Disclaimer: I do not own anything of the Total Drama franchise.
Staci's Chance
The Mutant Maggots watched as the Toxic Rats rode their log down the hill faster than them.
"Hey, how did they get ahead of us?" Jo snapped in anger.
Down at the finish line, Chris relaxed as he waited for the newbies to complete their first challenge. "Good ol' Camp Wawanakwa!" Suddenly his rest was disturbed by Owen, who had apparently jumped off the boat to talk to him.
Owen ran up to him. "Hey Chris, our boat didn't stop at the island! It went right past it!"
Poor Owen, not getting the message. "Sorry about that Owen but sad to say, you and your buds aren't competing this year." He said with his cheerful tone.
"What?!" Owen really wanted to compete.
"Yeah, we got a new group to replace you and the old-timers. Now leave, you're interrupting my moment of silence before the new victims show up." Chris pressed a button on a remote.
*Boom!*
"Aaaahh!" The ground beneath Owen exploded, sending him flying into the sky.
Chris laughed in amusement only to be cut off by more screaming, this time from multiple voices. Looking over to the hill, he saw the Toxic Rats riding their totem pole down the slope.
The totem pole flew off the ledge that was at the bottom of the slope and landed right next to Chris.
Lightning pumped in victory. "Yeah, Team Lightning sha-wins!"
"Not yet!" Chris added to ruin the athlete's fun.
Then the Rats turned their attention to the detonator on their totem. "Toxic Rats call the good cabin!" Scott shouted as his team got off their totem and carried it over to the worse-looking cabin. Their detonator didn't go off and the team cheered in their victory over the Mutant Maggots. Their victory halted when they heard the Maggots. They saw the Maggots fly down the slope and fall off as their totem soared through the air and crashed into the better cabin. The detonator went off and the totem exploded, taking the cabin with it.
The rats groaned in disappointment of the loss of their cabin.
Chris chuckled in pleasure. "Don't worry, it'll be replaced but the new cabin won't compare." Chef used a helicopter to lower a cabin that looked the same as the Maggots' cabin onto the scene. Again the Rats groaned in disappointment. "Anyway, the Rats have to vote someone off because the Maggots win!" The Maggots cheered as well as they could while they were still recovering from their harsh landing.
Staci would've attempted to lighten the mood but another member of her team had something else to say.
"What? No fair! We got sha-here first!" Lightning argued. Then he turned on Dakota. "This is all sha-your fault! We could've sha-won if you knew how to saw right! You ought to be eliminated, Sha-stupid!"
Sam frowned. "Hey, lay off dude! We didn't lose because of her. We lost because the bomb didn't detonate." He pointed to the bomb still tied to their totem. "The people who put this together obviously didn't do something right." Sam explained. B, Dawn, Dakota, and Staci nodded in agreement.
Ligtning scoffed. "Yeah right, sha-blame somebody else to save her stupid butt. That's not going to change that she's sha-gone." While the rest of the team had their attention focused on Lightning, Scott had a devious smile on his face.
^Confessional^
Scott was intrigued. "Interesting, it could either be Princess or Lightblame going home tonight. If we eliminate Princess then we lose daddy's girl weight and if we eliminate Lightblame, then we'll lose more challenges and more people on this team will go home faster. This is the easiest game strategy anybody could have ever thought of." A sinister idea had formed. The schemer had his scheme in mind.
^The cabins^
"Tonight, it'll be sha-proven. You'll see; I'm going to unpack." Lightning went to go grab his stuff from where Chef had dropped it off.
Then Scott made his first move of game play. He stood in front of the Rats before any of them could go off to do their own thing. "Alright, clearly someone's got a big ego. We have to deflate that ego before he has the chance to make it any bigger. Which is why I'm deciding to vote him off. Anyone with me?"
Dakota was the first to give her own opinion. "I am not letting my fame end this quickly. Count me in."
The opinions of the others quickly made themselves known. In addition, Staci again attempted to lighten the mood. "Yeah, my great-great-great-great grandma Lulu invented blame; before her, nobody had responsibility for bad situations." This earned eye rolls from B, Dawn, Sam, Dakota, and Scott.
^Elimination Ceremony^
The seven Rats sat on the stumps at the campfire pit. Chris arrived on the scene moments after they did.
"Welcome to your first elimination ceremony, Rats! Now in the spirit of the original show site, we'll be giving marshmallows out to the safe contestants. The loser will, however, get a special marshallow: The Toxic Marshmallow of Loserdom." As an example, Chef showed off the glowing marshmallow. Even though everyone had made their vote, they were still concerned for their first ceremony. "Let's begin, safe players are B,"
The silent teen caught his marshmallow.
"Sam,"
Sam didn't notice he was safe until his marshmallow landed right on his gaming pad.
"Dawn, Scott,"
Both happily took their marshmallows.
"Staci,"
Staci smiled as she caught her first marshmallow of safety.
"And the last marshmallow goes to,"
Dakota bit her lower lip in nervousness as Lightning relaxed in content. The more the suspense built, the more nervous Dakota got and the more assured Lightning felt.
"The last marshmallow goes to Dakota."
Lightning quickly blanked. "What?" He watched as the marshmallow flew by him over to Dakota, who sighed in relief as she grabbed it. "No sha-way! She was supposed to go, not Lightning!"
Chris only smiled. "Well then take it as a surprise. Surprise!" He threw his arms up as if he was actually surprising Lightning.
"You know, my great-great-great uncle Joshua invented surprises." Staci stated. "Before him, nothing was a surprise and everybody already knew about everything." B and Scott shook their heads in annoyance.
"By the way Lightning, heads up!" The host declared as Chef tossed the radiated marshmallow at the athletic over-achiever.
Lightning ducked. "Yeow!" He yelped as the marshmallow flew over his head. "No, Lightning can't be out first. Lightning was supposed to go to the finale!" Before he could make a getaway, Lightning was picked up by Chef and carried down to the dock.
Down at the dock, Lightning was tossed into a catapult. "What? What the sha-heck is this thing?" He asked as he observed the contraption.
"Like it? Say hello to this season's exit: the Hurl of Shame!" Chris announced.
"What! Get Lightning off of this thing!" Lightning cried out as he hastily tried to get off the machine. Chris pulled down a lever and the catapult flung. "Whoooooooa!"
Gladly listening to the sound of Lightning's scream fade, Chris did his outro. "There's the first challenge and elimination of our fourth season. Can the Toxic Rats make a comeback and send the Maggots to elimination just as quickly as they did to them today? How long can the Toxic Rats stand Staci's rambling? And what kind of insane creatures will the cast encounter next? Find out on next time's episode of Total. Drama. Revenge of the Island!" After that, Chris and Chef retired for the night.
^The cabins^
Brick held the door open for his fellow male Maggots. "Better get to sleep fast, men! We have to be ready to react to tomorrow's challenge." Mike and Cameron thanked him warmly for holding the door open as they retreated inside to sleep.
On the other side of the cabin, Jo had another approach. "You two stay out of my way and there shouldn't be any problems." The exchange had Anne Maria and Zoey dread their night.
At the Rats' cabin, the guys were quick to separate. "I'm tired, night boys." Scott yawned as he entered. B and Sam waved good night to each other before they covered up and fell asleep.
Meanwhile, Staci was getting ready for bed when she heard some voices outside.
"Man, Lightning was annoying. I'm glad Staci wasn't as annoying otherwise I would've voted her off instead."
Staci gasped at that sentence. She peeked out the window as discreetly as she could. Outside, she saw Dakota and Dawn. "I could really do without the stories of her family. As if they did any of that." She heard Dakota say.
Dawn nodded in understanding. "I know Dakota but I got a chance to examine her aura. She genuinely believes those are her family's accomplishments; it's not her fault. Her family hasn't done anything of major importance through time and her family wanted her to think they did do something significant so her esteem would be high enough to get her through childhood. We can't let what her family did impact our judgment of her; the real her." Dawn reasoned.
The blonde in pink blinked in confusion before shaking it off. "Whatever, you lost me at 'aura'. Look, she can talk as much as she wants about her family just not when I'm around."
"Dakota, please understand, we can't work around this. We have to face the problem head on. If she stays long enough, we can bond with her and find out the truth of her lies." Dawn pleaded as Dakota approached the front of the cabin. To avoid being seen, Staci moved away from the window.
Dakota rolled her eyes. "Yeah, you do that 'bonding' thing and I'll do the easy thing and vote." Even though she failed to convince Dakota, Dawn followed her to the cabin and the girls entered where they found Staci in on the bottom bunk of the third available set of bunks. Ignoring her, Dakota tucked in and put on her sleeping mask, falling asleep.
'I'll change, I'll be quiet enough that Dakota will like me.' Staci thought in her sleep.
Dawn settled on her own bunk. "We just have to give her a chance. A chance is all she needs." Dawn whispered to no one as she went into a meditational sleeping form.