Blackstone Foundry and Forge, Thursday

[built_fjord_tough]

It had been Sorry, yesterday, that had snapped Fjord out of it.

It had been the constant humiliation of being bumped right back to where he'd started, of feeling so, so useless compared to everybody else. Of speaking in his actual accent with a tuskless mouth because good toys didn't hide who they were from anybody, especially not their nearest and dearest. But good toys also made concessions about who they were, hid away the monster they had always been, so that everybody could be happy.

It had taken feeling small. And it hadn't happened right away. Had festered yesterday after the game for the longest while, screaming inside his head about why that had hurt so much, all with a little, half-painted resin smile.

And then, once he was home, once he had been out of the sight of anybody else, once it was safe again to lie, even if only to himself, one word had escaped his lips in a low, pained drawl:

"Fuck."

Today he was at the forge, though. Bright and early. Smiling that resin smile. Prepared to swallow that little bit of strength and dignity that using Vandran's accent had been giving to him this past year so that nobody would mistake him for a bad toy.

Setting to work. Swinging a hammer. Keeping his head down. Feeling small. Being small.

He was a miniature, after all.

[OOC: Oooopen.]

Kanan's warehouse- all day Thursday- NFB

[throughaphase]

Kitty was tired of this. She was tired of sneaking around, she was tired of having to smile all the time, she wanted everyone back to normal, and it was starting to make her twitchy. Which was still better than the rage monster she'd been on Monday before things got started, really, but it still wasn't ideal.

So there was a lot of pacing among the plastic playground equipment today. Hopefully there'd be more people, and hopefully the word had gotten out by now, and hopefully someone had some kind of plan.


[Second verse, same as the first! If you're on team Bad Toy feel free to mod an invite. If you're Team Toymaker, you can be outside but you have to stay outside.]

The Toybox, Thursday [NFB}

[heartinabox]

Regina had spent a fair amount of her life in creepy dungeons. Hell, Regina had spent a fair amount of her life running creepy dungeons. She knew how they operated, knew all the tricks.

This was, despite the bright, cheery colors, a very creepy dungeon.

The "bad toys" were kept in cells of variously cartoonish, but remarkably effective designs. At frequent, irregular intervals, a pink, vaguely horse-shaped toy would bounce in, announce that it was time for one of the toys to be "fixed", and cart them off, whimpering and pleading for their lives. The first time Regina watched this happen, she turned to her cell neighbor, an NPC fluffy bunny doll in a polka dot bow tie, and asked what was happening.

"They're going to the Workshop," the bunny told her, in an odd, squeaky voice. "To the Toymaker."

"Oh," Regina said. "So we'll get to meet them." She nodded, eyes narrowed, a small smile on her face. "Good. I've been wanting to ask them some questions."

The bunny's ears had quivered, and he stared at Regina with round, glimmering eyes. "Noooo," he moaned. "Not good. Not good at all!"

Try as she might, Regina could get no further information out of the bunny. She could only sit in her cell, watching the toys around her be lead away one by one, and plot her escape. (Teleporting in a puff of purple smoke was a classic, and one she was reasonably certain she could execute, even if this form, but it was built for drama, not stealth. She'd need quite the distraction before she could pull it off.)

Thursday morning, the pony came in, bouncing wickedly along the line of cells, playing eenie meenie as she selected the Toymaker's next victim. "My maker said to pick the very worst one," she sang. "And you!" She bounced closer. "Are!" She stopped in front of Regina's cell. Regina braced for a fight. "IT!" She pointed her stubby leg at the bunny and laughed maniacally.

The bunny reached through the bars, managing to grab Regina's arm before he was dragged out by the pony. "Please!" he hissed. "Tell my story!"

Regina would never see that bunny again.

[open, should any other toys be in the Toybox just now. Details run past our lovely BDE maven, pink pony cameo at her request!]

The Machinery Underneath Fandom, Late Thursday Night

[firstofitskind]

When it came to sneaking and infiltrating, seven was a decent-sized group. Small enough a group to make sure that they could get in and get out easily, but large enough they could probably take out anything they might run into by accident - and with enough diverse talents to handle any non-fighty challenges that came up, too. Or, at least, one hoped so.

Sometime after midnight, Liam led the team down into the machinery beneath the island, sneaking past several Army Trooper patrols to do so. There were a few heart-pounding minutes, but eventually the last of them slipped into the darkness, sealing the entrance behind them.

For anyone who had never been down here - especially anyone interested in machinery or computers - it was an amazing sight, even with most of the usual materials replaced by Lego blocks. It was like a second city but completely underground and made of machinery. Liam had the blueprints of the area from the last time it had malfunctioned, ( but translating two dimensional lines on paper to this 3D monstrosity might take a little effort. )

[ooc: preplayed with... myself (firstofitskind), as well as the fabulous goldfishontherocks, imafuturist, scoffs_at_tradition, special_rabbit, throughaphase and uncertain_dume].