AUTHOR'S NOTE

I'm back, folks! Boy, has it been an eventful summer for me- I can't even begin to describe it. Just know that, in the midst of all the madness, I wrote away at this new story for you guys. ;-)

First off, a warning to those who haven't read my ROTI remake: you will be confused by this story. No doubt. xD If you decide to read this without knowledge of what went on in my remake, this is a given, but you should assume any deviations from ROTI canon to be based on it. This includes interactions. Also, there are huge spoilers for that story, so the only situation in which I'd recommend reading this without having read ROTIR beforehand is if you don't plan on ever reading the latter. There is a ton of continuity from TDWT and before, however, so that should be easy to follow.

I'm starting off this story with a new concept- or, at least, what I think is one. It may seem a bit odd to have before the show even starts, but it's here to set up the primary purpose of writing this fic. Actually, I have a bunch of reasons for this concept. All I'll say is, feel free to ask me for them if you're still confused on why it's here after reading.

But without further do, happy reading. I hope you enjoy. :-)

The audience filled all of the seats in the auditorium. Hushed conversation filled the air while people looked ahead at the stage, which was hidden by purple curtains; no one could see or hear anything behind them.

They opened to reveal what resembled a living room setting. The Total Drama cast of the first four seasons sat on couches raised like bleachers on either side of the stage. They all appeared to be on the older end of their teenage years (excluding a certain dark-skinned boy with glasses). A man who was clearly older than all of them, with a strong cleft chin and windswept hair that only those with a lot of money and time can achieve, sat front and center on a couch with a sleek white table in front. Miscellaneous props, such as wall segments and paper lamps, framed the set all around, and a floor lamp stood near the couches for good measure.

The man stood up to thunderous applause; he basked in it for a moment, looking around with a grin that was well-practiced and well-bleached. "Greetings, faithful viewers! Welcome to the first-ever Total Drama Before-math show, where I, Chris McLean, the host with the most, will be grilling your favorite contestants for the latest news before the season even starts! The name isn't the only twist on our past Total Drama Aftermath- there are also gonna be updates on the contestants' lives outside the game, reveals of who will be in this season, and more. But first, I'll introduce these campers on both sides of me. To my right, we have the cast of Total Drama Revenge of the Island!" Clapping and cheering filled the auditorium for the thirteen teenagers sitting on the bottom two couches. They reciprocated, most smiling, some waving, a few blowing kisses, and a certain football player flexing his arms.

"And on my other side, we have the cast from the first three seasons!" Even louder applause ensued for the twenty-four contestants on Chris's left side, who filled all four of their couches. The audience was met with similar reactions, except no one flexed.

Chris sat down. "Now, you may have noticed that Blaineley is not here, even though she competed two seasons ago. Yeah, that's never gonna happen again, for reasons that I'm not gonna bother saying."

"Good riddance," an Asian girl with black hair in a ponytail muttered from the first-generation cast.

"We're gonna start this off with announcing some of the players that will and won't be on the new season," Chris said. "You see, there are two empty couches on the Revenge cast's side for a reason: they are where the old competitors for this season will be sitting. In fact, we're forming the teams right here on this special episode!" He was met with roars of approval which took a while to die down. "The names are simpler this time: the Fans, which are the new cast, and the Favorites, which are the old cast." He turned to his left. "How do you feel about this, Heather?"

"Why are you asking me?" the Asian girl scoffed. "Obviously, I think it's lame."

His eyebrows rose into his forehead. "You're not surprised?"

"Of course not. Why else would you bring both casts on a 'Before-math' besides to make a show out of picking teams?"

"Well, it's not just that," the host said, scowling at her. "You won't guess what's about to show on the screen." A plasma TV screen lowered over him and flickered on, revealing a list of all the present contestants ranked from "1" to "37". "These are the rankings of every contestant here by average placing in his or her respective seasons. And boy, are some of them surprising."

Brick

Alejandro

Jo

Duncan

Sierra

Owen

Cameron

Heather

Zoey

Mike

Beth

Courtney

Dawn

Gwen

Cody

Lindsay

Leshawna

Scott

Eva

Izzy

DJ

Anne Maria

Harold

Geoff

Sadie

Trent

Tyler

Justin

Sam

Lightning

Bridgette

Noah

B

Katie

Staci

Dakota

Ezekiel

All of the contestants focused on the screen, many of them gaping. Duncan, a guy with a green mohawk and piercings on his face and ears, eyed Brick keenly. "Dang, a newbie is first out of all of us? Not bad."

Said newbie with a black crew-cut and a unibrow blinked rapidly at the screen. "How is that possible?"

"You are the only one with a perfect ranking so far, since you took part in a season and won," a girl with platinum blonde hair said next to him.

"You have a point, Dawn. It's just-" He shook his head- "wow. I wasn't expecting this."

"Be happy, bro!" a male in a football jersey said. "The Lightning would kill to have your spot! Thirtieth is beyond unacceptable!"

On the other side, a tan girl with brown hair and natural highlights was bulging her eyes. "How am I only twelfth? This seems totally inaccurate, considering the people above me."

"Care to elaborate, sweetheart?" Duncan said, sarcasm and a tinge of something else unpleasant in his tone.

She turned around and gave him a look cold enough to freeze people in their tracks. "Don't talk to me."

He raised one side of his unibrow. "Fine. I wasn't even interested in talking, so that works for both of us." She clenched her teeth and whipped away from him.

"These rankings will be up for the rest of the episode and for other Aftermaths," Chris said. "The top eighteen contestants at the end of this season will be competing for the biggest prize yet in the next season, Total Drama All-Stars. Therefore, whoever gets picked for this season has the opportunity to bump themselves higher in the rankings and secure a spot in All-Stars, or keep their spot if they have one already. However, winners and runner-ups of past seasons have an advantage. They're part of the TDAS cast already, which means it's really only the top ten non-finalists that will advance. Heck, a finalist could even be last and still be in."

"Wait a second... Does this mean that we're not participating this season?" an ivory-skinned girl with turquoise-streaked hair said.

"Right you are, Gwen!" he said. Gwen and Duncan high-fived. "Fans versus Favorites is meant to pick out the best of the best among the cast to enter All-Stars, and winners and runner-ups have already proved themselves worthy. Brick, Jo, since you're the only TDRI contestants that aren't in this season, you'll be switching places with our first two contenders. And they are..." The audience pounded the ground with their feet, making it shake like an earthquake.

Chris held up his hand, and they stopped. "Lindsay and Tyler!"

Applause and cheering rang through the air. The male wearing a red sweatband and tracksuit jumped to his feet and pumped his fists. "WHOO HOO! YEAH, BABY!"

A blonde female with baby blue eyes and a well-endowed figure stood up, wearing a grin like the sun. "We get to be on the same team for once!" They fell into each other onto the first couch and started making out, and whoops arose from the audience. A boy with a cowboy hat and a pear-shaped girl with glasses, who were both sitting on either side of the couple, scooted away. Brick and the girl wearing a sweatsuit next to him looked at each other uncertainly, raising themselves partly out of their seats.

"Uh, guys? You're supposed to switch with Brick and Jo now, remember?" Chris said to Tyler and Lindsay. They did not respond. "TYLER AND LINDSAY!"

"AH!" They broke apart and stared at him. "What?"

He face-palmed and pointed to where Jo and Brick were standing. "Just- go over there."

"Oh, okay!" Lindsay chirped. She hopped up and grabbed Tyler's hand, bouncing over to the other side; Brick and Jo took their places with the old competitors.

The boy with a cowboy hat stuck his hand out to Brick and grinned welcomingly. "Yo, wassup, dude? I'm Geoff!"

Brick shook his hand in a firm grip. "Pleased to meet you, soldier. The name's Brick MacArthur."

Geoff chuckled. "You can call me 'soldier' if you want, bro, but then I'm gonna have to call you MacArthur."

The other boy's unibrow pricked upward. "How come?"

"Don't soldiers call each other by their last names in the military?"

"Oh, yeah!" Amusement danced over Brick's face. "Ha, I get it now."

Geoff grinned once more and slapped his back like they were already friends. "Yeah, I was kidding anyway, dude!"

"Moving on, it's time to interview some contestants!" Chris said. "We're gonna start off with the people who've changed the most, because who isn't interested by a dramatic transformation? For our first interviewee, here's a picture of what he looked like two seasons ago." A photo appeared on the TV of feral Ezekiel inside a train, crouching as though ready to spring; his skin was green like a disease, a few straggly clumps of hair drooped from his otherwise-bald head, and heavy bags under his glassy gray eyes made them look all the more savage. People sucked in their breath and drew back in their seats like he were baring his teeth at them directly.

Chris grinned. "Hideous, right? Well, that creature is no more, because Ezekiel has been brought back to normal! Come on out, homeschool!"

Ezekiel stood up from the second couch on the old contestants' side, and the audience burst into a wild round of applause. Although his skin was back to a healthy shade, his cheekbones still jutted outward, and newly grown-in hair peeked out from under his toque. He jumped off the side and clomped to the center in his hiking boots, sitting as far away from Chris as possible without being on the couch arm. His eyes took in the host with intense bitterness, but they lacked their predatory gleam from the photo.

Chris appeared unfazed by his glare. "So, feeling better, Zeke?"

"I don't know, eh," Ezekiel said bluntly. "It's not like I was aware of how I felt when I was an animal."

The host blinked a few times. "Oh, er, right. Uh, how did you get cured, anyways?"

"Wouldn't you know? Your show paid for my treatment because the fans were upset about what happened to me."

"Huh?" Chris put a hand over his ear, and comprehension dawned on his features a moment later. "Oh, yeah. You're welcome."

Ezekiel's eyes flared bright. "I'm not! You threw me out of the plane unfairly in World Tour and completely ignored me after, except when you used me for your dumb challenges! What kind of heartless monster are you, eh?"

Chris made his eyes as small as the side of a coin. "I wouldn't be talking if I were you. You were the monster before, not me."

Something went off in Ezekiel's gaze- like a flick of a switch. He let out an inhuman scream and lunged at Chris with clawed hands, knocking him over. "OOF!" Chris put out his hands, trying to keep Ezekiel from scratching his face; the boy swiped at him ferociously as though out for his blood. Spectators from both the stage and the audience sat petrified, watching as they would a thriller film. A dark-skinned man with more height and muscles than almost any human being ran out onto the stage in an apron and a chef hat and pulled Ezekiel off of Chris; slinging the flailing boy over his shoulder, he left as quickly as he had come.

"Thanks, Chef!" Chris called to his back, sitting up and dusting himself off. He patted down his hair before looking at the audience once more. "Remind me to never interview him again. I almost died there. But let's try someone who's a bit more tame, shall we? Please welcome Staci, everyone!"

Scattered clapping came as Staci stood up, then it stopped. Although she had the same brown bangs, dark blue eyes, and upturned nose as the girl on the screen, comparing them was like comparing the "before" and "after" pictures in a weight loss ad. While her photographed self looked ready to burst out of her neon pink jacket and purple capris, the girl on the stage could only be described as "chubby" at most, and even that suited her less than "pear-shaped" did. Her hair was in a ponytail, and she wore a more muted version of her clothes from the picture. She took a step toward Chris and paused, her eyes darting toward the audience as if looking for approval. "Come here, Staci," he said in a bored tone.

She scuttled to him and took a seat nearby. "Hi, Chris! Did you know that interviews were invented by my great great great great grandfather Lewis? Ja, before him, people just kept all their thoughts to themselves."

"Makes sense that someone related to you would invent that," Scott sneered.

The only other red-haired male on the stage, Harold, raised a finger. "Actually, the first interview is believed to have been created by Thomas Edison, who-"

"Zip!" Chris said, miming zipping his mouth. "No interrupting."

"But you just interrupted m-"

"Zip!" Harold pretended to zip up his lips and throw away a key, scowling. "Anyways, Staci. Can you explain your obvious transformation from Season Four? We're all really curious."

"Some more than others," Heather scoffed.

"Well, I hated the way I looked on TV," Staci said timidly, drawing her legs together. "Ja, I've noticed that skinny people who talk a lot are usually more liked than fat people who talk a lot. I guess it's a bias of our society, which is pretty sad."

"Interesting observation," Chris said, "and how true! Though, a skinny person can still be mega-annoying. Take Harold, for example."

A ripple of laughter went through the crowd. "Hey!" Harold yelped.

"But I'm looking to know how you not only lost weight, but developed a sense of fashion," Chris said.

"Oh, that's easy. I mean, the process was hard, but my cousin Annie took me under her wing."

"You mean, you had a real relative help you?"

Staci's face morphed to show defensiveness. "All of my relatives are real! I have a chart of my family tree that dates back to centuries!" She pulled out a sheet of paper from her pocket and unfolded it to be as large as a newspaper, holding it out to Chris.

Grimacing at the situation, he took the paper and looked it over. His grimace grew deeper. "Staci? This is just a chart with cut-out faces and names written underneath them."

Her face glowed red. "It's the truth!"

Chris showed her chart to the audience; on it, thick, crooked lines went from picture to picture like an elementary school project. "Does this look real to you guys?"

Murmurs ran through the crowd, many shaking their heads. "NO!" a kid shouted from the back.

Staci snatched the paper out of his hands, tears glimmering in her eyes. She fled from the couch and disappeared behind the right-side curtain. "Excuse me," Dawn said, standing up from the first couch to Chris's right. She hurried to where Staci had left.

Chris huffed. "This is what I get for interviewing the first loser from each cast. But anyway, before we interview our next contestant, I'll announce the next two people in this season's cast. And they are... Leshawna and Harold!"

Leshawna rose up and planted her hands on her hips. "I see what you're trying to do, Chris, and it ain't gonna work. Harold and I are not a thing."

Chris put a hand to his chest. "Why, I was doing no such thing! No need to be so accusational."

Harold jumped up beside her. "Well, I'm not the worst male here you could be paired up with, right?" She elbowed him in the stomach. "Oof!" They went to the other side, Harold holding his gut.

"Our next interviewee shouldn't be a problem like the first two, because he was the runner-up in Season Three!" Chris said. "Please welcome our favorite Hispanic gentleman, Alejandro!"

The crowd stood up and made noise that could shatter one's eardrums. On the third couch to Chris's left, a boy with bandages all over his face and hands stood up, drastically different from the golden-skinned male on the screen. His past self wore black heeled boots and a maroon button-down opened partway to show his rippling chest muscles, but in the present, he wore a maroon turtleneck and black sneakers that matched his pants. His hair was the polar opposite of before, scruffy and barely covering his head. For a split second, anger sparked in his sage green eyes and darkened them, but a smooth smile replaced it before people could notice. He made his way down to stage level and strode to the center, seating himself next to Chris. His gaze went to the audience with the same smile. "You'll have to excuse my semi-mummified state." They laughed, breaking the tension that had hung in the air before, and Heather lowered her eyes from him.

On the first couch, Katie leaned over to Sadie and whispered in her ear, "Oh my gosh, isn't it so sad what happened to him?"

Sadie jerked her head up and down. "So sad! And it totally made him not handsome anymore!"

"That's, like, one of the worst parts!"

"The worst!"

Jo let out a grumbling sigh nearby, putting her face in her hand. "Kill me now." Brick patted her back.

Chris slung one arm around Alejandro's shoulders, causing his face to twitch almost imperceptibly. "Alejandro here has been staying at Camp Wawanakwa ever since the lava incident occurred, getting professional treatment that has been paid for by his parents. The doctors have been calling him a 'miracle case' because no man should've been able to survive what he did, let alone heal as well as he has been. In fact, how did you grow back your eyebrows so fast?"

"Truth?" Alejandro smoothed his eyebrows. "These are fake."

"That would make sense. Wonder why I didn't know that."

"Well, it's pleasing to know they look real."

Chris's grin sprouted a wicked edge. "Since you seem to be in a confessing mood, why don't we try a game of Truth or Statue? All you have to do is answer the truth to questions that I ask you."

The contestants' eyes went wide. "I'm sorry, but are you actually going to try to hurt him even more?" Courtney thrust out an arm toward Alejandro. "Look at him! He's already messed-up as it is!"

"I dislike Alejandro as much as the next guy, but this is way over the top!" DJ said, waving his arms out.

Alejandro looked thoughtfully at the statue of Chris dangling above him. "Might as well test my reflexes. I'll give it an attempt."

Courtney and many others gasped. "You've got serious guts, dude," Chris chuckled. "I even gave you the choice to cop out! But since you want to do it, we might as well get started with the fun. So, your first question is simple. You escaped from the lava very quickly, but you passed out soon after. How did you feel after you gained consciousness?"

Alejandro was pure composure, in a way that seemed too perfect to be natural. "I felt like I was still burning alive. The pain was beyond what I can describe, even what I could imagine before it happened." He closed his eyes, wrinkles forming around them. "I just- couldn't move. I couldn't think, either, except of how much I hurt." Faces throughout the auditorium softened, and Heather squinted fiercely at her nails.

"Ouch. Sounds very honest to me," Chris said. "How do you feel about Heather indirectly causing what happened to you?"

Another flash of anger streaked Alejandro's expression, but all eyes instead shot to Heather, who froze for a moment. She gave Chris a threatening look on par with a tiger's. "You are not bringing me into this."

He chuckled. "Oh, I am. Alejandro?"

"You seem to have forgotten that all of my fellow cast members played a part," Alejandro said. "I have forgiven them, of course. We were in a dire situation, and an accident was bound to happen."

"But what about Heather specifically?"

Heather clenched her hands as though she were imagining choking Chris; Alejandro's right eye ticked at the mention of her name. "I regret letting my feelings for her get in the way of winning. Those feelings are well-gone now."

Chris pouted. "Fine. Since you won't say any more, we'll move on. You haven't seen your family since Total Drama World Tour, correct?"

Whispers rang out among the audience. Alejandro gripped the couch tighter with both hands. "Yes."

"Is it because of José?"

"No!" Alejandro shouted. The statue was cut from its rope and fell toward him, but he sprung out of the couch a second before it landed. Its feet sank inside the couch before the whole statue tilted onto its side.

"Whoa ho ho, close!" Chris said. "Nice dodge there! You can head back to your seat now." Alejandro shot him one last look of hatred before marching back to the old contestants' side. Justin edged away from him as he sat on the end of the third couch. "The individual interviews are done! There are still more paired interviews to come, but before then, we'll entertain you all with something that was missing from last season. Hint: it consists of a lot of painful, but very hilarious fails. It's..."

He opened his arms to the audience, and it yelled, "THAT'S GONNA LEAVE A MARK!"

"You got it!" Chris pointed up to the screen, which switched to the first clip.

Cameron jogged on a path through the woods, sweat shining on his face. He did not notice a twig approaching him, and his right foot got hooked under it, causing him to fly into the ground face-first and make his glasses skid off.

B faced Scott's back at a distance on icy ground. He threw the snowball in his hand, and it smashed into Scott's head. The redhead whirled around and opened his mouth, but faltered as a cloud of wasps arose from the snow. He ran away, screaming with bits of snow falling from his hair.

Anne Maria applied hairspray to her poof in front of a vanity. An airhorn blew outside the cabin, and her arm jerked downward, causing her to spray both eyes. She screeched and covered them both, mascara running down her cheeks.

Izzy, dressed in a spider costume, jumped in darkness from tree to tree with Zoey over her shoulder. She leaped too high toward another tree and slammed into its trunk, dropping Zoey into a nearby bush.

On a speedboat in the middle of the lake, Jo and Lightning pummeled Vito as he lay in a defensive position on the floor. Lightning held him down, and Jo stretched out her fingers and produced a series of cracks before hooking him in the jaw.

Scott was floating on his back near the dock when Fang rose out of the surface in front of him. The redhead's eyes rounded out, and he flipped over and swam desperately toward the dock, splashing water all around him; however, Fang engulfed him before he could reach it.

Backstage and surrounded by racks of clothes, Dawn walked out from between two of them with a pair of heels. She slipped on a dress and fell forward, releasing the heels into a box nearby.

Dakota walked inside in the main lodge while Sam was mopping, and she slipped on a puddle and fell back out the door with a crash. Sam's eyes bugged out of his face, and he dropped his mop and raced toward her.

Brick and Jo were racing up different trees when a mutant furless squirrel fell onto Brick's head. He screamed and lost his grip, skidding down the trunk on his crotch. Jo watched him go down, cringing when she heard a hard thud, scuffling noises, and various ZZT! sounds of the squirrel shooting lasers from its eyes.

By the time the segment was done, the Chris statue had been rehung, and most of the new cast looked thoroughly humiliated as Chris, the old cast, and the audience laughed at them. Mike rubbed his jaw thoughtfully as though trying to remember the pain he had suffered there. Brick held a grimace on his face, and Jo patted his back, though her lips were trembling.

Lightning was holding his stomach and guffawing. "Scott got in twice! Twice!" His voice was shrill and breathy before he descended back into laughter.

Scott grit his teeth. "It's not that funny, dork."

"Don't sweat it, guys!" Owen called out. "It's part of your initiation here."

Noah, the polar opposite of Owen in girth (and just about everything else, really), stared at him. "Did you use a fairly advanced word just now?"

"You betcha!"

"Jussst checking."

Chris let out his last few cackles, wiping a tear from his eye. "Phew! That cracked me up. Anywho, it's time to say the next two contestants for this season. They are both girls, and they're... Eva and Izzy!"

Eva, a girl with a unibrow and bodybuilder muscles, scoffed and threw her arms into the air. "Finally!"

The girl with curly, fiery hair leaped to her feet. "Whoo hoo! Magnífico! Izzy gets to take the stage again!" She hooked one arm under Eva's right, holding her other arm outward. "I'm picturing it now: Eva and Izzy, taking to the finale!"

"Whatever," Eva said, unhooking her arm and climbing down. She walked to the other side as Izzy skipped. The latter reached the couches first and sat at the top, and Eva sat at the couch underneath her, but then, Izzy leaped down next to her. Eva sighed and rested her chin in her hands.

"Next, we're gonna refresh your memory with some status updates on friends and couples!" Chris said. "I'll be addressing each pair one at a time, and they'll fill us in on all the deets."

"Says who?" Jo snapped.

"Says me. And thanks for volunteering to go first, Jo!"

Her eyes slid almost shut. "Drop dead, McLean."

He put his hands on his heart. "Oh, my heart. Owie." Jo rolled her eyes as the audience chuckled, then she slapped Brick when he joined in. "Jo and Brick, you two left last season on a very interesting note. You kissed, but you chose to wait on a relationship for a while. Most friends who kiss usually become a couple, rather than risk things becoming awkward between them. How is that working out for you?"

Jo and Brick glanced at each other, as if talking silently; Jo faced Chris first. "Like I said last season, I'm not ready for a relationship. Brick understands that, and he has put whatever he feels for me aside, precisely so we aren't awkward with each other."

A spark entered Chris's gaze. "Hm... You say you're not ready for a relationship, but are you at least interested in one?"

She gawked at him. "What kind of question is that?"

"Uh, even if she was interested, the final fact is that we're both not ready," Brick said. "End of story."

"Say, Brick, I just remembered- didn't you say you were gonna use the million dollars to enroll in fashion school?" Chris said.

Brick straightened in his seat. "Yup! It was hard saying goodbye to my fellow cadets, but I'm glad I switched. I don't think I'm meant to be a soldier like my dad was, though I still talk like a cadet, heh. Habits die hard, y'know?"

"Definitely, bro. You guys are off the hook now. It's on to Dawn and Cameron!"

"Dawn still isn't back yet, though," Cameron said.

"What? When did she even leave?"

"A while ago, after Staci left," Zoey said.

"Crud. Way to mess with my plans." Chris cupped his hand over his right ear and spoke into his intercom. "Mind finding two stray female contestants for me? Thanks." He dropped his hand. "Well, I suppose that leaves you to be questioned, Cameron. At the end of last season, you said you would accompany Dawn to the animal hospital of the organization that got me arrested... ahem. How was it?"

"It was great!" Cameron said. "I got to receive a hands-on learning experience about a subject I love. My work was much appreciated there. I already want to be a lepidopterist, but I really appreciate zoology in general, and I feel like I know about it in greater depth now."

"Great. I guess. What about Dawn?"

Cameron stared at him, blinking. "What about her?"

"How do you feel about her?" he said in a "duh" voice; the word might as well have been attached to the end.

He lifted his eyebrows politely, still staring at him. "I don't feel 'that way' about her, if that's what you're thinking."

Chris raised his hands and slapped them back on his lap. "That's all I needed to know. You're done." He covered his ear intercom. "Did you find them, or what?" A few seconds later, he huffed. "Yeah, right. Does Dawn know how to turn invisible, too?"

"After everythin' I've seen her do, I wouldn't put that past her," Anne Maria said.

Chris let out a resigned sigh. "We might as well just continue to the first actual couple, Gwen and Duncan. How are you guys?"

Duncan smirked. "We're pretty solid, if I do say so myself." Courtney kept a stoic face as he spoke, though it seemed more forced than the rest of the cast's.

"Yeah, we're doing fine," Gwen said, her eyes briefly flicking sideways.

"What about Geoff and Bridgette?" Chris said.

The two blondes were sitting on separate couches. Discomfort settled over the old contestants as they looked between Geoff and Bridgette, who looked even more uncomfortable. Geoff cleared his throat with a cough. "Uh, well, you see, Chris... we broke up. Recently."

A collective gasp arose from the audience. Chris scrunched his eyebrows. "What? Why?"

Geoff made jerky motions with his hands as though trying to figure it out himself. "Things just weren't working out, and we- we couldn't deal with each other anymore. Like, we realized there was this pattern where one of us would drift towards someone else, we'd fight over it, and then we'd make out and forget the incident ever happened. There were a whole bunch of incidents piling up between the both of us, y'know? It just wasn't right."

"We started to feel like strangers to each other," Bridgette said. "Whatever we used to have between us dissolved, and... it just wasn't the same."

"I'm sorry to hear that," Chris murmured. "Your make-out sessions were a real ratings booster."

Bridgette arched one eyebrow. "Excuse me?"

"Er, nothing. Are you still friends?"

"We don't really know right now," Geoff said, fiddling with his hat, his eyes like troubled waters. "I don't know what we are, actually."

A veil of tension sat over Bridgette's face. "Before you ask, Chris, I don't know either."

"Maybe you can figure that out soon, because guess what?" Chris held out his arms toward them. "You're both going into this season as contestants!"

Geoff's and Bridgette's eyes flashed white as they looked at each other, neither attempting to hide their horror. "On the same team?" Geoff squeaked.

"You betcha."

Bridgette stood up, shaking from head to toe. "You've crossed the line, McLean. I've tolerated so many of your antics, but this, this is too far."

Geoff rose, meeting Bridgette's eyes from two couches up. "It's okay, Bridge. We'll handle this the best we can. Just breathe, relax."

She broke eye contact and shook her head rapidly at the ground, her eyebrows pinched. "Don't call me Bridge." She kept her head down as she stepped off her platform and headed toward the new contestants' side, and Geoff soon trailed behind her.

On the highest couch of the other side, a girl with purple hair in a ponytail and more height than any other girl in the cast typed away at a laptop. "How did I not know this? There's no way, unless they literally broke up in the last twelve hours! Gidgette fans will be heartbroken!"

"Let's go to Izzy and Owen now, shall we?" Chris said. "You two left your relationship on quite an ambiguous note in Total Drama World Tour. Have you rekindled it since then, or are you still split up after Brainzilla?"

Izzy and Owen gazed at each other across the stage, but the former quickly broke her gaze and ducked her head. Owen sucked in his lower lip. "I wish I could say we have rekindled our relationship, but Izzy's been distant from me for so long... and she won't tell me why."

Chris looked at the redhead with a wrinkled forehead. "Care to explain, Izzy?"

She brought her head up and laughed out a bubbly brook. "I don't need to explain anything, though! I'd never avoid Big-O! He's just adapting to his new friend status, that's all. The only way I could become distant from him is if he issued a restraining order on me like other people I've known, but even then, I'd still find him." She lowered her voice to a haunting pitch, her eyes becoming moony. "Stalking is like, my regular full-time job, it's so fun."

The host looked thoroughly creeped-out. "Uh... huh. Seems like a lot of old couples are breaking up, eh?" He turned to the Revenge cast. "What about our latest couples? Sam and Dakota?"

"We're doing good!" Sam said, a rotund individual with square glasses and a crop of curly hair. "We have our differences, but we respect and appreciate them. The only person who could mess with that balance is me, heheh."

"Oh, don't say that," a girl with lemon-blonde hair and striking green eyes said beside him. She poked his cheek, and Sam smiled around her finger.

"Mike, Zoey- what about you guys?" Chris said.

"Good," said Zoey, a crimson-haired girl who wore a flower pin; a smile rested on her lips, but not in her eyes.

The boy next to her, spiky-haired and warm in skin tone, released a sigh like the wind. "I know it's hard for her to deal with all of my personalities, but she's amazing with them. There's been more trouble with me lately, but nothing she and I can't handle, I hope." His eyes flickered brightly. "But please, Chris, don't make me participate this season. I'm struggling with something that my therapists still really need to work out."

"What, your Multiple Personality Disorder?" Chris scoffed. "You had it worked out last season- in a social sense, anyway."

"No, you haven't seen the worst of it! We're a mons-" His voice suddenly went as dry as a desert, and he clutched his throat. Redness started to climb up his cheeks. "He- I can't-"

Zoey threw her arms around him and moved her mouth quickly near his ear. "Mike, listen to me. Breathe. Stay with me, listen to my voice. You're right here. Please, Mike." Everyone watched, many tensing to move.

Mike jerked away from her, a wild look in his eyes. "What the hell are you doing? Get away from me!" He scrambled out of the couch and streaked behind the curtain within a moment, leaving breathless silence. Zoey dropped her face into her hands.

Chris blinked repeatedly where Mike had left. "Okay, we really should've secured the exits. At least there's only one last thing to do. Three spots are left in Season Five. The first two remaining participants are... DJ and Katie!"

A deeply tanned girl with pigtails shot up like she saw a ghost. "What? No! Never! I CAN'T be separated from Sadie!"

The girl next to her, much rounder and paler, stood up; she and Katie clung to each other. "And I CAN'T be separated from Katie!"

Chris grinned mercilessly. "Too bad, girls! Katie is much more popular with the fans for some reason, so in she goes."

DJ got up and strode to the other side, glancing behind him at Katie, who hung her head as she plodded along. Chris rose in his seat and put his hands together. "We have one last contestant in this season, and according to our polls and feedback, he's the number one most popular among the cast!"

Noah rolled his eyes. "Let me guess: the Anti-Me?"

"It's you, Noah!"

Noah's features tumbled, as if Chris had just told him the worst news possible. "Excuse me?"

The audience did not lie, however; the applause was like nothing from before. It shook the ceiling and made the walls shudder. It was a full two minutes before it quieted enough for anyone speaking to be heard. "Um, there's something seriously wrong here," Heather said. "How in the world is Egghead more popular than me?"

Chris shrugged. "Truthfully, even we don't know. Probably all the fanfiction going around."

Noah looked like he had swallowed a bug. "Fan... fiction?"

Cody grimaced. "Yeah, I've looked at it, and... don't look at it."

Owen pulled Noah in with one arm. "I'm so proud of ya, buddy! You're already the biggest fan favorite of the season!"

Noah scrunched his eyes and yanked himself from Owen's grip, trudging over to the other side. Owen sat with his arm still hanging, blinking at him. Chris finally got up from the couch, casting a blinding grin at the audience. "Well, that's all, folks! You've already been given a taste of what's to come with our twenty-two contestants this season, but there is much, much more to come. Excited? You better be, because I sure am! Make sure to tune in for our very first episode of Total Drama Fans Versus Favorites! This has been your host, Chris McLean, signing out on Total. Drama. Before-math!" The audience whooped and clapped loudly, Chris being the last thing it saw before the curtains closed.

TEAMS

Fans: Anne Maria, B, Cameron, Dakota, Dawn, Lightning, Mike, Sam, Scott, Staci, Zoey

Favorites: Bridgette, DJ, Eva, Geoff, Harold, Izzy, Katie, Leshawna, Lindsay, Noah, Tyler

A/N: Well, that was a lot of events to take in. You can probably tell that there's going to be quite a bit of plot for Aftermaths in the future. Those will have the same schedule as they did in canon, meaning you can expect one every five episodes. Too much? There's a chance I might space them out more. The lack of focus on the contestants who actually made it into the season wasn't without purpose- they will receive plenty of focus outside of the Aftermaths. Any questions? I'll be happy to answer them.

A small explanation on why I broke up Gidgette, which may or may not create sparks: Geoff and Bridgette have shown hints of trouble in their relationship throughout TD, and although they have resolved the serious issues, the fact still remains that they make out more than they talk seriously. I see their relationship as doomed without the serious discussions that every couple needs, and the one they had in TDA wasn't even shown on-screen. Therefore, they fit perfectly for the role of broken-up couple that I wanted to use in this story, not to mention they have connections with many people who will also be involved in the plot. However, there is more to their break-up than I have let on this chapter. Trust me, there will be more pre-season developments shown in future chapters that led up to the break-up, as well as other pieces to form the full picture of what happened.

As for the update schedule, an important thing you should know is that I am NOT a fast writer by any means. xD Seriously, I'll be lucky to write a thousand words in one day, and that doesn't usually happen, which is why I have pre-written the first four episodes. Actually, the fourth one is still in progress, and this episode is out now, so I technically only have two at the moment. But nonetheless, you can expect the first competition episode to be up on September 5th. I am always either writing or planning out my writing, so always feel free to ask me through PM about my progress on the current episode I'm working on. This especially applies in the possible event that I run out of pre-written updates, though I'm not planning on that to happen. From the first competition episode onward, I will only be updating this story whenever I finish writing a pre-written chapter unless an update takes much longer than I expected, in which case I'll release a chapter ahead of time. The time it takes for me to complete a chapter usually ranges from 2 weeks to about a month, depending on schoolwork. And I am in AP classes, so yes, I do get a lot of schoolwork. School, in fact, will be starting for me on September 3rd, so here's hoping I can find a good schedule to write this.

I will have a post on my profile stating my current progress in this story, which I'll try to update often. I can't guarantee it'll always be up-to-date, however, which is why PM is the most reliable way to find out my progress. I'm making it my priority to keep you guys informed, though, so you're not left in the dark in between updates. And with that, I end this lengthy note with a farewell and the hope that I'll see you around next week. :-)