Back with this week's update! Just some advice for the readers, Sunday or Monday will usually be my updating days. I want to thank everyone that was kind enough to review for the story. Here's some feedback for some of the reviewers.
Who Cares: Don't worry, I was never going to make Heather suffer the same fate as Facilier in the story. I'm trying to make everything seem as accurate to TDI/TDA universe as possible while still making it have the same feel as the movie. The ending of the story is going to have a couple of changes to make it just as climatic as the end of The Princess and the Frog except without anyone dying.
CarmillaD: Wow, your reviews were a pleasure to read! I loved your guesses for who will take on the different roles in the story. Your Justin and Heather guesses were spot on though I'm going to have to surprise you on your other guesses. I'm extremely happy that you caught the foreshadowing references that Heather used. It was tough trying to make her speech similar to that of Facilier's. Haha, thanks for mentioning Sedusa. I forgot all about that villianess. I just made Heather's hair become life-like to have it parallel with Facilier's shadow.
LiveLaughInvade: There's a link to my deviantart account on my profile.
Another big thanks to the rest of my reviewers! I hope you guys enjoy the newest chapter!
In room 202 of the third floor of Suite de Loser, a certain uptight brunette was completely unaware of the magical fiasco taking place exactly five doors down the hallway. Instead, she was sitting at a writing desk in her room, comfortably and obliviously typing a rather long and unnecessarily detailed list that featured all the items (in alphabetically and chronological order, mind you) that she was going to purchase with her half of Duncan's million. Half the list has something to do with college, paying back her lawyers, and future investments.
"Item 154: Get new PDA." Courtney typed onto her laptop. She glanced down at her current PDA and grimaced with distaste at the state it was in. Stained with tomato juice, half-chewed to pieces by sharks, and crackling with static after being thrown through a window out of a moving limousine; it was clear the poor device hadn't faired well from its experience in Total Drama Action.
"You had a good run." Courtney commented out loud, holding up the dysfunctional PDA, "At least you lasted longer than Mr. Coconut and Scruffy on the show." Courtney stood from her desk and walked across the room to the bed, where her opened suitcase was laying.
The short-haired CIT placed her RIP-marked device on top of her neatly packed away white shirts, purple sweaters, and olive pants and noticed something poking out of the latter. She gently pulled the corner of a purple sweater aside and saw it- a small wooden skull.
List and PDA forgotten, Courtney reached down and held the skull that Duncan had given her in the palm of her hand. Though the strange item was, in her opinion, quite creepy and weird, it still managed to make her heart skip a beat.
A rare smile lit up her face as she softly stroked the skull's wooden surface, memories of that one night alone with Duncan blossoming like flowers in her mind….sneaking into the boathouse…stealing all that food….sharing a kiss…….
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" A loud scream that seemed to be filled with all the horror the world had to offer echoed throughout the hotel.
"Eep!" Courtney let out a shriek of surprise and promptly dropped the skull. It bounced and rolled across the floor, under her bed.
"What was that?" Courtney asked to no one in particular. It sounded like someone was in deep pain and distress. She ran to the door and opened it; she struck her head out into the hallway and looked down both ends, dark eyes searching for whatever had made that terrible sound.
"NOOOOOOOOOOO!"
The distressed scream could be heard outside at well. All the contestants at the pool area paused from what they were doing, looked up, and then gazed at each other in confusion.
"Uh, what the hell was that?" asked Gwen in slight puzzlement. She was clan in a black two-piece swimsuit and was standing waist deep in the pool. In her hands was a volleyball that she had been about to throw over the pool net at Trent and LeShawna. They had been in the midst of playing pool volleyball.
"Dunno." Cody replied. He was on Gwen's team. The techno-geek tapped his chin in a thoughtful manner. "Though it kind of sounds familiar…"
"Dude, it sounds like someone's having their guts ripped out of them!" Geoff commented in his usual cheerful manner, taking his lips off of Bridgette's for once. He frowned when everyone, including his girlfriend, gave him weird stares.
"What?"
Gwen rolled her eyes. "Let's just get back to the game. Our serve!" She threw the ball and punched it, sending it flying over the net…and over Trent and LeShawna.
"OW!"
The Goth winced. "Sorry, Billy!" She shouted to the new intern.
"It's okay, no harm done!" The poor intern said. He was tied up and hanging over the pool from a lamp post, swinging slightly with every breeze.
On the ground next to the lamppost, Chris, wearing nothing but sunglasses and swimming trunks, was lying out on one of folded out lawn chairs. He let out a content sigh and smiled.
"Isn't training to be a host so much fun?" the sadistic host asked.
The unfortunate intern merely groaned in reply.
"NOOOOOOOOOO! NOOO! NOOO! NOOOOOO!"
"WILL YOU SHUT UP ALREADY?" Heather screamed, throwing her fists up in anger, having enough of her accomplice's annoying wails of despair.
"WHAT DID YOU DO TO ME?" Justin wailed, hands covering his face as he turned away from the mirror and towards Heather. "I'M A MONSTER! A MONSTER!"
Heather folded her arms over her chest and rolled her eyes, slightly shaking her head. Did Justin really have be such a drama queen? Really, even Duncan hadn't complained this much once he saw what the voodoo spirits had done to him!
"This was all part of the plan, remember?" Heather snapped. The dark-haired girl could hear the three voodoo dolls snickering from the shelf behind her. Why the hell were they even still here? Shouldn't they had gone back into the spirit portal or something once the spell was completed?
"YOU NEVER MENTIONED THAT TURNING ME INTO THIS…" Justin uncovered his face and revealed that he now looked exactly like Duncan. "…WAS PART OF THE PLAN!" The model began to wail once more, hands covering his face. "WAAAHHH! DON'T LOOK AT ME! I'M HIDEOUS! HID-E-OUSSSSS!"
Heather took a step forward and slapped the Duncan look-a-like across the face.
"Snap out of it!" she ordered.
Justin ignored order and threw himself upon Heather, clinging to her shoulders as he piteously sniffled. "Just teach me opera, give me a mask, and throw me into the sewers!" He threw a despairing hand over his forehead. "I'LL NEVER BE BEAUTIFUL AGAIN!"
He was slapped again, except this time by Heather's hair.
Justin blinked and pointed at finger at her scalp. "Uh, did your hair just slap me?"
"SHUT UP AND GET OFF ME!" Heather growled, ignoring Justin's previous question as she pushed the pathetic hottie off. She placed her hands on her hips and fixed Justin with the most severe glare she could mutter.
"Listen up," Heather ordered, pointing a finger in Justin's face. "The plan is for you to look and act like Duncan until we get the money at the reward ceremony! Once we have the million, the shadow spirits will change you back."
"But…I'M DISFIGURED!" Justin whimpered. He pointed at his new Duncan-ified face. "Look at me! I HAVE METAL STICKING TO MY FACE….AND I HAVE ONLY ONE EYEBROW! Honestly, WHAT DO FANS FIND APPEALING ABOUT THIS GUY?"
"Suck it up! It's only for two days! And for two days we have to keep the real Duncan hidden to make sure nobody finds out the truth." Her grey eyes flickered back and forth, scanning the floor for something. "Well?"
"Well what?"
"Where's Duncan?"
"Oh, I put him in that jar." Justin pointed his thumb towards one of the shelves in Heather's room. On it was a tipped over glass jar, lid tossed to the floor. It was empty.
Justin stared at the empty glass prison and then looked back at Heather. Her hair was beginning to writher like live snakes as the expression of rage on her reddening face started to build. The model let out a nervous chuckle.
"Hehe…maybe I should have tightened the lid more?"
Heather then exploded.
"GO FIND THAT 'CENSORED' SPIDER!"
Seeing nothing out of the ordinary, Courtney shut her door and commented, "Well, that was strange. That better not be Chris pulling one of his schemes!" The CIT snapped, eyes narrowing into dangerous slits at the thought. That stupid, perverse host was probably trying to think of a way to cheat Duncan out of his money like he did Owen and trick them all into competing for another season like last time.
"That isn't going to work this time." Courtney boastfully thought. She was not going to lose her half of Duncan's money…the half that she rightfully deserved after all she did to help her teams in both seasons! Neither the Killer Grips nor the Killer Bass would have made it as far as they did without her urging them on! Especially those idiotic Killer Grips. It was no secret that most of the Killer Grips hated her now. If she had been on Duncan's team things would have been a lot more…
Wait, speaking of Duncan.
She looked down at her now empty palm and immediately began scanning the floor for the wooden figurine. Courtney' eyebrows furrowed as an irritated look crossed her face. "Great, where did that thing go?" Her searching led her straight back to the desk where her laptop was still opened and had up the list she had been typing early.
"It couldn't have rolled too far." Courtney observed, hands on her hips as she continued to stalk back and forth in front of her desk. She glanced at her laptop and her eyes grew large in surprise.
Besides her laptop, sat the little wooden skull.
"How…?" Courtney tried think of a way to explain how the wooden skull had managed to be placed on her desk. She could directly remember dropping it to the floor after hearing that scream!
She picked up the skull and held it close to her face, scrutinizing it as if making it was the real thing; seeing that it was indeed real, she gave it a slightly affectionate look.
"At least one good thing came out of this stupid competition." She quietly commented, grinning slightly.
"I hope you're talking about that kiss, Princess." A familiar, overly-cocky voice called out.
"NO! I DO NOT MEAN THAT…." Courtney snapped her mouth shut and blinked in shock. "Wait…Duncan?" Her surprised expression turned murderous. "What are you doing in my room?" she growled, turning her head in all directions, trying to locate where Duncan was hiding. "Where are you? Have you ever heard of knocking, you uncivilized Neanderthal? Oooh, when I get my hands on you…" she threatened.
"Hey Queenie! Down here!"
Courtney glanced down to her desk again; the skull immediately fell from her hands. Her eyes grew large while her pupils shrunk down to tiny dark points. Her left eye twitched slightly.
Having come behind her laptop, there stood on her desk a large, black and pale yellow tarantula with blue eyes and a green mohawk.
The hideous eight-legged creature flashed her a fanged grin and lifted one of its front pair of legs up to a wave.
"How you doing, sunshine?"
Courtney unleashed an earth-shattering scream.
It took me half an hour to figure out what Duncan's last line was going to be. I kept going over about twenty possible lines to see which ones seemed to fit what Duncan would say to Courtney in this situation. I'm still not entirely happy with it, but meh. The story has to go on...
Anyway, I loved writing Justin's part. Yep, he is playing Lawrence in case you haven't guessed. It was fun writing Justin's whole rant because it, in a way, kind of poked fun at Duncan fangirls (which includes myself) because, even though Duncan looks hot animated, I honestly don't see myself falling for a guy with facial piercings and a unibrow in real life. But I'd TOTALLY go for a guy with a mohawk....cause those are cool....and hot.....very hot....*drools*.
Anywho, look out for next week's chapter! Go to my profile to see a link to my Deviantart account where you can see a picture of Tarantula Duncan! Read and Review!