The Episodes

White Elephant Prologue
Chris McLean stood in an abandoned parking lot, looking directly at the camera. “Hello, and welcome to the newest season of Total Drama!” He gave a large grin. “This season will be held in this abandoned city, where our victims, uh,  contestants, will compete in deadly challenges based on colors.” He paused to give the camera another smile. “With a whole new cast, who knows what could happen! Stay tuned to see the most dangerous, most exciting, and, most of all, most  dramatic  season of Total Drama Tumblr yet! This is Total. Drama. Colors!!!”

White Elephant Part 1
The camera came back to find Chris in the same spot, his trademark white grin on his face. “As you know, the challenges this season are themed off of colors. So, we picked quite the colorful cast to compete. This might be our wackiest cast yet!” As he spoke, an unmarked bus pulled up behind him in the parking lot. “Speaking of which, here they are now!” He gave the bus one look before turning back to the camera.

“We’ve got some exciting things planned for these teens, so let’s get started!”

The bus’ door opened with a woosh, Chef sitting in the driver’s seat muttering about how he had to do everything on this show and they didn’t pay him enough for this. Chris ignored him. The contestants began stepping off of the bus, one at a time.

The first contestant off of the bus was a rather tall girl with light brown hair that fell all the way to the middle of her back. Her pale blue eyes blinked at the sudden light, and she shielded them with a hand as she walked over to Chris. She wore a sharp looking white blazer with a black tie.

“Jillian, welcome!” Chris greeted her.

The girl’s face turned a little red at someone talking to her. “Ha, yep, that's me, Jillian, Jill… I mean, umm, hello.” The girl walked off to the side a little, muttering to herself, “Stupid Jill, this was your first impression for the whole show.” She frowned as she got to her place.

A slight clacking sound came from the bus as the next contestant exited. Her brown hair was pulled into a ponytail, and her bangs partially covered one eye. She wore a blue shirt and green-grey shorts. But what was most shocking about her were her eyes. They were such a light blue that they were almost white, and they looked milky. The tapping sound came from a cane that the girl was using as she held the railing to get down the stairs.

“Umm, Arizona, do you need a hand?” Chris called to her.

“No thanks, I’m fine.” Arizona stepped off of the bus and stood facing the side of the parking lot. “Hello, my name is Arizona. As you can probably tell-”

“Arizona? You’re facing the wrong way.” Chris walked over to the girl and turned her to the right direction.

A slight flush filled Arizona’s cheeks, but she didn’t let it bother her. “As you can probably tell, I’m blind, but I’m still in it to win it! I can do anything anyone else can do!” She waved her cane a little and walked off to the side like Jillian had. It ended up being in the opposite direction, but who was really counting?

A boy sauntered off the bus with a wide grin on his face. He had brown eyes and black hair in a bowl haircut. He wore a straw hat on his head, agreen hoodie, and faded blue jeans. He walked straight over to Chris, his black flip flops slapping on the asphalt. “Thanks for lettin me on the season, Chris. Ya won’t regret it!”

“I’m.. sure I won’t, Dennis.”

Dennis flashed an even wider grin and went to stand next to Jillian. As he walked, a fake spider fell out of his pocket. He swooped down to pick it up and stood next to Jillian, who moved a step away.

Another boy stepped off the bus, raking back his brown bangs back with a hand. He wore a light blue shirt under a darker blue overshirt with grey shorts. He quickly took in his surroundings with his brown eyes and then made his way over to the other contestants.

“Great to be here, Chris,” he smiled.

“Thanks, Matt. How’s Kelsey doing?”

“She’s good, she-”

“I mean, getting so far and then losing out on a million dollars as the runner up? Gotta hurt.”

Matt gave a nervous laugh. “Uh, yeah. We’ve really been fine though.” He joined the other contestants, standing near Dennis, who was trying to keep various small objects in his pocket. A few more spiders fell out, which he quickly retrieved. Matt moved until he was next to Arizona, who reached forward to touch his shoulder before smiling at him and giving a wave.

“Just making sure where you were,” she explained, motioning to her eyes.

Back at the bus, a girl was stepping off. She had brown eyes and light blue hair that was fell partially down her back, with part in a ponytail high on her head. She wore a yellow and black shirt with grey jean shorts and grey boots. She stepped quickly off the bus, heading for Chris.

“Alice, nice to see you!”

“Thanks, Chris.” She gracefully stepped over to the other contestants, electing to stand next to Arizona.

“Hello!” Arizona said, waving in Alice’s general direction. Alice gave the girl a wave back. A confused expression covered Arizona’s face. “Hello? Are you there?”

Matt nudged Alice. “She’s blind,” he whispered in her ear.

“Oh!” Alice turned back to Arizona. “Hello!” She said. Arizona looked relieved and smiled.

A girl stepped off the bus with crimped blond hair and green eyes. She wore a hot pink crop top with high waisted green shorts, a purple, pink, and blue windbreaker with a block pattern, and pink jelly sandals, with a blue wire choker around her neck. She wore a purple scrunchie around her wrist and was just beaming as she got off the bus. She ran over to Chris and waved brightly.

“Hey, Chris!!! Hey, other contestants! I’m Gaile!” She spoke with a New York accent. “It’s great to be here, this season is going to be coolio!”

The other contestants just kind of stared at the girl, with the exception of Arizona.

“Riiiiiight… cool…io…” Chris replied.

Gaile bounced over to Jillian, who by this point had moved far away from Dennis. “Hi, I’m Gaile, what’s

your name?”

Jillian flushed again. “I’m Jillian-uh, Jill.”

“Well Jill, it’s totally wicked cool to meet you!!” Gaile wound her scrunchie around her wrist and bounced

on her heels a bit as she looked around, taking everything in.

Another girl stepped off of the bus, tripping a bit on the last step but righting herself before she fell. She had a long ponytail of black hair swept off of her face, and wore a lavender tank top with the outline of a purple eye, dark blue skinny jeans, and black combat boots. The attention of the group was drawn to the tattoos that covered both of her arms. Her left arm had a blue eye on her wrist with a viper crawling up from it. As it went up her arm, the viper shed it’s skin until it was only a skeleton. She had another blue eye near her shoulder. On her right arm, flames seemed to shoot up her wrist to her elbow, where a green snake coiled up to her shoulder, appearing to be about to eat a green eye. She half ran over to Chris, still flailing after her almost fall.

“Hey there, Chris!! Hey, everyone else! I’m Mallory, ‘sup?” she said, smiling widely.

Most of the the cast were still staring at her tattoos, and Chris looked a bit unprepared to answer the question, so the girl nodded a little and stepped over to join the others, tripping again over something non-existent on the ground. She righted herself and stood next to Gaile, who looked away from her tattoos to give her a wave and a smile.

As the cast continued to stare at Mallory, a small boy stepped off of the bus. He had brown hair and eyes,

and wore an oversized hoodie and pants. He had a backpack on his back. He looked around with wide

eyes, then quietly slipped a camera out of his bag. He focused it at the group, and took a picture, a smile on his face.

At the click and flash, the cast and Chris turned around, looking shocked at the fact that he was standing

right there. The boy slipped his camera back into his bag and walked over to Chris.

“Hello, Dakota,” Chris regarded him.

“Hello, Chris!” Dakota said, smiling up at him. He really was quite small. Dakota walked over to the rest of the contestants, standing next to Jillian, who was a good deal taller than him and looked down at him as she waved hello. He waved back, the sleeve of his hoodie falling over his hand.

The clank of large boots startled everyone away from Dakota and back to the bus. A girl emerged, walking tall. The cast blinked a bit, not quite knowing what to make of her.

To put it simply, she looked like a pirate. Her eyes were an almond brown, and her shoulder length curly black hair was covered by a deep purple do-rag. She wore a long, dull purple trench coat with golden highlights, with a plain white shirt underneath. Long, baggy purple pants extended from her shirt to her large, black boots. She wore an antique-looking compass around her neck and had a gold earring in her left ear. She put a hand above her eyes to shield them as she looked out, then spotted the others and began walking to them.

“Ahoy there, Chris!” She called, waving her hand around.

Chris lifted his hand in reply. “Ahoy…” He paused to consult a note card he held in his hand. “…The Baroness?”

“Arrrr, that’s me name!” The Baroness said, reaching the group. She gave the rest of the cast a look. “Are these the other landlubbers? Which ones are on me crew?”

Chris gave a little nervous sounding laugh. “We haven’t said the teams yet… The Baroness?” He still said her name rather awkwardly, wording it as a question.

“Yep, that’s me name.” The Baroness replied again, her back turned to Chris as she looked at the other contestants. “So, I guess this means ye’re all me crew for now… or does it mean ye’re all me enemies?” She squinted her eyes suspiciously and walked over to the group, standing at the far edge past Jillian.

A large yawn alerted the group back to the bus, where a boy with black hair and deep brown eyes stood. He wore a lime green collared shirt beneath a pale orange sweater, with slightly baggy mint green pants. His large shoes were light blue, and he wore a pair of dark sunglasses on top of his head. There were dark circles under his eyes. He kind of shuffled over to Chris, covering his eyes against the bright light.

“Welcome, Benny!” Chris exclaimed.

Benny yawned again and looked at the host. “Yeah…” He trailed off and his eyes drooped. A few seconds later, he shook himself and looked a bit perkier. “Thanks, Chris!” He shuffled off and stood between Dakota and The Baroness, not even noticing her pirate outfit. He slipped his sunglasses over his eyes and just stood there, not saying anything.

Another boy walked out of the bus next, his hair black but dyed a bright red underneath and covered by a red beanie with feathers sticking out. He had blue eyes, one of which was hidden under his hair and hard to see, and wore a dark hoodie and white jeans with red sneakers. He wore a pendant around his neck. He walked over to Chris and raised a hand.

“Hey there, Ry.” Chris said, nodding at him.

Ry nodded back. “Hey,” he replied and walked over to the other contestants, choosing the first available space, which happened to be next to Dennis, who was standing all alone in the exact middle of the other contestants, everyone having gradually moved away from him until he had a wide berth. Ry gave an easy smile at the boy, seemingly unfazed by him. Dennis gave a wide grin in response, which was quickly becoming his usual expression.

Another girl stepped off of the bus, drawing the cast’s attention. She had eyes that were such a dark brown that they appeared black, and scruffy auburn hair with a black chunk. The auburn hair was obviously dyed, and the roots were beginning to come back in black. She wore a backwards baseball cap, a short black tank top, deep green cargo shorts, and dirty red converse. She had three visible ear piercings and wore a studded bracelet and two black threads around her wrist. She had a few scars, mostly on her knees. She scruffed up her hair and walked over to Chris.

“Hey, Chris,” she said, nodding at him with a cocky smile on her face. She spoke with a London accent. “Hell of a day to start the season, it’s ****in’ boiling out here.” The word was bleeped out due to censoring.

“Hello, Mika,” Chris replied. “The other contestants are standing over there.” He indicated the rest of the cast. Dakota gave a tiny wave and a smile.

Mika hesitated for a few seconds, seemingly solely because someone in authority had told her to, then finally gave up and joined the others, standing next to Ry. He nodded at her and lifted his hand. She inclined her head back at him, taking off her hat and scruffing up her hair a bit more.

A semi small person stepped off of the bus, sliding their hands along the metal bar on the side of the steps. They had short blond hair and bright blue eyes, and freckles scattered across their face. They wore dark grey pants and black flats. Their most distinguishing feature was a large hoodie that they wore. It was black and oversized, the sleeves covering the person’s hands. It had two ears on top, and two marks that represented closed eyes. They quietly approached the group, the others watching curiously.

“Hello, T,” Chris said, but in a quieter voice than he had used with the other contestants. T had a very peaceful, calm aura that seemed to subdue the whole group a bit.

“Hello, Chris,” T replied with a small smile, then turned to the group of contestants. “It’s a pleasure to meet you all,” they said, then walked over to the group, standing next to Matt. They gave a smile and small wave up to the older boy, then turned their attention back to the bus.

A girl bounded off of the bus, running over to the other contestants before they even realized that she was there. She had high, spiky, red pigtails and pale green eyes that darted around excitedly, taking everything in. She wore a long sleeved shirt and simple shorts. One of her sleeves was torn off, while the other one was so long it flopped over her hand. She had no shoes.

“Hey, Chris!” she said cheerfully, her eyes taking quick looks at each of the other contestants. She was missing an upper tooth.

“GAHH!!” Chris leaped backwards, surprised at the girl’s sudden entrance. He quickly recovered, clearing his throat. “I mean, hello, Selene,” he replied, backing several steps away from the girl. “You can just, go over there now,” he said, pointing to the other contestants.

Selene happily bounded away, taking another look at the other contestants before her eyes landed on Benny, who was still standing completely still. She approached him curiously, walking fully around him and waving her hand in front of his eyes. When he still didn’t react, she looked to the Baroness, who was standing next to him.

“What do you think’s wrong with him?” she questioned.

The Baroness simply shrugged. “Ye got me there, lassie. Maybe he just be the quiet type.”

Selene, thinking, backed a few steps away from him, then ran at full speed towards Benny and jumped on him, making a strange, wolfy growl. Benny gave the highest pitched scream anyone in the group had ever heard, and turned to face Selene, his glasses falling off his head. Selene lifted her head from where she had currently been biting the collar on Benny’s shirt, and grinned.

“Whew, you’re alive!” She chirped with relief. “You weren’t moving, and I thought you were dead! But you’re ok now!”

Benny, his eyes still wide with shock, backed several steps away from Selene, who was now chewing on the floppy sleeve of her shirt. She smiled at him again, and he took another step, his wide eyes watching the girl.

Another girl emerged from the bus, walking with a bit of a flounce to her step as she sauntered off the bus. She was very short, with magenta eyes and brown hair that she pulled into a high ponytail. She wore a light grey, patched jacket over a cerulean bandeau, with magenta pants and grey, tall boots with cerulean laces.

“Yo, Chris!” She called as she walked over to him. As she got closer and closer, she seemed to become shorter and shorter, until when she finally came up to the group, she was at least a head shorter than most of the contestants.

“Good to see you here, Kiki,” Chris replied in a sweet tone, looking down on the girl.

Kiki looked agitated, and scowled at the host. “Just ‘cause I’m short don’t mean you gotta talk to me like I’m a kid!”

Chris cleared his throat a little, trying to cover the smile that was spreading onto his face. “Of course not, Kiki. You can just go and join the other contestants now.” As she walked away he muttered, “Run along,” under his breath, followed by a slight snicker. Luckily, Kiki seemed not to have heard him and walked to the available spot, which was on the other side of Dennis. He grinned his freaky smile at her and she popped the gum she was chewing in the direction of his face. His smile was broken only for a moment, and both turned back to face the bus.

A very beautiful girl emerged from the bus, and all eyes went to her. She had wavy brown hair with red highlights and warm brown eyes. She wore a black t-shirt, red shorts and black sneakers. She walked over to the group, giving a slight wave. She smiled, showing off pearly white teeth. Many of the boys and a few of the girls stared as if struck by her beauty. She neared Chris after her rather slow walk, making sure the cameras got a good look at her.

“Lavender, I’m so glad you could make it,” Chris said, giving a slight nervous-sounding chuckle. “The other contestants are, umm, they’re over there.”

“I noticed,” Lavender replied. “Thanks, Chris.” She blew him a kiss before walking over to the group, wedging herself between T and Matt.

“Hey, I’m Lavender,” she said to the boy.

“I’m, umm, I’m, Matt, hey,” Matt replied. Was he blushing?

“It’s great to meet you, Matt.” Lavender smiled again.

“Oh, yeah, it’s, umm, it’s great to meet you too,” he muttered quickly in reply, scratching the back of his neck. Lavender gave a little laugh and turned to face the bus.

The cast stared at the door of the bus, waiting for another contestant to emerge, but no one did. They began to talk amongst themselves, Gaile showing Jillian and Mallory her purple scrunchie and Lavender continuing to flirt with Matt. Suddenly a shout came from the top of the bus.

“LOOK OUT BELOW!” A girl shouted, somehow having climbed on top of the bus, before proceeding to dramatically jump off, flailing her arms a bit before landing in a tumble on the ground. Several contestants rushed forward to help the girl, but she straightened up on her own, shaking the strands that had fallen out of her dark brown ponytail out of her face. Her eyes were a rich blue, and she wore a black leather jacket over a white shirt with dark blue jeans and black tennis shoes. “How was that?” She called over to the group. “Pretty cool, right?” She ran over to the group enthusiastically.

“It sure was… something, Bailey.” Chris replied. “Welcome to the show.”

“Thanks, Chris! It’s really great to be here! This is gonna be one heck of a competition, right guys?”

Most of the cast responded rather unenthusiastically, but Gaile jumped up, pumping her fist in the air. “Yeah, man! It’s gonna be the bomb!”

Mallory leaped up after hearing Gaile. “Yeah, bombs!” she shouted loudly before looking around and putting her arm back down awkwardly.

Bailey ran to stand next to Mallory, and gave her a high five. The cast began to talk amongst themselves again, getting caught up in at least a little of the excitement of Bailey’s arrival.

A girl stepped into view on the stairs of the bus, but was ignored by the talking competitors. The smirking smile on her face quickly melted into a scowl, and she cleared her throat loudly. The cast finally quieted, looking up at the girl. She looked rather angry, and had a force that sent an uneasy ripple throughout the crowd. Upon seeing that she had everyone’s attention, the smirk reappeared on her face and she sauntered down the steps and over to the group.

“Hello, Ashley,” Chris said. He smiled, but it appeared a little fake.

“Hello, Chris,” Ashley replied. Her smile was at least as fake as his. “This looks like it’ll be a great season!” Her tone implied that she didn’t really think it would be that great.

“The rest of the cast is standing over there-”

“I noticed.” Ashley was really taking her time standing near Chris. It was like they were engaged in a kind of stare-off or battle of wills. She gave him that same flashing smile, and abruptly whipped her head around to look at the rest of the cast. After surveying them for a moment, she walked briskly to the spot between Jillian and Gaile.

Gaile gave the girl a wide smile, seeming to be mostly unnerved by the girl. “Hey, dude! I’m Gaile!” she said excitedly. Jillian gave a meek wave. Ashley smiled at the two, a bit deviously, and turned back towards the bus, motioning to the others that they should turn too. Everyone was still hushed from Ashley’s presence, and waited anxiously for a new contestant to arrive.

A boy walked cooly off the bus, wearing a pair of dark sunglasses. He had black hair, and wore a plain white shirt, blue jeans, and black converse. He walked over to the group and headed straight over to Ry.

“Hey, Chris, I’m Todd, it’s great to meet you!” he greeted who he thought was the host.

Ry backed away a few steps uncomfortably. “Uh, yeah, it’s cool to meet you too, pleasegetoutofmyface,” he responded.

“What? You don’t sound like-” Todd ripped the glasses off of his face, revealing green eyes. “Can’t see anything in these,” he muttered, before looking up at last. “Oh, ohhhh, you’re not Chris, he’s-” Todd realized his mistake and ran over to the actual host.

“Todd! Was kinda wondering when you’d figure that out, dude,” Chris snickered.

“Yeah, hey. ‘Sup?” Todd asked, not-so-subtly throwing his glasses far behind him into the parking lot.

“Oh, you know, not much, just getting ready to host a season over here,” Chris replied.

“Oh, yeah, that’s cool. I’m-” Chris cleared his throat loudly. “Oh, you wanted me to like, go over there? With the other contestants?” Chris’ look gave him an answer.

Todd hurried over to the group, standing next to Arizona on the far side. “Hey, I like your… hair?” The end came out as a question, as he had just started giving a compliment without really looking at the girl first!

“Huh? Oh! You were talking to me?” Arizona turned to the boy and gave him a wave. “Hey, I’m Arizona.” Her eyes startled the boy for a moment, but he just waved back, before realizing that she couldn’t see his hand.

“Hey, I’m Todd,” he introduced himself.

“Good to meet you!” The blind girl replied. They stood in silence for a few moments. “I think the next contestant’s going to come out soon,“ she said politely, and the two turned back to the bus.

A boy hopped excitedly out of the bus, gripping tightly to a navy blue messenger bag he had slung over his shoulder. He pushed his glasses up on his nose and ran to Chris. His eyes were teal and he wore a purple tanktop over a lighter purple t-shirt, dark skinny jeans, and black sneakers. He bounced over to Chris, bringing out a notebook and clutching it tightly.

“Hey Chris!!!” The boy bubbled slightly before attempting to regain some composure. “It’s a real pleasure to be here!” He said and extended his hand that wasn’t holding the notebook to Chris to shake, his refined tone not concealing his excitement. Chris ignored the boy’s request for a handshake, and Derby’s face dropped as his arm followed suit.

“Derby, it’s enchanting and mesmerising to have you on the cast.” Chris couldn’t conceal the mild smirk on his face, and he covered it up with a cough.

Derby didn’t recognize the sarcasm, and looked thrilled by his introduction. “Thank you greatly, Chris! It’s delightful to be on a program with such a refined host.” Derby’s newly reformed grin hung in the air for a few seconds, then dropped when Chris didn’t reply but was rather looking at him expectantly. “What do you desire, Mr. McLean?” Derby asked, and everyone standing behind him rolled their eyes a little.

“Not much, just on kind of a time limit here.” Chris said, and he and the other contestants waited for Derby to figure out what he was supposed to be doing, which took several more seconds. Finally, the boy turned around and saw the other contestants.

“Oh!” He let out a gasp of recognition. “You want me to go stand over there, sorry!!” The male lost a little of his fake refined manner as he scurried over to the other contestants, opting to stand next to The Baroness. Taking a long look at her, he flipped open the cover of his notebook and started scribbling something down, making the girl slightly anxious about what he was up to.

Chris quickly counted up all of the contestants. “And… that’s everyone! Congratulations to all of you for making it onto the newest season of Total Drama Tumblr! I promise it’ll be something you’ll never forget, one way or another!” He snickered at this.

“Now onto the teams! Like previous seasons, there will be four teams of five members each. Now, when I call your name, go and stand with your teammates.” Many cast members looked both anxious and excited, waiting to see who was going to be on their team.

“Our first team will be… the Paisley Polar Bears!” A logo appeared on the screen of a polar bear in front of a paisley background. The logo was done up entirely in green.

“And on this team will be…” Chris paused to consult a list he held. “Arizona… Matt… Alice… Mika… and… Mallory!”

The five members grouped together, clustering near Arizona since they didn’t really trust her to be able to find them if they went anywhere else. A few members looked disappointed to be on the same team as the blind girl, but luckily Arizona couldn’t see them. Mallory, for one, looked thrilled to be placed on a team already, and leaped in the air. “Wooo, polar bears!!!”

Arizona raised her cane and cheered too, and soon the entire team was letting out a cheer, grinning and caught up in the excitement of finally going to compete.

“Our next team will be… the Pin-stripe Parrots!” A logo appeared on the screen of a parrot in front of a pin-striped background. The logo was done up entirely in red.

“On this team will be… Ashley… Gaile…. Jillian… Dakota… and… Todd!”

The team was mostly standing together already, but Todd moved over to join the group, swaggering a little as he walked. A grin came onto Ashley’s face when she learned that Jillian and Gaile would both be on her team, and you could see the girl internally cheering as she was put on a team of what she thought would be total pushovers.

“Our next team is… the Plaid Pandas!” A logo appeared on the screen of a panda in front of a plaid background. The logo was done up entirely in yellow.

“On this team will be… Kiki… Lavender… T… Dennis…and Ry!” Chris said, still reading off of the sheet.

The team centered around Dennis, Ry, and Kiki. Lavender added a little flounce to her step as she walked over. “Hello, Pandas!” she said brightly as she neared the group, probably celebrating her good luck. T lifted their hand in a slight wave, Ry nodded and Dennis appeared to be involved in messing with something in his bursting pocket. Kiki looked at the girl, and whistled under her breath. Lavender’s smile fell a bit.

“And our last leam is… the Polka-dot Penguins!” A logo appeared on the screen of a penguin in front of a polka-dotted background. The logo was done up entirely in blue.

“On this team will be… Benny… Selene… Bailey… Derby… and the Baroness?” He still hadn’t quite gotten the name yet.

Right away, Selene started cheering. “Yeah, penguins!!!!” she shouted at the top of her lungs, and jumped on top of the nearest person to her, which was unfortunately Benny. His face revealed that he was less than enthusiastic about the team arrangements. The Baroness, Bailey, and Derby joined the two.

“Arr, this team is gonna be better than chocolate gold coins, I can tell already.” The Baroness grinned, pleased with the team she had been placed on.

Derby glanced at his teammates and scribbled something in his notebook. Bailey smiled, enjoying the rather quirky team.

“Alright, now I’m going to explain how the season will work, so listen up,” Chris began. “This season the challenges will-”

Chris was cut off as some faint music began to come from the bus. The cast quieted, confused, and turned to the vehicle. Suddenly, the door to the bus slammed open. Smoke poured out of the open door, and the fanfare increased in volume. Two spotlights, one red and one blue, swirled in the smoke. A silhouette appeared amidst the chaos, and a girl stepped forward. She had wavy black hair that reached to her waist and straight bangs, deep blue eyes, and slightly over-the-top makeup. She wore a plain white shirt, black legging-style capris, and black high heels. Most distinctively, she wore a long black magician’s cape with white stars on it. She beamed out at the crowd of contestants and waved the wand she held in her hand around, releasing a shower of sparks. She spoke in a loud, theatrical voice.

“The Amazing Alexandria has arrived!”

Alexandria walked over to the group, continuing to wave her wand. She approached Chris, who was glaring at her. “Hello all! The Amazing Alexandria is here to grace your tiny show with her presence!”

Chris groaned. “Alexandria-”

“The  Amazing  Alexandria.”

“Whatever. Didn’t you get my letter?”

“The Amazing Alexandria did receive your letter, but she didn’t need to open it. She knew she’d been accepted!”

Chris face-palmed. “It was a  rejection  letter.” He muttered through gritted teeth.

Either Alexandria didn’t hear him, or she was purposefully ignoring the host. “Now, which team will The Amazing Alexandria be the leader of?”

Chris tried to protest a bit more, but the girl refused to listen to him. He eventually gave up. “Fine. You can join… the Polka-dot Penguins.” He indicated the team.

“Excellent!” Alexandria walked over to her new team. The other teams began to protest, saying that it wasn't fair that the blue team had an extra member and that they’d have the advantage in challenges.

This whole unexpected development looked like it was giving Chris a headache. He rubbed his head. “You know what, whatever. She’s on the Penguins now. Just, get over it.” The teams gradually quieted and Chris looked up again. “Okay, now that that’s all done with, I’m going to explain how the season is working. Like I was saying, each challenge is based on a different color. To get everyone into the spirit of the season, everyone will wear  these .”

At the cue, Chef emerged from the bus, carrying a large stack of all white clothes. Chris gave him a glare about the Alexandria incident, which he returned with a shrug, giving Chris a there-was-nothing-I-could-do look. Chris tossed the outfits, which consisted of a plain white shirt and white khaki shorts, to each contestant. From a bag, he pulled out pairs of socks in the colors of the teams and tossed them to each team respectively. “As you can see, the socks represent your team color, and the shirt and shorts represent the color of the challenge. Every day, they’ll start out white, and we’ll regroup here. When everyone is here, I’ll use  this -” Chris whipped something that looked like a remote with a color wheel out of his pocket. “To change the colors of the clothing to the color of the challenge.” To demonstrate, he slid his finger along the color wheel on the remote. The shirts and shorts cycled between colors, causing a few contestants to drop them in surprise. Chris snickered. “Pretty cool, right? Anyway, contestants this season will each have their own rooms in the hotel right across the street. Once you are eliminated, you will leave the city entirely and go to the city from the previous season, Total Drama City, where you can interact with other eliminated contestants and contestants from previous seasons. Like every season, you can spill your guts out to our confessional, which will be located in the port-o-potty right here!” He indicated a bright blue port-o-potty on the edge of the parking lot. "Eliminations will be held in an amphitheater a few blocks away, which you’ll all be seeing after the challenge. So, any questions?”

A flurry of questions came out all at once of contestants asking if, with the uniform, they’d be able to keep their beanie, do-rag, scrunchie, bag, cape, cane, and other accessories. Chris groaned. “Fine. You can all keep your accessories. You have to wear the clothes, though.” The contestants with accessories looked happy that they didn’t have to get rid of their items.

“Any  other  questions?”

Ashley opened her mouth. “Yeah, are we going to-”

“Alrighty! No more questions, great!” Chris said loudly, cutting the girl off. Ashley looked peeved and glared at the host, but he paid no attention to her. “Now, everyone go get changed, and meet me at Mount McLean for the first challenge!” Most of the contestants rolled their eyes at the name, and Jillian, Dakota, Arizona, and T raised their hands.

Not bothering to raise her hand, Kiki blurted out the question that all of them were going to ask anyway. “Yo, Chris, Where’s this ‘Mount McLean’ at?”

“I’m glad you asked,” Chris replied, still talking down to the short girl. “Mount McLean is just outside of the city in that direction.” He pointed west down the nearest street. Some of the cast members glanced at each other, wondering how there could be a mountain here in the summertime, but no one said anything. “Now, everyone go into the hotel to get changed, and I’ll meet you all at Mount McLean! GOOOO !”

The contestants ran off and Chris turned to face the camera again. “Well, that was quite the cast! We’ll see you back here soon for the first challenge! Who will be the one who forgets to get changed and gets chewed out by me? Who will be the first to make it to the mountain top? And who will be the first to reveal their true colors? Discover all of this and more on the next part of Total! Drama! Colors!!!!!!” The screen faded out to black, with the premise of only more exciting things to come.

White Elephant Part 2
The show faded back in to reveal all 4 teams dressed in their new stark white shirts. They were all standing at the top of Mount McLean, and were subsequently all shivering in their inadequate short sleeves. Chris drove onto the scene in his snowmobile, dressed in a fluffy blue parka.

“Hello again, and welcome to Mount McLean!” Chris exclaimed with greater enthusiasm than the situation probably called for. “Now, if you look around, you’ll see-”

“Chris, we can’t focus on anything because we’re freezing to death up here.” Ashley remarked, shooting the host a death glare through her shivers. Gaile, Jillian, Dakota all looked anxiously at one another, their faces revealing their worry over her outburst.

Thankfully for the red team, Chris simply cleared his throat and moved on. “Ahem. As I was saying, if you look around, you’ll see a large collection of spare parts.” The teams glanced around as he spoke. The mountain top was coated in random junk, including everything from pieces of wood to broken toasters and dead batteries. “Your challenge for today is… a bobsled race!” Chris exclaimed dramatically, almost as though he was expecting praise for this brilliant challenge idea. Only Derby and Selene reacted, Derby clapping his hands together excitedly and Selene pelting over towards the bushes because she just saw a rabbit hop by, which technically didn’t count. Chris cleared his throat again, staring down the contestants. “I said, today, you’re doing a bobsled race! Aren’t you excited?” At this point, everyone realized how they were supposed to react and let out a half hearted cheer. “That’s better. To build your bobsled, you will need to assemble it from the junk- I mean, from the supplies that are spread around the top of Mount McLean. The first team to the bottom wins! Oh, and watch out for some obstacles that have been thrown about the path at random.” Chris chuckled, implying the true nasty nature of the obstacles that were on the bobsled paths. “Okay, on your marks! Get set!” Chris drew out the moment before he said go for a long as was humanly possible. Some contestants looked ready to burst with anticipation, while others had long since become bored with the dramatic nature of Chris. “GOOO!!!” Chris exclaimed as he hopped back into his snowmobile. “I always love this part.” Chris noted to Chef, who was sitting beside him, behind the wheel. The part Chris loved, of course, was the sudden frenzy the teams were thrown into as they attempted to regroup and get the best things available before they were snatched up.

The green team was the first to get organized, all running off to one side together. Once they got there, however, it was revealed that only three members had actually made it. “Dang it! Where’d the other two go?” Matt questioned, and he, Alice, and Mallory all glanced around to see who they were missing.

Arizona, one missing member, was standing in the middle of all the chaos, staying as still as she could so as to not get knocked over. “Hello? Polar Bears? Where are you guys??” The girl called out frantically, her lack of vision already beginning to impair her performance.

Alice sighed and headed over to lead the girl to the rest of her team. “Arizona, you’re going to have to remind us that you need help, okay?”

Arizona jerked her arm out of the other girl’s grip, her face sullen. “I don’t need your help! I’m just as capable as anyone else on this team, and I’m going to prove it!” Of course, directly after this inspirational phrase, Arizona tripped over a rock lying in the snow in front of her, resulting in her taking quite a tumble. Alice sighed and helped the girl to her feet, dragging her over to the rest of the team.

“Okay, that’s four of us now. Who are we missing?” Mallory asked the group, and everyone glanced at the feet of the other contestants, seeing an absence of any green color. Suddenly, Mika walked up to the green team from behind, leaning casually against a tree.

“Damn, it’s cold as hell up here!” The exceptionally late teen exclaimed, and the rest of her team (minus Arizona) whirled around to face her.

“Mika, where have you been?? We need you for this challenge!” Matt yelled angrily, looking pretty irked at Mika’s attitude.

“I don’t like ta show up too early. Makes ya look like a do-gooder.” Mika said with a smirk, causing the rest of her team to let out a groan.

“Okay, guys, just go find whatever you can and we’ll regroup here. Mika, we’re building bobsleds, so try and find stuff that’s slippery.” Matt’s independent streak was already causing him to try and take charge of his team, and Alice, Mallory, and Mika all headed off to find whatever they could. Matt was just about to head off himself, when he realized that Arizona was still standing there, looking slightly peeved.

“What should I look for, Matt? Should I use my incredible eyesight to go figure out where the objects are?” Arizona attempted to cross her arms and ‘glare’ at Matt, but she was actually turned to face a tree. Matt groaned and moved to stand in front of her, scooping up the first thing on the ground and forcing it into her hands.

“Why don’t you get some of these?” Matt said as nicely as he could, watching Arizona grab onto the empty toilet paper roll he’d just given her. “Feel around for as many as we can, and then I’ll come find you in a few minutes.” With that, Matt raced off to follow the others, leaving Arizona behind to start poking around on the ground with her cane.

Meanwhile, the red team was finding their organization in a much less friendly manner.

“Get over here now!” Ashley demanded, pointing to the ground next to her. Gaile and Jillian immediately complied, Dakota took a picture of the angry girl before coming to stand near the group, and Todd took his sweet time sauntering over, trying to look cool but unfortunately stumbled over his feet in the process. Ashley smirked in satisfaction, evidentially pleased that everyone was following her orders already.

“Yo guys, I was thinking we could make a wicked cool '90s sled, with big plane-style wings and lots of bright colors and maybe some inflatable seating and a disco ball or something!!” Gaile exclaimed excitedly, glancing around for approval. Jillian and Dakota nodded excitedly, though it seemed like they would agree to any idea presented with so much enthusiasm.

Todd, however, frowned, looking unsure.“I dunno. No offense, but the '90s aren’t very… cool, so to speak. Maybe we could do something more exciting, like a slick sled with flames up and down the sides! And then it could have-” Todd was cut off as Ashley’s voice spoke up once again.

“It’s a nice thought guys, but, unfortunately,” Ashley’s lip curled up when she said this, making it sound like she didn’t think it was very unfortunate at all, “we’re kind of limited on supplies. We should just go get the best stuff before anyone else takes it, then I’ll work on how to put the sled together. Now, let’s move it!” Ashley clapped her hands together and walked away, leaving little choice in the matter.

As Dakota scurried off, he snapped a quick picture of the yellow team, who were standing together in a very loose cluster. Lavender blinked her eyelashes at the members of her team, trying to look beautiful. “Alright yellow,” she said with an abnormally false smile, “you know what you need to do, right? I’ll just stand here and wait for you to get our stuff together.” Kiki and T looked willing to do what she said, Kiki because Lavender’s false eyelashes were working their charm and T because they didn’t want to cause any conflict. Dennis and Ry, on the other hand, were proving less easy to convince.

“Hey Princess, who said you got ta be the leader of the team?” Dennis asked as he lobbed a snowball at Arizona, who shrieked and whirled around, unable to see who had thrown it.

“Well, Dennis.” Lavender hissed the boy’s name out through narrowed teeth. “ Someone  needs to take charge so we don’t lose this challenge, and I don’t see you having any bright ideas.”

“I’ve got lotsa great ideas!” Dennis was currently packing together another extra large snowball, which exploded as he threw it at Jillian’s back. “Sabotage the other teams, then steal their bobsleds when they’re done. Or, we could take all the supplies and throw them down the mountain!”

“Dennis, then we wouldn’t have a sled for ourselves! Ry, you agree with me, right?” Lavender turned around and fixed her charm full force on the other boy, who was currently leaning against a pine tree.

“I dunno, I guess we could just do whatever.” Ry said with a shrug, not seeming to care about the challenge as a whole. “I mean, if it was me who was in charge, which it isn’t, I would’ve already began getting supplies together because, as you can see, the other teams are already getting started.”

Upon glancing around, Lavender could see that Ry was correct. “Fine then! Ry, T, Kiki, you guys go get some stuff together! I’ll help too, so we can go faster, and Dennis, you can just do whatever! Just hurry up!” The girl exclaimed, apparently not realizing that she had been contributing to the slowness of her team.

The blue team, unlike all the others, had very little organization going on. Benny was standing and rocking slightly in the same place as before, evidentially asleep. Selene had never really returned from her rabbit hunt, and the Baroness was sticking random pieces of the junk into her pockets for later. Derby was sitting on his own and scribbling in his notebook, and Alexandria was delighting in an almost mint condition box with a hidden compartment she’d found among all the other junk. Bailey was the only member of the team who was really focused on the challenge, and she reached this conclusion when Selene bolted past her, following a squirrel. “Blue team, over here!!!” Bailey yelled as loudly as she could, jerking her team to attention. Selene skidded over instantly, squirrel forgotten, and the Baroness stuck a spoon covered in gold foil into her pocket before rejoining the group. Benny fell over into the snow as he abruptly woke up, making him yelp before he realized that Bailey was the cause of his awakening. Derby bounded over, tucking his pen behind his ear for safekeeping, and Alexandria strutted over with a wave of her cape.

“That’s better.” Bailey smiled, happy that her team could be organized when they needed to be. “Now, we need to get started on the actual challenge. The other teams have a leg up on us already, but I think we can still make it. Everyone knows what to do, right?”

“I could use a refresher on what we’re actually doing.” Benny said with a guilty smile, having been asleep during the whole explanation from Chris.

Selene was crouched on the ground and reached up to scratch her ear with her foot. “The challenge has started. I did not notice. There was a rabbit.” She giggled a little, seeming just a tiny bit nutty.

“We be buildin’ sleds, right me mateys?” The Baroness began speaking before Bailey could even get a word in. “Arr, I remember havin’ ta fix me boat with just a pile of junk no bigger than what we have here now. Just grabbed some planks and a few nails and me girl was as good as new!”

Bailey decided to cut in now before this story got too long. “Yeah, like the Baroness said, we’re building sleds. Just find whatever you can from this junk and then we can regroup.”

“The Amazing Alexandria insists that before you all run off to find your planks of wood or whatnot, you stay to watch her put on a fabulous show with this magic box she just found! She promises that it will be quite spectacular!!” Alexandria grinned and produced the magic box from her pocket, unfortunately not generating quite as much enthusiasm as she would’ve liked. “You there, easily excitable boy! Would you like to see the immense capabilities of the Amazing Alexandria’s magical box?” Alexandria pointed at Derby as she spoke, and he looked excited to be noticed.

“Certainly! You know, I once wrote a really fantastic story about a witch similar to you!” Derby was just taking his first step over to Alexandria, eager to share his story with the girl, when he was held back as Bailey grabbed his shoulder.

“Sorry Derby, but we need you to help us look for stuff for the sled. And Alexandria-”

“The Amazing Alexandria, if you please.”

“Fine. The Amazing Alexandria, would you please just help us put together the sled and stop talking about your magic show? Maybe we’ll watch it when we actually make it down the mountain.” Bailey was ready for her team to come together, and she didn’t want Alexandria to hinder this already.

“If you all have no appreciation for the Amazing Alexandria’s magic, then she will simply go join another team. Good day to you all.” Alexandria sniffed and walked away, causing Bailey to bury her head in her hands.

“Just forget her and go find whatever you can. We can do this, guys!!” The blue team raced off, motivated by Bailey’s words, or maybe just because Selene saw a chipmunk.

The next few minutes contained a flurry of activity among all the teams. Arizona was picking up all the toilet paper rolls she found, while the rest of her team did the best they could to find supplies that were more useful. Ashley was acting for the most part as a supervisor, and Dakota was taking pictures of others as they ran by. Lavender was forced to get her hands dirty, Kiki was doing the heavy hauling for the yellow team, and Dennis threw snowballs at everyone he could see, regardless of if they were on his team or not. The blue team was shaping up pretty well, with everyone relatively focused except for Alexandria, who was standing alone and attempting to charm people from other teams into joining her by throwing glitter all over them. Gradually, the teams began to regroup, some quicker than others.

The green team had decided to just hold their stuff as they ran around looking for more, and they dropped their objects into a big pile when they rejoined forces. Arizona had made a big stack of toilet paper rolls to entertain herself, and when Matt took her back to join the team again, the stack of rolls was left behind. Most of the team inspected their new pile of items, which included some baking pans, empty chip bags, and an assortment of metal squares. Mallory had picked up some interesting things, including cardboard rolls, string, sugar packets, lighter fluid, and some less identifiable powders, but for the most part, the green team had a collection of items that were pretty good for building sleds.

“So, guys, would anyone like to tell me what we got?” Arizona questioned, feeling kind of spiteful that her toilet paper rolls had just been left behind.

“We’ve got a ton of metal stuff, and then whatever the hell Mall’ got.” Mika turned to face Mallory, who had a wild grin on her face. “Seriously though, what is this ****?”

“Bomb making materials, of course!” Mallory exclaimed with more enthusiasm than most people would have upon saying that sentence.

“Why would we need bomb supplies? We’re building a bobsled, not a fighter plane.” Alice looked over at Mallory with an eyebrow raised. Mallory simply laughed.

“Sabotage, of course! I throw the bomb, and the other teams get a face full o’ smoke! Then we win!!”  Though her plan seemed like it might result in chaos, the rest of the green team decided to let Mallory just do her thing.

“Mallory, you build the bombs or whatever. Alice and Mika, help me build the actual sled. And Arizona, you can just,” Matt suddenly found himself at a loss for what the blind member of the team should do, “why don’t you just sit over there?” Matt gestured over to a rock before he realized that Arizona couldn’t see what he was pointing to. “Over there by that tree. Five paces to your left, then three steps back.” Matt could already tell that having Arizona on the team was going to be difficult.

“No. I want to help, and I want to do more than stacking toilet paper rolls.” Arizona was quite determined in proving her usefulness to the team, feeling frustrated that no one would take her seriously.

Alice decided that now would be a good time to step in. “Arizona, you can come help me if you want! Matt just doesn’t want you to get hurt. Isn’t that right, Matthew?” Alice leaned up to whisper in Matt’s ear. “We need Arizona to feel like she’s a valuable member of this team so she doesn’t get all spiteful and turn on us. Just go along with me, okay?” Finished with her whispered mild threat, Alice grabbed Arizona’s arm and led her over to the metal for the sled.

On the red front, Ashley had led an organized sorting of the objects as the team delivered them, and was currently waiting for her team to show up again. The red team had gathered mostly plastic objects, which had been organized from the more flimsy thin sheets, to Tupperware containers and even hard Plexiglass. Gradually the rest of the team filtered back into the group, dropping their last items onto the stack.

“Dude, this is so fly!!!” Gaile exclaimed excitedly, scooping up a plastic cup from the Tupperware stack which had The Powerpuff Girls on it. “Can I keep this? It would look totally sweet in my room!!!” Gaile’s excitement was quelled as Ashley snatched the cup back and set it back in its pile.

“We aren’t here to find things for ourselves, we’re here to build a sled and win the challenge. Did anyone find anything which we could actually use to tie this stuff together?” Ashley looked quite exasperated over this, despite the fact that she hadn’t done any of the searching herself.

“I don’t know if this counts, but I found this. It still has some gas in it.” Jillian meekly offered up a lighter she’d found on the ground to Ashley’s waiting hands.

“Oh yes, this will do perfectly.” Ashley nodded, pleased that her group had gotten easily meltable plastic now. “Todd,” Ashley whirled around on the boy, who stumbled backwards a little because of the flame being waved in his face, “you’re going to use the lighter, unless you’re too big of a baby to handle it. It’s not too much responsibility for you is it?” Ashley’s mocking tone set the boy off, and he grabbed the lighter, slightly scorching his fingers in the process.

“I can use a lighter just fine!” Todd sniffed indignantly, angry at his capabilities being insulted.

Dakota, meanwhile, was feeling kind of useless. “Ashley, what should the rest of us do?” He questioned the girl, automatically accepting her leadership.

Ashley turned to face Dakota, feigning a look of surprise upon seeing him as though she’d forgotten he was there. “Uhh, Nevada, you and Jillian and Gaile can start piecing together the sled. Just lay out the framework so Todd can weld it together.”

“Actually, my name is Dakota, not Nevada.” Dakota noted, assuming Ashley had made an honest mistake.

“Whoops, sorry. You’re just so small, I forgot all about you!” Ashley enjoyed a brief laugh at the boy before remembering that she was supposed to be mildly supportive of her teammates, and she attempted to change it to a more cutesy, happy giggle. Dakota seemed okay with it, and smiled along with her, though he didn’t seem to know why the laughter had begun. Ashley coughed and continued with her instructions. “Okay Dakota, just start laying out the plastic. I’ll be here to check on how you guys are doing.” Dakota, Jillian and Gaile hopped to their task, still kind of unaware that Ashley was already exerting power over them.

The yellow team wasn’t quite as organized as the red or green teams had been. The efficiency of the team was relatively debatable, seeing as T had weak muscles from their small body frame, Lavender didn’t like heavy lifting, Dennis was too busy throwing snow at others to help much, and Ry had been pretty much just leaning against a tree for the whole time. Only Kiki was really doing any work, but thankfully her time in the 'hood’ had given her quite the strong arm muscles, even though she was really short. Gradually, the team regrouped, Kiki tossing a few more supplies into the messy pile she had created. Lavender stomped up last, and some members of the team could barely conceal a giggle. Her hair was a mess, frizzing around her and covered in ice and dirt. The expression on the girl’s face was a look which could melt steel. “YOU!!!” She shrieked, pointing an accusatory finger at Dennis. “YOU DID THIS TO ME, AND YOU’RE GOING TO PAY!!!!”

Dennis simply blinked at the girl, eyes wide open in innocence. “Who, me? I swear, it was an  accident !!"

The scene was quickly interrupted to a flashback from the chaos. Dennis sat alone, packing together a particularly dense clump of ice and rolling it in the dirt and mud just below the snow. ” Where are you, Lavender? “ He questioned in a sing song voice before spotting the girl and lobbing the snowball right into her perfect hair with a maniacal grin. The scene flashed back to real time, Lavender still spitting mad.

"I don’t believe you, Dennis. You’re disgusting.”

“Now, now, break it up.” Kiki stepped between Lavender and Dennis, holding her arms out to keep the two away from one another. “The only one allowed to fight ‘round here is me. You guys need ta stay focused on the challenge.”

Lavender still wasn’t ready to let the whole hair thing go, but she knew she’d have to  shape up, for the good of the team. “Fine, I’ll work on the challenge, but only if I don’t have to even look at  Dennis .” Lavender pronounced the name with so much malice that it made T cringe, despite the fact that no one was talking to them. Ry stepped over from the tree where he’d been waiting for the last several minutes, adding absolutely nothing productive to the group.

“If I was one of the team leaders, which I’m still not, I would say we need to get started because, as you can see, the green and red teams are already going at it. I don’t really have a plan or anything, but I would prefer it if we weren’t the first team at elimination.” Ry stated in his usual disinterested tone, and the other members of the team could see that he was right.

“Kiki, would you mind giving us a bit of a plan to work with, and we’ll follow your lead? You seem to be the most knowledgeable person here in terms of working with wood.” T spoke up in their clear voice, and the rest of the team listened. T brought a certain calm to the group which everyone needed, and they were pleased they had so much of an impact on their team.

“Alright, ya slackers! Let me get ya started on buildin’ this sled.” Kiki rubbed her hands together, excited to be getting started on the building.

Things on the blue team were, as could be expected, disorganized. Bailey was attempting to get her group together, but without much success. There were multiple piles littering the ground, which blue team members had created, and Selene and Alexandria hadn’t made any headway at all. Finally, most of the group formed together as Bailey scooted their piles into one giant stack. The supplies the blue team had pulled together were more mixed than what the other teams had found, and the stack was a mess with wood, metal, and plastic. Bailey decided that the team should get started now, even though they were technically still missing two members. “Alright team! Are you guys ready to put this sled together?”

“Arrr, me be readier than anyone else on this here team. Me knowledge with boats’ll certainly help us out in this ‘ere challenge!” The Baroness looked pretty pumped to get started, her pockets jingling as she jumped up and down excitedly, causing the rest of her team to stare at her strangely. The Baroness stopped hopping and sheepishly rubbed her arm a little.

“Baroness, what do you even have in there?” Benny questioned, fighting his urges to fall asleep.

“Just some swag for me room.” The Baroness had, in fact, put more stuff in her pockets than she’d put in her pile, but it was all perfect stuff necessary for her collection of treasures.

“Swag?” Benny asked, thinking he’d heard wrong and that the sleep deprivation was getting to him again.

“It means ‘stolen property.’” Derby cut in, joining the conversation cheerfully. “Or loot, one might say.”

“Aye, it does!” The Baroness confirmed happily.

At this moment, Selene decided to arrive, dropping a dead squirrel onto the ground. “Caught a squirrel!” She exclaimed, and everyone else jerked backwards in disgust.

“Selene, that creature is hardly sanitary.” Derby took off his glasses and rubbed them on his shirt, trying to make himself feel cleaner.

“Squirrels are yummy!” Selene was just picking up the squirrel to tear into it when the screen switched to a black background and an instrumental version of the theme song played in replacement of the actual audio.

“Gotta keep this PG.” Chris’ voice remarked, and it was another few seconds before the contestants came back into view, all looking slightly sickened. Selene’s face was covered with a red liquid that, for the purpose of the PG rating, we’ll call cranberry juice. Benny was staring at the girl with wide eyes, looking more awake than he had been all episode.

“Al…alrighty then.” Bailey clapped her hands together and the team snapped back into action. “Baroness, since you seem to know so much about building, would you like to lead us in making the sled?”

“It’d be my pleasure! This sled’ll be the finest sled that ever sled the seven snows!” The Baroness reached down, snatching up a plank of wood, and the rest of the team prepared to follow suit.

Alexandria was standing alone, waving her wand aimlessly. She’d run out of glitter a few minutes ago, but she was still clinging to her belief that her talents would cause her to get picked up by a better team. Eventually, after watching her for a few minutes on the camera, Chris’ voice blared out, making Alexandria jump in surprise.

“Alexandria-”

“The Amazing Alexandria.” Even in her confused state, Alexandria was still quite persistent.

“Fine. The ‘Amazing’ Alexandria, you need to go join your team.”

“The Amazing Alexandria doesn’t need her team anymore. They were quite disrespectful towards her.” Alexandria sniffed haughtily, still looking around for where Chris’ voice was coming from.

“Look down,” Chris said with a chuckle, and Alexandria gave a gasp as she noticed a spot of swirling colors right on her shirt collar. “Speakers in the shirt,” he explained, and as he spoke the colors grew brighter.

“Well, despite how magical these shirts are, the Amazing Alexandria is perfectly content staying right here.”

Chris let loose a sigh of frustration. “Fine, stay here. See if I care. I hope you’ll like being eliminated first.” With that, the colors on Alexandria’s shirt turned back into white, and Chris was gone. Alexandria scoffed at his request. She would much prefer to stay right here, where, at the very least, she could appreciate her own good company.

A frantic montage played of all the teams building their sleds, significantly shortened due to time constraints. Once all of the sleds were as complete as they were going to get, the action stopped to focus on each one individually. The green team’s sled was a long, flat creation, made by bolting the metal pieces together and flattening them out. The red team’s sled was slightly more sophisticated, a fused together mis-matched creation of multi-colored plastic. This sled, because the plastic was more easy to morph, had sides which curved upwards and a front section which was tapered to a point. On the yellow team, Kiki had nailed the wood pieces together to form a sled which was rounded into a circular shape. The blue team, despite being the most unorganized, had perhaps created the fanciest sled of all. Using a mixture of all three materials, the blue team’s sled was a crazy creation resembling a small pirate ship. The name the Baroness had painted onto the front read The S.S. Annabelle. Finally, with all of the teams ready, contestants began hopping on and pushing off.

The green team, having completed their sled first, were the first to leave. The team piled onto the sled quickly with Matt sitting in the front, then Arizona, then Alice, Mika, and finally Mallory. Mallory hadn’t helped with the creation of the sled at all, and was instead clutching a tubular object. No one particularly wanted to ask her what she’d been working on, but her frequent maniacal chuckles were enough for everyone to know that it was a bomb. Once everyone was seated, Matt scooted the sled over to the edge of the mountain and the green team was off.

The red team had piled onto their sled by Ashley’s command, herself first, Jillian second, Gaile third, Dakota fourth, and Todd bringing up the rear, which he didn’t seem too pleased with.

“Why can’t I sit in the front?” Todd whined, pouting from his seat in the back, and Ashley looked backwards, tilting her head in mock confusion.

“What was that?” She questioned, face set into a smirk. “I can’t hear you from all the way back there!” With a laugh, Ashley pushed the sled forward and the Parrots began their descent.

The yellow team loaded onto their sled in a random order, with the result being Lavender in front (having pushed herself in front of Dennis), Dennis sitting behind her sullenly, Kiki forcing herself into third, T sitting politely in fourth, and Ry parking himself in the back, which suited him just fine. As Lavender began to push off, she felt a few cold pieces of ice slide down her back and suddenly started to regret her decision to sit in front of the prankster.

The blue team was standing, admiring their completed and gorgeous sled, when they heard the crunch of footsteps in the snow approaching behind them. Turning around, the team realized that it was Alexandria, who was sidling up to the sled, a gleam lighting up her eyes.

“The Amazing Alexandria sees that you’ve done a fine job on her sled! She-”

“Wait a second,  her  sled?” Bailey hadn’t done all the work on this sled just so this arrogant girl could swoop in and claim it.

“Yes, her sled. So, the Amazing Alexandria thanks you, and she will be on her way now.” Before the rest of her team could blink an eye, Alexandria was off, jetting away on The S.S. Annabelle. Once she had registered what had just happened, a growl rose in the Baroness’ throat.

“No one takes me ship and gets away with it!!” The pirate snarled and ran off after Alexandria, though it was a lost cause. Alexandria had both the time and speed advantage, and soon the sled had vanished from sight. Finding themselves alone and sledless on the top of Mt. McClean, the blue team was at a loss.

“Well, what do we do now??” Derby threw his hands into the air in frustration, losing a bit of his mature edge as he did so.

Selene’s eyes were bright, and she hopped up and down excitedly. “Ride Benny!”

“No!!!” Benny backed away quickly, not too thrilled at the idea of being the new sled.

“We can’t ride Benny.” Bailey dismissed the idea immediately, knowing that a few people on the team might actually be seriously considering this. “We just need to find some new supplies, and fast.”

The blue team split up to scour the mountain, but it seemed to have been picked clean by the other teams. Suddenly, the Baroness hit jackpot.

“Over ‘ere, me mateys!!” She cried, waving her team over to her newly found stack of toilet paper rolls. Producing a roll of duct tape from her pocket, the Baroness grinned. “I just might ‘ave an idea.”

Down the mountain, the other teams were in high pursuit of one another, ducking and weaving through the trees. Matt wasn’t doing so hot on steering the green team, and he bumped into stuff until everyone on the sled was sufficiently shaken up.

“Matt, why in the hell do we keep gettin’ hit? Are you aimin’ for the trees or somethin’??” Mika finally burst out after yet another branch hit her square in the face.

Matt snarled, trying to steer and talk at once. “I’m doing the best I can, okay?? Damn it!!!” Matt cursed as the sled bounced off of yet another rock. Suddenly, he felt a hand on his shoulder.

“Let me steer.” Arizona said, her voice almost swept away by the wind.

“Let you steer?? Sorry ‘Zona, but I don’t have a death wish.”

“Just trust me on this, okay? I promise that if it goes badly, I won’t try and help again, but I just want to show you that I can actually do something to help the team.” Arizona had grown quite frustrated with Matt over the course of the challenge, and this was just the icing on the cake for her.

Hearing their argument from behind, Alice called up to the front of the sled, “Just let her steer, Matt.”

Matt was a little skeptic, but he trusted Alice’s judgement by this point. “Fine. Arizona, go ahead and steer. And when we all fall out of the sled and break a few bones, you can’t say I didn’t warn you guys.” With that, Matt took his hands off the sled, leaned back, and let Arizona take control. The girl grasped the sides of the sled in her hands and, suddenly, the bumps stopped. The rest of the team stared in amazement as they avoided literally every obstacle in their path, Arizona doing a much better job at not bumping into stuff than Matt had done.

“How the **** are you doing that???” Mika blurted out in amazement, and Arizona just smiled.

“I can hear the wind,” she explained, gesturing to her ears. “When the wind is loud, that means there are no obstacles. But when the wind gets quiet or goes away, I know something’s there.” Needless to say, the whole team was sufficiently impressed. Even Matt couldn’t deny that Arizona’s hearing capabilities were pretty cool.

Suddenly, a white blur caught Mallory’s eye. She turned to see the red team speeding by on their plastic creation, Ashley steering. With a maniacal grin, Mallory pulled out a box of matches, striking one on the outside of the box. She lit the string fuse on her creation and tossed it over to the other team, where it landed in Todd’s lap. The confused boy stared down at the contraption. “Bye bye, red team!” Mallory cackled as a cloud of smoke shrouded the Parrots. The team coughed, and unable to see through the smoke, the sled began to swerve. “Nice going, Todd!” Ashley sneered back at him through the smoke.

“I didn’t do anything, Ashley!” Todd shouted defensively. “I was just sitting here, in the back, minding my own business, when that freaky girl-”

“Yeah, okay Todd, whatever. Just try and do better next time.” Ashley clearly didn’t care about what Todd had to say, so he just huffed a little and leaned forward to whisper to Dakota.

“Can you believe this girl??” The boy hissed, and Dakota looked confused.

“Ashley? I don’t really think she’s so bad, she just wants us to do well! Here, hold that pose.” With that, Dakota whipped out his camera and snapped a picture of Todd’s glowering face. “Thanks, Todd! You’re a good friend.” Smiling, Dakota turned back around to face the front, and Todd was left sitting in stunned silence.

Abruptly, a ball of ice and dirt hit the boy smack on the back of his head, and he fell forward, groaning. The yellow team zipped by, Dennis giggling like a little kid. As the yellow team pulled to the front, they just managed to catch hearing a shout of, “Keep your head up, Todd!” from Ashley before they were off. Lavender was doing her best at steering, made increasingly more difficult by the fact that every time she let her guard down, Dennis trickled ice, or snow, or dirt down her back. Or a mix of all three, as he had just done. Lavender could hear those unnaturally loud chuckles as if the boy was blaring them from a loudspeaker right in her ear. Finally, the girl had had enough, and she whipped around, face set in a snarl.

“Dennis, if you touch me or pour that disgusting crap down my back one more time, I’m going to…” Lavender found herself at a loss for words at precisely the wrong time. “I’ll do something really horrible,” she concluded rather weakly.

Just as Dennis was about to reply with some undeniably witty retort, the sled bounced off a rock, giving all the riders a jolt, and Kiki leaned into the scene.

“Dennis, leave ‘er alone. And Lav, focus on the sled n’ not Dennis. I’ll take care of ‘im, but as is, we gon crash.”

“Fine.” Lavender sniffed and turned back to face forward, smacking Dennis’ wrist backwards when she felt his cold fingertips tickling her shoulder blades.

In the back of the sled, things were significantly calmer. Ry was dragging a stick behind him and drawing lines in the snow as the sled moved, and T was sitting with their knees pulled to their chest.

“You don’t talk much, do you?” Ry commented after they had sat in silence for a while, and T shook their head.

“I talk when I have something to say,” they remarked softly, voice drifting off into the wind.

Ry nodded in agreement, and the two sledded on in silence, ignoring yet another shriek from Lavender as Dennis dropped a fake spider down her shirt. A sudden blur zipped past the yellow team, and everyone glanced over in shock. Alexandria was jetting along on The S.S. Annabelle, moving exceedingly fast due to the lack of weight on the sled and from the blue team’s superior building skills. The girl laughed maniacally as she surpassed all the other teams, with mild damage to her own sled due to her questionable steering skills.

“See you at the finish line!” Alexandria cackled as she raced along. As her ship-sled reached a break at the end of the forest, the girl could see a checkered flag at the bottom of the mountain, made abrupt by a sudden absence of snow as the mountain turned back into the normal flat land.

“The Amazing Alexandria knew she would be first!!!!!!” The girl cheered as she reached the finish line, sending up a huge flurry of snow as her sled tipped over in her eagerness to stop. Popping up from a snowbank mildly wet and grinning, Alexandria zipped over to Chris, who was standing and looking amused.”So, now that the Amazing Alexandria has left the other teams in the dust, or snow as the case may be, she desires her reward for winning!!” The girl beamed a stage-worthy smile at the host, unaware in the slightest that she might be in the wrong.

“Actually, Alexandria-:

“The Amazing Alexandria, please!”

Chris ran a head across his forehead in annoyance “Fine. The Stupendous and Totally Perfect with No Flaws Amazing Alexandria, I said that you had to finish with your whole team. And as much as you’d like to think that  you  can just be your own team, you belong to the Polka Dot Penguins, and they’re nowhere in sight.”

Alexandria, who had been basking in her self-created glory and feeling overly confident about her win, suddenly had her bubble burst. “WHAT???” The girl exclaimed with an overly dramatic expression of anger and shock on her face, and the camera suddenly flipped to show the blue team, who were just beginning their descent down the mountain. The Baroness had yet again pulled through for the team, and they were now riding on a toilet paper raft, held together by long strips of duct tape. Since the sled was relatively square shaped, the team piled onto the sled kind of haphazardly, with Benny snoozing in the back and Selene perched beside him, Derby sitting alone in the middle, and the Baroness and Bailey together in the front. Both girls and Derby were carrying long branches which had been stripped of their leaves to use as steering paddles. Benny and Selene hadn’t quite been considered trustworthy, seeing as Benny was currently snoring and Selene still had a little cranberry juice staining her white clothing.

The Baroness, being the one who had built the sled, had the honor of pushing off the group so they could begin their descent. ”Godspeed!” The pirate cried as the blue team finally began the actual race, several minutes behind everyone else.

Back on the bottom of the mountain, Alexandria was still throwing a hissy fit, and no one was paying her the slightest attention. Instead, the cameras were turned to face the other sleds who were just starting to come out of the trees, and only vague chunks of Alexandria’s rant could be heard. “The Amazing Alexandria deserves her victory!! Was she not the first contestant to reach the finish line? Did she not-”

“And the  actual  teams are nearing the finish line!” Chris’ voice came in, cutting over Alexandria’s voice by standing closer to the camera’s microphone. “Though Alexandria-”

“The Amazing Alexandria!” The girl’s indignant voice rose up from a significant distance away as if she was being pushed away from the camera by Chef, which was in fact what was actually happening. “And she did not ruin things for her team, she-”

“The Oh-So-Amazing Alexandria seems to have ruined the chances of a win for the blue team, but which other team will come out on top?” Chris interrupted the girl yet again, seeming to hold absolutely zero regard for her feelings on the matter. The camera suddenly swapped to one showing the teams more close up. The green team was sliding along as smoothly as they had been before, when out of nowhere the red team’s sled went crashing into them, sending the metal sled veering sharply to the left.

“What the hell was that for?!?!” Mika burst out angrily, and Ashley feigned a look of surprise at having having hit them.

“Sorry! You really should watch where you’re going! Oh wait, I forgot! You can’t!!” Ashley let out a sharp laugh as she pushed the red sled forward, bumping the green sled one more time before gaining a lead on them.

Arizona ground her teeth in frustration, trying both to get the sled on a straight path again and to get herself back into the ‘zone’. She’d had to deal with far more comments about her blindness today than she would’ve hoped for, and it was more than a little upsetting to know that despite how well she was doing, people still didn’t trust that she could handle things in her own way. A shout from behind suddenly pulled Arizona from her thoughts, and she tuned her ears to listen.

“Don’t listen to her, Arizona!” Alice called forward, and the whole team joined in, shouting out encouragement.

“Don’t let that ***** get ya down, you’re doin’ a really rockin’ job!!”

“Your steering really  blows  me away!!”

“Yeah, I have to say that you’re doing even better than I was!”

Arizona couldn’t see the smiling faces of her teammates, but she could hear the positivity in their words. The girl swiped away the tears that were just beginning to pool in the corners of her eyes, and leaned to the side to get the sled straightened out again. Letting out a beaming smile which she’d never be able to see, Arizona began steering with new hope. “Let’s do this, guys!” The girl cried out, and the whole team cheered.

The red team, however, wasn’t cheering. They were instead sledding to the finish in a rather uncomfortable silence, most people not feeling very happy about their encounter with the green team but no one wanting to say anything. Finally, Gaile decided to speak up. “Ash, that kinda wasn’t cool.”

“Well, excuse me for trying to get our team ahead. If you guys want to just be nice  and lose every challenge, then we shouldn’t have even bothered building the sled in the first place.” Ashley hardly bothered glancing behind her as she said this, not particularly caring how the members of her team felt about the matter. “And Abigaile, if you want to be called by your prefered name, then it’ll be necessary for you to call me by mine. I’m not a big fan of nicknames.”

Ashley was content to sled in silence for a few moments, before the weight of the quiet hit her like a ton of bricks and she realized that she had probably just screwed up the ‘getting-the-team-to-like-her’ thing. Grinding her teeth as she did so, Ashley attempted to inject a little friendliness into her approach. “I mean, whatever you want, Gaile. You know, this is a team effort and stuff.”

“So she says.” Todd mumbled from the back, just loud enough for Ashley to hear him.

“What was that, Todd? If you have a problem, then we should discuss it with the whole group.”

“Oh no, there’s no problem,  Ashlyn .” Todd called forwards, faking a perkiness in his tone.

“Well,  Thomas, that’s just great to hear. I was worried we might have an issue.”

“Come on, guys, let’s not fight.” Jillian cut in, most of the team having forgotten she even existed.

Deciding that now would be an excellent time to chime in, Dakota piped in with, “Yeah, we’re a team, aren’t we?”. Gaile nodded her head in agreement.

“See, they understand, Todd. We’re a  team .” Ashley said pointedly, turning around to give Todd a cutting look of pure malice that quickly changed to a perky smile when she realized that some of the other team members were looking at her. “Well, team, ready to win the challenge?” Ashley asked, with that all-too-happy smile still painted on her face.

“Yeah!” The team cheered in reply, though it ultimately just fell flat and sounded a little sad. Ashley cleared her throat and turned back to continue her steering job.

The camera chose now to be an excellent time to focus in on the yellow team. As expected, the state of the team was about the same as they’d been before. Lavender had deteriorated into an eye-twitching, frazzled condition, and the next time Dennis reached forward, she pushed backwards a  lot too hard and almost knocked him off the sled. “Just gotta make it to the end.” Lavender chanted to herself under her breath. “Just a little more, and then we can stop and I can  break his neck .”

Dennis, being seated right behind Lavender, naturally heard everything she was saying. “Come on Lav, you don’t mean that! You need me here to be a valuable team member.” With that same grin on his face, Dennis reached forward and pulled Lavender into a huge, very much unwanted hug.

Lavender threw the boy off of her and turned around to look him right in the eyes. “Listen up, Dennis. I am sick and tired of you, and if we lose this challenge, you’re so going home. But I assume you don’t want that to happen, so I suggest you keep your mouth shut and just sit still like a good little boy.”

In response to Lavender’s rather emotional outburst, Dennis just chuckled. “Hey Lav, you don’t look so good,” he said with a giggle, gesturing at Lavender’s disheveled hair and slightly bloodshot eyes.

The girl found herself at a loss for words. After everything Dennis had done to her, the unending pranks and his inability to care about anyone besides himself, this was more than she could take. Thankfully, Kiki stepped in to help her out.

“Dennis, if ya don’t shut the hell up and leave Lav alone, I don’t care if you’re on our team or not, I’ll beat ya up until ya see stars.”

“Touchy, touchy.” Dennis clucked his tongue and rolled his eyes, putting little value on Kiki’s threat.

“Please, Pandas, let’s keep it peaceful. We’re all teammates, and we need to act like it.” T piped up from the back of the sled. Everyone quieted down immediately, the team having an unspoken agreement to respect T, who seemed to have their head in the right place.

Of course, the yellow team wasn’t destined for happiness, and the peace was broken in a couple of seconds. “Yeah guys, if you’d just shut up for like 5 minutes, then everything would be way better.” Ry totally thought that he was just parroting T, but his intentions came off very differently.

Lavender tightened her hands into fists, 1000% done with at least 2 people on her team. She was just about to deliver a scathing remark to Ry, who had doubly insulted her in both his mannerisms and in the fact that he was yet another male who hadn’t shown the slightest interest in her, when the wooden sled apparently became aware that no one was currently steering it, and decided to crash right into a large rock resting deep in the middle of a snowbank. The yellow team suddenly found themselves thrown head over heels to roll down the mountain in a miniature avalanche, which some of them found quite amusing albeit painful, and some only found to be the latter.

By now, all 3 teams were just a short distance from the bottom, and all were relatively evenly matched. Arizona was steering the green team to victory, but Ashley was right beside her, hindering the Polar Bears progress by knocking into them whenever she had a chance. The yellow team was sliding along, gradually picking up speed, but also picking up a healthy dose of bruises. Finally, the 3 teams whipped past the finish line, green and red sliding to a stop, though Arizona did try and steer for a minute when they’d already cleared the finish line, until Alice reached up and tapped her on the shoulder. The yellow team all flopped around until they hit solid ground and emitted a painful sounding series of groans. Lavender was the first to recover, probably because she’d already been pushed to her breaking point in her opinion, so things couldn’t really get much worse. “McLean, if we didn’t win this challenge after all the pain and  Dennis  I had to suffer through, I’m  so  going to sue.” Lavender pulled herself to her feet in an attempt to seem more imposing, but soon just crumpled into a sitting position as the bruises on her legs started throbbing.

“Nuh uh, Lavender. Remember, you signed a contract!” Chris held up a large stack of paper with Lavender’s signature right on the front. Lavender weakly lunged for it, but Chris locked it back into a briefcase that had magically appeared next to him. “Confidential stuff. Gotta keep it super secure.” Chris laughed a little as he said this, and Lavender just groaned.

“The Amazing Alexandria wishes to inform you that you, in fact, could not have won, because she was the winner!” The green, red, and yellow teams suddenly realized that Alexandria was located somewhere nearby, and after a quick glance around, they found her being held by a few interns several feet away. “The Amazing Alexandria beat all of these peasants, and she wishes to claim her rightful reward! She-”

“Alexandria is currently waiting for her team to arrive.” Chris explained to the Polar Bears, Parrots, and Pandas, turning their attention back to him.

“Her name is the Amazing Alexandria, and she demands that you unhand her!” Alexandria consistently had to shout because she was standing pretty far from the cameras and that, combined with her over dramatic flair, made for a pretty comedic scene. Several contestants mildly snickered and tried to cover it up with coughs. Ashley and Dennis both laughed openly, though the intentions of one were significantly crueler than that of the other. Alexandria paid them no mind, and she was just opening her mouth to make yet another comment about her unfair detainment when she was cut off by Arizona of all people (though to be fair, Arizona wasn’t aware that Alexandria was about to speak at all).

“Excuse me, Chris, but who actually won?”

“I dunno.” Chris replied with his classic chuckle, and everyone groaned. “Buuuuuut, we could watch the instant replay and find out.” At this, a television rolled rolled into view as if it had been waiting for its cue. The screen flickered on to show the three teams on their sleds, moving at a very slow speed. The sleds crawled up to the finish line frame by frame, and everyone looked on in suspense. By a very, very close finish, it was the green team who won by a nose, then red, and finally Dennis’ arm counting as yellow. Lavender wanted to scream, and she actually did so, burying her face in the snow.

The green team, however, was thrilled and started whooping it up. Matt scooped up Arizona in a hug, and the girl gave a shaky smile. “Did we win?” she questioned, feeling just a little left out of the loop, and the green team all came over to give her a squeeze on the shoulder as Matt placed her back down.

“Yeah, Arizona, we did it!” Mallory smiled, feeling as though the bomb she had made might have given them the boost they needed to win the challenge. Arizona upon finally hearing the news, led the team in yet another cheer, and they all grinned.

The red team seemed to be debating whether they should celebrate or not. At first, ⅘ of the team had let out pleased shouts at having been super close to first place, but upon seeing Ashley’s stone cold face, everyone had switched to a more internal cheer. Ashley wasn’t exactly the type of person to be pleased with getting second place, which to her was the equivalent of getting last. Only winners got the real rewards, everyone else just got a pat on the back, a flimsy ribbon delivered with a fake smile, and a ‘You tried’. Still, Ashley knew that the team was looking to her for how they should react, - with the exception of Todd, who was taking a celebration selfie and looking pretty pleased with himself - and she couldn’t let them think that she hated them all for being so incompetent and slow. “Good effort, guys,” she said, forcing that same harsh grin on her face, and the other team members hesitantly began to smile again.

“Come here, guys!” Gaile tugged the team members into a hug, Jillian squeaking a little in surprise. Todd reached forward and snapped a picture of them all using the phone he already had out. Dakota leaned over instantly to ask Todd if he would send him the photo when they got a signal back, and Todd nodded, looking over to Ashley with a glance that just screamed, “See, he likes me better than you!”. Ashley rolled her eyes and pulled herself from Gaile’s grip, not very convinced that Dakota was asking out of friendliness towards Todd as much as it was his fascination with photos.

The yellow team - minus Dennis - were currently consoling Lavender, who was still throwing a fit in the snow.

“Lavender, we’re gonna be fine. We didn’t lose, did we?” Kiki was trying in vain to lift Lavender’s spirits, but it was to no avail.

“It’s not fair!!!” The beautiful girl shrieked, feeling pretty cold from lying in the snowbank but not willing to get up.

“Lavender, please just grow up. You’re making our whole team look childish.” Ry rolled his eyes and stayed stationary in his nonchalant pose, not feeling like it was worth his time to kneel down and help Lavender up like Kiki and T were trying to do.

“Things are going to be okay. Don’t worry too much, Lavender, we did very well. Now, just sit up and we can go back to the hotel in a couple of minutes to get you all freshened up.” T was working their weird calming magic and, with a sniffle, Lavender pulled herself up to a sitting position.

“Thanks, T. You’re a really good fr- AUGH!!!” Lavender was startled from her sole moment of happiness as a bucket of ice cold water unexpectedly deposited its contents right onto her. The girl felt a chill run through her entire body as she was soaked right to the bone. When she finally got over the shock, Lavender heard a wild chuckling erupt from a pine tree above her.

“Oh man, Lav, I sure got ya good!” As everyone in the whole world already knew, Dennis was the one in the tree laughing his head off at the miserable girl below him.

Kiki, who had also gotten a little splashed, was fuming. “Dennis, when ya get down ‘ere, I’m gonna beat yo *** to a pulp!!” The girl yelled up to Dennis, who was clinging to a branch more by force of will than by any form of safety harness.

“I hate to interrupt this little party,” Chris said, cutting into the yellow team’s fight that was by no means any sort of party, “but it looks like the blue team is finally nearing the finish line!” At that, all attention diverted over to the toilet paper sled just emerging from the trees, with the green team giving Arizona a blow-by-blow on what was happening. The cameras quickly switched to a close up of the blue team, to show things from their point of view. Though it was difficult to see from a distance, the bottom of the sled was, in fact, disintegrating as the cardboard rolls became saturated with water and started flaking apart. The blue team, however, didn’t notice this, and were focusing all their attention on making it down the mountain.

“Full speed ahead!” The Baroness called, acting as a lookout for the rest of the team. “Finish line, ho!”

Benny jerked awake at the Baroness’ outburst, his gasp of surprise upon realizing how fast they were moving reinforcing his team’s decision not to trust him to steer.”What’s going on? What did I miss?” Benny swiped his eyes from side to side and fell backwards in shock as Selene’s face popped up to his left.

“Scaring Benny fun!” She grinned, and Benny tried to calm his rapidly pounding heart.

“Selene, that is hardly appropriate behavior for this situation.” Derby was focused on talking and steering at the same time, but his vocabulary hardly faltered.

“Let’s keep it focused, team! We’re almost there!” Bailey, though she didn’t say so, was enjoying this chaotic ride more than she should have been. Extreme sports were kind of her thing, and nothing said ‘extreme’ like zipping down a mountain at unreasonable speeds in an unreliable sled.

With a jolt, the sled ride suddenly became bumpier, and everyone jumped in shock, trying to figure out what the problem was. The Baroness was the first to notice large holes beginning to appear throughout the cardboard surface. “Me ship is sunk!” she yelped, and everyone else was thrown into a panic. Well, almost everyone.

“Selene helps!” Selene cried out, and she scooted to the back of the sled. Using her incredibly strong arm muscles, which came from the frequent climbing of trees, Selene began pushing the sled forward even faster, hardly noticing that her palms were getting scratched up from when her hands landed on rocks instead of the soft snow. The sled shot forwards, now extremely close to the bottom. The Baroness was yelling out directions, and Bailey and Derby were doing their best to keep up with her demands. Benny was sitting in the middle and looking extremely confused. Once he realized what was going on, the boy scooted to help Selene in the back, his sleepy arms hardly helping in anything but spirit. Still, Selene seemed to appreciate it, and Benny’s companionship made her push even harder. Finally, just as the sled vanished out from under them, the blue team was sent spinning across the finish line, all thoroughly exhausted. The green and some of the red team applauded them as they lay in the snow, completely wiped out.

Alexandria, however, was not in the mood for a happy reunion. Having finally been released upon the arrival of her team, the girl strutted over, cape flying out behind her. “The Amazing Alexandria has been waiting for you!” She called in a demanding tone as she reached the main group. The blue team, who were all a little dazed, blinked up at her. “She has been subjected to all numbers of indignities, and she demands to know what took you so long! Did you not know that  all  members of the team had to be present for victory?” Alexandria haughtily glared down at the Penguins, evidently not realizing that she was the one who had caused all of the problems in the first place.

Bailey, being fed up with the girl, opened her mouth to say just that. “But it was your-”

“Ah ah ah.” Alexandria interrupted Bailey, cutting her off with a wave of her hand. “The Amazing Alexandria forgives you, however, she desires you to be less incompetent in the future.”

The rest of the blue team was at a loss for words, and sat still with their mouths gaping open and indignant expressions on their faces.

“What a happy reunion!” Chris had just found his way over, and he gave Alexandria a pat on the back which was really more of a shove that knocked her forwards. “Alexandria’s been waiting for a  very  long time.”

“The Amazing Alexandria.” Alexandria mumbled, glaring at Chris.

“But enough about her.” Chris dismissed Alexandria, having had far more than enough time alone with the girl. “Now that you guys are finally here, we can get started! It’s no big surprise but, Penguins, you lost so hard that it was almost a little sad. However, that means you get to be the first people to experience an elimination ceremony! Aren’t you special?”

The grumbles of the blue team implied that no, they weren’t feeling all that special, but Chris chose to ignore that. “Okay, here’s how this is gonna work. One by one, you guys will go into the confessional and write down the name of the player you want eliminated onto a slip of paper. You will then place your paper into this locked box,” Chris paused to hold up a rather unattractive wooden box with an abnormally large lock on it, “which will remain locked throughout the voting process. Anyone who tampers with the votes will receive an automatic elimination… if I feel like it. Depends on what I’m in the mood for.” Chris chuckled, and all the contestants groaned. “When you’re done, meet me in the amphitheatre. The loser will go stand by the wall of shame for a special ‘surprise’, before being sent to a hotel in the real, populated city from season 2, where they’ll live until the season is over. Everyone got that?”

The only people who probably did ‘get that’ were Bailey, the Baroness, and Derby, seeing as the other three members of the blue team were sleeping, climbing trees, or more concerned with fixing their cape than listening to instructions. “Well, good!” Chris proclaimed, disregarding the fact that half of the group he was talking to hadn’t heard a word of what he’d just said. “Now, go vote! And as for the rest of you…” All of the other teams glanced up in surprise upon being mentioned. “Meet the Penguins in the amphitheater! You all get to watch the elimination of the season’s biggest loser, and the Polar Bears get a special reward for being today’s winners! Okay, contestants, let’s move it!” Chris clapped his hands and the teams mostly leaped into action. The last thing visible on screen was Dennis falling out of his tree with a shriek as the branch he had been clinging to cracked, and Alexandria’s restarted complaints.

“It’s unfair that the Amazing Alexandria must go vote! She was the first contestant to reach the bottom! She…” With that, the camera faded out to black.

White Elephant Part 3 (Final Trick)
The camera came on to find the cast seated on a set of metal benches, facing a plain black brick wall. The Polka-dot Penguins sat front and center, with the red team to their left, yellow above them, and green to their left. The blue team had already voted, and had separated into two separate groups, Alexandria on one side and the rest of her team on the other. The two groups glared at each other, each believing the other had lost them the challenge. Selene was being forcibly held in her seat by the Baroness and Bailey so she wouldn’t run off.

Chris strode into view, holding a single piece of paper in his hand. “And the votes are in!” he proclaimed, waving the paper a little. He glanced at the paper, seemingly wanting to draw out the moment for as long as possible. “And, by a unanimous  vote, this season’s biggest loser is…” He looked back down at the paper again. Some of the members of the team were starting to look a little nervous. Benny kept nodding off and had to shake himself to stay awake.

“The  Aaaamazing  Alexandria!” Chris said theatrically.

Alexandria jumped up from her seat, giving a haughty smile at the rest of her team. “Ha! The Amazing Alexandria knew she would be the winner! She is glad you have all recognized your incompetence!”

Chris and the other contestants blinked at the girl for a moment. “Umm, Alexandria? You do realize that you vote for who you want to be  eliminated, right?”

Alexandria’s mouth fell open in shock.“WHAT???”

The camera flashed back to an image of Alexandria in the confessional.

“The Amazing Alexandria is the obvious winner of the challenge, and the season!” The girl proclaimed, flashing the camera a glimpse of her voting slip. The Amazing Alexandria  was written on it in a sparkly signature. Alexandria stuffed the paper into the box in front of her and beamed at the camera before breezing out of the confessional, an all-too confident smile on her face.

“The Amazing Alexandria demands a re-vote!” The magician burst out. “She is sure her team would have voted for someone else if they had known that they were not voting for the winner!”

The blue team made disconcerting noises.

“Sorry, Alexandria, but the votes don’t lie!” Chris declared. He grabbed the still-protesting girl by the arm and pulled her until her back was against the brick wall. “Chef, if you would…”

Chef Hatchet emerged from behind the bleachers, carrying a few mid-sized cans of white paint. He set them down and went back repeatedly until there were twenty buckets in front of the bleachers, grumbling as he did so in his customary fashion.

“Now if everyone would come off of the bleachers and grab a paint bucket…” Chris trailed off, waiting for the contestants to follow his instructions. The twenty contestants stood in a semicircle facing the indignant magician and blank wall behind her.

“We thought that it wouldn’t be fair to ask anyone to leave the season without leaving their ‘mark’ on the show.” Chris snickered at his own private joke. “And what better way to do that than to give them a ‘splash’ of the color they failed so horribly on? Behold, the Wall of Shame!” A few contestants began to realize what was happening, and a few of them smiled deviously. “Now, if you’ll all grab your paint buckets…” Realization came to the remaining cast members and Alexandria, who began increasing her efforts to make Chris release her, which was mostly flailing around without much impact. “And, on the count of three… one… two… three!” Chris quickly sidestepped out of the circle as the competitors flung their paint buckets at Alexandria, who wasn’t able to get away fast enough before being utterly drenched in the white color. As she stepped away, coughing, an imprint of the girl’s body remained on the wall.

“Sorry, Alexandria,” Chris said, looking at the miffed girl. “Actually, what am I saying? I’m not sorry at all!” Chris chuckled. “Think of it this way, you proved that getting drenched in lead-based paint  won’t  kill you, at least right away, and now we know it’s safe for the other contestants!” He motioned at Chef, who walked off screen around the corner next to the wall.

Alexandria seemed to have gotten some of her old spunk back, and started talking as fast as her dripping white mouth would let her. “The Amazing Alexandria refuses to stand for this kind of indignacy! She is the greatest player on the show, she-”

“Now, if you round the corner,” Chris said, cutting the girl off. “You’ll find Chef waiting in a car to take you to the city from our previous season, Total Drama City, where you’ll be able to talk with other eliminated contestants as they come in, and contestants from other seasons. Well, whoever we got to stay, that is. People have a  terrible  habit of ignoring their contracts. And you’ll be the first Total Drama Colors contestant they’ll meet! Aren’t you lucky?”

“The Amazing Alexandria refuses to leave.” Alexandria stated, folding her wet arms and standing firm.

“Sorry, Alexandria, but that’s not how the game is played. You see, you don’t really get a choice in whether you’re eliminated or not. I’d say you had a good run, but you really  didn’t, and you voted for  yourself , sooo…” Chris waved over two interns, who began to drag the girl off of her last stage.

“No! The Amazing Alexandria can’t be leaving so early in the competition! She hasn’t even been able to put on one magic show for her fellow contestants!” Alexandria waved her wand around, sparkles coming out but mostly just sticking to the paint on her own body. “You can’t make the Amazing Alexandria  leave !!! She-” Alexandria continued shouting until she was out of earshot, leaving a sparkling, white trail behind her.

“Well, I’m glad  she’s  finally gone,” Chris said, looking at the other contestants, who were standing around awkwardly with their empty paint buckets. “Now you can all sit down again.” The contestants took their seats, still a bit shocked over the final outburst from Alexandria. Chris reached behind the bleachers again and pulled out a bag filled with twenty plain white rubber bracelets. “Every remaining contestant will receive one of these after every challenge, featuring the color from the episode. These must be worn at all times, otherwise I might assume that you lost the challenge of the color you’re missing and just kick you off instead.”

Chris distributed the bracelets to the contestants, who slid them onto their arms. Some kept a close hold on theirs, not wanting the bracelets to get lost, even though they were already on their own bodies. Dennis considered flinging his at Lavender’s head, but decided against it and instead reached over and snapped hers against her wrist. She shrieked and reached over to hit him. Kiki held the two apart to prevent an all out brawl. Matt and Alice helped Arizona get hers on, who wanted to feel it all over first. Gaile snapped hers on next to her purple scrunchie. Selene tried to bite the band before putting it on, and her team had to hold it onto her wrist for a few moments before she forgot about it being there underneath her floppy sleeve.

“Oh, I almost forgot! Polar bears, please step forward.” Looking both anxious and excited, the green team stood up as Chris pulled yet another bag from under the bleachers, which seemed to have unlimited storage space. “As the winners of the challenge, you get a special novelty item! Consider it a reminder of how you beateveryone else in the challenge.” Ashley and Lavender scowled at this comment. Ignoring them, Chris untied the bag and began passing out the…

“Wands?” Alice questioned as Chris placed one in her hands. Arizona clicked a button on the side of the plastic toy and shrieked as a stream of glitter hit her right in the face.

“That’s right! This season, the winners get an item reminiscent of the person who was eliminated! Seeing as our resident magician is now gone, you all get a fabulous wand, to be used for magic shows or to throw glitter in your opponents eyes!” Chris directed this comment to Arizona, who was still scrubbing at her face, sparkles clinging to her eyelashes. Mika tried to look like she didn’t want the toy, by casually sticking it in her pocket. This backfired as well, triggering the button and spraying even more glitter over the entire team. Matt shook his hair to try and free it from the shimmers, to no avail. Mallory and Alice seemed mildly okay with the whole thing, though Mallory was examining her wand in a way that suggested she was planning to find another use for its glitter shower capabilities. Chris chuckled at the green team’s less than enthusiastic response to their reward, before waving them off to sit down again.

“Alright,” Chris said when everyone was finally seated again. “And, with that, our first challenge of the season is over! Congratulations, you survived. Now, go to your hotel rooms, and I’ll meet you all back here for tomorrow’s challenge!”

The contestants filed out, turning around the same corner that Alexandria had passed by only a few minutes before. When they were all gone, Chris turned to the camera. “What an exciting first challenge! Lots of excitement from the Plaid Pandas, and it looks like some tension is beginning to form on quite a few teams! The ‘Amazing’ Alexandria is out of the way, and now the real competition can begin! What will tomorrow hold for our challengers? Who will the green team cover with glitter by mistake?” A high pitched, Lavender-sounding shriek occurred right after this from off camera, giving the answer already. “Find out the answers to those questions and more next time, on Total. Drama. Colors!!!”

Red Alert Prologue
The camera rolled on to reveal Chris McLean standing in front of the Total Drama Colors voting area with a smug smirk. He stood proudly in front of the white paint splattered mess on the Wall of the Shame that represented Alexandria’s elimination.

“Last time on Total Drama Colors!” he cried out enthusiastically

The screen then changed to a series of flashbacks from the previous episode. The first one showed the new cast exiting the bus and greeting their new teammates.

“Twenty-one new and hopeful contestants were sent to an old abandoned city in hopes of showing off their skills, surviving harrowing challenges, and, of course, winning a million dollars! After being split into four different teams, I then sent them off to Mt. McLean for their first challenge. Contestants were asked to build their own sleds and then race them down the mountain. Of course I couldn’t make it too easy..” he says ending with an evil snicker as a flashback showed the The Polkadot Penguins building their sled from cardboard. It then showed the sled beginning to disintegrate from the snow.

“Of course, I did have some help when The Amazing Alexandria decided to fly solo and stole her team’s sled, arriving first at the finish line and leaving them behind and confused,” he went on.

The screen flashbacked to Ashley snatching the cup from Gaile, and yelling at Todd. “Ashley took charge of her team, The Pinstripe Parrots, which brought about some tension between her and her teammates. Especially Todd.”

“Dennis nearly drove Lavender off the deep end and Arizona shocked everyone when she blindly took the reigns of the Paisley Polar Bears’ sled. Despite Ashley’s jeering, the blind girl claimed victory for her team! Ashley and Lavender were justthrilled.” His statement was confirmed as they showed flashbacks of both girls obviously annoyed with their teams after the challenge.

“When the rest of the Polka Dot Penguins got to the finish line last, it was Alexandria who was soaked with white paint and sent packing.The poor girl even voted for herself. That’s what happens when you get selfish, Alexandria! ” Chris cried out victoriously as the scene replayed the moment of Alexandria’s elimination, and her holding up her own vote against herself.

“Twenty contestants still remain, but who will get splashed next? Stay tuned to find out on today’s episode of…. TOTAL. DRAMA. COLORS!!” he finished with his arms up excitedly.

Red Alert Part 1
The screen slowly faded back in as the show began to start and opening credits came to an end. The scene resumed in a dark hotel room with the curtains drawn. The sound of someone softly snoring in the background could also be heard. After a brief second of pause, the sleeping contestant’s alarm clock began to sound off loudly and Dakota burst up from his bed, ready to start the day. “Wait… this isn’t my room! Where am I?!” The boy looked around in a panic at the unfamiliar bedroom he was sleeping in. After he tried to remember for himself, he reached over for his camera and began to flip through all the pictures he’d taken the day before. “Ah! The contest! The hotel! The contestants! Yes, that’s right!” he cried out with relief. With that, Dakota threw open the curtains to his room to allow some light to pour in before he began to get dressed for the day.

Meanwhile, downstairs in the hotel’s dining hall, the rest of the contestants gathered for breakfast. The camera quickly panned over several of the contestants. Benny was fast asleep beside his untouched bowl of cereal. Gaile was sleepily shuffling around in her Winnie the Pooh oversized night shirt from the night before. Selene was tearing like a hungry wild animal into her sausage patties. Derby was wide awake and dressed, blissfully writing in a notebook. Bailey was searching the fruit bowl for a not-bruised apple and chatting with the Baroness, who was getting orange juice. “Arr, just take this one, matey. I’ll get an orange. You can never have too much vitamin C! No one wants the scurvy!” The Baroness babbled as she handed Bailey her apple. The other contestants were sitting with their teams, and while some were chatting cordially and enjoying one another’s company; other teams had so much tension you could cut it with a knife. The Plaid Pandas were one of the most silent of the teams. Kiki was very busy eating her bowl of cereal, desperately trying to distract herself from the silence. Ry was quietly doodling in his sketchbook and nibbling on a piece of toast. T was sitting the farthest away from the group, quite okay with the solitude. They were kind of shy anyway so this was very non-stressful and actually pleasant for them. As Lavender finished sipping her coffee, she was first to break the silence. “Ok, I know that we all hate each other, but this ‘not talking to one another’ thing is actually driving me nuts! I need communication!” she cried out and glared at her teammates. “I like it when you’re nuts.” Dennis mumbled under his breath with a mischievous snicker. He had a big wide grin on his face. Lavender turned her head and pretended not to hear him. “‘Bout time someone said something! Now you listen up, ya’ll! We have another challenge today ‘nd after yesterday’s sorry a** performance we NEED ta win!” Kiki stated firmly and pounded her fist on the table. T nodded their head in agreement. “How about we wait and see what dastardly and harrowing challenge Chris has in store for us today before we put all our hope in winning.” Ry said calmly, without even looking up from his sketchbook. He brushed some toast crumbs off his drawing. “Ignore him” Kiki ordered sternly, “I think we can pull any challenge off, IF WE ALL COOPERATE.” she articulated loudly, not really trusting her team to follow her instructions. T stared at Dennis and Lavender and nodded again, making a very small and almost undetectable “mhmm” noise.

At the Pinstripe Parrots’ table, Ashley sat at the head of the table, eating her cereal and contemplating her next move in the game. Dakota had just arrived and finally sat down at the table, camera bouncing around his neck. Gaile sat beside Ashley, now wide awake, munching on Honey Comb cereal and gabbing with Jillian between bites so as not to be rude. Todd was on his phone playing Flappy Bird, cheering loudly after every time he beat his score and making Ashley constantly look up and glare at him. He had finished his food way before anyone else, and had an empty plate sitting before him. “Okay team, who’s ready for another day of fun?!” Ashley asked with false excitement. “I am! Let’s win this one, dudes!” Gaile cried joyfully. Jillian and Dakota smiled in agreement. Ashley turned towards Jillian. “Oh my gosh, I love your skirt, Jill!” she cried out in the same phony tone. Jill blinked in surprise that Ashley had actually complimented her. “Oh! Well thank you, Ashley. I like your necklace.” she said meekly. Ashley instinctively grabbed at the locket around her neck defensively. “Thank you.” she stated reluctantly, looking unsure as to if Jillian was really complimenting her or just trying to target her. Todd rolled his eyes and looked back at his game. Gaile took the last bite of her cereal and hopped up from the table to take care of her dishes.

The Paisley Polar Bears were either chatting or off doing their own bidding. Arizona was eating an apple that she picked out herself, only trusting food that she got on her own. Alice was half asleep over her breakfast, and Matt was long done eating and was back in his room freshening up before the challenge. Mallory was up getting a glass of juice and aimlessly trying to chat with Ry, to no real avail. Mika was sipping on her coffee and talking to Arizona. “So there I was. I had this girl passed out at my feet, we’re in the middle of nowhere, and I just ran outta phone battery…” Mika’s story was interrupted when an extremely loud siren went off and the show interns came rushing through the hotel lobby and halls. “GET OUT! GET OUT!” they shouted at the group. Poor Benny jumped out of his seat, so startled by the sudden noise that he knocked over his cereal bowl. Selene began to howl at the siren until Bailey dragged her out of the room. Gaile grabbed whoever was closest to her, which happened to be Dakota. With his hand in hers, she ran the two of them towards the front door. The rest of the contestants evacuated the dining hall and ran outside the hotel in a panic. Most of the contestants covered their ears with their hands. When everybody got outside, Chris was standing in front of huge red fire engine. The siren continued blaring until Chris gave a signal and Chef turned it off. T sat on the ground with their knees pulled up to their chest. “Is something on fire?!” Lavender asked worriedly. Her eyes were locked on the inside of the hotel, obviously worried about whatever items she had in her room being damaged. “Yeah. That siren was pretty loud,” Bailey said with cocked eyebrows. “Nah. No fire. Yet…” Chris said with a snicker. The contestant’s eyes widened. “You’ve gotta be f****** kidding.” Mika grumbled and crossed her arms across her chest. “It’s time for your next challenge!” Chris cried enthusiastically and the group groaned in unison. “Today, the color is red, which means we have a fire-based challenge!”. “Fire?! You’ve lost it McClean.” Ashley scowled at the host, not trusting her safety in a challenge like this. Chris shushed the girl and continued to speak. “In this challenge, teams will be assigned one of the 4 old, abandoned buildings in this city. With Alexandria gone, the teams are now equal. Two-” Chris was cut off as Dakota looked up in alarm. “Alexandria?” he asked, in a bit of a panic. “Yeah, The Amazing Alexandria. Wannabe wizard, completely ruined her team’s chances for victory? That one.” The blue team scowled a bit as Chris said this, obviously still not over their annoyance with the girl. Dakota shook his head rapidly. He pulled out his camera and flipped through the pictures with a rising panic. “Umm… Dakota, buddy? You’re kinda holding us up here, sooo…” “I don’t have a picture!” Dakota cried out, sounding almost in tears. Chris sighed. “Well, I guess we’re never going to get this show going again if you don’t get one. Chef!” he called out. “Bring one of those pictures Alexandria sent.” Chef shuffled away, grumbling like usual. The teams stood in silence for a moment, Chris and a few contestants shooting annoyed glances at Dakota, who was still clicking through his camera. Suddenly, Chef arrived again, carrying a large garbage bag. He shoved it down in front of Chris, and the bag opened, spewing printed photographs everywhere. The wind picked up a bit and many flew out of the parking lot, disappearing along the city streets. “Chef, I said to bring one picture, not the whole bag!” Chris shook his head. “Well, there’s your picture. Go ahead and take one.” Dakota darted forward and took one of the pictures in his hand, now looking a little embarrassed about holding up the show. He looked down at the picture, relieved that he had one. The photo was a stylish headshot of The Amazing Alexandria, posing against a dark blue bed sheet hung on the wall with all of her magic equipment. On the bottom, written in sparkly grey sharpie, were the words “Stay magical” with Alexandria’s outlandish signature below it. “Yeah, she sent about a hundred of those last night.” Chris’s voice spoke up. “All hand-signed, too. Told us to save them to give to future casts.” He snickered. Dakota gently put the picture into his bag with his camera. He looked noticeably more relaxed now. “Am I okay to go now, or does anyone else need some object before we can get started?” The cast shook their heads. “So, as I was saying,” Chris shot another look at Dakota. “Two members of each team will be given flamethrowers and will try to torch their opponent’s building. The remaining three members will be in charge of defending their buildings with these!” he cried. On cue, Chef threw plastic buckets, and big water guns onto the ground before the group. Dennis stepped forward and picked up a big red bucket used for the beach. “Ooh. Effective,” he said sarcastically. “Whoever the three are that are defending your building, you are responsible for putting out the fire and keeping your buildings up!” Chris continued. “Really? How are we supposed to put out a big fire with-” Todd started. “ENOUGH!” Chris shouted angrily. His brows were furrowed into a single unibrow. With a twist of his hand, the host whipped out his remote and cycled through all of the shirt’s colors in rapid succession, making all of the contestants except Arizona cover their eyes. The blind girl just stood, confused as to why people were suddenly screeching. “Guys, what’s going on? Did something happ-” “Meet me downtown in half an hour!” Chris demanded, settling the shirts on a bright red color. He then hopped into his car and was driven away by Chef, significantly over what the speed limit should have been.

Ry was standing alone near the back of the pack, plucking absent-mindedly at his red T-shirt. He wouldn’t admit it, but he missed his hoodie more than he let on, short sleeves weren’t really his style. Unbeknownst to him, Ashley was standing behind him, watching. “What’s the matter, Henry? Red not your color?” The girl called forward, jeering. Ry turned around abruptly to scowl at her. “Yeah, like you look so much better in it. You know what, you actually don’t look pleasant in any color.” Ashley simply laughed, moving forward to bump into Ry before passing him by. “Keep your head in the game today, Henry. I’d just  hate  for you to be the one going home.” The last sentence was said mockingly, and Ry ground his teeth in frustration with the girl. A little to the left, Todd had seen this whole encounter. He leaned forward to snag Jillian before she walked off too far, the girl almost falling backwards in shock as Todd grabbed her arm. “I told you about Ashley! She’s an evil  biatch !!” Jillian glanced forward at the girl, who turned to gave her a slight wave and a tight-lipped smile. “I don’t know what you mean, Todd. She hasn’t done anything wrong, I mean, I haven’t seen her do anything, I mean, she seems nice.” Jillian was clearly uncomfortable under Todd’s attention. The boy released her with a sigh and shake of his head. “I came out to this show to have a good time, and I honestly think she’s going to attack us. Watch your back, Jill.” Gaile and Dakota were walking together ahead of the rest of their team, unfortunately (or fortunately for at least one person) missing Ashley’s encounter with Ry. “Thanks for helping me out here, G… g…” Dakota briefly faltered, his memory skills failing him. “No probs, Dakota! That’s what buds are for!” Gaile smiled at the other boy, not really picking up on his failed name cues. Dakota decided to just ignore it, knowing that the other girl would fill him in later. “Do you think we should wait for the rest of our team?” Dakota glanced around, trying to locate the other people with red socks. Was it Ashlyn, Tadd, J… something and then G… g… “Nah, they’ll be cool. We’re all going to the same place, right? Not like they’ll get lost.” Gaile smiled at the other boy, and he grinned back. “Can I take your picture… G… Gaile!” The boy’s eyes lit up, knowing he had it right. “Sure, go ahead!” Gaile posed while Dakota snapped a quick picture, wanting to remember the moment of knowing her name. The two were stopped long enough for the rest of their team to catch up, and Ashley strutted past the two. “Hurry up, team. We don’t want to fall behind,” she called backwards, and the rest of the Parrots fell into step behind her, some admittedly more hesitantly than others.

Meanwhile, the Polar Bears were making their way downtown, helping one another out as they walked. Matt and Alice seemed to be talking together, though their words were so quiet it was impossible for the cameras to pick it up. Mika was continuing her story and chatting with Arizona, Mallory now listening in. “Yeah, so, there we were, and I pulled out that girl’s phone and I called my buds, and then they came in their big a** truck and the girl woke up and she was like, ‘DAMN MIKA, you used up my phone battery!!’ and I was like, ‘Fine then, ya can just stay here.’ and we got in the truck and started driving away all slow and she was runnin’ after the truck and it was funny as f***!!!” Mika had to cut off her story to laugh, the memory bringing tears to her eyes. Arizona and Mallory just blinked at her, or rather, Mallory blinked at her and Arizona looked confused before tripping over a piece of crumbling pavement. She was caught mid-fall by Alice, who pulled her up by her arm, leading her forward a bit away from the other girls. There was just enough time to hear Mallory break into her own story, something about setting a bomb in a food truck and blowing candy all over the street before the pair moved out of range. “Arizona, you did really good in the last challenge.” Alice said with a smile, not that Arizona could see her. “Do you really think so? I was worried that you guys would think I couldn’t handle it.” Arizona tapped her cane on the ground, her expression revealing that this was one of her major fears. “I wouldn’t lie to you, Arizona. We were all impressed, even Matt. He’s not too bad, you know, he just wants the team to do well.” Alice turned around and nodded at Matt as she said this, and the boy nodded back at her. “I’m sure you’ll do great in this challenge too, okay? Don’t worry so much.” Arizona grinned and squiggled her arm in the air a little until she caught Alice’s shoulder, giving her a friendly squeeze. “Thanks Alice! It’s nice to have someone who believes in you!” Alice rubbed the blind girl’s hand, though the smile was gone from her face.

The Penguins were messy as always, with members running wherever they wanted to, which was all over the street. “Blue team, over here!” Bailey yelled at the same time the Baroness called out, “Blue team, come ‘ere!” They two girls looked at one another hesitantly, as though they didn’t know how to feel about the jinx moment. Ultimately, the two chose to ignore it as Selene, Derby, and a sleepy Benny came rushing over. “Do you ladies desire anything?” Derby asked cordially, being interrupted as Selene pounced on him. “Glasses are shiny!” The girl yelped, touching Derby’s frames excitedly. Benny rolled his eyes as Selene knocked Derby to the floor, the girl squirming excitedly. Derby seemed quite unable to handle the excitable girl, and was attempting to push her off while he clutched onto his spectacles. “Selene, look what I have!” Benny called, pulling off his own sunglasses and showing them to the girl, who promptly lost all interest in Derby and scurried over to the other boy. “Glasses for Selene?” Selene asked, looking up from the floor at Benny, who stuck the glasses in his pocket. “Maybe. You can get the glasses later, if you stick with the team. Got that?” Selene nodded, her head a blur. “Thanks, Ben-Ben!!!” At this, Bailey coughed, interrupting the scene. “Okay, is everyone ready to head downtown and win this challenge?!” “Aye, I be ready! Now that t’ wrench from last time be gone, we’ll win for sure! Now, let’s go!” The Baroness took the lead, walking off and forcing everyone else to follow. Bailey’s mouth twitched a bit before she sighed and followed the rest of her team.

The Pandas were debatably even more wild and disorganized than the Penguins were. “Okay, Pandas, come over here!” Lavender called, pointing at the ground in front of her. Kiki and T came over quickly, Kiki flashing her a wink and Lavender scowling at her. “Nah!” Dennis called back, grinning. A sudden burst of fire came from between his fingers and the boy dropped his lighter and a can of lighter fluid on the ground before scooping them back up into his pockets. Ry was hanging around in the middle of the two groups, as though he didn’t want to side with either of them. “Okay,  team .” Lavender snarled, directing her words to Kiki and T but speaking loudly enough so everyone could hear her. “Let’s go downtown and actually win this time, okay?” Ry had struck out halfway through her inspirational speech, walking away towards downtown. “Are you guys coming? We’re wasting time,” he called back, and everyone began to follow him, Lavender pouting in the back. Kiki headed back and friendly clipped her on the shoulder, knocking the beauty queen forwards. “Don’t worry ‘bout it, Lav. We’ll pull through in t’ challenge. The team’s a lil’ crazy, but we’ll do fine.” Kiki flashed Lavender another grin and the other girl forced a smile. T pulled back to join the two, a small smile on their face. “Thank you for trying to pull the team together, Lavender. People do appreciate it, even though they act differently.” Dennis turned around and blew Lavender a kiss at this moment, making the girl shiver a little. “Thanks for the thought, T. I don’t know if  everyone  wants to help out, though.” The girl scowled as she said this, gesturing to Dennis who had sped up and was chatting with Ry, doing some weird pantomime thing which involved puckering his lips a lot and flipping fake hair over his shoulder. Lavender resisted the urge to throw her lipstick and clonk the boy right on the back of his miserable head, instead letting Kiki and T lead her deep into the city.

The camera finally pulled themselves away from the yellow team to switch to a view of Chris in his car. “Lotta drama going on, am I right? Which team will come in first? Which team will go down in flames? My money’s on the Pandas.” Chris chuckled and flashed the camera a grin. “Find out all these answers and see some wicked explosions after the break on Total. Drama. Colors!!!” With that, the camera faded out to commercial.

Red Alert Part 2
The show returned from the commercial break to show that  the cast was arriving downtown in their red clothing. Four very large, old, and dilapidated buildings stood in the background. The contestants’ eyes widened worriedly at the thought of it being their responsibility to keep the massive towers up.

“There’s NO way that this challenge is safe.” Todd stated with an unamused expression.

The rest of the contestants nodded in agreement. Some had looks of fear on their faces.

“We may actually die today.” Ry commented as he stared at a pretty unstable looking section of foundation on one of the buildings.

Shortly after he had completed his statement, Chris McLean and Chef arrived in a big red fire engine, siren wailing away and lights flashing in everyone’s faces. They were both dressed in full firemen’s attire.

“Alright guys!” Chris began as he got out of the engine, “It’s almost time to begin! But first, we need to split you off into attackers, and defenders!”

The teams all began to plan out who would attack and who would defend.

“Okay Polar Bears, we obviously need Mallory as an attacker, since she’s like the bomb expert.” Matt explained.

The rest of the team nodded in agreement, except for Mallory who was grinning and giggling giddily. She paused upon realizing everyone was staring at her.

“Eh, I mean I guess I can help destroy a building…” she said calmly, though the maniacal gleam in her eyes was hard to misplace.

“There is NO way I can stand in a burning building …” Arizona stated,  unable to even see what she would be getting herself into.

“Aww, Arizona. Don’t you worry, we’ll find a job for you.” Alice said and placed a sympathetic hand on Arizona’s shoulder.

“She could refill water guns and buckets, and if this death trap starts goin’ down we’ll just grab her and run.” Mika said, shrugging.

Arizona still had a worried expression on her face but agreed.

“That bein’ said, I wanna be an attacker. I ain’t turnin’ down the chance to use a flamethrower.” Mika stated with a grin equal in intensity to Mallory’s.

“Then that’s settled. Mallory, and Mika will be attackers, and Arizona, Matt and myself will be defenders.” Alice stated.

Meanwhile, on the Pandas team, the conversation wasn’t running so smoothly.

Lavender crossed her arms across her chest. “NO.” she said firmly.

“Absolutely f***** not!” Kiki shouted in agreement.

“Aw c'mon now! Ladies, you know that if I had a flamethrower, we’d win for sure!” Dennis coaxed. His wide, “up to no good” smile never budged from his face.

Lavender stuck out her bottom lip and pouted for a second. She then turned to T. “T, what do you think? Dennis as an attacker. Yes or no?” she asked them with a tilt of her head and a bat of her long lashes.

T blinked at her and took a deep breath before answering. “Yes.”

Ry raised his hand halfway. “I can also be an attacker. I’d love to see the look on their faces when their buildings come crashing down on top of them.” he smirked sinisterly.

“Great. Then the rest’ of us will defend the building.” Kiki sounded less than thrilled to have not “won” the argument.

The Parrots stood in a little circle, carefully plotting who would be assigned each role.

“I’d rather defend… if you guys don’t mind.” Dakota started with a sheepish grin, “I’m kind of athletic and would probably be more beneficial to the team inside.”

“And I DEFINITELY want to be an attacker!” Todd cried out and stuck out his chest haughtily.

Ashley stared blankly at the boy before she crinkled her nose and said a very flat, “Fine.” She then turned towards Gaile and pointed. “Gaile, you have to be a defender. The other teams will hear you coming from a mile away.” she stated and lowered her finger at Gaile’s heeled jelly sandals.

Gaile’s face turned a bit pink after hearing that, but she knew Ashley was right. “You got it dude!” she said and held up a thumbs ups.

Jillian’s eyes widened as they often did before she was about say something. Eager for a chance to adventure she spoke up.

“I-I’ll at-attack!” she announced, much to everyone’s surprise.

“YOU GO GIRL!” Gaile cried out and held up her hand for a high five, which Jillian returned.

“Fine. I’ll defend, but you guys had better make sure to do the job right.” Ashley glared at Jillian and Todd, Jillian shrinking down a little under the pressure. Todd attempted to return her gaze until he was finally forced to drop it, glancing off sheepishly and yanking out his phone to pretend he had a reason to look away.

The Penguins team was last to make a decision.

Benny was already getting a little lethargic from the long walk downtown, and Selene was still trying to take his sunglasses. The Baroness, being a natural leader, was first to speak up. “Arrr, I wanna be t’ one settin’ t’ buldings ablaze!”.

“That seems like a wise idea, my fellow teammates. The Baroness is used to attacking other ships so I feel she will be most useful for this challenge.” Derby said and pushed his glasses a little further up the bridge of his nose. “However, I would prefer to defend the building. I fear that my lack of physical strength may prove to be a liability to us.”

“I’ll gladly attack!” Bailey cried, ecstatic at the chance to use such a dangerous tool as a flamethrower.

“Selene defend!” Selene barked.

“I guess Benny is also a defender then.” Bailey pointed at Benny who was completely asleep.

“Oh nononono, those two will only wreak havoc! We need to make certain that Selene and Benny are quite separated so Selene doesn’t get distracted and thus burn the building down. Benny shall attack. And Bailey shall defend.” Derby stated, receiving a glare from Bailey.

“Well then, someone wake t’ lad ‘nd tell ‘im!” The Baroness ordered. Benny was asleep on his feet, his gentle snores making almost everyone else a little sleepy too.

Selene then began to lick Benny’s hand until he woke with a start. He swung his palm defensively to his chest.

“Benny attack.” Selene said, nodding energetically.

He nodded sleepily and removed his sunglasses, placing them on his shirt collar. “Sure, Benny attack,” he responded without really knowing what he was getting into.

The teams’ discussions were interrupted when the fire engine’s siren began to loudly sound off. Jillian and Gaile noticed Dakota tense up a bit and both put a reassuring hand on his shoulders. T seemed to be a bit startled as well but just wandered off by themself for a second to calm down.

“Okay, contestants! Ready or not it’s time to start this challenge! I hope you made wise choices on who is attacking and defending. I’ll give you guys a second to get in place and collect your tools.”

The teams scrambled to get their stuff together under very little time. Finally, all the contestants were loaded and ready to start. Each attacker was given a flamethrower and protective gloves. Each defender was wearing a red fire-proof suit and had their buckets and water guns pre-filled. On the outside of each building was a water spout to refill their buckets and water guns.

“Alright, contestants! Are you ready to turn up the heat?!” Chris McLean’s voice sounded from the intercom speakers implanted in each building.

“NO!” The contestants shouted in perfect angry unison.

“Good! ‘Cause here we go! Oh and one more thing.. When you hear this noise..”

A robotic voice and ringing of alarm bells came through the speakers shouting “RED ALERT! RED ALERT!”

“You better run, cause your building is going down.”

“I’m yellin’ timber.” Todd whisper-sang with a snicker.

“GOOOOO!” Chris shouted and announced the beginning of the challenge.

The attackers then began rushing toward the other teams’ buildings.

“Well, this is how we die. Goodbye world.” Ashley commented dryly as she enjoyed the last few seconds of peace before the building caught ablaze.

In the Penguins’ building there wasn’t much going on in the way of organization. Selene was chewing on her squirt gun, Derby was cautiously rocking back and forth waiting for the first hit, and Bailey was just in a foul mood.

“It should be me out there with a flamethrower! Not sleepyhead over there!” she growled.

Suddenly a loud spraying noise could be heard followed by the slow crackling of wood catching fire. The contestants inside could hear Todd’s laugh from somewhere outside.

“We’re hit!” Bailey cried and aimed her squirt gun.

“FIRE WHERE!?” Selene exclaimed, aiming her own squirt gun.

Black smoke was starting to pour into the room, indicating the source of the flame. Derby was first to notice. “Over here ladies! My bucket will not quite reach up there!” He shouted and pointed at where the smoke was coming in.

Bailey rushed over and pumped her squirt gun to stream water at the fire. The sound of water putting out the flame with a sizzle could be heard but smoke continued to fill the room. “It’s not working!” Bailey shouted, worried for their safety.

“SELENE TRY. HELP BAILEY.” Selene ordered.

“Great idea, Selene! Bailey, you and Selene need to fire your guns together.” Derby explained.

Bailey nodded and re-aimed her gun.

“NOW!” Selene shouted and the two began firing at the flame. Slowly the smoke started to stop coming in.

“It’s working!” Derby cried out, very elated.

Outside with the rest of the attackers, Jillian was creeping up on the Panda’s building. She had her flamethrower in hand, ready to fire, when Ry spotted her.

“I have to do something,” he mumbled as he searched for something to distract her with. But much to his detest, Jillian had already done what she needed to. The building now had a small steady flame blazing away.

“CRAP! I smell smoke…” Lavender cried from inside the building.

The camera then panned to the inside where Kiki was seen grabbing a squirt gun and rushing over to the smoke source, along with T. Together the two aimed at the flame and stopped it before it could spread.

“Great teamwork, guys!” Lavender smiled, having not done any work herself.

Kiki glared at her and stomped away from the rest of the group, still upset she wasn’t an attacker.

While the fire was being put out in the Panda’s building, Ry had started one at the Parrot’s building, and it had grown quite a bit.

“This is insane!” Ashley cried and threw a bucket of water at the source of the fire. Thick black smoke was rapidly filling the room.

“Dudes! It’s getting bigger! Oh man. This is mad awful!” Gaile cried, aiming her water gun at the flame in a different spot than Ashley.

Dakota tried to aim at the flame with his water gun in another spot. “This isn’t good.” Dakota said, face turning a bit pale from worry.

Outside the buildings Mallory was nowhere to be found. She was cooking up something special for the challenge. Something that would clench victory for her team for sure. A calm grin was plastered on Mallory’s face as she tinkered with her weapon.

Meanwhile, her partner Mika was having a grand time. She had set fire to both the Panda’s and the Penguin’s buildings and had run away laughing like crazy. She was completely oblivious to the fact that Mallory was actually doing her own thing.

Inside the Polar Bear’s building, Matt was rushing to get Arizona to refill his water gun outside. He needed to rejoin Alice who was fighting the current flame alone. The fire seemed pretty much under control, but he wanted to make sure Alie could really handle it. As Matt was waiting for his gun to be filled, he spotted something out of the corner of his eye. It was Dennis, creeping to the opposite side of the building where the fire was. The prankster reached into his pocket and pulled out a box of matches.

Matt’s eyes widened. Nobody knew Dennis had those!

“Crap!” Matt cried as he watched Dennis light the match and successfully set a second fire to the building, pouring a suspicious liquid all over to further the blaze.

“What is it?!” Arizona cried whipping her head from left to right to try and pinpoint what was going on. Water missed the gun’s hole and spilled on the ground.

“Fire. Another one. Is my gun ready?” Matt snapped.

Arizona took a step back and shook the gun. “Yeah,” she said and handed the gun to Matt.

He grabbed it from her and ran back inside.

The camera panned over to show that the Penguin’s organized system was still working. Derby was now pouring water on lower flames, and the fire was relatively under control. But as the camera panned to the Panda’s building, it was clear that Lavender and Kiki’s animosity towards one another was hindering the team.

“You could help, ya kno’?” Kiki growled as she struggled to put out the current flame.

Lavender rolled her eyes and threw her bucket of water at the fire. The water missed and came crashing back down on top of Kiki and T.

Kiki removed the wet hair plastered to her forehead and glared at Lavender with the fury and the intensity of a thousand suns. She then reached over and grabbed Lavender by the shirt. “You did that on PURPOSE! Didn’t ya, you lil’ princess!?” She roared.

The fear in Lavender’s eyes was genuine. “N-no! I was really just trying to help!” Lavender begged.

T had stopped putting out the fire to listen to their teammates and put a hand on Kiki’s shoulder. When she turned to face them, they nodded.

Kiki sighed reluctantly and let Lavender go. “Just don’t let it happen again. We clear?!” Kiki shouted and cracked her knuckles.

Lavender gulped and nodded in agreement.

The fire had now gotten bigger and the group rushed to put it out.

Outside, attackers ran back and forth in a tizzy. Everyone wanted to see their opponent’s building on fire and watch it go down. From the outside it was the Parrot’s and Polar Bear’s buildings that appeared to be in the worst shape. But while the Polar Bears seemed to have little to no control of their fire, the Parrots had recently teamed up and begun to tame their flames. Gaile, Ashley and Dakota had a pretty good system going now. Gaile and Dakota were firing their squirt guns at the flame, and Ashley refilled the bucket outside so they could reload their guns quickly. She’d volunteered to do the job, to earn a little trust, but her fingers consistently twitched over having to lower herself to this position.

“Ashley, I think we’re out of water.” Dakota stated as he poured the last bit of water from the bucket into his water gun.

“Can you refill it for us, please?” Gaile asked with a grin before turning away to tend to the fire again.

Ashley rolled her eyes. No one told her what to do! But since she had to get on her team’s good side she nodded and complied. “Of course… team.” She snarled as she finished her statement. She then snatched the bucket from Dakota and walked out of the building to the water spout. As she turned the knob on the spout to refill the bucket, Ashley took a moment to survey the outside activities. She saw that all of the buildings appeared to have at least a small fire blazing. Attackers were sneaking around, but one thing caught her eye in particular.

Todd was doing very well as an attacker and had successfully set fire to two of the four buildings. His partner Jillian was also performing very good for this challenge, and the two seemed to be getting along well, acting almost like friends.

“Well then. This simply won’t do.” Ashley murmured with a mischievous smirk. “First, I have to deal with you. Can’t have you two getting too friendly,” she growled, zeroing in on Jillian.

Todd wiped a bead of sweat from his forehead. All the running around he was doing, combined with the heat from the fires surrounding him, was really taking a lot out of him. He turned to go set fire to the Panda’s building just in time to see Jillian running away after setting a big fire. “Yeah, Jillian!” He cried out and high fived her as she passed by.

“I-I think that one more good fire will send the Penguin’s building down.” Jillian explained.

“I’ve got this. Don’t you worry, I can save the day.” Todd stated, his eyes gleaming with determination. Jillian blinked in disbelief and Todd took off towards the building. She quickly decided to run the opposite direction, in case the building came down.

“OH!” she shouted as she felt something large and hard hit her in the head. She went tumbling to the ground, totally blacked out from impact. A big red bucket landed next to her.

Meanwhile, The Baroness had been doing her own thing. Whenever she set a building on fire, she also began trying to destabilize them. Right now, she was kicking at the Panda’s building in a spot that was crumbling from the fire. She laughed a hearty pirate’s laugh and continued to dig her boot into the weak spot.

“Arr this job would be much easier with another. Where be the lad anyway?” She pondered aloud and started looking around the challenge area. The camera panned over the whole challenge to show everyone on the outside attacking, except for Jillian. Benny was shown on camera last, and it was clear that he had fallen asleep fairly close to the Parrot’s building. He was standing upright and his sunglasses were still on his shirt collar, but his head drooped and his eyes were shut.

In the Penguins building, all seemed to be well. Their continuous, organized system was still working and no fire seemed to be much of a threat.

“Hey, I think we’re out of water again. Whose turn is it to refill?” Bailey asked.

“SELENE!” Selene howled joyfully.

“Okay Selene, just hurry back.” Derby said.

Selene picked up the bucket from the ground with her teeth and made her way outside to the waterspout. She turned the knob and started to fill the bucket when a drop of water splashed on her hand. Her pigtails perked up.

“Thirsty.” Selene said and threw the bucket out of the way, sticking her mouth in the stream of water instead.

“Ashley! Are you almost done getting the water?” Gaile cried from inside the Parrot’s building.

Ashley furrowed her eyebrows and whipped her head back at the building to yell. “I’M WORKING ON IT!” She shouted before thinking better of it. “Uh, I mean, I’m almost done!” She’d come up with an excuse for her loss of the bucket later. She then looked back at the challenge and began to ponder aloud. “Now for Todd…”

Ashley panned over the scene and saw that Benny had fallen asleep just a few feet away from the Parrot’s building. And much to her delight, Selene was also outside.

“Perfect.” Ashley grinned and walked over towards Benny. “There’s no way she can resist these.” She carefully plucked the boy’s sunglasses off his shirt collar. Benny stirred a bit, but didn’t wake up. Ashley snickered maliciously.“Glasses shiny!” She purred, mocking Selene. She then put them in her back pocket and walked back towards her building.

Selene was almost done getting her drink of water when something caught her attention.

“Oooh, shiny!” She exclaimed and began following the beam of light from Benny’s sunglasses.

Across the way, Mallory finished twisting the last wire on her weapon and shut its compartment back up tight.

“IT’S READY!” Mallory shouted victoriously and rubbed her hands together. Shepicked up her tampered flamethrower in her hands like it was a newborn child. And this was extremely necessary; if the trigger moved even a tiny bit, the whole thing would quite literally blow up in her face.

Mika had heard her shout and peeked into her hiding spot. “There ya are! I’ve been looking for your a** this whole f**** challenge!” Mika swore.

Mallory looked up at her. “You know, normally I’d apologize, but since I’m about to seize victory for our team, I hope you’ll just let this one go.”

Mika raised her eyebrow, intrigued to hear what Mallory had done. She waited for a few moments, but Mallory didn’t offer any information. “How are you planning on-” Mika started to ask, but was interrupted by Mallory.

“You’ll just have to see.” she snickered.

Back in the Parrot’s building, the fire was getting bigger, but it seemed that Dakota and Gaile had it pretty much under control.

“I could mad use that water right now.” Gaile said and shook her near empty water gun.

Dakota nodded. “Where’s Ashley?” he inquired.

From outside, they heard Ashley shriek. “ITS GONE!!” she shouted as she ran back inside. She had on a scared face, which the viewer could clearly tell was fake.

“What happened?!” Dakota cried.

Ashley sniffled a bit to be more convincing and placed the sunglasses undetectably on a table in the building. “S-Someone stole the bucket!” she wailed.

“That’s not good…” Dakota said and tipped over his squirt gun to show how empty it was.

“I still have a super tiny bit left. You and Ashley go refill. I think I have this for a second or two.” Gaile said assuringly.

Ashley nodded, grabbing Dakota and dragging him outside.

It was relatively calm for a few seconds, and then Gaile heard something. It was the sound of running, the steps falling almost as though the origin of the noise was down on all fours.

“SHINY! ” Selene shouted and pounced towards the light beam, which was right behind Gaile. She landed on the ground on top of Gaile and started frantically searching for the source of the shine, which unfortunately made her look just like a huge, red-pigtailed dog. As this was happening, the room began to fill with thick black smoke as the fire grew, unattended.

Gaile’s eyes widened to the size of golf balls and filled with panic and fear. Her normally pale complexion flushed with the small amount of color she had.

“AHHH!!!” she screamed like a girl in a horror movie. Both she and Selene started to cough as it grew harder to breathe.

“AHHH!!! BAD DOG!!! HEEL! STOP!! AHHH!!!” she continued to scream at the top of her lungs. She held her up over her face to protect it from potential bites.

The fire continued to grow and was now too massive to put out with water guns. Bits of debris started to crash down from the ceiling like fiery meteors plummeting to Earth.

Selene saw this and high-tailed it out of the building, leaving Gaile a terrified, shaky mess.

“RED ALERT! RED ALERT!” the robotic voice came blasting through the intercom speakers.

“It’s too late!” Dakota cried from outside.

“Let’s get out of here!” Ashley turned and tried to run off.

“What about Gaile?! She’s still in there!” Dakota cried in return.

“Fine, but we’d better be quick or we’re all going down.” Ashley said edgily.

With that, Dakota and Ashley charged into the rapidly disintegrating building in search of their teammate.

They found her crawling on the ground searching for the exit through the black smoke-filled room. “Gaile, c'mon, we have to get outta here!” Dakota cried grabbing her arm and standing her up.

“D-d-d…” Gaile tried to say.

“No time for small talk, Gaile.” Ashley snapped.

Ashley ran beside the two to make sure Gaile didn’t fall, though she wasn’t pleased about it. The three of them emerged from the smoke, coughing and sputtering just before the building came crashing down behind them. Their faces were all stained from the smoke, and Gaile’s white blonde hair was a bit tinted as well.

“AND THE FIRST BUILDING GOES DOWN! PARROTS ARE OUT.” Chris shouted from the speakers.

Gaile, Dakota, and Ashley headed over to the infirmary where they met up with the still unconscious Jillian.

“What happened to her?” Ashley asked with fake surprise.

“She got hit in the head.” an intern explained and gestured to a red bucket on the floor beside them. They then replaced an ice pack on Jillian’s head.

“My bucket! Whoever stole it must have done this!” Ashley cried.

Dakota and Gaile ran over to sit by Jillian out of concern, wondering who could have possibly injured their teammate. With a reluctant sigh, Ashley headed over beside them. She knew Jillian would be fine, Ashley had no intention to kill her own teammate. Oh no, this was just a distraction for the downfall of the biggest threat to her superiority.

Outside the buildings, Ry crashed to the ground. He had been pretty close to getting hit with a piece of falling Parrot building rubble, but thanks to his quick reflexes, it just missed him.

“Ry! C'mon kid, on your feet! We got a challenge to win!” Dennis cried and ran over to help the boy up. He grabbed Ry’s arm under his shoulder and slowly pulled him off the ground.

Ry smiled a smile so small it was almost undetectable. “Where?” The much shorter boy asked.

Dennis smiled widely and kinda crookedly in reply. “We’re gonna f*** s*** up in the Polar Bears’ building. Pay their happy, peaceful team a little visit.” Denis said slyly and pulled out the bottle of gasoline from his hiding place nearby.

Ry’s eyes lit from anticipation, but his straight face didn’t change. “Let’s go then.” Ry said and started running over to the Polar Bear’s building. Dennis held the bottle of gasoline in his hands as though the bottle were actually a precious gemstone instead of just plastic. Ry was just behind him, rubbing his hands together in anticipation. They finally made it to the Polar Bear’s building and Dennis got into position. He crept up to the very side of the building and poured the gasoline all around it.

“Ry? Would you like to do the honors?” Dennis asked.

Ry nodded, his eyes wide with excitement. Dennis then took the box of matches from his pocket and tossed them to Ry. They landed beside his feet.

Ry’s fingers itched as he picked up the box and slid open the main compartment where the stick matches were housed. He grabbed one from the little drawer and slid it shut. “I’m going to enjoy this.” Ry whispered with a mischievous grin.

He then struck the match against the rough section of the match box and watched in delight as the red tip caught fire. He stared at it for a moment, admiring its beauty.

“Drop it, kid!” Dennis hissed, not wanting to be detected.

Ry nodded and tossed it at the puddle of gasoline on the ground. Dennis ran as fast as he could to get out of the way before the reaction. He grabbed Ry’s arm and dragged him away with him.

BOOM!!!!

“FIRE!! A BIG ONE!” Matt shouted and watched in horror as the flame grew to a massive size. The room the three were in was really starting to heat up and filled with smoke.

“WHAT HAPPENED?!” Alice cried.

“RED ALERT! RED ALERT! RED ALERT!” the intercom speakers blared.

“LET’S GET OUTTA HERE!” Matt shouted and took off from the building as fast as he could. Sweat was starting to form on his forehead from the temperature.

Alice ran off shortly after Matt and was more than relieved to see the light from the outside of the building, indicating her safety.

“Hey guys? Am I close to the door?!” Arizona cried out as she felt along the walls.

She had no clue that she was actually all alone.

Outside the building, the Polar Bears reconvened minus Arizona. Mika and Mallory rushed back to make sure their teammates were all okay.

“Oh, thank goodness you guys are alright!” Mallory shouted and stared at the huge flame in awe, and also jealousy, because she hadn’t caused it. She then averted her gaze and noticed something on the ground. It was a box of matches. Ry hadn’t noticed that they had fallen from his pocket.

“Wait… where’s Arizona?” Matt asked tentatively.

The group began to look around when the blind girl didn’t answer.

Mallory pocketed the matches, knowing exactly who did this. Who else would have matches on their person besides her? DENNIS.

“Uh oh.” Mallory said and glanced toward the rapidly burning building.

“She’s still in there?!” Mika asked coldly.

Matt stared at Alice with a glare. “You said you’d grab her in case this happened.” he hissed.

Alice blinked in surprise that he actually had the guts to say something. “I-I didn’t mean to. I just got scared and ran.” Alice stammered.

“Well screamin’ at each other isn’t gonna get her out!” Mallory shouted.

“D*** right! Get outta my f***** way!” Mika cried and went rushing into the building.

Black smoke was pouring out of the doorway.

“ARIZONA!” Mika called.

“I’m here!” Arizona answered and made her way towards Mika’s voice. “Get me out of here, please.” Arizona whispered, the panic making her start to shut down, and she grabbed onto Mika’s arm.

Mika nodded and began walking Arizona out of the building.

“RED ALERT!” the alarm continue to screech.

“We’re almost there.” Mika assured Arizona.

The two girl were only a few footsteps away from the exit, and the foundation to the building was audibly crumbling down.

“Hurry!” Arizona whimpered, being able to hear every menacing crackle and snap.

Only a few steps later, Mika’s head popped out of a cloud of smoke and the two emerged from the death trap of a building.

The two were coughing and Arizona still had a death grip on Mika’s arm.

“Thank god. Now let’s get outta here!” Alice said. A piece of the building landed with a thud beside the group.

“SHE’S GOIN’ DOWN!” Mallory shouted and ran away from the building.

The rest of the group followed suit and began high-tailing toward safety just as the building came crashing to the ground.

“AND THE POLAR BEARS ARE OUT.” Chris announced.

Ry and Dennis watched it all go down from afar.

“Well, we did it.” Ry said.

“We sure did.” Dennis answered in reply.

Ry had a grin on his face equal in intensity to Dennis’. “One more. Shall we do this again?” Ry inquired.

The grin on Dennis’ face grew bigger. “Of course.”

Mallory had ditched her teammates on the way to the infirmary. She was perfectly fine, and besides, she had work to do! She had a building to blow up and right now it looked like the Pandas were the target. That’d teach that Dennis a lesson, and show him who the real demolition expert was!

She had her tampered flamethrower in hand, and a mischievous spark in her eyes. Her heart was racing in anticipation of what she was about to do. There was just something about blowing things up that gave her such a rush!

She could see the Panda’s defense team through the window. However, she was hidden well enough that they couldn’t see her.

Kiki was putting out a small fire that had formed from a spark on the ground, Lavender was returning from refilling the team’s bucket with water, and T was off in a bit of a more secluded space. They could hear the siren and alarms from the last two buildings and were a bit afraid of the ringing sounds.

“Perfect.” Mallory cried and picked up a big rock from the ground which was most likely a piece from one of the previous buildings. With a grunt, she chucked the big piece of rock through the window, shattering the glass and alerting the team of her next move. She had to let them get out first.

She then gently pushed the trigger on her flamethrower and threw it through the window as well.

T’s eyes widened as they realized what had happened.

“BOMB!!!” Kiki shouted, and she picked up T and threw them over her shoulder. Lavender ran out of the room in record breaking time. Kiki and T got out just after her and they kept running until they were almost completely out of the challenge area.

BOOM!!!

The building was obliterated into millions of pieces. Smoke and bright orange flame filled the sky, and sent bits of flaming debris sailing to the ground. There were loud thuding noises as the larger chunks of the building landed all over the challenge area.

T blinked in shock and stammered, unable to really form words.

“I know.” Kiki responded.

“I guess we–” Lavender started to say.

“AND THE PANDAS ARE OUT! PENGUINS WIN!!” Chris shouted over the speakers, announcing the end of what was surely the most terrifying and dangerous challenge yet.

The Penguins breathed a sigh of relief and ran from their building, which still had a small fire going.

Dennis and Ry stared in shock as they watched their own building go down.

“We…failed.” Ry mumbled.

“We can still blow their building up. Get out the matches.” Dennis ordered, not willing to pass on the opportunity to be destructive without the worry of hurting someone.

Ry nodded and reached into his pocket. His eyes widened and he frantically wiggled his hand around to find that his pocket was empty.

“I don’t have them anymore.” Ry stated sorrowfully.

“Oh really? Well I’m glad it doesn’t matter anymore, then. We still lose.” Dennis said, a little disappointed. He then threw the bottle of gasoline far away from the buildings and walked away.

Ry stared at the strewn bottle, disappointed in himself for losing Dennis’ matches.

“Well? Are you coming?!” Dennis cried from a little farther along.

Ry stared back at the bottle and a smirk formed on his face. His heart raced as he ran towards to bottle of gasoline and picked it up.

Dennis’ eyes lit up as he realized what was about to happen.

Ry then chucked the bottle at the Penguins building and ran away with Dennis as far as possible.

BOOM!!!

The entire cast jumped from the explosion. Dakota shrieked and buried his head in his hands.

Gaile rubbed his back to comfort him and then went back to tend to Jillian.

Selene howled at the noise and began to run around.

“WHAT’S HAPPENING?!” Chris shouted over the speakers. “I SAID THE CHALLENGE WAS OVER. PANDAS, YOU STILL LOSE. PENGUINS STILL WIN,“ he taunted jeeringly.

The Penguins cheered and began to hug and exchange high fives to each other for their victory.

“To hopefully the first of many!” Derby cheered.

“GO PENGUINS!” Selene cried and threw a fist in the air.

“Congratulations! Penguins, you win immunity! But for the losers… I mean the Parrots, you’re voting someone off! Now go on and change and get ready to vote! Oh, and take a shower! YOU ALL SMELL LIKE A BARBEQUE!” Chris chuckled before clicking off of the speakers.

Ashley leaned over and placed a phony sympathetic hand on Gaile’s shoulder.

“Are you okay, Gaile? You were pretty freaked when you came out of the building.” she inquired with very convincing concern.

Gaile nodded and lowered her eyes to her purple scrunchie that was around her wrist.

“Uh huh. I just… a dog attacked me. Selene, I mean. But she looked and acted just like a dog! I am super scared of dogs, man. And the most confusing part is that I don’t even know why she was there! She had no reason to be chillin’ in the Parrot pad!! All she said was 'shiny!’” she exclaimed.

“Shiny?” Ashley questioned with a tilt of her head.

Gaile nodded.

At that moment, Todd came over to check on Jillian. “Hey partner!” he greeted with a smile.

“She’s still unconscious.” Dakota replied, still sounding a bit shaken up.

“Oh. I’ll just chill then.” Todd said and sat beside the group.

Ashley knew that this was her chance to finish her plan. She slipped her hand into her pocket undetectably and pulled out Benny’s sunglasses. She then reached over and stuck them in Todd’s back pants pocket.

Ashley gasped in horror. “Tom? Why do you have Benny’s sunglasses?” she questioned with a wide eyed look of surprise.

“Huh? What are you talking about? I don’t! AND IT’S TODD.” Todd answered.

“I’m looking right at them, you liar!” Ashley pointed an accusatory finger at his pocket.

“You’re deranged! I didn’t steal anything!” Todd cried and reached for his pocket. His face flushed as his fingers touched the sunglasses’ lens.

“Or maybe I did.” he whispered. “NO, NO, I didn’t! This is a mistake!” he assured his team, waving the sunglasses around.

A beam of light flashed around the area as the sunglasses caught the sunlight. One beam landed near Selene.

“SHINY! GLASSES SHINY!” Selene sang and came rushing over again.

“AHHHH NO! IT’S BACK! BAD DOG!” Gaile squealed and climbed onto Jillian’s bed where she was resting.

Jillian woke up with a start as Gaile climbed over her. “Wha?!” she gasped.

Ashley smirked maliciously. “What was that you said, Selene?” she asked knowingly.

“SHINY!” Selene shouted again.

Gaile’s eyes widened as she realized that the glasses had attracted the other girl all along. Dakota made this realization at the same time.

It took everything in Ashley’s being to not start laughing as her plan was clearly working.

“I didn’t! I didn’t! I was framed! I-I didn’t do it!” Todd sputtered.

The Parrots all looked at Todd with disbelief and sorrow, excluding one girl, who caught the boy’s eyes and gave him a tight-lipped, vicious smile.

The camera panned across all of the teams as a final scene before the commercial break. It showed the Penguins celebrating and cheering for their first victory, and the Pandas slightly downtrodden at how close they were to winning. T was still over Kiki’s shoulder, looking kinda freaked out. It then focused on the Polar Bears walking back over to the hotel, and finally the Parrots looking very angry and scowling at Todd because they had lost. The camera focused on Ashley who looked more pleased than angry. The screen then faded out to black.

Red Alert Part 3 (Message Received)
The show returned from the commercial break to reveal the cast, who were seated in the voting area. The Parrots were all seated on bleachers in the center of the area, surrounded by the other teams. As suspenseful music played over the scene, the camera panned over the Parrots. It was clear by the variety of expressions that were on each team member’s face that none of them were on the same page about what would be happening. Ashley, of course, had a malicious, proud smile on her face, satisfied with how her plan would undoubtedly turn out. Gaile was playing with the scrunchie on her wrist, tugging and twisting it nervously. She felt like she knew what would be going down tonight. Todd had his hands in his pockets and was leaning back casually in his seat, trying desperately to hide the fact that he was terrified of being sent home. Jill was nervously chewing on the inside of her cheek, obviously feeling the same as Todd and not managing to hide it. Dakota was just sitting with an unsure expression on his face, most likely because he couldn’t remember what an elimination ceremony was like from only a few nights before. Footsteps could be heard as Chris McLean walked into the scene holding a red envelope, and a plastic baggie filled with red rubber bracelets. The tension in the Parrot’s team visibly heightened as he approached.

“The votes are in!” Chris cried as he waved the envelope in the air. “It’s time to find out who’s staying and who’s getting splashed on the Wall of Shame!” he continued energetically. The camera panned over quickly to show the Wall of Shame, adorned with Alexandria’s white paint splatter silhouette. A couple of Alexandria’s signed photos flew by in the wind. The camera followed the pictures towards the cast, where one promptly landed with a slap in The Baroness’ face. She clawed at the picture obstructing her vision, and gave it a good angry look before ripping it to shreds and grumbling something about “floggin’ the wench”.

“Alright contestants! HERE WE GO.” Chris cried and opened the baggie of bracelets. He then tossed three other baggies of the bracelets to the Penguins, Pandas, and Polar Bears, who eagerly distributed the red bracelets that signified their safety to one another.

“When I call your name, that means you’re safe and you will receive a bracelet.” Chris stated and grabbed the first bracelet from the baggie.

“First of all. Dakota.” Chris called and tossed a red bracelet to the boy.

“Gaile.” he continued and tossed another bracelet to the 90’s girl. She fumbled to put in on her wrist with the white one from before.

Chris paused for dramatic effect. “There are two bracelets left, and three of you.” he taunted.

All of the teams began to wriggle in their seats at the anticipation. The Baroness leaned forward, hopeful that her choice was getting splashed.

“Jillian.” Chris continued and tossed a bracelet to the girl who now had tears welling in her eyes.

Gaile put a hand on her shoulder for support.

Chris then dangled the last remaining bracelet in front of the cast and the music intensified. “The last bracelet goes to….” he started with a sinister smirk, dragging on the moment for what felt like hours.

Jillian bit her lip and covered her face with her hands. Ry played with his fingers anxiously in his seat. Ashley’s eyes widened, showing she was a bit nervous, but her smile didn’t change. Gaile continued to rub Jillian’s back, completely distracted from the events going on around her.

“…..Ashley.” Chris announced and tossed the bracelet to the girl who happily accepted and slid it on her wrist.

Ry and the Baroness glanced at one another from the sidelines with equal looks of exasperation.

The Baroness threw her hands up in disbelief. “Are ye kiddin’ me?! Ye sent the lad packin’ when ye coulda’ sent the deceitful sea wench?!” she shouted in an outrage.

“I’m sorry, Todd..” Jillian whispered despairingly from inside her hands.

Ashley turned toward Todd and waved her wrist in his face like a trophy. “Terrible thing to do, sabotaging your own team,” she said in a disappointed voice, but her lips were still curved in a smile.

“Todd, it’s time to go!” Chris cried and gestured towards the Wall of Shame.

Todd nodded with a forlorn expression and slowly stood and headed towards the wall.

The Baroness burst from her seat. “ARE YE ALL ADDLED?! PARROTS, OPEN YER EYES! CAN YE NOT SEE THAT YE HAVE BEEN DECEIVED?! A slimy sea dog now goes free while an innocent salt  has ta walk the plank for ‘er actions?!” she preached with new found vigor in her voice.

“What  are  you talking about?” Ashley looked over to the Baroness with wide, innocent eyes.

“Are ye actually denyin’ that ye did this? Arr, ‘tis a sad day when a coward can’t take the punishment of ‘er own evil actions. That’s what ye are, Ashley; a coward and a bilge-sucking wench!”

“Me? A coward? If anyone’s a coward, it’s Todd.” Ashley turned to address Todd for her next statements. “I mean, hurting your own teammate and then denying it? That’s pretty low, even for you.”

“WHAT?! Are you saying that I hurt Jillian now too?! I’d never hurt her! I-I-I’d never hurt anyone!” Todd cried in reply. His hands were balled up into fists, his face red from fury.

Jillian buried her face in her hands again. “No, no, no.” she wailed. Gaile and Dakota each placed a hand on her shoulders to comfort her.

“Shh it’s ok, Jillian. I don’t want to think Todd would hurt you either.” Dakota said to her quietly.

“I didn’t do it! Honest! What reason would I have for doing something like that to a teammate?!” Todd cried.

“I surely don’t know, Tad. Why don’t you tell us?” Ashley taunted with innocent eyes.

Todd opened his mouth to defend himself again, but was interrupted by Chris.

“E-NOUGH! Tad– I mean Todd, it’s time for you to get splashed,” he ordered.

“Okay. Bring it on,” Todd said defeatedly and stood in front of the wall.

Chef then walked into the elimination area pulling a wagon with cans of red paint; one for each remaining contestant.

“Alright contestants, come grab your paint cans.” Chris instructed.

The contestants all got up and grabbed their cans, surrounding Todd in front of the wall.

Ashley limped over from her new foot injury to the center of the group, to stand right in front of Todd.

“What fools these mortals be.” Todd mumbled under his breath, not making eye contact with his teammates.

“We’ll throw on three. 1….2….3!” Chris directed and rushed out of the way of the oncoming flow of red paint.

Todd closed his eyes tightly and stiffened as the paint splashed all over him.

As the rest of the contestants tossed their paint, The Baroness and Ry instead dumped their paint on the ground beside them. It splashed and splattered onto their pants and shoes.

“Time to go, bud.” Chris said and pointed to the exit.

Todd opened his eyes after realizing it was over and moved away to look at the red silhouette on the wall next to Alexandria’s white one. He looked very sad and betrayed as he made his way to the exit. Before he left he turned and gave a long, ‘eat s*** and die’ glare at Ashley.

“I’ll be back.” Todd grumbled and headed off.

When he was finally out of sight, Chris stood back in front of the contestants. “And now, Penguins, your reward!” he announced and gestured to Chef, who was approaching with a bag he pulled from under the bleachers in his hand. Chef reached into the large bag and began to pass out the Penguin’s reward, mini plushie versions of the sunglasses emoji.

“Plushies.” The Baroness growled at the object in her hand. She then threw it across the elimination arena where it landed near the Wall of Shame with a squeak.

Ry darted away from his team and strut over towards the Parrots. He planted himself right in front of Ashley. The other Parrots dispersed to avoid the conflict that was surely about to ensue.

“So how’s your foot injury?” Ry teased.

Ashley’s face hardened.

“Congratulations. It looks like your plan was successful. But I must ask, don’t you feel even a smidge of remorse for what you did?” Ry growled.

“I haven’t the slightest idea of what you are talking about, Henry.” Ashley feigned shock.

“Don’t play that game, B****ley. I know you did it. I just know it!” Ry cried, pointing an accusatory finger at the girl. “I must also say that it was quite remarkable how easily you were able to convince your teammates that Todd betrayed you.”

“It really is, isn’t it?” Ashley asked in her best fake sarcastic tone, “I got rid of Todd so easily, huh?! Just imagine how easy it’s gonna be to get rid of YOU.” Ashley hissed out the last phrase.

Ry stood unphased, though inside his heart was beating a mile a minute.

“If I were you, I’d watch your back, Henry.” Ashley said.

“I’m not scared of you.” Ry stated with a straight, emotionless face.

“You should be. This game is only just beginning.” The girl spat coldly, a wide, malicious grin on her face.

Ry then rolled his eyes, turned around and walked away.

The camera panned over the remaining contestants as they were exiting the elimination area.

Ry was angrily staring at the thrown plushie. Ashley was smirking, her plan having been successful. Jillian was still seated with her face buried in her hands.

Chris appeared to close the show.

“What a thrilling and DRAMATIC episode! What’s going to happen between the Baroness, Ry, and Ashley?! Will Todd really be back?! And who is going to get covered in paint next? Find out next time on TOTAL. DRAMA. COLORS!”

The scene closed with Jillian being the last one to leave the elimination area. She slowly looked up from her hands and got up from her seat. She then padded towards the wall and picked up the mini emoji plushie that the Baroness threw. She stared at the wall for a moment with a sad look as she carefully slipped the plushie into her pocket and walked away to rejoin her teammates.

The screen then faded out to black.

Out of the Blue Prologue
“Last time, on Total Drama Colors!” Chris began with a wide armed gesture to the camera. “Things got a little.. heated.” The host snickered as a wide shot of the burning and fallen buildings panned across the screen. “The teams were sent out to destroy some empty old buildings. And what better to destroy them with than flamethrowers?” The images then changed to Dennis and Ry grinning deviously as they received their weapons. “Though some choices were a little… ill-advised.” Chris laughed, while on screen, Jill high-fived Gaile after volunteering to attack and Benny sleepily looked down at his flamethrower.

“Now, here at Total Drama, it’s well-known that we pride our show on drama. And there was a lot of that in the last episode!” Chris chuckled as the screen flashed images of the teams blowing up one another’s buildings, closing with Ry making the Penguins building go down in a fiery blaze. “Not only were the fires a little… wild.” Chris laughed again at his terrible and half-hearted pun. “But the tension in the teams is really heating up.” The screen switched to show Ashley smashing Jillian on the head with her bucket. “After Ashley brutally sabotaged her own team to get rid of Todd, no one is safe. Message received, at least by most people.” The screen swapped again to show Ry and the Baroness pouring their buckets of paint onto the ground. “The Baroness and Ry seem to be making quite a statement. Will it work well for them, or will they all go down in flames?” The screen flashed to one of Chris, standing in front of a screen showing Todd, the Baroness, and Ry on a split screen with Ashley.

“Will the Parrots be lost without Todd? Will the Pandas get their team in gear, or will their disorder continue to pull them apart? Can the Penguins continue their ‘lucky-streak’? Will the Polar Bears forget Arizona in this challenge and leave her behind again?” Chris grinned as the television behind him flashed pictures of the different teams. “I dunno! But I can promise an action packed time on this episode of Total. Drama. Colors!” Chris spread his arms wide, and the screen faded out to the theme song.

Out of the Blue Part 1
As the show faded back in, the scene was dark in Arizona’s room. The girl woke up abruptly, opening her eyes, though it naturally didn’t make much of a difference to her. For Arizona, waking up was more of being aware of her surroundings than it was opening her eyes to meet the day. Reaching down to her bedside table, Arizona grabbed her cane from where she’d left it, sitting up and stretching. Reaching down with her cane, Arizona made sure she wasn’t going to trip over anything as she got out of bed. Her brother had done that to her more than once, leaving things out of place intentionally, and Arizona didn’t really trust the people here that much. Thankfully, her dorm room was all in order, and the girl stood up, still very sleepy. She fumbled her way over to the dresser, finding it kind of difficult in the total silence of the morning. Tapping her watch, Arizona listened to the electronic voice pipe out, “5:30 AM”. No wonder it was so quiet, everyone else was still asleep. Arizona would go back to bed, but she felt pretty rested and decided to just throw on some clothes and head downstairs early. Maybe she could get some good food before everyone else woke up. Throwing on a shirt and pair of capris from her drawer, Arizona found her way to the door and took the elevator to the bottom floor. Surprisingly, she could hear someone else’s shoes clacking on the kitchen floor. From the sound and smell, it was a girl, though Arizona didn’t know anyone well enough to match the clues to a person without their voice.

“Who’s there?” Arizona called as she entered the kitchen area, and Alice turned around, a glass of orange juice in her hands. The blue haired girl grinned, happy in a somewhat vicious way that Arizona was the one who was awake.

“Arizona! It’s Alice.” The member of the polar bears sang out, and Arizona looked relieved for the confirmation.

“Morning, Alice.” Arizona made her way slowly over towards where Alice was standing, and Alice headed forward to meet her.

“Did you sleep good? You had quite the adventure in that last challenge.”

Arizona’s face fell a little at the memory. “Oh, yeah, I’m doing fine.” Arizona snatched up the first thing she got her hands on when she reached the breakfast table, which was an extremely sticky cinnamon bun. Now the frosting was coating her hands, but Arizona didn’t seem to care much. She instead lifted the bun up to her mouth, taking a ravenous bite, and Alice took a sip of her orange juice.

“That’s great, Arizona. After Matt left you in there, I was really worried.”

Arizona stopped mid-bite. “Matt was the one who left me?”

“Oh, yeah. He said he would grab you if there was any trouble, but I guess he panicked. Pretty insensitive of him, if you ask me.” Of course, Matt had been the one who’d asked Alice to grab Arizona, but she was just twisting the truth a little bit. “I really had to convince Mika to go in and get you out. I don’t think the team likes you very much, to be honest. They think you can’t handle anything.”

Arizona had lowered the cinnamon bun to the tabletop, and was scowling. Alice grinned.

“I care about you though, Arizona. I think you’re a valuable addition to the team, maybe the strongest player we have.”

Arizona smiled faintly. “Thanks, Alice. It’s nice to have someone who believes in you.”

At this point, more people had begun pouring into the lobby, and Matt was heading over. “Matt’s on his way. I’m gonna go get some breakfast.” Alice rubbed Arizona’s shoulder before she pranced off.

As Matt approached Arizona, he wondered why she looked so unfriendly. “Morning, ‘Zona. Did you wake up on the wrong side of the bed or something?”

Arizona turned around to face the food. “No.”

“Oh.” The mood between the two was tense, and Matt was feeling pretty uncomfortable. “Okay, I guess I’m gonna head off. I just wanted to let you know, your shirt’s inside out.”

Arizona felt her back until the tag was inside her fingers, confirming Matt’s statement. Flushing, the girl scurried off, cane held out in front of her to she didn’t trip over a chair, and Matt watched her leave with confusion.

By this point, the camera tore away from the Polar Bears to focus on the other teams now entering the room. Ashley’s steps looked slightly forced, and the viewer could detect a slight limp on her right side.The girl snatched up a bagel before slamming into her seat and fixing the other people walking in with a glare, particularly Ry, who entered scowling. He was still upset over Todd’s elimination, as was Jillian who was led in by Gaile and Dakota. The girl still seemed a little sniffly, and the team headed over to the Parrot table, Ashley putting on her friendliest face of disgust. Next in the room was the Baroness, chatting it up with a very excited Derby, who was holding his notebook and scribbling frantically.

“‘nd there we were, out ‘n t’ wild open sea with not a breath of wind ta guide our dinghy.” The Baroness explained to Derby’s wide eyed stare. The viewer could see that he was diligently taking notes on the whole adventure, hoping to draw inspiration from it later.

Mika and Mallory were the next pair, continuously talking over one another to try and tell a story.

“Oh yeah, and then I threw the bomb and it was like-”

“Boom! Yeah, like that bad-a** time I went ‘nd blew up the gasoline truck ‘nd the blokes were-”

“Running and screaming from the room and I was like, “It’s just a smoke-”

“Bomb, everyon’ thought it was a bomb but all I had was a single match and-”

The conversation was making the cameraman’s head spin, so they switched the screen over to one of Benny yawning his way into the room. Unbeknownst to him, Selene was slinking along behind him, waiting for the right moment to strike. The two walked in sync for a few steps, then Selene ran closer and jumped onto Benny, yowling. Benny almost had a heart attack right on camera, which he thankfully didn’t because his contract didn’t cover life insurance. Still panting in surprise, and with his heart racing, Benny tried to swat Selene off, and she leaped away, dashing into the kitchen giggling.

“Scare Benny!!!!” The girl cried out as she slid up to breakfast and started loading up a full plate. Benny was still shaking with horror as he slid into his seat, pressing his head into his hands.

“Just a few more weeks.” The boy mumbled, as Bailey plopped down next to him.

“Morning, Ben!” She said chirpily, until noticing that Benny was quivering. “What’s up with you?”

“Selene.” Benny groaned, and Bailey had to stifle a laugh.

“It’s okay, Benny. I’ll keep her away from you until she calms down a little.” Patting Benny on the back, Bailey was off in search of the wolf-like girl, who was ravenously tearing into a piece of sausage right in front of the serving plate.

Kiki and T were next in the room, the pair walking together in comfortable silence. Kiki had decided it was hardcore time to try and get in good more with T, and after a few failed conversation starters, she’d decided they could just be quiet for now. The silence of the two was completely broken only a moment later as Lavender and Dennis burst into the room, Lavender chasing the cackling boy.

“WHERE IS IT???” The girl screeched, and Dennis quickened his pace, hopping over a table and putting it between them.

“Where is what?” He said with wide, innocent eyes, and Lavender’s face contorted.

“My shampoo!! What did you do with it?!?” Lavender looked abnormally angry for just losing shampoo, and a few people in the room dared to giggle. The girl whirled around, panting. “Don’t laugh at me!!!! You’re probably all in on it too!!! I’ve only been here for a few days and I am sick of the pranks and there aren’t even any real boys this season and-” Lavender’s voice cut off into a shriek as her bottle of shampoo hit her solidly in the back of the head, thrown by Dennis.

“Calm down, sweetheart. I’m just showing my love.” Dennis blew a kiss at the girl, which Lavender saw as the final insult. She would’ve lunged over the table to show Dennis exactly how loving she was, but Kiki came over and wrapped her up, pinning her arms to her sides.

“Alright, Lav, calm down.’nd Dennis, ya can go sit over there,” Kiki let go of Lavender with one hand and pointed over to the table where Ry was sitting. “‘nd Lav ‘nd I’ll sit there.” Kiki pointed to a table at the other end of the room. “‘nd I don’t want ‘nymore fightin’ or arguin’ from either of ya!”

“Who’s fighting?” Dennis looked innocently over at Kiki before meeting her burning stare and resigning himself to his fate. Walking over to Ry, Dennis snatched up the shampoo from the floor, sat down, and began talking with the other boy about some incident involving a blowtorch and Ry’s hat.

Kiki and Lavender headed off to the other side of the room, Lavender still steaming mad, and soon T was left alone in the middle of the room. Sighing, they sat down in a chair which was set right in front of them with a mumbled, “Okay”, resigning themself to a quiet breakfast alone.

With that interesting fiasco over, people began returning to their normal breakfast, the camera choosing to focus in on the parrots since Arizona had yet to return.

“Alright, team,” the word came out forced, hissing from between Ashley’s teeth, “we need to work harder this challenge, since we lost last time. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be sending another person home. I’m sure everyone who performed poorly knows who they are.” Ashley looked around the table, staring everyone directly in the eyes. All of her teammates squirmed a little under Ashley’s powerful gaze, even though they were sure they hadn’t really done anything wrong. Jillian sniffled a little more as Ashley looked at her, still upset from sending Todd home, and Gaile rubbed her back.

“She’s right, guys. If we wanna get all of us to the merge, we have to work ultra hard to keep from having anyone else get eliminated. I dunno about you guys, but that last elimination totally wiped me out.” Gaile seemed to be her usual chipper self, but she was rubbing Jillian’s back in a steady, peaceful fashion.

Dakota nodded in agreement. “Yeah, I didn’t really like the last elimination… I think.” The last bit was mumbled quietly, and Dakota subconsciously reached up for his camera before stopping himself so he could focus on the conversation.

“Agreed.” Jillian mumbled from her head buried in her her shirt sleeve.

“Good. So we’ll all actually try this time, and if someone doesn’t, then I guess we know who to send home.” Ashley’s words hung threateningly over the group, and the camera quickly switched off of the red team, unfortunately landing right on green.

“Where the ‘ell is ‘Zona at?” Mika questioned as she and Mallory sat down with Matt and Alice, plates loaded up with food.

Matt crossed his arms, obviously still ticked from Arizona running off earlier. “I dunno.”

The mood between the members of the green team was still very tense, which was uncomfortable since they’d worked so well together in the last two challenges. Alice decided now would be a good time to chime in.

“I think Arizona doesn’t like us very much. I think she’s worried she can’t do well since she’s blind, like when she got trapped in the building.”

“What should we do about it?” Mallory really just wanted the team to work together, since they hadn’t lost a single challenge yet. Plus, she’d gotten to make a bomb every episode so far, and she was loving it!

“Help her out more, I think. Anytime she’s doing stuff, we should work with her, so she knows she’s not alone.” Alice had to contain a snicker as she said this, because the team was nodding so eagerly.

“That sounds like a f******’ great idea! Good job, Alice.” Mika grinned, and the team tore into their breakfast, unaware that Arizona was currently sobbing in the bathroom.

The camera was considering switching to another team, but ultimately decided to just pan over everyone. The yellow team was still split up, 2 of the 3 separate groups exchanging heated conversation. The blue team were all sitting together and mostly having a good time, though Bailey was keeping Selene on the far side of the table from Benny.

Without warning, the ceiling erupted. Buckets worth of water rained down over the contestants, interns laughing as they poured. One intern snuck over and turned on the sprinklers, causing a steady drizzle to land on the teams. Everyone started shrieking and many chose to crawl under the tables, Lavender in particular, leaving Selene, Dennis, Mika, the Baroness, and Bailey the only ones still in the rain. This group seemed to be quite enjoying it, even complaining when the rain finally stopped. Selene shook her hair like a wet dog, smacking Benny, who was just standing up, right in the face.

Chris’ voice came on over the room’s speakers, and everyone listened as they wrung out their clothes. “Alright, contestants! Did you have a nice shower?” Chris chuckled as most contestants groaned. “Meet me outside and there’ll be dryers for you guys. Get ready to feel blue!” With this, the microphone clicked off, and most contestants made their way to the doors, breakfast pretty much ruined. Lavender looked like she was about to cry, made worse when Dennis snuck up behind her and poured the entire bottle of shampoo on her head. The girl’s expression changed to pure hatred for a second, before she managed to contain herself. She flipped her hair back in an attempt to keep the suds out of her eyes. Kiki caught herself staring at the beauty queen, momentarily dazzled by how she could look attractive while sopping wet and seething with anger. The thug snapped out of her daze and slugged Dennis’s shoulder.

“Quit f*****’ around. We’ been lucky not ta lose, don’t need ya screwin’ us over before we know what tha challenge is,” she huffed, stalking out of the kitchen.

Dennis trailed behind her happily, his original target following at a safe distance. “Ah lighten up, Kiwi! ‘Is just a harmless prank! Heheheh~!”

Lavender scoffed at Dennis’ attempt to defend himself, while Kiki reached up and grabbed the front of the boy’s hoodie, yanking him down to look him in the eyes. Her flared gaze bore into his.“I refuse to be puttin’ up with this s*** this early, aight?” She growled before letting go of the prankster, continuing her march outside. Dennis shrugged, following her out seemingly unphased, with just a mild shudder to show he might be unnerved. Lavender followed with a joyful grin, happy that Dennis had gotten some just desserts. Ry, who’d been standing by watching the small commotion with a minuscule grin of amusement, followed suit behind the taller girl. Lastly, T walked silently after their team, hands shoved in the pockets of their hoodie in discomfort.

The other teams exited with significantly less conflict, and soon everyone was standing outside, shivering in their wet clothes. Some interns rolled in with several very large hairdryers, looking strange enough to be very comical until they all turned on and some of the smaller contestants (namely T and Dakota) were knocked to the floor. They did do a great job drying everyone, and within seconds, all the contestants were no longer soaking, though Lavender’s hair was coated in dry shampoo suds. Chris finally rolled in, standing atop a truck. Inside were four large buckets. The squishy, rubber shapes of water balloons could be seen inside each container. Chris was also holding a rubber hose.

“Morning, victims! I bet you can’t guess what today’s challenge is!“

"Let me guess, blue?” Ry lifted an eyebrow sarcastically, and Chris sprayed him with the hose. Ashley chuckled a little, and Gaile looked at her strangely.

“It was a rhetorical question.” Chris whipped out the color changer and panned through all the colors again, making all the contestants cover the eyes. In the eliminated city, a sudden burst of light from their clothes made Alexandria and Todd, who were eating breakfast together, screech in surprise. The quick peek at the eliminated contestants flashed off as quickly as it had arrived, and the colors settled on a rich royal blue. “Now, the color today is blue. And what’s blue?”

“Water!” Selene piped up, and Chris blasted her with the hose.

“Rhetorical. Anyway, water is blue. So today’s challenge is a water balloon fight!” Chris paused to gesture up at the balloons in the truck. “Each team gets one bucket. You have three minutes to collect your balloons, then you have to scatter in the city. The game is water balloon hide and seek, and it’ll be in your best interests to split up. Your shirts will beep when you approach another player who isn’t from your team. Benny, Jillian, come demonstrate.” Jill looked anxious to be called out, and moved to stand in front of the group awkwardly. Benny, however, didn’t move. A soft snore echoed from his mouth, and Chris groaned, yanking out the hose and blasting the boy with it.

Benny awoke with a shout. “I was awake!!’ He protested uselessly, and Chris beckoned him to the front. The host pressed a button on his remote, and as Benny approached Jill, their shirts started to beep, growing louder and louder as the sleepy boy got closer and closer.

"Benny and Jillian are close to one another, so their shirts are beeping. I’ll turn all of yours on after the three minute hiding period.” Chris pressed the button again, and the shirts turned off. Benny and Jillian were now awkwardly standing in front of the group with seemingly no purpose. “Go back to your teams.” Chris dismissed them, waving his hand in the air. The two scrammed, dashing off back to their places. Gaile gave Jill a high five. Chris was just opening his mouth to deliver some very important challenge information, when he suddenly noticed something. “Hey Polar Bears, where did you put Arizona?”

The Polar Bears looked around in shock, having forgotten that Arizona was still in the bathroom. Alice smirked and pretended like she hadn’t known.

“Well? Where is she?”

“I’ll go get 'er.” Mika bravely volunteered, eager to get back on Arizona’s good side. “In the bathroom, right?” She quickly whispered to Alice, and the manipulator nodded.

“You can’t just leave while I’m describing the challenge, Mika. I’m gonna-” Chris cut off as he noticed that Mika was being her usual self, defying authority and strutting off towards the hotel. Chris groaned and returned to addressing the group as a whole. “Fine then. Any questions before you start?”

T rose their hand politely. “I was wondering if-” T was cut off as a jet of water hit them right in the face.

“No questions? Alright then!” Chris stepped to the side, freeing up the buckets of balloons for anyone to reach. “On the count of three then. One… two… two and a half… two and three quarters…”

Everyone waited in suspense, muscles taught and ready to go.

“Two and five sixths… two and seven eights… two and ten elevenths… three!” Chris snickered as all of the contestants threw themselves into the fray, snatching up water balloons and attempting to organize. “This challenge promises to be quite a change from last one’s fire! Will the red team slip their way into victory after their loss last episode? Will Lavender melt when she gets wet?”

“I heard that!” Lavender’s voice rang out from off camera, and Chris smirked.

“Find out the answers to all this and more after the break on Total. Drama. Colors!!!”

Right as the screen faded to black, a brief glimpse of Mika leading Arizona to the rest of her team was seen. A simple voice clip played right before the commercial, Arizona’s voice ringing clear, and also slightly coldly, “Alice, would you mind telling me what the challenge is again? Blue?”

Out of the Blue Part 2
As the show returned, the camera panned over to show the teams running for Chris’ truck. The strongest members of each team were grabbing the bucket that matched their teams’ colors. Kiki was first to return to her team with their bucket full of the plump, yellow water balloons they’d be throwing at the other contestants. She quickly waved her hand over in a “huddle up!” motion to gather her teammates for a brief group meeting. The rest of the Plaid Pandas rushed towards the girl. Kiki, of course, was first to speak.

“Okay, Pandas! We need ta spread out as far as we can from everyone, that way we don’t trigga anyone’s beepin’ things!” she instructed with a stern look.

“I don’t wanna get my hair ruined anymore than it already is, so I’m fine with that! I’ll climb a tree or something and aim from above.” Lavender said with a flip of of her greasy, soap sud infused hair.

“I think I speak for the both of us when I say that and Ry-Ry here will be taking more of a… defensive approach.” Dennis stated with a sly smirk, and gave Ry a wink, implying that they weren’t planning to take a defensive approach at all.

Ry smiled a wide trouble-making grin, almost identical to Dennis’, in response and nodded his head. Kiki rolled her eyes, opting to just let the two do their thing.

T was now feeling much more comfortable with their team and was slowly opening up to them more, now that things were a little calmer. “That sounds like a good idea to me,” they said quietly from almost behind Kiki. “I think that I will just hide in a bush and wait until the challenge is over. I can supply you all with extra balloons if you run out.”

Lavender nodded. “We could make a pulley thing to send more up to my tree as well!” she cried and began to look around for things to use for such a system, for some reason believing that everyone would want to help her out.

“No time for that! We’ve got to just take what we can. T, be sure to get some extras in case we run out or someone finds you.” Ry ordered.

T nodded their head, still slightly intimidated by their abrasive teammate.

KiKi clapped her hands to get the group’s attention. “Alright guys- and T, to ya stations!” she shouted and took off to find a good place to hide before the challenge began.

The rest of the team dispersed as well.

“Alright team, listen up.” Ashley ordered the group of Parrots. Everyone’s eyes snapped to lock onto hers.“We have to win this challenge. We can’t afford to be the only team to have sent two people home in a row. That’ll set us up as being weak. So… let’s not mess it up, okay?” Ashley glared at her team with squinted eyes.

The rest of the Parrots nodded to indicate that they understood.

“Can I-” Jillian started to ask.

Ashley whirled her head around to face the taller girl and shot her an exasperated look. “I’ll assign your tasks, okay Jillian?” There was an edge in her voice, and she clearly didn’t expect the girl to answer her.

Gaile rolled her eyes when Ashley wasn’t looking and Jillian bit the inside of her cheek, holding in her request.

“Dakota, you need to try to get people out. Be on the lookout for anyone not carrying our red balloons.” Ashley instructed and held up one of the balloons from their bucket, explaining things to Dakota like he was a child. She was clearly still feeling spiteful towards him after his admission that he was friends with Ry.

“Okay…” Dakota trailed off with an anxious look on his face.

Gaile placed a hand on Dakota’s shoulder and shot him a dazzling smile. “I think Dakota and I should team up again! It worked well for a hot second last challenge.”

Ashley stiffened a bit as she thought about the two working together. She hated to realize it, but Gaile was becoming a threat. This simply wouldn’t do. “Oh, sorry, but Gaile, you need to come with me, and you need to just keep hidden. You’re better when you stay out of the way. It’s for the good of the team.” The glint in Ashley’s eyes was harsh and cold, but the fake smile on her face looked genuine.

The sparkle in Gaile’s eyes dimmed a little bit, disappointed that she couldn’t work with Dakota; but her blissful grin remained on her face. She shrugged her shoulders at the team and nodded in agreement. Jillian, who had been spending the conversation’s length trying to muster up the courage to make her request, finally spoke up.

“I really would prefer to just hide this challenge, thank you.” she mumbled. Gaile looked at her friend with sad eyes.

“Are you totally sure, Jill? You were the tops last challenge when you were playing in the field. You totally opened up a can of whoop-a** on the other teams.” she coaxed.

Jillian nodded. “I-I just would rather not be in the way.” Jillian said as she turned away from the group, obviously still upset from the last episode.

“Whatever floats your boat, Jill.” Ashley said in her most phony-sympathetic voice. “It might be a good idea for you to stay safe this challenge anyway. Your head must still be hurting.” Ashley’s voice was just dripping with sympathy. Jillian buried her head in her sleeve. Ashley patted her on the arm slightly, before directing the conversation right back to assigning places. “Of course, I’ll be attacking. Gaile will help me by being lookout from a tree. And I assume you two already know what you’ll be doing.” She indicated Dakota and Jillian, who nodded.

“Then let’s get going! We have a challenge to win!” Dakota cried enthusiastically and grabbed a handful of the balloons from their bucket.

Over with the Paisley Polar bears, Arizona was standing sullenly alone, only letting Alice get close to her. “I want to get a head start.” she snapped. She’d moved past the sadness of ‘being betrayed by her team’, and was officially angry. Arizona snatched up three of the balloons and took off on her own, stomping deep into the playing field and waving her cane in front of her so she didn’t trip or bump into anything.

The rest of the team blinked in shock, unsure of what had upset the poor girl. Alice pretended to be just as concerned and confused as the others. Though inside she was beaming with pride that her plan was working.

“What’s the matter with her?” Mallory asked with a cock of her eyebrow.

Mika shrugged. “I couldn’t get her to talk to me the whole walk over. She’s just miffed about somethin’,” she explained and shook her head.

“I can’t imagine what could have upset her this much. She just seems a bit down today. I think I must’ve hurt her feelings earlier, somehow.” Matt said with a voice filled with regret. He lowered his eyes to the ground.

Alice decided to step in while Matt was feeling guilty. “I mean, she did tell me that she was just angry about being abandoned and left to fend for herself during the last challenge,” she explained. “That must be why she’s still upset.”

Mallory, Mika, and Matt nodded as they recalled having to rescue Arizona from the burning building from the last episode.

“Which brings me to my next point. We really need to help her out this challenge. Arizona has a distinct disadvantage this time since she can’t see. I think it would be best for one of us to team up with her and make sure she’s protected.” Alice continued.

“That’s a great idea, Alice! We need to make sure that she knows we won’t forget about her!” Mallory cried.

“I think since I’m the one who upset her this morning, I should be the one to work with her. I need to prove to her that I’ve got her back. I feel pretty bad for making her upset today.” Matt volunteered.

Alice nodded and grinned in approval. This was EXACTLY what she wanted to happen. “Then that’s settled! Now, Polar Bears, let’s get ready! We have a challenge to win.” Alice tried to pep up the group, ready to set the dominos falling.

“I have my own plan already.” Mallory let loose a maniacal laugh.

“Oh f***, this‘ll be good.” Mika grinned in Mallory’s direction, feeling much more comfortable with the other girl since they’d started hanging out more.

The rest of the group exchanged worried looks, which Mallory took in with pleasure and satisfaction. She soon turned and took off with a wave, heading deep into the playing field until she disappeared from sight.

“Anyway…We need to have a plan, Polar Bears! Now, I know that we’re down a few people right now but maybe we could split up and have some of us hunt down others and some of us hide?” Matt tried to direct the team, attempting to step it up since he hadn’t been doing the best with helping the Polar Bears so far.

Mika, who was actually pretty upset from Matt making Arizona so snappy, since the two had just started bonding, couldn’t care less about what Matt wanted the team to do. “I’m headin’ off too.” Mika snatched up a few water balloons and cradled them in her arm. “Matt, you’d better make f*****’ sure you take care of ‘Zona.” Mika was pretty protective over the girl, since she’d rescued her from the fire in the last challenge. After giving Matt a threatening stare, Mika was off to join the fray.

It was now Matt and Alice left to stare at one another in awkward silence.

“So much for a plan.” Matt mumbled spitefully. “I’m gonna go find ‘Zona I guess. You do whatever you want.” Matt headed into the field, feeling a little uncomfortable due to Mika’s attitude.

“Oh I will, Matthew. You can count on that.” Alice said to his back as he walked further away from her. She then snickered maliciously, satisfied that her plan was working out so well. After turning to grab the last few water balloons from the team’s bucket, she went off to find a place to hide until the challenge began.

Meanwhile, in the Polka-dot Penguins, The Baroness was taking charge of the group’s plan of action. She had all her teammates lined up in a drill sergeant-esque line and was pacing up and down the row as she preached to them.

“Alrighty, mates. This is the challenge we’ve been waitin’ for. Today is a good day to be on me team, for I be an expert when it comes to attackin’ and strategizin’. That’s exactly what we be needing for this challenge. We need to stick together and eliminate the enemies we come ‘cross. I says we spread out ‘cross the quadrants of the field. That way none of those sea dogs can get anywhere without a mighty Penguin ambush!” The Baroness preached. She reached into the bucket and pulled out a good handful of their blue balloons.

“That sounds like a great plan to me!” Bailey stepped forward, attempting to reassert a little team leadership, and reached for the balloons.

“I suppose if we can execute this plan flawlessly, then it would be most beneficial.” Derby confirmed with a nod.

“Selene splash people!” Selene barked excitedly.

“As long as it’s not me.” Benny grumbled under his breath.

“There be no time left for runnin’ your lips! To your stations, hands!” The Baroness cried, and took off running to a spot for the challenge.

The rest of the team followed suit and dispersed themselves throughout the field.

Chris McLean’s face appeared on a screen that cascaded down in front of the playing field. He as usual had a smug grin on his face.

“Okay contestants! Get ready!… Get set!…G- GAH!!” Chris stumbled backwards on screen as an Alexandria picture hit him smack in the face. The host reached up and tore it off, throwing it to the ground in disgust. Chris straightened up a little bit in an attempt to regain some dignity, coughing awkwardly before moving along with the challenge. “GO!” he cried as a loud horn blew, and the screen rose back up.

There wasn’t a sound made for a minute or so after the challenge began. The contestants all appeared to be waiting for someone else to make the first move. The camera flashed from contestant to contestant to show what they were doing during this pause. Dakota had ducked behind a bush, red balloons in hand, heart beating out of his chest as he waited to be discovered. T had made themselves comfortable in the large, rotten hole of a tree. They had at least 5 balloons in hand in case any of their teammates ran out. Lavender positioned herself high up in her tree,m and placed her water balloons in the small hole of the branch she was laying on. Ashley was crouched behind a big bush as well, and in the tree adjacent to it, Gaile sat being her lookout. Kiki had found the one lone abandoned building in the course and had claimed the place as her hiding spot. She peeked out at the rest of the course from the top window of the building. Compared to the contestants in the trees, whom Kiki could see, she had a higher vantage point. Jillian was hiding in a hollow log, planning to stay there undetected for the whole challenge. The rest of the contestants were dispersed throughout the course, hiding in bushes, trees, or standing ready to attack. The sound of rustling leaves from a far distance could be heard and the camera rapidly panned over to reveal The Baroness as the first to make a move, slinking around with a plump water balloon in hand. She scanned left and right as she slowly combed through the field in search of those not on her team. She had a deep look of concentration as she trudged around.

Nearby, Bailey was set up in the first quadrant of the field. She peeked out at the areas in front of her by moving a few of the bush’s branches. She had to catch herself from gasping by covering her mouth when she saw someone. The camera panned over to where Bailey was looking to show Ry and Dennis wandering the field in search of people to hit. They both had identical sadistic looks as they scanned all around the field. Dennis’ fingers were just itching to toss a balloon at someone.

“Hey, do you see anyone?” Ry whispered to his partner. Dennis shook his head.

“Nah, but keep looking. And don’t just look at your eye level, I bet we’ll find people hiding in the trees too.” The Black Cupid replied.

Ry nodded in understanding and took off towards the closest tree and started to climb it. He moved surprisingly fast for a little guy, as he clawed up the tree’s trunk. With a final grunt, Ry made it to the top branch and did a quick scan of the area.

“No beeps. No person here.” Ry reported and jumped down from the tree, landing safely on his feet.

“Let’s just keep going then.” Dennis continued down the field, and Ry began to follow him.

The camera focused in on Bailey who was still watching the boys wander around. She hoped she wasn’t close enough to them to trigger their shirt alarms. Breathing a silent sigh of relief as the two headed off, she carefully moved the branches back to conceal her hiding place. They made a little bit of noise as they bounced together when she let go.

“Hmm?” Ry hummed as he thought he heard rustling of bushes.

Bailey covered her mouth again to keep herself from panicking and closed her eyes, waiting for herself to be discovered.

Ry made his way towards the source of the sound and began to reach for the bush. The camera went back and forth to scenes of Bailey hiding and panicking, and Ry reaching for the bush to create suspense.

Ry’s fingers were brushing the leaves of the bush when the sound of a splash could be heard from farther away, followed by the whooping of Dennis as he celebrated hitting his first target. A loud siren was sounding off over the course.

Benny was now standing up from his hiding place behind a boulder, now soaking wet from being hit with Dennis’ water balloon. The area was very noisy with the sirens and frantic beeps, since Benny and Dennis were standing so close to one another and their shirts were beeping like crazy.

“And Benny is the first one out!” Chris McLean announced over the loudspeakers.

Benny had a look of disappointment on his face as he slunk away and out of the challenge area as the sirens turned off.

“I fell asleep again. My snoring gave me away…” he mumbled groggily. His shirt had turned a splattered black color where it had gotten wet. “Why did my shirt change?” Benny questioned, glancing downwards in confusion.

“Ohhh, yeah.” Chris’ voice sounded once again over the loudspeakers. “The shirts go black where you got hit! No cheating in this game!”

Only moments later, the siren sounded off again.

“And Selene is also out! Wow! Two Penguins in a row! Not a good start, Penguins!” Chris cried again.

Selene came rushing out of the field with her own popped balloon in her mouth like a chew toy.

“BALLOON BROKE!” Selene squealed joyfully as she ran by the cameras on all fours. The sound of Benny screaming was heard from farther off, and it could be assumed that Selene had pounced on him.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the course, Gaile had almost lost her balance after the loud siren caught her off guard. “Woah, man!” The girl yelped, and clung to the branch of the tree she was acting as lookout in, breathing easier after Benny and Selene’s sirens turned off. “Hey Ash, what the heck do you think that was?”

Chris’ voice came on over the shirt speakers. “Oh, I also forgot to tell you. The siren goes off after someone gets eliminated. So if you don’t like loud noises… May the odds be ever in your favor.” Chris started chuckling at his pretty not funny reference. His voice continued slightly muffled, as though he was away from the microphone. “Chef, did you hear that? I’m so great.” The swirling spot on the shirts clicked off, and Ashley looked scathingly up at Gaile.

“Gaile, you shouldn’t be talking. If you get us caught because you can’t shut up, we’ll probably lose the challenge again.” Ashley said, thus talking and contradicting herself.

Gaile shook her head in disgust. “Ry was right about you,” she mumbled.

Ashley caught the word Ry, and she could guess the rest of Gaile’s meaning. “What was that, Abigaile? Are you making off team alliances?”

“No, I’m making off team friendships.” Gaile was starting to lose her 90’s lingo from anger towards Ashley, and the other girl wasn’t winning any favors by calling her Abigaile.

“Oh, I’m sorry, Abigaile, do you have a problem? I thought we resolved everything after Todd left, but if we’re still having a problem, why don’t you bring it up with the whole team?” Ashley’s fingers were kind of itching to just throw a balloon at Gaile, but that would be foolish.

Gaile froze in disbelief that she had just been called by her real name two times in less than a single minute. She felt the anger start to bubble and bubble, threatening to spill over and cause her to snap. This was the ONLY thing that anyone could do that would get her to this point of anger.

“But please, consider what you’re doing, siding with the enemy. You know that everyone on the other teams is just out to get you, right? Everyone you talk to on the other teams? They think that you’re gullible, Gaile. They want you eliminated or manipulated. But you’re smarter than that, aren’t you?” Ashley continued.

Gaile’s resolve faltered for a second. Ry was her friend, wasn’t he? There was no way he’d be faking, right? No, Ashley was just lying. She had to be lying. “I don’t believe you, and I’m done guarding. You’ll have to protect yourself.” Gaile scaled back down the tree, but Ashley’s face still held a slight smirk. She’d done what she wanted to, planting the seeds of doubt.

“Okay, Gaile, you can go run along if that’s what you want to do. Just, please don’t stand too close to Ry in this challenge. I’d hate for us to lose a member so quickly.” It was unclear as to if Ashley meant losing a team member in the challenge, or eliminating Gaile because she was siding with the enemy. Gaile stalked off angrily, holding the few balloons she’d remembered to get earlier, which was dwarfed by the other girl’s supply. Ashley shrugged and stayed where she was, seeing no reason to inconvenience herself over she and Gaile’s petty fight.

Meanwhile, Lavender was carefully sitting in her tree. She was attempting to brush the shampoo suds out of her hair with her fingers, when she was interrupted by a faint beep from her shirt. Freezing, Lavender clung to her branch and glanced around. Just off in the distance was Alice, walking parallel to the tree. She apparently hadn’t heard a beep, so Lavender had the upper hand.

Speaking of hands, Lavender now had a plump balloon held squarely in hers. She lined up Alice, ready for the attack. “Oh yes, you’re mine!” The girl giggled. She was just pulling back her arm for a shot when a different balloon was flung towards her from behind, smashing into her shoulder and causing a burst of black to spread across her shirt. Caught unprepared, the hit knocked Lavender off balance, and she shrieked as she fell out of the tree.

After recollecting herself on the ground, and when the ringing in her head had subsided, Lavender saw the Baroness standing above her.

“Arr, Lav, sorry ta have made ya tumble.” The pirate extended her arm and Lavender latched onto it, if only because she was still too dizzy to stand on her own. A siren rang out and Lavender sighed mournfully as the Baroness walked her to the sidelines.

“Oh, look, she didn’t melt!” Chris’ voice came onto Lavender’s shirt speaker with a chuckle, and Lavender groaned, collapsing next to Benny, who was surprisingly not sleeping, but rather had gotten dragged into playing tug-of-war with Selene and a stick. The wolf-girl growled ferociously as she wiggled around, stick in her mouth, and Benny quickly dropped the stick, foolishly worried that Selene was going to bite him. Selene laughed, the force of her momentum making her roll over. She spat the stick out of her mouth and looked over at Benny.

“Selene wins!” She cheered, and Benny grinned, his heartbeat slowing back down as he realized that Selene was no threat.

“Good job, Selene!”

“Again?” The girl picked up the stick excitedly and cocked her head.

“Why don’t you try and play with Lavender this time?” Benny gestured over to the injured hottie, who was still sore from her fall. Selene bounded over and placed the stick in her lap.

“Tug of war!” Selene cheered, and Lavender didn’t have the heart to push the stick away, despite how disgusting it was. Lavender forced herself up and she grasped the stick, making Selene wriggle with joy. “Alright Selene, but just one game.”

Selene yelped happily, satisfied with this, and Benny smiled, looking at the two.

The heartwarming scene was too much for Total Drama, and the camera zipped off to somewhere with more action. Namely, Alice, who was off stalking the arena alone.

Alice’s eyes darted backwards and forwards suspiciously. She wasn’t particularly concerned about losing, since she had trust on both sides of her team, but it didn’t hurt to be cautious. Hearing a slight beep, Alice paused and leaned from side to side, trying to determine where the other competitor was.

Crouched inside a tree, T held their breath. Unfortunately for them, Alice leaned to the left and heard another beep. Grinning, the girl began walking in that direction, moving cautiously.

“Where are you?” The girl sang out, eying the tree in front of her and knowing the other contestant was inside. “If you come out now, we can make it a fair fight.” T didn’t move, but clutched one of their five balloons tightly. Alice was stepping closer and closer to the tree now. The beeping was getting louder and louder. The girl leaned forwards towards T’s hiding place. “And… got you!” She shrieked as she hurled a balloon inside. Just at this moment, T, in a moment of wide eyed fear, tossed a balloon outside, and the pair were both soaked with black on their clothes at the exact same moment. Alice, naturally, was off her head as two sirens went off.

“It’s not fair! I was first! I hit them first!!” She protested uselessly, stomping her foot on the ground. Quietly, T emerged from the tree, thoroughly soaked.

“Good job, Alice,” they said with a faint smile, extending their hand to the other girl in peace. Alice pondered not taking it, but that wouldn’t win her any favors for manipulating this quiet teen later, if they even survived past the merge. Sighing, the girl took T’s hand, and the two walked off to the sidelines together.

Kiki was crouched on the roof of her building, waiting for an unsuspecting contestant to walk by. From her vantage point, she could see many competitors wandering around, looking like small dots in the distance or curled up in the branches of trees. She snickered as Benny, Selene, and Alice all got out and exited the challenge area. Right as she finished her celebration, her expression changed to something more serious. Someone was walking under her, too far down for a beep to be heard.

It was Mallory, strolling along. She had something suspicious looking tucked under her arm, but Kiki couldn’t tell what it was. It didn’t matter though, as long as she got Mallory out. Kiki picked up a water balloon and leaned over the edge. “Yo, Mal!” She shouted, to get Mallory to stay still. Mallory paused in her walk and glanced upwards to see who was calling her name. Kiki dropped the water balloon.

Splat!

Mallory was sent reeling backwards as the water balloon hit her in the face. Unable to see where she was going, the girl tripped over a crack in the sidewalk and went sprawling. Her object fell from her arms, spiraling into the air. The camera zoomed in on it to show that it was an abnormally large, green water balloon made of metal. There was a brief montage of Mallory and Kiki’s eyes widening, and a slow “Noooooooo!” from Mallory. Then, the bomb detonated.

BAM!

A shower of water fell over the area. Kiki ducked down to the roof, pressing herself under a metal fixture to keep from getting wet. Mallory was thoroughly drenched, and mournfully walked off to the sidelines as the sirens rang.

A short distance away, Arizona was walking alone when she heard an explosion. Suddenly, a hand grabbed her and pulled her backwards, and Arizona could hear water splattering on something above her.

“Get off!” Arizona shrieked, tugging at the arms around her, and Matt let her go quickly, raising his arms in a symbol of defense, though Arizona couldn’t see it.

“Sorry, ‘Zona. I didn’t want you to get wet.”

Arizona crossed her arms defiantly. “Were you following me?!” Overhead, the water had stopped.

Matt looked up to the tree they were sheltering under, to make sure it was safe. “Yeah, I wanted to make sure you were doing okay in the challenge. You know, you don’t have to be so defensive about everything.”

“Well, I was doing just fine on my own.” Arizona scowled, turning to walk out from under the shelter and trying to look capable by tucking her cane under her arm. This backfired a moment later as the girl stumbled over a tree root. Matt quickly leaped forward to catch her, but Arizona wriggled out of his grasp as soon as she had her balance back. “I said, I’m doing just fine!!” She cried as she pushed him away.

Matt sighed, face palming at Arizona’s stubbornness. “You know you don’t have to pretend you’re fine if you need need help. It doesn’t make you look any weaker.”

“What, so I’m weak because I’m blind? Is that what you’re saying? That I just automatically need help?!” Arizona, in her blind rage at her team, wasn’t really listening, and Matt ground his teeth together in frustration.

“No, that’s not what I’m saying.”

“Then what is it?!”

“I’m saying that you can ask for help if you need it, but you don’t have to. God, Arizona, you don’t have to keep trying to prove so much of a point about how capable you are, we all know that you can do things, but just in some situations, you just shouldn’t!” Matt’s voice had been steadily rising, which really wasn’t helping him prove his point. Arizona was still scowling, but she looked more sad than upset.

“Well, I’m sorry I’m such a burden to all of you.” Arizona turned back around and quickly walked away, face burning from shame as she waved her cane along the ground. Matt considered running after her, but he stopped himself. She was clearly too upset to listen to him right now.

The camera for paused a moment to get a close up of Matt’s confused and disheartened face before it tore away to show what Mika was up to. She was slinking around the course, walking as slowly and silently as possible, scanning the surrounding area with extreme precision. She had a look of mischief gleaming in her eye and was bouncing a particularly large water balloon in her hand. The rebellious teen had to be especially careful with this plump balloon so she wouldn’t pop it and soak herself like Selene did. The scene flashed back to reveal Mika finding a water spout and adding additional water to her balloon, plumping it to almost twice its original size.

”Where are you, Chrissss?” Mika called out in a creepy, singsong voice. She snickered to herself as she continued to make her way across the area.

Meanwhile in the challenge, Gaile was still wandering around, looking to get a few hits in for her team. She had a small balloon in hand, ready to fire at the first Penguin, Polar Bear, or Panda she saw. Even if it was a friend.

Gaile took a break from walking since she was still simmering down after her encounter with Ashley, and ducked behind a bush to regather her composure. She had probably just ruined her relationship with someone on her team in favor of someone who should’ve been a rival. But not only that; she had done this with someone she realized was a real force to be reckoned with in the game. Breathing a deep, unsure sigh, Gaile sat down on the ground and leaned on an old, hollow log that was behind her. She stuck a hand in her pocket and pulled out the rock that Ry had given her only one challenge before: a symbol of not only their alliance, but their friendship. She rolled the rock around in her hand, hoping she’d come to a realization of what she needed to do next.

“Ohhh, I just hope I didn’t make a mondo mistake.” Gaile groaned and buried her head in her knees.

The camera then flashed back over to Mika who was almost to the end of the challenge area. She still had the same sadistic grin on her face as she held the balloon menacingly. The girl turned around a corner in the arena and was shocked to find a shack just sitting in the middle of the course.

“Bingo!” Mika crowed happily.

She then slowly began to approach the shack, not using the door. She wanted this ambush to be a completely unexpected surprise. A window would be a much better way to get to Chris anyway.

“This oughta teach ya to order me around, Chris.” Mika growled and inched around the shack, spy style. Finally she found an open window and… what luck! Chris appeared to just be sitting in his chair, watching the challenge unfold from his television. The back of Chris’ head was just in range from the window. Mika grinned a menacing grin and began to raise her arm to toss her balloon at the host.

SLOSH!

The water from the balloon moved around and made the whole sack of liquid jiggle like jello as it flew from Mika’s hand and across the room.

SPLASH!

"Yes!! A direct hit!” Mika cheered and laughed maniacally as she saw the balloon burst against the host’s head. Her victory was interrupted when a stream of water blasted her from behind. Mika was soaked from head to toe. Her blue clothing turned black and clung to her body like it was painted on her. She whirled around with mouth agape to reveal Chris and Chef holding the same hose from the morning. The alarm wailed throughout the course.

“WHAT THE F***?!l” Mika cried with a scowl.

“Did you actually think that you’d get away with that? We have eyes everywhere, Mika. EV-RY-WHERE.” Chris taunted her jeeringly. He was completely dry much to Mika’s confusion.

“B-but… I F***ING HIT YOU. I HIT YOU IN THE DAMN HEAD! I soaked you!” she whined. Chris looked at Chef and the two began to guffaw. Chef wiped a tear from his eye.

“You mean that?” Chris taunted again and pointed in the direction of the chair. The back of Chris’ head now was sparking, clearly malfunctioning from an electrical short.

“You hit my Chris-bot! I had one more made.” Chris cried and laughed again. He then reached into his pocket and grabbed his microphone that connected to the shirt speakers.

“And Mika is OUT!” He announced with another laugh.

“WHAT?! NO FAIR! I DIDN’T EVEN GET HIT BY A DAMN BALLOON!” Mika shouted angrily.

“Yeah. But you did get your shirt wet. Sorry! Them’s the rules.” Chris stated with a satisfied smirk.

Mika’s hand blurred as she showed the host a particularly obscene gesture that would be inappropriate for the show. She held it up in the air as she walked off the course to join Benny, Selene, T, Alice, Lavender, and Mallory.

The camera flashed over to a separate part of the course to show Ry and Dennis continuing their witch hunt for targets to hit with balloons. So far they hadn’t had any luck after Benny. The contestants had hidden themselves very well this challenge.

“Where are they?” Ry pondered aloud.

Dennis shrugged his shoulders in reply. “I’ve got no idea, Ry-Ry.”

Ry scowled a little bit at the nickname. “It shouldn’t be too long before we come across someone. You just need to try harder.”

“Well, keep looking then. I don’t see you havin’ found anyone yet at all.” Dennis chuckled and began to look behind a few bushes.

Ry continued to climb the trees and look in every single available space in the area. He was walking past a large knotty tree when he heard something that made him smile. A faint beeping sound could be heard from only a short distance away.

Hiding in a small hollow place in the base of the tree, Derby started to panic. He began to rapidly try to find where the shirt was beeping to muffle the sound, but to no avail. The beeps rose in intensity as Ry walked closer.

“Dennis! I think I got one!” Ry cried to his partner.

“Yes! On my way!” Dennis cheered and started rushing towards the tree.

Derby knew that it was over for him, and he stopped trying to mute the noise. He simply just sat still and waited for the inevitable to happen. He could see shadows of the two boys around the entrance to his hole. The camera panned to show Ry raising his water balloon into the air and giving it a good toss into the tree.

SPLASH!

The balloon hit its target and the siren began to sound off through the challenge area.

“And that’s the toll for Derby! Geez, Penguins, this is a terrible day for your team!” Chris announced with an antagonizing chuckle. Derby crawled out of the hole in the tree, clothing now splattered with black, and began to sadly slump back to the starting point.

The scene changed back over to Gaile, who was still sitting by herself with her head in her knees. Her crimped, white-blond hair draped over her arms like a waterfall.

“Oh my god, I just don’t know what to do!” the girl cried out distressedly. “There’s like, no way that Ry would be trying to use me or get rid of me. As if! He’s my friend. He said so. I gave him a scrunchie!” she continued on her shamble, rolling the rock he’d given her in her palms. “But there’s totally no way that Ashley, a teammate, would lie to me either… right? But then again, she has treated me like a liability to the team since Challenge One. Is Ry right or is Ashley?” she stuck the rock back into her pocket, not wanting to look at it anymore. The balloons had long since fallen from her hands. She then buried her face back into her knees and waited for someone to find her and hit her with a balloon. There was no noise for a moment as Gaile sat pitying herself. And then suddenly a small sneeze was heard from close by, almost directly behind the 90’s girl. She lifted her head from her knees for a short moment after hearing the noise and almost by instinct said, “Bless you.”

“Thank you,” a very quiet voice responded from the same spot.

Gaile’s head popped back up from her knees as she realized what had just happened. “Yo! Who’s in there?” she asked and began to crawl to the opening of the hollow log.

There she found Jillian, laying on her stomach inside the log and peeking out from a tiny hole in the wood.

“Jill?” Gaile called out.

“Crap! I blew my cover!” Jillian cried.

“Well, I guess it’s a super good thing that I’m your teammate. I’m not going to blow your cover, yo.” Gaile assured her teammate.

“Good. Now you better run along and leave me.” Jillian mumbled.

“Jill? What’s the matter? You’ve been acting kinda off today.”

“I just… don’t feel helpful anymore, Gaile.” Jill whispered.

Gaile laid on the ground on her stomach in front of the entrance of the log.

“What are you talking about? You are super helpful, Jill!” Gaile cried, but not loud enough to draw attention to the two of them.

“How so? I literally only got the chance to try to help the team once, and I ended up passed out in the infirmary. Just my luck!” Jillian exclaimed, a little louder this time. Viewers could tell by the look in her eyes that she was very upset.

“That totally wasn’t your fault! You got hit by a bucket! You didn’t do that to yourself.” Gaile tried to make her feel better.

“It still happened. I couldn’t help win the challenge. So we lost, and….T-Todd got sent home.” Jillian whimpered and buried her face in her hands.

“Jillian. You KNOW just as well as I that it wasn’t your fault we lost. Now quit buggin’ about it.” Gaile coaxed her in a friendly tone.

“I-I just…” Jillian stammered.

“Miss Todd?” Gaile finished for her.

Jillian nodded.

“Well, then I guess we better win this challenge. For him.” Gaile stated with a confident grin.

“But..”

“Jillian! Girl! You have girl power! You are a mad AWESOME explorer! You are the AMAZING Jillian!”

The camera took this moment to flip to the elimination hotel, where Alexandria and Todd were watching. Alexandria looked extremely offended at her title being stolen, but just as she opened her mouth to speak, the camera flipped back to Gaile and Jillian, the cameraman totally snubbing her. The episodes weren’t reallythat long though, so it was totally justified. Moment over, the show continued as usual.

“You opened up a serious can of whoop-a** last challenge. Don’t get me wrong when I say this, but you’d be crazy not to give adventuring another shot! It’s in your BLOOD.” Gaile preached.

Jillian’s eyes widened a bit.

“What do ya say, girlfriend?” Gaile suggested and held out her fist.

Jillian stared at the extended hand a moment, contemplating whether or not she wanted to try this, but she finally bumped her fist with Gaile’s and began to climb out of the log.

Gaile gave the super tall girl a hand up to her feet and flashed her a grin.

“And if you’re still feeling a smidge unsure, I’ll team up with you! Would you be down with that?” she suggested.

Jillian nodded with a tiny grin.

“‘Atta girl! Now, let’s go kick some butt!” Gaile cheered.

Outside of the challenge, Derby was just joining the rest of the group who had also gotten out already.

“Hello!” Derby called out to them. Benny stirred slightly, slowly waking up from his little nap. His eyes opened as Derby greeted his peers. Several of the contestants in the elimination area were sleeping, the sun making them all pretty tired.

“Oh hey, Derby. Wanna sit?” he asked and patted the area of ground beside him. Selene was on the other side, comfortably nuzzled next to his legs as she continued to sleep.

Derby nodded his head and joined Benny on the ground.

“You and Selene seem to be getting along quite a bit better.” Derby pointed to the sleeping girl. Benny shrugged.

“I don’t know what it is, Derby. When she’s awake and terrorizing me, I’m not the biggest fan of her, but when she’s real chill, she’s just cool.” he explained.

T smiled from a little bit farther away. They loved to see everything so peaceful and serene. They closed their eyes in a moment of bliss, but this moment was interrupted by Lavender squealing.

“AHHH! IT WAS ON ME!!” she screeched and jumped from foot to foot in a tizzy. She dusted herself off as she did so. Her eyes were wide with fear.

“What the f*** are you screaming about over there?” Mika growled, still bitter over what had happened with Chris.

“Yeah dude, I can’t even hear myself think, you’re so loud.” Mallory added.

Lavender glared at the two girls, her eyes still bugging out.“THERE WAS A GIANT SPIDER CRAWLING ON ME!” Lavender shouted again.

“Well if there was one, you scared it away.” Alice stated matter of factly.

T rolled their eyes and stared over at Derby until they made eye contact with him. T then tilted their head ever so slightly over towards the commotion. Derby groaned, but got up and joined the group of girls.

“Ladies, what seems to be the problem?” he asked with an annoyed voice. He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose.

“Miss Drama Queen here saw a spider.” Mallory explained flatly.

“I didn’t just see one, it was on me!” Lavender shouted and flailed her arms towards her body.

“Ohhh, do you mean… THIS SPIDER!” Mika cried and quickly poked Lavender in the back.

“EEEK!” Lavender yelped and jumped into Derby’s arms.

Derby gasped at the sudden body flying into him and struggled to get a hold on Lavender, sending the two tumbling to the ground.

Mika and Mallory doubled over laughing.

“Hey! That wasn’t funny, Mika!” Alice cried and went to lend the two a hand off the ground.

“Aw lighten up. Don’t be a damn stick in the mud!” Mika cried back.

“There is no spider, by the way.” Derby mumbled from underneath Lavender. His glasses had flown off and were on the ground a little bit away.

“Thank you.” Lavender groaned, sore from the ground’s impact as they landed.

T giggled to themselves at the spectacle, and Benny and Selene were now both asleep together on the warm grass.

Derby pulled himself out from under Lavender, who had made no efforts to get up and off the ground, and began to reach for his glasses.

“Here, let me. It was my fault anyway.” Lavender said and picked them up off the ground, cleaning them with her shirt and handed them back to him.

“Th-Thank you, Lavender.” Derby said with a grin.

He then recollected himself and walked back over to Benny and Selene. He took out his notebook and pen and began to scribble something down.

The camera flashed back to the actual challenge. Ashley was now sitting in the tree that Gaile was supposed to be lookout in. Her face was contorted into a scowl, obviously still bitter that Gaile had abandoned her mid-challenge.

“Just you wait. She’ll be back any minute.” Ashley mumbled.

Suddenly, the sound of a twig snapping could be heard, Ashley snapped her head in the noise’s direction, ready to ambush whatever unfortunate sap had made it into her territory. She raised her water balloon up threateningly, taking aim.

“3… 2… 1…” Ashley counted to herself.

The balloon was about to leave her hand when Dakota was the one who walked between the two branches. The boy’s camera that he seemed to have 24/7 hung around his neck, gleaming in the sunlight.

Ashley halted immediately and lowered her hand, taking a deep, exasperated breath. She couldn’t hit a teammate. Even if he was friends with—the enemy. Ashley rolled her eyes at the very thought. She simply couldn’t understand why her teammates were so buddy-buddy with Ry. He wasn’t even on their team!

“Not to mention the fact that he’s an altogether disgusting person to be around for anything more than someone to exchange petty insults and whose attempts at making you feel bad were just as pathetic as his attitude.” the girl fumed in her head.

“First Gaile, now you..” she grumbled under her breath. Too many of her ‘teammates’ were acting traitorous. It was simply unacceptable. She felt the loyalty of team slipping through her fingers, and knew she had to do something to deter them from turning on her. From her vantage point, she saw something move in the windows from the abandoned building on the course. Seconds later, Kiki emerged to stretch her legs and move elsewhere, trying to ambush some people without having to wait for them to walk under her. As she walked away, one of the Panda’s yellow balloons fell softly to the ground.

Ashley’s attention was immediately transferred when she heard something which sounded like footsteps approaching. She flicked her head around to see Ry coming towards her. He was still a good distance off, however, which gave Ashley just enough time to devise her plan.

“Perfect.” she purred, a malicious smirk spreading across her face. She scrambled back down the tree and, swift as a fox, plucked the balloon from off the ground, making sure to veer her path far around Dakota. She then tucked it into her shirt and quickly climbed the tree again, resuming her position.

“Negative here too, Ry.” Dennis called from up a tree.

“Well then check over there!” Ry called and continued to walk towards Ashley.

Finally, Ashley had him in the perfect position. She raised her arm up and tossed the balloon forward with all her strength.

SPLASH!

The siren sounded throughout the challenge course and a voice began to scream in agony.

Dakota was down on the ground, clothing splattered black, holding his soaking wet camera like it was a precious gem.

Ashley leaned back in the tree and waited for the job to finish itself. She felt a brief pang of what Ashley assumed was guilt, but she pushed it away. After all, this dealt only with Ry. It was nothing personal towards Dakota.

Ry came rushing into the scene after hearing the screaming, just in time for Dakota to notice that he had been hit by a yellow balloon. A Panda’s balloon. Dakota stared at the broken balloon carcass and then back at Ry. He held up his camera, his lower lip trembling.

Ry’s eyes widened as he realized that he knew what Dakota was thinking.

“It’s ruined.” Dakota whimpered.

“Dakota, I..” Ry started.

“And in a very sudden and dramatic turn, Dakota is out!” Chris announced over the speakers.

Dakota leaped to his feet and ran to join the rest of the people who were out.

Ry thought about chasing after his friend, but by the time he’d finished debating with himself, Dakota was too far away to catch up with. All he could do was stand and stare.

Hiding and watching the whole ordeal go down, The Baroness popped up from behind a large tree.

“Ohh, that bilge-eating wench!” she hissed, and scurried out of sight.

Out of nowhere, Ry felt something hit him from behind, followed by a rush of water down his back. He’d been hit. The siren sounded off again, and Chris spoke over the loudspeaker.

“Caught with his guard down, Ry is out!”

He whipped his head around to see Ashley laughing evilly from her tree branch.

“Of course,” Ry growled under his breath, glaring up at the girl.

“Hello, Henry.” Ashley taunted with a little wave. She bounced a red balloon in her other hand.

“YOU DID THIS.” Ry hissed, teeth gritting so hard that it was a wonder they didn’t shatter from pressure.

“Me?” Ashley asked with fake surprise.

“You did this, B****ley. Let me ask you this. Are you satisfied with yourself?” Ry said.

“Satisfied with what?” she continued to pick.

“YOU DESTROYED THE ONE THING MY FIRST FRIEND TREASURED MOST.” Ry cried out angrily. His hands were balled up into tight fists;

“Oh, Henry, don’t be silly. Don’t you see those plastic pieces on the ground?” Ashley motioned over to where the bright yellow was clearly showing, before her voice dropped to a snarl. “You did this, Henry.”

That was the last straw for Ry. He lunged towards the tree, jumping for the lowest limb but unfortunately missing. Ashley cackled before Chris came back on over the loudspeakers. “THAT MEANS NOW, RY. MO-OOVE IT, OR I’LL ASSUME YOU WANT TO BE ELIMINATED TONIGHT!” Chris ordered.

Ry cut his eyes at the voice’s direction and reluctantly stopped. “I’ll get you later, B****ley.” Ry said with an accusatory point of his finger.

“I’ll be waiting, Henry.” Ashley looked down at the boy from her higher vantage point, the two both knowing she’d just taken the upper hand.

Ry stiffened and walked away towards the start of the course, mumbling profanities in Japanese and raising both hands into the air. They rapidly blurred.

Dennis had taken off running the opposite direction after watching his partner get unexpectedly attacked. He hated to abandon his teammate, but right now it was every man for himself! He kept running for a while more before diving behind a bush. There, he reorganized his balloon ammo, and caught his breath. He wasn’t exactly sure, but there couldn’t possibly be that many people left in the challenge. He sat back a minute and closed his eyes, calming down long enough for his heart to stop beating as rapidly as it was. But this moment of peace didn’t last long when he heard the scraping of a stick on the ground.

“Arizona.” Dennis said under his breath with a sadistic smirk.

And sure enough, Arizona was walking towards him, completely unaccompanied.

“This will be almost TOO easy!” he laughed and raised his arm to throw the balloon.

“WAIT! ‘ZONA! PLEASE,” a voice cried from afar.

Dennis turned toward the sound and was delighted to find Matt was racing their way. “A bit more challenging. But killing two birds with one stone’ll work just as well!”

Arizona stopped in her tracks. “Leave me alone, Matt.” Arizona ordered just as Matt caught up with her.

“But, ‘Zona, I think there’s been a misunderstanding. Please let me talk.” Matt coaxed.

“NO. You think that I’m totally incapable of handling myself. You think I’m a BURDEN!” Arizona shouted and turned away from Matt.

“Arizona, why would you think that?” Matt asked. His eyebrow was raised in genuine confusion.

“Because I know what you said. I know what the whole team said about me!” Arizona exclaimed. She turned away from him again and wiped the tears away that were developing in her eyes.

“Arizona what are you talking about?” Matt asked.

“Oh, enough of this chit chat.” Dennis mumbled quietly and threw his balloon at the two.

Matt’s eyes widened as he saw the balloon flying at Arizona.

“LOOK OUT!” he shouted and pushed her away. But his attempt was in vain as he pushed them both into the line of fire.

SPLASH!

The balloon hit the both of them and exploded. The siren sounded.

“Ooh, tough luck, Polar Bears. Both Arizona and Matt are out! That means you are the official losers of this challenge.” Chris announced.

Dennis was rolling on the ground laughing maniacally, almost not believing his luck.

“This is your fault!” Arizona sniffed and whirled around, stomping off in the wrong direction.

Matt took off in the other direction looking defeated. “This way, Zona.” he called, making Arizona stiffen once again. The camera could see that her eyes were full of tears.

The Baroness was just about to return to her quadrant of the course when she heard what sounded like a hyena laughing.

“What the ‘ell?!” she cried and slunk over towards the sound to check it out.

She saw Matt and Arizona walking away, both in opposite directions, and Dennis laughing like crazy on the ground. His eyes were shut and watering, he was laughing so hard. The Baroness rolled her eyes and got a little closer, stepping without making a sound.

“You’re way too loud, lad.” The Baroness snapped and tossed a balloon at the boy who was still hee-hawing.

The balloon splashed across his chest and the siren went off. Dennis stopped laughing immediately and sat up to face his maker.

“WHAT? Where did you come from, Pirate?!” Dennis asked. His face was contorted in confusion and shock.

“It doesn’t matter anymore, ye landlubber. Yer out.” The Baroness stated.

“Not bad, Baroness. Not bad.” Dennis praised.

“Anddd Dennis the Menace is OUT!”  Chris announced over the speakers.

Dennis picked himself off the ground and started walk towards the starting line with the other people who were eliminated. He nodded his head in respect as he walked away.

Now feeling invigorated from getting Dennis out, The Baroness knew it was time to take care of some business. She’d witnessed something go down that was downright dirty, and she simply couldn’t let justice not be served.

“Now for the wench.” The Baroness stated and grabbed a balloon from her supply.

Narrowing her eyes she trudged through the course, retracing her steps to end up at the tree Ashley was sitting in. She carefully slunk up to the trunk and took a look to see if she was still there. Sure enough, Ashley’s foot was dangling casually from the branch.

The Baroness smirked in anticipation and began to slowly inch her way up the tree, trying desperately not to make a sound.

The camera panned over to show that Ashley still had a satisfied smile on her face, and was completely unaware that an enemy was encroaching on her territory.

Suspenseful music played as The Baroness continued to climb the tree, finally reaching the top without being detected.

She carefully climbed on top of the branch with Ashley and gave a little whistle. Ashley and her shirt alarms began to beep.

Ashley jumped a bit, making the branch shake, and turned to face The Baroness. Her jaw dropped in shock. Her hands fumbled to try to get a balloon before The Baroness could.

“How did you-?” she asked.

“I saw what ye did to that poor lad, Dakota. I also saw what ye did to Ry.” she growled.

Ashley quickly tried to compose herself. “Listen, pirate, you didn’t seeanything.”

“Save it for Davy Jones’ locker.” The Baroness replied. Ashley looked down at the ground to see how far it would be of a fall if she jumped.

“Farewell, ye bilge-rat.” The Baroness exclaimed with power in her voice and tossed her balloon at Ashley.

The balloon hit the girl very hard, the Baroness not wanting to spare Ashley any pain. The mean girl wobbled and with a shriek, fell off the branch, laying splayed on the ground and losing her breath with a sharp gasp, though she was otherwise unharmed.

The Baroness gazed down at Ashley with a satisfied grin. She let out a mighty pirate’s laugh as the siren sounded.

“Good-bye, Ashley!” Chris cried over the speakers. The sound of cheering from Ry could be heard in the background as Chris gloated. Ashley glared and, pulling herself up, stomped out of the course.

The Baroness’ celebration was interrupted when something hit her from above.

SPLASH!

The pirate began to scan the area in search of the thrower.

“Blimey! Who did that?” she asked.

The sound of a girl laughing could be heard, and Kiki popped up, back to her hiding place in the building. She gave a little wave to The Baroness.

“Blast! I’m hit!” she exclaimed and the siren went off.

“Avast! The Baroness has walked the plank- er I mean she uh…she has.. SHE’S OUT!” Chris yelled, embarrassed he couldn’t make a good pirate pun.

“Landlubbers.” The Baroness said flatly and rolled her eyes before heading back to the start.

Back at the starting point, everyone was talking amongst themselves. Benny, Lavender, and Selene had begun playing fetch. Derby was watching them play and sometimes was able to throw the stick for Selene himself. But not everyone was in such a good mood.

The camera panned over to Arizona, who’d slowly found her way back to the start without having to be guided by anyone/Matt. She was now actively engaged in a conversation with Alice.

“He keeps acting like he didn’t say anything!” Arizona whined and buried her face in her hands.

Alice rubbed her back soothingly.“There, there. It’s okay, ‘Zona. I got you. I won’t let that filthy jerk come anywhere near you again,” she assured with a satisfied grin.

Arizona lifted her head up from her hands. “Th-Thank you,” she stammered.

“Is that what you want?” Alice asked, her face returning to normal.

Arizona bit her lip and thought a moment. She had thought that she and Matt were friends. She really liked him. He had been so supportive of her the first challenge. It had made her feel so empowered.

“Yes.” she answered quietly and started to cry again.

“Don’t cry, love. You’ve made the right decision.” Alice said. She had a caring tone to her voice, but a malicious smirk on her face.

Nearby, Matt was sitting on the ground, trying to think of how to make Arizona feel better.

“I don’t know what you did to her, but you’d f****** better apologize.” Mika said snappily.

“I didn’t do anything!” Matt argued.

“Her tears say otherwise, ya ****face.” she said.

Matt turned away from her and groaned.

The camera then panned over to Dakota who was still holding his camera and secluding himself from the rest of the group. He had the most heartbroken look on his face.

Ashley saw him and decided now was the time to pick at the wound. She briskly walked over, pushing away any feelings of remorse she had looking at him so heartbroken. Now wasn’t the time.

“Hey there, Dakota.”

Dakota looked up at her and held up his camera. “It’s ruined.” he whispered.

“What happened?” Ashley asked in fake surprise.

“R-Ry broke a b-balloon on it.” he stammered.

Ashley’s mouth dropped open. “He did?! Oh Dakota, I’m so sorry. I thought he was your friend!” she cried.

Dakota wiped the tears away from his eyes. “I-I thought so too, Ashley. I-I guess you were right. I-If he hated me so much, then w-why did he let me k-kiss him?” Dakota hiccuped.

Ashley momentarily forgot her facade as a flash of anger flooded her body. “You kissed Henry?” she hissed, spite rushing over her.

Dakota nodded, his sorrow clouding his ability to see Ashley’s anger. “H-He didn’t like it and I guess he decided that this was the best way to get rid of me.” the broken boy continued.

Ashley took a deep breath and forced herself to calm down. She had still succeeded. She had still driven something between them. She just had to crush Dakota’s crush before it was too late. With a shaking breath, Ashley continued in her simpering tone. “You poor thing! Now we’ve learned a lesson here, right?”

Dakota nodded.

“Good. Now let me look at your camera,” she said, taking it directly from his hands. Dakota looked confused, but let her, sniffling a little.

At this time, Ashley was relieved she had learned how to fix wet cameras from research last year. Of course, she wouldn’t have gotten it wet if she couldn’t be the hero who saved the day. “Don’t worry, Dakota. Just stick this in some rice and it’ll absorb the water, so as long as this isn’t a film camera, all your pictures should be fine.”

“Really?!” Dakota looked over at Ashley and beamed joyfully. “That’s amazing!! Thank you, Ashley!”

“I think I saw a bag in the kitchen cabinet. I can help you can fix it tonight if you want.”

“Oh, Ashley, thank you so much! I’m so glad you’re my teammate!” Dakota cried, taking the camera carefully from her hands.

“I am too.” Ashley purred happily. Her plan was working out flawlessly yet again.

Jillian and Gaile had been wandering in search of people to eliminate, but hadn’t had much luck. It seemed like most of the people were cleared out except for those with REALLY good hiding places.

“There can’t be that many of us left.” Jillian stated.

Gaile nodded her head in reply. “That would explain why we haven’t found anyone else yet.”

Just then, the two’s shirts beeped. From a nearby bush, Kiki was seen to be walking away, having come down from the building yet again.

“AFTER HER!” Gaile cried and started to chase her as fast as her short legs could go.

Jillian followed right behind her.

Kiki looked behind her, sensing she may be being followed.

“S***!” she cursed when she saw Gaile and Jillian behind her. She sped up a little, hoping to shake the two of them, but she failed to see the tree branch that had fallen on the ground in front of her. Her boot caught on it and sent her sailing the ground. All the balloons she had rolled away, or burst.

“Aww, this f****n’ bites.” Kiki groaned and rubbed her head. The footsteps of Gaile and Jillian were getting closer and there she was sprawled out on the ground with no ammo left. She tried to get up and run away, but it was too late.

''SPLASH! SPLASH!''

Kiki was hit by two balloons, one from Gaile and one from Jillian. The siren sounded through the course and Kiki mimicked it sarcastically.

“What a loss! With Kiki being eliminated, the last of the Pandas is OUT! Sorry Pandas, you lose too!”

Kiki finally got back up on on her feet and slumped back to the start.

“WE GOT HER!” Jillian cheered joyfully.

“We sure did! Girl power!” Gaile cried and offered Jillian a high five. Jillian high fived her partner back.

“Now announcing the final 3 of this challenge! Jillian, Gaile, and Bailey! May the odds be ever in your favor!” Chris announced over the loudspeakers, obviously unconcerned with potential copyright lawsuits for using the Hunger Games’ quote twice without permission.

“Wanna go get Bailey, and seize victory for our team?” Jillian asked Gaile casually.

“Totally! Sounds like a rad plan.” Gaile giggled and the two took off to find Bailey.

Meanwhile, Bailey was also looking for Gaile and Jillian. She had 4 full water balloons in hand.

“Okay Bailey, don’t screw this up. This is your chance to prove your worth to your team! You’re the only one left. Let’s win this!” Bailey gave herself a pep talk, a little nervous at being outnumbered, but proud that she’d survived so long. Longer, even, than the Baroness.

She climbed up the tallest tree should could find and stood fearlessly at the top branch, surveying the area to see if she could find the two hunters. Much to her luck, the two were only a short distance away, and though she could see them, they couldn’t see her.

“This is almost too perfect! Everything is coming out, Bailey!” she exclaimed with a proud grin.

All she had to do was wait until they were under her and drop two balloons on them, to claim her victory!

The camera panned back over to Gaile and Jillian to show them taking a quick break.

“Okay, girl. We need a totally fool-proof plan of attack. We can’t just get there and wing it.” Gaile said.

“Nope. I say we split up and when we find her, we attack her from both sides.” Jillian suggested.

“You, my dear friend, are totally brill!” Gaile grinned and stood back up to begin their plan.

Jillian giggled a little, happy at the attention. “I’ll go around that way and you go that way.” Jillian pointed, and Gaile nodded.

“‘Kay! Catch ya on the flip side!” Gaile cried and went her assigned direction.

Meanwhile, back in the tree, Bailey looked very confused.

“They were just sitting… not even trying to look for me. What the heck?” she cried, then watched in confusion as the two ran in different directions. “Now what are they doing? Gaile is going the exact OPPOSITE WAY. WHERE ARE YOU GOING?!” she howled.

Bailey realized too little too late that she was being very loud and as she watched both heads turn, she knew she’d given herself away.

“Oh geez. I need to get higher up!” she cried.

She turned and saw the tree she was in was adjacent to another much larger tree. There was a set of branches close and sturdy enough for her hop to the next tree over. She would be able to climb up higher and fire her balloons down at her opponents.

“Yes! Gotta do this! Gotta get this right!” Bailey cheered for herself and started to rush as she continued to climb down.

Gaile and Jillian were getting closer and Bailey was almost to the branch she needed in order to tree-hop. The two were finally close enough to hit Bailey if needed.

“What is she doing?” Gaile asked as Bailey began braced herself to jump.

“She’s trying to hop over there. We’ve only got one shot. When I say throw, throw your balloon!” Jillian instructed.

Gaile nodded and aimed her balloon. Jillian did the same.

The screen then split to show both sides of the scene.

“1….2….” Jillian and Bailey both counted.

Bailey made a daring leap from the first tree, flying through the air between the two trees.

“THROW!” Jillian cried.

The two girls threw their balloons with all their might. They soared through the air, reaching higher and higher until they were right behind Bailey.

“NO!” Bailey shouted as the balloons made contact with her shirt and burst. Water splashed out and went tumbling to the ground below.

Bailey, through her skills, landed safely in the other tree just as the siren went off for the last time, though it was ultimately pointless.

“And with that Bailey is out! THE PINSTRIPE PARROTS WIN THE CHALLENGE!”  Chris announced.

Victorious music began to play and all the Parrots cheered.

“YES!! WE DID IT!” Jillian cried and pulled Gaile in for a hug.

“We did it! And more importantly… YOU did it!” Gaile stated with a big grin. “Jillian, I told you adventuring is in your blood! You’re a born hunter!” Gaile tightened their hug.

“I-I guess you’re right! I DID IT!” Jillian cried happily.

Bailey climbed down from the tree and crossed her arms huffily. She was a bit disappointed how close she made it.

Gaile broke the hug and extended her hand for a shake.

“Congratulations Bailey! You did a wicked job. Your team will be mad proud of you.” she said.

A tiny grin spread across Bailey’s face and she shook Gaile’s hand. She then shook Jillian’s hand as well, and the three walked back to join their teams, heads held high.

Back in the front Dakota had pulled Ashley into a hug as well. Though the personal touch made Ashley uncomfortable, she went along with it.

Over Ashley’s shoulder, Dakota made eye contact with Ry.

Ry pointed away from everyone, indicating he wanted to talk to him.

Dakota broke off the hug, leaving Ashley to scowl after him, and reluctantly joined Ry.

“What is it?” Dakota asked.

“Dakota. You know I didn’t do that to you right?” Ry whispered.

“Actually, Ry, after the way you treated me after…our kiss… I’m not too sure youwouldn’t do this to me.” Dakota stated.

“Dakota. Come on now. You’re my first friend. I wouldn’t do this, and you know it.” Ry continued, anger choking his voice.

Dakota stared at the ground and kicked at an imaginary dirt clod.

Ry chose now to speak up. “You know who would do this to you? Ashley.”

Dakota snapped his head back up.

“Come on Ry. Now you’re just being paranoid. Ashley is a good person AND my teammate. Why would she hit ME? And the balloon that hit me was one of YOUR teams’. You were the only one close by that had one of those.” Dakota argued. He wanted this all to be a mistake but he just wasn’t sure.

“She confessed to doing it! She admitted it right to my face! Well, she didn’t exactly confess to it, but she did in context! You’ve gotta believe me.” Ry begged. He couldn’t bear the thought of losing Dakota.

Dakota’s made a face as he went into deep thought. “I’m not sure if I believe Ashley did it. But I don’t want to think you did it either. My camera is going to be fine, so we’re cool.” Dakota said.

Ry’s normally blank face cracked a tiny smile.

“Thank you, Dakota.” Ry said gratefully.

“But tell me this, why have you been acting so weird? Right after our kiss, you started being really off. It freaked me out and made me think you didn’t like me.” Dakota whimpered.

“I’ll tell you one day, Dakota. I just can’t right now. I’m not ready or exactly sure myself. But I can promise you that it wasn’t because I didn’t like you.” Ry said and showed that he was still wearing the friendship bracelet he’d given to him.

Dakota smiled at this gesture and was about to say something else when Gaile ran up and hugged him from behind, Jillian joining in as Gaile waved her on. Ry quietly slunk away, to go join the Pandas.

“We WON!” Gaile cried happily.

“We did! You guys won this for us!” Dakota cheered.

Gaile hugged him a little tighter, but not enough to hurt, when she saw that his eyes were still a little red from crying.

“Let’s go celebrate!” Jillian suggested.

“Yeah we have a little while before the elimination!” Dakota said.

“Let’s go grab some chow!” Gaile said and let go off Dakota and Jillian.

“Ashley! C’mon! We’re gonna eat!” Jillian shouted across the way to the girl who was watching the touching display with disgust in her eyes.

The episode ended showing all the teams walking back to the hotel. The Parrots were still cheering, smiles from ear to ear while the others teams were just trudging along. The screen then faded to black as a commercial break began.

Out of the Blue Part 3 (Bombs Away[April Fools]/Like Brother; Like Sister)
The show returned after a commercial for a McLean brand toaster. The scene resumed with all the contestants seated in the elimination area. The Polar Bears were seated in the middle, in benches directly in front of the Wall of Shame. The Pandas, Penguins, and Parrots all sat in the “Peanut Gallery” bleachers surrounding them. The camera did a quick pan over the teams to show how they were doing. The Penguins were sitting together, relieved that the day was over. Benny was fighting to stay awake after the long day of sitting at the starting line and playing with Selene. Selene was jumpy as usual, trying to look at everything, so Bailey was holding her still in her seat. Bailey still had a disappointed look on her face after coming so close to winning the challenge for her team, but her team was so proud of her, she knew that she’d survive. The Baroness was leaning back in her seat, legs crossed and eyes closed. She was completely content since she got to throw a balloon at Ashley during the challenge. Derby was rocking slightly in his seat, anxious to hear which contestant would be getting sent home next. Overall, almost everyone was satisfied with how the challenge had ended.

Over in the Pandas, however, that wasn’t exactly the case. Ry had separated himself slightly from the rest of his team, his eyes still a little red and puffy from crying earlier. He could never let his team know that he had been upset. He turned away from the group and glared in Ashley’s direction. Even though the issue with Dakota seemed be resolved, his fiery fury for her still raged on. He would never forgive her for what she did to him and Dakota. She had almost made him lose his first and best friend. And for that, Ry swore that before the game came to an end, he would have his revenge. Lavender, now happily playing with her clean and soap-free hair, didn’t seem very concerned about anyone going home at all. Kiki had a tired look on her face, as she had done a lot of walking, running, and stalking that day. She just wanted the elimination ceremony to be over, so she could go back to her room and sleep. Dennis was smiling his signature wide, mischievous grin. He was excited to get to splash another contestant with paint. T sat in their seat, slightly hunched over as they fought exhaustion. They were tired as well and still a little shaken up from the repetitive loud sirens during the challenge. After a moment, they found themselves leaning over onto Kiki’s shoulder. The thug raised an eyebrow, but was too tired to care enough to make them move. As the cameraman panned over to the Parrots, Ashley glared back at Ry and huffed in annoyance.

“I know you’re staring at me, Henry. Just take a picture, it’ll last longer,” she grumbled under her breath, looking simultaneously upset and angry. Dakota turned, believing he’d heard her say something, but decided to ignore it when she wasn’t looking back at him. Gaile played with the scrunchie on her wrist, hoping that elimination wasn’t as rough as it was last time. She stared up at the wall with Alexandria and Todd’s paint splattered silhouettes on it. She wondered who would be joining them up there and was relieved that her team had won the challenge. Jillian also stared up at the wall, looking at Todd’s silhouette with a shy grin. She missed Todd, sure, but she also knew that today, she made him proud by helping her team win the challenge. Dakota kicked his little legs, ready for elimination to begin. He had a lot on his mind after his conversation with Ry after the challenge. Bored with the lack of activity in the Parrots, the camera returned it’s focus to the Polar Bears.

Matt was staring over at Arizona, who was still angry and scowling because of the betrayal she felt. Alice was sitting between the two, trying to hide her satisfied smirk until she was away from her team. She had a hand on Arizona’s back, in an attempt to comfort the fuming girl. The camera panned back over as Matt once again attempted to get Arizona’s attention, but Alice shot him a death glare.

“She doesn’t want to talk to you, Matthew.” Alice hissed.

“But I don’t know what I did wrong!” Matt whined.

“You should know.” Alice said, mock-angrily turning her head away from the jock. She knew that he hadn’t intentionally done anything to upset Arizona, but had fallen right into her trap anyway. Any trust Arizona held in Matt must’ve been destroyed by now, and it was all Matt’s fault, whether his actions were prompted or not. Matt frowned deeply, still unable to realize what he’d done wrong, before he turned away from the group. Alice glanced at the crestfallen boy, a malicious smirk growing across her face, then turned back to Arizona.

“Don’t you worry, Zona. I won’t let that jerk come anywhere near you anymore,” she assured the blind girl.

“Thanks, Alice. I’m so glad that I have at least one friend here that I can trust.” Arizona loudly directed this comment towards Matt, who brought his head thudding down to rest hopelessly on his knees. As Arizona finished her statement, Chris McLean arrived to the scene. The rest of the cast perked up in preparation for what he had to say.

“Evening contestants! I just know you’re all excited for this elimination, right?” Chris teased the cast. There was nothing but silence for a few seconds as the camera showed the looks of disdain and exhaustion on the contestants’ faces.

“Great!” Chris cheered with a sadistic smile. “The Polar Bears have already cast their votes, and surprisingly, you guys were pretty split!” Matt visibly exhaled at this, as if he’d been holding his breath. Arizona heard him and stiffened, clutching onto Alice’s hand. Matt looked over at them and sighed.

“First, before we determine the loser, everyone can grab their blue bracelets from Chef… Chef?” Chef walked out from behind the building, clutching a large bag of bracelets and looking disgruntled. Chris walked over to him and the contestants could hear him hiss, “Where were you? You can’t just leave me like that!”

“Well, I’m sorry that no one told me we were having an elimination right now. You know, you really should keep the people on your show more well informed-”

“You know what, I don’t have time to argue with you right now.” Chris grabbed a handful of bracelets from the bag and marched over into the stands, throwing the bracelets into a blue shower on the contestant’s heads. The safe contestants scrambled to pick their bracelets out like little children grabbing candy from a broken pinata. They then carefully slipped the bands on their arm with the other two colorful bracelets from previous eliminations. The Polar Bears remained just as nervous as before.

“Alrighty then! Let’s begin, shall we?” Chris asked the group with a knowing smirk.

“Let’s just get this over with…” Matt said remorsefully. Arizona felt a brief flash of guilt, and turned her head in the direction of his voice. Alice saw and quickly leaned over to hiss in her ear.

“You don’t need him, ‘Zona. He betrayed you.”

Arizona’s eyes widened as the word “betrayed” seemed to flow out of Alice’s mouth so smoothly. It was like while she said it, Arizona was having a flashback of the day’s events. It lit a fire of fury in her heart and she quickly turned away from the group once more.

“Yeah. Let’s just get on with it,“ she grumbled angrily. Her team was a bunch of traitors anyway, except for Alice. What was the harm in sending any of them home?

Alice saw Arizona’s anger boiling on her face, and gave a very tiny, almost unnoticeable smirk to the camera. She then leaned back in her seat, another crisis averted.

Mallory was sitting very stiffly in her seat, hands folded in her lap; she knew she had just as much of a chance of being eliminated as anyone else did on her team. She had spent the whole challenge working on a bomb that went off on her and got her out. Since it hadn’t worked, she really hadn’t been a huge help to her team during the challenge. Mika was staring directly at Matt with arms folded tightly across her chest and brows furrowed. She still wanted to know what he had done to make Arizona so mad at him and everyone else on the team. At this point, her fingers were just itching to throw blue paint on him. Chris McLean nodded and grabbed the results from Chef.

“Here we go!” he cried enthusiastically and opened the envelope. “First one safe… Mallory.” Chris announced and held up a blue rubber bracelet in the air. The heavily inked girl was finally able to breathe again. She stood up and walked up to the front to retrieve the bracelet. She then carefully slipped it on her wrist and rejoined her team.

“This person is safe, but only by a little, especially after what she did to me… Mika.” The host scowled at the rebellious teen. Mika’s eyes lit up as she realized she’d be there another day. She then regained her composure and cooly strolled up to grab her bracelet.

“Alice.” Chris said, and the blue-haired girl retrieved her bracelet, a victorious grin on her face. When she returned to her seat, the host paused for suspense.

“There is only one bracelet left, and two of you,” he said eerily. Arizona and Matt both tensed up, realizing one of them would be sent home that night. Matt stared down at the ground, knowing what was coming. Alice beamed with joy and eagerly waited for Chris to read the last “safe” name, also sure of what would happen. Suspenseful music began to play. Arizona turned away from everyone again so no one could see the tears she felt pricking her eyes, feeling just as betrayed as before and suddenly worried about the possibility of her own elimination.

“Arizona.” Chris said and waited for Arizona to make her way to the front for her bracelet. She blinked back more tears as she waved her cane along the ground as she walked. She then plucked the bracelet from Chris’ hand, shoved it on her wrist and made her way back to her team. When she got there, Alice was waiting to give her a big hug; she was really glad that Arizona couldn’t see the malicious smirk on her face.

“That means it’s time to go, Matt.” Chris announced and gestured towards the wall. Matt nodded sadly and stood to walk to the Wall of Shame. Ry looked up for a moment, gave the camera a sad look and then looked back down at the ground. He’d had a couple interactions with Matt, and though they weren’t friends, Matt was a good guy.

“He’s gone, Arizona. He can’t make you feel inferior or hurt you anymore.” Alice consoled Arizona.

“I just still can’t believe that he did all this. He left me in a burning building! He got me eliminated from the challenge today! He belittled me because of my disability and said I was a burden!” Arizona wailed.

Alice rubbed Arizona’s back gently. “I know. I wouldn’t have told you that if I’d known it would hurt you so badly. And don’t you worry, I’ll deal with the team later.”

Matt’s eyes widened when he realized what she just said. “'Zona, wait! You got it all wr-” Matt started to say.

“No time for chit chat.” Mika growled and went to grab her can of blue paint.

“But guys! Listen to me!” Matt cried as more people retrieved their paint cans and took their places in front of him.

“You’ve been tricked! You’ve ALL been tricked, Polar Bears!” Matt shouted desperately. Alice glared at the shouting boy and made her way with Arizona to the front and center. Chris stood out of the contestants way and began his countdown.

“3..”

“You were lied to, Arizona. Someone tricked you!” Matt cried desperately.

“Yeah, you.” Alice said, lifting an eyebrow as if this was obvious.

“2…”

“No! I didn’t! Arizona I didn’t lie, it was-” Matt shouted.

“1…”

SPLASH!

The contestants all threw their blue paint on the pleading boy, covering him from head to toe and stopping him mid-sentence. He shut his eyes and lips tightly and winced as the cold paint made impact. When he reopened his eyes and stepped away, his silhouette was left on the wall, outlined by blue paint splatter.

“Time to go, Matt.” Chris said and gestured to Chef to carry him out.

Chef groaned exasperatedly but walked over to Matt, scooping him up and carring the protesting boy out of the elimination area. The last thing heard before the pair left was Matt’s desperate shout of, "I wouldn’t hurt you, 'Zona!” before the boy was gone. Arizona was once again crying into Alice’s shoulder.

“Enough tears, Arizona.” Chris said annoyedly, “As for the winning team of the challenge, Pinstripe Parrots, here is your reward.” He then looked towards Chef once again and snapped his fingers. Chef rolled his eyes and grumbled to himself about how he “didn’t get paid enough to let the little man push him around”, but still walked over to the Parrots with the bag of prizes. He took out and gave the team members one item from the bag: plastic guitars. Each was a different color. Jillian received one in red, Ashley received one in green, Dakota one in purple, and Gaile in pink. “Enjoy.” Chef said dully, before marching back to his hotel.

Chris then turned back towards the contestants “The rest of you - get back to the hotel to get some shut-eye. You’re gonna need it.” Chris said in a gloating, sing-song voice.

The teams all began to leave the elimination area and head back to their hotel rooms. As they left, Gaile heard a low beeping sound. With eyes wide she reached down and removed her Tamagotchi from her belt loops to find it was about to die.

“NO!” The girl cried and hurriedly pressed the buttons on the tiny device to save her virtual pet. The Baroness heard her shouting and rushed up to make sure everything was okay.

“Lass, why ye be screaming?” She asked concernedly. Gaile looked up and blushed a little, realizing she had been shouting pretty loudly.

“Oh, no no, don’t worry. I just lost this game. It’s no biggie. But hey, I’m glad you’re here!” she exclaimed.

The Baroness cocked an eyebrow in confusion. “Ye are?”

“Yeah! You’re a rad girl and I dig talking to you.” Gaile replied, causing The Baroness to grin a little.

“Thank ye, little lass.”

“Would you mind passing on a message to Ry for me? Ashley for sure won’t let me near him after our fight.”

The Baroness nodded understandingly. “Aye. Go on.”

“Please tell him that it may not look like it now, but I do have a plan. He’ll know what I mean.” Gaile explained.

“Aye, I’ll be sure to pass it on. Congrats to yer team for the win.” The Baroness said.

Gaile grinned victoriously. “Thanks! And congrats to you, too! I heard you kicked major butt today and got like three people out! Talk about a sweet victory!”

“'Twas only two, but one was Ashley so I’ll count that a big accomplishment.” The Baroness chuckled.

“GAILE!” A voice cried from farther behind the two girls.

“Speak of the devil.” Gaile mumbled flatly before turning and flashing Ashley a friendly grin and speaking sweetly. “Yes?”

“Would you come here? Don’t you think there’s something we need to talk about?” Ashley asked, though it sounded more like a command.

Gaile nodded her head. “Yes. Yes there is. I’ll talk to ya later, Baroness.” The Baroness waved and headed off to find Ry.

While Gaile was turned around saying goodbye, the lens could see Ashley’s lips give a vague twitch, which stopped instantly as Gaile turned back around to approach her. Now, the girl was back to her fake smiles, which looked noticeably more strained. “Gaile, we should talk about what went down today during the challenge.”

Gaile stuck her hand in her pocket and fiddled with Ry’s rock. “Yeah. I know, I shouldn’t have ran off.” Gaile admitted.

“Well no, you shouldn’t have. What you did was very risky for our team. We got lucky that you and Jillian were actually able to win this for us. Very, very lucky.”

Gaile nodded her head but didn’t say a word. In her mind, she was rolling her eyes.

“We need excellent… no,” Ashley shook her head before continuing, “flawlessteamwork if we’re all going to make it to the merge. FLAWLESS. We can’t have wild cards trying to shake things up. Do you get what I’m trying to say, Gaile?”

“No. What are you trying to say?” Gaile inquired.

Ashley gritted her teeth, getting the feeling that Gaile was still pushing it. “What I’m trying to say is that you need to be a better team player, or we’re going to lose.” Ashley tried to calm her anger, remembering that she still needed to be in good with her team. “I like you Gaile. I trust you. I would just hate to see something happen to you because you were unpredictable and messed up for our team. I’d hate to see the team turn on you for treacherous acts. I’m only saying this because I care.”

Gaile nodded her head. “I know. I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.” Gaile said remorsefully.

“Good! As long as you keep being a team player, we should make it to the merge just fine.” Ashley briefly narrowed her eyes, hinting at who wouldn’t be making it to the merge if they lost.

Gaile grinned a little, and nodded again. “Of course.”

“Let’s go on to the hotel, then.” Ashley suggested and resumed the commute to the hotel. Gaile made sure that Ashley wasn’t looking and rolled her eyes.

As the Baroness went on her way to find Ry, she was suddenly stopped by none other than Dennis. The prankster had ran right in front of her, as if he was going past her, then stopped at the last second with a signature quirky laugh.

“Keheheheh, hey there, pirate girl!” he started with a cheeky grin.

“Ahoy there, landlubber,” The Baroness replied, crossing her arms over her chest with a proud smile as she thought of how easily she’d eliminated him. Dennis recognized her almost immediate pride, but didn’t seem bothered.

“Just wanted to letcha know, you won’t get me that easy next time, ya hear?” he told her airily, “I’ve got my guard up, ‘specially for you, No Beard.” He finished with a finger pointed at the Baroness. The girl stifled a laugh, before raising an eyebrow. “That be soundin’ like a challenge, if you ask me,” she said, alluding that she wouldn’t stop trying just because of his warning. Dennis simply laughed a trademark laugh and, with a wink, returned to bother his own team. The Baroness grinned, her head held a little bit higher as she left the amphitheatre.

“Looks like tensions are rising to me!” Chris said as the camera centered back on him. “Is anyone safe from the ‘Queens of Mean’? Will the Baroness and Dennis end up fighting to the death? And will Arizona ever stop crying? Find out next time, on Total! DRAMA! COLORS!“

As the scene faded out, the camera caught a blur of a girl with orange undercut-style hair running to catch up with Alice and Arizona, linking arms with the latter before saying, “Hey, 'Zona, I think we should have a chat..”

Salmon is for Desire Prologue
The camera panned in to show Chris McClean, standing in front of a obvious green screen background of some hearts. Rose blossoms fell  dramatically around him. “Last time on Total Drama Colors!” The host announced, batting a petal out from in front of his face. “The contestants had a little… shower. Some people did great for their team,” The camera flashed to show pictures of Gaile and Jillian getting Bailey knocked out of the competition with a perfectly placed water balloon, “while others didn’t do so ‘cool’.” The images changed to a rapid fire montage of literally every other contestant getting out. Chris laughed as the camera returned to him.

“Who’s gonna screw it up for their team this time? Can the Polar Bears keep it together after Matt’s abrupt elimination?” Pictures of the Polar Bears flashed up on the screen, Arizona standing alone in the middle of her other teammates. “Will one of our teams be the first to lose two contestants? How have the Pandas gone for so long without losing anyone?” From the images that flashed up, it was clear that Chris meant this as a jab, since the Pandas team was obviously extremely dysfunctional. “And what does this challenge have to do with my lovely backdrop?” As Chris said this, the screen behind him switched to a bunch of salmon fish raining down at the same pace as the ever persistent blossoms, which were starting to layer up around Chris’ knees. “Find out the answers to all these questions and more on this episode of Total! Drama! Colors!!!” Chris spread his arms out and was hit in the head by an actual salmon just as the theme song faded onto the screen.

Salmon is for Desire Part 1
Mallory jolted awake, a thin layer of sweat covering her body. It was really too early to be awake, it looked like it was still dark outside. She must have been having a nightmare, but the details were already slipping. She had a vague thought that it had something to do with a construction zone, but she forced away the memory as soon as it came into her mind.''' ''' She figured she should get up and get moving. Mallory swung her legs over her bed, promptly tripping over her cluttered floor as soon as her feet touched down. She really should get things cleaned up, it hadn’t even been four episodes yet. She’d have to figure out how to do laundry sometime, then she could pick up some of the bigger clothing piles.

A few minutes later, Mallory was freshly dressed and ready for the day. She opened her door and slipped outside, unintentionally colliding with Derby, who was on his way downstairs. He’d woken up early too, despite the fact that he’d stayed up later than he’d wanted to last night, working on a new drama story featuring a lot of characters based on the people he’d met on TDCO. Mallory went sprawling from the force of the impact, and Derby went reeling and hit the wall. The two took a moment to reorient themselves, and Derby straightened his glasses, which just kept getting more and more abused as the show went on.

“Sorry about that!” Mallory chuckled a little as she pulled herself to her feet. “I didn’t think anyone else would be up this early!”

“It’s fine, Mallory, don’t worry about it.” Derby had been expecting to get a few bruises when he signed up for Total Drama. He extended his arm cordially to Mallory, and she grasped onto it, inwardly thanking Derby since she was worried about possibly tripping again. The two headed over towards the elevator, and Mallory pressed the button.

“That was quite the intense elimination from your team yesterday.” Derby continued on the conversation in what he hoped was a friendly matter, since he really knew little about Mallory other than her fascination with bombs.

“Yeah, we’ve got a lot of drama going on. It’s mostly between Alice, ‘Zona, and Matt, I think. Arizona seemed pretty mad at us yesterday, though, and I don’t really know what’s wrong.” The elevator arrived, and the two entered, letting the doors shut behind them. It seemed to be functional today, and Derby pressed the button for the ground floor.

“How’s your team?” Mallory really didn’t know much about Derby, and she figured now was a good time to at least hear about the Penguins.

“My team is…” Derby pondered this for a moment. “A little crazy, but really quite good.” This was as honest of an answer as he could give. Though his team was a little on the wild and disorganized side, they really did all have their hearts in the right place, and they always did their best in challenges.

“Lucky,” Mallory said with a small huff. “I’d switch with you, I could do without any team drama.”

Derby laughed a little, and the elevator door dinged. “I don’t think Chris would let you do that, but I’m sure things will work out splendidly with your team.”

The elevator doors slid open slowly, and a shower of pink streamers suddenly bombarded the pair from the outside.

“The first lovers have arrived!!” Chris cheered from the loudspeakers, and Mallory and Derby brushed the streamers off their faces.

“Lovers??” Mallory looked confusedly at Derby, and he simply shrugged.

“You arrived together, so you’re lovers. Waiter, take them to their table!” An intern dressed in a cheap looking suit walked up to the pair and grabbed both of their hands, pulling them to a little table with two seats. It had some food on it already, and the two were forced into the chairs, looking bemusedly at the pink heart balloons and streamers hanging all over the dining hall.

“Enjoy your breakfast. We spent a lot of money on the decorations.” Chris’ voice clicked off again, and Derby and Mallory stared into one another’s eyes, both finding this a little ridiculous.

Derby shrugged again and picked up a plate, extending it to the girl. “Pancake?”

Next awake was T, scrubbing at their eyes as they walked into the hallway. They looked sleepy, early morning hours really getting to them. Their collection of paper stars was getting pretty big though, and they decided that staying up late had been worth it. The audience, knowing what would happen to the teen when they went downstairs, waited with bated breath to see who would be meeting up with T in the hallway.

A door opened and Dakota exited his room, camera bumping against his chest. He turned to head towards the elevator, before seeing T out of the corner of his vision. “Hey there! Ummm, it’s T, right?” Dakota crossed his fingers, hoping desperately that he’d remembered it right.

“Yes, that’s right.” T smiled, and Dakota beamed. The camera boy could tell that T looked a little nervous, and he decided to help him out a bit with the conversation.

“You want to go down with me? I know things must be crazy on your team!” Dakota might not remember everything, but the yellow team had fights often enough for it to stick in his brain.

T nodded. “They can be pretty wild, but most of them are actually very nice.” The teen stepped forward, and they and Dakota walked together into the elevator, where the streamers had been swept out for reuse. The doors closed, and the two headed downstairs.

“Well, I know Ry is nice!!” Dakota pipped out happily, and T looked at him questioningly.

“I can’t say I’ve talked to him very much,” they said honestly, Ry being one of the people they had few opinions on.

“I know you’d love him if you ever got a chance to make friends!” Dakota grinned as the elevator landed, and the doors creaked open.

“Speaking of love…” Chris laughed, and steamers bombarded the two, pressing their small bodies against the back wall. “Hello to our two new lovers!!”

“Lovers?” T looked very anxious at this, and an intern started dragging the two off into the room where Mallory and Derby were spreading syrup on their heart shaped pancakes.

Dakota glanced at the teen with concern. “It’s okay, T. We both know we aren’t in love.” The two were pressed into their seats, and T calmed a little at Dakota’s words.

“I really would prefer for us to just be friends.” T admitted with a smile, and Dakota nodded.

“Don’t worry about it! Only… can I take a quick picture of you? I like having pictures of all my friends!” Dakota pulled up his camera, and T hesitantly nodded.

“Okay, one, two, three!”

SNAP!

The camera flashed back upstairs. Gaile wandered out of her door, tapping buttons on her Tamagotchi. She’d gotten new batteries in it, and she was busy setting her virtual pet back up. A ways up the hallway, Benny emerged as well, stretching and yawning. He was still a little tired, but he’d actually managed to get a little more sleep than usual last night, and he was hoping it would help him out in the challenge. Gaile reached the elevator first, and she pressed the button, still unaware that Benny was approaching her from down the hallway. Finally, just as Benny was about to say hello, she turned and saw him. She wasn’t prepared for the presence of the boy so close to her, and she screeched slightly, dropping the Tamagotchi.

“I’m sorry, Gaile!” Benny was significantly more awake due to the girl’s scream, and he hastily picked up the toy, handing it back to her. Gaile accepted it graciously, though she groaned as she looked at the screen.

“Aww, this is wicked unfair! Restarted again!” The girl pouted a little and pressed a few of the buttons, and the elevator door opened. The two entered, and Benny looked sadly at Gaile.

“Gaile, I really am sorry! I didn’t mean to scare you.” Come to think of it, this was slightly ironic, but neither of the pair commented on it.

“Nah, it’s okay. The batteries died last night, so I was just doing a new g-”

“ELEVATOR!!” Came a yelp from down the hall, and the familiar shape of a girl pelting on all fours came rushing towards the slowly closing doors.

“Oh no,” The contestants already in the elevator said in an almost silent exhale, before Selene was upon them, barely making it through before the doors clanged together.

“Hi!!” The girl was wriggling from the excitement of the start of a new day. “Morning!!”

“Morning, Selene.” Benny said with a tired sigh, and Selene gave him a nuzzle on the arm. She turned to do the same to Gaile, but found that the girl had shrunk back against the elevator wall.

Selene looked back at Benny questioningly, still squirming.

“Gaile? What’s wrong?” Benny asked with concern, and Gaile smiled faintly.

“I’m sure I’ll be okay. I just… don’t like dogs.”

“Wolves!” Selene corrected her. “You like wolves!”

“N-not particularly.” Gaile shook her head, and Selene looked confused as to why someone would possibly not like wolves.

“Family.” The girl, who was still on all fours, said, as if this clarified everything.

“Selene, it’s okay. Don’t push it if she’s scared.” Benny ruffled Selene’s hair, pulling her attention back to him as the elevator landed on the bottom floor.

As was the case before, the three were attacked with streamers as the doors slid open. Benny and Gaile put up their hands to cover their faces, but Selene jumped around in excitement.

“Fun!!” The girl shrieked, before Chris’ voice came on over the loudspeakers.

“Ooooh, polygamy. Scandalous.”

“What?” All three of the contestants said at once, some more knowledgeable about what polygamy was than others. Before anything was straightened up, however, they were yanked from the elevator by interns, and thrown into chairs in the dining hall. A third chair had been dragged over, and the table space was a little squished.

“Eat up, lovebirds!” Chris clicked off once again, and Selene instantly obeyed. Benny and Gaile exchanged an extremely confused glance, but they started eating as well, digging into the strangely pink colored scrambled eggs.

Bailey bounded out of her room, tugging down the edge of her shirt. It was clear she’d quickly thrown on her clothes, but it was already getting late and she didn’t want to be the last one downstairs! She rushed along down the hallway, slamming right into a door which had just been thrown open. Bailey crumpled to the floor, groaning, and Kiki quickly ran to her side.

“Bailey? Ya okay??”

“Ugh.” Bailey rubbed her head. Was everything spinning, or was that just her? Gradually, things straightened back up, and she could actually see the member of the yellow team leaning over her. “Kiki?” she questioned, double checking that her eyes weren’t tricking her.

“Yeah, it’s me.” Well, Bailey seemed to be okay now. Kiki, enjoying her new height benefits, reached down and offered the other girl a hand up, which she accepted graciously. “Sorry 'bout that, I didn’t see ya comin’! What’re ya in such a hurry for?”

“I just wanted to make sure I wouldn’t be the last one downstairs, but I guess there’s still a lot of people asleep!” Bailey and Kiki made their way to the elevator and pressed the button for it to arrive.

“I don’t think ya need ta be worried 'bout bein’ the last one down, since you’re movin’ pretty darn fast! No need for the rush though, I doubt Chris would start anythin’ without ya.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right.” Bailey grinned at the other girl as they stepped together into the elevator. Bailey’s head was still a little scrambled, but she’d survived worse injuries than this. “So, you ready for the challenge today?”

Kiki looked up at Bailey with an eyebrow raised. “I don’t think I’m ever ready for a challenge on Total Drama. Especially cuz of my crazy team.”

Bailey nodded in sympathy. “They do seem like they fight a lot!”

“Lot is an understatement.” The two shared a brief laugh as the elevator landed and the doors opened.

''Bam! ''The same streamers as before came rocketing into the room, now looking a little tattered. Bailey, in fact, was knocked over from the force, since she was still a little rocky on her feet.

“Get up and smell the roses, Bailey! Love is in the air!” Chris laughed from the speakers, and interns yanked the two out and shoved them into chairs.

“Love?” Both girls questioned, Bailey, the asexual, questioning it a little further than Kiki, the lesbian.

“Eat your breakfast.” Chris was gone again, and the two looked down at the food on the little table. It did look better than usual.

“Well, eat up, I guess.” Bailey shrugged and tore into the pancakes, Kiki joining in with lots of breakfast vigor.

With a book open in her hands, Jillian was next to emerge into the hallway. She was reading up on how to build fires in the wilderness with limited supplies, and it was really interesting! She hadn’t been able to do nearly as much reading as she’d wanted to so far, since the show was really wild! Enraptured in the information, Jillian didn’t notice a loop of rope lying completely unsuspiciously on the floor. Not watching her step, Jillian stepped right into the middle of it and…whomp! Up she went into the air with a yelp, book falling out of her hands. She was dangling upside down now, and her heart was racing a mile a minute. She knew how to get out of one of these, though. Carefully, Jillian reached up to work on untying it, trying to calm down.

“Keh heh hehe heh heh!!” A maniacal laugh came from down the hallway, and Dennis came rushing out of his room. He walked over briskly to inspect his prey, grin so wide that it was stretching his face. “Like my lil’ prank, Jill?” He looked up and snickered. Jillian had paused in her unknotting.

“It… sure was something,” she said quietly. She could untie a trap, but she was not good at talking to people.

“Aww, Jill-Jill, it’s all in good fun! It’s just the way I show my love!!” Dennis blew Jillian a kiss, and with anxious fingers, she went back to trying to get free. The blood was rushing to her head, and making her start to feel dizzy.

Dennis noticed that Jillian’s face was starting to get just a little bit red. Maybe he shouldn’t push it. He didn’t want her to like die or anything. “Want me ta get ya down from there?” Dennis had just finished his sentence when Jillian fell to the floor, having succeeded in getting loose. She wasn’t looking too hot, though. “Jill?” He leaned over, making sure that the girl was still alive.

“C-can we never do that again?” Jillian mumbled, already starting to feel the bruises.

Dennis breathed a slight sigh of relief, inwardly happy that the girl wasn’t dead. “Aww, look, you’re fine! No harm done, no harm!” Dennis leaped up to grab his rope and coiled it back up. He didn’t want to lose that!

Jillian, noting that Dennis’ attention had switched, attempted to pull herself to her feet. Nothing seemed like it was broken, and her book seemed alright too. She was still a little wobbly, but she should be okay. She began making her way towards the elevator, and Dennis hurriedly followed her.

“Ya aren’t mad at me, are ya? It was just a harmless prank!”

Jillian had actually been leaving because she wanted to read, not talk. Now, though, she was being forced into conversation. “It’s fine, Dennis.”

The elevator arrived, and the doors opened. Jillian entered, clutching her book, and Dennis looped the rope around and around in circles in his hands as he trotted behind her.

“Ya don’t talk much, do ya?”

“Not really.” Jillian shook her head and rubbed her leg, which was starting to twinge.

“Well, ya should lighten up. It’s not much fun playing pranks on ya when you’re all quiet.” When people were quiet after a prank, it either meant that they were really mad, or like actually hurt or something. Dennis was really in pranking to hear the other people screech and thrash around a little, like Lavender did all the time.

Jillian was just opening her mouth when the elevator landed on the bottom floor.

The streamers bombarded the two in the face, Jillian trying to turn around to get less damaged than she already was. Dennis, however, laughed, snatching up a streamer from the air.

“This is great! Who did this?”

The streamer was yanked from Dennis’ hand as interns grabbed the two from the elevator.

“I did it!” Chris’ voice came on once again. “And streamers aren’t the only things hitting you guys. No… love is hitting you too!” It was clear that Chris was running out of creative things to say.

“Love?” Dennis questioned as he hit the chair. “Nah, man, I don’t do love.”

“Well, you do now! Jillian, encourage him.”

“What??” Jillian looked rather overwhelmed and put on the spot. “I- I don’t-”

“Ughhhhhh.” Chris groaned over the loudspeakers. “Eat your breakfast, spoilsports.” The microphone clicked off, leaving both of the two looking uncomfortable. Dennis, trying to blow off the whole love thing, pulled out a fake spider from his pocket and set it next to Jillian’s arm.

Alice stretched as she exited her room, singing a song. “I’m bulletproof~ Nothin’ to lose~ Fire away, fire away…” Her sweet voice carried down the hallway, also carrying up to the room of a certain rebellious teen. Mika threw her door open and stomped out into the corridor.

“Alice!” she yelled down to the other girl. Alice paused in her song, turning around to notice Mika’s quite upset expression. The manipulative girl decided that, instead of having a one on one confrontation with someone who could quite possibly break one of her bones, she should hop in the elevator and deal with Mika when she had Arizona and possibly Mallory to back her up. Alice reached the end of the hall and jammed her finger on the button to call the lift, glancing behind her anxiously. Mika was gaining on her.

The elevator arrived quickly this time, and Alice hopped in, pressing the button to close the doors. For some reason, however, they just stayed open!

The scene cut to Chris in a secluded control room. He was holding down a 'Doors open’ button, and it was clear that he was overriding Alice’s attempts. Chris chuckled and sighed. “I love my job.”

The screen flashed back to Alice, just as Mika stepped inside the elevator. The doors slid shut instantly, and Alice groaned. “Hello, Mika.”

“We have somethin’ to talk about, don’t you think?” Mika said forcefully, taking a step towards the other girl. From this closer angle, it was visible that Mika had pen splattered on her face, making Alice snicker a little. “What the 'ell are you laughing at???” Mika looked really angry, and Alice had to remind herself that she had to be nice to people on the team other than Arizona.

“You just have a little something…” Alice gestured to Mika’s entire face, and Mika scowled, thinking that, with the way she was acting, Alice was lying.

“I don’t care about my f***ing face. What I care about is the fact that you’re a backstabbing, lying little b****.” Mika forced Alice backwards a step, and Alice’s back hit the wall.

“Calm down. I didn’t do anything.”

“Oh yeah? I know you got Matt eliminated.”

Alice scoffed. “Don’t be ridiculous. Matt betrayed Arizona.”

“No, you betrayed 'Zona. And if you don’t do your best in this challenge and stop being a damn liar, we all know who’s gonna be goin’ home. ”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, but you should watch your back. Arizona doesn’t like how you betrayed her in the challenge.” Alice’s eyes were cutting. “You wouldn’t want to do anything to make her even more upset, would you?”

The two girls were caught in an intense glaring battle as the elevator hit the bottom floor.

Mika, unprepared for the doors opening, was caught off guard as the streamers hit her on the back of the head. “What the hell???” The girl yelled as she was knocked off balance. Alice took this opportunity to walk around Mika to regain dominance, until both girls were yanked off their feet by the interns grabbing their hands.

“Come on, ladies. Let me see your loving smiles!” Chris laughed over the speakers, and Mika snarled as she was slammed into a chair.

“What the hell is going on???”

“Oh, shut up and eat your sausage.” Alice pushed the full plate of meat over towards Mika, fixing her with another death stare.

“Yes. Thank you, Alice.” Chris was evidently still mad at Mika from yesterday, and he clicked off the speakers instantly. Mika grabbed the plate from Alice and, without hesitating, pushed it right off the edge of the table.

Back upstairs, the number of contestants left was dwindling. Lavender finally emerged from her room, with hair freshly washed, blow-dried, and full of products. She looked distastefully at her clothes from TDCO, which really weren’t very complimenting at all. She’d really had to step up her hair and makeup game to try and make up for it, and since another boy was gone already, she was running out of options. Lavender stood by the elevator and pressed the button.

A little ways up the hall, Arizona exited her room, still scowling. She didn’t know what was going on anymore. Matt had clearly been a huge jerk to her. But no one else would tell her the full story on anything. At least Alice seemed like she was trying to protect her, but Mika clearly had a problem with the other girl. Nothing really made sense to Arizona, and it was causing an unusual flow of negativity.

She knew someone was standing by the elevator from their breathing as she approached, but she didn’t quite know who. Arizona was just about to open her mouth and say hello, just to engage the other person in a two second conversation so she’d know if they were on her team or not, when Lavender’s voice piped up.

“Be honest with me, Arizona.” She fluffed up her hair and turned to face the other girl. “Do these clothes make me look ugly?”

Arizona stopped and scowled, waiting for Lavender to pick up on her mistake. Lavender only blinked at her, confused as to what she’d done wrong.

“You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to. I know the answer is yes, they’re too baggy and not flattering at all.”

Arizona gritted her teeth. “I don’t know what they look like, Lavender. I don’t know what anything looks like, because I’m blind.”

“Oooooohhh.” In all her team drama, Lavender had completely forgotten. “Do they feel pretty, though?” Lavender reached forwards to guide Arizona’s hand to her clothes, but before she could get there, Arizona crossed her arms.

“I’m sure they look nice.”

Lavender brought her arm back to her side, fidgeting a little. She didn’t have much experience talking to people who couldn’t experience her beauty. “Thanks, 'Zona.”

“Yep.” The elevator finally came, and Lavender entered instantly, extending a hand to Arizona.

“Need any help?”

“No, I can walk forward three steps on my own.” To prove this, Arizona stepped into the elevator, waving her cane in front of her to make sure she didn’t hit the back wall. The doors slowly slid shut.

This was really very awkward for Lavender. She found herself almost wishing she was locked in the elevator with Dennis. At least he could look at her. “It’s good that you’re still here, after the elimination yesterday.”

“Mmmhm.”

Maybe Arizona didn’t want to talk about that. “So, do you, like, miss being able to see?”

“I wouldn’t know.” Arizona, who had been born blind, retorted. She really wished she hadn’t gotten in the elevator.

“Oh.” The two trailed off into silence as the elevator hit the bottom floor.

“Love!” Chris stated as streamers blasted into the lift. Arizona was knocked backwards by the assault, and Lavender shrank into the corner, trying to protect her hair. Interns grabbed the two and yanked them towards the tables. Arizona nearly fell flat on her face from the unplanned jerk on her arm.

“Love?” Lavender smiled brightly as she hit the chair, with only a slight wince of pain. It really was high time they had a bit of love on the show. Maybe she could get with one of the boys… Derby, perhaps, or maybe Benny-

“Love between you and Arizona!”

Lavender let out a slight groan, almost imperceptible by anyone except the girl who had been forced to super-train her hearing. Arizona looked even more sullen than before, and Lavender knew she’d made a mistake. “Well, 'Zona, love it is!” Lavender batted her eyelashes in full winning charm at the other girl. Arizona, surprisingly, didn’t see it.

Next out of her room was the Baroness, fixing up her do-rag. She’d slept in later than she’d wanted to, as her curtains had been pulled shut, so she hadn’t risen instantly with the sun. Hopefully breakfast wasn’t done with yet, she had to get her morning ration of fruit. The Baroness rushed along the hallway, passing another door just before it opened. Feeling the presence of a new person in her space, the Baroness turned around to see who else but Ry emerging from his room. “Ahoy there, lad!” The Baroness piped out.

Ry yawned slightly, having woken up late because he had stayed up until past 3 AM working on adding something for Matt to his elimination hanging tree painting. It was a lot of work, but he was quite satisfied with how it was coming out. “Morning.” Ry mumbled, making his way towards the elevator.

“Ye seem ta be quite tired today! What’ve ye been up ta?”

“Working on the painting.” Ry stretched and rubbed his eyes. “I was adding a guitar for Matt.”

Oh, yeah. The Baroness remembered Ry talking about that. “Well, I’m sure it’s turning out mighty fine! Maybe I could pop in 'nd see it sometime.”

“Sure.” Ry pressed the button, and the elevator arrived almost instantly. The pair stepped inside together, and the doors shut.

“Do ya suppose the other contestants are all down at brekkie already? I’d hate fer us ta be the last ones down.”

“I’m sure we’re fine. They wouldn’t start without us.”

The elevator began making its way downstairs, when a light suddenly flickered on the sideboard. They were making another stop.

One floor down, Ashley exited her room, carefully checking that the door was locked. She’d left late so she could ensure that no one else would still be upstairs once she headed down for breakfast. The hall seemed to be empty by now, and she was finally ready to leave.

The door felt securely locked, and it didn’t give way as she rattled the knob. It gave her a little security, at least, though she was still worried that someone might be able to sneak in anyway. There wasn’t really any time for moping around, though, if she was going to get to breakfast on time. Ashley couldn’t stand it if she ended up late and got something stupid like an auto-elimination. The girl paced down the hallway and pressed the button for the elevator to arrive, completely unsuspecting that anyone else might be inside.

The elevator arrived a moment later, and Ry and the Baroness went silent as the doors opened. Ashley walked into the lift, eyes downcast. When she lifted them a moment later, she took an unconscious step back. Both sides fixed the other, or others, with a stare as they inwardly tried to formulate what to say.

Ashley appeared to be experiencing a fight or flight response, seeing as she was outnumbered, but it was too late. With a BANG, the doors slammed shut much faster than they had before, and the three were trapped. Ry was first to make a move, taking a threatening step forwards.

“What’s wrong, Bitchley? Not in the mood for a conversation?”

Ashley scowled and stood her ground, summoning up enough strength for an argument. “I don’t really feel like it right now, Henry, so do us all a favor and just shut up.”

“Feelin’ guilty about something?” The Baroness stepped forwards now too. She didn’t want to get too involved in this fight, but she needed to show Ashley that betraying people on your own team wasn’t acceptable, even in this game.

It was two vs one, and Ashley’s only solace was that soon she’d be able to eat breakfast alone, or with people who at least weren’t so outwardly aggressive. Ry was quite itching for a fight with Ashley, especially after she’d gotten him out in the last challenge, and the way she’d treated Dakota.

“All that betrayal wearing you out?” Ry lifted an eyebrow and took another step forwards. “Tired from breaking Dakota’s camera? And from getting Todd eliminated?”

“You don’t have proof for any of that, and if you did, who would believe you?”

“Don’t ya at least feel some guilt 'bout bringin’ yer own team down?” The Baroness was surprised that someone could actually be so heartless. She knew now why Ry hated Ashley so much.

“I’m doing what it takes to win. If you were smart, you’d be doing the same.”

Ry took another step, and Ashley was finally forced to fall back to avoid him being right in her face. “Well, I will be doing the same. To you. Enjoy getting a taste of your own medicine, Bitchley. You f***ing deserve it.”

The elevator hit the bottom floor.

“What tha 'ell??” The Baroness burst out, as the very worn out streamers hit the three in the face. No one lifted their arms to block their faces, however, in some show of will power.

“Way to be slow, lovebirds!” Chris called out as each of the three was grabbed by an intern and pulled to a table. They were all thrown into chairs in very close proximity to one another, slamming down quite painfully.

“You really need to work on your loving smiles. I’m not convinced.”

The people at the table all glared at one another. It was clear that no one was feeling loving at all, and the festive atmosphere was only making their anger worse. The Baroness was the first to grab some food, picking up an apple and biting into it threateningly. Ashley and Ry followed suit with other pink themed breakfast items, and for the moment, the table was silent.

The camera decided to do a brief pan over all the tables, seeing as all of the contestants were now down at breakfast.

“Arizona, could you pass me the syrup?” Lavender fixed the girl with a blindingly bright grin.

Arizona made no move to grab the syrup she couldn’t see. “I don’t know where it is,” she said flatly, and Lavender realized her mistake.

“Oh, it’s okay, 'Zona! I’ll get it myself.” Lavender leaned across the table, just reaching the sugary bottle when she heard someone call her name from across the room.

“Watch this.” Dennis hissed to Jillian, before turning his attention to the pretty fellow member of the yellow team. “Hey, Lav! You’ve got some syrup in your hair!”

Lavender’s hands instinctually rose up to pat down her perfect locks, turning to Dennis with a scowl. “No I don’t, Dennis.”

At this moment, Dennis chucked a bottle of syrup at Lavender’s head, the amber liquid making a perfect arc across the room. It hit Lavender before she had time to duck, lid bursting off to drip sticky sap all over her hair. Jillian stared on in horror as Lavender made an unearthly screeching noise.

“My mistake!!” Dennis yelled to the other table, before facing Jillian again and starting to laugh his head off. “That was pretty great, wasn’t it? Oh man, did you see her face when she was about to get hit??? She was like 'aughhhhhhh!’, ahaaaaaaaaaa, whew, that was good.”

“I-I’m not sure she liked it very much.” Jillian didn’t really know what to think about this, other than that she was very glad not to be in Lavender’s position.

“Aww, Lavender’s cool with it all, no worries, no worries. I just like ta get a rise outta her every now and then, that’s all, here, you try.” Dennis shoved a plate of butter into Jillian’s hands, and the girl gulped.

“I-I don’t really know about this, I don’t think I really should-”

“It’s fine, it’s all cool, everyone loves a good prank!” Dennis scouted around for a good victim. “Here, look, Benny isn’t turned towards you. Just call his name and then…wham!” Dennis slammed his hand down on the table, and Jillian jumped. “Hit him right in the smacker!!”

“That seems kind of mean…” Jillian trailed off, looking at the butter in her hands.

“You’re takin’ all this too serious, Jilly. Just throw it, everyone’ll laugh, everyone loves a good prank.” Dennis knew he was close to convincing her. “Watch, I’ll start ya off. Yo, Benny!”

Benny turned around from where he’d been trying to keep the fragile peace at the table of three. “Yeah?” he called, not really sure who had yelled his name.

“Go for it Jill, just try it.” Dennis nudged Jillian in the ribs, and she could feel the peer pressure working. She didn’t want to disappoint Dennis. Taking a deep breath, Jillian picked up the butter and threw it lightly at Benny’s face.

Benny didn’t know what was coming towards him until it was too late. Splat!Thankfully, Jillian had thrown it gently enough that it didn’t hurt the boy, but it still made quite a mess across his forehead, fat dripping down his cheeks. Dennis gave Jillian a high five, glad that he’d ended up sitting at a table with her. Jillian gave a tiny smile, torn between feeling guilty and proud.

“Funny!!” Selene shrieked from the other table. Benny looked really silly covered in butter, and she leaped onto Gaile to get her to share in the excitement.

Gaile collapsed backwards when Selene pounced, inwardly terrified. Benny swiped off his face with a napkin before reaching over to push the two girls apart.

“N…not funny.” Gaile whimpered, and Benny fixed Selene with a stern look, made silly by the piece of butter which slid down his nose. Selene giggled for a moment, though she stopped as Benny’s gaze intensified. Like a dog that misbehaved, Selene looked morosely over to Gaile. She looked around for something with which to remedy her mistake. That bowl of strawberries looked nice. Selene nudged the red fruits over, glancing up into Gaile’s eyes to make sure she wasn’t mad.

Gaile was really more emotionally traumatized than angry, but she could appreciate a gift, even if it was from Selene. She reached forward and pulled out a berry, taking a small bite.

Yes! Gaile accepted it!! Selene couldn’t contain her happiness, and barked with joy. Then, she leaned over and licked the butter off Benny’s nose, laughing as Benny squirmed under her. Mmm, it really was tasty!

Gaile wrinkled her nose in disgust from across the table at the fact that Selene would just eat butter on its own. But then again, Selene would probably eat anything.

A few tables over, Bailey and Kiki were done with breakfast. They were both pretty bored by now, watching the other tables talk with limited interest.

“Soo…” Bailey leaned across the table, glancing at Kiki’s toned biceps. “Wanna arm wrestle?” She could probably take Kiki down, but even if she couldn’t, Bailey was really bad at thinking things through beforehand.

Kiki hadn’t arm wrestled in a long time, but she wasn’t one to turn down someone who wanted to have a go with her. “Why not? Left arm or right?”

“Umm,” Bailey made two fists to try and figure out which of her arms was stronger. “Right.” She pressed her elbow onto the table, using her left hand to sweep aside all of the breakfast plates. Kiki joined in on the other side, and the two soon had a good playing field. Kiki let her arm down with a thud as well, and the two clasped hands.

“Ready to lose?” Bailey asked, quite overconfidently.

“Not likely, thrill-seeker. One…”

“Two…”

“Three!” The girls yelled together, and each began straining to force the other’s arm to the table. Bailey was holding her own fairly well, and the two were kept relatively stable in the middle. Their arms were shaking.

“Give in, Bailey.” Kiki locked eyes with Bailey, and Bailey grunted with effort.

“You wish.” Despite saying this, however, Bailey was losing. Her arm was wavering more and more.

In another minute, the match was decided. Using up all her strength, Kiki pressed Bailey’s arm down until she finally heard the thud of flesh hitting wood. Bailey groaned, collapsing forward on the table.

“Good game, Bailey. Ya held up for a lot longer than most people I’ve wrestled.” Kiki had to admit it, she was impressed.

“Thanks.” Bailey rubbed her arm a little, and it slowly started feeling better. Breakfast still wasn’t over, though. “Wanna go again?” Bailey placed down her left arm, and Kiki gave her a sly grin, bringing her arm up to join in.

“You’re on!”

Mika and Alice were fixed in an intense glaring match, which was significantly hindering their eating of breakfast. Alice slowly chomped down on a piece of pancake, and Mika took a sip of orange juice without breaking eye contact.

Alice swallowed down her food. “I wish we had some sausage,” she said flatly, holding Mika’s gaze.

Mika set down her glass without looking at it. “I bet you wish for a s*** ton of things you don’t deserve.”

“You should work on your attitude. No one likes someone who’s angry all the time. You’ll get thrown in prison.”

Mika ground her teeth. “Well, bein’ a b**** on national TV probably isn’t earnin’ ya any favors.”

“Are you planning to tell the whole team about this? Arizona would never believe you.”

This fact was quite true, and made Mika pause momentarily. “She’d believe me,” she said, slightly less certain.

“Sure she would.” Alice lifted an eyebrow and broke eye contact purposefully as she brought her own juice to her mouth. And for some reason, it didn’t feel like Mika had won.

“…and that’s exactly how to make a pipe bomb!” Mallory rounded off her conversation proudly.

Derby looked at her, wide eyed. “That’s fantastic! I never knew there was so much chemistry involved!!”

“Yep. It’s a lot to keep straight, but I think the end result is worth it!” Mallory beamed, glad she’d found someone who actually wanted to listen to her. “What about you, Derby? What do you like?”

Derby pulled his bookbag onto his lap, tapping the front of it with his fingers. “I’m an author,” he stated, loving how sophisticated it sounded. Thankfully, Mallory didn’t just laugh him off, like some people did.

“That’s neat!! What do you write about?”

“Well, I’ve been drawing inspiration from people on the show,” Derby admitted a bit nervously. “We do have quite a lot of interesting people in this season!” As he spoke, Derby slipped the notebook he’d been writing in out of the bag and laid it carefully on the table.

Mallory looked around at all of the quirky people in the room and nodded. “True that!” The two found themselves eying the unopened notebook.

“So, can I read something from it?” Mallory blinked her eyes at Derby, and he grinned.

“Oh!” Derby exclaimed quietly, not used to having peers interested in his writing. “Uh, sure!” Hopefully Mallory wouldn’t be offended that he’d made her a mad scientist type in his latest story. Derby flipped open the book, and began reading. “The full moon shone brightly in the otherwise pitch black sky, casting its eerie glow down on the…”

“It really is unfair for people to intentionally misgender you.” Dakota frowned, not understanding why anyone would do that. “Or call you by your birth name when you’ve said you don’t want them to. Have you talked to people who are higher up, like your teachers or parents?”

“I’ve tried, but sometimes they don’t stop.” This breakfast had gotten very deep very fast, but T liked being able to vent out their feelings. They hadn’t made very many friends they could confide in since they’d joined in TDCO. “I can handle it if I need to, but I don’t really like to.”

“You shouldn’t have to deal with any of that.” Dakota nibbled on a piece of toast. “You’ll be famous now, though! You can tell them that when they try and pick on you.”

T laughed lightly. “Thanks, Dakota. I might just have to try that.”

“Yeah, do anything you want, just don’t let people shoot you down. It really isn’t worth it.” Dakota was glad he’d bumped into T upstairs. It sounded like T really had a lot on their mind!

“I’ll work on it when I get home. Thank you again.” T reached forward and grabbed a pastry, smiling at Dakota as they did so.

Dakota lifted up his camera again. “Can I take another picture of you?” T looked much more comfortable around him now, and those were the kinds of pictures of friends Dakota really wanted.

“Of course.” T glanced over to the camera, and they were still smiling as their face lit up with a flash.

The Baroness eyed her two table mates, quietly sipping her glass of orange juice. She was moderately happy to be seated with Ry, but their other partner was certainly less than pleasing. The pirate glowered downward at Ashley, who was picking at her food. The Baroness silently contemplated why Chris would call the three of them ‘lovebirds’, and desperately hoped it had nothing to do with the challenge.

Ry bit into his usual breakfast, a slice of toast, no more pleased about the circumstances than anyone else at the table. He was content with the silence that’d settled over the table. He glanced up at the more tolerable of the two girls, missing the Baroness’s gaze by a split second, and followed her stare to Ashley. He rolled his eyes and scowled, hoping that this arrangement would be over soon.

Ashley’s face was a deep set frown as she picked at her eggs. Of all the things that could happen today, she couldn’t believe she had to be stuck with these two for breakfast. As she glanced up, she caught Ry looking at her. Her expression darkened in response, glaring at the boy.

“What do you want?” Ry muttered as he matched her glare.

“You’re the one staring at me, Henry,” she retorted half-heartedly, not really wanting to get into an argument.

“The lad’s allowed to be lookin’ where he pleases, hag,” the Baroness joined in, glad to defend Ry and insult Ashley at the same time. Ashley let out a heavy sigh. “Can’t we just sit here in our mutual hate in silence?” Ashley said sharply, as she stabbed her fork into her eggs, though she didn’t lift any to her mouth. Ry and the Baroness’s eyes widened at Ashley’s comment, used to the tone but not used to her wanting what seemed like a momentary truce. Their gazes met, unsure of how to respond. After a moment, Ry shrugged, not really wanting to fight at the moment anyway, and he went back to eating his breakfast. The Baroness glared one last time at her enemy, then returned to her food, allowing the temporary tension filled arrangement.

“So, how was breakfast?” Chris waltzed into the dining room, a grin wide on his face.

Some contestants gave him a glare at this impertinent question, others shrugged or nodded, since several tables had actually made friends from the experience.

“Great!” Chris clapped his hands together, and it was clear that he would’ve said this no matter what the response had been. “I bet you can’t guess what today’s color is!”

“Pink.” Everyone in the room said simultaneously, taking a guess from the colors of the streamers, decorations, and food.

Chris scowled. “No! The color is salmon!”

Everyone blinked slightly, caught unprepared. A few people started snickering, and Chris’ frown intensified.

“Sorry you all didn’t notice. And maybe they don’t sell salmon colored streamers at the dollar store!” Chris took a deep breath to calm down, and did a pan through of the colors to regain some dominance. In the elimination hotel, Alexandria and Todd were used to this by now, but Matt leaped up in horror as his shirt lit up.

“Now, your challenge today has to do with breakfast. Any guesses?”

Lavender’s hand shot up. “Is it merge time?” She asked quite desperately, hoping that’s what Chris meant.

“No. It’s way too early for that. Anyone else?”

“Something to do with love?” Bailey ventured, rubbing her sore shoulders.

“Yes! Good job, Bailey!” Chris’ tone sounded slightly patronizing, and Bailey frowned. “Today’s challenge is… a kissing relay!”

Several people in the room blanched at this statement. T was especially upset. “Is this something we all have to participate in?” they asked quietly, and Dakota rubbed their hand.

“Yes! Everyone must participate, or risk an auto elimination. If you want to practice, you’re seated at lovely tables of two or three…”

Everyone locked eyes with their partner or partners. No one leaned forward for a kiss.

Chris groaned. “Uggggggh, you guys are the worst. Better get those lips limbered up though, and meet me at the forest in fifteen minutes!”

“Wait, question!” Dennis pumped his arm back and forth in the air, and Chris turned slowly towards him.

“Yes, Dennis?”

“Why’s the color salmon? What’s that gotta do with the love theme?” Dennis wasn’t really interested, but people always got ticked off when you asked them questions.

“Salmon is for desire.” Chris laughed at how clever this pop culture reference was. Very few people in the room actually got the joke, however, and Chris rolled his eyes. “Ten minutes. Hurry up!” With that, Chris walked out of the room, leaving everyone else to sort themselves out.

“It’s been a pleasant breakfast.” Derby extended his hand to Mallory, and she shook it, laughing a little at the formality.

“Yeah, we’ll have to talk more soon!!” Mallory handed Derby his notebook from the table, inserting it into his waiting hands.

“I can finish the story today perhaps, and then read it to you?”

“That sounds awesome!!” The pair both grinned, and walked off to join their teams.

“Don’t worry, T, I know you’ll do okay in the challenge. Just tell your team what’s wrong, I’m sure they’ll understand!” Dakota smiled supportingly, and T nodded, though they weren’t really sure about their team understanding anything.

“Thanks for trying to help, Dakota. It was nice talking to you.”

“You too! Good luck!!” Dakota watched T exit with some sorrow, slightly worried about them. Hopefully they could pull through in the challenge. Dakota had his fingers crossed.

“I think you’ve had enough sugar, Selene.” Benny pulled the bottle of syrup out of the wolf girl’s hands, and she pouted, vibrating slightly. The boy turned to Gaile, holding Selene at bay. “I guess this is where we split up.”

“Yeah, I guess it is.” Gaile admittedly didn’t have a completely terrible breakfast experience, except a few problems with Selene. “I hope you do rocking in the challenge!”

“You too!” Benny smiled, Selene nodded rapidly, and the two teams split.

“If you ever wanna do something else together, just let me know, 'kay, Bailey?” Kiki had enjoyed  her breakfast, and the arm wrestling had been a good challenge for her.

“Sure! I’ll make sure to figure out something for us to do together!!” Though Bailey’s arms were sore, she’d had fun too, and she looked forward to hanging out with Kiki again!

“That was a pretty swell breakfast, eh Jill?” Dennis elbowed Jillian in the ribs, and she smiled slightly.

“It was an experience, that’s for sure.” Really, Dennis wasn’t half bad, and Jillian had found him to be a good table partner.

“Yep, I know you loved it, don’t worry Jilly Jill, I’ll make sure I teach you more tricks before it’s too late!” Jillian seemed like she might be up for some pranking, if Dennis could just get her to go a little more wild.

Jillian’s tiny smile changed to a tiny grin. “I might like that.”

Mika and Alice stood up with no words. Mika made sure to exit her chair from the side that wasn’t where the sausages still coated the floor.

“Watch what you say.” Alice said pointedly.

“Same ta you.”

The two exited in different directions, even though they were on the same team.

“Well, Arizona, it’s been a pleasure. I hope I’ll be able to see you again sometime!” Lavender unintentionally made a seeing reference, and Arizona’s face turned even more sullen. She couldn’t totally blame Lavender though, because it really didn’t seem like the girl had been trying to make her feel bad. Maybe they could talk more later, if Lavender started becoming more aware of what she was saying.

“Thanks, Lavender.” Arizona shuffled off, and Lavender watched her go with a sigh.

Ashley stood up instantly once the tables were freed, and Ry and the Baroness rose up to meet her. Ry walked around the table to bring his foot down across Ashley’s toes, light enough to be a warning, heavy enough to remind her of her bruises. Ashley caught his wrist in defense, applying harsh pressure. The two were locked together in what looked to be a halfway fight, neither one making another move.

“Watch your back.” Ry finally growled and twisted his arm out of Ashley’s grip, pressing down her toes one more time before turning to walk away. The Baroness glared at Ashley before joining him.

“We still gonna paint 'er door?” The Baroness hissed to Ry, and he nodded.

“Hell yeah we are.”

In her split second of alone time, Ashley took as big of a bite out of her eggs as she could manage. Then, she too left to join her team.

From inside his car, Chris fake swiped at his eyes. “True love,” he said with a slight sniffle. “So touching.”

The moment was almost sappy for a second, until Chris started snickering. “Not! This is Total Drama, not Total Lovebirds! And trust me, this challenge is gonna put the kids through the wringer! Who will come out on top? Will any of the teams actually finish?” Chris shrugged. “Who knows! Find out after the break on Total! Drama! Colors!!” The last thing seen was Chris’ grin, before the camera faded to black.