While Heather's recording was playing, Duncan's unconscious body was dragged away. Harold, Courtney and Justin took him outside tied him to a tree with duct tape.
"Huh," Duncan said as he began coming to. He saw Harold, Courtney and Justin standing in front of him. He tried to move but found that his torso was bound. "What the f#^k is going on here?" he asked angrily.
"Heather had her chance to f#&k with you and we're taking ours," Courtney answered. Justin then took the duct taped he had used to bind Duncan and covered his mouth with it so they wouldn't have to deal with further protests from the punk.
"For the record, I have nothing personal against you," Justin said to Duncan by whispering to him. "But I am trying to get lucky with Courtney and helping her and Harold with this will help me in that area. Seeing as how you tossed her and Gwen aside as callously as you did to get more notches on your bedpost, I'm sure you understand."
Duncan glared at Justin while grumbling angrily over the duct tape. With that out of the way, Duncan's captors took their positions. Harold was about fifteen feet across from Duncan while Justin was about seven feet away and Courtney was off to the side with a video camera.
"Where did you even get this idea, Harold?" Courtney asked.
"Japanese television," Harold answered. "April 3rd, 1971: manga creator Shotaro Ishinomori created a show that would forever change the tokusatsu genre….,"
"Spare us the nerdy history lesson, Harold," Justin said. "Let's skip to the part where Duncan's hurting."
"Very well," Harold said, completely understanding the vain male's enthusiasm.
He ran towards Justin who had his hands cupped and lowered while Courtney began filming. Harold stepped into Justin's hands and Justin raised them, sending the lanky nerd flying towards Duncan. Harold stuck his right foot out in a kicking motion and it made contact with Duncan's stomach. Duncan's eyes widened in pain and Harold fell to the ground in front of him.
"Yes!" Harold cried out as he raised his arms. Justin then walked up to Courtney.
"Did you get all that?" he asked the mocha skinned C.I.T..
"Oh yeah," Courtney replied with a malicious grin. This is so going up with the picture of him pissing himself, she thought.
"Justin," Courtney said as she lowered the camera and faced him. "Thanks for helping with this. It meant a lot of to me, even if you only did to further endear yourself to me."
"Uh, no I didn't," Justin incompetently denied.
"Relax, it worked," Courtney reassured him. She then grabbed his hand, pulled him towards her and kissed him. She had decided to give Justin a chance because of the nice things he said earlier along with this. His own attractiveness certainly didn't hurt things either.
The two of them began making out as Harold was laughing from jubilation and Duncan was groaning in pain.
…
Noah and Katie had been making out for several minutes while stopping for the occasional oxygen break. They decided to stop and broke apart.
"Katie," Noah began, "I've been wanting to this with you for a while now. You're so sweet and beautiful and hanging out with you has helped me come out of my shell. I would have told you this earlier but I was afraid you wouldn't feel the same way and I'd lose you as a friend."
"I was in such in a bad place after being separated from Sadie," Katie said. "Getting to know you helped with that. When I found out that you weren't as anti-social as you were when I first met you in season 1, I thought about being more than friends with you but I didn't think you'd be interested in me since I'm not nearly as brainy as you. I've never been happier to be proven wrong."
"Me too," Noah said. They looked into each other's eyes longingly for a while and then started making out again.
…
Heather had retreated to her room and opened a wine cooler she had grabbed earlier. "A toast," she said as she held her drink out. "To me: I've still got it."
She drank her wine cooler and enjoyed it immensely. Her enjoyment was interrupted by a knock on her door. "Open up Heather," Gwen said. "There are a few things I want to talk to you about. If you don't open by the count of five, I'm knocking the door down. One. Two."
Gwen stopped her counting when Heather opened the door. Upon doing so, she saw that Cody was there as well. The two of them entered Heather's room and closed the door behind them.
"What do you want to know, Gwen?" Heather asked.
"I know what you've been up to," Gwen said. "I know you aggravated Cody into saying his feelings for me in front of you while you were recording him. I know you gave him a stun gun in the hopes he'd turn it on Duncan. I know you did all this to help him get with me. The only thing I don't know is why?"
"It's quite simple Gwen," Heather began. "I've felt really bad about arranging Cody's defeat in the final challenge of last season. This was all my way of making it up to him."
Gwen paused for a moment as she processed Heather's response. There was once a time where she would have assumed that Heather was lying because she was simply incapable of telling the truth when it didn't suit her. But that time had passed and she was going to give Heather the benefit of the doubt.
"That was super nice of you," Gwen said.
"There's one thing I still don't understand though," Cody said. "Since your goal was to help me get together with Gwen, it seems you made things harder for yourself than you had to by keeping it a secret from me. What was with all the subterfuge?"
"It amused me," Heather said with a mischievous smile.
Considering the results of her actions, Gwen was having trouble being angry with Heather for arranging things the way she did. Besides, general mischief was a step down from the Machiavellian planning she used to do. Cody thanked Heather for what she'd done then he and Gwen said goodbye and left Heather's room.
"Please don't be mad at Heather," Cody said as she and Gwen walked away. "I know there are tons of ways she could have gone about this much better than she did, but her heart was in the right place."
"I'm not mad at Heather," Gwen said. "She thought she was doing the right thing. Which means she put some thought into what the right thing was, which is a huge step compared to when I first met her."
"Glad to hear it," Cody said. "One other thing: if you were expecting me to apologize to Duncan for tasing him, you're going to be disappointed."
"I wasn't expecting that, so don't worry," Gwen said. The two of them chuckled for a bit at how little they cared for Duncan.
Gwen held Cody's hand and he returned her grip. This is everything I thought it would be and more, Cody thought.
….
Author's notes: what Harold did to Duncan is called a Rider Kick. It's the finishing move of superheroes from the Kamen Rider franchise in Japan.