Okay. The merge! Finally, I can get to the point where...oops, near spoiler there. I'm just so excited about this episode!

Thanks for reviewing, Liz The Sweet Writer, yeezynight14, Nicky Haugh, Pokemon FTW, OmniPlanckInstant, SuperKitty4789, RebelToasters12 and Bloodylilcorpse.

The break was fine, except for one thing. I noticed Scott kept giving me these sly glances. He had a sort of smug "I-know-something-you-don't" look on his face.

Oh, and Lightning got me up early to train for upcoming physical challenges, again. I pointed out that the merge was coming up, but he just pointed out again that he thought it might as well be the only two Toxic Rats left who got to the finale, and I wouldn't beat him anyway.

Well, the next challenge was a mix of physical and common sense. Oh, and luck.

Chris brought us all out of our cabins with a machine that sounded like an air horn, standing on top of the Maggots' cabin. "Good morning, campers!" he greeted us. "Today, we have a very special treat!"

Lightning gave a gasp. "Fantasy football?"

So did Zoey. "Espressos?" she said hopefully.

"Helicopter bear hunt?" Scott suggested.
I decided to throw out what I would consider a treat, although I knew it wasn't anything of the sort. "Trip to the mainland's nearest mall?"

"Nope!" Chris answered to all of them. "It's merge day! No more Team Rat, no more Team Maggot!" He jumped off the roof and landed unharmed. "From now on, it's every man, woman and...damn it, I wrote some of my script before the show started and I assumed Cameron would still be here. Now I can't make that joke! Every man and woman for themselves."

I frowned. "How come you assumed Cameron was still going to be here? I knew he was brainy, but how would he have survived all the physical challenges?" I paused. "Oh wait...Beth and Owen, right? Both underdogs – so you expected Cameron to be added to the ranks of underdog finalists. I get it!"

I went to the confessional after that, since we got a bit of free time, for reasons I'll explain in a minute. "I knew it! The merge is here, and unless I'm mistaken, it could be a lot of fun from here on in! I think Lightning might want to form an alliance with me, and...yeah, that's an okay idea. I've decided now...I think I should give him a chance. But not yet – I'm going to wait until the season is over. Unless we both get eliminated before the finale, in which case...but that's not gonna happen. I'm going to win!"

Weird, huh? In the space of two and a half weeks, I'd gone from playing-for-fun to going-to-win.

Okay, the reason we got a break was because Chris dropped a concrete block on the Maggots' cabin and let them have some time to find a way to get their stuff out, if possible, so once I'd made my confessional, I went to help out.

Anne Maria was less bothered than Zoey, since she'd left most of her valuables (hairbrush, hairspray, hairdryer) within the confines of her masses of hair, but she still only had the clothes she was wearing. Both of them had lost their nightclothes and makeup bags.

Lightning didn't help. He was too busy counting as he used a log as a dumbbell – plus he accidentally counted ten before nine, so he couldn't really do two things at once.

Mike actually did find an old pair of Brick's boots in the rubble, but when he threw them to Zoey – well, you know that story when foot odours can put people to sleep if they're bad enough? Well, Zoey went all faint, fell off the roof, and probably would've gotten injured if Mike hadn't caught her.

When I saw that, I caught Mike's eye and gave him a thumbs up. If only he could keep his personalities from coming out (and he was doing pretty well at the moment), things would be perfect.

"Getting jealous, huh?"

I jumped. Scott had apparently noticed me watching them and had decided to taunt me about it. I scowled at him and replied "As a matter of fact, if you'd been watching more closely, you would've seen I was encouraging them."

"Oh, I didn't mean that kind of jealous." Scott shrugged. "I meant that you want your own loverboy. Only you don't want to get distracted, so you thought the making out can wait until the show's over."

I scowled harder. "How did you-" Then I gasped. "I can't believe it! You were listening in on my confessional, weren't you?"

Scott just shrugged again. "Does it matter how I know? I think what matters is whether I tell Lightning you like him or not before you're ready to let him know."

"And why would I care?" I said, although my heart seemed to know why and was beating hard in an attempt to tell me that I really wanted to stay single until I left the show.

"Because you know that you can't stay focused if you have a boyfriend to worry about." Scott said slyly.

Yeah, he was right. I'd told myself that not saying anything was a precaution in case my focus dropped, but really, it was a necessity. Last time I'd had a boyfriend, I'd been in la-la land all the time, thinking of him and only of him. The relationship hadn't lasted long because he turned out to be one of those "bed-the-cheerleader" types, but I'd never forgotten the way he'd made me feel, even if he hadn't meant anything in reality. I couldn't let that happen again!

"And," Scott continued, "We both know that if Mr Mega-Jock knows you like him, he'll insist you be his girlfriend straight off, and unlike some people, he keeps his head in the game at all times. Your gameplay will fail, his will not. And once you're gone, we'll make him lose, and he'll be convinced it's cause he let your elimination distract him, and he won't want you any more."

My heart hammered, although I tried to stay cool. "You don't know that'll happen." I insisted.

But Scott wasn't going to give up. "You'll still lose focus." he said, his voice calm. "Of course, I could be convinced not to say a word to Lightning, if you do something for me."

I gave a sigh. "Tell me what it is, and I'll think about it."

I couldn't believe it when he told me. "You know more about Mike than you're letting on. I overheard you and Dawn whispering about it a few days ago. Don't think I don't notice things like that. If you tell me what Mike's deal is, I won't breathe a word to Lightning."

I was caught in a dilemma. I promised not to give Mike away, no matter how much I wanted to. But if Lightning knew we liked each other, it would kill my gameplay.

I wondered if I could word it vaguely enough. "Mike's deal is that he's nervous about telling Zoey how he feels." I said finally. "His way of coping is to step out of himself once in a while. He can't really help it."

Unfortunately, the guy could read between the lines. His dark blue eyes narrowed. "Oh, he can't help it? Are you sure you're not saying he's got MPD?"

Well, it wasn't called that any more. "Of course I'm sure of what I'm saying!" I snapped. "What's the matter? Not happy that you can't blackmail someone else with the information I gave you? Well, I kept up my end of the deal."

Scott just smirked at me. "I guess I'll have to assume I'm right, judging by how defensive you are. Deal done. I won't say a word to Lightning."

"And if you say a word to Mike, or Zoey, or Anne Maria for that matter, or Lightning, you'll be so sorry!" I hissed. "I'm friends with everyone, and trust me, it won't be hard to convince them to turf you."

"Yeah, right." Scott said smugly. "Zoey trusts me. It won't take much for Anne Maria to vote you off, and if Zoey knows you were hiding something, she'll vote the same way, and you know she can convince Mike to do the same."

There was nothing more I could do.

Chris called us to explain the challenge soon after that conversation. "And to show you how it's done, I give you Total Drama's favourite juvenile delinquent...Duncan!"

I wasn't surprised to see one of the most popular contestants to ever be on the show, with both a fanbase and a hatebase. I mean, Courtney and Gwen were here – it was obvious that the guy they argued over would get an episode. As far as the populars went, only Owen and Heather needed an episode now (it was only later on that I found out Owen did make a cameo appearance).

"Duncan still owes me some extra time for skipping out on World Tour," Chris explained, "So I saved an extra painful challenge demo, just for him."

At the time, Duncan was tied to a stretcher with a mask, Hannibal Lecter-style. However, he could still talk. "Eat dirt, McLean." was all he said, but even though I couldn't actually see it, I felt his scowl.

Okay, so the challenge was – well, part one was to try and find a key in Chef's kitchen. There would be six – enough for one each. Each of them would work on one of Chef's vintage go-karts (at this point, Chef told Chris not to let us drive his go-karts, but I don't think he was paying attention). Then Chris got Chef to untie Duncan to demo, and...yeah, he made a run for it.

"Keep running, Duncan!" I yelled after him. "Tell civilization we don't expect to be back until we get reincarnated!"

I heard him laughing as he disappeared into the distance.

That was when Scott pulled Mike aside, and I sidled closer to listen to what he was saying. "Here's the deal;" he said, "You help me win today's challenge, and I don't tell Zoey the truth about all your...funny characters."

Mike stared at him. "How do you know about that?"

"He blackmailed me!" I rushed to explain. "Then I tried to fob him off when he asked, but he sort of ended up guessing and I'm so sorry, Mike, please don't hate me, I didn't mean for him to know!"

So I had to keep an eye on them while I was searching for a key. Scott did absolutely nothing, making Mike do everything. And every time Mike tried to refuse, Scott made like he was going to tell Zoey.

At a moment when I was searching near Mike, I whispered in his ear "The only way to break this is to tell Zoey! She'd rather hear it from you than from him, and Dawn and I both think she'd be totally fine with it! And you know Dawn knows this kind of stuff, right?"

Mike gave a sigh. "I know, I know, but I'm not so sure."

I gave a sigh, too. "I'm sorry this happened, but your choices are telling Zoey, or letting Scott win."

It gets worse. Not only did Mike have to help Scott, but he had to ditch Zoey to do it. She was looking in a bucket, and some creature in it started pulling her in, grabbing onto her pigtails. I had to be the one to pull her out, although of course, the first person she called to for help was Mike.

Eventually, everyone found a key. Mike actually found a gold one, but Scott made him trade. Yeah, we were going to HAVE to vote him off.

The rest of the challenge had a simple idea. We had to take one of Chef's go-karts (and try to find a way to evade him with it), and take a paint can with us. Then, we had to tag three spots. First one to tag all three didn't just get invincibility – they were the only one who got to vote. So they had full charge of who went home – meaning Scott was the only one I really didn't want to win. Mike would vote him off for sure, and if I talked to Lightning, I could probably persuade him. If Zoey won, I decided, I'd have to force Mike to tell her the truth, because otherwise, I had a suspicion she might vote him off. Anne Maria would most likely take Zoey out, which I didn't want to happen, either. So basically, I needed me, Mike or Lightning to win, but who knew how this would go?

We each took a spray can and iPad so we could navigate, and went for the go-karts. But getting past Chef wasn't easy. In fact, it was so hard that Lightning and I ended up caged, with Fang guarding, because we didn't grab our go-karts fast enough.

"We need to think of something to get away without getting near Fang." I said out loud.

"Don't worry, girl!" Lightning said. "Lightning can't be caged. He'll just widen the bars a little..." And soon, the bars were wide enough so we could both get out. And I had an idea of how to get past Fang.

"Hey, Lightning." I whispered. "Would you do me a favour? Tell Fang if he lets us go, he can ride in your go-kart, and you'll take him to find Scott? It's not a lie, it's just you have to make some stops to tag."

And you know what? He actually did it! My go-kart was a little slow, but I still made it to the first stop earlier than Lightning. Already, there was a pink heart, a purple clover, a blue cross, and a green tick. I sprayed an orange smiley face and jumped back in. There was no way I would win, but at least I could put up a good fight.

As I went to the second location, a weird stilted message came up from Chris. "Listen up. Three landmarks wasn't tough enough so I added a fourth." The fourth one appeared on my iPad. "Ain't it a doozy? The mountainside in the middle of the island. Now get tagging and don't spare the paint. McLean, out."

Well, I still had a couple more smiley faces to draw, so I decided just to keep going from the second to the third, and from there to the third.

I knew I had to be too late when I reached the third one. It was a totem pole. Anne Maria was shimmying up it, but the pink heart and blue cross was already there. I knew the heart was Zoey, and the cross was either Scott or Mike – not sure which, but that meant I'd never reach the mountainside in time, so I just went straight there.

What a sight! Mike was shirtless when I got there, but he didn't seem to be Vito. His eyes were closed, but he was standing up, punching and pulling at himself.

"Mike, what is wrong with you?" a shocked Zoey cried out.

"Oh no!" I panicked. "Zoey, I have to tell you this now. I didn't want to keep it secret, but Mike made me promise not to tell you -"

"Tell me what?" Zoey asked, her eyes still fixed on Mike, a look of worry in them.

But at that moment, Mike suddenly stopped moving. He leant over, still.

Zoey moved closer to him. "Mike...are you okay?" she asked.

Mike suddenly opened his eyes. "Better than okay." He grinned. "I won!" Then he took Zoey's hands in his. "Zoey, listen. My characters – they're not just for show. I...I have multiple personalities."

Zoey paused. "That..." she looked over at me. "Is that what you were gong to say?"

I nodded. "Sorry, Mike, but she didn't get what was going on, so I felt like I had to say something." I smiled sincerely. "I'm glad you got in first."

And you know what? After all that drama, just as I'd predicted, Zoey was absolutely cool with it. She said that she loved oddballs, and Mike was the coolest one. "Multiple personalities just means there's more Mike to love."

It turned out, by the way, that the last landmark was a fake. And Lightning tagged it. It was a cliff face modeled to look like Chris – Chef had faked the message to pay Chris out for making us steal his go-karts.

And so who had won?

Zoey.

Her pink hearts showed up on every landmark they were supposed to, and apparently, she'd finished hers just before Scott had tagged his cross. Oh yeah, and Scott nearly got eaten by Fang with Lightning's help, but he should've waited until Scott didn't have his spray can. The poor mutant ended up with a blue tongue and no revenge.

I discussed the vote with Zoey when we were sitting around in the girls' cabin that night. "Have you thought about who you're going to take out?" I asked.

Zoey nodded. "Yes. I was thinking about several people, but after what I saw today, I've decided – I trusted the wrong people in this game. I won't make that mistake again." Her usually friendly face was set and firm.

"Um...you mean everyone you trusted?" I felt a bit nervous. I'd never seen Zoey this determined.

Suddenly, her face relaxed and she laughed. "Did you think I meant you? Of course I didn't mean you, Danni! I know you kept stuff from me, but I totally get why you did – I would've trusted you a lot less if you had told me about Mike without him giving the okay. And he told me what happened today. You know who I shouldn't have trusted, don't you?"

And I knew. I grinned. "Thanks, Zoey! He was the last person I wanted to see in the finale!" And we grinned at each other.

And it happened .When Chris told Zoey to pick the loser, she stood up. "I thought about it." she said finally. "And the deciding point today was basic human decency." Her expression became firm. "One person today demanded special treatment through blackmail, and he's getting special treatment. No vote off." Her face relaxed slightly, and she even smiled a little as she turned to face him. "Sorry, Scott, but cheating doesn't pay. You're out."

Scott blinked at her, looking completely shocked. I couldn't help smiling at his face. Anne Maria outright laughed.

"Priceless!" she whispered to me.

"Yeah, I think so too." I whispered back. Then I thought of one thing I could do to prove to Scott that I was a better person than him. I stood up. "You know, Scotty boy, I could give you some advice as to how to get Fang to leave you alone?"

Scott narrowed his eyes at me suspiciously, but he took the comment. "How?"

"Give him his tooth back." I shrugged. "Obviously. Then he'd stop going after you specifically."

So Scott was given just enough time to toss the tooth back into the water underneath the dock for Fang to take back before he took the Hurl of Shame.

And I sure as hell wasn't going to miss him.

What will Revenge of the Island do without its main villain? Up the challenges, of course!

Also, I have a question. Remember the predictions I asked you to make at the start? Think about what you wrote – how far Danni would go, who her friends would be, and who she might crush on. What do you think about the ones you made, compared to what's happened so far? Has your final two guess changed?

BTW, if you're wondering what happened with Zoey winning, she got there a little earlier than in canon, so finished her heart before Scott threw the paint can at her. And yeah, he didn't know Vito's trigger, so what Scott did was knock Mike out after he said he was going to save Zoey. Then Scott dumped Mike's unconscious body in his go-kart and drive Mike's attached one to the mountainside. So Mike was still fighting his alters by the time Zoey got there, and she already knew that Scott had knocked him out.