(a/n) Im going to warn you all now, I wrote this entire chapter in one afternoon (all four thousand words of it), so it might be a little lack-luster. however, unlike usual, I did go through and fix all the gramatical errors that spell check didn't find. I'm proud of how this chapter turned out, but I'll leave the ultimate judgement up to you readers.

Episode 19: Ru$h Part 2

Payton crept silently through the forest, looking over her shoulder every now and then to make sure she wasn't being followed. It had been a few minutes since the first hunter had been released and already Payton was starting to get paranoid, thinking that every crunching leaf she heard behind her was the hunter coming to get her. She knew she was worrying too much, but she couldn't help it. She'd never been hunted before.

~CONFESSIONAL CAM~

"Now I know how all those animals that people kill for sport feel." Payton said to the camera. "Constantly looking over your shoulder, the constant fear of being attacked, not knowing what is behind the next tree… it's terrifying."

~END CONFESSIONAL~

She came to a fork in the trail and stood there for a moment, trying to decide which way to go. Before she could decide, however, she heard something behind her, distinctly recognizing the sound of foot steps. Payton reached for her Hunter Repeller and whirled around only to have her hand smacked, her weapon flying to the ground. "Easy. Don't want you wasting that." Tak said as he let go of her hand.

"Tak! Don't scare me like that." Payton said, rubbing the hand Tak had smacked. "And was that really necessary?"

"I said I didn't want you wasting your only defense." Tak said.

Payton sighed and nodded. "Yeah, I guess I owe you for that one." She agreed. "Thanks… but never bitch slap something out of my hand again."

"Done."

"So, is there a reason you're following me?"

Tak shrugged. "Saw you walking around alone. Thought you might like some company."

Payton chuckled. "Right. And I suppose now is the part where you ask if you can buy me a drink."

"If only." Tak laughed. Payton laughed with him. Then they both realized what they'd just said and went silent, awkwardness filling the air. Tak looked over to Payton to try to read her feelings through the expression on her face, but all he could tell was that she was feeling the same way he was: awkward, stupid, and a little bit regrettable. The strange part was he liked this. To him, even the embracing moments felt right with Payton. Tak sighed, deciding to finally make a move. "So… should we talk, Payton?" he asked.

"Yeah…" Payton said. "Maybe."

There was another brief pause between the two of them before Payton spoke again. "I've been really confused lately." She said. "I like you, Tak. I really do… but I like Nicholas too. The way you two have been flirting with me over the last few days, well, let's just say you're both doing a good job. And I can tell you both know about each others feelings for me, and I can't thank you enough for not fighting over me, I don't want that kind of attention… but I am having a really hard time choosing."

Tak nodded and scratched the back of his head. He was about to respond when he heard they heard something running towards them. They found the hunter rushing down one of the paths on the forked trail, the white man with the shaved head. "Damn! Where's my weapon?" Payton shouted. She looked all over for it, but it wasn't there.

~CONFESSIONAL CAM~

"And that makes five." Russell said to the camera, laughing afterwards as he scratched behind the ear of his dog who was sitting on his lap.

~END CONFESSIONAL~

Tak jumped in front of Payton. "Run!" he shouted. Payton nodded and ran for it, disappearing into the woods. Tak reached for his own Hunter Repeller, but was shocked when he couldn't find it. "Crap! Where's mine?" By the time he'd made the decision to run it was too late. The Hunter had tackled him to the ground. While Tak was pinned to the ground, the Hunter pulled a walkie-talkie out of his pocket.

"I've got one." He said.

"Good. I'll be sending out another hunter now, along with some interns out to bring him in." Chef said back.

"How did you know it was a boy?" the Hunter asked.

"It's called a plot hole."

~CONFESSIONAL CAM~

"Typical." Tak said to the camera, rolling his eyes. "Black guy goes first… no, I'm kidding. It was just dumb luck."

~LATER~

Kyra rushed through the throng of trees as the Hunter chased after her, this one being the Hispanic man with a scar on his cheek. She wanted to see if she could outrun him before using her Hunter Repeller, and so far that little venture wasn't working out so well. Even if TJ wasn't right, she had definitely been wrong. All that running she'd done earlier had taken too much out of her. She was breathing heavily and she was practically drenched in sweat. She wouldn't be able to take much more of this and she knew it.

As if a gift from the gods, the Hunter suddenly tripped and she spotted an old cabin on a nearby hill. While the Hunter was getting back to his feet she ran into the cabin to find a place to hide. But, as luck would have it, this was where the weapons from the mission were, and there was still one left! She grabbed it just as the Hunter came in through the door behind her. Kyra swung around and hit the button, sounding off an alarm that meant the Hunter had no choice but to remain stationary for the next one hundred and twenty seconds. "Oh, too bad." Kyra said sarcastically.

"Yeah, for you." The Hunter chuckled.

The next thing she knew, Kyra found herself trapped in a full nelson, someone else having put their arms under hers and then locking his hands behind her head. "And that makes two." said the bald Hunter. "Call it in."

"Already on it." said the Hispanic Hunter as he pulled out his walkie-talkie. "Hey, we've got one at the old cabin."

"Good work, boys." Chef said on the other end. "Interns are coming to your location and I'm sending out another Hunter."

"All right."

"You said another." Kyra said, being hopeful that TJ had been captured already. "Who's been captured already?"

"Whatever the black guys name is, it was him?" asked the bald hunter.

Kyra groaned. "Great."

~CONFESSIONAL CAM~

"So, now I've lost my bet to TJ, been made a fool of by having my argument blown apart, been embraced on national television by being one of the first captured in the challenge, and to top it all off I have to be TJ's… I don't want to say slave… let's got with personal servant for a full day. Could this day possibly get any worse?"

Kyra shifted her position slightly, and she suddenly heard a crack underneath her. The toilet seat of the confessional outhouse suddenly snapped in half and she fell part way into the tank where the sewage was stored, only her arms catching the sides saving her from falling in completely. She yelped, the experience obliterating what little nerve she had left. Then she realized something and grimaced and shivered. "I'm sitting on something… sticky…"

~LATER~

Allister and Ayame snuck through the trees silently, making their way towards the trail. Allister stuck his head out to check for Hunters before motioning for Ayame to follow him. They were doing exceptionally well so far. They hadn't come across a Hunter as of yet, the both still had their original weapons, and they'd both found the extra weapons from the mission which they also still had. Still, Ayame had a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach that their luck wouldn't last much longer. She knew there were at least two Hunters out and about already and she was just waiting for one to cross their path.

There was suddenly a crackling noise on their walkie-talkies. "Attention remaining contestants." Chef said. "Congratulations to those of you who have lasted this far and to Tak and Kyra, tough luck. Three Hunters have now been released. It is now time for me to reveal the second mission. Hidden in several places around the island are clues to the location of exit point. There are only three. Find one of these clues, figure it out, and be the first to reach the exit point in order to be the winner of the challenge and claim your prize… if you dare." He laughed sinisterly before the walkie-talkies crackled again and turned off.

"All right. We know what our objective is, so let's get going." Allister said.

"Not so fast."

Ayame and Allister froze as two hunters stepped out of the woods and onto the trail on both sides of them. Their hands immediately went to the weapons that could freeze them. The two Hunters slowly circled around them for a few seconds, being carefully not to get within range of the weapons. Finally they went on the offensive, charging at the two contestants from both sides. Allister and Ayame were barely able to aim their weapons and press the buttons in time, freezing both Hunters in their tracks. They sighed in satisfaction and started to walk away. But before they'd taken two steps a third hunter, the woman, jumped down from the trees, catching them off guard long enough to grabbed their shoulders, successfully capturing them. They both groaned.

"Get Chef on the horn." She called to her frozen companions. "We've got two more." One of them did as told and called Chef on the walkie-talkie, who acknowledged their accomplishment, sent out interns to escort the captures back to camp, and sent out the last two Hunters.

~ELSEWHERE~

Penny and Nicholas sat quietly behind a few trees at the edge of the camp, waiting for the last two Hunters to make their way into the forest. It wasn't long before the last two Hunters, the large black man and the tattooed blond guy, came out of the mess hall and headed into the forest, completely oblivious to their presence. They moved into the camp and began searching. They figured that Chef, being the military man that he was, would keep at least one of the clues close to himself… possibly on his person.

They first searched through the cabins. They found nothing of interest other than a few songs Jason and Sakura had wrote, a little black book in Russell's sock drawer which was locked shut, and a book lying on top of TJ's bag titled The Bro Code. (Penny had tried to scan through this, but Nicholas snatched it away from her, having read the Bro Code himself and knowing that one of the rules of the Bro Code was that no woman should know the Bro Code). They searched the communal washrooms and even the confessional cam, finding nothing.

~CONFESSIONAL CAM~

"There's only one place left in camp that we haven't checked… the Mess Hall. Chef's base of operation." Nicholas said to the camera.

~CONFESSIONAL CAM~

"What exactly is it about this Bro Code that women aren't supposed to know?" Penny demanded.

~END CONFESSIONAL~

They silently snuck up the stairs of the Mess Hall stoop, crouching down by the walls on the outside of the door. Nicholas looked inside, finding Chef sitting at one of the tables, watching something on a portable television and holding a piece of paper in his other hand. Nicholas looked back to Penny and gave her the thumbs up. She nodded and they stood. They kicked open the doors, startling Chef, and stormed inside, grabbing the paper from Chef's hand and running back out before he'd even noticed who it was.

Chef just grinned as he recomposed himself. "Smart kids." He said.

Outside, at the edge of the woods, Penny and Nicholas sat behind a tree, breathing heavily from their run. "So… what's the paper say?" Penny questioned.

Nicholas lifted it to his face and read it aloud. "Bread. Eggs. Milk. Salmon. Butter… this is a grocery list!"

"Turn it over." Penny instructed.

Nicholas did as she said. "It says laser."

"Well that certainly doesn't belong on a grocery list." Penny said, standing up and taking the paper from her companion. "I think we've found the first clue!"

"But what the hell kind of a clue is laser?" Nicholas demanded.

"Maybe it only makes sense if we have all three." Penny suggested, folding up the paper and tossing it back to him. "Let's see if we can find them."

"That sounds like a plan." Nicholas agreed. "But first I think we'd better RUN!!!"

"What?"

Nicholas ran for it just as the blond Hunter with the cross tattoo came up behind Penny and grabbed her arm. Penny gasped and tried to pull away before realizing who it was. "That's one more for the collection." The Hunter said. "Half done. Just six to go."

"You've got to be kidding me." Penny demanded. "I only made it half way?"

"Considering that there's an odd number of you, you made it less than half way." The Hunter laughed.

"Not funny." Penny growled.

~ELSEWHERE~

Russell grunted as he tried pushing the massive rock, roughly the same size as he was but three times the weight. Not but a few minutes ago he'd been struck with a brilliant but amazingly simple idea for where to hid his stolen weapons. What better place to hide something than under a rock? It was so simple it was ingenious. The problem was that he needed a big enough rock and the only one he'd found so far was the one he was working with, which was so big he could barely move it.

He heard Mr. Muggles barking. He looked over to the little dog to find him sitting in front of a tree… the trunk of which split into several large branches a shoulder height, making a nice little place to hide something. Russell glanced between the tree and the rock for a few minutes before furrowing his brow. "On second thought, this idea is so simple that it's flat out stupid." He grumbled before walking over to the tree.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out the first stolen Hunter Repeller, but as he went to place it in the tree he saw something that caught his interest. A small, folded up piece of paper. He grinned. "Jack pot." He said, shoving the weapon back into his pocket and grabbing the paper. He unfolded it quickly to find that the only thing written on it was an O. "What kind of clue is this?" he demanded.

Despite his disappointment in the clue, he kept it, stuffing it in his other pocket while he went back to storing the stolen weapons. "Good boy, Mr. Muggles." He said to the dog as his feet.

Mr. Muggles just yapped back at him.

~ELSEWHERE~

TJ sighed contently as he lounged on a tree branch. He still had both his weapons, he'd only had a couple close encounters with Hunters, he'd found one of the clues to the exit point (a piece of paper with bot written on it), and, after hearing that Kyra had already been eliminated, he knew that he'd won his bet.

~CONFESSIONAL CAM~

"Slow and steady, baby. Slow and steady." TJ said to the camera.

~END CONFESSIONAL~

As TJ tried to figure out what his clue might mean, he noticed Sakura run under the tree he was resting in. He sat up and watched her, only a few seconds later finding that she was being chased by a Hunter, the large black man. He noticed some more movement a ways away and looked over to it, finding Jason from the female Hunter on another path. The paths they were running on crossed at one point and, from the looks of things, Sakura and Jason were going to run right into each other. TJ, feeling like he needed a good laugh, watched until exactly that happened. He laughed as they both fell to the ground, giving their Hunters the advantage they needed to capture them.

TJ then jumped down from his tree and took off down the trail away from the hunters. With the luck he'd had so far that day, there was no doubt in his mind that he could've walked away without being spotted, but he still ran to be safe.

It wasn't long before he came to another crossroads in the trails and, to his surprise, he found Russell, Nicholas, and Payton going down the other three paths in the same direction. They all stopped in the center where they met. "Don't suppose any of you have the other clues, do you?" Russell asked.

Nicholas and TJ pulled out their papers and the four of them huddled together to figure it out. "Okay, we've got three words." Nicholas explained. "Laser, bot, and o… what the hell is Chef smoking?"

"It's probably a riddle." Payton said, snatching up the papers from the three boys. "Let's put them in random orders and see what we get." They did so and came up with six different combinations, none of which made any sense: o laser bot, o bot laser, bot o laser, bot laser o, laser o bot, and laser bot o.

"This is stupid!" Russell shouted. "There aren't any lasers or robots on this island! And what is o supposed to mean?"

"He's right." Nicholas agreed. "Either these are fake or Chef is some kind of genius."

"Maybe not." TJ said. He took the three papers and arranged them into the third option they'd come up with. "Bot o laser." TJ said quickly. "What does that sound like?"

The other three thought about it for a while. Nicholas and Russell couldn't seem to get their heads around what TJ was saying, but Payton managed to figure it out. "Boat of Losers! The exit point is the Boat of Losers!"

"Bingo, sister!" TJ said, high-fiving her.

"There they are!"

The four remaining contestants broke from their huddle, finding all five Hunters coming at them from three different directions. Panicking, they ran for it, heading down the only safe path. The Hunters chased after them through the woods. The chase went on unchanged for what seemed like forever until they reached camp Wawanakwa where one of the Hunters managed to tackle Nicholas. The remaining three headed for the dock of shame as Chef and the already eliminated contestants watched from the Mess Hall porch. All three managed to step onto the Dock of Shame before anymore of them were eliminated, the female hunter managing to grab Payton's arm.

It was down to TJ and Russell, both running neck and neck towards the Boat of Losers, the Hunters (and Mr. Muggles) still in hot pursuit. No one could tell what the outcome would be and time seemed to slow as they came closer and closer to their destination. It almost seemed like they might tie at the end… but then Mr. Muggles bit onto the hem of TJ's pant leg, causing him to trip and fall into the lake.

Russell jumped onto the Boat of Losers. "Yes! I win!" he shouted.

All five hunters came to a halt at the edge of the dock and Chef joined them not much later. "Congratulations, soldier." Chef said, saluting Russell. "You've won the challenge… just remember what I said." He grinned as Russell stopped celebrating, his face going white. "It's not necessarily a good thing to win this challenge."

The next thing he knew the Boat of Losers started moving, accelerating fast enough for Russell to fall over. Chef tossed Mr. Muggles onto the boat. The dog landed on top of its master, panicked enough to start biting at Russell's ear. By the time he was back to his feet the dock was already to far away to jump back onto. He dropped to his knees and looked up to the sky. "NOOOOOOO!!!" he shouted with his arms raised into the air.

Back on the island, Kyra raced onto the dock and helped TJ out of the water. When TJ was safely on the dock they stood and hugged each other. "So, I guess this means I'm your slave for the next twenty-four hours." Kyra said.

TJ laughed. "Just give me five bucks and a kiss and we'll call it even." He said. Kyra happily obliged, pressing her lips against his.

"What just happened?" Tak asked as he and the other eliminated contestants rushed onto the dock, joining Chef, the Hunters, TJ, and Kyra.

"In war there is little difference between the winners and the losers. They've both taken casualties and made sacrifices… the difference is that the winners get to go home with a little something extra." He began laughing darkly.

Back on the boat, the driver tossed Russell a box wrapped in newspaper. Russell, lying in the fetal position while Mr. Muggles lay in front of him, timidly grabbed the box and unwrapped it. What was inside made him want to puke. "The High School Musical Trilogy on DVD?!" he shouted. He then got up, leaned over the side of the boat, and vomited… Mr. Muggles joining him.

~THAT NIGHT~

"To Russell's elimination by his own stupidity!" Tak said proudly, raising his can of soda for a toast. "May he be a douche bag to someone else from now on!"

"Here, here!" everyone else agreed, raising their drinks for the toast before they al simultaneously took a drink.

It had been a few hours since the end of the challenge. In those few hours the girls of the former Shrieking Eagles had moved into the former Raging Moose cabin and the boys of the former Raging Moose had moved into the former Shrieking Eagles cabin. From there the night had been one big party, celebrating the ten remaining contestants making it as far as they had. Jason and Sakura had their guitars and everyone was talking, even Chef, Steve the Camera Guy, the Hunters, and Chris (who had returned to the island almost immediately after the challenge) joined in on their little party.

At one point, after night had fallen, Payton and Penny were sitting at a table having a private conversation, the same as many of the others were doing. They were talking about something irrelevant to the island or anyone on it, but Penny suddenly stopped talking when she noticed something. "Hey, check it out." She said.

Payton looked over her shoulder, not seeing what her friend was talking about at first. Then she noticed Nicholas sitting at the other table, not speaking to anyone… just watching her intently with a small smile on his face. Payton was a bit disturbed by this and turned back to Penny. "Why is her staring at us?" she questioned.

Penny shrugged. "Go talk to him." She said.

"But…"

"Go talk to him." Penny repeated before getting up and walking away, going to hang out with Jason, Sakura, TJ, and Kyra.

Payton nervously took her friends advice and stood up, walking over to the other table to sit across from Nicholas. "Hey." She said.

"Hey." He replied.

"So… I was thinking… maybe we should talk." Payton suggested.

Nicholas shook his head. "Nothing to talk about." He said. "Tak and I made the decision to let you decide between us. Regardless of your choice we promised that we'd still be friends. Problem is… I'm a little impatient. I'm tired of waiting, so I made the decision for you… go with Tak."

"Nicholas…"

"Don't say a word." Nicholas said. "I'm being the bigger man here. Now… go kiss him in front of everybody or something." And with that, Nicholas got up and walked towards the door, leaving the Mess Hall. Payton sat just sat there for a few minutes, thinking over what he'd said. He was both write and wrong in what he said. He was being the bigger man in the sense that he was stepping down from the conflict to end her personal issues… but he was being a selfish brat in that he wasn't letting her chose for herself. But in the end, she decided she would've made the same decision. Nicholas would always be a friend, but her feelings for Tak were much deeper. She began to understand that her feelings for Nicholas were just a crush from after that kiss on Bony Island.

With that in mind she made a bold move. She got up from where she sat, walked over to Tak, grabbed him by the front of his shirt, and pulled him into a kiss.

In the boys cabin Nicholas smiled as he crawled into bed. He was happy with what he'd accomplished that day.