opens. He gets into it swiftly awaiting Yatta’s return.
A timer goes down on the elevator wall. Ticking softly, it reaches 15 seconds…
Huh? 15 seconds? Where’s Yatta?
He looks around rapidly trying to see a running figure, a shadow, a sign of where she could be. But then… his throat dries and something wells in his stomach. Something’s not right..?
The timer goes down to 5 seconds. And then-
Something steps foot into the elevator. Boxten looks up and he sees… Yatta?
Yatta giggles quietly. “Woah well that was sorta a close one huh?” She looks tiredly at Boxten, shifting to be in a more comfortable posture. She puts on a big grin, it’s kind of scary how she can just brush off anything and everything.
The elevator closes suddenly and as if on cue Boxten coughs out ichor. And he continues to for the next minute. “BOXTEN?!?!” Yatta grabs his shoulders and stares at him.
“Ugh… Bleh…” He sputters out slowly fading into sleep.
And then Dandy showed up.
Of course he did it’s floor 42 now after all. He yawns and waves. “Hello fellow toons! Come look-“ He says way too cheerfully… He stumbles on his words as he looks at the scene.
Yatta and Boxten are both on their knees with Yatta supporting Boxten from falling. Yatta looks insurmountably concerned for Boxten- well why wouldn’t she be?? He’s legitimately coughing out a bucket load of ichor. If he doesn’t stop soon he might-
Dandy switches the lever by his side to go back up as soon as possible. His mind fills with too much thoughts too much anxiety. Boxten has stopped coughing now as he just fainted, but ichor still comes pouring out of his mouth. “BOXTENNN DON’T YOU DARE DIE!!!” Yatta screams shaking Boxten intensely.
This is clearly making her stressed as well.
The elevator door dings and it opens to show Gardenview.
Two toons stand in front of the elevator; Tisha and Cosmo, chatting away about stuff that seemed relevant to today. They slowly turn towards the elevator awaiting to greet the duo who had been gone for quite a while now.
They both freeze at the scene in front of them. Cosmo gasps and Tisha tenses, her hands tightly gripping onto her mop. “W-what?” Cosmo says while taking a step forward. Then another and another until he was in front of Boxten.
Tisha in a panic yelled out. “SOMEBODY HELP BOXTEN IS-“ is what? Dead? On the brink of death? She didn’t know. She turned her head away from the ‘crime scene’ she was terrified. Nothing like this has happened before. Sure there had been accidents but none had been this… gory. Oh god and the mess her mind kept flashing image of the absolute mess. Sure she cared about Boxten, they were quite close as they were some of the first ones created after the mains. But she was made to hate filth.
Cosmo knelt down to be with Yatta and Boxten. He ripped out a bit of head and then put it near Boxten’s mouth. He harshly shoved the piece into his mouth—the ichor could dissolve it in a way so it would go down his throat—he hoped this would help.
And it did. The ichor stopped flowing from his mouth and his breathing seemed to calm. Cosmo and Yatta looked at each other, both clearly not in the mood to talk. Sure his breathing calmed and the ichor stopped spilling out, but for how long would this last?
Razzle and Dazzle then arrived. Hearing Tisha’s cry for help was nothing short of panicking. “Tisha! There you are what happened..?” Razzle said slowing down as he looked to the elevator. Dazzle looked to Razzle sweat dripping down their masks.
Cosmo saw them and took the opportunity. “RAZ AND DAZ HELP US GET BOXTEN TO MY ROOM.” Razzle and Dazzle swiftly headed over to where Yatta, Cosmo and Boxten were. Razzle and Dazzle said nothing but obliged to the command.
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“So.” Vee robotically said with a hint of concern in her voice.
“Uhm…” Yatta looked over to the side, her smile faltering a bit. She nervously shifts looking over to the main.
“Tell me how this happened.” Vee states harshly, she was always like this during hard times. She needed answers.
“I-I don’t KNOW how THIS happened!!!” Yatta answers in a panic. She flails her arms around stepping back a bit.
Vee sighs looking over to where Sprout was sitting, talking with Cosmo. “Just… Start from the beginning.” Vee REALLY wants to know what happened so she doesn’t care if she starts from the bottom. “Oh and I mean around 10 minutes before this.” She looks sternly at Yatta awaiting her answer.
“WE got to floor 41!!! But THEN he started talking about HOW MAYBE WE SHOULD END THE RUN!?! Though he was looking a bit tired… Well ANYWAY, I, the AMAZING Yatta said that we should continue till floor 45 at least!!!” She says with such enthusiasm and energy that Vee simply can’t understand. Her never ending grin was back now, still as bright as ever.
“Right and then..?” Vee asks with a hint of caution in her voice. She wishes she could show as much emotion as the other toons.
“Wellllllllll… WE just did MACHINES and on the LAST one I uhm…”
“You..?” Gosh why did Yatta have to be the one to witness this incident? Other toons would’ve given an explanation of the situation without all of these pauses. But she had to endure. As long as she found out what happened to Boxten.
“Well okay I kind of RAN OFF from it because TWISTED TEAGAN started chasing me!!! Though I JUST TOLD Boxten to finish the machine… And he DID!!!” She looks off to the side, anxiety gripping at her neck. “I then arrived LATE to the ELEVATOR!!! But WHEN THE DOOR SHUT!?! He IMMEDIATELY started COUGHING OUT ichor!!!” A bead of sweat rolls down her piñata head. She did not want to think about the incident let alone say it out loud.
Vee nods gloomily. “Are you sure this is everything?” Yatta shifts correcting her posture and thinks about it with a small hum.
“Well he WAS dazing off a LOT!!! When I tried to talk to him he would just ignore me most times!!!” She says this in a sort of miserable way. She wishes she could just understand why he started coughing out all that ichor!
“Hm alright, thank you then.” Yatta smiles brightly at Vee.
“No problem!!!” Yatta hurriedly goes to exit the room. She glances back at Boxten while jogging to the door and then-
*CRASH*
Yatta and… Blot? Well they both smash into each other with Blot splattering ink everywhere, and Yatta dropping some candy. “Hgu… tahw…” Blot drops down onto the ground trying to balance himself. Vee quickly turns on her translator to understand him.
“BLOT!?! What are YOU doing here…” Yatta questions slightly disoriented. If Vee were to guess, Blot is probably here for Yatta. Sprout groans from where he sits, tired enough as is. Cosmo looks mildly concerned, he fiddles with the bandages on his head from where he ripped out a piece of himself.
“They’ll be… fine.” Sprout says almost in a monotonous manner. Cosmo nods in agreement still fidgeting a bit, he then glances to Boxten who’s lying on his bed. He sleeps quite peacefully, he doesn’t seem to be in any pain.
Yatta offers Blot a hand to help him stand up and he takes it. “AttaY era uoy yako??” He says hastily, anxiously. Yatta looks him in the eye and giggles.
“Of COURSE!!! Why wouldn’t I be!?!” She lets go of his hand and wipes some of the ink on her off, slightly staining her paper.
“Ho llew I tsuj draeh gnihtemos dab deneppah…” Yatta grabs Blot and drags him out of the room, he didn’t even get a chance to see the other toons in the room.
“Well everything’s OKAY NOW so it doesn’t REALLY matter!!!” She says without a hint of worry in her voice. Blot stumbles as he gets pulled out of the room but slowly accepts it.
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