Chapter Text
'Dandy? Hello? Gardeview to Dandy, are you there?'
Shelly's hallooing snapped me back to my shop.
'Oh, yes! Um.. how can i help you?'
'Dandy, somethings wrong with you. I can feel it.'
'Nothings wrong, just thinking about them.'
'Well, it's your fault they twisted, so serves you right!'
'Shelly, wait! It's not like that! It's - sigh.'
She stormed off, not even letting me finish my sentence.
Astro waltzed up. 'Hey, Dandy. What happened? Why'd she storm off like that?'
'She noticed something was wrong with me, but when I explained, she stormed off in a huff!"
'They blame you for it, you know? Where has your head been in the last few days anyways? You didn't even notice him!' Astro replied, pointing at the booth across from me.
It was Dyle. He was back.
"What - how - why - WHAT?! Why are you back? Why give them false hope? How are you back? What are you doing here?!"
"Dandicus, please do calm down. Everything is alright." Dyle replied.
"No, it's not! You were supposed to be gone! How are you back?"
Now, to the outside observer, it looks like we were having a battle of shops, but, Dyle was supposed to be gone. As far as we knew, once a toon is twisted, they don't come back. Of course, there might be a way, that I have been investigating, but that's Plan B.
"Us lethals can turn back to our toon selves, which I discovered entirely by accident. And they can't turn back because they are half finished."
That's when I noticed something. His usual ticking, was more fast paced, more anxious, then before.
"Your ticking. It's faster, Does your switching have something to do with it? How do you switch? What happened?"
"I stumbled into a pool of ichor, not the kind from the leaks, the kind that was runny, and was forced back into this body, but when I concentrate, I'm the beast again. Any more questions?" Dyle shot back, but I could tell that he wasn't in the mood for questions, and was asking as a niceity.
"No more questions." I affirmed.
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I was wandering the hallways of sub-floor 4.
'Sol? Flare? Anyone?'
Four for the sickness, four for the end,
The number of shadows they couldn't defend.
A permanent solution that came way too late,
Now we’re the masters of our own bitter fate.
I recognised Sol's voice, but when I saw him, I gasped. His face, it was gone!
'Dandy? Are you here to help? Well, you're too late! The window is gone. We are gone. It is just the twisteds now.' With that, he began to charge me. Being a logical toon, I did the logical thing. Run.
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I jolted awake. I wasn't running from Twisted Sol. I was in bed, in my room. 'Oh, Sol. If only I'd been quicker! Maybe... you would be walking these halls, sleeping in your now abandoned room! I glanced up. A faded sketch of them, hand drawn by Delilah, was the only decoration in my room.
Then, the cogs in my mind started to turn.
Runny ichor, Dyle had mentioned. I remembered the rest of the scene.
As I ran from Sol, to the pipes I had entered from, I passed a machine.
An older model, one that had a circular skillcheck.
Four squares that could light up, where they would have stood for their grand reveal.
A plan had begun to emerge.
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I stood in the back of my shop, with 8 toons in front of me.
'I have a plan to save them. The Summer 4. Operation Bring back Summer.'
'What? It's your fault that they are twisted in the first place, why did I even agree to this?'
'Shelly, I chose you because of your well rounded stats, not because you have a good relationship with me. And the same to all of you! I don't care if you hate me, I just want to see if I can call a truce long enough to save them!'
Everyone nodded, even Shelly, probably out of habit, as she facepalmed afterwards.
'I have been reaserching Delilah and Arthur's documents. The Summer 4's floor, Sub-Floor 4, is only reachble by this card,' I started, pulling out the old, sunburnt, rainbow shimering card labled 'Summer 4', 'Their floor is a dangerous, spacious map,' I continued, pulling out the map I had drawn the night before. 'These four squares in the middle, they will glow one by one once you finish a machine. While you are using a machine, DO NOT LET GO OF THE HANDLE! Shelly, Glisten, Finn, Yatta, that is your job. Finish a machine, get away from it, repeat. If you stop extracting, the progress wil drain. So that you don't get attacked, we have Pebble, Looey, Goob and Tisha. Your job is to keep Sol, Flare, Snap and Riptide away from the extractors and each other. When a square lights up, keep the Twisted away from the square. Only when all the squares are lit up, can you bring them onto the squares. Flare will constanly alert the others to your location, so kite her as far from everyone as possible. Snap will try to stun you, so keep a good distance away from him. Sol will emit a passive haze that will slowly sap your strength, and Riptide gives a speed boost to any Twisted that walks near him, and moves faster. I can give you one minute of protection, so use it to get into position. Organise youselves in the elevator ride down (it's very long), and take the map with you. Follow my instructions to the dot, and get out of that floor as quick as possible.' I finished.