The theme song plays, the same that has played since the very first season. The logo is displayed amidst the stars in the night sky. The image is interrupted by LoLo in a spacesuit, who is floating away slowly and flailing wildly with her arms, looking panicked. Scott and Leo, also in spacesuits, but with their safety ropes still in place and attached to the spaceship, are swimming through the zero-gravity air as they desperately try to catch her.
The camera follows the safety rope to a window in the ship. It shows a room where Hanzo and Ruby are both doing meditative exercises, only to be interrupted by Marty chasing Fabrizio through the room. The camera follows the chase which leads the pair into the mess hall, where Scarlett and Jamie are flinging spoonfuls of mushy food at Lily, Luna and Emma. Jericho uses a lunch tray to protect the girls from the projectiles, and then pulls out two little dolls of Scarlett and Jamie out of his pocket along with several pins. Jamie throws another handful of food but it misses its target and flies through an open door into a kitchen, where Johnny and Chef are cooking. Johnny sees the food and ducks but it hits Chef right in the face.
Johnny runs away from the angry chef, who has picked up his cleaver, and goes through a back door into a practise battle room where Emily is kicking robots in the head. On the bench on the side of the room, Henry cheers her on with a book in his hand.
Then the camera shows all of the contestants sitting on fake tree stumps in an air lock, with Chris holding a judge's gavel at a podium in the middle. Chef is still looking really angry in the background, polishing his cleaver with a rag. Emma smiles at Jericho and takes his hand. Ruby tries to hug Hanzo, who promptly vanishes in a puff of air. Marty tries to put his hand on Ruby's shoulder comfortingly, but she jumps over to another chair beside Lily and Luna, and they all laugh together. Emily punches Johnny in the arm, and he gets pushed backward right into Henry. Fabrizio is in a strait jacket and tries to help Henry out by picking up the book he dropped with his mouth.
Jamie taps Marty on the shoulder and leans in to kiss him, but before their lips touch Scarlett taps Marty on the shoulder. When he turns around she dumps a bowl of green Jell-O on his head. Then Jamie and Scarlett fall over laughing together. Leo, Scott and LoLo all howl. The screen fades to black.
At the beginning of the second episode, all the campers are sleeping in their bunk beds. In the girls' cabin, Emma and Lily and Luna are sharing one bed, with Emma on the top bunk, Ruby and LoLo are sharing a bed with Ruby on the top bunk, Scarlett and Jamie are sharing a bunk bed on the other side of the room from all the other girls, with Jamie on the top bunk, and Emily is sharing a bed with Fabrizio with Emily on the top bed. Fabrizio is sleeping in the girls' room because Marty refused to share a room with a gay person.
In the boys' cabin, Scott and Leo are sharing a bunk bed with Leo on the top bed; Johnny and Hanzo are sharing a bunk bed with Hanzo on the top bed, and Marty is sleeping alone in his bed. He chose the top bunk anyway.
In the VIP cabin, Henry and Jericho have their own king-sized beds on opposite ends of the room. Henry's bed is covered in books. Almost everything in his suitcase was a book, except for a few pieces of clothing and his toothbrush. Jericho is snoring loudly.
Chris wakes the campers up with an announcement that they can hear through speakers on the roof of each cabin. First a trumpet sounds although the person who plays the instrument doesn't seem to know what he or she is doing, because it sounds awful. "Rise and shine, campers!" Chris shouts cheerfully even though it's only about 5 a.m. "It's the first elimination challenge today, so hurry to the mess hall to get some breakfast or you might be too late!"
Grumbling, the campers all get up and get ready for the day. The way the spaceship is built, the cabins are on the right side of the ship, the mess hall is in the middle, and on the left side of the ship there is an observation deck and a simulation room where robots can be programmed for training exercises or holograms can appear to make any sort of situation appear, from an old western town to a futuristic city. Chris and Chef's rooms are in front of the mess hall near the bridge or control room of the ship. The interns live inside the vents of the ship.
Chef is his usual grumpy self as he squeezes tubes of astronaut food onto the campers' plates as each one approaches the window. "Wow Chef, you didn't even make this food yourself!" Johnny says as he looks down at the food on his plate. "Do you need help cooking? Is that why you're giving us pre-made food?"
Chef growls threateningly, and Johnny jumps back a little bit. "I do not need help, ya ungrateful maggot! I'm giving you runts food to match the theme of the whole show!"
Johnny puts up his hands placatingly. "I didn't mean to offend you, Chef, I just want to help you out in the kitchen! I love to cook!"
Chef doesn't look pleased. He continues on with his task of serving the campers, turning to squeeze a tube of "breakfast medley" into Scarlett's plate. Jamie's right behind her. They laugh. "If you want to hang out with Chef, you're probably crazier than the guy in the strait jacket," Scarlett says. The two girls go to sit together at one of the tables. Johnny scowls at them, but doesn't respond. He goes to take a seat in between Emily and Henry, who've already been served.
Just as all the campers sit down at the tables and begin to think about eating their gross, mushy food, Chris bursts into the room excitedly. "Who's ready for a challenge?" He shouts, and the only people who respond are LoLo and Scott, who cheer excitedly. Everyone else looks either scared, nervous or bored. "Wow, it's great to have so many enthusiastic campers!" A few people glance around, trying to figure out if he's being sarcastic or not. "Let me explain to you how the today's challenge is going to go while you eat the delicious meal Chef lovingly prepared for each and every one of you." A few people snort at that, but an angry grumble from Chef shuts them up and causes everyone to nod their heads in agreement with Chris's statement. "Now, you may or may not have had time to explore the ship up to this point. If you have done some exploring, I'm sure you've noticed that there's a big simulation room on the port side of the ship. Port means left. Your cabins are on the right, or starboard side. Our challenge today is going to take place in the simulation room. If you want to find out more about the challenge, meet me there in… ten seconds!"
Chris ran out of the room cackling. The contestants all groaned and got out of their chairs. Most of them had barely eaten any of the gross astronaut food. After sprinting the hundred or so meters from the meal hall to the simulation deck, most of them were panting. Chris laughed at them all. "I didn't mean literally ten seconds," he said with an evil smile. He opened the door to the simulation room and led everybody in. The campers gasped as they looked around them and saw that the area being simulated was a huge city. There were skyscrapers that were obviously way taller than there was room on the spaceship for, and the streets and buildings seemed to stretch out for miles, even though the room couldn't have been as big as it looked. Chris smiled benignly at the campers, which immediately set them on edge. "All you have to do… is get from this end of the city to the next."
"That's all?" Jamie asked skeptically. "Isn't a challenge supposed to be… challenging?" Chris laughed in response, and it felt as if a cold breeze had just crept up each of the campers' spines. They felt a strange sense of foreboding.
"You'll find out what the challenge is." Chris replied. He got into a car that the simulator had placed nearby. He turned the key and started the engine.
"Wait!" Leo cried out, before Chris could drive away. "Shouldn't we be on different teams or something?"
Chris smiled. "All in due time, wolf boy. See you all on the other side!" He laughed again, with the strange terrifying effect. The campers all watched him drive away.
For a moment, nobody moved. The door to the simulation room slammed shut behind them, and then disappeared into more city landscape. "This is insane," Lilly said. Luna nodded in agreement.
Jamie grabbed Scarlett's hand and effectively broke the shared paralysis that had gripped the group. "Come on," Jamie said. "We're gonna win this." The two girls ran off into the streets. The rest of the campers all followed, breaking off into groups. The biggest one surrounded Emma, Ruby, Lilly and Luna. Marty wanted to go along with Ruby, Jericho wanted to go along with Emma, and so they all ended up moving together as they ran forward toward hopeful victory. Hanzo set off on his own, and was last seen by the other campers when he climbed a lamppost and jumped onto the roof of a nearby building.
"I'm gonna steal a car!" LoLo shouted excitedly. Leo and Scott followed her toward the silver sedan she'd chosen to take. "My brother, who goes to prison a lot, taught me how to hotwire one of these babies," she told the boys excitedly. The car started successfully, to everyone's surprise. Not surprisingly at all, LoLo was a terrible driver and immediately almost drove into the side of a building. Soon they had taken a turn and were out of sight. That left Johnny, Henry, Emily and Fabrizio. Fabric felt like the odd man out, having not really made any friends yet. He had stuck close to his bunk-mate, hoping that she would accept him into the little group formed with her, the chef-in-training and the bookworm. They were an unlikely bunch of allies, but they just looked at each other and nodded before running forward, the last four to leave the beginning area.
Almost as soon as they left the vicinity of the door, there was a huge booming sound like a roll of very loud, very close thunder. And then a flaming meteoroid came flying out of the sky and demolished the building in front of them.
After that, it was only a few moments before the sky was suddenly coloured orange and red instead of blue, and there were meteoroids falling like very big, very deadly hail all around them.
"Your challenge," Chris's voice seemed to come from out of nowhere, but each of the contestants could hear it no matter where they were in the city. "Is to survive this little simulation I've made… of the end of the world!" His cackling filled the air around them, barely audible over the noise of buildings crumbling beneath the force of meteoroids and falling debris.
"This is so insane," Emily shouted, as the lamppost they had seen Hanzo climbed crashed into the street directly in front of them.
"It's not safe on the street," Johnny shouted back, trying to make his companions hear him over the noise of the end of the world. "We need to get somewhere safe…" He trailed off, looking around desperate for a safer place.
"There!" Fabrizio shouted, pointing at the entrance to a subway tunnel. The four of them ran as fast as they could to the stairs and ran underground, hoping to avoid being crushed by a flaming rock.
"I hope the structural integrity of the tunnels holds up under the onslaught of pressure above ground," Henry said, his voice shaking with nervousness. The other three nodded silently, and they started to walk together in the general direction they had seen Chris go in.
Meanwhile, the large group was trying to deal with the end of the world in their own way. The size of their group made communication difficult, and it didn't help that Emma was clutching her head and screaming in terror, or that Marty had decided that running for shelter was the best course of action. The others tried to follow him, but they were assailed by an increased shower of smaller but more frequent meteorites. Jericho was attempting to keep everyone together, a self-appointed protector, and if there were fewer rocks falling on them you can bet that there would have been more than one challenger to this perpetuation of patriarchy within their splinter group. As it is, the girls are too busy trying to keep themselves alive to give Jericho a lecture on how they can take care of themselves, really, they don't need a man to try and rescue them.
When they catch up to Marty, he's standing in a doorway. "Doorways are the sturdiest part of the building. I saw that in a movie that takes place in California. They stand in doorways during earthquakes, because the building won't crush them that way." His voice is high-pitched and his eyes are wide. He looks close to panicking. Emma is in the same boat. She's stopped yelling, but she panting and there's dirt smudged on her face that makes her look like a crazy homeless person.
Ruby takes charge. "Look, guys, this is just a simulation. Obviously, even if we 'die'" – she uses air quotes for emphasis – "in the challenge, we're going to be fine in the real world. We'll just have lost the challenge. So try to keep yourselves together, ok?" She doesn't just look at Marty and Emma, she looks at everyone. "It seems scary, but we're going to make it through. And if we do, we're going to win the challenge. So let's do our best to survive this thing, okay?"
The group nods reluctantly. Jericho stands up to make a speech too, but a meteoroid hits the building they're standing in and sends the top three floors down around them. Emma starts screaming again, and Marty joins her. The thing is, the way the rubble sends up a huge blast of air and dust as it falls feels very real. And the contestants aren't sure they wouldn't put it past Chris to kill them while they're drifting in space thousands of miles away from the nearest police station.
"We need to get moving!" Ruby yells over her friends' screaming. "Everybody hold hands so no one gets lost!" She grabs Lilly and Luna's hand in her right and Emma's hand with her left. Emma grabs Jericho's hand, and Lilly and Luna grab Marty's hand. They dart out of the collapsed building, clumsily scrambling over the rubble and trying not to let go of each other. They duck into the doorway of the next building. They continue in this pattern, sprinting from one doorway to the next, attempting to outrun the carnage around them.
Hanzo is perched on the roof of a building like a gargoyle, watching the destruction around him. It's his first real test as a ninja: survive the end of the world. He does not spare a moment to think about the other contestants, because his purpose is clear. He needs to win this game.
The shinobi, the ninja assassin, is an ancient figure that creeps through history, the unseen hand that carries out the work of rich land owner, the politician, the monarch. The first ninja was born of a demon and a crow. He was the enemy of the samurai. The ninja way composed an amalgam of cultural philosophy and the way of the Chinese monk. The bushido code of the samurai boasted honour, dignity, and loyalty; the ninja code dedicated itself to accomplishing the mission no matter what the cost. Ninjitsu fighting is an art of practicality. If a technique is effective, it is acceptable. The ninja is trained in body skills, karate, spear fighting, staff fighting, blade-throwing, use of fire and water, fortification and strategy, and concealment.
Hanzo is a fledgling ninja at best. It takes years to master the subtle arts, and he is little more than a child.
He faces the burning city, remembers his ancestors, and knows that Total Drama Space is his to conquer. Sneak attacks, poison, seduction, and spying are the terror of the samurai and the livelihood of the shinobi. Hanzo is quiet like the spider and venomous like the snake.
He springs from his perch on the roof, drawing the shinobigatana from his belt as he sails through the air. He slices through a burning rock as it falls before him, and using the momentum from the strike to propel him toward the next roof. He lands gracefully, tucking his sword back into its sheathe.
Hanzo does not fear the end of the world, so this challenge belongs to him.
LoLo drives like a maniac. Scott and Leo were screaming well before the first giant flaming boulder fell. When the sky starts to rain massive amounts of death and destruction, it only gets worse. "LoLo!" Scott yells as they just barely swerve away from yet another obstacle in the road. "I really think you should let someone else drive!"
Not that Scott is a better driver. His best friend Stiles never lets him drive his jeep. What a spoilsport. And Leo has never driven a car before, because he hasn't gotten his learner's permit yet. He was always busy, ok? He was perfectly happy with his bike back home. He'd never even imagined he would have to drive a car through the apocalypse.
LoLo wasn't going to relinquish the steering wheel anyway. She was cackling gleefully from the front seat, high on adrenaline and lacking any inhibitions anyway. Leo's knuckles were white where he clutched the car door in search of some sort of stability as the car bounced up onto the sidewalk, then back onto the road, only to swerve violently to the side in order to avoid a vehicle parked at the curb. He silently thanked Chris for not including civilians in the simulation, because he was pretty sure if he had to sit in the back seat while LoLo mowed down innocent bystanders he would probably start screaming.
LoLo's strategy for surviving the end of the world is to basically ignore it entirely. Admittedly, she did floor it after Chris's announcement, taking their speed up about twenty kilometers per hour, but Leo thinks that might have been an accident. To her credit, none of the three of them have died yet. But Leo's beginning to think maybe he needs some new, less batshit insane friends.
Not that Scott seems to be enjoying this joyride either. "Come on LoLo, at least slow down a little. If you get us into a car crash it's gonna be just as bad as getting crushed to death by a meteoroid." He's trying to bed reasonable, but she just laughs at him. His voice is squeaky with fear and every time she hits a bump he hits his head on the roof, to her apparently endless amusement.
My mom's going to be so mad if I die, Leo thinks to himself. He's staring out the window now, watching one of the skyscrapers get hit straight-on by a particularly large fireball. It crumples like it's made of paper. Leo sighs, feeling a little detached from behind the window of this car on a wild rampage. He'll probably die of whiplash before he has the chance to be demolished by a falling hunk of space rock.
Right on cue, Leo is flung forward in his seat with a huge velocity. If he wasn't wearing his seatbelt, he'd be dead. The reason is obvious, once he looks forward. A meteoroid has fallen onto the road directly in front of them, shaking the Earth and creating a split down the road. The car balances precariously over it, the right wheels on one side and the left wheels on the other. There's no way for the car to get around the huge chunk of dirt and metal. Looks like their ride has been cut short.
The three teens get out of the car, Leo rubbing the stinging red mark where his seatbelt cut into his skin and Scott shaking with fear. "Wow, we came this close to being destroyed." Scott says, holding up his hands to show just how close – about an inch.
LoLo seems to be ignoring the danger and is trying to climb the meteoroid. "How are we supposed to get past this?" She asked, scrabbling at the side of it. There's no way to get purchase against it. "We're stuck on this side of the street," she says frowning.
Leo looks around them for the first time. "Hey," he says. "Look here. There's a hotel entrance, see? And there's a door here, and a door that goes to the other side of the meteor." Scott and LoLo examine it briefly as well.
"Are you sure it's gonna be safe?" Scott asks. He was apparently really affected by the threat of imminent death posed by the falling meteoroid. Leo shrugged.
"I think it's just as safe as standing around in the open street," he says. "I'll go first, though, I guess." He takes a deep breath, putting on a brave face. Now that Scott has mentioned it, it seems very unsafe to go into the building. It would probably be equally unsafe to go into any building, but Leo feels his palms start to sweat as he approaches the door. It's not locked, which is a good thing. He starts his journey slowly, carefully choosing each step. The meteoroid has knocked in a good portion of the lobby, so he skirts around it. He's almost at the other side already, which is such a relief he thinks he could cry. LoLo and Scott are watching him closely from the other side of the glass. When he looks back at them, they both grin and give him a thumbs up.
A meteoroid hits the building and the entire thing collapses with Leo inside.
LoLo and Scott both start screaming as they watch Leo get crushed under the weight of a twenty-two storey hotel.
Jamie and Scarlett were the farthest out when the biblical hail started falling. "Oh, crap," Scarlett said, grabbing Jamie's arm and pulling her into cover while they watched the first meteoroid fall. "Chris McLean is a psycho."
Jamie laughs a little. "It's not like it's real, remember? It's a simulation. But we need to win this." She looks around them, trying to figure out what the best, safest route to take is. "I've seen a lot of movies about the apocalypse," she mutters. "So if anyone's gonna nail this challenge, it'll be me. You're lucky I like you," she says, grinning at Scarlett, "or else I'd totally be playing this as every-girl-for-herself."
Scarlett makes a face at her. "I could survive on my own," she says, pouting slightly. "But I guess it's better to work as a team anyway."
Jamie's barely paying attention. "We should avoid going into buildings…" She says under her breath, thinking hard. "But when we're out in the open we can get hit by the meteors…" Her finger is tapping her chin, and Scarlett's joined her in contemplation. Finally, Jamie sighs "I guess there's no really safe way to go. If we cut through the residential streets, there's less of a chance that we'll get buried under a building, right?" Scarlett nods, and they turn down a street that's lined with cedar hedges and wooden fences. The place seems eerily abandoned, and many of the houses have caught fire from the burning rocks. It smells terrible.
"We have to be careful of smoke inhalation," Scarlett says.
"Yeah. I didn't even think about that before."
The two are mostly silent as they walk, occasionally stopping as another meteoroid threatens to fall on them, only to miss them by a few meters. Before long, the street is scorched black and there are cracks spreading across the asphalt like the strands of a spider web. "What are the chances the sewer line runs underneath the road we're on?" Scarlett asks dryly. "If it does, this place could crack open and send us falling down to our deaths."
Jamie's eyes widen. "Do you think we could use the sewer to get through the city?"
Scarlett chews her lips thoughtfully. "It's risky. Like I said, if the street cracks open it'll send anything on it down into the sewer line. That includes meteors, cars, pieces of building… But so far the construction seems pretty sturdy. We've seen some big meteors hit and they haven't broken through. Plus, going down basically eliminates the threat of being crushed directly by burning space slag."
Jamie shrugs. "Sounds like the best chance we've got."
They pull back the manhole cover down the street. "It's pretty dark down there," Scarlett says doubtfully. Jamie pulls a pocket flashlight from a keychain attached to her belt loop.
"This is all I've got. Do you think it'll be enough?"
Scarlett thinks hard for a moment, and then shrugs. "Only on way to find out, I guess," she says, and lowers her down through the hole. She follows the ladder down, one rung at a time. When she reaches the bottom it's almost pitch darkness. She can hear Jamie following her down the ladder. "Well, so far I'm sort of freaked out," she says. Jamie laughs.
"The meteoroids didn't freak you out, but the dark sewer does?" She asks, raising an eyebrow (not that Scarlett can see). "It's not like Chris would have programmed sewer gators."
Both girls freeze as soon as she says that. "Actually," Scarlett says, "I think he really, really would."
Author's Note: To be continued in Chapter Six! You're not gonna believe what happens next! Cast your final votes for who to eliminate! I did some research into the history of the ninja for this chapter – the site I used was asianhistory(d0t)about(d0t)com which I'm not sure how reliable it is, but I figure since it's a fictional story, I can be allowed some artistic freedom! The next part should be posted really soon, either later tonight or tomorrow. I decided to split it up because it's over 4,000 words already and the challenge isn't even close to being done! The next part will probably be shorter though. Hope you liked it, leave your comments, concerns and complaints in the reviews section! Feel free to berate me if I got your character wrong or didn't pay enough attention to them. I promise I won't be mad, it really helps me to figure out what I need to fix when I write the next part! Oh also I'm really sorry about the verb tense in this ugh I couldn't keep up a consistent verb tense to save my life. That's probably why I'm an amateur writer, not a professional :P
