Carl and Donut return to the garage and find the parade preparations nearly complete. Their procession now includes five vehicles, three giant mounts, and a marching-band group of Mongo, Rend, Simoom, Gonk, and Bianca. Sweety will lead with Prepotente and Jurgen riding at the front, while Rosetta rides Onikuma and Samantha and Bigs ride Old Shuck; Donut and Carl will take the final float on the modified chicken truck, with Tipid driving.

The group finalizes equipment and presentation. Donut's Gurkha class has provided themed clothing, powerful hats, mount blankets, and special kukri claw caps for Mongo, but Carl and Donut keep some existing gear choices for practicality. Donut uses Sprout Forest to produce Requite Dahlias in matching colors, and the gremlins cover the vehicles and animals with flowers so the whole parade looks coordinated.

Carl also reflects on how the other theme groups have chosen to approach the parade. Florin's Resolution team is not pushing hard because the category is too vague, while Elle's Betrayal team abandons the idea of displaying warlord heads and chooses a different, sharper concept. Another team uses Donut's joke idea of making a giant menu for Decision, and the Destruction team plans a blunt show of force with a tank, an RV, and drawn weapons.

With about an hour left, Carl makes the practical but emotionally difficult choice to leave Donut's party and join Safehome Yolanda. This segregates Carl's personal space into a much smaller room but protects shared resources if Carl dies and helps set up their plan for the parade. Donut is upset when both of them lose their party titles, Bucket Boy briefly emerges from Carl's new room and is sent to safety in the guild commons, and as the countdown falls to two minutes, Carl calls Penelope over just as the system orders all parade participants to move to the staging area.