Recap: Jacqueline sent fake messages to the contestants on the island that made it seem as though their loved ones hated them, creating tension on the island and back at the studio. The contestants voted to evict a member of their group, and Jacqueline decided the two candidates for eviction would be Checkmate and Wally Tusket.


Chapter 7 – Checkmate

"Oh for fuck's sake!" Kevin groaned, dragging himself up and clawing at the rock that had just clanged against his mask, awakening him from what had been an almost restful sleep.

"What does it say?" Dik Dik asked, hurrying over to join him.

"Kevin Mask, the next task is the "80 times around the world" task," Kevin read aloud. "Tomorrow morning you will be provided with a running machine that will record the distance each participant runs. You will have until sundown to record a total distance of 3.2 million kilometres. The distance must be recorded by members of the group running on the machine, and any cheating will result in a disqualification for the whole team, and you will not be given your prize. The prize for successfully completing the task will be a small selection of basic toiletries for each member of the group. Good luck in your task!"

Kevin lifted his head, finding seven faces looking back at him with as much dismay and disgust as he felt brewing in the pit of his stomach.

"Lucky for us we still have Kenyon and Jaeger," he concluded. "You're both good runners, and the rest of us can easily manage to do well on this task."

"I hope Wally gets voted off," Kid whispered loudly to Kevin. "He's fat and kinda slow, but Checkmate can use his knight-form and run really far for us!"

Kevin waited for Kid to realise that everyone else had clearly heard him, but he remained oblivious, winking at Kevin and nodding his head knowingly.

"Idiot," Kevin grumbled.


Roxanne sat perfectly still, her eyebrows arched high on her forehead, her eyes like saucers and her mouth forming a small O-shape. Kiki's shoulders were heaving with every breath and every failed attempt at words she made, her head twisted to one side, her eyebrows pushed together and her fingers dancing in the air in front of her. Between them, Trixie sat snorting and giggling into one hand, the other hand slapping against her thigh, her entire body shaking with the force of her restrained laughter.

"Ch-Ch-Checkmate…" Kiki eventually managed. "A-And… D-D-D-Dorothy?"

Trixie snorted a little louder and Roxanne's eyebrows twitched further up her brow.

"Who'd have thought it?" Jacqueline said with a sigh, flicking her hair from one eye with her fingertips. "That hunk banging the little elephant girl."

"She's a walrus," Roxanne corrected her.

"And he's a piece of chess…" Kiki whispered, her head moving to tilt in the opposite direction.

"You're making babies with a bird, what's your point?" Jacqueline asked her.

"Hey!" Kiki yelped indignantly, standing abruptly and rounding Jacqueline. "You leave Mars out of this, you nasty witch!"

"I'm just telling the truth," Jacqueline replied with a shrug. "You're with a bird, Roxanne is with a pig and Trixie may be with a real man, but he has the intelligence and grace of a two year old."

"Hey!" Trixie snapped, turning to Jacqueline. "Terry's the smartest guy in the Muscle League!"

"You sure about that?" Roxanne asked quietly.

"He's smarter than Kid Muscle!" Trixie argued.

"Trixie, don't yell at Roxanne, that's exactly what Jacqueline wants us to do!" Kiki implored. "That way she can make another video of us and edit it badly so that we sound horrid and mean!"

"The camera never lies," Jacqueline said, before walking off and leaving the girls cursing her name.

She headed in the direction of her personal dressing room, irked to find her brother loitering in the corridor that led there, looking particularly smug about something.

"Face it, you're losing," Jacqueline snapped at him as she neared him. "I'm stealing the chair out from under you, and there's nothing you can do about it!"

"You're very confident," Ikeman casually replied. "Your little show has only been on the air a few days."

"And already it's more successful than any crap that you've ever done."

Jacqueline shoved open the door to her room, hesitating to enter as she heard her brother chuckle behind her back.

"Something funny?" she sneered, leering over her shoulder at him. "Or has the taste of failure made you go insane?"

"Time will tell," Ikeman replied.

Jacqueline turned to face him, but he had already turned his back on her and begun walking off. She watched him go, silently wondering if he was plotting something. As he drew level with the three girls he stopped and nodded, smiling to himself. Jacqueline frowned, turning her attention to the girls, who appeared to be suddenly arguing amongst themselves about something.

"Don't even go there, Roxanne!" Kiki yelled, stamping a foot angrily. "I saw what the boys were talking about last night: you kissed my boyfriend! You were just married, we'd been talking about how much we loved our boyfriends, and you kissed mine behind my back!"

"I didn't kiss Mars!" Roxanne argued back.

"Oh so Mars is a liar now?" Kiki asked her.

"Well, he's never been able to make up his mind about which side he's on…" Trixie muttered as she admired her fingernails.

"Stay out of this, Trixie!" Roxanne and Kiki both yelled at her.

Trixie held up her hands in submission, and the others turned on each other again.

"So what did happen?" Kiki demanded.

Roxanne sighed, slouching her shoulders in defeat.

"Okay, I'm sorry, we did kiss," she confessed. "I was at a bar with my mom, Kid and Suguru, and I saw Mars in his… Hawkeye outfit, and I told him he looked hot. We were both drunk, he said I looked hot too, we hugged, and as we let go, we sorta… Had a little kiss…"

Trixie made a small, high-pitched humming noise at the back of her throat, but one warning glare from Roxanne stopped her from speaking her opinion on the matter.

"I'm really, really sorry Kiki," Roxanne said. "Really I am. Please forgive me?"

"How can I forgive you?" Kiki snapped. "That's a horrible thing to do to your friend!"

"Mars did it too," Roxanne said meekly.

"I'm angry at him too!"

"Look, if it makes you feel any better, you can kiss Mantaro."

Trixie burst out laughing, slapping Roxanne's shoulder.

"Good one, Rox!" she giggled.

"Okay, what can I do to make it up to you, Kiki?" Roxanne tried again.

Kiki rolled her eyes to the ceiling, looking thoughtful for a moment before a dark smile crept onto her face and her eyes found Roxanne's once more. Roxanne gulped nervously and attempted a smile.

"You'll do anything?" Kiki asked sweetly.

"Anything," Roxanne said, feeling far less confident than she sounded.

"Alright then," Kiki said, clapping her hands together and grinning brightly. "Tell me and Trixie exactly what it was like "fumbling" with Kevin Mask…"

Roxanne's face turned white, then red and then white with streaks of pink.

"That good, huh?" Trixie asked her. "Now you absolutely have to tell us all the details – and why did you never tell us this before?"

Roxanne grinned sheepishly.

"It was kinda embarrassing…" she said, avoiding their eager eyes. "I just wanted to thank him for helping us out, but when I saw him… He looked really good, and I couldn't stop myself…"


"But the funniest part is, he asked me where he should put it!"

"Oh my God!"

"You're making this up!"

"I wish I was! He put his other hand down the back of my pants, and when his fingers brushed against me, I flinched, and he asked me if he'd just touched my c–"

"HEY!"

Kevin ran from the other seven Chojins until he was knee-deep in the ocean, at which point he stopped and flung the remote far out to sea.

"What a dork!" he heard Kid Muscle snigger behind him.

"Where did ya put your finger, "big boy"?" Terry called to him.

Kevin turned back, finding his fellow Muscle Leaguers and the IWF commentators laughing shamelessly at him even though he had managed to stop the tape Mac had insisted on playing to them before it got to the really embarrassing part.

"Hey guys, c'mon, let's give da guy a break, huh?"

Kevin paused by the shore, screwing up his face in disbelief at Mars; who of course could not see his expression through his mask, and yet, as usual, somehow managed to sense it.

"I'm just lookin' out for da group," Mars explained to him. "Cause ain't nobody here wants to "da big boy doin' it rough and strong" on dem."

Kevin growled in frustration as the others burst out laughing again, and Mars began slapping his shoulder as though he ought to appreciate the joke.

"The video's back on!" Mac called out.

Kevin cringed as he heard Roxanne continue her story about their little encounter in the wooded area behind a small biker's bar he had been trying to relax after fighting the Poison Six Pack, when she had – literally – pounced on him and begun grinding her hips against him, resulting in his hands and mouth disobeying his better senses by doing and saying things that were completely absurd, even by Kid Muscle's standards. His only consolation was that in a few hours' time, one of the other idiots he was trapped on the island with would be gone. And maybe, he thought to himself, he could find a way to sneak off the island with the loser and return home to the comforts of the Mask Estate at last.


"Oh I hope my little Blubber-Boo gets home!" Mrs Tusket whined. "He must be so worried about his baby sister after that vicious woman made it sound like I had said all those horrible things about her!"

"Horrible?" Kiki echoed, feeling a little alarmed that Mrs Tusket would use such a word to describe her own daughter's pregnancy.

"She made it sound like I was telling Wally about Dorothy being pregnant!" Mrs Tusket replied. "And then that Checkmate admitted to messing with my little girl…"

Kiki leaned back, her eyes doubling in size as Mrs Tusket pulled a giant salmon from somewhere in the bosom of her sweater. Deciding that the old walrus was on the warpath again, Kiki turned to Dorothy, who was skipping abut nervously.

"Say Dorothy, you are pregnant, right?" she asked her.

"What?" Dorothy echoed.

"Of course she is," Sally said over the top of her magazine. "Just like the rest of you lucky girls. Do you all have any idea how long I've been trying for a baby of my own?"

"You're not pregnant Sally?" Trixie asked, sitting forwards suddenly.

"No, of course not!" Sally replied, lowering her magazine to her lap. "Who said that I was?"

"I thought everyone here was, and it was some sort of a weird coincidence," Roxanne said slowly, looking around the others.

"I'm not pregnant!" Dorothy wailed. "Mister Checkmate was always a gentleman with me!"

"Oh shit…" Trixie muttered.

"Oh I'm sorry Dorothy!" Kiki said gently. "We thought you were!"

"And we thought you were too, Sally," Trixie added. "Sorry that you're not, I know you and Dik Dik were trying."

Sally shrugged.

"But the rest of you are, right?" she asked. "You, Roxanne, Kiki and Jacqueline, right?"

"What's going on in here?" Jacqueline demanded, shoving her way to the centre of the room.

"Nothing," Sally said with a sigh, lifting up her magazine to block her view of Jacqueline.

"We're just waiting for the results of the vote," Kiki explained, pointing at the large screen mounted on the back wall of the room, where a live countdown showed there were only a few seconds left for voters to register their choice.

"Shouldn't you be out there to read the result?" Roxanne asked Jacqueline.

"I'm letting my father do it," she carefully replied, folding her arms across her chest as she looked around the others gathered in the room.

"Such an interesting little dilemma, isn't it?" Ikeman sang, skipping into the room behind Jacqueline and almost sending her flying as she leapt in shock.

"I told you not to creep up on me with that face!" she snapped at her brother.

"I just had to see your reaction to the news!" Ikeman replied, batting his eyelids at her in a way that made everyone in the room cringe.

"And the lines are now closed!" Vance McMadd's voice announced from the television. "The lines are closed! No more calls please, the lines are closed, and no more votes can be registered. The vote is now being tallied, and we expect to have the result momentarily!"

"Isn't it exciting?" Ikeman asked Jacqueline.

"Not that exciting…" Jacqueline muttered, eying Ikeman over disdainfully.

"Wait, I'm confused…" Sally said suddenly, slapping her magazine down against her legs. "If you all thought Dorothy and I were pregnant, does that still mean that you all are too, are did we get that wrong too?"

"Is anyone in this room pregnant?" Dorothy asked.

"And the result is now in!" Vance called out.

Ikeman grinned as the girls all looked around each other, shaking their heads in the negative.

"The result is in!" Vance continued. "The Chojin with the highest number of votes, who will be leaving the island tonight is…"

"I guess only one of us is then. And it's me."

Sally and Dorothy gasped as they spotted one woman standing with one hand in the air and the other resting on her stomach.

"Checkmate!" Vance announced.

"Checkmate indeed, sister," Ikeman whispered into Jacqueline's ear.

"This doesn't change a thing!" she hissed, rounding on him. "Not a single thing! I can still use this to my advantage to get more fans interested, to sell more merchandise and to take the chair from you!"

"Are you really sure you want to exploit him that way?"

Ikeman pointed at the screen and Jacqueline turned to find a shot of the soon-to-be-father. She sighed in annoyance and turned back to her brother.

"He's an idiot," she said simply. "And he's my puppet. I got what I wanted out of him at the Chojin Crown, I can do it all over again right here, right now!"

The siblings glared at each other silently for a moment before both charged at the doorway, bashing into each other unceremoniously as they both tried to leave the room at the same time.

"Get out of my way, oaf!" Jacqueline snapped, shoving her way ahead.

"You can run, but you can't hide!" Ikeman yelled after her as he left the room. "You're going down!"

"Wow, talk about dysfunctional families…" Trixie snorted.

She turned on her heel to find everyone still staring at the bedraggled and frightened looking figure in the centre of the room.

"And just as one goes, another one begins…" she muttered to herself. "We talked about it, but I never thought those two would ever be parents…"


Kevin dodged suddenly to one side, causing the others to eye him warily.

"Ha!" he declared, pointing at an indentation in the sand where he had been standing moments earlier. "It missed me!"

The others grunted and nodded their understanding as Kevin bent down to retrieve a rock with a note attached.

"Kevin Mask, the vote has been decided," he read aloud. "Checkmate will be leaving the island tonight."

Wally groaned, Checkmate grinned and Kid kicked at the sand at the prospect of losing knight-form Checkmate the night before their running challenge.

"To ensure nobody tries any funny business," Kevin continued. "A helicopter will lower a rope ladder capable of carrying one man only, which Checkmate must climb to leave the island. If anybody else tries to escape, the ladder will be cut."

"That's nice," Dik Dik muttered.

"That's Jacqueline McMadd," Terry pointed out.

"You better stay away from my sister!" Wally warned, brandishing a fist at Checkmate.

Mars and Kevin quickly leapt between them to stop them from brawling over the matter again.

"So when does this helicopter get here?" Kid asked, picking at his nose.

"Now?" Jaeger offered, as the sound of an approaching helicopter began to reach their ears.

"I am but sorry that we could not all have left together," Checkmate said, looking around the others.

"They originally told us that nobody would leave the island in the first two weeks, so this is, at least, progress," Kevin pointed out.

"I'ma be da last guy here," Mars said with a sigh. "I'm too popular. Wid you guys and da fans. Ain't nobody gonna vote for me."

Kevin and Dik Dik rolled their eyes, but Mars appeared not to notice their actions. The group gathered to watch as a large helicopter arced around overhead, a rope ladder unfurling as it passed over the shoreline.

"Me and Terry together weigh less than Checkmate!" Kid suddenly yelled, running for the ladder.

He was shortly tackled to the ground by six other bodies as Checkmate made his way towards the ladder.

"If I ain't gettin' home, you ain't either!" Mars yelled at Kid.

Mars was the first to step back from the melee to watch as Checkmate began climbing the ladder and the helicopter began to move off, taking him from the island. He reasoned that he could still launch himself at the rope and potentially make an escape: but the memory of Kiki's earlier message made him start to think that maybe the island was the best place for him to be. Apparently she was even angrier than he had bargained on her being, and maybe a little more time apart would help her calm down.

Kevin stood at his side, the look on his face suggesting that he was going through similar thought processes to Mars as he squinted at Checkmate's diminishing form.

"Sometimes I'm not so sure if getting home will be any better than staying here for the next umpteen weeks," Kevin said dryly, turning to face Mars.

"I hear ya buddy," Mars agreed, nodding his head. "I ain't so sure I wanna go back to bein' nagged all day."

"Sometimes I miss the old days," Kevin said with a small sigh.

"Da DMP days?" Mars asked, smirking a little.

"Well, not exactly the DMP days as such, more just the times when I… And…"

Kevin planted his hands on his hips, tilting his head upwards in thought.

"I miss the DMP days," he concluded.

"Yeah, me too," Mars quietly agreed.


Checkmate was relieved when his feet finally found solid ground again as he entered the IWF headquarters. He had hoped to return home after leaving the island, but he had been taken to the studio Jacqueline was leading the show from to talk about his experiences on the island on the promise that he could do whatever he wanted to once Jacqueline had spoken to him. He was flanked by the crew of Chojin Desert Island Survivor as he walked through the seemingly endless corridors of the vast headquarters building, but despite being surrounded by large bodies and being a large man himself, upon entering the studio, Checkmate promptly felt something wet and heavy slap him over the back of the head, causing him to stumble ungraciously.

"You'll pay for putting your hands on my baby girl!"

Checkmate looked up to catch a glimpse of a rabid, red-eyed walrus before he was once more slapped about the head with an unreasonably huge fish. He squatted down and brought his arms up to deflect any further attacks, refusing to fight back against a woman.

"Momma, stop!" Dorothy pleaded, tugging at her arm.

"Hey Checkmate, are you okay?"

Checkmate smiled politely at Kiki, who had crouched down at his side and was frowning worriedly at him. She had such a kind heart, it seemed almost impossible that earlier that day she had been saying vicious things about Mars, the man she supposedly loved beyond reason.

"Hey Checkmate, how is everyone on the island?" Roxanne asked, crouching at his other side.

"That bitch Jacqueline edited our messages and made it sound like we were being really nasty!" Trixie added.

"Oh!" Checkmate gasped, rising to his feet.

Roxanne and Kiki stood at his sides, waiting anxiously for him to continue.

"We didn't say any of those things they played to you!" Sally added.

"We did say those words, but not in that order," Amy said. "And the insults you heard were words we were using against Jacqueline!"

"That's right!" Kiki agreed.

"I see," Checkmate said, nodding his head. "Twas difficult to survive a mere few days in such stifling conditions, I sincerely hope my fellow Muscle League members are not detained much longer there."

"My wedding is going to be ruined," Trixie sobbed.

"And Mantaro is gone miss the big… Well…"

Checkmate turned to Roxanne, who scratched at her head and grinned nervously.

"We have something exciting…" she tried again. "It's a sort of… Family thing… And he might miss it if he's gone a very long time. He's already missing some of the fun."

"I never even told Mars about our little family thing," Kiki sighed. "He would be so proud if only he knew…"

Checkmate slowly looked around each of the females gathered around him until he was shocked back to reality at the sight of Jacqueline McMadd, who was suddenly standing over him brandishing a microphone, with a camera at her shoulder. A pair of spotlights swung around almost blinding him as Jacqueline began to talk.

"Well Checkmate, you didn't last very long on the island, but during that time you shocked fans and the Muscle League alike by confessing to your affair with an underage teenage walrus," she said. "How does it feel to be the biggest loser of the Muscle League?"

Checkmate opened his mouth to answer her, to tell her that losing on her show had been one of the proudest achievements of his career, as he would suffer the minimum of embarrassment leaving the island so early; but Jacqueline apparently wished to conduct a one-sided interview, as she carried on talking. Checkmate turned his back on her and left her to look ridiculous on live television. He no longer cared if his response meant that he was detained at the IWF headquarters, he was at least off the island, unlike the unfortunate remainder of the Muscle League.

As he made his way around the back of the studio, Checkmate was surprised to find one of the IWF Legends loitering a little apprehensively by a buffet table. Curiosity getting the better of him, Checkmate approached the famous aging Chojin to ask why he was anywhere near the ludicrous reality television farce that was ongoing; but the answer he received was not the one he had expected.


Kid Muscle screamed, awakening everyone on the island. The sun was only just starting to appear on the horizon, but his cry had been piercing enough to awaken every animal on the island, creating an uproar of noise and movement.

"The hell was that for?" Terry asked him, rubbing sleepily at one eye.

"Kevin just punched me!" Kid wailed.

"You punched me in the gut, I was returning the favour!" Kevin spat back.

"He didn't punch ya, Kev," Mars said through a yawn. "It was another rock."

Mars picked up the latest rock to land on the island, removing the attached note. As he opened it out he immediately broke into a grin and leapt to his feet, suddenly wide awake.

"What is it?" Terry demanded.

"Are we going home?" Dik Dik asked.

"Hey, it's from Checkers!" Mars said cheerfully. "It says, uh…"

Mars scanned through the note, frowning a little as he found that the note had been tampered with. It looked as though Checkmate had hastily written a message to someone on the island, but before he could send it out, one of the McMadds had scored through some of the key words in the note with a black marker pen, completely and utterly obscuring them, leaving behind a slightly cryptic message.

But a message of clear importance regardless, and one that made Mars break into a cold sweat of panic.

"What is it?" Kid asked. "It looks scary!"

"I don't believe dis…" Mars muttered, the paper quivering a little in his hand.

"Give it here!" Kevin said sharply, snatching the note from him. "Let's see here… Ah, it looks like that McMadd woman has interfered with it. It says: Blank, you must get off the island as soon as you possibly can, have the others vote you off or else find a way to escape. It is of the utmost importance that you return before blank because that is the expected birth date of your child. Congratulations blank, you are going to be a father."

Kevin slowly lowered the note, looking around the sea of sickened faces looking back at him.

"Who's this dude called Blank?" Kid asked.

"Probably you, ya dumb-ass!" Mars yelled at him.

"Or not!" Dik Dik hurriedly said. "It must be for me! I'm the only one here who has been trying to become a father!"

Dik Dik's face slowly dropped as he saw the others avoid his eyes.

"What is it?" he asked in a low voice.

"Define "tryin' to become a father"…" Terry said slowly.

Dik Dik groaned, rolling his eyes.

"See, it could be me…" Terry added. "Trixie has been pushin' real hard to get married outta nowhere, and maybe it's cause she's already pregnant!"

"What's the expected birth date?" Dik Dik asked Kevin.

"Blank," Kevin sarcastically replied.

"Maybe it is me," Kid mused. "I mean now that I think about it, I think I can remember being Roxanne about nine months before blank..."

Mars began making incoherent noises of question at the Kinniku prince, but Kevin quickly raised a hand in front of him to stop him.

"I don't know that I'm ready to be a daddy…" Terry said quietly.

"Well I am!" Dik Dik argued.

"Ah shit, it can't be Kiki!" Mars growled, kicking a sizeable rock across the sand. "It ain't right, not like dis!"

"I wonder if my son will be bigger than Meat when he is born…" Kid pondered.

"Shut your mouth, or I'ma shut it for you," Mars warned him. "Permanently."

Kevin snorted and the others turned to him curiously.

"This is the price you idiots pay for investing all your time playing about with girls instead of focussing your energy on more productive matters," he said flatly.

"Vot if it's Jacqueline?" Jaeger suddenly burst out.

"Dat ain't possible," Mars immediately replied. "Cause if she's pregnant, dere ain't no way in hell she knows who da daddy is."

"Yeah, Jacqueline will totally take us all on the Maury show!" Kid said.

"Idiot!" Kevin growled at him.

"Well I know that note isn't for me," Wally said sadly.

"And so do I," Kevin agreed, slapping the note against Mars's chest. "I'm not a hopeless idiot like you lot are. I suggest you all forget about this for now, the treadmill will be here soon, and we have an immense task ahead of us today."

"I can't do dis…" Mars muttered as he looked down at the note again.

"Ain't there some kinda way we could see what the blanks say?" Terry asked, taking the note from him and holding it against the rising sun in an attempt to see the words that had been obscured.

"It's for me," Kid said, taking the note from Terry. "You can tell it's for me because the note starts with Blank, and that's Checkmate's nickname for me."

"Your nickname is not blank!" Jaeger snapped, grabbing the note from Kid. "Zhis note could just as easily be for me!"

"Do you want it to be for you?" Dik Dik asked him.

"Of course not!" Jaeger yelped.

"Then give it here," Dik Dik said, taking the note for himself. "It's obviously meant for me, after all."

"And what if it's from Kiki, huh?" Mars asked, snatching back the note. "Dis would explain everythin' about her weird behaviour lately! I know she's been up to somethin' behind my back, she said somethin' about making our family complete, dis must be what she meant!"

"I'm the one bein' forced up the aisle!" Terry yelled, grabbing the note. "This is for me! I've been careless lately, a few spontaneous acts o' passion, and now this! Trixie is a traditional kinda girl at heart, she always said she wouldn't have kids unless she was already married!"

"Dude, I'm the only married one here, and I've been with my girl longer than anyone else here has been with their girls," Kid said flatly, taking the note.

"I was intimate wid Kiki before you ever got past holdin' hands wid Roxanne!" Mars pointed out, taking the note.

"I vas completely careless during my affair vith Jack!" Jaeger argued, taking the note. "Zhis is vhy she has done zhis whole show, she is mad at me for abandoning her!"

"This note is for me!" Dik Dik said, taking the note.

"It's for me, I tell ya!" Terry said, taking the note.

"Nuh-uh!" Kid said, snatching the note.

"It's mine!" Mars said, taking the note.

"Mine!" Dik Dik said, taking the note.

"Nein!" Jaeger said, taking the note.

All five continued to grab at Checkmate's note and yell at each other until they had successfully torn it to indiscernible shreds, at which point they then began to argue that Kevin had not read the note properly and that they were all missing the true message.

"Idiots," Kevin said with a sigh, sitting down next to Wally on a large rock.

"I don't know," Wally said with a forlorn sigh. "It sure would be nice to be worried over whether or not the woman I was in love with was carrying my baby."

"Pff!" Kevin snorted.

"Say Kevin, how do you know that the note isn't for you?"

Kevin slowly turned to fully face Wally, glaring at him with glowing yellow eyes through the shadows of his mask.

"You have a girlfriend, right?" Wally asked.

"Yes, but I am not an idiot," Kevin simply replied. "I wouldn't dream of bringing a child into this life, least of all into families like ours. My family are a disgrace, and her family are even worse. We already agreed that we would both make terrible parents, so there's no chance in hell that Amy has done something as stupid as get herself pregnant."

Wally slowly nodded, although inwardly he could not help but think that Kevin was a bit of a bastard.


Next Chapter: The running task begins, but the seven remaining contestants struggle to complete it as a lack of food and the stress of Checkmate's message start to take their toll. Back at the studio, the girls react badly to some of what they see and hear from the island, and Meat schemes to sabotage the show. Chapter 8 – Maybe Baby.