In a single groaning, cursing, stumbling crowd, the contestants reached the top of the mountain. To say they were tired would be a gross understatement.
Chris sat next to a great tarp-covered object in a green lawn chair, contentedly slurping from a tall glass of soda. He looked at contestants with an angry frown. "It took you guys an hour to walk that hill. What did you do, stop for fries and a milkshake on the way?"
Murderous glares. "Would it. Have killed you. To give us a ride?" A furious Valeria choked out.
"Oh come on! It was just a little walk! Couldn't have been that bad!"
In truth, Chris spared no expense in landscaping the path so it was as torturous as possible. Uneven gravel, thorny bushes, you name it. He even trimmed away the trees to take away any semblance of shade from the grueling trail.
Japanese summers were humid and typically 90 around degrees.
He chuckled a bit at that. "Alright!" he said, tossing his drink over his shoulder and rising out of his chair. "Now, Total Drama tradition dictates that the contestants be separated into two teams! We wanted to spice up the choosing, and so we whipped up this little beauty! Chef?"
The massive black man, now clad in his typical chef fatigues, grunted and gave the tarp a good yank.
The contraption under it consisted of a small platform propped up below what could only be described as a tanks of slurry. The one on the left was filled with deep blue, and the other one was filled with a vibrant red. A large screen was propped up in the middle, right above a pipe that fed from both of the tanks.
A general chorus of disgust from the teens followed. "What the hell is in those tanks?" Ben asked, an expression of pure disgust on his face.
"Nothing you need worry about! In fact, I think it's probably for the best that you don't know."
"Jesus Christ, there are chunks floating around in there!"
"Alright then, Ben, you're first!" Chris said.
The boy stood there for a moment, staring up at the slurry of unmentionables, and sighed. "Oh fine," he said, before walking up below the pipe. "Just get it over with, will you?" The Brit said, closing his eyes.
Chef gave the contraption a solid kick.
A loud gurgling sound came from the pipe, but no slime. Ben tentatively opened an eye, looked up, right as a torrent of crimson slime poured down.
"SHIT! MY EYE!"
"Aaaaand we have it! Ben Blackstone, welcome aboard the Villains!"
"GODDAMNIT I CAN'T BLOODY SEE!" The shrieking boy was ferried off the platform by Chef, who held him a decent distance away. Jolene watched with a small smile on her face.
Chris let himself enjoy a small chuckle. "Next?"
At the end of it all, the Heroes, adorned in blue, featured Hui, Kevin, Miles, Mikhail, June, Sasha, Giuseppe, and finally Valeria. The Victin siblings were actually placed on different teams before Valeria had a good ten-minute screamfest with Chris before finally giving her an additional shower of blue.
The Villains in red consisted of Ben (who's vision came back but was still a good deal blurry), Jolene, Tae, Joshua, Danielle, Ariana, Logan, and Charlie.
The sun was beginning to set before they had finally finished. The slim had began to dry, leaving behind chunks of something fleshy and slightly squishy. No one knew what it was, no one quite wanted to know.
Chris was angry. He wore a permanent scowl and was snippier than usual. "Well, I hope you guys are satisfied with yourselves. Between your slow little stroll up the mountain and the amount of time you all wasted in the team division you've officially used up all of our airtime. So I'm gonna make sure the challenge tomorrow is extra fun. For me."
The host made a short, dismissive gesture. "Cabins are on the beach. Get some sleep. You'll all need it."
Of course, the teens couldn't do anything more. And so they made their slow, trudging way back down to the mountain.
"If there's one advantage to falling down that damn mountain," an exhausted, sweaty, scratched-and-bruised Kevin said as he pushed through the door to the Boys cabin, "You get down quicker."
That earned a couple chuckles from the other guys, causing Kevin to smile. Except for Ben. Who was still trying to blink the blurriness from his sight.
"I have to say," an equally exhausted Tae said as he collapsed on the nearest bunk. "Korea rarely got as warm as it did today."
"Least they put our stuff here," Miles said, unpacking briskly. The boy pulled out a bubble-wrapped object and tore off the wrapping, revealing a prosthetic painted a matte-black. Miles twisted off his red hand with a grunt and popped on the other one, simple as breathing.
The others stared, and decided not to say anything. No more conversation would flow that night, and the boys would drift off into a deep sleep.
Most of the girls followed suit. Nearly all of them were too tired to do anything but fall asleep. Except one.
A window slid open. Ariana quietly crept out, carrying her bow bag with her. She had changed out of her street clothes, instead opting for a tight-fitting getup of muted black pants and jacket.
The night was crisp and cool. The moon was high and bright. She smiled. A perfect night to hunt.
The girl covered distance quickly, moving over fallen logs and boulders with a deer's grace, navigating around bushes and trees gracefully. The forest of Ogiyatsu Island wasn't unlike the one back home in Anchorage, despite the obvious difference in foliage. She assumed the wildlife wasn't that different either.
The huntress vaulted over a log, sprinted through a clearing and scampered up a big tree. And she listened.
She always had good luck. As if on cue, a white-spotted stag with a great pair of horns crept out into the clearing. Ariana recognized it as a Sika Stag.
The distance was near maximum range. She'd only have one shot. Literally. The teen smirked. Easy.
She drew out her gorgeous, five-foot PSE BlackHawk recurve bow, nocked an arrow and brought it drew it to full draw. The cold steel broadhead glinted in the moonlight.
Sighted in the stag's heart. Steady . . .
"Oh! It's so beautiful!"
The bow waved wildly and Ariana just barely stopped herself from loosing the arrow. "Jesus Christ!" she exclaimed angrily, wheeling around. "Didn't your mother give you enough sense to-"
A hand clamped over her mouth. It was Danielle. Feather girl! Ariana thought in surprise.
The girl pointed, pushing at Ariana's head so that she turned around again. "Look!" she whispered.
A deer had joined the stag. She shared his white spots. As did their children, fauns barely bigger than dogs, with quivering ears and wide eyes that Ariana could see even from at distance.
Her bow hung forgotten from her arm. She watched. No deer back home had the grace, the elegance, the sheer raw beauty that the family of Sikas had. Every step was a sweet note, every bound a graceful measure. And when they broke out in a run back to wherever they came from, the subtle music that only those two could hear swelled to a thundering crescendo.
"This island is so beautiful . . ." murmured the girl. "It would be a shame to take away from that beauty by killing an animal like that."
Ariana's mind raced furiously for the girl's name. "You're Danielle, right?"
The girl nodded, and gave her a smile so sweet and pure it almost broke her heart. "I am. And you're Arianna."
The huntress nodded back, returned that honey smile as best as she could. "Call me Ari."
So, what I'm going to do here is I'm gonna do a little showcase, not unlike this one, in which I really spotlight an OC and show them doing what they love, how they interact with people, stuff like that. I figure it's a better way to showcase the OCs than hopping from one line of dialogue to another.
Leave some comments, yo.
