Okay guys, it's official. I am out of backup material. Before this, I usually had a few chapters waiting in the wings--well not anymore. From this point forward, the updates will probably come a little slower. If I am bogged down with school work, then even slower still (which seems to be how things are headed). Sorry about this, but if all goes as planned, then you won't have much longer to wait anyway--I am planning to finish this story by chapter 30. Not that I don't want to continue writing, I just have so much else to do that I don't have the same kind of time that I used to. And on that note, when this story comes to a close, I want it to go out with a bang, so don't be shy and review as many times as you feel are necessary--and then more!
(The author realizes that she is a complete review whore)
The Twelfth Challenge
"Hi guys, did you miss me?" Imogene asked as the group approached. Today she was dressed in a pizza delivery outfit complete with a steaming pepperoni pizza.
"Not in the slightest." Zexion said, determined to retain his composure.
"That's not very nice." the girl said, pouting. "Especially when I went through so much trouble to prepare for this challenge."
Everyone looked around uneasily for any signs of danger.
"Young Imogene really outdid herself this time." Ansem agreed, nodding his head. This made the group, if anything, more uneasy.
"What are we going to do? The suspense is killing me!" Kairi yelled, pulling at her hair.
"Would you like to explain or shall I?" Ansem asked the girl.
"I'd like the honors." Imogene grinned. She stepped forward. "Now, two of your members have been poisoned, and you will have to have to perform heart surgery in order to prevent a terrible death."
"What?! How did that happen?!" Xigbar exclaimed.
"Remember those lovely chocolate chip pancakes I delivered to your camp the other day? Two of them were poisoned." Imogene explained.
"How do you know we even ate them?" Xigbar countered.
"Oh, you ate them, alright." the girl said smugly as she pulled a device shaped like a toothbrush out of her pocket. She turned it on, and it started beeping. She went around the group and held it up to their stomachs. The beeping got stronger as it came near Marluxia's stomach. "Looks like you ate one of my special ones." she smirked.
Marluxia whimpered and clutched at his stomach. "I'm to beautiful to die!" he exclaimed.
Imogene continued her search and the beeping increased in frequency again as she approached Axel.
"Damn, that sucks! Out of that mountain of pancakes, I had to pick the poisoned one!" the pyro cursed.
"Wait a moment. How is this a challenge if we all have to work together to save these two?" Zexion asked reasonably.
"We'll be observing your performances and whoever does the best wins." Imogene replied without skipping a beat.
"But none of us even know how to perform surgery!" Riku pointed out.
"Don't worry--Destiny be providing you with these lovely step-by-step guides: How to Perform Heart Surgery for Dummies." Ansem assured, holding up two yellow manuals.
"Well that's just great, but I don't really care to have anyone here cutting me open. Besides, isn't that a little graphic?" Axel asked lightly.
"Well be omitting all of the gory details from the airing, so you don't have to worry about scaring all of the little children away." Imogene said with a giggle.
"That doesn't change the fact that you are about to cut us open with god knows what in the next few minutes!" Marluxia cried, hyperventilating.
"Time for plan Destiny's D.S.C.!" Imogene announced. With her command, her squad of personal ninjas came out of nowhere and shot Axel and Marluxia with tranquilizer darts. The two Nobodies fell asleep faster than a four year old being forced to watch American Idol.
"As an additional challenge to this…erm, challenge, we have decided that we will not simply hand you the tools you will need. You each shall have to take a turn finding the surgical tools necessary for this complex operation." Ansem said while contemplating whether or not he could legally marry himself to Destiny.
"The items you need are scattered among this very beach, so split yourselves into two groups of four. (Remember, two times two is four!)" Imogene said.
Team Destiny's Ninjas split as such: Axel's team was Sora, Riku, Zexion and Demyx. Marluxia's team was Kairi, Cloud, Vexen and Xigbar.
"I knew taking a crash course in med school would come in handy someday." Zexion said with satisfaction.
Sora beamed up at the Nobody. "Is there anything you can't do?" he asked in wonder.
Zexion paused, thinking the question over. He suddenly twitched and muttered something about Betty Crocker.
"You mean the cake lady?" Sora asked innocently. "Does that mean you can't bake?"
Zexion ignored the boy. Imogene giggled and made a note to herself in her handy little notebook of awesomeness.
"The so called great Zexion can't cook…" she muttered as she wrote.
"Why do you insist in irritating me to no end?" Zexion asked.
"It's what I do." the girl said happily. Before the Nobody could reply, she shouted out, "Tenesorianibeefjerkycabysque!"
"It means begin in my own made up language--duh!" she explained to their uncomprehending expressions.
Riku and Cloud were the first ones up to find a surgical tool from somewhere on the beach. The two angst filled guys set off at a run. Riku began kicking at the sand, spraying it in Cloud's path. The blonde glared at Riku and used his powers of ultra deadly hair attack, made Riku's hair stand straight up.
"Ahhh! My hair!" the teen exclaimed, trying futilely to settle his hair.
"It is interesting to note how much all of these men seem to care for their hair. How odd." Imogene commented to Ansem.
"What did you say?" the host asked, raising his head out of a portable sink in which he was conditioning his hair.
Meanwhile, Riku had gotten over his hair issues and was back to searching the beach. However, he didn't get over his issues soon enough, because soon after he rejoined the challenge, Cloud shouted in triumph.
"Alright! I found a…Britney Spears CD?" His triumph turned to complete confusion.
"Quick! Get it over here quickly and we might be able to use it!" Vexen shouted to the man. He brought the CD over and they popped it into a CD player. They put the headphones on Marluxia's ears and played the music.
"True love…" the Graceful Assassin sighed in a falsetto voice.
Riku returned with his own spoils…which was a single peanut. "Sorry guys. I've got nothing else." he apologized.
Zexion shook his head. "No, we might still be able to use it." The stoic man took the peanut from the teen and---
---scene deleted for extreme o-Oness---
Axel shuddered in his unconscious state and mumbled, "No, my hair is not a porcupine, Dr. Seuss…"
Then, Sora and Kairi were up to find the next surgical tool. They went off to do their thing when…
"I think we're having a reaction!" Vexen cried as Marluxia began to twitch uncontrollably.
"I fear it's even worse than that!" Xigbar shouted dramatically.
Then, to everyone's horror, the pink haired man rose from the table and began to dance the grapevine.
"Noooo! That dance should stay buried in the oldie days where it belongs!" they all screamed.
"What's wrong with the grapevine?" Ansem mused.
"I have no idea." Imogene replied as she danced right along with Marluxia.
"Where is Kairi with our next tool?" Vexen asked impatiently.
The two teams turned to the beach and saw that Sora and Kairi were deep in a game of beach volleyball. Xigbar shot a dart through the ball and shouted angrily, "Bring us something so that we can stop this dancing!"
The two held their heads low and went back to searching. Sora returned with…a bottle of body lotion.
"Great, now Axel will have floral scented skin. That still doesn't bring us any closer to solving his heart problems!" Riku said sardonically.
Kairi returned with a rock.
"What on earth are we going to do with a rock?!" Vexen, Xigbar and Cloud exclaimed simultaneously.
"I dunno. It's a pretty sharp rock…and I thought we might be able to, like uh, use it…to…cut?" Kairi trailed off without much hope.
Next up were Demyx and Xigbar. They charged onto the beach with full force, kicking stray puppy dogs out of the way. (Just kidding--don't sue me for animal abuse, please!)
Then, with a flash of intuition befitting George Bush (jr.), Xigbar had the brilliant idea of searching the trees instead of kicking around in the sand. He ran up to a vertically challenged palm tree and began kicking away at it. Down fell a couple of pairs of socks and a computer chip.
"Yayzers! Socks!" he yelled, grabbing the socks and the chip, then returning to the operating table.
Demyx came back to his team's table with a bottle of white-out.
"Great! We might as well forfeit this entire challenge right now!" Riku shouted on the verge of a mental breakdown.
"We can still win." Demyx tried to reassure both the teen and himself. "See?" he said, pouring the white out on Axel's chest. Nothing happened.
Come on, did you honestly expect anything to happen? (You and I both know the answer to that question is 'yes')
"Okay, we've made our decision." Imogene said, emerging from a conversation with Ansem.
"First of all, I ask that you all refer to me from now on as, super Destiny man extraordinaire." Ansem said. "Second of all, we're just going to jump right in and tell you who is going home tonight."
"Wait, wait--hold up. What about these two?" Xigbar asked, pointing to the still-dying Nobodies.
"Oh, yeaaah. We forgot about them." Imogene recalled.
"I guess in our excitement we forgot to plan about what happens to those two." Ansem said with a shrug, looking at the unconcerned girl.
--One emergency paramedic visit later and at Council Fire…
Axel and Marluxia were cured, with the side affects of occasional fainting and steam blasting out of their ears.
"Now, where were we?" Imogene asked.
"You were just about to tell them who loses the challenge." Ansem provided.
"Oh yeah."
"Wait, so why don't we get to vote on this? Isn't that like, the whole point of Survivor?" Kairi asked.
"We thought it would be best to break the mold." Imogene said. "Now, the winner of the challenge is Zexion, for his creative use of a peanut."
There was a round of applause as the stoic Nobody accepted the bottle cap immunity idol.
"And the two that are going home are--"
"Hold on, two?!" Xigbar asked in alarm. "Why are two of us going instead of one?"
"Well, like we said, we thought it would be better to break the mold." Imogene answered.
"That and the fact that our ratings are slipping." Ansem added.
"Anyway, the two that are going home are…Marluxia and Axel!" Imogene announced, waving a baton around erratically.
"What?!" the two exclaimed.
"We didn't even participate in the challenge!" Marluxia protested and Axel nodded in agreement.
"Yes, but what we failed to mention was the fact that this wasn't the real challenge. The actual challenge took place in the last chapter."
"What are you talking about?" Cloud asked suspiciously.
"The challenge was whoever ate the poisoned pancakes lost." Ansem explained.
"And you two ate them so you lost." Imogene said with a smile.
"That is so far left of fair that I'm going to call my lawyer!" Axel said angrily.
"You do that." Imogene said, filing her fingernails. The trap door opened and swallowed up Marluxia first, who screamed like a little girl being threatened with steroids.
Axel, trying to avoid the same fate, jumped onto a nearby tree. He breathed a breath of relief. Sadly, that didn't last long seeing as how the trap door opened up again and a huge hose came out of it. It turned on and sucked Axel into it.
"So long brave soldiers." Sora said solemnly as the door closed.
Imogene sighed. "Now that our work is done, how about going out for a destiny flavored drink?"
Ansem jumped for joy. "Yay! Destiny flavored!" And the two hosts walked away leaving a depressed group of eight.
"Did I forget to mention that all challenges from now on will eliminate two of your members?" Imogene asked, popping back into the scene, ignoring their startled expressions.
"No." Sora whined piteously.
"Oh, well, now you know." the girl said, leaving the scene again.
This little bit of news made the team, if anything, even more depressed. And they all went back to camp to be emo.
I'm always afraid of offending people with what I write about various things, so if you are a person who is easily offended, or I've already offended you then please remember that anything I write just pops into my mind at random. I don't (usually) mean it seriously. I haven't gotten any complaints from you guys yet, but still…Just keep this in mind when you're writing a me a scorching message about how much you love, say, High School Musical or the president or something.
Now send me love and motivation in a review--please?