Luckily, I haven't been busy and was able to write a lot over the past few days, which means you guys get another chapter! Hooray!

MrMuddyPaws: I'm terrible at guessing too. Frankly, if I weren't the author of this story, I'd probably end up guessing some character that isn't even in one of the shows listed as a part of the story. As for Davenport, his fate is yet to be fulfilled... Thanks! Hopefully, seven days hasn't been long enough for you to go insane

Dirtkid123: Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't.

Crescent Moon Dancer: That's how I felt while writing that chapter. I'm glad you like the story!

Chapter 10: Three's an Unstoppable Force

After our nightmarish encounter with the dog, none of us expected to sleep very well that night. Ferb offered to take the first watch, so Davenport and I crawled into the shelter and attempted to rest.

The question of the boy's motives for running at the dog kept circling around in my head as I unsuccessfully tried to fall asleep. He was either suicidal and had decided to call it quits, overconfident and thought he could beat the dog in a fight, or heroic and had been trying to buy us time to escape. Whatever the reason, I pitied him. He couldn't have been much older than I am, and his family back home was surely devastated.

For what seemed like the umpteenth time in five minutes, I rolled over to find a more comfortable position, but to no avail. I was just too stressed over recent events and the gravity of this whole situation.

"You can't sleep either?" Davenport asked from across the shelter.

"Nope," I replied solemnly, turning to face him.

"Afraid the dog's going to come and find us?"

"Not really, I just feel really bad about what happened to that boy. He saved us by giving up his life."

"You don't know that he was trying to save us, he might not have even known we were there."

"I know, but it still feels like he sacrificed himself for us, and we don't even know his name."

"Well, it's in the past now. Whatever the reason, that boy prevented the dog from attacking us, which means we get to live and keep going in the competition. Now try to get some sleep, you'll need your energy for tomorrow."

"What happens tomorrow?" I questioned.

"We go on the offense," he answered.

~0~

After managing to get in three or four hours of sleep in between watch shifts and lying awake in thought, I woke up to see Davenport and Ferb hunched over a crudely-drawn map of the arena.

"What are you guys up to?" I asked, yawning as I spoke.

"We're devising a battle plan," Davenport said without looking up. "By combining my knowledge of the arena with Ferb's, we've managed to get a rough idea of the terrain throughout the area."

I looked over his shoulder at the map beneath them, which showed a small clearing where the starting place had been, surrounded by forest on three sides and mountains on the other. A small line was drawn where we were certain there was a stream, which continued in either direction as a dotted line where the stream ought to be. Over the approximate location of our camp, an X had been scrawled in the dirt.

"I've never seen those mountains, how do you know they're there?"

"Ferb says he went there shortly after the competition began to get a vantage point of the whole arena. The starting block is surrounded by trees on all other sides," Davenport explained.

"How do we know where the arena ends on each side? It can't stretch on forever in all directions," I pointed out.

"We don't know for sure how the boundaries are set. I've heard it might be as complicated as an electric force field, or as simple as a massive trench around the whole arena."

"So what's the plan? Are we just going to wander aimlessly until we bump into another competitor and take them out, or what?"

"That's what Ferb and I are working on. Wandering aimlessly doesn't seem like a very promising strategy, but we might have to resort to that if we can't come up with anything better. Do you have any idea where any of these people might be hiding?"

"No, I haven't seen anybody around except the dog and KC Undercover girl, and I don't know where they are now."

"We've been trying to use psychology to figure out exactly where these people have gone. How many are left again? 8 including us? Is that right?"

"Yes, four people have died, which leaves eight. Three of those are us, which leaves five possible targets," I said.

"Do you think a typical person would flee to the forest or the mountains?" he asked me.

"Probably the forest, since most people are more familiar with that type of environment as opposed to the mountains. It looks like it would provide more resources."

"Agreed. But they could still be anywhere, the forest around here just keep going and going. We're going to need to come up with some way to locate and track people. Any ideas?"

"You're the scientist, you think of something," I insisted, not wanting to be put on the spot. I wasn't exactly known for my problem-solving abilities in situations like these.

"We could try to pick up vibrations of footsteps through the ground, but we don't know how big the animals out here are and a deer could just as easily trigger a mechanism like that," he said, more to himself than anybody else. I noticed that Ferb, too, looked deep in thought. I watched in fascination as their facial expressions portrayed a series of epiphanies, followed by dejection as their science-oriented minds addressed all the flaws in the plan they had just formulated. Davenport looked like he was about to speak a few times, before catching himself as he realized it wouldn't work. Finally, after many hours of thinking, during which I paced aimlessly, bored out of my mind, Davenport shouted excitedly, "I've got it!"

"What? What's your plan?" I asked in anticipation.

"We dam the river!" he exclaimed.

"How does damming the river going to help?"

"If we cut off water to other areas in the arena, the other competitors will be forced to come this way to get water to survive, and we'll catch them when they do!"

"But what if the river isn't the only source of water in the arena? There could be another pond or stream on the other side that you haven't seen."

"That's where Ferb comes in. He's more familiar with the other side of the arena than we are, so, if he agrees, we'll send him out there to scout out other water sources and eliminate them," Davenport explained.

"Are you okay with that, Ferb?" I asked, earning nothing but a quick nod in response.

"What do you think, does it sound like it'll work?"

"Yeah, I guess it seems like a good plan. How are you planning to dam the river?" I questioned skeptically.

"Same way the beavers do it, with tree limbs and mud," he answered.

"Then what are we waiting for, let's get started," I encouraged.

"Okay. Ferb, pack yourself plenty of food and water for the trip. There's a freshly-boiled pot over by the fire and you can use one of your containers. How long do you think you'll be gone?" Davenport asked. Ferb held up two fingers in answer: two days at most.

"Two days? You'd better bring as much water as you can possibly carry," I said.

"He's got it under control," Davenport assured. "Pack everything you think you'll need and be on your way as soon as possible. We're going to get started on this dam."

After Ferb had scurried off to pack for his trip, Davenport and I walked around in search of a good tree from which to harvest wood for the dam. It didn't take long to find one that would provide suitable lumber.

"How exactly are we going to go about getting branches big enough to for the base of a dam?" I questioned. "We don't have a chainsaw or anything."

"We'll find a way," he assured. "Do we have any wire?"

"No, we don't just rope."

"An axe?"

"Just Ferb's knife, which I assume he'll be bringing with him when he leaves." The machete I'd had in my backpack had broken after I tried to use it to cut a thick branch to brace our new shelter, and there was no chance a pocketknife could cut through a branch.

"Enough manpower to break a branch?"

"Not even close," I responded solemnly.

"That's going to be a problem."

"Could we hijack a beaver?" I asked, trying unsuccessfully to lighten the mood with a bit of humor.

"No, beavers can't climb," he answered. Leave it to Davenport to ignore the joke and find a legitimate scientific flaw in the plan that wasn't even supposed to be seriously considered.

"Then what are we going to do?"

"I honestly don't know," he sighed despondently.

Ferb chose that moment to approach us to announce his departure. Well, not really announce. I'd recently deduced that Ferb didn't talk unless it was absolutely necessary, which was pretty annoying at times.

"Ferb, do you have any idea how we're going to cut down large branches?" Davenport asked. I'd also figured out that Ferb was a great engineer, so if anyone was to have an answer to this question, it was him. But instead of suggesting some ingenious plan that nobody would ever think of, he simply offered us his knife.

"No Ferb, you'll need that to defend yourself if you run into anything dangerous," I said. He simply shook his head at me, placed the knife in Davenport's hands, and dashed off through the trees to complete his mission.

"Ever get the feeling he knows something you don't?" Davenport asked me.

I sighed, "Only every second since we met him. Let's get to work."

"Okay, you take the knife and climb the tree, then chop the branch down while I try to dodge falling limbs," he instructed, handing me the knife.

"What? You want me to chop down a tree?"

"No, I want you to chop a branch off of a tree, let's hurry up and start or this dam will never get built. Not even someone of my genius can build a dam without any wood."

"Fine, but I just feel so guilty cutting off a tree's arm."

"It's us or the tree, you choose."

Reluctantly, I ascended the tree and found purchase on a branch near one that looked promising for a dam. "How's this one?" I shouted down to Davenport, who gave me a thumbs-up in return. I took the knife and began hacking at the base of the branch, which began to teeter precariously as I proceeded. "TIMBER!" I yelled as the limb tumbled through several layers of branches below me, and landed with a thunk on the ground.

"Nice! Go find another one!" Davenport said.

This process continued until there were barely any branches left on the tree, and I descended back to the ground.

"Is that enough? The river isn't that wide, and I don't want to hurt any more trees."

"Yes, this should work. Good job." We lashed the branches together with some rope and dragged the bundle to the river, where we set it down on the bank. Judging by the sun, we had maybe two hours maximum to build the dam if we wanted to finished by nightfall.

"How are we going to go about building this?" I asked. "I've never dammed a river before, and we're running out of daylight."

"We should start by cutting these branches to the right length to fit snugly between the two riverbanks," Davenport suggested. He took another spare rope and used it to measure the width of the river. From the parts of it I had seen, the river was maybe ten feet across at its widest and a foot and a half deep at most. Shallow enough to walk across, but I still preferred to just jump over it at the narrower sections to avoid getting my feet wet. After he finished, Davenport said, "We should build it right here, where it's not too far across. We'll chop the lumber to be a little over six feet long, and then jam it in."

"Okay," I agreed. When it came to building things, I had quickly learned that it was never a good idea to contradict Davenport. He got way too offended.

As we worked, I wondered how many people currently relied on this river for water further downstream. How many people were we planning to murder?

Well, there you have it. Sorry if that chapter was a bit of a filler, but I promise things will pick up soon. Don't have much more to say here except to read and review! See you next chapter!