Chapter Text
It happened in a flash.
Loser's hand gripped the console. Unfamiliar images raced through his head— gentle laughter, spotlights, the bus. Bright. Too bright. His legs almost gave out. His finger pressed the button involuntarily.
As he clicked through the remote, their regrets, losses, and victories were laid in plain sight. Loser watched as their entire story laid itself in front of him like a taunt, begging for him to protest— to wrench himself out of the situation. To run away like last time.
He didn't stop looking.
His eyes finally unblurred. The room remained unchanged, yet he could feel the guilt — the shame — situate into the back of his consciousness.
(But what was there to be shameful for? It was his fault. He never forgot about them— no matter how much he wanted to.)
Loser grabbed the nearest poster — one that was advertising one of Woody's marketing gigs (Oh, the irony.) and stormed outside the room, nearly colliding with a familiar purple object in the shape of a smiley face.
Purple Face let out a shrill scream as he scrambled to address the smaller object. "Wait, Loser! I saw your memory and I—"
He saw?
"I don't want to hear it, Purple Face," Loser clipped, breaking into a run out of panic. He swerved past a series of sharp corners to throw the larger object off. Purple Face continued his pursuit, panting heavily as he tried to reason with the cuboid.
"I-I know it's a touchy subject, but—"
"I DON'T WANT TO HEAR IT." Loser skidded to a halt to turn his body to face him. "Mind your own business. Go look for Lollipop's credit card or something," He muttered threateningly at the end.
Purple Face let out an exasperated sigh. "Look, I just want to help—"
"I don't want to hear it," He spat, turning around to leave.
"I know, but have you ever stopped to consider how you're going to achieve what you're doing?"
Loser paused.
Purple Face gave him the most awful smirk before realizing he shouldn't, letting out a self-conscious cough to cover it up. "Uh— Anyway, I know you want to make an impulsive decision right now." He crept closer to study Loser's sullen expression. "I do that too when I get another genius business idea! Except when I jump straight into the process, I end up scrapping it all because I didn't know how much work it would actually take."
"…what I'm really saying is," Purple Face declared most benevolently, "You should first figure out how you're going to take back your entertainment career, one step at a time." Loser glared back at the reference, but with a minute amount of consideration at the entrepreneur's words.
"Personally, I would suggest asking one of our numerical friends, or buying this guidebook I have for the small price of $2,763,276,3—"
So much for giving sound advice. "Gee, thanks, Purple Face. I'll think about it," Loser interrupted, gritting his teeth.
"Glad to be of service! Pre-orders close in 2 weeks, so be sure to place your order soon!"
He turned to leave almost immediately. "Sure, sure…"
As much as Loser hated to admit it, Purple Face did have a point. Charging into situations blindly was what got him into all his messes in the first place, after all. In fact, he didn't even recall where the previous BFB grounds were. Even through all the touring he did all across Goiky with them, he had never spotted a familiar location or landmark.
Maybe — just this once — he would try relying on someone else.
"Where TPOT is being held..?" X tapped a finger to his chin. Loser nodded fervently. The BFBers had been teleported instantly when the contestants made the decision between competing on Four or Two's respective shows. The algebraliens were all loose cannons; him and the others had all chosen to stick with Four for a reason. His methods of madness were familiar in a twisted sort of way, unlike the possibility of dealing with an algebralien they hadn't yet encountered. Personally, Loser hadn't wanted to deal with more unknown factors after the recent hit he took to his reputation.
In hindsight, he would not have gone back on his decision, especially since it had resulted in a smaller cast that ended up becoming (sort-of?) friends with Four. However, ever since he had figured out Winner had made it onto Two's show, Loser couldn't help but feel a twinge of regret for choosing to stay with Four, as much as he hated to think about it.
X had been his best bet since Four's disappearance during their little reunion to look for Lollipop's credit card. The algebralien seemed nice enough during BFB's runtime, but he was attached to Four at the hip and the rest the cast were a bit too scared to try to approach them in the first place. Be it as it may, X seemed to be a really nice algebralien to their extremely low standards.
"Well, our location is a bit past the Pillary Ruins, which is past the original BFB grounds, which is past the original Dream Island's location…" X kept listing locations in quick succession, most of which Loser hadn't even heard of. He tried to make note of a few in passing on the back of his poster, but X's usual rambles were leading on to a string of incoherent mumbles.
"Hey, X—" Loser interrupted, poking the algebralien's odd skin (or flesh?) to get their attention. "I appreciate your effort, but could you try shortening it so I can fit it on my paper?"
"Oh, sorry, Loser," X remedied quickly, fidgeting with their hands. "Umm, let me try again…"
After a few silent moments, a beam of magic shone out of X's left palm, summoning a GPS-like map from the Pillary Ruins all the way to the TPOT showgrounds. Loser immediately perked up and started copying some of the familiar landmarks frantically onto the poster's shiny, plastic-like paper. Upon finishing, he scanned the poster to double check that his scrawl was legible before turning to X with a smile.
"Alright, I should be set for the trip now. Thank you for your assistance!" He extended his free hand to shake X's own.
X took the cuboid's hand with two of their own and shook it excitedly. "Glad I could help! Good luck with finding Winner!"
"Thanks." Loser smiled, turning away towards the exit.
Maybe the algebraliens weren't that bad after all.
The trek was looking to be hefty, with it passing multiple mountain summits and unknown lands in between the landmarks he had noted down. Loser acknowledged the dangers when he left the building, but the reality of it only started sinking in when the town started to fade into the horizon.
There wouldn't be any more safety nets or otherworldly aliens helping him anymore. He wasn't even sure if the TPOT contestants weren't teleported away from the original competition grounds like the BFBers had been. All he knew was that Winner was among them for whichever reason, and that they knew the truth, or the at least smallest extent of it. He was determined to get to his ex-friend through any means necessary.
(…and maybe he could apologize to them, after all this time. They deserved that at the very least.)
The first mountain greeted him with a whirling gust of wind that sliced through Loser's surface. Undeterred by the harsh landscape, he pushed through the cold with an unsteady step and a sound sense of determination, brushing past the perilous cliffs and obstacles with barely a twinge of pain. The only sound that could be made out were small pants from his exertion.
Climbing a whole mountain proved to be infinitely more difficult than he had anticipated. As the Pillary Ruins neared the edges of the landmass' border, they started to boast harsher and steeper conditions; the BFBers were lucky Four hadn't decided to run any competitions near them.
The ground almost split near the edges closer to its summit, which posed a risk for sudden falls and obscured hidden hazards on the terrain. Loser would prove that true when he slipped on a hidden ledge at the edge of one of the cliffsides and landed on a jagged rock, badly.
So bad, in fact, that he dented one of his corners on his cuboid figure, leaving his eyesight blurring from the pain. His head swayed as he felt his own body slipping from his control, trapping him in the endless void of his consciousness.
He had been swinging idly on a rusty swingset in the town's playground when he had met them. They didn't garner much attention when they entered, yet seemed to capture the notice of all the other objects as they constructed a sandcastle alone without mind in the middle of the park.
The two had accidentally met when he jumped off the swing and nearly crushed the other's sand structure. After a few profuse apologies, the newcomer only seemed to laugh it off.
"No worries — that swing looked really fun anyway. What's your name, by the way? I'm Winner."
Their smile was dazzlingly light and refreshing— it seemed to embody the whole sky's light and shine it right back onto him. Loser lost himself in his thoughts for a split second as he scrambled to offer out a hand.
"N-Nice to meet you too. My name is Loser."